the problem is acceptance

A couple days ago, I asked B. if he would have cheated on me anyway, whether it had been Pam or not. He said, maybe not. This kind of broke my heart because it means it was her, and not him, he was falling in love with her and that's why he cheated on me, not what I had previously been told, that he wanted to relive his bachelorhood, and feel free and single again.

I said, "that's probably even worse," and kind of chuckled bitterly. He got upset about this, because I was pushing guilt onto him. My intention wasn't to push guilt onto him, but just for him to know how I felt. If everything I feel about his cheating on me makes him feel guilty, then I can't tell him how I feel about it at all, ever. I just have to keep it in, and deal with it.

He said that's my problem. I can't just let things go. I can't just accept that I'm never going to understand why he cheated on me because he doesn't understand why he cheated on me. I just have to accept that it's something that will not make sense and I have to trust him, that he won't cheat on me again.

Is this guy serious? Blind trust. He's asking me for blind trust. Blind trust after he cheated. And I give him as much blind trust as I can. I have no reason to believe that he was fucking Ricky when I called him. It took him 3 more hours to get to my house, even thought I was having a fucking MENTAL BREAKDOWN. He stayed and "chatted". How the fuck do I know he wasn't boinking her? But I took his word for it, that he didn't. What else am I going to believe? What else could I believe? He fucking wants it all. He wants his cake and he wants to eat it too.

He says everything I do to try to heal us, is really trying to heal ME. And I wish it wasn't that way, but I can't think of any way to help HIM. I've tried, believe me I have. I try to talk to him about his guilt, I make suggestions, I ask him what would help. He comes up blank, he is unresponsive to my suggestions, he clams up whether we are talking about how I am hurt, or how he is hurt. I'm fucking sick of this accusation. Yeah, everything I'm doing is trying to heal me, because when I try to heal him he just fucking pushes me away. What the fuck am I supposed to do then? I try, but he refuses everything, and then he YELLS AT ME for only focusing on myself! WHAT THE FUCK.

So, in short. The problem is, I DON'T ACCEPT THAT I WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND WHAT HAPPENED, I CAN'T ACCEPT THAT HE CHEATED ON ME. It's time to lay this whole shit down to rest, I shouldn't fucking talk about it anymore, just leave it alone. Just ACCEPT IT already.

Well, that solves all my problems doesn't it? If I could accept everything that ever went badly, accept getting harassed, getting assaulted, getting hit, getting yelled at, getting abused. I mean, really, HONESTLY, the problem is me. I couldn't ACCEPT that I'm a human punching bag. It's my own fault for having a problem with it, I should just.. not have a problem with these things. Fuck me, it's my own problem. These assholes have no problem abusing people, for yelling at people, for assaulting people. I'm the only one with the problem here, so I should just deal with it and ACCEPT IT. Right? Damn mother fucking right.

I cut myself again. I shouldn't have but I did. I thought B. and I were over, so I thought it was alright. The only reason I stopped was for him. How stupid. How totally fucking stupid. I've stayed with him through all his suicidal stints, and I've never told him, "if you EVER do this again, I won't be around anymore". I always tried to ask him WHY he did it, tried to actually HELP, instead of this bullshit, "never do it again, or else I'm leaving". Is that a fucking threat? Is that an ultimatum? I should have done it again, so he would leave. I should have fucking left myself.

I've come so close to leaving so many times. How come I can never make it stick?

I really don't think I want to be with him anymore. Fuck six years. I don't care about six years. I've spent 4 of them completely miserable.

fledgling

It's been a while, huh?

It's been so long since I last wrote, longer since B. cheated on me. I wish I could tell you I'm doing great, that we got over it, we're wonderful now, but to be truthful, we're not. I'm still not.

We haven't discussed Pam for a while, but we didn't really in the past without fighting. Maybe not talking about it was a mistake, maybe it wasn't a mistake and it was just something that couldn't be helped. It's hard to decide what the lesser of two evils is. Not talking about it, or talking about it but fighting (and possibly ultimately having everything blow up). Maybe the latter was best. If we couldn't talk about it without trying to kill each other and destroying our whole relationship, then I guess that would have just meant that we couldn't work it out.

