I need help

[curly38]

Hi, new here & desperate for help. My head is so confused & I cannot see the wood for the trees right now. This is a long story & I will give you all the facts, no matter how hard...here goes.

 

I have been on an online game/chatroom for about 18 months. Just over a year ago I got together with a lovely man & our relationship developed to offline.

The game (Second Life) is full of people having sex & relationships & when we began (he was a bit of a * * * * before me) I stated that we should not get too serious or even be exclusive. We did this ofr a few months until we sat down & had the chat. He stated that he was devoloping real feelings for me & he wanted our online relationship to go exclusive. I agreed stating thats what we woulds do, but if we ever felt the urge to "have" someone else, lets just be honest about it.

 

I think you can probably see where this is heading - 3 days in, he was having sex with someone else behind my back...actually when I say behind my back, what I actually mean is that he was getting himself off in private messages while I was actually with him. This happened 3 times with the same person before I found out. It all kicked off & he was totally destroyed when I called it off. Saying he had been greedy, arrogant & selfish.

I forgave him & took him back. The reasons I forgave him are not that straight forward. In his real life he had never had a girlfriend, he was insecure & had the lowest self esteem of anyone I have ever met. I understood his reasons for cheating. His avatar on Second Life got the attention from women he had never had in real life & it took over him.

 

Anyway - we eventually met up in real life, we hit it off really well & he was/is the most loving attentive & special man I have ever met. We decided to try moving intogether....I moved accross the country.

After a couple of weeks of living together we were talking about his previous indescretion & he admitted that it had nearly happned once more after. He said he stopped the sex before it started - but the fact that it had come that close upset me as it was only 3 weeks before I moved my life to be with him.

 

Previous to meeting me, he had another online relationship - his first love if you will. She was English but living in America (we are English) about 8 months into their relationship she decided to come home to England to be with him. He packed in his job, gave notice on his flat & they decided to move in together. He went to the airport to meet her - he waited 8 hours, she never arrived. Later that evening his friend from the chat room they met in said they had been going through the logs & noticed that his girlfriends IP address was the same one as her best friend & another person in the chat room. Basically he had been conned & was heartbroken & humiliated.

 

Thing is & I'm not sure if this is the crux of the problem - because she disappered he never got closure & I think he may still be in love with her- or at least the persdon he thought she was. He understands that she never really existed but because she was his ideal woman & the first person that had ever shown him any attention- i don't thing he ever fell out of love with her...so I will always be second best.

 

I love this man - totally & I know he loves me, I just don't know if the relationship can survive. I can't get passed him "cheating" on me the way he did (i.e in front of my face) & i don't know what to do. I can't keep feeling second best, but I don't know if i can be without him either.

 

Thanks for bearing with me & any objective opinion is welcomed.

[Scorpion Fury]

So...all the cheating was cyber cheating, right?

 

And now you think he's in love with a cyber person he's never met in real life, that doesn't really exist? With all due respect....that sounds completely ridiculous of him. If that's the case, then this guy is just really inexperienced with love and life in general. What exactly has he done to make you feel this way? Does he talk about "her" as if she were real, and like you can never measure up?

 

You say you're not over the cheating, so if you want to make this work, you're both going to have to work together to get past this, or your relationship will never work.

[Crazyaboutdogs]

I am confused...this game called Second Life is about online sex??? So basically anybody who gets involved in this is looking for cybersex? I don't know but I think this man is a bit messed up and living in a fantasy land where he likes the online attention. I am not so sure you have to worry about his feelings for "fake lady" so much as the fact that he seems to live in this fantasy world of online sex.

[alli]

You didn't want to go exclusive with him, then when you agreed to it you added that either of you could see someone else as long as you tell each other. So it sounds like you added that little stipulation so that you could see other people if you wanted, but instead created an "ok" for him to do the same (only without telling you). Kind of sounds like you dug your own grave.

 

In all honesty, this website sounds silly. Did you even meet in person before deciding to be exclusive? And moving accross the country to be with someone you hardly know outside this online sex website just sounds like a bad idea. In the future it might be a good idea to meet people in real life, or at the very least use those halfway-reputable online dating sites rather than trying to meet a long term partner on a sex game.

[theWalla]

I am confused...this game called Second Life is about online sex??? So basically anybody who gets involved in this is looking for cybersex?

 

Second Life is a "virtual world", sort of like a graphical chat room if you will. It is not about online sex explicitly, but I imagine some people use it for that purpose.

 

link removed

[curly38]

Second Life isn't used exclusively for sex. It is meant for just meeting people & chatting & sometimes relationships occur. I had known him quite a while before we got together as a couple & had met him in person many many times before I moved to be with him.

 

Please don't think I have been hasty moving in with him - you have to remember that because at first you don't have the physical you get to know the other person on a deeper level as all you have is talking.

[Crazyaboutdogs]

Second Life isn't used exclusively for sex. It is meant for just meeting people & chatting & sometimes relationships occur. I had known him quite a while before we got together as a couple & had met him in person many many times before I moved to be with him.

 

Please don't think I have been hasty moving in with him - you have to remember that because at first you don't have the physical you get to know the other person on a deeper level as all you have is talking.

 

I understand that. I just think that going on a site whose primary objective is for graphic sexual chatting with other types of chatting being secondary, is going to attract a certain type of person who might be much more open to sexual liaisons with more than one person. Someone who wants a more serious relationship based first on mutual interests and emotional compatibility will probably not be looking to hook up with someone on these kind of "adult" sites.