Anita,

Thanks for noticing, you are really sensitive. I do not care about him,  I do not feel like I need to say anything to him at all, I do not care  to put it simply.

Lets move on to your reply as usual 🙂

I admit that in Korea currently, I do not have a friend that I can connect very well emotionally. For a lot of reasons like culture and language, that became a huge barrier for me to find friends and expand my connection here. It has been my biggest problem here.

My friends in my home country are currently very busy, it is not that I do not have any that I truly connect and trust, but my close friends are dealing with their own stuff and problem. I do not really blame them. I am actually very busy too since college is already starting again, I do not really reach out to them either so I am to blame in some point.

-Mina

-Mina

Hello Anita,

I am so glad to read that you are also very happy to communicate with me all these time. I think you are a really great person too. I really do like you, and I connect very well with you on a emotional level, not a lot of people are able to do that with me. You are very smart, very sensitive and you aren’t afraid to tell things as it is. I think for these past 3 months, it has become a little heaven of mine to come here on this website and talk to you. I hope you do not mind me considering you as a friend 🙂

Regarding Singapores climate, you do not have to worry. Koreas weather is nice but I tend to have seasonal depression here especially during Winter and Summer – I prefer a country with constant weather like my home or Singapore. Korean food is really hell for me. I do not eat anything spicy so it is really hard, not mention their hard core drinking culture. I cannot stand it. My ex boyfriend “trained” me to drink for social reasons here but it did not worked out so well. I have a very limited amount of alcohol that I can take. One can of beer is already trying it for me.

In conclusion, I did made a mistake coming here. But now I can slowly see myself holding on for another 3 years. I have 2 plans regarding my future now – which I have carefully think about during these past months. I would try to apply for a double major for Business, and If I do not get accepted, I will definitely exchange to Singapore.

The exchange though, is a problem for my father – not really a surprise at this point, right? He was still very much pissed that I did not choose to study Business, he thinks that Singapore is a bad choice to exchange because Singaporeans does not speak proper English. They speak in a weird Chinese accent according to my Father who is in fact also half Chinese. He wants me to exchange to Australia, where he and my mother used to study together and got married. My father is very fond of a city in Australia, he wants to me to follow his steps but I really do not want to.

I do not like Australians in general or their culture or anything about them really. The only connection I have with it is because my parents forced me to connect with it in the first place. Took me to their old school and talked about how they almost named me after a river in Australia, I do not really care anyways.  I genuinely think that I want to work somewhere in Singapore after I graduated. It is very close to my home country and I get along very well with Singaporeans people and its people and its food and culture. It is the perfect country for me.

Here in Korea, I need to be perfect in everything. From my looks to my grades, you might not be familiar with the Korean culture but If you ever have a chance to visit a university here, it is almost like a fashion week in New York. No one here wear an old T-shirt and Jeans to school. Telling someone to lose weight is also a culture here. Imagine living here. Without me realising, I started to really despise Korea as a country in general.

You wrote : “Say only what is true. No need to share anything and everything with people, but what you do share, make sure it is true. This practice will help you feel less alone because you will not hide yourself behind fake niceness- it will be you in the front in every interaction.”

I will try, Anita, but no promises. Social pressure here is just very … high. I have to be as social as possible, and a part of being social is – there is a sense of being fake. I cannot put on a bad face or does not say anything when I meet people like my seniors or new people. I mentioned how hard it is to make friends so I have no choice but to do it like that. To survive and to have friends. In case if you order if it applies only to foreigner, my ex did this a lot of times too. Even worse because he was the student council president for thousands of people, he always has to be neutral and in a favourable position to everyone.

Sure, I understand that not everyone can like and accept me but I also understand that sometimes I have to just force or fake it out to gain friends overseas. Though these people does not end up being my close friends but most of them end up as good friends. I can talk to them and have fun with them. Emotional talk like this, I can always have it with someone else. My friends back home or you.

I would love feedback. x

-Mina

• This reply was modified 7 years, 2 months ago by Mina.
• This reply was modified 7 years, 2 months ago by Mina.
• This reply was modified 7 years, 2 months ago by Mina.
• This reply was modified 7 years, 2 months ago by Mina.
• This reply was modified 7 years, 2 months ago by Mina.
• This reply was modified 7 years, 2 months ago by Mina.

Anita,

I am so happy you understand. I still try to be myself when I am with my close friends here, sometimes the whole social lubrication is quite tough to handle.

