confuzzled

Weeeell....actually, I made it a point not to give him a penny for it. He managed it somehow, borrowing money from family.

All I paid for was tickets to visit him. When I visited, he insisted on paying for everything.

Well. The first person I called for my mom's number was the sister he does not like. He started speaking to me in a disrespectful fashion and I told him this is none of his business whether I call my mom or not and who I get the number from. So he said he wants a divorce.

I was tired of him saying that I am irresponsible and lazy, and I didn't think before I said this was not his business. Some people may think I seen eloquent in writing. But in speech I am a klutz. That happens to be something I had a problem with even before him. To get by, I usually don't speak much.

My path might seem obvious, but posting here has helped me gather my thoughts.

So thank you, even the unhelpful people, because I needed to hear all the perspectives people might have, not just the ones correct in my situation.

I want so much to try and make this work out.

Now he is finding reasons to yell at me. I need to contact my mother about some tax info and I couldn't find the number. It's on a green scrap of paper. He has been keeping track of how long it took me to look for that info and using that length of time to insult me about how long it was taking me, and the breakdown of the American family structure. I just found the info last night and today I looked for the number. As I was looking he stopped me to ask if I told her yet and I told him I was looking for the number. Simple, right? Well apparently I'm making excuses. Obviously, if I can't find it I will call someone who has it. He followed me down the stairs to insist that I can only make excuses and he would not listen to what I was saying. Seriously, I wish I had a tape recorder so I could dictate the "conversation."

Last night he was starting to make his moves and he was going slow and that was fine. But then I smiled and laughed softly. Apparently people don't do that!? He got all huffy, moved away, and turned to face away from me. Seriously, he said, "have you ever seen people do that in a movie?" Hmm. There I thought he always changed the channel when people started kissing and such.

Does it have to be in a movie for it to be something people do? How much has he actually seen? I could have sworn that I have seen people on tv do the same smile and laugh kind of thing that I did last night, in a very tame movie. The kind where they are trying to show a gentle caring time. From what I've read, smiling and laughing can help with relaxing into the moment. And that is a good thing.

We went somewhere with an aunt last night and he was good. I was feeling a glimmer of optimism. He's so nice and easy going when people are around. It makes me hope. And then if I do the wrong thing, and I never know what the wrong thing might be until I do it, he gets irritable and mad. That leads to the insulting I mentioned. Then sorry doesn't work, not saying anything doesn't work, and telling him what happened doesn't work.

Wow. I can't keep up with this.

Early on I did try to start the conversation about household roles and what we should expect from each other. But I couldn't get a straight answer from him. He said, "we'll figure that out later." My assumption was that he was open to non-traditional roles and we would settle it when he got here.

Hm. House cleaning. A house clean enough to prevent pests means the sink does not pile up with dirty dishes. Someone jumped on my description of what I think is a clean enough house. That means it is not TRASHY like that person described.

Someone thought I wrote like I was in a victorian novel. Well that is how I talk too. It is even the terms I use when I think about the topic of intimacy. I don't think this is an appropriate place to speak about private bedroom stuff, so I was simply trying to keep it as clean as I could.

Now, I am not "throwing away" the marriage easily. He has threatened divorce since the second month we were married. This thread got long so perhaps my description of what I plan to do next was lost from the sight of those people.

Yes, I do have faults. Normal stuff, like I'll be 3 minutes late picking him up from work (when he worked). I do stupid little stuff like that. A lot. Forget there are 9 messages on the answering machine instead of 8, and so I delete message 8 which I thought was the last and we didn't need it. But he hadn't heard the message.

Gotta go.

Oh some of you make me laugh!

Here is what I am going to do.

Get together all the info I need to ensure I keep myself safe financially (do I need to worry about the affidavit of support?) and other ways so I can proceed with divorce if necessary.

Collect my thoughts on what I need or expected out of this marriage.

Try to communicate and see if there is a way to compromise or come to understanding.

Finally, after I do these things, the next time he threatens divorce, take him up on it. You know the saying about if you love something let it go and if it doesn't come back it wasn't meant to be? Perhaps agreeing with him will shock him into thinking about what he is doing. In case there is part of him that doesn't mean it. He says things when he is angry and a couple hours later he is calm. He says he forgives quickly. It seems he does, but he began to bring the same issues up later. He talks about divorce but when people are around he talks about the future and looks like everything is fine with us. Maybe I'm fooling myself or making up a pleasant fiction, but maybe it really would surprise him if I agreed we should end it. Once he cools down. And then maybe he will realize how upset I really am, and that it is real.

