Dear Paradoxy,

Didn’t realize it could be that easily misunderstood.

Yes, I think it can, unless you are a professional musician…

Lol I didn’t dedicate the song, the girl just inspired the main melody. Thats it. How the hell do I dedicate a song to a girl that I barely know?

Imagination is a powerful force… But I get it, you are approaching it more like a professional musician, in which case anything can serve as an inspiration and you don’t need be emotionally attached in order to make music.

B might not have believed him but she wouldn’t have had the motivation to start another fight regarding it and ruin my peace.

B always has a motivation. She also managed to confuse the Caribbean and the Indian girl with the same names, and then accuse you of never loving her, because you were supposedly intrigued by the smiling girl, whom she wrongly thought was Indian, who is your preferred type of girl. Exhausting.

But I hope you have learned by now – knowing that she is a narcissist – that it is her goal to ruin your peace, and that you shouldn’t react to provocations, i.e. false accusations. So now, if she manages to provoke you, it’s on you, because you know her modus operandi.

I am glad that you haven’t talked to her in the last week or so, and that last time you spoke, you were cold to her (We haven’t talked in a while now and the last time I talked to her, I was cold to her.)

We already made it clear that B is the real abuser but that doesn’t excuse the guy for the things he did. My anger for him is not larger than B, but that doesn’t make me not angry. I still have anger, it is just not that big compared to the anger I have for B.

I am glad that you realize that B is the real abuser – the one who has been emotionally abusing you for the most part of your approx. 1.5 year-long relationship. And who keeps abusing you even after the breakup. She has been persecuting you for the last 3 months, coming up with new accusations and “proofs” that you’ve never loved her. The latest attack took place 2-3 weeks ago. What she is doing is psychological abuse.

Anyway, since you don’t want to block her phone as of yet, I think you’d need to block her in your head – sort of not get too upset because you know how she operates and that her style is false, malicious accusations. So maybe you can look at it like malware coming into your mailbox/phone, and you isolate it mentally (maybe you don’t need to delete it, in case it might serve as a proof of her abuse), and then you don’t look at it and try not to think about it anymore.

Firstly, what do u mean he couldn’t lie? He couldn’t lie to a girl he barely knew?

Some people cannot lie, specially if under psychological pressure. She was interrogating him, and he admitted. Narcissists can easily lie, but for most of the people, lying doesn’t come naturally. Besides, he didn’t know she was so malicious and what telling her the truth would entail. He didn’t follow his own advice (to ignore her).

I was angry at him whenever I found out the foolishness he did, but I have forgiven him for his actions but dont expect me to trust him again. That is all I am saying.

Fair enough. You don’t need to trust him again, especially while he is taking her side.

Her reasoning is that it was her trauma and I had no right to share it because it happened to her, not me.

And what about your trauma? Your relationship with her was full of trauma, almost from the moment you met. Because the “honeymoon phase” lasted only a week or so, and soon thereafter started the drama of her not being sure whether she loves you or her ex, then going back to her ex, then returning to you, then you finding out that she is secretly living with her ex, and she telling you that it’s none of your business and why you are upset. All that spiced up with her wearing revealing outfits and posting it on social media in spite of you asking her not to. And sexting with random guys whenever you two broke up.

That was all before January 2024. And then comes the bombshell news in January, when she told you that she prostituted herself 3 times within one single week that you were broken up. She expected you to be full of understanding and behave as if nothing happened. She was offended when this was hard for you to stomach and you didn’t want to have sex with her. She was also accusing you and your parents for making her feel so “unloved” that she was so broken and “forced” to prostitute herself.

So that was the trauma that you were facing in January 2024: a lying and cheating girlfriend switching gears and introducing the next level of betrayal. And then when you are taken aback and shocked, she is blaming you for making a big deal out of it. She is also blaming you for making her do it.

What were you supposed to do? Suffer in silence? You too were exposed to trauma, and you needed someone to confide in. You had the right to talk to someone, because it was too much of a shock for you and a burden. And you confided in your best friend.

I am indulging in my music production, reading a lot about communication skills and stuff. Apparently I could have Asperger’s syndrome?

