Listener Mail - How Do I Help My Friend? | Betrayal Weekly S1

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Speaker 36 One of the last things I said to her was, when you go into that courtroom, you have to pick a side to sit on. You can sit with your daughter or you can sit with your husband.

Speaker 36 And I hope that you're able to make the right choice.

Speaker 37 I'm Andrea Gunning, and this is a special bonus episode of Betrayal.

Speaker 37 A few months ago, we got an email from a listener that stood out to our team. We're going to call this listener Elizabeth.

Speaker 37 She had watched season two of Betrayal on Hulu, which tells the story of a stepdaughter that was violated by her stepfather.

Speaker 37 Elizabeth wrote to us because the same thing was playing out in her own life, or rather, in her best friend's life.

Speaker 37 Elizabeth and her friend, we'll call her Sarah, have been close for 13 years. They used to live in the same apartment building.
Their daughters were around the same age.

Speaker 37 Sarah was raising her daughter with her new husband, who became her stepdad, the only father her daughter knew. Elizabeth and Sarah's families became close.

Speaker 37 They planned joint family vacations and shared holidays. Elizabeth felt like an aunt to Sarah's daughter, who is now 19.

Speaker 37 A few months ago, Sarah texted Elizabeth saying she needed to talk. It was an emergency.

Speaker 36 She basically just started sobbing and told me everything.

Speaker 36 She had been in the car with her daughter that day, and she had said something about her husband breaking a pattern of abuse because he was abused, sexually abused as a child.

Speaker 36 And she was so glad he was breaking the pattern of abuse. And that was when her daughter decided she couldn't take it anymore and she had to tell her.

Speaker 37 Sarah's daughter shared that her stepfather had sexually abused her.

Speaker 36 It started in 2016 for her, so she was 11 years old.

Speaker 37 After Sarah found out, she confronted her husband.

Speaker 36 And he admitted to everything.

Speaker 36 Yes, I did this. Yes, I did that.

Speaker 36 She had already packed a bag for him and told him that he needed to go and stay with his mother, which was in a house about half hour from them, and that he had a week's worth of clothes and she would talk to him later.

Speaker 36 So he didn't argue.

Speaker 33 He left immediately.

Speaker 36 And then the daughter wanted to go and report it to the police.

Speaker 37 Sarah went with her daughter to report the crime. And a few months later, her husband was charged with multiple counts of child abuse.
He got out on bond and is awaiting his court date.

Speaker 37 But that's just the beginning of our episode because Sarah struggled to let her husband go.

Speaker 36 She would ask me, you know, what do I do? And I basically told her, well, you kind of have to pretend in your mind like he's dead.

Speaker 36 You need to grieve it like a loss because the person you knew and the relationship you had and the future that you were planning is gone. We talked about that a lot.
How do I do that?

Speaker 36 And I said, I can't tell you how to do that. I don't know how to do that.
That's something you're going to have to figure out, but that's what I think that you should do at this point.

Speaker 37 That message wasn't getting through to Sarah.

Speaker 36 My friend was and is very attached to him and very much in love with him.

Speaker 37 When Sarah first found out, she cut off communication with her husband. She ignored his texts begging for forgiveness.
But when he texted about everyday things like chores and bills, she would engage.

Speaker 37 That progressed into longer phone conversations and visits. Then they started going to therapy together.

Speaker 37 Within a few weeks of the police report, Sarah's husband was back at home sleeping in their bed. The night it happened, Sarah's daughter left the house.
She went to stay with her grandparents.

Speaker 37 You may be wondering, what about child protective services? Well, Sarah's daughter is 19 now, an adult. So legally, her stepdad was allowed back in the same house.

Speaker 37 In the absence of a protective order, there was nothing law enforcement could do. There's limited interventions for adults in this situation.
For Elizabeth, her friend's decision was unimaginable.

Speaker 37 It was so unlike Sarah, and it just seemed wrong.

