Speaker 1: Seventeen days before the tragedy of September eleven, two thousand
Speaker 1: and one, a chilling event unfolded in a tiny New
Speaker 1: Hampshire town. A pilot weaponized an airplane, intentionally crashing it
Speaker 1: into his own home. The attack made national news. Who
Speaker 1: was this pilot? Why would he do such a thing?
Speaker 1: Now the pilot's wife is speaking out. Joe Fonda, who
Speaker 1: was married to him for twenty years, says their relationship
Speaker 1: was characterized by emotional and financial abuse, infidelity, and instability
Speaker 1: from the very beginning. Less than forty eight hours before
Speaker 1: the plane crash, Joe obtained a restraining order against him
Speaker 1: and fled with their eight year old daughter. Joe's terrifying
Speaker 1: story is a powerful reminder of what lurks when toxic
Speaker 1: relationships end. In fact, ninety percent of survivors experience post
Speaker 1: separation abuse, which can escalate quickly and violently, even if
Speaker 1: the perpetrator has never been violent before. Ending a relationship
Speaker 1: doesn't end the danger. From Red Table Talk Podcasts and iHeartMedia,
Speaker 1: I'm Doctor Rominy and this is Navigating Narcissism. This podcast
Speaker 1: should not be used as a substitute for medical or
Speaker 1: mental health advice. Individuals are advised to seek independent medical advice, counseling,
Speaker 1: and or therapy from a healthcare professional with respect to
Speaker 1: any medical condition, mental health issue, or health inquiry, including
Speaker 1: matters discussed on this podcast. This episode discusses abuse, which
Speaker 1: may be triggering to some people. The views and opinions
Speaker 1: expressed are solely those of the podcast author or individual
Speaker 1: participating in the podcast, and do not represent the opinions
Speaker 1: of Red Table Talk productions, iHeartMedia, or their employees. Joe,
Speaker 1: it is such a pleasure to have you hear. Your
Speaker 1: story is actually one of the most profound and extreme
Speaker 1: examples of post separation abuse I've heard. Let's talk about
Speaker 1: the man you ended up marrying. So how old were
Speaker 1: you when you met?
Speaker 2: Sixteen?
Speaker 1: How did the two of you meet.
Speaker 2: I was out for a walk with a girlfriend of
Speaker 2: mine and we were going by Union College, which is
Speaker 2: close to my home, and we were just like, I've
Speaker 2: never been in a fraternity house. Have you ever been
Speaker 2: in a fraternity house? Like, let's go check it out.
Speaker 2: We just wandered in, thinking it was like going into
Speaker 2: a Starbucks or something. I don't know what we were thinking,
Speaker 2: but we started going up the stairs and just maybe
Speaker 2: a few steps up. This guy stops us and says, hey,
Speaker 2: excuse me, ladies, can I help you? And he was
Speaker 2: smiling and was like we were just looking around and
Speaker 2: he's like all right, and he let us go, and
Speaker 2: then when we came back down the stairs, he introduced
Speaker 2: himself and it was my husband to be Lou. We
Speaker 2: stayed for dinner and we chatted and called my house
Speaker 2: the next day and asked me out on a date. Okay,
Speaker 2: so we went out to dinner. I made it very
Speaker 2: clear before when we were even talking that I had
Speaker 2: a boyfriend, Gino, and I wasn't looking to date anyone.
Speaker 2: He said, I have a girlfriend too. I'm like, okay,
Speaker 2: you know this is this is fine. We can be friends.
Speaker 1: Okay, So how did how did the relationship unfold from
Speaker 1: that point going forward?
Speaker 2: So it kind of went off the rails pretty quickly, actually,
Speaker 2: even just as friends. So he had wanted me to
Speaker 2: go to a fraternity picnic maybe a couple weeks later.
Speaker 2: So at the time, Gino was still my boyfriend, although
Speaker 2: it was a long distance relationship, and I said, oh no,
Speaker 2: Gino's coming to visit so I and he was clearly
Speaker 2: not happy about it. Though. Gino came with a friend
Speaker 2: and my friend and I went to meet with them
Speaker 2: and they had to go home for something. I came
Speaker 2: back where we were supposed to meet and he was gone,
Speaker 2: and there were no cell phones back then. There was
Speaker 2: absolutely no way to get in touch with someone back
Speaker 2: then who you didn't know where they were. And I
Speaker 2: was distraught. I was totally abandoned by Gino. I was
Speaker 2: irrationally looking all over town on foot with my friend
Speaker 2: and the only person I knew with the car was.
Speaker 1: Lou Okay, and lou Is the guy from the fraternity house.
Speaker 2: Yeah, gave me a ride home. But then the next
Speaker 2: day he called. He wanted to talk about what had happened.
Speaker 2: And from my perspective, I had just called a friend
Speaker 2: for a ride. From his perspective, this woman that he
Speaker 2: was dating had blown him off on a date, gone
Speaker 2: on a date with someone else, and then called looking
Speaker 2: for free transportation, and instead of it being a conversation,
Speaker 2: he was driving fast and erradically, and like at first
Speaker 2: I was apologizing for what I did because I saw
Speaker 2: it when he said, all right, you did this thing
Speaker 2: to me, and I saw it, and I'm like, okay,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, You're right, that was kind of a crappy
Speaker 2: thing for me to do.
Speaker 1: So the crappy thing you did was called him for
Speaker 1: a ride because you had been abandoned by Gino, right?
Speaker 1: Was that why he was driving fast? Did that seem
Speaker 1: like a reaction to that? Because he was so old?
Speaker 2: He was mad about how I treated him, So he
Speaker 2: was embarrassed that I didn't go on this picnic with
Speaker 2: his friends. I was scared to death. He wouldn't let
Speaker 2: me out of the car. He did take me home,
Speaker 2: but I shut the door and like, have a nice life.
Speaker 2: I thought I was never going to see him again.
Speaker 1: Okay, and you're sixteen, you're young. How old was Lou
Speaker 1: at this time?
Speaker 2: He's five years older than me, So.
Speaker 1: Twenty one, sixteen to twenty one big developmentally, it's big
Speaker 1: in every which way. You were still a kid in
Speaker 1: many ways. He was coming into adulthood. So you have
Speaker 1: a lot going on. You've been abandoned by one guy
Speaker 1: who was having a tantrum, and then and honestly, this
Speaker 1: other guy was having a tantrum.
Speaker 2: Good point.
Speaker 1: I got to say this, though, Joe, that fast driving thing,
Speaker 1: that's actually a red flag. Everyone can pay attention to
Speaker 1: There's actually some interesting research on this that these kinds
Speaker 1: of antagonistic narcissistic personality styles are associated with dangerous driving,
Speaker 1: and that can show up early in a relationship because
Speaker 1: somebody's mad, or even if they're showing off or they
Speaker 1: get mad about another driver. And I'll tell people, if
Speaker 1: you see someone driving real angry early in a relationship,
Speaker 1: when it's easy to get out, get out because this
Speaker 1: is a marker for a bunch of other stuff. So
Speaker 1: you slam the door, get out of the car with Lou.
Speaker 1: You think you're never going to see him again. So
Speaker 1: then what happens.
Speaker 2: Then little time goes by, I get a call he
Speaker 2: needed to come back to Schenectady because things weren't going
Speaker 2: well with his parents and they were kicking him out
Speaker 2: and he needed a place to live, and did I
Speaker 2: know a place that he could live? So I went
Speaker 2: and looked for him, you know, and then tried to
Speaker 2: get back in touch, saying how I found this place,
Speaker 2: that place. I called the house a few times, left
Speaker 2: messages with his family, didn't hear anything back, and I
Speaker 2: was like, hey, whatever, and then went about my way.
Speaker 2: By that time, I had broken up with Gino.
Speaker 1: Interesting though to me, throw the tantrum, drive the car that.
Speaker 1: But then he doesn't think anything much of calling you up,
Speaker 1: because I think that's actually a big ask of someone
Speaker 1: didn't find a house, especially a sixteen seventeen year old
Speaker 1: right to say, hey, help me find a place to live.
