Hi Anita,

How have you been? I hope your recovery from the second vaccine shot was well. I just thought about you today and so felt like talking.

Things have been quite stable Anita. Ever since my number change, R did try getting in contact through social media a couple times, but I didn’t respond at all and I feel peaceful. I started my singing lessons a while back and on the whole I feel really good.

With the therapist also, I think I’ve benefitted a lot. We spoke a lot. Just saying out a lot of things felt like a burden was off my shoulders. Things with my parents are also quite better. They were good on the surface since many years but now, internally also, I don’t feel the kind of resentment that I did earlier. One thing that my therapist said really stuck with me and helped me clear things. She told me that I had created perfect images of my parents in my mind, an ideal image, similar to my tendency of even idealising their love. She told me that one way in which I can resolve my hurt is acknowledging that what my mom did as wrong, understanding that she did unjustifiably disrespect and compare me. And then understanding that she’s also human, she made a mistake, she’s not perfect and to forgive her and let this go. This really helped me, seeing my parents as fellow humans with their own faults and good things instead of putting them on a pedestal as my parents, really helped.

On the issue of R, I am quite healed I think now. It’s been close to two years now to the breakup, around a month to his last attempt at reaching out to me and now my obsessive thoughts have almost come to a close. Honestly, partly that was because I just grew tired of thinking in circles. Eventually I realised that I can bang my head against a wall but still wouldn’t have answers to many questions and moving on with my life, doing good for myself in my life is more important than finding answers to questions that have no relevance anymore. So, I’m focussing on my life. I’d read somewhere that as humans, we’re both quite limited in our power and quite limitless. Limited in the sense that we cannot control external circumstances or in my case figure out the why’s and the how’s of other people’s actions. But limitless in the sense that we have total control over our own life and can make whatever we want of it. So I remind myself of that if I ever find myself even so much as drifting to thoughts about R.

I just thought I’ll update you about all this.
Thank You again Anita for all the help.

Jenny.

That’s great Anita. My parents also got their first vaccination shot and are feeling the same.

What you’re saying makes a lot of sense, the analogy between my mother and R, that is. Also, the fact about a guy unlike both of them, not making me feel that attachment, very true. I think I also had fallen in the ‘running after people who are emotionally unavailable to me’ trap.

But then, my question is,
– How do I come out of this ‘desire’? I am talking about my parents and childhood with a therapist and things are coming up and getting a little detangled slowly but surely, so when I hopefully detangle all of my childhood knots, will this desire and attachment related to R also go away or do I need to do something else for this?

Lastly, I think I’m also putting too high an expectation. I remember in the earlier posts both Peter and you helped me see how my desire to erase R and all the memories is unrealistic. He’s a past part of my life and I’ve to move forward from that, not fight it. I feel now that as long as I am able to think of him as my past and go about my day without his thought impeding me in any substantial way, I’m good. And there, I’ve already reached. So maybe I should also stop fretting so much and finding some meaning behind every passing thought about him. What do you think?

Love,

Jenny

Aww that’s very sweet of you to say that, Anita. Yes, now I know I deserve and will have a much better man. But honestly I’m not wanting any relationship now. For the first time in my 20s, I’m single. It’s like there’s a host of things that I want to do now, things that I hadn’t even thought of earlier because so much of my time was consumed by my relationship. I’d just remained limited to my relationship and my work. Now I want to focus on myself for a while. I love singing, always have but never went beyond singing amid friends. Now I can’t wait for the pandemic to be over so that I can join group classes and develop music as my hobby. I’ve started working out with more focus, eating healthier and feel physically and mentally so much healthier. I’m not closed to coming across someone nice but right now, for the first time,  I feel content by myself. It is so weird Anita how unhealthy relations can limit your life so much. I don’t have regrets because I know the relation taught me a lot but I never knew that relationships can affect one so much.

I hope you feel good after the vaccine shot. Vaccination has started here as well. I just hope we come out of this pandemic soon.

– Jenny

Anita,

I agree. Things are finally falling in place in my head at least Anita though I’ll continue with my therapy for the childhood experience. I don’t know how can I ever thank you enough Anita. You were truly godsend, at least for me. Every single person in my life today says I sound happier and I feel so much more confident in who I am. I am finally out of a relationship which was not good for me. This wouldn’t have been possible without your help, I would still be trapped in self doubt. Thank you so much for being there when I really needed help, we need more people like you in the world. Thanks a lot.

