S13 E3: [Odessa] Like a Trophy

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[2] I'm Dan Tversky.

[3] In 2011, something strange began to happen at a high school in upstate New York.

[4] A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms, and spreading fast.

[5] What's the answer?

[6] And what do you do if they tell you it's all in your head?

[7] Hysterical.

[8] A new podcast from Wondry and Pineapple Street Studios.

[9] binge all episodes of hysterical early and ad -free on Wondery Plus.

[10] This year alone, there have been over 2 ,022 mass shootings in the United States.

[11] On May 14th, a gunman methodically shot and killed 10 people, injuring three more, almost all of them black, in one of the deadliest, racist massacres in recent American history.

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[19] Something Was Wrong is intended for mature audiences.

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[22] I'm not a therapist or a doctor.

[23] Most names have been changed for anonymity purposes.

[24] Opinions expressed by guests on the show are their own and do not necessarily represent my views.

[25] Resources and source material are linked in the episode notes.

[26] Thank you so much for listening.

[27] My name is Odessa.

[28] I met Carl in college through mutual friends.

[29] He was the guy that everybody loved.

[30] He was this super bubbly, charming guy who was goofy and didn't come off as a ladiesman at all.

[31] But he was definitely popular.

[32] Everybody loved hanging out with him.

[33] Everybody knew him.

[34] And that was really intriguing to me. I quickly learned that he was really involved with him.

[35] his church and he actually was in school to become a youth pastor.

[36] And at the time, I was also really involved in my church.

[37] So that was a huge, huge plus for me. He honestly was so charming that it was really easy to interact with him.

[38] It was really easy to feel comfortable around him.

[39] And he honestly was kind of like a puppy.

[40] He was super naive in a lot of ways, but very sweet and very lovable.

[41] And he seemed like he couldn't hurt a fly.

[42] It was probably a few weeks later he asked me on a date and I remember being so stinking nervous, but I was really excited at the same time because he was just so kind and so charming that I was like, what could go wrong?

[43] How old were you at the time?

[44] I met him when I was 20 and we started really dating when I was 21.

[45] Had you had a lot of serious relationships before him?

[46] I had had two major relationships, one of which was very, very emotionally abusive, and that was actually the relationship that I had gotten out of six months prior to meeting Carl.

[47] My world was still being rocked by the aftermath of that relationship, and I wasn't fully acknowledging the damage that that relationship did.

[48] So I think I carried a lot of that trauma into my relationship with Carl and didn't take the time to do the inner work to heal myself to recognize a lot of these red flags before getting into this relationship.

[49] We go on our first date and it was just so easy.

[50] We laughed and talked about a bunch of different things.

[51] We ended up spending the entire day together and after that we were basically inseparable.

[52] He quickly became my best friend and I noticed from the beginning he would often spoil me and go out of his way to make me feel special.

[53] There was a lot of times where he would show up and have flowers for me for no reason or like a random gift.

[54] And that was the first time that I had ever been shown that type of affection.

[55] I'd always had these relationships where the guy would tell me with his words, but never really show me with his actions.

[56] And so with Carl, this was the first time that I had really experienced, gifting things to me often and showing me that they had been thinking about me. And that really made me fall a lot faster than I think I normally would have.

[57] The grand gesture started kind of getting a little out of hand though pretty quickly.

[58] And I started noticing that he was spending a very substantial amount of money on me when he did not have the means to do so.

[59] There was one day in particular, we had only been dating for a few months, and he completely surprised me out of the blue because it was the anniversary of my father's death, and I realized about halfway through the day that I was just not going to have enough time to go visit my father's gravestone before going to work.

[60] And I was really sad.

[61] I had mentioned that to him in a text message, and within an hour, he showed up to my house with my favorite food and a pair of shoes that I had been eyeing at the store and it was so sweet and so thoughtful.

[62] I remember going to work that day and being like, oh my gosh, this guy is perfect.

[63] Like I don't understand how he's real.

[64] And maybe a few hours later, I get a text message and it's a picture of him at my dad's gravesite.

[65] I remember thinking, oh my God, This guy is perfect.

[66] He's just amazing.

[67] I quickly realize I have never told him where my dad's grave is.

[68] And I never told him how to get there.

[69] This particular graveyard has thousands and thousands of gravestones.

[70] So the likelihoodness that he would have found my dad is very slim.

[71] How the heck did this guy pull this off?

[72] I'm very confused how this happened.

[73] I remember at the time thinking, wow, he really likes me. He really cares about me. Now, I feel a little bit differently about the whole situation and kind of find it creepy.

[74] But there was these big grand gestures that started very early on.

[75] And they continued for quite some time.

[76] When did you guys become Facebook official?

[77] Oh, that wasn't for a while.

[78] I was all over his Instagram.

[79] He was all over mine, but we didn't necessarily put that we were exclusive in a relationship until maybe like three or four months later, which for the Christian world is a long time.

[80] Once our relationship became more serious and we were dating exclusively, things started to definitely progress sexually as well, which was pretty controversial.

[81] Both of us were so heavily involved in our churches and he wanted to be a pastor.

[82] So the fact that we were venturing into this territory that was so frowned upon by our churches was really scary to me. And it became really clear very early on that if I wanted us to wait until marriage, that it was solely my responsibility.

[83] to make sure that that happened because if he was presented with the opportunity to have sex with me, it was going to happen.

[84] And he would not stop it.

[85] That pressure and that weight on me really started to eat away at me early on.

[86] And it became very obvious that even though he agreed with me that he wanted to wait until marriage and he wanted to keep our relationship pure because that's what the church told us we were supposed to do, he didn't care to do the work to actually make sure that that happened.

[87] He was completely comfortable with that responsibility being solely mine.

[88] And that gave me a look at what the rest of our relationship was going to look like.

[89] It was always my job to manage both of our actions and make sure that we were both in line.

[90] that didn't happen all the time.

[91] We were young and we would have sex.

[92] We would make mistakes, quote unquote.

[93] But I started noticing that there was another layer to our sex life that made me feel really weird.

[94] And that was that whenever we were intimate, he would never finish.

[95] And the sex was typically very lengthy.

[96] it was not a quick 20 minute session or something like that.

[97] It was 45 minutes to two hours, sometimes even more.

[98] That can become very painful.

