Dear Tobi:

I read your two posts attentively. You are indeed very much emotionally invested in her. Your writing is presented in a scientific way: neat, orderly, structured, methodical and precise. Relationships are often complex and messy because either party, or both, are not aware of (or otherwise do not share) the whole truth, so the information you have, although precisely and thoroughly presented, may be significantly incomplete, meaning that this and that essential piece of information is missing, leading to a significantly lacking understanding.

I’ll go over what you wrote and see what I can come up with (perhaps I will point to possible missing pieces): she told you that her father “was very strict about her studying… One time, she failed, and her dad was very upset with her“, that “She had to push herself a lot to satisfy her parents“. and that currently, “she and her dad still argue sometimes, and she cries”. Earlier, you wrote that her father “used to be harsh to her mom“, and “her dad was very strict on her (typical Asian tiger parent)“-

– From Wikipedia on Tiger parenting: “a form of strict parenting, whereby parents are highly invested in ensuring their children’s success. Specifically, tiger parents push their children to attain high levels of academic achievement or success in high-status extracurricular activities such as music or sports… Tiger parents prioritize schoolwork above all else and highly encourage their children to participate in activities that are beneficial increasing the child’s acceptance to the elite universities”.

Her second relationship was with a man who “urged her to ask her parents to wire him money against her will. They had an argument and he hurt her physically. He lost her money and did never return her. Now she had to make up for that financial loss with her own savings. This amount of money was originally saved for her CFA test” – (1) If her father has been a strict, tiger parent who prioritized his daughter’s academics above all else, why did he wire the money saved for her CFA study to a man who was not part of the family?

(2) It takes two to argue. If her father has been strict and harsh to his wife and daughter, how is it that his daughter repeatedly argues with him, not afraid of him or intimidated by him?

“When I told her that failing is okay and to keep her own health in good condition, she said she would choose this CFA test over anything” – she didn’t choose her CFA test over anything when she sent the “amount of money was originally saved for her CFA test” to her second boyfriend. Did she?

In the third and most recent relationship, the work colleague “forced my GF to do her job for her“, similar to the boyfriend before forcing her to ask her parents to wire him money (“urged her… against her will“)- how did her work colleague force her to do her job for her and how did she convince her parents to wire money to this man, what did she say to them?

“Am I doing it right as a good BF?” – currently, there is a break in the relationship with no promise that it will resume. Why do you refer to the two of you as boyfriend and girlfriend?

anita

• This reply was modified 2 years, 7 months ago by .