OK… So this is a long distance relationship problem,
I am currently married to an awsome guy who is in Pakistan and I am encountering similar problems to what I encountered with my ex-boyfriend (before I got married). In both these relationships, there has been the long distance element. I call my husband every single and most of the time I find it difficult to actually speak to him. He carries his cell phone around with him and majority of the time, when I call him, he is either praying, with his friends, at home with his parents - hence too shy to speak openly with me, or is doing something ‘important’ and too busy to talk. He keeps saying “call after an hour” and when i do, he is still busy doing what he was before and cannot talk. When I question this important thing, he says that its to do with his friends. I have realized that his friends indirectly cause a lot of tension in my relationship with my husband, in that they are always ‘there’ when I call him. He is either playing Ludo, Cricket or listening to Pashto music with his god damn friends and he finds it ‘awkward’ speaking with me, whilst he is with them and cuts it short. On the other hand, he sometimes speaks freely and openly in front of some of his friends. Others times, he says that its not ‘good’ talking on the phone whilst his friends are in his company, especially with his wife. I totally understand this - however, what I dont get is that when I talk with my husband on the phone, he seems to be talking to me and his friends at the same time - meaning he doesn’t give me his full attention and sometimes his friends tell him to ‘come on, hurry up’, whilst he is on the phone with me. I know for a fact that if my friends were with me and I was speaking with my husband, who is in another country - they would give me space to speak with him. His friends seems like rude a**holes who should know and realize that he is speaking with his wife in another country, with telephone communication being the only form of contact and they should at least give him space to talk. His friends can enjoy my husbands physical company day and night, but i only get ten mins on the phone and i dont even get that, because of them!! My husband said that i dont understand the ‘system’ in Pakistan and I said that i dont belive that there is any ‘system’ in place where a husband and wife are prevented from talking on the phone. When he said this, he meant the etiquette of dealing with friends and talking to wife at same time - he says its rude for him to cut off his friends to talk to me.
Any advise or insight into this problem would be much appreciated!!
There seems to be a deeper issue then the friends ther.I would suggest you not calling him everyday.Wait for him to call you too as you should not come across as the one desperate for his attention.You can be all "busy" too.After he gets the taste of his medicine, have a serious discussion with him.Make sure you both lay the ground rules etc for your relationship.
i WAS THINKING THE EXACT same thing... giving him a taste of medicine. But the problem here is that i cannot resist calling him and if i dont call him, he will take it real badly meaning he will ask me in a serious manner "what is your matlab?"
There seems to be a deeper issue then the friends ther.I would suggest you not calling him everyday.Wait for him to call you too as you should not come across as the one desperate for his attention.You can be all "busy" too.After he gets the taste of his medicine, have a serious discussion with him.Make sure you both lay the ground rules etc for your relationship.
What do you mean he will ask you what do you mean...is that after you give him a taste of his medicine or before.
I really think you guys need to communicate better as that is really the key to a good relationship.
You should know when he goes to sleep. Once you are sure that all his friends , relatives , work have been taken care of , and he is ready to almost hit the sack , and you need 10 minutes of his undivided attention , call him. It is almost 11 to 12 hours difference between Pakistan time and where you are , so it should make very easy you to call him and for him to give you undivided attention, at the end of his work day.
wow, thats a difficult situation to be in. i just feel that you two need to have a serious talk about this while making sure both of you can talk freely without having people around you. let him know how you feel and why he needs to give you time along with his friends. maybe he's not good with time management? tell him that he needs to make time for everything, especially you even if you guys are so far away. distance shouldn't make your relationship distant either.
i know a friend of mine dealing with the same issue with her husband being in Pakistan and her being her the best thing is to give him the taste of his own medicine. and believe me it works it worked with my friend . because guys like attention and when u give them too much of it they start to take u for granted so be patient and give it a try . if he ask tell him u were busy with study or work
Bunnyhoney, in this situation you will have to make a decision for yourself:
Is it more important to set the tone of your relationship in the beginning for the rest of your life or to speak to him all the time?
I would hope you say the the former. See, IMO I think you’re a bit too available for him. Meaning, you’re always there. So, what need does he have to pick up the phone and call you? You’re probably going to call back in an hour and he will speak to you then if he has the time. In fact, he KNOWS you will call him back in an hour and thats the problem. You know how you see every call as an opportunity to connect with your husband? He should see it the same way…but he doesnt.
