January 30, 2025 • 33 mins
"In sickness and in health" takes on new meaning as Kelsey discovers the true nature of Morgan’s illness.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
I got a Facebook message. She's like, I've been down
a rabbit hole about Morgan. I have proof there's a
lot more to the story. And that's when it really
blew open.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
I'm Andrea Gunning and this is Betrayal, a show about
the people we trust the most and the deceptions that
change everything. This is part two of Kelsey's story. If
you haven't heard part one, you should go back and
listen to that first as a listener. Note names and
locations have been changed to protect privacy. Almost two years
(00:53):
into a marriage with Morgan, a seed of doubt have
been planted in Kelsey's mind about her wife's terminal cancer diagnosis.
It started when they were home with Kelsey's family for Christmas.
Her mom had survived breast cancer, and something about Morgan's
behavior wasn't adding.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Up to her. I suddenly was like, why am I
feeling like something's wrong? And so this is the very
beginning of the conversations we started having about how serious
really is this? And that was when she started breaking bones.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
At first, it was her hip.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
She took the dogs out for a walk and came
back and she was dragging herself back into the apartment.
I was like, oh my god, what happened. She's like,
I think I broke my hip. I said, oh my god,
what do we do I need to take you to
the er. And she's like, no, this happens, like the
cancer must now be in my hip.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Kelsey was at a loss for what to do, but
Morgan told her this was just part of the dying process.
Her doctors told her to expect it.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
And she's like, I need to sleep. I need to sleep.
So she took some drugs and then she slept, and
she slept for like a week.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Morgan recovered from the hip injury and went back to
physical activity.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
A few weeks after that, she was walking again.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
One day, when Morgan.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Was out on a walk, she fell again and this
time she broke her elbow.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
I could see it. It was bruised and it had
been obviously smashed. And then she had a sling. As
she was healing her elbow.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
The broken bones became a cycle. After her elbow, Morgan
broke a rib.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
She had fallen and she came back and she just
was like, oh my gosh, my rib, my rib my rib.
We looked at it. It was broken, and she took
herself to urgent care.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
She came back with X rays showing her broken rib.
The doctors told her to rest. At the time, they
lived in an apartment complex and they were friends with
their downstairs neighbors. They usually went over every week for
game night.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
After she had broken her rib, More was at home
for a couple of weeks and we had missed a
game night, and I had gone down personally to you know,
apologize he ever seeing this game night and to ask
how things were going. So I was in person in
their apartment. I was like explaining when I got her rib,
and one of them was like, oh my god, someone's
(03:18):
got to say it. I saw her. I saw her
with her rib, and I was like, I don't know
what you mean.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
There was a cement wall in the back of their
apartment complex, and their neighbor had seen Morgan behaving strangely.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
And she's like the day that she broke her rib,
I saw her falling onto that cement wall, like jumping
onto this wall.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Her neighbor saw Morgan throwing herself against a cement wall.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
And it wasn't just one time.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
She was like, I watched her do it several times.
I thought it was weird. And I was really defensive.
I was like, oh, you might have just like misunderstood
the situation because that doesn't make any sense, and they're like,
you need to talk to your wife about this.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Kelsey felt like her neighbors were accusing her of lying,
and the neighbor's story didn't make any sense. If they
saw Morgan falling, why wouldn't they help her.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
I remember coming home and being like, why did the
neighbor think that she saw you? And she's like, it
was a really big fall. I'm surprised she didn't make
sure I was okay as I, Yeah, that seems weird,
Like I just get a weird vibe from them, like
I really don't think they want to be friends with
us anymore. And she's like, well, we don't want to
be friends with anyone who think we're liars anyway, Like
why would anyone lie about this?
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Regardless of how Morgan had broken her rib, she was
clearly injured again. Morgan's doctor recommended she stay physically active,
but to Kelsey this seemed unsafe, so she.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Told Morgan, you have to stop leaving the house like this,
and I need to see your paperwork, like I need
to see the doctor's recommend that this is okay, because
clearly it's not. And it was a huge argument. It
was a huge blow up that I was too controlling,
that I was obsessing over her death. And I finally
was like okay, and then I left the apartment.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Kelsey went on a walk around the block alone for
the first time in a long time.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
And so I was on this walk thinking I don't
know how to manage this anymore.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Between Morgan's cancer, her constant injuries, working to support them both,
and her graduate school program, Kelsey couldn't take it anymore.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
On that walk, I called my friend and I was like,
I'm not okay. I think I need to leave.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
That night, Kelsey made up her mind she was going
to transfer schools, move to a new city on her own.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
The academic advisor called me the very next day and
was like, oh, I'd love to sell yoll for an interview,
And so I flew that Thursday and did my interview
in person.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
She was in a frenzy before she was even accepted.
She made plans to move everything and her body was
telling her to get away from Morgan.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
So I just literally packed everything in my car. I
got a job and a place to live. When I
went to interview, I just moved at lightning speed. When
she told Morgan she was leaving, she was just shocked.
I was like, I think we just need a little
bit of breather space. You stay here, You've got everything
that you need. I'll continue paying for rent here, I'll
(06:30):
pay for your food, I'll pay for everything. But I
have to go do my master's program. And then then
I left. If she might have thought I was having
a mental breakdown, because honestly I was.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
That night she drove fifteen hours straight.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Oh my way, I called my sister. My sister was like,
you are a really terrible person, Like I can't believe
that you would leave in this way when Morgan could
die at any time.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
At the time, she wasn't ready to share her doubts
about Morgan's diagnosis with anyone else.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
I just felt like I didn't have enough evidence of that.
