Lying about cancer?!

[HelloStereo]

Good to know you tried that already….sounds like burner numbers or something similar.
I would walk/run now while you can and take it as a lesson learnt.

If it makes you feel better a mate of mine started seeing a guy….suddenly she got a call off his number from his ‘brother’ saying he had been in a fight and got nicked. He had charges against him so wasn’t out on bail etc. The guy would call her on occasion from a landline but the brother would stay in touch. Brother asked for my number as he had seen me in her Faceparty pics (that’s how far back we are talking!) - said sure and when he messaged he called me and it was the guy all along!! My mate was full on apparently and it was all a way to get her away from him!! Even used a local phone box as the ‘prison phone’ (he lived near Feltham).
I told my mate straight away and it was the quickest block ever after that. You’re certainly not alone to this kind of BS I promise you

That is insane! He really got himself caught out when he asked for your number and called you though. I bet your friend was gutted though that he had led her on for no reason. Did he even have a brother?

 

[strawberrysunshine_x]

It depends on how long you’ve been dating though. I don’t expect to know your last name on the first date, but after a few dates, I think it’s a requirement for your own safety. OP has know this person since June, I’d expect her to know his last name by now.

That is the OP. But I agree!!!

If people have bad intentions what's to stop them from lying about their last name though?

True. The name he gave you probably isn’t even his name

 

[HelloStereo]

I hate to post this and I'm sorry if anyone finds the topic triggering. I am going to change some details in this because I know it is an awful thing to accuse someone of but some things just don't make sense to me.

I started dating someone, let's call them T, in June. Things were going well. He works in my city on occasion so that's how I met him. We'd go on dates whenever he was working my way but I have never been to his house and I don't know where he lives beyond "a small village x miles from x city". I also don't know his last name or the company he works at so I can't peek on social media. Must sound bad I don't know these details but they never came up in a discussion when we were out for dinner or drinks. .

One evening we were just chatting over text and all of a sudden I didn't receive a reply until the next morning... He said he found a lump in his groin and went to have scans in the hospital overnight?! He didn't mention it for a little while and I didn't push because I didn't want to add stress. Eventually I did and he said it was definitely a hernia.

Things happened so quickly but he went in for a scan before his hernia operation and then was texting me saying they wanted to take biopsies. At the end of the week he went in for the results and disappeared over the weekend. Apparently he had to have an emergency operation and left his phone on charge at home so he couldn't tell me. Yet I had seen him pop up a few times on WhatsApp over the weekend. I asked him about this in a way that was just "oh right, I saw you on WhatsApp a few times" and he said "Why would I lie? Maybe the app was running in the background..."

After this he was quickly referred for radiotherapy and his first appointment was at the weekend. He then text me on a Monday to say his diagnosis became more complicated. I then didn't hear from him for weeks until his brother messages from his phone, to say he had lots of surgery but wasn't expected to make it out of hospital because the tumours were really aggressive and in an area that couldn't be removed with surgery. He asked if I wanted his number to talk as T wasn't really able to use his phone and I said yes. Note: my messages were on unread before this and he doesn't have a last seen. I knew I'd drive myself nuts just constantly looking on WhatsApp to see if he ever came online so I didn't.

I didn't hear for weeks and it was horrible. Eventually his brother messaged again from T's phone saying he had to call the carrier to unlock it as T had forgotten the passcode. I then finally got the brother's number and we have been talking. T is undergoing treatment etc, yet is often sedated due to pain. it's weird because he says his phone is always by his bedside, yet he contacted me from it at 11pm...

I asked if I could see T and was told only four nominated visitors could see him, I then asked if I could just wait outside and not go in and was told he doesn't want to see me until he is better. I asked if I could send a card or present for Christmas and was told the hospital is very strict and doesn't accept gifts or cards. Yet over Christmas apparently the staff brought in presents for the patients?

I ask the brother more about the prognosis but am just told he is very poorly, in a lot of pain, has a low probability of pulling through etc. Yet other times he is talking about us hopefully seeing each other soon and talking about T's house and the nice walks there are that we can go on together (I have never been to T's house as he always came to my city for work and then got sick). It has all happened so quickly and I haven't seen him since he became poorly in October so it's not like I have seen the lumps etc myself.

