AIBU to think my friends fiancé is a married man?

[MysteryManchild]

NC for obvious reasons.

Friend has been with her ‘fiance’ for 4 years. I’ve met him 5 times despite me and her being best friends for 15 years. She has a 2yo DD who she loves whole heartedly. Her DD and my DS are best friends, we hang out at least 5 times a week doing various activities with the babies.

So her DF travels for work constantly. Literally comes home for 1 night every 3 weeks. Sometimes he is uncontainable when he is ‘busy’ or doing very secretive stuff, because get this ....he works for the government. Apparently he can’t tell work about their relationship because she’s originally from America (lived here since she was ten, though doesn’t have a British passport), so their relationship is secret from his work and even his parents (she’s never met them). Friend buys all this because she loves him so much, but she’s lost all her other friends and family because of this so I’m all she has. Her mum has told her that she’s a fool and can’t stand to see her DGD have such a non existent father.

So a few points:

• he is invisible on social media, has no account on anything.
• literally home 1 weeknight every three weeks or so, sometimes more.
• she’s never met friends or family
• he claims to be a spy or whatever. (Not technically a spy but works for the government and can’t claim their relationship??)
• says he gets no holiday and also works 7 days a week, every week.
• claims to work 24 hours straight sometimes and that’s why he sometimes goes off the radar. (Wouldn’t you like, die if you never got a day off and worked this long frequently)
• doesn’t really know anything about DD, she’s kinda on her own with her
• apparently can’t get any time off over Christmas so she’s spending it with me and my DS. (Surely no one works Christmas Day if they work for the government? Unless.. he is a spy?)

There’s probably more but I can’t think! Happy to answer any questions!

Also to note, she won’t listen to reason and has cut EVERYONE out who questioned it so I really can’t bring this up, we are all she has, seriously.

SO! AIBU to think he’s a lying shit who probably has a wife and kids????

Refer you all to 'Mrs Wilson', bbc1, Tuesday. No matter what he's told her, no matter what she believes, he's a liar and I feel very sorry for her and daughter. There are some abysmal men around. think you can do anything as there has to be a lot she simply doesnt want to see.

Never underestimate how taken in someone can be when they really want to believe something. Of course it's possible she knows and is simply playing along to save face but it is not outside the realm of the possible that she has been completely taken in.

He is almost certainly married or in another long term relationship, probably with other children. He's a total shit by the sounds of it. Whatever the truth of the matter is he's letting this woman struggle on by herself with no support from him physically or financially while he acts like Goodnight Sweetheart is a bloody documentary.

I don't know what you can actually 'do' to help her. I don't know whether searching out this mans real identity would help as she may not believe you (or be ready to believe it) and cut you out too and it sounds like she could use a friend. But letting this carry on isn't fair either. Especially not to any children involved.

What a bizarre and devastating situation.

Sorry, half post. She has obviously bought into his lies and constructed a life around them. Please be very careful about 'tracking him down' and / or having a confrontation. If you do uncover his identity please think carefully before destroying what she's convinced herself she has.

Letsbartlet great idea - but surely it’s brown bear lol

She knows but has decided to go along with his lies. The truth is stating her in the face but she won’t face it. There is nothing at all you can do.

So on what basis do people think the OP should hire a private investigator?The friend in this story obviously either believes it’s true or wants others to believe the story to the extent she’s prepared to cut off even her own family in order to continue living the lie on her own terms.

Other than nosiness this is really none of the OP’s business. Or do people think that after four years, a random friend, the only one she hasn’t cut off will hire a private investigator, present the friend with the truth and the friend will instantly come to her senses? Get real.

Is this a follow up to that Boswell thread that people have been complaining about by any chance? (I didn’t read the other threads but see they were about to run out of space so presumably that OP needs something else to fill her time now?)

Just had a thought .... could you check the electoral roll?

I once found out that a friends husband who worked away abroad had a 2nd family (she dindnt know or claimed not to know). It was a random comment made to me by someone at a hotel on the other side of the world. Very hard to keep anything a secret

He's married for certain.

The 'having to keep her secret from work' is the giveaway. Even if he worked for mi5, mi5 or gchq, they INSIST on knowing everything. He would have dv clearance and they interview you and your family for that. For hours. They will know more about you than you realise with that level of clearance. And any changes in circumstances must be told to the mod. Even at sc level (below dv), I have to tell them if I've moved house or anything. Come to think of it, I think I haven't updated my address.

There are obviously people who work for those agencies. And yes they have to be secretive, they can't discuss work matters for obvious reasons. But they can tell close family where they work. Friends are more of a grey area, but family is fine.

Plus to be honest I can't think of any job where you would be definitely away for 3 weeks and back for one day in any of the agencies. You have jobs where you go away for periods of time, but not for 3 weeks everytime. That's too specific.

He is lying and has another family.

Hire a pi!!

I've worked for the Home Office and had to provide details of my partner, family history and any political views etc. References were interviewed. I've also been interviewed for a friend's application who has security clearance. I was asked very personal information on them and their family, including extended family. If you have that level of clearance, there is no hiding who you are affiliated to.

Hire a PI ... this guy is married and she deserves the truth!!

Your friend may be happy going along with the story. If she has low self esteem, it may be that she has convinced herself that this is all she is worth but it may be that she sees herself as onto a good thing. Apart from a 24 hour period every three weeks or so, she gets to do what she wants, when she wants. She gets to raise her daughter as she wants. Meanwhile, she doesn't have to deal with anyone trying to set her up or explain why she's single as she isn't. Yes, being part of a happy relationship is better than that but maybe experience has taught her not all relationships are happy, not all men are good fathers and so she is living a life which suits her.
No, I'm not trying to convince myself of anything. DH is not only home every evening and weekend but regularly works from home too.

