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[RobinS.]

Hi,

 

I am having a hard time dealing with a break up.

I was in a mostly online relationship with a boy. We have met, just not that often.

I was his "perfect match", his "twin", he loved me "eternally", blah, blah, blah.

The full works.

He valued "honesty" and "openness" and wanted "closeness".

I felt all these things on my side, I loved him and he did love me too.

We were supposed to be honest to each other about liking other people, and we agreed that if we did, it would not a reason to break up, as long as we remained honest about this.

Very early in our relationship, when I still was not sure about how I felt about him, I made out with somebody, told my bf about it, and he seemed ok with this. Later on, it just started to feel wrong for me to be in any from physical other than him, so I stopped and told him about not wanting to be with other ppl.

He would proclaim many times that "he did not anyone else but me", that there was no need for anyone else etc, so I kind of presumed we basically had a monogamous relationship.

It turned out, that all the time he was proclaiming all those love words to me, he actually had many online "f*ck buddies", friends, and other girls with whom he engaged in cyber sex and heavy flirting, since before he met me as well as still making new contacts whilst we were in a relationship.

He never told me about it, denied to my face even, and admitted it only when I confronted him with evidence.

I have told him my ever sexual thought, idea, I was completely open to him. and it turned out that it was not mutual.

I have broken up with him, of course, but in this relationship I have not cheated on him (we have agreed on the initial "openness" and I feel that the making out with the other guy felt more wrong to me, than to my "bf"). I have never lied to him, never concealed anything, and believed/trusted him.

And yet he has lived all these parallel lives, lied to me, and acted as if he was completely honest with me.

 

Since he has come out with complex personal stories how he developed like this, how he felt disgusted with himself for "becoming what he has become" etc. but honestly it does not help me to understand why he treated me like **** and built up all these lied towards me, when he did not even need to do that. I guess I would have been ok, had he told me that he is flirting with this or other girl, but I found the fact that he felt the need to constantly tell me that I was the only one (even when I did not ask him for it), when the reality did not match it, maddening.

 

I am trying to forget, but I feel like I have spend the last year believing in a carefully constructed lie, like somebody has involved me in their mad world for no reason at all.

I will do some counselling later this year, but still on the waiting list for it, so for now I am left alone with this.

I feel stupid, idiotic, broken and angry with myself for letting it happen.

Edited August 12, 2011 by RobinS.

[Nohbody]

Online relationships are weird. You can learn so much about someone else, and yet there is still that lack of physical proximity and intimacy. In my honest opinion, if you can't forgive - then so be it. It's done. If you can, then make plans to actually be together and see what he does.

 

Sounds like you are done, so done is done is done. What have you lost?

[antinko]

I apologise if this sounds harsh, but online relationships aren't real. A person has so many masking tools at their disposal in the online domain that I only take what my closest, nearest and dearest allies tell me with a pinch of salt when I speak to them online.

 

Maybe I'm just cynical, but from what it sounds, your boyfriend was just using the internet so he could cheat. You sound like you tried to have an open relationship, but then claimed to be exclusive when you both felt it might hurt each others feelings. Unfortunately, a solid relationship cannot be built on lies and half truths.

 

My advice is to stay well away from online relationships and, if you do get involved with someone online, ask yourself why they want to have an online relationship?

 

You know, as I write this, I have five other tabs open, I'm discussing a scheme for learning for a shared class I have next year and I'm organising a night out tonight - you didn't know that until I told you that. And in actual fact, for all you know, I could be lying...such is the complexity and difficulty of trusting anyone online.

 

I'm sorry if I've sounded harsh, but as someone who works with teenagers who often get themselves into similar messes, I have absolutely no faith in the online medium for forming relationships.

 

I'm even seriously considering limiting my use of online communication further for when I'm in a 'face to face' relationship.

[RobinS.]

Online relationships are weird. You can learn so much about someone else, and yet there is still that lack of physical proximity and intimacy. In my honest opinion, if you can't forgive - then so be it. It's done. If you can, then make plans to actually be together and see what he does.

 

Sounds like you are done, so done is done is done. What have you lost?

 

Well, I have not forgiven, because there should have been some kind of truthful basis from which to forgive from. So I am done, yes.

I think I have lost some ability to trust in such an innocent way.

