Secrets of a Narcissist w/ Betrayal Podcast Pt. 2 | Navigating Narcissism with Dr. Ramani

This podcast should not be used as a substitute for medical or mental health advice. Individuals are advised to seek independent medical advice, counseling, and or therapy from a healthcare professional with respect to any medical condition, mental health issue, or health inquiry, including matters discussed on this podcast. This episode discusses abuse, which may be triggering to some people. The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the podcast author or individuals participating in the podcast and do not represent the opinions of Red Table Talk Productions, iHeartMedia, or their employees. I'm almost glad it happened the way it did or it was such a big scale because it helped me to realize it wasn't me. It would have happened regardless. It was happening before he and I were together. I think if he had had an intimate relationship with one person, it would have been even more devastating than it was. We have been hearing from Jennifer Faison and Andrea Gunning from the podcast Betrayal, a story of betrayal that isn't just shocking for its size and scope, but with how unexpected it was. Jen didn't see any red flags, so when her world came crashing down, she was left with the pain and trauma of making sense of it all. While betrayal is present in almost all narcissistic relationships, their podcast was not about narcissism. Jen and Andrea were more focused on telling the story of the survivors and not focusing on the behavior and character of the betrayer. The recognition that whether it is one betrayal or many is that there are some predictable patterns in manipulative and deceptive relationships. Grooming and indoctrination, lack of empathy, entitlement, and a bottomless supply of denial and rationalization. Let's keep exploring how narcissism showed up in Jen's story. So Andrea, upon listening to the story, one of the most powerful parts of the show to me as a listener was when the women involved in these accusations spoke with Jen, right? That in many ways is the moment that many people who've experienced any form of relational betrayal or infidelity, would I ever speak to this person? Would I ever want to speak to this person who was involved in my betrayal, right? Can you shed some light on some of the decisions that were made to bring these women to your podcast to actually have these conversations with them? Because it was incredibly powerful. I think when Jen and I sat down for the very first time, she was dealing with a lot of anger and a lot of anger, a lot of misplaced anger. And this is not the first time I've said this in front of Jen, right? There was a lot of not understanding these women. And I felt like I want us to get to the bottom of that anger. And the best way to do that is to confront it and talk to these women and really hear their point of view. Because I felt like who she was truly angry with was her husband, Spencer. I had just met Jen in 2018, 2019. And listening to her story, I felt like it's a horrible experience. I truly believe she didn't see anything. But I know that these women had their own individual experiences. I just knew in my gut. So I felt like it was helpful for her to understand the man that they had a relationship with. Because she owed it to herself and the time she had invested to really know who this person was. So that was really the decision to sit down with these other women. Jen was game and the women were too. So I have a lot of admiration at her bravery and their bravery. So interesting, Andrea, how you framed it as misplaced anger. Because I think that anytime somebody experiences any form of relational infidelity or betrayal, they do have anger at the other party. I mean, I think it's just, it's built in. And I think it's part of the overwhelm of the process. How did that shift for you over time, Jen? Because I have to say, I have yet to meet the person who out the gate when they learn about a betrayal or an infidelity say like, I'm only mad at my partner. Oh, that other is blame-free, right? We will never get away from that sense of co-complicity, especially if there's awareness that they knew you existed. I think there's sometimes a little more empathy if that other person was sold such a story that, you know, with a different identity. And so there was no even way to no look at social media or any of that, no wedding ring, all those things that we might say, okay, this person was completely, completely scammed. But it sounds like some of these women actually definitely knew you existed. So how did you move from that anger towards the women who were having these relationships with him to shifting your anger solely towards Spence? Because that's actually a really difficult shift. It was. In the beginning, I learned a couple of these women I knew had made a choice to have an affair with my husband. And I was mad because they were old enough to know better, and they made that decision. So I did have a lot of anger. I think it was after really diving in and exploring Spence's role in those affairs and how he manipulated them. He lied to them. He would tell women that he loved them, shower them with