Betrayal - Grooming | Jenifer's Story

Episode Date: July 14, 2022

A reoccurring theme throughout the series has centered around grooming. Rachel and the women with whom Spencer had affairs related how he built trust and leveraged vulnerabilities over time. Our audience, through emails to the show, has had conflicting and passionate feelings about what grooming is and who can be groomed. This week, Jenifer and Andrea speak to Jerika Heinze, who is both a survivor and an expert to shed light on what grooming is and the many insidious ways it works.  If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal Team, email us at [e-mail].  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hey, it's Joel and Matt from How to Money. If your New Year's resolution is to finally get your finances in shape, we've got your back. Prices, they're still high. And the economy is all over the place. But 2026 is the year for you to get intentional and make real progress. That's right.

Yeah, each week we break down what's happening with your money, the most important issues to focus on. And the small moves that make a big difference. Kick off the year with confidence. Listen to How to Money on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Dr. Jesse Mills, host of the Mailroom podcast. Each January, men promise to get stronger, work harder, and fix what's broken. But what if the real work isn't physical at all? I sat down with psychologist Dr. Steve Poulter to unpack shame, anxiety, and the emotional pain men were never taught how to name.

Part of the way through the Valley of Despair is realizing this has happened, and you have to make a choice whether you're going to stay in it or move forward. Our two-part conversation is available now. Listen to the mailroom on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows. I'm John Polk. For years, I was the poster boy of the conversion therapy movement, the ex-gay who married an ex-lesbian, and traveled the world telling my story of how I changed my sexuality from gay to straight. You might have heard my story, but you've never heard the real story.

John has never been anything that gay. but he really tried hard not to be. Listen to Atonement, the John Polk story on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This podcast discusses sexual assault. Please take care while listening. All of a sudden, Ther is standing there with this very abrupt information that, you know, I find you attractive. I think you're beautiful. I want to kiss you.

It's very confusing. I mean, our brain is just on a cognitive level, trying to make sense of what's unfolding. right now, and then all of a sudden we might find ourselves going along with it. Now we've shared a kiss. There usually is a feeling that there's a point of no return. I'm Andrea Gunning, and this is betrayal. Episode 9. Grooming.

During the course of our series betrayal, we learned that Jennifer's then-husband, Spencer, had dozens of affairs and sexually assaulted one of his students. Rachel, the student, bravely recounted her experience, on an earlier episode. She painstakingly recounted how a trusted adult in her life groomed her by first becoming a trusted mentor and confidant to a sexual predator. It was hard to hear but a lesson in how adults manipulate children.

I think I was more confused with a grown adult telling me that they had these feelings for me that you see it in movies, you know, when someone confesses their feelings. And as a kid, it's shocking when someone tells you at the time that they love you and they have these feelings for you that they don't want to hide and that you're special. It was a shock. I remember him specifically saying that he had never felt this way before with anyone

and that I was special to him. That's how he made me feel. He made me feel special. and I could trust him if I ever needed to talk to him about anything personal. That interview triggered a slew of responses from many of you. Jen, would you mind reading one of those emails? Sure. This may sound scattered because I'm a stay-at-home mom with four little ones,

but I am Rachel. I was groomed by my teacher and coach. He was very calculated and prayed upon me just like Rachel. I'd never dated anyone, was very insecure and innocent. I have felt so alone for so many years. Rachel was brave and a huge encouragement for me. Wow. I know, right?

It's that whole feeling alone thing that sometimes just makes you feel like you've done something wrong. But then when you hear other people tell a similar story, it's just like, wow, this happens. to other people. So it must not just be my fault, or it must not be my fault at all. And we're seeing this in the emails.

There's so much relief. And there's like a weight lifted. I mean, there were so many others, just like the one that you just read, actually including students of your ex-husband. Yeah. We got a lot of feedback, but the ones that actually knew him

or were one of his students at some point, in his career. Oh, man. It's sickening. It is sickening. And it's consistent. Yeah.

