Transcript of Armchair Anonymous: Divorce II

Wndri Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join WNDRI Plus in the WNDRI app or on Apple podcast, or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcast. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dax Sheppard, joined by Lily Padman. Hello. Today's topic is a heavy one, but I loved it. It was such a wonderful perspective reset. I left going like, my God, People are going through some stuff.

They really are. Wow. There's a lot of angles. There's some twists and turns.

Yes. It's a phenomenal episode. Yes. Divorce. Divorce stories. Crazy divorce stories. So as much as one can, please enjoy Divorce.

Hello, I'm Jon Robbins, comedian and host of WNDRI's How Do You Cope podcast. I'm also, Plot Twist, an alcoholic. I've written a book, Thirst: 12 Drinks That Change My Life, published by Penguin. Thirst is a book about alcohol alcohol. It's mystery, it's terror, it's havoc, it's strange meditations. But, John, I hear you cry. Isn't that a rather odd book to write for a sober man who more than anything wants to stop thinking about alcohol? Well, yes, but I had to go back to find out why the one thing I know will kill me still calls out across the night. It's the story of what alcohol did for me and what alcohol did to me. If that's of interest to you or someone you know, Thirst, 12 Drinks That Change My Life is available to pre order now online and from all good bookshops. I'm Jon Robbins, and on my podcast, I sit down with incredible people to ask the very simple question, How do you cope? From confronting grief and mental health struggles to finding strength in failure. Every episode is a raw and honest exploration of what it means to be human. It's not always easy, but it's always real.

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Hi, you're Jane. I'm doing air quotes. Hi, how are you?

Good old fashioned Jane Doe.

I love it.

Classic.

What is this fun blanket behind you? Who are those people? I feel like I should recognize them. Blink 182.

Tom, Mark, and Travis.

If I had seen Travis, I would have been able to get it.

I was covering him the most, I think.

Sure. Well, you wanted to be closest, I'd imagine. Yeah. Now, we have a fake name for you. Are we allowed to say what region of the world you're in?

Yeah. So first of all, this is not my story. It is actually my parents.

Oh, great. Okay, that'll work.

We were in Texas I'm not going to go any more specific than that. I was 17. I was just starting my senior year of high school. I'm not going to give my age out either.

I'll tell the listener from looking at you, I would say you're in your mid-60s, just so they have a visual. For sure. Yeah. Okay, great.

I remember coming home from school. I was the first one, so I have an older, younger sibling, and it looked almost burglarized, but we were missing big furniture items, not just a TV, but armoires and dressers and coffee tables It was so strange. I investigated parents rooms, missing a lot of stuff, living room, dining room, kitchen, go upstairs in my room and my siblings. My siblings are relatively untouched. My room had clothes missing and some jewelry. What?

Dude, were you afraid that there was a burglar in the home at that moment?

No, because we had an alarm system. And I was the first one home, I had to disarm it to get in. So I wasn't suspicious of anything. So I make my phone, I call my mom because she doesn't work at the time, and it goes straight to voicemail. So I call my dad. My dad picks up after a couple of rings, and I said, We got a lot of stuff missing. Do you know what's going on? He said, Yeah, I do. I'm heading home right now. Sit down and just wait for me to be there. And at the time, he worked like an hour away. So he comes home and tells us, Hey, I was served divorce papers from your mother. I I don't know where she is. I don't know what's going on. She doesn't answer my brother's phone calls. I think I'm blocked at this point because I'm going straight to voice now. I don't know what I did.

Did you sense this was coming? Were you surprised to hear this or were you like, Yeah, they've been struggling? I was surprised.

Let me backtrack here. My dad's job is important in this matter. My whole life, he is military. He was active duty up until I was maybe six. So he settled down and went reserve. So he's still technically military. 9/11 and he went active duty. So he was doing tours out and about, not really home as much as he was. That took a toll. And there was a lot more free will because my dad wasn't home.

People were lonely. Yeah.

And so we get a visit from an estranged uncle of ours. And this uncle has been in and out of prison.

There's a reason we haven't met him. On your mom's side or your dad's side?

My dad's side. And this is prior to the divorce papers. And so we get strange visits from him, and he's like, Yeah, I'm your cool, fun uncle.

By the way, really quick, that's such a trope in TV shows, isn't it? Cool, fun, uncle comes. He's got some prison record.

Yeah, he's a convent.

And then we get a lot of story out of it.

This is high to Facebook as well. So we started doing investigating on Facebook. We started reaching out to people, seeing what's going on. Friends, she reached out to friends from our old town. Lots of random connections we're trying to make here.

Can I also ask, how old is she at this moment?

She's probably 47.

Okay. So all fours.

So we find out that she had moved to an area that we have our only one estranged uncle again living.

Oh, my God. Dad's brother. Oh, my. Dad's brother. I knew it was going to be bad when he showed up. Me, too. Yeah.

We found out she's living with him. Oh. Okay. And they're It's been a years long affair with my dad's brother. Find out he had warrants out in the rest for Texas. So we're bringing someone who's not very safe around our kids, and then they get married.

