I promised a friend I would post here for some feedback. For the last year and a half I've been living the longest, most twisted, most outrageous story in history with a man I met on the internet. He's been living with me for the last 15 months. I've resisted telling my story again because it sOoOo long.<P>I think what I'll do is copy one of my posts from another forum I participate in, about internet relationships. Sorry, it's long, but it gives the basics. I posted it back in April. Here it is:<P>************<P>Hi there all you deliriously happy people, about to meet your online love for the first time. I live with mine - in misery, mostly. I’m going to tell you my story, to illustrate how you can be deceived on the internet and how you, too, can end up living in misery. <P>For me, the misery began with sex - or the lack thereof. Back in the eighties, I spent 5 years married to a guy who refused to have sex. It was horrible. By the time I got out of it, I was sure I would be frigid. Happily, I was not. After a brief period – actually a couple of years – that I refer to as my “slut summer,” I settled into several years of voluntary celibacy. “If it ain’t my soulmate, I ain’t interested,” I was fond of saying. <P>Then I met my soulmate – alas, on the internet. It was so wonderful, it never occurred to me that anything could go wrong in real life. The first few months we knew each other, on the computer and the phone, were the happiest of my life – maybe the happiest of any life that anybody ever had in the history of the world. And all the months since then have been misery. Once again life is an unimaginable celibate hell. <P>Now, understandably, I have no patience with sexual problems. I swore I would never have to deal with them again. I went out of my way – or as far as I could go, given a computer and a telephone – to make sure sex would not be a problem in this relationship. So here I am, been living with this guy for over year now, and guess what: I’m not getting any! Imagine my chagrin. <P>This time it’s due to chest pain and fear of a heart attack, or so I’m told. (I suspect additional reasons, including maybe even a bit of good old-fashioned misogyny.) He has all kinds of health problems – clogged arteries (needs a bypass operation), diabetes, indigestion, you name it. He sits up every night til 3 or 4 in the morning, watching TV, smoking, eating, and guzzling Alka-Seltzer and chocolate milk. Every night I go trudging off to bed alone, and more often than not, I wake up to find him snoring away on the couch with the TV still blaring. <P>The few times we have done anything, he acts like it’s going to kill him. Then he blames me for starting it. Not once has he ever done anything to satisfy me. And that’s my fault, too, because I ***** at him constantly. <P>That’s his contention, that my *****ing prevents him from showing affection. Mine is that the lack of affection makes me a *****. I wasn’t always a *****, but I have to agree I am one now - and for more than just that one reason: <P>1. Until he came, I was very happy working part time as a consultant and doing a fine job of supporting myself and my 10-year-old son (from my celibate marriage – I often joke that we only did it that one time, and it’s not that far from the truth). After a few months I had to go back to work full time for less pay. Now I can barely afford to feed the three of us and fend off the bill collectors, much less get anything done about his health problems. He has tried to get a job, but not hard enough if you ask me. And I feel very resentful. <P>2. We fight like cats and dogs. Since we’ve been living together we have never - no, not once - been able to go 24 hours without having an ugly fight over some stupid, inconsequential thing. I’ve been called every horrible name you could possibly think of, even told to die and go to hell. In the beginning I was shocked at his verbal abusiveness, but now I’m nearly as bad. <P>3. He fabricated his past during our internet/telephone courtship, and I found out the horrific truth – and it is truly horrific – after we had been living together for a while. He feels I was wrong for finding out, even though it was by accident that I discovered the first little detail that led me to the truth. And the truth is packing a load of bags full of anger and guilt. <P>He told me he had 2 kids, ages 18 and 19, and his wife (who I’ll call April) was killed in a burglary attempt at his home. I was always curious about this, but because it happened in 1995, I couldn’t find anything about it in the online editions of his hometown papers. <P>I probably would have left it alone if we had had anything resembling a normal life after he moved in with me. But we didn’t, and I got curiouser and curiouser. <P>One day last summer I went looking for the registration to my car, which had last been in my bf’s truck the day we went to get him a driver’s license. I looked in the glove compartment of his truck, and there was an envelope addressed to April with a last name other than my bf’s - nothing inside, no return address, with a 32-cent stamp on it. He claimed it was years old - but the stamp dated it July 1995 or