Dear Peace:

In your Guilty or not? thread in May 2020, you were 24 and shared about a relationship with a 33 year old man who on one hand, “isn’t verbally affectionate.. doesn’t talk romantic stuff”, but on the other hand, “he told me he loved me a lot, cared for me.. talking emotional things like ‘would I care if something happens to him??.. saying he was thinking to write the first letter of my name on his body by burning it… saying he was thinking to cut his hand nerves.. to show me that he loves me”.

In your Frustration in relationship thread of July 2020, you shared about a new, two-months old relationship with a man who was 29,  five years older than you, a divorced father of one 7-year-old son, a man who said he wanted to marry you in about two years, after he arranges for a house for his ex-wife and kids.

In your current thread, bad timing or patterns?, March 2021, you shared about a third and current relationship, a long-distance relationship,  with a man about the same age as you (a former classmate). He is financially and otherwise irresponsible, and you helped him financially a couple or more times.

Today, for the first time you shared about a previous relationship with “a father of two sons, 10 years older than (you)”, a financially stable man who lived in your apartment “for more than 6 months without contributing for rent”, paying for groceries at times. Living in your apartment, unemployed and sick, you worked and took care of him. When you wanted to break up with him, “he was demanding money from me by saying that I have to pay him his every single penny (which he spent on me)”, calling you prostitute and gold digger to your face and to your friends, “harassed and blackmailed (you), threatened to destroy (you) I suppose you paid him some money and “ended up financially broke, depressed, failed in exams”.

I am wondering, did we communicate a few years ago, for a long time, under a different account? At the time, you were living away from your family, on your own, in a country in Europe, having many, quick relationships, one of which was with a man who you said lived in your apartment, a man with some political reputation within the immigrant/ refuge community in that country in Europe, being an illegal resident there. He was recovering from an accident and you took care of him, giving him massages and such. He gave you gifts, a computer being one, and he later accused you of being a prostitute. He wanted his gifts back… is that you???

anita

Dear Peace:

It is a good thing that after living alone for so long as a single, very young woman, unprotected,  having had some bad experiences, you still have a heart and therefore, you don’t want to hurt another person.

But, let’s look at it further: to not hurt this man’s feelings, you will have to …say and do what he wants you to say and do, for as long as he does? Do you give up who you are and who you want to be so to be who this man wants you to be, for as long as he does?

In other words, do you sacrifice you/ give up on you, so to not hurt his feelings?

anita

Dear Peace:

I think that you feel that you are wrong in this case, feeling guilty- not because you did anything wrong, not because you really are guilty in context of this man- but because when you were a child, you felt unloved, so you figured that you must have done something wrong. And when your cousin or cousins locked you in the home, you probably felt that you must have done something wrong to be locked in. Do you remember?

What we feel as children day after day, night after night, months and years long- we tend to feel the same as adults.

anita

Dear Peace:

In the society you grew up in (India) boys are valued and respected over girls, girls are often considered  a burden, and poor families are looked down at. You were a girl with 7 older sisters and 1 brother. Your family was poor and therefore discriminated against.

Your father worked all day and came home in the evening. He did not treat his 8 daughters as a burden, or as less valuable than his son. He treated his children well, expecting them to study well and be responsible. He did not force his older daughters to marry and asked for their opinions regarding possible matches. When you were 9 or 10, he started showing dementia, later diagnosed with Alzheimer. He died when you were 17.

Your mother treated you well, fed you, bringing food with her hands to your mouth. She had you sleep with her, even when you were as old as 12.

Your cousins treated you as less-then, because you were a girl and because your family was poor. They offered some of their cousins tea, but did not offer you any tea. When you asked them for tea, they said: there is no tea (for you)! They insulted you, scolded you, told you they hated your face.

you felt criticized a lot (“in my society, generally, it’s easy to criticise than show love/ appreciation), and overall, you felt “like an unwanted child.. very unhappy, hurt, scared of cousins.. seeking appreciation maybe because never got some”.

Disrespected for being a girl, disrespected for being poor, you left India alone, some time after your father died and landed in Europe. And there, hardly removed from your teenage years, unprepared, you entered and exited a series of dysfunctional relationships with men.

How did it feel, to be alone in Europe… how did you manage financially, not having a family back in India that was able to financially support you???

anita

Dear Peace:

I located our extensive communication from April 2018 to November 2019 under your then screen name Princess123. In the quotes to follow I made very minor changes in the grammar so to make it an easier read.

In April 2018, at 21 or 22 years old, you were living in Germany, far away from your family in India were you were born and raised (“I live here without my family or anyone else”). You were a student, working part-time. As a Muslim, you lived close to, or in the midst of the large Muslim community in Germany, many of which were refuges.

