Dear Matchmaker Rabbi:

I met a wonderful man on JDate a year ago. We’ve been going out since then. We have a wonderful relationship and are in love. Since the relationship started getting serious, I canceled my account on JDate and asked him to do the same. He didn’t cancel his but he kept offline for a while (MONTHS). Then he reactivated it again, and he told me he did so and visited the site a couple of times only because he was bored.

I got very upset, because I think flirting online with other women is cheating. But I also told him that it was up to him to keep his account and that I wasn’t going to reactivate mine only because I respect him. However, I had the feeling he was still visiting JDate and contacting other women. So, I opened a fake profile and did contact him with my fake profile. I feel broken hearted and sad. I don’t know what to do.

On one hand, if I tell him about my fake profile, he might think I’m sticking him, but on the other hand I feel betrayed. PLEASE TELL ME WHAT TO DO. Thank you, I truly appreciate your advice.

-Sonia

Dear Sonia:

Whether or not you chose to tell him about your fake profile, it seems pretty clear that you two do not see eye-to-eye about this relationship. It hardly sounds like a “wonderful relationship” between two people who “are in love” with each other.

Unless you’ve agreed to have an “open” relationship in which you date other people, then he is cheating on you by going online and flirting with others. What are your boundaries? And once you have decided that, have you communicated them clearly?

If he doesn’t want to commit to you on the level you want, then this relationship should have ended yesterday. If he says he does want an exclusive relationship with you, then tell him that he must fend off his boredom some other way. Trolling around for single women is not an acceptable “hobby” for a person in a committed love relationship.

— The Matchmaker Rabbi

Joysa Winter, aka The Matchmaker Rabbi, knows all about how hard it is to find lasting love. It took her 17 years to find Mr. Not Wrong! In that time, she tried just about every singles site, dating club and Matzah Ball known to humanity. Now a rabbinical student and the mother of 2 young kids, nothing brings her greater joy than officiating a wedding. She is finishing a book on her dating misadventures called Chasing Cupid, Tales of Dating Disaster in Jewish Suburbia. Read more about it at www.chasingcupid.com.
6 Comments
  1. I think there is more than one way to look at this. The young lady asked him to cancel his Jdate account because she cancelled hers. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you is a suggestion not a commandment. He obviously did not fully agree to her request for whatever the reason may be. We only know from her perspective what they had agreed to. Also, we only know from her perspective how committed she is to their relationship, not how committed he is. The commitment level she believes is there may (or probably) only be wishful thinking on her part.

    I know many many happily married fully committed Men and Women who flirt in public every day. That flirting actually helps the relationship because it rienforces each idividuals self image in a way that their partner can’t. Flirting is not infidelity by any stretch of the imagination, it is only flirting and if we were to classify it as cheating then EVERYBODY cheats at one time or another. Flirting is considered cheating only by the most insecure individuals, who are afraid of where it may lead.

    We all need more than one intimate (not sexual) friend in our lives. Ideally our collection of intimate friends will look like a perimid with casual acquaintences and flirtations at the bottom and at the very top is our one and only significant other with whom we share our emotions and our bodies. Without this pyramid there is no way to bring new enegy into the relationship and guess what…it gets BORING.

    What is different here is the venue that the BF chooses to flirt in, and what his true motive may be. If he is truely bored, that isn’t necessarily his fault, but is definitly cause to examine the relationship.

  2. To-Sonia,

    There may be a major communication gap between you and you BF? Did he state to you that he will be in a one on one committed relationship with you? Many women hear what they want to hear from men and not what they need to hear. Also, you deceived him by getting a fake profile and then contacting your BF with a pseudo identity. I think you have to take a good look at yourself first before accusing your BF. You clearly lied to him and also tried to manipulate him, both areas that you don’t want to recognize.

  3. Sorry, guys. If you suspect some kind if betrayal, and have to “snoop, lie, manipulate” to get to the truth, the snooper isn’t guilty of any behavior she has to “look at.” She did nothing wrong and did what she had to do – needing to watch her own back and protect herself from further pain and lies brought about by betrayal.

