What’s a Woman To Do?

A woman tells me her story. She is originally from England and came to the US temporarily to do some business. Her maximum stay was anticipated to be approximately 2 years. This was in 1998. Today she still lives here, is married and has two children, a five year old boy and a toddler girl.

She confessed that although she loved the San Francisco Bay Area, she really wanted to go back to England at some point, but her falling in love changed all of her life plans.

I can sympathize, because I had a similar story happen to me. I too came here to learn English with every intention to go back to my home country, when I too fell in love. This was 19 years ago and I’m still here.

Back to this woman. She told me that it was their plan to one day move to England and raise their children there. Now that their son is five and old enough to go to school, her husband changed her mind and he doesn’t want to leave the US any longer.

What is she to do?

She feels as though her spirit is breaking because their agreement was clear: that they would move to England when their child was old enough to go to school. His change of mind puts a dent in their agreement, and threatens to tear the fabric of their marriage apart.

Is she supposed to take their children and just move on and out of the US and go back to England without him? Or should she continue trying to convince him that moving to England would be good for all of them and that after all they made an agreement? Is she supposed to divorce him for not keeping her promise? Is she supposed to swallow her dream and anticipation to move back to her own country for the sake of their marriage and their children? What level of compromising is too much and what is not enough? Is compromising even a word that belong into the holy union of a true marriage?

These are technicalities and mechanics that can throw a marriage off and they will work themselves out sooner or later. What’s really hurting all of them here is the distrust that is being caused by the change of minds and expectations of each partner.

As with every “cause” there are always multiple ripple “effects” and long after the cause has been forgotten, we are busy fighting the effects. And effects are always outside and can never be fought, because the effects stem from the cause, which is always internal.

The effects of this distrust and the change of minds have now caused a huge wedge between her and her husband. He’s surprised that she’s withdrawn and doesn’t want to have sex with him anymore, she’s lost interest in him and she’s disappointed that he’s letting her and the children down by going back on his promise. He’s upset that she would be “like that” since now he has a good job and they have a house and live the “American Dream” (whatever that is) and he doesn’t want to give it up to go live in a country that is not his own.

She told me that although he’s not cheating on her, he has started to flirt with other married women on the Internet and she too has been eye balling man-candy at the fitness center where she works out. He’s started to drink more beer and watch more TV. They’re both depressed and they both feel stuck and now what originally seemed like a union made in heaven is revealing itself to be a golden cage and they both feel trapped.

Now let’s dissect this a little further. Let’s assume they both end up cheating on each other because they no longer get their needs met at home, will this accomplish the original agreement, which is to move the family to England? Of course not! But not only will it not accomplish the original dream, it will create new baggage of turmoil, not only for them, but also for the children. In the end they will hate each other, and go through an ugly divorce which will affect the children the most, as is usually the case.

So what’s the perfect solution to this seemingly big problem? How will they handle these marriage “hick-ups” or has their marriage really never had a chance and this is just the inevitable taking place?

Again, I’m not a counselor or a therapist and I did not make any recommendations to her. When people ask me what I think they should do I usually tend to turn their own question back to them because I believe that we each have all the answers to the challenges in our own lives. Sometimes our lives are just so clouded that we can’t see through chaos and we feel that others “out there” know the answers for our own lives. This is not correct and I would never want to tell a person what I think they should do.

So all I could do was paint futuristic pictures for her by asking her what it would look like if she did this or that. After a few minutes of “seeing” where her marriage is going depending on which steps she would take she said: “It looks like I’m heading for divorce.”

We make agreements all the time, and we break them more often than not. Not because we’re bad people, simply because life changes, circumstances change and we as a people change. It’s difficult to put someone or ourselves into a box and say: “This is who I am and this is who I will be forever.” We are a people of BECOMING and with it comes change, expansion, some shrinkage and then we expand and grow again. To force someone into a box that we designed for them is cruel and unloving. Even if this is a box that we designed for ourselves.

Be free, be honest, be authentic, be real and grow and expand!