Am I being unreasonable to want to hold this woman to account?

[VickyPollard25]

I met a man on Bumble. He pushed me into a relationship pretty quickly (a matter of weeks and he was wanting to get married). I was mid-divorce and would usually be stronger and have my wits about me, but was quite vulnerable with all that was going on. He ambushed me into meeting his kids - ie. Date at his place and suddenly they turn up unexpectedly to me (they don’t live at his home as they are older - he is much older than me). So many red flags and I felt unsettled. Out of the blue he goes to Hong Kong for work. He messages me a strange message saying he suddenly feels very protective of me. It was odd. He gets back and tells me he caught up with an “old friend” who says she knows me and warned him about me. Apparently she had a lot of terrible things to say, hence him feeling protective. 🙄 He tells me she says I am from the wrong side of the tracks (my parents are dirt poor, I went to the wrong schools and a bad university, etc), I have no friends and my job is a joke. This is a summary - she also commented on things based on personal info you could find out if you internet stalked me. I was actually quite devastated to hear all this. I pushed him for this friend’s details and it turns out that it wasn’t an old friend of his, but another woman he had met online and had been dating. She had never met me and I’d never heard of her. He told me he told her that he couldn’t see her anymore because he had met someone and gave her all my details. They looked up my Linked In profile together… Absolutely appalling behaviour by him.

I’m reeling from the idea that someone would say these things about someone she’s never met. I’ve skimmed over it but they are really hurtful nasty things that she’s invented. I’ve never come across anything like it. He defended her, saying she had was in her 40s and had never had a serious relationship and after several miscarriages was looking for a sperm donor and he had offered.

This was drip fed to me after a lot of lying. Then it turns out this woman has called my work (an international bank) to reach out to former colleagues of hers to pass on terrible things about me.

Clearly he has stirred up a lot of trouble and deserved to be binned. But what about her? Is this crazy behaviour or what? I feel I can’t just leave it.

Am I being unreasonable to want to hold her to account for calling my work and making about blatant lies about me?

In your shoes I would raise concerns with social services/NSPCC & say what exactly you felt was inappropriate about the relationship with his children.
his poor wife has been destroyed by this man and he’s even deprived her of her children! What a vile man!!

Thank you @T1Dmama, that’s a really kind thing to say. Xx

His name isn't Paul is it?

I dated a guy quite a while back and he did pretty much the same thing, but there was actually no other woman, it was just him making stuff up.

No. I’d love to disclose his name but know that’s not a good idea. Scary to think there are others. They must learn from the same playbook.

I would also question your work as they should not just be giving information out about you without following their own privacy policies.

Yes, this could go very badly for him. What I think happened was she called an old friend to further her vendetta against me and gather information. A long shot, as in a huge multinational company there is almost no chance he would know someone in the UK in a different department. He would never had heard of me and probably had to look me up on the system. The whole exercise, if it’s even true, would have given him nothing of interest to her.

I called him after speaking to my manager, but got his PA. I left my name and asked for him to return my call. He never did. I didn’t say what it was about. He should have returned a business related call (which is what he would have to assume if he had not heard my name before), which made me think he knows this woman and doesn’t want to deal with the fall out.

I think it’s best to just put it all firmly behind me. I don’t need these bizarre people trying to hurt me and damage my career.

I also had the thought that most men don’t especially care about a woman’s career (unless after money) so why this woman thought rubbishing my career would benefit her any way is beyond me. The narc I was dating, however, did suggest I don’t work so I’d be reliant on him (this is literally after a month or so). So much crazy to this it could be anything.

It's all very 'Baby Reindeer'

But it’s not 😂

Leave the building. Now. Block. Ignore. Move on.