Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark - “For Christmas, I Learned That My Husband Was A Pedophile.” - Biblical Divorce With Gloria Brintnall

Episode Date: December 16, 2022

Christmas 2009, Gloria Brintnall was preparing her home for the holidays and, suddenly, the FBI showed up at her door. That’s when she learned that her husband of 30 years–a pastor–was being investigated for child pornography. Gloria was completely blindsided and left to her own devices when it came to beginning an entirely new life for her and her daughter. What does it look like for a Christian when divorce is totally warranted? What are the biblical grounds for divorce? This is a vulnerabl...

The show is about to begin. No, not the spillover. America Fest. It's happening. This weekend, December 17th through 20th here in good old Phoenix, Arizona. Your favorite conservatives and country artists are arriving for a jam-packed conference, Five Orange Juicy Style. I'll be there.

Charlie Kirk will be there. Chase Rice, Michael Knowles, Candice Owens, Tucker Carlson, Ray Lynn. I cannot stress this enough. It is huge. So will you be there? Go to AMFest.com and use code Pauplitics for 12. 25% off your tickets while you still can. It's almost showtime, baby. Imagine being married for 30 years, having children with that person. And then, out of nowhere, just a few days before Christmas,

the FBI shows up at your door and you find out your husband, a pastor, has been busted for child pornography. Your entire life is turned upside down. Your marriage feels like a sham. Professionally, you wonder if you're ever going to be able to show your face again. And most of all, you have no idea how you're going to pay the bills knowing your husband is going to prison. I met today's guest after I attended a charity luncheon that she hosted. The lunch had nothing to do with her story, but the program that we were handed for the event mentioned that, oh, your MC today went through this very traumatic public divorce. She's written books about it.

And so me being me, I'm sitting there during this luncheon. And I'm like Googling her. finding out about her story, and that prompted me to bumrush her as soon as the event ended and beg her to come on the spillover. And this is just one of the many ways, the many weird ways, I should say that I discover guests for the show. I'm keeping my eyes and my ears open at all times looking for the stories that will capture your attention and teach all of us something valuable in the process. So I love when I can find a guest that allows us to bring up a topic that we haven't really discussed on this show. And one of those topics I've had in my mind is something,

you know, I really would love to cover this. And that was the biblical grounds for divorce and why bad things happen to good people. And what you do when the rug is pulled out from under you in a marriage. So when I met today's guest, I knew right away that she was the right person to have on to tackle this subject. Joining us today is author of Stuff Happens, Hope Anyway, Gloria Brintnall on The Spillover. Gloria, tell us about your marriage, how you met your husband, and everything that was going on in your life before the FBI agents knocked on your door in 2009. Before the FBI, actually, they just walked in with my husband. They didn't even knock on the door.

Rude. I was expecting him to come home in a couple hours, but in he walked, followed by two strange men in suits. And I found out later they were from the FBI. We had been married for 30 years, 33, 0. Wow. And I used to love it like at wedding receptions when they would do that dance like who's been married the longest. Yes. And we were often like the last once on the dance floor because we had been married so long.

And, you know, everything seemed to be going fine. We were pastoring a church in Lubbock, Texas. And I was doing most of the preaching. We were both pastors. I'm an ordained pastor. And we were both preaching, although he was assigning me to preach more than him. I was doing probably 85 percent, I think, of the preaching. And now I know why.

Why? Because he knew he was in no spiritual condition to do it. Okay, so that's why. That's what was going on. And how did you guys meet in the first place? We met at ASU. No way. No way.

State University, yep. I was a music major, a music theater major, and he had already graduated. He was hired as a professional opera singer to come in and do roles that they couldn't find students to do. So he was the big professional opera singer, and I was just the little soprano in the chorus. That's kind of romantic, though. Yeah, it was kind of romantic. So in the looking back, in the months leading to his arrest, how was your marriage really? Was there any tension? Was there any fighting or weird behavior that you were noticing? You know, looking back, I have a whole chapter in the book on that called In the Dark. You know, people say, well, didn't you know? Shouldn't a wife know? Well, I guess I should have, but I didn't really notice the signs I should have noticed. He seemed to be drawing away from me, withdrawing.

But I figured it was we were under a lot of stress starting a church in a new city. We didn't know anybody. There was financial stress. There was just all kinds of stress. And we were also getting older. You know, we weren't 30 years old anymore. And I didn't know what happens to men when they get older. I thought they just withdrew.

Maybe that was just what he was going through. So our home was peaceful. I talk about that in the book. Like most people who know. No, they're heading towards a divorce. See the signs. They're yelling. They're fighting.

They're bickering. They're always on each other's nerves. And I was determined my house was going to be a peaceful house. And so when things came up, I would just find a way to resolve them peacefully. We never discussed the issue that actually ended up getting him in legal trouble because I didn't know it was an issue. So our home was calm. It was peaceful. And I thought we were doing okay.

And you guys had two kids. Yeah. And how many were home at the time? Just my daughter. And I thank God every day. She had turned 18 years old, literally three weeks before the FBI came into our house. Had she not been 18, they may have taken her out of our home. So I'm very thankful for that.

So my daughter was 18. She was in her final year of high school. And my son is nine years older than that. So that makes him 27 at the time, right? And he was married and had your first grandchild. Is that right at the time of your husband's arrest? Yes. He was married and living in Dinuba, California.

He was a youth pastor there. And they had just had our first grandchild. And the FBI just happened to walk into our house on her first birthday. So you're a new grandmother. It's Christmas time. I'm sure you seem like exactly the stereotype of a mother-grandmother that would have all the cute little Christmas decorations up. Are you a baker? No.

No. Okay. So you don't have that stereotype. So I'm assuming like I'm picturing and you do talk about this in the book as well, but like getting your home, your family, ready for Christmas. And then all of a sudden you see these two strange men enter your house along with your house. along with your husband. And what is the first thing to go through your mind when you see these men? Do you assume that there are people from church?

