Ep232. Part One — Before the Rebuild: the Life and Relationship That Had to Break (with Angie).

In this episode, Mike and Angie slow everything down and begin telling the story that lives underneath their work, their marriage, and their mission. Before the breakthroughs, before the rebuilding, before Inner Wealth, there was conditioning, trauma, and survival. This conversation sets the foundation for a ten-part series by going back to childhood, early relationship dynamics, and the patterns that quietly shaped sixteen years of volatility. This isn’t about resolution yet. It’s about truth, context, and understanding what had to break before anything could be rebuilt.

Key Takeaways

1. The Relationship Was Built on Unconscious Survival
Both Mike and Angie entered the relationship carrying unexamined trauma that shaped how they loved, fought, and stayed.

2. Childhood Conditioning Never Stays in the Past
What isn’t healed early gets reenacted later, especially inside intimate partnerships.

3. Toxic Patterns Can Look Like Love
Control, volatility, fixing, and emotional intensity often masquerade as connection when safety is missing.

4. The Collapse Was Inevitable — and Necessary
The unraveling wasn’t failure. It was the interruption that made healing possible.

5. Awareness Is the First Real Shift
Nothing changed until responsibility replaced blame and curiosity replaced defense.

Notable Quotes

• “We officially begin today, but that we introduced last week, talking about our life together, our collapse, our rebirth, the cleanup, the mess.”
• “That toxicity kept building over the course of sixteen years.”
• “We just carry that forward. It’s all conditioning and programming.”
• “It felt like my entire life was being ripped away from me. I just wanted to die.”
• “It’s not Mike against Angie anymore. It’s Mike and Angie against the problem.”

Call to Action

🔥 This Is Only the Beginning.
This episode lays the groundwork for a ten-part journey through collapse, repair, and conscious rebuilding.

📘 Inner World, Outer World — Available Now on Amazon
 A guide to understanding how the inner world shapes the outer life. Order yours here!

👥 Message Mike or Angie Directly
mike@innerwealthglobal.com angie@innerwealthglobal.com

Music Credit: "What's Left of Me" by Wes Hoffman & Friends

My Social Media:
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Subscribe to my YouTube: / @mikekitko

Mike Kitko is an executive self-mastery coach, speaker and author. He found external success through powerful titles, incomes, and material possessions. He ultimately fell into depression, toxic abuse of alcohol, and the near collapse of his family before he began a journey of internal happiness and success.

Transcript

Series Setup And Intent

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Welcome to the Inner Wealth Podcast where we learn and choose to live inspired each and every day. Hey guys, welcome back to part one in a 10-part series that we began. Uh we well, we officially begin today, but that we introduced last week, talking about our our life together, our lives, our life together, our uh our collapse, our rebirth, the cleanup, the mess, the cleaning up the mess that we made, and kind of like walking through some of the healing that we went through and sharing with you guys some of the healing techniques and some of the things that that we we utilized and and we um I guess we dove into in this in this healing journey to really live a more powerful life. And uh I'm here with my bride. Um she's here next to me. If you're just listening, you can't yeah, there you go.

SPEAKER_02 1:27

I'm here.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

If you if you're listening, you can't see her, but if you're watching YouTube, you can. And listen, uh, I would love it if you are just checking us out, if you're just finding this, I would love if you uh if you subscribed, if you liked, if you shared this podcast, if you uh, you know, if you get any value out of it. But uh over the next 10 weeks, we're gonna be telling a very powerful story. And the way I framed it last week is I I am a public speaker, I'm a I'm a coach, a published author, a speaker. And oftentimes when I'm up on stage, I'm telling the story about our life. And when uh after the speaking event, there's people, mainly women, that corner her and say, I want to hear it from your perspective. So we're we're working um and the intention and we'll work what we're working on is making sure Angie's voice is heard equally to mine. And I know I'm introducing this a lot and I'm gonna turn it over to her. But the point is, is we wanna we want to get our story in the world and start this a more powerful collaboration because Angie has a lot to offer that has been buried and surfaces from time to time, but we're now we're we're diving in and we're exposing it.

SPEAKER_01 2:39

Yeah, and we've you know we've met so

Centering Angie’s Voice

SPEAKER_01 2:41

many couples over the years who've experienced situations quite similar to ours and who haven't been able to navigate through this in a in a way to get them to the other side. So we're just hoping that uh by sharing our story, we can possibly help someone else navigate this journey together.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

And I'm sure we'll get into some of this later in a later episode in a uh later in this series. But one of the things that I love most about this is every time we've done a podcast episode together, Angie, Angie's voice has has strengthened. She's become more confident, more courageous, showed up more. And I love seeing the light shine in you. And I love seeing how you are becoming better every time you you you jump on here and you just share who you are. And that lights me up. And that's pretty opposite of how I showed up for the first 16 years in our marriage. And that's why we'll tell that story.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

Yeah, I'm trying. It's uh it's it's still a little awkward, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:44

What's awkward about it?

SPEAKER_01 3:46

It's just everything, the camera, and I don't know, just hearing, I hate hearing my voice. Mike loves listening to his voice. And I'm personally not a fan. I I critique the hell out of it. I talk too fast, I laugh too loud. I'm all I'm just I am my own worst enemy.

SPEAKER_00 4:03

Yeah, so just to clarify, she doesn't like hearing her voice or mine.

SPEAKER_01 4:07

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I love hearing your voice. It's just over and over.

