EP 13 - Dr. Kerry, Part 2

Speaker 1 This is an iHeart podcast.

Speaker 4 Are your AI agents helping users or just creating more work?

Speaker 6 If you can't compare your users' workflows before and after adding AI, how do you know it's even paying off?

Speaker 8 Pendo Agent Analytics is the first tool to connect agent prompts and conversations to downstream outcomes like time saved, so you know what's working and what to fix.

Speaker 13 Start improving agent performance at pendo.io/slash podcast.

Speaker 14 That's pendo.io slash podcast.

Speaker 15 It starts like any other night.

Speaker 17 The glass of red, the cozy blanket, then the drop.

Speaker 19 The stains so dark, so stubborn, it might as well have been a crime scene.

Speaker 21 But this isn't your average couch.

Speaker 22 This is Anna Bay.

Speaker 23 Fully washable, unspeakably comfortable, and ready for whatever your life, your kids, or your ex throws ahead of.

Speaker 17 And here's the kicker. Starting at just $6.99, you can make sure your sofa isn't part of the problem.

Speaker 20 Fully washable, stain-resistant, and built to hide even the darkest offenses.

Speaker 17 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 28 Anna Bay, the only mystery you won't be losing sleep over.

Speaker 16 Shop washable sofas.com today.

Speaker 25 That's washable sofas.com.

Speaker 29 Ah, greetings for my bath, festive friends.

Speaker 30 The holidays are overwhelming, but I'm tackling this season with PayPal and making the most of my money.

Speaker 31 Getting 5% cash back when I pay in four.

Speaker 32 No fees, no interest.

Speaker 33 I used it to get this portable spa with jets.

Speaker 32 Now the bubbles can cling to my sculpted but pruny body.

Speaker 34 Make the most of your money this holiday with PayPal.

Speaker 35 Save the offer in the app. Ends 1231, see see PayPal.com/slash promo terms.
Points can be redeemed for cash and more paying for subject to terms and approval.

Speaker 36 PayPal Inc. at NMLS 910-457.

Speaker 1 When I looked in the mirror, I expected to see weight loss from my GLP1. Not unwanted hollowing in my face, sagging skin, and wrinkles.
My face looking older?

Speaker 20 That was never part of my plan.

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Speaker 37 And then I lean forward and whisper to him, I used to think that you were a good guy who sometimes wore a monster mask.

Speaker 37 But when I realized that you're actually a monster who sometimes wears a good guy mask,

Speaker 37 he goes absolutely white and he starts to sweat, and then he whispers,

Speaker 37 I'm glad you know.

Speaker 1 I'm Andrea Gunning, and this is Betrayal, a show about the people we trust the most and the deceptions that change everything.

Speaker 1 After the death of her husband, Brad, Carrie McAvoy retired early from her career as a clinical psychologist. At the age of 51, she started a whirlwind relationship with Caesar.

Speaker 1 He showered her with affection and brought her into his Mexican culture. It would be a second marriage that promised adventure and expanded her horizons.

Speaker 1 With all three of her sons grown, she and Caesar decided to start a new life together in Mexico. So she sold her house in the U.S.

Speaker 18 and packed her bags.

Speaker 37 You're basically consolidating a whole life accumulated of all my adult life down to a few, like we took 10 pieces of luggage. That's it.

Speaker 1 They planned to make a living down there by renting vacation properties in the Yucatan Peninsula. Crystal blue waters, white sand beaches.
It was the life Brad wanted for her.

Speaker 37 I felt like I was trying to build on the best I had with Brad, but make it better.

Speaker 1 She and Caesar became 50-50 owners in their new business and bought four rental properties together, all bankrolled by Carrie.

Speaker 37 So the value of Brad's life insurance has now been spent on properties.

Speaker 1 But the week before their wedding, Caesar made a shocking disclosure.

Speaker 37 He starts to cry and he says, it just hit me because we're going to get married five days that I'm still married. We can't get married this week.
And I said, what?

Speaker 1 Caesar had an explanation.

Speaker 37 And he said, that last marriage was so bad, so contentious, that when I got out, I literally put it behind me and I forgot. I'm married to her.
I never finalized it.

Speaker 37 Even though we've not been living together for two years, I'm not divorced.

Speaker 1 Caesar's last marriage was a roller coaster. When he finally ended things, she literally refused to let him go.

Speaker 37 They described how she had clung to his feet as he tried to get out of the house, and he said it was really traumatic, and he just put it behind him.

Speaker 37 I've repressed stuff. I've forgot stuff.
I can see how that can happen. But I'm not going to be intimate with somebody who's married.
Now that I know, I'm horrified, like speechless, and feel

Speaker 37 so

Speaker 37 humiliated that I don't even know what to say. This puts it in a different category.

Speaker 1 But she had already invested so much, emotionally and financially, in this new life with him. Too much to let one piece of paper derail their plans.

Speaker 1 Plus, he was adamant that he would get it sorted out and they'd be able to get married the following month. So reluctantly, Carrie let it go.

Speaker 37 We got up and had a nice next day together and sort of moved on.

