Outsourcing

I have a middle-aged American friend, divorced for many years, who ended a long relationship a few months ago. Recently he became fascinated with the culture and women of a country where marriages are arranged. He found himself a couple of pen pals and is planning to go over soon and interview potential brides.

He’s not one of those creepy, bitter, chauvinistic, mail-order bride seekers. He genuinely believes in gender equality. He likes the idea of a relationship based on shared values with a full commitment to making it work. He thinks American women are too quick to write him off based on superficial checklists.

While I think his intentions are good, I’m worried he’s plunging into this too fast. His knowledge of the culture is limited, and the young women he is corresponding with have never been outside their country. There’d be a lot of adjustment on both sides, and he doesn’t know these women at all.

I have nothing against marrying outside of one’s culture, but you are ultimately marrying a person, and I don’t believe you should objectify based on a stereotype. Also, he’s only a few months out of a long-term relationship and still figuring out what he wants.

Is he on the right track, or am I just being sensitive because I’m an American woman?

Marianna

Marianna, do you think a young woman dreams about marrying an older man who doesn’t share her culture, language, heritage?

Or do you think your friend is ascribing virtue to women who, by virtue of their culture, are either prevented from making a free choice or must make a choice based on need?

The women in Hugh Hefner’s mansion weren’t there because they loved Hugh Hefner. It sounds like your friend is doing exactly what he claims women in America do. He has a checklist, and he wants a woman of an age and beauty he could never get.

He’s outsourcing marriage. He wants to get more for his dollar than he could in the States. You are giving credit to what he says, while trying to ignore the fact it doesn’t make sense.

Wayne & Tamara

An Actor’s Life

My husband and I are married for 10 months now, and ours was an arranged marriage. Life in these months has totally changed. I feel I have lost myself and am living another’s life.

I was born and brought up in Mumbai, whereas my husband was working in the U.S. My parents fixed the alliance and got us married. Even then I knew somehow that our frequencies did not match, but I thought since he seemed to be a nice guy things might work out.

He is reserved, and I am totally the opposite. I am trying my best to make this work, but honestly speaking I don’t see any effort from him. Not a single day after marriage has he ever made me feel special or loved.

Life was simple and great before with my family and loved ones. Now I’m so dependent and unhappy. I cannot live in a marriage like this.

Deepa

Deepa, those who say you can marry anyone and make it work are wrong. Some things require an unnamable extra, a je ne sais quoi which makes them more than the sum of their parts. Love is like that.

We feel for you both. He is not the one you dreamed about, the one your heart hoped for. Neither of you is so shallow you can fake it. If you can bear the social ramifications, the answer is divorce.

You want to go back to your family, but they did this to you. Throw yourself on their mercy and say, “If you ever loved me, why would you want me to be so unhappy? Some others can be false to their own heart and forego love for a lifetime, but I cannot.”

Wayne & Tamara

Who’s To Blame

I’ve been married 16 years and thought my wife and I had a good relationship. We used to talk for hours on end. Most of her requests I would fulfill. For example, she loved steamed crabs and beer, and even though it was expensive, I would get it for her on an almost daily basis.

When she wasn’t working, which was most of our marriage, I asked her to cook and clean, but she told me she didn’t like that kind of work and rarely did it. Both of us were religious and took marriage seriously. I tried to make her happy. For example, if she said she was sad, I would carry her off to a hotel. She loved to stay in hotels.

A year and a half ago, my wife was once again working. I noticed she mentioned a guy’s name a lot, but I didn’t think much of it mainly because of our relationship and my wife is gregarious by nature. As the months went on I noticed she was always on the cell phone, and if the kids were in the vicinity, she would tell them to go away.

So I got real curious as to what she was talking about that was so secretive. I put a mini-recorder in the car. When I retrieved the recorder, I got the shock of my life. On the recorder she was relaying to a friend her affair with her coworker, and how he wanted to break it off because he felt bad about being unfaithful to his girlfriend.

Just to imagine some other man doing things to your wife is a horrible feeling. She didn’t have him use protection, and she would kiss me afterward. It was just unimaginable. I’m still trying to make sense of it all. I always prided myself so much on my marriage and family other people would come to me for advice. I feel like a failure.

I reasoned my feeling for her would come back, but it didn’t. I saw many articles that said my anger would subside, but it only subsided when we parted. I know what the experts say, but it would never have been the same. All the experts say something was lacking, but I go over and over and over this in my head. Why does it seem I put up with her, and she kicked me to the curb?

Nate

Nate, you have been abused twice by the “experts.” First, by their suggestion there is a surefire way to make any relationship work, and second, by making you feel like a failure. Since they have defined themselves as experts, they have defined you as the problem.

We’ve mentioned before that the best-selling relationship author of the last 40 years has a “Ph.D.” from a school which was shut down by the state of California as a diploma mill. His ex-wife and former business partner is the author of more than a dozen relationship books. Last time we checked she was married to her fifth husband.

This whole field rests on a very shaky foundation. About problems in marriage, most of us would agree, “There is available in modern science a large body of facts bearing on these points: enough to clear up most of the problems that arise.” That sounds like a contemporary statement.

It isn’t. It was written in 1925 by Paul Popenoe, the father of marriage counseling. The same advice is dressed up for each generation as a cure-all, but the divorce rate is a silent witness to the truth. We cannot control what others may do, and no one has the power to manufacture love in another.

We find no fault in you. Your marriage looks like the classic case of a giver and a taker, and there is nothing more you could have done to keep this spoiled woman from kicking you to the curb.

Wayne and Tamara