My friend doesn't love his wife

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Do you have some advice for this person?

Visitor's Question:
My male-friend has been married for almost 3 years and is not in love with his wife. It was a marriage of opportunity, she an immigrant looking for citizenship and has 2 babies (2yrs and 1yr), her secure way of seeking this obviously.

He 1. does not know how to get out of this relationship or if he can and 2. feels that he "owes" her the citizenship just not to loose his children. He feels sorry for her.

Is there any advice you can provide and I may enlighten him to?

Our Suggestion:
He must have married her for some reason - people don't marry people just to be nice. As much as he says now that he doesn't love her - maybe he's frustrated with the strains of new babies in the house - I would be hesitant to just discount any emotions that he has there. Obviously he cares about her if he doesn't want to leave her.

Obviously he can divorce her if he really hated her. The babies were born in the states and are therefore US citizens. Hopefully he loves the babies and would care for them. I'm not a lawyer and have no idea what the rules are about immigrants who marry and then divorce but I do have a male friend who came from Australia to marry a US woman. She cheated on him and he divorced her after a few years and stayed in the states. I don't know if it was a time length thing or something else that allowed him to stay.

In any case, I would be cautious before you go breaking up the marriage because perhaps you're interested in this guy. He has a wife that he *chose* to marry, he has two young children that he *chose* to father. If his solution is just to run away from the stress, now that HE brought 2 kids into the world, because it's easy, then that isn't going to say much for his honor or resolve in any future situations. Life is ALWAYS stressful. And life always involves working hard to make a relationship work.

If he didn't love her and want a family, why did he have 2 kids with her? Women can't spontaneously have kids on their own. I think it really sounds like he wanted a family, and now the stress of actually having one is getting to him and he wants an easy escape to his bachelor life.

He should really go to therapy with this woman and make his best effort. He has two young children who have a "mommy" and "daddy" and for them to just give up is very unfair. Obviously they wanted kids pretty recently and were having intercourse if one of the kids is only 1! So it's not like they have been disliking each other the entire 3 years. If they go through therapy, and really work hard at it, and decide in the end that they just aren't meant to be, then that's one thing. But if he says, after just creating a kid a year ago, "Sorry I changed my mind, see ya" without even trying, that's a sure way to damage the kids lives and also to damage his ability to really stick with any future relationships.

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