“When I’d Try To Check In, He’d Go Quiet And Change The Subject”
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“I dated a guy in University who told me pretty much right away that he had terminal cancer and had about a year to live. I really liked him so I decided that I would stay with him and support him through it. He never wanted to talk about it and when I’d try to check in with him he’d go quiet and change the subject. He told me that I was the only person who knew about it and that I wasn’t allowed to talk about it with anyone else. Well, we ended up dating for three years, and I never once witnessed a doctor’s appointment or any type of symptom (and I was still the only person who apparently ‘knew’). He became incredibly emotionally manipulative and abusive, tried to isolate me from friends and family, and eventually became physically abusive. Of course, whenever I would try to leave he’d use his ‘condition’ to play on my emotions (and naivete) to get me to stay. He’d also physically block the door, pin me down, and do whatever he could to prevent me from physically leaving.
I’ll never forget the day I told him that he was such a good person with a good heart (something to do with how he was handling an issue with his addict mother), and he mumbled ‘No, I’m really not.’ I thought then that he was being humble, but looking back on it, it was probably guilt.
I’ve built a happy and successful life for myself now and have a wonderfully loving and supportive partner, but it still makes me full body cringe to think of how I spent so much time with what I consider to be pure evil. During the time I believed him wholeheartedly. I couldn’t fathom that the person I was with could lie about something so serious. It was only years later, after I left because of the abuse and manipulation, that I really faced the possibility that he was lying about the whole thing. I had taken time off of university because of him, lost friends, faced depression, and my grades had suffered tremendously. I had had to reschedule exams and drop courses on compassionate grounds. It was really difficult to accept (years later) that all of that happened, not because of a legitimate reason, but because of a lie that the person closest to me was telling.”
The Aunt’s Double Life
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“My estranged aunt went to work in Japan and met a nice, soft spoken, old Japanese man (let’s call him Ichiro) who was very nice and loving towards my aunt. Ichiro gave my aunt a home in Japan, supported her financially, etc. Ichiro was not rich but he was receiving a pension which my aunt took advantage of. She would demean, insult, belittle, verbally and physically abuse Ichiro in front of everybody, even in public. I have spent many times with him when he would visit and my only memories of Ichiro were him being shouted by my aunt like a little kid and him bowing his head in a corner. My aunt would even brag about abusing him so she would be able to ‘control’ him and his finances.
Many years into the relationship, my aunt went on a vacation in the Philippines and met a nice, young Filipino guy who she thought was rich. He got my aunt pregnant but she got tired of him right away because he lost his previous job and his new job wasn’t as high paying. So what my aunt did was she went back to Japan and tricked Ichiro into believing the baby was his. Ichiro’s parents were dead, no siblings, all relatives were living far away – so when he learned he was finally having a child, he was very happy. My aunt used the baby to get even more money from Ichiro (aside from the money she’s receiving from the Japanese government from having a Japanese child who wasn’t even Japanese after all)/
There was little to no money left with Ichiro so my aunt left him by himself and rented a house far away so she can meet younger, richer Japanese guys. Although she let him visit the child, it was torture for Ichiro to be away from them. A few years back, my aunt took the child to the Philippines to visit. One night, Ichiro video called. He was very, very happy because he had saved enough to buy a new laptop to contact them with and keep him occupied. That was the last they heard of him. A month went by, my aunt received a call that Ichiro was found dead. (Heart attack, if I remember correctly. He’s been dead for weeks and the landlord only discovered him when he was collecting rent). He was buried by the Japanese government because no relatives were able to come. When I heard about it, I cried in silence. Ichiro was abused and deceived and spent his last years alone. He went to the grave believing he had a child. I say a little prayer for him every now and then to honor him.”
Oh My
“My boss (married mother of two) was always taking long lunches, forgetting things, dressing particularly nicely for normal days, seeming a little tipsy after lunch. Once, a friend mentioned the neighborhood she’d moved into appeared to have a big swingers vibe, and my boss laughed out loud but went back to her work, saying nothing.
We’d make jokes she was having an affair but I don’t think anyone believed it. She was a proper Southern lady, dedicated to her family, or so we thought.
After she passed away (RIP) they found a highly detailed log that specified huge numbers of guys and a liaison almost every day except the week she and her family took their annual vacation.
