age-gap, possible rebound, or worse, but now my family is welcoming her

[maybeThen]

Hi everyone, I am stuck in a situation I can't seem to pull my head out of.  I feel like my emotions are clouding my ability to see straight and I just don't know what to trust anymore.

4 months ago I met a girl in my country while she was vacationing (there is an 18 year age gap between us). I met her in my family's shop and she was very passionate about the items we sold.  It was a point of connection between us, we exchanged numbers and I had a drink with her. She told me she had just broken up with her long-term live-in boyfriend that day and was distraught. She told me he was great in every way, except that he was aloof emotionally and he had started therapy to address this issue but she was feeling down. She told me what her longings were: feeling loved, spoiled, like a princess, and feeling what it felt like to engage a relationship on social media. ie: People liking the couple photos, and congratulating the relationship, etc.  Apparently he was not into social media and she did not get to experience that.  She mentioned she felt like she was hidden.

This woman is beyond gorgeous, she is completely out of my league. But, she was incredibly affectionate with me and flirty. So, I invited her back to my country and told her I would show her a good time by doing the things he did not. Surprisingly, she agreed to come back in 4 months, and off she went back to her country.  That same day, I started posting her on my social media so she could experience the feeling and we marked ourselves as "in a relationship" on facebook, and the flirting continued, and it hasn't stopped. I was on cloud 9. She not only looks like every guys fantasy, but she was paying attention to me. And I did not win the lottery in the looks department. I am nearing 50, and overweight as well. We talked about the items my family sells, as we have that passion in common, and she said she wanted to purchase more when she came back, I told her to pick out the ones she wanted, and they would be hers no pay.   A few days later I posted another one of her photos on my account, with a caption telling her that I loved her, she didn't seem scared away by it.  She responds publicly by telling me how amazing and perfect I am, that our souls are connected.  How handsome I am, how much I mean to her. That I was everything she was looking for, etc. Very poetic and lovey.  Much of the correspondence between us happened on her and my public social media account, as that was what she said she wanted to experience. Her account became flooded with photos of me, and mine her.  We would write love letters back and forth, posting one another's photos, with the love letter as the caption.  People would react, and comment, and tell us congratulations. It was nice to be noticed by her friends, because I had not met them.  But, I noticed her family members didn't seem to be on board, there were times when they would comment with a "vomit" emoji face.  I just ignored it. 

The positive interactions between us went on for 4 months, and then it was time for her to come back to my country.  She showed up! We had an amazing week together.  AMAZING. I was totally in love with her. She has the most vibrant kind personality ever. We visited many amazing areas, she was very affectionate with me. By all accounts, we were a couple, no reason for me to believe we weren't, and she was referring to me as her boyfriend each time she posted a picture of me to her social media, her friends would ask, she would say we were together. I was so very happy. I felt like I finally won in life. I have been single most of my life, and never have i gotten the attention from a woman who is easily a 9/10. I don't have a lot of money, but obviously this was my treat, she wanted to feel like a princess, so I did it. She seemed genuinely grateful for the experience.

Our vacation came to an end, and she had to go back home.  I was over the moon, I spent time with my girlfriend, and felt very in love. I made a goodbye post on facebook and expressed that she was the love of my life, and I wanted to spend my life with her. She responded to the post telling me the trip was perfect, and that she left a piece of her heart in my country, and that she loves me, etc.  Well, the next day she texted me privately and said she needed to have an honest talk with me. In that talk, she essentially told me that her and her ex had been in contact the entire time since they broke up (I did not know and was upset), that there are feelings there between them, pain as well, but love. That she is not ready to rush into anything serious because she is healing (I thought what we had was serious?), and that she can not make me any promises or guarantees.  She did say she wanted to continue to talk to me because she absolutely enjoyed our time together, and she likes the feeling. Things resumed as usual for us, even after this conversation, flirting, telling me how special I am, and posting me on her account tagged as her boyfriend. Nothing there has changed, at all.  So I am bewildered.

