Cultural attitudes toward expressing feelings

Discussion in 'Culture' started by opi, Apr 22, 2005.

  1. Milewicz

    Milewicz Active Member

    I hate admitting it, but it's possible you're right. Hmmm... it just isn't what I thought last September when she told me she really loved me (and she keeps repeating this) and wanted to stay together...

    So I guess I believed it. But she had a boyfriend of 5 years prior to me who she broke up with before she came to the USA. She said she wanted even though she was returning to the Czech Republic. After a couple months she became "confused". Naive me.

    I think the comments I've heard about her being polite are pretty close to the mark. Stupid me. It was my idea to end things before she returned to the CR, and SHE wanted to stay together, and I agreed...

    What gets me is that I was doing it because she said she really lvoed me, at which point I thought "Wow, she really wants to be with me." I was impressed. I'm not impressed now.

    I just believed her.
     
  2. My heart goes out to you, Milewicz. You deserve to be treated better than that. And as I said in my last post, I believe she is playing you to be the "consolation prize" in the event that the grass isn't greener on the other side. Let go. It's not worth the heartache that will continue to follow. You deserve more and you should not settle for less. If she truly "loved you" like she says she does, she would be with you fighting to keep whatever you think you have together. But she is not. She did not insist on staying so as to make it work. Real love takes time and courage not to mention the passion to fight for it. I went thru it with my boyfriend. He returned to the CR after our first 9 months together because he needed "time apart" to sort out his feelings for me. He was a bit overwhelmed at how we were pretty much "love at first sight" and thought that he was rushing into something. He said he loved me and that he wanted to be with me but needed a few months to sort thru it all and make sure that this is what he wanted. He was used to changing girlfriends faster than most people change underwear. I loved him and didn't want him to go. I fought him on it for a month and a half. He left anyway for what was supposed to be 3 and a half months.

    A week after he left, he came right back home and said he loved me and wanted to be with me and refused to be without me. He couldn't handle a week of being apart let alone 3 1/2 months. I didn't wanna let him back so easily because I was hurt that he thought he needed to go all the way over there to "figure it out". He fought for my heart....and won it in the course of one romantic night. We haven't spent a night apart from each other since that day 3 years ago.

    My point is: if you love someone like you say you do, you fight for them and never give up. It should physically hurt to be apart. Time apart should only make you want them more and make you move heaven and earth to get to them. She is hardly moving one foot in front of the other to get to you. IM's, emails and phone calls just don't cut it. Leave her be and get yourself a love worth fighting for. I wish you luck.
     
  3. iluvuma1

    iluvuma1 Well-Known Member

    I have to laugh at this thread... Over the weekend my Czech guy and I went floating on the river... He had never been canoeing before, and he tried to tell me that I was paddling wrong. (Even though he was in the back steering) After tipping twice, I was rather agiated- and told him I didn't appreciate the fact that he never had anything good to say- and it was always my fault. I told him we had a saying that if you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all...
    He admitted that it was annoying to him (and his friends) when couples/parents told thier kids they were so good at something when they actually weren't. He kind of mocked the "Oh, honey! You are the best, cutest, etc. etc." you hear from parents to thier kids here.
    He said that was the wrong way to be, and you should be "honest" and it will be better for you/kids. Even if it wasn't what you wanted to hear.
    I said that made sense- but how come Americans are so successful (in athletics, business, etc.??? (If our coddling/gushing is so terrible).
    Over emotion is NOT seen as a positive thing. I think Czechs like to think that showing emotion/feelings makes you weaker.
     
  4. uuspoiss

    uuspoiss Well-Known Member

    Or maybe just that overdoing with expressing your emotions will eventually degrade the value of the expression to other people. Expressing emotions is generally a good thing (even as it's harder for some people than for others), but I would agree that one needs to be honest in doing that. Being honest includes both qualitative and quantitative degrees of emotion:)
     
  5. I agree on their feelings of being "honest" with people. I myself can't stand to hear people tell others what they WANT to hear and not what they NEED to hear. My friends tell me that is why I make such a good friend. Because I shoot from the hip. No bull. And I expect that much outta them.

    My boyfriend is a rare exception to the czech rule. He proposed to me this past Saturday night on a cruise ship in the carribean. He is very much into romance and is very good at expressing himself when he needs to. I was stunned that he did it all without a drop of drink. Normally he has to have some in order to feel less inhibited. Well, he told me how much he loves me and wants to me to be his wife and have lots of kids as soon as we say I do. He was even crying while down on one leg!! I was crying too, which made it worse. I asked him why he was crying and he told me that pouring his heart out to me and asking me to marry him was the hardest thing he has ever done. He wrote it all out and practiced for 2 weeks and still couldn't bring himself to do it. His mother told him to just go for it.

    I am not sure why czech men (especially) find it so hard to express themselves or show emotion. I am always puzzled. The only time its easy for him is when he is mad as hell. THEN it all comes out followed by such a "colorful" vocabulary that will start in english and end in czech while still in mid yell. He says that czech men have a harder time expressing themselves to a woman than to each other. Is this really true and why? I REALLY need to know. :?
     
  6. Martina

    Martina Active Member

    I agree with magan. They are just not into you anymore. All they want is a friend to have fun with or go to your country for a vacation. If they don't talk they just don't know how to tell you it's over for them, pack it up and move on.
     
  7. HampshireLad

    HampshireLad Active Member

    Yep. At least we know where we stand early on :) IMHO
     

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