SPEAKER_00 4:13

Same story, same stuff over and over and over. Thought she has the life of Mike and Angie. But uh listen, today I think what we're gonna focus on today is since this is part one, we're gonna start at the beginning. And what we need to set, what we're gonna do is we're gonna set the foundation for the rest of the series where we really talk about Angie's childhood, the environment that she grew up in, because that had a lot to do with what happened in in our lives. My childhood environment, which had a whole lot to do with what happened in our lives, how how we immediately got off to a very, very toxic start in our relationship. And that toxicity kept building over the course of 16 years. So,

Why Share The Story Now

SPEAKER_00 4:59

and then we're we're not gonna we're not gonna go a whole lot into the future this year with this episode, but we're really gonna set the stage and tell the story of who what was the past of Mike and Angie and what did it look like before our collapse in 2016.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

There's no way we're gonna get through just the childhood thing in one episode. This is not gonna make it through 10. It's gonna be longer than that if the if we're gonna start from from the childhood thing, because that's it might be a longer, longer episode.

SPEAKER_00 5:26

So, but we'll we'll go it we'll go until the story's told. And a longer story, a longer episode is okay too. So, Angie, yes, let's start with you. Yeah, so I often talk about when I'm up on stage, I talk about me and I talk about the the childhood, the environment that created, you know, this the shadows that were in my life. But the the story that you have to share about your childhood is even more powerful and even more, even more painful. So it's not that not to it's a comparison, but really it is important for you to set the tone in and stage and and not exaggerate, but to really tell the truth of where where you came from.

SPEAKER_01 6:06

Yeah, um, I mean, I I was born to an impoverished family in in northern Virginia, right outside of DC, Alexandria. And um, my my mom was a 16-year-old runaway, met my dad, and they had me when she was 19, he was 21, and pretty much just dumped me off at my grandma's right away. It was just their their relationship was toxic. Um, they got divorced when I was two, and again, dumped off at my grandma's, who miss her every day. She was my my rock, my angel. Um, and just yeah, just life growing up was, you know, I loved my grandma, but our entire, like it was, we were your typical loud Irish drinking family. Our our little apartment was was open to every drunk in the city. Um my dad had a revolving group of women for the longest time, and then they found the one who would eventually become my stepmom. Um, my mom passed away when I was six years old. So that was kind of a kind of a tough thing. And then my found my grandmother dead of suicide just a year and a half or so later. Just chat and my dad.

SPEAKER_00 7:18

You found her.

SPEAKER_01 7:19

Yeah, they sent, yeah, it was she wasn't responding to anyone's calls or letters because after my mom died, she just shut

Angie's Childhood: Loss And Survival

SPEAKER_01 7:25

herself down completely. And um, we were sending her letters and we were knocking on her door and calling, and she never answered. So they decided one day to do a wellness check, and my they sent me in. Uh, so she had she had was literally laying on the floor with a bottle of empty bottle of vodka, and she was playing a game of Yahtzee by herself. That's how I found her. And all of my letters that I had wrote her were all they were the only letters that were open of all the letters that our family sent. So that's kind of stuck with me. Uh, but yeah, my dad was a heroin addict. He was uh you know, I saw him get stabbed when I was super young. I we saw him try to rob a cab driver. I mean, we it was just crazy. I yeah, I mean, I was sexually assaulted at a very young age by my my dad's friends, my father. I mean, it was just as crazy.

SPEAKER_00 8:13

And they what happened when they found out about it? When when when your when your dad and stepmom found out about it, what found out about what? The the when when when it was understood about the septual assault. Yeah, no, that was when I what was the response?

SPEAKER_01 8:28

That my dad was part of it. Yeah, yeah. No, my dad's and from his friends were part of it. Like he'd have have his buddies over. I remember we were we would we moved all over the place. I think one year we moved houses like six or seven times. I was in different school districts all year long. I don't think I ever stayed at a school more than half a year. Um, no, but my dad's friends, you know, we would he we would make us sit on their laps and they would touch us. And, you know, first it started as me. And then I later on there were other children involved. That's not my story to tell. Uh, so I'll just talk for me. And um, you know, they'd have their drug dealers over and just pretty much just had their way with us. But I think you're talking about the part where when I got raped when I was 13, I was raped when I was 13, and when I told my stepmother, and she just called me a stupid slut, and it was my fault.

SPEAKER_00 9:20

It was your fault. That was the part that it was your fault. That's the that's the environment, you know, the wicked stepmother and and you know, uh with stepsisters that got preferential treatment.

SPEAKER_01 9:31

Yeah, yeah. And you know, there were we went, we were lived in and out of flop houses and crack houses and wherever we could stay for periodic times. And it was one whole summer we had no running water, no electricity, we had no food. We we would go and like we would literally go to the store. And I remember they had the bulk food bins. I think it was safely our giant food, and we would go and just steal cookies just to get something to eat. And and my stepsister had a lot, you know, she and I will speak on that because she she was the reason we ate a lot of days because she would go and steal food for us. We go and knock on neighbors' doors and ask to borrow, borrow hot dogs. That's the one I remember, you know, stealing toilet paper and going and getting water from the grocery from the gas station to flush the toilet once a day. It was, yeah, it was crazy. So I um I finally left. I I I got the the guts and up and I was like, this is not. I always knew though that this is that was not the life that I sure was destined for. Like that was not where I saw myself. Like I always envisioned the family and the house. And I had like for some reason, I had the ability to make friends with the kids who had money, which was really odd because I was, you know, always wearing hand-me-down clothes and stuff. But I always never felt less than around those people who had money and having sleepovers and single family homes. And I was like, oh, this is what I want. And I remember planting that seed very young. So yeah, I left home when I was 14, got emancipated when I was 16, and we'll end that story there because that goes into a whole other kind of story.

SPEAKER_00 11:06

And and and I think there's there's another cool part that the on the brighter side is she had a wealthy aunt, and every once in a while she'd go over a wealthy aunt's house and she would lay in her her bed in their down comforter and and you know, drive drive nice cars. And Angie's like, this will be mine.

SPEAKER_01 11:24

Yeah, no, yeah. So I definitely credit Di with a a lot of of my drive and ambition to get out of that because we would, we would stay at her house, and she lived in in Bethesda, Maryland, and always had a beautiful condo and a nice convertible. And we would lay there in her bed with our big down comforter and her fancy lotion. And we, oh yes, 100%. I had, and and she also taught me to speak well. So I had to drop out of school in ninth grade when I left home. But I always literacy was always very important to me. So I remember Guy always correcting our language, and I really credit her for why I'm such a grammar Nazi now.

