Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
One of the other things he did in that first
date that was odd is he said to me I'd
been researching widows. And my thought was, oh, he saw
that about my profile. He's been going out to understand
my particular issues. Now, looking back, I think it means
something else, but I didn't know that at the time.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
I'm Andrea Gunning and this is Betrayal, a show about
the people we trust the most and the deceptions that
change everything. Carrie McAvoy is a clinical psychologist based in Michigan.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
They saw clients in private practice for nearly twenty years.
What was exciting about working with clients was that I
could see really dramatic shifts in a relatively short time
when there was a lot of motive and effort, and
to me, it felt like a sacred privilege to work
with them.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Even though she studies human behavior for a living, she
found herself caught in a web of lies and manipulation.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Everyone somehow assumes a psychologists are like above human, superhuman.
We should know we should be excellent reads of people. Yeah,
I'm good reads of people, but when it comes to myself,
I'm not always so good because then my personal perceptions
get involved. Anyone can fall for something like this, you
just haven't met the sophisticated enough predator.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
And when Carrie was at her most vulnerable, she met
a predator who would derail her own life. Carrie grew
up on a dairy farm in Michigan.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
I think it had an active herd of sixty eight cows,
and we are expected to be a part of the
milking process. So my three sisters and I went to
work and start farming along with my dad.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
She was the oldest of her three sisters.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
We were supposed to be good girls.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
And out of the good girls.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
I was known as the best, the goodest, the one
that did everything right, the teacher's favorite.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
On the outside, they were an idyllic American farming family.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
But there was abuse and neglect going on in the family.
There was secrets that we were keeping.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Carrie and her little sister were being abused by a
family member.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Her and I had shared a room and the abuse
was going on in the room, and either it would
be she was hurt or I was hurt.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
It was a trauma that shaped Carrie's worldview. She retreated
into herself, and her safe space was school. She channeled
all of her energy into becoming a straight A student.
When she was fourteen, she read a magazine article about psychology.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
I thought, Oh, that's it. That's what I want to be.
I want to be a psychologist. I really wanted to
sort of decode a person.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
She knew it would take years of school to earn
a PhD in psychology, and that became her singular goal.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
So I did colle in three years. I probably could
have done it in two and a half years because
I was moving so fast and getting credit so fast.
Between my freshman and sophomore year, I worked up north
at a touristtown in northern Michigan City, Mackinawe Island, and
that's where I met Brad.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
She hadn't dated much before college. High school guys just
didn't understand her, but Brad seemed different.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
He and I started talking, and sure enough we just clicked.
By the end of the night, we were around a
bonfire telling ghost stories and I was really tired, so
I laid my head on his knee. He put his
hand on my shoulder, and I felt like I came home.
It was an amazing feeling.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
After that night, they were inseparable.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
He was really loyal. He was the kind of guy
if he told you, I'm going to help you move,
which he did do that. He would tell people, even
people he didn't know very well, I'm going to help
you move. If he woke up that with the stomach flu,
he would still go to help you move, so you
could just count on him. He was a man of
his word.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
When she got into a PhD program in California, Brad
went with her.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Brad had a big belief in me, who used like
a cheerleader champion of me. If I wanted to do something,
he supported that.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
And in graduate school she needed his support.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
I would literally fall into bed at night almost in
tears because I'd worked the whole day, get up do
it again. While you're trying to get ready for exams
and have papers written, and you have course reading lists
that are impossible to get through. It was so hard,
and Brad created space for that. He never once complained
about my lack of availability. He just was super supportive.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
She earned her PhD in clinical psychology, and she got
her first job in the field, working at a psychiatric hospital.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
I got to see the psychopathology class onto what did
a borderline personality look like, what did bipolar disorder? What
do the different subtypes of schizophrenia look like? What does
it look like when someone has a psychotic break.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
She was getting a lot of experience, and in the meantime,
she and Brad decided to start a family. Over the
next few years, they had three sons, but pregnancy took
a toll on her body, one that she was not expecting.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
I had a massive hair shed where I lost most
of my hair from that pregnancy. It was a shock.
So here I am weaning my two year old and
my hair is falling out, which was devastating, just devastating.
