Something Was Wrong - S1 Ep9: Unencumbered by the Weight of Women

Episode Date: March 4, 2019

*Content Warning: gaslighting, domestic abuse, emotional and physical abuse, distressing themes.Music from Glad Rags album Wonder Under

This podcast is intended for mature audiences and could be triggering to some. Please use discretion when listening. In Jackson Mackenzie's book, Psychopath Free, he writes, Everything you once understood about people did not apply to this person. During the relationship, you tried to be compassionate, easygoing, and forgiving. You never could have known that this person you loved was actively using these things against you. It just doesn't make any sense. And so you spent your time projecting a normal human conscience onto them, trying to explain away their inexplicable behavior.

But once you discover psychopathy, sociopathy, or narcissism, everything starts to change. You feel disgusted, horrified that you let this darkness into your life. Everything clicks and falls into place. All of the accidental or insensitive behavior finally makes sense. You try to explain this to friends and family members, but no one really seems to get it. This is why validation matters. When you come together with others who have experienced the same thing as you, you discover you are not crazy. You are not alone in this inhuman experience.

It takes a great deal of time to come to terms with this personality disorder. You end up having to let go of your past understanding of human nature, building it back up from scratch. You realize that people are not always inherently good. You begin to feel paranoid, hypervigilant, and anxious. The healing process is about learning to balance this new state of awareness with your once trusting spirit. I'm Tiffany Reese, and this is Something Was Wrong. You think you know me, you don't know me where you don't.

The morning that the text came in, weeks later, that said the refunds have been issued, I get a text at 747 in the morning. It was a Tuesday, and it just said, I am so incredibly sorry. Now, at this point, I was done. So I just said, for what exactly? You still haven't told me everything you lied about. So please, clarify and enlighten me. And then I kept going.

I said, is it for abusing my dog and hiding it from me, for allowing me to part with her, and then pretending that you missed her? or for costing me my place of living and my life with my best friend, for lying about your past and nearly everything I automatically trusted you about, or for continuing to maintain the multiple lies when I gave you multiple chances to come clean, or for trying to log into my accounts, for bullshitting me about something as simple as mailing checks through simple bank, pretending someone as technologically savvy as you couldn't get done in two weeks what I got done in a day,

for telling your friends that you called off the wedding? You can continue to hide behind your photography and your scriptural quotes. We both know actions speak louder than words and yours never lined up. I could keep feeding ideas, but you please tell me everything you're actually sorry for. So then I get a text with my full name. To begin, I'd like to start with an unqualified apology for so much. In time, my prayer is that you know that I am grieving, repenting, and truly sorry for all that has been done and said.

There's much to confess, bullet point. Brian and Kim Powers are not real people. They were made up for a myriad of reasons. It was reckless, self-serving, controlling, deceiving, manipulative, rooted in fear, inadequacy, and desperation. See how now he is, you know, labeling everything and preaching. I lied to you about past addictions.

I lied to you about past indwelling. sin patterns. I've lied. I've battled with lying all my life. I've battled with inadequacy my whole life. One feeds the other. And this broke my heart because I get that. I lied to you about my ex-fiance where she and I were before you and I started talking, why it ended, and how much damage it did to me. I lied to you about my parents, my relationship with them, things I've done for them, and things they have done for me. I lied to you about Dallas. It was the people that I loved. I had. I I hated the place. I lied to you about how much distrust I harbored towards your parents. I lied to you about how much distrust I harbored towards you after your parents' meeting.

Poor guy. Poor victim. I lied to you around wanting to stay in California for a long period of time. I lied to you about how successful all my businesses have been. I lied to you about handling the checks in a timely matter. I lied to you about how financially secure I was in California. There were quite a few months. It was paycheck to paycheck. I am so sorry for the hurt and the pain I have caused and then signed his full name. And that's when I just went on to say, there is more to confess, let me be specific. And that's when I called him out for terrorizing my dog when I wasn't around and mistreating Finn, how he saw my wedding dress, fed me numbers for his birthday surprise, got me to buy him a Bible, as Brian, called him out for why his distrust in my parents was because they just started to see inconsistencies.

And so he chose to run. I said, you made up fake prophecies and dreams to lie to and manipulate me. I said in your deep knowledge of scripture, let me remind you of what it has to say about those who practice those things because he would know. And then that's when I said, oh, damage that you're ending with your ex did to you? How about her? You're not the victim here. You victimized her.

I kept going. I had a lot to unleash. I said, the brand of Christianity you've chosen is not fixing anything at all. blah, blah, blah. And that's when I ended it with. Here's the thing. If you try anything at all, I'm filing for both an animal abuse report and a restraining order. All manipulation lies, any brand of stocking with me ends here. Nothing else is any of my business. It was, I can't remember what month. It was pretty shortly after, you know, everything hit the fan and the dust was kind of still settling. And my sister texted me and said, hey, what was his ex-fiancee's

name? And honestly, I couldn't remember. and then she said, was it this? And it had a unique spelling. So she texted it to me. And seeing the spelling triggered my memory. And I remembered a text, a random text way back from Kimmy, mentioning her and mentioning the way that like no one had hurt him the way that she did or something like that and had all these colorful names for her.

And I remember thinking, oh, that's a unique name and a unique way of spelling. And I'd never seen it before. So when my sister texted me this, I all of a sudden went, yep, that's her. So she and some of my girlfriends from home had been digging really deep in his Facebook and found an old blog post because his ex-fiance's aunt is a photographer. And she had done kind of one of those new couple photo shoot things, you know, that people like to do. And they had just gotten together and the blog post was still up. So it's a bunch of like super edited, you know, black and white photos and stuff like that of the, two of them and I knew that that was her and the aunt's photography page had her phone number on it.

