Episode-2 :A Marriage Built On Lies And Online Cheating

Nancy Ann shares her personal journey through betrayal, infidelity, and emotional trauma in her marriage, offering insights and encouragement for those facing similar situations.   

• Trust your instincts early in marriage.
• You don't have to stay in an abusive or toxic relationship.
• Seeking therapy can be transformative and healing.
• Sharing your story can help others and empower you.
• It's never too late to start over and reclaim your life.

00:00
Introduction to Betrayal and Infidelity

06:47
The Early Signs of Trouble

13:59
Confrontation and Denial

21:03
Coping Mechanisms and Emotional Impact

24:19
The Struggles of Trust and Infidelity

30:50
The Breaking Point: Discovering Betrayal

40:00
Realizations and the Decision to Leave

45:54
Finding Strength and Moving Forward

Resourses:  

Womenslaw.org

Joyful Heart Foundation

Womenshealth.gov

Crisis text line for emotional abuse:  741741

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey besties, welcome back to the bestie blend. I'm Jennifer. And I'm Nancy Ann. And today we're doing something a little bit different and very important. So our last episode, we had talked about memories, letters, and all the silly stuff that made us laugh. Today, this is a different topic. Nancy Ann is going to be sharing her personal story about lies, betrayal, and long-term cheating she lived with for years. It's honest and it's heavy. Quick but important warning. What I'm about to share includes descriptions of infidelity, emotional abuse, betrayal, and the impact those things had on my marriage and my family. It's not graphic, but it may be triggering to some people. So if you need to pause or step away, please do so now. We've listed support resources and hotlines in the show notes. We're holding space with you, and we'll pause if you need to. This episode is for anyone who's walked through betrayal or is trying to understand it better. Okay, I'm ready when you are, Jen. Thanks for being my best friend. I'll start from the beginning. Take a deep breath. And here we go. You got this. I've got this. You got this. Alrighty. I guess I'll just start from the beginning. Talk about how you met this person. There's part of this story that didn't start with a stranger. It started with somebody I'd known for years. We met at church when I was in the ninth grade. And when I moved home after my first year of college, we started spending a lot more time together while working in the youth group at church. Okay, okay. So you met in ninth grade. Did you ever talk about him with me? I don't think so, because we were just friends and he was older. I kind of just looked up to him a little bit. How much older? Four years. Oh, he's older than me? So I am the older. He when I started ninth grade, he had just graduated high school. Did you have a crush on him at any time? No. We were just really good friends. I liked his truck and I liked his choice of music. I like your truck. Okay. What kind of truck did he have? Ford Ranger. You like the Ford Ranger? You're so simple. Hey, that was a really good truck for when we did car rallies at church and high school. He was a great car to be in. You didn't like my Ford? My goodness. Okay, Lady Carry on. So you guys met. Did you guys do retreats or anything like that together? We did. Actually, we were camp counselors together at a couple of different Christian camps in junior high and high school for students. I vaguely remember you going away to some camps. We did. Did you guys talk like I guess as a camp counselor, what do you guys do? Mentor the kids? Did you do that as a team or did you have like the girls and you have the boys? Correct. So I had like a cabin full of girls. He had a cabin full of boys. A lot of the people out here from where we went to school were also there who are also camp counselors. Okay. And then at some point you dated the other guy. We won't mention names. They were good friends. What? Really? That is actually news to me. I didn't know. I mean, this is gonna be interesting. I won't tell that story. I'll tell that off another break. Our listeners are gonna get what was it? When I moved back from high school, when I moved back from my first year of college, I was in the program for the junior high group at church. And one day he had commented to me and said something. I asked, Well, why didn't we ever date before? And he said, Well, I won't ever let that chance pass up again. And then from that moment on we were dating. And then from dating for a couple of months we got engaged, and then after a couple of months of being engaged, we got married. Wait, so how long are you technically engaged for? Six months. Were you like super giddy and like all I was. Was it exciting? Was it more okay, so at the young age of 20? 21? 