I feel guilty for what I have done- I need advice how to make it right

do not even know where to start, this is simply messed up. I feel truly bad. Please, if you want to send me offending reaction, please save your time and nerves. I am very aware of what have been done. No need more criticism. But help to prevent the worst would be appreciated. Years ago I (32) was "dating" a guy (40), we exchanged a lot of texts, calls and we have met a few times to hang out. It never been anything serious, it was more like friend/platonically relationship. He also got married and still continued talking to me, received some intimate photos & videos. I could speak with him about everything. He lives in China and I am from Italy, so I felt safe to share with him everything. He used to be kind of ventilator. Meanwhile, I found new boyfriend (35) here in Italy- that I madly fell in love with, but there were some controlling issues from his side that I was worried about and did not know how to handle it. I continued speak with my friend to the point where I asked him for some help in my relationship and he would do that, if we hang out again and have a intimacy. I agreed. He helped and for each help he received intimate photos. Now I am literally ashamed of myself, but at that time, I was kind of desperate to have his help. Well, time passed, he continued help me with whatever I asked, and is waiting for us to meet. To be honest, I never been interested in him physically, I actually knew it will not happen. I agreed to do that just because at that time he was extremely helpful, but deep down, I knew I can not and do not want cheat on my boyfriend. I know.. I suck. I did not tell him yet and I have no idea how he would react once I tell him. I am afraid he would threat me saying he will tell/ send everything to my boyfriend (we have a few common friends), about photos, videos, conversation and all kinds of ventilated sh... I feel extremely guilty and am so anxious, that I can not sleep. I do not know what to do, on one side, I do want tell my friend how i feel and what he wants is not going to happen (but he might threat me), on the other hand, I was thinking to tell/prepare my bf for whats coming... and that would mean "the end". Which I would probably deserve.. and that would be extremely sad.

Please, do you have some ideas, how to prevent the worst? What should I do if my friend threats me? What should I say to my boyfriend?

First of all, he is not a friend if he threatens you. But then he wasn't a friend in the first place to demand intimacy in order to help you. Real friends will help without expecting anything.

All you can do now is hope that your "friend" doesn't blackmail you. It's unfortunate because he has pictures by the sounds of it.

At this point all you can do is ask him to not show them or to tell you bf about it all. I don't advise that however, because I do not believe in deceit. I think you need to come clean with your boyfriend at some point and this "friend" will continue to hang this over your head and use it against you.

On the other hand, you can explain this all to your boyfriend and hope and pray that he understands. Then if your boyfriend knows everything, you can tell this "friend" to get lost for good.

I don't think you've got any other options at this point.

What kind of "help" did this friend give you? Was it financial help? Does he know your boyfriends name or phone number? Does he expect you to be physically intimate with him when the two of you see each other?

Why be afraid he'll send the sexts to your bf? Does he have your bf's contact info? He's married and so he probably wouldn't want you sending the sexting to his wife so it's doubtful he'll threaten that.

His hands aren't clean either and you have more on him than he does on you. How was this guy helping you? With money or favors? Did you see each other in person often?

It may be best to cut this guy off and not worry about what he may do. He can't blackmail. Is there more to this story/

He also got married. He helped and for each help he received intimate photos. I am afraid he would threat me saying he will tell/ send everything to my boyfriend

He has no leverage here because you could just as easily send incriminating stuff to his wife.

Block him and move on.

First off, your "friend' wasn't really a friend. He basically blackmailed you to have sex with him in order for him to help and he was using you to cheat on his wife, so morally speaking this is not a good man you've gotten mixed up at all. I won't judge you, but I'm just going to tell you straight up your best bet of what to do is simply disappear from this guy's life altogether. He sounds like the type who will blackmail you if you tell him you want to walk away, because he already did blackmail you once before. You may not think that's what he did, but it is. So yeah, I think he will do it IF you tell him you are walking away.

