Sorry for writing so much, and I think that if you spare a couple of minutes out of your life to read through and answer me, you will make a huge difference into my life.




Okay, I have wondered about this for a long while and I have asked this question for a lot of different people, getting really different answers and I need some down-to-earth advice because I just don't want to ruin my life for this. I will be appreciated if some of you read through everything I write, and I will try to be reasonable and unbiased, because I want real opinions and real answers. I also try to analize things in a thougtful and psychological point of view, to understand who people actually are.

Background:
I am Brazilian, 18 years old today and I moved to California with my father two years ago, so he would go into a study program for two years and then I would move back to Brazil for college. I started going out with this girl over an year ago (dec 2007) and I had an instant connection with her. I have had another really amazing girlfriend on the past, so I can assure you that this is not the kind of feeling that you have on your first relationship, but I also should let you know that I am the kind of guy who runs after girls, not because I am just stupid, but I guess I have a really low self-steem when it comes to myself.

Her:
Well it was a true, mutual love, for a long while, she had 3 boyfriends in the past, and all of them ended up being abusive or just didn't even know how to treat her well. We were deeply in love in every single aspect, we fought like everyone does but I guess ALL of our little meaningless fights ended up with a happy ending. We always got into consent, when I knew I had done something bad to her, I would get back to her house and apologize, even late at night, and she would do the same, even though she didn't ran after me that much, or made a lot of effort to be with me. I have been raised as a feminist kind of guy, so I know how to treat women well, but I feel like I am being played around lately (I will get into that in a moment). I know there are a lot of girls who would die to be with a guy like me, even though I quite can't see it. I was always good to her, she was always first on my lists and I honestly say that I would always choose the option who would favor us instead of anything else. She has been raised in a 5-sister family, so the idea that she got from her sisters is that she deserves to be treated as a queen, I think. I mean, she does really try not to be like that, but I guess that deep inside that's who she is, the kind of woman who can find any guy she wants and make them do everything for her. She is flirtatious when she needs something out of a guy and she knows that her attitude always made me upset, but at the same time I think she knows none of the guys who droll over her would be as good as I am to her.
When I look back nowadays, I see that both of us messed up and both of us had our let-downs, but for example, with my other GF, I never tried to imply that I wanted to be with her forever or for a long while. We were just kids, I am still way too young to decide that. I mean, even being a feminist and the kind of guy who wants to do a lot for a girl who deserve, at the same time I consider myself down-to-earth enough to not fool myself with these perfect dreams, but with her it was different. I had a connection so strong that I know many married couple would be jealous of, and I think I will be able to find someone with a stronger or more meaningful connection in the future, but I just don't want me and her to end as a "could have been".
Well those were amazing times, she was into me, she was more into me to the point she would NEGLECT her own origins and run after me and care after me like no one else did, even though there was not that much of an effort from her part. For example, I can be single and not care if I am single or not, but she has ALWAYS been the kind of girl who likes to be surrounded by guys who care about her. So I guess her interest in me wasn't always 100%, but I would say something like 95%, or something extremely high to unconsciously change the way she thinks and sees guys around her to be focused on only me. I also should state that she has had a very hard and abusive past. She has self-mutillated herself dude to depression and been put into a rehab, but I think that she never talked to an thoughtful counselor and I think that it would have made a large difference on her. I can also see some slight symptoms of ADD, bipolar disorder and ADHD, but she has never taken any medication or anti-depressants. I don't think she has any of these disorders, but I wouldn't doubt that. I am also the kind of guy who would try hard to work around these problems.

