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Originally posted by walkingathinline:
hmmmmm...the only abusive relationships i have been in (one physical and one emotional) were both with american men...and i moved heaven and earth to be with them...

i'm not so sure it has to do with a different nationality as much as it has to do with the individual...

i think it's fairly common knowledge that most woman who stay in an abusive relationship have low self esteem, feelings of worthlessness and co-dependency issues...

these things aren't easy to work through, especially with the media throwing half-naked beautiful woman in our faces...sex seems to sell everything and if a woman doesn't feel sexy, she can feel obsolete...i mean a size 10 is considered fat here! that's just ridiculous!

it took me about 3 years to work through my crap and get to a place where i love myself and stop letting people treat me like a doormat...

i think when people can be happy with who they are and with where they are in life, then they don't need someone else to do it.

all this being said, when i arrived in egypt, all eyes were on me...i had SO MANY MEN hitting on me, talking to me, looking at me, etc... at first, it was kind of nice...all that attention, thinking that everyone thought i was beautiful...but it soon wore off and i remembered that it didn't matter what anyone else thought, only me and God (and he doesn't care what i look like!) so, i think that when some women aren't feeling good about themselves, and they come to a place like egypt and get all this attention, it can cloud their minds and judgment. of course, all this is my most humble opinion

OM

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Posts: 141 | Registered: Apr 2008  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by Sic Luceat Lux:
Maybe other people have noticed, but it seems that there are ALOT of women on E.S that have been in, or are still in abusive relationships.

This may seem platinudinal to some, but it never really occurred to me until I started reading the "Well here I go" thread.

And I'm not just talking the usual suspects like M.H either.

Some very established board members have mentioned former marriages or relationships wherein they were abused, verbally and emotionally for the most part.

I might catch some flak for this, but I wonder if this "phenomena" has alot to do with why many of these Western women are willing to move Heaven and Earth to be in a relationship with Egyptian men from a completely different culture, that are well known for having soothing tongues.....atleast in the courtship phase

~Alistair

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Posts: 13440 | Registered: Feb 2006  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

quote:

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Originally posted by walkingathinline:
hmmmmm...the only abusive relationships i have been in (one physical and one emotional) were both with american men...and i moved heaven and earth to be with them...

i'm not so sure it has to do with a different nationality as much as it has to do with the individual...

i think it's fairly common knowledge that most woman who stay in an abusive relationship have low self esteem, feelings of worthlessness and co-dependency issues...

these things aren't easy to work through, especially with the media throwing half-naked beautiful woman in our faces...sex seems to sell everything and if a woman doesn't feel sexy, she can feel obsolete...i mean a size 10 is considered fat here! that's just ridiculous!

it took me about 3 years to work through my crap and get to a place where i love myself and stop letting people treat me like a doormat...

i think when people can be happy with who they are and with where they are in life, then they don't need someone else to do it.

all this being said, when i arrived in egypt, all eyes were on me...i had SO MANY MEN hitting on me, talking to me, looking at me, etc... at first, it was kind of nice...all that attention, thinking that everyone thought i was beautiful...but it soon wore off and i remembered that it didn't matter what anyone else thought, only me and God (and he doesn't care what i look like!) so, i think that when some women aren't feeling good about themselves, and they come to a place like egypt and get all this attention, it can cloud their minds and judgment. of course, all this is my most humble opinion

OM

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Thats a very good post

I guess the point I was trying to make was whether women that had suffered past abuse in relationships were more susceptible to the charms of Egyptian men, compared to women that had no prior abuse?

And by charms, I mean the stereotypical Egyptian male flattery that you hear about so much on these forums...

The desperate sort of flattery that no woman in her right mind would listen to in her own country.

It would seem that after months or years of being in a relationship with an abusive husband/boyfriend that offered nothing but scathing criticism and obscenities, a few overthetop compliments uttered by an Egyptian man might seem like a much needed Monsoon after a drought.

