October 6, 2022 • 33 mins
Jenifer Faison and Andrea Gunning of Betrayal Podcast join Dr. Ramani to discuss Jen's marriage to her college sweetheart. What she thought was rekindled romance, led to the most shocking discovery when her husband's dark secrets were revealed by the police. Listen to Part 1 of 2 episodes, to learn how Jenifer and Andrea came to collaborate and create their podcast, Betrayal and how Jen overcame this incredibly difficult moment in her life.
Host Information:
Instagram: Dr Ramani's IG - @doctorramani
Facebook: Dr Ramani's FB - @doctorramani
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YouTube: Dr. Ramani’s YT - DoctorRamani
Guest Information:
Betrayal Podcast: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-betrayal-the-perfect-husb-95632727/
Guest Bios:
Jenifer Faison
Jenifer Faison is the host of the podcast Betrayal, which shot up to number one and remained there for several weeks in the US and beyond. In addition to podcasting, Jen is an Emmy nominated television producer, with credits such as Judge Judy and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and most recently Netflix Instant Dream Home. After building her career in LA for 17 years, Jenifer now resides in Acworth, GA with her cat, California Berry.
Andrea Gunning
Andrea Gunning is Glass Entertainment Group’s Head of Podcast Development and Production. She recently added “talent" to her responsibilities as co-host of Apple’s number one podcast, Betrayal. Previous to podcast life, “Dre” as she’s called by friends and colleagues, was a television executive based in Philadelphia. Her passions include her family, fitness and summers at the Jersey shore.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
This podcast should not be used as a substitute for
medical or mental health advice. Individuals are advised to seek
independent medical advice, counseling, and or therapy from a healthcare
professional with respect to any medical condition, mental health issue,
or health inquiry, including matters discussed on this podcast. This
(00:24):
episode discusses abuse, which may be triggering to some people.
The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the
podcast author or individuals participating in the podcast, and do
not represent the opinions of Red Table Talk productions, I
Heart Media, or their employees. I came home one day
(00:48):
and he was sitting on the couch shaking his head.
I saw a search warrant. I noticed that our front
door was kicked in. The police had been there, and
on the search warrant it said sexual assault and student.
And we only had about it seemed twenty minutes before
(01:09):
the police showed up again to arrest him, and I
confronted him, is this true. I just couldn't believe it.
I just was pacing back and forth because your reality
is just shaken at that moment, you don't really believe
what's happening. Imagine coming home to your happy marriage to
a person you love dearly to find a search warrant
(01:34):
on the door, and then shortly thereafter the arrest of
your spouse in this happy marriage for sexual assault of
a minor one of his students. No less, imagine that
you didn't see a single red flag that you're happy
marriage vanished in one brief moment. Imagine that your husband
(01:54):
didn't cheat on you with just one person, but nearly
seventy five. Betrayal is a standard part of every narcissistic relationship,
and not all betrayal is created the same. Jennifer Pazon's
story of betrayal has been captured in the hit podcast Betrayal.
This episode of Navigating Narcissism uses the framework of narcissism
(02:18):
to further unpack Jen's story. While the story of betrayal
is traumatic and painful, Jen's story is a reminder that
not all betrayal stories look the same, and also a
chance to explore how a person starts to put her
life together after such a profound betrayal. Today, I'm going
(02:40):
to talk with Jennifer face on and with Andrea Gunning,
the producer of Betrayal, to learn more about this story.
First of all, Welcome, Jen and Andrea. You're here fresh
from the podcast Betrayal, which to everyone listening to this podcast,
you must listen to this episode, but then go listen
to Betrayal if haven't already. If you have, you know
(03:02):
this is going to be an amazing conversation because you
know why I want to talk to Jen and Andrea.
This is such an interesting episode for me on navigating
narcissism because I've had the opportunity to listen to Betrayal
and listen to this deep dive on your story and
read anything I could find about it. But I don't
want to redo Betrayal. You've done a beautiful job of
(03:22):
telling the story. We'll orient people to the story, but
on this podcast, I want to orient to using this
different lens of of narcissistic relationships, which many people I'm
sure heard. It's almost a shift in the lens from
what you already did. So if we can just orient
readers to start, if you could just sort of tell
us the story of how you and Andrea came together
(03:46):
and this podcast Betrayal came out well because I have
a producer background. I as tragic as the story is,
what happened to me. I knew that it would be
a compelling story to share with so many different layers,
and I thought it would be a way to let
(04:07):
other people know that they're not alone. You know, when
you go through something like this, you you just feel
by yourself and you want to connect to other people.
I learned about some amazing podcasts that Andrea had already
produced and reached out to them. It was just the
right fit from the very very beginning, and from your side, Andrea,
(04:28):
because this happened, the story happened to Jen, You've come
in from a different place. What was it like for
you to be the storyteller of Jen's very very real
trauma and pain. I felt like it was extremely important
to handle her story with care because when I first
(04:49):
met Jen, she was barely a year outside of everything
that had happened outside of her husband being arrested. When
I had my first phone call with Jen, the thing
that struck me the most was I felt this fear
of this idea of you could be living with this
stranger beside you. I could hear the pain in her
(05:10):
voice and kind of met her at a time where
her life had essentially crumbled and she was just looking
to express her story in any way so that she
could share what she went through with the world. So
it was important to me to honor that and handle
it with care and really get it out there so
(05:31):
people could hear it. So I mean you ality, Letting
a Stone is an artypical narcissism story. Two people, one
person feels gaslighted and they kind of dislike each other.
This was very different. Having listened to Betrayal, and anyone
listening today's podcast, please go listen to Betrayal after this
if you haven't to really get the depth of Jen's story,
because we won't be able to do it full credit
(05:53):
here because it's a multi episode podcast. This is a
story of, like you said, everything was great and then
it literally went off a cliff. This was not gradual.
That's what's so unique about this. Can you give us
almost the brief version of how the two of you
met and how your your relationship took flight. Spence and
(06:13):
I met in college and we had this amazing relationship.
He was my college sweetheart. There was nothing wrong with it.
We broke up, though, and went our separate ways, but
always not in a negative way. We didn't have any
animosity toward one another, and then the fairy tale happened.
I was living in Los Angeles, he was in Atlanta.
(06:35):
He reached out to me. We both happened to be
in New York City at the same time. We reconnected
on a wintry night in Bryant Park, and that was it.