    There is nothing wrong with flirting – I support innocent flirting, and I’m a pro at it. But, it’s done openly, playfully, and with my partner present. If he’s doing it secretively, behind closed doors it’s a whole different ball game.

    As far as hearing “what you want to hear”…..perhaps it’s what she didn’t hear! He had a responsibility to be totally open and communicate clearly what his intentions, desires, and activities are. He understood what she was saying to him, or he wouldn’t have had to hide it. It sounds more like a “lie of omission”. That’s still a lie, intended to deceive and/or lead another person to believe something that’s just not the truth.

    Did any of you ever hear the old adage..”if you’re doing something you don’t want to be seen doing,,then you shouldn’t be doing do it. It’s what you do when nobody is looking that counts, and measures your integrity.”

    His ability to emotionally connect and his character are clearly written on the wall by his actions. Cut him loose, before 5 years flies by and you’re still trying to get him to do right by you, and by setting the example to teach him. People don’t change because you want them to. If his heart was connected to yours, he would have been content with you and taken his profile down without any prompting.

  4. Sorry Sally

    Snooping is a character defect indicating lack of proper boundaries with other people. There is an old adage that goes: if you go looking for trouble you will find it….and that’s very true.

    Nothing will turn a man off faster than jealosy, insecurity and poor boundaries. Men usually are very open until they realize that their gal has character weaknesses and can’t handle it, then they will take the situation underground rather than acting equally defective and abandoning themself. Also, don’t expect a man to think, or act like you (a woman)…it will never happen, and if you expect it to, you will be dissapointed every time. Many gals will destroy what could be a potentially great relationship by expecting her “cat” to act like a dog. Understand your cat and give him affection and he will be loyal to the nth degree, finding his way home every night. Try to change him and he will want to escape and Tomcat around.

  5. Dating might be an exclusive activity or not. Unless the two of you have agreed that your relationship is exclusive, he is not betraying you by having an online dating profile.

    However, your snooping clearly shows your character — or rather lack of it. All lasting relationships require trust before all else, and you have broken trust. He should dump you and you should learn not to snoop.

  6. I’m in a slightly different situation. My guy and I were only seeing where things were going and he hadn’t logged in the website we met for a month already, but he had other profiles I knew about, I noticed he wasn’t logging into them either, but one night out of nowhere I decided to make a search for him on a totally different website, and lo and behold, there he was, he had created a brand new profile, a very well done profile at that. I felt so so sad, though we hadn’t had the “exclusivity” talk yet, it felt bad to see him do that since I had stopped looking for someone some time ago. Since that moment I knew I had to break contact with him since we were not on the same page. I told him the reason why and what I had done and he didn’t try to deny anything, he was very straight forward about it and said he thought we were still looking, he was under the impression I was still looking as well. When I informed him I wasn’t he felt really bad and decided to remove his profiles, I told him he didn’t have to (mostly because I was determined to end it all anyway, I didn’t see the point), but he said I was too important for him to lose me over some dumb online profiles. I honestly don’t feel very trustful about it all, but I must accept that we hadn’t agreed on any terms before this talk. He decided on his own that we should be exclusive and not look anymore, I didn’t push the issue to be honest because I was so disappointed over all that I honestly didn’t care at that point if we kept seeing each other or not, but he seemed determined so I gave him a chance. I have felt tempted a couple of times to search for him on dating websites to see if he’s back on them or not, but I have stopped myself from doing so because it wouldn’t be fair to him or me at the end. I will have to trust his decision, and if I ever feel like my mistrust of him is too big to continue, I will let him know and I will break it off, just like I had intended the first time. The issue at the end was mostly mine, I invested myself too much on a relationship that didn’t have firm ground, now, if we had agreed on being exclusive before finding out about the new profile I would’ve NOT stayed with him, no matter what he said. If he agreed to exclusivity and he’s still on dating websites, that’s cheating, doesn’t matter the reason. If for any reason I do a search some time from now and I find him anywhere near a dating website, I’m gone, no explanations this time. This dating scene nowadays is tough , it is tempting not only to look around for other people because dating websites are just a click away, but snooping is easier as well, and very tempting. I wish you all luck out there, be smart.

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