Or if you want to make things even more controversial, you could ask whether the women that consistently go to Egypt to be in relationships with Egyptian men (whether short term or long term) have experienced a MUCH HIGHER RATE OF RELATIONAL ABUSE in their past compared to the general population?

~Alistair

Posts: 1221 | Registered: Sep 2006  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by walkingathinline:
when i arrived in egypt, all eyes were on me...i had SO MANY MEN hitting on me, talking to me, looking at me, etc... at first, it was kind of nice...all that attention, thinking that everyone thought i was beautiful...but it soon wore off and i remembered that it didn't matter what anyone else thought, only me and God

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It took me a while of living here to figure out that most likely it isn't necessarily that they think you are BEAUTIFUL but that they think you are EASY because you're a foreigner.
There are drop dead beautiful Egyptian women in Egypt much more attractive (IMO) than the majority of Western women. Your looks had very little to do with the attention you received. It was probably because:
a. you're a woman and had female parts
and most likely because:
b. you were obviously foreign and they knew they had more of a chance with you because in their minds you give it up easily

but as you said not that it matters, just putting it in perspective. When I first arrived I thought the same as you, 'wow I must really be hot!'. LOL Nope, they just assumed I was really slutty.

Posts: 13440 | Registered: Feb 2006  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by With a name like Smuckers:
I think it probably has to do with the women, especially if they have been in more than one abusive relationship, not what nationality of man they marry.
Many of the women you will find here (who claim abuse) have also had abusive relationships with men from their countries of origin. My mother used to say damaged goods attracts damaged goods. Not to say a woman who is abused deserves it, not at all...but if you constantly are attracting losers, cheats and abusers, you have to ask yourself what the common denominator is. More times than not you will find it is you.

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You know, I don't think I phrased my first post correctly. The post didn't really adequately explain what I was getting at.

With that said, my second post rectifies that so have a look there

And the only reason why I even considered posting this was because I just all of a sudden noticed how many women on E.S had openly spoken about, or alluded to abusive ex-boyfriends or ex-husbands in their past.....usually a Western man.

~Alistair

Posts: 1221 | Registered: Sep 2006  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by Sic Luceat Lux:

quote:

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Originally posted by With a name like Smuckers:
I think it probably has to do with the women, especially if they have been in more than one abusive relationship, not what nationality of man they marry.
Many of the women you will find here (who claim abuse) have also had abusive relationships with men from their countries of origin. My mother used to say damaged goods attracts damaged goods. Not to say a woman who is abused deserves it, not at all...but if you constantly are attracting losers, cheats and abusers, you have to ask yourself what the common denominator is. More times than not you will find it is you.

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You know, I don't think I phrased my first post correctly. The post didn't really adequately explain what I was getting at.

With that said, my second post rectifies that so have a look there

And the only reason why I even considered posting this was because I just all of a sudden noticed how many women on E.S had openly spoken about, or alluded to abusive ex-boyfriends or ex-husbands in their past.....usually a Western man.

~Alistair

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Ok I went back and re-read your 2nd post and that's an interesting observation. I think there are many women in this world (not only the West) who have been in abusive relationships. While my point was that finding yourself in an abusive relationship time and time again is probably a personal flaw...your point was more that there could be a susceptibility to find yourself with an abusive man from another country if you had already been abused by someone in your OWN country. Is that right?

I know a lot of people don't like Dr. Phil but I happen to like him. One of the things he says is that the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. A woman who finds herself in an abusive relationship relationship may have just had bad luck or found a real con artist. HOWEVER, a woman that finds herself constantly in abusive relationships probably doesn't know much different. I think the difference in forming a relationship with a man from another country is that the women fool themselves into believing that 'other men will be different' when what they don't realize is that it isn't THE MEN, it's their judge of characters...it's their magnetic attraction to abusive men.
I don't blame women who have been abused, but I do think they probably need therapy if they keep finding themselves constantly in a state of abuse. You can only continue to blame someone else so long.
But Alistair, your observation is definitely interesting.