21. I got engaged when I was 21. Okay. And I turned 22 soon after. Were you like s in love? I thought I was. Okay. When I was young. Yeah, but I mean, I was married young too, so. We've had this conversation quite often, many times. Okay, so you guys six months later, you guys planned a wedding in six months and got married? Yeah. Who was your maid of honor? My sister. Okay, that's not fair. I can't be mad at that. Love me, Mary. I can't be mad at that. Fine, whatever. I actually had we actually had a really fun, not super big, but fun, big wedding. It was a great party. Everyone talked about it years and years later. We had a great reception, great wedding party. Did you guys do this at the church that you guys were going to, or was that like involved? No, because there had been a falling out. And between us getting engaged and getting married, there was some issues at the church we had gone to when pretty much the whole church kind of dispersed and people went all over. Before before all that, you guys went to church like like every Sunday and did your church thing? Okay. We went to premarital counseling with people in our church. Because you had to, or nope, you guys just wanted to make sure you guys were connecting everything and cutting the I's and crossing the T's? Yes. Okay. You guys get married. Probably ever after. Yep. And then you guys went on a honeymoon? We did go on a honeymoon. It was fun. I mean, we just well, I had a little bit of a fear of flying at that time, so I didn't want to fly anywhere. So we did went out to the coast of California. Did a lot of camping, Santa Cruz, that's fun things like that, San Francisco. Well, it's always fun. Were you both full-time employees at whatever job you're working at? Yes, we both were full-time, working full-time at that time. And came home from our honeymoon, got in the scene of life, normal situations. The one weird thing that with our situation was I worked during the day and sometimes in the evening, because I worked retail at that point, he worked graveyard shift. So we didn't sleep together a lot. We didn't go to bed at the same time. Yes. Dinner together, he leaves, I go to sleep situation, which I mean could have started the issues from the very beginning. So when did you have like a first thought that something may or may not have been what it should be as a married couple? I'm gonna refer to a life story that has happened in my life to start with. I came from a family that both my parents were teachers or administrators at the school that we went to. Unfortunately, my father, who is a very charismatic man, we all remember someone who went to the school that I went to should know this story. Um and we'll talk about it in more in-depth in a later episode. The infidelity that my father had was very public and very known by everyone. And so going into a marriage, especially in premarital canceling and before we got married, was the one stipulation that I had was please just don't ever do that to me. What he did, and he actually saw it because he knew me then and he knew what I was going through at that time. So he knew the one thing that I asked for was never to do those things to me. And so it's always in the back of my head, but the internet is, you know, became a big deal. And I was on the computer one day when he was at work and saw some emails that weren't appropriate. And I asked him about it. Did you guys share an email? No, we never shared an email, but we shared a home computer back in the day. We didn't have like laptops and stuff like that. I just had one home computer that we all we all worked from. Yeah, I just I don't even know. I know that there was instant messaging back then, like aim and stuff like that. And I found some of those kind of messages with other girls. I don't even know how he'd found those people to talk to. Um, I was very naive and very sheltered, but I did know what happened with my dad. I was already on guard our first year of marriage. This this happened your very first year of marriage. How many months into it? Probably a couple months. Oh, yeah. So that that leads me to believe that it had probably been going on from way before we got married. Did you ever tell anybody? Because I don't think you I mean, I know you didn't tell me at this point because I don't think we were talking yet. I didn't share any of this information with anyone, this one particular instance. Um, because I had learned from my family, and I did not want to be that failure of somebody who already needed to get a divorce from their spouse because of infidelity from the very beginning. Yeah, so early on. Without even being married a year. Again, being young, there's no excuse for that. But in my head, it was just I I didn't know what to do. And I was just so when you confronted him, how did that even start? Like I wouldn't even know how to do that, other than printing everything out. I think I waited a little bit to say anything, but I did end up saying something and he blew it off as nothing. Like he didn't do anything. I'm not gonna go into super detail of all the instances because they're just totally inappropriate, but he made it way lighter and way more innocent than it really was. I chose to believe him. I'm a very open, bubbly, laphis full, half full type person and give people the benefit of the doubt often. Well, he's also your husband, and you don't get divorced from your husband from you know all the things that we've been told. Absolutely. But okay, so you confronted him. Was there ever a point where you were just like, okay, I totally forgive him and we're gonna just move on and it's no big deal? Well, yeah, absolutely. I just went on living my life like it was normal, like nothing ever happened. You never like, I mean, just even like sitting down for dinner, I don't even know how to word, like, phrase this question. I would just sit there and glare at him because I don't know that I would have believed him. And I'm already saying this on our side, looking in because we weren't there. And you know how people, well, why did you stay? Why didn't you just at that time? Why didn't you do this? Well now I learned that the more people you tell of these indiscretions