I’m 99% sure my friend’s boyfriend isn’t what he seems

[Maybeknights]

Ok this is a bit of a saga but I’m constantly worrying about her and don’t know what to do. Here goes…

My friend met someone online a few years ago and they ‘dated’ for about 6 months. By dated I mean he popped over to her flat whenever he could. They never actually went out together and nobody met him. He is apparently in the army and everything he does is very secretive, he can’t take any time off so those stolen moments were all they could have. After a while my friend found this too difficult so threatened to break it off and he told her he would leave the army. He wrote his resignation letter and showed her before submitting it. Next thing she bumped into him in public at a busy tube station and went to kiss him and he pushed her away and acted like he didn’t know her… when she text to ask wtf he said his feeling had changed and that was that!!! She was REALLY sad. He never contacted her again.

Fast forward 3-4 years and she says that she’s dating him again. After 4 weeks they have said they love one another and are talking about buying a house together. My friend owns her own flat but is currently job searching after bing made redundant earlier this year. I asked her how he explained what happened last time and she was in total denial - said it never happened. He was in a bad place, ptsd, etc and wasn’t in the right space for a relationship so it ended. Now he’s all good and they’ve picked up like they were never apart…

I asked what had changed in terms of his availability and she said nothing has, but now since being alone in covid lockdown she’s willing to put up with it rather than not be with him. He’s still coming over at night a few times a week and they still haven’t been anywhere together and nobody had met him still! He has said he’ll go to her parents for Christmas Day but I 100% guarantee some kind of emergency will mean that he can’t!

On to the red flags:

• The regiment he says he’s part of isn’t based where he says he’s based.
• the stories he tells about what he’s been doing are totally out of line with his supposed army job. The things he’s supposedly doing are like scenes from James Bond movies and would be the responsibility of anti terror police, MI5, interpol etc. so far fetched
• I asked if she’d be going to any Christmas balls or dinners on his arm and she said there wouldn’t be any. My friends with army husbands are going to lots of different functions
• she said his family live up north and he’s not close to them but he has a sister who lives nearby with her two kids who he sees a lot (I’m sure this is cover for his wife and kids incase my friend sees him out with them!)
• he can’t book any time off work
• he smothers her with compliments and platitudes and I think he’s just making her drop her guard completely so she’ll do anything he says
• he won’t have his photo taken. She doesn’t have a single photo of him apart from the one from his original dating profile

I’m really worried if I ask too many questions or act too suspicious she’ll start keeping secrets from me but I feel like I need to keep a close eye on this! What would you do? I also think she’s so deeply in love that if I ever speak against him it would deeply threaten our friendship. When she told me about being back with him she was almost manic. It didn’t sound like her speaking at all. It had only be 4 weeks and she started talking about weddings and things.

During lockdown she was suffering from really bad anxiety and depression and was incredibly lonely. I really fear he could break her heart and push her over the edge. She’s even said now that she doesn’t want to look for a new job or will look for something exclusively from home so she can be around when he’s available…

Am I just be super suspicious? And what would you do?!

Is he on any social media with your friend? Even if not, could you get some kind of charity thing going that connects to raising money, morale etc for troops and tell him to get his army friends involved?

I'm going to go against the grain and say to leave it alone and help pick up the pieces when it all comes crashing down. My reasoning for this is that, presuming she's neurotypical without cognitive difficulties, she knows damn well that his stories are as full of holes as your average Swiss cheese. She's choosing to ignore it. I reckon if you actually try to convince her, she'll push you away.

I think your suspicions are spot on OP. You’ve reminded me of Mary Turner Thomson’s biographies about a con artist who turned her life upside down. He claimed to be in the security services to cover up some very dark secrets. The way he manipulated her was frightening. From all accounts he’s still up to no good.

www.scotsman.com/news/people/i-married-a-psychopath-edinburgh-mum-discovered-her-caring-husband-was-serial-bigamist-and-conman-3172615

I would spell it out to her.

She's probably asleep! Stop troll hunting.

OP it's terrifying how common this is. I would be following his car - have you been allowed to meet him at all? Do you know when he's round at her place?

Yikes!!! Red flags all the way. I would hold tight for a bit and in the mean time as others have mentioned I would dig, search and spy on him until I have enough information to give it to my friend. If my friends still blind enough to ignore all of this, I would just let her know that I have a shoulder she can cry on and some wine when she needs it.

I would recommend treading carefully with the Walter Mittys. My friend's sister was engaged to an 'army officer' who was forever being called away on Her Majesty's Service.
When things started to unravel, he decided the way to 'prove' his credentials was by staging attempts on his life. It was a great relief to all when he was finally disappeared.

It sounds like he is married

He sounds like a total fantasist. A modern day Walter Mitty. I hope you get to meet him as you can bamboozle him with your knowledge of army protocol and watch him squirm. Your friend is in such deep denial that she won’t listen to anything you have to say at this point. She will have to work it out for herself.

--look on an ancestry website to try to locate his birth records, also check for any marriage etc records

Start with this .

Op, how about putting a tracker on his car?? So you can see where he goes? This will only work if you know when he is coming round to her flat & what car he drives obviously…….even as I typed this I thought how bizarre & far fetched it all sounds. Short of employing a private detective & getting him/her to find everything out about him you could stalk him?!

Obviously he is married with kids.

Ok well right off the bat as an army brat from a military family for starters this

He is apparently in the army and everything he does is very secretive, he can’t take any time off

Is bullshit!