later. And what was it doing in the truck we had bought one month before? <P>... curiouser and curiouser ... <P>Shortly thereafter, in my online snooping I stumbled onto a database from his home state, where you can enter the name of a prison inmate and get information on their status. Thinking my bf had said the name of the guy who killed April was Phillip, I entered “Phil” and came up with 200-300 guys - none of whom had been incarcerated for murder or aggravated burglary in the right time frame. <P>Then, for no reason at all - I still don’t know what made me do it - I entered my bf’s last name and was stunned to learn that he himself had been in prison for 2 months in 1997, for guess what? Non-support. As if dead women send their husbands to prison for failing to support their grown children. <P>Like I said, I was stunned. I didn’t know what to do - just printed the page, folded it up, put it in my wallet, and was going to think about it for a day or two. But that very night, after I went to bed, my bf supposedlyknocked my wallet onto the floor and the paper fell out. He came storming in with the paper in hand, and a terrible fight ensued. He refused to tell me anything, saying nothing from his past would affect me and it was none of my business. He said I had invaded his privacy, and after that, accused me daily of having him investigated, conducting surveillance, etc. <P>I denied any investigation but a few days later, I did hire an investigator. He located the court records associated with the non-support charge, which revealed a wife whose name was not April (I’ll call the wife Leanne) and not two but SEVEN children. <P>Again, I decided to think on it a while. One reason was I remembered my bf having told me a story about a guy he knew, whose wife refused to give him a divorce and had him thrown in jail every year for failing to pay child support, even though the kids were living with him - all of which was legal in the state he was from, plus her family was rich. One time, while the guy was sitting in jail, they came and told him they’d drop everything if he would move back in with his wife. He said he’d take his chances in prison, and off he went. I thought little of it at the time. <P>I thought about writing Leanne a letter asking if she was owed any child support, but couldn’t do it because I had no way of knowing what I was getting into. <P>So here I was, not daring to open this unknown can of worms, when one day my bf’s mother called. He was out doing a construction job. His mom had no idea who I was and had been regarding her son as a missing person for months. She was primarily worried about his health. We had quite a long talk, and she told me how her son “met this girl who ruined his life” - and how the story of the guy he knew was really him, and the wife has harassed him constantly, even though he had not lived with her in 7 or 8 years, instead of letting go and getting on with her life, and he always said one day he would leave and never look back. His mom had gotten my number off of one of his phone bills, which his wife had somehow gotten her hands on. And just a day or two before, a woman had called and asked for my bf, then hung up when he answered. She sounded about my age, and I figured it was Leanne. <P>His mom didn’t know much about April, other than she was a girl he had gone with in high school. She thought April was alive and well, married with two kids. <P>That evening, when I told my bf his mom had called, the truth came out - at least in part. He refused to tell me much of anything beyond what I already knew. He did say he had been living with April, and she really was dead - “shot through the head.” <P>Having the wife and kids out in the open was something of a relief, though the daily fights continued - often focusing on his accusations and my denials of an ongoing investigation. At some point I started checking the history files on my computer, and one day I discovered that my bf had been in the database where I had discovered his prison record. He had looked up the record of a man whose last name was the same as April’s last name on the envelope I had found in the glove box. The man, who I assumed was April’s husband, had received a 5-year sentence for aggravated assault and was due to be released in June 1999. <P>I confronted my bf about this, and in the midst of the angry fight that ensued, he told me another story. He and April had been living together, while her husband had been living in Turkey with another woman. Then the crazy, meddling ***** Leanne wrote to April’s husband and told him what was going on. He came back and shot April. My bf demonstrated how he shot her, point blank, in the center of the forehead. She was now brain dead, living with her parents. <P>I had already ordered the court records associated with April’s husband’s incarceration, and when they came they confirmed only that April’s husband had indeed attempted to cause her death with a firearm. I chose to believe the brain-dead story and laid my investigation to rest. Eventually the accusations died down. <P>Then, a couple of months ago, through my job as a Marketing Director, I was offered a free