WEBVTT - The Best Family Ever 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:04.320 Family Secrets as a production of I Heart Radio Morning. 0:00:04.559 --> 0:00:08.840 This episode contains discussion of abuse and suicide. Listener discussion 0:00:08.960 --> 0:00:18.400 is advised. My childhood was very difficult. I share. One 0:00:18.440 --> 0:00:21.480 of my first memories with my mother is sitting on 0:00:21.480 --> 0:00:24.560 our knees by the sofa and my stepdad told me 0:00:24.640 --> 0:00:28.600 to watch your fingernails and if our fingernails turned blue, 0:00:28.720 --> 0:00:32.240 to call on one one. So it was very traumatic. 0:00:32.760 --> 0:00:35.920 It's one of my early memories. I was in elementary 0:00:35.960 --> 0:00:39.800 school and I remember growing up and you know, I 0:00:39.800 --> 0:00:42.640 didn't want to invite friends over because I was ashamed 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:45.280 of the way we lived and I didn't want anyone 0:00:45.320 --> 0:00:48.560 to know how my life really was. I just wanted 0:00:48.560 --> 0:00:51.559 to be normal and pretend everything was okay. And I 0:00:51.560 --> 0:00:53.680 didn't want them to come in the kitchen and turn 0:00:53.720 --> 0:00:55.600 on a light, because when you turn the lights on, 0:00:56.200 --> 0:00:59.840 you know, you see a gazillion roaches running everywhere, scattering. 0:01:03.720 --> 0:01:08.000 That's Venus Maurice Griffin, single mother of seven, award winning 0:01:08.000 --> 0:01:12.920 real estate agent and motivational speaker. Venuses is a story 0:01:13.480 --> 0:01:17.560 of almost superhuman resilience and discipline, an homage to the 0:01:17.600 --> 0:01:20.679 notion that where there's a will, there's a way. Away 0:01:20.720 --> 0:01:25.160 out a way through a harrowing childhood that threatened to 0:01:25.240 --> 0:01:30.920 repeat itself as such childhoods often do, often but not always. 0:01:31.920 --> 0:01:35.759 Above all, this is one woman's journey from violence, secrecy, 0:01:35.880 --> 0:01:39.240 and shame to a life filled with grace and love. 0:01:52.840 --> 0:01:56.760 I'm Danny Shapiro, and this is family secrets, the secrets 0:01:56.760 --> 0:01:59.320 that are kept from us, the secrets we keep from others, 0:01:59.680 --> 0:02:07.520 and this secrets we keep from ourselves. I had a 0:02:07.560 --> 0:02:12.200 stepfather who was a an alcoholic, very very scared of him, 0:02:12.240 --> 0:02:15.680 and um, he was very abusive in many ways to 0:02:15.760 --> 0:02:19.400 me and my siblings, have a half brother and half sister, 0:02:19.800 --> 0:02:22.519 and my brother ended up in a maximum security prison. 0:02:22.600 --> 0:02:25.840 You know, we all do with trauma differently, and he 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:29.200 could never get past the cycle of abuse and poor 0:02:29.360 --> 0:02:33.160 choices which led him down this dark life of crime. 0:02:33.919 --> 0:02:37.239 And my sister, the last time I saw her, she 0:02:37.440 --> 0:02:41.120 was at the State Mental Hospital in Columbia, South Carolina, 0:02:41.160 --> 0:02:43.919 trying to convince me that she was walking there vertusipatient 0:02:44.560 --> 0:02:48.160 and lost her children very young age. Hasn't seen them, 0:02:48.160 --> 0:02:52.520 probably in twenty five plus years. And uh, she was 0:02:52.520 --> 0:02:56.160 a good soul, but just could not process everything that 0:02:56.200 --> 0:02:58.440 had happened to her. And you know, my mother was 0:02:58.480 --> 0:03:02.800 married prior to my stepfather, and I always thought he 0:03:02.840 --> 0:03:05.560 was my biological father, along with my half brother and 0:03:05.560 --> 0:03:07.799 half sister. I thought the three of us were all 0:03:07.880 --> 0:03:12.640 full siblings. And the trauma that we went through living 0:03:12.639 --> 0:03:14.400 with him, I don't I was young, but so I 0:03:14.400 --> 0:03:16.359 don't remember a lot of it. But I do remember 0:03:17.040 --> 0:03:20.760 one story in