Episode 5: Beneath the Surface: Childhood Secrets and Adult Truths

This episode explores the deep-rooted issues of secrecy, lies, and trust in relationships, sharing personal stories of overcoming betrayal and learning to prioritize self-healing. Nancyann and Jennifer discuss how childhood experiences influence adult behaviors and the importance of honesty and communication.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the Bestie Blend, the podcast where friends, stories, and real talk meet over a cup. I'm Jen. I'm Nancy Ann. And today we're gonna go into something a little bit different. Nancy and I are gonna share how secrecy, small lies can feel so easy, familiar, and even harmless. We'll explore those habits, where they come from, what they do to our trust, and how we're trying to change them. One of the things that I know the two of us keep doing is holding back because we're still so worried about other people's feelings and what other people are gonna think about us. And I know we always talk about we should not give two shits what people think about us. We should not care. We keep trying to protect something that we shouldn't have because it's normal to us, and we're gonna dive deep into that today. So, Nancy Ann, take us back a bit in your story. When did you first notice that that secrecy or lying was like a normal thing to you?

SPEAKER_00 0:56

Well, going back into when I was younger and a kid, my dad unfortunately had an affair or a couple affairs or multiple affairs while married to my mom, obviously, when we were little. And my mom would do the same thing I did in my marriage, where she had three kids to raise, she had a job, and she just kept on living life, kept on pushing it to the side, and then it would happen again. And so, unfortunately for me, growing up with that situation, and like the last one that happened when we were in high school, when it was more influential, or I should say middle school, when my dad had an affair with the secretary, and it was very public for everyone, you know, to see in my life. So everyone knew, all of my friends, all of my boyfriends knew, everyone knew. It was so public and it it really did a number on me. And I know that it affected a lot of my my sister, my brother, it affected everybody. And so, talking about normalizing what I did, it was basically like I dated this guy, I met at church. So obviously, assuming that he has the same beliefs and feels the same way about things in in life that I do, and I have red flags that happen. I see things that happen. I remember one of our first dates, and he took me to the door and he opened the door and he closed it really fast. And he said, I need to explain something to you, Nancy Ann, before we go in there. And I was like, Okay. I'm like, what, 20, 21, maybe? And he's like, There's a party going on inside of my apartment. And I'd never know what a bong was. And I've never, never done anything like that before. And there was a very large one in the living room. I think it was like six feet or something, and craziness going on. That was the first time I ever knew that he was involved in that kind of stuff and situation and that he used that kind of drug. And for me, I was just like, okay, whatever. And unfortunately, I just let that go. When I should have been like, oh, wait, that's not really cool with me. I'm not, I don't really vibe with that. That's not really something that I like. But because I had normalized all of the situation with my dad and the situation that happened with him, and it just became something that was fine, and I didn't want to rock the boat because you just didn't do that, because it was a learned behavior from my childhood that I didn't even know was part of my brain and my chemistry, that I let it slide. Not that it's a big deal. Like people that do that totally fine. It's just that was a red flag for me that I just let go to the side and I did totally ignored it. Now, was this your soon-to-be husband at the time?

SPEAKER_01 3:35

Yes. Or somebody else. This was my ex-husband. Okay, so what is the earliest that you can remember something different about your family life? If that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 3:46

No, it does. And I I think the earliest for me was probably middle school when I was more influenced. I found out later that it had been going on for a very long time when we were little. And that's crazy. Yeah, things that had happened in my life early on when I was like in first, first grade, kindergarten, things that had happened that I remember like doing, like going to a friend of spending the night at at the house of a friend from the church while stuff was, you know, happening and you know, going through it all. I didn't realize now until my mom talked to me about it later on and let me know what had happened and basically had said to me that, you know, I'm I'm sorry, Nance. I'm sorry for the things that you had to go through because she feels a really huge I don't want to say guilt because it is guilt, but she she is just she feels awful that basically I walked the exact same line that she did.

SPEAKER_01 4:39

Back then, it's so just the world in general is different. And parents back then who were victims of what you went through, what your mom went through, they didn't know how to cope because there isn't anything. We're told that we go to church, you know, say your prayers, ask for forgiveness, forgive and forget, and that's the end of it. And in the Bible, it talks about the husband being the head of the house and the main person per se.

SPEAKER_00 5:01

I mean the umbrella, it's Christ, husband, wife, kids.

SPEAKER_01 5:05

And people take that literally like the husband is this is what I say and what I do, and that's not in reality what it means.

