Honeymoon's over

[Shyfairy]

It has almost been a year since I married my husband.  I met him a few years ago where I work.  He is from Costa Rica.  It was love from the start.  He is a contractor working here under a permit.  A year before we got married he went to work in South Carolina.  Everything has worked out great he visits me, and I've been to see him also.  The visits have sort of tapered off in the past six months.  I am very lonely.  I have told him about this, and he makes no big deal of it.  Makes excuses like we both have to work.  I understand this, but how can he expect me to love him forever from a distance.  I could never move and leave my family, and he shows no sign of coming home anytime soon.  I want a family, and that includes children and a husband.  I have not cheated on him, because I love him.  I hope my marriage will work out, but it is not looking so good now. I don't want to file for divorce, because I do love my husband.  I want him to become a U.S. citizen.  I want to know how this will affect us if it doesn't get any better.  Please help me.

[Lee Borden]

You and your husband have fundamentally different ideas of the level of commitment a marriage represents. The relationship you have is apparently working fine for your husband, so he's content with the status quo. If you are not, it's going to be up to you to say so and to insist on a dialogue about what changies you and he need to make.

It's not clear to me what you expected and what he expected when the two of you decided to marry. I'm gong to guess based on your post that it may not have been clear to you either. You're in a position of relative weakness now, because you're already married, and you're insisting on clarity after the fact. However, it's better to insist on and receive clarity after one year of marriage than to go through another 3 years, or 10 years, or 25 years, not knowing where you stand with your lifemate.

For the benefit of others, this case illustrates the importance of intensive, searching pre-marital counseling. My friend Jim Robey is one who does it well. He says this: "If I can talk you out of marrying, I should."