particular. My sister was telling me that, um, 0:03:20.800 --> 0:03:22.680 you know, he would throw them in the closet and 0:03:22.680 --> 0:03:25.079 threw firecrackers at I'm gonna hold the door. I mean 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:26.840 he'd have ten locks on the door, like all the 0:03:26.840 --> 0:03:28.880 way down the doorway, and he'd locked on one, two 0:03:28.960 --> 0:03:32.040 or three, you know, for safety. Just those memories that 0:03:32.080 --> 0:03:35.200 are just burned into your mind that you can you 0:03:35.200 --> 0:03:40.320 can never forget. So I would say my childhood was very, 0:03:40.400 --> 0:03:43.640 very difficult, and you know the hardest part was sorting through, 0:03:43.720 --> 0:03:46.080 Like I really adored my mother. I loved my mother. 0:03:46.120 --> 0:03:48.280 I still love my mother. There's a lot of good 0:03:48.280 --> 0:03:51.960 about my mother, just telling what I went through and 0:03:52.000 --> 0:03:54.800 what I had to overcome to get to a good 0:03:54.840 --> 0:03:58.960 place to hopefully help others. But you know, just watching 0:03:58.960 --> 0:04:02.600 her go in and out of rehabs for alcohol abuse 0:04:02.640 --> 0:04:06.000 and prescription drug abuse, and being called to the principle's 0:04:06.040 --> 0:04:09.360 office when you're in grammar school and finding out that 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:13.760 your mom's just been arrested and she tried to put 0:04:13.760 --> 0:04:15.720 her head in and told it to kill herself at 0:04:15.800 --> 0:04:19.000 the police station, and having people tell you that, and 0:04:19.120 --> 0:04:22.680 just you know, feeling alone and like you have no one, 0:04:22.800 --> 0:04:27.080 and and knowing that everyone around you has basically thrown 0:04:27.120 --> 0:04:29.520 the towel in on you. They just they're given up. 0:04:29.560 --> 0:04:31.560 They know you're going to be a stat just like 0:04:31.600 --> 0:04:34.640 my brother and sister. They know that your chances of 0:04:34.680 --> 0:04:37.640 getting out of this life are slender none. And my 0:04:38.200 --> 0:04:41.600 determination as a young child to not be like everyone 0:04:41.640 --> 0:04:49.560 around me was great. Venus makes the conscious decision during 0:04:49.560 --> 0:04:54.480 her adolescence to surround herself with good people. She studies 0:04:54.520 --> 0:04:58.240 the seemingly happy, healthy families around her and patterns her 0:04:58.279 --> 0:05:01.560 life after them. In the absence of role models within 0:05:01.680 --> 0:05:05.159 her family, she seeks her own. She and her friends 0:05:05.160 --> 0:05:07.440 don't drink or do drugs the way her mother and 0:05:07.520 --> 0:05:11.760 siblings do. She's creating a map for her future, or 0:05:11.839 --> 0:05:16.480 so she hopes. High school Sweetheart, his family was just 0:05:16.600 --> 0:05:19.760 so good. I just remember looking at them and going 0:05:19.800 --> 0:05:21.640 to their house and being so scared that they were 0:05:21.640 --> 0:05:24.400 going to find out what I came from. But watching 0:05:24.440 --> 0:05:27.040 them and how they genuinely loved each other and they 0:05:27.120 --> 0:05:30.120 respected each other, and they all went to church together, 0:05:30.120 --> 0:05:34.080 and then they actually practiced what they preached, and it 0:05:34.360 --> 0:05:38.039 just was my saving grace because I had to figure 0:05:38.040 --> 0:05:39.400 out a way to be like him. But I didn't 0:05:39.400 --> 0:05:42.400 know how to do that. But again, I knew what 0:05:42.440 --> 0:05:44.880 I didn't want to do, which is to be like 0:05:45.040 --> 0:05:47.280 my brother or my sister, or my or my mother. 0:05:48.080 --> 0:05:50.279 I wasn't like a straight A student by any means. 