May 1, 2025 • 32 mins
A listener wrote to us with a heartbreaking question: What can I say to my friend who won’t leave an abuser? Is there anything I can say to get through to her?
We bring on survivor Ashley Trujillo from Betrayal Season 2, who’s faced a similar choice, and therapist Jessica Baum to unpack the trauma, denial, and deep attachment that can keep people stuck.
For more on attachment and healing, check out Jessica Baum’s book "Anxiously Attached, Becoming More Secure in Life and Love.”
If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal Team, email us at betrayalpod@gmail.com and follow us on Instagram at @betrayalpod
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See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
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, and I
hope that you're able to make the right choice.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
I'm Andrea Gunning, and this is a special bonus episode
of Betrayal. 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. She had watched season
two of Betrayal on Hulu, which tells the story of
(00:50):
a stepdaughter that was violated by her stepfather. Elizabeth wrote
to us because the same thing was playing out in
her own life, or rather her best friend's life. Elizabeth
and her friend will call her Sarah, have been closed
for thirteen years. They used to live in the same
apartment building. Their daughters were around the same age. Sarah
(01:14):
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. They planned joint family vacations and
shared holidays. Elizabeth felt like an aunt to Sarah's daughter,
who is now nineteen. A few months ago, Sarah texted
Elizabeth saying she needed to talk. It was an emergency.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
She basically just started sobbing and told me everything. She
had been in the car with her daughter that day
and she had said something about her husband breaking up
pattern of abuse because he was abused sexually abused as
a child, and she was so glad he was breaking
the pattern of abuse. And that was when her daughter
(02:03):
decided she couldn't take it anymore and she had to
tell her.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Sarah's daughter shared that her stepfather had sexually abused her.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
It started in twenty sixty for her, so she was
eleven years old.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
After Sarah found out, she confronted her husband.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
And he admitted to everything, Yes I did this, Yes
I did that. She had already packed a bag for
him and told him that he needed to go and
stay with his mother, which was in the house about
half hour from them, and that he had a week's
worth of clothes and she would talk to him later.
So he didn't argue. He left immediately, and then the
(02:41):
daughter wanted to go and report it to the police.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
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. But that's just the beginning
of our episode. Because Sarah struggled to let her husband go.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
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. 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? And I said, I can't
(03:25):
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.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
At this point, that message wasn't getting through to Sarah.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
My friend was and is very attached to him and
very much in love with him.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
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. That progressed into longer phone conversations and visits.
Then they started going to therapy together. Within a few
(04:03):
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.
You may be wondering what about child protective services, Well,
Sarah's daughter is nineteen now an adult, so legally her
stepdad was allowed back in the same house. In the
(04:25):
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. It was so
unlike Sarah, and it just seemed wrong.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
I texted Sarah and I said, listen, if this is
the route that you're going to go down, 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 I can't support this.
And she said, I don't need to explain my feelings
(05:08):
to anybody. I am doing what I'm doing and it's
not my responsibility to make sure that you understand. 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. And she said, that's all I'm asking for
(05:29):
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 2 (05:39):
This is what Elizabeth wrote to us. She felt helpless
watching her best friend let this man back into her life.
She worried at saying too much might blow up the
friendship and further isolate Sarah from the people.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
Who love her.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
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, and Elizabeth
felt like that was the wrong choice. Our team has
heard countless stories like this to the point where we
couldn't ignore this topic. Where loved ones watch from afar
(06:15):
as someone lets an abuser back into their life. It's
an incredibly painful thing to watch. 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.
We saw Elizabeth's question as a way into a larger
(06:35):
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? Elizabeth asked for advice from
Ashley Trhello, the subject of season two of Betrayal. Ashley
has been through something similar to Sarah. Her husband, Jason
(06:56):
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,
and while Jason awaited sentencing, Ashley tried to salvage the relationship.
She went straight into WiFi mode, as she calls it.