Speaker 1 And his divorce did go through a month later. After that, he and Carrie officially tied the knot.

Speaker 37 So get married, it's a beautiful wedding, and then we plan a honeymoon a month later.

Speaker 1 In a nod to Brad's legacy, she and Caesar went to Jamaica for their honeymoon. They stayed in a new part of the island.

Speaker 1 It was a full circle moment for Carrie, a reminder of how far she'd come in the two years since Brad passed away.

Speaker 37 We get to Jamaica, we check in, and that night we have a great dinner together, kind of romantic, and we're walking back to the hotel room and I'm excited because I bought something special.

Speaker 37 We get into the room, he flops down on the bed, and I go into the bathroom to change into something sexy.

Speaker 1 Starting with night one, their honeymoon did not go to plan.

Speaker 37 I hear the TV turn on. I'm thinking, well, that's a little weird.
That's not really the focus of the honeymoon night.

Speaker 37 and i come out and i pose in front of the tv you know sort of like i'm better looking than the tv and he actually almost cranes his neck around me and i'm stunned i i can't believe that he did that and i'm now feeling underdressed overexposed and just i can feel the goosebuffs rising on my body from the chill

Speaker 37 He says, just come up next to me. And he passes the bed.
Come up next to me. I want to watch this.

Speaker 37 Okay, so I do. And I'm tired.
It's been a long day traveling, and I doze off, and I don't even remember falling asleep, but I fall asleep and I come to,

Speaker 37 and I can't tell how much time has passed, but the TV is still playing,

Speaker 37 and he's on his phone.

Speaker 37 I find that kind of odd, and I'm curious why he's so interested on his phone, and as I'm trying to like crane my neck without really letting him know that I'm awake, I see that he's watching something.

Speaker 37 And at first, my eyes are really blurry because I'm just waking up. And then I can tell he's watching pornography.

Speaker 37 And I'm thinking, okay, you opted out of having a moment with me to watch pornography. That is soul-crushing.

Speaker 1 Early on in their relationship, she asked Caesar if he watched pornography. He told her he didn't.
Now on their honeymoon, she saw that he did.

Speaker 1 She observed him for another moment, Caesar still not noticing that she had woken up.

Speaker 37 And while I'm watching him watch this, there's a text that comes in. And he opens the text box and he responds.
And then he looks for a photo. He sends a quick photo of himself.

Speaker 37 Then she sends a photo back of her. I mean, they're just like normal photos.
It wasn't like sexting. But on the other hand, I'm thinking, my new husband is sending a photo of himself to another woman.

Speaker 37 No, you don't do that.

Speaker 1 Even though they were just selfies, it felt strange.

Speaker 1 And he was sending them to a woman she'd never heard of before.

Speaker 37 So I make like I'm waking up. He then plays along.
Oh, it's so wonderful. You're awake.
Oh, I love you so much.

Speaker 37 And instead of like pulling me into an embrace to kiss me, pull me into something intimate, he starts to touch me like he's doing something to me, but we're not doing it really together.

Speaker 37 And this just on the tails of what I just saw feels awful, like the last thing I want to be doing. So I feel like I was like trying trying to scoot away from him.

Speaker 37 And I just said the same thing that he said to me. It's come sit next to me.
I'm really tired. Let's just sleep tonight.
It's been a lot. It's a long day.
So he does. We fall asleep.

Speaker 1 But Carrie did not fall asleep. It was the first night of their honeymoon and she was lying awake staring at the ceiling.

Speaker 37 Feeling really hurt and shocked. Like there needs to be limits in this relationship and that's not an okay kind of relationship.

Speaker 1 She decided to address what what she'd seen over dinner.

Speaker 37 I said hey I noticed you're on your phone and I noticed you're watching a video and that also you're texting some woman and you send her a photo of yourself. I'm not okay with that.

Speaker 1 Then Caesar became very quiet.

Speaker 37 He just kind of stays stiff like

Speaker 37 not okay.

Speaker 37 We have dinner. We're not really talking and when we walk back to our hotel room He stopped and he stood in the doorway and he says, I'm going to be heading out.
I'll be back in a couple hours.

Speaker 37 And he turns around and the door shuts. I watch the door shut and I'm aghast, like mouth dropped, shocked.
And I think to myself, this is punishment. He's punishing me.

Speaker 1 She spent the next few hours pacing the hotel room, hoping she was wrong, hoping he just needed time to cool off.

Speaker 37 He comes in a couple hours later, and I'm tense. I'm like, have no idea what mindset he's going to be in.
And he goes, hey, let's go out to the pool. Let's go swimming.

Speaker 37 I said, okay. And he holds my hand as we walk to the pool.
We get out there. He says, look at the sky.
The moon's out tonight. Remember the night I got engaged with you? The moon was out that night.

Speaker 37 And he says, couples shouldn't fight.

Speaker 37 And you're right. I shouldn't have that kind of relationship with a woman.
That's inappropriate. I'm really sorry.
Why don't we put the phones away for the rest of the trip and just focus on us?

Speaker 37 And I start to cry and I feel, oh, he gets it. We're on the same page.
This is going to be good. We make a big deal the next day putting the phones away.
The next seven, eight days are great.

