This is a guest blog submitted by tokimon. During the time my ex and I were together...a whole year...he was secretly emailing a girl he really liked over in Japan. He says she's just a friend, that nothing ever happened between them and that they were good friends for the year he was studying abroad there. I was uncomfortable with the fact and told him so, that it made me unhappy. And he promised me he wouldn't talk to her ever again.
I found out that he had made a secret email account entirely dedicated to emailing her. And he even sent her "<3" character when I had explained to him long ago that I felt that was something special to send to a girl he loved...and he said he understood. He said he loved me. But I saw that he sent her this character...and he said he did it because he didn't think I'd ever be reading these emails.
Now he says that he won't email her again. He says that he only loves me and that he can't help who he likes. I want to ask...do you think this is true? Is it possible that emotional cheating isn't as bad as I feel it is? I also figured that if I truly love a guy, there would never be another guy I'd ever meet while I'm with my BF...that would make me share my feelings for.
Comments (115)
Emotional cheating is MUCH worse then physical cheating...
if a guy just messes around with a girl physically...it doesnt matter as much...but if it's mentally...then the guy is defnitely hooked =T
He's not going to stop, just to let you know. He may have you physically, but he's emotionally attached to someone else.
You said your piece and he's made his choice. You're probably better off without him.
I don't think you can really say which form of cheating is more difficult to understand or deal with. That's a little insulting, I think. But you can never really tell what will happen, even if you are in a committed relationship and are happy in it. That's the trouble and beauty of life, there aren't always answers and you have to make decisions based on things you can't necessarily make out. You can't help the way you feel about people always, but you can do things to avoid those situations, whether that's good or bad is up to each individual.
I understand your feelins of discontent over your boyfriend emailing his friend from Japan. But here are a couple of points I would like to discuss.
1) Feelings are 100% normal. If he finds somebody with traits that he's attracted to, forcing him to surpress those urges is only going to make him lash out more. If I were you, I would find out what he likes about her so much and then just 1UP her in that dept.
2)You're overreacing. Especially about the "<3" character. Just because you feel it's something special doesn't mean he has to as well.
3) SHE'S IN EFFING JAPAN. So what if your boyfriend is a little flirtacious with some girl, in an email, who is thousands of miles away.
Your boyfriend is going to like you a lot more if you give him his space and don't smother him with guilt about talking to girls. Sorry if I sound mean or negative, it's just my best friend dated a girl for 2 and a half years who constantly made him feel bad for talking to girls. When in reality his girl was just being insecure. It irritates me, to say the least, when girls take their insecurities out on their boyfriendds haha
Emotional cheating is much worse. And I can admit, some guys (and even girls) can't control it. Like in the movies, commercials and such, they show a guy (or girl) looking at another guy or girl... emotional cheating perhaps? It's really on how much self control the person has. At this point, you are better off without him. You did what you could and he just . . . kept doing it.
@SupperMick@xanga - I get where you're coming from, but I really don't think that she's just taking out her insecurities. He's disregarding her feelings by saying one thing and then acting in a different way. There's also the fact that he's been hiding his emails and such from his girlfriend on a separate account, something that wouldn't be needed if Japan-girl was strictly just a friend.
Having feelings for people is a natural part of life, so if he's just being friendly and a little flirty, maybe that's his nature, but he is lying to you, which is a big problem.
I think you might be over-reacting about the e-mailing, but you need to think about if you want to be with someone who is going to lie about things like that.
what he did doesn't sound like the problem to me as much as how he did it.
lying and doing things behind a partners back so you won't have to deal with the hassle of working an issue out with them is always unacceptable. if he can't be straight about emailing a friend of his in Japan, what else is he going to lie about? T_T
my boyfriend once thought about deceiving me in a similar way & then realized i would give him a beat down and then dump him LOL
the emailing i would say isn't that big of a deal but lying about it is. if he wasn't trying to hide it then maybe it wouldn't be so bad.
My question to you, after a year of being with this guy, why you feel threatened by this girl? Are the emails amorous? Does he insinuate at all that she is somehow more than just friends 'but let's not tell my girlfriend'? Or are you more hurt that he hid it from you, making it a dirty, bad thing?
