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Chapter 1: Should I marry my boyfriend for a green card?
How's it going?
Good. How are you?
Good.
What's your name? I am Stacy. I'm 20 years old, and I am wondering if I should marry my boyfriend so that he can get a green card.
Okay. You're really going to have to convince me. A lot going on there. Yeah. Well, you're only 20. That was like the first thought. Tell me about the situation.
So I met my boyfriend almost a year ago. I met him last June. He was working in Colorado for the summer. He's from Turkey and was here on a work visa. We began dating in July and kind of hit it off right off the bat.
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Chapter 2: What are the implications of marrying young?
September rolls along. I go back for school and And he ends up overstaying his work visa expiration date. And the talk came up of eventually getting married so that he could stay.
Who brought it up?
Him, but obviously, like, you know, there was a mutual kind of, okay, what do we do now?
You like him, so there's that, right?
i do okay i do this is a first boyfriend for me um first like official boyfriend i've had i've gone through all the situationships but i feel like that might be a small part i should mention as well i mean it's definitely a first boyfriend for me but on the list of first like reasons why not to you know maybe it's the top five but you know
What's your family saying?
I brought it up to my mom. And my mom obviously is like, no, do not do this. She wants to support me in the best way she can. And she knows that I really do love and cherish my relationship with him. But at the same time, I'm her first daughter. So she does not want me getting married at 20 years old.
yeah yeah um she wants to support me in the best way certainly you would miss him um if he had to go back but why why why would you want to do this
So the thing is, since he kind of has passed that deadline, if he were to go back home, he cannot come back is one of the main big things. He has had friends that have come here and they just cannot come back. There's like a two year wait kind of thing. And then even after that, it would be really hard for him to come back.
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Chapter 3: How do family opinions affect relationship decisions?
You'll be able to reinvent yourself. You just have so much life in front of you that you don't even know what that's going to look like. I remember... I remember being 18. It was my freshman year of college. And, you know, like a lot of college freshmen, I was a little homesick. And I met my then first girlfriend like right before college, right?
So I met her in the summer before college, and I was in love. My first freshman year of college, all I did was miss college. my girlfriend. That's, that's, that was the, that was the majority of my freshman year was missing my girlfriend because she didn't go to the same college as me. And I was so kind of just like love struck that I remember, like I wanted to quit college.
I want, like her dad was in construction. I was like, I'll just be a handyman. You know, like, I just like, I, I was convinced that That's all I wanted to do. And then we broke up. And then her grandfather was a teacher. I mean, this is nuts. But her grandfather was a teacher. And she would just break up with me for reasons. And I was always trying to figure out how to get her back.
I had convinced myself that I wanted to go back and be a teacher. I convinced my parents. And I was pretty dead set on it. And then finally I realized I was too money motivated to be a teacher. Listening to you at this stage of your life at 20 years old, thinking about making this
very serious decision now you're right people can get divorced you know um and i certainly know people who have made similar decisions to the one you're considering making um and you know sometimes it's just like is it a sim you know it seemed like it was as simple as maybe you are hoping it would be if it doesn't work out like we'll just sign a paper and
get divorced or whatever but you're just putting an immense amount of trust in someone that like you're still getting to know right now to like count you know you're the biggest reason why if i'm sitting here and i had like 30 seconds to try to convince you not to do it would be like it's your decision tree i guess is a little hypocritical and what i mean by that is like you're talking about marriage
You're talking like and part of you're like, I can't think of a reason not to do it. And you're also like thinking, I feel like damned if I do, damned if I don't, I'm going to regret it either way. But I think that's a little inaccurate because I think you have to. What will the regret look like, you know, so to speak? And what's the best and worst case scenario of either? I would argue to you.
that if this is, and this is where you'll probably be resistant to receiving and a little stubborn, you know, I would be if I were in your shoes. It's one of those things like, you know, if you set it free, if you whatever, I don't know what the saying is. But the point is, is if this relationship is as strong as you think it might be and you hope that it is, then you guys will make it work.
And if he is really all about you, he'll figure it out. People have done more than what is potentially in front of them to make a relationship that was truly meaningful to them work. And if he really loves you, and if you really are worth spending the rest of your life with, he'll make it work. He'll go to Turkey. He'll figure it out. I understand two years is not ideal.
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Chapter 4: What are the risks of marrying under pressure?
And then what if you guys had kids together or whatever? It's just like... If this doesn't work out, this could make the next 10, 15 years of your life really difficult, really emotionally challenging. Yeah.
As opposed to like, you know, he moves back to Turkey, you guys keep in touch, you have this like long distance boyfriend, you miss him a lot, you're sad, you don't get to see him physically, you know, obviously FaceTime, but then like things...
get weird or he gets distant or you meet someone or he meets someone and then you know you'll you'll have to go through like a a breakup and that will suck and it'll be difficult to get over but that will be like you know that'll take you six to twelve months tops you know and then you'll and then you'll move on you just will it'll you just factually will and then two years later
almost certainly you'll look back and you'll be like, do you remember when I almost got married to that guy from Turkey? And you will be like, holy shit, that's crazy. Like you just, you just will, you know, like you, even if he's the greatest guy ever, if it doesn't work out, it's just, you just will. Like there's, and your feelings could change in a dime and his feelings could change in a dime.
