The Suicide Plot

Summary

Summary of "The Suicide Plot" Episode of The Dating Detectives

Release Date: June 30, 2025

---

Introduction

In the episode titled "The Suicide Plot" of The Dating Detectives, hosts Mackenzie Fultz and Hannah Anderson welcome their guest Cassie, a survivor of a tumultuous and abusive relationship intertwined with religious turmoil and manipulation. This episode delves deep into Cassie's harrowing journey from a challenging upbringing to overcoming emotional abuse and rebuilding her life.

---

Cassie's Early Life and Upbringing

Cassie begins by recounting her formative years in a conservative, predominantly Mormon area of Utah. Growing up in poverty, she experienced frequent relocations, attending five different elementary schools, three middle schools, and two high schools[^04:32^]. This instability contributed to a sense of insecurity and made it difficult for her to form lasting friendships.

Cassie (04:32): "I grew up super poor in Utah, and we're one of the more affluent parts of the country, but we were super poor."

Her non-membership in the church made her an outsider, leading to bullying and isolation. The strict religious expectations often prevented her from interacting with non-Mormon peers, exacerbating her feelings of loneliness[^06:11^].

---

Joining the Mormon Church and High School Relationships

To foster friendships, Cassie joined the Mormon Church during her adolescence. This decision was influenced by the need for social acceptance rather than genuine faith.

Cassie (07:08): "I decided to join because all my friends were Mormon and I didn't know any better."

Her high school years were marked by a significant relationship with Dylan, a non-Mormon boy involved in the jazz band. Despite their different backgrounds, they grew inseparable[^08:10^]. However, external pressures from Cassie's parents, who insisted Dylan serve a Mormon mission, led to their initial breakup[^10:39^].

---

Marriage at 17 and Early Challenges

Shortly after their breakup, Dylan and Cassie rekindled their relationship, culminating in an impulsive marriage at the age of 17[^21:09^]. The wedding, held in a trailer park clubhouse, was modest and fraught with challenges, including unexpected snowfall and makeshift arrangements[^24:10^].

Cassie (23:00): "I felt like a bride. I felt like this was just this amazing thing."

Their marriage coincided with significant personal struggles for both, including Cassie's miscarriage and Dylan's increasing depression[^38:35^]. The couple faced financial instability, compounded by Dylan's reluctance to adhere to religious expectations and his subsequent substance abuse.

---

The Affair and Emotional Abuse

As Cassie grappled with depression following her miscarriage, she confided in Allison, Dylan's best friend. This reliance on Allison led to the deterioration of her marriage. Dylan's behavior became increasingly distant and abusive, exacerbated by his substance abuse issues[^43:12^].

Cassie (44:45): "Allison is encouraging me to file for divorce because he wasn't doing anything to make our relationship better."

Simultaneously, Cassie discovered that Dylan was having an affair with Allison. This betrayal was facilitated by Allison's manipulative tactics, including online deception and emotional manipulation[^77:41^].

---

Discovery of the Betrayal

Cassie's intuition led her to investigate further. By resetting Dylan's email password, she uncovered over 2,000 emails revealing the extent of his affair with Allison[^80:17^]. These revelations included graphic admissions of Allison's sadistic behavior and her manipulation tactics[^85:23^].

Cassie (89:08): "And in their little email exchange, they decided to confess things to each other. And I don't remember what her confession was because his just... My blood went cold."

The discovery of animal cruelty, such as Dylan stepping on their cat Monica, solidified Cassie's realization that her husband had fundamentally changed for the worse[^83:14^].

---

Divorce and Legal Struggles

Faced with mounting evidence of abuse and betrayal, Cassie sought a divorce. However, financial constraints and legal hurdles, including bankruptcy and unresolved debts, complicated the process[^73:25^].

Cassie (75:32): "I had to file our taxes. And he had a computer that my dad had built for us and he kept it."

The emotional toll of the divorce was immense, pushing Cassie to the brink of suicide. It was Allison's timely intervention that saved her life, highlighting the complex dynamics of their friendship[^64:51^].

---

Recovery and Moving Forward

Emerging from the trauma, Cassie rebuilt her life by pursuing education and establishing a successful career in law. She remarried, had two children, and formed a supportive and loving family dynamic[^97:26^]. Cassie's experience underscored the importance of recognizing red flags, setting boundaries, and valuing one's self-worth.

Cassie (98:01): "I've had it for a long time. And I'm not ever going back. I'm never going back."

---

Insights and Conclusions

The episode sheds light on the intricate interplay between religious trauma, emotional abuse, and manipulation in relationships. Cassie's story exemplifies how external pressures and toxic friendships can destabilize personal relationships, leading to profound emotional distress.

Cassie (102:06): "Anyone who is encouraging that is not your friend, is not a supportive person."

Mackenzie and Hannah emphasize the necessity of trusting one's intuition, setting clear boundaries, and seeking supportive communities to navigate and recover from abusive situations.

Hannah (115:55): "Trust your intuition."

---

Key Takeaways

• Red Flags in Relationships: Emotional distance, abuse, and dishonesty are significant warning signs.
• Importance of Boundaries: Setting and maintaining personal boundaries is crucial for mental well-being.
• Support Systems: Reliable friends and supportive communities play a vital role in overcoming relationship trauma.
• Self-Worth: Recognizing and valuing one's self-worth is essential in avoiding and exiting abusive relationships.
• Religious Influence: Religious pressures can exacerbate relationship issues and contribute to emotional manipulation.

---

This episode of The Dating Detectives provides a poignant exploration of the devastating impact of deceit and manipulation in relationships, while also offering hope and strategies for personal recovery and empowerment.

Transcript

[Mackenzie]

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 1-800-799-77733 for support.

[Hannah]

Hi. Happy dating, Detectives Monday. Hi.

[Mackenzie]

Welcome back. We missed you. You weren't here for the last one, but she's back.

[Hannah]

Thank you. Thank you.

[Mackenzie]

I am here.

[Hannah]

I hear. I had to go out of town. I'm very, very sorry.

[Mackenzie]

Don't apologize, but we have quite a story today.

[Hannah]

Yeah.

[Mackenzie]

Oh, my Lord.

[Hannah]

Our guest. I think you'll. I think you'll really like our guest and I'm excited for. I always say excited. I'm not like, excited for what happened to her, but it's interesting what she goes through. So I'm excited for you guys to hear it.

[Mackenzie]

We're gonna give you trigger warnings of the content, but I'm gonna give you an ending spoiler. There's a happy ending.

[Hannah]

Yay. Y' all know Hannah's so excited about that.

[Cassie]

Yay.

[Mackenzie]

It takes a little bit of time to get there, but there's a happy ending and I'm happy about that. Yeah, she's awesome.

[Hannah]

I can't wait to hear more from her, to be honest.

[Mackenzie]

I know if you guys have, like, follow up questions. She's a listener. She's a sleuthy for sure and would be down. The story is tough, though. It gets into a lot of religious trauma. She talks about a miscarriage, some mental health stuff, ocd, anorexia, suicidal ideation, and then there is some animal cruelty, which makes my blood boil.

[Hannah]

Yeah, it's. That's really scary to me. So. So trigger warning. Also, before we get into the story, let's talk about the Patreon. I know you guys probably know by now there's a new tier for the Patreoners, but if you don't, we have the. The $5 tier and it's the forum and the book club and you get two bonus episodes a month. And now we have the $9 tier where you get all of that and an ad free listening experience.

[Mackenzie]

So go hang out on Patreon. There's a lot going on there.

[Hannah]

Thank you so much to all of our Patreon. And thank you everyone for Just listening to the podcast in general. We really appreciate you. Thank you so much for supporting us. It means the world to.

[Mackenzie]

And as always, like, tell us all your thoughts. We love the reviews, if you love a story, but also just. We love hearing your questions, responses, if you have ideas that we miss, red flags that we didn't get to talk about, like, I want all of it.

[Hannah]

Yes, we really love it. And if you have anything encouraging to say to the guests, we always relay that to them. So we appreciate. You guys are just so kind and so cool. You've created such a great community here. So we're really grateful for that. I think that's valuable. Thank you.

[Mackenzie]

And with that, we will throw it over to Cassie.

[Hannah]

Yeah, let's get into it. Thank you so much for being here, Cassie.

[Cassie]

Thank you so much for having me.

[Mackenzie]

We're ready. As ready as we'll ever be.

[Cassie]

I don't know if you are.

[Mackenzie]

Oh, no.

[Hannah]

Okay, take us away. We want to hear your story.

[Cassie]

Oh, my goodness. Well, so I think it's important to know that I grew up in Utah, and it's sort of a unique place to grow up, especially the part of Utah that I grew up in. Very conservative, very dominantly Mormon. And that has a big part of the story, because understanding that and knowing the background of why people made the choices they made in the story is really important. It also kind of gets into a lot of that religious shame that I know other guests have talked about and how that can be weaponized against you. So that's something to keep in mind as you're listening to the madness unfold today. So I grew up super poor in Utah, and we're one of the more affluent parts of the country, but we were super poor. And that's important to the story, too, because I think that you talk about unmet needs and people preying on those. It's definitely something that you run into, especially when you're in poverty or have a lack of a sense of security. And I definitely grew up with that. I went to five. Five different elementary schools.

[Mackenzie]

Oh, wow.

[Cassie]

Yeah. Three different middle schools and two different high schools.

[Hannah]

Holy crap.

[Cassie]

Yeah. A lot of moving around just for.

[Mackenzie]

Like, your family's work or.

[Cassie]

Yeah. I mean, when you're a renter and you don't have good credit and you don't make a lot of money, and sometimes my parents were paid under the table, so they're not paying their tax liabilities. You run into a lot of obstacles with housing that way. They were also smokers, which is a big Disadvantage, especially in a Mormon state, where spoken is a sin, your body is a temple. So landlords wouldn't necessarily want you. So we were not necessarily a desirable tenants. And it didn't matter that my parents were extremely hard workers, that they showed up for their work every day. It just. It meant there were limited options for us. And so sometimes at the end of the year, school year, it's winding down, the landlord would choose to not renew with us and we'd be kicked out, effectively. So as a child, I was not a member of the church and my parents were not members of the church. I was the only one in my family. And the reason I joined has to do a lot with that Utah upbringing. So imagine we're moving around every nine months or so, and I have to make friends all over again every time we move to a different part of the county.

[Hannah]

That's hard.

[Cassie]

Very hard. And being a kid who smells like cigarette smoke, I was bullied mercilessly for that being.

[Hannah]

Oh, man. I bet.

[Cassie]

Yeah. Oh, it was brutal. But then, of course, another thing that's very difficult about the area of Utah I grew up in is that parents who are Mormon will not let their children play with other kids if they're not also members of the church.

[Hannah]

Oh, is that really?

[Cassie]

Yes.

[Mackenzie]

Is that.

[Cassie]

Wow.

[Hannah]

Okay.

[Mackenzie]

Not like a hard and fast rule. It's just kind of. Culturally, parents are protective. Okay.

[Cassie]

Yeah. In fact, it's kind of the opposite, really, with the church. They say, visitors welcome. It's on every building, which I'm sure if you've seen one of the churches all say visitors welcome. On the outside, you are supposed to proselytize to non members, but the goal there is to get them to be in the church. And so if it's not to that end, then you're really discouraged from that. And there are a lot of reasons for that. Right. The church has gone through a lot of discrimination where they sort of had to dig in and really rely on just each other instead of allowing outsiders because it was for their safety.

[Mackenzie]

And that's a survival instinct.

[Hannah]

Right.

[Cassie]

But it also, on the flip side is an element of control that's so interesting.

[Mackenzie]

And I can't imagine being a kid because you wouldn't understand.

[Cassie]

Right. I didn't. I didn't understand. And I mean, to me, they were inviting me to go to church, and if I did, I got to play with them at church. And so I went to church and the missionaries showed up on the doorstep and I let them in and I decided to join because all my friends were Mormon and I didn't know any better. My parents hadn't really given me any religion so to me it was just either you do this or you don't get to have friends. And so it was a pretty easy choice for me. So yeah, we moved around a ton and sometimes it was really rough conditions like we were literally homeless and had to move into my grandparents trailer which was a small two bedroom trailer and my sister and I shared that room. And then my parents slept on the hide a bed for a couple years until we got back on our feet and we're able to get our own place again. And then it just went along like that. We did the best we could. And then I went to a middle school. As I was wrapping up middle school, I started dating a boy and he was not Mormon. He was in the jazz band. He played the guitar. Electric guitar?

[Mackenzie]

No.

[Cassie]

Oh yeah. Saying more. Every girl hated my guts because he was in the band and up playing, you know, at the. So we dated eighth grade through the end of ninth grade. And then in the summertime my parents decided to move again and they had, I know they had just built a new high school on that side of town and so I would by default be required to go to this new school.

