lostandhurt

Dating is not only a pursuit but a learning endeavor. You are learning about yourself as well as any man you meet so going on this date will not only show you if your perceived notion of him is correct but it will also expose you to a more real life interaction. Online dating is far from exact as people can say anything they want and be who they want but in real life all that fades away to what you see right in front of you. The trick is to be able to see through it and view the real person. He may be trying to impress you since you are so accomplished and feels insecure compared to you or he may have read some stupid dating tips and is following them. In the end you do not know anything about this guy. If you are somewhat interested and attracted to him then meet for a quick coffee and see for yourself. Dating gets easier the more you do it as you learn and grow and most of all realize what is really important in the person you are searching for. Lost

You weren't living a lie, she was. You were honest and sincere but she hid things and outright lied to your face. This is not your shame to feel it is hers. I wonder if she is remorseful. You have a lot of work yes but it is to heal from being lied to and betrayed by the person you love more than anyone in this world. Happiness will come to you once again as you see what is important in your life. Trust builds over time but can be ruined in an instant and to be totally straight with you never returns to the level it once was no matter how much she shows you she is trust worthy. Here are my questions before any of us can give you any meaningful advice. 1 What prompted her spilling the beans? 2 What is her explanation for the multiple lies? 3 Is she remorseful? 4 Does she seem to care how much this hurts you? 5 What is her proposal to remedy what she has done? In the end it isn't what you do, it is what she does that will tell you your next move. Forbidding her to hang out with her ex's or communicating with ex's is not your place and is controlling. If the roles were reversed I would imagine you would instantly remove any and all people from your life that could possibly endanger the relationship more while you both work to heal and rebuild trust. I am curious what her attitude is... Lost

Just because you go to a dates place does not automatically mean you are willing to have sex with him. Whether or not it was a safe thing to do since you barely knew him is another matter but somehow implying you were leading him on or giving off mixed signals isn't right. Seeing how he lives is a great way to figure out if you want to continue seeing him. You were clear with what you wanted so do not apologize for being open to that. He was wrong here not you. There are good ones out there, just keep looking and pay attention when they show you who they are or what they want believe it. Lost

This may be how dating is for them but that does not mean it is the way dating is for you. You do not have to follow the crowd or do what others on some forum say is normal, you do you and what feels right and in this case you were 100% correct. Let me be perfectly clear here as I am a guy and know how men think. Men want sex and they are thinking about it when they are with you, looking at your pictures and yes walking behind you looking at your cute butt. The difference is when a man wants a relationship and is really into you he will not risk screwing it up by being so forward and touching you like this guy did. He was trying to steer you into bed and testing how long it was going to take. Just because a man wants you physically does not mean that is all he wants so you have to pay close attention to their actions and less to their words. You saved yourself a hump and dump situation. You learned a lot from this if you think about it. If a guy wants a serious relationship wouldn't he put some effort into his profile like you did? Would he set up meets or dates where you feel comfortable and safe or set them up close to his place? Would he say one thing but do another? You have nothing to feel bad about, stick to your principals and what feels right to you. Lost

I have dated a lot of different types of and kinds of women and many of them told me they want to take it slow, they want friendship and romance and all kinds of variations on the theme but no one ever told me they wanted to be just friends and then see if romantic feeling arise. Attraction is very important as well as emotional connection. I don't see any of that in what you wrote. I had many women tell me they wanted to take things slow which is code for no sex for a while which is fine with me because like most men once we see a woman naked and are intimate we tend to ignore red flags because our brains get all mushy so knowing where they stood was a good thing. Many times by the third of fourth date they made it clear they wanted to have sex which of course I said "I thought you wanted to take things slow" the answer "I changed my mind" I am a gentleman so I didn't argue... My point is hang out with her and see if any sparks fly between you two. If not then hanging around as her back up plan hoping she will warm up to you is not a good plan. Also everything is dutch since you are just friends. Do not pay unless you take turns while you are out. I will let the ladies on here chime in but if a woman needs to spend extended time with you to try and convince herself she is interested or trusts you enough to let her guard down a little to allow the possibility of romance then either she is not interest at all or she has no business dating until she unpacks her baggage. I am sorry but this doesn't look promising. Good on you for quitting vaping though. Stick to that and at least something good came out of this. Lost

Day 28 Well messaged back and forth with the 49 year old that is into car restoration last night for a bit. Mostly car stuff but nothing personal. I was the last to reply and she read it very early this morning but may not have been on today by the color of the circle next to her picture. Solid green circle means online right now. green hollow circle means has been online recently, yellow hollow circle means haven't been on in a while. Not sure the time frame for the changes in color and shape but that is how I am seeing it. Anyways we shall see if she responds. She just signed up and I am sure is getting tons of likes and messages. I will probably wait till after Christmas to search and send out any more messages. Lost

