Am I Being Led on?

Post Reply New Topic

So, I met someone on this site about 6 months ago. We have talked and skyped every day since then. I feel like we had a good relationship, now I'm not so sure.
I will share with you our story: he is much older than me, but we have both said that age does not matter. Like I said we have talked and skyped every day for 6 months. It started out really well, we would talk for hours texting and skyping. He even sent me flowers for Valentines Day. We could talk about everything under the moon. We both have Aspergers so we talk about our difficulties with that in social aspects as well as academic.
As much as I didn't want to, or even think I could, I fell in love with him. He said he fell in love with me too. So we even talked about getting married and actually, he even made me realize my desire to have children. Anyway, about 3 months in I realized that I was in love with him and I told him. I really gave this long speech, but what it amounted to was I told him that I loved him and he said he felt the same way.
Since then we have talked about what our wedding would look like, and what our children's names would be. Basically we were planning our lives together and that made me unimaginably happy. We say "I love you" every night before we hang up. We help each other with our tendencies, it could've been called the "perfect relationship", to me at least.
But recently he told me that he felt like I was obsessed with him and he didn't want to keep me from meeting other people. But, he says that he loves me and cares deeply for me. Every time I say I love you it seems like he doesn't really mean it anymore. Even though he said that I was the only girl that he ever told it to that he really meant it.
I feel like I am being led on by him, but I'm not sure and I would like some other peoples opinions.

Have you ever even met each other in person yet ?

No I am planning on making the almost 2,000 mile journey but in light of recent events I don't know...

How old are you? I don't mean to be patronising but I suppose it is unavoidable under these circumstances. I said and did similar things in the past. I don't know whether you have been sold a whole story by your family about this that you have internalised and made the representation of relationships. I did (my dad was big on marriage for personal reasons), and I felt as if I needed to find love and having found it, all was well. This was over MSN messenger, back when I was 17. Anyway I met the girl in question, and yeah, it didn't really work out, it was all based on illusion. I kind of half look back at my stupidity and blush - on such matters I was as ignorant as anyone, perhaps more.

And a couple of years later there was a woman 29 years older. I thought, felt similar things then - it was strange because she - who also had ADHD - encouraged this for reasons I still don't know. She had been a psychologist before and I fascinated her in a way - I still speak to her and still fascinate her, but the romantic and sexual edge has long since been taken off by actually meeting her in real life. I too made a 2000 mile journey under similar circumstances - I was a student and she actually paid for me to cross the pond! - and what I found in real life was... well actually I kind of learnt the kind of peace that comes from a stable relationship, briefly, I had fun, I lost my virginity (I mean properly this time) and I saw a bit of the world (Washington D.C.) I suppose I otherwise wouldn't have seen. But I also shed illusions, as my aspieness made genuine closeness difficult. And her financial difficulties and the age difference began to tell. We are still close friends.

I learnt lessons with this - always meet someone as soon as possible. Don't allow on online, text or phone mediated relationship allow you to develop simulations of emotions like love - meet the person as quickly as possible. Try to develop relationships in real life. On the last I have failed miserably, but now I know it is okay, I don't want some pseudo-relationship instead. Maybe you just need to learn these lessons yourself, in your own way. Just be careful, as a male I only really had my innocence and self-respect to fear for, you don't want this being a very hard lesson.

Last edited by Ferrus91 on 08 Jun 2014, 10:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.

He might be trying to gently let you go by making the statement that he felt you were obsessed and could see other people, but it doesn't mean that he doesn't still have strong feelings toward you. It might be best to ask him in true aspie fashion, be blunt/directly what his intent is with your relationship. It sounds like right now, the 'not fully knowing' part of how he feels about you and the relationship is causing you the most amount of distress right now, and you deserve to know.

A lot of relationships start going stale around six months, ready for a graceful split at nine, and then definitely bad at a year. From what I can tell, your relationship has gone it's route and isn't turning out to be the right match for life-long commitment. No big deal - that usually happens several times before you meet a good match.

Doesn't match my experience. For me, if an attachment survives for 2 months, it will be the forever unless something really bad happens.

I think it is a bad idea to go this far without meeting each others. I wouldn't even consider starting a relationship online, as that would eliminate the most rewarding phase which I also use to weed-out incompatible people. You really cannot know if you are compatible be just texting, and both being Aspies is no guarantee for compatibility.

I don't think you are being led on. It sounds like he is trying to take you feelings into consideration and give you advice at the same time.

Sounds like me and my fiancee! Of course, I waited a year before "popping the question", but still, this description of your relationship is similar to mine.

It's hard to tell what's going on from that alone. 2,000 miles is quite a long distance, it's quite possible he's feeling like this is more of a "fantasy marriage" than a real one due to the distance. It's not often people meet online, get engaged, and move 2,000 miles to finally get married, so it's possible that he's feeling like as much as he wants it to happen, it might be a lost endeavor. I personally would talk to him about this, why it seems like his love is less genuine, and if there's anything you can do to make it better.

I will agree with the sentiment that you should meet in person before the marriage, but I'm not going to tell you to uproot your entire life and move in with this guy from another country based on online interactions. You have a lot to figure out first -- who would do the moving, you or him, and if it's you, where will you live, what will your career be, are you prepared for that career, how will you get there, etc. Since you mentioned Skyping, I'd expect that face-to-face interactions would be more or less similar, however that's up to you to decide. A lot of judgment calls, perhaps consulting friends or family outside of here may help you make your decision?

Unfortunately real life an internet ideaology are two extremely different things.
One day you will realise this.

How old is this man?

He is 32

you can't talk about marriage and children without even having met each other, let alone even if you had been exposed to each other in person for 6 months. he probably wised up and realized this. people with next to no relationship/love experience do this all the time, they rush feelings, they rush love, they rush the idea of kids and marriage, and it always ends poorly.

if you're still together good on you both, but you really got to tone that serious stuff down, especially until you meet.

I don't think that age matters really. If you really love this guy and he is 32, that shouldn't matter. Now, we don't know if he really loves you. But from what you said about how much you love him, he should know how lucky he is that someone loves him this much.
Frankly, I'm going to go against what everyone else has been saying. While yall should meet in person, I think that having an online relationship is a good idea, for the moment. Because you talk everyday, but don?t actually see each other face to face, you don't have to deal with all of the sexual tension that there would be after six months of talking and possibly ruining the relationship that you have built. You can just talk about anything and not worry about anything else.
I'm assuming that if you've lasted this long you have several things in common besides the Aspergers?

I agree with wowiexist also. He is probably just giving you advice that is looking out for you, but you might be taking it the wrong way, that?s just an aspie thing.

If you ever need anything, feel free to message me, I have gone through the same thing as you are.
Best wishes!