compliments. I started to realize that, yes, they had a choice on whether or not to participate, but they were also manipulated to believing that they were special to this person. And I felt for that. I felt for them to be lied to and just deceived so horribly. Reading the things that he would write to them and say was just awful. So I started feeling some empathy toward them because I started really realizing how he operated. And I think it was important that you can hold two thoughts at once, right? You can still be angry, but also understand the mechanics of how the relationship came to be. And in some cases, there were women that were wracked with shame, were just wearing that shame every day. The one woman Hope wasn't even excited to get married because of the shame that she carried. And so I never wanted Jen to say, I'm not angry anymore. Because you can hold those two thoughts. You can be angry, but understanding. You can have those two feelings. And I think that's what's so challenging when you have these kinds of antagonistic, manipulative relationships is that multiple things can be true at the same time. And I think we often have trouble holding multiple truths simultaneously, especially when they seem sort of at odds with each other. Jen, when I was listening to the story, I was very struck by how different the tenor of the conversation was when you were talking with the person who was a student at the time of the relationship versus the person who was an adult woman. Internally for you, emotionally for you, how were those experiences different? Because I can't see how they wouldn't be different. They must have felt so different to talk to a person who was still a minor when all of this happened versus a person, like you said, who knew you, who was making a different kind of a choice. What was happening inside of you when you had those two different conversations? In speaking with the student, I did not hold her responsible in any way. I don't care maybe if she had a crush on him at the time, whatever. None of that was her responsibility in this. He was a teacher, and what he did to someone so young was just, it's devastating. It's sickening to think about. He was with this 16-year-old. I remember how I was in high school, and so I kind of thought, what if that had happened to me? The most important thing for me was for her to know that I did not hold her responsible for it. I did not put any blame on her for it. She was completely a victim. And then in speaking with some of the adult women, they did have some responsibility in saying yes. They knew he was married. I was sympathetic, but I couldn't solely put the blame on Spence because they did participate, if that makes sense. It absolutely makes sense. Not only does it make sense, I think a lot of people would have found those conversations difficult, if not impossible, to have. Those were such human conversations. Your sense of restraint was remarkable. Your empathy came through. But I will tell you this, I could hear the edge in your voice when you were talking to the adult women, which humanized you to me. Because if you were just like, I get it, I'd be like, oh, come on now. But I heard the edge, and I thought, okay, this is actually remarkable restraint. I wouldn't have been able to do that. We heard the humanity of it, but it sounds, upon listening to your podcast, he uses a similar ground game with every person he was trying to draw into one of these relationships. Can you say more about that? Yeah, it was absolutely the same thing. He would tell them, oh, you're so beautiful. It was that same flirting. It was like I just picture him casting that line out and seeing who would bite. And so many women did bite. And the way he would talk to them on text and string them along and just make them feel like they were the only one. And that was another thing in talking with them. They didn't know that they were one of 50, 60. So when I found out the whole spectrum of how many people, that was one of the reasons I think I was so angry. And then talking to them individually, I got to see that humanity and what they had gone through and what they were feeling because of it. And I think that one thing that he was very good at doing, which groomers and narcissists are very good at doing, is identifying vulnerabilities in other people and using it to their advantage. So with the high school student that was sexually assaulted, and we say sexual assault because it was adjudicated in the state of Georgia, and that's what he was convicted of. He used her faith against her. God wanted this to happen. He knew that in, and he worked that angle. With Jen's friends, she had just come off of being pregnant and was feeling like she was trapped in her house in this mother solitude and didn't feel pretty. And he knew that. So he was very masterful in really identifying vulnerabilities that are very different and individualistic to each woman, but working that relationship, identifying those vulnerabilities, and capitalizing on them. Right. And that right there is the definition of manipulation. And he was such a personable person that if you want to use the word flirt, he flirted with everybody or he was just kind