It Happened To Me: My Boyfriend's Ex Faked Suicide to Lure Him Back

Happy leave your old Valentines alone Day! That's the message I hope all exes get from my crazy cautionary tale, today and always.

By Sarah Swinwood

The first time I lived with a boyfriend, I was in my 40s. Ricky and I met when he was 51 but we didn’t actually start dating until a year later when we ran into each other by chance. We loved to sleep wrapped up in each other's arms, snuggling and giving each other little kisses. It didn’t take long for us to figure out we wanted to always sleep beside each other, his huge, muscular arms and legs, my slender, tiny little frame. Our bodies fit together like a Japanese puzzle box. We loved love.

He had a place upstate and would come to the city just a few days a week. When we started seeing each other, he was still staying those days at his ex-girlfriend’s apartment, but not in the same bed, he told me. They hadn’t been intimate in over a year. At our age, it was understandable that we both had people from our pasts around. I didn’t like the arrangement, but I didn’t feel threatened by it either. He was transparent and had no reason to lie.

It wasn’t until week three when she phoned him while I was sitting in the truck beside him and I could hear her yelling at him about when he was coming home and how long he planned on staying before leaving her with his dog.

“That sounds like a woman who thinks she is in a relationship with you,” I said.

“Don’t worry,” he told me. “It’s not how it sounds. That’s actually why we are not together anymore, her constant yelling and erratic temper.”

“If you and I are going to continue pursuing a relationship, this is not going to be sustainable,” I insisted.

How could we allow falling in love if he had an ex that he was not only staying with but would call and yell at him? I didn’t know her— and I had a feeling that she didn’t know about me. We had been unfolding so organically, Ricky and I, that our mutual affection and attraction was the only thing I’d been noticing. But, after her call, I wondered what this woman looked like. She had no social media and he only had one blurry photo of her. I couldn’t get a read.

Then, I started noticing her name pop up on his phone more frequently. He’d brought me to his country house, introduced me to his friends and taken me for dinner every other night in the city. He wasn’t hiding me… but she couldn’t have known about us.

Ricky took me to his beach house. His efforts to make space for our blossoming relationship were sincere. I couldn’t shake the feeling that his ex’s life was more interwoven with his than he had admitted to me, or to himself. Her sneakers were at the back door, hair elastics stacked on the base of his drive shift in the truck. I finally saw a clear picture of her on the side of the fridge, with Ricky, in a photo booth, him in a rugby jersey and baseball cap, bashfully smirking and revealing his slight sexy gap tooth and bright blue eyes. Sadie with a golden tan, long blonde hair and toothpaste commercial smile. There was another photo of him with a woman who had long, curly hair, a huge grin and a helmet on, her arms wrapped around him on the back of a scooter.

Ricky and me. LOVE SAVES THE DAY.

“Is this Sadie?” I asked him about the blonde in the photo.

“Oh yeah, I forgot those were there. I’ll take them down,” he replied.

“And who’s this girl on the back of the moped with you?” I asked.

“That’s my other ex, Veronica. She and Sadie are friends. They put those up there.”

“Your two exes are friends and came here together?” I blurted.

“Veronica stalked me after we broke up. When Sadie and I started dating, she told her to back off. Eventually, they ended up friends and now the two of them gang up on anyone I try to date. That’s probably why they put those pictures up there. They don’t want me to move on,” he told me, as he took the photos down.

As a teenager, I had been obsessed with New Kids On The Block. I was convinced Jordan was singing exclusively to me. Years later, on their reunion tour, I responded to a Craigslist ad: “Were you The New Kids’ number one fan? We want to hear from you.” I sat there and banged out a two-page reply about my visceral experience. The next day I received a phone call,

“Hi, we're calling from the Rachael Ray Show and we are having some fans on to talk about what it’s like being a number one fan. Would you be willing to come on and share your story?”

Say less. Rachael Ray wanted to know, “Were we excited for the reunion tour?” While the other women shrieked and squealed, I thought to myself, “Sure, I had been a fan when I was a teenager …but I wasn’t anymore.”

The damage was done. My understanding of love and romance has been permanently skewed.

Here I am on the ‘Rachael Ray Show’ in 2008.

It’s what I thought about that night, when his phone started ringing with Sadie’s name on the screen. She called so many times that he turned his phone off. I fell into a restless sleep of vivid dreams, her calling and texting. I told him about the dreams the next morning and he replied that he’d had a weird sleep, too, with similar dreams.

When I looked at my phone, there was a text from an unknown number.