Speaker 1: It's a big it's a big thing to ask. And
Speaker 1: so you do, and he comes back in September. You've
Speaker 1: broken up with Gino. So what happens now?
Speaker 2: So what happens now is I can't explain why I
Speaker 2: thought it would be a good idea to go visit
Speaker 2: at the fraternity house was totally emotionally a wreck, and
Speaker 2: I wasn't looking to have a new boyfriend, at least
Speaker 2: not consciously, and for whatever reason, thought that Lou and
Speaker 2: I could be friends.
Speaker 1: Okay, Okay, So I want to frame that a little. Okay,
Speaker 1: because you were sixteen years.
Speaker 2: Old this time. I had turned seventeen, just turned a
Speaker 2: whopping seventeen.
Speaker 1: Not thirty. You're sixteen, you're seventeen. There's a guy who's
Speaker 1: older than you. You had a nice encounter. He clearly
Speaker 1: throws tantrums when he doesn't get his way. You saw
Speaker 1: that drives erratically asks for a favor. You do it
Speaker 1: at sixteen? He doesn't communicate Joe. The vast majority of
Speaker 1: adults wouldn't pick up those red flags. Okay, so you're
Speaker 1: getting into.
Speaker 2: It with him.
Speaker 1: This still doesn't sound like a relationship to me.
Speaker 2: No. It was after a few weeks of him being
Speaker 2: back at college and he knew I wasn't seeing Geno anymore.
Speaker 2: He started to press for like, well, so why aren't
Speaker 2: we going out? Now you're not seeing him anymore? Okay,
Speaker 2: this is I didn't have a good reason, and so
Speaker 2: it kissed for this first time okay, and started acting
Speaker 2: more like boyfriend girlfriend.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's fast forward a little bit. You do get
Speaker 1: engaged to this person? How did that happen?
Speaker 2: Following year, a girlfriend of mine wanted to go on
Speaker 2: a cruise and that would be fun. Agreed to go
Speaker 2: with her, and obviously Lou was not. Now it's obvious
Speaker 2: that he would not be happy with me doing such
Speaker 2: a thing, right, He pitched quite a few fits about
Speaker 2: me going on this trip, but I didn't care about
Speaker 2: his complaints. I was going. This was something I wanted
Speaker 2: to do. I had known tension of being long term
Speaker 2: in our relationship. So I went on the cruise and
Speaker 2: while I was on the cruise, I got paged getting
Speaker 2: paged on it.
Speaker 1: The overhead overhead Joe, please come and there's a phone
Speaker 1: call for you. Yeah, okay, yep.
Speaker 2: When I got the call through, it was and it's weird.
Speaker 2: It sounds like a sonic thing. I've never even heard
Speaker 2: it on a on a movie kind of what it
Speaker 2: sounds like. But it was like, will marry me. It's
Speaker 2: like a really bizarre sound on ship to short calls
Speaker 2: back then, I was like that was like but like
Speaker 2: he was barely speaking to me when I left. He
Speaker 2: was so mad because you were going on because I
Speaker 2: was going on the on the cruise, and so my
Speaker 2: reaction was like, you know, this was it was dread
Speaker 2: But what came out of my mouth was yes.
Speaker 1: When you think back to that, Joe, are you able
Speaker 1: to connect back into yourself in a way emotionally to
Speaker 1: think about where that yes came from?
Speaker 2: Even for that amount of time, I had the sense
Speaker 2: that he was dependent on me.
Speaker 1: Ah, okay, okay, he.
Speaker 2: Was dependent on me for his well being, so whether
Speaker 2: it was talking him down from being upset about something,
Speaker 2: so he was always upset about something with somebody. A
Speaker 2: People do what they do, and he would react very
Speaker 2: strongly to whatever people would do, And so there were
Speaker 2: all kinds of offenses that I would run interference to
Speaker 2: keep things from bothering him. In the first place, I
Speaker 2: helped him with school work. He wasn't doing well in school.
Speaker 2: I would if he was reading a book for a paper,
Speaker 2: I read the same book. I took a lot of
Speaker 2: the same classes. Basically, even though I was going to school, also,
Speaker 2: I was helping him along. He was estranged from his family.
Speaker 2: He was all on his own. His dad had stopped
Speaker 2: supporting his school financially when he hurt his knee, and
Speaker 2: he had a stop playing football, so financially I was
Speaker 2: also supporting. So I was working full time and going
Speaker 2: to school full time. I felt very needed. And it's
Speaker 2: not like in a good way, Like it's not like,
Speaker 2: oh he needs me.
Speaker 1: No, no. I understand the trauma bond can often begin
Speaker 1: through the belief that we need to help someone. For
Speaker 1: somebody as young as Joe, who subsequently did feel needed
Speaker 1: with time, she then felt responsible for him, which would
Speaker 1: keep her stuck. She had a role and function in
Speaker 1: this relationship, and this sense of responsibility is often what
Speaker 1: underlies people getting stuck in unhealthy relationships, and so since
Speaker 1: he needed you, it seems like that was a big
Speaker 1: driver in you saying yes. I guess the corollary that
Speaker 1: would be, what did you think might have happened if
Speaker 1: you said no?
Speaker 2: Just like saying I'm going to go on this one
Speaker 2: week cruise was a big deal, right, And there's so
Speaker 2: much anger. Yeah, so many fights, like he would get
Speaker 2: physical and he wasn't physical with me. He was physical
Speaker 2: with stuff, you know, rip stuff, bang on stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, just visceral feeling from these these fights. I
Speaker 2: knew that if I said no to getting married, it
Speaker 2: wasn't going to be okay, have a nice life. I
Speaker 2: knew all hell would write loose.
Speaker 1: Okay, So you're you're seventeen, Okay, he just turned eighteen eighteen,
Speaker 1: she that makes him twenty three. You're kind of taking
Speaker 1: full responsibility for another adult who sounds like a petulant,
Speaker 1: tantruming child, who is reacting strongly, who is always angry
Speaker 1: about things, who's huffing and puffing, who is financially reliant
Speaker 1: on you. I'm gonna say it again, an eighteen year
Speaker 1: old girl and I guess my question then, is there
Speaker 1: was some fear. Were you afraid?
Speaker 2: Well, I had seen what happened when he doesn't get
Speaker 2: in his way, and it's not pretty. Anytime he was
Speaker 2: mad at somebody, he wasn't shy about showing his disappointment
Speaker 2: and his anger and replacing blame. And if he would
Speaker 2: have just said, you know, I'm just going to leave
Speaker 2: you behind, I would have been I would have been
Speaker 2: okay with that. I wasn't afraid of him leaving me ever, right, right,
Speaker 2: I was never afraid of him leaving me.
Speaker 1: You were afraid of his reactions.
Speaker 2: I was afraid of his anger.
Speaker 1: It's interesting early in the game, you already saw what
Speaker 1: that post separation abuse was going to look like. If
Speaker 1: this guy doesn't get his way, the consequences are so
Speaker 1: dire that it's easier to appease him. And that's where
Speaker 1: I call sort of tantrums as manipulation. One of the
Speaker 1: things in it I take fault with the field of
Speaker 1: even health of well, a person has a choice when
Speaker 1: someone's having a tantrum, they can step away. But it's
Speaker 1: not that simple, right, There's all the psychological dynamics in
Speaker 1: us of we like to feel needed. We want to
Speaker 1: feel helpful. We might feel obligated if you're on family roles,
Speaker 1: gender roles, whatever. And having these tantrums became a form
Speaker 1: of manipulation because over time you would live in your
Speaker 1: life to keep the tantrums at.
Speaker 2: Bay, especially the ones that seemed to be my fault.
Speaker 1: Correct which over time I'm sure everything became your fault.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, okay, so you get married. Once you got married,
Speaker 1: what was your relationship like?
Speaker 2: So he got accepted to Duke University to their MBA program.
Speaker 1: That's a big deal.
Speaker 2: Helped him write his application.
Speaker 1: So you got accepted to Duke University for their NBA program.
