There are few days more exciting than a person’s wedding day. The celebration is often the culmination of months of planning and the big moment when the happy couple will profess their love for one another and vow to stay together until parted by death.
Kaitlin Palmieri was 35 years old on her wedding day in August 2020, and looked forward to spending the rest of her life with Eric, 33. But Palmieri’s plans were ripped apart when Eric suffered a fatal heart attack just hours before the ceremony.
Palmieri was grief-stricken and shocked at the news, but what she found out about Eric after his death was just as devastating as seeing him die on their wedding day. Eric didn’t appear to be the man she thought he was, and she’d never have a chance to get the truth from his lips.
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Palmieri made a shocking discovery more than a year after her fiancé’s death.
Palmieri found out the man she’d planned to marry had been cheating on her for more than a year before they were planning to wed, according to the New York Post. On November 20, 2023, Eric’s birthday, Palmieri found out he’d been having an affair with a woman across the country for over a year before his death.
“I was desperate for someone to tell me it wasn’t true. But in my heart I knew that it was,” she told the Post, “And I wanted to burst.”
She discovered his alleged affair on Instagram.
Palmieri explained to the Post that she came across an Instagram post from a woman she didn’t know lamenting the death of her boyfriend, whose name was Eric, and who shared the same birthday as her fiancé. It appeared to be a coincidence, but it was too eerie for Palmieri, who reached out to the woman just to be certain. Sadly, she confirmed her worst fears.
“He had been dating this other woman, who he’d met online, since March 2019,” Palmieri told the Post.
The mistress shared gobs of evidence.
According to Palmieri, the unnamed woman shared screenshots of their affair, which began only a few months before Eric proposed in 2019. Their engagement seemed to be a fairy tale, but the information from the mistress confirmed it was all just a lie.
“The last texts they shared were disgusting, sexual messages,” Palmieri said. “Eric sent them to her seven days before our wedding.”
Eric wasn’t her first love lost.
Palmieri explained to the Post that she had dated a man named Mike, who died in a tragic accident in 2015. She shared that love story with Eric, who supported her and her desire to find love again. But when she realized the truth after his death, she was appalled by what he had done to her and her family.
“The audacity to put somebody who loved you through this, to stand in front of my 77-year-old parents and ask for their permission to marry me,” Palmieri shared with the Post. “This [ordeal] has aged them, and they didn’t deserve that.”
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Now, Palmieri is trying to move on.
She told the Post that therapy is helping her, and she hopes that speaking out will let others know that it is OK not to be OK when someone betrays your trust and your love.
“You’re allowed to be angry and hurt,” she shared.
And she emphasized that just because Eric is gone doesn’t mean she’s moved on. “Don’t feel like you have to automatically forgive someone because they died,” she said.