I mean, we literally evaluate women on the quality of
their hair. For me to know this is not changeable,
(05:47):
I'm not ever going to get this back. I'm going
to have to face the world like this. It took
me over ten years to deal with it.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
Even though she had wigs. The hair loss took away
her self confidence and her sense of self.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
I became suicidal for a while, not actively, but just like,
what's the point, you know? I felt trapped by it,
struggled to go out into the public. I mean, it
was bothering me enough that I had literal nightmares over
being found out or having people discover this. I just
felt terribly exposed.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
But Brad wasn't bothered by it at all. He and
their three boys became her refuge.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
We got a little old camper up on northern Michigan
and sat on the lake every summer, and it was fun.
It was just a really really good period of life
for us. Busy, but really good.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Carrie built her own practice as a clinical psychologist and
Brad worked as a civil engineer.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
The degree that we had this partnership really shined. We
agreed on how we spent money. We were making good decisions,
trying to pay off debt, get rid of my student loan,
those types of things, get in a good financial position.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Their priority was saving for an early retirement.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Our plan was once the child's out of the home,
he was going to quit working, when we were going
to focus more on the last part of our lives.
I thought we'd have a second honeymoon, and so that
was our plan.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
When they were both fifty, they started working with an
architect to design their dream home, the house they'd grow
old in.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
And he and I spent enormous amount of time with
an architect designing this really gorgeous farm style house with
even part of it with a metal roof so I
could listen to the rain.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
They were about to start construction when Brad got sick.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Brad started vomiting just unexpectedly.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
At first, they didn't think much of it.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
He kept thinking he knew what it was, you know.
He thought he had problems with milk, so he stopped
drinking milk. And then he thought maybe he's gluten sensitive,
so he started watching gluten.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
But the symptoms only got worse, so they decided to
see a specialist.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
They said that we found a tumor, and I knew
the news was bad while we were waiting for the
biopsy to come back.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
It was a rare form of stomach cancer. Carrie immediately
started researching, preparing a list of questions for the doctors.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
It was extremely pessimistic, like less than five percent make
it five years, so this is terminal.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
But no one had said this to them yet, so
she asked the doctor directly.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
I remember going in and sitting across from him in
the desk, and I said, tell me the truth. Did
you just tell me last night that Brad was dying?
And he said yes. I collapsed and I started weeping,
and then you know, we had this really practical talk
(08:47):
about what does that mean. I said, so, if he
does chemotherapy, how much time will he gain? He said
he might live twelve months. And I said, if we
don't do chemotherapy, how long will he live? And he
said maybe six. So we walked out and he said,
(09:09):
I'm not doing chemotherapy. It just doesn't make sense. I
don't want to be sicker. So we then decided we're
going to make the best of that time that we
had left.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
They wanted to go on one last vacation together, just
the two of them. They went to Jamaica, where they
hired a driver to take them to the most beautiful
beaches on the island.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
The chauffeur took us up up on a cliff and
let us get out and walk up to the edge,
and Brad stood there with me and he said, you
know you could do this, don't you. You know you
could travel, live abroad and start again.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
He wanted her to live life to the fullest after
he was gone, to pursue her wildest dreams. That vacation
in Jamaica would be one of their last good memories
together before his cancer progressed.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
I stopped working and just focused on him, and he
would say, the taxes are too high. They're too high.
We can't afford the tat you'd like. In his stumbly way,
he would say that, and it hit me. He's saying
it's taxing me too much. This is costing me too much.
And then I would look at him and I'd say,
if this is Mount Everest, I would carry you up
(10:19):
to the top on my back. I can do this.
I have it in me to do this, and he'd say, okay, okay, okay.
I needed quiet. Back down again.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Five and a half months after the diagnosis, Brad died
at home with Carrie by his side.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
A former client of mine sent me a note of
a welch word that's hereth I'd never heard of it before,
and it stands for a home that's lost, that can
never be found again, a homesickness of a home that
you're looking for that you can't find. And that's what
it felt like. I cried every single day. I didn't
(11:07):
know if I would survive the pain. My chest ached,
my heart ached.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Her youngest son was a senior in high school, and
that Christmas they were lost without Brad.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
I didn't know this until we lost him. He was
the glue that held us together. We had so little
energy that Christmas we basically handed each other the boxes
that they came in from. What of her company we
bought it from. We couldn't even wrap it. There's just
no energy to do that.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Before he got sick, the couple had made smart financial
decisions to protect their future.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Between Brad's pension retirement as well as the life insurance policy.
I was sacked comfortably for the rest of my life.