trial to an online information service. So what’s the first thing I do? I search the news section for April’s name. And what comes up? Three or four news stories from the time she was shot and her husband was sentenced. Here’s the most informative one: <P>[April’s husband] pleaded guilty to reduced charges of two counts of assault Thursday after his wife asked the court for leniency. <P>[April’s husband] had been charged earlier with attempted murder and felonious assault for beating and shooting [April] this summer after he discovered she was having an affair. <P>“I can live with what’s happened,” [April] said of the shooting at the couple’s home. “I can’t live with what’s happening now. I think he’s a wonderful man. He doesn’t deserve this. My kids don’t deserve this.” <P>Because he used a gun in the assault, [April’s husband] will serve at least three years in prison, said [the prosecutor]. He could get up to 10 more years when he is sentenced next month. <P>According to court testimony, [April’s husband] became enraged when he learned that his wife was having an affair. He beat her with his fists, choked her and then shot her. <P>[April] walked about two-tenths of a mile to her nearest neighbor for help. Police say the bullet glanced off her skull, leaving her with only a flesh wound. The couple have three children, ages 10, 6 and 2. <P>There was no history of domestic violence, [the prosecutor] said. From all appearances, “they are an all-American family.” <P>“This case was a complicated case,” [the prosecutor] told [the judge]. “This case was significantly and extensively discussed in our office” before the charges were reduced from attempted murder to assault. <P>“It was certainly a serious case and we’re not distracting from that in any way, shape or form,” he said. <P>[The judge] said he was reluctant to accept a plea to lesser charges. He said he agreed because of [April’s] reluctance to testify against her husband, and the effect a trial would have on the family’s children. <P>So now I sit around and wonder about April - specifically, why the brain-dead story. He did apparently go with her in high school, since he has her high school ID card in his photo album. He also has lots of pictures of her - pregnant, even - and some kids that I suspect are hers. He has a picture of her in his wallet, too, which he insists is not April but “some bimbo named Debbie.” And the picture of April he sent to me before moving here, which I asked for, is someone else entirely. <P>I’m guessing, given the quotes in the news story, that April is planning to resume her all-American family life when her husband gets out of prison. And I’m thinking maybe my bf just ran away from his whole messed-up life, and if he loves me at all I’m his second choice. <P>There is so much more going on here than the lack of sex - which one would normally attribute to my bf’s health problems, which are real and serious - but he has also told me some serious lies. Because of the lies I am less inclined to accept his explanation of why we’re not having sex. <P>He doesn’t acknowledge the magnitude of his lies or that his past has any bearing on our life together. His position is, it was painful and he didn’t want to relive it. And I would not have gone ahead with the relationship had he told the truth. NO WAY would I have invited this guy to come live with me when he’s got all these health problems AND he has seven kids AND he’s still married to their mother ... who is a total nut and god knows what she might do that would affect me and my son ... and oh, by the way, he also had an affair with this married woman whose husband tried to kill her when he found out about it. <P>I sit there and listen to him spouting off about people cheating on their spouses and people lying - how everybody’s a whore and everybody lies - and am either amused or disgusted (depending on my mood). Lying is such a big thing with him. His definition of lying is very broad - just about anything you say to him qualifies as a lie, and if you question or dispute anything he says in any way, you are calling him a liar. He is always on me or my son about some lie he has imagined one of us has told, or about one of us calling him a liar. And I sit there and think ... well, you can imagine what I sit there and think. <P>... and the misery continues. <P>Don’t anybody ask me why I stay in the relationship. There’s a lot more to the story - I haven’t told the half of it, much less the good side. Bottom line, I love him. He has some rare and desirable qualities, not the least of which is fidelity. And, in spite of having lied about his past, a certain kind of personal integrity and overall trustworthiness. Plus we’re intellectually compatible, we like to do the same kinds of things, I’m physically attracted to him, and when we get along, it’s great. <P>Things are looking up at the moment - he is at last getting his health problems taken care of, I’m back to working part-time from home, and it looks like we might make it after all. After a year, I’d like to think everything has been pretty much uncovered and we’ve fought about everything there is to fight about. I’ll tell you what, though - if our sex life does not improve dramatically (i.e., begin to exist) after he gets his heart problem taken care of, I will not be in this another year from now. Back to Plan A - be an old lady with 40 cats. And I assure you, I will never pair off again.