A woman in Scotland says she discovered a shocking secret about her longtime partner and the father of her two children after she reported him missing recently.

Far away from their hometown of Motherwell, 38-year-old Malcolm McGregor was reportedly in the United States with a woman he had since married, according to the New York Post.

McGregor and Bell Valek, his new bride, were in Utah posting selfies and updates on social media while 37-year-old Cheryl Cowie was in Scotland worried about the man she had been with for decades dating back to their childhood.

When he left nearly a month ago, Cowie said McGregor told her he was taking a trip to nearby Kilmarnock to visit family.

She initially believed he had disappeared and reported him missing three days later. A short time later, however, she saw the telltale social media images.

“It’s just awful,” one friend said of Cowie’s circumstance, adding that it “must have been devastating” for her to see the images of her childhood sweetheart in another country with another family.

The friends said the couple and their two children “seemed like the perfect family.”

Police confirmed that the man had been located in another country and added only that he was “safe and well.”

A friend of the jilted woman said McGregor’s vehicle “was supposedly dumped near his sister’s home and police were looking everywhere.”

Now Cowie believes a previous trip she thought at the time was to visit England was actually another ruse to visit his mistress.

On July 23, which was the same day Cowie told police he was missing, McGregor posted on Facebook that he and Valek had married.

The new wife has not publicly addressed the controversy. A Scottish newspaper reported that it was contacted by a man claiming to be McGregor, who called the reports “lies” and threatened to take legal action.

[Featured image: Malcolm McGregor and Bell Valek, Facebook]