Dear Yuhan:

Well, your visa will expire next year, so you were desperate for one, marrying a British citizen (and  I  assume he  is) would have solved this big problem and you could have stayed in the  UK.

And then we  all have this tendency, when we invest  a lot  in one thing and it doesn’t  work, we tend to invest more and  more because we already invested  so much.

And.. a person becomes emotionally attached to anyone, not only to honest  decent people, just being  around someone long enough, especially when lonely otherwise, is enough to bring about that attachment.

And by the  way he is responsible for being dishonest with you and harming you by being dishonest,  even if you stayed in the  relationship or gave  him another chance  and another, he is still responsible for his behavior, or I should say, misbehavior.

I  don’t know why he looks calm and acts happy, I don’t  know. Maybe if you share more in another post, I will get an idea.  Maybe another member reading your post/s will have an idea.

I wonder what are your plans for the future, will you still try to immigrate to the  UK…

I hope things  will be better  for you  soon enough, that you will not  be hard on yourself but gentle instead. I will be  back to the computer  in about sixteen hours and  hope to read more  from you when I am back.

anita

Dear Yuhan:

First I will retell your story as you shared it here best I can (it helps me process information when I do that): you and this man met three years ago, dated for about a month, he then broke up with you, saying he “couldn’t commitment and things went too fast”. You then asked him why he told you earlier, shortly after the beginning of dating, that he loved you and then changed quickly. His answer was: “how could you believe that someone would love you in such a short time?.. he said so coz he believed if  he didn’t, he’d lose me”.

You felt offended and blocked him. Later he  sent  you a few messages  and poems, over the years, but you didn’t reply. December  2017- January 2018, he sent you long emails “saying he  misses me and loves me, that he’d do anything  for me he’d build up a family with me”. You “felt gross and immediately deleted all”.

You moved  to  Bristol, UK February 2018 and contacted him. He then told you that he wrote these  long emails when he was drunk. April 2018 you started dating and you found out hat he has “serious drinking problems and drug addiction”, and you ended  the relationship.

He then cried  and begged and promised to stop drinking and doing drugs everyday and swore to you. You  resumed  the relationship with him. In three  days he  broke his  word. You were  about to break up with him again but distracted  by him proposing marriage to you July 2018.

The marriage proposal meant a lot to you,  a way of staying in the UK following the expiration of your visa and building a family. Between the  proposal July and November 10, he broke  up with you at least  four times. Following the breakups you reasoned  with him and got back together, or he regretted breaking up with you, “crying and begging”. Each reuniting, the  marriage  proposal advanced, a marriage registration date was set, rings were bought, and you moved in together

The final, most recent  breakup was  November 10. Following that  he  asked you to sell a gift  he gave  you before and give  him the money and argued that it is not  fair that he  moves  out of the apartment because  the rent  there  was already paid (all of deposit and  first two  months paid by you only), and he didn’t have  the money to pay rent elsewhere, nor did he had the money to pay two  bills.

Currently he is living with you post breakup,  your visa will expire  this coming year, he is going through a bankruptcy but appears calm, relaxed, positive and happy, “promising about himself”, “like a brand new person”. He is focusing on his job and interests, paid you some money that  he owed you and suggested to help you in the  future and that you should  move on.

Often during the on again off again relationship he  was distressed, cried, “begged that ‘this time’ he’s 100% percent certain” regarding the relationship with you, he kept his full time job but was unhappy with his  job and  “unsuccessful career” and he often drank and did drugs. He shared  with you along the way that he had “a shattered family” and that “His parents, esp the mother always failed  him”. He told you that “he had to learn to not care”.

During the  relationship, before the final breakup, you wrote: “I needed to be ‘strong’ to comfort him”. But after the  breakup  Nov 10, he appears strong and you feel weak, “down, confusing”, unable to focus on reading for the dissertation you have to work on and you are drinking everyday.

My input/ my understanding: some of the things he told you were lies, some were true.

I believe the following is true, or very likely to  be true: that his  origin is  from “a shattered family”, that his parents, especially his mother failed him, that he had to learn to not care.

The following may or may not be true, likely to  be partly or fully lies: his financial status and anything at all that has to do with money.

I think that you misunderstood somewhat the following: he was/ is a troubled person, has been weak, will be weak again, but he  is  also a bad person. Throughout the time you knew him he was often in pain but he  also focused on his self interest and didn’t mind it  being at your expense, he didn’t mind that you will suffer for him serving his  own self interest.

When he told you that he had  to  learn to  not care, that not caring included  not caring about hurting  other people, that  is, hurting you. When he was in pain he didn’t care about your pain and  he didn’t  care about  causing you pain.

