Dear Alina:

I will retell your story using the new-to me information from yesterday:

Before your current online-boyfriend (I’ll refer to him as OB2, for Online Boyfriend 2), you had another online-boyfriend whom you never met in person. I’ll refer to him as OB1 (for Online Boyfriend 1).

This is what you shared about your online relationship with OB1: “Every time he’d join a call, I had a racing heart.. I always got a racing heart and butterflies when he joined a call… I did get the heart racing, butterfly feeling and at the time, that’s what I saw love as “. You referred to your past with him as “a bad past”. About that bad past, you wrote: “we’d break up and then get back together over and over”. During the breakups, you were able to see yourself with other men, in the future. Finally, you “left him because I saw myself with (OB2)”.

This is what you shared about your in person (in real life, irl) friendship with OB2: last you met him was in 2018, and this was the nature of the friendship then: “We didn’t talk much because we both had our own separate group of friends, but we were each other’s safe place. If his friends were upsetting him, he’d hang out with me. If I was upset, mad, alone, etc., I’d hang out with him. We weren’t the closest, but we weren’t the farthest”. After you moved away, the two of you had no contact for a couple  of months, and then he texted you. “I didn’t think I cared that much for him, but when I saw his text, I cried and cried every month. I didn’t stop until (the online friendship started about 5 months ago)”.

That online friendship developed into an online relationship. About the online relationship with OB2: for the first few weeks of this almost 2 month online-relationship, you were “crazy for him. I always felt so crazy for him and I always wanted him next to me. I was obsessed”, but then something happened: “I was happy and felt so alive one day, and then the next day the question ‘Do I really love him?’ came into my mind and I haven’t felt the same since… ever since this question came into my mind, I haven’t been the same about it… I’m doubting my love for him… The doubts won’t  leave my mind”.

You explained: “Over time I came to realize that my heart never raced when me and him would talk and I never really got butterflies… I never got a racing-heart or butterflies… I used to have a strong want of wanting him to be next to me physically, but now I don’t feel that want as strongly.. I do not feel disgusted or uncomfortable, but I don’t feel the wanting-him-next-to-me as strongly as I did before”. You are starting to think that you “only like him as a friend”.

You added: “but I don’t see myself with anyone else and have been wanting a future only with him. He’s on my mind all the time and we talk about a future together often.. he’s the perfect match for me. We get along so  well, we’re able to talk to each other about absolutely anything, we make each other happy, and so much more. He’s always on my mind and he’s all that I ever talk about. I only want him and no one else. I don’t find anyone else attractive nor do I see myself with anyone but him. He’s everything… I know I want to  spend my life with him, and I only want him… We talk all day every day and I am really comfortable with him… he’s sent me a lot of sweet, loving things that I’ve always wanted…I’ve had my mind set on the type of guy I’ve always wanted for awhile, and he’s exactly it… Everything about him is great, even his flaws. There isn’t anything to not love about him”.

You referred to your online relationship with him as “a well-going, easy relationship.. with a best friend”, something you did not experience before, irl or online.

As to the real future of this online relationship, you wrote: “my boyfriend and I won’t really be able to see each other anytime soon… I don’t think of our future as much as before.. We still talk about it every day, we still want to live together, be dog parents, maybe start an actual family, and we talk  about closer things like what we want to do when we can see each other”.

And now, my thoughts about feelings: it is very important to understand what our feelings mean, what it is that we should do when we feel this or that feeling. Imagine an irl live-in relationship, a marriage, let’s say, where you react automatically to your feelings: whenever you feel anger, you yell at your husband; whenever you feel sad, you close the bedroom door, lie in bed, and you refuse to talk to your husband until you feel better; whenever you feel a desire for him, you go to his place of work and demand to get physically close to him right there and then. When you don’t feel love for him, you pack your clothes and leave; when you miss him, you move back in.

Imagine you had children with this man, what kind of a life will they have: they will be moving in and out of their home, and when at home, their mother is out in the living room happy one moment, locked in the bedroom crying the next moment, yelling at another time.. they will grow up to be very anxious people, suffering through life.

We need to behave responsibly no matter how we feel, responsibly towards ourselves and others (not yell when angry, not reject a husband or our children when depressed, etc.).

