Online Emotional Affair

[Sleeplesstoo]

Well I don't even know where to begin. I am a married woman in my 40's married to a very amibtious man who does not spend a lot of time with me. I have no children, no siblings, and lost my mother awhile back (the closest one in my life). Since then I have been struggling on and off with what is maybe depression or maybe just lonliness, I don't know.

 

Several months ago I joined an online discussion board that was targeted at a particular interest in my life, posted a lot and made a lot of friends. A man joined the group who was very upbeat and fun and posted pictures of himself. I had also posted pictures of myself sometime before. This by the way was in no way any type of dating site. Anyway whenever I would start a new thread he would show up and post. He was always very complimentary and friendly and had a great sense of humor, and he was also great looking. He commented that he thought I was "beautiful". I have been told that I am good looking by many, not bragging just giving you background.

 

One day he got into a little tiff with one of the other posters and I felt bad for him because I thought he was being treated unfairly so I PM'd him and he PM'd me back. That was the beginning. At first we just talked about the subject of the forum we were particpating in. Then it escalated to our daily lives, some outright flirtation, and then finally turned sexually graphic with some visits to a private chat room on a totally unrelated site. He told me that he had fallen in love with me and I was feeling the same. Our days were filled with probably 20 or more emails at times. He is a paramedic, and I work from home, so that is why all of the opportunities. The online affair lasted for 3 months. His schedule being 24 on, 24 off and then some idle hours while on duty. I guess they can bring laptops to work. He always indicated to me he was single and looking and had been burned by a lot of women. At first he would ask me for advise about his dates and about all of his insecurities in spite of being "very handsome". He continually told me how he was sharing things with me he had never told anyone else. We had a great deal of emotional intimacy, more than I have had with anyone for a long time. It fulfilled a need for me in that way.

 

I know this is getting long, but I need to get it out. I noticed that on his days off he would talk until about 4:30pm and then either have to go to his partime job or abruptly disappear. He was always gone on weekends, and yet always talked until late on the nights he was doing a 24 shift.

I forgot to mention that neither of us used our real names only our screen names. One day I noticed his avatar was missing, and all of his pictures. He gave me some story about an ex-girlfriend finding his laptop and exposing him to everyone and how embarrassing it was. She supposedly read a bunch of our PM's and got my phone number from his wallet.

 

Through all of this he kept talking about his partner and his partner's wife and how his partner's wife may have found the forum because her interests were the same as ours. He mentioned that his partner's wife was posting to a different forum once too often so I got curious. Turns out the partner's wife is his wife, and they have a small child. The pictures and life he portrayed to me were his partner's not his. So for 3 months I have been writing to a man who really does not even exist. It was all made up.

 

He even had the nerve to send me the same picture that she had posted on her forum only her's had the true description of who was really who. What really caught him dead to rights was the fact that all the events he told me about, she also talked about on her board, and the dates always matched. I know because I alway archived my PM's. At that point I checked out the IP address after discovering this and the IP was registered to her employer. Of course when I confronted him he tried to lie his way out of it. After he did that I gave him the final damning evidence of the IP address, and said that it was over because he was not who he said he was and he had a wife and child.

 

So here I am feeling like a total idiot and feeling really empty inside. I truly hope that he will just go away, but I am afraid that he may not and his last sentence was how totally connected he felt to me. He has my cell so I hope he will never call it. In the meantime I am mourning the loss of someone who never really existed and I can't tell you how weird a feeling that is. My first experience with the internet was that board and him. This is my second, but for obvious reasons I cannot share this with anyone else.

 

For anyone who has not experienced the internet for God's sake be careful. It never occurred to me that someone would seek me out on a non-dating site (don't get me wrong I take full responsibility for my actions). When I look back on it now, he was not looking for anything but an encounter, and not really the interest that I thought we shared. You just do not know what you are dealing with. The photos of the man he pretended to be were a "10" and frankly he is just very average. The man he portrayed was a sweet humble "country boy" who needed a friend and some encouragement and he is not any of that. He took that man's life and exposed all of the details of it to me, and then embellished them with his own daily imaginings. I know that because of his wife's casual conversation about her husband's partner, that the persona he showed to me is his partners. I guess the real victim is his partner who had his pictures plastered all over some board, and the intimate details of his life revealed to a total stranger.

