Online Relationships

A personal journey of discovery...

At times simply living is hard work. People around you are non-responsive and you feel like throwing in the towel. I have read and reviewed many on-line writers who have felt this way through romantic involvement with someone unknown to them. 

My own situation through bereavement was soul destroying. I posted on a writers site to try and overcome the loss of my husband and writing gave me an outlet. People are kind and I found so many who offered friendship at that time.

The issue I want to touch on here is on-line relationships and the problems associated with that. We seem to begin and end liaisons that are not commitment based and the result is often devastation. We allow others to fill a void that is already filled to the brim with memories of loss only to widen the gap further heading towards another ending that is inevitable. People cannot know one another intimately merely chatting on a machine or talking on a phone…you could be talking to a psychotic fanatic...please remember this.

The human psyche is an interesting study, the mind being a bottomless data-base of information; this is why our dreams are often so confusing. Even though we know the writing is on the wall we try to keep the dream of new love alive through illusion until it crumbles to the ground. We then try repeated reconciliation and each time we do this the gap widens a little.

There is a painful road that leads to absolute freedom and once we admit to ourselves that commitment will never be forthcoming, we need to calm our reactions and learn from them, this is difficult, but certainly attainable using common sense; it is not a good idea to fall into a web of “poor me syndrome.” Many have gone under through this train of thought.

Guilt is the protagonist in the story of internal pain. Knocking yourself out with blame is non-productive in the extreme. It is a dead end road; a curse we put on ourselves that only serves to add further decay. By this stage we are in bad shape and wasting our lives away on what is tantamount to trivial matters, though they seem huge to us they are unimportant when you look at the bigger picture, which includes your death bed.

In closing I want to tell you that accepting what we cannot possibly change is the single most important life lesson we can learn…it will lead you to true peace and serenity of mind and body. Having the wisdom to change what you can is also a good rule of thumb. To those suffering loss of any description I say…please remember what I have said in these few lines because it is a life-changing and morally just way to get back on track. I could not write this if I had not been on the road myself.

Thankfully, after much heartache and deliberation...I am now home free.

A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then leave.

Liz Gilbert

Reviews

[Gandré]

When people meet online, first they need to become friends... when this happens spontaneuously, then there is time to communicate freely, without another thought, just because of they like each other's view or share the same hobby. Then they possibly fall in love and want to meet and then perhaps they know that time is working for them but not against them... also impression needs time to sleep over it to make another experience and have another impression... and then perhaps then they know what is right to do as the next step...
Even when there is a relationship... people always need to work on it, this artwork that never will be finished, indeed, a fragile thing.. I speak from my own experience, I married the man I met on the Internet.

[wordman]

you are absolutely right,there is a woman on poetfreak, that thought she had a relationship with a poet
when it got deep ,he cut and run leaving her devastated.he didn`t really want a relationship,but i guess he was intrigued to see what happened,it got to be to much for him,and most are married..

[Lady Glitter]

"...Even though we know the writing is on the wall we try to keep the dream of new love alive through illusion until it crumbles to the ground. We then try repeated reconciliation and each time we do this the gap widens a little..." I've always said that when a person tries to leave another person, it is always for a good reason. In most situations, the person should never go back, because it'll never work out. To me this is proven by the fact that the person tried to leave in the first place. No person would try to leave a healthy relationship. They leave because they see that it is hopeless. Generally, if it is hopeless then, it will be just as hopeless, or more so later. Note that I said GENERALLY.

As far as soulmates coming into our lives just to reveal another layer of ourselves to us, and then their job is to leave? I don't believe that. I think the issue is the use of the word "soulmate" and what it means. It's different for everyone. To me, you've described a romantic mentor, or a therapeutic love interest, rather than a soulmate. Two healthy people who come together as soulmates cannot live without each other. They each feel soul-less without the other. They are very different beings, and they are the same, like fraternal twins. They would never come into each others' lives, and leave each other. If this happened, then they were never soulmates to begin with. Soulmates is often a pet term that people erroneously use to label the in and out relationships that we all have, before we grow up.