Amy

Well, you and Julia are the only new employees this summer.

Yeah.

Wait, how did you find out? I could see how uncomfortable you were. Plus, I couldn't help but notice that they were constantly staring at you.

I could see how uncomfortable you were. Plus, I couldn't help but notice that they were constantly looking at you, man. For real.

For all of you who are returning for another fun summer, we're glad to have you back. To those who are new, I would like to welcome you to Camp Oakwood! We're very glad to have you all here tonight, and I'm looking forward to getting to know each and every one of you over the next week.

How have you been doing since Percy broke into your apartment?

Glad to hear that. Would you like some coffee?

I'm so sorry, Harrison.

Here, give me your clothes. I'll wash them for you. It's the least I can do.

Yes, this is. Are you calling today to register your child as a member?

Well, who is it?

Welcome back, Harrison. So glad you could join us for this special event. Fuck you! We understand you're in denial right now.

But there's another reason, of course. Horace told you himself that we also want to get our revenge. But I didn't fucking do anything! My dad was the one that fucked you guys up! Oh, your dad Curtis?

But, long story short, as you probably already know, this isn't the first time we've tried to hurt you.

Well, I don't think I'm a psycho or a bitch.

guilty as charged. Of course, I had a different hair color at the time. Jesus Christ.

Harrison, ever since you were born, we've been watching you. Long story short, you never suspected a thing, and never once saw us. Well, except once.

Long story short... I knew you had flunked out of school and you were currently stuck at your folks' place. I also knew that you'd like to view that wall to see if there were any appealing jobs on there. Well, long story short, I made an ad. Wait until you noticed it, and to my utter joy, why don't you take it down to bring it home? When you saw me... Long story short, I got a little nervous.

But you walked off without batting an eye. I quickly made it back to the camp and waited for your phone call. And when you called, long story short, I was so excited that I completely forgot to ask you your name to confirm that it was you.

And when you said your name, I accidentally hit my desk in excitement.

And so, we've come full circle. Soon, not only you will die, but we will also live in a peaceful world that we've waited for so long. It is unfortunate that your dad won't be here to watch us finally avenge all of our fallen brothers and sisters, but he'll probably find out eventually.

Dad! What the fuck are you doing here? Well, all be damned. If it isn't Ferris Kurt himself...

Right. Because Curtis Tracy is such a better name.

I'm so glad that I get to see you again. I've missed you so much.

You ready to die?

Oh, Ferris, you little fool. You didn't think I was going to let it be that easy.

Yeah.

That's been the plan all along. I promised myself that I wouldn't stop until Ferris paid the price for what he did to me and my friends.

"'Curtis, you okay?'

I don't remember any of that. When did I do that?

The Tesla sucks so bad. It's so bad. It's so bad. And I had a Model X. I didn't have like the cheap version of it.

Oh, oh, oh, you had to settle for that. Oh man.

No.

God.

I like that.

Yes.

Love it.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

We're ready to go. Let's do it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What happens next?

Hey, Amy!

Together we earn about 130K. I guess our insecurity stems from, I'm in, as a church musician, I work as a church musician, and I have maybe one out of maybe 15, 12 to 15 full-time jobs in our area. There's not that many. And churches are on a downswing cycle at the moment. So my job does not feel absolutely secure for the next 20 some years.

My husband works as a welder and he works for a family owned company, which we think should be all right. It's just things change. There was a company in our area that did really quite well and then suddenly it closed. its doors and all the workers had to find new jobs. It's just we both are a little edgy and we both come from fairly hardscrabble backgrounds.

We don't have that comfort zone of like, oh, yeah, we'll be fine. You know, we both are more cautious.

Musicians.

No. And I have been thinking outside the box, like asking two churches, like, hey, would you be willing to pay for me part time and come together for benefits? It's the whole benefits thing that we both are also concerned about as we both head into our 50s and 60s, knowing as you age, you need medical insurance.

