Hi all,
I joined this site because I need some advice and I’ve decided it might be helpful to get some from people who don’t know me other than just my friends and family. Ok, so there’s a lot to what’s going on right now but I’m going to try to make this as short as possible while still including what I think is important. First of all, little background on my past relationships: dated my high school sweet heart for 3.5 years– super in love at first, he ended up cheating on me, I took him back, it happened again and things were never the same; met a guy on the internet (was not looking, he found me on myspace) and dated him for a couple years. We lived together and I eventually found out he was a sex addict (posting for sex on craigslist, seeking out girls on CL and other sites, etc.), tried to stick with him while he got help and it just happened over and over again and last dated a guy who I fell for hard and then found out he cheated on me as well. Luckily we had only been together for 4 mos, but I felt like I was able to trust him so I let my wall down so the hit was that much harder. That relationship ended almost 2 years ago. In April I went to Mexico with two of my best friends (I live in Chicago by the way) and ended up meeting a guy who lives there in Mexico. Met him completely by chance…something very significant happened that made us meet. (I’m a big believer in everything happens for a reason). We’ll call him E. Anyway, when I first met E I wasn’t thinking of him in a romantic way. It took a couple days of him being a complete gentleman and not trying anything with me even though I later found out he was attracted to me from the get go and taking me lobster fishing for me to fall for him. Anyway, E stayed the last couple days with me and my friend and when I said goodbye to him the plan was to keep in touch and see each other when I come back next year. Well, that quickly changed…since then we have talked every day except maybe 5 and I have gone back to Mexico to see him and we’re talking long-term kinda serious stuff.

I go into every relationship head first and eventually my trust issues begin to surface–this one is no different. E has done nothing for me not to trust him (that I know of– see? This is what I do) but the distance and cultural differences combined with my trust issues has made this one extra hard. Like I said he’s given me no reason not to trust him but I still question a lot of what he says and many times I find out in a roundabout way that he was being honest. The fact that we’ve only known him for 5 months doesn’t help either.Luckily, he doesn’t know that I question things… I don’t want him to. I don’t want to be that crazy girl that I feel like I am. I want to trust him or just trust in general, SO badly. I’m just looking for advice from anyone who’s been through this and has successfully learned to trust again. Or let themselves trust again.

And while I’m here…am I crazy for getting into this long term relationship with someone who’s in another country? I don’t talk to my friends and family about him that much anymore. When I came back from Mexico the first time, many of my friends thought the way we met and the whole story was amazing and were all for me going back to see him again, my parents a little worried, and there were those couple friends who thought I was stupid. But I went back and had more of an amazing trip and time with him that I had imagined I would. And I knew it was going to be good. 🙂 But now that I’m back, it’s like “now what?”. That magical movie-like appeal that the story had has kind of faded away and now it’s time to get practical. That means friends don’t seem as interested, or as encouraging as they once were because well, it seems crazy and very unrealistic that this can work out, I know that, but I have faith in it, and so does E and I don’t want to hear that discouraging stuff from my friends because I’m scared it’s going to skew how I feel. If we want to be together one of us has to move from all we’ve ever known from our families. Both have said we’re open to it, but no decision has been made yet. More visits need to happen first and that’s where we’re at now. A talk almost every day on the phone and not know when we’re going to see each other next kind of relationship. Honestly, it sucks, but I have not felt a connection with anyone like I do with him and like I said I believe everything happens for a reason and I believe in signs and there are things that happened and signs that make me feel like we are meant to be together….or maybe just meant to meet each other and that this is a significant time in my life. I feel like I have recognized that and that I need to do something about it. Either way, I feel us meeting and what we’re doing now is good and that there is a reason for it.

So, all that being said…. If anyone has any advice on how to let go and trust and/or any advice on long distance relationships or anything pertaining to the relationship I’m in…. please share– I greatly appreciate it and look forward to what anyone has to say.