Another all too common story of Indian Men's and Womem's behavior
>> Friday 9 September 2011
I was falling in love with him and thought he felt the same way about me. Then in October 2002 I was able to work again in the town that he worked in. We lived in different apartments at that time but were alternating between which place we stayed at. I don't think there were many nights that we spent apart. His family lives in India and I knew that they didn't know about me. At that time it was fine with me because they weren't really a daily part of our lives since they were so far away. He really seemed to enjoy the US and never really talked about India much. Even when I asked him questions he would try not to answer much. I got the impression that he was embarrassed about being from India. Everything seemed to be going really well until december. We were at his apartment when we got a call from his mom saying that his dad had died suddenly. We made him arrangements for the first flight back that we could get and went to my place since it was closer to the airport. I feel like I watched him age in a matter of hours. While he was there in India for the funeral he kept in contact with me. Writing me about how he was feeling and the things that were happening there. My heart was breaking for him to be going through that. We were both in our early 20's at that time. He emailed me that he had talked to his mom about me and that he thought she might agree for us to get married. I was very sad for his family but overjoyed at the thought of marrying him. That on Valentines Day he did ask me to marry him. We went shopping together and picked out the ring of my dreams. I was very excited and started to think of what kind of wedding to have.
He started going into a deep depression. He wouldn't hardly talk to me. He would go days without showering on changing his clothes. He went to work and slept. It's like I watched the life drain out of him. I think that is what changed him. Before that he was so full of life and fun. I should explain that he is the only son in his family. So after his father died that left his mom and his sister living in India. He began to feel very torn. He had a great job here and could provide for his family much better here. In fact he had always sent them money since he had been here. I knew that and was fine with him wanting to help them. With his depression we started fighting more and more. Him saying he should go back to India kept increasing. I wanted him to see someone and get help but he refused. I didn't know what to do for him. I told him that I thoght we should split up and he could figure out what he wanted to do. I told him that I didn't want him to stay here in the US because of me and then end up resenting me for the rest of his life. So in september of 2003 we split up and I moved into my own apartment. I was still in a different state than where I grew up and had not really made any friends here other than him. I knew people at work but didn't really have any close friends.
A month later I got a call from my family. My dad had been diagnosed with cancer. He was having really bad symptoms and they were going to do surgery to remove the largest tumor that was causing his symptoms. He would go to surgery first thing the next morning. There was no way for me to catch a flight to get me there before he went into surgery so I booked a flight that left around 6am. I called my boyfriend (ex at that time) and told him the whole story. He told me to come stay with him that night and he would take me to the airport the next morning. He was absolutely wonderful to me that night. He held me while I cried and kept telling me everything would be ok until I fell asleep in his arms. In the middle of the night I woke up and started crying and he immediately woke up and pulled me into his arms again and comforted me until I could sleep again. While I was home we kept in contact through instant messaging and email. They were going to do radiation to the other tumors in my dad and then they were going to do chemo. His doctor told us that they would treat it as best as they could but this would be what he would die from. I started thinking that he had never been able to walk me down the aisle for my wedding and that he would never see my children. I began to undertand what my boyfriend had gone through. I remember thinking that at least I was having the chance to say goodbye to my dad and make sure I told him everything I always wanted to say. And when it was time for me to come back he picked me up at the airport and again I spent the night with him and he comforted me again. It was like we had never been apart. I had to decide if I wanted to leave my job and go back hom with my family or not. I hated thinking that my time left with my dad was limited and I didn't want to miss any of it. But I also knew that he was going to go for chemo and that it would make him really sick. I wasn't sure if I could watch him go through that. So I decide to wait and figure things out.
The next month in November I got a call from my family again. His case had been presented at a tumor conference and there was surgeon that was willing to operate and remove the remaining mass. This would increase his chance of survival. Without the surgery he would die from this. With the surgery we were told he would most likely get more time and that there could possibly be a chance that he could recover. The surgery had been schedule in 2 days and they wanted me to come home as soon as possible. So I booked the same flight time that I had a month before and called my ex. He said of course I could stay the night and that he would take me to the airport. That night was just like the night a month before. He was great again. And again he picked me up once I got back from my trip. I still wasn't sure when I came back how long I would stay here. He still wasn't sure what he was going to do. We didn't get back together but we definately kept seeing each other on occasion. It was easy for one of us to pick up the phone and call the other and say we wanted to see each other. So we occasionally saw each other. I knew that he was seeing other people but I was too. Then in June of 2004 I realized we were both still here and that I loved this man and that I wanted to be with him and only him. We continued to talk and email or chat and sometimes see each other and I just became more certain that I wanted us to try again. He was still feeling pressure from his family to move back to India but he repeatedly told me that he didn't want to do that. He would call me and ask me what he should do. One night on the phone he started crying because he didn't want to give up his life here. I told him that I wanted to come over and see him. When I got there I told him that I wanted us to try again. He said that he had been seeing someone (with my same name) and that it wasn't serious. I told him if it wasn't serious to call it off with her. I told him that we had a past together that we needed to figure out. I told him that I hadn't been able to move back home with my family because I couldn't stand to leave him here. He agreed that we could start seeing each other more often, which we did.
