I don’t know what to do about my husband. We met in the same Ph.D. program, but he was on a student visa and had to go back to his home country. We married three years ago and spent SO MUCH money on immigration lawyers trying to get his green card, and FINALLY, he was able to move in with me six months ago. (It wasn’t a disaster, but he was very depressed because he couldn’t get a job, and he was NOT easy to live with.) But, it turns out the university in his home country requires him to buy out his contract or finish it and spend another year there teaching, and he’s not getting his shit together to make sure his green card doesn’t lapse. I thought our goal when we got married was to make a life in the U.S., but he doesn’t seem to be doing everything he can to work toward that goal.
I think our options are: 1.) We get divorced because he can only find a job in his home country, and I’m unwilling to move there. 2.) His green card lapses, but he does everything he can to get a job in the U.S. that would sponsor a work visa. 3.) We spend another boatload of money on an immigration lawyer (AGAIN) to help with the green card and he comes back and mopes around until he DEIGNS to get a job at Publix so his wife (ew) doesn’t have to be the sole breadwinner. Or 4.) He swallows his pride and borrows money from my dad to pay off his contract.
To make matters worse, I just got laid off from my tech job, and even though I have six months of expenses saved with no lifestyle change, if we have to get lawyers involved for either the first of third options, I’m worried about paying for it.
I don’t even believe in tarot, but desperate times call for desperate measures, I guess?—Logical wife
Cards for how you view the marriage/ your desire for the marriage/how to achieve that: Two of Cups, Six of Pentacles (both reversed); Nine of Wands (reversed), Four of Pentacles; The Tower, Page of Swords (reversed)
Cards for how he views the marriage/his desires for it/ how to achieve that: Ten of Swords, New Moon; Queen of Cups, Three of Pentacles (both reversed); Knight of Cups, Page of Pentacles
Dear LW,
If you have quite a bit of savings and aren’t currently working, why not visit your husband for a few weeks? It seems like you both need to have some difficult conversations and manage some very stressful situations; perhaps it would be easier and more clarifying if it was face-to-face. (And I imagine LinkedIn works just as well in Lisbon or Lima or wherever your husband lives.)
Since your letter didn’t ask a specific question, I asked a few of my own. The first is how you both view your current marriage. It seems like you still view your marriage as having the potential to be something wonderful. The Two of Cups is the potential for a great love story, and the Six of Pentacles is sharing our wealth, values and life with someone. It’s potential, but not realization.
Your husband, on the other hand, seems to be in a dark place. The Ten of Swords is a card of fear, crisis, and feeling utterly defeated. With the quiet black of The New Moon, I think he’s trying to figure out a plan to save it, but the idea hasn’t arrived yet.
You mentioned the “goal” of marriage, so I asked what each of you wants for your marriage. For your husband, the Queen of Cups suggests he wants you—a loving, accepting you—and with the Three of Pentacles, he wants a collaborative partnership, one that allows each of you to ask for help and work together equally. With both cards being reversed, he may have wanted this for a long time.
Your cards suggest other priorities. The Nine of Wands sometimes appears when we are trying to micromanage the universe and control things that are way out of our control. And I think you might be doing this from a place of unexamined fear. The Four of Pentacles is a card that shows up when we prioritize our personal comfort over growth, often due to fear or misunderstanding. (It’s also a card that suggests seeking therapy. Perhaps personal and couples counseling?)
Do you think that you are willing to compromise on certain comforts if it means your marriage would get stronger? Are you flexible and adaptable when outside circumstances force you to pivot? Are you willing to honestly look at your own behaviors? Do you want to be married if it means saying “yes” to the above questions?
I know nothing about your marriage. I cannot, in good faith, speculate when I only have a short letter from you and don’t even know your husband’s name. But I can notice things. For instance, you don’t mention if you love your husband. You don’t mention being happy living together—you say the opposite, in fact. You mention his depression but then call it “moping around.” You suggest that he’s being silly or haughty for not getting a job at Publix but don’t mention what it would mean to him to leave his home country, family, friends, and career as a university professor in order to immigrate to a new country and only work in a grocery store. You mention that if the roles were reversed, if you had to leave your country and family and friends, you would choose divorce over immigration.
I do not know your situation. I do not know where your husband lives or what this situation looks like beyond what you’ve written. But, from your letter and the cards, I think you two might want different things.
In order to get what you desire—personal comfort, an orchestrated fate—I do think divorce is the path forward. With The Tower, I think the institution would have to fall, and the Page of Swords suggests you’d find it freeing (in the short term.)
For your husband, in order to get to his dream marriage of love, acceptance, and partnership, he has to be his most vulnerable, charming, romantic self, a true Knight of Wands. The Page of Pentacles suggests that he has to work hard at that, has to be willing to learn and open for growth.
I think some deep soul-searching on your end and some honest conversations with your husband are the first steps. If you find that you still want to have a loving relationship, one that shares everything, then I think your husband is more than willing to work towards that. But, if you decide you don’t want to be married, proceed with the divorce.
No matter what you choose, I do strongly recommend working with a therapist through all of this. Neither option promises immediate happiness, but a therapist can help you tolerate the unhappiness of your choosing.
I also hope that the cards are wrong, that you both want the same thing, that you get to work towards that, that you live a wonderful, happy life together, laughing at how silly tarot is.
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This article appears in Feb 20-26, 2025.