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September 24, 2021 at 3:13 pm #386647
UmazParticipantMy boyfriends father died a few days ago after a years battle with cancer. It’s been really tough on my boyfriend as he’s had to grieve through the illness and now the death has hit him really hard. His father lives in their home country (abroad) so my partner travelled back home for the funeral.
I tried my best to emotionally support my partner through the hard times and I felt a massive sense of loss too, even though I didn’t know his dad that well.
i thought my boyfriend would invite me to the funeral. I feel let down because he didn’t even consider it and later told me he didn’t want me there because he wanted to ‘protect me from the pain’ and ‘it’s hard work translating the language for me’ since I don’t speak their language.
i feel like a liability and not really a part of the family which he claims I am.
I feel guilty for making this a thing because his whole family is grieving and I don’t want to make it about me. Do I have a right to be upset?September 24, 2021 at 3:36 pm #386677
AnonymousGuestDear Umaz:
You figured that he didn’t invite you to the funeral, saying that he wants to protect you from the pain- because he doesn’t consider you as part of his family, that he considers you a liability instead, but what if you are wrong and.. he considers his family (not you) a liability?
Why don’t you ask him what he meant by protecting you from the pain? Ask him kindly to explain what he means by it?
anita
September 24, 2021 at 3:41 pm #386683UmazParticipantThank you Anita.
usually I would ask more questions to try abs understand it but he he left already and it just feels like it’s not a good time to create any issues so I haven’t really said much and asked to drop it.
he says he feels really guilty for not inviting me.
I just feel really abandoned and lonely (I haven’t told him this) and feel like he’s not thought about me at all. Is it a bad time to communicate this?thank you for your advice and thoughtful response.
September 24, 2021 at 4:05 pm #386701AnonymousGuestDear Umaz:
You are welcome. “it just feels like it’s not a good time to create any issues“- I thought that asking him what he meant by protecting you from pain, if you ask him curiously, just for information, as in honestly wanting to understand (not angrily, and not for the purpose of starting an argument) will be okay because it hopefully will resolve issues, not create issues.
“I just feel really abandoned and lonely (I haven’t told him this) and feel like he’s not thought about me at all. Is it a bad time to communicate this?“- depending on the tone of your communication: if the tone is not angry but empathetic, being concerned for his well-being as well as for your own, not trying to argue.. just to understand and strengthen your bond with him through honest and empathetic communication, then it’s fine, and not at all narcissistic!
anita
September 25, 2021 at 1:32 am #386704
TeeParticipantDear Umaz,
i thought my boyfriend would invite me to the funeral. I feel let down because he didn’t even consider it
Have you asked him if you can come along, and he rejected you? Because expressing your desire, your need or preference is key for honest communication.
he left already and it just feels like it’s not a good time to create any issues so I haven’t really said much and asked to drop it. he says he feels really guilty for not inviting me.
Does it mean you’ve expressed your disappointment (though only mildly) once he left, and then he started feeling guilty for not inviting you? Or he brought up the topic himself?
September 25, 2021 at 3:06 am #386706UmazParticipantHi TeaK,
Thank you for your response. I briefly mentioned that I was feeling sad the night before he flew. I said that I felt disappointed that he didn’t think to invite, he immediately understood and was even looking up last minute flights for me. He’s an amazing person and he would never hurt me intentionally.
But I still feel betrayed and made me realise that he doesn’t really see me being part of that part of his life. Am I reading too much into this?anita,
thank you for the advice, I think asking that question might be helpful for me to understand his thought process, but I am not sure I will be able to do it without feeling hurt and sad.
September 25, 2021 at 7:31 am #386707TeeParticipantDear Umaz,
you’re welcome.
I briefly mentioned that I was feeling sad the night before he flew. I said that I felt disappointed that he didn’t think to invite, he immediately understood and was even looking up last minute flights for me.
The fact that he understood your feelings and searched for last-minute flights tells me that he didn’t really want to exclude you on purpose. It also seems to me that when he told you he wanted to protect you from pain, it’s probably because he really didn’t want to burden you with the heaviness of going to a funeral, specially since you can’t speak the language and wouldn’t be able to communicate with his family:
he later told me he didn’t want me there because he wanted to ‘protect me from the pain’ and ‘it’s hard work translating the language for me’ since I don’t speak their language.
He’s an amazing person and he would never hurt me intentionally. But I still feel betrayed and made me realise that he doesn’t really see me being part of that part of his life. Am I reading too much into this?
If you know he wouldn’t hurt you intentionally, and his not inviting you was because he didn’t want to expose you to unnecessary trouble – then it could mean you’re being too sensitive and overreacting, because the situation is somehow triggering for you. Have you perhaps felt betrayed and excluded in your own family?
September 25, 2021 at 8:31 am #386708AnonymousGuestDear Umaz:
You are welcome. You wrote in your recent post to me that it may help you to ask him a question, “but I am not sure I will be able to do it without feeling hurt and sad“- you can’t help what you feel, and you can’t help if some hurt and sadness is in your voice. It’s okay to ask him a question with a bit of a hurt and sad voice.
