Once A Cheater Always A Cheater? -- Need Advice

[shainesy]

I met this guy online 7 months ago, he lives on the other side of the planet from where I am. We`ve been chatting, talking to each other every single day. Things were perfect between us and we fell deeply in love with each other during the third month. We chatted and talked so much on the phone even more than normal couples do. We know each other so well that we can almost read each other’s thought. He was jobless for almost 9 months and recently he got a new job, the first thing he bought after he got his first pay was the air tickets to my place. It costs a lot for him knowing his financial situation was bad after 9 months being jobless. I was so touched and also excited about finally being able to meet up after 7 months of intense online relationship and more than a thousand hour of chatting every single day. He will be taking a 30 hours flights in total with return just to meet me for 3 days because he has to work and can`t stay any longer. What he did was a big thing to me cause I believe he wouldn`t do that if he didn`t love me enough. We even discussed that if we can get along well (which we believe we definitely will) he doesn`t mind moving to my place to start a new life with me. I know we have gone a bit too far knowing the fact that we have not met each other but sometimes things just happened and I`m not able to explain that. I`m 33 and he is 36 we are mature enough to know what we are doing

Recently I found out on Facebook that he took some intimate pictures with another girl. I confronted him, he apologized and admitted that he was having an affair with that girl but he also said that he loves me and I`m the only person he wants and the usual “I don`t know why I did it” kind of stuffs. He even cried on the phone and told me how sorry he is for doing such horrible thing. He said that the girl isn`t his girlfriend but an acquaintance that he sees from time to time to fill the gap, he doesn`t love her. He did this purely just for personal closeness as in things he can`t do with me such as spending time together, body contact, sex etc. All this while he has been very clear about what he wants, he said he wants to be with me and me only. I found out about them because the girl created a shared Facebook account and upload their kissing photos and the worst thing is he allowed her to do so. He also told me that he ended with this girl even before I found out. He showed me a message he sent to her telling her that he needs a couple of months apart and wants some time on his own. The message he sent dated one week before he was caught. He said that he couldn`t stand the guilt and he wanted to end it with her so that he can start an official relationship with me next month when we meet. I even got him sending a message to that girl telling her that he is in a relationship with someone and he has been throughout the whole course of their 2 months affair. I asked her to get the girl to delete their shared Facebook account as well. He did it and showed me the screen shot so I believe he didn`t lie about ending it with that girl.

However, I still consider it as cheating even though we have never met. He promised me that he will never cheat on me again and he will cut all connection with this girl. I tried to get him to talk about it he was ok at first, being opened and told me everything I wanted to know about the affair and he told me how sorry he was and how much he loves me every time we talked. But lately he has changed, he seems to lose his patience on me and he said that he doesn`t want to be interrogated all the time. He didn`t call and text that much anymore at the usual time he normally did. This happened after I ignored him for 4 days. When I started to talk to him again, I noticed he has changed, but he still said that he loves me and wants to be with me. He still called me when I asked him to but he always cut the conversation short whenever I start questioning him about the girl and the affair. How could he expect me not to question? I`ve been struggling and he was the one causing all this pain for me. He should be the one doing the majority of the work to repair things. He doesn`t want to be questioned could it be he`s still lying or hiding things from me? I don`t know if I should still meet up with him next month. I don`t know after this incident whether I can still rebuild the trust for him. On the other hand I feel bad if I tell him not to come cause I don`t want to meet him anymore knowing that he has paid for his air tickets. Should I forgive him and meet up with him as planned? Or should I believe once a cheater always a cheater and stop contacting him for good?


Shainesy

[michelle23]

how do you know that you are not the other woman? He could live with her, she could be his wife or long term girlfriend..

I dont consider what he did to you cheating. You have never met in person, never slept together etc. You cant be in an official exclusive relationship when you have never met. Its unrealistic.

Do you not think it would make more sense to meet someone local??

[Rowen]

First of all, don't enter into relationships that far apart unless you've known the person for a long, long, long time as friends.

Second, Michelle is right. You have no idea what this guy is like. For all you know, he could be married and doing this to seventeen other women.

He cheated on you. You can't trust him. So, end it. Find someone around your area- your DIRECT area- and go on a few dates. There's someone better out there who will actually treat you well. He obviously doesn't care at all if he cheated on you.

[shainesy]

First of all, don't enter into relationships that far apart unless you've known the person for a long, long, long time as friends.

Second, Michelle is right. You have no idea what this guy is like. For all you know, he could be married and doing this to seventeen other women.

He cheated on you. You can't trust him. So, end it. Find someone around your area- your DIRECT area- and go on a few dates. There's someone better out there who will actually treat you well. He obviously doesn't care at all if he cheated on you.

Thanks Michelle and Rowen for the reply. Yes we have never met, but we are going to next month. Lots of couples who met online will have to go through the so called "unofficial" state until they finally met each other and start an "official" relationship. So now my problem is I`m not sure whether I should still meet him and get to know him better. If what he did wasn`t cheating like what Michelle said, should I give him a chance to meet up with me?

[michelle23]

But how do you know for sure that the woman on Facebook is not his girlfriend/fiance/wife. He could have kids for all you know.

I said in my opinion its not cheating but I am biased as I would not do internet dating as I don't trust it personally and I wouldn't believe a word a stranger says online. But I'm not you and you think it is cheating. He obviously does too or he would not have begged for forgiveness.

I think your wasting your time here with this man. Why don't you get all dressed up and go out and about. It will only be a matter of time before you have men lining up asking you out and then you can get to know him properly face to face.

