Dear Lisa:

Submitted by Straight_Talk_Luigi (United States), Mar 18, 2008 at 22:26

Thanks so much for sharing your story, and I want you to know right off the bat that you are not alone. I made the exact same mistake with a girl when I was much older than you, 24 to be precise. And I can understand how at 17 you may be attracted to an older guy.

The thing about people---men or women---like this is that they will NOT CHANGE. It has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he is Muslim (many Muslims would condemn his treatment of you) or Iraq (as would many Iraqi, trust me, my last roommate was Iraqi).

The fact that he is making fake profiles and deceiving others is disgusting. And it isn't going to change.

The girl I dated did the exact same thing, even right after I had a LONG talk with her about on-line flirting. In fact, she did it an hour after the conversation. She also has cybersex with several different men, ironically, on the computer I had brought. Her family said she would shut herself in her room at night and away she went! In fact, she would even have sex with other men while she was bitching at me about something on-line. Did she discover a new way to multitask or what?

I also found out she was in a relationship with another woman at the same time she was with me. She told neither of us, but we both found out. I'm sure you can imagine the commotion after that happened.

It's not going to be easy, but it's DEFINITELY something you need to get out of. I know what you may be thinking, that's theres some word or poem or special dinner you could do for him to get him to change by saying YOU'LL be faithful, but it just WON'T work. It's not just some one-night stand where he an co-worker got drunk and did it, I mean, this is consistent behavior, and if he's having sex with other women that he's meeting over MSN, that's not only bad, it's dangerous.

I too once thought swearing you'll be faithful would work, and my girl kept saying "I know you will hun" but it didn't change her at all, except for one thing: It erased her insecurity about me cheating on her, so any reservation she had about me leaving was gone, and she continued her on-line behavior.

I noticed something was amiss, and she insisted she was screwed up in the head and went to a shrink. Now, I worked for one briefly in college, and there are two kinds of shrinks: One will tell you to do your hearts desire no matter how stupid it is, and the other type will give you like it is, and what you have to do.

What happened there was that she didn't want to give-up the on-line fliriting (which is what I thought it was at the time, just flriting, not cheating), and that's what she had to do.

Eventually, the whole thing failed because she tried to sell the therapist on the fact that she was being abused by her parents at home, and eventually by me.

Eventually, we got into a big fight after I discovered what she was REALLY up to. She was insanely upset over the fact that I compromised her privacy. That's the real kicker. She wanted to have kids with me soon, but it was improper for me to check her e-mail, even though I previously had her permission, she just never thought I would actually do it. She tried very hard to keep the focus of the conversation on her privacy, insisting I was wrong, and that we weren't "really together" even though I was helping her finanically. She then started pushing me around trying to get me to hit her, but I wouldn't do it.

She then slept with at least one guy, and later told me it was because she thought we were over, although we never talked about it.

So, I ended it, but not as soon as I should have. Or, I could say I ended it, but she was dating someone else behind my back, so I guess she did too. And after I cut her off and told her point blank I wouldn't return any of things I bought her, she no longer spoke to me. Before, she would beg me and cry and weep and threaten to commit to suicide if she didn't get her way, but once she knew she was caught, she ran for the hills with her man and never looked back.

You said you don't have anyone to talk to, well, I am on here daily, so if there's anything else, feel free to share.

I really wish there were some way to fix this for you, but with my experience both personal and professional (if you can call it that) with this on-line nonsense, I would telling a white lie if I thought he would change. It may seem like an easy thing to do for someone who is decent human being like you are, but in reality that MSN is like a drug, especially when sex is involved.

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