Speaker 36 I texted Sarah and I said, listen, if this is the route that you're going to go down,

Speaker 36 I can't be a part of this. I can't understand how you could do this.
And if you want to explain it to me, I'm willing to listen, but

Speaker 36 I can't support this. And she said,

Speaker 36 I don't need to explain my feelings to anybody. I am doing what I'm doing and it's not my responsibility to make sure that you understand.

Speaker 36 I just want everybody to let me do what I want to do. And I said, well, I respect your decision to have a choice, but I don't respect your choice and I'm not going to be a part of this any longer.

Speaker 36 And she said, that's all I'm asking for is a little bit of respect, not understanding, but I will live with my choices for the rest of my life. And those are my choices.

Speaker 37 This is what Elizabeth wrote to us. She felt helpless watching her best friend let this man back into her life.

Speaker 37 She worried that saying too much might blow up the friendship and further isolate Sarah from the people who love her.

Speaker 37 But more than anything, she wanted to get through to Sarah because Elizabeth felt as though her friend was choosing her own attachments and needs over her daughter.

Speaker 37 And Elizabeth felt like that was the wrong choice.

Speaker 37 Our team has heard countless stories like this to the point where we couldn't ignore this topic, where loved ones watch from afar as someone lets an abuser back into their life.

Speaker 37 It's an incredibly painful thing to watch.

Speaker 37 People can draw boundaries that end relationships. It's something we can all relate to on some level.
That's why we wanted to have this conversation.

Speaker 37 We saw Elizabeth's question as a way into a larger discussion about the role of loved ones in these cases. What can we say when someone isn't ready to end their relationship with an abuser?

Speaker 37 Elizabeth asked for advice from Ashley Trujillo, the subject of season two of Betrayal. Ashley has been through something similar to Sarah.

Speaker 37 Her husband Jason was arrested for possession of child sexual abuse material. Among the material in his stash were images of Aveya, images he'd taken in secret.
However, he had not been hands-on.

Speaker 37 And while Jason awaited sentencing, Ashley tried to salvage the relationship. She went straight into wifey mode, as she calls it.

Speaker 37 It wasn't until she saw the full discovery file against Jason that she finally decided to leave him.

Speaker 37 But those few months Ashley stayed with him have had lasting impacts on her relationship with her daughter.

Speaker 37 So we invited Ashley Trujillo to talk with Elizabeth, and she agreed. We also brought in Jessica Baum, a licensed clinical therapist, to help guide the conversation.

Speaker 37 Jess worked closely with Ashley during season two of Betrayal. You'll hear more from Jess as the conversation unfolds.
But let's start with Elizabeth and Ashley.

Speaker 36 I'm so glad to talk to you specifically because actually you were the one I wanted to talk to when I first emailed in to the podcast.

Speaker 36 It was, does Ashley have any advice for, you know, the friends and the family when you first went back to Jason, when you first did that? And I'm certain everybody around you was like, why?

Speaker 36 Why are you doing that? And for me, even now with Sarah, do I yell these things at her?

Speaker 36 Or should I have just shut up? Should I have just said what she wanted, which was I'm here to support you no matter what, even when I didn't agree?

Speaker 36 What would you have wanted?

Speaker 34 In hindsight, yeah. Somebody should have shook me, smacked me, dunked my head in water.
I don't know, whatever it was, to wake me up. But I don't know if any of that would have.

Speaker 34 worked because at the end of the day that had nothing to do with how everybody everybody else was feeling or what they thought I should do or what they thought was the right thing to do.

Speaker 34 Because in my mind, I was doing the right thing.

Speaker 34 So if they had said something, I don't remember.

Speaker 34 But to answer your question, I don't know if saying anything

Speaker 34 in that moment is more for her or for you.

Speaker 34 And that's hard. because you have to be true to you and be true to like how your friendship has always been with her.

Speaker 34 I think for anyone that is listening and is in that situation, there's a lot of factors that you have to consider.

