I'm not sure I know how to go about explaining myself and I'm sorry for making this too lengthy but it is a long story. Here it goes:

Before you start there are a few things you need to know about me:1) NO I am not a teenager who knows nothing about life. 2) I am from a culture where family is everything.. you can not disobey your parents, you can not go against their wishes. 3) Arranged marriages are a cultural norm but love marriages are now becoming acceptable, little by little. It's hard to explain.. but that's how it is.

I moved to the US 3.5 years ago. I was unhappy about it because I left my entire life behind but I did not have an option. I moved into my uncle's basement and for the first 5 or 6 months I had nothing to do. One of the rooms in my basement was occupied by a guy who is also a distant relative. I had known him all my life but I never got to know him nor did i like him much because there was a lot of tension between our families. But since we were living in the same basement, we started interacting and i started spending a lot of time with him when he got home from work. In short, we were together all the time and we started developing feelings for one another.

We fell in love but he told me that chances are very high that we won't end up together, I just shook it away thinking that things couldn't be that bad between our families and he would be able to convince his mother. Time flew by and finally he talked to his mother... she said NO. And that if he ever tried to marry me, she would never see him again.He started pushing me away but I wasn't ready to accept the fact that he would let me go over something like his mother saying no. I called up my mother, told her everything. She wasn't happy with it but told me that my happiness is her happiness. However, after lots of ugly incidents, i was beginning to see that it would not work. and I could not accept it. that relationship was the only real thing in my life and it killed me to see that i was going to lose him. He kept telling me he loved me but at the same time did his best to push me away and moved out into a friend's house. 1.5 years from the day i was with him, i found out he had involved himself in a long distance relationship with a girl he went to high school with years ago. I called him up and cursed him and swore at him and told him one day he would regret it and miss me. he told me it was all my fault and i brought all that upon myself. It was ugly. We became arch enemies.

I thought of him constantly and cried. I tried to kill myself but it didn't work. Meanwhile a male friend of mine became my shoulder and started taking care of me. He was the only thing keeping me sane and helped me get out of this. Then one day he told me that he loved him. I was delusional.. i told him i did too. He was too serious about me.. he wanted to marry me. One day I told him i may not have been truthful when i told him i loved him and maybe one day i might be able to love him the way he loved me. He still stayed with me.. I don't know why. Slowly, the pain began to diminish, my life became better... i began to care for this guy and really love him. i became healthy.. i looked better.. i became confident. He motivated me to fulfill my aim of getting a PhD. everything became ok. but i still had nightmares about my previous boyfriend... it still hurt every time i saw him. i always wanted an apology from him. i just wanted him to hurt like he hurt me and it was just a confused muddled mish mush of feelings but finally i was able to put it in the background. A few incidents related to him happened during the course of time and all this while i thought he hated me.

Meanwhile, my second boyfriend asked me to marry him, i said yes. I told my parents, they weren't happy because it was an arranged marriage. after lots of fights and unhappy confrontations my family has just given up on me and they are more or less like: Do whatever you want to, because I'm a total non-conformist and would never agree to an arranged marriage. Things began to work out.. until one day my sister told me that because of the bad economy, my previous boyfriend's employer laid off an entire department of web developers and programmers, and he was one of them. Because of this he now does not have a sponsor for his H1 work visa and will lose his house, his car, everything and will have to leave the U.S soon. I wasn't too happy about it but i wasn't too sad either because I had too much hurt stored up in my heart.

Yesterday, (almost 1.5 years from the day we fell apart) i received a text msg from him begging me to see him and that he had never asked me for anything in life and he needed this one thing. I consulted my fiance' who wasn't happy about it but in the end he let me go. It was the hardest thing i ever did in my life. He sat there crying and told me that he had been trying to do this for the past one month. He came to my house and parked outside mustering enough courage to come in and apologize but he couldn't do it. He said he wanted to do this before he left the country and wanted to tell me that he was sorry. He had never stopped loving me but he knew he couldn't marry someone from a family that his mother hated so much, so he used the other girl as a rebound to get over me and to make it easier for him to leave me. He said so many things that completely broke my heart. I was sitting there... and the roles were reversed... he... a man with unimaginable pride.. sitting there crying and me... a weak-hearted person, sitting there not crying... not knowing what to do. I asked him if he loved that girl he was with.. he said No.. but i know her and i know she loves him a lot so i told him to stick to her.. he said he will... he told me i started a relationship with my fiance because i wanted to get over him and i should rethink it because i deserve better. i told him that i now, love him. He asked me to stay in touch, but i know my fiance will leave me if i do... we talked for 45 mins i said good bye and told him i will pray for him and that i have forgiven him... and drove back home.

But since yesterday, I've been crying.. the one guy i loved to death... the guy i died over.. the guy who couldn't take a stand for me....the guy who i thought left me for another girl... comes to me and tells me after 1.5 yr that he never stopped loving me...

I'm not sure why i am here... i am not sure why i spent the past one hour trying to explain all this.. i am just broken hearted.. i am sad... i was absolutely sure i got over this guy.. i am marrying another guy in two years.. someone who absolutely and completely loves him. someone i can never ever ever hurt. someone i will give any sacrifice for.

..but i can't stop thinking.. what could have been.. what could be... what should have been... will never be... It hurts. I don't know what to do.