[katyseagull]

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Entering the marriage neither of us has any appreciation of how tough it would be to make a house out of two different upbringings. I mistakenly assumed that because she wanted to live in America that she would instantly become American and reject all desire to associate with the language, music, televison, etc. of her native country.

I tell people that we get along almost enough to be married. We have a wonderful bi-lingual daughter, but as we were leaving the court room after a divorce I said, "Sorry that didn't work out," and she said, "Sorry my parents are Mexican."

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Your experience is very much like another friend I have. Long time childhood friend who I grew up with and have stayed in touch with for 15 years. She went through some bad relationships and ended up abandoning her own profession and lifestyle to marry a Mexican man with little education. We all had high hopes for this marriage because she's a great girl with a lot of compassion and he seemed to be crazy about her. Turns out that she and her Mexican husband had dramatic differences in upbringing and values. They just divorced after bringing 2 kids into the world.

One thing that was a huge culture clash for her was his strong Catholic faith. She was brought up atheist and just couldn't relate. Also, his parents were his whole world and he wanted to please them and visit them frequently. She, like me, had moved far away from her family years before and only saw her parents once a year. She believed in saving their money and watching their spendings closely, he wanted to take out loans for everything and was very bad at money management. His parents are quite poor and live on a tiny farm near the Mexican border. Their focus is on their religion and survival. Her parents were academics who I remember vividly as intellectuals sitting around the kitchen arguing about politics and art and music. Just a huge culture clash.

My friend says she is sick of the Mexican "macho" thing. She has lost respect for her ex-husband and views him as a phony with superficial values. She said the macho image is very important to Mexican men and they don't respect women or put them on equal footing. (Note: I do not agree with this I'm just relating what my girlfriend has told me in her hours of frustration and anger. Frankly, I like macho guys and I do not find them to be phony at all [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img].)


In the end, my friend's husband cheated on her with the girl in the trailer next door. My friend would come home only to find him driving off with their kids and the lady next door to go do something fun. She said he was always into doing fun things. According to him, my friend is a real drag. lol.

Unfortunately, the custody battle over their children has become a very real and volatile issue. She is now paying him alimony and staring at the very real possibility that she might lose the children.



edited to say - Forgive me if this sounded rude towards Mexican men. I didn't intend it that way. All the Mexicans I've known in my life have been extremely hard working and wonderful family men with strong family values. I think this is my girl friend's poor choice of a mate. She just picked the wrong man for her but the cultural issues certainly didn't help. It put a strain on their marriage from the beginning. I'm sure there are an equal number of jerky American men and Mexican men. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]