To be hooked and aghast at this story

I know what has been said so far on this thread and I've watched countless programmes about similar situations. People just ignore what is right in front of them. How can she let go of all her money?

@Itsmetheflamingo ”he is a fraudster in the sense that he was likely taking clients money, wasn’t paying taxes, wasn’t paying bills getting into loads of debt etc…and finally has a warrant out for arrest for “white collar crime”
he is a desperate bloke who was willing to do whatever to get more and more cash with no fear or understanding of consequences and no ability to forward plan.”

This is exactly the profile of the person who left my acquaintance penniless and owing tens of thousands. And he’d done similar, less successfully before.

This is such a bizarre response when you don’t know anything about it 😭 are you in the habit of calling victims of domestic abuse stupid?

Stupidity needs calling out. People need to stop ignoring red flags. I'm not familiar with the story but I don't agree with the 'be kind' shit where we just pander to idiots.

Yep 100%. I think he’s just a life long criminal, and she married him. He seems to have had constant addiction issues, is emotionally abusive and behaves like a narcissist.

he is a fraudster in the sense that he was likely taking clients money, wasn’t paying taxes, wasn’t paying bills getting into loads of debt etc…and finally has a warrant out for arrest for “white collar crime”
he is a desperate bloke who was willing to do whatever to get more and more cash with no fear or understanding of consequences and no ability to forward plan.

i don’t think he’s even that unusual tbh.

* It was interesting she said at one point she didn’t tell her family and friends all the bad stuff because she knew they were red flags she was choosing to ignore*

Totally agree with this. She’s an attractive intelligent woman with a good job so she was a good catch anyway. There’s nothing to suggest he set out to scam her. He just struck me as someone who has wild plans which never quite came off although she said his business in tge HS was valued at 2 million although unclear if she was just told that or had evidence to support it. I think he was just your common or garden abuser.

The big red flag she ignored was fact his mother was sent to prison for stealing from her employer and she said it was to pay off her son’s gambling debts. The fact he was a potential gambler was a huge red flag which she ignored and then seemed to walk blindly into a situation which made her very vulnerable. Giving up a good job to travel to the US on a spouse Visa where she can’t work and getting pregnant almost immediately. It wasn’t a situation interesting that she said at one point she didn’t tell her famiky and friends any if tge ‘bad stuff’ because she knew it was bad and we’re obviously red flags.

I also couldn’t understand why she thought his family should help her? Has she not heard of the term blood is thicker than water? His mother had served a prison sentence due to her son so her loyalty was clearly to him. They’d also maintained his lies and when they came out bad mouthed the mother of his secret children yet thought they would help her although unclear what they actually could have done.

I do however understand why after the lies all came out she felt she was stuck. It seemed to be a case of sunk cost fallacy and thinking somehow it would get better. She had no money and could’t leave the US with her children although I did wonder about the validity of that once he lost his Visa.

She was all the things I said, but she was also quite shallow, in the sense of making sure we all knew when he whisked her away for a surprise weekend in a five star hotel, and when they were decorating their gorgeous countryside home which could have come from Homes and Gardens. (And none of which turned out to have been paid for). She was someone who hated being alone and she met this guy within a couple of weeks of her previous relationship ending. It was quite the whirlwind romance, but he was often busy and spent a lot of time “out of the country”. He convinced her to treat her elderly mother very poorly and damaged her relationship with her adult daughter. He just wasn’t someone I would have been quite so keen to throw myself at.

@EveryKneeShallBow When I met her she had a very “big job” in a public service and was a great person, really smart, independent, very highly respected. When it all came out I’m afraid I wasn’t really surprised and I judged her very hard

You say your colleague was ‘really smart, independent, very highly respected’, can you say why you weren’t surprised? Where did you see the cracks?

She was abused in a 5 year marriage. It wasn’t a “scam”

it was coercive control. I don’t believe that people on Mumsnet would blame an abused women for being in a coercively controlling, financially and emotionally abusive marriage?

It's not victim blaming to apportion responsibility properly. Some people are just begging to be "scammed"

I don't think it's the same as a romance scam either. I think he genuinely wanted a girlfriend and then when he matched with someone with a good job and her own flat he realised he could have the partner and her money.

I actually don’t think it was right to say she was scammed or conned.

Financially abused, yes, but we’re talking about transferring inheritance within a marriage to pay for what she thought were living expenses (and maybe were- she didn’t work and had no knowledge as to how their very expensive life style was funded)

sort of normal marital finances really, apart from he consistently lost everything

I was socially acquainted with a woman who was scammed in this way. When I met her she had a very “big job” in a public service and was a great person, really smart, independent, very highly respected. When it all came out I’m afraid I wasn’t really surprised and I judged her very hard. She definitely turned a blind eye to some flags that I wouldn’t have. So yes it can happen to the best of us, but really there’s none so blind as those that won’t look.

She was a victim of abuse. I don’t understand the point in claiming she shouldn’t have done xyz. She clearly was overwhelmed, confused and dependant on him.

its not as though it isn’t completely normal for a abused woman to have children with their abuser

I knew it was going to be about this before I even opened the thread!

Someone asked how she could keep having unprotected sex with him after baby 1 and she said, paraphrased, "I was trying to make my marriage work and that's part of marriage". No, it's not when you're risking another pregnancy in this already shit situation!

I’ve been watching . I’m disappointed in some of the comments . It’s awful what happened but she’s very irritating.

Tbh I can’t blame people for pointing outs she’s stupid… I’m only halfway through but he’s already been outed as having a secret family that he swore he didn’t have, lost her entire inheritance and proceeds of her flat sale, hidden loads of debts… and she’s STILL saying things like “so we carried on having marriage counselling, then we had a really nice family day out…” There’s just no helping some people

There’s lots of documentaries and tv programmes about romance cons and I think that most people consider the conned person foolish regardless of whether they are male or female. The assumption is that only stupid people would fall for a scam and most people think that they are smarter than average.

I think that it’s far from unusual for another woman to think that she’s special to him so wouldn’t be conned too. Successful con artists are charming and have a good radar for the gullible.

You don’t earn money from clicks on insta, only partnerships etc

she Has said on TikTok she’s raising money to support herself through TikTok, and has a go fund me for a divorce lawyer

I am halfway through this myself. I can well believe it all. I do think moving to California was very naive.

Why is her discretion admirable? I think it's stupid.

And how many MNers rushed to her account to have a look and rack up clicks?

(Not me, I can't be arsed with InstaDrama)