to everybody and engaging and all of that. And I think that's another thing he used was his personality. Because who would think that, I know I had another friend that he had reached out to and she just kind of stopped it and never said anything to me because she just thought, oh, that's just Spence. He's just so nice. He wasn't really meaning anything by it. So she was able to set a boundary because she was able to set a boundary. And you're right. We don't understand how seductive niceness is. We often think of the big ticket seduction, the sort of the swagger and the arrogance, but it's nice. And there is somebody with this kind of a manipulative personality who is nice. I cannot think of a more dangerous combination because we want our villains to look like villains, right? We want them to look like jerks and mean and almost have a villain look. And I'm not hearing that any of that was here. And then again, manipulation is a way for a person to get what they want while making the other person feel like it's good for them. That's the core of manipulation. And that's what you were saying was happening over and over again. This is meant to be, this is what God would want. You're so pretty, you deserve more attention. And to figure that out in a way it had to have felt like, I'd imagine, I'm speculating, like a game for him. It's almost like closing a sale. Sales is manipulation and so too was this. So it's really, the scale of this was so stunning to me. I mean, I've heard betrayal stories before, but this, the scale of this one was, this wasn't just as though it was behaving inappropriately as a teacher and he had an affair or the more classical story of a person has in a relationship and their partner has an affair with one person. The scale of this, the number of people being communicated with, having sexual contact with, the breadth and the depth of it. Again, you're going to have to speculate because you haven't had the other scenario. Do you ever think about, well, how this would feel different than if it was sort of your standard, I have a husband and he cheated on me? That is such a good question because I've thought about it a lot. This may sound crazy, but I'm almost glad it happened the way it did or it was such a big scale because it helped me to realize it wasn't me. It would have happened regardless. It was happening before he and I were together. I think if he had had an intimate relationship with one person, it would have been even more devastating than it was because we talked about what marriage meant to us so often and what that love looked like and that soulmate feeling. And so I think if it had just been a one-off, it would have been really hurtful in a way that was more personal to find out that it's 50 different women. That's something that's just, I can't comprehend. And it says that it's a bigger issue than just him wanting to have an affair. Again, thank you for answering it and for your honesty on this one because I listened to it and I thought, I don't get to know what would have been worse for Jen, but I have to say you're absolutely right. When a person is in a relationship and there's an affair with one person, the immediate sense is, what didn't I have? What was I lacking? Why was I not enough? What does this person have that's better? This was clearly something so massive. It was all him. And in a way, as you dealt with devastation, betrayal, trauma, all of that, at the core of it though, you also were saying, this was not me. This was something much, much bigger. So it was, again, a very unique situation. And I think when survivors listened to it, I'm sure more than a few of them thought, not that I'd ever wish this on anyone, that said, would this might have actually been a more, I don't know, again, a less self-blaming, less self-harming situation of what they're doing to themselves versus something at this big level. Yeah. I think I would have felt worse about myself had it not been so. Yeah. We will be right back with this conversation with Jen and Andrea. So I know for me, again, so many compelling things. So the conversations you had with the other women who had been in relationships with or assaulted, and to everyone listening to me you've got to go listen to their podcast, Betrayal, because these conversations are unbelievable. But the other part that was incredibly compelling to me was you speaking to him in the jailhouse phone conversations. Okay. I was waiting like, what do you have to say for yourself? And how did this feel for Jen to be having these conversations? So you asked him why he did what he did. Was he aware that he hurt other people? Was he aware of what he did to you, what he did to them? And I felt, I mean, I had my feeling. I'd like to hear from you first. Do you feel like he answered your question? No, not at all. I had been waiting to have this conversation with him. He had been promising that he would let me speak with him. He just shut it down. And in talking to him and asking him these questions and hearing his response, I just knew he's not capable of understanding the devastation he caused. Somehow I think in his mind he somehow made it okay, whether it's with the student saying it was