How do I let my wife know I don't find her stupid, just her birth culture?

In My Humble Opinion
81

It is Monday and not a public holiday in Trinidad. grude, have you done any of the following actions to move forward?

  1. Go to the embassy, set up an interview, talk to someone in person, look for an attorney dealing with expats, just to have an idea of how to get your family back to the US?

  2. Get in contact with other expats and other families of kids with autism?

  3. Help your wife or do it yourself, look into government services that can provide help for kids with disabilities (and ASD falls usually under these)?

I am sorry to say, but most of your dealings are like you say, because of your immediate community. Dude, if you need to mingle with the expat and wealthier (not even wealthier) community to get ahead, do so. We have people from Laventille, Barataria, Morvant in our training group. We train at none of those places, we go to parks and places in St. James. And at the nice parks there, I’ve seen kids being kids, playing football with their parents and other kids, playing with gravel and leaves and sticks, enjoying themselves. And many of them are not wealthy!!! Nothing is stopping you from using the public facilities in the more expensive areas. They all do! DO IT!

My mom has a similar situation with the deed of the house, and I will inherit that issue in the future. Perhaps when your wife sees you’re moving ahead and making some progress about how to deal with the best for your son, she’ll agree on selling her share of the property and move on. But obviously she’s not going to do it now when she sees no escape and no changes. DO something, PUT something into progress so that she sees selling and moving on as the best option.

Look, your kid needs professional help. In Trinidad, it is scarce and expensive and if you’re surrounded by people who don’t care for progress they will mock you if you go get the help your son needs. Tough luck, but you have to do that. You’re talking about a place where 2 year olds are already in early care centers that work as pre-schools, and your kid will only get farther and farther away from the curve if this continues by the time he HAS to go to school which will be when he is 5-6.

If your kid needs help, you HAVE to give it to him. It doesn’t matter where it is or if it is expensive. In a way, by not doing anything, you’re harming him in the long run. Strive for getting the best care for him you can while you’re on the island, do your research about that, don’t just give up because of what your neighbors say. Yes, it may be expensive, this means you may have to do some sacrifices or sort things out (perhaps contact the people who are associated with the therapy and they can direct you to a list of places that can help you financially). That is your duty as a parent. In the meantime, also focus on perhaps moving away from the environment and back to the US.

In short, don’t complain, but DO SOMETHING.

82

I don’t want to be critical, but it seems like you keep offering up excuses as to why you can’t really plan a move to the US. And all of these excuses point back to your wife, even though in another post you said she’s open to moving.

Obviously, it’s time to re-open the conversation with her. Don’t put it all her lap to decide what to do; if you want to move back to the US, strongly advocate for that and then make it easy for her to say yes by taking care of the homework. If she expresses concerns about losing the house, tell her that your son’s future well-being being trumps property rights and at any rate, that particular bridge can be crossed later. Remind her that yall are surrounded by people who think your son is possessed. This is not a healthy environment for you or your son. She knows this already, so appeal to this.

The US is not perfect, but at least there are resources here. Public sensitivity towards disabled children is also greater; people may stare but because staring is widely considered rude, there is a social cost to doing it unabashedly.

The problem you have is much bigger than busy-body neighbors. It almost seems like your acceptance of your son for who he is is so strong and protective that it’s preventing you from acting with urgency.

83

THAT WASN’T AN EXCUSE!

I’m instead typing out loud my psychoanalysis of her both to explain her strange behaviour to the thread since I dragged you guys into it, understand her myself so I can formulate the right way to approach her that will work. See I was just about to say correct plan of attack meaning how to get her to detach and be on board with leaving, but then snapped that someone might comment on how I use attack and it sounds bad.

Look I think in odd ways and even use language in odd ways ok, it causes misunderstanding. That causes people to get the wrong idea, a bunch of posts with the wrong idea cause my brain to seize up with the idea of correcting them all and my BP gets pounding and sometimes I regret posting at all. Those rambling posts I made with endless run on sentences in this thread on page one was because I had too have some drinks just to get past the brain freeze.

See how everyone assumes I hate Trini culture? I don’t as long as it doesn’t effect me or my family, when I first talked to my wife it was her telling me how much she hated it and I was being supportive to her by saying wow yea that does sound stupid I’m so sorry.

I want <OUT> of here right now, I would not rationalize staying. But I have to get in another person’s head and understand their motives to trick them into wanting it to because right now they don’t.

I won’t be able to reply again until tonight, won’t have a keyboard. Thanks for the help and support guys I will return.