So I decided to reach out to her and left her the weirdest voicemail I've ever left in my life. And I gave her my number and obviously told her, you know, if this is too weird, feel free to not, you know, call me back. But I just, I have some questions. I'd love to get answered. So she texted me back probably within a few hours and said, you know, that she had gotten her permission to give me her number and said, what was the way she worded it? She said, glad you got out of that or glad you got away. He's a wild card. That guy is a wild card or something like that. And then I

reached out to his ex and she texted me back and said, hey, I'm at dinner, but, you know, happy to call you. Can we talk in a little bit? And then that night we talked on the phone for, I think it was like an hour and 45 minutes or something. And I was at my friend's house, my old roommate, hanging out. So I went out to the porch and she just didn't see me for like the next couple hours. So we talked for the longest time. She gave me the whole timeline and I realized that I had obviously, you know, just believed his timeline. He had said he had been single for the last like six or seven years, you know, just undivided, seeking the Lord, undistracted, you know, unencumbered by the weight of women. But she said that they had actually been on and off for six years up until

they met when she was 19. And he was, I don't know, he's like five or six years older than her. They were together for two years, got engaged. And then a month before the wedding was supposed to happen, her dad came to her and said, I cannot walk you down the aisle. to this man. Like, I feel that God has told me this, I can't give you to this man, and that is the one voice I will not disobey. I cannot do it. And she has a really close relationship with her dad and knew that he wanted the best for her and that there was something here that she needed to pay attention to. I guess when she canceled the wedding, his mom sent a mass email to the entire family and C-Ced her on it. And pretty much war just.

it, gave her name and said basically that she has chosen to call this off, like formal announcement, public service announcement, so and so has called off the wedding of my son and her and cancel all your tickets, cancel everything, refund, you know, return all your gifts, blah, blah, blah, and just like roasted her over the coals for it in front of everybody. but yet they all still think that she's meant for him so so they called it off but i think they stayed together from my understanding um she would have moved forward and married him and worked through everything well with the idea that they could um if her dad hadn't said this is there's something worse than just him having you know some issues like i can't this is not safe so that i think was what initially

slowed like hit the brakes but it was like okay okay, we're going to see if we can make this work. And, you know, it's not super easy to rewind and revert back to just dating when you've, you know, basically planned an entire wedding. So they tried to do the dating thing. I think they even tried counseling, but it didn't work because he wouldn't be honest. She ended up moving for a dream job. And he moved kind of at the same time.

And they broke up, but he kept saying things. like, oh no, you're going to marry me. We're going to get married. And he would fly out to her like every couple weeks or so and stay out there for the weekend and everything looked like they were together. He would just behave like they were together. And when you're being love bond, like you are, any girl is hardwired to respond, especially when we're young and we don't have anything to compare this to. We are hardwired to respond to adoration and admiration. You know, you can't help it. So when someone comes along who, older than you, apparently wiser than you, but also thinks that, you know, the sun shines out

your butt and you're 19, 20 years old. Eventually you're going to do whatever this person, you know, tells you to do or you're going to think whatever they tell you to think because you think that they think you rule the world. And then that's how, you know, slowly over time, you let them in enough that they break you down. But as you get older, you start to recognize, you know, the differences. And over time, you know, they would break up, get back together, break up, get back together. and she knew all of his crap, but I think what really kept her linked was the emotional tie

because he was apparently fighting cancer. The entire time they were together, I don't necessarily know what type of cancer it was, but she would get, she mentioned something about like paperwork in the mail, lawyers of his called her at certain points. I mean, it was like serious. And, oh, and while she was,

was at her new job in a different state, she found out that friends of his were telling him where she was. And I freaked out a little bit when she mentioned that because that lined up was something that Kimmy had told me about what his ex was up to. The way Kimmy told me the story was that his ex cheated on him, that he, I remember this later, that he walked into their house together and saw his ex and his friend on the kitchen table. Yeah. And that ended that. So I had this idea that he had been cheated on multiple times.

God knows what he was actually doing. But anyway, Kimmy told me that friends of his or that she was like waiting tables, like working at a restaurant or something. And a friend of his got back to him and said, hey, you know, what's your ex-fiancee doing working at so-and-so's restaurant? And he's like, I don't know. I mean, his whole story was he didn't know where she went. He had no idea. Well, her story was that friends of his were reporting back to him what she was doing.

And all these profiles on Instagram and stuff would keep following her. His family continued to follow her and reach out to her, comment on stuff, like things. Up until fairly recently, they've told her, you know, you guys were meant to be together. You should have married him. You're still, you know, the one for him kind of thing. So we're talking spring of 2017. and he and I met in fall of 2017. He flew her and a brother out to the bay to be with him.

And they spent a few days out there. And then fast forward to fall, he and I met on September 14th. Her birthday is September 18th. So when we compared timelines, she goes, oh, girl, let me put it this way. I mean, the 18th is my birthday. And things were going as normal. Like he contacted me on my birthday, wish my happy birthday, all the things that he normally would do.

And four days in, you know, dick time, we might as well, we're planning our future family. So she said it wasn't until late October. He had gone kind of radio silent and she started to freak out. Because right around then, shortly after her birthday, I think she'd sort of started to think maybe this actually could work. Maybe he's gotten healthier. I mean, that was just how deep in she was emotionally and couldn't really see clearly. And she thought, maybe there's a chance.