consensual, things like that. He just, he can't take responsibility or have empathy like we spoke about before. And I just, I got frustrated to be honest and eventually just ended the call because what else could I ask him? He's not aware enough, I don't think. You feel like he's not aware of his behavior, how his behavior affects other people, which must have been so shocking for you to recognize because I'd imagine for the seven years, because there were no red flags, you did believe he was self-aware. Yes, absolutely, absolutely. That revelation in and of itself is actually quite massive, but it's as though you think somebody knows how to read and then you find out for seven years he was lying about being able to read, right? They were able to put together the clues enough that it seems like he could read the book, but oh, he listened to something, and so that's how he knew what the book was about. This is somebody who was a great father, and so you would think that he would just have this outpouring of sorrow for what he's done, and I just haven't heard it from him. There's another piece though that really jumped out at me. If you disagree, please tell me. In that call with him, I felt like he never expressed remorse. What he was doing was he was remained on how he did it, and he even talks a little bit about the why. I do remember him saying, I liked the attention. He did make that comment that he actually liked getting the attention. I was like, okay, that's not a satisfying answer, and it certainly put one more brick in the wall of me thinking that this was a narcissistic personality. He talks a little bit, okay, I did it for attention, but he still retains entitled anger at the system that he, if I remember correctly, that he was angry that there was to be maybe an earlier release date, but an additional sort of victim's impact statement led to increased time, and he literally had entitled anger, so there was zero shift, zero remorse, no recognition of, oh, okay, this is a person's real pain. He talked about how terrible prison is and was complaining about the conditions he was under, how you couldn't get good therapy in prison, so it was very much about him. He was the frame of reference. There was, though, no remorse, no ownership. I think after you saw not just the not knowing his why, but the next level up, which was not having remorse, how did that leave you feeling about him? How did you view him? It's so sad to me because I loved this person. I had this beautiful marriage with this person, and then to discover this whole other side, and then to hear him say something like, I hope everybody's moved on. I just want everybody to move on. One of the most challenging aspects of surviving a betrayal by someone who seemingly lacks empathy or awareness of how others are affected is their desire to just move on. As Jen said, he said, I hope everybody's moved on when she talked with him. It's as though the pain caused by his actions is an inconvenience to still have to deal with and that people can just put it behind them. This idea of just moving on is reflective of the lack of empathy that we observe in narcissistic personalities and can leave survivors feeling as though they are the ones that aren't healing fast enough or not letting go. It's just him not understanding what he did to this student, first and foremost, and what she's had to go through and how this is going to impact her for the rest of her life. I believe that she's strong and resilient and she will use this for something good. It's really sad to me, to be honest, because it's just not the person that I knew. For you, to me, this went beyond betrayal trauma. It was a death. It was a death of a person and replaced by a person that on any day of your life you would not have given the time of day. And so there was not just that experience of the trauma around betrayal, but also the grief, because it was a grief of your marriage, a grief of the life you thought you would have, a grief of a future. And anytime somebody has one of these toxic relationships, however it unfolds, the grief is often overwhelming and unrecognized. People don't see it as grief because the person's still walking around alive in the world. Andrea, how did you feel after listening to the jailhouse phone calls that ended up in the podcast and probably more than what we even heard, and then lack of remorse and the lack of ownership? How did you feel about this? How did you process this? I felt sad for Jen. I felt sad for Rachel, the sexual assault victim, that he did feel a sense of injustice that he had to serve his full term, which was just mind-blowing. That for some reason, because he was a teacher of the year and served on the Air National Guard, and he had all of these trophies on his shelf that he should be entitled to something different and not held accountable for his actions. It made me sad for the victim there. It made me sad for Jen. I also was not necessarily surprised because this is something that I can't remember if we used this in the show, but I remember after he was sentenced, he wanted to have a conversation with the student's parents and apologize for that. But it felt very much, oh, I'm being sentenced, but