KareBear Posted January 18, 2011 Share Posted January 18, 2011 I am a MW of 7 years & want to share my experience of an EA with my married (high school sweetheart). I will call him Brian. 7 months ago Brian reconnected with me on facebook. I was estatic. We dated when I was 14-16. We never had sex, and the young relationship was great. We were best friends. I was raped at age 12, and this particular relationship with Brian was one I always remembered as a positive experience. He respected me and cared for me. For 7 months, first Brian chatted with me non-stop on Facebook, catching up with me. He said all the right things. then he eventually asked me to call him on his cell phone, and thatb led to non-stop texting, then sexting, then he had me hooked. He got me to send nude photos of myself to him. Read carefully....this is where the butterfly feeling, magic fantasy ends. I developed low self esteem and was more confused and weak than ever. I became very depressed and ashamed. He wasn't the guy that respected me anymore, I was side trash to him. Please be careful. Brian asked all the right questions intellectually and got me to trust him. He lied. I got caught up in a mess with Brian.What started as an innocent reconnection was his self serving sexual conquest plan. Just wanted to share. Take care, Karen. Link to post Share on other sites
YellowShark Posted January 18, 2011 Share Posted January 18, 2011 This is why I HATE FACEBOOK. It makes it waaaaaaay too easy for "old flames" to come out of the woodwork years later and drop a grenade into marriages. Link to post Share on other sites
bentnotbroken Posted January 18, 2011 Share Posted January 18, 2011 Facebook isn't the devil. It doesn't ask for anyone to cease brain function in order to use it. If you aren't going looking for trouble...you won't find it. If you dig in the dirt, you will end up with stains and sometimes worse. Link to post Share on other sites
YellowShark Posted January 18, 2011 Share Posted January 18, 2011 Facebook isn't the devil. It doesn't ask for anyone to cease brain function in order to use it. If you aren't going looking for trouble...you won't find it. If you dig in the dirt, you will end up with stains and sometimes worse. Facebook doesnt absolve people from personal responsibility. I agree with that completely. But it does allow a quick, free, and easy way for people who would not normally reconnect to reconnect. It is a convenient conduit for infidelity. I've read sooooo many similar stories here on LS where an old flame comes crawling out of the woodwork and they were able to do so simply by typing in a name. And it always starts off all innocent then escalates from a simple 'hello' to a EA. Link to post Share on other sites
BB07 Posted January 18, 2011 Share Posted January 18, 2011 Facebook isn't the devil. It doesn't ask for anyone to cease brain function in order to use it. If you aren't going looking for trouble...you won't find it. If you dig in the dirt, you will end up with stains and sometimes worse. I agree.........it's the user with the intent that gets into trouble. However......I will agree it makes it easier to make contact with someone from the past, but if you aren't looking for trouble, you won't find it. I recently befriended my 1st b/f on FB. I peeked at his page and saw that he was in a relationship. I had my FB chat turned on one night and he popped up and we chatted for a few. Caught up on what had happened in our lives a bit. He said something that wasn't quite kosher considering he was in a relationship, so I now leave my chat off. Didn't use it that much anyway. After that, he posted once about why wasn't I on chat any longer and I didn't respond. As Barney Fife used to say on Andy Griffin...........I nipped that in the bud. Link to post Share on other sites
YellowShark Posted January 18, 2011 Share Posted January 18, 2011 He said something that wasn't quite kosher considering he was in a relationship, so I now leave my chat off. Didn't use it that much anyway. After that, he posted once about why wasn't I on chat any longer and I didn't respond. As Barney Fife used to say on Andy Griffin...........I nipped that in the bud. And that is exactly what I am talking about. Link to post Share on other sites
BB07 Posted January 18, 2011 Share Posted January 18, 2011 And that is exactly what I am talking about. And........let's not forget that I did not respond. It is a choice you know........and it was my choice. Link to post Share on other sites
YellowShark Posted January 18, 2011 Share Posted January 18, 2011 (edited) And........let's not forget that I did not respond. It is a choice you know........and it was my choice. Not in argument. But you've now seen how quickly Facebook allowed you to go from finding an old boyfriend innocently to him hitting on you. That's what I am talking about. Without Facebook you wouldn't have been able to search and find an old flame with a few keystrokes and he wouldn't have been able to start hitting on you using Facebooks chat. Edited January 18, 2011 by YellowShark Link to post Share on other sites
