Quote:blackaeronaut wrote:There seems to be something of a misunderstanding. As far as I know, she didn't work thanksgiving or any of the other days she had arranged leave - but the leave was unpaid and she was expected to work later on her regular work days i.e. after 5pm to 6:30 at the day job or after 10pm at the other job etc. to make up for being given the extra days off.
I mean, seriously... working on holiday time... WITHOUT GETTING PAID!?
She told me that the USA doesn't have the concept of 'Paid leave' aside from a few public holidays (unlike australia where we get 4 weeks paid leave annually) and that the practice was standard... I take it from your reaction BA that this is unusual?
Mutual friends - being as we are on different continents we don't have any and I never met any of hers. No doubt she's telling them how horrid I am, and they're telling her she's better off without me. The social circle issue comes from the fact that as I am disabled I don't tend to have a large social circle to begin with and as I've been focusing on her for so long, I've not focused on building one.
Wailing - yeah I bawled like an idiot when she told me she wasn't asking me to leave (after I'd moved the ticket) and many times since then. She on the other hand didn't cry - she said that her parents punished her for crying in public so she could only cry alone... yet she says stuff like the email she sent me before I even got on the plane back:
Quote:I don't think I could ever articulate into words what I feel right now. I don't know if, right now, I keep it all together because the pain of this is so overwhelming or because I can't accept what has become the inevitable.
You told me once I never failed at what I set out to do.
I suppose there is a first time for everything- even if it is the one thing one would assume you shouldn't mess up.
I know I asked to be your friend. I do understand if that isn't possible and I wouldn't hold that against you. It may be asking too much. You can't have everything and nothing simultaneously, after all.
Hope was a very powerful motivator to do more and to do better. That doesn't feel like it's there anymore. I don't know what it means or what to do from here. With all my ambition, it all feels quite dull.
But I suppose the worst hasn't hit home just yet.
In many ways, I have lost the most important person in my life. Even if contact is maintained in a distant fashion, it will always be a ghost and nothing more. It almost feels like a domino effect- disrupting or destroying one aspect causes all the other pieces to fall so effortlessly. I can't bring myself to consider what is ahead. Not now. Maybe not ever.
But I brought this on myself. On you. I wanted to make everything fall into place but all I did was tear everything apart.
I'm sorry, too.
I pointed out it didn't address any of the issues or how she planned to fix any of it which eventually led to the email I quoted previously... she seems willing to say the right things but isn't willing to change her behaviour...
I just don't know what to think really - cutting off communication was more an act of self-preservation than anything else because maintaining contact after all this with no change on her part would drive me mad. As it is she's gotten away with everything with no need to make any changes again...
Anyway like I said, she's the only one who seems to think her behaviour was ok and only my refusal to accept it was the issue - so I have to stop second guessing myself and playing out 'What-if' scenarios in my head, trying to work out what I could have done better.
Thank you everyone for the advice.