And then he goes radio silent out of nowhere. And she's so cute. She goes, I'm so sorry, girl, I'll be honest. I blew up his phone because he just ghosted me. And I didn't know what was going on. I thought, is the cancer back? Is there something wrong? He's out, you know, in California alone.

Do I need to help him? So she kept calling him. And finally, it was toward the end of October when she got him on the phone. And he kind of shocked her by responding with, what do you want? And she was like, what do I? I want, what do you want out of this? You've been, you know, you're the one who's been telling me for years that we're going to get married. He had made jokes like, you know, I'm going to be that guy, you know, looking in your living room window.

If you marry someone else, you know, watching you and your husband or something like that. And he had hacked her webcam. And I was like, wait, how do you know? And she just laughed and she goes, I have pictures because he texted her photos of herself to prove to her to show her. See, I told you you're not going to be able to get away from me. So she had all this floating around in the back of her mind when she finally gets him on the phone and he's acting weird. And then she finally just says, what is actually happening? Is the cancer back?

Are you with somebody? Can you just tell me what's going on because this is weird and she knows his patterns anyway? And he denied that he was with somebody. He kind of like steered away from that, said that he doesn't really know what's going to. going on, that the doctors, you know, he's concerned or his doctor doesn't really know what's going on. He's super stressed with work. It's just a lot. And she kind of kept pushing the point. She kept saying, just tell me, are you with somebody? Because I know what you tend to do, you know, when that happens. And he kept saying, no. And finally she said, okay, you know, let me put it this way. We're never

getting back together. This isn't ever going to be a thing. So knowing that, will you just tell me the truth? And that's when he said yes. And then proceeded to say things like, you know, She's better than you. She has more to, just totally went off the rails. And she said, okay, look, I'm happy for you. Go live your life. But you will never be able to give me what I deserve. You'll never basically, you know, be enough. And if I hear from you again, I'm going to file a restraining order. But that's like a, it was several hours of conversation summed up. She also got multiple confessions out of him that she had been able to get out of him for the whole six years that they've been together. That was when she found out that the cancer just wasn't a thing.

Never had cancer, which I'm sure left her to wonder, who the hell called me, claiming to be his lawyer, what paperwork did she get in the mail? Like, how much time did this guy have, you know, have to put all this together? So he created the cancer as basically a tool, speculating as a tool to keep her. sort of roped in support Aaron okay yep to be like woe is me yep how could you leave me now I have cancer yep and then she would because he was trying to like basically drive that point home so much he would send medical bills to her address some kind of yeah some kind of medical bills or like lab work or some kind of reports or something but she was getting some kind of report or she

saw something of his or he showed her something like that yeah so there was paperwork involved. And she spoke to somebody on the phone that was definitely not him. As far as I know, unless he used a voice changing out. But in her opinion, it was some other person. Yes. Called her. And what was, do you know what the point of the phone call was? I don't remember, because we talked about the fake lawyers in our very first phone conversation and there was so much like digging up of stuff that that was one thing and then we just kept moving on to all the other lies. So all she said was I got at least one, if not more phone calls from people that claimed to be his lawyers. I assumed it was like end-of-life arrangements. I don't know how to, that's kind of like,

you know, if this gets more serious, we need to have his affair as an order kind of thing. And she was that person that they contacted or that he listed. Yeah, I forget what all that is called, but that kind of thing. I'm telling you, he says he works 80 hours. a week, I believe it. It's just not all at his job. He's got a lot to juggle. You get the blanket statement and like days later you're processing, oh, that means that wasn't real. When I shared with her the text that he sent me and also signing it, his full name, she kind of rolled her eyes and she was like he did the exact same with me. It's like you copy pasted the same texts and he would do the whole first, middle, last name thing, write something like formally that looked like it was

in letter form and then sign it, you know, your love or dearest or whatever, and then his full name at the end. I think the closest I can get in putting myself in their shoes is to think, okay, now it's all about survival and it's all about tactics. How do I, number one, stay in control of this situation? How do I get control of the narrative? So if I can get ahead and control, what's being said and where we're going. And if I can't get out of a confession, if I give her what she wants, she might, or what she will believe, you know,

I might win. It's kind of like when he finally confessed to me about Kimmy and Brian, even though I knew he wasn't giving me the whole truth, he gave me what he thought I thought was the truth. And then, oh, good, okay, we're good from there. I did the right thing. I confessed my lie.

So now I'm a broken man in need of grace. so help me heal. And it was like a guilt thing. You can't, you know, you're called to help, you know, the broken. So if you choose to walk away from me now that I've bared my, you know, imperfect soul, now it makes you the bad guy for walking away from someone who needs help. So I think that's the best reason I can come up with. It's a survival tactic.

It's a way to stay in control. And it's a way to get, eventually get her sympathy. If he can't be the cancer victim, he can be the broken guy that had to lie about cancer so that she will still help him. Did she ever see signs of like the addiction stuff that you guys discovered later? Like, I don't know what substances it was, but you mentioned celebrating. It's definitely alcohol. Yeah. I don't know if we've talked a whole lot about that.