I just wanted it to be behind me.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
Still, her sister's words made her feel horrible. Because of
this guilt, Kelsey stayed in touch with Morgan over the
phone as much as she could, especially when right after
her move, Kelsey needed emergency surgery for her appendix now
the shoe was on the other foot and Kelsey needed
(07:28):
morgan support.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
I remember calling Morgan at the er. She's like, oh
my god, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
While Kelsey was in the hospital recovering, she received a
strange text.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
I actually got a text from her mom and it
was almost like the fourth wall broke.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
The last time she had heard from Morgan's mom was
before they'd gotten married, and that was over email.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
The emails were.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
She called Kelsey the devil. They had never texted, and.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
She sent the most thoughtful text to me. It was like, oh, sorry,
this is happening. We're hoping you heal.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
This was at odds with everything Kelsey knew about this woman.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
I was like, what, Like, Morgan didn't have relationship with
her parents, and suddenly they knew this very intimate detail
about my health.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
That text from Morgan's mom opened a door to what
might be a different reality. She decided not to tell
Morgan about it.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
That suddenly felt like I was uncovering something.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
After Kelsey recovered from surgery, she settled into her new city.
She could finally feel the relief of being away from Morgan.
The next time they talked, Kelsey asked for divorce, and
to her surprise, Morgan agreed.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
She's like, Okay, I've got a family friend who's married
to a divorce lawyer, and she will start working up
the divorce paperwork. Because I had no idea how to divorce,
I just assumed it would be complicated, so she.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Let Morgan handle the paperwork. It was clear to both
of them that their relationship was over.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
Morgan took it really hard.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
The divorce had activated her eating disorder, so she was
going back into an eating disorder clinic in our home state.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Kelsey felt intense guilt for leaving Morgan. She'd spent two
years taking care of her. She'd seen the broken bones,
the nausea of the exhaustion, all of the medications. But
the more time Kelsey took for herself, the more she
realized Morgan was hiding something.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
What it was, she didn't.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Know for sure, But what she did know was that
she needed.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
A fresh start.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
I can finally at least separate myself from whatever lie
she is or is not telling herself or me.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Kelsey tried to move on and put this relationship behind her.
She wanted to clean slate.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
I felt like it was the start of a whole
new chapter of my life. It was the first time
I was dating someone new who didn't have a health crisis.
This is when I was in a master's program. I
just loved my school, I loved being with my dog.
I loved the new life I was creating. And I
reflected back on the years before, and I really felt
(10:16):
like I had missed everything, and so I felt like
this was the start of something brand new.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Part of that reset was acting like the relationship with
Morgan never happened.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
I felt stupid for having been in this dynamic for
so long. It would be so much easier to start
completely over if I just don't bring in this very,
very complicated backstory that I now had with my ex.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
But she still had to communicate with Morgan about the
divorce paperwork.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
I would have to check in and be like, wait,
where is this divorce happening? Like I was always just
kind of like dragged back to the reality of something
I really didn't want to face.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
As the months when by the divorce still hadn't been finalized.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
And throughout this whole time period, there be times where
I was like checking in and Morgan would be like, oh,
I'm filing paperwork and it's still being processed.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
While Kelsey was in the middle of her emotional recovery,
she got a red envelope in the mail.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
I started getting collection notices. The first big one was
the car.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Morgan had stopped paying her car payment, so it went
to collections.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Kelsey assumed, like, she's getting the same notification, so she's
going to pay for it, right. That was the first notification,
And then I started getting mail constantly, phone bills, credit
card debts, things that had my name and her name
on together, and it was significant. It was like thousands
(11:52):
and thousands of dollars.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
The notices weren't slowing down, and the debt was impacting
Kelsey's credit.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
I was just starting to get really frustrated. I was like,
how is this happening? So the very first thing I
did was try to contact her. She didn't answer, She'd
block me.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Morgan had blocked her, and their divorce still wasn't finalized.
So Kelsey decided to take matters into her own hands.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
So I paid an attorney to check all the legal
processes in every state we had lived in to see
if they had started divorce paperwork at all. And Morgan
had never ever filed.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Morgan told Kelsey with confidence that she had filed for divorce,
and Kelsey believed her, trusted her, and.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
I was like, there's no way she would lie about this,
But she had lied.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
Kelsey's lawyer had the proof. The time Kelsey spent trying to.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Put Morgan behind her now came with a price.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Oh my god. I have been avoiding the reality of
this forever, like I haven't ever thought to check anything
regarding our divorce paperwork. I didn't know to like flag
her on any of my banks, to not have access
to my stuff like we were legally married. And so
(13:19):
suddenly I realized there was so many connections that I
still had her and didn't know the gravity of until
I was presenting this lawyer this debt paperwork.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Morgan's debt had piled up to an astonishing number.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Just the payoff alone, like just what I knew collectors
had sent to me that was dinging on my credit
report was about sixty thousand.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
Kelsey hadn't been able to reach Morgan.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
She had no idea where she was living, but she
was clearly still alive, charging credit cards with Kelsey's name
on them. So they hired a private investigator to track
Morgan down and serve her the paperwork.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
My lawyer sent the paperwork to her and she signed,
so now I can also file a financial restraint order
against her. I remember leaving the courthouse and just sabbing,
like walking into my car and just crying.
Speaker 5 (14:15):
It was the first time I had like a binder
in my hands of our marriage certificate and are divorce
to creed, and I finally could put a stop too
anything more happening.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
With the divorce decree in hand, Kelsey believed that Morgan
and the chaos that came with her was now truly
behind her. She wasn't avoiding it anymore.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
I was really surprised when in late twenty twenty, I
got a Facebook message from Joanne.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
It was Morgan's mentor, the woman who'd been like a
second mother to her. Kelsey hadn't spoken to her since
that awkward road trip visit years ago. Joanne said she
needed to speak with Kelsey.
Speaker 6 (15:03):
It was urgent, So we get on a Facebook video
call and she's like, a couple months ago, I was
listening to a podcast about factitious disorder and it just
sounds so much like Morgan that I just couldn't shake
this feeling.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Factitious disorder is the official term for Munchausen syndrome, which
is when someone fakes being sick for sympathy and attention.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
Joanne went on to explain, I've.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Been down a rabbit hole about Morgan, and I have
proof that she had been diagnosed with spactitious disorder before
she ever met you, and I had proved that she
was faking breaking her bones.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Just as Kelsey was finally feeling in control of her life,
she got a Facebook message out.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Of the blue.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
It was from Joanne, Morgan's mentor. Joanne had uncovered something
that she needed to share with Kelsey.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
This is when she broke down all of her findings,
which she could on paper point two and say like, no,
I got this record, this was a lie, and this
statement for this person's a lie.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Joanne had met Morgan when Morgan was a college athlete.