or infidelities and different things, the more people are gonna have advice to give you and their opinions to tell you. So I learned from my parents that probably the best thing to do would not to be to not say anything to anyone. With these emails, did you ever so this is the first set of finding out oh he was doing all this? Did any of those emails ever suggest the fact that they were actually having sex or was it just conversing back and forth with flirting? Up until that point, like this very first year of marriage, there were no instances like that. It was just meeting up and going places together and doing things. And that was it was not physical touch or connection alone. Allegedly from what he said. Correct. But he did admit to like going out and hanging out with them. No, he just admitted to talking with them. Got it. It was always like it was all innocent internet stuff that was just lame and stupid. It wasn't there was no, but that being said, looking back on it, I can see how it was a lack of like my real understanding of what was really happening, but it also kind of led to my not knowing that my husband was kind of like a Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde. Yeah. He was one person with me and with his family and at church, and a different person in his own private life with his friends. So you had that instance. How long until you found out I'd say that it wasn't too long afterwards where I started to find messages, started to find emails. This was all at the same time where Craigslist became a big deal. There was a lot of Craigslist activity. Yeah, like Craigslist killer movie. Yeah. There was lots of conversations with other women and with other couples. And did you confront him when you found I assume you just found it on your home computer? I did. It was all on our home shared computer. Brilliant. Super smart. I would usually wait until like I just couldn't take it anymore until I just exploded. And then I would confront him. And the biggest one that happened was probably, I think, like, I don't know, six or seven years into our marriage. And I just lost it. I found some very descriptive messages. Again, these are I had no proof of him meeting people. It was all just on the internet. So all I could, all my evidence was emails, conversations, things like that. And so his reasoning and excuses to me were all that it was all just innocence. It was again just him talking to people online. It wasn't him going through and following through with things. It wasn't until I found a receipt for some lingerie that wasn't in my size to everyone who knows me. It was a size small. Awesome. And he had returned it. And I had found corresponding emails with a couple. And that's a story that kind of blew up in my face. Well, now he's really like, it's not just messaging. It's not just talking online with people. He's physically meeting people in person. And that's what it said in this email or whatnot. Yeah, it was a conversation of him finding somebody on Craigslist and meeting up with that couple. Is it wait? So this is the time I think you actually started to open up to me about it. Yes. Because this is yes, we had rekindled our friendship. Yeah. We'll talk about that later. Yeah. Another episode. Yeah. How did how hard was it for you to tell me that? It was hard, but I trusted you more than anybody else. And I knew that you would be there for me, but you would also give me good advice. Plus That took another 15 years. Well, I don't want to talk about what you do, but when my husband wouldn't come home and I couldn't find him, I had to look him up. I would call Jennifer. And I'm not talking like just wouldn't come home. I'm talking like no communication. He was very good at communicating with me to keep me unaware of what was going on. But because we lived very separate lives of, you know, graveyard shift and daytime shift and such. And then moving forward into him going back to school. Right. There was always we were just living very different lives. We had different groups of friends, if you could say that, other than our family. Do you think his friends knew? I I believe that yes, his friends were involved. Yes. I mean, in hindsight, going through everything. The internet now is everything is public knowledge. So when you can't find somebody and you think, A, they were arrested, B, whatever it is, you can find them online. It's it's pretty easy. Was he ever arrested? I don't even know if we're allowed to talk about that. We don't have to, but well, I mean, I I don't have a problem with it. Yeah, I mean, he's been arrested a couple of times. The best one, which I think is awesome, was he was arrested in my grandmother's car. He was? Yes. I don't think I remember the story. For soliciting. That was the second time I called you. My goodness. So my grandmother's Buick grandmaster grand something was impounded. Oh well, I mean, at least he didn't use your car. That we know it was. Well, that was the car I wasn't driving at the moment. Oh my goodness. Because he had let a friend bar on my car. And yeah, that's the reason why I would call you was because I would check hospitals, I would check the most local places and then to help try to find them from there. To help try to find out where he was. Yeah. So what was his excuse, or what did he say? I mean, it was unfortunately by this time because I was so I was such an enabler. I didn't I was in denial. And I also, again, didn't want to fail. But also I want to talk about something