My younger brother, Adam, had a rough childhood, to say the least. Our father passed away when he was under 10 from cancer. Our mother is likely bipolar but definitely narcissistic tendencies and ab#sive. I'm older by a decade and did what I could when I could for him but basically I failed to protect him & didn't understand what he needed.
All that to say that his descent into alc*h*lism wasn't a surprise, it was expected. A couple years ago he had an incident that caused him hospitalization and began his recovery and sobriety. He's over two years clean now, hugely due to the new relationship he started months after his incident with a kind hearted lovely woman, I'll call her Eve.
He brought Eve over to meet us shortly after they met and she's been a welcome part of our family. She makes gifts for my kids and treats. She's always fun to speak to and her quirkiness fits in beautifully. As we got to know her, we've learned about how traumatic her life has been, they're kinda trauma bonded but she's so understanding and empathetic.
She told us about her twin who passed away in high school, how her siblings and parents loved him more and treat her badly as the survivor that was always less than. She also had another brother who passed away in war in Iraq, that was the Golden child after her twin passed.
She couldn't seem to gain her mother's approval or attention and we bonded over those feelings of not being wanted or good enough. She told us she was originally from Scotland, her father was a sheep farmer who moved to America to buy a cattle farm because of the cowboy movies, so she has duel citizenship.
She also said because of this she spoke 16 languages. She worked at a college and had multiple degrees too. Overall she was incredibly nice, took good care of Adam and seemed super well educated and proper. Sometimes she had her Scottish accent too, because shed been around her family. Then she started to tell us about her past relationships, three divorces.
One was from a person who had gender reassignment surgery, the other passed away by his own hands and the last had attempted to take her life, s#$t her and then had ran from the c*ps to a ditch where he passed away. She showed my kids the scar. I felt like after two years of knowing her, she was a great fit, so last week when they had a bad argument I tried to reassure Adam.
I had him come over to talk and he told me that she had lied to him about not speaking to a friend of hers anymore. Some guy who was apparently a popular guy in high school. She lied because she didn't want to believe he wasn't a good guy because she's had so much bad luck with men...Adam was struggling to move past the lying but wanted to work it out and I support him in whatever he does.
I talked to my husband about it and he asked the most basic question, how does she have a high school popular kid here in town if she was raised in Oklahoma on a cattle farm? Honestly, I have PTSD so my brain sometimes gets mixed up, I assumed I was wrong. It turned over and over in my head though, for a couple days. I finally caved while my husband played video games and began a casual search into her....
Googled her name and her address came up. Then I realized her history of addresses were all in America, all going back pretty far. So I checked her parents and their addresses went back in America to before she was born. I was so confused I googled them and found recent obituaries of her grandparents on both sides.
They're all from America. And they only mention three kids by her parents, ever. Obituaries usually list preceded in death, and these do, but no grandkids in that list. No additional brothers of hers. Not only that but she lived at the same address her whole life in Kansas. I looked it up on a map and found the high school nearby and searched the yearbook.
Found her 12th grade, no twin, okay but he passed away so I checked 9th grade, also no twin. The deeper I dug, the more proof of the lies. Only two marriages on record, both still alive, one did change names from male in the marriage to female in the divorce but that seems to be the only true thing she's ever said.
It's absolutely shocking. Finally my husband said I had to tell Adam. I was against it and then as the pile got larger I said it was an in person conversation...he insisted it needed to be done so I put it all together into a document and messaged Adam.
I asked a few clarifying questions, about the twin and the ex-husbands. I apologized and provided the information to him and hoped I was wrong. Within 10 minutes of sending it to him, he said that she admitted everything to him. He's absolutely lost now. Two whole years, so many many many lies. I'm just baffled. Why? Like if they ever got married it would've unraveled so quickly.
As it stands she's been able to keep him away from her family by allowing them to disrespect their age gap (he's noticeably younger than her). She refused to go to an uncle's funeral earlier this year because she claimed he was a predator. I hate hate hate questioning that but maybe she just didn't want Adam to find out that her uncle was born and raised in Kansas, not Scotland and so was her dad.
She was here with my kids, having them feel the bullet wound scar from an incident that never happened. There's no criminal records for either of the ex's. There's none for her either thankfully but good lord. I wish I could put the cat back in the bag on this one...why lie? And why didn't I check her background sooner?