I would never have to work again.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
But the money was little comfort. She would trade it
all just to have Brad back.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
How do you find that again in your fifties and
how do you replace this life that you build? I
wanted it back, That's what I wanted. I want her
life that I had back.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
So in her grief, Carrie made a snap decision.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
And I'm ashamed of it, honestly, but I wanted out
of this pain so bad. I started dating really fast,
thinking that maybe I could just find someone and put
that person in the slot and this would fix all
of this.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
After Carrie McAvoy's husband passed away, she retired early from
her clinical psychology practice. Without him, she felt lost and
wanted desperately to find love again.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
It was maybe four to five months after Brad passed away.
I had my date.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Her first date was with another widower, someone who would
understand what she'd been through.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
It was a weird date because we just talked about
how painful it was being widowed and how much that
person had left a hole in her life. It was sweet.
I appreciate meeting him, but it was just sort of like,
I get your pain, but we're not really a match,
but thank you for that. It went out with a
few other men, and then it started taking it more seriously,
(13:27):
you know, once I got my feet underneath me and
figured out what this was like.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
It was a good distraction. Carrie threw herself into a
series of first dates.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
And so much so that I was getting exhausted. I
thought it would be simple to find somebody. I also
thought it would be easier that there'd be more compatibility
with more people.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Brad was always her biggest supporter, not just in her
career but emotionally, and without him, her self esteem faltered.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
I'm not a thin woman, I'm highly educated. I actually
went out with somebody from my practice for dinner, and
she said, you're going to have a hard time finding
love again. You're too smart, you're too educated, and you're
too old, and I ad it in my head and
I'm too fat.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Dating again was more difficult than she anticipated. It was
becoming too much.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
I started to become really discouraged, so I decided I
needed to take a break and that I was going
to close my dating apps and just stop.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
But her dating app subscription had just renewed for another
three months and she couldn't get a refund, so she
took it as a sign.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
So it was literally within a few days of that
that a handsome man's profile passed my preview.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
His name was Caesar. In his profile picture, he's standing
at the top of the Sears Tower.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
It felt like I was seeing a GQ shoot. He's
wearing a knit shirt with slacks. It's almost like he's
missing the coat slung over his shoulder. My first thought
of Caesar was he's really good looking, and he had
a look on his face like I can't wait to
meet you.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
He even listed his deal breakers right on his profile.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
No tattoos, no piercings, besides earrings, no atheists and no
pet owners. And they even wrote after going out with
a few dates and finding out there's these big discrepancies,
I thought it would be more helpful if I just
come out and say these are my deal breakers. A
little arrogant, but on the other hand, at least he
was more upfront than those who say I have a
(15:38):
super fit lifestyle and want someone who values that, which
is code for I want a slim woman.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
She was amused and attracted to his profile, but ultimately
she decided.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
This is the person who's out of my league. I
felt like I was a solid six next to this nine,
and I just like passed on by. I didn't swipe left,
I just didn't do anything with the profile. But the
next day, this was one of those apps ate lunch
who view who viewed your profile, and it said he
looked and I thought, you know what, why not reach
(16:11):
out and say something? So I just said, what a
nice profile. Seems like you and I had some things
in common.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
They both lived in the Midwest a few hours apart,
and both had adult children, so she asked.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Him, would you like to see if we have more
in common? And he wrote back and he said, yeah,
that would be nice. That's how our connection started.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
They started talking every day.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
After a few weeks. It's going great and it's sweet.
He and I both agreed it was time to meet.
We decide that we're going to go out to Lake
Michigan for the day and just kind of enjoy the beach.
I'll pack a picnic for the two of us that Sunday.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
They met in person for the first time. He looked
just like his photos, handsome, kind eyes, huge smile. She
was surprised by his enthusiasm.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
He's a very loud person, very charismatic, dynamic person. The
introvert to me was like, that's a lot. I felt overwhelmed.