Love,

Jenny

Anita,

– Regarding rudeness with mom, this only, talking back. Basically since childhood, I have been told that talking back at parents is bad. Mom literally said ‘you’ve not seen what all parents tell to their children still they listen’. She always said I talk back as if I am as old as her. Regarding rudeness, these things only, ‘you can’t say this to me, I am trying, yes I am not like so and so and I dont even want to be, I remember I once said if you like her more mom, make her only your daughter, just leave how I look and talk alone, I am not some project’. These things basically, though obviously I could have said them in a lower voice and maybe stayed quieter in places. I remember I once told mom in my teens that even a child has respect, you have all rights to call me out on a fault but even though you are my mother, how can you make personal comments about my nature, over which mom had gotten very annoyed at me, so I did talk back more than I should have maybe and crossed lines.

– I don’t know about sadistic Anita but I do see him as very abusive now after reading and reflecting a lot.
I read in that book that ‘inability to raise grievances without being called unreasonable’ is a sign of abuse, R would always put me down for any grievance I had, even his mannerisms, he’d sometimes grab my arm and ask me to shut up, walk out of arguments or hang up the phone, he’d be very loving one moment and then next moment very distant, he’d often walk ahead of me, he was also majorly into parties and his boy night-outs which I was cool with but him constantly picking them above me made me think if we marry, I might sit at home while he parties, he’d never show me any affection in public at all, he always was more concerned about being proper in public at my cost (I had a little bit problem with a dress at a formal function and when I asked for his help, he said very rudely that don’t embarrass me and go to the washroom), even now, I mean he called me for an year and now when I finally called him one time, he disconnected and blocked me as if all he wanted was control and an ego-boost. I think he wanted things on his terms and had no respect for me as an individual. I read in that book that abuse is not about feelings, its about mentality and what we see in our culture. He did say that his father was irritable towards all of them and he did have trouble getting along with him though I didn’t probe.

Jenny

Anita,

I thought for a while and honestly I’ve had such a low self-esteem all along that I’d immediately think this is right but now that I try and look at facts a little, I’m sorry but with all due respect, I don’t agree Anita.

– Yes, I talked back with my mother, but I talked BACK. I didn’t start ever. I was never the child called out for being rude, arrogant or disrespectful to her parents on her own accord which I know a lot of my friends were, I’d seen them talk badly to their mother when she kept coming in their room again and again when I and other friends were at their house. I never did anything like that. Yes, what I wasn’t is submissive. I agree I have never been submissive. When my mom scolded me, I’d listen but when she said personal hurtful things, I would talk back. case in point: I would slouch sometimes as a kid, so mom would tell me stand straight, walk straight and I tried but I would then go back to slouching, one day when mom saw I was still slouching, she shouted at me, in front of the governess. ‘Stay like this only all your life’, nothing can happen of yours, look at so and so, when mom’s tell their child once, they listen, look at you, stay like this only, look like this only all your life’. At that point, yes, I would talk back. I would say mom you can’t say that to me, I am trying but don’t say that, okay I will look like this only, you don’t have to worry about me. And I agree that my voice would be loud and my words rude to match that of mom’s. And then mom would be like who talks back to their mother, look at so and so, they are so respectful, I am taking your nature because I am your mom, no one else will’. I know maybe I shouldn’t have talked back, maybe I could stay quiet and respect her more. So I wasn’t submissive, the cousins that my mom compared me to were. They are even today. One of them is in a marriage in a conservative family and she’s making it work exceptionally well because she takes her husband’s behaviour. Mom herself says today that why doesn’t she talk back when he sees how he treats her but then she’s like it’s good at least she makes it work somehow. I know that I couldn’t do what she is doing, I couldn’t clean the toilet only to hear my husband shout at me and tell me where all I haven’t cleaned properly and then stay quiet. I don’t know if that is right or wrong. I think it s wrong. Yes, you can say Anita that I am not very patient, not submissive and not very gentle when repeatedly provoked, but when provoked and repeatedly.

– As I grew up, and now when I confronted my mom, she agreed, my father agreed to not taking a stand for me. Even today mom tells me to do certain things but she doesn’t shout at me like that, also because I live away, but even when I was at their place for the Pandemic, she’d sometimes be annoyed that I slept late or that I didn’t have proper lunch but she doesn’t shout like that anymore and resultantly I have not once been rude or angry at her. Mom and dad today say and show in actions that their life would face an irreparable loss without me.

