How To Destroy Everything - Episode 4: How to Destroy a Courtship

Episode Date: October 1, 2024

Wherein Danny and Darren try to answer an enduring question: what kind of woman would marry someone like Richard Jacobs? In search of some explanation - any explanation - they go all the way back to Sandy's childhood. And along the way, they discover some truly shocking developments that change Danny's perception of who his Dad really was.  Listen to HTDE on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.  If you would like to support this podcast, please consider becoming a patron at www.patreon.com/HowToDestroyEverything. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/DESTROY and get on your way to being your best self. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Should I start again? No, no, no. You're doing great. Yeah. Oh, okay. I'm Rabbi Jeffrey Stiffman. I have served congregation Sheremeth. Actually, Sha'areh Emet, but everybody in St. Louis calls it Sheremeth since 1965. Wait a second. I'm reeling from the fact that I have apparently been mispronouncing Sheremeth. Same. Every Jew in St. Louis I know says Sheremeth. Everybody says Sheremeth. And when people ask me where I am or was the rabbi, I tell them Sheremeth.

Actually, in modern Hebrew, it's Sha'areh Emet. But if I would say that, nobody would know. Well, what does Sha'aray am Emet mean? Okay, a Sha'ar is a gate, and Sha'aray means gates of, and Emet is truth. In the old Hebrew and Yiddish, Emes, which means truth. Well, that is perfect, because today we are opening a gate, hopefully to some truth ourselves. Right. My childhood rabbi, Jeffrey Stiffman, first met my grandparents, Sidney and Sylvia Jacobs, back in 1965 when he came to St. Louis to be a rabbi at Sheremeth. Now, since Rabbi Stiffman has known my family for almost 60 years, there might be no one better for me to go to to seek the truth about my dad, if that's what I actually want to do.

truth about my dad. If that's what I actually want to do. See, when we started this podcast, I thought that's what I was after. Of course I did. I mean, like, who doesn't want the truth? But after the last two episodes, when we took that unexpected detour into my dad's old house, the Royal Manor. It was like a command center in the basement. A panic room. This guy was so afraid of people coming after him or discovering what it was he was up to. And he would always tell me all these crazy stories about crazy Jacobs and all those cameras. So we think that might actually be not just audio, but video, which would mean that your dad had a camera in your and your brother's room, possibly. There was so much devastation that was done here.

And I think that a lot of my own feelings about shame are coming back of just feeling like I've done something wrong, you know what I mean? After that, I started to question what I really want. It wasn't just that hearing all the pain that my dad caused brought me back to my childhood shame, though it obviously did that. It was the new revelations, things I'd never known, more of the truths than I'd ever really cared to know, frankly, that was most upsetting. I realized I might not like what I discover in this podcast. It might upset the narratives I've told myself, the carefully curated status quo I've built for

myself as a husband and a father. At the same time, I may never find peace until I deal with the truth of my childhood, who my dad was, and how that affected me and everyone I care about. For example, one of the things I've never understood and one of the questions I've desperately wanted answered is how in the world did my mom and dad get together? I mean, why would anybody choose to marry that man? What was their courtship possibly like? And how did she not see what she was getting herself into? With this podcast, I can answer that question. So I moved forward with some hope and lots of trepidation, ready to get into it. The truth, the whole truth and nothing but, wherever that may take me. My name is Danny Jacobs,

and this is How to Destroy Everything, a podcast about how one narcissist, my dad, destroyed his family, his neighborhood, and his community. This is episode four, How to Destroy Courtship. You know something? Darren, whoa, whoa, hey, yikes. I did not see you there. Oh, I'm always lurking, always listening. That's what supportive friends do, you know, lurk and listen. I don't actually think that's what supportive friends do.

Agree to disagree. Anyway, what I noticed in this intro. I haven't finished it yet. I still introduced, I got to introduce you. Dumb dumb. Oh, well, I think they know the deal by now. I mean, I'm, you know, the best friend who witnessed it all, endures insults like dumb dumb, you know, holding your hand in this journey. Fair enough. Okay. All right. Proceed. Proceed. What's interesting as I'm listening to you in that intro, and I've always noticed this, but I'm noticing it particularly now, when you talk about your mom and how she and your dad got together, I don't know if you realize this, but you sound more than incredulous. You sound a little bit angry to me. I mean, yeah, I guess that's true. Look, it just seems kind of ridiculous to me that my mom would make this choice when there had to have been so many red flags. I mean, yes, I hear that.

You know, at the same time, we're looking at it, you know, we have all the knowledge of what happened. Isn't it possible that your dad wasn't the fully formed Richard Jacobs back then? You know, like he was not the man that you and I would come to know. I, yeah. Okay. I suppose it's possible that he got worse as he got older. I also want to point out, and this just amuses me that like, it's, you are mad about the particular circumstance that led to your own existence. It's like, it's like you're longing for a back to the future scenario where you and your brother's photos get erased, actually go away. Okay.