Oh, no. You knew this. Something's not right then. You know, this is so crazy. And this was many, okay, 2009, how many years ago was that? All I could think of was it must have something to do with taxes. Oh, really? So you knew that they were policemen of some sort?

Right away. Yeah. Yeah. Somehow I just knew that. And what were they saying when they walked into the house or what did your husband say? They didn't say a word. I had actually called him at the office earlier that day and he sounded funny. I called him to see when he wanted to call and sing happy birthday to our first granddaughter who turned a year old that day. And he sounded so funny. You know when somebody has been crying, their voice gets all cracky and he sounded like that. and I said, are you okay? And he said, yeah. And I said, well, what's going on? Nothing. Typical answer most men give. And I thought, okay.

And so I hung up. And a couple hours later, he comes walking in the garage door through the house. I'm sitting on the couch in the living room writing my sermon for Wednesday night. And I look up because he was supposed to be at the office or doing home visitations, doing church business until 5 p.m. This is about 2 o'clock in the afternoon. And I look up and he walked in. His face was down. His face was very red.

And these two men just followed him in. Not a word was said. And I looked up like, who are these people? Hello? What's going on? And he just said, go in the spare breadroom. I'll come in and tell you what's going on in a minute. And then in your spirit, what did you feel?

I don't want to say panic, but I guess it was. I just went in and prayed. I knew something was bad. I knew it was no bueno. Do you remember what you were praying? Well, I prayed in a language that can't really be described. It just kind of gushed out of me. And I was just praying for God to help me and take care of whatever it was.

It was going on. And your daughter, was she home at the time or still at school? Yes, she was home. It was during exams. So her bedroom was right across the hall from her dad's office, and she saw these men follow him into her office. She heard them talking underneath their, you know, in a low tone. She looked out her window and saw four more men in suits and two Black Lincoln's. And so she knew something bad was going down.

She said, you know what? She wrote an essay. couple months after this that's in the book. And she describes what she remembers. And she said, all I could do was pray. I just sat there and prayed. And then she heard the men leave. She heard her dad walk into the room where I was. And she said she heard me scream, which for the record, I don't remember that at all. And she said, she heard her dad leave. And then I walked into her room and said, I want you to take me to the church office, and then you go to your basketball game. Her school was having a basketball game that night. And on the way, she asked me what was going

on, because an 18-year-old, you know, they know what's going on. They see what's happening. And she asked me, Mom, who are those men in suits? What's going on? I know something's going on. And I just said, my answer to her was, everything's going to be okay. Jesus still loves us. That was, I didn't flip out. I didn't scream and yell and cry because I really, really, really believed that Jesus still loved us.

And so matter what we went through, he would have our backs. He would take care of us. He's bigger than anything. So when your husband at the time had walked into the bedroom, he had told you to go into the spare bedroom, when he walked in, did he say,

honey, the FBI caught me with child pornography. Yes. But this is how naive I was. Okay. I like missed the child part. And I was so naive. I didn't really understand that like normal pornography, like adult pornography is not illegal. Right.

In your panic, you're just like, oh, you were looking at like naked pictures of women and got in trouble. Yes. Because I, but that almost makes sense to me though because to be married to someone for 30. years, have kids with them, the last thing you're going to think is that they would be looking at child pornography. So when you hear the word pornography, I feel like it makes sense that your brain just went, heard pornography, and never even processed the word child. Correct. I didn't. I didn't get it. How did he say it to you? All I remember is they were from the FBI and it had something to do with pornography. That's all I remember. It's all I remember.

And so, of course, I thought, well, of course you're a pastor. You shouldn't be looking at pornography. You know, I mean, that needs to be handled. We need to take care of this. And it didn't really. The fact that the FBI was there, though, let me know. This is something major. Because a lot of people might be hearing that you had.

I mean, technically she's an adult, but still an 18-year-old daughter in the home. Your husband had just been buzzed with child pornography. Why didn't you take your daughter immediately and leave? But that was because you didn't even understand yet. the scope of what he had gotten in trouble for, right? Yes, that's part of it. I also didn't think he was a threat to her or to me. Why? Why do you think that?

Well, we'd lived for 30 years. Yeah. And everybody was fine, and he had never, you know, accosted my daughter or shown her anything inappropriate that I was aware of. So I, you know, the less we had to change our lives during this moment of shock and awe, the better. And because it was about ready to change drastically. So at that point, did you feel like you were more in defense of him than angry with him that first day that you had heard about this? Shock. I don't know. Shock is just a funny thing. I don't know. I don't know that I was in defense of him. but I pitied him.

And that's pretty much the emotion that carried me through it was that I really felt he was controlled by something that he couldn't get free of. He didn't know how to get free of it. Nobody talked about it. Nobody wants to talk about that, especially in the church. Nobody wants to talk about, you can hear people will preach from the pulpit about being addicted to drugs and alcohol and cigarettes and vaping and everything else. but you very, very, very rarely hear anybody talk about being addicted to pornography.

So I felt compassion for him, that I felt like he was like held, bound up, tied up to this addiction and didn't know how to get out. Did he come home that night or did he stay somewhere else? No, he came home. And then did you stay up to confront him and talk more about what had happened earlier that day? No. You know, I just, we didn't talk much about it. Did he stay in the same bed? Oh, no. Okay, so there was at least some difference. Like, oh, no, no. That night, he slept in our bed, and I shared my daughter's queen-sized bed with her, bless her heart. And so the night before

that was the last night, we shared a bed together. Even though I didn't really think about divorce. that wasn't the first thought. I just felt like, I don't even know this man. Who is this person? I'm not getting in bed with this person. I don't even know. I don't even know what in the world is going on here. This is a total stranger.