[Mackenzie]

That's a lot for starting high school.

[Cassie]

Yeah, it was really hard. I was lucky because half of my junior high had gone to one and half had gone to the other. So my best guy friend was already there and then my best girlfriend Haley was already there. So we decided to go to school on the first day together and we walk into class, our very first class, and I am very much like a sit in the front row kind of girl. And there's this guy sitting there in the front row and so Hailey and I kind of flanked him. Like one of us sat next to him and one sat behind him and she just leans over to me and she goes, dibs.

[Hannah]

That is so funny.

[Mackenzie]

Oh my God.

[Cassie]

She called it. She called it. And at the time I was like, I have a boyfriend. Whatever, it's fine.

[Mackenzie]

Was he cute?

[Cassie]

You know, he's very cute. Not my type, but just the personality on him was just so dynamic and funny. And he wasn't a math guy, he had really bad adhd. So he would like shuffle a deck of cards all through class to keep his attention and do magic tricks for us and make us giggle. And yeah, he was just a cutie and certainly not somebody that I would have been like drooling over. But once you get to know Him. You can't really love him. He was charming, Very charming and humble. And so she called dibs, and she won fair and square. And fair and square. They actually started going out, and he was just such a cool guy. And we became really good friends. We were just inseparable. Everybody knew we were kind of traveling in the same group, and things seemed to be going pretty well for them. They dated almost all of 10th grade. And then spring rolled around, and right before the time when all the big formal dances were starting to happen, she had a talk with her parents and told them that he was not planning to serve a Mormon mission after he graduated from high school.

[Hannah]

Or SpaghettiOs.

[Cassie]

That is a deal breaker for a lot of parents. So her parents were like, you can't see him. You need to break up. And she did. She broke up with him because he wasn't going to go on a mission, and that was not the path that her parents wanted for her. So she broke up with him.

[Mackenzie]

And he was Mormon, just not going on a mission.

[Cassie]

Yeah, he just didn't want to serve a mission. But, you know, that was the end of their relationship at first, anyway, so. So we were friends. We were hanging out. And at this point, he suddenly finds himself a junior with no date to the junior prom. And my boyfriend and I had broken up at this point, and so he asked me to prom and prom. Oh, my goodness. Dances in this part of Utah in particular, it is a thing. They do these insane. I don't know what to call them. Like, make a big deal of it. That's like a ritual when you ask someone to a school dance. You can't just ask them. Like, you don't walk up and be like, do you have a date for prom? Do you want.

[Mackenzie]

Yeah, you have to do a gesture.

[Cassie]

A promposal.

[Mackenzie]

We had some of that. Oh, a promposal. Yes.

[Cassie]

So he got a bag of Hershey's Hugs and Kisses. Giant gift bag. It was like five pounds of hugs and kisses and dumped them over my head. Then he handed me a note that said, now that I've showered you with hugs and kisses, will you go to prom with me? Cute.

[Mackenzie]

Okay. Okay.

[Cassie]

I said yes. And my mom was there. And later, she was like, that boy is in love with you. And I was like, you're talking crazy. That's my friend. We're not like that. We're only going because he and Haley broke up. Right. Well, in the meantime, they got back together and didn't tell her parents, and they were just secretly dating. Yeah, she's my best friend. I naturally feel terrible, but I've also bought this expensive dress and planned on it. And so she ended up going with a friend. But he and I are together, so we're dancing together the whole day. It was romantic, I won't lie. Especially because I'm hearing my mom's voice in my head. That boy's in love with you.

[Mackenzie]

So is that the first time you started feeling something?

[Cassie]

No, for me, it was just like I liked the attention and I liked that people were thinking of me as, like, I don't know, a catch. And so it felt nice, especially with all of the bullying and stuff that I had. Yeah, of course. Oh, totally. Yeah, it was good. But, you know, she's across the room with her date staring at us, and I'm thinking, I'm a terrible friend. We're still friends today though, and we got through it. It was fine. Never let a boy come between you, right?

[Mackenzie]

Amen.

[Cassie]

So it worked out, but their relationship didn't. I mean, it was very short. Obviously she couldn't tell her parents they were dating again and that was a recipe for disaster. So they broke up again pretty soon after that.

[Mackenzie]

You guys. Traditional bed sheets can harbor more bacteria than a toilet seat, which is disgusting. It can lead to acne, allergies, stuffy nose, it's just gross. But Miracle Maid offers a whole line of self cleaning antibacterial bedding such as sheets, pillowcases, comforters, and they Prevent up to 99.7% of bacteria growth. And record require up to three times less laundry. They're self cleaning. It's pretty amazing. They're like infused with silver and that's what prevents up to 99.7% of bacterial growth. They stay cleaner and fresh longer. They're also temperature regulating. So you, if you sleep really hot, it's okay. It'll even it out. If you sleep really cold, you'll feel just warm and cozy. And if you and your partner are different, then it adjusts to both of you. It's very impressive. And it's designed for your skin because if you're sleeping on bacteria, then they're going to clog your pores and you're going to get breakouts and it's not going to be fun. It's also just really comfortable. Like the sheets are so comfortable. I love the color options. They feel like a five star hotel without the high price tag. So you should definitely check them out. Upgrade your sleep as the weather heats up. Go to trymiracle.com TDD to try Miracle Made sheets today. And whether you're buying them for yourself or as a gift for a loved one, you can. If you order today, you can save over 40%. And if you use our promo TDD at checkout, you'll get a free three piece towel set and save an extra 20%. Miracle is so confident in their product, it's backed with a 30 day money back guarantee. So if you aren't 100% satisfied, you'll get a full refund. Upgrade your sleep with Miracle made. Go to trymiracle.com TDD and use the code TDD to claim your free three piece towel set and save over 40% off. Again, that's trymiracle.com to treat yourself. And thank you, Miracle Made for sponsoring this episode. We love Miracle Made. We really do.

[Cassie]

So after that, other people started to make comments to me about him and how he must have feelings for me. And I'm not really entertaining the idea because I don't think of him that way. He's not my type. I'm definitely interested in more outgoing personality types, more extroverts, but people are making comments. And at this point, I had started to befriend a girl who was dating Dylan's best friend. And so the four of us would hang out together all the time. And they were very different than my other friends. They were having sex. Right. They had been together since they were very, very young. So at this point they'd been together for several years.

[Mackenzie]

And were they religious too?

[Cassie]

No, they weren't. No. Okay. I mean, I think probably his parents wanted him to be, but he just did whatever. And Dylan was a year older than me and so was his best friend, but they were smoking pot, having sex, drinking, just being a little more crazy than what I was used to. And so of course we would sometimes drink wine coolers or whatever in the park. And that's what we were doing one night when the two friends decided to slip off for some alone time and Dylan and I stayed behind and we were having Fuzzy navels. I can still not to this day drink peach schnapps. Like I can't do it.

[Hannah]

Oh, no.

[Cassie]

He had had a really terrible couple of months. His parents had kicked him out. He partly because he decided to drop out of school and partly because he decided not to go on the mission. And so they had been putting a lot of pressure on him. He had a full time job, he just wanted to work. He hated school with his adhd. He just really wasn't a student type guy. And so he's studying for his GED while working full time. And they just said, well, if you're not going to follow the rules of our house, then you need to get out. And he's 18. So he left and I convinced my parents to let him move in with us. He's my best friend. I don't want him to be out sleeping on people's couches. My parents had a home that they rented that had a garage that had been converted into extra bedrooms. And so it had a separate entrance. And I'm like, you're not using these rooms. One's for storage. Could we give him the other one? And they agreed. So we weren't even dating yet. We were just friends, but he had a place to go and so he's living with us and working at his full time job. But it had been really hard not being able to go home to his siblings who he was very close to, feeling like his parents had just cut him off and he wasn't really prepared to go out into the world yet. And it was hard. And we were talking all week before we went to this park about how in Mexico you can just live off of like no money at all. And at the time, this was super true. Right in the 90s, the peso was worth such a tiny, tiny fraction of a dollar that you really could, you could take a few thousand dollars down there and stay for.

[Mackenzie]

Start a life.

[Cassie]

Yeah, you could start a whole new life. So that was our joke. Hey, let's, let's elope to Mexico and we're going to go live this new life and just have a secret identity. And it was just this kind of silly thing. But also the friends are saying things to me like, you guys are the last two virgins. You should just get together, call it a day, close the gap of, well, okay then, singles. Yeah. Didn't seem like the smartest reason to get together. Like it's a numbers game and you're the only two left. Yeah, I love that.

[Mackenzie]

But that's so much pressure on all sides. Like high school pressure being like, do it, lose your virginity. And then the other one being like, well, if you do that before you get married, we're gonna have eternal consequences.

[Cassie]

So it was a lot of pressure and it was definitely a unique experience growing up in that environment. And that is what led us to be in the park with him feeling lost and not sure what to do with himself and me being someone who you will learn, feels the need to save people all the time and try to take care of People who need it. And so we're laying in the sandbox. I remember I was tipsy enough that I couldn't quite sit up for a long time. So I was just laying in the sand, kind of running the sand through my fingers. And he said, hey, would you really marry me? And I said, yeah. And he said, why? I said, because I love you. And. And he kissed me. And I had said yes to bury him before we had ever kissed for the first time. So yeah, we were friends first. We were friends, yeah, we were super close and I. But I was not remotely attracted to him that way. I mean, I. Even still, even at that moment, I am saying I'm going to marry him. And I'm like, eh, it's. He's all right. He's all right. The kiss was nice, but it's.

[Mackenzie]

Did you think, Was it serious for you? Like when you said yes, did you think you guys were gonna do it?

[Cassie]

I mean, I saw a way for him to get out of his situation and start his life like he wanted to. And I saw a way for me to have some stability. I saw how hard he worked and how dedicated he was. Even though his job was not a super high paying job, it had opportunity and there was a path to build a career out of it. And he was dedicated to it. And so for me, it was like looking at my dad in a way. You know, my dad doesn't make a lot of money. He works really, really hard, but he's solid and he's reliable. And that is what I want for myself. And I love to work. I have an insane drive to work and be successful. So same.

[Hannah]

I get that. I relate to that.

[Cassie]

And I wasn't just going to be the Mormon housewife, right. I was going to be building my own career too. And so I figured, so you're like, we can do it together. Yeah, exactly. It was sort of you and me against the world. We can conquer everything. And we talked about adventures and things that ultimately didn't happen the way we thought they would. But there was certainly a romantic ideal there that I thought we could reach if we committed. And once I commit to something, I don't do it halfway. So we sobered up and the next day we went to Target and we bought a $30 engagement ring, which I still have. It's the cutest little gold band with a cubic zirconia stone. And yeah, I showed up to school and told people I was engaged. And the rumors started immediately.

[Hannah]

Oh, that you were pregnant?

[Cassie]

That I'm pregnant. He had dropped out of school, so there were rumors about him and what was wrong with him. And I'm hanging out with a different crowd now. So my Mormon friends are like, you're just gonna be a drunk and a pothead like these people, kids you hang out with. My parents were horrified. They could not understand why I would get engaged at 17. I did my best to reassure them. They loved him. I mean, he was living in their home. Obviously they knew him, but they just thought it was a mistake for me to get married so young. And so it took a lot of convincing. And part of that was we did a relatively long engagement. We waited the whole school year. So we got engaged over the summer, which was just right at that cusp where school starts at the end of August, early September. And then we got married in June. And so it was two months after graduation from high school. And at my graduation ceremony, I was actually handing out the invitations to the wedding to my friends.

[Hannah]

Wow.

[Cassie]

And I felt it. I felt like a bride. I felt like this was just this amazing thing. When I was talking to Molly when we were doing pre production Call, I was talking about how I look back now and I describe my wedding and the things that we had at the wedding. And I cringe at it now because it's so. I don't. I don't want to say low tone.

[Mackenzie]

If I had a wedding at 17, right. It would have been. Right, it probably would have been Broadway themed, which is like, no, no offense if anybody had a Broadway themed wedding, but you know what I mean, like, yep. I wouldn't trust my 17 year old self.

[Cassie]

Yeah, well, and what can you do? I mean, my parents didn't have money. And his parents weren't pitching in necessarily. They did show up. We made our own deli tray to give out at the wedding. So they showed up to help build deli sandwiches with us. So they pitched in, but nobody was dropping a check for us to rent a hall somewhere. We actually rented the clubhouse at my grandmother's trailer park. That's where we had our wedding. And it was in June, and it was a really weird day because it snowed that day even though it was the middle of June in Utah.

[Mackenzie]

Wow.

[Cassie]

But I remember there was all this furniture in the clubhouse that was really awful. 1970s pleather. Gross. And we loaded it up into people's pickup trucks out in the parking lot because there was no place to put it. And so all this furniture that belonged to the trailer park was in the back of these pickup trucks. And it started to snow. And I was panicking that I was going to have to pay for this tacky furniture to be repaired from the snow. But people still talk today about how it snowed that day in history in Utah. It's.