BB07 Posted January 18, 2011 Share Posted January 18, 2011 Not in argument. But you've now seen how quickly Facebook allowed you to go from finding an old boyfriend innocently to him hitting on you. That's what I am talking about. Without Facebook you wouldn't have been able to search and find an old flame with a few keystrokes and he wouldn't have been able to start hitting on you using Facebooks chat. Not going to argue with you either. Yes, I see what you mean and you are right in that it does make it much easier to connect with someone who otherwise you wouldn't connect with without a lot of digging. He had crossed my mind from time to time over the years, after all he was my first b/f, but it wasn't like my last dying wish to get into contact with him. I'll admit I was curious about him but when I saw the in a relationship status, I wasn't overly curious as I've learned hard lessons about boundaries ya know. It's probably not even relevant to this discussion but don't know if you are a fb user or not, but most of the time you don't even have to search for someone. Names pop up as someone you might know, because they are friends with one of your already friends. Such was the case in this. I didn't search for him, but saw he was on F/B as a result of being friends with someone else I went to school with. Link to post Share on other sites
alexandria35 Posted January 18, 2011 Share Posted January 18, 2011 Not in argument. But you've now seen how quickly Facebook allowed you to go from finding an old boyfriend innocently to him hitting on you. That's what I am talking about. Without Facebook you wouldn't have been able to search and find an old flame with a few keystrokes and he wouldn't have been able to start hitting on you using Facebooks chat. I agree with this. BB07 you typed this guys name into a facebook search and voila...there he was! or vice versa if he found you first. But if not for facebook how much effort would you have gone to to find him? None I'm guessing. That's what I don't get about all these long lost loves who find each other on facebook. They connect and then come here to opine about how it was fate, it was meant to be. They never stopped loving one another and never got over the past. Well if that's true you would think that they would have been trying a lot harder to locate each other all along. Why weren't they scouring the phone directories or hiring PI's? You would think that kind of deep lasting love would be worth more effort than just doing a stupid facebook search. I think what happens is people sign up for facebook, then start doing random searches for people from their past. At one point they may search for someone they used to date or have feelings for. Someone who they wouldn't have even bothered to look for if it was going to take any real effort. But since it was so easy on facebook then it's all "oh it's fate, it's meant to be!" Haha please! ...there is nothing fated in finding people on facebook, that's what facebook is designed for. It's like "wow! I went to the grocery store and found food! Isn't that amazing? It must have been fate" Link to post Share on other sites
BB07 Posted January 18, 2011 Share Posted January 18, 2011 I agree with this. BB07 you typed this guys name into a facebook search and voila...there he was! or vice versa if he found you first. But if not for facebook how much effort would you have gone to to find him? None I'm guessing. That's what I don't get about all these long lost loves who find each other on facebook. They connect and then come here to opine about how it was fate, it was meant to be. They never stopped loving one another and never got over the past. Well if that's true you would think that they would have been trying a lot harder to locate each other all along. Why weren't they scouring the phone directories or hiring PI's? You would think that kind of deep lasting love would be worth more effort than just doing a stupid facebook search. I think what happens is people sign up for facebook, then start doing random searches for people from their past. At one point they may search for someone they used to date or have feelings for. Someone who they wouldn't have even bothered to look for if it was going to take any real effort. But since it was so easy on facebook then it's all "oh it's fate, it's meant to be!" Haha please! ...there is nothing fated in finding people on facebook, that's what facebook is designed for. It's like "wow! I went to the grocery store and found food! Isn't that amazing? It must have been fate" Whoa........before this thread gets focused on me and my old b/f.........lets not forget that I did not do anything wrong. Just making that clear. I agree with most of what you said Alexandria, I don't believe in the 'fate stuff" or "the meant to be" or soulmates and you do have a point in that if it truly was someone you had carried around with you all those years you would have done something about it prior. I would say realistically it starts with curiosity and fb makes it very easy to satisfy that curiosity and then........there you go unless you are extremely careful. There have been several articles in the news about how fb contributes to cheating and there is even a website devoted to exactly that. facebookcheating.com Link to post Share on other sites