7months online is fantasy. He could be a completely different person than the images you have drawn up in your mind of him.

Realistically if you met this man down the road 7 months ago, you would have met his family by now, you'd be staying over at each others house regularly, sleeping together-some trust would already have been established, you wouldn't have so many questions still whirling around in your mind.

[shainesy]

But how do you know for sure that the woman on Facebook is not his girlfriend/fiance/wife. He could have kids for all you know.

I said in my opinion its not cheating but I am biased as I would not do internet dating as I don't trust it personally and I wouldn't believe a word a stranger says online. But I'm not you and you think it is cheating. He obviously does too or he would not have begged for forgiveness.

I think your wasting your time here with this man. Why don't you get all dressed up and go out and about. It will only be a matter of time before you have men lining up asking you out and then you can get to know him properly face to face.

7months online is fantasy. He could be a completely different person than the images you have drawn up in your mind of him.

Realistically if you met this man down the road 7 months ago, you would have met his family by now, you'd be staying over at each others house regularly, sleeping together-some trust would already have been established, you wouldn't have so many questions still whirling around in your mind.

Hi Michelle, to certain degree I do agree with you about not being able to know whether he is single or married. I know there`s no 100% guarantee when comes to online relationship but I did some background check online before about this man. I have his house address, his home phone number etc because there was once he sent me his CV and asked me to make some amendments for him when his computer broke down. Based on the search result apparently he is living with his family that includes his mum and his siblings. I have seen all their pictures as well. We do video chat in Skype quite often and his room looks completely like a messy single man room to me.

As for the girl in Facebook who created a shared account with him, the account was only created last December and the photo she uploaded were all recent photos. That girl has another account of her own and they don`t really have any mutual friends. There are one or two just added last month so I came out with the conclusion that just 2 months ago he started dating the girl, which is the same as what he told me. If she is his long term gf, he wouldn`t send her a message asking her to delete the account and told her that he wanted to end the short relationship with her because he has been in a relationship with me. He sent me a screen shot of all these messages he sent to her. These are all the info I gathered therefore I came out with a conclusion that he is single, again I know I can`t be 100% sure of that. We`ve been talking to each other daily for the past 7 months, sometimes we chatted up to 12 hours a day, it would also be difficult for a married man to do that

7 months online wasn`t really that long, but 7 months online and talking to each other daily is something I have never experienced. I wasn`t an online dating type of person, I never had any boyfriend started from online dating. If I don`t meet him, I will never know how is it like to see him in real person and whether or not we can still get along well when everything we had and shared online are being brought to the real world, it will forever be a question mark in my head if I don`t meet him. On the other hand, if I go ahead and meet him, if we really do start an official relationship, things will no longer be perfect despite the long distance because I might not trust him again after the cheating part. The date of meeting him is getting close and I still can`t make up my mind >_<

[michelle23]

Thats the thing. If you and he do get together and it all works out well between you-will you still look back at his affair and be upset? Will you be afraid it will happen again?
Without trust you have nothing.

Also he could have feelings for her. Their relationship was probably more real than yours as I presume he slept with her?

[bearz]

I can't believe that you have even made it this far. 7 months without ever meeting the guy is a pretty damn long time. I'm going through something similar, have known her for a little less than 2 months and going to visit her soon, simply because we both didn't want to wait any longer. We want to know if it's worth putting all this time and effort into it. The longer you wait, the worse it usually gets, especially when it comes to trust - as you can see for yourself right now.

Quite honestly, that huge distance between you two is just going to drive you up the wall. You'll never be really happy with your relationship. Why go through all this trouble if you can find someone else in your area?

[shainesy]

Yes he definitely slept with her, he admitted that. And yes their relationship is also more real because they are both living in the same city they can do whatever I can`t do with him, as of now. However, if he wanted to be with her, why did he end the relationship with her even before I found out and spend so much on the air tickets flying half the earth just to see me for three days. He got his tickets on the 3rd this month, he ended with her on 7th (based on the date on screen shot of their conversation he sent to me), and I found out about them on the 15th

[shainesy]

Thanks for the reply Bearz. I`m sure I can find someone in my area, there are lots of fish in the sea, who wants to be in this kind of crazy long distant relationship if given a choice. Sometimes things happened and it has gone too far even without you realizing it. Since you are also in a long distant online relationship, I believe you can understand perfectly how it feels.

[bearz]

I can totally understand how it feels when you spend most of your day talking to someone you think is "the" one. But he has done things that are bothering you a lot, and you are not the only girl on his mind (even though he presumably broke up with her). Actions speak louder than words and unfortunately, words is all you are getting at this point. Your trust in him has definitely taken a big hit and if I had the choice I wouldn't want to put up with all of this. I know if the girl I am in to would hook up with a different guy it would be the end and I would have to let her go.

[michelle23]

I think if he was serious about meeting you and wanted this to go somewhere he wouldn't have bothered with her. He may just want a booty call and then dump you like he did her..

[shainesy]

So you wouldn`t even want to meet her knowing that she has bought the tickets flying more than 6000 miles just to see you?

[shainesy]

Talking to someone who lives so far away daily for 7 months just for booty calls don`t you think its time consuming and expensive?

[michelle23]

But you may just be an escape from reality (like porn), a distraction, a fantasy, something to do while bored etc. If he was really serious about your relationship why would he start something with her? And I think its even weirder that he stopped seeing her for you especially when she lives near him.

Sorry but I don't believe that. Hes probably still seeing her.