What symptoms would that be, if I may ask?

Instead of blurting out my anger to certain people, I write it down and then read over it and make changes to it so that I am better at expressing myself and then I decide whether or not I should express myself to anyone because I have also realized that nobody gives a damn anyway so I should just release my anger in the form of writing instead of trying to make people understand.

Okay, so you’re writing down what bothers you about certain people? And sometimes you express it (after curating it and making it more polite/non-confrontational, I guess?), and sometimes you don’t express it?

I have also realized that nobody gives a damn anyway so I should just release my anger in the form of writing instead of trying to make people understand.

Yes, some people don’t give a damn if they hurt you. They don’t care about your feelings. Such is B, but also your father. You have been trying to make both of them understand, but to no avail. So indeed, there is no point in trying to explain things to either of them. To other people, it might make sense, because not everyone is lacking empathy and understanding.

I AM ANGRY. I just can’t express my anger. Cause the anger towards B comes out in the form of verbal abuse and then I become the abuser, and when it is to my parents, it comes out as disrespect. So all I can do is just bottle up my anger. It is so annoying when you find yourself shaking with anger in the middle of a church sermon cause of the memories of everything that has happened.

Yes, you can’t express your anger to those who deserve your anger most. Because B will simply turn it against you and accuse you of being the abuser. And your parents will accuse you of being disrespectful, right?

But you know, you don’t even need to show your raw anger to anybody. A good way to look at anger is that it is a signal. It shows us that our boundaries are being violated, that we are being violated. It shows us that we need to change something in our relationship with the person – so not to be violated any more.

Which means that we should act on our anger, but not by showing it directly, showing the raw emotion (which would only cause us more problems). Rather, we should use it to change something in our relationship with the abusive person, in order to protect ourselves from their abuse.

With B, who is a narcissist, you have been realizing lately that being nice and understanding and tolerating her bad behavior will only cause more abuse. Example: she is making you walk her to the ATM at night, not with the intention to give you back your money, but to try to seduce you, emotionally blackmail you and even convince you to buy her expensive gifts. Your being kind and polite only causes more humiliation. More exploitation. And you are not getting what you want: your money.

That’s why you needed to change something in your approach – to become cold and reserved, and to not agree to her ATM games. For example, to make sure she knows whether she has the money before you accompany her to the ATM. That’s a boundary. You are not allowing her to make a fool out of you again. So you transform your anger into an action to protect yourself, i.e. into setting boundaries.

This way your anger will be less intense, because we get very angry when we feel helpless to change the abusive situation. For example, if she keeps dragging you to the ATM and leaving you empty handed. Making a fool out of you. That’s super upsetting. But if you don’t allow it any more, you’ve taken back some of your power. You said No to some of her abuse. And you don’t feel so helpless anymore.

With your father, who is also abusive and similarly like B doesn’t respect your feelings at all, it’s trickier to set boundaries, because you depend on him financially. But you can still set some boundaries, e.g. regarding him meddling into whom you talk to.

If he is forcing you to talk to this girl, you can say that right now you need to focus on your studies and you don’t have time for this girl, specially since she is moody and doesn’t know what she wants and you don’t have time or patience for that.

So you can use his macho style of “I am a busy man, I don’t have time for stupid emotions” to trick him to let you off the hook.

His priority is for you to finish college, right? And with as good grades as possible. So use that as an excuse why you can’t be spending too much time on girls now. That, plus the macho explanation about emotions, I think should be enough to at least make him less pushy about this girl.

Also, you can set a boundary on him calling every day and giving you 1-hr long litanies. You can tell a white lie about your changed schedule or something, which allows you to talk to him only 3 times a week, and for a shorter period of time. You can say that now, at the 3rd year of college, there is so much practical work and you are spending a lot of time at the clinic, or any kind of white lie that will avert him from insisting on those daily calls.

With a narcissist, or a toxic person in general, we just have to lie to protect ourselves. And so you may try that.

He is going to abuse his parental authority on me and I just want peace rn, not unnecessary drama. How do u expect me to go against his authority as a parent???