SPEAKER_00 12:04

You are a grammar Nazi too, for sure. If you, if you ever, if Angie ever sees your writing and there is an error, she is judging you. I just want you to know she is judging you.

SPEAKER_01 12:16

I remember our poor kids giving me a paper to read in like fifth grade.

SPEAKER_00 12:19

I'm like, God damn it, I see 15 errors right there, but I'm not gonna say if she sees a mistake that you make in your writing, she she is judging you actively.

Abuse, Poverty, And Early Emancipation

SPEAKER_00 12:31

And uh when you you always knew, just to reiterate this, you always knew that that wasn't the life that you were always gonna live.

SPEAKER_01 12:38

Yeah, and and my my aunt I and these were my stepmother's sisters, and they they they knew too, which is great. Like hearing that as an adult, and you heard you you've you've heard them say that, like they always knew that I was different, and I would be the one that got out. And I am the only one out of the the myself and my stepsister and half sister that got out.

SPEAKER_00 12:58

Now you had two sisters, or you have two sisters, and they they are still kind of living in somewhat kind of the one sisters in jail. Those circumstances, but I'm talking about the you know, being still being around the the heroin addiction and you know, whatever.

SPEAKER_01 13:15

It's they they're they're still they're still kind of trying to they're still admired in that that poverty stricken lifestyle, not necessarily you know, there's different circumstances to each of them, but they're still in that, and I hate to use this phrase, but I'm going to in that white trash trailer park lifestyle. Like that's where they are.

SPEAKER_00 13:31

Yeah. And uh and and I mean, your older sister, uh, I we know her, and we just kind of hung out with her for the first time in a long time, and and she's very envious of what we have and what we've built. And uh, and she it kind of inspired her a little bit in some way. So it was really cool to share that with her.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

And she's very proud of me, and she verbalizes that when you know we don't speak often, we have a bit of an issue, we've tried to repair our relationship, but um it just doesn't seem to work very well. But she she has definitely and she is she's very proud of what we've built.

SPEAKER_00 14:03

Yeah, and and it's all comes through telling our story, and that's why we're doing stuff like this is our story inspires people, and hopefully, uh you know, you can we can always change our circumstances. Yeah. And that sets the stage for um for me, I guess. Um, I'm six years older than Angie. I grew up in Baltimore, Maryland, so not far from Northern Virginia. What is it, 50 miles, 60 miles, something like that?

SPEAKER_01 14:26

95 traffic.

SPEAKER_00 14:27

Yeah, well, hours. But the point being is we didn't grow up very far from each other um in proximity and geographical proximity, but um in in years for sure. So uh my father was uh 19 my 19 years older than uh than my mom. And I I I like to think my dad looked at my mom and she he's 20, he's like, that's a fine young thing. She's one, and it is disgusting. But we're six years apart. So so you know, when when I was 20, she was still a minor, right? But uh but that's not when we met. But uh we met when I was uh 27 and she was 21. So that's how we got our start. But um my my childhood was not poverty stricken. Uh it was lower middle class, it was blue-collar union steel worker, uh, a little town in a town, an area, uh location, I guess, community called Canton in Baltimore. Today it's more upscale. It's been uh centrified.

SPEAKER_01 15:31

It's been centrified.

SPEAKER_00 15:33

And you know, the house that I grew up in, we we actually got to go back into the house uh when we visited Baltimore. A lady invited us in into my childhood house and it looks nothing like it. But uh it was very much a a small, dusty, dirty, cluttered Baltimore row house, shotgun style. So when you you stood at the front door, you could see all the way through the back. And uh there were at times there were three of us boys, uh me and I had two older brothers, uh, my mother, my father, and uh we me and my brothers shared one small bedroom. Um Angie, Angie's very familiar with my childhood at home, but it was a small bedroom with three beds in there. Uh, and you know, it there was a lot of um my father was the way he approached us, he said, boy, if you ever think that you're right and I'm wrong, let's go down to park, because there was a park nearby. And he said, and we'll throw down, and whoever wins, they're right. So, and that's kind of how we solve problems in the house. And that's how my brother solved problems. So it was pretty typical that they'd be washed, one one brother would be washing dishes, the other be drying, and before you know it, they're just on the ground and they're just throwing fists and they're just they're just hammering each other. And uh, I know my my brother and my father got into a physical altercation before, and my my father didn't he uh my brother only challenged my dad once. So after that, you know, there was no more physical altercations between my dad and us, except for except for punishments. Getting getting your your your ass whooped. That was a pretty uh pretty common thing. But uh yeah, lower middle class, blue collar, union of steel worker, gotta work hard. Uh money is hard to make. Rich people are greedy, rich people are evil. Um, you'll never have enough. Um, we're we're made we're made to struggle. Um this this family works, you know, we're hard workers and and you you gotta work for the man, and you you know, union is the only way to freaking preserve your safety and security, and really this lower middle class poverty mindset and approach to life, where if if anyone has money, they obviously got it in a very, very uh slimy way. And I remember going down to my Aunt Marge's house, uh loving Aunt Marge, um deceased now, but uh I remember going down to my Aunt Marge's house, and Aunt Marge and my Uncle Chuck had money, and there was a Christmas tree in the house, a little Christmas tree, and there were there were b bills currency on on the tree, like little ornaments. And my my my Aunt Marge was all excited. She's like, go grab a bill, and it was all for all the kids. I get emotional telling the story. And we go over and you you'd pluck a bill off the off the tree, and sometimes it was a hundred, and sometimes it was a 50, and sometimes if it was a 20, and and if it was too low, she'd say, get another one. And and you always left, you know, at Christmas time. Ah, I get emotional. You always left Aunt Marge's and Uncle Chuck's with a little bit of money. But the point being is the whole way home, my parents would talk shit about Aunt Marge and Uncle Chuck about flaunting wealth and you know, really, really uh um leading with their money. And and really they didn't they didn't. They didn't. They were just generous, they were just very generous and they were very loving and they they they were well off. But the point being is if you had money, you were there was something wrong with you. And and they demonized anybody with money. My parents did the best they could. Angie's parents did the best they could. I think it's important to set the the the stage there. These aren't bad people. They were just we're all operating at the highest level of consciousness that we possibly can. And and those people, just like Angie and I for most of our lives, we just weren't operating at a very high level of consciousness. So this is no judgment, this was no shame, this is no guilt, this is no, this is no blame, this is just this is this is what we this was how we lived. This was how we lived.