We just knew we were meant to be. It was
I believe in soulmates, and I really believed he was mine,
and I believe that he thought I was his as well.
(06:57):
So we were married. A year later. I moved to
Georgia and everything was great. I really had a wonderful
marriage and didn't know the other side to him, the
dark side, which I found out seven years into the
relationship when he was arrested. You were married six years
or a year of dating and then a year of
(07:17):
a relationship and then six years married. Yes, okay, a
year is not a short period of time to get
to know someone. That's actually not an unusual length of
time to get to know someone, get engaged, get married,
So it's not like this was rushed and you already
knew him. So this was, you know, sort of picking
up with somebody already knowing some of their backstory in
their background. Yes, my family knew him. Everybody trusted him,
(07:41):
like he was just the last person that you wouldn't
think you could trust. What was that marriage? Like? It
was wonderful. We live in this tiny town. We opened
a wine bar together. He came home every night saying hi, wife,
just always excited. He left me an out every single
morning next to the coffee pot. He was always checking in.
(08:06):
It was a really beautiful relationship, amazing and unlike any
story we have heard on navigating narcissism. Which is why
I mean everyone, I dropped my phone as I listened
to her podcast. That is how compelling. So alright, you meet,
you get engaged, and you get married six years happy
notes what happened? I came home one day and he
(08:27):
was sitting on the couch shaking his head. I saw
a search warrant. I noticed that our front door was
kicked in. The police had been there, and on the
search warrant it said sexual assault and student. And we
only had about it seemed twenty minutes before the police
(08:48):
showed up again to arrest him, and I confronted him,
is this true? I just couldn't believe it. I just
was pacing back and forth because your reality is just
shape in at that moment, you don't really believe what's happening.
And he said, yes, it's true. He of course lied though,
said it only happened three times. Come to find out,
(09:11):
it was over a two two and a half year period,
and then the police came and arrested him, And honestly,
I haven't seen him since he went to prison for
four years. First of all, we talked about this word betrayal,
and it speaks to what a continuum this word is on. Right,
I think a lot of people use the word betrayal
of you chose to go to your sister's birthday party
instead of dinner with me, I feel betrayed. Well, okay,
(09:33):
now there's there's small beat betrayal, and there's big beat betrayal.
And this is all caps betrayal. What the search warrant
and the arrest was for. It wasn't embezzling money from
the school he worked at. It wasn't that. It was
this this thing that not only was a betrayal that
he had this double life, but it was a betrayal
of your relationship, of the intimacy you had in the relationship,
(09:55):
So that is almost a seismic event no one could
get their head around. But this is one of the
things that struck me as I listened to your podcast.
In your podcast, as you told the story, I did
not hear a single red flag I was listening. Would
you agree with that? Am I missing something? Were there
red flags? No? Absolutely not. And I mean I've gone
(10:18):
back in my head and tried to find some little
tiny piece that I might have missed, and I just
I honestly did not see it. And that was such
a huge part of our project was to emphasize that point,
and so much of my dedication to Jen was too.
(10:40):
I mean we first met, she was like, I didn't
see anything, and I'm so afraid that no one's gonna
believe me, and I'm so afraid that people are going
to judge the fact that I didn't see anything as
if there were things to be seen. And it was
our one of our driving goals and our purpose was
to really land and at that place where there were
(11:01):
no red flags and she did not know and that
happens often, it really does. And this is to me,
Jen Andrea, I know that one of the drivers for
you making this podcast was to help other people. I
have to say one of the things you're helping people
most with is showing a story without red flags, because
there's something that almost becomes caricatured. Oh there's always red flags,
(11:23):
and it's you didn't see them, and that's because you
have legacy issues and now you see them. And everyone
has red flags, but there aren't always red flags. And
I think this is so important to lifting blame for
survivors who will often say, what did I miss? More
than they blame themselves, I must be foolish, and I'll say, listen,
unless you're holding back from me as your shrink, I'm
(11:46):
telling you there were no red flags, and by you
sharing your story in this way, I think that's actually
one of the most profound parts of the story, was
that there were no red flags. And there are a
lot of survivors out there that literally it's no red flags,
no red flags, and then the whole thing goes off
the cliff. And that's why I was so interested in
(12:07):
speaking with you about this, because talking about narcissism, I
didn't see that in Spence, you know, and maybe he
was a covert narcissist, but on the outside, my family,
my friends, our community just all thought he was this
wonderful man that would do anything for you. One of
(12:28):
the things I wanted to ask you today so you're
leading me to that question, was so I listened to
the podcast early episodes, no red flags. Then I literally
felt it in my chest when you said the scene
came home, search, warrant, arrest, what it was for. If
I felt the air sucked out of my lungs, I
can't imagine what your experience was and even what people
have had similar not exactly the same, but other betrayal
(12:49):
experiences will feel it too. But as the episodes went
on and we saw the scope and scale of what
he had done, the lies, the number of betray else
even after the call you have with him when he's
in jail, all of which I'd like to touch base on.
What I never heard once was the word narcissism. And
(13:10):
I was waiting. I'm like, Okay, they're gonna get to
it and they're going to talk about some of the words,
and I'm like, huh, so I get before the arrest.
What surprised me was never hearing that frame used afterwards.
Can you shed some light on that, Tray do you
want to talk about that. Yeah, I think it was
really important for us to focus on the victim's journey
(13:33):
and spend less time diagnosing him and what he was
all about, and more about the impact and the different
experiences they had with the spencer they interacted with, because
the spencer that Jen interacted with was very different than
the sexual assault victim, than his band and Air National
(13:55):
Guard bandmate. Every person dealt with a different version of him,
and I do think that there are seeds of narcissism
driving all of those interactions. But it was so important
for us to just spend time and really experience and
unpack because Jen's journey was trying to figure out who
is this man that I married and really at face
follow is really meeting with people who knew the different
(14:17):
sides of him. And that was really the goal for her,
as to say, I just need to see all the
many faces, right, I need to see the different portraits
and then really get to the bottom of how and
just that reconciliation. And that was more important to us.
But a lot of what we wanted to showcase and
really dig into was grooming, and I haven't heard a
(14:38):
lot done on grooming and we felt like we really
needed to spend time with that, and that's where we focused.
