The great question in life is not whether to be or not to be.
At least not in the world of relationships.
Rather, it's whether you can change a person or not.
This issue was discussed in SATC and it is usually discussed from a girl's point of view so it takes a more specific form of: can you change a man? But I'm sure there are boyfriends who are dying to change their girlfriends. So I write here in a gender neutral form.
But for the sake of the conversation -- and since I'm a woman -- let's say the person in question is male.
I'd never actually consciously felt the desire to change my past boyfriends. Not because I liked them just the way they were but because I saw no need to stay with them and try to change them. The thought of trying didn't even occur to me. Of course I was young. I wasn't afraid of commitment but I wasn't particularly interested in it either.
With my current boyfriend, I'm overpowered by the urge. I love him dearly but there are some things that just rub me the wrong way. He's not the type of guy I normally date (and my parents, at least my mom, disapprove of him explicitly) so maybe this is the natural course of the relationship. I get infatuated, fall in love, and since I see so many obstacles in the way I attempt to change him to fit into criteria more acceptable to my parents and thereby putting myself more at ease.
And I constantly ask myself whether this is an endeavour worth embarking upon. Is he just another guy with which I enjoy a transient love affair or can I seriously contemplate on a future with him? I've always been pessimistic about sustaining this relationship up to the point of marriage. So what am i to him? What makes me so important that he should try to change?
Since I cannot answer these questions my attempts have been passive-aggressive at best. Would I change for him? I cannot answer this either. It would be very hypocritical (not to mention selfish) of me to ask him to change while I myself am reluctant to do so.
My psychiatrist told me not to worry myself about the future. But how can I not? Robby Burns even wrote a poem about it and mused that mice are of the better fortune than humans because they need not worry about the future. I was raised and conditioned to think this way for the past 23 years of my life. How can I simply change that?
Sometimes I think that I should share these thoughts with my boyfriend.
And then I realize there are things that I should discuss with him and things that I shouldn't; this belongs to the latter.
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Show me the money
I haven't been writing because a) I've been busy and b) I wasn't sure if I want to wallow in frustration and hate again by spewing emotional trash on my blog. It did occur to me that that was the very reason I created this blog but sometimes even putting down in words what's going through my head hurts me. I often wonder what goes on in other people's head. Sometimes I feel like the degree of mental anguish I go through can only be found in Faust. (I haven't read Faust but I think it's an appropriate reference here.)
I'm trying to save up money and it's not easy. The fact that my boyfriend isn't exactly financially better off than I am doesn't help the situation. And bills bills bills. I managed to cut down my expenses and yet it's still not enough. Thanks to the pills I'm not subject to any burst of emotions anymore. But I feel stuck. Now it's more like they're suppressed. This is better than crying for no reason at random points of the day still.
I always fall for tragedies. Wouldn't it be comical if it turned out that I actually enjoy pain.
What hurts me now the most is the fact that my dad wouldn't cut me any slack. I received a psychological examination a few weeks ago and it cost me about $300. Because it was a health-related issue I figured I could use the credit card that's connected to my dad's account (issued in my name but it's kind of a joint-account deal). I don't know what provoked him but he later demanded that I pay him back.
For the first few months of my working at this firm I paid my parents monthly rent. If my calculation is correct I paid them about $1500. They didn't exactly respect my independence and autonomy and also because others told me I was paying them too much, I decided to pay them less. My dad told me that I don't need to pay them anything. To this day I'm not sure if he meant it in a spiteful way and I was supposed to do the opposite of what he tells me. But I need(ed) to save up.
So right now aside from housing, food, and other costs that my living with my parents incurs, I'm financially independent from my parents. My mom mentioned that dad considered me ungrateful -- which I already knew. But according to mom I wasn't grateful for the fact that I had a credit card that I could use.
I must admit that I didn't see that coming. The thing with that credit card is extremely complicated. My dad had mentioned to me when I was in Canada that he put aside some money for me: money that he would've given it to me as occasional allowances if he had been living with me in Canada. He instead put that money into the stock market and made some profit. He liquidated the shares and made a savings account which he used as a collateral for getting a credit card.
I can't be an objective judge for this matter. So technically it's ALL his money that made the issuance of my credit card possible, but he had intended to give it to me. Legally speaking there's no proof that the money was implicitly given to me.
My dad is always more of a dick when he feels that money is tight. We're still maintaining the level of creature comforts to which we're accustomed in Canada so I'm not really sure what IS going on exactly in this house financially. He wouldn't disclose these things to me but he scolds me for every little thing imaginable so I'm left in the dark. For instance I didn't know why he was especially ticked off about my refusal to pay as much rent as before (of course no one would like it if they were told they would be paid less) until mom told me that he had opened up a new savings account after hearing that I would pay them rent.
All this! Why wouldn't he tell me all these things? He cuts out the middle and gives me the remaining crap. I'm not a kid anymore, nor am I his subordinate.
I'm beginning to think that the person who should be receive the benefits of modern psychiatry is my dad, not me...
I'm trying to save up money and it's not easy. The fact that my boyfriend isn't exactly financially better off than I am doesn't help the situation. And bills bills bills. I managed to cut down my expenses and yet it's still not enough. Thanks to the pills I'm not subject to any burst of emotions anymore. But I feel stuck. Now it's more like they're suppressed. This is better than crying for no reason at random points of the day still.
I always fall for tragedies. Wouldn't it be comical if it turned out that I actually enjoy pain.
What hurts me now the most is the fact that my dad wouldn't cut me any slack. I received a psychological examination a few weeks ago and it cost me about $300. Because it was a health-related issue I figured I could use the credit card that's connected to my dad's account (issued in my name but it's kind of a joint-account deal). I don't know what provoked him but he later demanded that I pay him back.
For the first few months of my working at this firm I paid my parents monthly rent. If my calculation is correct I paid them about $1500. They didn't exactly respect my independence and autonomy and also because others told me I was paying them too much, I decided to pay them less. My dad told me that I don't need to pay them anything. To this day I'm not sure if he meant it in a spiteful way and I was supposed to do the opposite of what he tells me. But I need(ed) to save up.
So right now aside from housing, food, and other costs that my living with my parents incurs, I'm financially independent from my parents. My mom mentioned that dad considered me ungrateful -- which I already knew. But according to mom I wasn't grateful for the fact that I had a credit card that I could use.
I must admit that I didn't see that coming. The thing with that credit card is extremely complicated. My dad had mentioned to me when I was in Canada that he put aside some money for me: money that he would've given it to me as occasional allowances if he had been living with me in Canada. He instead put that money into the stock market and made some profit. He liquidated the shares and made a savings account which he used as a collateral for getting a credit card.
I can't be an objective judge for this matter. So technically it's ALL his money that made the issuance of my credit card possible, but he had intended to give it to me. Legally speaking there's no proof that the money was implicitly given to me.
My dad is always more of a dick when he feels that money is tight. We're still maintaining the level of creature comforts to which we're accustomed in Canada so I'm not really sure what IS going on exactly in this house financially. He wouldn't disclose these things to me but he scolds me for every little thing imaginable so I'm left in the dark. For instance I didn't know why he was especially ticked off about my refusal to pay as much rent as before (of course no one would like it if they were told they would be paid less) until mom told me that he had opened up a new savings account after hearing that I would pay them rent.
All this! Why wouldn't he tell me all these things? He cuts out the middle and gives me the remaining crap. I'm not a kid anymore, nor am I his subordinate.
I'm beginning to think that the person who should be receive the benefits of modern psychiatry is my dad, not me...
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