So my advice is you just walk away and don't say anything. He lives in another country, he can't hurt you if he doesn't know what happened to you. Simply block and delete him, erase your social media accounts, be done with it. Should the pictures ever pop up he can be prosecuted for under what are called "revenge porn" laws. But usually that happens when someone has intimate pics and they are hurt and then want to retaliate, so my advice is just disappear altogether. Say nothing about why, just do it. The fact is he may already have been sharing the content anyways, so worrying about it at this point is sort of too late. All you can do is damage control IF the pictures show up within your circle of friends and family. But if he can't find you, doesn't know you just walked away, then hopefully he won't do that.

For all he knows you will have died or had a terrible accident befall you or your boyfriend shut everything down, so let him think that. Just disappear.

As to your boyfriend, this is the other thing - if he's controlling and possessive and you're having problems you will want to address that as its own issue. And no other man is going to help you with that. This guy didn't, right? He used it to his own advantage instead. This is where a professional therapist comes in or hotlines or you just decide to be single altogether for awhile to work on yourself, because honestly you are not picking normal sane healthy men to have in your life to begin with.

If need be treat this as an addiction and go cold turkey, but my advice is talking to him at all is only going to put you more at risk, because he already placed you at risk by even asking for videos and pics in the first place. Then blackmailed you when you wanted help, so this again is not a good person.

Get some counseling for yourself, call an abuse hotline, see professionals, if you have family or friends let them be your support system. This is how the world works and these people do not have a vested interest in keeping you tied to them. So my advice would be to walk away, disappear altogether as in completely log off, shut everything down, delete all material, and have a lawyer on speed dial if it comes to that.

Then deal with the boyfriend who doesn't exactly sound like he's doing you any favors either. And with yourself for allowing men to have so much control over you that you can't seem to recognize a normal healthy situation from a bad one. It's not normal for people to be in relationships and asking others for intimate material - not even close - on either side.

I'm not judging you, I am simply stating the facts. And you know this is wrong and not helping you or don't believe you would even be on here asking. So that's what I would do in your shoes, which is really all I can tell you to do.

P.S. Iggy is right, you could damage him equally to his wife and colleagues. So he has only the leverage you give him, so don't. Just disappear.

This is a hard one, but as others said, you have leverage too because you could easily tell his wife about everything and show her conversations and pics, so I don't think he'd be stupid enough to expose your pictures. Also, he's not your friend. He never was... he's actually an awful person for using your vulnerability to get sexual favours. A good friend would never ask for anything in return for helping you, much less intimate pictures.

I'd cut him off completely (blocking and if he starts acting out telling the ones close to me about the situation)... you don't need someone like this in your life. I'd also relax, because at this point there's nothing you can do about the pics you sent, but if he were to do something he knows that you have lots of incriminating stuff about him. I've had my share of troubles too, when my abusing ex threatened to expose pictures of me (nothing too explicit, but they were intimate), but I never fell into his blackmail and always trusted that if something were to happen my real friends and my family would stand by my side and I could also go to the police if he did something. The best way of dealing with this stuff is keeping your head high and do your best to act with dignity and self protection from now on.

What I'm more concerned here is that you relied on someone online like this creating such an unhealthy dynamic. I know that sometimes "online" people seem to have a better perspective and we feel safer exposing our vulnerabilities to them than to our friends and family and we feel tempted to share more than we should, but it's important to be careful with whom we trust online. You having fell into this might be an indicator that you don't think you have a good support network of friends and family, so you rely too much on this online person. It's also important to address the fact that your current boyfriend has some controlling issues and if his behaviour is abusive or not and if it's healthy for you to stay in the relationship or not.

I'd say that therapy could be of great help to go through this and help you rebuild your broken boundaries. But don't forget now to turn more into your friends and family and not being afraid of reaching them for help.

He is a jerk for saying and doing things like that. Real friends do not do things because there is some reward.

Forgive yourself and move past this. Don't contact him.

