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4wordletter · 5 years

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@say-never - my apologies for taking so long to reply, i wanted to think of a reply. i’ll never dodge/ignore questions and i’ll always tell the truth.

you’re actually the first to ask this but i think your question is still a valid one.

some context:

i first connected with M in 2008. she was the sister of a friend of mine. she added me on facebook pretty much randomly. i immediately had a huge crush on her. i found her fascinating and i’d read her facebook posts but i never talked to her. i think once or twice i commented on her page. i called her cute and i said that incubus were cool. lol

in 2013 i was on my lunch break and i went on facebook. i saw that it was M’s birthday. i clicked a button and i was presented with some options to send her a birthday gift. i sent her a starbucks card for like $5 or something. i found it fascinating that i could give someone a gift from so far away. i thought it was really cool. i thought SHE was really cool.

she thanked me and told me she got a drink with it. we didn’t talk apart from that but i remember the warm feeling in my chest just from that conversation

a year later in 2014 - october 17th to be precise, we started really talking. i had sent her a message asking about my friend (her brother) because he’d deleted his facebook and i didn’t know how to contact him. we were good buddies and i liked talking to him and hearing what he was up to. he’s a software engineer as well and we had some pretty interesting chats despite the fact that he liked to tease me for being a web developer - not a REAL software engineer, as he’d say lol

well M gave me his email and i thanked her. we were friends on instagram at that point and i’d sometimes comment on her pics and she’d comment on mine. just friendly things. she posted a picture of her holding a can of coke. she had a really cute thumb ring that i complimented. we got on well and i liked her a lot despite it only being friendly comments

well, on oct 17 we really got to talking. i was quite shy and didn’t say hello to her first or anything, but she kept messaging me. each time i was pleasantly surprised to see her name pop up.

pretty soon she was the highlight of my day. she gave me butterflies every time i spoke to her. i started saying hi first. i got to know her schedule. i knew she had a baby but i knew she’d be good to talk after 1am my time. my heart would pound with excitement when i got a notification from her. i was well and truly smitten.

we’d have these conversations with such depth. we’d talk about the darkest parts of ourselves. we’d talk about our dreams, our fears. we connected and bonded with each other in a way that i’ve never connected with anyone before. i felt understood, i felt like i didn’t have to pretend to be anything.

she was interested in me and I in her. we genuinely cared for each other and for what we had to say. we moved from facebook to whatsapp. we nervously introduced ourselves. i recorded and re-recorded my message a dozen times. she was so nervous she said she was 3 years younger than she was (which was shyly corrected soon after)

i found her absolutely fascinating. the way she spoke. the words she used. the way she spelled things. i couldn’t get enough. i hung on her every word. i wanted to learn more and more about her. we talked and talked and talked. i’d leave her messages to wake up to and she’d do the same for me.

we’d take pictures from all sorts of things from our daily lives. just regular things like candy or a loaf of bread. she was the first american woman i’d talked to. i’d never been to america before and i’d always been deeply in love with america since i was a kid. everything about the USA fascinated me (and still does)

pretty soon we were sending boxes of gifts to each other. i’d send flowers too. i wanted to make her happy. i wanted to see her smile. i’d write little notes with sharpies. silly little flickbook things with messages idek what.

before i knew it i was so deeply in love with this girl. i’d never felt anything like it in my life. i’d been in relationships but nothing like this. i hadn’t even met the girl but i absolutely adored her.

in june 2015 she came to see me. it was absolutely perfect. thinking back, i’ve never been as relaxed and happy as i was over those 10 days. i cried like a baby when she left to go home. i wept and wept. those 10 days reaffirmed in my mind that she was who i wanted to spend the rest of my life with. my heart had made a choice and it was dead-set on her. i wanted a family with her as my wife.

fast forward to april 12 2016. the day of my flight to go see her. i didn’t sleep the night before because i was so anxious. i felt i couldn’t do it. it felt too “big” for me. i was small and full of fear. i didn’t believe in myself. i didn’t have courage or confidence. i failed. i failed both M and her daughter. i didn’t go.

my identity shattered into a million pieces as i lost sight of who i was. this was my dream, why wasn’t i pursuing it? i had so many questions about myself. i just didn’t understand. i was so lost.

i immediately got myself into therapy. i was so scared of losing M that i had agreed to fly out in july instead. i figured it would be enough time to fix myself.

