Michelle Elman shared engagement pic hours earlier than dumping for dishonest

This Morning relationship expert Michelle Elman shared a picture showing off a diamond ring as she announced her engagement to her fiance – just hours before dumping him for cheating on her, MailOnline can reveal.

Michelle took to Instagram to finally reveal the identity of her partner of almost three years – known only as Ben. She captioned the happy picture, ‘I told you I would never post my boyfriend… MEET MY FIANCE’.

It was the first image the influencer had ever shared of her partner after going to great lengths for years to hide Ben’s identity from the public eye.

She had never before revealed his face, tagged or named him in any pictures online and later explained her boyfriend had no social media accounts of his own. She would post photographs of the back of his head or just of his hand in order to conceal his identity.

But within an hour of posting the image celebrating her proposal on April 14, and revealing the identity of her mystery man, she received a message from one of her female followers, informing the influencer that ‘the love of her life’ had been cheating on her.

The picture was swiftly deleted from social media, with Michelle stepping away from the online world until this week when she tearfully announced to fans her engagement was off.

The TV star declared that her partner had ‘f***ed up’ and ‘ruined a really good thing’, but insisted she was going to be OK.

Ben is said to have met another woman on a dating site before spending a night in a hotel with her while on a business trip.

Opening up further about her ex’s infidelity, she told This Morning: ‘We met on a dating app, he was my first date after the pandemic. Love of my life, healthiest relationship I had ever had.

‘I was engaged and then a woman reached out and asked if he was my fiancé. I ended up speaking to her for an hour on the phone. He was on a dating app, he was on a business trip and yeah.’

Michelle had been with Ben when she received the first message from the woman informing her that her unfaithful boyfriend had been on a dating site. The woman sent through screenshots of his dating profile and her number.

Ben admitted he had been seeing the woman as well as others.

‘He was with me when I got the first message. I thought it was a colleague. It took a while to figure out. My first reaction was shock and I kept saying please tell me first,I don’t want to find out from her,’ she told the ITV programme.

‘Then it was screenshots of the dating profile and his number, I believed her from the get go, but I needed evidence. She told me the hotel, and I said put that in your email, and it came up, then he admitted it.’

‘He admitted it and to others as well but I think my reaction was just was ‘you have ruined a good thing, this is supposed to be happiest day of my life’.

The relationship guru had flown back from a solo holiday ‘on the other side of the world’ to the UK yesterday to appear on This Morning to tell of her heartbreak.

‘I was feeling quite powerless half way across the world with rubbish signal not being able to address all of this so I’m home now and I am choosing to speak to This Morning because they have been my greatest champion from day one,’ she told her fans.

The TV star said that she was not going to let her ex ‘drag down the joy’ her career brings.

Michelle had been single for eight years when she started dating Ben – the first man she saw following the Covid pandemic after four others had bailed on their date last minute.

Until recently, it appeared that the couple were in an extremely happy relationship.

In her latest book The Selfish Romantic, that was published in January, she wrote a gushing tribute to her boyfriend, telling her fans their ‘love story will always be [her] favourite’.

On the acknowledgement page, where she also thanked her ‘inner circle’, she wrote: ‘And thank you to Ben. It isn’t easy dating an author, let alone one writing a dating book.

‘Thank you for never getting sick of hearing about the latest piece of dating research I found and holding my hand through the rollercoaster of emotions that is being an author.

‘It means the world that you trusted me to write whatever I wanted about us. Our love story will always be my favourite. Thank you for always giving me a safe space to land. I love you so much and this just the beginning of us.’

In another gushing post about her new-found love, she said: ‘He’s been the man behind these photos before you even knew he existed. He’s the guy without social media who fell in love with an influencer hehe.’

The lifestyle influencer added that Ben had ‘spoiled [her] plan to write a dating book from a single woman’s perspective by asking me to be his girlfriend two weeks before getting a book deal for The Selfish Romantic’.

In August, celebrating their two year anniversary, Michelle declared to Ben: ‘I love you more than I ever thought I could love a human.’

Alongside the post, where she spoke about the second year of their relationship being harder than the first, she shared a montage of her smiling and laughing, with a clip at the end showing Ben wrapping his arms around her.