She'd taken Morgan in when she was going through a
hard time with her family, and Joanne was there when
Morgan broke her wrists for the first time. When Morgan
came back from the hospital in a cast, she told
Joanne the doctors had found bone cancer.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Morgan had told Joanne that she needed to start cancer treatments,
and so she had supplies that she had brought back
and she was having Joanne administer cancer treatment intravenously. That's
why Joanne had confirmed to me that she had cancer,
because she's like, yeah, I was doing treatments with her
when she had cancer. It was really scary, and so
(17:08):
they bonded over that. It was like, oh my gosh,
of course I'll help you. You're away from family.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
This all happened before Kelsey ever met Morgan. Now years later,
Joanne was coming to Kelsey with proof that the story
they'd both been told was a lie.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Joanne had found out that Morgan had secured saline and
like supplies to give herself IV treatments, but they were
never actual treatments.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Joanne got medical records that told the real story what
was actually happening.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Morgan would come out of the hospital like having fixed
her broken wrist, and then would break it again and
tell everyone that it was cancer related, that our cancer
had come back. But in reality, she was going back
to the doctor and being like, oh, my broken bone
and will you fix it? And they would fix it.
But after four or five times of this happening during
(18:02):
that school year. They had actually had to blacklist her
from the hospital because she had exhausted the hospitals in
that area.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
It was a bombshell finding refusing care and blacklisting someone
from a hospital is a very big deal.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
The fact that Morgan had been assigned this label and
not allowed to get treatment at these hospitals anymore was
like a really serious thing, and they had officially listed
it as factious at the time. Was called Munchausen. That's
how they formally called it on her record, like, do
not treat her, this is unhealthy, and they had kept
(18:42):
encouraging her to get psychiatric care.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
But according to the records Joanne had, Morgan didn't get
psychiatric care. Instead, she went to summer camp.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
And so after lying about it to all the doctors
in the city of her college, this is the summer
that she met me.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
After Morgan and Kelsey met, Morgan didn't need Joanne anymore.
She had a new caretaker. The attention Kelsey witnessed between
Morgan and Joanne when she saw them the last time
was real. Joanne was starting to question Morgan's story.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Joanne was mutual friends with someone and that person didn't
even know that Morgan was dying of cancer. She just
started kind of hitting parts of the story that didn't
make a lot of sense. That's why she kept trying
to tell me something, but felt like she didn't have
enough proof to tell me.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
But now Joanne had the proof and the two of
them could begin piecing everything together.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
We started comparing stories and realized there's a lot more
to this story than we even know. Between the two
of us.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
A key component of Morgan pulling off this deception was
keeping people isolated from each other. If Kelsey and Joanne
were going to find the truth, they needed to connect
with other people in Morgan's life.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
This is where it really blew open.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Kelsey went back to the very beginning, to the mutual
friend who vouched for Morgan at camp.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Even my friend from camp knew one version of the story.
She had never mentioned having cancer ever to this friend,
So that was the first like, oh, she was lying
from the very beginning.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
Even parts of the story that Kelsey never.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Questioned before now seemed like they could be lies. Starting
with the letter Morgan said she received from the camp
director warning her that her eating disorder was interfering with
her job. Performance.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
She had never been talked to by camp staff about
being removed from camp. Ever, that was never even a conversation.
No one actually knew anything about her eating disorder.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Kelsey couldn't believe this fundamental part of their origin story
could be fabricated. But the lie was confirmed when she discovered.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
She had never been hospitalized for eating disorder. The clinic
that she gave me was a fake name.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Every new person Kelsey talked to had been told a
different story. Sometimes it was an entirely different story.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
It wasn't always cancer that the lie was about. It
was oftentimes, Oh, I found my birth mother, So there
was like a birth mother network of lies.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
One lie, in particular, was extremely difficult for Kelsey to accept.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Morgan had actually maintained a relationship with her family the
whole time I knew her.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Kelsey tracked down Morgan's siblings. That's when she learned her
family had no idea about Morgan's cancer. And when Morgan
told the family she was dating a woman, everyone was
accepting of her. So who sent the hate emails?
Speaker 1 (21:56):
I did some digging on the emails that her parents
had been sending me, and all of them went back
to the same computer that I had bought her, which
meant that all of the emails that her parents had
sent me when we first started dating were from Morgan.
(22:17):
Morgan had written them. This hateful, homophobic rhetoric came from
my partner. That was so devastating because I had such
trauma and so much internalized shame for being gay.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
So much of Kelsey's decision to support Morgan was because
she had no family left. They had all disowned her
because she was gay. It was just lie on top
of lie.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Every single component of the intensity, like the first four
months of knowing her, was completely fabricated in every.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Way time, All of the intensity felt very real to Kelsey,
from the hate emails to Morgan's symptoms, the fatigue, the vomiting.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
How could Morgan fake all of that? Well, Kelsey found out.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
I learned that she was taking medications that made her
throw up, that made it really with tharga clear seizure meds.
I learned that she would steal medications.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Morgan didn't come up with the whole plan by herself,
She had source material.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
This is when I had seen the movie The Fault
in Our Stars and realized that she was feeding me
the same lines from the book and from the movie.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
The Fault in Our Stars is a book by John
Green that was adapted into a film. It follows two
teenagers with terminal cancer. Some of the exact lines from
the movie were things Morgan had said to her, like
claiming that her cancer scans quote lit up like a
Christmas tree. Kelsey felt like her relationship had been scripted.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
My entire because stints with her was a lie, all
of it.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Now that Kelsey had broken open Morgan's lies, she wanted
to make sure that there were no remaining ties with her.
