Hi everyone, I find myself in a very confusing situation, I was hoping to get some advice here.

I am a 28 year old guy and about 3 years ago, I've met this girl on social media. We started as friend, we talked every single day, shared our deepest secrets with each other and eventually became best friends and now "involved".

This girl lives on the other side of the world so the time zone is exactly the opposite. Sometimes this can be very hard. We tell each other we love each other, and act like every other couples do. We message each other every single day, we've talked on the phone, do video chats. I even have plans to go visit her soon.

The problem is, we are both very busy people, and sometimes it can be very hard for us to communicate with each other. The opposite time zone doesn't really help. When she goes to sleep, I'm awake at work and vice versa. This reason alone has caused us to fight a lot.

I am also very confused because she tells me that she never wants to get married, doesn't want to move out of her city and never wants to have kids. For me, although I am not thinking about those things yet, I do not want them to be completely off the table as well. She tells me that she is firm about these life decisions and will never change her mind.

I know that I love her and she has always been there and supportive of my goals and dreams. But I feel a lot of hurt/pain due to not the difficulty in communications and wanting different things. But I keep ignoring that fact and act as if its not a big deal but every time something remotely like that comes up, I begin to feel hurt and pain.

To make things worse, there is a girl who lives in the same city of me who seems to be genuinely interested in me. She is a very nice girl but I hesitate to see where that goes because I feel guilty as I appear to be in a "committed" relationship already.

I am very confused and not sure to proceed from here. Sorry for this long question but I am in desperate need of advice.

You are confused all right because you cannot separate the love of friend from reality in an honest way. If you and your cyber friend have not made plans the last 3 years to bridge the distance gap, or blend your lives, then how is that a committed relationship? The emotional attachment is understandable, but it lacks the balance of true commitment at this time. Not her fault since she has been very straightforward about not advancing to that next level of face to face bonding and interaction. How can you hope to build with someone a REAL life with someone you can never share time with. It's just not real or practical, and she probably doesn't even see this as a real committed relationship as you do. You are cyber buddies and that's appears to be the extent of it.

You are not in a MUTUALLY committed relationship because she is not as committed as you are, nor wants to be. My suggestion is a simple one, pay a lot more attention to your real life, and give up this false guilt as by your own words it's gone as far as it's going to with just cyber friends. Geez guy you cannot even be that good of friends since you are obviously NOT her main priority, at least not so much a priority as you make her, so of course it causes a conflict when you cannot even talk because she has a life without you.

That FACT alone should tell you to give up the guilt and the notion you have a committed relationship. You are confused because you are stuck! Build a REAL life for yourself that you enjoy with friends and activities that make you happy where you are. Why pass up REAL opportunities for REAL happiness with REAL people you can explore REAL relationship interactions with in REAL life? I know it's hard to separate those feelings and 3 years of sharing and caring is a hard habit to break. If you cannot accept just friends with this cyber contact then you need to just stop being available and end the contact.

I bet more interaction with REAL people would ease you away from your computer for sure, as well as asking yourself, what is it you are really committed to? It can't be the fun you're having building a life with someone half a world away who is to busy to be of reliable help. The last 3 years should have shown you that. Go have some REAL fun my friend, and the confusion will surely end.

Did you read your post after writing it?

"I feel guilty as I appear to be in a "committed" relationship already." What? You are not in a committed relationship. You are; however, in a pretend relationship.

Dude you are 28 years old. It's past time for you to be able to separate pretend from reality. Have you told any of your friends about your committed relationship? I am guessing if you have they have expressed a concern. If you haven't, well that speaks volumes. Dating someone who you can actually see, touch, and be with is scary but it's so many more other positive things as well. Try it. You may fail but at least you tried.

I'm with these others... your online "friend" is nothing more than a friend. There is no relationship there, and even if you or her decided you wanted to do more, neither of you could simply pack up and decide to move someone tomorrow. That's not how it works.. its possible NEITHER of you could live in eithers home country legally. It might take decades once they apply, they might even be refused.

And I also agree, 28 and haven't figured this all out yet? That online dream isn't ever going to be what you imagined them to be... turn off the computer and go out and meet a real person local to you you can ACTUALLY date and take out.

If they were all that special... they would have no trouble meeting people local to them.

I do know one of those women who played an older guy for a sucker... (didn't know him) got him to spend a lot of money on her, get her here legally, get her green card, and as soon as she got her citizenship she filed for divorce and took half of what he still had on top of that, and ran off to meet another guy. Yeah... lot of people in poor countries looking for that meal ticket. Men and women both. And that's the ones who aren't scammers trying to get you to send money for one emergency after the next with NO intention of them ever leaving... most of them aren't who they claim to be and misrepresent themselves to look more attractive to suiters.