This is so strange. You could literally be talking about someone I know except she doesn’t have children with him just yet but is expecting.
The person I know left her husband for this man, when I asked what he does for a job I get told “we don’t ask what he does” 😐 he has two children by 2 other women one whom lives 4 hours drive away with the guys boss and his wife and the other lives with his mum. This mans family know nothing about my friend or that she’s expecting his baby.
It’s the strangest set up ever!

But what is the friend really going to lose here? Genuine question.

She has a fuck buddy who she sees once every few weeks or so for one night only. A sort of friends with benefits arrangement. She happened to have a child with him a couple of years ago but he doesn’t live with her, doesn’t pay her rent, from what it sounds she doesn’t give him money, so this isn’t really going to shatter anything for her is it?

This isn’t like some kind of arrangement where a woman has literally been a part of a double life, living with what she perceives to be her partner and family and that illusion is going to come crashing down. This is a casual arrangement at best, even if she is telling people he’s her fiancé. Once every few weeks does not a long-term relationship make. So even if on the off chance the friend didn’t believe his story and was just going along with it, she’s not really going to lose anything if the truth comes out is she?

whenwillthetwitchstrike and we don’t even really know that she sees this man every few weeks do we? After all, the OP says she’s only met him about five times in a four year period, so it’s entirely possible that she’s knowingly an OW with a casual arrangement with this bloke when he happens into the area, and that selling him as her fiancé keeps people from suggesting she should e.g. get a babysitter and start thinking about dating and so on.

I can actually see that that could be a good way of staying away from others setting you up in potential relationship situations. And maybe the whole spy thing was a bit of a step too far on her part.

Definitely Married. I'm very low down the military-civ service totem pole and my security clearance was pretty thorough. As was DPs when he worked stunningly normal jobs at the Revenue & the Treasury. It checks your family. It checks Exs within a certain amount of time/seriousness, it checks your finances to see how bribe-vulnerable you are. It definitely wants to know if you're Irish. You get in deeper shit for lying than you do for having a mistress. It'll be nothing they haven't seen before. A friend with an extended family member higher up in Military Intelligence was checked up on as part of family members clearance - they look quite far out.

Plus, even if he was a v secret squirrel and has hidden her so well for legit reasons, unless you're the SAS, stranded in the jungle until you work out how to get home, you get time off and a holiday/ToiL/hrs per week allowance, just like everyone else. Bit harder to get time off from a wife & kids though.

Definitely Mrs Wilson next movie night. She's dating a conman at worst, Walter Mitty at best.

Because it states as much in the OP. The reason he’s apparently not allowed to disclose her to his work is because she’s an American without british citizenship. Ergo, she’s an illegal immigrant

Yet you’re calling OP’s friend stupid?

He might be married; she might be in a FWB situation, he might have an inflated sense of his own importance.

And he might be single. If she only sees him 1 night a month, she ought to get checked out at the STI clinic - he is probably sleeping with more than one woman. That's the only thing that would concern me in this.

She's obviously happy with his work situation, and the child maintenance situation, but she doesn't know what else he's doing. and with whom.

He's married and cheating. I don't know why everyone is still posting about security checks because that will be bollocks like not ever having a day off or a holiday in years. Not one person knows about OPs friend or his DC and there's only one photo of him. Whether she believes him or not, I don't know why she's putting up with this shit

The poor child stuck in the middle of it. I feel a bit sorry for the friend but she has choices, the child doesn't.

It’s probably not doing the child enormous immediate harm TBF. She has a devoted single mum and there’s some chap called “Dad” who turns up occasionally.

If the friend sorts it all out soon (ditches him) there probably won’t be any real lasting harm to the child, (but if she lets it ride for another five or ten years, that’s a different story).

We were chatting about this same sort of scenario at the weekend. A friend had read us a text from someone she had just met.

We all shouted “married” at the same time.

I think it is like estate agents descriptions.

There are certain phrases that are flowery ways of saying something else.
It is just a matter of seeing through the phrasing.

These people aren’t brainy or smart enough to come up with original reasons of why they can’t see you for a fortnight. It is a well known scenario to tell the gf that they work for or are going to a secret government site so will be uncontactable.

It's hard to believe this is true. But if it is, I feel so sorry for this woman. I've had a man lie to me before about being married and you do ignore the signs sometimes because you just don't want it to be the case.

Thing is even if she believed all this it’s all very convenient for her isn’t it?

She sees him every few weeks. Doesn’t have to have a relationship with his family, he doesn’t have a relationship with his child as he sees her maybe once a month for a night and that’s all.

As I said upthread, if she was actually living with him then you could feel sorry for her if it came out that he was married, but really, no woman in their right mind actually gets engaged to a man who is uncontactable for 20 out of 21 days and who they see only once a month. I mean there’s being conned by a married man and then there’s having your cake and eating it which is what the friend in this scenario here is doing.

She’s entirely independent, renting her own house, bringing up her child as she sees fit, and occasionally has a quick shag when her man is in town. The only losers here are the man’s family if he has one. But he could be single for all anyone knows. The friend may be entirely aware of his situation but may have family who would judge someone for being in a FWB situation so she’s concocted this story.

This isn’t your run of the mill scam. Nobody actually has anything to gain from this, least of all the man. I mean this woman is so casual to him that it just doesn’t even bear a thought that he would be the one making up all this security stuff.