0:05:50.279 --> 0:05:53.920 I was probably a average say student. I never had 0:05:53.920 --> 0:05:56.719 someone to look at my grade, to my report carder 0:05:56.839 --> 0:05:58.760 to see how I was doing. I never had someone 0:05:58.800 --> 0:06:01.800 to care. Changed high schools I think six or seven 0:06:01.839 --> 0:06:03.919 times within three years, and I know I had to 0:06:03.920 --> 0:06:07.320 get out of my home life, um if I wanted 0:06:07.360 --> 0:06:10.679 to do better. And so I went to summer school 0:06:10.720 --> 0:06:12.599 to take an English class because I figured out I 0:06:12.640 --> 0:06:15.680 had enough credits that I could skip my senior year 0:06:15.680 --> 0:06:18.920 in high school and go straight to college. So that's 0:06:18.920 --> 0:06:21.640 what I did. You know, I've pretty much been on 0:06:21.640 --> 0:06:24.960 my own, I guess probably since I was fourteen, I 0:06:25.000 --> 0:06:26.760 say I was on the verge of homelessness because I 0:06:26.800 --> 0:06:29.000 was just living from you know, with friends and my 0:06:29.040 --> 0:06:31.599 sister and my mom and in between beinges. It was 0:06:31.680 --> 0:06:34.560 just it was just a tough life. But all at 0:06:34.560 --> 0:06:38.440 the same time, I was joyful. I was happy, I 0:06:38.520 --> 0:06:41.080 was grateful. I never looked at my life and thought 0:06:41.080 --> 0:06:44.080 what was me. I never looked at you know, many 0:06:44.120 --> 0:06:46.960 of my friends, a few of them were privileged. I 0:06:47.000 --> 0:06:49.080 never looked at them and wanted what they had. I 0:06:49.120 --> 0:06:51.880 just knew that I wanted something differently than I had. 0:06:56.279 --> 0:07:00.479 Venus is incentivized to emerge for her traumatic upbringing. Her 0:07:00.520 --> 0:07:03.680 hard work in school pays off, and she goes to college, 0:07:04.040 --> 0:07:07.160 the first two years at a private Baptist college, then 0:07:07.200 --> 0:07:10.480 she transfers to the University of South Carolina her junior year. 0:07:11.200 --> 0:07:14.280 There she meets Tripp, who was five years older and 0:07:14.280 --> 0:07:17.280 getting ready to graduate. They meet on a blind date, 0:07:17.560 --> 0:07:19.320 and about a year and a half later, they get 0:07:19.360 --> 0:07:24.440 married to No. Trip was to love Trip. He was dynamic, 0:07:25.000 --> 0:07:29.679 he was fun, he was smart, he was good looking. 0:07:30.280 --> 0:07:33.560 You know, he was president of his fraternity. They called 0:07:33.640 --> 0:07:36.360 him the Killer. That was his nickname. All of us 0:07:36.400 --> 0:07:41.160 her trinity brothers just really reveled around him. You walk 0:07:41.240 --> 0:07:44.280 in the room, he's the shining star. You know, he 0:07:44.600 --> 0:07:47.200 lit the room up. He gravitated to him. He was 0:07:47.240 --> 0:07:52.280 a great dancer, he was funny um, and he was 0:07:52.360 --> 0:07:55.520 so good to me. He made me feel like I 0:07:55.640 --> 0:07:57.440 was the only person in the world when we were together. 0:07:57.480 --> 0:08:00.320 He made everyone feel like that. He had a gift 0:08:00.880 --> 0:08:03.200 with children. You know, we would be around his family 0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:05.520 and his nieces and his nephews and he's pulling him 0:08:05.520 --> 0:08:08.240 on a tractor behind with you know, fifteen kids and 0:08:08.280 --> 0:08:12.440 a buggy behind it. He was just dynamic, and he 0:08:12.520 --> 0:08:18.760 had really great qualities that made people naturally gravitate towards him. 0:08:18.760 --> 0:08:23.320 This natural gravitation toward Trip happens just about everywhere with 0:08:23.360 --> 0:08:26.240 his family, his friends, and at school where he's on 0:08:26.280 --> 0:08:30.240 the football team. He's universally liked and likable. But on 0:08:30.280 --> 0:08:33.559 the night before Trip and Venus get married, an unsettling 0:08:33.640 --> 0:08:38.280 feeling sinks in. In addition to his effervescence, Trip has 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:40.920 a dark side. He rages at Venus in front of 0:08:40.920 --> 0:08:43.959 the family, and she has a thought, a thought so 0:08:44.000 --> 0:08:48.440 many have had on the eve of their weddings. You