this is the worst day of my life

hi my name is katie and im 19 years old. im going to be a college sophomore living in wisconsin. In early march I started seriously talking to a 37 year old from az named bob. bob is married, but when i met him, he was going to divorce his wife because their relationship had fallen apart and he did not love her anymore. he has one daughter. We met in a chat room, in feb. but I didnt pay much attention to bob because I was so wrapped up in another guy in the chat room, Jack, which in its self is a long story. i was not romantically involved with Jack but I liked him a lot and spent a lot of time talking to him. Because of this bob thought i was an unfriendly brat! of course im not, i just didnt notice him. One night i was up late and messing around on the chat room, and bob came into my room. we started talking, basically bull ****ting about whatever, and we both realized that we had a lot in common, and that we enjoyed the others company. soon after we "found each other", Jack "died". Bob was there with me the night he died, i was in the chat room for 6 hours, and bob was the one to talk to me about it and calm me down enough to go to bed at 4am. (side note, jack turned out to be a 15 year old kid messing with us all, and didnt actually die. i no longer go to chat rooms or speak to jack, crazy, i know.) But from that night on bob and i started talking everyday. i at first thought of him as a friend, nothing more. but those thoughts soon began to change. We talked on msn everyday from late march to early april. in early april, we were trying to find a way to cam other than yahoo. and we stumbled upon ichat. ichat is the single most amazing program ever. it allows you to see the other person and talk to them with the microphone. so now not only did i talk to him, i TALKED to him. i knew what he sounded like, the faces he made. everything. it was amazing and i will not trade those hours doing the ichat thing with him for anything. i will always remember that first night on cam with him. it was magic, he couldnt stop looking at me and i couldnt stop looking at him. i went to bed that night with a sore face from smiling. at the end of that first night, we had both grown tired of dancing around one thing between us. our feelings for each other. he brought it up first, he said, katie, is there something we need to talk about? and the look he gave me omg, i knew exactly what he was talking about. and i said yes there is bob, but we will talk about it tomorrow seeing as its 5 AM. so i went to bed. the next day we cammed again. and we discussed our feelings. He told me he liked me as more than a friend. i agreed, i liked him as much more than a friend also. i knew he was married. and we talked about all that so many times. we have talked about our feelings and where our lives are at so many times. i think we have both come to the conclusion that this just happened, our liking each other and that if its meant to be, it will be. so from april to may we spent that time caming with each other. it was amazing. in may one night while caming, we told each other we loved each other. i have never meant those words as much as i do when i say them to bob and he told me he has never felt this strongly for someone as he does for me. its amazing the power of what we have. we talk every night. we have not run out of things to talk about. but now heres wehre the problem comes in. on monday, he found out the financial side effects of divorce. he will have to pay a lot of money in support for his daughter and wife. a lot of moeny. he doesnt know where hes going to live, his parents in florida offered to let him live with them but he doesnt want to do that. his daughter would remain in az. he doesnt want to ask to borrow money from them either. hes never done it before and he has no idea how hed pay them back. his wife and he went out to dinner last night. she told him she would be willing to work it out if he 1. went to a counciler. 2. gave 110% to the marriage. and 3. gave up his online life. which would mean giving me up. last night was one of the worst nights of my life. bob and i have been thru so much, once before we talked about not talking to each other because he didnt want to get int eh way of my life, school, men my age ect. but we both couldnt do it. we both felt it was wrong to stop talking to the other. now, he has to make a choice between me or his family and keeping them together for his little girls sake and the financial side of it. i feel absolutly horriable that that is the choice at hand. i told him that i want him to do whats right for his littel girl. she is top priority. i would be fine with whatever he chose to do. in my heart i know that it would be foolish for him to keep talking to me and continue with the divorce. but there is nothing more in this worled that i want right now than to continue to talk to him and one day meet him. and hold him. and kiss him. i just want him. i am so upset over this. i dont know what to do. i dont know how im going to handle this. i know the choice he has to make. and i think he needs to give me up. but i dont want him to. i love him. im being selfish i know but omg, to never speak to him again...that doesnt sit well with me. literally. i threw up twice last night. i didnt sleep well. i dont know what to do. i dont know how to handle it. i need some advice. please help. can someone make the hurt go away for a little while?

hey woman,
i think you should walk away from this drama and find someone local. anyone can pretend to be anyone or feel anything on line (as you learned from jack). bob may or may not be honest, he may be just yapping away feelings of love for you as a distraction. i would put him on hold big time. i would tell him that you don't want to hear from him until he is divorced and his life is resettled. you need to focus on you...school, work, a boyfriend nearby, your friends, etc.


believe me, this may seem like the worst day of your life right now but in a few years, you will look back on this and it won't be the worst day of your life.

be good to yourself and forget him .

This isnt a decision that Bob should make. Its a decision that you should make.

Im familiar with Yahell and all the weirdness in it, so I sympathize with you. I am also familiar with all the yahoo drama and games that people play on there. Ive had a long distance internet relationship which turned into a real life relationship, which later ended badly and found out all kinds of things that he was able to hide because it was an online relationship, he was...less than honest shall we say. It's easy to spin things when the other person isnt around to see that youre spinning it, I was with that guy for two years and as it turned out it was still hard to get past the online person and see the real person, so I know how crazy that kind of thing can be, how overpowering and real it can seem but youve been doing this cam, web thing with Bob for how long?

3 months?

Personally I think that this is Bob's online fantasy life and it got too serious for him and too real and now he is going to wiggle out of it. Here are some questions to ask yourself if Bob is being honest with you.

Do you talk to him outside of the net?
Do you have his home number and his cell number?
Do you have his home address?
While online does Bob suddenly disappear and say he was disconnect or his cam crashed? If he does, then his wife just walked into the room.
Do you know that his name really IS bob? Has he flashed you his ID on cam to prove it?