Speaker 34 And my family considered that they were afraid I was going to be suicidal because my whole life blew up. And I already suffered from depression.
So I think they were very aware of that.

Speaker 34 And they didn't want to be the reason why I decided like, okay, today's the day because everyone thinks I'm disgusting and gross. All these feelings I already felt inside myself.

Speaker 34 So I think that that's a factor you have to consider. I don't know if that even answers it, but it does.
Yeah, you don't know if you would have heard it, no matter what anybody had said.

Speaker 36 And that's, I think that's how I felt with Sarah.

Speaker 36 I've always had a very open, honest relationship with her, because that's just how I am personally. I don't tend to keep things in.
If I want to say something, I say it. So it was really hard.

Speaker 36 The way I described everything was just walking on eggshells. When we left her house that weekend that we were there right after it happened, we went to her sister and brother-in-law's house.

Speaker 36 And I remember just sitting at the table and just crying because it felt like a release just to talk to people normally, just to say what I wanted to say.

Speaker 36 Because you have to be very careful, especially we don't have to be, but I felt like I needed to be very careful.

Speaker 34 Oh, my whole family said that. They've all said that, like word for word.
We were on eggshells with you. We didn't know if what we were saying was right or if it was wrong.
Yeah.

Speaker 34 Another thing that I really want to to highlight with the whole situation is Avea

Speaker 34 or Sarah's daughter.

Speaker 34 Even though I spent a couple months in denial,

Speaker 34 that was two months and we are three years out.

Speaker 34 And my relationship with Aveya is still healing from my betrayal to Aveya.

Speaker 34 You know, I have been her safe spot her whole life. I'm the constant thing that she's ever known.
And for me to,

Speaker 34 I don't want to even say discount like what he did to her. Because in my brain, I had no idea I was even doing that.
I didn't know.

Speaker 34 I thought whatever I was doing was for the greater good of my family.

Speaker 34 And being able to like take those Worlds College glasses off, I was able to kind of see it from a bird's eye view and see what I had done to Obeya.

Speaker 34 And, you know, speaking to my family about it, and we've spoke a lot about it during that time time, because they're like, when we heard that you were seeing Jason or you were going back into wife mode, we thought, what the hell is she doing?

Speaker 34 Like, what the hell is she doing? And so when they told me that, I'm like, why didn't you do something or say something to me?

Speaker 34 And

Speaker 34 kind of the collective idea around it, because it wasn't just, you know, one person, it was my whole family.

Speaker 34 you know, and I think they already knew that whatever was going on, they didn't want to lose me too.

Speaker 34 And so they just loved me. And

Speaker 34 I talked to Anna, my sister. I talked to her the other day when we were kind of preparing for this.
And I was like,

Speaker 34 you know what? What do you think? Like, what would you have done?

Speaker 34 And she told me, had I stayed with him or continued to rationalize what he did, she doesn't think she would have been able to have a relationship with me.

Speaker 34 Just because of her own like moral compass. She was like, I love you and I continue to love you, but

Speaker 34 I couldn't witness that.

Speaker 34 So,

Speaker 34 yeah, my relationship with Vea and Sarah's relationship with her daughter should be like, to me, at least the pinnacle of all of this.

Speaker 34 And I think that's what makes it hard for everyone that's watching Sarah go through this is to see her not connect those two together. Because Aveya is

Speaker 34 completely different person

Speaker 34 than she was before this.

Speaker 34 It's changed her fundamentally. And I know that two months had a lot to do with it.

Speaker 36 Sarah and I talked about your story, Ashley, because your season was the one that she had told me about and that I had watched at the beginning of January.

Speaker 36 And, you know, she said, This is just like that Hulu episode. And I said, yeah, it's exactly like that.

Speaker 34 Yeah.

Speaker 34 And doing the podcast or doing Hulu for me, it was super important for me to say what I did, to say that I took him back, to say that I rationalized all of those things because I knew that I was not the only one.

