When You Find Out Your Ex Boyfriend Is MARRIED

So this comes under the heading of “are you kidding,” or “things that would probably upset me a lot more if I wasn’t completely distracted by other, more pressing matters.” 

            I’ve blogged a little bit about one of my exes, a neurotic mess I’ve dated on/off since December 2016.  He made an appearance after my mother’s death, pledging to support me, then blew off her funeral.  Subsequently, he’s popped up every couple of weeks to whine about how awful his life is with absolutely no regard for what I’m going through.  It is all about him.  100%.  He probably forgot my mother died, that’s how little he cares.

            I last spoke to him the week before Valentine’s Day, when I finally told him I couldn’t deal with his issues, because I have my own stuff to deal with.  As narcissistic supply was denied, I didn’t hear one word from him since, despite his assurances that he’d give me the best Valentine’s Day ever.  When the day came, he didn’t even bother to text.  No matter.  I was done.  I was already done before my mother’s death.

            I began worrying Saturday that he’d committed suicide or something.  After all, he’d threatened this on more than one occasion.  Not hearing from him for that length of time was out of character.  So I googled his name with his town, thinking that would pull up any news articles.  It didn’t.  It pulled up his apartment address with the names of the people living there, my ex and a thirty-nine year old woman with the same surname.

             My needy, neurotic ex- boyfriend is married.  It’s funny in the ironic way that Greek tragedies are amusing.  I would say only me, but since I’ve heard stories of this happening to other women, I know better.

            First of all, I know my audience is thinking there must have been signs.  Oh, yes.  I had never seen his apartment.  I’ve picked him up outside his building, but I’ve never been invited inside.  Did this worry me?  Yes.  It was a bone to pick. He claimed to be embarrassed because his apartment was messy.  Most recently, he said he had an ex living in the next building who would go ballistic, and he didn’t want to deal with the drama. 

            I figured the truth was he was on/off with the ex the same way he was on/off with me.  I never in a million years thought she was his wife.  

            This was not the first time I googled him.  I did it back at the beginning of our relationship.  I googled him again last October, after I caught him texting another woman.  I was actively looking for signs that he was living with someone and found nada.  

            Now, I can see this woman is always first in his list of known relatives on every search engine. I do recall her name being there previously, but I dismissed it.  After all, his brother’s married and  I don’t know his sister-in-law’s name.

            I belonged to his Meet-Up group and he had “friends” (more like acquaintances) that knew I was his girlfriend and appeared unaware he was married.  I don’t believe they were covering for him.  After all, one of our first fights occurred because I discovered, through them, that he’d been dating another woman from the group shortly before he started dating me.  Although he denied it, it sounded like he ghosted her for me.  I don’t like that behavior.  I believe a man that does that to someone else will do that to me, too.  Ha.  It was actually so much worse.

            Also, he was extremely needy to the point where I heard from him all day long into the night.  Although not seeing the apartment was a big red flag, other signs were not present.  I heard from him all the time.  Calls and texts never went unanswered, no matter when I made contact. 

            However, he did have a habit of blowing me off.

            After we’d been dating a few months, it seemed we never went out unless Meet-Up was somehow involved.  We never made plans for just the two of us.  It was always the two of us and whichever of the thousand plus people from his group who wanted to join us.  We usually did things by ourselves after, but it was something that struck me as off.  Another bone to pick.

            But, on one of those occasions, he spontaneously spent the weekend at my house because the weather was bad.  And he answered phone calls with me sitting right next to him able to hear the people on the other side, one of whom was his Dad.  He didn’t appear to be hiding anything. 

            After discovering all of this, I confronted him.  First he said the information on the internet is always wrong.  Then he demanded to see it.  I sent him screenshots of the site that listed her as living in the apartment, and of her first among his next of kin.  I told him I wanted to hear the truth. He replied “whether I’m married or not, the truth is you hate me because I treated you badly when I was having mental issues and you won’t forgive me.” Eye roll.

