A Happy Life with a Russian Wife

Posted By admin on September 3, 2010

For a very long time, I wanted to write this. And every time, I postponed it… I have been watching.

Until I made sure that the most frequent search phrase in my online project for international families “Happy Life with a Russian Wife” is “dominant wife” in its different variations. And, by the way, it was the same for both the English and Russian versions of the project.

I have also found out that the search phrase “you are a jerk” is pretty popular. It got into my blog “Life in the Era of Change” a few years ago thanks to a single publication “What to Do if You are a Jerk, or a Real Quarrel is a Creative Thing.” This post, as I remember, was my response to a desperate man, whose sister did not call him any other way.

Judging by this indicator, women seem to be extremely aggressive creatures, reminding me of such huge country women with beaters in their hands. However, once I came across a search phrase, “Why does my husband get angry at me after 25 years of marriage?” The question sounded somehow sheepishly though.

God forbid, I am not going to defend or justify, or blame anyone. My clients (mostly women) and I quickly sort these things out, and their relationships begin to improve even on the verge of divorce. It is next door to a miracle.

So I would like to talk a little bit about the following unconscious contradiction fixed steadily in stereotypes.

Almost all women seek marriage. When they do not want to get married, they long to have meaningful relationships. I am no judge of men’s aspirations, but it seems they do not mind getting married either as far as the majority of them sooner or later says goodbye to their bachelorship.

So we can conclude that family is a very attractive institution for those on this side of the barrier. As soon as you find yourself on the opposite side of it, you realize that it is a cell you would eagerly escape.

Think about the following stereotypical beliefs: “a husband or a wife should…,” “children are obliged to…,” not mentioning of the parents who seem to owe it to everyone. These statements are totally invalid. (more…)

Category: Empowering Each Other | No Comments »
Tags: a dominant wife, gender roles, women agression

Posted By admin on August 23, 2010

Continuing our conversation about wealth, I am going to reveal a terrible secret to you, which the Boy Nipper Pipper would have never betrayed to the enemy. But I am not the Boy Nipper Pipper, I love life, and not someday, but right here and now. In addition, I am terribly afraid of pain; I cannot stand torture, both physical and emotional. I faint even from the look of injection needles, and when brought to watch scary movies with flesh devouring or the details of surgical operations, I close my eyes and ears tight until my husband lets me know that the worst is behind.

So I do not keep any secrets at all.

But absolutely every one of us possesses this dreadful secret. Not everyone wants to admit it though. But finding it out is very easy. How? – I am going to tell a little later. And now …

Now, there it is – the DREADFUL SECRET. In each of us, there lives a very hungry creature. In each of us, with a very rare exception, and you are not the exception for sure. This creature might masquerade under different monikers, but its real name is Victim.

Most people feed this extremely insatiable creature without noticing it, and it grows to such an extent that only a cover remains from them.

Like any infection, it responds to treatment, which is simple enough. But first, as always, diagnostics. It is easy to identify the Victim that governs us when you notice the following:

• Instead of openly expressing your needs, you expect others to read your mind (and read it correctly) and then quickly meet them in a way that suites you.
• If there is no such “mind reader” by your side, then you try to show people near you how wrong they do
• You use this technique with your family members particularly often
• You get offended when these people still do not understand what you want (more…)

Category: Empowering Each Other, Life Without Limits, No category | No Comments »
Tags: how to confront your internal victim, internal victim

Posted By Liubov on August 12, 2010

That was six years ago… By November, almost all of my family gathered in a three-room apartment with the total area of 64 square meters. “Almost” – because only my son-in law was not present, rebuilding a new apartment in another city. At the same time, there were my daughter with her four-months-old baby, my son and his pregnant wife and, of course, me.

“It’s terrible,” said my acquaintance, a Doctor of Medical Sciences. – “My friends just broke up with their children forever in the similar situation. Money was the reason for conflict. The parents were helping their son’s family, and the children were responding with cruel ingratitude. They just did not care to notice the parents’ efforts believing that it should have been so. As a result, parents started to dream of getting rid of the children!”

My situation was also difficult. My daughter and I did not work; my daughter-in-law had to take a maternity leave soon. My son, who taught at the university, earned enough for pocket expenses. My future husband suggested that I would not look for a job just to provide for a living, but instead get pleasure while communicating with my family and friends – especially as he had already planned my move to America. He offered his help, certainly not unlimited, and I did not want to deny myself the pleasures of life just because of the circumstances.