We broke up again since I last wrote. In my first semester of college, I went crazy with freedom. I hung out way more than I used to. I stopped calling B. as much, I stopped picking up his calls as much, I stopped having actual conversations with him, I didn't come back home some weekends, when I did see him, often my mind would be elsewhere. He left me. I don't blame him, I was being really horrible. I've learned that just because I give him leeway, and I stayed when he cheated doesn't mean that he will stay if I fuck up.

What happened during this break up was that B. met this girl Ricky who works at this bar he went to with some of his coworkers. One of his coworkers gave her his number, and they started to hang out or talk or something. At one point, I had some kind of mental break down and couldn't reach him. I was really hurt because I felt like he had found somebody else. During my mental breakdown, I must have called him about 100 times that day or more. When I finally reached him, he was at Ricky's apartment, just talking. He said he didn't do anything with her (even though she wanted to), and I believe him. I have no choice but to believe him at this point. I don't really know how to describe it. I believe it because I want to, because if the truth is he did sleep with her, I don't know what to do with it. My only defense is to mentally deny everything. Anyway, I had this mental breakdown, I was just lying in my room with all the lights off. I felt like I was disappearing. I don't know how else to describe it. I felt like I would cease to exist if I closed my eyes and went to sleep. That nobody would know who I was anymore. I started reciting the names of my family members over and over again. When B. finally called me, I was hysterical. I asked him to tell me what my name was, who I was, my age, just things to confirm that I did indeed still exist.

He came over late that night, after he finished talking to Ricky. I was drunk off a bottle of wine, just really... in a bad place. I had cut my wrists. Not badly, but bad enough to bleed a bit and leave marks for a while. I was never a cutter before, and I'm not a cutter anymore, although I have to admit it takes quite a bit of will. B. made me promise never to cut myself again, and I promised, so I didn't.

B. has been driven to suicide many times by me. He wants to shoot himself, but has never pulled the trigger. I don't know. He saw a therapist and the therapist said this a perfectly sane action. B. is so rational, when he comes into confrontation with a person as irrational as me that's just what happens. The most rational thing B. can do is kill himself, because he wants this pain to end, he cannot remove me from him because I keep clinging to him, so all he can do is remove himself.

I've tried to be better, to be more rational. I don't know, I feel like I did years ago, when he was really short on me all the time. I tried my best not to make a mistake, but all he did was bark at me all the time. I don't want him to kill himself, but I'm selfish so I don't want to leave. He said he wants to work it out, but I just feel like he wants me around, but it's not his place to do anything, I have to learn to be more rational, more adult.

Yesterday he woke up late for work. He woke up 2 hours late. I was asleep too, and I heard the alarm when it rang, and he shut it off. I didn't know he shut it off though, I thought he put it on Snooze. I fell back asleep immediately, and when I woke up his cat was licking my toes. I realized that quite some time had passed, and he woke up late. He was in a rush, and while he showered I tried to help. I packed all my own things, dressed and got ready to leave. I checked the weather forecast, I put out socks for him, two possible undershirts for him to wear. When he came back from the shower I was sitting there, watching him get ready. I didn't know what to do. He was upset and he said kind of in this snide voice, "what are you gonna do? Just sit there?" I said, "no, what do you want me to do?" He was exasperated. "I don't know, get yourself ready and stuff." I was kind of proud of myself when he said this, because I did get myself ready. I guess I'm really childish in this sense. Proud of myself for getting ready, I sound like I' m fucking 4. I said that I was all ready, I'm dressed and packed and everything. He was still exasperated, "why don't you clean up then!? Clean up the mess and stuff." I started to clean, but I felt both angry, upset. I don't know. I felt really stupid too, for forgetting to clean, but also really mad because I didn't know I was supposed to and kind of incredulous. I just felt so bad. This is an example of one of the things I'm having trouble dealing with. I always feel that no matter what I do, how hard I try, B. will never be happy with it. I know he feels the same way.

Sometimes, when B. is in a good mood, I can let loose a little, but when he's in a rush or stressed out, I better be on my toes. I don't know how to deal with this. Right now it's easier because I don't have a lot of stress, I'm not working right now, just kind of being a bum. I don't know what I'll do later when I start working or even when I go to graduate school. He's supportive too. It's a habit I've picked up that's hard for me to drop. I worry about him, I'm always kind of on edge. He talks about being on edge at work, having to always be ready for something. I think I understand what he feels like, I'm like that with him. I'm on edge.