Speaker 37 If you've heard season two, you'll know that eventually the glass shattered for Ashley. She finally saw Jason for who he was and the danger he possessed.

Speaker 37 Ashley's been repairing her relationship with her daughter ever since.

Speaker 37 She can understand Sarah's pain and why Elizabeth is desperate for Sarah to have that glass shatter moment.

Speaker 34 Second thing I wanted to say is how wonderful of a friend you are.

Speaker 36 It's really hard to hear because it doesn't feel like being a wonderful friend.

Speaker 34 I'm just sorry. I'm sorry that you had to witness this.
I'm sorry that,

Speaker 34 man, I don't, it's just a really terrible thing when I see that from like my family and our friends, you know, what a terrible thing to have to witness.

Speaker 34 You know, because there are some people in mine and Jason's lives that couldn't.

Speaker 34 I don't fault them for that.

Speaker 34 I mean, I'm sad for that relationship to be gone, but I understand why they could not. continue to be a part of mine and the kids' lives.

Speaker 34 So it's a choice for you to be where you're at.

Speaker 36 I can't lie and say it's not a choice, especially right now that I'm really struggling with.

Speaker 36 I understand that, you know, my reaction to her when she was saying, I don't need to explain myself to you, you know, I just need you to respect me. I understand that it's not about me.

Speaker 36 It's never been about me. Her world is blown up right now and she has no space in it for one more person's problems and how they're feeling about the situation, which is absolutely true.

Speaker 36 And to me, you know, when he did what he did to her daughter, that can't be overcome.

Speaker 37 This is where Jessica Baum jumped in to offer her expertise.

Speaker 33 Elizabeth, I think you can't fathom how she could choose this man over his daughter, which has a lot to do.

Speaker 33 also with what that brings up inside of you, which clearly you have a very strong and appropriate response to that level of betrayal she might be doing to her daughter by choosing this love over her daughter.

Speaker 33 And so that's one piece. But a really big piece of this is about attachment and how our brains work.

Speaker 33 And our brains actually have us live in denial and remember the good times when these kinds of things come up to protect us. We are wired to stay in connection.

Speaker 33 So Sarah is wired to stay in connection with this guy. And it wasn't that black and white for Ashley either.

Speaker 33 I mean, there were many, many good years where Jason showed up and he was a wonderful person and he was a good father.

Speaker 33 And there's all these layers to this where your brain wants to focus and even romanticize and needs to in order to survive. And that's how we're wired.

Speaker 33 We're not wired to look at the bad stuff and just leave. Every domestic violent case, every person in any kind of situation would.
flip a script and just walk out if it was that easy.

Speaker 33 And attachment is just so layered. So Sarah was in her own way in a form of denial.
I also feel like with Sarah, she's involved in the therapeutic process with this man.

Speaker 33 I don't know how much Sarah was

Speaker 33 involved in understanding his trauma. And I'm saying that that might not be a good thing.
She might have over identified with his wounded parts

Speaker 33 and under identified with how he wounded her daughter.

Speaker 33 So there was an over-identification, maybe even a self-sacrifice on her end for this little boy in him who got abused and wanting to help that little boy that she wasn't able to see how this adult man was hurting her kid.

Speaker 33 I don't know if that helps, but this is how our brain works and this is how trauma works. And, you know, Ashley and I, we were in the grief process for a really long time together.

Speaker 33 It's not like this easy process. I mean, 13-year marriage, I mean, Ashley and I spent more time thinking about how wonderful Jason was.
And that's where her brain wanted to go for a while.

Speaker 33 And that was important for Ashley to get to the other side and integrate the full version of Jason, not the good and the bad, but all of the behaviors and make sense of them all.

Speaker 33 Then I think you had a really appropriate response as a friend. And you're clearly trying to put some of the pieces together.
And I'm just trying to help clarify.

