'I was 4 days from my wedding when anonymous Facebook message tore world apart'

A bride-to-be's dream weddingand honeymoon collapsed overnight by an anonymous Facebook message which revealed her fiancé's secret affair.

Tobi Elder, from Nebraska, US, was just four days away from tying the knot with her fiancéRyan, and was at a nail salon telling her technician how excited she was for the wedding when her phone began beeping. The 39-year-old unlocked it to find a series of messages from an anonymous profile on Facebook, which contained screenshots of Ryan professing his love to another woman.

One message read: "Ryan is lying to you. Please see all the private messages I have sent you." In a screenshot between a woman and Ryan, Tobi saw the words "I miss you and I love you," and saw red.

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She then called her fiancé, who admitted he'd been talking to the woman for months, and that she'd messaged Tobi after he tried to end things with her. Tobi said: "I was in shock. There were only 36 hours until our flight to Hawaii, and four days until our wedding and honeymoon, which had cost us £3,000, most of which I’d paid out of a work bonus."

Devastated, she told Ryan the wedding was off, then called her parents. Tobi had been friends with Ryan for 10 years and the two supported each other through their past divorces. She said: "When we eventually became a couple in 2022, people said to me: ‘This is the man you’ve been waiting for,’ and: ‘You’ve hit the jackpot.’

" I truly believed he was The One and uprooted my life to move back to my hometown of Nebraska so we could be together. Ryan worshipped me. He cooked, cleaned and did everything for me - I’d never been more spoiled - and we didn’t have even one argument.

"In December 2024, he asked me to marry him, and we’d started planning our wedding. When I found out he’d cheated on me, we’d just signed a year’s lease on a house, and it just didn’t make any sense to me, I went into shock and couldn’t stop crying."

Despite her heartbreak, Tobi decided to take the flight to Hawaii alone, and landed in O’ahu to find a text from her 68-year-old dad, Rob. It read: "Sweetheart, I’m coming. I don’t want you to be there alone". He added that he couldn’t get there until Friday, which would have been the wedding day.

Tobi meanwhile called Ryan and asked him why he had cheated. "He told me he wasn’t sure that my goal of moving to Florida aligned with his goals, and he was worried I’d end up leaving him," she said.

"He said he’d confided in a friend, and one thing led to another. I was speechless. I said I still loved him, but I couldn’t forgive the affair. I spent two days feeling awful, and was so happy to pick Dad up from the airport."

When Rob arrived, he struggled to spot Tobi frantically waving at him at the airport. She laughed and decided to film the moment before posting it to TikTok. "Dad had been talking about visiting Pearl Harbour for 20 years, so I thought it would be a nice thing to do together," she said. "Seeing the joy in his eyes took my pain away."

The following day, her TikTok video had gone viral, with 3 million views and thousands of supportive comments. The caption on the clip read: "When you’re heartbroken on what was supposed to be your honeymoon in Hawaii, so your dad flies 2,500 miles to hang out with you."

Tobi and Rob spent the rest of the week sightseeing, eating new food and catching up. Tobi said: "I’m back home now and the clip has nearly 6 million views! I’ve not had any further contact with Ryan, and while I’m devastated, I’m trying to be strong, and I’m saving up so I can move away for a fresh start.

"There’s always a silver lining, and I’m so glad I got to make my dad’s dream come true, and he got to be there for me. It’s something we’ll both remember forever."