84

Do you see how right now me and my son are basically living separate lives in the public, with my wife involved only at home and rare times she goes with us for non-frivolous occasions? That is because I don’t accept and support her when it comes to things I feel would harm my son, when that happens there is no persuading me.

Everyone here should understand I don’t have strong feelings or emotions on most things in life, so it isn’t an issue to me because it isn’t a conflict. I literally don’t care, it isn’t that I’m a doormat.

Hit something I do care about and you won’t budge me at all.

85

Also as I already said the process of applying to go to the USA will take at least 6 months at the fastest, so I’ve got a lot of putting up with here on my plate no matter what.

And the local embassy even has delays on US citizen services.

86

YOU are the one who said that your wife has already talked about going to the US, to get away from the environment and to get help for your son. It seems to us that she is more or less on board.

She is balking right now because she does not see YOU doing anything towards that goal. DO SOMETHING, get set up, do your stuff to get on to a better life elsewhere, and if she sees you’re working to get them all out of that environment, to a place where she may feel better and your son get the help and therapy he needs (because it doesn’t matter how much you accept his condition, he needs therapy and guidance), then she may give up and continue, like you with the face mentions.

If you want out, you have to start doing it. On your own. Start gathering the information you need first. Then get her involved in the things that she could contribute. Paperworks for her and the kid, get the kid some paperwork as son of a US citizen, perhaps all the paperwork needed for visa, etc.

Same, you need to take the son to therapy. Perhaps at first it will be you and him only, but if this improves, then your wife may want to participate as well. And remember, we are only getting your side of the story. No offense, but it is possible that some of what she wants to do is not really harmful or may be part of what needs to be done to help your son, likewise it is possible that your total acceptance could be fostering something that could hinder your kid later on, as well as preventing him to get the proper guidance to excel in any society he wishes to live in.

87

I’ve made appointments with the embassy that went and passed starting years ago, some of the things used to be easier or faster. Excuses are why do we need it, we’re not traveling now we’ll get it when we need it on and on.

That was why I said I want a commitment from her beyond “ok well just do it” myself, I can’t I need SUPPORT and anyway she has to physically be involved.

My son won’t be accepted into a gov school period we tried.

He can get gov disability of 1,000TT a month to pay for therapy, good luck getting my wife going on getting it. She once wanted to get a vaccine at a gov health office, took him and told she would get it but they wanted her to have forms back to showing her going to gov OB services and his ped and when she said she went to private for both they boofed her up about it, and said it was several days wait most of the women there were waiting for 8 hours a day just to be told come back tomorrow. Also boof up about this foreign child BY THE STAFF. I told her enough of this nonsense we just paid for it, very cheap.

Local gov schools will not accept him, period we tried and it is at their discretion. They don’t want a non-verbal kid.

He had a autism therapist but honestly it was a total waste of time and a LOT of money, she seemed to have less of an understanding of autism and my son than we did. Just one example she tried to get him to finger paint and seemed lost, I told her ok he hates the sensation of goop on his fingers give him the brush there, WOW she marvelled :rolleyes: She told her herself I feel bad because I feel like I’m not giving you guys anything for your money. We stopped going because it was a waste of time and money. I’m getting better results doing it myself with ref books when I hit a block.
We’re basically home schooling and progress is good, my wife is more into it than I am but she struggles with the conceptual thing of anything that works and dropping the traditional obey parents thing.

Local staff even pros seem to lack um empathy for the kids, and seem focused on telling parents not to beat their kids or something. They seem at a loss because we’re way past that, we want help on making the connection between say communication and verbal and typing for instance. The staff seems lost is giving us what we want.

Right now my issue is my son doesn’t want to take to PECS which is visual communication because he is fine with non-verbal pantomime and gesturing, and he is not frustrated enough heh which is usually a good thing.

I REALLY have to go run errands or we won’t have power or food to eat, I already put it off so I will be back tonight.

88

No read my reply, last time she cut the appointment.

And again she is like you do it, same with CRBA you do it. Both of us have to be there.

89

If the appointment was years ago, then try again NOW. Once more, you mention she talked about going to the US. Use this to your advantage and try if she gets that now, perhaps, going to the US will help with getting treatment for her son, as well as make life overall easy on her as there will be less judgement on her as a parent (up to a point). Tell her that it takes time and you need to get it done now so that you could eventually move on from the current situation and get your son the care he needs.