Speaker 33 how challenging it is to be in Sarah's position. Not that I'm okay with her choices, but her choices make sense, Really, when you understand attachment, they can start to make sense.

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Speaker 4 This is Sophie Cunningham from Show Me Something.

Speaker 9 Do you know the symptoms of moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea or OSA in adults with obesity?

Speaker 11 They may be happening to you without you knowing.

Speaker 6 If anyone has ever said you snored loudly or if you spend your days fighting off excessive tiredness, irritability, and concentration issues, it may be due to OSA.

Speaker 15 OSA is a serious condition where your airway partially or completely collapses during sleep, which may cause breathing interruptions and oxygen deprivation.

Speaker 18 Learn more at don'tsleeponosa.com.

Speaker 10 This information is provided by Lilly, a medicine company.

Speaker 20 It starts like any other night.

Speaker 22 The glass of red, the cozy blanket, then the drop.

Speaker 24 The stains so dark, so stubborn, it might as well have been a crime scene.

Speaker 27 But this isn't your average couch.

Speaker 20 This is Anna Bay.

Speaker 28 Fully washable, unspeakably comfortable, and ready for whatever your life, your kids, or your ex throws at it.

Speaker 23 And here's the kicker.

Speaker 30 Starting at just $6.99, you can make sure your sofa isn't part of the problem. Fully washable, stain-resistant, and built to hide even the darkest offenses.

Speaker 23 Right now, get up to 60% off in Black Friday savings because no one should have to live with a stain that won't quit.

Speaker 31 Anna Bay, the only mystery you won't be losing sleep over.

Speaker 23 Shop washable sofas.com today. That's washable sofas.com.

Speaker 37 We're having a conversation with a listener named Elizabeth. Her best friend is stuck in a state of denial, trying to repair with a husband who sexually abused her daughter.

Speaker 37 Watching her friend Sarah make this decision is excruciating because for her, it's bigger than their friendship. It's about Sarah's 19-year-old daughter.

Speaker 37 Elizabeth watched Sarah's daughter grow up and helped care for her. They're like family.
Here's Elizabeth.

Speaker 36 Even when Sarah and I weren't talking, I stayed in contact with her daughter because it was really important for her to know: you know, if I do not speak to your mother again, ever, which we didn't say that to her, I would tell her, your mom and I are having a hard time right now.

Speaker 36 But no matter what, that doesn't affect you and me, like our relationship. You have your circle.
You have this support, no matter what.

Speaker 36 And her daughter really kind of broke my heart and explained to me that all of these reactions that we're all having don't necessarily mean anything to her because this happened so long ago that this is not new for her.

Speaker 36 She's like, you guys are having big reactions because this is brand new information for you. This is not brand new for me.

Speaker 36 So she said that all she had wanted was for somebody to believe her, to be able to say it and for somebody to believe her, which of course, everybody did instantly.

Speaker 36 And she's finally in therapy and everything, which her mother helped her get. And all she would tell me was, I don't understand what's going on.
I don't understand.

Speaker 36 But she never seemed to be mad. To me, she never said, I feel like she's choosing him.
I feel abandoned. I feel left out.

Speaker 36 They are so very, very close, which was one of the questions that I wanted to come in with today, which is,

Speaker 36 if I do not continue a relationship with her mother, And to be really honest, at this point, I don't know if I can. I don't know yet.
But if I don't, how would I explain to her daughter?

Speaker 36 Just because you're close with your mom doesn't mean you need to follow what she's doing, doesn't mean it's okay.

Speaker 36 And how do I continue to support her and say those things without her daughter pushing me away just because we're disagreeing with her mother, who she's so loyal to?

Speaker 33 I keep going back to the theme of like connection is a biological imperative. So her daughter is preserving the connection with her mom as best she can.

Speaker 33 And, you know, it's heartbreaking for us on the outside to see the daughter kind of sacrifice because the natural response to this type of abuse is rage. That is a healthy response.

