My fiancé was writing to his ex to tell her he could imagine marrying her, but I broke up with him.

My fiancé was texting his ex, telling her he imagined marrying her, but I stood him up at the altar with a picture of his ex so he could fulfill his dream. I know some people here will immediately jump in and call me dramatic and rude, but please, the idiot I was going to marry was fantasizing about marrying his ex.

What kind of doormat gets married anyway? My ex, whom I’ll call Brandon, 26, and I were together for over three years and got engaged six months ago. I know the wedding was a little rushed, but it was because my ex didn’t want to wait a whole year before marrying me. I used to think he was desperate to marry me out of love, which is why he didn’t want to wait.
I was such a fool because I never realized any of this was about me. I’m sorry, but I’m going to vent a lot here. My family and friends know the gist of what happened and have been aware of why I stood my ex up, but I can’t discuss all my emotions and feelings with them. Not everyone in my life knows the full details of what I’m going through.

I was extremely in love with my ex. I looked forward to the wedding for almost six months. I gave it my all to make sure it was perfect. Brandon was busy with work and told me he didn’t care about wedding details, so I could do whatever I wanted. I tried to get his input, but he always said he had no idea about these things, so it was pointless to ask.
Ever since we got engaged, I’ve had this persistent feeling that my fiancé was drifting away from me. At first, I thought it was because of work pressures, but then I started to feel like there was a kind of communication gap between us. We rarely went on dates and didn’t even spend much quality time at home.

Every time I tried to arrange something special or ask for a date, there were excuses as to why it wasn’t possible that day. There was a point where I got a little frustrated and told Brandon directly that I felt like we were drifting apart. He gaslighted me heavily and kept saying that his job and my wedding planning had been taking up so much of our time, so things would be better once the wedding was over and he started working fewer hours.
Instead of telling me he didn’t want to marry me, he chose to lie. For the record, I work too, but I work from home and have more free time. I also had a good amount of savings that I was contributing to the wedding. Meanwhile, he didn’t have much of his own savings and had to work overtime to pay his share.

Before anyone calls me Brazilian, let me tell you, we were supposed to have a small, intimate wedding with minimal decorations and zero frills. Brandon has been bad with money and made a lot of bad decisions in the past, so he didn’t have much savings to contribute, and he wasn’t going to be able to work that much overtime either, so we kept it low-key.
I was happy to be getting married, so it didn’t need to be big or lavish. I would have even agreed to a courthouse wedding or maybe a long engagement so Brandon could save up for the wedding, but he wasn’t keen. He told me he would work overtime and bring home the money. A small church wedding with a small reception on the church lawn was all we were going to have. Simple and straightforward.
At the same time, I never thought I would end up standing Brandon up on our special day. On the other hand, it was never our special day in his mind because he was picturing the bride being someone else. I wish I were joking, but I’m not. A week before the wedding, she had randomly received a Facebook message from Brandon’s ex-girlfriend, Kelly, a 26-year-old woman.

I knew she was his ex just from his name. I never met her or anything because they never kept in touch. Or so I was told. Then Kelly texts me and says there’s something I need to know about Brandon. She said he’d been sending her inappropriate messages and disrespecting our relationship.
I’m embarrassed to say I wouldn’t have believed her if she hadn’t sent me proof. She said she knew I’d want to see proof, so she attached screenshots of her Instagram messages with Brandon. Those messages went back quite a while. Kelly hadn’t bothered to reply more than once.
It was mostly Brandon sending her random texts on random days, telling her he missed her and still had feelings for her. These messages started after Kelly got engaged. After a while, Kelly got fed up and told him she was going to block him and that he should focus on his own relationship instead of stalking her.

However, Brandon didn’t stop there. What absolutely broke me was when he saw about our wedding. Brandon told Kelly that he would picture her instead of Ami on our wedding day. He said he still remembers every detail of the wedding he had planned with her and that he never told me anything about it because they were reserved only for Kelly.
So the reason Brandon didn’t give any input was simply because he wanted his wedding dreams to come true and to marry her instead. I can’t go into the details of those messages because it’s just humiliating for me, even remembering it. I was such a fool, guys. I thought maybe Kelly was an ex-toxic person who had created fake screenshots and messages to separate me from my fiancé and be with him, but not so foolish as not to check Brandon’s phone.
He hadn’t even bothered to delete those messages. It could be explained if Kelly hacked my fiancé’s account, but even I wasn’t that paranoid. That day I left the house and stayed with my maid of honor and my best friend. Look, I left Brandon a message telling him that my best friend wasn’t feeling well and called me to ask me to stay the night because she didn’t want to be alone.