My first inclination was like ooh ooh. I mean he's
gesturing and his voice is booming. Brad, by the way,
it was extremely quiet. Our first data had to say,
if you don't start talking, this relationship is going to
(17:24):
go nowhere. So picture of the differences between that.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
He was a gentleman. He wanted to unload all the
picnic supplies she brought.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
He swings something away from me to not let me help. No, No,
it's your turn to be taken care of. It's your turn. Okay,
so I walked down to the edge of the water
with him. We find a spot and we sit there
and we just start to talk.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
And one of the first things he wanted to talk
about was what it was like to be a widow.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
He said, I'd been researching widows, and my thought was, Oh,
this is something I would do. I would research widows
to understand my partner. I thought, Oh, he saw that
about my profile. He's been going out to understand my
particular issues.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Just like his dating profile suggested. He was direct. He
didn't want to waste their time, so he said there
were a few things she should know right up front.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
I need to let you know that I've been married
more than once, and I want to do this differently.
I want a forever relationship.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
They talked about how and why his earlier marriages failed.
His explanations weren't very in depth, but they all seemed
reasonable enough.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
And then he stopped and he said, I came from
a really rough home. And he began to describe some
of the dynamics that was happening in the house.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
He began divulging dark details about his childhood, stories of
family secrets and abuse, and.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
I'm thinking this is a first date. I wouldn't get
into this with another person. This is kind of uncomfortable history.
And I end up thinking, so how much of my
history should I be saying? Because he's exposed so much
of himself, will he think I'm being secretive if I
don't share that back?
Speaker 2 (19:12):
So instead she turned to the picnic she packed, and
to her surprise.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
I forgot all the cold items in the refrigerator. So
here I have this picnic, no meat, no tomatoes, just
has bread, lettuce, chips, and fruit. You know, everything else
is missing.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
So much further picnic lunch because I.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
Was feeling one of those moments like oh no, I
blew this date. And He's like, no, no, this is
no big deal. And then he suggested at the end,
let's go out to eat and see a movie because
we were starving by that point.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
She liked that he was flexible, he was going with
the flow. After dinner and a movie, he handed her
a gift. It was a dozen wild rose blossoms without stems.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
He said, now you can kick them home and dry
them and create some so we have a memory of
our first date together. So it was just this really romantic,
over the top sort of experience that was fabulous.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
And with that he kissed me on the.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Cheek and said, you know, I hope you sleep well.
It's so nice to meet you, and then left.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
They immediately started making plans for another date.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
He was really good at planning things. He took me
to Mall America, went through the aquarium, we did like
a little amusement park ride, and he took me to
one of his favorite restaurants. So every weekend felt planned.
Another weekend. He took me to this National park, the Waterfalls,
to show me one of his favorite places, and it
just was romantic.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
As the dates went on, it was clear there was
an elephant in the room, the fact that Carrie didn't work.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
He started to like, do you have like financial issues?
Are you in trouble? Do you need a loan? Are
you all right? I said no, no, I'm okay. Actually
the opposite is true. I don't need to work. I
came into a lot of money when Brad died.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
And then without thinking, she said the number.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
And the minute I did that, I had this deep
shame flood over me. It's like you've made a really
grave error here, You've divulged something super private. Now You'll
never know why this person's in a relationship with you.
Is it for the money or is it for you?
Speaker 2 (21:28):
She watched him to see if you'd change, if you'd
suddenly become overly affectionate or expect her to start paying
for more, And he didn't. You see the same easygoing guy.
But on some level she knew she needed to be
more cautious. Little things started worrying her.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
He wasn't a big caller, so we weren't having constant
phone calls. They were rare, and we might have a
fantastic phone call, but then I might not hear from
him again. I just felt he was hard to reach.
Even if I texted him. He wasn't really quick to
get back to me.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
They lived a few hours apart, so when she couldn't
reach him for a couple of days, her mind would race.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
It was bothering me so bad that I reached out
to a private investigator that i'd hired before, a professional PI.
I contacted him and said, I'm dating someone, but I
have a question. Is he really divorced?
Speaker 2 (22:21):
The PI ran a background check and he found that
Caesar was single, living alone. The records also pulled up
an old dui and a string of short lived jobs.
Other than that, nothing particularly alarming.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
So I'm seeing him shortly after that, and my big
conundrum is do I tell him I did this because
I just don't like secrets. I just hate them. I
just feel like they fester and ruin relationships for you
to have something that you know on somebody else. And
so I said to him, I've done a background check
on you, and I'll never forget. He got really still
(22:55):
like frozen, and I thought, oh no, this is going
to go really bad. Said, so what did you learn?
And I started listing, You've had a lot of jobs,
you've moved quite a bit, and you have a dui.