SPEAKER_01 19:33

Yeah, and I think that with what you just said, I think one of the the biggest healing points for me, now I'm not jumping ahead with this, but is when I finally sat down and thought about wow, what did my dad and what did my stepmom have to endure in their childhood that made them that turned them into those people that did that? Like what did when I actually thought, like, wow, was my stepmom, she must have been sexually abused. I mean, the physical. The mentally emotional abuse she put me through. Like I know she learned that from somewhere because we only do what we're

Mike’s Baltimore Roots And Money Beliefs

SPEAKER_01 20:07

taught. Yeah. For sure. And majority of the time.

SPEAKER_00 20:10

And that's why I spanked my girls.

SPEAKER_01 20:11

Right.

SPEAKER_00 20:12

Right. I love them very much, but I would hurt them because I that was the way I was taught. And I just thought that was natural and normal.

SPEAKER_01 20:17

And we also grew up in the generation where getting our asses whooped with this with the wooden spoon was part of, was just a part of that. That's made us made us tougher.

SPEAKER_00 20:26

Yeah. So to to finish out, you know, that that's the kind of the environment that we grew up in. Oh, and by the way, we were we were raised in a very uh strict Catholic environment where you went to church and you look perfect, then you came home and and the N-word was thrown around all the time, and you know, and and just it it was just it it was there was opposing sides, you know, of and I'll put my hand in front of Angie, but opposing sides to what was shown and what was happening, right? Everybody thought the Kit Cos had this thing, this loving family going on. And meanwhile, there's freaking violence and there's blame and all kind of and and and I don't know. It's just I I remember seeing my my uh my mother got off the phone and she obviously somebody called her about my brother, and then you know, she came in with a a butter knife. My brother was sleeping on a couch, and she just started hitting them with the butter knife and yelling at him, and and that was when I was like three or four. Like I remember that vividly. And and it's just I was growing up in that environment that was chaotic, that was that was violent, that was volatile, you know, that it it was it it's at the root of the foundation. Uh my father was working all the time, uh, and my mother was uh pharmaceutically addicted. She was uh not a very affectionate woman, affectionate mom in terms of uh giving, giving love, giving physical love, or you know, giving hugs or or embracing. She was very physically distant, she was very emotionally distant. And a lot of times when I went to school, she was laying in her bed, and you know, I had to, from a very young age, most times I had to make my breakfast and pack my lunch. And it was the latchkey kid generation, but I did have a mom there, she was there, but she was just absent because she was pharmaceutically addicted, and that'll that'll come back up here in in a little bit. So my my father was my best friend uh for the first 10 years of my life. And he after we reconciled, uh, he became my best friend again. And he actually became, you know, the this her dad, her real dad in the world. But uh when my when I was 10, my brother had a daughter. And um when she was born, my father completely started ignoring me. And my mother said that was his pattern. He always paid attention to the baby, and when there was a new baby, the old baby got got ignored and got shunned and got pushed away. It was no longer that that important or relevant in in his life. And that kind of set out set a course of like abandonment, right? Where my I didn't have a mom. She was physically, mentally, emotionally distant. And at this point, I didn't have a dad. So I felt like I had nobody in the world. And uh I I I took care of myself. I it was all like self-preservation. That that's really what it came down to. And that's gonna, again, all this stuff we're just setting the stage. All this is gonna come back up later. All right. Um you're ready to you're ready to fast forward.

SPEAKER_01 23:26

Yeah, yeah. I I I I gave I gave a clip those version. I didn't know you were gonna go down.

SPEAKER_00 23:31

I think I think it's important that we tell that we tell the story. So feel free to expand.

SPEAKER_01 23:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:35

Now I I got out of high school and I joined the Marine Corps. Angie got uh emancipated, got engaged. Yep, right?

SPEAKER_01 23:46

Yep, got engaged. Um 17, I believe, was been with him. I we got together when I I was with him when I left home at 14. And you know, to this day, I very grateful that I had a place to stay because yeah, you know, his family helped take care of me. And again, there we're still very good friends to this day. And um emancipated, took, was working, and I started working when I was very young. I started working at 15. And um, actually, that's how I the emancipation even came about because I was working at a little cafe in Bethesda, Maryland, on Old Georgetown Road called uh Sutton Place Gourmet. There was a gentleman who would come in every day and get the same, same meal cheesebread and an espresso. And one day he just asked me, why I was not in school. And well, one of the things when I left home was what I left out was when my mom passed away. She worked for the Department of Defense. She was a secretary uh there. And so she left behind a I I was I was receiving government pension. And um, so I got her social security and her government pension, and my dad and stepmom used all that money for drugs. And um I remember them chasing the mailman down on the first of the month. That was always just so bizarre. And um, anyway, so he asked me and I just spilled the whole story to him and just don't even know why. I mean, I do know why, but told him the whole story. And the next day he came in, he slid a letter across the counter, and it was from Miles and Stockbridge lawyers in Rockville, Maryland, offering to represent me pro bono in a case of emancipation so that I could get away from my father. And then I would I became would become a ward of the state of Maryland, and they would be responsible for my finances until I turned 18. And it was a godsend. And I will never forget that day in court. I just felt like my dad had taken so much from me that I was just, I felt so man, that was a great moment. Him and my yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:45

And and that that man, I'm not gonna mention his name because you didn't, but uh try we're trying to protect folks.

