I have been battling with overcoming this trauma for almost a year now. I don't know how I got so involved.

I met a man at a very volatile time in my life. He is 20 years older than me. At first it was nothing. But he began heavily pursuing me. I adamantly refused because I just wasn’t interested. He wanted to take me on trips and he wouldn’t take no for an answer. I would all of a sudden have emails of flight confirmations. In hindsight I really should have seen these as red flags but I’m a really free spirited type of person and I tend to live spontaneously.

I spent Thanksgiving with him and his friends after knowing him a month. He then got very serious with me, saying he wanted me to have his children, move into his home, etc. Yet, another red flag but that’s neither here nor there.He told me he had been engaged once before to a woman a few years before me, which he left the day of the wedding because she cheated on him. I felt so bad for him. He also told me of many health problems he had. I now know these were all things to gain pity. I remember once when we first met he took me out to meet 2 of his friends, and when we were walking down the street he started sniffling crying talking to one of them saying he may have liver cancer. I thought it was weird but I barely knew him and I never heard about it again.

Things progressed, we traveled to many countries together all the while me keeping my guard up. Only because that’s the type of woman I am. I’m never easy to get. He kept wooing me. Sending me exuberant gifts, etc. That isn’t the type of thing that gets me so it never truly impressed me. But, I kept hanging out with him. Maybe because I was lonely and sad. I’ve suffered so much trauma in life(like we all have) but mine consists of losing 3 of my family members all at different times, for different reasons, over the course of 10 or so years. I’m a strong woman but also a very sensitive person with scars. This is just a smidgen of background of me. Maybe I’m the type of person he likes to prey on.  

Anyway, I eventually let myself start falling in love with him. Rather, I really did start loving him. He would fly my mom to meet us on vacation and I went with him to all his work events and business trips. It felt so comforting to have someone who I thought loved me too. I was struggling a bit workwise and he told me never to worry about it that he loved me very much. That I needed to know that we were in this together. That him and I were “we” and “us”. That I was the most intelligent woman he'd ever met...yadda yadda. He met all my friends. Text with my mother. The list goes on and on.

I was living with a bunch of roommates and had voiced to him how I wished someday to have my own place. He then said he wanted to buy an apartment. I have all the email exchanges between me, him and the brokers. (In fact, I have every email and text he ever sent me). We went together and looked at numerous apartments. I even started thinking about these apartments and how a child of ours would fit in. He put an offer in on an apartment. I was ecstatic. But, for one reason or another it fell through. He told me not to get deterred that it was only our first offer. So albeit, I was upset, I understood. So he told me to move out of my apt and get a sublet apt for 3 months. So I did. I put all of my belongings in a storage unit and packed only a few suitcases. He said we were going to put the apartment search on the fast track and we would get a place soon. But 3 months came and went and I had to find another sublet. This continued for 8 months me bouncing month to month in different places. I couldn’t understand why he didn’t just ask me to come stay with him in his place in CT but I knew that I wanted to be in the city and I guess, I was just dumb. I finally started getting very upset things weren't progressing.

We returned from a trip to Italy for his birthday where we had a great time until the end. He had a tendency to get very angry and he would have this look in his eye that scared me. (He did this once in Vietnam too when we first met. Man, saying all this outloud I feel like such an idiot not seeing it sooner)… I only saw this look about 6 times for the 2 1/2 years we were together. But it was always scary. Well, in Italy he got a call and I was driving, he was in passenger side seat. He screamed at me. I now know this call was saying his wife's mother had died. When we returned to NYC, he told me he had to go to a funeral in Greenwich. I asked whose it was and he said "an old neighbor". Sorry this is so long winded.

Well, I was so tired of being alone all the time. He would stay with me only a night or 2 a week but he told me it was bc he had to go home and take his dog out. Made sense to me. Plus, he was a quirky man so I really just chalked it up to that and that he worked a lot. He had a townhouse in Old Greenwich I went to only a handful of times. He told me he didn't take me there bc he knew I hated CT. We would always be together, mostly on trips, but also he had a house in Southold where we would always spend weekends and such. I didn't really have a reason to ever think he was married. Especially since he told me of women he had dated and I never really saw any signs of a woman living in his house. Except that it felt very beige and cold and almost like a hotel.