So she's not talking to you at all? That's a no.

There was an olive branch extended later on.

Before we get to the heartbreak, because this is heartbreaking. But I just want to say as a rule of thumb, if you have an affair and then you leave your spouse, you don't get the furniture. When dudes do this, they're like, Yeah, take the house. I fucked up.

Especially when you just up and leave.

Exactly.

Not just your spouse, but also your children. Yes.

Well, let's be clear, not to disparage, but they stole jewelry from their daughter.

Well, technically, it was gifted from my mother.

Repossessed. The jewelry she gave you, she took back. So this is the type of people we're dealing with. So I'm not surprised they took the furniture.

Yeah. I just wanted to do a PSA, which is if you do just walk out on your family, you don't get anything. That's just part of the deal. Probably leave this stuff.

So they got a moving truck to get this armoire. I mean, this is crazy.

You guys went to school and they got going right away.

Yeah, it was a plan. Yeah.

And I always joked my Jerry Springer story, RIP.

Yeah.

They are no longer married. I will say that. At that point, my mom was my step-aunt, and my uncle was my stepdad.

Wow. That is so weird. But they didn't come around when they were- No.

Was it your dad's older or younger brother?

Younger. By a good, almost two decades. Oh, wow.

Did your dad have any fantasies of going and beating the shit out of him or anything?

I'm sure. I mean, military background.

Yeah. I'm sorry. This is not nice.

I forgive and forget. Honestly, I have a newborn son, and I want my kid to know both his families. Apologies have been made, and the legwork is there. It's just in the process.

Has she ever offered any explanation? Like, Yeah, I really lost my mind, or I was struggling It was a lot of pointing fingers, a lot of blame, not really accountability. Mom moved the furniture out while you were at school and got together with dad's brother.

I want to blame it on Perry menopause.

It doesn't sound like we can. I don't think it's that. I wanted to, too. That's why I asked her age. I don't think it's that. Then I said all fours, which is really- Yeah, you really put that. It's explicit at that point. Yeah.

You made it clear you thought it was perimenopause, but no.

Well, maybe all I could hope for you, how old your baby He's nine months. Hey, congratulations. Yeah, congrats.

Thank you.

Then two, I hope you have the moment I had, which led to an enormous amount of forgiveness of my father, which was like, Oh, I thought I was the victim my whole life. As soon as I had kids, I was like, Oh, no, no, no, no, versa.

Absolutely. Thanks. You all have a great one.

All right. Take care. Bye. Hi. I'm in quotes. This is Seth.

Yes, this is fake name Seth.

Let me just quickly ask, how do we come upon Seth as a fake name? I'm always curious. Is it a name you may have always wanted? In a way, yeah.

It's a name that I heard from where I come from, and a friend named his child, Seth. I was like, Oh, that's a cool name. I had it in my back pocket.

Okay, now I don't want to offend you, but I'm going to guess Irish. But again, I'm a little fearful you could also be Scottish. Are you either of those?

Close, like in the middle. I'm English. Where?

Oh, you're English. Okay.

Classic, standard.

I've been Americanized or Canadianized for the last 20 years.

So you have a little bit of a mesh.

Okay, so you have a divorce story?

I do, yeah. It's not one thing that happened on a day. It's a few stories that happened over the course of the last year. So my ex, we'll call her Karen.

That doesn't feel fair, but okay.

It may seem fair at the end.

Okay.

You can judge later. I separated from her last February, so a year and a half ago. To set the stage a little bit, about five years before we separated, she cheated on me with one guy at first, which I found out about after about a year. And then there was another two guys after that over the course of time. I stayed there for the kids to try to make it work, but we just argued too much. It didn't really work. Last year, I'd had enough. It was time to to separate. My job and my schedule keeps me away, so it was hard to leave her when I felt like I wanted to. I work 28 days away, 28 days at home. So I work for the Coast Guard in Canada. Oh, cool. Cool job. Now, in August last year, I had separated from her for six months at this point. I was living downstairs in the basement suite that was unfinished, but that's where I was sleeping down there. We'd play happy families when I was home, pretend to be a family, essentially for the kids benefit, but her and I were separated. And August last year, I was away on a trip.

I actually took us down off the California Coast for a research trip. We'd been arguing on and on for the whole trip. It was a week before I came home. I'd had enough mid-argument one time, I said, I just can't do this anymore. I want to divorce. This escalated. I finally got home. I told her, Yeah, I want a divorce. I want to move out. And she just started losing it. She can't contain her anger anymore. Like a red rag is to a bull. So she gets red mist and she just can't have any rational thought. She goes crazy and just starts lashing out, punching, kicking, physical attacks. So over the course of the first week after being home, she would, almost on a daily basis, after the kids have gone to bed, come down, argue, lash out, fight, try and hit me. I would try to restrain her so that she wasn't hurting me. But she's only 5'2, and she's really strong for her size. She's like a Tasmanian devil when she gets going. So really hard to stop her from hurting me. I don't want to hurt her. One particular night, I got away from her, closed the door to the basement suite, and she kicked the door in.

