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Dear anita,
I suppose my mother can be a hard woman. My memories of her while we all lived together in Indonesia where quite warm, She was quite happy and maintained a good social life etc. I also know that there were many instances my father did not support her. He offered little support to her and she grew accustomed to doing things by herself over time. The prime example I can give of this is that when I was born, my father did not even show up on the day to be with my mother or visit me after. My uncle was the first male to interact with me. When my father visited the day after, the nurse was shocked at him being a different man from the one who first saw me (my uncle) and turned around to march straight back to the ward without even showing me to my father. I don’t think a lot of fathers would be quite so detached from their families especially during such a critical event.
So I would say that although this discussion has focused a lot on my mother, I firmly believe that my father’s actions had a big impact on the marriage progressively falling apart. As I know, my parents did not spend much time truly getting to know each other before getting married.
When my mother is around her family (grandparents, uncles, aunts etc) it seems she changes into a completely different person. Upon this observation, I believe she is someone who had real love in a marriage held back from her, and instead of support from my father, she had to focus on completing her duties and handling a lot of work without my father to adequately support her emotionally or physically. It is an unfortunate series of events, but I do believe that both individuals and their lack of connection in marriage led to it falling apart.To me it speaks of dysfunction of both sides.
My sister, mother and I are all living together. Things have greatly improved now and, although I do intend to settle down abroad and not in Sri Lanka for the long term, for the time being, I am focused on setting a strong foundation and some level of financial stability here before I take off to focus fully on myself. My sister is a great source of support to my mother especially around the house as I tend to be more fully involved with my career and degree work. But I do try to spend time with them when I can and consciously be present with them in those times.
My sister is doing alright, she is in a happy relationship as of recently and also graduated with her first degree and I got her set up with an internship at my company for her to get some practical, workplace training. She is not as driven in her career as I am yet, but she does have a firm mindset on becoming a teacher. She likes her home comforts and being near our mother. I believe this characteristic sets us apart significantly as I am more free spirited and adventurous. We often have talks on the way to work and I am available for her to talk to about any personal struggles or anything in general that she wants advice on. She usually comes to me without prompting is she has anything on her mind. I try my best to be a balanced, supportive and logical support that she can depend on. I have also noticed my mother relying on me and listening to me more as of recent as well instead of being as stubborn as she was before.. It has made our relationship grow a bit better.
MonaD
Dear anita,
I understand what you mean. The dynamic between family members should be different so as to make the “home” environment a safe space for all as opposed to the outside environment.
If there is one thing I have come to learn about my mother, it is that she does not do well when having her faults pointed out. She will try to either justify them by saying “you cannot change me, I will never change”, or counterattack. Especially if its something that goes against her ideal which she believes she has striven to uphold. To be told that she failed in it seemed to drive her straight up the wall. As it is, this is the reason why I have elected to use the strategy my manager mentioned; where I accept that her inability to be stubborn and accept some of her flaws is an inherent characteristic of who she is. And thus, I work with that by not antagonizing her in that respect as much as possible.
The reason I arranged to meet with my father was mostly because I wanted to make a my own decisions and reach my own conclusions of what happened and progress my own healing as this issue is something very significant that has shaped a large portion of my life up til now. My memories of the details are vague from that time, I chalk this up to the emotional trauma I was feeling back then and to my lack of proper understanding of how to process trauma. More than me suspecting my mother having lied, I understood that to her, her version of the situation is inevitably going to be how she saw it, and her point of view would not change. But I had the option of reaching my conclusions and making my decisions on how I wanted to maintain my relationships with my parents based only on her POV or, I could reach other to my father and get his side as well, as due to him being abroad, we had very limited access to speak to him about his POV. And fun fact, they are actually not legally divorced. It’s not in any of our interests to pursue legal divorce at this point but for technicality’s sake, my parents are still married, and my father is also legally married to his second wife.
My father did send money on a couple of occasions when my sister and I requested some aid during several times that we really got stuck financially. Mostly with regards to our education related payments. However, the only account details he has is the joint account shared by my mother and I, so I was aware of every transaction that was made.
It’s interesting to me that you picked up on that, because it is something I have openly discussed with my mother about. Most times she speaks about him, I get a sense that it is very ‘clinical’. what I mean by this is that, having been in a relationship recently myself where I feel that I did genuinely love and care for my ex, the contrast between how I would speak of him and how my mother has always spoken of my father seemed to stand out in very stark contrast to me. You can usually pick up on affectionate tones when a person speaks of someone they care deeply about, but I never really saw this when she spoke about my father. It was always very clinical. Detached. That is the best way I know to explain. She did then admit that she was more focused on carrying out the duties as a wife and feelings of love and romance may have been less important in her mind. I attribute this to the society we have as a South Asian country, especially during my parents day and age where frequently, duty and keeping up family honor can come above personal feelings on certain matters especially those related to family and personal relationships and marriage. My parents spent a lot of time apart after the first few years as we moved back to Sri Lanka and my father stayed on to work where he was in Indonesia.
