Secrets of Narcissist w/ Betrayal by Jenifer Faison and Andrea | Navigating Narcissism by Dr. Ramani

[Music] foreign a lot of us have been cheated on in relationships it doesn't feel good Jen Faison's story takes things to a whole new level Not only was her husband cheating on her to an unspeakable degree one day she came home to find a search warrant taped to her door without giving too much away our conversation brought a very important topic to the Forefront betrayal betrayal's a funny thing it's so complex and we rarely think of it as trauma which of course it is betrayal means we stop trusting ourselves and the world not just the person who betrayed us talking with Jen completely changed my outlook on betrayal and healing if she could recover from it there's hope for all of us here is my deeply enlightening conversation with Jen Faison 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 health care 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 I heart Media or their employees I came home one day and he was sitting on the couch shaking his head I saw a search warrant I noticed that our front door was kicked in the police had been there and on the search warrant it said sexual assault and student and we only had about it seemed 20 minutes before the police showed up again to arrest him and I confronted him is this true I just couldn't believe it I just was pacing back and forth because your reality is just shaken at that moment you don't really believe what's happening imagine coming home to your happy marriage to a person you love dearly to find a search warrant on the door and then shortly thereafter the arrest of your spouse in this happy marriage for sexual assault of a minor one of his students no less imagine that you didn't see a single red flag that your happy marriage vanished in one brief moment imagine that your husband didn't cheat on you with just one person but nearly 75. betrayal is a standard part of every narcissistic relationship and not all betrayal is created the same Jennifer Faison's story of betrayal has been captured in the hit podcast betrayal this episode of navigating narcissism uses the framework of narcissism to further unpack Jen's story while the story of betrayal is traumatic and painful Jen's story is a reminder that not all betrayal stories look the same and also a chance to explore how a person starts to put her life together after such a profound betrayal today I'm going to talk with Jennifer Faison and with Andrea gunning the producer of betrayal to learn more about this story first of all welcome Jen and Andrea you're here fresh from the podcast betrayal which to everyone listening to this podcast you must listen to this episode but then go listen to betrayal if you haven't already if you have you know this is going to be an amazing conversation because you know why I want to talk to Jen and Andreas this is such an interesting episode for me on navigating narcissism because I've had the opportunity to listen to betrayal and listen to this deep dive on your story and read anything I could find about it but I don't want to redo betrayal you've done a beautiful job of telling the story we'll Orient people to the story but on this podcast I want to orient to using this different lens of of narcissistic relationships which many people I'm sure heard it's almost a shift in the lens from what you already did so if we can just Orient readers to start if you could just sort of tell us the story of how you and Andrea came together and this podcast betrayal came out well because I have a producer background I as tragic as the story is of what happened to me I knew that it would be a compelling story to share with so many different layers and I thought it would be a way to let other people know that they're not alone you know when you go through something like this you you just feel by yourself and you want to connect to other people I learned about some amazing podcasts that Andrea had already produced and and reached out to them it was just the right fit from the very very beginning and from your side Andrea because this happened the story happened to Jen you've come in from a different place what was it like for you to be the Storyteller of Jen's very very real trauma and pain I felt like it was extremely important to handle her story with care because when I first met Jen she was barely a year outside of everything that had happened outside of her husband being arrested when I had my first phone call with Jen the thing that struck me the most was I felt this fear of this idea of you could be living with this Stranger Beside You I could hear the pain in her voice and kind of met her at a time where her life had essentially crumbled and she was just looking to express her story in any way so that she could share what she went through with the world so it was important to me to honor that and handle it with care and really get it out there so people could hear it so I mean you're already letting us know it's not our typical narcissism story of two people one person feels gaslighted and they kind of dislike each other this was very different having listened to betrayal and anyone listening to today's podcast please go listen to betrayal after this if you haven't to really get the depth of Jen's story because we won't be able to do it full credit here because it's a multi-episode podcast this is a story of like you said everything was great and then it literally went off a cliff this was not gradual that's what's so unique about this can you give us almost the brief version of how the two of you met and how your your relationship took flight Spence and I met in college and we had this amazing relationship he was my college sweetheart there was nothing wrong with it we broke up though and went our separate ways but always not in a negative way we didn't have any animosity toward one another and then the fairy tale happened I was living in Los Angeles he was in Atlanta he reached out to me we