[99] It can also become an area that allows a lot of insecurity to creep in.

[100] Like, why am I not good enough for him to be able to finish?

[101] Why does it take this long for him to get to the point where he's able to be done?

[102] And it became a very deep, rooted insecurity for me and something that was a big point of contention in our relationship from a very early point because I would always ask him, what do I need to do?

[103] What's wrong?

[104] Why is this not working for you?

[105] And I was never really given the answer that I felt like actually justified what was going on.

[106] It was extremely stressful.

[107] It felt like if I don't endure this pain, he's not going to get what he needs to be able to finish.

[108] But if I do enduring this pain, I'm putting myself through this weird form of torture.

[109] It felt like this burden that I had to bear that I wasn't really allowed to talk to him about because he felt embarrassed or he didn't know what the problem was.

[110] That started even before we were really that far into our relationship.

[111] So I think that from the very beginning, I kind of got into this mode of just accepting it.

[112] And because you're both engrossed in your church communities and purity culture is so prevalent within those communities, I imagine that this wasn't something that you were talking about with a lot of people?

[113] 100%.

[114] We were trying not to have sex because he's supposed to be a youth pastor.

[115] He's in church on Sunday talking about abstinence and talking about saving yourself for marriage and then he comes home later that same day he comes to my house and he's like an animal with me immediately it got to a point where he would afterwards when i would be upset and i would be crying because i felt like a failure i felt like i failed our relationship because i couldn't protect him from his own sexual desires or my sexual desires and it wasn't even that he necessarily had to say anything, but he would let me think those things about myself.

[116] He wouldn't deter me from believing that about myself.

[117] You'll make sure to stop it next time.

[118] And it further reinforced that narrative in my brain that it's my responsibility.

[119] I think a big part of that narrative really started, as most women who grew up in purity culture can attest, it's really ingrained from a very early age that is the woman's responsibility to keep a man from lusting after her, to keep a man from stumbling, to make sure that he is not tempted.

[120] And it became kind of my role as a woman to make sure that Carl didn't have sex with me, to make sure that he was pure, to make sure that he was the pastor that he was claiming he wanted to be.

[121] I also simultaneously am supposed to submit to this man who I want to be my future husband.

[122] I have to be available to him, yet also keep him from sexually sinning.

[123] I noticed when we started getting to a certain point in our relationship where disagreements would pop up that he would often shut down.

[124] I don't mean he would stop talking for a few minutes.

[125] He would completely zone out and would not talk to me at all, even if I was like, Carl, like, hello, do you hear me?

[126] Can we talk about this?

[127] He would just zone out.

[128] He would not talk.

[129] Sometimes this would go on for hours.

[130] He typically wouldn't move.

[131] He would typically sit in the exact same spot.

[132] That became very difficult for me to navigate because I am definitely the kind of person who has to talk through her emotions, very comfortable talking about my feelings and letting someone know if they hurt my feelings.

[133] And it became very obvious that he was not comfortable with that, even a little bit.

[134] When we would have these disagreements or have these arguments and he would just shut down, it became nearly impossible for us to work through anything because he simply decided for us that that was not a conversation we would be having.

[135] One day we were going on a date.

[136] He was driving and asked me to put the directions on his phone so that he would have GPS to the restaurant.

[137] And while I was typing in the address, I noticed a Instagram message pop up on his phone.

[138] And it was from a girl.

[139] And the message was pretty inappropriate for a girl to be sending a guy that has a girlfriend.

[140] My heart sank, and I asked him, who is this girl?

[141] And he shut down.

[142] He immediately went quiet and started pulling over.

[143] And I remember looking at him, and I was like, Carl, this is not the time to shut down on me. You have to communicate who this girl is.

[144] I need to know right now.

[145] Who is she?

[146] He, thank God, actually spoke and said, oh, she's an ex -girlfriend.

[147] We were off again, on again for a really long time, and she just randomly started messaging me the other day, and I didn't want to hurt her feelings by shutting her down.

[148] In my head, I was like, I'm literally all over your Instagram.

[149] You have pictures of me with me all over the place.

[150] How does she not know that you're in a relationship by looking at your Instagram?

[151] And also, why did you not tell her?

[152] I was really trying to grapple with what to do.

[153] And I chose to believe him and chose to believe that he wasn't trying to hurt my feelings and that she was just being inappropriate and that he wasn't egging it on.

[154] I asked him to communicate to her that it's inappropriate for her to be talking to him like that and that he needs her to stop.

[155] I remember him looking at me and saying, I don't know that I can do that.

[156] I'm going to hurt her feelings.

[157] I don't know what to say.

[158] I'm uncomfortable with confrontation.

[159] You know that I am just not the guy who can have conversations like that.

[160] And I remember feeling in the moment so frustrated.

[161] I wanted this girl to be out of the picture.

[162] So I was like, fine, I'll do it.

[163] I remember sitting there on his phone and messaging her back and telling her, hey, this is his girlfriend.

[164] You need to leave him alone.

[165] I articulated that it was very inappropriate for her to be messaging super flirty texts to a guy who's in a relationship.

[166] She messaged me back, insulting me and insulting my looks and my character and claiming that if he didn't like it, he would have stopped it.

[167] I remember that really sticking with me and making me feel really uncomfortable the rest of the day.

[168] He acted like it was fine and it was totally okay and was going to move forward and act like nothing happened.

[169] The rest of the day, I didn't really know what to do because I really wanted to believe him and I really loved him at this point.

[170] I chose to let it go and act like it didn't happen.

[171] This is nothing compared to what I went through later on, but I'm still like, what the fuck, bro?

[172] I sat him down one day and was just like, Carl, why do you shut down like this when we're trying to have a conversation?

[173] Because some of these conversations are inconsequential.

[174] They're just a difference of opinion on something little.

[175] And yet you still completely shut down.

[176] And that's not going to work in our long -term relationship if it's going to be healthy.

[177] And I remember him looking me in the eye and saying, my natural instinct when you disagree with me and when we get into these arguments is to say something.

[178] that I know will hurt you to get you to leave me alone.

[179] And I remember looking at him and being like, why on earth is that your natural instinct?

[180] It should never be your natural instinct to intentionally hurt another person.

[181] And he was just like, I don't know, it just is.

