A Heartbreaking Romantic Journey and My Breakthrough Out of It 破茧成蝶，一个令人心碎的浪漫之旅

I met my last boyfriend 5 years ago, when I just finished my PhD from Cambridge and was looking for jobs in Scotland, UK. In the first time I saw him I had a feeling of familiarity, and the mature and gentle nature of him attracted me, as if I knew this man somewhere before. Later on I got to know that he is a writer and photographer of some renown in local area, and also collaborated with artists, musicians, etc to produce artworks. However, he has married before and is now divorced, and he is 18 years older than me, obviously not an ideal partner for me from normal standards in my culture and environment.  Although I felt strongly that he is also attracted by me, I hesitated and didn’t want to start something that wouldn’t give me results.

在5年前的春天，我遇到了我的前男友。当时我刚从英国剑桥大学完成了博士研究，正在苏格兰找工作。第一次见到他时，我有一种熟悉的感觉，他成熟温柔的性格吸引着我，似乎我以前在某个地方见过这个人。后来我才知道，他是一位在当地颇有名气的作家和摄影师，还与艺术家、音乐家等合作进行创作。然而，他曾经结过婚，现在离婚了，而且他比我大18岁。从我的文化环境和正常标准来看，显然他不是我的理想伴侣。 虽然我强烈地感觉到他也被我所吸引，但我犹豫着，不想开始一些没有结果的事。

While I was still hesitatingly judged the pros and cons mentally, the emotional side of me got out of control, and I started dating with him, also because I felt lonely and desperately needed help when I was alone in the UK looking for jobs. It turnt out a beautiful melody of love. He hugely supported me during the process of me applying for the visa for the post-doc in Edinburgh. His love, affection, care, and gentleness nurtured me. We enjoyed being together with each other. His appreciation of my academic talents, achievements , and my whole being made me realized the remarkable aspects and beauty of myself, which I didn’t aware of before. His support, respect, loyalty, and love made me gradually be aware of my own true eternal value and raised my self-esteem. I’m deeply grateful for all this.

当我还在头脑里犹豫不决地判断利弊时，我的情感方面失控了，我开始和他约会，当然其中也有我独自一人在英国找工作时感到孤独，迫切需要帮助的原因存在。很快我们陷入了一段甜美的爱情旋律。在我申请博士后工作签证的过程中，他给了我极大的支持。他的爱、关怀和温柔滋养了我。我们很享受彼此在一起的感觉。他对我的学术才华、成就和我的全部的欣赏使我意识到了自己都不曾意识到的自己的非凡与美丽。他的支持、尊重、忠诚和爱使我逐渐意识到自己真正的永恒价值，把我因为长时间找不到工作后几乎跌落到谷底的自我价值感扶起。我对此非常感激。

However, there’s always one issue between us that made me nervous, which is that he’s always very ambiguous about getting married with me. It seems like that he wanted me to be his girlfriend/lover forever, but was very reluctant to make it official…but I did not only want a lover, but also a family, a husband, who can protect me and provide me a feeling of security, who can be lovingly recognized by my parents and friends, and accepted by the society around me. However, with him, I struggled hugely over this. It also made me doubt if I really deserve asking him for that, as if asking about it is my own fault.

然而，我们之间总有一个让我感到紧张的问题，那就是他对和我结婚总是非常模棱两可。他似乎希望我永远做他的女朋友/情人，但又非常不愿意正式公布……但我想要的不仅仅是一个爱人，更是一个家庭，一个丈夫，可以保护我，给我安全感，可以被父母朋友亲切认可，被身边的社会接纳的伴侣。然而，和他在一起，我内心有着巨大的挣扎。这也让我陷入怀疑：我是否应该向他提出结婚这个事，似乎仅仅向他提出这事就会让我自己显得无比卑微，似乎这是我的错。

The love and struggle between us has lasted in the last 5 years, even though I left the UK since March 2019, soon after we were together. In the past five years, sometimes I recognized him as my boyfriend, sometimes I didn’t, and this also perplexed him. He doubts if I truly love him, he doubts if he is truly attractive to me. It made him doubts his self-worth. Nevertheless, a deep bond still keeps us very close to each other. We constantly exchange ideas and feelings through calls and text messages. He supported me and accompanied me with his voice when I was sad, confused, ill, uncomfortable, or simply couldn’t fall asleep, and helped me with English editing, and praising me for my academic work, and talents, and beauty…I, on the other side, seldom help him in practical things, but always tried to guide him and inspire him up to a new level of consciousness. I tried to help him to be aware of his own patterns and guide him to spiritual growth pathways, as for these years I dedicated myself to it and I have grown a lot.