know, 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:50.319 you've got the dress and everything's been paid for in 0:08:50.360 --> 0:08:52.680 the band is coming, and you had the thought that 0:08:52.679 --> 0:08:57.120 you shouldn't marry him. Yeah, I knew that I should 0:08:57.160 --> 0:09:00.640 not marry him, and that was not normal behavior, but 0:09:00.800 --> 0:09:03.160 I just was so deep into it, and I thought, 0:09:03.440 --> 0:09:06.680 you know what, he's got stress on him, and I'm 0:09:06.679 --> 0:09:11.760 overreacting and like everybody's coming, and you know, I just 0:09:12.400 --> 0:09:15.760 tucked it underneath my stomach and I just said I'm 0:09:15.800 --> 0:09:19.320 gonna do this and pretendingly nothing happened. You would have 0:09:19.360 --> 0:09:21.960 looked at us and thought we were the happiest couple 0:09:22.920 --> 0:09:28.800 in the world. If Venus's childhood has prepared her for anything, 0:09:29.200 --> 0:09:32.280 it's to pretend everything is okay. So that's what she 0:09:32.440 --> 0:09:36.200 does when she has misgivings about the marriage, and over 0:09:36.240 --> 0:09:39.920 the next several years, the pretending becomes reality. Venus and 0:09:39.920 --> 0:09:43.400 Trip don't just look happy, they really are. Venus has 0:09:43.440 --> 0:09:47.319 always longed for unconditional love, a growing family. She has 0:09:47.360 --> 0:09:49.600 four kids within the first five years of her marriage, 0:09:50.320 --> 0:09:53.640 and a kind of familial stability, and now she has it. 0:09:54.320 --> 0:09:56.880 She's convinced that she's not repeating the history of her 0:09:56.880 --> 0:10:00.440 fraud childhood. She has a strong family unit, a strong 0:10:00.559 --> 0:10:04.199 faith and which he believes to be a strong, trusting partnership. 0:10:04.800 --> 0:10:07.439 Trip is a great father. He's super active in the 0:10:07.520 --> 0:10:10.480 church and in the kids schools and sports. He and 0:10:10.600 --> 0:10:15.120 Venus have lunch together every day. But something else is 0:10:15.160 --> 0:10:18.920 going on with Trip too. There's that dark side. Trip 0:10:18.960 --> 0:10:24.280 struggles with mental illness, and soon he becomes abusive. I 0:10:24.320 --> 0:10:28.600 think he was diagnosed with a polar disorder and maybe 0:10:28.920 --> 0:10:31.640 a few other things, and he was on medication, and 0:10:31.679 --> 0:10:34.360 he would have Tim's when he was medicated properly, that 0:10:34.440 --> 0:10:37.680 he would do really well, and it was like he 0:10:37.760 --> 0:10:40.160 was straight from heaven. And then he'd stopped taking his 0:10:40.240 --> 0:10:43.240 medicine or his medicine would need to be tweaked, and 0:10:43.240 --> 0:10:46.680 he would get really abusive and go under rages where 0:10:46.679 --> 0:10:49.319 he would threatened to kill himself. You know, he would. 0:10:49.960 --> 0:10:52.120 One time he said he tried to hang himself in 0:10:52.160 --> 0:10:56.000 the little cabin next door to ours, and he pushed 0:10:56.040 --> 0:10:57.920 me into a bathtub. I don't think he meant to 0:10:58.040 --> 0:11:01.080 hurt me hurt me, but um, you know, I just remember, 0:11:02.080 --> 0:11:04.080 like I thought I broke my back. I thought he'd 0:11:04.080 --> 0:11:07.240 really done some permanent like I couldn't walk, you know, 0:11:07.320 --> 0:11:11.040 I was like hunched over, and you know, he goes 0:11:11.080 --> 0:11:13.440 out in the yard and gets a gun and she said, 0:11:13.480 --> 0:11:15.320 I think he's killed himself. You know, I find him 0:11:15.320 --> 0:11:19.000 out in the yard. But he was so remorseful after, 0:11:19.720 --> 0:11:23.679 like just crying and begging and just please to help him, 0:11:23.720 --> 0:11:25.560 and just how much he loved me, and that I 0:11:25.600 --> 0:11:27.480 was the only person in the world he had. His 0:11:27.559 --> 0:11:29.560 dad is remarried and he has a wonderful stepmother, but 0:11:29.600 --> 0:11:33.880 his biological mother died in her late forties with clerosis 0:11:33.880 --> 0:11:36.800 of the liver, and she battled alcoholism and I think 0:11:36.800 --> 0:11:41.280 some mental issues and drugs, and you know, he would 0:11:41.320 --> 0:11:42.960 just say he had no one. You know, I was 0:11:43.040 --> 0:11:46.559 the only person he had, and and I wanted to 0:11:46.640 --> 0:11:50.360 keep my family together at all costs. You know, I 0:11:50.520 --> 0:11:54.200 wasn't I didn't intend on staying in an abusive marriage. 