I don't think it surprised her at all. I think she knew that he had ups and downs and was inconsistent. Like he would say one thing. then a couple days later, change his mind and just be doing the opposite of what he'd said, here's what we're going to do now. Two days later, the rules have changed. But he got to dictate that kind of thing. And I was like, yeah, same thing would happen with me. He would tell me that I drink wine a lot. And I would think, are you, are you projecting? Because I haven't even mentioned drinking anything for the past few weeks. I can take or leave it. And he would say,

I want this to be a no wine household, you know, like when we get married kind of thing. And I'd go, okay cool you do you and then three days later I'd come home and there'd be like a $40 bottle of wine on the kitchen table with like $350 worth of groceries from Whole Foods. There goes our budget and yet I bought an $8 salad at Whole Foods one day and I heard about it we were at the gym last that night and I remember feeling guilty mentioning it and I had forgotten my lunch at work I can't go all day without food and so I try to keep it you know if you can get a salad at Whole Foods for eight bucks you're a champ And I remember thinking, I'm going to have to explain this when I tell him.

It was so stupid. Looking back, of course, and that night we were at the gym and I mentioned it. And he said something like, like hope it was worth it, you know, that $8 salad or something like that. And I straight up, I had a moment of clarity where I just said, don't get on me about my $8 salad when $350 bucks of, you know, some niche organic vodka you felt like you had to have from Whole Foods. and this $30 bottle of wine in this huge hunk of meat in the freezer that you want to smoke. But yeah, here's eight bucks for the salad. So in the summer, I was noticing, even after I had, you know, like bank accounts, all that stuff, I changed card numbers.

But I was going through, and on Gmail, you know, it'll tell you what devices are logged in and their location. And I saw a small town in Colorado and then a certain town in the Bay Area and went, hmm, wonder who that is. And when I called him on it, he didn't deny it. And I set my Gmail or I set everything to two-factor authentication. So you have to get a text. And it was my sister's birthday. And we were driving to dinner and all of a sudden I get this text saying, your login code is blah, blah, blah, blah. And I flipped. So I went and, you know, changed everything. But she said, she's so sweet. She goes, girl, you're so smart. It took me like a year or a year and a half.

to figure out that he was logging into everything. Because she said, I would get weird notifications that I had nothing to do with, or I would see things were changed that I hadn't touched. And she's like, you know, face palm, duh. And I'm thinking, well, that doesn't even occur to you to do to somebody or think that someone would do to you. You know, why would that even, you know, she's not focusing on that stuff. She's living her life.

And then one day she realizes. But yeah, he was hacking her accounts. But the day that I called him on that and told him if I see any other evidence from you, like anything weird on any account whatsoever. I'm giving your information to the police. And he never addressed it. He never said, I'm sorry, but he also didn't say, what the heck, that wasn't me, you know. Did the ex confirm that he went to prom with Julian Huff? Did she laugh out loud? She actually asked his mom about that one time. They were in their house. And she asked her mom, or his mom, and his mom looked at her with like this blank look on her face and pulled out the

photos. She pulled out this photo album because she's got it all scrapbook. And there's just this random chick in the picture. It's definitely not Julianna. I don't even think his mom knows who that person is. So she just kind of looked at her like, who? And then showed her the picture, kind of like, is this who you're talking about? Because this is the prone picture. No. Not Julianna. And she also confirmed that what he told me was that he had sold, he found out as he got the call, you know, from his, his dad that mom's cancer is back. They were like up to their ears in hospital bills and medical bills. And of course, he did the right thing by just straight up selling his business and leaving Texas and going home and paying off all of their medical debt.

which was apparently over a hundred grand. I have that number in my head. I just don't remember exactly how many hundreds of thousands of dollars it was, but, you know, way up there. And moved home to be with them. Found out later, and I even think he might have mentioned this, I just didn't think to link the two, that I think he burned the business to the ground.

But he also turned that into like a heroic, you know, underdog story. You kind of rise up from the ashes and learn and do better next time, you know. except that I don't think he did. I think he burned a couple businesses to the ground. I'd be really curious to talk to those employees, the people that worked with him. If they even exist. Yeah.

Who knows? I have a lot of questions now. But there are, I think he did. I know that he did work for a couple companies in Texas because I've seen, you know, the people on there are photos out there of him with, you know, co-workers and stuff. But the longevity of those jobs, the team dynamic. Who knows?

because his ex-fiancee also told me that he did interview to work for Ramsey. And I think he had a couple of interviews because she drove him out there to the interview. And it was like an eight-hour process. It was an all day thing because it's pretty intense. Their interview process. And for some random reason, he was honest with her when she came to pick him up and they went to dinner afterwards to talk about it. And he told her why he didn't get the job. And I guess they straight up told him, they said, we don't feel that you would be a good fit.

And they actually said that you would not be a positive addition or a healthy addition to the community environment or the company environment. And I want to say they used the word toxic even. But something that said you would be the opposite of a healthy addition to this culture. Company culture. I think that's what they said. But the way he pitched it to her was like, I don't know what they're talking about. about they said something stupid about me not being blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And that's fine because I didn't really want the job anyway.

It was just a pity interview. Looking back. His dear friend, Dave Ramsey? Yeah. Oh, man. It's only funny because we're all still okay. Yeah, totally. There's honestly so much.

My brain is just like, where do I even start? Because I feel like she and I are great friends now. And it's all just like the last several months, there's been so much conversation. But I'll randomly text him and text her and say, What did you know about this? And she'll laugh and be like, LOL, no way. Or yeah, that happened.

