Has anyone else found out their life was a sham?

[DeeRose]

I was just wondering if anyone else had ever completely and utterly believed someone truly, deeply loved them only to find out it wasn't true.

I don't mean those relationships where you have been together a while and sex dwindles, and there's a rough patch and one of you falls out of love and I don't mean that it was with someone who was a player or a psycho or an arsehole or someone with a rep for being a dick.

I mean in a relationship that was close, supportive, loving, affectionate and romantic with a person of otherwise extremely good character.

I don't mean that you just believed they loved you. I mean someone making you believe that they loved you SO much it would be unimaginable that they didn't. Someone who convinces you to believe without a shadow of doubt that you were their entire life, the best thing in their world and that they would have your back to the end of your days regardless of what life threw at you.

This happened to me, and I am (a year on) still struggling deeply with it.

His change of love didn't come about over nothing. It came about when I got ill, and he left me for being ill. Too stressful for him.

I got better, and am over my illness, but I am haunted by this.

We can't know about his feelings for you, about how deep his love was or is. Maybe he's too fragile to cope with a sick partner.

If you felt well loved, maybe just leave it at that. You felt well loved, and it crumbled under pressure.

My ex left because he cheated and I had PND, it was awful, I took an overdose and left me that night with our toddler.

He is a coward and he thinks only about himself, 5 years later, I'm glad he's gone, he left me with my DD, so I regret nothing.

"Do you think this means that person did not ever love you that deeply then?"

It's not easy to say. However, I think some people confuse doing love 'at you' rather than loving 'you' the person. That kind of person can end up being rather all or nothing and it's possible that your illness was coincidental rather than a cause of anything.

'Doing love at you' is exactly what my ex did, and he crumbled under pressure.

He doesn't know any other way. Quite honestly and literally, that's all he's capable of.

It's ultimately rather hollow feeling.

Some people just can't be arsed with illness whether physical or mental.
I learnt that myself when I was ill when I was younger, I wasn't in a relationship at the time. For most of my friends it didn't make any difference at all, but for one it was a massive problem. So she got dumped. Inevitably, as soon as I was well again & successful professionally she wanted to pick up where we (she) left off.

Within relationships, some people are just too selfish or self-absorbed to look after someone else. And some people, as long as the normal ups and downs of life fall within a certain frame, are ok, but if it exceeds a certain level of difficulty, they bail.

Of course it's quite possible that he'd been falling out of love for a while and the illness was merely the catalyst rather than the cause. There's no accounting for the vagaries of the human heart.

No one is perfect and everyone has their achilles heel/s. Someone might cope admirably with losing a leg but crack when their mum dies. Someone else might cope well with an ill spouse but go to bits when their child leaves home.

Maybe this was his achilles heel. Maybe it was a sham.

Firstly, can I say I'm so sorry to hear that you've been hurt like this and I think the only thing that makes it better is time.

Secondly, I'd like to say that yes, this happened to me. I was with someone for seven years and was lead to believe that I was his world but because I wouldn't agree to live together (he had no job, no car, no house and had been convicted of drink-driving and had cut off communication with all his family bar his father). I had reservations as to why a 30-something man in this situation would be so keen to move in with me. He moved from rented room to rented room and blamed everyone for his misfortune.

It turned out that he had another 'me' as a back-up in another country. He'd been seeing her for years, bought her the same perfume he bought me and told her to cut and dye her hair like mine. When we split, he had moved into her house within 4 days. I caught him out once in a public (Facebook) flirtation with her late one night and that gave some clue as to the true (intimate) nature of their relationship.

It's devastating but there are some truly duplicitous people out there whose only aim in life is to gain whatever advantages and assets they can at whatever expense.

county not country.

I have been there. Together for 37 years (married for 31 of those years) and discovered that he had been having an affair for at least 10 of those years! Had been looking forward to our forthcoming retirement and future together after a lifetime of hard work and sacrifices etc and instead spent most of a year filing for divorce and trying to pick myself up again. In spite of strong denials about the affair, XH and OW are now married and she is living my dreams.

Yes, my life has been a gigantic sham.

Dee I can totally understand. It happened to me, not with my dh but my df.

All I will say is that it made my mother question their 35yr marriage and us children questionning our childhood memories and the person we knew. These were very shocking discoveries made when my df was dying.

You will get over it but it will take time. It's a grieving process, you're grieving both what you did have and what you thought you had.

Allow yourself to grieve and feel your emotions, its a natural process and can't be rushed.

Please know though that my dm and us children (albeit adult) are ok about things now. Healing your heart just takes time.

In respect of you being abandoned when ill, I think some people genuinely struggle to cope. It seems ironic now but my dm always said if she got ill my df would have left her (years before any illness or discovery), he simply couldn't deal with it...even when we were young and had mild ailments. Yet he was the one who ended up terminally ill with my dm doing everything for him.

Yes. In my case, this was many years ago and we'd been seeing each other for a few months. I then nursed him through a serious illness, gave up just about everything in my life to 'see him through'. He promised marriage and a beautiful future, along with undying devotion, then when he was healthy again, he dropped me like a hot potato with no other explanation than that he didn't want to be with me anymore, he needed to 'move on'. I ended up in counseling for about 2 years and emerged a much stronger and savvier woman!

In my BFF's case, as a partner and then newlywed husband, her X was fantastic. He was my (now) DH's best mate and she and I pictured a rosy future as 2 best friends married to 2 best friends. Oh the trips, the dinners, the fun we were sure we would have as the 4 of us grew old together. Then she made the unforgivable mistake of becoming pregnant (after she had been told by 3 specialists that she would never have a child). He was furious and walked out when she refused to abort. He was happy to play at happy families as long as he didn't have to have any real responsibilities.

"Within relationships, some people are just too selfish or self-absorbed to look after someone else. And some people, as long as the normal ups and downs of life fall within a certain frame, are ok, but if it exceeds a certain level of difficulty, they bail."

Yes, this is spot on.