I gave up my life for a man I barely knew

DEAR BEL A COUPLE of weeks ago I moved from the UK to Israel to be with my longdistance boyfriend.

I am in my early 30s, he is 40. We met in Israel, where I was on an internship, dated for two months, but then had to separate because of visa issues. Eleven months later, I’ve moved here and will soon have a partner visa.

I feel very insecure: I don’t speak the language, we have different religions, and now I see how our mentalities are different. I feel he hasn’t prepared for my arrival and behaves like nothing has changed for him. I love this man, but there are things about him which I cannot get past, including:

1) I feel he hasn’t done enough to build a solid foundation for a relationship — like helping me with visa issues etc. We briefly discussed getting married, in order to speed up the process, but decided instead to live together first to see how things go.

2) He isn’t helping me much in getting employment. He is very busy and also has a huge family. I feel I can’t count on him sometimes, because he has to help his cousins or his mind is elsewhere.

3) Appearance seems to be very important to him. I am attractive, but to have a long-term relationship with someone I want to have a family with, I don’t think it should be such a big thing.

4) I feel that I have been degraded to the role of ‘the girlfriend’ without a life of my own. Before I came I had a very successful, happy and full life (friends, trips and a wellpaid job) and I feel I am missing out by being here.

I haven’t told him yet, but I feel like I am stuck in a prison and on the verge of going back to Britain — yet it will be hard to start afresh with no job and no plan there.

AMY

ReADers with complicated problems blighting their lives may be surprised that I have picked yours from the bag. It will be perfectly clear to everybody what you should do, and you know what that is yourself, so why then am I replying?

Because you are only in your early 30s with your whole life ahead and I don’t want you to make a mistake like this again.

But then, honesty makes me add that romantic impetuousness has nothing to do with youth. Plenty of middle-aged people turn their lives upside down on a whim (usually an affair) and then live to regret it, sometimes for ever.

At first reading, my instinct was to make sympathetic noises and to reassure you that these are early days in a foreign land, so hang in there and be patient.

This would certainly have been my advice had you been in a solid relationship followed by a period of long-distance love. But you chose to move to Israel after what was little more than a glorified holiday romance. When you met your boyfriend it must have been such an exciting time: an internship in a dynamic, buzzing environment where you meet a handsome guy and — wham! — love. Or what you thought was love. But you didn’t know this man. Not really. Long-distance courtship after a whirlwind romance is a poor substitute for a developing, adult relationship and it was incredibly unwise of you to burn your bridges and leave the life you loved for a new one with a near stranger.

I was inclined towards anti-romanticism long before I became an advice columnist, but then my years in this job have convinced me that the dangerous heart cannot be allowed to rule the head. Let them work together!

You have listed why you want to leave, so there is no need for me to add anything. No doubt your boyfriend is a decent guy (whatever his failings) and therefore it is dishonest not to tell him what you are thinking and feeling.

Both of you are bound to feel you have lost face when you leave, but pride is no reason to continue.

If he is already making you feel rather like arm-candy, what will it be like in five years’ time when you are stuck at home with a baby, feeling just as lonely and alien as ever, while he does his own thing? No, you must talk to him honestly and book a flight.

I don’t see why it will be that ‘ hard to start afresh’; you still have friends and contacts and can look for another job and get going again. But you certainly must make a ‘plan’ right now and give yourself a path to follow.

Make a vow not to lurch into the next stage in your life in the way that you lurched into this unsatisfactory relationship and be glad that you didn’t get married — because then you really would be stuck.