Brandon believed that lie. I spent the next three days there with the same excuses. He didn’t even bother to check on me or ask when I was coming back. That’s how disconnected he was. Maybe he was never in love with me at all. I’m becoming more and more certain of that. I spent three days pretty depressed about it, I won’t lie, until I finally made a decision.
It was clear to me that the wedding wasn’t going to happen, or rather, I wasn’t going to marry him. I simply couldn’t marry someone who would imagine his ex instead of me. Calling off the wedding would have been the right decision if you’re some kind of saint who believes karma will catch up with those who do wrong. I don’t believe in that nonsense.
I wanted my own revenge. So instead of just confronting Brandon and calling everything off, I decided to wait and see how things played out and leave him at the altar. I had spent six months arranging everything, and I didn’t want it all to go to waste. Canceling things wouldn’t have helped because it was too late to get refunds.

So I decided to channel those resources into something productive: my revenge. I went back home and pretended to be normal. Meanwhile, I was telling my family and friends what Brandon had done. I also made them swear to secrecy. Not everyone agreed with what I was planning, but they didn’t tell Brandon or his family anything.
I also slowly started packing my important things and sent them to Mira’s house without Brandon noticing. It wasn’t very difficult; he was completely out of the loop. The day before the wedding, I went to stay with her as we had planned. I had my other bridesmaids go to the church very early the next morning to leave a cutout of Kelly on the altar.

Industrial-sized, almost to scale, and very cheap because it was last minute. The best bridesmaids—I told them what I wanted, and they did it. They probably walked into the church dressed in camouflage colors and everything, though that’s just how I choose to imagine it. On the wedding day, Mira was the only one who showed up.
By the time she arrived, everyone had discovered the cut, and Brandon had been calling me nonstop. He ran up to Mira to ask her what was going on. Mira ignored him and just told everyone the wedding was canceled and if they wanted to know why, they should just ask Brandon. She left after that, and no matter how much Brandon pestered her, she wouldn’t tell him what happened.