After we heard Rachel's story, you ended up speaking with two of the women that your husband at the time carried long-term affairs with. And these went on for years. One of the women was also a friend of yours at the time. Let's hear a little bit of that. Okay.

The way I was talked to, to feel good about myself, and to trust him, Surely that happened to that same girl. I bet you any money it was the same steps. Just continuously building a relationship with somebody and making them feel good about themselves, but also making them feel like they're not doing anything bad.

I had remembered saying like, I can't do this. This is wrong. Well, no, no, it's not wrong. You just can't help when two people just click like we do. It's grooming. It is grooming. And they don't mind taking the time to build that trust. We received a lot of emails about this particular episode.

You know, out of all the episodes, this one getting the most feedback from was really interesting. I think it really started that whole discussion about what is grooming. What is predatory behavior? Can you be groomed as an adult? It was so interesting. so many people were just curious, but also had a lot of feelings about it. Do you mind sharing one of those? Sure. I learned so much from this podcast, but mostly I decided it was time to forgive myself from a relationship that has weighed on me for far too long. I don't make excuses and I take full responsibility for my decisions. However, now I realize that I was a perfect target, vulnerable and desiring a time.

even if it was the wrong kind of attention. This is nothing compared to what you went through, but Spence and this guy seem to have similar characteristics regarding how they approached others. Emails like that make me feel really great. Why? There was empathy and forgiveness and it's healing for you and the other women involve the Spencer.

Hearing from the other women allows them to release that shame, little bit. You know, people would ask, why did you need to talk to these women? And I understand that some people are going to think it's weird or strange or something like that, but that's how you understand someone else's side of things. You listen to what they went through, and you realize that they were lied to, they were manipulated. There were a lot of other big feelings about this. episode that weren't the same reaction, especially when it came to your former friend. Yeah, you want me to read this one email we got? Yeah, share it.

The woman who had an affair with the married man kept saying she was groomed. That is not grooming. Manipulative yes, grooming, no. She was an adult and he was not in position of authority over her. This is an irresponsible use of this word and takes away from those of us who will were really groomed. You may want to provide some additional information about what grooming is versus being manipulated by a sociopath. Language matters. And here's another one. The two women were grown adult women and no right from wrong. I feel it's a dangerous viewpoint to treat women

as helpless victims that are at the mercy of manipulative men. Adult women can make their own decisions. We are not weak, helpless creatures. I think it would be a far more effective message to hold the adult women accountable for their choices and not portray them as victims. When we read that email about how language matters, I was like, absolutely, it does. And so let's have a larger conversation and educate the audience about what grooming is and really explore that conversation in this forum because so many people reached out about it, just wanting to know what it is, how it.

happens and clarifying the difference between what happened to Rachel and these other women, or how are they similar, how are they dissimilar? I think we have been very responsible in telling this story. And so when we did get this feedback, we decided to seek out an expert to really help define this stuff. Absolutely. And look, our job was to tell your story and let women involved speak for themselves and tell their truth. their stories. And by any calculation, it took a lot of guts to do that. It really did. But it's also clear that we need to do some more work on defining grooming in a more clinical way. So we sought out

a top expert. Jerica Hinesy is a resource specialist at the National Sexual Violence Resource Center and also the founder of the Field Work Initiative, an organization which addresses issues of trauma and gendered violence and academia and research field work. Jerica is a cultural anthropologist who speaks internationally on issues of sexual harassment, abuses of power, and violence prevention. Thank you, Jerica, for spending some time with us. Thank you so very much. I'm always very happy and glad to have these conversations,

not because they're particularly uplifting, but more so because they've been so historically absent in conversations that are had in our society. And I think having these kind of illuminating conversations is the ultimate form of prevention. So thank you so much for the opportunity to do that. Of course. So Jerica, how did you get into this line of work and become an expert in this field? I myself have experiences of grooming, and that culminated into the sort of very subtle beginnings of sexual harassment, then much more apparent sexual harassment, and that culminated into a sexual assault. I was still a PhD student with an immense amount of trust and moral debt towards an advisor, a person who in my research

