When Diane Cooper first laid eyes on her future husband, she thought he was the one for her. She fell head over heels in love with smooth-talking charmer Vincent who she met online, and told friends she thought her 10 years as a single mother had finally come to an end. Vincent had recently come out of a 20-year marriage and, at the beginning of their romance, he was full of compliments for his new girlfriend.
“He would say, ‘I feel like I’ve got rid of the oitsubishi and got myself a Porsche!'” Diane recalls. “He paid me lots of attention to the point where he was actually a wee bit over the top about it.” When Vincent proposed a year later in front of Diane’s daughter and his three teenaged kids, she put any doubts about her prospective groom out of her mind.
“I was looking forward to our future and to a fresh start,” Diane says. At their wedding on Auckland’s North Shore last year, Vincent promised to love her and share the rest of his life with her, caring for their blended family together. He also vowed to sail through stormy seas with Diane (40), who had no idea how soon those stormy seas would hit.
When the newlyweds embarked on their 10-day honeymoon cruise, the groom’s feelings seemed to change overnight. “The second day on board, he was very quiet and I asked him if something was up,” recalls Diane who was about to hear the words no new bride ever should.
“I don’t think I love you anymore – I don’t have any feelings for you,” Vincent said. “I was devastated,” she recalls. “I started crying. I asked him why and he just said he didn’t think we were good for each other, that he didn’t think we were compatible.”
Vincent’s heartbreaking and confusing declaration put a dampener on the rest of the Pacific Island cruise, but Diane tried to convince herself his feelings would return. “It seemed like such a complete and utter turnaround because he was the one who had been so romantic. I wanted to try to fix it,” adds Diane, who begged Vincent to attend marriage counselling when they returned to Auckland.
The couple attended six sessions but Vincent (44) was adamant he wanted out. “I didn’t want to give up because we’d only been married a short time. But now I don’t think I could have done anything to save our marriage,” admits Diane.
In fact, she now believes that Vincent only married her to help him care for his children and pay his mortage. He pressured Diane to put her name on the mortgage because he’d refinanced his house to pay back a debt. Vincent needed Diane’s income to satisfy the bank that he could meet the repayments. But when the couple sold the North Shore home earlier this year, Vincent saw his chance to leave, and text messaged Diane “I’m not coming back” – just two weeks before they had to move out.
“I got home and he’d taken all of his stuff. I couldn’t get hold of him,” she tells. “I didn’t know where he was – I still don’t.” Diane believes he deliberately targeted her – a vulnerable and lonely woman – and planned his departure for months, slowly moving a few possessions at a time.
“He was always tidying up the attic or the garage but I never noticed things going,” she says. “I’ve had people tell me they believe he used me – that I served my purpose for keeping the home until he could sell it.”Now gradually recovering from her heartbreak, Diane is kicking herself for not heeding the warning signs about her new husband. She says she hated the way Vincent would put down his ex-wife and was upset when he picked fights by blowing minor issues out of proportion.
Diane shudders when she remembers the distasteful lines he used. When they first met he commented, “oh you’re a size 10! I’ve never had a size 10 before.” But it wasn’t long before he was comparing her to other women on the street, saying, “you would look better with your hair like hers”, or “you need to dress a bit sexier”.
Although Diane believes Vincent’s feelings may have been genuine at the start, she’ll be thinking twice before entering another partnership. Internet dating is not something she’ll try again and she warns other single mothers to “be careful – you are so vulnerable”.
- Names have been changed