Speaker 1: There was a safety deposit box in Malaysia that her
Speaker 1: and I had the key to that was a secret
Speaker 1: and I wasn't allowed to tell anyone that it existed.
Speaker 1: And we'd like go put gold bars in this safety
Speaker 1: deposit box that has the big vaulted door.
Speaker 2: It was like the slow burn to like, that wasn't
Speaker 2: weird to me.
Speaker 3: I'm Andrea Gunning and this is Betrayal. I show about
Speaker 3: the people we trust the most and the deceptions that
Speaker 3: change everything. Usually, each episode of Betrayal Weekly follows one
Speaker 3: person's story, but today's episode is told by two members
Speaker 3: of the same family, a father and daughter.
Speaker 4: The betrayal wasn't something that happened in a moment. It
Speaker 4: happened over a long time, and I didn't even recognize
Speaker 4: what was happening.
Speaker 3: That's Dan Kimball. He is a mild mannered Midwestern man
Speaker 3: in his late sixties. He and his daughter Sage, had
Speaker 3: their world shattered by the person they both trusted most.
Speaker 3: Here's Sage.
Speaker 2: In my normal life.
Speaker 1: I don't talk about this to my friends or my people,
Speaker 1: except for some very close friends, because like, how do
Speaker 1: you even start to tell this story?
Speaker 3: When we first reached out to them about telling their
Speaker 3: story on Betrayal.
Speaker 4: To be honest. When I got that message from you,
Speaker 4: I thought it was a.
Speaker 3: Scam, But the title of our show caught his attention.
Speaker 4: Betrayal. The word betrayal was the thing that kind of
Speaker 4: struck my mind.
Speaker 3: Our team spent months talking with Dan in Sage. They
Speaker 3: went back and forth about if they wanted to use
Speaker 3: their real names in this episode. After taking time to think,
Speaker 3: they came back with a clear answer, If.
Speaker 2: We're telling the truth, what do we have to be
Speaker 2: afraid of?
Speaker 3: We're going to start this story From Sage's perspective, she
Speaker 3: grew up in picturesque Santa Barbara, California, in the nineties.
Speaker 1: At the time, it felt more like a hippie town.
Speaker 1: You could do outdoorsy stuff. I have very fond memories
Speaker 1: there of like finding bananas, lugs, and being outside.
Speaker 3: Her parents are both eccentric citizen of the world types.
Speaker 3: They originally met because of their mutual love of the
Speaker 3: visionary architect and designer Buckminster Fuller.
Speaker 1: They met at Buckminster Fuller's birthday party and then they
Speaker 1: were friends years before they ever were in a relationship.
Speaker 3: Her dad, Dan, spent most of his life doing sustainable design,
Speaker 3: working on cutting edge computer technology. He's the one who
Speaker 3: nurtured her childhood curiosity.
Speaker 1: My dad would be curious about what I was interested in,
Speaker 1: and then he'd get excited about it. I was really
Speaker 1: obsessed with like space for a little bit, and he
Speaker 1: built a planetarium with me, and like, let me go
Speaker 1: on the street and like sell tickets for people to
Speaker 1: like look.
Speaker 2: Into my planetarium show.
Speaker 3: Dan was a constant and gentle presence for Sage and
Speaker 3: her mom Fara.
Speaker 2: She was affectionate. She would hug me, she would kiss me,
Speaker 2: she would play with me, like outdoorsy things. She loved
Speaker 2: doing with me.
Speaker 3: As a kid, Sage always wanted to be close to
Speaker 3: her mom.
Speaker 2: I felt like she was the thing that made me safe.
Speaker 1: I couldn't exist without her, like I believed that I
Speaker 1: wouldn't exist without her.
Speaker 3: Fara was a Sufi Muslim. She came to the religion
Speaker 3: as a teenager when her dad was working as a
Speaker 3: diplomat in Iran. That's where Fara fell in love with Islam.
Speaker 3: It became a part of her identity and she raised
Speaker 3: her daughter's age in the faith.
Speaker 1: We all called ourselves Sufi's, which is a sect of
Speaker 1: Islam have these like Sufi gatherings at our house with
Speaker 1: like dancing. There would be like forty people coming over
Speaker 1: and like I'd just get to like hang out. Those
Speaker 1: Sufi parties were a lot of fun for Sage.
Speaker 3: Growing up as a white Muslim girl in Santa Barbara
Speaker 3: was a unique experience.
Speaker 1: Friends would ask me, like, are you embarrassed to walk
Speaker 1: around with your mom because she wore this. It's a
Speaker 1: hit job, but it's also like a cape thing.
Speaker 2: People would ask me if my mom was a nun.
Speaker 3: Her mom started wearing long white robes that looked like
Speaker 3: a nun's habit. Dan sewed them for her by hand.
Speaker 3: Sage was it embarrassed about her mom. She wanted to
Speaker 3: be like her because her mom really lived out her values.
Speaker 3: She was a peace activist.
Speaker 1: We'd go to a lot of anti war or peace
Speaker 1: rallies when I was growing up.
Speaker 2: I remember feeling.
Speaker 1: Really cool that we were out there doing something about
Speaker 1: the world.
Speaker 3: Fara organized a movement to send medicine and supplies to
Speaker 3: civilians in Iraq. Sage remembers watching her mom's work with pride.
Speaker 2: That was about five or so.
Speaker 1: My mom was going on a humanitarian aid trip where
Speaker 1: a group of people were going to be breaking the
Speaker 1: sanctions to deliver medicine and things to the people in Iraq.
Speaker 1: That was a super cool thing that my mom did. Like,
Speaker 1: that's so brave and so cool.
Speaker 3: Dan was deeply involved in this movement too. It was
Speaker 3: a family effort. The Kimbals were instrumental in raising millions
Speaker 3: of dollars from medicine to be sent to children in Iraq.
Speaker 3: As much as Sage loved her mom and wanted to
Speaker 3: be just like her, Fara could be stern.
Speaker 1: I remember from a very young age knowing that what
Speaker 1: mom says goes like if you did something wrong, you
Speaker 1: knew immediately to like get it together, and it almost
Speaker 1: like your eyes changed.
Speaker 3: Whenever Sage did something wrong, Fara taught her how to
Speaker 3: make amends.
Speaker 1: My tactic from an early age was writing her a
Speaker 1: note or a letter.
Speaker 2: I'm going to see if I can find it. Actually, oh,
Speaker 2: here it is. I found it. There's a part here
Speaker 2: that says thank you for teaching me what Islam is.
Speaker 2: I don't know where I would be today if not
Speaker 2: for you, even though it may not seem like it now,
Speaker 2: because I didn't live up to my duties or help
Speaker 2: you out. I truly love you. You are the most
Speaker 2: important person in the world to me.
Speaker 3: Fara was often upset with Sage's dad Dan. Sage didn't
Speaker 3: know why, but she wanted to help.
Speaker 1: Once I was like eight nine ten, I learned that
Speaker 1: I should try and fix it. So I would go
Speaker 1: and talk to him, and then I would go and
Speaker 1: relay information, and I would go tell him, here's what
Speaker 1: you should do.