field was helping and guiding me for many years offering help and aid and trust in that individual who was significantly older than me. But I was still a very much an adult woman. I was in my late 20s. Since that, there was another researcher who was raped and murdered nearby that area, and that was what fully initiated the creation of Fieldwork Initiative. My work at National Sexual Violence Resource Center is looking very broadly at topics of sexual abuse or gender violence, domestic violence, and thinking about survivor-led and centered resources for folks. For the past three years, I have interviewed survivors of academic trauma and fieldwork trauma, abuse, and that kind of lended itself to a corpus of knowledge that's training and informational

where we shed light on this issue about grooming, about abuses of power and how those dynamics and fold. New year, new goals, and in this economy, a better money plan is more necessary than ever. I am Matt, and I'm Joel. We are from the How to Money podcast, and every week we help you to spend smarter, save more, and make sense of what's going on out there. If you want 2026 to be the year you finally feel in control of your money, we're here to give you the tools and advice to help you make it happen. Listen to How to Money on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Dr. Priyankawali. And I'm Hurricane de Bolu. It's a new year. And on the podcast health stuff, we're resetting the way we talk about our health, which means being honest about what

we know, what we don't know, and how messy it can all be. I like to sleep in late and sleep early. Is there a chronotype for that or am I just depressed? We talk to experts who share real experiences and insight. You just really need to find where it is that you can have an impact in our own life and just start doing that. We break down the topics you want to know more about. Sleep, stress, mental health, and how the world around us affects our overall health. We talk about all the ways to keep your body in mind, inside and out, healthy. We human beings, all we want is connection.

We just want to connect with each other. Health stuff is about learning, laughing, and feeling a little less alone. Listen on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Every January, we're encouraged to start over. But what if this year is about slowing down and learning how to understand ourselves more deeply? What if this year is about giving ourselves permission to feel what we've been holding and knowing that it's okay to ask for help? I'm Mike Delocho, host of Sacred Lessons.

This is a podcast for men navigating stress, emotional health, fatherhood, identity, and the unspoken pressures were taught to. carry alone. We talk honestly about mental health, about healing generational wounds, and about learning how to show up with more presence and care. If you want a healthier relationship with yourself and the people you love, then Sacred Lessons is the podcast for you. Listen to Sacred Lessons with Mike Dolorotcha on America's number one podcast network, IHeart. Follow Sacred Lessons with Mike Delocha and start listening on the free IHeart Radio app today. So is it safe to say that your experience you went through as a PhD student changed the course of your career?

Yeah. That's absolutely spot on. I mean, I had this fear that I didn't want sexual harassment to be like my thing. I never wanted to do this work. And this work is continued simply because it's needed. No other organization exists that sheds light in the same way. So in doing this podcast, I spoke with not only the sexual assault victim, but also with a couple of the adult women that my ex-husband had had affairs with. The question that came up a lot for us is how exactly do you define grooming? Grooming is the concept of putting an idea in somebody's mind, painting a picture that will align and allow them to perpetrate whatever acts they intend. end and building that emotional connection with, you know, the people they target, which allows them to set a stage of hiding in plain sight.

He's a teacher. He would never do that. He's such a great neighbor and a coach. That targeting earning of trust with the purpose of exploiting their own motives, be that through sexual abuse, financial abuse. We see grooming with elder adults, right? You know, fiduciary abuse. So grooming is not anything that is specific to any one age group, anyone in a

You know, anybody is susceptible to be groomed. That is so helpful to know because, as you know, my husband was involved with women of many ages and backgrounds. And so we've gotten so many questions and feedback about grooming in this case. And it's been a topic of so much debate. Jericho, one of the things that I feel like we noticed with a lot of my ex-husband's communication with these women were to kind of pray on their vulnerabilities, saying things to them like how beautiful they are. And I haven't felt this way before. Lines like that. Would you consider that grooming? Oh, absolutely. Praying on the vulnerabilities, those imaginations of what does that person

need to hear to kind of turn the key for this situation to take flight. And, you know, what I noticed in the story of the friend, you know, at the bar of the initial contact, was that she was coming out of the bathroom and she had had a little bit of wine and that all of a sudden that abrupt, he's standing there. He's saying these things. You know, if we look at our brains when something unexpected happens or traumatic or shocking, I mean, it's lit up like the Fourth of July. There's confusion. What's happening? What does it mean? What's going And all of a sudden, there he is standing there with this very abrupt information that, you know, I find you attractive. I think you're beautiful.