both happened to be in New York City at the same time we reconnected on a wintry night in Bryant Park and that was it we just knew we were meant to be it was I believe in soul mates and I really believed he was mine and I believe that he thought I was his as well so we were married a year later I moved to Georgia and everything was great I really had a wonderful marriage and didn't know the other side to him the dark side which I found out seven years into the relationship when he was arrested you were married six years so a year of dating and then or do you have a relationship and then six years married yes okay yes a year is not a short period of time to get to know someone that's actually not an unusual length of time to get to know someone get engaged get married so it's not like this was rushed and you already knew him so this was you know sort of picking up with somebody already knowing some of their backstory and their background yes my family knew him everybody trusted him like he was just the last person that you wouldn't think you could trust what was that marriage like it was wonderful we live in this Tiny Town we opened a wine bar together he came home every night saying hi wife just always excited he left me a note every single morning next to the coffee pot he was always checking in it was a really beautiful relationship amazing and unlike any Story We Have Heard on navigating narcissism which is why I I mean everyone I dropped in my phone as I listened to her podcast that is how compelling so all right you meet you get engaged and you get married six years happy notes what happened I came home one day and he was sitting on the couch shaking his head I saw a search warrant I noticed that our front door was kicked in the police had been there and on the search warrant it said sexual assault and student and we only had about it seemed 20 minutes before the police showed up again to arrest him and I confronted him is this true I just couldn't believe it I just was pacing back and forth because your reality is just shaken at that moment you don't really believe what's happening and he said yes it's true he of course lied though said it only happened three times come to find out it was over a two two and a half year period and then the police came and arrested him and honestly I haven't seen him since he went to prison for four years first of all we talk about this word betrayal and it speaks to what a Continuum this word is on right I think a lot of people use the word betrayal of oh you chose to go to your sister's birthday party instead of dinner with me I feel betrayed oh okay now there's there's small Beaver Trail and there's Big B betrayal and this is all caps betrayal what the search warrant and the arrest was for it wasn't embezzling money from the school he worked at it wasn't that it was this this thing that Not only was a betrayal that he had this double life but it was a betrayal of your relationship of the intimacy you had in the relationship so that is almost a seismic event no one could get their head around but this is one of the things that struck me as I listened to your podcast in your podcast as you told the story I did not hear a single red flag I was listening would you agree with that am I missing something were there red flags no absolutely not and I mean I've gone back in my head and tried I'm sure to find some little tiny piece that I I might have missed and I just I honestly did not see it and that was such a huge part of our project was to emphasize that point and so much of my dedication to Jen was to I mean we first met she was like I didn't see anything and I'm so afraid that no one's gonna believe me and I'm so afraid that people are gonna judge the fact that I didn't see anything as if there were things to be seen and it was our one of our driving goals and our purpose was to really land at that place where there were no red flags and she did not know and that happens often it really does and this to me Jen Andrea I know that one of the drivers for you making this podcast was to help other people I have to say one of the things you're helping people most with is showing a story without red flags because there's something that almost becomes caricatured oh there's always red flags and it's you didn't see them and that's because you have Legacy issues and now you see them and everyone has red flags but there aren't always red flags and I think this is so important to lifting blame for survivors who will often say what did I miss more than they blame themselves I must be foolish and I'll say listen unless you're holding back from me as your shrink I'm telling you there were no red flags and by you sharing your story in this way I think that's actually one of the most profound parts of the story was that there were no red flags and there are a lot of survivors out there that literally it's no red flags no red flags and then the whole thing goes off the cliff and that's why I was so interested in speaking with you about this because talking about narcissism I didn't see that in Spence you know and maybe he was a covert narcissist but on the outside my family my friends our community just all thought he was this wonderful man that would do anything for you one of the things I wanted to ask you today so you're leading me to that question was so I listened to the podcast early episodes no red flags then I literally felt it in my chest when you said the scene came home search warrant arrest what it was for if I felt the air sucked out of my lungs I can't imagine what your experience was and even what people have had similar not exactly the same but other betrayal experiences will feel it too but as the episodes went on and we saw the scope and scale of what he had done the lies the number of betrayals even after the call you have with him when he's in jail all of which I'd like to touch base on what I never heard once was the word narcissism and I was waiting I'm like okay they're gonna get to it