Special Episode: It’s Worse Than We Thought

In this crossover episode with lovelustfear, a podcast hosted by Jake Deptula, we hear a powerful story from a woman named Allyn. Allyn met a captivating man who swiftly declared his love, asked her to be his girlfriend, and even proposed. But as their long-distance relationship deepened, she uncovered his lingering connection with an ex, which led Allyn down a dark path of deception. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.

(00:21):
Welcome to the Knife, I'm patia Eton and don't worry,
Hannah will be back with us next week. Today we're
hearing from a woman named Alan, who met a captivating
man that quickly seemed to be falling in love with her.
But as their relationship deepened, Alan began to see that
she'd been taken down a dark path of deception. Jake
tip Tula spoke with Alan on his podcast Loveluss Fear,

(00:43):
which he hosts. Loveluss Fear exposes real stories about toxic
dating and relationships. Hannah and I are such fans of
the show and wanted to share this episode with all
of you. Jake has such a compassionate way of speaking
with his guests like Alan, who bravely share their most
personal stories. Let's get into the episode.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
The story you're about to hear him Lovelust Fear is true.
Some names, places, and other identifying details may have changed
to protect the storyteller. Lovelust Fear may contain graphic language
and depictions of sensitive situations. Please listen with caution. Next
on Lovelust Fear.

Speaker 3 (01:26):
I know what a type of person. I was looking
for the characteristics. I've always been pretty clear on that,
and I thought, oh, maybe that you know this guy's
coming across my path for a reason or something, and
I swiped Yes. He was all the things that I
had and experienced in conversations prior with people, and that
was something that really drew me in and that I

(01:47):
appreciated about him. Within less than a week, he told
me that he loved me. That was right after our
first FaceTime, within probably twenty minutes of us getting off
the phone. At that same time, he told me that
he wanted to have kids with me, couldn't wait for
me to be their mom. Within two hours, probably two

(02:10):
hours of being there, I was with his mom. They
said Alan and him are going to be coming by
there with us now, we'll all be together later or something,
and the person said who's Alan?

Speaker 4 (02:24):
Who's that? I can't keep track of them.

Speaker 3 (02:27):
So it went from I'm single, to she has stuff here,
she needs to come get the rest of her stuff too,
I'm moving it into a storage unit to I hear
her in the background one night and she's coming to
get her stuff. She just showed up to She actually
found out about you and now she's refusing to leap.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
From her childhood. Through young adulthood, Alan battled chronic illness,
which often left her feeling isolated and kept her from
engaging in social activities, including dating. By the time she
reached her mid twenties, she found herself watched others build relationships,
and she couldn't help but feel like she was missing out,
So she turned to online dating. Eager to expand her

(03:07):
options beyond her small community, Alan stepped out of her
comfort zone and set her sights on Montana, seeking a
fresh start, peace of mind, and the chance to find
the right partner. It didn't take long for Allan to
become swept up in a whirlwind romance. Within months, her
new partner was telling her he loved her, asking her
to be his girlfriend, and even proposing. But when she

(03:30):
learned about the lingering presence of his ex girlfriend, doubt
crept in. Alan began questioning the trust and stability of
the relationship. What followed was a painful journey of shock, betrayal,
and devastation.

Speaker 3 (03:44):
My childhood didn't ever look normal. I started having health
issues around age ten or eleven, and so in terms
of dating, that also looked vastly different. I had a
few high school boyfriend friends, obviously, nothing really that was
super serious or anything, just some fun kind of flings.

(04:07):
In college, I did not date at all, which I
was pretty sick and going through a lot of treatments.

Speaker 4 (04:13):
It was pretty quiet at that time.

Speaker 3 (04:15):
I was the guinea pick to have a tinder in
college for my friend group. Again, I wasn't dating, but
it was more so an experiment of we just really
want to see what it's like and who's out there.
And I think my roommates honestly all had boyfriends or something,
but they were like, Alan, you need to get this.

Speaker 4 (04:32):
We want to see what it's like.

Speaker 3 (04:33):
And we would swipe and be like, oh my god,
we know that person, or I can't believe it looks
like this or something. Later in my mid twenties, my
close friends were in serious relationships married. I realized, I'm
not in college anymore. I'm working, but I'm not going
out a ton of doing things where I necessarily might
meet someone the old fashioned way as easily. For a while,

(04:56):
I also was an event planner in work a lot
of weddings, and I had quite a few couples who
started coming through who had met via dating apps, and
then kind of from there. I think I opened up
more when I first joined was living in my hometown,
and so I feel like half the people I knew

(05:17):
from growing up and were kind of automatic nos for me.

Speaker 4 (05:21):
So I feel like I kind of.

Speaker 3 (05:22):
Developed a really fast filtration system for going through people.
My friends will say that I'm notorious for going through
profiles very quickly, and I just felt like, well, if
I've waited this long, I'm going to be picky, or
I have a standard, or I know what a type
of person I was looking for the characteristics. I've always
been pretty clear on that my criteria was something more

(05:46):
serious and committed in hopes of finding my person in
marriage and all the things that I had kind of
been shown and was striving for in life.

Speaker 4 (05:56):
I guess.

Speaker 3 (06:00):
I had kind of a tumultuous start of twenty twenty three.
I'd done a lot of personal work and finally had
my health dialed in, and felt like I wanted a
little bit of a change. I'm able to work remotely,
and I have always had a love of Montana. I

(06:20):
wanted to get out there for a while for a
few years and spend some time I just kind of
experience it. I had kind of an interest in possibly
moving there, so I set it up to where I
was going to be out there for a month.

Speaker 4 (06:34):
I was out there and I had moved my location
on the apps.

Speaker 3 (06:38):
I was going to be on the apps and just
see what that was and meet people. I'd been there
for a while and I was actually leaving town. I
had to come back home for a wedding. And he
came across on Bumble and I knew I had kind
of this criteria in my mind of what I look
for in profiles and terms of photos or what's included

(07:02):
in a bio or not. And he didn't meet that.
He looked cute, but I was like, just Alan, no,
it's no, and I swiped no. The next day he
came back around. His profile popped up again, but it
looked a little bit different. There were some more photos,
and there was a little bit more to the bio.

(07:23):
Nothing crazy, but just a little bit more. And I'm
kind of a believer in timing and you know what's
meant to be. And I thought, oh, maybe you know
this guy's coming across my path for a reason or something,
And I swiped yes and we matched. I was again
leaving town, so I knew that I wouldn't meet him

(07:44):
right away, but I was open to something with distance
or just getting to know someone. I loved it out there.
I was open to coming back. And I messaged him.
It was on bumble, so I had to do it first,
and I said something generic like hey, how's it going,
And he responded and said, hey, dream woman.

Speaker 4 (08:05):
With hard eyes. To me, that was an ick.