Speaker 2: I know how to fix these problems.
Speaker 3: Sage was confused by her parents' relationship.
Speaker 1: I never saw them be affectionate with each other. I
Speaker 1: don't think I ever saw them kiss or like hug.
Speaker 1: They said they really loved each other. But i'd see
Speaker 1: like my friend's parents, and they'd be like arm around
Speaker 1: each other or like holding hands.
Speaker 3: Bara put pressure on Dan to bring in more money
Speaker 3: for the family. That became a source of a lot
Speaker 3: of their fights.
Speaker 1: At a certain point, my mom started saying that, well,
Speaker 1: it's the man's job to provide, like I shouldn't have
Speaker 1: to provide anything, because it was his job to make
Speaker 1: sure that there was food on the table.
Speaker 3: Their family was growing. When Sage was eight years old,
Speaker 3: her parents had two more kids, twin boys.
Speaker 1: I was pumped because I was like, great, even better
Speaker 1: now I get two friends, not just one.
Speaker 3: Money was a stressor. Dan had one unsuccessful tech startup
Speaker 3: of his own, but he always landed on his feet.
Speaker 3: At the time, he worked for an early micro computing
Speaker 3: company doing user interface design. Plus, they were in the
Speaker 3: middle of building their dream home in Santa Barbara. Bara
Speaker 3: and Dan had been designing it together. It would be
Speaker 3: a sustainable home that incorporated Islamic architecture.
Speaker 1: There was a house that we were trying to build
Speaker 1: in Santa Barbara that got cut because it had a dome,
Speaker 1: and people said that the dome was We're trying to
Speaker 1: build a mosque.
Speaker 3: It was two thousand and five, a time when Islamophobia
Speaker 3: was rampant in the US. Siege encountered it at school.
Speaker 1: I do remember that being like a Muslims or terrorists
Speaker 1: like that being said, and me fighting with people about that.
Speaker 3: Fara and Dan learned that it was one of their
Speaker 3: neighbors who made Islamophobic comments about the design of their house.
Speaker 3: It made them want to live in a place where
Speaker 3: they weren't outsiders.
Speaker 1: I was in ninth grade at the time, and I
Speaker 1: remember coming home and they were like boxes packed.
Speaker 3: Fara wanted to move the family to a Muslim majority country.
Speaker 3: Dan quit his job and planned to work remotely on
Speaker 3: tech startups in Asia. A few months later, they went
Speaker 3: to visit a family friend in Bali, Indonesia.
Speaker 2: And then we didn't leave.
Speaker 3: Bali's actually majority Hindu, but Fara felt comfortable there and
Speaker 3: they found the perfect property.
Speaker 1: It was a big piece of land and there's a
Speaker 1: river down below, and you look across like rice fields,
Speaker 1: and you could see on a clear day like Mount Agun,
Speaker 1: which is the big volcano in Bali, in the distance.
Speaker 1: Like it was incredible, beautiful, beautiful, but at the time
Speaker 1: it was just a piece of land. There was nothing
Speaker 1: on it.
Speaker 3: The family packed up their whole lives, put most of
Speaker 3: it in storage, and relocated to Bali. They got to
Speaker 3: work building an estate complete with an organic garden and
Speaker 3: a set of traditional Javanese villas.
Speaker 1: They're called Joe glows, and they're these really cool Indonesian
Speaker 1: structures that are like no nails.
Speaker 3: The family came together with neighbors and friends to help
Speaker 3: with the construction. They also started a main house where
Speaker 3: the family would live. It was a huge undertaking, and
Speaker 3: though she was fourteen sage knew her parents were taking
Speaker 3: a big risk.
Speaker 1: Buying that property was like everything we had, so like
Speaker 1: you're putting all your eggs in that basket.
Speaker 3: To afford this piece of land and the construction costs,
Speaker 3: Dan and Fara had used all of their resources. They
Speaker 3: sold their property in Santa Barbara and put their savings,
Speaker 3: including all the money Dan had inherited from his parents,
Speaker 3: into the Bali property. Once it was completed, it would
Speaker 3: be an oasis, a tropical paradise for their family, one
Speaker 3: they could monetize. Fara had the idea to start a
Speaker 3: raw foods business at the house in Bali, hosts tourists
Speaker 3: and chefs who were leaders in the raw food movement.
Speaker 3: It's a diet of mostly fruits, nuts, and vegetables.
Speaker 1: Health and wellness was another big thing that she was into.
Speaker 1: She got really into like raw food and actually made
Speaker 1: the cookbook with like delicious raw food recipes. But like
Speaker 1: there were always extremes in that.
Speaker 3: That year, Fara took stage on a solo trip to
Speaker 3: visit a community run by women.
Speaker 2: There's an Indonesian tribe that's still a matriarchal society, which
Speaker 2: it was actually really sick, like it was a very cool, beautiful,
Speaker 2: peaceful society.
Speaker 3: Stage was about fifteen after that trip to visit the
Speaker 3: matriarchal society, Fara brought her daughter along more often, including
Speaker 3: for business matters and important errands.
Speaker 1: I've started going to banks with her to do banking things.
Speaker 3: Around that same time, Fara began bringing the kids on
Speaker 3: trips with her where she was buying gold bars.
Speaker 2: A gold bar.
Speaker 1: I remember at the time it being like ten thousand
Speaker 1: dollars and us going and getting like six gold bars
Speaker 1: or something like that. This was also the time she
Speaker 1: was getting into Alex Jones and like money and corruption.
Speaker 3: Alex Jones is an American media host. He's built a
Speaker 3: large following through commentary on politics, culture, and government institutions.
Speaker 3: He's best known for promoting conspiracy theories and fear mongering
Speaker 3: about economic collapse.
Speaker 1: I think that was where the influence to get the
Speaker 1: gold came from, because it was like, this is where
Speaker 1: how you keep your money safe.
Speaker 3: Some of those trips are seered into stages memory, like
Speaker 3: when they went to Singapore.
Speaker 1: We would go to Singapore to buy gold because it
Speaker 1: was a good place to buy gold. And then she
Speaker 1: would have me and my brothers put like you have
Speaker 1: those like you know, those like travel bags that go
Speaker 1: like under your clothes.
Speaker 2: She made it seem like it was a normal thing.
Speaker 3: She started talking to Stage more and more about finances,
Speaker 3: and Fara told her these trips, the gold, the banking,
Speaker 3: it was their secret.
Speaker 2: There was a.
Speaker 1: Safety deposit box in Malaysia that her and I had
Speaker 1: the key to. That was a secret and I wasn't
Speaker 1: allowed to tell anyone that it existed. And like there's
Speaker 1: like armed guards outside of this like safety deposit area,
Speaker 1: and we'd like go put gold bars in this safety
Speaker 1: deposit box that has the big vaulted door and like
Speaker 1: a guard at the door.
Speaker 2: It was wild, but.
Speaker 1: Like again it was like the slow burn too, Like
Speaker 1: that wasn't weird to me.
Speaker 3: Sage knew she wasn't allowed to question her mom.
Speaker 1: I was so intertwined with what she wanted. I don't
Speaker 1: think I was even always told what I was doing.
