Story Time: The Time I was Impersonated

Has anyone ever pretended to be you? No? Maybe I should feel flattered.

Today's story time is brought to you by the husband of a lady my ex was having an affair with. As always, if you have no idea about my past and this is the first time you are reading my blog, you have to read the other posts first or you might get a little lost.

It was fall of 2014. I was sitting at my desk checking emails. I'm a teacher and our email addresses are listed on the county's Board of Education website. I received a notification that someone was trying to email me through the district website. At the time, you had to approve it to be sent through to your inbox. The subject line read, "Information about your Husband." Now, who wouldn't put THAT one through?

I opened it to find a simple message that read:

Hello,

I'm reaching out to you to see if I really spoke to you last Friday on the phone. I'm thinking it wasn't you, but your husband swears it was. I need to speak to you to see if it was really you or not. Please give me a call as soon as possible.

I tried to call the number that was included with the message, but my phone would not put the call through. I emailed the man back to tell him and he asked me to call from a different number. I made up a lie (sorry, Molly) and borrow my work bestie's phone. The call went through just fine. Having been married for about 9 years at this point, I already knew what the call would be about. But this was really the first time something concrete was hitting me right in the face. Before now, things had been explained in a way where I could lie to myself and dismiss that everything was as bad as it really was.

He answered and introduced himself as the husband of the lady my husband was having an affair with. I sat silent for a while and he then asked if we had talked on the phone the previous Friday. I told him no. This was as he suspected because the lady he spoke to seemed very off and not able to answer questions quickly enough for someone claiming to be me. He was letting me know that he had found out about our spouses' affair and had demanded it stop but my husband seemed to be persistent and continued to pursue this other man's wife.

Her husband finally said he was going to call and expose my husband to me. He told this man that he had already told me about the affair and that we were going to stay together and work through the situation. When the lady's husband didn't believe him, he asked to be put on a call with me! My ex obliged and called "me." This man had a whole conversation with a woman asking questions about me to see if the responses were something I'd really say and if I really knew about this affair. He said he could tell something was very off. The lady couldn't answer where I worked, what my kids' names were, or anything like that without a huge delay and she seemed nervous and uneasy. He did a Google search and found my work email address and decided to reach out, just to be sure!

He told me that my husband would not leave his wife alone. She was trying to move on but he would not stop calling, texting and messaging her at work. This man even went up to their office in Macon to personally tell him face-to-face to back off. Lucky for my ex, he wasn't able to make it up to his floor. He apologized for having to deliver the bad news and wished me well. He also told me the name of the women he thought was impersonating me on the phone. He told me that it was rumored she was the new person he was pursuing now that he had to move on from his wife! He told me he had "eyes" at the office and he'd tell me if there was anything else I ever needed to know. And he did. He emailed me to tell me when my husband left with "the impersonator" to go on a lunch date. I was able confront him that day, so it was much appreciated.

This story is sad enough, but the saddest part to me is that the woman who pretended to be me did this for him. Who pretends to be another man's wife...the wife of the man you are seeing behind her back? To protect him from another of his mistress's husband? It just blows my mind, and makes me very sad for her all the same.

I did a little research and found the reason I couldn't call this man on my phone was because his number was blocked from my phone. I actually had several numbers, entered in my phone, that were blocked from calling me and me calling them. I never knew that was a thing you could do! I also discovered this man was blocked on my Facebook as well as other women. I can only assume these were women throughout the years that he tried to keep from reaching out to me.

It scares me now to realize the level of deception I was living with on a daily basis. This is not normal, cheating behavior. This is so much more and it is extremely scary that people like him are free to do this to other people. I'll never understand the lack of empathy and compassion for others that it takes to be so deceitful. I never want to know that kind of callousness inside my heart.

It angers me that my ex-husband claims to be a Christian. I try not to let it eat me up because I'm not his maker nor his judge. However, I can't help but think about the people he has hurt, manipulated and deceived. Think about the people that look at him and see him as the example of what a believer is. I am not perfect by any means. I need God's grace just as much as he does. But I choose love. And he is the opposite of love. Destruction follows him as he tears a reckless path through life. I pray for the others caught in the wake of his devastation.

I found my way out, but there will always be others being sucked inside his storm; beginning their own struggle and suffering.