that's really important right now about this situation is that since it started so early in my marriage and I was so young, that I feel that I created this mechanism to kind of help me cope with what was going on in my life. And no one wants that to be public. No one wants that to be out there. No one, you know, you try to keep things secret and keep things safe after everything that happened in my family with my parents and things being so public that very public. I, if I sure, if I got divorced for the exact same reason, he was doing the exact same things my dad was doing, it really was a really horrible situation. So I created this coping mechanism where I would confront him, we would talk about it, he would tell me he wouldn't do it again, and then it would just go back into doing the exact same thing. And because I didn't have boundaries and I didn't stick up for myself and our marriage, or I didn't leave and I stayed, and it was just me being trampled over all over again, over and over. I do, I remember when you were told you told me one day you were like, okay, so we sat down and we talked and we're just gonna work it out, and everything is great, our sex life is great, and I was like, there's no way, no way, but with that mechanism where you want everything just to be perfect in your own mind, everything is. Oh, yeah, because you that's the denial. Trust me, I know about that. Oh, I know 100%. And the thing is, is it was all complete denial, and I was going to fix it. Yeah, he wasn't fixing it, and he wasn't doing the right things to care about our marriage, and I should have realized that way early on that this man really didn't care about our marriage, and it was in all honesty, it was probably done on purpose. He didn't want to be in that marriage, and he should have left that marriage and he didn't have the cojones to do it. Well, because he'd be judged by how many people. Correct. So ultimately, this is actually a very good bit of information that I've learned now going through therapy in regards to sleeping with somebody who has betrayed you that way so much. And a woman's body, when you've just been cheated on so many times and you know, and in my case, it was with people that I didn't know who were being paid. I had a lot of fear for my physical safety. I had a lot of fear for his physical safety and for what was happening in regards to like protection and all of those things. And also knowing that he was sleeping with people outside of our marriage that were not safe made me scared. Yeah, I would be too. Yeah. And it also made my body completely shut down. It was very difficult for me and my brain to be able to be intimate with him. But don't get me wrong, I was still very intimate with him. It might not have been as much as he wanted, but I still did. Was it you did it because it was supposed to be? I did it because that was my wifely duty. Yeah. So we were that's how we were raised. Yeah. And I'm I mean, I'm I'm a sexual person. Yes, we know. So do some other people. But it was very difficult for me to be able to put out and be sexual with him so much as much as he wanted. But he would use the excuse that I wasn't doing it enough. And that was his excuse for continuing to do what he was doing. I there was one time when I actually did leave the house and I moved back with my mom. Well for quite a while. Wait, I don't know about this. When was this? It was right before he went away to college. Before the UCLA team. And the stipulation of me moving back was that we don't move back to that specific apartment and that things needed to change, and that's when we moved to UCLA. And that's the I think I was at that apartment. Yes. We went Yeah, yeah. I didn't know that you see adopt actually news again. So I think I knew that. I didn't really tell a lot of people all of the things that happened in my life. They would be shocked to know the things that had happened. And that I mean, it continued to go on. I didn't really see too much of stuff happening. But see, the problem is is when that's already happened so much in your life, then you continually think when's the next thing gonna happen? When's the next incident? When's the next, you know, I constantly walked on eggshells. There was never, I was never normal. Well, what how I mean at this point, how how there is no such thing as normal when you've married into a relationship where he has done this probably before you guys were married and has just continued on and on and on. At this point, so you guys move back in together. Did you keep snooping and try to find things, or were you just allowing it to like kind of turn a blind eye to it? And if it if it came up, it came up. If not, well, I you know me. I'm a true crime lover. PI and training, I love detective work. I was always constantly searching and looking, but this was a point now where in in our life where computers were, you know, locked, phones were locked, things like that. I did find ways to be able to get into things, but at this time I kind of just let things go. He was really busy with school. And ultimately I just figured that he was doing the right thing by being busy with school and that he was going to, this was a good thing for us. He was going to finish his college education. He was going to be a better person because he did that. And then unfortunately, when it was time to graduate and move away from that location and we were moving back to the valley, kind of all hell broke loose again. But again, I I don't know all the