Speaker 1: I just did whatever she asked me to do.
Speaker 3: Stage trusted in her mom connection to God.
Speaker 1: That was so central to how she parented me was
Speaker 1: here's God, and then we're all serving God. The understanding
Speaker 1: was that she's like a step below God. God is
Speaker 1: speaking to her it was like, if you're going against her,
Speaker 1: you're going against God.
Speaker 3: Eventually, Bara let her daughter in on her plan. She
Speaker 3: wanted to create a matriarchal financial structure within their own family.
Speaker 1: She's a feminist and she wants a matriarchal society and
Speaker 1: the women should be in charge of the finances. That
Speaker 1: was the first time I heard that, like, we are
Speaker 1: going to do this matriarchal.
Speaker 3: Thing as part of this structure. Fara wanted Stage to
Speaker 3: be the signatory on their family trust instead of her
Speaker 3: dad or one of her brothers.
Speaker 1: When I became the signatory on that trust document, it
Speaker 1: was because we were treating this like the women have
Speaker 1: power over the finances, like it's going to be so progressive.
Speaker 3: Sage was on board. She signed the documents her my
Speaker 3: master too.
Speaker 2: The understanding was like, if you're a feminist or if
Speaker 2: you care about women, you will also support this.
Speaker 3: Fara explained to Sage that this had to be done
Speaker 3: because she said their dad wasn't good with money. Bara
Speaker 3: told the kids that Dan's job in tech startups wasn't
Speaker 3: good enough.
Speaker 1: He'd go get investment in a company that he was
Speaker 1: working on, and then she would say that investment isn't income.
Speaker 1: That's stealing money from people for these businesses. And so
Speaker 1: she would say to us that, like, your dad is
Speaker 1: just swindling these people out of their money because he
Speaker 1: won't get a job. And if he cared about you,
Speaker 1: he would get a job.
Speaker 3: But it wasn't just Dan's job that was the problem.
Speaker 3: She started telling the kids their dad didn't love them anymore.
Speaker 1: She would say to us that, like, your dad doesn't care.
Speaker 1: He doesn't care about you. He's a dead bee. He
Speaker 1: doesn't care about his kids. I know you love him,
Speaker 1: but if he cared about you, he would be doing
Speaker 1: something to protect you.
Speaker 3: Dan was often traveling for work away from the house,
Speaker 3: but whenever he was home.
Speaker 1: I remember later on in my teenage years, my dad
Speaker 1: was sleeping in literally this like outdoor shack. But it
Speaker 1: was because I begged her not to kick him out.
Speaker 3: Fully, Fara explained to the kids that she was scared
Speaker 3: of Dan.
Speaker 1: She would ask me to be a witness if he
Speaker 1: was talking to her because she wanted a witness when
Speaker 1: he was abusive to her, like if I cared about her,
Speaker 1: I'd be there to protect her. In that.
Speaker 3: By the time Stage left for college, she believed she
Speaker 3: had to protect the family from her dad, and a
Speaker 3: big part of that meant keeping the family money out
Speaker 3: of his hands.
Speaker 1: The understanding was like, in order for us to have anything,
Speaker 1: we have to make sure he doesn't have access to
Speaker 1: these things because he's just going to squander it. And
Speaker 1: my dad didn't know any of this, All.
Speaker 3: Of this, from the trips to the bank to the
Speaker 3: stories she told the kids, I.
Speaker 4: Was completely oblivious, and I think it was orchestrated that way.
Speaker 3: Once the Kimbals moved to Bali, Fara began acting differently.
Speaker 3: She isolated her oldest daughter, Sage, and told her stories
Speaker 3: about how her father didn't love her. It got in
Speaker 3: Sage's head. Her mom started taking her to the bank
Speaker 3: and asking her to sign documents. Now we're going to
Speaker 3: hear Dan's perspective, starting from when they moved to Bali.
Speaker 3: It's something that was difficult for him to revisit. Dan
Speaker 3: Metfara when they were teenagers. They were friends for fifteen
Speaker 3: years before they became a couple. They shared the same
Speaker 3: core value wanting to make the world a better place, and.
Speaker 4: I appreciated that about her. Definitely very much a global thinker,
Speaker 4: and she's a very charismatic person, I mean, a really
Speaker 4: beautiful soul in many ways.
Speaker 3: By the time they got to Bali, they'd been married
Speaker 3: for almost twenty years. Dan didn't share the same religious
Speaker 3: zeal as Fara did, but he respected her values. So
Speaker 3: when she said she wanted to move to Indonesia.
Speaker 4: The decision had already been made for me. Really, she
Speaker 4: wanted to be in a Muslim culture, and you know,
Speaker 4: I'm want to really complain. I was always wanting to
Speaker 4: just go along with what we were trying to do.
Speaker 3: Dan had been the breadwinner for most of their marriage.
Speaker 3: Working in tech startups meant that sometimes he had a
Speaker 3: high paying job and sometimes he was in between gigs,
Speaker 3: but through it all he made sure the family was
Speaker 3: okay financially. In fact, Dan had been the one managing
Speaker 3: the couple's money since the beginning.
Speaker 4: I took over responsibility for all the finances. I just
Speaker 4: made the books every month and just did it and
Speaker 4: paid the bills. I kind of knew the QuickBooks and
Speaker 4: putting it all together and working with the text people
Speaker 4: and just getting it all organized. I don't think that
Speaker 4: she had ever really had a desire to handle money stuff.
Speaker 3: Over the course of their marriage, Dan watched his wife
Speaker 3: become more and more religious. She'd chosen her own name, Bara,
Speaker 3: Religion became her whole life. By the time they got
Speaker 3: to Bali.
Speaker 4: There was kind of a delusional nature to her describing herself.
Speaker 4: She was so close to God that she could understand
Speaker 4: things that were beyond my understanding.
Speaker 3: But Dan saw the value in living abroad. Once he
Speaker 3: toured the property in Bali, he was sold afar his dream.
Speaker 3: To make that happen financially.
Speaker 4: We moved all of our assets to Indonesia through we
Speaker 4: started a company in Indonesia, so money would go to
Speaker 4: this company. We have to have one Indonesian director, so
Speaker 4: a good Indonesian friend was the director. My wife and
Speaker 4: I were the other directors, and we owned a fifty
Speaker 4: to fifty that Indonesian director didn't own any and most
Speaker 4: of the assets then to buy the property were bought
Speaker 4: through this company. We paid a huge down payment to
Speaker 4: buy the property.
Speaker 3: It was a big financial risk, and it brought Dan
Speaker 3: and Bara closer. They both believed in what they were building.
Speaker 3: Takeet other in Bali, even if it meant pulling all
Speaker 3: of their available resources.
Speaker 4: Oftentimes people think, oh, you must have been so wealthy
Speaker 4: to do all that stuff. No, we weren't. We just
Speaker 4: were brave enough to go and do it right. I mean,
Speaker 4: it was risky in the sense that we spent a
Speaker 4: lot of money to buy that property, and but we
Speaker 4: just we didn't mind living with that kind of risk.
