Let's talk.

I do. And I love the train thread I started too. X

 

I broke up with my girlfriend.

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For me, the initial hardship of my girlfriend leaving was understanding my role as a fiancé needed to end.

We had decided to marry and would do so after bringing her to the United States once she graduated college...

But Muslim women are not permitted to marry other religions. And Muslim men can only marry two others; either Christian or Jewish. Those are their three options...

As a result, I initially was frustrated. Her family simply would not accept me. And ultimately, it would be up to her father to decide. She confided that there was no chance of that. He is very strict and wouldn't permit such...

We decided that we'd do it anyway, but I intermittently would mention that I wanted to meet her parents, and eventually that I wanted to obtain her father's blessing...

Sometime late in the spring I indicated that it was not appropriate for us to elope. We both agreed and decided with very heavy hearts and tears to dissolve the engagement and our plans to immigrate her to the United States. Soon after I began to feel very strongly that I was truly losing ground and began asking about converting to Islam... would it help? Would her father then allow us to marry if I were Muslim?

To those who have a strong opinion about 9/11 or who oppose the ideology because it isn't Christianity, it sounds at first glance alien. And to anyone who knows me, or has seen me write here they know my family is very Catholic. But my family has a unique dynamic (without going further) that makes my religion intolerable and I decided long before saying "convert" to abandon "organized religion", as you may have noticed me discuss.

And so, the idea of it was very attractive to me. I was interested; not only because of the marriage, but because it offered a spiritual venue removed from my impressions or opinions about the direction mainstream organized religion has taken in the United States.

So, I told her that with her support, I would convert and ask her to marry, and started to give myself little tangible points of reference to remind myself of my willingness and devotion to God and to the relationship, its seriousness, and her; and her spirituality and intrinsic values as they pertain to a marriage in which we would be if not involved casually observant of religious themes, holidays, and customs.

She didn't take me up on it, but it continued to be an ongoing theme.

At some point in July, I asked her "What's wrong?". Things had been on the decline for us for a little while. She had been more quiet than usual and I was feeling like I had to ask for attention more than I wanted to... It was uphill. And I wrote in an email several possibilities that I thought were, well, possible. One of them I asked about was if her family had asked her to marry someone.

Her family asked her to marry someone.

For the last part of July and the entire month of August I've known we would be saying goodbye. Her cultural identity requires her to begin acknowledging too her relationship with her fiancé; now someone new.

It was a nightmare for the last month deciding that she was spending time with someone new and seeing photos with subtle signs... She had moved on. She had to, but part of me died. My heart was broken, and it will not heal...

Before the wedding ceremony I messaged her with congratulations and wishes for success, prosperity, and happiness. I gave her my explicit permission to consummate their marriage and explained that although it damages me in a way that's difficult to fully understand, that I understand this is her life.

She stands now with her mother and her sister who are also married. Together they are strong and that is how I understand it.

 

With all due respect, I am glad it is over. I only wish you gather yourself and steadily move on. Trust me bring trapped in dysfunctional marriage is much much worse than a failed dating/relationship

Best regards

 

I find myself so often crying! It's unusual... I've never cried so much. I miss her. And I know she's in the process of starting her life and a new love and romance with her husband.

It makes me a little sick when I see people who are callous to what others are going through, honestly... The amount of heartbreak and sincere sorrow is too immense to bear or make sense of, and I cannot leave my bedroom. I cannot face the world and its terrible violating insolence... I can't see which way is forward and it's so much like a prison and a punishment, really.

My truth and my humanity have been erased... the only thing that matters is gone, and now all I can do is pray for mercy. I hate everything

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I went through lot of similar pain and it all ended like what seemed like success. But looking back it is not worth at all. But no matter how much I care and tell you, you are not going to listen to me. Like how I never listened to my well-wishers. So go and torture yourself. It will eventually make you what you will be.

Regards

 

I'm glad you care, but as you understand this pain is more than I can withstand. It is a sobering and bitter torture and I do appreciate any understanding. I will listen to you, but consolation is chicken soup for the soul; not sage wisdom from people you don't know well. I don't know if I can ever trust a person again, let alone someone I haven't met. I certainly appreciate your interest, but solitude is my new truth, my curse, and my final remedy, not critique and correction. I'm not interested in discovering myself or finding new answers to questions I stopped asking 20 years ago.

