-they are confusing, aren’t they, telling you one thing, then they tell you the opposite.. they don’t make sense, do they?

anita

– but after you laugh about it with your cousin and you are back with your parents, alone, without your cousin, what do you do about these crazy parents?

anita

– what do they mean by “our daughter is listening good”?

anita

– Does your mom like you, does she love you?

anita

Dear Cali Chica:

I am thinking about your recent post and I am taking some time before replying.

anita

Dear Cali Chica:

I went back, again, to your previous posts looking for information very specific to your relationship with your husband. In the first post I will paste quotes (I capitalized the “I”s, a bit of punctuation added for a smoother read). You don’t have to read them, it is the basis for my next post to follow.

July 11, 2016 (your first post, a year and two months before your marriage September 2017): “I am new to this site and thought I would share some of the things I have been struggling with since the engagement. I have been engaged for a few months now.. We both work very stressful jobs and see each other on weekends currently due to job situation (this will end shortly)… I dated someone for 7 years high school -through college, to about 22, first love, who was truly the perfect guy for me in every way possible.. Anyway, fast forward to 2 years ago, I met my now fiancé – not exactly love at first sight, but truly a dedicated, devoted loving guy with a heart of gold, and so I gave it a chance. More than a chance I did do some self talk of: look at this great guy in front of you don’t close yourself off, and who is to say that you can meet someone so great again… Although the attraction was not initially there, it did develop over time to the point that we dated – but in the back of my mind I would be bothered every once in a while by old thoughts of it was right. And as crazy as it may sound, the first ex is now a story from literally 12 years ago, still holds a part of me… I’ve spent a ton of time over the last week for some reason obsessing, thinking wow I can’t believe I let someone go so young, I never did find someone who ever came close, am I settling? so many thoughts questions, and it is truly torturing me. And here I have a guy who I’m engaged to who would give me the world and consistently tries to make me happy in every single way possible, he knows some of this old attachment to first ex and I have been open about it since (surprisingly) but it has gotten to a point for me that it is driving me crazy – and of course not fair at all to my “future husband.”… I struggle with more than anything is guilt – the guilt of “why was I so young and naïve to let someone good like that go” But then reality is here right in front of me I have a WONDERFUL man that I am not appreciating at current.

Nov 9, 2016: “around 25 I started dating seriously again, and I felt often that I wanted to find a good guy not just for me, but also that fits in my family (normal Indian family values) – a girl we know from my town who isn’t the best of characters had gotten engaged to a good guy, and I felt constantly from my mother, “look how smart she is, she snagged a good one – you have so much going for you but we never have luck with these things” once again, focus on meeting a good boy – totally fine…I am getting married in less than a year, 500 person wedding, I’m first born and my fiancé is an only child … – my fiancé says wow its only been 5 days since the proposal and somehow your mom has made you upset again.. I  work so hard in career and personal life, stay fit, do yoga, have great friends – but funny thing is- my fiancé mentioned it too – it always feels like there is something wrong.

Nov 10, 2016: “When I close my eyes I think of my mom as a damaged soul, a sad and abused (so to speak) fragile puppy that is now coming out in the world with a big bark. this feeling about her makes it quite difficult to “hate her” or to feel i should attempt to have “power over her” in a way it simply just makes me feel soo soo bad for her.

Jan 16, 2018: “I did not treat my current husband very positively many times over the last four years. ..    Looking back I see many patterns of me having internal distress and projecting onto him. It could be something such as feeling that everyone else is happy and why am I feeling not so happy and so targeting it out at the first person in front of me which was him. Then there are many examples of things that are more specific, my parents telling me that there are many men out there that have certain qualities and those are great qualities, and then looking at the person in front of me and convincing myself that since he may not have one or two or some of these qualities that he is not as good. In reality, my first example is the more harmful one because it came out of nowhere for both him and me. It was as though there were these ebbs and flows of terrible emotions in me and I would lash out for no rhyme or reason. Things could be great for a month or so and then I would be sinking into a terrible feeling and then just act like a monster… I superficially  think wow how could I treat someone so bad like this in the past I feel like I should be so sad and upset with myself over this. I want to feel like this but instead of that there is empty space almost like a numbness.  Not because I don’t feel like what I did or all of the above is not true or valid it’s just that I can’t actually feel any remorse or sadness or kind of anything over it. There was a time a few months ago that my husband had mentioned this, and said that he found it strange. He said that if he was in the same shoes he would be so beyond himself for doing this to someone that it would really show. And with me it doesn’t show. This was after a lot of the terrible things that had happened so we were talking about this not into fighting way but more in a discovery -why doesn’t it show for me -what is going on in me that I can’t actually feel the above mentioned.

Jan 16, 2018:  “Yesterday I was impatient and short and negative with my husband because my mom had a terrible accusatory conversation with me and I projected onto him.  I go to sleep realizing yes it was wrong for me to act that way but not feeling sad or remorseful. Just “knowing” in my brain. I then wake up the next morning feeling tense. But NOT ABOUT the issue at hand.