Speaker 3: At the beginning of their move, the family had to
Speaker 3: stay in a hotel for a couple weeks. There, Dan
Speaker 3: noticed Fara was taken by the new lifestyle they could
Speaker 3: afford abroad.
Speaker 4: We lived for quite a long time in this fancy hotel,
Speaker 4: and I didn't know why we were staying there because
Speaker 4: it was costing us too much money, and I was
Speaker 4: kind of complaining about it. But she was very pushy
Speaker 4: around money, like, you know, no, we're gonna do this.
Speaker 4: We're going to spend the money and it takes to
Speaker 4: do this. Of course, it's both it's all our money.
Speaker 3: That hotel stay was temporary. Dan was busy orchestrating and
Speaker 3: designing the construction project. He was there for nearly every
Speaker 3: step of the process.
Speaker 4: And we built it up into this beautiful little mini
Speaker 4: resort which was all based on raw food, which is
Speaker 4: a wonderful kind of niche for us, because anyone anywhere
Speaker 4: in the world it was interested in raw food would
Speaker 4: come to our place. It was the only place in
Speaker 4: Bali that you could get raw food at the time,
Speaker 4: and so we trained people in how to make raw food.
Speaker 4: In fact, some of the people that went to these
Speaker 4: New York raw food restaurants were trained by us.
Speaker 3: Fara loved living in Bali. They both did.
Speaker 4: I just fell in love with Bali.
Speaker 3: Once most of the construction was done, Dan started traveling
Speaker 3: around Asia consulting for a series of tech startups. Stage
Speaker 3: was finishing high school. The twin boys were in elementary school,
Speaker 3: and Fara seemed to be pulling away from Dan every
Speaker 3: time he came home from a business trip. Fara became
Speaker 3: increasingly distant. After a year or two, I got to
Speaker 3: the point that we.
Speaker 4: Didn't have a relationship anymore. I mean we never slept together,
Speaker 4: we never I was in separate quarters from her. But
Speaker 4: I just went along with it.
Speaker 3: Dan was under pressure to keep bringing in a steady income,
Speaker 3: and he was scrambling to make that happen. He figured
Speaker 3: it was normal for he and his wife to go
Speaker 3: through stressful years where they drifted apart. The only thing
Speaker 3: that bothered him was when Fara started taking the kids
Speaker 3: on trips and telling Dan she didn't want him there.
Speaker 4: There was a lot of exclusion, like, okay, sage and
Speaker 4: I are going to go to Indonesia though and buy
Speaker 4: some more teak to try to find the teak for
Speaker 4: the house, and you're going to stay here, right. It's
Speaker 4: just like telling me what I had to do and
Speaker 4: how I'm going to do it.
Speaker 3: This had been their dynamic for almost their whole marriage.
Speaker 3: Fara called the shots and Dan was happy to go
Speaker 3: along with her choices. But after they moved abroad, her
Speaker 3: the choices began to exclude Dan.
Speaker 4: There are many vacations that they went on that I
Speaker 4: didn't go on because I was pushed out of it.
Speaker 3: One of those trips, my wife.
Speaker 4: Wanted to visit this community in Malaysia that is a
Speaker 4: Muslim society where the women are in control of everything,
Speaker 4: so it was of interest to her.
Speaker 3: A few months after that trip, Baras started taking an
Speaker 3: interest in managing their finances herself. She told Dan she
Speaker 3: wanted her own private bank account, and he didn't see
Speaker 3: any issue with that. After about five years at the
Speaker 3: raw Food resort in Indonesia, they were approached by a
Speaker 3: land developer. He wanted to buy their land at a
Speaker 3: premium stage. Was about to go off to college and
Speaker 3: the twins were ten. The family was ready for a
Speaker 3: new chapter, so they made the sale.
Speaker 4: We sold the property in Indonesia for three million dollars.
Speaker 3: Dan and Bara put that money into a new family
Speaker 3: trust that they established in Malaysia. That's where they would
Speaker 3: be moving next. They'd had something similar in Indonesia, but
Speaker 3: not with nearly this amount of money in it. So
Speaker 3: the formation of this trust in Malaysia was a big deal.
Speaker 4: This notion of a trust was very important to us.
Speaker 4: People have understood what it was, but the word trust
Speaker 4: I don't think had the same meaning to her that
Speaker 4: it had to me.
Speaker 3: For Dan, the family trust was about ensuring safety for
Speaker 3: their kids' futures. It was for his and far As
Speaker 3: future too. Like always, ownership of the trust would be
Speaker 3: divided evenly.
Speaker 4: The company we created in Indonesia was fifty to fifty held.
Speaker 4: The company that was created in Malaysia was held by
Speaker 4: the trust, which we were co creators of. We were
Speaker 4: named in the trust as co granters, and we moved
Speaker 4: all the assets to Malaysia.
Speaker 3: When they sold their property in Bali. They'd actually sold
Speaker 3: the land, not the houses they'd built. Those were theirs
Speaker 3: if they could find a way to move them. The
Speaker 3: big house had been a special project of Dan's.
Speaker 4: So then we decided, well, hey, let's bring the house
Speaker 4: from Indonesia to Malaysia because we didn't want to start
Speaker 4: from scratch.
Speaker 3: Their plan was to deconstruct the house in Bali piece
Speaker 3: by piece so they could rebuild it somewhere else.
Speaker 4: We asked everybody from the village to come and help
Speaker 4: us knock down these houses, and within three days they
Speaker 4: tore it down and packed it all up. So a
Speaker 4: few months later we had two giant shipping containers come
Speaker 4: to us in Malaysia with our house.
Speaker 3: They found a piece of land in Malaysia where they
Speaker 3: could reconstruct their dream home, and now they could afford
Speaker 3: to take their time. They hired an architect who saw
Speaker 3: their vision. The project became Dan and far As focus.
Speaker 4: We have lovely time design and building and working with
Speaker 4: the architects, and like we're working on something other than us.
Speaker 4: It wasn't about us, It was about this thing we
Speaker 4: were doing together.
Speaker 3: When the house was completed, it was breathtaking picture a
Speaker 3: jungle oasis with floor to ceiling windows and towering hand
Speaker 3: carved doors, tropical plants, and natural light flooding every room.
Speaker 3: And because it was the same structure they originally built
Speaker 3: in Bali, it wasn't just beautiful, it was meaningful. The
Speaker 3: house was a symbol of what their family could accomplish together.
Speaker 4: We rebuilt our property that this gorgeous place, into this
Speaker 4: extraordinary house.
Speaker 3: Once they got settled in Malaysia, Dan got back to work.
Speaker 4: During this time, I opened a kind of a consulting
Speaker 4: company and I had some contracts with technology development work.
Speaker 3: One of his main contracts was in a city a
Speaker 3: few hours away. But this time when he would come
Speaker 3: home from work to ups, he experienced a new level
Speaker 3: of isolation. It was as if the whole family was
Speaker 3: giving him the silent treatment. When he asked Farah what
Speaker 3: was going on, she said she didn't know what he
Speaker 3: was talking about. So Dan responded by throwing himself into
Speaker 3: work and building up his own social network.