(07:18):
It wasn't until she saw the full discovery file against
Jason that she finally decided to leave him. But those
few months actually stayed with him have had lasting impacts
on her relationship with her daughter. So we invited Ashley
Trahillo to talk with Elizabeth, and she agreed. We also
brought in Jessica Baum, a licensed clinical therapist, to help
(07:41):
guide the conversation. 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 1 (07:54):
I'm so glad to talk to you specifically, because actually
you were the one I wanted to talk to when
I first emailed been to the podcast, 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 why are you doing that? And for
(08:16):
me even now with Sarah, do I yell these things occurred?
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.
What would you have wanted?
Speaker 4 (08:32):
In hindsight, yeah, somebody should have shook me, snacked me,
dunked my head in water. I don't know, whatever it
was you wake me up. But I don't know if
any of that would have worked, because at the end
of the day, so I had nothing to do with
how everybody else was feeling or what they thought I
should do or what they thought was the right thing
to do, because in my mind I was doing the
(08:53):
right thing. So if they had said something, I don't remember.
But to answer your question, I don't know if saying
anything in that moment it is work for her or
for you, And that's hard because you have to be
true to you and be true to like how your
(09:13):
friendship has always been with her. I think for anyone
that is listening and is in that situation, there's a
lot of factors that you have to consider. And my
family considered that they were afraid I was going to
be suicidal and my whole life blew up when I
already snuffered from depression. So I think they were very
aware of that, and they didn't want to be the
(09:33):
reason why I decided like, Okay, today's the day because
everyone thinks I'm disgusting and growth all these feelings already
felt inside myself, So I think that that's a factory
you have to consider. I don't know if that even
answers it, but it does.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Yeah, you don't know if you would have heard it
no matter what anybody had said. And that's I think
that's how I felt with Sarah. 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. The way I described everything was
(10:11):
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, 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.
Because you have you have to be very careful, especially
we don't have to be, but I felt like I
needed to be very careful. My whole family said that,
(10:35):
They've all said that, like word for work. We were
on egg jails with you. We didn't know if what
we're saying was right or if it was wrong. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (10:43):
Another thing that I really want to highlight with the
whole situation is a Beya or Sarah's daughter. Even though
I've spent a couple months in denial, that was two
months and we are three years out, and my relationship
(11:05):
with a Veya is still healing from my betrayal to
a Veya. 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 I don't't 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.
(11:26):
I thought whatever I was doing was for the greater
good of my family, and being able to like take
those girls colored glasses off, I was able to kind
of see it from a bird's eye view and see
what I had done to a beya And you know,
speaking to my family about it, and we've spoke a
lot about it during that term because they're like, when
we heard that you were seeing Jason or you were
(11:48):
going back into wife mode, we thought, what the hell
is she doing? 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 meet and
kind of the collective idea around it, because it wasn't
just you know, one person, It was my whole family,
(12:09):
you know, And I think they already knew that whatever
was going on, they didn't want to lose me too,
and so they just loved me. And 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,
you know, what, what do you think, Like, what would
you have done? And she told me, had I stayed
(12:30):
with him or continued to rationalize what he did. She
doesn't think she would have been able to have a
relationship with me just because of her own like moral compass.
She was like, I love you and I continue to
love you, but I couldn't. I couldn't witness that. So, yeah,
(12:52):
my relationship with Veyat and Sarah's relationship with her daughter
should be like to me at least, the pinnacle of
all of this. And I think that's what makes it
hard for everyone that's watching Sarah go through this is
to see for not connect those two together, because Aba
(13:13):
is completely different person than she was before this. It's
changed her fundamentally, and I know that two months had
a lot to do with it.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
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.
And you know, she said, this is just like that
Hulu episode and I said, yeah, it's exactly like that.
Speaker 4 (13:45):
Yeah, 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 had rationalized all of those things because I knew
that I was not the only one.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
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. Ashley's been repairing
her relationship with her daughter ever since. She can understand
Sarah's pain and why Elizabeth is desperate for Sarah to
have that glass shatter moment.
Speaker 4 (14:27):
Second thing I wanted to say is how wonderful of
a friend you are.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
It's really hard to hear because it doesn't feel like
to be a wonderful.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
I'm just sorry. I'm sorry that you had to witness this.