 

So I guess I am putting this out there for 2 reasons, the first being, be careful of the internet even if it is in what seems to be very benign surroundings, and because I want to know if anyone else has ever been where I am with the "emotional affair" (we never actually met) and how you delt with it. The worst part is I don't feel guilty. I don't feel guilty because I have been neglected and I took something that I needed. But having said all of that I don't want to leave my husband and start over. So I guess what I really need to do is learn to work on my own marriage, or just accept the fact that this is my life. After all I chose it. Please give me any feedback you might think is helpful. I am having some heavy withdrawal right now. There is no danger of me going back because there is nothing to go back to, him, his life, and all of it were just lies.

[MissMaris]

Wow, what a story.

 

I am sorry to hear you went through this and obviously, people need to be very careful with who they're dealing with online. It's very easy to fabricate a personality and existance and sell it to unsuspecting, vulnerable people.

 

You were vulnerable. You were lonely and happened upon a website that offered companionship and diversion. Then when this man flattered you and singled you out, it must have made you feel very special. It's understandable.

 

What a crushing blow it must have been to realize the extent of his lies.

 

I guess what you need to do is to look at the original source of your unhappiness. Obviously, your marriage is missing something. Would your husband be open to counseling?

And possibly, you need more friends and support in the real world, to help you sort through your feelings. Doing some volunteer work or joining a club or hobby group might be a good idea. Online friends are great but I think real-life activites offer something online can't.

 

Good luck and hope you feel better soon

[Sleeplesstoo]

Hi Missmaris,

 

Thanks so much for your reply. I don't know that he would be open to counseling, but it is worth persueing. I honestly don't think he thinks the problem is as big as I do, but of course he is not inside my head.

 

I am missing that relationship with that person who is not really real so much right now I am having a hard time coping and I really feel like somebody died. It is such a weird feeling that I can't even describe what I am feeling. Maybe something like grief.

 

I do need to get some new interests and friends outside my current circle, no doubt about it, but I guess I need to get through this first. It was stupid and I knew there was no good ending that could come of it the whole time we were involved, but it brought me such pleasure and comfort, and he was good company, just a pathological lier. LOL

 

Thank you so much for your reply I appreciate it!

[DazedandConfused66]

Hi Sleeplesstoo, and welcome to Loveshack!

 

Wow, that is quite the story. You are lucky in that your cyber-lovers lies were revealed before you took things to a physical level. I've heard horror stories about online romances that finally go real-time...only to discover that there can't be ANY real-time since the online persona doesn't match the real deal.

 

But I am sorry for your feelings of loss. Regardless of my own feelings that what you did was have an emotional affair in your marriage, I do understand that loss is loss no matter what the reasons. There are specific forums on here to help you deal with that.

 

What I would encourage you to do, however, is to recognize something. While "falling in love" with an person you met online seemed so easy, you DID have to invest some serious time in the affair. 20 emails a day I think you said? That's a lot by any measure. I'm sure chats and other online communication took up even more time.

 

So ask yourself a question......

 

What if you invested this same amount of effort into your marriage? I recognize that you were "in love" with the persona you met online and so it might be easier to invest that much time if you are receiving it as well. But this was a man you hardly knew at all and, as it turns out, was fake to begin with.

 

What if you invested 20 emails a day on your non-attentive husband? For 3 months? Invited him to sexy/racy flirtatious exchanges? Paid attention to his life, gave him the same advice with the same sincerity you gave this online charlatan?

 

What do you think could happen to your marriage with THAT kind of investment?

 

Do you WANT to experience that kind of intimacy with the man you married?

 

I challenge you, and anyone else who has been involved with, or tempted by, EA (emotional affairs) to consider what the world COULD look like if you invested that same amount of energy on your spouse instead of on a perfect stranger.

 

I'm not just asking theoretical questions. I was once tempted by a series of EA's in my life. I realized that the draw was very tempting. It's so much easier to just pursue something new and exciting and different. But I took a different path....the one I'm recommending to you. I, instead, invested that time and energy not on myself and my own pleasure, but on seeking to court my wife all over again. And it resulted in a marriage that is stronger, more vibrant, more passionate and filled with just about all the adventuresome sex I could ever hope to imagine. All because I invested that energy not in pursuing an affair...but on the woman I had married instead.