[182] Now knowing what I know and remembering him saying that before we even got super far into our relationship, I'm like, Odessa, What the frick is wrong with you?

[183] Why did you not really think about this and recognize that that is horrible?

[184] That's toxic.

[185] He's showing you his true self right there.

[186] I didn't want to see it.

[187] About eight months into our relationship, I knew that it was time for me to communicate a boundary that I had.

[188] Growing up, I had witnessed a lot of relationships, marriages specifically be really damaged by, pornography.

[189] I had a lot of close friends where their parents would separate or get divorced because one person in that relationship was heavily addicted to pornography.

[190] So I made the decision for myself that if I were to get into a relationship, I knew that I needed to communicate with my partner, that I was not comfortable with them viewing pornography.

[191] As somebody in the church, this was not a abnormal request.

[192] This was something very common.

[193] It was talked about often within the church that pornography was not something that you should be engaging with.

[194] I thought that this was kind of a normal thing to talk about.

[195] We were hanging out after a date and I was like, I know that I haven't communicated this until this point.

[196] So no harm, no foul.

[197] If up until this point you were engaging in this.

[198] but I personally feel like viewing pornography while in a relationship with somebody or while you're married to somebody is a form of emotional cheating.

[199] And I would feel more comfortable if you refrain from doing that.

[200] He seemed really receptive.

[201] He nodded and was like, I agree.

[202] I have struggled with it in the past, especially in like high school, but I get where you're coming from.

[203] and there wasn't really much else to the conversation.

[204] It was really short and sweet, and he seemed to understand that that was something that I wasn't okay with, and that was a boundary that I was setting for my relationship.

[205] A few months later, he proposed, and we were officially engaged.

[206] Things were pretty normal.

[207] We were really focused on wedding planning, and we also decided that we were going to plant a church with some of our best friends, including my sister Zoe and my best friend Piper and their husbands and a couple other couples that we were really close with, including our pastor.

[208] It was a really exciting time and Carl was going to be the youth pastor that he always dreamed of being and I was going to do marketing and we were feeling so excited about what this new chapter of our life could look like.

[209] It was pretty stressful.

[210] But we were doing great and we had been abstaining from being intimate with each other.

[211] So we were feeling really empowered and feeling really good about where our relationship was and the fact that we were like putting God first and all of those things that you're supposed to do as a good Christian.

[212] Our wedding was amazing.

[213] It was so much fun.

[214] We had seriously the best day ever.

[215] We partied like nobody's business and it was absolutely beautiful.

[216] We then went on our honeymoon, and it was super romantic, and we ended up going outside of the country.

[217] We had a blast.

[218] It was seriously, absolutely dreamlike.

[219] And I was loving every second of it until one day, about three days into our honeymoon.

[220] I'm Dan Tiberski.

[221] In 2011, something strange began to happen at the high school in Leroy, New York.

[222] I was like at my locker and she came up to me and she was like stuttering super bad.

[223] I'm like, stop fucking around.

[224] She's like, I can't.

[225] A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms and spreading fast.

[226] It's like doubling and tripling and it's all these girls.

[227] With a diagnosis, the state tried to keep on the down low.

[228] Everybody thought I was holding something back.

[229] Well, you were holding something back intentionally.

[230] Yeah, yeah.

[231] Well, yeah.

[232] No, it's hysteria.

[233] It's all in your head.

[234] It's not physical.

[235] Oh my gosh, you're exaggerating.

[236] Is this the largest mass hysteria since the witches of Sam?

[237] them?

[238] Or is it something else entirely?

[239] Something's wrong here.

[240] Something's not right.

[241] Leroy was the new date line and everyone was trying to solve the murder.

[242] A new limited series from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios, Hysterical.

[243] Follow Hysterical on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[244] You can binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad -free right now by joining Wondry Plus.

[245] Scammers are best known for living the high life until they're forced to trade it all in for handcuffs and an orange jumpsuit once they're finally caught.

[246] I'm Sachi Cole.

[247] And I'm Sarah Haggy.

[248] And we're the host of scam influencers, a weekly podcast from Wondery that takes you along the twists and turns of some of the most infamous scams of all time, the impact on victims and what's left once the facade falls away.

[249] We've covered stories like a Shark Tank certified entrepreneur who left the show with an investment, but soon faced mounting bills, an active lawsuit followed by Larry King, and no real product to push.

[250] He then began to prey on vulnerable women instead, selling the idea of a future together while stealing from them behind their backs.

[251] To the infamous scams of Real Housewives stars like Teresa Judice, what should have proven to be a major downfall only seemed to solidify her place in the Real Housewives Hall of Fame.

[252] Follow Scamfluencers on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[253] You can listen to Scamfluencers early and ad -free right now on Wondry Plus.

[254] He, for some reason, looks at me and tells me. that he had been viewing porn for the entirety of our relationship.

[255] Sitting there, outside of the country, I have no way to call any friends or family for support.

[256] And it's literally three days after I just signed a marriage license with this man. And I felt this sense of being trapped set over me. it felt like I was tricked into a marriage with somebody that I didn't fully know and while to a lot of people viewing porn may not be that big of a deal it felt like a big deal to me because I had explicitly told him that it felt like cheating for me and I had set that boundary this is now a year later and I'm just finding out that he was actively breaking that boundary for the indefinitely.

[257] entirety of our relationship and just now telling me. It felt like a slap in the face to have this huge party, this huge ceremony with all of our friends and family where we're professing our love to each other and we look like the happiest Christian, perfect, godly couple.

[258] And then to turn around and not even a full week later find out that he had been lying to me about this big piece of him.

[259] And he didn't feel the need to tell me before he married me. I can't even fully explain the amount of betrayal that I felt because it truly felt like he just waited for the ink to barely dry in order to actually expose this part of him.

[260] We were in a suite that had like a little living room area.

[261] And I was like, I need you to go hang out in the living room.

[262] Thank God, I was able to access internet so I could contact my sister Zoe and my cousin and try to seek advice.

[263] But because everybody I knew was so heavily steeped in the church, getting an annulment or even advising that I seek out couples counseling was not something that anybody would ever recommend to do.

[264] It was like, pray about it.

[265] That was the answer that people could give me. I don't shame them.

[266] for their responses at all because that was what we were told to do.

[267] In that moment, I felt completely alone in a completely different country with a man that was willingly able to lie to me until three days after we get married.