If there is one thing I am sort of grateful for, it is that I wound up taking most of the blame than my sister. I’m not happy that it happened, but even though it has been hard for me, I am protective of her. I believe that in the end, I was able to grow into a more understanding person and develop at least some level of endurance not just with my mother, but with people and emotional trauma in general, which may not have gone the same way had my sister received the brunt of it.
MonaD
Dear anita,
Thank you kindly for your compliments, I do appreciate them, you are very kind! I don’t particularly see them as overwhelming achievements myself, I think it is mainly as I never took much breaks or gaps while pursuing my educational and career goals and was lucky enough to receive good opportunities coming my way at critical times that I was able to act on. But I realize at this point that not having taken a gap year between studies or something similar does significantly impact the speed of advancement.
Regarding your response, I’m a little embarrassed at the extent of new information I shared haha, I understand it can be a lot to digest in one go!
It was mainly my mother who was I felt blamed me for the situation. She sometimes still does and although it greatly saddens me, I think at this point, I have grown a slightly thicker skin. I still feel it deep in my heart whenever such things are said to me, however, I have gotten a bit better at not showing how it makes me feel on the outside.
I understand that from her side, my mother went through unimaginable trauma from this event herself. I can’t begin to think of the emotional and mental struggle she would have had to go through. She has directed blame towards both my sister and I for being the reason that her marriage broke and she was unable to achieve the goals that she had in life. It is my understanding that she felt caught between her duty to be a good mother and now feels negatively about having prioritized that over being a more attention giving and a present wife to my father. This I realized after I spoke to my father and he told me that “I’am getting older and always alone as I was abroad for most part Your mother didn’t seem to want to give me much attention as she was always so focused on you two. I felt that she only cared that I was a source of income to the family”It is through this experience that I believe in the importance of being present and balancing all aspects of life – work and family both.
I don’t think my mother ever really healed from this and on the bad days, her hardened, hurt spirit still comes out in her sharp, unkind words.Usually these are directed towards me when it is in relation to this event or whenever I make a mistake, exhibit a flaw in my character or my judgement as an individual. I have on several occasions tried to have a discussion with her on how her handling of the situation damages my mental state, however these discussions have always ended with her not accepting that she made me feel so intensely and with her referring to me as “too sensitive and simply inexperienced with the hardships of life”.
I was also told by my mother that my father himself didn’t see much value in investing for my higher education as he believed that I don’t have the capacity to see anything I started through to the end so investing finances and energy in too much education might be a bit of a waste. I was never able to verify this particular claim as it didn’t come directly from him, but I do have a very good memory and unfortunately, many of the things that were said have stuck with me, especially from those younger years. I am continuously working on my growth to try and work through my traumas, however they do have a tendency to manifest even in my current adult years and affect my personal relationships from time to time.
I try every possible way to avoid ever going near this particular topic of conversation or, if it comes up, continuing the conversation as it inevitably gets very heated and never ends well. I understand that unfortunately, my mother’s dealing of this traumatic event has not progressed in a way that she has been able to heal, rather her hard, cruel side can come out, and I do also understand that this might very well be her defense mechanism to protect herself (pushing people away whenever she feels that she is being held accountable for something negative)
She is supportive in times when I do struggle and she has been a great strength to me as I was navigating my way through my fresh breakup.
With my sister, I believe it is more that she has not thought and broken down the situation on her own, rather she has internalized the strong emotions that came through my mother. My sister has never really directed any thoughts of believing that I was the cause for the family breaking up towards me herself, but she does get angry whenever I bringing up any discussion related to this topic that inevitably angers my mother. She attacks me to angering my mother as it might seem to her that I am putting my mother through more trauma.We have gone through periods of negative energy, such as in February, and then things will usually return to normal once again, however there is usually a period where everyone is tense and it seems we are walking on eggshells in our home environment. The only consistency I have identified with these periods is that they usually occur whenever a casual conversation turns towards this particular topic- my father, the broken marriage, personal flaws.
As such, I now consciously try to remain silent and not engage or steer clear of this topic. Even if it comes up (ex; mother sometimes asks me if I have recently spoken to my father/ how him and his family is doing), I am quick to give very short, vague answers and shoot any further discussion down.