Actually, yeah. I think what I'm actually longing for is a scenario where they don't get married, my parents, and yet somehow my brother and I are still born. Okay. Sure. You know, maybe through a divine intervention, we have an immaculate conception. Okay. Fair enough. You two are the second and

third coming. That's right. Well, okay. So let's get into it in terms of how they got together. Let's talk through, you have kind of a working theory of how that transpired and what is that? This is what I've always thought. And it's pretty simple. I thought, okay, my mom is someone who grew up in the fifties and sixties in the Midwest under the thumb of a pretty strict and conservative father. And then she just jumped right from him to my dad. One controlling man to the next. Yeah. So, and that is obviously how you framed it to me over the years.

But what's interesting is that when we talked to your mom, as well as your uncle Hyman, her brother, about their childhood, that's not exactly how they framed it. Okay. So mom, I want to go way back to your childhood. You know, we talked to Diane, your childhood friend. She said that you, or at least she wasn't aware of anything, but that she said that you did not do much, if any, dating in high school. Is that true?

That's true. Did you date anybody? No. I didn't date until I went to college. Why didn't you date anybody in high school? Because, well, I don't know. I went out once with somebody and I just didn't date until I went to college. Why didn't you date anybody in high school? Because, well, I don't know. I went out once with somebody and I just didn't like it. Do you think, like, what was your opinion of the male gender then?

Do you remember? Well, I guess it was based on my dad. You know, he didn't do anything to me to make me afraid. Like, he didn't hit me or anything. But, like, he was strict and when we acted up, he had us go to our rooms my brother and I and and like I would stand right next to the line on the floor with you know where the door is but I wouldn't step over because I knew he would get mad I had a good relationship with my dad. He was a very caring person, but he was also, oh, kind of,

like not thinking girls, he's not thinking girls could do the same as boys. The girls had to be married and have kids. Just say who you are and who you are to me. Okay, my name is Hyman Seifer. I am the uncle of Danny Jacobs. Sandy Jacobs is my sister. And Richard Jacobs was my brother-in-law. Tell me about Papa.

So your dad. Okay. What he was like. He was fairly strict. You know, we were never spanked or anything like that. If we were bad, he would send us to our room and we couldn't come out of our room and, you know, things like that. But he wasn't, he was the Ward Cleaver type of father. That's how I put my father.

Okay. I must admit, that's not exactly what I was expecting to hear either of them say. You know, it's interesting. I wonder if sometimes we make these narratives up about our parents without actually necessarily having any evidence to back them up. No, it's vibes, right? I built up this idea of my papa as hyper strict because it made sense in terms of how my mom is. Totally, totally. And look, I mean, it's not like he wasn't strict at all. I mean, Ward Cleaver, your uncle referenced, he had certain expectations for his kids' behavior. But yeah, this image of your papa as like this overbearing authoritarian, that seems to be an oversimplification. Yeah. But there's also the possibility that my mom and uncle have a rosier image of him today, you know, glorifying the past.

That's true. That's truly like how presidents become more popular when they're out of office. Yeah, my papa is the George W. Bush of parental figures is what I'm saying. It all makes me think that the truth of who he was was more nuanced than I thought. Yeah, people are complicated, including your mom, by the way. As we learned when we sat down with her childhood friend, Diane Shriver. Okay, well, my name is Diane Shriver. Sandy, Danny's mom, and I were best friends in the eighth grade, and she was kind of a practical joker.

Okay, hang on. I have to pause the interview for a second to say that I have never in my entire life heard anyone call my mom a practical joker. Anyway, please proceed. We met in gym class. After class, we all had to take showers. And somehow she managed to get out and into where you have your clothes and your notebooks for the next class. And she hid my blouse in my notebook.

So when I arrived at the locker room to put my clothes on for the next class, I had no blouse. Yes, I had no blouse. Yes. I took her clothes and I hid them in her books. Yeah. Because I thought she's going to find this. And I wanted to play a joke on her. Why did you want to play a joke on her? I don't know.

I just thought it was funny. And I thought she'd get it right away as soon as she opened her book. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Darren, do you know what you're going to be for Halloween this year? I don't, but I do know that it will involve a mask. Yeah, and you know what I'm going to do? No. I'm going to take off that mask.

Wait, on Halloween? Yeah. Instead of putting one on, I'm taking one off. So you're not going to wear a costume? Look, I feel like these masks are all putting us, you know, a layer between us and our true selves. Oh, I see what you're doing now. You know what I mean? And therapy.