But as the days went on, I felt a little uneasy by this conversation, like maybe we weren't as serious as I thought. And I ended up bluntly asking if I could see the text message she had sent him. Shockingly she showed me. And in that message she says this to him, "You and I can not talk anymore because I am angry at you and I realize so long as we talk, I can not heal.  I hold a lot against you still. When I am done healing, and you are finished with therapy, I would like to reconnect. I want to see if things would fall back into place and work out between us. We have a lot in common and I miss the good times. When I went to visit OP, it made me resent you even more. He has been nothing but great to me, that's what I wanted from you." Things between us still resumed as normal, even after admitting this. Lovey talk, showing me off, and me to her.

 

I was kind of knocked to the floor with all of this ex stuff but my emotions convinced me that it was me she loved, and maybe she was just placating him. I mean, she did tell me she didn't want to rush into anything serious, not that she didn't want anything serious.  And she's calling me her boyfriend, telling me she loves me, the whole 9 yards - Not him! How is it not serious already? But I can't get over what she told him. If all of those things she said to me, that I was everything she was looking for, why tell him she wants to see if it will work out? If our souls are so connected like she says, why entertain him? Why not cut him off completely? Did she just not have the strength to?  I don't understand how someone could write such intense love letters to me, and still have feelings for another man. I was thinking he is just her plan B, or she just didn't have the strength to completely let him go.  I thought if I just stuck with what I was doing, she would severe the cord between him all the way in time.

Well, I ended up seeking some advice and receiving some information: Those love letters she was "writing" to me before the trip?  She was copying and pasting a couple of them from the internet. As in, taking what someone else wrote for their partner, and pasting it to me as if she wrote it especially for me. (And the letters were very extreme, talking about being a soul mate, and making her a better person, and she knows we will be together eternally, etc). My heart was ripped out, I felt like the entire thing was a lie. My brain told me no more! This is over, she is only using me for affection to fill a void while she waits for him. I was ready to end it. But now my heart is telling me she loves me. It's me she's talking to, not him. It's him she cut contact with, not me! I wake up to good morning messages from her, private photos, I see all of my photos on her social media account celebrating our relationship, and now my family is even speaking to her welcoming her as part of our family, and she tells them she hopes she can meet soon with them. My brain won't allow me to believe this is possibly just a fantasy for her. A fantasy you involve your friends and family in? My friends and family? It all feels, and looks, so real.   So now, I see I can not call the entire thing fake based on some copy/pasted letters.  I wonder if she copy and pasted those few letters because she liked me so much she just didn't know how to write a love letter so she "borrowed" one?  Maybe in the first 2 months she was unsure about me and that's why she made the poor decision to copy and paste someone else's words to me, but after this recent trip she fell for me and things have changed now? That's currently what I think happened: That she just wasn't sure what she wanted at first, and that explains the oddities. It would make sense she was hurt by her breakup and not thinking clearly, but as time has passed she is realizing her new normal is me. I feel like in another month or so she will be rid of him for good. We took a lot of couple photos on our trip, and every other day she shares a new one and captions it something like, "I miss you," and I respond, "I love you!" It's as if it cancels out everything she said to her ex. I am pretty sure she is just confused/scared of her budding feelings for me, and letting go of him.

I am stuck between looking at everything, and feeling how much she loves me with her actions towards me: Telling me how much I mean to her, coming to visit me, bringing me a gift, being super affectionate, talking with her friends/family about me, talking to my family, showing me off on her personal social media account.  vs what she said to her ex boyfriend.   This has been keeping me up at night, and I don't think I am looking at it completely objectively.  I feel like I might be twisted really big red flags to suit my outcome. But my heart keeps telling me this has to be real and her conversation with him is just her being confused and trying to hold onto the past. I hear the words she said to me, and what she told her ex and I feel like running away from it all, but then I look at all of the evidence, and it's clear she loves me and we are a couple. I don't know which one is real.

Edited December 11, 2019 by maybeThen

[preraph]

Have you done a google photo search of her to see if she has social media accounts under other names?  