To me, I felt like he was a total stranger. Well, geez, I'm thinking of like your daughter as a teenager in high school and all this going on. And I'm thinking, based on what you're saying anyway, how respectful she is and patient. Because if that would have happened to my family and my mom was like, oh, don't worry about it. Jesus, DeLessa, but gave me no details. I'd be like, ma'am, tell me right now. what is going. I would have never let it go. I'm still like that. So I feel like she kind of could read that moment and be like, I need to give mom and dad some time to process on how they're

going to tell me. So how much time did pass between that first night and finally getting more details and then talking to your daughter? Well, we talked to her that night before we went to bed. So walk us through how that went down. I'm so thankful she wrote that essay that's in the book because honestly so much of it is a blur to me. But she records that she went to the basketball game because I told her, go to the basketball game and try to have a good time. And when she came home, the house was, we still weren't back. We were at the office and I don't even know what we were doing at the office trying to figure out where we would go from here. And he wasn't arrested that first day. The FBI came into just, what, take computers or something? They took, yes, they took

all of his electronics. And I'm not exactly sure just to tell him that there were likely charges coming. Okay. And they did not arrest him. We went into my daughter's room after we got home. She got home first to an empty house, which must have been terrible for her. She's a mighty strong woman. I'm really proud of her. She's a strong, strong woman. Love her. She has two daughters now of her own, married to a great strong man. But we walked in and she said, I said, Ebeth, your father has something to tell you because I felt like it was his thing. I'm not, you know, I'm not carrying his water anymore. He's, he did this. He's going to stand for it. He's going to explain it. I said, your father has something to tell you. And she recounts that,

But he said to her, those men you saw today were from the FBI. They were here because of me. He said, I was caught with child pornography. And he was weeping. He was weeping. And my daughter, who was raised in the church, we were at church every time the door's open. And in front of her, we lived the life. I mean, she saw me praying every morning.

She heard me respond to questions with the Bible. you know, mom, what should we do about this? Well, the Bible says, so that's what we're going to do, you know? I mean, she lived a Christian life. And so this was a complete shock. Can you imagine? No. Yeah. She said she threw her face into the pillow on the bed and started screaming, no, this can't be happening to us. Not us, not me. No, this cannot be happening. And she says I tried to hug her. And she didn't receive her. receive it well, and that her father just kept crying and saying, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. It was very rough. She's a very, very strong woman. She was strong at 18.

Did she ask any questions in that moment? Like, what do you mean by child pornography, like asking any of those questions? No, we didn't. And later on, we found out that he fell into an FBI sting, that it was someone posing to be a 15-year-old girl. I honestly, I'll be honest with you, Alex, I didn't really look into too many details. I'm like, look, I don't need to know all the gory details. And to this day, you still don't know? I mean, I've only, I could find out. I could talk to him and ask him. I don't want him to have to relive it. I don't want to relive it, honestly, I mean, I've looked at some of the records online. I know what the lawyer told us.

And I know, of course, what the judge finally decided. But we didn't really talk about it. Some people might say that's unhealthy. But to me, it's like, what's it going to do? We're just going to end up yelling at each other and screaming and being angry, you know? Did the FBI find out that it was just a one and done thing? That was the first time he'd ever done that. and it just so happened to have been an FBI agent?

Or do they feel like there might have been other victims before? Yes, they feel like there was a pattern. Yes. He pled guilty to one count of an attempt to possess and got sentenced to 10 years. So attempt to possess means what, like soliciting photographs? Yes. Okay, gotcha. So describe then, because only a few days later is Christmas,

how in the world do you celebrate Christmas? with your husband, knowing it is likely his last holiday ever with his family before he goes to prison? Honestly, Alex, that's all I could think of. It's all I could think of. It was my, we had bought airline tickets to fly my son and daughter-in-law and the grandbaby from California to Lubbock to be there with us at Christmas. So the tickets had already been bought. They were already coming. And there was such attention in the house.

And it was because we didn't know. We didn't know if at any minute the FBI would knock on our door and say, you know, down on your knees and put your hands behind your back and cuff them and drag him off in front of his one-year-old granddaughter. We had no idea how it would play out. And so there was this constant, I don't want to say fear, but it was trepidation. Like, what's happening? You're always walking on eggshells wondering. Yeah. Yeah.

And our lawyer, we had gotten a lawyer and he said, don't let him drive anywhere because if he gets pulled off for anything, there'll be a warrant out for his arrest and they'll take him in and it'll be ugly. And so the entire Christmas, everything I did, honestly, I did. did to give him the best Christmas, I could. Because, you know, I used to be like a tough on crime, you know, make those criminals pay person until I had to experience what the criminal justice system is like. And I have a chapter in the book on that. And my heart through all of this was imagining him, you know, in line at the mess hall, in the prison on Christmas Day for the next 10 years. I think that there might be some women listening that will find that hard to hear because they're

thinking, well, how can you show compassion for your husband after he's busted for a crime that heinous? How do you find it in your heart to do that? How do you explain that? Because I believe he was addicted. Just the same, you know, people have compassion on the alcoholic and they have compassion on the drug addict. and they open all kinds of of, you know, NGOs to help them.

And he was addicted, just like an alcoholic is addicted. And I would have compassion on somebody who was addicted to alcohol. An addiction, you know, I know, and I said this in the book, I knew he loved God. I don't question that. I believe he loved me. I know he loved me. And I know he loved his children. Children, I know he loves his kids, still loves his kids.

And only something that had complete total control of his brain and his body would have him do something like that. So that's the way I looked at it. And I think for almost anybody who's in that, it's an addiction. And they do need to be dealt with. They do need to be taken off the streets. But do you know that in prison, he did not receive one minute of condescension. counseling to deal with the issue. Wow.

Yeah. Your criminal justice system might work. I think that's important for people to kind of understand that. Yeah. And it's interesting hearing you talk about this, too, because you're a conservative woman. And I think as conservatives, we do have that tough on crime mentality. And it's hard for us to talk about problems in the criminal justice system. And so you've been through that, though.

You've dealt with that from multiple sides, having a family member incarcerated and hearing what they go through and how they're treated and different things like that. Right. Yeah. It gave me a whole different view. When you start yelling about, you know, be tough on crime, be tough on criminals, you have to realize there's usually a mother, a wife, children that are paying for that person's crime. They're paying for it for years and decades and maybe even lifetimes. So it gave me a whole different perspective on our criminal justice system for sure. Had there been any signs that your husband struggled with pornography in general or that was the first time you ever found out about this when he got arrested? No, there was a time.