The problem:
Well my other background, about my family is that they never really seem to support me, and I only realized that now. I left her and the US in January, and I promised her that I would be back soon, to go with her to a community college. But without my parent's and family's support, the college neglected my application because I didn't have enough funds to attend it on my own. I was going to live in a friend's house until this summer and then I would figure out what to really do for the next year. That was my initial plan, and she always had a big importance to me, not just because she is or was who I really wanted to be with, and I was willing to run after it, but also because because I wanted to do so much for her, I conquested so high personal and professional things that I never thought I would do on my own, without an incentive like she is to me.
So I left. The first weeks she was good to me. We talked online, and she has had a long distance relationship before and so have I, and it's NOT what I want to have for us. But I see it as just a "phase" and that better times would come by. At least I would be able to see how hard she would do for me, how much effort she thinks I deserve, and having a long distance relationship is not something easy at all. Well, the FIRST bomb was that the community college rejected my app as I wrote. Well what to do now? How would I get a visa to go back if I wouldn't be able to do anything? I worked around that. I had an older tourism visa and I could spend three months in California and she could come over in summer to Brazil and I would figure out how to attend the college on the fall (as I still plan to do as I got a company to sponsor me). Well sure, I had some money on my family savings account and it was a good idea, but the "phase" got longer, to the month of April. Another thing that happened on the meantime is that we started fighting and it was getting hard to be on a relationship like this. Relationships are not supposed to be hard, they are supposed to be fun. Anyhow, she started to be jealous of Brazil because she thought that I was having a blast here, when I would spend hours and hours trying to work these problems out. All of my friends here started studying too and it got harder for me to hang out with them. And of course, I got jealous too. I am not the kind of boyfriend who tells his girlfriend NOT to be with her friends, I DO want to see her happy, but when she started ditching our daily conversation to hang out with friends and started HAVING parties while I was gone, it really made me upset. I don't know if I was stupid and overprotective on getting upset or if I was too liberal, but it got to a point when I was ing annoyed and I thought enough was enough. I asked her for a break (not broke up with her, I asked for a break) and she ended up breaking up with me because she didn't want to deal with a break.
Well I guess we spent a whole week not talking to each other and I decided to call her because I didn't want things to be like that. I remember I woke her up at seven in the morning or something like that and she was half-asleep, and the first thing that she said was "thanks for calling, I really love you and I really miss you". That gave me an unimaginable strength and it made me happy again, because I knew she loved me even though things were the way they did. That day we talked again later, and well, she kind of shocked me on the conversation. She told me a lot of things, how can I say? About jealousy, true love, and her "soft side", things that I knew she felt but I knew that she would never have the courage to tell me. She cried that day, but I felt REALLY REALLY special because she was finally able to torn apart ALL of her "hardshell" built by her family relationship. It was a good conversation to me, and I think it was for her too, even though she cried and she said that she "never wanted to feel so dependant of someone", or "never thought she would love someone more than herself". But what shocked me was that she said something like "please, please, take me back, I never wanted to do this to us, and please don't be on a break with me anymore, because I want to try as hard as I can", and I felt amazing about that, of course I said yes, but I guess when she said that she realized that she didn't want to end up like this and well, basically that's when I started to wonder if she has bipoler disorder. In a matter of 10 seconds, she said she didn't want to take me back, it was a mistake, and she got really cold. Well okay I guess. She made me upset but on the next day she apologized to me (not asking me back though), and we kept going on like that, I think the most I spent without talking to her after that was a couple or three days.

Next problem:
Well, to make a longer story short, as I told you my family never supported me, my mom ended up being another owner of my savings account (as I was a minor when we started that account, she had to sign me up), and she basically froze all of my funds. That weren't many funds, but enough to get a plane ticket and even spare a lot, but now all the money I could possibly get was gone. Well, I need to admit myself too. I lied to her. I lied to my love. I told her I was going back for her when I had NO CLUE on what to do to go back for her. I lied about dates a couple of times and I KNOW I shattered her heart by doing that. I really feel miserable about that and it is probably one of the things I regret most in my life. I have messed up too, I have lied, because I didn't want to end up hurting anyone from my family too, I decided to take longer and try to have a more blessed departure (even though that was another mistake, I believe that family is supposed to be a life-long bond and to support indefinitely, so this months have also been hard to me, and I have changed my idea about them for life too). I have messed up and I regret doing that. I even bougth a plane ticket (with my credit card who was also linked to my mom's) because I knew she wouldn't be able to pay without using the money I had saved for myself. I never thought my parents would be this selfish.
So yes, I lied to her, I messed up, I thought more about my family, I thought I could make everyone happy, I put her AFTER them all, and the biggest mistake of them all, which is the one I regret the most out of my life: I did NOT get into the plane because I thought my mom would change her mind and decide to support me from then on. Oh I was wrong.
We kept talking. We kept fighting. Things got worse, but we did have our good times. We did have new promises, we did make more effort to talk too. We grew up with all of those problems. Even though she decided not to take me back because she was doubtful if I was ever getting back (even though in one way or another, loving her or not, I left a lot of my personal and professional belongings in her hands). There were times where she would become completely soft again on the phone and cry how much she loved me and how she would do ANYTHING to make things better. She said I was the guy she wanted to get married with, she said she could see us living together and more depthful stuff. I mean, she is NOT the kind of girl who would cry or do so much for a guy, and I know that she waited so long for me and cried so much for me because she truly loves me or loved me back then. But those were just times, times when she decided or changed her mind in order to be nice to me, in order to be POSITIVE instead of pessimistic and try to look forward to things, even though she is not that kind of girl.
And I kept trying too. I had a professional project about building guitar pedals to sell to people, as a hobby, and I turned that into a real home-based company in order to obtain money to be able to see her again and work things out. I think that at this day, the company means a lot to me, but I can easily say that 80% of the effort I put into it was a consequence of our love, it was a consequence of my will to fight for her so hard in my life, so in one way or another, I am still getting good things out of this experience and bad things too.
I also should state that I always believed she was waiting for me. I mean I never even had a single moment of wondering if I should be with someone else. I do check girls out and like that of course, but I had so many opportunities, when girls who I had old crushes in actually asked me out and I said that I was in love with someone else. Not just because I thought it was mutual, but for the SIMPLE and MERE fact that I LOVE HER and I just didn't want or need anyone else at the moment.

