Love, Lies, and Isolation: Christine’s Story

In this deeply personal episode of Unfiltered Treble, Amanda sits down with her daughter Christine as she bravely shares the story of a relationship that started fast and felt like love but quickly revealed manipulation, emotional distance, and isolation.

At just 18 years old, Christine believed she had found someone who wanted the same things she did: love, family, and a future together. But behind the attention and affection were warning signs that slowly began to surface.

From an early pregnancy and heartbreaking miscarriage to discovering betrayal and being pulled away from the people who loved her most, Christine opens up about what it was like to navigate these painful experiences at such a young age.

This episode is raw, emotional, and honest. It’s a conversation about red flags, manipulation, and the reality of how quickly someone can become isolated in a relationship.

If you’ve ever ignored your gut feeling, felt alone in a relationship, or questioned your worth because of someone else’s behavior this conversation is for you.

Transcript

Life Before Tinder And The First Spark

Miscarriage And A Partner’s Cold Silence

SPEAKER_00 0:41

Welcome to Unfiltered Trouble for Gladger Favor Day. If this is your first time tuning in, we are three real life biological sisters, just trying to keep it real. Yep. Same parent, same house growing up, and a whole lot of stories to tell. All right, we are back in the studio today, and we are so happy to be here with all of you. Yeah, we are. We have my daughter in the studio to share her story. Would you like to introduce yourself? Hi, I'm Christine. I'm Manda's daughter. So are you ready to get started? Yeah. Are you ready for this? Are you nervous? Yeah. Okay, make sure you speak with some to your voice, okay? Okay. Okay. Okay, let's get started. All right. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and what your life looked like before you met? I had a steady job. Where did you work out? I was working at a gas station. Okay. I confess to that. She lived with me. Yeah. I lived with my family, obviously. I lived with Laura. I was doing really well. That's where I was. And so in that, how old were you? I was 18. I was doing makeup a lot. Okay. Yeah, makeup was like something I was passionate about. Yeah. I'm pretty sure she had just gotten that James Charles Charles, right? Palette. Oh, yeah. For your birthday right before we moved into that house. Mm-hmm. Yeah. You sent it from Connecticut. Yeah. Yeah. I j I was like really getting into makeup. You were really good at it too. Mm-hmm. When I met him. Yeah. So how did you meet? So I knew him. Like I knew about him because of somebody we had a friendship with who was a friend. And I also had seen him a couple times when I lived with Laura when I was younger, walking down the street to the alternate school. Oh, okay. So right over this when I was waiting for the bus. Okay. I'd seen him a couple times. But we actually met on Tinder. Okay. So a Tinder relationship. What first drew you into the relationship? Well, I had I was working that night when he came when he came over. It was the first time I met him, like in person. I something just drew me to him. I don't know what it was, but it just drew me to him. Was it his looks? Was it his face? Was it as his eyes? I mean it wasn't his looks per se. It was more the way he was talking to me. Did it feel like love at first or something else? It definitely felt like love at first, yeah. He seemed so nice and so sweet. He would come over to the house, eat dinner with us. Because you you see you experienced their relationship more firsthand than anybody, correct? At the beginning, yeah, because she lived with us and he was over there a lot. How your relationship kind of like where was it going? Like how, like, you know, you guys are. How was it going? Yeah. It was going really well. Like we were, you know, we were really into it. We were really, you know, falling in love. Yeah. We were falling in love. We were really into it. Like he seemed genuine and sweet, like he really wanted the one thing that I've always wanted in life. Family. A family. And so the little backstory about him and ties to your family. What is so who, how is he known in our family? Like, do you know where I'm going with that? So your cousin. My cousin's wife, widow, widow, married his stepdad. His dad. Biological dad. His biological dad, yeah. I didn't know it when we first started dating. Yeah. That, you know, he was somehow tied to our family. I didn't know about that. I mean, not blood relation or we're not blood related or just by marriage, which technically we're not even like related to. There's no relation. No, we're not. I'm just related to her kids. But yeah, that's yeah, he was Okay. So how did you feel like the relationship was going? Like he was giving you everything you ever wanted? He was giving me attention, affection. He would buy me stuff. Did you just it was like all the Did you guys talk about starting a family then? Or did that come later? Like how long were you together before the conversations of that started? He had told We never really talked about it until I got pregnant with the first baby. Okay. So you live with Laura, and then So how long were you guys together when you found out you were pregnant? I don't remember. Or were you living together? He was over all the time. We were together for two months. Two months. So you were only together for two months before you got pregnant. Gosh, I didn't realize that either. Dang. Yeah. We were together two months. Yeah, it was quake. And that's when we started having conversations. He said, I've always wanted a child. Okay. Well, I was pregnant with your child. Okay, so when did what happened with that pregnancy? I miscarried the baby. Yep. Okay, so then what how did that go after that? It's okay, take your time. He refused to take me to the hospital. I had to call Tony to take me to the hospital because Laura was not home. And I felt so alone. I didn't even have my mom. I lived in Connecticut. And I remember Tony threatened him. She threatened him to get him to come to the hospital. And so he was sitting with me. He wasn't touching me. He wasn't comforting me while I was sitting there in agonizing pain. You could see the blood dripping down my pants. And he just void. It was like a void emotion. There was no emotion there. Oh, I I know that feeling. And it's the worst feeling in the world because Stephanie saw that feeling for me firsthand. Yeah. And having a partner that doesn't show that emotion. When you lose a baby, it's hard. It's it's gut-wrenching. How can you not care about something that I care so much about? Yeah, if I love you. That's a part of you too. I just didn't understand it.