Posts: 13440 | Registered: Feb 2006  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by Sic Luceat Lux:
.. this "phenomena" has ..

~Alistair

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Phenomenon.

Posts: 8756 | From: Tax-Free Zone | Registered: Jul 2005  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

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Originally posted by With a name like Smuckers:
It took me a while of living here to figure out that most likely it isn't necessarily that they think you are BEAUTIFUL but that they think you are EASY because you're a foreigner.
There are drop dead beautiful Egyptian women in Egypt much more attractive (IMO) than the majority of Western women. Your looks had very little to do with the attention you received. It was probably because:
a. you're a woman and had female parts
and most likely because:
b. you were obviously foreign and they knew they had more of a chance with you because in their minds you give it up easily

but as you said not that it matters, just putting it in perspective. When I first arrived I thought the same as you, 'wow I must really be hot!'. LOL Nope, they just assumed I was really slutty.

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quote:

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I guess the point I was trying to make was whether women that had suffered past abuse in relationships were more susceptible to the charms of Egyptian men, compared to women that had no prior abuse? ...
...It would seem that after months or years of being in a relationship with an abusive husband/boyfriend that offered nothing but scathing criticism and obscenities, a few overthetop compliments uttered by an Egyptian man might seem like a much needed Monsoon after a drought.

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Posts: 422 | From: American living in Maadi, visiting in the States for awhile | Registered: Jul 2006  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by ?????:
I think all woman think they're rather normal, don't have a low self-esteem, don't feel worthless by starting a relationship with a man.

And no man will behave abusive right from the start.

No woman will think that one day he is going to treat her as a doormat, and she is not intended to behave as a doormat.

They just start a relationship, and starting to know each other, and slowly the bad properties are entering the relationship. This goes accompanied by collision because no woman will ignore voluntarily herself in favour of a man, and every time again SHE is the one who is moving her limits, untill to a certain time, it is enough.

I think the mist important is not the fact that the relationship didn't bring what she thought it would be, but the awareness that there are a certain type of men able to make her move her limits every time. That there is a certain type of men on this earth who are dangerous to her!
Because likely she is missing some skills to see behaviour in the right perspective.

I also think nobody knows that from herself, untill it happens! Just then there will be a proof if she recognises that behaviour or not.

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Posts: 253 | From: canuk | Registered: Feb 2008  |  IP: Logged | 

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if you look at of_gold's situation, it is different...it started out good, got bad, ended, but perhaps that situation made her stronger and LESS susceptible to flattery.

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I don't know about stronger but definatly less susceptible to flattery. I usually think "yea right". In fact the last date I went on a hundred years ago the guy told me that most women would of had him in bed by now. I just looked at him and said "most women are trying to catch a man, Im not".

I do get lonely but no one is yelling at me and I'm not crying on a regular basis. I just know I do NOT want to be in another bad relationship. Maybe I'm overly cautious though. Well, not maybe, yes, I am overly cautious and I push men away.

Posts: 3891 | From: No good deed goes unpunished. | Registered: May 2007  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by civil society:

quote:

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Originally posted by ?????:
I think all woman think they're rather normal, don't have a low self-esteem, don't feel worthless by starting a relationship with a man.

And no man will behave abusive right from the start.

No woman will think that one day he is going to treat her as a doormat, and she is not intended to behave as a doormat.

They just start a relationship, and starting to know each other, and slowly the bad properties are entering the relationship. This goes accompanied by collision because no woman will ignore voluntarily herself in favour of a man, and every time again SHE is the one who is moving her limits, untill to a certain time, it is enough.

I think the mist important is not the fact that the relationship didn't bring what she thought it would be, but the awareness that there are a certain type of men able to make her move her limits every time. That there is a certain type of men on this earth who are dangerous to her!
Because likely she is missing some skills to see behaviour in the right perspective.

I also think nobody knows that from herself, untill it happens! Just then there will be a proof if she recognises that behaviour or not.