That is why these days, I make a lot of decisions to spend alone time with myself, I haven’t been very nice to my own self during the break up period. I used to hate eating alone but now I eat alone in the college cafeteria by my own choice. I like it, surprisingly it isn’t bad at all. I feel like even being alone, without my friends or my ex boyfriend – Mina still survives.

Social events tends to tire me out, last semester I was trying really hard to fit in. I wasn’t really being myself, I hate school events and sport events, but I came to those events anyways. My back got hurt so much from the dance cheering (Korean culture to dance for 5/6 hours during a sport match) and it isn’t my thing. I went to drink in a drinking tent (Korean culture sigh) to accompany my ex boyfriend in Business School drinking tent (they invited DJ, was a big scale party in the middle of the university. I did not even get to attend my own major drinking tent for my ex boyfriend)

I decided not to come to these kind of events anymore this semester and my seniors weren’t very happy – I do not really care anyways. It is another culture thing in Korea to listen to your seniors (like sophomore/seniors in university) – they really want me to involve myself in the major again to make a statement to the Koreans. But I do not care about what the Koreans think about me.

Most of the Koreans knows me because of my ex boyfriend. I have mentioned how important he was in his major and for a foreigner to date someone like him was almost impossible until it happened with me. Korean does not like foreigners in general and isn’t open to date them. My ex boyfriend was usually the type of guy that foreigner could not even dream to get close with. People in a sense, respected me for that. But I no longer want to use the benefits of being his ex. My ex is no one in the university right now since he resigned from the student council and is moving college.

I am just a regular student now and I want to really stop forcing myself to associate myself with events that I do not even want to attend. I am just Mina. I am not someones girlfriend or someones junior or anyone important. I want to take my time to live my life, to find myself.

-Mina

• This reply was modified 7 years, 2 months ago by Mina.

Anita,

I think it is time for me to be honest about why I am avoiding reality and closing my eyes on it.

It took me this long but I am going to say it finally. The words that haunted me for a long time, I am literally shaking while typing because it so hard and painful for to admit this to anyone. Because admitting it means  I am one step closer to the reality I am very afraid of.

My ex boyfriend told me something during the break up that I haven’t told you yet.

I actually asked him during the break up, why did we have to break up NOW? We still have at least 6-7 months until February 2018 (his semester will start next year) – we can continue to date until then. I mean we can talk about the break up next year after seeing things instead of breaking up now. I told him that I won’t mind If we actually break up for real next year, because the LDR will be too hard, I understand that and I will not demand to continue the relationship.

He answered saying that it is mentally too much for him right now and even If he comes back for one last semester here, he thinks he won’t have the time to date at all. He felt like having a girlfriend last semester had its “negative” effects on him too. He told me that since he is in a relationship – he couldn’t properly focus on college life.

Maybe it is nothing to you, Anita. But for me … it was like hearing that my love for him was a burden to him, that being with me was a burden. That the relationship did not helped with his army or new uni problems but was actually adding into it. I am in so much pain due to that words that he probably did not even remember saying now. I was blaming myself for those words that he told me.

I remember that a few days before the break up, we got into a small fight. I told him how I am not the type of person that can go over a long period of time without seeing her boyfriend (at that time we almost haven’t met each other for a good 2-3 weeks due to final exams) – my ex boyfriend actually MET with his Business Major friends before he met me. I think I was personally hurt by how met his friends before his girlfriend. Especially since I was going to go back home for 2 months for the summer holiday so I think it would be good to meet my ex boyfriend before I went back. I told him that and he got distant after that. I think he was starting to think about the break up after that fight. That was the turning point for my ex boyfriend.

During the break up talk, I do not know If it is due to his depression or he just wanted to find excuses to break up –  another reasons to break up is because he thinks it will be too hard to continue the relationship since I am going back to my home country for the summer holiday. I was going back only for 2 months, Anita. It sounded so insincere and so unlike him. I felt like MAYBE there is a deeper bigger reason behind it. He told me a lot of logical reasons such as army and new college life but that one last reason was very irrelevant to me.

To give you a bit of a background, me going back to my home country was not a problem at all for him before the break up. I was coming back and he knew it. We were going to video chat everyday and call each other and I even told him my summer holiday plan in details. I was confused at why he suddenly brought that as a reason during the break up.