Your son needs help, if he won’t get accepted to a public/government school, then you need to look into private schooling. I am not sure what is available, but have you checked some places? Like China Guy says, you need to connect and find other parents with kids with autism in Trinidad. I don’t think they live where you are, but you should try to get in contact. Have you checked UWI’s School of Education? They have a program specializing in special education, perhaps they could be of help to you and your son. Maybe they can even help by saying “yea, the best option is for him to get the help he needs outside of the country, if you can”, and that can convince your wife.

90

My kid asleep and I woke up so I get a chance to reply, I have trouble following a weekly TV show lately and even getting sleep.

A incident happened just today and thinking on it I think I can better describe it, it is just for those that might be curious or to better illustrate what I am talking about. My son wanted a snack from a specific small shop, if we pass that way it is his routine to buy one there. I’ve never had a problem there the cashier is friendly and knows us we go there all the time.

The cashier is not present, none of the other employees are cashing just milling around. He started getting upset because usually he eats it while I pay and he was hungry so his tolerance for change is low(I grab every chance to increase his tolerance, but he has to be in a good mood and a situation where it is just part of the process, not where it isn’t). Just leaving without the snack is going to cause a meltdown, getting the same snack elsewhere is not going to fix anything, it is the break in routine that causes it not anything else(meltdowns aren’t tantrums, he isn’t trying to manipulate his way just reacting that things didn’t go routinely and satisfying it won’t stop it)). So while waiting I give him the snack and let him eat it while I wait at the register cash in hand. A guy I’ve never seen before barks at him about it and my son just stares and then he says what a flicking rude child, I say he has autism he can’t talk, the guy complains to me he is eating it when we haven’t paid, I say I’m trying to keep him from screaming and dropping to the floor and as you can see I’m trying to pay I have the cash in my hand but there is no cashier for five minutes now and he usually eats while I pay. So you’re just accustomed to this he says and I say yes thats why a break in routine will freak him out, I come here all the time. Telling the guy he has autism and will freak out and I’m a regular does actually makes him angrier it seems. He barks she had to go to the restroom she will be back everyone can wait, I say ok as you can see I’m waiting to pay. He says he is the owner of the shop and doesn’t want people stealing food, I say no one is stealing anything because I’M WAITING TO PAY stealing is leaving without paying I’m trying to prevent him freaking out which I’m sure you’d hate too and since you’re the owner can’t you or one of the other employees cash? No only the cashier can still angry and :mad:. Eventually she returns and I pay and she is friendly as always. You can also read a racial motivation in this since me and my son are seen as high status with a life of luxury where nothing goes wrong, even if the reality is not that.

Later on a woman was coming into the power company after me and she had a ton of bags in her hands and I forgot and stupidly held the door for her, she did not say thanks and actually seemed mad. Once inside she hurried past me almost bumping me to rush ahead of me in line to pay bills.

Later in a grocery a woman behind me in line rushed past me when I turned my body to look at something, literally she tried to exploit a two foot gap. I shoved myself right back in front of her.

I was stupid with the door because going out of your way to help someone does not cause gratitude but indifference or annoyance. As my wife and other local guides explain it “well if you want to be stupid thats you, why should someone care?” Helping someone is seen as stupidity, if anything a snub must be the response to show disapproval. Everyone tries to make things as hard as possible for others on purpose, sometimes spitefully. I’m speaking generally of course, naturally this is not everyone but a good enough portion of the population you encounter them regularly.

Now this and some other small incidents throughout the day and going back years made me reflect on just why this area is so toxic. People won’t make concessions for those with a weakness like autism or other disabilities, if anything it makes you a target of hatred. No one has ever made a concession for them why should they for you(this is partly imagined), they come to see it as the way things should be. Weakness must be punished, not indulged.

Also any excuse to attack someone is not only taken, it is actually desired. People won’t only not lift a finger to stop something that will give them a chance to attack, they will actively cause it because it is enjoyable. If someone is seen in a good mood or the attacker perceives them to be lucky or more fortunate the first instinct is to tear them down. Any excuse to be an ass will be taken, no matter how nonsensical.

This op ed describes a bit of what I’m talking about:

http://www.trinidadexpress.com/letters/Idiocy-rewarded-and-intelligence-shunned-in-TT-202222271.html

So for those that say I am denying my son access to local culture, I’m not it is not a culture he will ever fit in for multiple ways.

What I describe mutes itself as you get away from poor and working class areas and into upper middle class and wealthy and expat areas.

This isn’t a reply to anything really, just a result of me thinking about it and I found it interesting in a detached way.