Like I’ve explained above. Use white lies and also use his own macho approach, i.e. his own priorities and values – to get him off the hook.

Yea I am directing that anger into running now since I dont have a real punching bag.

Good, it’s good that you are aware of your anger and are venting it via jogging. In addition to that, like I said, the goal would be to transform your anger into boundaries, so you can protect yourself from further abuse. So setting boundaries with B and with your father (no matter how small those achievements are, in the case of your father) is the way to go.

 I am not actually trying to make excuses, I am just trying to factor in every possible outcome cause we can never be 100% sure that our assumptions are correct. So when I consider all the possibilities, I end up being more lenient and forgiving.

When you consider that a proven and repeated liar is telling the truth this time, that’s when you end up being a fool who forgives her again and again. While she gets a free pass to keep hurting you again and again.

A narcissist is a “repeat offender”, and you shouldn’t tolerate people doing hurtful things to you again and again, even if they come up with the most believable excuses.

And I am going to Florida in August and knowing him, he is going to force me into an uncomfortable position to talk to the girl in person.

Is he considering her as your potential future wife? Is that why he is insisting on this friendship?

And if so, what are your thoughts on that? On marrying her?

Dear Paradoxy,

You’ve just rejected everything I suggested, even laughed some things off:

Hell no, not this dude. This is not the first time he has lied and it is not that hard for him cause he is used to it.

the primary trauma is hers

Lol do u think B or my parents care about boundaries??? LOL

Pretty sure she will find a way to make a fool out of me. I just have to be prepared.

My father will find some way to intervene,

Lol like that will work against him.

They know my schedule too well. That won’t work.

they will demand that I talk when I get home.

may be narcissistic and a liar and etc, but if I ignore her when she actually needs my help and something happens, I have to live with that in my conscience.

You came her looking for help, but refuse all help. I guess it’s not because you think I am dumb and my advice is bs, but you believe you cannot be helped?

If you believe you cannot be helped and that you are completely stuck in your current situation, with no chance to change it even for an inch, then unfortunately I cannot help you either. You also categorically refused to go to therapy as well.

As for Asperger’s, one of the symptoms you mention is “lack of bonding with parents”. No wonder about that, because your parents were and still are abusive. The way you were raised largely determines how you are now. It has an impact on your emotional health, including communication skills as well. Because how we communicate is greatly influenced by our self-esteem and in general our view of self and others.  If either is negative, our communication skills will be affected too.

But I would really prefer not having to wear clown makeup.

But you seem to believe you have to and have no other choice.

Dear Paradoxy,

I rejected them cause they are things that I have already considered and I have already tried so they are basically impractical at this point.

I agree that telling your father white lies might not work because he knows every detail about your schedule, so this might backfire. But you rejected other things as well, e.g. you rejected when I said that you should take into account your own trauma, not just B’s trauma.

I tried to make a point that you yourself were faced with trauma during your entire relationship with B, and especially after she told you about her prostitution. And that you had all right to confide in someone. To which you replied:

The primary trauma is still hers since she is the one who got taken advantage of. So people would only see that, they won’t see my pain and suffering.

You are completely dismissing your own trauma. You are still putting her in the center of your attention, completely disregarding yourself and your own needs. You have empathy for her, but you have no empathy for yourself.

I was trying to tell you that you and your needs matter.

I made a rhetorical question: “What were you supposed to do? Suffer in silence?” To which you replied: “Yes, that is what she expected me to do.”

Yes, that’s what she expected you to do. But frankly, I don’t care what she – who is a narcissist and doesn’t care about anyone else – expected you to do. I am asking what you needed at that moment. What was your need when faced with that trauma.

I know that nobody cared about your needs (except physical needs), neither in your childhood, nor now. So this is a strange concept for you. But if you want to heal, you’ll need to start thinking about your own needs too. You’ll need to start developing empathy for yourself, not just for others.

Specially not for your abusers.

Wth am I supposed to do when these persons have no respect for boundaries and all that stuff u suggested? We are talking about people who WON’T listen nor try to understand. It is like trying to stop a pig from jumping into mud. The best advice of urs I could take is to mentally block them.