You're not talking about Halloween. Well, I'm using it as a way to talk about therapy, which helps you kind of accept all parts of yourself. You don't have to worry about what that mask is doing anymore. That's good. That's what therapy's done for me. It's done the same thing for me, honestly. Like, um, I feel as though without therapy, I would be struggling to maintain a friendship with you, uh, because you're, you're, you're a nightmare. I'm going to let that slide. Um, listen guys, if you are thinking of starting therapy, please give BetterHelp a try. Yeah. It's entirely online, uh, which is super duper

convenient. It's flexible and it's suited to your schedule. All you have to do is you got to fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist. And you can also, by the way, switch therapists at no additional charge. So it's really convenient. So like Danny, take off the mask with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com slash destroy today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E That's betterhelp.com slash destroy. Okay. So look, it's not like your mom was going around pranking people left and right. She still sounds like, you know, the same woman we know, only a little bit more rebellious perhaps than

we realized. Okay. But I think that that's actually hugely important. I mean, I never thought of my mom as a rebel in any way, but clearly like there was that side of her. Right. Right. And I mean, you know, that actually makes me think about other ways that your mom went against the norm. Like despite the fact that she came of age in this very conservative era in the Midwest, she didn't actually grow up dreaming of getting married and having kids. Yeah. I mean, that might have been part of her vision for the future, but like, she also wanted something more. What's this? Dr. Sandy Seifer has made a huge discovery! By the looks of its flat teeth, it seems to be a herbivore.

A new dinosaur, of course. Scientists have named it the Sandysaurus, after the amazing doctor that found it herself. The world waits with... Hi, Daddy. So, what is this thing? It's some... it's an archaeology kit. Where'd it come from?

I ordered it with my allowance money. I've been saving up for two years. Hand it over. But, Daddy... Now. Now. I've been saving up for two years hand it over but daddy now now you want to work you can be a nurse or a secretary maybe a hygienist

nothing wrong with that daddy I don't want to and when you get married you quit please daddy enough the most important thing a woman can be is a wife and mother.

Understand? Yes, Daddy. Your mother says dinner will be ready in ten minutes. Get yourself cleaned up. Alright, my first reaction to that is just heartbreak. I mean, like thinking about my mom as a kid with these big dreams, just totally dashed. It's really sad. By the way, having kids also and imagining doing that to your kids is rough. In that regard, the other thing is your papa was definitely strict.

I mean, at least in terms of what he saw as, you know, acceptable employment options for Sandy's future. Yeah. I mean, my mom came from a very traditional family and there was an expectation that she would grow up to live in yet another very traditional family. Right. Well, and that does lend some credence to your theory that there was a kind of transference from your papa to your dad in terms of these strong, controlling men. But, you know, I just wonder if, like in your childhood, OK, in your home, was your dad kind of, was papa the kind of like, was he in charge or was it Nana? Yes. He was he was in charge of everything.

So he was in charge. Yeah. Was there anything about I don't want to lead the witness here, but was there anything about that that felt safe? Yes. Can you talk a little bit more about that? Yeah. Yes, because I felt like he would always watch after me. Yeah.

And I kind of felt that way with Richard sometimes. Yeah. I felt like he's being weird, but I just feel, I feel nobody will ever take advantage of me with him around, you know, with Richard around or with them. Right. So that's, I mean, that's pretty definitive and clear to me. You can draw a straight line, I think, between your papa and Richard. Like she gave up on her archaeology dreams to follow her dad's wishes. And then later she gave up so much to accommodate being with your dad. My mom was inexperienced and accustomed to submitting to her father. And so I think,

you know, primed in a way to meet and eventually fall for someone like my dad, someone who made her feel safe, albeit in a much more destructive way than her dad did. Totally. No, no, I see it. I see it. Okay. But now let me throw another theory at you. Ever since our last episode, I've been thinking about what your mom said in the end. You know, about the sex. Oh, God damn it, Darren. So very good.

Oh, God damn it. Between your mother and your father. No, no, I understand. Please. When they would have intercourse. Love making. Oh, God. intercourse. It was tremendously pleasurable for your mother. I hate you. I hate you with a burning passion. Who probably made sounds of pleasure. I'm just guessing. I'm just trying to imagine. Oh God, I want to die. Anyway, actually not about the sex per se.

What I mean is that maybe your dad offered your mom something else, something that she really wanted. Okay, I'll bite. What's that? No, no, no, no. It's going to be okay. Maybe he offered her excitement. One time we went to a hotel and somehow he got mad at the office. And he called up and he sent towels and sheets and all kinds of stuff saying he was this other person. And then we stood outside and watched all that stuff happen. And I thought it was fun.

Wait, wait, wait. You mean he called down and requested all of those for a different room? And then you guys stood outside of the room, like, giggling as you saw them bring all this stuff up to a different room? Yes, yeah. You know what? You might be onto something with this excitement thing. I mean, my mom had grown accustomed to submitting to her father's wishes, and then she had this yearning for something more, something exciting that my dad fulfilled. Yes, yes, exactly. So, okay, so she wanted excitement.

She was a little bit rebellious. She had kind of had her dreams crushed by her father. Let's keep all of this in mind now as we trek through the story of your parents' relationship. First, we need to go back to when they first met. Because I want to return to something we started talking about back in episode one. You might remember this whole thing about how on one of their earlier dates, your dad asked your mom to clean his apartment.

