I am Asian. Our community is tight knit. Our families influence our lives a lot, as well. I am afraid of push back from both our families if I try to call off the engagement and leave. Although I have lived in the US all my life, women in our culture are expected to let go and tolerate male dominance. I have not been raised like that and cannot tolerate such expectations. My family is very supportive/liberal, however his family is rather conservative.

I am also afraid of trying to move on and him pushing back in my life through fake apologies. I was considering a career move that will take me to a new city where he will not be able to locate me and I can start over. However, that will be very difficult as I have a stable job as an attorney and do not want my career to be affected by relationship issues.

Anita, thank you for responding.

By fights I mean arguments. I would get upset over something he did and he would realize it and apologize and I would do the same. Now, if he upsets me and I try to talk to him about it, he threatens to stop talking to me or leave me. I tell him I am upset with you I don’t want to talk to you right now, but have a good day and he responds “well then have a good life.” I don’t know if he even cares that I am in his life anymore. He wants to control me and get his way by threatening me that he will leave. If I tell him that he hurt me, he always says “well you shouldn’t have started it.” to him, even telling him that he is doing something wrong is starting something…and then all hell breaks loose and in the end, “it is my fault and if I would have kept my mouth shut and not complained, nothing would have gone wrong.” to him a perfect relationship is me always doing what he says and if he hurts me, to suck it up and let it go.

I told him today that if he wants me to be in his life as his love, he needs to stop threatening to leave me at every fight to get a reaction. I told him I do no want to be with you if I will be scared of you all my life. I told him that he can come talk to me if he wants to realize that threatening will not work anymore. He said, “have a good life. i don’t really care.”