I hope this gives you some more insight. I look forward to hearing what you have to say.
Warm regards,
MonaD
Dear anita,
Hello to you and I do hope you are in good health 🙂
I did not see your last response here until today and that too, only because I decided to have a read through all the old threads I posted here with a calmer mindset as I am not so high strung emotionally at this point.
As for your last comment, I do believe you are right. We didn’t experience the specific trials that came with an actual relationship where our lives physically intertwined around each other, not just in the digital world. I did get to know him in a new context/circumstance, and one thing I realized was that intense pressure and being able to juggle many responsibilities at one time is something that is normal for me, and I am able to handle it while maintaining my composure, However, maybe that was not the case for him. And that is okay, because I understand that sometimes, there are certain avenues that people have to grow more in through experience and it’s not often an easy process to go through. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses after all.
Secondly, I realize there is only so far you can go to fight to make a relationship work when so many things work against you – sometimes, it’s better to let go and not hold on because at the end of the day no matter what, we both have our inadequacies and despite this, we both do still deserve to be in happy and truly fulfilling relationships, with people who can be near us. So if I cannot be the person he needs and he cannot be the person I need, then there really is no point in holding on to a relationship is there?
It has been almost 6 months since we broke up and, while I still have not gotten to a point where my thoughts do not stray to him at least once a day, I’m no longer hurting so much that I’m crying every day. For me, this is a significant step, however small. Even though I still get caught in my feelings at times, I’m not giving up with pushing forward and I am slowly but surely learning to live without him. I just keep repeating to myself one thing that both he and you said to me – I deserve better. It took me a while to have it truly sink in, but yes. I do deserve better.
I deleted and removed myself from all social media profiles because I did not want to keep hurting myself by allowing exposure to anything he posted about his new girl. This, at the end of the day, was the one thing that exacerbated all the pain I feel. Posting on social media. And the inability to keep certain information private instead of putting it out in public. Our last conversation was a video call that occurred due to a member of my family having sent him and his new girl a long and quite dramatic message letting out a lot of anger on him and her before blocking them (ex: – “you never deserved someone like her (referring to me), so maybe you do deserve your new girl. Maybe she might love you just enough so that it is convenient for you to handle because otherwise, you would probably just dump her too, the moment she inconveniences you”)
Following this, he told me that his new girl was uncomfortable with him keeping contact with me and he said “I hope you understand”. To be honest, I do. I want to move past this whole ordeal and I can at least respect him for trying to be a reliable and trustworthy man to another woman. I know that I would have absolutely no respect for him otherwise haha.
Currently, I’m committed to investing in my own health and peace of mind. I still hold a lot of love for this man who is my ex and I do not know if my affection for him will ever really disappear – in a way this is heartening to me as I take it as proof that my feelings for him were true and that he was someone dear. But I have more love for myself now and, I believe, a less romanticized idea of relationships. I am spending my days being useful, developing my career and professional skills, engaging in my art work and working to achieve my goals while surrounding myself with people that pour into my happiness and well-being without draining the life out of me.
My warmest regards to you anita, wherever you are! I hope you are well and happy!
MonaD
Dear anita,
I will do so. I do still feel a little raw after the events of the last few days when this whole thing blew up and sometimes the emotions do rise again, but definitely not to the level they were coming to before. I believe after everything settles, I may even remember the man once in away with affection a few years down the line. I know I can be similar to a soda bottle at times, I will get intensely angry but once I let go of it completely, my nature does not allow me to hold grudges in the long term no matter how horrible things get and I’m honestly grateful for that quality.
I’m focusing on healing and recovering now as my mental and physical health has taken a huge toll. I feel physically weak. It’s not a very good way to be, considering the current situation.
I am actually in Sri Lanka now. Over the past few day the number of confirmed incidents have risen dramatically. The whole country is on edge and social distancing is very much encouraged, however there are still those individuals who may not have fully grasped the seriousness of the situation and that is quite frustrating.
I personally am working on the frontlines and have been over the past couple of months. I am a technical and applications specialist working in a company that supplies the required testing needs for the whole of Sri Lanka. I have been travelling around the country these days to support main laboratories and hospitals nationwide in setting up their testing for the coronavirus. Being a developing country, some laboratories need a bit more support and training for their staff in terms of the technical side of genetic testing and instruments.
I am in my mid 20s but I was fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to advance quickly in my career. I am the main person who conducts these training activities/ workshops and knowledge dissemination in the molecular biology division in my company.