We will be right back with this conversation with Jen
and Andrea. There's an old thing. I'm gonna get it wrong,
but I use it a lot. It's an old African
proverb the tale of the hunt is always told by
(14:58):
the hunter and never for the lion. And I think
in this case, you're the lion. It took me a
minute when I first read that problem, like, wait, is
that a lion fierce? But no, the lion is being
stalked by the hunter, and we always hear the hunter's
point of view. So I really really resonate with what
you're saying is how do we tell survivor stories by
keeping the lens on the survivor? And so I respect
(15:19):
that and I understand that, and I'm curious because goodness knows,
there's spent so much you know, buzz and people talking
about the podcast after you put it out there and
people were commenting on it. Did you get that question
where people saying, well, Spencer a narcissist and Spencer sounds
like a narcissist. Was it ever coming up or where
people also focused on the survivor experience. I feel like
(15:42):
he is so many other things before he's the narcissist.
I can't diagnose him obviously, there's some sociopathic tendencies there,
or there's sex addiction, and there's all this stuff. I
think now reading his correspondence with some of the other
women and how he spoke with them and treated them,
(16:05):
I think that's where I see the narcissism and him
come out. I didn't see it in our lives. He
just wasn't like that. He was just very caring and
kind and like I said, would just, you know, give
you the shirt off his back. So it was in
those other correspondents though, that I did see that. That
(16:26):
doesn't surprise me at all. And Andrea, you said something
so important where you said we were trying to unpack
them any portraits. I love how you said that, because
that's a struggle many survivors have. Now. What happens in
the sort of the more typical narcissistic relationship situation is
a person is dealing with a terrible relationship for quite
(16:46):
a long time, and then there may even be a
ramp up in the betrayal. Right, there's an extra marital
affair or financial abuse, words that can't be unsaid, that
kind of thing. But it was already a bad scene.
So the persons like, okay, now how I'm done? Right?
So there was a takeoff ramp, there was a there
was an incline to that point where people aren't shocked.
They're sad, but they're not shocked, right, And that idea
(17:10):
of the many portraits, because we always try to simplify
it is to the good and the bad, the charming,
charismatic versus the invalidating, gas sliding, manipulative. Right. What you're saying,
and I think it's so on point, is that it's
not as simple as good bad. It's actually these literally
different experiences that all these people have of this person.
(17:31):
And I think there's a richness you're bringing to this
conversation about when we try to simply say, well, there's
a personality style and some days are good and some
days they're bad. But actually, yeah, that's true. But on
top of that, many many other people are having very
different experiences. And when you glue all those pieces together
like a collage, then you have the full representation of
this person who is probably quite unlike anything or anyone
(17:55):
you actually believed you were in a seven year relationship
with One of my hypotheses is that Spencer was getting
so much validation in so many other places, the students,
other women, people, He was doing other creative endeavors with that,
unlike many narcissistic people who may not have that many
tubs of narcissistic supply. Narcissists who don't get supplied get
(18:19):
really tense and snappy and reactive and kind of mean.
But if there's always validation coming in, it's almost like
their tummy is always full, their psyche is always full.
So in a primary relationship like a marriage, they can
actually bring their a game because they're not looking to
the marriage as the sole source of supply. They have
so diversified their sources of supply that one is left
(18:42):
with a really sweet person at home because they're getting
at so many other places. And this is something we'll
often see is that when a person is in a
relationship where there's an infidelity, one of the things they'll
say is what through me is my partner actually started
becoming really nice. And I wanted to think it's because
the relationship was going bad, it's actually because now I
recognize they were in love. It just was they were
(19:03):
falling in love with someone else that wasn't me, and
all the positive emotion that came from that. And so
I think that's an interesting way to view this because
I think he was literally the most diversified portfolio of
validation I think I've ever heard of in a narcissistic
kind of a personality in my life. That makes so
much sense. Absolutely, he could be one way the way
(19:25):
that he wanted the world to see him with me,
I kind of provided that perfect life scenario, and then
go off be that other side of him that was
a big part of him in secret. And I think
that you also laid it out. I mean, you're a
formidable woman, Jen, I've read your background, your work in
(19:45):
the entertainment industry. You're amazing. And so you're this amazing,
beautiful woman who so accomplished that he married and made
this beautiful home with. That's its own form of validation.
Above and beyond you this idea that I have this
rock star life who's gorgeous and isn't you know we
have this great house together, great life. That becomes a
source of validation too. It doesn't feel good to be
(20:07):
thought of that way, But it was a really important
pillar and sort of the temple of Spence as it were.
My session with Jen and Andrea will continue after this break.
So we're gone over the cliff, search warrant, arrest, He's gone,
(20:28):
and now you're left in this wreckage. And the original
search warrant and arrest warrant were around sexual contact with
a student. Okay, can you unpack what you learned about?
Spencer's not just double life, It was like a quadruple
or quintuple life. You know, what did you learn? Oh?
My goodness? I mean, you know, first of all, he
(20:51):
is escorted out of the house with leaving me thinking
he's had this affair with the student and it was
just three times. And honestly, I think at that point
I didn't really even grasp the seriousness of it or
how this student, this young person was manipulated by him.
(21:14):
Come to find out, two days later, I get into
his email and I'm seeing picture after picture after picture
of all these different women. And I get into his
email and discover, I don't know, probably seventy five different
women that he was corresponding with. He was having to
(21:34):
three year long relationships with several different people at the
same time, not only just the student, but then so
many adult women. I'm going to be a shrink for
a minute. Can you tell me, Jen, what did it
feel like as a woman to read all these emails,
to see this stuff on the screen? You know, one
was just how hurt I was. I felt like I
(21:58):
had an elephant standing on my chest. There there was
that hurt that I felt from the betrayal, because he
knew how important marriage was to me. We talked about
it all the time we were legal together. We were
in it for the long haul forever. And then it
was finding out reading the correspondence with these other women
(22:24):
that just made me sick because the way he spoke
to them, the language he used talking about choking someone
or it was just disgusting. So there was that betrayal
and that heartache I felt. But then there was just
this shock and awe of living with someone I just
(22:45):
didn't even know and never had heard that language from
or anything. I guess I'm asking that even as a woman,
like how did you get through your days? I am
feeling your story. I'm thinking I wouldn't know if day
was nice, I wouldn't know how to sleep I'd be
afraid to wake up, my appetite would be shot, I
would lose a hundred pounds. How did you get through
(23:06):
your days? I told myself very early on, just take
every moment with baby steps. If you can just literally
put one foot in front of the other and make
it to the end of the day, you know you
can check that off. And I had a lot of
support around me. I have an amazing community. My parents
(23:29):
came to stay with me, so that helped. But then
that kind of died away a little bit and I
was left on my own, and I got a therapist
because I knew I couldn't do this by myself. But
I literally just kept telling myself, baby steps, just try
to make it through today. Just try to make it
through today. And that's how you got through, just one step.
