Not even sure what to title this...really unusual problem

[ReallyStrange]

I?ve name changed for this because...well you will see why when you read.

Firstly I want to say I am 100% NOT a troll and have not made this up. But I expect some people will think I have since it?s pretty unbelievable.

I'll try and be as brief as possible. I had an online (yes 100% online) ?relationship? with a man for about a year. We got really close and I felt as though I loved him and he said the same about me. Yes I also realise how stupid this was and yes its projection and a fantasy and not real life and all that stuff. If it had just been a silly online thing and had ended i would have been able to process everything ok.

However a few months ago he told me about an alleged secret he had, which was when he was a teenager he killed another man. When he told me I 100% believed him and was really upset and worried and not sure what to do at all. I didn?t feel like I could tell anyone and didn?t have enough detail to report it even if I felt like I would have been believed (and I shudder to think what that conversation might have gone like...?hello I am from a random country and I think someone got killed but I don?t know exactly when or where?).

I did not stop talking to this person after I found out but of course things broke down over it all and in the end i decided to call it a day.
I?ve been finding it really headfucky mostly because he then got back in touch with me and informed me he was planning to hand himself in in the New Year but until that time was just going to have fun. I have a certain hobby and I he took up the same hobby and began posting pictures of it with his friends, smiling and looking like he was having a whale of a time. In private he is emailing me that he is making plans to put all his affairs in order and ?do the right thing?.

So after a while I began to not believe him at all as his behaviour made no sense to me. I asked lots of times if he was lying to me and he said no he was telling the truth. I have plenty of email and IM conversations where we discuss it so it?s not like I couldn?t prove what he was saying to me which makes me think either he is an unhinged liar and was so confident he?d get me to believe him and I?d keep quiet that he just said all this stuff, or he really did do it. Neither of which are very good options.

I?ve been trying to move on but have been feeling really bad for not saying anything and also don?t seem to be able to let go of my need to find out the truth. In the end I emailed a friend of his who I?d got to know again via online a little bit. She?s upset and doesn?t know what to think but I kind of felt like she had a right to know what sort of person he was and also probably selfishly I didn?t want to deal with it anymore and kind of thought ?you know what let his REAL friends, the ones he spends time with, handle this?. Of course now I feel guilty as anything that I?ve told her and now she has to worry whether this guy is either a murderer or the worst sort of liar. Like I said neither option is good.

I?ve also been struggling with the fact I let myself get so wound up in him, even though I realised quite early on he was bad news for me. I truly felt like I loved him and what makes all this worse is it has been really stressful, yet I know how this sounds..it sounds fucking insane writing it down and i know plenty of people will say it?s not ?real? and therefore I couldn?t possibly be upset about it. But I am. I?ve felt utterly screwed up in the head over it, unsure what to do and didn?t know where to go for advice or what to do.
I have spoken with some people now such as a family member and friends and almost all of them think he is lying about it. They think it all sounds too far-fetched to be true and I agree with them...until I speak with him. Then he does a pretty good impression of someone who is really upset and sorry and tortured and so on...do people really lie about this sort of thing?

I obviously know I cannot have more contact with him. But I feel very guilty about telling his friend and not sure I did the right thing or not. I am also finding it really hard to let go of all this without knowing what the truth is. If it is true..surely someone needs to be told somehow?

Anyway this is long..I know how crazy this sounds, I am not a troll..I?m not sure how to prove it without going to my normal username and I?m really embarrassed to do that but really need some objective perspective here. No need to tell me I?ve been an idiot, I already know that bit.

Sorry as in it happened in his country, not here in the UK.

He wont hand himself in, he's already said he has reconsidered due to speaking with a family member who said he would ruin his, his mothers and his sons life if he did. I did point out that if he had stabbed someone to death and then he and his accomplicies had got rid of the body there were a family out there who never knew what happened. By the way thats what he told me happened. He also told me he did it because he was ordered to by a gang he was involved with and was paid $250 dollars for doing so. This is why I've been so upset, its not like he said a fight got out of hand or something.

