The Hero's Secret Life: Part 2

Summary

The Dating Detectives – "The Hero's Secret Life: Part 2"

Podcast: The Dating Detectives
Hosts: Hana Anderson & Mackenzie Fultz (Dear Media)
Date: June 8, 2026
Summary by Podcast Summarizer

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Episode Overview

In this emotionally charged episode, private investigator Mackenzie Fultz and comedian Hannah Anderson continue Emma’s story—an extraordinary case of hidden addiction, manipulation, and escalating danger in a relationship with a beloved first responder. Picking up where Part 1 left off, Emma reveals how her partner Adam’s double life (as both a community hero and a deeply troubled addict) unraveled, exposing devastating betrayal, financial ruin, and, ultimately, violence. The hosts dissect red flags, share their own reactions, and highlight the complexities of loving someone battling addiction—all while drawing insights for listeners in similar situations.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Pharmacy Twist & Early Gaslighting

[03:52 - 09:23]

• Emma uncovers her prescription medication is being stolen. Initially suspects Adam, but he blames the pharmacy—an excuse that proves true ("Two things can be true. And I would find that out later." – Emma, 03:52). This provides the perfect cover for Adam, who is, in fact, also stealing her medication.
• Emma tries to move forward but remains vigilant: counting pills, using a planner to track, and controlling access to medications.

The Hawaii Trip – Financial Red Flags

[05:21 - 08:10]

• Emma and Adam plan a trip, agreeing to split costs. Adam fails to buy tickets or plan activities as promised, citing forgetfulness and blaming Emma. This forces Emma to pay for both airfare and other expenses.
• Adam, previously flush with cash ($60k in his personal account), now appears penny-pinching, raising Emma's suspicions about missing funds.

"It had just been a few months prior to that... But towards the end of this trip, of course, I run out again of my medications. And I finally have to confront him about it because I know for a fact it's him." – Emma [08:10]

Revelation & First Confrontation Over Drug Use

[09:24 - 12:30]

• Emma confronts Adam about missing medications. He denies, then finally admits to the theft and relapsed addiction, promising to seek help.
• Emma feels intense anger but tries to move forward into "solution mode"—exemplifying how conflicted someone can feel when loving an addict.
• Adam manipulates Emma, blaming her for "tempting" him with prescription pills at home.

"He was a master at it. He kind of laid the fault at my feet instead of taking responsibility himself..." – Emma [10:02]

Tracking, Tech, & Going Detective

[15:56 - 18:24]

• Adam earns a promotion at work, conveniently working longer hours, making Emma more suspicious.
• She clandestinely activates “Find My iPhone” and iMessage on his devices to monitor his movements and messages, becoming her own investigator.
• She notices he's often in remote areas, withdrawing significant amounts of cash ($500/day), and covering his tracks.

"He would be in a completely different county. And I would text him and be like, hey, how's the office work going? And he's like, it's really boring, but I'm getting through it. And I'm like, I see that. Yeah. As he's driving down the coast and I don't know where he's going or why or what he's doing there." – Emma [18:09]

Discovering the Truth: Drugs, Sex Work, and Home Invasion

[19:32 - 25:49]

• Emma finds evidence of Adam's escalating addiction: white powder everywhere, rolled-up leaves (homemade straws), and strange late-night behavior.
• She sets up hidden cameras in the kitchen and uncovers footage of Adam doing drugs, sometimes with other people in their home.
• The real revelation comes when Emma checks Adam's deleted emails and uncovers hundreds of messages to Craigslist sex workers, openly soliciting drugs (including meth), and bringing strangers into the family home while Emma was sleeping upstairs.

"There are dozens and dozens of emails of him reaching out to sex workers on Craigslist. And he would ask them if they had any meth. So it's even worse than I thought." – Emma [25:18]

Preparing to Escape—Building Leverage

[27:13 - 32:26]

• Emma becomes terrified, knowing she needs irrefutable evidence to protect herself and plans her exit, sending weekly evidence dumps to a trusted friend in case of an emergency.
• She describes the emotional toll—living like "trains passing in the night," hiding money, and finding their joint accounts drained.
• The situation escalates until, after missing her best friend’s wedding and nearly losing all her assets, Emma confronts Adam and decides to leave.

Violent Escalation & Lock-In

[32:30 - 35:05]

• After confronting Adam and announcing she’s leaving, Adam explodes with rage, trapping Emma and her dogs in a bathroom for two days, body-slamming the door and threatening her life.
• Emma uses her leverage—threatening to reveal all evidence to his employer and the police—to finally force Adam to leave, so she can escape.

"He was enraged. I've never seen anyone react this way. Clearly he was high on something. But I started chasing me through the house screaming, 'I'm gonna kill you.'" – Emma [32:01]

Fallout: Ending, Aftermath & Guilt

[36:34 - 47:08]

• After escaping, Adam drains their accounts. Emma’s mother helps her get to safety. She misses her best friend’s wedding, too ashamed to reveal the real reason at the time.
• Emma receives shocking updates from her former neighbor: Adam is living in complete squalor, surrounded by pimps, addicts, and violence. The spiral culminates in a harrowing revelation—Adam killed his own dog.
• Emma is tormented by guilt over this, feeling responsible despite doing what she thought was right at the time.

"He had stabbed the dog to death and then stuffed her in his closet. So the whole point of the story, it's been so long. It's been decades since this happened, and I still have yet to forgive myself for poor dog. Like, the single biggest mistake of my life. Truly." – Emma [46:20]

Closure, Recovery & Moving On

[47:47 - 53:40]

• Emma describes seeing Adam years later, emaciated and unrecognizable. She cuts ties with his former professional circle and begins her healing journey.
• With time and support from Al Anon (the group for families/friends of alcoholics/addicts), Emma is able to process events, recognize patterns, and eventually date and love again—now happily married to a supportive partner.

"You can't fix him. There is literally absolutely nothing on the face of the earth that you can do for him that will fix him, because he has to want to get sober himself." – Emma [51:39]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Addiction’s Excuses:
  "He would always promise, yes, of course. He'd say whatever he needed to say in the moment to appease me. And like all addicts, they're very clever in what they do, and they know how to trick us really well." – Emma [10:02]

• The Bank Account Discovery:
  "He had been taking $500 cash out every single day. For what? Every single day. And he had been doing it for months and months." – Emma [19:32]

• On the Emotional Toll:
  "Every single time that happened, I felt more and more worthless. Like, maybe this is just gonna be how it's gonna be. This is just my life now." – Emma [20:12]

• The Escape and Threat:
  "If you don't leave this house right now, my friend has everything that I have captured, and she will send it not only to the police, but she will send it to your boss." – Emma [34:35]

• Dog Tragedy Warning [Trigger 45:53]:
  "He had stabbed the dog to death and then stuffed her in his closet ... it's been decades since this happened and I still have yet to forgive myself." – Emma [46:20]

• Advice for Others:
  "Go to Al Anon and tell me that their stories aren't identical to your story, and it will open your eyes." – Emma [52:37]

• Hosts on Hero Myths:
  "It just goes to show, you really don't know what's going on behind closed doors. Not only can anyone be struggling with addiction, but I just felt so bad that she couldn't talk to anybody." – Hannah [55:08]

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The Hosts' Reactions & Analysis

On Ignored Red Flags

• Discussion about the challenge of confronting loved ones, especially when others see them as heroes.
• Powerlessness and shame make confession and help-seeking difficult.
• Both hosts express empathic outrage, sadness, and disbelief at Adam’s actions and Emma’s trauma.

