July 18, 2024 • 11 mins
The Betrayal community is growing. From the producers that brought you the critically acclaimed Betrayal limited run series, a new always-on docuseries will hit the feed every week.
Our lives are all built on an invisible force: trust. But sometimes, the people we trust the most can turn out to be complete strangers. Every week, Betrayal Weekly will share first-hand accounts of broken trust, shocking deceptions, and the trail of destruction they leave behind. Hosted by Andrea Gunning, this weekly ongoing series digs into real-life stories of betrayal and the aftermath. From stories of double lives to dark discoveries, these are cautionary tales and accounts of resilience against all odds.
If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal Team, email us at betrayalpod@gmail.com.
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See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, it's Andrea Gunning. Thanks for tuning into our first
three seasons of Betrayal. These stories have inspired so many
of you to share your own experiences with us. We
knew we had to find a way to bring more
of your stories to the podcast speed and now we are.
Every Thursday, we'll be releasing new extraordinary episodes. These are
(00:23):
first hand accounts of shocking deception, broken trust, and betrayal,
of destruction left behind, And these are stories you've never
heard before. I'm like, what, No, this isn't real. What's
going on?
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Who are you really? I said, I can't believe what
I'm listening to.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
I was like, where's the baby? What's happening?
Speaker 4 (00:47):
From unbelievable romantic betrayals?
Speaker 2 (00:49):
The love that was so real for me was always
just a game for him.
Speaker 4 (00:56):
To betrayals in your own family. When I think about
my dad, Oh well, he is a sociopath. He is
a criminal financial betrayals.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
So this is like the beginning of it.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
This is not even the part where he steals millions
of dollars, right, even life or death deceptions.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
She's practicing how she's going to cry when the police
calls her after they kill me.
Speaker 4 (01:20):
The people we trust the most.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
He was caring and loving and genuine with his wife
and his child and his patients.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
The people we least expect.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
And he was a psychopath.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
These are cautionary tales, stories of romance, family and business.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
Gone horribly wrong.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
But they are also survival stories, stories of resilience after
losing the thing we all depend on.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
Trust.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
My story was true, even if his wasn't.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Mine was.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Now here's a sneak peek of our first episode. This
Stephany's story. Her marriage came crashing down in an instant
when she discovered the sinister truth about her husband, a
dark secret he had hidden for twenty two years.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
We got married in nineteen ninety eight. It was a
second marriage for both of us. I came with four boys.
He had a boy and a girl. Our kids were
already friends and were thrilled about us being together.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Stephanie and her husband I'm going to call him Greg,
lived together in a tiny Midwestern town. It's the kind
of town where everybody knows everybody.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
It's like a small town that you would see on
a movie or a sitcom. I didn't want my husband
to go to the grocery store with me. It just
would take so long if he went with because we
knew every person at the store and everyone would have
to stop and visit with him.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Their big, blended family was well known in town. Picture
a modern day Brady bunch. At least that's the feeling
I got from a photo she shared with me. It's Stephanie,
her sons, and Greg's kids, all six of them standing
side by side on the beach, smiling. Their family takes
up the whole three by five photo across their arm
(03:21):
and arm having the best beach vacation. It's really sweet.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
He was the absolute ideal husband. He was my best friend.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
He did housework, he cooked, he played with the kids,
and when the kids who were little, we would go
in and volunteer at their elementary school and help with
their reading groups, which was super fun and like what
their dad does that? I mean back in those days,
he was the only dad who volunteered, and the kids
(03:55):
all loved him.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
There's another photo of Stephanie and her husband in front
of a waterfall in a forest with his arms wrapped
around her. The sun lights her face and she looks
relaxed and blissful.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
He was very kind, very generous, very interested in hearing
what I had to say. He very much lifted me up.
He made me feel seen, and he made me feel
(04:29):
like I was smart and competent.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
They had great chemistry. They made great partners, not just
in marriage, but in business.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
I just ended up working at my husband's optometry practice,
because you know, it's a small practice, just him. He
always had three employees and one quit and I was
kind of in between jobs, so it's like, oh, could
you just fill in?
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Stephanie did a lot more than just fill in. She
started managing her husband's optometry practice, pushing insurance claims through
and making the business more profitable than ever. They had
a clear vision for their future.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
We certainly were not rich, but we were very comfortable.