Result:
Yesterday its been four months away from her. When I promised (both to her and to myself) that I would be back in a month in a half. I solved all of my currency problems, and I found out ways to not depend on my parents or on the money they decided to keep from me and I have a plane ticket for next Wednesday, may 27th. I planned to surprise her and I could see everything working out perfectly again. I changed my opinion about my family and I decided not to care about what they want for me anymore, because if they couldn't support me for something (in my honest opinion), so irrelevant to their personal interests, I should never want anything from them anymore. I hope to have their support and home when I need, but I HOPE and I PRAY never to have to ask them anything anymore. It has been REALLY hard for me to deal with these changes on my life and I think it has been really hard for her too and I can see that. But now everything is settled in my mind. I have a new company going on really fast and I hope to work things out, I am very thrilled about it. I have realized (when I came back to Brazil), that I have so many friends who actually care about me here (not that many actually, but I know who I could say are my REAL friends). And everything was really getting better to me. Last week me and her made vows to each other (by the way, she has hidden a lot of stuff from me over these past months, not stuff that would matter to me and influence our relationship, but stuff about herself, and I DO understand why she hid it from me, and how difficult it was for her to end up sharing these things with me, but she did lie sometimes in the past), the vows were the main relationship vows, also because I was losing my ability to trust her over these few lies she came up with. Both of us promised to "believe undoubtfully" and "be honest no matter what", to me, the main things about a relationship, honesty and trust. Well, to me, after this day in last week, things were perfet than ever, even though I guess that was one of her "soft, lovely" days and she has had a couple of "I hate you, I deserve better" breakdowns after that, but nothing I could forgive and forgave her about. Things were perfect, I planned a surprise for this week, until everything came down to me.

The BOMB:
Well, I never ended up making real friend over that period in the US. I can say that I had some really good friends, and people who really meant a lot to me and I mean a lot to them, but never the real kind of friendship. I think this is a cultural thing, since most high-school students leave for college and don't end up being close to their real friends, so no one really gives a value to true friendship before college. That's how I see it. But she was my friend indeed too. She was the only real connection I made. I know (well, my high-school in the us had a LOT of different ethnicities, and people didn't really go out, or party, or even interact like here in Brazil). It's another cultural thing. Silicon Valley, a lot of different people, you get the point. Well I can say that now, I probably made a difference to dozens of people's lives. I met guys with NO friends at all and by a couple of months they would be having fun with all of the other guys with no friends, because I introduced them together. Not just me, but me and her, we were a good team on that, we made a difference into their lives, even though they don't recognize it. No one really seems to miss me, but her and a couple of other "good", not real friends. I can say I had 4 or 5 real friends who miss me. One of them suicided a couple of weeks ago, which was another real shock to me and ended up shaking me even more. Well, two days ago, on Thursday, I don't know why, I guess out of my lack-of-trust attacks, I asked one of these "good" (I think its ironic that I considered him good friend now) friends if she was behaving herself. I mean she was going to a lot of parties, she was hanging out with a lot of new people, a lot of new guys and a lot of different things. And well basically he just comes up to me and says "dude, I've seen her making out with at least three guys, didn't you know it?". That one was hard to swallow. And I believe him because I could understand how she managed to convince my ONLY "good", not even REAL friends, the ONLY people I thought cared about me, she convinced them not to tell me. She convinced them that I was okay with it. Well in the same side I get to see that ALL of them end up being BAD friends because they didn't even BOTHER to tell me the truth behind everything, so I can't say that she played them all along, because I can clearly see that they didn't legitmally care about me.

