I agree Anita that what they did cannot be overlooked. In fact I expressed to them yesterday that whoever has known about my issue, even my teacher, has blamed them for bringing me up in a wrong manner. Thus it may have been my grandma’s wishes but since they passively submitted to the same, they will be criticized by others as much as her. I hope the point was made and they’ll rectify this henceforth.

Enemies is too strong a word, but misguided definitely fits. Way too much misguided, sadly. They are too gullible and people easily make them believe anything by using tempting offers. I can’t say too much in public but regarding the college I had to leave, it was both directly and indirectly my grandma’s and parents’ faults, as well as my own for failing to do my own research and protesting to do things right. Medical entrance exams here are extremely tough, and instead of letting me go to a good coaching institute to prepare for the same, my grandma insisted on home tutoring. My parents submitted to her wishes because (acc. to them) –

1) I don’t have a vehicle of my own, will not be allowed to use public transport and dad can’t take a leave from office all the time to drop and pick me up.

2) Grandma insists that if I am out of home, my parents carry food to me every 30 min or so, wait outside class for me and then escort me home before dinner at any cost (no exaggeration).

The home tutoring was way insufficient and I could not clear the exams. Then they found a person who said I could join this newly opened college which is super awesome etc etc… grandma found the guy’s words very trustworthy and we went ahead. When it turned out to be more or less a scam, I wanted to leave after 1.5 years when it was too much to stand, and my parents forced me to continue by emotionally blackmailing me. When finally things got really bad, even they had to agree with me. And here I am.

I don’t blame just them and I accept that the major fault is mine for not refusing and choosing the right path myself, what any strong willed and sensible person would’ve done. My parents always had my best interests at heart… and they believed that guy’s words which were too good to be true, hoping for the best for me, refusing to listen to me thinking they know what’s best for me. I just know that this thing has went way too far now. I love my family, doesn’t mean I can follow any unreasonable wishes and let my life be ruined. I too have my dreams and heart’s wishes. I love Jerry and I prefer to die than to lose her. I need control over my temper and I need to fix my broken career. For that, I need to be assertive and not accept being subdued like you mentioned.

I’ve started keeping the diary and so far have managed to avoid using swear words and am trying my best to control my temper during little incidents like rash drivers on road and all. I’ll message my greetings to Jerry on the festival.. after that, I dunno whether and when to contact her, and what to say. Am only thinking of the festival greetings for now.

Thanks and I’m sorry that you felt distressed. Am truly grateful for your compassion and sincere help. Please take care too.

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

She is not bad like that as such… in fact, if directly asked she agrees that independence and being self sufficient is important. But when I actually try to do that, she doesn’t like it. Hopefully after I pass my exams, this will be much less of an issue and I’ll be able to develop more self confidence and slowly overcome the short temper and insecurities.

Indeed being assertive is part of love. I don’t think there exists any relation in the world without conflicts at some point or the other, but people learn to be assertive and sort it out without there being fights or any significant negative incidents. It’s due to love for the other person. Jerry means the world to me and yet due to these inner flaws, I could not stop the dragon from taking over. It’s time to show that I truly am willing to change and do anything for her sake.

We have a festival here the day after tomorrow, and I am considering messaging wishes to her. Hopefully she’ll be calmer by now. After that, I am not sure how to proceed.

Yup I am glad that they understood. Regarding my grandma… trying to reason with her is a totally futile attempt. We tried and failed from years and years. Recently something crucial and urgent happened and my parents attended to it, something which she would never have let them do, but they realized its importance and just ignored her outbursts. So I used that as a point, and asked them when they chose to go against her wishes regarding that issue, why not let me be independent too after knowing that its affecting my psyche and personality otherwise. They had to agree. Must say this issue happened right on ideal time in order to let me have this point. 😛

Yes Jerry’s sense of judgement and observation is really sharp and unbiased, one of the many things I love about her. However this conversation I mentioned occurred nearly a year ago and this last argument is sadly very recent. I just wish to make up for it and genuinely make sure it never happens again. Though going by what she’s said after the argument, she seems more troubled by my changed feelings for her rather than the argument/foul words. Need to think how to deal with that too. She might ask me to promise to be just a friend and let go of my feelings as it will never work… but though I may keep quiet out of respect for her, I cannot change what my heart feels.

Yes that’s what I wish the journal to be; a heartfelt record of genuine effort. 🙂

Yes, that’s why I have been doing my best to make up for what I did in the past, and make a sincere effort to correct this behaviour. But it feels truly dreadful when I do make a sincere effort and it works for a while, before happening again… sometimes even worse than the previous time. At times it even happened in front of others; I treated her so badly in front of our other friends in a group chat. At that time when we were having arguments due to our differences over the haters, she used to say, “By treating me like this, you’ve shown your priorities by your actions… those haters mean more to you than me and that’s why, owing to your obsession regarding them, you’re treating me like this. If you truly loved me, then you would’ve controlled your anger and tried to understand what I’m trying to say. Do a true brother and sister fight like this in public? Our friends have seen only our fights, will they ever believe that we share a special bond?” Later I did write poems for her and create some gifts which I posted in public for all to see, to make up for this. Now as we know, for whatever reason she’s denying that we even share a special bond. But wasn’t she totally right to feel so hurt? Why would she believe I did make sincere efforts, when the incidents happened again a million times? 🙁

Recently after one of our arguments last month, when she blocked me on our messenger app, my temper flared up again and I blocked her in return and left. Later when things cooled down, she said – “See? I knew it. Instead of trying to understand my feelings and why I had blocked you, you just blocked me in return and went away.” Remembering all this really depresses me and makes me dislike myself. After all, in a relation the male is always expected to be calm, confident and understanding, and to make her feel secure and happy. I cannot be so touchy with a huge ego and short temper. I feel it’s something I truly do need to change about myself, first of all, and think about the rest later. I’m motivating myself to change accordingly for her.