Yes, mentally blocking B, i.e. not falling for her accusations and not trying to defend yourself – is a good strategy. However, you say that you still feel obliged to help her:

B may be narcissistic and a liar and etc, but if I ignore her when she actually needs my help and something happens, I have to live with that in my conscience.

She is using you (or rather, exploiting you) to meet her needs. And we are not talking about survival needs, but wanton needs, such as buying her expensive gifts. Or paying for her trading class – which is her investing in her own education. Why should you be responsible for that?

Or her “need” to go to the ATM late at night to deposit money. It’s not a real need, but a manipulation tactic to draw you in.

So those are fake and invented needs. And still, you feel obliged to help her, or should I say to fulfill her whims. Because those are not real needs, those are whims.

If you can reframe that what you are doing for her is not helping her, but fulfilling her whims – perhaps it would help you to say No to some of those whims?

As for your father, the situation is trickier, because you were raised to be obedient and to obey your parents’ wishes – without ever considering your own. It will need a lot more strength and self-awareness to be able to get back some of the autonomy that should belong to you.

I agree that telling white lies is not the best way to go. The real deal would be to realize that you are not your father’s property and that you have the right to some autonomy. I know that in the family and societal system you grew up in this is almost a taboo. But again, if you want to be your own man some day, you’ll need to find ways to free yourself from his complete dominance.

It is like my intentions are to make them happy, but they only laugh when they are entertained by a clown.

To make whom happy? Your father? Or those girls, whom he tells you to talk to? But who think of you as a clown?

Dear Paradoxy,

Can u explain how I can go against the idea that my parents paid for everything and took care of my physical needs and etc? Cause until I get a real job with decent money, I will still have to follow my parents’ rules. Like the worker at a company. The worker may not be the company’s property, but they still have to follow company rules unless they choose to change company.

A worker makes a contract with the company. Have you made a contract with your parents when you were a baby? Have you asked to be born, in exchange for them raising you? Where is that contract, and have you signed it willingly?

You were born to your parents, and their obligation as parents is to take care of you. It’s a minimum to provide for the child’s physical needs, put them through school etc. If the parents fail to do that, the child is taken away from them by the social services.

This whole idea that you need to repay their “investment” in you is upside down. Good, loving parents have children not because they expect the child to return their investment and bring them profit down the line, but because they love the child as a unique and precious human being, whom they help raise to be a happy and healthy individual, with their own goals, dreams and aspirations. Good, loving parents don’t raise workers or slaves who will obey their commands, but free people, who can freely decide on their own destiny.

So this whole idea is upside down. And it is often used by narcissistic parents, who treat their child as their property and their extension, with no regard for the child’s needs and desires. The child (and later adolescent) is not seen as an individual, with the freedom to have their own goals and dreams, but as someone to fulfill the wishes of their parents.

I don’t want to expand on this further, because you may reject this whole notion and say that I am disrespecting your parents. I don’t want to prove anything to you – if you are not open to it. But if you are, there is a plenty of videos on youtube that describe a family dynamic very similar to yours (and I can point you at some of those videos).

Unfortunately it’s a very tough family dynamic, in which the child is the victim. Many problems that you display: self-blame, believing that you are a bad person and a burden to everyone, lack of self-compassion, as well as being susceptible to a narcissistic partner – can all stem from having a narcissistic parent.

But I don’t want to push this idea on you, if you don’t feel it is true and don’t want to consider it. So let me know if you want to talk about it more.

Dear Paradoxy,

As a parent, they may have been obligated to take care of me, but they could have put me in an orphanage or something but they didn’t.

According to them, you should be grateful they didn’t leave you to starve, after choosing to have you. How kind and loving of them indeed.

I remember you talking about their “love”. Unfortunately, that wasn’t love, but they’ve brainwashed you to believe it was.

I know, I am not saying my parents are expecting me to pay them back or anything. I am saying that I will never really achieve true freedom cause the fact that they are my parents will overrule every desire that I have.