            No explanation of who this woman is.  No “oh, that’s my sister-in-law, don’t quite know how she got listed as living in my apartment.” 

            He asked what I wanted from him, and I replied “for you to admit the truth.”  He countered with “admit you hate me.” Another eye roll.

            Basically, what it boiled down to is, yes, he’s married.  Rereading our conversation, there is not one denial.  He never said, “I’m not married.” Instead, he nonstop deflected.  I finally ended our “talk” and blocked him.  I wanted answers I was never going to get.  I wanted to know how he pulled this off.  Does she work the night shift or something?  That’s the only way I can see him having the ability to be in such constant communication without tipping her off. And I also want to know how someone can lie like that, literally live a double life, and still be able to look in the mirror.

            One of his complaints is about people not liking him.  Our last conversation he whined about everyone hating him.  I really want to know how someone could reasonably expect others to like them when they’re deliberately deceptive and dishonest.  I guess I’ll never find out.

            I feel bad for his wife.  Given the emotionally draining level of need he displayed towards me, I cannot imagine what it must be like to be married to him and have to deal with that all the time. I would go insane.  Maybe she encouraged the whole Meet-Up thing as a way to get him out of the apartment and meet other people and stop driving her crazy.  Little does she know that he’s using it as a front to chase other women.  Unless maybe she does know and doesn't care.

            Just for the record, I would tell her, but her name is too common to locate an email address or phone number, and no doubt any mail I send to their apartment would be intercepted.  I think she deserves to know.  Because given what he put me through, I can just imagine she’s endured ten times worse, and the man isn’t even loyal to her.  Not worth it. We deserve better.

            I can’t help thinking back to the very beginning when I thought he was perfect.  Good job, smart, compassionate, had the same politics, and claimed to be a feminist.  Yeah, right.  Someone should tell him lying to women and treating them disrespectfully are not feminist qualities.

            I’m sad for the woman I was then, thinking she’d finally found the man of her dreams, only to have it fall apart in a matter of months.  And now knowing that every single thing this man told me a was a lie.  I’m actually not upset for myself.  I’ve long known there was no future there, although there was a momentary spark of hope that he could change when he vowed to step up when my mother died. I am sad for that woman I was, who thought she’d found the one, a diamond in the rough that turned out to be a lump of coal after all.

            Some people probably think I should be ashamed, but I’m not.  The shame is not mine.  It’s his.  That’s one of the things that the #me too movement has changed.  I don’t have to feel ashamed and guilty because someone lied to me.  One of the things that struck me this weekend is the shift in my thinking.  Before, when something like this happened, I would feel bad about myself for a long time.  Now, I don’t.  It’s on him.  I didn’t do anything wrong.  People should treat others with integrity and respect.  I’ve always been so open and honest with others I can’t imagine being any other way.  To me, having to live such a lie would be a constant, crushing burden.

            Not only do I not feel my usual quantity of shame and guilt, I feel sorry for him.  Who wants to live like that?  No wonder he has so much self-hatred, he’s choosing to add nothing but negativity to the universe.  And he has the gall to wonder why people don’t like him?  That’s funny.

            This sort of thing, however, is why we women are DONE. I know that not all men are like this, but it seems the ones who aren’t are few and far between.  This kind of behavior has been winked at far too long.  If I found this out a year ago, I would be so crushed, I’d have crawled under a rock and stayed there.  Now, I’m just like, whatever.  It’s not on me, it’s on him. His loss.

            My only regret is all the time I wasted supporting him, listening to him cry, and building him up only to find out he was lying to me the whole time.  And he was still feeling sorry for himself when I confronted him.  He was trying to paint himself as the victim.  I was being mean to him.  I won’t forgive him.  He acted like being married was just an insignificant detail. 

            The fairytales we were raised on got it wrong.  Not everyone finds the prince and lives happily ever after.  Maybe it’s time for a new version.  In mine, Cinderella chucks the prince, who’s kind of a creepy stalker anyway, and figures out how to live happily ever after on her own.

            I think that’s a better ending.