lynn I am sorry to hear about your difficulties with your Russian wife,however I think you did the right thing in not putting up with her crap and if a few more men would do the same they wouldn't have half the problems with the women they now have.
Unfortunately she responded by accepting your offer of a plane ticket home which tells me it was probably never meant to be anyway.
A word of advice as I have been in the situation myself do not try and mend the situation as if and when she has got over her temper tantrum she will return only this time it will be on your terms and from then on you will not accept the bullshit.
If there is a significant age difference I think you should let it go and move on.
Too many people like to jump on the idea that it must have been signiaficant age difference. We don't know that. He never says. And there are a MILLION reasons why a relationship can fail that have NOTHING TO DO WITH an age difference.
Yet the previous poster makes that assumption.
An age difference, like a cultural differnce, or a religious difference, or an economic situation or a language problem - is just ONE piece in a puzzle. But its the one that is most suspect by some and most discredited even among those in our group.
If there is a significant age difference it IS more likely that the relationship will fail,I have been in the situation myself and know that the bigger the age gap the more pressure on the relationship from the start.
Put yourself in her shoes,you are 25 and married to a 45 year old woman and have to go shopping,walk down the street,go to family engagements with her,put up with sarcastic comments and get tempted by younger women and you quickly see why the relationship has to be pretty solid to stand the test of time.
Another factor to take into account is a 20-25 year old girl is likely to be emotionally immature hence the temper tantrums.
I have put up with it before but my days of that are well and truly over and would not recommend any older man to even contemplate putting up with a whining spoilt little girl for 5 minutes.
I am sorry if I come across a black and white and do accept there will be occasions where age gaps can work so if you do manage it then good luck.
Hey Guys, Thanks for the comments, I do apprediate them all. Lana (my wife)is 46 and I'm 56, I don't feel age was the problem as she was starting to look her age more than me. I really think now that it was just the "change of life" for her and the resultant bitchy mood swings.
She was married twice before and was a career girl, she was very successful in Kazastan, Ukraine and Russia in the medical business. She was very intellegent, independent and was used to always making all the decisions in her life. She would spend hours on the phone (skype) with her children (26 yo girl, 21 yo boy) trying to run their lives from 6,000 miles away. After each little problem in Novgorod she would "fly off the handle" with me. I could see it getting progessively worse as time went on. Finally when she went offline about my oldest son and some of his friend that came over for a pool party, I decided not to baby her and to simply "call her bluff". She was surprised and the last thing she told me was she will never marry again.
One good thing is I have lived the last six weeks quitely without any arguments, however I'm still wanting to go and find "the next one". So I'm corresponding with a woman in Saratove, Russia that was married for 24 years until her husband died. She seems to know commitment.
Thanks for all your comments, it helps the healing process...
Many women are like at at 46 and they are certainly not all in fsu countries, just look at many women in long term relations with men in western europe.They turn bitchy and sarcastic from any country ANYWHERE.
Hey guys, I just got back from Ukraine. What an adventure. flew to Kiev rented a car and drove to Melitopol met the women I had talked to for three weeks. Hung out with here for two weeks had fun and some adversity. She took it all in stride. my exwife could not have handled it so well. Most of the men do drink to much it is kind of accepted behavior and you can drink anywhere and they sell booze everywhere and I mean everywhere! I think the women there are women they kind of think the same as women in the US. The women I met is now learning English and getting her passport so we can get her a visa and she can come here for three months so we can explore marriage. I really think it depends on who you meet and how you act if you are sucessful. I probably got lucky but it didn't seem that hard to do.
Just a comparative note may help you guys see that the bitchy behaviour is not exclusive to russian or ucrainian women. Here in Venezuela, there is a good % of attractive ladies and in all variations of skin tones. Yet, by the description made by all you gents about the mad swings in moods and behaviour, well, you are describing the ladies here!! Damn, and I thought that in the FSU I would find the calm tender ladies
BTW- that does not prevent us men from insisting on them, although many are heavy scotch drinkers
I would like to say one thing.
I am from Europe (Czech Republic) I was married to American woman, but after few months I knew that I make a mistake, because European and American don’t match!!! She looks at some things different like I do. At USA you buying everything on credit and you pay later and loosing money on the interest rate. I HATE THIS!!! At Europe you are saving money, than you go and buy and you do not owe anything. I LIKE THAT!! With this I had problem at USA, because I wanted pay cash for car, but dealer doesn't wanted my cash money. He told me, that he will sell me car ONLY on monthly payments. I didn't want that. That is only one of thousands problems what makes European man at USA.
So, I divorced American woman and leave USA. I understand that USA is different world, where you know only work and payments, where freedom doesn't exist and where government controls you !!!!
Europe means life, family and Czech Republic where schools and hospitals are free and where government looks for people is good sign for starting my family life. Ukraine will be soon at European Union like Czech Republic and GIRLS WILL NOT NEED TO LOOK FOR HUSBANDS ABROAD (USA).
!!!!! I didn't agree with you guys that Russian or Ukrainian girls are b.....s or temper, gold diggers... I found beautiful, intelligent Ukrainian girl, I was visit her twice at Ukraine, stay there with her for 2 months and I never had problem with her like you guys. Maybe is it because I am European and understand those girls better and maybe because I speak perfectly Russian (communists put Russian language to our school system).
We ( Olga and I) are engaged and wedding will be at summer of 2008.
I didn't hate US people (most European Countries + Egypt...they HATE USA and US people), but US government because they do not do nothing for US citizens. Man at divorce looses everything (I did). The US wives are bigger b.....s because they take everything from you what you build for years.
I wish you guys luck, but if you are not from post communist country you will never understand us and you are wasting a time with our girls.