 

That part about her copying and pasting the love letters is a sure sign of a scammer, using common logic.  And you ARE treating her like a princess (like she told you to do), so she might be one of those women who is a golddigger of sorts.  Don't buy her anything else and see what happens.  I mean, it's a good sign she has come to visit.  See if you cut off the princess stuff (really, that just means buy her stuff) if she even bothers.  

[maybeThen]

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Have you done a google photo search of her to see if she has social media accounts under other names?

There is nothing. It's her real name, her real friends, and real family.  Her name is linked to her business and it really exists.  It's not a scam account.

 

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That part about her copying and pasting the love letters is a sure sign of a scammer, using common logic.  And you ARE treating her like a princess (like she told you to do), so she might be one of those women who is a golddigger of sorts.  Don't buy her anything else and see what happens.  I mean, it's a good sign she has come to visit.  See if you cut off the princess stuff (really, that just means buy her stuff) if she even bothers.  

 

I think it's not so much about money with this one, it's the affection and feeling seen. I basically did exactly what she complained he did not do. But I do wonder if she would have showed up if it meant she was paying for everything. How do you feel like a princess if you pay for everything yourself?  That's why I did it for her. But other than that I did not buy her anything. In fact, she showed up with an expensive gift she got for me.

Edited December 11, 2019 by maybeThen

[preraph]

Is there a language gap that might explain the copied love letters?  Were you writing her real flowery stuff so she thought she needed to write it back maybe?  You know, some people can't compose........

[maybeThen]

2 minutes ago, preraph said:

Is there a language gap that might explain the copied love letters?  Were you writing her real flowery stuff so she thought she needed to write it back maybe?  You know, some people can't compose........

No language gap. I didn't write her anything as extreme as the letters. But I was telling her I love her only about 5 days into meeting, and telling her the universe brought us together, etc. Then after our vacation, 11 days total in person, I did tell her I wanted to spend my life with her.  But that was when she had the serious conversation with me and revealed the feelings for her ex, and that she could not make me any promises.

Edited December 11, 2019 by maybeThen

[preraph]

Well, you know it's moving too fast.  There's a LOT you don't know about her, and that is just a sure sign of it.  When you first said it, I thought how odd that one of her needs is to make a big deal on social media about being a couple.  Could she be trying to make this man jealous?  Anyway, she's not done with him, though it may never work out.  

 

Overall, you need to take a step back and not try to move things ahead on fast forward and just see how things level out here for awhile.  A woman who truly thinks there's a possibility you might be the one won't come out and tell you what she did about the other guy.  She likes the whole romantic thing, but it's not very REAL to her, I'm afraid.  I call this "playing house."  And it's usually younger women who want to do it.  

[maybeThen]

41 minutes ago, preraph said:

When you first said it, I thought how odd that one of her needs is to make a big deal on social media about being a couple.  Could she be trying to make this man jealous?  Anyway, she's not done with him, though it may never work out.  

 

 It is a little odd but before we became a couple, when we went out for drinks, there was something to the whole social media thing that was particularly upsetting to her.  She, like many younger people, share their lives on social media to an extent. And she mentioned how once in a blue moon she would post him, and he would have her remove it. It caused her to feel hidden, like he was embarrassed of her, or like he was hiding something himself.  So I think these feelings she had, manifested as a desire to experience life like her peers were.  I think that's where that comes from. It was on par with everything else she told me, which was that essentially he was great, but emotionally aloof, and she seems to have this intense craving to fill the areas he left empty.      It could be to make him jealous, but I know her account is private and he's not on her contacts list so he can't view it.
 

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A woman who truly thinks there's a possibility you might be the one won't come out and tell you what she did about the other guy. 

Even if I was the one who asked to see it, as opposed to her volunteering to show me to cause some sort of reaction?  I was honest and said I wanted to see it, and in turn she said ok she's just going to put it all out in the open and show me what she told him, and tell him what she told me. I got what I asked for, I guess.  But I just can't shake the feeling of, why even tell him she wanted to try again, if she found it all in me? And she told him that she and him have a lot in common and she misses that.  I guess she and I don't have as much in common. 