I actually have the house in my name, so I pay the mortgage. My husband takes care of utilities and that kind of stuff. He also takes care of our bundled insurance, which is really helpful. We both have health insurance through our jobs, so that's taken care of, and it's a low deductible. We pretty much split stuff down the middle, and we have not combined our finances.

We got married later in life, and he was coming from a divorce situation, and I had been single my entire life up until about 38 years old. I was not gung-ho to like, hey, let's mix all the finances together, and neither was he. We both wanted to keep things separate. Although I think Wisconsin's a common law. I don't know if that's the right word.

Things are in common, so if one of us were to pass away suddenly, the other would inherit.

Community property. That's it. We're a community property state. Yeah. Thank you.

We are. We actually work as a team. We just keep our finances separate. The only reason we could afford the house is we work together. I was actually pretty proud of us. We got married, as I said, later in life. And we looked at each other and we were like, we really don't want presents because we both had life's worth of stuff to collaborate into a single household.

So we asked for just financial donations at our wedding if people felt moved to. And we got enough to help with the down payment for a house.

That is so cool. Yeah, we just we both if there's a box, we try to find whatever's outside of it.

I think that would be solid. I contribute to that.

According to my 401k, I have 89k. A little shy of 2 million. Yeah. We sat down last night and kind of broke it down. Like he's kind of similar. I think he said 88K was his. Together, I think he's got 20K in his savings and I've got 50K in mine.

We probably plan to get a financial advisor or planner to help us with that. But our goal would be to keep things separate still and just pull what we need, not go together. But we don't really know. We really haven't explored that.

We actually answered that separately. We were like, okay, we each need 2 million. But to be honest, I think it's probably 2 million for the two of us.

I mean, I could see us staying where we are because we'll hopefully have paid the house off by then. But we also both want to travel. That's actually the top of our list is we really want to travel. We have looked at maybe moving to another country and being an expat. I have a couple of friends who have done that.

There's a couple of communities that I'd be interested in either being a part of, and my husband is too. There's one in Costa Rica that we've looked at extensively. It's a Quaker community that we're both interested in being a part of. I think the cost of living is slightly less there, but we would investigate, like, how are the health benefits? How would it be living as an expat?

What are the expectations? We also don't want to be a drain on people that are natives to Costa Rica. We would rather come in and support them. But traveling and we would like to live long lives, but you can only guess so much.

Well, the spending less and investing more is one. I'm planning in the spring to open up a Roth IRA so I can have a tax break when I retire. And being 50, I can put $8,000 into it a year. So that's something I'm starting to do as well as keep my 401k going. And something my husband and I both talked about, that we wouldn't mind doing side gigs.

I mean, as a musician, I don't mind if I accompany until I can't. I will teach until I'm in the grave because I love it. I just love working with young musicians. And he's kind of similar. He's like, well, I could do handyman jobs. He loves to carve. He's done art pieces on commission.

And being a welder, he would love to also teach, maybe be a kind of someone who can maybe come in and help a family run business, like help them train their welders, their young welders, that kind of thing.

We're looking at the old sixty seven and a half.

I believe 7% from me and my employer is amazing. They contribute 7% as well. So it's 14%.

Oh, gosh, the seat got planted in my brain during the pandemic when I kept listening to different fire movement things that were happening. And honestly, it got planted because my husband and I could work during the pandemic. Talk about luck, because we both we had a very frightening 24 hour moment where neither one of us could work, but it was fine.

He fantasized about retiring and me being a sugar mama. And I was like, no, no. I love it.

I was like, no, no, no, dear. As a church musician, you got to be kidding. But that aside, we fantasized about it for a little bit. We just both had a moment of, oh, gosh, what are we going to do? But when we looked into it more and more, the frugality that was required, we would like to enjoy life. We would like to travel now.

At the time that I was looking at it, my hips were starting to really degenerate and I knew that I had to get them replaced. So I'm like, I don't think I can retire young, pay this off. No. So we just kind of gave up on the idea. But what we liked about it, what we both picked up from it was being more frugal in a good way, not in a super strict.

