Was my lie so bad? (very long)

[supergnat]

Hi, and sorry for such a long first post. I just really need some objective opinions, I am too caught up in my own head over this and could do with some advice. I have wrote some really long backstory, which I will put in my second post, and the first post will eliminate some of the backstory. I expect people may see this wall of text as too much, so that's ok.

Shorter precursor, more backstory in next post if interested:

- Fell in love with girl I had known online for 10 years.
- Was planning to go meet her (we lived in separate countries)
- She finds out she has a tumour near her brain stem, which did not come with a good prognosis and was a strong chance treatment would not be effective, in which case she may not survive 6 months.
- I fly over to be with her while she gets treated, first round of treatment has been positive and led to reduction in tumour.

So we are spending some time together during the first week I am there and the subject of brothels was raised on tv. She asks me if I have ever been to one, to which I reply "well, I haven't been to a brothel" and leave that sentence open ended, as I know she is going to follow up.

<background detail>The truth is that I had, during the previous years when I had been single and somewhat lonely, paid for sex. It was legal in all circumstances, and was something I had done which had been born out of loneliness, and me not being the type of person to have one night stands. The mistake that I made, as it relates to our relationship, is that during our time talking together before I had flown over to meet her the subject came up of when was the last time we had a sexual partner. The correct answer for me was that it had been less than 6 months prior, and it had been paid for. Because of the pressure I was putting on myself to be perfect for her and give her reason to fight and get better, I felt very uncomfortable revealing this information during that conversation, so I did the wrong thing. I lied, and I said it had been about 9 months ago, and told her about an experience I had with a friend of mine but nothing further developed from that (which did happen, my lie was saying that was the most recent experience, which it was not). It was wrong of me to lie, and I shouldn't have done it. I think I was not honest because I was afraid that if I told her the truth then and there she would judge me a lesser person, and would no longer want to be close to me, and as I was the only person who was really offering her any emotional support I felt like I had to be good enough that she would want to fight to beat the odds so that we could be together. In retrospect I know that it is not my place to make that call, and I should have just been straight up and honest right from the start.</background detail>

So she asks me the next obvious question, which I was expecting her to ask. "Have you ever slept with an escort?". I answered to her that I had, in fact, done so. She asked me when the last time was and I answered that truthfully as well. At this point she got up and left the room without speaking to me. Some time later she came back very upset/angry with me. She said that she had trusted me, and I had lied to her, and manipulated her into loving me while being dishonest. She also said initially that we couldn't be together. She also said that at least the previous time when she had cancer, she had never wished it would take her, essentially saying that she would rather the cancer killed her than live with what I had done to her. When I told her how sorry I was and asked if she would be able to forgive me, and some day be close to someone again, she said that only I could fix what I had done.

At this point in time I felt completely horrible about myself and felt that I had ruined the relationship, and thereby ruined the thing that was keeping her so positive and happy while getting the treatments. I had promised her that I would always be good to her and honest with her, and I had not kept my word. I felt like I was a bad person, and I had to somehow make it up to this girl who I loved. I stayed there the night, and the next morning she told me she wanted to give me a chance, and wanted me to prove to her I was trustworthy.

A lot has happened since then, but for now all I would really like to get opinions on is this: Do you think my lie was terrible enough to provoke such a reaction? Some good people who I have confided in about this have said they may never have been honest at all about sleeping with escorts and would quite possibly have just kept that information to themselves, but I didn't want to live with that, and when the direct question came up I let her know. Of course, I should have done that earlier but for some reason it felt to me like something I wanted to talk about in person, not over Skype while I was in another country.

 

[supergnat]

Second post, just a bit more detailed background to the above in case you think it helps:

Over a year ago I entered into a committed relationship with someone I had become very close to online. We had "known" each other for close to 10 years at that point, and had exchanged emails on and off for much of that period after we had been posting on the same messageboard. I knew that she had met some of the other people from that forum, so I felt very comfortable all along that she was who she said she was, was genuine, etc. She had always been looked up to, as she is a very intelligent, attractive, confident and successful person, and I actually always felt that she was "out of my league", but as our contact became more frequent it just became obvious to both of us that we had so much in common about the way we saw the world and things eventually progressed to us sending very long emails to each other a few times a day over a period of a few months, which then turned to us having a few very lengthy Skype conversations. By this point she was all I could think about, and I was starting to become confident that she was feeling the same way as I was, and I was considering arranging to meet up with her, despite us being in different countries. For all intents and purposes, I felt like this girl was my dream girl.