Takeaways on Addiction & Enabling

• Emphasis on the insidious nature of addiction—how manipulation, denial, and gaslighting keep partners isolated.
• A reminder you can't save an addict; external support (like Al Anon) is crucial.

On Conflict Avoidance

[56:05 - 57:36]

• Recognizing how avoiding confrontation and wanting to “move forward” can enable destructive behavior.
• Inquiry about resources (books, methods) to overcome fear of conflict in relationships.

On Survivor Guilt

[59:58 - 61:25]

• Hannah highlights that partners are "responsible for your decision to leave, but they're responsible for what they do afterwards."
• Importance of self-forgiveness and understanding the limits of control over others' actions.

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Practical Resources & Recommendations

• Al Anon: Time and again, Emma stresses the life-changing support she found at Al Anon meetings. The hosts clarify it's a group for anyone with loved ones struggling with alcoholism (and, by extension, addiction).
• Trust your intuition: Both guests and hosts reinforce the value of ‘femme-tuition’ and listening to gut instincts about dangerous shifts in partners’ behavior.

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 03:52 — "Two things can be true": The tangled truth about the pharmacy and Adam's thefts
• 08:10 — Emma’s confrontation about missing medications
• 09:24 — Adam's first admission of relapse
• 15:56 — Emma turns detective, tracks Adam's movements
• 19:32 — Discovery of daily $500 withdrawals and suspicious behavior
• 25:18 — Finding the "mother load" of incriminating emails
• 32:01 — Adam traps Emma in the bathroom; threats of violence
• 46:20 — [Trigger] Animal abuse revealed (the dog's fate)
• 51:39 — Emma’s blunt advice: "You can’t fix him"
• 52:37 — Call to attend Al Anon

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Final Thoughts

This episode is a sobering deep-dive into the hidden lives even those closest to us can lead, especially when addiction, narcissism, and duplicity take root. While Emma’s harrowing ordeal may be extreme, the hosts’ compassion and practical advice provide hope—and tools—for anyone feeling trapped in a relationship marked by secrecy, gaslighting, or substance abuse.
Above all: “Trust your intuition,” and know that support is available—even if you have to take the first step alone.

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If you or someone you know is experiencing intimate partner violence or abuse, please reach out to the National Domestic Violence Hotline [phone]) for support.

Transcript

[Hannah]

The following program contains names, places, and events that have been anonymized or fictionalized for the purposes of protection and safety. The following program is provided for entertainment purposes only, and any commentary from the hosts are strictly conjecture and should not be held as making any definitive statements about the truth or identity of any particular individuals or circumstances. If you or a loved one are involved in an abusive relationship, please call the National Domestic violence hotline at 1-800-799-7-7-7233 for support.

[Emma]

We're back.

[Hannah]

Happy dating Detectives Monday. Happy, happy dating Detectives Monday.

[Emma]

Hi, Hannah.

[Hannah]

Hi. Hi, everybody. You're back for part two. We'll get to it very quickly, but thank you, first of all, to anyone that came to CrimeCon and said hello to us.

[Emma]

We. It was amazing. Oh, my gosh.

[Sam]

We got to squeeze so many of your necks and meet a lot of our Patreon face to face. You guys are amazing. It was so cool.

[Hannah]

You were amazing on the live Laugh Larceny live show. Say that 10 times fast.

[Sam]

Wasn't that so fun?

[Hannah]

So fun. And you won. Congratulations.

[Sam]

Yes, I did.

[Hannah]

I said you wouldn't be welcome back if you didn't bring home the W. Just kidding. But listen to that podcast. But, yeah, it was so much fun.

[Emma]

And.

[Hannah]

And I'm so glad we went.

[Sam]

Yeah. And just your support there, all of you that showed up. Oh, my gosh. And then so many people were like, wait, wait, there was.

[Emma]

Wait, what? I didn't know there was Crimecon.

[Hannah]

If you didn't come to Crimecon, but you live in Chicago or Orlando or Tampa, you can still come hang out with us at one of our live shows this summer. Seamless transition.

[Emma]

I know.

[Sam]

No, I'm really excited. You know, I've never been to Chicago, so July 16th will be in Chicago, and August 5th will be in Orlando, and August 6th, we'll be in Tampa, which is my stomping grounds.

[Hannah]

The tickets are on sale now. They're in the show notes. They're going fast, so get your friends, bring a date. We can suss them out for you.

[Emma]

Whatever.

[Hannah]

We just want to hang out with you.

[Emma]

Yeah.

[Hannah]

I'm so excited for the live shows. And last order of business. Thank you. If you subscribe to our Patreon, we have two bonus episodes every month. And we also just, like, chat with you and do a lot of other extra fun, goody things. It's $5 a month, and if you support us there, then you're, like, a big reason why we do this show, why we're able to do it.

[Sam]

Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. We have so much gratitude for you. We're so grateful. Thank you.

[Hannah]

Shall we get into part two?

[Sam]

Yes, let's get into it. And just there is a little bit of a trigger warning for animal abuse. There will be a trigger warning right before it. So if you don't have the heart, listen, we totally understand and just wanted to give you a little warning beforehand.

[Hannah]

We also talk more about addiction and there's some violence in a lot of other ways and you will hear about that. And if you haven't listened to part one, go back, listen to the beginning of Emma's story. But we left off where Emma suspects her dogfish of maybe stealing some pain pills on her trip. But then he says, check with your pharmacy. And it turns out the pharmacy was taking some pills.

[Sam]

Yeah. And who would have thunk it? Like I was like, the pharmacy wouldn't do that.

[Hannah]

Right. What a good excuse. Well, she ends that part with two things can be true. So we have to keep listening cuz there's more to it.

[Sam]

Yeah. What are the two things that can be true?

[Hannah]

I have my guesses.

[Emma]

When I found out that the pharmacy was in fact the ones shorting my prescription, I thought it was all over and laid to rest. And I didn't realize that at the time, but it was the perfect excuse for him because it totally exonerated him. It was like a chain reaction of events just clicked into place. But they clicked into the wrong place because not only was the pharmacy taking, but someone else was too. Two things can be true. And I would find that out later. I think deep down inside I knew what was happening, but I wasn't ready to confront that. So I think I just tried to like, well, it was a pharmacy, couldn't possibly have been him. And he's passing his drug test at work, Right? Case closed, right?

[Sam]

Yeah. Yeah, I would think that too.

[Emma]

But maybe he's doing something that isn't being tested for by his job. Yes, is what I'm thinking. And I don't know what that would be. Hmm. I don't know. I was thinking maybe some sort of psych drug or something. But I continued having my prescription counted. I know I'm getting the right number.

[Sam]

Does he know that you had asked them to count it?

[Emma]

No. No.

[Sam]

Oh, okay.

[Emma]

I'm being exceedingly careful with putting them in my pill planner so that if it does start to happen, I know exactly who it is. A few months later, we plan a trip to Hawaii again. And we decide that I'm paying for the hotel and the car rental, and then he's supposed to pay for airfare and activities. And I let my doctors know. We kind of adjust my prescription schedule so that I won't run out mid trip. Everything's great, get everything filled. I ask Adam to send me our plane ticket info because I still don't have any idea what time we leave or anything. And he's like, oh, shit, I haven't done that. I didn't realize I was supposed to buy the plane tickets. You were supposed to.

