This is the end....

The situation is so crazy. I don't know what's going on, and I don't think I ever will. Sunday one of Lan's friends Husbands came by for a visit. He spoke a little english, and so he started translating a conversation between Lan and I. I was basically concerned that her parents where getting hassled by the neighbors because I was living with them before Lan and I were married. So I was trying to ask Lan if I should move out. At first Lan was laughing and joking around it seemed everything was fine. Then at one point Lan got up to use the bathroom, went in the other room and sat down on the stairs in the kitchen. After a while I noticed she hadn't returned and so I went to see what she was doing, I found her balling and sobbing. I asked her what was wrong, but she wouldn't talk to me. So her friends husband went to talk to her, he came back and in his broken english said something about how Lan loves only me and wants to marry only me. Then I asked him to go find out what was upseting her and then he came back a few minutes later and said Lan didn't love me and didn't want to marry me. I went in the room and tried to talk to her, her parents tried to talk to her, her sister's tried to talk to her, but she wouldn't talk to anyone. I finally decided the best thing for me to do was to go to my room and leave her alone, because being around her was upsetting her so much. I thought if I left her alone then maybe she would calm down and the next day we could talk about it. 

The next day Lan wouldn't look at me, wouldn't talk to me, completely avoided me. Her parents tried to talk to her, and she wouldn't talk to them either. She told her Mom that she didn't love me and wouldn't marry me, and that was all she would say. Her parents are very traditional and in their cultural world view if someone makes a promise to marry a person, that person becomes their son or daughter from that moment on, so her parents had been going around the whole time I've been here introducing me everyone as their son. All their extended family and friends, all their neighbors, everyone knows I'm marrying Lan. So when Lan said she wouldn't marry me, it caused a huge scandal. Her father told Lan that she needed to talk to me, or she would have to move out. Basically she has brought great shame to her family. She refused. She has refused to talk to anyone in her family about it either.  Her parents asked me Monday if I would stay for one month so that they could talk to Lan and get it all straightened out, so I agreed. Well, I just found out that yesterday her Father kicked Lan out of the house, and she is no longer welcome in the house or in any of her sister's homes. But I am still considered their son, and I am welcome to stay here as long as I want. The funny thing is that her whole family has rallied around me and is trying everything they can to get Lan to talk to me. My only hope of this thing working out, at least long enough to get an explanation is if her family can get through to her.

So here I sit waiting to find out what is going on, but unable to talk to anyone about it. I don't think that Lan will ever talk to me again, and I have absolutely no idea why. I have decided that this relationship is over and for whatever unfathomable reason Lan has dumped me. I don't understand, and neither does her family. It's so weird to me that she would rather be banished by her family than marry me. What happened? I just don't know. So that's the sad saga of Lan and I, it has apparently ended in flames and ruin. Her family says that I should wait and that in a week or two Lan will calm down and we can talk and work everything out. I know of an apartment on the other side of town that will be available on April 1, and so I think I will wait for one week to see if anything happens, and if Lan hasn't stepped forward in a week then I'll move in with my teacher buddy. 

I have some theories as to why Lan is doing what she is doing. I think that one, she is having serious commitment phobia, this is the main reason I think that she is doing this, she sees the wedding looming and she is not ready to make a commitment of this magnitude in her life. There are also major language and cultural barriers that Lan is unwilling or unable to transcend. She said something else to her Mom about not being able to talk to me, so I think that her inability to understand me or talk to me has just proved too much for her. I know that the immediate problems  facing us, what led to the meltdown on Sunday could be fixed with an hour long conversation with a translator, which we were supposed to do Tuesday morning. But there are more deep seated problems that aren't so easily fixed. The last theory might be that there is someone else. She has been acting strangely toward me since tet, around the middle of february, and she keeps very strange hours (,On more than one occasion I have seen her leaving after everyone has gone to bed, and she appears to be gone all night because then the next day she slept the entire day--this happened both times I noticed her leaving) she's gone for long periods of time, she hasn't seemed like she really was that interested in my for while. I don't know, there's other things. I doubt I'll ever know why she has decided she doesn't love me and doesn't want to marry me, but I wouldn't be surprised if there is a combination of all these things going on. 

So I am beginning the  heart wrenching process of separating myself from Lan, and I will wait one week to see what happens, but likely by one week from tomorrow I will be living somewhere else starting a new chapter in my life. At least the new apartment my teacher friend has available is super sweet. It's like the nicest place I will have ever lived. It's super modern, swank, full on American party pad, so at least I can drown my sorrows in a beautiful apartment with lots of amenities. I will stay in Vietnam until at least August, no matter what happens. There's no reason to come home to America, when I will have no chance of finding work until after the summer.