This story is about a woman who discovered that she had been the ‘other woman’ to a married man on Valentine’s Day.
Every Valentine’s Day, I can’t celebrate. Not because I’m single, not because I’m bitter—but because this day reminds me of Faisal. The man who ghosted me, blocked me, and turned out to be living an entire other life.
Let me tell you the story.
A Year of Love, A Year of Lies
When I first met Faisal, he was charming in a way that didn’t feel forced. He had that calm, confident energy, like a man who knew exactly what he wanted. And in the first few months, I believed that what he wanted was me.
He was thoughtful, romantic, the kind of guy who made you feel like you were the only girl in the world. We’d go on late-night drives, share inside jokes, and spend hours talking about life and the future.
And for a whole year, everything between us felt perfect.
Well… almost perfect.
There were a few things that never quite sat right.
For one, I had never been to his place.
Whenever I asked, he’d give the same explanation:
“I live with my mom. She’s very religious, and I don’t want to introduce anyone until I know we’re serious.”
I respected that. If anything, I found it sweet that he cared so much about his mother’s approval.
But that wasn’t the only thing.
I also realized that I didn’t know anything about his job. He told me he was a financial consultant, but he never mentioned which company.
If I asked, he’d brush it off with, “Work is boring, sayang. Let’s not talk about that.”
And so, I didn’t.
Looking back, I wish I had.
Ghosted
February 14th—Faisal had made big plans.
“I’ll pick you up at 7. Wear something nice,” he texted that morning.
I spent the entire afternoon getting ready, excited for what I thought would be a romantic night. Maybe tonight was the night he’d finally say, “I love you.” Maybe tonight was the night he’d tell me he was ready for me to meet his mom.
But 7 PM came.
And he never showed up.
I tried texting. No reply.
I called. Straight to voicemail.
8 PM. Then 9 PM. Then 10.
I stared at my phone, waiting for the screen to light up with his name, some kind of explanation—sorry sayang, something came up! But there was nothing.
I barely slept that night, my stomach twisting with worry.
Had something happened to him? Was he okay?
The next morning, I tried calling again. Blocked.
I opened Instagram to check if he had posted anything, maybe a clue that he was out with friends. But when I searched his handle—his entire profile was gone.
I messaged on WhatsApp. Single tick—no profile photo.
For the first time, I felt despair.
Had I been deceived?
The Truth Unfolds
A week passed, but the questions didn’t.
Where was Faisal? Why had he ghosted me? Did something happen to him? Or worse—was I never supposed to know the real answer?
At this point, I wasn’t even sad anymore. The heartbreak had dulled into something heavier—suspicion. There was something deeper, something bigger than just a man getting cold feet. People don’t just vanish unless they have something to hide.
I had exhausted all my options. His number? Useless. His social media? Gone. I had no friends of his to contact, no workplace to visit. It was like I had been dating a shadow.
Then, one night, I was scrolling through Facebook, aimlessly refreshing my feed, when something made me pause.
An acquaintance had posted an event photo—just a casual birthday party at a café. A long table, a group of people laughing, posing for the camera. The kind of thing I’d usually scroll past without a second thought.
But then I saw him.
My breath caught in my throat.
Standing casually in the back, half out of focus, was Faisal.
Only… it wasn’t Faisal.
At least, that’s what the tagged name told me.
A strange, unfamiliar name. Not Faisal. Not even close.
My heart started hammering in my chest as I clicked on the name, my fingers ice-cold against the screen. The rational part of me was screaming to put the phone down, to walk away, to not do this.
But I had to.
The page loaded, and my stomach twisted violently. His face. His smile. But a completely different name.
And then I saw it—the cover photo.
It was him, standing in front of a house, his arm around a woman. Two small children grinning up at the camera.
My whole body locked up, a chill creeping over my skin as I scrolled further down his profile.
A recent post caught my eye—a picture of him and the woman, sitting at a dimly lit restaurant. His hand resting on hers. The caption read:
“Happy anniversary to my husband, my rock, my everything. Love you always.”
I froze.
Anniversary?
I clicked the post, my heart racing as I checked the timestamp.
February 14th.
The same night he was supposed to be with me. My hands started to shake.
I scrolled further, searching for more timestamps, trying to piece together the timeline of his betrayal.
Another picture. A family vacation.
Date: December 25th. Christmas. I had spent that day with my own family, but I still remembered Faisal texting me.
“I’m stuck with my mom, sayang. You know how she is. I’ll make it up to you when I’m free.”
The memory made my stomach turn. He had been with them. His real family.
More pictures—each one like a knife to the chest.
New Year’s Eve. A cozy family dinner at home. He had told me he was sick and wasn’t feeling well but that I shouldn’t worry because his mom was taking care of him.
My vision blurred as I scrolled further and further down, each photo unraveling another lie.
The entire year—the dates, the moments we had spent together—they overlapped with his real life.
When he said he couldn’t introduce me to his mom?
It wasn’t because of religion. It was because she didn’t exist.
I had spent a year believing Faisal was mine. That he was serious about me. That we had something real.
But Faisal hadn’t disappeared.
He had just gone back to his REAL life. And I had been nothing more than a well-hidden secret.
The Aftermath
I didn’t sleep that night.
I sat in bed, staring at my phone, my mind running in circles, replaying the past year over and over again. Every moment, every excuse, every I miss you, sayang—all of it had been a carefully crafted lie.
I had loved him. I had planned a future with him. And the whole time, I was just a secret he tucked away when convenient.
I wanted to scream, to cry, to demand answers—but from who? The man I knew as Faisal had ceased to exist the moment I clicked on that Facebook tag.
And yet, I couldn’t stop.
I opened his wife’s profile, scrolling through her posts, studying her face. She looked happy. Blissfully unaware. Her captions were full of love and admiration for him.
Did she know?
Had she ever suspected?
Or was she just as in the dark as I had been?
For a split second, I had the overwhelming urge to message her.
To tell her everything.
To rip the illusion apart, the same way mine had been ripped apart.
My fingers hovered over the message button.
“Hi, I’m sorry to tell you this, but your husband isn’t who you think he is.” “I was with him for a year. He lied to both of us.”
Would she believe me?
Would she even want to know?
I thought about what it would do to her. The way it had wrecked me in just one night. The way it made my entire world stop making sense.
Was it even my place to tell her?
Or was I just trying to share the burden of my own pain?
I dropped my phone onto the bed, pressing my hands against my face.
I hated him.
But more than that, I hated myself.
For not seeing the signs.
For trusting him.
For spending an entire year loving a man who never even existed.
How could I have been so stupid?
Tears welled up in my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. He didn’t deserve my sadness. He didn’t deserve anything from me.
So instead, I took the only control I had left.
I deleted every picture of him.
Every text.
Every voice note where he called me sayang.
Then, I went back to his profile—the real one. The one where he was a husband and a father, not just the man I thought I knew.
And I blocked him.
Not for revenge. Not to hurt him.
But because I never wanted to see his face again.
And because if he ever tried to find me again, I wanted to make sure he couldn’t.
Final Thoughts
I told myself I’d move on. That I’d forget about him. That one day, the ache in my chest would dull into nothing.
And for the most part, I did.
But every year, on February 14th, I still think about how he betrayed me.
So yeah, I don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day anymore.
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Read also: I Was The Other Girl in a Relationship but I Turned Out to be “The One”
I Was the Other Girl in a Relationship, but I Turned Out to Be “The One”
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