She discovered there was still one bank account open that
they shared. It was an account Kelsey never knew about,
but her name was on it. In order to close
the account, she had to move the money out of it.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
It was technically my account to close because we were
both on it.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
There was twenty thousand dollars in this account, all of
Morgan's checking and savings.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
I suddenly had access to all of her money after
all these years of piecing the story together, and like,
I suddenly have access to everything. In order to close it,
I had to put the money somewhere, so I had
to do something with the money.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
So She asked her friends and family what to do.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
Everyone was like, keep the money, like that is your money.
She couldn't dispute it even if she wanted to. And
I was like, no, no, no, I'm not taking any of that
bad karma.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Kelsey had financially supported Morgan for years. When they separated,
she took on sixty thousand dollars of Morgan's debt. Even
after all of that, Kelsey decided to send the money
back to Morgan. She was ready to wash her hands
of the whole thing.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
I sent her a letter along with the check, and
I said, I paid off everything you owed. I could
have taken thousands and thousands. I could have taken everything,
and it still would not be a drop on the
bucket of what money you took from me. You lied
to me. I know every lie you've ever told. Never
talk to me again, and I really hope that you're
(25:42):
getting the help that you need. And that was the
last thing I sent.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
After nearly five years, Kelsey was finally free of Morgan
and her deception, liberated from the lies, the financial and
emotional burden that she endured. Today, Kelsey thinks back on
the innocent woman at Girl Scout Camp who walked right
into Morgan's web.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
Like I was the perfect person for Morgan to meet
at camp. Could not have been more perfect, Like a
history of family dysfunction, the tendency to get in relationships
where I'm caregiving, and I had a mom food cancer.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Before Morgan, Kelsey had never even heard about abuse in
a lesbian relationship.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
So as a queer person, I almost felt safer with
women than I ever felt with men, Like I never
thought that that would happen to me in this intimate
or precise or manipulative way.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
For a long time, Kelsey struggled to tell other people
what she went through. Would they believe her? Would they
judge her?
Speaker 1 (27:00):
A common question I get is how did you not know?
Or if you were married, how did you not know
the medicine or the doctors? Especially because this story with
Morgan is so extreme, I agree. If I was on
the outside, I listened to plenty of true crime and
(27:22):
factitious disorder our stuff that I'm like, obviously you would know.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
So how did she not know? Well? The short answer
is that she believed a woman she loved. The question
used to bother her, but now she understands where it's
coming from.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
I really think it comes from a deep desire to
feel like it couldn't happen to us. And more than that,
it comes from this desire of like protecting ourselves hearing
other people's pain. And I can sympathize with that completely.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
When she does tell the story to other people, she
noticed this is her own shame.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Whenever I cringe telling this story, I've had to pause
and ask myself what part of me is cringing? And
the part of me that's cringing is always coming from
a shameful, guilty place.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
It's a relatable experience. All of us can point to
a moment in our lives and cringe at our choices.
Kelsey's come to realize shame doesn't work.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Shame has never been a motivator of change for me.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
She's had to reflect on her own part in the relationship,
those key moments where she chose to stay with Morgan,
even when she knew something wasn't right.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
It's so easy to hear my story and be like,
this terrible thing happened to this great person, And to
be honest, I have had to reckon with my own
innerdeemons about this, Like what parts of me were attracted
to a person that needed to be taken care of.
I can reflect back on a lot in my early
(29:04):
childhood where to be caregiving and to be codependent. In
that way, we're very much rewarded. So it's not just like, Wow,
this terrible thing happened to me. Truly, it's like I
can see what I said yes to in this complicitly.
I can see where I turned an eye away from
what I knew in my body was the truth because
(29:25):
I didn't want to lose something I loved or am embarrassed.
I didn't leave sooner because I was afraid of what
it would look like. And it's true.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
Kelsey has cultivated sympathy for the younger version of herself
who made those choices. After all, she was acting out
of love.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
When I hear other people's horrific stories of things that
have happened to them, I now have a lens of
what a human experience to love so deeply that we're
willing to suspend disbelief that high is like, I truly
believe that deception really comes from a deep desire to
be loved, and I can sympathize with a desire to
be loved.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
There's a meta element to Kelsey's story. It was a
podcast that helped Joanne and then Kelsey discover the truth.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
And I remember listening to that podcast and thinking like
that is so brave because I was so embarrassed about
my own story. I still struggle with that with myself,
but it's like, I want there to be less stigma
around manipulative relationships.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Kelsey feels like it's come full circle. She's telling her
own story now for someone else who needs to hear it.
We end all of our episodes with the same question,
why did you want to tell your story?
Speaker 1 (30:43):
I didn't want to tell the story ever. Again, the
thing that made me is knowing that it took me
so many years to untangle myself from the shame of
not recognizing that as trauma sooner. But there are so
many little things that feel important to say out loud
(31:05):
that we should be making more space for people to
be critical of their interpersonal relationships without shame, Like if
that trust has been breached, then it's time to go.
You don't have to wait for evidence to leave. I
think we need more models of that happening, and so
I truly believe that I can reflect this story with
(31:27):
love and also hold someone accountable for doing something truly terrible.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
On the next episode of Betrayal.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
If he can lie about that, he can lie about anything.
He used his dead mother's name, he used his dead
father's name, he used I think his aunt, he used
my name, all these people.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal
team or want to tell us your Betrayal story, email
us at betrayalpod at gmail dot com. That's Betrayal pod
at gmail dot com. We're grateful for your support. One
way to show support is by subscribing to our show
on Apple Podcasts, and don't forget to rate and review Betrayal.
Five star reviews go a long way. A big thank
(32:15):
you to all of our listeners. Betrayal is a production
of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group and
partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive produced by
Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fason, hosted and produced by me
Andrea Gunning, written and produced by Monique Leboard, also produced
by Ben Fetterman. Associate producers are Kristin Mercury and Caitlin Golden.