I talk about this in the book. It was many years earlier, maybe 10, maybe 10 years earlier, when the Internet was brand new. And of course, we just had a desktop. You know, people didn't have laptops or we didn't have. of phones. Yeah, everyone had a computer room. Right, right. And so he was in our computer room with the door shut. And I just walked in one day and went, whoa, I saw pictures of women. But not underage girls, women, grown adults. Well, I didn't look that close. Okay, okay. As far as I could tell. Yeah. And I just kind of lost. And of course, he shut it down so fast. I

I mean, I didn't see that much of it. And I lost it. I mean, I'm not a quiet woman. I've learned as a wife how to hold my tongue. There are times you do need to keep your mouth shut as a wife. But I was not a quiet. I still am not a quiet woman. And I said, how dare you bring that into our house? That's like open in the house of the devil. That's just like saying, come in here and mess with my family and mess with my kids. And how dare you bring that into our house? I will not have that. You shut that off. You shut that. We're going to get all these guards. And we got some guards early on in the internet. There were some. I don't think they were very good. Like pop-up blockers and stuff. Right, right, right. We did some stuff like that.

And I talk about this in the book that when you're dealing with an addiction, when an addict gets found out, what they do is they learn to hide it better. And so that's what he did. So as far as I knew, it was taken care of. we didn't have any more issues. Did you feel like in your marriage he ever exhibited any like weird or off color behavior when you guys were being intimate? Not, no, I don't think so. That's kind of an odd question. How do I answer that?

Right. Nothing that would be a flag, a red flag. Like to you, you felt like I have a normal, healthy, intimate relationship with my husband as a married woman. Right. Yeah. Because some people might be wondering that. Do you consider your ex-husband to be a pedophile or he's just someone that's addicted to pornography and to fuel that addiction he just needed more and more taboo things? Yes and yes.

I think he will always be labeled as a sex offender. He is still having to see his parole officer. He's been out for like two and a half years. When, I'm just saying, if women listening or watching know any men that are involved in porn, I'm just telling you, this is a warning. This is a big, hopefully, this is a wake-up call for you because porn is never satisfied. They always want something more, a porn addiction. They always want something worse, I don't know, more riskier, more strange and off the wall.

And it very often leads to getting into, you know, viewing teenage girls. And that is illegal. Anybody under 18, it is illegal. Even if they say they know they're doing it. And oftentimes they're not. They don't even, you know, they're being forced to do it. You know, a lot of times human trafficking plays into this. Yeah.

The whole pornography thing. I talk about that in the book, too, about why is porn bad? Well, you don't know. You know, people think people record. courting the porn are all they want to do this. No, no, many, many times those are people who are being trafficked and they're being forced to do it against their will. Right. So as far as, I want it to be a wake-up call to people that if, you know, the viewing of porn is not, it's not innocent. It's not innocent. It's not static. It's not a victimless crime.

Mm-hmm. Or even if they're looking at adult porn, which isn't supposedly a crime, it's not a victimless sin. I don't know. What's a better word for that? Yeah, a victimless hobby, I guess, or whatever. Like, it's hurting somebody. And it's interesting because, I mean, even on secular, I've listened to episodes with former porn stars and stuff on secular podcasts that didn't necessarily leave the porn industry because they became a Christian or anything like that. Now, there's plenty of those.

I've had some. I've had one on my podcast. this past season. But there are also former porn stars that leave the industry and talk about how they felt so violated all the time so disgusting. They were tired of being objectified in that way.

Even if they haven't necessarily found Jesus, they come to that realization because you can only objectify yourself and let other people do that to you for so long without that, completely just destroying your soul as a woman. Even men too, but also as a woman. Yeah.

I always get asked questions, especially from my parents, like, well, what is it like at a turning point conference behind the scenes? You know, how busy am I really? And I'm like, you do not understand. I am so stressed out from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to bed. I have a hundred different things I have to do. I'm filming interviews. I'm on my feet all day. I'm talking with you guys, which I love, by the way. But it is, it's a lot. And so like, at the end of a conference, you feel, you feel sad that it's over. But also you're just like, oh my gosh, I need to recharge and I need to. rest. And because of that reason, I am so happy that this year after America Fest, I'm going to have my Good Ranchers box because, man, after four days straight of just like intense socializing and stuff, it is so nice that with Good Ranchers, I don't have to do a massive grocery run once this conference is over. I can relax. I can regroup. I can truly rest easy knowing that I've got antibiotic and hormone-free grass-fed American meat waiting for me at home. You know, a little chicken here, a little beef there, maybe some ribs, some scallops. Good Ranchers has truly helped make my life easier and tastier and healthier. And I want to share that convenience with you.

So right now, if you go to good ranchers.com slash Clark, you use code Clark, you will get $35 off any box of meats. If you're last minute gift shopping, don't worry. Forget all the basic grocery stores and companies that pose as the best. Chances are they're getting their low-quality, meat from places like China, and they're riddled with chemicals. So whether you're getting yourself the gift of Good Ranchers or someone you know, you can be sure it's quality. When you get someone a box of Good Ranchers, you're giving them more than the best meat that they've ever had. You're giving a true Steakhouse experience. With 100% American USDA Prime and upper choice cuts of beef, chicken, and seafood, you're sure to beat out the new socks and re-gifted candles for the best

gift of the year. That's good ranchers.com slash Clark with code Clark to get $35 off any box of meat. Good Ranchers, American Meat delivered. One thing that you talked about in the book, which was really interesting, was that right before your husband was arrested, your daughter had a dream that was pretty foreboding. Could you talk a little bit about her dream, what it consisted of, and how you feel like it prepared her to kind of deal with this tragedy and even prepared her for witnessing the FBI come into her home. Yeah.

You know, more than the dream, it's just the way she was raised, prepared her for this. Honestly, she was raised to trust God. She was raised to know that Jesus is real. God is real. The devil is real, too. And he works through people just the way God works through people. And people mess up and listen to the devil and do stuff. The dream, I cannot really put my finger on it.

