A long time friend of many years moved to Boston from upstate NY where we grew up. We both moved around a little, me more than her. She changed apartments, I changed zip codes. (: But, we always kept in touch through the years.
In about 2000, she told me she married a Muslim man from Morocco. He was supposedly a student. This was pre-9.11, so I did not think too much of it. At most, I had some suspicion that maybe it was a marriage to stay in the country.
He had approached her at a coffee shop. Not to sound mean but she was never much of a looker. Always over weight, not a ton of confidence. So, the idea of a foreign stranger approaching her in a coffee shop seemed weird.
Fast forward a year or two and it began to get weirder. For one, whenever I called her--he was the MEANEST SOB to ever answer a phone and HE never once gave her the message that I called.
Then there was never a straight story about what he did. A student, a tech guy, a cook...I forget the other vocations but there were a few.
Soon, his family was living with them.
Next, they were taking a vacation to Syria. I thought that odd because I knew enough to know Syria was not a vacation hot spot.
At the time I lived in Germany, and she told me had had lived in Hamburg. (after 9.11 that really seemed dubious)
Long story short, the last time I spoke with her, she said she was trying to move to the UK and didn't want to be married anymore.
I have never heard from her again. It's been about 12 years now. I have looked through Facebook with a fine tooth comb to find her--no sign and she is definitely the type to have a Facebook account and keep old ties.
I have a story with a different outcome altogether. I worked with a woman who married a Muslim man, they had a son, and she did all the Ramadan things, no pork, etc. This woman was a total B+++h to all who worked with her, no one could stand her. No one was going to tell her what to do, and apparently she made life miserable for her husband too, because he went back to the Middle East for some family thing without her or the boy, and he never came back!! After all the other stories we all heard about child kidnapping, etc., we figured her personality saved her a lot of heartache!!
All of our stories seem so similar. The older sister of a different HS classmate (married an Egyptian Muslim in the medical field, who came to Pitt to study) once posted a really heartbreaking post on our private members only) FB page last year. She said she looks for “Irish looking” young men in the Cairo group photos (her now teenaged nephews). Her sister went there w/husband & kids post 9/11 a d she hasn’t heard from her since. The boys looked like “her side” of family when younger. NO CONTACT w/US family members seems to be with norm.