<P>*****************<P>OK, so that's where I was in April. I am oh-so-sorry for making you read all that. Since then, things have gotten worse. We have been to the brink every other day, and in the last month things have deteriorated to the point where I've let go.<P>I won't go into all the details of our fights over the last few months. The lies are pretty much in the background now. I've come to realize I'm being abused. He is the undisputed master of every single tactic in the verbal and emotional abuse handbook, and in the course of my learning how to deal with it, the main issue has become his outrage at my saying he has abused me. Plus I continue to lie and *****. Oh, and I've snooped and spied and badmouthed him on the internet. All the while he cooks, he cleans, he gives me all his money. <P>To me, the main issue is, my needs are not being met and I feel like dirt all the time. I do not feel loved. I say these things over and over and over again. This whole relationship has been about his problems, and I'm sick of them.<P>He's threatened to leave me a hundred times. How it works lately is, he says he's going to leave when he gets his disability check on the 1st. I say OK, then when the check comes, he spends it - on us, he says. I figure I've stuck it out this long, what's another month.<P>I honestly thought he was going to leave this time, and I was OK with it.<P>Well, this morning I drove him to the bus station so he could go back home to see his kids - which he has selfishly insisted on doing at the worst possible time. He has finally gotten a job, which he's supposed to start in a few weeks. He decided he was going to do this on the spur of the moment, bought a bus ticket instead of paying the phone bill like he promised, then guilt-tripped me for refusing to give him my blessing. I'm begrudging him this one little trip to see his kids. Nevermind that things are falling in on my head financially. He'll be back on the 11th.<P>I have refused to say whether I want him to come back and live with me. My position is, you've placed our relationship in serious jeopardy and there it stays. You want my approval? Sorry, no can do. I'll let you know how I feel after you get back.<P>Don't tell me to throw the bum out, 'cause I've heard that a gazillion times and I'm there. I like to think there's some hope (or I did, until a couple of weeks ago) because he swears he really does love me, he's getting his heart problem treated (with clot-dissolving drugs), he's also on an antidepressant (though I haven't noticed any improvement in his mood) and he has at last gotten a job. And he does cook and clean, though where all his money goes is in dispute. <P>Most importantly, I still love him. Except for the lack of sex and the fighting, he's everything I ever wanted. Big exceptions, I know. Does anybody see any hope here?<P>------------------<BR>--Girlfriend in a coma (I know, I know it's serious)

girlfriend in a coma,<P>You are in a terribly dysfunctional relationship. Your relationship is based on lies and fantasy. The only hope is for you and your bf to go to counseling. I think you probably both need individual and joint counseling to work things out. Your relationship is abusive and co-dependant. <P>Please know, I am not trying to critise you or your bf. I am only trying to help. I know a lot about dysfunctional families and co-dependancy and I have been in therapy for years to try to overcome the pain and suffering that I lived. <P>I don't think you or your bf are "bad" people. I do think you both need some professional help to deal with the problems in your relationship.<P>My best to you. Take good care.<P>Myra

Thanks, Myra, for my one-and-only reply. Everybody tells me we need counseling - or I should say, everybody who doesn't say throw the bum out. I'd love some professional help; unfortunately, I can't afford it right now. If I could, I'd be there in a heartbeat.<P>Things have been much better since my bf got back from visiting his kids ... 10 days and counting. He seems to have reconnected with something. The first couple of days, I wondered where my fabulous new boyfriend came from.<P>I was ready to give up, though I couldn't actually do it while he was gone. I was going to busy myself with housework and yardwork, and wash that man right outta my hair! But mostly I was just a lost and lonely mess without him. <P>The fabulousness has faded somewhat, but since he's been back we have both been trying - actually communicating instead of fighting. We've had a couple of arguments, but nothing like before. I've been trying to focus on the good stuff, which there is a lot of, despite how bad it sounds (and I don't deny the bad stuff is really bad). He's also working, which is wonderful. I've even gotten some lovin' :-).<P>I'm sure counseling would be helpful, and we may get there eventually. For now, I guess I'll just keep trying. Thanks again for the reply.