I remember she dreamed somebody was chasing her through the house and that the family was separated. Her father was separated from the house. It was, as I recall, it had something to do with like all kinds of smoke and like destruction. And, you know, it wasn't anything like, you know, the FBI is going to come into your house. It was very symbolic. Yes, yes, but she knew. And when you have a dream that is from God, you know. You don't have to wonder. It's not like, I wonder if that was from God. If it was, you know it. And sometimes you don't know it until afterwards. And you just have that little inkling inside that says, see, I got you. I got you. I got you, girl. I got your baby girl. It's going to be okay. I got you. Now, you guys were living in Lubbock, Texas when all of this was going on. And I mean, I'm just, As someone that works in the media, I'm imagining, even in 2009, that two pastors going through a scandal like this, it's got to be all over the media and stuff and over all over the news, was it? Yes.

And so what was that like? He's awaiting trial. What was life looking like at that point? Seeing the media kind of start covering this. Well, I love it as a smaller town. And I had a brother at the time. He's moved to heaven since then. but he was a lawyer.

And he flew out to Lubbock to kind of assess what was going on. And he said to me, Gloria, you've been given a gift. And I said, what's that? You're like, what is it? Feels like Cole. Can he give me some good news here, please? And there was this huge scandal at the time with Texas Tech, the Texas Tech football coach, who had done something to some kid on his team whose dad worked for one of the big network.

you know, and it was a big scandal. And so everybody was up in arms about the Texas Tech football coach at the time. And my brother said, that's why they're not paying any attention to you right now, but wait until this blows over. They're going to be at your door. And so, yeah, we had people ringing our doorbell, calling our phones. It did. It was on the front page of the Lubbock paper. It was on the day my daughter and I were driving out of Lubbock, my pastor came in. It was the the man who ordained me and trained me from Detroit, he came in. He essentially bless his heart, created a position for me at his church in Austin, which is six hours away from Lubbock. Texas is really big. Really big. Yeah. Texas is really big. So my daughter and I moved to Austin,

and that morning, as the moving truck was being packed, and my daughter and I were driving off to Austin, my phone rings, and it was the mother of one of my daughter's classmates. And she goes, Gloria, is it true what I just heard on the news? I mean, it was just on the news. And so did you admit it or were you like, I don't know what you're talking about. Got to go, bye. I said, what did you hear? Yeah.

And she said, you know, there would be an arrest or there was an arrest. And she says, is your daughter going to stay here? Is Ebeth going to stay? And I said no, because she was about to graduate and they knew her there. She had led worship. She was known as a leader. Yeah. So let's pause a little bit and sit on this because a lot of women who may find themselves in a marriage where there's biblical grounds for divorce, they may be feeling like, well, how do I figure out that point where it's like, okay, I do need to leave.

I need to live somewhere else. I need to uproot my children. That's very difficult for a lot of women to think about taking their kids out of their home, out of their home, out of their school, out of their town, and you were faced with that decision. And correct me if I'm wrong, but you still, even though you were moving from out of town at this point in the book, you still hadn't thought I'm getting a divorce yet, right? Correct. Yeah. So you're deciding I'm going to leave, take my daughter out of school, her senior year, but still wasn't contemplating divorce. Right. That's confusing to some women. So explain that. The

process here. You know, Alex, I think a lot of it had to do a survival. Honestly, you, and women know about this, you do what you need to do. You do what you need to do. And so right then, I'm thankful, y'all, if you don't have a good pastor in your life, you need to get a good pastor in your life. I'm thankful. I had this man who came down and he essentially said, he has this low voice. He talks like this. He sounds like James Earl Jones. And he said, well, what do you want to do, Gloria? And my family lived in Phoenix. My parents were still alive at the time.

And my dad, bless his heart, said, you know, Gloria, if you want to come back to Phoenix, I'll help you get reestablished. And he had the ability to do that. He could have helped me, you know, get an apartment or whatever and find a different career. But I just didn't feel like that was the right direction. I just, I don't know, I felt like that was going backwards. To get a divorce, you mean? No, just to move here. Oh, okay.

I'm still not even talking about divorce. To move all the way to Phoenix where we are, because that's where I live where we broadcast out of. Right. So you're like, okay, it's a little bit of a change to go to Austin six hours away, but I'm not fully ready to leave the state. Yes, yes, exactly. Or the ministry. I know I'm anointed to preach. Some people may have a problem with women preachers, but we'll talk about that later.

But I know I'm anointed to preach and teach the Bible. And that's what I was supposed to do. And I didn't see a place to do that in Phoenix or a way to do that. And I just believe my daughter was in the best hands, you know, being under the auspices of my pastor. He was kind of looking over us, looking after us, watching over us. It was kind of, that was just the decision I felt was the right one to make. And by the grace of God, his church was in a little suburb of Austin called Round Rock. And I had some very dear friends who had moved there like 20 years before from Phoenix.

We were very close, very strong believers, wonderful family, strong, strong people. And they kind of welcomed me into their family. And, you know, we had our first Christmas and Thanksgiving with them. And God, you know, God knows what's going to happen and he'll set it up. He'll take care of you. So because a lot of women might be like, but I don't have, I cannot survive and provide for my kids on one income. I don't know where I would go. How I would pay bills.

And you were facing those same struggles in the book. You talk about worrying about that, the finances of it. Yes. Yeah. And anybody who's involved in a relationship with an addict knows that almost every time there's an addiction problem, there's almost always money problems as well. So I was left with, I think it was about $40,000. in just like credit card debt. Oh.

Yeah. First time I'm like, well, that's pretty good. He left you with $40,000. No, $40,000 in credit card debt. Yes. Oh, man, that you had to pay off. Yeah, yeah. That would kill him for that.