She used codes for the guy, the hotel, and details like 2 O’s = 🙂 or boring = 🙁 or likes going down on me =_:D.”_
Caught In The Act
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“I caught my boss cheating on his wife.
We ran a really small screen printing operation and it all started with these ‘business trips.’ The first few times it was just a week or two, then over the span of a year, the trips would become longer and longer and more frequent. I ran the business when he left. He wouldn’t answer customer calls while he was there and never brought back any new clients, so I started to get suspicious.
One day he slipped up and sent an email to our work inbox that I used daily to correspond with customers. It was a receipt for a flight to New York for him and another woman..on his wedding anniversary. He never even called his wife that day. Now at this point I was not interested in outing him or meddling, but I was the only one that talked to him daily. I loved his wife and when she came to me asking if I heard from him because he didn’t call her on their 23rd wedding anniversary and didn’t know where he was, I may have mentioned that he was in New York and maybe that was why he didn’t call. She asked how I knew that and I told her there was an email in our work inbox.
I absolutely do feel guilty about being the one to lead her to finding out the truth but it ended up being what he wanted anyway. He didn’t have the balls to tell her what was going on and wanted to get caught. They split and he now lives with the other woman. His ex wife is happier than she has ever been considering the wake of the mess he left her to deal with.”
The Real Reason He Blew Through Money
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“His lifestyle was a bit lavish for him, especially since he constantly referred to himself as a ‘ditch digger.’ His parents owned a construction company and he worked for them. He drank heavily, anywhere from a pint of Captain Morgan a night to two fifths on ‘Sunday Funday.’ He would blow through money like it was… well… monopoly money and it was the first round of the game – BUY BUY BUY.
We dated for two years, and I never met anyone in his family besides his cousin who lived in a different state. We stayed with her before when we went on a cruise once, and flew down on a whim the second time to go to Universal Studios.
He broke his hand during a stupid argument, then his leg while recklessly riding his Ducati with a broken hand two weeks later. I rushed to the hospital where he was sedated, and finally met his mother. She hated me, because I already had a child. She didn’t want a son with ‘a predisposed family.’ I was warned to get away from him, and that she already had a fiancée waiting in the wings to nurse him back to health.
Eventually, I found out that she was paying EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. OF. HIS. BILLS. She did everything, from paying his cell to his insurance to his house payment. Everything he told me about being independent was a huge lie. He drank his paycheck every week, bought stupid things like $80 flashlights, yet told me I was a horrible person for smoking.
I left him with his broken leg, wasted and in bed one night, after I realized he’d only proposed to me in secret and his parents didn’t know. They told him they’d disown him and stop paying his bills if he married me, so he told me we could date in secret but he had to get a decoy in the meantime, ‘if that was ok?’ I found out a week later from two separate friends that he was out drinking with a girl – the SAME girl the only other guy to cheat on me was with years ago. I asked her if she wanted the other half of my sandwich, since she obviously loves my leftovers.
Forget you, Frank. I really loved you, you idiot.”
He Decided To Surprise Her, But Found Something Even More Unexpected
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“I was seeing this girl. We met at work, and hit it off pretty quickly. Things were pretty normal. We’d go out, come back to my place, do our thing and then sometimes she’d stay or other times she’d head home. This went on for about a year.
So when things started to get weird was when we went out to a bar, both got smashed, and I said well your place is like a few miles down the road, let’s just crash there. She was adamant about getting a cab back to my place. Seemed a little weird, but whatever. So this happened a few more times, she’d always have excuses, her place was a mess, she was painting, etc. At this point it’s not adding up.
So one night I decide to surprise her at home, figuring she would be happy to split a pizza and a 6 pack. She’s not home. But her fiancé is. Turns out he’s a pretty cool guy, has suspected something is going on with her, says she’s been staying late at work a lot lately, including tonight. No she isn’t.
So we decide to split the pizza, watch the baseball game and wait for her. I will never forget the look of the ‘oh crap’ look on her face when she strolled through the door and saw her fiancé and her boyfriend sitting on the couch eating pizza and having a drink.
After her initial reaction, she went into damage control mode with her fiancée and tried to say she was sorry, she was lonely and that I’d taken advantage of her loneliness and that she really loved him. It was a good sell, but he wasn’t buying and I was pretty annoyed she blamed it all on me.