Day 27 No response from the 56 year old I messaged Saturday and to be honest with you all and myself it kind of bugged me for some reason. So I checked when she had been on the site last and saw that she clearly got my message and it bothered me for about an hour while I was cleaning the house. Normally it doesn't bother me, sure it is disappointing because I find very few women I am interested in but this felt personal. She was very close to my age, we shared a lot of common interests and she was active in things I do. The only thing I can think of was that I was pretty sure she would respond and when she didn't I had this reaction. I guess I am not as evolved as I thought... So late this morning as I was cleaning house I took a break to see if the 56 year old had read or received my message, got butt hurt as explained above so I decided to search once again and found a woman right off the bat so I messaged her. She is into car restoration (what I do on my You Tube channel), lives fairly close, pretty, nice figure but us 10 years younger than I am. She replied a few hours ago and I just read it. She wasn't a paid subscriber and couldn't read messages so she signed up to reply to me and I am sure other messages from other men. I replied to her message and it looks promising. I will try and not get butt hurt on this one if it doesn't go anywhere. She replied so it is a start. I will fill you all in tomorrow on how it goes. Lost

This comes down to character. He didn't come clean and was willing to continue this lie for ever. So he told you a bold face lie when you first met and then didn't come clean a month later or two months later and had to be discovered by you. This is not a good sign. You are not insane for feeling the way you do for being betrayed by someone you love and professes his love to you. Betrayal is powerful and cuts deep. Your friends see this as no big deal because it was a means to an end. Lie to get what you want. That doesn't sound like who you are but it sounds like who your bf is. Tough choice to make but is sounds like this is the icing on the cake with this guy. What will it take for you to cut him loose? Not what your friends think, not what we think but what you think and feel. Lost

We all can only guess at what he is thinking of feeling. You were on the dates and you know the whole story so you are the best person to decide what to do. If the dates went really well then step up and ask him straight out on a date and see what he says. Don't decide for him, let him decide. There are tons of reasons why might have cooled off but the thing is none of them matter if he has chosen to back off from you. The only thing that matters is that he has. Ask him out so you know one way or the other and then you can continue dating or put a pin in it and move on with no wondering. This is dating unfortunately. Please do not contort yourself into someone you are not or do anything you are not comfortable with to keep a guy interested. Be true to yourself and then you will know if they are with you for the right reasons or not. Lost

Short term satisfaction is nice but will it really change the culture at that company? Is there anyone left there you care about? In the long term it would be best to follow the advice above and be professional even though they treated you like a number and were not professional themselves. As far as your coworker goes I agree your choices are yours as well as your timing to leave just like their are their own. It is up to each of you to decide but do what is best for yourselves, not some I will show you or we will teach you a lesson type of thing. They will not change, there will be no repercussions for management and you will have burned a bridge for no reason. This unfortunately is the culture in business these days where people are promoted that have no business being in charge of a department or people but they have a degree or sweet talk their way up the ladder and dump their work onto those below. Instead of promoting the best and brightest they promote those that will be the least threat to their position. Also they cannot stop you from resigning as long as you have not received prepayment for services. Good luck and let us know how it all works out. Lost

Sounds like you are place holder until her dream guy finally wants a relationship with her. She has told you straight out she did nothing wrong but you have plainly told her it is wrong to be messaging this guy that keeps trying to get in her pants. This comes down to boundaries, respect for the relationship and being faithful not only physically but emotionally. She obviously still has feelings for this guy and always wanted to be with him so she hangs on waiting till he changes and wants her too. I am sorry but she clearly is not going to stop and no amount of love on your part is going to change that. I think it is time to rethink how you view her. Lost

Day 25 No response from the 56 year old I messaged Saturday. She hasn't viewed my profile and may not even been on the site lately. I could check her profile as it shows the last time you were active but it really doesn't matter or change anything. A 61 year old woman sent me a like which I was excited to see in my email as they show their profile picture. I wondered how I missed her in my search as she is super cute. Checked her profile and she lives over 2 hours away by car. I sent her a nice message anyways as she has an awesome profile that is very well written and shows how much her life is similar to mine. Could have been a great match but 128 miles is a long way... I get what you all are saying about trying to meet someone during the holidays but it felt right for me to get back on the horse so I did when I did. It also gets my feet wet and gets me back in the groove for the after holiday rush where people want to start the new year looking for me 😁 Lost