unknown 6:45

Yeah.

Cheating Messages And The Hook

Pregnancy With Oakley And Isolation

SPEAKER_00 6:45

Did you talk to anybody about these things? No. Did you just bottle it in? Yeah. But I did talk to Laura about it. I told her to leave them. So take us on the journey from the miscarriage and the relationship until you get pregnant for the second time. So he ended up moving in with me and Laura and the kids and stuff. It was going well until I had this gut feeling to check his phone. I seen a message from a girl. Her name was Amy. He was chatting with her and texting her that he loved her and calling her baby and sending her pictures and that they were gonna get married. Okay, so what did you do when you seen these messages? I confronted him about it. What did he say? He threatened to leave me. I remember that night. Yeah, I forgot all about that until you just said it and I can remember it now. So how do you want to continue to stay with a person that now has not shown you any emotion over a miscarriage? Has now I mean you're only two months in. You know what I mean? Like you're two months in. Or maybe three months by this point. And now he's already talking to other girls and wanting to marry this other girl. What made you want to continue a relationship with this man? I it's just that feeling that he was going to give me everything I've ever wanted. So because of the manipulation in the very beginning. So when did you move out and move to Springfield with his mom? It was shortly after that. I thought so because it was well before we moved to Joplin. It was shortly after that. I But you were pregnant with Oakley. No, no. She got pregnant in Springfield. Oh, that's where they lived. She got pregnant. Yeah, no. Okay. I was not yet pregnant with Oakley yet when I moved to Springfield. Gotcha. I moved up there and the relationship started doing better. We were do we were in a better place. He blocked that girl and he was not talking to her anymore. I remember I started working at McDonald's and I had worked there for like a week, maybe. That's when I had a funny feeling, and I was standing there and I started getting dizzy and I passed out. They I had to get taken to the hospital. Like came and got me and took me to the hospital. He shortly left the hospital and his mom was there with me. Hadn't moved back yet, had I and she didn't call me until later. They did some tests, asked me if there was a chance I could be pregnant, and I was like, Yeah, I mean there could be, but I didn't really think about it. I was like, I just had a miscarriage like three months ago. Oh, so you're about at this point to five months in, five, six months in. So yeah, I I was in the hospital. They said, Well, you're pregnant. That's when I found out I was pregnant with Oakley. Then we went back to his house and we I I had to tell him that I was pregnant now. There was again no emotion there. Just nothing. Like just cold, heartless. Yeah. And he just didn't seem excited, didn't seem meh. Now, for your own mental health, how how did you handle going through all this? Kind of alone. At such a you were what, 18, 19? How were you going through all this without, you know, your mom lived out of state, and you had aunts here, but you were still, I mean, they were there, but you were secluded from your family in a sense. You isolated yourself. You didn't even bring her to town. You wouldn't even bring her to town. I don't think you isolated yourself. He isolated you. He yes, he he removed me from my family. He didn't like you guys. He said you guys were toxic. Yeah, like, well, they just talk crap about me. I can't I can't talk to them. I don't want to take you over there. Well, that's because your uncle confronted him when he found all about the messages. And it just I was depressed. I would just lay in our bed all day, every day. Yeah. Pregnant with Oakley. And you stopped doing your makeup, you stopped Because he said I it made me look horrible and I wasn't allowed to wear it. So when did you start seeing the red flags? The first one was the messaging of the other woman. As soon as he found out I was pregnant with Oakley, it started again messaging. He unblocked her, was messaging her again. He was messaging six other women, confronted him about it again. He blocked them again. Then there was, you know, I really think I should get my driver's license so I can take our daughter back and forth to doctor's appointments. No, you don't need you don't need one. I'll take you everywhere. You had to depend on him for food to take you places, everything. It was his way of controlling the way it lived. I had to stay home. He would leave and go party with friends at the bar. Was he even old enough to party at the bar? You can be 18 and go to a bar. Oh yeah, that's right. Um and he would say, No, you can't come. So I wasn't allowed to leave the house. Only time I ever got to leave was when his mom took me somewhere. I know at some point I moved back and picked you up a couple times and went and did stuff with you. Went to doctor's appointments, I think. Yeah. Yes. His mom started taking me to my doctor's appointments. He never went to he went to one the first ever appointment. Okay. And then I took you to for that gender. He that was those are some of the red flags, like stuff he did. He isolated from me inside a house. He didn't drive, like he refused to drive me anywhere when I needed to go somewhere. He was cheating on me. He didn't let me talk to my family. Yeah, you can only talk to us when he wasn't home. He also, after I lost my job at McDonald's, he would not let me get another job. But then complained to his mom and dad that I was sitting at home doing nothing. His mom and stepdad. Or yeah, his mom and stepdad. That I was at home doing nothing and I wouldn't get my lazy, sorry for the language, ass up and get a job, even though he was not allowing me to get a job. So in the midst of this, I know you've said your mental health, like, you know, because I don't understand maybe because I never went through that. But how do you not reach out to your thing? Was it the manipulation? Like just because, as a standpoint, like you were raised, you can always come to your mom and dad for anything in the world. No judgment, no nothing. Like, we'll take care of you. You're our kid. You know what I mean? So how did you Ants, uncle?