I am sure reading my last few threads about how he treated me made you think about what an amazing young man is but like you said … he isn’t perfect. He isn’t God. During the relationship, he was pretty busy – there were a lot of times when both of us (mostly me) had to make a really good effort to even meet each other outside school. There were a lot of times when I had to wait for him and buy him coffee to talk for a good 2-3 minute before he had to move class to another building. Or when I quickly had to done my assignments because he has a free time to watch a concert together on a Friday night. I sacrificed a lot just to be with him, in a sense.

My ex boyfriend is well aware of this. He was constantly feeling sorry for not taking care of me well like most boyfriends are (picking up their girlfriends, buying them flowers, or go on a date every weekend due to his student council schedules that includes weekend as working hours as well) – I was the one taking care of him instead, and I did not mind at all because I loved him. There were times when I felt like I was in a one sided relationship because I could not meet him freely or meet him very often.

I felt like he was not as invested as me in the relationship and it is very hard for me to admit this. Considering all these things I have wrote to you above – you will be able to grasp the situation fully. I am very afraid that maybe he never loved me and the relationship to him was never meant that much at all to him.

Do you remember how I ask you what kind of questions that I should ask because I do not know what kind of questions that I should ask him? The truth is, I do not know want to know because the questions that I want to ask him is the things that I am denying itself right now. That the relationship was nothing to him. and he never loved me. and he never cared about me at all. and most importantly – whether he broke up with me ONLY because of the military and new college not because of something else / other reasons he is not telling me. 

That was the real questions that I want to ask him, Anita.

-Mina

Anita,

You wrote : “Clearly, in his mind, other items in his life were more important than the relationship with you. Other items were of higher priority than you being in his life.”

It really hurts my heart reading this. So his social college life is more important than his girlfriend? Student council is more important to him? 15.000 people that he does not even know personally one by one is more important than his girlfriend? He sounds very selfish to me.

You wrote : “he chose to remove the item of lesser value in his life, the relationship with you, so that he will invest his time and energy in the more valuable items.”

It hurts even more reading this. So I do not have a high value in my ex boyfriends life right? Military and college is clearly more important than having a girlfriend.

You wrote : “It may be that he highly valued you, Mina as a person, but he didn’t highly value having you in his life compared to other items in his life.”

In the back of mind, I understand these basic things you have mentioned above but the fact that he does NOT want me in his life is a form of rejection in my mind. And it is, right? The college thing was ex boyfriend decisions. The break up was in a way a consequence of his decision as well. I was never involved in this decision. I understand that it was hard for him and he did not even knew that he would even move college in the middle of the semester … but I feel like he is running away in a sense.

Running away from me, from student council, from his problems in his major – from his own life. He really disappointed me with that decision but I have always 100 percent supported him when his parents and his friends were questioning his decisions. Yet … I was the one he REMOVED instead?

I loved him very much, to the point where I was willing to do everything to have him in my life and to make it work. Yet he gave up on me. He also told me that he actually tried to make the relationship with work schedules, the college and army preparation thing but he did not really see it going anywhere in the future. Considering the fact that he would be “free” to date in the next 3-4 years in his life, I probably wouldn’t even be in Korea by then.

I understand his decision and his logic behind it but again – I have a sense of abandonment that came because of the break up. I have a sense of confusion : why me?

You asked : “how do you think you may have unnecessarily burdened him?”

1. By demanding to see him when his schedules were really hectic. My ex can be forgetful to reply to text messages in general and one time he only read my message so I got mad and did not talk to him for about one day – he begged me to forgive him and I did not reply at all. We ended up meeting for dinner and he came to neighbourhood. He actually live 15 minute by bus, he came in and sat in a bench near the bus stop. I asked why he wasn’t standing up and he told me that Business school had some kind of a sports event, and since it was summer, it was really hot and he had to organise stuff as usual – he was so tired that he cannot even stand up. He also got hurt from setting up a running event. He hadn’t even eat proper meals in that day and his first meal was actually that dinner with me. I felt really guilty that I cried, we had a deep conversation after that (which I can post to you in detail since I still have it saved in my phone)

2. I also demanded him to celebrate our 1 month anniversary (very common in Korean to celebrate this) even though I know that he has an exam the next day, a final exam. To be fair, we ended up moving the date to the day before the actual anniversary and we spend time together until 4/5am that day. I was being really clingy and refused to go home – I shouldn’t have done that.

3. I am indeed very attached to him. You guess the nature of our relationship from the very start. I got homesick and lonely a lot here in Korea so I had a very hard time parting with my boyfriend after a date or a lunch or a dinner. My ex boyfriend was very understanding, he knows that I got homesick considering I am here all alone without any family or a lot of close friends. All I had was him. Every time I have a problem, I would go to him for advices.

