Dear Paradoxy,

About your parents’ supposed love for you:

This love is similar to the love my parents have for each other. They constantly fight and never have any intimate moments or anything

My father and I are same on the fact that we never forget the times when we were hurt, especially by those close to us, and that is exactly what he feels toward my mother cause she has humiliated him multiple times and my mother doesn’t like apologizing so she never will.

But technically speaking they still spiritually love each other. … They know their roles as husband and wife and parent and so they choose to work things out for the sake of the greater good.

What you are describing is not love, but constant arguing, hostility and lack of respect for each other (as well as lack of tenderness and kindness towards each other). They were/are raising their children in that hostile, love- and tenderness-deprived environment, for the “greater good” of fulfilling the social norm of being married and having children. The norm and the form may be satisfied, and it may look good on the outside, but on the inside, there is so much suffering, and so much harm done to their children (or at least to one of their children: you).

But technically speaking they still spiritually love each other.

They don’t love each other “spiritually”. That’s not love. As I said, that’s fulfilling the social norm and looking good on the outside. But generating hell on the inside.

But this kind of life is not what I aspire for which is why I am trying my best to find a wife before they decide to marry me off to some stranger who is also doing what their parents told them to. I want a real bond, not a spiritual bond or a bond of responsibilities or a bond for the greater good.

I guess your father have taught you that what they have is a “spiritual bond”. Which I guess should mean to stay together even if they hate and disrespect each other. They have a bond of responsibilities, but it seems they felt very burdened by that responsibility (of raising children) because they believe you should thank them for giving you the bare minimum: for not leaving you to starve.

It seems that the burden of having children feels very heavy for them – they don’t do it gladly, maybe they even resent it. And maybe that’s why they made you feel like a burden –  because any other need beyond physical need was too much for them to handle.

In short, it seems they did their duty resentfully, with clenched teeth, not with love. And in that forced arrangement, there was no love for their children either.

I am trying my best to find a wife before they decide to marry me off to some stranger who is also doing what their parents told them to. I want a real bond, not a spiritual bond or a bond of responsibilities or a bond for the greater good.

You cannot find true love if you believe that what they have is love. They didn’t teach you what true love is – neither by education nor by their own example. It’s no wonder you fell for a narcissist, with zero amount of empathy for you, similar to your parents. You didn’t learn how to respect yourself and have empathy for yourself, and so you tolerated to be lied to, cheated on and manipulated.

And you also fought for hours/days/weeks on end, similarly to your parents. So this kind of toxicity in the relationship (constant arguing) was normal for you – because that’s what you were familiarized to.

So again, trying to find a loving wife while not healing your emotional wounds and false concepts of love will be impossible.

In my father’s words, he said that I should at least consider their opinion when deciding things cause it is the least I can do as a form of respect to them as my parent. In one way, thinking about their opinion does help me make some good choices but it is still a mental prison.

Your father exercises total dominance over you. He calls you daily and preaches to you for a full hour, he is telling you whom to talk to and be friends with, he knows your schedule to the slightest detail and controls your movement. He is not just giving you his opinion, which you should consider. He is telling you what to do. His approach is not parental advice, it’s total control.

You are lying to yourself (gaslighting yourself) that what he is doing is giving you advice. He is not. He doesn’t give you any freedom to decide differently. He demands obedience.

That’s why it feels like mental prison. Not because you are an unruly child who refuses to accept your father’s well-meaning advice, but because he wants you to be a robot who follows his commands.

The closest scenario to depict my situation is that of a balloon filled with helium, always held down by someone and when college came, the length of the balloon thread was extended, but still held down by someone. If that person had chosen to let the balloon fly, the balloon would have soared too high and popped due to the atmospheric pressure and heat.

Again, these are excuses for his tyrannical behavior. He is keeping you down – not to protect you from potential danger, but to keep you enslaved. He might have told you this is for your own good, but he is doing it to fulfill his need for control.