I literally check the kids my kids date in high school to make sure their parents aren't on a registry or anything. I should have checked her much sooner, now the life and family they were building is in ruins and I'm terrified of him losing his sobriety. I'm feeling really guilty for looking it up and telling him too, not sure I did the right thing because he's heartbroken. AITA?
Temperance_Lee wrote:
"She told us she was originally from Scotland, her father was a sheep farmer who moved to America to buy a cattle farm because of the cowboy movies, so she has duel citizenship. She also said because of this she spoke 16 languages."
Not being funny, but how does having dual-citizenship with the UK bestow upon her sixteen languages? Did they plug her into The Matrix?
"She worked at a college and had multiple degrees too." Please be less gullible, going forward. Life is full of bulls#$ters but the beauty of them is they're easy to spot because they always go too far. Sixteen languages, multiple degrees that haven't turned into anything, three divorces? Who has the time!
OP responded:
Well her degrees did turn into something, she worked at a college the time and when that job ended she's now working as an engineer. If you work at a college they let you take classes free or reduced. She probably has some of the degrees and she could have taken the language classes.
There's people famous here for learning lots of languages and she called herself a polyglot. I have a friend who is learning Japanese with a tutor and she talked about different tutors she'd used and programs too. It seemed legit but obviously everything she said did and it was all lies.
She's old enough to have been divorced three times as well, seemed like tragically bad luck or poor judgement but being raised by a narcissist with traumatic childhood made me give her grace and assume she was targeted for being too nice.
I really want to argue that I'm not gullible but I have to explain this to my oldest kid when they get back from a trip next week and the only explanation is that I was incredibly gullible. My oldest kid is also super fond of this woman and I know it's going to hurt.
Low-Support-7090 wrote:
You didn’t get sus when she said she spoke 16 languages?
OP responded:
No, because she actually spoke something when asked to speak each language by my kids. I only know English, enough Spanish to ask where the bathroom and library is and some sign language from when I was a kid (so super rusty, think alphabet, every cuss word and thank you basically).
There are people who speak lots of languages and again, she worked at a college where she had claimed to gotten multiple degrees so she could have taken language classes there. It didn't come off as lies or exaggeration.
I'm generally very skeptical of everyone but she's older than me and had worked there for many years so it didn't seem like a stretch if she's got no kids and has had 25+ years to do anything she wanted with her life.
Paelynn_Raelle wrote:
Wait, you can just google someone and find out all their past addresses???
OP responded:
True, Missouri was online public access but Kansas is had to make an account for and then everything opened up. I was able to see the marriage, divorce, traffic violations and see the ex-husband who was supposed to be deceased had a court appearance literally last year.
Jazzlike-Bird3192 wrote:
Speaking 16 languages because she has both UK and U.S. citizenship should have been the first red flag. English, Scottish perhaps Spanish in the U.S., along with 13 other languages not regularly spoken in either country does not a polyglot make. You’re NTA for finding all this stuff out and telling your brother. He clearly needed to know. That it took 2 years to figure it out is frightening. Pay closer attention and think!
Offer to bring your brother to some meetings and perhaps go to Al-Anon while there. His sobriety is his responsibility. If he falls off the wagon it’s not because you told the truth. It’s because he is looking for an easy way out of his feelings. You don’t need to start spiralling if he does. It won’t help.
OP responded:
Yea, I don't know anything about what makes a polyglot, I always joke that I only speak one language and not well. She just seemed really impressive to me. I've only got an associates degree and I just got it five years ago. We were impressed and clearly gullible. My older sister is much smarter than me and she met Eve a few times when she came to visit.
She didn't have any reservations about her and also was fooled. I think the lies were very well practiced but maybe I'm just trying to justify being this dumb. I absolutely dropped the ball on looking into her and this is a hard lesson to learn. He quit the meetings after his year mark but I will offer to take him back.
I know it's his responsibility and I also feel responsible for him. He's grown and does what he does but if I was paying more attention this could have been prevented. He a big guy but he has a huge heart. One of those guys that's too gentle for this world. I just want to protect him and I know I can't.
Fragrant-Reserve4832 wrote:
You didn't even dig really, you spen 20 mins with Google.
NTA but now I really want to know what's going on with her. That said these are the kind of people that don't cope with their dream life imploding well and your brother is in the blast radius. Please keep him safe OP.
