Well, this is the last post I expect to make in this blog. The last 2 months have been very interesting and I must say I have learned a lot as I shared a lot of my relationship.
To my sisters and brothers going through the visa process as either the petitioner or the beneficiary I wish you the very best. I pray that your love is real and strong enough to survive this journey that God has laid before you. I pray that you use the separation time to continue to prepare yourself for the one you have chosen and accepted to be your life partner. If I have learned nothing else through this short blog journey, I have learned that taking the time to really understand my SO is absolutely critical to my achieving the great relationship I so deserve. It is also important for me to be forthcoming to help him understand who I am and what is important to me. I see what happens when we hang on to small insignificant things that are not even real - i.e. worrying about women he has yet to meet. I have enough real issues to deal with in my life than to add on things that haven't occurred. I have learned to appreciate the love in front of me today - love in the moment, fear not the future, for the future will only be another moment for me to love more. As for the whole culture thing and differences - learn, understand, respect but then decide if what has been presented is really for me - I always have a choice and I don't have to agree with all lifestyles - but, I must know what is critical and non-negotiable to me.
Be wise in your assessment of your SO especially as it relates to an international relationship. No one wants to believe it will happen to them, but, people are scammed and lied to daily just to get to the US or to get money from a kind loving person. To use someone's heart in this manner is to me the equivalent of a mortal sin. If you feel you are in one of these relationships, don't hate on yourself, use the knowledge to strengthen and learn about yourself - by all means get the hell out of the relationship! Ain't no shame is knowing and saying it didn't work - but shame on you for not loving you if you knew in your heart something wasn't right and you stayed anyway. If you don't feel you deserve better, than expect to get the worse. It will hurt very bad to walk away - but it will hurt even worse if you stay. For those liars and scammers - do know that when you hurt one of God's children who have given you their heart there will be a major price to pay one day. Like we always say - God don't like ugly!
Finally, what would my advice be for someone considering this type of relationship - get ready for the ride of a lifetime; what ever part of you is not strong will either strengthen or destroy the relationship; forget what you thought you knew about love because you are about to have one of the toughest studies in love that you may ever face and if you are successful you will be well prepared to step into the rest of the journey with confidence - but the risk of failure is extremely high because as someone else said on this blog - this journey is not for the faint of heart!
I am moving on to a new blog just for women in the near future. If you are interested in being notified when that blog starts, send me an email to visajourneyghana@mail.com and I will be sure to invite you to the new blog when it is ready.
I thank you all for sharing a part of yourself with me and others. May you continue to be aware of all the blessings God bestows upon you every day!
Monday, April 18, 2011
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Healing through the Loneliness
Recently, one of my new sister girlfriends going through the visa process posted a comment on face book about struggling through missing her husband. She is generally very strong, but, was hit with a moment of the blues which she was struggling to break free from. Having connected with a number of people on face book who are going through this process at least once a month someone posts a similar comment about the struggle of the loneliness - myself included.
My intention with this post is not to open a discussion on the misery we feel from being separated from our loved ones for so long. My intention is provide a an opportunity for those who are interested to share a testimony of any healing or growth they have experienced through the loneliness as a message of encouragement to all of us. Before I give my own testimony I want to say that I do believe that sometimes when you are feeling bad you need to give it a place to be released and not always try to be strong and hold it in. Sometimes you need to just let that scream out and let those tears flow. I believe it can be cleansing - you just need to put a limit on how long you will scream, cry, or just sit around feeling the blues. Now lets get to some testimonies!
My times of loneliness have been far greater than I could have imagined. Some of it, initially, was because there was no one I could talk to about this wonderful thing that has just happened to me. No one wanted to hear about the man from Africa who was probably going to take all the money I didn't have and leave me broke and pregnant - wait a minute, I can't get pregnant! Any way - some of you know what I am talking about. The more distant friends and family became, the more time I had with myself. Let me tell you becoming your own company on a regular basis can take you to some places inside of you that you never knew existed or just didn't want to remember existed. For example, with too much time on your hands you start to look in the mirror more often and see things you didn't know had developed or changed on you physically in a negative way. Then you start to think about how long it will be before you see your fiance/spouse again and wonder what else will develop on your body that he/she may not feel is attractive. You know where this is going - to the "P" word - Paranoia. Then your little silly mind starts thinking about those other really attractive people that your significant other is encountering on a daily basis, let alone those they will encounter when they come to the US. Those other people who haven't developed those things you discovered every time you look in the mirror. Paranoia advances to the big "F" word - Fear. Now you are ready to find those other really attractive people that are just sitting out their waiting to pounce on your SO - and you know where to find them - FaceBook! You know you can spot them in an instance by going through the friend list of your SO and reading through the coded messages these others have left on your SO FB page - then you do the stupid thing of confronting him/her on the comments and even though you know you sound really stupid you keep questioning your SO to make your point.
