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Andrea Gunning
This is an iHeart podcast.
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Andrea Gunning
I'm Andrea Gunning, and this is a bonus episode of Betrayal. In season five, episode seven, we introduced you to three other survivors of intimate partner violence. Their stories were strikingly similar to Saskia's. And like Saskia, they've each rebuilt in the aftermath of what happened to them. We wanted to give you some updates on where these survivors are today. So let's start with Ember. Remember, her fiance John, was drugging and raping her. He confessed everything to their pastor.
Ember
The pastor goes, how often has this happened? He goes, this has happened probably once a week almost the whole time we've been engaged.
Andrea Gunning
Still, she planned to stay in the relationship to try to make it work. But then she had a chance encounter with John's therapist. He broke a major rule of his profession by telling her, we've run through
Ember
a series of diagnostic tests on your fiance. He's not a safe person. He's officially diagnosed as a sociopath, and you should get as far away from him as possible. That was kind of the point where I was like, I can't marry this man.
Andrea Gunning
This is the moment where, back in episode seven, we paused the story, but we want to tell you what happened next. Even after hearing from John's therapist and ending their relationship, Ember didn't seriously consider going to the police. What mattered to her was ensuring that John didn't hurt other people. And she felt that that was possible without John serving time.
Ember
I said, I'm not going to press charges. I'm not going to go to the police as long as you continue getting the help you need to heal so you don't do this to other people. And he said, okay, yeah, of course. Obviously, I'm going to do that.
Andrea Gunning
But before long, Ember heard through mutual friends that John stopped going to therapy, and whatever treatment he had received hadn't worked.
Ember
A friend of ours observed him drugging. Somebody else called me and was like, things are not better. This is escalating. And so that's when I went to the police.
Andrea Gunning
But reporting this crime was far from straightforward. Re.
Ember
Traumatizing, I guess, would be the best word for it. I was still struggling to put the pieces together. I don't remember everything because I did dissociate. And there are aspects that I don't
Andrea Gunning
recall as a reminder not only was John drugging Ember, she was dissociating during his attacks. Her mind went completely dark as a way of protecting itself from harm. Her memories were cloudy at best. So when she went to the cops, they dismissed her.
Ember
They're like, we can't really use your testimony. Like, we need this happened at this time and where it happened.
Andrea Gunning
On top of that, Ember didn't have the physical evidence necessary to file charges.
Ember
I didn't have a sane exam done right after the attack. I didn't have a drug panel done to prove that there was anything in my system. I just had his words to a pastor in a room that that had taken place. They're like, the best we can do is a temporary order of restraint. And even then, once that's up, you kind of have to reapply for it. In order to reapply for it, you have to prove that he's trying to contact you. And so you can't just have this indefinitely. And it was just really disheartening of like, I have no legal ability to protect myself. I have to wait for him to hurt someone else or hurt me in order to prove that he's a dangerous person.
Andrea Gunning
Ember's case was at a standstill.
Ember
That is the most heartbreaking part of our legal system as it stands. You have real victims being courageous enough to come forward, and then nothing can be done. And you're like, well, then what's even the point of being courageous?
Andrea Gunning
John was never brought to justice. But that didn't stop Ember from moving forward with her life today. It's been 20 years since she was
Ember
raped, and when I hit that 20 year anniversary, it was very like, whew, I am where I wanted to be.
Andrea Gunning
She did finally get married to a man she trusts. They have two sons, and she has a great career.
Ember
I've been working with survivors kind of as a direct result of what I've been through.
Andrea Gunning
She supports victims of sex trafficking and sexual exploitation, especially in creating longer term safety plans.
Ember
The statistics tell us that 80% of survivors of either trafficking or exploitation will be re victimized within a year if they don't have restorative help alongside them. So that isn't just like, rescue and hope for the best or recover and hope for the best. You really do have to walk alongside them and really giving them the tools they need to identify safe and unsafe people to understand trauma and how that affects us day in and day out.
Andrea Gunning
Assisting other survivors has helped Ember on her own journey.
Ember
I've been able to bear witness to so many other amazing stories that have been healing for me and helpful for me too.
Andrea Gunning
She encourages other survivors to reach out to trained professionals for this kind of help. No one has to hold this pain alone.
Ember
The instinct is to hide, is to run away from anyone who can observe that pain. And in reality, you need to lean in and you need to show what is happening. You need to reveal and drag it into the light so it doesn't keep thriving in the darkness.
Andrea Gunning
Next, we want to share the rest of Natalie's story. She was pregnant when she found graphic sexual material created and posted by her husband, Stephen.