SPEAKER_01 25:52

Jim, oh James, Jimmy? Jimmy. Oh, James, oh, James J. Demma, attorney at law.

SPEAKER_00 25:57

He's uh Jimmy love you, but uh anyway, uh that's important. And Jimmy also helped her get into college.

SPEAKER_01 26:04

Yes, so yep.

SPEAKER_00 26:06

She had a ninth grade education, she's a ninth grade dropout, and she started taking college classes. Okay, that's gonna come up later too, because there was some self-worth issues and some confidence issues, right? That that that filtered in the story. Uh I graduated high school. I went to work for uh a couple engineering companies as a draftsman. I ultimately joined the United States Marine Corps, took college classes all the way through through the Marine Corps. And when I graduated, or when I when I uh when I got out of the Marine Corps, I had two classes left. I finished my classes, and then I decided to burn a little GI Bill. And when I when I I took two classes, and that was biology and abnormal psychology

Meeting, Fast-Track Romance, And Red Flags

SPEAKER_00 26:46

101. And guess where Angie and I met?

SPEAKER_01 26:50

Abnormal Psychology 101.

SPEAKER_00 26:53

Abnormal Psychology, and that is like one of the best parts of our story. We met, and it was me and a bunch of kids in this class. I was the old man, and I kept asking everybody, hey, who wants to go out and have a drink after class? And everybody would tell me, like, fuck off, old man. Not quite like that, but but they they they really didn't they they didn't really want to go out and hang out with the old man, even though I was 27 and they were freaking punks.

SPEAKER_01 27:17

But well, I was part of that too, and my ex-fiance was, you guys are literally two weeks apart. He's just he's he's saying yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:25

But uh Angie and I were part of some project teams together. So I had her phone number, she had my phone number. We we talked on the phone a couple times strictly about the project. There was no, there was really no interest there. But then after after the the this the semester ended and the class ended, Angie, Angie was was going out for drinks with was I thought was her friends, but she invited me and I said, Yeah, I'd love to come. And it was me, her, and her fiance. And we went out for a drink. And at the end of the night, there was no more fiance.

SPEAKER_01 28:00

Yeah, there was uh yeah, he and I got into a a conflict that was definitely just the just the the the culmination of years and years and years of that toxic relationship. Yeah, and I walked away and my I asked him to take me to my friend Dorothy's house. Dorothy was not home, so I went back to Mike's apartment, and that was that.

SPEAKER_00 28:19

That was that. So and she never left. We we did have a separation, we were separated in 2014 for a few weeks for about five weeks. But besides that, she's we've been together ever since. Um fast forward, we we uh bought a car together, we bought a house together, we got pregnant, and that all happened within two years. Within two years, it moved really, really quickly. We got married.

SPEAKER_01 28:46

Yeah, because that that happened. So December 11th, 1999 was the day we went out, and then we found out we were pregnant with our daughter, Katie, uh, just a few days before 9-11. So it went, yeah, it was fast, it was real fast.

SPEAKER_00 29:00

It it it all and and it was surreal for me, and it just kept it it it was moving too quickly for sure, but I didn't know what to do about it, and I didn't know how to navigate it. But it it it all just kept it it it all just seemed like the the right next step, but maybe not the correct next step.

SPEAKER_01 29:17

Yeah, it I and I can I can definitely look back now and recognize that same feeling. Like it doesn't feel like uh this is what we're this is this is what it's like we were being pushed into it. Like it was just like someone was guiding us.

SPEAKER_00 29:30

I think we were and I think we I think we were. I think we were being guided.

SPEAKER_01 29:34

Yeah, so yeah, yeah, definitely. And yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:38

Yeah, and and it all moves so quickly. And and this is where, you know, but but look, our our our relationship started on a bar stool.

Alcohol, Control, And Pattern Repeats

SPEAKER_00 29:47

Okay, it started with a lot of a lot of alcohol, a lot of blackouts, a lot of drunken nights, a lot of arguing, a lot of threats, and game calling and playing and yes, oh, and and threats and belittling and and me telling you how worthless you were, and and me trying to devalue you, and me telling you that you were nobody else wanted you, and nobody else would have you. And it was just man, it was just we were just horrible. We were we were not very good people. We had we had a lot of fun when we were drinking, but when things, when it wasn't about the drinking, then all the all the toxicity showed up, and it was just it it was physically, mentally, emotionally abusive. Very, very abusive.

SPEAKER_01 30:38

I just took what I had in my childhood and just carried it over into both of both of my long-term relationships. I was the same with with my ex. It was very toxic. There was drug use and there was fighting, there was physical altercations, there was so much emotional and mental abuse. I mean, and then I just just repeated the pattern with you, and you were just repeating the patterns that you saw.

SPEAKER_00 31:00

And that and that's why setting the foundation of the of the childhoods, it's all just conditioning and programming. We just carried that forward. I saw my parents argue all the time, especially about money. So we argued all the time, especially about money. We just and and I saw my mother being a nag to my dad and always like absolutely impossible to please. And I married someone who at that time was impossible to please. The target constantly moved, and and it was like I was always trying to hit the target, but I couldn't. And I I was I I used to get so frustrated because the target kept moving and I was trying so hard to hit the freaking target. But what I realized I was never going to hit the target because a moving target is is uh it's a trauma, it's a trauma response.

SPEAKER_01 31:44

Right.

SPEAKER_00 31:45

That's it. It was a trauma response.

SPEAKER_01 31:47

Because I even yeah, there was nothing you could hit because it's always it's like it it was how far can I push?

SPEAKER_00 31:54

How far can I, you know, how what it was here's here's my here's my my take now. How far can I push him to finally prove that he's gonna leave me?