(23:51):
I mean, that's an extraordinary approaches. In some ways, it's
exactly what somebody, a mental health practitioner would tell somebody.
But many people say I can't do this, and you
did it. And I think that's important for survivors to
hear that that one step at a time, even if
it's taking life five seconds at a time, actually actually matters.
(24:12):
In this period of time when you're unearthing all these women.
I know obviously the case that resulted in the arrest
was with a minor. Were these women the seventy five women,
were they miners? Were they adults? What was that? Was
it mixed? The ones that I found were all adults.
Fortunately some were younger and their twenties, somewhere, you know, fifty.
(24:34):
It was a wide range. He did not have a
specific type at all. As I went through this, it
was the student that was the hardest pill to swallow,
because he just manipulated her and lied to her like
he did all the other women. This was her teacher,
This is somebody that she's supposed to look up to.
(24:55):
That was the most devastating thing. What's one thing to
do it to an adult, but to do it to
a child was just heart wrenching. Now, in all of
this time, you don't have contact with Spence. I stayed
in touch with him for until he was convicted. So
he was arrested June two eighteen, convicted January two thousand nineteen.
(25:20):
I had made a promise to him before he was
arrested that I would stick by him. Not in a
supportive way, but I just I don't know why I
said that at the moment. I think it was I'm
the wife. I'm supposed to stick by him, and so
I did stay in communication with him through letters and
phone calls for those first nine months, but then once
(25:43):
the conviction happened, it happened the same day that he
got our divorce papers, and that was it. Then I
cut off all communication because if you listen to the
last episode where I speak with him on the phone,
he just continues to to spin the truth. And I
don't think really understands what he did to these people,
(26:08):
especially the student. I don't think he understands the gravity
of his issues. No, And that's a tremendous lack of empathy, right,
that's the core of empathy that I've acted in a
way that may have harmed someone. So I am I.
I can see that I harmed someone. This wasn't okay,
and be aware of that in those months because you
(26:28):
started looking at these emails and seeing what he had
done pretty early in the game. Did you ask him,
did you make inquiries of what is this? What happened?
Who are all these people? Did you ask him? What
kind of response did you get back? I would ask
him You told this person and this person that you
loved them, and his response was always oh I don't
(26:49):
remember saying that, or oh I didn't really love them.
It was just this deep denial. I would say that
I knew the extent, I knew how much he communicated
with these people, how long these relationships some of them were,
and he just played it off like it really wasn't anything.
(27:10):
So this wasn't all just emails and messages. These were
real relationships, Yes, real relationships with many people, some like
I said, three at a time, and they would be
a year or two years long. This is where I think,
I mean in a way I don't know. I don't
want to see even sound like grudging admiration. I think
I'm more puzzled than anything is how was he able
(27:32):
to organize his time like the time management, the time management,
I can't even keep a gallon of milk in the house,
and this guy is like juggling all this and presenting
as the devoted husband, the devoted teacher, the devoted you know,
extended family member, all of that. What is what's chilling
to me is that the compartmentalization that's required to do that.
(27:53):
There's a reason you, Jen, and Andrea and I can't
do this is because we couldn't compartmentalize empathy. Means you
can't compartmentalize empathy is why you actually can't lie very
well that the water breaches over. And so if you
were doing something like this, people would detect a change
in you. And the idea that nobody was seeing that
(28:16):
change is not a deficit in the people around him.
It is a statement on his capacity for compartmentalization totally.
Did you think in those early months, Jen, that he
knew he was doing something wrong? One thing that's interesting
He said to me, I figured if you didn't know,
then it wouldn't hurt you. So I think it was
(28:39):
that he compartmentalized everything and he thought, well, if I
keep this part really separate from Jennifer, then I'm not
hurting her, right, which is almost very paternalistic when we
think about it. It's being the puppet master. I can
pull all the strings. I decide who gets to know what,
and if I decide her not knowing me, and so
(29:00):
she's not heard, then it's all okay. Those are the
complex rationalizations that take place, you know, and we see
this across a lot of patterns, not just in a
sort of a narcissistic personality, but also even an addiction.
If nobody sees me get high, or I never get
high on the day of my kids soccer games, somehow
there's some grand eraser in the sky that makes it okay.
(29:21):
These are the defenses that keep these kinds of behaviors
in place. So you learn all of this. He gets convicted.
And how long after the conviction did you sit with
Andrea and say, I think I want to share this
story with the world. I think it was probably about
(29:41):
eight months. Yeah, we got in contact, and again, I
don't know what it was, but just something pushed me
to say, I want to tell this story. There's so
many insane components of it that I didn't want to
sweep it under the rug. I wanted people to know
(30:03):
that teacher of the Year or that eagle scout can
be that manipulator and that person that can just destroy lives.
Part of the reason that narcissistic people are so emboldened
and enabled by the world is that we often fall
for the window dressing, or maybe we're just perceptually lazy,
(30:27):
whether it's being the proverbial ego scout or teacher of
the year or employee of the year, or person who
is revered in the community. That can buy a person
a lot of social collateral and power and and unwillingness
or at least a block by other people to seeing
what the person is really about. People with antagonistic, manipulative,
(30:49):
and dishonest interpersonal styles are like the wolf in sheep's clothing.
We have to be willing to reshape our schemas of
these people when their behavior is at odds with their
shiny public persona. Here are my takeaways from my conversation
with Jen and Andrea. There are not always red flags
(31:11):
and narcissistic relationships. This is really important to remember because
many survivors blame themselves for missing the signs and subsequently
feeling foolish. Jen, her family, their friends, nobody they had
contact with noticed any red flags, so when it all
(31:31):
came out, she was shocked and startled, but didn't track
it back to something she missed. It's easy to fall
into believing that there are always red flags. Sometimes there aren't,
or they are so subtle that we miss them. For
a person with an antagonistic or a narcissistic personality, their
(31:52):
behavior is worse when they are not getting enough validation.
So when things in a narcissistic person's life are going well,
they feel safe, they feel admired, they feel in control.