我们之间的爱和斗争在过去的 5 年里一直持续着，尽管我 2019 年 3 月就离开了英国，那会我们刚在一起不久。这五年里，有时候我承认他是我的男朋友，有时候不承认，这也让他感到很困惑。他怀疑我是否真的爱他，他怀疑他是否真的对我有吸引力。这甚至让他怀疑自己的自我价值。尽管如此，深厚的感情仍然使我们非常亲近。我们不断通过电话和短信交流想法和感受。当我悲伤、困惑、生病、不舒服或无法入眠时，他鼓励我、用他的声音陪伴我，他帮我做英文语言的校对，并不断地称赞我的学术工作、才华和美貌……另一方面，我虽然很少在实际的事情上帮助他，但总是试图引导和激励他达到一个新的意识水平。我试图帮助他了解自己陷入的重复性模式，并引导他走上精神成长的道路，因为这些年来我全身心地投入其中并已成长了很多。

However, while I have grown both spiritually and externally (I have upgraded from post-doc to professor, and my earnings have become 3-4 times of what it was when I was first with him), he seems to be more and more worn down by his heavy family duties. He is now in his fifties, and he has to look after his very illed mom, his often illed daughter, and his brother who was born  with autism symptoms. The fact that he is so far away and always put his “own core family” first hurts me. I felt deeply hurt that I can never be put as priority in his life, but always secondary. On the other hand, I also had great sympathy for the fact that he had to bear so much on his shoulders and seldom can take good care of himself. I finally understood that for him, to get married with the potential to have children means endless duties and burdens and he is already exhausted, and couldn’t bear anymore. I felt that if I ask him for marriage or a family, for him it means loading way more burden onto his shoulders which he couldn’t bear at all.

然而，当我在精神上和外在上都得到了成长（我已经从博士后升级为教授，我的收入也是刚和他在一起时的 3-4 倍），他似乎越来越被他沉重的家庭责任所累。他现在已经五十多岁了，他必须照顾他病得很重的妈妈、他经常生病的女儿、以及出生时就有自闭症的兄弟。他离得那么远和总是把自己的“核心家庭”放在第一位的现实情况让我很受伤。我对于不能被他放在生命中的优先位置，而永远只是次要的地位深受伤害。另一方面，我也非常同情他不得不在肩膀上承担这么多，却很少能照顾到自己。我后来终于明白了，对他来说，结婚并有可能生孩子意味着无尽的责任和负担，他已经筋疲力尽，再也承受不了了。我觉得如果我向他提出结婚或者组建家庭，对他来说来说，他要肩负更多的负担，这是他根本无法承受的。

Understanding this alleviated part of the doubt in my self-worth, but it still hurts. I tried to send compassion to my heart, and dig even deeper. I used the self-healing technique that I learnt for years from different resources. By allowing myself to be in the place of my higher self, I send love and compassion to the little me that felt hurt:

理解这一点减轻了我对自我价值的怀疑，但它仍然很痛苦。我试图将同情传入我的内心，并深入挖掘其根源。我使用了多年来从不同的地方学到的自我疗愈技术，通过更高的自我将爱和同情传递给受伤的小小的自己：

I am so sorry that you felt so lost when he did not answer you,

我很抱歉，当他没有回答你时，你感到如此失落

when he seemed to neglect you,

当他似乎忽略了你时，

when he did not put you as his priority,

当他没有把你放在首要位置时

when he has his own core family to feed and support,

当他有自己的原生家庭需要养活和支持时

when he wouldn’t be able to share more of his life with you,

当他无法与你分享更多的生活时，

when you had to learn to not expect anything from him anymore,
当你不得不学会不再对他抱有任何期待时，

The little me cried: “I don’t want to be this good girl, ┭┮﹏┭┮

这个小小的我哭着说：“我不想做这个好女孩┭┮﹏┭┮

Stoped a little bit, she contined: “But with him, what else can I do?

她停了一会儿，继续说道：“但是和他在一起，我还能做什么呢？

The higher me said: He is not the right person for you. You have no other choice.

更高的自我说：他不适合你。你别无选择。

I cried here, painfully, and loudly. And then the higher me continued:

小我在这里痛苦的大声哭泣，然后更高的自我继续说：

There might be a deeper root for this feeling of been abandoned, of been neglected, of been put secondary. This is just life mirroring back what is inside of you.

这种被抛弃、被忽视、被置于次要地位的感觉或许有更深的根源。这只是外在的生活反映了你内在的东西。

Then I started to realize that it was related to my childhood abandonment issue again: that little girl, when she was put aside soon after she came to this world, when she was forced to separate from her mother in the first place, when her mother put her away to focus on other “more important things”(her work), when there’s no one really close to her in her early life to support her, she doubts her value….