[Hannah]

That's crazy.

[Mackenzie]

So bizarre.

[Cassie]

And to me, I was like, I'm.

[Mackenzie]

A princess, you know, Are you someone who would see something like that, or at least at the time, as a sign? Romantic.

[Cassie]

Oh, heavenly Father is blessing us with the snow 100%. Yeah. Well. And it was. I'm so embarrassed. I'm, like, blushing. I could feel it right now in my cheeks thinking about the things, you know, I had a great dress, but it wasn't your typical wedding dress. I looked like I was playing dress up. And I was. And it was great. Yeah, it was like I had a tiara. It was a thing. So. So, yeah, we got married, and at this point, we had started having sex. Very scandalous. And in the Mormon Church, if you do that before you get married, there are things you need to do to earn your way back into good graces of the church. And you have to take classes and things to prepare to go and do the Mormon Temple wedding, which we were not.

[Hannah]

Wow.

[Cassie]

Yeah. So we weren't allowed to do it right away. And everyone knows in Utah, especially if you don't get married in the temple the first time and you do it a year later, it's because you were banging. Like, everybody knows.

[Mackenzie]

How do they know you were banging? Why can't you just be like, nuh, yeah, mind your business.

[Hannah]

Just mind your business?

[Cassie]

You could, I guess. But they do ask you directly and you would have to lie. And I mean, someone who believes enough to even want to go to the temple is obviously going to believe enough that they shouldn't lie.

[Mackenzie]

That they shouldn't lie.

[Cassie]

But definitely it puts you in a spot. And it was around that time we started looking at buying a house, which was back when they were just giving them to anyone and then caused, you know, the huge.

[Hannah]

Oh, Willy nilly.

[Mackenzie]

There you go.

[Cassie]

Take a shot. There it is. So, yeah, they gave us with like a 550 credit score. They gave us a mortgage. It's absolutely insane. But the house that we could afford was about 30 minutes south of BYU, so, so far away from our families. 30 minutes doesn't sound like a lot, but it was far enough away that the stars were just incredible, you know, and it's a little more rural. People have horses and things on their properties. People are out there shooting gophers and all kinds of stuff. Going on. So we move out there and just started our life together. We had worked a bunch of different jobs, tried to figure out what we wanted to do. I finally started to go to college and we were just young and in love and doing the things we thought we were supposed to do as much as we could. But we also had this newfound freedom because the people there didn't know us. And nobody was like, oh, weren't you the bishop's assistant? His mom would get phone calls if he didn't go to church. Right? Because people, oh yeah, they call your mama, they call your mama, they rat you out. But in the area where we lived, there was a healthy mixture of non Mormons. And so it was very refreshing. Suddenly we could have a drink every so often. Nobody's like, inspecting our house. It could have a coffee machine on the counter. Nobody's gonna care. It was so different. And that gave us a lot of freedom to kind of explore other things. And it was around this time that we made some new friends. And it was really fun because making friends is very difficult as an adult for anyone, right?

[Mackenzie]

Oh, yeah.

[Hannah]

Oh, yeah, yeah, it's really difficult.

[Cassie]

Y But in Utah it is way harder even, because if you're super Mormon, then there's a built in social group for you, but the expectation is that you will be super Mormon. I sometimes like to have a Frappuccino and they're like, oh, you know, it's scandal. I just wanted to be left alone to decide what I wanted to be and that.

[Hannah]

Yes.

[Cassie]

Yeah. And the best way to get that is to make friends with other people who are what they call a Jack Mormon. So you have your Jack and Coke on Saturday and then you go to church on Sunday.

[Mackenzie]

A Jack Mormon?

[Cassie]

Yeah.

[Mackenzie]

That's so fun.

[Cassie]

Like Mormon light. Yes, exactly. And so we made friends with a couple. The husband, he worked with Dylan at his job and his name was Cole and his wife was Allison. And we just became fast friends. When we met, they were really enthusiastic about going out and doing fun stuff with us. We had a ton in common. They really liked outdoor stuff like we did. They enjoyed going off roading with us or camping, fishing, things like that. We'd all get together, have cocktails, we'd do movie nights, and we just became inseparable. But it was summertime, and then summer ended and it was time to go back to school and the schedules changed and that created some problems. So Allison ended up being alone a lot, and I hated that for her. I had gotten to know her really well over the summer I'd gotten a little bit overweight, I'd had the, like, fat and happy marriage thing going on. It's so true. And she had like the freshman 15. So between the two of us, I was like, hey, why don't we go to the gym? Why don't we try this new diet? My mother in law was on Atkins, which was like all the rage at the time.

[Hannah]

Atkins was legit for a while.

[Cassie]

It was hardcore. I will never eat sugar free jello ever again. Ever.

[Mackenzie]

That was so gross.

[Cassie]

And so I just was trying to be a good friend and be like, hey, let's work out. And Cole took me aside one day and he was like, hey, I just need to tell you that Allison is recovering from an eating disorder. And it was really severe when she was young in Canada, and she actually is still trying to recover from that. And so you've got to be really gentle with her when you talk about working out or losing weight. It might be good to just do that with a different friend. Like, don't even talk about it. And I was like, no problem. Understood. And she ended up confiding in me and telling me all about her experience. And at the time, we were both plus size. I mean, I think I was, you know, maybe 14, 16. But she started confiding in me about her anorexia that she was recovering from. She also identified as having ocd. And she talked about how when she was a child, she would get clippings from the newspaper of all the natural disasters in the world and put them in a box, and then she would put that box under her bed because those were all the things that were her fault. Really sad. I mean, really, really sad.

[Hannah]

Oh, my God.

[Cassie]

Yeah. And so she would starve herself to be pretty, but she would starve herself as well as a shame response to what she felt was her failure in the world.

[Mackenzie]

And control.

[Cassie]

Yeah. Yep. And so the one thing she could control that was her eating. She told me that by the time she turned 18, she'd had two heart attacks because of all of the weight loss and still was dealing with the fallout of that having. You know, at this point, she's only like 21, so it's only been a few years since she graduated high school, and she's gotten married very young, but she's gained weight, and she's been doing a lot of therapy, but she's still struggling from time to time with the OCD in particular. And so she would write lists of things. She would tell me, like, today I woke up And I just, I couldn't stop thinking about words that start with the letter R. So I just made a list. And I couldn't get any homework done because I was just writing this list of R words all morning long. I couldn't do anything, I couldn't stop. Or she would weigh her bowel movements and write down how much they weighed so she could track how much weight she would lose, you know, going and coming out kind of.

[Mackenzie]

Because with ocd you have like, a lot of people have the subjects. Like, I know there's sexual orientation, OCD or this sounds like body specific. OCD is a real thing.

[Cassie]

Yep. She told me that the only flavor of thing that was a safe food for her was grape. And if it was grape, she could have anything grape that she wanted. And so I would literally bring her grape Slurpees or candy or whatever I could find for her that fit the criteria just to get calories into her body. Because she would call me or text me in the middle of the night and say things like, hey, I'm really having a bad day today and I feel like I can't eat anything. There's nothing I can put in my body. I don't know what to do. I have a test tomorrow. And I would jump and drive the 30 minutes to her house to bring her something that's great, just to get her to eat something or stay up on the phone with her all night talking about it. So I was often the person that she would go to if she was in crisis. Because Cole was in pre med, so he's taking not only difficult classes, but like the hardest classes. Right. So he was busy, he had labs, he had his full time job where he worked with Dylan. And she would be alone until 10 o' clock at night when he would get done with classes and work and everything. And so we just started bringing her home with us. We commuted and so we would just bring her home with us. And when Cole would get off work, he would drive out to pick her up from our house. And so that became our thing because I didn't feel like I could leave her alone. You know, she was in therapy, but really kind of struggling still. And then when you added on all of the shame aspect of the Mormon ideals, that plus her ocd, I feel like she was just in this perpetual state of crisis. And so I would spend, I mean, I had a full time job and I was in school too, but I would spend hours trying to talk her off a ledge if she was having a particularly rough day. Or going around trying to find whatever random grape thing I could for her. So I really want to take care of her. And so we just started bringing her home home for dinner. I would cook all the foods that she liked to make sure she was eating. She'd bring her homework and just do it at our house. And so I had homework too. And we would all just kind of hang out together. So we're doing stuff like that together all the time. All the time.

[Hannah]

So funny story. You guys know I love a good story. When I was like 19, I got my first credit card and it was basically, yeah, I thought it was magic money. It's not. I don't know if you guys know that credit cards are not magical money. Anyways, it kind of ruined my credit and for several years I was like devastated because I had no credit. So I love Ava because Ava has a mission of making credit simpler and more transparent. So I have good credit now and it feels really good to be getting better rates or approved for loans and credit based products. So I highly recommend you try Ava. It's a credit building app that makes it super simple to improve your credit fast so you can get better rates on things like loans and you can pay off your debt faster. Keep more money in your pocket. Who doesn't want that? And also interest rates are freaking brutal right now. So if your car payments and credit card bills are squeezing your budget, a higher credit score could save you thousands of dollars a year. And Ava can help with that. So instead of waiting months for a secured card, Ava is instant. It's simple, affordable, it really does work. And you can see your credit go up pretty quickly. They give you a list of vendors that you can make payments toward. And Ava reports your on time payments to all the major credit bureaus every day. So it helps you build positive credit credit history quickly. And then the longer you stick with Ava, the higher your score can go. Joining AVA gives you access to all of Ava's credit building tools. And there's no credit check, no interest, no fees. And it's actually the highest rated credit building app with thousands of five star reviews. Download the AVA app. It's spelled A B A today. And when you join using our promo code dating, you'll get your first month free. This offer is only for our listeners. Get the AVA app and use promo code dating to get your first month. That's promo code dating. Thanks to Ava. And now go get yourself good credit.

[Cassie]

At some point I just, I started to notice a shift that happened where she and I Started hanging out together less just the two of us. And it was like always the three of us. And then when it was the three of us, I started to notice the two of them were kind of interacting a lot more than I was.

[Mackenzie]

Oh no.

[Cassie]

And there were a lot of reasons for that. I mean, one was they had more in common and I had more in common with her husband because we were both intellectual types and we would talk about philosophy and all kinds of stuff that when you're 20 you think is just so cool.

[Hannah]

Yeah.

[Cassie]

And so I thought we were so smart and it was just kind of a natural division that could happen. And when the four of us were together, it wasn't such a big deal, right, to pair off and have those individual conversations. But when it was the three of us, I suddenly realized I felt isolated a lot. And then it sort of shifted again because Dylan started to work a different shift at work and it meant that he didn't have to go in until later and he had to stay later at night. And we only had one vehicle. So we would commute into town and then sort of have to stay around town until the other person was ready to go home or we'd have to figure something else out. And so I started bringing him into town in the morning with me and dropping him off at their place. And then he would ride to work with Cole. And so it made sense, right, because it was like two hour difference and I was working as a substitute teacher and so I'd have to be there at like 7:45 and he didn't have to be there till 10. And they lived just right down the street from his work. So it just, it made sense at the time to just drop him off and he would have breakfast with them and then ride to work with Cole. Around this time, a few other things happened. So I got pregnant. I was 20. And we were almost to the appointment where we would go and hear the heartbeat for the first time. And the day before that appointment, I started miscarrying.

[Hannah]

Oh, I'm so sorry.

[Cassie]

Yeah, not uncommon for a first time being pregnant, but still pretty traumatic. And I knew it was happening. I was bleeding very heavily. And so we're calling into the doctor's office and they were awful. I mean, they said, well, if it's happening, there's nothing you can do about it. You may as well just wait till tomorrow and then come in and we'll make sure that everything passed as it's supposed to. So I'm in horrible pain and being traumatized and they just. What's happening? Yeah. And I just finally was like, I can't take this pain anymore. And I'm want to sit through this. Literally just kind of watching it happen. It was just really awful to watch. And so I said, let's just go into the ER and have him take care of it, because I just, I can't, I can't keep doing this all night long. So we go to the er, my mom meets us there and we go in and the doctor examines me and confirms, yes, this is a miscarriage. And he says, well, I mean, we can take care of this right now and it'll take about five, ten minutes, or we can send you upstairs and they'll admit you and give you sedation, put you under and it's up to you. I mean, you'll probably be waiting a couple hours if we have to send you upstairs. And I was like, you know what, let's just do it right now. Let's get it done. They gave me some Demerol, which did nothing but make me dizzy. And it was the most painful thing I've ever felt to this day. And I had natural childbirth with my oldest and this was worse than that. I mean, it was absolutely brutal. And this doctor turned to my mom and said, give her something to bite down on so she'll stop screaming.

