My LDR Partner Lived a Double Life

[Johan Dahlberg]

Hi all! New here because I wanted to share my story My long distance partner of three years (distanced for two of those) lied about losing his job, moving to a different continent, and dying of cancer – all because he was living a double life the whole time.

I should start by saying that I don't mean to alarm anyone. I assume my story is unique in LDR terms (though double lives are surprisingly common among couples in general, I've since learned). But it's a unique story I think should be told.

My partner's lies served the purpose of creating the distance in the first place, then extending the length of it. I told him from the start I don't believe in LDR's unless there's a fixed end date, a light at the end of the tunnel. I now know that they can work even without that, but in my case it was doomed before it even began and I had no idea that was the case.

How We Met

I was a backpacker in Australia. He was a successful surgeon from Taiwan. It was a rich meets poor kind of thing, and he liked me because unlike his exes who got free Gucci bags and clothes I didn't care about his money. I told him (lovingly) that I would slap him if he gave me a gift like that. I liked him because he was so sweet, understood me like only my best friends did, and shared my life goal: to start a family.

Lie #1: How The Distance Started

This was actually not all on him, but my situation worked out in his favor. I'm from Sweden and was only in Australia for a year. I was offered a job in London and chose my career over love. He tried to convince me to stay, but that's when I told him I didn't believe in LDR's. The job would last indefinitely, so I didn't see how it could work.

After some time in the UK, however, I realized I had made a mistake. I was miserable and the only light was the daily chats with my now ex partner. It's cliché to say, but I thought leaving him was the biggest mistake of my life. I had left the man I loved.

So I told him I loved him and asked if we could get back together. I could return to Australia, to move in with him like he had begged me to do. I worried it was too late but he claimed to be over the moon about this news.

That's when his first lie came: I couldn't return straight away, because he had just lost his job due to an elbow injury. He needed to figure things out first, to know where he would live and what he would do with his life, and with the apartment he had asked me to move in to. So I stayed in London to wait, and a long distance relationship was formed.

Lie #2: His Mental Health Issues

The distance wasn't a problem at first, because even though we didn't have a fixed date we did have an end goal: wherever he could get a job that lived up to his high standard, I would follow. I value my indepence and pushed for a country I could legally live and work in too, but I've always been a traveller and would be excited for anywhere. I've always taken work seriously too, but unlike him I hadn't studied a decade for a specific career.

But then more and more excuses to prolong the distance would come. First, it took suspiciously long to find that new job. He came to visit but would never let me do the same, always saying that now was not a good time. After several months I said that this isn't working, I'm coming over!

He then revealed something he had previously only hinted at: he was bipolar and took pills, and the loss of his career had caused him to spiral into a depression. He had been too ashamed to show me this. He was not well, mentally, and his exes had all run away when they learned just how unstable he was. He was afraid to lose me too.

He revealed that simultaneously to me pushing to end the distance his parents were pushing for him to move to Los Angeles, where he had family who could take care of him. He claimed to feel pressure from all sides and that I was only making things worse, because he loved me so much and wanted to make me happy. In the US, we both knew, I couldn't legally live and work without marriage, and possibly not even then.

I decided not to be like his exes. I showed my full support. If he needed more time to get help, I would be there for him. We loved each other.

Lie #3: The Move to Los Angeles

Eventually he did find a job, as a professor teaching general surgery at UCLA. I was happy for him. I had been to his grandparents graves and visited his uncle's business in the city, so I knew he had strong ties to the place. It's not the country I would have chosen, but his parents really wanted this – and I could always visit, as often and for as long as possible. I had a job but I didn't have a career to hold me back.

Lie #4: Homophobic & Asian Parents

There was only one problem: he was not out to his parents. Coming from a traditional Chinese background love was not to be publicly displayed, and gay love was out of the question. I had actually met his parents once, but it was early in our relationship and it had been my own suggestion to only introduce us as friends – because I was leaving Australia anyway and our relationship would end when I left.

He was staying with his uncle in LA, under instructions from his parents who wanted someone to keep a close eye on him. I couldn't stay there too because he would then have to come out to them. He would need to do that at some point anyway, I argued, but considering his mental health it wasn't a good time to push for it.

Later, when our situation had become more strained because it was dragging on for far too long, he used his parents again: they now did know that there was someone he was seeing in Europe, but the parents strongly wanted him to break up with me because I was only making things worse. We both knew that it was the distance between us, not me as such, that made him feel worse. I argued that closing the distance might even help him get through the depression. But his parents didn't see it that way, and he aid that "to an Asian, family is everything".

