Unerased Hosted by Trish Lacy Woman 2 Woman

They told each other he was never leaving me and somehow acted like that settled everything. What they didn’t factor in was the one thing betrayal tries to steal first: my ability to choose my own life. 

I’m still asking the questions anyone would ask after infidelity, but the “truth” keeps changing depending on his mood. That’s when betrayal trauma kicks in and your memories start feeling contaminated, like every photo and every quiet moment might have been a lie. I share how narcissistic abuse flips the script so fast that the focus becomes my reaction instead of his cheating, his lying, and his constant need to control the story. 

Then Natalie finally picks up. I tell you what it felt like to hear her admit she knew he was married, knew we had a child, and kept going anyway. And when she repeats his line that he was “never leaving,” I name what that really is: entitlement, not love. Coming home isn’t faithfulness. Keeping a wife isn’t choosing a wife. 

From there, the story shifts to escape and survival. An Atlanta promotion becomes my exit door, and I drive away with my daughter, shaky but certain that love should never require me to abandon myself. Just when peace starts to feel real, my phone rings and he announces he quit his job and he’s moving to Atlanta too. If you’ve ever tried leaving a toxic relationship, you know how chilling that can be. 

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Transcript

Welcome Back And The Affair Recap

SPEAKER_00 0:29

All right, hello, everybody, and welcome back to Onion Race with Trish Lacey, where I tell you about what it costs to disappear inside your own life and what it takes to find your way back. And again, apologies for last week, but you won't be disappointed by episode four, I promise. And on our previous episode, I talked about how I found the proof, confronted my husband, and finally heard him admit that he was cheating. But instead of accountability, he clutched his chest, claimed he was having a heart attack, and somehow turned his betrayal into an emergency. I had to manage. His confession gave me a name. Her name was Natalie. But it didn't give me the truth.

The Shirt That Speaks Loudly

SPEAKER_00 1:21

And before we get into tonight's story, though, I want to take a moment to talk about my shirt. This shirt was made for me by my good sis, Tiffany Ross, owner of Catch This Press, right here in St. Louis' Louis. So for any sort of custom design apparel that makes a statement, find catch this press on Facebook and TikTok. And be sure to tell her Trish sent you. Thank you, Tiffany, for making for helping me represent On your Race and Style. So I love my shirt so much. Now let's get into tonight's story.

When The Truth Keeps Moving

SPEAKER_00 1:52

You guys ready? Because I'm ready. So he actually told the other woman he was never leaving me. And apparently, both of them thought that settled it. He wasn't leaving. So she knew her place, and I will remain exactly where they left me. But they forgot one thing. I still had a choice. And before this episode ends, the man I was trying to escape will call me with an announcement that changes everything. So in the weeks after I discovered this affair, I kept asking questions. You already know what they are. When did it start? How long had it been happening? What had he told her about me? Did she know he was married? Did she know about our daughter who at the time was one year and 11 months old? And every answer created another question. I'm not cannot lie to you guys. Today I was thinking about today's podcast, and I went through my phone and I pulled up my old Facebook messenger and I found that very first message that I sent to her. That message was sent on May 17th, 2012 at 4:36 p.m. She never answered it. So every question I asked created another question. Every answer created another question. And the story changed depended on his day. So sometimes he couldn't remember. Sometimes he minimized it. And sometimes he became irritated because I was still asking. Still asking. Sir, you have been lying longer than I've been questioning you, but now my questions are exhausting you. He wanted the affair to be over because the confession was over. He had admitted it. Apparently, my devastation was supposed to wrap up on the same schedule. But I couldn't move on. I didn't even know what I was supposed to be moving on from because the truth kept changing. That's what betrayal does. It doesn't just destroy your trust in the person, it contaminates your memories. You look at old pictures and wonder, was it happening then? You replay conversations, revisit unexplained absences. Remember, every time the phone was turned face down, suddenly your entire relationship becomes a crime scene. And while you're trying to uncover what he had done while I was trying to do that, I kept asking myself, why wasn't I enough? I loved him, I supported him, I had forgiven him, I had stayed through the things that already cost me pieces of myself. Yet after he betrayed me, I was the one searching for what was wrong with me. Maybe I needed to be more affectionate, more exciting, less emotional, less suspicious, less mean. That's one of the cruelest effects of narcissistic abuse. They hurt you, but then you examine yourself. They lie, but then you question your instincts. They betray you, but then you question your worth. They provoke a reaction, and then use your reaction as proof that you are the problem. So he confessed to the affair, but then I put myself on trial. Because that's what the abuser trained me to do. Take responsibility for his behavior, to manage his emotions, to doubt my own reality. And keep searching for a version of myself that he would finally treat with care. But there was no version of me that could love the entitlement out of him. There was no amount of patience that could create empathy, especially not for a narcissist. No amount of forgiveness could produce accountability. And no amount of shrinking could satisfy someone who needs a constant supply of attention, admiration, and control. Ask yourself if you know someone like that. I didn't understand that yet. I still believe the truth somehow made all of this make sense.