“Are you at the beach house? On Rhode Island?” It read.

Then, a voice message from another unknown number, a raspy, growling voice that said, “Stay away from my husband.”

I read him the text, then told him about the voice message.

“Yeah, I have a ton of messages from Sadie, too. She hacked into my iMessage and read all of the texts between you and me. She’s losing it.”

“Are you married?” I wondered.

“No, that’s bullshit. She’s still married to her ex who she has a daughter with and still very much in the picture…”

I played him the voice message.

“Oh” he shook his head laughing, “That’s not Sadie, that’s Veronica. They’re at it again.”

Another harsh text from an unknown number.

Veronica texted me that she had found me on social media, she had seen my pictures of my birthday at the beach house.

“What are you doing with another woman’s man, you homewrecker? That’s Sadie’s made bed you’re sleeping on you stupid whore. Ricky and Sadie are twin flames. What daddy issues do you have? You can’t have anything in common with a 50-year-old man. How will you be able to introduce him to your friends and family? End this now. It’s disgusting.” Veronica texted.

My body coursed with adrenaline. I read it to Ricky and we burst out laughing at how my pictures must make me look good for my age. I was not going to respond, but that one got me.

“I’m in my 40s and have been working as a teacher and interpreter for over 25 years. He’s met my friends and family. You think I look younger, thanks for the compliment,” I messaged.

“He’s already met your friends and family? That’s fast. And unhealthy. Good luck,” she replied.

“You shouldn’t have responded,” Ricky told me. “It only adds fuel to the fire.”

I agreed. How to reason with insanity? Instead of blocking them, I added Sadie under the name Unhinged and Veronica under Delusional. I wanted to observe where they were going with this.

Ricky told me after those initial two years with Sadie, they broke up and she moved away. When his father became ill, she reappeared. There was a pattern of her coming back into the picture when he was broken down and vulnerable.

Sadie messaged again.

“Hi Sarah. I’m sorry you’re involved in this mess. He’s really dishonest and makes poor decisions. I believed he could change and was just a mess after losing family. I was stupid and will never do this with him again. I’m not trying to upset you but I needed to let you know. I’m sorry Sarah.”

Sadie’s texts vacillated between why I’d made a mistake with Ricky to begging me to leave him so he could come back to her. Veronica was much more scathing.

“You are so boring to stalk you wanna-be hipster slut. Stop spreading those chicken legs for big daddy Ricky, he’ll get bored of you and he’s only using you. Keep trying, he will never love you,” Veronica texted.

Then things got darker.

Veronica started insinuating that Sadie’s family were afraid she might hurt herself. Ricky and I still hadn’t found an apartment in the city, so these messages were coming in as we finished moving my things into his place upstate.

Leaving the city on our way upstate, Ricky and I had to stop to snap this pic.

“Sadie’s gone, Ricky. I’m so sorry. I’m here for you if you need me.” She wrote.

A woman claiming to be Sadie’s grandmother, who was quite religious, messaged him:

“We will be gathering with the pastor this week for the memorial, Ricky. We hope you can make it, you are our family. Love Nana,” the message read.

What was supposed to be an evening of cozy and romantic celebration for Ricky and I with wine and a movie turned into one of me consoling him through this strange situation.

“I don’t believe this narrative, it reads fishy.” I summoned the gumption to say, “I’m here to support you. Go if you need. I just won’t be able to tolerate this for long. Seems like a hoax.”

“I hope it’s a hoax,” he said. “I’m worried because she’s lost family and she’s talked about hurting herself. I don’t know why she’s reacting like this. It would be really twisted if this is fake.”

Ricky’s eyes were watering, his pupils dilated. I felt like I could see his heart pumping right out of his chest.

He phoned the grandmother to no answer.

“You fucking asshole. Do not call Nana, I’ll kick you in the balls. This is your fault,” the next message read.

“Ok, you're right. This is a hoax. I’m turning my phone off,” Ricky said.

In parentheses, beside the unknown number read (Maybe: Sadie).

The next day confirmed it. Sadie would usually only message me if Ricky’s phone was turned off.

“Hello, this is Sadie’s grandmother. I am sure you have heard of our tragedy by now, but did you know that you are the cause? My son is a top executive in your field and he and our dear friend Conan O’Brien are working tirelessly around the clock to shut you down, so you see, the lord works in funny ways. You should have left our family alone. You’re a very sad, sick little girl and I’m praying for you.”

Conan O’Brien? That confirmed to us both that everything has been fabricated. We’re still here wondering what her next move will be when she comes back from the dead.