My boyfriend was catfished by a woman who is still obsessed with him
It took my boyfriend a few months to open up and tell me what happened with his previous relationship. I wasn't pressurising him, I knew whatever it was had been traumatic, and I told him I was there if/when he ever wanted to talk about it. It was one evening, we were laid in bed talking for hours like new couples do in those early days of a relationship, and he said he was ready to talk about it. After he finished telling me and I was laid there with tears streaming down my face, he had a PTSD episode and all I could do was hold him in my arms, stroke his head and let him breathe through it.
What he told me, was that about 6 months prior he was in a relationship with an older woman with children. I'll call her Laura. Laura was introduced to him by a mutual friend, who I'll call Rachel. Rachel gave him her contact details and said she thought they'd get along. He messaged her and they struck up a friendship and connection. Laura struggled massively with social anxiety so she wasn't ready to meet him in person yet, so their budding relationship centered around messages and phone calls. Eventually she agreed to meet at a café so he booked time off work and rocked up at the meeting point to wait for her. Eventually he got a phone call telling him she'd tried but she just couldn't bring herself to show up.
My boyfriend being the kind-hearted and empathetic person he is with a complicated past and history of severe depression, was very understanding and took things at her pace. He also wanted to try and help her deal with her own depression and anxiety wherever he could. They became closer and developed a proper relationship. At some point, Laura had a depressive episode and she rang him telling him she'd taken an overdose. She was taken to hospital and then transferred to a psychiatric clinic to stay for therapy and recovery. He supported her throughout all of this, even communicating with her children to see what he could do to help.
Whilst she was in the clinic they spoke on the phone at least once a day and discussed what would happen when she was able to leave. He offered to come and collect her from the clinic and later on said she was welcome to stay with him at his sisters whilst he was house sitting, if she needed a change of scenery and some peace and quiet. During her stay he communicated with both the police and her therapist to better understand what had happened and how he could help her going forward. When it came to her being able to leave the facility, he booked more time off work so he could be there to pick her up if she needed. He coordinated with her son who said he would be going to pick her up and would my boyfriend like to come with him. Of course my boyfriend said yes, and despite it being late at night when the call happened - agreed to wait up until he could collect him and head to the clinic.
My boyfriend waited and waited, and eventually he got a message to say that he was by the bridge outside his apartment. So he headed out there looking for a car, only what he found or rather who he found under the bridge - was Rachel. The friend who had hooked him up with Sarah. He was very confused, and Rachel then confessed that it was her the whole time. She was Sarah. Her friends were the son and other authority figures. It was all one massive lie. He was in utter shock and she had no explanation as to why she did it, only that she was sorry.
It turns out Rachel was in love with my boyfriend. And because he wasn't interested in her, this was a plan to.. get him to? I have no idea.
So despite doing what she did, and my boyfriend telling her to never speak to him again, she continued to beg and plead to see or speak to him. At this point in the story we (myself and my boyfriend) had become friends and began the very early stages of a relationship. I had been divorced for over a year and did not want anything serious so we were easing into things. I don't know whether Rachel became aware of this, but this is when the lies began to escalate. Lies we only realised were lies further down the line. She said she had cancer again so she was having treatment but then reacted badly to it and she messaged my boyfriend saying she was in hospital in critical condition and could he go see her. He initially felt like he needed to, to try and get some answers or maybe find some peace, but in the end he didn't go.
So she escalated and continued to attempt to open some line of communication. She got a tattoo with his initial in the centre of it and sends him a photo. After the cancer treatment, she has a stroke and (conveniently) can't remember anything that had happened in the previous few years, so she wants to talk to him to try and get her memory back. After that? She's bought a flat next to him in the complex he lives in. The latest manoeuvre? She's writing and publishing a book about their "relationship" which should be coming out shortly, where she doesn't even change his name.
To top this off, she sent him a 'view once' message the other week saying that she was sorry, she hopes we're happy together, but that she also knows where I live. I'm doing my best to ignore it and be somewhat of a protective shield for my boyfriend because I don't want him to have to continually relive what she did to him, but it's difficult when she's constantly trying to one-up the last thing.
Thanks for reading if you got this far! I needed to get this pretty crazy situation off my chest.