I think you should start calling him a little less and then gradually decrease it to where he is calling you. When he notices the calls getting less frequent, he will definitely question this and ask “iska kya matlab hai”? You just say “Im sorry, aaj bohot busy din guzra aur kafi thak gayi thi…ghar aake sogayi. Acha, aap batayen kaise hein?” Thats it. :CareBear: Act normal, dont be upset or angry with him no matter how long it takes him to call you back. This shows it doesnt bother you too much and you can handle it. Btw, dont do this all at once. Remember, its a gradual change to help him adjust his behavior with you.
Also, dont confess and give away your secret otherwise he will catch on and then this remedy is useless for any other time you try it to teach him a lesson.
I know its hard bunnyhoney…really I understand. But if you dont do this, he wont have any qadar for you and you will always be the one chasing him. If you want him to be excited to talk to you, give him something to look forward to: an opportunity to talk to his wife because he doesnt get to speak with her all the time.
I have a rule for myself: After I call him, the next call is his…doesnt matter how long it takes him. He’s got to work for this!
it doesn not sound like he is happy with this relationship. he should also be excited to talk to you. maybe there is some problem, he is irritated with you for some reason?
get busy and stop calling him and then come back and tell us. watch he will be running after you. and even when he does call just stay quiet and cut the conversation short. then watch ;)
OK.... So this is a long distance relationship problem,
I am currently married to an awsome guy who is in Pakistan and I am encountering similar problems to what I encountered with my ex-boyfriend (before I got married). In both these relationships, there has been the long distance element. I call my husband every single and most of the time I find it difficult to actually speak to him. He carries his cell phone around with him and majority of the time, when I call him, he is either praying, with his friends, at home with his parents - hence too shy to speak openly with me, or is doing something 'important' and too busy to talk. He keeps saying "call after an hour" and when i do, he is still busy doing what he was before and cannot talk. When I question this important thing, he says that its to do with his friends. I have realized that his friends indirectly cause a lot of tension in my relationship with my husband, in that they are always 'there' when I call him. He is either playing Ludo, Cricket or listening to Pashto music with his god damn friends and he finds it 'awkward' speaking with me, whilst he is with them and cuts it short. On the other hand, he sometimes speaks freely and openly in front of some of his friends. Others times, he says that its not 'good' talking on the phone whilst his friends are in his company, especially with his wife. I totally understand this - however, what I dont get is that when I talk with my husband on the phone, he seems to be talking to me and his friends at the same time - meaning he doesn't give me his full attention and sometimes his friends tell him to 'come on, hurry up', whilst he is on the phone with me. I know for a fact that if my friends were with me and I was speaking with my husband, who is in another country - they would give me space to speak with him. His friends seems like rude a**holes who should know and realize that he is speaking with his wife in another country, with telephone communication being the only form of contact and they should at least give him space to talk. His friends can enjoy my husbands physical company day and night, but i only get ten mins on the phone and i dont even get that, because of them!! My husband said that i dont understand the 'system' in Pakistan and I said that i dont belive that there is any 'system' in place where a husband and wife are prevented from talking on the phone. When he said this, he meant the etiquette of dealing with friends and talking to wife at same time - he says its rude for him to cut off his friends to talk to me.
Any advise or insight into this problem would be much appreciated!!
"GO OFTEN TO THE HOUSE OF THE FRIEND; FOR WEEDS SOON CHOKE UP THE UNUSED PATH"
there should be no need for games - he is your husband. you should both be able to make time for each other, willingly. more-so because of the distance as it's important that both of you feel a part of each other's lives.
if he's not interested in what is essentially spending time with you there is either something wrong, or it's just his nature and you will have to accept that. if the latter chances are things won't be much different when you're living together.
Mirchy has the right idea. if he wants to it should be no problem talking to you before he heads to bed.
i've been in a long distance for over four years. we're both very busy but we talk practically everyday and a proper conversation. it's a part of our daily life. we both still manage to see our friends and deal with family commitments. he juggles lectures, ward duty, cricket, the gym, time with friends and time for us. doesn't matter how busy you both are, you can fit a hell of a lot into your day, you just have to want it. and prioritise by what's most important to you.
