Actually wish, what I want to ask is – how did you manage to go there – what line of work or subject you are in?

What are the prospects like in your country and possible alternatives? See I know you are depressed things haven’t worked out and your friends seem to be doing better but feeling sorry for yourself isn’t going to help. You are gonna sink deeper and deeper into this over time if you keep brooding.

You have to make the effort to come out of this. You atleast have your family with you. They are surely supportive and good people.

Come on, you really think God is punishing you for going overseas by making your parents sick? You love your family and you have your own wishes too. What’s wrong with taking the leap? You would be there for your parents no matter what. Of course they are gonna get old. With age, health does decline. It’s not you. Don’t be so hard on yourself.

It’s been a few months only and perhaps the economy is just down – you will figure something out but you gotta get out of this mindset that life is over, your dream was crap. No I don’t think it was crap. You tried to live your dream. How many have courage to even try that? So what if it didn’t meet your expectations? That’s life, isn’t it?

There is no peachy perfect. There is some good and some bad. What if your parents fell sick when you were away from home now? How would you feel then? Think of that possibility, atleast you are back at home when they need you most.

Sometimes what we expect doesn’t materialize but it does help us see what we actually want, gives us perspective. You were brave enough to try, surely you can be a bit brave and come out of this. I am guessing not having a job is giving you the most distress at this moment. How are you going about the process?

Dear Kiva

I haven’t read the book but I have read Mark’s articles. The basic points are indeed good but the use of the f word after every sentence wasn’t something I enjoyed.

Essentially what he says is – Know what’s important to you, stop going after the nonsense to please others, expect life to beat you to the ground anyway.

It reminded me a bit of Rocky Balboa’s speech to his kid minus the expletives and some more positive commentary about ones own inner resources.

Essentially what Mark advocates is being more considerate of the important things in life, the ones that actually matter to “you”. As my mom used to say, albeit bluntly when I was a teen, stop complicating your own life by inviting more nonsense thinking 😛 (sighs, still working on that)

Mason’s ideas are nothing new, the only new thing is that he doesn’t sugar coat it that hard and kinda irritates one too with the whole glorified language, slightly over the top talk.

Frankly the best self help book I have ever read isn’t a self help book. It was Victor Frankls “Man’s search for meaning” – it made me see just how formidably strong people can be in the most barbaric situations. Then Marc and Angels blog is good as well. Simple, real and not a pretentious pile of positivity or negativity crap “excuse the vocabulary”

Have you read more of his book so far?

PS : I am not a Buddhist or Buddhist-ish but religion, spirituality is an area of interest.

Regards
Nina

Run, run, run and run far away unless you want to be wife number 9 or 12 or whichever. Do you think he will stop after you? Sure he is nice to you now but how can you be sure about a man who has already had 8 wives and happens to be from a very patriarchal culture?

You aren’t just gonna be with him. In the end, you get tied to his family too. So that dream solution of only staying here and never going to Nigeria…well trust me, it ain’t that simple.

Are you willing to adapt to such a culture so that you feel more stable after a 16 year old marriage ended? I dunno if this is worth it to feel less lonely.

And again, totally agree with Xenopous for a change – the drugs, the multiple wives, online women – these aren’t good signs.

Dear person88,

The physical pain and crying is normal because you are going through a grieving process as a relationship has ended. However to really cut the chord, you must make sure not to allow this man to contact you for whatever reason. Better to block him on fb to be honest or you will end up stalking his profile eventually when you are in a low mood.

There is no right or wrong here about it being “odd” or not in terms of unfriending. He was a jerk to you and you can decide for yourself to have this space. I suggest blocking bcoz if u unfriend, he will use this as an excuse to contact you somehow by sending friend request again. Your call though.

I know this is so painful- to try so hard to be with someone, to give your heart to him and have them do this to you. I tell you though, it wasn’t your fault at all. You did your best but as you can see, his behaviour wasn’t right at all. Don’t allow him to make you feel bad. Any guy would be lucky to have a girl who cares so much. It’s his loss that he didn’t understand your value. It’s your gain that you realised his true nature much before you even got married to this guy and had children. Just imagine how complicated things would have been then.

I can only say that let time heal your heart. Allow yourself to cry, write your feelings down often, go see a friend and go for walk…anything to get your head away from this guy. He wasn’t worthy of this effort.

I am really sorry it ended this way. It does get better though – the heart heals…when I first got my heart broken in a long term relationship, I lost a lot of weight and took up fitness, art to cope with the awful feelings. I cried all the time, felt angry at him and missed him too. Somehow over next couple of months, it got better. He tried to contact me again and do emotional blackmail but I ignored him, blocked him.

It will hurt for a while but it will get better. Don’t be alone during this time though. Go meet your friends, keep yourself occupied. Stay away from fb for the time being.

Regards
Nina

Dear Russ

I am going to get back to you soon about this once I go through the previous posts as well. I feel it would give me a better understanding of things.

One thing I am still unclear about is how did their time of financial difficulty affect you?

Were you a teen then or a kid? We’re there any instances you felt anxious or felt instances of irritation from them? What was the environment at home when this phase was going on?

What do you mean by “responsibility of it transferred” – does this mean when you went to college, or when you got married or when kids happened? When do you reckon the anxiety really got bad about this? Please explain this particular thing in detail in terms of who, when and how. Hope you don’t mind me bugging you with these questions 🙂

I will send you the file soon once I can find it after my laptop is back from repair. Do write back, it’s good to dig deeper into some specific areas and understanding ones own belief systems. Everything is oddly linked.

Regards
Nina

• This reply was modified 7 years, 10 months ago by Nina Sakura.

Hey Russ,

No problem at all. You can surely make a fresh ID and I will send it across. I also don’t use my main email ID anyway 🙂

I must say your description of what you in a friend is rather beautiful actual. It’s so simple and can be easily found at the right places with a little bit of effort. You essentially want quality companionship, not emotional intimacy per say. That is something you appear to crave with a romantic partner, a future spouse.

In simple terms, you want good, solid, down to earth people who are kind.

They are out there actually no matter how materialistic and superficial the world seems at times. The funny thing is, lot of people actually seek this very bonding you described.

Someone to have a laugh with to wash away worries.

It’s good that you are aware of this need.

The anxiety that you described about money is something that really intrigues me. It seems to have had a huge impact on your life, relationships along with things that happened with your rather religious folks at home.

I am really curious to know – when did your issues with money start? Since you started working, got married or after kids? What was your family’s attitude towards money when you were growing up?

Hope to hear from you soon.

Regards
Nina

Hey Russ,

Forgot to ask you something though – which was the point of your first post, especially about friends.

What do you define as a friend?

How do you find them?

What does having a friend do for you?

Do you reckon it gets harder to make friends as one gets older?

What kind of friendship do you want?

What qualities do you generally look for in a friend?

According to me, there are acquaintances, people between acquaintances and friends, and then of course friends. The intimacy and familiarity varies accordingly.

Based on this, what do you really require? What’s the need they will serve for you?

You seem like a really considerate person bdw. I was very happy to see that you put the effort to personally reply to us all. Very rarely have I seen this and appreciate this.

Regards
Nina