‘He told me his ex died in a car crash. Then I found out the truth...’

I sent the message and held my breath. It had been three days since I’d found Lucy’s* Bebo profile. On it, there was all sorts of information that lined up with exactly what my ex had told me about her. Photographs of her wearing the clothes he said she used to wear, links to bands they’d gone to watch when they were together, and various tidbits of information about her family and friends. There was just one thing that jarred: she was last active minutes before me. Initially, I tried to forget about it, dismissing the wild thoughts that entered into my head, knowing that the unthinkable could not be true. But I became obsessive, so when my housemate suggested I get in touch “just to confirm” I wasn’t crazy, I figured I might as well give it a go. Five minutes after it was sent, her reply arrived. I screamed: she was alive.

Matt* and I had broken up six months before I found out the truth and, until that point, it had all been relatively straightforward. We were young (23), had our whole lives ahead of us, and wanted different things. Simple. Except it wasn’t at all, because he’d been lying to me for years about his ex-girlfriend, Lucy. He told me about her on our first date. That she had blonde hair but dyed it brown. That she wore baggy dungarees with Adidas trainers almost every day. That she was his first love. That she had died in a car crash the year before we met.

He talked about her and the grief he felt a lot throughout our relationship, often comparing her to me. On our first Valentine’s Day together, Matt kept going on about how it was his first Valentine’s Day without her and how he was struggling to cope. A few weeks after that, he said that her mum had told him that when she died that she was carrying his baby.

We split after two years together. I realised that I had always felt second best. Nothing I did would ever be as good as what Lucy did, and because of how much he spoke about her, he did very little to put my mind at ease. A few weeks after we separated, I was still thinking about everything that went wrong in the relationship, trying to piece it together and work it all out. One evening I remembered that he had told me that there were some memorial messages for her on Friends Reunited and I wanted to read what he had written. Looking back, I suppose I just wanted to feel connected to him somehow. I couldn’t find her page but I was determined, and so I did some heavy googling. That’s when I came across the Bebo profile.

I will never understand why Matt lied. When I confronted him, he burst into tears and told me everything. He was embarrassed that she had ended things with him and because they had been in a long-distance relationship, it was believable to his friends and family to say she had passed away. After telling colleagues, he was given compassionate leave to attend Lucy’s “funeral” and everything stemmed from there. He told me that the lie quickly got out of control and the story grew arms and legs. I don’t know why he continued it with me, even expanding it to make up a baby. I still don’t know to this date, if his parents know the truth or not.

Finding out the truth changed my entire perception of our relationship and of myself. I felt relieved, to be honest. I followed my instinct and it was right; I wasn’t mad. There was also a part of me that felt stupid and naive for believing him and it found it incredibly violating knowing that this information had been a total fabrication. He knew how much I suffered, believing I was his back-up option, and yet, instead of being honest, he extended the lie, pushing it deeper. But once the shock had subsided, I just felt really sorry for him.

It’s been 17 years and to this day, I can still feel the effects of the breakup. Since Matt, I have found it incredibly difficult to trust anyone and have been put on high alert for red flags. It has definitely made me stronger, too, in the sense that I became much more resilient and have developed coping mechanisms for when things get tough. I’ve been through extensive therapy, which helped me to realise I never really loved him at all.

After the breakup, I moved out of the city I lived in and restarted my life. I set up and grew a successful business and soon found myself on a path of self-discovery. I wanted to understand who I was and what I needed in life. It’s been completely fascinating and today, I am unrecognisable to the woman I was when I was with him.

But despite all this, I haven’t been able to form a successful relationship since. I’ve really tried, but all of the people I’ve met have let me down in one way or another, and nothing has lasted beyond a few months. I suspect a lot of what has stopped me from meeting someone can be traced back to Matt. It’s hard to believe that anyone would lie about the death of someone. This was deceit beyond anything that could be imagined. No one should have to ever go through that.

*Names have been changed

If you have been affected by this article, you can contact Relate for support via their website here.