The first time my wife left was when she was seven months pregnant. She went back to Peru. I told her that I wouldn't follow her. As it got closer to the day of birth, I decided to fly over there to be present (for a few days), then I came back to Australia to work. When my daughter turned three months, we organised a family get together in San Francisco for three weeks. We lived there at airbnb. Then my wife went back to Peru and there she stayed until my daughter turned fourteen months. I told her to come to Australia, I would support her on my good salary, but she refused because she wanted to be with her family.
Then my wife came back to Australia because her employer said that she would lose her position. She came with her cousin. It only lasted seven months before my wife just up and left because of issues we were having and returned to Peru. We did go to counselling during this period, because she said I was the problem. She said she was perfect and didn't need counselling. It was all about changing me. I grew resentful. Some angry words were said. She left. I came home from work, and they were gone. Not even a note on the table. In the ensuing three months I told her that I would change, and change, and change. And she decided that we would get back together BUT she would not be returning to Australia because she received a job offer and a work visa to work in Seattle, and moreover, she was taking her parents with her.
So then she had me chasing my tail flying back and forth to the States. The last time I was there for six months and again she was talking about how I had to change. I had enough. I believe the marriage counsellor we had in Sydney was useless and only saw her side of things, and never held her to account for anything.
Answers to your questions: I'm doing what I can to maintain contact with my daughter, Skype calls etc., but it's all facilitated by my wife who is out working. Sometimes, if my wife is working from home, she urges me to jump on a Skype call because my daughter is creating a ruckus about seeing Daddy. Makes me wonder what happens when her grandparents are taking care of her, and they speak zero english.
I'm a strong guy so I know how to take care of myself and get on with doing things which at this stage in getting my career back on track, setting up a home, getting on with my life. Sometimes my mind wanders into the long term as I see christmas after christmas passing by and my wife has no intention on coming to Australia, but instead going to Peru year after year to visit all their relatives there. And what of me? No family? As the years go on, can I date others? And which woman wants a man with a child already? And how will this hurt my daughter who ideally wants her parents to be together.
I guess the saving grace is the knowledge that if my daughter is educated in America, she will learn the Anglo-American culture with its individualism, and her english will grow in leaps and bounds as opposed to my wife's family - even my wife's english is very broken.