Yes, I understand. I didn’t even mean that they would expect you to pay them back financially, but by being obedient to them and doing whatever they require you to do.

Even if I become rich, they will still have some degree of control over me cause they have conditioned me to be obedient.

They’ve intimidated you into obedience by telling you that they want what’s best for you. While severely emotionally abusing  you and clipping your wings in the process.

Normally we would say that we shouldn’t care about other people’s opinion, but how can u ignore your own parents?

Well, you can start distancing yourself from their opinion if you realize they were/are toxic people who didn’t know how to raise a healthy child. That they don’t know what true love is. And that they don’t know what’s best for you.

I find that very difficult to do because at the end of the day, I only have them to turn to in the time of need any way. I have no real friends or anything. If there is anyone I can turn to for help, it would be God and my parents

I guess you can only turn to them if there is a financial/logistical/health problem. Any other problem is for them a non-issue. Emotional problem – God forbid. Your father tells you you are stupid for “whining” about some “non-issues”.

My parents are not intentionally chaining me. They just conditioned me into being an obedient dog without them even realizing it.

Your parents are and have been abusive. It doesn’t matter if they don’t understand how they are abusing you. What matters is that it is affecting you and has shaped your personality and your self-image as well. You have a very negative self-image, due to being raised by the people who are insensitive and lacking empathy.

They inadvertently created that mental prison in me and now I can’t do anything without fearing them, even though I am thousands of miles away from them.

You’d have to start changing your view of them. Because even if they were “well-meaning” and “loving” according to their own standards, they’ve harmed you. You’d need to realize they had wrong standards, and that their upbringing cannot be characterized as loving and caring. Meeting your physical needs – yes. But much more important needs – that are crucial for development of a healthy personality – no.

But in another way the chains suppressed most of my desires and now I am just a shell, a dog that just does what it is told.

Yes, their upbringing hasn’t nurtured the burgeoning spirit in you, i.e. your true self, but has crushed it instead. That’s why you now feel like a shell. The good news is that your true self still exists and can be restored. You can still heal from the consequences of their abuse. The question is – do you want to?

One time when my father was angry at me for playing video games, I asked him if he would rather expect me to work like a robot with no desires. And he said that is exactly what he wanted. Maybe he said it out of anger in the moment. But things like that have etched itself into my heart.

He didn’t even pretend to be kind and loving. He told you his real intention: to raise you like a robot who obeys his commands.

I was allowed to have my own goals and dreams, but the difference is that those goals and dreams were shaped by my parents’ wishes. So technically I am still fulfilling my goals and dreams, but they are based on the desires that my parents had for me.

They’ve intimidated you and manipulated you to into believing that their wishes are your own wishes. That they know what’s best for you, and you don’t. You’ve capitulated to that belief (and not surprisingly, after years of indoctrination).

I want to read your suggestions still. My soul is just tired of everything.

I am glad you are open to suggestions…

So my suggestion, or my assumption, is that your father might be narcissistic. Because I’ve come across a youtube video on self-righteous narcissists, and it describes how I imagine your father behaved or still behaves: hyper-moralistic and feeling superior to others due to upholding this “high moral standard”.

The title of the video is “The self-righteous narcissist“, and it can be found on the channel DoctorRamani.

Here are some excerpts from the video:

The self-righteous narcissist is a rigid personality who judges and sneers at everyone who is “imperfect” and doesn’t uphold the same perfectionist standard that they uphold. This type of person expects cold, robotic, military precision and compliance from other people. They devalue emotion, human frailty, mistakes and joy.

Self-righteous narcissists derive their narcissistic supply from being morally superior to other people and judging others for their supposed “imperfections”. They often live highly engineered, precise lives, with a strict routine. They pride themselves in being very disciplined and upholding a strict regimen (and judge others who don’t stick to such a regimen).

They can easily erupt in rage if their rules aren’t upheld to a tee.

They don’t talk to people – they “hold court”.

Living with such a person feels like living on a glacier: it’s cold, precarious, isolated and emotionless. But on the outside it appears fine, because everything seems to run smoothly.