 

Good luck with your future....but please. Consider what the world MIGHT look like to you if you invested the same amount of time, and with the same energy, into your marriage instead.

[Sleeplesstoo]

Hi Dazed,

 

Thank you for your heartfelt response and sharing your own experience with me. I actually did what you suggested last night. I wrote my husband a "heartfelt" email and tried to express in writing what I was feeling, the depression and lonliness, and I told him I did not want a response from my husband, or business partner, or housemate, I told him I wanted a response from my "lover". Of course he was sitting 10' away from me and at first looked at me like I had absolutely lost my mind, which I can understand and told me he did not understand why I was acting so strangely. In the email I told him to please only respond to me in writing because writing was without interuption and required 100% of everyone's attention. So when he tried to discuss it with me I simply told him, remember, in writing. I did receive an email back from him and when we went to bed it did result in some significant cuddling which has been missing for awhile.

 

So your advise is good, and maybe that will become an evening habit for me, an email to my husband.

 

Again thank you, and I am glad you have found the right path with your own marriage.

[DazedandConfused66]

I'm happy for you. Baby steps. It takes time. He's a different man than your online guy was and each man will respond differently. But throw yourself into it.

 

The interesting thing about writing is that for many people you can better express yourself when you've time to compose an email better than when you are talking face to face. Eventually, it can carry over to face to face, but the written word is a very expressive language for some people.

 

One other recommendation if I may? Go pick up a copy of Gary Chapman's "The 5 Love Languages." There is a very real possibility that you and your online friend hit it off well because you were speaking each others' love language. We each have a primary one I believe, and the book outlines that for you. But your husband may be "very ambitious" because, to him, he's performing an act of service for you by throwing himself into his work as a means of providing for your future. I dunno, just guessing. Of course, if that is not your love language, his actions won't be seen as love by you and will have the opposite effect. I heartily recommend the book if you haven't read it yet.

 

It will take work on both of your parts to kick the marriage intimacy fires into higher gear. But you may just have to be the one to initiate it. Talk often, written or otherwise, and check back here for support if you need it. Maybe one forum up as you are no longer engaged in an emotional affair....you are now focused on your marriage. That's the right direction for you I think.

[Sleeplesstoo]

Thanks Dazed, I will pick up a copy, and I think you are on to something. Yes we really did speak each other's language. In spite of all of it, the last thing he said to me was how he had never felt as connected to another woman as he had to me, and I have to say it was almost magical, because I felt the same way. It was very intuitive to say the least. We seemed to "get" each other and very quickly. He was very good at expressing himself in writing and I think that is my style as well.

 

My husband has always been very, very generous with his money, and very selfish with his time. It's always been buy anything you want, and he has been a wonderful provider, but don't ask me for my time because my time at work and my time with my "buds" is more important. He's that way with his family too, by the way, he isn't generous with his time with them either. But I have always been the kind to say, "when you are on your deathbed you won't wish you had more money in your life, you will wish you had more love." I don't mean to make him out to be a cold money grubbing man because he is not. Just self-absorbed. He is actually a very good person with good values and ethics or I would have never married him. But there is this issue of time and my issues of lonliness and "fear" of being alone in the world. I am actually not a "needy" type of woman, or if I am I keep it well hidden. I actually thought I was doing very well on my own until this.

[Fancee]

Well I don't even know where to begin. I am a married woman in my 40's married to a very amibtious man who does not spend a lot of time with me. I have no children, no siblings, and lost my mother awhile back (the closest one in my life). Since then I have been struggling on and off with what is maybe depression or maybe just lonliness, I don't know.

 

Several months ago I joined an online discussion board that was targeted at a particular interest in my life, posted a lot and made a lot of friends. A man joined the group who was very upbeat and fun and posted pictures of himself. I had also posted pictures of myself sometime before. This by the way was in no way any type of dating site. Anyway whenever I would start a new thread he would show up and post. He was always very complimentary and friendly and had a great sense of humor, and he was also great looking. He commented that he thought I was "beautiful". I have been told that I am good looking by many, not bragging just giving you background.