Speaker 3 (08:09):
I get the X pretty quick, but I again was
trying to be open. I was trying not to just
write everything off. I thought, in the scheme of the
profiles I'm seeing, he looked pretty good. And I was
just like, give him a chance, give him a chance.
And so I responded, and I kind of made a
little joke of it, and I said, you know, big

(08:29):
shoes to fill. He was charming, he was charismatic, he
was attentive, he was interested, he was interesting.

Speaker 4 (08:39):
He was a hard worker, which is something I value
a lot. He was single, in which I value. He
was looking for something serious. Getting to know him in
an open and honest way, and it felt just easy,

(08:59):
and I enjoyed that aspect of it. He was all
the things that I had and experienced in conversations prior
with people, and that was something that really drew me
in and that I appreciated about him.

Speaker 3 (09:12):
Something that happens a lot and happened a lot on
the Apps was that things were kind of hyper sexualized,
and things would turn sexual lot, or people would want
photos or would want to really change into just talking
about looks, or it would go a certain direction very quickly.
So even if something, you know, started with a compliment,

(09:34):
I always felt pretty uncomfortable with that because I feel like.

Speaker 4 (09:38):
I knew where it would go.

Speaker 3 (09:40):
And that's another thing about him that I appreciate is
that it never went there. He never asked for anything,
and from there I was just engaged and hooked. And
facetimes a big thing for me because I'm like, if
I can't physically be with you, I want to see
kind of what I'm looking at and who I'm talking to.
And so we did a face time time not many

(10:01):
days later. It was super late, you know, time change.
He was a little bit later than me, and I
remember he was in his truck and he had the
console light on and he kind of bent down and
looked at the phone, and his very first thing he
ever said was well, you're cute, but it was kind
of in like a tone of that'll do. I didn't

(10:24):
feel complimentary. I know it was said in a complimentary way,
but I feel like I've received that compliment before and
it didn't feel the same. It was kind of more
of like a sizing me up thing. Within less than
a week, he told me that he loved me. That
was right after our first FaceTime, within probably twenty minutes
of us getting off the phone. At that same time,

(10:45):
he told me that he wanted to have kids with me,
couldn't wait for me to be their mom. The I
love you part was quick. I felt honestly like it
was flirty and harmless. And I say that because I
feel like there have been far worse things said to me,
or far worse comments. Guys who have said totally slimy things,

(11:08):
are asked for things, or make comments about.

Speaker 4 (11:11):
My body or the way that I look.

Speaker 3 (11:14):
Or things like that that I have just felt like
we're much more dangerous or damaging. So I felt like,
I see this, I see you. You're not that dangerous.
You just are kind of being dumb right now, is
honestly what I felt like that was. But it wasn't
to where it made me extremely uncomfortable like other people

(11:36):
had before. The face time connect was fun, it was exciting.
He felt to me like he hit all the things
that I was looking for. I also kind of felt
a little bit of thank God that there's someone out there.
You know, I need to get to know this person more,
but there's someone that I can actually feel like matches

(11:58):
kind of what I'm looking for and has these qualities
and I can have a conversation with. And that felt
like a good step forward down the path that I've
been wanting to go down for a while. He had
called me and he said, what are you doing fourth
of July? And I said nothing. He said, well, why
don't you come out. I'd love to spend time together.
And that meant a lot to me because I felt like,

(12:22):
again it spoke to he's serious, he has an intention
behind this, He's not just all talk. And I was
open to it.

Speaker 4 (12:32):
Again. I loved it out there.

Speaker 3 (12:33):
I felt like it was kind of an adventure and
it was fun and why wouldn't I And at that
point we had been talking for a while. But prior
to that, before I booked my flight, I called him
and I said it kind of in a joky way.
I have my little bank of questions, but I said, hey,
I just want to del check before I do this.
You don't have any wives or weird hobbies. I had
been talking to someone for a while and then it

(12:55):
turned out that he was like a tarantula lover and
how he had twelve tarantulas.

Speaker 4 (13:00):
They scare me, and.

Speaker 3 (13:01):
So he knew that we had talked about it, and
I just want to know if I'm getting into anything
weird before I come out there. And he said, and
again I loved this about him. He said, no, no
wives or snakes or weird things. He said, I do
have a DUI from a bad decision when I was younger,
but no domestic stuff or fights or anything like.

Speaker 4 (13:23):
That's it. And I was like, okay, Like that was honest.
That was straight up.

Speaker 3 (13:28):
I obviously don't love that there's anything on the record,
but I valued the honesty and like being transparent about that.
So I ended up flying out there. That's the first
time I met him was over Fourth of July weekend.
We had a magical weekend. That weekend was a total
lightning bolt. I felt like a movie in a lot

(13:50):
of ways. He wrote that perfectly. I felt like, finally
someone knows what they want and are speaking that out
into existence. Part of what happened and so quickly is
that we were intertwined with each other's families, and that
happened very very fast. That's a value that's near and
dear to my heart. It's probably one of the biggest ones.

(14:10):
And he knew that, and he introduced me to his
family very quickly. He and I were sitting out on
the deck and he's basically telling me, you don't know
how big of a deal it is that you and
I are allowed here. We are on his family property,
and he said, you know, my parents don't allow anyone here.
It's such a big deal that you're here and that
you and I have this space to ourselves. And that's

(14:31):
when I said, well, what did you tell your parents?
He said that you know that you're my girlfriend. It's
a head tilt and you're like what. I felt like,
I love that I don't have to question where I'm
at with him, and so I appreciated that. And on
the other hand, I felt like kind of just told
me what we are eating an ask. It's not like
I'm asking you to do some big, huge thing to

(14:52):
become my boyfriend. But I think a conversation's warranted if
you're entering into a relationship, and that didn't happen, and
so that that was how that conversation started. Obviously, my friends,
my close friends, they think it's their favorite game to
track me and track my location. They think I'm a
little sim or something. They know I'm going to meet
him and everything, and they're like, we see you've landed,

(15:14):
we see your you know here, how's it going? And
everyone's texting me. And then he said, well, let's take
a picture and send it to them. So we took
our first picture together, and you know, when my friends
asked me how it's going. We have this picture of
us beautiful sunset time on the deck, smiling, and I
sent it to my friends and I said having a

(15:36):
boyfriend or whatever. And I have all these responses and
replies of them saying, oh my gosh, like you're in love,
look at your face, like we know you're moving. I
just looked happy. That was great until we hit our
first roadbump. He invited me on a big family trip.

(15:58):
It was a big deal for their family, a lot
going on. It was something that they do annually, but
it was everyone. It was mom, dad, brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles, cousins, everyone.

Speaker 4 (16:09):
Again, you can say fast.

Speaker 3 (16:12):
And I felt that, and I felt nerves, but I
also felt like what we were going to do and
where we were going was something that was so up
my alley.

Speaker 4 (16:20):
It sounded so fun.