Is often when people will say that they feel like
their relationship with them is going great. This also leads
(32:13):
that when that validation fades or the structures of deceit
and manipulation come crashing down and entirely new person can emerge.
This can confuse survivors to no end who don't understand
where the shift comes from and can feel grief and
shame at recognizing that the only reason the relationship was
(32:37):
working was because the narcissistic person may have been getting
their needs met in other places. A big thank you
to our executive producers Jada Pinkett Smith, Valen Jethrow, Ellen
Rakaton and Dr Romeney de Vassela. And thank you to
(32:58):
our producer Matthew Joe Owns, associate producer Mara Della Rosa,
and consultant Kelly Ebling. And finally, thank you to our
editors and sound engineers Devin Donnahe and Calvin Bailiff.
This podcast should not be used as a substitute for
medical or mental health advice. Individuals are advised to seek
independent medical advice, counseling, and or therapy from a healthcare
professional with respect to any medical condition, mental health issue,
or health inquiry, including matters discussed on this podcast. This
(00:24):
episode discusses abuse, which may be triggering to some people.
The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the
podcast author or individuals participating in the podcast, and do
not represent the opinions of Red Table Talk productions, I
Heart Media, or their employees. I came home one day
(00:48):
and he was sitting on the couch shaking his head.
I saw a search warrant. I noticed that our front
door was kicked in. The police had been there, and
on the search warrant it said sexual assault and student.
And we only had about it seemed twenty minutes before
(01:09):
the police showed up again to arrest him, and I
confronted him, is this true. I just couldn't believe it.
I just was pacing back and forth because your reality
is just shaken at that moment, you don't really believe
what's happening. Imagine coming home to your happy marriage to
a person you love dearly to find a search warrant
(01:34):
on the door, and then shortly thereafter the arrest of
your spouse in this happy marriage for sexual assault of
a minor one of his students. No less, imagine that
you didn't see a single red flag that you're happy
marriage vanished in one brief moment. Imagine that your husband
(01:54):
didn't cheat on you with just one person, but nearly
seventy five. Betrayal is a standard part of every narcissistic relationship,
and not all betrayal is created the same. Jennifer Pazon's
story of betrayal has been captured in the hit podcast Betrayal.
This episode of Navigating Narcissism uses the framework of narcissism
(02:18):
to further unpack Jen's story. While the story of betrayal
is traumatic and painful, Jen's story is a reminder that
not all betrayal stories look the same, and also a
chance to explore how a person starts to put her
life together after such a profound betrayal. Today, I'm going
(02:40):
to talk with Jennifer face on and with Andrea Gunning,
the producer of Betrayal, to learn more about this story.
First of all, Welcome, Jen and Andrea. You're here fresh
from the podcast Betrayal, which to everyone listening to this podcast,
you must listen to this episode, but then go listen
to Betrayal if haven't already. If you have, you know
(03:02):
this is going to be an amazing conversation because you
know why I want to talk to Jen and Andrea.
This is such an interesting episode for me on navigating
narcissism because I've had the opportunity to listen to Betrayal
and listen to this deep dive on your story and
read anything I could find about it. But I don't
want to redo Betrayal. You've done a beautiful job of
(03:22):
telling the story. We'll orient people to the story, but
on this podcast, I want to orient to using this
different lens of of narcissistic relationships, which many people I'm
sure heard. It's almost a shift in the lens from
what you already did. So if we can just orient
readers to start, if you could just sort of tell
us the story of how you and Andrea came together
(03:46):
and this podcast Betrayal came out well because I have
a producer background. I as tragic as the story is,
what happened to me. I knew that it would be
a compelling story to share with so many different layers,
and I thought it would be a way to let
(04:07):
other people know that they're not alone. You know, when
you go through something like this, you you just feel
by yourself and you want to connect to other people.
I learned about some amazing podcasts that Andrea had already
produced and reached out to them. It was just the
right fit from the very very beginning, and from your side, Andrea,
(04:28):
because this happened, the story happened to Jen, You've come
in from a different place. What was it like for
you to be the storyteller of Jen's very very real
trauma and pain. I felt like it was extremely important
to handle her story with care because when I first
(04:49):
met Jen, she was barely a year outside of everything
that had happened outside of her husband being arrested. When
I had my first phone call with Jen, the thing
that struck me the most was I felt this fear
of this idea of you could be living with this
stranger beside you. I could hear the pain in her
(05:10):
voice and kind of met her at a time where
her life had essentially crumbled and she was just looking
to express her story in any way so that she
could share what she went through with the world. So
it was important to me to honor that and handle
it with care and really get it out there so
(05:31):
people could hear it. So I mean you ality, Letting
a Stone is an artypical narcissism story. Two people, one
person feels gaslighted and they kind of dislike each other.
This was very different. Having listened to Betrayal, and anyone
listening today's podcast, please go listen to Betrayal after this
if you haven't to really get the depth of Jen's story,
because we won't be able to do it full credit
(05:53):
here because it's a multi episode podcast. This is a
story of, like you said, everything was great and then
it literally went off a cliff. This was not gradual.
That's what's so unique about this. Can you give us
almost the brief version of how the two of you
met and how your your relationship took flight. Spence and
(06:13):
I met in college and we had this amazing relationship.
He was my college sweetheart. There was nothing wrong with it.
We broke up, though, and went our separate ways, but
always not in a negative way. We didn't have any
animosity toward one another, and then the fairy tale happened.
I was living in Los Angeles, he was in Atlanta.
(06:35):
He reached out to me. We both happened to be
in New York City at the same time. We reconnected
on a wintry night in Bryant Park, and that was it.
We just knew we were meant to be. It was
I believe in soulmates, and I really believed he was mine,
and I believe that he thought I was his as well.
(06:57):
So we were married. A year later. I moved to
Georgia and everything was great. I really had a wonderful
marriage and didn't know the other side to him, the
dark side, which I found out seven years into the
relationship when he was arrested. You were married six years
or a year of dating and then a year of
(07:17):
a relationship and then six years married. Yes, okay, a
year is not a short period of time to get
to know someone. That's actually not an unusual length of
time to get to know someone, get engaged, get married,
So it's not like this was rushed and you already
knew him. So this was, you know, sort of picking
up with somebody already knowing some of their backstory in
their background. Yes, my family knew him. Everybody trusted him,
(07:41):
like he was just the last person that you wouldn't
think you could trust. What was that marriage? Like? It
was wonderful. We live in this tiny town. We opened
a wine bar together. He came home every night saying hi, wife,
just always excited. He left me an out every single
morning next to the coffee pot. He was always checking in.
