S19 E7: (2/3) [Sarah] Run Girl Run
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♪ You think you know me, you don't know me ♪ ♪ But it's ♪ Doug was dropping me off at my 10-year high school reunion. For the night, he was pulled up on the curb, giving me a hug goodbye, and this woman spots him from across the street. She bolts across the street, runs in front of traffic. It was the craziest thing I've ever seen. And it was very friendly, almost jumps into his arms. He talks to her, does not introduce us.

I am about to go into my high school reunion, so I do not even have time to get into it. He admitted, fine.

finally, that that was a woman that he cheated on me with. All those months back in December, that was the woman in the video. I was really surprised that he confessed, but it was immediately like, I'm telling you now because I love you. I want us to make this work. And I was just really stupid in the beginning. I messed up and I would never do that again. Right after that, he was like, okay, well, let's plan another trip. It

It was the pattern now. We were kind of adventure junkies, and so his assignments were our opportunity to get away and see new things. February of 2017, Doug is back in St. Louis, Missouri for another travel assignment.

Being February, St. Louis, they have a nice Mardi Gras celebration every year with a parade and a pub-grawling experience and all of that. So we planned my first visit around this Mardi Gras time of year. Looking back now, it's funny because we never did anything with Doug's friends. And actually, I don't know if he had any solid friends. So we were always planning things around my friends. And we were planning to take this trip around my friends.

It was a coincidence because we were going on the trip and the girl from Oklahoma, the tender date from Oklahoma that he took to that wedding was also going. So we had made it a whole weekend. We were going to meet up with her and do this whole experience with her. But she was going to stay with some of her friends there. When Doug and I got to St. Louis, we had an Airbnb. I'm sure I paid for it because I think I paid for all the Airbnbs.

But right away, he was on his phone. He was sitting on the other side of the room. He wasn't being very warm. And he just kept looking at his phone. And that always made me feel self-conscious because of everything that had happened up to this point. But it was giving me that gut-ick feeling in my stomach.

So, knowing that our friend from Oklahoma, who is a single lady who also on Tinder, I immediately text her and I was like, hey, I want you to do something for me. Can you get on your Tinder, set your location for like where we are, and then start swiping as fast as possible through the options? Like, obviously don't give up a good swipe, but...

See if you can find Doug. And she's like, oh, I'm on it right away. Because at this point, we had talked enough to decide that he was probably up to no good and maybe not completely honest. We were going to see if he was on Tinder. And that's why he could not get his nose out of his phone since we landed in St. Louis.

We went and had a nice dinner. It was good. Went to bed, got up for breakfast before this Mardi Gras parade. And we're sitting at breakfast in a restaurant when this girl texts me and she's like, I'm so sorry. And she sends me screenshots of his entire Tinder profile where he's like, I'm in St. Louis trying to meet new people. Very actively trying to meet new people in St. Louis. We're sitting at breakfast. It's very awkward. I'm like, I'm so sorry.

I'm the kind of person that when something's wrong, it's going to show all over my face. I'm not good at hiding my emotions. And so my face just fell. It turned bright red and he looked up and was just like, what's going on? And I turned my phone around and I was like, what is this? What are you doing? I don't think he even tried to backtrack. He gets this dead stare in his eyes that now I've seen a couple of times.

And immediately goes to his phone and starts texting this girl, our mutual friend now. And the things that he was texting her, she sent me some screenshots of that as well. It was the worst vitriol that you can even think of. It was, you stupid bitch, what are you doing? You're trying to take my happiness away. Blame, blame, blame. It's all her fault somehow that he's been caught.

telling me she's jealous, she wants to be with me, why would she do this? Now, he didn't know, of course, that I had asked her to do this, but I couldn't even get a word in edgewise because he was just going off.

