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What if your partner developed twenty one
new identities, or you discovered that your

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friend who helped you through your darkest
times was actually a conniving con artist.

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Or what if you began seeing demons
everywhere inhabiting people, including your son.

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What would you do? From Wondering
This Is Actually Happening as a podcast that

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brings you extraordinary, true stories of
life changing events told by the people who

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lived them. In their newest season, you'll hear even more intimate, first

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person accounts of how regular people have
overcome remarkable circumstances, from the man who

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went to jail for seventeen years for
accidentally shooting the person who tried to save

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his life to one of the close
friends of infamous scam artist Amanda Riley.

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These haunting accounts sound like Hollywood movies, but I assure you this is actually

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happening. I'm about to play a
clip from This Is Actually Happening while you're

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listening. Follow This is Actually Happening
on the Wondering app or wherever you get

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your podcasts. I knew there's probably
something on that phone, and I needed

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to find out what it was because
he wasn't going to be honest and tell

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me. So his phone was password
protected, but I knew my husband well

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enough, and I figured out the
code to his phone. It still sounds

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crazy to me, but I figured
it out, and I got into his

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phone, and in such a weird
place, I found it in the notes

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app. I looked in the notes
app and there was a link. When

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I clicked on the link, it
had a role of photographs of his co

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worker and she was nude. And
so once I had found those photos,

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he came clean and he said it
was an inappropriate friendship and that he had

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lied to me. But he told
me the relationship had never been physical.

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He said he had never cheated on
me, He hadn't kissed her, he

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hadn't hugged her, and they had
not had sex. And so as devastating

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as it was to me, he
was repentant and he was sorry. And

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you know, because I was like, do you want our marriage to be

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done? You know, like I
don't want to be in a marriage with

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someone who doesn't want to be married
to me. But I was still I

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still loved him at this point,
and I was willing to try if he

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was willing to try, And he
told me he was willing to try,

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and we got counseling and worked on
our marriage, and I felt we were

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on the way up. We hit
this big roadbump. It's not a roadbump

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that's unfamiliar to many couples. I
can handle this. I do not want

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to get divorced again. If he
wants to work on things, and I'm

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willing to work on things. We
were doing okay. You know, we

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went to church on Sunday together,
and you know, like one of my

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favorite things would be going to church
and him reaching over and taking my hand.

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It's just like each week you had
a chance to renew yourself and just

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like start fresh and put the past
behind you and let's keep moving forward.

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So it's winter break another time.
That's like teachers. It's such a blessing

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for teachers. You'd have like two
weeks off over Christmas, and it'd been

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a nice winter break and we'd spent
time with the kids. And my son's

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birthday is January second. That was
a date my son had turned fifteen,

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and we were having my parents over
for dinner that night and my brother and

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his wife to celebrate my son's fifteenth
birthday. It was just a nice night.

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We were going to bed, and
I remember it. I had asked

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him about a couple of bills that
I'd asked him if he had paid,

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and he had told me that he
had not paid him. And he told

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me that not only had he not
paid them, but he hadn't paid them

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for two months. And I just
was like, oh gosh, it's just

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I was stressed. And it was
late at night and Michael went to sleep,

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and I lay down and try to
go to sleep. Something just wasn't

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sitting right with me, Like something's
off, and I couldn't go to sleep,

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and why can't my mind rest?
I just want to go to sleep.

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It's been a long day, and
I'm like, I'm just going to

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take a sleeping pill and go to
sleep. Took a sleeping pill and I

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was wide awake, could not sleep. I just laid in bed and I

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was like, what could be bothering
me? Like what's going on? I

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just felt like something was off with
Michael. And I didn't know if it

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was like maybe he's talking to this
coworker again, or if it's related to

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the finances. Just you know,
something inside me was telling me something's wrong

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and you need to pay attention.
I mean, it's after midnight, and

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you know, I feel like,
you know what, maybe if I go

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through his phone again and there's nothing
there that'll put my mind at ease.

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So I remember getting up and opening
his phone up and looking through every app

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I could think of, looking through
his messages, looking through his emails.

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I didn't even know where to look. I just I couldn't see anything off.

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I didn't see any signs of him
communicating with this woman. Again.

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After looking through everything I could think
of, I remember setting it down.

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I'm sitting in the closet and I
just prayed, and I just said,

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God, if there's something on this
phone that you want me to see,

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you're gonna have to show me where
to look, because I don't know where

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else to look. And as soon
as I finished that prayer, I opened

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up his photos and I scrolled down
to the file called recently Deleted, and

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I tapped on that, and it
was like opening Pandora's box. You can

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the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts