Hear me out please

Submitted by Dora (United Kingdom), Jan 6, 2009 at 11:11

Dear Guys, I am not quite sure where to start but I have been getting up the courage to write on this website for a while now.

For the past 3 years I have been engaged to a man from Egypt. I am living there also. We do not live together. When we first started out, all was great. He was kind, understanding and seemed to be accepting of my culture, I am from the UK. As in most other stories, he is very handsome and charming and says all of the right words.

As time has gone on though, he has got more and more controlling, there are many things that I am not allowed to do now which makes me feel sick to be honest. He has asked me to change my clothes, which were never revealing to begin with and makes a problem everytime I wish to go out.

He also doesn't like me to go out without telling him where I am going (even the supermarket) and gets very upset if I do. Recently he has asked me to be more like his mother and makes comments that God willing after our marriage I will not want to go out so much. The most I do is go out for a coffee with female friends that he knows.

We were supposed to get married last year, but I put the wedding off. We are in our third year together and I love the man that I fell in love with who was so cool and open-minded but I can't seem to get him back. He has gone back on so many of the things he has said that I feel I cant trust him anymore. If I say something he doesn't like then he refuses to speak to me for up to 10 days which kills me since I am not in my own country and he is my main support network. Then he says I should know what he likes and doesn't.

It is so strange writing this because you would think that I had no education or vision, but this is not the case, I am well-educated and successful work wise but in this relationship so weak. I do not want sympathy, just to know that I am not going mad, I feel that I am and I am so down most days, with a pain in my stomach.

I have spoken to him at length, but there is just no way of getting through to him, he doesn't seem to understand my pain, just says I am overreacting and like to argue. His family have always been very good to me and I have talked to his mother and father as best as I can. They seem to agree and have tried to talk him round but to little avail. I kinda feel that after the marriage I will be on my own because I cannot call on them everytime we have an upset.

I have tried to leave and be without him many times, but either he is not strong or I am not. We are supposed to be leaving and going to the UK to start our lives after the marriage, but to be honest the thought of taking him there makes me feel ill. Can anyone understand me?

The idea that I pay for and sponsor him to go to my country and once he finds his feet he begins his control again really fills me with dread. I feel like he is a drug. He is from quite a poor family and I earn a lot more, however this has never bothered me at all. With his heart the way it was in the beginning, I felt that we could face any problems regardless of money. These days though I feel that I am paying to be oppressed. I do also feel guilty if I dont take him to my country after all our dreams together. he is not lazy and does work very hard.

I dont sleep very well at all and havent done for the past year. I am a practising Christian and belieive me it is only prayer which helps otherwise I would have lost my mind by now. He is not a horrible person though, I just think he fails to see that he is breaking my spirit when he tells me that I will be a wife and mother and therefore my qualifications are not of great importance. I have worked hard for those and whilst I would like nothing more that to be an excellent wife and mother, I want to feel human not a robot to him.

I would really like to hear from anyone who knows where I am coming from with all of this.

God bless

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