1 the ones that do have to be secretive aren't allowed to say so!

2 of course he gets annual leave everyone does!

and he told her he would leave the army. He wrote his resignation letter and showed her before submitting it.

Also bullshit! Not how it works AT ALL!

I'm betting

1 like fuck is he in the army!

2 he's married!

The regiment he says he’s part of isn’t based where he says he’s based

Yea not surprised this proves he's lying through his teeth!

I asked if she’d be going to any Christmas balls or dinners on his arm and she said there wouldn’t be any.

Yea there's usually loads of events this time of year casual and formal

I’m sure this is cover for his wife and kids incase my friend sees him out with them!

I agree

The talk of buying a house worries me too could be a con man too

Dodgy as fuck! Feel free to tell her other people who know how the army works say this is all utter bollocks!

It's a crime to impersonate a soldier for financial gain btw which it sounds like he may possibly be doing or could be seen to be doing.

In your shoes I'd be speaking to army and police saying you're concerned that is what may be happening here he may already be known to them for this reason.

I can see him having his eye on her redundancy money?

Are you in touch with her family/parents? If so I'd be speaking to them too. Either you or them can do a clare's law check too

Surely you know not every soldier can be home for Christmas though?

Yes some provide cover over holiday periods via duty positions but they don't get NO annual leave ever!

Most of the time it's office hours they work!

My exes role was was a high risk one he still mostly worked office hours aside from operational necessity, deployments and duties.

Cons like this are sadly fairly common.

If he is real and you are able to at least see his car you can report the reg number to police too and they'll be able to figure out who he really is from that.

They won't necessarily be able to tell you but if he is dodgy they will get in touch with him and that will prob be enough to scare him off if he's remotely dodgy

Most poor con artists (as this one is if he is a con artist) don't have the guts to push on if suspected

One side of my family military...other side there's a branch of pretty successful con artists! They've been caught on occasion but they generally know not to over egg the pudding which this guy seems too stupid to know better! The key to a good con is LOW key and plausible!

You can report it to the police. Romance frauds are being taken more seriously.
www.surrey.police.uk/romancefraud

I’d risk losing a friend if I thought they were in danger of losing money or being scammed.

All I can say is if you do go digging, be careful. If he is lying then he’s clearly unhinged and there’s no knowing what he might do if he was to find out his lies may be exposed.

If you do follow him, make sure you take someone with you, preferably another man. I understand wanting to get to the bottom of it but please be safe. X

You could sit down with her over Christmas (he'll be with his wife and family) and watch True Lies, and laugh at the bit where Arnie makes the Walt type piss himself.

@GrumpyTerrier

I have a friend who's husband has all these stories where he has been police, army, special forces and all sorts and she believes it all, while her friends realise it doesn't make sense that he has done all these things. But we haven't said anything because it would just alienate her. He is already quite controlling and she gets so much of her self esteem/security/identity from being married (to someone anyone). We just hope for the best really.

There is such thing as military police you know? Many of them are former special forces.

You don't sound like a very good friend at all!!!!

Definitely follow him home. Take a picture of him entering the house. Get the address and look it up.

Go back another time and knock on the door. School holidays are soon so kids would be home. Just pretend you're coming to pick up the hoover you bought from marketplace.
Have your phone video on to record it discreetly.

Take the evidence to your friend.
The longer it goes on, the more she'll be heartbroken and the more likely he could con her out of money.

I don't think you will gain anything with speaking to your friend again but I totally support and agree that you should do your own digging on this guy.

He is leading her on and needs to be outed. Hopefully to his ''sister''.

We had a similar situation with a friend 15 years ago. The guy she was seeing had a cover story for his wife and kids too, that they were the widow and children of his late best friend.

Another friend and I sat our friend down to discuss the situation but she did not want to hear it from us and threatened to end our friendship. We made the decision to be there to pick up the pieces when it inevitably went wrong. Which it did and we did.

He got caught by being in a feature (with doting wife and children) in a nation running magazine which our friend subscribed to.

It was an awful time, we were so worried but she wouldn't listen to us and we didn't want her to isolate herself.

Oh blimey. It’s worth speaking to the police incase he is known to them.

Your friend is obviously not capable of keeping herself safe right now so anything you can do to help her will eventually be appreciated.

@TooWicked

Honestly, if this was a very good friend of mine and I was as worried as you seem to be, I'd stake out her flat and follow him home to where he lives with his wife and children one evening after he's visited and then take it from there.

For someone I really cared about, I'd probably do the same tbh.

You've already had great advice here, but It's reminded me this happened to me once, although I wasn't taken in by it and didn't date her (yes, her) for long.

She was trying to 'wow' me and she'd been to Afghanistan and had the PTSD from it, (kept me awake all night comforting her one bonfire night because the fireworks triggered that)-I knew it was BS, but what else could I do? I was learning she was rather volatile and I was afraid of saying 'We both know you're talking crap' because I didn't want an argument. The Afghanistan dates didn't add up, and she was also very overweight, nowhere near army fitness level due to this and had a multitude of medical conditions- those would not have put me off!

But the lies did.

I found out for certain when she took me to a TA awards event and expected me to not know it wasn't the actual army.

She was also a 'paramedic' (she volunteered for an private ambulance service, which I found commendable in itself-why the need to lie)?

Yeh.
Not just blokes who do this

I found out for certain when she took me to a TA awards event and expected me to not know it wasn't the actual army

I'm very sorry that this happened to you, but I have to admit that this part of your story did make me laugh