Anita,

Thank you. It’s amazing how you seem to see it all very clearly – as clearly as everyone here (my family, friends etc). My dad, in fact, named the therapist a ‘witch doctor’ as he said from the start that he believed the therapist was paid by the family to parrot to my ex what they wanted him to believe/hear. I.e. that he didn’t really love me, that he was only with me out of guilt, that it was nothing but infatuation perhaps. Now thinking about it, it feels like perhaps they started pressuring him into seeing his ex as marriage material when he got home, he clearly was trying to say he loved me and wanted to be with me, but with all the pressure started feeling ‘confused’ which is when the ever so helpful mother would have suggested he sees a therapist in order to get a professional point of view.

Funny how this ‘professional’ therapist also ‘recommended’ he spend some time with his ex as it would do him good – I’m no therapist, but I know enough about therapy and psychology to know that if someone had effectively been ‘faking’ a relationship for three years, I would advise for him to be alone for some time, to get his head together first, live alone etc. Not spend time with the ex when he’d just broken someone else’s heart.

I also wonder if the therapist was an astrologer. In his culture, an astrologer is consulted in order to see if two people are matched before they get married. It wouldn’t surprise me if the ‘therapist’ wasn’t even a pretend therapist – if he was an astrologer or religious guru type person. I’ve actually heard about this before – parents from his culture consulting religious gurus when their children go ‘haywire’ – i.e. when their children want to do something against their wishes. They told me it was a therapist because that’s a ‘language’ I could understand so to speak.

Thank you Anita. This has certainly helped me get a bit of clarity from someone who is totally objective to the whole thing. Like you said, it doesn’t deal with my ‘tree’ but I think I’ll read your reply back to myself whenever I’m having one of my moments of doubt.