(32:39):
Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Krinchech. Audio
editing and mixing by Matt Delvecchio, Additional editing support from
Tanner Robbins. Betrayal's theme composed by Oliver Bains. Music library
provided by my Music and For more podcasts from iHeart,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
(32:59):
your my guest
I got a Facebook message. She's like, I've been down
a rabbit hole about Morgan. I have proof there's a
lot more to the story. And that's when it really
blew open.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
I'm Andrea Gunning and this is Betrayal, a show about
the people we trust the most and the deceptions that
change everything. This is part two of Kelsey's story. If
you haven't heard part one, you should go back and
listen to that first as a listener. Note names and
locations have been changed to protect privacy. Almost two years
(00:53):
into a marriage with Morgan, a seed of doubt have
been planted in Kelsey's mind about her wife's terminal cancer diagnosis.
It started when they were home with Kelsey's family for Christmas.
Her mom had survived breast cancer, and something about Morgan's
behavior wasn't adding.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Up to her. I suddenly was like, why am I
feeling like something's wrong? And so this is the very
beginning of the conversations we started having about how serious
really is this? And that was when she started breaking bones.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
At first, it was her hip.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
She took the dogs out for a walk and came
back and she was dragging herself back into the apartment.
I was like, oh my god, what happened. She's like,
I think I broke my hip. I said, oh my god,
what do we do I need to take you to
the er. And she's like, no, this happens, like the
cancer must now be in my hip.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Kelsey was at a loss for what to do, but
Morgan told her this was just part of the dying process.
Her doctors told her to expect it.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
And she's like, I need to sleep. I need to sleep.
So she took some drugs and then she slept, and
she slept for like a week.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Morgan recovered from the hip injury and went back to
physical activity.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
A few weeks after that, she was walking again.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
One day, when Morgan.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Was out on a walk, she fell again and this
time she broke her elbow.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
I could see it. It was bruised and it had
been obviously smashed. And then she had a sling. As
she was healing her elbow.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
The broken bones became a cycle. After her elbow, Morgan
broke a rib.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
She had fallen and she came back and she just
was like, oh my gosh, my rib, my rib my rib.
We looked at it. It was broken, and she took
herself to urgent care.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
She came back with X rays showing her broken rib.
The doctors told her to rest. At the time, they
lived in an apartment complex and they were friends with
their downstairs neighbors. They usually went over every week for
game night.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
After she had broken her rib, More was at home
for a couple of weeks and we had missed a
game night, and I had gone down personally to you know,
apologize he ever seeing this game night and to ask
how things were going. So I was in person in
their apartment. I was like explaining when I got her rib,
and one of them was like, oh my god, someone's
(03:18):
got to say it. I saw her. I saw her
with her rib, and I was like, I don't know
what you mean.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
There was a cement wall in the back of their
apartment complex, and their neighbor had seen Morgan behaving strangely.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
And she's like the day that she broke her rib,
I saw her falling onto that cement wall, like jumping
onto this wall.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Her neighbor saw Morgan throwing herself against a cement wall.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
And it wasn't just one time.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
She was like, I watched her do it several times.
I thought it was weird. And I was really defensive.
I was like, oh, you might have just like misunderstood
the situation because that doesn't make any sense, and they're like,
you need to talk to your wife about this.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Kelsey felt like her neighbors were accusing her of lying,
and the neighbor's story didn't make any sense. If they
saw Morgan falling, why wouldn't they help her.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
I remember coming home and being like, why did the
neighbor think that she saw you? And she's like, it
was a really big fall. I'm surprised she didn't make
sure I was okay as I, Yeah, that seems weird,
Like I just get a weird vibe from them, like
I really don't think they want to be friends with
us anymore. And she's like, well, we don't want to
be friends with anyone who think we're liars anyway, Like
why would anyone lie about this?
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Regardless of how Morgan had broken her rib, she was
clearly injured again. Morgan's doctor recommended she stay physically active,
but to Kelsey this seemed unsafe, so she.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Told Morgan, you have to stop leaving the house like this,
and I need to see your paperwork, like I need
to see the doctor's recommend that this is okay, because
clearly it's not. And it was a huge argument. It
was a huge blow up that I was too controlling,
that I was obsessing over her death. And I finally
was like okay, and then I left the apartment.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Kelsey went on a walk around the block alone for
the first time in a long time.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
And so I was on this walk thinking I don't
know how to manage this anymore.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Between Morgan's cancer, her constant injuries, working to support them both,
and her graduate school program, Kelsey couldn't take it anymore.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
On that walk, I called my friend and I was like,
I'm not okay. I think I need to leave.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
That night, Kelsey made up her mind she was going
to transfer schools, move to a new city on her own.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
The academic advisor called me the very next day and
was like, oh, I'd love to sell yoll for an interview,
And so I flew that Thursday and did my interview
in person.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
She was in a frenzy before she was even accepted.
She made plans to move everything and her body was
telling her to get away from Morgan.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
So I just literally packed everything in my car. I
got a job and a place to live. When I
went to interview, I just moved at lightning speed. When
she told Morgan she was leaving, she was just shocked.
I was like, I think we just need a little
bit of breather space. You stay here, You've got everything
that you need. I'll continue paying for rent here, I'll
(06:30):
pay for your food, I'll pay for everything. But I
have to go do my master's program. And then then
I left. If she might have thought I was having
a mental breakdown, because honestly I was.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
That night she drove fifteen hours straight.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Oh my way, I called my sister. My sister was like,
you are a really terrible person, Like I can't believe
that you would leave in this way when Morgan could
die at any time.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
At the time, she wasn't ready to share her doubts
about Morgan's diagnosis with anyone else.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
I just felt like I didn't have enough evidence of that.