SPEAKER_00 5:12

Well, I mean, and that's the funny thing for me in regards to like really healthy good marriages, especially in the church, is that that umbrella is actually very important and it actually does work, but it has to be the husband and the wife together communicating on the same page, same level, to be honest. If men now understood that, if they protected and gave the safety over the woman that the woman craved and felt secure, then they would submit, but it has to be a communication. If that's not there, then it doesn't exist. Unfortunately for me, instead of protecting, I felt like I had to just survive. Like I was wearing a life vest and I had to work because he wasn't. And if no one was working, then how would we pay the bills? That's actually really funny because he actually told people that I had never told him to get to get a job after he graduated from UCLA. I don't even know how to explain that. Yes, I as a hundred. I didn't voice my opinion about it. I mean, until the very end, probably the last two years, I started being like, okay. But I supported all of his ventures that weren't, you know, making any money. I was very supportive of that man, 100% up until the last day. Because you were taught to do that. I was taught, but I was also like, dude, you can do these things and have a job. But I didn't need to be the one to tell him to get a job. I don't feel like as a grown man at 50 years old, your wife needs to tell you to get a job. So that's the communication part. There was none, so it just didn't work. But I was wearing a life vest. I needed to I needed to make sure that we could pair our bills and that I had a roof over my head. I mean, that's just basic. And that was the part of the security. Like if the man was taking that responsibility, whether or not it was two people working to, you know, pay your bills, that's fine. To have that would be absolutely amazing to have a marriage that's like yours and Larry's, that it's like a communication, but he's the head of your household and you two are married, but you have just as much say in it as you do because he respects your opinion and he respects you as his wife. But I didn't see that in my marriage. My dad had absolutely no respect for my mom, it feels like. I feel like he just I mean, he loved us kids. I didn't have a bad childhood, if you could say that. But he didn't respect my mom. He treated my mom like crap, and that's what I saw. And so then I became the person that was treated like crap and was totally fine with that. It was a normal thing for me. The red flags didn't exist. And things that should have scared me and made me nervous and freaked me out actually were like that's normal. That's fine. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 7:52

Yeah. If a husband was really supportive, why does it take so much effort to make them that way in your marriage? He he should want to do the same and support the marriage and bring in it doesn't matter who makes more money or or not. That means nothing, but to go in and make sure your family is taken care of. Oh yeah. Because that was even in my last relationship, is that was the struggle for me. Yeah. Is that like you, you're constantly feeling like, okay, if I I have to do it, I just have to keep working, I have to find more money in different outlets to help supplement what we need to supplement because now we have two kids and and I couldn't afford everything when he was just so comfortable just doing what he was doing, and that wasn't a big deal. Like I get it, money isn't the all end. I know that. Yeah, and we've talked about that before, but it is to an extent when you need to support your family. Yeah. It doesn't have to be about me or about him, it's the the family, everybody in it.

SPEAKER_00 8:48

My my mom made a comment to me when we first separated, and she said, the one thing that I was really sad that you guys never had in your marriage was that you never really set down roots anywhere. Like I was we were always living in an apartment, and then we were moving around, like we moved around for him to go to school, and then we moved back, but we were always apartment living. And I said to her, I said, money obviously was a situation, but if we had money and if we had the means to buy a house, I don't know if I would because I was not sure what was gonna happen the next week or the next day with our relationship that I was always so nervous that like there was no consistency whatsoever that I just felt like there was no way to put down roots after such a long time. Like I would have loved that, but then there would have been so much more to deal with once it was over. One to my bank camp. Exactly. My ex-husband, my brother-in-law and sister-in-law, and they were on a ride, and my brother-in-law and I were actually working because it was during the weekday, and he asked me, like, were we gonna ever buy a house or were we ever gonna do anything? And I said, I I have no, I have no clue. Because I I don't know. There was nothing that was normal about our relationship, but to me it had just been so normal. It was just, it was, there was no consistency, there was there was just no support, there was no protection. I basically was living single and supporting a roommate is how my life was for like the last at least 10 years.

SPEAKER_01 10:16

Yeah. So now, how do you separate what you learned is normal from what you want to model now?

SPEAKER_00 10:22

I'm still learning because I, as you know, through this whole process, I'm still holding back a lot and I'm still protecting that person who's been so horrible to me that because it's a learned behavior, I've just learned to be this way with this person in that everything that I have a moment of doubt or I second guess has got to be a type of red flag or a type of deal breaker. I went on dating websites at the very beginning of this whole entire thing, you know. I know. I mean, as much as it brought us as funny, it was, I was just so like, it just is not for me. It's not, it's not the it's not a thing for for me to be a part of. I if I meet somebody moving forward, it's gonna have to be super organically and and be something far down the line, but also where I have to feel that protection right away. I have to feel that somebody is there to be in it with me and not somebody who's going to use me. And and that's taking a lot of time to through therapy to get over. I know I've made a huge, huge strides in fixing those things, but again, knowing what I know after even just doing this podcast and still have so many guards up in regards to, you know, saving faith and keeping that person safe. I was trying to protect that person at all costs, all the time, through his family, through friends, everyone, that it just now I just don't care anymore. There's no protecting. I mean, I've done some really like not so great things at the very beginning of this whole situation in regards to, you know, the him and the girl and all that kind of stuff. Cause I've just, what is it? Act like a lady hydra crazy. And what did you tell me, Jen? You did not hide your crazy. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 12:06

Let's open this the scan of worms at I feel like we can go here and it's a good idea. Okay, we're gonna we're gonna go here.

unknown 12:12

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 12:12

Let's tell our listeners a little bit more about when you found out he was truly having like an actual affair, not just these Craigslist painting thing. He's actually now on a like, we'll call it a relationship. Okay. Because that's technically what it is now, right?

unknown 12:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:25

They're still together.