things that had happened during those times. I don't know the things I don't know. I only know the things I do know. So I can only imagine the things I don't know are actually probably pretty worse. Probably. Yeah. But I'm sure he should regret it every little thing possible. So at that point, how long have you guys been married? That was 15 years of marriage. Yeah, I was gonna say 2015. So he graduates. What does he do with that degree? Well, we moved back to Burbank. We moved back to the apartment, and it just all went downhill from there. He never really did anything with his college education, and never really got solidified into the workforce or a job, and I was just continuing to work. And at this time I was traveling a lot. I traveled all the time. And come to find out, now that he wasn't so busy with school and didn't really have a lot going on, and he was trying to figure out something to do with his life, with the entertainment industry and all these other different things that he had little like things in that he was trying to do, there's a lot of infidelity that started to happen. And this is when dating websites became really popular and Tinder. And I came to find out that a lot of the indiscretions that happened were when I was traveling and I found Tinder accounts. I found accounts that had to do with there's a website called SLS and it's a swinging website. There's also a FETLife website, which is a fetish website. And these are all websites for people to meet each other. He was very active on those. Yeah, I think after you guys moved back from school, I think you kind of stopped talking about it with me so much. But I also don't think I pushed anything. I mean, I've probably I'm sure I said it's uh time to walk away, but I never I don't feel that I was ever like, you've got to do it. What's what's what is the matter with you? Like, why haven't you left? Well, that that's the reason why I stopped telling people, like especially my mom, my sister, and you you three were the people that I talked to the most. And I just stopped. I just stopped because it didn't end. It didn't, it actually just got way worse. And I just I the more people The more opinions you're gonna get, and the more the more people are gonna keep you accountable. Yeah. And being kept accountable was really difficult for me because I really had no intentions of leaving. I, again, laugh has full full, just always assumed at some point that he would do the right thing. I just kept on hoping and believing that he really would step up and do the right thing, and that encouraging him through going to school and encouraging him through all these other things that he would ultimately do the right thing. And that's not what happened. So here we are, 15, 16, 17 years into your marriage. I obviously know the outcome of all of this. What what was the final straw where you finally, I'm gonna say this, had the courage to just be like, I'm unfortunately, it it really wasn't a good story. It's more embarrassing. I would say with COVID happening and all those kind of situations with being alone with this person, I stopped traveling and I wasn't gone a lot. He had to find other ways to take care of his, you know, addictions. And a couple of those things were going on my work trips and I found video proof. Does he know this? Does he know this part? Okay. I found video. He had on one of our work trips, he had hired some people to come back to the room, the room that my work was paying for. Well, and let me let the listeners like we'll set this up. Nancy and this soon to be ex were staying in the same hotel room because of work. She was down doing work stuff for whatever convention thing that she had, meanwhile. And he was playing in the room. That boggles my mind. Like, fine, you cheat, whatever. But you guys are in the same room and you're just downstairs. How did how does he know you're not gonna come like walking back upstairs? I truly believe through all of these situations that I think a lot of it was that he wanted to get caught. He wanted to break me. I think a lot of this was done on purpose now. Looking back, I think a lot of it was done in order for me to be the bad guy and not him, and me to pull the trigger. And you know, you think you would have you think I would have had enough guts and enough you've just been tired of it. Like I was, I was tired. But I mean, the one instance where, you know, when the pudding, we didn't even talk about that. We didn't talk about the pudding, but I feel like we should talk about the pudding. Okay, so the pudding. So let's backtrack years ago, many years ago. Nancy Ann brought up some things about her being afraid of what possibly could happen, the safety he's having who knows, maybe he's having unprotected sex. We truly don't know, honestly, because we're not there. But if he was, well, and then he was coming home to you, which I assume you're just happy married couple. And I was still being intimate with him constantly, which is not enough. The STD thing would freak me out. Yes. I mean, I I had quite a few scares in our 25 years of marriage, but one in particular when he had d been diagnosed with one. He had a day on a Saturday after I think this was like 2015, 2016, when he asked me to taste the pudding he was making. It makes me laugh, but it's a serious topic. Mind you, I'm a big dateline 28 hours mystery person, so this just put me over the edge. I tasted it. He he kind of shoved a big spoonful of chocolate pudding into my mouth, and the moment