I just stood there and she ran towards me, jumped on me, legs around my waist, arms around my neck, and bit my ear. Oh my God. I sunk her teeth into my ear.

Mike Tyson style?

Yeah, Evander Holyfield.

Oh, Evander Holyfield? You're the Evander Holyfield. She's Mike Tyson.

I felt like that. That image went right through my brain at that point. But I tried to get her face away from mine. It felt like I was going to rip my ear off because she wasn't letting go. I put my finger in her mouth to try to force her teeth apart, and I managed to get her off me and to try to move her away from me. I got my bag, which was already packed at this point, threw it in my car and went upstairs. The kids were awake and I told the kids, My ear is bleeding. I'm sorry, kids. I don't want to argue with your mom anymore. I'm going to go stay at a friend's. I'll call you tomorrow. Everything will be okay. I left. And that was the last time that I lived with them.

Now, really quickly, did it ever cross your mind to call the police on her?

It did, but some of them are children. It's not fair for the kids to not have their mom there. She's actually a good mom. She's not like that with her kids. It's really just me. I didn't want to have her taken away and have a police report or her go into the system or have the kids taken away from us. It would be hard for me to go away to work. I would have to change everything to be able to be home. I ended up moving into a friend's place. Actually, that happened on my birthday when she bit my ear. Oh, happy birthday. Little side note, yeah. A few weeks after that, I'd been gradually gathering my stuff from her place. And we'd argued at one point when I had a car full of stuff, and I drove away, and she lost it again. She put everything out on the side of the road, spare tires for my car, a couch that I was going to have, a bunch of my study box from school, boxes of stuff, and just put a free sign on it. Oh, boy. I managed to get some stuff back, but she's just trying to find any way to hurt me.

But then her breaks went on her truck, so she needed to fix her breaks. Didn't want to pay for it. She acts all nice. I order the break parts. I go to her house. Oh, my God. I say, Okay, I'll fix your breaks, but you got to stay in the house or go somewhere else. And the kids are at her friend's house playing. So I got down there. I couldn't even undo the wheel nuts. And she was just in my ear arguing, fighting, trying to stay and help me with it, but she just needed to argue. She ended up throwing a tie around at her door on the truck. Just putting a big dent in that. I said, Okay, I can't do this. I'm out. Get in my car. She jumps onto the hood of my car, dents the wing, sits on the hood, and puts a dent in the hood as she's sat there shouting at me through the window. I'm filming her, telling her to get off. She takes a minute, but eventually gets off and starts hiking up the street to go to where the kids are playing. I give it a minute because I have to drive past her to get away.

It's one road out. I drive up there, she's in the middle of the road. She's just trying to block me. And it's like, Oh, no, what's she going to do? I have to swerve one way to make her sidestep, and I swerved the other way real quick and go around her, and she punches the back of my car, puts another dent in it, just running up the road, screaming at me. I was filming because this was happening. So this is documented. A couple of weeks after, we'd arranged to take the kids to a fair over in a neighboring town. We were going to meet the kids' friends, friends of hers. I said I would be there because I wanted to be there with the kids. The kids wanted me to be there. So I drove out to meet her. We met just outside of town in a little parking lot. I got there first. She arrived. She didn't want to bring her truck into the small car park where the I didn't really want her in my car because I didn't trust her.

I wouldn't want her either in my car. That seems reasonable.

Was she going to grab the wheel while I'm driving? She just hops in her truck after arguing with me, leaves me and the kids there and just drives away. Okay, kids, I guess we're going to the fair by ourselves. We start driving down the road to the fair. We're going down a bit of a winding road towards a bridge. She's coming the other way. There's other traffic on the road, too. She swerves right when she gets past the car in front of me onto my side of the road.

With her kids in your or car? Yeah.

I'm off the road, fully on the hard shoulder. The edge of the bridge is coming up, so the hard shoulder stops. So I have to swerve back onto the road real quick to get back. And it's like, what the heck are you doing? Just lost it. Get to the fair, park up, she arrives and just tries to play it off like nothing's happening. Next thing is I went to pick the kids up for the weekend. I'd moved into a place of my own by this point. Went to pick the kids up. She'd packed a bunch of their stuff, toys and stuff that they don't really use anymore. They were either going to be given away or thrown out because some of them don't work. You're just avoiding going to the dump. So I was like, I'm not taking this. She loses it because I said no. Grabs one of the big pictures. It's like a driftwood piece, pretty heavy. Over the top of her head and tries to smash it onto my car. I have to grab hold of the picture. She wrestles me to the ground and is full, trying to be a jiu-jitsu wrestler, punching, kicking, elbowing, biting, and everything on the ground.