And that's, that was the last text that summer until just a few weeks ago when I told him that he used my credit card. Yeah, can we talk about that a little bit? Yeah. How you discovered that. Yeah, I was doing my taxes and I was looking through expenses

and for some reason I had just missed a few kind of small charges on a card that I don't use super often. And there were two Southwest charges, in July and two in August. And of course I see that on my statement. My heart starts pounding because I know that I did not fly Southwest in July or August. And there, one is like a boarding upgrade, like a group upgrade, which I knew he always did when he got to the airport and a couple of other things. So I called my bank and they, no, I called Southwest first. And

because my name was on the card that paid for it, they gave me all the information. They It gave me the name I didn't want to hear. And a girl that was on the reservation as well. So I immediately texted him and I said, you owe me for this, this, this, this, and this for you and. And I named the other girl just so he knew, like, I'm not playing around. I know that this was you. And immediately I get an Apple pay reimbursement for the full cost. And he was like, I'm at a loss.

I'm so surprised. I have no idea, you know, what this is. I'm so surprised, you know, please send me all the information. And I said, you can look up your Southwest charges yourself. You know, and he said, I'm not seeing the card anywhere on this. I don't know how this happened. And I just said, I don't need to hear any explanation. I don't need to hear excuses.

Just pay me back and get it done. And FYI, you know, now's the time to tell me about anything else. Because if I find it, I'm just going to give it straight to the police, along with all of your contact information. So come out with it now. And he didn't really address that. He just said, I have no idea how this happened. Please, again, he said, please send me the Southwest information.

I'm like, I'm not sending you anything. Look it up, dude. And when I called the bank, they reminded me, because they looked in my records, and saw that back in May, when the week that we'd broken up, I called my bank. I canceled the card that I had him added to as an authorized user. Because of his new job, he was going to be booking flights a lot. and my credit card was better for booking flights on. So I had added him when we were together as an authorized user,

and he booked a couple flights on it, which he reimbursed me for after we broke up. But for some reason, after I reported that card as lost or stolen and took his name off of the authorized user list, when he used it in July and August, it just didn't get flagged. So the charges went through. They added up to a total of about $100. bucks, but they were four, you know, smaller transactions. So it still showed up on my statement, even though the numbers that it ended in were the numbers of the old card and not the new one

that my bank had mailed me. So he claims that he doesn't know, you know, how those charges got on there, but he didn't book the flight like anything else on that. He just charged the upgrades to it. I don't know how that, you know, happened on accident. But he kept it really PC when he was texting me back, which might have been because his new girlfriend was close by, who knows. But I was just super straight with him and said, look, I'm not here to have a conversation about how it was an accident. Just pay me back and get it done and tell me anything else. Because this is two months. Yeah. They're basically flying. He's flying with another girl. Uh-huh. Two months after the wedding, which is just insane. You found her, right, by her name. Can you

tell me a little bit about that? Yeah, yeah. I messaged her on Instagram, no way. I'm like, this chick's going to think, who the heck are you? Especially if they're not together anymore, if this is over. You know, this is going to be super weird. So my message went unopened for a little while. But then when she got back to me, you know, she was open, but just kind of like, you know, what do you need for me? And I'm like, I know this is weird. I'm just really curious to hear what your experience was like.

If you're open to sharing, how long did this go on for? And are you okay? I think, oh, actually, because she asked me, why did you? what made you decide to reach out to me if you knew that, you know, this is over? And I said, what freaked me out is the Southwest guy on the phone said that you called in yourself to change the reservation, either change or cancel. And I thought, was this girl upset? Was she distraught? Did kind of a nasty breakup happen? Why didn't he just call and take care of all the arrangements? Because that's what he did when he and I were

together. I never did anything. He wouldn't let me. But if she called in herself and canceled, I thought maybe she was pissed. And eventually, you know, she got more comfortable. She opened up to me a little bit more, but said that she, from the very beginning, was uncomfortable with the pace of everything. I think that, you know, they were saying, I love you pretty early on. Well, they had to have been because they were only together a couple months. But he moved really quickly. She was uncomfortable with his driving. He drove really recklessly. He could be very harsh with his words. She was shocked at some of the things that he would tell her had gone down at work or the things that he had said to people and stuff like that. And she called him on a lot of his BS. I guess one time she said, you're not going to

do that with me. That makes me uncomfortable. And he complied. Or she would say, that's not okay. You can't do that. And I forget the title of the book, but she actually gave him a book that said something like, it kind of teaches men how to treat women. I was like, yeah, get it. And she was was, I mean, she's awesome. We've talked back and forth for the last few weeks, and she said that he did tell her that he had been engaged at least twice. She thought he said three times, but she can't remember if she had the number three in her head because he joked about her being the third. Like, he was already kind of going there with her. And that made her, I think the pace, you know, that's part of what made her uncomfortable because it was already going really fast. And within

a couple weeks, I think, of their relationship. She was on his like Uber accounts. He was paying for things. She was on a vacation and had a weird experience with an Airbnb. So he paid and put her and a friend up in a hotel. And she face-timed his, I want to say, parents and maybe brother and sister-in-law. But they met towards the end of July. And I think they broke up in like September or October, which would have meant that if

He was posting, I Love You's, with another girl in January. He must have, you know, turned on a dime. Is that his newest girlfriend, the one that he started dating in January? Well, the one that he started posting about in January. Okay. Yeah. And then there was another girl that contacted me, which I'll have to get into later, but... Oh, yeah.

