Internet date had a girlfriend for the past year

[FeelingSad99]

I haven’t posted for years so starting afresh with a new username.

I am very amicably divorced (3 years now) with two pre teen children. I started internet dating in late 2020 and learned a huge amount. The last time I dated was 20 years earlier!

The first guy I really clicked with cancelled our first date on the day, then the next day there was a further Covid lockdown. We messaged for 9 months and became very close but then he disappeared and it later transpired that he was gay.

I had a break from the apps then last January matched with a seemingly great guy. He was a similar age, similar profession. We had the same taste in music, films, art, etc. It was just great. I met him a month later and the first date was lovely and we got on very well and kissed. He was my first first date in about 20 years.

However, a few days later he explained he wasn’t sure about the chemistry. Fair enough. I was disappointed but I understood and appreciated his honesty. The night before our date he had been out with a female friend until 3am and was hungover. In retrospect I realise this was a woman he was pursuing.

Fast forward 3-4 weeks and he gets back in touch wanting a second chance. He felt like he didn’t give us a proper chance. I really liked him and thought we were great together on that first date so I agreed and we met for drinks. He was super keen and we had another wonderful evening. The next day I get another text to say he’s not feeling it.

This basically went on and off for most of 2022. We would have an incredible date and the better it was, the harder he would panic and freak out. He was seemingly inexperienced, never had a long term relationship before and I also suspected he had mild ASD. I was patient and gentle with him.

Then he tells me that he and his female friend have become ambiguous in their friendship and they want to give it a go. I was upset but stepped away, asking him not to contact me again. They broke up and he said he wanted to pursue a proper relationship with me. I was massively hesitant to even meet him but he was very sweet and I agreed. On the date he announces that we can be friends after all. I freak out because he’s led me on.

We didn’t see each other for several months but he got in touch because he had my ticket to a future event. We ended up being friends and I invited him to a party.

After Christmas he wanted to meet as friends, which we did. I was willing to be friends because I had never met anyone who I had so much in common with. He was like my twin. We had the same upbringing, same part of the country a few miles apart, same cultural references. I just loved his company so much. During that meal he made a huge pass at me and we had a wonderful romantic evening. I didn’t go back to his place despite him asking.

We met a week later and he was completely different. Very cool and jumpy.

I just couldn’t cope anymore. I blocked him on Whatsapp. He realised and phoned after a few days and was full of apologies. We agreed he would leave me alone. He didn’t. I then sent him a very firm text that said date me properly or never contact me again. About 1-2 weeks later he texted to say he was thinking about how he had behaved. Another week later he messaged to see how I am. Another week later he asks me out on a proper date but doesn’t confirm specific details.

This weekend he was replying in a slightly different way. I asked him for reassurance. He says he’s still sorting his life out. He then confesses that he has a girlfriend who I suspect he was seeing from the beginning. This is the friend who he was ambiguous with before.

Previously they broke up because he says he has this huge emotional connection to her but he doesn’t fancy her and he can’t get aroused by her. He says this is still all an issue but clearly he can’t seem to break up with her. He says it’s complicated and changing and he can’t date me because he’s with her.

I feel like such a fool. I have been wishing and hoping for a proper relationship with him for over a year. I’m wondering if he was actually with her all this time.

He has lied and cheated a lot.

My stupid heart still has feelings for him. I don’t know why I can’t stop caring about him and move on. I only found out yesterday. I’m so heartbroken and confused by the whole thing.

Any thoughts or advice welcome. There is loads more to it but I appreciate this is already long and I can answer if you have questions. Thank you.

Look this damage - which may never be resolved - has been done for decades before you encountered him. His psyche has been formed over decades and you can't change it. Even understanding it (if we do) tomsome extent can't change it.

You'd almost feel sorry for him but you can't - because he's treating the women who do get involved with him v poorly.

He's treated you appallingly.

He's extremely dishonest.

He's a bit of a mess and all over the place.

You've wasted a year of your life and emotion on him (strictly speaking he should have been gone when he dropped you the first time. You do need to work on your boundaries too).

Stop wasting your time on this fucked up little man and free yourself up to meet someone not like him (when you're recovered).

And just because he's a liar and cheater, doesnt mean everyone is.

If course you should be skeptical abd have string boundaries and pay close attention to ant flags and not invest quickly when dating; bit don't let him and his craziness put you off if you'd ideally like to meet a partner.

Also you can't be his friend, so don't even try - just in case that crops up.

I was daft because I saw all of the goodness in him. I felt that I understood his issues and his vulnerabilities. I wanted to be the woman he fancied but who surprised him by reciprocating and not rejecting him. But he just didn’t seem to want it. Not consistently.

I know he has behaved appallingly and I have to move on now but I’m sad.

Anyone who he really likes doesn’t like him back. It’s never reciprocated. Blah blah blah. This was said to me, who he knows likes him!