– My friends. Honestly the one thing that helped me have 1% self esteem left while growing up, it were my friends, right through childhood until now, I have had very healthy relations with all my friends. The two girlfriends I talked about, they are my friends since kindergarten. The two of them don’t really talk much together because they drifted apart but they are both very close with me. My friends today, my friends from college, my colleagues. At work, I have seen so many lash-outs, seniors lashing out at juniors over non-performance, I have never done that. I am one of the only two people at work who still have the same people in their team that they had 3 years ago because in all other teams, people are resigning and being fired. In fact, when I got the promotion, the one that a colleague mocked me about for being because of my physicality, one of the things I’ve always been praised for is my management skills and temperament. These things honestly I hadn’t ever consciously thought of but when I sat back to understand how I am an angry woman, I could not see it. Yes, I do have crippling self-doubt and so when anyone tells me, anyone so far being only my mom and ex, I do start doubting myself but the only reason that I fight back despite the doubt is because When I look at facts, I don’t see myself as being that. I don’t see myself as having a bad nature the way mom always said, yes I believed it for the longest time but when I think back, it factually never adds up. If I am so bad natured, how come I have the oldest friendships and the closest bonds when many of my friends have fought and parted ways? If I was bad natured as mom said, why today did she agree to being wrong, why did dad agree to not standing up for me. They still have fights among themselves so its not that a they have become different human beings but their conduct to me has changed.

– My assistant. I have the same assistant since the last 3 years, ever since I started working at my current company and she is more like a friend now. She always tells me how I never made her feel like an assistant and how I’d not shouted at her when she did so and so. We now laugh about all the times when she’d supposedly screw up and we’d go on fixing drive. Most of my colleagues vent out, shout and put down their assistants.

– My ex. After my mother, my ex is the only one that I had fights, arguments with. These are the only two people in life I have had arguments with. I know they are the closest to me and so my inner self comes out the most but with neither of them have I been irritable/name-calling which both of them have been to me. Yes, I stood up to them. Yes I agree that I didn’t take my mom’s scolding quietly, I dint take my bf’s neglecting me quietly. I speak up, I have always spoken up and my fault was that instead of realising that I should have been quiet after my speaking up had no effect, I went down to shouting, begging and crying. Yes I have been argumentative. Yes I have doubted if I am the problem because I did argue back and did not stay quiet when I saw my bf lying to me that he is at work when he was partying with his friends, I don’t have the knowledge and maturity to know that when someone pokes me, someone very close to me pokes me and don’t pay any heed when I say it hurts me, I should disengage. Instead I try and do anything to make them see they are hurting me. case in point, my ex as I think I’ve said before too would be all nice and everything and would suddenly start becoming busy. I’d be like okay, but then I’d see his friends social media posts and stories that he is out partying with friends and family and I’d feel bad, I’d call him try and talk, he’d be like it was one day rest I am very swamped can’t talk right now, but when I’d see that he is having time for everything but me, yes, one day I would lose my calm and call him repeatedly until he answered, I would tell him why is he doing this and I saw he is doing this and this and if I hold no importance why is he with me, how can he call me his life and treat me like this and he’d call me clingy, nagging, irritable and I’d argue back and he’d shout at me and I’d cry and in the last one year he’s then start name-calling and verbally abusing me. If I were angry, I would abuse him back, I have never Done that. Through the 5 years, I have never ever name-called him, verbally used abusives, or put him down even when he did. Yes, I have been argumentative. Yes I have spoken up when I feel I was being wronged and maybe I have been more emotional. Maybe some other girl must have been like cool he doesn’t want to talk to me I’ll go have my own fun, yes I couldn’t be that girl, I went after him, I wanted him to give me the importance that I felt I gave to him and that was deserved to me as a girlfriend but I wasn’t angry. He himself would say in our good times how its amazing that I am chilled out with him being friends with one of his exes, how he likes I am not the crazy jealous types.

So no, Anita, it is true I was not submissive, I stood up for myself when I felt wrong and my way of standing up might be wrong, I should said said once and disengaged but it wasn’t so easy, this was my mother and the man I wanted to marry, I couldn’t just disengage so I did argue, I did say you can’t wrong me like this, I was argumentative, I was a cry-baby, I was nagging and clingy maybe but I was not angry, I was hurt. With my closed ones with whom I have an equal relation, who don’t insult me or put me down, I have very good relations. Even with my father, he wronged me but because he wasn’t directly shouting insulting at me, I never spoke in any bad way with him, he has always on his own said that I have been a good daughter to him, yes, I felt wronged by him not standing up but had I been angry girl, I would be out there being bad with him.  Even now, see, in the last one year, when my ex kept calling, I didn’t call him anything bad even once, I was hurt, I was disrespected but not once, I would be quiet because I learnt that my talking back and arguing will not do anything, I texted don’t contact me but not once did I say anything abusive. My ex, he called me stupid, verbally abused me when I rejected him, asked me to keep my idiocy to myself and said I am a child. I have taken a lot from both my mom and my ex and an angry woman would have broken ties with them, an angry girl would have been easily slighted, easily irritated, I wasn’t. I’d listen until it became very personal and then I’d argue. I have seen enough easily irritable, angered people in my life to know that I am so not one of them. Yes I WAS A HURT CHILD AND A HURT GIRLFRIEND and I am making the distinction because had I been angry, I think I would have become irritable, I would be lashing out at being even little slighted, I would have become aggressive arrogant and been short tempered but I wasn’t. I was hurt, and so I became self-doubting, a little quieter as a personality and more than shouting, I would cry and beg. It was my mom herself who said that I don’t even stand up t my bf anymore, I just cry.  I was a hurt child/gf Anita, I think, not an angry one. Honestly I’d been happier to be the angry one, it’d be better if I could just yell and insult and go around thinking as if I am the boss of the world, which is what I feel maybe my ex now thinks rather than being left as the crying begging woman who keeps spinning in self-doubt.