Speaker 1: Is what happened? You own that?
Speaker 2: So? Yeah, helped. I worked and he was going into
Speaker 2: school like I used to just I would wake up
Speaker 2: in the morning and just have this help me, Like
Speaker 2: like my first thought in the morning was like a
Speaker 2: silent scream of help me.
Speaker 1: You waited a while to have children. You didn't have
Speaker 1: a child until twelve years into the marriage. You get pregnant,
Speaker 1: And can you tell me about the day that you
Speaker 1: found out you got pregnant.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we had been we had been trying for
Speaker 2: a few months and then I did pee on the
Speaker 2: stick and it was positive, and I was like so excited.
Speaker 2: And Lou was getting ready to go on a trip.
Speaker 2: He was a consultant at that point, and so he
Speaker 2: was traveling a lot, and by this point I knew
Speaker 2: he was cheating a lot. He came in the bedroom
Speaker 2: and I came out with the thing and I said look,
Speaker 2: and he's like, oh, okay, oh yeah, just oh.
Speaker 1: And I said, oh, you showed him a positive pregnancy
Speaker 1: test after you'd been trying for months. And his reaction was.
Speaker 2: Oh oh, And I said oh. And he goes, all right, well,
Speaker 2: I don't know what you congratulations? What do you expect
Speaker 2: me to say? And then he gave me a little
Speaker 2: peck and said I gotta go, and he went on
Speaker 2: his trip. I think the part I haven't really explained
Speaker 2: is he was also very charming. Okay, so I haven't
Speaker 2: really explained the forward facing persona. When anybody would meet
Speaker 2: him on a professional basis, he's the big smile, glad hand.
Speaker 2: He was an expert in his field, so to speak,
Speaker 2: normal people when they would meet. He was laughing and
Speaker 2: joking around about things. So he wasn't just this grumpy
Speaker 2: jerk until somebody irritated him.
Speaker 1: Okay, so he would be charming and charismatic. People were
Speaker 1: drawn to him. I maybe did that play a role
Speaker 1: in him back when he was at Union and he
Speaker 1: was a student.
Speaker 2: He had it back then. So when he met my parents,
Speaker 2: they were impressed.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right. So he had this charming charisma and
Speaker 1: only when he would be frustrated or disappointed would this
Speaker 1: kind of crack show up, and then he would be
Speaker 1: quick to react.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you know, doctor Jackyll, mister Hyde, Mister Hyde
Speaker 2: would come out when SOMETHINGE didn't go away.
Speaker 1: Did other people see that?
Speaker 2: People saw one or the other for the most part,
Speaker 2: So there are plenty of people who never saw that
Speaker 2: side of Lou that was angry. Like a lot of
Speaker 2: times he would bring it home and then other times
Speaker 2: he would flip out in a store.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, all right.
Speaker 2: So he would occasionally flip out a in a public
Speaker 2: setting and I would be like, you know, dial it back,
Speaker 2: you know, okay, we still need to get our food here.
Speaker 1: Kind of thing, do you feel like? Mostly he brought
Speaker 1: it home.
Speaker 2: Mostly he brought it home, or he was covert about
Speaker 2: how he would get his revenge on someone.
Speaker 1: In these twelve years. What I'm hearing is there wor
Speaker 1: some good times Mister charm would show up and you
Speaker 1: would have fun. Was every morning waking up with dread
Speaker 1: for twelve years before you found out you were pregnant?
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, no? No, okay, now did We did lots
Speaker 2: of things. We would go hiking. Okay, within a certain week.
Speaker 2: There would be good in a bad time.
Speaker 1: But so there were good times. There were also these tantrums.
Speaker 1: You get this lukewarm reaction from him, and you're pregnant.
Speaker 1: Now tell me about the day then your daughter was
Speaker 1: actually born.
Speaker 2: He was miserable throughout my pregnancy. He projected a horrible
Speaker 2: life to follow. I was gonna get fat. Oh, I
Speaker 2: was gonna get ugly. We were gonna have He called
Speaker 2: it a life of crumminess ahead Okay.
Speaker 1: Was he not in on the wanting to get pregnant
Speaker 1: in the first place? Or was that just was that
Speaker 1: something you wanted and he agreed to. Was he ever
Speaker 1: enthusiastic about there? I'm a little bit confused because it
Speaker 1: seemed like he was into it.
Speaker 2: He wasn't to it before we actually got pregnant. Okay,
Speaker 2: even during the process of getting pregnant. He was one
Speaker 2: hundred percent into it, were right, But that was a
Speaker 2: light switch moment when I showed him the stick and interesting,
Speaker 2: and then after that he just got increasingly down about
Speaker 2: the whole thing.
Speaker 1: So it was more of that withdrawal again. I mean,
Speaker 1: it almost feels like that that pattern got reproduced again
Speaker 1: there as well.
Speaker 2: I was sure he was going to leave me.
Speaker 1: We will be right back with this conversation. Oh okay,
Speaker 1: all right, I was okay with and you're okay with that.
Speaker 1: Despite we had fun hiking and there was this charming
Speaker 1: guy by and large the dread woman from the early
Speaker 1: years of the marriage that never left. So the entire marriage,
Speaker 1: it was sort of I kind of wish this guy
Speaker 1: would just go away, but I'm not going to end it. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: so you have a baby. Did you stay in the
Speaker 1: same house that you were in or did you ever
Speaker 1: have to do anything like that like look for a
Speaker 1: house together.
Speaker 2: So that whole process was a complete disaster. Every house
Speaker 2: that we looked at was unacceptable, and from silly little
Speaker 2: things like, oh, that has a dead tree in front.
Speaker 2: If they would leave a dead tree in front, what
Speaker 2: kind of things are they hiding inside? The house. You
Speaker 2: couldn't have neighbors being too close to you. You couldn't
Speaker 2: have it can be the best house in the neighborhood, couldn't
Speaker 2: be the worst house in the neighborhood. You can't have
Speaker 2: neighbors too closed. And I picked a spot in the
Speaker 2: middle of an eleven acre lot, and that's where we
Speaker 2: determined that we could build. So we were living in
Speaker 2: temporary like a condo.
Speaker 1: And how did all of that go awful?
Speaker 2: The builder at one point sent it an email saying
Speaker 2: that he was no longer willing to talk to Lou,
Speaker 2: or communicate with Lou, or see Lou. He was micromanaging
Speaker 2: everything on the property, and then he would blow up,
Speaker 2: explode to the point where at one point he damaged
Speaker 2: his vocals courts by yelling so much and thought he
Speaker 2: broke bones in his in his hand from like pounding
Speaker 2: his fist while he was yelling at the guy.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you're back to traditional reactive tantruming, Lou, how
Speaker 1: are you feeling emotionally?
Speaker 2: I was furious with you, angry. I was angry. I
Speaker 2: knew he was cheating in all kinds of every every
Speaker 2: port in the storm he was he had something going
Speaker 2: on wherever he was going.
Speaker 1: So he was still traveling for work, and so he.
Speaker 2: Was constantly on the hunt for people locally and people
Speaker 2: like if he had a client out in Pennsylvania, he'd
Speaker 2: be hunting there. If he had a client and he
Speaker 2: had one in Oregon, he had one in California, he
Speaker 2: was hunting all the time. And you know, so even
Speaker 2: though he was telling me, you know, no, I'm not
Speaker 2: doing anything, but if you keep pestering me and nagging
Speaker 2: me about this, it will happen. You're gonna make this
Speaker 2: a self filling prophecy. So yeah, at this point, he
Speaker 2: had taken up bodybuilding as a as a hobby and
Speaker 2: he found a new girlfriend. Okay, but he wasn't hiding
Speaker 2: it from me anymore.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: So it went from undercover relationships that I knew about
Speaker 2: but for whatever reason you probably know, I don't but
Speaker 2: didn't call him out on him, to in my face relationship.
Speaker 1: What does it mean? In your face?