[Hannah]

I'm fuming. I'm fuming.

[Emma]

I'm forgetful. Head injuries, you know, I'm like, did I. I mean, I guess I could have, but that's unlike me. But whatever. I'll just buy the plane tickets because I've already paid for the hotel in the car, and so I may as well. So I foot the bill for the plane tickets and we go for our trip to Hawaii. We get there and we land and I'm like, okay, what are we doing today? What's on the schedule? Because we landed real early in the morning and he's like, oh, I thought we could just settle in today and maybe hang out on the beach or something. Just something like chill and recover from jet lag. And I'm like, I don't get jet lag. That's not my problem.

[Hannah]

Yeah, but okay, like, when are we snorkeling?

[Emma]

Yeah. So then the next day, I think we went on like a hike, which costs no money, which is fine. Love a hike. But still I'm tracking like, okay, now this has cost us zero dollars. The next day we drive Hana highway, which is like another free thing that you could do, which.

[Sam]

Love it.

[Emma]

Love all the gardens. Yeah. But he bought us sandwiches to go for the whole day. For the whole trip. That's pretty much all. We're eating our deli sandwiches from seven Eleven and stuff, which is odd. I don't think we ever went out to a nice restaurant. And it's all brewing in my head. I've got a million questions, but I don't want to bring it up on this channel trip. And it's baffling to me because last I saw his personal account, he had 60 grand in it. So he used to have no issue paying for a dinner or a massage.

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Emma]

When was.

[Hannah]

When did you see that 60 grand?

[Emma]

It had just been a few months prior to that. It really wasn't that long ago. But towards the end of this trip, of course, I run out again of my medications And I finally have to confront him about it because I know for a fact it's him. And he denied everything. He played innocent, like, again, maybe it was the hotel staff. And I said, not this time, because I've been keeping my locked bag in my backpack the whole time, and it's been on my back this whole trip, so that's absolutely not what's been happening. It's you. And. Yeah. And so, of course, he does the master manipulator, narcissistic thing to do, which is to then admit to it, because he's caught, so. Oh, I have a problem. I'm so sorry. It's just gotten out of control. I didn't mean to be stealing from you. I didn't want to hurt you. As soon as we get back, I'm going to right back to AA and I'm gonna start working on my steps again, and this is never gonna happen ever again.

[Sam]

Mm.

[Hannah]

How are you feeling as you have this conversation?

[Emma]

I'm pretty fucking mad. And I think I've been mad, like, truly mad, two times in my entire life, so it really takes a lot. So I was mad, but probably not as mad as I should have been. Yeah, that's just who I am. Unfortunately, I like to bottle it up and then wait for the right time to just explode on explode.

[Sam]

Yep, Absolutely.

[Hannah]

But also, you can be mad and still love someone and want to support them at the same time, and you seem like.

[Sam]

Well, then you're torn, and you're like, I love this person. But also, I'm mad at them. And that's a very conflicting feeling.

[Emma]

Yeah. Yeah, it really was. When I had put everything together and realized what it was that was happening, that he was using again and he was not sober, I felt like, okay, now it's out in the open, and we can address it. We can pull this thing out into the light and get a good look at it and come up with a game plan to get over it and solve this problem and move on, and everything will be fine. So we get back home from this trip, and we had an argument every two weeks about it or a discussion every two weeks about it. And he would always promise, yes, of course. He'd say whatever he needed to say in the moment to appease me. And like all addicts, they're very clever in what they do, and they know how to trick us really well. And he did. He was a master at it. He kind of laid the fault at my feet instead of taking responsibility himself for his actions. So he just said, well, you're the one with the prescription, and it's in our house. I can't take anything from work because it's all logged. So I've never had the opportunity to try these things and do them and felt very guilty because, again, I brought it into the house and it tempted him. I think outwardly I was very apologetic, but in my head I'm thinking, yeah, I may have brought it in here, but it's not like I forced them down your throat or told you to take them. I never once gave you permission even to have one or half of one. Those are mine and I need them. So outwardly, again, trying to avoid conflict, trying to just smooth this bump over so we can move forward. I like to just move forward and get over things and try to make progress, forward progress. And so I said whatever I needed to say to move us past that point and move into the solution phase of the problem.

[Sam]

So I live in Florida, but I have visited Phoenix a lot lately and all these other drugs. Drier climates, these drier.

[Hannah]

Vegas.

[Sam]

Yeah, I was in Vegas and then Utah. And it's super dry.

[Hannah]

And you need lotion. But I don't love body lotion. Body serum, because it makes me feel, like, sticky.

[Sam]

Sticky and weird. Yeah.

[Hannah]

But OSEA does not. And I'm actually blown away by this formula, especially the hyaluronic body serum.

[Sam]

Oh, my gosh. I love it because it's not an oil. Like, it doesn't feel oily, but it's not a lotion. It doesn't feel sticky. It feels really good.

[Hannah]

And it's super hydrating and it absorbs very instantly. And it helps your skin retain moisture, not just get moisturized so you'll feel deeper hydration all day long. And yeah, I use it after I shower before bed. They also have other great body products, lotion that you will love and skincare. I know you use some of their skincare before we even started advertising with them, y', all, we. We use everything.

[Sam]

We talk about caffeine, like under eye de puffer situation. That works really well. And by the way, when you use their body serums and moisturizers, if you use them on Dr. Skin, it's great. But if you use it right out of the shower when your skin is still a little damp, it feels good. And I would like to point out it is leggings approved. Like, if you. You know how when you put on lotion and then you put your leggings on and you can't get them on,

[Hannah]

you're like, oh, I Guess these are like either not coming on or stuck to my skin now forever.

[Sam]

Their body serum helps you even get leggings on and you're so much less crepey.

[Hannah]

I love that. It was also founded not only in Malibu, which I, you know, feels right, but it's a mother daughter founded skincare brand. I love that.

[Sam]

Yeah, I think that's really amazing. And also anything that's women owned is pretty cool.

[Hannah]

So oca's hyaluronic body serum is a multilayer hyaluronic powered hydration for the entire body. And right now we have a special discount just for you. Get 10% off your first order. Sitewide with code dating [e-mail] that's code dating detectives at o s e e a malibu.com.

[Emma]

So I start really scrutinizing all of his behavior, really paying attention to every little tick and twitch and everything that seems odd. Any money that goes unaccounted for, I'm on it. At the same time, he is taking a test to get a promotion within the fire department to battalion chief, which they work directly under the fire chief. And he had applied to do this two times prior and failed the testing for it. So this was really important to him. He'd been working a decade on it and somehow he manages to pass it again. He's really good at his job.

[Sam]

But don't they do a drug test? I guess they don't. You would think they would. Public service requires drug tests, don't it?

[Emma]

I would think so. But I know that after he had gone to rehab and gotten in trouble, he was mandated to for two years or a certain period. But when that ended, I think it was very infrequently and maybe he was getting a heads up, I don't know.

[Hannah]

Yeah, maybe as he like goes back to work. How do you feel? That would scare me to have him go back to work and not know if he's recovering or not.