BB07 Posted January 18, 2011 Share Posted January 18, 2011 I am a MW of 7 years & want to share my experience of an EA with my married (high school sweetheart). I will call him Brian. 7 months ago Brian reconnected with me on facebook. I was estatic. We dated when I was 14-16. We never had sex, and the young relationship was great. We were best friends. I was raped at age 12, and this particular relationship with Brian was one I always remembered as a positive experience. He respected me and cared for me. For 7 months, first Brian chatted with me non-stop on Facebook, catching up with me. He said all the right things. then he eventually asked me to call him on his cell phone, and thatb led to non-stop texting, then sexting, then he had me hooked. He got me to send nude photos of myself to him. Read carefully....this is where the butterfly feeling, magic fantasy ends. I developed low self esteem and was more confused and weak than ever. I became very depressed and ashamed. He wasn't the guy that respected me anymore, I was side trash to him. Please be careful. Brian asked all the right questions intellectually and got me to trust him. He lied. I got caught up in a mess with Brian.What started as an innocent reconnection was his self serving sexual conquest plan. Just wanted to share. Take care, Karen. Hi Karen..I hope you can repair the damage to yourself and your marriage. Take care! Link to post Share on other sites
YellowShark Posted January 18, 2011 Share Posted January 18, 2011 (edited) ....there is nothing fated in finding people on facebook, that's what facebook is designed for. It's like "wow! I went to the grocery store and found food! Isn't that amazing? It must have been fate" Nice analogy. And true. People search for old flames on Facebook consciously and then boom! The flirting begins. My EX did it too and the greaseball she reconnected with began to flirt and an EA began. Without Facebook they would have never reconnected, (he lived many miles away and was married). Facebook gave them a free, quick, and easy way to maintain their EA. Luckily BB07 had the foresight to nip her old flames advances in the butt before it went anywhere. Edited January 18, 2011 by YellowShark Link to post Share on other sites
East7 Posted January 18, 2011 Share Posted January 18, 2011 I agree with this. BB07 you typed this guys name into a facebook search and voila...there he was! or vice versa if he found you first. But if not for facebook how much effort would you have gone to to find him? None I'm guessing. That's what I don't get about all these long lost loves who find each other on facebook. They connect and then come here to opine about how it was fate, it was meant to be. They never stopped loving one another and never got over the past. Well if that's true you would think that they would have been trying a lot harder to locate each other all along. Why weren't they scouring the phone directories or hiring PI's? You would think that kind of deep lasting love would be worth more effort than just doing a stupid facebook search. I think what happens is people sign up for facebook, then start doing random searches for people from their past. At one point they may search for someone they used to date or have feelings for. Someone who they wouldn't have even bothered to look for if it was going to take any real effort. But since it was so easy on facebook then it's all "oh it's fate, it's meant to be!" Haha please! ...there is nothing fated in finding people on facebook, that's what facebook is designed for. It's like "wow! I went to the grocery store and found food! Isn't that amazing? It must have been fate" Great post Alexandria ! So true People are lazy and even the so called "love of a lifetime" wasn't strong enough to make them search by other means. But FB makes it soooo easy. I have seen the movie about the story of Facebook and one of the reasons why it was designed it is to feed the campus students' curiosity for X or Y if they were in couple or not. Anyway, I don't take FB itself as responsible for infidelity, FB is a communication tool. Yes, FB makes it very easy to find an old flame or sweetheart and I have seen many A start as a result of FB search, but people have responsability for their actions out of a computer screen. Link to post Share on other sites