I swallowed it, I should spit it out. But the moment I swallowed it, I started trying to figure out what he had given me and if I was gonna die and how it's time to him left, and I freaked out. There was something bitter and gritty and chalky in there, and it scared the life out of me. I was I was so freaked out. Well, did you s I mean did did you say something? Not immediately. This is how this is this is what I'm talking about. I get it. So, and I don't want to say conditioned, because he didn't condition me. I did this to myself. So I conditioned myself to enable all of this behavior. And probably 30 minutes later, I finally just totally freaked out on this man. Start screaming, what in the heck did you give me? And then came clean about giving me an antibiotic for an STD that he had, just in case he had given it to me. Did you continue with it just to make sure that it would actually I didn't. Oh, that's a funny question to ask. Never even thought about that. Well, you obviously didn't get anything, so thank goodness. I think it took me a little while to even be intimate with him after that. But the whole thing about this, and it's not about, you know, he did all of these horrible things to me. It's about what I was kind of conditioned to to react and to be because this had started happening so early in my life. I mean, I was just out of, I was 22 years old. I was just out of college, I was just out of like living your life. Yeah, and it and I wasn't prepared for this. Like the one thing I had asked him was not do what my dad did. And ultimately he did way worse. Way worse. And the situations were now coming up to date, kind of the past couple of years, where I just started being treated horribly. I was told to be quiet all the time. He would come up to me and straighten my back often. So I was slouching. A lot of different things that were really not very nice to me that I just let happen. So you still had like there was no physical abuse, but no, there was definitely mental abuse. Like I and not in such a way where he's constantly buried you or or putting you down, but the mental where you're thinking that you're loved because that's what you want to believe. Correct. Like that and you're in reality, you're not. Because if somebody loves you, they're not gonna do all the crap. Oh, 100%. How many veg glands did I see? But I never even I I never thought that I would ever need therapy. I never thought that, oh, we needed anything like this. It was this was just gonna be the way my life was, and at some point he was gonna do the right thing. It actually got way worse. And this past year or the past couple of years, when I was literally in a loveless marriage, and there was no honesty, there was no communication. I was basically living with somebody. It was more of a roommate situation. And we had some family functions that we needed to deal with, and we to dealt with them, and they were amazing, and they were a great time. But in public, people could see how horribly he treated me. And did anybody ever say anything? No, no. There are one or two people in my life in my very close circle of family that would talk to me about it, but never really spoke up when those things were happening. And they they have now said things to me now after wishing that they would have. Too late. It yeah, it it it's unfortunate. But the I mean, the straw that broke the camel's back ultimately was last year, I just couldn't take it anymore. I couldn't take I I mean, I was asking him probably weekly, why do you act like you hate me? I was asking him physically, I was asking him that question, and he couldn't answer it. And then one night I just went off on him and we separated because he was just done with me, and we separated, and in the separation, I was like doing all of these things to fix my marriage. I wasn't You still you still, after all this time, all of it, you still wanted to fix it. I there was definitely some trauma that I didn't know was there that I needed to deal with, that now obviously I'm taking care of and have been in therapy for almost a year now. Back then, in that moment, it was like, no, this is what I'm supposed to do, and he wants to fix it too, and he's telling me these things too. So for about a month and a half we were separated and I was losing weight, I was cleaning up my life, I was telling him all these things, but he wasn't doing anything. He was just continuing on as correct. But the comment to me was well, you're doing all these things that you can see, but the things that I'm working on we can't see. That's what he told you. That's what he told me. So all the things that that were being fixed that I was doing, you could physically see, but the things that he was working on couldn't. They weren't things that they were inside of him that needed to be taken care of. But what I didn't know was this whole entire time it was all just a facade to I don't know what the end result was for him. It will never I'll never know the truth because unfortunately through my whole entire marriage, everything that has been told to me has pretty much been lots of lies and lots of little lies and big lies and medium lies. But I found out that he'd been having an affair for about six months. Craig's store. No, this wasn't like anything that he'd ever done before. This was a full-blown relationship. Like like the time that he brought me flowers on Valentine's Day last year and cards. Yeah, when he thought you when you thought you were getting back together or you guys were. Oh no, this was before we didn't separate until last June. This was February. