javismiles Posted June 5, 2014 Posted June 5, 2014 (edited) It's been 5 weeks since the breakup and one of the things that has helped me during this time is reading this forum, all of you, so i thought today i would tell briefly my story, days are hard, ups and downs, sometimes feeling better and more confident, then down again, maybe i can find a bit of light here, maybe others in here have gone through similar intercultural long term relationship issues im 41, and my relationship with my ex-gf lasted 5 years. We lived almost all of it together so really it was like a marriage although we were not married, but had become engaged 5 months before breakup Our first years were awesome in every way, except for one problem that always existed behind everything. I'm a western man and she is a muslim girl (both her and her family living in usa (different city) ). She is very intelligent and open person and tolerant, like any of us, but her family that's a different story, close minded, intolerant, very traditional, wanted her to marry another muslim etc etc Well, it's a long story, but to quickly summarize, in the past she had had another relationship with a western man which caused huge mess with her family. So this time she didn't have the courage to face the parents and the relationship was hidden from them for years. But because we were really happy together, eventually we decided to go for it, become engaged and we were about to face her parents finally, when things broke. I realize that the foundations of our relationship had cracks in them from the beginning, this cultural difference. Unfortunately we never thought about this issue until the end of second year or so. At the same time i was always hopeful that we would be able to go around the issue, after all we were really happy together. Many friends now tell me that this is better for me in the long run. That if i had married etc her family and the cultural differences could have caused me a lot of pain in the future. Maybe that's true but of course now it's impossible to think that way. Maybe in a year, but not now. The stress of having the family issue in the background, kind of a double life, had started to affect other parts of the relationship in the last year or two. At the same time i noticed changes in her. She used to be so enthusiastic about everything i did, my work etc, but that started to change and she didn't care as much as before. I went in christmas back to my country to see family and father who was quite ill at the time and was away from her for a few weeks. When i returned, shortly after, typical pre-breakup signals started to appear, she became more nagging about little issues that never mattered before, distancing started to appear in some areas. Despite of that, signals were contradictory. She renewed with me the lease of our flat for an entire new year. She bought together with me tickets for a holiday in a month's time, she told me about speaking to some of her relatives to influence her family in our favour etc. So because of those things i assumed the other signals were related to job stress (which she had a lot) or just a bad phase. Mistake. I was too naive. It's funny how despite all my past experience, i was really so blind, because i was too comfortable or happy or too much into the relationship and was unable to really see what was happening. (also last months i had too much work and i was too focused on work probably also) Well, eventually days before the holiday i asked her what was going on and she broke up. In a very radical way, no second chances etc. Which unfortunately made me go into the typical pathetic cycle of asking for another chance, writing emails, etc etc which of course made things worse until she started to ignore all my communications. After 1 month of pathetic depression and trying to make her change her mind (total mistake i know), i started NC 5 days ago, and thats it, since 5 days ago i dont contact her. Reading through this forum and others was like waking up. The pity is not having done this reading the day after the breakup or the weeks before. But that's life. Fact is i know now there is nothing to do and i have to focus on rebuilding my life. 5 years is a long time. It takes time to stop idealizing this person and to accept that one has to restart from zero again. Also the breakup affects all other areas in my life, its hard to motivate myself to keep working at the job and im considering leaving job and country and go back home, financial issues arise as well, etc, etc 3 days after breakup i made the mistake of meeting with her to ask her more details about the reasons why she broke up. This is a big mistake and many will agree. She took an emotional decision and if one asks for logical reasoning what happens is what happened, she starts to pick reasons from everywhere she can and specially she tries to rewrite history to justify the decision, really it's a process that hurts and goes nowhere. Later on she apologized for that but the fact is that as many people have said closure is not about her, it's about us. She will never give me closure, and things are too complex and often answers simply don't exist. Yes there were some financial and compatibility issues that she talked about, yet these same issues were never a problem in the past and furthermore in all those issues i had progressively got closer and closer to her, basically i was about to reach stability in those issues when breakup happened. The real reason could simply be that not just her but maybe also me had been losing interest in the relationship. And there is some truth in this. Because i know that lately i wasn't myself as motivated by the lack of common interests we had (this was a recent problem because she had lost interest in many of our past activities), i wasnt either as motivated by the fact that she wanted to move to live to a different city i wasnt really interested in, or she wasnt at all proactive in learning new things and enriching her life , whereas that has always be the engine of my life. And yet, i loved her and love her more than i loved any other girl, because despite of those things she is the most generous, caring and sweet girl i ever met and our conversations, travels and times together were deep, rich and fascinating. but in the end , it all comes down to one thing. We can't force people to love us. If she stopped loving me, for whatever reason, there was not much i could