SPEAKER_01 12:26

We're gonna be very we're we're gonna tread lightly. No names. We're gonna be vague. So very vague. But we this does have to be because again, it is your story. It does not matter. I mean, I can tell it.

SPEAKER_00 12:37

I'm fine with telling it.

SPEAKER_01 12:38

You're driving around.

SPEAKER_00 12:40

It to be honest, I was I was going to the gym. This is all honest, 100%. It's totally lame. I at that time, I'm not drinking caffeine anymore right now, but at that time when I was going to the gym, I was always taking an Alani with me to the gym. It just like I was cool, like the influencers. And I didn't have any Alanis. And when I went to my 7-Eleven, they didn't have any Alanis there. And I know for a fact that Aldi has cold Alanis individually at their cash registers. And so I was like, oh, it's right down the street. I'm just gonna go right down the street and grab a couple to have at home.

SPEAKER_01 13:14

I'm gonna have you back up for just a second so we can kind of get the listeners to understand where where this at this is at in your portion. So you guys had already separated?

SPEAKER_00 13:22

Yes. We'd been separated for a month and a half at this time.

SPEAKER_01 13:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 13:25

Okay, can you I pull it to thank you. You gotta you gotta reel me in. You gotta you gotta go. I pull into the Aldi parking lot and I see my ex's truck. Not hard to miss. Personalized license plates, very easy, which is funny. Personalized license plates when I'm sorry, I'm the one who's working. So I pull in and I'm like, oh my gosh, he's at the lounge. And so I call my mom. I'm not even kidding. This is exactly how it happened. Call my mom and I'm like, oh my gosh, he's at the lounge. What do you think I should do? Should I go in? Maybe we could have a drink, maybe we can talk, have a conversation. And because at this time we were kind of go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 14:01

I was gonna say, because at this point you were you were still thinking you were gonna work things out.

SPEAKER_00 14:04

Yes, this is where we were still working things out and we were on like a specific timeline, like during the week. Like we talked and then we'd have dinner and we'd get together. He'd come to my apartment, whatnot. And and so my mom was like, Well, you know, do what you think is necessary, like do what you think is best. And I was so nervous. Oh my gosh, my heart was beating so fast. And I was like, I'm just gonna go in. I'm just gonna go in. And I went into the bar and the shock on the face of my ex was very evident. And I didn't really realize it, but I felt it immediately. I felt that there was something weird and off with this picture that I saw in front of me with a bartender and my ex. I asked to use the bathroom. I went and used the bathroom, came out, and he told me, it's all cool, everything's good. I just, what are you doing? I'm like, I'm gonna go to the gym. Do you want to sit me to sit down and have a drink? And he said, No, I'm one and done. I'm almost finished. Go ahead and you do what you're gonna do, and I'm gonna go home right now. And I was like, okay. But I still felt something was off. And this girl's smiling at me. And I go to the gym, I do my workout. And the working out for me during this whole entire time was like my therapy. This was a second therapy session. It was all mental for me. It really helped me sort my thoughts. And obviously, during this workout, I just couldn't stop thinking about it. I was constantly, what is what's going on here? So I decided after the workout was over that I was gonna drive over there again to see if he was really one and done and if he was still there. Cause his record would just say he was still there. I went over there and he was still there. So I walked in and her look on her face was a little sus, but he like I got I got upset and I didn't show it, but I sat down with him and I was like, what is going on? He's like, What? Everything is cool, everything is fine, everything's great. No, we'll talk later. Don't worry about it. Everything is good. I'm leaving now, you know, like whatever. So I got into my car and I left and I drove home and in the parking lot I text a message saying, Are you sleeping with the bartender? And well, I didn't know that part. He said, and I was like, You need to come over. And he said, I'm on my way. And he got to the apartment. It's later in the evening. It's it's like nine or something, nine something, 10. He gets to the apartment and I said, What's going on? And at the very end of the last conversation we had had in our like little dinner, whatever meeting together for the separation was that he wanted me to start dating because I had only been with two people in our my lifetime and that I needed to be with more people, not to sleep with, but to go on dates with and like go out with. And then at the very end, when he left that meeting with us, he said, Well, I'm gonna do the same. And I was like, Oh, no, I'm not that, I'm not good with that. No, that's not fine with me. So when he did come over after that interaction that we had at the bar, I said, What's going on? And he said, Nothing's going on. I know, I know something is going on. And this is where my intuition, women's instinct fully kicked in for me. And I was like, Absolutely, you are lying to me and you need to tell me the truth. Like, this is bullshit. I need to know what's going on. And he said, Well, I went on a date with her last Saturday. And I was like, What? Like, did were you guys physical? Did you sleep with her? What's going on? And he said, I just kissed her. And then I think he went into like he felt her up or something. And I looked at him and I said, I want a divorce. Because I knew at that moment he had been lying to me and he was still lying to me. And I I was over it. I was just like, You just told me the other day you wanted to me to see other people and then threw in that you're gonna see other people, and then you went on a date. Like, this is not the case. So, okay, he leaves. I tell him I want a divorce, it's over, finished. I go on my computer and I have to do a little, you know, FBI sleuth thing, PI type skills there. And I had gotten her name from him. He told me what he told me, no, he told me what her name was. Like, so dumb. I saw what her face looked like, so I just went on his social media. So I went on his pages and checked who his this person's name was, and she they followed each other already on his social media. And when I went on my Facebook page and put her into my Facebook, we had one person in common, and that one person was you.