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Time way, sorry. And he brought me these beautiful red roses and these cards, and one of the cards said to my queen, but I like I was just again, look at the little things that he's doing that make me feel good. He's trying, yes, right. But yeah, came to find out afterwards that he'd taken her flowers and cards after me. I was just a drive-by. You know, I can't say that you there's somebody for everybody, but I I don't know. I mean, I obviously know a lot more of this story, and we'll be very kind because that's we have to be. Yes, right. It's hard because I lived your story with you. Yeah. And to try to explain that to somebody is hard because they don't want to believe the truth. And that's that's okay. So it's a little bit of a struggle. People people keep on asking me what why didn't you leave? Why didn't you leave? Why did you live through all that? Why they just can't believe that I would stay and that I would continue. I will say this one thing, other than me being completely traumatized early on and and continuing to deal with those kind of things for a long time, was that I really loved his family. His family had become my family and they had become my life, and that's that was very important to me. But the thing is, is that I didn't realize, and I think that a lot of women need to know this, is that you don't have to stay. I didn't have to stay. I could have left that first year of marriage and had a completely different life as what would have happened. But I truly did love him up until the very end. And I was the one that asked for a divorce. I was the one when I found out, and I didn't even find out he was having an affair. I found out he had gone on a date with somebody. That's all I knew. And the moment I heard that he had gone on a date with somebody and been physical with them, I was like, I'm done. I'm asking for a divorce. I didn't even find out about the affair until after I'd asked for the divorce the divorce and had filed. Yeah. So I realized at that moment that there was no going back, there was there was no hope for our relationship, and that it was over. And it was very freeing, but it was also very traumatizing. If you can go back in time, is there anything that stands out in your mind where you should have been done? I I really ultimately should have been done at the beginning. When I first saw the behavior that my dad had, I saw it in him, and I should have I should have left then. But no matter how embarrassing it was to me or him, I I would have had a very different life if that were the case. But I believed in the way we were trained as we were raised and growing up. You know, you were you got married, you had kids, you lived this beautiful life, and you kind of hid the bad things and you kept them secret and you didn't talk about them. And and now I I'm loud. I'm a loud person. I am an oversharer by nature. I am gonna share my story. I am not here for revenge, I'm not here for to get back at somebody. Luck therapy that I've been through has been absolutely amazing and has really helped me through and made me actually realize how much trauma I had, and that has really helped me get to the place that I am now. This is gonna take years to get over, and I have lots more work to do on myself, but girls don't have to deal with this. This does not need to be something where people or families or parents or teachers or churches make women feel that they need to stay and fix things. It's funny because I think the way the the culture is now, it's it's changing. And our era and all these things that are gonna come out, especially when you hear my story, yes, is that it is okay to speak up and ask for help. And it doesn't matter whose feelings you hurt and why do you care what people think about you? That is such a huge thing with kids these days. And I've seen it when we've talked to younger girls that are 18 and 19, they're so, so worried about social media. Yeah, I know component. You're right. Social media is is actually one of the reasons I found out about a lot of stuff in for what happened to me. And I'm thankful for that. Yeah. But again, now at my age, because we're older now, and everything I've lived through, I really don't give a care. I don't care what people think about me anymore. I don't care if I'm gonna hurt somebody's feelings. I don't care if me sharing my story because it is my story and it's what I lived with, it's not it's not somebody else's story that I'm telling. This is what I lived, and it's it's actually a lot worse than what I'm seeing here telling you here on this podcast. You know my stories and you know how bad it was. I do. It was really bad. But you're not you're not hearing anybody's dirty laundry but your own, honestly. Correct. What right, or I should rephrase it, you have the right to tell your story because who knows who's listening. You could help somebody. If I could reach one girl who is in, I hope and I pray to God, nowhere near what I was going through, but maybe in the beginnings of that situation, the start and the signs, and they hear this, or they hear somebody talking about it or anything like that. All I want to do is let girls know I am I am an advocate for loving marriages. I mean, I I have I have seen loving marriages. I mean, look at my sister and my brother-in-law. Like, I know that marriage can work. I know. Thanks for taking my spot, Marianne. I