SPEAKER_01 12:59

Yeah.

Control Tightens And Fear Shows Up

COVID Birth And Locking Down Safety

Rebuilding In Oklahoma As A Mom

Grief And Letting Him Meet Her

SPEAKER_00 13:00

Yeah, aunts, uncle, like your whole family, our whole entire family is that way. It doesn't matter. I was more scared of him. Okay. There was an incident. He was sleeping, and I had just gotten up to go pee. I come back and I got in bed, and I guess it scared him. And he grabbed his gun off the side of the and held it in front of my face until he realized it was me. Okay, I never knew that. I did not know that. That's why she said she's pilling about pilling back the math gun. I feel like today in the in the instance of this relationship, do you feel like you've seen the red flags during it? Or did you never see them until like reflecting back? Reflecting back. You never I never I didn't see him. I just thought you just kept loving him. I was so in love with him and the so so in love with the idea of having a family. And where does that stick? So you grew up with the thing, like I grew up with a very healthy family dynamic. Yeah. So you just wanted that of your own? I just wanted what my mom and dad had. I know they had their problems when I got older, but when I was young, I didn't know that. Kids, I wanted my kids to grow up. Going to the races with their mom and dad. I wanted your those fantasy books that I read, the falling in love, like the yearning, the just the whole that. The soul the simplicity of it. The beautiful thing about life. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's the most beautiful thing in life is having a family and creating little human beings together and loving each other and loving your family. And that's what I wanted. I really love that. That that's beautiful. So you're pregnant. He's isolating you. He has now held a gun in your face. What happens? By this point, we had had nothing really I mean, he mentally abused me. I know a lot of you guys know that. He put ideas in my head. I wasn't beautiful. I was no good because I didn't do anything. I didn't even know how to drive. So I was I was lazy. I was I didn't know how to work because I was lazy. Even though it was things he was doing that was putting me in that situation. But when you met him, you had a steady job. You were literally working all the time. You would do so much overtime. You were working towards getting your license and studying for getting your So the isolation was happening. Yes. You were manipulated, said that you were lazy, you wouldn't work. But before him, you worked all the time. Over time. Anytime they needed you, you were there. He's the reason you lost that job. You were studying for your permit. Wasn't she gonna go to school? She was talking about doing her GED, yeah. Yeah. She was gonna finish her GED. Yeah. And I was gonna go to school. What did you want to go to school for? I wanted to go to school for journalism. Mm-hmm. That's what I've always wanted to do. So things are toxic. Okay, so things are toxic. He was starting to mentally abuse me. Well, the night before I had found more messages. He was messaging women again. This time I confronted his mom. That next morning, his mom was like, she freaked out. I don't know why he's just like his dad. She was like, let's go back home. We'll pack your bag. You're leaving him. So have we had the gender reveal yet? Yes. Have we found out that you're having a girl? Yes. Okay. And how was his mom up in this point? Like to this point? Like, was she supportive of you like during this time? She would tell to leave me alone. I was pregnant with his child. But then again, she was also manipulating me by saying, Well, maybe he does have a reason to be upset that you don't have a job. But she didn't know he's the reason I didn't get a job. Because he would tell me I wasn't allowed to. Or he wouldn't take me for interviews. He wouldn't take me for this, for that. So she was condoning his behavior. His behavior, but also making you feel like you were in the right, too. So she was trying to make you both feel like that. She was playing both. She was gaslighting you. Yeah. So at the same time, though, was he even working? Like how many jobs did he have at this point? So at this point, just being we're what? Maybe six months