Ambiguous "Space"

[Reisender]

I'm in China, am from the US, and have just had so many things happen in the past three months, it has been ridiculous. So, I want to throw something up and at least get it out of my head. Today makes four months since this conversation occured. I realize I went 10,000 miles away and that would get to any partner. That's something I will have to deal with for a while.

 

I'm 27, the ex is 25. We had the most solid relationship I have ever had, lasting 1 year and 10 months exactly. We were an incredible match. On Nov. 2, she asked for space after a talk from 6:45AM to 8:30AM, making me 30 minutes late for work. I teach English in China.

 

There's the big difference. I chose to teach in China for a year, starting in August. It's something I've wanted to do for years to see the country, learn the language, and possibly open options for the future The girl is in a PhD program for cancer research, so we couldn't (that's relative) take our relationship further for another two years anyway. She was very supportive of this decision, although naturally wanted me to stay. We had made plans for her visit, in early March, after her orals.

 

She went to the mountains one weekend with a good friend of mine for lunch, a trip to the winery, and she bought ski pants (oddly, this is what my friend does with girls when he likes them). I passed it off, but when I asked her if we'd be able to Skype that night (my morning, 13hr time difference), she said she was on her way back from the mountains and wouldn't be back in time. But, she could email using her Blackberry. So, we have a short email talk while she is driving.

 

The next day when I spoke to her, she told me that my asking her if she would be on skype that night and saying I wanted to talk to her, made her feel really bad. "You can go places and I can't?" I had gone to the Shanghai Expo the day before. I told her I had meant nothing by "I've wanted to talk to you" other than making a statement. It wasn't to make her feel bad.

 

Of course, sirens, flags, and lights are going off in my head at this point. We had an odd, but not bad following two weeks. Then on Halloween, I say "Happy Halloween, hope you did something fun, knowing that my friend was going to come to town to see his friend's band play and she would probably go along with him. This is one of my good friends, so I suggested that he stay on her couch instead of driving 3-4hrs back home. In response to my email she says "(His name) and I just got up, it was a long night. Sylvester (her oldest cat who loves me) really likes (His name). That was all.

 

It struck me as a statement worded to make me jealous. She doesn't do that normally, so I passed it off. I didn't react and said "That cat! His loyalties change so quickly". I really thought nothing of this, since the guy is such a friend of mine, I passed it as a silly insecurity of my own. I still don't worry about her and the guy, but his friendship may be enough to help her question "us." She didn't respond to what I said.

 

Then on Nov. 2 I had confirmation of a growing worry of my own. My company was not going to offer the visa that they promised. They were just yahking me around. I had a week before my visa expired. I tell her about this in an email and about how, if I can't get another visa on my own, I will have to come home. I said "maybe I should just plan on coming home anyway". Three months into my time in China and BOOM!

 

I woke up early the next morning and sent her a message on Skype telling her that my computer was finally working well again. I had gotten a virus from a Chinese pirated program and had to reinstall MS XP using a Chinese copy version that had tons of incompatibility issues due to the fact that you can't update it. So I had to find all of the old drivers and older versions of software. It was a pain - did I mention I'm in China?

 

She calls me, right away, and says "What's going on with the Visa?" I tell her about the company's inaction and such. Then she asked my plans if I were to come home, to which I replied "first I'd have to find a job." Then she drops bomb #1: "I think it's only fair to tell you, if you come home, you can't stay here." I lived with her for four months before I came to China. I had not simply planned on moving back in with her, I would have needed to find a job and, in the town where we lived, there weren't many of those to go around. I simply say "why not?", since I knew there was a lot behind her simple statement.

 

She unloads with all of her worries about me, about us, her insecurities, so many things. I was taken by it and being so early it was quite alot to process. The things that hurt the most were bomb #2: "I'm a sucker, I'm a sucker, you used me, you used me ---, you used me!" She feels, and rightly so it seems in some cases, that she has been used by many guys that she has dated. I lived with her rent free (at least with no assumed rent, I helped where I could), for four months. She asked me to, she wanted me there and we talked about it because I had been very worried that she would one day turn around and say I used her if I had stayed with her. This was a mistake on my part - as much as we talked about it and she assured me she wanted me there, I knew better - we were not engaged or married. Which she later brought up. Of course we had been dating for a year and 4 months at the point when I lived with her. She knew I was going to China in August. I had also told her, that once things get settled there, I would send her "rent" money because I thought it was only fair. She always told me she didn't want it - but she said exactly what I worried about, "You used me."

 

She said that she thought my visa problems were somehow my fault, that there was something I wasn't doing. She tells me that she doesn't think that I do want her, that we have been dating this long and haven't said I love you (which we, yes we, had decided to skip over - another stupid mistake on my part), and that she deosn't want to get married tomorrow, but she wants the option. All of this comes from seemingly nowhere. In the weeks and months before, she would call each night and I would wake up early in the morning to talk to her. Her nights are my mornings and vice-versa. We were doing great, until these doubts crept in and she started focusing on insecurities and worries rather than things we talked about.