 

I really like your signature btw, it is appropriate for me to think in those terms at the moment, thank you

[RobinS.]

I apologise if this sounds harsh, but online relationships aren't real. A person has so many masking tools at their disposal in the online domain that I only take what my closest, nearest and dearest allies tell me with a pinch of salt when I speak to them online.

 

Maybe I'm just cynical, but from what it sounds, your boyfriend was just using the internet so he could cheat. You sound like you tried to have an open relationship, but then claimed to be exclusive when you both felt it might hurt each others feelings. Unfortunately, a solid relationship cannot be built on lies and half truths.

 

My advice is to stay well away from online relationships and, if you do get involved with someone online, ask yourself why they want to have an online relationship?

 

You know, as I write this, I have five other tabs open, I'm discussing a scheme for learning for a shared class I have next year and I'm organising a night out tonight - you didn't know that until I told you that. And in actual fact, for all you know, I could be lying...such is the complexity and difficulty of trusting anyone online.

 

I'm sorry if I've sounded harsh, but as someone who works with teenagers who often get themselves into similar messes, I have absolutely no faith in the online medium for forming relationships.

 

I'm even seriously considering limiting my use of online communication further for when I'm in a 'face to face' relationship.

 

Well, I don't think you sound harsh, you sound reasonable.

This was my first (and last hopefully) online relationship, and I did not have much experience in forming relationships that way.

What you say kind of confirms what my friends said at the time, and what I have thought myself afterwards.

This guy very much believed in online things being "real", and I really did not have any reason to not trust him in this.

 

Now he says this:

"I didn't want to "play" with your feelings, and even less cruelly.. I know I've been a stupid fool, I've been lazy and weak, selfish, took the risk to hurt you to protect my worthless little world.. I don't mean to "defend" what I've done.

But I never meant to use/exploit/manipulate your feelings. I've really wanted to be happy with you, but I f*cked it up. That's not what I wanted, even if I didn't do what I had to avoid it.

 

I have lived in two concurrent realities, there was no reason for you to think there was another one than the one you knew.

 

I'm not sure there's a "why", I think.. only "how"."

 

 

For now I very rarely interact with anyone online, I really try to make an effort to interact with people in 3 dimensions , it works for now.

 

But why is it that there is no faith for the internet as a medium for forming relationships? In the end people wrote letters to each other, and had relationships in which they only spoke on the phone, those things worked out in the end sometimes, what is different about the internet?

Is it the availability of other information at the same time?

I wonder.

[antinko]

Letters are different because a. they're not instant b. they take more effort and c. they mostly require forming a face to face relationship with somebody first.

 

The online medium allows you to multitask to a huge degree and you never have to truly meet anyone for real. For example, look at Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games... Part of my degree involved a minor in sociology and I chose to research MMORPGS and the 'communities' which were formed within them. Interestingly, after interviewing many players, it was interesting to discover how many players had 'real romantic' relationships going on between their characters, not just with one character and one person, but with multiple, and they all felt they were real.

 

The internet allows a person to experience a fantastic illusion of genuine intimacy, but when all is said and done, it's just lots of people sitting at different ends of a a cable with words and images projected on screen. It's no replacement for genuine face to face, body to body contact.

 

You know 90% of human communication is made through body language? Try that effectively through the internet. Not even webcam does it justice.

[Rorschach64]

RobinS. I am going through a similar situation, well at least my ex excused me of cheating on her and all that fancy crap over a misunderstood conversation but I managed to clear my name and be broken up over a lame excuse.

 

I have had a 2 year online long distance relationship, her Singapore and me in the US, I thought I could trust and not feel any ideas of jealousy or suspicion with her while she went out and partied with a 'friend' she would never tell me about even when I asked about this person, I brushed it off as whatever and maybe it was just my own paranoia. Long story short, I sit hear holding the broken pieces to a relationship, I wanted to salvage, because she wanted to go around drinking, sexing it up, and developing feelings for some other military personnel. You really can't tell what that person is doing at any time and like with your boy, he was living a double life. Internet relationships suck.... Learned the hard way by losing 10,000 USD and a 1800 USD laptop. Plus back in the day people might have had better morals and standards than these days, but that is just an opinion, social decay and what nots!

Edited August 13, 2011 by Rorschach64