My bridesmaids and I had already driven to the beach in the next town so no one could find me. Mira joined me later. We all spent two days in this beach town trying to lift our spirits. It worked, but eventually reality caught up with me when I headed home.
I didn’t go to Brandon’s house, of course. My name wasn’t on the lease. Anyway, I was paying half the rent, but the lease was never updated because Brandon lived there alone before he moved in with me, so I didn’t have to inform the landlord or anything. I stayed at Mira’s house, and she scared Brandon off when he tried to come see me.
He’s been sending me texts and voice notes, begging me to talk to him. He claims he had no idea why I stood him up and that there must be some misunderstanding between us. He keeps telling me to talk things out instead of leaving him like that. His family and friends have also left texts and voice notes.
I’m being called cruel, rude, jealous, and spiteful, among other things. Some people are saying I need to get over whatever happened between Brandon and Kelly. The problem is, he was cruel and rude by continuing to fantasize about his ex, even texting her after he proposed to me. If he still had feelings for her, he could have been more mature, like they demand of me.
But here’s the thing. I don’t want to be mature with someone who doesn’t deserve it, someone who was planning to take the emotional deception—if you want to call it that—all the way. He was going to let me marry him. And for what? To have me as a consolation prize. Now I’m sitting here planning to burn my wedding dress.
I don’t want to talk to Brandon because it won’t solve anything. And if he has doubts about why I left him, which should be obvious by now, that’s his problem, not mine. It’s not my job to answer all his questions. It’s not my problem anymore. Edit: His family doesn’t know the reasons either because I haven’t told them. I knew that would ruin my little surprise.
Only trusted people know about this. And while some advised me against it, I’m not exactly on Brandon’s side right now either. My plan would have been better if, in addition to the photo, I had informed everyone else about what was happening, at least during the reveal. But I wasn’t in the best mental state at the time to plan revenge in great detail.
Besides, there’s been a misconception that Kelly and Brandon were having an affair. There wasn’t one. Brandon suddenly started texting Kelly after our engagement. I had no idea what Kelly was up to, since Brandon never talked about her. Even more disturbing details have come to light.
It turns out Brandon proposed to me just a few days after Kelly got engaged. Kelly’s wedding was just a day after mine. Anything Brandon did was for Kelly. He kept texting her, telling her he was doing everything he could to imagine marrying her. Kelly tried to stop him after the first time he texted, but he was persistent.
She blocked him, but he used another account to text her. So, Kelly decided enough was enough. Please don’t make hateful comments about Kelly. She’s not my favorite person, but only because she’s been caught in the middle of this. I can’t blame her for anything. She didn’t provoke Brandon or have an affair with him. In those messages, she clearly told him they were over and that he shouldn’t be saying these things while she was in a serious relationship with someone else.
Brandon is the one who kept harassing her. I have tons of evidence against him. I don’t know if Brandon has texted her since the wedding. Kelly is on her honeymoon right now, so I don’t want to bother her by asking these things, and I don’t think it’s relevant anyway. Update one. Not everyone here has agreed with this revenge.
It’s curious that some of those profiles did agree with revenge when the unfaithful one was the woman. At least that’s what they’ve commented on in other stories where the infidelity was committed by a woman. I had to check what kind of people they were after they called me by various names and the moderators had to intervene. There were
even very explicit private messages expressing hatred towards me. Regarding Brandon, I’m not saying this is outright infidelity, but it doesn’t make it any less wrong that you lied to me for months and planned a wedding around your ex’s because you can’t forget her. All this time you made me believe that you loved me and that you had planned to spend the rest of your life with me, but you were probably just deluding yourself, using me to imagine Kelly as your partner.
You deceived me and maintained an illusion for yourself. You can no longer convince me that you ever loved me. Even you feel the same way about how things stand. One commenter asked, “How could I have gone three years without knowing anything was going on? What can I say? I really had no way of knowing. He hadn’t actually texted Kelly until she posted pictures of their engagement.
Up until about six months ago, I thought he really loved me. Up until the day he proposed, it really seemed like he did. His change happened on the day of our engagement. I didn’t mention in the original post that Kelly and Brandon used to be high school sweethearts. They broke up in college and went their separate ways.”
Brandon told me they had become different people when it just wasn’t working anymore. Kelly told me she was the one who broke up with him because he was pushing for an open relationship and didn’t want to get married until they were 40. Brandon also had a habit of making bad decisions with money and had taken over $12,000 from Kelly in six months when she started her first job.
He had also become very controlling and kept telling Kelly she needed to find another job because hers had too many male employees. Imagine the hypocrisy, guys. The man who wanted an open relationship also didn’t want his girlfriend working with male colleagues. Kelly said that Brandon apparently took the breakup well and even told her she would come crawling back when no one else would take her.
Actually, the opposite happened. He came crawling back after a year because no one would go out with his broke ass. He started love-bombing her and making grand declarations that his feelings would never go away. Kelly had enough after the repeated harassment, changed her phone number, and transferred to another location.
Brandon and I met and started dating about four months after this. Kelly shared all this information with me the day she sent me the proof. We had a pretty long conversation, mostly about this, but I left it out because it didn’t seem that relevant. She’s a good person, and I’ll be forever indebted to her for exposing Brandon.