The one that contacted me on Instagram, who dated him, I think, before, right before you? And she also... He kept blowing her phone up and... Yeah, they had gone on a couple of dates. She sent us the screenshots of their text conversations. And you can tell that she's kind of holding back and straight up ghosting him. And he was passive aggressive when she would finally reply. He would say, you know, oh, you're alive kind of thing.

But what weirded me out was one of these texts that he sent her. You can tell and he's in like full pursuing, you know, charm mode. You could have copy pasted that. I remember it word for word. you could copy-pasted it into a conversation that he and I had the first like three or four days of, I think after we had gone to that concert, which is a Wednesday night and I want to say the next like, Thursday or Friday or Saturday morning, he texted me this text that was like, excuse me, I'm looking for this, you know, gorgeous woman who is this and this and this and this, you know,

all these super flowery compliments. Can you tell me how she is and how she slept, you know, super charming, sent the exact same damn text to her. I swear he copy-pasted it over and probably sent it to a few others just to, you know, get all the feelers out there. But she started to feel uncomfortable with how often he was reaching out, I think, and finally just kind of stopped responding. And then a few weeks went by and he would randomly like old photos of hers way back in her social media account.

So she finally just blocked him. Because I think that was in like March. of the year that we met, which also, if you're adding up his ex-fiancee's timeline, I think April or May was when he flew her out. Yeah. So he was dating her at the same time. He was still with the ex. With the ex. Yeah. Yeah. And they met on Hinge too, right? Everyone that I recall at this point has met him on Hinge. Yeah, the girl in the Southwest charges met him on Hinge. And looking at his Hinge profile, the screenshots I saw, the questions that he asked were very interesting. Oh, that's right. Yeah. So I'm not super familiar with Hinge, but when I looked at the,

when I look at it now with fresh eyes, first of all, all of his pictures have like babies, dogs. Babies dogs. Props that say, look at me, I'm safe. Yep. And then he's got a picture with a snake, ironically. Oh yeah, when he went rattlesnake hunting in Texas. But then he has, I saw that it said something like, tell me your biggest fear and your greatest hope. That nobody knows. That nobody knows. And it's like, that's a sociopath trap right there.

That's such a, like, tell me, give me your secret. Hey, stranger, random person that doesn't even know me yet. Let's start off the relationship with your darkest secret. Yep. So it's like, I can manipulate you from the jump. Before we met. before we've even had contact. Give me the rug that you're standing on

so that I can be ready to rip it out from under you. Well, and going back to the kid thing too, something I remembered looking back is if we were in the car, you know, no one else can hear us. If we're in the grocery store and he saw, you know, a kid that maybe wasn't super cute or something, he would make some flippant comment. Be like, what, the ruggy anyway.

And he, in the moment I took it as, oh, he's saying it for the shock factor to be funny, but I also had this weird churning in my gut that like, that's sick. That's just mean and that's kind of inhuman to say that. Or we would, you know, an elderly person would be crossing the street. And he'd make some joke, you know, that he was going to hit him or whatever. And he'd be like, that doesn't matter.

They're about kick the bucket anyway. And he'd say that about family members that he apparently loves so much, you know, about, you know, grandparents or whatever. That would be dead soon anyway. Doesn't matter. But if you hear him talk to his family about family members or if for some reason it fit his, you know, narrative in the moment, or if he was trying to make me feel guilty. for something. It was, you don't understand the depth of love in this family. You don't understand the depth of loyalty. What was it? He said, the fallout from your choices in my family will be nuclear for years.

And I'm like, the family that you didn't want to see because they're all going to die soon anyway. Can you tell me a little bit about his brother and you exchanging texts? First question, everybody asks, yes, it is him. And this was Sunday, May 13th, 416 p.m. I said, hey, are you and your wife available to FaceTime sometime soon? Monday, May 14th, 748 p.m. Yes, we would love the opportunity to talk with you. Tuesday the next morning, I said, hi, did your brother tell you the details of the lie he kept up for the entirety of our relationship? And he said, yes, we spent no less than four hours discussing in detail, much of what transpired. I'm a person that presses on things that don't add up.

I also know Dick in areas where he has failed that time. I can't help but laugh and I call him that. Okay, so I just said, okay, it just helps me to know. Thanks. Did he tell you that he posed as two different people for extremely in-depth, vulnerable conversations with me for hours on end and used scripture to tell me to ignore the advice of my parents multiple times? I'm asking because he made it sound as if you and his friends are saying

that we should work this out and come back from it. But I would appeal to you as a brother and a dad to think of me as your own sister or daughter and ask what you would advise her to do in this situation. I simply couldn't come back from it. I don't know him anymore because advice I got on how to treat him was from him himself. He persistently reached out to me as them when he could have been convicted and stopped. He did not confess it to me. I had to drag it out of him after figuring it out. And even when given multiple chances, it took two separate conversations to get an almost full confession. If he had come 100% clean the very first time when given the chance, I honestly might have chosen differently because I truly loved him and wanted with everything in me

to figure things out, but he didn't. I just need someone on his side who loves and cares for him to know. I want him to truly seek help. I'm so thankful for how your family accepted me and treated me from the beginning. I want you all to know my heart and most of all I want healing for him, but it can't happen in the context of a relationship with me. It has to be for himself and I have many thoughts and mindsets to untangle that built up over eight months from a person that I never actually talked to. So here's his response. So I want to start off this bit with an understanding that my role as an elder in the church, the gospel capitalized for that matter, requires me to look at this entire situation through the lens of Holy