Speaker 1 Until the last day of the honeymoon, it was 4 a.m. and Carrie woke up to a notification on her phone.

Speaker 37 I can see on my phone that there's a text message from a stranger, from a woman. And she writes, so you're married to Caesar.
I guess the joke's just not on me. It's on you too.

Speaker 37 I've been dating you for the past three months. Then she proceeds to start to describe.
Is that your sunglass case in the car?

Speaker 1 It's floral.

Speaker 37 Are you the person that called him at 3 a.m. in the morning a few months ago? Because I was with him.
I was in bed beside him.

Speaker 1 That was her sunglasses case. And they were in a long-distance relationship before this.
And Carrie knew she had called him late sometimes. With Caesar asleep next to her, she began to panic.

Speaker 1 Was this woman telling the truth?

Speaker 37 As I'm laying there, I literally had the flash. I don't know him.
He's a stranger.

Speaker 37 I went into the bathroom and my body just dumped. It was sick.
I was sick. What do I do?

Speaker 37 My house is sold. My car is gone.
I have property now in Mexico that expects me to open. I'm mid-visa process.
I have to finish this or I lose all that effort.

Speaker 37 And I'm literally in transition as if I'm a wire artist. And I let go of one wire and I'm jumping to the next.
And I'm trying to grab. And I'm mid-jump.

Speaker 37 And I'm realizing everything that I thought I was building on didn't exist.

Speaker 1 She shook her new husband awake and showed him the messages.

Speaker 37 I say to Caesar, Caesar, Caesar, a woman wrote me. She says she knows you.
His first reaction was, stop reading that. Stop reading that.
And my thought was, you know.

Speaker 37 You know her. You know what I'm talking about.

Speaker 37 I fled the room. I split for the ocean and went down to the sand and I started circling, literally circling.
It was early, like 6 a.m., 6.30. And there was a runner who run past me.

Speaker 37 I might just look like a crazy woman. Like, I don't know what to do.
I'm mid-jump. I'm in transition.
I have no home in the United States. I don't know what to do here.

Speaker 1 So she called a close friend who, like her, also worked in mental health.

Speaker 37 And she says, Carrie, I think he's traumatized. I think there's something else going on.
I really suggest that you go back and talk to him.

Speaker 1 I'm thinking, okay, she knows him.

Speaker 37 In fact, she's the person that married us. Maybe there's something more here.
Plus, she's a therapist. So I go back in.
And I get into the room and he's standing there, white, shaking.

Speaker 37 And he just looked at me and he said, I just wanted to know what it felt like to have an affair.

Speaker 37 And then he said, you know, I have problems because I've told you that I've came from a troubled home and that there have been issues. And I don't know why I did it.

Speaker 37 I know it was dumb, but I don't know why I did that.

Speaker 1 Then he asked for her help.

Speaker 1 He felt like his behavior was out of control and needed professional support. In fact, he had asked his ex-wives for their help too.

Speaker 37 And they didn't believe me. They laughed at me.

Speaker 1 If anyone could help him, it was Carrie. She believed in recovery.

Speaker 37 I also, as a psychologist, really believed in the capacity of people to change.

Speaker 37 Why would I spend my whole life doing what I did if I didn't believe people could actually have a conversion experience?

Speaker 1 As soon as the honeymoon ended, Carrie started looking for a psychologist. a specialist who could help with trauma, infidelity, and deception.
And she got them an appointment the very next day.

Speaker 37 And she sees us. She says, Carrie, his issues are really big.
He needs residential care. And I'm thinking, residential care?

Speaker 5 We're moving.

Speaker 37 Plus, who's going to pay for that? This is not covered by insurance, and he needs months. I worked in the system.
I know how much it costs for psychiatric care.

Speaker 37 This is going to add up to probably close to $100,000 in treatment costs.

Speaker 1 Instead of long-term residential care, they planned for a three-day intensive program for couples in crisis, and they flew there right away.

Speaker 37 So we walk into the intensive program and it was built on accountability model. And the focus is more of what are you going to do? What's the reality of your situation? Do you have a plan in place?

Speaker 37 They're trying to help us really think this through.

Speaker 1 Although the program was meant for couples to attend together, where both individuals are promised treatment and support, Carrie felt like her pain wasn't being seen.

Speaker 37 But we go through the three days and it becomes really clear to me that I'm invisible here. This treatment's about him and yet I feel like my whole world's been torn apart, that I've been shattered.

Speaker 37 There's two people here. Yes, he was the one who acted out, but I'm the one who's suffering the consequences.

Speaker 37 What about me?

Speaker 1 Caesar left the program feeling clear-headed and committed to Carrie. He had an accountability plan and an outpatient counselor to check in with him every week.

Speaker 1 But Carrie felt more confused than ever.

Speaker 37 We walk out of the program after three days and I feel like, well, he has a better direction. He seems helped, but I'm now more scared than ever.

Speaker 37 And I'm going into a country that I don't think has this kind of care available. All I know is now I don't know how much I don't know because that's what they did tell me.

