SEVEN YEARS OF LIE

The more I talk to people who are involved in relationships via the Internet, the less surprised I get when I hear something outrageous. Having gained plenty of experience in this very specific area, I assumed that nothing could astonish me. I could often forecast, from the very beginning, whether or not a relationship had bright future or would eventually fail. Recently, I realized that some people have mastered the art of pretence so well that the truth becomes hidden for years - even from the immediate participants involved in the particular relationship.

I met this woman via my website almost a year ago; her story always came to my mind whenever someone mentioned, in a conversation, the words “successful marriage”. This couple it seemed to lack romanticism in their daily life, but they managed to reach that ideal level of maturity between spouses, which I wish every family could achieve.

This is how she saw her family life when we first met:

“We had our ups and downs, however, we did know it was very right thing for us to be together, and still is. I do not believe in love stories, they all (from my experience and a lot of friends' experience) end up with a bitter divorce. That is, if nothing more than love exists. We were adult enough to see and overcome that. Love does not play a significant part in our lives anymore, respect and friendship does. I really believe in these three things together, only then, in my opinion, marriage works… any marriage…”

Seven years of the “happy marriage” added a lot of credibility to these words! From the very beginning, she was quite content with her family life. Seven years of marital bliss considering herself a happy wife of a loving and prosperous husband… She never had even a slight suspicion that in the eyes of their friends, neighbors, business colleagues and even their random acquaintances, she was … “a poor Russian refugee, whom Mr. X (her husband) saved from Russia and gave her shelter in his own home…” It became clear recently, that the seven years since their marriage took place, no one around them knew that the couple was officially married…The truth, which surfaced only after her husband died from a sudden stroke caused by brain tumor, was so incredibly shocking that the young woman almost committed a suicide…

Her story began like the stories of thousands of other Russian or Ukrainian women who met their foreign husbands on the Internet: 

“We met through one of those marriage agencies. Well, that is he got my address from them. My mother moved to Canada a year before that, and I came to visit her. He came there too, and that is how we met. He did not really want to go to the city where I was from; there were some “security issues,” too. So, if it were not for my mother making that move, we would not have met that soon. It took me almost 15 months to get my work permit, since I came with the visitor's visa. I did not speak English much, and my husband did not speak Russian, so I had to learn quickly…”

I want to draw your attention on these “security issues”, mentioned in her first letter to me. This was a very smart trick, which her husband used to hide the double life he had been leading till the moment he died. When they initially met, he had put a veil of mystery on his job. He told her only a part of the truth. She knew that he “worked at one of the biggest Air Force Bases”. He had assured her that he had to go to Russia on regular basis to do “some work for the military”. She was even proud of him because he (as he told her) was “in places, of which any normal human being would not even think (Siberian taiga, for example)…”

He kept his paperwork in strict confidence, and prohibited her from logging onto his own computer, referring to a “high level of clearance”. As it became obvious later, after she finally logged on his computer, his “strict confidentiality” found its explanation in hundreds profiles of Russian and Ukrainian women contained in there… The revealing pictures attached to these files did not leave any doubts that his relationships with these women did not have a platonic character…

I heard from her at the end of April after her husband died. His cancer progression was very quick. She was devastated by her lost. She could not imagine that the worst part was still ahead…

It all started when she came from the funeral. There were couple messages on her answering machine from the women she never knew. The messages were addressed to her passed away husband: "Why haven't you called me since last Friday? I missed you…" She was in shock. To understand what was going on, she started returning calls … and found out a lot of surprising things about her husband. The truth, which revealed to her, was shocking – her husband was not the man she knew for seven years. In her eyes and eyes of everyone around he was wonderful. Everyone admired him… His double life she just found out about horrified her.

In this other life her “wonderful” husband had affaires with almost every pretty woman on the block. He was telling them that the girl who lived with him was a pure refugee, who worked for the U.S. government back in Russia and had to be brought here because of danger… Besides, he had dozens girl friends in Russia, whom he visited on a regular basis. Since he assured his wife in his security clearance, she was not allowed to look in his PS or his file cabinets in his office. It was not too difficult for him to convince her – his explanation was quite reasonable, supported by the example of his best friend who was a submariner and really had this clearance. This friend (like many others) was fooled, too. He did not know the whole truth... He thought that her husband was the best thing ever happened...

She did not know what she would do if she found the truth while her husband was still alive. She thinks that she would definitely have left him. “I came here to get married the man I had fallen in love with. He gave me citizenship. It's a lot, yes, it is. But he broke my heart and ruin my trust in people. I guess, I will not trust anyone anymore, I have learned... But life goes on! I got insurance and freedom. I will graduate in one year. Still all that waste upsets me sometimes so hard, how I could be so stupid and blind... I only hope no other girls have anything like this happened to them. Please tell them my story, may be it will make Russian girls more cautious. And thank you for what you are doing for Russian women living abroad.”

Natasha Butsenina,
Russian Women Abroad