Here again…(was in the wrong forum)

[Sapnap3]

Hello,

I posted something in the tough times forum but I should’ve posted it here. Below is what I posted with some additional details.

hello friends,

it was 4+ years ago when I discovered TB in my desperate hour of need. Many of you helped with your wise words and compassion. I find myself here again after many years of soul searching and life changing decisions. I moved to Ireland 4 ago for a masters and stayed here for love and career. I met a man 2.5 years ago and after just casually dating him for 3 months, I lost my father in the states. It was beyond devastating and shocking as my dad died all of a sudden. Throughout this time this man remained with me, helping me deal with my pain which I couldn’t express in front of my family. When I got back from the states, he was there and we fell in love. We moved in together a few months after that and have been living together for a year and a half. I want to move back to the states for my elderly mother but he and the job keeps me in Ireland. I have always been upfront with him about marriage and life. I am 35 and I want a marriage. Last year he took a weekend away to figure out if he wanted the same. It was hard and heart wrenching but he came back positive and determined to be with me. Fast forward this year when I am trying to get all our duck in a row about marriage and move to America, he is having those doubts again. Per him he has always had those doubts but with the time approaching fast, he is worried that he is making a decision to marry me out of fear more than love. So he is off again to think. I am utterly devastated as I know it’s over and I keep hanging on to hope that it isn’t. I keep going back to all the things I said and behaviors that I didn’t change. I keep going back to blaming myself. I know its done but I am waiting for him to pull the plug as I can’t do it. Someone in a different forum said that I deserved better. I know I do but I still can’t let go. Just the other day him and I were kissing and loving each other, what happened in a day?

The worst part is that I know I won’t find anyone ever as I am “too old” now. I feel angry towards him but he is still my best friend. I don’t know what to do. End it myself and walk away? Or wait for his decision?

any wise words here will be helpful. I thank you for reading this!

namaste

[Anonymous]

Dear Sapnap3:

I am wondering, does he have doubts about marrying you, about having children, and/ or about moving to the U.S?

Regarding moving to the U.S., your reason for doing that is to take care of your mother, correct? What does he feel about the move for that purpose

And what do you feel about it…

anita

[Inky]

Hi Sapnap3,

I would move to take care of your elderly mother. He will come back, having made his DECISION, and be shocked that you are gone. He will contact you. You will say that your priorities come first and you can’t put your life on hold while some man makes his DECISION for YOUR future. That you are in the States and he knows where to find you. That you are dating other people.

He will fly to the States and propose. That is my prediction.

If that doesn’t happen, at least you took your power back.

Best,

Inky

P.S. Never too old!

[Sapnap3]

Thank you Anita, Inky.

I really appreciate it. He is a good person so I am sure he isn’t making any decisions lightly. I am mindful enough to know that one part of me (the one which is his best friend) knows that he has issues trusting anyone with his heart as his mom passed away when he was young and his dad remarried an abusive, alcoholic woman. I empathize with him and only hope he is not in pain. the other part of me (the girlfriend) feel betrayed as we are so good together. Either way, this experience is going to leave me shattered for a little while and all I do is be patient with myself to go through with it. As for my mother, she is Indian so if I told her the choice was between taking care of her and being married, she will always pick the later. I am not anyone till i get married, in her eyes. I dreading telling her but I will wait on it till later to tell her.

Thank you again for all of your kind words. I appreciate it.

thank you

[Anonymous]

Dear Sapnap3:

You are welcome. I was wondering regarding your older sister, the middle child, I believe: you shared in an earlier thread that you mother had unconditional love for her, loved her no matter her choices. But on the other hand, for your mother, you were a trophy child (the term you used). As I understood it, you- unlike your sister- had to be perfect so to get your mother’s approval.