It was getting a little dangerous. Like, I'm going to find you and you're going to pay for this kind of threatening text messages. And it got so bad that she finally had to block him. She was like, I'm sorry, but I can't do this. Obviously, I'm not going to meet up with you guys. He's scaring me. After he came after her, she was like, honestly, I think that he's trouble and you should run.

He was mad because he was caught. He wasn't mad at anything else except for that he had been caught and I don't think he had any good excuse out of this one. His excuse was that he had forgotten to turn off his Tinder profile. That that was active from the last time that he was in St. Louis and that he had forgotten to make it inactive. That he deleted the app from his phone, but he didn't delete his account.

I knew that that wasn't true. But then he went into like punish mode and he's like, I don't think I want to hang out today. We don't need to be together. I'm just going to go hang out with a friend that I know in St. Louis. You can go meet up with your friend and do the parade. And he knew that that would probably work on me because I knew that that was probably code for I'm going to go meet up with one of these tender people.

I should have, but I could not let him go. I was just like, no, no, I believe you. I'm sure it was right. I don't want to ruin our weekend. I'm pretty sure I apologized again for everything. I swept it all under the rug and let him get away with it. I mean, that's kind of the theme for most of these stories is him getting caught in situations and then me forgiving him and make

making excuses because it's never his fault. When he was good and he was love bombing me, it was over the top love bombing. It was, you are perfect. You're the woman of my dreams. I think with him being on the road all the time, he always had time to record himself doing loving things like singing songs. I'm sure he was sending them to everyone that he met on the road.

But when you're, again, come from a codependency background and you have very little self-esteem, I latched on to the good and every good lifted me up more than the bad brought me down. And so I did. I made excuses for him just as much as he made excuses for him. Being a single mom, I didn't want to start again.

I had already not been with my daughter's father and here was this new man. She was young and I don't even think she had spent much time with him at this point, if any time at all, actually. But I didn't want to have to start again. The idea of starting again felt so scary to me that it was like,

okay, well, he's telling me that he thinks that he loves me and that he wants to be a better man for me. So maybe if I keep in on this and I keep trying my hardest and I keep being the best possible version of myself that I can be, that I will help him see that I'm the one for him. I continue to lie to myself and say, okay, even if he was on Tinder, I mean, he's here with me. And so that says something.

You want to believe people can change. I do think it's really important to underscore and something that we maybe haven't highlighted enough on the podcast, which is the belief that most humans have that people can change and do better if they want to. Right. So we're continually banking on them telling us the truth when they're saying that they desire to do better. How did the rest of that weekend go?

Oh, I mean, he was like the most loving boyfriend of all time. After that, he was fully focused on me. It was the complete opposite end of the spectrum. He was perfect boyfriend. After that day, I had to turn around and go home on Sunday. And he stayed. He stayed in St. Louis. So who knows where he went after that. But the rest of the weekend was perfect. It was a dream.

I've always played soccer like it's my football. It's my favorite sport. I've been a lifelong lover of the game and I have always played. From the time we started dating, I was always trying to find a way to get him to come to my games. It was a big deal. I played two or three games a week and I was super competitive. I wanted him to see me in action because on the field is one place that I actually felt I had confidence and I felt really good about myself. And I wanted him to see that side of me.

He finally, in March, decided to come to a game. It was co-ed soccer, so I was playing with some pretty rough-and-tumble guys out there who liked to pretend that we were playing in the World Cup. A guy tackles me into the wall and my knee dislocates, and it was gruesome.

Like my knees on the side of my leg and I'm laying on the ground screaming. Everybody's surrounding me and Doug, being an ER trauma nurse, just hops into action. He's got his little medic bag on, runs down. He's like, I'm going to take care of you, stop.

super boyfriend, right? And he's just showing off though. He's being like so loud and wanting everyone to see what a good superhero he is. And it's just very cheesy. I have this picture that someone took of me, which is really sad. I'm sitting there crying my eyes out because I'm in so much pain. And he's smiling at the camera, holding my leg in his hand.

