Will my boyfriend ever stop these virtual relationships?

[Charliemouse]

Hi everyone,

 

I'm hoping you might be able to give me some good advice about my relationship, because I'm sort of going out of my mind!

 

We've been together three years. We got together just as I was coming out of a very unhappy marriage, so he had to put up with a lot of drama and confusion and unhappiness, not to mention my uncertainty about entering a new relationship and commitment to him.

 

He is also eight years younger than me. This hasn't really caused many problems - we were friends before we got together, he's very mature and responsible, and beyond the knowledge that we will have to start a family sooner rather than later, it doesn't affect us madly. (He has always told me he wanted children early, so it's not too bad)

 

At the end of last year/start of this year we split up for a little while - I was finding a lot of issues with my divorce really upsetting, and my boyfriend was simultaneously being very controlling. I went away for a while, but we stayed in touch the whole time, and when I got back we agreed to get back together and give things a proper go.

 

But I felt suspicious about his behaviour - something wasn't right. He'd started a new job the previous fall and I knew while I had been away he had gone out with his new colleagues often. So I checked his phone. I discovered that he had been conducting a relationship of sorts with one of his female colleagues. They exchanged sexual texts, naked photos, had phone sex, and would travel home together and meet up sometimes outside of work.

 

I confronted my boyfriend about it. He told me it was nothing, that it was over, and that nothing physical had ever actually happened between them. He told me he had been so upset by my leaving that it had been a way to cheer himself up. After a lot of talking and begging, I agreed to give us another chance, because I knew that in the past he had given me the benefit of the doubt.

 

The thing is that since then, I have checked his phone again. I found out that in his previous job he had a similar relationship with another girl. Again I am 100% certain from reading their messages that nothing physical actually happened. I also checked his computer. It turns out for the entirety of our relationship he has been pursuing women online, flirting with them, swapping sexual messages and naked pictures, having webcam sex and text sex and phone sex with them. It was continuing after I found out about the colleague. There doesn't seem to be any particular type, they just need to be female and into him. Some of them have even been women he has previously told me he can't stand.

 

Obviously I have been devastated since discovering this side to him. I confronted him at the start of the summer. He begged for forgiveness again, admitted he had a problem and wanted to change. I know he deleted a lot of these pictures and deleted the girls from his facebook etc, though I also know he lapsed a couple of times, and on those occasions I came down on him like a tonne of bricks.

 

Since the end of the summer he has been much better. He doesn't know I know his passwords etc but I check his phone and email, facebook, skype and computer history regularly. I know when I went away for a weekend he was skyping and swapping naked pictures with one of the girls involved. I didn't say anything because I saw that she was texting him a lot and he told her had got back with his girlfriend so they shouldn't do it anymore. I noticed he mentioned having a girlfriend to a couple of the other girls too, when they came onto him.

 

Just lately though I've seen that on evenings when I am not at home (we live together now) he sometimes strikes up conversations with random girls around the world. They all have the same creepy tone that they had before - he's charming and then at some point will compliment them on their photos. He tells them things about himself and his background that aren't entirely true. I see, too, from his internet history, that he will be looking at other girls' profile pictures, watching porn, digging out old photos girls have sent him in the past.

 

I also worry about how he compartmentalises his life, and have raised this with him a lot recently. He keeps our relationship separate from his friendships at work, and we rarely see his close friends (though I have met them and we all get along, and he doesn't see them too often anyway). We see his family a lot, and they have been hugely welcoming to me. I just can't shake this feeling he has another life, that he has all these secrets, that he's always looking for something better.

 

I hate that I have become this cowed and obsessed woman, checking her boyfriend's email etc. I feel constantly worried, and so unattractive. At the same time, I know that I put him through such a miserable miserable time at the start of our relationship, and he still believed in me and in us, even when it looked as if we weren't going to work out.

 

I know too that he is a flirt, and that he's very charming and very physically attractive, and women flirt with him even when I'm right there with him. He's used to getting girls he wants, and when I was effectively rejecting him, his ego took a very big kicking, and I'm sure these relationships helped him feel better about himself. When he has lapsed in the past six months it has generally been if I've gone to an event without him, or if we've had an argument.

 

He wants us to get married next year, and to start trying for a family in the fall. I desperately want this too - he is the love of my life, my family adore him, as do all my friends, and I believe we could have a very happy life together. But I don't know if I can put any weight on this relationship, if it is real.