How have you made him PROVE that he is who he says he is?


Im guessing that He's a married man who likes to start internet relationship, I have a whole yahoo list of friends who do the same thing. They dont see it as real, they see it as fun, theyre a bit obsessive with it and spend 8-12 hours a day online chatting and spend the rest of the hours talking on a cellphone or texting their online friends, but whenever it starts to get too serious, too real or their spouse has a fit, some new drama or some new situation suddenly happens or they suddenly "realized something" that comes into play that suddenly changes how they can be with their new online "girlfriend" or "boyfriend", suddenly there is an obstacle that keeps the other person hoping and hanging around for resolution but it's really them on the other side showing their spouse how theyre staying away from the pc but the keep the other person dangling just enough to keep them around so they can pick up where they left off.

I know one Australian woman who had a guy believing that he was her boyfriend for almost 3 years who finally told him the truth that she was married and it was just a "net thing" to alleviate the everyday boredom of being a stay at home wife , she only told him the truth when the guy actually bought a ticket to go visit her before that something always happened that stopped her from visiting him.

My point is 3 months, is not nearly enough time to find out if this guy is jerking you around or if he's being a yahoo fake. Sign back on ask around, if he has had other Yahoo net relationships chances are he's playing a game.

The thing with the net is because its on cam, and text and microphones you get to know each other quickly, you tell each other things "that you would never tell anyone else before in your whole life", you feel close to them, you feel like you know them, that theyre your soul mates, you obsess about them and seeing them, you cant wait till log on so you can talk to them... but it isnt real, your feelings are real, but the relationship itself is not real until you actually spend some time in their presence, real actual time with no cam in between you, not just weekend visits but actual everyday time. It's too easy to put on an online persona for hours for you to actually know the person once you spend real time with that person well....

That has a tendency to change things.

Im hoping for your sake that this guy Bob isnt another Yahoo "player", who seem to have yahrelationships all the time. I hope for your sake that he was honest.

You however need to take your life into your hands and make the decision yourself. Do you want a man who is still married and whose main concern seems to be how he can afford to live on his own, rather than maybe giving up the his net girlfriend so that he can try counseling and maybe give his kid a shot at not having to live in a single parent household?

It's a hard thing walking away from a marriage, it should be given every chance to survive and those chances should be given honestly. He cant do that if Youre in the picture.

Walk away and if it was meant to be and his marriage fails and you two start up again then atleast that kid isnt going to hate you for breaking up her parents marriage and she might actually look at you as a friend.




+

Wow! I'm glad I got married in 1993, and actually feel enough love and devotion to my wife to stay away from the net "dating scene". My whole "online" life is coming here once in awhile to give my input on things AG-related.

When I was single in the 1980s to '93 people used newspaper and magazine "personals ads" to meet people. Back then you actually had to write letters on paper, and your first contact was usually the telephone (though some braved it and met in person). There was game playing back then, to be sure, but nothing like what Strawberries is describing.

From time to time I lament not having all this neat technology for meeting people back in my dating days. Now after reading this, maybe it's not such a bad thing that I didn't.

Wow! I'm glad I got married in 1993, and actually feel enough love and devotion to my wife to stay away from the net "dating scene". My whole "online" life is coming here once in awhile to give my input on things AG-related.

When I was single in the 1980s to '93 people used newspaper and magazine "personals ads" to meet people. Back then you actually had to write letters on paper, and your first contact was usually the telephone (though some braved it and met in person). There was game playing back then, to be sure, but nothing like what Strawberries is describing.

From time to time I lament not having all this neat technology for meeting people back in my dating days. Now after reading this, maybe it's not such a bad thing that I didn't.

You know Summerbob, it took finding and dating Clint and actually dating after having been in a long distance, net relationship to realize what I was missing and how much happier I was to have an actual person bodily in my life. I dont miss the craziness that was my life nearly 3 1/2 year ago.:D

I have friends still wrapped up in that kind of mess, when one net relationship doesnt work out or they actually move in together and it fails, they just hop back online and go searching for a new online romance, it's addicting I guess, they always deny that they werent looking for someone it just happened but having been their friends for so nearly a decade I can see the pattern.:rolleyes: The whole we were friends and then got close thing, its an online dating game that people who do their dating online know how to work, for someone who is a net virgin to go on the net and get wrapped up in it well...theyre easy game.

Katie,

I wish I could say something magical to make your heart heal, but I can't. I do sympathize with your pain, but I believe only time can dull it.

If I could offer you any wisdom it is that a woman's heart is a prized posession that should not be given easily to a man. Often we receive it back broken and we regret having allowed anyone to touch it.

So it is up to you to ensure you are willing to accept the pain associated with the risk you are taking. It sounds like at least 1 of these 2 people, and possibly both, were not deserving of this type of chance (or your love).

This is part of finding our way in life, figuring out how much of ourselves we allow others to see and when to hold back. You can find a balance between your heart and mind in realtionships, so try to find that balance now of never allowing one to run off without the other. It'll save you years of bad choices.

:bighug:

This is not the worst day of your life...it just feels like it right now. Trust me, there are worse ones to come!!!

You know what you have to do...you already said it. Just cut him off out of your life like a bad habit. You can do it. Make a goal of not talking to him for 3 days. Once that three days is up, if you do talk to him again, set a new goal of a week with no contact. Just do it!

Trust me, there are worse ones to come!!!

Now THAT'S encouraging!!!

But, having lived for 50 years, and having and experienced some of the "surprises" life can throw at you, I know what you mean. BELIEVE ME, I know what you mean!!

And not all of them are necessarily "relationship"-related.