Now that he feels better, he is a bit available to think about your well being, paying you some money he  owed you (not  all and still requesting financial favors), and offering to be your friend. He feels good  enough to be a bit of a good  person. For now.

When he  was struggling, in pain, you tried  to be strong  for him. Problem is, in his  mind, there was and cannot  be  a team. You were not his partner, in his  mind. He expressed some hunger for love  (a  deep human need), but quickly,  every time, withdrew to the  me-alone-against-a-hostile-world mentality. In other words, as you tried to comfort him as if he was  your partner, you were trying  to comfort a man who will soon, again, see  you as  the enemy, as  one of the people who- like his mother and father- will disappoint him sooner or later.

Why is he feeling better now? Because now he  has  hope for his  future. For some reason he  feels optimistic about his future.  Maybe he saved enough money- without your awareness- and is satisfied with his new savings, still working on increasing it by having you pay bills that are  partly his to pay. Maybe he  has  a new female target that he thinks  will help him too in his quest  to increase  his savings.

Reality is, his optimism is  likely to  be short  lived, because his “shattered family” is still his reality, still the birthplace  of his motivation to misuse others, and  the pain of that history will get reactivated soon enough.

Do all you can to successfully complete your dissertation and to take care of the business you need to attend to. If it is possible for you,  have him move out of the apartment ASAP. Do not communicate with him regarding emotions or any topic that requires honesty. He is not your friend.

I hope to read from you again, anytime you’d like.

anita

Dear Yuhan:

I will be  able to read and reply to your recent  post when I am back to the computer, in about fifteen hours from now.  Take  good care of yourself!

anita

Dear Yuhan:

I will explain the paragraph you quoted above regarding the misunderstanding I suggested: you wrote earlier that during the relationship, “I needed to be ‘strong’ to comfort him”, as if he was weak and you needed to be strong. My point is that he wasn’t  just weak, he was also selfish and dishonest. Weak, selfish and dishonest, this is why comforting  him wasn’t enough. You comfort him, he  feels better, makes new promises… but he is still dishonest and selfish, you didn’t comfort or make that part of him go away.

He told you early on that he loved you and later said: “how could you believe that someone would love you in such a short time?” What he was saying was that he lied to you and it was okay for him to lie, and if you didn’t know he was lying, that is your problem, not his.

He then told you that he said I-love-you because “if he didn’t, he’d lose me”- so he said I-love-you so to have sex with you, that was  his self  interest and he  was   willing to lie to you (operating  against your well being) so to satisfy his self interest. This is selfish- self interest at the expense  of your well being.

When he later sent you poems and emails saying “he misses me and  loves me”, you understandably “felt gross and immediately deleted all”. Indeed it is not reasonable to believe him yet again!

Yet you believed him enough when he proposed to you and you kept investing in a dishonest  and selfish man. I need to understand better what  it  is that you struggle with now: is it that you feel badly for having invested all that time in an  investment  that produced no return-on-investment?

Is it that  you feel attached to him, still want him in your life and upset that he appears calm and happy and therefore he  will not  be begging you again to  allow him back into his life?

Is it that you are  lonely, afraid of going back to your original country this  coming  new year?

anita

Dear Yuhan:

1. Anger, the emotion: you feel angry at him and it is okay for you to feel angry at him. “my anger… not nice?”, you wrote. Nice people feel anger. Everyone  feels anger. It  is a natural emotion and it  is no  less of a good emotion than love or joy or sadness. The purpose of anger in animals, humans included, is to survive, it motivates  an animal to fight so to preserve its  life, to protect its offspring, territory, to promote one’s valid self interest. You were angry at him before, this is why you blocked him long ago and after he proposed to you, you were angry: “I was so struggling between saying ‘yes’ or F*** off'”-

The  anger was  in you all along, motivating you to block him, to tell him to F** off, that  is, it motivated you to not be associated  with him, which would have  been the right thing for you. So you see, anger is a  good emotion. You ignored  it, that  was  the problem.

2. Forgiveness: “I know that  I should forgive”- not necessarily and not anytime soon. Be okay with the anger  in you, accept it, don’t  try to get rid of it. (Emotions do lessen when they are  allowed  to be).

3. Justice: it is  natural to  want justice following injustice and we should  do  our best to promote justice. If there is a  legal and ethical way for you to pursue justice regarding him, do so. For example, if there was or will be a way for you to seek monetary compensation from him in a court of law, do so.  But accept the fact  of life that in the context of you and another person, when injustice  is done to you by that person, often enough there is nothing you can do about it after the fact.

