I recently read an article on depression amongst the wives of US H1B holders who were on H4 visa and could not work… Thousands of very well qualified women whose dreams of doing something in life the way they wanted to, has gone down the gutters… Ironically in the place where people go to chase the American dream!
Quite a few women I believe, reconcile and many even happily must be adjusting to a home maker, child nurturer, social butterfly role… But for women who have inspired themselves to achieve something different… The suffocation must certainly be just too real…
But my voice in this is to tell you about the helpless suffering that the husband’s must be feeling when they see their loved one pained like this… That heart wrenching and inescapable feeling of guilt.. that she is going through this just because she chose to be with him… just because he could pursue his goals or maybe the dreams for their life together…
That he, who promised her from the bottom of his heart, and still yearns for her happiness, is causing her this sadness… by having her just be there with him in that place…
It must be killing the husband as well… Not like a bullet… Quick and fast… But like the slow bleeding to death from the razor sharp thousand cuts of a sword… Excruciating, slow and unbearable…
The suffering must be even higher if the husband himself is new to the country… For he himself probably has no one else close left to grasp on… But only his depressed wife… That one person he expects to multiply his small little joys, whatever they are, with… Now finds himself not even able to divide the sorrows of his wife… For what can he really do?
There is no long term solution that the husband can provide… The rules of the country are beyond him… That utter helplessness… That impotence…
Even trying to be a patient partner and listening through, to give his wife some comfort, hurts… Listening to pain only aggravates the guilt, and the inability to resolve it only adds to anger and frustration within…
I think one can only choose… There is always an option to go back to the home country… But different people have different aspirations and its not an easy option to go back…
Or the other option is hope… That someday some organisation will come which will take him out of his ordeal and offer his wife a job she wants… That’s all he can do… Hope… Selfishly for his wife’s happiness… As someone who is helpless and guilty!
Inside VG... 