[Mackenzie]

Ah, women's pain is just non existent for people, right?

[Cassie]

Oh, it was. I wanted to punch that guy. My mother very nearly did punch that guy. It was brutal. So they finished that up. Dylan was great. He took me the next day. We took work off and we went shopping and went to a craft store. I was very into crafts at the time and spent a nice day together, got some lunch and just tried to grieve the loss of this baby. And at that point I had, I'd had some health issues that they couldn't figure out. I'd been to many doctors, had all kinds of terrible tests done in the ER for really severe pain before I got pregnant. And they, they couldn't figure it out. And so after the miscarriage, I got yet another job. I had so many part time jobs at the same time while I was trying to do school and support myself and him and our house and our cats and, you know, just trying to survive. And I just was so depressed. It was just awful. And I really relied on Allison a lot to kind of help me through it. I think it was maybe four to six months that I was really struggling with depression and my body kind of getting back to normal. And during that time is when I started to notice an even bigger shift with the way that Dylan and Allison were behaving toward me. Oh, yeah, it was hard. And part of it was, I'm thinking, well, yeah, I'm not any fun. I'm tired all the time.

[Hannah]

When I get those hormones.

[Cassie]

Hormones and the loss of the baby, it was just. It was a lot. So I remember pretty vividly one night we watched a movie, and I woke up, and Dylan and Allison were not there. I woke up on the couch, the credits, the dvd. So it's on the menu screen, so it's playing the same five seconds of video and audio over again. And so it woke me up. And I look around, and they're not there, and I have no idea where they are. And I go outside, and the car's there, but they're not. And I'm just so confused. And we had cell phones. They were not reliable back then. But I called Dylan, and he picked up, and I said, where are you guys? And he said, oh, we're up on the roof. Oh, okay. We would go up on the roof all the time and look at the stars. It was a gorgeous area with. I mean, you could see the Milky Way. It was incredible. And so it was very common for us to climb the ladder. We would keep the ladder just up against the house for that reason. And he's like, do you want to come up? I said, oh, I'm tired. I think I'm just going to head to bed. And he's like, okay, we'll come down. And I think Cole's going to be here soon to pick Allison up anyway. So they came back down, and I headed off to bed, and I started to think, like, what is going on? Why are they hanging out alone like that? I'm concerned. And he started acting really cold and distant toward me.

[Mackenzie]

Like that night, specifically just over that.

[Cassie]

Four to six months, where I was super depressed. And sometimes he would scream at me. Not, like, crazy screaming at me, but snapping and raising his voice a bit when I would be upset about, like, you didn't load the dishwasher or the house is a mess or whatever, because I felt like I was doing everything and working multiple jobs and going to school, and my body was just exhausted all the time. You needed.

[Mackenzie]

Yeah. Him to be stepping up some slack.

[Cassie]

Yeah. But he worked a physical job. He worked in a mechanic shop, and he did tires. And so he's slinging heavy tires and mounting them all day. I mean, it's exhausting, backbreaking work, literally. And so he'd be really tired and not want to do anything when he'd get home. And I understood, but I was resentful that it fell on me when I'm just as tired. And. I don't know, it just little things seemed to suddenly bother him all the time, and it just felt like nothing was ever good enough. So I'm getting frustrated. I'm relying on Allison more and more and talking to her about it and trying to figure out what's going on. And she reveals to me that he has started confiding in her, and that's why they've been finding time to be alone to talk, because he's really struggling and he's really unhappy. And so she started talking to him, and I'm like, well, what's going on? What do I need to do? And she's like, I don't think there's anything for you to do. I think he is being ridiculous and not supportive of you, and he doesn't deserve you, frankly.

[Mackenzie]

Wow.

[Cassie]

Yeah. Like, you're his mom. You do everything for him. You're working multiple jobs, you're going to school, you're trying to make a life, take care of everything. You take care of the cats. He would never change a litter box. Never once not change a litter box. And she's just like, you shouldn't put up with this. You've been through so much, and you don't deserve it. And I'm doing the same thing for her, right? Like, yeah, your husband's killing himself in school, and he works really hard, but he shouldn't be leaving you alone all the time. And we shouldn't have to bring you home and feed you dinner every night and take care of you, because he can't be bothered to change his schedule or make the extra time for you to feel supported. So we're there for each other. And she started telling me a little bit more about some of her coping skills that she had. And a big one that she had, which was kind of novel to me, was going online, and there's an online forum that she had joined that was a support group where she could go and talk about her OCD and her anxieties and then her anorexia issues. And she's like, these people are all over the country, and I can just go and tell them what's going on in my life, and they're just there for me. She's like, so I'm not totally alone. You guys don't need to do everything all the time. And she worked on campus, her day job. So she was in front of a computer all day and had the luxury of unlimited Internet, which was great. In, you know, 2000, that's a pretty big deal to have access to that. And so that meant she could be on these forums, posting on these message boards all the time and getting comments from people and support. So she had that going on. But still, we were kind of mutually resentful of each other's husbands. She started to tell me a little bit more about what's going on with him. And the way she framed it, it was like he's just reverting into this selfish little boy who just expects everything to be done for him. And he wants you to be more grateful for how hard he works at his job because he's always worked this really hard job. He's done it our whole relationship. And he's the one who makes most of the money. And he made like, I mean, oh my gosh, it was an insane amount compared to what I made. Right. He could afford our mortgage by himself, but I could never be able to do that. I was making like $8 an hour. And I was never full time because I was working multiple part time jobs. And.

[Mackenzie]

And weren't you in school and in school, yeah, no big deal.

[Cassie]

No big deal. Just, you know, a light day. So I'm trying my best, but he feels like he's getting somewhere and I'm just, just jumping from job to job. She's making comments like that about how he wants to do more with his life, he wants to do more hobbies, and I'm limiting him and I'm holding him back. And she doesn't agree with him. She thinks I'm awesome, I'm really great and I support him and he's just being a child. So that was nice to hear and it was very supportive. But it didn't change the fact that he was just really cold to me and they were hanging out and it started to become more than just like the breakfast hangouts. It started to be like, well, since you have class tonight, she and I are going to go for dinner and we're going to talk. And I started to have this femtuition kicking in, right? Just something telling me that this doesn't feel good, this doesn't feel right. And I actually said something to Cole about it. I just said, do you ever feel like their friendship is a little bit inappropriate or like something more could be going on? And he's like, I'm so glad you said that. Yes. Oh.

[Hannah]

Cause he'd been thinking it, too.

[Cassie]

He'd been thinking it. And it was worse for him. Right. Because we were. The three of us hanging out all the time. But for him, he's just gone. And he doesn't know what she's doing, and so he's hearing her. And the thing is, you know, you know, you're part of that, you know? And, you know when, like, a certain name keeps coming up in conversation, you're always talking about Sandy from the office. Why don't you ever talk about anybody else? Like, you can tell there's just something. Even the way they say their name is slightly different.

[Hannah]

Yes, you can tell.

[Cassie]

Yeah, you can. You just, you know. But I'm going. Yeah, but how? Like, I'm with them all the time. They're very. And even that, like, let's. We're going to go to dinner and talk. That was, like, not a common thing. That was a new thing that had been brought up that they wanted to do. It hadn't been happening. We were together. So when. If something were going on, how. How could it be? So he's acting really distant. He's not having sex with me. He's not cuddling me. He's not holding my hand. He's not interested in spending time with me when we do have time together, which isn't that common. And he starts getting really interested in these hobbies that I'm not necessarily comfortable with. Like, he's interested in shooting all of a sudden, and he wants to get guns and he wants to do this and he wants to do that.

[Hannah]

Is that something she's into also?

[Cassie]

I didn't know at the time, but, yes, it was something she kind of always wanted to do but hadn't.

[Mackenzie]

So I wonder if she planted the seed, perhaps.

[Hannah]

Yeah.

[Mackenzie]

And he's like, well, Cassie will never come, so.

[Cassie]

And I was very controlling in a lot of ways. I was young and scared, and there were certain things that I was not comfortable with. I always knew I wanted to be a prosecutor someday, and so I didn't want to do drugs. Like, there was a no drugs allowed rule. If you did them, I didn't want to hang out with you.

[Hannah]

That was me, too, because I was like, the FBI is going to question me one day. And I got to tell the truth.

[Mackenzie]

You got to say, I was so.

[Hannah]

Against drugs for that. That's so funny.

[Cassie]

Yeah. And so I didn't allow it. I didn't want him to do it. I didn't want people in our home that did it. And it was Stuff like that. That I got a bit of a reputation for being controlling of other people. But I'm trying to just protect myself. And I would. I don't think it's.

[Mackenzie]

It's literally just boundaries.

[Hannah]

Yes, it's literally just boundaries.

[Cassie]

Yeah, but, like, if my husband were doing drugs, it's his behavior. I can't control his behavior with a boundary. That's control. Right, but.

[Mackenzie]

Yeah, but you can still have your comfort level.

[Hannah]

Exactly. Exactly.

[Cassie]

Informed consent. And that was the thing, is, he was sliding into this person that I didn't recognize. And so he had asked me about the drugs. I said, absolutely not. You're not doing that. If you do that, I'm out. Like, that's not a thing. The gun stuff. He wanted to go, quote, bunny blasting, where they take shotguns out to the desert and shoot at poor, defenseless wild rabbits. So he suddenly wanted to do that, which is questionably legal in some places. He started wanting to take our truck and go rock climbing up in these mountains where rock crawling on the 4x4. And it was really dangerous. The places he was going were technically no trespassing areas because they had abandoned mine shafts and stuff in them. And so it was really dangerous. The only time he would spend with me during this time period was if I agreed to go do one of these very dangerous, scary things with him. And I was so desperate to figure out what was going on and get him to bond with me again that I started agreeing to go do stuff that scared me to death. A really good example is he wanted me to go hiking with him and caving with him. And there was this cave he wanted to go exploring. And it turned out it was an abandoned mine and there's no trespassing signs, and we're climbing over barbed wire and stuff to get to it. And I'm just so desperate to be with him and get him to love me and show me affection that I go for it. And we go in what seems like a regular cavern. You're walking up this hill and it's dirt, and there's rock above you, and we've got flashlights. And then it narrows, and then it narrows some more. And now we're body crawling through this rock. And it's like you're going down a hill inch by inch on your stomach. You can't lift your head up. It's so tight that it's just like a tube.

[Hannah]

I don't like it. I don't like it. I don't like it.

[Cassie]

I hate that.

[Hannah]

I don't like, it pitch black.

[Cassie]

So you have your flashlight and God knows what ahead of you and what's behind you. And if you got stuck, there's no way to get out, and people have died.

[Mackenzie]

Oh, my gosh.

[Cassie]

And then we get to the bottom and. And there's a little gap, and then there's this rock slab wall in front of me, and at the bottom of it is a puddle of water. And he's like, that's where we're going. And I'm like, what do you mean.

[Hannah]

The hell we are.

[Cassie]

We've reached the end. What are you. What are you talking about? And he's like, yeah, this is underwater cavern. And so we're gonna go in this puddle right here.

[Hannah]

It's actually deep.

[Cassie]

And then you hold your breath, and we go under the rock wall, and it's actually a slab that has come down, and we swim under the slab. You come back up, and it's this amazing cave. You're gonna love it. You're gonna love it.

[Hannah]

And I'm like, negatron, Adam bomb.

[Mackenzie]

I. I can't.

[Hannah]

That's not gonna work out.

[Mackenzie]

I can't imagine that's not gonna work out. What was his attitude about this? Like, do it or you're a chicken, or like you're being overdramatic or just no respect for the fact that you might not be comfortable.

[Cassie]

He was straight up amused, like, oh, yeah. Smiley, smirky at me. And the thing is being a jerk. He knows that I'm trapped, right? Because you cannot go back the way we came, because there's no way to climb, because you can't raise your arms to pull yourself, literally. Fingertips is all you would have to.

[Hannah]

No, ma' am.

[Mackenzie]

That is not funny in the slightest.

[Cassie]

It's steep incline. So if I don't go the way we're going, which will come out a different way. I can't get out. I. I will live here now in this puddle.

[Hannah]

This is my new home.

[Cassie]

Yeah.

[Mackenzie]

So did you did it?

[Cassie]

I had to. I literally. There was no way out if I didn't do it.

[Mackenzie]

I'm so amazed.

[Cassie]

It was awful. And then when we got on the other side, so. Because I don't. Is this man trying to kill me? Like, I have 100%.

[Hannah]

This give me so much anxiety.

[Cassie]

I mean, he could have, right? Because, like, if there was no way. And he had me go first because he needs to make sure that I get through okay. Right. So he has me go first. So if there were no way out on the other side of this, you did I would be under that rock, in the water, trapped. Like I would.