0:11:54.240 --> 0:11:57.240 I just thought that I could fix him, and you 0:11:57.520 --> 0:11:59.800 you can't fix someone else. And I know that now 0:11:59.800 --> 0:12:02.000 i'm which is part of the reason I share the story. 0:12:02.040 --> 0:12:05.719 You you can only fix yourself. You know, we had 0:12:05.800 --> 0:12:08.640 many good years and even when the times were really 0:12:08.679 --> 0:12:12.160 really bad, you know, whenever the abuse would get really 0:12:12.200 --> 0:12:16.520 really bad, he would always be remorseful and beg for 0:12:16.520 --> 0:12:19.360 forgiveness and tell me how much you loved me, and 0:12:19.400 --> 0:12:22.280 how much he wanted to keep our family together, and 0:12:22.320 --> 0:12:23.920 how he was going to be better, and he just 0:12:24.600 --> 0:12:26.800 he was mentally sick, and he was you know, if 0:12:26.800 --> 0:12:28.880 I would stand by him, that we had the best 0:12:28.920 --> 0:12:32.160 family ever, and I believed him. I believed him, and 0:12:32.200 --> 0:12:35.880 I did that. As bad as Trip was, it was 0:12:35.920 --> 0:12:38.840 better than when I came from My mother told me 0:12:38.880 --> 0:12:41.400 when I married Trip that I would be divorced within 0:12:41.440 --> 0:12:46.080 a year, and I was hell bent on proving her wrong. 0:12:52.200 --> 0:13:00.760 We'll be right back. In addition to the vile mood swings, 0:13:00.920 --> 0:13:04.520 there are other red flags. There's suddenly a lot of debt, 0:13:05.120 --> 0:13:09.600 Trip is overspending, and his financial decisions grand gestures included 0:13:09.920 --> 0:13:13.440 are draining the family income. Venus decides to get her 0:13:13.440 --> 0:13:17.240 real estate license so she can contribute financially. She begins 0:13:17.240 --> 0:13:20.240 selling houses, and her first commission check is around five 0:13:20.280 --> 0:13:24.199 thousand dollars. She's positioned to make about twenty dollars a year, 0:13:25.320 --> 0:13:28.560 so just enough to help bolster the family's finances, but 0:13:28.679 --> 0:13:31.760 not enough to support their large family. When Venus goes 0:13:31.800 --> 0:13:34.680 to real estate school, she's pregnant with their sixth child, 0:13:35.800 --> 0:13:37.920 I just wanted to be a mom. Prior to my 0:13:37.960 --> 0:13:40.040 first child, I wanted to be in an attorney and 0:13:40.240 --> 0:13:43.200 be in the corporate world. But once I had my 0:13:43.240 --> 0:13:46.079 first child, and that's a whole another story, we trip 0:13:46.080 --> 0:13:49.920 could not have children. He had um an undistended testicle 0:13:50.040 --> 0:13:53.080 that was a tumor, and so as a result, when 0:13:53.080 --> 0:13:55.199 we got married, I still at the hope, of course 0:13:55.200 --> 0:13:57.480 we could have children naturally, but we could not, and 0:13:57.520 --> 0:14:00.320 so we had a donor for the six alter in 0:14:00.360 --> 0:14:03.040 the same dinner. So my first child, it took me 0:14:03.120 --> 0:14:06.839 eight inseminations to to get pregnant, and the second one 0:14:06.840 --> 0:14:09.120 it took me. For the third one it took me too, 0:14:09.120 --> 0:14:12.040 and then um fourth, one, fifth, one, and six when 0:14:12.080 --> 0:14:14.880 I got pregnant on the first insemination. And so when 0:14:14.920 --> 0:14:20.360 I had my children, I had a whole different value 0:14:21.120 --> 0:14:23.720 system that I had grown up thinking I wanted to 0:14:23.720 --> 0:14:25.960 be this corporate person who was just knocking out of 0:14:25.960 --> 0:14:28.800 the business world. I wanted to be a