I just wanted it to be behind me.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
Still, her sister's words made her feel horrible. Because of
this guilt, Kelsey stayed in touch with Morgan over the
phone as much as she could, especially when right after
her move, Kelsey needed emergency surgery for her appendix now
the shoe was on the other foot and Kelsey needed
(07:28):
morgan support.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
I remember calling Morgan at the er. She's like, oh
my god, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
While Kelsey was in the hospital recovering, she received a
strange text.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
I actually got a text from her mom and it
was almost like the fourth wall broke.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
The last time she had heard from Morgan's mom was
before they'd gotten married, and that was over email.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
The emails were.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
She called Kelsey the devil. They had never texted, and.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
She sent the most thoughtful text to me. It was like, oh, sorry,
this is happening. We're hoping you heal.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
This was at odds with everything Kelsey knew about this woman.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
I was like, what, Like, Morgan didn't have relationship with
her parents, and suddenly they knew this very intimate detail
about my health.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
That text from Morgan's mom opened a door to what
might be a different reality. She decided not to tell
Morgan about it.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
That suddenly felt like I was uncovering something.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
After Kelsey recovered from surgery, she settled into her new city.
She could finally feel the relief of being away from Morgan.
The next time they talked, Kelsey asked for divorce, and
to her surprise, Morgan agreed.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
She's like, Okay, I've got a family friend who's married
to a divorce lawyer, and she will start working up
the divorce paperwork. Because I had no idea how to divorce,
I just assumed it would be complicated, so she.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Let Morgan handle the paperwork. It was clear to both
of them that their relationship was over.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
Morgan took it really hard.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
The divorce had activated her eating disorder, so she was
going back into an eating disorder clinic in our home state.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Kelsey felt intense guilt for leaving Morgan. She'd spent two
years taking care of her. She'd seen the broken bones,
the nausea of the exhaustion, all of the medications. But
the more time Kelsey took for herself, the more she
realized Morgan was hiding something.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
What it was, she didn't.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Know for sure, But what she did know was that
she needed.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
A fresh start.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
I can finally at least separate myself from whatever lie
she is or is not telling herself or me.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Kelsey tried to move on and put this relationship behind her.
She wanted to clean slate.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
I felt like it was the start of a whole
new chapter of my life. It was the first time
I was dating someone new who didn't have a health crisis.
This is when I was in a master's program. I
just loved my school, I loved being with my dog.
I loved the new life I was creating. And I
reflected back on the years before, and I really felt
(10:16):
like I had missed everything, and so I felt like
this was the start of something brand new.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Part of that reset was acting like the relationship with
Morgan never happened.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
I felt stupid for having been in this dynamic for
so long. It would be so much easier to start
completely over if I just don't bring in this very,
very complicated backstory that I now had with my ex.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
But she still had to communicate with Morgan about the
divorce paperwork.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
I would have to check in and be like, wait,
where is this divorce happening? Like I was always just
kind of like dragged back to the reality of something
I really didn't want to face.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
As the months when by the divorce still hadn't been finalized.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
And throughout this whole time period, there be times where
I was like checking in and Morgan would be like, oh,
I'm filing paperwork and it's still being processed.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
While Kelsey was in the middle of her emotional recovery,
she got a red envelope in the mail.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
I started getting collection notices. The first big one was
the car.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Morgan had stopped paying her car payment, so it went
to collections.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Kelsey assumed, like, she's getting the same notification, so she's
going to pay for it, right. That was the first notification,
And then I started getting mail constantly, phone bills, credit
card debts, things that had my name and her name
on together, and it was significant. It was like thousands
(11:52):
and thousands of dollars.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
The notices weren't slowing down, and the debt was impacting
Kelsey's credit.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
I was just starting to get really frustrated. I was like,
how is this happening? So the very first thing I
did was try to contact her. She didn't answer, She'd
block me.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Morgan had blocked her, and their divorce still wasn't finalized.
So Kelsey decided to take matters into her own hands.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
So I paid an attorney to check all the legal
processes in every state we had lived in to see
if they had started divorce paperwork at all. And Morgan
had never ever filed.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Morgan told Kelsey with confidence that she had filed for divorce,
and Kelsey believed her, trusted her, and.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
I was like, there's no way she would lie about this,
But she had lied.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
Kelsey's lawyer had the proof. The time Kelsey spent trying to.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Put Morgan behind her now came with a price.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Oh my god. I have been avoiding the reality of
this forever, like I haven't ever thought to check anything
regarding our divorce paperwork. I didn't know to like flag
her on any of my banks, to not have access
to my stuff like we were legally married. And so
(13:19):
suddenly I realized there was so many connections that I
still had her and didn't know the gravity of until
I was presenting this lawyer this debt paperwork.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Morgan's debt had piled up to an astonishing number.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Just the payoff alone, like just what I knew collectors
had sent to me that was dinging on my credit
report was about sixty thousand.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
Kelsey hadn't been able to reach Morgan.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
She had no idea where she was living, but she
was clearly still alive, charging credit cards with Kelsey's name
on them. So they hired a private investigator to track
Morgan down and serve her the paperwork.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
My lawyer sent the paperwork to her and she signed,
so now I can also file a financial restraint order
against her. I remember leaving the courthouse and just sabbing,
like walking into my car and just crying.
Speaker 5 (14:15):
It was the first time I had like a binder
in my hands of our marriage certificate and are divorce
to creed, and I finally could put a stop too
anything more happening.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
With the divorce decree in hand, Kelsey believed that Morgan
and the chaos that came with her was now truly
behind her. She wasn't avoiding it anymore.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
I was really surprised when in late twenty twenty, I
got a Facebook message from Joanne.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
It was Morgan's mentor, the woman who'd been like a
second mother to her. Kelsey hadn't spoken to her since
that awkward road trip visit years ago. Joanne said she
needed to speak with Kelsey.
Speaker 6 (15:03):
It was urgent, So we get on a Facebook video
call and she's like, a couple months ago, I was
listening to a podcast about factitious disorder and it just
sounds so much like Morgan that I just couldn't shake
this feeling.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Factitious disorder is the official term for Munchausen syndrome, which
is when someone fakes being sick for sympathy and attention.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
Joanne went on to explain, I've.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Been down a rabbit hole about Morgan, and I have
proof that she had been diagnosed with spactitious disorder before
she ever met you, and I had proved that she
was faking breaking her bones.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Just as Kelsey was finally feeling in control of her life,
she got a Facebook message out.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Of the blue.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
It was from Joanne, Morgan's mentor. Joanne had uncovered something
that she needed to share with Kelsey.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
This is when she broke down all of her findings,
which she could on paper point two and say like, no,
I got this record, this was a lie, and this
statement for this person's a lie.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Joanne had met Morgan when Morgan was a college athlete.