[Mackenzie]

Was this, like, a change moment for you? Like a villain origin story, if you will, where you were like, this is not the relationship I want.

[Cassie]

It was definitely pushing me to that point because I. I mean, it definitely told me something was wrong because the person I loved was gentle and sweet and considerate and poured hugs and kisses over my head. He was someone who didn't want to ever disappoint his mom. You know, like, he just. He was the safe choice. That's why I did it in the first place, because I knew he would never, ever, ever hurt me. You know, that's the person that I chose. I actually have a note here from him from when we were 17. He said, I'm so happy that you're in my life. I can't imagine spending my life or even a day without you. I love you so much. I wish the circumstances allowed for me to take your hand in marriage right now. I don't want to live without you because I know that you love me, too. That. That was the person I married. This was someone who thought it was funny that I was afraid. That's not. That's not who he was. And, you know, someone who could go kill bunnies with a shotgun.

[Hannah]

How freaking traumatic is that, too?

[Cassie]

Yeah. And I just kept thinking, thank God I didn't have that baby.

[Hannah]

Yeah.

[Cassie]

Because I would be stuck with this person forever if he.

[Hannah]

Blessings in disguise.

[Mackenzie]

But you were thinking that in that kind of period, like, was that.

[Cassie]

Yeah. Well. And there had been another thing. I. And this was the moment I thought to myself, oh, he's not a good person. Which is different than he's being mean to me right now, or he's distant, or he's being cold, or he's not being affectionate. He's not a good person, is different. And when that happened, when I had that thought, that was. To me, I wanted to figure out what was wrong. Whether he had been pretending this whole time, which I couldn't imagine. I had no idea. Yeah.

[Hannah]

How is that good?

[Cassie]

Possible? Yeah. And when you're that young, like, you're still figuring out who you are. And so to pretend to be something you're not at that age, it just seems to me it was harder to believe that that was the case. It was more that something had changed in him. He had, I don't know, gotten bit by a vampire or something.

[Hannah]

He got bit by a vampire?

[Cassie]

Yeah. Something drastic had happened to him. But he told me a story one day, and He. He'd always tell me funny stories from work. And there was this one guy at the dealership that he worked at that they liked to tease because he was sort of a nerd and he was kind of awkward, and he just wasn't one of the, like, roughneck type guys. So he wasn't part of the crowd, the cool kids crowd, the mechanic shop. But this particular guy, like, he was bald, he wore glasses. They just, for whatever, decided he was the one to tease. And he told me the story one day, and I. I'm listening to it, and I'm thinking, I do not want this person to father my children. Like, I. This is.

[Hannah]

So that's when you know that.

[Mackenzie]

How bad it is.

[Hannah]

Yeah.

[Cassie]

Yeah. They had played a prank on this guy. I won't go into the extremely graphic details, but I'll just say they tampered with his lunch. Oh, no. Yeah. In a really unsanitary way. And he's describing it to me in very graphic detail with this look of glee on his face, like he's just rotten. This is so funny. And I kind of have my suspicions that this guy may have been a LGBTQ or something, and maybe that's why they targeted him. So this person that I love, who I think is a good person, is actually a sadist. Right. Like, he was torturing me and a bully and just not a good person. I just. I couldn't believe the things I was hearing. And later, I learned some more things that explained during this time period how right that instinct was that I really was right, that he had just. He'd become someone I didn't know. So this time period where he was really not interacting with me or touching me, it went on for about six months. Six months. He didn't talk to me at all. Every night, I would go to bed. Our. Our computer room had been converted into the nursery for the baby, and so he had moved the computer into the living room since the other room was the baby's room. And after we lost the baby, we just stopped going in there.

[Hannah]

Oh, we just.

[Mackenzie]

Yeah, yeah.

[Cassie]

Sorry.

[Hannah]

No, I am so sorry. That is. Oh, what a loss.

[Cassie]

Yeah. So we just kind of closed off that part of the house and stopped going in there at all. And late at night, he would just be on the computer. And back then, there were only a few things you could do on a computer. Yeah, there's chat rooms, there's message boards, there's some online gaming, but it's pretty limited. So I'm watching him play, like, Doom and things on his computer. And I would go to bed and he would just be doing that. And so I would just be alone in my bed trying to sleep while he's out there doing that all night every night. And I was just by myself and hadn't had any physical affection from him. And one day we had an argument because I was just sick from all of this and I couldn't do it anymore.

[Mackenzie]

Sure.

[Cassie]

And I just said, I need to know what's going on with you. Are you depressed? And he said, maybe, I don't know. And he'd just be like, I don't know what's going on. I just don't feel the same. Like, what do you mean? And he finally yelled at me and said, I don't know if I love you anymore.

[Mackenzie]

Oh, yeah.

[Cassie]

In a way I was relieved because I was thinking, God, that would explain a lot. Like, why have I been going through this for so long? But at the other side of it, I was thinking, well, no, because we have to get into heaven, you know, we have to, have to stay together. We have to work this out. And actually pulled out the photos from the day that we went through the temple and were sealed together for all eternity. And I'm showing them to him and I'm like, this is who you are. I don't know who this person is, but this is who you are. And I don't know what to do to help you remember who you are. Like, what do I do? And he's like, I don't know, I don't know. And I said, do you think talking to somebody would help? Do you want to go see a doctor, maybe get some antidepressants or something? And so he did. He went and got on a prescription. He had what the doctor called a flat affect. So he would just kind of even tempered all the time and not really a motive in a lot of ways. And he'd always been that way. I had never really noticed it, but I never associated it with depression until now. And the doctor said he had what's called dysthymia, which is a just a type of chronic depression, basically where your emotions are not up and down, they're just kind of, you're numb, basically you're living in a numb existence. And so he's taking the meds, but he's saying things like, I can't believe you've made me take antidepressants. I can't believe you've forced me to take these pills that make me feel like a stranger in my own body. And you've reduced me to this diagnosis, and all you ever want to talk about is my mental health. It's weaponizing that against me, like it was my fault. And I didn't take any responsibility for the fact that his behavior is why we were concerned or why I was concerned about him. It was like it was all me. It was all my fault.

[Mackenzie]

Did you internalize that at all?

[Cassie]

Oh, yeah. I mean, I'm already a wife who can't have a baby. I already feel like I'm a terrible wife. And I'm a wife who can't keep the house clean because I'm working two jobs and going to school. So I already felt like a failure as it was. And then he didn't want to keep going to church because he didn't want to pay the tithing. He wanted to keep that money. And so I didn't have that. And so I'm isolated. I would live in this home in this rural town, and it's 30 minutes away from civilization. We have one working vehicle. And my best friend is now his best friend, and he's treating me this way, and I just. I feel so alone. And in the meantime, my parents had finally bought their first house ever. And so the home that they lived in when I met Dylan was the longest I lived in one place my whole life. And so the home that I knew wasn't there anymore because they had moved. And so I felt even stronger, this need to keep my home. And we had our two cats, and we had this life together. And I just. I was desperate. I would try anything, but he kept making it so hard. And the way he would speak to me, or when he did speak to me, it was. It was like one word sentences. If I was lucky. It was really, really hard. And I started to become suicidal.

[Hannah]

Oh, I'm so sorry.

[Cassie]

Because I just didn't understand. You know, it would be one thing if he said, I don't love you anymore. Let's get a divorce. But he wasn't saying that, and I didn't understand why. I didn't understand why he wanted to keep living in this existence. And he could go do the drugs and blast the bunnies or do whatever if he just left me. But he wasn't, and I didn't understand why. So I became really suicidal. I would call Allison all the time, and she would talk me down, and I had done the same for her. So we relied on each other really heavily. And one day she called, and I was literally in the kitchen with a knife over my Wrist just standing there staring at it.

[Hannah]

Oh, my friend, I'm so sorry.

[Cassie]

Yeah. So it was like she saved me. Right. She saved my life because she called at that exact moment, and I took it as a sign that she was meant to save me and that she was there for me and that I shouldn't hurt myself. And so it was a really rough time. It was terrible. And he was intermittently taking the meds, but other things started to change that I started to notice he was gone all the time. He would hang out with her all the time. He decided to learn to play guitar. She played guitar. So she was giving him lessons at their house. He started shaving his chest and back. Wow. And probably other things, too, but I wasn't seeing those things, so I don't know. But probably. And he had never, ever, ever done that. And he was a super hairy guy, so.

[Hannah]

Yeah.

[Mackenzie]

Did he have excuses for. Like, what were his excuses for some of these hangout times?

[Cassie]

She's the only one who I can talk to about my depression and our relationships. She's my friend, and I'm confiding in her, and I'm opening up to someone about my mental health for the first time ever. And if you don't want me to hang out with her, then that takes away the only resource I have to get help.

[Mackenzie]

So then it becomes you're the bad guy.

[Cassie]

Yeah. Yep. When Cole and I had talked about the thought that maybe there was something between them, this was so early on, and there really wasn't any possibility for it to be true. But it doesn't mean that there weren't feelings. But it didn't seem like they were acting on them. So it was like, well, you know, we'll just keep an eye on the situation. But I drew a boundary, and I said, I'd prefer if you wouldn't hang out with her unless Cole's there or I'm there, and I try and bring that up, and he'd say, well, she's my friend, and you're gonna take away my best friend. And I can't believe you would do that when I told you how much she's helping me to talk to her. So I. What was I gonna do? Take away his resource when he's struggling with depression and I'm so desperate for him to get better so that he'll love me again, you know? I know.

[Mackenzie]

And then would she defend it, too? Would you ever ask her to?

[Cassie]

She was telling me to leave him. Back off. She was just constantly. I'd call her and I'd be like, hey, he said he talked to you last night and that he was struggling. Can you tell me, like, what to do? How do I fix this? And she's like, he does not deserve you. You should leave him. He is not doing anything to make your relationship better. He's bitter at you about making him take antidepressants. He doesn't want to be in the church anymore. He's just. He doesn't care, and you just should leave him. And I'm going. Well, I can't, because the church says not to. Right. And my parents were telling me I needed to work it out, and I asked him to go stay with his parents for a weekend because I needed him to figure out what he wanted to do. And he came back. So I was like, okay, we're gonna fix it. We're gonna work on it. She had told me at one point, when I told her I was suicidal, that he was not worth my life because he wasn't worthy of me, feeling like I should die for him. He didn't deserve me. And she really encouraged me to file for divorce and just get out because he wasn't doing anything to make it better at all. So, yeah, it was a really terrible time. And I didn't realize how starved for affection I was and how long it had been since a person had held me or made me feel like I mattered. And that was the perfect opportunity to run into my junior high school boyfriend.

[Mackenzie]

The guitar player.

[Cassie]

Yes. Yes. So his name was Joel, and by a sheer coincidence, he had married Dylan's first girlfriend. So my first boyfriend. I told you it was a small town.

[Mackenzie]

That's crazy.

[Cassie]

Yeah. Yeah. So crazy. So we ran into him, and it was just this blast from the past. I hadn't seen him since we broke up in 10th grade. And we were just laughing because his wife was with him and Dylan was with me, and they knew each other, and it was just. It was so funny. We laughed so hard. We went on, like, a little, like, double date. And then a couple months later, when things had gotten really, really bad, I was thinking about him, and I got a job interview. And the corporate headquarters was up in Salt Lake City. And so I decided to do the drive, which is about two hours, to do a job interview with the corporate headquarters. And so since I knew that they lived up there, I gave him a call and suggested that we meet up. And he was like, yeah, let's go to dinner. And so we went out for dinner, and he tells me that she left him. And I Said, well, funny story. I'm kind of in it myself right now, really struggling. And I told him all the things that had been going on. And I told him I didn't know what to do because he also had been Mormon, he'd gone on a mission, he'd done the whole thing and was struggling with that whole thing as well. And now he's doubting if monogamy is even for him, because this marriage had failed and he was feeling terrible about it, and he invited me to come see his lack of furniture. So I went. He gave me the tour. And we knew. I mean, we knew when I went in that apartment that it was dangerous and wrong and that I shouldn't do it. And so I got out of there quick, but not before he kissed me. And I am not kidding when I say I was 15 years old again. It was like no time had passed. And all of our, like, chaste, little cute, you know, teenager time, just the. The smell of him and the way he felt giving me a hug, like, I remembered.

[Hannah]

It was so familiar. Right?

[Mackenzie]

It's like your youth. You remember the spark you used to have.

[Cassie]

But I was like, I gotta go. So, yeah, I got back in the truck, headed back down to our town, and the whole drive home, I was thinking, I do not feel guilty about that at all. I don't feel bad.

[Mackenzie]

It's telling.

[Cassie]

Yeah. It told me everything I needed to know. And also, I just had this feeling like if I gave Dylan the ammunition he needed, he would take the shot and just get divorced. Like, he wanted it to be my fault.