Speaker 37 This is like a problem like an iceberg. You just saw a tip, but you don't know how deep this goes or how big this is.

Speaker 37 So all that you did for me is to let me know there's a whole lot more to this that you don't know

Speaker 37 and I don't know what to do. I'm in a mid-leap and I don't know what I'm in for.

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Speaker 4 Are your AI agents helping users or just creating more work?

Speaker 6 If you can't compare your users' workflows before and after adding AI, how do you know it's even paying off?

Speaker 8 Pendo Agent Analytics is the first tool to connect agent prompts and conversations to downstream outcomes like time saved so you know what's working and what to fix.

Speaker 13 Start improving agent performance at pendo.io/slash podcast.

Speaker 14 That's pendo.io slash podcast.

Speaker 15 It starts like any other night.

Speaker 17 The glass of red, the cozy blanket, then the drop.

Speaker 19 The stains so dark, so stubborn, it might as well have been a crime scene.

Speaker 21 But this isn't your average couch.

Speaker 22 This is Anna Bay.

Speaker 23 Fully washable, unspeakably comfortable, and ready for whatever your life, your kids, or your ex throws ahead it.

Speaker 17 And here's the kicker.

Speaker 20 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 17 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 28 Anna Bay, the only mystery you won't be losing sleep over.

Speaker 16 Shop washablesofas.com today.

Speaker 25 That's washable sofas.com.

Speaker 5 Ah,

Speaker 29 greetings for my bath, festive friends.

Speaker 31 The holidays are overwhelming, but I'm tackling this season with PayPal and making the most of my money, getting 5% cash back when I pay in four.

Speaker 32 No fees, no interest.

Speaker 33 I used it to get this portable spa with jets.

Speaker 32 Now the bubbles can cling to my sculpted but pruny body.

Speaker 34 Make the most of your money this holiday with PayPal.

Speaker 35 Save the offer in the app. Ends 1231, see paypal.com/slash promo terms.
Points can be renewed for cash and more paying for subject to terms and approval.

Speaker 36 PayPal Inc. at NMLS 910-457.

Speaker 1 After leaving the three-day treatment program, Carrie and Cesar continued with their plan to move into a new apartment in Playa del Carmen and get their business off the ground.

Speaker 37 We move into our first apartment and we furnish it. We're watching the construction of the next two and trying to get the business going, you know, get our properties listed on Airbnb.

Speaker 1 Besides starting their business, their main priority was continuing Cesar's treatment, and it seemed to be working for him.

Speaker 37 In that period of time, it actually gets good. It gets quiet.
You know, he's working a program. He does his weekly thing.
I do my weekly thing. It feels like a partnership.

Speaker 37 We're buying furniture together. We're setting up a house.
Kids are coming in for Christmas.

Speaker 1 With Caesar's commitment to recovery, Carrie felt validated in her decision to give him another chance and get him help.

Speaker 1 He was really trying.

Speaker 1 Their life in Mexico was finally coming together. At night, they would go up to their penthouse roof and look at the stars.

Speaker 37 And the stars are out and there's actually even falling stars.

Speaker 37 And we're talking to each other and kissing each other and talking about how beautiful this is and have like a little blanket on that patio.

Speaker 37 Just really, really lovely.

Speaker 1 After a few months, their business started to take off.

Speaker 37 The properties are now coming online. The business is off to a good start.
And I feel really optimistic about all of this.

Speaker 1 With their relationship on the men, they were proving to be strong business partners. They settled into a daily routine.

Speaker 37 He would set the alarm super early in the morning. Then we would read something together, talk to each other, and then we'd get dressed and get going for our day.

Speaker 37 We'd run from appointment to appointment, but there's another half of the company that had to be run, and that is the customer end, who's making all the emails, corresponding with guests.

Speaker 37 So I'd manage that at night. And then we'd do all the businesses together in the day.
So basically, I was like doing two jobs.

Speaker 1 One day while running around town to manage the properties, I start to suddenly vomit.

Speaker 37 I mean, like I'm throwing up saliva. And it's really strange.
I'd never seen anything like it before. He calmly hands me a grocery bag to vomit in.
And then we never talk about it again.

Speaker 37 We just went on for the rest of the day.

Speaker 1 And then she began noticing other symptoms.

Speaker 37 I have really severe diarrhea, a real strange diarrhea that I'd never seen before. It's water.
It's clear water. It frightens me because I've never seen this before.

Speaker 37 And so I had white lines like you get your fingernails with a hammer. I was searching for what causes white lines across all the fingernails.
They're called me lines.

Speaker 1 And it only got worse.

Speaker 37 My toenails were falling off, and my urine was now dark like tea and frothing.

Speaker 1 So they went to the ER.

Speaker 37 They take one look at me and they hospitalize me.

Speaker 37 And while I'm admitted, the nurse comes up and says, you don't understand. You're super ill.
Your white count is extraordinarily high, but we can't find the infection. You're very, very sick.

Speaker 37 You don't understand how sick you are. Caesar comes in that night to sit next to me and he sits there and he goes, I realized something today.

Speaker 37 I realize if something were to happen to you, I would really miss you.

Speaker 37 I go, that's a weird thing to say.

