What’s the Worst Betrayal You’ve Ever Faced?

My crazy ex-boyfriend stole all my money then disappeared, so I tracked him down and did the same exact thing to him. He went insane in the aftermath and got himself imprisoned.

When I first met my boyfriend Ken, I opened up to him about my past relationship. I told him that the man I was with was abusive, and Ken responded by telling me he would take care of me.

Not even 2 weeks in, he was sending flowers to my workplace. We quickly began dating, but unlike most sociopaths, Ken didn’t flip the switch when we got together.

Instead, he was the perfect boyfriend for an entire year. I thought I was going to marry him, but I woke up one day to him missing and all of his stuff gone.

I called, but he wouldn’t respond. I started going through drawers hoping to find something, but I noticed some valuables missing: my watch, my earrings, and even the couple hundred cash in my wallet.

What’s much worse is when I logged into my bank account, I saw that he had cleared all of it out too. Every dime out of the $100,000 I had in savings was gone.

Because I was quite dumb at the time and living above my means, I failed to pay rent for the next 3 months. I was evicted and left homeless.

The weeks that followed were a blur. I couldn’t eat or sleep, and my phone was constantly blowing up with calls from debt collectors.

It was humiliating. I had gone from having everything—love, a stable life, and finances on point—to having absolutely nothing.

My family couldn’t believe what had happened, and I didn’t even want to explain it. It was too embarrassing.

Living out of my car wasn’t sustainable. I’d park in different places each night to avoid attention, but it was only a matter of time before someone noticed.

I still had a few belongings crammed into the back seat, but every day it seemed like I was losing more. Whether it was my dignity, my hope, or another bill that went unpaid.

Eventually, I realized that I couldn’t handle this on my own and called Kayla. Kayla had been my best friend for years.

We met in college and we drifted apart after we started working, but the bond was still tight whenever we met up for lunch. When she found out what happened, she didn’t hesitate.

She immediately offered me a place to stay. At first I resisted; I didn’t want to be a burden, but Kayla wouldn’t take no for an answer.

“You’re moving in with me, end of discussion,”

she said,

crossed her arms and gave me a look that said she meant business.

I didn’t have much choice, so I packed up what little I had and moved into her spare bedroom. It wasn’t much, but it was a hell of a lot better than sleeping in my car.

The first night I cried myself to sleep out of sheer relief. I was beyond grateful that someone still cared about me after everything I had been through.

For a while I stayed at Kayla’s. I applied for jobs and worked on getting my finances back in order.

But no matter how hard I worked, one thought kept gnawing at me. Ken was out there living his life with my money, probably laughing about how he had fooled me so easily.

The rage I felt was overwhelming. I wasn’t the type to let things go easily, and the more I thought about it, the more determined I became to track him down.

I knew it was crazy, and I debated whether I should have just let it go, moved on, and rebuilt my life, but I couldn’t. That’s when I decided to hire a private investigator.

It was a stretch; I didn’t have much money left, but I scraped together what I could and hired a PI to track Ken down. It worked out.

I was also starting to get paid from the coffee shop job that I applied to recently. I needed to know where he was, what he was doing, and if there was any chance of getting my money back.

After a few weeks of staying at Kayla’s, I started to feel a bit of guilt settle in. As much as she said I didn’t need to worry about paying rent, it didn’t sit right with me.

She was my best friend and I wasn’t about to take advantage of her kindness. One morning over coffee, I told her that I would start paying her rent and she refused to take it since I was her best friend.

I told her it would make me feel like I had a bit more control over my life and would find a way to pay her every month, so she allowed it. That way turned out to be opening another credit card.

I had sworn off credit after what happened with Ken, but it felt like my only option. Between rent and funding the private investigator to track down Ken, the costs were piling up.

And it wasn’t like I could ask my parents for help. They already thought I was reckless for getting into this mess in the first place.

I stared at my phone screen for a good 20 minutes before finally pressing submit on the credit card application. I knew that it would be worth it.

I’d get my money back once I tracked him down. Once I had everything he stole from me, I could pay off Kayla, pay off the PI, and clear all these credit card balances.

It was temporary, or at least that’s what I kept telling myself. Temporary or not, seeing the charges rack up made my stomach turn.

The PI wasn’t cheap, and I’d set aside a good chunk of that new credit limit just to pay him each week. I got another update, another clue as to where Ken was hiding.

Kayla noticed I’d been more tense lately. One night as we were watching TV, she casually asked if I was okay because I seemed stressed.