Well, this was two days ago. I had never felt so bad in my entire life. I know my friends actually (in a way at least), cared about me and her being together, and BELIEVED that she loved me even though she has done these things, so they tried to make points to defend not her, but US. And I am being thoughtful to them. I am being reasonable with a broken heart because I still legitmally love her. So yes, to keep going with the story, I called her and well she admitted she lie to me (about making out with three guys). She said it was stupid, she said she regretted it, but I didn't play hard with her as I should. I was way too shocked and way too stupid to believe what I heard. In a way I still ran after her, even though she had done that to me. Basically I told her I didn't know what to do. I didn't know if she was worth all of these fights and all of these bad new discoveries anymore. I thought about the company I had started, and I realized that without her I have NO future prospectives. I planned to go to the community college with her after summer, I planned on being there for a while now (2 months) and her being with me in Brazil for another 2 months before going to the community college. I planned trips, I planned things to do with her, I planned surprises. I dreamed so much and all of a sudden everything comes down to me.

Well, I could tell that she regretted it, even though I was way too easy and now to me it seems like I didn't really care. My friends tried to convince me (and so did she, which broke my heart even worse, because she tried harder to convince me than to apologize and beg for my forgiveness), that was OKAY to makeout with someone while you love someone else. And I just don't believe that. I just don't understand how you can be so selfish and hurtful to someone. My psychologist (I have been seeing one for a month now because my parents thought it would make me change my mind, I guess), she said that when people lose their interest on someone temporarily, they do things like this because they need to feel "wanted". And this gets even worse with people that have mental disorders, because they can't stabilish what is right or wrong normally (I can see that due to her SUDDEN changes of mood), and when they get depressed, these symptoms get even more and more acute and they make worse and worse decisions. I am trying to be thoughtful because I want a happy ending, but NOW, I want a happy ending for ME, not US anymore. I have never considered myself a sad person and two nights ago I got me wondering about suicide. I caught myself wondering how it would feel to cut like she did in the past, but I AM more down-to-earth than this. Well so I also thought about what my friends said CONSIDERING the psychological aspects behind it. But it has been REALLY hard for me to judge what is right or wrong right now and I NEED professional help. I am not totally comfortable with my psychologist talking about her because she also treats my parents and I know that my parents don't support me doing so much for this relationship, but right now EVERYTHING THAT I HAD TO LOOK FORWARD IS GONE. I can't see myself forgiving her because this is really really drastic to me. I could even possibly forgive her for losing interest in me and end up being with someone else. My friends convinced me that it wasn't cheating because we were NOT nominally together. Well I wonder "where is the love when you kiss someone else?", but no one has been able to answer that question to me up to now. But I would never forgive her for lying to me after all of these vows, after all we have been through. Just when all I need to do is to take the FINAL step, why did this happen to me? I am angry at myself for being so innoncent and good-hearted. I am angry at God for taking all of my good friends away with my own future and I have never been this sad in my entire life.

The worst thing is that then I started talking to other friends, while kind of leaving her on "hold for my decision". Well she had admitted me that she has been with three guys, and then another friend tells me that he had seen her with another one. So I go up to ask her (UNDERSTAND: I did NOT even ask about why did she kiss him), I asked her "WHY DID YOU LIE TO ME AGAIN?". She denied and denied it, and when she realized there was nothing else she could do, she hung up the phone, which makes me believe entirelly on my friend. I just don't know what to do. People tell me that she wants to kill herself without me but I can't see how hard she has worked for us all along.