Speaker 3 (16:21):
And I also felt like I cherish family, He cherished family,
and I felt honored that he would invite me to
do that and that I would have that opportunity and
that opportunity to meet a lot of people at once,
and you know, that was kind of rare. I feel
like within two hours, probably two hours of being there,
and I was with his mom, his dad was outside

(16:44):
with him working on something, and his mom was with me,
and she ended up on the phone on speaker with
someone and they said Alan and him are going to
be coming by. They're with us now, we'll all be
together later or something, and the person said, who's Alan?
Who's that? I can't keep track of them, and his

(17:06):
mom's face just goes blank.

Speaker 4 (17:09):
It's on speakerphone.

Speaker 3 (17:11):
I'm just kind of standing there smiling and looking out
the window, like can't escape this. And she gets off
the phone and she says, I'm so sorry. You know
how family is. And I said, you know, it's fine.
I said, does he date a lot of people? And
she said, oh, no, but you know his situation with
his ex And I said, actually I don't. I said,

(17:32):
all I know is that it's an ex and that
you guys really do not feel fondly of her. That
was always the narrative I got was that it was
a very tumultuous relationship that he had been in with her,
and it was rocky, and it was kind of back
and forth sometimes, and that the family had very strong

(17:53):
opinions about it, and that's all I know. And she said, oh,
she's kind of shoeing me out the door. And she said, oh, well, yeah,
you guys can talk about that. Talk about a gut punch.
And I go walls up when I get triggered sometimes
or just I'm like, I'm supposed to be here for
literally a week with these people, and the person who
I thought was my partner or had my back in this,

(18:14):
I'm now questioning. And so he and I were in
the truck after that we had to drop his mom
off somewhere, and so they were in the front seat.
I was in the back seat. We drop her off
and he says, how's your time with my mom? And
I said, well, what's going on with your ex? And
he paused for a minute, he got quiet, and then
he said I knew she would do this. And I said, well,
what's she talking about then? And he said, that's my mom, classic,

(18:38):
my mom. She's always got to stir the pot. She's
always got to say something. He said, there's nothing going on.
I said, well, why is she eluding? What's she even
talking about? We kind of went back and forth, back
and forth. And we pull up, we're checking into our hotel,
and I'm freaking in the back seat, like what are
we even doing here? And he comes around and he

(18:59):
opens the door. He lays his head on my lap
and he says, baby, you have nothing to worry about it.

Speaker 4 (19:04):
I'm so so sorry.

Speaker 3 (19:05):
And we get to the hotel room and I look
him dead in the eyes and I say, if you
have anything to tell me, you need to tell me now.
Said I don't understand what she would even be talking about,
why she would bring that up, And he says, there
is nothing. He said, my family really has issues with her,
they don't think fondly of her. It's a sticking point,

(19:25):
but there's nothing going on. His family was also backing
it up, and I said, okay, And that is what
I was told multiple times throughout that week she was
brought up. I was mistaken for her, and that was
a really, really tough week for me. We were on
FaceTime and I had seen his house and asked him

(19:49):
to show me around, because multiple times my dad had said, oh,
you haven't been to his house. That's weird. And I said, Dad, like,
come on, I know it's weird, but also it just
hadn't happened that way. We had been traveling a lot,
we had been doing stuff, and I said, I know,
but I've seen it on FaceTime. He's walked me around.
I've seen stuff. And so this time when we were

(20:10):
on FaceTime, he happened to be upstairs in a bed
and it hit me because the bed had red sheets
in a fuzzy blanket and everyone knows that's not normal.
And I said, where are you and he said, I'm
in my room and I said I want to see
it and he said no, and I said, you better
show me that room right now. And he panned the

(20:32):
room really quickly, and all you see is stuff in
boxes and piles of stuff. And I said, it is
that girl stuff and he said, well yeah. And that
was the first time that it was introduced that she
was not present. And from there the narrative consistently changed.
The goalpost consistently changed. So it went from I'm single,

(20:52):
to she has stuff here, she needs to come get
the rest of her stuff too, I'm moving it into
a storage unit, to oh, I hear her in the
background one night and she's coming to get her stuff.
She just showed up to she actually found out about you,
And now she's refusing to leave. She's on the lease
and I can't get her to leave. It just consistently changed.

(21:13):
It was always that they were not together. Her presence
in our life and in our relationship grew throughout the months.
And I said, okay, and I pressed him on. I said,
what else is there? I said, do you share anything?
Will there'd be a Netflix bill that comes up in
a few months, Is there anything that she's still on?

(21:33):
And you know, no, no, no, no, no, it's really
this And so you know what, he was working really
hard at the time. I bought him a massage. That day,
he went and had his massage, He did the storage unit.
He was so excited. He sent me a photo. He
sent his family a photo. His family was aware of this,
you know, he sent them a photo. And so when

(21:55):
he came to see me, my narrative was, it's separated
and done. He's very smart, and so these things would happen,
but it would always be flipped in a way to

(22:18):
where I would either feel bad for him and the
stress that it put him under or what he was
going through. He would become distraught that I was distraught,
or he would become upset that I was upset, And
so I felt like, well, if he's having those feelings,
I didn't feel like I was being duped. I felt like, Oh,
we're in this together, and this is a crappy situation,

(22:42):
and I felt like we were kind of on a
team against this person who if you could just go away,
it would be so much easier kind of thing. His
behavior flipped a lot right after that Fourth of July weekend,
and when we were initially together, so prior to that,
he was always a ba answered every call, gave me
so much time, was on phone calls, FaceTime, texting all

(23:07):
this stuff, and then after that is really when you
see the behavior start to flip a little bit. And
it's not that he wasn't there, it's just that a
little less available, or would miss a phone call, or
I'm really tired, can we talk tomorrow? Or I would
get a little less and less and it would change
a little bit. You know, that's after I'm already hooked

(23:28):
and in, and it would shift a little bit. It
was definitely a turning point. It left me a phrase
I kind of always uses, just strung out. We spent
a lot of time together and I really met his
extended family, and then he's in town. He came in
he was going to meet my parents where around that

(23:48):
day we had talked about marriage before, we had talked
about kids, how we would want to raise kids, what
we want that to look like, everything. So we were
having very serious conversations. This wasn't just where do you
want to go to for dinner type of relationship. And
we were out that day and he said, do you
want to go to a jewelry store?

Speaker 4 (24:08):
I'd really like to go look at rings.

Speaker 3 (24:10):
So this was, you know, prior conversation, and I said,
I kind of knew what I would want to do
in terms of a ring. I kind of have a
plan with some jewelry that is in our family. And
I also knew that the jeweler here it's a small town,
and I was like, I know that will get back
to my mom. I said, it's okay, we don't need
to do that. We talked about it at lunch. What

(24:31):
type of ring would you want? What do you want
it to look like? We had that conversation that we
go to dinner with my parents. It's great. We are
at home at my house and he's on cloud we're
both on cloud nine, but he is just over the
top and it comes out, you know, would you marry me?
And I said yes, and he's crying, he's so just elated.