I know I am many things Anita, but after all the little work that I have tried doing on myself in the last one year with reading and de-clouding my life’s narrative off what my mom and my ex kept telling me and instead seeing facts, I can for once say that I was not an angry child/girlfriend. I was a hurt child/girlfriend, not an angry one. We do use them interchangeably but I think they are not  the same.

I am sorry Anita if any of this sounds rude, I know I’m getting defensive but I did think hard all day yesterday about it and tried to look at the truth, trust me I have the highest regard for you, you are helping me so much but this is just something I felt and thought I could say it to you. But feel free to say what you feel. If I am missing something, I’d like to see that. I’d await your reply.

Love

Jenny

I feel as if he will move on now thinking that good riddance from Jenny, instead of I lost Jenny because of my screw up. That is it Anita. I did not want him back but yes, I did want him to feel my loss which I feel he now will never feel. If not even loss, I wanted him to see me as someone who he cannot manipulate and get to anymore and he just did in one night and that was enough for him to call me a child. I just wanted him to feel that he lost me, that he was wrong, that’s it Anita and at least that he cannot insult me anymore.

Anita

I thought that I could deal with this on my own but I just cannot. I feel as if all the hardwork that I’d done in the last one year, all the ‘let the silence do the talking’, everything, I just blew everything apart and I feel like an utter failure. I honestly feel as if I have failed myself and dropped just where he wanted me.

So in the last couple of days amid which I was interacting with you, one evening I got repeated calls from him, when I finally answered he bluntly told me that he is again in my city and last time do I want to be with him or not. He also said if I want he can come to my place, he was like last time do you want to be with me or not, I said No and he hung up the call.

– I don’t know why I lost it at that moment Anita. I think partly it was his tone, he sounded very rude, partly maybe because I’m PMSing and my hormones were all over the place and partly because I think somewhere I had gotten used to him calling and this seemed like something final. I don’t know but the same night, really late at night, I ended up sending him a long long message, telling him to stop and to stop disrespecting even the relationship by calling like this. I sounded so emotional and vulnerable by that text Anita. He saw it the next morning.

But my foolishness wasn’t done yet. The next day I felt that I’ve been harsh and now that things are actually over, I should not end it on such a bitter note. I can’t believe I forgot all about the things we discussed about how any such so called last talk will only give temporary peace. So then, I recorded him a message and sent it to him via social media which has a provision that you can see when someone see your message and plays any voice recording. When I was online that night, I saw Anita that though he had seen my message hours ago, he hadn’t listened to it yet and I felt very slighted and deleted the recording so that he won’t be able to listen to it any longer.

In the evening, when he must have seen that I deleted the recording, he sent me this message- you’re such a child. Goodbye. And then he blocked me on his social media. As if I’ve been the one after him all this year when he was the one that kept calling.
And like an utter fool I got hurt and called him, one year Anita, One year I held on to my respect, not once did I call him but these few days, I just lost it all. I called him three times in a row and he disconnected my call every time. And then I stopped.
Then as I did tell you, I changed my number.

Don’t judge me Anita, I feel I have disappointed myself so much. I am so angry at me, at him, he calls all year and when finally I do, he disconnects my calls? Then why call all year.
All this while Anita, I was proud that I kept my dignity and didn’t let him back in, that I didn’t call him, that I didn’t show him my vulnerability and now Anita I again just got to the place where I was when he had left and instead of being woman enough to silently walk away, I came across as someone who’s still just where she was when he left, and to think that I was thinking all this while that my silence will make him realise something someday.

I know you’ll say I shouldn’t think about what he’d think but I just, I just failed myself Anita. While I know that this has been brutal enough and I’d never go down that path again but I didn’t want to end up again as someone who he can block and disconnect calls after not letting him in for so long. It’s as if he had his last laugh. I’d hoped for a more graceful end from my side.

– Jenny