He got to be of use and be the hero in that situation, but definitely did not care that I was sitting there screaming in pain. So he gets into action. We get to the hospital and it's a whole ordeal. We could talk for an hour, Tiffany, about the male chauvinism that I experienced the night of this ER trip. Basically, I was there for several hours while they tried to get my knee back in place. They do end up giving me ketamine.

I didn't like it because you're like still in your mind, but you're not feeling anything in your body. And so I didn't really know what was real and happening or what wasn't real. I'm sitting there in this state and I swear, I don't know if this is real or not, but I hear him talking to the nurse, this female nurse in the room. She's a cute nurse. And the whole time he's talking to her and flirting with her while I'm sitting there. And the doctor said that when...

I was under, they had to give me multiple doses because my knee was so stuck and I'm like coming out of the bed screaming. And all I can hear in this state is him chatting up the nurse.

I have even more trouble. I had to wear a leg immobilizer, which gives me a blood clot. They tell me to take some aspirin for the blood clot. And then the blood clot shoots up into my lung and I had a stroke. So this whole month, Doug gets to be like super ER boyfriend Doug and be at my rescue. I think for that reason, he was great. I

I needed him to be there and he was by my side the whole time. Was he flirting with nurses while I was under? Maybe, probably. But he stayed by my bed. I had to stay in the hospital for a week because of that stroke. He was laying in bed with me and just telling me how much he loved me and how he could have lost me. Because it's pretty serious to have a pulmonary embolism. I was 27 at the time. A lot of people don't make it out of that, I guess.

He was like, you're the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with. This whole event for him was mind altering and life changing because he could have lost me. But he realized through it all what he had. I really felt the love and he was not on his phone as much. Maybe it did make him turn a corner a little bit. But he was definitely a different version of Doug that I had not seen this super caring boyfriend side.

This is about the time that I started letting him come around my child more. She was honestly so young that I never left her alone with him ever. He was saying all the right things and making me feel very loved. We're turning a corner. I've had to go through this traumatic experience, but he's finally realized we could have something good here. The following months after that event were pretty great.

I used to be shamelessly a Dave Matthews fan, so I followed Dave Matthews around the country. We did a festival in May and then went to see Dave Matthews in Chicago in June. And we were genuinely being a real couple and he was actually showing me attention. I had very little complaints. He was always taking pictures of himself and putting them on social media.

I don't think that he'll ever not be able to do that, but that was the most of my complaints is how much he needed attention on social media. In July, we celebrated my daughter's birthday and he was great. He was very involved. He helped me plan the party. He was involved on the day, helping her cut her cake, and it definitely seemed like he had changed.

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However, we started seeing some of the old patterns creep back in in July after my daughter's birthday. It is my birthday. I had, again, another shamelessly embarrassing thing to admit, but he had talked me into a breast augmentation. He mentioned to me all the time, especially when we first started dating, how much he loves big breasts. And I had no boobs. No boobs at all.

Even after my child, I went from a double A to a triple A. I like lost boob size. And so it made me feel self-conscious. And he had talked me into, he's like, oh, I think it would really help your self-esteem if you did this. He wanted a girlfriend with big boobs. So he had talked me into it. And that's what I gave myself for my birthday that year.

I look back and it was one of the worst decisions I ever made because now I have chronic back problems. I used to be a super athlete playing soccer and I love to run and now my back just hurts all the time. I wish I would have never done it but I let him talk me into that and he took care of me and was super happy that I did it. Very proud to have a girlfriend with big boobs but

But for my actual birthday, we planned a really nice dinner out with some of my friends and my family. Doug was out of town for work right before that, but he was coming back in for this dinner. And he said before he could come that he was going to stop off for a band practice.

I could not tell you what band this was. I think that he and his old bandmates would get together and jam sometimes. I never even got to hear them play. And I don't think they ever had a show. But he wanted to stop and do that before he could come to my birthday dinner. I was like, okay, try not to be late. My parents watched my daughter that night.