Okay, so when I would drink at a party, I would maybe just drink maybe one or maybe two glasses of wine or something that's not very strong. He said he had a special drink that he wanted me to drink and i didn't like it i didn't have to drink it or i could just have one if he didn't like it anymore i wouldn't have to drink it so it was super super duper strong but i didn't i couldn't tell because the way it was mixed and i was like sick that whole night at the party throwing up and everything in the bathroom. And then there was a girl there that knew Richard and she had said to me,

I think Richard did the same thing to me at another party. He gave her this drink that made her drunk, you know, in one drink. So I don't know, know I didn't I think I might have asked him later about it and he he lied and said he I still think that he did do that because he was mad at me for not cleaning up in his house but at the time he said oh no I didn't you know I didn't do that you must have had a bad read I only had one drink and I was like as if I had like a whole jug of beer or something you know I mean it was a lot jug of beer or something, you know, I mean, it was a lot. Wait, so you think, you think that what happened here is he invited you to this party, said, I want you to clean my house. You did not do that. You showed up for the party. And then

to get back at you, he messed with a drink to make you sick? Yes. Oh, man. God, where do I start? I mean, I got to tell you, I think I kind of blocked that out of my mind. I mean, I knew she said it, but I remember at the time when I heard it, I wanted desperately to dismiss it. It's probably why we didn't include it in the first episode.

I did not want to face that. Yeah. Can you talk about why? I mean, I get it, but I just want to hear it from you. It's just so much darker, you know? Yeah. Like, it's fucked up. No, it is.

Yes. Yes. Like, I think on some level, I get a, this is going to sound weird, but like a kind of perverse pride by talking about my dad's schemes and everything. Like, like there's a cleverness to them. They're destructive, obviously, and cruel, but they're, they're kind of elevated, you know? He was a criminal, but an elevated one.

No, I mean, it's not not so. This is just this is just evil. Yes, you're right. It is a base kind of evil. And it's like, man, that is rough. It's kind of to wrap my brain around. Yeah. And as a result, like it's bringing back all this anger that I feel at my mom

again. I mean, how do you stay with this guy? How? When he asked you not only to clean his apartment. Okay. And even then fine. But then you think he drugged you? Right, right, right. I mean, I look, I do think we have to keep in mind the, keep in mind the context. Your mom is not a modern, liberated woman at this point. She's under her father's sway, not to mention society. Society has a lot to say about this. And I suppose it's also true that my mom didn't know for sure that she'd been drugged. She suspected it, but you know. Yes.

And also, let's not forget that your dad, he could be very charming and extremely persuasive. Right. He was highly intelligent, and he could endear himself to people. You know, he had that twinkle in his eye. He was fun. Yeah, that's true. I mean, one minute he could drive you insane, and the next minute he could charm you. It's like that story your mom told us about one of their early dates.

These statues are really neat. Oh, yeah, those. Yeah, those are Alla and Igbo, African goddesses of fertility. Oh, my gosh. I didn't realize it was so late. Oh, I'm sorry, Richard. I should probably head home. Oh, that's okay.

Hey, you know what? That reminds me. I'm supposed to have a call with my parents in a minute. Oh, that's okay. Hey, you know what? That reminds me. I'm supposed to have a call with my parents in a minute. Oh, okay. Let me just grab my purse and I'll get out of your hair. No, no. I, um... You want to listen in?

To what? My call. With my parents. I do, um... Sorry, I don't understand. Yeah, well, I'll call them on the phone in the kitchen, and you just pick up this one here and listen. Just listen? Yeah.

You think that's really a good idea? I don't want to get into trouble. Oh, a little trouble never hurt anybody. Besides, they'll never know. Oh, okay. Yeah, great. Well, just wait until I give you the signal. Okay, I'll wait. Hello? Hi, Mom. Hi, honey.

Hold on. Let me get the king. Dad? Okay, okay, now, now, Mom. Hi, honey. Hold on. Let me get the king. Dad? Huh? Okay, okay, now, now, now, now. Anthony. Yes, what? Pick up the phone in your office. Who is it?

Just pick it up. Who is it? Your son. Who else would it be? Hello, Richard. How'd the date go? With Sandy? Yes, with Sandy.

How many dates did you have tonight? Just the one. Well, it's very sweet that you called, even after your date. Well, I love you both very much, so... No, we love you too, Richard. We do, you know that. Well, how did it go? Does she like you?

I don't know, but I sure like her. God, it's so interesting that there's this glimpse in that scene of who my dad would become in the future, like listening when he's not supposed to, violating people's trust. Yes, yes. In this case, the trust of his own parents. Right, right. But at that time, at least, my mom saw it in a different light. She saw it as harmless fun.

Well, yes, yes, exactly. See, I think what you do sometimes, and I understand this, but I think when you're thinking about your dad, you are imagining him as you knew him, you know, older, possibly worse with his mental illness, but definitely having, you know, far exceeded his welcome. It's like how when you know someone super well, every little thing that they do that like early on might have been kind of, you know, unnoticeable. Now it's immensely annoying. Yeah. But Darren, he, he might very well have drugged my mom on one of their first dates. That does not feel like some mere annoyance. True, true. But might is an important word there. You know, we don't know for sure. Let's just keep that in mind. Still, I get your point. I think I'm just saying that like early on when your mom first met him, I get your point. I think I'm just saying that early on, when your mom first met him, she couldn't have put all the dots together, right? To her, he was just a guy. Man, that blows my mind, what you just said. That at some point in his life, he was just a guy. But you're right. Remember how your Uncle Hyman talked about him? Sure, she went out with some guys. But your dad was probably the first one that I knew, you know, that would have been something serious.

