[Two Pronged] A lonely wife deals with homesickness, communication issues

Rappler’s Life and Style section runs an advice column by couple Jeremy Baer and clinical psychologist Dr. Margarita Holmes.

Jeremy has a master’s degree in law from Oxford University. A banker of 37 years who worked in three continents, he has been training with Dr. Holmes for the last 10 years as co-lecturer and, occasionally, as co-therapist, especially with clients whose financial concerns intrude into their daily lives.

Together, they have written two books: Love Triangles: Understanding the Macho-Mistress Mentality and Imported Love: Filipino-Foreign Liaisons.

Dear Dr Holmes and Mr Baer,

I am married to a British expat and live in the Visayas with him. He is a good man, 12 years older than me. I was an accountant in the school where I myself studied at. It is also in the Visayas, but in a rural place in Bohol. Now we live in Cebu.

My problem is, I had many colleagues in the school I worked in who became close friends. I also had my family, and friends I grew up with living close by.

In Cebu, I have no one to talk to but my husband. He tries, but sometimes it is hard to translate what I feel.

He has no problem. He has a group of fellow expats he bonds with two times a week. They bring their wives. He thinks I bond with them but I do not.

They are not my kind. Even though my husband is much older than me, I am much older than the wives of these other expats. We have nothing to talk about. Also, I look manang (old) next to them. They even call me “Tita” (auntie)! They do not do it to be bad to me. They are just, in our Filipino ways, being respectful.

I asked my husband if we could go back and live near where I used to be, but he said it would be too remote for him. What will I do?

Tara

Dear Tara,

Relationships require compromise and marriage is no exception. This can be exacerbated when the two people involved are separated by culture, or faith, or class, to name just a few such issues.

In your case, Tara, the problem seems to be that you have not adjusted well to leaving home. However it is reasonable to suppose that when you and your husband (let’s call him Mike) decided to marry and live in Cebu, you discussed the alternatives as well and chose Cebu as the best available compromise for you both.

Prima facie it should be easier for you to adjust than for Mike. You are Visayan, he is a foreigner. You speak the language, he has to learn it or get by just with English. The customs, food etc. are familiar to you but not to him. The list is almost endless.

Yet you say that you are the one who is at sea, not Mike. Is this because you had expectations that have proven elusive? As an accountant, it is presumably easy to find employment, which will give you the opportunity not only to generate income but also to meet some new people as you are short of friends. Other avenues include hobbies/sports, fitness clubs, faith-based groups.

Yet all of this begs the question: did you and Mike discuss the potential challenges of moving to Cebu? What did you expect and why did you not anticipate ending up where you find yourselves now? Exploring the answers to these questions would be an excellent starting point to resolving your joint dilemma.

As an outsider and with almost no knowledge of how you both got to this point, it would appear to me that the best alternative for you would be to return home while the best for Mike would be to stay in Cebu. This however does absolutely nothing to resolve your joint dilemma if your aim is to stay married so write to us again if you wish, filling in some of the gaps, and we will try to be constructive.

All the best,

JAF Baer

Dear Tara,

Thank you very much for your letter. I admit to my hackles rising as I started to read Mr Baer’s answer. I misinterpreted his listing the reasons it seemed easier for you to adjust than for Mike to do so (at least to a superficial eye). But I now realize that this was just a preamble to underscoring how communication between the two of you needed improvement then.… as they do now.

I, too, cannot suss out from your letter how each of you view your relationship vis a vis each other. Thus, the best I can do is to share methodologically sound evidence-based research which touches on what you are experiencing, and Mike seems not to.

Yet, if he is to be a true and supportive husband, he must become not only aware of it, but try to do as much for you as you seem to have done for him in your respective needs for social connections.

The longest in-depth study on human life ever done is the Harvard study on Adult Development. Started in 1938, it still continues to this day.

As a clinical psychologist whose expertise is in human relationships, I find this finding the most compelling.

Loneliness does not only harm, it kills.

Dr Waldinger, the Director of the study, adds, “How happy we are in our relationships has a powerful influence on our health… Close relationships, more than money or fame, are what keep people happy throughout their lives. Those ties protect people from life’s discontents, help to delay mental and physical decline, and are better predictors of long and happy lives… When we gathered together everything we knew about our subjects at about age 50, it wasn’t their middle-age cholesterol levels that predicted how they were going to grow old…It was how satisfied they were in their relationships. The people who were the most satisfied in their relationships at age 50 were the healthiest at age 80.”

I do not know what the quality of Mike’s relationships are, or were, both in the Philippines and where he grew up. It is quite possible that his group of fellow expats in Cebu with whom he bonds twice a week is the closest group of friends he’s ever had.

But that is not the same for you, Tara. For you, Cebu is a wilderness, when not too far away is Bohol, and that is where your safe spaces are.

You need people who know your history and value your efforts, achievements and also your failures. You don’t need to be called the honorific “Auntie” to know you are respected, because you have proven your worth in many more important ways than age. They love you as you are.

You not only miss your tribe, but you also need them. At the very least, you need them as much as Mike “needs” to live “not in rural Bohol.”

A false dichotomy would be for you both to decide between two options: to live in a place one of you feels comfortable in or to live in both places some part of the time.

But there are other more egalitarian and, more importantly, more loving ways to find solutions than one which has one spouse doing all the sacrificing and the other all the socializing.

True, in time you may find some good people in Cebu who see and value you for who you are. But you cannot really find such friends if your resentment towards Mike doesn’t change. Not that it necessarily should, unless, perhaps, he changes too.

Something has to give, Tara, and it is not your giving in to Mike’s demands 100%.

If you have an equal marriage, then you know you have as much right as he to determine where and how you live.

If, however, you don’t have an equal marriage, perhaps you can write us once again? If you give us a more complete picture of your marriage, perhaps our insights and suggestions might be more helpful to you.

All the best,
MG Holmes

– Rappler.com