If a man tells his wife of 20 years that she should be aware that at any moment he can go back to Iran and marry a 25 year old; should the woman be offended/ threatened/ mad/ sad? I find myself to be obsessed with the issue, simply because lately, my husband has been saying that to me repeatedly.
As you may guess, we are not in our honeymoon anymore, and we are not in our old age either. He is a very educated man; a prominent figure in our community and I am an educated and a professional woman. Yes, things are not going so well between us lately and we have had arguments.
The first time that I heard him saying that, I just brushed it off, thinking that he is just saying it, because after all you don’t get sweets when you are in the middle of the argument (VASATE DAVA HALVA PAKHSH NEMIKONAN.)
But then, once he said that, he realized the power of his words, and he said that again, and again, and again! He then took a step forward and send me a picture of Putin and his first, and his second wife. In the same email he wrote to me that I look like the first wife! I never opened the attachment. I knew that I would be hurt beyond belief and I would not recover. Not that i was not hurt by his email, anyways. I was/am; big time.
I also wonder why he even goes there.
I know I am not a model, for sure! But I do look good for my age (late 40’s.) I have added pounds, but I still am a size 12 and I work out about an hour every day. I have an athletic body, curves and all. I take care of myself and I am in a relatively good shape for my age, given the fact that I have given birth to four beautiful children. I have a very healthy sexual appetite. And, that is not all. I am educated, I am well read, and I have traveled the world. In my humble opinion, I have done well and am still able to do well for, let’s say another 20-30 years. Why is it then, that my husband, who is as educated and as professional as I am, thinks that he is entitled to say such a thing to me to shut me up and leave me speechless in the middle of the argument? Why is it that all said and done, the only argument that he can present is that he can go and marry a young chick if he wants, and I better change my attitude, or he will do so?!
There are two core issues that bothers me much with this situation. One, is that rather than solving (or, not) our problem, my husband chooses to retort to his patriarchal tribal roots, where in his heart he believes that a woman is nothing more than an object. This may I add, is a complete opposite to what he portrays at dinner parties. He cries for the lack of freedom for women in Iran and Afghanistan. He raises money to build schools for girls in Afghanistan. He helps girls to obtain visas and come to US, so that they will escape the oppressive regime of Iran.
Yet, when push came to shove, when we had our disagreements, when we were arguing, he simply chose to threatening me with the fact that i am not young any more and that as a man he can marry a younger woman. As woman who has reached a highest level of education, who has raised a family, who has been invested for over 20 years in a marriage, I have to say, I never saw it coming. After all, we live in the US of A. He has been here for over 35 years; he knows about life, love, women, and all that it takes to build and protect a nest. He is hurt when he hears that girls in his hometown have to get married to old men in order to have a life. He has a daughter himself; and yet his argument and his winning card turned out to be that he can, if he wants to , to easily dump me and get a better one?!! That, cut deep.
Secondly, it made me think that is there any woman out there who will say “Oh, I will do the same thing too?” I know well, that there are many other things that a woman can say — and believe me, without revealing too much, I should confess that I have had reminded him that it takes a lot of Viagra, and a good Urologist to get the things going between a spring chicken and an old rooster! And also that he needs to be more concerned about an enlarged prostate than anything else.
Yet, I know that he can do exactly what he says if he wishes so. And, sadly, there are many girls in Iran who would love to get the opportunity to marry him and escape from the burdens that they have in Iran. Many people that we know have done that. After the divorce, while the man has remarried and even has started a second family, the women has stayed single and not even thinking to have more children with another man.
Women my age know that our chances for getting married to a younger guy, an Iranian younger guy will be less than one percent. We all know that if we decide to date Iranian guys, we have to settle for men over seventy. Heck, we know that no Iranian man around our age will take a chance with us; they all will be like my husband thinking that they deserve a young chick, and there is no shortage of that. Does that make you as sad as it makes me? To be frank, that angers me and saddens me at the same time. While I feel like trashing my husband into pieces, I cry for knowing that he in fact might be my best and last chance.
I have become obsessed with figuring out the dynamics of such thoughts and patterns and the root of what causes an intelligent man to act similar to his uneducated, DEHATI, and tribal compatriot who has never been 10 kilometers out of his village. I never see it coming…