Yup I understand that Anita. In a way I was defending myself only, because as in case with my favourite actor, the voice in my head says, “You are weak for not being able to stand up for your loved one”. I know, can’t deny my family’s role in shaping my short temper. But its also true that whatever I have gained today, I could not have done without them either and they always gave me whatever I wanted (other than independence). So its natural to have felt defensive. As an aside, I feel the very same way for Jerry as well, if not more. A few days back, my parents noticed I was depressed and asked why. I said shortly that its due to an argument with a friend, which was my fault. And this convo occurred –

Mom: Right now, nothing is more important for you than your studies. Your “friend” is actually your greatest enemy because he/she is distracting you from studies. They are taking advantage as you are such a sweet and innocent boy. Whatever you did must’ve been for a very good reason, you can never be blamed. That “friend” is a horrible person who hurt you, clearly.
Me: Mom, please stop now. Don’t make comments on someone you don’t even know. It was my fault only and its no use denying it. My friend did nothing wrong and in fact always encourages me to not spend too much time online, and study well. I’m sure even the parents of all the criminals and terrorists out there must be feeling their sons are just misunderstood cute little boys.
Mom: No, don’t think we are biased. If you ever did anything wrong, we’d tell you at once.
Me: I know how many times you did that to this day. Please accept the truth for once.
Mom: It doesn’t matter if you’re a so-called bad person as long as you get a good job. So just forget it and study, study, study.

The best I can say is I controlled my temper because those words against Jerry (though they don’t know her) really got my temper up.

I do feel in my heart that we’ll be reunited eventually. But I do not wish such bad incidents to repeat ever again. That’s why I’ll strictly practice assertiveness and non-violence in behaviour henceforth. Until then, I am giving her time to relax and come to terms with these changes… praying for the best. Thanks a lot again. 🙂

That’s true, Anita. Patience is something I’m not able to exercise once that point of escalation is reached. Although I often try to prevent the arguments from escalating, and recently managed it with some amount of success, often it just happens without either of us actually realizing that what we’re saying actually is fueling on the argument. And then comes the issue where the emotional brain takes over and tells me, “don’t back down… fight back with all you got, if you have the guts!” It considers even assertiveness a weakness in that case, perhaps. Though my rational side knows that its wrong but I was not able to stop myself.

Another thing is Jerry told me recently (for good reason) that I have been manipulative and treated her like a disposable tool and played with her emotions. Although I could never dream of treating her like that intentionally, plain fact is that in my anger and impatience, I did things that cannot leave any doubt about the truth of her words. Like after an argument which ended with me sending some especially awful message and storming off, she kept sending me sorry messages even if its not her fault and I kept ignoring them until the anger subsided. Sometimes I did it with genuine concern hoping to be normal first instead of causing more damage… but she felt “you don’t care for me enough to control your anger instead of giving priority to it and behaving like this”? I’ve also lost how many times I said stuff like “I’m just a useless piece of *censored*, I only hurt you all, I wish I just (insert painful method of death)”. And often I sent not just one message but often many long ones.’ Often it was in genuine frustration with myself… but the effect was the same. Its a mark of her love and care that each time she forgave me quietly, putting aside her own pain and tears, trying just to make me happy. It makes me loathe myself even more, love her even more, but I can imagine few things worse than what I did. I crossed all limits with this last argument… words like “may your tongue rot” cannot be excused under any circumstances and it will take extraordinary and permanent repentance from my side to be worthy of being with her again.

I will definitely do it, Anita. At least in these next few weeks, will try to change myself in that regard as much as possible. Still, I don’t feel using profanity or having violent thoughts can ever be good. That truly needs to be weeded out. I cannot go around saying “do you want XYZ to get (insert fatal disease)?” and other stuff I mentioned. Right now, ever since the incident with Jerry, I have not used even a single swear word and tried my best to control my irritation too. Due to some situation at my place right now, my grandma was passing comments that normally tick me off a lot, but I was able to tone down my irritation with the help of articles I found here, and diverted my focus elsewhere. Dunno how long it’ll work.

I also must make up to Jerry. It’s not something that can happen so soon or easily… and patience is a virtue I’ve not had much yet but I need to develop it for her, to prevent doing anything bad out of impatience.

You summed it up accurately, Anita. I don’t know about the future, but truly my heart does not accept that this is all there could ever be. I’m not naive to believe in fairy-tale endings and all, but I do know what we meant and still mean to each other. Much, much more than either of us (especially she) is willing to express. When we talked on phone, she sounded a little nervous initially, I asked her to be calm and relax, and she laughed at my words. I cannot express what I felt as I heard it. More than that, I truly did feel that she was much happy talking to me, even if she didn’t admit it. I’m not saying she too loved me in this manner, but after I confessed my feelings for her, she said – “I don’t know why you felt this because we never shared anything personal, always talked just about our Facebook page, TV show and all. I always made it clear I consider you my bro.” The first part simply is not true. We did share a lot of personal info, much more than we ever did with anyone else. She herself admitted it. I feel she’s afraid to express it, due to her family or own personal code or whatever.

I do believe in what my heart says, that we did not get so close for it to end just like this or be limited to an online friendship. And though I always try to be rational, I cannot help but consider Paulo Coelho’s famous Alchemist quote. At least from my side, I know my heart cannot love anybody else the way I love her. I just wish to follow my heart, prove myself worthy and do my best, and leave the rest to karma or whatever.