Cos that's what would make me mad. Not that he's talking to some other girl that could legitimately be his friend. Not that he signs them with <3. The fact that he hid it from me.
Then again, does he have other female friends? Or do you require he have none? This would explain why he would hide it. (Not condoning how he's hurt you, just giving different angles to consider)
As for your question, emotional cheating is always worse, because it goes beyond the primal urge to insert tab a into slot b. Do I think you're blowing this out of proportion? Depends on the myriad of questions I already asked.
Good luck.
@SupperMick@xanga - I agree with everything you said. Especially about the <3 character. Come on, girl, really?
If this makes you truly uncomfortable, you already know he won't stop doing it, so there's nothing you can do about it except, well, as Mick there said ^, try to 1up her. And honestly, I'm not a fan of people changing *for* others instead of for themselves. So you have a choice to make.
Best of luck.
My issue with this is the statement about "finding out" about the "secret email account" because it doesn't sound like he told you about it until you confronted him with what you "found". That, to me, is a huge trust violation in itself so it seems you're both guilty in some respect... Emotional cheating or (what sounds like) snooping are two pretty big problems to have in a relationship and I think maybe you'd both be better off with other people. People that you feel more connected to and also trust. But, that's just my opinion...
your situation hits a little too close to home for me. i found out about my ex's emotional cheating through his e-mails/online chats. what's even worse than your situation is that he and the girl worked together and saw each other everyday. he tried to hide it from me, and even denied it when i confronted him with my suspicions but when i caught him "red-handed" he had nothing more to say. i called it quits with him, and he vowed he didn't like her anymore, but i don't think i can ever trust him completely again. i would be very very careful if i were you. like others have said, you don't know what else he could be lying about or hiding from you. sometimes, only losing you will make him appreciate you more.
People who hide things don't really love you. Sorry.
if she was "just" a friend, there is no need for a secret email account, and he would be open about emailing her and keeping in contact.
imo, emotional cheating is much worse than physical cheating.
Dump him! The fact is he lied to you twice and it was about the same girl.
Giving you a males perspective..... The guy is a dog! Not a long term relationship type a guy. He finds qualities on other women that you may not have and a coward to discuss it with you. This man you are with will do this again. Don't set yourself up to be the victim... AGAIN!
Let this man go. If you don't do it now.... You will leaving the door closed for the right man to come into your life. Like me... hehehe jk! But i am serious about this.
This is not about you being insecure! The asshole doesn't see how precious you are. Get rid of him before you hurt more.
He loves someone else, but wants to hold on to you for physical.......sex?
Oh boy, this can get sticky. There are bridges to nothing of import and then there are ones to disasters. I would really re-examine your relationship with this guy - just my 2. If he only "likes" her and is really with you, you have to ask yourself and him, what is iit he gets from her that he might not be getting in your relationship, or from you? It may not be a big deal in the bigger analysis, least not to him. but if it hurts you, you have to listen to yourself. It can't feel too good knowing of this friendship.
Speaking as a guy, we're pretty much wired in a way where we can have sex with some one and it will mean nothing...but whenever we like somebody, well, that never ends. Sorry sister, your ex has a thing for this girl in Japan and he's not going to end it.
@WhenHateIsTheOnlyOption@xanga - I lol'd. That basically seems to be the situation here.
liar!!!!!!
If Bob tells Joe a bunch of BS, Bob probably knows it.
If Bob tells Mary a bunch of BS, why does Mary buys it?
You could put yourself in his shoe. If you were keeping a secret email and sending it to a guy who you really like, the real guy that you like, not necessarily the one you’re staying with, then you will understand what is going on in him. The truth is if that girl he had been emailing respond back or tells him to live with her. Your boy will probably drop you in a heart beat. It's that simple.
Leave him. I smell trouble.
If the girl is here and not so far away...do you think things would be drastically different between them?
Doesn't that tell you something? It's just not acceptable.
@yumixpeach@xanga - I actually disagree. I would much rather my boyfriend fall in love with someone else, than sleep sith someone else.
But back on topic, this is BAD NEWS. Get out, now. The fact that he was lying alone is enough to signal the end of THAT relationship.