My kids get out of the car. They're upset. They're crying. They're asking us to stop. And I managed to break out of her grip and run around the car. Drive away. I drive up the street. I pull in. There's a fire station at the top of the hill. Kids are crying. I try to console them. And she has followed me up the hill in the truck and tries to pull in front of me to block me from leaving the car park or the fireplace. Car is running and it's in gear. I just have the clutch down. I just drop the clutch and I floor it. And I'm trying to get out of there so she can't block me in because I don't know what she's going to do this time. I spin around and I drive away. Maybe 20, 30 missed calls from her, constant text messages. She did call the police saying, I've stolen the kids. She wants to talk to the kids to make sure that they're okay. I'll give kids the phone, they can talk to her. I'm not going to stop my kids talking to the parents. She gets on the phone with my kids on speakerphone, and she's trying to explain her side of the story.

It was all dad's fault. Dad attacked me. You saw.

Prime them for when the cops ask.

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Now, bearing in mind that this is only a handful of the things. This has been constant for the last year. She's preventing me from talking to them, not answering the phone. She's manipulating their idea of me and coercing them Oh, dad doesn't want to talk to you. Dad's too busy working. Dad préfers his life now that he's not with you. Whenever I get them on the weekend, I have to like, You know that none of this is true, right? Yeah.

Oh, boy. She's so nuts. Did you have inklings of that during the relationship prior to the divorce?

Yeah. She's attacked me before. She actually punched me a bunch of times. The first time she lost it with the red rage. It's like when people black out when they're drunk and they have no memory of it. It's like that. She'd done this a couple of times. I had to get Which is in my lip one time. I knew it was there. Every time we argued, I'd have to de-escalate everything or walk away. I knew I needed to get out, but I didn't know how to leave her. To plan this was really hard. And eventually, it's just like, enough is enough. And coming back to the August trip that I eventually told her that I wanted to get a divorce. On the trip, there was a new deckhand on our ship. I'd separated from my ex for six months at this point. Been on a couple of dates. She had to. This new deckhand had come on, and she was beautiful, young. You usually don't get chip workers that look like this. Right, right, right, right. And in that first week, we get on just like a house on fire. And it's surprising how many things we have in common.

Usually, you see those things in Disney fairy tales. One day we're talking about relationships, asking if she was in one. I was trying to hit on her. Apparently, shouldn't have done at work, but whatever. She said, Oh, no, I don't really have a boyfriend, but a couple of friends with benefits. And I don't know what came over me. I was just like, Well, do you want another? She was She had taken her back and said, Yes. We decided to meet the next night. Her shift finished at midnight, so we decided to meet at midnight on the bow of the ship. It was off the California Coast, right below the Oregon border. There was the Mercedes meteor shower at the time.

Oh, my goodness.

We took a yoga mat out, a blanket out, pillows, and we laid out on the bow for about four hours just watching the meteor shower talking. For us, the rest is history. We've been together since. It was like, Okay, this has given me enough courage to say that the grass is greener on the other side. I'd like to pursue this. I think I'm ready.

Well, you got a glimpse of the fact that you could be happy.

Yeah. Just to not end up with an argument. It's nice to be able to have just a nice, healthy, positive relationship. It's been a bit of a tumultuous year. It's still going on. There's probably more drama to come.

This is a nightmare. When the cops got involved, that obviously worked out. You're not in jail.

She called the cops off every time she'd called them. She's done it maybe three times now. I went to the police station and I asked, Can I open a file up without actually you going around to her house and taking her into custody? I wanted to at least report something, but they said, No, we'd have to go and take her away, take her to the station and question her. I didn't really want to do that.

Well, I'm glad you've documented a lot of this stuff. I think that's very smart.

Definitely. I've got a lot of printouts. Oh, man. That's harrowing.

It is. Dude, what a story. I'm so sorry you've been going through that. I'm delighted you have someone that's nice Nice.

Oh, yeah. We're actually on a boat right now. We're sailing. Oh, you are? Wow. This meeting just timed in a little sailing trip with our friends. So we're on the West Coast of Vancouver Island on their sailboat heading to an Anchorage right now. So that's why I look like I'm a little drunk on the camera.

Okay, wow.

Hope your sailing trip is super fun.

Okay, take care. Thanks, Seth. Bye.

You got to be careful about who you procreate with.

I do. This is the theme of this last week, I think. You just don't know what's going on with anybody. People are in relationships like that. Yeah. Oh, it's brutal. Here's Emma. What if it's our Emma? We're just learning she's been divorced.

I've known her since she was quite young.

Well, that's what's even crazier. It's been a high school. Cherry shirt?

That's a cute shirt.

When I bought this, I was like, If I ever go on Armchair Anonymous, I obviously have to wear this shirt.

It's great.

Yeah, it's super cute. Emma, where are I am in North Carolina in a little suburb outside of Raleigh. Oh, I just love North Carolina. So you have a divorce story.

I have a crazy divorce story.

Oh, good. The crazier, the better.

So I have to give you a little bit of backstory before we get to the juicy bits. The sad parts are first, but don't stay too sad. And in order to understand why my 32-year-old husband was in a nursing home, I have to tell you these parts. Okay. So April 28th of 2021, I'm a chef. I own a catering company, and I opened a little cafe. And six days later, my 32-year-old husband had a massive stroke. He had a genetic condition that we didn't know about called vascular ateliers, Danlos. It causes your organs and arteries to rupture spontaneously. So in the middle of the night, his carotid artery just blew up.

