faryan

... and makes it difficult to want to be "freaky" and spontaneous and experimentative in bed, if you are feeling down and not loved.

I too read your story and feeling very incensed with your husband. Nobody, men or women, should have to endure being made to feel unwanted and unworthy of our SO's love. You definitely tried your best and been very understanding re where he is coming from and what he was used to, and tried to emphatise re him feeling like his "manhood" is taken away from him (that he isnt able to provide-- although I and my husband thinks that this guy is no man for treating you like this anyways), etc etc. But i think enough is enough on giving him excuses. There is no excuse to threaten divorce so many times and give u conditions, if u do this and that he will love u more an not leave. There will always be different conditions coming up, trust me. He sounds really toxic and typical of abusive spouse (this split personality syndrome of alternating ok time and abusive time, same like those who are physically abused, smack the spouse and then cry and apologize or be tender, and the spouse live in fear of the next round of outburst). And you should not let this further poison your life. It has nothing to do with adjustment period of husband and wife. It has nothing to do with coming from whatever country. It's just that this man is a bad abusive person, even if the scar he left you with is invisible. hmmm im pissed! you have my prayers May you be strong, and may you love yourself first..

I totally understand how you all feel. It's been more than 2 years for me here, and I still have this feeling a lot of times. Intellectually i know that it takes time to adjust (i've read and heard that it takes abt 5 years/stages). I am perhaps halfway through that, I hope. I have the same fulltime job for almost 2 years, an understanding and supportive husband and a little 9-mo baby. If I just concentrate on that, I'm okay, but there are days that my mind wanders off and i get sad. I too have lived abroad for a few years, but i guess it's different because that was when i was single and younger and I knew it was temporary. This is permanent, we are building a home, a family here. Building friendship is difficult. Same reasons like all that you guys have mentioned. I am a bit lucky that we have a small community of students from my home country that go to the university in this small city, we do meet up once a while for dinner and chats. But they are not my peers. They are more like younger sisters, with young girls' concerns And they will leave soon as they graduate. I don't depend on colleagues. They are nice and polite, but that's about it. We are planning to move to a bigger and more diverse city, like Seattle. I know i will still be me no matter where we are. But I think this will help quite a bit.

Well, as somebody who had to go through c-section and hospitalization here, i can see how the husband would want to have his wife deliver back in the philippines. esp since he has no insurance. our bill was like $60k for me n $80k for my baby. we are lucky that we have very good insurance coverage, but we do still have to cover some out of pocket. if just looking at this issue, i do not see it as abuse at all. being hugely in debt when you have better option is crazy. people in US go to the philippines all the time for medical tourism. your baby will still be usc wherever he/she/they r born being tht a parent is usc. plus, the mother will have support from family.