It happened to me too - my story

Submitted by Kristin (USA) (United States), Aug 7, 2018 at 17:53

Like so many on this list, I too was scammed by a Moroccan man. I almost ruined my life with this young man and barely got out of the situation. I am not posting for advice. I simply need to share my story as a way for me to heal and I want to "talk" to woman who have been through this. I am 52. He is 27. I have a doctorate degree and was the youngest senior manager in my division before I retired this year after saving money for 30 years to make retirement happen at my age. I've also got a side business that is successful and brings in money. So, I am a highly educated, driven, successful woman. Of course my Moroccan love is extremely good looking, uneducated, and poor. He makes $5/day in the tourism industry. But this is not where I met him. I am a thin, pretty, woman who participates in international running events. I met him at a running race in Morocco.

I'm embarrassed to say that I fell really hard for this guy and the worst part about it, yea, I'm married. Over the course of 15 months things got really intense and I saw him three times in Morocco. He didn't tell me he loved me and wanted to marry me until 9 months into our correspondence. If it wasn't for this site and all of these stories of destroyed lives, I may very well have given up everything for him and his family. I also found it incredibly helpful to confide in my sister and my very good friend. I'm so glad I did. They told me things I didn't want to hear but things I probably already knew but didn't want to believe.

I was planning to leave my husband, move to Morocco, take him traveling with me, buy a house in Morocco for us, take classes in Darija while he took classes in English, and possibly start a business for his family. When I type this it sounds absolutely crazy but I was so in love and blind and deaf to the things I did not want to see and hear. There were some red flags but each time I brought them up, there was always an excuse, a reason, or a logical response.

I tried to break up with him twice before this last time, which finally stuck. The first time was when I read the stories on this forum. It felt like someone kicked me in the stomach. No! How could this be?! I told him he was a fraud and I cried and cried and cried. He told me everything I wanted to hear - he was not like those bad men. He was Amazigh (Berber). They have honor. They tell the truth. He so much wanted me to be his wife, he loved me with every bone in his body, his family loved and accepted me, we had been planning a life together, and of course I even felt bad when he told me I hurt him by calling him this awful name. He said he didn't want to live in America, didn't want a visa. I was the love of his life. I was everything to him. It didn't matter that I was older. It didn't matter that I can no longer have children. Yea, I believed it all.

At some point after that I received a text that read, "What did your mother say? I await your response." What fresh hell was this? My mother has been dead for more than 20 years. Clearly, this was a text meant for someone else. He explained that he used Google Translate and that he was trying to say that he told his mother about me and what did I think about that. I was so thrilled to learn that he told his mother about us. He said he told his mother he wanted to marry me. He said his mother and older brother told his family. His mother accepted our love. His mother said I was a good woman. Oh wow! This was incredible. I was so happy! And oh so naïve.

Later, our communication morphed into night time messages and videos. About a month ago I told him we needed to go back to having normal, daytime conversations again to talk about our future. Yes, yes, we will, he assured me - and we did. We had ONE daytime video call. So, two weeks ago, I left a voice message (during the day) saying it was over. I wanted to tell him via video but apparently he was never available during the day. Oh, it hurt and hurt bad and I cried when I left that voice message. And you know what? He suddenly wanted to talk with me during the day and right that instant too. Wow! Amazing that he found the time during the day! I did a video call with him telling him all of my fears and concerns about us. He had an answer for every one and looking back now, I can see he even turned the conversation around saying I was acting crazy. And yea, there I was at the end of the call apologizing for hurting his heart. Gawd. . . .I want to just hide I'm so embarrassed to even admit that.

Finally, I reached out to my sister and my good friend and told them what was going on. I explained that I was having an affair and I planned to leave my husband and my entire life behind and use my money to help this man and his family. Their pleas to look at what a huge risk this would be and what a mess my life would become initially went unheard.

Then one day I went on Instagram. I don't even know why. I guess I was just curious about what Instagram was and I searched on his name. Oh holy hell! I thought I was going to vomit. I could barely eat for two days and everyone I came into contact with asked me what was wrong. At one point I broke down crying at lunch in front of four other woman. Of course I made up some excuse. I could not believe all the pictures on Instagram of women in bikinis and woman half dressed with him "liking" these photos as well as "liking" photos of these woman when they were not in bikinis and very little clothing. I could understand if these were professional models but these women were not. They were likely women he met through his work in the tourism industry. The pain from seeing those photos was unreal.

I once again turned to my sister and my friend and spent a total of 5 hours on the phone with them. And I re-read every story I could find on this forum. It finally sunk in after 15 months. No, I wasn't the exception. I wasn't even special. This was a scam. There. I said it. I texted him about this and he freaked out, immediately deleting his Instagram account and leaving texts and voice messages saying he didn't love any of those woman on Instagram and that he had only one true love. He wanted me to be his wife. He wanted a beautiful life with me. Uh huh. I'll bet he does.

Finally, the fog I was in for the past year disappeared. I'm amazed at both how stupid I was, and how much work it took to truly see what was going on. Two days ago I spent the morning deleting and/or blocking him and his family and friends from my communication and social media accounts. There was no other way. No goodbyes. No explanation.

Sometimes I wonder what he is thinking regarding my disappearance from his life. Before I might have thought he was thinking something like, "Oh, what happened to the love of my life? I love her so much! I must find her! She is my future wife!" Now, I'm almost certain his thoughts are probably more along the lines of, "I can't believe I wasted more than a year of my time on that American woman. I wonder if that Spanish lady is still interested in me? And what about that woman from England I met recently? I think I'll send her a text and see if I can get that going."

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