Speaker 4: With lots of my friends and people that I built
Speaker 4: relationships with, like this architect and our next stortabor. I
Speaker 4: became good friends with them, but she never wanted to
Speaker 4: even go over there.
Speaker 3: Dan was making enough for the family to live comfortably,
Speaker 3: and he liked his work. Around this time, Dan was
Speaker 3: offered a salary job. It paid a lot, but it
Speaker 3: was a role he didn't want. When he brought it
Speaker 3: up to Fara, she showed a renewed interest in Dan.
Speaker 4: My wife was pushing to try to get me to
Speaker 4: take this job. When I told her I'd turned it down,
Speaker 4: it was like she blew up. She was upset by this.
Speaker 3: This is when Dan first heard about her desire for
Speaker 3: the women in the family to control the finances. You
Speaker 3: heard Stage talk about that earlier in the episode. Stage
Speaker 3: had been in on this for years, but she was
Speaker 3: told not to talk about it with her dad, so
Speaker 3: Dan was just learning about it in Malaysia.
Speaker 4: Of course, it's both it's all our money, but she's
Speaker 4: the one who's kind of now starting to control it.
Speaker 3: If it was important to Fara to control the finances,
Speaker 3: he was okay with that. It gave him peace of mind,
Speaker 3: knowing that the trust was still held fifty to fifty
Speaker 3: with a friend of theirs serving as director. But after
Speaker 3: Fara took over management of the family's daily spending, the
Speaker 3: marriage deteriorated even further.
Speaker 4: And it was like very tumultuous time. She argued with
Speaker 4: me and demanded that I move into the mataged quarters.
Speaker 3: Dan didn't even know what he'd done to make his
Speaker 3: wife so upset, but now he was always walking on eggshells, and.
Speaker 4: I thought we were still in love. This is where
Speaker 4: I realized that love wasn't the same thing. Love was
Speaker 4: transactional for her.
Speaker 3: Now that the house was nearly completed, Dan felt like
Speaker 3: he wasn't useful anymore.
Speaker 4: There was no need for me anymore. I felt like
Speaker 4: I was Yeah, it was like good discard.
Speaker 3: Around that time, Dan was on a business trip when
Speaker 3: he was robbed.
Speaker 4: Guys on a motorcycle went and grabbed my bag and
Speaker 4: drove off with my computer and my passport and everything else.
Speaker 3: He had to call Fara and beg for her help.
Speaker 5: This issue of me needing to get enough money to
Speaker 5: buy a computer that had been stolen, and what kind
Speaker 5: of position had I got myself into to be so
Speaker 5: subservient to funds that were ours, to thinking that I
Speaker 5: had to beg for it.
Speaker 3: For Dan, this was an emotional breaking point.
Speaker 4: I realized, Hey, there's something seriously wrong here. There was
Speaker 4: something that cracked.
Speaker 3: Dan managed to get himself back home. But when he
Speaker 3: arrived at the house.
Speaker 4: I go there, try my key. It doesn't work, and
Speaker 4: I realized, oh, she's changed the key. The doors had
Speaker 4: been locked, and I wasn't welcome anymore.
Speaker 3: With no other place to stay and no access to
Speaker 3: their money, Dan started sleeping in a friend's car.
Speaker 4: During that time, I basically ran out of funds we
Speaker 4: had playing joint funds, and she just wouldn't send any money.
Speaker 4: And I felt suppressed from even asking. You know, I
Speaker 4: was literally living out of a friend's car. I don't
Speaker 4: think she thinks of it that way, but I was homeless.
Speaker 4: It pushed me into homelessness.
Speaker 3: Dan still believed that if he could just sit down
Speaker 3: and talk with his wife, they could figure out a
Speaker 3: path forward. It would probably mean divorce and separating their assets.
Speaker 3: He just wanted to look her in the eye and
Speaker 3: make the decision together.
Speaker 6: A few days later, I remember going to the house
Speaker 6: once trying to see her and just talk with her
Speaker 6: about this in just a very calm boy it just like,
Speaker 6: what's going on?
Speaker 4: What do we do about this?
Speaker 3: He knew Fara went on a bike ride every morning,
Speaker 3: so he waited for her by the front gate of
Speaker 3: their house.
Speaker 4: She was riding a bicycle toward me and I was
Speaker 4: there ready to greet her. She looked straight ahead and
Speaker 4: acted as if I was a tree, just drove past
Speaker 4: me without even glancing my direction.
Speaker 3: That moment when Fara passed him on the bicycle was
Speaker 3: one of the last times Dan would ever see his wife,
Speaker 3: because the next time he met with the accountants, you
Speaker 3: learned something that would alter the rest of his life.
Speaker 4: I went there and we were going over the documents
Speaker 4: and they said, well, the shares were transferred into your
Speaker 4: wife's name. I said, what the shares were?
Speaker 2: Chance?
Speaker 4: Those are the trust shairs that were transferred into my
Speaker 4: wife's name. Is he I have done the state and
Speaker 4: there's something And they were just daing as matter of
Speaker 4: factly right. They showed me the documentation that said that
Speaker 4: this is the transfer and I said, well, what about
Speaker 4: the directorship and he says, yeah, well she was made
Speaker 4: director too, and I was just I was just dumbfounded.
Speaker 3: At that meeting, Dan had been completely locked out of
Speaker 3: their family trust.
Speaker 4: She only needed the approval of the trustee, so somehow
Speaker 4: she talked to the trustee.
Speaker 3: The trustee was a friend of theirs who lived locally.
Speaker 4: I think She started to work on him and said, Okay,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna I'm transferring all this stuff over into into
Speaker 4: my name. I'm going to be the director now. And
Speaker 4: he wish went and did it. He just signed the papers, thinking,
Speaker 4: I mean that's what his claim was. Oh, it was
Speaker 4: you know, she's your wife, you know, as she's all
Speaker 4: been approved by her and you.
Speaker 3: Dan had not approved for his half of the trust
Speaker 3: shares to be transferred into his wife's name that gave
Speaker 3: her sole access to their entire life savings, but he
Speaker 3: hadn't signed any documents. He had no knowledge of this transfer.
Speaker 3: Dan immediately called their friend who'd been the trustee.
Speaker 4: I just remember being outraged that he would do this
Speaker 4: and how did this happen. We can't move on like this.
Speaker 4: Change it back. It has to be corrected. And I
Speaker 4: was absolutely adamant about it.
Speaker 3: But this isn't the kind of thing you can just
Speaker 3: request to change back. There was a lot of red tape.
Speaker 4: I worked for months, literally most of the rest of
Speaker 4: twenty seventeen. I talked to multiple attorneys about how do
Speaker 4: we do this because it's already been signed over. I
Speaker 4: talked to the trust attorney. He finally said to me. Listen,
Speaker 4: You're gonna have to get an attorney to I can't
Speaker 4: do anything because she's not going to agree to it,
Speaker 4: and the trust he can't do it on his own.
Speaker 4: And but you know, that's all kinds of crap.
Speaker 3: Dan's life was on pause as he tried to educate
Speaker 3: himself about international trust laws and marriage laws.
Speaker 4: My entire life savings are tied up in this, and
Speaker 4: I'm literally penniless.