At the time, you shared about a 2.5 months relationship you had, one that started in February 2018. You shared that at first he treated you “like a princess”, but then acted jealous and controlling, wanted to be with you 24/7, calling you every 30 minutes, asking where you were and what you were doing. You therefore broke up with him and felt guilty for it, “I am guilty because I know he is very sensitive.. I just think how he is doing.. if he is hurting from this break up? I don’t want to hurt anyone”.

You shared at the time, that one of your cousins flirted with you sometimes, and that he sent you money: “he flirts sometimes but was the one who sent me money.. he sent me 1000 euro last month”.

In August 2018, you shared about a 3-months new relationship, one that started in May 2018, with a Muslim refuge 10 years older than you,  a man who was “really kind and loves me so much”. You referred to the relationship as a “very healthy relationship”.

In October 2018, you shared about the same man that he was living with you in your apartment, while you paid all the rent and bills except for groceries. He accused you of flirting with older men, accused you of being a prostitute, demanded that you give him back all the gifts he bought you, plus every single household item that he bought, including the salt and pepper shakers, and when you handed those things to him, he threw all those items out the window.

In January 2019, you shared about the same man, that he demanded that you pay him back all the money he spent on you, “demanding 2400 euro, including the cost of the Mac laptop which he bought for me… and the ticket he bought for me… 1600 euro”. You agreed to pay him back: “I agreed at first and said.. give me time, I’ll pay you all your money”. But you did not have any money, “I’m financially broke this month”. You then “denied to pay him”, telling him that you don’t owe him money because following an injury he sustained, you provided him with services for which he owes you money, “why shouldn’t I ask money for my time which I invested in him, giving him services, massaging, taking care of him, bathing him.. nursing him etc… I asked him to pay me for my services”. He responded with: “now you will also ask the fee of having sex with me for the last 7 months”? and he “started to call me a prostitute and said that he’ll bring customers for sex”.

Next, he threatened to show conversations he had with you, and photos to your family back in India, and destroy your reputation. You blocked him, he texted your oldest sister “and told her every single thing and.. that I am not returning his money… harassing  my sister and telling her he’ll destroy me and he has proof against me”, and he he threatened to destroy your reputation with your “very rich cousin (who) likes me and financially helps me when I ask him”.

Your shared that your boyfriend “used to do some sexually cruel things… I used to scream because of .. the pain… I used to tell him stop doing it, but he used to say: no, it doesn’t hurt”.

You then shared about a man who was friends with your boyfriend for 15 years; “He is always there when I need him, when I need help, money or emotional  support”.

In March 2019, you shared that you broke up with your 9-months boyfriend in February, a month earlier. A week following the breakup, one of your ex-boyfriend’s male friends contacted you, proposing a relationship with you, and you accepted. He told you that he loved you and planned to marry you. When he arrived by train to your place, he pressured you to have sex with him, and you were confused: “I’m just confused, this person said he really likes me and loves me, and planning to marry me, but I feel like all he wants from me is sex??.. Or am I only judging him??”

In August 2019, you shared about a new, 2-months old relationship that started in June 2019.

In November 2019, still in the same 3-months relationship, you shared that like I suggested to you, you moved to another city, “very far away from such people and circle” such as your ex-boyfriend of nine months. You started your studies in a new university in Oct 2019. Because you were lonely in the new city, you joined a male friend and his female friend travelling to visit another city. Your boyfriend was very jealous, accusing you: “you must be busy now with your new.. (male friend)”, and he sent you a picture showing that he threw away all the love notes you wrote him into the toilet, “which he was about to flush and he wrote: here you go”!

You asked me at the time: “was I very wrong to go outside with male friend?”

In March 2021, you shared for the first time that your elder sister financially supported you, spending money on your education, having sent you abroad for your studies, and that your other sister contributed to your education and studying abroad with her savings, taking loans.

You also shared how hurt you were in India by your cousins who treated you badly because your family was poor at the time, and that your guilty feelings now are about not wanting to treat anyone as badly as you were treated back in India.

You shared about your mother when you were a child: “my mom.. she used to feed me with her hands, especially if she cooked fried fish… she was afraid if mistakenly, I eat the bone”-

– she protected you from the bone in the fish, but she did not protect you from.. anything or anyone else, did she?

Sometimes you can tell a lot not by what is being shared in a story, but by what is not shared. In your many long posts, you mentioned nothing about your mother being part of your adult life, no contact that you’ve had with her while in Germany, nothing earlier than when you were 12 and still slept with her- nothing other than her sleeping with you and feeding you, bringing food to your mouth with her hands.

You did not share a single word that she ever told you.

It is as if she was mute, a mute person in the background of your early life, not a person who guided you in any way, or who talked to you about… anything.

My closing thoughts for today: (1) your story is heartbreaking to me, and in some ways, it is similar to my story. (2) You are young, Peace, and you can make your life better and better.

anita

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