I kind of feel like they have just thrown their bait out into the lake and just left it there and doing nothing else. I really don't know why they would not make an effort unless it is just a distraction for them or something. To be fair I don't think POF takes down your profile so if you let it ride it could stay up a very long time. No luck so far unfortunately but I have a great attitude about the whole thing. Thanks Lost

I have been incredibly lucky and dated way out of my league many times but I know my lane and have a humble opinion of my attractiveness. Swinging for the fences or at times swinging for the nose bleed seats has paid off and it is only some key strokes and a few minutes of my time so why not as you mentioned. I find it strange that I feel more of a let down if I do not get response from a less attractive woman I have messaged opposed to a really attractive woman. Expectations I suppose... Lost

Day 23 A woman liked my profile so I sent her a message. She is really too far away for anything but I thought it wouldn't hurt to send something. Quick messages back and forth and she acknowledged the distance is too great. Sent a message to a woman I really had no business messaging as she was out of my league but I sent it anyways. I figure it isn't my place to decide for anyone what they like or don't like. She viewed my profile but did not respond. No surprise there. Just sent out a message to 56 year old woman who is very athletic and active near me so lets see what happens. Crickets from the 45 year old of course. I have expanded my search distance in hopes of running across a profile I am interested in but not much luck. Checked out POF as well the other night. I have my profile hidden but I can search and read profiles. No one I was interested in that I hadn't already met or talked to years ago. Interesting enough they are still on the site using the same pics. Lost

It takes time to actually accept that the person you gave your heart to is really the person in front of you cheating. I have been through it but when I was where you are I was just like you in denial looking for a way to fix it. It looks like you are past that which is good so stay the course on getting everything you think of written down. Make notes and keep it with you always so you can revisit it often and add to it. Right now your head is swirling with emotions, fear of the unknown and betrayal so just accept that you might not be thinking as clearly as you would otherwise. She is cheating and the marriage is over so do yourself a favor and stop looking for clues to validate what you already know. It will just hurt you more with zero gain. Have you spoken to anyone legally yet? You might want to look into mediation instead of adversarial court battles. If mediation does not work you can always get a lawyer and go that route. Mediation can work if both parties are reasonable and the mediator make sure all the bases are covered and it is legal before it is filed with the court for approval. Keep posting Lost

Did you divorce or are you still married? Lost

So now the questions need to be answered. Not the gory details of her cheating and not even who this dude is (unless it is a coworker she sees daily) but the questions of why she chose this extremely selfish thing to do. She didn't just let it happen, she made a choice to do it. What lead her down that path? Why did she feel the need to have sex with someone else? If there is to be a way forward from this betrayal it starts with some very hard introspective thinking with brutal honesty on both sides, especially hers. She needs to be frank and straight forward with her thoughts and answers. Questions left unanswered will haunt you both until the relationship dies from them. The trust is gone and has to be rebuilt over time but if this is going to be saved you either take the leap of faith or you end it right now. Keeping tabs on her, punishing her, shooing away guys and all that is not your job, either you let her show you through her actions or it ends right here. Remember trust is built over time but can be ruined forever in a moment. Don't let your love for her blind you to who she really is. I know she feels bad about what she did but I also know you feel way worse. Do you have anyone you can talk to other than her about all the swirling thoughts and feelings you have in your head all the time? Lost

Yes she sent me a messaged this morning but nothing of real substance. I responded in kind and asked when she thought she would be well enough to meet for that drink we discussed. Whether she was sick or not is not my concern as I treat people with honesty and respect when they earn it so if she is jerking me around it is her problem not mine. The age thing is tough when you are out and about. I have been told I look much younger than I am so in IRL I tended to attract younger women because I wasn't walking around with a sign with my age on it like you do with OLD. As far as my confidence when approaching a woman I think my age gives me a lot more than I had when I was younger simply because I don't make it such a do or die situation and the importance to me is so much less thus I view it as a nothing to lose situation. In a room full of twenty somethings at your age I would scan the room making eye contact and see what I see. If they look at you like the creepy old dude at the gym that stares at them then it is time to call it a night but if you catch one or two looking your way when you look up then it might be worth positioning yourself in such a way to talk to them even if you time your visit to the bar or hors d'oeuvres at the same time to make a funny comment or say hi. Learning how to read signals is important. For example I was at a fundraiser and there was a young woman there that was exactly my kind of pretty that was helping out with the event. We made eye contact several times and I caught her looking at me a few times. She ended up behind the bar so I put my drink down and went to the bar so I could interact with her. I could tell she thought I was attractive but I didn't get the signals that she was interested for what ever reason, most likely my age but I put myself in a position to find out. I am not a jerk that just throws lines out there, instead I talk to them and pay close attention how they respond. Definitely going to events with a varied age group is best or something close to your age makes all this a lot easier. You are doing great so don't give up. Lost