[Hannah]

Yeah, and he needed it to be your fault.

[Mackenzie]

And sometimes you need to do something like, it's almost like blowing up the relationship because you're like, I want to leave, but I don't know how. But if I do something bad, then.

[Hannah]

They can do it for you.

[Mackenzie]

I have to leave.

[Cassie]

Funny story.

[Mackenzie]

I get it.

[Cassie]

After this happened, I read a book called When Good People Cheat or something similar. Yeah. Why? Why good People cheat? And that is one of the reasons is to blow up something they.

[Mackenzie]

I mean, we are not wants to cheater. Always a cheater, people. Which surprises some people. But I think it's. There's many different kinds of scenarios.

[Hannah]

Yeah, there's so many different scenarios.

[Cassie]

Yep. So I went home and I threw myself on his mercy and I said, this is what happened, and I don't feel bad. And I think that that probably says a lot about where we are in our marriage. And if you want a divorce right now and you ask me, I Will say yes, no questions asked. He did not even blink. I want a divorce immediately. And I was just like, okay. And this is where it got rough, because you would think that would be all puppies and rainbows and I'd be free. But what happened? He said, I'm not paying for our house. I'm not paying our bills. As of right now, I'm not paying for anything. Well, I can't afford the house. I can't afford the car payment for the car that actually works. So he says he's not going to pay for anything. And I'm thinking, I make $8 an hour. I have terrible credit. And, you know, we had this house and we had a ton of debt. Just a ton of debt. And I remember thinking, I can't go home. And so what am I going to do? And I moved into student housing with a couple of roommates. And you can get these ridiculous roommate contracts that need student housing. So I'm like living in a. Basically an off campus version of a dorm. I can't take my cats with me because it's a dorm. And I said, well, then you just got to stay here in the house. And I guess we'll declare bankruptcy because if you're not going to pay, if.

[Hannah]

You'Re not going to pay and I'm not going to pay it, and nobody's going to pay it, then I guess.

[Cassie]

What are we going to do?

[Mackenzie]

Yeah, the cats are not going to pay it.

[Cassie]

Yeah, right.

[Hannah]

They not. They not going to get a job.

[Cassie]

The cats. Really? That's a. That was a hard one for me. I thought it was. I now have three. I have three cats that I love and I am a total cat lady now. But, yeah, I just. I didn't know what else to do. So I took the crappy pickup truck that wasn't licensed and I moved to student housing, which was very close to my work and my school. And we just agreed we would file bankruptcy and then get a fresh start. So we filed bankruptcy. We filed the divorce papers. The judge is like, hey, until you file your tax return, your bankruptcy is not closed. And until your bankruptcy is closed, I'm not signing the divorce papers because we got to resolve the debt. And so I needed to file our taxes, and that would be the last thing until it was all said and done. And so we had to file our taxes. And he had a computer that my dad had built for us and he kept it. And I said, well, can I come over and use it to do our taxes? So I set it up with him that I'm going to come to his place. Turns out he has moved out of our house and not told me and left behind all my belongings and just is, like, letting the bank take the property whenever they show up. And during this time, it's like the beginning of the recession, right? So foreclosures are taking, like, six months to two years. It's just this crazy period where houses are just sitting vacant. And I'm like, well, where are my cats? Because you were taking care of them.

[Hannah]

Stop.

[Cassie]

He didn't answer me. So I got some friends, I got a pickup truck, and I went to the house to get as much of my stuff out as I could. And when I got in the door, I discovered that the carpets are just completely covered in cat pee and poop. Carpets are just destroyed. He had locked them in there and just left and abandoned them.

[Hannah]

Oh, my God.

[Mackenzie]

Wait, for how long?

[Cassie]

I don't know. And he had broken a window hitting golf balls in our yard and never fixed it. And the cat had forced his way out through this broken glass and through the screen. They pulled the screen out so he could escape. Escape starvation, basically. And the two cats had been crawling out through that hole and going out hunting to feed themselves and then coming back in.

[Mackenzie]

How can anyone do that?

[Cassie]

Yeah, it gets worse.

[Hannah]

No, I don't like it.

[Cassie]

Yeah. So keep in mind that animal cruelty that and the bunny blasting, I think should have been a sign. But I go to his place, and I'm livid about the cats. Obviously, I managed to catch both of them, and they get adopted and they're okay. But, yeah, that was really heartbreaking. So I'm sitting in front of this computer, and he's asleep on the bed behind me while I'm sitting at his desk doing our taxes so I can wrap this final thing up and walk away from this person forever. And at this time, when you downloaded a file, it was a version of Windows, where before it would ask you, where do you want to save this file? And all of a sudden, it just saved it somewhere.

[Hannah]

Oh, no.

[Cassie]

And I was like, I don't know.

[Mackenzie]

Where is it?

[Cassie]

I'm like a computer girly, right? Like, I'm super tech savvy, but I couldn't figure this out. I'm like, where did this file go? I have no idea. It's so weird.

[Hannah]

I don't want to know.

[Cassie]

I click the start button because I know there's something called recent files, and I think maybe it just went right there. And I see a file that says Allison Doc. And I go, why would he have a file with just her name? That seems weird. And I turn around, I look behind me, he's passed out. And I open it up, and it's just this little blurb from Yahoo Email, like a pasted email into a Word document. And it's from her to him, and it's dated about a month before he told me he didn't love me anymore. So maybe seven months prior to this. And it says, I've been thinking something, and I hope you're thinking it too. And then there's a reply from him, and he says, I've been thinking it too, and that's it. That's all there is. But I.

[Mackenzie]

That's the doc.

[Cassie]

Yeah. And I'm like, why would he save that? Unless there's more. Right?

[Mackenzie]

Of course. Because that's like my stomach right now. It's like.

[Cassie]

That's like, I know. Her first love note to me. Kind of saving, right? Like, why would you save that? And so I go home and I cannot sleep. I cannot eat.

[Hannah]

No, of course, I couldn't either.

[Mackenzie]

I need to hear about what you thought when you saw your best friend emailing your husband.

[Hannah]

Oh, yeah.

[Cassie]

I was like, oh, okay. So I was right. My femtuition was totally right. And maybe there's proof because we had talked about how we could improve it and we didn't. And I needed to know because how. How did they do this? How. When I don't understand it and I. You know that thing you do when you know you're in a dangerous situation and you just do what you got to do to get out of the situation?

[Hannah]

Yeah, yeah, of course.

[Cassie]

I was like, taxes are done. Best of luck. Hugs and kisses. I'm going to go. And I was out of there as quick as I could. And I went home and my work. I was able to be on the computer all day long every day. And so I was like, I'm gonna. Do I do this? Do I not do this? I don't. I don't know. Should I hack his email?

[Hannah]

Yeah, yeah, we should.

[Cassie]

Also.

[Hannah]

That's illegal. Don't do that.

[Cassie]

Don't do that.

[Hannah]

As I nod my head.

[Mackenzie]

Yes. Yeah. For the people who are just listening.

[Cassie]

I know all of his information so I can reset his password because I know all his private details. So should I do that or not do that?

[Hannah]

Yes.

[Cassie]

By the way, statute of limitations has well run. This is no longer a risk to me.

[Mackenzie]

Boom, baby. We're anonymous, baby.

[Hannah]

We're not going to jail today.

[Cassie]

I And I knew once I did it, he would know. Right. But because of where he works and the fact that we all don't got a computer in our pocket at this time. It's 2001. Like, he's not going to know a period of time. I had a window in there. So while I knew he was at work and not able to get on the computer, I reset his password. And there are almost 2,000 emails between them.

[Hannah]

Oh, geez.

[Cassie]

And I read them all. I download them all. I save the world's biggest word document. It took me. I worked all day. I very nearly got fired from my job at this time because I was good for you. I was obsessed. I couldn't do anything.

[Mackenzie]

You're like, there's an emergency.

[Cassie]

I couldn't do any work. I was obsessively looking stuff up. And once I read what was in those emails, I started stalking her.

[Mackenzie]

Wait, okay.

[Cassie]

Yeah.

[Hannah]

What was in the email?

[Cassie]

Some of the big ones. So they had sex for the first time almost right after that first email. So it had been, at this point eight months that they had been having an affair. So the whole time, basically, that I started to feel like something was weird. They were. They were doing it. Doing it, doing it. They were doing it on the roof that night. They have emails where they talked about it. And what if she had come up and he'd be like, well, then she would have left me, and I wouldn't have had to deal with any of this. Right. Like, they wanted to get caught. Every time he took her for a motorcycle ride. Her husband had a motorcycle, and he would let him borrow it because he was thinking of buying one. So he'd take her for a little ride. They'd go do it in the mountains. Turns out hubby wasn't home in the mornings when I was dropping him off to hang out. Oh, they were just doing a little breakfast and banging before work, and I was just delivering him to her every day. And then it started to get darker. Let's be as horrible to Cole and Cassie as possible so that they will just commit suicide and save us the paperwork of a movie.

[Mackenzie]

I'm sorry. That was a big. I did not. I thought you were gonna say that they would push you to divorce, but.

[Cassie]

What? Yeah. Yeah. It'll just save us the paperwork if they would just. I. God, I just wish they would kill themselves and get it over with and so we could be together. All kinds of stuff like that. It was. It was pathological, and she was very much encouraging it. All of the things that she's saying to me, he doesn't deserve you. You should leave him. She's telling him, oh, she hates you. She doesn't love you. She doesn't appreciate you. She doesn't see how hard of a worker you are. You deserve so much better. Yeah.

[Hannah]

What? Yeah, I hope they. Oh, that is terrible. Oh, that's awful to hear.

[Cassie]

It was.

[Hannah]

Oh, I'm so sorry. I can't. I can't even imagine. I can't even imagine how that felt. Like you were like, really, my life means nothing to this person.

[Cassie]

Yeah. And like, why not just get divorced? It was so strange to me that they would go through all this when a simple I don't want to be married to you would have.

[Hannah]

Because that's hard. Because that's hard.

[Cassie]

Well, it makes them the bad guy. And they were both extremely avoidant personalities.

[Hannah]

No, you're absolutely right. It makes them the bad guy.

[Cassie]

Yeah. We had to be the bad ones and we had to do this. And then there were things in there. Oh, my gosh. It was. Yeah. So I learned yet another thing about him that made me think he was not a good person. About, I don't know, a year before that, one of our two cats had kittens. Very unexpectedly, it came out in the living room on the couch. There is a litter of kittens. And yeah, there were six of them. We named them after all the friends characters.

[Hannah]

Oh, cute.

[Cassie]

And my favorite was Monica. And I decided to keep Monica and we would find homes for the rest. And one night he came home from work and he walked into. We had this big walk in closet and he walked into the closet and he was wearing his big steel toed boots and he stepped on Monica and he broke her back and she couldn't stand and she's, you know, twisted from her back being broken. And I've never heard sounds come out of an animal like I heard that night. And it was after midnight. We're in this rural town, there's no vet, there's no place to take her.

[Hannah]

You had to put her down, didn't you?

[Cassie]

He did. I couldn't do it.

[Hannah]

I am so sorry. That's terrible.

[Cassie]

Well, in their little email exchange, they decided to confess things to each other. And I don't remember what her confession was because his just. My blood went cold. He said, I can kill an animal and feel no remorse.

[Hannah]

Oh my God.

[Cassie]

And then he talked about that and it wasn't clear whether he stepped on her on purpose, like if he stomped on her or if just putting her down Afterward what he was referring to, but it was very clear that he enjoyed it or didn't care. Either way. It either way. That plus the fact that he had abandoned our two cats and talked about killing bunnies and the things with his co worker, I just realized that he was not. He wasn't a good person. And just reading the way that they talked about me and her husband and the life that we lived together that I thought was so precious and was just meaningless and it was things like, I was such an idiot, you know, I know everybody says that and they say, you know, I feel so dumb now. But like, she would say things to me about her husband. He didn't wear jeans and she thought that was weird. He was always like Sheldon Cooper with the khakis and the button up shirt and she hated it. She wanted him to be casual. I like went and spent a thousand bucks or something on clothes for him on a credit card because we just put everything on a credit card. We were real irresponsible.

[Mackenzie]

20, 24 at this point, 22, 21. Oh my gosh.

[Cassie]

I guess I. Yeah, by the time we got divorced, I was. Yeah, 23. I like bought this guy a wardrobe because she was just like, I just I dream of. And she was having me dress him up like my husband the whole time. It was like, oh, yeah, Dylan wears these types of jeans and they look so good on him. I bet they look great on coal. And so then I'm going to Sears and buying the same stuff that my husband wears. He told me one day I was in line at the coffee shop and this woman was wearing this perfume and it smelled so good. We've got to find it so that you can wear the same perfume. He's like, I don't know what it's called. Let's go to the department stores in the mall and we're going to smell all these perfumes until I find this perfume and I'm going to buy it for you. It is so amazing. And okay, it was her perfume. He wanted me to wear her perfume. Yeah.