We had our own resort in our backyard. We had
a large and ground.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
Pool, hot ub, basketball court.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Have this great photo of Greg on his giant pool
lounger watching the Master's golf tournament on our outdoor big
screen TV. We had just begun a plan of getting
the house absolutely perfect and maintenance free for when we retired.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Of course, there were hard moments, bumps along the way
in a twenty two year marriage. That's par for the course.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
At one point he admitted that he hadn't been paying
the taxes at his business, and there was a possibility
we could lose the business, our house, he could go
to jail. That's a pretty big bump. It's like I've
invested everything. I've put my life and my kids' lives
(06:13):
in this man's hands.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
So that was tough, but we worked through it.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
They agreed to a payment plan with the irs and
move forward as a team, back on track for a
happy retirement. As the kids got older, Stephanie and her
husband adjusted well to the empty nest.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
When the kids were grown, things were almost even better.
We would leave the office and walk hand in hand
down the street to the local cafe and go to
lunch together and sit and talk and laugh through the
whole lunch, not and scroll on our phones like other couples.
(06:52):
And then we would go back and work for the afternoon,
and then we would go home together and make dinner,
watch our favorite great game shows, and play a board game.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Even during the twenty twenty pandemic, Stephanie and her husband
got along.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
So you know, during COVID, I'd hop on a zoom
call with like six or seven girlfriends, and we're pretty
much all empty nesters, so we're all just stuck in
the house alone with our husbands. And my friends have
good marriages, and still there was a lot of like.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
I don't know how much longer I can take this.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
I'm really bored, and I'm going, oh gosh, you guys,
I feel bad because, you know what, we're having a
blast over here.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
We're trying new recipes, We've got.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
This whole game thing going on. We're doing all these puzzles.
We're having so much fun.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
When COVID restrictions lifted, the couple took the opportunity to
spend even more time together and enjoy a warmer climate.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Kind of on a whim, we were like, hey, things
are opening up. We didn't get to go on our
winter vacation to our time sharing cancuon let's go down there.
So we had gone down the first week of April
and had a fabulous time as we always do.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
But on this little COVID getaway, she could tell that
something was off with Greg. She first noticed it when
they were lounging by the pool.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
One of the things that.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Really struck me as weird on that trip was that
We had kind of sat in this same spot a
couple days and there was someone else sitting a couple
chairs down from us, another husband and wife.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
And the guy made me really uncomfortable.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
You know how some guys just look at you weird,
you know, when you're hanging out in your bathing suit whatever.
And I said, guy just kind of made me uncomfortable.
And I told Greg that. I said, you know, that
guy is just kind of creeping me out. Can we
sit somewhere else? And he said no, that was totally
out of character for him. He was always so accommodating
(09:06):
to me and never wanted me to feel uncomfortable. I mean,
does it matter if we sit over on the other
side of the gorgeous infinity pool looking out at the ocean?
Speaker 3 (09:19):
So yeah, it just struck me as a little weird.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
It was weird, but Stephanie didn't think much of it.
That night, the couple indulged in a long, romantic dinner.
This was always part of their vacation, a few dinners
where they could really treat.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Themselves, many many courses and lots of different drinks and
wine and all of that.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
The next morning, Stephanie was in a fog I was
very out of it, like it was really hard to
wake up.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
I've had this feeling.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
It was almost like I was at the bottom of
the lake and I could just see light way up ahead,
but it was so hard to try to get there,
and then I would just feel so awful, like very
cotton mull, very dehydrated, headache, miserable waking up.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
Shouldn't feel like that.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
But Greg was there to help take care of her.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
Last night.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
You had a lot to drink, and we were out
in the sun a lot. I'm sure you're dehydrated. Let's
get you some water, Let's get you some coffee. Let's
try to stay out of the sun a little bit today.
You know, very comforting, very kind.
Speaker 4 (10:37):
But Greg wasn't the man who was pretending to be.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
I had that feeling.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
I was like, I got to check all his stuff
while he's gone. I saw his laptop was sitting there
by his recliner. I picked it up and I took
it over to the kitchen counter and that was where
I was sitting, and I literally just lifted it up
up and it was there.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
The pages were open.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
He readily confessed to all of it, no tears, no remorse,
no regret.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
No care whatsoever.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
He talked to me like he was telling me I
went to the store and got a gallon of milk.
