Dear Arden:

First, I hope that you had already let your mother know that your uncle (her brother) is not welcome in your apartment, where your boyfriend currently live, and that if you already agreed that he stays there, that you will let your mother (and uncle)  know that you changed your mind, and that it’s not okay with you for him to stay there!

“Thank you Anita, it’s decided that I will have to leave and find a new job, I’ll do that with the best of my abilities. Grieved a bit, it feels like my grief is ending slowly and then I will work on improving myself for another job where I wouldn’t be treated like this“- You are welcome. Your positive attitude in face of this challenge is inspiring!

(I am adding the boldface feature to the following selectively): “On the other side, I am seeing examples of how other ‘care-free’ people, how other irresponsible people gets to be treated with lots of help…. This week we have heard that my uncle’s heart condition has gotten a bit serious and he’s in need of a serious treatment or he’ll just die. My mom called me to ask, ‘if we can find a treatment, can he stay at your apartment during the treatment? (where my current BF lives)‘ I told her that I would do my best, it’s not exactly my house right now since he lives in it. I’ll ask kindly and I’ll hope he’ll accept that. However, then I got angry. The reason why he got this sick is that he continued with his terrible alcoholism even after a heart attack… My mother has supported that family a lot. A lot that she actually has been a mother to my uncle when she was supposed to be my mother…. My uncle visited our house every week asking for money, crying, telling about his own terrible life and conditions… I am…  honestly, very very much sick of this shit where care-free people always count on others and somehow always get something from them…Maybe because of the fact that her (your mother’s) parents died young, she always felt the need to take care of her siblings. They were 8 brothers and sisters..”.-

-Seems to me that your mother indeed took the mother role in her family-of-origin, mothering her siblings, but she didn’t take the mother role in regard to her real-life daughter! And as a  result: (1) your uncle (her sibling) remained a child in the sense of being irresponsible and leaving his care in the hands of others, and (2) you became too responsible at an early age, not having had the opportunity to enjoy a care free childhood.

Your anger is understandable and there is no good reason that you follow suit and .. be a mother to your uncle, for crying out loud!

“Last year, there has been an incident where my uncle was a guest in my mom’s house, I was not there, and he drank too much alcohol and then attacked randomly“- reason enough to not expose your boyfriend to your uncle’s alcoholism and aggression!

“Maybe you already know this, but in Muslim countries, there are festive periods in each year where old people in the family give money to young ones, like rituals. Stuff like Ramadan or stuff like that, children always collect money and count it, feel better, etc. They have never given me that experience. I was never able to collect money like that, like a normal child. So I still feel resentment towards that”-

– Your resentment is understandable: as a child,  you were not given the experience of being a child, a care-free child whose care is in the hands of older people in the family. You couldn’t relax into the careless experience appropriate to being a child. You had to be careful.

“me persuading my BF into staying with my uncle can harm us“- Please do not allow your uncle to stay in your apartment!

“We have talked with my BF today… He told me that last year, he has sent money to his sister (which is one year older than me) so that she could buy an expensive phone…  Instead, she went and bought a tv and then that tv got faulty… He just told me this story making fun of this. ‘She could’ve bought the phone and then she wouldn’t need the tv, which she cannot use anymore anyways, lol” in type of way. Not sounding resentful in any way. Not blaming her… I think of what I was told, when everyone else was handed in nice phones around 2009-2010, and I also wanted one for myself, but never had courage to ask for it, from anyone…  I have never asked anything from him (your father) and always got my stuff myself…  It wasn’t that he didn’t have money by the way, but he basically didn’t like spending on us”-

– Understandably, you feel some envy at people who- not only as children, but also as adults- ask for what they want and get what they want while you did not have this experience yet, not as a child, and not as an adult.

I imagine that as a young child, when you naturally expressed a desire for something and asked for it (ex., ice-cream, a toy), your father reacted with anger and blamed you for asking. As a result, you stopped asking. When you see someone asking and receiving and then, not being blamed for asking, not even for doing something wrong (buying a TV instead of a phone, in this case), it’s infuriating, isn’t it?

“He was surprisingly good to others... He was never giving to me, never generous to me in any way, but always trying to impress others… He also tried to impress my friends, probably aiming to impress their families. This has harmed me a lot. Even turned me against my friends… I spill something in the house, and I was treated so bad. But a friend of mine, a guest, spills something, breaks something, acts care-free, and doesn’t get anything besides more good behaviors. I saw all that, couldn’t say anything”- his behavior was terrible to you, no doubt and he indeed harmed you emotionally and socially.

“Maybe I still feel conflicted, confused about these… Then there were financial instabilities in his life… I didn’t want to ask from him in a bad way, so I just said to myself, one more month of rent, one more…. he offered me his help in different ways. I haven’t taken most of them… But learning about how he actually sent lots of money to his sister for a phone, which is older than me, feels bad”-

– again, what you feel is understandable and a natural consequence of your particular experience with your very stingy and two-faced father. As a child, for the purpose of being a good daughter to your father, to please him, to get his (unavailable) love and avoid his anger and blaming, you learned to NOT ASK.

Fast forward, to be a good person, you still don’t ask for money or gifts, so to not burden other people, but you observe that other people ASK and GET money and gifts.. and affection for asking.

To be a good girlfriend, you didn’t ask your boyfriend for financial help when you needed it, and rejected most of his offers to help, but then, you found out that his money- which didn’t go to your rent (a necessity)- went to his sister for a phone, a luxury. I understand how disturbing it feels!

“I hate these thoughts, I shouldn’t be thinking about these stuff. But I do. I haven’t said anything when he told me that, I just responded randomly and then we got off the phone and then I started crying. Writing these, I see it more clearly, but I don’t think sharing these thoughts with him would result in a good way. Maybe omitting the sister part, and then talking about it would make more sense”-

– Please don’t hate your thoughts or your feelings: anyone (!) with the same childhood experience with your father that you experienced, would think and feel the same way!

It’s a good thing on your part that you realize that your unfortunate experience with your father is not your boyfriend’s fault, he didn’t create this emotional wound within you, and you didn’t blame him. This makes you a good person and a good girlfriend. I suggest that you do share these feelings with him (in a non-accusatory way, of course) because like you, he is a good person, and maybe he will be able to help you emotionally, if you share more with him.

“My BF is a generous person, I know that in theory, feeling it, but haven’t experienced that yet in a way that would make me sure”- your unfortunate experience with your father prevented you from knowing how it feels in practice to receive gifts. Hopefully, you will get to experience this in-practice bit by bit. But it won’t be easy to change what you learned from your experience with your father.

“it feels like I’ve just poured 20 years of wound. It was painful to write, and think but I somehow feel more relief. Still surprised that all those came out after one sentence from my BF. It was just a funny memory to him. I cried for more than an hour writing those, feels very weird. I cried about stuff that has happened 15 years ago, 3,033 kms away. How much distance does that make? Looked up the kilometers btw“-

– It is indeed amazing how painful childhood experiences follows us for years, for decades.. and over great distances across the world. It is so because the distance that matters most in the way we experience life is the short distance in-between our ears. Our brains get formed during our childhoods, aka our Formative Years, and we take our brains with us wherever we go.

Healing and re-learning is possible, and you are proof of it: you have been in this unique process of healing and re-learning for a long time: excellent work, Arden, I am impressed and inspired by you!

anita