(24:57):
We were having a really intimate conversation and he said,
oh my gosh, you didn't even say yeah.

Speaker 4 (25:02):
You said you actually said yes. And I was like, yeah,
this isn't an LOL moment.

Speaker 3 (25:07):
Yeah, I said the full ye yes, you know, and
that was that. And I don't think I was hesitant
to accept it because I was so in love and
I knew that this was the person I was going
to spend my life with it also was not.

Speaker 4 (25:19):
At all how I envisioned accepting a proposal.

Speaker 3 (25:22):
There are things where I felt like, I want the
one knee, I want the ring, I want him to
know my brother. He didn't have a chance to meet
my brother, and at that point in time, there were
some things that were going on in our relationship that
needed to be worked on. So again I felt like,
I'm in love with you. I accept this. This is
a commitment that I'm making, but this isn't something that

(25:43):
I'm again going around and sharing. He says, we need
to call and FaceTime my sister and I love his sister,
and I said, I really don't want to do that
and tell people. I don't feel right about that. My
family and I are extremely extremely close, and I would
feel I don't feel right telling part of yours and
not telling mine. It's not how I do it and

(26:05):
my family. I know better than that. And he said, please,
she loves you, She'll be so excited for us, and
he just he worked me, worked me, worked me, until
finally we're sitting on FaceTime calling his sister and she's screaming, crying, elated,
asking how he did it and all this stuff. So
his sister is the only one who knew. We asked

(26:28):
her not to tell anyone. I never told anyone. I
knew it would eventually happen, but I never told anyone
in my family. I told my mom would ask and
I say, we've talked about marriage. I said, I think
I'll be engaged by the end of the year. We
had those conversations, so she knew it was coming and everything,

(26:49):
but didn't know that we had actually had that event occur.
But when we were with his sister, she would introduce
me to friends or to random people or whatever as
his fiance, and so it was a very double life
a little bit that we lived there. It's separated and done.

(27:10):
The night after he left here after the engagement is
the first night that I heard another woman in the background,
and that was her, and that is when I realized
that she was not gone and that he was not truthful.

(27:30):
So he had after the engagement, he had left here,
but after I had gotten home. I mean, I think
we had a cycle of I would usually send a
novel text and be like, we need to work on this.
I'm not tolerating this, and it would come back around
to I love you, I'm sorry. I agree, I'm working
on it. We're working on it. It's going to be great.
And tomorrow was a new day. The conversations really just

(27:54):
were honestly surrounding housing. That was kind of our conversation
at this point in time was I need to get
out out. Basically, he was saying, you know, we're both
on the lease. I can't get her off the lease.
And he said, I've talked to police, I've talked to everyone.
I've talked to my landlords. I have to be the
one to leave, so I can't. No one can make
her leave. And I said, okay, great, let's find you somewhere.

(28:17):
At that point in time, I was basically being a
little bit of a mom and I had my spreadsheet
going and I was looking up places that were month
to month, that would accept his dogs, that would whatever
fit the criteria that we had, because I just wanted
him somewhere safe, easy, that he could be, that I
could come visit and that would work until we moved
into his house. During this time, he'd be so either

(28:39):
so upset at night, she's awful, she's crazy.

Speaker 4 (28:43):
I need to get out of here. What have you found?

Speaker 3 (28:45):
Or he would be behavior wise very very picky.

Speaker 4 (28:50):
I was kind of busted in my butt and he
would come back.

Speaker 3 (28:53):
And no, no, no, no, no, no, no no, and
maybe there was one yes, and you know, I was like,
you can't be this picky. And it's not forever. It's
maybe for a month or two, and I was like,
come on, dude, it's not that big of a deal.
And then he would say, you know, schedule me is showing.
I want to go see it. And I'd schedule it
and then he'd say I can't make it. And he'd

(29:13):
call the next day and say, hey, when's my showing.
And I was like, I canceled it. You said you
can't make it, and he's like, ah, I can do it,
you know. And so it was really this kind of
cycle and I would be working on stuff, he would
be golfing on the weekends. Then he'd come home and
be super frustrated. And it was a whole thing that
I was extremely frustrated by. That month as a whole

(29:34):
was what I refer to as dark. We didn't see
each other much that month, and it was really really
trying to try and kind of navigate that, but feel
like I didn't have his full assistance in working on that.

Speaker 4 (29:48):
There was gas lighting.

Speaker 3 (29:49):
But you know, one day I'd said, can we please
face him on Saturday? And we hopped on and it
had been hard to track him down that week, and
very early on he had said, oh, I think we
should swap locations like that would be kind of good,
you know, And so we had each other's locations. He
was never doing kind of anything different necessarily, and so
I would see that and get frustrated when I wouldn't

(30:11):
hear back sometimes, and so I'd said, let's FaceTime on Saturday.
I haven't we haven't really talked much this week. I
want to kind of run some housing stuff by you.
And I remember we got on and he said, Babe,
I really don't want to get into this. I really
don't want to get upset before I go golfing and
throw off my golf game. I just remember being gobsmacked

(30:32):
and saying, what are you talking about? You were not
Tiger Woods. It's a Saturday. Maybe you're going to go
hit some hit some balls or do you know a
few holes, But I'm not planning on being in an
argumentative state, and so can we please talk about this tomorrow?

Speaker 4 (30:51):
Sure? Okay? Great? And pops off the phone.

Speaker 3 (30:55):
We never talked about it, but we started spending more
time together. I feel like we had a good little
run of time in September. Anytime we were together it
felt good, and we had time with his family. Anytime
we had time with his family, I felt like that
was really grounding, and so I always was encouraging of that.
We had a good time with his sister and her

(31:16):
family and friends, and then time with his parents another weekend,
and I felt like that would always kind of get
us on track. They didn't know all the details, but
they knew some bulk of what was going on and
what we were facing, and so they were helpful in
navigating that, and we were just kind of going through it.
We had a move date. I had a move date
of October. The end of October, we were kind of

(31:39):
pushing towards that. We didn't know where we would be
at housing wise. We had a few things up in
the air, but basically it was I'm moving, and we're
either going to get something temporary here or or move
into this place.

Speaker 4 (31:52):
And that was that.

Speaker 3 (31:53):
I had been ordering stuff to start packing up my
place here. I had started shutting down my life here. Yes,
I started not rescheduling with my hairdresser and not rescheduling
the dentist, and doing things to just phase out.

Speaker 4 (32:06):
I guess you could say more so.

Speaker 3 (32:08):
And people knew that, and they knew that I was moving,
and I made a pro con list, you know, spreadsheets
and pro con lists. That's me to a tee. I
guess after Labor Day he really screwed me on that,
intentionally unintentionally, the travel on that got really really messed up.