She'd taken Morgan in when she was going through a
hard time with her family, and Joanne was there when
Morgan broke her wrists for the first time. When Morgan
came back from the hospital in a cast, she told
Joanne the doctors had found bone cancer.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Morgan had told Joanne that she needed to start cancer treatments,
and so she had supplies that she had brought back
and she was having Joanne administer cancer treatment intravenously. That's
why Joanne had confirmed to me that she had cancer,
because she's like, yeah, I was doing treatments with her
when she had cancer. It was really scary, and so
(17:08):
they bonded over that. It was like, oh my gosh,
of course I'll help you. You're away from family.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
This all happened before Kelsey ever met Morgan. Now years later,
Joanne was coming to Kelsey with proof that the story
they'd both been told was a lie.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Joanne had found out that Morgan had secured saline and
like supplies to give herself IV treatments, but they were
never actual treatments.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Joanne got medical records that told the real story what
was actually happening.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Morgan would come out of the hospital like having fixed
her broken wrist, and then would break it again and
tell everyone that it was cancer related, that our cancer
had come back. But in reality, she was going back
to the doctor and being like, oh, my broken bone
and will you fix it? And they would fix it.
But after four or five times of this happening during
(18:02):
that school year. They had actually had to blacklist her
from the hospital because she had exhausted the hospitals in
that area.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
It was a bombshell finding refusing care and blacklisting someone
from a hospital is a very big deal.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
The fact that Morgan had been assigned this label and
not allowed to get treatment at these hospitals anymore was
like a really serious thing, and they had officially listed
it as factious at the time. Was called Munchausen. That's
how they formally called it on her record, like, do
not treat her, this is unhealthy, and they had kept
(18:42):
encouraging her to get psychiatric care.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
But according to the records Joanne had, Morgan didn't get
psychiatric care. Instead, she went to summer camp.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
And so after lying about it to all the doctors
in the city of her college, this is the summer
that she met me.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
After Morgan and Kelsey met, Morgan didn't need Joanne anymore.
She had a new caretaker. The attention Kelsey witnessed between
Morgan and Joanne when she saw them the last time
was real. Joanne was starting to question Morgan's story.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Joanne was mutual friends with someone and that person didn't
even know that Morgan was dying of cancer. She just
started kind of hitting parts of the story that didn't
make a lot of sense. That's why she kept trying
to tell me something, but felt like she didn't have
enough proof to tell me.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
But now Joanne had the proof and the two of
them could begin piecing everything together.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
We started comparing stories and realized there's a lot more
to this story than we even know. Between the two
of us.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
A key component of Morgan pulling off this deception was
keeping people isolated from each other. If Kelsey and Joanne
were going to find the truth, they needed to connect
with other people in Morgan's life.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
This is where it really blew open.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Kelsey went back to the very beginning, to the mutual
friend who vouched for Morgan at camp.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Even my friend from camp knew one version of the story.
She had never mentioned having cancer ever to this friend,
So that was the first like, oh, she was lying
from the very beginning.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
Even parts of the story that Kelsey never.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Questioned before now seemed like they could be lies. Starting
with the letter Morgan said she received from the camp
director warning her that her eating disorder was interfering with
her job. Performance.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
She had never been talked to by camp staff about
being removed from camp. Ever, that was never even a conversation.
No one actually knew anything about her eating disorder.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Kelsey couldn't believe this fundamental part of their origin story
could be fabricated. But the lie was confirmed when she discovered.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
She had never been hospitalized for eating disorder. The clinic
that she gave me was a fake name.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Every new person Kelsey talked to had been told a
different story. Sometimes it was an entirely different story.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
It wasn't always cancer that the lie was about. It
was oftentimes, Oh, I found my birth mother, So there
was like a birth mother network of lies.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
One lie, in particular, was extremely difficult for Kelsey to accept.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Morgan had actually maintained a relationship with her family the
whole time I knew her.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Kelsey tracked down Morgan's siblings. That's when she learned her
family had no idea about Morgan's cancer. And when Morgan
told the family she was dating a woman, everyone was
accepting of her. So who sent the hate emails?
Speaker 1 (21:56):
I did some digging on the emails that her parents
had been sending me, and all of them went back
to the same computer that I had bought her, which
meant that all of the emails that her parents had
sent me when we first started dating were from Morgan.
(22:17):
Morgan had written them. This hateful, homophobic rhetoric came from
my partner. That was so devastating because I had such
trauma and so much internalized shame for being gay.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
So much of Kelsey's decision to support Morgan was because
she had no family left. They had all disowned her
because she was gay. It was just lie on top
of lie.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Every single component of the intensity, like the first four
months of knowing her, was completely fabricated in every.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Way time, All of the intensity felt very real to Kelsey,
from the hate emails to Morgan's symptoms, the fatigue, the vomiting.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
How could Morgan fake all of that? Well, Kelsey found out.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
I learned that she was taking medications that made her
throw up, that made it really with tharga clear seizure meds.
I learned that she would steal medications.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Morgan didn't come up with the whole plan by herself,
She had source material.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
This is when I had seen the movie The Fault
in Our Stars and realized that she was feeding me
the same lines from the book and from the movie.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
The Fault in Our Stars is a book by John
Green that was adapted into a film. It follows two
teenagers with terminal cancer. Some of the exact lines from
the movie were things Morgan had said to her, like
claiming that her cancer scans quote lit up like a
Christmas tree. Kelsey felt like her relationship had been scripted.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
My entire because stints with her was a lie, all
of it.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Now that Kelsey had broken open Morgan's lies, she wanted
to make sure that there were no remaining ties with her.