Oh, my God.

So thankfully, he woke up when that happened, and he fell out of bed and made noise. And so that alerted me. I was able to call 911. We got him to a stroke center in time, and they were able to save his life, but it left him with massive deficits. Thankfully, it was on the right side of his brain, and he was right-handed. And so if you're right-handed and you bleed into the right side of your brain, the most of the stuff that's held there is the function on the left side of your body. So he didn't lose speech or himself or anything big like that, but he was paralyzed on the left side of his body, and he lost his filter. Oh. Whereas you and I would know not to say things, suddenly he didn't. They were able to stop the bleeding, but they were not able to restore blood flow. So he was basically dead on the right side of his brain. And we went through months and months of rehab and therapy in the hospitals. And then the end of July, they were like, We think we can send him home. And I was like, I don't know.

We have three little kids, little, little. My youngest was one at the time.

Oh, I got to just say, Emma, already, wow, did you go through it? I mean, oh, my God, what a nightmare.

It was one full year of every morning waking up being like, What catastrophic shoe is going to drop today? So they sent him home, and His best friend, Tim, came to live with us and be his caretaker so that I could keep working, keep taking care of the kids, keep taking care of him. Everyone was just treading water, just trying to survive. Obviously, when you have brain injury, the stimulation of a regular household is a lot. But a household with three little kids, and we were poor, poor. I had just opened a restaurant. We had a little house with little kids, and it caused him to become really violent. Unfortunately, he hurt one of our kids, where I would have been like, Oh, my four-year-old said no to me. You need to go sit in time out. He didn't have that filter anymore. And so the four-year-old said no to him, and he just lost it. And he didn't have function on left side, so his right side was way over compensating. That night, CPS had to get involved because a child had been injured enough that I had to take him to the hospital.

The doctors were able to say, Okay, we're going to take your husband out of the home and rehospitalize him. He had 17 days of insurance left. So they were like, We'll keep him for at least 17 days until we figure out what to do. And then CPS came in and they were like, Whatever it is, he's not coming home. And so I'm stuck in this position of, How do I keep my vows to this man that I love but don't know anymore? How do I take care of my primary responsibility, which is the health and safety of my children. And so the very difficult decision was made to move him into a nursing home, which I don't know if you've ever had to do that, but it's very expensive.

Oh, God, yes.

Especially being so young, so for so long.

A lot of places wouldn't take him because of his age.

Really quick, in the wake of this, when you talk to him, is he dealing with massive guilt after that episode? When he calms down, does he realize what he's done?

He was super depressed. When I explained to him, Hey, you broke our child's ribs. He was like, Well, he needed a spanking, which we've never done. I don't spank my kids. And so I was like, I'm not sure where that came from.

Yes, that's very scary. That's not the person you knew.

It's almost better if you felt so guilty. That would be worse in some way. That's true.

Then we would all just be sad. It helped make the decision for me easier of like, you're not going to be okay. And so his parents My parents lived in a really rural part of Pennsylvania, and things are just cheaper there. And so we worked together and we found a care home that would take him for just his social security benefits. It was 10 minutes from his parents' house, and they were both retired, so it was going to be great. And I was trying to at least once a month drive up with my kids. And the first month I go and I'm like, Wow, this is really weird. He's very angry at me. He won't talk to me. He won't look at me. He just glares at me. My God, he's depressed. I go back the next month. And this time I'm like, wow, there's a lot of money missing from our bank account. Somebody had started to go fund me when he first got sick, and I had saved $19,000 that I was using for his continued therapies. And I was like, there's $6,000 missing. Where's this money going? I can't find it. And then we go, and it's another terrible visit.

And I'm like, something's wrong. And by the time we get to Christmas, I remember saying to my mom right before I left, I feel like I'm in purgatory. I'm going to keep going to visit this man because I've made vows him, and I love him, but I don't know him. He hates me.

Something's going on here.

I just know it. She was like, well, let's pray that God shows you what it is because we're Christians. And so I was like, All right, Lord, show me what it is. Release me from whatever trial hell I'm in. He is refusing to look at me, and there's $6,000 more missing. What? $12,000 at this point. And I just off the cuff said to him, Do you know why $12,000 would be missing from our bank I need your phone. I need to remove you from our bank accounts. I think maybe you're spending money on your games and you don't realize it. And he was like, Okay, gave me his phone. And I was like, Hey, just to make sure we're good, right? And he goes, We're fine. I leave and I get a text from him that says, There's one nurse here that I just get along with, and we're friends. And sometimes she helps take care of me at night. Anyway, she's been removed from my care because everyone's starting rumors. It's so middle school.

So he basically admits he's having an affair with one of the nurses.

Oh, boy.

So I was like, They don't just do that unless there's a reason. So I call the facility, I'm like, Hey, what's going on? They go, We can't prove anything. But if you could get into his phone, we think he's communicating with her on Facebook. So I text him back. I'm like, Send me your Facebook login. And I truly believe God made him exceptionally stupid in that moment because he did. And I found from the week he moved into the nursing home until present, months of messages with this woman and him sending her money.