SPEAKER_01 18:11

Out of all of the dang people in all of the neighborhoods in the city, we live why we live in a huge city.

SPEAKER_00 18:18

We live in Los Angeles, like of all the people in all the world, like he slept with so many people during our marriage, like he had to pick that one to have a relationship with. I was baffled. And I sent you a message, but you were sleeping.

SPEAKER_01 18:32

Yeah, I wake up super early for work and it was like five? 5 a.m. that I know it was even earlier. And I I get this text message from you, and I was like, what? All right, let me look. I'm like, no, really? Out of all again, out of all of the people. Wow. Well, how am I literally stuck in the middle of this crap that's going on with you? Really? I don't know what God's trying to say.

SPEAKER_00 18:54

Well, we we have we know what we think it is now, but now that it's been through. But the funniest thing was waking up to your your phone calls and your text messages. It was get up, get up, get up, get up, get up. Like it was actually you can't text me and then I can't call you right back. No, it's for sure. It was it was one of those things where I text her at like 11 or midnight and then she called me at five. And I say that that day to me, because it was a Friday, and let's let's say this that neither of them knew that they were the people that they were the of who they were because you and my ex were not fans of each other. My ex thought for a very long time that her and I were actually in a relationship. That's another story for another time, another episode.

SPEAKER_01 19:39

Wait, really? Can I share that really quick?

SPEAKER_00 19:41

Let's do it. That's a good story. That's a great story. Should we go for it? You want me to say it? You can tell it. My ex thought because I wasn't sleeping with him enough that obviously there was a problem. And that problem was that I must have been a lesbian. So the only person that I would have been a lesbian with was with Jennifer. So he he basically thought that my best friend and I were sleeping together because I wasn't sleeping with him enough.

SPEAKER_01 20:04

Oh, I didn't help the matter by calling that one night. So many years ago.

SPEAKER_00 20:10

Well, I mean, are you gonna give all of my secrets away in this one episode?

SPEAKER_01 20:15

Wait, this is but it was funny. So we we went on a nearly weak trip.

SPEAKER_00 20:21

That's I I this has never like crossed my mind in that. I just thought he was annoyed because you called him late at night and I was being rejected. Oh, I can't.

unknown 20:31

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_01 20:32

See? This is funny. So we go, so like Nancy Ann is my like childhood best friend. I don't think that there is a one solo best friend. We all have best friends, multiple best friends, right? I have my childhood. I had my we'll call it the adulthood, and she's since um was in a car accident, passed away. But we used to go, her and I would go to um Santa Barbara every summer. That was like our trip. We would go and just for the weekend. We had our specific hotel that was awesome, specific room. We stayed in the exact same place all the time. And I love being able to go back and look at pictures. Anyways, this one year I we had Nancy Ann come with us. And we stayed in a totally different cutesy spot. And the first night she was super blitzed. Well, no, and you and I. Oh yeah, you and I. Okay, she was blitzed. Okay, yes. I was like, and I was like, all right, we gotta take care of her. Yep, put her to bed, and then the next night, Nancy Ann gets super blitzed.

SPEAKER_00 21:27

We had so much we had a blast. That was a great time party. We were dancing.

SPEAKER_01 21:32

It was a lot of fun until it was time to go to bed, and you big decided. I will you decided it was time for you to go at two o'clock in the morning. Yes. So she's running around the up the hotel room and going to Antilie, I'm leaving. Leaving. She didn't have a whole lot of clothes on because we were getting ready for bed. But she sure packed up her bag. She grabbed her suitcase, and I'm trying to calm this poor girl down. I have no clue why I was leaving. Leaving. Where are you going? I'm leaving. And so it's like, well, I don't know how to calm you down. So I decided to call your husband because, as a best friend, your husband should have been call me if you have a problem. It shouldn't have been an issue.

SPEAKER_00 22:13

I called. I could help fix it.