This is when I first began to question things. Was I not family too?

Lie #5: The Overdose

At one point I came to a conclusion: my partner had every opportunity to let me visit, but I was never allowed to. He always came to me, and when he did it was wonderful, but something was off. He knew all my friends and family, they loved him and he loved them, but I knew none of his. He claimed to be too focused on work to have real friends besides me. And the family, well, we know what excuses he used there.

So eventually I said enough is enough. "Either you let me visit now, or we end the distance and move to the same city, or you need to tell me you don't love me and we break up here and now."

He then went into panic mode. Rather than saying those simple words he pulled out all the stops to keep me hooked. He claimed he loved me more than anything, that he wanted nothing more than for us to finally start the life we always talked about, and that his mental health was worse than ever. He was depressed again because life wasn't going the way he wanted, took more pills than before, and was seeing multiple psychologists. Both him and his parents had spent a fortune on medical help in LA, something he had never told me about before.

Then, he disappeared for three days. It was the longest we had gone without any form of contact since the day we met around two years earlier.

I was worried. Had something happened? If there had been an accident there was no one who could contact me even if they wanted to. In hindsight, I now know what a foolish situation I had put myself in. But to this day I still honestly believe I did the right things, IF any of what he had told me up until this point had actually been true. He had me and my family utterly fooled with his calculated and well-planned lies.

I would soon learn what had happened: dpressed by the distance and pressure from work and family, and bipolar like he had always been, some colleagues had taken him out to cheer him up. He had overdosed on pills and alcohol. His uncle had found him passed out on the floor. He was now in a private rehab center in Malibu, surrounded by doctors and his wealthy family.

I knew what this meant: I couldn't visit, only support him from afar. I was dumb enough to continue to do just that.

Lie #6: Marriage

My partner eventually recovered, and he was surprised to find me still being there for him once he did. He had once again expected me to do what his exes all did, but I was determined to prove to him that I wasn't like them. If he had ever told me he didn't want this relationship I would probably have realized much sooner that he used the overdose as an excuse, but he came out showering me with love and praise for having stood by him the way I did. Our love was stronger than ever, and eventually we started talking about marriage.

Having been through so much already, things were now clearer: the distance had to end. He had lost his job as a professor from being sick and away for so long, and the world was suddenly wide open to us. We were madly in love and could go anywhere. Marriage was on the table both for love and as a means to be able to live and work in the same country. We had been together for quite some time, only part of which was long distance, and it was a natural next step.

He claimed it was the only thing on his mind, the only thing he wanted right now (more than the career that had previously meant so much to him), and the only thing that kept him sane. It would end all out suffering so far, and our real life together could finally begin.

It was yet another lie.

[Too long for one post, sorry... continuing in the next one]

[Johan Dahlberg]

[Continued from original post]

Lie #7: Dying of Cancer

We were on a train on the way to see my sister, parents, grandparents and extended family in Sweden over Easter. He already knew all of them. My grandmother in particular adored my partner, and she was particularly interested in our wedding plans.

Before this train ride he had shown me something: there was a lump on his back, and being a doctor he had asked his former colleagues to run some tests. He was waiting on the results.

They came via a phone call while we were on that train. I saw the expression on his face when he received the news: he had cancer, it had spread, and he had an expected three months left to live.

This devastated both of us. We were finally on the right track and then this happens? It was such a huge thing that it never even crossed my mind that it wasn't true, because who would lie about dying of cancer? Not your best friend and life partner, that's for sure.

He, of course, went into a panic mode again, but this time it was to fight for his own life, not to make me happy. He had to immediately get back to Australia where his medical colleagues were, to run more tests and figure out a treatment. He was dealing with the prospect of dying.

I would of course go with him, be with him every step of the way, except he didn't want that. He wanted his parents there, and if it came to it he wanted to die in peace. He couldn't bare seeing me witness him die in front of me. "It's better for you to deal with a breakup now and forget about me, than to deal with my death later."

I called bullshit. That's not how love works. And I wouldn't just be dealing with a breakup, I would be left not knowing if he was dead or alive. Still, he insisted, and he was the one dying after all.