We have to understand that feelings change and do  not stay the same. So when you feel a certain way, tell yourself: this feeling is not forever. It helps to mention this to yourself when you feel distress, so that you don’t panic, as in: the world is ending, the sky is falling down, I will never be happy again!

When in a romantic relationship, we have to understand that we will not  feel the same all the time for our partner. It is impossible, because no feeling stays the same. Feelings are not permanent conditions.

Let’s say you look at the sky and it is clouded, the sun is behind the clouds and it is grey. Do we panic, thinking: it will never be sunny again, what am I to  do??

Or do we think: it is cloudy now, but it will be sunny later?

Same with feelings, sad now, happy later; scared now, calm later, don’t feel close to him now; will feel close to him later.

My thoughts about romantic relationships and marriage: lots of people get romantically involved with people they don’t know well, even after long irl relationships. But when you know a person only online (OB1) or primarily online (OB2), it is very unwise to decide that you want “a future only with him”, that you “only want him and no one else”, that you “want to spend my life with him”, that “Everything about him is great”.

You have to have an in-person, irl relationship with a man before you decide these things.

Let’s look at OB1 whom you never met in person, irl. All those butterflies and the racing heart, what if you met him in person and he smells bad, not the kind of smell that goes away in the shower, but a particular smell that turns you  off. What if he chews his food with an open mouth and that will drive you crazy,  not with lust, but with disgust. What if you see him interacting with his nephews and to your horror, he yells at them and calls them names?

Let’s look at OB2- you don’t have the butterflies for him anymore. What  if, when seeing him in person for the first time in the short history of your online relationship, and you see him being kind to children, and you get butterflies imaging him being kind that way to your own children. What if you meet him in person and you  become intimate.. and you didn’t know how good it feels to be with him, in person. Alone. And those butterflies are back!?

I don’t know those things, how you will feel when you see OB2 in person, how anyone smells and chews their food, and how they treat the children in their lives, but you should know.

This is why it is important to not make relationship promises or plans before getting to know a person thoroughly in person, in addition to the online part.

Regarding your doubts and the question: “Do I really love him?”- now that I know that you didn’t spend any time in person, irl, with OB2 outside the friendly acquaintance of 2018, I say: you should doubt the relationship, because it is only an online relationship. You should ask yourself if you really love him because you don’t know him well enough yet. You may know him well in the context of an online relationship, but not in the context of a real life relationship. In addition to not knowing how he smells or chews his food, you don’t know a whole lot of things about him such as how will he introduce you to his family (he didn’t do that yet), how will he treat you on a date (he didn’t do that yet), how will he treat you in front of his friends and co- workers… and how does he treat children.

I hope my input here is helpful to you. I wish you read through it patiently and let me know what you think.

anita

Dear Alina:

He may very well be the perfect match for you. Although online, you gathered a lot of information through many hours of conversations over almost half a year. I understand that you are quite obsessed about butterflies and racing hearts but really, it is okay to have a life with a man while not feeling that spark. That spark never lasts, or it may return at times, but in a healthy, loving relationship, it is replaced by deep appreciation and affection and a team mentality, a partnership.

What is the use of a spark, for a man, when his wife fights with him and argues a lot, or cheats on him, or is very selfish otherwise. What is so wonderful with a hostile woman who feels the spark when making up after fights. Better have no  fights and no sparks.

Think of this: if he cares about you like you believe he does, he will do what it takes to make you feel good sexually, and that will be a spark for you!

To make a relationship healthy and loving for both parties, work as a team, benefit each other, operate so to make each one of you better together than alone.

“maybe I don’t love him like I should”- if together you are a team, if you make his life much better being together with you than his life would be without you- then you love him just like you should!

anita

Dear Alina:

I read only a part of your recent post. I have 3 questions at this point:

1. I didn’t understand this part: “I get a text from my best friend (current boyfriend) saying he was leaving for a while because stuff was going on. When I read this, I burst into tears. I was scared, worries, hurt, and really upset”- why were you scared, worried and upset?

2. Was your relationship with Kade in-person, irl, or just online/ texts/ telephone?

3. “Jax showed him our messages.. (didn’t cheat)”- what were those messages???

— I will need to read the rest of your recent post and your answers to these three questions tomorrow morning when I am better focused, and will reply then (in about 16 hours from now).

anita