91

I actually forgot that her passport expired, they only last for 5 years here even though there is a enormous amount of shit required to get them like having a limited amount of professionals writing you a letter of recommendation:rolleyes:

She was planning to do it just to use it for ID, so she went to the passport office.

And to renew they ask for national ID card, which she lost in June in a taxi and the driver denied seeing it. To get a new ID card if you lose it the process is:

The justice of the peace step turns out to be way more involved than it looks there, you’re actually petitioning and going before them in court and blah blah pointless bullshit. They love pointless bullshit here, any avenue of making things harder for people they have power over.

Anyway my point is not an excuse why we have to stay or the advice here is not working(yea I know the type of response people hate to advice threads), my point is I CAN’T DO THIS FOR HER, ANY OF IT. I of course will help with forms and in any other way I can. The private autism therapist we saw said go back to the USA multiple times, pretty much their only advice.

I’m already operating at 99%, the other night I was literally passing out due to no rest or sleep and eventually my son fussing woke me and got me out of the bedroom. He wanted ramen noodles(one of the few foods he will eat due to autism’s food sensitivity) and my wife was just constantly ignoring him bringing the packet and pot to her and saying to him to ask for it. She was ignoring him both because she made dinner and he could it if he wanted, and she was hoping ignoring his non-verbal communication would frustrate him to talk. Neither is going to happen, he isn’t picky he is autistic and she was just wasting time and making things difficult. She wasn’t doing this to annoy me or wake me, even if it had that effect(she thinks I should ignore it and not come out or give in and hates that I did. I think she is just hitting her head against a wall on treating him). I have read autism refs to her endlessly on why this won’t work, but then he goes and does something like talk in his sleep words he has never said while awake:smack: and ignites that spark all over again

So I had to go make him ramen noodles even though I was exhausted so he would stop yelling and kicking the floor, not be hungry and stay up and not go to sleep.

I want her to accept the non-verbal thing for right now because ignoring non-verbal communication is not beneficial, stop fighting and start working with his autism.

And I literally can’t give anymore than I am right now, I need her to step up and do the things only she can do and show she wants to go to the USA instead of “ok you do it”

92

OK, she has to do her part. Really the National ID if nothing else because it is also required for any other things you guys do. And aren’t you supposed to keep that ID with you at all times? So for her own’s sake, she has to get her own ID. That is independent of what you as a family decide to do.

I do know about the workplace issues in Trinidad and the lack of customer care. But personally, the circle of people I have to interact every day is more pleasant than the ones you have to interact. They do give and accept the courtesy of something as simple as opening the doors. In fact, what does annoy me is when a man tries to get ahead of me to open a door to let me pass first. Um, just let me open the door and held it for you, and next time just walk in front of me to open the next door if that’s what you want.

I still do hope you can get some outside help because I think your wife also needs help. Again, you don’t care of what others think in public, but your wife up to a point does, and she is the one getting most of the negative comments. To you, they’re stupid strangers and nothing more. To her, they are representatives of her community, the place where she thinks (or thought) she belongs.

93

Yea I mostly spend my time around nicer people and wealthier areas and the damn house feels like a anchor my wife has tied herself to, its not racial either more socioeconomic class. It isn’t even the neighbors in the immediate area, they are all nice enough to him(even if they think stuff in private). Sometimes though I can’t help having to do stuff in Port Of Spain like pay the power bill.

There are tons of nice people, there are people who approach me in public just to tell me they think it is nice that I love my son, even if one woman phrased it as not abandon him(both of those are like ok…thanks I guess? I fulfill the bare minimum LOL) Easily as many nice people as assholes.

Closest grocery to us the owners know he has autism and are nice as can be, one time years ago when he was younger and would either struggle endlessly if I held his hand or run around the store I put him in the shopping cart in the basket. Some new hire kid that looked about 16 took offense to this saying he was too big to be in a cart and he was going to break it. I said he has autism and how can a fifty pound child break a shopping cart when groceries can weigh more than that? , ask the your manager he is ok with it. I don’t care what he has he said you can’t do that, manager said I can and he prefers it, kid would not let it go even complaining to his manager about it.

Anyway I ignored all that and shopped, guy comes over to my aisle to bag so he can continue to let me know how ridiculous this is and its not right on and on. I of course did not react, just let him go and said thanks as I left.

Dude was going out of his way and against his managers wishes to be an ass, I can guess why.

Anyway Hi Los it has never been an issue no matter the area. And the last time I went my son pushed the cart for me, I say go and stop and he does. Sometimes he can’t resist the urge to start pushing it fast but I stop him because I am walking right behind him and correct him. At first when I first had him push the cart he was just a wild speeder and I was basically wrestling with the cart, but with exposure and correction he improves in skill.