I understand well enough what has happened, and I will need your help to deal with it though.

Agreed, but no on torture. It is torture, but I certainly wouldn't do this to myself if I could help it. In terms of being or becoming, no... I will not be using this as a turning point, but rather an inflection point to grieve and understand as best I can that someone who meant a great deal is gone. I will never forget that woman, and sadly I know she has moved on to something I cannot fabricate or hope to offer.

Thank you, and thank you everyone for understanding. Without the site, I don't know where I would go or who I would tell.

 

So sorry this happened to you, it was cruel, personally I don’t see what’s wrong with people of different faiths being together, we are all climbing to get to the top of the mountain, people are just taking different paths to get there, if your paths cross and you fall in love, you can continue to the top together. We are Hindu but if one of my children brought home someone of a different faith, as long as they are happy and good to each other, I’d be happy too.
IMO god is not a Hindu,Muslim,Christian, god is none of those things, god is the whole universe and everyone and everything in it. To reject and insult someone of a different religion is to reject and insult god himself.

 

I'm not a believer, but you have wisdom , Nooka.

 

I'm weeping and having to let go of my ex-girfriend (ex-fiance). I saw this picture of Meghan Markle and Serena Williams and immediately I thought of the relationship in my own abstract way. I thought of her new life and I thought about how she will have a baby soon with her husband and how it's nice for her to have that. I don't feel left out and really the hard thing is letting go.

I took very very good care of her, and for the last 800 days we have always talked with very few exceptions. And I've never cared so much about anything. We were always long distance, and always by email, or WhatsApp, and I visited her in-person only once. I saw her sister in my area (which is extraordinary... they aren't from the United States, this continent, or a neighboring one!).

I can only relate to a parent who has seen their child graduate and marry, honest to goodness I'm not exaggerating... But I was also romantically attached and though the hurt of my loss is beginning to fade, these emotions have their origin in a very firmly established love and a compassion that comes from being a provider and a protector. And I cannot protect her anymore... And I can only provide for her in a small, more practical way (I had helped her financially, and now I don't want that to characterize what we have; we'll continue to be friends).

I am in such a state... I don't know how to describe it. I worry whether she understands everything that's happening. I wonder if her husband talks to her enough or what about.

But my thoughts are moving forward and away too. I think about my life in California more. Nightlife... activities, etc. Maybe I will get a master's in accounting.

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"power never gives up anything without struggle"
but "power" doesn't EXIST without support.

taught both of that in school, always wondered
so why not just peacefully, passively, not support it, instead of everyone beating their own heads against it?

i know we rely on social organization to create and maintain infrastructure
but there's nothing visibly inherent in that which requires it to take the form of hierarchy.

democracy is absolutely preferable to fascism, but there are other possibilities, maybe infinite of them..
the nuts on jan 6th would have been just as unhappy if they had gotten what some of them still think they want, as the rest of us.
but real indigenous cultures got along just fine without them too.

i'm a believer in a sense, though not in any one brand name flavor.
instead in the goodness of the reality of the diversity of the possible
in the goodness of the unknown being unknown
in goodness and the desire to feared being absolute binary opposites.

nothing to stop there being spirit stuff that owes nothing to what anyone thinks they know or believes.
i believe i the ghosts of cats, and coyotes and foxes and most living things, just like us.

 

I have missed so much whilst traveling.

Big hugs to you all. x

 

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So sorry, I missed Soul.
He WILL find LOVE

 

Planning my next travels.
Always book well ahead to save money.
Never use a travel agent.
I call them Rip off. Com

 

You can be our travel agency!

 

On the contrary Candy darlin' - in these uncertain times, booking through a travel agent can secure your money in the event of some disturbance or other in the place you are travelling to.

BTW - I hope you enjoyed your Irish break, but am disappointed, notwihstanding you like history, that there is no photo of the Central Post Office in Dublin.

 

Not if you pay by credit card.
That covers that.
There is a photo of the Post office.
Showing the bullet holes.

 

I obviously overlooked it Candy darlin' - my apologies, I'll go back and take a more detailed look.


And in answer to the other point, I don't possess a credit card !!!