Speaker 33 And if she's really doing some trauma work and working therapeutically, the hope is that the therapist will help her access what it feels like when someone perpetrates your boundaries like that.

Speaker 33 But again, we don't want to push her there in a therapeutic setting.

Speaker 33 They might help her see this and make the healthiest choices for her, but it might be too scary for her to set big boundaries with her mom right now.

Speaker 33 And I think the best thing you can do for her daughter is be a listener, hold space for her, but don't try to fix her or advise her. If she is in therapy, they can help her set the boundaries.

Speaker 33 You just need to hold the space and work through. with you, Elizabeth, what's coming up in you.
And you might want to work through that with somebody else.

Speaker 33 Like, I want to tell this daughter this and I want to tell her to this and I'm having all this anger. And all of that is about you.

Speaker 33 And I'm not, it's totally valid, but it's for you to work through in your own kind of space around all of that, because that's how you can kind of keep the boundaries a little bit better for you.

Speaker 33 That does help a lot.

Speaker 36 Because that was a big question I had, you know, what do we say?

Speaker 33 You can hold space. If she's asking, that's another thing.
But with enough enough therapy, she will get there on her own time, I believe.

Speaker 33 In her own way, in her own safety, she will say, wait a minute, let me look at where my rage is, or she might access those things, but you can't make her get there faster if she's not ready, I guess is what I'm trying to say.

Speaker 33 Yeah.

Speaker 36 And that makes perfect cities.

Speaker 36 And I remember one of the last things I said to Sarah was, when you go into that courtroom, you have to pick a side to sit on. You can sit with your daughter or you can sit with your husband.

Speaker 36 And I hope that you're able to make the right choice.

Speaker 36 And I didn't tell her what I felt the right choice was, but I told her, you can choose whatever you want, but there are consequences to your choices.

Speaker 36 And this is a consequence because there was no way to continue forward with him in her life still, in that way, in my opinion. I didn't do it as a punishment.

Speaker 36 This is not a it's him or me me situation. It was never that.

Speaker 36 So Jess,

Speaker 36 was drawing that boundary at that time the right thing to do?

Speaker 33 Yeah, I mean, I have a couple of things to say about that, but boundaries, you said so brilliantly, boundaries aren't about punishing another person or controlling another person.

Speaker 33 They're about protecting ourselves. Right.

Speaker 33 And so the boundary that you set was for your own emotional health, you know, to protect yourself from what you were seeing that was causing a lot of distress inside of you.

Speaker 33 So, when I set a boundary, I try to say, Hey, I'm doing this for me. This is why I'm doing it.

Speaker 33 But I mean, attachment runs deep. And there are times you want to say, Why don't you just leave? And it's not that simple.
It's not that easy.

Speaker 33 When you describe their love, it sounds like Sarah has a very early attachment bond.

Speaker 33 She will override what we all think she should do to stay in relationship to not face the fear of losing her person.

Speaker 33 She's surviving and staying in an attachment that gives the illusion of being safer or more security, then leaving and facing the deep well of aloneness or emptiness her system knows that she might have to face without him.

Speaker 34 Honestly, that was, that was me. Like, what Sarah did was me.

Speaker 34 We did Bible study together after this.

Speaker 34 Like, I still am dealing with some of that shit. So I'm like,

Speaker 34 but

Speaker 34 there was something going, there was inside of me, I couldn't, I couldn't rationalize it. I could not believe that Jason was my husband and he was a sex offender.

Speaker 34 I couldn't. They're two different people.
I look back at it now and I'm like, Something was wrong inside of my brain. It wasn't connecting everything correctly.

Speaker 34 It is the weirdest phenomenon.

Speaker 33 Often it's not about the other person's behavior. It's not about this guy's behavior.
It's about what part of myself do I need to face if I actually leave this relationship that's terrifying me.

Speaker 33 Her brain is going to work really hard to minimize things to keep connection with him. And everybody on the outside is going to look at this and it's very black and white.