Yeah, that was, yeah, it was, I, all I can say, Alex, is the grace of God was upon me. I'm not kidding you. So he had, he provided places to stay, a job for you. new school for your daughter to enroll in, right, in Austin. And at what point do you find out what your husband's full charges are? I don't know how to say that, but like how long he's going to prison? It was about a month later. And actually, it came through my pastor. He has, he's, he's the pastor of a very, very, very large ministry out of the Detroit area. And so he actually has lawyers on staff. And they were kind of watching over it. We hired a defense lawyer, of course,

were my kids' dad. But my pastor's lawyers were kind of keeping an eye on everything and look it out for my daughter and me. And so I talk about this in the book. One day, it was a cold, rainy, nasty day in January. And I'm driving in downtown Austin because now I have to take care of everything at the house, you know, and I'm a single mom, and I needed some kind of a plumbing thing. I don't know, for our new house we were renting. And I'm down there. I'm lost. I'm running into, you know, one-way street. and just pulling out my hair. It's rainy. It's terrible.

It's cold. And my pastor calls me. And he says, Gloria, are you driving? And I said, yes, sir. He said, you better pull over. I have some news and it's not good. And so I pulled over and I don't even remember the numbers. They're in the book.

And he told me how many indictments the grand jury dropped against him and, you know, the possible fines and the possible. I think it was up to life in prison with all the charges. And I think it was up to $2.5 million in fines. And I just didn't say anything. I just was quiet. And he was like, Gloria, are you still there? And I'm just telling you the truth. Can I just tell you the truth?

Yes, please. Okay. So this is what I said. I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continue. be in my mouth. Because God is God. He is bigger than all of this. He loves me. He's taken care of me. And I'm just going to choose to praise him because that's never wrong. You're never wrong in saying, God, your God, I don't know how to handle this. It's a hot, flippin' mess. It's way

bigger than I could ever imagine. And I'm just going to praise you. And so I know that sounds kind of Probably some of your listeners think I'm really a loony tune. Hey, she got out on the other side. Now she's here to tell the story. So keep listening. She must have something good to say. Thanks, Alex. So he tells you, okay, it could be as long as life in prison.

We don't know. And then at that point, were you thinking divorce? It was actually a few weeks later. Okay, so talk about how that finally popped into your head as a possibility. Well, and I talk in the book about, I actually, you know, I realized we actually had like a codependent relationship, you know, even though I was working and living six hours away, he called me every day during his lunch hour. In jail? No, he wasn't incarcerated yet. Oh, okay.

I was incarcerated until July. So this is like January, February. And he had gotten a job at like a dollar store or something. And I was helping to pay for his apartment over there and pay his expenses. He was making a little bit and living on that as he could. But he would call me every day. And it didn't even dawn on me, you know, someone's not right about this. It just, it didn't.

I mean, this was what I'd done for 30 years. For 30 years, we talked every day. And it didn't even dawn on me that this might be a little bit not healthy for either one of you. And so it was February, I think sometime in February, I just. got up, this is why you need to spend time with the Lord. You need to go meet with Jesus every day. There were days. I just, I have this prayer chair. I have pictures of it. I should show you these pictures. It needs to be re-aultered so bad. It looks horrible. It's terrible. It's been through war. It has been through war. Spiritual war. We're talking serious war. But I would go sit in that chair

every morning and after all of this and after the move and it was cold. I mean, there were mornings. I would sit in that chair and just go, I got nothing. I got nothing, God, here I am. I got nothing to say. I'm just here. And so one of those mornings, I just, you know, and I don't normally play Bible roulette, you know. Let's flip it open and see what it says. But this morning I did.

And the scriptures opened to Matthew Chapter 5, where Jesus said, if you look at a woman, lustfully, you've committed adultery. And I wasn't thinking about getting divorced. I wasn't praying about getting divorced, but all of the sudden that scripture exploded in my spirit. Like a light bulb went off, like a lightning bolt hit me. And I just knew. I knew right then. That pornography counts as adultery. You're lustfully looking at women, therefore that is a biblical ground for divorce.

Yes. Because he never made any physical contact. There was never any charges with physical contact. He had never made physical contact. was always electronic connections, shall we say. And all of a sudden, it just exploded in me that that's what it was. It was adultery. And not only that, because every case of adultery, you know, I want to say this.

If you can save your marriage, save it. I mean it. I mean, divorce, I always tell people considering divorce. Divorce sounds good until you do it. You have to understand it's not all going to be roses. and peaches when you divorce. That everything's not going to get better. A lot of times it gets worse for a short time.

But all of a sudden, when I read that scripture, I knew not only had he done something that, you know, validated scriptural divorce, but that it was okay for me to do it. And I was supposed to do it. It was just like that. And then just a few days later, I'm not kidding you, it was that week. So I don't know. This was like on Monday or Tuesday or something. Like that Friday or something, my pastor called me and he said, Gloria, are you going to be home on Saturday? I said, yes, sir. Now, this is a guy who has his own jet and flies from here to there. And he's on all the big Christian TV, all that stuff. He doesn't come to your house to counsel people. He doesn't. He says, I need to talk to you about something. I'll be by. And he came by with. somebody else, an assistant, and of course my daughter was in the house, everything was appropriate. We, you know, but he said this won't take long. He said, my lawyer thinks there might be some civil charges if there was a teenage girl involved. And to protect you and your daughter, my lawyer

thinks you might want to look into getting a legal separation. And he said, and if you do that, he said, And even if you divorce, you could still be a pastor in good standing in my organization because I know what happened here. I know what went on. And so I said, oh, you know what? I already knew that. You know, the Holy Spirit showed me that this week. So that was just confirmation. And then I did actually seek a legal separation.

And the state of Texas does not offer that. And I'm very grateful today for that, honestly, because I see now that I had to. I had to make a clean break. How did you break the news to your husband that you were filing for divorce? That was hard. That was rough. I just told him what happened. I told him our pastor came by and said that to protect my daughter and me, we should do this.

And it was, you know, to his credit, bless his heart. He walked the papers through because they had to be handled in Lubbitt because that was our last address together. He walked them through and he let me know it was over. and I could tell that was he had truly lost everything. He had truly lost everything and it was very, very, very hard on him. How long did it take your divorce to finalize? Just a couple months. And then did you guys speak after it was final?