mean, Sean and Marianne are like amazing. And that they still have their own problems. They have issues, but they are a loving couple who communicates. That is absolutely something that people should look up to. And that's what is a loving marriage. I want women to know that there is hope, but you can't settle for less. Don't settle. You have to stick up for yourself and you have to stick up for your marriage, and you have to stick up for what is right for you and what feels good for you. If I would have done that a really long time ago, who knows what would have happened? Well, if we could teach our kids now growing up that it doesn't matter what other people think of you. Correct. At all. You are your own person. Who cares? Who cares if they don't like the color of your eyes or what you're wearing? Who cares? We all have to learn how to love ourselves. Absolutely. And that's something that I'm dealing with now. And I'm really the changes that I've made in my life and the changes I've made and how I talk to myself and how I view myself. It's mind-boggling that not having that toxicity in my life. I feel like I've got my sparkle back. I feel like I've gotten, I feel like I'm back to my original self because I had lowered myself to a level that was just dead inside. Yeah, you don't hang around for five minutes and go home. You actually hang out, right? You do. It's nice to have the the old Nancy that I knew. Nancy Ann. The old Nancy Ann that I knew, like back. Because I you hit that's who you are. A little more louder than you've been in before. But you're allowed to be. This is more time. I don't have to answer to anyone. I don't have to walk into this. Oh, this is a great story. The first time that I went back to Vegas after that, when I didn't have him with me, after that story. This is the one where he was upstairs in the room and you were doing it. Yeah, and that had happened a couple of times on that trip. He didn't have a job then, and and so I did. And so who knows how that was getting paid for. But I slept for nine hours the first night I was in Vegas. I remember you told me for my show. I woke up and I was just like, oh my goodness. And I text my sister and I text you, and my sister said, It's because you don't have to worry what's happening when you're not there. Yeah, your brain can finally shut off. I it's it can shut off. Finally. It can finally rest. So, with all of the stuff that you've gone through this year, so your divorce will be final in three month three more months? Three months in a day. Any words of wisdom? Well, obviously, we're gonna tell more things. We're gonna tell more stories, we're gonna tell more life experiences in the future coming episodes about the things that we've been through. This is just a little taste. I know it's very amateur, but we're having a really fun time doing it. And I really think that it's going to reach the people it needs to reach. But really, ultimately, you and I telling our stories is really just to help people. It really is. I we've already had we've already had people come forward to us and come out and reach out to us who are not in the same situations that either of us have been in, but in different situations, but it all kind of correlates. And I think that one, telling getting people to tell their own stories is very helpful. But also just listening to other people going through horrible situations, that's I mean, that's amazing if we can reach those people and help those people out. 100%. So I definitely want to thank you for sharing your story because I know how hard it is, and I know all of the things you've been through that through the last how long are you? 22 years, 25? 25. Oh, well, wait, yeah, just short of 25. So a couple couple weeks short of 25 years. And now you're you're literally like a teenager living your life all over again. I'm having a great time. Actually, really fun to hang out with there. So stand by for the reunion. Oh, that's gonna be so funny. That's gonna be so finally, because the last couple reunions that we've had for Icebooks. He's like, I go. I went to the last one. We danced and we had a good time. That's when he actually, you know, told me he wasn't going and then he and then he shut up. I do remember that. So funny. Thank you so much for sharing your story. Um, I do want to say that we will on our website, we will be posting places for people to go, resources for people if you need counseling, if you have questions on divorce. We will put those resources up, but you could also send us an email by going to the bestieblendpodcast.com. There is a way to contact us. We would love to hear your questions, your thoughts. And then you never know. We might be reading some of your questions and thoughts on the air with us. Is there anything else? I know. Damn. Well, we know it's kind of been a long episode. We will try not to have our episodes this long, but we really, really appreciate you guys joining us, listening in. Um, we just hope that this can actually resonate with some of you guys and get you guys to learn how to be strong. I don't know if that's really taught, but just to feel that you can be confident in who you are, the courage to be strong. So on that note, we really appreciate it. It's amazing. This has been such a therapeutic experience. And you didn't cry. And I didn't cry. She did beforehand. I was nervous. And we'll see you on the next one. Yes. Because our stories are important. They are very important. Bye, Destie. Bye, Bestie. How long?