Hey neighbour, I'm JellyB. I'm a Kiwi girl that found myself on the forum in March 2015. I don't post often Athas as there are better people here to offer you support and advice than me. But your posts hit a chord with me. Not sure why. Likely because your basically a cousin (my mother's Australian), I have a sister who lives in Sydney and I'm in the process of moving to live in the US.
JujuB, whose offerings and postings on the board I respect greatly, hit the nail on the head. There is a mass cross cultural divide between you and your wife. I know a little of Latin American family culture, with the many new Latin American immigrants coming to NZ to start lives. I have also taken an interest if Latin American and Hispanic culture to my impending move. My experience thus far is that family is not defined within the typical western model or notion of family. Like Maori and your Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islanders, People of the Pacific and large Greek, Italian and some Asian cultures there is no definition of family being just a husband and wife and children. Our current westernize model has been built only over recent times and not even historically true for us who have more European and/or Anglo heritage.
Collective or communal cultures (like the ones described above) engage in a shared experience, what is mine is yours and what yours is mine. We survive and live and flourish based on the success of the whole and not the individual. How you report your own values and beliefs about family are quite at odds with the person's heritage you chose to marry. No wonder you have such struggles.
I anticipate that when you met your wife her Latina ways of being were romantic, endearing, sexy, attractive and quirky. And you either thought i can live with the things that didn't sit right, or you thought you and/or time would change her. However what has happened from what your say in your posts; her culture, her way of being and living has left you feeling emasculated, feeling disrespected and controlled; and forgive me but the tone of your writing indicates to me, strong toxic feelings of anger and resentment.
Please know that I don't write any of the above to be hurtful and disrespectful. Just you will find on this board, that the most experienced amongst the posters here on the forum ( and you will be lucky to hear from them if they read your posts) will give little regard to what your wife is and isn't doing. They will ask you about you, and your role, about what you are prepared to do differently to have the hope of repairing your marriage and reuniting your family.
JujuB has posed some important questions. To do this work Athas, to really do what it takes to potentially save a marriage, your need to leave ego at the door, suck up some hard to swallow stuff and be willing not to be right. Can you do that?
But the most important question and idea that JujuB raised however is more significant and in immediate need of being addressed. That is the geographical distance and therefore the emotional distance between yourself and your daughter. Your comments that your daughter is only 3 years old. Well while much of her initial brain and emotional development is well and truly established, her brain is a sponge right now and recording everything to use later on. Feelings of abandonment are well experienced by children of this age. Your daughter does not have the cognitive reasoning and emotional mastery to make sense of her situation, she does however have an emotional memory of discomfort at losing or changing attachments. Your coming and goings are likely to be unsettling to her. ( yes I realise that your wife has been moving her across the planet too- but I don't get to talk to your wife, I only have access to you.)
If you want to know the impact of an absent and angry parent and what that does to children, there is dad here on the board (JK5 I think- he's had a name change I think so I am not certain) who has 5 boys whose mother has made the kids lives extremely challenging by her geographical distance, irregular contact and high conflict divorce proceedings. Be careful you don't turn into her, to prove a point about how you don't want to live your wife's extended family. (Please know I am aware there is more complexity here than that - but sometimes we do have to remind our egos that we are better than that).
Athas there is a lot of pain here on the board due to parents (WAS) who have absented themselves from their children's lives in order to rid themselves of partner, spouse or marriage they no longer want. There are parents here who are begging for the walkaway spouses to engage with their kids and make the effort to stay, or to at least remain involved in a serious way. From how you talk there is a choice here for you to be close to your daughter. Will you give your daughter what many here can't???
Careers and money and materials things can be built. Building a child's self esteem confidence and sense of self is priceless. Would you really give that up for the inconvenience of having to live in a different country and tolerate extended family members, who share a common love of your daughter.
Look I'm a straight talker, I often offend people with it. But I write wanting the very best for you and your family. Keep posting, people will come. Write on other people's threads that will give you even more insight and understanding.