I was wondering if your sister is involved in taking care of your mother and if you are the only sibling available for this job?

anita

[Anonymous]

* didn’t reflect under Topics

[Sapnap3]

you 100% right Anita. I am that girl! the youngest of 3 and the trophy. My sisters do take care of my mother but because we all live in 3 different countries, I get the responsibility. I am the only American one and my mother loves America over all the countries (even India where she lived for more than 50 years). She is well capable of taking care of herself so she isn’t a burden by any means. My boyfriend knew what he signed on for when we met. I am 100% myself with everyone. I told him to leave many times as I am not a conventional girl when conventional family and family roles. But going to America was more for our lives together than my mother. Housing in Dublin is very expensive and neither one of us can afford it. I have a home in America so I find it very hard to live in a dingy apartment in Dublin. He feels the same way so it was discussed that move to America is for our lives. I also promised him that if he doesn’t like it in America (after 2 years), we will move back to Ireland forever. My mother will happily live with my sister in Canada.

I think the reality is that he doesn’t love me. I have to accept it. It may take me a few weeks but I will have to accept it. As sweet as Inky’s words are, I do not think anyone will ever look back and regret leaving me because they never loved me in the first place.

Thank you again for somehow knowing who I am!

 

[Anonymous]

Dear Sapnap3:

You are welcome. I am thinking that your mother’s conditional love for you must have been difficult to you, that you wished she loved you no matter what, that it wasn’t conditional. I hope you do find a better kind of love, one where another is okay with you no matter what.

If you would like to share more about this man’s doubts, his fears, please do. I wonder if any of it is valid in the context of the relationship with you, that is, if it is not all about his childhood that you mentioned.

*Will be back in about sixteen hours.

anita

[Peter]

I am 35 and I want a marriage. The worst part is that I know I won’t find anyone ever as I am “too old” now.

“When did the future switch from being a promise to being a threat?”  ― Chuck Palahniuk

“Knowing too much of your future is never a good thing.” ― Rick Riordan

The word marriage, what does it mean?  Why does a word hold so much power? Do we mistake the map for the territory and miss the experience?

It is to easy to create what we fear so difficult to create what we hope for… though the process is the same.

Neil wrote a great short story – October about a woman who finds the magic lamp and gets three wishes only she refuses to make any. She’s good she tells the genie. At first the genie can’t understand but as time goes by a relationship forms with the genie doing things for the woman and the woman doing things for the genie all without wishes or the like. Later the woman asks the genie what his three wishes would be. He’s good he tells her.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 8 months ago by Peter.

[Sapnap3]

Thank you Peter. The story is beautiful. I know my need to control my future is a big issue. I think I thought of it as a security blanket for my relationship. Marriage for us not only fills my insecurities but also makes sure that we are together (visa and stuff). But I get that in wanting nothing, you get it all! Trick is how does an unenlighten…mere beings ever stop wanting?

anita,

i will look forward to your comments in 16 hours.  My boyfriend is kind of a “living for the now” guy. I love that about him. His profound loss when he was young, taught him to smell the roses now. I guess it’s one of the reasons why he doesn’t love me because I am a planner. I plan the hell out of life. He also says (his words) I run 100 mph and he is a 70 mph kind of guy. Not many in the world can run that speed. My readiness and planning has always rewarded me in my life with my family and my career. I know that you can’t plan love but I do want a marriage and life with someone I love. I have craved to be a family with someone all my life. I want to be important to someone other than myself. I want someone to ask me about my day and really want to know.

a part of me wants to run to him and say screw it …we won’t get married. We will live in Ireland rest of our lives …but I don’t think it will change anything.

?

[Anonymous]

Dear Sapnap3:

I read your posts in all your threads, 2013- yesterday, 2018. In this first post I will include quotes from all your threads. Nothing but quotes I selected. In my second post to you, there will be my input.

Sept 14, 2013  She is a good friend of mine and she continued to berate me about my weakness…I love posting on TB because its the place I can express my feelings and not get…berated for having feelings or weaknesses… I do talk to a therapist and I have been seeing her for 5 years now but her schedule and my schedule will not allow me to talk to her everyday. I wish I had a friend or family to talk about how I feel… I am starting to like my self after years for self hate.

Dec 20, 2013  After my breakup, I made a list of qualities i wanted in a partner and this man has all of those qualities plus one big one. He is just like me. He is funny and child like just like me. We laugh so much. He wants to be with me…He reminds (if I ever forget) to be positive and to stay in the moment.

