[Meggg]

Hi everyone,

I am new to this forum. I decided to reach for help over the internet because I am now at a crossroad of my life where if I don’t stop taking the wrong decisions, I don’t know if will overcome the consequences again.

I am a 37 Arab woman married to 29 French man. Our relationship is 2,5 years old, full of very difficult moments. I a what some would call a Muslim, in reality I feel more like a believer taking what makes me feel good from religion and questioning the rest.
My husband is so different from me, some would never believe we managed to be together. Coming from a non open minded family, angry against any kind of religion, and even angry against God.

When we met, he was someone loving to party, drinking, extroverted, having no limit. I was a woman who suffered from past relationships with men who made me feel like crap, one of it ended with hate and abortion, another one ended with me crying and beating my face in the dark as I hated myself so much being with a married man who made me feel like his slave (even sexually). I was an introvert trying my best to be wise without being anti social, hating alcohol for what it did to my uncle. But I loved him. I loved to talk to him for hours about every thing. I was trying to be open minded, and I ended up telling myself why not. We always look for partners like us, but when we hang out with people we don’t agree with, they help us and we help them. So I told him what I felt for him. He rejected the idea of us being together at first because of his non open minded family and the cliché of the Arabic family too present. After a few months he finally said we could give it a try.

The relationship was difficult. I always felt I was not enough. Not enough integrated, not even ready for sacrifice, not enough socializing, not enough extroverted. I felt my beliefs was bothering him, as well as my culture. So many times, I tried to stop the relationship, afraid it would be a failure like the other ones. But he always came in the way to stop me from doing it.

We went on, got married, moved together, kept our families away from each other. My parents never asked to meet them, knowing his parents would be scared to see their son being married to a Muslim family, and my husband always kept the mistery about how my family is.

Our arguing was always there, at least every 3 weeks. About how he was trying to hide his alcohol consumption to me, about I he would look down on my culture and beliefs, about how it was not the life he wanted to have a woman refusing to wear a swimming suit, about how I was always looking at the solution of ending the relation when I saw no way out of our problems.

One day I decided it was our last try : a couple therapy. I pushed him, he was not convinced. For him I had a problem and I needed therapy. But he had nothing to solve. So I paid for it. And as incredible as it is, no more problems. No more looking down on my culture, and no more giving importance to his small lies about alcohol. Did we solve the problem or did we just learn to lie to ourselves and act like it was ok? I don’t know. But we started our life project.

I started thinking we could have a child together when before I used to feel he would never consider me as a legitimate mother. I started thinking about buying a house. And we launched both projects at the same time.

The beginning of my pregnancy was psychologically difficult. I was feeling sick regularly and I felt no compassion from him. I felt I was doing all the job and had just someone in front of me telling me things like « it’s a pregnancy, not a desease », « you’re doing better than many women ». After 2 months I had my first ultrasound, everything was ok. And the ultrasound of 3 months, the nightmare started, Down syndrome suspected with heart malformation. At that time he just gave me up at the middle of the appointment. I found him back outside on his phone texting his family telling them how horrible it was. The diagnoses was confirmed after a while.

The news was so hard, for the first time of my life, I thought I would not be tough enough to overcome this. I tried to rely on him, but he just did not have the reaction I needed. Didn’t want to take position and what we should do, go on with the pregnancy or not. He tried the escape the discussion about it. I felt so abandoned. We finally decided to stop the pregnancy. After that, I accepted the therapy purposed at the hospital. The doctor almost did not speak but just left me speaking. And the truth came out. I am always lying to myself, acting like everything is ok when it’s not. I don’t feel I have the right to be angry against people who hurt me in the most horrible moment of my life. But he left me and ran to his family. He even took advantage of the time I was sleeping at the hospital to go back home and see his father until he missed the delivery. We had to lie to his family about obsequies we didn’t do. We had to invent a name for his mother to organise a mass. When did people think about my grief ?

At at the same time, we moved to the new house we bought together.

Now I try to stop lying to myself. All my life, all my mistakes, bad choices, suffering came from these lies. And it’s not easy to look at the truth.

It’s been 2,5 month since I gave birth to my dead daughter. I just stopped bleeding. And now I have to decide wether I want or not to try again. Was it really a good idea ? I feel a terrible loss and terrible emptiness. It’s like even my body was not ready for this. And I look at other people having children telling myself « how lucky they are », « I wish I had one of mine too ».

But it seems to me I lied to myself about my husband. I am now staring directly towards the truth, and I don’t trust him for being the father I want for my child. He is fleeing from my culture, from my family, from my beliefs. And he is not respecting it more than before. He is not even respecting me more than before. He’s just living. Will he really let me give an education to my Child ? Is he still considering me as a woman incapable of giving and education to a child and just not saying it anymore ?

