DEAR JANE: I fell madly in love with a man I met online, but when we met in person for the first time I was HORRIFIED.

Dear Jane,

I recently met a man online and fell hard in love. I never believed that people could fall in love online, that they could form such a strong connection without meeting in person… until it happened to me.

It happened by chance; A friend created a dating profile for me after drinks one night, declaring that it was time to move on from my most recent breakup and find someone new.

We spent a few giggling hours flipping through all the profiles there, laughing at the cringe-worthy advances and the awkwardly posed pictures. But then we got to a guy who really caught my attention.

He was handsome, his answers to those silly questions they gave you seemed completely genuine and very witty, and I didn’t feel the same ‘puck’ that I had experienced with all the other profiles I had seen.

So I approached him, on a whim, without expecting to receive a response.

But they responded, and it wasn’t long before I started to feel real chemistry with this guy. We moved our chat from the app to text and even had a couple of phone conversations from there. Every time we talked I fell a little harder.

I wasn’t stupid enough to think he wouldn’t have flaws (we all do), but there was something about him that made the whole scenario seem different. It felt natural, it was easy and that’s really all he had been looking for.

When we first ‘met’ online, he lived about three hours away from me, but he was already in the process of planning to move to the city where I live. So I thought we’d take it slow, see if the connection was really there, and when he moved on, we’d know if it was something we wanted to take to the next level with real dates.

Finally, after four months of talking practically every day, we were scheduled for our first official meeting. We were going to have coffee and just walk around, see where the day took us.

I felt all the emotions: nervous, excited, dizzy, panicked… there was a lot going on! But when I got to the coffee shop I was thrilled to see him standing there, looking every inch the man I had come to know and, well, love.

But after we had our coffees, he sat me down and told me there was something he needed to tell me. Alarms immediately went off. It was then that he revealed that he is a double amputee who had both legs amputated when he was a child. I was absolutely stunned. It felt like the ocean started hitting my ears and I went completely deaf as he continued to explain, even lifting his pants to show me his prosthetic legs.

Stupidly, I actually burst into tears. Not, I should point out, because the idea of ​​being with an amputee was somehow repulsive to me, although I admit it was an idea I had never considered, but rather because I truly felt as if I had met this person. That he had been completely honest with me and hadn’t hidden anything. I know I hadn’t!

It’s not the truth behind the lie that has me nauseous, it’s the fact that he lied in the first place. Or she hid the truth, or whatever you want to call it. She’s shattered virtually all of the trust that had been built over those four months of conversations, and now I find myself frantically analyzing all of our conversations and finding holes in everything she’s said.

I know that deep down he is still the boy I fell in love with. But it seems that this lie has poisoned everything we had.

Am I stupid for feeling this way?

Of,

bitter truth

Dear Bitter Truth,

There is no easy answer to this.

I feel compassion for you and how you feel about what you perceive as a betrayal, and compassion for him for not being able to tell you about being an amputee.

The point is that this is not a lie, but rather an omission of the entire truth. The fact that he didn’t tell you from the beginning tells me that he has had bad experiences with women in the past once he told him, or that he is ashamed of being an amputee.

My guess is that it’s more likely a fear of how women react when he tells them, and honestly, although of course it’s something he could, and arguably, should have revealed to them at the beginning, my heart breaks. a little bit about how hard this must be for him and how he might have been rejected in the past.

I urge you to talk to him about this and why he didn’t tell you. I imagine that once you discover the reasons behind his omission, you will find that you have more compassion and empathy; you can understand exactly why he kept this from you.

I don’t see this as a betrayal, but rather as a man facing difficult circumstances and who has previously been made to feel ashamed. He only poisons a relationship if you let him.

Finally, I would slightly warn you not to think that you have fallen in love with someone you only met by talking on the phone. Phone calls and Zoom chats aren’t real. Loving someone takes time, patience, building trust and connection in real life.

I hope you fix things with him and I wish you the best.

Dear Jane,

My marriage has fallen apart thanks to my in-laws’ shocking behavior and I don’t know how I can move forward with them in my life.

This all started when I was pregnant with my daughter, who is now four, and my husband and I decided to move in with her parents, under the strict understanding that it was a temporary situation and that we still needed to be able to come. and leave as we pleased, conditions which they happily accepted.

During her pregnancy, her mother kept making sarcastic comments about everything she did; In her opinion, she couldn’t do anything right. She wasn’t eating enough “healthy” foods, she wasn’t doing proper prenatal exercises, she wasn’t doing enough to stimulate my baby’s development…the list goes on and on.

The only thing worse about her behavior was that my husband completely took her side.

After my daughter was born, I struggled with postpartum depression. But instead of helping me take care of my son, my in-laws saw it as an opportunity to badmouth me to my husband.

They told her that I wasn’t doing everything I could for our baby, that I was using my depression as an ‘excuse’ to be lazy, and that it wasn’t fair of me to leave everything in her lap, even though I was doing everything I could. it was in my power to share the burden, while also trying to avoid falling apart at the seams.

Eventually, it became too much for me and our marriage fell apart, and now I am happy to say that I live in my own home, with my daughter by my side. But my husband still lives with his parents and, thanks to our custody agreement, I still have to see them once a week.

And every time I do it I feel full of anger and sadness, and I can tell that this is starting to rub off on my daughter.

Obviously I’d prefer if he didn’t have to spend any time with them, but he does. I cannot prevent her from seeing his father, nor can I require her to live separately from his parents. But she started crying and screaming every time we go to her house, and my husband accuses me of poisoning her on purpose against him.

How can I resolve these feelings so as not to spread my anger to my innocent child?

Of,

latent rage

Dear Boiling Anger:

As painful as it is to break up a family, I thank you with all my heart for moving forward.

As wonderful as your husband has been, the fact that his parents are still so involved in his life, that his first port of call was to move in with them, and that now he, a grown man, chooses to live with them, tells me that there are some serious entanglement/codependency issues between your (now ex) husband and your parents, and it is wise for you to leave.

That unhealthy entanglement prevented him from facing his parents, from setting appropriate boundaries to make it clear that you are now the main woman in his life, from letting them know that his family (him, you and the baby) is sacred and that it is not their place to say anything to him. regard.

First of all, I don’t see any reason why you would have to see his parents during the custody exchange.

Have your husband come to the car to pick up your daughter or insist on meeting somewhere else. I know how painful it is to feel like your in-laws were the cause of your breakup, and until healing begins, I think it’s best for you to restructure your custodial environment so you don’t have to see them.

But you have to deal with your anger and sadness. It is not appropriate for her daughter to witness this.

As much as you may dislike your husband’s parents, they are your daughter’s grandparents, and I urge you to learn to process your feelings toward them away from your daughter.

Find a good therapist, whether local or online, and start healing this pain. Wish you all the best.