SPEAKER_01 22:15

I go, hey, it's Jen. I don't know how to calm your wife down because she thinks that she's gonna leave right now. I don't remember anything else. What happened after that? But after that, that was all of a sudden we couldn't really hang out as much as we were.

SPEAKER_00 22:29

No, it was he, yeah, he had issues. And so funny stories, we always have a blast. We always have a blast. I mean, I didn't drink until I was 21. So come on, cut me some slack. I didn't leave, I stayed, it was all good.

SPEAKER_01 22:44

Yeah, she was fine.

SPEAKER_00 22:45

But but the fact of the matter was is that there was this always this like issue between you and him, but it was, you know, that and we didn't even hang out all the time. We were so we text a lot, we talk a lot, but like the only time you would come to my apartment was when he was gone. I remember. And that says a lot. Like the only time we would go out or the only time that we could hang was and it like it wasn't it was always like if I was going out with you, it was an issue. And then when he said that to me, when he called me at work and told me he thought I was a lesbian, I had to leave my office and I was like crying and like shocked at what he was saying to me, like, what the freaking heck are you talking about? But it just kind of led me to believe he didn't know me at all. He he obviously didn't care and this had his cheating had already been happening for so long at this point. So I didn't I didn't I didn't know what to do. And so knowing that and then knowing how he felt about you, and then me calling you when he was missing later on when I would find out about his arrests, he does yeah, there was just he wasn't a fan, I guess. I guess I didn't have many fan I didn't have many friends that were outside of his like family friend group when during our marriage. Uh-huh. He kind of tells me now, like, oh well you could have had people over and you could have done this. And I'm like, yeah, no, I couldn't have. My mom, my mom would need to use the bathroom driving home from Disneyland, and she didn't feel comfortable coming into my apartment because he treated her so poorly to go to the bathroom to drive home. It was an uncomfortable situation being around him. And I only say that the only reason why he treated my mom so bad was because she was one of the ones that knew so much of what he had done to me. And instead of him try to fix that with my mom and try to apologize and make it right, he just actually treated her like crap. So it was a vicious cycle. Two, one. Okay, so let's go back to the point where obviously my ex and Jen not not caring for each other, and then him being in a relationship that was with somebody very close with you actually was kind of funny. That that Friday, I was in shock and I didn't realize I was in shock. I was freaking out. I was freaking out, but in a happier way, like, oh my gosh, God's giving me a sign that this is meant to be over. And I really was. It absolutely was a sign, but the shock didn't hit me until later on. Like, holy cow, how in the world did we end up here that this is what's really happening? It was it was quite shocking. And I I wish I could have been a fly on the wall when they both found out, because that's pretty funny. Well, he didn't like me, so now he's stuck with you. Man. It cracks me up. I'm I know all the bangers. Right. So this whole white girl crazy thing, Miss Not So Innocent. I am so back with the pudding story, and when that all went down in that same day, I I had this like epiphany that like if we're gonna work on this and he's gonna fix it and he's telling me it's not gonna happen again, I'm fixing it, I'm never gonna do this, it's gonna be good. We sat down and had a conversation after the anger had subsided and everything, and and we decided that it was we were gonna stay married, we were gonna be like this was it. We were gonna stay married, and he was gonna be on the straight and narrow, and I was gonna do the things that he needed for me to do that. And in that conversation, I felt a little bit of guilt that I needed to come clean with. And so I told him at that moment, I came clean to him and told him back years prior when this had first started going on, that I had had my own affair and that I had had that because of what was going on with what he did to me. And I wasn't being taken care of at home and I needed an outlet as well. And I was pissed and angry that he was doing all these horrible things to me. So I did it back to him. And I came clean with that information to him because I didn't want him to feel like he was the only he was, he was at fault, like it was only his fault with all of our issues going in. And I felt like if I had shared what I did, that maybe he could see how I had felt and that that would, you know, I don't want to say even the score, but like, okay, we put it all out on the table. We're coming clean, get it all out, we're done, let's move forward with our marriage. And because at this time we'd been married for like 16 years, 17 years at this point. And I was just done with it all. And so that's when I just was like, let's put it all out on the table. Now, mind you, all of the things that he has done to me this whole entire time in those 16 years and even after, none of it he told me. Not one of it. Not even the last relationship part. He couldn't even come clean about that. He lied about everything.

SPEAKER_01 27:30

So he never said that he was with any of these girls with all these emails and videos and all those things that you found.

SPEAKER_00 27:38

I would catch him and then confront him. He never would come forward, like he would never come to me and be like, listen, I messed up again. I'm really sorry. You know, like we start over again. We'll start over again. It's actually really kind of funny because the last year of our marriage, last two years of our marriage, after the big huge Vegas incident that happened, he kept on telling me, I've been faithful to you for over a year. I've been faithful to you for over a year, like making sure that I knew this information. And it's so funny that he could literally lie to my face and tell me he'd been faithful to me for so long and to like say it to me to make me feel better, but was in a a re like was in a full on blown physical mental relationship with somebody else, but yet still telling me, I've been faithful to you, I've been faithful to you. It's just it there was no truth at all whatsoever in the whole entire the whole entire time. I just I don't I think even to this day he says he doesn't know how to be honest with me. Like in anything.