not all right they're gonna talk about some of the words and I'm like huh so I get before the arrest what surprised me was never hearing that frame used afterwards can you shed some light on that Trey do you want to talk about that yeah I think it was really important for us to focus on the victim's journey and spend less time diagnosing him and what he was all about and more about the impact and the different experiences they had with the Spencer they interacted with because the Spencer that Jen interacted with was very different than the sexual assault victim than his band in Air National Guard bandmate every person dealt with a different version of him and I do think that there are seeds of narcissism driving all of those interactions but it was so important for us to just spend time and really experience and unpack because Jen's Journey was trying to figure out who is this man that I married and really at face values really meeting with people who knew the different sides of him and that was really the goal for her is to say I just need to see all the many faces right I need to see the different portraits and then really get to the bottom of how and just that reconciliation and that was more important to us but a lot of what we wanted to Showcase and really dig into was grooming I haven't heard a lot done on grooming and we felt like we really needed to spend time with that and that's where we focused we will be right back with this conversation with Jen and Andrea there's an old saying I'm gonna get it wrong but I use it a lot it's an old African proverb the tale of the Hunt is always told by the Hunter and never the lion yeah and I think in this case you're the lion it took me a minute when I first read that proverb I'm like wait isn't a lion fierce but no the lion is being stalked by the Hunter and we always hear the Hunter's Point of View so I really really resonate with what you're saying is how do we tell Survivor stories by keeping the lens on the Survivor and so I respect that and I understand that and I'm curious because goodness knows there's been so much you know Buzz and people talking about the podcast after you put it out there and people were commenting on it did you get that question were people saying well Spencer a narcissist and Spencer sounds like a narcissist was it ever coming up or were people so focused on the Survivor experience I feel like he is so many other things before he's the narcissist interesting I can't diagnose him obviously there's some sociopath thick Tendencies there or there's sex addiction and there's all this stuff I think now reading his correspondence with some of the other women and how he spoke with them and treated them I think that's where I see the narcissism and him come out I didn't see it in our lives he just wasn't like that he was just very caring and kind and like I said would just you know give you the shirt off his back so it was in those other correspondents though that I did see that that doesn't surprise me at all and Andre you said something so important where you said we were trying to unpack the many portraits I love how you said that because that's the struggle many survivors have now what happens in the sort of the more typical narcissistic relationship situation is a person is dealing with a terrible relationship for quite a long time and then there may even be a ramp up in the Betrayal right there's an extramarital affair or financial abuse words that can't be unsaid that kind of thing but it was already a bad scene so the person's like okay now I'm done right so there was a takeoff ramp there was a there was an incline to that point where people aren't shocked they're sad but they're not shocked right right and that idea of the many portraits because we always try to simplify it is to the good and the bad are they Charming charismatic versus the invalidating gaslighting manipulative right what you're saying saying and I think it's so on point is that it's not as simple as good bad it's actually these literally different experiences that all these people have of this person and I think there's a richness you're bringing to this conversation about when we try to Simply say well there's a personality sound some days are good and some days they're bad but actually yeah that's true but on top of that many many other people are having very different experiences and when you glue all those pieces together like a collage then you have the full representation of this person who is probably quite unlike anything or anyone you actually believed you were in a seven year relationship with one of my hypotheses is that Spencer was getting so much validation in so many other places the students other women people he was doing other creative Endeavors with that unlike many narcissistic people who may not have that many tubs of narcissistic Supply narcissists who don't get supply get really tense and snappy be and reactive and kind of mean but if there's always validation coming it's almost like their tummy is always full their psyche is always full so in a primary relationship like a marriage they can actually bring their a game because they're not looking to the marriage as the sole source of Supply they have so Diversified their sources of Supply that one is left with a really sweet person at home because they're getting it so many other places and this is something we'll often see is that when a person's in a relationship where there's an infidelity one of the things they'll say is what through me is my partner actually started becoming really nice and I wanted to think it's because the relationship was going better it's actually because now I recognize they were in love it just was they were falling in love with someone else that wasn't me and all the positive emotion that came from that and so I think that's an interesting way to view this because I think he he was literally the most Diversified portfolio of validation I think I've ever heard of in a narcissistic kind of a