What if your partner developed twenty one new identities, or you discovered that your
friend who helped you through your darkest times was actually a conniving con artist.
Or what if you began seeing demons everywhere inhabiting people, including your son.
What would you do? From Wondering This Is Actually Happening as a podcast that
brings you extraordinary, true stories of life changing events told by the people who
lived them. In their newest season, you'll hear even more intimate, first
person accounts of how regular people have overcome remarkable circumstances, from the man who
went to jail for seventeen years for accidentally shooting the person who tried to save
his life to one of the close friends of infamous scam artist Amanda Riley.
These haunting accounts sound like Hollywood movies, but I assure you this is actually
happening. I'm about to play a clip from This Is Actually Happening while you're
listening. Follow This is Actually Happening on the Wondering app or wherever you get
your podcasts. I knew there's probably something on that phone, and I needed
to find out what it was because he wasn't going to be honest and tell
me. So his phone was password protected, but I knew my husband well
enough, and I figured out the code to his phone. It still sounds
crazy to me, but I figured it out, and I got into his
phone, and in such a weird place, I found it in the notes
app. I looked in the notes app and there was a link. When
I clicked on the link, it had a role of photographs of his co
worker and she was nude. And so once I had found those photos,
he came clean and he said it was an inappropriate friendship and that he had
lied to me. But he told me the relationship had never been physical.
He said he had never cheated on me, He hadn't kissed her, he
hadn't hugged her, and they had not had sex. And so as devastating
as it was to me, he was repentant and he was sorry. And
you know, because I was like, do you want our marriage to be
done? You know, like I don't want to be in a marriage with
someone who doesn't want to be married to me. But I was still I
still loved him at this point, and I was willing to try if he
was willing to try, And he told me he was willing to try,
and we got counseling and worked on our marriage, and I felt we were
on the way up. We hit this big roadbump. It's not a roadbump
that's unfamiliar to many couples. I can handle this. I do not want
to get divorced again. If he wants to work on things, and I'm
willing to work on things. We were doing okay. You know, we
went to church on Sunday together, and you know, like one of my
favorite things would be going to church and him reaching over and taking my hand.
It's just like each week you had a chance to renew yourself and just
like start fresh and put the past behind you and let's keep moving forward.
So it's winter break another time. That's like teachers. It's such a blessing
for teachers. You'd have like two weeks off over Christmas, and it'd been
a nice winter break and we'd spent time with the kids. And my son's
birthday is January second. That was a date my son had turned fifteen,
and we were having my parents over for dinner that night and my brother and
his wife to celebrate my son's fifteenth birthday. It was just a nice night.
We were going to bed, and I remember it. I had asked
him about a couple of bills that I'd asked him if he had paid,
and he had told me that he had not paid him. And he told
me that not only had he not paid them, but he hadn't paid them
for two months. And I just was like, oh gosh, it's just
I was stressed. And it was late at night and Michael went to sleep,
and I lay down and try to go to sleep. Something just wasn't
sitting right with me, Like something's off, and I couldn't go to sleep,
and why can't my mind rest? I just want to go to sleep.
It's been a long day, and I'm like, I'm just going to
take a sleeping pill and go to sleep. Took a sleeping pill and I
was wide awake, could not sleep. I just laid in bed and I
was like, what could be bothering me? Like what's going on? I
just felt like something was off with Michael. And I didn't know if it
was like maybe he's talking to this coworker again, or if it's related to
the finances. Just you know, something inside me was telling me something's wrong
and you need to pay attention. I mean, it's after midnight, and
you know, I feel like, you know what, maybe if I go
through his phone again and there's nothing there that'll put my mind at ease.
So I remember getting up and opening his phone up and looking through every app
I could think of, looking through his messages, looking through his emails.
I didn't even know where to look. I just I couldn't see anything off.
I didn't see any signs of him communicating with this woman. Again.
After looking through everything I could think of, I remember setting it down.
I'm sitting in the closet and I just prayed, and I just said,
God, if there's something on this phone that you want me to see,
you're gonna have to show me where to look, because I don't know where
else to look. And as soon as I finished that prayer, I opened
up his photos and I scrolled down to the file called recently Deleted, and
I tapped on that, and it was like opening Pandora's box. You can
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