[268] And I remember just wanting to feel something other than anger and betrayal.

[269] And it's not my proudest moment, but I ended up letting him come back into our room.

[270] and I was like, I want to have sex.

[271] We did.

[272] And that was the first time in our entire relationship that he finished.

[273] And that moment was super mind -altering for me because it ingrained this ideology in my head that the only time he will finish is when he's being 100 % honest with you.

[274] He even acknowledged that once we were done.

[275] And he said, maybe because I was finally transparent with you and I finally told you the truth, that's why I was able to finish.

[276] Those words stuck with me, moving into the rest of our relationship, anytime that he didn't finish, oh, you're hiding something from me. Oh, you must be lying about something.

[277] And simultaneously, those insecurities that started a lot earlier on in reference to our sexual relationship became substantially larger.

[278] It started turning into, oh, the reason he can't finish is because I don't look like the women in the point.

[279] that he's typically used to seeing or my body doesn't look this way or I don't do this thing because I have had sexual trauma in the past and I'm still triggered by specific sexual acts.

[280] It became this deep rooted insecurity of all of the reasons why his incapability to finish was my fault.

[281] I became responsible in my own brain for the sexual trauma that was happening to me. The moments when I would be feeling trapped in our relationship sexually, where I felt like I was having to endure this pain, these long extended sexual experiences that were like two hours long, sometimes more, I remember coming out of my honeymoon and getting home and just feeling numb, and I didn't really know what to do from there.

[282] After hearing that he was lusting after these other women, I needed to know that he wanted me. The only way that I could really guarantee that he wanted me was by letting him have sex with me. In our relationship, it became very clear that his words didn't mean much, if anything.

[283] So if I wanted any type of intimacy, it had to be sexual.

[284] No one knew even one iota of information about our sex life.

[285] And I never felt like I needed to talk to them because I thought that this was normal.

[286] This had been so conditioned in my brain that if I was pleasing my husband, then the sex would be good.

[287] If I was doing what I needed to make sure that he was happy, then the sex was great and our marriage would be great.

[288] I'm giving my body and putting myself through hell all the time.

[289] And I just kept repeating that to myself.

[290] Like, this is great.

[291] This is normal.

[292] This is what it's supposed to be like.

[293] I wasn't super open with my sexuality or talking about sex with anyone.

[294] I would mention a few times here and there joking like, oh yeah, we like had sex for hours.

[295] And nobody would really bat an eye.

[296] I think people thought I was just over exaggerating.

[297] When in actuality, I was very much so not over -exaggerating.

[298] People would mention that they would have sex for a really long time.

[299] And so I was like, oh, this is normal.

[300] Okay, great.

[301] It was never a thing that was encouraged to talk to other people at length about sex, especially in the church.

[302] As much as I love my sister, as much as I love my best friends, I never felt comfortable talking about it.

[303] Because I think deep down, I knew that it was wrong.

[304] I knew something was up.

[305] and I didn't know how to articulate.

[306] I was being hurt in my marriage, but with consent.

[307] And it didn't make sense to me. When we got home from our honeymoon, we were living in an apartment together, and the trust issues were pretty prevalent.

[308] Same with the insecurities.

[309] And I honestly just felt like I didn't know who I married, which may seem silly.

[310] to some, but I truly felt betrayed that he had blatantly disrespected a boundary that I had set, and I didn't really know how to move forward from it.

[311] He offered to get a software that he would put on his phone and his computer to monitor to make sure that he wasn't viewing pornography, and that felt like a good solution.

[312] It would basically monitor things and tell me if he viewed anything or if he was caught going to a site that had pornography on it.

[313] We would try to talk about things, but he was so good at completely shutting down and blocking me out that any time I tried to have the conversation about how my trust for him was shot, he shut down and would refuse to talk to me about it, and this became a normal thing that happened on a regular basis.

[314] I also noticed that the emotion.

[315] Intimacy was damaged pretty heavily.

[316] And so the sexual intimacy became very difficult for me. I started getting injured almost every single time that we would be intimate.

[317] I would tear or pull a muscle.

[318] It was often like a one to two hour experience and sometimes more because he would rarely finish and would want to go for round two.

[319] It felt like this weird trap that I was in where I had no choice in the matter because I was supposed to sexually please my husband, but I didn't want to because I didn't feel connected with him.

[320] I didn't trust him.

[321] I felt so betrayed.

[322] He would start suggesting things and saying, oh, well, you're not.

[323] doing this and that's why I can't finish.

[324] This is what you should be doing instead or we need to try this position.

[325] And it was always something that I needed to do so that he could be sexually satisfied.

[326] Or it was something about how he was getting in his head and he couldn't finish because he knew it was hurting me. And then the guilt trips started shortly after that.

[327] I would often wake up and he was already starting and touching me. I always felt weird about that and felt uncomfortable with it.

[328] And when I would bring it up, he would just say that he just is so attracted to me. He can't keep his hands off me. In the middle of the night, when I'm being woken up and he's already starting to initiate sex with me, If I were to say I'm not in the mood or I'm tired, he would make me feel so bad to the point where I often eventually gave in and would disassociate and let him do what he needed to do to be done.

[329] If I wasn't willing to do that, he would make me feel so bad for saying no. There was even times where he was like, if we are not having sex, we might as well just be roommates.

[330] He would say things that would really get under my skin, or he would tell me how much he missed me and he loves me so much, and that's why we needed to have sex.

[331] But he would also completely disregard the fact that I was being injured almost every time and that it would take me days to recover from each sexual experience.

[332] I know I'm about to get hurt.

[333] I'm about to have something happened to my body that I'm going to have to recover from, and it felt like he didn't care.

[334] His needs were a priority, but my well -being and my body was not.

[335] I'm so incredibly sorry.

[336] Did you see this as sexual abuse at the time?

[337] No. I literally thought of it as my job.

[338] I didn't think of this as something I looked forward to, as if this was something I owed my husband, because that's what I was told I was supposed to do as a godly woman, especially the wife of a pastor.

[339] This was my duty to please him, even if I didn't want it.

[340] After about a year of being married, we got pregnant.

[341] And I was so freaking excited.

[342] I wanted to be a mom more than anything in the world.

[343] And Carl really wanted to be a dad.

