I have been with my Punjabi Boyfriend for nine years now and we are in a common law marriage/ defacto relationship as recognised by local laws. He is in the Army and lives where he is stationed therefore we currently live in different states. I stayed behind where he was last stationed given we have a business together here. However he will return home to live with me within a few months. We literally talk 25 times a day on the phone and constantly text throughout the whole day. Essentially we are always in constant contact.
Last week he came to visit me and we had an amazing time as we would usually; going on day trips, out on dates and he insisted we both get a couples tattoo. I have always done whatever I could to keep him happy and he has always done the same for me. We found a house we both loved whilst he was here. I was to write up the contract of offer while he was on a flight home. When he left we talked on the phone until the early hours of the morning but I had to eventually go to sleep because I had a full day at the office that day.
That morning I woke up to get ready for my long day ahead, grabbed my phone to stop the alarm and noticed that he had messaged me. Which was normal as he would do that when he couldn’t sleep. I read the message and I have been in shock ever since. He told me that the reason he came to visit was because he had wanted to tell me that he had married an Indian Bride whilst visiting India three years ago because he didn't have any choice in the matter!!! Anticipating the pain it would cause me he couldn't tell me face to face in the end. Though he was just made aware that his parents had arranged travel plans for his Indian wife to arrive later that week.
He tried to reassure me in that same long message that the reason we put an offer on a house is because he wants to be with me and that he will fix the whole situation. He has only ever visited India twice during our nine year relationship. Now I am questioning everything! We basically have a marriage given we own assets together, share bills, hold joint bank accounts and he now has his Indian wife sleeping in the bed WE bought together! He said he has to sleep with her because she will tell his parents that he isn’t. She has been living with his parents in his family home in India since their marriage all while we carried on with our life here.
He said she has to leave however it has to be her decision to do so. I love this man with every piece of my soul but I feel like a complete fool. We are under contract to buy a house here together, yet he has his Indian wife living with him there. He told me that she knows about me but doesn't care as she just wanted to come into the country. Though with that said he had told me that he removed my pictures before she arrived. He also packed all my clothes away and locked them up out of her sight. So why do this? The first day I rang he answered my call while she was there. Though since then he will only answer my call or call me when he is away from the house. He will email me from the iPad because she just assumes that he’s playing a game. He tells me that she disgusts him and they are fighting almost daily to the point that it becomes physical. She has already been talking about divorce and getting a boyfriend because he only wants me. But how can I believe what he tells me anymore?
I cannot understand how he could do this to us after nine years! He expects me to be okay with this simply because he promised to fix the issue. Meanwhile I haven’t been able to eat or sleep and have been crying for three days. I took off work telling them I had a family emergency because people know us and they all think we’re married! I could not bring myself to tell them that I can’t come to work because my husband married another woman when we had just spent time together when he visited me that week! We have always gotten along so well. I know his parents didn’t want us to marry however my understanding was that he had told them, that if he couldn't marry me then he wouldn’t marry anyone. I am just at a loss. I want to trust him, I want to believe in his words, but in my mind I only see images of him laying in our bed with another woman he calls his wife.
I am completely destroyed. I feel hurt, betrayed and so angry! I don’t know how to deal with this or how to get past it. We have so many things together it’s not like we had lead separate lives. We combined our lives wholly and completely. I don't know if I should give him a chance to fix this issue. I don’t think I have the heart to leave him. I was dead inside when I met him. We had both come out of horrible marriages when we met. When I met him I felt like my heart recognized his. I honestly feel even in this moment that his soul was made for mine and that without him I have nothing, no reason for living anymore. A life without him is not worth leading to me. I don’t want to become the shell of a person that I was when I met him nine years ago.
He cannot stand the thought of going against his parents wishes and I don’t want to be the cause of his relationship with them breaking down. I couldn’t live with the thought that he would resent me for that later on. But a house!! He made us buy a house! That was how he thought he could prove to me that he wanted to be with only me. I just wish he would have told me everything before we did that.
Because we have actually built a life together and have acquired assets together with joint bank accounts and bills, my attorney advised me that he could get into a lot of trouble. I could have him charged with Bigamy if I wanted to push the issue. I explained this to him and he requested that I send a letter to the house so that she could read it and hopefully be scared into leaving him. In my distraught state of mind I agreed. He sent me an email telling me that she got the letter and was scared, telling him that I did a good job at that. He later emailed me and said that she would be leaving later this month to go to her family friends home in another state. I had asked him when she arrived in the country if she had any family or friends that he could send her away to. However he said that he had asked her and she had no one at all here in the country. Yet now all of a sudden a family friend magically appears! He has family in this state, so now I’m thinking he is going to send her to his family there. All so that he can decide what he wants to do later. Though I keep thinking that if we were to have an argument, then he would be able to throw in my face that he will bring his wife back.
I keep going over things in my head and it is just making me feel worse. When he called me last night before going home he said that he told her that he was going to respond to my letter telling me that he will divorce her and to please not report him to authorities. He asked me to draft another letter to send out to him in two days as a follow up letter. To state that he has 30 days to show me proof that he has filed for divorce. If he didn't follow through then I would be going to his superiors and reporting him to the authorities. Again I agreed as I am holding on to a single thread of hope here that he is being genuine.
I don’t know if I actually scared him and he is trying to start divorce proceedings with me now so that he can be with her without consequence later. I just don’t know as my mind is in a million places. I want to believe that he will take care of this but in the back of my mind I feel I am on the losing end of this battle. His parents won because he wasn’t strong enough to stand up to them and he will probably never will be strong enough. I have never been through this kind of thing before and I don’t know how to deal with it. I feel as though I am grieving, you know the way you would expect to feel if you lost your spouse in a horrible accident. I don’t know how to deal with this and it is really affecting me in a negative way. I don’t like who am I right now. I keep thinking that if he didn’t love me why would he go to such extremes to prove to me that he is working on fixing it? If he doesn’t love me and wanted to really break up with me then why didn’t he do it when he was here and had the chance? Why would he continue to keep in contact with me if he didn’t want to be with me? It would be so easy just to say I don’t want to be with you, I am happily married then simply move on with life. Why this huge elaborate spectacle? Every time he texts or calls my stomach gets knotted up and I feel sick. I sit with my email open and constantly make sure it has synced so that I don’t miss something from him.
It is extremely difficult being in this situation and I am at a loss. I am playing it by ear as I just don't know what to do about the whole situation.
Author: Anonymous