Speaker 33 But when you're on the inside and you're living it, it's not that black away. And it wasn't that black and white for Ashley either.

Speaker 33 I mean, I had to meet Ashley and I had to say, of course, you love him, of course, you miss him, of course, tell me about the good years.

Speaker 33 It wouldn't have worked if I just went in black and white with you, Ashley. It just wouldn't have worked.

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Speaker 4 This is Sophie Cunningham from Show Me Something.

Speaker 5 Do you know the symptoms of moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea or OSA in adults with obesity?

Speaker 11 They may be happening to you without you knowing.

Speaker 6 If anyone has ever said you snored loudly or if you spend your days fighting off excessive tiredness, irritability, and concentration issues, it may be due to OSA.

Speaker 15 OSA is a serious condition where your airway partially or completely collapses during sleep, which may cause breathing interruptions and oxygen deprivation.

Speaker 18 Learn more at don'tsleeponosa.com.

Speaker 10 This information is provided by Lilly, a medicine company.

Speaker 20 It starts like any other night.

Speaker 32 The glass of red, the cozy blanket, then the drop.

Speaker 24 The stains so dark, so stubborn, it might as well have been a crime scene.

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Speaker 38 When the holidays start to feel a bit repetitive, reach for a Sprite Winter Spice Cranberry and put your twist on tradition.

Speaker 38 It's a refreshing way to shake things up this sip in season and only for a limited time. Sprite, obey your thirst.

Speaker 37 Our listener Elizabeth has been taking this all in. And through the conversation, She realized that it's not just about what she should say to her friend.

Speaker 37 It's about her own experience of watching Sarah make this choice. For Elizabeth, that might be a decision she can't overlook.

Speaker 36 I was so looking forward to talking to both of you today, but I love hearing that from a therapist's point of view, from a licensed therapist's point of view, because I never thought about that.

Speaker 36 You know, like I said, I went with my husband literally saying the same things over and over, begging him, pretend I'm not an adult and tell me exactly step by step, what do I do?

Speaker 36 That's all I want right now is for somebody to tell me exactly what to do. Pretend I'm a child, give me the next steps, because I don't know anymore.

Speaker 36 But I kind of landed on it with, I guess now it is about me at this point and whether

Speaker 36 is that moral issue that I have a problem with, even though I understand.

Speaker 36 that it is a moral issue that I have within myself.

Speaker 36 Do I now continue the friendship when I feel like

Speaker 36 the foundation of who we are as people, to me, her foundation has shifted. And who I thought she was is not who she was.

Speaker 36 And

Speaker 36 when the dust settles,

Speaker 36 is who she is changed for me?

Speaker 36 And the answer is yes.

Speaker 36 So what do I do with that now?

Speaker 34 Right. I think that you have to do what's safe for you, you know, and safe for your mental health.
And

Speaker 34 I'll leave you with this.

Speaker 34 There is not a day that goes by that I don't feel

Speaker 34 like I did the wrong thing.

Speaker 34 And I will live with that for the rest of my life. I'm not saying Sarah will, because

Speaker 34 I don't know her. And I don't know if she's going to go back with them or what that's going to look like.
But there's not a day that goes by that I don't.

Speaker 34 I don't try to make up for that failure in every way,

Speaker 34 every way I can, especially around, you know, Avea. Aveya.

Speaker 34 But I feel for you.

Speaker 34 And I think whatever you do moving forward doesn't discount the friendship that you had with her and how you looked at her and how much you love her, how much you love her daughter and her family.

Speaker 34 It doesn't discount any of that. And I know that whatever you do going forward is going to be best for you and your family.
And you have to do that.

Speaker 36 I appreciate that. And, you know, it's interesting to me that you don't remember if anybody has said anything in the moment.

Speaker 36 And I wonder if Sarah will get there, you know, in a couple of years, if she'll forget everything that was said. And I'm okay.
It's fine if she does.