We made it through the entire dinner and Doug never showed up for my birthday. We had gone out to downtown Springfield afterwards so that I could keep having some fun with my friends. And he finally showed up. It was midnight by the time that he showed up. I was visibly annoyed because he had missed the entire event. It made him mad that I was annoyed and brought it up.

This is the start of when he really started accusing me of drinking too much or being a drunk. He knew with my history with my parents that it was something I was very self-conscious about. I like to go out and have fun. I was young, so I've had times of partying like a lot of young kids do, but I was also level-headed about it. I've partied as

especially before my daughter was born. I was a bartender for a while and I've worked in a lot of restaurants. And so I was in that scene. But once my daughter was in the picture, I'm conscious about, I never want to be holding to any kind of substance that has a control over my life. And it's something that I take very seriously. And it's something that scares me because I was affected by that as a kid. And I never would want to do that to my own child. It's something I think about a lot. And I'm very cognizant about it.

That night is when we really start seeing that play a big picture in our relationship. This punishing me by trying to paint me as a drunk. That was just his favorite thing to throw back at me anytime that I would show annoyance or ask him any kind of question like, "What took you so long? Where were you?" And it was immediately like, "Oh, are you drunk? Oh, have you been drinking too much?"

his way of throwing it back on me and making me feel self-conscious about how I'm behaving in public. I do have at least one recording of me approaching him about a subject and

And him calling me out on being drunk. We got into a huge fight and then I recorded a note after it saying, I just want to, for the record, record that I am completely sober in this moment. It was almost like I was keeping tabs for myself so that I couldn't let him persuade me into thinking that I had a problem. I had like a running note app where...

where anytime I wanted to talk to him about something, I would write it in the note first because I wanted to have my take on it and my feelings down. I knew that the minute I brought it to him, he was going to gaslight. He was going to find a way to turn it around on me. And that was such a terrible feeling. You should never have to go into a conversation with anyone, but especially your partner, with a note app full of your talking points.

My very best friend in the whole world. She was living in Florida. We talked occasionally because she's my best friend. And it's one of those relationships where you can go months without talking and then you pick up right back where you are. And she's actually the one that ends up helping me find the confidence to get out of this relationship. But I didn't have her as someone to lean on every single day.

I had another friend that she was definitely my rock throughout this thing. She herself was in a pretty, I would consider it an abusive relationship.

And so it was almost like we were friends in the shit together. She would come over and like spend the night with me when I was upset. We were friends in misery together. We're seeing more normalization. Let's talk about how this isn't a normal way for men to treat women. But even back in 2017...

Especially again, let's bring it back to I lived in the Bible belt of the country. It's more normal to let men treat you that way and just grin and bear it than it is to stand up for yourself and walk away because your goal is to get married and have babies. It felt like a bonding experience.

So we're in August now. Our thing was traveling and seeing music. I'm a big Alt-J fan. And there was this Alt-J show in Kansas City that we traveled up to see. It was at a really great venue. And we were actually going to meet up with one of his old high school buddies and his wife, who I happen to play soccer with. So it was like small world as everything is in Springfield, Missouri. So we're super excited and sitting down, having a great time.

Doug gets up to go to the bathroom and I'm left sitting there with his buddy from high school and his wife. His wife might have gotten up to go to the bathroom too. But this guy turns to me, cold face, says, is he beating you yet? I was just like, okay, at this point, I've dealt with some verbal abuse and I've seen this man go from zero to 5,000 in anger.

So I know that he's got verbal abuse in there, but no, he's never laid a hand on me at this point. It took me aback. I kind of laughed it off a little bit. I was like, well, no way. You're like, you're joking. Because it came out of nowhere. It was almost like he was taking his opportunity. He was just like, yeah, he has a history of hitting women. He hit his ex-wife. I didn't know what to think.

