A woman has opened up about the devastating loss of her husband to be – and how she then discovered he was living a secret double life.

Kaitlin Palmieri met Eric on a dating app in early 2018 while living in New York and immediately hit it off with him. She found Eric to be an interesting, chatty and handsome match and found herself falling for him. However she had a tragic past experience that she needed to share with Eric.

On her 30th birthday she had been dating a man named Mike and her parents had thrown her a birthday party at their house. The party was going well until she heard her brother screaming Mike’s name and ran to see what the commotion was.

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Talking to The Guardian Kaitlin described how she saw him laying on the ground by her parents’ swimming pool and discovered that he had slipped into the water and wasn’t breathing. As she tried to do CPR on him he did not regain consciousness and once they got to the hospital she was eventually informed that Mike would never wake up.

He had broken bones in his back and a brain injury but how he got hurt was never established. Six days after her birthday his life support machine was turned off leaving her devastated as she recalled her “shock and grief were unbearable.”

Kaitlin admitted that Eric had listened to her story and made her feel safe and they then proceeded with their relationship. Within five months they had moved in together and in December 2019 he proposed to her in Central Park.

With their wedding day set for August 2020 the night before their wedding the couple had dinner with their friends and family and Eric gave a speech about his love for Kaitlin. They then kissed goodnight and she went to her hotel room, with Eric spending the night with his brother.

The next morning Kaitlin’s world crumbled for a second time. She explained: “I was woken up by the telephone. I heard my mom’s voice. ‘Kaitlin,’ she said, sounding strange. ‘You have to come down to the lobby.’ Dread washed over me. ‘Not until you tell me what’s going on.’ It seemed an age before she replied. ‘Eric died early this morning’.”

Eric died aged 33, with a postmortem discovering he had a heart attack due to an undiagnosed condition. Kaitlin described how over the years since she learned to cope with her grief, keeping her unworn wedding dress and on special occasions wearing her ring.

Then on November 20 2023 – Eric’s birthday – Kaitlin made a gut-wrenching discovery while on Instagram. She described how she “saw a post commemorating someone who had died, and who had the same last name and birthday as Eric,” with the account claiming they had been with him on his last birthday.

The post about Eric had come from someone who she had been sporadically in touch with over the years who had contacted her when Eric died. Kaitlin asked her for an explanation and “two hours later, I had my answer – with screenshots. She met Eric on a dating app in March 2019.”

She then described how the pair had been seeing each other and were still talking 15 days before the wedding. Kaitlin detailed that it “was like I was trapped in a movie, one with a hideous plot twist. The relationship I thought I’d had; the man I’d grieved for – the whole thing was a lie.”

Kaitlin detailed how she has struggled ever since to know what she meant to Eric and that she doesn’t know “what his version of love was, but he knew I wouldn’t accept it.” She added that the man she once loved is “like a stranger to me now,” and that she has been “left with a kind of anger, because I can’t express to Eric how he’s made me feel. It’s fury from so many wasted years.”

Kaitlin also admitted that she has “struggled with depression and anxiety, and I’m in therapy,” but she is “glad I know the truth.” She has also found the courage to date again “without being haunted by the shadow of my ‘perfect’ man,” and feels “I am now free.”