You can’t help feeling “really abandoned and lonely.. hurt and sad“, but when you feel these feelings it doesn’t mean that your boyfriend really abandoned you, it could just feel this way because the current event awakens an early life experience of having been really abandoned, physically or emotionally
You wrote in your original post that he didn’t want you at the funeral “because he wanted to ‘protect me from the pain“- if he knows you as a person who often gets hurt and sad, it makes sense that he wouldn’t want to expose you to an event where there is so much hurt and sadness, especially since he probably noticed the massive sense of loss that you already experienced about his dad’s sickness and death (“I felt a massive sense of loss too, even though I didn’t know his dad that well“).
anita
September 27, 2021 at 7:16 am #386743UmazParticipantHi both,
Thank you for your insight.
I haven’t asked him yet but you are both right, as my own family did reject me a few years ago and him not including me made me feel rejected again.I understand his intentions were well, I will speak to him about this face to face.
thank you
September 27, 2021 at 9:21 am #386746AnonymousGuestDear Umaz:
You are welcome. For a daughter to feel “really abandoned and lonely.. hurt and sad” when rejected by her family is an understandable combination of emotions . If you process, express.. work through these emotions, you will be sad for a while.. but then one day you will notice that you are not that sad anymore, that it doesn’t hurt that much anymore. I wish you well and please post anytime you want to post!
anita
September 30, 2021 at 1:53 am #386854TeeParticipantDear Umaz,
you are welcome. I hope you can work on healing the part of you which felt rejected and excluded by your family. The title of your thread is “Am I a narcissist?”. You believed that you may be a narcissist for having and expressing your needs. Is this something you experienced while growing up – that nobody cared about your needs and if you wanted something, you were told you were selfish or even narcissistic?
October 4, 2021 at 3:06 am #387032UmazParticipantHi TeaK, Anita,
Thank you for your response. He is back now, I didn’t really bring anything up intentionally, but he was talking about the funeral and told me that his ex’s mum and sister was at the funeral. This hurt me so much and I reacted poorly, I was angry, he again said I was a narcissist. He does call me that often and realised maybe he is gaslighting me. Every time I try to raise my own feelings he makes me feel so guilty about it, and calls me a narcissist.
I am so hurt and confused, and feeling guilty for feeling sad when he is the one that should be sad. I have no outlet to express myself, except these posts.
Thank you for listening to me.
October 4, 2021 at 3:41 am #387033TeeParticipantDear Umaz,
he was talking about the funeral and told me that his ex’s mum and sister was at the funeral. This hurt me so much and I reacted poorly, I was angry, he again said I was a narcissist.
You say you reacted poorly – what did you say? If you e.g. blamed him for even speaking to them, he might have felt it’s selfish from you. People often use the term “narcissistic” when they actually mean selfish, self-centered.
He does call me that often and realised maybe he is gaslighting me. Every time I try to raise my own feelings he makes me feel so guilty about it, and calls me a narcissist.
What are some other occasions in which he called you narcissistic?
October 4, 2021 at 5:57 am #387040AnonymousGuestDear Umaz:
You are welcome. On Sept 25, you wrote about your boyfriend not inviting you to his father’s funeral: “He’s an amazing person and he would never hurt me intentionally. But I still feel betrayed“. Today, you are angry at him so you suspect that he is gaslighting you, which suggests that he is intentionally hurting you, and that he is not amazing after all.
What I think happened most recently, after he returned from the funeral, is that you were still hurt about him not inviting you to the funeral, and then when you found out that his ex’s mother and sister were at the funeral, you got very angry, as if he chose his.. ex over you and invited her/ her family to the funeral, but did not invite you.
So, you got very angry and said hurtful things to him. He reacted angrily by calling you a narcissist, and next, you are suggesting that he is a narcissist (gaslighting is a term used for narcissists).
Thing is, his ex’s mother and sister live in that country and he didn’t invite them to the funeral, did he? He had nothing to do with them being there. But in your mind, it is as if .. he invited his ex herself to the funeral but did not invite you, so you felt left-out, hurt, and then angry for having been betrayed… as if he had an affair with his ex while attending his father’s funeral. Does it feel this way to you?
Like I suggested to you earlier, I think that it is the hurt and betrayal that you experienced when your family rejected you that keeps awakening in the context of your relationship with your boyfriend, and this is why I suggested that you work through your emotions about having been rejected by your family. Do you want to share about that rejection here.. what happened and how you felt/ feel about it? It may help. If you do, I will read attentively and reply further.
anita
October 4, 2021 at 6:07 am #387042UmazParticipantSo when I say I reacted poorly, I mean I just said something like ‘oh so you invited your ex’s family but not me when you say I’m supposed to be your family? Dont ever say that I’m your family because you don’t treat me like family, I’m not family, I’m just your girlfriend. And don’t ever make me speak to your mum and sister either, I’m done playing nice with them’. Or something to that effect.
I am ashamed, I was angry and I didn’t really control my words.Anita, yes you are right, I feel so very triggered and lately I have been thinking about my own family more. Even after 10 years, I feel such a void without a loving family, something I never had but always crave.
my parents kicked me out when I was in my early twenties because I didn’t follow the religion anymore and I wanted to live an independent life. What hurts more recently is that my own siblings who I thought could understand me, have also shut me out. I feel so isolated and rejected by them too. -
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