But notice this: your ex boyfriend, he is not done suffering. He too will feel pain sooner than later. No one gets away without suffering. It is a fact of living. As you see him calm and happy, it will not last. In other words, everyone suffer, the good and the bad and all in between.

4. Wasted time, youth and your future: waste is the  rule, not the  exception. I personally wasted decades of my life and all of my youth. Looking around, again, waste is common, everywhere, waste of time, of youth, of money, of resources, of joy-not-experienced, life-not-well-lived.

Best anyone can do is learn from experience so to waste less in the future. There still will be waste, but waste less. Plan better, evaluate people and situations better, and live a more functional life. Your life can still be a good life. Don’t give up, keep going.

And post here anytime, I will be glad to reply to you anytime you do post.

anita

Dear Yuhan:

I too suffered in childhood and wanted to die. My mother mistreated me, she did the beating, not with “solid wood”, she used her hands and feet to slap, hit and kick me. And she used words, humiliating words that shamed me deeply. I too thought I was at fault, having “fatal flaws”. And I too tried to “understand where (she) came from”.

I didn’t understand at the time that understanding where she came from was not going to change the damage done by the verbal and physical beatings. It couldn’t possibly make it retroactively okay, saying to myself something like: it doesn’t hurt anymore, the memory of those  words  because now I understand that she had a tough childhood, that she suffered abuse, that she was  in pain.

All that trying to understand her did for me was to focus on her, as if I  was not important.

I believed there was  something terribly wrong  with me, so I accepted mistreatment by others, as an adult. I didn’t know anything different, being treated with respect… I had a couple of experiences of that, and it felt so strange.. but didn’t have enough of it.

For example, as a child, an uncle asked me a question as if I mattered. It seemed like he was waiting for my answer with interest and curiosity. How strange that was/

I too had  some happy experiences in childhood. My mother and other people accused me for remembering only  the bad, and I  felt guilty for that. Only  later, much later, did I realize that I remembered the bad so vividly, not because I had the .. fatal flaw of remembering  the  negative, but because it is natural to focus on the negative. For example, a deer is pleasantly eating grass, then it  hears a noise, could be an approaching predator, some danger (something negative). It immediately stops eating and focuses  on the danger until it passes.

Animals are geared to focus on danger/ the negative so to survive.

It was not your fault that you got sick. It was your father fault that he  beat you up and it is your mother’s fault for not protecting you, for running away (as if she was afraid that he will beat her up too?). It was not your fault that your ex boyfriend lied to you. You are responsible for staying with him, not for his behavior.

anita

Dear Yuhan:

You are welcome.

“it is not worthy to refuse the whole world just coz some damaged  people”- I think we are all damaged people, to one extent or another we all get damaged in childhood. And some of that damage will damage yet other people. But the people who go out  of their way to damage others, those  we  must  avoid, have  no contact with them.

Most  and maybe  all parents are anxious. A child needs a calm parent, so  when a child observes her  parent/s behaving  anxiously, repeatedly, that  is  damaging to  the child. But a parent that  goes out of his  or her  way to damage  is the  one beating  the  child, repeatedly, harshly, years of it. I would have easily forgiven my  mother for  behaving anxiously, for any and all behaviors born out of ignorance, even some spanking, but not for having gone out of her way to damage me by humiliating me, verbally and physically, repeatedly, year after year, and  blaming me for her  behavior, drilling  in  me the belief that I am a bad and  an unworthy person.

I have ended all contact with her in 2013 and will never have  any contact with her for the  rest  of her/ my life. That ending  of contact made  my healing  possible, a healing process that  is still ongoing. (My father was divorced when I was  very young and died many years  ago).

I wish I ended contact with her in my  early   twenties, that way, I would have a whole lot more  life  to live as a good, worthy person, not a life that I did live, one based on the beliefs that I  was a bad and  unworthy person.

You asked, if  I understood correctly, how my experience with  my mother affected my  relationships  with men as an adult. A partial answer: I  behaved based on the  belief that I  was  unworthy, that is, I had  to pay a price for  the man spending his worthy time with me, Unworthy. So I let a man use  me so that there  is  a reason for him to bother with me, no matter I felt no attraction and no desire, even disgust.   (and it was difficult!) to let him use me. Soon enough, I got angry at him and end the  not-yet-relationship.

I didn’t have relationships, really, but short things here and there, on an off at best, nothing that  has  trust in it, or value, or a meeting of the minds, nothing stable, nothing good. Most  of the  time, the great majority of the time, I was  alone.

I have a relationship now, a real relationship, a marriage, eight years now.

anita