"Soon after moving on to the farm, I began feeling like I was invisible"

In response to a recent letter from a farmer who said he was struggling to understand his wife’s view on life, we have received the following feedback from a female reader sharing her story.

Dear Dumbfounded,

You asked if any of Miriam’s female readers could shed some light on your wife’s view on life. I grew up in a town and am university educated. I married a farmer who was educated in the University of Life. You, like my husband, seem to be a very kind and caring man and you are possibly finding it very difficult to understand how your wife is still so unhappy.

When I got married, I made the huge error in judgement to move away from the lively town where I was living and move in to a house beside my husband’s parents on his farm. I had the dream of living in the countryside, surrounded by a close-knit rural community and family. I got it very wrong. I found it almost impossible to find friends because local women already had their own network of friends and my husband’s close-knit, extended family were not as close nor as supportive of each other as I had been led to believe.

When I had my children, the close-knit extended family and network of friends never materialised and, as such, I was badly cornered – mother of young children, isolated, many miles from my own friends and family. It was a perfect storm and a recipe for postnatal despair, which I suffered terribly from to the point that I had a HSE psychiatrist who summoned me every two weeks to ask if I was suicidal.

I have weathered this particular storm, but the aftermath has scarred our marriage terribly and I experience overwhelming waves of resentment towards my husband because I feel I was duped into moving there and, of course, I blame myself for not having read the situation better. Soon after moving on to the farm, I began feeling like I was invisible as a person; that I was brought in to be used as part of the breeding stock to produce the next heir to the farm. I realised that perhaps I was selected because I was a cow that calved all year round.

Farmers focus so much of their attention on being able to anticipate and read the needs of their animals and, naturally, the best farmers are the ones who practice the best animal husbandry. The “bean an tí” is significantly more complex and much more intelligent than the herd – in some cases, perhaps the most intelligent person in the house.

She needs your attention – more than an approving and condescending pat on the hind quarters every now and again. I am not saying that you do this – this, however, at times is what I experience.

For any couple planning on getting married where he is a farmer and she is from an urban setting, I would advise the following. Do not move in beside your mother and father-in-law because no matter how well you get on before getting married, everyone’s true colours only ever come out when the babies arrive – and you are stuck. Weekend visits are not a realistic representation of life there. If you are a “townie”, you simply won’t “get them” and they won’t “get you”. I am living amongst people who tolerate my presence. Tolerate. I had ambitions of being loved. I feel sometimes that I have moved backwards in my life, not forwards.

I love my husband but I can’t help feeling that I lost a whole lot more than he gained. I don’t think he can ever understand where I am coming from and I feel terribly sorry for him too because he had the dream we’d be happy together on his farm.

I don’t know if this sheds any light on your wife’s view. One piece of advice I will give – you both will have to do something radically different from what you are doing.

I have built up a network of great friends who, not surprisingly, are from outside the area. I love my husband, but it is a constant struggle to get along – like most marriages. I keep my in-laws at a respectful arm’s length and vice versa.

My husband was willing to negotiate a compromise with me and we both have modified our expectations. When you put oil and water together, you have to keep mixing things up to stop it from separating out. Keep talking and don’t take each other for granted.

Things won’t change if you don’t change

Good luck