in? Eight months by now? Probably eight months, yeah. I had started staying with you. Okay. In Jocelyn. Yes. This is when I would come down and stay when he was on the road with Uncle Russell. Oh yeah. Yeah, because he was working for us after that. Uh but when he was home, I found messages. Well, he left for work that night and he he he left for work the next morning. I told his mom that I found him cheating again. She told me I was leaving him. We're gonna go home and she was packing we're gonna pack my bags and I'm leaving. At that point, I was I was okay with it. I was still together with him, but I needed my own space, my own time away. So I went home to you. Weeks had gone by. I hadn't heard from him. Was he still working with your uncle? No. He knows showed Russell. No. At that point, he stopped working for Uncle Russell, was not talking to me. That is when he broke up with me. He left me. And how far along pregnant were you now? Six months. So you were six months. Six months pregnant. Then yeah, he he broke up with me and that sent me like around Christmas time. And that sent me into a deep depression. Yeah. I spiraled for a minute with it, but like there's so much more in play. I knew it was for the better. Just not at that time. Yes. So he doesn't talk to you for months on months. We're coming into this is gonna be let's push a little forward. You're having Oakley. Let's go. We're in during COVID. So we're now in COVID because you have a COVID baby. You still haven't heard from him from Christmas until but April comes. At this point, instead of reaching out to me and asking me when I'm having the baby, he goes and stalks his sister. Well, his stepsister at work trying to get her to tell him when I'm having the baby. Yeah, because at this point we decided that it was, you know, if he's gonna do no contact to you, that you didn't have you didn't owe him anything, anything at this point. And so what did she say to him? She told him, No, I'm not telling you that. Ask Christine, which he never would. He would never ask me when I was having the baby. So I remember getting a message while I was in the hospital having Oakley. I remember getting a message from his mom that she was going to wait in outside for when I had that baby because she knew the time around the time frame that I was supposed to get induced. So she was threatening to stalk me and wait outside the hospital to meet her grandchild. So I had to, I can't remember what it's called, but like the security lock. Yeah, you're you you helped her do that, where they don't allow anybody in the room to Oh, yeah. Well, it was COVID anyway. But nobody could come into the hospital saying they were the baby's dad. That's one look for me. The nice thing is we didn't have to apply for any of that because it was COVID. But they couldn't call. They couldn't oh, that's what it was. So you put up the privacy screens that you can't at the hospital say I'm not here. Yes. Yes, that's what they did. Because I was gonna say during COVID, this is the beginning of COVID. You were only allowed one person in the hospital and I wasn't allowed. I couldn't even, they didn't even provide food for me, even though I couldn't leave. So, like I had to have people bring me food unless I wanted to eat. Which I just honestly can I just say I find that crazy because when my husband stayed with me in the hospital, when Laura's husband stayed in the hospital with her, they provided food for them too. Yeah. So I find that so crazy. Yeah. Even when I've been in the hospital with Abel, like when he's been hospitalized, they do like a parent meal. So they didn't do that for me. Weird. It was really weird. So you have the baby, you have all that in place, you go home with the baby. Yes, but on on the way home is when I decided to announce two days later that I had Oakley. It was kept a big secret for safety reasons until I left that hospital. Nobody was gonna know. We were already on our way home. You mean your close family knew? Yeah. But we had already made plans to move to Oklahoma. Yeah. And I knew about it. And I was not telling him. He never asked about her. I sent him a one picture. He didn't say anything. Sent him pictures of her every month until she was two months old. And then I said, Okay, I'm done. You're not