My dear Jil,
I just don’t get it! And to be honest with you, the facts are giving me a bit of headache. I do realize how much you want to marry. At your age marriage can be a desperate aspiration. Your mum’s despair is an articulated truck of cheap blackmail and constant nagging. She’s facing social pressure. Her 35-year old daughter is not married. But she’s the least of the issues in the circumstances.
This guy, and the whole arrangement… I’m concerned. He’s over there in the US. He’s in a contract marriage to get US citizenship, but the Green Card is taking time. So he’s legally married. But then he wants to marry you without devolution of his legal marriage. He can’t marry you under common law so he’s proposed an African traditional marriage. If he attempts common law marriage, he’ll go to jail. Polygamy is sanctioned in the US.
But that complicates things for you. You can’t travel to US as his legal wife. This of course has implications visa wise. And so he wants you to come in and disappear off the grid. An executive of your standing who’s never had visa issues is going to become a visa fugitive! The alternative arrangement is for you to cross over to Europe every six months and re-enter the US to beat visa restriction. And it gets more complicated.
Because of his age he wants to have kids immediately. He reckons he’s behind time. In essence, you’ll be hurling 3-5kg of amniotic fluid and embryo across the borders of US and Europe – for a man you can’t legally lay claim to as your husband. You’ll become an international roaming incubator. You want to become an unwed mother to a man you hardly know and who’s probably snared in a green card palaver. I say palaver because the conduct of his legal wife doesn’t accord with a mere marital contractual obligation. She reads his mails, knows details of his bank accounts, and he’s not very forthcoming with some facts. Why would you want to ram your head into an imbroglio and contretemps?
Does this man love you? Can this man love you, or is he just using you to move on in life? And he wants you to resign your executive position to facilitate his objective, turning you into a baby mama refugee. Oh, you’ll help him keep the books for his small business. Seems it’s all about him. What about you? You don’t even get the “Mrs” title you want desperately! What kind of marriage is this? What are you doing in the thick forest of this arrangement – or what else shall we call it?
The man is a serial “arranger”. His legal marriage is an arrangement, his green card is an arrangement, and now his child bearing is an arrangement. This guy senses you’re desperate and he’s loading all sorts of things into the bargain cart. In a few months you’ll be wondering what you were thinking! You’re trying to pull off this arrangement by force. Each step you take generates a problem which requires the stretching of legality and credulity to resolve. There is still the issue of divorce to the legal wife to consider. And no one knows when the green card will be out. You’re at a total disadvantage in this arrangement and you’re going to end up with personal liability. His business can’t even support your needs. You’re going to be under serious pressure. You can’t get a job. The whole arrangement is shabby. He can’t even leave America to participate in the traditional wedding! Your mum knows this whole thing is ratty and tatty. But of course she’ll go along. That social pressure thing.
I do understand how desperation can drive one to short-circuit common sense. I understand where you’re coming from. Desperation makes us want to seek our objectives by all means fair and foul. It’s a ruffian. Desperation makes us seek improbable short cuts, to seek to beat a path to the future through the bush.
This guy just wants to use you. First as a biological device, and then as a tenured business resource. You know the forest is getting thicker, but you believe you’ll resolve each and any problem as it arises! You’re only going to complicate your life. Don’t ensnare yourself in this arrangement. You’re only concerned with short term now, not the long term and you’re not thinking. You’re not going to be happy in this “marriage” but you think you can somehow swing it and make it work.
Marriage is more powerful than we give it credit. It’s not something you don’t properly think through. Marriage makes direct use of your life. Accepts no other resource. That’s why it’s expensive. You will have regrets down the line based on this arrangement. This guy doesn’t love you. You’ll be lonely in the long term. All you’ll have is the child. He will suck from the breast of bitterness.
His family is not even in on it. It’s just another arrangement as far as they’re concerned. Notice their attitude. I suspect you’re not the first he’s made this proposition to, or thought of making this proposition to. But you’re the right victim. Your circumstances are just right and make you pliable. In fairness to you, you’re not really interested in the green card or US citizenship. You just want to marry.
You’re old enough to take decisions by yourself no doubt; but please have a rethink. I don’t know what the future holds for you. All I know is that God redeems the time. We are poor redeemers of time. We foul things up and complicate things with our haste and desperation.
A good man will come, a man who loves you, not a man who sees you as an implement. A loving and good man will come, not a man who wants to exploit your emotional alonement. You have no option than to exercise faith for such a man. The alternative is the kind of proposition you have now. We all have different timetables. And different programmes. Everyone in his own time according to his or her programme.
Desperation does not deceive us. It’s not subtle. It’s rather rough and physical, so we know. We deceive ourselves. Please rethink this arrangement. I fear you’re about to enter one of life’s big traps.
Your mentor, LA
© Leke Alder | talk2me@lekealder.com