Oh, good God. This whole thing.

What a mess.

It gets worse. Oh, my God.

I thought you said it was going to get better.

No, because she's a nurse and because he's mentally incapacitated, they had to get the police involved because is he capable of consent? They take his phone from him and they start going through it. And the officer calls me a couple of days later and he's like, I'm going to run some names by you. And I just want you to tell me if they're familiar to you. Do you know a name? Ashley. Like, Yeah, I know an Ashley. That was a single mom he used to help out all the time. Okay, well, we have pictures of them naked together. Seven women from before the stroke.

Oh, So this was a product he had started pre-stroke.

What is happening?

Oh, my God.

First opportunity post-stroke, he was like, I'm going to get me some of that. And I, try not to be petty, but The night nurse didn't have all her teeth. And I'm not a Stone Cold 10. I'm not.

Well, look, you're beautiful. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

It clearly had nothing to do with how anyone looked or behaved or was. That was an addiction.

For sure. Being Christian was like, I don't know if I should leave him. I don't know what to do.

Hold on, though. God just gave you an absolute guilt-free out.

Yes. My pastors were like, You're leaving him, obviously. I didn't know how to do it because It was a bad look to leave the crippled guy. His injury had been semiviral. And so how do you go about saying, Thank you so much for all of your support. Also, I'm leaving him.

Without going because he fucked everyone I knew.

Yeah, because you also don't really want to do that. Right.

When I'm airing Dirty Laundry. So I made a very politically correct statement of, There's sin in this family, and it's guts to go, and the sin is him.

The sin is him. I want that shirt.

So I left him, and I stopped taking any of the phone calls from the nursing home. I was like, Is this your problem now. His parents took over his care completely. I say this with my full chest, It is better to be husbandless than to be with a bad husband. I've been single now for three and a half years, and it has been the happiest, lightest, most joyful three and a half years of my life.

Oh, I love that. I'm so happy to hear that.

My kids are thriving. Everyone's doing great. Unfortunately, they have the same genetic condition that he does. So tomorrow we go to Duke because the only cardiologist in the country that treats this condition is at Duke. And so we go yearly for a visit. There's no treatment or cure, but they have them on a beta blocker to see if over time your blood hitting your vessels more softly will help with some longevity of your vessels. But right now, no treatment or cure. There's 30,000 people in the world with this condition, and eight of them are children, and three of those are mine.

Oh, my Lord.

We didn't know until it happened to him? And then the rest of his family was tested, and a bunch of them are positive. So I think a lot of it gets chalked up to heart disease because you would die of a heart attack or your aorta rupturing, and you wouldn't necessarily think to test for a genetic condition that was underlying. I'm thankful for the doctors at Duke, they're so wonderful and smart, and they make me feel much more comfortable about it. I'm just out here trying to make their lives the happiest they can be and take care of them the best I know how by myself. And it's been much easier doing it by myself.

You're such a good woman. I know.

You're not such a nice person. How's your business?

I did end up closing the cafe after a year because something had to give, but I still own the catering company. I do a lot of craft services, actually. I just I worked with David Letterman a couple of weeks ago. Oh, cool. I was like, Oh, friend of the card.

What is it called?

E-m-s-m is catering.

Yes. If you're in North Carolina, let's get it going. Let's reach out, yeah.

I make delicious Mac and cheese.

Oh, that sounds tasty.

Although, to be fair, it's hard to make bad tasting mac and cheese.

No, that's not true.

No, there's excellent. But I mean, you're starting with a good.

Costa and cheese. It was hard to mess up.

Well, Emma, it was so nice to meet you. It was so nice to meet you. I cannot believe what you've gone through and still have a smile on your face.

I know. Very admirable.

Thank you. My kids loved Race to 270. They would be like, Is it time to listen to Daxon, the guy who giggles?

Tell your kids good news. At the end of August, the guy who giggles and I are doing another show. They'll be thrilled. Yeah, it's very much the same vibe.

Thank you guys so much. This was really fun.

Good luck with everything. Bye-bye. Hello. Hello. Can you hear us?

Can you hear me?

Perfectly. Silja, where are you?

I live in Yucca Valley, which is right by Joshua Tree National Park.

Oh, I know Yucca Valley. There's a military installation there, yeah? Yes. Are you a member of that military?

My dad was a Marine, and that's how we ended up here.

Can you guys get about 2000 miles an hour winds just out of nowhere?

Oh, yeah. It's awful.

I would never have said that, but every time I'm up there, I'm like, Man, you got to love wind. Was the wind the source of this divorce? No. Okay.

I've I submitted this story a couple of different times. I was like, I finally found a prompt that sticks because I was like, this could be a meet cute, it could be an internship, it could be a divorce. There's so many elements.

Let's hear it.

Okay, so the divorce took place in 2013. But back story, I married my high school boyfriend in 2011. We were both 23. There had been some problems. I was in grad school, and I was He was really trying to finish my degree. I'm working on a thesis project with other people, and I wasn't home a lot. I was busy. He had started hanging out with someone from his work who was a single woman. That's not super appropriate, but I'm trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. He was from not the greatest childhood. A lot of trauma, a lot of drug use. His mom passed away when he was 16, and His dad was in and out of jail. So I don't think a good relationship was ever really modeled for him.