dead wrong. i felt the weight of the new deadline crushing down on me. it was around this time that i recognized the impact that M’s parents had on her. her mom was telling her so many things about me - that i’d have to come visit twice before M would ever visit me again. her parents were extremely cynical of me and this fed into M’s mindset and it came out when she talked to me. she’d relay everything that her parents said about me

i was trying so hard to recover but i was becoming more and more sick. M was supposed to come in august that year and she said that if i didn’t come in july then she wouldn’t come in august. i believe this was a stipulation her parents made for her and she forwarded it on to me

i was a mess and the pressure to “get better” was mounting to a fever pitch. i wanted to see my girls. i so desperately wanted to see them. there was so much riding on me traveling out there that i buckled under the pressure.

i begged and begged literally on my knees on skype, crying like a baby. i pleaded with her not to give up on me, not give up on us. she wouldn’t come in august. she’d made up her mind and her parents backed her up. she said even if she wanted to come, her parents wouldn’t let her.

i was devastated. anxiety was a thing of the past, replaced by pure darkness, pure depression. i desperately wanted to die but i was so fucking furious with myself that i wouldn’t give myself the satisfaction of an early death.

no. i would do this. i would not sit back and let my life slip between my fingers. that’s not who i am.

i lost my job. i was laid off by the company. completely out the blue. they’d said they were making cut backs but i never thought i’d be one. i’d just started. surely it wouldn’t be me.

it was me. right in the middle of all this shit, i was canned. no severance package because i’d been there less than a year.

i have no words for how any of this felt. i have no idea how i survived. i spent so long on autopilot. i had lost everything. absolutely everything.

M’s parents cut me off from E, her daughter. she’d no longer call me dada and i wouldn’t get to see her much. M would have to sneak her laptop upstairs so i could see E (if you read the Happy Birthday post then you’ll know how much E meant to me)

i still had contact with M although she had stopped saying she loved me or anything like that. i swore to her that i’d come see her. i swore to god i wouldn’t let it end like this.

i got a new job within a couple weeks of losing my old one. it was a godsend.

with my first paycheck i bought tickets to go see M. i felt God at my core. i felt so strong. i felt like i could do anything. i felt that, no matter what, God would carry me through anything. i prayed so many nights in tears on my bedroom floor.

things with M and myself were turbulent. she had no faith that i was coming to see her. i didn’t blame her. she was angry with me. really angry with me. i didn’t blame her for that either because i was angry with myself as well.

december came around. i woke up, got in the car, went to the airport and got on the plane. i was going to see my girls come hell or high water. i woke up that morning and there was no hell nor high water. just pure, peaceful clarity. a shining, sparkling reality that i’d never seen before.

i felt relief before i even left the house. it was like i’d already done it. i was so happy. i was so thankful to God that i felt this way. i felt the expanse of the whole world in my heart. as if...i was just a part of the world. how could one part of the world be afraid of another? i felt like i was meant to be alive. meant to be here. i felt God in each breath, each breath of pure, cool december air.

i looked back on myself and smiled at how fearful i was. how small i was. i’d let fear run my life. with the newfound strength i felt, all the past versions of myself didn’t make sense.

i was so sure M was the one for me. after this journey, after all we’d been through, i’d never for one second lost sight of her. my heart was still absolutely set on her, absolutely resolute and steadfast. i’d marry this woman.

M knew i wanted to marry her. i knew she wanted to marry me. we’d looked at wedding dresses together. we’d talked family plans. we’d looked at baby names. i was giddy at the thought of her pregnant with my child. a baby brother or sister for E. i was so excited. these girls were my world.

in december i went to church with M and her family. the sermon was about abraham and isaac and sacrifice. it was about identifying what the “isaac” is in your life, and do you have the faith enough to sacrifice?

M & E were my isaac. i went to M’s parents and talked with them. i confessed just how much i truly loved these girls. i told them they were my isaac. i told them i’d be back in february and they gave me the green light on asking M to marry me. they said they were very happy with how i treated M - they laid out some provisions about me getting a job here etc. i told them i’d speak to my boss about working from the USA

during the week i felt a strange sort of energy coming from her parents, almost as if they were apathetic towards me or didn’t like me. i felt like they didn’t want me to spend time with E. M wasn’t allowed to stay with me during my stay and i felt like M always wanted to be home with them. i didn’t think about it too much, i was just happy to be there

i did come visit the following february. i went with a diamond ring. i’d felt M out to find out what sort of ring she would like to wear. i got her finger size (well, she went to a store to have it measured to be sure). i felt so happy and proud that i was going to ask this lovely woman to be my wife.