I'm sorry that, man, I don't know. It's just a
really terrible thing when I see that from like my
family and you know, our friends. You know, what a
terrible thing to have to witness, you know, because there
are some people in mine, in Jason's lives that couldn't
(15:01):
I don't fault them for that. 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
in the kids' lives. So it's a choice for you
to be where you're at.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
I can't lie and say it's not a choice, especially
right now that I'm really struggling with. 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. It's never been about me. Her
(15:37):
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. And
to me, you know, when he did what he did
to her daughter, that can't be overcome.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
This is where Jessica Baum jumped in to offer her expertise.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
Elizabeth, I think you can't fathom how she could choose
this man over his daughter, which has a lot to
do 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. And
(16:19):
so that's one piece, but a really big piece of
this is about attachment and how our brains work, 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.
So Sarah is wired to stay in connection with this guy.
(16:41):
And it wasn't that black and white for Ashley either.
I mean, there were many, many good years where Jason
showed up and he was a wonderful person and he
was a good father. 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. We're not wired to look at the bad
(17:03):
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. An 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.
(17:23):
I don't know how much Sarah was involved in understanding
his trauma, and I'm saying that that might not be
a good thing. She might have overidentified with his wounded
parts and underidentified with how he wounded her daughter. So
there was an overidentification, maybe even a self sacrifice on
(17:46):
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. 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. It's not
(18:09):
like this easy process. I mean thirteen 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, 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.
(18:31):
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
how challenging it is to be in Sarah's position. Not
that I'm okay with their choices, but her choices make sense. Really,
when you understand attachment, they can start to make sense.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
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.
Watching her friend Sarah make this decision is excruciating because
for her, it's bigger than their friendship. It's about Sarah's
nineteen year old daughter. Elizabeth watched Sarah's daughter grow up
(19:23):
and helped care for her. They're like family. Here's Elizabeth.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
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, 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.
(19:52):
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.
She's like, you guys are having big reactions because this
is brand new information for you. This is not brand
(20:14):
new for me. 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. 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. But she never seemed to be mad
(20:38):
to me. She never said I feel like she's choosing him,
I feel abandoned, I feel left out. They are so very,
very close. Which was one of the questions that I
wanted to come in with today, which is 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,
(21:03):
how would I explain to her daughter, 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. And how do
I continue to support her and say those things without
her daughter pushing meat away just because we're disagreeing with
her mother, who she's so loyal to.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
I keep going back to the theme of like connection
as a biological imperative, So her daughter is preserving the
connection with her mom as best she can 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.
(21:44):
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.
But again, we don't want to push her there. In
a therapeutic setting, 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
(22:06):
mom right now. 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. You just need to hold the
space and work through with you, Elizabeth, what's coming up
(22:27):
in you. And you might want to work through that
with somebody else, Like I want to tell this daughter this,
and I want to tell her that this, and I'm
having all this anger and all of that is about you,
and I'm not 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
(22:47):
the boundaries a little bit better for you.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
That does help a lot, because that was a big
question I had. You know, what do we say?
Speaker 3 (22:57):
You can hold space? If she's asking, that's another thing.
But with enough therapy, she will get there on her
own time. I believe, 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
(23:19):
to say.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
Yeah, and that makes perfect studies. 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. And I hope
that you're able to make the right choice. And I
didn't tell her what I thought the right choice was,
(23:43):
but I told her you can choose whatever you want,
but there are consequences to your choices. 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. This
is not it it's him or me situation. It was
(24:03):
never that. So just was drawing that boundary at that
time the right thing to do.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
Yeah, I mean I have a couple things to say
about that. But boundaries that you said so brilliantly, boundaries
aren't about punishing another person or controlling another person. They're
about protecting ourselves, right, And so the boundary that you
set was for your own emotional help, you know, to
protect yourself from what you were seeing that was causing
a lot of distress inside of you. So when I
(24:34):
set a boundary, I try to say, hey, I'm doing
this for me, this is why I'm doing it. But
I mean, attachment runs deep, and there are times you
want to say, like, why didn't you just leave? And
it's not that simple. It's not that easy. When you
describe their love, it sounds like Sarah has a very
(24:54):
early attachment bond. She will override what we all think
she should do to stay in relationship, to not face
the fear of losing her person. She's surviving and staying
in an attachment that gives the illusion of being safer
or more security than leaving and facing the deep well
(25:19):
of loneness or emptiness. Her system knows that she might
have to face without him.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
Honestly, that was that was me, Like what Sarah did
was me. We did Bible study together after this, Like
I still am dealing with some of that ships. I'm like,
but there was something going there was inside of me.