(08:06):
It was a really beautiful relationship, amazing and unlike any
story we have heard on navigating narcissism. Which is why
I mean everyone, I dropped my phone as I listened
to her podcast. That is how compelling. So alright, you meet,
you get engaged, and you get married six years happy
notes what happened? I came home one day and he
(08:27):
was sitting on the couch shaking his head. I saw
a search warrant. I noticed that our front door was
kicked in. The police had been there, and on the
search warrant it said sexual assault and student. And we
only had about it seemed twenty minutes before the police
(08:48):
showed up again to arrest him, and I confronted him,
is this true? I just couldn't believe it. I just
was pacing back and forth because your reality is just
shape in at that moment, you don't really believe what's happening.
And he said, yes, it's true. He of course lied though,
said it only happened three times. Come to find out,
(09:11):
it was over a two two and a half year period,
and then the police came and arrested him, And honestly,
I haven't seen him since he went to prison for
four years. First of all, we talked about this word betrayal,
and it speaks to what a continuum this word is on. Right,
I think a lot of people use the word betrayal
of you chose to go to your sister's birthday party
instead of dinner with me, I feel betrayed. Well, okay,
(09:33):
now there's there's small beat betrayal, and there's big beat betrayal.
And this is all caps betrayal. What the search warrant
and the arrest was for. It wasn't embezzling money from
the school he worked at. It wasn't that. It was
this this thing that not only was a betrayal that
he had this double life, but it was a betrayal
of your relationship, of the intimacy you had in the relationship,
(09:55):
So that is almost a seismic event no one could
get their head around. But this is one of the
things that struck me as I listened to your podcast.
In your podcast, as you told the story, I did
not hear a single red flag I was listening. Would
you agree with that? Am I missing something? Were there
red flags? No? Absolutely not. And I mean I've gone
(10:18):
back in my head and tried to find some little
tiny piece that I might have missed, and I just
I honestly did not see it. And that was such
a huge part of our project was to emphasize that point,
and so much of my dedication to Jen was too.
(10:40):
I mean we first met, she was like, I didn't
see anything, and I'm so afraid that no one's gonna
believe me, and I'm so afraid that people are going
to judge the fact that I didn't see anything as
if there were things to be seen. And it was
our one of our driving goals and our purpose was
to really land and at that place where there were
(11:01):
no red flags and she did not know and that
happens often, it really does. And this is to me,
Jen Andrea, I know that one of the drivers for
you making this podcast was to help other people. I
have to say one of the things you're helping people
most with is showing a story without red flags, because
there's something that almost becomes caricatured. Oh there's always red flags,
(11:23):
and it's you didn't see them, and that's because you
have legacy issues and now you see them. And everyone
has red flags, but there aren't always red flags. And
I think this is so important to lifting blame for
survivors who will often say, what did I miss? More
than they blame themselves, I must be foolish, and I'll say, listen,
unless you're holding back from me as your shrink, I'm
(11:46):
telling you there were no red flags, and by you
sharing your story in this way, I think that's actually
one of the most profound parts of the story, was
that there were no red flags. And there are a
lot of survivors out there that literally it's no red flags,
no red flags, and then the whole thing goes off
the cliff. And that's why I was so interested in
(12:07):
speaking with you about this, because talking about narcissism, I
didn't see that in Spence, you know, and maybe he
was a covert narcissist, but on the outside, my family,
my friends, our community just all thought he was this
wonderful man that would do anything for you. One of
(12:28):
the things I wanted to ask you today so you're
leading me to that question, was so I listened to
the podcast early episodes, no red flags. Then I literally
felt it in my chest when you said the scene
came home, search, warrant, arrest, what it was for. If
I felt the air sucked out of my lungs, I
can't imagine what your experience was and even what people
have had similar not exactly the same, but other betrayal
(12:49):
experiences will feel it too. But as the episodes went
on and we saw the scope and scale of what
he had done, the lies, the number of betray else
even after the call you have with him when he's
in jail, all of which I'd like to touch base on.
What I never heard once was the word narcissism. And
(13:10):
I was waiting. I'm like, Okay, they're gonna get to
it and they're going to talk about some of the words,
and I'm like, huh, so I get before the arrest.
What surprised me was never hearing that frame used afterwards.
Can you shed some light on that, Tray do you
want to talk about that. Yeah, I think it was
really important for us to focus on the victim's journey
(13:33):
and spend less time diagnosing him and what he was
all about, and more about the impact and the different
experiences they had with the spencer they interacted with, because
the spencer that Jen interacted with was very different than
the sexual assault victim, than his band and Air National
(13:55):
Guard bandmate. Every person dealt with a different version of him,
and I do think that there are seeds of narcissism
driving all of those interactions. But it was so important
for us to just spend time and really experience and
unpack because Jen's journey was trying to figure out who
is this man that I married and really at face
follow is really meeting with people who knew the different
(14:17):
sides of him. And that was really the goal for her,
as to say, I just need to see all the
many faces, right, I need to see the different portraits
and then really get to the bottom of how and
just that reconciliation. And that was more important to us.
But a lot of what we wanted to showcase and
really dig into was grooming, and I haven't heard a
(14:38):
lot done on grooming and we felt like we really
needed to spend time with that, and that's where we focused.
We will be right back with this conversation with Jen
and Andrea. There's an old thing. I'm gonna get it wrong,
but I use it a lot. It's an old African
proverb the tale of the hunt is always told by
(14:58):
the hunter and never for the lion. And I think
in this case, you're the lion. It took me a
minute when I first read that problem, like, wait, is
that a lion fierce? But no, the lion is being
stalked by the hunter, and we always hear the hunter's
point of view. So I really really resonate with what
you're saying is how do we tell survivor stories by
keeping the lens on the survivor? And so I respect
(15:19):
that and I understand that, and I'm curious because goodness knows,
there's spent so much you know, buzz and people talking
about the podcast after you put it out there and
people were commenting on it. Did you get that question
where people saying, well, Spencer a narcissist and Spencer sounds
like a narcissist. Was it ever coming up or where
people also focused on the survivor experience. I feel like
(15:42):
he is so many other things before he's the narcissist.