I must make the right choice now. Because I will not handle another grief like this. I must stop lying to myself. I am now wondering, is it ok if I have a child even i know I will be at war with his father and finally leave him ? Or am I just blinded because I want to have the little beautiful daughter I was about to have ? Maybe I am scared of the futur and try to flee from it. And by this I look again at everything which is going wrong ? Or I a really on the wrong way one again ?

I would have closed my eyes and lied to myself like always, saying it can work. But this time it’s different. The last grief I had is very very far from I ever imagined. And coming from a family where we learn not to cry when we want to and look like tough when we are down on the floor, I never got in front of a mountain where I would tell myself « i am not going to make it alive » except this time.

Sorry for this long story and thank you if you took time from your life to read it. It might help me to have some outside advices.

Best wishes.

[TunedOut]

Originally Posted by Meggg

I am a 37 Arab woman married to 29 French man. Our relationship is 2,5 years old, full of very difficult moments. I a what some would call a Muslim, in reality I feel more like a believer taking what makes me feel good from religion and questioning the rest.
My husband is so different from me, some would never believe we managed to be together. Coming from a non open minded family, angry against any kind of religion, and even angry against God.......

We went on, got married, moved together, kept our families away from each other. My parents never asked to meet them, knowing his parents would be scared to see their son being married to a Muslim family, and my husband always kept the mistery about how my family is.......

And the ultrasound of 3 months, the nightmare started, Down syndrome suspected with heart malformation.....

The news was so hard, for the first time of my life, I thought I would not be tough enough to overcome this. I tried to rely on him, but he just did not have the reaction I needed. Didn’t want to take position and what we should do, go on with the pregnancy or not. He tried the escape the discussion about it.........

I am always lying to myself, acting like everything is ok when it’s not. I don’t feel I have the right to be angry against people who hurt me in the most horrible moment of my life. But he left me and ran to his family. He even took advantage of the time I was sleeping at the hospital to go back home and see his father until he missed the delivery.....

All my life, all my mistakes, bad choices, suffering came from these lies. And it’s not easy to look at the truth.

It’s been 2,5 month since I gave birth to my dead daughter. I just stopped bleeding. And now I have to decide wether I want or not to try again.....

and I don’t trust him for being the father I want for my child. He is fleeing from my culture, from my family, from my beliefs. And he is not respecting it more than before. He is not even respecting me more than before. He’s just living. Will he really let me give an education to my Child ? .....

I must make the right choice now. Because I will not handle another grief like this. I must stop lying to myself. I am now wondering, is it ok if I have a child even i know I will be at war with his father and finally leave him ? Or am I just blinded because I want to have the little beautiful daughter I was about to have ?

I am so sorry about what happened to your daughter.

I am so sorry your husband was not there for you.

You are still grieving so you need to wait from my POV to have a child. I've been married a long time and have two children from the same father. Having cultural differences might work if your husband was accepting of your POV but you have said that he is not open minded, angry about religion, etc. Our values, culture and religious POV is an important part of who we are. Sharing these things with our children in a positive way is an important part of bringing up a child. Unless your husband becomes more understanding of who you are and your heritage, you are either going to fight all of the time (making an unpeaceful home for a future child) or you are not going to feel free to raise you children as your conscience believes (you seem open and spiritual--it is bad for you and your children to bottle this side of you up.) I am sorry that you are going through this but please take the time to grieve. I don't think we think "straight" while we are grieving.

How does your husband feel about losing a child? When you say he ran to his family--was it for support because he is grieving too? Are you talking about it? Are you comfortable telling your husband many of the things you have posted here? Being able to talk about this with him is important. I wonder if marriage counseling would help and if he would be willing....

[Meggg]

Thanks for your reply and support.

My husband was sad and angry. I think he ran to his family for support. I was probably not the person who could help him feel better.
But after a while, I realized I was focusing on getting him into this situation with me, and forgot about focusing on healing myself.
I managed to tell him a few things that hurt me, like the fact he left the doctor’s office when he heard the news, and starting texting his family whiling I was trying to talk to him. But he was really angry that I dared say that, as he was suffering too. I never dared telling him that I was angry he was not there for the delivery because I soon as I closed my eyes he ran out of the hospital. I know he feels guilty for it but will never admit he did wrong. After the delivery, I had to stay at the hospital for the night. The doctors proposed him to sleep there not to leave me alone. And I told him « no need » you can go back home as your sister will bring the dog back.
The day after, he told me his sister came but without the dog and they just spent the evening chatting together. When I told him I would have expected him to insist on staying, he got mad. Saying it was my fault, and it was a lesson for me to say things clearly instead of waiting for him to do it by his own. Telling him things always resulted in an argument where I am the one that has problems.
I am so tired of that. I just don’t want to speak anymore. The couple therapy solved things last time, but still, he considered that was the problem. My appointments used to last longer that 1 hour when he would finish before.

