The Ruminant and Albana ~ thank you so much for your kind words. I am sorry you have had to go through this as well.

It is curious that you notice I am forgiving when he is disrespectful. I guess that when it happens once or twice, yes, I think it is disrespectful, but I am forgiving because I understand that no one is perfect, we all have bad moods or other things that cause us to mistreat someone else, and would want to be forgiven if I did that. I guess I just let it happen too much. Someone told me once that I give people too many chances. I always thought I was being selfish if I didn’t. It didn’t occur to me that allowing that behavior is not standing up for myself.

Even if I were to block him in the game, where I could not see his online status, I would still be able to see him playing. I tried, but seeing him, watching him behave as if nothing is wrong and I’m completely invisible hurts. I finally admitted that I was going in there in the hopes that he would reach out, accept me and my forgiveness and we would be friends again. Some people have a hard time reaching out when they’ve hurt someone. I was hoping that’s all this was, because of the mixed signals he’s giving me. I have a very close friend, also long distance, where something vaguely resembling this incident happened, but he apologized and came after me and made sure I knew that he was sorry and that he values me. He still does that and it’s been 3 years since it happened. I guess I was hoping this would end up the same. That I’d still have my forever friend that I thought I had.

I think part of the reason I am having a hard time moving on is because I am still in shock that the world as I knew it is gone. My routines are all a mess, my head is a mess, my heart is a mess. I wish it didn’t take so much time. Last night I found pictures of him on my computer, that I thought I had gotten rid of. I found them after I had decided I wouldn’t be in the game anymore for a few weeks which I was extremely upset about, because he’d been online and was ignoring my presence, and seeing the pics made me feel even more terrible and cry all over again.

I just can’t believe its over. I was blindsided by it I guess, which is why I don’t understand. And I know he won’t ever tell me. One day we are great, 12 hours later he stabs me in the heart and leaves, as if I was nothing to him, and I know that isn’t true. He did care at one point. He completely changed. I have been hoping that it’s just because he’s going through a hard time right now. I have placated myself thinking that he’s hurting too, that he didn’t mean to hurt me and that’s why he still plays “with” me but won’t talk to me. That perhaps that is him reaching out in the only way he can at this time. But, when he does finally see that I have come online, he never stays for very long. So I end up thinking that either it hurts him to see me after what he did, so he leaves, or that he doesn’t care to see me, so he leaves. Either way, it hurts. I have been hoping that this would blow over and we could just go back to laughing and having a good time, without the relationship BS.

That’s the hard part. He was my escape from the real world, and so was that game. He understood me, and I haven’t connected with anyone the way I did with him. I miss the friendship we had before he behaved this way. I suppose I will find someone else someday but at my age and with a child at home, I am very doubtful.

Thank you both again for your wisdom.