June 25- 28, 2019: Lately he has been doing much much worse – unraveling of resentment, burnt out (ness), the empty fuel in the tank the type you have commented on.  The true emotional/mental burn out…  he over time has built up a lot of resentment towards me…his own words: “it’s not work that’s bad, it’s you – and everything  I went through with you.  I still feel like even after all this time, and I know you’re working on it, I just don’t see change or remorse in you.  It’s like it just doesn’t make sense or matter.  I know it takes time, but frankly I just don’t think I have any patience left –  I used to be the most patient person, and especially with you, but you took that quality away.  And now there’s nothing left in the tank.”… at present, he is withdrawn, burnt out (and of course his job as a surgeon at one of the busiest hospitals in NYC with a malignant/toxic work environment doesn’t help).  He has poor sleep (Like I always used to, and sometimes still do).  He has low patience for me, in short he is beaten down. Yesterday.. my husband arrived home earlier than usual.  I observed, I was annoyed at this.  I was annoyed at his presence.  I wanted to swat him away.. he recently got mad and said, you know how much it means to me to come home to things in place – I am not asking you to scrub the place clean, but since you know this is important to me, I would hope that you would take the effort to put your things away, remember to make the bed in the morning – its never done if you leave after me – etc.. I found myself feeling annoyed and irritated with him.  I felt like he was a pest who was going to come knock on my door and say you need to do this and this and this…

He had all the right qualities, and I recall feeling a close connection with him. I don’t ever remember “falling in love” but Anita, I have never felt this… after my parents were in the picture and my stress and negativity grew and grew, I did hit him a few times.. I was enraged and full of “hate” and hit him… Another time I did when we were on vacation in Europe, while his cousin was there.  Long story short, we were having many arguments and he started to say something back to me, such as “stop being a b***” this is years later after that first incident so he had now started to build the anger resentment.  I was so enraged I slapped him and kept hitting him, and his cousin had to break it apart… I used to question a lot a lot if I only then chose to continue with this current man because he had the qualifications on paper, and met criteria, and came from a good family in my culture (mother would be happy and approve) … He states he did it (this has come up a lot especially when he began to be more resentful) because he truly loves me.  He had hope and he saw past the bad.  He saw someone in need of help and tried his hardest and mightiest.  He often feels like a fool because all his love and patience for me was taken and thrown on the floor and stomped on.

He talked about how his one year as a fellow (perfecting his trade after residency) for subspecialty surgery – was the time (well when I first talked to you in 2016) when all of the horrendous drama/abuse etc. was at peak. As a result he was not able to fully engage himself in the fellowship.  His full time job was dealing with my drama and barrage of phone calls and texts – and my parents – versus being a full time dedicate fellow of surgery.  He has huge regrets of not being able to absorb as much as he could, as far as being a true dedicated fellow.  Taking full advantage of the resources in front of him, surgically, mentally in developing mentorship with his colleagues and senior surgeons, etc.

He was so frenzied during this time that the first job he chose, was based more on his feeling of inadequacy.  He felt that he wanted to be in a safe place with good colleagues, he did not feel that he had wings to fly with.  He said imagine if we applied all over! Texas, CA, anywhere – perhaps I would have gotten a much greater position, or opportunity, or anything.

He talked about how he feels the pain of that daily at work.  He is lucky to be smart and skilled and so even his 50% or so in that fellowship led to a great outcome – given that he does have that natural talent.  But still – he has deep regret and resentment that after training his whole life for this career, at the pinnacle during that one year fellowship, he could not give it the respect, dedication, and full commitment he deserved.

We talked about how he sees ZERO remorse and empathy in me.  He mentioned how if “he had done what I did” (even though he knows it wasn’t my true fault per se but regardless) he would be “bending over backwards and trying his hardest day in and day out to make up for it and win the love back.”

He doesn’t see this at all in me. And he is absolutely right, that does not exist in me one bit.  We talked about how I am numb, but he frankly has no patience for that anymore.  He is happy that I work on my personal healing daily (my self with you Anita, etc.) but he is yet to see much of it in regards to our relationship.  he said I’m glad you’re working so hard on yourself but what about us?… he said, given the amount of emotional abuse he went through its hard for him t have any patience.

(I went through some abusive scenarios with you, but there’s many more, I used to taunt him for being short and say that he’s not good enough for me – I used to make fun of his family, I used to say many terrible things that tore down his confidence)

He feels over time, due to the thing about fellowship, and just overall being “beat down” he has really lost himself.  he feels changed as a person, once a patient happy person – to now defeated and becoming increasingly negative. as i get better he gets worse.  he never used to be this negative and resentful…

I said I feel numb – and feel like i know things in my brain but there’s a disconnect with the heart…

We talked about how I am able to have love empathy and respect and compliments for EVERYONE except him.  and then i re-told the Disney world story and why. He says he understands why, but it still wears on a person over time. I said I know.

So he said yes I have sunglasses on – but I also have boxing gloves.  Ready to fight, attack, attack, attack.  He says something: I am there ready- bam punch throwing a defensive blow.  Not taking ownership – fight, fight.

I talked about the “no attack” convo you and I had – and how yes, it really hasn’t been effective on my end to employ that – I am always quick to snap…

He said you have sunglasses on AND boxing gloves.  You can’t see the gloves when you have glasses on.. and you can’t take your glasses on when you have boxing gloves on.. how can you “see” better or try to when you’re always ready to throw a punch?”

anita