I am 29 years old, born in a poor rural village in north Vietnam. I spent 5 years working and studying in Saigon before moving back to the North to live and study.
As a woman who has to make a living away from her hometown, I have always been very independent. I struggled with work when I graduated, but my career is okay now.
However, my love life is not so good. In the early days of trying to settle in the north, I met and got to know my first love via a chat app.
He is tall, gentle and looked a bit naive at the time. I was his first love. He was not the first man who fell for me, but he is the first man that I truly loved.
And he’s also the one I can’t forget. He is two years older than me and lives in the suburbs of Hanoi. I knew him when I was 24-25. I was very inexperienced at the time, not knowing how to behave or love properly.
When I got to know him, I knew that his family was against our relationship because my hometown is far away from his and I am slightly more educated than him.
His family wants a daughter-in-law who lives nearby for convenience. He loved his mother very much and he was concerned because his mother had to work hard to raise the family after his dad passed away.
That, I understand. Due to his family’s opposition, our relationship was on and off. We kept breaking up and then getting back together.
He never wanted to introduce me to his family since he was still trying to convince his mother. When our relationship was about two years old, I insisted on visiting his family, to which he agreed, but reluctantly so.
When he brought me to see his family, his mother closed the main door and we had to wait in the yard. During the family meal, his mother didn’t ask about me or my family either.
When I said goodbye, they stayed in the house and did not reply to me.
When he drove me back to my place, I could not help but think that I didn’t belong in his family.
As a small-town girl who had to move back and forth between North and South, seeing him was always like seeing sunshine in winter.
However, to his family, I was always a small-town woman, always unaccepted. After visiting his family, I knew the relationship would go nowhere, partly because his family was not fond of me, and partly because he was not determined to keep me.
I knew he didn’t love me as much as I thought, and yet I still continued with him. Whenever he spent time with me anywhere, his family members called and scolded him, telling him not to see me anymore.
I felt humiliated and pitied myself. I loved him and he was also the first person I made love to. He told me I was also his first lover.
After a few times having quick sex, we said goodbye. A few months later, since I missed him so much, I actively texted him, and we had sex again.
I could feel that he had some sort of disdain toward me. I was not decisive enough to end the relationship and that was also the last time I saw him. The days afterwards were like hell to me.
I passed by his company every day I went to work. I cried a lot. There were days when I even cried in the rain. I hate myself for being stupid, for loving someone who didn’t care enough about me, for not caring enough about myself.
I cut my hair short and tried to stay cheerful, yet somehow I couldn’t fill the emptiness inside me. I always felt sorry for myself and felt deeply sad for a long time. It has been four years since we first met.
Later I found out that during the time when I was depressed and crying because of him, he was dating a new woman and about to get married. I now know that they are very happy with their current marriage.
Now I’m calmer and much more mature than before. I just wanna lead a simple, uncompetitive life, yet the pain from my past sometimes surges up inside me and hurts me a little. I find it more difficult to trust new men who approach me.
I’m afraid of getting hurt once more. I still cry thinking about my past experiences. I know that I was stupid and that I have to bear the consequences of what I caused myself. I have been so depressed, and perhaps in some ways it’s like a chronic illness that I have to carry with me.
At the moment I still try my best to take care of myself and improve myself at work. I have fun with my co-workers. My parents also live closer to me now.
However, deep down inside me, I still feel sad about the past. I wonder whether there is any woman suffering from the same thing that I do.
I only want to share this story so I can unburden myself a bit. I hope that any woman in my situation will have a happy ending and not lose hope in this life.
I still love myself and try to take care of myself to make up for what happened.