然后我开始意识到，这又和我童年被抛弃的问题有关：那个小女孩，当她来到这个世界后不久就被抛弃时，当她当初被迫与母亲分离时，当她的母亲把她放下，专注于其他“更重要的事情”（她的工作）时， 当在她小时候没有一个真正亲近她支持她的人时，她怀疑自己的价值……

“Am I really lovable? Am I really deserve to be supported? Do I really deserve to be put aside? Is that because I am naturally not lovable, not deserving their love at all? Am I not deserving to be put in the first place as I am not good enough?”

“我真的值得被爱吗？我真的值得被支持吗？我真的应该被抛弃吗？是不是因为我天生不可爱，根本不值得他们的爱吗？难道我不值得被放在第一位是因为我不够好吗？“

When this innocent baby first came to this world doubting her value, I send my love and compassion to her…

当这个无辜的婴儿第一次来到这个世界并怀疑自己的价值时，我向她表达了我的爱和同情……

I visualized that I put her in my warm loving arms, gently, and tell her:

我想象着我把她放在我温暖的爱的怀抱里，温柔地告诉她：

You deserve, you deserve to be treated as the most precious and valuable gift to this family, to your father and mother, you deserve to be treated as the only most precious gift to your parents, and to your extended family, to the lineages of the whole families. Please don’t doubt your self-value for what they have done for you.

你值得，你值得被当作送给这个家庭、送给你的父母的最珍贵、最有价值的礼物，你值得被当作送给你父母、送给你的大家庭、送给整个家族唯一的最珍贵的礼物。请不要因为他们的做的事情而陷入自我价值的怀疑。你值得，你值得被当作送给这个家庭、送给你的父母的最珍贵、最有价值的礼物，你值得被当作送给你父母、送给你的大家庭、送给整个家族唯一的最珍贵的礼物。请不要因为他们的做的事情而陷入自我价值的怀疑。

(soon after I was born, the issue of bringing me up made my parents and two sides of the families began to have conflicts with each other, and then I was regarded as a burden to both sides and for several times my grandmothers of both sides wanted to give me away. Finally I was sent away to a remote relative’s family and they brought me up in the rural area until 5 years old. When I first came back to my parents and original family members, I was not very welcomed by my cousins and in my own grandparents’ families. This partly made me always work extra hard and now I have turned out to be the most accomplished and successful person in the whole extended families)

（我出生后不久，抚养我的问题让我的父母和他们双方的家庭开始发生冲突，然后我就被当作是双方家庭的负担，有好几次两边的奶奶都想把我送人。最后，我被送到一个亲戚家，他们在农村抚养我，直到我5岁。当我第一次回到我的父母和原生家庭成员身边时，我的堂兄弟姐妹和祖父母的家庭并不那么欢迎我。这在一定程度上刺激我总是加倍努力地工作，现在我已经成为整个大家庭中最有成就和最成功的人）

Then I suddenly realized: it was the unhealed pain still inside me that attracted the exactly same feelings here again in the intimate relationship with this man. Having understood this, why should I still project my own pain to the relationship with him? Why should I continue blaming him? Why do I allow myself to continue this game of being put aside and as secondary and feeling painful again? My (soul’s) aim of having the experience is to understand my own eternal values independent of them all, independent of how they treat me and how they regard me, independent of the judgments of the environment and system around me, that is the goal of experiencing all that. To rise above the painful experience, that is my goal!
然后我突然意识到：正是我内心未愈的伤痛模式，在与这个男人的亲密关系中再次显现了完全相同的感觉。明白了这一点，我为什么还要把自己的痛苦投射到与他的关系中呢？我为什么要继续责怪他？为什么我仍继续允许自己重演这种被抛弃的、作为第二位的游戏并感到痛苦呢？我(灵魂)来体验这种痛苦经历的目的是理解我自己永恒的价值观独立于他们所有人，独立于他们如何对待我、看待我，独立于我周围环境和体系的评判，这就是体验这一切的目标。超越痛苦的经历，这就是我的目标！

I continued: Instead, why don’t I concentrate on healing myself, nurturing myself, feeding myself compassion and love, spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physically? The baby inside of me still needs more nurturing and love 

我继续：相反，我为什么不集中精力疗愈自己，滋养自己呢？我的内在的那个小婴儿还需要更多的滋养和爱。❤️

Now, I want to celebrate this new awareness and growth of myself with the beautiful souls here who are attracted to my website. I am really happy for my new step forward, even if it came from a painful experience ! I will continue concentrating on healing myself, loving myself, supporting myself, and nurturing myself, until I can truly shine my light fully and brightly in all aspects of my life 

现在，我想所有被我的网站吸引而来的美丽灵魂一起庆祝这种新的意识和成长。我真的为我向前迈出的新一步感到高兴，即使它来自痛苦的经历！ 我将继续专注于疗愈自己，爱自己，支持自己，培养自己，直到我能够真正在生活的各个方面充分而明亮地闪耀我的光芒。