Speaker 2: Like like I knew and we talked and he knew
Speaker 2: I knew, and he actually would make me clear out
Speaker 2: from our poundhouse sometimes for she had an open relationship
Speaker 2: with her husband, so it was kind of sanctioned on
Speaker 2: her side at first, but then when they got to chummy,
Speaker 2: then her husband was calling it out.
Speaker 1: Okay, So I need to understand this. You're renting a townhouse,
Speaker 1: you're building a house, you have a daughter, you're married.
Speaker 1: You didn't call him out on past infidelity, so there's
Speaker 1: no conversation there. There was never like an explosive I
Speaker 1: know you're cheating. Nothing. He would cheat, You knew it,
Speaker 1: and you look the other way.
Speaker 2: For the most part. Yeah, I would call out the
Speaker 2: hunting behavior and he would deny the hunting for somebody okay,
Speaker 2: and then say, if I kept it up, I was
Speaker 2: going to cause the relationship. Okay, God be my fault.
Speaker 1: I understand that.
Speaker 2: But no, I didn't even bother saying okay.
Speaker 1: So now he's got this new one. You're all living
Speaker 1: in a townhouse. He's asking you to leave the townhouse
Speaker 1: so he can have his girlfriend over to have sex.
Speaker 2: With her because she made him happy, because.
Speaker 1: She made him happy, Okay, so now there's no not
Speaker 1: seeing it like here I am. This is to me,
Speaker 1: the read I would have on this as anyone listening
Speaker 1: to this is he is trying to make you leave
Speaker 1: the marriage.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it gets worse.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: He was like, oh, you know her husband is a
Speaker 2: bad guy, because you know he said. No, She's like,
Speaker 2: this is abusive. She should actually move in with us,
Speaker 2: and we should you know, pay for her to go
Speaker 2: to college.
Speaker 1: Okay, Holy sister wives, Like, what is happening? So he
Speaker 1: is saying, I need to take this in. Okay, I
Speaker 1: need to up till now I gotta say. I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: this just sounds like an unhappy relationship until let's run
Speaker 1: the girlfriend mentorship program in our house and move this
Speaker 1: woman in pay her tuition. You're not in an open relationship.
Speaker 2: No, how are you not voluntarily?
Speaker 1: How are you responding to this?
Speaker 2: I'm pushing back, saying no, we can't be doing this,
Speaker 2: and then he would get mad and he would blow up,
Speaker 2: and then I would get beat down verbally, emotionally. You
Speaker 2: know about how horrible his life is and this is
Speaker 2: the only thing that makes him happy. And you know,
Speaker 2: because we're living in a townhouse, how horrible.
Speaker 1: I almost feel like a student in question. Okay. In
Speaker 1: any story like this, okay, a person who is so
Speaker 1: enamored of their side person would move out. They'd say
Speaker 1: I've met someone I love them or I fall in
Speaker 1: love or whatever, and I'm going to go rent my
Speaker 1: own place by.
Speaker 2: Will.
Speaker 1: My lawyer will be in touch with you about the details.
Speaker 1: I've heard that story before, and it's a devastating, heartbreaking story.
Speaker 1: The idea that someone's leaving you for someone else is
Speaker 1: the ultimate in abandonment. I understand that story.
Speaker 2: He's asking you to adjust to this correct And he
Speaker 2: didn't want to leave, and I don't think she wanted him.
Speaker 2: I think she could see what an unpleasant person he
Speaker 2: could be, so she was getting all the good stuff.
Speaker 2: But I think she could also see how he was
Speaker 2: acting towards me. So it's not like she was wanting
Speaker 2: to leave her husband. Lou asked her to leave.
Speaker 1: Her husband to move full time into your townhouse with
Speaker 1: you and your daughter, a new house.
Speaker 2: Because a house. Yeah, And then he asked me to
Speaker 2: talk to her and encourage her to do so.
Speaker 1: I just, okay. So here's the thing.
Speaker 2: You can't pick it up.
Speaker 1: You can't make it. I mean, my head is spinning
Speaker 1: with the utter lack of empathy. You know. I've heard
Speaker 1: variance on this, the father having an inappropriate relationship with
Speaker 1: like a living nanny or an au pair, right, But
Speaker 1: this is a person he gets into a relationship with.
Speaker 1: But it seems like there's almost zero self awareness that
Speaker 1: this is a completely inappropriate thing to ask for that.
Speaker 1: Did you understand what I'm saying?
Speaker 2: Like, Oh, he thought he was better than most husbands
Speaker 2: that go out drinking and go to bars and hang
Speaker 2: out with their friends and go place, you know, go
Speaker 2: to sports games. He thinks.
Speaker 1: This is so having a girlfriend that you move into
Speaker 1: the house is on the same level as having a
Speaker 1: beer with somebody and watching a Patriots game. Better than Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not planet Earth, at least not the United States
Speaker 1: planet Earth.
Speaker 2: And if I cared about him, I would want him
Speaker 2: to be happy.
Speaker 1: Okay, so this is manipulation on such a high level.
Speaker 1: I've got to tell you you might have broken a
Speaker 1: new sort of world speed record on navigating narcissism. And
Speaker 1: that takes some doing because we've heard stuff here. But
Speaker 1: the idea that you are in a presumptively monogamous marriage
Speaker 1: with someone who was asking you to do this, how
Speaker 1: were you feeling at this point?
Speaker 2: So this is when I started having spells of lightheadedness
Speaker 2: and my heart was racing, and I would feel dizzy
Speaker 2: and I would have to like suddenly sit down. I
Speaker 2: thought I was having a heart attack. A few times
Speaker 2: I went to the doctor thinking, all right, there's something
Speaker 2: wrong with my heart, and lou knew that I was
Speaker 2: having these physical reactions. The physical tests came back negative
Speaker 2: for any issues. Then they asked her, well, what's going
Speaker 2: on in your private life? And I talked about the
Speaker 2: stress of moving, trying to find a house and move
Speaker 2: and build a house, and that we've been fighting because
Speaker 2: of the stress of the move. And then they said,
Speaker 2: you have anxiety induced depression.
Speaker 1: It sounds like you're having panic attacks. I mean those lightheaded,
Speaker 1: dizzy and heart attack moments were panic.
Speaker 2: Attacks, and that those episodes were panic attacks. So they
Speaker 2: basically said, do you have depression, anxiety and you're experiencing
Speaker 2: panic attacks? And then they started medication.
Speaker 1: Did you mention to the medical team you're working with
Speaker 1: And by the way, my husband is having an affair
Speaker 1: and wants to move his affair partner into the house
Speaker 1: while we remain married. Did you share that tidbit with them?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: Okay, because that's a big one, right, and it's interesting
Speaker 1: you didn't it really really is, What do you think
Speaker 1: drove that decision to not share that piece of it.
Speaker 2: It's embarrassing even to talk about now, because I objectively
Speaker 2: I would say that anybody would just say screw this
Speaker 2: and leave.
Speaker 1: See. I want to put your feet to the fire
Speaker 1: on that, Joe, because this isn't about you. This is
Speaker 1: about that somebody thought this was okay to do this
Speaker 1: to you. You're absolutely right. A lot of people would say,
Speaker 1: come on, now, get up, find your you know, get
Speaker 1: out of there. What's wrong with you? You know? Absolutely not.
Speaker 1: I think I am having this shocked reaction because what
Speaker 1: this person did was shocking and remorseless and unempathic. And
Speaker 1: when we are in the wake of that kind of behavior,
Speaker 1: we have panic attacks. It's almost as though a short
Speaker 1: circuiting in the system starts to take place. We're experiencing
Speaker 1: this cataclysmic fear, but we can't give word to it.