Speaker 3: If he wanted recourse, he would have to go through
Speaker 3: the Malaysian court system.
Speaker 4: I'm going to have to file suit, and I'm going
Speaker 4: to have to file suit against my wife and the
Speaker 4: company that's in the trust. Even my daughter has to
Speaker 4: be on the suit because she was the signatory to
Speaker 4: the trust. It was just mind bendingly painful.
Speaker 3: For the final act of this story, we're going to
Speaker 3: hear from both Dan and Sage, because what happened next
Speaker 3: didn't just unfold around them. It happened between them.
Speaker 2: Can I add on to that, Dad, Yeah, Yeah.
Speaker 3: We wanted to bring them together to tell the end
Speaker 3: of the story from their joint perspective.
Speaker 4: Sage, your experience was very different than my own because
Speaker 4: it comes from me being a husband rather than being
Speaker 4: a daughter totally different, but yet the same thing happens.
Speaker 3: Sage had been hearing horrible stories about her dad. They'd
Speaker 3: been kept away from each other for so long that
Speaker 3: they weren't living in the same reality.
Speaker 1: I was alienated from my dad for years because she
Speaker 1: told me he wasn't trustworthy.
Speaker 3: When Dan was locked out of the house, Sage was
Speaker 3: in college. She was barely speaking to her father at
Speaker 3: the time. She only heard her mother's version of the story.
Speaker 2: When she changed the locks.
Speaker 1: She then was posing it at the time as like
Speaker 1: he's trying to break in and being like, I'm terrified,
Speaker 1: And I remember being angry at my dad, like leave
Speaker 1: her alone because she's making it seem like he's trying
Speaker 1: to like hurt her or something, and I never thought
Speaker 1: he was capable of hurting her.
Speaker 3: After the trust was transferred out of his name, Dan
Speaker 3: reached out to Sage to tell her what was going on.
Speaker 3: That's when he began putting the pieces together about why
Speaker 3: Sage was so distant.
Speaker 4: I didn't realize that I had been spoken ill love
Speaker 4: for many years, and so that the impressions that I
Speaker 4: got from my early discussions with Sage were that, Wow,
Speaker 4: you don't know me.
Speaker 3: Sage was twenty three and living in New York City
Speaker 3: when her dad called her.
Speaker 2: He said, Hey, I want you to know I am
Speaker 2: filing a lawsuit against your mom, but because you were
Speaker 2: on that document, I also have to sue you.
Speaker 1: But it's like I'm going to cover your lawyer fees.
Speaker 1: We're going to just get your statement and then.
Speaker 2: You'll be recused. He was talking to me about how
Speaker 2: this was all going to work before doing it.
Speaker 3: But when Sage talked to her mom, she heard a
Speaker 3: completely different story.
Speaker 2: It escalated to, like, why would you want to have
Speaker 2: a relationship with my abuser? Like you're an abuser too
Speaker 2: if you want to have a relationship with my abuser,
Speaker 2: even if that person is your father.
Speaker 3: Her mom's story was confusing to her. Sage had mediated
Speaker 3: her parents' fights before, but she had never seen anything physical.
Speaker 3: In fact, Sage's personal experience of her dad was that
Speaker 3: he was a quiet and gentle guy.
Speaker 2: From the time I was born.
Speaker 1: He was gentle, and he listens in all of the fights.
Speaker 1: The times when my mom would be crazy, he wouldn't
Speaker 1: even raise his voice. I think I've heard him yell
Speaker 1: twice in my life. I've never seen hurt an animal.
Speaker 1: I've never seen him hurt anything.
Speaker 3: When he first came to her in crisis, Sage was
Speaker 3: deeply conflicted about who to believe.
Speaker 2: I was like, I don't believe you.
Speaker 1: Show me the proof, and seeing the proof of like,
Speaker 1: here's this money that was given to me, here's this,
Speaker 1: here's what we bought. A huge part of that was
Speaker 1: his inheritance that even got us the house in Bali,
Speaker 1: and I was starting to believe in him.
Speaker 3: But Sage still didn't want to be in the middle
Speaker 3: of this. She tried to completely remove herself from the situation.
Speaker 1: I got like a notarized letter that was just like
Speaker 1: this should be solved between my parents.
Speaker 2: I should have never been on this document.
Speaker 3: This notarized letter didn't change anything. She was legally implicated
Speaker 3: in this.
Speaker 1: My dad was like, I don't want you to be
Speaker 1: in the middle of it either, And you are in
Speaker 1: the middle of it. And I would start listening to
Speaker 1: him more. I was trained that he was so awful
Speaker 1: that like, you're just lying to me. But I was like,
Speaker 1: I want to know what his side is. So I listened,
Speaker 1: and like we had a conversation where he told me
Speaker 1: all the things like that were going on.
Speaker 3: Then Fara came to stage with a new document, one
Speaker 3: that would close the trust entirely and make it much
Speaker 3: harder for her dad to ever access his life savings.
Speaker 3: If she signed this piece of paper, she would be
Speaker 3: taking a side. There'd be no going back stage. Didn't
Speaker 3: want to be responsible for the millions of dollars in
Speaker 3: shared assets her parents were fighting over, and she.
Speaker 2: Was supposed to it as I just need your signature
Speaker 2: on this thing, just need your one signature, and I
Speaker 2: told her, no, I'm not going to sign it because
Speaker 2: I don't want to be in the middle of this.
Speaker 3: But saying no to her mother was the red button.
Speaker 1: It felt like me choosing not to sign it was
Speaker 1: me choosing to not have a relationship with her. I
Speaker 1: could just sign it and then this would be over
Speaker 1: and I wouldn't have to deal with this excruciating pain.
Speaker 1: But I didn't, And that was like the first time
Speaker 1: that she truly stopped speaking to me.
Speaker 3: And then came the call from her dad.
Speaker 1: He called me and was like, did you sign the document?
Speaker 1: And I said no, I didn't. I promise you I
Speaker 1: didn't sign the document and he was like, you didn't
Speaker 1: sign here you one hundred percent sure, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I this was the hardest thing I've ever done in
Speaker 1: my life.
Speaker 2: I'm one hundred percent sure.
Speaker 1: I didn't sign the document, and he was like, your
Speaker 1: signature is on the document.
Speaker 2: I just told my dad again and again I didn't
Speaker 2: do it, and he believed me.
Speaker 3: Then how did her signature get on the document? Sage
Speaker 3: felt like her own boundaries had been violated.
Speaker 2: And then I started therapy. Also, really really was the
Speaker 2: thing that helped me process and understand and start to
Speaker 2: gain clarity. It was through therapy that I started to
Speaker 2: set boundaries with her, and then it's.
Speaker 3: Over Going to therapy helped Sage understand that her dynamic
Speaker 3: with her mom was not normal, like how her mom
Speaker 3: would react whenever Sage wasn't doing what she wanted.
Speaker 1: She would pretend she had a knife and she'd be like,
Speaker 1: this is what you're doing to me, like stabbing her,
Speaker 1: like it was awful.