Feb 1, 2014  I am not going to down play my neglectful upbringing but I don’t want to dwell on it either… Lately, people have been asking to hang out with me because they are having fun with a happy person. I have fun too but it only stops there. I don’t show anyone anything below the surface…I keep waiting for him to abandon me like everyone else has…I have packed up my schedule with so many activities that my body is fighting with my mind. I have to slow down. My Bikram yoga instructor put it in the right way to me last night. He said “what’s the rush?” “where are you trying to get? Its all here now”. I see that every time I go away from the present moment (Which is often), I become neglectful of myself… Lack of a good male role model made me follow them like a puppy.

March 9, 2014   this past Saturday I was back to being the insecure, scared abandoned little girl…I was molested repeatedly when I was 6 by an older neighbor when I lived in India. I have always been ashamed of that. My parents don’t know this but knowing them, they will always blame me. This Saturday I decided to tell them. I told my dad to never use him again. He didn’t say anything but my mom said “he was probably being friendly. You don’t use him if u like but he charges us less, we will use him”. And she laughed when I told her about my boob. It shattered my heart.

March 30, 2014 He asked me yesterday “can i do anything that is good enough for you?” that cut through my heart like a knife. I have heard those words before from my past boyfriends. He is right. I can’t seem to ever be satisfied with myself or him.

Oct 4, 2014  I moved to Ireland a couple of months ago to pursue an MBA. I quit my job, put my condo out on rent and said goodbye to everything familiar.. Every partner, every friend has been looked upon as a “knight in shining armor” by me. Finally someone here to rescue me from a lifetime of loneliness…I don’t know where to begin to heal myself.

Nov 23, 2014  when does this self hate stop? …I am so tired. I have been working so hard. When will I ever start loving myself?

Oct 7, 2015 I finished my MBA and joined an internship with an IT firm.. The issue I believe is that I still don’t know what I want in my life…I have achieved so much in my life but there is something about mean, ruthless women that I cannot bare. ..I have put her on a pedestal…I have to put her down from that pedestal and tell myself that she is a human not God. She can be wrong. I do have to stand up for myself. ..I am dreading seeing my boss in less than 24 hours and I am dreading going back to my cold, unfriendly house. When do I start knowing the difference between my problem and not my problem? Like when do I start acknowledging that some times people are ass&&les and I really can’t help it? when do I stop blaming myself for “not trying hard enough” “not givning my all” and “not letting go”…when?

Oct 11 2015  All my life, I have been raised to blame myself for everything. My new boss is mean. She is crude and cruel but I still find an excuse to blame myself. Maybe I should work harder, smarter, be confident…Maybe …Maybe ..Maybe but when do I raise my hand and just say that she is a b@tch? When do I say, enough is enough? I know I can’t change her but the self blame is bigger than her cruelty.

Feb 29, 2016 On valentines day this year my father passed away all of a sudden. He wasn’t sick. He collapsed at work and died within minutes…I just started dating someone. I got the news at 4 am in Dublin of my father passing away and I was devastated… Everyday since, I have been taking care of all the finances for my mother. Taking away my father’s name from everything so that my mom doesn’t have to worry. She doesn’t speak english and as the only unmarried child, she is my responsibility.

March 9, 2016  I moved away to Ireland to get an MBA and really started to be happy in my life. Now this has happened and I feel so guilty for being so far away. .. how do I let go of this guilt? now leaving my mother is also tearing my heart apart because loosing her will leave me all alone. ..I find myself clinging to my mom to the point where I want to leave everything in Dublin and move back home again. Leaving Dublin will mean leaving a nice boyfriend, a good boss and good friends. I am so confused.. My boyfriend is due to tell me if he will ever consider moving with me to Chicago. If the answer is yes, we will continue dating. If no, we will go our seperate ways…I haven’t dated a man from Chicago in many many years and don’t get the attention I get in Dublin in Chicago. As a loving daughter, you can see why these thoughts are making me feel like a selfish little child. My dating life cannot be more important than my mother’s happiness but I am making it out to be.

April 12, 2016 I recently lost my father and looking back I can see that he loved me a lot. I can see that he made me feel wanted. I don’t have a great relationship with my sisters due to circumstances like big age difference and living in different continents. When my father was alive, i use to think “of course he has to show he cares, i will be the one supporting him soon.” I was always called a “crutch” by my parents because I was the only one who got American education and who made money. I never thought their love was unconditional. So from the begining, i didn’t think anyone can love me unconditionally.