 

One day he got into a little tiff with one of the other posters and I felt bad for him because I thought he was being treated unfairly so I PM'd him and he PM'd me back. That was the beginning. At first we just talked about the subject of the forum we were particpating in. Then it escalated to our daily lives, some outright flirtation, and then finally turned sexually graphic with some visits to a private chat room on a totally unrelated site. He told me that he had fallen in love with me and I was feeling the same. Our days were filled with probably 20 or more emails at times. He is a paramedic, and I work from home, so that is why all of the opportunities. The online affair lasted for 3 months. His schedule being 24 on, 24 off and then some idle hours while on duty. I guess they can bring laptops to work. He always indicated to me he was single and looking and had been burned by a lot of women. At first he would ask me for advise about his dates and about all of his insecurities in spite of being "very handsome". He continually told me how he was sharing things with me he had never told anyone else. We had a great deal of emotional intimacy, more than I have had with anyone for a long time. It fulfilled a need for me in that way.

 

I know this is getting long, but I need to get it out. I noticed that on his days off he would talk until about 4:30pm and then either have to go to his partime job or abruptly disappear. He was always gone on weekends, and yet always talked until late on the nights he was doing a 24 shift.

I forgot to mention that neither of us used our real names only our screen names. One day I noticed his avatar was missing, and all of his pictures. He gave me some story about an ex-girlfriend finding his laptop and exposing him to everyone and how embarrassing it was. She supposedly read a bunch of our PM's and got my phone number from his wallet.

 

Through all of this he kept talking about his partner and his partner's wife and how his partner's wife may have found the forum because her interests were the same as ours. He mentioned that his partner's wife was posting to a different forum once too often so I got curious. Turns out the partner's wife is his wife, and they have a small child. The pictures and life he portrayed to me were his partner's not his. So for 3 months I have been writing to a man who really does not even exist. It was all made up.

 

He even had the nerve to send me the same picture that she had posted on her forum only her's had the true description of who was really who. What really caught him dead to rights was the fact that all the events he told me about, she also talked about on her board, and the dates always matched. I know because I alway archived my PM's. At that point I checked out the IP address after discovering this and the IP was registered to her employer. Of course when I confronted him he tried to lie his way out of it. After he did that I gave him the final damning evidence of the IP address, and said that it was over because he was not who he said he was and he had a wife and child.

 

So here I am feeling like a total idiot and feeling really empty inside. I truly hope that he will just go away, but I am afraid that he may not and his last sentence was how totally connected he felt to me. He has my cell so I hope he will never call it. In the meantime I am mourning the loss of someone who never really existed and I can't tell you how weird a feeling that is. My first experience with the internet was that board and him. This is my second, but for obvious reasons I cannot share this with anyone else.

 

For anyone who has not experienced the internet for God's sake be careful. It never occurred to me that someone would seek me out on a non-dating site (don't get me wrong I take full responsibility for my actions). When I look back on it now, he was not looking for anything but an encounter, and not really the interest that I thought we shared. You just do not know what you are dealing with. The photos of the man he pretended to be were a "10" and frankly he is just very average. The man he portrayed was a sweet humble "country boy" who needed a friend and some encouragement and he is not any of that. He took that man's life and exposed all of the details of it to me, and then embellished them with his own daily imaginings. I know that because of his wife's casual conversation about her husband's partner, that the persona he showed to me is his partners. I guess the real victim is his partner who had his pictures plastered all over some board, and the intimate details of his life revealed to a total stranger.

 

So I guess I am putting this out there for 2 reasons, the first being, be careful of the internet even if it is in what seems to be very benign surroundings, and because I want to know if anyone else has ever been where I am with the "emotional affair" (we never actually met) and how you delt with it. The worst part is I don't feel guilty. I don't feel guilty because I have been neglected and I took something that I needed. But having said all of that I don't want to leave my husband and start over. So I guess what I really need to do is learn to work on my own marriage, or just accept the fact that this is my life. After all I chose it. Please give me any feedback you might think is helpful. I am having some heavy withdrawal right now. There is no danger of me going back because there is nothing to go back to, him, his life, and all of it were just lies.

 

Go to InternetLoveScams.com they deal with all this type of thing. Bring charges on him if you can.

[Sleeplesstoo]

Fancee,

 

I will check it out. I think the only think he did that was possibly illegal was to use his partner's pictures without his permission. Thanks!