I also handle the supply/distribution part in making sure the supplies needed for testing are available. Currently all airports have been shut down and Sri Lanka depends on foreign supplies and testing kits for a majority of the country’s diagnostic testing. My company is a major supplier of these resources. If we are unable to get the supplies, there is a huge danger of running out of tests and not being able to test for suspected patients. It really is a crisis situation.
As you can see with all this I’ve been extremelyyyyy stressed out! Really hoping the situation lightens up soon.
I hope you are maintaining your health, immune system and wellness as well 🙂
Mona
Dear anita,
It’s lovely to hear from you, you’ve been such a support to me throughout this time!
Just for the record, He moved back to USA after he was finished helping his brother out, somewhere after February 12th, I’m not too sure of the exact date. However, yes, It does seem that he had time to spare to communicate afterwards. When I commented on this he told me he still needed space and when I asked wasn’t everything handled and we can start afresh now and talk and move past thins making sure if a similar issue arises, we would be better equipped to deal with it healthily. Unfortunately although I was willing to move forward with him, he wanted space to process his emotions as he resented that I made him feel like the bad guy and said “This is why I can’t even think of getting back together. Because you take what I say so negatively”
I suppose once the damage is done, there’s only so much that can be done to help the situation. At the least, I’m grateful for having listened to my gut and not letting up until I found out the information I needed which really helped me get the closure I hoped for that I had done everything I could.
All this aside, yes absolutely. There is a lot I must learn and I intend to hold myself with more value moving forwards as well. On speaking with my mother, she mentioned that unfortunately I was the kind of person who had more value than I gave myself credit for and to not sell myself short especially in a relationship.
Thank you so much, for everything you have done to provide support, not just for me,but also for so many others here!
Mona
Dear anita,
From what he has told me, yes he has. We both had parents who weren’t the greatest role models. Fortunately, I still have my mother, who despite her own struggles, has pulled it all out of the hat and has never left my family as my father did. He unfortunately, wasn’t so lucky.
He is not currently living with his parents, but I do believe he is finding it a bit challenging to suddenly adjust to the change into civilian lifestyle from his time in the military.
He keeps in touch with his parents on occasion and speaks affectionately of them from time to time. He also speaks matter-of -factly about is experiences growing up and appreciates that he has grown and changes over the years as a result of his experiences growing up and in the military.
I had a chance to speak with him again and shared the thoughts discussed earlier:
“No one owes anyone anything in a relationship. One person can leave the other for any reason or none at all“. Translate that to first person and essentially it is: “I don’t owe you anything. I can leave you for any reason or none at allI believe that when a man loves a woman and she loves him back, and the two talked about a future together.. they do owe each other. At that stage, they owe each other loyalty, honesty and continuity of communication, and they owe each other to not break up whenever they feel the relationship is an inconvenience.”to which he replied,
“You see, this is why I can’t imagine getting back together at this time or even respond most times. You translate my actions and words into this intensely negative thing because it doesn’t fit your belief. I don’t know why you’re trying to guilt me over a decision I made to help my family.
I said what I said because it’s true. In no relationship does any one person owe the other anything. You have to remember that. If you ever try to enter another relationship and it turns out to be bad or it keeps you from doing what you need to, than you have to realize that you can end it.”Thoughts?
Dear anita,
Thank you kindly for your response, you were able to very succinctly put into words the concept I had been struggling with to wrap my head around.
I think you are right, I still feel very jarred when I read that particular sentence “No one owes anyone anything in a relationship. One person can leave the other for any reason or none at all”
It got me thinking “Does one not owe their partner loyalty, honesty and communication once they are in a relationship? I wouldn’t be able to classify any bond that didn’t require two people to maintain at least those three things as a relationship at all”
It really bothered me and still does. I knew immediately that the cold, emotionless vibe that that statement brought with it was what shook me. I didn’t expect it at all.
As a person, I have experienced him being emotional, both over our digital communication and in person. I had come to know him as quite an affectionate person. In fact I was more distant than him at the start of the relationship. It took me quite a while to even begin opening up to him and throughout that period, he was very supportive, affectionate and kind to me and made time for me despite his busy schedule. There have been many times in our relationship when I have had to be more logical to help him figure out his emotions/ navigate a situation. Sometimes, when certain situations get too intense, we both understand the need to take some space. We do however usually communicate within a day. At those times he needed space to calm down/process his emotions and think, I am happy to give him the required space he needs. I hope i have been quite understanding that way.