I've worked myself into a weird position. Half the time I don't know why I even try to be better for B. He never notices anyway, and when I do something better, there's no time to give myself a pat on the back because it's already time to work on something else.

I feel like I have everything. My boyfriend loves me, my grades aren't great, but I passed and can do better next semester. I don't have any friends right now, but at least I've got my brothers and cousins. So I have love, I have education, and I have family and friends. Why am I so sad?

I just don't know what it is. I just cried yesterday in the shower, I cried the day before in bed. I think B. thought it was about him. At first I might have been. We were talking about "what if". What if I had never met him, if we had never gotten together, where I would be and all that stuff. He thinks I have doubts. I cried more, but it wasn't about B. It was about my family. About my mom and dad. About how they don't work here, so I don't live with them, and they might put a wrench in my side when they are home, but deep inside I'm actually really glad they're home. We can be like a normal family again, and that makes me really happy.

I was just crying, because I realized.

I'm so lonely.

20. if this wasn't just rambling, i would give it a title

I know I haven't written in this thing for a while. I kind of abandoned it, because sometime writing stuff would make me angry, or it would just get me depressed. Lately, I just shut up about stuff, go through my day, do what needs to get done.

There are a lot of things that have to get done.

I am moving to school soon. I have also been working in an office, but recently stopped. I have some time free but there's so much that has to be done, I don't know if I can classify it as time free. My I have to take my pet to the vet, I have to buy stuff before I move, I have also just moved to a new house, and will have to move again to school. Things are crazy, and I escape. I try at least. I am not home a lot, I go out and I sleep or I do something else to occupy my mind so I don't have to think. I think I'm just really fucking up my head.

B. is.. well he's B. I don't really know what to describe him as. I don't even think I really know him anymore. It's all very confusing. There are been a lot of horrible moments in the past few months. At one point, he said Pam's name while he was sleeping and I completely blew up. I was frustrated and he said, "you didn't even ASK why I said her name. I was sleeping for Chrissakes! I was goddamn sleeping, I wake up and I'm being yelled for something I don't know I did!"

This whole mess, a very big mess. Which involved shouting, a lot of shouting. A lot of crying (on my part). He told me to get out, he didn't want me in the house anymore, and at one point grabbed me and tried to physically shoved me out. His family intervened. His mother pulled me away and gave me some water. His sister woke up and asked him why he was yelling so much in the morning, to just chill out why don't you? B. yelled at her too. He has a temper problem. I think I have discussed with him in the past about his temper. He admitted that he had a temper and back then he said he would go see someone about it. It never happened, and now it's turned into this, "I know I have a bad temper. It's how I am." Last night he even said something about it, about how his sister is spoiled by his family, but he is not spoiled by them at all. His sister expects things from her brother (B.), and her mother and father. B. doesn't expect anything from them. I made a comment on how they could be from the same family but be so different. How he is not spoiled, but his sister is very spoiled. They think from completely different perspectives it's like they were raised by different people. He shrugged and said that he got all the temper, and his sister got none of it, but she got the spoiled behaviors, but he received none of that. He just said it, so matter of factly, just kind of like, "this is how I am, is what I am, so just take it or leave it, it can't be changed".

Maybe he just burries everything. We have gotten over fights where he gets angry because I don't see that he is trying to fix this relationship at all, but in reality I am the one not doing anything. I refute and say that I'm trying, and he refutes and he says that I'm trying, but I'm trying to heal myself. All the stuff I think up of, it's not focused on healing HIM, it's focused on healing me. On healing my pain of the one being cheated on, but there's pain knowing that you cheated, and is there anything that I've suggested that helps with HIS pain?

I guess he's right, there isn't. I don't really know what would help. I've got the disadvantage of the viewpoint of the one who was cheated on, I don't really understand what would help. B. clams up a lot. Maybe I've just stopped trying. In the past I've tried to talk about the incident of him cheating on me, and I guess it was too fresh then, he would pull away and stop talking wallowing in a kind of self pity, a kind of I'm fucked up, I cheated on her, I'm horrible, I'm a monster. But repeating that, and not really talking about anything. Or he would come back at me saying that I use it as a weapon, that I like making him feel bad. I wasn't trying to make him feel bad, I just wanted to talk about it, to really talk about it, so we could get over it. We haven't talked about it, really talked about it for a while.

