Message Boards
Replies to '11/26 Katherine Returns'
|
November 30, 2007, 4:16 pm PST
 Quote From: poshaccent Do you find the time to live also? Anyway good for you but some kids are more challenging than other even within the same family unit. I have 3 kids (20, 19 and 16) and I went through almost the exact problem Katerine's family has with my 19 year old. At the time she was almost 18 and was living with me in the UAE where I am on temporary assignment.
My daughter started a secret relationship with a 25 year-old Iraqui she met at the gym. downstairs For months, we were unaware of what was going on - and no I am not an absentee mother. For months he brought her back and again to the American Embassy to apply for a fiance's visa (which is not an easy thing to obtain, without success, and still without our knowledge. He insisted that their relationship remains secret. She may have found this exciting but she was also always a rebelious child so doing things in our back was typically her style.
Now, here in the UAE, a relationship with someone your are not married to is always illegal, punishable by 3 months of jail,90 lashes followed by deportation. Whatever your nationality. Whatever your age. We made sure our children knew the rules right from the start so she was informed.That being said, when we discovered what was going on, we forbid our daughter to see him again, we forbid him to approach her again and he became aggressive, verbally abusive to us and to my daughter who he still "loved "like a a mad man - boy , this visa. was slipping from his hands, he could almost touch it...
Well all this culminated to the evening I found a stash of cash and an "escape bag" that my daughter had prepared. We learned through her tears that we were destroying her life, that she had married him, that she had converted to islam and that she was pregnant. And that he was bringing her to Saudi Arabia. I almost had a hearth attack. She was on a plane to the US 1 hour later and we visited the police station right after the plane took off to file an official complaint against the guy as dishonoured parents. He was called in, and since he was illagally staying in the UAE, was forced to moved out of the country and is now in Syria. I revoked my daughter's visa and had her banned form the UAE for life so she could not come back. I tought, OK, problem solved.
Oh, we found out that the marriage was a muta marriage, so useless and illegal, that no paper was ever produced even to my daughter, and that her conversion was bogus... He just used her....and she fell for all of it, sadly.
The story only gets more interesting. Back to the US, she kept in touch with him, ramping up telephone bills of $1200. By this time we had cracked her and his email accounts so we were aware of what they were planning. He put her in touch with his uncle living in Canada so he could make her come to Toronto. The family was convinced that she was going to have his baby, that was all they could focus on. We called the uncle and threatened him with calling the guy's mother in Bagdad - which would have brought dishonor upon the whole family and give so much grief to his mother - if he kept trying to get my daughter out of the US. This worked and the uncle disappeared.
For a while the guy tryied to get my daughter to bring charges of physical abuse to the police in DC against me. Anything to get us out of the way of this visa that was now really becoming out of reach. It finally ended when she met, 5 weeks later another guy and fell head over head for him wrote back to the Iraqui that she had to take care of her man, not to contact her anymore. He called her all sorts of names and we never heard about him again. Oh and she was never pregnant.
She is now living with her "new man", has a 5 1/2 month baby, a GED. That is the life she has chosen. She is 19, I cannot tell her how to live her life. I would have prefer to have the perfect daughter but I don't. I did the last thing that was in my power to save her from being brought to Saudi Arabia by someone who only wanted to abuse her. To this day, she still blames me that I kicked her out of the house. Hell yes, I did. Better by me than by the authorities who would have sent her home after 90 lashes and time in jail. Better this than disappearing somewhere in Saudi Arabia (oh and they had plans to bring the baby to Bagdad...hello Bagdad...). At least she is safe. She will probably never realize what she got saved from but at this point I don't care. At least she is safe.
By the way, my two other kids are doing just fine. I diverted a lot of the attention I should have been giving them to my middle one. This was very unfair for them. Now things are back to normal and they have my undivided attention!
My dear God in heaven! I thought my daughter was a "wild thing" Damn girlfriend, you have my respect! You did just what you should have done to save your child. Don't ever regret anything you did and don't let anyone tell you different. You did good!!!
|
|
|
November 30, 2007, 5:11 pm PST
Quote From: poshaccent Do you find the time to live also? Anyway good for you but some kids are more challenging than other even within the same family unit. I have 3 kids (20, 19 and 16) and I went through almost the exact problem Katerine's family has with my 19 year old. At the time she was almost 18 and was living with me in the UAE where I am on temporary assignment.
My daughter started a secret relationship with a 25 year-old Iraqui she met at the gym. downstairs For months, we were unaware of what was going on - and no I am not an absentee mother. For months he brought her back and again to the American Embassy to apply for a fiance's visa (which is not an easy thing to obtain, without success, and still without our knowledge. He insisted that their relationship remains secret. She may have found this exciting but she was also always a rebelious child so doing things in our back was typically her style.
Now, here in the UAE, a relationship with someone your are not married to is always illegal, punishable by 3 months of jail,90 lashes followed by deportation. Whatever your nationality. Whatever your age. We made sure our children knew the rules right from the start so she was informed.That being said, when we discovered what was going on, we forbid our daughter to see him again, we forbid him to approach her again and he became aggressive, verbally abusive to us and to my daughter who he still "loved "like a a mad man - boy , this visa. was slipping from his hands, he could almost touch it...