personality in my life that makes so much sense absolutely he could be one way the way that he wanted the world to see him with me I kind of provided that perfect life scenario and then go off be that other side of him that was a big part of him in secret and I think that you also laid it out I mean you're a formidable woman Jen I've read your background your work in the entertainment industry you're amazing and so you're this amazing beautiful woman who so accomplished that he married and made this beautiful home with that's its own form of validation above and beyond you this idea that I have this rock star wife who's gorgeous and is in you know we have this great house to get this great life that becomes a source of validation too it doesn't feel good to be thought of that way but it was a really important pillar and sort of the Temple of Spence as it were my session with Jen and Andrea will continue after this break [Music] so we're going over the cliff search warrant arrest he's gone and now you're left in this wreckage and the original search warrants and arrest warrant were around sexual contact with a student okay can you unpack what you learned about Spencer's not just double life it was like a quadruple or a quintuple life you know what did you learn oh my goodness I mean you know first of all he is escorted out of the house with leaving me thinking he's had this affair with the student and it was just three times and honestly I think at that point I didn't really even grasp the seriousness of it or how this student this young person was manipulated by him come to find out two days later I get into his email and I'm seeing picture after picture after picture of all these different women and I get into his email and discover I don't know probably 75 different women that he was corresponding with he was having two three year long relationships with several different people at the same time not only just the student but then so many adult women I'm gonna be a shrink for a minute can you tell me Jen what did it feel like as a woman to read all these emails to see this stuff on the screen you know one was just how hurt I was I felt like I had an elephant standing on my chest there there was that hurt that I felt from the Betrayal because he knew how important marriage was to me we talked about it all the time we were legal together we were in it for the long haul forever and then it was finding out reading the correspondence with these other women that just made me sick because the way he spoke to them the language he used talking about choking someone or it was just disgusting so there was that betrayal and that heartache I felt but then there was just this shock and awe of living with someone I just didn't even know right and never had heard that language from or anything I guess I'm asking even as a woman like how did you get through your days I am feeling your story I'm thinking I wouldn't know if day was night I wouldn't know how to sleep I'd be afraid to wake up my appetite would be shot I would lose 100 pounds how did you get through your days I told myself very early on just take every moment with baby steps if you can just literally put one foot in front of the other and make it to the end of the day you know you can check that off and I had a lot of support around me I have an amazing Community my parents came to stay with me so that helped but then that kind of died away a little bit and I was left on my own and I got a therapist because I knew I I couldn't do this by myself but I literally just kept telling myself baby steps just try to make it through today just try to make it through today and that's how you got through just one step I mean that's an extraordinary approach it's in some ways it's exactly what somebody a mental health practitioner would tell somebody but many people say I can't do this and you did it and I think that's important for survivors to hear that that one step at a time even if it's taking life five seconds at a time actually actually matters in this period of time when you're unearthing all these women I know obviously the case that resulted in the arrest was with a minor were these women these 75 women were they minors were they adults what was that was it mixed the ones that I found were all adults fortunately some were younger in their 20s some were you know 50 it was a wide range he did not have a specific type at all as I went through this it was the student that was the hardest pill to swallow because he just manipulated her and lied to her like he did all the other women this was her teacher this is somebody that she's supposed to look up to that was the most devastating thing it's one thing to do it to an adult but to do it to a child was just heart-wrenching now in all of this time you don't have contact with Spence I stayed in touch with him for until he was convicted so he was arrested June 2018 convicted January 2019. I had made a promise to him before he was arrested that I would stick by him not in a supportive way but I just I don't know why I said that at the moment I think it was I'm the wife I'm supposed to stick by him and so I did stay in communication with him through letters and phone calls for those first nine months but then once the conviction happened it happened the same day that he got our divorce papers and that was it then I cut off all communication because if you listen to the last episode where I speak with him on the phone he just continues to to spin the truth and I don't think really understands what he did to these people especially the student I don't think he understands the gravity of his issues no and that's a tremendous lack of empathy right that's the core of empathy that I've acted in a way that may have harmed someone so I am I I can see that I harm someone this wasn't okay and be aware of that in those months because you started looking at these emails and seeing what he had done pretty early in the game did you ask him did you make inquiries