I couldn't. I couldn't rationalize it. I could not believe
(25:47):
that Jason was my husband and he was a sex offender.
I couldn't. There are two different people. I look back
at it now and I'm like, something was wrong inside
my brain. It wasn't connecting everything correctly. It is the
weirdest phenomenon. Often it's not about the other person's behavior.
It's not about this guy's behavior. It's about what part
(26:08):
of myself do I need to face if I actually
leave this relationship. That's terrifying me. Her brain is going
to work.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
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. But when you're
on the inside and you're living it, it's not that
black and white. And it wasn't that black and white
for Ashley either. I mean, I had to meet Ashley
and I just say, of course you love him, of
course you miss him, of course tell me about the
(26:36):
good years. It wouldn't have worked if I just went
in black and white with you, Ashley, just wouldn't have worked.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Our listener, Elizabeth has been taking this all in and
through the conversation, and she realized that it's not just
about what she should say to her friend. It's about
her own experience of watching Sarah make this choice. For
Elizabeth that might be a decision she can't overlook.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
I was so looking forward to talking to both of
you today. But I love hearing that from a therapist
point of view, from a licensed therapist point of view,
because I never thought about that. 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.
(27:36):
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.
But I kind of landed on it with I guess
now it is about me at this point, and whether
is that moral issue that I have a problem with,
(27:57):
even though I understand that it is a more issue
that I have within myself. Do I now continue the
friendship when I feel like 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,
(28:18):
and when the dust settles, it is who she has
changed for me. And the answer is yes, So what
do I do with that now?
Speaker 4 (28:30):
Right? I think that you have to do what's safe
for you, you know, and say for your mental health,
And I'll leave you with this. There is not a
day that goes by that I don't feel like I
did the wrong thing, and I will live with that
for the rest of my life. I'm not saying Sarah will,
(28:51):
so don't. 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 I don't try to
make up for that failure in every way every way
I can, especially around you know a vea. But I
feel for you, and I think whatever you do moving
forward doesn't discount the friendship that you had with her
(29:15):
and how you looked at her and how much you
love her, how much you love her daughter and her family.
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 1 (29:30):
I appreciate that. And you know, it's interesting to me
that you don't remember if anybody has said anything in
the moment. 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, but I just hope that she felt loved
and supported through it all the way that you did.
(29:52):
You know, I think that you telling your story just
in this podcast period is incredibly brave 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
(30:15):
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 kind of formed our support group so that we
could say the things we wanted to say without hurting Sarah,
(30:35):
which I would highly recommend to any friend or family
member in this situation. Get your own support group with
other people who are trying to navigate exactly like you.
And I love that we were able to do this
today because if I had questions, other people have questions.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
Conversations like this can be triggering. They insite judgment and anger.
We felt it as we produce this episode, but like
Elizabeth said, she's not the only one. We just hope
this episode finds the people who need to hear it.
I want to give a special thanks to Jessica Baum,
(31:18):
Ashley Trujillo, and our anonymous listener, Elizabeth. 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 5 (31:32):
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 dot com. That's Betrayal Pod
at gmail dot com.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
We're grateful for your support.
Speaker 5 (31:46):
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.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Go a Long Way, A big thank you to all
of our listeners.
