Round 1
Late last nite I finally got a response back from my sister to my email I sent a few days ago:
I'm glad you are giving me this feedback. Truly, it's never my intent to hurt you. And I respect that you want to have a real and honest relationship with me.
1) My thoughts about Dan is not a reflection about you. Although it may be difficult for you to separate that, you need to try to see that.
2) I do acknowledge that I can be friendlier to Dan. I will try to do that. I do not wish you to be "stuck in the middle".
3) I still have gender and cultural expectations for Dan. Those expectations will never go away.
4) You don't have to "prove" anything to me about your relationship. I've never thought of it that way and never will. I just think of you as the best of Ba Me's brood. You're a good person with an amazing personality and you're smart. I always wanted you to find someone who could match those things in you. I recognize you are an adult and you make your own decisions. But as a sister, it is my obligation to share my experience and observations with you. We'll have to talk more about this. I've got jury duty this week. I'll try to call you tomorrow. Perhaps we can meet for dinner with Huong on Sunday. Please bring Dan.
I admit my first instincts were GREAT this is a good start.. I'd call up Dan and we'll all meet for lunch.. this will be good. And then I went to sleep (cuz I had to wake up at freakin' 7am. *sigh*).. and I woke up today thinking. SHE'S the one that's going to have these expectations of Dan that he would need to fulfill and she doesn't get that it's not HER expectations that he needs to meet. He needs to meet mine. I'm glad that she wrote back... I was beginning to think she was blowing off this situation. But, I have to talk to her more and make her understand that although I'm glad she's looking after her kid sister... I'm really still disappointed in her that she didn't realize how 'unfriendly' she was to Dan. And until she understands that it's MY expectations of him that really matters in this... it's not until then that I'll bring Dan into all of this again... or until Dan feels comfortable to meet her or anyone else in my family.
Sidenote: Another point that I will need to bring up to my parents tonite is that although I understand that they feel and think that supporting me consists of me staying at home in order to save up more money.. I will need their support in another way. Although I'm leaning more into renting right now.. since I haven't found a place that I've liked ... maybe they could help me with trying to find a place to buy.. or give me advice to go about with buying a home.. rather than having me sit back and muddle through all that.. cuz really that's the main reason why I'm not comfortable with buying a house... that and not really having enough money. I get that doing that whole house hunting/buying was wrong to do behind their back... and now I understand how that must have felt for them. For them, it was like out of the blue that I wanted to get a place...and maybe ..well, that's why they concluded it was all Dan's doing.. when reality I had my part in this.. and things went sour because I wasn't open about what my intentions were.
I'm glad you are giving me this feedback. Truly, it's never my intent to hurt you. And I respect that you want to have a real and honest relationship with me.
1) My thoughts about Dan is not a reflection about you. Although it may be difficult for you to separate that, you need to try to see that.
2) I do acknowledge that I can be friendlier to Dan. I will try to do that. I do not wish you to be "stuck in the middle".
3) I still have gender and cultural expectations for Dan. Those expectations will never go away.
4) You don't have to "prove" anything to me about your relationship. I've never thought of it that way and never will. I just think of you as the best of Ba Me's brood. You're a good person with an amazing personality and you're smart. I always wanted you to find someone who could match those things in you. I recognize you are an adult and you make your own decisions. But as a sister, it is my obligation to share my experience and observations with you. We'll have to talk more about this. I've got jury duty this week. I'll try to call you tomorrow. Perhaps we can meet for dinner with Huong on Sunday. Please bring Dan.
I admit my first instincts were GREAT this is a good start.. I'd call up Dan and we'll all meet for lunch.. this will be good. And then I went to sleep (cuz I had to wake up at freakin' 7am. *sigh*).. and I woke up today thinking. SHE'S the one that's going to have these expectations of Dan that he would need to fulfill and she doesn't get that it's not HER expectations that he needs to meet. He needs to meet mine. I'm glad that she wrote back... I was beginning to think she was blowing off this situation. But, I have to talk to her more and make her understand that although I'm glad she's looking after her kid sister... I'm really still disappointed in her that she didn't realize how 'unfriendly' she was to Dan. And until she understands that it's MY expectations of him that really matters in this... it's not until then that I'll bring Dan into all of this again... or until Dan feels comfortable to meet her or anyone else in my family.
Sidenote: Another point that I will need to bring up to my parents tonite is that although I understand that they feel and think that supporting me consists of me staying at home in order to save up more money.. I will need their support in another way. Although I'm leaning more into renting right now.. since I haven't found a place that I've liked ... maybe they could help me with trying to find a place to buy.. or give me advice to go about with buying a home.. rather than having me sit back and muddle through all that.. cuz really that's the main reason why I'm not comfortable with buying a house... that and not really having enough money. I get that doing that whole house hunting/buying was wrong to do behind their back... and now I understand how that must have felt for them. For them, it was like out of the blue that I wanted to get a place...and maybe ..well, that's why they concluded it was all Dan's doing.. when reality I had my part in this.. and things went sour because I wasn't open about what my intentions were.
posted by Lu at 6:45 AM
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