(Long Read) Don't read or comment if you're going to find this annoying. Really I don't think I can handle that kind of stuff at this moment in time. This is my first post ever.
This is the first time I 'let it all out'.. I feel trapped and thats why I feel like I want to post this. This post falls in 3 parts.
First part is that my boyfriend's parents hate me even though they've never met me.
Second part is my past thats still eating away at me.
Third is about
my boyfriend and me and why I feel like I want to continue pursuing this relationship.
Having recently started to recover from over 15 years of falling in and out of depression (also explained at the end), I found myself falling back in again because of this issue.
For the sake of this post, I'll nickname my boyfriend Chris.
My boyfriend and I are still in our early stages of dating (4 months). I have never met his parents but for reasons other than my personality, they already hate me.
This is what they know about
me and what they had voiced to Chris.
1. Age, where I was born, heritage and that I am a single child of a single mother.
They are aware that I am older than their son and an ABC. They were okay with this until Chris told them that I am of Shanghainese decent. Women of this area have been stereotyped to be arrogant in nature, loud, obnoxious, gold diggers, bitter, basically anything negative you can think of that can be applied to anyone of any background, or so Chris's mother had claimed. She absolutely hates Shanghainese people. Being raised in a Anglo-Saxon society, sent to a private school and raised by a well educated family, I can confidently claim that my upbringing has been strict and void of these characteristics.
Chris's parents are also against that I am a single child of a single mother due to the stereotypes that are affiliated with it. They believe that I am selfish, spoiled and have daddy issues. From a young age, my mum had paid close attention to discipline and education due to our situation as yes, there were risks that I could turn out like that. My mum had tried her best to compensate for the lacking of a father figure in my life. Although maybe a bit spoiled, how I am with Chris had at least demonstrated to me that I am not selfish. I try my best to make him happy regardless of how I might feel. Chris had lived at my place for over a month due to his family condition. My place is a where he can actually laugh and be himself. I have never felt reluctant to attend to him and pay for his living expenses whilst still fulfilling my domestic duties at the same time as he is still financially dependent. As long as he is happy, that is all I want. My mother and Chris get along very well. Chris finds it easier to joke and have meaningful conversations with my mother than his own parents, for me, thats something I treasure as I plan to never leave my mother even when I marry, so my partner has to be able to be friends with my mum. My friends have also constantly telling me to do things for myself, that its okay to be selfish from time to time, but I generally don't find any reasons to do anything for myself because well, I'm content. Seeing others happy make me happy.
Since Chris had been staying at my place more, his parents felt that they should cut him off financially as he can just live off me now. As much as I am happy to look after him, this made me extremely uncomfortable. Every time he did go home, his parents would mock him for living off his girlfriend. "Such a man you are", "You're just a dog, someone's pet" "You're so smart, yeah live off her and save us some money" "gold digger" etc, comments like that. Being a male, this dealt a lot to his pride and self esteem. Last night, Chris's cousin had shown Chris's parents a photo he saw of us where we had drew on it for fun with cat ears and whiskers. That night the family had a big fight, calling Chris a dog, a cat, worthless piece of animal, etc, posing as a girl, that he is not a man.
2. I had previously been in a serious relationship.
A year ago, I was in a serious relationship with an older man. We had started to live together and planned on marriage and etc. However, that did not work out. Although at first he was infatuated with me, slowly his 'true nature' showed, lazy and obnoxious, he did not respect me or my family, and finally his eyes strayed to other women at his workplace. I cannot be with someone who does not respect my family or be faithful, thus that relationship ended.
Due to our age difference, Chris's parents were already skeptical about
the seriousness of our relationship. The knowledge of my previous relationship only encouraged this. They had called me a 'Used woman' and why he wanted a 'Second hand woman'. These comments had impacted on Chris and our relationship. It made him more insecure, that I would leave him for someone else, that yes, I'm a used woman, that I was someone else's and that I am now labeled a s1ut. This I guess, is true. I can say that I'm strong enough to not let those comments affect me, but it does. I feel inadequate.