Thats the whole point of my kind of DIY exposure therapy and correction you don’t get in a therapists office, or sticking your kid in the house or hospital. The last two especially don’t teach any skills at all.

I’m not taking him everywhere just for fun or to have him close to me, those are bonuses, I’m really mostly trying to teach him functionality in real life.

94

^QFT

95

Ya know what might help:

Instead of commenting on the culture, maybe if you comment on the individuals. She is part of the culture, but those individuals are not her.

So even though they are expressing cultural ideas, and even though the culture is the root cause of the problems…saying “It is incredible how stupid that man is” may be a lot easier for her to hear than “I can’t believe how stupid these people are” because “that man” is not her, but she is part of “these people.” And pick on specific things that specific people do rather than a generalized “these superstitious morons and their ignorant backward ways.” Because their ways are her ways in a lot of things, just not her attitude toward autism.

Or not…just a thought.

96

Haven’t read the new replies yet, cable internet was down for the last day or so.

So I had time to mentally put together this post which might elucidate things for others.

In the late 1970s-80s the party in power for reasons even an academic paper about the issue could not figure out decided to ask the IMF for a loan, even though the tiny country has a wealth of petroleum and has higher financial wealth because of this than other countries in the region. The IMF demanded currency manipulation and austerity measures which were put into practice and were absolutely disasterous for the country, the area my wife was from being traditionally poor was hit very hard. And in the end the IMF said lol suckers and didn’t even end up giving the loan. This and other issues lead to hate of the party and culminated in the coup attempt of 1990, you can google that and see videos(my remembers as a child seeing this on live on TV because her mom had it on waiting for live video from parliament to stop and a show to come on).

A future less insane party reversed this and again relied on petroleum and the country is now pretty damn nice comparatively, a lot of urban areas are basically USA standard if not nicer.

But anyway my wife and her peer group grew up desperately poor, this caused a kind of return to old ideas like jumbies and caused a kind of mental block I call it where even though now they are not poor they still think they are and act like it. One neighbor is a higher up in the prison system and makes about 50 grand USD alone and his wife also works, they have 10 kids and live in his parents house which is like a single room. They have never built on and don’t even have a toilet or shower inside, the kids eat flour dumplings they claim and wear ratty clothes with holes in them except for their school uniforms which are crisp and expensive and have no toys not even from the “dollar store”. I have personally watched this guy get a fire going outside and burn stacks of nice new looking kids clothes and tupperware donated by people who feel sorry for him:eek: Why? speculation is it could be spiritual contamination in them.:rolleyes: He apparently blows his money gambling.
He also spanks the kids.

My wife finds belief in spirits or systems of magic stupid, she finds the fact people are comfortable in their living standards and don’t improve even though they can stupid.

But she still cares about what they think, and still clings to the idea of children needing firm discipline but not physical. And finds best of care for autism coddling and giving in.

97

Oh yea people also have the idea the government should provide medical care and meds, and they do even if it is a goddamn pain to get the meds and the care is below standard or outright maliciously incompetent. Also people from this area are treated badly socially elsewhere and the subject of nasty stereotypes.

My wife insisted on going to the closest public hospital even though it is known in the media for stuff like pregnant women dying from blood loss, a baby being lobotomized during a C section, and other general medical incompetence. The medical staff are forced to work there by the government somehow and hate even showing up and dealing with “those people”. They also have one hour a day for visiting hour, and still chase visitors away from the open group wards to do tests or give meds in the one hour a day:rolleyes: And won’t let family in to see even dying patients, my wife forcibly went to see her mom who was dying THEN and told the guard to fight her and the staff, my wife said fuck their horrible rules.

Even when a doctor tried to falsely convince her our son was dead, even when she has failing kidney from preeclampsia and is urinating what looks like cocacola, and her BP is so high she sees nothing but snow, and a female head doctor told her they weren’t doing a C section and “I don’t care if you live or die” I still had to go in and force her to go private which was expensive but she is alive. She believed all the bulllshit she had heard of private hospitals, and has her own mental block about why should they treat people like that. I say yes it is wrong, but it IS, and getting yourself killed for it is stupid when you have an alternative and forget why you should have to use it just use it!