Well all this culminated to the evening I found a stash of cash and an "escape bag" that my daughter had prepared. We learned through her tears that we were destroying her life, that she had married him, that she had converted to islam and that she was pregnant. And that he was bringing her to Saudi Arabia. I almost had a hearth attack. She was on a plane to the US 1 hour later and we visited the police station right after the plane took off to file an official complaint against the guy as dishonoured parents. He was called in, and since he was illagally staying in the UAE, was forced to moved out of the country and is now in Syria. I revoked my daughter's visa and had her banned form the UAE for life so she could not come back. I tought, OK, problem solved.
Oh, we found out that the marriage was a muta marriage, so useless and illegal, that no paper was ever produced even to my daughter, and that her conversion was bogus... He just used her....and she fell for all of it, sadly.
The story only gets more interesting. Back to the US, she kept in touch with him, ramping up telephone bills of $1200. By this time we had cracked her and his email accounts so we were aware of what they were planning. He put her in touch with his uncle living in Canada so he could make her come to Toronto. The family was convinced that she was going to have his baby, that was all they could focus on. We called the uncle and threatened him with calling the guy's mother in Bagdad - which would have brought dishonor upon the whole family and give so much grief to his mother - if he kept trying to get my daughter out of the US. This worked and the uncle disappeared.
For a while the guy tryied to get my daughter to bring charges of physical abuse to the police in DC against me. Anything to get us out of the way of this visa that was now really becoming out of reach. It finally ended when she met, 5 weeks later another guy and fell head over head for him wrote back to the Iraqui that she had to take care of her man, not to contact her anymore. He called her all sorts of names and we never heard about him again. Oh and she was never pregnant.
She is now living with her "new man", has a 5 1/2 month baby, a GED. That is the life she has chosen. She is 19, I cannot tell her how to live her life. I would have prefer to have the perfect daughter but I don't. I did the last thing that was in my power to save her from being brought to Saudi Arabia by someone who only wanted to abuse her. To this day, she still blames me that I kicked her out of the house. Hell yes, I did. Better by me than by the authorities who would have sent her home after 90 lashes and time in jail. Better this than disappearing somewhere in Saudi Arabia (oh and they had plans to bring the baby to Bagdad...hello Bagdad...). At least she is safe. She will probably never realize what she got saved from but at this point I don't care. At least she is safe.
By the way, my two other kids are doing just fine. I diverted a lot of the attention I should have been giving them to my middle one. This was very unfair for them. Now things are back to normal and they have my undivided attention!
I have great respect for you, as a mother myself of a daughter over 18yrs. old! If more parents would go the extra mile, and take interest in their own childrens lives! This just shows your great love for her, that you would do anything to ensure her safety and well-being! He just used a sort of "orfi type" paper, which thank god for that!! Your exactly correct in these countries severe punishment if caught, and co habitating, if not legally married! You protected her from jail, and indeed physical punishment that would have followed! Overseas as you know, you can be stopped anytime, and asked to show your passport& documents, if accompanied with a arab male, asked to show even proof of marriage! It is a whole different world, with a different set of rules,and you are on their soil! One day, I guarantee she will thankyou, you saved your daughter a lot of heartache and pain! If you happened to see the young woman whose mother trusted her ex-husband from Saudi, to take her daughter to another state for a vacation at the age of 5! Instead that was the last time she would see her daughter for over 20 yrs.!! He kidnapped her & kept her in his home with his new wife, this girl being half-arab, half american, was treated like "Cinderalla"! The step-mother physically beat her, she had to take care of their two children, was literally the maid over the years! Even the father would beat her& she would hide under her bed! He divorced that arab women took on another, life continued to be abusive for this poor girl. He married her off young, she thought that would bring her some relief from all this violence she had endured for years, but instead, the arab husband also, physically and emotionally abused her! He got her pregnant twice, she had 1 boy, and 1 girl. The suffering and isolation, and physical abuse continued from the husband! The only blessing was he got a computer! The mother had tried for years, but could never get her out of the country, and blamed herself, for trusting him! Her daughter eventually was able to track down help , and her mother over the internet, secretly while the husband was not home!! They were finally reunited after almost 20 yrs., her daughter is now back living in the states, but unfortunately, her children are still under her husbands care. These children of arab men, even if the mother is american, and the child has never stepped one foot overseas ,they have dual citizenship! The fathers claim them, in a lot of the wealthier countries, and get higher salaries for each child they have& land is given to them from their country to build a home, or they are given a house by the government, especially, the ones that return with degrees from the states!! Even if you have the original copy of your childs birth cert., and they were born in the states, many arab men, kidnap and leave the country with the child, because they put the child on their passport, they qualify as dual citizen..............Beware of this!! I pray one day this young woman will be reunited with her children, but chances are slim! So once again "my hat goes off to you", for caring so much for your daughter, she could have become another statistic! Hopefully this new man treats her well here, at least she is on american soil& you can monitor it, to some extent! God Bless Your Whole Family!! |
|
Return to the Message Board