Yesterday we had an argument because I told him it has been 2,5 years that I volunteer every 2 weeks to give Arabic lessons to children and that he always refused to come with me, neither at special events not to see one lesson. And I told him his only problem was that he didn’t want to see so much Arabic people. He didn’t even argue like usual, and just said « do as you want if you want ruin your Sunday ». He also avoids going at the Turkish butcher. It seems stupid, but it’s only now that I wonder, what am I doing here ? Am i just a surrogate mother for him ? Is he also lying to himself trying to forget my origins and my culture ?

I must also say that since a few years my doctors are putting pressure on me to have a child because I have 2 fibromas. It never made me rush for a pregnancy, but now I am afraid if I don’t speed up I might never have Children.

Yes a good solution would be to take back the pill, and wait to heal. But it’s like I know the end of it all. I will end up leaving him and will have no children, and would only have lost years and tears for nothing.

[MickeyCheeky]

I'm SO SORRY for what happened to your daughter, Meggg! I COMPLETELY agree with TunedOut that he doesn't seem to be respectful of you and your culture AT ALL. I'd suggesto to just get away from him as soon as you possibly can. Are you working right now? Perhaps you may want to find a job so that you'll be at least economically indipendent from him. Of course it must be VERY hard for you right now since you're probably still grieving for the loss of your child Take ALL the time you need to grieve. However I do believe you need to leave him as soon as you possibly can. He's not supportive nor respectful of you and your beliefs. It seems like you already know in your heart what to do but perhaps you're unsure. I'd suggest to leave him when you can. You deserve MUCH, MUCH better than him. Once again I'm SO SORRY for what happeened to your daughter! I'm also so sorry that you're not getting the support you need and deserve. There will be time for you to make another child, but with someone else. Please stay safe and take GREAT care of yourself. I'm glad you were able to speak up and to be honest to yourself and to your therapist. Sending many safe, warm hugs to you, Meggg, and to ALL the people you love and who love you back!

[Meggg]

Hi MickeyCheeky,
Thank you for words.
Actually I do have a job and after all the bad experiences I had in the past, I did my best to keep my independency, like never mixing salaries for example.. The only difficulty would be to sell the house we bought 3 months ago. Anyways, this house is also a matter of dispute. I always told him I refused to buy a house in a small and racist city, this was my condition, so we finally bought this one with a small garden which was only what we could get for our budget near a big town. And with all the bad surprises we had in the house, he’s now reproaching me to be the reason of him living in a house where he doesn’t feel good.

It is not very beautiful to say, but I have to be honest. I know he is totally unrespectful to me, my culture, my origins. The only times I have nothing to reproach it’s like he’s hiding his real point of view. I also know he’s the last person I can rely on. But it looks like I want a child so much now, that I wonder, maybe I should have a child as it might be too late very soon, and leave him as soon as he gets in the way between my child and I. This is very selfish I know. When I was pregnant for the first time with a man that was also looking down on me, I got an abortion telling myself « I could just lie to him, tell him I lost the baby to get rid of him, but I don’t want to separate a child from his father. However, he is toxic, if I keep the baby and tell him he will make my life a nightmare ». Now I wonder should I stop fighting selfishness ? Should I be the bad one for once and use him ?

Or maybe I should tell him I don’t want a child until he changes his ways with me. But this might only make him play the role of the open minded guy harder.

I think I am the kind of women that attracts manipulators. I am pretty sure I will never find someone respectful (or maybe one day much too late for Children).

Now he’s sending me smileys to forget yesterday’s small discussion. So like always, we are now about to close our eyes and do like everything is ok. I have to choose, either I push for discussion and once again we will argue and I will be the origin of every problem we have, or I close my eyes and act like it’s not a big deal and wait for the split. Or I tell him honestly, he’s not a father for my children, and give up the idea of having a child one day.

[Meggg]

I must also say of course I am not perfect, and I don’t know how I do that or what I do wrong but everytime we decide to discuss it’s like he feels attacked and he fights back. So he refuses to admit anything, blames everything on me, etc
So discussions were never helpful.

Marriage counseling might help because he hears better from others I think, but until when ? From what I know, when you go there, the goal of the therapist is to keep you together, at least it is what I understood from our last therapy together. But this is not really what I want. I want to know if are able to stay together or not, if he’s honest with me, what is he really expecting from me. So that I can choose whether I am ready to go where he is taking me or not.

But I think you’re right TunedOut, I think at least what I have to do know is take time to grieve. I should at least start by taking the pill, and tell him I am not ready to try again for the moment. I really want a child but at the same time I am so afraid of how he would hurt me and disrespect me throughout my child. And also at the same time I want to believe that it’s not a big deal if I leave him when he crosses the line with my parenthood. I am completely lost