Bittersweetie Posted January 18, 2011 Share Posted January 18, 2011 Facebook isn't the devil. It doesn't ask for anyone to cease brain function in order to use it. If you aren't going looking for trouble...you won't find it. If you dig in the dirt, you will end up with stains and sometimes worse. A couple of months ago I received a FB friend request from a guy I had a hot/cold relationship in high school. Maybe it was completely innocent and he just wanted to up his number or friends, or maybe he wanted to talk to me. After what I've gone through, I didn't even want to find out. I told my H about it then ignored the request. Done. Link to post Share on other sites
What_Next Posted January 18, 2011 Share Posted January 18, 2011 Facebook is by far not the cause of this, it's the lack of healthy boundaries and personal responsibilty. Period. Some days I weep for marriage in our society today. Karen, have you told your husband? If not you need to. Link to post Share on other sites
Mme. Chaucer Posted January 18, 2011 Share Posted January 18, 2011 I think what happens is people sign up for facebook, then start doing random searches for people from their past. At one point they may search for someone they used to date or have feelings for. Someone who they wouldn't have even bothered to look for if it was going to take any real effort. But since it was so easy on facebook then it's all "oh it's fate, it's meant to be!" Haha please! ...there is nothing fated in finding people on facebook, that's what facebook is designed for. It's like "wow! I went to the grocery store and found food! Isn't that amazing? It must have been fate" SO true! Thanks! Link to post Share on other sites
Author KareBear Posted January 18, 2011 Author Share Posted January 18, 2011 Thank you BB07. I am currently working on me right now. I told my husband everything. You know, before Brian reconnected with me I would have never cheated/had an affair with anyone and never had. It's completely out of my character. The fact that Brian was already an important friend from my past, made it easy for him to take advantage of me for he knew a 14 year old insecure girl. Quite simply, he asked all the right questions, listened, praised, and stayed in constant contact with me. I really wanted to fore warn others of what can happen in a a situation like this. Brian is married with 2 young girls and even offered for me to stay at his house with them, since I was separated. Could you imagine? I know things happen for a reason. Facebook is a tool for this kind of communication, however facebook is not going anywhere, so its up to us as individuals to be strong and know our personal boudaries. How important it is to mind them. I am still separated and still moving forward on the path I was on before Brian contacted me. I am more confident and content than I have been in months. Take care, Karen. Link to post Share on other sites
Goldenspoon Posted January 18, 2011 Share Posted January 18, 2011 Thank you BB07. I am currently working on me right now. I told my husband everything. You need to contact his wife and tell his wife. If you were in her shoes, wouldn't you want to know? Do it now and do it without any warnings to Brian. You have done enough wrong with sending naughty pictures to a married man, now it's your turn to do the right thing now. Link to post Share on other sites
rowell2024 Posted January 18, 2011 Share Posted January 18, 2011 I agree.........it's the user with the intent that gets into trouble. However......I will agree it makes it easier to make contact with someone from the past, but if you aren't looking for trouble, you won't find it. I recently befriended my 1st b/f on FB. I peeked at his page and saw that he was in a relationship. I had my FB chat turned on one night and he popped up and we chatted for a few. Caught up on what had happened in our lives a bit. He said something that wasn't quite kosher considering he was in a relationship, so I now leave my chat off. Didn't use it that much anyway. After that, he posted once about why wasn't I on chat any longer and I didn't respond. As Barney Fife used to say on Andy Griffin...........I nipped that in the bud. I certainly admire your self control and awareness of your boundaries, and I wish my wife had done the same. She was befriended by an old boyfriend from high school, and they had only lost contact because he went to another country to work. Looking back through the PMs, I saw that it was innocent. But SOMEWHERE along the line, it turned into chatting, then escalated to hours and hours of phone calls, 7 days a week, and the EA was in full swing. She even created a secret facebook account under a fake name linked to her work email, with only him on her friends list. My investigation after DDay revealed that she was at least researching or making plans to leave my son and me to be with him, even though he's thousands of miles away in Canada. That was when I accidentally found out what she was doing. Her regular facebook account showed nothing. It was her secret facebook account that she created to have this EA with her old flame is what blew me away. Link to post Share on other sites