the energy that week was just...off. in ways i can’t describe. i felt the apathy/disdain coming from her parents was way more intense than in december. they really didn’t want me to spend time with E and this time, M was spending way more time with them at their house. again she wasn’t allowed to stay with me

M spent a lot of the week crying. she would be in a restaurant and go to the bathroom in tears. i felt so lost and confused that i was in 2 minds about asking her to marry me.

i sat down with her parents once more just to be sure. the energy was completely different once again. they said they hadn’t had a chance to talk to M about it in the past 3 months since my last visit. i felt they had a lot of anxiety, a lot of fear. i think there was a lot going on behind the scenes that i simply wasn’t aware of. i think they had conversations and talked about a lot of things i didn’t know about

M talked with her parents but she never really said what they talked about. she said they didn’t trust me and were cynical about me and worried i was in the scottish mafia and was using M for a green card. in december i had said that, even if i had to work at walmart, i’d do any job to support my girls. this was obviously hyperbole which i used to indicate my level of commitment but they took it very literally - they complained to M that i couldn’t support her and E with a walmart job

there was an extremely mixed message and i had a lot of internal conflict because of M’s parents. i felt they were muddling her mind. M said i had the go-ahead to ask to marry her. her parents never said anything to me the day after they talked. i thought they would give me the go ahead directly but they didn’t say anything about it, almost like no conversation happened

i didn’t want to disappoint M, not again. i wanted to show her my commitment. i wanted to show just how much i loved her. i wanted to prove my loyalty to her and E.

we went to a lovely place called Easton where there was a fountain in the town square. it was picturesque. after having afternoon tea at american girl (for E), i got down on one knee and proposed to M in front of the fountain. she said “oh god” in such a fearful way but, i think after choking back the fear, she said yes. i slipped the ring on her finger after giving her a little speech about how much she and E meant to me.

i felt happy yet...conflicted still. M seemed the same - happy but conflicted. her brother was happy for us and sent message of congrats. all her FB friends congratulated her as well as she posted her ring online that night

she kept monitoring for her parents liking her fb picture. they never said anything. neither online nor offline. they didn’t say anything at all. they didn’t acknowledge our engagement in any way. we went out for dinner that night and we didn’t even talk about it at all.

it was clear by this point what was going and why M was so upset the whole time. something was going on behind the scenes that i wasn’t ever privy to.

i felt like an outcast. i felt unwelcome. i just wanted to go home. i was deeply upset and confused. i didn’t know what was going on. M’s parents didn’t want me to see E on the last day before i went home. they kept trying to come between us

before i left i gave her parents a bunch of flowers. although my time there was very confusing and upsetting i wanted to show gratitude for them opening their home to me. in the car M said it was good that i was taking the high road. i didn’t really know what it meant but now i do.

when i gave them the flowers it was only then that M’s dad extended his hand to me to shake mine. he said “welcome to the Angles family” - i was stunned. i didn’t expect him to say that. i nervously said “that would be amazing” - lol

i was even further confused. were the flowers really make-or-break? what was happening here? i couldn’t figure it out at all

well, i hugged them both and went to the airport and went home.

over the next couple days i was super jetlagged and tired cuz my flight was delayed due to storms and i don’t generally sleep while traveling so i was in a haze

M didn’t talk to me. something was up. she said she talked to her dad the previous night. he was saying things about how i deceived him and that i never told him i was going to ask her to marry me. i was so confused. i had asked him twice for M’s hand in marriage. i tried to resist the accusations but it didn’t go well and M got really angry.

we were using an app called life360 so we could each see each other on a map (kinda like the snapchat map). it was my favourite app because when i missed M i could look at the map and see her moving around her city. i’d be able to say “aww she’s at the store” and things like that.

M said that her dad told her to delete the app because i was using it to manipulate her. i was so confused and upset

this was all happening at a rapid pace and i could barely keep up. i couldn’t keep my eyes open at work and i was really struggling to mentally process all these things

she blocked me everywhere. on every app we used. facebook, everything. i emailed her

once again, i look so pathetic and weak. this was just a day after i landed back home. so utterly lost in confusion.

some back story for the next part:

in december (the month of my first trip) M started getting emails from what seemed like a computer virus or something. it said that it had her iCloud backup (or something like that i don’t remember) and that unless she paid X amount the icloud things would be made public. it sent these emails on christmas day and it emailed her work email address

i helped her secure her email account and set up a password manager just to be sure that no one had access to her account. i felt kinda useless but it was the best i could do. it really ruined that christmas

not long after i landed back home in february those emails came again but more aggressive. it started emailing fragments of private emails to her contact list including me and her parents and her brother

i’ll never forget when i called her in confusion trying to find out what was happening. i wasn’t thinking of the emails too much, i just figured it was some dumb kid who had guessed a password or something and was trying to make money by threatening folks