Here's what we did. My pastor's so wise, very wise, very wise. We were still talking to each other. Really? Yes. And did he say, cut that out, Gloria. Essentially. Yeah.

Now he said Gloria. He said, you need to figure out, do you want a future with him or not? And I said, well, I don't know. And he said, well, you need to figure that out. He said, you need to take six months and cut off communication with him for six months and decide, you know, think, pray, do whatever you need to do whatever you need to do to get clarity on this. and we did that and I told him I told my kid's dad and I like to call him my kid's dad instead of my ex

but anyway I told him that's what our pastor said and he said okay and so we set a time I think by this time he was incarcerated and so we set a time and a day for him to call me

and it became very clear to me that the divorce was I don't want to say it was God's will but it was a protective measure for me that God provided for me. So soon after that, he was sentenced and sent to jail for how long? Ten years. And the mandatory federal, you have to serve eight and a half, 85 percent.

So he served eight and a half years. And then he got out? Have you guys ever spoken since? Briefly, hello. How are you? Merry Christmas. Really? Was that weird?

Well, actually, yes, because we had, you know, we'd never really had a big, I was very protected. My kids protected me. My pastor protected me. And you know what? I'm not embarrassed about that. Why would you be? Yeah. I mean, some people feel like, oh, you should know all the gory details.

No, I don't need to know all that. You know, I was protected. There is a blessing in being protected. Now, your ex-husband, did he ever say he hated you? resented you for getting this divorce, he was always respectful, talked highly about you to your children. That's good. Yeah, yeah. He actually, before I moved to Austin, he did say to me, Alex, like the day after it happened or something, I just want you to find a good man to be a good husband to you. And I wasn't even thinking about divorce. And I said, I don't want another husband.

I mean, I wasn't even. So he knew, I guess he knew, because all of a sudden it dawned on me, while we took that six months off, what is my life going to be like married to? a registered sex offender. Hard because you're not going to be able to live within certain distance to schools, you know, all these, all these different stipulations. Yeah, it is, it is. Now here's a juicy question. Okay.

Did you forgive your husband as his wife or as his ex-wife? Like when you finally forgave him or have you not forgiven him yet? No, I think if you read the book, what was your impression from the book? That you forgave him. Yeah. Yeah, I did. I forgave him as his wife. Wow.

As his wife. Because you know what? I think that's really important for my children and for their children. He is still their dad. He is still their dad. Do they still have a relationship with him? Yes. Wow.

Now, do your kids who have their own kids let their children around him? There are rules. Okay. They have to be in the room. They cannot be, he cannot be left alone with them. That's good. Yeah, I mean, they had to go through classes. They had to see a counselor.

They had to see some kind of a counselor, some kind of a parole officer type person who, you know, lined out what they could and couldn't do. But as I said, there was, as far as I could tell, there was no instance where he ever tried. She showed like risk or whatever towards them. Yes. Yes. Yes. Or towards my children. Has he repented for his sins?

Oh, yeah, immediately. How do you know? Oh, he told me. That's good. He told me. He really, when it all came down, he actually thanked me. He said, thank you because he came to know the Lord through me. I talk about that in my book, too, about dating, y'all.

Be careful. Yeah. I talk about that and marrying. Yeah. But that he came to know the Lord through me and that had he not gotten caught, he was concerned he was going to go to hell. You know, and he did repent. He read the first chapter of Romans over and over and over and over again that talks about, it talks very plainly and clearly about sexual sin and about people who think they know more than God and make their bodies their God.

And he read that chapter over and over and over for the first week or so and wept over it. And, yeah, I know he has repented. Could you talk about where in scripture the biblical grounds for divorce are outlined? Wow, that's a really deep subject. For those wondering, like, I'm having problems in my marriage. How do I know? How do I know if I meet that criteria? Right.

Okay, you can get into all kinds of minutia. Okay, you can get into the old, old law. I mean, there is a scripture in, I think it's in, I should look up where it is right now, but I think it's in Deuteronomy, and it gives reasons that a woman can leave her husband. And it says, if he doesn't provide for her, if he doesn't give her protection, if he doesn't feed her, those were grounds that a woman could leave a man. Nobody even knows about that. That's in the Old Testament.

Nobody reads the law. You know, who reads that stuff? But then the Jewish tradition took it the other way. And that's what Jesus said, you know, the people who questioned Jesus, the Pharisees said, you know, the teachers of the law say you can divorce for any reason. And Jesus said, yeah, no, that was because the hardness of your heart. Because by the time Jesus came around, women had no rights of divorce. And, you know, I get really ticked off when people talk about the Samaritan woman at the well. And you know how Jesus said, go get your husband.

And she said, I don't have a husband. And she says, you're right. You've had four husbands. And the man you're living with now is not your husband. And people all talk about her like she's some loose woman. She had no right in any of those decisions in those days. I don't, you know, I think she was a trafficked woman more or she was an abused woman. she was someone who was tossed aside for I don't know what reason.

I don't know why four men tossed her aside, but they did. And here's another thing to notice. Go! She's preaching. Here's another thing to notice about that encounter Jesus had with that Samaritan woman at the well. Jesus said, you've had four husbands. He didn't say, lady, only one marriage is acknowledged by God. You've only been married once and you've been shacking up all the other times.

No, he said. you've had four husbands. So I just want to give that to people who are like in so much bondage to, you know, the church says we shouldn't divorce. You know, you shouldn't divorce. And I think if you can work it out, you should work it out. I really do. I really think till death to us part is the best way.