They may be toxic but that doesn’t make them stupid or unwise. Poor parenting doesn’t mean they don’t have wisdom. They were still able to shape me into someone good morality-wise even with the suffering. I am still grateful for that.

Again, you’re gaslighting yourself. A toxic person cannot be wise. They taught you the main commandments: not to lie, cheat, and steal. But they didn’t teach you how to recognize an emotionally abusive person (like themselves), or another kind of emotionally abusive person who unlike your parents does lie, cheat and steal (B). They didn’t impart on you true wisdom, because they’ve conditioned you to take abuse and find excuses for it. And you are still doing it, in this very post.

He also taught me self-observation and psychological analysis to read into the person better.

Well, he clearly didn’t do much self-observation, otherwise he might have noticed how tyrannical he is.

I’m not as good as him in reading people

You mean reading people to humiliate them? Because that’s what he did to you: he told you if you have emotional issues, you are an idiot.

Besides, they were right about B, so don’t u think I should still consider their opinion cause they could be right again?

Yes, you can “consider their opinion”. But as I said, you so far were not allowed to not listen to their opinion, i.e. to disobey. You didn’t tell them about B at all, right? So you couldn’t even ask for their advice. Because you know what would have followed if they had learned that you’re dating someone who is not approved by them.

What I am trying to say is that you can’t use their counsel and “consider their opinion” – you either do what they tell you, or you don’t share with them at all. Those are your only two options.

The suffering also taught me to care for others more deeply, even though all of them just take advantage of my love and care anyway.

Yeah, your parents’ upbringing made you to deny most of your needs and in a way, become a doormat for others. You believe your needs don’t matter. It seems you want to be loved by denying your own needs and instead helping others. But if we don’t love ourselves and don’t have empathy for ourselves, we will end up being like a doormat. People unfortunately won’t appreciate us, and this is what seems to be happening to you too. When that girl who complained a lot (the eldest of 3 sisters) didn’t appreciate your attempts to help her.

I have come to accept that no one will love me for who I am; to love me for my awkwardness and my cringe and my flaws etc. It will just be taken advantage of or looked at in disgust.

Unfortunately, your parents won’t love you for who you are. Their love is tyrannical and extremely conditional. And it is not even love. The sooner you realize it, the better.

You of course have flaws, like we all do. And you can work on those flaws. You’d need to do a lot of healing, due to all the emotional trauma that happened to you. But first, you’d need to stop being grateful for the non-love that you’ve received from your parents.

Technically speaking, they were right about B, so…. they did know what was best for me….

Have you ever introduced her to them? Because they judge women based on skin color, or a place they were born. So if according to them, most women, specially Caribbean, are gold-diggers, then sure, they were right. But not because they’ve met the girl or know anything about her, but because she happens to fit their prejudice.

He is still one of the respected men at his work and among our communities because they know they can rely on him to get a job done and that he is loyal and won’t do illogical things and etc. He is just poor when handling things that require emotional understanding.

Narcissists can be very capable workers, as well as respected members of community. And they are excellent in showing one face to the outside world and another behind closed doors. So if he acts kind and helpful with people in the community, while cruel and relentless with you, that’s how you know he is a narcissist.

I don’t have any motivation or anything to look towards to. I just feel stranded in an empty void in space, unable to move around.

Yeah, because you keep excusing your parents’ abuse and calling it love. You keep gaslighting yourself, like they were gaslighting you.

maybe my father was right about music too….

It seems it’s easier for you to slide into self-loathing (and accept your parents’ false view of you) than choose to wake up from your slumber and start helping yourself. I understand it, because standing against your parents probably seem like a fight between David and Goliath.

But if you want to achieve your proclaimed goal of finding true love: “I am trying my best to find a wife before they decide to marry me off to some stranger… I want a real bond“, you’d need to let go of your parents’ false notions of love and recognize that their treatment of you wasn’t really love. You’d need to learn what true love is.