Another thing she told him that I forgot to mention was she said, in reference to me, "I can't say oh yea I'll still be talking to him in a few months, I do not know that."  But again, my brain just overlooked it as her placating him so he sticks around as a plan B. Because again, she is continuing to post our couple photos online and engage her friends when they comment on it. But mostly, it's just her and I commenting. People are probably tired of seeing it.
 

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She likes the whole romantic thing, but it's not very REAL to her, I'm afraid.  I call this "playing house."  And it's usually younger women who want to do it.  

 I am trying to have this sink into my brain, but it's so difficult. It would make sense to me if she kept me private. If she hid me from every one and just had this "fantasy" in private text messages with me.  How the hell does someone engage like this and bring their friends and family into it on such a public platform? Is that part of feeling like it's "REAL"? What happens when she's done with me? She feigns heartache?  I just can not grasp how someone could do this.  The copy/paste of the letter makes me understand it could be fake, because how the hell did she do THAT. But when I look at our entire online presence and everyone involved, it is difficult to believe this is a game to her.

Edited December 12, 2019 by maybeThen

[Saracena]

1 hour ago, preraph said:

  When you first said it, I thought how odd that one of her needs is to make a big deal on social media about being a couple.  Could she be trying to make this man jealous?  Anyway, she's not done with him, though it may never work out.  

 

Actually  this was my first thought as well. She clearly knew her ex would see all of this. As Peraph stated there a lot of unfinished business here, and I would tread very carefully from now on and not get my hopes up too much. Sorry OP.

 

 

[preraph]

When younger people play house, it seems to be mostly for show. 

[maybeThen]

Quote

Actually  this was my first thought as well. She clearly knew her ex would see all of this. As Peraph stated there a lot of unfinished business here, and I would tread very carefully from now on and not get my hopes up too much. Sorry OP.

When I was first engaging with her, when we first met, her account was private, she had to add me to see it, and he was not on her friends list (I checked..ha), which means he could not see any of the content she was posting.  However, I just logged out and checked, and her account is now public. So maybe this theory holds some ground. But since they were speaking the entire 4 months, I am not sure why she would need to make him "jealous"?   They were already talking, and she had feelings for him.  He wants to get back together with her, she is the one who recently cut contact; but they had been in contact the entire 4 months. Is that still a case you would attempt to make the other person jealous in some way?

Also, on a chat app we use, that I know she speaks to him on, her profile photo is of me, not her.  But we both changed ours to one another, I thought we were being cutesy, I didn't think there was another meaning behind it.  Of course, at the time, I didn't even know they still spoke!

 

[Ruby Slippers]

This is a dangerous situation for you. She came right out and told her ex she wants to give it another go once the dust of their breakup settles. She seems to be using you to make him jealous and demonstrate the kind of treatment she wants from him. If she were really into you, she wouldn't look back at the ex.

 

Some of the most pain-filled, angst-ridden posts on this forum I've seen are from men dating a much younger woman who seems to see him mostly as temporary fun and entertainment, and moves on once she finds a bigger, better deal.

 

Be careful.

[elaine567]

This woman is 18 years younger and is a solid 9-10 and you are nearly 50 and overweight with little money...
When it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.

Ruby is correct, I used to feel sorry for younger women being "used" by older men, but now I realise it is usually the older guy that gets "burnt".
He puts all his eggs into the younger woman's basket but she upturns the basket and crushes all the eggs when she rushes off to investigate what else is out there...
You are nearly 50, surely you know to never to get involved with people who are still mixed up with their ex... you will be the one to get hurt.
Sorry!

[maybeThen]

1 hour ago, Ruby Slippers said:

 If she were really into you, she wouldn't look back at the ex.

 

Couldn't that just be her confusion, lingering feelings for him that will fade away.  And the actuality is that she really does like me?  I guess I am having trouble grasping just how "fake" this all might be because it looks and feels so real.