(32:31):
We were both supposed to be flying into the same
place and it just became a total mess to where
you know, he's he's saying, last minute, Oh, I can't go.
I have a sister texting me saying, I can't wait
for you guys to be here. I'm so excited. And
I am saying, what you haven't told your sister. I said,
I'm not telling your sister. This is not on me

(32:51):
to break your heart or we're not coming. And also,
I haven't seen you in a month, so if you're
not going, then I'm going to be coming out to
see you. And he said, I don't think that's a
good idea, And I what do you mean that's not
a good idea? Why can't I come see you, and
I'm frustrated and I'm annoyed, and so I cancel my
flight because I want the credit. And at the very
last minute, he says, oh, I can make it to
the airport, and I'm left sitting there with no flight

(33:13):
and I want to see you. It's been a month.
We've been having so many issues. His sister's like, you
need to come, you need to be on the I
need to see you, Like you have to be here.
And I end up getting in the car and driving
a whole day there and just I was like, what
are you doing. You don't do that to someone you love.

(33:33):
You totally just screwed me kind of, and oh, I
changed my in my return flight, I'm going to drive
home with you and then fly home. And he would
always kind of do it, always kind of make it
up a little bit. But I remember coming home from
that and making a pro con list of things that
I felt like, this is getting hard, and the ex

(33:55):
was far more present, but I'm still getting heavy feedback
of I've never seen my brother more happy. He's so
in love with you. You're a phenomenal person. I can't
wait for you to be my sister in law, like,
he's never been like this before. He's sitting me down,
telling me you're everything I've been looking for. You're my person.

(34:15):
I know that there's issues, but they're going to be
finished and done soon. And so, yeah, I was in
this really rough spot. My family is pretty ride or
die obviously, they don't ever want to see me upset.
I think the narrative that I was providing was he's

(34:37):
working a ton, and he was, and that I feel
like they thought that it was just hard distance wise
for us to be a part. And so I think
they were supportive of, well, go be together, figure it out.
His family's great to you. He's great. They met him,
they loved him when they met him. They're like, he's
so great, he adores you. It's going to be okay,

(34:59):
just like get through this rough patch. I just felt
like we were hitting wall after wall, and I think
every goalpost was moved every single time, and here's our
timeline for moving or here's our plan for getting you out,
or here's this or that, and everything was changing, down

(35:21):
to even the location of where I ended up moving
to change over Labor Day weekend. That was another curve
ball that was thrown and change, change, change, changed, change,
and so I definitely grew in frustration, but we just
had magical times together. There was a lot of love there.

(35:43):
I think again, I keep going back to family love.
His family wonderful, wonderful people. But I think, to me,
even knowing that there was an engagement, you have that
at least just get to a move, be together, live together,
get the day to day going, and I think it

(36:04):
will be a lot better because the main stressor honestly,
was not being together and was his ex. And I
just felt like, if we can close that gap, we're
going to be okay. And we had talked about a
lot throughout the weekend with his parents, down to talking
about a wedding date and when would you want to
get married, where would you want to get married. I mean,
we had talked about a lot of things, and I'm

(36:26):
not going anywhere. I think my focus is just making
it happen. And I had a lot going on in
my family at that time. I had two sick family
members and that was also a big focus in trying
to juggle that on top of this, and I just
go into kind of automatic, what needs to be done mode,

(36:49):
and that was kind of how I functioned or navigated.

Speaker 4 (36:51):
That I think I had not been I want to
say aloud.

Speaker 3 (36:56):
At his house, something had happened with his dog, and
I was asked by him to go in and leave
medication for the dog for his ex to give to
the dog.

Speaker 4 (37:09):
No one was home, he wasn't even home.

Speaker 3 (37:11):
I went in and did that, and it does look
kind of like a guy lives there. But at the
same time, there's market list on the fridge, and there's
a soccer schedule posted, and it became very apparent that
this was still a very integrated life, or that she
was very present still. So fast forward a few days.
He had been out of town for work and he said,

(37:33):
you know, I'm I'm not going to make it home
in time. We were supposed to go out of town
again together. She's gone this weekend. We can stay at
my house. And I wavered and I felt like he
was letting me in a little bit. And we were
months into this, months and months at this point into
this relationship, and I said, he's actually letting me in.
I'm okay. And so he was getting home very late

(37:56):
and he said, go on in. And I had one
of his dogs at that time, and so I went
in and I was there by myself, and whenever I
was without him or had his things, I would wash
his truck and get fuel and vacuum it and do
his laundry and fold his clothes and all this stuff.
And I'm so clean and such an organizer and all

(38:21):
this stuff. And I went into the house and there
were two rooms, and he had told me we stay
in separate rooms, and I one's very clearly a woman's room.
One is very clearly his room. I go up in
there and I'm like, I'm gonna wash the sheets, wash
his clothes, everything, and I'm just pulling stuff and I

(38:41):
lean down pull something, and outcomes lingerie from under his
bed and I just froze. And I look under there
and there's also a woman's shirt and a purse, and
I'm thinking, really fast, how do I want to handle this?
I texted him and I said, why is there lingerie
under your bed? And he responded and said, why are you.

Speaker 4 (39:04):
Going through all my things?

Speaker 3 (39:06):
And I just remember I was on his floor and
I started sobbing, and I said, how stupid am I?
Like it hit me like a wave and I how
dumb am I? That I am? In this situation and
that you just said that to me. Then he backtracks
and me, he says, this is totally her personality. She

(39:28):
would just throw that in there. She knows that you're around,
and she's done that before, and that's totally like her
to plant something. I was so hurt that he would
even say that to me to begin with, like why
are you going through my stuff? Because it had always
been with mine is yours? And also I'm just rude.
And there were a few other items in there, and
I said what are these? And I said why are

(39:50):
these here? And he said that's just like her. She
would totally put those in there. And I just didn't
respond and I shut it down, and I was like,
I can't be here.

Speaker 4 (39:59):
This is not good for me. I started looking at hotels.
I have his dog. What do I do with his dog?

Speaker 3 (40:05):
He's not going to be home till late, all this
stuff and I have my bag in the car and
all this stuff.

Speaker 4 (40:11):
And his sister called and you know, how is it.
How are you guys having fun?

Speaker 3 (40:16):
And I was like, you would not believe this, no,
And she totally talked me down. She said, alan, that's
something she would one hundred percent do you have to
know that. And she almost laughed at it. She was like,
that's comical that that happened. She said she would one
hundred percent plant that. How could you not see that?

