Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Fight Alone

I wondered if I am getting cynical or just being binomial in my emotions

I am acquiring some form of natural immunity towards any variation of 'happy' stimuli - it seemed that many things that ought to make me happy (or I would generally think it should) don't really affect me in a very big way anymore. I am a natural positive person - but positive and happiness is two separate things.

Statistics just reminded me that in my life I fight alone. After all, I was left fending for myself in the past - and even in my worst state of abandonment, I overcame that.

I am a fighter; I never yield to circumstances. I merely change the terrain and continue fighting.

Friday, February 11, 2011

Aunt Agony 110211

Originally posted by Simple Annie:

My marriage has been a sad one.Hubby and I dun talk much. Was kind of an arranged marriage.We cannot divorce. We stayed married on as we have 2 small kids. Lately, I met my ex and we had a walk & talk. He is getting married .I felt happy for him and at the same time, I could not help thinking of those times we had loved each other deeply.I feel so envious and at the same time, I kind of miss his love for me. We did not marry then as he was 3 years younger and was not well-off enough.My family wanted me to be with my hubby then.

It is so sad to be in a loveless marriage. I wish I can die.




There will come a time where we cannot abnegate our power to make our own decision to external forces just because ‘it has always been this way.’ You are an adult – biologically old enough to have your own children. It would have been different if you were a child, but even a child suffers the consequences of his/her ignorant acts. Regardless of reasoning, the outcome of today's circumstance is but an effect of choice/s made.

You have your own rights to decide the life you want to live. As much as this is an arranged marriage, things manifest the way it did because part of your agreement to whatever decision that was made just unfold itself, like logical scenes in your ‘love story’ thus far (albeit not a happy one). For relationship is a voluntary arrangement between two people to come together in a union; a marriage merely legalize this deal.

There is a central perspective in your post, coupled with a number of what I call 'absolute thinking values'. I will address them individually below:

Central to your thoughts is likely to be as such: you seemed to believe that things are probably fixed. You are married. You have two children and probably seemed like a 'happy family' outside. Making any decision to possibly ruin this will immediate equate to an act of blasphemy or treason.

The absolute thinking values are:

i) We cannot divorce.

You are employing the same flow of logics once again and then I would causally ask why 'cannot?' Of course I know there are good reasons to remain status quo and I would have easily share the same thoughts - however in reality, regardless of what those reasons are, basically, what happens is that you have made an active commitment by opting for 'the choice to remain in the relationship' as compared to 'we cannot divorce'.

You might think that I am talking about the same thing, but it is actually not. I will explain in my next point:

ii) It is so sad to be in a loveless marriage.

It probably degenerated into a loveless marriage. Like a house, if we don't regularly clean it, dust will start accumulating and we all know too well what will happen shortly. You probably thought that this relationship first begins 'without romantic love' and hence it will surely lead to a loveless marriage. But I must say that it is part of your belief association that self prophesize into reality.

If you combine 'cannot divorce' with 'loveless marriage' - basically, it is sure ingredient for a miserable perspective. But eventually from (i), if you deemed that it is a choice that you choose to stay, then naturally you also have a choice to do something about your loveless marriage.

I am not advocating for a stay/bye bye position in your marriage - what I want to point out is that there is this shade of grey that you could look into - if you wished for a more fulfilling relationship. Certainly, you have already made your choice; turning your shoulders to see how far your past has been is definitely not helpful to you in a forward looking perspective.

P.S: I have contact for an upcoming marital workshop for couples 5 years or less into their matrimony. It is not conducted by me, but if you are interested, you can PM me for more information.

Cheers

Tuesday, February 08, 2011

Aunt Agony 080211

Originally posted by PurpleGiraffe:

I'm not sure whether I should even be serious with this forum. I shall just try my luck here and see what I can get.


I've broke up with my ex of 5 years. It's been 10 months. And feelings of guilt never really left me. Sometimes when I come across stuffs that he gave me, memories of us will start to come by and I'll start to tear.. Sometimes I really wonder the reason behind why I'm tearing. Was it because I'm starting to miss this person or was I feeling guilty? That after all these years of him treating me so well, I just have to leave him.


He was actually a very nice person to me. He paid attention to my needs. He took really good care of me. He bought presents for me, things that I couldn't really afford since I was then a student. He wasn't some rich kid either. His pay was meager, probably sufficient for his living expenses. Savings were just barely much. But he just wanted the best for me, he would get me gifts cause he knew that the gift would make me happy, no matter how much it costs. These only showed he's not a person who just showers you with presents, but also with whatever he can afford, he'll give the best to you. That's how nice he is. He treats his parents and friends well too. He's a filial son. His nature of work requires him to work long hours with little pay. Whichever job he chooses, he just wished that he could fork out the time to spend time with me after work.

But I still felt something's lacking between us.. Something called chemistry and the kind of emotional communication and engagement through verbal words. What's lacking between us is like we tend to attend to our physical needs but our emotional side of it seemed to have been neglected. Some of my emotional problems where how much I wished I could pour it to him, somehow weren't really well-received. I've tried to pour the kind of what I term as my emotional communication to him, but the responses I get from him could only be this much. I just wanted him to understand me more, understand how I'm feeling inside more. Why did it seem to be so hard? Maybe people might say that some people are just not good at words. I totally agree with it. But I really think communication between a couple is really important to sustain the relationship for the rest of our journey. This is something that was really lacking in that relationship and I really felt very terrible carrying on, with thoughts that I really wouldn't want

to be someone who doesn't really understand me in my heart. My emotional needs. I did try telling him the kind of emotional needs that I wanted.. But 5 years.. I just still didn't seem to get it from the relationship that I decided to end it. I really want to start my pursuit of my so called happyness.

Can someone tell me if I was wrong? I mean there's no turning back. I just want to clear what I'm really feeling inside.

Some of the money that I used to owe him, should I return it back to him? Or should I just let go and forget about it? Money to him is pointless already..? I don't know.


It seemed that you have come a long way before you call it quit. To execute such a decision wouldn't be easy for anyone in your shoes and it must have been a struggle internally.

You said he attended to your needs - but somehow I sense slight discrepancy in your post: perhaps in reality, what he has fulfilled are merely 'less qualitative' needs that may be important, but not essentially critical. It seemed to me that you have a deeper need that remained unsettled and he doesn't appear to understand how to go about addressing it.

Since you have already moved along, here are some questions for you to ponder over:

i) What exactly constitute your emotional needs? Would you be able to describe what exactly are you looking for, instead of lumping everything under the category of 'emotional needs'?

ii) You pinpointed the singular cause of the failed attempt to understand your emotional needs to the lack of mutually communication. What exactly caused this lack of communication? Was the relationship like that when you first started out?

iii) What is the symbolic representation in the act of returning him money? What does the act mean to you?

Cheers

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