Because I didn't want to approach him about it. We knew when I approached him about things, how that goes. And if I approached him, he was going to go nuclear. And I also didn't want to like lose this connection I had with the friend because I wanted to poke around some more for myself and figuring out some of the past. I was in shock, but I was like, okay, I need to know more. It was one of those things where this is so hard to explain and maybe you'll get it, but it's like,

When I find the nugget, when I find the thing, I'll finally leave. When I find cold hard proof for myself that he's cheating, then I will leave. I did eventually bring this case up with Doug. I was like, your friend...

brought this up and told me that you have a history. And Doug's excuse was that this guy had a crush on me. I have found similarities in a lot of the stories. I'm a day one listener. But when I listened to Jake Grafbra's season, I looked him up several times. I was like, this is Doug. Is this Doug? Did Doug change his name? And this is who it is.

After that, I don't remember the full story, but I remember receiving some kind of story that Doug was going to have to move out of his current apartment sometime soon. I'm pretty sure it was probably because he wasn't paying his bills. Because keep in mind, this giant Jeep that he had to have in his life was a money siphon and it was just taking up all of his money and he wasn't paying anything else. No child support. I don't know.

I don't think he was paying his apartment rent on time. His phone bill's nothing. So I'm pretty sure that they were kicking him out, but he was going to have to move out of his apartment. And he starts playing really cozy with me because he knew he could siphon off of me. And I did. I let him move in around September.

Immediately, it was a regret because he came in and started reorganizing my house and redecorating my house so that it fit his aesthetic. He came in and started taking over and making it his own, even though he was there very rarely. I didn't feel too...

scared to let him because he was basically keeping his stuff there since he was out on road assignments all the time and he would be there every other weekend but it wasn't going to be like we were on top of each other 24-7 so that felt more digestible

I had come down with a pretty bad bladder infection. I didn't think anything about it because I have a history of things like that. I started going through the normal treatment protocol, but this time the infection was so bad that it sent me into septic shock and I found myself back in the hospital for another week. 2017 was a terrible year for me and health issues.

But again, this sends Doug into being at my bedside, being really tentative, loving boyfriend and telling me how much he loves me because when you're in sepsis, you know, that's a pretty big deal. And he never wanted to lose me on and on and on love bombing. I don't know if this man can feel guilt, but maybe there was some of that.

These kinds of things are just further that gut feeling that I was getting was getting stronger and stronger and stronger to where I really wasn't trusting anything that he was ever saying. But he lived with me. So it was like, when is he finding time? It was just, again, making excuses for him, but also always living with that gut feeling of knowing this isn't right. Something's going on. You know, something's going on.

but not being able to ever catch him with cold, hard, concrete evidence that something was going on.

Living through that, also living through childhood trauma, PTSD is serious. And the way that it sends your body into constant fight or flight and the cortisol that builds up. I now have autoimmune issues, which I am convinced were caused by this experience in my life because I was always in fight or flight mode with him. Always.

Always had to be on guard, always had to be able to give my case or be the perfect girlfriend. I was constantly living on the edge and I think that my body was definitely exhausted.

from all of this. And I'm still facing some consequences from all of that. This is September of 2017. After the 2016 election and all of Trump and the Me Too movement, this is really about the time when you start seeing more and more women coming forward with their Me Too stories. And we're really seeing conversations about what is gaslighting? What is dating a narcissist? It

If you have to Google 10 signs you're dating a narcissist, then you're probably dating a narcissist. Well, I had come across one of those on Instagram or Facebook that was 10 signs you're dating a narcissist. And I was particularly moved by number 10. And so I'm going to read it because it hit me to the core. And this is exactly what it was like to date Doug. They rage a lot. We're not talking about a little tantrum here and there, but full blown rage.

burn the proverbial house down rages that often include seriously hurtful comments meant to demean, degrade,

and devalue whomever they've decided has criticized them. And make no mistake, everything can be seen as a criticism, including being told they've hurt you. You think you're sharing information to build a better relationship, whereas they think you're deceiving them. When you tell a narcissist that you're hurt or have any point, really, they won't concede or agree with you, even if you're right. Instead, they'll assume you're trying to get one over on them. They are in fact criticizing

perfect and superior. So the very idea that they would do anything wrong such as hurt someone else is unfathomable to them. I saved it down in my camera roll. That was the moment that was like, damn, I am dating a narcissist.