I can't diagnose him obviously, there's some sociopathic tendencies there,
or there's sex addiction, and there's all this stuff. I
think now reading his correspondence with some of the other
women and how he spoke with them and treated them,
(16:05):
I think that's where I see the narcissism and him
come out. I didn't see it in our lives. He
just wasn't like that. He was just very caring and
kind and like I said, would just, you know, give
you the shirt off his back. So it was in
those other correspondents though, that I did see that. That
(16:26):
doesn't surprise me at all. And Andrea, you said something
so important where you said we were trying to unpack
them any portraits. I love how you said that, because
that's a struggle many survivors have. Now. What happens in
the sort of the more typical narcissistic relationship situation is
a person is dealing with a terrible relationship for quite
(16:46):
a long time, and then there may even be a
ramp up in the betrayal. Right, there's an extra marital
affair or financial abuse, words that can't be unsaid, that
kind of thing. But it was already a bad scene.
So the persons like, okay, now how I'm done? Right?
So there was a takeoff ramp, there was a there
was an incline to that point where people aren't shocked.
They're sad, but they're not shocked, right, And that idea
(17:10):
of the many portraits, because we always try to simplify
it is to the good and the bad, the charming,
charismatic versus the invalidating, gas sliding, manipulative. Right. What you're saying,
and I think it's so on point, is that it's
not as simple as good bad. It's actually these literally
different experiences that all these people have of this person.
(17:31):
And I think there's a richness you're bringing to this
conversation about when we try to simply say, well, there's
a personality style and some days are good and some
days they're bad. But actually, yeah, that's true. But on
top of that, many many other people are having very
different experiences. And when you glue all those pieces together
like a collage, then you have the full representation of
this person who is probably quite unlike anything or anyone
(17:55):
you actually believed you were in a seven year relationship
with One of my hypotheses is that Spencer was getting
so much validation in so many other places, the students,
other women, people, He was doing other creative endeavors with that,
unlike many narcissistic people who may not have that many
tubs of narcissistic supply. Narcissists who don't get supplied get
(18:19):
really tense and snappy and reactive and kind of mean.
But if there's always validation coming in, it's almost like
their tummy is always full, their psyche is always full.
So in a primary relationship like a marriage, they can
actually bring their a game because they're not looking to
the marriage as the sole source of supply. They have
so diversified their sources of supply that one is left
(18:42):
with a really sweet person at home because they're getting
at so many other places. And this is something we'll
often see is that when a person is in a
relationship where there's an infidelity, one of the things they'll
say is what through me is my partner actually started
becoming really nice. And I wanted to think it's because
the relationship was going bad, it's actually because now I
recognize they were in love. It just was they were
(19:03):
falling in love with someone else that wasn't me, and
all the positive emotion that came from that. And so
I think that's an interesting way to view this because
I think he was literally the most diversified portfolio of
validation I think I've ever heard of in a narcissistic
kind of a personality in my life. That makes so
much sense. Absolutely, he could be one way the way
(19:25):
that he wanted the world to see him with me,
I kind of provided that perfect life scenario, and then
go off be that other side of him that was
a big part of him in secret. And I think
that you also laid it out. I mean, you're a
formidable woman, Jen, I've read your background, your work in
(19:45):
the entertainment industry. You're amazing. And so you're this amazing,
beautiful woman who so accomplished that he married and made
this beautiful home with. That's its own form of validation.
Above and beyond you this idea that I have this
rock star life who's gorgeous and isn't you know we
have this great house together, great life. That becomes a
source of validation too. It doesn't feel good to be
(20:07):
thought of that way, But it was a really important
pillar and sort of the temple of Spence as it were.
My session with Jen and Andrea will continue after this break.
So we're gone over the cliff, search warrant, arrest, He's gone,
(20:28):
and now you're left in this wreckage. And the original
search warrant and arrest warrant were around sexual contact with
a student. Okay, can you unpack what you learned about?
Spencer's not just double life, It was like a quadruple
or quintuple life. You know, what did you learn? Oh?
My goodness? I mean, you know, first of all, he
(20:51):
is escorted out of the house with leaving me thinking
he's had this affair with the student and it was
just three times. And honestly, I think at that point
I didn't really even grasp the seriousness of it or
how this student, this young person was manipulated by him.
(21:14):
Come to find out, two days later, I get into
his email and I'm seeing picture after picture after picture
of all these different women. And I get into his
email and discover, I don't know, probably seventy five different
women that he was corresponding with. He was having to
(21:34):
three year long relationships with several different people at the
same time, not only just the student, but then so
many adult women. I'm going to be a shrink for
a minute. Can you tell me, Jen, what did it
feel like as a woman to read all these emails,
to see this stuff on the screen? You know, one
was just how hurt I was. I felt like I
(21:58):
had an elephant standing on my chest. There there was
that hurt that I felt from the betrayal, because he
knew how important marriage was to me. We talked about
it all the time we were legal together. We were
in it for the long haul forever. And then it
was finding out reading the correspondence with these other women
(22:24):
that just made me sick because the way he spoke
to them, the language he used talking about choking someone
or it was just disgusting. So there was that betrayal
and that heartache I felt. But then there was just
this shock and awe of living with someone I just
(22:45):
didn't even know and never had heard that language from
or anything. I guess I'm asking that even as a woman,
like how did you get through your days? I am
feeling your story. I'm thinking I wouldn't know if day
was nice, I wouldn't know how to sleep I'd be
afraid to wake up, my appetite would be shot, I
would lose a hundred pounds. How did you get through
(23:06):
your days? I told myself very early on, just take
every moment with baby steps. If you can just literally
put one foot in front of the other and make
it to the end of the day, you know you
can check that off. And I had a lot of
support around me. I have an amazing community. My parents
(23:29):
came to stay with me, so that helped. But then
that kind of died away a little bit and I
was left on my own, and I got a therapist
because I knew I couldn't do this by myself. But
I literally just kept telling myself, baby steps, just try
to make it through today. Just try to make it
through today. And that's how you got through, just one step.
(23:51):
I mean, that's an extraordinary approaches. In some ways, it's
exactly what somebody, a mental health practitioner would tell somebody.
But many people say I can't do this, and you
did it. And I think that's important for survivors to
hear that that one step at a time, even if
it's taking life five seconds at a time, actually actually matters.
(24:12):
In this period of time when you're unearthing all these women.