SPEAKER_01 28:35

Well, I'm sorry, uh he's not gonna be honest with anybody. Yeah. If he's lied for the last 25 years and been constantly cheating for 25 years, it doesn't just stop. I mean, granted, maybe it can. Maybe she's changing him. I have no idea because that's their relationship. But it's it's hard to look at her dating him going, what is wrong? Like But she doesn't see it because I'm sure he's painting this great picture.

SPEAKER_00 29:01

Do you think she's she doesn't being honest because he's told her all of these things prior, so she thinks he's being honest, even though we know that that's not the case because a lot of those things she didn't know about.

SPEAKER_01 29:12

But Right. I mean, did the does she did she ever find out or know that while he was going to her, he would come to you right after?

SPEAKER_00 29:20

Well, I mean, from what we know that at the beginning, supposedly from what she says, is that she didn't know he was married, even though I think that's kind of bullshit.

SPEAKER_01 29:26

I mean, it that could be true. Because if he doesn't really share and he doesn't write.

SPEAKER_00 29:30

No. I get that part. She was his bartender for what, like two years prior. So, like, who knows what's really.

SPEAKER_01 29:36

He never said I guarantee you he never said he was married.

SPEAKER_00 29:38

For sure, 100%. Obviously, didn't wear a wedding ring, and all of his friends were doing the same thing he was doing, and I'm sure that they were like cheering him on, like, do it, do it, do it, because that's what the type of guys these guys are. And and it's funny because she even told she even said, like, he's a known liar in his group of friends. Like he's that's he's a known liar. And so she knows. So if she's, you know, if she's trying to fix him and make him a better person, then you be responsible for that. I don't have to deal with it anymore. But I did deal with it for 25 years and plus, and like we were saying, like calculated about 28 years of us being in a relationship, and that it's like he's her responsibility. I know.

SPEAKER_01 30:19

I know that people are gonna they're gonna want to know. Did you ever reach out to her?

SPEAKER_00 30:24

Actually, can I can I say actually was able to get us in contact at the very beginning, and this girl sent me a message saying, Oh, I'm so glad that you've that we've connected, and you know, if you're if you're Jen's best friend, then then that's amazing, and then you must be an amazing person. And and at this time, we only knew that they went on one date and that they liked each other. That's all we knew. My intuition after having that message with her back and forth kind of made me feel that that was Sus. And so a couple of days later, after that message where it was like, Oh, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all roses and dandelions and everything was all okay. I sent her a message saying, I don't, I need to know the truth. You guys aren't telling me the truth. And she said, That's not my that's not my truth to tell. And so obviously her saying that to me led me to believe that she'd been lying or that they'd been lying. And I said, I need to talk to him now. And she said, he'll talk to you what in like five minutes or what? He'll be at your apartment in five minutes. And I was like, ooh, she has some pool. Maybe she is changing him. She's got him wrapped around her pinky. Obviously, you know, the one important thing, this whole situation is that she's what, nine years younger than me, and she made that very clear that she's younger and prettier. So more power to you. But yeah, he came and talked to me and he kind of spilled the beans as much as he could. He gave me some truth, not a lot of the truth, but it was a vast bigger truth than what he had previously said, and realized that they'd been in a relationship as much as he could say it. They they were trying to save face as much as possible. They were trying to make it look like this relationship hadn't happened or started until after we were separated, and and that was not the case. I mean, you take your wife Valent Valentine's Day flowers and cards and and then take her cards and say it didn't mean anything and and flowers. That's how did you find out about that? Yeah. Well, I asked. I asked him. I just would ask questions and he would give me information. And he was he just spewed things he probably shouldn't have told me, but I was happy and glad for it. It gave me more information to really realize that this really was over and he was just blatantly lying to my face all the time. So I mean, it's if it were another person and if it was somebody else that he was having a full-blown relationship with and you didn't know them, it would be a different story because this made it so much more, I don't know the word, close, so much more personal.

SPEAKER_01 32:41

Well, I don't think you felt that you can confide in me because here I am stuck in the middle of somebody who I care about and you who I love, right? So I don't want to take size and I'm trying to be very much in the middle, which isn't fair to you. No, I mean it's because I know what it was like for you for 25 years and to try to explain to her and a little frustrated because I'm like, what don't you see? Then again, it's not my place. Yeah. If this is who she you don't want to in a relationship, she will hey again, will she change him? Who knows? Maybe. Oh, there's somebody for everybody, and maybe this is that.