(40:37):
And I was like, I was speechless. I'm still kind
of speechless. She said, you know he loves you. You
know that you guys are in this together. She said
that woman is evil. She will do anything to bring
him down. You have to know that. She said, you
rise above it. You throw it back in her room,
and you have a good weekend together. And that is

(41:00):
what I did. So I calmed down, I ordered dinner,
I did his laundry. I found another thong doing his laundry.
I threw it in her room. Turns out later that
that was not his ex's thong, that was another woman's song.
So I was just really doing the community's laundry at
that point in time. He got home late and I
was still angry, but I had gone to bed and

(41:22):
he came up. He flips the lights on. He said,
you're really going to fake asleep right now? And I said,
I'm really gonna be asleep right now, and he said, well,
come down. I haven't had He said, have you eaten.
It's like late, and I said yeah, and he said,
I'm going to be downstairs. So I go downstairs, and
you know, he had another present. It was this whole

(41:44):
I had this whole other birthday present for him.

Speaker 4 (41:46):
It was out.

Speaker 3 (41:46):
He had opened it and everything, and he's so happy.
He's in this good mood, all this stuff. And I said, well,
are we going to talk about this, you know, now,
or I may maybe tomorrow. You know, I'm tired, I'm
so worn out. And he he says, no, we can
talk about it now. And we're sitting there on the
couch and he says, you know, it's nothing. He said,

(42:06):
you also, you knew what you were getting into with this,
and I've always told you from the start that you
don't have to be in this relationship and you don't
have to do this. And I was floored because that
has never been a conversation. He's always teared up and
started crying if I've ever said anything to the effect
of I can't do this and if she continues to

(42:27):
be in our lives, I will not be here. He
has been so upset, and so he's sitting there nonchalant,
it's not a big deal. You're overreacting. You know, I've
told you this. I don't know why you're reacting this way.
And I got so upset again I'm not an argumentative person.
I finally just got up and walked away, and he said, oh,

(42:48):
there you go. Yeah, you would walk away right now.
And I got up. I walked up and went to bed.
He came up, didn't shower, it, didn't brush his teeth anything,
hopped in bed, put his arms around me, goes to sleep,
and the next day it's normal, it's fine. And it
bugged me. Anything like that irks me. And later in
the afternoon I said, I just are we okay?

Speaker 4 (43:10):
What?

Speaker 3 (43:10):
He goes, what are you talking about? And I said,
what obviously what happened?

Speaker 4 (43:15):
Like where we're at?

Speaker 3 (43:16):
And he he said, Alan, I don't dwell on anything,
absolutely not.

Speaker 4 (43:21):
We're fine, We're working on our future. We're good.

Speaker 3 (43:24):
And then that was that and we moved on and
we had the conversation. I said, if you ever don't
want to be with me, you need to let me know.
I said, please let me go. I said, I would
rather you be happy and be with her. I said,
I've been cheated on before. This is a very big
deal to me, I said please, And at this point
in time, I'm crying. I'm so emotional this weekend, and

(43:44):
I said, please let me go. I said, I I
don't ever want to stand in the way of you
being happy, and he all over me, holding my hand.
I would never do that. You're who I want to
be with. I would never cheat on you. I don't
have the time for that. No one has the time
for that. Wow, would I ever do that? This whole conversation,
he said, babe, just hold on another few weeks and
you're going to be out here. We're going to be

(44:05):
living together. She'll be out of our lives and it'll
be great. That was that weekend, and it was a
huge blow up to me, but it was just another
day for him kind of thing. So we spent that
weekend together. I rallied. It was a very rough weekend.

(44:29):
We were together and we were working through it, and
things aren't perfect. I was supposed to be coming out
again in another few weeks. This was the very start
of October, and I was house sitting at that point,
and it was always what's mine is yours, and I
was going to come out and he was going to
come stay with me and all this stuff. And so
that week things were normal, but the few days prior

(44:51):
to me coming out, things got a little odd. I
called him, I said, can we touch base. I'm supposed
to be coming out. I want to talk about the
weekend and if there's anything you want to do. And
it had happened before to where I would fly in
uber to his house and use a car or something
like that, and so I said, I think I'm gonna

(45:12):
fly in. Here's when I arrive. Can I come and
get the truck again and go from there? Then I'll
see you when you get off work. And he said
I don't want you driving the truck, and I was
really taken back by that. He'd always you know, what's
mine is yours. We're one and the same, and so
he said, I really don't think that's a good idea.

Speaker 4 (45:27):
I don't want you driving the truck.

Speaker 3 (45:28):
And I was taken back by that, and he was
just not in a good mood, and he said, I
actually think I want to go to the cabin this weekend.
And I was like, what are you saying, I'm going
to be in town when I finally come to town.
Why would you go somewhere else, and he just said, I,
you know, I really want to go up there, and
I said, well, I can't because I'm I have this commitment,
and so why wouldn't you spend time together and then

(45:49):
you can go And he said, don't ever tell me
that I can't go there. And I knew it was
a trigger because his ex was not allowed there on
that property, and I think that that was kind of
something that they had an issue with.

Speaker 4 (46:02):
I said, I'm.

Speaker 3 (46:03):
Never telling you where to go or what to do,
but I'd love to spend time with you. And I said,
let's just talk about this tomorrow, and so we got
off the phone. I'd fly out there the next day.
I said, can you let me know if you're going
to be coming, because I'm going to go to the store.
I'm going to get some food. And he says, I,
you know, it's going to be a long day, but
I'll let you know. And I just was like, he's
not not coming. I bought food, I started cooking dinner,

(46:26):
all this stuff.

Speaker 4 (46:26):
I said. I saw his dough, I saw his location.

Speaker 3 (46:29):
He's at home, super close by, and I said, okay,
Like in my mind, I'm like, see you soon. You'll
be here for dinner. I've been talking to his sister
about the recipe, like we're gonna have such a fun weekend.
He texted me and said, hey, I, you know this
relationship has gone too fast, and I think I need

(46:50):
some time. And I just remember, I just crumbled to
the floor.

Speaker 4 (46:58):
And I knew and.

Speaker 3 (47:00):
I just died inside. And I called and he didn't answer,
and I looked and his location was gone, and I knew,
I'm not going to call you again.

Speaker 4 (47:16):
You know what you're doing.

Speaker 3 (47:18):
And I was talking to his sister, So, I think
your brother just broke up with me. And she said
there's absolutely no way and I said I think so,
and she said no, he would never She said that
would never happen. And I said, I don't understand. And
I texted him back and I said, I don't understand.
Is this a breakup? And he said, I think for now, yes,
that's the best. I need to focus on myself. I

(47:40):
remember I called him one more time. He didn't answer.
His sister said, he stopped sharing his location with me,
so he stopped sharing his location with her as well,
and she's like, something's going on, and I just was hysterical. Like,
how could you do this to me?

Speaker 4 (48:01):
What are you doing?

Speaker 3 (48:01):
I know that you're like about ten minutes away from me.
This doesn't make any sense. You're also not answering the phone.
You're not giving me any kind of explanation. His sister
was really heavy on, well, there's something going on. What
does the ex have over him that's causing this to happen,
because this is not normal behavior, This is not him.