It's such a mindf*ck and I have no idea whether it's all true or not. The vagueness of what's going on, the absences, suddenly disappearing overnight to have scans, being in hospital without a phone and yet being online, not being able to see him or send anything. I want to be there but I want to know what I'm going into, and whether I will see him again. Yet it has been months and I don't know what someone would gain from lying for so long.

What does everyone think? Also, are there any questions I can ask which don't seem like I'm accusing them of lying but just so I can get a better idea of what's going on? If true I want to be there but I would very much like to know if there is a chance I would be able to see him again. I feel awful for doubting them as it's an awful thing to accuse someone of but some things are just so odd and I'm wondering if there is a way I can get a more concrete answer. I don't know if it's me struggling to process it and looking for excuses but there are so many little things that don't add up, that I didn't want to question before because I didn't want to accuse anyone of lying or cause bad feeling during a difficult time.

Sorry it's so emotive.

 

[judgejohndeed]

If they’re not trying to get money etc out of you then that makes it even weirder. What kind of sicko pretends to have cancer for the fun of it

 

[HelloStereo]

This story is def sus. You don't just go in & get a scan at the hospital. Logically we all know if there was a lump, we would go GP and then if needed get referred to hospital and get a scheduled appointment. Results of which aren't that quick unfortunately.

The addition of his brother.....it's him. His is bored in his life and wants to play with emotions to make himself feel better.

Although hospitals don't really like patients getting gifts (flowers/cards) bc it clutters & can be irritants to other patients etc so that part could be explained.

Does his brother have a last name on whatsapp? That could give you a clue if you needed. Could you call him and talk on the phone? Listen to backround noise etc.

I think I can imagine how you are feeling & how you are hoping this all isn't a sick joke. But as strangers on the internet looking in with no ties to the story, we are seeing red flags and we don't want you to get more hurt.

Yeah I thought if you found a lump you'd book an appointment in with your gp and they'd do tests. He just disappeared overnight and text me in the morning to say he found a lump and had tests and scans during the night which is just odd. But surely even if you're lying you know that is implausible

That's a good point re: cards, I didn't think of that. Although he did then say the staff were buying gifts for patients so I'm not sure if it is clutter or just infection control. His brother said he wasn't even allowed a phone charger in but he had to sneak it in.

His brother has no last name on WhatsApp it was just whatever I assigned to him. I also find it odd one time his brother didn't respond for a few days and said he left his phone in the car and his wife took the car, yet I could see his last seen status and he had been onlkne inbetween then. I might phone him to talk about everything to check out the story. I imagine it is harder to lie off the cuff than through text.

 

[TwooTwooTwitTwitTwoo]

Why can’t men just be honest and say it’s over? Definitely makes me not want to start dating again anytime soon

A friend asked me last night if I was ready to start dating again. I said no but that I hoped to one day. This stuff puts me off!! It'll just be me with my cats and plants once the children are grown .

 

[HelloStereo]

Sorry to bring this thread back alive, I just caught the South Yorkshire bit - my narc ex was from S.Y with the initials J.M.
This sounds VERY much like his MO. Was more of a slow burn but he lied about having potential kidney cancer which resulted in him lying about having a kidney removed when I ended things. There was also a multitude of things he faked including messages/websites/bank statements/degree certificates/his wealth/used different phones/social media accounts etc. He would lie about family members etc. He’s also done it to other women I am aware of & he has been reported to the police but nothing has been done. He is a pathological liar, did things to get money out of women but on a smaller scale than the likes of the tinder swindler.

I too did not think I’d would ever ever get sucked in by someone like this. I never believed half of his lies & when I challenged him I was met with emotional abuse but it got to a point where I point blank accused him of lying about being ill - this was where the “removal” came in then
I didn’t think people like this really existed. But sadly they do.

Please run an absolute mile from this situation. The entire thing is an absolute lie none of what has happened here is “normal” for this situation. Additionally it sounds like he’s love bombed you, & realistically you don’t know this man - you went on a few dates. Please, don’t entertain this anymore.

Also, I’d recommend “sleeping with a psychopath” book. There are absolute creatures out there ladies - stay safe!

Oh that's awful, I'm sorry that happened to you. It's mad to what extent he went to to lie.

