i am also unfortunately married to an algerian man!!

Submitted by sarah (United Kingdom), Jan 18, 2009 at 12:12

dear joanne, i have been married to an algerian for 16 years, and had been his girlfriend for 2 years before that, i met him when i was just 16 and he told me he was 21, which was the first lie! i was so young and naive that i believed him, he was actually 13 years older and when i met him he wasn't a practicing muslim, he drank alot ,smoked,gambled and lied, but being insecure i enjoyed the attention and excitment,

my friends and family thought i was too good for him and looking back i know i was and still am, he is 47 and i am 34 and we have a beautiful 10 year old daughter .The real problems started when my daughter was born, as he decided to give up drink and start practising his religion and he wanted me to convert to islam, although he didn't push it too much he would'nt allow me to drink alcohol, eat pork or celebrate xmas

so although i didn't convert i was living the life of a muslim without the praying. As i had just had a baby and was feeling vunerable i reluctantly went along with it as i didn't want to be a single mum. But as you can imagine i felt very low and after going along with this lifestyle change for six years i finally had enough when i realised he had been gambling constantly all the time and was heavily in debt, he had been forcing me to live this strict life and had'nt been giving us enough money and all the time he was gambling all the money away,

i should of left him then but i felt sorry for him anyway after that he could no longer tell me what to do and i tried to grab back some independence, however ever since then our marriage has gone from bad to worse and i now want him to leave, Algerians make rubbish husbands and crap fathers, they may come from a hot country but they are very cold emotionally except for anger which they have alot of and they prefer male company, i can really understand your situation and advise you not to have children with him as you may never get away from him should you want to.

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