We eat cans of beans and rice and that's it for the rest of our lives.

Yes. Oh, wow. I could cover my heavy metal side. This could be fun.

Yeah. I was a Starbucks barista. So it was one of my first gigs when I moved back to Wisconsin. Well, there you go.

No, I think you answered all the questions I had and then some. Actually, it's exciting to hear about this barista fire aspect of the fire movement. That's really cool. And I'm actually really on fire. Ha ha. Hmm. To go out and get myself a certified financial planner and get started. I'm really excited about that. So thank you. This has been really helpful and calming.

I'm so excited to be here.

Well, I'm actually feeling really good about spending. My husband and I, we're both kind of middle working class folks. I work in a church who works as a welder and we are pretty good at spending what we can afford and then paying off our credit cards every month. So that's really nice.

Living within our means. Yep.

Another thing we're really pleased about is that we actually have six months savings saved. So we're feeling OK. It's pretty volatile, I think, in both of our employments. So we just wanted to make sure we had that just in case. So that feels good. And our improvement is just we don't know what's coming down the pike for retirement. And both of us just started saving about 10 years ago.

So that's what we're thinking about.

Well, my father's on Medicaid, so I'm kind of watching through his experience what it's like to be on the other end of the spectrum of not having any money and using government stuff to survive. And he's on hospice with that. And so we just don't know what to expect. We don't know what will happen with social security. security. There's a lot of unknowns.

And we did a calculator game one evening many months ago. And we were like, we need 2 million in order to retire and live for 30 years after we retire. And it freaked us both out. We're like, oh, wow, we're not even close. That's what got us started on this little game.

Hi, Sean and Sarah. My name is Amy, and my partner and I are looking for advice on real estate and investment. In February 2020, I bought my first home. All things considered, it's an older home, but it has worked for me and now for my fiance. The 3.75% interest rate has made it a great living situation for us, and I even get to do some gardening, which I need and love.

Fast forward to this fall when I was offered a sort of dream job in Seattle, Washington. Compare that to where I'm living in Albany, Oregon, which thankfully does not have Portland prices. The Seattle jobs pay is technically better, but it doesn't quite make up for the cost of living difference. The dilemma we're facing is what to do with our first home.

Ideally, we would want to keep it as a rental home to allow the investment time to grow. The problem is that we don't have enough in savings to put money down to buy our next home. We're actually renting in Washington until we figure out our next steps. So my question is this. Since I purchased the home, it has grown in value by more than $100,000.

It's now worth almost double what I have left on the cost of the loan. Is there a way for me to use the equity in my home towards the down payment on another home in Washington without having to sell? And even if there is a way, is it even advisable? We decided to rent out our old home for the next year.

Then we'll reevaluate our situation and hopefully have a better idea of our home buying expenses in 2024-2025. Saving has been challenging for us, and because of this, we're looking at the equity in our old home as possibly the only avenue to afford a new home in Washington.

While home buying is a major goal of ours, I also like the idea of keeping our old home as an investment for our future family. So what are our options, and which options make the most sense? Do we need to try to decide soon before rates go down and the market is flooded with buyers? All of these are questions that we have. Thank you so much for your help.

Hello? Hey, this is Amy from Heligon. Oh, hi. How are you? Doing good. Can you talk?

Okay.

For example, data on sexual assault cases from the Los Angeles Police Department in 2008 found that 4.5% of the reports were false. Furthermore, the Making a Difference, or MAD, project created by End Violence Against Women International conducted a multi-site study of eight U.S. communities. The study reviewed data collected by nationwide law enforcement agencies

about all sexual assault reports received within an 18 to 24-month period. Of the 2,059 cases that were included in the study, 140, or 7% of them, were classified as a false report of sexual assault. Still, the reported range of 2 to 8 percent for false sexual assault claims might actually be an overestimate.