I did, however, realize at this point that he had used both the overdose and now the cancer as an excuse, an exist strategy. He didn't really love me, but for some reason he was unable to tell me so. It became painfully obvious to me that he didn't want me in his life.

And that's when we split up. Following that Easter family holiday he flew home, stopped responding to phone calls and messages, and I never saw him again.

Learning the Truth

It took me the promised three months to deal with the cancer induced breakup, and the loss of the life and promised future I had gotten so attached to. But naturally I couldn't simply forget and move on. To properly close the chapter, I had to find out what had happened to him. Was he dead or alive?

With no way of contacting him since he always ignored my attempts, it was pure luck that around this time I received a message from a woman on social media.

My partner had always been very private online, which in hindsight was a warning sign but which didn't raise any red flags for me. I had and still have numerous friends who are the same way. I, however, was not private about my travels and relationships at all. I had posted many photos over the three years my partner and I had known each other. Now, this woman who messaged me had found them, and the timing couldn't have been better.

She introduced herself as the best friend of my partner's other partner – of ten years! Through her I learned a number of truths:

1) My partner didn't have cancer, never did, and certainly wasn't dead.

2) He had never lost his job in Australia.

3) He had never moved to Los Angeles or worked as a professor.

4) He was never depressed and never overdosed on medication.

Not only had he lived a double life the whole time, but everything he had told me had been a lie. It broke me to pieces.

How Could This Happen?

I've asked myself this many times. I'm a level-headed, fairly intelligent person. I studied journalism and am naturally sceptical toward things. I was against long distance relationships from day one.

After I learned the truth I got a chance to confront my ex. He admitted to everything. He had used the lies to keep both his relationships alive. He wanted to keep all doors open. The lies had worked so well because they were based on enough truth to be believable

I had been to LA and visited his (dead) relatives there, so I knew he had ties to the US. He had always told me stories about his bipolar tendencies from his youth. I had felt the lump on his back and seen the expression on his face when the doctor called about his cancer, a call that in reality had been neutral or even positive news. He had used these facts to build the lies on. I had no reason other than the prolonged distance not to believe any of it (and despite my experiences I still argue that no healthy relationship should or would include the doubt that could have saved me from all this).

I also asked him how he hid his partner for so long in Australia, back when we all lived in the same city. They owned the apartment together that I visited so many times. I knew he had a housemate who lived in a second bedroom, but I never met him. Now I learned that that was not the case – he had move all his stuff from the actual bedroom to the guest room before I came over, and I was only ever there when the "housemate" was working or travelling (which was often).

But what about when he begged me to stay in Australia and move in with him? He now claimed that they were going through a rough period at the time, and that the other partner had briefly moved out.

Of course, nothing my partner ever said can be trusted, so I genuinely don't know what the truth is.

I've since done a lot of reading on the subject of double lives. What my partner did fits into several medical diagnoses (and no normal person would be able to pull off his elaborate scheme). Living a double life is also a surprisingly common phenomenon, though still rare I would assume. There are examples of people having successfully done so even through decades of marriage.

I also want to add at this point that I'm not the biggest victim in this story. The other partner is. They had been together for ten years. I was just "the other guy".

To this day I wonder what happened between them. I haven't been in touch with the woman on social media again since learning the truth, and I will never talk to my ex partner again. I will likely never find out how this story ended for them.

Dealing with the Aftermath

After I learned the truth I started writing. First as a form of therapy, then because I knew I had a great story to tell. When I told people about my experience they often said, "Wow, this is like a movie. You should write a book about it." So that's exactly what I did.

I've always been a writer but never an author, and for the first time I had a plot I was excited about. I wrote it in third person as fiction, used fake names and streamlined the plot to be exciting for readers who don't know me or my story. But the main plot tells my true story in full.

In a novel I also knew I could give the protagonist the closure I never got in real life, so I made up a different ending. In real life, having written my first book is my own closure of sorts.

It took me three years to finish the book because I wanted to make it the best it could possibly be, not another "lame memoir from a heartbroken person". And while I no longer carry any hatred toward my ex, I will probably forever carry this small dream of mine: that he will one day find my book on the bestseller shelf in a bookstore somewhere, pick it up, read the back blurb, recognize the author's name, and slowly realize that the book is about him.

It would be the ultimate real life ending to this chapter of my life.

Again, I don't mean to cause distrust or discourage anyone from a LDR, but I did want to share the story of how my own LDR turned out. Thanks for letting me do so, and for reading this far