There's no ifs, ands, or buts. I knew that was the description of Doug to a T. Around that time, Doug was telling me that he loved me and that we were going to spend the rest of our lives together and he was living in my house. I suggested, if we're going to make this work,

We need to learn how to communicate. When more women were starting to talk about gaslighting and dating narcissists, it was also helping me build up a little bit of my case of like, okay, maybe I'm not crazy. I'm not making these feelings up in my head. Other women are experiencing this too. I suggested we go to a couples counselor and he had already been seeing a counselor through a church, which I would not normally...

say that's a great idea, but this counselor was $35 for a session. And that is impossible to say no to because therapy is so expensive. I don't think I've ever heard of a counselor charging $35 per session. Doug eventually wore down. He's like, okay, yep, let's do this. A couple of times I brought up like in the first sessions, you know, I'm concerned that I'm dating a narcissist. And this guy was

was a quack. I guarantee he was not a real therapist because he was like, well, that's a serious allegation. You can't call someone a narcissist, which it is, but he was very good at also making Doug feel like there was nothing wrong with him. It was definitely not helpful to our relationship at all that we were going to see this guy, but it felt better than nothing. So we did that a couple of times. We're not even married. We've been dating for

For how many months at this time and we're already seeing a couples therapist like run run girl run.

I'm Dan Taberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at the high school in Leroy, New York. I was like at my locker and she came up to me and she was like stuttering super bad. I'm like, stop f***ing around. She's like, I can't. A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms, and spreading fast. It's like doubling and tripling and it's all these girls. With a diagnosis, the state tried to keep on the down low. Everybody thought I was holding something back. Well, you were holding something back intentionally. Yeah, yeah, well, yeah. Yeah.

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October 17th, Doug and I had gone out to dinner with a couple of friends. We weren't drunk. We had maybe like one or two drinks, but one drink was enough for me to feel a little brave. And while we were out, Doug ran into a group of girls that he knew. He left me to go talk to them. Didn't try to introduce me. Didn't bring them over so we could meet. Nothing. He just left me and probably was there for a good 10 minutes schmoozing with these girls. Left me at the table with our friends.

Maybe some people are secure in that. But at that point in our relationship, it really hurt my feelings. It felt very rude. I definitely would expect my boyfriend to introduce me to a group of girls he's talking to at a bar that he knows while I'm there with him. Yeah. And so we get back home. This is the conversation I was telling you about that I recorded.

because I knew it wasn't going to go anywhere great. But I gathered my composure and I pressed record on my phone and I walked out and calmly, I just wanted to discuss with him why it hurt me. And I wanted him to understand why leaving me to go talk to these girls for like 10 minutes and not introducing us, how that made me feel.

And immediately he was just like, you're too drunk. We can't talk about this tonight. I have the recording. It's triggering. But I kept my composure and I was just like, I just want us to be able to communicate. I want you to understand how I'm feeling in these situations. We've been doing this therapy and we need to learn how to communicate.

And it was just, I'm tired of communicating about this with you. I don't want to talk about this. This is all we ever talk about, even though we never talked about it. Because if I bring things up like this, it was always the same. He would get mad and tell me he was tired of talking about it and that he didn't want to talk about it.

I'm starting to build up some strength. I didn't back down. And I think about six minutes into the conversation, he starts hitting himself in the head. He freaks out. He's hitting himself in the head over and over again. He's like, I have to leave. I can't do this and makes a huge spectacle and walks out the door.