it just felt performative for him and not for the parents. The parents were like, I don't want to talk to you. You assaulted my child. So just learning about him over a very long time, I'm not surprised, but it's still sad. I'm disappointed because he is out, and I feel like Jen and I are empathetic people. Yeah. We still feel for other human beings, and it's just disappointing that someone can't take a hard look at their behavior and are incapable of feeling remorse or incapable of seeing how really truly owning the collateral damage. Some people are, but I didn't feel true ownership of the collateral damage. It's like he could have thought, what if this had happened to my daughter? How would I have reacted? And just, I don't think that's ever been a thought in his head. I think somehow he is justifying what he did. I also was a little fascinated with people's coping mechanisms. It just was like an interesting, fascinating look into coping mechanisms. And I don't know if he's doing what he's doing to cope and get through, but I certainly don't feel like it's necessarily helpful in the long run. What do you mean by that, what his coping mechanisms were? Meaning when in the jailhouse call, Jen spoke to it too, is I just want everyone to move forward. Yes. And Jen really pressed him and was like, maybe the student did write a letter, and we knew that she did write a letter to keep him in the parole board. And he was like, that's irrelevant. It was in his inability to really sit with the fact that she was a victim, as opposed to on paper, she was underage, he was an adult. It's a formality. It's a systematic justice formality, as opposed to, no, she's truly a victim here. She was sexually assaulted, she was manipulated. And so to me, I don't think there's much gravity in what it really is. And I think that there may be some coping there. And it was just, I don't know. I don't know if that makes sense, but- It does, yeah. But it's almost if he really thought about what he had done, and like I said, he would say, oh, that person didn't mean anything to me, yet he's writing to her, I love you. If he really thought about what he did to people, then maybe he wouldn't be able to cope as well as he is. So he's putting on this shiny hat and just gonna be positive and move forward. Or it's pathological levels of denial, rationalization, justification, and compartmentalization. Those are the four pillars that are keeping this whole structure up. And like a scaffold, you're absolutely right. If those things were taken away, and there had to be true accountability, in some ways the person would psychologically collapse, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. But it's very rare for somebody with this kind of approach to the world and to other people to have that turnaround, especially when something as intense as a prison sentence happens, and a life has changed permanently, and there's not the change then, I'm not banking on that happening. So- He was in prison for four years and still just came out not feeling any remorse or not showing it. My session with Jen and Andrea will continue after this break. When a betrayal experience happens like yours, obviously you, Jen, and the women he hurt, Rachel, the assault survivor, all of these people experience the most primary betrayals. But there are a lot of people around you. You yourself said you were surrounded by a supportive community, and this community knew him. How are you setting a boundary for yourself? Because all I want is for you to keep healing and feel good and safe in the world. How are you setting those boundaries? Because now that he's out in the world, he's out in the world. And so what are you doing? Because I know a lot of people wonder, okay, something like this happened. In your case, it was four years of prison and then out. For other people, it's just a betrayal relationship ends and they're still walking around the world with this person. What do you intend to do to keep yourself safe psychologically? Psychologically, I think staying away from him. I've had those moments lately, now that he's out, where I thought maybe I should reach out to him. And I'm sure people will say, why would you ever want to talk to him again? But it's still hard to wrap my head around these two different people. And so part of me, some empathy, but then I come back to my senses and I realize you're never going to get the answers you want. This is not somebody who is safe to be around. He is going to manipulate and lie as best he can. I think that's another reason for putting this podcast out there. And the truth, it's so that other people in his world, in his orbit that he's talking to know the full story and not just what he's sharing with them. So I'm just, I take it day by day and just remember who he is and just try to move forward. Yeah. One theme that was raised and you had an expert even talking about this quite a bit on your podcast was the idea of betrayal trauma. Did that framework help you understanding it from the framework of betrayal trauma? Absolutely. When I got the definition, when Kim said, you're going through betrayal trauma and I could read books about betrayal trauma, it helped so much