Help with Turkish Boyfriend

Submitted by Amy (United States), Nov 28, 2016 at 23:49

Hey!

I am a Catholic woman dating a Muslim man who is from Turkey but lives and works in the US and intends to make it his home. We met in college almost two years ago, dated last summer, broke up when I moved away to another town. But we started seeing each other again when I moved back this past summer. A couple of things upfront that are different from what I've read here: My man and I do not love each other, or if we do then we haven't admitted it yet (I mean obviously I care about him, but I make a point to avoid being emotionally dependent on any man until we've known each other for years and he's proven himself countless times, and that system has worked out remarkably well for the last 26 years). He does not say ooey gooey lovey things to me. We are friends and we are sex partners and that's pretty much who we are. Neither of us wants to get married until we're in our 30's and we've already established that that probably won't be with each other.

My question for anyone here is does anyone have experience dating a Turkish Muslim man? Any specific concerns regarding that? From what I know of Turkey, even though the country is going through some changes, Sharia law is not a part of their legal system. In the city my man is from, women wear hijab sometimes and sometimes not (in the pictures he's shown me of his friends it's half and half). I've even heard his friends talking about their moms and how some of his friends' moms wear hijab and others don't, but they explained that none of them would be offended to spend time with the other.

Is there some sort of scam he could still be running on me? I see a lot about this scam particular to Egyptian men in yalls experience, and some scams specific to online dating. Are there any holes visible or red flags coming up from the story I just told you? To completely disclose everything, I must admit that he unemotionally suggested we get a paper marriage so that he could pay in state tuition at the university, and I firmly and unemotionally said that I would never do such a thing, and he said no problem and that he would ask another friend. I was far, far more offended as an American than as a woman. And I am not so foolish as to believe that "in state tuition" didn't really mean "green card." But I understand a little bit better now that I know his home country's currency has crashed and while before he had a lot of money now he may not have as much. Despite this little incident, he has never asked for money.

But if he were really trying to "scam" me into a green card, I would have expected him to try a lot harder. Like, I don't know, get me to fall in love with him first. But, nope. That's not what happened.

Besides the green card thing, any other scams that seem obvious?

For now, I spend time with his friends and their girlfriends (remarkably most of them are also Catholic), and we all really enjoy talking about our cultures and our religions. I guess my last question would be does anyone have any experience with this kind of relationship? Anything else I need to worry about?

Thanks!

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