Dear Aum:

“I had also been taking care of family from a very young age… he’s the eldest son and there’s a lot of pressure on him”- seems like the two of you have this in common: pressure by family to take care of them (pressure applied aggressively or not).

“I have an anxiety disorder and have struggled with depression”, “After taking this year off, I’m feeling a lot better mentally and emotionally, despite the year that is 2020”- seems to me that the pressure to take care of your family from a very young age harmed you mentally and emotionally, causing you anxiety and depression, and once you took a year off from taking care of them (or from working where you don’t want to work, so to take care of them), your mental and emotional health improved.

On the other hand, he never took time off from taking care of his family, or from the expectation that he will be taking care of them (?) which may explain why his mental and emotional health did not improve.

“maybe it was the way he was raised.. I can’t tell you because he’s never opened up to me about any of it.. I feel like our entire relationship was one-sided: I was vulnerable, broken, I trusted him with all of me. But he didn’t give me the same, in fact he actively tried to hide his issues”-

– here is a possibility, and it is only a possibility, for you to consider, accept or reject: maybe you repeatedly expressed to him that your own parents never did any wrong, that your anxiety and depression had nothing to do with the way you were raised, and you expressed to him otherwise that parents are never to be criticized. So, he didn’t feel safe enough to share with you anything that may be critical of his parents.

anita