# wife fell in love with a romance scammer



## emichael75

I have been happily married for 21 years. 2 months ago my wife and I decided to get a home refinance loan to update our house. We deposited a $48,000 check into our bank accounts. Shortly thereafter, I came home from work to find my 19-year-old daughter crying. She had found a romantic text on mom's phone that was not from me. I confronted my wife about this, and she admitted to being in an online relationship with a guy who had contacted her on Facebook messenger. I also discovered that he was supposedly a UN doctor stationed in Syria who had a son going to school in Nigeria. Long story short, I discovered that my wife had been wiring money, sending new Iphones, and Itunes gift cards to Nigeria. My wife finally gave me a picture of this man. After running a google facial recognition search, I discovered it was a stolen picture. I showed my wife the data proving that this man was a romance scammer. She started crying because she realized that the person that she was in love with was not real. I told her that I forgave her and that I thought we could work together to make our marriage better. I thought this was the end of her communicating with online romantic scammers.

Two weeks later, I was at work and I decided to check our bank accounts. I discovered that there was a $15,000 and a $5,000 withdraw from our bank accounts. I called my wife to ask her about this. She said that the $5,000 was donated to a church and a school in California and that she still had the $15,000. After I hung up the phone, I made an appointment with a lawyer. I told the lawyer my situation, and that I did not want to divorce my wife because I loved her and was worried about her. My wife had been going through a lot of stress related to her physical health and family issues. She had experienced an auditory hallucination and was seeing a therapist and a psychiatrist. I suspected that my wife was experiencing a delusional disorder or some kind of psychosis. My lawyer informed me that I should move all of the money to an account that my wife did not have access to. Before I could get it moved she withdrew $10,500 in cash. After looking through my wife's emails, I discovered that she sent $10,500 in cash via overnight FedEx to a person in Atlanta. I had the address and the name of the person. There have also been multiple 1000 dollar purchases at Walmart. I later discovered that these were Itunes gift cards. The entire $48,000 from our home refinance was gone. I then found out that my wife had withdrew $60,000 from her retirement account. She told me that she no longer loved me and that she was in love with someone else. She also accused me of cheating and physically abusing her. I have never done either of these things. I was devastated. 

At this point, I filed for divorce. I also served my wife with a court order that prevented both her from spending any marital assets on things other than normal household upkeep. One day after I served her with this court order, she sent another $5,000 in cash to Atlanta via FedEx. I informed her that she could go to jail for violating the court order. She became mad and told me that she would tell the court that I had abused her and that I was being investigated for molesting my daughter. 

This has been incredibly hard on me. I still love my wife so much and I think that she has delusional disorder. I have proven to her multiple times that the people she has been involved with are scammers. Multiple times she has broken down crying and told me that she was done with the scammers. However, days later she is again sending money. She also told me that the compassion and love that one of these guys has given her in three months is more that I gave her during our entire marriage. I have emailed her mental healthcare providers with all of this information. However, I feel like they are not listening. 

We are currently in a 90-day waiting period for the divorce. I still hold out hope that we will reconcile. The other day I wrote my wife a love letter. I wrote that I would work on making her feel more special, that I forgave her, and that the money can be replaced. She said that some part of her still loved me and that she would be go to a therapist to work on our marriage. A couple of days later, I told her that I want nothing more to spend time with her and work on our marriage, but I needed her to break all ties with her online love interest. She informed me that she could not do this because she loves him. She informed me that he cares very much about her and that they talk everyday. I am heart broken. My wife is choosing a Nigerian romance scammer over me and I cannot do anything about it.


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## aine

your wife really needs to be put in an institution. Please protect your money, do not have her have access. Have you told your families? I think you should in order to get support. How are your children (one child?) taking this? Tell the older ones also so that they know what is happening.


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## DownByTheRiver

You might ask your attorney about having her committed for mental health care. She does sound like she has some serious problems. I mean these scammers are out there but her actions are just really pretty crazy. Talk to an attorney about it. You might have to see if she could be declared incompetent. that's not that easy to do because they look at more basic things like do they know what the date is and what year it is. She's going to end up on the street if she gets to divide your assets and be out of money. If she really has become mentally ill or something, you're probably the best person who might be able to get something legally done about it. 

I don't think any judge is going to take her accusations seriously under the circumstances that she is sending money to a scammer like this.


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## Personal

emichael75 said:


> I still hold out hope that we will reconcile.


Do yourself a favour and abandon that kind of tomfoolery.


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## DownByTheRiver

Also, if you file a report with the police, I mean you're not going to get your money back, but you need to have some record that this is going on. And once in awhile the police will take someone for a mental evaluation skipping all the red tape it takes to get that done. Definitely make a record with the police.


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## RClawson

Your wife is on a list. Yes there is a list. I went throught this with my mother. She is an easy mark and she will not be left alone.