And he said, yeah, I did have a dui and
this is what happened, and yeah, I have made some
job changes in trying to find the right job. But
(23:15):
I could tell the tension. You could cut it with
a knife. It was so tense. And then he called
me over to sit beside me, and he started saying,
next time you have these types of doubts, come to me. First,
I started crying and he pugged me and he said
it's going to be okay, but I want you to
come to me first, she.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
Was immediately ashamed that she'd gone behind his back.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
We got through it, and I really thought that was
sweet in that I was shocked that he wasn't more angry.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
A few weeks later, he asked her to go steady.
That was his word.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
He asked me in September, can we go study? And
I said yeah. I thought that was really sweet and
kind of reminiscent of the past.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
So they both deleted their online dating profiles and started
seeing each other exclusively. He pushed her to try new thing.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
He took me salsa dancing, actually taught me how to
salsa dance, and there was a childishness to him, like
a playfulness. His eyes would sparkle, and he'd be so
excited when we would do the salsa dancing as I'm
trying to struggle with the steps at this big restaurant
with everybody learning, and they're all thwirling around us, And
he just made me feel like I was the most
beautiful woman in the world.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
One weekend, she'd traveled to him, and the next he'd
traveled to.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Her, and it started to feel like life in between
these dates were really dull and flat, like I was
surviving and then when I was with Caesar, it felt
like life became colorful and just really rich.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Carrie started daydreaming about starting fresh and moving somewhere closer
to Caesar, but her twenty year old son was still
living at home.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
I called my middle son, who had been living with me,
and I said, you know, I'm thinking of moving. What
do you think if we were to move? You and
I removed together, and he said, Mom, I'm really depressed.
I'm not doing well. It sounds great, let's move.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
She runed out her place and they made the move.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Caesar had had this policy, you don't get to see
the kids until we're engaged.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
But once she moved closer, they decided to break that rule.
Their first week in town, Caesar took her and her
son out to dinner.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
And then Caesar just became part of our life. You know.
He would come over after work and hang out with
the two of us, got to know the two of us,
and it felt good. It felt like a new normal.
Caesar would even invite me up for lunch in the
middle of his day. Brad would never have done that,
which I even thought, Wow, he's stopping his day. And
then he comes over at night. Hangs out and watch
(25:41):
TV till he falls asleep, and then he heads home.
It just really felt great.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
Caesar grew up in Mexico and shared his culture with Carrie.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Teaching me how to buy trick tea is, teaching me
even what carnita is and how much fat do you
want to have in it? And then introducing your own
you know that I've never had before, or just having
this whole new side of things being introduced. It was
so exciting.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
Caesar, Carrie and her son started a tradition of Sunday dinners.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
He would take me out to a little Mexican grocery
store by carnitas, buy the dirtillas, you'd make all the
prep and then we'd have this little buffet of carnitas together.
We would laugh and the three of us would watch movies.
In one of the most tender scenes, the three of
us were on the couch and the basement. Then, in fact,
(26:30):
Caesar made sure I'd noticed this. My son was leaning
up against him and he looked over at me. I
just felt like, we're a family. See, we're a family.
Even my own son loves him.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
After almost a year of dating, care and Caesar planned
their first vacation together.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
So we plan a trip over the middle of February
to go out to California, and his favorite movie is
The Godfather, and we found out that Copolas have a
winery out there, so we make this reservation that we're
going to have a dinner at the winery, and I
can tell that he's decided it's going to be something
extra special.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
On the scenic drive to the winery, Caesar seemed almost nervous.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
Driving up to this long dirt road with the trees
beside it, and you come up dusk and the lights
are on the trees and it's just beautiful. And then
we're out on the back deck looking up at the
moon and next thing I know, I turn around and
he's on one knee with an engagement ring held out
and said, will you marry me?
Speaker 2 (27:47):
She said yes. As she looked closer at the ring,
she noticed something was off about it, and.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
It was really kind of odd that the ring seemed cheap.
And I feel really even bad saying this, but it's
like really cheap, like I can tell that it's not
real metal. It actually started tishing my finger it with green.
It was cheap, and I came out of the bathroom,
and he happened to be standing there. He bent low
and he goes, I know it's not much. I just
didn't have much to spend. I didn't want to hold
(28:17):
that up and asking you to marry me. But I
will buy you a much better one in a few years.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
Ultimately, she didn't really care how much the ring cost.
She wanted a partnership like the one she had with Brad,
and this time around, she wanted to do it differently.