Sorry but this sounds like he wasn't all that into you regardless of all his issues.

He clearly fancied you and/or appreciated you being really into him (because of what you said about the sex); but this doesnt sound like he felt the right way for you. Sorry, I know that's very hurtful, but I'm just trying to help.

It also sounds like you became a bit of a listening board, counsellor etc for him.

Which again he probably wouldn't be doing with a woman he was really into.

He’s only seriously attracted to women who aren’t interested in him!

He liked me as a person though and we had an amazing sexual/physical chemistry and attraction to each other. I think if he hadn’t already been emotionally involved with X then something would have grown between us.

He is an oversharer so I suspect he’s a bit like that with most women.

Before our first date he was telling me quite personal stuff, before we had even met. As if he didn’t have much of a filter, but he can control this.

You didn't reject him, quite the opposite and he still chose not to get into a relationship with you; but rather ran you alongside a gf, while dropping you and picking you up several times ...... So it wasn't reciprocal.

I don't know why it wasn't.

Maybe even he doesn't know why it wasn't. (Or maybe he does, but given how full of bs he is, would you ever get the truth from him).

You have identified lots of things about yourself here (both in your op, when you didn't walk away from someone repeatedly dropping you, abd in your most recent post) .... Those are worth investigating.

I tink if he hadn’t already been emotionally involved with X then something would have grown between us.

You think he'd treat you differently from her because he's more attracted to you, but I don't think so.

(I'm also not sure how much he's twisted things re his lack of attraction to her).

Naturally.
It will take time.

I think you'll see things very differently in a while.

Thank you @AprilFool23 .

Yeah, he ultimately didn’t want me. Or is too scared that it could actually be something good. Scared of intimacy perhaps. Or he just really likes X. I don’t know.

He says he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know the truth of the situation. He doesn’t know why he’s with X or what his feelings for her are. He says he’s completely confused and doesn’t understand any of it. I was skeptical about this but it sounds like you think it might be true.

He previously suggested that he had a sexual and physical attraction to me. An emotional attraction to X. I don’t think he has what he’s calling a romantic attraction to either of us, particularly.

@FeelingSad99 - this guy seems freakily similar to a guy my friend was seeing on and off for almost two years. She was hooked and emotionally fucked by him. Similar story to yours. Lots of gaslighting, manipulation of emotions, saying all the right things to her (cringed every time spoke about him) oh and she was very much a secret. Met randomly and never at his home etc. Took her months to get over him.

He was short, and had fertility issues. And a smallish dick. Balding and bit over weight but not hugely. Very sucessful on paper. Proper short man syndrome.

Can you give his first initial?

Have you blocked him yet OP?

He's just nowhere near as keen on you as you are on him, sadly.

He's wasted years of your time and emotional energy, on and off. What a timewaster, please block him if you haven't already.

For someone that claims his physical stature means he gets rejected a lot, he doesn't appear to be having problems finding enough women to sleep with to be unconcerned about messing them about.

He's a manipulative liar and had you twigged early on by testing to see how much could mess you about and you would accept. Feeding you bullshit stories about his poor, complicated life so you'd be more understanding and you've accepted everything as factual when reality is that you can't verify much to know the truth.

Listing all his relationship stuff seems a way to make you feel even more insecure as does over sharing about the friend/GF he doesn't find attractive enough to fuck, so that feel the need to compete to keep his attention.

It's possible he is mirroring to give the appearance of a deeper connection. My LTR ex chameleoned into his new GF's soulmate and all the things I believed were our shared interests were dropped, it left me feeling very confused who i'd been in a relationship with.

Don't waste your time trying to figure out what his issue is and make excuses for this twats behaviour. It's much better to focus your energy on moving forward and to understand why you've not valued yourself, what you need to change to avoid another twat so can find a healthy relationship.

“He previously suggested that he had a sexual and physical attraction to me. An emotional attraction to X. I don’t think he has what he’s calling a romantic attraction to either of us, particularly.”

If this, what he’s said, is true, all it means is that neither of you are right for him.

Because ALL elements that make up a romantic relationship aren’t there for him, for any one person.

You’re not right for him because he’s not romantically attracted to you. She’s not right for him because he’s not sexually attracted to her.

And he’s not the right guy for you because he doesn’t feel the same way about you as you do him. You can’t make him change his feelings for you (sexual only) by being his therapist.

One sided feelings like this never work as a friendship. You need to cut him loose as a friend hun. You want more from him than he’s prepared to give – regardless of what he says he ultimately wants – it’s just words coming out of his mouth, probably because he knows what he’s got to say to keep getting laid. This will continue to hurt you and upset you until you set him free and banish all the thoughts of “what if” and “if only”. He won’t change just because you’re being nice and kind and understanding and patient with him. You’re just playing a glorified “pick me” dance because you like him.