giving me anything, so I do I don't owe you anything to about her life. So I blocked him, and I blocked his mother, and I blocked his stepfather. Yeah, because his mother said you were a demon. All kinds of things. Awful things about you. I mean that I was a narcissist, that I'm keeping her grandchild away from her. I think her I think she wanted a girl. Yeah, and she wanted she wanted to control it. She had two boys. Yeah. She wanted Oakley as her own. But if you talk to his dad, which is married Tracy, he will literally tell you she was a narcissist. And crazy is the way is the way he is because of his mother. So moving to Oklahoma, how how was that? And like how was your life starting to look? Beautiful. We had a perfect family dynamic. You know, Oakley was calling Courtney Dada. I loved life. Did you? Work. I did. Three months after I had Oakley, I started working at Sam's Club. Yeah. And I kept that job for a really long time. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And yeah. So walk us through being a single mom with the first child and being a working single mom. Even though you had help, it was hard. Even though I got to be with her for the first three months, it was it was very hard. It was a lot of coming home late at night and she was already asleep. It was me still being young and wanting to do things. I met my best guy friend in Oklahoma. Yes. So, you know, I wanted I wanted to go out once in a while and go have a drink with him and hang out with him and my friend Mariah. So we would do that. And not only that, even when I did bring Oakley around while we were hanging out, it was they just loved her. They loved her. He would hold her while he was working on his truck. He would play with her. It was Mariah would play with her. Yeah. It was life was good. Yeah. Life was really good. Did you ever feel shame with her? I did. What kind of shame? For not being able to give her a father that loved her. That's a lot of shame to carry. That's a heavy weight. So you're doing good. Have an it's 2021. You have an unexpected we have Oakley's first birthday party. That that went great. And then um your sister came home from military school. That was really awesome. We had a homecoming party for her at the the Weddell's house. We find out a little bit after that that grandpa got COVID. And Papa ended up passing. Which was the hardest moment ever. Yeah. Yeah. And your papa took you to school all the time. So it was really You were really close with your Papa. I didn't go. I mean, most of the grandkids were very close with Papa. Yeah. He was a good papa. Yeah. He was a very good papa. And oh, did he love Oakley? Yeah. He would come and oak someone. Just let you guys know there's not a dry eye in here right now. Papa passed away, and at the time I had COVID. And that's something that's really hard on me, and it gets me every single day. Yeah, I couldn't come down. Not only that, I was so sick and I had a fever. When Grandma Carol came into my room when he passed, she woke me up and I just remember staring at her so fever high. Yeah. So high with a fever that I was just looking at her and I wasn't comprehending what she said. So initially, like I knew, but we had called you. You must have been sleeping. You answered the phone. I I just remember my grandma Carol coming in. You answered, I said because I called everybody. Yeah. I called Courtney. I called you and told you, I don't think Papa has much longer. Do you want to say anything? And you told him you loved him. He couldn't have say anything. No, I I remember No, he did. Did he? I don't remember. He did. He said, I love you. Just like that. He said, I love you. And this is that was that was the recording we have of him saying Yeah. No? No. No, that's me and stuff. No, that's me and we were trying to get him to say it and no, but that's exactly how he said it. Yeah. Every time. He said, I love you. And I just knew. That was before I went to bed though. No. I found out when grandma came into the room that he actually that he actually passed, but I didn't comprehend it. So technically when I did when I woke up and I was scrolling on Facebook, that was the first time I seen my grandpa had passed. So it didn't register in your brain until you were scrolling on Facebook and seen it. Oh my god.