Anita, my mom is alive and very tough woman. I love her a lot as she has been my mom and friend for a while. She is very loving but she also has a strong sense of “showing off” to others. I am treated very much like a trophy child. I often wonder if she would like me if I was less than perfect. She is very much in love with my middle sister though who was the youngest child for 9 years before I came along. Nothing my sister could do would deter my mother from loving her from being lazy to having boyfriends from different cast who didn’t graduate high school. She complains about her but also loves her a lot.

– end of post #1

 

 

 

[Peter]

Dear Sapnap3:

Trick is how does an unenlighten…mere beings ever stop wanting?

Good question. I’m not sure if enlightenment, what ever that is, is required.  I do feel that Neil Gaimans short story holds a clue.

Anyway, I hope everything works out for you. You appear to be very self aware so I’m sure it will.

[Anonymous]

Dear Sapnap3:

I have thoughts regarding all the quotes I listed in post #1, and I can share those with you, if you ask me to. In this post I will get straight to the point-

March 9, 2014 you shared that when you were six you were repeatedly molested sexually by an older neighbor. You finally told this to your parents, in March 2014. At the time you told them they were using that neighbor for some service, paying him for a service he provided for your parents. You told your father to not use that neighbor again.

Your father “didn’t say anything”.

Your mother said: “he was probably being friendly. You don’t use him if u like but he charges us less, we will use him.”

Perhaps your father was shocked and that is why he didn’t say anything. I don’t know. But your mother said what she said. She expressed no anger toward the neighbor, no distress. She expressed no empathy toward you. Her thinking went straight to money: “he charges us less, we will use him.”

She heard you telling your father to not use that neighbor, your request for a little justice. Your mother went straight to what she values, money:

“he charges us less, we will use him.”

April 12, 2016 you wrote about your mother: “I love her a lot…She is very loving.”

Oct 4, 2014, you wrote: “I don’t know where to begin to heal myself”- my answer: begin in accepting the painful yet undeniable reality that although it is true that you love your mother a lot, always have, she does not love you. She does not value you. You had glimpse of this truth and it shattered your heart, so you wrote. But after each such shattering, you closed your eyes to the truth, again and again. And as you closed your eyes, you tried yet again to win her love. You kept reaching out and keep reaching  for her love which is not there for you.

Your education, your degrees, six figure salaries of past and/ or future, years of therapy you had and may have, all the meditations in the world, the articles, the principle of living in the now… none of that will do, for your healing long term until and unless you accept that you love her but she doesn’t love you.

anita

[Sapnap3]

Thank you Peter

Anita,

Thank you for jogging my memory. i was doing the same exercise at 3 am today as I couldn’t sleep. I was reading my diary back to myeself. I am utterly devastated by this “semi-break-up”. he is coming back to our apartment tomorrow night to “talk”. I know what that means. Even reading all my thoughts from 5 years ago, i am failing to tap into what I want from this situation. I thought that i know myself pretty well but I can’t seem to think about anything but him and what he is going to do. I think i understand what you are saying above about my relationship with my mother. Am i to apply the same logic to my boyfriend? Up till Sunday, apart from breathing, the only thing i knew was that he loves me. Did I just create that in my mind?

I will know more tomorrow. I can only hope I get through today and tomorrow without contacting him. I have been desperately trying to talk to him with very limited response from him. God I am back to being the 17, 20, 22, 27, 31 year old girl. i don’t know when I will learn.

Sorry for the moan filled post.

[Anonymous]

Dear Sapnap3:

You are utterly devastated by the status of your current relationship and there is a conversation with him to take place tomorrow. So you are distressed, of course. After this current distress passes, when this storm calms, then you can go back to my two recent posts to you, if you choose to, and we can communicate about them later.

Regarding your question, whether you created it in your mind that your boyfriend loved you, or loves you- I don’t know. If you shared more about what he told you, how he behaved with you over time, I would know better, based on what you will share. I don’t know, as is. What I do know is that you are lovable, have been gracious for years in all your threads on this website, and so, I tend to think that he had or has love for you.

anita

[Author]

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