They believe that Chris is nothing more than a rebound from my last relationship, my toy and that it was my fault that my past relationship failed. This stems from traditional stereotypes that when a couple breaks up or when a man cheats/leaves/abuses the woman, it is the woman's fault. This way of thinking was also passed down to Chris, as I had
opened up to him as a rape victim. His first reactions were to ask why I was there in the first place and other typical 'doubting the woman/victim-shaming' questions. However he slowly realised what he was doing and that there is no excuse for such behaviour
.
3. Looks
Chris's parents are big on looks. They expect his girlfriend to look like a typical 'Chinese international student' or what we ABCs call fobs. They typically have pale skin, slim, sharp face/high cheekbones and whatever Chinese people find attractive. I thought I had fulfilled this criteria as I am blessed by my parents and inherited most characteristic of what a Chinese person would find attractive; pale, sharp faced/high cheekbones, slim yet still have the right curves in the right places.
However after long periods of examining photos of mine, they had found flaws. Despite having high cheekbones, there was too much meat on them. To them, that was 'the typical signs of a controlling woman'. This is something they would bring up time and time again to Chris.
This. I can not comprehend.
I had also dyed my hair red. This made me look older and not as meek or timid as I had always been mistaken for someone younger. I have always been complimented for my long red hair and it is my favourite thing about
myself. However they found this 'thuggish' and too rebellious to their liking, convinced that I am part of a gang.
As much as I can complain and let what Chris's parents say affect me, I understand that they are doing this out of their love for their son. They want what is 'best' for him.
But their reactions only make me question.
Am I not good enough for Chris because of all this? Do I not deserve happiness and be with the man I love because of my background? My family condition? My looks? The fact that I had once been committed but it just so happened to not work out?
What can I do to make them happy about
us being together? I try my best to be good to their son. I would do so much for him.
[sob story/life story and what lead to Chris and I]
When my mother was pregnant with me she also had cancer, which also led to her dropping out of uni. My father had left her and cheated on her around the same time with an older woman who also has a daughter from a previous marriage overseas. My mum had to study again, work and raise me at the same time in a country where she had no family to help her. For her I would give up anything, my life. And this I tried multiple times as I had always felt I was a burden. At first it pained my maternal grandparents to even look at me because I was my dad's child; the man who betrayed them and ruined their daughter's life. My dad's mother didn't care about
me until it was for certain that my dad's second wife could no longer have children, thus leaving me as her only grandchild.
At the age of 6-7 I was very aware of our situation and was starting to have suicidal thoughts. If I didn't exist, mummy could start over. Mummy could find someone else and start a new family. Start fresh. Mummy won't have to work so hard for us. It will be easier for her. I've only lived for this long, compared to mummy, I haven't lived long at all so it should be okay.
I was okay for a while until I was bullied at school. There was something wrong with me that made me different to the other kids. I didn't have a dad, that I was of Asian decent and I was slightly chubbier.
I dealt with that by not eating, vomiting and being the bully instead. This affected me by being a straight A student, to becoming a complete and utter failure. I was disruptive, anorexic, bulimic, a troublemaker and just a complete nuisance. I made sure other girls felt crap about
themselves before they even get the chance to say anything bad about
me. But the more I blocked out and didnt care about
other people's feelings, the less I cared about
myself, I wouldn't eat and when I did, I tried to vomit it all back out, in 3 weeks I had lost 15kg and was extremely weak. W
hen it came to graduating and moving onto uni, I didn't get the marks to get what I want. This was the wakeup call.
During my first year of uni, I decided to rebuild myself. I wanted to care about
other people, help others and be proactive. I studied hard and earned my HDs to transfer to the course I wanted. I started a relationship with a friend of a friend. He was very supportive of me at first but slowly became more and more demanding. He started to dislike my social nature. He banned me from talking to anyone except himself and my mother. When I rebelled, he would become irritate then finally resorted to physical abuse. He would emotionally abuse me to keep me grounded and as I rebelled more and more, trying to leave him, he resorted to rape.
