A
female
age
30-35,
*oevar
writes:Alright, SO, about 3 years ago I met a man, Luke, online and formed a very quick friendship with him. Over the next few months we became best friends and fell in love. I had never been in an internet relationship before and was a bit naive and very trusting, totally unaware of the ramifications of dating someone virtually and what that could mean. However, at first things were great. We had a lot in common and we always had a lot of fun, speaking for hours and hours. At that point we both considered it dating and certainly monogamous, even making plans to meet up and move in together in the near future. We developed an incredibly close bond, and I told him I wasn't interested in dating someone online unless it would lead to dating them in person, and he agreed to that, but was incredibly hesitant about me flying out to meet him straight away. He always made up loads of excuses to get out of it, and while I didn't totally buy it, I let it pass and figured he would grow more comfortable in time. We dated this way for over a year, and for the beginning half of that everything was great. He had some emotional issues with abuse in his past and self confidence issues, but I thought I was helping him and providing him encouragement and a positive direction.About 8 or 9 months into the relationship I started seeing less and less of him. Things started to take a subtle turn, from us being great friends and trying to help each other to be happy and spending lots of time together, to him being down and away with some mysterious 'illness' for a large portion of the time. I was very in love with him at this point and of course was horribly worried about all of that. He also told me that he had lost his job and was unable to afford basic necessities like food and electricity, which prompted me to (over several months) send him a few thousands dollars, bit by bit, as he kept asking for it when a 'need' arose. I'm not stupid, though, and I noticed that during the times he was 'gone sick', he was actually playing video games half the time with a couple of our mutual friends. I was totally flabbergasted and asked the friends about it, but they lied for him and said they hadn't seen him. I also asked him about it but he of course lied and said he had not been purposefully avoiding me. Feeling suspicious of him and confronting him about it was awful for me, he would act hurt that I would even dare to question him, like 'didn't I love him enough to trust him?', it was incredibly manipulative. I am usually a very self confident person and steadfast in what I believe is right, but I grew timid and felt very guilty and unsure. I stopped trusting him and started to draw away from him, while also not being sure of my conclusions and feeling paranoid and awful. I tried to talk to him about it, and I told him that if he was feeling stifled or something, I was more than alright with him taking alone time to hang out with his other friends, but to just please let me know so that I was not sitting around worrying about him. He persisted that he was not avoiding me. The friends who had lied for him eventually started feeling guilty when they saw how distraught I was and admitted that he had been lying to make me think he was gone, and also asking them to lie to me. They presented me with logs and things from him during the times he had been 'in the hospital' etc., so he was pretty much caught with his pants down. When I confronted him about it, he tried to lie, but after awhile broke down and admitted that in reality he was several years younger than he had originally told me he was, did not have a job, had dropped out of school, and lived at home with his father. I was floored. I knew he had had a history of lying passively about things, but he had built an entire world (work, his age, his 'roommates') out of nothing, he had fabricated it all. The depth and complexity of his lies really disturbed me. He had basically been taking my money and keeping it 'just because, in case', and he was only 17. I was floored, but it made a lot of sense to me, given what I had seen of his emotional maturity at that point. I am 19, so the age difference wasn't too awful, but at that point I think my trust had been irreparably broken. He saw his mistake at that point and spent a great deal of time and energy trying to win my affections back, and I tried to forgive him. After a couple of days of pushing on his part, I came to believe that he had lied because he was self conscious about himself and that a good person would forgive him because he was abused as a child etc. He did not take any responsibility for his actions, but manipulated my emotions expertly. He still did not admit to avoiding me or to faking being ill, I just dropped both of those issues.I was hesitant, but I was willing to give him another shot for reasons that probably do not make any logical sense, I was going off of pretty much pure emotion. I thought that now that he had come clean, things would be better between us, because his lies had been the cause of the friction. It was good for awhile, and then conditions continued to deteriorate. I saw him less and less, maybe two or three times a week, and he was 'ill' more and more, and less and less willing to have me come and visit him. I continued trying to encourage him to get his GED and his license and go to school and get work if he could, just things to generally improve his life and help alleviate the depression caused by his extreme isolation. I also encouraged him to see a therapist about his excessive lying, self hatred, and emotionally abusive tendencies. I could tell he was passively trying to repair things between us, but, at that point I did not trust him at all. I started caring for him less and less, I was so drained of energy and emotion that his 'illness' and all of his ups and downs and antics weren't even causing me depression as they once had, I was just apathetic. I decided to end the relationship at that point, as I was no longer in love with him and I knew I could not be with someone I didn't trust. When I told him that, he threatened extensively to kill himself and tried to make me feel