because then I realized that other people have gone through this. It affects you psychologically, emotionally, physically, all sorts of things. And the way I would react sometimes after it happened, I could go back to, this is a symptom of betrayal trauma. So to put a definition on it, it just, it helped it make sense. What this story has revealed, a person who lacks empathy, who is entitled, who is grandiose, who engages in denial, who is admiration, attention, and validation seeking, who doesn't think about the consequences of their actions backing up into that neighborhood called narcissism. When you throw lack of remorse on top of that, now we're in the neighborhood called potentially sociopathy or even psychopathy. The lack of remorse is a real ringer of what differentiates the two. Narcissistic people actually feel a tremendous sense of shame when they hurt other people. They'll still do it, but the shame comes up and the shame for them comes out as rage, but it is an activation of shame. For a person who's more in the realm of sociopathy, psychopathy, even when they're caught in the big bad thing they've done, the violation of others' rights, they're very quick. They just go to the defend, justify, rationalize. I am curious though, would having had that framework in addition to betrayal trauma, but understanding narcissism, psychopathy, that kind of thing, would that have been helpful or actually not? I always thought that if I just had the answer to what is he, and Andrea and I discussed this over the years, can somebody speak to what he is and put a name on it? I really thought that would help, but I think it's just so many different things that I just have to let that go until somebody can diagnose him, but it's so interesting to hear what you have to say and the empathy part because I never thought about it like that. No, it was a complete lack of empathy because I often say, infidelity always reflects a lack of empathy because even if it feels good in the moment, it means you were able to cut off any sense of feeling for how this could affect another person. To me, that is a lapse of empathy, and that to me is actually one of the most harmful psychological spaces a person can occupy. As you went through this and you were talking to people, did anyone ever throw you a hypothesis of something like sex addiction? Did that ever come up as part of the conversation? Definitely. I think in the beginning, that's what I leaned toward. I wanted to define it and give it a name so that I could understand it and read about it, and I even asked him. Actually, I asked him right before his arrest, are you a sex addict? Just flew out of my mouth, and he said no, and he's denied it ever since, but that's got to be part of it. To have that much sex that often and that deviant, I feel, again, I can't diagnose him, but I think there's sex addiction in there. It's such a complicated issue. I don't know that I've ever really seen a case of sex addiction without the narcissism stuff sitting right next to it because there's a complete dehumanization and disregard for someone else. There's different schools of thought, so I can't say what I'm saying is right. I'm just saying that I've always seen those things happen together. I was just curious if it came up. This is a big piece I want to bring up. I was listening to one of the last few episodes of the podcast where people were actually raising their questions, how much they but you also got some critiques. The one that jumped out at me and that actually I sat with for a long time was that there was some pushback on the use of the term grooming and applying that to anything but a relationship with somebody who would be designated as vulnerable, almost under the law, like a minor. For that term to be used in an adult relationship was an issue. What are your thoughts on that? Because I know I sat with that one for a long time. This term grooming, like Jen said, I want people to understand this. Then the use of the term seemed to raise controversy. Could you unpack that a little bit? Yeah, I think it was the reason why we sought out an expert in this field to educate ourselves and our audience. The biggest thing that we learned was it knows no age or gender. It's a specific action, and I spoke to it earlier, where you are seeking vulnerabilities in individuals, building a relationship, building a rapport, creating this identity for yourself in relation to somebody else so they feel safe in order to understand their vulnerabilities, understand their entryway, and work into that to expose whatever you need to get whatever you need from them. That was a really hard email to get when we got an email about grooming. Language is important, absolutely it is, but the biggest thing that we learned is you could be 60 and still be groomed. You could have a lifetime of experience and still deal with this. It's also important to note that we were not comparing one person's experience or the other or putting them on a tier. We were just exploring the multi-different relationships that this individual had with other women. I know that some people need to be able to say, this one was worse and these weren't as worse, but it was more about