Author KareBear Posted January 18, 2011 Author Share Posted January 18, 2011 This is why I HATE FACEBOOK. It makes it waaaaaaay too easy for "old flames" to come out of the woodwork years later and drop a grenade into marriages. Yes YellowShark Facebook does make it way too easy! I prefer a phone conversation actually as I feel it is a more personal and effective way of communication. I don't use Facebook that much, I filter what I share. Link to post Share on other sites
Author KareBear Posted January 18, 2011 Author Share Posted January 18, 2011 Facebook is by far not the cause of this, it's the lack of healthy boundaries and personal responsibilty. Period. Some days I weep for marriage in our society today. Karen, have you told your husband? If not you need to. Yes I have told my husband. He is supportive of me. He knew what had to have been going on, but had no idea it would affect me so badly. I told him everything. He warned me early on that Brian was up to no good, but i didn't listen to him. Why would a good friend that knew me want to hurt me? You are right it is all about taking responsibilty and setting/owning our boundaries. It's important for me to add that while I was in this EA with Brian, I slowly changed into a different person. much like a person would act in an addiction. I was much like that 14 year old girl very incecure with no direction. Take care, Karen Link to post Share on other sites
Author KareBear Posted January 18, 2011 Author Share Posted January 18, 2011 You need to contact his wife and tell his wife. If you were in her shoes, wouldn't you want to know? Do it now and do it without any warnings to Brian. You have done enough wrong with sending naughty pictures to a married man, now it's your turn to do the right thing now. Goldenspoon, I have thought of that, but I also try to put myself in anothers shoes. Brian has taken his wife and kids to my place of work. He texted me non-stop in front of his wife, and even would allow me to stay there with his family. I truely belive that there are more problems in Brian's marriage than one can count. I believe he is controlling, inconsiderate, and possibly a serial internet sex/chatter. I've considered telling his wife, but I feel sorry for her and pity Brian. I think his wife has low self-esteem. I think she will eventually (find out) through another source of infidelity. I was the one that ended all contact with brian. It was my first and biggest step to getting my life back. You have no idea how much better off I am without that mess in my life. Link to post Share on other sites
rowell2024 Posted January 18, 2011 Share Posted January 18, 2011 Yes I have told my husband. He is supportive of me. He knew what had to have been going on, but had no idea it would affect me so badly. I told him everything. He warned me early on that Brian was up to no good, but i didn't listen to him. Why would a good friend that knew me want to hurt me? You are right it is all about taking responsibilty and setting/owning our boundaries. It's important for me to add that while I was in this EA with Brian, I slowly changed into a different person. much like a person would act in an addiction. I was much like that 14 year old girl very incecure with no direction. Take care, Karen At least you told your husband in the beginning. My wife wasn't even honest me, and kept her first contact with her old boyfriend a closely guarded secret. Her personality completely changed, leaving me wondering WTF was going on? She claimed that the extremely high stress of her job was getting to her. I actually carried a load of guilt thinking I wasn't doing enough to help her. But no matter what I did to help, it didn't seem like it was enough and her attitude toward me only worsened. It affected me and my son, and we would be on the receiving end of her wrath when she came home from work (after her talking to him on the phone on the drive home). Link to post Share on other sites
Author KareBear Posted January 18, 2011 Author Share Posted January 18, 2011 At least you told your husband in the beginning. My wife wasn't even honest me, and kept her first contact with her old boyfriend a closely guarded secret. Her personality completely changed, leaving me wondering WTF was going on? She claimed that the extremely high stress of her job was getting to her. I actually carried a load of guilt thinking I wasn't doing enough to help her. But no matter what I did to help, it didn't seem like it was enough and her attitude toward me only worsened. It affected me and my son, and we would be on the receiving end of her wrath when she came home from work (after her talking to him on the phone on the drive home). I'm very sorry about your experience with your family. I hid it from my husband as well, later on. He didn't want me talking to Brian anymore. I did a lot of things that were out of my character(I cannot emphasize this enough). I hurt a lot of people with the choices I made. Is your wife doing okay? She can't be in a good place. Link to post Share on other sites
Recommended Posts