Being in the presence of a self-righteous narcissist always feels like you are a scolded 10-yr old child.

They are very rigid and don’t believe they need to change. They sneer at the idea of therapy and view it as weakness and bad use of money.

(end of excerpts)

I believe the above fits very closely to how you’ve described your father. Let me know what you think?

Thankfully, there is a plenty of material out there about how to gradually free yourself from the legacy of such parenting. And I can point you at those too, if you are interested.

My soul is just tired of everything.

I understand you are tired – that your soul is tired – after having been raised like that. But things can change, although it won’t be easy. But still, there is a way out…

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.

Dear Paradoxy,

I just don’t know the right word to describe the love between them, cause they do love each other, just not in the right way, they way we should be loving ig.

Love… not in the right way… is also called abuse.

You are gaslighting yourself that abuse is love. That’s how you are defending your parents (like every child does – it’s a survival mechanism) and putting all the blame on yourself. And that’s how you come up with the characterization that you have a flawed personality, which came to be in a vacuum, with no influence or fault of your parents.

In this latest post you are claiming that your father is trying to give you real love (my father is trying to give real love), when everything you’ve described here, over more than 3 months, is suggesting that he was and is severely abusing you and controlling you.

And you are repeating your parents’ toxic words, identifying with them, loathing yourself for not being able to please those “loving” parents:

I am just an embarrassment to my parents cause of all my stupidity and awkwardness and inability to talk to people and etc. Maybe it is just me. My lack of maturity, my inability to be of use to my parents, can’t even help them with their chores/work, my lack of intelligence, my lack of skill in anything, or the fact that I am a complete idiot. While the other kids became mature and responsible adults, I just became an immature idiot. I may be the best among my cousins, but I am still immature in the eyes of my parents since I will never be good enough compared to other children my age.

 

The love I understood is that love is patience, love is respect, love is understanding, love does not envy, love forgives.

You said your father is trying to give you real love. Has he given you any of the above?

[He is telling you what to do. His approach is not parental advice, it’s total control.] Both my parents do it. If there is anything they work together on, they definitely worked together for this one.

Your parents are united in totally controlling you? Is that what you’re saying?

I tried to make her look like some hard working woman by telling them about how she has a job and how she studyies well and etc but they only took it as a sign that she doesn’t have a good family to support her and that she probably slept with a bunch of men and etc.

Meaning that even though you tried to portray B as better than she is, your parents stuck to their prejudice and gave their quick judgment that she is a whore. Nice. Which also means that no matter how good and hard working a person may be, if she is of the wrong skin color – forget about it, they’re not buying it. Which btw means that B was right when she called your parents racist.

He treats everyone the same way, harsh and straight forward, but it is just that he ends up being right so often that people stop questioning him

Okay, so he is harsh and lacking empathy with everyone. And people understood he cannot be reasoned with, because he is so stubborn, so they stopped even trying. You think it’s because he is right about things, but it’s more likely that they don’t want to argue with someone who is so stubborn and refuses to understand a different point of view.

Yeah, there is no better way to describe this cause if I run from my parents, I am going to be shunned by my own parents, my relatives back home AND the community that I grew up in. They will side with my parents. Not me.

I understand that. But the fact that it wouldn’t be easy to stand up for yourself doesn’t mean you need to keep lying to yourself that they are good and loving parents, and that it is you who is the problem.

My father is also the one who told me that I should love the woman that accepted me for who I was (ironic coming from him)

Ironic indeed…

that is also the primary reason why I fell in love with B, cause she saw my flaws and loved me for it, or so I thought until I realized I was being fooled.

Yeah, she was probably love bombing you in the beginning, feigning care and support, plus pretending to be a perfect “housewife” too – no wonder you fell for it.

But it is still what I want, someone who accepts me for my flaws, my awkwardness and appreciates the love and care I have to offer instead of taking advantage of it.

The first person who needs to do that – accept you for your flaws and awkwardness – is yourself. So that entire paragraph of self-loathing that I quoted above (starting with “I am just an embarrassment to my parents“) would need to go. If you want to find true love.