I am a New Yorker living like a prisoner
in London.
Cary’s classic column from MONDAY, JAN 29, 2007
Dear Cary,
I’m American. My husband is Russian. We’re in our 30s, married about two and a half years, and live in London, where my husband is pursuing a Ph.D. We got married so I could stay here with him — in other words, my five-year residency here with permission to work is based on our marriage certificate. I might add that I married him to be with him, and not because I was particularly interested in living in London or, for that matter, unhappy with my life before.
We got together in part based on love of travel. We took road trips together, went to his country. This was years ago. Four, more or less. Some things happened. He moved here. I did my second year of an MFA program. I never finished. I moved here to be with him when I was about to start my thesis, got, like, a three-year-long case of writer’s block, and there goes my life. Now I work part time and wonder what the hell happened to me.
Here is the specific question. It relates to my rights, I think. You see, my husband cannot go anywhere without applying for a visa. This includes going across the Channel to France. The visa process is complex and demanding, and he hates to do it and resents it.
There are also disparities in our background. Mine — I won’t get into his — includes a little bit of money. Not much. But I have a kitty to dip into, so to speak.
I’m not crazy about London. At first I hated it. Gradually I came to see it as like New York, where I’m from, with the significant difference that here I lack family and support (interesting slip, considering that I’m married). Also, whereas in New York I can get into a car and drive somewhere fun, here I can’t even go to Europe. Because he can’t. Not that I mind going alone. I like it. But I can’t because he can’t. You see?
It was depressing two and a half years ago and it’s still depressing. I didn’t know before I abandoned my old life, sold my car, left my master’s program and gave away my cats (to my parents — I’m not absolutely heartless) that my husband would not be able to travel to Europe. What a crazy thing! Or maybe I knew it perhaps a month before I came here, but I didn’t know or let myself think about the extent to which this problem would take over my life.
Life with him is a constant battle I cannot win. He constantly tries to explain himself to me, puncturing holes in my logic and finding fault with everything. Maybe I should be like Sonia in “Crime and Punishment” and give up all my privileges, as he calls them, which are unfairly won by my evil country over his. I went to Paris by myself over a year ago for four days and am still being asked to explain this terrible betrayal. It’s true that every time I’ve taken a trip on my own, totaling 10 days in two and a half years, I haven’t asked for his permission or told him in advance. I didn’t want to be dissuaded. But it’s maddening to constantly be told how difficult it is to be Russian and how ungenerous I am by wanting to do anything at all when I feel I am experiencing the same thing, and quite often wonder why I don’t just make my life easier by finding someone with a better passport who understands my need to disappear every now and then without feeling slighted by it.
What are my obligations to him? And what are his to me? I feel like I know what they are, but they don’t seem to translate into this combination. I can’t deal with feeling so limited.
Of course I love him. But I wasn’t always this unhappy.
Thanks.
Stranded
Dear Stranded,
You gave up a great deal to be with this man.
You sold your car and gave away your cats. You left the city and country in which your attitudes and expectations were understood and respected. And then what happened? You got writer’s block. I do not think these things are unrelated.
I think you have to leave this man.
It’s really that simple.
If there were a way to leave him symbolically in order to meet the needs of your psyche for solitude and autonomy, then perhaps you would not have to divorce him.
If you could leave him, for instance, and go into a room of your own with a door that closes, a door that he will not open if it is closed, a door that he respects, that would be a start.
The door that is closed but not locked symbolizes your choices and your wishes. A door that is locked represents your power. You need for him to respect your wishes, not your power.
You have some power here. You have your own money. But he denigrates that power as privilege, i.e. power that is illegitimate, that you do not deserve. If he respects neither your power nor your wishes, there’s no basis for negotiation.
You could get a room of your own outside the relationship. You could just do it. But to get a room of your own within the relationship you need his respect. If you cannot negotiate with mutual respect, if you must negotiate only out of power, then the relationship is not one between two free equals; it is more of an authoritarian relationship in which power decides one’s fate.
I do not believe that the creative spirit can thrive under such conditions.
You do not want to have to lock yourself in. It is better to leave and be locked out.
There is much, much more to be said about this, but that is all I feel I can say with certainty and resolve.