Every time I get close to believing this is just a romance fantasy for her, she will post a photo of me saying "My man" and hearts and such, and I get caught up in it again.  Do people really do this to others? This has been going on for 4 months now. She is very believable.

1 hour ago, elaine567 said:

This woman is 18 years younger and is a solid 9-10 and you are nearly 50 and overweight with little money...
When it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.

 

Well, yes, but that made it all the more believable for me.  Men like me do not end up with women like her. So I thought she genuinely saw past it because I was doing what her ex was not, and she loved it. I felt it was a genuine love story, and that was why I told her within a few days of meeting her that I believe the universe brought us together. I even made a post about this and she commented, "I can not argue with destiny."  Then not long after that was the day she wrote the long love letter about how our souls were connected, and that was the one I had found out she copy and pasted from someone else's social media profile, so it really probably wasn't sincere. Or, she read it and thought, "This is exactly how I feel" and decided to send me it.

[Ruby Slippers]

19 hours ago, maybeThen said:

Couldn't that just be her confusion, lingering feelings for him that will fade away.  And the actuality is that she really does like me?  I guess I am having trouble grasping just how "fake" this all might be because it looks and feels so real.

Then not long after that was the day she wrote the long love letter about how our souls were connected, and that was the one I had found out she copy and pasted from someone else's social media profile, so it really probably wasn't sincere. Or, she read it and thought, "This is exactly how I feel" and decided to send me it.

Plagiarism, using someone else's words as your own, is as disingenuous as it gets. Students are permanently expelled from universities for doing that in an academic context. Here she did it in a romantic context, and in my opinion she also deserves to be booted.

 

It seems to me that you're just a time-filler for her until she decides it's time to give it another go with the other guy. You can continue with her, of course, but I imagine the longer you're with her, the more you invest, the more it's going to hurt when she decides it's time to pursue those greener pastures.

[maybeThen]

1 hour ago, Ruby Slippers said:

Plagiarism, using someone else's words as your own, is as disingenuous as it gets. Students are permanently expelled from universities for doing that in an academic context. Here she did it in a romantic context, and in my opinion she also deserves to be booted.

 This analogy kind of shook me at my core.  I had been comparing it to a greeting card in my mind, but even a greeting card I know is written from someone else, and is a sentiment. She led me to believe she wrote that, especially for me. And I used that to keep in my heart, it was some of the fuel for continuing on.

It makes sense, because I thought how could she compose something like that and still be talking to her ex. She didn't compose it at all!

[fromheart]

Dude, she's still a child in her head.

You've scored a women 18 years younger than yourself, chill out and enjoy.  Well done.  If your looking for love though, she's not the one.

Get yourself in shape bro.

Edited December 13, 2019 by fromheart

[Ruby Slippers]

15 hours ago, maybeThen said:

 This analogy kind of shook me at my core.  I had been comparing it to a greeting card in my mind, but even a greeting card I know is written from someone else, and is a sentiment. She led me to believe she wrote that, especially for me. And I used that to keep in my heart, it was some of the fuel for continuing on.

It makes sense, because I thought how could she compose something like that and still be talking to her ex. She didn't compose it at all!

The simple truth is we all want real love. Many settle for less for many reasons, mostly fear that they'll never find it.

 

This woman doesn't have real love for you. So anything you invest in her gets flushed down the drain. 

 

I vote hold out for a woman who also wants real love and is in the right state of mind to give it to you. Good men are hard to find at any age.

[smackie9]

well if you are having a great experience, getting sex with this lovely, then enjoy it til it lasts. Just keep your hand on your wallet, and don't put a ring on her finger.

[scooby-philly]

OMG - the whole thing about the copying of the letters....made me realize that my recent ex - and there was a huge age gap between us also (a bit younger then you and your current woman OP) - our first Christmas together she gave me a sketching of a photo of us that she said she had paid an artist to help her do - and I realize now she probably lied and just sent the photo to someone, or gave to a friend, and have them do it. LMFAO. Not 100% sure - but I never saw her into drawing or anything like it. 