I want to kiss you. It's very confusing. I mean, our brain is just on a cognitive level, trying to make sense of what's unfolding right now. And then all of a sudden we might find ourselves going along with it. Now we've shared a kiss. Now that person has become part of it. It's not as we might imagine it would go where we expect a person to say, excuse me, no, I can't do this. Or, you know, it's all very much praying on.

on opportunism of the person not expecting. And also the idea that that person is special and that they're the only one. And that it's not really a bad thing because I see how special you are. How do you respond to people saying, well, they're an adult. They have agency.

That feels different than someone that doesn't have any sexual experience. It was so young and really doesn't have context to the sexual and romantic world. And then if you have someone who has lived in the world longer and has had those experiences, they should bring that judgment to those scenarios. So how do you respond to, you know, a grown woman or a grown adult has agency? There's a whole sea of different ways and modes that vulnerabilities are kind of created and exploited. But there's no magic age or a set age in which we're actually fully formed adults that are completely moved on from,

any of the things that, you know, we might have struggled with in our past or our traumas. And those are different for different people. You know, somebody with childhood sexual abuse is going to have a different experience with that than somebody who did not have those experiences. And so it's important not to be so kind of on and off about where we imagine adults' agency lies and more so think about trauma and its role in all of our thinking and all of our concepts of ourselves and how we move through the world. That's so interesting.

In the case of the two women I spoke to that, are adults that had affairs, I think Spence used making them feel beautiful specifically for them. Do groomers look for a certain personality type? I think grooming is quite across the board. There was grooming of neighbors and parents at school. There was grooming of the coworkers, planting that idea about them being a trustworthy individual and planting that idea about who they were is a form of grooming as well. we do know that when rumors see an opening of a vulnerability,

they are really privy to stepping in and perceiving that and seeing and testing sort of where they can insert themselves and yield that power over them. And then over time sort of slowly portraying that image, but where the victim still has that strong image in their mind because there was such an impression made and there was everybody else is holding the same idea. And how is that different, if it's different,

than being a sexual predator? We see at times with sexual predators, even though they might have a desire or an inclination, there may not in every instance be this premeditation, this grand orchestration that we see with grooming. Grooming is that false sense of an extreme emotional connection that the individual builds over time. They're also never the same person twice.

If we ask an array of people who they are and what they know about them, We might hear things about that person we would never even imagine are possible because there's a portrait that a groomer paints and they sort of hand it to you. That makes so much sense to me. So much of this project has been about trying to see the many different portraits. My ex-husband painted to others. Spence painted himself different ways around different people. To me, he painted himself as the perfect husband.

And I was his perfect wife. And you just usually accept it as we do in society. If I were to tell you I was an astronaut, you know, what reason would you not believe that that's true? Especially if I say it with confidence and have a certain way in which I carry myself with that information. And so grooming is that sense of dependence and overall vulnerability that's created between an individual and the groomer. and it's all done for the purpose of orchestrating their own motives, be those sexual, be those financial, maybe just the power of it. He orchestrated an emotional connection with many, many of these women,

obviously with the sexual assault victim herself. But also, I think, with a lot of these other grown women. New Year, new goals, and in this economy, a better money plan is more necessary than ever. I am Matt, and I'm Joel. We are from the how to money podcast. And every week we help you to spend smarter, save more, and make sense of what's going on out there. If you want 2026 to be the year you finally feel in control of your money, we're here to give you the tools and advice to help you make it happen.

Listen to how to money on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Dr. Priyanko Wali. And I'm Hurricane de Bolu. It's a new year. And on the podcast, health stuff, we're resetting the way we talk about our health. Which means being honest about what we know, what we don't. don't know and how messy it can all be. I like to sleep in late and sleep early.