Do you have that compulsion at all to rescue people? I mean, you went into the medical field.

A thousand %. We were dating for six years by the time we got married. There was this little voice in my deepest heart of hearts that was like, This isn't for you. I really didn't listen to myself, my inner voice. I pushed all that aside. Dax, when your mom was saying how she wouldn't leave a relationship even if it was abusive because she was so ashamed.

Yes.

We got married. My friends, my family, we did this whole wedding. In the back of my mind, I'm so embarrassed. I put them all through this. They all supported me.

It's funny. I think we all think that way, but they all supported you being happy is what they supported.

And then it turns out I wasn't. Yeah, right.

So they'd support you any time you're trying to be happy.

Right. So during this time, he had really developed strong... I'm a libert libertarian. And because his parents had a lot of substance use issues, he went completely the other way. So I'm a straight edge, and I don't do any substances. And you shouldn't either. If you love me, you won't do that in front of me. And you should respect me. I'm 21 years old. I'm in college. Lots of things were changing. Then I was getting ready to finish school, and I had to do six months of unpaid internships. And I was like, I know we're not going to be able to live where we are. We're going to have to move back home. And so he decided he was going to go back to our hometown and find us a place to live for when I finish with my school and we move back. The day he was supposed to leave, he was like, I can't find anyone to go with me. I asked all my friends, and everybody's busy, but she said she was available, the single woman. And I'm like, What married man goes on a eight-hour road trip with a single woman?

And all my friends were like, What the fuck? And of course, it was gaslighting like, Well, do you want me to fall asleep and crash the car and die? And I need someone to go with me. And so it made me feel like, Well, if I say no, then I'm saying, Well, okay, yeah, I want you to risk your life? I was like, It's an eight-hour drive. I don't think it's that intense. But, Okay. So he shows up at my parents' house. He hasn't told them what is happening. And he has this girl with him, and they're like, Who is she? And they're He was calling me like, Who is this girl? And I'm like, He said he needed someone to drive with. And they were so disturbed by the whole thing. And he just couldn't understand why we were all so upset. This was really starting to be the downfall. And I figured, Okay, he's not going to speak with her anymore because we're moving back home eight hours away. We rented this small house. I was going to start my internship. I'm willing to just be like, Let's start fresh. I started my internship at a hospital.

My very first day, I a Marine who had been injured in a workup for a deployment. He was carrying a section of tank track with another Marine who the other Marine dropped their end unexpectedly, and he got this extreme whiplash injury. So his spinal cord was bruised, so he was paralyzed from the neck down. But as the swelling slowly went down, he slowly started getting more feeling and movement back. So I meet him my very first day. I felt bad. His parents couldn't come out and be with him. He was all alone in the hospital. A couple of weeks go by, and I'm not really his therapist, but I'm just in the same vicinity, and they would have me do some little activities with him. And I was like, Oh, this is a really cool guy. I feel so bad for him. He's here all alone. A couple of weeks into it, I found out my husband was still texting that girl. I'm not usually a jealous or Snoopy type, but something told me to check his phone. And he had been texting her all this stuff about how he couldn't find a job and he was worried and all the things he should have been sharing with me, he wasn't.

And so I was like, If you can have friends, then so can I, which is not mature. I was chatting with this Marine at work, and I added him on Facebook, but I wasn't trying to do anything shady. He was like, Oh, God, I have to shave every day, and these hospital lasers are killing my face. And I was like, We have a ton of lasers at home. I'll bring you some. So the next day It was my day off, but I stopped by the hospital and was like, Hey, I brought you some lasers. He was like, Oh, my gosh. Thank you so much. And we chatted for a little bit, and he stood up out of his wheelchair to give me a hug. If I'm being 100 % honest It was a little flirty, but nothing crazy. Nothing inappropriate happened. But I was just like, I wonder what it would be like to be with a normal guy. So went into work the next day. I came in and my was like, We need to talk. Did you come here on your day off? And I was like, Yeah. Is that bad? I brought him something.

He said he was having a really hard time with the Razor. I had extra. I was in the area. I brought him to him. He was like, Someone saw you being inappropriate with him. And I was like, he gave me a hug. And he was like, I'm just so surprised because you're married. And I remember thinking like, Well, that's none of your business, really. But okay. He was like, Well, you need to go see your patients, and I have to call your school and tell them what happened, and we'll decide what to do with you at the end of the day. And you're not allowed to speak to that patient ever again. And I was like, Oh, my God. And so I immediately went to the bathroom and messaged him on Facebook.

And I was like, I am so sorry.

I don't know what happened, but I'm in big trouble. They said I know that I was inappropriate. I didn't mean to drag you into this. I'm so sorry. And then he goes, No, I'm sorry. He's like, I'm in trouble, too. And I said, From who? What the fuck?

Everyone's in trouble.