One night while I was over there he got a call on his cell phone and the called id said it was his work calling. When he answered I could hear it was a girls voice. He glanced at me very quickly and said that he couldn't talk right then. After he got off the phone I started asking question. What was he hiding that he couldn't say in front of me and who was that? He admitted it was a girl that lives in India. He had transferred his office calls to his cell phone. She was someone his family wanted him to meet and get married to. He said she was pretty and nice and his family really liked her. We talked about it and he said that he didn't know what he wanted to do. He felt that he should marry her to make his family happy but that he didn't want to just move back and give up his life here. I told him that it was fine with me for him to keep talking to her and getting to know her as long as he kept seeing me. I told him to give both situations a try and then make a decision. So I thought that was the situation that was going on. In late November 2004 I got another call from my family. They had found a new tumor in my dad and wanted to do surgery again. This time it wasn't an emergency and they set it out about a week and a half in advance. So I made the travel arrangements and was going to spend the night with my boyfriend and him take me to the airport again. The next morning when the alarm went off I got up and was in the bathroom getting dressed when I noticed there were several condoms in the trash that I knew we hadn't used. I woke him up and confronted him about it. He admitted the other girl that he had been seeing had come over and that he did have sex with her. It was not a pleasant trip to the airport. I was devastated. He had told me he wouldn't see her again and I had thought we were trying to work on things. I trusted him that he had been telling the truth and he had lied. On the way to the airport he pulled the car over and tried to hug me and I pulled away from him. He kept apologizing and said he wouldn't see her again and that we would work on things and that he would make everything ok. I told him that I was very hurt and would have to think about it. I barely said goodbye when I got out of the car. I sat in the airport waiting for my flight and crying. He called my cell phone several times and I couldn't bear to talk to him. I cried the whole 4 hour flight back home. I knew people were looking at me but I didn't care. When I got off the plane he called again and apologized and said he wanted to make it alright again. I told him I had to get my rental car and drive 2 hours were my dad was and that we would talk later.
My dads surgery went great and he got out of the hospital sooner than they had predicted. I had gotten approval from work to be off a month. He and I talked frequently during that time. He promised me that he was not seeing the girl in our town. He was still talking to the girl in India and I was ok with that. He kept changing his mind about what he wanted. He would say it would be good for him to marry her and make his family happy. Then he would say well maybe we could get married and he could travel back and forth between India and US. In fact that was his idea. That he would spend some time with his family there and then come back and stay with me for awhile. I told him that was fine with me. That I made good money at my job and could support all of us. Then I could take time off while he was here. There were some nights we both agreed that was good. Other nights we would argue about him marrying the other girl. I can't tell you how many sleepless nights I had that month. I guess that was really when my depression started. If that nights phone conversation went bad then I would lie in bed and cry for him. I literally ached from the thought of not being with him for the rest of my life. A few nights before I was to come back I called him. While talking to him I heard a girls voice on his end. I demanded to know what was going on. That other girl was there. I told him to get her out now. He said they were only watching a movie. I told him I didn't care what they were doing but she needed to leave now. I heard him say something to her but couldn't hear what it was. Then she left and he stayed on the phone with me for a couple of hours. It was a lot of me yelling and crying and him apologizing. I talked about hopes and dreams of our future and asked how he could throw that away. He said that he wished he wouldn't. By the end of the conversation I was still very hurt and confused but I knew that I loved him and wanted to be with him. So I flew back to him on New Years Eve and stayed with him. I was so upset at that time about finding out that she had been at his place. I admit my thinking may not have made much sense back then but I was terrified to go home because I wouldn't know if she was at his place or not. I basically refused to go home and told him we had to figure out what we were going to do. One night while he was sleeping I couldn't get to sleep so I was going to do something online to distract my thoughts. I think I went to check my email and he was still signed in to his. I found many emails from the girl in our town that told me just how much time they has spent together in December. That night he had assured me that was the only night he had seen her since I had been gone. Well since most of the emails were forwarded back and forth a few times I got confirmation from both sides that he had been lying. I was able to get both girls contact info.
