My ex-fiancée of Caribbean descent is a minister of a New Age Church. During our two-year engagement, I was, in hindsight, manipulated by a passive-aggressive gold-digger.
I can’t blame anyone but myself for falling victim to the manipulation. After all, it’s just wasted money, although $100,000+ is a considerable amount. However, this story intends to explain her character and to set the stage for her final Ultimate Grift, which I am referring to the Authorities.
In the first three years, I frequently took her out for nice dinners and arranged for frequent flower deliveries. Over the 5-year period we saw one another, I spent, most likely, $3,000-$4,000 on flowers and $20,000-$25,000 on restaurants.
During this time, she was double-dipping by running her own full-time business while simultaneously claiming COVID-19 unemployment benefits. Her regular business income was nearly twice to mine, which I found out much later.
During an upscale trip to Puerto Rico over two years ago, I presented her with a $15,000 engagement ring and another ring worth around $3,000, I also gave her $2,500 for lost business income. Immediately after our return, she asked me if I could help her with $1,500 for her rent, citing hard times due to COVID-19. This continued for another two months, after which I just sent her the money every month without her asking, for as long as I could afford paying for both our homes.
Early on, she also brought me a $3,500 utility bill, accrued from prior years. Her $300/month recurring utilities was also set on automatic payment from my account. About two years later, and a week after I informed her that I could no longer afford to pay her utility bill, she announced that our relationship was over.
I paid off her PayPal credit of $5,000, and some $1,000 to Afterpay, and she promised to stop the excessive online shopping. However, a few months later, I had to bail her out with another $5,000 as she had used up her Paypal credit once again. I made her realize she had a serious compulsive shopping problem; having amassed more than 1,200 dresses, about 25 fur coats, hundreds of pairs of shoes, and probably 50 handbags, as well as many hundreds of rings, necklaces, and bracelets, mostly from quality brands! She started attending a support group through her Church, but apparently her behavior did not change. I was surprised by the whole situation. Notably, as I have never carried any other debt than mortgage and student loan.
She complained about feeling fat and wanted me to help her pay for liposuction, which I advised against. Instead, I paid for diet counseling classes and advised her to be careful with her sweet tooth cravings. I also gave her a credit card, explaining that it was meant for emergency use only. A friend of hers gifted her a girl’s trip to Aruba, where she unexpectedly charged all the expenses for her trip on the card. She explained this by stating that I had given her the card, so she should be able to use it.
I gave her a check for $2,500 to pay her urgent federal back taxes, but she “accidentally” used the money for something else. I also paid her state back taxes of $4,500 and most recently $9,000 of the 2023 federal tax bill. Both of which she promised to reimburse me for. Of course, that never happened. However, she also owed another $30,000 in back-taxes and $20,000 in student loans that she had never paid off. I convinced her to sign up for a 7-year payment plan for the taxes, and after investigation, the student loan company had, luckily, misplaced her paperwork.
She claimed she needed to support to pay for her ministerial studies, but it was already fully sponsored by a congregation member, except for a week's retreat in Oregon, for which I had to help out with around $5,000, paying for the retreat, flight ticket, and hotel. She also “needed” to attend a world religion congress in Chicago, and I paid for her flight ticket, while a friend paid for the hotel stay, as she didn’t have the funds.
We took a 10-day trip to Mexico, where we intended to buy a house for retirement. But once there, she showed no interest in real estate as we did not look at a single house, even though this was her idea. We also visited my daughter in France for a few days before spending a week of tourism in Paris. Of course, I paid for everything, but I wouldn’t have gone to these places without her.
There was also this time when I mentioned that it would be nice to have bicycles to tour the area, unbeknownst to me she went out and bought a used bike for $700 with another $400 in repairs. The bicycle is still on her balcony, unused, after almost two years.
I also offered her other gifts and frequently paid for her grocery shopping, her gas and car repairs, and often her excessive amount of vitamins.
Unfortunately, my company ran into difficulties and lost 80% of its value. I informed her that I could no longer afford to pay both her and my rent. After this, she only wanted to meet up for rendering her services like driving her to sermons, court (for a restraining order against a neighbor), or the hospital. Whenever I called, she was always busy at work but promised to call me back later, which never happened. Though, she had no problem staying on the phone for hours with her girlfriends.
About five months ago, she found out she had cancer. Luckily, the cost was fully covered by her health insurance. She asked me to drive her to her chemotherapy treatments once a week, but only since no one else was available on that day of the week. But she didn't have the time to meet up more than that, as she had so many people visiting and she was tired. I know this is a difficult time of concern, as I have twice gone through the treatment myself.