Speaker 1 After a few nights in the hospital with IV antibiotics, Carrie was feeling better. The doctors ran dozens of tests, but ultimately couldn't figure out what was causing Carrie's symptoms.

Speaker 37 But I get discharged and we continue to kind of do normal business, you know, running day-to-day life.

Speaker 1 Caesar thought Carrie's sudden illness could be stress-related. After all, she'd had an incredibly busy year.
So they decided to go on a weekend getaway to relax and reconnect with each other.

Speaker 37 So we go to this resort for Thanksgiving weekend, and the first night we get there, he heads in for a shower, and while he does it, he leaves his phone on the table.

Speaker 37 I don't know why, but I pick up his phone and snoop for the first time in my life.

Speaker 1 She didn't find anything concerning in his photos or texts. But then she opened his email.

Speaker 37 This is the first I

Speaker 37 really heard of Maria.

Speaker 1 Earlier that day, he'd written a long email to this woman. It sounded like she was an old flame.

Speaker 37 So I go rush into the bathroom to use it for an excuse to read the email. And I opened the email.
He says, this marriage is a prison.

Speaker 37 And he's talking about missing her.

Speaker 1 He told Carrie he wasn't talking to any other women, that the help he was getting was really working.

Speaker 1 What did he mean this marriage was a prison? She'd been working so hard to hold it together. She sent herself a copy.
And then.

Speaker 37 I send it to our counselor that we saw at the intensive and say, we need an immediate appointment. He's breached his contract with me, and he said he wasn't doing this.

Speaker 37 So we have a therapy appointment with our therapist, and he confronts Caesar about this. And Cesar doesn't really have a good excuse.
He goes, I was just dumb. I was reminiscent.

Speaker 37 I was feeling nostalgic.

Speaker 1 He said he'd been missing his ex Maria and that they once spent time at the same same beach.

Speaker 37 He said, I thought of her and I reached out or I shouldn't have. I know it was really bad.
And then the therapist turns to me and says, so what are you going to do about this? What's your consequence?

Speaker 37 We talked about this. You need to have a consequence.
And I'm thinking,

Speaker 37 what do you mean?

Speaker 37 I can't kick him out. I'm in another country.
We're starting this business up. Things are in construction.
I depend on him. I can't run a business without him.

Speaker 1 So instead of a consequence, she opted for a solution.

Speaker 37 so we both get into therapy that's my solution he starts to see a therapist but that didn't quell her anxiety and i'm starting to feel increasingly paranoid enough so that i'm now like trying to break into his phone or i'm now looking for a second phone it's weird i'm like feeling crazy and while all this is happening he's just getting harder to reach feeling really distant to me He told Carrie he was going to his regular therapy appointments, but then she found out.

Speaker 37 He didn't go. He apparently snatched the phone somewhere near the therapist's house and did something else.
I have no idea what he did for the hour and a half, but he didn't go.

Speaker 37 So I'm catching him in lies now, and I know something's up.

Speaker 1 This lie was disturbing. She started to doubt if he was really committed to changing.
Repeatedly catching Caesar in lies became a vicious cycle.

Speaker 1 But then one day, she got news that pulled her out of it. Carrie had three sons, who were now all adults.
Two of them were living together, and one noticed his brother Cameron wasn't acting himself.

Speaker 1 He was observing Cameron's behavior and called their mom out of concern.

Speaker 37 He said, he's been staring at the wall all weekend, mom. Just staring at the wall, like ours staring at the wall.

Speaker 37 And then he'll say weird things like, he doesn't know what time of the day it is. I'm thinking, oh no, this is...
a serious neurological sign. It's an emergency.
I'm frightened. This is bad.

Speaker 37 Something's really wrong.

Speaker 1 She flew back to America to be with Cameron. When she got to the hospital, all of her boys were there.

Speaker 37 And they've been waiting for me. I can tell they've been waiting for mom to show up.
And he says, Mom,

Speaker 37 it's leukemia.

Speaker 37 And then we fall in each other's arms and just start to cry. And I think, oh, I've been here before.

Speaker 1 Cameron was scared.

Speaker 37 He says, Mom, don't leave me. Don't leave me.
And I say, I'm not going anywhere

Speaker 37 it wasn't even a decision for carrie she knew she had to stay and take care of him she spent entire nights awake keeping an eye on her son's health as he started chemotherapy but we have to see if the chemotherapy is going to work so he makes it through the first round which is a big deal he has to be hospitalized it's given every 12 hours for five to seven days it's round the clock chemotherapy And meanwhile, the treatment team tells me he's going to need this for upward to 18 months and he needs you here.

Speaker 37 This is a big thing and he's going to need your help.

Speaker 1 Caesar had come with Carrie back to the U.S. And right away, she noticed that he was distant.
He didn't seem interested in staying in America long term or in supporting Carrie and Cameron.

Speaker 1 Instead, Cesar started complaining. He wanted to go back to their life in Mexico.

Speaker 37 He's telling me he's not staying. I can tell already.

Speaker 1 One night while Caesar was sleeping, his phone alarm started ringing. So Carrie got up to shut it off.