Speaker 5 (31:57):
Betrayal is a production of Glass Podcasts, vision of Glass
Entertainment Group in partnership.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
With iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 5 (32:03):
The show is executive produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fason,
hosted and produced by me Andrea Gunning, written and produced
by Monique Leboard, also produced by Ben Fetterman. Associate producers
are Kristin Mercury and Caitlin Golden. Our iHeart team is
Ali Perry and Jessica Krincheck. Audio editing and mixing by
(32:24):
mattel Vecchio, Additional editing support from Tanner Robbins. Betrayal's theme
composed by Oliver Bains. Music library provided by Mob Music
and For more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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, and I
hope that you're able to make the right choice.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
I'm Andrea Gunning, and this is a special bonus episode
of Betrayal. 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. She had watched season
two of Betrayal on Hulu, which tells the story of
(00:50):
a stepdaughter that was violated by her stepfather. Elizabeth wrote
to us because the same thing was playing out in
her own life, or rather her best friend's life. Elizabeth
and her friend will call her Sarah, have been closed
for thirteen years. They used to live in the same
apartment building. Their daughters were around the same age. Sarah
(01:14):
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. They planned joint family vacations and
shared holidays. Elizabeth felt like an aunt to Sarah's daughter,
who is now nineteen. A few months ago, Sarah texted
Elizabeth saying she needed to talk. It was an emergency.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
She basically just started sobbing and told me everything. She
had been in the car with her daughter that day
and she had said something about her husband breaking up
pattern of abuse because he was abused sexually abused as
a child, and she was so glad he was breaking
the pattern of abuse. And that was when her daughter
(02:03):
decided she couldn't take it anymore and she had to
tell her.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Sarah's daughter shared that her stepfather had sexually abused her.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
It started in twenty sixty for her, so she was
eleven years old.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
After Sarah found out, she confronted her husband.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
And he admitted to everything, Yes I did this, Yes
I did that. She had already packed a bag for
him and told him that he needed to go and
stay with his mother, which was in the house about
half hour from them, and that he had a week's
worth of clothes and she would talk to him later.
So he didn't argue. He left immediately, and then the
(02:41):
daughter wanted to go and report it to the police.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
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. But that's just the beginning
of our episode. Because Sarah struggled to let her husband go.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
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. 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? And I said, I can't
(03:25):
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.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
At this point, that message wasn't getting through to Sarah.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
My friend was and is very attached to him and
very much in love with him.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
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. That progressed into longer phone conversations and visits.
Then they started going to therapy together. Within a few
(04:03):
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.
You may be wondering what about child protective services, Well,
Sarah's daughter is nineteen now an adult, so legally her
stepdad was allowed back in the same house. In the
(04:25):
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. It was so
unlike Sarah, and it just seemed wrong.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
I texted Sarah and I said, listen, if this is
the route that you're going to go down, 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 I can't support this.
And she said, I don't need to explain my feelings
(05:08):
to anybody. I am doing what I'm doing and it's
not my responsibility to make sure that you understand. 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. And she said, that's all I'm asking for
(05:29):
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 2 (05:39):
This is what Elizabeth wrote to us. She felt helpless
watching her best friend let this man back into her life.
She worried at saying too much might blow up the
friendship and further isolate Sarah from the people.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
Who love her.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
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, and Elizabeth
felt like that was the wrong choice. Our team has
heard countless stories like this to the point where we
couldn't ignore this topic. Where loved ones watch from afar
(06:15):
as someone lets an abuser back into their life. It's
an incredibly painful thing to watch. 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.
We saw Elizabeth's question as a way into a larger
(06:35):
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? Elizabeth asked for advice from
Ashley Trhello, the subject of season two of Betrayal. Ashley
has been through something similar to Sarah. Her husband, Jason
(06:56):
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,
and while Jason awaited sentencing, Ashley tried to salvage the relationship.
She went straight into WiFi mode, as she calls it.
(07:18):
It wasn't until she saw the full discovery file against
Jason that she finally decided to leave him. But those
few months actually stayed with him have had lasting impacts
on her relationship with her daughter. So we invited Ashley
Trahillo to talk with Elizabeth, and she agreed. We also
brought in Jessica Baum, a licensed clinical therapist, to help
(07:41):
guide the conversation. 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 1 (07:54):
I'm so glad to talk to you specifically, because actually
you were the one I wanted to talk to when
I first emailed been to the podcast, 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 why are you doing that? And for
(08:16):
me even now with Sarah, do I yell these things occurred?