Surprisingly, or maybe not, she blamed me for her cancer, as I had caused her so much stress. But in fact, she had, about a year earlier, been diagnosed with a virus, that not uncommonly develop into cancer. I bought her a natural supplement that have shown very successful results to rid the virus. But she did not followed through with taking them. Once she had contracted cancer, which also had reached her lymph nodes, I introduced her to a natural drug designed to prevent metastasis. The drug is showing very positive results in clinical trials, but she did not use this either, because "it doesn't taste good".
The day before my birthday, we planned to go dancing, something she knew that really looked forward to, but she canceled that morning because she had dinner plans with her best friend and “her friend's husband’s brother was coming”. For my birthday, I rescheduled our dinner plans, and instead invited her to a concert with Julian and Stephen Marley, artists that I knew she admired. Apparently, she had planned to bring my friends together for a surprise dinner, but mostly to announcing them that she had contracted cancer. However, when she called everyone to cancel, she gave them the bad news at that time. To one of my friends, she even announced that she never intended to marry me anyway! while I received a short message over WhatsApp saying “HAPPY BIRTHDAY”, nothing else. I never went to the concert, but spent time with my friends instead, pretending to be happy, as usual.
I can no longer recall how many times she cancelled events at the last minute, after that she first had agreed to go, and I already had bought tickets; for music concerts, dance festivals and world-known performers at nightclubs.
A few weeks later, I let her know that I could no longer afford paying her $300/month utility bill as my company failed. A week after that, she announced our breakup.
I had noticed some bad character traits but didn’t pay much attention at the time. For instance, a friend needed a laptop but could not afford it, so I intended to offer her mine as I had just upgraded, but my ex claimed it for herself, even though I had installed her an upscale desktop a few months earlier. The same happened with a spare iPad meant for my friend's autistic daughter, who had broken hers and my friend had a difficulty paying for a replacement. Neither the laptop nor the iPad was ever seen again.
I covered a $4,000 bill for a friend’s legal fees after a car accident. When my ex heard about my intention, she became very upset, why I decided to hide it. At a friend's birthday dinner, I paid the bill as it was my turn, and she was upset and brought it up repeatedly.
Over those years she gifted me once a bouquet of tulips and a cake for my birthday, and twice a couple of sweaters for Christmas, unfortunately too small, while I paid for everything else.
Well, to my fault, for a while I had a weekly night of heavy drinking with my friends, and I also smoked an excess of cigarettes. Mostly, because I wasn't happy with my situation, and that it helped to control the pain and to hide my sadness from my friends, to always showing up with a happy face.
When learning about her cancer, her congregation was very nice to her and started a GoFundMe page where they contributed over $15,000 to help her out financially, and she received additional financial support from clients and friends.
After all, this was just bad judgement on my behalf, and to consider that what was mine was hers. Maybe, she was viciously calculating, but that's not a crime. Anyway, what is done is done. Hopefully, next time, I will be able to see the signs and not be as innocent and love struck.
I gifted her 300,000 shares in my company, while a friend contributed another 400,000 shares. They both came with a written stipulation that the purpose was for (A) establish a congregation within her New Age Church and (B) paying the tuition to her ministerial school. Although, as it turns out, her tuition was already fully sponsored by a member of her congregation. She sold 450,000 of these shares for $200,000, and $25,000 was paid in taxes. Apparently, most of the money is now gone, paying for her personal expenses. Nothing was ever used for her Church!
I presented her with an overly generous restitution proposal, at less than 25% of her stock sales, and I set up a meeting with her to explain the gravity of the situation. This resulted in her yelling at me; "How can you do this to me, when I'm recovering from cancer?", and calling me a "despicable asshole", and worse.
In my turn, I need to explain to my friend that I misled her into a scam, and that the value of her donation has vanished. I really don’t look forward to that conversation. Of course, I will compensate my friend for the $200,000 she has lost.
In fact, she sent me a note, after that I let her know of my intent to file a claim. It expressed exactly was what could be expected:
"I’m hurt because finally my eyes are opened to the reality I didn’t want to see. I THANK GOD ALMIGHTY that even though it’s hurtful, GOD is showing me your true colors and how you “played” with my life putting me in a situation that I never expected to be in.
That you could decide to destroy my reputation while I am battling stage 3 cancer. Not knowing if I will live or die, creating more emotional distress for me at this time. This stress causing me to bleed and experience the first signs of physical pain in months. I know by now, you have no interest in these facts or even care that I could be dying. I am in utter shock.
I’ve ALWAYS wished the Best for you and I do not want enemies."