[Emma]

Yeah, because once he starts working as the bc, the battalion chief, he starts working longer hours. And so we stopped commuting together all of the time because there were some days where he would have to work on one of the days that I had off or, or just random hours, he was working really late till midnight and stuff. So we weren't always commuting together. And I at this point was putting my detective hat on because he was really not very tech savvy. So I went on his phone and I turned on Find my iPhone so I could see his location. And I also Turned on his iPad. I turned imessages on so I could see. See all the text messages as they come in.

[Hannah]

Oh, boy.

[Emma]

And then I set up his iPad to save all of his passwords and logins to all of the accounts that he had.

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Emma]

And specifically I was after his email.

[Hannah]

What do you think you're gonna find?

[Emma]

Drug use is rampant in the first responder world.

[Sam]

Really?

[Emma]

Oh, God, it's really sad. They all, I think, have a lot of traumatic incidences and they go through a lot and they don't always get therapy for it.

[Sam]

That makes sense.

[Emma]

So I guess I kind of figured I would see him buying stuff from

[Sam]

coworkers or having some kind of conversation about it.

[Emma]

Yeah, Something. But not quite what I find. I. What'd you find? He. He starts working late and he would tell me, oh, I'm at a really bad job right now and I'm having to stay at the office and finish up the paperwork for. For it, and I'll be an hour or two later than normal. And then I would pull up his location and he would be in a completely different county. And I would text him and be like, hey, how's the office work going? And he'd be like, it's really boring, but I'm getting through it. And I'm like, I see that. Yeah. As he's driving down the coast and I don't know where he's going or why or what he's doing there.

[Sam]

Yeah. You don't know what's there.

[Emma]

No, because he's not getting text messages. Because as you know, it's only going to show you text messages with other iPhone users.

[Sam]

Yeah. Right.

[Hannah]

Yeah.

[Emma]

So whoever he was communicating with did not have an iPhone.

[Hannah]

So this happens a few times and you're waiting on the information rather than confronting him right away.

[Emma]

Yeah, Because I don't like to get mad without having all of the information. I was like, I need to gather all of the information I can get and then decide what to do from there. But this happens a couple times where he'll tell me, yeah, I'll just be an hour or two later than normal. But then he's nine hours later coming home.

[Sam]

What?

[Hannah]

What? That's crazy.

[Sam]

What is this guy think? Okay, carry on.

[Hannah]

Sorry.

[Emma]

So I'm thinking, are you seeing a sex worker? Because he'd drive out somewhere remote and then just sit there hours and then just drive home. Why else would you be sitting there that whole time? And I'm not going to ask him about it. I don't want him to Know that I can see everything that's going on. So I started checking out our bank accounts, and not only mine, but I had the logins to his. His bank account. He had been taking $500 cash out every single day.

[Sam]

What?

[Emma]

For what? Every single day. And he had been doing it for months and months. And at the same time, at night, I go to bed, and I am a light sleeper. I noticed that he would wait until I would be asleep, and then he would get up and go downstairs, and he would close all the doors in between us. And in the morning, when I get up and I go downstairs, I would find him completely passed out. He'd be all alone, of course, but there would be this white powder over every surface. The kitchen counters. I'm still baffled to this day. But the hood of his car.

[Hannah]

Wait, there was, like, powder on the hood of the car?

[Emma]

Yeah. And then he'd break leaves off of my house plants and roll them up, and I'd find rolled up tubes of leaves in places, which at the time, I don't know why I didn't connect tune to. It wasn't clicking in my head. But after maybe three or four wild nights of his, I figured this must be coke. And obviously, we all know what the leaves were for. In retrospect, they were straws. But that was about the time where I started really begging him to get help, Telling him that he needs to go to the chief at work and tell him what was going on, or tell him at the very least that he needs a month off to go back to rehab. And I wrote him very heartfelt letters. We had very long conversations long into the night. I'd always end up crying because I desperately, desperately wanted him to pick me, to choose me and our relationship over this substance. And he repeatedly picked the substance. And every single time that happened, I felt more and more worthless. Like, maybe this is just gonna be how it's gonna be. This is just my life now. And I knew that I needed to start working on a way out. But we were so entangled at that time that I couldn't just say, I'm out of here. We had joint accounts. My name was on a lot of different things. We had a car together. And so I needed to just start working on an exit plan. And part of that exit plan, I knew it was going to be ugly, and I knew he was going to do ugly things because he had stopped being the same person. He was a different man once he started using. And I knew I was going to have to have some Sort of leverage against him to be able to get out cleanly. And so that's when I bought the cameras. And listen, I hate to invade people's privacy. It's one of my biggest things, is that everyone deserves privacy. But at some point my safety and my animal safety trumps your privacy needs. So I put them up in the kitchen. We had a space between the cabinet, the top of the cabinets and the ceiling. Because so far the kitchen was the only place I was finding it, in the living room. And the two rooms were attached. So I needed clear evidence that he was doing coke. And I think on the first or second night when I woke up in the morning and reviewed the footage, I had very clear evidence that he was in fact doing coke in the kitchen, all over the cabinets and the coffee table and those places. And after the first couple times, I realized I could hear voices downstairs with him.

[Hannah]

What is going on?

[Emma]

Other people talking down there.

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Emma]

And that is when the cameras start capturing him bringing these other people into the house.

[Sam]

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[Emma]

And I start checking his emails. I have yet to find anything suspicious in them. And then one day it occurs to me to check his recently deleted. And in there, I find the mother load. There are dozens and dozens of emails of him reaching out to sex workers on Craigslist. And he would ask them if they had any meth. So it's even worse than I thought.

[Sam]

Why do you eat? You don't email that.

[Emma]

And then when he would find one that did, he would invite them over.

[Hannah]

Can you just talk me through what was going through your head as you read that first email?

[Emma]

Oh, God, just absolutely shock and horror. It was the last thing I expected to find. Certainly that he was trawling Craigslist sex ads. And then the fact that he was inviting them into our house while I was asleep upstairs.

[Sam]

That's disgusting.

[Emma]

It was brave.

[Sam]

Also.

[Hannah]

I'm. Or the biggest dumbass.

[Emma]

Yeah, yeah, both. A brave dumbass. Bad combo. Turns out.

[Hannah]

I guess now I'm thinking about the invincibility that comes with being a hero of the community, thinking you can get away with anything. He could have adopted that mentality to so brave and stupid.

[Emma]

Could have said I was making it all up and just trying to make him look bad. Who knows? So I need as much evidence of exactly what's happening as possible. And I also need to make sure that I am keeping myself safe. So I told one friend about this, and I said, every Friday, I'm going to email you everything I have collected, and if you don't ever hear from me, then you need to call the police and you can give them all of this material.

[Hannah]

Wait, so you thought maybe you were that in danger?

[Emma]

Yeah, because once I put the cameras up in the kitchen and the front door and started seeing the people that were coming into my house. Oh, yeah. I was more than terrified. I felt like a cornered animal. But I'm saving all of these videos, sending them to my friend for safekeeping.

[Hannah]

And then you go downstairs the next day and have coffee and go to work. This is your life right now.