I don't know how to board a plane with all of this in my head. I don't know if things will be allright when I FINALLY GET BACK or if I will commit the biggest mistake out of my life. My real friends (I say like 3 or 4 from Brazil and even one from the US), tell me that I should do this for my own, or for the company that I worked so hard for, but I can't see myself going after a dream that was only possible because of her. She is ignoring me now because she has not way out, and I think I am completely stupid and retarded for STILL RUN AFTER HER AND TRY TO CALL HER, but I can't avoid it. She is the one I love and she is the one I fought so hard for and I just don't understand how she wants me back if she is ignoring me.

What do I do? I just want myself to be happy. Too many things happened this year that brougth me down and I am disappointed with every single thing, but I NEVER stopped struggling and fighing for what I want, but THINKING of us. I just think I deserve to be happy too. I messed up because I wanted everyone else to be happy but me. I want to be down-to-earth and realistic. I want things to work out, but I just don't want to feel played around anymore.






If you actually read all of this or even a part and you are willing to help me out, I would really apprecitate. I mean, this is the hardest my life has gotten. All at the same time: Her, family, friends, company, money, death. I can't handle all of this and LOOK FORWARD anymore. Please give me your honest opinions and thank you SO much for this.

I'm going to admit that I didn't read your entire story because it is too long. But you are only 18. Nor matter how bad you feel. Nor matter how much difficulty you have. Nor matter how hopeless you feel. You have to realize that you are still very very young. There is still so much ahead of you.

There will be challenges. There will be ups and downs. There will be obstacles.

What makes you the person you will become is how you face all your problems. Take it one step at the time. Get through 1 problem at the time. Don't get too far ahead of yourself.

Things will get better. Take it one step at the time.

I read it all and am a degreed counselor.

What is your main, overriding question? Pare this down for me if you can.

It took me a while but I read what you wrote.

I'm very sorry to hear about this situation.


that was OKAY to makeout with someone while you love someone else. And I just don't believe that. I just don't understand how you can be so selfish and hurtful to someone.

I agree completely with you on that note. Making out with another person isn't something that happens accidentally. There's no "Oops I fell on his lips and stayed there." The fact that not only did she knowingly cheat on you, multiple times, she also hid it from you and she persuaded your friends to hide it from you to. This is a major trust breach.

This is where I tell you what is going to really be tough to take because I can tell you truly care about this girl.

It would seem to me that she loves being loved, she loves being treated well and having someone who would do anything for her... but not you yourself.

Honestly the best thing for both of you is a break. It sounds to me like you both have your own issues to work through and you both need to be able to sort yourselves out as a person before you try and further the relationship. If it is truly meant to be then love will find a way.

You can't ever truly be happy in a relationship if you can't be happy by yourself.You really need to focus on yourself right now.

So in a nutshell, I think you should break up with her.

I don't know if I helped any at all, and I truly hope you can find happiness.

I read it all and am a degreed counselor.

What is your main, overriding question? Pare this down for me if you can.

I just want to know if you think I am being fooled around or not. I mean I don't really know what is sensate anymore. I don't know if I should board that plane and if I get the courage to do it for myself and not for me and her, I don't know how I will see things then. I just want to know if I am being unreasonable or making any injustices, if I should give her another chance or not, if I should totally cut my relations with her or if I should see if she goes after me, getting back there or not. I don't want to be the one left behind, fooled. I just want to know what is the right thing for me to do.

Thank you all for your answers and patience, it is really making a difference to me. :)

I just want to know if you think I am being fooled around or not.
You know her; I don't. I have only your own experiences and testimonies to go on.

Do YOU think you are being fooled around with or not?

