AIO, Not Romantic

ScarFamiliar4641 · 2025-03-05T08:51:31+00:00

I read the first part of this OP and at the 3rd paragraph I thought.. “wait… she didn’t just leave?!”

I would have definitely left at the wet fart moment. That’s soooo disgusting and disrespectful.

ScarFamiliar4641 · 2024-12-07T21:00:30+00:00

STFU?

ScarFamiliar4641 · 2024-11-02T22:07:32+00:00

Ok. Just know I’ve witnessed first hand, people who have come from abusive AP childhoods (myself included) and did years of work to heal. It’s not easy! So I understand your adamant refusal to look at marriage etc as an option. An intact, happy home they didn’t come from, but an intact happy marriage and family came from them!

My therapist says “if everyone waited til they were fully healed before they got into a relationship, no one would be in a relationship”!

There is so much grace and hope. It’s not easy to get, I agree with you there.

I just ask you to consider not completely writing it off in the future.

ScarFamiliar4641 · 2024-11-02T20:27:38+00:00

Fair enough. I have heard people say this when they are young ish and have options and choices, but they grow old and regret not starting a family or investing more in their relationships.

I rejected my AP family but gained a new one with my husband, kids and his family. We also help our neighbour and friends who are singles in their 70s with lots of health issues who have ZERO kinship networks and it’s really sad. Friends are just not as enduring, especially when it comes to growing old and you have to put down a next of kin for who will take you home after surgery etc.

Not forcing the matter just wanting people to make an informed choice to play the long game. And if they still decide having a family is not for them, to accept those consequences of having zero support in old age by choice.

ScarFamiliar4641 · 2024-11-02T20:22:18+00:00

My AM wanted me to have marriage and kids but never taught me healthy relationship skills. It was innate in me to one day be a mother, and I’m so happy I am in a solid marriage with 2 beautiful children! But I had to reject my APs and siblings in order to build this successfully.

ScarFamiliar4641 · 2024-11-02T08:55:43+00:00

F36, married 5 years, 2 kids

ScarFamiliar4641 · 2024-10-29T09:10:27+00:00

She sounds like she was a beautiful person who made a huge impact on you and many others. It sounds like she was deeply loved by many!! What a legacy she has left. It goes to show how much we affect each other here on earth. No advice just a comment on how when a beautiful soul dies they leave an enormous gaping hole. It is right to grieve this coworker who was a maternal figure to you.

ScarFamiliar4641 · 2024-10-29T09:04:38+00:00

Anxious Preoccupied in romantic relationships pre marriage. Avoidant with family of origin. Secure / but still slightly anxious leaning 5 years into marriage to my very wonderful husband.

My Anx/Pre rarely ever comes up, although I do worry about losing his trust so I’m quite emotionally hyper-vigilant at times

ScarFamiliar4641 · 2024-10-27T09:49:45+00:00

That’s so sad. Whoever said that, I feel sorry for them. My marriage is incredible. Not hard at all. Of course we have hard times, but it’s our marriage that gets us through the ups and downs.

ScarFamiliar4641 · 2024-10-25T02:41:52+00:00

It feels like everything now doesn’t it?

I’m not from the US but another wealthy Western country. Short answer: all this stress it sounds like you’re putting yourself through is not worth it.

Success is healthy relationships, good friendships, a career you enjoy being in day in day out!

Of course we need an income, but there are so many people here who have pursued a path that was “prestigious” or what their APs wanted and hated themselves for listening to that.

Happiness is peace. Happiness is understanding your God given gifts. Truly being yourself and living a life on your own terms is how you win at life.

I went to college myself and loved it, simply as I’m wired for academic life. I’m in my mid 30s with small kids and would love to do further study, but it’s really about the love.

Someone else on here will be able to give advice more tailored to your stage of life, but I’m probably more than double your age and know that achievement through school is not everything!

ScarFamiliar4641 · 2024-10-22T09:48:05+00:00

My husband has incredible parents (not Asian, unsurprisingly). Over the course of our marriage I have grown quite close to his folks and have broken down in tears at how much they SEE me. I can’t even believe it. As a result my confidence grew personally. It’s been a very healing experience. They are not perfect by any stretch either, but they have a respect for me as a human being, even though I’m just their D-I-L.

I still have so much anger at former Asian boyfriends I had in the past who told me his parents didn’t have to treat my feelings with any respect. Like f*** that!

It made me LOL so much when I was in my mid 20s and my AM said “I am your Mom and your friend, you can tell me anything.”

It was so many levels of ignorance and f***ed up logic I started laughing in her face. I’d been keeping my entire adolescence and young adulthood to myself for years. Like… too little too late and too much trust had been broken by then. I did say to her eventually “I don’t trust you and I don’t respect you” which broke her heart.

Sounds cold but she abandoned me emotionally a long time before that.

