Women Who've Made A Home Here For Love

[Thuraya]

To all foreign women who have committed to living here for the long run to be with an Argentine partner:

How did you end up here? How did you make the decision to stay? Do you have kids? What have the challenges been? Do you have any regrets?

I'm at the point, after being with my Argentine boyfriend for three years and living here for two, where I need to make a decision. We're in our mid-twenties and thinking about marriage and kids. He doesn't ever want to live in the US (my home) forever. So either I commit to living here in BA forever -- raising my kids here, accepting his family as mine, with all the heartbreak of rarely seeing my own family and constantly being an outsider -- in order to be with this amazing guy. Or I break up with him, move home, and start looking for a person to spend my life with there -- with all the heartbreak of having lost someone really, really special.

I want to hear the experiences of other women who've been through this decision, on both sides, and how it turned out. Thanks!

 

[nlaruccia]

I committed to living here after I married an Argentine many, many years ago. After returning to the States this "great guy" suddenly became lazy and refused to work and completely changed and insisted that it was my job to take care of him. Maybe he didn't change, maybe he just didn't reveal his true self until later in the marriage or I was simply blind and in-love. I moved back to Argentina because one disappointment wasn't enough.The second Argentine partner cheated on me, as well as the third. The fourth was twice my age but still too immature to know what he wanted in life. He ended up becoming a very good friend of mine and he's still twice my age and still emotionally immature like many men here (not all) that can't commit. I don't want to generalize and offend someone. I think he's like many Argentines that are passionate in the beginning, then they begin to view the woman's charms as flaws and quickly get tired and start to look somewhere else to fulfill their needs, or they break off the relationship and start the same game in this never ending cycle. In the end, I committed to living here, but certainly not for love of an Argentine man, or men, but for the love/hate relationship with the country.....which is also immature, can't commit, is unstable, unpredictable and untrustworthy. LOL. It taught me to maintain a sense of humor in life.

 

[Vagrant Violet]

I've been living in Argentina for about 4 1/2 yrs, and met my Argentine husband after I had been living here for about 9 or 10 months. At that point (back in 2009), my intention was to stay in Buenos Aires regardless, but as we can all testify, Argentina is a far cry from the country that it was just four years ago.

I fell for my husband hard. I was 26 and he was 29 (it's worth mentioning that I think that from your mid-twenties and up you are more likely to make better decisions for long-term relationships, when you are younger, you are still very much a work in progress and are still "finding yourself"). The only thing that would have been a sure-fire deal breaker for me would have been if he did not want kids one day. But we were on the same page about that, as well as so many other key issues and values and what we wanted out of life, and out of a long-term relationship.

As I fell further and more profoundly in love with my husband (this was before we got engaged in 2011, mind you), my relationship with Argentina was steadily starting to wane. And I suffered from homesickness and playing the dreadful "what if?" game regarding my decision to stay here long term for a lot of reasons. My husband would have supported me no matter what my decision was (in a "if you love something, set it free" type of mindset), but there was/is/will be no way in Hell that he will ever leave this country, mostly due to his large, tight-knit family here, which I knew and respected from the start of our relationship.

It came to a turning point when I found myself telling him that, yes, I did indeed miss many of the comforts of home, but even if I had all of those, or a dream job/better economic opportunity, or XY and Z, it still wouldn't matter, because while all that "stuff" can come and go or be replaced, there is only one of him in the world. Yes, it sounds corny, but it was the truth. It was knowing that even if I were stuck in Siberia, as long as I'm with him, that's where I belong, and I'm home, period. And although it wasn't easy to come to this realization, there was still zero doubt in my mind how I felt.

Since then, we have had our first child, a boy, born in April of this year. And the plot continues to thicken, as I wonder what it's going to be like raising a family here as a foreigner, issues like safety and financial security, as well as a certain amount of guilt over feeling like I've short-changed my parents (especially my mom) out of having a "real" relationship with their first grandchild.

I'm not going to lie, I still have my moments where I doubt if I've made the right decision(s), but I am a die-hard believer in "love conquering all." And even if I were living back in the United States, in a diamond-encrusted castle, with the best of everything and blah blah blah, it would be unfathomable and wouldn't have any meaning if I did not have my life partner and best friend to share it with.