Is there a chronotype for that or am I just depressed? We talk to experts who share real experiences and insight. You just really need to find where it is that you can have an impact in your own life and just start doing that. We break down the topics you want to know more about. Sleep, stress, mental health, and how the world around us affects our overall health. We talk about all the ways to keep your body and mind, inside and out, healthy. We human beings, all we want is connection.

We just want to connect with each other. Health stuff is about learning, laughing, and feeling a little less alone. Listen on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Every January, we're encouraged to start over. But what if this year is about slowing down and learning how to understand ourselves more deeply? What if this year is about giving ourselves permission to feel what we've been holding and knowing that it's okay to ask for help? I'm Mike Delarocha, host of Sacred Lessons.

This is a podcast for men navigating stress, emotional health, fatherhood, identity, and the unspoken pressures were taught to carry alone. We talk honestly about mental health, about healing generational wounds, and about learning how to show up with more powerful. presence and care. If you want a healthier relationship with yourself and the people you love, then Sacred Lessons is the podcast for you. Listen to Sacred Lessons with Mike Dolorotcha on America's number one podcast network, IHeart. Follow Sacred Lessons with Mike Delarocha and start listening on the free IHeart Radio app today. So when we were thinking through questions that we wanted

to ask you, Jericho, one of the questions was how do victims, who are experiencing grooming, shut it down. And as I was sitting with that phrase, shut it down, it just didn't sit right with me because it just felt like it was on the victim. You know, those who do not shut it down are weak. Those who do not shut it down need to work on themselves. They're not strong.

And there's like this weird inherent criticism to that phrase. there usually is a feeling that there's a point of no return that if that person who knew that you told someone that you're going to be in trouble or that oh will we kiss now you know the cat's out of the bag yeah how can victims know that no matter what has happened there's always a way to step outside of that dynamic and getting them to realize that that's their right and that they have the freedom to do it and that you know they're going to be believed and they're not going to be blamed things like that

And I think that telling survivors that no matter how long something has gone on, no matter what has happened, that you always have a right to set it down by saying and expressing it. It's like, oh, but so much has already happened, I have to somehow spin it. I have to somehow make it okay or make it better. There's some sort of burden about it not being as bad or I have to somehow go down with the ship. You know, there's so many ways people might feel it and just letting people know, no matter what has happened. No matter how long it's gone on, you always have the right to say, you know what, I'm going to speak my truth about this. This has happened. And that there's always that exit button that usually begins with telling someone we trust, usually begins with feeling empowered to do that because there's an immense amount of fear.

It's not easy. It's scary. It's extremely scary. It's one of the scariest things you can imagine is not knowing what's possible. When you're scared or operating from a place of fear, it's really hard. to think rationally. We become hypervigilant when we have trauma. And that hypervigilance creates this thing in our brain where we have to imagine the worst

case scenario is going to happen next. We're going to be blamed. No one's going to believe us. They're going to use some sort of revenge. That's why we need more trauma-informed education starting from a young age, why we need these kinds of conversations. Absolutely. One feeling I get from some of these women that I've spoken with is that,

They were really upset and angry with themselves for falling for it. I'd say one of the paramount things to understand about grooming is that the groomer has implicated you in this event. You've played a role. And this is why I think for you, Jen, as the core victim as the wife, we can't really look back and think that there was any even red flags. But thinking, too, the fact that all of these victims themselves play, in some way, you know, the groomer implicated them. Well, I kissed you, you didn't push me away.

You know, you could have said no at any moment. You didn't have to text me back. You could have told the police at any moment if you didn't want to. You could have walked away. You know, this is the way in which it happens. And so what happens is the victims feel this as the first surge of guilt. And that's how rumors are so successful. They find that little wedge between where they can really bring out vulnerabilities

in the sense that they're going to ameliorate them, but also drive that wedge, well, yeah, this is bad, but, you know, I didn't act alone. You kissed me, too. And that's where so many victims feel shame and guilt and self-pulpability. What we do is we look back on our role in it and think of a thousand ways we could have and should have done it different. So what are some resources that you suggest for people who have gone through this?