Becoming An Investigator At Home

SPEAKER_00 6:11

And since my husband refused to give it to me, I went looking for the only other person who had the truth. I went looking for Natalie. How about that? So I found her on Facebook. I messaged her. She didn't respond. I called her. She didn't answer. I left messages. She didn't call me back. So I kept searching. So then I found out where she worked. I found out where she lived. I found out everything I could about this woman. Now, before somebody says, Trish, why didn't you leave that woman alone? I need you to understand who I was at that moment. I was not operating from a place of peace. I was operating from trauma. The two people who knew the truth about my marriage had built a wall around it. And I was standing outside the wall trying to get the information about my own life. Betrayal can turn you into an investigator inside your own relationship. Not because you enjoy searching, but because every time you ask for the truth, someone moves it. Now when I tell you I checked phone records, I searched names, I cross-reference, I compare dates, I replay conversations. You couldn't tell me that I wasn't doing the most. I was not the best investigator. But you believe that if you can gather enough facts, the pain will become more logical. But betrayal isn't logical. And knowing every detail doesn't always bring peace, sometimes it just gives the pain more places to live.

He Protects Her Boundaries

SPEAKER_00 7:57

Then my husband discovered I had been trying to contact Natalie. And he got angry with me. So bless review. He cheated. He hit another woman in his phone under another name, another man's name. He allowed her to call him Poppy, which I think is hilarious. He lied to my face. And he only confessed after I confronted him with proof. But when I called the woman he invited into our marriage, I'm the one who went too far. Suddenly this man cared about boundaries, her boundaries. He was concerned that I was making her uncomfortable. But where was that concern when he was lying next to me inside our home? Where was his concern for my peace, for my dignity, for my emotional safety? So essentially, he wanted me to respect the peace of the woman who helped destroy mine. And that hurt differently. Because his anger showed me that he was still protecting her. He could recognize her discomfort, but he couldn't seem to recognize my devastation. So the affair was no longer the problem. The lies were no longer the problem. Now the problem was my reaction. How many times I called, how many messages I sent, how much information I found, how emotional I became. I mean, my desperation for the truth was real. It was treated as if it was more offensive than their decision to hide it. They created the wound, but then condemned me for bleeding. How crazy is that? You know what I did? I defended myself and I explained why I called her. I explained why I needed answers. I explained why his shifting story wasn't enough. Once again, I was on a trial inside a crisis I had not created. And that's how narcissistic abuse keeps you trapped. The focus is never allowed to remain on what they did. They shifted to your tone, to your anger, to your tears, your questions, your reaction, anything that keeps them from having to sit inside the consequences of their own behavior. And if you're not careful, you will spend so much time defending how you responded that you stop examining you stop examining what they did to provoke your response. So Natalie still wouldn't return my calls.

Natalie Admits She Knew

SPEAKER_00 10:51

So for weeks, she had been a name, she had been a picture, she had been a voice on my husband's phone. Now she was on the phone. She spoke quietly and told me she was at a family function. And I could hear the people in the background talking, laughing. They were just living their lives. Everything sounded so normal on her side of the phone. Meanwhile, I was trying to understand what was left of mine. Then she asked me, Why do you keep calling me? Why did I keep calling her? Because she had been having a relationship with my husband, because she knew things about my marriage that I didn't, because she had access to a man who came home to me, but somehow my phone calls were part of the story she couldn't understand. So I told her I wanted the truth. My husband was not being honest with me. His story kept changing. And she was the only other person who knew what had happened. So then I asked her directly, did you know he was married? She said, Yes. Yes, she knew. There was no misunderstanding. She knew there was a wife, she knew there was a child, she knew there was a family attached to this man. She knew that when he left her, he came home to us. And she continued anyway. Until then, I left room for the possibility that she had been deceived, too. Like maybe he told her he was single and we were separated, or maybe he claimed the marriage was over. But no. She knew he was married. They both knew the truth. I was simply the person they expected to remain unaware.