My relations with money have always been difficult. I did have it, if anything, but the money did not linger in my pockets for long. For somewhile, I had even been proud of it, for nobody could accuse me of money-grabbing. But one day I realized that there was absolutely nothing to be proud of in this regard, because behind it there had been my unconscious belief, “Do not put money aside – you will be deceived.” I am not mentioning of how often I became a victim of a primitive fraud. I did not like money, I was afraid of it…

After a while, I experienced a shock while making repairs in my apartment and moving the books from my son’s room. There were so many books that another myth about “being poor people who barely make both ends meet” fell down about my ears. The books were good and expensive, many of them bought by my son during his studies – of course, not only on his scholarship, which had been enhanced though. The classic version of “Where did you take the money from? – From the bedside table” worked here as well. The second part of the question, “But wherefrom did it appear in the bedside table?” had not even arisen.

Having discovered that, I was beside myself with anger. First, I was angry with my son, who did not exercise due diligence to, so to speak, other family needs. Then I was angry with myself for not controlling the expenses and not discussing money matters with my son. (more…)

Category: Empowering Each Other, Family Matters, The Family Budget | No Comments »
Tags: family budget, how to improve relations with grown-up children, keeping accounts

Posted By Liubov on August 6, 2010

“You are so beautiful and happy, and you can engage yourself in a creative work and self-asserting activities. And my place is in the kitchen and near the washing machine loading, extracting and hanging out the laundry. Oh, I forgot to mention vacuum cleaning. Again, I am losing the skill of typing in Russian, and there is nothing interesting that I could share with you in this letter…” Natalia, Connecticut …

Imagine that you are going to marry a bright, intelligent, decent and sensitive man with a great sense of humor, who, without a doubt, loves you. And then, when you arrive to his country, you meet just the opposite: a dark and closed person, who resists the slightest attempt of your intrusion into his life. In addition, you have neither driver’s license nor money (that is, you are absolutely dependent on him regarding the transportation and inhabitancy), you have no connections, your knowledge of the foreign language is pretty poor and you have no idea of what you could do to succeed in the new environment. This was my starting point of living here.

The majority of Russian wives find themselves in a similar situation when they move to the U.S. Not because the American men are bad, but because they are accustomed to living like that. The American husbands are confused: on the one hand, they want the independent Russian women to love them and stay with them, on the other – how dare they violate their boundaries!

Imagine how I washed my face with tears almost every day and how I regained inch after inch of my personal space in the house, for I thought I came to live a long and happy life with my beloved husband! What could I do?

I had a variety of choices:

1. to return to Russia and consider our love invalid, because “American men are jerks” (which is a common opinion among Russian wives)
2. to return to Russia thinking that there was something wrong with me and that my life is over
3. to stay here and put up with the role of a shadow
4. to stay here and become a bitch making my husband dance after my pipe (which, in fact, would have been pretty easy, because we had had a long conversation about the marriage contract, but had never signed it, and according to the law, in case of divorce the husband leaves half of his property to his wife + alimony)
5. to stay here and organize my life not giving a damn for my husband.

But I felt uncomfortable in all those “clothes.” I left my children and grandchildren in Russia not to fight for life here. So I chose to organize my living with the help of my husband showing him his own internal and external resources at the same time. All my creativity and passion focused in this direction. Everything has changed greatly, and I see that it is a rewarding task and, above all, it makes me grow and develop. (more…)

Category: Empowering Each Other, Family Matters, Home Sweet Home, Letters As They Are, Life Without Limits | No Comments »
Tags: how to improve relationships with an American husband, Russian women abroad

Posted By admin on July 8, 2010

Imagine you come to a concert. No, not the rap-and-wild-shout type of a concert with mistimed singing. This is the concert you ceremonially get ready for during a long time, meticulously choosing your dress and makeup (and if you are a man, you would have shaved, and shined your shoes with a brush). You are prepared to listen to the CLASSICS (pronounce it breathy).

And then suddenly, instead of the triumph of harmony, you hear something incredibly off-key. In addition, each instrument is playing on its own, trying to outplay the other, and nobody listens to the conductor, who is helplessly waving his hands and looking like a cackler.

You would say it cannot happen… But that goofy conductor with a communal kitchen in place of a harmonious orchestra lives in practically every one of us. Unconscious parent-learnt mindsets, false beliefs, conflicting values…

Why be surprised that all the sublime thoughts and big dreams do not even reach our conscious level? Why talk about achieving them? …

What lies between us and the implementation of our dreams? – False beliefs and contradictions in the internal system of values and beliefs.

Now, it turns out that it all comes down to a challenge of finding what makes the false notes, tuning up the instrument and making the conductor the main figure.

Category: No category | No Comments »
Tags: a conductor's role, going to a concert