exploring how grooming exists in different relationships with different people with different vulnerabilities. You can be groomed when you're 15, 25, 30, 50. There really is no age or gender or boundaries there. We're coming towards the end of our time. I want to ask you this, Jen, because you said something so poignant to me, which is marriage mattered to me. I loved the idea of marriage. I believed in marriage. Again, yours might be one of the more profound stories of relational betrayal that many people have heard. How do you feel about those things now? How do you feel about marriage and love and commitment and all of that? How has that shaped your view? I'm not a pessimist. I don't want this to alter who I am. I get excited about love and relationships. Do I think I'll get married again? I don't know. It's going to depend on that person, but I believe I can find somebody to trust. I don't think all of that was damaged. I'm excited about falling in love again. It's amazing. It's just who I am. I can't let this person who had such a huge issue affect the rest of my life. I'm so glad survivors are hearing this and people listening to this podcast are hearing this, because I think a lot of people feel as though that's it. I'm out and there's a sort of a want to shut a door in the name of safety. There's a tremendous courage to saying I am going to do this again. I believe in this thing called love, but one of the big pieces is this isn't me. This was another person. I don't blame myself for this. I have always believed working in this space with individuals and with clients is I've got to break through that self-blame space with them together. We're going to get them through that, because on the other side, people after a variety of betrayal experiences can believe in love and fall in love profoundly, but with a different kind of wisdom about them. That's what I would call it. What about you, Andrea, though? While obviously this didn't happen to you, you had a front row seat. You were living in this betrayal story day after day for a very long time. How has it affected how you think about relationships? My middle name is Hope, and I believe in the fleabag quote, to love someone feels like hope, and I would never want to get rid of that. I would never want to rid that experience from my life. I know that Jen is hopeful that she'll find someone, and so that's enough for me. If she can have that attitude, then so can I. It's amazing. It really is. I think so many people would be afraid, if I was betrayed, I'll never come back from it. That's always the fear. I think that what people need to understand is that a lot of us, our psyches are actually often made of tougher stuff, especially when you can see that it's actually not you. Do you have any questions for me? Does Spence fall into the category of a covert narcissist, would you say? Just to be clear, there's such a tricky terminology. Vulnerable narcissism. There's grandiose narcissism. That's our textbook in the dictionary, charming, charismatic narcissist. The vulnerable narcissist is almost the flip of that. It's sullen, resentful. They feel aggrieved. They're angry at the world. They feel like victims. Now, the covert, overt part is about overt narcissism is, aren't I great? Don't you feel lucky to be with me? They say things like that. The covert stuff is the stuff we don't see. It's the feelings they would have or thoughts they'd have. They might be thinking, how come nobody thinks I'm great? How come no one can see how great I am? Obviously that might manifest as anger and things like that. I think in his case, again, if I was just a graduate student reviewing a case and the professor said, what do you think? My first hypothesis is more in the sociopathy kind of narcissism, psychopathy realm. The lack of remorse to me is really striking here. And I don't know his story. Anyone really thinking about this would need to know all of that to be able to craft who this person is. But if we focus solely on the behavior, solely on the behavior of long-term deceit, almost not quite aliases, like the different faces he put out there, taking advantage of people, not following the rules, breaking rules with little remorse, that definitely, that behavior conforms to more of what we consider to be psychopathy. And the reason it feels hidden is because somebody who's so skilled at lying is actually able to put forth these other faces. And if the whole machine is working well, that means everyone is actually seeing this really, if you will, charming version of this person all around, because the person's needs are being met so consistently. And for a long time, many years, the entire machine actually, sadly, ran exactly the way he wanted it to. That's why everyone was seeing this best face. As long as someone like him feels safe and validated, everybody's going to think that he hung the moon. That's the challenge. But all of these personalities, they're all very close to each other. That's why we use the word antagonistic. And that big word antagonistic can be really in your face. Look how great I am. And it can also be quite hidden, which is what you experienced. And again, your story is, I've never seen one this