Being Kept Is Not Chosen

SPEAKER_00 12:53

Then she told me, he said he was never gonna leave you. As though I was supposed to feel better about that, as though I should have felt chosen. He wasn't leaving me. Okay, and not leaving me was not the same as honoring me. Coming home was not the same as being faithful. Keeping a wife was not the same as choosing a wife. He wanted the security of a marriage and the excitement of an affair. And I was supposed to be grateful because he planned to keep me while betraying me. That's not love, that's entitlement. So then she asked, if you and your husband are staying together, why are you calling me? Something inside me shifted because once again the future of my marriage had been discussed without me, as if the only decision that mattered belonged to him. He told her he was never leaving, so she assumed that meant I was staying. Neither of them considered the fact that I had a choice. So I corrected her. I said, he may have told you he was leaving he wasn't leaving me, but that never meant I had decided to stay. But that never meant that I had decided to stay. That sentence did not come from a healed woman. I was still heartbroken, I was still confused, still very much questioning myself, but somewhere beneath all that pain, my voice was beginning to return. So for weeks I had been reacting to everyone else's choices. I had been reacting to his choice to cheat, his choice to lie, his choice to hide her under a fake name, his choice to continue while knowing her choice, and his to continue while he knowing he was married, his choice to tell her he wasn't leaving me. But whether I stayed, that choice still belonged to me. They really treated me like I was a supporting character in their story. The wife at home, the woman he planned to keep, the person whose role had already been decided. But I was not a piece of furniture he could decide not to leave behind. I'm a woman, I was his wife, I still am the mother of his child, and I still had the right to decide what happened next. And honestly, that phone call did not give me any sort of closure. But it did give me clarity. She knew, he knew that she knew, and when I reached out for answers, my husband showed more concern for her discomfort than he did for my devastation. For weeks I had been asking, what did she have that I didn't? But that was the wrong question. It wasn't about what she had, it was about what he wanted: the attention without the accountability, the admiration without the responsibility, a wife providing security, another woman feeding his ego, and the freedom to make selfish choices while expecting everyone else to absorb the consequences. That's why trying to prove you are enough for a narcissistic person will destroy you. You're trying to feel something that has no bottom. Every sacrifice becomes the new minimum. Every act of forgiveness teaches them that you will survive another violation. And every time you abandon yourself to preserve the relationship, they gain more and more control while you become harder to recognize. The problem was never that I wasn't enough. The problem was that I kept believing and becoming less of myself and thinking that that may be enough for him. But saying I had a choice and being ready to make that choice for two different things. Boy guys, I wish I could tell you. I hung up the phone that day, packed my bags, and I left that day. I didn't. I didn't. I still loved him. I still had a child to consider. I still grieved the family I believe we were supposed to be. And one moment I knew I needed to leave, and the next I wondered if leaving meant I was destroying our family. That's the part that people don't always understand. You can love someone and know they're hurting you. You can know that leaving is necessary and still give grief to and still grieve what you're leaving, but abuse doesn't only make leaving difficult. It makes you question whether you have the right to leave it all. But then an opportunity

Atlanta Becomes The Exit Door

SPEAKER_00 17:49

came up. An opportunity appeared. Atlanta, ATL, a promotion. Um, a chance to lead, a chance to lead a new market. Um, so to everyone else, it looked like career growth for me. To me, it looked like an out, it looked like an exit door. At first, I questioned whether I could do it. That's another thing abuse steals from you. It doesn't keep its damage inside that relationship. It follows you to work into leadership into every room where you once felt capable. When someone repeatedly teaches you not to trust your perception, eventually you begin doubting every decision, even the good ones. But my boss saw something in me that I had stopped seeing in myself: leadership, my strength, and my potential. And that opportunity scared me. But underneath the fear, I heard one word. Go. So I went. There was no silk robe, no dramatic soundtrack, and I didn't have the Angela Bassett strut. I was just exhausted, heartbroken, packing a life while caring for my daughter and pretending I knew what came next. I packed her clothes, her blankets, and her toys. I packed photographs from a life I no longer knew how to remember. Every object had a memory, and now every memory had a question attached to it. So when it was time to put to leave, I put my daughter in my car. I looked back at the house and I didn't feel victorious at all. I didn't. I was terrified because for the first time I was more afraid of what would happen if I stayed than what might happen if I left. I was leaving because I hadn't, I wasn't leaving because I stopped loving him. I was leaving because loving him had taught me to stop loving myself. So me and my daughter got into the car and I drove to Atlanta. I cried during that car. Not one pretty tear rolled down my face. I mean ugly cry, swollen eyes, chest hurting. I was trying to see the road through my tears. And my daughter was in the backseat. She's just making sounds like everything in life was good, which kept pulling me back into the moment, right? Every time I heard her, I remembered why I had to keep driving. I couldn't teach her that she was worthy while showing her mother who believes she was not. I couldn't teach her to trust her instincts while continuing to silence mine. I couldn't raise her to use her voice while allowing mine to disappear. Choosing myself wasn't selfish. It was one of the first honest lessons I could give my daughter about love. Love should not require you to abandon yourself. Love should not make you question your reality. Love should not punish you for discovering the truth. Love should not protect the person who hurt you while demanding that you recover quietly. And love should never make you believe that being kept is the same as being chosen.