I know I made it seem like I hated her, but I don’t. I don’t know how to explain it, but she’s the reason my life was destroyed, even though she reasonably saved my life. So, in short, I don’t hate her. She’s just part of a turbulent time in my life, and I’m grateful to her for saving me.
It’s weird, but I hope that makes sense. It’s important to know here that the one I hate is that stone-faced Brandon. Thank God I saw that side of him before we got married. Speaking of which, I haven’t spoken to Brandon or anyone else yet, but I’ve been thinking about getting my records straight. I thought about simply adding everyone to a group and sending all the evidence, but I decided against it.
It’s too much work, to be honest. Instead, I’ve spoken with Brandon’s cousin, who I’m close to, and asked her to meet with me. I need to know what version of events Brandon told his family and friends and correct him if he’s been spreading lies. She’ll be my link to that family. I could try to clear things up with them, but what’s the point?
It’s not like I need them to like me. I even have a faint feeling that despite everything Brandon did, they’re defending him. Call me crazy, but that’s the impression I get from that family right now. My family and friends, thankfully, are on my side. Some of them think what I did wasn’t so great, but they’re not saying I’m going to hell for putting a terrible person like Brandon in his place.
They’re just more about zero drama and zero revenge. I’d say they’re the kind of people who believe in karma, and you know I don’t believe in that stuff. If that were the case, Kelly should have a lawsuit against him for harassment. That’s why I see my revenge as a little bit of karma for her. Well, maybe I do believe in karma a little, but when I help her, it leads me to a suggestion they made about suing Brandon for the wedding money.
I’m a few steps ahead of you guys, since one of my bridesmaids is a lawyer and gave me a free consultation. Here’s the point. If I sue, Brandon can countersue, arguing that he did intend to get married. I could say that my reasons for not doing so were justified with evidence and Kelly’s testimony.
But the most likely outcome is that we would end up in a settlement where the only winners would be the lawyers and their billing hours. At this point, I’d rather lose the money for my wedding, which thankfully was small, than lose money on lawyers, which is the most likely scenario. I also wanted to say thank you so much for all your help.
I’ll post an update once I talk to his cousin, in case you want to know what happened. Update two: Since I received some comments asking for an update, here I am again. This won’t be very long, and I’ll try to be very precise. You were right when you told me that Brandon may have been spreading lies about why Kelly’s cutout was at the wedding and why she stood him up.
I met with his 23-year-old cousin, Gina, who told me exactly the lies Brandon told everyone when questioned. Apparently, Brandon had told his family and friends that I’d always been jealous of Kelly because of how long her relationship was compared to mine.
He made up stories about how I was obsessed with his ex and how my insecurities somehow made me suspicious of him and her. He’d been telling everyone that Kelly had kept in touch with him and that he was forced to stop because I’d given him an ultimatum. He made up some other messed-up lies about how he was the victim and I was the selfish, cruel girl who couldn’t control her insecurities.
I admit that any dislike I had for him turned into pure rage when I heard what he said about me. He had no remorse, throwing himself under the bus to make himself look like the victim. I can’t believe he still has the nerve to beg me to talk to him after all this. This man has absolutely no shame.
I made sure Gina knew the whole truth. I showed her the pictures and messages I received from Kelly. She was furious on my behalf and also because she didn’t appreciate how Brandon lied to her and everyone else. She swore to spread the word and take screenshots so I wouldn’t have to. To be honest, I don’t care.
Like I said, what Brandon’s family thinks, except for Gina, is irrelevant to me. I probably won’t ever see them again in my life, so they can have their satanic dances with my picture in the middle of it all. What’s more, I want pictures and videos of it so I can laugh about it. Gina is truly a good friend, even though she’s younger than me. We’re going to stay in touch no matter what.
Kelly also reached out to me because she was worried about me and wanted to make sure I was okay. I don’t know why my ex made the stupid decision to lose her in the first place. Even I want to marry her right now. Maybe I should start stalking her like Brandon did. That’s sure to work. She seems like a great woman, and I’m glad she’s happy.
I also can’t believe she’d care about a literal stranger. If anyone deserves a happy life, it’s her. And if anyone deserves not to have a happy life with anyone, it’s Brandon. Update three. I’m morally obligated by this sub’s gossip code to make an update because I have juicy news for you guys.
Many of you had been upset that MX walked away so easily. Well, I thought the humiliation on her wedding day might have been good enough punishment for her, but oh boy, God had other plans. Well, sorry, karma. I think karma and I are starting to get along. I’m going to tell you everything about it. I remember how he spread lies about me and told everyone how I was insecure and jealous of Kelly, which was the reason I did what I did.
Gina did her job and helped spread the truth. If you’re confused or have forgotten who Gina is, she’s my cousin, and I’m close to her. When I met with her and told her the truth about Brandon’s cheating, she took matters into her own hands. She literally called everyone and told them the truth. Screenshots were circulated in personal and group chats.
She literally made sure every single family member knew what he’d done. She also reached out to his friends and told them the truth. Unfortunately, some of them already knew why I’d left, and they were the ones who didn’t send me nasty messages. Apparently, the friend group was already fighting because some people supported Brandon, while others saw it as encouraging him to cheat.
Brandon ended up losing some good friends because of his actions, but the worst blow came from his own family. He had no idea that cheating was such a sensitive topic for them. Maybe that’s why Brandon lied—because he knew he’d be instantly torn down if he was caught trying to cheat.