I went in the bedroom and woke him up by yelling at him. Once he woke up enough to figure out what had happened he started apologizing again and promising not do it again, and that he would be with me, blah blah blah. Each time I would try to think of life without him I just wanted to die. I am not sure how things went so bad in my life to get me to all that. I knew that if any of my friends were putting up with what I was that I would do everything possible to get them away from the guy but that didn't stop me from letting myself go through it. I did send both of girls emails. I also got emails from both. The girl in our town contradicted a lot of things he had told me. She said that he didn't tell her to leave that night in December. She said she got mad listening to him lying to me about it and that she decided to leave. She said that she hadn't talked to him much since then and didn't really care to. She said he wasn't the guy she thought he was and that she didn't even care to be friends with him anymore. Yet I later came to find out that she still chatted with him online for a few months after that.
Even more interesting than her was the girl in India. She wrote back saying that she knew about both of us. That of course he had told her he wasn't seeing the other girl anymore and that he told her I wanted to get back together with him and that he couldn't get rid of me. She informed me that she thought he was still in love with me and that he talked to her about me a lot. She encouraged me not to give up on him. She said that she would love for us to get back together. She explained to me that she was not interested in getting married at that time for her specific reasons. She also said that she thought I truely loved my boyfriend and she would like to see us back together. She became a great friend to me and would often give me advice and encouragement. I continued to see him occasionally. Then he planned a quick trip to go there. His family had set it up with her family that they would meet. He told me that if she didn't agree to marry him then he would still want to marry me. She assured me that she would keep in touch during that time. She did keep her promise. She would go to an internet cafe and email me or so we could chat. When she met him in person she told him the only way that she would marry him was if he agree to stay living in the US with me and let her stay in India with his family. That way she would know he was with me and I was happy and that she would be able to get married and make her family happy. He told her that he didn't want to marry her like that. That if they got married he wanted a real marriage. She refused to give him a real marriage and be a wife in any way but name only. So he came back and tried to talk to her by email and phone to reconsider. Everytime he talked about marrying her he would say she was nice, or his family likes her, she would make his family happy, or something like that. He never talked about loving her or falling in love with her. When we talked about us he would sometimes admit that he loved me but that we couldn't be together or sometimes he would deny that he loved. But he wasn't consistent about it. And I wanted desperately to believe that we would get back together. And I had the girl in India encouraging me to hang in there and not give up and that we would find a way to get us back together.
My boyfriend and I kept seeing each other through all of this mess. Most nights I would spend at his house and soon it came to be that I had spent every night there I considered myself living there. We continued to talk about us and what we were going to do. Sometimes he would say that he would marry me. When I asked when he would say in a year after he got his sister married. He told me that he would have a harder time getting his sister a good husband if he was married to an American. He told me that he would have to go to India and live there for awhile to help his family but then after sometime we could get married. Other times he would tell me to not be crazy and that of course he couldn't marry me. Other times he would say why do we need to get married, it's already like we are husband and wife. He has told me that for us to be able to get married I would need to lose weight. I lost 60 lbs. He wanted me to lose 15 more. I told him I would try. He said I needed to learn to cook Indian food for his family and to learn to hindi. I told him I would. I aked him to teach me to cook things they would like. He only taught me 3 dishes. I asked him to teach me hindi and he taught me a few words only. Then he said there was a hindi learning cd at his work that he would bring home for me but he never did. I found one at the library and showed him what I had learned one night when he got home from work. He just laughed and said what was the point in me trying because his family would never agree to it. It got to be such an emotional roller coaster that I was always stressed. He complained when I would cry at home so I tried very hard to keep it together. In fact it took everything I had to cope with things at home. Therefore my work started suffering. I was so on edge that I couldn't handle little things that would go wrong at work. I just had no ability to cope with anything else other than holding myself together when I was with him. My boss came to me and basically begged me to see a counselor and maybe try antidepressants. I told her I appreciated her concern but that I didn't care enough about myself to get help. I was being honest with her. If I couldn't have him I didn't care if I got better.
