Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I knew about ten when we were living in Eastern Europe for work. Most were the much younger local girlfriends of married expat men. Each time, he left his family for the new girlfriend and baby, or his wife left him and he settled for marrying the pregnant girlfriend. Very depressing.
We also knew multiple longtime expat men married to the women with whom they had cheated in previous posts.
The whole experience of seeing what men who would be considered ordinary at home do when they are suddenly faced with multiple opportunities to cheat with or upgrade to gorgeous younger women has made me a more cynical person.
There are many of those couples in the Dc area given the high number of state department employees.
State department employees do not do this, they have a code of ethics.
I know someone who works in mental health at state (they have a whole medical component who's purpose is to provide medical care to DOS employees).
This happens all the time. They fall in love and strongly underestimate cultural differences and there are all kinds of crazy family dynamics in state. It is one of the only professions where not only you travel, but your whole home life travels with you, and so all are profoundly effected by your career and you are constantly being thrown into new and challenging environments.
Also, to be frank, a lot of people who join state are kind of socially awkward and never felt quite at home in the US, hence the being ok with bumping around wildly different countries for years and years, and so they are generally not the most relationship savvy people on the planet to begin with.
That isn't me saying DOS employees are all horrible weirdos, quite the contrary. They are smart hard working curious people. But there are a lot of challenges to that lifestyle and the one described here is 100% true for a variety of reasons.