Speaker 1: And so I fully, fully empathize with the sense of
Speaker 1: embarrassing that one would feel about sharing this. But I
Speaker 1: really want to put a fine point on this. You
Speaker 1: weren't doing anything. You were living a life, and there's
Speaker 1: nothing foolish about what you did. You had a family,
Speaker 1: you had a child, and we had a guest On
Speaker 1: this podcast named Doctor Jennifer Fried talks about betrayal blindness,
Speaker 1: that when we are betrayed, there is a not seeing
Speaker 1: it that can happen and not acknowledging it, and she
Speaker 1: even uses this interesting term of it woshes away. Just
Speaker 1: you see this guy. There's no not seeing this he is,
Speaker 1: I'm going to move this person in. And while there
Speaker 1: was certainly this moment of in the doctor's office not
Speaker 1: wanting to share with them the wholeness of what was happening,
Speaker 1: there was a placing it aside. So how did you
Speaker 1: talk about this in your marriage?
Speaker 2: So we would go through these cycles where I would say,
Speaker 2: all right, you can't keep doing this. This has to stop.
Speaker 2: I need to have some self respect and you need
Speaker 2: to show me respect. I understand this is what makes
Speaker 2: you happy, but it's not fair to me. Imagine being me.
Speaker 2: And then he would just blow up and beat me
Speaker 2: down and then claim that I had set him up
Speaker 2: for this, that somehow I was responsible for him being
Speaker 2: in this position of having this relationship that he now
Speaker 2: cannot live without. And then he would claim that I
Speaker 2: had said everything was okay and that I was fine
Speaker 2: with it, and I was like I never. I never gaslighting,
Speaker 2: never ever, never ever did I ever? So yes, I
Speaker 2: had a couple of times I went along with it
Speaker 2: because you beat me down.
Speaker 1: And what did going along with it look like?
Speaker 2: Like me leave in the apartment?
Speaker 1: Oh, I see, And so somebody's gaslighting you. Someone's manipulating
Speaker 1: a eure upside down, so you'll sometimes almost seem like
Speaker 1: it's agreement right, like you're you're in it. That's actually
Speaker 1: that's the end. That's the end of the gas lighting cycle.
Speaker 1: Very few people get all the way down into the
Speaker 1: sort of the bottom floor of the whole gas lighting process.
Speaker 2: I remember just like literally being on the floor during
Speaker 2: these arguments and him, you know, beating on a chair,
Speaker 2: you know, and insisting that this was my fault and
Speaker 2: that my emotional problem goes way back and it has
Speaker 2: nothing to do with him or her, and that it's
Speaker 2: you know, this is all about like when I got pregnant,
Speaker 2: that you know, my issues date way back then and
Speaker 2: it's got nothing to do with now. And like, yeah, right,
Speaker 2: I agree that I've had emotional issues for a long time,
Speaker 2: but this has taken it to a whole new level.
Speaker 1: He's making it about your emotional issues at this point,
Speaker 1: your emotional issues, emotional issues, tracking them back to the pregnancy.
Speaker 1: You're even sitting here saying I acknowledge I have emotional issues.
Speaker 1: You do realize that the vast majority of these emotional
Speaker 1: issues sound like they were caused by being married to
Speaker 1: a man like this. Oh okay, so I'm not you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: I didn't.
Speaker 1: Now you weren't present with the history of anxiety and
Speaker 1: depression by your reports even growing up. He's telling you
Speaker 1: you're the one with the problem. So where do you
Speaker 1: go with that?
Speaker 2: So I wrote a long letter because like whatever I say,
Speaker 2: he said it, I didn't say it. So if I
Speaker 2: send an email, then I'll have it in writing and
Speaker 2: I could like pull out my documentation and prove no,
Speaker 2: this is what I said. See it says it right here.
Speaker 2: So I wrote this really long letter saying you know
Speaker 2: exactly how I felt about everything. I acknowledged you know
Speaker 2: my part, to the extent that I have a part,
Speaker 2: but I let it happen. I acknowledged my part and
Speaker 2: said this isn't healthy for me. It's not good for me.
Speaker 2: I can't do this. If you want to pursue this,
Speaker 2: I will be a good co parent. Basically with you,
Speaker 2: I wish you all the best. I want you to
Speaker 2: be happy. I want me to be happy too, though,
Speaker 2: so I cannot live this way, okay, And so don't
Speaker 2: be thinking that I approve in any sense. I never have.
Speaker 2: You know, there are times when I said do what
Speaker 2: you want, but I didn't say I'm okay with it.
Speaker 2: It was a very loving letter.
Speaker 1: Writing long letters in order to feel heard is a
Speaker 1: telltale sign you're being gaslighted and maybe dealing with a narcissist. Remember,
Speaker 1: narcissists are all about power, control and domination. Arguing just
Speaker 1: to get your point across can be destabilizing and unsettling,
Speaker 1: as they use tactics like gaslighting and fast paced, pressured
Speaker 1: speech to overwhelm and dominate the conversation. They always try
Speaker 1: to win the argument. If you find yourself writing long
Speaker 1: letters or text messages to explain yourself, it may be
Speaker 1: a sign that you are in a toxic relationship.
Speaker 2: His response was, first of you didn't even acknowledge that
Speaker 2: he got it, And then he said, oh, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I got that. We decided that there's too much pressure
Speaker 2: on us, so we're not going to see each other anymore.
Speaker 2: Like this means you're going to go underground basically.
Speaker 1: So he's going to go seek out new supply. I mean,
Speaker 1: because that's what these other women are. They're sources of
Speaker 1: narcissistic supply or you know that. That's really what it
Speaker 1: sounds like. So this is the too much pressure is
Speaker 1: basically your letter saying if you want to pursue this,
Speaker 1: pursue this, but I'm out, and him saying then, well,
Speaker 1: that's too much pressure. In essence, he can't have both things.
Speaker 1: He can't just basically openly have this relationship in this
Speaker 1: townhouse in your presence. Meant that he actually had to
Speaker 1: make a choice. So he said, Okay, I'm going to
Speaker 1: end that relationship with her. How did that feel?
Speaker 2: I was so proud of my letter and I I
Speaker 2: really thought, okay, this is he's going to like have
Speaker 2: his aha, you know, like I guess it now, I
Speaker 2: see what I yeah, No, it was it was I
Speaker 2: was like, now what you know?
Speaker 1: So now what?
Speaker 2: Now what? And so now he pretended that they weren't
Speaker 2: seeing each other anymore, but they were, but they were.
Speaker 2: At one point he gave her an ultimatum basically because
Speaker 2: he wasn't happy with sharing her anymore with her husband.
Speaker 2: So he gave her an ultimatum, and she's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm just going to focus on my marriage now, and
Speaker 2: she ended it with him.
Speaker 1: Okay, so she ended it. When we're talking about mechanics,
Speaker 1: we're talking about, you know, the absurdity of it all.
Speaker 1: Were you hurt?
Speaker 2: I was hoping that they would decide to be together.
Speaker 2: I was thinking this was my potential out.
Speaker 1: So you really were looking for the out. But it
Speaker 1: seemed that him ending that relationship meant you didn't have
Speaker 1: your out. Correct, even though you always had your out,
Speaker 1: I didn't see any you didn't see now because you
Speaker 1: were afraid of what.
Speaker 2: That's the same reason I said yeah to getting married
Speaker 2: in the first place, the vague I'm gonna deal with your.
Speaker 1: Wrath, okay, So you're still afraid of his wrath. You're
Speaker 1: afraid of his anger. And so if he was with
Speaker 1: the new gal and theory, well, he's got a safe
Speaker 1: place to land, he's got his person, he's all sorted.
Speaker 1: So then you could get up and leave and it
Speaker 1: would be less of a there'd be less of this reaction.
Speaker 1: This house ever get built.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the house got built. She stopped seeing him,
Speaker 2: but he went right back to hunting, sure for relationships,
Speaker 2: and I saw that and I'm like, all right, I
Speaker 2: don't I didn't even unpack my stuff. So we moved
Speaker 2: into the house and I unpacked just about everything, but
Speaker 2: my stuff was still in boxes. I started to talk
Speaker 2: to people more. So I talked to one of my sisters.
Speaker 2: I shared with hers, you know, some of the relationship
Speaker 2: issues with him, and how he was behaving with the
Speaker 2: house hunting and the build and the other women, and
Speaker 2: she was supportive, and it was like amazing to me
Speaker 2: after all these years of not talking to anybody, that
Speaker 2: there was support. Right, So now suddenly people are starting
Speaker 2: to give me advice, but also saying, well, that's not cool.