[Mackenzie]

So this, I wonder if that was like this weird, twisted way of them trying to like be okay that they weren't together and make their partners more like.

[Cassie]

Or maybe explain why he smells like my perfume when he comes home at night. Yeah.

[Mackenzie]

Nope, that's that. Yeah, that makes more sense. Wow, that makes a lot. Wow, that's a red flag of cheating right there.

[Cassie]

Yep. So, yeah, I read the 2000 emails. I get confirmation that all these times I was suspicious, I had a Reason to be suspicious. But now I'm like, this bitch. My attention is shifting now to her because the things I'm reading that she's saying are manipulating him so much. And I don't excuse him remotely. But I start to realize how orchestrated a lot of these things were. The I'm so lonely by myself at night. Cause my husband's working or he's in class all the time. The mental health crises. She was constantly interrupting our time that we did have together with some emergency. So I would have to stop what I was doing when I was spending time with him to deal with whatever emergency she had going on. There wasn't an emergency. She was just trying to prevent us from having any time together or interject herself into our relationship. I don't know. But it gave her control. And I, being the type of person I am, would do anything for a friend. And so I did, over and over again. And then reading the things she would say about me, the names she would call me, it was. I didn't know who this person was either, because she certainly wasn't the person that she had told me she was or that I had seen. But I start obsessively looking for information about her on the Internet. And this is. There's no Google. Like, it's barely a blip. Facebook is not a thing yet. There's not a lot of ways to find things on people. But I know that she's active online because she told me she has this support group. So I find it. And it is not a support group for people who want to get better. It is a support group for people who want to support each other being anorexic and bulimic. What, so they're like, giving each other tips and stuff. There's accountability groups, like you would do in a weight loss group, where you go on there and you post your stats. I was horrified by what I found. But what was really messed up was I found her profile. And it was not hard to do because I knew her so well that I knew her favorite video game character. I knew her lucky numbers. I knew everything I needed to know to find her.

[Hannah]

Yeah.

[Cassie]

And I did. And she had this entire Persona on this site that was not real. These people thought that she was in the hospital, in and out of the hospital. She said she'd been in and out of the hospital the majority of every year for the last several years because of how anorexic she is and how low her body fat is, that she had active heart failure going on. They won't let her get on the transplant list until she gains enough weight to prove that she'll be stable to deserve a heart. She's had broken hips and broken femur from having low bone density because of starvation that her teeth are falling out.

[Mackenzie]

And it's all a lie.

[Cassie]

Yeah, it's all a lie. She posted a photo of herself in a hospital room. It was my hospital room. She had come to visit me and taken a picture of herself in fuzzy socks like you would wear in the hospital with the machines in the background. And it's just like a picture of her feet and the machines in the background and being like, can't believe I'm back here again. Third time this year. And none of it was true. None of it was true. And then there were these stories on there about her and Dylan, but she had changed a lot of the information and basically made it like she wasn't married and they were just best friends and that he had this horrible, horrible wife and they'd been friends for years and she had just watched him become this shell of a person because of his wife and how evil and horrible she was. And yeah, just. It was shocking. And it was Taylor Swift. Right? Like, when are you gonna wake up and realize that the real love of your life is right in front of you?

[Mackenzie]

You belong with me.

[Cassie]

You belong with me.

[Mackenzie]

And I'm sure everyone's like, oh, that's so hard.

[Hannah]

Right.

[Mackenzie]

I'm so sorry.

[Cassie]

It was so, like. Yeah. And so I had stopped talking to her as I figured out a lot of this stuff. And I honestly, to this day, it's been so long, I can't remember if I found the online forum first or the emails first. It all was during this very blurry period where reading the things she said about me on the Internet was one thing. Right. Because it was. These people don't know. They don't know what's real and what's not real. And those poor people, like, they were praying for her. They were doing prayer circles. They were constant. Like, if she didn't post for a few days, they would think maybe something happened to her. Like, it was absolutely heart wrenching to.

[Mackenzie]

She was like an influencer.

[Cassie]

Yeah. Like, thank goodness she wasn't getting any money out of it. Right. Because I couldn't today that would. There'd be a GoFundMe and someone would set it up for her. Yeah, the things you could do back then. It's different now, but it. Boy, it was. It was shocking. It was shocking to read it. And I still don't know to this day if the things she talked about when she was young, having heart attacks. Like, I don't know if any of that's true. I don't know what her husband knew.

[Mackenzie]

Or didn't know, because now you can't trust anything.

[Hannah]

Well, now I don't believe nothing. So, yeah.

[Cassie]

Yeah. Like, did she do this to him? Right. Because she was from Canada. Maybe he talked to her parents about it. But would he really have gone into, like, her whole medical history? Wow. I don't know.

[Mackenzie]

Very easily could have done that.

[Cassie]

And what was she telling him the whole time about why she was spending so much time? Was it because I was a head case and she needed to be there for me? Or. Who knows? I just. But I just. I couldn't believe what I was reading. So I called her husband. He had changed jobs, but I knew where he was working, and I called him up and I said, hey, you know that thing we thought was happening? I have proof that it was happening. Do you want to know? And he said, yeah, send it to me. I don't know if I'll do anything about it at this point, but send it to me. I think he was under the impression that it wasn't happening anymore. And once I did that, that was the last time I talked to her. She sent me a quick message and was just like, I can't believe you would blow up my life that way. Oh, okay.

[Mackenzie]

Oh, hot kettle.

[Cassie]

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know why she would be surprised.

[Mackenzie]

And also wouldn't she? Did they not want to get together after your marriage ended?

[Cassie]

You know, I think he did. I think she was playing him the whole time. I don't think she ever intended to be with him.

[Hannah]

Of course she didn't. She was having fun.

[Cassie]

So I sent off the info to her husband, and then I just kind of let it lie. She had her little confrontation with me, and we never spoke again after that. For never, never, never, never, never. I did try to Facebook stalk her once. That was a thing to see if they were still together, because I had heard they were from Dylan. So Dylan, once everything was out in the open, he could stop avoiding me at that point, and we could kind of clear the air. And so we went for coffee, and he was like, this was the biggest mistake I ever made. Losing you, ruining our marriage. I'm so sorry. I wish I could go back and undo it. I bet you do.

[Hannah]

That's what you get.

[Cassie]

Yeah. They, wow, I'll never forgive myself. And he's laying it on Thick, right? Like, I am feeling all kinds of vindication because he feels stupid. I feel so good because. Why? Oh, she cheated on him. Oh, she cheated on him while cheating on her husband. So she hooked up with some other guy, and he found out about it and was all upset, and I was like, what. What is. What is the phrase how you leave is how you'll get left or whatever.

[Mackenzie]

Oh, man.

[Cassie]

Yeah. So, wow.

[Mackenzie]

Wait, did you expect him to say that when he walked into Starbucks?

[Cassie]

I didn't really know what to expect because it was sort of like when you come home and your dog has destroyed something and look at them, and they're just, like, looking at you like, oh, yeah, I know. I'm in trouble. He was big puppy dog eyes. I think he was expecting me to lay him out, and that was not the energy I brought. I was just like, what's done is done? But in that Starbucks conversation, he's whining to me about how she cheated on him, and he realizes now how much she was manipulating him and all of this stuff. And then he tells me that after she cheated on him, he ended it, and that now her husband knows, and so it's not going to happen, and they're going to stay together. And then his phone rings, and he answers it. And when he answered it, he answered it the exact same way that he always did when it was me calling him until those last six months when it changed. He would answer the phone and he would go, hi. Like, he recognized who was calling and was happy to hear from them. And my heart, I knew. He hangs up the phone, and I go, was that Allison? And he goes, yeah. And I was like, goodbye. And I just walked right out.

[Mackenzie]

Yep.

[Cassie]

I was out of there. I was done.

[Mackenzie]

What a dumb.

[Cassie]

So dumb. He also, during that conversation, told me he had been doing cocaine and heroin.

[Hannah]

Oh, goodbye. We're done.

[Mackenzie]

More recently or while you were married.

[Cassie]

During that time period when his personality changed so dramatically, all of a sudden, he's trying cocaine at work, and then he's trying heroin. And so he's got the upper and the downer going on, and he's just a different person. Right? And he can't tell me because I am so against drugs that I would have left him immediately if I had known. Plus, he feels pretty good. He told me he tried crack, and he loved the taste. It tasted like Kool Aid.

[Hannah]

Holy.

[Mackenzie]

What?

[Cassie]

I know. It was. He's. Who is this person? He's like, yeah, a pot.

[Mackenzie]

Exactly.

[Cassie]

Like, where is my husband? I don't know. It was absolutely bizarre. But, yeah, so he wasn't the person I wanted anyway. And it just took me a little too long to figure that out. But once I did, I was just. I was so much better off. And I went to law school. I got into law school, graduated. I've been a lawyer for almost 13 years now.

[Hannah]

Good for you. That's amazing. That's so awesome.

[Cassie]

I went on, I got married again. We were married for 18 years. We have two kids. We just got divorced. So I'm single again. She's like, okay, I am thrilled. I'm thrilled everything has worked out how it's supposed to.

[Mackenzie]

Next chapter.

[Cassie]

I have my baby and I am living my best life. And my two kids are amazing, and they're the best thing that could have ever happened to me. And I'm so glad they're with me with my now second ex, because he is a great dad and we get along amazingly. We're friends. He has a partner, they have a baby together. We all hang out together. We're a family.

[Hannah]

Like that is so uncommon. Good for you. Good for you.

[Cassie]

Yeah, it's great. I learned a lot from that first experience about what I deserve. And so I've had it. I've had it for a long time. And I'm not ever going back. I'm never going back. And one of the things they always tell you when you stop going to church is you will miss it. You will miss his voice, you will miss the spirit. You will miss the people in the church. I do not miss a damn thing about at all.

[Hannah]

Well, because it doesn't exactly create the best memories for you.

[Mackenzie]

No, it's like, traumatizing.

[Hannah]

Yeah, well, and they would have told.

[Cassie]

Me to stay and put up with that abuse. You know, it was emotional abuse and it was dangerous and.

[Hannah]

Well, and that's what he was, reckless. The church is that they. Sometimes they can use it to weaponize.

[Cassie]

It's true. And the thing about the. The Mormon Church in particular is if you have doubts, the answers you are given is to pray harder, right? To do more of the things you're required to do. And I did all those things, and this is what happened. And so to me, then, it's like you're at fault. That's what they say. Well, you didn't pray hard enough. And I'm sorry if my husband's out there having an affair with my best friend for a year and doing drugs and killing animals. That's not someone I should be required to stay with for eternity.

[Mackenzie]

And I think God will understand 100%, if any. Anyone that's pushing you toward abuse like.

[Hannah]

That, that is a big deal, whether.

[Mackenzie]

It be a group or your friend. That's not what it's about. That's just not what it should be about.

[Cassie]

No. And it's. It's for those that it works for. If it truly works for you, I'm glad that it works for you.

[Mackenzie]

But if you're not hurting anybody, when.

[Cassie]

You just slightly don't fit the mold, it is a really terrible place to live and you feel constantly inadequate and like, you're wrong. Like, something's wrong with you, and no one should ever be made to feel that way.

[Mackenzie]

And I think one thing that we try to do here, and I am excited for people to respond, but like we said, like, of course there are good people in so many groups that have bad people. There are extreme situations, and there are great people who recognize that. Like, I love this part of my faith, but I don't agree with this treatment and this part of the thing. And, like, I don't know what the answer is because, I mean, the closest I can get is just everybody, live and let live. Like, just don't hurt people with your beliefs. But, I don't know. It is hard when there's such a strong culture of abuse, systemically.

[Cassie]

Yep. And I think in religion, in sexuality, in relationships, in all aspects of life, if you are being your most authentic self, that is the happiest you can be. And if that means you're authentically Christian, if it means you're authentically queer, identifying, if it means you're trans, whatever it is, those secrets keep you from being your authentic self. And anyone who is encouraging that is not your friend, is not a supportive person.

[Hannah]

Absolutely.

[Mackenzie]

I just wish everybody had the means to go find their people, because there are people for everyone. And I hate that you got to a point where you were, you know.

[Cassie]

Well, that's what you guys are here for, right? Yes.

[Mackenzie]

All we try to do.

[Cassie]

Yeah, for sure. You're creating that community. You're creating a vocabulary that goes with it. I mean, that's. That's what you look for. You look for a sense of community. Look for a vocabulary that you can. If I say femtuition. And people know what I'm talking about. I know. They're my people. Right?

[Hannah]

Yeah, exactly. Yes. Cassie, I'm so glad you shared your story. Thank you so much. I just feel like there's so much. Heartbroken.

