Foreign Wives Bolt From Servitude

I was one of those Russian women who was in the same situation as those described in “From Russia, With Love” (View, Aug. 15). The only difference was that I was very honest about my intentions and communicated them to the American man I met in a Moscow restaurant.

I told him that there was no future for me in the great “worker’s paradise” and, frankly, I wanted out. We had a lot in common, or so I thought. He seemed sympathetic to my plight. We got married, and he arranged for my immigration to the United States within a few months.

When I began to live with him, I found out why no American woman would consider marrying him. The man was a loser--not because of the job he performed--but because of his outmoded ideas on what a marriage is supposed to be. His version was like a parent/child relationship. I had replaced a father with another father figure.

Russian (or foreign) women are not idiots. Upon arriving in the United States, I immediately saw how many American women behaved: strong, independent, self-actualizing, in charge of their lives. That’s when my husband and I parted company.

TANIA SEVEROV

Los Angeles