Speaker 2: The way he treats me is not okay, it's not normal.
Speaker 2: People don't do that, and it's bizarre that you need
Speaker 2: somebody to tell you it's not your fault. And you
Speaker 2: know they're not acting that way because of what you did.
Speaker 2: They're acting that way because of who they are.
Speaker 1: So now you've got support, you're talking to people, but
Speaker 1: you're still living in the same house as this guy. Okay,
Speaker 1: your stuff isn't fully unpacked. There's a part of you
Speaker 1: that seems psychologically resistant. At this point, the wheels are
Speaker 1: off right. Your husband is basically having a series of
Speaker 1: multiple relationships with other people. Another piece of this story
Speaker 1: is also that Lou was a private pilot.
Speaker 2: We owned up private airplane.
Speaker 1: So I know that there was a part of your
Speaker 1: story that I'd like to have you share is that
Speaker 1: you and your daughter and he were on an airplane
Speaker 1: and something became very clear to you at that point.
Speaker 1: Could you share some of that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I said, all right, I want a divorce.
Speaker 2: We are going to divorce, and he wasn't having it.
Speaker 2: He admitted to a sexual addiction and he would only
Speaker 2: go to counseling of any sort if I agreed to
Speaker 2: stay together. But the counseling he wanted to sign up
Speaker 2: for was sexual addiction counseling.
Speaker 1: Just as an aside. Sex addiction is it's there's a
Speaker 1: phenomenology there. There's no two ways about it. Okay, it is.
Speaker 1: We see it come out in multiple different ways. Pornography
Speaker 1: hiring people to have sex with somebody going on like nowadays,
Speaker 1: is a million different ways you could find a person
Speaker 1: to have, you know, sex anywhere with you. It's disregulated.
Speaker 1: The addiction term is meant that the person feels that
Speaker 1: they almost can't control the earth. While there is some
Speaker 1: talk of love addiction, it really is sex addiction. Is
Speaker 1: it's not relational, right. It is about sex, masturbation, pornography,
Speaker 1: short term sexual hits, whatever. It's not about somebody showing
Speaker 1: up and saying I want to move my girlfriend into
Speaker 1: our home. That's not sex addiction. And I think that
Speaker 1: the commandeering of the sex addiction defense people who study it,
Speaker 1: they'll see that there's a whole picture there. There's often
Speaker 1: a lot of remorse, there's often a lot of shame,
Speaker 1: and in therapy there's often a lot of work on
Speaker 1: trauma and all. It's just very complicated, right.
Speaker 2: And so at that point I had moved out of
Speaker 2: our bedroom and he was just getting increasingly weird and
Speaker 2: weirder and weirder and weirder. And then he had made
Speaker 2: appointments for dental work for all three of us back
Speaker 2: in Delaware. Haul ourselves back to Delaware, and while we
Speaker 2: were on the plane, I'm in the in the co
Speaker 2: pilot's seat and Angelica's in the back and he's flying.
Speaker 2: All of a sudden, I had an overwhelming clarity that
Speaker 2: he intended to crash the plane with all three of
Speaker 2: us in it on purpose. And so I'm just sitting
Speaker 2: there and I'm like, because you know, he had been
Speaker 2: getting weirder and weirder the more it became clear I
Speaker 2: was determined to leave and had made threats vague, that's
Speaker 2: but nothing, nothing specific. And I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: he's going to kill all of us. And I sat
Speaker 2: there and I'm like, if he's gonna put the plane
Speaker 2: in a dive, all right, all right, there's a knife here.
Speaker 2: I'm going to grab this knife here. I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 2: gonna blind him, and then I can once he's blinded,
Speaker 2: I I could kill him because I can't fight back
Speaker 2: from that. And I know how to operate the plane myself.
Speaker 2: I'm not a pilot, but I can do it, and
Speaker 2: I can dial for help and dial in for help.
Speaker 2: And figured all that out, and none of that happened, clearly,
Speaker 2: none of it happened, okay, But when we got back
Speaker 2: that night safely, I was determined that there was serious,
Speaker 2: serious danger.
Speaker 1: My conversation will continue after this break.
Speaker 2: Got sense that it's not safe. It's not okay to leave.
Speaker 2: It's not safe. To leave. So we got back home.
Speaker 2: I finally got my stuff together to decide to leave
Speaker 2: and came up with a plan. I called my sister
Speaker 2: had given me the phone number for the domestic violence
Speaker 2: support and called it and explained not everything clearly, but
Speaker 2: enough and got the feedback that you're not crazy and
Speaker 2: if you don't feel safe, you're probably not. You should
Speaker 2: leave with a safety plan. Yeah, So I decided that
Speaker 2: I was gonna pack up a few things in the
Speaker 2: back of the car and go see a lawyer, which
Speaker 2: I was forbidden from doing, but I did it anyway.
Speaker 2: But in that one day, I found a lawyer to
Speaker 2: see me agree to help me. I gave him a
Speaker 2: retainer and my intention was to go pick up Angelica
Speaker 2: from camp and then just take off with her before
Speaker 2: he even got home. Okay, but I don't know if
Speaker 2: he had a sense that something was unusual, and for
Speaker 2: the first time ever, he went and picked her up
Speaker 2: from camp. So I got to I gotta figure something else.
Speaker 2: And then we needed to take a car to service,
Speaker 2: and so Lou and I met up. I got Angelica
Speaker 2: in the back seat with me my car, which was
Speaker 2: a bit of a trick because Lou's like he wants
Speaker 2: to drive that car, and I was like, oh, I
Speaker 2: felt like an actress. I'm like, oh, you drive it
Speaker 2: on the way back. You know, I'll follow you over there.
Speaker 2: You drive, we'll drop the car off and then I'll
Speaker 2: follow you back. And then when we were getting off
Speaker 2: an exit to where the car dealership was, I slowed
Speaker 2: down and then I kind of darted back down and
Speaker 2: on the highway and just gunned it. And then he
Speaker 2: noticed I wasn't behind him after he made the turn,
Speaker 2: and then he called me on the cell phone and like, oh,
Speaker 2: you missed the turn or you know. I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I need a break. This has just been too much
Speaker 2: and I'm gonna I saw a lawyer filing for divorce.
Speaker 2: I suggest you go see a lawyer too. I let
Speaker 2: him talk to Angelica. I explained to Angelican the drive
Speaker 2: before I took off what was going to happen, and
Speaker 2: just said, you know, clearly we've been fighting. He called.
Speaker 2: I just kept saying I just need peace, please, I
Speaker 2: just need peace. And went to one hotel.
Speaker 1: So now you and Angelic are staying.
Speaker 2: And we stayed at a hotel that night one night
Speaker 2: then and then the next day went to the back
Speaker 2: to the lawyer's office as planned. The attorney said, this
Speaker 2: is clearly emotional abuse for him, domestic abuse. So he yeah,
Speaker 2: he was someone who had been trained. So then I
Speaker 2: go to the courthouse. Right, we had written up in
Speaker 2: affidavit and I wrote up a petition for a restraining order.
Speaker 2: I didn't want to get a restraining order. The attorney
Speaker 2: is the one who told me you really need it
Speaker 2: because this is the only thing that you can use
Speaker 2: to stop him from constantly calling you and harassing you.
Speaker 2: And this is how you can have temporary custody of
Speaker 2: your daughter.
Speaker 1: So you take the paperwork for the temporary restraining order
Speaker 1: to the courthouse and.
Speaker 2: Meeting with the judge. He hears it all and he said,
Speaker 2: I'll grant this. This is a one month temporary restraining order.
Speaker 1: And so you got it. So now how did that work?
Speaker 1: That they were they would still serve him to let
Speaker 1: him know that it's in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So around ten thirty at night, I got a
Speaker 2: call from the police saying they were getting ready to serve,
Speaker 2: to serve okay, and they wanted to know details about
Speaker 2: the house and guns and stuff, and I explained all
Speaker 2: that and he's not somebody that you want to disregard.