unknown 25:29

Yeah.

Part Two Preview And Support

SPEAKER_00 25:29

Because I I was high with the fever. So I didn't know what was going on. My grandma came into the room. So I I remember looking at grandma and I was like, why didn't you tell me? She said, I did. I came into your room. So that happens and then we we all you guys all come down or come up because Missouri is a couple weeks later. Yes, we've got a funeral until July. So we we have our big family celebrate celebration alive because we didn't at the end of the well day when we got there, when I got to Aunt Sherry's house, I remember Tony coming up to me and saying, Hey, mom would like to get a hold of you. You know, she's having really bad heart problems, and you know, she's she would really like to get to know her granddaughter. After losing my grandpa, I couldn't do that to somebody. Yeah. I couldn't. That was exactly my reason. I could not hold on to anger. Anger grudge, not letting her meet her granddaughter. Absolutely. So I said, yes, I messaged her and I said, you can come meet her. But instead of her showing up, showed up. Wasn't this at the park at Dad's memorial? At his celebration of life when we had the barbecue area. So he met his daughter for the first time. How did that go? What were your emotions during it? Looking at him, holding her. It made me so angry. But were you happy at the same time? I was. When I seen him look at her for the first time, in my arms, Courtney had a picture of him, like or a video of him grabbing her and he was shaking. To me, that seemed like he was nervous. So yeah, he met his daughter for the first time. After she was a year old. After she was a year and a half. Mo, not a half. Or two months old. A year and two months. Yeah. A year and two months. Okay, so walk us down that. What happened after you went back home to Oklahoma? We went back to home to Oklahoma. Remember it? He could come down and see her. I was not going up there. So we came down. We decided to I got my own hotel room. Well, he didn't end up booking his own hotel room, so I just let him stay in my hotel room. That initially started the second get back together. Did you guys sleep with each other? Yes. Okay. And what happens? I got emotionally attached again. We started dating again. Uh and it was going good, you know? And then he uh he moves in with me in Oklahoma. In Oklahoma. In Oklahoma. Yes. He moved in with me in Oklahoma. And was life good? Yeah. Was he? You're still working at Sam's Club. Sam's Club. Was he working? Yes. He had just gotten a job at a tow company or something. Toe company. Yeah. Yeah. Or a wheel place. I can't remember. I think it was the wheel place. Yeah, it was the wheel place. Wheel place, yeah. Yep. All right. So things were good. Things were good. So on that note, we are going to conclude here and we are going to do a part two. So we are going to divide your episode into two parts because we've got a whole lot more to unpack. We're going to be here for another hour-ish unpacking the second part because there's a lot of juicy stuff in the second part. Oh, yeah. And a lot of discoveries. Oh, yeah. A lot of eye openers. A lot of more eye openers. So, as always, we know this episode's really triggering for some people, probably. So if you need help or you are going through something similar, you are more than welcome to reach out to us. We will also provide outreaches in our links, like we do with every episode. We also want to let you guys know you know how to find us. If you're listening to this episode, please make sure you're sharing it with your friends or on your social medias for us. You can also find us on our website and contact us for any questions, topics, or anything like that. Just know if you resonate with this episode, you're not alone. No. You are beautiful. You are loved. You're loved. You are valued. And you're worth fighting for yourself. Absolutely. You are worthy. We love you guys, each and every one of you, all of our listeners. I do want to say, like, we know everybody goes through hard times, and don't let those hard times define you. Exactly. Because you are more than your story. On that note, we are gonna let you guys go. So we will see you guys next time. Bye. Bye.

SPEAKER_01 29:47

Bye. I'm more than asleep. I'm more than it's.