Hi friends, this is Amy B. Chesler of Season 7 of Something Was Wrong and host of What Came Next. I'm hosting this special episode of Broken Cycle Media's series of informational episodes called Data Points. These episodes will include educational information and support on different topics that are important to our community. Thank you so much for listening.

The National Sexual Violence Resource Center shares how false reporting data inflates because of law enforcement's negligence to follow recommended guidelines and a, quote, weak understanding of sexual assault, end quote. Both men and women make false allegations. However, statistically speaking, women are the perpetrators of false claims the majority of the time.

One PubMed study on the characteristics of false allegation adult crimes shares that 73.3% of false allegations were perpetrated by women and 93.3% of perpetrators were Caucasian. 43.3% of offenders were high school graduates without further education, typically in their late teens or early 20s.

Also, data shows that the majority of allegations were mainly driven by needs for attention and or sympathy, which accounts for 50% of allegations. Overall, 23.3% of perpetrators of false allegations had a previous criminal record. According to the FBI, some rationale behind false reporting may be because of, quote,

However, no matter who reports false claims and why they do it, it's essential to recognize that false reporting of sexual assault is a criminal offense that profoundly affects survivors and the criminal justice system for a variety of reasons. And although the projected percentage of false reports is low, it still deeply affects how survivors decide to report the real crimes they experience.

In fact, the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network reports the majority of sexual assaults are not reported to the police at all. The reporting rates are actually staggering. Only 310 out of every 1,000 sexual assaults are reported to police, meaning that more than 2 out of 3 sexual assaults go unreported. There are many reasons why survivors choose not to move forward in reporting this crime.

Individuals may be wary of reporting because of re-traumatization that can happen through the questioning and investigation process. Additionally, they may fear that law enforcement won't take their claims seriously. This reason correlates with the impact of false reports, no matter how few allegations are actually false.

According to the International Association of Chiefs of Police, or IACP, law enforcement should uphold, "...the determination that a report of sexual assault is false only if the evidence establishes that no crime was committed or attempted."

The FBI and IACP created a set of guidelines with factors that should be excluded when determining if reports are legitimate or false, including insufficient evidence to proceed to prosecution, delayed reporting, victims deciding not to cooperate with investigators, or inconsistencies in a victim's statement. To some, these points may lead you to believe a false report occurred.

In this discussion of false reporting and its detriment on victims and society, we'd like to begin by highlighting how important it is to start by believing. When receiving a report of any kind, no matter the small statistical possibility of it potentially being false, receiving that person safely and with initial openness and understanding can have a vast impact on a victim's trajectory.

However, considering how traumatic a violation like a sexual assault can be on a victim's brain, a more nuanced approach must be required while evaluating reports to ensure that all elements are considered.

Even though there are some guidelines put in place by law enforcement when it comes to reviewing sexual assault reports, they need to be widely known and consistently practiced to ensure stronger care for survivors when coming forward. Filing a false police report misleads law enforcement and undermines the criminal justice system.

This action has dangerous repercussions because it forces officers to pursue unnecessary investigations, diverting valuable resources away from addressing real crimes and aiding real survivors in their community.

To add, the notion that a false report can occur leaves some responders highly critical when actual survivors of a sexual assault come forward with their claims, which is detrimental to all parties involved. False reporting not only harms real survivors and strains law enforcement, but also devastates those falsely accused. The case of Brian Banks illustrates this severity.

In 2002, when Banks was just 16, his high school acquaintance, Juanita Gibson, falsely accused him of rape. To avoid a potential 41-year prison sentence, he pleaded no contest and was sentenced to six years. In 2011, Gibson admitted there was no rape. Thankfully, Banks was ultimately exonerated and his conviction was overturned.

While he eventually lived out his NFL dreams with the Atlanta Falcons, the lasting damage from the false report on Banks and his loved ones is undeniable.