Thw point of dating is to get to know the other person and determine what, if any, role you might best have in each other's lives. It is figuring out if you are compatible now, not if you can force it to work.

This is not the person for you. She told you deal breakers for marriage, and there is no point continuing to date anyone you don't see yourself potentially marrying in the future. Your lives are not compatible.

It can be tempting to say "I'm not ready for marriage anyway", and keep working on a waste of a relationship, but what life are you going to spend finding the right person? This is the time you get, and most people meet their spousesin their teens or twenties, then marry when they are ready.

When you are ready, it will be nice if you have pursued actual in person relationships and have found the right person.

Thank you for all the good advice everyone.

Even though I've read everyone's good advice here, I decided to ignore it thinking that I needed to figure it out on my own.

Here is a quick update. She started to keep getting more distant and eventually, it led to a fight and now she has decided to end things.

A part of me is relieved because we wanted different things but a part of me is hurting a lot because we've been friends for so long. Now I find myself in a place where I do not know what to do now and where to go from here. Any advice would be appreciated.

I would start with growing up. Calling a relationship in the context of a dating relationship is not reality. This might be a little on the harsh side, but hey, the truth hurts sometimes.

I repeat... "

Go have some REAL fun my friend, and the confusion will surely end.". This does require REAL people!

Question, are you open to moving to the other side of the world to be with the internet girl? Are you okay with never having kids? Are you okay with never getting married? Are you willing to accept these conditions?

If you answered no to even one of these questions then the solution is clear. You don't have a relationship, you have an internet romance. You might as well have a robot for a girlfriend. You haven't met her, you just talk and talking online is a whole lot different than actually spending time together in person.

If it were me I'd end it and seek a relationship with someone you can actually spend time with face to face. This internet girl is a dead end.

Thank you all for your advice.

Me and her had this big fight a few days ago and she ended things with me. I haven't spoke to her since. This is kind of weird because we've spoken everyday for the last couple of years.

I don't think I would be able to move to the other side of the world with her. She made it clear that she never wanted to have kids or get married and she wouldn't move here to be with me. I knew that one day I wanted to have kids and get married even though I'm not in a rush right now. I kept thinking that maybe one day she would love me enough to change her mind and want those things with me. I guess I was wrong.

My question is, should I try to reach out to her? Still be friends with her because we were friends for a long time before? Try to rekindle things? Or just leave it as it is and stop contacting her altogether. I feel very hurt right now and lots of pain.

No dude when things end you leave them alone, and rebuild a life that you enjoy without them. That means NO CONTACT because the bottom line is you take your bruised ego, hurt feelings and heal, and don't go back to the patterns that have become HABIT. Of course you miss the good stuff you had, but now you have to keep your dignity and self respect and leave her alone. Nothing bad about being wrong once but to be wrong twice about the same thing (Her changing her mind about YOU!), is a bit self defeating and INSANE.

Now if you want to make a whiny needy pest of yourself long distance, don't be surprised if she no longer responds to you at all. It was fun while it lasted but you must accept it's over.

Here is a quick update. It's been a few weeks since she ended things with me, we have talked and she wanted to be friends. I was thinking since we were friends for 2 years before we got involved, it would be good not to ruin the friendship. However, I don't feel any motivation to want to talk to her and whenever we do speak, its king of awkward with both parties not having much to say. Any advice on where to go from here? Thanks again for all your input.

Few people can be just friends again when their feelings have been bruised, frustrated and disappointed. Of course things are awkward because you are forcing yourselves to do something you are not ready for. Why can't you give yourself the time to heal? REREAD my post my friend and know that friendship should not be forced, and not just a habit, but a changing growing thing and the way it was no longer applies. I don't know who called who, but it doesn't matter much since if you want a healthy friendship going forward you both must get healthy, especially YOU!

Healing is the priority, not holding on to this "friendship". That's why my suggestion to leave her alone and work on yourself still holds. Then she will have a chance to heal and adjust to the way things have changed as ending a relationship is just as hard as having it end before you are ready. It's awkward and neither of you has much to say because you both are dealing with those intense feelings break ups ALWAYS brings.

LEAVE EACH OTHER ALONE! You both need time to regroup, reflect and get your feelings in order. Forced friendship is NOT a friendship. It's a road to disaster. If she is the one making contact, then at least be honest about the fact YOU need to recover from your loss... without her.