[344] He was really excited about what this next step in our future would look like.

[345] but pretty early on in my pregnancy, we learned that it was going to be a little bit more challenging than we had expected.

[346] I was diagnosed with hyper -emesis gravadarum, and for those who don't know what that is, the best way to describe it is like your body is allergic to being pregnant.

[347] I couldn't keep food down.

[348] I couldn't keep water down.

[349] I had to be hospitalized a few times.

[350] I later on in my pregnancy had to be given a pump with a particular type of medicine that I would have to stab myself with multiple times throughout the day so that a tube could feed me medicine directly into my stomach from this pump.

[351] It was miserable.

[352] I felt like a shell of a human.

[353] I'm such an independent person who had been the breadwinner for our marriage.

[354] I was working this big, high -paying job as an executive, and I was reduced to a shell within a matter of two months.

[355] It was very obvious from the very beginning of my pregnancy that things were going to have to shift.

[356] Carl started having to take care of me and keep me alive.

[357] He had to make sure that I was getting all of my medicine down, and he had to help me stand up because sometimes my body was too frail to even get out of bed.

[358] He was having to make sure that I was eating, that I was washing all of the vomit out of my hair.

[359] I truly became a shell of a person and I was trying everything I could to regain my independence and my freedom.

[360] But when you are so unbelievably sick, it really eats it.

[361] physically but also mentally and I became pretty depressed.

[362] During that season, sex was basically impossible without me vomiting or without my body being so frail that I would get seriously injured.

[363] And there was a few times where I did get pretty decently injured and I was told by my doctor that I needed to refrain from having sex for a while.

[364] I felt like this season was, was both hell but also my freedom.

[365] It was my escape and my reason why I could tell him no and why he would actually listen because he didn't want me to throw up in the middle of intimacy.

[366] He didn't want me to get injured.

[367] I felt at peace with that part of our relationship for the first time in a long time, which I noted and I recognized was odd because why do I feel happier now that I'm no longer able to have sex with my husband.

[368] I thought that we were becoming a lot closer.

[369] We became best friends.

[370] Trust was really being built up again.

[371] And I truly felt like our relationship was at the best place that it had been in a long time.

[372] He started serving as a youth pastor for our church.

[373] And I was serving as the marketing director and outreach director.

[374] I was loving it.

[375] And he seemed to be loving it too.

[376] We really worked well together in our roles.

[377] I would often come help out at youth group and hang out with the students.

[378] A lot of these kids I had known from a previous church.

[379] I had known them since they were kids, like actual children.

[380] So getting to see them grow into my now husband's youth group was something very exciting for me. I got to be their youth leader.

[381] I got to serve alongside my husband and be the person that they could trust with their worries and their concerns about whatever was going on in their own lives.

[382] And it was really fulfilling for me in a lot of ways.

[383] I started noticing that he was becoming arguably too friendly with one of his students, Madison.

[384] I didn't think much of it Because again, he's the puppy.

[385] He's naive.

[386] He's so sweet and charming.

[387] It could never hurt a fly.

[388] And I thought that he was unaware of how it could come off to other people if they saw that he was becoming very close with this 16 -year -old girl.

[389] After I started noticing that they were becoming more friendly and that she was relying on him a lot, I sat down with him one night when I noticed that they were texting pretty late at night.

[390] And I was like, hey, I don't think that you have any ill intention here, but I know that Madison has a crush on you.

[391] I know that it's very easy for people to get the wrong impression if they don't know you, like I know you.

[392] I don't want her family to see you texting her this late at night and think something awful.

[393] So I think it would be a good idea to maybe put some distance or put some boundaries up in that relationship.

[394] He was kind of fighting me on it and seemed a little weird pushing back.

[395] And he was like, I would never do anything inappropriate.

[396] Her family loves me. Like they know that, you know, it's not that big of a deal.

[397] She knows I'm married.

[398] I just was like, you're the youth pastor to this minor.

[399] And you have a Snapchat streak with her.

[400] You text her often.

[401] You guys hang out at church often.

[402] You guys go out to dinner with all the other students, and you guys are the ones talking typically.

[403] And that can send a message.

[404] And it wasn't just me that started noticing this.

[405] Some of our other pastors or elders at our church, our lead pastor even, pulled Carl aside one time, and they were like, I really appreciate that you're willing to drive these kids home after youth group, but I think it would be really, really important for you to make sure that there's another person in the car whenever you are driving home a female specifically because we don't want anyone to get the wrong impression and we don't want the student to get the wrong impression.

[406] It always seemed like everybody was expecting Madison to do something, but no one expected Carl.

[407] No one feared for what Carl could do.

[408] It was always on her.

[409] It was always always about her intentions with him.

[410] And I really recognize that now of how much we really truly did believe that Madison was the problem.

[411] And we didn't actually take it for what it was.

[412] Carl is the adult in this situation and he should be the one setting boundaries with a youth student.

[413] Absolutely.

[414] And how old is Carl at this point?

[415] He was probably 24.

[416] Old enough to fucking know better, Carl.

[417] Yes, old enough to know better.

[418] for sure.

[419] And the part that really sticks out with me now is that he fought back on a lot of these claims.

[420] Like, you know, she serves in the youth group and she is very mature and she has been serving in the youth group for many years even before I was the youth pastor as like a student leader.

[421] So of course we're going to be closer because she helps me a lot at youth group.

[422] I really do wish that I fought back more on that ideology at the time.

[423] But I was so pregnant and so sick.

[424] And I did truly believe that my husband was the nicest guy in the world and would never do anything wrong.

[425] Did you ever talk to her about it at this point?

[426] No. All I know is that Madison had spoken with my best friend Piper's husband, who also served in the youth group.

[427] He was more of like the elder over the youth group.

[428] He's one of my very, very good friends as well.

[429] And he let me know that Madison had actually told him that she had a crush on Carl and that Carl would be her type if he wasn't married.

[430] We had been married for three and a half years and things were seemingly great.

[431] we had our oldest daughter, who is perfect and amazing, and I adore her, and I was pregnant with our second.

[432] Everything was going really well.

[433] We had moved in with all of our best friends.

[434] My sister Zoe and my brother -in -law and their kids and my best friend Piper and her husband and we all just had this big house together.