He said, I have those pictures of those other women
because I trade like kids trade Pokemon cards. I would
trade your image.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Be sure to listen in on July twenty fifth to
hear all of Stephanie's story, and subscribe to the Betrayal Feed,
where you'll hear news stories every Thursday.
Hi, it's Andrea Gunning. Thanks for tuning into our first
three seasons of Betrayal. These stories have inspired so many
of you to share your own experiences with us. We
knew we had to find a way to bring more
of your stories to the podcast speed and now we are.
Every Thursday, we'll be releasing new extraordinary episodes. These are
(00:23):
first hand accounts of shocking deception, broken trust, and betrayal,
of destruction left behind, And these are stories you've never
heard before. I'm like, what, No, this isn't real. What's
going on?
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Who are you really? I said, I can't believe what
I'm listening to.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
I was like, where's the baby? What's happening?
Speaker 4 (00:47):
From unbelievable romantic betrayals?
Speaker 2 (00:49):
The love that was so real for me was always
just a game for him.
Speaker 4 (00:56):
To betrayals in your own family. When I think about
my dad, Oh well, he is a sociopath. He is
a criminal financial betrayals.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
So this is like the beginning of it.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
This is not even the part where he steals millions
of dollars, right, even life or death deceptions.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
She's practicing how she's going to cry when the police
calls her after they kill me.
Speaker 4 (01:20):
The people we trust the most.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
He was caring and loving and genuine with his wife
and his child and his patients.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
The people we least expect.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
And he was a psychopath.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
These are cautionary tales, stories of romance, family and business.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
Gone horribly wrong.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
But they are also survival stories, stories of resilience after
losing the thing we all depend on.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
Trust.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
My story was true, even if his wasn't.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Mine was.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Now here's a sneak peek of our first episode. This
Stephany's story. Her marriage came crashing down in an instant
when she discovered the sinister truth about her husband, a
dark secret he had hidden for twenty two years.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
We got married in nineteen ninety eight. It was a
second marriage for both of us. I came with four boys.
He had a boy and a girl. Our kids were
already friends and were thrilled about us being together.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Stephanie and her husband I'm going to call him Greg,
lived together in a tiny Midwestern town. It's the kind
of town where everybody knows everybody.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
It's like a small town that you would see on
a movie or a sitcom. I didn't want my husband
to go to the grocery store with me. It just
would take so long if he went with because we
knew every person at the store and everyone would have
to stop and visit with him.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Their big, blended family was well known in town. Picture
a modern day Brady bunch. At least that's the feeling
I got from a photo she shared with me. It's Stephanie,
her sons, and Greg's kids, all six of them standing
side by side on the beach, smiling. Their family takes
up the whole three by five photo across their arm
(03:21):
and arm having the best beach vacation. It's really sweet.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
He was the absolute ideal husband. He was my best friend.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
He did housework, he cooked, he played with the kids,
and when the kids who were little, we would go
in and volunteer at their elementary school and help with
their reading groups, which was super fun and like what
their dad does that? I mean back in those days,
he was the only dad who volunteered, and the kids
(03:55):
all loved him.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
There's another photo of Stephanie and her husband in front
of a waterfall in a forest with his arms wrapped
around her. The sun lights her face and she looks
relaxed and blissful.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
He was very kind, very generous, very interested in hearing
what I had to say. He very much lifted me up.
He made me feel seen, and he made me feel
(04:29):
like I was smart and competent.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
They had great chemistry. They made great partners, not just
in marriage, but in business.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
I just ended up working at my husband's optometry practice,
because you know, it's a small practice, just him. He
always had three employees and one quit and I was
kind of in between jobs, so it's like, oh, could
you just fill in?
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Stephanie did a lot more than just fill in. She
started managing her husband's optometry practice, pushing insurance claims through
and making the business more profitable than ever. They had
a clear vision for their future.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
We certainly were not rich, but we were very comfortable.