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.
What would you have wanted?
Speaker 4 (08:32):
In hindsight, yeah, somebody should have shook me, snacked me,
dunked my head in water. I don't know, whatever it
was you wake me up. But I don't know if
any of that would have worked, because at the end
of the day, so I had nothing to do with
how everybody else was feeling or what they thought I
should do or what they thought was the right thing
to do, because in my mind I was doing the
(08:53):
right thing. So if they had said something, I don't remember.
But to answer your question, I don't know if saying
anything in that moment it is work for her or
for you, And that's hard because you have to be
true to you and be true to like how your
(09:13):
friendship has always been with her. I think for anyone
that is listening and is in that situation, there's a
lot of factors that you have to consider. And my
family considered that they were afraid I was going to
be suicidal and my whole life blew up when I
already snuffered from depression. So I think they were very
aware of that, and they didn't want to be the
(09:33):
reason why I decided like, Okay, today's the day because
everyone thinks I'm disgusting and growth all these feelings already
felt inside myself, So I think that that's a factory
you have to consider. I don't know if that even
answers it, but it does.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Yeah, you don't know if you would have heard it
no matter what anybody had said. And that's I think
that's how I felt with Sarah. 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. The way I described everything was
(10:11):
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, 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.
Because you have you have to be very careful, especially
we don't have to be, but I felt like I
needed to be very careful. My whole family said that,
(10:35):
They've all said that, like word for work. We were
on egg jails with you. We didn't know if what
we're saying was right or if it was wrong. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (10:43):
Another thing that I really want to highlight with the
whole situation is a Beya or Sarah's daughter. Even though
I've spent a couple months in denial, that was two
months and we are three years out, and my relationship
(11:05):
with a Veya is still healing from my betrayal to
a Veya. 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 I don't't 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.
(11:26):
I thought whatever I was doing was for the greater
good of my family, and being able to like take
those girls colored glasses off, I was able to kind
of see it from a bird's eye view and see
what I had done to a beya And you know,
speaking to my family about it, and we've spoke a
lot about it during that term because they're like, when
we heard that you were seeing Jason or you were
(11:48):
going back into wife mode, we thought, what the hell
is she doing? 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 meet and
kind of the collective idea around it, because it wasn't
just you know, one person, It was my whole family,
(12:09):
you know, And I think they already knew that whatever
was going on, they didn't want to lose me too,
and so they just loved me. And 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,
you know, what, what do you think, Like, what would
you have done? And she told me, had I stayed
(12:30):
with him or continued to rationalize what he did. She
doesn't think she would have been able to have a
relationship with me just because of her own like moral compass.
She was like, I love you and I continue to
love you, but I couldn't. I couldn't witness that. So, yeah,
(12:52):
my relationship with Veyat and Sarah's relationship with her daughter
should be like to me at least, the pinnacle of
all of this. And I think that's what makes it
hard for everyone that's watching Sarah go through this is
to see for not connect those two together, because Aba
(13:13):
is completely different person than she was before this. It's
changed her fundamentally, and I know that two months had
a lot to do with it.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
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.
And you know, she said, this is just like that
Hulu episode and I said, yeah, it's exactly like that.
Speaker 4 (13:45):
Yeah, 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 had rationalized all of those things because I knew
that I was not the only one.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
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. Ashley's been repairing
her relationship with her daughter ever since. She can understand
Sarah's pain and why Elizabeth is desperate for Sarah to
have that glass shatter moment.
Speaker 4 (14:27):
Second thing I wanted to say is how wonderful of
a friend you are.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
It's really hard to hear because it doesn't feel like
to be a wonderful.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
I'm just sorry. I'm sorry that you had to witness this.