At the encouragement of some coworkers I did finally see a doctor and got on antidepressants. He put me on some meds and they were so bad that I couldn't get out of bed the whole weekend. Well my boyfriend went from complaining that I never slept (because of the diet pills to lose weight for him) to sleeping too much (from the antidepressants for him). I went back to the doctor and told him they were not working. I asked if he wanted them back and he said to throw them away. I told him I wasn't sure if I needed to take something everyday or just every now and then when I felt stressed. So he gave me xanax to relax me when I felt needed it. Things continued to be bad. He was still saying different things to me. He would get my hopes up by promising me that he would marry me and then destroy that hope by saying he couldn't. To be fair to him I am sure I was driving him a little crazy since I would ask him almost every night if he was going to marry me. I told him that I kept asking because he kept giving me different answers. He told me he kept giving me different answers because I kept asking and he didn't feel I would believe any answer. But when I would ask well what is the real answer his response would change. One night we got in a big fight. I started crying and after awhile he got really mad about it. I tried to get up and he kept holding my wrist. I waited a few minutes until he relaxed his grip and then pulled away from him. He asked where I as going and I said to take something to relax. I wasn't sure how much you would have to take of something for it to be too much but at that point I didn't care what happened. So I took a mixture of different things I had just to see what would happen. My thought was if I wake up in the morning I will know to take more of each next time. If I don't wake up in the morning he will have realized how serious I had been all along. He asked what I took and I again just said something to help me relax. He told me that I shouldn't be taking any medications and pulled me close and held me the rest of the night while we slept. I woke up the next afternoon feeling very tired and had an extremely bad headache. Life continued on until there was another really bad fight on another night. That time I took all of the same pills but 2 more of everything than I did the first time. I thought I would just keep increasing it each time to see what would happen. The results were pretty much the same. I don't know if he realized what I did that night or if he even cared. He has all of my familys phone numbers. They are programmed in my cell phone that he had access to all the time. I don't know why he never called them and told them how bad I was getting. Maybe he didn't care enough. Maybe it would have been more convenient for him if I had died. At least that is what he thinks now.
II moved everything out of my apartment and into his one weekend. The next day I noticed I was having a lot of back pain. I didn't know if it was from moving or not. My old place was upstairs and so is his place so there was a lot of stair climbing that day. I also noticed that I hadn't started my period and that it was past time. I took a pregnanct test at my friends place but was pretty sure I would already know the results. I found out I was pregnant. I tried to keep it from him but only made it about a week. I was so hormonal and he just kept saying mean things to me. I guess I hoped if he knew that he might be a little nicer. Oh and he was nicer but only to get me to have an abortion. I can't tell you how many times he has asked me to have an abortion. I am currently in my 4th month. He left recently to go to India for a visit and will get back here soon. He has sent me several emails since he has been gone. In typical Indian guy fashion he said his mom found him a girl there that she wants him to marry. According to him she is better than he thought he could ever get there. He says she is really pretty, smart, nice, and he would get a lot of money for dowery. Then he could use that money to get a really good husband for his sister. He asked me if I would give him permission to marry this girl. I told him no. He has since sent me several emails asking this question and I have told him I will not give permission. I am not sure why he didn't just get engaged to her while he was there without telling me because then what would I do? After all that seems to be a recurring pattern with these guys. One of the times while chatting his mom saw he was talking to me and got very upset. The next email I got from him was to say that he was moving back to india for good and that I need to realize we are never getting married and would I please do him the favor of letting him marry that girl? He sent me another instant message and we talked for awhile. He just kept saying that he had made up his mind that he was leaving the US and would not come back here. That would make his family happy and that was all he cared about. He said that it was my decision to not have an abortion and that he wanted nothing to do with me or the baby. He is wanting to marry that girl and has absolutely no plans of telling her or his family about the baby. He said that he doesn't want to talk to me anymore and wants to forget all about us. He asked me a few more times if he could marry her and I said no. He said his family is very mad at him that he hasn't married her yet and that I am only causing him problems by not agreeing. I don't know what he thinks he is doing for me by marrying her. He doesn't know her, or love her, or have any kind of history with her. Yet he still wants to leave me and his unborn child for her. I was crushed to hear that he wants to try to forget us.
I have recently started taking some antidepressants that have a low risk with pregnancy that my OB doctor prescribed. There was one time about a week after I found out that I was pregnant when we got in another fight and I was tempted to take something again but I just kept thinking of my sweet little innocent baby and I knew I couldn't ever do anything to mywelf that would risk this little life. I consider that this little baby has saved my life. I consider the baby as a blessing that has given me hope and meaning to my life. I just hate that the father of the baby is so stupid to give us up. I hate that my baby will miss having a father while growing up. The baby deserves better than he is giving. What do I tell the child when it is old enough to ask why it doesn't have a daddy? I have friends and family in another state which is where I will probably end up moving back. I am not sure when I will go. That is where things get tricky. He plans to talk to his manager when he gets back. He works for a company that can transfer him to india for work. He wants to pack up and leave ASAP. He is on a month to month lease for the apartment so that won't be a problem. His job will actually pay to ship all his things to India. So that will leave me without an apartment and any furnishings. I am hoping that I can get my one close friend that I have made here to let me stay with her. But she actually left this morning to go on vacation for a week. She left before I got up so she doesn't know this latest news. So I don't know what will happen when he gets back this week.
If you think any of this would be useful, have any questions, or comments just let me know. I am really glad that you are putting this book out there and I hope that other girls will read it before they go through anything I have. Maybe I should buy a copy for my child for when it is old enough to read it can really understand the situation. Thanks for what you are doing for girls out there.
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