SPEAKER_00 33:20

And I don't I don't care. I don't, I I don't care what happens to either of them. For a couple of months into this, up until Christmas, I was just like, I'm gonna change her mind because she does not know what she's getting into. I made it my mission to tell her, and I did some not some nice things, you know. I sent some text messages and some voicemails that weren't the nicest, and I made some phone calls that weren't the best.

SPEAKER_01 33:45

I don't recommend that to anybody listening.

SPEAKER_00 33:47

Don't definitely hide the crazy. Don't do what I did. But I will tell you that I am not perfect. I'm not, and I was still in a state of shock, and I was so angry for that month and a half of like him lying to me, trying to fix it. Like he could have been done. He could have been done in January, he could have been done in June, but he continued to lead me on, and it was so frustrating. And I was so like grossed out and hurt that I had allowed this to happen in my life that, and like I said, I'm not perfect. I did some not nice things. I I talked to those people on the phone. I drank a little bit too much some nights and called. I did some very not cool things, but I never did anything that was illegal or anything that was super bad. I definitely don't recommend doing any of those things. It's not great. And you regret those things later on. Now, now, like it was the beginning of the new year. I think the new year hit, and I had so many good things to look forward to in the new year. And actually going through the my first holidays without, you know, not being married and not having the family, even though the family was there, they made that very clear to me. It was still, I just couldn't do it. I couldn't be around that family with that dynamic, knowing that he was going to be a part of that family with somebody else. It just doesn't, that doesn't work with me. And I needed to create my own life now. I needed to venture out and just be done with them. And I swear the new year hit and it was like, game on. It's Nancy Ann's new chapter. And now I'm here today. Like this is our first episode since I've had surgery and I had a full hysterectomy. And I really truly believe that having that massive, huge growth that was in my stomach, my uterus weighed twice the size or twice the weight that it was supposed to be of a normal uterus. I had almost a basketball size, size fibroid in my stomach, and now it's removed and the joy that I feel after surgery, and it's only been a week out, and I feel like I can go like run a marathon right now because I feel so good. And your wedding, like all the things that happened after the new year, and now I fit into clothes and I my body feels great, and I I have this new sense. It's like that book closed and I'm starting the new one. The joy I feel and the happiness, like I don't even have a care now anymore about what happens to either of them. And I don't, I'm I'm not a fixer. I can't fix her, I can't fix him. It's not my responsibility anymore. My responsibility is myself, and that's that's I mean, that's what I'm doing. I can't focus anymore on that, even though I'm embarrassed by some of my actions, you know, at some point because I didn't hide the crazy, but it's passed. He didn't. It's passed.

SPEAKER_01 36:22

And I can say that Yeah, but I think that being able to admit it and know that you were in the wrong. Yeah. Or the crazy. Yeah. Not your feelings weren't wrong. It was just the reaching out and yeah, I navigated it incorrectly.

SPEAKER_00 36:37

I should have just called you like I did previously every time I got angry. Go to my therapist, go to my best friend, write it down on a piece of paper, like you said. Like write it down, delete it. If you're gonna send a bad text, type it to yourself, delete it afterwards, do something, find another outlet to get that out because it's not necessarily the best to have communication like I did.

SPEAKER_01 36:56

It was not being able to cut ties. Yeah. Has he tried to reach out to you at all since these uh podcasts have come out?

SPEAKER_00 37:02

He sent me a text and an email before the first episode, I believe. I think that's what it was. Or or my first episode came out, like episode two. With with a the vague message that said, Can we talk? And he had previously known that I had said I didn't want to talk with him anymore, like everything needed to be through either text or email. So I felt that that was, you know, a little bit disrespectful. And so I just didn't respond and I didn't hear from him again. Haven't heard anything. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:32

Well, that's that's good. That's one step, that's one hurdle that you're overcoming, is not feeling that you have to run to his beck and call every time.

SPEAKER_00 37:38

Like I just I'm I'm shocked at where I am now, but to have a best friend like you, to be put in the situation that you were put in, to have a best friend like me who's just psycho crazy sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 37:49

I mean They do say the tall blonde is always a little more psycho than the short brunette. So we're we're right on target.

SPEAKER_00 37:54

I mean, it's the truth. Unfortunately, I am a lot. I definitely am a lot, and everyone knows it. But the funny thing is right now is that all the family and friends that I have right now are totally accepting of my psycho craziness. Like, I mean, some of your friends and family are now my close friends and family. Like, they look at my crazy and are totally fine with it. They don't care how loud I am, they don't care about any of that kind of stuff. And that's and they actually think it's funny or they like it. I could give your sister-in-law a hug. I can't explain the happiness that I have in my life right now. It's just pure joy. And to be that far and it hasn't even been a year yet, and I'm coming up onto it in a couple months. That life has definitely changed for the better, 100%. I've learned a lot of tough lessons, but you still have been neutral. And probably the reason why it happened and the way Satan and God worked it the way it did was that God working it for good is that this is this was the light that I saw. There was no going back. There was no trying to fix things anymore. Clear as day in front of me that this was over and that there was I had to move forward.