Speaker 4 (48:22):
It was just an odd time. It was what is
going on?

Speaker 3 (48:25):
So even though again even though it had happened to me,
it's what's going on with him, and something's going on,
and she's for the whole night racking her brain. She's like,
I can't believe this. He's not responding and they're doing
their whole brother sister thing. And even the next day
she said, you know, I finally told my parents and

(48:45):
I talked to his mom. I personally talked to his
mom at length, and she said, we never saw this coming.
We thought that you'd be our daughter in law. And
she said, I don't know what he's doing right now.
She said, we're concerned that he is making poor decisions
that he's made in the past. And I said, what
are you talking about like I didn't I know all

(49:07):
this was kind of news to me, and then it
started to make sense. The veil kind of dropped. And
then that night is when I I learned more. I
remember calling my mom and just I couldn't speak, and
she said, is it him?

Speaker 4 (49:25):
What happened?

Speaker 3 (49:25):
And I didn't even have to say anything, and even
my parents, my parents were like, maybe this is cold feet.
I know when my parents, you know, my mom said,
when when we first got together, you know, you're we
went on a great trip, and then your dad broke
up with me, and then he got cold feet, and
then he came back around. We were engaged and it's great.
That was always a perspective, like everyone saw the best
in him, and I just was crushed and I you're

(49:52):
it's all, it's all gone, and the blink of an eye,
what what was was no longer and I'm like, was
it even something?

Speaker 4 (49:58):
I don't know? And I'm also out there.

Speaker 3 (50:01):
I don't have my family, I don't have my friends,
I don't have anyone, and I know that he's very
close to me, but we're not in contact, and so
I'm like I feel very lost with that as well.
That day I think there was a lot of conversations
with family, a lot with his family and I. We
were very close, and you know, his parents were like,

(50:23):
we're trying to get a hold of him, and he's golfing. Surprise, surprise,
the man is on the golf course and he's telling
them you don't understand, you don't need to worry, like,
stop bugging me, stop butting in. I'm handling everything, and
I just what is going on. I don't understand, and
I'm trying to comfort myself. I'm laying on the couch

(50:44):
finally calming down a little bit. And his sister had
told me the night prior. She had said, why do
I have a Facebook message request from his ex? And
they just head to head clash. She said why do
I have it? And she said, how do I look
at it? And you know, I told her, I said
click here, look here, you know, go through. And she

(51:05):
looked at it and it was empty. It was basically
a request and then it was unsent, so there was
nothing there. And I had talked to her more the
next day and she said it got very messy.

Speaker 4 (51:17):
She ended up making me cry. She said it was
very nasty.

Speaker 3 (51:20):
She said, that is someone that you do not ever
want to talk to her, come in contact with, and
that was always the narrative was nasty, nasty, nasty, and
I knew her name. I'm sitting there on the couch
and I for some reason, I checked my Facebook messages,
which I never do. I look at the requests especially,

(51:41):
and I have a message request from her, and same thing,
a request, but it's an unset message, so there's nothing there.
And I just you know, you reach a point where
you're alone, but you also want answers. And I messaged
her and I said, can I help you? And she
responded immediately, and she said, this is who I am.

(52:04):
He's my boyfriend but also my fiance of however many
years we lived together. I just found a letter that
you wrote him the other day. He told me that
he broke up with you. She sent me screenshots of
his breakup texts, and she said, I also just found
out that he is dating or has been cheating on

(52:25):
both of us with many other women. And it goes
boom boom boom, boom boom, screenshots of everything, and she goes,
he's right here if you want to talk to him.
It's just a bomb. I called and I, she answered.
She says very calmly, and she says, hi, Alan. She
goes here, he is, if you want to talk to him,
and she puts it on speakerphone and holds it up

(52:46):
to him, and he gets nasty and he says awful things,
and she goes, yep, that's how he talks to me
all the time. And I just can't speak. And again
I go into him, so sorry. I didn't know, and
you know, I knew, but I didn't know, and I

(53:06):
just said I'm so sorry. I didn't ever mean to
come between you two. I didn't realize. And she was like, yep,
this is what my life is. And then she starts
hitting me with question, question, question, question of well, how
long have you been together and what have you been doing?
And I just said, I'm so sorry. I can't even
talk right now. I think I said I'm sorry a

(53:28):
million times. I called my mom and I said, well,
it's a lot worse than we thought. And I called
his sister and I had to call his parents, and
I said, I think there's a lot more that's going
on here. And I'm now spreading the news of what's
going on and filling in the families and breaking everyone's
hearts of what's going on, and his parents had no idea,

(53:51):
sister had no idea. He had told his sister that
she had fully moved out, So I'm kind of igniting
a family feud there, and it just snowballed the information
and went haywire. He texted me, he called me, ignored it,
and then he called me again. He said, I'd like
to come see you face to face. And I said,
I don't know what you could possibly have to say
to me, and he said I know, And I said, fine,

(54:14):
I think I was just curious, I guess what, And
also I just what are you gonna possibly say? And
he came and he sat down across from me, and
he couldn't look at me. And I said, so is
this true? I said, you've been seeing her, you've been
with her, and he said yep. And I said okay.

(54:37):
And I said, and you've been also cheating on both
of us then with other women, and he said yep.
And I said okay. And I said, do you realize
that you've devastated two families completely? And he started, you know,
the alligator tears, he gets up, gets a tissue, comes

(54:57):
back down. He said yeah, you didn't deserve this. And
I said, damn right, I didn't deserve this. And I
said I don't know why you would do this. Both
of our families are shattered because of what you did.
And he just can't look at me. And I said,
is there anything else you want to say? And he

(55:17):
said no, and he gets up to leave and I
said there's nothing else you want to say and he
goes no. He said, so you're not going to tell
me that I should also probably go get tested for STIs.
He goes, well, yeah, I guess so, and I said okay,

(55:38):
because his ex had also told me she tested positive
for two that week in her first message, so it
was just a fun little bonus. So that was the
last thing he ever said to me. And he walked out.
I watched him drive away. He texted me later he said,
don't let her bring you into this. I said, I
think that you did that and he said yeah, I'm sorry,

(55:59):
and I said, please go get help. It was a
parent that there was some dependency issues. I said, please
go get help and he said, I'm actually the only
competent one here. And today's a new day. It actually
feels really good that this is all out in the open,
and I said, you need help and he said that
means a lot that you really believe in me. And
I said, I I want you to get help. I

(56:22):
hope you do. You know, the only competent one really
got me. And I said, okay, the mask has fallen
and you were not who I thought you were. I
don't know this person, you know, And he said that.
He said, I feel better. Everything's out in the open,
and to me, I'm like, you have. Nothing's better. You
just destroyed from there. More and more would only come

(56:47):
out in the weeks to follow, but he felt fine
about it, and that was kind of our conversation. He
texted me the next morning and said, I love you
so much. I never meant to hurt you. I never
said I was using you as a prop for my family.
But it really hurts that you're choosing to believe all this.
But I also understand it because I lied to you.