[Emma]

Yeah. Sweep up whatever the drugs are and just try and leave. I was spending as little time in that house as I possibly could. I was just taking both dogs with me. We stopped talking simply because I would go to work during the day and then on my days off, if he also had a day off, he would be passed out because he was up all night partying. Or he was up for the last three Days partying. And so there really wasn't an opportunity for us to have any discussions. I didn't want to have any discussions, so it was fine by me. But we were basically two trains passing in the night. Now, one of my best friends was getting married right as this was hitting. And I was supposed to be in her wedding party. And so I was saving $5,000. It wasn't a long distance wedding, but I did need to stay somewhere and I would need to be there for a couple days and buy a dress and do all the things. And so I was setting aside five grand to be able to do this. And I kept telling him about this. So he knew I had a hard limit in our joint account of 5K. And I realized I'm going to have to put this money in my personal account to keep him away from it. And the whole time he's like, oh, yeah, it'll be fine. No big deal if you run out. I have plenty. No, you don't. I know what you have. You have nothing. You've gone through somehow. Probably a hundred thousand dollars.

[Hannah]

Wow.

[Emma]

Within a year. Yeah. And I started getting foreclosure. Oh, you've missed your mortgage payment. No.

[Hannah]

This is so got to get your exit plan going.

[Emma]

Yeah. I think a lot of women, when we realize that a relationship is done for, we start checking out and separating ourselves from the relationship, kind of building up a wall. And brick by brick, I was building up this wall of separation between us. So when the time finally came for me to confront him, I felt absolutely nothing except fury. I was furious with him for a lot of things. But I woke up one day and I saw that he had had full on pimps and sex workers in our house all night. Oh my God. I basically confronted him about it. I was like, what is going on? I played dumb. Why are you taking out all this cash? What are you spending it on? And he was like, I have a problem.

[Sam]

I'm gonna get you about to have

[Emma]

another one, I promise. Yeah. My best friend had been begging me to go to an Al Anon meeting, which is different than aa. Al Anon is for friends and family of people who are in aa. It's a support group. So we had our anniversary and he did not acknowledge it whatsoever. It was our five year anniversary and that just broke me. So I'm like, you know what? Fuck it. I'm gonna go to this Al Anon meeting and I'm just going to sit and listen. And I went to that meeting and I listened to a room full of women with the exact same story there.

[Sam]

No way.

[Emma]

I've been doing the exact same bullshit. They all had the exact same excuses. And these women had been married to them. Unfortunately, they were married and they'd been with them for decades. And so they really couldn't get out. And it was shocking. I think I just sat in the back of that room and bawled the whole time. Yeah, it was just. It was too much and it was eye opening. So the second I got home, I confronted him and I said, you know what? I'm done. This is over. I'm going to leave and you're never going to hear from me again. And he flew off the handle. He was enraged. I've never seen anyone react this way. Clearly he was high on something. But I started chasing me through the house screaming, I'm gonna kill you.

[Hannah]

Oh, no.

[Emma]

And my dogs are terrified. They're trying to keep up with me because they are also terrified of him. And I'm just looking for someplace to get away from him. And I run into the fight. First room that is easily defensible. And it was a bathroom. So the dogs come in with me and I slam that door shut. And I spend the next two days in that bathroom with him.

[Hannah]

Oh, my God.

[Emma]

Trying everything. He probably weighed 250, body slamming the door for eight, 10 hours straight. And the whole time he's screaming, I'm going to fucking murder you. I'm going to get in there. Just wait. And then he'd be quiet for a little while to see if I'd come out and then just suddenly start trying to tear the door off the hinges. And I don't have a phone in there. I didn't think to grab my cell phone. I'm trapped. I'm trapped in this room with two dogs for days.

[Hannah]

Were you okay? How are you even feeling?

[Emma]

I mean, I had water. I had water. And at least there's a toilet in there because it's tough being in a locked room with two locks in the dogs for two days. But we didn't have any food or anything else and there was no window, so I couldn't escape out of.

[Sam]

Make an effort for anything.

[Emma]

Yeah, no, I was literally.

[Sam]

Holy shit.

[Emma]

I mean, if I had ended up in a bedroom, I could have climbed out a window, but I would have had to leave the dogs in there. At the time, they were everything to me. I think just because I was in such a vulnerable situation, I really needed them for support. They were my support system at home. So it was terrifying. I didn't sleep at all for those two days. The dogs were terrified. We had water at least, but otherwise I was trying as hard as I could to keep that door closed and not let him in. And then I realized I actually have quite a bit of blackmail material. And my friend is waiting to hear from me on Friday, which is that day. And so I tell him that. I'm like, listen, I want you to go downstairs and I want you to climb up onto the kitchen cabinets, and I want you to look on top of the kitchen cupboards behind the fake plants. And then I want you to come back up here and tell me what you find. And he disappears. And then a couple minutes later, I can hear him flying up the stairs, and he's even more furious. He's like, you fucking bitch. I can't believe you would do that. What have you done? What have you done? And I said, listen to me.

[Hannah]

Yeah.

[Emma]

If you don't leave this house right now, my friend has everything that I have captured, and she will send it not only to the police, but she will send it to your boss. So if you don't leave the house for the next week and allow me to get out, that's what's going to happen. Oh, you will lose everything.

[Hannah]

Oh, my God.

[Emma]

Yeah. And he was quiet and finally decides, okay, fine. And he leaves.

[Hannah]

Did you think you were going to die?

[Emma]

For sure, I thought I was going to be one of those women whose story you hear on 60 Minutes, and the whole time you're like, obviously, this is where it was going to lead to. Why didn't you get out sooner?

[Hannah]

No, no, you're not stupid.

[Emma]

No, we all make mistakes, and I learned from it.

[Hannah]

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[Emma]

But I got out of the house and I packed everything up. After he had me in the bathroom, he went to the bank and pulled the last amount of money out of our joint account, knowing full well that that was all of the money I had, because I didn't have another account I had been putting money into. So when I went to leave, I realized I had no more money. So I had to threaten him yet again with going to his chief and showing him these pictures and videos and telling him everything if he didn't put the money back into that account so I could get my own place and put a down payment on it. And he didn't give it all back, but he did give, I think, $3,000. I think that's what I got back. There was maybe 15 grand in there, but he said he had spent it all. And I don't doubt that my mom helped me move everything out and gave me a little bit of money to at least get someplace safe. And I took both dogs with me as this is all happening. My best friend's wedding was happening, and so I completely missed her wedding. And I told her to listen to this when it comes out because she doesn't know this story. I don't think I've ever told her why I wasn't there. But fortunately, we are still best friends and she forgave me. She moved past it somehow. So if you're listening, I love you very much.

[Sam]

And we love you very much, too. Thank you. We love you, too.

[Hannah]

Wait, can you talk about that a little bit? Because I understand maybe not wanting to share that while someone's getting married, but what kept you from wanting to share with someone who's such a good friend?

[Sam]

Yeah, that's a good question.

[Emma]

I think I was just really mortified and embarrassed and humiliated that I had let it go on so long and I hadn't figured it out sooner and I hadn't left sooner, and that I allowed things to get so out of control to such a degree, and that's what it took to finally wake me up and get me out of there.

[Hannah]

And Al Anon. Did that make you feel a little less embarrassed enough to confront? Yeah.

[Emma]

Oh, yeah, totally. To this day, I remember that Meeting, it changed my life. I just saw myself in 30 years, like, this is who I'm going to be.

[Sam]

This is where I'm going to be. Yeah.