Speaker 3: When Sage moved to New York, she began forming her
Speaker 3: own identity separate from her mom. She started making new
Speaker 3: friends and forming new ideas about the world. Instead of
Speaker 3: being happy for her, far began ignoring Sage's calls and
Speaker 3: distancing herself emotionally from Sage. Meanwhile, Dan's case moved forward,
Speaker 3: a hearing was set in Malaysia, and Sage made a
Speaker 3: decision she never.
Speaker 2: Thought she would.
Speaker 1: Ultimately, I decided to be involved in the court case.
Speaker 1: I think it was also for myself because I think
Speaker 1: there was something about that that was healing. To get
Speaker 1: to finally say this happened to me in a public way.
Speaker 3: Sage submitted a notarized epidavit to the Malaysian court declaring
Speaker 3: that she did not sign for the revocation of the trust,
Speaker 3: nor did she have any knowledge of the transfer of
Speaker 3: the trust assets or knowledge of Bara becoming director. When
Speaker 3: the hearing date came, she and her dad went together
Speaker 3: to Malaysia and Sage took the stand, giving an emotional
Speaker 3: testimony about the ways she felt manipulated by her mother.
Speaker 3: Sage didn't expect the way her mom's lawyers responded to
Speaker 3: her testimony.
Speaker 4: During her testimony, they showed a picture of us happily,
Speaker 4: you know, in a family gathering with us together. We're
Speaker 4: all smiling in the picture, and they says, is this
Speaker 4: looks like you're being abused or is this like a
Speaker 4: pictures showing that you are abused, and of course you
Speaker 4: look at the things you're just saying, no, I mean
Speaker 4: I look happy, you know. But the reality is is
Speaker 4: that what is in a picture doesn't show what's really
Speaker 4: behind the scenes.
Speaker 1: Being told literally to my face. Would someone who's being
Speaker 1: abused look like this on a holiday vacation? Would someone
Speaker 1: who's being abused be smiling like this? Your mom has
Speaker 1: done this, this, and this humanitarian for the world, like
Speaker 1: you're just lying.
Speaker 3: That contradiction between her humanitarian work and her family's lived
Speaker 3: experience with her was also something Dan in Sage had
Speaker 3: to come to terms with themselves.
Speaker 1: It's not always just a black and white someone is
Speaker 1: good or evil. That you can have parts of you
Speaker 1: that are good and it doesn't take away from the
Speaker 1: fact that you can do something terrible.
Speaker 3: When Dan looks back on all the humanitarian work Fara
Speaker 3: has done, he sees a pattern.
Speaker 4: In retrospect. It looks like she was doing a lot
Speaker 4: of these right things for the wrong reasons. The right
Speaker 4: things were like medicines to Iraq, you know, doing all
Speaker 4: these wonderful things, but it wasn't for the reasons I
Speaker 4: thought it was for the reasons that it got her attention.
Speaker 4: It got her notoriety. That's what she loved.
Speaker 3: After the hearing, they waited for the ruling, and when
Speaker 3: the decision came, they were shocked.
Speaker 4: They dismissed the case. How could that be? But they
Speaker 4: didn't know why. I didn't know why it had been dismissed.
Speaker 4: There was not a judgment, there was only a dismissal.
Speaker 4: That's strange, is this never happens.
Speaker 3: Even Dan's attorney was confused. He'd been confident in their case.
Speaker 3: An outright dismissal wasn't even on the radar, but the
Speaker 3: court was saying Dan didn't even have a leg to
Speaker 3: stand on.
Speaker 4: I just immediately said, that's wrong. Can't have this.
Speaker 3: Dan's dad had been a judge. As a kid, he'd
Speaker 3: sit in his dad's courtroom and bang the gavel. He
Speaker 3: was raised to value justice and fairness, and when his
Speaker 3: case in Malaysia was dismissed, he felt justice had been denied.
Speaker 4: The core part of that shock to me was that
Speaker 4: they had completely ignored Sage's testimony. It basically said in there,
Speaker 4: she's not believable. And this was like hit me to
Speaker 4: the core. It's like, how could that be? You know,
Speaker 4: this is not something that you ignore. I don't know, Sage,
Speaker 4: how did that make you feel?
Speaker 2: That felt so degrading.
Speaker 1: I spoke the truth To then not be believed hurts
Speaker 1: even more.
Speaker 3: Dan wanted to appeal the dismissal, but to move forward
Speaker 3: he would have to pay fifty thousand dollars. They didn't
Speaker 3: have that money, so Sage had an idea to start
Speaker 3: a GoFundMe sharing their story and trying to fundraise for
Speaker 3: the appeal fees.
Speaker 4: And I had to promote this go fundme thing to
Speaker 4: my professional community. I'm sure I lost some respect because
Speaker 4: people just maybe just didn't believe it.
Speaker 3: It was embarrassing for Dan. Sage helped write the fundraiser
Speaker 3: page telling the story of what happened to their family. Trust,
Speaker 3: friends and colleagues of Dan submitted testimonies about him. But
Speaker 3: after they put up the page, Baras sent a letter
Speaker 3: threatening to sue Dan for defamation.
Speaker 4: This letter was trying to silence me and trying to
Speaker 4: literally prevent me from raising money to protect myself.
Speaker 1: I think initially when she sent the letter, my response
Speaker 1: was put it in my name. Then she has to
Speaker 1: sue me, and that looks worse, And then I think
Speaker 1: we didn't even end up doing that because it's like
Speaker 1: we're telling the truth.
Speaker 2: You actually don't get to keep silencing the story. Stop.
Speaker 2: We're allowed to have our voices.
Speaker 3: In the end, they didn't raise the money they needed
Speaker 3: for the appeal.
Speaker 4: I lost the appeal not on grounds, but on procedural
Speaker 4: and it's like we didn't pay the money. He lost
Speaker 4: the suit.
Speaker 3: There are safeguards in place in California, where Dan filed
Speaker 3: for divorce. California imposes a temporary restraining order over financial
Speaker 3: assets while divorce is pending. Those laws don't apply in Malaysia.
Speaker 3: Dan worries that even if he can get access to
Speaker 3: the trust again, the money may not be there anymore.
Speaker 3: And the same goes for his cherished home in Malaysia.
Speaker 4: Not only did she put it up for sale in
Speaker 4: January against those orders. I found out since that there's
Speaker 4: a crypto site that sells real estate promoting the property.
Speaker 3: Today Dan's case is trapped in a thicket of international law.
Speaker 3: It's been seven years since he discovered he was removed
Speaker 3: from the family trust. It's meant Dan spent most of
Speaker 3: his sixties locked out of his life savings. His late
Speaker 3: dad had loved a safety deposit box with a few
Speaker 3: thousand dollars worth of coins and stocks that Dan was
Speaker 3: able to access.
Speaker 4: It was only because of that money that I was
Speaker 4: able to depart Malaysia.
Speaker 3: He moved back to the US and found a cheap
Speaker 3: apartment to rent and.
Speaker 4: Just kind of scraped by until I could apply for
Speaker 4: Social Security. And then I lived basically on one thousand
Speaker 4: dollars a month, and I have been ever since.
