Everyone Handles Grief Differently
I went to a friend’s funeral about a month ago. He passed young, in his early 30s, and had a wife and three small kids. We were close in school, but only casually kept touch over the years, so I had only met his wife a few times.
I got to the funeral and was surprised how well she seemed to be holding it together, but figured everyone handles grief differently.
I offered my condolences, and then ended up chatting with a few other college friends after the service. My friend’s wife came up to the group to let us know that we are invited to go have a drink with her and a few others if we wanted, as her parents were watching her kids for her.
I was going to decline until she told us that she had something shocking to share with us. Apparently, she needed to let us all know what she had found out over the last week while going through my friend’s things.
According to her, the reason she wasn’t very upset was because my friend had been leading a double life for the past 13+ years! He had always claimed his dad had owned a trucking company and then sold it leaving him really well off, and we believed him.
Based on his spending habits, this all seemed true. He also had claimed his mom passed while we were in school, and that he was an only child.
After he left the college I attended during our sophomore year, he would post pictures of Vanderbilt and claimed he transferred there to finish school. All of this seemed to check out.
To add to all this, he also said he got a master’s from a different prestigious school. I had worked with him briefly a few years ago in a professional capacity when his company reached out to possibly work with my company, so based on his role there, all of that totally sounded like it could be true.
It turned out none of it was. His mom and sister attended the funeral—the mom all of us, including his wife, thought had passed when he was in college, and the sister none of us knew existed.
She had no idea that he’d told people she wasn’t alive. She thought his son and wife eloped, and with her living out of state, my friend would make excuses as to why his wife didn’t visit.
My friend had also told us his sister was his cousin, so we were all shocked by that too. My friend even went so far as to show his wife an obituary for his mom when they were dating.
His wife had thought the whole time that his actual mom was his aunt, and that his sister was his cousin. And the lies just kept coming—an entire life unraveling before our very eyes.
The school stuff was also all lies. He apparently transferred to an online school and got a bachelor’s, but would send us pictures from Vanderbilt’s campus.
The trucking company his dad owned was real, but actually went bankrupt and was liquidated. The trust fund he told his wife that he set up for the kids doesn’t exist.
To make things worse, he had told his wife that he didn’t have student loans, but he actually had $78k in loans. He had maxed out multiple credit cards she didn’t know existed.
And the cherry on top? He was cheating on her with multiple other women. He was taking them for fancy dinners, to the casino, and even getting hotel rooms for them.
Needless to say, his wife was livid, and she was very happy to find out she wasn’t the only one my friend had been lying to all these years. The whole thing seriously felt like a movie.
I didn’t realize stories like this actually happened in real life. I am still sad my friend passed, but I also realize many of us never met the real him. Now the rest of us are doing what we can to help his wife and his kids.
Story credit: Reddit / ChucknObi