Speaker 37 So I go in to get the phone and turn the alarm off. I pass through the passcode and it opens right up to the text messages.

Speaker 37 He'd been texting and had fallen asleep with it beside his head.

Speaker 37 The message is between him and Maria and it says, my sister had cancer. She's recovered.
She's just fine. Her son will be too.
He's young. He's 28.
He's got the advantage of youth on his side.

Speaker 37 And Caesar write backs, yeah, I know, but I got to be supportive for Carrie. Carrie's really worried.
That's not how she feels.

Speaker 37 And then he says, but I'll have to be careful because I'm with her now a lot. We're going to have to really be careful around these conversations.

Speaker 37 And then she texts, but what I'm really concerned about is that Cameron's care is going to eat up your half of her money.

Speaker 1 It was so callous, calculated, even.

Speaker 37 Not only had he been betraying me and seeing women, but he has been communicating with her about a lot, including the money and what's happening with the money and that there is this money.

Speaker 1 Reading these texts and seeing how dismissive he was of her son's care and the concern for Carrie's money, half of Brad's life insurance money, finally sent her over the edge.

Speaker 37 It's money that paid out on Brad's death. to a person who never earned it, didn't know him, didn't love him, and is trying to exploit and manipulate me.
He's going to capitalize on Brad's death.

Speaker 37 Talk about enraging me.

Speaker 37 Hell no.

Speaker 37 I loved Brad. We spent 33 years together.
He died from something catastrophic. Be damned, you're gonna get half of that.
I sat there with Brad, and the morphine didn't work.

Speaker 37 And him pleading for another dose.

Speaker 37 Your half of Brad's life insurance?

Speaker 37 What do you mean, your half? There is no your half here.

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Speaker 1 After she saw text between Caesar and Maria, Carrie was furious. She finally saw Caesar for who he really was.
Or at least, she thought she had.

Speaker 37 We're at a restaurant having a meal.

Speaker 37 And I finally say to him, you know what? This can't be good for you. It's certainly not good for me.
I think maybe we need to separate. And I walk away.
I get up and I walk out.

Speaker 1 She spent a few hours alone to process everything, to grieve the life she envisioned with Caesar. After all, her first marriage was a fairy tale.
It was solid, joyous, and honest.

Speaker 1 Eventually, she made her way home to continue the conversation with him.

Speaker 37 I said, so what's going on here? Do you want a divorce? He said, yes, I want a divorce.

Speaker 1 The following morning, they sat down at the breakfast table for the next hard conversation about what this divorce would mean for both of them financially.

Speaker 37 He starts to list all the properties that the company owns, one by one.

Speaker 37 And next to them, he writes their market value. And then he adds the column up in front of me, draws a hard line so hard that I think he's going to scratch into the wood table.

Speaker 37 That's how firm he pressed. And he points at it: that, that's what I'm owed, half of that.
I have a right to half of that.

Speaker 37 And I look at him and my mouth dropped. And I said, but that's Brad's legacy.
That's what he gave to me and the kids to give me a new start.

Speaker 37 And he says, Life's never been fair to me. Why should it be fair to you?

Speaker 1 When Carrie and Caesar sat down to discuss the terms of their divorce, she watched her soon-to-be ex-husband become an entirely different person.

Speaker 37 He's basically saying he has a right to something he has never worked to own.

Speaker 37 He didn't come into this relationship with anything.

Speaker 37 And he's going to walk out with half of everything Brett and I have spent all these years with all these decisions to get to. He feels he has a right to it because life's not been fair.
I'm enraged.

Speaker 37 I can't believe this is the way this is, and I can't believe this is actually legal. I'm speechless, like floored.
I feel like I don't know him.

Speaker 37 This is another level of a stranger. I don't know who this person is.

Speaker 1 She was not going to let him take what Brad had worked so hard for. After all, she'd only been with Caesar for three years.

Speaker 37 So my first thing is, is I pull all the documents together, proving all the money I'd brought in, proving that it had been my assets, my capital that had been invested.

Speaker 37 And I make an appointment with the best divorce attorney that I can find in town.

Speaker 37 And I sit down with her. Then she looks at me and says, none of that matters.
According to Mexican law, he's 50-50 owner. Unless you can prove he's broken the law, he's owed half.

Speaker 37 He's owed half.

Speaker 37 I realize. I better start making copies of the deeds to prove that I actually own the property.
So I get smart and start making photocopies of stuff.

Speaker 1 Carrie was going back and forth in the U.S. taking care of her son, Cameron, whose cancer treatment was going well, and in Mexico, untangling her marriage with Cesar.

Speaker 1 They moved into separate apartments while Carrie collected the evidence she needed for their divorce. Cesar had not invested any money into their shared business.

Speaker 1 But like the lawyer told her, her case didn't look promising.

Speaker 37 I'm frantic. I don't know how to get the company back.

Speaker 1 To add insult to injury, in the middle of this financial untangling, she received news. Caesar's ex, Maria, was back in town.

Speaker 18 And they were back together.

Speaker 37 And not only has she been in town, but they've put a deposit on a property together. They're going to buy a house together.