All whilst crying and saying he is the worst person in the world, it has fucked him up forever and he will hate himself forever and so on. He also claims he joined the army medics to try and make amends and worked in refugee camps. I could try and find out if thats true I suppose...not that it makes much of a difference.

OR I could just decide never to look, talk to people about this or have anytihng to do with him, accept I wont know, and try to move into 2013 dealing with my unhealthy relationship habits.

Well, police can check where he lived, went to school, family members etc. I reckon the minimum they would need is a full name plus date of birth, and a picture if possible.

Good god, Guilty, I'm so sorry you had to go through that. What a sick, sick person.

I'd give copies of the emails to the police plus a draft of information that he has given verbally plus the personal details you have for him.

If he is telling the truth then this is the only right thing to do, if he's lying then he'll either learn not to mess around with lies or be revealed as a sick/damaged/damaging individual.

It is not up to you or his RL friend to decide whether he is telling the truth. you only need to take the information to the proper place.

If this had been on a gaming site where people can invent themselves as a whole different person my advice would have been different. but this is online but real life and you do know who he is.

best wishes to you OP

OP -- so you do have some details. Depending on the city, it would not be too hard to search the database for unsolved gang-related murders by stabbing from two specific years.

I'm not saying you have to go to the police, it is entirely your right to walk away and just let his friend deal with it. But I wouldn't assume the police would do nothing either.

Guilty - omg thats horrible. what a total utter shit to do that. I just don't understand how people can make these sorts of things up and put people through those emotions. Maybe what some other posters were saying is right and for them the fact it is not in person means they are able to not count you AS a person.

Actually Fool, that's a good point -- if he's lying, and gets a visit from the police, that might shock him into not duping any more people online.

Op it might be an idea to email his local police dept if you know the area, and ask their advice, if he is in the States I imagine he will get a bollocking, and yes if you said your going to report it, might make him admit it was all bollox to as well, then you can have a peaceful Xmas.

Sorry but, the more you write, the more far-fetched and attention-seeking it all seems. If, by some incredible sequence of events, things actually happened the way he describes I don't think there's much you can do about it personally. As Mr Tattoo Parlour has admitted he is 'fucked up forever'.... walk away.... fast.

It DOES sounds incredibly far-fetched I know. It was all drip-fed over a period of time of course. 'Mr Tattoo Parlour' snorts

Urgh

Well, I used to hang out in some dodgy scenes and I have certainly known people who were involved in gangs years before and did some fucked up things. I don't think his story sounds particularly far-fetched, although the whole bit about turning himself in and all that probably is.

Hi, I don't usually post in Relationships but I felt I had something to add here. Something similar happened to me some years ago. A friend 'made up' a friend who was poorly. I wrote to her, we exchanged letters, gifts, always through this girl as an intemediary (just seemed easier - it was before the internet!). I eventually arranged to meet up with the poorly girl whereupon our mutual 'friend' turned around and said that she'd died. Just like that.

It's over 20 years ago and I'm still upset about it. It still hurts that someone would go to that much effort to make up a story with such an unhappy ending.

These people can be so convincing and it's absolutely not your fault that you believed him. It's also not at all surprising that you're hurt and confused now, I think it's natural to want to believe people and it's a real shocker to find out someone isn't who you thought they were.

I think there's some really good advice on this thread. I wouldn't be surprised if he made up the story about killing a man, but I think for your own peace of mind you could share it with the police. If they choose not to follow it, at least you've not had to make that decision. All the best.

Ok well I've found a Crimestoppers thing for his country so I guess I could just send what i've been told with his address and name and so on. I still highly doubt they would take it seriously but at least if there is the slightest chance he has not lied I've not just sat back and said nothing.

I really hope he gets his comeuppance for how he treats people. But I suspect he wont, people like him are very wriggly.

And at least, as a lot of you have said, he is not able to bother me in person. I just need to sort my own stuff out now and move forward.