It's not a decision to be taken lightly or without a lot of contemplation, and I wish I knew what else I could possibly write or advise, but I'll just wish you my heartfelt best of luck in whatever decision that you make. Take care!

 

[Farenheit]

There was a thread on here some time back by a woman who had split up with her husband but couldn't ever leave the country as he wouldn't give permission for their child to be taken abroad....she was beyond desperate and couldn't even vacation to see her family. Something that should be taken into account during the decision-making process. I believe this is a legal issue until the child turns 21.

 

[Maxime]

Home is where the heart is
and life begins at the end of your comfort zone

 

[la_guachita]

Great question and definitely something to think about. It is good that he was honest with you about never wanting to live in the U.S., even though it seems rather inflexible. You love him enough to consider staying here but he isn't willing to expand his horizons to try living in another country -- even considering that there could come a time when it will make more sense economically?

Love is one thing, but when you're talking intertwining finances and families and having children that is when you do have to consider the 'what ifs'. And I've met a number of people (mostly women) 'stuck' here because of their kids, long after the love died. A Colombian friend has to kiss her exes butt for months just so he'll give permission to take their kid home for a couple of weeks (and she has to live here until the kid is 18.)

If you trust him enough to take that chance I find that admirable, but I don't think it should be taken as lightly as Maxime, the poster above, suggests. International custody issues are quite a serious matter. No es joda! Look at the case with the American mom and her kid in Brazil right now and then there is a complicated Argentine case:

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/exclusive-argentine-american-custody-battle-rages-10th-year/story?id=10481955#.UdzzChbS_a5

I'm not trying to desuade you because 'I believe in love' like that really bad pop song says but you are smart to consider all the possible eventualities..

 

[Crema Americana]

I'm living here now, but I don't know about forever. If things were to ever sour with my marriage I'd leave. Kids would change things greatly, and I'm really unsure about raising kids here (mainly because I'd feel like I wouldn't be able to provide them all that I had growing up - from the schools to the culture) but my husband isn't completely closed off to the idea of living elsewhere so that gives me hope.

It's a risk to give up so much to be with a person, but only you can decide how much you love him and maybe take the chance. Just be sure you know him very well. My sister-in-law married a man just over 2 years ago, got pregnant and had a baby, and when the baby was just a month old he walked out on her. He's also previously divorced and has another child with the first wife. Beware of that type! Although I have to say that no one in the family really saw that coming since he seemed like a really nice guy who just had bad luck in the first marriage.

 

[Thuraya]

Yhanks everyone for the replies! I'm also wondering about how career and income fits into all of this.

@Lauren23 - I love your story, I want it to work out! Do you work or stay home with your little one? How often do you get to go home to visit, or think you'll be able to go home now that there's a baby? I guess I'm thinking about the economic side of things. In my ideal world, my husband and kid(s) would visit as much as possible, summers in the US, something like that. But that's only for people who are well off enough to do it - hard in Argentina. Another idea we had was to go to the US for a couple years now and work to save money to eventually come back and buy a house...

@la_gauchita - you raise really important considerations. He's willing to try living in the US, for a few years. He recognizes that it's fair and I need it. But like with Lauren23, I've known since the beginning of our relationship that his heart is here, he wants to raise his kids here, and be with his strong family network. One way of "solving" the custody issue might be making sure my kids get born in the US, right?

 

[French jurist]

I thought reading "who've made love here for a home"

 

[EricLovesBA]

Great question and definitely something to think about. It is good that he was honest with you about never wanting to live in the U.S., even though it seems rather inflexible. You love him enough to consider staying here but he isn't willing to expand his horizons to try living in another country -- even considering that there could come a time when it will make more sense economically?

This was my thought as well, on both counts - that it is good he's honest, but this is inflexible. I'm in the opposite situation, a man with an Argentine wife. We are ok in Argentina with no particular plans to leave, but it seems clear between us that If circumstances or opportunities change, we would move anywhere in the world if needed. The point being - we will be together wherever we need to be and doing whatever we need to do for to both be happy. Even in machista culture, there is compromise. If I, as a man am leading the relationship, it is still my job to recognize all her needs and take care of her, just as she is taking care of me.