1. we fought like everyone does but I guess ALL of our little meaningless fights ended up with a happy ending
2. she didn't ran after me that much, or made a lot of effort to be with me.
3. I feel like I am being played around lately
4. she [believes she] deserves to be treated as a queen...deep inside that's who she is, the kind of woman who can find any guy she wants and make them do everything for her
5. She is flirtatious when she needs something out of a guy
6. she knows that her attitude always made me upset
7. There was not that much of an effort from her part
8. she has ALWAYS been the kind of girl who likes to be surrounded by guys who care about her
9. her interest in me wasn't always 100%
10. she has had a very hard and abusive past
11. She has self-mutillated and been put into a rehab
12. slight symptoms of ADD, bipolar disorder and ADHD
13. we started fighting and it was getting hard to be on a relationship like this
14. she started to be jealous of Brazil because she thought that I was having a blast here
15. she ended up breaking up with me because she didn't want to deal with a break.
16. thats when I started to wonder if she has bipoler disorder
17. In a matter of 10 seconds, she said she didn't want to take me back, it was a mistake, and she got really cold.
18. on the next day she apologized to me (not asking me back though)
19. Even though she decided not to take me back because she was doubtful if I was ever getting back (even though in one way or another, loving her or not, I left a lot of my personal and professional belongings in her hands).
20. those were just times, times when she decided or changed her mind in order to be nice to me, in order to be POSITIVE instead of pessimistic and try to look forward to things, even though she is not that kind of girl.
21. she has hidden a lot of stuff from me over these past months, not stuff that would matter to me and influence our relationship, but stuff about herself
22. I was losing my ability to trust her over these few lies she came up with.
23. she has had a couple of "I hate you, I deserve better" breakdowns after that
24. she was going to a lot of parties, she was hanging out with a lot of new people, a lot of new guys and a lot of different things
25. "dude, I've seen her making out with at least three guys, didn't you know it?"
26. she convinced them not to tell me. She convinced them that I was okay with it.
27. I caught myself wondering how it would feel to cut
28. my parents don't support me doing so much for this relationship
29. she had admitted me that she has been with three guys, and then another friend tells me that he had seen her with another one.
30. She denied and denied it, and when she realized there was nothing else she could do, she hung up the phone

If someone emailed all this to you, what would you tell him?

she knowingly cheat on you

I just also want to say that I don't believe that she cheated on me. She was single, she was sad, desperate, she lost her interest in me, but like I don't think it was cheating, I just can't see love on what she's done.

You know her; I don't. I have only your own experiences and testimonies to go on.

Do YOU think you are being fooled around with or not?

I don't know. A part of me wants to say that she truly loves me like she would never love someone else, and everything that she has been doing is because we are going through this phase and she just doesn't know how to deal with it, or just can't deal with it even though she is trying, but another part of me says that she tried to enjoy every single moment when I was absent and didn't even regret being with all those guys or lying to me.

Those are two complete different opposites and I just don't know which one to choose. To give her another chance, look into my future, try to make things right (even though I just don't believe that would be possible now), or to realize that she is an actual whore and was nothing more than I thought she was. I was fooled for these last four months and I was fooled before too, to believe that she was more than what she has being.

It is really hard for me to face one of the two sides, because none of them is good. The only difference is that one I would be positive and forgiveful, but I have a high chance of 1- screwing up myself even more with this trip, 2- making more big mistakes or 3- getting even worse. And the other one is rather pessimistic when related to love, but it would insure me of happiness in a long run by myself or someone else.

I just don't know if she is worth running all these risks anymore. But the sad thing in whichever way I choose, to be with her or not to be with her is that she was the thing that kept me going on and on for myself and I need to face that she will be gone or I would just never look at her in the same way. That purity of "perfect love" completely died on me and I don't think anything will ever rescue that, but I just don't want to stop believing it will and everything would get back the way it was. I know I messed up but I never stopped loving.

I just wanted her to come up to me and say something like "i was just kidding, i wanted to know how far you would go for me" or something like that, but I know this is not the case, and I just don't want to believe it.

How am I supposed to ever kiss her again thinking she ended up as a playing ?

I mean I thought so much of her. That she was bright, smart, intelligent, and her personality was so deep in some aspects that made me love her. She was so different than most girls, so caring, so interesting, and I loved that, but now I look at her and she seems to be just another one in the crowd with nothing to stand out. She plays me, she doesn't care, I think to me she has become just another one of all these girls.


I just don't want to look back and regret what I will do.

Another thing is that I believe she has done some of these things out of her wrecklessness acuted by the sadness of my departure, and I think I would be able to forgive her and move on with this, this is what my gut says. But my brain tells me that this is completely stupid and if I go back I will just myself even worse.

No more opinions?

Hi, GrandPah!

Yes, I have an opinion. One is that I think that you over-analyze things. Another, is that you appear to be able to express yourself quite well with writing. What I would suggest doing is to ask simple questions here without a lot of enormous explanation.

Discovery and figuring things out doesn't have to be something really complex. As a matter of fact, keeping things simple helps those to help others the best.

Are you into music, as in do you play a musical instrument?

Thanks!