 

I agree - in so many cases, and I had to learn the hard way, age gaps like 12, 16, 20 years don't work out - especially if the woman is younger. People stereotype it being about the older guy abusing or taking advantage of the younger woman, but lots of times the older guy is actually nice and it's the younger woman (conciously or unconciously taking advantage of the older guy - either to get things she can't get from her family or men her age, to provide relief from her life/family, or if she's really younger - late teens - through 20s, to test out something "different" or "play house" as someone mentioned.

 

It's up to you - I wouldn't invest emotionally in this my friend, but if you want to continue seeing her and just having fun and great sex go for it. As the one poster said - just keep your hand on your wallet and definitely don't put a ring on it.

[preraph]

I think she's just trying to make her ex beg.  And if she really doesn't want him back, she doesn't need to be following what he's doing and paying attention and conversing with him.  And let's say she doesn't even want him back.  She may just want him to suffer.  Exes are very vindictive sometimes, you know.  Anyway, that fake letter proves she's fake.  If your heart is involved, and I sense that it is, the longer you stay the more you're going to get hurt.  

[Ruby Slippers]

21 minutes ago, scooby-philly said:

I had to learn the hard way, age gaps like 12, 16, 20 years don't work out - especially if the woman is younger.

Just want to say that sometimes they do - my boyfriend is 12 years older (almost 55 to my 43), and while it's early yet, he's the best man I've ever been with and we're already planning a lifetime together. Seems we both feel we hit the jackpot this time. My dad is also 12 years older than my mom and they've been married almost half a century.

[scooby-philly]

@Ruby Slippers - That's awesome to hear. Yeah, I didn't really mean to say they NEVER work out....but the odds are stacked. I think they work out more often when both parties are older. In my case it was 38 to her 24. So glad to hear of just a great relationship taking place as sometimes these threads can be a bit much with the "bad news"

[maybeThen]

5 hours ago, smackie9 said:

well if you are having a great experience, getting sex with this lovely, then enjoy it til it lasts. Just keep your hand on your wallet, and don't put a ring on her finger.

We live in differently countries. I’ve only spent 11 days with her in person. All of this interaction happens over digital. 

Edited December 13, 2019 by maybeThen

[maybeThen]

5 hours ago, preraph said:

I think she's just trying to make her ex beg.  And if she really doesn't want him back, she doesn't need to be following what he's doing and paying attention and conversing with him.  And let's say she doesn't even want him back.  She may just want him to suffer.  Exes are very vindictive sometimes, you know.  Anyway, that fake letter proves she's fake.  If your heart is involved, and I sense that it is, the longer you stay the more you're going to get hurt.  

 In another twist to all of this, I was poking around her friends photos earlier today and sure enough I found some from 2 months ago (we’ve been together for 4...) with my gf in it.  The twist? Her ex was in them too and she was wrapped around him and kissing him in a few of them.  And the really pathetic thing is one of the photos was on the exact same day she was commenting on my social media saying we were soul mates. 

 

She has since moved out of his locale as of a month ago and two weeks ago she cut contact with him. That cutting contact was the conversation where she told him she was angry at him but hoped they could give it another shot in the future. And wherein she told me she couldn’t make any promises or guarantees. 

 

So naturally my first reaction is to cut it off but we never talked about being exclusive and she did end up telling me she didn’t want to rush into anything serious. So did she cheat on me or is she just “dating” me non-exclusively so what she did in the photos was ok?

 

So now on top of the fake soulmate letter, the plot thickens. If I were her soulmate how was she kissing him? But still my mind finds ways to work around this: Maybe she was lonely because I’m in another country and I only assumed we were exclusive. Maybe she made a bad choice but is really in love with me. Etc. 

Edited December 13, 2019 by maybeThen

[GorillaTheater]

It may not be cheating, per se, but you're perfectly within your rights to not be okay with this and to tell her to piss up a rope.