With her kids grown, she could go on adventures, live
life to the fullest.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
I mean, I had this dream that Brad sort of
painted for me in Jamaica.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
That's when she got an idea. Caesar was a Mexican citizen,
so marrying him meant she could apply to be a
permanent resident of Mexico if they moved there.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
Really great way to make income last a really long
time is to live in a less expensive place. And
I thought, I'd already been a landlord, maybe I can
do something similar.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
So she approached him with a business plan.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
I said to him, have you ever thought about moving
back to Mexico? Or what about vacation rentals? Why don't
we do that? And I remember Caesar got super silent,
like deathly silent, and he paused for a long second,
and then he said, are you serious. You're not making
a joke here, are you. I said, no, I'm very serious.
(29:31):
That would be a dream of mine. I'd love to
do that.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
They started with a trip to one of Mexico's most
popular tourist destinations.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
We visit outside of Mereda, and then we go to
Plaia and when we find a Cancun and drive into Plia,
he and I looked at each other and thought, this
is it. This is where we want to build this company.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
The entire trip they did research for their new vacation
rental business.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
United States of citizen can't own property near the shore.
The only way that you can do that is either
you buy a lifelong lease as a word for it,
Fido camiso, or you start a Mexican corporation. It had
to be two owners and one had to be a
citizen of Mexico. So we agreed that we would do
that and that we'd open this and run this rental
(30:19):
business together.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
So Caesar helped incorporate the business and Carrie started making
offers on rental properties.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
You find that one property really fell in love with.
We made an offer on it, and it just starts
to feel like it's falling into place. We visit another property,
we make a second offer, and then I even find
one more that I want. So we have three houses
that we're going to purchase and then we're going to
start running them. And my thought was, this is going
to be enough income that will become self sustaining.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
Carrie supplied all the capital, but she wanted the business
to be a real partnership.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
Here, I am starting this new relationship used to a
partnership with Brad, used to having everything work really great,
to being a team. I didn't want to start out
with saying I'm ninety nine percent owner, you're one percent.
It just felt mean, like how do you start a
marriage on that foot? Like I want to share my
life with you, but you don't get to own this
company because I'm contributing to the company and you're not.
(31:15):
So I made him fifty to fifty owner.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
She felt comfortable with this decision, especially because Caesar encouraged
her to get a pre nup.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
He's saying, you know, I would really feel more comfortable
while we're getting married that you go speak to an
attorney and get a prenuptial agreement. I'm thinking, wow, that's
really wow. Okay, so that in my mindset, you're invested
in the relationship. You're not so invested in the money.
You're invested in the relationship because you want me to
protect myself.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
So she made an appointment with an attorney.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
The guy sits down with me and he explains prenuptials
how they work. This corporation in Mexico is not governed
by US law. It's governed by Mexico. It says that
in the corporate paperwork all US law, it has no
power in the country of Mexico. So I'm going to
make a prenup on what this seemed to me like
(32:10):
a useless measure.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
She decided against a prenup.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
But for me to have him think of saying that
really made me feel like, oh, look, you know, just
like in that picnic when we had on that first
date and he carried all the stuff, He's thinking of me.
He cares about me. This is so sweet.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
After all, she believed Caesar had the best intentions, and
there was so much to look forward to. The rental
property company was off and running.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
So the value of Brad's life insurance has now been
spent on properties.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
She really believed in what they were building together. The
last step was getting married so she could officially become
a permanent resident of Mexico. After a trip to the
US to tie up loose ends and finalize the sale
of her home, Kerry returned to Mexico. She and Caesar
plan to get married the following week.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
I come back from that trip and Caesar picks me up.
He's holding flowers and he's rocking back and forth, and
he's white, he's pale, he's jittery. My first question was,
does somebody die? That's what it looks like. He's going
to tell me very very bad news. And 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,
(33:24):
And I said what.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
On the next episode of Betrayal.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
I used to think that you were a good guy
who sometimes wore a monster mask. But what I realized
that you're actually a monster who sometimes wears a good
guy mask. And they whispers, I'm glad you know.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
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. We're grateful for your support. 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
(34:18):
you to all of our listeners. 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 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.
(34:42):
Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Kriintech. Audio
editing and mixing by Matt Delvecchio, additional editing support from
Nico Ruka and 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
(35:03):
you get your podcasts,