Freshly broken heart, unique circumstances.

[Mooshka]

I am a foreigner living in Taiwan. I am American and have had one heck of a time with culture shock since I have been here. When I had been here about 4 months I met a man who, for some reason I could never figure out and completely opposed to my personality, I fell in love with immediately.

We spent 9 months together. And for 9 months we had a rocky relationship. 80% of the time it was incredible, but the other 20% was either him ignoring me or me throwing tantrums or both.

About 2 1/2 months ago we got into our first big fight.

He was about to go on tour (he is a musician) and he promised he would spend time with me before he left. He was to be gone for a month and a half, be back for 2 weeks, and leave again for a month.

He promised he would spend time with me before he left, but he got busy and did not. I threw a huge tantrum. He brought me my guitar to a bar after I had been harassing him to return it before he went on tour. When he got there he told me he had to go do other things. And I stormed out without even talking to him. I then called him up and demanded to know why he was with me if he didn't want to spend time with him. I was really vicious and cornered him on the phone. I was awful. He told me then it was over. But I assumed he was just angry. And he told me he would talk to me about it later, but then when we saw each other online he was sweet and told me he missed me, so I let it go.

He did not call me from Canada. Which I let go because a) telephones are very hard with our language issues (to be addressed in a second) and b) it is long distance and he isn't the long distance phone call type. I told everyone that we had broken up but I hoped I was wrong.

When he returned, he acted like the boyfriend I always wanted him to be. So much so that I was worried about him neglecting work to be with me. I was afraid that he would resent me. Then he left for South Taiwan and I told him I would see him in a month. I never asked to go.

About 3 weeks ago he called me and asked me to come. So I took a week off of work to go down and be with him.

When I got there, he did not seem very excited to see me. He was distant, but only a little. I had not slept because of the long bus ride (on bad roads and scary mountain sides) and I was car sick for most of the day. That night we tried to make love and it did not work. He had been drinking and my stomach hurt so the breath made me sick. I was being difficult. And it didn't work out.

The next day he avoided me. Which I know was due to injured male sex ego, but I also had injured ego because i KNEW it was my fault and so that made me angry. The following day he was also distant. And by that night I just felt injured. I stormed into the main room of the suite and went off. I asked him why he had invited me to be with him if he was going to ignore me the whole time. Then I stormed back into my room and hid under the covers. Sadly, I am almost 30 and not the 12 year old I sound like.

He came in about 30 minutes later with a letter and gave it to me. He said he was going to go for a walk. I asked him to stay and let me read it with him. He did.

The letter said (don't make fun of the English, this isn't English speaking country, so given that his English is amazingly good):

"I should say sorry to you. I don't want to keep going anymore. We have different character. That made me feel suffer in pain. I don't want to waste your time. Sometimes I don't like your behavior. I don't want to change. That's you. That's true nature. Just like me, if you feel angry you'll yell to me. I'm a slow man, a jealous guy. I know that will make you feel more angry. I don't want to change.

We had a beautiful memory. Beautiful days. We know knew about the problems between us. It's time to separate. I'm sorry. I'm tired. I think you feel tired too.

So let's break up. It's good to you. I'm appreciative about the past of us. But I don't want to make you feel painful anymore. I've said. I'm not a good person. A right person to you. I'm sorry."

We stayed up until 5 am talking about this. He said many things that at the time I denied and was defensive about, but given time to think I understand.

I was due to return on Friday but he sent me back on Saturday instead. I don't know why. And I tried to not beg but on Saturday just before the bus arrived, he asked if I wanted to go on a walk. I don't think he would have taken me on a walk unless he wanted to talk

So I begged. I told him that I had already been taking some steps to become better. I have started taking meditation classes to control my temper. I have been taking cooking classes because he is afraid of settling down with an undomesticated woman. It bothers him that I am a slob, so I have started to clean my room. And I argued about some of the things he had said. I said that I felt it was unfair that he didn't tell me much of our problems until it was too late. I asked him to reconsider, he said he would think about it for a couple weeks and let me know.

 

His complaints pretty much boil down to these:

1)He works a lot and tours a lot. and i am not understanding about these things. I throw tantrums about not having his time and can be very demanding.

2) His English is poor and my Chinese is poor, so we have problems communicating.

3) He thinks he makes me miserable (which is true about 15% of the time but the other 85% I am in love).

4) I have a bad temper and am not nice to people. (sadly true)

5) We come from different cultures.

6) He feels we can't live together because I am a slob (he says messy. But I am a slob) and he is a very clean person.

7) I am nitpicky.

 

I KNOW I can work on 5 of those. Because I have done it before. But #2 and #5 I çan't.

I want him to give me a second chance. Because I know I can be better. And I never knew the problems were this serious. But I am not sure how to go about getting him to give me one. I don't want him to do it out of guilt. I want to make him actually WANT to let me try.

How?

[downcydeguy]

You need to move on. He's a traveling musician and will never be able to spend quality time with you. If you were content on being a f*ck-buddy when he's around, he'd be ok with that. However, he's gonna meet a lot of girls while on the road and won't want to be tied down or feel guilty for having a good time. Sorry to sound so harsh but it's the truth.