@FeelingSad99 I really hope in time you'll see what a job this guy has done on you. You've spent so much of this thread trying to justify his behaviour or justify why you'd still be with him.

I left a very unhappy marriage and immediately fell head over heels. I suspect the speed at which I fell was massively contributed to by the fact I'd been so unhappy for so long. Thankfully the man I met didn't behave like your scum bag but I can see why after years alone, feeling loved / wanted meant you excused his behaviour and accepted his lies.

It is really bizarre to read your posts. He's lied to you. The whole emotional connection to one person / sexual attraction to another. It's all lies said to justify his behaviour. He's got away with shagging more than one woman at a time and you're still believing what he says.

Your behaviour has shown him he can do pretty much what he wants to do and you'll still sleep with him. I understand that sort of desperation for love but you've got to do better for yourself. He is a total scumbag and doesn't deserve you or any other woman.

Gah! He talks a lot doesn't he?! Blah blah blah he always seems to be droning on all about him him him and his adolescent angst. Sometime he even says things that are true like he's a walking red flag. And then it's a bit of a confessional, and you lap it up and are accepting and understanding, you don't actually run screaming from the room, so he must feel like he's got away with it. And he has short man syndrome! (Is that his physical shortcoming that you speak of? If not please please tell us what it is!)

If you are forced to be in the same room as him, I would plonk my wine glass down on the top of his head as if it were a handy portable coaster, tune out the droning on, and scan the room above his head in search of a really attractive man who is, first and foremost, more interested in what I have to say than what he has to bore me with. And as for poor oblivious Miss X, I imagine it is her semi-famous status that keeps her in the picture.

You can do better than him, and you're only young, none of this is your fault. Just stop psycho analysing all his BS and run away forever now, he is a dick. In my head I am picturing him as that unusually short man from the 90 Day Fiance show who fell 'in love' with a much younger and sweet Filipino girl named Rose who he treated appallingly and who is destined never to find true love as he wouldn't know it if it slapped him in the face with a wet kipper!

This guy is a textbook narcissist manipulator, and probably a solid 50% of what he told you about himself and his other woman/women is a straight up lie. It's very naive to try to analyse him based on his stories because you simply don't know how much of it is even true. This type of man preys on empathetic, vulnerable, insecure women by feeding them sob stories about his life and his tortured psyche etc.

On a side note I will never understand why so many women "assign" ASD as an excuse/explanation to men like this. Is it because of the inherent ableism and discrimination in society we think of ASD as a character flaw rather than a disability? This guy as described by you is in fact the opposite of ASD traits: he is a smooth liar and manipulator who played you like a fiddle.

🤣

As long as you're trying to figure out what things he said that was true, and what lies; you will be stuck with obsessing over him.

Not a criticism, a genuine question- what thing/s are you hoping to get out of carriving at definitive lists of truths & of lies?

You already know for sure he's a prolific liar & cheater who will never make you happy or treat you well.

What's behind your wanting to get to a final version of 'x was true, y was a lie'?

I came across a guy with some similar behaviours to this one on OLD, but I was more sceptical than you and not bothered about ending it. After I ended it, I stayed on friendly terms, mainly to see if I could work out what he was up to. As a result, he has told me quite a few stories about women he's dated since then, including multiple stories about girlfriends getting suspicious, spying on him and finding out that there were other women. I'm now pretty sure that he constantly has multiple women on the go (found on OLD) and has various stories like the ones this bloke tells that "explain" his weird behaviour and also help him to talk about the dates he's having semi-openly, so the secrecy doesn't do his head in too much. I also suspect that as well as these women, he's married. I believe that he rather likes getting caught occasionally, or having near misses, as he sometimes does things like taking one woman to a place that another often visits, or an event he knows another woman is going to. Not sure if it's the thrill of almost getting caught that he likes, or if he enjoys being "shamed". He too has some issues around his masculinity and being seen as attractive or impressive.

Oh, and "my" guy used the "sharing lovely music together" trick, too!

My partner of seven years has given me a number of causes for concern iver the years; mainly about money, and a lack of honesty about previous relationships, and when they began and ended et cetera, but nothing obviously completely red flag. Yesterday he came home from the garage and I just shouted a friendly “who goes there“ from upstairs. His immediate response was “Jack the Ripper“ which I thought was completely shocking and inappropriate and when I questioned him he said:” oh I don’t know I was just thinking of the first dramatic name that came to mind like Peter Sutcliffe or Jack the Ripper”. this may seem utterly trivial, but it has completely rattled me as to why such names would be in his head, never mind on the tip of his tongue, and how insensitive it is to even use those names to a woman… Am I over exaggerating?

I don’t think this is the same guy. No fertility issues! Went to his home, etc! Nothing wrong with his penis! 😍