It's just like, you're, you have so much life in front of you that it's hard not to like be, you know, um, To explore new ideas and things and have it really change your perspective. And this would really limit you. I've been doing a lot of talking. What are your thoughts? What about anything I said connects with you?
I definitely agree with limiting my...
like the rest of my life i've definitely had that feeling too the issue with not getting married is i don't think he would go back i think he would stay here and that would make things hard for me is knowing that he's still here and that he's like i think it would be actually easier for me if he if i knew for sure he was just gonna go back and i would never see him again if you don't marry him
Then what happens next? He stays in the United States. But what about the two of you?
I think he would try to pursue other ways to stay.
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Chapter 5: What advice does Nick give about moving on from a relationship?
You can keep a door or window open for him emotionally, but you have to let it go. And you can be open to the possibility that something might happen, but this is not like I'm taking a break for a year with him. Go live your life. Maybe it'll happen.
I guess I know what to do now. I've been struggling.
It's tough. Yeah. Listen, you miss him. You like him. You care about him. You're also, you probably see, you know, again, seeing him doing the work is encouraging. It also makes whatever pain he caused by catching it feel less painful to know that he is sorry and he's really doing something about it.
And that makes, you know, the whatever part when we catch someone doing something that hurts us, there's a level of like, it makes us feel inadequate. It makes us feel less than it, you know, it makes us feel not enough.
Chapter 6: How can one manage feelings of rejection in relationships?
And seeing him be sorry and doing the work kind of eliminates that. So it's kind of healing for you to see him acknowledge that. So it all makes sense. It's definitely difficult. You know, like I'm a sex addict and I am a porn addict. You know, I don't know if he really knows anything. Has he been going around having just copious amounts of sex with people?
Unprotected? No. He spoke to a therapist and they basically said, you're not... Because they were trying to get down to the root of what caused him to go and seek out men. And he never met up with the guy that he was... He was texting one guy while we were...
together and it lasted for three days he texted him for three days and then he blocked him and he never actually met up with him he was texting him he basically like snapped out of his little moment and was like what am i doing and blocked him and his there he talked to like a few different therapists and they basically said like you kind of have you like you have a
sex addiction and we're going to like explore where that came from. And then he unpacked and remembered things from like second grade that he had always just put away and blocked from his memory. But yeah, long story short, they told him he has a sex addiction type of diagnosis.
Chapter 7: What should be the focus on your wedding day?
Gotcha. I think he has more work to do.
Yeah, he definitely does. Yeah, he definitely does.
He has some stuff to figure out. I think his journey is just beginning to kind of figure out who he is. I mean, obviously, neither of us would have been in his therapy sessions. It would make sense that he is trying to find quick answers to explain why he feels how he feels about himself on the inside. And sometimes those quick answers might not be as honest as what the truth is.
And it might just take some time for him to really, you know, be comfortable with that.
Yeah.
And then there's probably a lot of trauma and pain behind it, but it just, it's just going to take some time for him to figure that out.
And he does say like, so I've talked to him twice and he will, he'll, he'll be like, I'm not going to pretend I'm fixed. He's like, I have a long way to go. And I might be, you know, talking to a therapist forever just to make sure the upkeep stays present.
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Chapter 8: How can one handle family dynamics during wedding planning?
But I got therapy after this, you know, so.
it's good for all of us through the maintenance so listen it's it's a difficult situation to help you move forward tell yourself that you are grateful for how you've been able to get this far with him which is to it sucks that he hurt you but like you can now at least say goodbye or you have you got some closure out of this you know you don't have to feel it's just like how so many people feel when this stuff this type of stuff happens to them is just like
completely inadequate and heartbroken and feeling like they're not enough you you got some answers and you're kind of you can be at peace with that and you can like you can put a pause on this and kind of say goodbye at least for now with a really high opinion of him and a lot of love and you know which is much better than hating him and it's much better than like feeling angry and having to process that anger and pain
So you're already kind of a few steps ahead in your kind of healing process of moving forward. And again, you never know. You never know. But right now, it's probably best for you guys to kind of go your separate ways.
Yeah.
And to help yourself out is don't be talking about this. Don't ruminate about this with friends. Updates on how you feel about him and those like what if conversations, it's natural to want to have them, but try to limit yourself from having them over and over and over and over and over and over and over, both with yourself and with friends, because that just keeps you stuck.
I've definitely been talking about my feelings a lot with my friends, but I can relax in that category.
It's natural, but at some point you just have to just say, you know, I've worked through them. I've talked about them with friends, with therapists, with myself. I know how I feel. Most likely, it's sad. Talking about it with people, I mean, you literally kind of have to tell yourself this.
You have to acknowledge that you are doing this thing that you could if you wanted to stop doing, which is to obsessively ruminate over something that you just like you miss. And when we, and that's the, that's the easiest way to keep things close to us.
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