I know obviously the case that resulted in the arrest
was with a minor. Were these women the seventy five women,
were they miners? Were they adults? What was that? Was
it mixed? The ones that I found were all adults.
Fortunately some were younger and their twenties, somewhere, you know, fifty.
(24:34):
It was a wide range. He did not have a
specific type at all. As I went through this, it
was the student that was the hardest pill to swallow,
because he just manipulated her and lied to her like
he did all the other women. This was her teacher,
This is somebody that she's supposed to look up to.
(24:55):
That was the most devastating thing. What's one thing to
do it to an adult, but to do it to
a child was just heart wrenching. Now, in all of
this time, you don't have contact with Spence. I stayed
in touch with him for until he was convicted. So
he was arrested June two eighteen, convicted January two thousand nineteen.
(25:20):
I had made a promise to him before he was
arrested that I would stick by him. Not in a
supportive way, but I just I don't know why I
said that at the moment. I think it was I'm
the wife. I'm supposed to stick by him, and so
I did stay in communication with him through letters and
phone calls for those first nine months, but then once
(25:43):
the conviction happened, it happened the same day that he
got our divorce papers, and that was it. Then I
cut off all communication because if you listen to the
last episode where I speak with him on the phone,
he just continues to to spin the truth. And I
don't think really understands what he did to these people,
(26:08):
especially the student. I don't think he understands the gravity
of his issues. No, And that's a tremendous lack of empathy, right,
that's the core of empathy that I've acted in a
way that may have harmed someone. So I am I.
I can see that I harmed someone. This wasn't okay,
and be aware of that in those months because you
(26:28):
started looking at these emails and seeing what he had
done pretty early in the game. Did you ask him,
did you make inquiries of what is this? What happened?
Who are all these people? Did you ask him? What
kind of response did you get back? I would ask
him You told this person and this person that you
loved them, and his response was always oh I don't
(26:49):
remember saying that, or oh I didn't really love them.
It was just this deep denial. I would say that
I knew the extent, I knew how much he communicated
with these people, how long these relationships some of them were,
and he just played it off like it really wasn't anything.
(27:10):
So this wasn't all just emails and messages. These were
real relationships, Yes, real relationships with many people, some like
I said, three at a time, and they would be
a year or two years long. This is where I think,
I mean in a way I don't know. I don't
want to see even sound like grudging admiration. I think
I'm more puzzled than anything is how was he able
(27:32):
to organize his time like the time management, the time management,
I can't even keep a gallon of milk in the house,
and this guy is like juggling all this and presenting
as the devoted husband, the devoted teacher, the devoted you know,
extended family member, all of that. What is what's chilling
to me is that the compartmentalization that's required to do that.
(27:53):
There's a reason you, Jen, and Andrea and I can't
do this is because we couldn't compartmentalize empathy. Means you
can't compartmentalize empathy is why you actually can't lie very
well that the water breaches over. And so if you
were doing something like this, people would detect a change
in you. And the idea that nobody was seeing that
(28:16):
change is not a deficit in the people around him.
It is a statement on his capacity for compartmentalization totally.
Did you think in those early months, Jen, that he
knew he was doing something wrong? One thing that's interesting
He said to me, I figured if you didn't know,
then it wouldn't hurt you. So I think it was
(28:39):
that he compartmentalized everything and he thought, well, if I
keep this part really separate from Jennifer, then I'm not
hurting her, right, which is almost very paternalistic when we
think about it. It's being the puppet master. I can
pull all the strings. I decide who gets to know what,
and if I decide her not knowing me, and so
(29:00):
she's not heard, then it's all okay. Those are the
complex rationalizations that take place, you know, and we see
this across a lot of patterns, not just in a
sort of a narcissistic personality, but also even an addiction.
If nobody sees me get high, or I never get
high on the day of my kids soccer games, somehow
there's some grand eraser in the sky that makes it okay.
(29:21):
These are the defenses that keep these kinds of behaviors
in place. So you learn all of this. He gets convicted.
And how long after the conviction did you sit with
Andrea and say, I think I want to share this
story with the world. I think it was probably about
(29:41):
eight months. Yeah, we got in contact, and again, I
don't know what it was, but just something pushed me
to say, I want to tell this story. There's so
many insane components of it that I didn't want to
sweep it under the rug. I wanted people to know
(30:03):
that teacher of the Year or that eagle scout can
be that manipulator and that person that can just destroy lives.
Part of the reason that narcissistic people are so emboldened
and enabled by the world is that we often fall
for the window dressing, or maybe we're just perceptually lazy,
(30:27):
whether it's being the proverbial ego scout or teacher of
the year or employee of the year, or person who
is revered in the community. That can buy a person
a lot of social collateral and power and and unwillingness
or at least a block by other people to seeing
what the person is really about. People with antagonistic, manipulative,
(30:49):
and dishonest interpersonal styles are like the wolf in sheep's clothing.
We have to be willing to reshape our schemas of
these people when their behavior is at odds with their
shiny public persona. Here are my takeaways from my conversation
with Jen and Andrea. There are not always red flags
(31:11):
and narcissistic relationships. This is really important to remember because
many survivors blame themselves for missing the signs and subsequently
feeling foolish. Jen, her family, their friends, nobody they had
contact with noticed any red flags, so when it all
(31:31):
came out, she was shocked and startled, but didn't track
it back to something she missed. It's easy to fall
into believing that there are always red flags. Sometimes there aren't,
or they are so subtle that we miss them. For
a person with an antagonistic or a narcissistic personality, their
(31:52):
behavior is worse when they are not getting enough validation.
So when things in a narcissistic person's life are going well,
they feel safe, they feel admired, they feel in control.
Is often when people will say that they feel like
their relationship with them is going great. This also leads
(32:13):
that when that validation fades or the structures of deceit
and manipulation come crashing down and entirely new person can emerge.
This can confuse survivors to no end who don't understand
where the shift comes from and can feel grief and
shame at recognizing that the only reason the relationship was
(32:37):
working was because the narcissistic person may have been getting
their needs met in other places. A big thank you
to our executive producers Jada Pinkett Smith, Valen Jethrow, Ellen
Rakaton and Dr Romeney de Vassela. And thank you to
(32:58):
our producer Matthew Joe Owns, associate producer Mara Della Rosa,
and consultant Kelly Ebling. And finally, thank you to our
editors and sound engineers Devin Donnahe and Calvin Bailiff.
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