I'm sorry that, man, I don't know. It's just a
really terrible thing when I see that from like my
family and you know, our friends. You know, what a
terrible thing to have to witness, you know, because there
are some people in mine, in Jason's lives that couldn't
(15:01):
I don't fault them for that. 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
in the kids' lives. So it's a choice for you
to be where you're at.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
I can't lie and say it's not a choice, especially
right now that I'm really struggling with. 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. It's never been about me. Her
(15:37):
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. And
to me, you know, when he did what he did
to her daughter, that can't be overcome.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
This is where Jessica Baum jumped in to offer her expertise.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
Elizabeth, I think you can't fathom how she could choose
this man over his daughter, which has a lot to
do 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. And
(16:19):
so that's one piece, but a really big piece of
this is about attachment and how our brains work, 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.
So Sarah is wired to stay in connection with this guy.
(16:41):
And it wasn't that black and white for Ashley either.
I mean, there were many, many good years where Jason
showed up and he was a wonderful person and he
was a good father. 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. We're not wired to look at the bad
(17:03):
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. An 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.
(17:23):
I don't know how much Sarah was involved in understanding
his trauma, and I'm saying that that might not be
a good thing. She might have overidentified with his wounded
parts and underidentified with how he wounded her daughter. So
there was an overidentification, maybe even a self sacrifice on
(17:46):
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. 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. It's not
(18:09):
like this easy process. I mean thirteen 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, 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.
(18:31):
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
how challenging it is to be in Sarah's position. Not
that I'm okay with their choices, but her choices make sense. Really,
when you understand attachment, they can start to make sense.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
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.
Watching her friend Sarah make this decision is excruciating because
for her, it's bigger than their friendship. It's about Sarah's
nineteen year old daughter. Elizabeth watched Sarah's daughter grow up
(19:23):
and helped care for her. They're like family. Here's Elizabeth.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
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, 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.
(19:52):
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.
She's like, you guys are having big reactions because this
is brand new information for you. This is not brand
(20:14):
new for me. 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. 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. But she never seemed to be mad
(20:38):
to me. She never said I feel like she's choosing him,
I feel abandoned, I feel left out. They are so very,
very close. Which was one of the questions that I
wanted to come in with today, which is 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,
(21:03):
how would I explain to her daughter, 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. And how do
I continue to support her and say those things without
her daughter pushing meat away just because we're disagreeing with
her mother, who she's so loyal to.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
I keep going back to the theme of like connection
as a biological imperative, So her daughter is preserving the
connection with her mom as best she can 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.
(21:44):
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.
But again, we don't want to push her there. In
a therapeutic setting, 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
(22:06):
mom right now. 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. You just need to hold the
space and work through with you, Elizabeth, what's coming up
(22:27):
in you. And you might want to work through that
with somebody else, Like I want to tell this daughter this,
and I want to tell her that this, and I'm
having all this anger and all of that is about you,
and I'm not 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
(22:47):
the boundaries a little bit better for you.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
That does help a lot, because that was a big
question I had. You know, what do we say?
Speaker 3 (22:57):
You can hold space? If she's asking, that's another thing.
But with enough therapy, she will get there on her
own time. I believe, 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
(23:19):
to say.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
Yeah, and that makes perfect studies. 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. And I hope
that you're able to make the right choice. And I
didn't tell her what I thought the right choice was,
(23:43):
but I told her you can choose whatever you want,
but there are consequences to your choices. 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. This
is not it it's him or me situation. It was
(24:03):
never that. So just was drawing that boundary at that
time the right thing to do.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
Yeah, I mean I have a couple things to say
about that. But boundaries that you said so brilliantly, boundaries
aren't about punishing another person or controlling another person. They're
about protecting ourselves, right, And so the boundary that you
set was for your own emotional help, you know, to
protect yourself from what you were seeing that was causing
a lot of distress inside of you. So when I
(24:34):
set a boundary, I try to say, hey, I'm doing
this for me, this is why I'm doing it. But
I mean, attachment runs deep, and there are times you
want to say, like, why didn't you just leave? And
it's not that simple. It's not that easy. When you
describe their love, it sounds like Sarah has a very
(24:54):
early attachment bond. She will override what we all think
she should do to stay in relationship, to not face
the fear of losing her person. She's surviving and staying
in an attachment that gives the illusion of being safer
or more security than leaving and facing the deep well
(25:19):
of loneness or emptiness. Her system knows that she might
have to face without him.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
Honestly, that was that was me, Like what Sarah did
was me. We did Bible study together after this, Like
I still am dealing with some of that ships. I'm like,
but there was something going there was inside of me.