[button link=”mailto:[email protected]” newwindow=”yes”] Write for Advice[/button]
This guy does not have her interests or happiness at heart. He begrudges her a short trip to Paris just because he can’t go. I hope she moved back to NY and resumed her life.
So many letters like this detail scenarios where someone in a couple gives up a tremendous amount just to be with another person.
I always wonder if it ever can be worth it. I know what it’s like to fall head-over-heels crazy in love, but I don’t think I’ve ever been remotely tempted to give up a beloved pet, treasured possession, or my education, or my career, or anything else major, as the “key to admission” to someone else’s life. Not to say that I haven’t make giant mistakes in judgement when in past doomed relationships, but giving up such essential parts of “me” was never negotiable. Giving up such things never entered my mind. (And I am very happily married today, in a great relationship filled with love and mutual caring and respect.)
I get the impression that many people view certain kinds of “sacrifices” as signs of real love. I do not. If one person in a relationship makes demands that are just too much for the other person–“just this one thing–“, then it’s not about love any more, and in my opinion not worth sticking around for. That’s the sign that it’s time to get out.
I say this with regards to both men and women. True love is like winning the lottery, it is a rare thing that should be treasured if you are so fortunate to get a winning ticket. But many relationships, especially all those “complicated” ones like we read about here, the ones that demand that one person make huge impossible sacrifices just for the “privilege” of being in the relationship, don’t count in my book as “true love.” They always seem to be more about power and control.
Fortunately, those relationships can be treated as disposable. I’m going to sound harsh, but you can think of them as the ones that “don’t count” because the compatibility just isn’t there/ Get out, go your separate ways, and free yourselves to find true love that is real and genuine, and based on shared needs and values, not on manipulation and game-playing.
There are millions of great people out there. Buses come along every 5 minutes.
If I love you, I will save you from a burning building, I will follow you to the ends of the earth. I will be there for you through thick and thin. But give up a pet? Give up my friends, family, education or career or desire to travel just to grudgingly permitted admission into the “we’ll see” front foyer of a potential relationship? Nope. Not an option. Nice knowing you. Next.
So many of these letters try to present scenarios crazy and complicated “love” when it’s not even clear if there is very much “like” between these two people.
This right here.
I think Cary’s right. My mate met my after-college year in Europe with “what a great opportunity, of course you must go!” and has done the same with every great opportunity since, even though he’s been sad to be alone. Someone who is more interested in keeping you in their pocket than in your happiness is not someone to stay married to.
In my favorite section of Aristotle he defines the highest kind of friendship as when you encourage each other in virtue, not meaning “behaving correctly” but rather being your best selves. If you can’t be your best self, you’ll never be giving the other your best self, and you’ll both feel it.
Stranded should get out.
“Someone who is more interested in keeping you in their pocket than in your happiness is not someone to stay …” with, period; whether the relationship is marriage, buddies, siblings, parent/(adult)child, whatever.
Well said.
Or what about if she moves back to New York and invites him to come with her? Rather than, locked in or locked out? Just try a new room where she feels more secure and not trapped?
He then would have a path to US citizenship, if he wanted it, and with that they would have the freedom to travel together much more easily. How long is his PhD program? If she moves first he could finish his PhD and join her. Once he is legally in the US and in the process of obtaining citizenship, they can easily travel within the USA and within a few years, if no complications, then he can have his citizenship and this travel thing will be history.
That is, if her problem is really about travel, and not about having a domineering husband.
However, if she wants to see if this could work, I think she may want to get off the “neutral territory” where she feels trapped, and get her feet back on her home turf, which would sort of equalize the power dynamic. She’d have “home turf advantage” against his domineering personality. If there is truly a loving relationship underneath, they can work it out. He needs to feel respected too, and if she can get her “travel bug” handled in this manner, maybe he won’t feel so disempowered to the point where he starts to become domineering, in her view.
Just a thought.
“That is, if her problem is really about travel …” Well said.
The onset of writer’s block, and the inability to finish her degree or move onto something else, also indicates some other issue.
I think that the writer seems depressed, and the husband seems critical and domineering. It is disconcerting that there is no mention, in the letter, of when his PhD program will finish, and what their next plans are. It is as if being stuck in limbo is the only reality, and it stretches on forever.