(57:08):
It's like it's all in writing, like you just tied
it up with. But I did lie to you, bo,
And I said, I think how you use people as sick.
I think that you are sick. I said, you promised
me a life. You promised me a future. You gave
me all these things and said all these things, and

(57:28):
it meant nothing. And I said, I think that you
are very sick, and I pray that you truly get
help because of what you've done, and I hope that
that happens for you. And that was the last time
we ever talked.

Speaker 4 (57:48):
That was the end.

Speaker 2 (57:53):
When I spoke with Alan, I asked her to reflect
on the factors that led to her overlooking or downplaying
her partner's behavior.

Speaker 3 (58:00):
Yeah, it was just bizarre, and there were many bizarre things.
I think I didn't fully register. He said some things
that were so outrageous very quickly, or just so off
the wall very quickly, and I think that kind of
caught me off guard. And I always see the best
in people, or want to see the best in people.
I think part of his gift is that he always

(58:23):
made me feel desired and safe and beautiful and like
it was everything he wanted. So I never really felt
like it was a challenge to meet his standards. I
felt like he was just gobsmacked with me kind of thing,
and that just goes into the love bombing from there.

Speaker 2 (58:41):
I was curious about what meet her so open to
meeting someone out of her area, even if it meant
navigating a long distance relationship.

Speaker 3 (58:49):
Well, I think he probably had a lot of reasons
that it worked out for him. For me, I think
I was open to anything. It's not that I wasn't
open to meeting someone here, of that would be so
much easier, But I also think in general, I was
just open to meeting my person and finding out what
was out there. And I also feel like I had

(59:12):
had a lot going on work wise and things, and
so I'm also not I was always kind of focused
on that too, and so not necessarily boy crazy. I
always kind of felt like I like doing my own thing,
and long distance is okay. If I don't see you
every single day, that that's fine.

Speaker 4 (59:26):
So that was part of it.

Speaker 3 (59:27):
I also knew I loved it out there and that
a move wasn't always off the table, So if I
ended up with someone out there, then that was an option.
There were a few things I don't obviously far less alluring.
Once you're in it and you're in love with someone
and you're in that phase of just feeling like I
want to be with you all the time, that wasn't
alluring at all, And became very, very difficult, but in general,

(59:53):
it wasn't something that I felt like was going to
stop me from wanting to try it or anything.

Speaker 2 (01:00:01):
I also wanted to know a therapy played a part
in her life, especially how it helped shape her decisions
during all the relationship drama.

Speaker 3 (01:00:08):
I have been going to therapy consistently for a long time.
That started when I was probably eighteen. I believe I
was referred to someone for chronic health issues, someone who
specialized in that kind of when they were like, we
don't know what to do with you, they sent me
to her. And so I've been seeing someone for a
long time, off and on. But at this point in time,
throughout this whole relationship, I was consistently every week seeing

(01:00:32):
my therapist when I was in town, and so she
knew about this relationship and we were kind of discussing it.
I disclosed I feel like everything, I usually kind of
look at myself as an open book. I do think
there were things in retrospect, though, that I didn't even
recognize as being extremely wrong that I didn't tell her

(01:00:54):
until after everything happened, and I would say, oh, yeah,
well this did happen, and she her eyes get big
and she's how did we not talk about that? But
throughout the process, she was really the main person that
I did confide in, and I would come back and say,
this is happening with the X or I don't understand
or I don't know what to do, and really with her,

(01:01:15):
I feel like and she'll say the same that we
were really working on my ability to trust in people.
And I think that's something that I've always kind of
worked on after going through my chronic health issues, is trust.
In a way, I think I've I lost a lot
of trust in the medical system or in myself and
in people and just kind of working on that. And
I think that she and I were working on that

(01:01:36):
week by week and does this still feel good? And
how's it going and stuff like that, And so I
was confiding in her, but at the same time, she,
in retrospect.

Speaker 4 (01:01:44):
Didn't know all that was going on.

Speaker 3 (01:01:47):
And I do have a few moments where I did
talk to my friends, they did become aware of the ex.

Speaker 2 (01:01:54):
And finally I asked her about the time she felt
stuck in limbo within the relationship and how did that
factor her ability to move forward.

Speaker 3 (01:02:02):
Interestingly enough, my mom brought this up. She said, you know,
I noticed that you never actually packed to move. And
she said, you did everything. You told everyone, You bought
all the moving supplies possible, you looked at movers, you
had it circled on the calendar, everything, but you never

(01:02:23):
actually packed a single thing in your house. I just think,
knowing you and knowing how prepared you always are, that
that was kind of odd. And I think you kind
of knew that you weren't going to do it, or
that you were maybe waiting for something. And I said,
I never noticed that at all, But in my mind,

(01:02:43):
I was just waiting for We were waiting for something
to happen with his work. We were waiting for a
green light on something. And again he left me and
Limbo left me in Limbo, I just felt like weird
suspended state in retrospecting and knowing myself, I know my
body always knows. I think I was probably waiting for
something to happen, but my mind was probably going, but

(01:03:08):
my body was probably holding me back.

Speaker 4 (01:03:09):
I think.

Speaker 2 (01:03:12):
Alan quickly realized that she had rushed into a relationship,
eager to believe the best in her partner, despite sensing
that something wasn't quite right. She waited for a sign
that things would improve, but that moment never arrived. Now
on a journey to understand the deep impact of shattered
trust and betrayal, she is focused on rebuilding her self confidence, strength,

(01:03:33):
and personal boundaries. Allan has found a powerful outlet in
creating a podcast where she shares her own stories, invites
others to do the same, and uses her voice to
raise awareness about relationship trauma. Her mission is to support
those who are navigating similar challenges and to help them
find their own path to healing. Until next time, I'm

(01:03:54):
Jake Deptula and this is Love, Lust Fear. Every guest
featured on Loveless Fear selects at charity or organization to share.
Please check the show notes on this episode for more details.
If you are someone you know as being abused by
a partner, there is help available. The National Domestic Violence
Hotline provides essential tools and support to help survivors of

(01:04:15):
domestic violence. Just call one eight hundred seven nine to
nine safe that's one eight hundred seven nine seven two
three three, or you can text start to eight eight
seven eighty eight. If you'd like to be a guest
on Loveless Fear and share your personal dating and relationship story.
You can email us at Lovelessfearpod at gmail dot com

(01:04:37):
or dm us on Instagram at loveless fear Pod. Disclaimer.
Information shared on this podcast should not be considered as
a professional advice or a substitute for seeking professional advice