# Reflection



## oceanbreeze (Oct 8, 2007)

Hi everyone, 

I happened to look back at the last post I composed in November 2008 and all the problems I was having with my fiance. How clouded my mind was and what was I thinking and the stress of completing undergraduate school and planning/or not a wedding now or later. And all the problems I had with my fiance. 

After that turmoil, in December, my fiance got kicked out of his house by his father. And within 5 days (at the age of 24) had to grow up to be a man. To value his job, the things he already has, to let go of a lot of material things and unhealthy habits and what was really going on. 

All of a sudden, a change happened in him and in months, I saw a slight transformation. He began expressing feelings about his family and all of it full of anger towards them. One second denial, the next realization (always forth and back on this). 

He began to look back on his upbringing and let me in on a lot of his thoughts and feelings and how it was for him growing up. 

At one point, in mid-January, I was at the point to quit the relationship because he lied in desperate need in gambling to have enough money for the wedding. He came in contact with the absolute wrong crowd in which he owed $ 6,500 or his life threatened. He paid it off quickly with his grandparents' help even though he lied that it was in the name of the wedding. A confession was made to them and they were not surprised, since they basically raised him since he was an infant. 

At that moment, I put our relationship on hold for a month. I continued the wedding plans, having in mind the 3 month prior to wedding date cancellation process just in case. Since that situation, he has not been in my good graces and the trust is not there. 

With the help of my mom, we went and saw our church pastor/therapist (these are both his professions) and he is helping to counsel us prior and after the wedding. Since that and also attending Catholic bible study (we attend both Christian and Catholic service/mass) he has turned to the bible and reading about God more. 

His unhealthy habits of gambling stopped. His masturbation to pornography, I assume is the same. o.0 oddly enough. His smoking increased and the lying the same. Guess that does not sound so great. His lies anyone can see through with so I always know what he's really saying. 

And since his being kicked out, his family fought for months for us not to wed and now finally backed off just a tad bit and are still going on with instigations. But since his being kicked out of his father's home, his mentality shifted a bit from being under his families' control to a self thinking individual and still fully listening to his family, but not always going along with it. 

Of course the things they say do hurt me a lot. I still do not understand why they have such a bad impression of me. Or why in one way they look up on me, but at the same speak of me with instigating and evil intentions behind it. Guess what hurts is that even though I am choosing to marry a fool, I do not know if he stands up for me. He says he does, but I know he does not want to too much in order not to push them away totally so just in case he ever needs them (because they are all financially established) he can still turn to them no matter what. 

Anyways, in the past month, there has been this guy for my family's life insurance agent who has been coming to my house often to sign everyone up while the deals are still good during this economy. He's 28 and lives in an area where one studio costs $3000/month and despite him knowing as we have talked about my engagement and wedding planning, he still wants to pursue me. I like him, too, and he is genuinely a very good person, his heart just shines through that my family already loves him more than my husband-to-be and it's kind of funny, because in way, I was torn for a while. 

A guy who has genuine characteristics, knows my family ethnic, cultural, and genetic history and still accepts it all. Whereas the guy I am with just took him a while to accept that if we have a darker child due to my several of my ethnicities, it would take him time to accept. 

I struggled between a guy who is looking for marriage, knows and would support my goals, understands my family and is open from the nano second he walked through the door. Or a guy I am with for 9 years now and is still growing into a man (he is 25 since last month march), still struggling within in himself to be his own man or listen to his family to dominate me and invest into their financial households with the money we are both working for. Even though, I knew that guy would have been perfect, my heart still settled for that fool. 

Still, we have some problems now that his family is instigating but with the help of the Pastor, a lot of things have been looking for the better. Of course, financially...it is not. Our sex life is going negative 500 km/hr as we decided and agreed on abstinence until after the wedding, because I really could not give myself to him for months anways since I am mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually drained from working full-time, squeezing in errands, and planning the wedding with my mom and last sister by ourselves. It was completely exhausting and draining, that I have no more energy to share with him. 

And inside, when I see him, I feel love for him, but at the same time resentment. Resentment, because after all these years when I talked with him for us to financially work together he did not saying the only condition is that I help give money, also. But I was using that money for tuition and books to pay for my education. While he lived for free from his father and made $4k a month easily, spending it on useless crap, videogames, and shopping, and gambling. Some of that has changed, but I am still wondering if part of him is only doing it for the wedding and/or part of him is doing it because of survival that our rent and bills cost now $2k and that he has been laid off twice in March where he had to touch PTO twice and now resumes a full time position that is not promised because it could happen again. 

He talked the other day about his feelings. How things have changed for him and that before he was late to his job all the time and early to everything else, but now is early to job and late to everything else and all I could say was that his priorities have changed. His survival over leisure with family/friends & spending matters more than anything. 

On my part, I am struggling with leaving at home and joining my fiance as one. And I have had resentment because I think if I had to work this hard for a wedding, I might as well could have given it to my single working mom and last sibling (the others are over 18) to get them out of our financial funk and debts. If I had to work this hard for or with a man, then part of my resentment comes from believing now that it does not seem worth it anymore. That my first family means more, because no matter what he will always have his family to back him up and my family are still newly immigrants trying to establish themselves that came here in the 80s (his family came in 1906). And I do find myself being upset thinking that it just isnt worth it anymore and maybe it just shows because my fiance has decided to work more overtime (I am not able to since my job is set at 9-5:30 at rate/hr at a childcare) and he works from 8am to 9 pm M-F, along with the fear of last month when he got laid off twice and they would call him back for 2 to 3 days work per week. He seems to be really set on this wedding and having me as his wife, despite what negatives his families say. And it shocks me, since he confided in me that he does believe what his families say. 

So again, I am back to square one again, but now it may be too late. The wedding in June and 2 months before I would still have to pay all of the vendors since they each have a 3 month prior quitting date or maybe postpone it and just never let it happen. Part of me feels resentment towards him and anger, and part of me feels happy to marry the good part of him. 

I love the guy, but he is a jerk and that is when I think really do think of the nice guy he used to be or the all of the nice guys out there who are great genuine persons of the similar upbringing background. Thinking of this makes me wonder if I am only marrying a phantom of the guy who used to be, not the guy he is now or the guy he is trying to change to be, but I believe with guidance that we can make it. I just always thought and felt we would have a really good life together.


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