Dear Anne,
I moved to the U.S. ten months ago from the U.K. with my job and my husband came with me. Although initially he was very optimistic about life here, he has had a string of very negative experiences which have really turned him off living here and damaged his self-esteem horribly. First he was forced to wait for over four months for a work permit and then it took a further two or so months to find a job. Now he is earning half what he was paid in the U.K. for equivalent work. All of this has put enormous strain on our finances, and we can't afford to do anything here except survive. I've always been the main breadwinner, which doesn't bother me, and in the U.K. it wasn't really a problem. But he has a son from a first marriage who he has always supported and gone home to visit regularly. I had to pay for his son's upkeep for the period he wasn't working. I didn't mind doing this, but he hated the fact that he was effectively forced to depend on me by the U.S. government's refusal to grant him a work permit (as he saw it.) Now he's working, he's supporting his son again, but doesn't have any money to go to visit him, which makes him feel he has failed as a father.
He is really unhappy here and is desperate to move back to the U.K. (He is originally from South America, but lived in the U.K. for seven years and loved it.) After initially trying to persuade him to see the positive side of life here, I have realized he's never going to be happy here and have agreed to look for a job in the U.K. But he seems to have set his mind against even trying to enjoy the remaining time we have here. He runs the U.S. down at every possible opportunity in conversation and recently told me he doesn't want to go out at all any more, even for walks or trips to the cinema, he would prefer to stay in the house all the time he isn't working. I realise this is almost certainly depression, rather than selfishness, and he himself admits that he is depressed, but it feels very selfish and it has made me very angry as I can't live like this. Neither of us has any real friends here - I have a good relationship with my colleagues, but they aren't really a proper support network - and he gets on with his, but doesn't socialize with them, so neither of us has any real alterntive outlet. It also seems to me that lying around the house all the time isn't the best way to combat depression. I try periodically to coax him to doing unchallenging things, just to get fresh air and to change the scenery, but at the moment he is refusing even that. He's also refusing to see a doctor, let alone a counsellor.
I would really appreciate any advice you can give me about how to deal with this.
(incidentally, in case you were going to recommend a book, English isn't his first language and he struggles with large amounts of English text, so I don't think that would be particularly effective for him.)
Many thanks,
Jessica
I moved to the U.S. ten months ago from the U.K. with my job and my husband came with me. Although initially he was very optimistic about life here, he has had a string of very negative experiences which have really turned him off living here and damaged his self-esteem horribly. First he was forced to wait for over four months for a work permit and then it took a further two or so months to find a job. Now he is earning half what he was paid in the U.K. for equivalent work. All of this has put enormous strain on our finances, and we can't afford to do anything here except survive. I've always been the main breadwinner, which doesn't bother me, and in the U.K. it wasn't really a problem. But he has a son from a first marriage who he has always supported and gone home to visit regularly. I had to pay for his son's upkeep for the period he wasn't working. I didn't mind doing this, but he hated the fact that he was effectively forced to depend on me by the U.S. government's refusal to grant him a work permit (as he saw it.) Now he's working, he's supporting his son again, but doesn't have any money to go to visit him, which makes him feel he has failed as a father.
He is really unhappy here and is desperate to move back to the U.K. (He is originally from South America, but lived in the U.K. for seven years and loved it.) After initially trying to persuade him to see the positive side of life here, I have realized he's never going to be happy here and have agreed to look for a job in the U.K. But he seems to have set his mind against even trying to enjoy the remaining time we have here. He runs the U.S. down at every possible opportunity in conversation and recently told me he doesn't want to go out at all any more, even for walks or trips to the cinema, he would prefer to stay in the house all the time he isn't working. I realise this is almost certainly depression, rather than selfishness, and he himself admits that he is depressed, but it feels very selfish and it has made me very angry as I can't live like this. Neither of us has any real friends here - I have a good relationship with my colleagues, but they aren't really a proper support network - and he gets on with his, but doesn't socialize with them, so neither of us has any real alterntive outlet. It also seems to me that lying around the house all the time isn't the best way to combat depression. I try periodically to coax him to doing unchallenging things, just to get fresh air and to change the scenery, but at the moment he is refusing even that. He's also refusing to see a doctor, let alone a counsellor.
I would really appreciate any advice you can give me about how to deal with this.
(incidentally, in case you were going to recommend a book, English isn't his first language and he struggles with large amounts of English text, so I don't think that would be particularly effective for him.)
Many thanks,
Jessica