But when you are really in love and really trust in the love that your SO has professed to you, one day in the midst of the loneliness a calm comes over you. A calm that you identify as a comfort in knowing that you are really and truly loved by this person that you really and truly love. You look in the mirror again and you see yourself at a deeper level. You begin to see the part of you that is not quite ready to bring this person into your life because if you were you would not have doubted his or her love. That's when the loneliness because a healing ground. It becomes the place where you can meet you and begin the process of removing those things inside of you that have no place in your life any longer. You may do it through prayer to God or meditation. You may do it through exercising or reading self-help books. Whatever it is you begin to do the work to prepare yourself to be the spouse that your SO deserves. In time, you realize that the loneliness is really alone necessary time with you. I use to be sad a lot, and I use to cry a lot. Not anymore because I have found a new me in this process. I have found ways to use this alone time to do somethings for me. I have finally reached the point of comfort in my alone necessary time. I write, I pray, I read, I enjoy my music or classic movies, I cook, sometimes even exercise. I am enjoying my me time because soon - get this - it will no longer be just me and I need to be ready for that adjustment. I believe that as much as I will enjoy my husband being with me, I am going to always remember my time alone with me and I will find a way to keep a little of that in my marriage as well as respecting my husband's need to have his own "me" time as a part of our marriage. I am healed.
My intention with this post is not to open a discussion on the misery we feel from being separated from our loved ones for so long. My intention is provide a an opportunity for those who are interested to share a testimony of any healing or growth they have experienced through the loneliness as a message of encouragement to all of us. Before I give my own testimony I want to say that I do believe that sometimes when you are feeling bad you need to give it a place to be released and not always try to be strong and hold it in. Sometimes you need to just let that scream out and let those tears flow. I believe it can be cleansing - you just need to put a limit on how long you will scream, cry, or just sit around feeling the blues. Now lets get to some testimonies!
My times of loneliness have been far greater than I could have imagined. Some of it, initially, was because there was no one I could talk to about this wonderful thing that has just happened to me. No one wanted to hear about the man from Africa who was probably going to take all the money I didn't have and leave me broke and pregnant - wait a minute, I can't get pregnant! Any way - some of you know what I am talking about. The more distant friends and family became, the more time I had with myself. Let me tell you becoming your own company on a regular basis can take you to some places inside of you that you never knew existed or just didn't want to remember existed. For example, with too much time on your hands you start to look in the mirror more often and see things you didn't know had developed or changed on you physically in a negative way. Then you start to think about how long it will be before you see your fiance/spouse again and wonder what else will develop on your body that he/she may not feel is attractive. You know where this is going - to the "P" word - Paranoia. Then your little silly mind starts thinking about those other really attractive people that your significant other is encountering on a daily basis, let alone those they will encounter when they come to the US. Those other people who haven't developed those things you discovered every time you look in the mirror. Paranoia advances to the big "F" word - Fear. Now you are ready to find those other really attractive people that are just sitting out their waiting to pounce on your SO - and you know where to find them - FaceBook! You know you can spot them in an instance by going through the friend list of your SO and reading through the coded messages these others have left on your SO FB page - then you do the stupid thing of confronting him/her on the comments and even though you know you sound really stupid you keep questioning your SO to make your point.
But when you are really in love and really trust in the love that your SO has professed to you, one day in the midst of the loneliness a calm comes over you. A calm that you identify as a comfort in knowing that you are really and truly loved by this person that you really and truly love. You look in the mirror again and you see yourself at a deeper level. You begin to see the part of you that is not quite ready to bring this person into your life because if you were you would not have doubted his or her love. That's when the loneliness because a healing ground. It becomes the place where you can meet you and begin the process of removing those things inside of you that have no place in your life any longer. You may do it through prayer to God or meditation. You may do it through exercising or reading self-help books. Whatever it is you begin to do the work to prepare yourself to be the spouse that your SO deserves. In time, you realize that the loneliness is really alone necessary time with you. I use to be sad a lot, and I use to cry a lot. Not anymore because I have found a new me in this process. I have found ways to use this alone time to do somethings for me. I have finally reached the point of comfort in my alone necessary time. I write, I pray, I read, I enjoy my music or classic movies, I cook, sometimes even exercise. I am enjoying my me time because soon - get this - it will no longer be just me and I need to be ready for that adjustment. I believe that as much as I will enjoy my husband being with me, I am going to always remember my time alone with me and I will find a way to keep a little of that in my marriage as well as respecting my husband's need to have his own "me" time as a part of our marriage. I am healed.
If you could give advice to anyone considering a relationship with someone outside of the US what you tell them?
As I think back on the beginning of my relationship with Ibrahim and our decision to become married I remember how naive we were with this entire visa process. We started out with the K1 fiance visa process and we just knew he would be in the US no later than 6 months - ROTFLMAO!!!!! We had no clue as to what this "visa journey" was really about or how difficult this process would be. So, here we are 3 years later and it looks like it will be another year before he might even get an interview for the second visa process. The journey that God allowed us to experience has proven to be priceless! Knowing what I know now I can say the time has been well spent and we have been blessed as my husband would say "abundantly". Unlike Ibrahim and myself, several of you who read this blog had the advantage of becoming thoroughly educated and informed on what to expect through the visa process including the current situation with the US Embassy in Ghana. I also know that, although the additional knowledge was helpful, it doesn't ease the challenges of being separated for so long. I do understand that each persons journey is unique as God planned, not as we planned. With all of this in mind, my question to everyone is this - If you could give advice to any US citizen considering a relationship with someone outside of the US who would need to go through the visa process, what advice would you give to them? I am also interested in hearing from the other side - the non-US citizen perspective - what advice would you give?
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