She discovered there was still one bank account open that
they shared. It was an account Kelsey never knew about,
but her name was on it. In order to close
the account, she had to move the money out of it.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
It was technically my account to close because we were
both on it.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
There was twenty thousand dollars in this account, all of
Morgan's checking and savings.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
I suddenly had access to all of her money after
all these years of piecing the story together, and like,
I suddenly have access to everything. In order to close it,
I had to put the money somewhere, so I had
to do something with the money.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
So She asked her friends and family what to do.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
Everyone was like, keep the money, like that is your money.
She couldn't dispute it even if she wanted to. And
I was like, no, no, no, I'm not taking any of that
bad karma.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Kelsey had financially supported Morgan for years. When they separated,
she took on sixty thousand dollars of Morgan's debt. Even
after all of that, Kelsey decided to send the money
back to Morgan. She was ready to wash her hands
of the whole thing.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
I sent her a letter along with the check, and
I said, I paid off everything you owed. I could
have taken thousands and thousands. I could have taken everything,
and it still would not be a drop on the
bucket of what money you took from me. You lied
to me. I know every lie you've ever told. Never
talk to me again, and I really hope that you're
(25:42):
getting the help that you need. And that was the
last thing I sent.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
After nearly five years, Kelsey was finally free of Morgan
and her deception, liberated from the lies, the financial and
emotional burden that she endured. Today, Kelsey thinks back on
the innocent woman at Girl Scout Camp who walked right
into Morgan's web.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
Like I was the perfect person for Morgan to meet
at camp. Could not have been more perfect, Like a
history of family dysfunction, the tendency to get in relationships
where I'm caregiving, and I had a mom food cancer.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Before Morgan, Kelsey had never even heard about abuse in
a lesbian relationship.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
So as a queer person, I almost felt safer with
women than I ever felt with men, Like I never
thought that that would happen to me in this intimate
or precise or manipulative way.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
For a long time, Kelsey struggled to tell other people
what she went through. Would they believe her? Would they
judge her?
Speaker 1 (27:00):
A common question I get is how did you not know?
Or if you were married, how did you not know
the medicine or the doctors? Especially because this story with
Morgan is so extreme, I agree. If I was on
the outside, I listened to plenty of true crime and
(27:22):
factitious disorder our stuff that I'm like, obviously you would know.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
So how did she not know? Well? The short answer
is that she believed a woman she loved. The question
used to bother her, but now she understands where it's
coming from.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
I really think it comes from a deep desire to
feel like it couldn't happen to us. And more than that,
it comes from this desire of like protecting ourselves hearing
other people's pain. And I can sympathize with that completely.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
When she does tell the story to other people, she
noticed this is her own shame.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Whenever I cringe telling this story, I've had to pause
and ask myself what part of me is cringing? And
the part of me that's cringing is always coming from
a shameful, guilty place.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
It's a relatable experience. All of us can point to
a moment in our lives and cringe at our choices.
Kelsey's come to realize shame doesn't work.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Shame has never been a motivator of change for me.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
She's had to reflect on her own part in the relationship,
those key moments where she chose to stay with Morgan,
even when she knew something wasn't right.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
It's so easy to hear my story and be like,
this terrible thing happened to this great person, And to
be honest, I have had to reckon with my own
innerdeemons about this, Like what parts of me were attracted
to a person that needed to be taken care of.
I can reflect back on a lot in my early
(29:04):
childhood where to be caregiving and to be codependent. In
that way, we're very much rewarded. So it's not just like, Wow,
this terrible thing happened to me. Truly, it's like I
can see what I said yes to in this complicitly.
I can see where I turned an eye away from
what I knew in my body was the truth because
(29:25):
I didn't want to lose something I loved or am embarrassed.
I didn't leave sooner because I was afraid of what
it would look like. And it's true.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
Kelsey has cultivated sympathy for the younger version of herself
who made those choices. After all, she was acting out
of love.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
When I hear other people's horrific stories of things that
have happened to them, I now have a lens of
what a human experience to love so deeply that we're
willing to suspend disbelief that high is like, I truly
believe that deception really comes from a deep desire to
be loved, and I can sympathize with a desire to
be loved.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
There's a meta element to Kelsey's story. It was a
podcast that helped Joanne and then Kelsey discover the truth.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
And I remember listening to that podcast and thinking like
that is so brave because I was so embarrassed about
my own story. I still struggle with that with myself,
but it's like, I want there to be less stigma
around manipulative relationships.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Kelsey feels like it's come full circle. She's telling her
own story now for someone else who needs to hear it.
We end all of our episodes with the same question,
why did you want to tell your story?
Speaker 1 (30:43):
I didn't want to tell the story ever. Again, the
thing that made me is knowing that it took me
so many years to untangle myself from the shame of
not recognizing that as trauma sooner. But there are so
many little things that feel important to say out loud
(31:05):
that we should be making more space for people to
be critical of their interpersonal relationships without shame, Like if
that trust has been breached, then it's time to go.
You don't have to wait for evidence to leave. I
think we need more models of that happening, and so
I truly believe that I can reflect this story with
(31:27):
love and also hold someone accountable for doing something truly terrible.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
On the next episode of Betrayal.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
If he can lie about that, he can lie about anything.
He used his dead mother's name, he used his dead
father's name, he used I think his aunt, he used
my name, all these people.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal
team or want to tell us your Betrayal story, email
us at betrayalpod at gmail dot com. That's Betrayal pod
at gmail dot com. We're grateful for your support. One
way to show support is by subscribing to our show
on Apple Podcasts, and don't forget to rate and review Betrayal.
Five star reviews go a long way. A big thank
(32:15):
you to all of our listeners. Betrayal is a production
of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group and
partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive produced by
Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fason, hosted and produced by me
Andrea Gunning, written and produced by Monique Leboard, also produced
by Ben Fetterman. Associate producers are Kristin Mercury and Caitlin Golden.
(32:39):
Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Krinchech. Audio
editing and mixing by Matt Delvecchio, Additional editing support from
Tanner Robbins. Betrayal's theme composed by Oliver Bains. Music library
provided by my Music and For more podcasts from iHeart,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
(32:59):
your my guest
Host
Andrea Gunning
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