It shows me just trying to have a calm conversation. He could not handle it. And he left to the point where he had nowhere to go. He was living with me at that point. He's really starting to show his rage. He can't even keep it in. So he starts hitting himself and runs out the door.

I recorded another note saying like, for the record, I am not drunk. I'm completely sober, which is sad that I had to make that note in my defense. But I didn't know if I'd have to use it because the amount of times he brought out me having a drinking problem and me having a small child, like I didn't know if he'd ever try to use that against me in any way. I was scared about it a little bit. I wanted to always make sure I had evidence against that. It was his way of flipping it on you constantly.

Exactly. Exactly. He was hitting his head. And then I had gone back into the room and we were definitely brawling at this point. We were fighting because he kept telling me I was drunk and didn't want to drop it. I wasn't going to drop it because I was tired of not talking about the issues. And he got so mad that he turned around and threw me up against the wall. And he was pinning me to the wall by my throat. He like scared himself almost and ran out the door.

Because he had this response to being angry at me. That is something I had told my friends of the church about. Because I had never had anyone put their hands on me like that. It was very shocking. And my first instinct, of course, was to record the message saying I wasn't drunk. But there were no children present.

I started getting independence and making these friends. I didn't care if he was with me for these things. He needs to be needed. He needed me to only want to be with him. If I was having fun without him, he sometimes would call and just keep me on the phone. So like I couldn't enjoy being around my friends. There was one time that it got so bad that...

that my friends took me to their house because they were like, we don't even want you to be alone tonight. They didn't feel safe even leaving me by myself because he kept calling. And if I didn't pick up the phone, he would call again and leave me voicemails where he was just screaming at me, calling me names. I was an ungrateful bitch. Anything you can think of because...

because I wasn't at his beck and call. It was never his fault. I'm seeing his aggression come out. It's very triggering. I'm sorry. There should probably be a trigger warning here.

Towards the beginning of him living in my home, he had a dog. I talked about how when he was living downtown, he liked to walk his dog downtown. And she's a beautiful pit bull mix. She's a beautiful dog, but pit bulls notoriously have a reputation for being a bit aggressive. She was none of that. But she was playing around with his youngest son in my house and kind of nipped at his head.

His son started crying a little bit and Doug turned on this dog and started swinging, beating this dog. And the dog was yelping. He's just repeatedly hitting the dog over and over again until he drew blood on the dog. The dog finally crawls away into her kennel and he just sits on the ground and cries.

And he was just crying because he, I don't know. I don't know why he was crying, but it was his dog. And he did that because it nipped at his son. But it was just like a playful nip. And was this in front of children? Yeah. His son saw all of it. What was your response? I think I blocked it out. I don't even remember. I think I took his son out of the room. I went into like, this is very traumatizing for this little boy mode. Totally.

Took him out of the room and tried to get his mind off the situation. But yeah, definitely should have run at that. Did he address it with you afterwards after the crying stopped? He didn't. He sat in that room for hours and just cried and was talking to the dog. And he's like, I'm so sorry and wouldn't leave the dog's side after that.

I don't think I knew how to address the subject. I didn't have the tools in my tool belt to know how to have that conversation. And I rightfully, I was probably a little scared because I had never, ever seen anyone do that. And then also is one of the elements in this that you would have stuff like this happen and then he's on the road for a week or two or whatever.

Exactly. Every other weekend, maybe. Well, and a lot of times I would get like, let's not talk about the negative now. I have to leave tomorrow. Let's focus on the positive. Let's focus on our love. Let's focus on all the good.

So now we're like getting into December. I feel it's important to say around this time, I had some friends pop back into my life. I had my very best friend that was in Florida and then my friend in the shit who we were going through it together. But I didn't have a lot of other really good friends because I think that's what...