mom. Like 0:14:28.840 --> 0:14:31.920 I realized how precious this life was. In that like, 0:14:32.480 --> 0:14:36.120 I just wanted to help these children have everything that 0:14:36.200 --> 0:14:40.320 I never had, which is a loving, stable family and 0:14:40.360 --> 0:14:43.360 a mom that was dependable, and that you know, had 0:14:43.400 --> 0:14:45.600 their back and that they could respect and look up to. 0:14:45.760 --> 0:14:48.440 And when I got my license, it wasn't long after that, 0:14:48.560 --> 0:14:52.200 but my life can crumbling down. But I just remember 0:14:52.240 --> 0:14:54.200 telling the broker when I interviewed at may Bam, which 0:14:54.240 --> 0:14:57.480 is the company I'm slant, I said, listen, don't pressure 0:14:57.520 --> 0:14:59.560 me to make a lot of money. I'm here to 0:14:59.720 --> 0:15:02.240 make the minimum this company requires for me to keep 0:15:02.280 --> 0:15:05.360 my license here, which was twenty dollars a year. That's 0:15:05.400 --> 0:15:08.520 all I'm gonna make. And I didn't know the storm. 0:15:08.560 --> 0:15:12.640 I was about the weather. I never in a million 0:15:12.720 --> 0:15:16.520 years dreamed that I would need to take over my 0:15:16.600 --> 0:15:21.400 husband's role as the financial breadwinner in the house. But 0:15:21.600 --> 0:15:25.800 soon she will be solely responsible financially and otherwise for 0:15:25.880 --> 0:15:30.040 herself and her six children. One night, shortly after she 0:15:30.080 --> 0:15:33.560 has sold a few properties, she's at home nursing her youngest. 0:15:33.880 --> 0:15:37.240 Trip is away, trip is often away, and she received 0:15:37.240 --> 0:15:42.320 the phone call from a woman at a hotel. So 0:15:42.400 --> 0:15:47.080 the phone rings, and I'll never forget this girl was 0:15:47.120 --> 0:15:49.680 on the line and she Sabrina's, my name is Jamie, 0:15:49.880 --> 0:15:53.040 and I'm calling to tell you what an awful man 0:15:53.120 --> 0:15:56.560 you're married to. And she went on to tell me 0:15:56.600 --> 0:15:59.480 other stuff, and I was like, I didn't believe her. 0:16:00.080 --> 0:16:02.480 I was in shock. And she said enough things where 0:16:02.520 --> 0:16:05.760 I'm like, okay, I need to meet her. And so 0:16:05.800 --> 0:16:09.440 I woke my son up and I said, you know, John, 0:16:09.560 --> 0:16:11.600 can you watch her siblings? Listen up for your other ones? 0:16:11.640 --> 0:16:15.280 And I gotta go meet with this lady. So I 0:16:15.360 --> 0:16:18.800 got up and I'll never forget. I was driving on 0:16:18.920 --> 0:16:22.240 Washington Road, which is where the hotel was at, and 0:16:22.280 --> 0:16:24.840 I was thinking that she was lying. You know, I 0:16:24.880 --> 0:16:27.000 was making every excuse for my husband like I always 0:16:27.040 --> 0:16:30.320 did with everything, because there had been no signs of 0:16:30.440 --> 0:16:35.360 him being unfaithful. And um, I get to the hotel, 0:16:35.440 --> 0:16:38.880 I'll turn in there. I knock on the door and 0:16:39.000 --> 0:16:41.000 I'll never forget. She comes to the door and she's 0:16:41.080 --> 0:16:44.200 kind of fidgeting, and she's younger than me, and you know, 0:16:44.240 --> 0:16:47.680 I'm pretty small and and she was, I mean, she 0:16:47.800 --> 0:16:52.200 was very small and just looked fragile. And so she 0:16:52.280 --> 0:16:54.800 opens the door and I come in and sit on 0:16:54.840 --> 0:16:59.080 the bed and she's using the very descriptive language how 0:16:59.120 --> 0:17:02.320 awful trip is and everything that he's done, and you know, 0:17:02.400 --> 0:17:04.639 telling me he was a big man on campus all 0:17:04.680 --> 0:17:07.880 these women, you know, pretty much taken everything we had 0:17:07.920 --> 0:17:10.720 and the credit card. She said, these women want to 0:17:10.720 --> 0:17:12.639 go to Walmart with it, and just Trip was a 0:17:12.680 --> 0:17:16.000 big man, and they just cleaned us out and like 0:17:16.200 --> 0:17:18.359 all the kids to count. Everything we had was gone, 