A woman has opened up about her shock after she learned her fiancé was living a double life right up until he suddenly died on their wedding day.
Bride-to-be Kaitlin was caught completely off guard in August 2020 when, on the morning of what was supposed to be the best day of her life, she learned her fiancé Eric had passed away at 33 years old from a cardiac arrest.
The loss left her devastated, but three years later, Kaitlin found herself feeling very different.
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She told The New York Post: “I wanted to explode with anger."
It was on 20 November, 2023, on what would have been Eric's 37th birthday, that Kaitlin discovered his secret: he'd been cheating on her for more than a year before he passed away.
Eric's other girlfriend lived on the West Coast; a world away from their life in New York, but the truth came out when Kaitlin spotted an unusual post on Instagram which was dedicated to Eric.
Kaitlin initially thought the birthday post might be a coincidence, but she decided to reach out to the woman who posted it and was shocked when she learned the woman had been dating Eric since March 2019.
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The woman, who has not been named, provided screenshots to prove her relationship with Kaitlin's fiancé.
She recalled: “The last texts they shared were disgusting, sexual messages. Eric sent them to her seven days before our wedding.”
The blow to Kaitlin's reality was made even more painful by the fact that she'd previously lost another boyfriend, Mike, to a freak accident in 2015.
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Kaitlin shared her grief with Eric and said he was 'wonderful' at supporting her through her emotions, but she's now blindsided by what she's described as the 'pathological, narcissistic behavior' behind his kind facade.
“The audacity to put somebody who loved you through this, to stand in front of my 77-year-old parents and ask for their permission to marry me,” Kaitlin said. “This [ordeal] has aged them, and they didn’t deserve that.”
Following Eric's death, Kaitlin has moved back to her parents' home and leaned on them as she deals with mental health issues, including post-traumatic stress disorder.
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“I’ve lost everything,” she said. “It’s his fault. I have every right to be as angry as I feel.”
Kaitlin said the ordeal has 'really screwed with' her brain, but she's been working with a therapist to try and process what she's been through.
“I wonder if he even loved me. Did he just want the stability and facade of marriage with me? Because what he did wasn’t love.”
Though her ordeal is unusual, Kaitlin knows she's not the only person to be shocked by a partner's actions - even after their deaths.
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“Sadly, a lot of people go through this,” she said. “You’re allowed to be angry and hurt.
"Don’t feel like you have to automatically forgive someone because they died.”
Topics: Mental Health, US News, Sex and Relationships, Life
Emily Brown