regardless of Dick's status as my brother. That doesn't mean that I don't get to have emotional responses, but they have to be checked through that lens. Hence my time between text messages with you. I was upset and my initial fleshly response is typically anger, which has to be checked and repented for. I wasn't sure like anger at your brother or anger towards me, but anyway. So for that, I'm sorry for some of the rather raw thoughts that I had for you and your family. Oh, I guess it was our God has tempered my anger, but I'm not quite redeemed from the emotions. Second, I hear you and I completely understand where you are coming from. My wife and myself cannot comprehend the internal damage and struggle that this must have caused,

not only you, but your family and friends. I'm still not entirely sure the thought process, if there is one, that made Dick think that what he was doing was right. Sin is not rational, and at time it makes the sinner seem completely irrational and stupid. We see it all the time in addicts who have families who continue to engage in drug abuse, regardless of the people that they are hurting all around them. The same could be said with anyone whom sins, but I think it's appropriate to see the extremes and take it down to the heart-level sins.

Jesus does this when he redefines, oh, sorry, when he redefines the Ten Commandments in Matthew to the Pharisees. Quote, you haven't killed anyone? Have you hated your brother? Use a murderer, bro. and he wrote my translation, his translation. My wife and I had a conversation not too long ago about our fears with eldership. She told me that one of her fears is that one day she will wild out and run

down the Romans One road given over to our fleshly desires. I told her something that I think is appropriate in this conversation. I don't think that spirit-filled Christians run down Romans 1. I think that the enemy tricks us into thinking that the half steps don't count. I'm sorry, this is just, I feel sick. Okay. Eventually, we end up walking down a path that we never intended on going, blinded by our wants and empowered by our fears and doubts. If we don't have a good Christian community around us to point out these half steps, we will walk blindly without recognizing just how far we have gone down the path. I honestly believe that this is what happened in this particular circumstance. Fears, doubts, pain, sin, all contributed into the decisions that were made.

redeemable, of course. Heartbreaking? Obviously. Devastating? Sin does that. New text. I do want to leave you with a very true story. One of my best friends and my worship leader, and then he gives me his name. Several years ago went through one of the most terrible experiences that I've ever seen. His wife had to confess that she had been sleeping with his father for their entire engagement

and into the first years of their marriage. There were questions around whose children were whose. He was deeply engaged in porn and through years of discovery, it was found that his wife had been sexually assaulted, several times, including being groomed by his father for years before he actually slept with her. As you can imagine, this situation looked like they could never recover from this. I mean, how could you? But God, being rich in mercy, redeemed this relationship so that he could be glorified in this text message conversation and hundreds more like it.

And then he gives their names. They still have struggles, but they have been used. to counsel marriages where only they have the ability to engage to those depths. I just feel like I have to stop and say people who are not Christians. This is not okay. This is not normal. This is not normal. Anyway, I say all of this not to sway you one way or another. It is my understanding that this relationship is over and I can understand why you would make those decisions. I say it because God, being rich and mercy, pulled

a marriage out of utter lies, deception, sexual immorality, and things like these for his glory and redeemed what once was broken. He did the same for me while I was working as a functional alcoholic and homeless. I believe in a God that redeems the broken, heals the sick, and raises the dead to life. I hope and pray for you and your family that that is the same God that you worship. I love my brother. He has made mistakes in your relationship and done a considerable amount of damage in your family and to you. He's not perfect. and God is still working in him. I would end this rather long bit of texting with this.

Do you believe that Dick had your best interest in mind while committing the sin that he did? To put it another way, was he trying to better your relationship through a very sinful and stupid method? This is again not to sway you, nor is it condoning the sin. I don't need an answer and don't expect one.

He didn't get one. I respect your decision and want nothing more than Jesus' glory to be made known to a dead world. I'm sorry. I just want to give you a second. Well, one, that's, like you said, that's not normal. It's also disgusting that he's using this example of a woman who is being sexually raped.

Yep. Groomed by a grown-ass man. Yep. Her husband's father groomed her and raped her. Get out. And he's saying that God redeemed. God never asks women to stay in abusive marriages. That has never stated in the Bible.

Are women just props? Are we just here? We're here to sharpen them and we are just here to, I mean. A family member told me, commented on my blog and said, you could have been the strength that your husband needed to become closer to God. At what expense? You're feeling and you don't matter. He matters.

His development matters. Your development does not matter. I am here so that he can get better, apparently. What's interesting is when I was talking, I talked to your mom on the phone last week. She's like, my new best friend. I love her so much. But we were talking, she was like, we don't teach in our house that women and men are not equal. That is not our brand of Christianity.

We believe that all people are equal. Yep. All the way here, I kept thinking about, you know, the people that, obviously, if you don't get it, you haven't been through it. And if, and not everybody is fortunate or blessed enough to have it. a dynamic with their family that, you know, could quite literally save their lives one day. So anybody that calls it codependent doesn't get it. But when you're in that situation, you cannot think for yourself. So you have to rely on others who truly do love you. They don't

have their own agenda in mind. They want the best for you to think for you. If they hadn't, I don't want to know where I would have been. And I don't want to have to, you know, learn the hard way. My quote, you know, codependent. community saved my life. They support me. They let me do what I want. But in this instance, I loved and trusted them enough that I could tell the difference in their tone. I could see the fear in them. And that's when I thought there's something beyond what I can understand right now and I need to trust it. It wasn't just a, oh, they just don't like it. They don't want things to go this way. They're scared. That was different. We have not shared Dick's real name. And people are very,

very interested in that. Naturally. Naturally. That was never the goal. You know, the whole goal of the project wasn't to bring attention to a person because really the perpetrators in these stories aren't worth the time.

