Posted on 11/07/2005 10:00:36 AM PST by HOTTIEBOY
NEW YORK (Reuters) -- It took Natasha a day trip to Moscow to find the American husband she had dreamed of. It took the next six years to get out of the nightmare that followed. A music teacher from central Russia, she was one of 200 Russian women who patiently lined up at a Moscow restaurant to meet 10 American men at a gathering hosted by a mail-order bride agency. She spoke no English but immediately caught the eye of one of the men, 16 years her senior. He was handsome and said he wanted the same things she did: a loving family and children. They went to museums and the theater with an interpreter, and he started the paperwork to bring her to the United States as his wife. The fairy tale ended eight months later. Natasha, who would only be identified using a pseudonym, had barely set foot in the United States when her new husband began to abuse her sexually, disappeared for weeks at a stretch, threatened anyone who tried to befriend her and forced her to sign a post-nuptial agreement. Thrown out of their house after two years of abuse, Natasha was left to fend for herself in an unfamiliar country with minimal English skills and no legal documents to work. 'Expensive toy' "He told me I was the most expensive toy he ever bought," said Natasha,
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
That's a pretty gross generalization.
I've met a slew of folks who've worked with agencies, most are shady (in that all russian business is shady), few are mobbed up.
I've not once heard of an agency saying a woman who was a prostitute was a teacher, and helping her get a visa to America. That is a Law and Order urban legend.
I have heard of men meeting prostitutes on 'romance tours' where agencies can't find enough attractive girls so they pay hookers to fill out the crowd, but that sharad usually ends sooner than latter.
And I've met a TON of 50 year old 3rd time divorces looking for an 18 year old trophy.
I'm leaving for Ukraine on Saturday (I have a layover in Paris. Damn.) I'm getting married. However, I have already met this young lady in person several times while overseas. After I returned to the US we struck up a very expensive courtship based on email, text-messages, and staggering (on my part) phone bills.
The fact that I've met her is only a slight advantage over the men who haven't. I still have to deal with the whole "inter-cultural" issues that will undoubtedly surface after I bring her over her. I'll be the first to admit I'm really rolling the dice, but isn't every marriage a gamble?
This behavior sounds like my second husband. He was full of loving attention before we were married, spending time doing anything he could to please me, sometimes to the point of distraction. I had known him 15 years.
AFTER we were married, he managed to vanish for 5 separate time periods, each longer than the last. This was in 1978, and to this day, I do NOT know where he was on any of those excursions. Had city, county, and state police searching for him when the last time stretched to 5 weeks. He also threatened me a number of times, until I told him he "better get me with the first blow", because I would crawl until I located him and kill him with a plastic picnic fork if I had to. It would be him or me that survived. He never threatened me again. This was after the 5th disappearance.
I divorced him, despite his pleadings of affection, and have been cured of the idea of being married.
As a lonely guy myself, I am unpersuaded that it is a good idea.
Cold? Russian women can take cold. Are you kidding?
I agree with you, I would probably never do it, but there are a lot of guys out there who would, especially if you take a look at the girls on one site - www.loveme.com
"Except maybe for that guy I worked with who took $40k in his 401k money and invested it all in Beanie Babies. That guy was pretty stupid too."
LOL
Depends what you're looking for, where you're looking, and what agency (if you feel compelled to use an agency) you trust in your endeavor. I've met a few guys who've succeeded wildly, a bunch who made a lot of dumb decisions and got really dumb results. There's a few sites dedicated to exposing fake agencies, and girls that are just looking for visas or cash.
Good luck. Hope it works out.
Odds are much, much better with the way you went about this that things will work out, rather than through some mail order agency or dating tour service, etc...
Last girl I date was russian, who had lived over here for 7 years before we met. She wasn't some mail order bride, etc.. Smart girl who came over her cause her sister came over to work at microsoft as a programmer. She took care of herself and had a career on her own. Her english skills were pretty good. But we did have plenty of run ins with the inter-cultural thing and her english skills. It happens no matter what. But those things work themselves out. My advice: Never assume they understand what your talking about. One of the biggest reasons we would argue was because I said something, and she thought I had said something else. Even a few words misunderstood and it will easily be a landmine blowing up in your face later on. Can get frustrating, but patience pays off.
I wish you the best of luck in your life with this woman. I do have to ask what it is that you both have so much in common that you are taking such a gamble. As a woman divorced from a foreign national I can tell you that the inter-cultural thing is a big deal and it does matter once all the initial infatuation wears off. I don't want to bring you down I just want you to think about it before you change your life forever. Otherwise, I pray and hope the best for you and your new bride. Congratulations!!
www.aprettywoman.com
Friend of mine showed me this once. Russian bride site. Don't want to test if it still works cause I'm at work.
That's gotta be a joke. HAHA! LOL!
I read one of the profiles on that site you mentioned, this killed me it was so funny:
"Self Description: Probably I'm attractive, but to judge about it only you. And I would deliver on the first place that I'm kind, romantic, loyal, cultured, counterbalanced, with excellent sense of humor and skill to listen and understand my partner at any situation. Languages spoken: good English.
Comments: It would be desirable to see in you " a tender and gentle animal ", I love the independent and strict men."
ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!!!
Every marriage is a gamble and the house always wins.
Seriously, I wish you the best of luck
Sad but true.
I would think the success rate for these marriages is spectacularly low.
I thought it wasn't complete until someone lost a house. :)
Even reading the article one learns that the things typically aren't that bad. From the article:
Three? While any spousal murder is tragic, three in 10 years isn't exactly a crisis of violence.
(There really aren't 'mail order' agencies. There's no agency that can just 'send a girl off with a visa' government requires that you've met at least once in the year preceding the visa app, and generally asks for some evidence of a relationship at the interview. The exception is some countries where it is against religion to meet the wife before the wedding, and there's a high bar to proving that.)
Dating Tours are the worst way to meet a girl. I've never heard of anyone successfully finding a girl on a Romance Tour, at least not with a happy ending. You'd have better luck in Moscow night clubs (and probably fewer prostitutes).
All in all the requirements for a relationship abroad aren't super different than here (although former soviet women tend to be lest feminists, and more traditional). You must be able to communicate, you must have some common goals, and be willing to make sacrifices on both sides for them. There's plenty of American men looking for a sexy wife old enough to pass for their grandaughter, and there's plenty of foreign women looking for a ticket to the states. Neither are hard to discover.
Note to self - do not piss this woman off.
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