It was on the 3rd or 4th skype conversation that she gave me some terrible news. She was quite upset, and informed me that several years ago she had a brain tumour, for which the initial prognosis was not good. It was likely that they would be unable to treat it initially as it was very close to her brain stem, and as such they could not operate to cut it out. Fortunately, there was another form of treatment available to her which is not invasive and was able to target the area, known as cyberknife. It essentially shoots two beams and where they cross paths is where the radiation focuses. Despite the initial prognosis being that she was unlikely to make it 6 months, this treatment was very effective and she made a full recovery. So how this relates to me is that on our 3rd or 4th call she told me that morning she had received test results from a routine checkup, which indicated that it was back, and then she filled me in on the details of having it years ago, etc. At this point the prognosis seemed worse than the first time she had it, because apparently the first group that had treated her with cyberknife were not willing to treat this time because it was closer to her brain stem and they were not confident of success. *She did end up finding a place willing to treat her in the following week.*

It was during this call, after both of us crying about the situation and feeling like we may not have a chance to try being together, that we told each other that we loved each other for the first time. In the following weeks I did what I could to support her while she searched for a place to get treatment, and we were talking for at least 3 hours a day. She made the decision to share the information of her illness with only two other people, who were both ex boyfriends of hers, and from what I understood were not particularly good at offering her emotional support. At this stage I felt like it was mostly my emotional support that she was relying on to stay positive, and we spent a lot of time talking about the life we would have together when she got better. In truth at this point we still had no way of knowing whether the treatment would work at all but of course we wanted to stay positive. During the few weeks after the diagnosis I made the decision that I was going to go and live with her while she got treated, and was fortunate enough to be working for a company that was willing to allow me to work remotely during this period. I wanted to be there to support her during her treatments with in person, as I didn't feel like she had anyone else to do that and I was in love with her.

So a few weeks after this I arrive in the US, and she picks me up to take me back to her place (where she lived alone). She had been getting treatments for weeks already, and was actually due to have received an update from her doctor on whether they were working or not the morning that I boarded the flight to see her. We were meant to have a call together, and for the first time she wasn't there to take the call. I assumed she had received bad news and did not feel up to talking, but called her cell anyway, and found that she was at a mall shopping for clothes and getting hair done etc, for when I arrived. She didn't raise the topic of the doctors update, and I didn't ask. I figured if she missed the call and went shopping instead, it was bad news, and she was preferring to not think about it, so I left it at that and boarded the plane.

When I arrived she picked me up from the airport, and on the way to her place she gave me some news. She told me that the doctor had spoken to her, and that the treatment was working. There was a small reduction in the size of the tumour, and due to the nature of the treatment she can't get too many in a short period of time and there are residual effects, so she had to go back for another checkup in X weeks and get further assessment about whether more treatments were needed.

 

[AlexDP]

I think she wants to lose you.

 

[supergnat]

This happened some time ago, we are still together now and I am very confident that she was not trying to find a reason to lose me at the time. Maybe I should have been more clear in my first post that the relationship is continuing, but there has been a lot of difficulty since then, this was just the start.

*Edit to add the italics

 

[Tesl]

It was not so bad, she should get over it.

Glad you are happy and hope that lasts.

 

[Mike32ct]

This happened some time ago, we are still together now and I am very confident that she was not trying to find a reason to lose me at the time. Maybe I should have been more clear in my first post that the relationship is continuing, but there has been a lot of difficulty since then, this was just the start.

*Edit to add the italics

If you're still together, then I wouldn't worry about it. Let it go.

I appreciate your attempts at honesty, but women cannot understand why a guy would pay for s@x. Women can get it anywhere anytime and look down on guys that pay for it. So it's something you keep to yourself.

But live and learn. I hope all is well with you two these days.

 

[Borknagar]

Yeah it was best not to say anything, like Mike said, women don't understand a lot of things, no matter how obvious it is.
However I think it is almost always ok to lie to women, they lie way more than we ever could so don't worry about it.

 

[Chickfight]

She made the decision to share the information of her illness with only two other people, who were both ex boyfriends of hers, and from what I understood were not particularly good at offering her emotional support.

This says it all. As soon as she hears she has cancer to grasps at any chances she has to get emotional support and someone to take care of her. You're the only one that fell for it. Why in the world would anybody tell their EXes they are sick?

This may sound insensitive, but you don't love somebody you've had a few skype conversations with. That's just desperation.

The more her chances of being alright increase, the more she'll want to get rid of you.

 

[Rikudo]

Chick Fight you hit the point men !!! How can you love someone you meet from skype !!

 

[crazyboy]

Man this is some sad **** because you fell in love with a woman you haven't met in person. Your just somebody she talk to and now her emotional tampon. Why would you contact your ex to tell them your sick. unless of course your looking for someone to take care of you. There also no physical connection here since you just seen her through only internet and met her in person when you found out she had cancer. if safe to assume you havent even had sex with her. I mean ten years and in those years she want to see you when she at her worst. man once she get well enough that she go without treatment or when cancer is gone and destroyed. I promise you going be tell someone or us that she cheated on you and you can't figure out why. But if your truly happy with the situation than more power to you.