Focus your energy on positive loving things.

if you are at all under the impression that your boyfriend is controlling/ dominant etc do NOT come clean, at least not just yet. i believe in honesty and i understand the compulsion to be transparent, but it strikes me as...unsafe...to do so with someone who may use your mistakes not just as reasons to break up (which would be legitimate), but as a way of justifying treating you badly ( perhaps even abusive behavior?).

your chinese pen pal is bluffing. as others have said, you could expose him too.

is there a specific reason you fear him- does he have your real name, address, number, but did not reveal his own actual identity to you?

be sure to do a reverse google search of the vids and photos you sent him, to check whether he may not have uploaded them to pornsites already. delete search history after of course.

absolutely block him.

don't beat yourself up.

focus on damage control now, and on evaluating whether you feel good, safe, trusting etc with your boyfriend or whether your next step should be gathering the strength to make important decisions about him as well.

let us know how we can help.

I am so grateful for your responds, and for understanding my situation.

I have to say that all your comments very much empowered me and made me look on it from other side of coin.

Here is additional info...

As for myself, I do a lot of reading about personal boundaries. I realize both my parents were very abusive/controlling and I always had to be the nice one. I am aware of it and working on it. The thing is, sometimes I protect myself too much, and sometimes at all, even though I recognize control/manipulation I dont know how to react assertive without getting attitude, so I rather say nothing...

I do not meet the guy regularly, we have met only a few times in 10 years, yet as I said, he was sort of ventilator to me.

I am in the new relationship for two years, and the first year, he was supporting me in way, like giving me advice how to deal with this and that behavior of my boyfriend. That time, i shared with him ... all mentioned (photos, videos, details..)

My boyfriend is not abusive, control freak or disrespectful to me ..But the start of the relationship, was not "ideal". Before he fell in love, he was jerky and because I was before in controlling relationship, I was very afraid so I checked all his action and asked myself is this controlling? or that? I was lost.

His wife... he told me she does not care bc she is not sexual. He actually told me she knows.... ??!! I dont know what is true on it. But if she doesnt care, than... I would not hold any leverage. (however i have all her info just in case)

The info he knows about my bf... I am not 100% if he knows my bf's full name. If so, he can probably find his address & phone number. Than he knows boyfriends facebook. (that is not under his official name, but still- he knows..)

Info i know abotu him: except his friends on his fb (that are public), his gfs name, city where is he living.. thats all.

first, I was thinking to do this: tell my friend- because I would have chance do my best to talk him into not doing something stupid. If it would not work, i would probably prepare my bf... but i would have chance speak to him. (?)

but than.... i was reading all your comments , and actually, to disappear sounded like a solution to "get rid of him"... BUT than, I would close the option to "talk him into" not telling my bf. and i would be just hoping hes not going to.

but than.... i was reading all your comments , and actually, to disappear sounded like a solution to "get rid of him"... BUT than, I would close the option to "talk him into" not telling my bf. and i would be just hoping hes not going to.

I'm afraid talking him into not telling your boyfriend might backfire, especially since he hasn't even threatened you with it yet. Why give him ideas? If you show him your vulnerable spot, he will know exactly where to press to get a reaction out of you! Then he might, indeed, start blackmailing you. By pleading with him not to contact your boyfriend, you're giving him the upper hand and a weapon to use against you. Don't do it.

Just don't say anything and disappear. Of course we can only speculate, but it's doubtful that his wife really knows about you and doesn't care. Maybe he only told you that to cover his own behind, in case you got any ideas of telling her at some point.

Now I'm not sure whether it would be best to just confess to your boyfriend and be done with it (and yes, you will probably lose him in the process but at least your conscience will be clear and a burden will lift off your shoulders), or just block the 'friend' and hope for the best. You need to decide what's most important to you at this point - peace of mind or staying in the relationship you're in, with the thought of that guy potentially ruining things for you at any given moment.

Good luck to you, no matter what you decide!