[435] Honestly was awesome to have all of the people that we cared about most in one house, especially when we started recognizing that our church was becoming a very toxic environment and we no longer wanted to be a part of it.

[436] That was a really big pivotal moment for not just myself and Carl, but all of our family and friends because this was something that we all started together and we quickly recognized that it was not what we thought it was and that we didn't agree with the things that were being taught there anymore.

[437] January of 2020, we left.

[438] We officially cut ties.

[439] It had been in the works for a few months at that point, but we were finally done.

[440] The next few months, we're figuring out what our life is going to look like and how we're going to navigate this new season of life where we all were staff at a church and now we don't go to a church.

[441] We don't belong to a church and we no longer associate with the people that were at that church.

[442] It felt very unsettling and very weird.

[443] Fast forward to June.

[444] Carl and I went to go visit his parents and when we came home, he randomly looked at me and told me that he never stopped viewing pornography and he was no longer in love with me and that he was leaving.

[445] The part that's so wild about all of that is that he said it exactly like that.

[446] It was very matter of fact.

[447] It was, I've already come up with this plan.

[448] You do not have a say.

[449] I'm done.

[450] I was six months pregnant at the time.

[451] And I remember just bawling my eyes out and looking at him and saying, what the fuck?

[452] What are you saying right now?

[453] I'm six months pregnant.

[454] Our one -year -old daughter is sleeping in the other room and you're just leaving?

[455] You're just done?

[456] And I remember him being so cold and so callous and he didn't care.

[457] When I begged him to go to marriage counseling, he was not interested.

[458] I looked him dead in the eye and I asked if there was another.

[459] woman if he was in love with someone else and he said absolutely not i spent the next hour trying to understand what he was even saying and how we could have gone from hanging out with his family having fun with our daughter talking about what our next baby is going to look like and figuring out baby names to two days later he was done and he was going to move out and my life completely flipped upside down.

[460] I am so, so sorry how painful and shocking that must have been, especially when you're, like you said, six months pregnant, and you're about to have like two kids under two -ish?

[461] Yes, my oldest was 18 months at the time.

[462] Did you feel pissed?

[463] I mean, when you're pregnant, you can really get there.

[464] Pregnant women should be given free access to rage rooms.

[465] Agreed.

[466] I did that at one point.

[467] If I'm out in public and a pregnant woman tells me to fuck off, I'll be like, probably deserved it.

[468] Love you so much.

[469] Absolutely.

[470] If a pregnant woman tells me to go fuck myself, I would be like, absolutely, we'll get on that right now.

[471] Thank you so much for suggesting that.

[472] She struck him with her motor vehicle.

[473] She had been under the influence and she left him there.

[474] In January 2022, local woman Karen Reed was implicated in the mysterious death of her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O 'Keefe.

[475] It was alleged that after an innocent night out for drinks with friends, Karen and John got into a lover's quarrel en route to the next location.

[476] What happens next?

[477] Depends on who you ask.

[478] Was it a crime of passion?

[479] If you believe the prosecution, it's because the evidence was so compelling.

[480] This was clearly an intentional act.

[481] And his cause of death was blunt force trauma with hypothermia.

[482] Or a corrupt police cover -up.

[483] If you believe the defense theory, however, this was all a cover -up to prevent one of their own from going down.

[484] Everyone had an opinion.

[485] And after the 10 -week trial, the jury could not come to a unanimous decision.

[486] To end in a mistrial, it's just a confirmation of just how complicated this case is.

[487] Law and crime presents the most in -depth analysis to date of the sensational case in Karen.

[488] You can listen to Karen exclusively with Wondery Plus.

[489] Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

[490] When he first said the words, I don't love you anymore and I'm leaving, I said, are you having an aneurysm?

[491] I literally said those words because it was more conceivable to me that he was fully having a medical emergency than it would be for him to not love me. The piece of our relationship that I haven't mentioned is that Carl was seemingly obsessed with me. He would never go even more than 10 minutes without feeling me up or hitting on me or flirting with me or kissing me. We had been home together all the time because I was the breadwinner working from home and he took care of our daughter.

[492] He saw me all day every day.

[493] And we had roommates around us all day every day.

[494] And even they would attest that he was obsessed with me. He was always walking up behind me and like smacking my ass or grabbing me and being playful and silly and lovey -dovey with me or hitting on me publicly.

[495] So when he said this, it felt like there was no way on earth that he was not still in love with me, not even 24 hours before we're daydreaming of going on vacation with our two kids to Hawaii.

[496] It was like, what are you talking about right now, bro?

[497] Like, this makes no sense.

[498] And I remembered sitting there begging and pleading for him to try, to try to give a shit about the way that this was affecting me. I was like, I'm six months pregnant.

[499] What do you mean that you don't care to try marriage counseling?

[500] And he was like, I don't think there's a point.

[501] And I was like, of course there's a point.

[502] We have two kids.

[503] Like, what do you mean?

[504] You're not even giving me the opportunity to have a conversation.

[505] You've made this decision without me. You're deciding to break my heart and leave me and our kids.

[506] And you're not even giving me the chance to talk to you about it.

[507] And he was like, it's too far gone.

[508] I feel like I'm not what you need and you'll be happier without me. And I've betrayed your trust.

[509] So I'm just going to go.

[510] And he left.

[511] He had packed a bag and he went to a hotel.

[512] I texted my sister, who I'm going to cry.

[513] My sister had just given birth, not even a full month ago.

[514] She had her little infant, my sweet niece, in her arms.

[515] She's supposed to be enjoying this season with her baby.

[516] And I threw a whole wrecking ball into that expectation.

[517] It felt like in that moment my sister had to become my caretaker too.

[518] She willingly did it.

[519] And I am so grateful, but I feel so guilty that I became such a shell of a person to the point where my sister was having to make sure that I ate because she needed to make sure that my baby that I was carrying in my stomach was going to survive this.

[520] Piper and Zoe would come to my room and do random checkups to make sure that I didn't have anything sharp in my room.

[521] They would take turns sleeping in my room each night.

[522] They were so selfless in that season.

[523] There's so much regret that I have for expecting that of them to a certain capacity because I truly would have died without them.

[524] My sister, Zoe, came up to my room and held me, and her daughter, a one -month -old, is laying on my bed in front of us sleeping, and we're crying, sobbing, uncontrollably, but trying to mute our sob sobs so that her infant could stay asleep.