[Emma]

And I learned all addicts do the same shit. It's almost like they have a handbook they all read from. It's uncanny. And I was just listening to myself in 30 years, so it was really eye opening. If I hadn't gone, I wouldn't have left at that time. Who knows what would have happened? I hope that someone is listening to this who is going through something, hopefully at the early stages and is hearing things that sound familiar. And I would recommend looking up your local Al Anon and just go for one meeting. You don't have to talk. You can just sit in the back of the room and listen and just see how you feel at the end. It was enlightening. But story's not over. It gets. It gets worse.

[Sam]

Oh, shit. Keep talking. Sorry.

[Emma]

So two weeks after I move out, he calls me up and he's mad and he's like, oh, I thought you said if I left, you weren't going to call the chief and tell him about all this. And I was like, I don't know what you're talking about. I didn't tell your chief any of this. I didn't tell anyone anything. I didn't tell the police anything.

[Sam]

I didn't tell my best friend.

[Emma]

Yeah, right.

[Hannah]

You just wanted to get on with it.

[Emma]

Yeah. Nobody knows, so I don't know what you're talking about. And he's like, well, I just got sent home on suspension. And I'm like, well, I don't know what to tell you. So, I mean, it wasn't me.

[Hannah]

Sounds like a you problem.

[Emma]

Yeah. What'd you do? It sounds like a personal problem. Good luck. But the cops start calling me shortly after that. They want me to come in and talk to them. And at first I'm like, of course. I have so much information for you. And then I think, oh, let me call a lawyer first and just make sure. Because whatever he's in trouble for, he could be trying to frame me. So I called a public defender and she was like, well, you're not being charged, so I can't really give you advice. But my advice is, if they call you again, just say, oh, I'm so sorry. I'm baking cookies and they are about to burn. I have to go and hang up on them. Stop talking to them. You don't have to talk to them. And I was like, really? And she's like, yeah. Stop talking to them. Don't go down there. You don't have to talk to them until they have a warrant. But even then, get an attorney first. Don't talk to the police. They're not your friend. I'm positive he was trying to frame me, but it turns out, well, also,

[Hannah]

he might know a bunch of police officers he works with all these first responders.

[Emma]

For sure? For sure. I'd say maybe a month or two after that, he showed up at my barn looking very clean cut, professional put together. He said he had been let go from work and he was back in rehab and going to AA again. And he was wondering if he could have his dog back. He wanted to have something to live for, something that would depend on him for survival, that he would have to come home to every evening to feed and care for. And I remember thinking back the first two times he went through rehab. His cat got him through it. And I felt really bad because the dog wasn't really mine. It was his. And he looked better. Like, he looked clean. So I said I would think about it. And he left. And I thought about it, and I decided to do it. So a few days later, I packed the dog up into the car and I drove back to our house, and I opened the garage door, and I eventually caught her to stay in there and close the garage door and washed my hands of it, I. I thought. Then a few months go by and I start getting messages from our next door neighbor who's keeping me updated. She's like, hey, the pimp, whose name is Victor, and his friends have moved into the house, and they're pretty much doing drugs all day. And then a few months later, she's like, okay, all the utilities have been turned off at the house, so they're all living in tents in the backyard. Oh, my God.

[Hannah]

And you're not. You're not paying for the house?

[Emma]

No, no, no.

[Hannah]

It's his house.

[Emma]

It's his house. It's all in his name. I'm nowhere near him at this point. And sometimes Victor and him get into fights, almost like they're playing tag, but with large knives in the middle of the night in the street.

[Hannah]

Did you ever, in your whole relationship expect this to be where he's.

[Emma]

No, he's. We lived in a nice neighborhood, a respectable community, with families around us.

[Hannah]

Like playing knife tag with a pimp.

[Emma]

Yeah. This Neighbor, she had three young daughters who were 7, 9, and 11 at the time. And she's like, yeah, the cops are constantly out here. And then I Hear. He's removed the front door for some reason and replaced it with a curio cabinet. So he's now using a curio cabinet as the front door. Oh, my God. But the last message I got from her, she wrote me, hey, I have to let you know, last night was really bad. He was out in the streets screaming in the middle of the night and just making noises. And my husband went outside to ask him to be quiet because he was frightening our girls. And he really didn't react well. He basically attacked her husband, came up and hit him. And her husband makes it back inside safely. But Adam is not leaving their front door. He's pounding at it and throwing rocks at the window, trying to break through the windows. And he's yelling at them, you better hope I don't get in there, because if I do, I'm gonna rape your daughters and make you watch me do it. And then I'm gonna kill them. Oh, my God. So obviously, they call the police again. The police show up. They know him. They've been there many a times. They are quite familiar with Victor and Adam and the whole group of girls. And the neighbors happened to be out on the front lawn because they were also talking to the sheriffs about what had happened. And the wife overheard the conversation they were having with Adam. And this one lady sheriff kept asking him where Sarah was, the dog, because, yeah, usually they would take her into animal control until he got out, and then he could come and pick her up.

[Hannah]

Hey, everybody, I am just jumping in because we're about to get to the point in the story with some significant animal abuse. If you would like to skip ahead, skip about one minute.

[Emma]

And she's like, where is she? We need to get her. Usually she's barking. We don't hear barking. What's going on? And he keeps telling her, I got rid of her. I got rid of her. I sold her. And she's like, I don't believe you. Tell us where she is.

[Hannah]

Where is your dog?

[Emma]

Yeah. And he finally just gets annoyed enough that she's asked him so many times. He said, she's in my closet.

[Sam]

Oh, no.

[Hannah]

God, no.

[Sam]

I don't want to.

[Emma]

Oh, God. So the sheriff goes upstairs, and she comes back downstairs, and he had stabbed the dog to death and then stuffed her in his closet. So the whole point of the story, it's been so long. It's been decades since this happened, and I still have yet to forgive myself for poor dog. Like, the single biggest mistake of my life. Truly.

[Hannah]

I'm shocked.

[Emma]

I didn't think he would do that. If I had ever thought that would have happened, I obviously would have asked her. Who's.

[Hannah]

I'm so sorry. I didn't expect you to say that. I mean, I definitely was expecting something bad, but that's.

[Sam]

I am so sorry. Oh, that must weigh on you so heavily.

[Emma]

Oh, yeah. Every day I think about it, which is why I take such good care of my dogs. I don't think I'd ever let any of them go. I love animals more than people, usually.

[Hannah]

Oh, so does. You don't get to do that. Does he go to jail?

[Emma]

He's been in and out multiple times. They never found the knife. And my ex had just disappeared in the night. So when they finally caught up to him, they held him for a couple days and questioned him, but they didn't have the weapon, and he never confessed. So that was it.

[Hannah]

This is unreal. He fell so far down.

[Emma]

I did see him once, years later. Showed up at my barn, weirdly, and my groom was there. I wasn't there, but I was out to lunch. So I immediately went back to the barn to make sure everything was okay. And I passed him on the street. And to go from 250, 275 to being £100, he looked like a walking skeleton. And, man, the only way I recognized him were his eyes. His eyes were the only thing that gave him away. Everything else was completely different. And we made eye contact because I'm sure he recognized my car. And I was like, oh, my God, that's him. That's him.

[Hannah]

Did you ever talk to his family or people in his life that you had known? You just got out of there?

