Victims. When a lie marks us for a lifetime

Gandhi argued that just as a drop of poison compromises an entire bucket, also lies, however small, spoils our whole life. The truth is that it is part of it.

“I remember this day!” Says José, 57. “A letter from a bank with a threat of attachment of assets arrived if I didn’t pay a debt! At the time, I had debts like we all have! Home, car… but I paid religiously every month! I was scared, because I didn’t know what it could be!” What he discovered next, he forever marked his life.

He went to Banco de Portugal to realize what was going on. “I was informed that the debt referred to credit cards on my behalf and on behalf of companies that I was a managing partner! That’s where it was light!” He continues. Two years earlier, a family member of the family tree, « but close to the heart, » asked him to be an unpaid managing partner of two companies that would constitute for real estate promotion and import and export of goods. “Never, at any time, I suspected that it could happen what happened!” He says. “In addition to opening the companies on my behalf, you asked for checks and credit cards on their behalf and in my name! How? I gave you the copy of my documents! Just that!” He explains. “He was a person I admired and respected, who treated me like a son who had and lost! Who gave me, me and family, some moments of comfort!” He admits.

According to José, this family member always invited him to his home at parties and important moments. “Today I realize that I wanted me near him to be able to control me!” He stresses. “I want to believe that the lie when it started, and in his head, it was supposed to be resolved before I found out!” He adds. However, this type of scam « takes proportions of snowball! ». And what begins to be a simple lie, becomes something that « then cannot stop! ».

“I remember being lunch with him and my family and my son asked for a more expensive ice cream… I didn’t leave it, because it was him paying! But in fact, his cards were in my name. The biggest lie that this is difficult!”, He laments.

Identity theft

What cost him most was yet to come. « Confronted with the truth, it didn’t deny it, but it relativized and said it would pay everything! I read it once, I don’t know where, we only have a problem when we don’t know if it exists! After that, it stops being a problem, because we started looking for solutions! That’s what I did! But I thought I could solve it internally, » Joseph.  » In vain… “Always with lies! Pushing with the belly and saying that I had already paid!” He recalls.

José was then « thanks » to enter court with a complaint. The whole process took several years. “In Portugal the burden of the race is always the victim! I had to prove it was not me!” He says.

There were expenses in credit cards in countries where it had never been. « My wife was approached at the workplace by judicial employees to open the door to pledge us. We stopped having access to any type of credit, » he reveals.

After a few years and paid a few thousand euros was given the reason. “I passed the victim from defendant!” He points out. “By this time he, by virtue of so many lies, was no longer in Portugal! The crimes prescribed! Life continued…”, he guarantees.

Today, Joseph is “a good person with life!”: “I don’t move much in the past! I’m more anxious than depressed! I’m loved by my children and my wife! I read with this story as a lesson! And I admit part of a guilt that I should never have! I know he’s out there! I hope it’s sad!”

Lies in Love

Imagine being fooled by a family member, even if away, it costs. Even worse will be deceived by the person we love, who sleeps with us every day and with whom we want to build a future… “It was a relationship with much of everything… Passion, love, adventures, creativity, sadness, pain, joy, disloyalty, lies and rupture,” confident Maria, 62 years old.

He was an orphan of father, with his elderly mother, and she willing to live. “He was a free, adventurous man, social, well willing,” he describes. It didn’t take much time, after meeting and falling in love, to « join the rags. » “We were no longer teenagers… we were divorced and wanted to live together for everything ever. Soon his mother came to live with us and easily understood that she would have dementia and that the whole situation was omitted. So the relationship started with lies.

During the relationship, the partner needed to change his car: “In the absence of credit, I did it in my name in order to help and resolve themselves in the best way. In the end we were a family and, as such, it would make perfect sense to be the support of each other. But with the promise and the condition that it made the commitment of the installments. I believed the purchase,” he details.

According to Maria, at first it went well, but soon there were payment failures and, after the separation, « it was a horror. » « He got the car, there were always a lot of difficulties in contacts. In those where we were able to talk, assumed that he would pay. He was the one who contacted the creditor and the situation went to the limit, went to litigation with the attachment of my maturity, » he reveals.

Maria had to take over the debt of 21 thousand euros, because the credit was in her name. « It hurt me a lot at all levels … both economically and emotionally. I had many years unable to accept that someone who had shared life with me, with promises of eternal love, could have this kind of behavior. He took me the realization of personal goals (housing credit), thinking about my future… simply the possibility of living more lightly, » he admits.

And the nightmare only ended five years ago. “There was a relief and an inner liberation because I stopped having any ‘tie’ with that person. Time and the choice of positive thinking is in fact master. It helps to dilute the pain that is very painful that I have believed, for naturally relativized, in the name of pseudo love and my family values. that I was and I am a good human being. When you choose someone to be aware of signs of behavior, which are simply reflexes of personality, values ​​and rules of conduct, ”he warns, adding that for his sanity and balance that we all deserve,” he forgiven his behavior because he understands him as “sick”. “A healthy and complete person doesn’t act like that. Besides, I was also able to forgive me because it was gullible and didn’t ask for the seizure of the car, because for all purposes the car was mine,” says Maria.

“Life is experiences… It is not always won, it is true. But with this experience of ‘lies games’ I have been through-with such a consequence in me-I learned to be happy with very simple things like listening to the sounds of nature, sunbathing, feeling the rain in the face, giving and getting a smile… I lost pieces of me. But I will rebuild with the achievements of my way,” he says.