Dating, Sex, & Relationships

Hello Dr. Greg,

Thank you so much for what you are doing here!

I met a Chinese girl on Skype three years ago. At that time, I was in the States pursuing a degree in computer science and she was studying for a bachelor's degree in China.

She was looking for someone to practice her English with and I was looking for a friend to share my daily life with. At first we began sharing our daily lives but, little by little, we got attached to one another and started to share everything.

Her university allowed her to study as an exchange student for one year in the States and she decided to go. While she was in the States we met every two months, spending a week or two together. We also spent one month in Hawaii during Christmas... probably the best time in my life so far. Later on, I invited her to visit my family in Bulgaria. We spent one month there mostly traveling around the country. She told me that she enjoyed that a lot and that it was almost as good as when we went to Hawaii.

After her study in the States was over, she had to return to China to finish her education. It was just for one year and then she had to decide if she wanted to start working or go for a master's degree. During that year, we planned how to live together after her graduation. She had different opportunities in where to study for her master's degree but she decided to go to Sweden. By that time, I was already in Bulgaria working hard and saving money for that special day when we could afford a house and start living together.

What we agreed to was that we would have to stand the current situation (she is in Sweden, I am in Bulgaria) for around two years and then we will move in, in our own house. She was happy with the idea and accepted it.

She has been in Sweden for five months already and we met just once during that period. The main reason that we couldn't meet more often was that I was very busy with work and, as a new worker, I didn't have much paid vacation. However, I was lucky at work and suddenly started to make a lot of money, so buying a house wasn't a problem anymore.

I didn't feel like we should be buying a house: after all, she wasn't sure if she would be able to find a job there and we might have to relocate. I was looking for a way to rent an apartment where the two of us could live together. Unfortunately, the situation in Sweden is that it is very difficult to find an apartment or house for rent: the demand is higher than what is available.

Christmas is just around the corner and we knew she would come to spend the holiday with me. I made her an invitation, she went to an interview and got her visa. We bought a plane ticket and started to wait for the day to come. This is the time when the whole world changed for me. She told me she is not coming here and that she breaking up with me.

What are the reasons behind her decision:

1. Her dad did something wrong and he was put in prison for two years. She and her mom couldn't accept it, especially her mom who was very sad all the time.

2. Her dad got tuberculosis while in prison and his condition is very bad.

3. From all the stress, her mom got cancer on her lymph nodes. She went for surgery but the outcome is not good.


I suggested to my girlfriend that instead of coming here, she should go visit her family and help as much as she can. I offered to buy her the ticket and to do everything I can to support her. She refused.

I feel she is in a deep depression and the decision to break up with me is kind of a way to punish herself for being happy.

I really want to support her and even if she doesn't love me or if she doesn't want to be with me I would like to help her. It is a very bad time in her life and I can hardly stay aside watch her going through it by herself.

Sometimes, I am thinking that she may do something to herself (hurt herself or even worse) but I am hoping that she would think that she needs to take care of her family and she would not do anything like it.

All in all, yesterday she told me that she wants to break up and she will try to go to China to be with her family.

I want the best for her and I also think that going home is the best thing to do right now. I just don't understand why she would want to refuse my help and decide to go through all of this by herself.

Should I ignore what she told me and just go to Sweden to support her as much as I can, even as just a friend, or I should listen to what she told me and stay away? I am really worried about her and this breakup is not something you would expect after three years of a very peaceful relationship. These days she is crying every day and I don't know how to approach her or if I should approach her at all?

I am 26 years old. She is 24 years old.

I am trying to be as honest as possible and if something is incorrect or it is hard to understand please let me know and I will rephrase it and explain it.

Thank you so much!

From your style of writing, I couldn’t quite ascertain the timing of the father’s incarceration and tuberculosis or the mother’s lymphoma, but I don’t think this particularly matters.

What I do understand is that you had what you thought was a wonderful relationship with a girl who, quite suddenly, drops a bomb on you by announcing that she is ending the relationship. I agree with you entirely that her explanations make absolutely no sense and that’s the problem here: She is either looking for plausible-sounding excuses or—as you suggest—is suffering from some sort of complicated psychological reaction that is causing her to act irrationally and self-destructively.

The second explanation seems unlikely to me because not one of these named precipitating stressors is new (if I read you correctly). Even if she just learned about the mother’s lymphoma and her poor prognosis, that doesn’t explain at all why she would abruptly end her engagement to you. If in fact this is the real reason for her precipitous behavior, this is no less worrisome than if she is simply using her mother's illness as an excuse for ending the relationship (not that this explanation makes any sense).

There is not much you can do here under the circumstances except wait it out for a few days to see how things evolve. If her erratic behavior is the result of complicated bereavement, she should eventually come out of it or at least have intermittent periods of lucidity during which she should be able to reach out to you again.

Let me share a couple of other thoughts with you. When a relationship is meant to be, when it is a healthy one, i.e., one that is sought and engaged in for all the right reasons, there is never any forced effort involved in maintaining and nurturing it. Such a relationship develops and matures almost naturally, because it was meant to be, it is “right” for that particular couple. While it is true that all relationships require work, “work” here is used to denote conscious or deliberate attention to the needs of another person—not herculean feats of psychological strength and endurance.

I believe that a great many Western men--those currently struggling in their relationships with Chinese girls--dismiss or minimize what they would clearly recognize as warning signs with a girl from the same culture simply because she happens to be Chinese. Take away the vast differences in cultural norms, beliefs, values, and social practices and you still might have a very difficult or psychologically conflicted girl on your hands.

After three years with this girl—barring a head injury or a brief reactive psychosis from an unintentional drug overdose—you should not have to be figuring out what is meant or intended by any of her behaviors. If this current episode is representative of how she is going to act every time there is severe stress in her life, is that something you can live with? Is that the kind of life you want?

I am sorry for your pain and I know this is not what you want to read now but I have a hunch that she may have done you a favor in saving you from what could have been a very volatile life. Something is wrong here. There are more than a few missing pieces to this puzzle. Healthy relationships do not require psychologically sophisticated detective work.

You have offered to make yourself available to her if she so chooses. I would now suggest that you leave it alone and see what happens.

Feel free to follow up if you like.

Dr. Greg wrote:After three years with this girl—barring a head injury or a brief reactive psychosis from an unintentional drug overdose—you should not have to be figuring out what is meant or intended by any of her behaviors. If this current episode is representative of how she is going to act every time there is severe stress in her life, is that something you can live with? Is that the kind of life you want?

I am sorry for your pain and I know this is not what you want to read now but I have a hunch that she may have done you a favor in saving you from what could have been a very volatile life. Something is wrong here. There are more than a few missing pieces to this puzzle. Healthy relationships do not require psychologically sophisticated detective work.

You have offered to make yourself available to her if she so chooses. I would now suggest that you leave it alone and see what happens.

Thank you so much for your reply!

It all makes sense now when I read your reply over and over again.

Her father's condition is not something unknown and new and she has been through it for the last half a year. The same is true for her mom's condition except that she found out that the surgery's outcome might not be good a few days ago.

The part I quoted influenced me a lot. You are very right that after 3 years together I should not have to be figuring out what is meant or intended by any of her behaviors. And, yes, that's not the kind of life that I want for myself.

I will do as you suggest--leave it alone and see what happens.

Thank you again for providing priceless help to me!