Natalie
You can see his hands, his wedding ring. And then I realized that I am in these images.
Andrea Gunning
It's been over 12 years since that moment. For a long time after she moved out and got a divorce, she mostly kept what she discovered to herself.
Natalie
The shame was really unbearable. Like, who am I going to tell this to?
Andrea Gunning
On top of the shame, she felt like she had to keep quiet for the sake of her kids. Stephen's voice was still in her head. He was their dad.
Natalie
I didn't want my kids to grow up in a divorced or like a single family home. I was ashamed of that too. And it was like the stigma of everything. And I look back now and I think it's not silly, but, you know, that was my mindset at the time.
Andrea Gunning
So for many years, Steven's secret was her secret. They continued to co parent, trading off time with their kids. But Steven would often push the boundaries they'd agreed on.
Natalie
He would ask me, I know you're not working today and you have the kids, but I'd like to see them. Can we do something together? And I would still agree to it. Sometimes he would even come to my house and just knock on the door and just like, come in my house. And I just wanted to see the kids. I'm like, you can't just do that. My son would be like, oh, hey, dad.
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Hey, mom.
Natalie
Can dad come in or can dad eat with us? And I'm like, ugh, okay. I would always give in. I thought it was really better for the kids.
Andrea Gunning
It took her a while to see she needed to prioritize herself. That was how to be the best mom she could be.
Natalie
He shouldn't be this comfortable. I don't have to let him do that. Eventually I'm like, no, enough. You're not gonna do this anymore.
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did I search the Internet for answers to my cold sore problem? Now I'm stuck down a rabbit hole filled with images of alarmingly graphic sores in various stages of ooze. I can clear my search history, but I can never unsee that.
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Andrea Gunning
Natalie started setting firmer boundaries, gaining confidence and slowly she began opening up to people about what her ex husband Stephen did. One of those people was her best friend who was also her ex sister in law. If you'll recall, Stephen was Natalie's best friend's brother. Back when Steven and Natalie separated, Natalie protected her friend from the truth.
Natalie
I didn't want her to know. I didn't want that to change her relationship with her brother. But years later I ended up telling her.
Andrea Gunning
Sadly, her friend came to Stephen's defense.
Natalie
She didn't want to believe that I was drugged or that he was doing anything like that, that I was probably a misunderstanding. She chose really victim blaming. That's another just big blow to me.
Andrea Gunning
But there were people who were there for her and who continued to be there for Natalie to this day, like her sisters, her friends and her therapist.
Natalie
Talking about it and sharing my secret and letting this go and not carrying so much of it really helped
Andrea Gunning
with the support she's received. She's learned how to trust other people again. She's even had romantic relationships, including a fiance who believed her without hesitation or judgment.
Natalie
He's been continuously supportive of my process and has helped me feel safe in my trauma.
Andrea Gunning
She's also now in a place where after 12 years, she's considering reporting Steven to the authorities. Even after all this time, she's held onto all the evidence of what he did.
Natalie
I have my son's tablet, I have memory cards and I have old cell phones that I just have saved that I have not gone back and looked at and I feel like I'm ready to.
Andrea Gunning
Recently she contacted her local rape crisis center to talk through her options.
Natalie
Legally, just having someone who understands my slow process and can give me legal advice on what I could do about that is helpful. It's been hard for me to accept, like I don't have to put everybody first all the time. What I feel matters, my struggles matter and what I'm going through matters. So I have to Stop protecting him and follow through with what I've been wanting to do for years.
Andrea Gunning
None of this feels easy, and Natalie still has a lot of hard days. But that secret, Steven's secret, doesn't weigh on her like it once did.
Natalie
I remember thinking about it, like this huge elephant that I was trying to hide behind me, like, by standing in front of it, that's how I felt on the inside. Now it's like the elephant is just further and further and further away from me.
Andrea Gunning
Lastly, I want to give an update on Stephanie. She found something terrifying on her husband's computer.
Stephanie
He had a Flickr account that was filled with nude photos of me. Hundreds of pictures.
Andrea Gunning
We first met her in 2023, when Betrayal Weekly was just an idea. Her story became the show's first two episodes. Back then, she talked about how her discovery affected her relationship with her body.
Stephanie
When I was married, I had longish hair and I wore very feminine clothing. And in the days following finding out, I cut off all my hair and I wore very plain, baggy, nondescript clothing.
Andrea Gunning
Today, a lot has changed in the few years since we met her. Stephanie's gained a better sense of why she needed to alter her appearance.
