My Ex is a Con Man

*Please note that in the past I have opted to leave out names for the privacy of those individuals, however, this is my life and my story. I am not insensitive and also I know that we all have a role we play in each other’s lives. Sometimes we are cast as the villain and sometimes the hero. It depends on the stage of life we are in at that moment in time. I take great consideration in the names of the people who do get mentioned out of respect for them and for myself.

My entire life, I have believed that people are inherently good. Despite the various costumes and charades “bad” people put on, there is a reason for it. Something happened to them that hurt them so badly, this is how they learned to survive.

While I still believe that and will always look for the other side first, I have come to realize that at a certain point, it is no longer a built-in habit but a choice to be the way we are every single day.

I have days when I wake up and I am grateful for everyone, everything, and their brother’s sister’s mother. Then there are days I wake up in a fighting mood. That doesn’t mean I’m about to go out and start fighting people. It means I CHOOSE to figure out what the heck is going on that has set off this extreme attitude of aching to cause conflict in my life.

I had a conversation with someone recently, asking about my ex. Asking about how he treated me because there is concern for one of their family members. When this individual reached out, I was honestly skeptical. And then I thought about it, what is the worst that could happen? Worst case I hang up, best case I have an opportunity to help someone and share my experience.

I opted into this conversation. Part of me needed closure, but the bigger part needed to share my knowledge of this hurtful individual.

Oh Joshua, what have you done you fool?

After hearing a bit about her story, internally I was fuming (the details I will leave out because that is theirs to tell when and if they are ready.) There are so many lies that he has been spewing to this family. Mistruths. Added bits and pieces taken away. It’s disgusting. I have never felt more wronged in my life. I was played by a con man.

He manipulated me so badly that it didn’t make sense mentally. I couldn’t comprehend what was happening in my relationship because of the false reality he had created for me.

For the first time in my life, I can openly admit that I was in an abusive relationship. The physical was limited, but the emotional was every single day. Joshua knows how to play the game and he plays it well. Unfortunately for him, his charade will not end in good taste because he picks people with families that care too much.

My story with this con man is much longer than I will be able to write out here but after hearing how he has impacted this new family he wormed himself into, I can’t stay silent any longer.

When I left Maine, where we met, I moved back to the West Coast to surround myself with family and a safe space. Something he doesn’t have. He conned me out of thousands of dollars, which yes, I willingly paid with the intention he would pay me back. He took over my apartment and my space. He threatened to leave me on multiple occasions but, I can see he never would have because that would have put him back out on the streets. He just wanted to create that power dynamic.

Every time we argued, which was rather frequent, it was my fault. It was my fault for wanting to talk. My fault for wanting to have a conversation. It made me dramatic for wanting to understand and be understood. It meant that I wasn’t listening to him and I wasn’t hearing him and I wasn’t respecting him. Those were his vices every single time.

When I finally pulled the trigger on what I had wanted to do for years and spit out the words that would inevitably be his doom, I should have seen the calculations building in his head, but I still didn’t understand this man. I still didn’t understand who he is or what he is. How could I? I was still in it despite being out of it.

We stayed in the same apartment that he couldn’t afford for about a month until it started to get even more toxic. In hindsight, I can tell you that he probably wanted space for himself so he could start looking for his next victim especially, because I wasn’t under his control anymore to an extent. His words became more derogatory. He made home as dark as it could be energetically that I eventually moved in with a friends family that I was so blessed to have in my life.

The entire moveout process was hell.

Joshua yelled at me, calling me all sorts of names that I can’t even remember anymore, and kicked me out of an apartment that I was still paying for. Even when I moved across the country, I continued to track the rent payments because my name was still on the lease.

The bottom line is this, if I removed my name, he would have to reapply. If he reapplied, he wouldn’t be able to stay because he didn’t have sufficient income, he didn’t have a co-signer, and he didn’t have good enough credit. Winner, right? So, in my empathetic mind, staying on the lease was the least I could do.

I’ll tell you, he weaseled another $3000 out of my family because he couldn’t “afford rent”. But those new shoes look nice…The only reason I paid is because I was still attached to the unit and I didn’t want it coming back to bite me in the ass.

From the moment I broke up with him, he tells the story a different way, he was calculating his next move. For one, he knew I still “loved” him because of who I was raised to be. I come from a family of kindness and graciousness, and he knew he could work it to his advantage. All he had to do was keep me on a hook so that he had a place to stay, after all he had spent two years with me so he knew me inside and out.

As soon as I told him that I was taking my name off the lease, he panicked. He freaked out on me and even at thousands of miles away, he reverted back to what a terrible person I was. Trying to manipulate me by saying things like “You said you would come back” and “You just want to put me on the streets”.

My distance and space had made me realize that he was an adult man who lived before me and would either choose to live after me or not. I know it’s dark, but it’s the survival of the fittest babes.

So I worked with the property company to get my name off (a far more complicated process than it needed to be) and he went quiet. He didn’t talk to me. He didn’t talk to the property company. He stopped showing up to work and got fired. He went into a pit of despair.

What he later told me was that he held a gun to his head multiple times but was still too weak to pull the trigger. It’s sad and after I saw him when I went to pick up our cat, I believe it.

The con didn’t end there.

We moved him down to my aunt’s in Virginia where he lived. My mom’s family are some of the most amazing passionate people you will meet. All they want to do is help anyone and everyone that needs it, Joshua included. My aunt tried to help him find work, but nothing stuck or it wasn’t in the field that he wanted. What field is that is my question because frankly, I don’t think he wants to work at all. He wants someone else to bum off of.

One of the conditions of his living there was he had to seek mental help. He was diagnosed with Bipolar, but if I know Joshua, his opposition to medication is profound. Hey, I get it, medication can be numbing and that can’t feel good but that means that without it, we should be searching for alternate options to tune down the parts of us that are a little out of our control. That, he wasn’t willing to do.

It was in the fall that he told my mom and aunt that he got a job at a resort in Montana or South Dakota and was moving. I now know that was 100% not true.

This con man had run his course in my life and unfortunately found someone else who is kind, empathetic, and vulnerable to the desires and wants in her life. A personality he looks for and latches onto.

This story is short. This isn’t even half of it and I’m only one side of it. But today I can say, I dated a con man. A master manipulator. A man lost to the lies he has told himself for far too long.

I hope one-day things change, but more than that I send love and support to the family he is affecting now.

If you can relate. If you are in one of these right now, know that it’s okay. It happens. I was so ashamed of how deep I went with this person that I was terrified to walk away because of how other people would look at me. The truth is, my family and friends, supported me and held me and cared for me. Not a single person pitied me or looked badly at me. They waited for me to rise out of my shame and guilt because that was the only place it was coming from.

One of the biggest lessons I learned in this relationship, is it is okay to be wrong. It’s okay to own it, to hold it, and to accept it with grace and patience. We are all in this world learning one step at a time. As long as we are going forward, we aren’t going back.

I love you all so much and I hope if this is a situation you are in, you find the courage to walk away for yourself because you deserve so much more.

Love Always,

Riss

If you want to hear more about my experience dating a con man and the emotionally abusive relationship I have lived through, let me know! We grow from other people’s experiences as much as our own. And while I don’t believe my story is special, it is unique because no experience is the same <3