Speaker 36 But I just hope that she felt loved and supported through it all the way that you did.

Speaker 36 You know, I think that you telling your story just in this podcast period is incredibly brave.

Speaker 36 and amazing and so helpful to people, obviously to complete strangers you know somewhere that you don't even know in the world because it's a ripple you know apart from the core people who this immediately affects it affects everybody around you as well it affects you it affects your daily life and her sister and brother-in-law law and i and my husband

Speaker 36 kind of formed our support group so that we could say the things we wanted to say without hurting Sarah, which I would highly recommend to any friend or family member in this situation.

Speaker 36 Get your own support group with other people who are trying to navigate exactly like you.

Speaker 36 And I love that we were able to do this today because if I had questions,

Speaker 36 other people have questions.

Speaker 37 Conversations like this can be triggering. They incite judgment and anger.
We felt it as we produced this episode. But like Elizabeth said, she's not the only one.

Speaker 37 We just hope this episode finds the people who need to hear it.

Speaker 37 I want to give a special thanks to Jessica Baum, Ashley Trujillo, and our anonymous listener, Elizabeth.

Speaker 37 If you're interested in learning more about attachments, we recommend Jessica Baum's book, Anxiously Attached, Becoming More Secure in Life and Love.

Speaker 1 If you would like to reach out to the betrayal team or want to tell us your betrayal story, email us at betrayalpod at gmail.com. That's betrayal, p-od at gmail.com.
We're grateful for your support.

Speaker 1 One way to show support is by subscribing to our show on Apple Podcasts. And don't forget to rate and review Betrayal.

Speaker 22 Five-star reviews go a long way.

Speaker 1 A big thank you to all of our listeners. Betrayal is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group in partnership with iHeart Podcasts.

Speaker 1 The show is executive produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Faison. Hosted and produced by me, Andrea Gunning.
Written and produced by Monique Laborde. Also produced by Ben Fetterman.

Speaker 1 Associate producers are Kristen Melcurie and Caitlin Golden. Our iHeart team is Allie Perry and Jessica Kreincheck.

Speaker 1 Audio editing and mixing by Matt Delvecchio. Additional editing support from Tanner Robbins.
Betrayals theme composed by Oliver Baines. Music library provided by MIBE Music.

Speaker 1 And for more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 39 Then the space hamster flew his hot air balloon all the way to the bottom of the ocean.

Speaker 3 Where did that story come from?

Speaker 33 Book?

Speaker 3 Dream? Nope, it came from a conversation. Meet Miko Mini Plus, the AI companion that co-creates personalized story adventures with your child in real time.

Speaker 39 What color was the hamster's cape and what did he pack for lunch?

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Speaker 4 This is Sophie Cunningham from Show Me Something.

Speaker 5 Do you know the symptoms of moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea or OSA in adults with obesity?

Speaker 11 They may be happening to you without you knowing.

Speaker 6 If anyone has ever said you snored loudly or if you spend your days fighting off excessive tiredness, irritability, and concentration concentration issues, it may be due to OSA.

Speaker 16 OSA is a serious condition where your airway partially or completely collapses during sleep, which may cause breathing interruptions and oxygen deprivation.

Speaker 18 Learn more at don'tsleep on osa.com.

Speaker 10 This information is provided by Lilly, a medicine company.

Speaker 41 Amazon Five-Star Theater presents real customer reviews performed by a real serious improv podcaster. Tonight's review, Spatula for the Stars.

Speaker 23 When I'm dead and civilization eventually collapses, this spatula will remain.

Speaker 42 It will be the only rune uncovered by some unknown species of the future upon which they base their assumptions of our existence.

Speaker 34 Eggs!

Speaker 40 They were positive these extinct people like to eat their eggs, and this was their primary tool for cooking them. Let us teleport and put this device in the Milky Way exhibit.

Speaker 41 Five stars, Zachary.

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That's faceafterweightloss.com. This is an iHeart podcast.