Do you remember meeting him? Oh, yeah. I thought he was very nice. What do you remember about that? Oh, yeah, he was funny. He was, you know, outgoing. He seemed, you know, charming. He was nice to Sandy.

I mean, there was nothing that he did, you know, that I just thought he was nice. Nothing weird about him, I didn't think. In fact, this is where one of those things, illegal things, occurred. I was going to KU, and the girl I was dating, Ellen, lived in Kansas City. And, you know, we couldn't call a lot of times because at that time it was long distance. You know, there was long distance phone charges. So he had a gadget that somehow when you dial the number, you hit this button on a tape recorder. It diverts the charges. It goes through the phone.

You can still get where you're calling from. But the charges somehow would go to someplace else. I don't know where. So basically, I could talk to my girlfriend at that time, Helen, all I wanted to for free. Wow. Okay. So did he give you that gadget? He gave that to you? Yeah, he gave it to me, you know, which I thought was cool. I mean, at this point, you're probably like, this guy is awesome. My sister is dating an awesome guy. Oh yeah. I had no problem with them. You know, like I said. See, your dad was actually capable of some pretty incredible things,

technologically speaking and otherwise. I mean, with him, anything was possible. I see it. I do. And I guess it had to feel exciting to a woman who was consigned to the limitations set by her father. Let's talk about his piloting the plane. When I was dating him, one day he came out and he said, I'm going to surprise

you. So he had the blindfold with him. Alright, walk this way. Right here. Follow the sound of my voice. Richard, where are we? I can't see anything under the blindfold. Oh, I'm so nervous. Almost there. Almost there. When we got to the airport,

he unblind told me, and there was a Cessna plane there. Voila! Oh my gosh, that... Wait, is that a... Yeah. I'm gonna fly it. What? Wait, what? Yeah, yeah, I've been taking lessons. Don't worry, it's perfectly safe. Nothing to worry about.

And I said, okay, you know. So I got in the plane hop on up there strap yourself in very important safety first okay here we go he flew it and he seemed like he knows what he was but he showed me how he had all these hours he'd taken lessons and he had enough hours to fly it by himself and you didn't know up until that point that he i didn't know. Could fly airplane. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. So anyway, so we went up in the plane. Oh, my God. Oh, what a kick. Oh, my goodness.

Oh, my. Wow. Richard, this is unbelievable. Yeah, I know, right? He flew around, and when we got to my house, he said, let's wave to your house. Let's give it a little wave with the wings. What do you say, huh? Here we go.

Wave with the wings. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. the wings what do you say huh here we go and so he took those like this you know swiveling back and forth and that was waving to my house yo richard please don't do that again please don't do that again no please don't do that don't do i don't want to do that again all Well, all right. We're just having a little fun. And that kind of made me sick to my stomach a little bit. And so then he landed and I thought, okay, this is over.

I hope we don't do this again. Nothing could be simple with Richard Jacobs. Nothing. Nothing could be pure fun. We went up with somebody else once. And that person later told me that he took chances. They shouldn't have taken. And I didn't know.

So then I was kind of scared after that. Also, he wanted me to take flying lessons in case he would have a heart attack. And I could land the plane. He had an obsession with having a heart attack. He did? Yeah, all along. Wasn't he in his 20s at this point? So you were like 20, what, 3?

Yeah, so he was really into that, you know, wanting me to do that. So I said, okay. Well, it was a special class for people who were just for that reason. Oh, nice. Learning how to fly because they're significant, they knew how to fly

and in case they would have a heart attack, I guess. He always had to make it weird. Yeah, he did. Yeah. You know what? Speaking of weird, that just reminds me, you know, back to this kind of arc of my parents relationship thing. We asked my mom to talk about when they fell in love with each other.

Richard had a dog. And he really did care for the dog. And the dog died. And he was really sad. And so I remember going over to his house and bringing food or something, maybe a cake or something that he liked. And then I also paid for the dog to be buried.

You did? Yeah. Wow. As a gift. How long had you been dating at that point? I don't remember. Okay. Yeah, but it was not super long.

But I did really like him. And the fact that he cared for the dog was like a plus. Yeah. And so when I paid for the dog, when he realized that, you know, and then he, I saw him when I was leaving that day that I came over. I could tell he was falling in love with me. How could you tell that? Just the way he would look at me. Doughy-eyed.