0:17:18.400 --> 0:17:20.000 and we didn't have a lot of money, but what 0:17:20.040 --> 0:17:23.280 we had was gone. So then she starts showing me 0:17:23.359 --> 0:17:26.879 photos on her phone. At that point I knew she 0:17:27.040 --> 0:17:30.080 was not lying, because she's telling me things that Trip 0:17:30.119 --> 0:17:31.960 was actually doing to me when he would get in 0:17:32.000 --> 0:17:34.800 his rages, that he was doing to her. And I 0:17:34.840 --> 0:17:36.639 think maybe she fell in love with him, because she 0:17:36.640 --> 0:17:39.520 said towards the end she wasn't even charging him per sect. 0:17:40.440 --> 0:17:43.960 But she showed me his phone and you know pictures 0:17:44.480 --> 0:17:48.320 Trip and compromise positions and naked without clothes. You know, 0:17:48.400 --> 0:17:51.960 one particular photo was driving on the road like with 0:17:52.040 --> 0:17:55.080 his pants down with an erection and just like smiling 0:17:55.119 --> 0:17:58.520 for the picture. I'm like what, And so then I 0:17:58.600 --> 0:18:02.560 knew she was honest. And and I tell this, people 0:18:02.560 --> 0:18:06.240 are amazed. But I just looked in her eyes and 0:18:06.280 --> 0:18:10.960 I just felt this connection to her. You know, I 0:18:11.000 --> 0:18:13.960 didn't hate her. I was just trying to get out 0:18:13.960 --> 0:18:17.880 of my tragedy, and she had not figured out how 0:18:17.920 --> 0:18:19.960 to get out of her tragedy, and I guess I 0:18:19.960 --> 0:18:23.680 hadn't either, but I was trying. I just connected with her, 0:18:23.720 --> 0:18:26.720 and um, she wanted to me to give her money 0:18:26.760 --> 0:18:28.639 for a bus to get thinking back to it ly, 0:18:28.680 --> 0:18:32.920 and I think and because the trip was supposedly starting 0:18:33.080 --> 0:18:35.560 to kill her, which I believe. And so I wrote 0:18:35.560 --> 0:18:38.080 her a check for like a hundred dollars and I 0:18:38.119 --> 0:18:39.840 told her, Sai, Jamie, the money is not in the 0:18:39.840 --> 0:18:43.040 bank right now, I said, so give me a few days. 0:18:43.160 --> 0:18:45.080 I've got a close in this week, and once it's 0:18:45.200 --> 0:18:47.000 in the bank, then you can cash it. I said, 0:18:47.000 --> 0:18:48.439 but if you try to cash it now, they're going 0:18:48.480 --> 0:18:51.040 to reject it. They're gonna balance it. And she called 0:18:51.080 --> 0:18:54.879 me like every day for the next week until I 0:18:54.920 --> 0:18:57.439 had the money in there, and then I told her, yes, 0:18:57.520 --> 0:18:59.760 she can cash it. So then of course she cashed it. 0:18:59.800 --> 0:19:02.920 And I've never heard from her again, but I'll look 0:19:02.960 --> 0:19:05.040 back now, and I think how I felt to her. 0:19:05.119 --> 0:19:09.199 I just felt compassion, and I felt really sorry for 0:19:09.320 --> 0:19:12.159 and and I don't understand really fully myself, because you 0:19:12.359 --> 0:19:16.240 just basically, you know what she told me, just stript 0:19:16.280 --> 0:19:19.040 my entire life for me, I guess in handsight, she 0:19:19.040 --> 0:19:23.159 did me a favor. She was a messenger. Yeah, so 0:19:23.240 --> 0:19:26.639 then my journey changed. And I remember leaving and driving 0:19:26.680 --> 0:19:28.800 back on Washington Road again to get that come to 0:19:28.880 --> 0:19:32.159 my children, and I just thinking, Okay, you know, I 0:19:32.280 --> 0:19:35.640 keep saying that I'm a Christian. What does a Christian mean? 0:19:36.080 --> 0:19:38.440 You know, just a Christian? Just stand by here? I 0:19:38.520 --> 0:19:41.359 am making excuses again because the Christians still stand by 0:19:41.400 --> 0:19:44.560 her husband during the good times, or do they like 0:19:44.720 --> 0:19:47.200 stand by them during the really hard times? And I said, 0:19:47.280 --> 0:19:49.920 you know what, I'm gonna stand by him. I said, 0:19:49.920 --> 0:19:53.840 because this is a mental disease like sexdiction. What he's 0:19:53.840 --> 0:19:56.720 done is terrible. It's violating. You