[525] It felt like I became her baby in that moment as well.

[526] As much as I'm so appreciative to this day, I'm so unbelievably devastated that she had to take care of me and put that above spending time with her baby.

[527] And she'll never get that back.

[528] And that's probably one of the biggest regrets that I have throughout this whole process.

[529] The next week of my life felt like a nightmare.

[530] It felt so unreal and so heavy.

[531] I really lost it.

[532] To be honest, it was difficult not to be a complete zombie and mess in front of my daughter.

[533] I couldn't be present the way I wanted to be.

[534] Her world was changing too, and she was struggling with the fact that she wasn't seeing her dad every day.

[535] Zoe and Piper were taking care of my daughter and I, and doing absolutely, everything for us.

[536] They made sure that we ate.

[537] They made sure that we had clean laundry.

[538] They made sure that we got groceries.

[539] They made sure to buy diapers.

[540] They made sure to buy anything and everything.

[541] They cooked all the meals.

[542] They cleaned the house.

[543] They did everything.

[544] And my brother -in -law and Piper's husband paid all my bills.

[545] They paid for all my groceries.

[546] They paid for my gas.

[547] Carl came to talk to me at our house and he took it all back within a second like it was nothing and like it didn't happen.

[548] He looked at me and said that he went to the place that we got married and he went to all of our spots and he realized that he was scared of losing me and what I would say once I found out about his addiction to pornography that he preemptively left.

[549] I addressed the fact that you said things that you can't just take back.

[550] that you don't love me anymore.

[551] His response was, I didn't say that.

[552] As if that was something I would make up, as if that was something that would not be permanently ingrained in my brain.

[553] He spent the next hour or two telling me that we could go to therapy and we could do what we needed to do.

[554] We could get a different software that would stop him from working around it the way that he had worked around the other software.

[555] He would do better and he would be better and he said all of the things that I hoped he would.

[556] I was holding my breath.

[557] I wanted to believe him.

[558] I wanted to have my marriage.

[559] I wanted to have my family together.

[560] So I chose to see how it went.

[561] We started making plans on how to fix things.

[562] And so one of the things was that we would have very intentional conversations about where we were out and what we were feeling.

[563] Throughout these conversations, I started noticing that there was a shift.

[564] I just wanted him to stay.

[565] Then so I was willing to do whatever he needed.

[566] I found myself articulating, I'm so sorry that we're not having sex as much as you want us to.

[567] Even though in the back of my mind, I knew if I had sex with him as much as he wanted me to, I would never be able to walk.

[568] I would never get out of bed.

[569] I was already being injured so frequently that it would not be humanly possible for me to supply him with what he needed.

[570] And yet I was still sitting there taking this responsibility because I didn't want my marriage to fall apart.

[571] Did he ever acknowledge your physical pain from the sex ever?

[572] No. He almost wore it like a trophy, like a medal.

[573] I would be like, oh my God, I tore.

[574] And he was just like, I know.

[575] It was never something.

[576] He would apologize, like, sorry this is uncomfortable for you, I associated sex with him with pain and injuries.

[577] And so I didn't want to have it as frequently.

[578] And I'll admit I didn't have it as frequently as other people probably would, but I would argue, how is it possible to have sex with somebody as frequently as you would even like to when you're being injured consistently almost every single time?

[579] My body started shutting down, to be honest, and he didn't really recognize that as a bad thing.

[580] That's horrifying.

[581] I'm so sorry.

[582] My God.

[583] Yeah.

[584] It's really, really gross.

[585] I was incredibly depressed.

[586] I had lost a very substantial amount of weight for a woman that was six months pregnant.

[587] It became very clear to Zoe and Piper and myself that I needed to get help and I needed to get things under control.

[588] I let him know that I had this doctor's appointment, and he drove me to it.

[589] When I got to my OB, I was instructed to take a test that asked you a bunch of questions to see where your mental state is at, because I was asking to get back on antidepressants.

[590] And based on my answers, my OB was forced to immediately hospitalize me and put me under psychiatric evaluation.

[591] That moment was terrifying for me because it felt like there was the possibility that I was going to lose my baby, whether that be that I was endangering my baby unintentionally by not being able to keep food down and the baby would be hurt somehow or that social services or CPS would see what was happening and want to step in.

[592] I knew that those were really outlandish things to jump to and conclusions to assume.

[593] But when you're told that you have no choice but to be hospitalized for psychiatric evaluation because they fear for your baby's life and yours, you kind of lose it.

[594] And I remember looking at my OB and being like, please let me go home and at least tuck my daughter in and get her settled with my sister and with my roommate's please let me go get my stuff I promise I will come back just let me go say good night to my daughter and she let me against her better judgment Carl went to go apologize for the mess that he created with my roommates and my sister was so frustrated she couldn't even listen to it and she just came upstairs and held me and we'd sobbed trying to reassure her that I wasn't going to hurt myself that I wouldn't do that and that I would be okay and I I would get through it.

[595] I packed my bags and I went to the hospital that night.

[596] He came with me and he brought me flowers and he stayed the night with me in the hospital while I was being evaluated for the way that he had traumatized me. And it felt so effing weird.

[597] Because the man who effectively did these things that put me in the hospital is now laying on the couch across from me. We had to keep asking him to leave so that I could be evaluated by the psychiatrist and by social services and by the different clinicians that worked in the hospital.

[598] I had so many people asking me if I was safe, if I needed an out, if I needed him to leave, if I needed security to help.

[599] I had so many people that were trying to step in to help me see that what was happening wasn't normal.

[600] I reassured them that we would be fine, that he would get the help that he needs for his addiction, I would be fine, but my HG got out of control when my depression kicked back in throughout this situation.

[601] They all believed me, and they worked with me to get a therapist that I love, and I got on some medications, and they sent me home.

[602] When I came home from the hospital, that looked like me getting into therapy consistently and making sure that my therapist was the right fit.

[603] And that looked like me taking baths and journaling and playing with my daughter and taking her to the park and getting outside the house.

[604] Other than those things, I was numb and I would zone out and lay in bed.

[605] I was in survival mode.

[606] I wouldn't say that I was really taking care of myself.

[607] I was just trying not to die.

[608] We're trying to work on things.