We had our own resort in our backyard. We had
a large and ground.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
Pool, hot ub, basketball court.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Have this great photo of Greg on his giant pool
lounger watching the Master's golf tournament on our outdoor big
screen TV. We had just begun a plan of getting
the house absolutely perfect and maintenance free for when we retired.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Of course, there were hard moments, bumps along the way
in a twenty two year marriage. That's par for the course.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
At one point he admitted that he hadn't been paying
the taxes at his business, and there was a possibility
we could lose the business, our house, he could go
to jail. That's a pretty big bump. It's like I've
invested everything. I've put my life and my kids' lives
(06:13):
in this man's hands.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
So that was tough, but we worked through it.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
They agreed to a payment plan with the irs and
move forward as a team, back on track for a
happy retirement. As the kids got older, Stephanie and her
husband adjusted well to the empty nest.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
When the kids were grown, things were almost even better.
We would leave the office and walk hand in hand
down the street to the local cafe and go to
lunch together and sit and talk and laugh through the
whole lunch, not and scroll on our phones like other couples.
(06:52):
And then we would go back and work for the afternoon,
and then we would go home together and make dinner,
watch our favorite great game shows, and play a board game.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Even during the twenty twenty pandemic, Stephanie and her husband
got along.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
So you know, during COVID, I'd hop on a zoom
call with like six or seven girlfriends, and we're pretty
much all empty nesters, so we're all just stuck in
the house alone with our husbands. And my friends have
good marriages, and still there was a lot of like.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
I don't know how much longer I can take this.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
I'm really bored, and I'm going, oh gosh, you guys,
I feel bad because, you know what, we're having a
blast over here.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
We're trying new recipes, We've got.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
This whole game thing going on. We're doing all these puzzles.
We're having so much fun.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
When COVID restrictions lifted, the couple took the opportunity to
spend even more time together and enjoy a warmer climate.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Kind of on a whim, we were like, hey, things
are opening up. We didn't get to go on our
winter vacation to our time sharing cancuon let's go down there.
So we had gone down the first week of April
and had a fabulous time as we always do.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
But on this little COVID getaway, she could tell that
something was off with Greg. She first noticed it when
they were lounging by the pool.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
One of the things that.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Really struck me as weird on that trip was that
We had kind of sat in this same spot a
couple days and there was someone else sitting a couple
chairs down from us, another husband and wife.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
And the guy made me really uncomfortable.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
You know how some guys just look at you weird,
you know, when you're hanging out in your bathing suit whatever.
And I said, guy just kind of made me uncomfortable.
And I told Greg that. I said, you know, that
guy is just kind of creeping me out. Can we
sit somewhere else? And he said no, that was totally
out of character for him. He was always so accommodating
(09:06):
to me and never wanted me to feel uncomfortable. I mean,
does it matter if we sit over on the other
side of the gorgeous infinity pool looking out at the ocean?
Speaker 3 (09:19):
So yeah, it just struck me as a little weird.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
It was weird, but Stephanie didn't think much of it.
That night, the couple indulged in a long, romantic dinner.
This was always part of their vacation, a few dinners
where they could really treat.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Themselves, many many courses and lots of different drinks and
wine and all of that.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
The next morning, Stephanie was in a fog I was
very out of it, like it was really hard to
wake up.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
I've had this feeling.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
It was almost like I was at the bottom of
the lake and I could just see light way up ahead,
but it was so hard to try to get there,
and then I would just feel so awful, like very
cotton mull, very dehydrated, headache, miserable waking up.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
Shouldn't feel like that.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
But Greg was there to help take care of her.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
Last night.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
You had a lot to drink, and we were out
in the sun a lot. I'm sure you're dehydrated. Let's
get you some water, Let's get you some coffee. Let's
try to stay out of the sun a little bit today.
You know, very comforting, very kind.
Speaker 4 (10:37):
But Greg wasn't the man who was pretending to be.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
I had that feeling.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
I was like, I got to check all his stuff
while he's gone. I saw his laptop was sitting there
by his recliner. I picked it up and I took
it over to the kitchen counter and that was where
I was sitting, and I literally just lifted it up
up and it was there.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
The pages were open.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
He readily confessed to all of it, no tears, no remorse,
no regret.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
No care whatsoever.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
He talked to me like he was telling me I
went to the store and got a gallon of milk.
He said, I have those pictures of those other women
because I trade like kids trade Pokemon cards. I would
trade your image.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Be sure to listen in on July twenty fifth to
hear all of Stephanie's story, and subscribe to the Betrayal Feed,
where you'll hear news stories every Thursday.
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