I know people can say things in anger that they don't really mean. When I am angry I try to think about if I would feel the same way after the anger fades. He just says whatever comes to his head.

You know that people brought up with another kind of music understand the feeling the music conveys. But if you aren't familiar with it, you might know know sadness sounds from love sounds. And it is similar when people talk in a language you don't know. Maybe it sounds angry to you, but they are just excited or involved in the conversation. If someone calls you something awful in your second language, maybe you don't feel the same way as you would if they spoke your native language. That sort of describes our communication trouble. The obvious content of my English might have different emotional content in his native language. And you know how translating from one language to another can subtly or totally change the meaning? This is not helping us.

The dog, mostly she can go upstairs away from him, or downstairs away from him. I can ask my brother to watch her for a while. It really is nice to have animals nearby. I feel so much better when I am petting her. At least he doesn't bother the cat. I think that for pet people, animals are good aids for finding a good partner. If the animal comes to like the person, it is not a stretch to imagine that is a nice person. Not that someone has to be a pet person to be a nice person... Still...

The one who said the length of my original post showed how stressed I have become over this, was right.

Ok.

If submitting means being injured in my female parts down below then I refuse. It is unhealthy to allow myself to be in that situation. That has nothing to do with immaturity. (and as for teeth, he has never been to a dentist in his life -- and I only mentioned that tooth thing to begin with because it was significant to me and because I could be anonymous) Be careful with the word "submit." It is best used in connection with God. As in submit to God.

I do not want to give up too soon.

Things started out ok then slowly got bad, and now the last 2 days or so it's getting worse.

What clued you up that I'm not ready to be a wife? I'm a rotten wife.

I did not want the marriage to be this way. It was fine at first, except he got tired of eating what I gave him.

So is there anything constructive to say?

He has been here a year and some months as I said, and we have been married for most of it.

PS. He has been in the US for a year and 7 months.

Thank you Visajourney for helping me an my husband navigate through getting a K1 visa and doing AOS. Where is the Post Icon of a broken heart? Now my marital ship is taking on some serious water. I think we might sink.

I am not a housewife type. I am not happy having life revolve around food - that is, cooking, and cleaning up after the cooking and the eating. And cleaning. His idea of clean is not mine. My idea of cleaning is keeping everything sanitary enough that ants, flys, cockroaches, and other bugs, plus mold or things like salmonella, that none of these things are encouraged to live with us. This causes conflict. I don't know how much I can change before it drives me crazy or at least makes me into someone I do not want to be. There are things in life to do and experience and unless the domestic activities are personally fulfilling to the person doing them, for ME it seems like a waste of time.

There are bedroom issues too. He won't listen to me when I try to describe how a bad day or being yelled at effects my interest in any action happening in the bedroom. I can't say too much more before it would be indecent of me. I let him "have me" too many times when I didn't want to. Now the culminating act is uncomfortable and sometimes painful. I tried to describe this too him so we could work it out. Maybe there is a communication issue. His english is good enough for most days, but maybe not good enough for this? He won't brush his teeth and they look bad. I know my breathe is not good either, but trying to not smell his when we are intimate - plus not wanting to breathe into his nose - makes for a tense scenario for me. Which is part of my tension at that time.

He doesn't like my sister. They had some issues. She certainly has her problems, but he insists on describing them to her in glaring terms trying to make me not like her as much, or maybe just to make me see who she really is. And he says he doesn't want her to think he is keeping me from talking to her. He thinks I only defend her, but that I don't defend him when she says something not so nice about him. I know I need to be cautious with how I say things to her or it will cause her to get the wrong idea (she feels the whole world is against her sometimes - and given her past I can understand somewhat why) and make the whole situation escalate out of control. He does not want to see that I am trying to do that. They are both strong willed.

He does not treat my dog very well. She is my dog and I should have say over how she is treated. She is shy, easily spooked. She seems to react that way more in response to men. He likes to chase her and some dogs see that as play (today he did that and did something so she yipped a couple times - he said that he was trying to teach her to act like a real dog), but she shakes and her tail tucks and if he raises her hand she cowers down. I see things that alarm me. It's starting to get abusive and I don't want her to live her remaining time shaking and being chased. I fear she might slip running away down the steps. She is getting old and be already slips sometimes without being chased. I start to feel that this is a bad situation for her and I need to get her out of it. That makes me wonder if maybe it's bad for me too. Or maybe I've just been reading too much about animals mirroring us - and sometimes showing us what our emotions are telling us even if we don't see it so clearly.