Yeah, yeah. So when I left, I thought, maybe this is going to be something that will be good, getting married to him. One of the things that was actually really interesting to me in what my mom was talking about in terms of them falling in love is that it didn't sound like a mutual thing like right the way she was talking it's mostly from my dad's it was when he was falling in love right exactly and what i think i think my dad might really have been doing is he might have really just been falling in love with something that she was doing for him you know what i mean rather than her or their relationship oh interesting, interesting. Like he had someone to do things. Like he had an assistant who was falling in love with her.

That's interesting. I mean, yeah, I could see that. Look, even from your mom's side, though, one way that I was thinking of it was that she's been programmed by her dad and by society, for that matter, to think she is supposed to get married, right? Yeah. And here, what's she doing? What's happening is she's getting this guy to fall

in love with her. She's feeling good about fulfilling that obligation to what she's supposed to do. Yeah. Or were they both falling in love because that was a societal norm? Like my dad too, like even as a narcissist, he may have been trying to fit into society and do the quote unquote normal thing. Right. So maybe in that sense, it was mutual in a very boomer way. Yeah. And I suppose love is love. Yes. And then they lived happily ever after.

End of podcast. We should probably talk about their engagement. Oh, yeah, for sure. So, OK, the plan was for them to get married in Kansas City where my mom grew up. But then about a month before... I remember when we were getting married and my best friend from California came in. It wasn't a wedding. It was for a party or something that was a month before the wedding. They stayed at this hotel where Richard was staying. And all of a sudden, Richard got mad and said that they were

calling him in the middle of the night and were bothering him and hanging up on him and all this stuff. And I called her up and I said, why were you doing that? And they were like really sophisticated people. They wouldn't do stuff like that. So they said no. So Richard would say, oh, no, I don't want them in the wedding. I don't want like Nancy in the wedding. And so we had a fight over it. And I remember I was going to break up with him then. And so what happened is I said to my dad, you know, I said, you know, I don't think I want it's only a month before the wedding. And I said, I don't really think I want to marry him because of all this. And he said, if that's OK, he said, if you don't want to marry him, it's better now that you break up and you do it later. But the thing is about this Nancy story that's really interesting is that it was almost the exception.

Like, she really did consider calling off the wedding. You're right. You're right. Speaking of that, it's like, what was he even doing here? It's such a remarkable act of self-sabotage that admittedly, I do not understand it at all. It's a great question and i i don't know the only thing i can think of is that it was about control like i wonder if it was one last attempt to see how amenable my mom could actually be like would she toss aside one of her bridesmaids one of the most important people to her for for him Good Lord. Like a test. Yeah. But again, to her credit,

she refused. And, you know, he saw that there was in fact a red line she was unwilling to cross. Totally. And in the face of that blowback,

she actually confronted him. With the whole Nancy thing leading up to the wedding, like, did you talk to Richard about that? And he said he was sorry and that he, you know, that he wouldn't, he would let her be he was sorry and that he, you know, that

he wouldn't, he would let her be in the wedding. And he cried. Oh, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. Because he thought I was really, I was really going to break up with him. I mean, I did it like, it was the same weekend that he visited that, a month before the wedding. Did he justify his behavior in any way? Did he say that? No. I mean, I don't remember. He just said he was sorry. in any way? Did he say, did he? No.

I mean, I don't remember. He just said he was sorry. Man, my dad cried and apologized to who is this person? Yes. I mean,

in my entire life, I've only seen him do that one other time. Maybe because he realizes that he has to, that he's gone too far. There's no other way out here. And,

you know, in your case, his relationship with his son may be at stake. Yeah. And back in this story with Sandy, his potential marriage here was at stake. And if he didn't back off, he was going to cost himself this relationship. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And it actually goes to something that we're going to get into in later episodes, which is that when my mom eventually left my dad, I think that was like a real fulcrum point in his life, right? Like, I think it was like this disintegration of a meticulously created delusional sense of self.

And here in this moment, right before their wedding, perhaps he scraped up right against that and knew deep down that it was not a place that he could go. Oh, interesting. Interesting. I think that makes sense. I think that you may be right. And now with regard to the wedding, I want to get into one more thing. And that's the thing that happened right at the very last minute, just before your mom was about to walk down the aisle. Richard's father seems nice. Could do without his mother, though.

Dad. Just saying. I'm not sure her face muscles are working properly. Does she ever smile? Oh, oh my gosh. Okay. Here we go. Hold on a smile? Oh, oh my gosh. Okay. Here we go. Hold on a second.

Dad, it's starting. You want out? Just say the word. What? It isn't too late. I know it seems like it is, but it's not. All you have to do

is say the word and I'll shut this whole thing down. No questions asked. Are you serious? I'll make up an excuse. We'll send you off to Hawaii for a few days. Why would you... Why are you saying this? I just... I want to make

sure that Richard is the one you want. Yeah. He is. I've never been more sure of anything in my whole life. So that is really a stunner. Wow! Yes! Yes, it is. I mean, okay more sure of anything in my whole life. So that, that is really a stunner. Wow.

