Brokeback Desert

In order for him to perform functionally in a marriage or long term relationship, he would have to undergo fundamental changes in almost every aspect of his life. Is this fair to ask? Sure, ask. If you don't get the answer you want, is it fair to ask over and over again? All the things you could do to change his mind are the things you're already doing, and if they aren't enough now, they never will be. You are interfering with more lives than just his, and he is trying to let you know that this interference is unwelcome. He's telling you gently, because he loves you. You need to be a responsible person and get the hint, before you cause irreparable harm to his family. The freedom you have to love and marry whoever you want isn't universal, and you can't just initiate people into that world by loving them. You sound like an anthropologist when you talk about him. However your altruism or pride (and yes, your heart) would glow if you won this battle, remember on the other end of it is a very steep price being paid-- entirely by him, and his family. Respect his wishes not to pay it.

I make about 6 times as much as he does and often support him. This imbalance is not an issue for either of us That right there tells me you're not even close to thinking clearly about this. Of course the imbalance is an issue for him; it would be impossible for it not to be. But you don't want it to be an issue, so you've convinced yourself it's not. Similarly, you've convinced yourself that because you "have good relationships with some members of his extended family" they are likely to welcome you as a potential wife. They are not. You seem to be unwilling to hear what he's been trying to tell you: he loves you but you are not marriage material, and he needs to get married to someone from the traditional marriage pool. This is an old, old story, and tradition wins 99.9% of the time. Sure, it's possible that if you convert and try your damnedest to fit in with the community (I presume you speak the local dialect of Arabic, though you don't mention it), things will change, but the overwhelming likelihood is that they will not. The best scenario I can see for you is that he marries a local girl but continues seeing you regularly. If that's not acceptable, I think you should start backing off emotionally now. You are heading for serious heartbreak.

If you have any respect for him - or for your own ethics - you cannot without his permission tell his mother that he has been deceiving her, and violating the instructions of their religion as they understand them. Life isn't a movie, and being in love doesn't give you any special moral authority. Being in love can however blind you to inherent defects in your judgement. If you somehow convince him to marry you, you will then be in a much weaker situation. You're certainly in no position to negotiate a strongly favorable marriage contract, and under shari'a that contract is the only power a wife has; your husband can divorce you at will, and since no Omani will then sponsor you for a visa, you will be exiled - without your children. The threat of divorce will always be available to him, so you will have no power to balance his family's very strong influence. You will live according to their rules, and you may well be reviled and resented for having seduced their relative. Are you prepared to raise a daughter who will be required to marry her cousin? Polygamy is on the wane in Oman but still legal; are you prepared to hear that your husband has taken a second wife, or a third, and that this is not grounds for you to divorce him? If so, this might be your best argument: "marry your cousin now, with financial help from your family, and marry me too as soon as you can afford it".

Define "happier life". It making his family happy, keeping their approval and support, and maintaining a close relationship with them makes him happier than being in a romantic relationship with you, you have no chance. If the chance to explore the possibilities of life and love outside of his upbringing makes him happier than his relationship with his family, you just might. Honestly, I don't think it looks good for you. It isn't just his family in a nuclear sense he'd be distancing himself from. Family for him is a support network, a job & business opportunity source, an identity to the outside world. He might consider being forced to distance himself from them to a marriage to someone he loved passionately, if he was leaving the country and had the temperament for that sort of thing. You're describing a dutiful son. I just don't see it. You might truly be the love of his life, or you may not be. I think what you're asking him for is the time to figure that out between you. You want to date him and see where things go. Unfortunately, he can't date. You're asking for a relationship from him in a way that runs counter to his upbringing and family expectations. In addition, I am guessing that you are not Omani. That's going to make the possibility of his family accepting you just that bit harder. The love matches you describe happen with the blessing of the families involved. His family is the one you need to think about, and if they aren't having it, I despair for you. Have you considered that he might be trying to gently find a way to say that as much as he values your company and enjoys his time with you that he just needs to end the romantic relationship with you so he can marry? In some cultures, a man isn't considered to be an adult until he has a wife.

