Dear Dafne,

thank you for your care and kindness and wishing me well regarding my health.

I am very sorry that you are suffering from the consequences of long Covid. That must be awful 🙁

And did you get Covid more than once? Because you said that it got worse after your last Covid (After my last COVID, it got even worst.) I really hope that with time it will get better for you, Dafne.

I was smiling when you mentioned the flower in my profile picture you got it right again. I did do a lot of artistic projects in the past and painting was one of my favourites. I used to sit in the nature a lot and just breath.

I am glad I was right about the artist in you! 🙂 How come you stopped painting and doing art projects, if I may ask?

Perhaps being in nature and just soaking in its beauty would help you relax, and might even have a positive effect on your breathing? I apologize in advance if I am over simplifying things and making useless suggestions. Because I know dealing with a chronic illness is much more complicated than that…

Yes, it was a separate session but people seemed to share the information and it did not feel very private. The group wasn’t the patients but the health professionals.

Oh so it was like an expert panel, so to speak, giving you their suggestions. That’s a strange setup for counseling, because counseling is best done 1:1, where the patient develops trust and rapport with the practitioner. What they did is more like a hospital setting, where a panel of doctors decides what’s the best treatment option in case of disease. But here, the best treatment option is to have empathy and understanding for the client. That’s how our healing begins.

You found the right word for this kind of practice “tough love” and it wasn’t a very compassionate & understanding environment. It might be that they meant well and did not want people to feel like victims but the effect was completely different. It did not feel right at all and feelings seemed to be ignored and logic prevailed.

I understand it’s important not to feel like a helpless victim – because if we do, we won’t be able to make the necessary changes in our lives. However, we were victims as children – we were indeed helpless victims. And we were harmed. And this needs to be acknowledged before we can proceed to heal. The wound needs to be acknowledged, before it can be treated.

Tee, I will make sure to check the places you suggested for the tramatised animals. My mom’s dog is a COVID baby as she got him around that time. She rescued him and had to pay a lot of money as the place did not want to keep him due to his appearance. He had a squint and was very shy.

Oh so nobody wanted the little dog, but your mom took pity on him and rescued him. And I guess she paid a lot of money for his surgery, i.e. doctor’s expenses?

Nobody wanted him but my mother showed her loving heart and took him. My mother did not give him the proper training as most places were closed during the COVID and he stayed at home most of the time. She did a very beautiful thing but now as he got older it got harder as well.

Well, this tells me that your mom would never hurt that dog. If she had a loving heart to take him and nurse him to health, then I am sure she would never harm him. So her threats are empty, Dafne, she is only using it to emotionally blackmail you.

As for your ex fiance, first I’d like to say that it’s better that you’ve split up, because he seems like a violent man, who attacked his wife physically and she had to call the police on him twice (he pushed his ex-wife on the coach and she called police 2 times on him.)

Not only that, but he blamed her for his violent behavior (he blamed her for everything).

Which means that if you had a disagreement with him in the future, you might have received a similar treatment, and a similar excuse: that it was your fault.

Also, he was possessive, because he didn’t like it when you went out with your girlfriends. He was also jealous, believing that you might find someone better than him:

he controlled me when I wanted to go out with my girlfriends. He always suspected that I might meet some man better than him.

Possessiveness and jealousy is another big red flag. And the need to control his partner’s social life, lest she leaves him. Those are all very worrying features in a guy.

The financial aspect and stinginess is also a problem, but it’s not even his worst sin. Physical violence and blaming the woman for “provoking” him, as well as possessiveness and jealousy are all very serious problems. And you are lucky you haven’t ended up together with him.

As for his financial and living arrangements with his ex-wife, I didn’t get it whether he was living in the house he bought on mortgage, or his ex-wife was living there with their children? Or they were both living in the same house, because he couldn’t afford to buy/rent another place?

You said your mother went to help with his kids and stayed there for 2 weeks. Which would tell me that he is living there with the kids. Where was his ex wife during that time? Was she sick?

I am guessing he is not sharing equal custody of the kids (50:50), since you said he doesn’t have a baby sitter (he did not want to pay for baby sitter or any help). So I am guessing this 2-week period was an exception, when his wife wasn’t there or couldn’t take of the kids, and that’s why he had to take care of them?

Another problem was that he wasn’t legally divorced – that’s why he didn’t want a civil wedding, and he never showed you the divorce papers. He still had common property with his ex-wife – the house which he was paying the mortgage for – and so a chunk of his income always goes towards that property. And I’ve looked it up, it’s common in case of divorce that the family home remains intact, for the benefit of the children. And that it may remain intact till the youngest child turns 18.

However, after that, the place can be sold and the proceeds split. But he wanted to keep that place for his children and his ex-wife even after his death (He told me that his house is for his kids and when he dies also for his ex-wife.), while at the same time he was expecting you to live in a partnership with him, in which a significant portion of his income would go towards paying off the mortgage. To me, this sounds unfair.

I don’t know, maybe I am not seeing it clearly, but it seems unfair, because you would be bearing the burden of his mortgage, but then eventually, the house would go to his ex-wife after his death.

His other features, like despising poor people, are also a big red flag:

He always spoke about rich people highly and told his kids that poor people have no value in this life.

So all in all, he doesn’t seem like a good, ethical person, on the contrary. And you made a good choice for not proceeding with him!

What do you think Tee? Was I right to stop all the contact with him after all that? I still wrote with his daughter but it seems now that she is distancing herself from me as well. What would you do in my place?

You were right to stop contact with him. When did you split up? How old are his children now? And how long were you together? I guess it’s normal that your relationship with his daughter slowly fades away, since you never got to live with her and form a deeper bond with her, right?