As I read through this thread there were some questions in my mind. Some of you fight and call each other names like little children. Some of you have good information. I have met a few FSU women (not enough to be an expert). I have yet to see one of these temper tantrums there. It is difficult to get me angry but it can be done. Some differences in our cultures seem trivial to us like removing your shoes before entering a house but it is a significant sign of disrespect in the FSU.
I was married for 20 years and I did see a few tantrums there. I worked construction and was on the road during the week. She decided I was not giving her the life she deserved and left. Visiting with other divorced women I found most had left for the same reason. I decided there was no future in pursuing on of them that would wind up like my previous marriage.
But in the 4 years after my divorce I have learned more about the basic differences of men and women than I did in 20 years of marriage. Simple things that if misunderstood can cause these tantrums. I misunderstood a lot of them in my marriage :-(. I am still afraid of a divorced woman a little bit but realize now that I had a lot to do with the failure of my marriage.
Ok bringing us to the point, I wonder how many of you have had similar failures and blamed it on the woman when it was simply lack of communication understanding. And you do not have to bow down to the woman or her to you. You only have to understand each others needs. A very good book on this subject is His Needs Her Needs by Willard Harley or Men are from Mars Women are from Venus although I hate the title of the latter and it is very dry reading it has a lot of good information. I think you can buy either of these books on half bay for $10
Also it is good to learn the culture such as the shoe removal so you do not make such a blunder.
Another concern I have is eye contact which is very important in a relationship. But if an Interpreter is used the eye contact is normally with her or him instead of the lady. How detrimental is this to a relationship.
It totally kills any chance for growth...you might fall in love with the interpreter!
Get a woman that can speak English, stand alone talk with no auxiliary mouth piece to help her!
I heard it like this from Airwolf- the ex-commies to the ex-commies- gringos/bloody yanks/capitalist europeans/africans/ damn latinos/asians/kiwis + australians go home!! You guys got no business seeking our women here. Specially since you damn fools do not know how to control your damn credit cards!!! For those of us who were forced satellites of the glorious soviet regime and therefore know how to speak russian well (and perhaps have slavic factions as well), we will be given the "local" treatment and not that phony balooney you love turist are given here!! Soon as the European union will admit Ukraine, then your fat wallets will be of no use, there will be a unified Europe, but easter europe to it self please, no mixing of the races.
Airwolf- Thanks for the insight I truly believe what you said is true, good luck with your marriage
While we're generalizing here maybe the EU would have you if you crawled your lazy-drunken-wife-beating-non-child-supporting behind out of the vodka bottle and worked a days work every now and again!
Hey, this broad stereotyping is fun!
BTW, I'm an American of Ukrainian descent so don't think I'm starting with any ethnic crappola.
There are some points brought out by airwolf and bert although I would be tempted to tell bert that if all Ukrainian men used the vocabulary that he did in his post there would always be a demand for good husbands in Ukraine. But I know this is not true and I pray that he wrote it at a less than happy time. But the sad truth is that if Ukraine enters the EU and becomes more prosperous it will in time become similar to the countries that he hates. Each country has its weaknesses and strengths. And I agree with airwolf that our credit card and debt load period is pathetic. And I share his dislike for debt and divorce settlements. I do not have a credit card but I did have to borrow a significant amount of money to buy half of my property back from my x-wife when she left.
I can remember when I was a child that five or six of the neighbors would each have a different piece of equipment for harvesting and they would all come together and harvest first one then the next until all harvest was done. Today if one man buys a $250,000 combine his neighbor buys one too just to keep up with him. Each can run this machine just a few days a year and they almost compete with each other instead of helping. Something has changed and was lost over the years.
You can add to this eating too much and exercising not enough. The Fsu has a different set of problems. Who's problems are worse? Where is the quality of life best? Or a better question how can we learn from each country and use the best of both worlds? I haven't studied Australia. Do they have any good qualities?
Im just using the insightful knowledge that Aiirwolf enlighten us with. He has travelled the road, he did marry an american woman and it semed that the credit card issue was enough to cost his marriage, so he came back to EU and decided to focus on the locals and advices us (rest of the world) we do not have any biz whatsoever in looking for the ladies there for we are doomed from the start by cultural and financial reasons. I think the man has a point!!
I have not taken it as a ethinic crappola whatsoever (although a bit of provocation spicing is present), the globalization forces are bound to clash one day with the fervent locals who would stop and say: you know what, we were better off in the days that we could not be connected, our women were safe from the eyes of the strangers, the mixing issue (and hell I am not taking about any racist issue here) and the preservation of our ways of life are now more needed than ever, to hell with the globalization romeos!!! (Does any of this sound familar?)
If we are to embrace the notion of a global democracy, we hav to hear and respect the opions of those that want to keep thing local.
Here is something I learned the hards way and it is from de Bono, I think, the vast majority of our problems are not logical but or of perception nature. If you also look at it very hard, why do we seek FSU women? there is not a logical issue here involved, we have been sold a perception that triggers hopes, that puts the romance into crossing the oceans, etc, etc..
This happens to me when I always gets asked by the ladies who are so kind in keeping a coorespondence with me, why are you looking for FSU women? This is a genuine and honest question is there ever is one- I speak on my self when i say that I was sold (talk about gullible) the myth of the drunken-irresponsible-russian men and that they (the women) felt that western men (whatever the hell that means)were viewed as more famility trsutful. Now i realice that what they were asking is more akin to the spirit of Airwolf advice.
Airwolf, real Americans don't want the government to do anything for us. We don't need the government to educate us, we don't need the government to tell us each day that it is good day. Though I will agree witht he divorce laws, but that is government getting involved where they don't need to be.
I don't have a problem understanding my wife, who is Ukrainian. I don't speak perfect Russian. Understanding goes beyond the spoken word.