I couldn't. I couldn't rationalize it. I could not believe
(25:47):
that Jason was my husband and he was a sex offender.
I couldn't. There are two different people. I look back
at it now and I'm like, something was wrong inside
my brain. It wasn't connecting everything correctly. It is the
weirdest phenomenon. Often it's not about the other person's behavior.
It's not about this guy's behavior. It's about what part
(26:08):
of myself do I need to face if I actually
leave this relationship. That's terrifying me. Her brain is going
to work.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
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. But when you're
on the inside and you're living it, it's not that
black and white. And it wasn't that black and white
for Ashley either. I mean, I had to meet Ashley
and I just say, of course you love him, of
course you miss him, of course tell me about the
(26:36):
good years. It wouldn't have worked if I just went
in black and white with you, Ashley, just wouldn't have worked.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Our listener, Elizabeth has been taking this all in and
through the conversation, and she realized that it's not just
about what she should say to her friend. It's about
her own experience of watching Sarah make this choice. For
Elizabeth that might be a decision she can't overlook.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
I was so looking forward to talking to both of
you today. But I love hearing that from a therapist
point of view, from a licensed therapist point of view,
because I never thought about that. 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.
(27:36):
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.
But I kind of landed on it with I guess
now it is about me at this point, and whether
is that moral issue that I have a problem with,
(27:57):
even though I understand that it is a more issue
that I have within myself. Do I now continue the
friendship when I feel like 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,
(28:18):
and when the dust settles, it is who she has
changed for me. And the answer is yes, So what
do I do with that now?
Speaker 4 (28:30):
Right? I think that you have to do what's safe
for you, you know, and say for your mental health,
And I'll leave you with this. There is not a
day that goes by that I don't feel like I
did the wrong thing, and I will live with that
for the rest of my life. I'm not saying Sarah will,
(28:51):
so don't. 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 I don't try to
make up for that failure in every way every way
I can, especially around you know a vea. But I
feel for you, and I think whatever you do moving
forward doesn't discount the friendship that you had with her
(29:15):
and how you looked at her and how much you
love her, how much you love her daughter and her family.
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 1 (29:30):
I appreciate that. And you know, it's interesting to me
that you don't remember if anybody has said anything in
the moment. 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, but I just hope that she felt loved
and supported through it all the way that you did.
(29:52):
You know, I think that you telling your story just
in this podcast period is incredibly brave 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
(30:15):
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 kind of formed our support group so that we
could say the things we wanted to say without hurting Sarah,
(30:35):
which I would highly recommend to any friend or family
member in this situation. Get your own support group with
other people who are trying to navigate exactly like you.
And I love that we were able to do this
today because if I had questions, other people have questions.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
Conversations like this can be triggering. They insite judgment and anger.
We felt it as we produce this episode, but like
Elizabeth said, she's not the only one. We just hope
this episode finds the people who need to hear it.
I want to give a special thanks to Jessica Baum,
(31:18):
Ashley Trujillo, and our anonymous listener, Elizabeth. 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 5 (31:32):
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 dot com. That's Betrayal Pod
at gmail dot com.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
We're grateful for your support.
Speaker 5 (31:46):
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.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Go a Long Way, A big thank you to all
of our listeners.
Speaker 5 (31:57):
Betrayal is a production of Glass Podcasts, vision of Glass
Entertainment Group in partnership.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
With iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 5 (32:03):
The show is executive produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fason,
hosted and produced by me Andrea Gunning, written and produced
by Monique Leboard, also produced by Ben Fetterman. Associate producers
are Kristin Mercury and Caitlin Golden. Our iHeart team is
Ali Perry and Jessica Krincheck. Audio editing and mixing by
(32:24):
mattel Vecchio, Additional editing support from Tanner Robbins. Betrayal's theme
composed by Oliver Bains. Music library provided by Mob Music
and For more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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