I didn’t become pals with the guy. Although he was cool about the whole thing, what do you really say to the guy sleeping with your significant other that doesn’t lead back to awkwardness? I think we could hang if we were still in contact, but it would be more like having an acquaintance than a friend. The last words I had with her were something to the effect of ‘it’s a shame someone so terrible has such an awesome fiancé. I don’t want to ever hear from you again.'”
“They Had Kept This From Everyone For So Long”
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“My ex-spouse came out to me as transgender not too long after we married. Before that, he would easily get upset over minor things, sometimes things that couldn’t be avoided. He would be upset with me and would almost shut down. It got to the point where it was seriously affecting our relationship.
Then one evening – I remember this vividly – he told me he had something to tell me. He always wanted to wear women’s clothing. He always felt feminine. He identified as a woman. At first I was confused and took this to mean that he wanted to wear women’s clothing at home, which wasn’t a problem for me. It took him explaining to me what he really meant, that he wanted to transition into a woman. He had been keeping this from everyone for so long, and had been in denial for even longer.
The signs were there, but subtle. All the stress that comes with denial and fear had to come out somehow. And it was directed to me. However, I understand that it wasn’t on purpose. I was the only person there for him at the time. We tend to vent more comfortably with those who we are closest with, after all.
We stayed together throughout the transition, and tried to make our marriage work. It was a journey full of good moments, fear, tears, and struggle. In the end we decided to throw in the towel after a good, earnest fight. We are divorced, as is common when a relationship goes through a transition. She appears to be happily remarried from what I’m told. I have moved on myself and am happy, as well.”
“He Could Have Been Your Brother”
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“So my dad’s best friend lives in a city a few states over and they call each other pretty regularly (they’ve been friends since the 80s). One day his friend calls him kinda annoyed and says he saw a guy that looked just like him the other day in the city, and if my dad was visiting, why not come over and say hi? My dad says ‘no, I was never in that city, I’m sitting at home right now.’ His friend says huh, well this guy looked just like you, he could have been your brother.
Fast forward a few years and my dad is chatting with his dad who is a WW2 vet and generally a pretty ‘keeps to himself’ kinda guy. They were talking about how growing up, they didn’t have two beans to rub together and my dad was always admiring his friends’ fancy houses when he went there after school. As an adult, he realized something literally didn’t add up because my grandpa had a very well paid job as an executive and made a decent salary. So out of the blue his dad sits him down and says son, there’s something you should know. The reason we were so poor when you were growing up was because before the war, I married in a bit of a rush to a lady in the city because she was expecting, and we had 3 kids, and when I got back from the war things didn’t work out and we got a divorce. In those days a divorce was pretty unusual and seen as shameful, so it was a totally clean break, and he had no contact with the family ever again except for paying regular child support for each of his three kids. Meanwhile, he met my grandma and had 3 kids with her, and hence, the lack of beans. Suddenly my dad realizes that this doesn’t just explain why they were so poor, it also explains the weird phone call from his friend. The guy his friend saw probably was his actual brother. My grandpa kept quiet about this for almost 40 years, not a word to anyone.
By the time my dad found out, his mom had already passed away, but we think she must have known because looking at the dates, she met my grandpa when he was still married. She kept quiet about it though! My dad’s siblings also found out and have done a lot more research to find their half-siblings, but because of the age difference (25 years) some of them had already passed away. The half-brother they did find sadly wanted no contact.”
The Secrets Revealed Right Before The Wedding
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“My wife’s former boss found out a few big secrets right before she married her husband. It all started when they went to apply for a marriage license and it was revealed he was still married to his ‘ex’ wife. Turns out he never signed final divorce paperwork and was ‘shocked’ when they found out. Unfortunate as it was, it only took a little bit to finalize and move forward with their wedding – or so she thought.
Once that was resolved the next issue came up. When going to pay for the wedding DJ she found their joint account had a $20,000 withdrawal. She freaked and called her fiancé thinking it was fraud. Nope. Turns out he had substantial debt with his now ex wife that he forgot to tell her and wanted to pay off before the wedding. Now I don’t know about you, but for me, that would have been a deal breaker, if not then I would have at least postponed the wedding. Not for her, I guess. Then just two weeks before the nuptials she found his 12-year-old daughters (who only stays with them once a week) soiled underwear hidden in her overnight bag. When she asked the daughter about it she confessed that she does it all the time. A 12-year old that ISN’T POTTY TRAINED. He swore that he remembers potty training her when she was little and doesn’t know how her mother let her wet herself and hid it from him for years.
