“Who The F*** Did I Marry?!” Reveals The Vulnerability Of 30-Year-Olds
A viral TikTok expose of a woman done wrong by a pathological liar is a warning to all of us.
Have you guys seen this massive saga on TikTok? In it, user ReesaMTeesa gives a play-by-play of a relationship from hell. She met a guy on a Christian dating site who wasn’t just a compulsive liar but also a major con artist.
Her ex, ,Legion*, was a real piece of work. After moving in together during the COVID lockdown two weeks after they met, things seemed fine. Then, Reesa Teesa started to uncover lie after lie after she got a new job:
He wasn’t a VP at a condiment company, he was a “temp forklift driver.”
The phone calls to realtors he was having weren’t real.
His assistance on buying a house seemed to be for his own financial gain.
He wasn’t at work while she was miscarrying her baby at the hospital, he just didn’t show up.
He forged financial documents showing he was preapproved for a huge mansion.
They got married in January, she kicked him out by summer, and was divorced by August. She’s giving people a warning about men like this…and the comments were wild.
The most common remark I hear from people are pretty victim-blamey.
When Reesa and Legion met, Reesa had a three bed, two bath condo. Legion was in a studio apartment and said he was looking for a realtor to buy a house. Yes, they moved in together fast. Yes, things seemed odd, but he looked like he had good intentions.
He did pay her bills to start. He did bring her to Cheesecake Factory for a date, which honestly? I like their food. (Yes, you may now crucify me if you want to.) The truth is that this shows a major inconvenient truth about abuse: it’s not always easy to figure out who will be abusive.
Love-bombing is a thing. The lengths conartists will go to in order to convince people of things are wild — and this TikTok series proves it. However, people keep saying the same type of things about abuse.
“Why didn’t she just leave?”
Reesa did. She left six months in after she realized Legion was a compulsive liar.
“You moved in with him two weeks after meeting him? Are you nuts?”
You can’t always tell who will be real with you when you move in with them. I moved my husband in with me after four weeks of dating and got engaged shortly after. My mother married my dad after four weeks.
Spouse and I may have had problems in the past, but we’re still together and he’s the love of my life. Few things bring me as much joy as cooking dinner for him or having family outings.
People who hear about how fast we got married thought we were crazy but it worked for us. And moreover, I know of people who were engaged for two years, got married, and then had to file a restraining order shortly after because their once-angelic boyfriend turned into a wife-beating husband.
“I would never end up in that situation!”
Bullshit. While some people are more prone to abusive relationships than others, anyone can end up being abused. With all this stuff, there was one particular blame that got to me.
The biggest blame game I saw was asking why she didn’t drop him with all the yellow flags — and why she was so eager to be with him.
I don’t even know why people aren’t cutting her slack on this. I mean, look at what our society is like these days. In 2020, we were literally forced to isolate. Our society has never fully recovered from that and it shows in how we behave.
We’ve never been this isolated as a society, nor have we ever been this lonely. When you’re lonely, you get desperate. When you get desperate, you’re willing to give people the benefit of a doubt when everyone around you is telling you, “BITCH! RUN!”
What many people also don’t realize is that isolation tends to distort your sense of normalcy with human interaction. Overtime, you start questioning what is normal…and that makes you ripe for abuse, exploitation, and more.
In your thirties, it gets very hard to find a decent partner — though it’s not your fault.
Reesa Teesa is a lot like many other women her age. Hell, she’s a lot like many other people in their 30s. A person’s thirties are a really weird, really vulnerable time in your life — especially when you’re single.
When you’re in your twenties, you automatically are told you are vulnerable and “you’re still young, you’ll find someone.” You’re given a pass for naivete. People, particularly older ones of your gender, keep an eye out for you.
You also have more free time and less responsibilities in your twenties. In your thirties, you might have student loans, taxes, a house payment, or even a kid to take care of. It’s enough to make it hard to set aside time for a date or a night out.
To make matters worse, there’s the issue of also feeling like the leftover cake slice at a party. If you’ve ever experienced it, you know what I mean — looking around you, seeing people pair up, and you’re stuck at square one…
It’s hard.
When you’re in your thirties, a lot of people are already coupled up. You’re stuck there, wondering when it’ll be your turn or if you did something wrong. You wonder why you weren’t enough and why your dating life is so burnt out.
Some feel like they’ve missed the bus. If you want to have kids or have been actively waiting for your love life to bloom, you might start to think, “Hey, maybe I’m not that much of a catch. Maybe I should settle with Mr./Ms. Enough.”
Being a single 30-year-old of any gender makes you feel very vulnerable, especially if you’re trying to find someone.
Does anyone else ever notice that society shames people who are single, but also shames people for saying you want a partner? I’d say it’s a double-bind, but it’s so much worse than that.
Somehow, you’re supposed to just find a person and get paid up while still not making too much effort. If the relationship goes south, it’s your fault for not being careful enough and you could face financial devastation that could land you on the streets.
But if you clock out of the dating scene and choose to stay single out of fear of being used…you’re suddenly bitter, used up, and a failure. Or they say you hate the opposite sex.
Like, Jesus, is there any way for singletons to win in this society?!
When you’re trying to wade through a mire of bad dates in your thirties, you’re inevitably going to put yourself at risk. All relationships require you to manage risk and take a risk. Many, if not most, will burn you. If you’re lucky, you’ll be able to find the right partner — but that’s a huge “if.”
You have a lot more to lose in your thirties than you do in your twenties, especially financially. And you know society will blame you if you end up with a bad catch, which means that even asking for help makes you feel more vulnerable.
Good on Reesa for being open about her divorce.
It takes so much guts to talk about the kind of mindfuckery that the wrong partner can do to you. It also takes a lot of guts to admit that you overlooked yellow flags and that you were truly hoping for the one.
Abuse is never the fault of the abused. Believing in someone’s lies is not the fault of the believer. The hurt that comes from it says more about the liar and the abuser than it ever does about the victim.
So maybe, just maybe…we should cut singles, unhappily coupled ups, and divorcees a break from all the blame? They’re in a vulnerable situation as is.
Seriously, people victim-blamed her so much without critically thinking about how vulnerable we all felt at the onset of the pandemic. Like NO ONE knew WTF was going to happen, and isolating that long did mess a lot of people up.
It also revealed how many people were deeply lonely regardless of their relationship status.
We all think it won’t happen to us until it does.
This woman did not deserve blame. In fact, she got out very quickly once she realized her mistake. Kudos to her.