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i have to agree with this. i have been in one abusive relationship, never before and not since. it didn't start off as abusive. it slowly entered and i was more tolerant to the abuse, shrugging it off as 'cultural differences.' now i know that is not at all the case and i have been more aware in subsequent relationships.

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Posts: 422 | From: American living in Maadi, visiting in the States for awhile | Registered: Jul 2006  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by of_gold:

quote:

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if you look at of_gold's situation, it is different...it started out good, got bad, ended, but perhaps that situation made her stronger and LESS susceptible to flattery.

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I don't know about stronger but definatly less susceptible to flattery. I usually think "yea right". In fact the last date I went on a hundred years ago the guy told me that most women would of had him in bed by now. I just looked at him and said "most women are trying to catch a man, Im not".

I do get lonely but no one is yelling at me and I'm not crying on a regular basis. I just know I do NOT want to be in another bad relationship. Maybe I'm overly cautious though. Well, not maybe, yes, I am overly cautious and I push men away.

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Posts: 422 | From: American living in Maadi, visiting in the States for awhile | Registered: Jul 2006  |  IP: Logged | 

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thanks of gold, but isn't that the way of ES? you share something hurtful and people want to twist it and try to hurt you more?!

but it doesn't really matter...Smuckers, i feel you have simply missed my point, over and over...that's ok, sometimes it's hard to understand a person over the internet...maybe my tone came off as defensive, but if you read the entire post, you'd see that the point i was trying to make isn't about my self esteem... it's about women in general and how they react to artificial flattery and how they accept lies and tell themselves half truths, when they are feeling down...

and i did use the word "thinking"...not knowing...

quote:

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thinking that everyone thought i was beautiful

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it doesn't matter what these men are actually thinking, what matters is how women perceive it...especially women with low self esteem... and like i said a few times, it didn't take me long to catch onto the game

remember the article that was posted recently in another thread about the "sex tourism?" there was a woman (i think her name was Sarah) who said that she was feeling bad about herself, 50 and divorced, overweight, whatever...and when she received attention from a much younger waiter, she fell for him and gave him a truckload of money, only to find out months later he was using several older women... she allowed herself to be sucked in because she had no confidence...

this is what i'm talking about...

OM


oh, and by the way, here's a pic of me in the desert back in january...i feel pretty good about myself now...5 years ago, forget it

http://i25.tinypic.com/33f870w.jpg

Posts: 422 | From: American living in Maadi, visiting in the States for awhile | Registered: Jul 2006  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by With a name like Smuckers:
Well, is it wrong?

Did anyone else find what I said to be insulting or simply factual?

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I did not find it insulting.I've read your posts for a few years now and find you to be one of the more,if not the most,fair poster here.Intelligent,smart and honest.

Posts: 3833 | From: here,there,everywhere | Registered: Nov 2007  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by With a name like Smuckers:
WTL it wasn't NOT a thinly veiled insult

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Posts: 422 | From: American living in Maadi, visiting in the States for awhile | Registered: Jul 2006  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by MK the Most Interlectual:
Phenomenon.

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I bet that just made your day, didn't it my dear MK?

See, I made a rhyme

You and Dalia are the only women that ever correct my English, so thanks for that

~Alistair

Posts: 1221 | Registered: Sep 2006  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

quote:

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Originally posted by With a name like Smuckers:
It took me a while of living here to figure out that most likely it isn't necessarily that they think you are BEAUTIFUL but that they think you are EASY because you're a foreigner.

Your looks had very little to do with the attention you received. It was probably because:
a. you're a woman and had female parts
and most likely because:
b. you were obviously foreign and they knew they had more of a chance with you because in their minds you give it up easily

but as you said not that it matters, just putting it in perspective. When I first arrived I thought the same as you, 'wow I must really be hot!'. LOL Nope, they just assumed I was really slutty.

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Posts: 3587 | Registered: Mar 2006  |  IP: Logged |