SPEAKER_01 32:08

Yeah, yeah. And and that's what I saw with my dad and stepmom. We were constantly, they were constantly leaving each other and packing the kid, packing us up in the car and going. And but it yeah, it was it was constant. It was there was always starts of divorce. So was and that was then uh I brought that forward.

SPEAKER_00 32:27

We both did. We both did. This isn't this isn't an angi, uh Angie Bad Mike group.

SPEAKER_01 32:31

All the same things pretty much.

SPEAKER_00 32:33

Both of us the the the the problem solver in me, when she would talk about a problem, I would try to solve the problem, and trying to solve the problem pissed her off, and she just created another problem. And then when I tried to solve that one, the target just kept moving, and it was like I I I didn't know what to do because there was there was no winning. But again, that's the trauma response. But the the fixer in me was codependence in me. It was deep codependence. That was my pat my father's patterns playing out, trying to trying to fix my mom, trying to be the healer and the savior of my mom. And that's why it was so that's why it's so important to understand our childhood traumas. We were just emulating the behavior that was modeled for us. So we moved out to uh something really cool happened.

Moves, Masks, And Escalating Chaos

SPEAKER_00 33:16

And he and I, it was right after Easter of 2002, and when we had our when Katie was a couple months old, and we had just had holiday season and we went to uh my my parents' house, we went to her aunt's house, we went to see her dad and her stepmom. And that day was miserable because all we did was travel and we didn't really get to enjoy Easter. And Angie said, you know, wouldn't it be cool if we just moved away and we just focused, moved somewhere far away, and we just focused on our little family? And I said, you know what? That sounds wonderful. That would be wonderful. And a couple days later, I got called into a conference room at work, and they told all hundred of us that they were closing the operation and moving, uh, going to invite a couple of us to move it back to Beaverden, Oregon, back to home campus. And I was one of five that were invited. Ultimately, three of us made the trip, but I was one of five invited, and I think Angie said, you know, she planted that seed, and that is the manifestation process. That's the creation process, right? And we'll talk about the creation process at some point, but it's a wonderful, beautiful story. But that set the stage for the next, you know, bunch of years because we spent 10 years in Portland, Oregon, increasing in volatility, in increasing in drama, increasing in pain. And then we we moved to where we were trying to escape the pain that we were feeling by moving to the the the Beaverdon, Oregon. And then we we uh we did the same thing in 2013 and we moved right outside of St. Louis, Missouri and St. Charles, Missouri.

SPEAKER_01 34:49

Yep, and problems came with that.

SPEAKER_00 34:50

And all the problems, because no matter where you go, there you are. And uh our lives were full of when I mentioned my mom was physically, mentally, emotionally unavailable, and uh me having the abandonment issues, those all just kept coming to surface because I I married a woman that became pharmaceutically addicted, was physical, mentally, emotionally uh uh uh distant. Uh I was always trying to chase her because I was afraid of being abandoned. She was playing out of her shadows, I was playing out of my shadows. I we beat the shit out of each other. Our daughters were raised in a completely volatile, toxic uh environment where threats, divorce, seeing pills get pulled out of mouths, having beers dumped over each other because we were so drunk. Well, no, her dumping beers over me because I was so drunk.

SPEAKER_01 35:44

Yeah, being in and out of rehab, in and out in and out of psychiatric facilities. Yeah, this it was arrests.

SPEAKER_02 35:53

Arrests.

SPEAKER_01 35:54

Um I I was on so many pharmaceuticals, I had no idea what I was doing. I mean, and it's it's really gross. And these were all prescribed. I just want to be very clear. I thought I was a better drug addict than my father because I got my pills, I got my drugs legally. But there were doctors out there way over prescribing, and I was, I uh unfortunately fell victim to that. And I hate to use word victim, but that's just you know how what it is. I take responsibility for putting them in my mouth. But um, yeah, and it just just completely unavailable. Like all I I was just living to numb, love living to be numb. But I think that so those patterns repeated. And I think that the he as he grew as Mike climbed the corporate ladder and started making more money and making more money. I was always to me like the the goal to reach was making six figures. So it was like, as long as that happens, we're okay. And everything looked great on Facebook, and we would go to Mexico every year, and it would be posted on social media, and we had a boat and we had nice cars and we had a nice house. So I put I I remember putting, you know, putting on this front that everything was perfect, but behind closed doors, just like what you said earlier, it was it was chaos and toxic and just miserable.

SPEAKER_00 37:14

Yeah, and there was infidelity. We're not gonna get into that the stories, but there was infidelity, there was lots of abuse, there was lots of manipulation, control, guilt and shame. And I I I I learned this from my own life, right? Guilt, shame, anger, threats, and blame, they're all weapons of the weak. Yeah. So that's what you use when you're when you're weak, when you're when you're not, you know, spiritually strong in terms of not religion, not religious strong, but spiritually strong in your in your mental emotional pattern with makeup, right? And when there's when you're operating from your trauma. But the point being, I and he hit, I was, I was riding the corporate ladder. It was always about the next step, the next title, the next raise, the next, the next vacation, the next vacation, or the next vacation, the next whatever, you know, the next role. And no matter how much we had, it wasn't enough. And I just kept pushing and I kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger, and I kept drinking more and more and more. And Angie

Addiction, Overprescribing, And Denial

SPEAKER_00 38:12

kept becoming more and more distant. And we there there was infidelity and there was a separation. And then we got back, uh we got back together. And right after we got back together, because I was spending so much time trying to manage my my marriage and my and my health and and my kids, um, I got fired. I got fired for the first time. And after a long, successful running corporate, the wheels fell off. They began to fall off. They got wobbly. How about that? And I lost a very lucrative position that we moved to St. Louis for. The benefits were strong, the money was strong, the runway was strong, but you can't fight a war on two fronts. And I was fighting a war at home and a war in the office, and you're gonna lose when you fight a war on two fronts. Angie was losing the war because her pills were were taken over.