 

Will he ever stop these virtual relationships? Is he addicted to them? Will he inevitably start cheating in real life too? And how can I make him decompartmentalize his life?

 

I'm sorry this is so long. I just wanted to give the full picture. I hope one of you can help.

 

Happy November to you all xxx

[lalalollipops]

He HAS cheated. Many times. Don't you see? Just cos it's not sex doesn't mean it's not cheating. Emotional cheating is a kind of cheating, and it's just as bad if not worse. And you DON'T know if he did do stuff with that girl he worked with. He's a liar, so why believe what he says?

 

Why are you sticking around? This guy has issues, and he's not going to change. Don't let him walk all over you. He doesn't respect you at all, and frankly, with the way you're putting up with everything... Why would he?

Dump him asap.

[Charliemouse]

Thanks - I do see he has cheated, and have told him as much. I do consider emotional cheating to be actual cheating. I do know they didn't actually do anything because I read all of their texts and all of their emails, in which she frequently gets angry with him for the fact they haven't ever so much as kissed in real life.

 

I've been sticking around because I love him, and because he stuck around while I was getting my * * * * together for the first two years of our relationship, when everyone told him I didn't respect him and was walking all over him.

 

I know he has issues. I guess I just want to know if he'll get over them.

[lalalollipops]

He won't cos it's not just having issues. It's his character, he has no integrity and lacks morals. And love doesn't conquer all. I went through the same thing with the ex that screwed me up. It's not worth it. They're not going to change. You'll just be more disappointed. And since you're allowing it by staying with him, he's feeling really complacent about the whole thing.

[lalalollipops]

And just cos he stuck with you through your previous problems, does not give him the right to disrespect you like this repeatedly.

He's completely making a mockery of your relationship. You do know that right? =(

You have to break up with him, he will never change. I can guarantee it.

[Tanzi]

I discovered that he had been conducting a relationship of sorts with one of his female colleagues. They exchanged sexual texts, naked photos, had phone sex, and would travel home together and meet up sometimes outside of work.

 

I confronted my boyfriend about it. He told me it was nothing

 

Firstly this is NOT nothing ... it is very much something.

 

and that nothing physical had ever actually happened between them.

 

Secondly, I don't believe this for one moment. They exchanged sexual texts, they had phone sex, they met up outside of work. Please don't tell me you don't think they had real sex. If not with her than with one of the many others. He even has web sex. What would be stopping him from having real sex. To be honest, even if he hasn't, this is equally as bad.

 

He told me he had been so upset by my leaving that it had been a way to cheer himself up. After a lot of talking and begging, I agreed to give us another chance, because I knew that in the past he had given me the benefit of the doubt.

 

Thirdly, given that you now know he has been doing this with several women for the duration of your relationship, you know that this is an excuse, a lie. It had nothing to do with you leaving, he was doing it already. I understand that, at the time you first found out, you felt he deserved to be given the benefit of the doubt because he had done the same to you ... but in retrospect you now know that all the while he was giving you the benefit of the doubt he was conducting on-line (and no doubt "off-line") relationships with countless other women. All this time he was making YOU feel bad and was making YOU feel like HE was doing YOU a favour, when it was actually HIM that was the one up to know good!

 

He begged for forgiveness again, admitted he had a problem and wanted to change. I know he deleted a lot of these pictures and deleted the girls from his facebook etc, though I also know he lapsed a couple of times, and on those occasions I came down on him like a tonne of bricks.

 

How many times is he going to be forgiven. Despite begging for forgiveness "again", he went straight on and did it again.

 

He doesn't know I know his passwords etc but I check his phone and email, facebook, skype and computer history regularly. I know when I went away for a weekend he was skyping and swapping naked pictures with one of the girls involved.

 

Is this how you want to live your life? Constantly checking up on him, forever suspicious, living in fear of yet another infidelity only to be proven right? because whether or not he has had real sex with them he is still emotional cheating on you. To say these aren't physical relationships doesn't make all this any less wrong.

 

Just lately though I've seen that on evenings when I am not at home (we live together now) he sometimes strikes up conversations with random girls around the world. They all have the same creepy tone that they had before - he's charming and then at some point will compliment them on their photos. He tells them things about himself and his background that aren't entirely true. I see, too, from his internet history, that he will be looking at other girls' profile pictures, watching porn, digging out old photos girls have sent him in the past.

 

So all this and you moved in with him? Why? You are selling yourself so extremely short. This is all wrong. Just wrong. (Well apart from the porn maybe).