I think all victims need therapy, of course, having a space to talk about this. I think that having a connection with other survivors is immensely important. When we have group sessions, the kinds of connections that can be made between two individuals where we can say, hey, I see you're blaming yourself and you totally shouldn't. And the other person says, yeah, well, you're doing the same thing. It makes connections that we can't otherwise do in a one-dimensional way or internally. We need to be much more outward about it, talking about it, saying, hey, I feel really bad right now about the way that, you know, I'm feeling about it.

And it might be on a random Tuesday when we're driving down the road. Feeling is not linear. It's kind of like that, right? And the same with these feelings and these emotions. So I think the first thing that survivors need to know is that there are spaces and there is help to be able to let all of these things out from the internal space where they just usually get worse and fester. So it's really important to find each other and speak about it in whatever setting is comfortable.

Be that in a therapy setting. be that in a group setting, be that just with friends or everybody else or whomever the person finds good. And then understanding our ability to create post-traumatic growth where we can say, you know, I choose to create a narrative where I see that I was exploited in this way. So starting to try and put tools in survivors' hands to realize the power they have now, even though they're nursing wounds, to create that post-traumatic growth, whatever that might look like. And again, that is so immensely plural what it looks like to the individual. And they get to choose what that is.

is. This has been so enlightening and helpful. And I just thank you so much for all of this information and just educating. Yeah, thank you very much. It's the education we need. And I'm really grateful that you could spend some time with us to talk about it. Thank you so very much. I just want to share one more email we received that really hit home because I think it's so easy to confuse positive attention and negative attention. And this listener summed it up so well. And I think we both thought it was worth sharing at the end of this episode. Jen, do you mind reading it for us? Dear Jennifer and the whole crew of betrayal, for three and a half years, I have been the victim of a predator who has, unbeknownst to me until this podcast, been grooming me and sexually harassing me.

He is a charming, brilliant, and powerful CEO. I never had the nerve to tell him to stop, until now. You have given me the power and the nerve, and you have opened my eyes. to the fact that it is not flattering to be groomed. I've been in agony for three and a half years, and it stops today. I could cry. It's education, right? Yeah.

It's letting people know what this behavior is, so hopefully they can recognize it. Little goes a long way, and we just want to help each other. That's right. If you'd like to reach out to the betrayal team, email us at Petrail. Betrayalpod at gmail.com. That's Betrayal P-O-D at gmail.com.

Betrayal is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group in partnership with I-Heart Podcasts. The show was executive produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fasin, hosted and produced by me, Andrea Gunning, written and produced by Carrie Hartman, also produced by Ben Federman. Our I-Heart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Kreinschick, sound editing and mixing done by Matt DeVecchio. Betrayal's theme was composed by Oliver Baines, music library provided by my music.

And for more podcasts from IHeart, visit the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Joel and Matt from HowTo Money, if your New Year's resolution is to finally get your finances in shape, we've got your back. Prices, they're still high, and the economy is all over the place. But 2026 is the year for you to get intentional and make real progress. That's right. Each week we break down what's happening with your money, the most important issues to focus on, and the small moves that make a big difference. Kick off the year with confidence. Listen to how to money on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

This is Dr. Jesse Mills, host of the Mailroom podcast. Each January, men promise to get stronger, work harder, and fix what's broken. But what if the real work isn't physical at all? I sat down with psychologist Dr. Steve Poulter to unpack shame, anxiety, and the emotional pain men were never taught how to name. Part of the way through the Valley of Despair is realizing this has happened and you have to make a choice whether you're going to stay in it or move forward. Our two-part conversation is available now. Listen to the mailroom on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows. I'm John Polk.

For years, I was the poster boy of the conversion therapy movement, the ex-gay who married. an ex-lesbian and traveled the world telling my story of how I changed my sexuality from gay to straight. You might have heard my story, but you've never heard the real story. John has never been anything but gay, but he really tried hard not to be. Listen to Atonement, the John Polk story, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Thank you.