do. ok in the first days i could state my intention to work together with her in fixing any problems we may have , and i did that, but beyond that there wasn't much more to do. So i regret having spent an entire month chasing after her to change her mind, big mistake. I now will try to have no contact, the sadness continues and will continue for some time, but i try to repeat to myself that life is short, that we all deserve to be loved, that despite being 41 it is still better to start again than to continue with a person that doesn't really love you anymore. Mornings are the worst. Often after these 5 weeks, afternoons and evenings are sort of ok, but mornings are very very hard. My problem is that we had moved to a house in the middle of nowhere pretty much, and my family and friends are far away from here. So i'm totally lonely now here. I work mainly from home, my studio is here, so until i finish my current contract i have to stay in the house where we used to live together, whereas she moved with a friend. In 2 months after finishing my work, i will move back to my country for some time and she will return with a friend to this flat. In the meantime, i try to focus on work, and pass the days best i can, try to overcome the loneliness and sadness and try to regain self esteem and confidence. When she met me and fell for me i was a super confident and outgoing guy full of self esteem. I know that i have to get back to who i was. I know i became too dependent on the relationship, 5 years is a long time. Well, slowly, day by day, i will try my best thank you for listening Edited June 5, 2014 by javismiles write better title
Snakechammah Posted June 6, 2014 Posted June 6, 2014 I'm sorry to hear what happened. Sometimes people start taking each other for granted and loses their attraction over time. I am surprised that she agreed to cohabit with you without being married, being a muslim and all. If she was open to non-muslim things, I wonder why the opinions of her strictly-religious family would matter? That's a little hypocritical at her end. If you dont practice what you preach, why do you expect others to comply? Most muslim girls look for compatiblity in values and would mostly prefer someone to convert for them. Resentment builds over time if they feel they are sacrificing religion for love. I dont know what your ex was thinking, but do remember should you fall for another muslim girl - that religion plays a big part of their life whether they admit it or not. All the best!
Elle1975 Posted June 6, 2014 Posted June 6, 2014 God only knows her reasons. Might be the culture difference, might be that she didn't love you anymore, you didn't make enough money to raise a family, who knows? I find that marrying someone from a different culture mainly causes problems for the children, not the parents. I know a bunch about it as my mom is actually a muslim by birth and my father is catholic. So where did I belong? Nowhere. In the end, I found my place. I'm catholic, and that's it. Anyway, it's just to give you a little bit of a perspective, as I have "been there". I have always said I will never have children with a man from a radically different culture, because of the identity issue the kids will have to go through. To me, you dodged a bullet. I know.. I will get under fire for saying that. Its' fine. It's just my personal experience. You seem to be emotionally very grounded. I hope you'll get back on your feet easily enough. And don't hide a relationship from now on. It was indeed very unstable ground to begin with.
Author javismiles Posted June 11, 2014 Author Posted June 11, 2014 thank you very much Elle1975 and Snakechammah for your great insights, yes this makes a lot of sense, i know i maybe dodged a bullet and that more trouble could have been ahead for me, because of the cultural differences, (the comment about the contradiction that Snakechammah said is also something other friends have said, and yes it was kind of contradictory, thing is she tried to stand up to her family in her previous relationship and it was a disaster, they stopped talking to her for years, so looks like this time around it was harder for her to do the same, she was more scared of doing the same and more cautious) of course it takes time to see this, 5 years is a long time and they were happy years so yeh, its been 6 weeks since breakup and i couldnt avoid emailing her more, till she ignored my messages and now she seems to be annoyed with me (whereas right after breakup she was sweet, caring and all was good), so i know i made the mistake of contacting her instead of going NC, but having friends and family far away, and being isolated in this area made it very difficult for me; on the other hand seeing how cold, detached and now annoyed she has become, hurts a lot but helps me see a pattern of communication issues; right after breakup she herself told me " email me anytime ", and " we can be friends " , and she never stated otherwise afterwards until suddenly she started ignoring my messages and then became annoyed ,but just like before breakup, she never actually communicated anything to me, she just took action; maybe this is normal but in her situation (and i have been the one to initiate the breakup in other relationships) , i would try to put myself in the shoes of that person i used to care for so much, and i would have above all tried to be gentle and caring and made my best to finish in good spirits, not bitter, i had actually sent her a message to apologize for previous messages, tell her that i accepted all 100% and that i was ready to talk as friends anytime, but then she became annoyed and asked through a mutual friend for me not to contact again so well, im sad that she seems to be annoyed/bitter now, all is left for me to do is to cut all contact and try my best to slowly heal, she is certainly not anymore the person that used to love me so much, she is now somebody else, and i will try my best to move on and accept that and i do wish her happiness and to find her love and peace, i really do, i just couldnt avoid the past 5 weeks, sending her yeh maybe 12 or 13 emails in the past 5 weeks, maybe 5 or 7 smss, well, it was hard not to, 5 happy years, i mean, im not a rock, im a human being, i did my best, yes im not as strong as i used to be, i have to work on myself again hard times ahead, will try my best thank u for listening
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