I guess I feel the need to write this down but I would also like to here of any other person who has a similar experience…
I met him through a chat room site and probably not at my strongest. We chatted for several weeks and he made plans to meet me that failed on 2/3 occasions and I was fed up and told him so. Then we met. It was strangely like I already knew him and I was instantly at ease with him. I was not expecting a relationship and so I was happy to be intimate with him that first night. I see and hear how that sounds…
The next day the texts started early in the morning and continued all the next couple of weeks. Reassuring and wanting to see me again. So we did. We went out for dinner and it was just lovely. Then he told me he was falling for me… I backed off and he kept reassuring me until I was lost in is words as I began to believe him. Telling myself walls had to come down I had to trust again etc etc etc. So I allowed myself to fall for him. We arranged a weekend together but just then days before he told me he was aboard a warship and would not be back for about three weeks. All I could think of was his safety and my love developed.
Our relationship then continued via messages. He asked me not to forget him, told me he loved me, told me so many beautiful things and so I waited. He returned safely from the mission but was incredibly busy as so many others were overseas and he was needed despite his age due to his experiences. Everything seemed ok. I analysed but berated myself for my lack of trust. He reassured every time I doubted and so time passed and I waited loyally and patiently thinking I was loved by this brave man. After 6 months he came to see me. We didn’t leave the house and he only stayed a few hours. He told me he had to be sub aqua the next day and needed to get back as he had to be at base at 05:00. I doubted him but I had missed him so much I did not want to waste time challenging him. He promised that the worst was over and that his time would be less limited. He told me that in 3 years he would be retired but until then it would be difficult. He held me, stoked me and told me he loved me.
The next day I was concerned that this was not the actions of a man in love. I did not contact him, I did not look at my emails. A day later when I did he had asked why had I not contacted him? Was I angry with him? That was all the reassurance I needed and I felt awful for doubting him. So I waited and waited some more. But the doubts grew and my friends grew bored of my waiting and told me I was being deceived. The trust was fading and I noticed some things that made me question him. He became more attentive but his tone changed a tiny bit. We had met on a chat room that he asked me to come off as now he had found me he did not want to lose me. He came off too, I checked that at the time… I came across site and he was the first that came up. An actors photo initially, not like when we met. But there was his dog and other photos that were familiar to me. I felt so much guilt at invading his privacy and horror at myself for not being enough for him as well as humiliated by his search for women aged 18-45 as I am 49 and he is 46. Of course I contacted him and the resulting silence was followed by my being ‘unfriended’ and ignored.
Not angry but needing something to stop the thudding pain in my chest and the vomiting a few days later I wrote to some one I knew he new. The short version is that a year after a few hours with her he is still contacting her, telling her he loves her and has even sent her a picture of his p—s. Apparently damaged by his job he trawls websites and travels the country (Italy) for liaisons with countless women. I was not loved despite 4000 exchanged messages perpetuating a fantasy. There was not the intimacy and sharing of missing each other. He was not on a mission risking his life he was busy looking for his next fix…
Of course I see that I allowed this to happen. But it still hurts unrelentingly and it will take a while to get him out of my head as that is where he has been for almost a year. I still want to love him, but who is he?
I will heal, I will have no other option. But how do I stay guarded and trust at the same time. I would like to love and to be loved but not at such a cost. I also worry that he is doing the same thing to other women.
There is of course so much more than this but writing even this is exhausting. It has only been 5 days and today I could eat a little, so the healing has started.