of what is this what happened who are all these people did you ask him what kind of response did you get back I would ask him you told this person and this person that you loved them and his response was always oh I don't remember saying that or oh I didn't really love them it was just this deep denial I would say that I knew the extent I knew how much he communicated with these people how long these relationships some of them were and he just played it off like it it really wasn't anything so this wasn't all just emails and messages these were real relationships yes real relationships with many people some like I said three at a time and they would be a year or two years long this is where I think I mean in a way I don't know I don't want this to even sound like grudging admiration I think I'm more puzzled than anything is how was he able to organize his time like the time management the time management I can't even keep a gallon of milk in the house and this guy is like juggling all this and presenting as the devoted husband the devoted teacher the devoted fat you know extended family member all of that what is what's chilling to me is that the compartmentalization that's required to do do that there's a reason you Jen and Andrea and I can't do this is because we couldn't compartmentalize empathy means you can't compartmentalize empathy is why you actually can't lie very well that the water breaches over and so if you were doing something like this people would detect a change in you and the idea that nobody was seeing that change is not a deficit in the people around him it is a statement on his capacity for compartmentalization totally did you think in those early months Jen that he knew he was doing something wrong one thing that's interesting he said to me I figured if you didn't know then it wouldn't hurt you so I think it was that he compartmentalized everything and he thought well if I keep this part really separate from Jennifer then I'm not hurting her right which is almost very paternalistic when we think about it it's being a a puppet master I can pull all the strings I decide who gets to know what and if I decide her not knowing means that she's not hurt then it's all okay those are the complex rationalizations that take place you know and we see this across a lot of patterns not just in a sort of a narcissistic personality but also even an addiction if nobody sees me get high or I never get high on the day of my kids soccer games somehow there's some Grand eraser in the sky that makes it okay these are the defenses that keep these kinds of behaviors in place so you learn all of this he gets convicted and how long after the conviction did you sit with Andrea and say I think I want to share this story with the world I think it was probably about eight months yeah yeah we got in contact and again I don't know what it was but just something pushed me to say I want to tell this story there's so many insane components of it that I didn't want to sweep it under the rug I wanted people to know that teacher of the year or that eagle scout can be that manipulator and that person that can just destroy lives [Music] part of the reason that narcissistic people are so emboldened and enabled by the world is that we often fall for the window dressing or maybe we're just perceptually lazy whether it's being the proverbial ego Scout or teacher of the year or employee of the year or person who is revered in the community that can buy a person a lot of social collateral and power and and unwillingness or at least a block by other people to seeing what the person's really about people with antagonistic manipulative and dishonest interpersonal styles are like the wolf in sheep's clothing we have to be willing to reshape our schemas of these people when their behavior is at odds with their shiny public persona here are my takeaways from my conversation with Jen and Andrea there are not always red flags and narcissistic relationships this is really important to remember because many survivors blame themselves for missing the signs and subsequently feeling foolish Jen her family their friends nobody they had contact with noticed any red flags so when it all came out she was shocked and startled but didn't track it back to something she missed it's easy to fall into believing that there are always red flags sometimes there aren't or they are so subtle that we miss them for a person with an antagonistic or a narcissistic personality their behavior is worse when they are not getting enough validation so when things in a narcissistic person's life are going well they feel safe they feel admired they feel in control is often when people will say that they feel like their relationship with them is going great this also means that when that validation Fades or the structures of Deceit and manipulation come crashing down and entirely new person can emerge this can confuse survivors to no end who don't understand where the shift comes from and can feel grief and shame at recognizing that the only reason the relationship was working was because the narcissistic person may have been getting their needs met in other places [Music] to our executive producers Jada Pinkett Smith Val and Jethro Ellen racketon and Dr romini davassala 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 Donahue and Calvin bailiff thank you thank you

Channel: Navigating Narcissism

Views: 32,483

Keywords: Navigating Narcissism, Navigating Narcissism Podcast, Dr. Ramani Podcast Navigating Narcissism, Navigating Narcissism Dr. Ramani, Navigating Narcissism Podcast Dr. Ramani, navigating narcissism iHeartRadio, Jenifer Faison, Andrea Gunning, Spencer Herron, narcissistic husband, narcissistic relationship, sexual predator, sexually assault, navigating narcissism, podcast, vodcast, Dr. Ramani, psychologist, gaslighting, NPD, relationships, red table talk, Betrayal Podcast

Id: fVqLWjRbSIg

Length: 34min 21sec (2061 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 15 2023