SPEAKER_01 39:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:02

And she was she was in bed for sometimes 30 days at a time.

SPEAKER_01 39:06

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 39:07

Where she would come downstairs, she would eat, she would criticize the family.

SPEAKER_01 39:10

I would yell at everyone, and then I'd go back to bed.

SPEAKER_00 39:12

Go back to bed and take more pills, wake up in the middle of the night and just take pills, you know, and but she was doing the best she could.

SPEAKER_02 39:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:18

Meanwhile, I was trying to keep the the wheels on the family, trying to keep things going. But um, yeah, and and give her the benefit. And I try, I always tried to give her the benefit of the doubt that you know she's she's not as bad as as obviously as you were. I didn't want to see that part. Um so uh we got back together and uh I got another job. Got five months of severance from that first termination. And we drank the whole five months. And I mean, we picked my girls up on the bus stop at 2 30, and we were both drunk. And we had been drinking since the beginning of how since a happy hour started, and uh yeah, we drank for five months. I just by chance got a brand new job right after the severance ran out. So in January of 2015, I started a new position as the general manager of a firearms manufacturing company, which that would, that was like, this is my dream job. And I I got to go to work every day and be in an uh an environment of firearms, which I love, and guns, and I'm a marine vet, right? And uh her her pharmaceutical addiction just kept increasing. And I'd spend a lot of time on the phone with her doctors just trying to try to let them know what the hell was going on. And they all they all just they did nothing about it. She was taking four to five hundred pills a month.

SPEAKER_01 40:44

And that's not an exaggeration. Uh it that that is not an exaggeration at all. Uh and they were all prescribed. I I remember going to the uh pharmacy times to get my prescriptions filled, and the pharmacist would look at it look at the prescription as if it were were uh were were fake, and they would have to call in every month to make sure that it was legitimate. And it was.

SPEAKER_00 41:03

It was a time where doctors were over-prescribing everything.

SPEAKER_01 41:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:07

Because they were being compensated to over-prescribe everything. So it's not just the isolated incident, it was a it was a whole thing in the city.

SPEAKER_01 41:15

The opiate epidemic was happening and the yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:17

So she had fentanyl patches.

SPEAKER_01 41:19

Uh-huh. You remember that? Oh, yeah. Like, yep. For just regular back pain.

SPEAKER_00 41:24

Yeah, like we're talking about fentanyl coming across and killing people, and she was wearing fentanyl patches.

SPEAKER_01 41:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:29

Like it, it was, it was just nuts.

SPEAKER_01 41:30

But and on top of that, having other drugs on top of the fentanyl patches. So I don't know how the the cross how I survived those inner. Yeah, that's just I don't know how we survived. I don't know how I'm still alive.

SPEAKER_00 41:43

I know how you are still alive, but I don't know how either of us were alive from all of that. Um, but I got another job.

SPEAKER_02 41:50

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 41:50

And I lasted 15 months in that job because I was trying to manage home and I was trying to manage work, and I couldn't focus on either. And eventually I became uh incapable of leading my family and incapable of leading the business. And I got pulled into a conference room where he said, I've got to make a change. And uh I took him out to lunch. I took, I took that the guy who let me go, um, his name's Dan. I took him out to lunch about a year later and I said, You saved my life. You saved my life because uh I almost committed suicide. So on on April first, well, April, March 18th, 2016 is when when the wheels fell off. Soon after, uh well, April, April 1st, that is. Uh April 1st was a time where it was a very, very dark time. And I almost killed myself. And when I didn't and when I couldn't, um, because I didn't have the courage to, um, believe it or not, um, when I I started started uh uh came down the steps and I jumped on the treadmill.

SPEAKER_01 42:56

Okay, but you're going, I think you're going ahead now.

SPEAKER_00 42:58

I I came downstairs and I jumped on the treadmill. And uh that was the first day of the reboot in our life. So our our journey of recovery and where how we got here started on April 1st, 2016.

SPEAKER_02 43:13

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 43:14

And life, we're not gonna go into too much detail about you know the the recovery or or the not in this episode, but we what I learned from all of that is the thing that saved our lives were the wheels falling all the way off. Because after that I filed for divorce, and we literally hit the reboot and the reset on every aspect of our life.

SPEAKER_01 43:42

Right. No, a hundred percent.

SPEAKER_00 43:44

Yeah. So anything that we left out, anything that no, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 43:50

I yeah, I just just the to your point was the the wheels falling off saved our life, and it felt like abs it felt like the world was collapsing.

SPEAKER_00 44:00

Say say more about that. Say say more about that in terms of in terms of how did it looking back

Firings, Infidelity, And Spirals

SPEAKER_00 44:09

what how do you perceive it and and in the midst of it, what were you feeling?

SPEAKER_01 44:15

That's I that's I that's hard to put that's hard to articulate because it was just I felt just loss and abandonment and fear and and anxiety and security, you know, just all of it, all of it, like just everything was it was like my entire life was being ripped away from me. I just wanted to die. I mean, I know I just literally just wanted to die.

SPEAKER_02 44:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:37

And I think subconsciously, all those years with all the pills, I think that's what I was just trying to do. I think so too.

SPEAKER_00 44:43

Yeah, I think so too. And and I know for me, looking back, looking at it, it was all necessary and it was all beautiful. It was absolutely divinely scripted. It was obvious that she was being protected by by by guardian angels or by whatever. Some there was something guarding and protecting her. There was obviously something guarding and protecting me. There was something guiding and protecting both of us, watching over us, because we had some work to do in order to be able to share something with the world that you can only share if you come through all this.

SPEAKER_01 45:19

Right, yeah, right. The script was written, we were just being guided through it.