Truth be told, I've stopped wanting to try. I care, but everytime I think about bringing up the subject, to try to really talk about it, to touch base with it, to kind of analyze it and figure out why it is hurting both me and B. so much, I just think about how I've tried in the past, how we've both tried, but for some reason, when I was trying, he wasn't, and when he was trying, I was tired. The thought of the failure is a turn-off, and I just.. don't even try.

There's so much shit going on. I feel like all that emotional pain has been weighing down on me for so long, without changing, that it's just something I've come to accept as part of me, it's just there, it's what it is, and it will not change, and I can't change it, so I'll just accept it. I've done exactly what I was just giving B. shit about with his temper problem. I'm a fucking hypocrite.

His temper has gotten out of control more than once, and it flares up every once in a while, and I don't know what to do with it. He'll get mad about little things, and then I will get upset, and then we'll both be upset, and because the other is upset, it makes both of us more upset, and it escalates into this whole ugly fight over something so goddamn STUPID, like I didn't hear him ask me to get him napkins at an outside concession stand because it was windy and all I heard was wind blowing through my ears.

That really pisses me off. Half the goddamn time he's mumbling about how I don't listen, I NEVER listen. Granted, I may not listen sometimes, I may hear his words, but not really get them. Other times, when he's asking for asistance in doing something, for instance if he spills something in the living room, and I'm in the bedroom reading or whatever. He'll call for my help, but I won't hear, or I'm reading and I don't hear him (but would have if I wasn't reading). I don't know why he's getting so upset, because he gets very upset about this. I was goddamn reading, sure, if I WASN'T reading I would have heard him, but the point is I WAS. I don't know what he wants, it's like he wants me to NEVER DO ANYTHING, and just stand around and wait for him to call me if he needs help in doing something.

Other times, we'll be discussing something, or arguing (but not yelling), and he'll say something, and even though I AM LISTENING, as in I am trying to hear the sound coming out of his mouth, I miss stuff. Not because I'm listening, but because he turned his head into the pillow and all I heard was a muffle of sound, or because he mumbled and I heard something that didn't make sense, and I would say, "what?", and then he would blow up and say, "forget it, just forget it! You never listen!". I mean, honestly, what in the fucking hell? I'm sorry I couldn't hear, it's not like I diverted my attention elsewhere, my attention was on him the whole time. When we argue now I even strain my ears to catch what he's saying, because he has this habit of mumbling. He doesn't think he does, but he really does. It's not really even mumbling, he has a habit of talking INTO things. He'll talk while he's staring at his lap, and I can't hear as well as if he would just look my way and say something. And then I get the, "YOU NEVER LISTEN" bull crap.

We went fishing, ane he got his line tangled. I mean, extremely tangled, and his friends and I were all laughing because his line got stuck in the water, so he yanked it, and then it pulled free and his line came flying out of the water and tangled against something else upon flying back. It was a funny scene, so his friends and I were all laughing. He's not happy though, and he snaps at me to get the scissors for him. Why did he snap at ME? I don't know. Why not at his friends? I don't know. Why can't I laugh along with his friends? I don't know. It seems like he has a different set of rules for me and the rest of the world. If I did something that anyone else did, one of his best friends, his sister, whatever, I would get shit for it. I understand that by being his girlfriend, there are certain things I should understand better than other people, but I'm not even talking about that. I'm talking about regular ordinary every day things.

I don't know if things have actually gotten better, or if we've just managed to not do anything with our issues for so long that they just just become livable.

19. whew.. now we can get to the important stuff

The worst is over. I've been doing a lot better. I really like how B. and I are now. I like how we are now more than before. The other day B. and I saw a movie with a couple of his friends. We ran into my cousin, and previously when Pam and I were still friends, she came along with B. and I to drop off something at B.'s friend's place. One of B.'s friends asked if my cousin was that girl who went to their place last time.

I didn't revert back to my old self because someone mantioned Pam, I just said, "no, that was someone else". For a second, I paused, and I remembered for a second, but it was just a second. I didn't dwell on it, it was just.. fleeting and unimportant. Then, my cousin and I saw a billboard for a new movie coming out, and one of the actresses has the same name as Pam. And my cousin said, "man, can you believe she's in that movie? Why would they cast her?". I just said, "I don't know", and that was it. I didn't freeze up at hearing someone else say her name.