But sometimes you need to protect yourself. You need to protect your children. And you need to hear from God. I seriously mean you need to hear from God on what you need to do in your situation. You need to have a good pastor who can guide you and walk you through it. And here's the other thing I want to say about what the Bible says about divorce. You can find Christians who say marriage is a covenant union and it should never be broken no matter what. You can find Christians who say marriage is a covenant and if there is adultery or abuse, you can divorce, but you can never.

remarry, okay, all this stuff, you can find scriptures that support it. I could give arguments. I'm not going to get into the minutia of scripture about that, but let me say this. I believe it's Romans 1310 says love is the fulfillment of the law. So if it's not in love, the law we're supposed to live by in the New Testament is love. Love is patient. Love is kind. Love always believes the best. Love protects. Love bears up. You know, and, and, and, and, and, And so if you are in a situation where love is not the frame around whatever it is you're doing, God has no problem with you getting out of that. What ultimately helped you trust another man? Trusting God, I guess. You know, I write the good part of my book is where I talk about meeting my husband. We've been married for almost 10 years. Now?

Congratulations. Oh, thank you. It was so much fun. I was able to trust, and we met online and I mean, all these crazy things. But again, I had a pastor who I kind of bounced things off. And I was trying not to just be led by my flesh like, oh, I need a man, I need a man, I need a man. Don't be that way. And I also wasn't like, I am a woman, hear me roar.

I don't ever need another man, you know. Right. I knew I was supposed to be married. What allowed me to trust, I knew he was a different person. All men aren't the same. All women aren't the same. Come on. All Italians aren't the same.

All white people aren't the same. Come on. All anything is not the same. So if you've been through something, you should have your eyes open. If you've been through something, don't fall for it again. You know, don't get into that pattern of going after men. that need you to support them or you to support their sin or you to go along with whatever, you know, open your eyes, but realize every man isn't the same. Has your ex-husband ever read your book? Do you know?

I don't know. Do you wonder? I do. Do you think he would be the type to seek out and go get it? Yes. Yes. Wow. That's wild. And I was very cautious when I wrote it.

I was very cautious not to show animosity, you know, and not just for him, but for my kids. Of course. And their kids, you know, something that's in writing is around for a long time. How does someone know if their marriage is still worth saving? Well, first of all, if you're not being abused, okay, that's get out of there. If you are in danger, get out somehow. Find a way. God will show you.

If it's worth saving, I have. believe if you're willing to work on it, you're not in danger. The kids aren't in danger. I say work on it. Work on it until there's no more work to be had. What are some ways that a couple can experience complete and total restoration in their marriage? Complete until I think y'all need a good church. I'm just saying, I'm getting on my church accent here. Sorry. That's all right. My church mother talk here. You need to have a good church. You need to have a strong pastor. One of the things I asked my husband that I've been married to now for 10 years, I asked him when we were dating and it was a long distance thing, do you have a pastor who knows you?

That's a good question. Because you can go into one of these mega churches and hide in the back. Nobody knows who you are. Nobody's asking, oh, gee, I haven't seen you in church for the last three months where you've been. Nobody's holding you accountable. That's super important. So to realize full restoration, you're going to need some help. You're going to need help.

And you're going to need to both humble yourselves. You're going to need to both agree, to me, agree that, okay, we're going to do things God's way. What does God's word say? Okay, the word of God says, we're going to forgive one another. Okay, do I feel like forgiving? No, but I'm going to forgive. You're just going to act like you forgive until you feel like you're forgiven.

How can someone get through the holidays if they know that their family, their marriage is completely falling apart or they know it's about to? Focus on what the holidays are really about. Really. It's about what God did because he loved us so much. You know, my book is called Stuff Happens, H-O-P-E, and that stands for have only positive expectations. because God loves you. Romans 5-5 says, hope, see, we're told, don't get your hopes up. Don't get your hopes up.

You know, don't think everything is going to turn out okay because it doesn't. But Romans 5-5 says, hope maketh not ashamed because the love of God is shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Ghost. Because I know God loves me so much, I can have only. positive expectations that one way or another, sooner or later, he's going to handle this. He's going to take care of it. He'll get it out of the way, take care of me, provide for me, bring me what I need. I just because I believe God's love is bigger than anything.

God is love. And what's bigger than God? Nothing. Thank you very much. Ms. Gloria, if people want to get in contact with you for speaking or ministry inquiries, how can they contact you and find you? Mostly on Instagram, Gloria Britt and all. You can email me, Gloria.

Dr. Brintanall at Gmail. I have a website, gloriabritnall.com. You can connect with me through that. And my books available on Amazon. And I hope you read it. And it encourages you to get through whatever it is you're going through this holiday season. It can be dark and scary. But focus on what really matters.

What's eternal. And just walk in love to the best of your ability. Thank you so much, Gloria. for sharing your story on the spillover. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate Gloria coming on to talk about such a painful time of her life with such candidness. She was an interesting guest for me to interview because there were certain parts of her story

that really surprised me. I have to be honest and say it was hard for me to wrap my head around how she still invited her grandchild to her home after she knew about her husband and how her and her daughter weren't worried about her daughter's safety around him. him. And my natural reaction to say, well, I would have reacted differently if that were me. But I don't know. After being married for 30 years, would you? That's why it was so great to have Gloria on because she really does bring an important perspective to such a difficult situation. So we can try to put ourselves in this place mentally as someone who's gone through something so

horrific. In the cute Servatives Facebook group, I would love to hear what you thought about this episode. And if you liked this episode, go back and listen to Season 3, Episode 3. I got rich having sex with men and women, but I wanted to kill myself with former porn star Joshua Broome. It's very similar to the story like being in the darkest, darkest pit of your life and somehow having Jesus there to help you get through it. Just one of the probably the craziest testimonies I think I've ever heard in my life. And by the way, every time you leave a five-star review, I see it, my bosses see it, and it is the biggest way that you can support those of us who work tirelessly putting together each show. There are editors, guest bookers, guest researchers, and producers.

I would love it if this Christmas you could shout them out in your five-star review, thank them for making sure each week is an entertaining episode. The spillover is back next Thursday at 9 p.m. Pacific, midnight Eastern on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. next week on December 23rd. I have a huge guest that many of you will flip over. She is a very big deal in the homemaking and Christian space. Don't forget you have the option to watch every episode live on the Poplittics YouTube channel.

Participate in the chat there. Subscribe to Poplix on YouTube if you haven't already. I'm Alex Clark, and this is The Spillover. Love you, mean it. Bye.