In her emotional break-up video Michelle said that Ben had ‘f***ed up’ and ‘ruined a really good thing’ – but insisted to her concerned fans that she would be OK.

The TV personality made light of the fact she has made a career out of giving people advice about their love life as she admitted she finds it ‘deeply ironic now’.

Alongside an old video of herself talking about how to have a confident mindset to end jealously, she said: ‘And yes I know a lot of my posts are deeply ironic now.

‘The hazard of posting online but at least you can’t say I don’t practice what I preach. Good riddance exactly.’

In the previous video she had said: ‘I’ve never understood jealously, I always find it a compliment because if someone is hitting on someone I’m with I’m like, cute – you can try, won’t happen.’

‘And you know what, even if it does happen? Good riddance. Thanks for taking him off my hands.’

The author also posted a conversation with a friend where her pal had joked ‘at least he won’t cheat on you’, telling the influencer she had gone for a ‘safe option’ in her partner.

Michelle became a motivational coach after living through her own childhood experiences of life-threatening health problems, long stays in hospital and fifteen complex surgeries that left her scarred, both mentally and physically.

She had a brain tumour, a punctured intestine, an obstructed bowel, a cyst in her brain and a condition called hydrocephalus – where fluid builds up in the brain, causing, dangerous pressure that can be fatal if untreated.

Explaining her absence from social media, Michelle began: ‘I don’t know how to make this video so I’m just going to get into it. The last you heard from me I was engaged and I’m not anymore.

‘The day I posted that engagement photo is the day I found out he had been cheating on me and one of the women he was cheating on me with actually followed me and that’s how I found out.

‘She’s a lovely woman, and she didn’t know, and you’ve got to love his taste in women. You’ve got to laugh. We’re laughing and crying a lot over here.’

She continued: ‘The main thing people always say with cheating is ‘Did you know?’ And obviously not because I said yes to marrying him.

‘But also does it matter? I think what I’ve realised through all of this is if someone wants to actively deceive you they will.

‘When it comes to life coaches there’s this illusion that we’re perfect, we’re all knowing or that we have our lives together and it’s just not true.

‘I’ve always said I’m just five steps ahead and that’s how I am able to teach other people.

‘The only difference is I have all the tools and resources to make sure I’m okay right now and that I know I’m going to learn from this.’

Breaking into tears, she added: ‘My own life coach says we never let a good crisis go to waste, and this is a crisis. I think I am a good life coach because I f*** up more than you and I learn from it.’

She then corrected her self and said: ‘Actually, let me rephrase that one because I didn’t f**k up – he did. And he ruined a really good thing. And it was a good thing – when it was good, it was really good.’

Despite her heartbreak, Michelle told a fan that she had already forgiven Ben for his deception.

She said: ‘I already do forgive him. It was pretty much instant for me because he is the person who has loved me most in the world and this has really taught me that unconditional love does exist because I do still love him.

‘The love is unconditional, the relationship is not and I won’t be staying but I do forgive him. I’ve been comparing it to a bank account.

‘All the love he has poured into me in the last three years has put coins in the bank, his cheating drained the bank account but I’m not leaving the relationship in debt.’

Michelle later took to her Instagram Stories to thank her followers for their outpouring of support with a selfie, and explained that she was on a solo holiday.

The writer also revealed that the couple had been trying for a baby for several months before they had split, and said she had begun dating while away.

She wrote: ‘I’m so overcome by all the love. Thank you for all the kindness. Do you remember when I said I was going to book a solo trip?

‘The part I didn’t tell you is because we had been trying for a bay for three months so I wanted to do it before I was pregnant.

‘So I’m on the solo trip now. Coming back tomorrow. Grateful I’m not pregnant and also have gone on dates while here.’

Michelle became a motivational coach after living through her own childhood experiences of life-threatening health problems, long stays in hospital and fifteen complex surgeries that left her scarred, both mentally and physically.

She had a brain tumour, a punctured intestine, an obstructed bowel, a cyst in her brain and a condition called hydrocephalus – where fluid builds up in the brain, causing, dangerous pressure that can be fatal if untreated.