My Ex-Husband Scammed Me For Two Years
And why I’m at peace with it
The first suspicious incident happened in 2015. My then-husband, X, was living in Mexico after being deported from Canada four years prior. I had been married to X for three years, and it was not going well. After our wedding in Mexico, I had delayed starting the spousal visa process for another two years, knowing that it wasn’t what I truly wanted. Both X and I knew, even if we wouldn’t admit it, that the visa process would last longer than our crumbling marriage would.
In June of 2015, we hadn’t seen each other in more than a year. Communication was becoming less and less frequent. X suggested that we take a two week break in communication, to “see how we felt.” I agreed, not knowing what else to do.
After the two weeks had passed, we both agreed to continue our relationship. After all, the visa process had started. Progress, however slow, was finally being made in that regard.
However, a few days after we reaffirmed our commitment, I got a strange phone call from X.
“There is a man here at my boxing club,” he started. “He doesn’t believe that we will ever get divorced. He doesn’t believe that I would ever divorce a Canadian girl and he says he will pay me $50 if I can prove that you are going to divorce me.
“So, I need you to call me up and talk about how you are sending me the divorce papers. He is going to listen in, but you have to pretend not to know.”
In retrospect, this whole scenario seems completely ridiculous. My logical mind knew that this was an absurd request and it wasn’t likely that he was telling the truth. I had heard him lie before, but always to government officials or utility service providers. Surely he wouldn’t lie to me?
No matter how suspicious I felt, my heart was hurting and I yearned to prove myself to him after our painful break. So, if proving my love meant participating in this weird scheme, I would do it.
He needed the money, and I blamed myself for his financial situation. After all, it was my fault he was stuck in Mexico at a dead end job. It was my fault the sponsorship process was so delayed. Or so my lonely, anxious mind told me every night.
So, I called him, and as planned, we had a fake fight about divorce papers. Later, messaging him, I told him, “I hope you realize how hard it was for me to do that, and how much I love and trust you!”
“I know, baby,” he answered. “I love you too.”
Even though the weirdness made me feel sick, I felt good about having a way to prove my love for him.
His underpaying job was at a glorified pawn shop and payday loan center where he handled a lot of gold. As time went by, he started to sound very paranoid about his work. He said that gangsters in the area might try to accost him to try and get at the gold. He also said that he was afraid that he might be kidnapped for ransom if local gangsters found out he had a Canadian wife. According to what he told me, gangsters assumed that all Canadians had money to burn and could easily put up a substantial ransom on demand.
As weeks passed, his messages sounded more and more agitated. I encouraged him to move away from his hometown and move in with his grandparents, who lived in another state. He agreed readily and told me he needed money to move. I sent him $500, which was all I could spare. A few days later, he told me he had moved. However, days after his supposed move, his Whatsapp location still showed that he was in his hometown.
I texted his mother, who said he was no longer in their house, but that she had no idea where he had gone. She said that he seemed extremely paranoid.
One weekend in October, he stopped answering his messages all together. The silence was deafening and I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach.
I finally received a text from him on Tuesday. He sent me a picture of his face, looking battered and bruised. It was horrifying. He said that he had been in a motorcycle accident. It hurt my heart to see him like that. I blamed myself again for being the cause of all this. He also told me that his phone had been destroyed in the accident and he couldn’t afford a new one. From then on, he said he would only be able to contact me once a week, when he had access to Wi-Fi on his old phone.
Some weeks later, I got a strange message from his WhatsApp at 1am. It was just a random series of numbers and letters.
When I asked him what it was about, he responded in a panic. He said it was a sign that gangsters had hacked his WhatsApp and he was afraid that the next step was his imminent kidnapping. He then told me the “truth” about the day of his accident. Apparently he had been accosted and beaten on the way home from a party, which is why his face was so messed up. According to his story, when he asked why he was being beaten, the people assailing him had said, “You know why!”
He told me he had no idea what they were talking about. After being beaten, he drove away on his motorcycle, but his injures were so bad that he ended up crashing.
He said we needed to stop using WhatsApp, since the gangsters had clearly penetrated that medium, and only use Facebook messenger.
He was also asking me for money more and more often. At the beginning of our relationship, he never asked me for money, but after his son started college he would tell me once or twice a year that he needed help with his son’s tuition. I was happy to help without being directly asked. These occasional requests became monthly, and then twice a month.
I was like a frog in hot water. As time went by, he stopped even thanking me for the money. He would simply accept the transfer and I was left feeling empty. When I asked him directly, though, he always had a good reason for needing it and seemed grateful enough.
A few months after the motorcycle accident, he asked me again to lie about the divorce papers. He said, this time, that it was for the benefit of the gangsters. He said he thought his phone was tapped, and these potential kidnappers needed to know that there was no way I would be paying a ransom if he did in fact get abducted.
I felt terrible about this. It really made no sense to me. My mind boggled at the possibilities. The obvious one was that the person really listening in was another woman who needed to be assured that I was nothing but a cash cow. But what if there really were gangsters? It was, after all, Mexico, and people had been found dead in his town while I was visiting.
And why would he lie to me? When we were dating, he had assured me over and over that if he wasn’t in love, he never had trouble ending the relationship. He had no reason to fake it. I complied, and had another fake fight over fake divorce papers. I felt completely untethered.
Eventually I started ignoring the requests for money. Communication happened less and less until I finally, after four years apart, found the courage to end the relationship once and for all.
I still don’t completely understand what happened. Maybe, one day, we will talk and he will be honest with me. Who knows.
I get angry when I consider that maybe he was taking me for a fool. It really hurts me to think about that, since I really did love him. He seemed so honest when I first met him and the memories of those final, toxic years still sting.
But here’s the thing: in spite of the pain and the judgement of others, I’m not angry about the thousands of dollars I sent him.
Even though the evidence seems to clearly point to the fact that I was being scammed, I forgive him.
Even though I do wish that I had put myself first, I understand what poverty does to people. X was a single dad who was the sole provider for his son. I truly believe that if it wasn’t for the high cost of his son’s college tuition, things would have been different. It wasn’t right, but I still think that he is a good person and wanted his son to be successful and break out of the cycle of poverty.
People who have never experienced poverty don’t understand how it can affect your mind and soul. Integrity doesn’t put food on the table. This doesn’t justify or excuse scamming people — and more importantly, it doesn’t mean people should willingly be victims of this kind of thing.
Still, I hesitate to condemn him for the possibility that he was scamming me. Considering I earned approximately quadruple his hourly wage, I can understand why he must have felt like I could spare the money.
His son has since graduated college and is a successful chef, so I know that my stupidity was not for nothing. At the very least, I hope it will count towards some good karma.
In conclusion, there is nothing inherently scammy or exploitative about someone sending another money. After all, the nature of a relationship implies that you will be sharing. If I could speak to my past self, I would tell myself to go to therapy to sort out all the conflicting anxiety, guilt, and loneliness that were causing me to act illogically and against my best interests for all those years. I had to carry the burden of all those strange incidents alone and this made everything worse and made me subject myself to it much longer than I otherwise would have. Wherever X is, I wish him well and hope that he can find more honest ways to move forward in the future.