M told me i was a “prime suspect”. i remember the silence that came after as i tried to process this. M’s parents had convinced her that i was behind the emails, that i was targeting her and trying to hurt her

at that point there was no going back. they really ran with the email thing. her mom went through all her things in her room and made her throw out anything associated with me. i had gotten M a book that was inscribed to her in gold lettering. her mom was furious she had it. she made her throw out absolutely everything and get rid of me out of her life

M did. she was threatened with being kicked out. if she didn’t comply she’d be kicked out with her daughter.

M’s mom sent back her engagement ring. she chose the cheapest service to make sure it took the longest amount of time to get here. this woman really, really hated me and i will never know why.

i think M was conflicted. i know that she didn’t believe that i sent the emails. her parents were insistent that it was me. the blame fell square on my shoulders

a couple months later M’s parents went to chicago and she could be herself at home. we skyped for the first time in a long time. i got to see E. we played music together. we had a really fantastic weekend just on skype. we were both happy and relaxed. i recorded some of our jam sessions and put them on youtube because i had a few songs up there already. it was nice to have M involved and she played piano beautifully

i had a little video page on my tumblr where i’d put links to my videos. i put M on there. i was proud to have a little song with her. besides that, i wanted to show her that she was still important to me.

her mom found my tumblr page. she was furious. she saw the videos we made. she was livid. at this point M had signed up for college and her parents were using that as leverage to get me gone - she couldn’t “talk to boys” while she was at college. her mom stalked my tumblr watching my every move

she’d make comments about me. initially my tumblr was quite christian. i’d reblog messages of love, peace and hope. they really kept me going during these dark times. her mom saw this and called me a fake christian. i think you know me well enough now to know that my love and faith in God are by no means fake - especially not after december. i would have no strength if not for God

M’s mom (maybe) hired a private investigator. she wanted to track down everything about me. she must have gotten my tumblr link from my facebook page. she found a tumblr that M used to have. where we used to talk to each other.

i used to have a page called “thoughts about M” where i’d post cutesy lovey-dovey crap about M. with the distance involved, i missed her a lot. i needed an outlet, a way to show affection. there’s only so many times i can say “i love you” - this blog was for me to express that

M’s mom found that page too. she was furious. M was really upset and asked me to delete it. pleaded with me to delete the page. so i did. a year or more of “thoughts about M” gone at the click of a button all because her mom said so

this is okay, maybe 10% of everything. her parents went on to do a lot more.

the reason i still talk to M is because my heart overflows with love for her. not romantic love, but love nonetheless. i watched how her parents were. i’ve seen what they did to her. i’ve seen first hand the things they make her do. i saw them manipulate her into thinking i was an enemy. i saw them make her send her engagement ring back and call off her engagement. i saw them fill her head with bizarre fears and anxiety about mafias and all sorts of things.

M is just as much a victim as I was - if not more so. I got to move on. yes, I’m seriously damaged by this whole experience. yes, it’s possible I’ll never trust any woman or her parents ever again. but think of M - she knows what her parents did. she knows what they’re capable of now. she knows how cruel they were and how violent the things they did were. believe it or not, i wasn’t the first one they tore from her arms and i won’t be the last.

no. i have to see beyond all this. i know M on a deep level. i understand her mind and i see her darkness. i know what she’s up against. i do not blame her for what happened. she is not at fault. M is my best friend and always will be. our bond will always be there regardless of what her parents think or say. not a romantic bond, but a bond between two humans.

this story is truly heartbreaking, but not just for what happened to me, but for what happened to M. how heartbreaking to have your mother send your engagement ring back. how heartbreaking to hear your own parents fill your head with schemes of mafias. how heartbreaking to have them destroy your relationship so needlessly.

M is a soft and delicate girl who never deserved this to happen. she deserved to be treated with love and respect and nothing less. she’s a lovely person, a great mom, a great friend, daughter and sister. I’ve always maintained this. I am, and always will be, proud to be her friend. for better or worse, we’ve weathered a hell of a storm. we’ll never be together but that’s not the goal. I’ve learned a lot from her, and hopefully, her from me. she was my first “true love” - she means the world to me even if we never speak again.

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