know, you take it 0:19:56.800 --> 0:20:01.760 personal when there's intimacy involved with some But I knew 0:20:02.080 --> 0:20:05.320 that deep dealing his soul was good and that he 0:20:05.359 --> 0:20:09.359 had made some terrible choices. And I was going to 0:20:09.400 --> 0:20:11.360 be a Christian and I was going to help him 0:20:11.400 --> 0:20:14.640 get through this. And I was gonna show I told 0:20:14.840 --> 0:20:18.000 our kids, I'm gonna show our community, our friends for 0:20:18.240 --> 0:20:24.120 forgiveness really means. I was determined to have a stronger 0:20:24.200 --> 0:20:26.320 family and to learn from it, and how I could 0:20:26.320 --> 0:20:29.440 be a better wife to him too, you know, because again, 0:20:29.480 --> 0:20:33.639 nobody's perfect. So my role leaving there was not to 0:20:33.800 --> 0:20:36.520 crucify him or to leave him or divorce him. It 0:20:36.680 --> 0:20:39.720 was to help him and to live my faith out 0:20:39.760 --> 0:20:42.119 and to figure out how to keep my family together 0:20:42.160 --> 0:20:46.840 still and his parents, he has a great family and 0:20:46.880 --> 0:20:50.480 his parents, his step mom and his father sent him 0:20:50.520 --> 0:20:54.320 to Hattiesburg, Mississippi. There's a sex rehab clinic there. He 0:20:54.480 --> 0:20:56.680 was so remorseful, like, I'm gonna come out of here, 0:20:57.000 --> 0:20:59.000 I'm gonna be the best father, I'm gonna be the 0:20:59.040 --> 0:21:01.879 best husband, Like this is gonna make us stronger. I 0:21:02.040 --> 0:21:05.280 love you, you know, my childhood with my mother being 0:21:05.280 --> 0:21:08.080 an addict, and you know, I'm just messed up, and 0:21:08.080 --> 0:21:10.520 they're gonna help me get better. And if you stick 0:21:10.600 --> 0:21:13.560 by me, then then we're gonna have the best family ever. 0:21:14.200 --> 0:21:16.840 That's all I ever wanted, was the best family ever. 0:21:17.080 --> 0:21:20.239 So he immediately went there, and they actually put us 0:21:20.240 --> 0:21:22.879 in a hotel somewhere because we were, you know, scared 0:21:22.920 --> 0:21:25.679 for her safety that he might, uh, you know, our 0:21:25.760 --> 0:21:28.119 life might be in danger, and said they put us 0:21:28.119 --> 0:21:31.480 in a hotel until they could get him situated where 0:21:31.520 --> 0:21:35.560 he needed to be in Mississippi, and of course, you know, 0:21:35.600 --> 0:21:38.440 once he got there, and part of the recovery process 0:21:38.480 --> 0:21:41.040 for any kind of addict is, you know, coming clean. 0:21:41.119 --> 0:21:44.560 And he came clean about cheating on me for years 0:21:44.560 --> 0:21:47.920 with prostitutes and lying about the truly, basically his whole 0:21:47.920 --> 0:21:50.920 life was aligned and you know, still in money from 0:21:50.920 --> 0:21:55.199 his parents company. And I didn't realize, like he was 0:21:55.359 --> 0:21:59.439 so convincing, I did not realize that he never played 0:21:59.440 --> 0:22:03.320 football for the University of South Carolina until he was 0:22:03.920 --> 0:22:07.520 at the sexual rehab clinic. We've been married nearly twenty years, 0:22:08.480 --> 0:22:12.560 and I was on a plane with his stepmother and 0:22:13.040 --> 0:22:15.800 I didn't understand why they had no photos of him 0:22:15.840 --> 0:22:18.639 playing football, And so I said to her, I said, 0:22:19.040 --> 0:22:21.280 I've looked through all the photo albums. I said, I 0:22:21.320 --> 0:22:24.120 see the pictures of Tripp and a cheerleader. I said, 0:22:24.160 --> 0:22:26.680 I don't see any football pictures of him, and and 0:22:26.760 --> 0:22:29.120 she looked at me like I was crazy. And she's 0:22:29.160 --> 0:22:30.720 like me because I don't know what you're talking about. 0:22:31.440 --> 0:22:34.360 I said, you know when Tripp played football at Carolina 0:22:34.560 --> 0:22:38.800 And she said, um, he never played football at Carolina, 0:22:39.000 --> 0:22:41.640 And I'm like, yeah, he did. I mean he told 0:22:41.680 --> 0:22:44.679