B. and I were even able to talk about it without either of us getting angry or depressed, without us fighting. It was nice. It was.. very nice.

I have realized that it's not about Pam. It's not about her at all. It was about B. and I. We had problems within our own relationship that needed to be resolved. That was the push that really did it. It's not that he doesn't love me, and it's not that he loves me less, and it's not that he loves her. It was the accumulation of the problems in the relationship that B. and I failed to resolve. We definitely had a major break in communicaiton.

I asked B. if he wished he never cheated on me. He said he wished he had never cheated on me, but had brought up the problem another way. I said that he couldn't have it both ways. His response was that then if the case was that we never solved our problems and he didn't cheat on me, then he'd rather have it the way it is now. Even though he cheated on me, we're better off. His reasoning was also that if he didn't cheat on me and we continued to ignore those problems and let it build, then we might have broken up anyway, and we wouldn't be together anymore. He said he'd rather have me still be with him and having us work through our problems, then to lose me and everything we had. I must say that I agree.

18. it's like taking one step forward and then tripping and falling on your face

I must admit, B. and I are doing better than how we were a few months ago. I still hurt. He still hurts. I still feel betrayed, and he still feels.. guilty, I guess. I've started my last year of high school and am about to hand in college applications. B. is still working the same job, different hours, different area, but same job.

I'm still going through a rough spot. But it's getting better. I'm starting to do things again. Read books again, play video games again. B. and I are able to have decent conversations now without me breaking down and crying or completely clamming up into my shell. Sometimes now, I see something that reminds me of him and I smile. Everything that reminded me of him used to disgust me and make me even more upset. We are better, but we have a long way to go. I don't know how we'll do it when I leave for college (that's assuming I do leave).

Pam is a lost friend, simple as that. Sometimes I wonder about her. I've read her online journal and stuff, but have not talked to her personally. I don't know how she is, but last time I talked to her she was suicidal, so since I've seen her online and stuff, then I know she hasn't hung herself or anything.

I've found humor again. There have been a few instances recently where I have been able to joke with B. and be sarcastic and everything. That is the old me, the real me. I am a sarcastic person, I have a sarcastic sense of humor. I've been able to find more joy in things and I think that's a huge step forward.

A couple months ago, I was on B.'s computer and logged on AOL Instant Messenger. I doubled clicked it and it logged onto B.'s username automatically. I didn't sign off, but I scrolled to the bottom and I found Pam's screen name there under "Recent Buddies". I was shocked. I was angry. I called him on it, and he said he honestly did not know how it got there. I was so angry because I thought he lied. The "Recent Buddies" group is a group that AIM makes automatically when someone who is not already on your buddy list Instant Messenges you. The thing about this group is that it cannot be automatically created nor can a person be added to it unless you respond to them. This meant that B. had been talking to her.

He got angry at me for snooping. He said, "how could you have seen her on my buddy list if you didn't scroll all the way down?". He said I had violated his trust. Trust is trust. It doesn't matter if I slept with someone else or I snooped through his buddy list. I still violated it. I felt bad. I said, "you're just mad because you got caught doing something wrong". He said that wasn't it. How is he supposed to trust me now? He said could it be possible that Pam messaged him and while he was doing something he pressed the space bar or the enter key and accepted her message? And then did it again and responded to her?

Sounds like a long shot huh? I don't know if he did or didn't talk to her. Maybe he did, maybe he didn't. I just don't want to argue anymore, and when I bring it up he tells me the same thing. So, it could be true that that is what happened.

I just want to get my life back. I don't want my life to revolve around him. I want to be ME again.

17. exposed

The big secret is out. Apparently Pam told one of her friends that she was involved in a "love triangle" with B. Then the word spread, and one of my friends from Junior High caught wind and asked me about it. Then more people started asking me about it.

I didn't lie to them. I told them that B. had cheated on me. I left it at that. I did not go into more details. I them to ask Pam first if she didn't mind me telling other people, because I figured maybe she didn't want people to know she wasn't a virgin anymore. So I asked this one person, let's call him K. to ask Pam first if I could tell him what happened. And he, being such an assuming asshole, says "no need, I get it". Please tell me, how did HE understand when I didn't tell him anything, when he only has one side of the story? I am glad I do not socialize with that crowd anymore.