 

She finally says "---, you're in China but, I guess what I am saying is I need space." To this I say, with a small laugh, "Well, you can't get much more space than this". She apologizes for dropping all of that on my in the morning before class. I say "I'm glad you did, you had to say it sometime. I'm not going to get angry and yell at you. I get what you're saying. I really do. I have to go to class." Just before saying this she says "I've never asked this of a guy that I've dated, but I want you to change. Change ---!" I ask, "how so?" She says, "Grow up, be a man." Something I hate hearing, since it is such a copout/ambiguous statement. I beleive her when she says she's never asked a guy that before, but it's not something that happens overnight, plus you should not feel pressured to fit another person's mold. I take it more as she wants me, or a guy, to put himself into her, take care of her love her fully. My crux, is that I was good to her, but I have been so focused on my goals and setting up the right situation for my future family as I see it, a hypothetical, rather than right not, in this moment, tell her how much I love her and want her. had I done that before coming to China, things may have been very different.

 

Anyway, you can see how this still gets to me. I don't know why she said nothing of this before I left for China and it all comes out now. It's in stark contrast to how she was for the first three months, supportive, happy, always excited to talk. If I were at home it would be easy to go see her and talk to her and repair a lot of this, but I am in China. Skype is only good when the other person signs on. An email is no place for such a description of feelings. She received flowers the day after we talked, as I had ordered them the day before. To this, she responded with "Thank you for the flowers, I would have thanked you sooner, but I left my computer at the lab." Then, for Thanksgiving, I sent her a Swarovsky crystal squrrel from Suzhou China (she collects them) and five Disney DVDs (she wants to build her collection, but Disney only releases the old animations at certain times of year). She replied "I got your FedEx last week. I really liked the Squirrel and DVDs. I assume all went well with your visa and you are not legal in China. I hope al is well with you. It felt cold and it probably was.

 

During this time I had been travelling from Suzhou, near Shanghai, to Beijing, Hong Kong, and Shanghai to try to find an option to stay. Each of these cities is a major visa hub. I went to clubs and bars in search of people with more experience in China who could point me in the right direction. I fnally met a guy who worked with the US Department of Defense who told me what to do. I'm not pseudo legal, quit the old company, and have a much better job with growing prospects. I worked from 9AM to 9PM each day, since I had to make enough money to pay for my own apartment (In China it's 3 months rent, plus 1 month security deposit, and a half month's rent as a finder's fee when starting a lease). The original school had called me, while on a train to Beijing, to tell me that I would have to change apartments. The landlord wanted to move his family into mine. That was the last straw with that company and that situation. I was going mental.

 

So, all of December and all of January, I work every day from 9AM-9PM, six jobs of varying teaching degree, all over the place. I heard nothing from the girl beside the two "Thank you" emails. To the second, I replied telling her just a bit about the Visa and about the housing situation. The last thing I want is for her to feel like this is somehow her fault or I blame her, but she needed to know a little of what had been going on. I then said the only personal thing I've said to her, "If there is any reason for you to think any of the things that you were thinking when we last talked, then there is something I should be doing differently. I can't let you think that I am not thinking and I don't care. So, let me be clear, I am thinking and I do care. I do miss you."

 

I sent her a small Christmas tree for Christmas. We normally go to cut our own tree in the mountains. It's a full day event with hot cider and her getting excited about the biggest tree and me having to carry it. Then I sent her a set of LUSH bathbombs to relax with before her orals in early February. I heard nothing from either of these gifts - No "Happy Thanksgiving" and no "Merry Christmas." Not only am I away from family on the holidays (I had the money saved to make a surprise Christmas visit, but had to spend it due to the housing and Visa problems), but there's all this as well.

 

We are going on 3.5 months of NC, or maybe LC given the gifts I sent while travelling around. I've heard nothing from her. I just returned from a trip to Guilin, Yongshou, Kunming, Lijiang, Tiger Leaping Gorge, and the border with Myanmar to help reset myself a little. I still think about my ex a lot and we didn't have a proper break up at all. There has been nothing but her two cold emails and my short quip about what is going on here. "Spiace", the final frontier. From China, I hardly know what to think about it. I won't email her over and over. If I were at home, I'd go talk to her. The most important things must be her research and orals. December to February were to be her most difficult times with her grad program. She has to finish her research project and present it, or else she will have to extend her stay in the program for another full year. Just like she says "I will not be the reason you leave China (her first statement in the "space" talk). I will not push her during a time where she must focus on her orals.

 

This is the most difficult a relationship has ever been in my life. I love this girl incredibly. Distance in very difficult and it is made more difficult when you're dealing with a country that is a world away from your own and things are so different yet frustratingly similar. I am now stable in China, know the system and how to get things done - all of which I had to learn on my own, the safety net I had with the company was faulty. No more 12 hour work days, so I can study Chinese properly. A bomb went off in November.

 

I sent her an email from the border of Myanmar telling her about my travels and saying "Do you have even an inkling of how much I've missed you? It's been three months and twenty two days, we shoud be talking." I also mentioned that I had been thinking about her oral exams a lot lately.

 

She replied with a short email saying:

"I am glad that you are doing well, from what you are telling me things are better in China, as far as jobs and travel"

(A bit about oral exams)

"Have a wonderful birthday tomorrow"

 

That's all. It's very distant and I know it's no good. Today makes four months since our only talk. The second day of each month is difficult. I'm not in China to date, I'm here to study, travel, and get the day to day experience for a stronger academic CV. Although I expected difficulties, there was no way to prepare for everything tha thas happened here - the worst (at lease worst feeling) of it has been losing this relationship.

Edited March 2, 2011 by Reisender