Thanks guys for ya’ll opinions. I think you are all right in different aspects. PSquared, I think you are right. I am too available for him and when I say that he will question me if i dont call him, i mean in the sense that he would be kinda ‘suspicious’ of me. I am all available for him then suddenly not. I guess, though the fact that we had this argument would obviously lead to the fact that he will realize that I am pissed with him, if i stop calling him. The reason why i call him is simply because it is expensive for him to call me from Pakistan and at the end of the day he is my husband and there is no question as to who calls whom - because we are one, it doesnt matter, as long as e get to speak with each other. I will still call his parents and if my husband answers the phone, ill just ask to speak with his mom - i want him to know that I am pissed with him and he can experience what I have experienced - the cold shoulder. When it comes to the question of our actual relationship, as far as I am concerned there are no issues apart from the fact that i know he is pissed simply because I am not with him. His parents always hint to me that they want me around them i.e his mom says stuff like I cannot manage the house on my own and my husband saying that he is feeling lazy these days and doesnt feel like doing things much because he misses me. I think this whole frustration of us not being together, is being taken out on each other and his father said that things will be OK when I get there to Pakistan, im planning to go in January. The idea of setting a time to speak with each other never worked. When i called him at a particular set time, he again was always too busy/with friends etc (another reason for the argument) or things came up and he couldnt talk. His mom said to me this morning that she has had words with him today about this issue, meaning that he shouldnt put friends over his wife - what really pisses me at the moment is that he really doesnt have an excuse, because he is not working or studying at the moment. He has no committments on his time right now and what is usually the best time to speak to him is not - we cannot speak openly to each other when he is at home because his parents are there and when he is not at home, he is with other people. Just one of those things…
Bunny, sounds like your hubby is totally immersed in his restrictive culture without knowing that there are other cultures which do not frown upon a husband communicating with his wife. I do believe that if he were taken out of the environment he is in and lived in another place where he will have to be a responsible working husband, he will change.
I sincerely advise you to talk to your husband and tell him that u r having difficulty in calling him and and not being able to talk, firstly bcos u have to interrupt your work or whatever u r doing 10 times a day to dial, and secondly bcos it is very expensive for u to connect the call. Then ask him to give u a missed call at a time when it is convenient for him to talk, i.e. when he is alone in his room or whatever. Say that u will try to call him back at that time if u r not in the middle of something.
It sounds like his friends are quite immature or they find it manly to make a joke out of husband talking to wife. Just ignore them and don't rock the boat by making any negative comments about them to your husband. U both need to live together in a stable environment in order for your relationship to mature and for you to understand eachother. In time this will happen and things will settle down for u, inshallah.
^hmm.. not quite sure about this. my fiance lives in pakistan too and comes from a very conservative family. ok yes, he doesn't like to talk to me in front of his parents or friends, but he doesn't brush me off either.
if her husband is telling her to call back after an hour (or whatever), he should mean it, not use it as a tool to get rid of her.
but i very much agree with the miss call thing. if he can't call you because of the cost, he can always do this to let you know he wants to chat and you can call him back. we do this. or he could just text. but i just think, if he wanted to do this, he would be doing it now.
well, january isn't long off, inshallah things will improve when you're together :)
i can totally relate to u.....my hubby is busy with work instead of friends....... word of advice to readers: NEVER EVER marry a doctor
i use to call hubby dear everyday and find out he is either busy with his patients, or in the middle of operations or is too tired from staying up all night due to some serious case. It would annoy me cuz when i am talking he would fall asleep (lolsss in the begining it was really funny but than it started to annoy me) I realized that its because he is taking my calls for granted. He thinks he can talk to me any other time as i'll be avaliable but other things are more important.
Wheneve we talked he made me feel that i am being immature of asking him to give me sometime when he is really busy with work. Than i slowly cut down my long conversations and he did realize that i am pizzed off at him cuz i jst cant pretend to be all happy when i am not. but i kept on denying and saying 'no everything is fine' and i stoped calling him and now he calls me wheneve he wants and i call back if he runs out on credit......
we had a long conversation and sorted things out. i told him that for me its important to talk to you even for 5 - 10 minutes but i have to talk to you. So we both came to a conclusion that he will call me in the morning on his way to the hospital as he wont be tired or busy with his work and can give me undivided attention. Eventhough i do sometimes feel that he is forced to talk to me but i dont care he has to live with the fact that life is not same after marrige and he has to set some priorities
i second PSquare.......i am doing the same and its working so far....you dont want to ruin your relationship yet keep some distance....guys are like this...impossible things attract them and they love challenges