[Emma]

I just got out of there. I did go back to the station at one point just to talk to the fire chief, because he and I were very close, and the secretary of the office, and I downloaded her on what had happened. But the chief treated and saw him as a son, and he was like, that's it. He lied to me three times, and I want nothing to do with him.

[Hannah]

Is that where Adam's story with you ends? And how do you move on from that? How do you date again after that?

[Sam]

You don't. Just don't fucking.

[Hannah]

Don't just lock your doors. Well, I know that you said you. You listen with your husband, so obviously you were able to again at some point.

[Emma]

Yes. Yeah. And he's fabulous. We are best friends. We both work from home, so we are literally with each other 24 7, and we're just inseparable.

[Sam]

Oh, I Love that couldn't be.

[Hannah]

And how did you get to that? Yeah. How did you get back out there after Tinder?

[Emma]

We met on Tinder.

[Hannah]

But were you, like, scared to trust somebody again? How do you emotionally get out there again?

[Emma]

Not really, because he's a completely different person. I'm not gonna hold what someone else did against then somebody else who's a completely different person.

[Sam]

I will. I'm gonna do that till the day I die. Everybody will suffer for what everyone else did to me, period.

[Hannah]

Yeah, it's, like, hard. You take everything that you learned from these past relationships, and, yes, I'm so glad that you're able to move on from it, because there's so much tied into any relationship with an addict, any relationship with anyone lying, like, now. Looking back over the course of it, getting distance from it, are there moments that feel so different to you?

[Emma]

Oh, yeah.

[Hannah]

Than they did at the time?

[Emma]

Oh, yeah. I was in a lot of danger that I kind of just flitted through. I just had no clue the amount of danger that I really was in. And I should have left far before any of that happened. I should have listened to the life m tuition. I knew really quickly what was happening with the prescription drugs. I'm not an idiot. But.

[Sam]

But it doesn't register right away.

[Emma]

Like, you didn't want it to be that, right?

[Sam]

Yes, that's a really good point. I didn't want it to be that.

[Hannah]

It's almost like you're choosing between two bad situations. Do I want to keep living this life that I'm comfortable in, even though I'm denying the truth, or do I want to confront it, risk my safety, my financial safety? I have to do a lot of work. It's a lot of work to move

[Emma]

out and find some, especially disentangling finances and telling everyone what happened. And it just seemed like too much. And I didn't want to abandon someone that could be helped through it. I kept thinking, I got him through it once before.

[Sam]

I can fix him. That's what we do. That's what we do. It's so common.

[Emma]

Yeah, but it's not my job. You have to fix yourself.

[Hannah]

What would you say to someone who's with an addict in that situation right now?

[Emma]

You can't fix him. There is literally absolutely nothing on the face of the earth that you can do for him that will fix him, because he has to want to get sober himself, and he really does have to hit rock bottom. And he may have to hit rock bottom multiple times, and he may think he's hit rock bottom, but he's still got 30 more floors to go before that really happens. And do you really want to be on that ride with him? Can you afford to be psychologically and physically and financially? And as hard as it is and as inconvenient as it is to disentangle your lives, it's just going to get more complicated the longer you're with that person. I would really go to Al Anon and tell me that their stories aren't identical to your story, and it will open your eyes.

[Hannah]

Well, you're helping people with your story today.

[Emma]

Yeah. Hopefully at least one person, even if

[Sam]

it's just one person. And I don't think we've talked about Al Anon before on this show. It's Alcoholics Anonymous, but for the families, for people supporting the drinker.

[Emma]

Yes. And it's just as important if you have someone in your life who's going through AA or Alcoholics Anonymous, you need to be going to Al Anon so that you can learn the correct way to support that.

[Sam]

To support them.

[Emma]

Yeah.

[Hannah]

And to prioritize yourself in that journey

[Emma]

and not accidentally just be enabling the person.

[Sam]

Yeah. And you don't realize you're doing it. You think you're. You're helping. Yeah, Yeah.

[Emma]

I thought I was helping, and I was just enabling. Yep.

[Sam]

Well, I'm glad that you brought it up because there's someone out there that goes, wait, I know someone like that. I need this. And they're going to know exactly what to do. And I had never heard of Al Anon, and so I think that's incredible. So thank you so much. I'm just sorry you went through all that. That must have been so.

[Hannah]

That is difficult.

[Sam]

Oh, my God.

[Emma]

You know what? It makes a great story. So at least I got that out of it.

[Hannah]

You have to look at it sometimes, and you're happy now. And your husband has the biggest green flag ever, which is that he likes the dating detect.

[Emma]

Yeah. That's the biggest one.

[Sam]

We love Mr. Emma, for sure.

[Emma]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what? A healthy sense of humor will get you through pretty much everything.

[Hannah]

We laugh so we don't cry.

[Sam]

I mean, it is what it is also.

[Hannah]

And you know this, especially with addiction, nobody really knows what it's like unless they're in it. So to hear from you.

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Hannah]

Is so much more powerful. And we love being able to hand the mic over because you're the one that can make the difference, unfortunately. But you're doing it.

[Emma]

Yeah.

[Sam]

Thank you again so much. You're just incredible.

[Emma]

Thank you, guys.

[Sam]

Okay, so a lot of things happened that I. Okay, I. I don't know. I did. I can't believe that. First of all, I can't believe the pharmacy was taking the pills. Like, that was.

[Hannah]

I mean, horrible. But what Good luck on his side, for sure.

[Sam]

But for sure. I'm not even gonna lie. I was like, this guy's doing it for sure.

[Hannah]

And you were right. But.

[Sam]

But also, the pharmacy was totally, like, that was out of control.

[Hannah]

That's the kind of thing that really makes you question your femme tuition, which I do want to get into more. But, I mean, we called this episode the hero's Secret Life. And I think the biggest obstacle in her relationship up until the point of him really relapsing and it becoming obvious that she couldn't stay anymore, was just that, like, everyone loved this man. Yeah, he was a hero. And it just goes to show, you really don't know what's going on behind closed doors. Not only can anyone be struggling with addiction, but I just felt so bad that she couldn't talk to anybody. Really. She couldn't. She just didn't. Because other people love someone doesn't mean you have to make it work with them, but it does feel like it in the moment.

[Sam]

Yeah. And the whole thing about the conflict, also when you. When you're scared of conflict, it's almost like you can't stand up for yourself.

[Hannah]

I mean. Yeah, I get it. We all have that, I think, in a lot of ways. Well, I guess toxic people like to fight, but a lot of us don't want to have confrontation at all or have any conflict. She even said, like, we never fought, which I do personally think is a red flag, But I know people are different about that. But I just think that fighting. Well, fighting in a healthy way, confronting in a healthy way is really valuable.

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Hannah]

I actually wanted to put it out to the people because she didn't necessarily talk to him about the bank account, the shared bank account when he didn't contribute, the Hawaii trip when he wasn't planning anything, or the massage. Like, there were so many weird, icky things that I don't blame her for not talking to him about. But I was like, does anybody have any good books about conflict resolution? Like, I want to read a book about how to get comfortable with conflict.

[Sam]

You know, I guess I never have either.

[Hannah]

It's hard. Anyway, I'm just curious because I think we could all get a little better at that.