I won’t go into too much detail, but it involves an aunt who took her own life because of her cheating husband. It’s truly tragic and heartbreaking. No wonder Brandon rarely talked about her. Maybe it was guilt, or maybe he just didn’t care enough to share. He’d been texting me nonstop for a while.
He was begging for a chance to talk, saying I was overreacting and that he hadn’t actually cheated on me. Then he turned on me and started accusing me of ruining his life. He should have thought things through. However, he definitely didn’t. Apparently, he didn’t learn his lesson. My calling off the wedding only made him more determined to try and win Kelly back.
He kept an eye on when she returned from her honeymoon. He still has some mutual friends with Kelly, so he knew exactly when she was coming back. He had the nerve to go to her house and literally beg her to run away with him. Kelly was there with her husband, and they were both horrified. Things escalated when Brandon refused to leave and got into a fight with Kelly’s husband.
So Brandon has already spent a few days behind bars. No one was willing to bail him out. Kelly started identifying and cutting off the mutual friends who kept telling Brandon details about her. Ultimately, everyone decided to stay out of the drama after the police got involved.
So my ex-husband couldn’t afford the bail money, and his family has also cut him off after seeing his actions and erratic behavior. They’ve told him they want nothing to do with him until he gets proper help and tries to be a better person. They also reached out to me and apologized for their earlier comments.
Brandon’s grandmother even sent a check with Gina when we went out to lunch. She also wrote me a letter that basically said she wanted me to keep the money as compensation for what I lost on the wedding. I was so shocked by them that it completely threw me off. Call me what you want, but I kept the money.
I thought about giving it back, but the grandmother mentioned that the money was coming from Brandon’s estate, so I just kept it. After all, this wedding wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t kept insisting we get married early. I learned a good life lesson. I’m also so grateful that I got to know my ex’s downright psychotic side before I actually married him.
I have no idea how he hid that side of himself too. I guess I really need to get into therapy and try to figure out if I was missing red flags or if I just don’t know how to identify them. I’ll get an appointment as soon as possible so I don’t have to go through this again. Some of you were really worried about me, because something this big can take an emotional toll on someone.
Well, you’re right to be worried because it did take a toll on me. I actually feel completely drained, but I’m also thanking every deity out there for saving me at just the right moment. I’ve recognized that I need help, so I’ve decided to start therapy. I think it’s going to help me get through this completely. Edit:
Want more details on Kelly’s husband’s fight with Brandon? I’m going to call him Carlos for simplicity’s sake and because I picture him as a Carlos. I don’t know him and I haven’t seen any pictures of him, but my mind works that weird. Brandon was at the door, literally talking to Kelly and acting like Carlos wasn’t even there.
Carlos asked him to leave because neither he nor Kelly wanted anything to do with him. Brandon told him it was normal for him to be afraid that Kelly might choose him, which is why he didn’t want him there. But Kelly told him she didn’t want him and that the mere thought of being with a man like him disgusted her, a man who had disrespected both her and me. That indirect comment, so to speak, didn’t sit well with Brandon, and he shoved Carlos, asking what his problem was.
The problem is that Carlos was doing him a favor, but after the shove, he showed him what his problem really was. His two fists were his problem. Well, I don’t know if that’s exactly what happened, but I do know that Carlos and Brandon exchanged blows. After that, Brandon was arrested, and so far, if his bail has been paid, maybe a friend has.
Gina told me her family couldn’t have been involved, unless there’s a mole inside. I actually have more to tell you, but out of respect for the person who asked me to, I can’t say anything. It’s even juicier than this, which is why I couldn’t help but write something. But until I’m told it’s okay to share, this person knows I write here.
I can’t say anything. Update four: I have the green light to tell you what I’ve been keeping quiet about. I’ve received comments, some accurate, and private messages too, but when I said I couldn’t say anything, I meant nothing. Now I can: Brandon was sued by Kelly. She asked me not to say anything.
They were in legal proceedings, and I didn’t know how this might affect him. We don’t know who reads this stuff, maybe Brandon. Although after Carlos’s punches—Kelly thought the name was funny—he might have trouble reading. Just kidding, but Carlos wants me to tell you they were good punches.
Charges were filed after the arrest. That wasn’t too interesting on its own. The trial ended with a small fine, and whoever paid Brandon’s bail lost it. After his release, he began to professionally harass Kelly. He sent flowers to her workplace, a teddy bear with a hidden camera (which was discovered when Kelly gave it to a coworker for her son), and letters with cut-out letters.
He did this last one to inform Kelly that her husband was cheating on her, but it was a letter from his mistress. He also sent fake chats to Carlos through a friend—probably the one who lost the bail money—to show that Kelly was cheating on him. In short, a disaster. Some of it happened before I finished editing this and some after.
That’s why I couldn’t talk about the lawsuit, which hadn’t been filed yet; otherwise, I might have uncovered it. You could say it was a good thing, because it led to Brandon harassing her even more, and the lawsuit becoming more aggressive. Then he lost his bail when, after the lawsuit was filed, he tried to flee, violating the terms of his bail and failing to appear at one of the hearings to go to Kelly’s house.
He got a six-month prison sentence for the harassment, which he’s still serving, though not much longer. Meanwhile, as I said, he only received a fine for the fight. Then he lost the harassment and assault lawsuit for an amount Kelly wouldn’t tell me. He’s also lost his job because he’s in prison, and I almost forgot. His family still isn’t speaking to him.
I was a skeptic of karma, but this makes my revenge seem like a teenage joke. My respect goes out to him, and to Kelly and Carlos. I take my hat off to them.