I'm not entertaining it any more but it's interesting to hear other people have had similar happen to them. It's so cruel to toy with someone's emotions and pretend you're seriously ill when you're not at all.

 

[Sabbie]

Hope karma comes visits him one day and he’ll not be happy about it. What an ugly human being. We all knew it was him, but I hope getting the final piece to the puzzle is a relief for you.

 

[TheGlossy]

I do want to suss him out. I have tried searching his number on Facebook but nothing comes up. I try searching via where he went to uni and a past job he had too and nothing.

Have you tried performing a Google search on any of his pictures or his brother’s?

 

[gummy-bear]

Sorry to bring this thread back alive, I just caught the South Yorkshire bit - my narc ex was from S.Y with the initials J.M.
This sounds VERY much like his MO. Was more of a slow burn but he lied about having potential kidney cancer which resulted in him lying about having a kidney removed when I ended things. There was also a multitude of things he faked including messages/websites/bank statements/degree certificates/his wealth/used different phones/social media accounts etc. He would lie about family members etc. He’s also done it to other women I am aware of & he has been reported to the police but nothing has been done. He is a pathological liar, did things to get money out of women but on a smaller scale than the likes of the tinder swindler.

I too did not think I’d would ever ever get sucked in by someone like this. I never believed half of his lies & when I challenged him I was met with emotional abuse but it got to a point where I point blank accused him of lying about being ill - this was where the “removal” came in then
I didn’t think people like this really existed. But sadly they do.

Please run an absolute mile from this situation. The entire thing is an absolute lie none of what has happened here is “normal” for this situation. Additionally it sounds like he’s love bombed you, & realistically you don’t know this man - you went on a few dates. Please, don’t entertain this anymore.

Also, I’d recommend “sleeping with a psychopath” book. There are absolute creatures out there ladies - stay safe!

Jesus this is mental. What did he lie about re family members?! I’m invested now. Sorry you went through this x

 

[HelloStereo]

I don't believe for a second that this is genuine. Not sure what the motive is. Possibly he just enjoys the attention. It might have started out as a genuine connection, I agree with others who say he's probably married and that the brother is just him all along. For whatever reason things changed and he had to come up with a cock and bull cancer story to keep you hanging on.

Obviously you should probably just block and move on.. I personally would be dying to know the truth or the near truth anyway. Would you think about trying to draw him out a bit? If me I'd want to know more... I'd start telling the "brother" that you've met somebody else.. that you've seen each other a good few times and it is developing into something meaningful. That the situation is all a bit confusing and you're not sure where your heart lies... blah blah blah... that you haven't seen the sick lad in so long now that it's hard to keep the candle burning and part of you just wants to move on. Then see what the response is like. He either tells u fair enough, you should move on as the bro is 1 foot in the grave or he becomes desperate to "keep" you. Like why the hell would the brother of a guy u were having a casual relationship with be keeping in such detailed contact with you, who he has never met.. surely if it's all true, the last thing he'd want is to be updating a random?

Apparently T said he wanted me to know everything so I guess his brother feels obliged to update me.

I was thinking of saying something like I need to move on etc to see what he says. When he first got back in touch he was asking if I had a message for T, and I just said tell him I miss him and am thinking of him. And the brother got sort of annoyed and was saying how he doesn't want to play with T's feelings and then after saying T was sad as he thought I'd moved on. I do wonder what they'd do I'd I said I had.

 

[IGiveUp22]

Mine was a narcissist so your guess is as good as mine regarding the “whys”. He did a lot of his lying to get money out of me/other girls but not really massive amounts if that makes sense? Then the illnesses came when you challenged him or he knew you were getting onto a lie & then he’d do that to try get sympathy or make you feel like a bad person having a go at someone that’s “so seriously ill”. The whole thing is just a complete mind fuck & it really does mess with you.
Found a receipt for a hotel actually last month (was doing a full clean) & it was one on my credit card that he was supposed to be paying half for. When we were there, he disappeared one of the days & said he’d complained about our room (nothing wrong with it tbh) & they’d upgraded us to a sweet for free for the next 5 days as a good will gesture. Turns out that “free” upgrade wasn’t free at all & was an extra £100 per night on my credit card. Never checked it at the time as I knew we’d charged a fair amount to the room & just assumed it was more than I thought obv I also never got his half

 

[Meg78]

Thank you for this. I have blocked them out of my life so I'm not sure about questioning them, but I did do some of your suggestions already. When I met him he said he doesn't really use social media, and I couldn't find any accounts associated with his number, nor his brother's and I don't know his wife's name to check. I did ask about sending a gift / card but was told the hospital was strict about it, but they didn't say which hospital it was. We met in my city as he goes there for work every now and then, I don't think he has any dating profiles.