Yes. Yes, it is. I mean, okay, first of all, for this little out to come from her father, the guy who so wanted her to get married. Right. Exactly. And then for her to make that choice. I mean, God, you know, look, my dad may not have been the fully formed, you know, full blown monster that he would become at that point, but, but he, he had clearly lied about a

friend of hers harassing him in the middle of the night. She knew this. She knew this. She saw it. My papa saw it. And yet Darren, and yet she still made the choice to walk down the aisle. Even when she had been given an out by her father. I'm all turned around here. Am I angry again? I think I'm angry. I think you're angry again. I'm angry on your behalf.

You know what? I think we need to go back to the source. All right. So in Kansas City, they have a dance that is like something ball that they had here, something like that. So my dad wanted me to be in it. I was like a junior in high school and I wasn't even dating. I didn't want to be in that at all, but he really wanted me to be in it. And so it was a big deal. Like I had to go to these parties that I didn't want to go to

with my date and talk to, you know, the other kids. And I felt like they were more on top of the social ladder than I was. And I felt like I just didn't enjoy that at all. It made me feel like I couldn't really talk to these boys that were super popular, that were in with those girls that were super popular. I don't know. It just made me feel like I wasn't on their level. And it was hard for me to really talk to boys back then. I didn't think I was good enough for those boys, you know.

And so you're saying that that experience colored your relationship with men from that point onward? Yeah. But then where did that come from? I don't know. All I know is that I even had it later i still every once in a while i still have it that feeling that i'm not on somebody's level oh mom all the time like i mean like when when we are when we are talking and maybe there's something that you don't know you will often preface it to me being like now now i don't don't think I'm stupid or don't say that I'm stupid. Like you have that is a very big part of how you go through the world is this fear that somehow you're not good enough or you're not smart enough.

All right. Yeah. OK, the only thing I can think of is that it's nothing to do with my dad because he was always encouraging to me, but he always was more into what Hyman, that he was not as interested in me as he was in Hyman. Because Hyman, he said Hyman, because Hyman didn't study or whatever Hyman was doing, he got sent to a military school so that he could make sure he got good grades and got into a good college. But with me, he didn't even say anything about my grades. Oh, mom.

Okay, so that's it. I mean, you're saying that you grew up with this feeling that was never expressed to you explicitly, but that was there, that you were not good enough, that Hyman was valued higher, that he was higher on the ladder that you, and then you start making all these assumptions like, oh,

I guess I'm not smart enough. I guess I'm not, not on their level because that's the, the primary dynamic of your home life when you were a kid. I guess so. Well, I also feel like, but I see it now.

I mean, it's pretty well in my guess so. Well, I also feel like... But I see it now. I mean, it's... I also feel like I've done pretty well in my life. You know, I was able to live on my own for a long time and do things. And I went to Israel. I just did a lot of things I felt like in my life. I have a career that I like, a paralegal career. And I've worked for a long time.

I've worked out things when I was married, when I was separated from Richard, like how to work plus take care of kids at home. You know, I just, there was a lot of stuff I did that I felt like I did well. And I look around my place and I really love the way it looks. So, and my house too. Yeah. I love this. Sandy, I love hearing this from you. This, this is,

you are saying the words of a confident person now, someone who is not as insecure as you were when you were younger. Like you, you feel proud of what you've accomplished. So yeah, mom, it's, it's nice to nice to hear you kind of speak so positively about your life. You know, what's occurring to me right now is something really interesting. You know, we were talking about how, I was saying at the beginning, about how my papa offered her an escape hatch there leading up to the wedding to cancel it. hatch there and leading up to the wedding to cancel it but in a way that wasn't an escape hatch at all that the real escape hatch was from a boring life that my papa had inadvertently laid out for her a future that she was not excited about. Oh, that's interesting.

And the real, so the real escape hatch was actually my dad that, that the, that the opportunity that Papa gave her to cancel that wedding was actually like him saying, Hey, you can, you can actually have the life that I dreamt for you. Right. This is not going to be that. So I just want you to know, you can still have that, that boring life where you're going to be that wife and nothing's nothing out of the ordinary is going to happen. And you're not going to do anything out of the ordinary. That's the life that he was actually offering her in that moment. Marrying your dad was the act of rebellion. Yes.

Like we didn't, that's, that's very interesting. It's like the excitement we've been talking about, like she wasn't even aware of it. I don't think this was a conscious choice. And dude, and it also makes me rethink the drugging thing. Like even if you did think somehow that this guy tried to drug me on an early date, it's about your whole life, right? It's like she suddenly sees this opportunity. If you have an opportunity to live a more interesting life, is that worth it? I mean, it's a bit of a crazy question. It's, it's, you know, what you're

making me think of is it's like being a mafia wife. It's like the Karen character in Goodfellas, you know, ever since I was a kid, I wanted to be a gangster. It's like, ever since I was a kid, I wanted to be an archeologist. I wanted to have adventure. Yes. And on some level, this guy gives me adventure. And if you've got to just like turn your head in the other direction as a mob guy is getting stuffed in the trunk for that to happen, then you're like, well, I'm just going to ignore it. I'm going to do what my mom always says she does, which is I don't like to think about negative things. Yes. I'm going to ignore it and I'm going to live a more interesting life. I mean, Jesus, I can totally empathize with that. We all have one chance at this life. We have one chance

to kind of do stuff and, and, and, and experience things and have interesting things. And I can see that there is a way that you can look at your life as like, Oh my God, like, wait a second, you're telling me that I just have to live this boring existence? It's a prison sentence. It's a prison sentence. And you'd do anything to get out of that prison. Yes. And marrying your dad was an escape from that prison.