It's the victims. It's the people that might fall into it that I wanted, you know, to hear it. So yeah, so we have tried to keep his identity a secret for that reason because it's not about him. It's not his story. It's your story. And female voices,

need to be listened to without being doubted. Women deserve the benefit of the doubt. We should not have to prove ourselves. However, everything shared on the podcast has also been fact-checked. There are multiple sources. There is a plethora of paper trail vet visits. Okay, so all the receipts. I could drown you in receipts.

I could drown you and bury this M-effort in receipts. So yesterday we wake up there, I'm summarizing. I out of nowhere get a text from him that has a screenshot of a Twitter account that is now down, so, you know, don't jump up to run to your computers or anything. But, okay, it was about Kimmy and Brian, and there were tags of, they tagged his job, they tagged, what is it, the P-E-T-A, they tagged Pita, hashtagged, you know, animal abuse, and they were quoting scripture and basically calling him out. for abusing my dog and his dog.

And there were photos, one of my dog that was pulled from my account. And one of him and his dog that is not publicly available? That kind of, you know, threw me off a little bit. I've done some deep Googling to see if it's one of the photos out there. And it's definitely not. But it was on his old hinge profile. It's not on it anymore. And it was, I think, on his now private Instagram account.

So interesting. you know, development. But anyway, I got a screenshot of that account from him. And then the words below just said, I'm going to need your mailing address for legal purposes. And then you got an email. I got an email. But one, he has your MFing address.

Let's be clear. Right. Also, he knows where I work. He knows where my family lives. He could send it to your job. Also, when real people use actual lawyers. I'm going to say. When real people who aren't just lying to try and intimidate,

women because they're weak, sick, bitch little cowards. They send their lawyers who can find you and serve you papers. I wanted to text back so bad. You know, you must have a cheap ass lawyer if you're doing your own legwork. And the account had been up for what, 20 minutes and he wasn't tagged in any of the posts. It was really quick. And he's on it. And he found it. And then we were able to tell, even though his Twitter is now private, he loves Twitter, first of all. He's like, He just loves to tweet. He has so much to say and fight with with people on there, by the way, also. Well, I know now why he was so busy.

I mean, even, you know, his ex-girlfriends that I've talked to and the one from last summer, part of the reason she broke up was she said he's too busy with his job. He has no margin to date. And I was like, are you sure it's his job or is he on Twitter in the bathroom? So he sends me an email. He said essentially, it has come to my attention today that through this Twitter and tags on Instagram that there is a podcast out, which by the way, bullshit. I know you've been looking at my stories since I said you weren't looking at my stories because you're trying to

intimidate me. Somebody asked me on Instagram if Dick had blocked me on Instagram and if he ever lurked my stories. And I said, no, he hasn't blocked me. And no, he doesn't watch my stories. And what happens the next day? He blocks me and starts watching all my stories with his secondary account because, you know, I just have so many accounts that I need on every platform on social media for all these backups and all this stuff that I'm doing all the time. So I said, so he says basically the same thing to me, send me your address. And I'm just like, yeah, okay. Sure, women are so stupid that we're just going to be like, oh, hello, psychopath, here is my address. Also, would you like my social security number? My blood type? Let me just

unlock the door and leave, I'll leave the back. open for you. You know, my bedroom's the third on the left. So I said, Dick, I know nothing, I know nothing of this Twitter account or their intent. I have made every effort to protect your real identity because I knew you'd try to threaten us with legal action

in an attempt to continue to harass, bully, traumatize, and harm Sarah. I am not in the something was wrong Facebook group, but I have made sure that the moderator put a very strong disclaimer that any attempts to even guess your identity will result in deleted comments and being blocked from the group. You are the last person on the planet I would give my address to. It is not illegal to tell the truth.

All information on the podcast has been confirmed by multiple sources, witnesses, and I have a plethora of paper trail to back up all information shared. If you continue to contact me, I will file a restraining order. order. We have multiple witness statements and documentation and my favorite, get help. Clap back. Clap back. Shout out to Greg. The beauty of a narcissist, though, is they don't think they need help. Next time. Oh my God, she called. Sarah just texted. She called me, guys. We talked for 20 minutes. Oh my God. I'm going to see if I can call her. Something was wrong is written, recorded, edited, and produced by me, Tiffany Reese. All the

music this season is by the band Gladrax. A special thank you to Sarah, her family, and friends for participating in this series. Check out Sarah's personal blog, Space and Purpose, linked in the show notes. Thank you to Alyssa Doyle for her hype, zen, support, and story editing assistance. A special shout out to my husband Michael and our three amazing kids, Jude, Ruby, and Ozzie, for cheering me on every step of the way. Thank you to Ryan Doyle, who's always encouraging me and just surprised me with a something was wrong website coming soon. Follow the hashtag Something Was Wrong pod on Instagram to stay up to date on this series. Today's episode is sponsored by PicturePlay.

Use offer code SWW to get $3 off. If you're enjoying something was wrong and you're not a troll, please consider leaving a five-star review and sharing with your friends, family, co-workers, boss, auntie, postal service employee, awkward Facebook friend from high school, or whoever else has a pulse near you. Thank you so much. Every share truly helps us spread the word on this important topic, and we are so incredibly thankful for all of the support. If you would like to share your story with us, ask us a question, or share what has stood out

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