Is there any feeling worse than checking your partner’s phone behind their back? There’s no good outcome; you feel awful for not trusting them – or your suspicions are confirmed.
So when, aged 33, I woke up early the morning after our two-year anniversary, I was conflicted to see my boyfriend Harry’s phone sitting on the bedside table. He was guarded with his mobile but I always knew his passcode. ‘If he wasn’t OK with me being on his phone, why would he have told me it?’ I reasoned.
Justification comes easy when paranoia strikes – which by then it really had. ‘One look,’ I told myself. ‘Then I can stop worrying.’ First, I searched his texts and WhatsApp, but didn’t come across anything. Then his photos, all clear, except for a number of shirtless photos of him I’d never seen. So I kept digging.
And sure enough, in the ‘Hidden’ folder in his photos app, I found every woman’s worst nightmare. Three videos taken by an unknown woman, in which Harry was leaning over her in an image I don’t need to paint in any more detail. The time stamp was a month earlier.
I crept into his living room, heart pounding, and tried to compose myself. Eventually, around 6am, I decided I had to confront him. When I sat down on the bed, he finally woke up. With his phone still in my hand, open on one of the videos, I didn’t have to say anything. ‘Liv,’ he said, sitting up. ‘I’m sorry, it won’t happen again. The lies will stop – I promise.’
‘Lies? As in plural?’ I asked.
And within minutes, my life imploded.
When I woke up early the morning after our two-year anniversary, I was conflicted to see my boyfriend Harry’s phone sitting on the bedside table. Within minutes, my life imploded (File image)
He’d told me he was a banker. He was not. He’d said he worked in Canary Wharf. He did not. He’d said he grew up in Paris. He was from Luton. He’d said he owned two horses. Not even one. He’d said he had OCD. You guessed it. And the lies went on.
Put simply, my boyfriend – the man I’d planned a future with and had fallen head over heels for during our two-year relationship – did not exist.
Of course, lying in relationships isn’t anything new, nor are cheating partners. But this was something else altogether, a complete fabrication of his identity.
It’s the kind of behaviour displayed by romance scammers. But then the motive always seems to be money; no one talks of the emotional romance scam.
When a scammer’s goal is emotional instead of financial, they’re seeking a thrill, or sense of control. And I’ve come to realise this behaviour is rooted in a deep, lonely insecurity – a feeling they aren’t lovable enough as they are. They create a fake life to regain power, building a world they wish were real.
It’s easier to fall for than any other scam. After all, from the outside, and indeed the inside, it was a normal relationship. How was I to know the intricate web of lies he’d spun from the start?
Maybe you think I’m naive or overly trusting. But I’m not vulnerable or stupid. I have a good career, amazing friends and a supportive family. I’d previously had healthy relationships.
I’ve spoken to friends about this and, while most people have been shocked, a few shared similar stories.
Indeed, online dating culture practically encourages ‘white lies’ in order to appear more appealing, whether it’s tweaking a photograph for your profile or embellishing your backstory. Though perhaps not your entire childhood, career and interests, as in Harry’s case.
We met on a dating app in February 2022 when I was 31 and he 35. He seemed smart, attractive and kind.
I had come home to Bedford from Edinburgh, where I was temporarily living for work at the time, for my sister’s birthday. As he happened to live nearby, we matched on Bumble. We chatted for a bit, then planned a date.
On his profile, Harry had said he was a financial analyst, so I opened the conversation by asking about his job.
He told me he grew up in France, where his mum was from, before moving to Chelsea, south-west London. Then he moved to Bedford with a friend.
Our ‘couple of pints’ turned into many. He walked me home and kissed me with an urgency that felt romantic. I ended up seeing him every day until I went back to Edinburgh. He was so handsome and tall; it felt like a fairy tale.
Two weeks later, we were still texting. He showed me videos of his horses, Charlie and Dancer, and told me more about growing up in Paris. Our upbringings seemed very different.
Six months into the relationship, I became suspicious that he might be seeing other women behind my back (File image)
His family were never close; his two brothers were in the US and Italy – he didn’t know where exactly. In contrast, I phoned my sister daily. I was impressed when he said that as a teenager he had been a ‘youth equestrian’ for Team GB, travelling the world for competitions. I asked him dozens of questions, all of which were astutely answered.
We spoke about our mental health struggles, our love of the gym, our shared tastes in music. He was writing a novel and had a publisher, and I worked in publishing. It felt like fate. While I was having drinks with friends in Edinburgh and Harry was on a business trip in Berlin, I dared him to come to visit me in Scotland. Admittedly, I was rather drunk, so thought nothing of him claiming he’d booked a flight.
But the next morning I received an easyJet screenshot showing his flight from London to Edinburgh would land in a mere ten days . . . and my hangover nausea doubled. I had only met him three weeks earlier, now he was flying 400 miles to see me. What if we didn’t get on as well as I’d remembered?
But the fairy tale continued and, for the next 18 months, we’d rarely go more than three weeks without seeing one another. The next time he came up to Scotland, we decided to date exclusively. The time after that, I introduced him to my family.
He was a hit with them: smart, polite, ambitious and he made me happy. Though my mum later commented it was strange she couldn’t find his LinkedIn profile – a bit bizarre for a thirtysomething career-driven person.
He asked me to read passages from his unpublished novel, a fantasy epic that was genuinely good (I now wonder if he had stolen it off the internet). I was so impressed that he worked, had interesting hobbies and a book deal. We got on brilliantly and it was a passionate relationship.