[609] And we came up with plans.

[610] We tried to be really intentional about talking about our feelings and we decided that we were going to do specific little things here and there to try to help rebuild our relationship.

[611] He would come and we would just sit and watch a show together.

[612] And then after it was over, we would talk about whatever came to mind and then typically it would end up leading to more intense conversations about obviously what was going on in our life.

[613] And it was honestly like we were trying to rebuild a relationship from scratch.

[614] We felt like strangers almost in a way that we're having to like date again.

[615] But there was this weird block in between us that kept us from feeling excited about dating again.

[616] We decided that we were going to do couple therapy.

[617] I was feeling excited that I was going to get to.

[618] to talk to somebody, I was going to have an open space to fully explain to him how I was feeling about our sex life and maybe finally hear how he felt about things because communication was, again, not really his strong suit.

[619] During our couples counseling session, he opened up about the fact that he had a pretty serious pornography addiction and that he consistently had been viewing pornography for years.

[620] The therapist then went on to say, statistically speaking, it's more common for people to cheat when that person is pregnant.

[621] She recognized that, Odessa, you feel that this is cheating, right?

[622] Like, this is emotional cheating.

[623] And I was like, I do.

[624] She was like, well, it makes sense that he would have really retreated and things would have gotten more intense with his viewing of pornography while you are pregnant because statistically speaking, that's when a majority of cheating occurs.

[625] She was explaining different statistics and different psychological reasons why things were maybe unfolding the way that they were and explaining maybe why he felt the way that he felt.

[626] She looked at me and said, Odessa, if you want to help him get through this addiction, you're going to have to become his new drug, his new addiction.

[627] So that means whenever he wants to have that dopamine release, whenever he wants to view porn, he needs to have access to you instead.

[628] And I remember just dying inside.

[629] I wanted to die.

[630] I was so tired.

[631] It meant to keep my marriage together to keep this man here, I have to be a sex doll for the rest of my life.

[632] I have to be this thing that he can use whenever he needs to rather than a person with feelings, and a person who gets injured and a person who wants the autonomy to say no. I remember just agreeing to it because I didn't like the option of what would happen if I said no. I look back on that conversation now and I'm so effing disgusted with what she said to me because it's so traumatizing to have someone validate your trauma.

[633] And it's so disgusting that a person with a freaking license would enable that type of of trauma and claim that it's my job to heal him from his addiction by becoming his sex toy.

[634] I walked out of that couple's session and he was like, are you sure you're okay with that?

[635] And I was like, I mean, if that's what you need, then I guess, yeah.

[636] And he was excited.

[637] He seemed euphoric even that that meant he was going to have as much access to me as he needed or as he wanted.

[638] She is a Christian licensed therapist.

[639] It's disgusting.

[640] I'm so sorry.

[641] That is so fucking foul.

[642] My current therapist is a queen.

[643] We love her.

[644] And she was absolutely furious when I told her, like, rageful when I told her this because she was like, your therapist was enabling your abuser.

[645] And that's disgusting.

[646] Disgusting.

[647] I think it was unfortunate.

[648] That was the first time of us ever talking to someone openly about all of this stuff.

[649] You know it's bad when your narcissist is shocked that someone's siding with them.

[650] At one point, Piper looked at me and was like, Odessa, are you sure that you are comfortable with that?

[651] They could recognize that that seemed like a crazy idea and not a good one at all.

[652] But I wanted to save my marriage.

[653] And that was my only goal at that point.

[654] This is the first time in my life that I was actually being honest with someone about what my sex life looked like and how I felt traumatized by it.

[655] I remember specifically having a conversation with my sister and I was telling her, yeah, there would be a few times where I would be injured and she was just like, oh, does a what?

[656] And I was like, yeah, that has never happened to you before?

[657] And then the conversation continued, and I was like, it would take so long and I would always get tired and we would already be like two hours in and I was ready to be done.

[658] And I remember her jaw just dropping and being like, what in the world?

[659] Two hours?

[660] It became very clear that my sex life was in fact not normal.

[661] In fact, it was very abnormal.

[662] And that's when I told my sister about the fact that he, He would already be touching me or starting when I would be asleep.

[663] And my sister just lost it.

[664] She immediately told me that that was wrong and that that was not normal and that was not okay and that I have a right to say no and to consent and I can't consent when I'm asleep.

[665] And I had known all these concepts, obviously, when you've been done.

[666] told for so many years to submit to your husband, it gets kind of blurry.

[667] And you don't realize that submitting to your husband doesn't necessarily mean that you have to be a sex doll to your husband.

[668] That was the lightbulb moment for me when I recognized that something was wrong.

[669] And it was wrong on a lot of levels.

[670] I don't think that I ever fully realized until everything started falling apart.

[671] I decided I was going to recreate our first date, but COVID version.

[672] So it would be socially distanced from other people.

[673] And I went all out.

[674] And I made myself look really freaking good.

[675] And I don't know why that's important for you to know, but it is in my opinion.

[676] So there you go.

[677] I was excited to feel good and feel happy for just a moment, even if it was forced.

[678] I was finishing getting ready and he comes into our room and he looks at me and says, I can't go on the day tonight.

[679] And he has this face that he would always get whenever things were bad if he felt guilty about something.

[680] And I was like, why?

[681] What happened?

[682] And he was just like, Odessa, I can't go on this day tonight.

[683] I was like, you said that, like, but what happened?

[684] Why?

[685] Did you watch porn?

[686] And he just exhaled and put his hands over his face.

[687] I remember being like, come on, let's talk about this.

[688] So we walked over to our bed and I just sat down and I was like, okay, what's going on?

[689] And he got down on his knees and he was just holding his face in his hands.

[690] and he looked up at me and he said, I've been cheating on you.

[691] That's next time on Something Was Wrong.

[692] Thank you so much for listening.

[693] Until next time, stay safe, friends.

[694] Something Was Wrong is a broken cycle media production, created and hosted by me, Tiffany Reese.

[695] If you'd like to support the show further, you can share episodes with your loved ones, leave a positive review or follow Something Was Wrong on Instagram at Something Was Wrong podcast.

[696] Our theme song was composed by Gladrags.

[697] Check out their album, Wonder Under.

[698] Thank you so much.

[699] If you like Something Was Wrong, you can listen early and ad -free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.

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