Arg and heartache.
I was asked to get involved in another Jordanian/American marital nightmare.
I wish people would spend as much on pre-marital counseling as they do on the wedding itself. In every culture. But especially in cross-cultural relationships.
Qaboos
Kashmareh
Albtraum
Cauchemar
Especially for the children
And women who realize they have no rights here
too late
Just think how much worse it would be if someone like yourself weren’t available to mitigate things. I know that what you do may seem minimal in the face of such an awful catastrophe, but it makes a difference.
I am the product of one of those nightmare marriages. It’s not fun for the kids at all :/
Tenacious, thank you for the encouragement. These are hard because I can’t help but get completed heart-hooked into the hurt of it. I suppose that is what true intercessory prayer is…feeling the pain as your own in order to pray with the same urgency as if it was yours.
Samar, Samar, dear Samar. I am so sorry. How can two adults let a child hold the bag of jealousy, revenge, hatred? I don’t think it is ever their intent, as parents, but these things seem always to devolve into the lowest common denominator of human baseness. May the Almighty carry the weight of it for you, dear precious girl.
Kinzi, Thanks. It’s not easy but I think it makes you really grow as a person. It did in my case. I don’t think it was their intent but it happened and they did what they did. I just am working on accepting it and moving on…I’m doing much better that I have moved back to Jordan. It’s been healing.
Ameen
I am glad that Jordan has been a place of healing, and that the truth of it all is not lost on you.
It seems we all grow more as a result of pain handled well, much better than during hurt-free times. May the Lord bring it to fruition, and reveal the sweetness born of seasons spent in darkness.
I think that for many Americans, even with all of the news… the stories… many find it hard to imagine that the rights they have held their entire life as Americans simply don’t exist in another country or culture. A rude awakening to find out the truth…
Emi, we are used to holding these truths to be self-evident, aren’t we?
YES, even with news, with awareness, stories…it still surprises and shocks. I just got an email from a naive college girl last night.
Each time it surprises me, even though I have been well-acquainted with the fall-out so many times I must keep going back to sleep, to be so rudely awakened by reality again.
It strikes me afresh that in the US, a husband of that level of evil will just shoot her and get it over with, maybe the kids too. Here, there is a certain perverse relishing of torturous revenge, taking it slowly, sucking out the life and hope and choices until an empty shell of a woman (and child) remains. all sanctioned by the legal system.
Who’s who? Male the Jordanian? How about some context without revealing the perps.
Hi Anon…yes, the husband is Jordanian. Good lovin’ gone bad, as the old Bad Company song used to go.
When the case is through the courts, I’ll tell the whole story.
Here’s my advice to any woman who wants to marry and Arab Moslem.
Get everything in writing, the marriage contract is there to (irony of ironies) protect you.
You can add whatever you want to it, maid, car, how many days he can be away from you, sex, the right of divorcing him “il Isma/3isma”, and also if he wants to marry another is in your hands, and don’t forget to add that he pays whether you divorce him or he asks for a divorce etc etc etc.
The idea is this make him rue the day he cheats or tries any monkey business.
The Dowry shouldn’t be high, but the “Muakhar” or the money he pays when you divorce should be so substantial that he thinks twice about cheating or divorcing.
This isn’t about love anymore but protecting your interests, the women should also add that the children will go with them and any decisions concerning them is in her hands…
Safeguard yourselves ladies ignorance of the law is no excuse, and dears here’s another heads up, become a Moslem or you will have no rights unless they are written in the contract…
Hear, hear, Descantia – but another problem – the idea of this marriage contract is also so foreign and strange to American women that they don’t realize how serious it is.
We should all band together to write a guide book and distribute for free throughout Western countries…
I really think Westerners have no business marrying outside of Western countries. If it goes sour, the Westerner can only blame himself/herself. Buyer beware.
Marvin, that’s a pretty dangerous blanket statement to make. I think I understand where you’re coming from, and although my experience can’t come close to matching Kinzi’s for depth and variety, I’ve seen some casualties of this as well, and bled with them through misery on a scale that I (SWM25) can’t really fathom.
That said, I don’t think such is inevitable. I believe that people should enter into cross-cultural marriages of any sort only with a great deal of consideration, prayer, advice from people they trust, and with their eyes wide open to the difficulties that will inevitably result. However, I don’t think those difficulties must automatically and inevitably rise to the level of the catastrophe Kinz is describing here.
Again, I’m SWM25 and marriage is still pretty far outside my basic competency, so take whatever I’m saying with however much salt you feel it needs. It would be strange indeed for me to set up for an expert on these issues. It does, however, appear to me in my ignorance that the worst problems in these sorts of marriages tend to arise from the sickening collision of naive expectations with practical reality. If the expectations can be adjusted to be more or less accurate, and if an adult decides on the basis of those expectations to proceed anyway, can we really deny them in good conscience?
Marvin, I think that’s taking it too far. Perhaps more reasonable to say, Westerners should do their homework – seriously – before moving to a non-Western country with their non-Western-culture spouse? It’s a huge risk to make that kind of choice, and even what seems to be a good marriage can hit problems a couple never anticipated (which are sometimes accelerated by the stress of living in a very foreign country).
Emi, thanks for saying the same thing I did and less than half the space. Do you give conciseness lessons?
Tenacious, I didn’t mean to repeat what you said – I was in a hurry to respond to Marvin that I didn’t read through. But now that I’ve read your response, I think you elaborated much better anyway!
Oh, you couldn’t have known what I said. Our comments both dropped at the same time due to moderation. Anyway, I like your version much better
there’s some kind of saying about great minds that might apply here.
hi all, sorry, was busy today and couldn’t get back to comments. Thanks for beign nice to each other. Good night!
Des, Emi, Marvin, Tenacious, thanks for carrying the conversation while I was busy.
Great points all around.
Marriage is a hard thing to do well even when you have all your ducks in order, and in unison. To have foundational, identity based ducks quaking in a far-away pond, it may sound romantic but is a set-up for heart-break.
Interestingly, I got an email from a reader, she herself in this situation for many years, and she agrees with Marvin. Don’t even do it.
Des, thanks for the list, too. Unfortunately, converting to Islam is really the only thing that gives women a form of rights and place in an Islamic society. To not do so is to being working against social cohesion. BUT, I do NOT think this is a just situation. It seems the opposite of “no compulsion in religion’, which I am beginning to believe is a verse peopel quote but have no intention of every applying.