Speaker 1 She and Caesar had rarely spoken throughout the divorce. They were still in a bitter legal negotiation about dividing their business.
But one day, she got a text from him. He sounded desperate.

Speaker 37 It says, I'm in trouble. I've been realizing I'm out of control and I need help.
I need to see you. Can we meet?

Speaker 1 She thought, maybe this was her chance to offer him a settlement that he would accept.

Speaker 37 And I'm thinking, this is the moment you've been waiting for. You have an opportunity to leverage your control of the company.
He's going to need help from you. Use it.

Speaker 37 So I meet him at a coffee shop nearby. and he starts to tell me he's in trouble.
And then I lean forward and whisper to him. I used to think that you were a good guy who sometimes wore a monster mask.

Speaker 37 But when I realized that you're actually a monster who sometimes wears a good guy mask,

Speaker 37 he goes absolutely white and you start to sweat. And then he whispers, I'm glad you know.

Speaker 1 She finally saw him for who he really was, and she knew she needed an out. So Carrie told him she would help him through the next few months financially if he agreed to her terms.

Speaker 37 I say to him, I will help you, but I want all of the company back.

Speaker 37 You have to sign the company over to me.

Speaker 37 And he says to me, so what are you thinking? How much?

Speaker 37 And I said, how about whatever I have sitting in the bank right now, which is one-third of what he wants? You can have that. You can have the car that you're driving.
I'll sell the other car.

Speaker 37 You can have whatever is in the house. That's what you can have.

Speaker 1 Caesar didn't like the deal. He wanted to split their company's profits for the next two years.

Speaker 37 He leans into me and he whispers, you don't want to make me angry.

Speaker 1 In the moment, she pretended to agree to the deal.

Speaker 37 I shake his hand and I say, okay, I promise. But in my head, I thought, I promised is as much of a promise as any of your promises you've ever made to me.

Speaker 1 She never intended to give him half the profits. Once he signed over the company, she sold it.
In the end, she settled their divorce and paid him out. It was a big sum, but not nearly what he wanted.

Speaker 1 Not even close.

Speaker 37 He never got any more money out of me out of that settlement that I made, the agreement I made with him with the attorney.

Speaker 1 After selling the properties, she packed up her life in Mexico for good.

Speaker 37 So I pack myself up. I throw most of it away.
I don't want it. Everything that reminds me of this house, this life, this person, this relationship, I took to the trash.

Speaker 37 And people, scavengers came in and got it. And I was like, go for it.
You can have it.

Speaker 1 She found evidence that he and Maria had been meeting up every few weeks for their entire relationship, even back to when she first met Caesar.

Speaker 37 And then when we break finally up, he's texting her about the half of the money. And then he sees her right away, right after we break up.

Speaker 1 And she also found some things that made her suspect her entire relationship with Caesar had been orchestrated.

Speaker 1 Like he said, he had been researching widows.

Speaker 37 I found cliff notes he kept on women. He literally was keeping track of stories, what to say.
He planned things out.

Speaker 37 The guy I met never existed.

Speaker 1 She found note cards with names of women he dated. And on the cards, he'd written information about each of them.
This is one of those strange details she'll never get an explanation for.

Speaker 1 Shocked, ashamed, and betrayed, Carrie flew back to the U.S.

Speaker 1 She focused on her family and settled down, moving close to her son, whose cancer was in remission. She was rebuilding, but there was still one piece of unfinished business.

Speaker 1 She wanted to know who Caesar really was.

Speaker 1 So she tracked down his ex-wives.

Speaker 37 I get a hold of wife number one who lived in Mexico, heard her version, then I heard the one who'd been married 17 years.

Speaker 37 But the one I couldn't get a hold of was the one that was the shortest, that he had the least to say about.

Speaker 37 So six months after I sent her a message, she contacts me and says, yeah, I'll have a phone call with you. And she says, because one of the things that happened is I got really sick.
I said, what?

Speaker 37 She's, yeah, I got really sick and I don't know why. And I got better when I got out of the relationship.
And I'm thinking, well, that's really strange.

Speaker 26 It was strange.

Speaker 1 Carrie's symptoms also got better after she left the relationship. The vomiting and diarrhea, the lines on her nails, they all disappeared.

Speaker 1 She says she'll never know why she got so sick during her marriage. What she does know is that that relationship was literally toxic to her body.

Speaker 37 Living with somebody who's constantly deceitful, this chronic state of being in a fight or flight with all the cortisol levels does terrible damage to the body.

Speaker 1 Back in the U.S., she joined support groups and relied on her three adult sons. Cameron was cancer-free, and the family had become closer than ever.

Speaker 37 I did have a moment with my sons, and I said to them, you must be so ashamed of me. And my oldest looked at me, and he said, no, mom, Caesar used your best qualities against you.
We're not ashamed.

Speaker 37 And I just wept.

Speaker 1 That was the start of her healing process. And the next step.
was writing a book about what she went through.

Speaker 37 They just started writing. I wrote the the story as fast as I could.
It took me nine months to write Love You More. And I found it really, really healing.