OP responded:
Well, it was about 4-5 hours. It takes a lot of connecting family members and addresses to find the right obituaries and such.
I did it for both sides of her family and then the yearbooks are saved with pages you have to individually flip...so I went to the last page and scrolled forward to the index - go the list of places she was pictured, noticed she had no sibling (no same last name) then scrolled page by page to the class photo for the link to attach to the list for him.
Going through the court records was time consuming as well because of registering for it and then opening every single file because I don't know what the case numbers mean for each state to know which ones to skip.
She's small and has a lot of medical issues, which as I say that maybe so doesn't. Jeez...well she claims a lot of them, he's about 10 years younger, over 6 ft and over 200 lbs. I call him my little big brother because he's very viking. He's safe I think and she's caught red handed.
He also works nights so after their talk he left and won't be back until this morning. I warned him the meltdown could be huge but he said she was just super remorseful. He's debating on if he stays with her because it was just for attention. He loves her and this is really really messed up.
To catch up, brother's girlfriend of two years was lying about her past, from the traumatic passing of a made up twin, made up older brother, two ex-husbands (who are still very much alive), a made up ex fiance and a made up loss of a child, made up assault during their relationship that she used to control him, to inventing having multiple degrees & speaking 16 languages...
When I posted, I had uncovered some of the lies and forwarded him the proof. She had come clean immediately and taken him to visit her parents to explain it. She has untreated borderline personality disorder apparently. My brother, who I called Adam for this, is a recovering alcoholic with a huge heart.
He was absolutely determined to stay with her and "not toss her aside for being human". He thought this was the righteous and noble thing to do, to not discard someone who is struggling or damaged in their time of need. My husband and I were determined to support him regardless of his choice because we love him. She told him she could never be around us again and she was scared of us.
We assured him that we would never be rude to anyone he dated and that we were more than capable of being around her. I genuinely think when she realized that we weren't going to let her isolate him by pretending like she had a reason to fear us, it was over for her.
It lasted only a week after our dinner with him where we showed him unconditional support and reminded him that HE was the victim, repeatedly. The following week, she "went out with friends to a bar." He asked where she went and with who, since this whole thing started because she was lying about not hanging out with some jerk that didn't respect my brother or their relationship...
She said that she didn't have to show Adam anything to prove where she had been and that SHE "can't heal like this!!" She expected to play the victim to him, as if him asking for accountability and transparency was him being controlling. Then he said that he can't be in a relationship where he can't trust someone (she was clearly hiding who she was with and where she was).
In response, she gave him 30 days to move out. So, this weekend we are moving him into his own place. He's, of course, still reeling from the whiplash of whatever the heck the last two years of lies have been with a woman he thought he would marry. He has a strong support system though and he's absolutely going to get through this.
He's even quitting smoking during this...which I could not imagine trying to do in this level of chaos but he is determined. Thank you everyone for the advice and support. Please don't be gullible like we were and if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
rough-medicine5183 wrote:
Just in case you didn't know...you f#$king rock!!! The way you are your brother's keeper and have his back 💯 % is great!!! She knew she wasn't go be able to keep playing him with you in his corner and that's why her ass had to go!!! Congratulations on getting this dirt bag C U next Tuesday out of your brother's life!!!
OP responded:
Well, it was about 4-5 hours. It takes a lot of connecting family members and addresses to find the right obituaries and such.
I did it for both sides of her family and then the yearbooks are saved with pages you have to individually flip...so I went to the last page and scrolled forward to the index - go the list of places she was pictured, noticed she had no sibling (no same last name) then scrolled page by page to the class photo for the link to attach to the list for him.
Going through the court records was time consuming as well because of registering for it and then opening every single file because I don't know what the case numbers mean for each state to know which ones to skip.
She's small and has a lot of medical issues, which as I say that maybe so doesn't. Jeez....well she claims a lot of them, he's about 10 years younger, over 6 ft and over 200 lbs. I call him my little big brother because he's very viking.
He's safe I think and she's caught red handed. He also works nights so after their talk he left and won't be back until this morning. I warned him the meltdown could be huge but he said she was just super remorseful. He's debating on if he stays with her because it was just for attention. He loves her and this is really really messed up.
sonofasnitcch wrote:
NTA. I had this best friend when I was 10 and she did this to me. This 9-year-old lied about so many aspects of her life and told me on the last day of the school year. As a kid who had already struggled with making friends, it f#$ked me up and honestly created trauma and issues with trusting people around me.