This woman was pretty intelligent. She was the GM of a high-end hotel/inn/wedding venue. Was definitely a hard-working, have you stuff together type person. I cannot fathom how she still ended up going through with the wedding. They’re still together a few years later so I guess it worked out.”
The Boyfriend Was Secretly ‘Ballin’
“My current boyfriend and I started dating 4 years ago right when I had moved for college. He’s older and well established and I could tell he had done well for himself and was very well educated and put together. I basically grew up in the dumpiest areas of a Little Saigon and my disadvantage is very clear from some of my mannerisms and habits. I could always tell he had money, but I thought he was just the average ‘actual middle class’ type of well-to-do.
Around 6 months of dating, I’m in the library at school and someone knocks over their water bottle on my crappy <$200 second-hand laptop. I'm devastated because I'm too poor to fix it so I was complaining to my boyfriend about how upset I am. He hung up, went out and bought a brand new fancy Mac and hand-delivered it to me the same day.
After crying about him spending his money on me and that he shouldn’t go blowing such a large amount on me, he told me he had no idea how much it cost, it was just the nicest one he saw at the store and thought I’d like it. At the time it was like a $2500+ computer and I couldn’t even fathom how he didn’t know. After a long talk, he tells me he’s not exactly worried about things like that and knows I’m a good person who could really use it. He comes from money. Like real money. Like he never had to work if he didn’t want to kind of money. I’d never been to his place because of some of my own hang-ups with being scared about meeting guys. That weekend, I agreed to go with him and stay the weekend. Without revealing too many details, his house is the kind that has a gated drive and stable. It’s not an ironic McMansion. I went 6 months dating him and had no idea his life was like that because he didn’t want me to know. I also felt like a massive loser because he had spent the night at my apartment once when my roommates were gone and it was so very very very dumpy, even by broke college kid standards.
Some obvious signs I missed that my boy was ballin’?: His wristwatch he wore on our first date was worth a semester of my college tuition. I noticed it was super nice, but don’t know anything about watches. He talked about ‘summering’ abroad when he was younger. I thought that was the way New England guys just talked about summer vacation. I didn’t think it was a real thing. He always looked fresh, exceptionally well taken care of. Even when he was wearing a t-shirt and shorts with sandals, he always looked good because the clothing was higher quality and it was fitted. He didn’t seem to understand why I’d get so twisted up inside about problems that could be solved for less than $100. It was because I didn’t have that much to spare and didn’t know how I was going to make it.”
When His Stories Didn’t Add Up, She Hired A P.I.
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“My dude had to go home and help with his ailing stepdad on the weekends. Initially, I was apprehensive because they had a rocky past, but was convinced because family is family, right? So it must be true.
He’d leave the city Friday afternoon, return Monday night – it was a three-hour drive out to the middle of the nowhere and was almost a decade ago when cell service wasn’t that great. I worked overnights at a hospital, so it worked out.
This went on for a year and a half before I broke up with him. You see, things weren’t adding up, I wasn’t allowed to talk to his mom or sister anymore, we were growing distant, he’d get very agitated with me. Also, I was never invited to go with him, even though I could have asked for time off.
Therefore, I hired a P.I.
Turned out he’d hop a ferry to Canada and visit some other woman. I wound up contacting the other woman after I kicked him out. She and I exchanged some info, filling in a lot of the missing pieces for both of us; she was angry she was bamboozled and broke up with him too.
Through some friends, I received news a year later that his stepfather died, but this guy never visited and had actually become estranged from the family, and they didn’t know where he even was. About a year later he contacted me and told me he had lung cancer and wanted to be my friend again. This wasn’t reciprocated, partially because his lung cancer info never added up (I’m in the medical field, you can’t fool me man), but mostly because I didn’t trust him, so why bother? I told him to pound sand. This escalated his illness AND said he had now suffered a concussion due to a bicycle accident. Keep in mind this was all via text and a few phone calls, we did not live around one another. When I still would not spend time with him (he wanted to watch Netflix over Skype or play video games), he said a former lover proposed marriage and he was leaving the country to be with/marry her. Now, it’s been over a year since I’ve heard from him.”