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## emichael75

aine said:


> your wife really needs to be put in an institution. Please protect your money, do not have her have access. Have you told your families? I think you should in order to get support. How are your children (one child?) taking this? Tell the older ones also so that they know what is happening.


Thank you for your response. I have told both of our families. Her family and I tried to have an intervention, but it went badly. We have all emailed her mental healthcare providers to see if they can help her. She allowed me to attend one of her appointments. However, I believe that the mental healthcare provider thinks that I am abusive because she only allowed me to stay for a couple of minutes and looked at me like I was a monster. 

My 19 year old daughter is taking it a lot harder than my 15-year-old son. My daughter attended one of her appointments. They both know that their mom is not acting normally.


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## emichael75

DownByTheRiver said:


> Also, if you file a report with the police, I mean you're not going to get your money back, but you need to have some record that this is going on. And once in awhile the police will take someone for a middle evaluation skipping all the red tape it takes to get that done. Definitely make a record with the police.


I have filed three separate reports with the FBI. I gave them the bank account information where my wife wired the money. However, I imagine the FBI gets 100s of these reports each day. I am not sure if I should also talk to the local police.


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## emichael75

RClawson said:


> Your wife is on a list. Yes there is a list. I went throught this with my mother. She is an easy mark and she will not be left alone.
> [/QUOTE
> 
> I believe it. At one point I almost convinced her to delete her google email account and her facebook accounts. I also went through this with my father. Ironically, my wife was instrumental in helping my father see that he was being scammed.


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## DownByTheRiver

Then you're only chance here is to get an attorney and get those assets frozen and see about declaring her incompetent.


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## Divinely Favored

emichael75 said:


> I have been happily married for 21 years. 2 months ago my wife and I decided to get a home refinance loan to update our house. We deposited a $48,000 check into our bank accounts. Shortly thereafter, I came home from work to find my 19-year-old daughter crying. She had found a romantic text on mom's phone that was not from me. I confronted my wife about this, and she admitted to being in an online relationship with a guy who had contacted her on Facebook messenger. I also discovered that he was supposedly a UN doctor stationed in Syria who had a son going to school in Nigeria. Long story short, I discovered that my wife had been wiring money, sending new Iphones, and Itunes gift cards to Nigeria. My wife finally gave me a picture of this man. After running a google facial recognition search, I discovered it was a stolen picture. I showed my wife the data proving that this man was a romance scammer. She started crying because she realized that the person that she was in love with was not real. I told her that I forgave her and that I thought we could work together to make our marriage better. I thought this was the end of her communicating with online romantic scammers.
> 
> Two weeks later, I was at work and I decided to check our bank accounts. I discovered that there was a $15,000 and a $5,000 withdraw from our bank accounts. I called my wife to ask her about this. She said that the $5,000 was donated to a church and a school in California and that she still had the $15,000. After I hung up the phone, I made an appointment with a lawyer. I told the lawyer my situation, and that I did not want to divorce my wife because I loved her and was worried about her. My wife had been going through a lot of stress related to her physical health and family issues. She had experienced an auditory hallucination and was seeing a therapist and a psychiatrist. I suspected that my wife was experiencing a delusional disorder or some kind of psychosis. My lawyer informed me that I should move all of the money to an account that my wife did not have access to. Before I could get it moved she withdrew $10,500 in cash. After looking through my wife's emails, I discovered that she sent $10,500 in cash via overnight FedEx to a person in Atlanta. I had the address and the name of the person. There have also been multiple 1000 dollar purchases at Walmart. I later discovered that these were Itunes gift cards. The entire $48,000 from our home refinance was gone. I then found out that my wife had withdrew $60,000 from her retirement account. She told me that she no longer loved me and that she was in love with someone else. She also accused me of cheating and physically abusing her. I have never done either of these things. I was devastated.
> 
> At this point, I filed for divorce. I also served my wife with a court order that prevented both her from spending any marital assets on things other than normal household upkeep. One day after I served her with this court order, she sent another $5,000 in cash to Atlanta via FedEx. I informed her that she could go to jail for violating the court order. She became mad and told me that she would tell the court that I had abused her and that I was being investigated for molesting my daughter.
> 
> This has been incredibly hard on me. I still love my wife so much and I think that she has delusional disorder. I have proven to her multiple times that the people she has been involved with are scammers. Multiple times she has broken down crying and told me that she was done with the scammers. However, days later she is again sending money. She also told me that the compassion and love that one of these guys has given her in three months is more that I gave her during our entire marriage. I have emailed her mental healthcare providers with all of this information. However, I feel like they are not listening.
> 
> We are currently in a 90-day waiting period for the divorce. I still hold out hope that we will reconcile. The other day I wrote my wife a love letter. I wrote that I would work on making her feel more special, that I forgave her, and that the money can be replaced. She said that some part of her still loved me and that she would be go to a therapist to work on our marriage. A couple of days later, I told her that I want nothing more to spend time with her and work on our marriage, but I needed her to break all ties with her online love interest. She informed me that she could not do this because she loves him. She informed me that he cares very much about her and that they talk everyday. I am heart broken. My wife is choosing a Nigerian romance scammer over me and I cannot do anything about it.


