Despite the doubts we had, we still got married. Ultimately I decided to do it just because I knew it would be an adventure, even if a brief and painful one, and that for better or worse I could look back on it with interest when in my dotage.

My future wife moved in to my apartment in January; she became pregnant in February, and we were married in April. In truth my wife never wanted to be a mother. She tried unsuccessfully to abort the baby by taking several hormone contraceptive pills, but she was persuaded by her mother to keep the child.

In May 2000 my wife and I moved to England, because that’s where we felt we could earn reasonable money.

That, I think, was the biggest mistake of our marriage.

I would say this to any western male EFL teacher planning to marry a young, attractive, poor, foreign girl – keep them in their own country. And live in rented accommodation. Probably the marriage still won’t last, but it should last longer than if you take them back to your own rich western country. This is because EFL teachers generally earn a below average income when working in their own country, and they often find it difficult if not impossible to get ‘proper’ (meaning well-paid) jobs.

If you keep your wife in her own country she won’t have so many options to find an alternative source of income, by which I mean another man with a better income than you, or even a well-paid job of her own. And if you don’t own your own home she won’t have the temptation of trying to take it off you. On a very cynical level, if you have to split up with your wife in her country, you can always cut and run and go back to your own country, or even somewhere else. But if you’ve taken her to your hometown, after you split you’re going to have the pleasure of still seeing her around … with her new partner!

In England, our baby boy was born in November 2001. When breast-feeding finished after six months, my wife sent him over to Russia. Foolishly or otherwise, I pretty much always went along with my wife’s wishes. As I say, she never really wanted to be a mother. Also it turned out she wanted nothing to do with my family.

At the end of 2002 both my wife and I were doing tedious but well-paid warehouse work, and we bought an apartment. She went and fetched our son back from Russia. But she also brought her mother back with her. In April 2003 the two women kicked me out of the marital apartment, and my wife informed me she had looked into the English divorce laws and she was ending the marriage so she could get the apartment for herself, and so I would have to pay lots of maintenance.

Actually I started divorce proceedings. I deliberately dragged them out, and used the time to engineer a reconciliation with my wife.

Getting back together was a mistake. The fundamentals of the relationship were wrong. She had never wanted to marry me and she had never wanted a child. She wouldn’t compromise, and I had too many ingrained bad habits.

We coughed and spluttered through 2004 together, and then this year, 2005, the frictions and conflicts and our mutually annoying behaviour and our inadequacies as spouses and parents brought matters to a head. We separated. And this time we really are getting divorced. My wife has moved a man nearer her own age into our apartment. She is also taking steps to move up the work and social ladder.

And do you know what? I feel that’s exactly the way it should be and was always meant to be.

They say you should only marry if it seems too good to be true. If you’re a middle-aged and not very well off EFL teacher and you’re marrying a girl good-looking and young enough to be your daughter, then it is too good to be true. You have to accept that you are probably just a stepping-stone; you’re not actually the far bank of the river that your wife is really aiming for.

Also the old rule of ‘marry in haste, repent at leisure’ applies as much now as it always did.

As for me, people tell me they never saw me as depressed as I looked when I was married. (Another teacher friend who has seen middle-aged guys marry young Polish girls tells me she has seen the same happen to them; they start wearing a sort of marital misery mask a few months after walking up the aisle.) I’m now beginning to lighten up again. Also, perhaps strangely, I plan to go back to Krasnodar. EFL teaching no longer interests me though. It’s too ‘small’ as a job, and it’s too low-paid. But I do think having Russian, or East European, girlfriends would be fun. I just don’t think I want another wife.

What I would like to do is some east-west business. One idea is to arrange trips for westerners to go and have operations and cosmetic surgery and dental treatment in East Europe or Russia or India. It seems a worthwhile service, and potentially profitable. But I’m open to suggestions. Does anyone out there fancy joining me in the next adventure? Get in touch if you do.

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