 

I hate that I have become this cowed and obsessed woman, checking her boyfriend's email etc. I feel constantly worried, and so unattractive. At the same time, I know that I put him through such a miserable miserable time at the start of our relationship, and he still believed in me and in us, even when it looked as if we weren't going to work out.

 

He has made you like this. What he has done was wrong. What he is still doing is wrong and yet you are the one making excuses for YOUR behaviour. Please don't forget that when he was still "believing" in you, he was also "believing" in a lot of other women too.

 

I know too that he is a flirt, and that he's very charming and very physically attractive, and women flirt with him even when I'm right there with him. He's used to getting girls he wants, and when I was effectively rejecting him, his ego took a very big kicking, and I'm sure these relationships helped him feel better about himself. When he has lapsed in the past six months it has generally been if I've gone to an event without him, or if we've had an argument.

 

A flirt? That must be the understatement of the century!! You have to stop making excuses for him. No relationship is perfect, there really is no excuse for his behaviour. So, every time you go to an event its OK for him to "lapse", is it? Dear God, this is all wrong.

 

He wants us to get married next year, and to start trying for a family in the fall. I desperately want this too - he is the love of my life, my family adore him, as do all my friends, and I believe we could have a very happy life together. But I don't know if I can put any weight on this relationship, if it is real.

 

Your friends and family all love him because they don't really know him. What part of this relationship leads you to think you can have a happy life together? Because you love him? Because the alternative is too painful to contemplate? Well the real alternative (if you were to marry) is that you will end up in a very unhappy marriage, with a man who cheats and will end up feeling more worthless than you do already. This relationship is no more real than any of his other virtual relationships.

 

Will he ever stop these virtual relationships? Is he addicted to them? Will he inevitably start cheating in real life too? And how can I make him decompartmentalize his life?

 

It doesn't look like. Despite almost losing you, despite saying he would stop ... he hasn't yet. So what is it going to take? Maybe he does it because you have more or less accepted it. He knows you don't like it but because you keep forgiving him, he can get away with it regardless.

 

Lets just say that he has a problem ... what has he actually done to help himself? He says he wants to change but has he actually done anything to prove that. Has he sought any counselling for sex addiction? Because unless he has then he isn't bothered about changing at all and if he doesn't then this is NOT ever going to get any better. It is only going to get worse.

 

I am sorry that my response was overly long and I am sorry for picking holes in your post but I'm not sure you are taking this seriously enough.

[Charliemouse]

Thanks. I suspect you are sadly right.

[Charliemouse]

Thanks a-little-blue for taking the time to send such a thorough response.

 

I promise I am taking it seriously. I decided in the spring to give him a kind of probation period til the end of the year - this seemed fair after he had put up with me dilly-dallying and even at points going back to my husband over those first two miserable years. I know I am far from perfect and that I treated him badly and took him for granted, and so it seemed to me wrong to judge him by a standard I had not really upheld myself.

 

I did believe things were improving - I think he has genuinely been addicted to these online sexual encounters, and as with an addiction to anything I wouldn't expect the path to recovery to be without pitfalls (my mother is an alcoholic, my ex-husband was addicted to cannabis, so I know of what I speak).

 

I suppose, as the end of the year draws closer, and his period of probation is almost at an end, his recent online conversations have made me fear that he is sliding back into his old ways. I suppose, also, that I really hoped this wasn't the case. But the replies here have led me to believe what I dreaded is true.

 

Thanks again for your thoughts and advice.

[Crazyaboutdogs]

I am not so sure you really love him so much as he has been your escape. You jumped straight into this relationship from your marriage, before your marriage was completely over in your mind and legally. He was your fall back person..the person you could turn to for support and love and attention while your marriage was crumbling. In a sense, he was your saviour..the person who saved you from having to deal with a crumbling marriage all on your own..a person you could have all the illusion of a relationship with as your relationship with your husband was ending. You didn't have to be alone..you had someone who showed that he adored you so it made you feel better while you were sorting out the end of your marriage. So now you feel like you owe him something..he stuck by you as your saviour so now you feel you owe him one. However, was he really your saviour or was he just also taking advantage of you during your vulnerable time. Given the fact that he has cheated on you for so long, I doubt very much that you were the only fish in the sea for him while you were bouncing back in forth with your now ex husband. In other words, he didn't really have to put himself out for you during that time because he was likely also getting emotional and physical needs met from others. He likes variety and many at once so I doubt very much if he was all heartbroken when you were going through the ending of your marriage...he was busy with others. This is a totally dysfunctional relationship..it was never healthy from the get-go. You will never get monogamy and sexual/emotional loyalty from this guy. Because you never had time to process what happened to your marriage, grieve its loss and learn from it, you jumped straight into another bad situation and now can't let go of it. I think it is time to end this relationship and learn how to be alone for a while so that when you are ready to date again you can do it because you want to have another relationship, not because you NEED to.