Stephanie
I saw so many of the images, the photos that he took, and so my trauma was very rooted in the sight of my face and my body. And so in those couple of years after I discovered what he was doing, the sight of my own face and my own body was very triggering for me. It was very difficult to even change my clothes or take a shower. By not taking care of myself, cutting my hair short, and by wearing the baggy clothing, I could keep myself safe from seeing myself. And since the podcast and as I have continued with therapy and yoga, I have been able to reclaim myself again. I'm growing my hair out again. I actually make a little effort with my clothing, and when I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, it's like, oh, that's actually me. I look like me again.
Andrea Gunning
She's dedicated herself to being an advocate, telling her story in the hopes that new victims will feel less alone.
Stephanie
I strongly believe that this is happening to lots of other women out there, and they just don't know it yet. And as these women start to discover what's being done to them, I want them to have a softer landing than I had, to have some resources so they don't feel like they are screaming into the void saying, am I the only person in the world that this ever happened to?
Andrea Gunning
She also wants those people to know that there is life to live after a crime like this.
Stephanie
For a long time I thought the dirtiest, most foul word in the human language was hope.
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Fuck hope.
Stephanie
There was no hope. And now, Yeah, I can be hopeful.
Andrea Gunning
For resources on sexual violence, visit rainnn.org betrayal that's R A I N N.org betrayal. You can also get free confidential 24. 7 support through RAINN's National Sexual Assault Hotline. Just text HOPE to 64673 or call 1-800-656, hope you are not alone. If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal Team or want to tell us your story, email us@betrayalpodmail.com that is betrayalpodmail.com or follow us on Instagram betrayalpod to access additional content and to connect with the betrayal community. Join our substack@betrayal.substack.com we're grateful for your support. One way to show support is by subscribing to our show on Apple Podcasts. Don't forget to rate and review Betrayal. Five star reviews go a long way. A big thank you to all of our listeners. Betrayal is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Faison, hosted and produced by me, Andrea Gunning, written and produced by Kaitlyn golden, with additional production by Olivia Hewitt. Our supervising producer is Carrie Hartman. Our story editor is Monique Laborde, also produced by Ben Fetterman. Our associate producer is Leah Jablo. Production management by Kristen Melchiori. Additional support by Curry Richmond. Our iHeart team is Ally Perry and Jessica Krynchek. Audio editing by Tanner Robbins with additional editing and mixing by Matt d'. Alvecchio. Special thanks to Saskia, her friends and family, and special thanks to Will Pearson and Carrie Lieberman. The Trail's theme is composed by Oliver Baines Music library provided by MyB Music. And for more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Andrea Gunning
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Andrea Gunning
But Redfin isn't built for endless browsing.
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Andrea Gunning
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Andrea Gunning
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Podcast: Betrayal Weekly
Host: Andrea Gunning (iHeartPodcasts | Glass Podcasts)
Air Date: March 23, 2026
This bonus episode of Betrayal Weekly revisits three survivors of intimate partner violence first introduced in Season 5, Episode 7—Ember, Natalie, and Stephanie. Each woman experienced severe betrayals, parallel to the story of Saskia, the season’s focal survivor. Host Andrea Gunning provides in-depth updates on their journeys, exploring the ongoing aftermath, their paths toward justice and healing, and their roles in supporting other survivors.
Ember, on reporting and justice:
“That is the most heartbreaking part of our legal system as it stands. You have real victims being courageous enough to come forward, and then nothing can be done. And you’re like, well, then what’s even the point of being courageous?” [06:35]
Natalie, on releasing shame:
“The shame was really unbearable. Like, who am I going to tell this to?” [09:11]
“Now it’s like the elephant is just further and further and further away from me.” [16:49]
Stephanie, on reclaiming self:
“The sight of my own face and my own body was very triggering for me...By not taking care of myself, cutting my hair short, and by wearing the baggy clothing, I could keep myself safe from seeing myself.” [18:12]
“I want them to have a softer landing than I had, to have some resources so they don’t feel like they are screaming into the void…” [19:38]
The episode retains a compassionate, supportive tone while tackling difficult truths about betrayal, broken systems, and the arduous path to recovery. Speakers are candid, often painfully honest, offering their stories in hopes of creating solidarity and resources for others still suffering in silence.
If you or someone you know is affected by sexual violence:
Betrayal Weekly continues to foster a supportive community for survivors, offering a platform for stories of resilience and actionable information for those seeking justice or healing. If you wish to share your story or connect, email betrayalpod@gmail.com or join the Beyond Betrayal Substack.