xanthippe: His sisters, aunts, and most importantly, his mother, all welcome me and give him lots of positive feedback about me. (I am fairly certain that these women are not idiots and therefore have some intuition regarding our actual relationship, though it is not spoken of; for his part, a few uncles and cousins are in on it, but being a man, he inclines to believe it’s only between men and the women are clueless.) I strongly suspect that his family would be accepting and welcome me with open arms if we became engaged. He still insists that it would be Not Good for him to marry me; he feels he must marry an Omani woman, and that his life would be ruined if anyone ever knew he had a girlfriend. Marriages between Omanis and foreigners – and love-marriages – are not nearly as uncommon as his worldview suggests they should be; however, he thinks that having a traditional wedding, to a bride chosen by his family, is paramount to his success in life and to pleasing his mother. He also says this has nothing to do with whether he loves me or not; he believes his life must follow a fixed course that he has known since childhood, and that he is powerless to change this without losing his moral self-respect. Look, you need to be very careful here. Your relationship has an interesting balance, and I think you know that: you've made it clear that you're just about willing to drop everything and join his religion if he wants you to just to be with him. Keep in mind the sacrifice that involves. I'm not suggesting that it's a bad sacrifice-- I admire you for it-- but he needs to know that you won't compromise on everything. Every marriage has to have a balance, and it's healthy for the compromise to be equal on both sides. You have to be sure to show some power over him, as well; this seems to me, oddly enough, to be essential to your being a viable choice in his mind. Anyhow, it's pretty obvious what you should do. Talk to his mother. It won't be easy, I know, but you're thinking about marrying this guy, so if you want to do that, it's a necessary step. Tell her that you like her son, and believe that he would make a great husband to you; that you are willing to do very much to make this possible, up to and including a traditional marriage there; but that, being who you are, you are unsure if this is possible. If she likes the idea, ask her what to do; I imagine she might have some ideas, which may include talking to his father, and having his father talk to him. His sense is that, as you put it, "it’s only between men and the women are clueless." He is wrong; even (or perhaps especially) in the most oppressive or sexist society, women exert powers of which men can hardly dream. Appeal to his mother, as a fellow female. He needs to know he's wrong, but you have to let him know in a gentle way; talking to his family, and convincing his mother (whom you say he's trying to please) is the best and kindest way.

If you strip away the long backstory, the complexities of a cross-cultural relationship, and the competing demands of family, culture, and religion on your BF, you are left with this: yours is a placeholder relationship, a fun walk on the wild side before your BF finds a 'real wife' and settles down. You are already the equivalent of a mistress, and he isn't even married yet. There is a chance that your BF - despite his rock-solid integrity and the respect with which he has treated you so far - might harbor a hope somewhere that, after he is married, you will continue to be his mistress. Is it harsh, judgmental, and culturally insensitive of me to say this? You bet. Is the story much more complicated than even what you have spelled out here? No doubt. Does he genuinely love you and not want to hurt you? Quite likely. But, looked at this way, it does provide you with one possible answer to your question ("what can I say or do to change his mind?"). You can do what mistresses do - with varying degrees of success - the world over: give him an ultimatum. Tell him that his choice is either to commit to you, or to lose you forever. Tell him that you will not stay in a relationship with no future, and that you are prepared to walk away. Give him a week to make up his mind. And then follow through on it.

First of all: koeselitz is right about talking to the guy's mother. That aside:To clarify, I am NOT asking your opinion on whether it is possible or likely to change his mind. I realize that the answer to that question is probably negative; please don’t fill this page with responses insisting that is the case, as I’m not aiming to increase my level of despair when reading replies to this post.Your level of despair is not the worst indicator of the tenability of your situation. And it shouldn't matter to us what you desperately want to hear. I wish you luck but you've got to think clearly (and careful didactic writing isn't the same as thinking clearly). The things you say about your 'perfect' relationship ultimately don't seem to bear on the reality of your situation: there's an enormous cultural barrier, as well as an economic one (and languagehat is right to point to that). No matter how you believe he feels about you ('I love him intensely and have no doubts that the feeling is mutual' - give me a break, putting this in terms of your 'doubts' instead of his displays of love is what's known in literary criticism as a dead fucking giveaway), you've been dating this guy for a year and he's repeatedly demonstrated unwillingness to do What You Want. For whatever reasons. You can't change his feelings. You can't change his religion. You can't change the social pressures on him (shy of spiriting him away to another culture - unlikely). You can say what you want, but the question for this guy is, 'Do I give up what I believe, deep down, for this girl?' No matter how you want him to feel, please, for the love of God, try to take his actual feelings more seriously. You don't seriously think he keeps referring to cultural tradition and religious doctrine because he's desperate to get away from those things, do you? 'the top priority in his life is concealing our relationship from his family' - very well. The situation (or something, or someone) has made your boyfriend of a year into a habitual liar, and his family is the mark. That won't end well no matter what direction you're facing when you pray. If there were such a thing as luck I'd wish it for you, all of it in the whole world. And talk to his mom, sure; it can't hurt worse than lying to her about his primary pastime. But please, please, please consider the possibility that this won't work. And know that that doesn't mean giving up. Love, Wa.

he thinks it doesn't matter - in fact, that love doesn't matter at all - because it's wrong a priori. I think that's the answer right there: He is not going to change and it is wrong to expect him to do so. Either get used to the idea of being the mistress or move on.

You can't reason someone out of beliefs that they were never reasoned into in the first place.