I did notice one red flag. Every time I asked to see his horses, who were at stables an hour away from his flat in Bedford, there was an excuse: he had ‘just been the day before’ or ‘someone else was with them’.
It seems ridiculous, but when you’re fed all of this at once it doesn’t seem so farcical. Being long distance, it didn’t seem strange that I hadn’t met his parents, who had moved back to Paris. After all, I knew his friends, including his flatmate Owen.
Within six months, however, I became suspicious that he might be seeing other women behind my back. Every bikini photo of a fitness influencer I followed seemed to have been liked by him. And he started quickly closing his phone when I came near.
One day, while I was staying at his flat in Bedford while he was at work, a WhatsApp notification popped up while I was watching TV on his laptop. It was from a woman I didn’t know. My heart in my stomach, I clicked on it. I discovered Harry had been texting other women, at least two, telling them about his OCD and how gorgeous they looked – not dissimilar to how our chats had started.
Gutted, I walked for miles ranting on the phone to my friend, who said I should leave.
Back at the flat, I forced him to come back from work and confronted him. He said he was sorry and long distance had been hard.
I chose to stay with him. Looking back, I was in denial. I told myself we were otherwise happy, but the rot had set in. Suddenly, I wasn’t sleeping. I was barely going out, and when I was away I imagined the worst all of the time.
Put simply, my boyfriend – the man I’d planned a future with and had fallen head over heels for during our two-year relationship – did not exist (File image)
‘You’re OK,’ Harry would tell me. ‘I love you. I’m at home, I promise.’ But soon I was sleeping no more than three hours a night – at which point he asked me to speak to my GP about medication, and weeks later I was offered antidepressants.
‘They work really well for me, and your paranoia isn’t sustainable,’ Harry told me. ‘Give them a try, just to ease your mind.’
I’d later discover this was the ultimate act of gaslighting. He had never taken medication – and I was right to be paranoid; he was lying.
Around the same time as I started on the antidepressants, aged 33, I moved back to London to start at a new publishing house. We had been dating long distance for a year and a half.
Not long after, in August last year, he told me he got a new job at one of the Big Four banking firms. I was thrilled for him. One afternoon, I hopped on the Tube to meet him and we sat opposite his work building, both holding a tinned cocktail. As he pointed to the window by his desk, he lamented how his office wasn’t as swanky as some other places.
On the morning I found out that version of Harry didn’t really exist, I thought back to that day.
‘Do you even work for the bank? Is it even in Canary Wharf?’ I asked. The answer was no.
I now imagine he’d Googled all the places he had taken me ‘near’ his office, probably patted himself on the back for successfully duping me again. When the truth finally came spilling out in March this year, however – six months after that afternoon in Canary Wharf – he looked resigned, defeated. While I got angrier, he got quieter and more desperate.
He admitted he worked at a rental car firm in Hounslow – the other side of London. He was an account manager in their head office. Not an embarrassing job by any means, which just made it all the more bizarre. He explained that he was insecure, that he didn’t feel I’d love him as him – but that doesn’t explain why he continued to lie for two years, about work, his new job, his family. As he tore the rug from under me, everything he’d ever said ran through my head: every ‘I love you’ and ‘you look beautiful’. Was anything true?
To make matters weirder, we had sat with Owen time and time again while he’d been talking about work. His flatmate – who he had known for more than ten years – also thought he was a banker. People have suggested Owen was in on the scam, but what if he wasn’t? Did he think Harry had grown up in Paris too? Had OCD? Horses?
That same morning I found the videos, I also found emails from banks about loans he’d taken out – not the behaviour of someone with a ‘five-figure advance from his publisher’ and two horses.
On his Instagram I found hundreds of private messages to influencers, desperate compliments they’d rightly ignored. It felt like I was a filler girlfriend until one of those women relented.
‘You know this is the final straw for me, right?’ I said. His bottom lip stuck out, a pathetic picture of shame. He nodded.
Over the following weeks I cried a lot. I felt embarrassed and angry that I’d fallen for lie after lie. My self-confidence was at rock bottom. Harry’s apparent need for a skinnier, fitter model also left me worrying about my looks. I crash-dieted and threw myself into exercise.
Eventually, I realised this wasn’t helping. With a doctor’s approval, I weaned myself off the antidepressants, determined to feel like me again. The recovery was gruelling. How do you get over someone who never really existed?
I spent weeks going over our life together with a magnifying glass, kicking myself for not catching the signs I’d missed, like never meeting any of his colleagues.
But I understood how little good that was doing me – now I’m just resigned to the fact it happened, and I wish it hadn’t, but what’s to be done now?
I tried to dive back into dating, but every story felt like a lie to woo me. Harry has poisoned my faith in everyone. In the end, the only way I could find closure was through compassion for Harry because, despite the pain he caused me, how sad is it to hate yourself so much you can’t be honest with the people who love you?
I’ve barely spoken to him since, apart from to exchange our belongings. I’ve had to accept I’ll never know the full truth because, well, how can I ever believe a word he says again?
After space, time and genuine connections with family and friends, I’m starting to recover.
A part of me hopes Harry’s life will go up in smoke like mine did. But, more than that, I hope he learns to love who he is as much as I would have done had he only told me the truth from the start.
Olivia Tympson is a pseudonym. All names and identifying details have been changed.