Speaker 2: If he takes like a you're not going to take
Speaker 2: me out of here stance, he means it okay, you know,
Speaker 2: and they're like, oh, you know, we deal with this
Speaker 2: stuff all the time.
Speaker 1: Does that go off without incident?
Speaker 2: So they call me back and say, you know, he
Speaker 2: put up a resistance at first, but he gave in,
Speaker 2: went in and got his computer and some stuff and
Speaker 2: said he was going to go to a hotel.
Speaker 1: Okay, so he's gone to his own hotel. He just
Speaker 1: still doesn't know where you are, right, Okay. Now it's
Speaker 1: the next day. Now what happens.
Speaker 2: Seven twenty in the morning, I get a phone call
Speaker 2: on my cell phone and I see it's low Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 2: it didn't surprise me because I really didn't expect him
Speaker 2: to abide by the order. I don't want him to
Speaker 2: get into trouble. And I also don't want them to
Speaker 2: have it opportunity to leave me a nasty voicemail because
Speaker 2: he had been leaving me like really nasty stuff.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you seven twenty in the morning, he violates
Speaker 1: the order, he calls you, You don't report it to
Speaker 1: the police.
Speaker 2: Then what happens about maybe a half hour later, I
Speaker 2: get a call about our alarm system and they said,
Speaker 2: the panic alarm in your master bedroom has gone off.
Speaker 1: You're getting a phone call about them. The security from
Speaker 1: the security company got it, and.
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, I said, nobody should be there. Please
Speaker 2: notify the police. Nobody should be there, and if that's happening,
Speaker 2: then there's there's a real problem. So so then I'm
Speaker 2: pacing around and then call the police and I said,
Speaker 2: you know, I've been waiting for a call back. And
Speaker 2: they're like, oh my god, thank you for calling. An
Speaker 2: airplane crashed into your house and it's it's fully engulfed
Speaker 2: in flames and we need you to go to the
Speaker 2: property now to help the responders. I got there and
Speaker 2: the entire development was just all emergency vehicles, police s, ambulance,
Speaker 2: fire trucks. By multiple times in the media, was already.
Speaker 1: There because a plane crashed into a house. Like that's
Speaker 1: a plane.
Speaker 2: The neighbors called it in.
Speaker 1: Right, and that's what made the panic alarm go off.
Speaker 2: The plane crash, made.
Speaker 1: The plane crash, made it go off. Okay, so you
Speaker 1: get to your house, there is a plane crashed into
Speaker 1: your house.
Speaker 2: Obviously the police had the records of me going to
Speaker 2: the police department them serving the the restraining order, so
Speaker 2: they knew that that was an incident house. So their
Speaker 2: biggest concern was that we were in the house more
Speaker 2: than anything else. So for them it was kind of like,
Speaker 2: all right, this is not as bad as it could
Speaker 2: have been because you and yourcau because we were not
Speaker 2: in the house.
Speaker 1: Okay, So what went through your head when you got
Speaker 1: to the house.
Speaker 2: I was scared that he somehow had managed to do
Speaker 2: this and make it look like maybe he was dead too,
Speaker 2: but that he wasn't.
Speaker 1: Oh, so you suspected it was him. As soon as
Speaker 1: you heard a plane crash in the house, you suspected
Speaker 1: it was him, Okay, because which would be recentble because
Speaker 1: planes don't crash in the house.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I wasn't thinking it was a coincidence.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, no no. I mean a plane could
Speaker 1: crash and land in a street, or in a neighborhood
Speaker 1: or in a yard and arm ahouse. But this went
Speaker 1: right into the house.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And this was in the middle of it was
Speaker 2: a clearing oh yeah, yeah, out of an eleven acre.
Speaker 2: It was a very precise, precision attack.
Speaker 1: So it isn't. But that jumps out of me that
Speaker 1: what went through your head was that I know it's him,
Speaker 1: and my concern is that he is still alive.
Speaker 2: Somehow I had to lay out the schematics of the
Speaker 2: house so to speak for them, and then explained about
Speaker 2: Low's stature and you know, identifying features and so that
Speaker 2: when they did get to the plane, because they hadn't
Speaker 2: gotten to the plane itself yet, it was all based
Speaker 2: on the neighbors saying what they saw with the airplane
Speaker 2: circling before the crocket. So when they said, yeah, we
Speaker 2: did find a body and it matches your description or
Speaker 2: the remains match your description, because clearly there was a fire.
Speaker 2: The house was just a skeleton.
Speaker 1: So now you know he's dead, there's a body, there's remains,
Speaker 1: you can't you know, I mean, and it was clearly him. Okay,
Speaker 1: it had to have been extraordinarily difficult time. You've lost
Speaker 1: your home, You've gone through the terror of leaving this relationship.
Speaker 1: You knew it was going to be bad. It certainly
Speaker 1: doesn't sound like you ever thought it was going to
Speaker 1: be this.
Speaker 2: And the hardest part was telling Angelica what had happened.
Speaker 2: So that was horrible. And then later that night having
Speaker 2: to call his mother and his sister and you know,
Speaker 2: call my family, you know, but calling his mother was
Speaker 2: really tough. But then after that it was really media.
Speaker 2: Media was relentless, was very interesting to the world. That
Speaker 2: was August twenty fifth, thousand one one. And then in
Speaker 2: the morning of September eleventh, two thousand and one, my friend,
Speaker 2: one of the ones who had been a real support
Speaker 2: person and my closest friend, he called. He said, are
Speaker 2: you watching TV? So which no channel? I wasn't, he
Speaker 2: goes any and I turned on the TV and you know,
Speaker 2: the images that were going so now I had, oh
Speaker 2: my god, like, is this this my fault? Because it
Speaker 2: had been national not just national news, it was international news.
Speaker 2: It was everywhere you know about what he had done.
Speaker 2: Kamikaze pilot and burns down his hats and crashes into
Speaker 2: the house. And I felt responsible And even though I
Speaker 2: know it's not like I go there like, okay, they
Speaker 2: were probably just going to hijack those planes, you know,
Speaker 2: like but they got this idea from lou to like
Speaker 2: do this instead with crashing buildings, and like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: this is all my fault. Everyone's going to know it
Speaker 2: is my fault. So so yeah, little PTSD from that.
Speaker 1: Alone, yea, I think, yeah, probably other things or years.
Speaker 1: It's it is it did trauma survivors blame themselves for
Speaker 1: things that have nothing to do with them. It's part
Speaker 1: of the architecture of trauma, a throwback to trying to
Speaker 1: attempt to make some sense of control over something that
Speaker 1: was happening, and the proximity of somethings that was such
Speaker 1: a catastrophic event in your life against an image that
Speaker 1: was so similar two weeks later. Is I mean, you
Speaker 1: were in the throes of acute trauma at that point
Speaker 1: when nine to eleven happened. It was it was what
Speaker 1: it was like seventeen days, you know, So that's we
Speaker 1: consider that acute traumatic stress. Most people will continue to
Speaker 1: have trauma responses within that thirty day period. Most people
Speaker 1: will then, you know, sort of it will there will
Speaker 1: be a tailing off, and it'll leave a toll, but
Speaker 1: may not cause impairment in their life. But that connection
Speaker 1: of those two events took what was already your daughter's grief.
Speaker 1: It was her father, and this is not the end
Speaker 1: you wanted. You wanted the two of you to be
Speaker 1: able to go off into your own separate lives. This
Speaker 1: is not what you would hope for. And then you
Speaker 1: also still lived in fear right until the very last
Speaker 1: moment that he was still alive and could harm you.
Speaker 1: This was a person who felt dangerous to you. But
Speaker 1: I wanted now focus in years later because your daughter,
Speaker 1: Angelica is now an adult, right, she's grown up and
Speaker 1: she will go into relationships. Now, what did you talk
Speaker 1: to her about and when she started dating?