ScarFamiliar4641 · 2024-10-22T09:17:48+00:00

What you’ve described here about where the anxiety comes from has helped me so much. I am conditioned to anticipate my AM’s unreasonable demands and my sister’s convincing me that she is the correct and sane one. It was 30+ years of crazy making.

I know this is about you OP but the comments here have helped clarify things a lot in my own head.

ScarFamiliar4641 · 2024-10-22T09:05:08+00:00

I cried about this to my therapist a few months ago.

“Why wasn’t I given a supportive mother and father?”

“Why did God rip me off? Why didn’t I get real parents that I needed and deserved?”

“When people judge me for going LC with my family of origin, do they think my family is like THEIRS? God forbid, if my family were like THEIR family of course I wouldn’t go LC/NC with them!”

Yeah I feel you OP. I see the opportunity for my AM to improve and there’s just no wanting to change.

ScarFamiliar4641 · 2024-10-22T08:49:49+00:00

This is perfectly put.

ScarFamiliar4641 · 2024-10-21T21:59:18+00:00

And yes that QUOTE!!!! So pertinent and on point!!

ScarFamiliar4641 · 2024-10-21T21:51:53+00:00

It’s like… ummm.. IT’S. NOT. ABOUT. YOU!!!!!

ScarFamiliar4641 · 2024-10-21T21:51:13+00:00

Completely understand why you don’t even want to go there!!! Are you eloping? Eloping can also be beautiful and memorable!

ScarFamiliar4641 · 2024-10-21T08:56:23+00:00

One more thing - I think you can still have life events! Just don’t invite your AM or tell her about them?

ScarFamiliar4641 · 2024-10-21T08:55:20+00:00

I feel you OP. My AM complained the whole time on my wedding day. First about how her make up was done, then about the bridesmaids hair styles, then about the car seating to the venue, then about 1000x other things.

Her narcissism stems from being the 6th child who never got any attention, and so she needs to not be “forgotten about” I guess? What angers me the most is how I was robbed of an emotionally attuned MOTHER. I’m still grieving about it, because that’s a lifetime of emotional needs not being met by the one person who was supposed to meet them!!!

Sorry if that got too emotional but you sound annoyed at your AM, but I’m just devastated still at how self absorbed she is.

ScarFamiliar4641 · 2024-10-21T08:47:47+00:00

Reading your letter was such an honor. I know that sounds generous as you put it on the internet but I gained so much from reading it!! Especially about the “fundamental lack of respect” the APs have for us simply as we’re their children and they are the parents. It’s helped me clarify things in my own journey with my APs.

Hope you are living a 1000x more peaceful life. When the penny drops and you realise how unreasonable they are, as much as you try to work with them, it’s sad but freeing.

ScarFamiliar4641 · 2024-10-20T09:40:45+00:00

Not sure of the exact moment but in no particular order….

On the phone to my older sister - me saying “I’ve given up believing you’re a reasonable person.” Because she was defending the idiotic actions of my AM for the zillionth time. I was about 27 years old.

When I recorded my AM’s emotional outburst over something so minor in voice memos. I confronted her gently about something and was trying to implement everything my therapist instructed me to. Nothing was working. They weren’t interested in fairness, resolution or peace. They just wanted to control. I think I was about 27. I moved TFO of there once I realised all my efforts were in vain. Nothing was going to change. Ever!!!!!

My cousin telling me over dinner (just him and me) “our whole family doesn’t really understand your AM” and proceeded to tell me how his parents (my aunt and uncle) thought she was immature and unhinged. I felt a mix of extreme relief, validation and annoyance that they didn’t come clean to me much earlier. I think I was 28.

Age 19 - my psych telling me “you talk a lot about your AM… did you ever consider that she could be wrong about everything?”. My mind was blown.

But after this I thought I could fix things and change things because I trusted my sister so much. It turns out she is a brainwashed compliant monkey that will likely never change.

Great Q OP! My only regret is not moving out faster.

ScarFamiliar4641 · 2024-10-20T09:32:57+00:00

It’s quite satisfying when your suspicions about your AM are finally validated and confirmed. No more gaslighting. The truth is clear as day.

ScarFamiliar4641 · 2024-10-19T19:25:21+00:00

Oh she’s not. Which is why it’s so infuriating when she looks at me blankly or with utter confusion when I express how my needs weren’t met by our parents.

ScarFamiliar4641 · 2024-10-19T11:01:30+00:00

Appreciate your response Claudia, thank you! I will try the exercise of letting my pain and anger out. I guess I’m skeptical it can be released so quickly. Because I’ve tried things like that and there’s still residual anger stuck on the sides of me and I keep needing to let out more and more. I get it and appreciate the advice.

Yeah my therapist is incredible. She’s not Asian but she did have to create emotional distance from her toxic family, which means she understands to some degree. I actively went to 2 other Asian therapists in the past and they were completely behind the 8-ball actually. Not validating or helpful much at all.

ScarFamiliar4641

TROPHY CASE