I hear about other people sit in the waiting area for the hospital pharmacy for 8 hours to get some fricking paracetamol, which costs about 50 cents USD at a private pharmacy, all because they are entitled to it and the hospitals must be better somehow cuz it came from a hospital(there might be associative magic involved here, come from hospital=better, stronger).:rolleyes:

And in any case I have no objection to using the public health system, even I can use it because permanent residents are covered. But I want her to go to a richer area and use it there, like Mount Hope hospital which is modern, not POS general which is WW2 era and has no equipment and is overloaded with patients and patients are treated like dirt for coming from a bad area. A friend of hers tells her to come to the Maraval health center, it is empty all day because its a richer area and people go private so no patients, the staff is bored from lack of patients and lavishes attention on you and they are used to seeing white people and won’t flinch or find our son weird. But then she says why should I HAVE to go to another area to get proper treatment or spend money to get what I am entitled to, what about people who don’t know about it or can’t make it there or can’t afford to go private on and on. I say yes that sucks for them, and it is wrong and horrible the government and doctors know they can get away with treating them horribly and like human shit however hurting yourself when you know better doesn’t help change things, and seeing as how we aren’t billionaires and cannot help change government systems or people’s worldview we have to look out for our own best interests.

And all her relatives assumed we went to a private hospital for “style” or as a status symbol, or I forced her to go because I insisted on it due to thinking public was beneath her, apparently this is bad somehow but expected also because of me. So she thinks she is better than everyone else, or maybe I do but its expected I’ll think that way so its ok. Instead of the real reason which is that I did not want her to die, and she did try the public hospital and found it deplorable.

98

I feel like if you put 1/4 of the amount of effort into getting out of your current situation as you do into explaining things repeatedly to us, you’d already be on a plane to your new home in the US.

You continually insist that you don’t care what anyone thinks of you, your son, etc. Why are you giving us such exacting details of your situation? The history doesn’t matter- what matters is what you are doing right this second to fix it. Have you taken any of the advice people have given you?

99

Because I read over the thread and obsessively add context, I dunno why exactly I think doing that helps me think and understand. And it has. Also I’m posting in windows of cable internet being on so I reread and think of how I should have added that at the beginning, the thread title is very misleading and almost totally inaccurate.

I don’t like talking about myself usually, I realize other people here on the board probably find it annoying but actually I hate it and this thread has been hard on me but the only reason I did it and continue to post is because I can’t fix this myself and I’m out of options and trying to clairify things for anyone who cares or is reading. Yea I know I have written a damn novel in this thread. Yea there will probably be a snark board thread or something I don’t check it.

I have put some suggestions here into practice and talking to her to the point my wife my wife hates hearing the topics.

Today I was actually able to talk my wife into going out with us, we just went out and went to a mall in a nicer area and ate at a barbeque ribs place(terrible ribs for 10USD lol but eh its Trinidad) and went grocery shopping but yea it meant the world to me and made me happy. She was even surprised at how well my son behaved, there were a couple blips and comments from people but she was somewhat cool with it. I’m trying to tell her people here are ridiculously picky and critical of children, my son would be a non entity in the USA where normal kids are screaming their heads off in public. She kinda griped about following his routine but at least he wasn’t melting down. And nobody was staring at her as I pointed out because it isn’t such a monoculture area like Port of spain.

This will probably get a DUH but I think she might have an anxiety problem, she narrated what a janitor was thinking well what she thought he was thinking,I laughed when he did make a comment. She was like that woman is going to come complain because he is pressing his face against her shop glass, and she looked like she was about to. But shit that would exhaust me in public worrying what everyone is thinking in real time.
She said she thinks she can get someone who works there to help her replacing the passport just with the expired one, there is a lot of soft corruption here. This as a result of me telling her she needs to do it because applying for the spousal visa is a waste of time without a valid passport.

I hope she does do it, I don’t know.

I really want to take my son to Toysrus, I think it would blow his mind compared to the small toy stores here with staff barking at even adults not to touch anything.

100

Look I was trying to explain my situation because I am asking for help and by definition I DO care what responders to this thread think, if I didn’t why bother even posting. I wish I could redo the OP with more context so the advice is more pertinent to my problem, but I have issues with communication I fully exposed.

Saying I don’t care what people think refers to random assholes on the street or in public who don’t know me, not people I am asking for advice.

That old tadpole thread is a good example of the issues with my posting deficiences which leads to pointless comments because people don’t even know what the hell I’m talking about.

Thinking about how she got here helps me understand where my wife is coming from, which helps me get inside her head which is the only way to solve this problem aside from mind control. I’ll put it in a text file next time instead of here but I thought maybe it would help someone if they were reading this and cared.