Speaker 3: For those first few years back in the US, Dan
Speaker 3: was in a dark place. He felt like he'd failed
Speaker 3: his children. He spent a lot of time reconnecting with
Speaker 3: his daughter and grieving with her. These days, Stage is
Speaker 3: no longer religious. While the decision to step away from
Speaker 3: religion has been healthy and right for her, she knows
Speaker 3: that Islam as a religion was never the problem. It
Speaker 3: was a way that Fara used religion as a tool
Speaker 3: of control to elevate herself, to demand obedience, and to
Speaker 3: justify her behavior. The harm Fara caused was specific to her,
Speaker 3: not to Islam. Going to therapy has helped Sage understand
Speaker 3: those patterns in her mom's behavior. She's even brought her
Speaker 3: dad to some of her therapy sessions for them to
Speaker 3: process together.
Speaker 4: One of the things that I think was extremely positive
Speaker 4: about this was that suddenly Sage and I could have
Speaker 4: a relationship that was based on truth. We'd basically set
Speaker 4: everything to each other about how we felt about each
Speaker 4: other and understanding ourselves. I mean, there were things revealed
Speaker 4: that Sage didn't know about me and me about her.
Speaker 4: I heard that Sage had a crisis in BALI that
Speaker 4: I was oblivious to. I was oblivious to partly because
Speaker 4: of the hiding and the keeping things from me. But
Speaker 4: I'm sad now because I wasn't there to recognize that
Speaker 4: and to see it. And you know, I'm yeah, I'm
Speaker 4: sorry that I wasn't there. There was kind of a
Speaker 4: breaking of the silence and allowing us to, you know,
Speaker 4: I could be a parent again.
Speaker 1: Getting to process that was really healing, because that anger
Speaker 1: can then turn into forgiveness and the relationship that we
Speaker 1: have now he's not just my dad, but we're also
Speaker 1: really good friends.
Speaker 3: Their relationship today is incredibly strong. They live fifteen minutes
Speaker 3: away from each other, They have breakfast together once a
Speaker 3: week and walk Stage's dog on the beach.
Speaker 1: I think part of the healing too, is like just
Speaker 1: getting to have a relationship that's not about any of
Speaker 1: what we went through and having just fun and like
Speaker 1: kind of a fresh start. He will design woodworking tables
Speaker 1: for me and we'll go build it at the woodworking studio.
Speaker 1: So we're making a dining table. Dat I sent you
Speaker 1: the ones I like, And you have to make the
Speaker 1: cat drives.
Speaker 2: You promise, I know, I know.
Speaker 4: We have to figure that out.
Speaker 1: And you're so good at building and crafting and creating.
Speaker 3: Anger and resentment just aren't in their nature. Even though
Speaker 3: they experienced a life changing betrayal and a loss that
Speaker 3: they might never see resolved, Dan wants to spend the
Speaker 3: rest of his life focused on what he does have now,
Speaker 3: which is a relationship with his kids.
Speaker 1: Justice is like a huge word for you that like
Speaker 1: you want justice and you want and like what does
Speaker 1: that look like? And I think the reality of where
Speaker 1: we are now is it might not look like what
Speaker 1: we wanted it to look like in our heads.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it may not be just. I mean that justice
Speaker 4: doesn't have to exist. It sometimes doesn't.
Speaker 1: Well, I think, but I think it's more that it
Speaker 1: like the justice that we have is that we have
Speaker 1: this relationship, which is more valuable than any of the
Speaker 1: money or any of the things, and she doesn't get
Speaker 1: to have that. In many ways, I still love my
Speaker 1: mom and I still have worry and concern for her,
Speaker 1: and I think, damn it, I think that like.
Speaker 2: She's very lonely. Like that's sad.
Speaker 1: You know, she's pushed everyone away so much that she's alone,
Speaker 1: and like what an awful Like underneath all of the
Speaker 1: personality stuff that goes on is someone who's deeply alone.
Speaker 2: And probably I don't know, Like it's just I think.
Speaker 1: We're pretty cool, dad, and like getting to have this
Speaker 1: relationship is actually more valuable than any of the money
Speaker 1: or any of the things.
Speaker 2: And maybe that is justice.
Speaker 4: Now that I have my family back, literally my daughter
Speaker 4: and my two kids, that is the thing that feels
Speaker 4: just and feels right and feels like something that's been
Speaker 4: denied and is now restored.
Speaker 3: We end every weekly episode with the same question, why
Speaker 3: do you want to share your story?
Speaker 4: This is about transformation, right, How can I be better
Speaker 4: as a result of the impact of this. I could
Speaker 4: just swallow in it like I did for a long time,
Speaker 4: But if we want a better world, we should build
Speaker 4: a better world and design a better world. So I'd
Speaker 4: like to go from an understanding of this betrayal to
Speaker 4: building a blueprint for a better world.
Speaker 3: As for why Sage is telling the story with her dad, all.
Speaker 1: Of this is not to make her the devil, you know,
Speaker 1: like it's That's not what the goal of this is
Speaker 1: for any of us. It's more to be able to
Speaker 1: share our experiences and be one hundred percent truthful. I'm
Speaker 1: aware that she's not going to like it. She has
Speaker 1: vilified him to so many communities, but I think getting
Speaker 1: to see him tell his story matters, and getting to
Speaker 1: have him get some sort of justice matters, and I
Speaker 1: think part of that is being heard and believed. I'm
Speaker 1: sorry he had to go through what he's going through
Speaker 1: because he didn't deserve it. I hope that on the
Speaker 1: other side of this is healing for him too, because
Speaker 1: he deserves that.
Speaker 3: On the next episode of Betrayal Weekly.
Speaker 7: They had a recording that showed the hillside just calm, quiet, settled,
Speaker 7: and then right after that it was the recording of
Speaker 7: the same exact spot, the same exact house burning to
Speaker 7: the ground.
Speaker 3: If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal
Speaker 3: team or want to tell us your betrayal story, email
Speaker 3: us at Betrayalpod at gmail dot com. That's Betrayal Pod
Speaker 3: at gmail dot com, or follow us on Instagram at
Speaker 3: Betrayal Pod. You can also connect with me on Instagram
Speaker 3: at It's Andrea Gunning. To access our newsletter, view additional content,
Speaker 3: and connect with the Betrayal community, join our substack at
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Speaker 3: One way to show support is by subscribing to our
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Speaker 3: review Betrayal five star reviews go a long way. A
Speaker 3: big thank you to all of our listeners. Betrayal is
Speaker 3: a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment
Speaker 3: Group and partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive
Speaker 3: produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fason, hosted and produced
Speaker 3: by me Andrea Gunning. This episode was written and produced
Speaker 3: by Olivia Hewitt and Monique Leboord, with additional production from
Speaker 3: Ben Fetterman, casting support from Curry Richmond. Our iHeart team
Speaker 3: is Ali Perry and Jessica Krincheck. Audio editing and mixing
Speaker 3: by Matt del Vechio. Additional audio editing by Tanner Robbins.
Speaker 3: Betrayal's theme composed by Oliver Bain's music library provided by
Speaker 3: my Music. And for more podcasts from iHeart, visit the
Speaker 3: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.