This was 15 years ago, much lower stakes, and not someone I was in love with. If anyone else had known and not said anything, they would’ve been complicit. She said something that raised a doubt and you looked into it like any reasonable person would do. No matter how your brother processes this or if he expresses anger with you, I believe you did the right thing.
OP responded:
Yikes! I'm still in shock trying to process it so I can't imagine how he's feeling. Even at 9 you're thinking about it 15 years later...I really hope someday we can laugh about this but right now it's like something off a TV sitcom. She was so nice too, that's the weirdest part, like she genuinely didn't need to make herself more interesting, we really liked her. I'm sorry that happened to you as a child, it's really confusing.
FrayCrown wrote:
I knew someone like this. Not diagnosed, but she was a nightmare. She claimed to 'basically' be: a doctor, a martial arts expert, a yoga teacher, a history PhD, and a lawyer. Shocking no one in this thread, she was none of those things.
She was also completely self obsessed. She was my roommate for 5 months, and it was hell. I literally never heard her talk about anything but herself. She would honest to god start monologuing about herself in third person for no reason. Seriously, good for you for insisting on being a supportive person for your brother. You handled the whole thing with a lot of grace, and that isn't easy.
OP responded:
Wow, sounds like she should reach out to Eve, they can play make believe together all day! I will never understand the pathological lying!! Eve said it was because she felt insignificant and wanted to be more interesting...well this has been really, really interesting but not in a good way. I really do wish her healing, far far away from us.
Equivalent-Day1108 wrote:
As someone who has a degree in Psychology, that’s a lot more than BPD. It is typically intense and unstable moods, impulsive behaviors, fear of abandonment, and inconsistent self-image. They typically also struggle with depression, drug-addiction, anxiety, or PTSD. Manipulating behavior also occurs.
Which does sound like what she was doing most by lying to him so much. Is it just untreated BPD or undiagnosed? Because if she is undiagnosed, then you can’t even trust that fully either and she seriously needs to go seek help to get properly diagnosed and treated.
OP responded:
According to what her parents told me brother, she was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder in her late teens. She's 43 now. She agreed to go back to therapy following the revelation but I don't know if she ever actually did.
I asked my brother if he was going to go with her to a session to discuss with the therapist what happened and it's impact on him and he was considering it prior to the relationship ending.
Not sure if it ever happened. Her parents apologized to my brother, told him he was a great person and they respected him for staying with her despite her lies. Not sure how she's twisting it against him now that he's leaving but before she deleted me on social media she was posting some pretty "woe is me" victim statements about the relationship ending.
Shawon770 wrote:
Wow, that’s a wild ride. Good on you for standing by your brother without pushing him away when he wasn’t ready to see the truth yet. Sometimes the best thing you can do is be a steady, non-judgmental presence so they can figure it out on their own. Glad he’s out now and has you in his corner.
OP responded:
Believe me I wanted to burn down the world with her in it but I realized that's exactly what she wanted. Thankfully he was messaging me about her being scared of us and I had time to process and respond in love.
If he had said that to me in person at the restaurant I wouldn't have had time to think deeply about why she would be playing victim and how he was being manipulated into defending her yet again. I talked it out as it happened with my older sister and my husband so we were able to kinda zoom out and see how to not fall into her trap and leave him isolated.
I've seen it play out that way too many times with friends and family members, when someone isn't ready to leave nothing you say will make them, it only drives a wedge in your relationship. The best approach was to fully support him whatever his choice was.
No liar is going to keep my brother from me, even if it meant seeing her and putting on a big smile. I would walk through fire for that kid, she has no idea the depth of my love for him, he's like one of my children to me because after his Dad passed, I stepped in and helped my Mom raise him. Her staying would have been uncomfortable for her, not me!
DivineTarot wrote:
NTA. Credit to your brother, he showed immense spine when he needed to. I get that he wanted to be compassionate, but hopefully in future he understands there's a difference between "struggling" and "wallowing." His ex would rather wallow in the ridiculous mental games she's engaging in than struggle with self-care and self-improvement.
OP responded:
Agreed! Thank you, he's slowly learning his self worth and value. Super happy he stood his ground and knew he didn't need to accept her mistreatment!