[Sam]

I'm someone who doesn't mind, like, I'll freaking, like, I'll call, I'll start a fight. I don't care. I'll cause a scene.

[Hannah]

Well, you know, you'll stand up for yourself. And that's something that confidence has brought you. And I. I don't know that. You know, I don't know if it's that way.

[Sam]

It's the trauma. I don't know. I don't know if it's like a trauma response, but also, like, there are people that are super confident, and I feel like the people that. That don't fall into conflict are also. They have a level of confidence because they don't. You know, it's true.

[Emma]

Battles.

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Hannah]

Well, I think in this case, there were so many green flags with him. She had just come out of a relationship with a very angry person. So there was this precedent of I really gotta tiptoe just in relationships in general. And then also, like, this guy is so supportive. He would drop everything for her. All of his co workers and community loved him and he loved, loved them. He was. Had an admirable job. He was healthy. He was committed to the 12 steps. Like.

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Hannah]

And she's a good person. Sobriety's bumpy. She's. She understood that. And I just. It's. I don't know. It was a tough one. It's a tough one to listen to because of how good this person seemed to be.

[Emma]

And.

[Sam]

Yeah, I don't think it seemed to be. Exactly. Exactly.

[Hannah]

There's goodness there. But I mean, addiction is awful. And the behavior in the consequences, they're not justified just because of addiction.

[Sam]

Absolutely. And it's so nuanced. It's not just. It's not so easy to just. Oh, stop doing that. Do you know what I mean?

[Hannah]

It's bumpy.

[Sam]

It's bumpy. Definitely a couple.

[Hannah]

She mentioned that he was a path. A pathological liar about trivial things early on.

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Hannah]

Which is probably very common among. I don't know if it's. I haven't personally dealt closely with addicts, but I have heard that that is like a. I don't know, a pattern perhaps. And I was like, why, like, why lie when it doesn't matter? But.

[Sam]

Right.

[Hannah]

I think it's maybe just some people because it's.

[Sam]

It's a. Yeah. It becomes a habit.

[Hannah]

Or there's like a value that they see in it that we maybe don't see. Like, they think there's a benefit to it. Or maybe it's just a tension. It's interesting. It's an interesting red flag. To note, because it seems harmless in the moment.

[Sam]

Absolutely.

[Hannah]

Oh, shout out to a commenter. Eva L. Elder said, I'm a doctor. And his eyes going in different directions. Probably ketamine.

[Sam]

Okay, okay.

[Hannah]

I think could also be opioids. But she was like, yeah, that sounds like ketamine to me. And I was like, that tracks. But good to know, because in the moment, I was like, I don't know what, Is he having a stroke? That's scary.

[Emma]

Is he having a stroke?

[Hannah]

Then I also wanted to talk a little about the behavior after she left because that spiraled in ways she could never have predicted, obviously, how devastating that he killed his dog. And I think she had obviously put the time into healing as much as she can, because, you know, finding that out in the moment, knowing what she. The type of person she is in relation to animals, like, must have destroyed her. And it almost sounded to me like she had put up a little bit of a wall against that because of how hard that is to hear. Like, after leaving, this is what he became. But for anybody else that feels maybe, I don't know that she does. I'm putting this on her. But I know that it's easy to feel responsible after you leave for what happens.

[Sam]

Yes.

[Hannah]

And I want to remind people that you're responsible for your decision to leave, but they're responsible for what they do afterwards.

[Sam]

Yes, absolutely.

[Hannah]

And she made the decision based on the information she had at the time. That's all you can do. And you can't predict. Predicting addiction is hard enough. You can't predict future acts of extreme violence. Like.

[Sam]

Right.

[Hannah]

Everything he said, that is like, having an animal helps with sobriety, the responsibility. All of that makes sense. And also, if she had taken the dog from him, like, then she would have felt guilt that maybe he spiraled because of that. Broke my heart.

[Sam]

Gosh, it's so heartbreaking and just. It's devastating and it's shocking. It's very jarring and. Oh, man.

[Hannah]

Yeah. Definitely not a fun story.

[Sam]

The animal cruelty in general, like, that's socio or psychopath, Right? That's psychopath.

[Hannah]

It could be. I mean, I don't know. When drugs are involved at that extent, does that change the brain enough? I mean, I will say we. We skipped over this because there's so many extremes in the story. Him locking her in the bathroom for

[Sam]

two days straight, that's not gonna. That's. That's false imprisonment.

[Hannah]

I mean, the abuse escalation in this is so scary and so devastating. Knowing what he was at the beginning.

[Sam]

Yes.

[Hannah]

I'm just so sorry for her. And I'm also glad she gave a shout out to Al Anon and like, oh, yeah.

[Sam]

Oh. Because a lot of people don't know what that is.

[Hannah]

Yeah.

[Sam]

So for families of. Families of people that have addiction, is it just alcohol or is it all addiction? I think it's all just alcohol. Oh. All add.

[Hannah]

I don't know. I should Google that. Let's do that before we put out.

[Sam]

Oh, yeah.

[Hannah]

Maybe it is just members who are worried about someone with drinking problem. Okay, so maybe it is just drinking,

[Emma]

but I feel like.

[Sam]

So it's alcoholic. It's friends and families of Alcoholics Anonymous now.

[Hannah]

I'm looking up Al Anon for drugs. It was created for friends and family of alcoholics, but drug addiction makes up for, like, 35% of its members. We're always open to stories from you that come up as you listen to these, even if you're not sure if they're dogfish. If you feel like it would be helpful to share or helpful to somebody else to hear, you can always email us.

[Sam]

Investigate the datingdetectivespodcast.com which I recently learned.

[Hannah]

Recently it's been like a year and a half, and you're like, I still just. I figured it out. No, but it's a tough email. We get it. But we put everything in the show notes and also social, where dating detectives podcast everywhere and Patreon live shows coming up. We hope you come and see us and share your stories. That was my favorite thing about Crimecon this past weekend is everybody shared stories with us. And I was just glad that our hot pink carpet, because we were the only people with a hot pink carpet.

[Sam]

It really stood out, didn't it?

[Hannah]

It stood out, and it seemed like a place people felt instantly pretty comfortable to tell us things in their life. And I am so grateful for that. Like, there's not a minute where I am unhappy that somebody wants to dump their story. Like, it's not. It doesn't feel like a trauma dump. It feels like connection in a way that is just, like, a privilege.

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Hannah]

That's how we feel about y'. All.

[Sam]

Wow. We love you guys so much. I Just squeezing your necks was just so amazing. And I. I was the board. We had the. The dogfish board that everybody wrote on a couple. Y' all can. Like, there was confessions. I was like, oh, my gosh.

[Hannah]

Oh, y. I gotta post more. I feel like I have pictures of a lot of them. Maybe I'll put a carousel up because.

[Sam]

Thank you for sharing that somewhere hilarious. Oh, my gosh. And crazy. They were just crazy.

[Hannah]

Somebody said, let me just read the one that was making us laugh. There were a bunch that made us laugh. Basically, she cut the crotch out of all of his pants because he couldn't keep his dick in his pants anyway, so she thought she'd make it easier for him. That's what you wrote.

[Sam]

That was funny. That's not nice. And we do not condone this behavior, but it's hilarious.

[Hannah]

God damn, I loved it. Oh, my God. We love you guys. And as always, trust your intuition,

[Emma]

Sam.