What I had noticed from the people around me is that when they hear about
issues of rape, they don't realise how it really affects the victim. They don't realise that its not just the pain of it physically or that even if you had not provoked someone, it could still happen. Our society is desensitised to these issues. These thoughts convinced me that I couldn't tell anyone about
it.
First thing, I had lost all self respect. I was worth nothing. Everything my mum did for me, to me at that moment in time, meant nothing. I was worthless. I don't deserve friends, people's care, or to even live a life I wanted. I was dirtied. First few times, I struggled. I screamed. Called for help. I felt like I could almost see someone coming in to help me, in my mind someone did.
But they didn't.
Afterwards, I stopped struggling. I suppose I felt that if I don't, it will just be over faster. Just don't think about
it or feel anything and it will be over soon. This went on for almost half a year.
What finally snapped me out of it was when my mum noticed that something was up and asked questions, this lead to me hinting breaking up again and him yelling at my mum. I can not, at all accept someone verbally abuse my mum. I can not accept ANY harm to my mum. We kicked him out and he stalked us for a few days until he gave up. People who had known he stalked me asked why I didn't call the police. I wish I could, but I can not risk my mum knowing about
what he did to me. How broken she would be if she knew. So I would just brush it off as 'well he gave up in the end' and left it at that.
This ate away at me and alcohol became my saviour. For a brief period of time I stopped drinking when I was in the relationship with the older man. I thought I had picked myself together when I had this role model of what a responsible adult should be like. But when I realised it was all an illusion, that I was never any better than the worthless object that I was, I dove straight back into the arms of alcohol. I ended up putting my studies on hold. Quit my job and just feel completely demotivated.
Chris and I met through mutual friends. Upon our first meeting, we didn't take to each other too much, we were on opposite ends of the group. Our first conversation was afterwards online via messaging. We became more comfortable chatting about
how we knew our mutual friends, which lead to various topics that showed how in common and different we were with each other. Messaging lead to skyping and meeting up with our group more and more. I was still dependent of alcohol then. On the last outing with that group, I got piss drunk. I was running in and out of the women's bathroom crying and vomitting. Chris ended up coming into the women's bathroom to help me, calm me down, hold my hair back and just hold me until I was able to stand up again. We left the bar and sat outside on the street when it became apparent that I could not walk. I kept crying and he just sat with me, reassuring me and comforting me.
After that night we became more comfortable around each other. We started to talk about
more personal things. I was the first person that Chris had ever actually
opened up to, speak his mind and be himself to. We became very close friends. Like best friends. We wanted to stay best friends but more words kept slipping out, we wanted to see each other more. Slowly and eventually we realised our feelings for each other. However due to our age gap, we hesitated. He didnt feel he was mature enough for me and I was scared of the consequences from society and people around us. What would they say/do? How would they see us?
I had made mistakes in my past. Does that mean I don't deserve happiness? That Chris doesn't deserve the happiness I can give him?
I finally find someone who I could
open up to. Chris finally found someone he could
open up to too. Someone who is not the internet. And what happens is his parents want to get in the way of us because of how I look like? That I have a flaw? That I was capable of having a committed relationship? That I was born into a not so traditional family?
I am not good enough? What can I do?
I understand people hate change. People don't like whats not the norm. But this is absurd. If they had better reasons other than these to hate me, I can understand. But this is absurd. I am angry at them. Angry at myself. I thought that I would be stronger because of my own life experiences but I found myself here again. I was starting to come back. I wanted to continue my studies, I started to look for a job again but here I am again. I'm losing weight again and I can't find the motivation to do anything, I don't feel like I can fulfill anyone's expectations. I just feel like I'm not good enough.
People who have not even met me. Who know nothing about
me other than seeing my photo and some basic information about
me, hate me. I don't understand. What can I do?
Help
Sorry for the long read.
Post Edited By Moderator (getting by) : 8/19/2015 3:38:12 AM (GMT-6)