Help!

[Alexis]

Hello..this is my first time here and I was wondering if anyone had advice for me. I met someone online in a chatroom almost two years ago. We started out as friends and discovered through chatting and emails that we had a lot in common and that we both had suffered childhood sexual abuse. We also are both in a depression as we were in damaging marriages...my divorce will be final in a month and his in two. We met in person for the first time last July and it was even more incredible than we had imagined. We really felt like we had finally met our "soulmates" I have never been so much in love in my entire life..he means everything to me. He had asked me to marry him and of course I said yes. The one drawback is that he lives in Canada and I live in the states..but we were optomistic that we could overcome that hurdle. Well, since last October things have been going downhill...he gets in depressed moods that cause him to put walls up and he isn't able to tell me he loves me and becomes very cold and distant. In the past these moods didn't last long but this one has lasted months. I just came home from flying out to see him last week and my visit didn't go well at all. It was nothing like when he came here to visit me. He tells me that I am not loosing him but he doesn't know how he feels right now. Needless to say this is killing me...it is making me regress..I was really making such wonderful progress in my therapy but now I feel like I've gone backwards so much. I can't stop loving him...and to think of a life without him is too painful to even contemplate. Could someone please help me...I know I have to decide but I really need someone's opinion. Thank you so much.

[Tony T]

Two people falling in love and getting engaged when they aren't even divorced yet is a time bomb of the greatest magnitude.

 

People getting out of difficult relationships need time to heal. You are extremely emotionally vulnerable during the course of a divorce and subconsciously looking for security to make up for the vacuum soon to be created.

 

Your relationship started under the worst of conditions. I actually would seriously question whether or not you really love this guy. All you know about him is what you have learned in a chatroom, in phone calls and on brief visits. I think you may be smitten or infatuated but I don't really think it's love. This is not an ideal courting situation, even if you had been divorced for a while.

 

I urge you to have a talk with this guy, see just where his depression state is. If he suffers from clinical depression and is not under treatment, you may be in for a real roller coaster ride.

 

You're just getting out of a bad marriage. Why in heaven's name are you wanting to get right back into another bad marriage.

 

Do yourself a favor and chill out. Step back and take a vacation from men. Believe me, you can well do without us for a period of time while you are healing and getting emotionally together again.

 

Finding a mate when you are emotionally ready and open is difficult enough. Finding someone under the circumstances you found this guy (online, divorces pending, etc.) and making that kind of relationship work is like running five miles with your hands and feet tied.

 

I know this is not what you wanted to hear so all I can do is wish you the best of luck and hope someone else will stop by and give you his/her blessings.

[livingjewel]

I met a wonderful man in September of last year, who happens to be going through a divorce.

 

I believe every situation is unique. Many people are in loveless marriages or relationships that came to a standstill many months or years before their divorces actually become final.

 

My advice is to give this man a little space. I'm sure it's hard on you emotionally, but your post seems to indicate this is what he needs right now.

 

If it is meant to be, he will come around in time and things will sort themselves out.

 

Tony may have a point in that you both may have been seeking comfort from the other when you both were not yet healed.

 

I'm only speaking from my own experience, that I DID fall madly in love with a man who is going through a divorce now, but we both know that we've met our match. And it's a wonderful feeling.

 

Best of luck to you and keep the faith

 

livingjewel

[Alexis]

Thank you both very much for your advice and opinions. Tony, you weren't entirely correct in your assumption that I didn't want to hear what you had to say. It did make me take pause to think. Your response was very intelligent and insightful and I do agree with much of what you said. I surely don't want to jump from one damaging marriage into another. Oh, and in answer to your question Tony he is clinically depressed as I am and he is on medication and is going to counselling.

 

livingjewel, thank you also for giving me a ray of hope. I wasn't able to go into detail about his and my relationship but we both totally agree that our meeting was due to some intervention from a higher power. I know that sounds strange but so much has went on between us for us to think differently.

 

I did have a talk with him and we both agree that we need to take a break and give each other time to heal and if our relationship is meant to be then it will withstand this separation. Thank you both again so very much..you've been very helpful.

 

Alexis