Is this cheating. Sorry for being long

[Tonyist]

Ok Background info. We have been dating for 1yr 3mns. She has always been very protective of her privacy and I pretty much respected that. A couple of weeks ago she got very protective of her computer where she would jump out of bed to keep me from going on it frist before her. I asked her what was going on. She replied that she wasn't doing nothing bad just wanted to keep her things private.

So that day i happen to be on computer one day I found that she had joined a social networking website (like facebook). She was prelogged in so i had a look. Her profile had her listed as single and looking for dating. She didn't know i had seen it and i didn't tell her.

What I did next was join the website under a different name with a model as my pic. Call him John. Before John made contact with her on the website. She told me that she was meeting new male friends that lived in another country so she could get advice on our relationship. And yes that was indeed true, they all lived in other countries. I decide to make contact with her and first thing she told me was she had a boyfriend. This is what John replied to that email:

Boyfriend! I thought you were single. And looking for a date. When i saw your profile and saw you were in Melbourne too. I was going to let you be my guide to Melbourne and Shanghai. Are you in a long distance relationship?

She replied:

i am in melb. he is in melb too. why i wrote Single because my relationship is hard to be real, my family wouldnt accept us. anyway, i would like to be ur guide. (I'm black and she is chinese... My fake profile pick is black as well)

She called to break up with me a day after this message. But later said she wasn't sure what she wanted and that she had been crying all day.

John sent her back this reply:

Not real. I can understand that. When are you free this week? My place has the most amazing view of the city. You must see it. I am staying at the Eureka Towers in south melbourne. I would love to cook for you. After you can show me some of Melboure. My treat. Just let me know when you are free. You will be my Shanghai princess.

Now while the real me and her where talking on the phone. She was telling me how much she missed me and how much she wanted to see me. John got this message:

thank u for ur invitation. i would love to go Eureka Towers but i dont have a lot of day off, i need to go school in the morning and need to work after school and only free on fri, sat day time, or monday and sunday nite might be ok.

This is when I lost it and told her she was a liar and showed her what she had written to John. I told her i knew everything.

Her reasoning: She wasn't really going to meet him. She wanted just to see if all men are bad like I always told her they were. (Bad in that guys that asked you out generally just don't want to be just friends). She claims that she put herself as single and dating because she wanted to attract a certain type of men to get advice from. And finally that I think to much and don't trust her and always think that what she does is negative.

Is this cheating in anyone's book or am I overreacting?

[Lite]

Uhm, she's cheating and you're pathetic for not just dumping her outright.

[clever_name]

Whats pathetic is going through this entire process of making up a fake facebook account and doing all this messaging instead of talking directly to her about it after you saw it.

"I was on the computer, your facebook account was logged in and I looked at your profile and saw you listed as 'single' and 'looking for dating' whats going on?"

[LoveHurts09]

too late for that.

so what's with the family issue?

[Revelation1412]

What I do appreciate is that people on this forum are not afraid to express what they really think.

[carl1222]

Whats pathetic is going through this entire process of making up a fake facebook account and doing all this messaging instead of talking directly to her about it after you saw it.

"I was on the computer, your facebook account was logged in and I looked at your profile and saw you listed as 'single' and 'looking for dating' whats going on?"

I'm no big fan of deceit and subterfuge but OP's discovery was enough of a red flag to justify what he did. If he had confronted her immediately, she probably would have come up with an even lamer reason than she did ... and he would have had no proof at all to dispute it. As it is, I think he blew his cover too soon ... if he had waited a bit, he would have gotten a much more concrete answer as to her real intentions toward his "alter-ego.".

I don't agree with snooping just out of unfounded jealousy, but he had enough of a legitimate concern to raise a trust question and justify using stealth to get the honest answers that he deserved as her boyfriend. If you don't trust someone then what good is talking to them? Do you really believe she would have admitted "I am planning to meet someone, tell him our relationship is not real, make a date with him and go to his apartment?"

Carl.