Speaker 1 With time, she could look back on the relationship with clarity. She applied her expertise in psychology and began to understand that what she experienced was narcissistic abuse.

Speaker 37 They consider a narcissistically abusive relationship a cult of two. Really the same tactics that cult leaders use.

Speaker 37 Highly predatory people use the same to create fast rapport, build trust, and also create a very highly almost addictive relationship that's very difficult to leave.

Speaker 37 It's intoxicating, but also terrifying. It's like a connection on fear.

Speaker 1 Through her work in therapy, she came to a big revelation, one that went back to the abuse she experienced as a child. And she realized that violation might have played into the cycle.

Speaker 1 she found herself in with Caesar.

Speaker 37 I realized that when I was little and I suffered the abuse with my sister, even though I was only like five and she was four, in my head I'd made her a promise that I would never abandon her again.

Speaker 37 And I approached that promise that I had made that was really unreasonable as a child, but I sort of applied it to him. And to leave him felt like I was abandoning her all over again.

Speaker 37 And that was what made it really hard for me to truly break free, break out of this. And coming to that conclusion felt like it broke so much of my paralysis, my confusion.

Speaker 1 She wanted to know how she'd missed the signs with Caesar and why she stayed in it for so long. It wasn't like her.

Speaker 37 I cannot begin to describe to you the agonizing paralysis I felt about making a decision. The mind literally says, I can't compute.
Both realities seem true. I can't compute.

Speaker 37 So it makes no decision as if that's a decision.

Speaker 1 She turned to books and research on coercive control and narcissistic abuse to help give her perspective.

Speaker 37 I came across a book by Don Hennessy called How He Gets Into Her Head. Highly recommend it.
Irish law enforcement. He writes about the grooming practices.

Speaker 37 In the first part of the book, he describes working with domestic violence victims for years. I mean, like many, many, many years.

Speaker 37 They kept trying to do all these studies, finding a consistent pattern among victims that would predict that this is a person vulnerable to abuse. They couldn't find any.

Speaker 37 There was no consistent pattern among all of the domestic violent victims. It wasn't until they started looking at the predators that the pattern fit.

Speaker 37 The pattern is with the predator, not with the victim.

Speaker 1 She's been able to let go of her shame about the decision to stay with Caesar. The betrayal community has shown her that no one is above being deceived.

Speaker 37 I'm a psychologist. Everyone somehow assumes that psychologists are like above human, superhuman.
We should know, we should be excellent reads of people.

Speaker 37 Yeah, I'm good reads of people, but when it comes to myself, I'm not always so good my personal life my personal perceptions get involved it's very easy for us to criticize victims and say it's the victim's fault but you're just showing your ignorance because anyone can fall for something like this

Speaker 37 you just haven't met the sophisticated enough predator

Speaker 1 when she was at her most vulnerable grieving Brad's death and desperate to have that kind of partnership back again, at that very moment, she happened to meet the right predator.

Speaker 1 Her trust in Caesar is inherently linked to losing Brad.

Speaker 37 Nobody prepares you for what it's like to lose a partner. You know, we often think, say, they're my other half.
I'll tell you, it felt like I was ripped in half.

Speaker 37 And to think about the future, I've got maybe, what, 30 more years?

Speaker 37 of no one in my life and I'm going to be alone and this big critical person who was my partner, my husband, my lover, my best friend, my co-parent is gone.

Speaker 37 I can't even begin to describe to you the panic I felt.

Speaker 37 We talk about love bombing and it's too good to be true and it happens super fast and you suddenly are with this person for forever. But

Speaker 37 you know what? Sometimes love looks like that.

Speaker 37 That's what love with Brad looked like.

Speaker 1 We end all of our weekly episodes with the same question.

Speaker 1 Why did you want to tell your story?

Speaker 1 For Carrie, it comes back to letting people know no one is above deception or betrayal.

Speaker 37 And by the way, I've had many psychologists who've now since reached out to me to tell me it's happened to them.

Speaker 37 And an excellent book is Kristen Milstead, Why Can't I Just Leave, who's a PhD in sociology and it happened to her. But there are many professional women who are men who've gotten trapped by this.

Speaker 37 if it can happen to me it can happen to anyone

Speaker 1 on the next episode of betrayal i look up one of his email addresses and it shows that he has an ashley madison account

Speaker 18 and i just nearly threw up

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 betrayalpod 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.
Five-star reviews go a long way. A big thank you to all of our listeners.

Speaker 1 Betrayal is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Faison.

Speaker 1 Hosted and produced by me, Andrea Gunning. Written and produced by Monique Laborde.
Also produced by Ben Fetterman. Associate producers are Kristen Mel Curie and Caitlin Golden.

Speaker 1 Our iHeart team is Allie Perry and Jessica Kreimchek. Audio editing and mixing by Matt Delvecchio.
Additional editing support from Nico Aruka and Tanner Robbins.

Speaker 1 Betrayals theme composed by Oliver Baines. Music library provided by MIBE Music.
And for more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Speaker 13 Start improving agent performance at pendo.io/slash podcast.

Speaker 14 That's pendo.io slash podcast.

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Speaker 1 This is an iHeart podcast.