We've come now to the point at which you married Richard. And we've come to an understanding, I think, of how you got there. And we know in the next episode, we're going to get into the marriage and kind of where it all went wrong and how it all went bad. But before we do, we have to end this episode. Is there anything that you want to say about to set that up about what what the marriage was like and how it went bad? that up about what what the marriage was like and how it went bad? Yes. After I married Richard, and it wasn't until it was maybe a few days later, he said to me, you know, Sandy, I just don't like

how your nose is. I think that you should have a nose job. And I was like shocked but he insisted that he never liked my nose and wanted to have a nose job and then he decided that he wanted a nose job and we were going to have two nose jobs at the same time in New York What? What? So he scheduled an appointment with a doctor in New York City And you took a trip to New York as a couple to get nose jobs?

Yes. All right. Well, Mom, I mean, the amazing thing, every time, I mean. Every time I enjoy this. The amazing thing is there's just an endless supply of stories. I know, but see, like, I don't think, I'm worried that people are not going to believe it, you know, because people. Oh, Mom. People didn't believe me.

My friends didn't believe me when I told them some of the things that Richard did to me when I was married to him. And they told me not to talk about it. Wow, that's really interesting. Because they thought that people wouldn't believe me. Those aren't friends, Sandy. That's terrible for people to say, I don't believe you and don't talk about it. Yeah. I guess so, yeah.

We started this episode with a search for truth and with a bit of anger coming from you, Danny Jacobs. Let me ask you this. Do you think that in this podcast as a whole, we're wrestling with your anger and your own complicated emotions? Is part of this possibly about your own kids. And what I mean is, is there any fear you have that if you don't figure this shit out, that your kids may one day talk about you? Not in the way that you talk about your dad exactly, but kind of in that way. Yes. Oh, yes. For sure. In both conscious and unconscious ways like in the conscious ways it's like those times when i feel like you know that that feeling i get of like oh i'm in an unjust situation and i

want to i want to lash out or i want to do something in front of your children in front you know in front of my children i've been trying to really consciously not do that but like sure i'm sure that there will be times when I fail at that. Like, and so, and I think that that is, that behavior is all tied to my dad. So, so understanding that and diminishing that's really important to me. And then in unconscious ways that I don't even know, understand, like, what are the ways in which growing up with my dad in that context has, has seeped into me in unseeable ways, but they're, they're there under the surface.

I think that's absolutely the case. For what it's worth, as an observer of you and a friend of you, I have noted you seem very calm with your kids. Very calm. I don't know what's going on inside, but very, very calm and loving. Well, you should see me when my daughter's coming out of her room for the 28th time in an evening's bedtime routine. Who can blame you for that? No, that's great to know.

Honestly, like what I'm talking about, though, that behavior is less about like worries about how I'm going to interact with them and more about how they're going to see me interacting with the world. Yes, yes, yes. Like that my relationship to the world, there are echoes I see sometimes in my behavior of my dad me interacting with the world. Yes, yes, yes. Like that my relationship to the world, there are echoes I see sometimes in my behavior of my dad's relationship to the world. And I remember what it was like being a witness to that

and how that affected me and the shame and guilt of that and fearing that that will also happen with my children. And so perhaps in going through this Sha'arei Emet, this gate of truth and feeling a little less anger, maybe we're making progress towards you not repeating that cycle. Yeah, well, yeah, I hope so. I think so. I do. How to Destroy Everything is written, directed, and created by Danny Jacobs and Darren Grotsky. Executive produced by Michael Grant Terry. And edited, sound, designed, and music supervised by Dashiell Reinhart.

Dashiell Reinhart. His name's Dashiell. Okay. Original music by Jesse Terry. Starring in alphabetical order, Noah Harpster, Carolyn Jania, Jonathan Kaplan. Carolyn Jania. Let me start over. No, you got it.

You don't have to start over. Carolyn Jania. Let me start over. No, you got it. You don't have to start over. Carolyn Jania, Jonathan Kaplan, Kiel Kennedy, Kyle Kennedy, Emily Pendergast, Hartley Wexler. If you knew Richard Jacobs and have a story to tell, please reach out to us as IKnowRichardJacobs at gmail.com. Additionally, if you would like to support this podcast, please consider becoming a patron at www.patreon.com slash howtodestoryeverything. And of course, you can find us on Instagram and Twitter.

How to Destroy Everything is available on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Special shout out to Spotify Studios for hosting our recording sessions here for the pod down in downtown Los Angeles. Thanks, Spotify.