The best abusers do is get you alone without your group. But I did have some old friends from high school pop back into my life randomly. And they were connected to this non-denominational church in Springfield. He was the son of the pastor and she sang in the choir. She had the most beautiful angelic voice you've ever heard in your life. And I'm not a big...

church person, but this place was very much about positive vibes. You go and you sit with other people who want to talk about love and loving your community and loving one another. This is what religion was supposed to be about, is all this love. And you can call it divine intervention. You

I loved the feeling of being around that. And I loved the feeling that I got around these friends. They were always lifting me up. They were always telling me like, "Oh, Sarah, you're such a good mom." They showed me things that I didn't see in myself. And it was such a positive experience. I would go every Sunday just to listen to my friends sing and be in this environment. Doug joined me a couple times because he usually went to his big mega church.

He did go with me a couple times and the whole time he just really wanted to figure out a way to get on stage. He kept asking if he could host the music hour or like do the announcements in the morning. Like that's all he really cared about is how can I be seen? Like on his first visit? Yes. Like can I play in the band? I play all these instruments. It was always finding a way to center himself in the situation. Okay.

But it gave these friends a very clear picture of who this guy was. And because of who they were, I think they even embraced me more. It was just like, okay, we need to like pull Sarah in. Looking back now, it was to give me some strength to eventually be able to walk away because they were such a strong support. It came at the perfect time because I really needed that support.

That following December, there's an event that happens every year in Springfield. It's called Imagine, and it's a huge Beatles tribute show. And so I was going, and these friends from the church went with me. I rounded up a few of my other friends, and my best friend was coming in from Florida, and she went with me as well.

Ironic enough, the proceeds from this show go to domestic abuse. We got really dressed up. They made a whole event. Doug, I think, had told me that he didn't know if he could make it, but I was really excited.

Because Doug was living with me, he had seen we got so dressed up. I came out and I looked good. And then he decided that he wanted to join us for this event because he didn't want me to go without him. So we're there enjoying the show. And my friend that was in Florida, she knew enough. I told her about the shit. Obviously, you tell your best friend everything. But I also didn't tell her everything.

everything because I didn't want her to be disappointed in me. But she knew enough to know she already hated him. She had had a few cocktails that night. She found out that Doug had put his hands on me. That was one of those things that I hadn't told her about, but my friends from the church had known about it. They were definitely concerned about

They told her and she came unglued when she found that out. She just let him have it. She dug into him and called him abuser. Like at the top of her lungs, she was screaming at him at this event, telling him what a piece of shit he was. And I don't remember, but it was great. It was like all the things that, you know, you always want to say, but I never had the strength to say.

It was enough that he finally took off. He obviously didn't want to be in that environment anymore. And this is the first time that I did not run after him. It was a big turning point to watch her stand up for me in that way and hear her say those things.

I was like, I'm going to stay. I'm not going to chase him this time. She's right. After spending time with these people who had been building me up, like I was finally starting to get some strength to say no and not to do everything that he wanted me to do.

It was amazing and it absolutely pumped me up. It gave me strength. They helped me see. And it's sad that you have to get validation from other people. Those are things I've worked through, but it was something that I had never experienced. And to feel that for the first time was very empowering. Next time on Something Was Wrong. From that moment on, I started making moves. We need to figure out how to get you out of the house.

I wasn't having it. I blocked his phone number. So he started sending me emails because he couldn't text me. He would follow me to the gym and sit outside the gym. He would sit outside my house. If I went to go see a local band play, he would show up. He was everywhere that I went. Email after email, terrible, terrible things. But also, I think at this point, it was helping build my case because he was burying himself more.

Thank you so much for listening. Until next time, stay safe, friends.

Something Was Wrong is a Broken Cycle Media production created and hosted by me, Tiffany Reese. If you'd like to support the show further, you can share episodes with your loved ones, leave a positive review, or follow Something Was Wrong on Instagram at somethingwaswrongpodcast. Our theme song was composed by Glad Rags. Check out their album, Wonder Under. Thank you so much.

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