I make many tiny mistakes rather often and he does not want to hear "I'm sorry." I feel he over reacts and gets more irritated than the situation warrants. I noticed my body language feels like I'm trying to make him feel like he has been punishing enough and please to stop because I can't take much more. I used to cry. When I became hysterical he would finally stop and go all nice. Once I would calm down he would go, "I didn't want you to be this upset. But...." Now I just feel doowwwwwn. My heart feels heavy.

He puts me down with words. And of course he's "just" trying to point out areas where I need work. He says I only make excuses. I've heard of breaking someone down to build them back up, but... when will he build me back up?

He threatens divorce. He talks about going to other girls if I don't change.

He says I'm only thinking about myself, that I am not thinking about his feelings. He gets mad and I get verrrry sad. You know that kind of sad where you don't feel like you have energy to stand up, and you might notice you stomach feels empty, but you don't really care? When I'm like that, I don't know how to see his feelings. All I see is anger, and it does not feel justified. He said I always have an excuse, "tell me what it will be tomorrow so I'll know early." The idea of jumping up to make him food makes me feel like I would be reacting out of fear of his reaction. That makes me feel like I am about to act like a door mat. After the last two days, I'm always waiting for something to happen accidentally to set him off again. Is that a way to live? Fearing what the other person will do if you don't have dinner ready on time?

There are other things too. I'm trying to keep it to the ones that hurt or concern me the most. Did I say he started snapping pens and has started throwing things when he feels mad? He says in his culture if the wife was like I am, the husband would hit her.

I get compared to women from his country.

And in some way I feel like it's my fault. I'm sure in some way there is something I could have done to stop this from getting so bad. I know there are some cultural differences - although occassionally I try to show him that, but he says that's not cultural, that it's a problem in me. Or he agrees and talks about how it is a disease with Americans. The way he says it, I start to be offended. Sometimes he isn't quite serious, but I have always had some trouble knowing if he was joking. I know he changed a lot of things when he came here. I don't know how much more I can change. And I don't know if I want to be the person I would have to become if I changed certain things.

There is this widening gulf between us. I didn't want it to be this way. I don't know how to fix it. If it can be fixed. Or if it is too much for me. I don't know how to cater to him without losing myself. Will catering to him make him listen to how I feel? I know it would be bad to bring a child into this, so getting pregnant is out.

He is smart. He can figure people out very quickly. He learns quickly too, and his memory is much better than mine. He does not understand that he has an advantage in these areas. He trusts his ideas about people. But sometimes he is wrong or does not have the right info, coming from a different cultural background. He does not distinguish between the two. Whatever, it makes me second guess myself, from all the things he tells me about me. In the areas he is correct about, it's good to know, but the way he says it to me is not tactful. Which of these things is he right about, and which ones are flat out WRONG?

I know he is not beating me or anything like that. I don't know if he would or not. With the pen breaking and the knocking things over, increasingly foul language, the talk about what he would do I was from his country, it makes me wonder. He says things in anger and does not censor himself, but it makes me consider if he might one day do something. My first husband was rather a wimp and even though I imagined he might do something, I never really had the feeling that he would. With this man, I do not know.

How long do I sit through this? I rack my mind trying to think of what I could say or do, but I am not savvy or street smart. Everything I say is wrong or makes things worse. He pushes me verbally for answers. Sometimes the question is a loaded question, and many times I do not know how to answer. For example, the question should not be if the man is justified in cheating because his wife would not "sleep" with him, the question should be, "why does she not want to sleep with him." "Sleeping" with someone, in what experience I do have, has usually been uncomfortable because I get tense. I think the only thing that would please him, is if I took a shower right now and put on feminine clothes, and when he comes up for bed, go up to him and say that I'm sorry I've been a bad wife and have not been sleeping with him, and maybe cry and go on about how wrong I was and how I will only cook things from his country from now on, and it will always be on time. It's not good to do "that" if it hurts, and I can't see living life around the kitchen. That is sooooo not me. Do I have to do that to make this work out?

Come on VJers, I really need some support right now. He is all edges right now and I'm already treading one. What are my options?

I'm so mentally and emotionally drained.

No, he's not working right now.

If we can't work it out and divorce, do I still have to financially support him? I did sign that affidavit.

He did AOS and got his card.

I just want to be safe if this turns completely sour.

Thank You

ps. I feel like this is all my fault. I can't make him happy just by being myself. He gets made at me a lot and says I only make excuses. He has threatened divorce several times before.