SPEAKER_00 45:23

Yeah. Now it fucking sucked. It we could put this, we could put lipstick on a pig, but looking back, it's beautiful. And there's a teacher named Robin Sharma. He says, All change is scary up front, messy in the middle, and beautiful in the end. And it turned out beautiful. It's not always, there's still some messiness from time to time. But the point is, is at the end, when you get on the other side of it, you can say, Oh my God, that was freaking beautiful. And look how great that was. In the midst of it, it fucking sucks. There's fear, there's anxiety, there's insecurity, there's doubt, there's there's hopelessness, there's defeatism, there's depression, there's panic, there's sleepless nights, there's there's fucking you're I was miserable and I was paralyzed, and I was afraid of losing everything for my family, and I was afraid of not being able to feed my girls, I was afraid of losing still losing my wife. I was afraid of what of just not having anything, and all of that shit was required, but holy shit did it suck. What what were you most afraid of in that moment?

SPEAKER_01 46:43

Losing my family losing my family, losing my security, losing just being being forced back into that lifestyle that I grew up in.

SPEAKER_02 46:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:53

I think that was that was definitely a big one. Was you was was reverting back to, okay, I got out of that and now here I am, and putting myself right back into it.

SPEAKER_00 47:04

You you were you you you were most afraid, and I know from time to time that you're not it's not completely clean and clear now, right? Not completely healed. We it's for both of us, there's a works in progress, but your whole life was about avoiding the trailer park.

SPEAKER_02 47:20

Oh, yeah, that's what yeah, that's what just yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:22

Your whole life, everything that you did was about avoiding going back to that. Even getting in toxic arguments with me, trying to push me away to test me to see if we were going to get back to the trailer park.

SPEAKER_02 47:35

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:36

Everything was about avoidance.

SPEAKER_02 47:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:38

And when we're when we live in our shadows, that's what it is. There's something we want to don't want to experience, and you live your entire life to avoid that thing, and you obsess over the avoidance of that thing. Right. And for me, my biggest fear was losing my house and losing losing my my uh lifestyle, losing my comfort just because I wasn't supposed to have it. My parents conditioned me and and and programmed me that I wasn't supposed to have this, that I wasn't, I wasn't supposed to be living like this. This this wasn't for our family, this wasn't for people like us. And it was just okay, now that I have it, and I'm not supposed to have it, how do I keep it? And I was so afraid of losing everything and and not being able to provide for you guys, right? Not being able to provide for you guys. All that say that the journey was exhausting, the journey of healing was exhausting. It required a lot of work, it required a lot of effort, it required a lot of new wisdom and being different and becoming different. But without all of that chaos and with all that mess, we wouldn't be the people that we are right now. And I would take this over anything that I've ever had in the past.

SPEAKER_01 48:57

Yeah, as long as I don't have to do it again.

SPEAKER_00 49:01

Yeah, I don't want to repeat all of it, but but this isn't to say that there's this clearing and now we've got this easy life.

SPEAKER_01 49:11

We're going, no, we're

The 2016 Breakdown And Near Suicide

SPEAKER_01 49:12

we're in, we're in our little bit of mud right now for other different things, right? There's always something, there's always another layer.

SPEAKER_00 49:19

It's not quite as deep, but but there's always there's always another challenge, there's always another obstacle. The point of life isn't to be comfortable, the point of life is spiritual evolution.

SPEAKER_01 49:30

Well, and the difference now is the thing, the challenges that we navigate now, we're navigating together. We're a great team, we're not fighting against each other, we're fighting with each other.

SPEAKER_00 49:38

There you go. So as we bring this episode to a conclusion, it's not Mike against Mike against Angie or Angie against Mike, it's Mike and Angie against the problem. Right.

SPEAKER_01 49:49

And that put And it was Mike and Mike versus Angie for 15 years, and vice versa.

SPEAKER_00 49:56

And the way this all started was through divorce and through me starting the process of healing, which we'll share more about. The process of healing and and and becoming different people, because until you become something different, you're not going to, you're not gonna enjoy something different. Uh but we start I started a process. I started the process of healing. When Angie didn't want to come on a journey, I filed for divorce. That's when she opted in, and that's when things started to get really, really good. They weren't always easy, they were volatile, but that's where that's where it really started when I filed for divorce and then you jumped into the journey.

SPEAKER_01 50:34

And I can't wait to start talking about that part.

unknown 50:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:37

This was this was raunchy having to go back into all that.

SPEAKER_00 50:42

Yeah, but this is the good stuff. This sets the stage for everything, okay? This sets the stage for everything. And and we we did the best we could in in sharing truth, not embellishing, uh, but sharing the truth and the reality of of what happened in our lives.

SPEAKER_02 50:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:56

All right. And this is gonna set the stage for the next, you know, next coming weeks, where we're gonna talk about, you know, next week we're gonna dive into the relationship part, okay? A little bit more about the relationship, a survival-based relationship versus versus a conscious relationship. All right. And that's where we move from Mike versus Angie or Angie versus Mike, the Mike and Angie versus the problem, at a higher level of consciousness, operating at a higher level of awareness and really tackling this thing together from a place in a place of commitment to each other and honor to each other that we are unbreakable and we'll be able to solve any conflict, any problem that comes up in our lives as long as we stay unified and stay together. You excited?

SPEAKER_01 51:38

I'm very excited.

SPEAKER_00 51:39

Awesome. Guys, thanks for uh joining us. It went really long. And I think what I'm realizing is this series is going to be a long series. The episodes are gonna be a little longer. But look, if you loved what you heard, follow us on social media, Mike and Mike Kitko, Angie Kitko. Uh like, like the uh subscribe to the YouTube channel. Go and and and subscribe to the podcast, uh, the podcast, whether it be on Apple Music or or on Spotify, um, and go to our websites, innerwealthglobal.com. On there you can get some free stuff to uh to connect, some free content to connect and see where you know the books and and things that that we've published. All right. Love you guys. See you next week.

SPEAKER_01 52:20

Bye.

SPEAKER_00 52:25

If you enjoyed what you heard and you want to learn more, go to www.innerwealthglobal.com for more tools and the first time.