Three years of love disappeared because of a dating app I never even installed.

I was at my desk on a random Tuesday when my phone buzzed. It was my nail tech – the woman who had held my hands every month for two years, listened to my drama, cheered for my relationship.

“Call me when you can, it’s important.”

Before I could answer, screenshots started coming in.

His face.
Our apartment in the background.
A dating profile: “Single, 29, looking for something real.”

No fiancée. No relationship. Just my almost-husband advertising himself to other women like I didn’t exist. Then more screenshots: flirty messages, plans for coffee, for drinks, for “seeing where this goes.” My hands went numb. I locked myself in the office bathroom and scrolled until I could barely breathe.

While I was planning our wedding, picking honeymoon locations, this man had apparently been swiping and flirting for months.

My nail tech told me she’d matched with him “to check if it was really him.” She said he replied in five minutes. She sent every line he wrote. “He even called me his ex and said she was unstable,” she added.

“His ex.” That was me.

Here’s the worst part: I didn’t confront him that night.
I went home, watched him walk through the door, kiss my forehead, ask about my day… and I lied. I said I was fine while my phone kept buzzing with new screenshots.

Instead of talking, I turned into a detective. I tracked his location, checked his phone every time he showered, stalked his calendar, followed him to a “client dinner” like some discount spy. Every time I checked, he was exactly where he said he’d be. No app on his phone. No suspicious texts.

But the screenshots were there. So I believed the pixels over the person.

My nail tech kept “chatting” with him. He kept setting up dates and canceling last minute: emergency at work, migraine, family thing. Each cancellation made me crazier. I wasn’t sleeping, I wasn’t eating. I was waiting for the night he’d finally show up and I’d catch him red-handed.

That night never came.

What did come was a Tuesday when I finally exploded. Another “date” canceled, another excuse, another screenshot. I drove home like a maniac, stormed into the apartment and threw my phone on the bed.

“Explain this.”

He scrolled. I watched the color drain from his face.

“This isn’t me,” he said. “Someone is using my photos.”

I laughed in his face. “You expect me to believe that?”

He kept insisting. Swore on everything, said he’d never called me unstable, never downloaded that app, had no idea who these women were. I screamed. He screamed. Years of my old trauma came crashing back – the ex who had gaslit me, cheated, twisted every argument until I didn’t know what was real.

Then he walked to the closet, pulled down a small velvet box and opened it.

An engagement ring. Beautiful.

“I bought this two months ago,” he said, voice shaking. “I was going to propose on our anniversary. But I can’t marry someone who doesn’t trust me, who thinks I’m capable of this.”

He packed a bag while I begged him to stay. At the door he looked at me and said, “For what it’s worth, I never lied to you. Not once.” Then he left.

He blocked my number, changed his email, told his office not to let me up. It was over in one night.

Weeks later, in a different salon, I saw my ex–nail tech again. She walked in, dropped her phone on the counter and went to the bathroom. The screen was still on. The app was open.

The profile was there.
His face.
Her account.

She had been talking to herself the whole time. Posing as him, replying as him, sending herself messages to screenshot to me.

When she came back, our eyes met and everything clicked. She broke down and admitted it: she’d been jealous of my “perfect relationship,” jealous of how happy I was, how much I loved him. She wanted to prove he wasn’t that perfect… and then she lost control of the game.

By the time I found out, he was engaged to someone else. With the ring that was supposed to be mine.

I went back to therapy. Real therapy. And I had to swallow a hard truth: yes, I was manipulated. Yes, what she did was sick. But I also chose to believe screenshots over three years of him being kind, consistent, boringly loyal.

I didn’t communicate.
I investigated.
I didn’t ask, “Can we talk?”
I decided I already knew the answer.

Years later, I ran into him again. Different city, random bookstore. He looked older, tired, but still him. I apologized properly for the first time. He listened, nodded and said, “I don’t forgive you. But I hope you’re better now.”

It hurt. And I deserved it.

Here’s why I’m writing this: We talk a lot about “red flags,” about trusting our gut, about not ignoring warning signs. But sometimes, trauma turns everything into a red flag. Sometimes the danger isn’t out there – it’s in how badly we expect to be hurt.

I lost the love of my life to a fake profile and my own fear.

If you were him, would you ever forgive me?
And if you were me back then… would you have believed him or the screenshots? Tell me honestly.