Hi y’all. Tonight I found out my fiancé has been pretending to be the buyer of a painting I’ve been working on. I’ve been dealing with a very difficult client—someone who always finds something to complain about regarding the painting. When I took the commission, it was my first one, and since the client was so excited, we agreed he’d pay me half once I showed him I had started the painting. Well, he didn’t. He said he wanted to wait until it was finished. I accepted that because I was confident I’d do a good job, but for months, this person has been nitpicking every part of it, saying he can’t pay because it’s ugly. I kept saying I’d improve it because I had already spent so much time and material on it.

This evening, I decided to stay home and finally finish the painting while my fiancé went to the gym. When I was done, like always, I took a picture and sent it to the buyer. Since I finished earlier than expected, I decided to use my fiancé’s computer to do some work. For context, I never use his laptop, and if I do, everything is logged out—except his iMessages, which I never check. Well, this time, he hadn’t logged out of one of his emails. It was the same email I’ve been in contact with for months.

I’m still shaking as I type this, so I apologize if I’m all over the place. But it was him all along.

I went through that email and saw that he was also one of the people who had harassed and bullied me over my art. For background, I had opened Instagram, TikTok, and every platform you can think of dedicated to my art, and I constantly received hateful messages. I told him about it. I told him how much it hurt me. I cried in his arms, and he was always so supportive. But as I read through his messages, I saw him joking about it with his best friend—saying he was going to tell me again that he couldn’t pay because he didn’t like the painting.

I read every conversation. He told his sister he was tired of me not paying attention to him and felt like I had abandoned him. He never said any of that to me.

For months, I’ve been bullied by who I thought were strangers online. I deleted all my social media and my art because I became so self-conscious. I believed I wasn’t good enough. I had decided I was going to quit after this commission—either once I got paid or if the client rejected it again. I was done trying.

I feel like the dumbest person ever.

Let me just say—my fiancé is the loveliest person: romantic, supportive, and I truly thought he was my best friend. But now, I am so angry. He lied to me. He played with me. He watched me suffer and kept doing it for months. He manipulated me.

I haven’t confronted him yet, and I don’t plan to. I don’t think I can marry him. But a part of me wants to do to him what he did to me—pretend everything’s fine, and then not show up on the wedding day. We’re supposed to get married in May. Part of me feels like he deserves that. But another part of me thinks maybe I’m going too far, and I should just confront him and ask why he felt unloved and abandoned.

Please give me your honest opinion. I don’t want to ruin my future.