I dated a married man for three years and thought he loved me, but in reality I was just a clone of his wife.

He’s the pillar of this community. Everyone knows his face, his business, his frail wife and the tragedy surrounding her.  For three years, he’s rebuilt me ​​from the ground up. He’s “gifted” me a wardrobe I didn’t choose. He guided every choice I made, down to the shade of my hair.

He said he loved my elegance, but now I see the pictures of them together at the charity gala last night. She is perfectly healthy. She’s glowing. She’s wearing my favorite dress—the one he bought me for my birthday. We have the same hair. The same shoes. The same scent.

I wasn’t his escape; I was his backup in case he wanted to play house in a different zip code. I’m pregnant with the baby he said he couldn’t have, and I just saw him rub his wife’s real, seven-month-old belly.

He’s a local god. The kind of man you name buildings after. I was 23, ambitious and awed when he picked me out of the crowd. “My marriage is a ghost story,” he told me, his eyes wet with fake grief. He said she was unwell and needed constant care, and that leaving her would ruin his reputation entirely for his career. I believed every word.

I became his secret, hidden in a high-rise apartment he had paid for. What was at stake? Everything. His reputation, my dignity, our “future.” He started small. “I love you in silk, not denim,” he would say, as he changed my wardrobe. Then my hair. “Platinum is your color, believe me.” I felt chosen. I felt molded.

But there was one thing I just COULDN'T TAKE!!! Jo Malone Peony & Blush Suede. "Never wear anything else," he whispered. "That's how I'll recognize you in the dark." I hated it. It smelled like a funeral. But I sprayed it on until the scent felt overwhelming.

I saw them at the flower shop. I was supposed to be at work, but I got a migraine—probably from that damn perfume. I pulled into the parking lot, and there he was with his…wife. No hospital bed. No “deathly” paleness. His wife was beaming. She was laughing, her hand resting on the enormous belly of her seven-month-old.

The air left my lungs. I grabbed my phone, my fingers slick with sweat. I went to her Instagram—the one he told me had been “deleted for her mental health.” It hadn’t been deleted. It was public. I scrolled through three years of her life in ten seconds. It was like looking into a crooked mirror.

There she was at the 2023 gala. Same ash-blonde bob. The same silk jumpsuit I wore on our anniversary. The same brand of shoes. The same “signature” perfume mentioned in her captions. Every “gift” he gave me was just a spare part in case she was too pregnant or too tired to play the role of his ideal socialite. I wasn’t his muse. I was his spare tire.

My stomach clenched. A cold, sharp heat ran down my neck. I couldn’t breathe. I leaned over the steering wheel and choked on the scent of her perfume, wafting from my own wrists. I AM A DOUBLE.

I spent the next four hours in the car, the engine idling, digging through the digital records of my own identity. I found the receipts in his shared cloud of “business”—a stupid, arrogant mistake. JULY 14. Two invoices for the same Dior boutique. One size 4, one size 0. Two pairs of Manolo Blahniks.

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I thought I moved into a billionaire’s mansion to start over, but I’m sharing this house with a "GHOST" who is texting me from inside the walls.

“You deserve to know the truth about your husband. Tomorrow at sunset. Bethesda Fountain. Central Park.”

The same damn perfume, bought in bulk. He wasn’t “buying me gifts.” He was buying a suit. He was setting up a stunt double. I called him. My voice was a ragged mess. “I saw you,” I barely managed to say. “I saw her. She’s pregnant. She is perfectly healthy. Why do I look exactly like her? Why am I wearing her clothes?”

The silence on the other end of the line was icy. Then a turn. “You’re hysterical,” he said. His voice was smooth as butter. “She’s crazy, it’s her illness. Pregnancy? It’s a miracle, an accident. I told you I was infertile. You’re making it up because you’re insecure.

I’m sorry you feel that way, but don’t make your paranoia my problem.” He didn’t deny anything, he just made me feel like I was losing my mind. After that call, my phone was flooded with messages for an hour. His “best friend” texted me, “Don’t be that girl. He’s a good man.

You knew how to do it. Don’t destroy his family because of resentment.” His sister—the one who told me I was “like family”—blocked me on everything, sending me a final message: “You’re just a phase. She’s your wife. Know your place.”

I WAS ONE-TIME. He wasn’t the only one cheating. It’s a circle. They all knew. They watched me walk into the rooms looking like an exact replica of his wife and smiled to my face and laughed behind my back. TOTAL HUMILIATION.

I stopped crying. The shiver turned to a cold, hard rock in my stomach. Did he want twins? I would give him twins. I posted the photo. Not naked, not scandalous—just me in the same silver jumpsuit he bought us both, showing up at his favorite steakhouse. I didn’t say a word.

I just let the “perfect” world see the glitch in the matrix. My phone started to melt with notifications. I wasn’t hiding anymore. I was his reflection, staring back, teeth bared. He was at my door in fifteen minutes. When I opened it, he didn’t look like a “pillar of the community.” He looked like a cornered animal. Sweaty. The veins in his neck were bulging.

“GET OUT OF HERE!” he shouted. “You’re destroying my family! She saw it! Get her involved!” I didn’t flinch. I presented him with the undeniable proof of my situation. “Tell your lawyer that ‘sterile’ story,” I whispered. “And tell your wife she’s not the only one wearing your inheritance in a size zero dress.”

He grabbed my arm, his face inches from mine. “You’re nothing,” he hissed. “You’re a cheap imitation. No one would believe a lover.” In that moment, the fear just… evaporated. The shame I had carried for three years turned into pure, cold power.

I was not his secret. I was not his puppet, I pulled my hand back and looked him straight in the eye. I AM NOT HER. I closed the door and for the first time in three years I could truly breathe.

The apartment is quiet now. My lease is up in two weeks, and he’s already frozen all my credit cards. My “friends” have disappeared into the shadows, terrified of being linked to such a high-profile scandal.

I’m sitting on the floor of a half-filled bedroom with exactly $367 in my bank account and a baby growing inside me that he’ll never acknowledge. Left with nothing.

I’ve been blacklisted by the companies he controls, and my landlord just served me an eviction notice. I’m officially the “crazy mistress” in every group chat in this city.

Was it worth it? I don’t know. Part of me still looks in the mirror and expects to see the blond, polished ghost he created. I wonder if I’ll ever know who I really was before he started sculpting me.

But today I went to the drugstore. I bought a bottle of cheap, sharp, citrusy body spray. It doesn't smell like her at all. It smells like a new beginning. I AM NOT A CLONE. If you found out your partner was gradually turning you into an exact copy of someone else, would you burn their life down, or would you just keep playing the part?