4. Sometimes I forgot that besides being Mina`s boyfriend, he is also the student council leader, he is also someones son, he is someones friend. I wanted to be only priority and the most important thing in his life. I never told him this, of course – but deep down inside I had this expectations.

5. I heard from some of his Business School friends told me that my boyfriend treated them differently from the way that he treats me. They saw a different side of him when he was with me. My ex when he was with me ended up being very open, vulnerable and soft. With other people, my ex filtered out a lot of things, he became more guarded and had a strong image. Maybe my ex felt the need to treated me extra nice, I mean he did not have to do that. He can just be himself, you know? I do not which one is the real him. The one when he was with me or the one when he was with his friends.

-Mina

• This reply was modified 7 years, 2 months ago by Mina.

Anita,

You always managed to analyse the situation perfectly – you are right, my ex boyfriend is indeed a perfectionist and a very high academic and social achiever since he was in high school. I never mentioned my ex boyfriend personality in details but you managed to get that one out of my long narrative above.

You wrote : “because you expressed to him how imperfectly he performed as a boyfriend, you gave him a bad grade.”

I disagree with this one, Anita. I have never expressed or said anything about him as a bad boyfriend. I never even made a remark about it during any kind of conversation with him. Ever.

I have tried to understand his schedules and everything in his life, there were a lot of times when we did not even contact each other through text messages due to his schedules, I hold it in most of the time. I have told him regarding the text message problem, he said he will try but it did not worked so well when his schedules never really changed. To tell you truthfully, I do not mind not contacting each other everyday but our meeting schedule must be constant and guaranteed at least once every week. Again, his schedules was very hectic. We were both put in a bad situation, I demanded him to gave me something that he is actually willing to give but he does not even have it at that time.

I have shared my relationship story with a few of my close friends here and they all mostly agree that I have been quite an understanding girlfriend. Not perfect but I tried really hard. I tried harder than him. Reading you feedback makes me questions some of my actions … and it makes me feel a bit guilty – was I that bad of a girlfriend to him?

My boyfriend during the relationship apologised around 4-5 times for not being around much for me, I never demanded any kind of apology from him, and most of the time he apologise out of his own guilt. I confirmed this with him. Every time he apologised regarding not being a good boyfriend, I never once rejected it. I have also apologised for some of my weird childish actions that were pushed by my home sick-ness. He said that he understood because he also lived overseas for a while and he missed Korea a lot.

There were a lot of times when I was fine not seeing / contacting him after a while into the relationship, and I had no problems with saying goodbye or parting with him too later on the relationship. We kissed and hugged and then I went into my house or rode on the bus without any fuss. I managed to tried to handle it after a while though I admit most of the time, I had a hard time parting with him. I was definitely wrong in that case, I am well aware. But to give him a bad grade as a boyfriend isn’t correct.

You wrote : “He values a good grade, and you didn’t give him that.”

I understand how important his grade is to him, it wasn’t the grade being his number 1 priority that bothers is, what bothers me is I do not understand why I wasn’t important at all compared to his grade? Why I wasn’t a part of ANY priority in his life? My grade is also more important than him but I tried to always put my boyfriend as the second priority after my education. He couldn’t even do that to me, Anita. During final exams, I did not contact him at all. I wanted to watch a concert with him but he got a really huge assignment in English class, so we cancelled. Ok. I did not say anything big or throw a tantrum about it. I tried helping and supporting him when he had assignments that were hard, most importantly I SUPPORTED his dreams to go move to another college. I did not say anything, I kept it as a secret and cried secretly If I feel like it got too much – does it still sound like I do not value his grade as much as he value his grade?

His grade is very important to me, too. But I feel like my boyfriend isn’t able to grasp the condition of being in a relationship, that sometimes we need to make little sacrifices to be with someone. His grades won’t suffer that much to just have one free day to spend with me. Was I asking for too much?

You wrote : “I think he had tender, strong feelings for you, but he got very discouraged. I think that the reason was his discouragement and distress.”

There we go … my biggest nightmare is out. The reality that I have always tried to deny for a very long time.

Reading your overall feedback – shaken me up quite a lot and I feel very very very guilty about everything. It was my fault at the end.

I do regret it very much now … If I weren’t so needy and clingy to see him, maybe we would be together now. My heart hurts really bad.

-Mina