striking in terms of all the people out there who are mad. I can't believe I missed the red flags. I just must be a fool. You are a living reminder that the red flags aren't always there. So that means, though, that things can go wrong and trust yourself when they are going wrong. Yours, it was really in your face. But even for other folks who think, this doesn't feel good anymore, but I didn't see red flags. So that must mean that this is okay. Uh-uh. You've got to trust yourself all along. And just because there weren't red flags doesn't mean it wasn't a toxic relationship. The response to your podcast was extraordinary. I hope everybody listens to it, because I think that it really is that reminder that many times what we think is in front of us is not, and that's not a statement on us. It really is about the capacity of some people to go through the world very differently than the rest of us. So thank you. Thank you again for the gift of your time, Jen. Thank you, Andrea. Thank you. Thank you so much. It was very enlightening speaking with you. Thank you. Thank you so much. I do. It was amazing. Here are my takeaways from my conversation with Jen and Andrea. Betrayal trauma was a major theme in Jen's story and in the Betrayal podcast. It is a frequent theme in narcissistic relationships as well. It is a unique relationship trauma that comes from having trust violated, living with chronic deceit, and enduring consistent gaslighting. The fallout of betrayal trauma is quite consistent with what we observe in people living with narcissistic abuse, and is an important framework for survivors to have when they experience massive breaches of trust and don't know which way is up. In my next takeaway, there is no simple explanation for betrayal, and certainly not for one on this scale. It's too simplistic to say narcissistic people betray. For survivors, hearing that is often not enough. Personality is certainly one factor, but other things may be at play, like dysregulation, other behavioral dynamics, but personality styles like narcissism, sociopathy, or psychopathy are often part of this picture. Above all else, it is so important for survivors to know that another person's betrayal is never your fault, even though you are the one managing the pain and the fallout. Jen resisted the temptation to make it just about why he was the way he was, or why he did what he did, and instead she focused on what actually happened and how to not be defined by it. In my next takeaway, while the term may be controversial, the process is pretty clear. Whether it is termed grooming, or indoctrination, or capitalizing on vulnerabilities, it is the process of a manipulative person preying upon a person's vulnerabilities or advantaging their own power to get what they want from them. It is in fact a process, and is the dark side of other dynamics and patterns such as love bombing. People can be vulnerable to this process regardless of their age or life experience. The person doing the grooming or the indoctrination uses techniques such as praise, making someone feel special, telling them that they love them, or that this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and then mixing that with being very attentive and then pulling back, leaving the other person feeling that they would do anything to get that manipulator back. Awareness is key here, because it's not as though our vulnerabilities or life circumstances will change, but looking for other problematic dynamics that can accompany grooming like isolation, undertaking a relationship in secrecy, not being brought into all aspects of a person's life, these can be important to understand this dynamic and protect ourselves and others from it. In my next takeaway, Jen's story is a reminder that even when there is a massive betrayal that affected not only her, but the other people he affected, as well as friends and family, while it may feel that we can't come back from it, these experiences do not have to steal our empathy and compassion. While Jen had to go through her own process of working through her feelings about adult women who knowingly entered into a relationship with her husband, she found that the process ultimately didn't steal her empathy and compassion or her belief in love. Interestingly, she did have empathy for the other woman as she learned more about how people like her ex-husband work and manipulate, and ultimately she didn't lose her belief in love and relationships. These betrayal relationships do not have to steal our futures from us. They have already harmed us enough. A big thank you to our Executive Producers, Jada Pinkett-Smith, Falun Jethro, Ellen Rakitin, and Dr. Ramani Devasula. And thank you to our Producer, Matthew Jones, Associate Producer, Mara De La Rosa, and Consultant, Kelly Ebeling. And finally, thank you to our Editors and Sound Engineers, Devin Donaghy and Calvin Bailiff. A big thank you to our Executive Producers, Jada Pinkett-Smith, Falun Jethro, Ellen Rakitin, and Dr. Ramani Devasula. And thank you to our Producer, Matthew Jones, Associate Producer, Mara De La Rosa, and Consultant, Kelly Ebeling. And finally, thank you to our Editors and Sound Engineers, Devin Donaghy and Calvin Bailiff.