[meoww]

wow--this is almost exactly the same chain of events that brought me to ENA. I was in a horrible relationship, met my ex during the breaking up phase and couldn't mentally (although I was totally, and completely faithful) commit to the new relationship that I jumped into right after the break up. I was distant and didn't treat him well although he claimed to want to marry me during this period. AND then--I slowly came to find out about the double life he led that only I ended up knowing about. I was too ashamed to expose him to his friends, etc because I didn't want to look like the crazy ex girlfriend.

 

I made countless excuses too--for a very long time. He now has a gf, they are in a LTR but I don't doubt for a second that he will eventually be unfaithful if he has not been already.

 

Point being, I really agree with the others in that he's probably never going to change. You've been a good detective--now you have to actually digest the evidence that this man is seriously perverted and turning you into a crazy person!! Trust me, someday you will look back on all this and wonder how you let things get so out of hand. These types of men take away all your self esteem and integrity--little by little until there is nothing left of you at all!! that's why it is so hard to let go.

[Madison12]

Charliemouse, I'm so sorry that you're going through this heartbreaking time. Please know that this is not a reflection on you, or your worth. I think you're so in the thick of this that trying to make sense of it is like making your way through a pitch black forest without a lamp.

 

Your boyfriend sounds like a sociopath, in all honesty. Look it up. He has all of the textbook characteristics. To stay with him will only serve to erode your happiness and self-worth to the point where it will take you a very long time to recover. Please don't marry someone who has and will continue to cheat on you. I think you need some time alone to recover from the pain of your divorce, and now this.

 

Huge hugs to you. xo

[Charliemouse]

Thanks all. I've found your wise words and experiences really supportive and refreshingly honest.

I've wondered a few times over the last six months if he might be a fully-fledged sociopath! Glad I'm not alone in my suspicions...

Thanks for showing the light at the end of the tunnel. I'm forever grateful.

xxx

[chitown9]

Charliemouse, I know that the truth hurts, but it is going to hurt even more if you continue with this guy. He is not going to change and no one in their right mind would put up with it....Good luck to you....chi

[Liraele]

It's emotional cheating, as others have said. Sometimes, that's worse than if it were JUST sex... because they're sharing something with these people other than their body... they're sharing the things that makes them who they are, and things that they should be sharing with their partner, these are often the things that are lacking and make a relationship fall apart in the first place - they start sharing elsewhere and the relationship suffers.

 

The short answer is no, he's not going to stop. The extent of it sounds like he may have some sort of sexual addiction, though it's also possible that he's just a cad who likes attention.

 

The longer answer is one you have to find inside yourself, and that is: what are you going to do about it?

[RadicalDreamer]

You've probably gathered by now from what the others said, but yes, this is cheating. Cheating isn't defined by physical contact, it's defined as a breaking of the mutually understood bonds of a trust behind a relationship. You don't have to hold someone's hand, kiss them or have sex with them for your heart to stray from your partner's. Hell, you don't even really need another person--some people "stray" away from their partner and draw into themselves or let their heart wander away without seeking someone else. While that's not technically cheating, it's still every bit as heartbreaking.

 

The reason this is cheating is because you're not okay with it, he knows you're not okay with it, and he's doing it anyway. That said, you shouldn't put up with this. It's not your job to adapt, it's his duty to decide if his relationship with you is worth giving up something on the side.

 

If he's the sick type who doesn't believe that it's wrong, or that it's okay if it's just online/sexting, there's a problem. Maybe he begged for forgiveness because he felt genuine remorse, because he wanted you to stick with him. Or maybe he's the type who needs a safety net. The point of this is not to judge him, but to outline why this activity is destructive.

 

The question is not "will he ever stop?" but "will I ever stop letting him do this?" I wish you the best of success... if you're that committed to where what he's doing hasn't shaken you loose, I suggest maybe seeing someone together, like a couples' counseling session. There are things that need to be aired out between the two of you, and until they are, I don't think proceeding with this relationship is a good idea.

 

(full disclosure: I have cheated, online. It was a terrible thing I did to everyone involved.)