Been cheated on and tried to get past it. Big problem is the trust was gone and she was not worthy of my willingness to try and work past the betrayal. She betrayed you, your relationship, everything you have built so far and might have built in the future because she was selfish and banged some other dude. Be sure of one thing, this didn't just happen, she had plenty of chances to step back and stop the flirting, stop the fantasizing and stop this guy from pursuing her but she didn't. Don't fool yourself into thinking she is in any way innocent in this as she is 100 % at fault. What has she done to figure herself out? She cheated so why? If she loves you so much then why? She needs to figure herself out BEFORE you even get anywhere close to getting past this or it will happen again and again. Heck this may not be the first time. Did she come clean or did you figure it out? Lost

Day 19 Well haven't reported anything lately as there wasn't much to report. The 45 year old I was chatting with and supposed to set up a meet with this last weekend went silent on me which wasn't a big deal to me as my life does not revolve around OLD. My last message to her was on Thursday to check in and see what her weekend was looking like to meet and I included my cell number if she wanted to reach out. Yesterday morning she replied that she had been very sick, apologized for not getting back to me sooner and inquired how my Monday was going. I just replied as I was super busy yesterday letting her know I am glad she is feeling better and then went on to let her know some of how my Monday went and left it at that. Feels like a time waster to me but a few key strokes on my part when I feel like it is no big deal just in case. Received some more likes and messages but no one I am interested in once again. Spent over an hour looking through profiles with not much luck which got me thinking signing up for 3 months on Match may have been overly optimistic on my part but I will ride the ride I have tickets for until it stops. Two women that had messaged me previously sent me another message, not sure why unless they forgot they had messaged me before. I did receive a like from a woman I was excited to read her profile but when I did I quickly realized we definitely were not a match. and so it goes... Lost

Fantom, It doesn't seem like or feel like a good thing but every time she steps out it is. You are home free to go through all your finances and make lists, go through the last few years taxes to make notes on incomes, research home values in your area to see how much equity you have and most of all spend quality time with your son. I was in a similar situation many years ago and yes I didn't like it and wanted to punish her but instead I stayed calm and planned, made copies, calculated and yes even schemed to make sure I could steer the divorce for the best possible outcome for myself and my son. That time spent paid off huge! You see divorce is a legal negotiation but if you are upset, holding a grudge and want retribution while negotiating you loose sight of the long term goals and end up settling for short term satisfaction. Be smart, stay silent and work towards what is best for you and your son. She will likely go for the short term satisfaction which benefits you greatly as it did me. Don't battle over stupid stuff that is easily replaced because after all it is just stuff, always play the long game. Start making a list of what you want but keep it hidden from her. Please do not give in just to make the hurt go away faster as that will just prolong it when it resurfaces. Lost

Making excuses for her will not undo what she has done and will continue to do in her life so you can be together. She told you who she is so why not listen? She has shown you who she is so why not see? There are messed up people out there for all kinds of reasons. Some like your ex need constant validation from others all the time to feel like they are attractive, wanted or desired. They rarely seek out the attention to feel loved like you offered her because they are not capable. You are feeling the loss of what you thought was perfect because you haven't been in a relationship before. This isn't how it should be, you cannot save her from herself and you cannot make her treat you like she should. She is selfish and uncaring and you got caught up in her wake. It sucks and hurts but in time you will see that she actually did you a huge favor. Lost

Absolutely! Especially when you see a couple and you are way better looking than her date and wonder how the heck did he pull that off? Now when I see happy couples it makes me smile and feel happy that they found each other because we know just hard it can be to make that happen. My friends get frustrated because I do get attention from women but rarely is it the right woman for me. I know myself and what I want in and for my life and will not settle just be to with someone. Frankly I would feel terrible pretending to be into someone just for companionship. I don't get frustrated any longer and just roll with it. If I do feel myself not feeling it I back off and live my life and then jump back in refreshed. I am on Match trying but haven't logged in for a few days because I want to be on there because I want to be, not because I feel I have to be. Lost

You would 100% not meet anyone staying home right? This is great that you are getting out there so each time it is more natural and relaxed. Being totally okay going places alone and being adventurous is a good thing that will only help you in life. You are doing great. You never know when it might happen but you are putting yourself in a position to succeed for sure. Lost