Death did Kaitlin Palmieri and her late fiancé, Eric, part on the morning of their August 2020 wedding day.
Rather than walking down the aisle toward forever, a mourning Palmieri, then 35, became paralyzed with grief upon learning her dream lover suffered a fatal heart attack at 33, just hours before they were set to say, “I do.”
Despondent, the New Yorker spiraled into a seemingly endless cycle of despair — until she uncovered the sordid secrets of Eric’s double life.
“Last year, on Nov. 20, which was Eric’s birthday, I was on Instagram when I saw a post commemorating someone who had died and who had the same last name and birthday as Eric,” Palmieri penned in a piece to The Guardian.
“The poster said she had been with him on his last birthday.”
Palmieri didn’t think much of the unnamed woman’s tribute post — not initially, at least. Instead, she figured it was just a funky fluke.
“‘What a bizarre coincidence,’ I thought,” said Palmieri, “particularly because the post was from someone who’d heard about my story years before and reached out.
“We’d been in sporadic contact ever since.”
But the would-have-been bride was in for a rude awakening.
“I clicked on her Instagram story, which revealed that her post was actually about Eric,” said Palmieri. “I messaged to ask her to explain. Two hours later, I had my answer — with screenshots.”
The woman was Eric’s mistress.
The hush-hush honeys had quietly become an item shortly after meeting on a dating app in March 2019 — just a few months before Eric popped the question to Palmeri with a “fairytale” proposal in Central Park that December that year.
“They started seeing each other and were still talking 15 days before our wedding,” said a crestfallen Palmeri. “Seeing the messages he’d sent her as we’d sat together at home.
“I felt sick.”
Until that moment, Palmieri had believed Eric was heaven-sent to be her second chance at love.
Prior to swiping right on his dating profile in 2018, she’d lost her boyfriend, Mike, following a freak accident in 2015.
“On my 30th birthday, my parents threw me a party at their house,” she recalled. “Everyone was having a great time until I heard my brother scream Mike’s name.”
Her beau had slipped into a body of water near the house and fell unconscious.
“At the hospital, I was told that Mike wouldn’t ever wake up,” said the blond. “No one knows how he got hurt. He broke some bones in his back and had a brain injury, but we don’t know how that happened.”
Mike died six days later.
Palmieri shared her grief with Eric, who she praised for being “wonderful” about supporting her through the grief of Mike’s passing.
“The way he listened made me feel safe,” she said. “Five months later, we moved in together.
“I’d found love again.”
But her high regard for Eric — admiration Palmieri upheld for years after his sudden cardiac arrest, which was caused by a secret medical condition — came crashing down upon unveiling his infidelity.
“It was like I was trapped in a movie, one with a hideous plot twist,” she said of the harrowing revelation.
“The relationship I thought I’d had, the man I’d grieved for — the whole thing was a lie,” added Palmieri, who was doubly distressed that folks refused to commiserate with her.
“I was desperate for everyone to share my outrage, but many people didn’t want to know,” she groaned. “When someone dies, people don’t want to hear the bad things they did.
“‘He loved you,’” I heard over and over,” continued the scorned sweetheart. “But that wasn’t love.”
Unfortunately, Palmieri is part of a sucky sorority of significant others who’ve discovered that their dearly departed mates were leading foul lives.
In February, a content creator known online as @CherryBombSquad007, scored 4.7 million TikTok views after finding out her deceased hubby pretended to be a widower in order to woo women online.
Bridgette Davis, 36, a widow from Cincinnati, also recently reached viral acclaim after publicizing the awkward exchange she had with her dead hubby’s paramour in the day following his death back in 2018.
Palmieri is now on a journey toward overcoming the pangs of romance betrayal.
“I’m working on accepting that I will never know how Eric felt about me,” she said, crediting the success of her healing process to therapy. “I don’t know what his version of love was, but he knew I wouldn’t accept it. He’s like a stranger to me now.”
And although she still grapples with anger, depression and anxiety, Palmieri says Eric’s shady past has given her a new lease on life.
“I’m glad I know the truth,” said Palmieri.
“I can now date without being haunted by the shadow of my ‘perfect’ man. In that sense, I am now free.”