Anyway, I finally got curious and did a background search and sure enough found out he was married. I first saw the obituary of his "old neighbor" which in fact showed he and his wife's name as her surviving children. Then I saw both their names on both houses of his, purchased just a few years earlier. Also, the estate of his mother in law left to his wife at his address. I confronted him about his wife and he looked like a deer in headlights. Finally, we talked, and he was like a different man. Very mean and dismissive. He told me he and her were over a very long time ago. That they had made money together but there had never been a real relationship to begin with. I asked about the obituary and he said he didn’t know why his name was on it. I stupidly believed this as well. Who was I to judge if he hadn't told me about his past? I’m really open minded and I never pry in people’s lives because I know we all have our reasons. I just never thought anyone could be this deceitful and evil. But, he over and over told me that he was no longer married.

This was also a lie. Both his sister in law and sister both confirmed that he was still married and had been for 25 years. That he hadn't been going to family functions for a long time for whatever reason but he would go on trips with them and they were very much so still a couple. I was destroyed. I knew that the truth was there but I still couldn't believe it bc he still contacted me and told me how much he loved me and that he was not married.

Well the duration of this was when I was in sublets which he just decided to forget about subsequently leaving me homeless.  I ended up moving in with friends and couch surfing. All of my belongings had been in storage for a year while this man drug me through the runaround of lies and emotional abuse. And I was still attached to him! I thought I was so strong but I couldn’t decipher between what was real or not. He would surface and send me letters telling me things were going to be ok and we were in a rough patch. That I needed to believe in him and us. He would go through my phone and scream at me if any texts at all were from men. It was terrible manipulation and I fell for it. Still believing that he wasn't married.

I am so traumatized I still get scared he is going to show up. In fact, he has. As I was trying to move on from him I confided in an old male friend of mine who wanted to help me get back on my feet. We were in Florida and my ex found me there and slipped notes under my hotel door and sent me texts saying he was there and to enjoy my time and that we should go grab a round of golf. Such bizarre behavior. Then a month later. He somehow called and got our airline flight information and hotel information from another trip and sent it to my friends ex-wife. Mind you, this had no effect because he and I are just friends and his ex-wife knows about me.

Anyway, he also sent letters to my mom with an obituary of my friend highlighting he and his ex-wife’s name. I guess to prove something. It's just crazy. Because he is 100% still married. I contacted his ex-fiancé whom he left the day of the wedding and told her. It was awful. She said it made sense because the relationship he and I had mimicked the 2 of theirs. Except, I found out his double life before he had the chance to drag me down that road.

I also found out he was engaged to another woman years earlier whom he left the day of the wedding as well and she unfortunately killed herself.

I'm just so appalled and I feel like I need to stand up for myself and these woman. He shouldn't be allowed to ruin peoples lives like this. I WOULD NEVER, EVER EVER have slept with him nor got into such a very serious relationship with him if I had known he was married. I feel disgusted and dirty and shamed. He hurt me and my mother whom have already been through enough. She almost died last year and he flew down to NC and sat with me in the ICU while I watched her on a ventilator. The amount of deceit he portrayed is evil.

I've looked for lawyers in NYC that would take my case for rape by fraud or for anything at all. I feel emotional distress is absolutely apparent. How can one press charges for physical abuse but with this story it is clear cut. This man abused me and others with fraudulent scams. But I just don't know what steps to take.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I feel like such a moron but I'm also trying to remain positive. During the time I was finding all this out I was severely depressed (still am) but I thought often of killing myself. I never would bc I love my mother too much but it's just crazy the amount of pain I still carry.

Now he has taken to social media to say that I demanded an apartment and money from him and when he said no I got angry and that that made me a prostitute for demanding that. I NEVER did that:( I think he just thinks of me as this damaged poor, little girl that can't touch him. I do hope this ramble wasn't too long and that I hear from you. I would really like some advice:(

Sincerely,

J