Peace Feels Suspicious At First

SPEAKER_00 20:58

So when we arrived in Georgia, we lived in Stone Mountain. We stayed with my stepmother. My bio dad and my father was nearby for work. And my belong my stuff was in boxes still. My future, I just I had no, I was unclear. It was so uncertain for me. I did not feel brave. I felt so displaced. That first night the house was quiet. I couldn't relax. I listened for footsteps. I listened for a buzzing phone, an argument, a sudden change in someone's mood, but nothing happened. And somehow that made me nervous because when chaos has been your normal, peace sometimes can feel suspicious, right? You wait for the mood to change, you wait for the explosion, you wait for the punishment your body's been trained to expect. My body had left that house, but my nervous system was still living there. And then little by little I noticed I could breathe. No one was hiding. On a phone. No one was hiding a phone. No, no lie was waiting to explode in the middle of the room. I didn't have to measure my every word. I didn't have to make myself feel smaller. And for the first time in a long time, silence wasn't a warning. It was safety. And I remember one afternoon, I held my daughter in the guest room. Her fingers were always wrapped around mine, and I whispered to her, we're safe. I wasn't healed. I wasn't settled. I did not know what would happen to my marriage. But in that moment, we were safe. And safety gave me someplace to begin. So for the first time, I could imagine a life that did not revolve around catching lies, managing moods, or trying to convince someone to see my value. Atlanta felt like space, a new beginning, a chance to rebuild my career, care for my daughter, and figure out who I was without him constantly rewriting my reality. I had finally put miles between us. And for a brief moment, I thought the hardest part was over.

He Quits And Follows To Atlanta

SPEAKER_00 23:15

And then my phone rang. It was him. The call was completely unexpected. I answered it. And without warning, he told me I quit my job. Before I could fully process that, he continued. He said, I'm moving to Atlanta. So the city that had become my exit door was now becoming his destination. I packed my life, drove away, started over, and just as I began to believe I had created some distance, he announced he was coming too. I remember holding the phone thinking, wait, what? You quit your job, you're moving here. You weren't invited. We had not created a plan together. I made a choice of myself, my daughter. And now, once again, he was making a decision that could change my life and informing me after the fact. That is the moment I began to understand. Leaving a narcissistic relationship is not always the end of the control. Sometimes they don't chase you because they have changed. Sometimes they chase you because your departure proves they are losing access to you, losing influence, losing the ability to control the story. I thought Atlanta was where I would finally get enough distance to hear my own voice. But he was on his way. I started this episode believing the biggest revelation was gonna be about that Natalie knew about me. It wasn't. The biggest revelation was realizing that neither of them believed that I had the power to determine my own future. He told her he was never leaving me. She assumed I would stay. When I finally left, then he decided he was coming to Atlanta. But this time something was different. I was different. The woman he was coming to Atlanta to find was not the same woman he left questioning her worth. And my voice was returning. My choices were becoming my own. And although I did not know it yet, the next chapter would force me to decide whether leaving the house was enough or whether I was finally ready to break the hole he still had on my mind.

Next Week And A Reminder

SPEAKER_00 25:38

So next week, I'm telling you what happened when that man I left behind showed up in the city where I was trying to start over. Because changing your address is not automatically in the abuse. I hope y'all heard that. Changing your address is not automatically in the abuse. Sometimes the person you escaped follows you. Sometimes the promises begin again. And sometimes what looks like reconciliation is really the beginning of another cycle. Thank you guys for joining me tonight for Uny Race for Trish Lacey. Until next time, keep healing, keep becoming, and remember, you were never erased.