Concerns about my mexican bf...can you help?

A female age 30-35, anonymous writes:

I've been dating a Mexican since last summer when I met him working at some greenhouses. At first I thought he was married, but now I trust him, that he's telling me the truth. I had to leave near the end of the summer to go back to school. About a month later he had to go back to Mexico so I met him at the airport to see him again. This year he came back again so I met him again at the airport but the buses were all behind schedule so I only got to see him for 30 minutes and he almost missed his connecting flight. He always tells me how much he loves me, and I believe him. I really love him. I am pretty worried about a few things though. The first problem is the language barrier. He doesn't speak any English, besides a few words/phrases. I am working on learning Spanish, but I am still very limited in my vocabulary. The second thing is that my parents have no clue about this relationship. There are a few reasons for that. The one problem is that I am just about 18 and he is almost 28. Ten years is a bit of a gap, but my sister and her husband are 7 years apart and that works out fine. Also, he told me that age doesn't matter, only love. The other problem my parents would have, which is also a problem for me, is that I don't know much about his religious background. I am a Christian and that is the most important thing to me. He has told me he is a Christian but I'm a little bit worried that he only says it because he knows it is important to me. Another thing is that during the time between the airport visits, he worked in some mines for a month at a time and he had no cell phone service. That was a very difficult time for me, especially since I didn't know the reason he wasn't answering my texts. Once a Mexican woman called my phone, but she talked way to fast for me to understand what she was saying. I only heard her say his name. When I asked him about it, he told me she was nothing, just a lady who wants to be his girlfriend, but he is only for me, he told me. I want so much to believe him, and I do, but sometimes I start to doubt it because I've read a lot about the latino culture and prevalence of cheating. But they say that it's because they want to be macho. My man is not like that. Once I tried to break up with him, because I thought it would be easier. I realized I was wrong, I couldn't sleep or eat or do anything, so I told him exactly the truth. He thought that I was just playing with his feelings, but I reassured him. That's another thing, he seems very insecure, especially of my love for him. He has asked me if I have another boyfriend a bunch of times, and the truth is he is the only boyfriend I have ever had. Thats another worry of mine, that I don't know what it is I'm feeling, because I have nothing to compare it to. But I don't think hes the macho cheating type because when I asked him to give me another chance, he told me that he had never cried for a woman before, but that he couldn't stop crying when he thought I didn't love him or want to be with him. I don't think he would've told me that if he was that type. He tells me he wants to be with me forever. I think about it a lot, but then I hear that Mexican men change a lot when they marry. I don't think he would, but I'm not 100% sure. Another thing I'm uncertain of is, if we do get married some day, where will we live? Whenever we talk about the language barrier he tells me he can't learn English because he's too stupid. I do think Spanish is a much easier language to learn than English because Spanish actually follows its own rules. English is really confusing if you don't grow up with it. I don't really want to move away from all my family and friends, but maybe we can live in Mexico for a few years and I will learn Spanish really well and try to teach him some English too. Then maybe we can move to Canada for a while. I don't know. Also, I'm afraid he's going to be gone half the time if we live in Mexico because he's only at his home for like, 3 months of the year. But I don't know how he's going to find a job in Canada if he can't speak English. Maybe that will change. I'm going to see him again this summer. It's going to be really hard though, because our boss is friends with my parents, so if he finds out about us, he will definitely tell them, so we can't show it. I don't know how I'm going to pretend like there's nothing between us. I know they have to know eventually, if we continue this, but I was thinking that I could do it differently. I found out there's a church in Mexico City and my dad actually suggested that I go there to help out, since he knows I'm learning Spanish. So maybe I'll do that, and 'meet' him there, and there will be no problem. Last night I talked to him on the phone, and he asked me to be his wife. I told him that I wanted to. He asked me when, so I said maybe in two years after I'm finished my post-secondary education. He seemed fine with it. Obviously he doesn't really want to wait that long but he will for me. At first he kept trying to convince me that he was no good for me, and that I should find a younger Canadian boyfriend who can actually speak English. He might be right, but I can't be with anyone else. Well this is a really long summary, but it feels good to write it all out and organize my thoughts/feelings. I guess I don't really have a specific question, but if you've read this whole thing, and I thank you for that, and you have any advice or personal experience, or questions or whatever, I'd love to hear from you.

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