Thank you everyone.

Anita, this is what I suspected, I appreciate your perspective. What is different is that he seemed to be somewhat aware and trying to change it, from the beginning. Either that or he is just acting. He has lived in the west his entire life so I guess it’s the lessons his parents taught him. He told me to push back, because he was learning. He asked a lot of things for my pleasure, but could not get through his head some of them. From the beginning he has strange hints “I wish I met you when I was younger” even though we are the same age. And he told me very early on I remind him of his mother…which made me nervous immediately. But his mother is very critical about his appearance and controlling to him, so I’m not sure what it was I said that made me seem that way.

He really does not seem to be seeing other people in his spare time. He is a workaholic and I know he is always at home working or studying- he sends me pictures too. Would this happen further on in a relationship, I am not sure. Same with getting violent… he does have anger issues for certain things but I have never seen him be violent in person. Sometimes he seems so angry at me over tiny mistakes it scares me, but he still talks nicely though his eyes say something else.

The hardest thing about this was that I was set up by the mutual friend, who knew my own history, then vouched for his character. And now she has been dropping hints, that they must have been involved in the past, and she is not ignorant of the things he does. I do not understand why someone who claims to care about me would put me in this situation, encourage me to fall hard for him, and now I don’t know how to stand up for myself or remove myself. My work has suffered and my career has stalled because my self confidence has taken such a hit due to the way they have treated me — even as these people claim and act to be supporting me and building me up.