Speaker 2: Honestly, she's been married now for oh seven years. Who
Speaker 2: she's married to her first and only boyfriend? Wow? Okay,
Speaker 2: she started dating in high school. But before she dated him,
Speaker 2: you know, I did talk to her and one of
Speaker 2: her girlfriends, and her girlfriend was maybe a little more
Speaker 2: interested in boys than Angelica was at the time, and
Speaker 2: I talked to them about my experience and good good,
Speaker 2: you know, And I talked about the earlier times with
Speaker 2: even before Lou you know, and mistakes I made and
Speaker 2: not things are dangerous. It's more about the self respect
Speaker 2: and you know, don't settle for things that aren't right.
Speaker 2: If something doesn't feel right, it's not right. Yeah, just basically,
Speaker 2: if you don't feel good, if in a relationship, it's
Speaker 2: probably not good for you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's it's tough. That's tough advice for
Speaker 1: young people to listen to. So how have you been healing?
Speaker 1: What's your healing process been?
Speaker 2: Like, I'm married to a good guy.
Speaker 1: Good now, gratulation.
Speaker 2: He's a good guy and he's been through his share
Speaker 2: of bad experiences himself, so in general we're really good
Speaker 2: to each other.
Speaker 1: Good. But you trusted love enough to get married again,
Speaker 1: which is amazing.
Speaker 2: I never thought I would. I keep a very tight circle,
Speaker 2: so I feel really vulnerable outside of the circle, but
Speaker 2: I'm great with my circle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's great. Actually, I think the small circle idea
Speaker 1: is actually very much the landscape of survivorship. I always
Speaker 1: say your relationship with trust is going to change. Right now.
Speaker 1: I want to ask you one last question, which is
Speaker 1: if you could talk to your sixteen year old self
Speaker 1: who had just met Lou in the stairwell of a
Speaker 1: frat house, what would you tell her.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm going to preface this by you know, I'm like,
Speaker 2: to change anything is to change everything, and then I
Speaker 2: don't have Angelica.
Speaker 1: That's good. I'm glad, so I would.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't change thing that resulted in not having her
Speaker 2: in my life. But my instincts were right when I
Speaker 2: got out of the car after the speeding, so everything
Speaker 2: was fine up till then. You know, there's you know,
Speaker 2: even though there was a couple of awkward things, you know,
Speaker 2: with the early dates, but are not dating, whatever those were,
Speaker 2: But my instinct when I got out of that car
Speaker 2: and slammed it and said that's it, we're right. There
Speaker 2: was no reason to go back and test the waters.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yes, and yet most people do. But I
Speaker 1: really want to come back to what you said. To
Speaker 1: change anything would be to change everything. It was such
Speaker 1: a I've never heard anyone quite say it that way, Joe,
Speaker 1: And I'm really glad we're sort of ending in that
Speaker 1: place because many survivors will spend years ruminating if I'd
Speaker 1: done this, if I had done this, if I had
Speaker 1: done this, I'd had done this, And the of your
Speaker 1: focus on Angelica, This is the daughter I wanted, This
Speaker 1: is the human being I wanted in the world, and
Speaker 1: a whole series of events had to happen and that
Speaker 1: put Angelica in the world. And that framing of the
Speaker 1: suffering as something larger is that whatever universal calculus is
Speaker 1: being done, that that moment happened, and no, I didn't
Speaker 1: get out of the car, and by not getting out
Speaker 1: of the car, this happened. This human being came into
Speaker 1: my life. It's a hard way sometimes to view it
Speaker 1: because so much suffering happened, but it can sometimes be
Speaker 1: the way to view it that allows us to find
Speaker 1: the psychological strength, the soul strength to keep fighting another day.
Speaker 1: So I have to say that perspective taking is quite
Speaker 1: remarkable given what you had went through. So thank you
Speaker 1: so much for sharing your story.
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you for your work.
Speaker 1: Here are my takeaways from my conversation with Joe. Let's
Speaker 1: start with one of the last things Joe said. Joe
Speaker 1: ended her story with a profound quote that I do
Speaker 1: hope at some point in their healing that survivors are
Speaker 1: able to feel. She said, to change anything is to
Speaker 1: change everything. I thought that was a beautiful framing. Now,
Speaker 1: I have no doubt that some survivors may not resonate
Speaker 1: with that, but for many of you, there was something
Speaker 1: that grew out of these toxic relationships, beloved children, some
Speaker 1: good family relationships, self awareness, and even experiences. I view
Speaker 1: it as those flowers that sometimes grow out of the
Speaker 1: sidewalk cracks. From the harshest of places, beautiful things can grow.
Speaker 1: We don't get do overs, and all we can do
Speaker 1: is take a moment and recognize that there may be
Speaker 1: some things in our life that came from this struggle.
Speaker 1: Framing these experiences in a meaning oriented way doesn't take
Speaker 1: away the pain, but it may foster your healing in
Speaker 1: our next takeaway, When I hear a story like Joe's,
Speaker 1: I wish there was a high school class on warning
Speaker 1: signs and dangerous patterns in new relationships. The reactive sensitivity,
Speaker 1: fast driving, jealousy. These often are signs that show up
Speaker 1: early and are always a sign of problems to come.
Speaker 1: Charm and charisma can make it hard to spy these patterns.
Speaker 1: In Joe's relationship, she said, she quickly slid into a
Speaker 1: pattern of rescuing with Joe looking for places for him
Speaker 1: to live, and this rescuing can often happen if someone
Speaker 1: believes that this may soothe the narcissistic person. These patterns
Speaker 1: can start getting set early in narcissistic relationships, and somehow
Speaker 1: we have to find a way to shine a light
Speaker 1: on these patterns so there is less risk of young
Speaker 1: people making excuses for pentially abusive partners. For this next takeaway,
Speaker 1: this story teaches us how narcissistic tantrums and the drive
Speaker 1: to make them stop by appeasing the narcissistic person means
Speaker 1: that almost everything that happens in a relationship like this
Speaker 1: is coercive. Being paged multiple times on a cruise ship
Speaker 1: and then having to say yes to a marriage proposal
Speaker 1: so she could make his harassment stop is not consent,
Speaker 1: but yet, over and over in these relationships, people relent
Speaker 1: to all kinds of things to make the abusive harassing
Speaker 1: behavior stop for a moment. Then, when that gets coupled
Speaker 1: with a sense of guilt or pity for the narcissistic person,
Speaker 1: a person, especially a young person, can get corralled into
Speaker 1: a situation that is very difficult to safely climb out of.
Speaker 1: In our next takeaway, there's entitlement, and then there's entitlement.
Speaker 1: Her husband's request that she allow his girlfriend to move
Speaker 1: into their home together simply because she made him happy.
Speaker 1: That's a whole other level of entitlement. We always think
Speaker 1: we have gotten into the far boundary of entitlement, but
Speaker 1: then we hear something like this, It's easy to take
Speaker 1: a hard line stance and believe we would never put
Speaker 1: up with something like this. However, after years of enduring
Speaker 1: emotional abuse in the relationship, a person in a relationship
Speaker 1: like this may not fully register it. However, Joe's body
Speaker 1: did register it, and the cardiac symptoms she was having
Speaker 1: turned out to be panic attacks, which are not unusual
Speaker 1: in people experiencing this toxic and abusive a relationship. In
Speaker 1: our last takeaway, Joe's pattern of self blame after the
Speaker 1: plane crash went so deep that she blamed her elf
Speaker 1: for the nine to eleven attacks, which occurred just seventeen
Speaker 1: days later. She was still in the throes of an
Speaker 1: acute stress crisis, and trauma survivors often do blame themselves
Speaker 1: for events that are clearly unrelated to them, but the
Speaker 1: similarity of the events, her accumulated history of trauma within
Speaker 1: the relationship, and the recent trauma of experiencing a similar
Speaker 1: event connects all of this. While most stories of post
Speaker 1: separation abuse do not have such extreme outcomes, it is
Speaker 1: not unusual for survivors of these kinds of abusive relationships
Speaker 1: and post separation abuse to blame themselves for a variety
Speaker 1: of incidents that happen in their lives for years to come.