After my marriage fell apart, darkness got to me. Then I was catfished
'You don't revere me anymore.' The words rolled off my tongue at my husband, who had been acting strangely for a few days.
'Revere?' he said with such distaste that it stunned me. Then I did what any wife married for 23 years might do: I read his emails. I wanted the truth.
'All she does is spend money!' screamed up at me from the computer screen.
I wasn't in love with my husband anymore. I did still love him and had planned to sacrifice my happiness to make sure he was taken care of until the end.
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Then he betrayed me and let me off the hook.
He didn't cheat. He talked behind my back in ways that I felt dishonored me. Imagine reading your husband's emails (I'm not perfect) and finding long conversations between him and his daughter about you. This from the man you've been with for 25 years!
I suppose I knew this day would come. Money was always the bane of our relationship. My husband would not have initiated divorce because it would have cost him too much. Did I spend? Yes, I suppose, but only to improve our home in Culver City, give us a luscious yard and a new paved driveway. And that's not to mention all the trips we took to fascinating places.
I had done a lot for him. Surprised him with a bar mitzvah in Jerusalem, brought his "mathematical art" to life through art shows and social media and planned our busy social schedule.
I moved to the Pico-Robertson area to be close to my niece and her three kids. Darkness consumed me, but my face was masked with perpetual smiles.
How do you begin again at 71? Friends tried to guide me to dating sites, but I wasn't ready. I took refuge in my apartment with my dog, Murray, who kept me alive through the COVID-19 pandemic, depression and divorce. My life consisted of walking the dog, writing children's books and binge-watching Netflix nightly.
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Once the divorce was over, loneliness won out. I moved to a new city an hour outside of L.A. Male attention came from a 31-year-old gardener who brought me flowers every Tuesday. 'I'm old enough to be your grandmother,' I said. I was feeling the need for male energy, but not with this young man.
So I turned to online dating.
I scrolled down the list of all my likes on a dating site. One man caught my eye. He was Jewish, intelligent and had a dog named Erik. I sent him a like back. 'Can you give me your number so we can text?' he asked.
What could it hurt? The next two weeks were a whirlwind. We were in a textationship. I felt so high I stopped eating. I lost six pounds in three days.
Jay enchanted me with all the romantic things that he was going to do for me. He sent me love songs. I wasn't just beautiful; I was extremely beautiful and I shouldn't worry about being overweight, he told me.
He wanted a soulmate and convinced me that we were meant to be. Blown away by our connection, we both realized bashert (or fate) had won out.
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I was the happiest I had been in many years. Finally something was going to come easy for me. But I wasn't naive. Red flags started to pop up. Jay and I had barely spoken on the phone when he told me that he had to be in Washington, D.C. for three weeks to work on a military base. He wouldn't be able to video chat, and if he did, he could get fired.
On a Friday morning, two weeks into our relationship, I texted, 'I'm sorry, but I can't invest anymore into this relationship until I see you.'
He asked if I could Skype. (Oh, remember Skype?) Red flag. Why not FaceTime? I waited all day Saturday for him to call. Nothing.
On Sunday morning, I blocked him on my phone. Murray and I headed to the ocean. On Monday, unable to text me, he emailed. Hope reared its head again. "How can you give up all we shared together?" he asked.
'I so want you to be true, Jay, but I still need to see your face," I replied.
At 7 a.m. Monday, he called. In bed with no makeup on, we met on Google Meet. I loved the face on his profile, but I didn't think this face was the same one I saw on-screen. I asked him why he said he was a New York native on his profile when I knew he grew up in Sweden. He shrugged it off as a small embellishment.
I fake smiled and asked him to say something to me in Swedish. He mumbled something that meant 'bright day." My intuition was on fire.
The guy had to be a liar.
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Was he grooming me to ask for money? Was he trying to feel important? Did he want to inflict harm?
Later that day, he sent me an email. 'I told you I couldn't talk on video and that I'd be home soon enough, and we could be together. Now, they've found out that I made a video call and I could get fired. I'm not sure this was worth it. I'm angry you didn't believe me.' (He allegedly did secret work as an engineer for the Department of Defense.)
I texted back: 'Goodbye, Jay.'
'Wow, goodbye,' he answered.
I could've gone back into depression, but I was already out. I felt empowered.
Catfished or not, I have to thank Jay — or whatever his name really is. He put the pep back in my step even if he didn't mean a word of it. Through the ping-pong of our conversations, my darkness ceased to be. I realized that I was capable of feeling again. Whatever it was that we meant to each other, Mr. Catfish managed to give me the very thing I was missing: Hope.
The author is an actor, writer and producer living in Southern California with her dog Murray.
L.A. Affairs chronicles the search for romantic love in all its glorious expressions in the L.A. area, and we want to hear your true story. We pay $400 for a published essay. Email LAAffairs@latimes.com. You can find submission guidelines here. You can find past columns here.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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