People have this idea that I hate Pam and that is why I do not speak to her. That is not true, I do not hate Pam. Nor did I blame her for B. cheating on me. I told her that very plainly, but by the end our our conversation that time, by the way she was still saying that I blamed her for everything, it was obvious she had not heard a word I said. So maybe she told people I hate her for nothing, and that is why I do not speak with her. Either way, I don't really socialize with these people anymore, so it really doesn't effect me.

My heart started pounding faster when K. first mentioned it to me. The subject still hurts me, and I hope one day I can talk about it easily and not feel a stab of pain in my chest. It's not that I am afraid of people knowing, I know my closest friends will not judge me for staying, nor will they hate him for cheating. The people who know are not my close friends, I once thought they were, but they really weren't. It wasn't the fact that other people know, it was that they were asking me about it and it was like a reminder. It stung to hear it from someone else beside myself or B. I have to learn to deal with that though.

I know that Pam thinks that I don't talk to her anymore, but in actuality she stopped talking to me. In our last conversation she simply stopped talking when I told her for about the 20th time that I do not blame her for B. cheating on me. She just stopped talking. We weren't face to face, we were talking online because she would not pick up my phone calls. Either way, she just stopped responding. I know she received my messages because the last thing I asked her was to please return the CDs, do it whenever you have time. She returned it a couple days later. Then at the park, I said hello and goodbye, but she never responded to me. Although she DID respond when B. said goodbye.

I admit, I am bitter. I wish B. had never done this. Maybe I wouldn't be in so much pain, and I'd have an extra friend. Namely, the extra friend part. I know pain goes away, with work and will, and time. Friends however, those won't always comes back. I know it's not B.'s fault. He said that it takes one person to make a friend, but it takes TWO to stay friends. Pam obviously doesn't want to stay friends. When I approached her wanting to iron things out she immediately attached me calling me a self-righteous goody-goody.

I asked B. if I was a "goody-goody". He said that Pam just has this warped paradign about people and once she gets set into it, she won't get out of it. He said I don't do it to look good, I do the right thing because it's the right thing. I have been wondering more about that lately. About me being a goody-goody. While I was at work, one of my friends was leaving at two in the afternoon to hang out with one of our friends. He asked me to come along and I declined because I had work to do. He told me that the work could be done tomorrow, it wasn't anything urgent, like they needed it immediately. It wasn't urgent, but nonetheless, I stayed at work. He said, "Oh come on, don't be such a goody-two-shoes". I know that I shouldn't let that get to me, but it does.

A lot of things get to me now. Yesterday evening, I saw my jeans hung over the back of B's chair. I kicked it off because it reminded me of seeing Pam's jeans hanging off the back of his chair the day I walked into him cheating on me. Sometimes it gets to me at night, and I just cry and cannot stop.

I really just hope to get over this, to be able to talk about it and not feel pain. I guess I could look on it as a wake up call. It told me something was seriously wrong with our relationship. Of course, that's no excuse to cheat on someone, but B. and I do have a lot to fix in our relationship on top of getting over this.

16. i am not my parents' investment, i am their daughter

I feel so completely lost. B. is away visiting friends in another state. He is coming back tonight though. I don't know if I was relieved when he left or sad. Now that he comes back tonight I am not sure if I am happy or not. I know I am looking forward to him coming back though. Kind of.

This is driving me crazy. I can't wait for him to come back because I've missed him, but I don't want him to come back because sometimes, well most times, it just hurts to be around him. On the phone he said that he feels like I don't love him and I'm just forcing myself to be here out of comfort and familiarity. I was silent, he hit a nail right on the head (a nail, but not all the nails).

Since he cheated on me, I just can't look at him the same way. It just isn't the same. "I love you" isn't the same. I used to get a warm feeling when I thought about our relationship, like the first time he said I love you to me, and now I think of it, and I flutter, and then I think, "oh wait, did he really mean it? If he did, then why did he cheat on me? Maybe he never loved me". And then I just can't feel good about those moments anymore. They're tainted, they're not sincere like I thought they were, they don't seem real anymore. I am just not happy anymore.

I told him that. I told him that I am not happy today. I'm really not, I just thought this was a phase, something that happens after infidelity. I thought it would go away when we got over this, except now I just feel dead. I feel like I'm losing myself, I feel horrible.