SPEAKER_01 39:02

You know, we have talked about it earlier. There's so many women who are going through something super similar, if not identical, uh-huh. And they're in this like marriage they don't know how to get out of. Yep. And you don't have the support you need, but there are so many places to get the support, to get the help. It's hard to tell you to leave because I think that's one thing I never really did. I I I probably brought it up once or twice, like, okay, yes, why are you still with him? And I do remember having the conversation when you were like, I told, I told him about the affair, and you know, we're gonna do this all over. It's gonna be and in my head, I was like, You're crazy, but I never said that to your face. I said, okay. And I would just roll my eyes going, she's still sleeping with him? Okay.

SPEAKER_00 39:45

Yeah. And I just for me in the beginning, if I would have known I could have left, like it would have been okay, instead of me trying to have a different outcome than what had happened with my dad, because I feel like that was what my focus was on. I'm definitely in a situation of dealing with my dad and my ex, who were both born on the same day, mind you, that I was gonna have a different outcome in my marriage than my mom did. And that was a delusion that I had that I just kept on continuing with. And if I would have learned early on that that wasn't the case and that I didn't need to stay and that wasn't gonna be like life ending and know that I was gonna be fine, I would have left. And I think that a lot of people need to understand that.

SPEAKER_01 40:27

What would that have taken though? Because I know there's uh you had other family that were trying to give you a little bit of the support and to kind of tell you, do you think that if your mom sat you down and said, Listen, this is what I went through, these are the things, would you have even listened to her?

SPEAKER_00 40:40

No, I think that it would have definitely had to have been somebody else because both my mom and my sister were very vocal in me at the very beginning of not even getting married to this person. And I should have listened. So I don't know, and I didn't. So I don't know what it would have taken because I I don't know. I wish that I could help younger women who are stuck in this situation. And I feel like hearing my experiences that are so like gnarly and like psycho crazy, that maybe I'd be like, oh gosh, I don't want to end up like her, or I'm going through something similar. Jeez, can I reach out? And to be honest with you, I mean, I'm I've been pleasantly shocked, and my heart feels amazing when people have reached out to us. It hurts when people are saying to us they're sending it to people that they think that need it, need to hear it in their lives because they have people that are going through the same thing or they have friends that are going through the same thing and need to listen to our podcast to maybe open their eyes. I don't know if it's because we're just so amateur at doing this and we're just talking and telling our stories and having like a conversation like we're best friends, instead of it being like what the church says we're best friends. You know what I'm saying? Like it's not the church. You're not in something that's like, but yes, you and I could talk for hours, have coffee, and then switch to wine, and we could talk for 24 hours and then continue again after we slept for a little bit. But but thank you, Larry. But you know, it's it's not just one or two people that have reached out to us. We have been reached out to every day, every day, by people who have either dealt with a situation like yours or dealt with a situation like mine. And it's just a reformation of the reason why we started this in the first place was to if we could have just reached one person, that was what we thought at the very beginning. If we could reach just one, it was worth it. But now So many stories are coming out. So many, and it's just it breaks my heart to hear these stories. And at the at the same time, I'm feeling like, okay, if we can just help somebody now. I mean, obviously, our story is reaching people, which I'm so shocked about still, but like super excited about. Like, this is so cool. And I get to have the release, and you get to have the release, and it's helping us too through our own personal therapy. Like, what more can we what more can we want? I mean, God is leading our lives into the most amazing year of I know for at least for me, this has been one of the most amazing years. I know you've had an amazing year so far as well. And I mean, how blessed can we be?

SPEAKER_01 43:07

If you're listening and this resonates with you and you need some help, please, please reach out. We will always put some type of resources on our website at thebestieblendpodcast.com. If you have not followed us, please follow us on social media at the bestie blend. Yes, please follow us. Follow and listen. And yeah. And we just really want you guys to know you're not alone. There's so many uh so many more of us out there.

SPEAKER_00 43:34

We're gonna be talking a lot more about both of our stories some more and going into other people's stories. It's gonna be so much fun.

SPEAKER_01 43:41

This yeah, this is the end of this one. We're excited to say that we're gonna have a couple guest speakers, which I'm super excited about. Absolutely stuff. If you feel that you want to share, your face won't be shown, and there's always a way we can disguise your voice because AI is pretty dang cool.

SPEAKER_00 43:56

But we can also tell stories for people too. If you Don't feel comfortable at all coming on, you can share it if that helps at all, either. We're willing to do whatever it takes to help people get their stories out there to get the same release that we felt. So I think it's really worth it to be able to just feel as as happy as we do right now. It's really important. And I know it takes time, but just know that this has been awesome for us and that anyone who wants to share can do it. We'll figure out a way to do it.

SPEAKER_01 44:24

The grass is so green on the other side.

SPEAKER_00 44:26

We hear you, we see you.

SPEAKER_01 44:28

Bye, bestie. Bye, bestie.