Like you said, if he wanted me there I guess I would be at hospital with him. I think cutting them out is easier for me than trying to distance myself though, I find I am often all or nothing

Ah see it would drive me nuts not knowing, and I’d want to warn his wife

 

[TheGlossy]

The thing is he could be using one number to speak to you and another to speak to his mates, so if you text him pretending to be one of them, he’ll know it’s you. Besides, someone operating like this and presumably faking cancer probably doesn’t have a lot of friends if any.

These people are smart enough to use different numbers to avoid anyone finding out information about them. If his phone number didn’t allow to find any profile on any social media, he’s probably using a burner phone or different number to speak to you.

 

[TheGlossy]

Watch “The Girlfriend who didn’t exist” on Netflix. It’s about this poor college football player who got catfished in a similar way and it ruined his whole career. The story was quite big in the day (2009-2013 circa). I still remember how huge it was.

 

[HelloStereo]

Ah see it would drive me nuts not knowing, and I’d want to warn his wife

Not knowing does drive me nuts haha, but I think it'll pass. Better than being involved more anyway as I think that would drive me more nuts.

I hope if he has a wife she will find out after a while. Although if he has he kept it well hidden as we'd call each other throughout the day everyday

 

[HelloStereo]

Definitely lying, not to sound too morbid but if he’s terminal, he wouldn’t be taking up a precious hospital bed, he would either be in a hospice receiving palliative care or at home with palliative nurses coming in to administer morphine.

Block and don’t look back

This is what I thought. It seems like for months he's been in hospital sedated and on morphine and receiving treatment. Whereas I thought he would go home if there was nothing more they could do, just making him as comfortable as possible.

It doesn't make sense to me that they'd spend all this money on treatment and surgeries if there was no chance of getting better. But I don't know anything about treatments really.

By the way, did he confirm what type of cancer he supposedly has?

No and this is another red flag to me, and I have asked his brother lots of times and that question seems to go unanswered. I just know he had a lump in his groin and now has spread to his spine, despite the amount of scans he has had.

I feel like they keep it vague because it is easier to lie then. They don't detail the treatment or even where he is.

Honestly I know from how it sounds it is that I believe him. I don't and I'm just looking for reassurance that I'm not being overly cynical..when I first posted this I was so worried people would be like "how can you not believe him when he says he has cancer?"

 

[HelloStereo]

It’s actually crazy isn’t it when you take a step back and think of all the things they’ve said/done and it was all one big lie. I’m actually writing a book about mine so deffo do it

As I mentioned mine faked a kidney removal () but by this point I didn’t believe it obv so wasn’t even paying attention to half the stuff he was sending me.
Anyway, this year another girl got in contact (long story) I was going back through my WhatsApp’s & found a voice note of the time he was allegedly in hospital after he’d had the surgery. There were hospital noises (machine beeps, low chatters, he even broke off the voice note to ask about medication as if a nurse had come over) but after a quick YouTube search, we found a video of “hospital background noise” that was identical so he’d basically put that on, pretended he was speaking to a nurse during it & all the time he was probably just at home
I can laugh now but honestly it’s frightening the lengths they go to. It must be an illness as it’s not normal

Oh my, to even go to that extreme of downloading background noises!

I do wonder what people get out of it. Like to lie for so long is just such a waste of time for everyone. They obviously feel bored or unfulfilled in parts of their lives. It's just hard to see what the end goal was meant to be .

Like you said, it would almost be funny if it wasn't so frightening.

 

[laughing]

Would guess he was just after sex.

He thought you would run a mile when you heard he was ill.

Defo already married/partner and just wanted fun

 

[strawberrysunshine_x]

I don't know if they have tried to message as I blocked them.

Amazing!!! I’m glad. Well done xx