Let's back up a little.

  

If you click on any of the highlighted text in this post, it will take you back to some old posts that tell the story of what happened as it was happening. For more information on any part of the back story, you can click on any of those links.  My "Notable Posts" are always listed on the right hand side of this page and will take you to the "biggies."

***If you have looked at this post before, I have since updated (as of 9/2/14) ALL of the links and they should now work. If any don't, please leave a comment and let me know the problem, thanks!****

I had a big post on Friday, but even one of my oldest readers, who was here before anything ever even happened wasn't sure what was going on, and so many of you are new, I think I better back up a little bit.

From January 2009-August 2010 I dated and was in love with a wonderful man who loved me very much. He went through a tremendous amount of  trouble, grief, and despair on an almost on-going basis from just a few months into our relationship which added some strain and of course drama. He was also a police officer and has some crazy work hours.  I wasn't a fan of any of these things, and it was stressful, but he was so loving, so charming, and so deeply committed and in love with me, and I with him, that I knew that we would always be together and spend the rest of our lives together. We discussed whether I would take his name, or hyphenate mine with his, when we would get pregnant, have babies, how many, what kind of ring I wanted, how much he would spend on that ring, on and on. I even contacted vendors and made preliminary budgets for the big day.

August 3rd 2010 I found out everything he had told me was a lie. The only thing he had been honest about me with was his first name (Matt), and his occupation (police officer.) Everything else about himself- high schools, college he attended, where he grew up, families names, friends names, stories about a friend being killed in the line of duty, all of the "trouble, grief and despair" he had gone through had all been made up. He even lied and said his father suffered a debilitating stroke and that he had to move two hours away to help care for him. Not true. The most explosive things I found out were that he had lied to me about his name- his name that we debated about hyphenating was not even his last name- he had "stolen" that name and identity from another officer he knew- and the fact that he was married and the father of a baby girl. She had apparently been born 10 days before we started dating.

I had no idea. And it wasn't easy to figure any of these things out. It took only a few days, but it took 20+hours on the computer digging through county maps and public records and white pages to find all of this out. Even then I had no idea where it was going. It wasn't until I saw her face starting back at me from the computer screen that I realized what he had been hiding from me all this time. There had always been a perfectly logical, plausible and understandable excuse for why I hadn't met his parents (father was so ill!), or been to his home (quickly rented out once the father became ill!). I never saw it coming. Even now, looking back, everything he told me could have been true. It could have just been a great guy with a string of bad luck in his family and personal life.

Healing from this has been exceedingly difficult and I have not made it very far. I do eat now (I almost stopped eating entirely at first and lost 20 or more pounds over 2-3 weeks), and I can leave the house. I'm not guaranteed to have a panic attack if I walk into a store as I was back then, and although I still can't stand the touch or feel of being hugged by men, I can stand closer to men I know now without feeling like my throat's closing in. I have a chronic fear of police and uniforms. I go to therapy twice a week. I cry alot. I'm confused all the time. I still love the man I was with for those eighteen months and I mourn his spiritual death and disappearance from my life.  He was a beautiful match and partner for me and I miss him very much. Reconciling the man I loved with the monster who did that into a singular being has been one of the most difficult hurdles. I'm still not there yet.

Last week I finally took the steps I needed to take and filed a complain with the state and reported Matt to the Office of Investigations within the police department for his conduct. Impersonating another officer, stealing name tags, signing credit card receipts in other people's name and overall exhibiting behaviors of someone who is likely a pathological liar are probably not ideal habits of someone you want to be able to swear in on a witness stand several times a month to "tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth."

That is where I am at now and it is a very scary place. I cried on and off over the weekend, worrying about what will happen. The Captain of his department should receive my complaint by today, and then the investigation will start. I'm afraid of retaliation. I'm afraid of them finding a reason to sue me. I'm afraid of hurting Matt. I'm afraid he will get in trouble. I'm afraid he will lose his job, or his career. I'm afraid of hurting his family. ...I'm afraid he will do this to someone else. I'm afraid he already has. I'm afraid they won't do anything at all and he will get away with it.

I have therapy this morning, so hopefully I can get some of this off my chest and talk about it. I didn't make the decision or even consider it or discuss it until after therapy last week so she doesn't know yet. I'm feeling okay right now, which is why I was able to write this pretty clearly, and unemotionally; I'm feeling detached, but the floodgates will open after my appointment and well... let's just hope I don't drown. :(

Any other questions?