guilty for not 'trying' as hard as he had. I was steadfast and cut off contact with him, despite the suicide threat, which I knew was just a flamboyant display of dramatics on his part. Despite whatever logic I tried to ploy myself with, it was very difficult for me to leave him. I had been with him for a long time and I had loved him so much, I felt betrayed and lost and very confused. But still, with the support of the people who had been there and seen all of the awful things he had done to me, I didn't talk to him for about 6 months. He messaged me in January of this year asking to reconcile. He said he missed me and he knew now that I had been right all along about him being mentally ill and needing to make a positive change in his life for himself, and that he would give anything for me to give him another chance. I thought that maybe he finally had changed, after all of this time, so I told him I would be open to being friends with him. This went well for about 2 months, I could tell he was trying his absolute best to be open and honest with me. I did not feel romantic feelings for him again, but, we were friends and it was comfortable. He admitted to still being in love with me and I told him I could potentially have feelings for him again, as well. Then he met another woman, Sarah. I knew he spoke to her quite often as I was not online much with work and school, but he said he did not have feelings for her, and in fact mocked her rather regularly.About a month ago, he lied to Sarah and she found out and decided to ask me about it, because she knew I knew the truth. I told him that I would not lie for him and that I wish he hadn't lied to her in the first place and gotten me involved in the situation. He asked me to lie for him several times, and when I told him I absolutely would not, he blew up and cussed me out, told me I was useless and to never come back and that it would be a relief to never speak to me again. It was incredibly hurtful and I was totally gobsmacked. I told him that I would absolutely not be treated that way or spoken to that way by anyone, ever, and promptly blocked him. I intended to never talk to him again.About a week after that, I found out that while him and I had been speaking and he had been professing his love for me and trying so hard to work on the relationship, him and Sarah had been carrying on, her sending him nude photos and participating in pretty lewd conversations. I was so hurt. I have not spoken to him since and I do not plan on it, but last I heard they are dating now. I find myself stuck feeling like he was the one who dumped me, for some reason. Despite all of the awful things he did and how much patience and forgiveness I showed to him, I feel now like I resent that he is in another relationship. I see him now for what he is, a person who uses other people for their affection, their money, etc., and I know that now that I have run out of uses for him, he has moved onto his next victim. Instead of feeling hatred towards him, I feel disgust for myself for doing what I at the time thought was noble, being so patient and giving him so many chances and trying to help him financially and otherwise. I feel like he was playing me for a fool the entire time and perhaps never cared about me. I was just being a doormat. I feel so stupid. I never thought something like this would happen to me, and I do not know how to forget about him or move on. I feel ill every time I think about him or her or them together, or the things that he has done and said to me. I keep wanting to check up on him or say something to him to get a reaction, somehow figure out what he is doing, if they are still together, if he still cares about me. I know that this is kind of normal for people who have been in an abusive relationship, but now I am just at a loss as to what to do to make myself feel better about this and forget it. My personal relationships with friends and family are suffering, I feel apathetic and distant. The people that I try to talk to about it can't see why I give two shits about this asshole, especially when I broke up with him a year ago. They don't understand that he has done lasting damage. I myself wish I was stronger and was able to move forward, but, my emotions are betraying me. I'm at my wit's end. How do I let go of this burden and move forward in my life, not feeling regret or affection for the person who used me?
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best friend, broke up, confidence, emotionally abusive, fell in love, his ex, lost his job, money, move on, video games Reply to this Question
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Fancy yourself as an agony aunt? Add your answer to this question! A
female
reader, aunt honesty  +, writes (26 April 2011):
 Wow you really are a glutting for punishment even though he kept doing this to you, you kept going back to him. You fell in love with something fictional not real. Thats the dangers of the internet it allows people to be someone that they are not and it lets them manipulate people. He knew what to say to you and what buttons to press to get you to do what he wanted and unfortunately you fell for it. I hope you have learned now not to date people over the internet.
Yes he has been cruel and he has used you but you need to just accept now that you are better off without him in your life and actually be thankful that you woke up when you did and you dont need to be treated like this anymore. Delete and block all of his contact details on line. Delete his phone number and any other details that you have so that you cannot contact him. You need to move on now and accept that he used you and that you no longer need him in your life. Accept that what you fell in love with was fiction.
Keep yourself busy go out with friends and enjoy yourself. Pick up new hobbies and interests. Start living in the real world again and step away from the internet. It can be dangerous. You have learned the hard way. But believe it or not you where lucky in a sense he could have been a rapist or a killer. So look at it like you had a lucky escape and move forward.
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