Somebody called my commanding officer and said, Your Marine is here doing inappropriate things with a student. What is happening?

Okay, I got a hunch what's happening. There's a nurse that likes him.

We're not sure 100%, but he had had a run in with a nurse who was refusing to give him pain medications and accusing him of being a drug seeker. Even though he wasn't taking them ahead of schedule, he wasn't asking for them all the time. And he was like, You have no right to not carry out a doctor's order. He ordered those for me. They're due at this time. And I'm telling you, my pain is an eight out of 10. She raised this whole big thing. And so he basically told her, Get the fuck out of my room. I never want you to be my nurse ever again.

Yeah, there we go.

So we think it was her because she had a vendetta against him. So I was like, Oh, my God, I'm so sorry. He's like, Here's my number. If you need anything, call me. And so I go and I work the rest of the day. I see all my patients. And then at the very end of the day, they sit me down and they're like, We were going to just put you on probation and see how you did the next few weeks. But because someone called his commanding officer, it's a HIPAA violation, we, unfortunately, have to terminate your internship. Oh, my God.

On the pit, I feel like they hugged patients.

I'm going to try to be as generous as possible. What we don't know is did they have four in a row affairs between patients and doctors or nurses that resulted in all kinds a shit in lawsuits. Who knows what they are coming off of?

Right. I was like, maybe they just didn't want to deal with the liability of everything. I kept it together, but the minute I left the building, I started solid.

Yeah. Of course. You've just spent six years getting your graduate degree.

What am I going to do? And then it was a catalyst in my whole life because I was just like, why did I allow myself to talk to this guy? Why did I open myself up? I was like, it's because I'm not happy. I called him immediately and was like, they just terminated my internship. And he was like, oh, my God, I'm so sorry. And I was like, what happened to you? Are you in trouble? And he was like, nah. Basically, my CEO was like, well, what did you do? Fuck her? He was like, No, she just gave me something. And they're like, Okay, well, that's fine. I was like, I feel like I really got nailed to the cross. You're a married woman. I can't believe you would do that.

Yeah, it's so misogynistic.

Looking back, I'm like, I feel like that really was. So I left, I went home. I told my husband, I just got terminated from my internship. And basically it just blew up. I was like, I don't think I can do this anymore. This has really made me realize what's important in my life. And he was refusing to accept it. The next day, I had to go back to return a book I had borrowed from my instructor. I don't know what came over me, but I texted the Marine and I was like, I'm coming back to return a book. Could you meet me somewhere? And then he was like, Tell me where. So I parked in the very bottom of the parking garage in a corner by a cement wall.

It's like a CIA operation.

And he wheeled himself in a wheel all the way down there because he still wasn't walking yet. Hopped in my car and I was like, I don't know what to say. I'm in a bad relationship. And he kissed me. Oh, wow.

It's so funny that this wouldn't have been on this trajectory, but they accused them of inappropriate stuff. And then it fast Yeah, it did.

Yeah, it was like, well, you guys think we're doing an appropriate thing anyway. Yeah, you're fired anyway. And I'm not working here. I'm not a student here anymore.

I'm doing the time. I might as well do the crime.

I went home that day. I told my husband, It's over. And of course, he freaked out and this whole big thing. And I was just like, No. And throughout this whole thing, the Marine was like, I don't want to tell you to leave your husband. I just want you to do what you think is best for you. And that really stuck with me. I finally listened to that voice I had been ignoring for so long. Fast forward 12 years, I'm married to the Marine.

Oh, yeah. This is the me cute part.

We have two beautiful babies. We've had a rough journey ourselves, too, but we just kept coming back to each other. And I was like, there's a reason we met in that hospital.

And you're gainfully employed, I imagine, in your chosen profession.

Yes. I wasn't a licensed therapist, so nothing got reported. And I still went on and became an occupational therapist. It was the craziest thing that's ever happened to me. I was like, am I living in a movie? Is this real life? I couldn't believe it was all happening that way.

A wounded Marine in an occupational therapist. It does sound very movie-esque. It's hot.

Definitely is.

Oh, thanks for sharing that.

Cilia, this is so fun. What a great story. We needed that one, too.

Had a happy ending.

Yeah, very happy ending.

Thank you, guys. Thanks for listening.

All right. Take care.

Wow, divorces. They're not fun. It's not a fun thing to have to go through. But sometimes it has happy endings. And Emma said that it's better to be husbandless with have a bad husband. And that's a good takeaway.

Yeah, that is a good takeaway. I think the same could be said for wifeless.

That's not what Emma said. But that's what I'm saying. You haven't experienced it, so you just don't know.

You're right. I've not had a bad wife.

You have not.

Maybe the next one will be bad. All right. Love you.

Do you want to sing a tune or something?

We know a theme song.

Okay, great. We don't have a song song for this new show, so here I go, go, We're going to ask some random questions, and with the help of our cherries, we'll get some suggestions. On the fly, Rindish. On the fly, I rindish. Enjoy. Follow Armchairs Expert on the WNDRI app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining WNDRI Plus in the WNDRI app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wndri. Com/survey.