I personally feel that the emotional and mental stress he may have been under while with his brother definitely contributed to his anger and frustration that did peak in finalizing his decision to break up with me. I have to give it to him that he communicated that he was frustrated with the state of things there and also getting angry more frequently. He mentioned this days before breaking up in an effort to get me to stop adding fuel (in terms of my venting my frustrations) to his fire.
However, as I said, that final sentence came across as jarringly cold to me. It seemed to me like he was able to switch off his own emotions to do what he needed to do. And as a result of that logical path of thinking, he decided to discard the relationship as it was hindering his ability to get the work done. In hindsight, I have caught myself thinking that if he had ignored me, maybe I would have come around eventually. I don’t know for sure though. What’s done is done after all.
It seems I do have some decision making of my own to do. What are your thoughts?
Kind regards,
MonaD
Dear anita,
thank you very much for your guidance.
So long story short, we decided to break up. It was too much to handle for both of us.
A significant part of this issue that I should mention from my side is that my trigger for emotional upheaval was the idea of this “break”. I did not like the feeling that I was in a grey area. This was when I asked for his help in making a clear cut decision as to what we were so I could adjust accordingly and move forward depending on the decision. I believe this concept of “break” grew into a monster in my mind, through my own fault, until I was drowing in emotion and unable to function in daily life. Perhaps things would have gone better if I had avoided overthinking it and let it be.
However what’s done is done and I take this as a lesson for the future. This experience has taught me the importance of maintaining a life outside the relationship. I realize I had stopped giving my attention there, which was a big failure on my part.
I have replied to him with gratefulness for being an important part of my life and taking care of me, looking out for my happiness and I have said that although we are not together anymore, I still want the world for him and for him to achieve all his dreams and goals. I genuinely do and I really hope things look up for the both of us from here on out.
Thank you for all of your input. Your objective third opinion was a valuable guidepost for me to be able to sort through my emotions when I felt I was drowning in them.
Warm Regards,
MonaD
Hi anita, good to hear from you and once again thank you for lending a listening ear 🙂
To summarize, yes my rest and recovery has indeed been spending time communicating with him. It was something we both looked forward to each day.
Last year we have only been able to meet for a week in June and it was a very fulfilling time for the both of us since meetings are rare. He has planned to visit me and my family around April this year but he recently expressed how the situation he is facing has pushed his own plans back and expressed a lot of frustration at the possibility that he will not be able to follow through with the plans. These being spend some time with his family and then travel around a bit on vacation and then visit me for around two weeks during the festival season before heading back to focus fully on university. We hoped to sit down together and figure out where we were going to go with moving our relationship forward, goals and future plans when we were able to have a sit down chat about those important topics instead of over phone.
he does drop a message once in a while when he gets a chance despite asking for a break, and so do I. I suppose the situation is more along the lines of keeping in touch when we can instead of a true break. I feel like his mentality behind requesting a break was that he believed that if we were not “officially” in an active relationship, that is, a break, it would be easier to manage feelings of hurt and sadness due to not being able to keep in touch as per our usual” I explained to him that just because we say “break”, it doesn’t mean that those feelings are going to stop or be easier to justify by thinking that we weren’t on an active relationship. At least my feelings for him don’t work that way, im not just able to shut them off and back on at will and at convenience.
Unfortunately the most recent conversation stopped short as I was quite blunt and cruel in saying that I didn’t want to speak with him much. I do regret that.
With clarifying his request to take a break, the following is part of his message relating to that:
“Maybe we should take a break. I know it hurts, but I can’t keep hurting you with my absence. Yesterday my brother cried to me about all the stress of starting a new business from nothing and how he can’t go home yet. I have to be here for him.I can’t stand the idea of hurting you too. It’s like the world is pulling me in so many different ways, I can’t do everything.”
“Please do what you need to in order to succeed. And if everything works out on my end, I’ll be back.”
“….at this moment, I can’t really maintain a personal relationship outside of the one with my brother. I don’t have the time, energy, or even cellular reliability to keep it up. I don’t want you to feel like it is because I don’t want you or that it’s because it’s something that you did. Just understand that I have to be here, right now.”
When I asked what “taking a break” would encompass, his was his response:
“Well, for me it means that I need a friend now more than I need a lover. I can’t handle certain obligations and I need to go without them for a while. And when everything is done and the feelings are still there we can pick up from where we left off. Until then I will be focusing on the more pressing things in my life as you should be too.”
My apologies for the long long essays! I’m quite terrible at explaining in short! Do you have any helpful advice?
Though I run this site, it is not mine. It's ours. It's not about me. It's about us. Your stories and your wisdom are just as meaningful as mine. 