Cut off her money and he will drop her.


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## RandomDude

emichael75 said:


> I have been happily married for 21 years. 2 months ago my wife and I decided to get a home refinance loan to update our house. We deposited a $48,000 check into our bank accounts. Shortly thereafter, I came home from work to find my 19-year-old daughter crying. She had found a romantic text on mom's phone that was not from me. I confronted my wife about this, and she admitted to being in an online relationship with a guy who had contacted her on Facebook messenger. I also discovered that he was supposedly a UN doctor stationed in Syria who had a son going to school in Nigeria. Long story short, I discovered that my wife had been wiring money, sending new Iphones, and Itunes gift cards to Nigeria. My wife finally gave me a picture of this man. After running a google facial recognition search, I discovered it was a stolen picture. I showed my wife the data proving that this man was a romance scammer. She started crying because she realized that the person that she was in love with was not real. I told her that I forgave her and that I thought we could work together to make our marriage better. I thought this was the end of her communicating with online romantic scammers.




Would be hilarious instant karma (which well, it is lol) except for the fact that she pretty much lost all your money.

There's infidelity as well as financial infidelity committed here as well as outright stupidity. Why you forgave her is beyond me... 🤦‍♂️


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## TJW

Forgiving her is essential for your own well-being. I'm glad to hear you did.
That being said, lock up your money.



emichael75 said:


> She told me that she no longer loved me and that she was in love with someone else. She also accused me of cheating and physically abusing her. I have never done either of these things.
> 
> I informed her that she could go to jail for violating the court order. She became mad and told me that she would tell the court that I had abused her and that I was being investigated for molesting my daughter.


Jail is exactly where she deserves to go. This is not a "delusion", it is a CRIME. This is not a "delusion", unless millions of CHEATERS are also delusional. This is right out of the cheater's handbook. One could also argue that Charles Manson was "delusional"".....

To "delusional", I say HORSE****....slam the metal-bar door....


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## Cletus

TJW said:


> Forgiving her is essential for your own well-being. I'm glad to hear you did.
> That being said, lock up your money.
> 
> 
> 
> Jail is exactly where she deserves to go. This is not a "delusion", it is a CRIME. This is not a "delusion", unless millions of CHEATERS are also delusional. This is right out of the cheater's handbook. One could also argue that Charles Manson was "delusional"".....
> 
> To "delusional", I say HORSE****....slam the metal-bar door....


Try living with a schizophrenic for 20 years. This woman is clearly ill.


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## MattMatt

emichael75 said:


> I have filed three separate reports with the FBI. I gave them the bank account information where my wife wired the money. However, I imagine the FBI gets 100s of these reports each day. I am not sure if I should also talk to the local police.


Yes. The local police and the Sherriff's office if relevant. In my opinion your wife needs to be safe in a mental health institution as an in-patient.


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## Arkansas

"I did not want to divorce my wife because I loved her "

you loved who she used to be

who she is now - doing all that stuff to you .... is that REALLY the same person ? people change - they in many ways die and are reborn into people who are mean, cruel, selfish and uncaring

mine did - maybe yours did to ?


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## Trident

You already have the answer. Cut her off from all the funds until and unless she gets the help she needs.


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## emichael75

Arkansas said:


> "I did not want to divorce my wife because I loved her "
> 
> you loved who she used to be
> 
> who she is now - doing all that stuff to you .... is that REALLY the same person ? people change - they in many ways die and are reborn into people who are mean, cruel, selfish and uncaring
> 
> mine did - maybe yours did to ?


Thank you for your response.

You are right that I love who she used to be. I believe that this change in her could at least partially be caused by some sort of mental illness. In August, when we were visiting a family for the first time, she told my daughter and I that we had been to this person's house and met them back in 2016. However, this did not happen. We asked her why the person that we were visiting for the first time did not know us. She explained that the bad storm that had come through the area caused our memories to be erased. Around that same time, she had an auditory hallucination. She heard a voice saying her name or something. She was really frightened when this happened. Around this time, she started communicating with multiple scammers that befriended her on Facebook. 

I am grieving the loss of my wife. She gets angry anytime someone brings up her mental health. Her mom, sisters, son, daughter, and I have all asked her to get help. She is seeing a Nurse Practitioner (NP) mental healthcare provider that has diagnosed her with depression and prescribed an antidepressant. I have emailed her NP many times telling her about all of my wife's odd symptoms. I am in the medical field and I have been reading a lot about delusional disorder (DD). She has all of the classic symptoms of DD. With DD, people tend to function normally outside of their delusion. Unfortunately, DD individuals tend to be extremely difficult to treat because the cannot admit that they have a problem. In some aspects, I feel like I am dealing with a person that has a substance abuse problem.


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