B. moved back to his parents' place. This is a big deal to me. When he lived in the apartment, I became attached to it, it became my second home, my safe haven, until I caught him sleeping with my friend there. But even after that, it was OUR place, it was somewhere I would go to and I could stay there for 4 nights. I could stay there and when he came back from work in the morning, I'd be the one to wake up to him. It was my place too (in a way).

You see, about a year ago he dropped this huge bomb on me. His parents wanted him to buy them a house, and he said he would buy them a house. Maybe it's just me, I'm not traditional that way. All Chinese parents talk about their kids buying a house for them. I think this is the most selfish act a parent can partake on their children. I understand that parents want to be happy, but asking to buy a house for them is a HUGE thing. It's not like buying a sofa or a TV, a house costs quite a pretty penny. Especially buying a house in a place like New York City. The way I see it, because someone wants to be happy, they ask someone else to give up some of their hard earned money and happiness and hope of having their own home just so the person asking can have their happiness. It would be different if B. were loaded, but he's not. He makes an average income, and last year when the whole buying-the-house thing came up, he didn't even finish paying off his college loans yet.

It's tricky though. B.'s mom isn't in the greatest health, so he wants to spend more time with her and he feels that he cost them this house. He feels that he made them give up their dreams of buying a house. And I ask how. And he says because they had him as a son.

I think B. is a great son. He treats his family like royalty. I don't even want to go into how he spoils his family (it would just make you sick to hear). Not only does he spoil them materialistically, he is like their goddamn hand servant. He does everything for them. And I mean EVERYTHING. He pays their bills, he handles their technical problems, he does them favors, he does their FRIENDS favors, he buys them amazing things (great sound system for their TV, great computers, cable, foot massager, miscellaneous gadgets) all the time.

So considering all this, I am just befuddled. He said that his parents gave up buying a house because they had him as a son. Someone hit me across the head, do people not CHOOSE to have children? It's not like he made them pay for his tuition or anything. They fed him, clothed him, raised him, but do not all parents do that? I understand parenting is all about sacrifice, but what I HATE most about Chinese parents is that they see their children as INVESTMENTS. And it absolutely makes me sick with disgust. I hate that, I absolutely hate it! You have no idea just how much I hate it!

And it makes me so angry the way his family mistreats him! Oh yes, they do mistreat him. I don't mean they beat him or anything, they use him. B. doesn't see this though, he just says that his family is helpless. And that is the sickening part, they are. They do not choose to make themselves able to do things. They have not taken the effort to learn English, which is the first step. To my understanding, his family has been living here for 21 years. I think that gives them time to learn English! But they don't, they still don't know English. They have tried, but they have not really tried. They have taken a baby step and then thrown their hands up in surrender. Oh well, we have our children to do it for us! It makes me SICK.

This whole buying a house thing, I just don't understand. I don't. When B. and I first started going out, the first mother's day that passed (or it might have been his mom's birthday), he emptied out his bank account and gave them all his money so they could buy a house. But his mother asks him to buy him a house, and of course, without any hesitation, B. says of course he will. I am glad he loves his mother, it is way better than him hating her, but is there a limit to being a Momma's Boy? And I feel like I'm being dragged into this, because if we are together in the future, then this will definitely affect my life, will it not? If a couple buys a house for someone else, I think that is going to be a big thing. From the financial aspect, this is going to cost quite a lot, it's not like B. has been saving up for buying a house or anything, his money goes toward paying bills and materialistic things, so whatever money he makes, is not there in a couple months. B. does not live frugally either. I'm sure he could if he wanted to, but as of now, he doesn't. So, the money I make in the future will also go toward this house for his parents. And I am extremely pissed, because the money I plan to make it for my future, for my childrens future, for my husband's future, and now it is going to go to this house that I do not even want to live in.

B. said that I don't have to put any of my money into this house, but does it really matter in the end. If we do marry, isn't the money in the same pot? The money he spends on this house, is less money for the future of not just ourselves, but our children.

Thinking way ahead am I? I do that a lot, but does that seem like the inevitable path to you? Because that sure seems like the inevitable path to me.

I guess I have it lucky. At least I'm not married to him or we don't have any children. We could just end this, stop all this, and it could be a clean break. No messy divorce to deal with, no kids to worry about being traumatized.

I'm sorry, but I can't do it. I'm miserable, but I can't do it.