First of all -- thank you to each and every one of you for your input.
My gut is to agree more with some posts or sentiments than others, but what is so great is that different viewpoints challenge me to really search within myself.
Just a few points:
-- This is just a statement for the record: When I cry, the French guy acts like I am doing it on purpose. Jules, you said you find it manipulative when people cry. Let me just say, when I cry -- *I don't do it on purpose*!!!! OMG, if I could not cry, I wouldn't!! I am emotional, and I cry easily when I am hurt. It is not something I can control (believe me, I've tried!). When he sees me cry, and gets *even madder* at me for crying, I am just in a state of disbelief.
Maybe there are people who can cry on command and do so to manipulate others. But I think that unless there is iron-clad proof of that, there is no reason to think the person in tears is doing so.
-- The fact that he yelled, and did so for so long, is actually the least of my concerns. It is how he takes all these cheap shots that concerns me. How, even after I tell him that I undestand his point of view, that I never meant to offend him, and I apologize sincerely, and it still makes not the slightest impression on him. Instead, he just comes up with one crazy thing after the other, making up stuff out of thin air, like I don't care about his feelings (right after I apologized to him), like insisting, insisting, insisting that I expect him to cry (when I have said emphatically over and over and over again that in no way did I ever hint at that -- but that *I* cannot stop crying simply because he orders me to), and so on and so on. That's the part that I know is fucked up, and, if he reacts like this in general, then it might qualify as emotional abuse, certainly harassment.
-- As for the pattern: He contined it last night. He called me three hours before the appointment with the lawyer to tell me he didn't want to go anymore because his cousin has a friend who has a friend who has a dog who has a friend...you get the idea... who thinks that the French guy should see a different lawyer.
At first I just didn't know what to say, and when he pushed me to say something, I said, "Well, I guess I am shocked that you are calling me three hours before the appointment to cancel just because someone's friend thinks you should see a different laywer."
He *immediately* started yelling, going on a full-out rant, telling me that I don't want him to be informed, that he has right to be informed, that he had a bad experience with some lawyer several years ago and did I want him to be ripped off again, and he kept repeating he has a right to be informed -- this from the same man, who, when he got his current wrong visa, I asked him over and over and over again to contact a lawyer or the embassy to find out what rules and regulations or limitations his visa entails, and he simply didn't do it!!! Which is why he arrived not knowing what kind of visa he had, and got the big suprise from the customs agent two weeks ago and now has to leave the country on Nov. 3!!
He has the nerve to tell me I didn't want him to be informed?
To make a long story short, we did, in misery, end up going to see the lawyer together after all, and the French guy loved him, and was all happy and bouncy afterwards, thanking me for coming with him.
I couldn't really be happy.
Because: This (just one of many examples of what happened last night) shows me that my mother was right: There is something wrong with his mental faculties. He doesn't *intend* to be an asshole. He doesn't *think* he is acting crazy -- but that doesn't make his actions any less crazy!!
He is like a little child.
Today, he was supposed to call me at work and let me know what happens (he volunteered this on his own) (he was going to call this bakery in Virginia, the owner of which had said he would sponsor him for a work visa) and let me know what is going on.
It is 5 pm!!! and I haven't heard a peep. Odds are when I do finally hear from him, some friend of his cousin's will have another friend with yet some other idea, and we're going to start all over again.
And his craziness is not just about visa stuff. It's in general.
He had told me so often how he can't wait for me to meet his various cousins, and how excited they are to meet me. Every single time I told him I felt the same way.
Once he arrived here, it took two full weeks to finally meet a cousin & wife for dessert. (I had said many times before that I would be happy to meet his cousins anywhere, anytime, I'd be happy to take the bus or Metro out to Virginia, etc, but he never came up with any plans expcet that one dessert, and then one dinner with other cousins the next day. Fine.
What is NOT fine, in fact what is FUCKED-UP is that last night he said he didn't get to see his cousins enough because of me (he sees them every day all day, Mo - Fri, plus last week he wanted to see them alone at night without me and spend the night, and I said, sure no problem, and he did it, and I thought everything was cool.
Now he says he canceled plans with them for me. When I asked him to name examples of when he cancled with them for me, he couldn't give me an example. When I asked him why he and I didn't see more of his cousins together, he said the thought I didn't want to.
OMG!!!!! I asked him whether he'd forgotten about my *frequent* suggestions that we see his cousins,and he refused to anwer.
So, he is either acting in bad faith, or an imbicile.
I think it's the latter.
I know now this can never work and I am heartbroken and dismayed beyond words.