[Mackenzie]

Yeah. But the fact that you're doing well.

[Hannah]

That I love so many people are gonna relate to it, though.

[Cassie]

Yes, it's a happy ending. Very happy ending. And you know what? Like we say, like, sometimes we make choices based on the circumstances we're in at the time, but we learn from it and that's the best we can hope for.

[Hannah]

Yes, that's so true.

[Mackenzie]

And I imagine. I hope you have better friends now.

[Cassie]

Absolutely.

[Mackenzie]

Than Alison.

[Cassie]

Yeah. I have amazing friends. And I don't feel like any of them would ever betray me in this manner because I've created an environment for myself where they can be their authentic selves. Right. And so that's important too is you need to also be someone that they can be safe with. And when you do that.

[Hannah]

So true.

[Cassie]

Yeah. You just have better, closer relationships in general.

[Mackenzie]

You're amazing.

[Hannah]

Thank you so much.

[Mackenzie]

I know that you're a safe friend.

[Cassie]

Well, thank you.

[Mackenzie]

And a safe mom.

[Cassie]

Thanks for letting me share my story. I appreciate it.

[Hannah]

Can we say double dogfish?

[Mackenzie]

Double dogfish.

[Cassie]

What?

[Hannah]

Man.

[Cassie]

Wow.

[Hannah]

Oh, my gosh. I don't even know where to start. Okay, so this guy, first of all, this. This guy was really. They had a. He.

[Cassie]

He played.

[Hannah]

He got agreed and he. He was. He would. He got. Got in the end.

[Mackenzie]

Start there. Yeah. Let's start with the fact that this. We were just kind of talking about this before we hit record. So we have two dogfish. She is like a real sinister mastermind.

[Hannah]

Yes.

[Mackenzie]

He seems kind of like a vulnerable, dumb dude. And I'm not saying that either of them are better or worse, but, like, to me, I do think there's a possibility that he had significant depression and vulnerability after going through the miscarriage.

[Hannah]

Yeah.

[Mackenzie]

And I do think that makes sense.

[Hannah]

Like, I get it.

[Mackenzie]

Yeah. But I think this woman took full advantage of that and manipulated him. And like a narcissist can get other people to do their dirty work, to do anything. And obviously this is something she did all the time. Like, she was just a liar.

[Hannah]

She was a lying liar pants. Like she manipulated the bejesus out of this fella.

[Mackenzie]

Yeah. And he wasn't. I mean, that's not an excuse. Like, he's a grown up. But I do think it's interesting that she was just like fully different people for all of these people in her life, all of whom she was very close to.

[Hannah]

Yeah.

[Mackenzie]

Can you imagine?

[Hannah]

No.

[Mackenzie]

Being there for a friend when they're at their lowest and then going and sleeping with their husband.

[Hannah]

I just can't. Oh, man.

[Mackenzie]

So, yeah, I don't like it. That was a lot tacky.

[Hannah]

That's so tacky.

[Mackenzie]

It's tacky. It's ugly.

[Hannah]

It's just.

[Mackenzie]

Hot people don't do that.

[Cassie]

Hot people don't do that.

[Mackenzie]

They don't. Sorry. They don't. Hot people don't do that. Okay. Yeah, you're right. There's a lot. Okay. So religious trauma. I do, you know, this comes up a lot. And we do want to make it clear. Like, I think there can be abusive dynamics in anything. Like, you could make any group culty and abusive.

[Hannah]

Yes.

[Mackenzie]

We're not saying that just because you're religious or even Mormon like, that. This is your experience. And people have wonderful, diverse experiences in these different groups. They lend themselves to the possibility of being used for manipulation and control, and that's where you have to be on your guard. And when you're so young, that's what breaks my heart, is that you grow up in that or you're in a community that doesn't allow you to explore anything else, and that's when you end up in a relationship like this. What do you think about that?

[Hannah]

The religious thing is hard because, like, you. You know. You know you're wrong. Like. Like with him doing the. The cheating and everything. But with the religious thing, I do think it can be manipulative. And so I think that that could be why he was in a position that he was in. To even go there was because of that, like, manipulation almost. Maybe. I don't know.

[Mackenzie]

Sure. Well, I also think there's a lot of, like, patriarchal dynamics passed on in religion that make it so a woman is criticized for doing things that a man is not. So, like cheating, for example. Yes. Of course, a lot of religions are like, don't do that. But there are bigger consequences in many cases for women than there are for the husband. Well, and also, like, the woman tempted the man. Like, it's the man. It's the woman's job not to be tempting men. And it's, like, acceptable for them to have that behavior in a lot of ways.

[Hannah]

Yeah. And in this particular case. Well, in. In the. Just like in the church, she was talking about how they, you know, the woman is supposed to serve the man. And so I wonder if that makes them feel like they can get away with it or they deserve to. To, like, they're. It's okay if they act this way.

[Mackenzie]

Well, I just assume that this Allison could have used any bit of that and twisted it in just the right way to make him think that he's actually the good guy in the situation.

[Hannah]

Yeah, for sure.

[Mackenzie]

And Also, she's telling him. She's like, your wife hates you. Like, she was lying to him. Ugh. And then. Okay, okay. She manipulated the chat room stuff and the anorexia. And I was so. I'm bummed because I also was, like, excited to talk about this experience with OCD and anorexia. I was like, oh, okay, we're getting some representation of OCD that isn't the stereotypical, like, cleaning stereotype. Like, that's so important for people to know. And, okay, she's talking about supporting her friend, and then I find out that I can't trust anything Allison's ever said or done.

[Hannah]

Never. Not even once.

[Mackenzie]

She was helping people be anorexic.

[Hannah]

It's like, can you even imagine the enabling of that? That's like, there's a group of people who do this for one another. It's wild.

[Mackenzie]

Well, I. I do understand. Like, I know that when you're going. And I don't. You know, we're not experts. I have some experience with some eating stuff. I know that there's a mindset of wanting the validation and that you go to other people to get that validation, and it's like, if somebody's like, oh, my God, you look sick. Like, that's a good thing to hear when you're in the midst of it, and it sucks. And she took advantage of that in such an odd way. I actually would love to talk to Andrea Dunlop about it, because I don't think it's Munchausen's, because I do think it's. I don't know. I mean, I think she's in it for sympathy and attention, of course. And also Munchausen, people are actually making themselves have those symptoms or making someone else have those symptoms. And I don't know if she was. But there's something about living the life of somebody who needs sympathy and attention and then also, like, having control over other people in a way that hurts them, that I just can't get my head around.

[Hannah]

And I feel that.

[Mackenzie]

I feel that it's really dangerous and really sad in early Internet days, too. Like, she was catfishing. An eating disorder.

[Hannah]

Oh, yeah. Okay.

[Mackenzie]

Chat phishing.

[Hannah]

I like the word chat. Fishing. No, you're not. But it's true. Like, that. It's. I mean, it ain't not true.

[Mackenzie]

There's so much here. The animal stuff. Oh, my God, girl. How do we get him in jail for doing. Like, you shouldn't be allowed to do that.

[Hannah]

Murdering animals is leaving them a definite red flag, like, and, well, even if he did step on a cat on accident, like the fact that he said that, oh, I'll kill a cat.

[Mackenzie]

Feel anything?

[Hannah]

Like, what's wrong with you?

[Mackenzie]

Yeah, you're right. That, like going back to my initial thought that he's just kind of a dumb guy that was easily manipulated. That is also a personality thing that.

[Hannah]

He needs to get help for a hundred percent.

[Mackenzie]

Like, it's so scary. They're innocent to her. Like, about her experience. Enough about them. More about her. She's awesome. She had a savior complex, which we can relate to.

[Hannah]

Oh, I can. You all know, so many of you all can relate to that. I know I can personally.

[Mackenzie]

And I love the way she talked about, like, she got married in a sense as a way to get out of her unstable childhood.

[Hannah]

Yes.

[Mackenzie]

And find stability, even if it wasn't somebody she was like wildly attracted to. And I think that's tricky because it sounded like it made a lot of sense. And then the fact that she just blamed herself so much at certain points, like especially after the miscarriage where she said, I'm not fun anymore, so no wonder he doesn't want to.

[Hannah]

Well, she said that she experienced four to six months of the horror of the hormones. And I don't.

[Cassie]

It was.

[Hannah]

It's just a lot, like, that's a lot.

[Mackenzie]

It's terrible. And it makes me sad when people don't have support in their partner.

[Hannah]

The whole miscarriage thing really hit my heart heavily. And that's a hard thing to go through. And this is somebody that you've experienced that with. And you would think that you could count on them going forward and you know, you know what I mean? Like, you would think this is, like, this is something we did together and like it brings you closer, but just to be betrayed, it kind of brings back the miscarriage even harder, I would think.

[Mackenzie]

And your self worth, I mean, already when you're cheated on with your best friend and your husband, I imagine your self worth is already in the sewer.

[Hannah]

And then after that you feel stupid.

[Mackenzie]

She was 23.

[Hannah]

21.

[Cassie]

Yeah.

[Hannah]

Young. She was 23 by the time she got divorced.

[Mackenzie]

I know we always say, like, wait, take your time. That's a big way to protect yourself and not get into these relationships. I will say the one good thing about this is that she was out and long gone by 24. With plenty of life in front of.

[Hannah]

Time to move on. Yep. Like, she has time to move on.

[Mackenzie]

If you're going to get married early and it's not going to work, just get in, get Out.

[Hannah]

Yep.

[Mackenzie]

Oh, my goodness. And then he. Oh, my God. The cave where she was, like, putting her boundaries aside.

[Hannah]

That. Sorry. But no, no, it made me think.

[Mackenzie]

About myself, because I absolutely have. Not in the same way, but, like, I've put myself in anxious situations where I'm like, well, I have to do this because I want to seem fun, or I want my partner to think I'm fun. And it's like, if you have a boundary, your partner should be the person that you can talk to about that.

[Hannah]

Yeah. If you're fun, but they know that they can manipulate you now, then that's not a great place to be in.

[Mackenzie]

Everyone, keep your. Write down your boundaries, outline them for you. I also think people should do this before, like, first dates and dates, like, have their boundaries written out where they're like, okay, I'm gonna stay for three hours, and that's it.

[Hannah]

Oh, yeah.

[Mackenzie]

You know what I mean? And go into it so you don't have to make the decision when you get there, like, should I go home or not? Like, you've already made it for yourself.

[Hannah]

No, I like that a lot. No, I like that.

[Mackenzie]

You know, there's different kinds of cheating. She said there's a book called why Good People Cheat that I'm interested in.

[Hannah]

I know. Like, it's so easy to say, nope, you do that and you're bad. Bad, bad, bad, bad. And I don't know. I don't think that's. I don't think that's really true, Probably.

[Mackenzie]

It sounded to me like she needed to feel something for somebody else in order to realize that what was happening was really as bad as she thought her gut was telling her.

[Hannah]

Yeah.

[Mackenzie]

And, you know, I would rather somebody be able to end a relationship before they're with someone else, but that's not how it always is. And you shouldn't have to punish yourself forever.

[Hannah]

No, I. I mean, for being human. No. Everybody does things that they regret at some point.

[Mackenzie]

And. Yeah, I genuinely do think there's a huge difference between having an affair and then, like, having one incident and then ending the relationship immediately.

[Hannah]

Yeah, that's true, too. It's just a matter of, like, oh, is this. There's just a. There's a lot to it. You know, there's. It's very. It's very nuanced. But I'm really grateful for her for sharing, and I just know so many people are going to relate to what she said. So if you guys have a story you want to share with us, we want to be a voice for you, a platform for you, give you an ear. You can email us. Our email address is investigatedatingdetectivespodcast.com Send us your story and put something fun in the cap. In the. In the.

[Cassie]

What's it called?

[Hannah]

The subject.

[Mackenzie]

Subject. Yeah. Something explaining kind of what your story is about. Like this one could be dogfished. When my husband had a relationship with my best friend, Apple. Dog.

[Hannah]

Dog, Fish. Yeah. So send it to us. And, you know, we'd love to try and be a platform for you. So.

[Mackenzie]

Yeah, we just want to make it a place where you can learn from other people's experience and support them and feel less alone in your own experience. That's literally all we're trying to do. And there's always more to talk about. Like, that. We don't have the answers necessarily. We just want to talk. Yeah, we just want to talk about it because that makes a difference in itself. So thank you for being there.

[Hannah]

Definitely. Join the Patreon. There's always a greater conversation. There's like the updates and more conversations are had on the Patreon and also on the social media. So keep the conversation going on social media. We love to hear from you guys.

[Mackenzie]

Well, I love hearing from you, mackenzie. Seamless transition.

[Hannah]

Very seamless. We love you guys so much. Thank you again for listening. And as, as always, trust your intuition.