A 2021 study found that those falsely accused experience extreme psychological and psychosocial impacts, such as feelings of losses related to their sense of self, damage to their reputation, and newfound mental health diagnoses and symptoms like PTSD and depression.

Although false reports have profound repercussions, it's important to highlight how much movements like Hashtag Me Too have validated survivors of sexual assault. The Me Too movement was a global initiative to raise awareness regarding sexual harassment and sexual abuse, specifically of women in the workplace.

In 2006, Tarana Burke regularly used the quote, me too, in response while speaking with survivors of sexual assault. However, the phrase and movement became popularized in 2017 in response to the reports of sexual abuse perpetrated by American film producer Harvey Weinstein.

Actress Melissa Milano tweeted Burke's coined phrase, hashtag Me Too, which ignited a social media movement that heightened awareness, empowered survivors, and prompted significant cultural and workplace transformations. In response, some states in the U.S.

have abolished statutes of limitations for reporting sex abuse-related crimes and banned non-disclosure agreements, or NDAs, that were created to prevent allegations from being publicly available. Even though the MeToo movement explicitly discusses sexual harassment in the workplace,

Its sentiments bled into other aspects of life too, which led to more people collectively believing and listening to victims. A 2022 Pew Research study proved how valuable and seriously Americans have taken the Me Too movement. Seven in 10 U.S.

adults across multiple demographics and partisan lines say that compared to 2017, people who commit sexual harassment or assault in the workplace today are more likely to be held accountable for their actions. Also, roughly 6 in 10 Americans believe that the individuals who report harassment or assault at work are now more likely to be believed.

Pew Research additionally reports that overall, a small percentage of Americans think that false reporting of incidents of sexual harassment or assault in the workplace are frequent. More importantly, nearly half, at 46%, say it's extremely or very common for individuals who experience sexual harassment or assault at work not to report them at all.

According to the FBI, false reporting or a false allegation crime involves persons reporting a fabricated offense that has occurred against them to a law enforcement agency. False allegations can span many crimes, but in this episode, we'll be referring specifically to sexual assault.

Despite these statistics and common beliefs among Americans, 18% of respondents still oppose the Me Too movement because of the potential of false allegations. Still, the Me Too movement has proven helpful in believing survivors and holding perpetrators accountable. It has also brought a lot of attention to the power of believing and supporting survivors in general.

Many still view the possibility of false reports as a reason to oppose the movement. This skepticism ultimately leads to a reluctance to believe survivors of sexual assault in any context. Even though these statistics and this information are widely available, some perpetrators will still choose to make a false report regardless of the detriment. It is nearly impossible to stop these perpetrators.

However, criminalizing false reporting is one measure towards future prevention. There are legal ramifications for false reporting. If a false sexual assault report occurs and is determined so by law enforcement, the perpetrator can be criminally charged. Depending on the state and the circumstance at hand, filing a false police report may result in misdemeanor or felony charges.

For example, in New York, filing a false report to law enforcement can be classified as either a misdemeanor or a felony, with potential penalties of up to one year in jail or as much as seven years in state prison. False reporting can even be considered a federal offense.

If false criminal allegations are submitted to federal investigators or agencies, then the perpetrator of the false claim could be charged at a federal level. Another beneficial preventative measure may be mental health counseling to work to mitigate perpetrators' urges and actions.

One valuable resource for potential perpetrators of false reporting or actual victims of sexual assault navigating working through their experience is the non-profit National Alliance on Mental Health, or NAMI.

NAMI is the nation's largest grassroots mental health organization, and it offers educational resources regarding mental illness, support networks for individuals, and 24-7 mental health support to every American. Additionally, there are many amazing resources for survivors of sexual assault that can help with the process of reporting and making them feel supported.

Two of those organizations include the National Sexual Violence Resource Center and the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network. They both offer detailed education and support. To access any of the previously mentioned resources, please visit the episode notes.

And for a more comprehensive list of organizations that are working to support survivors and uphold justice, please visit somethingwaswrong.com slash resources. Many of the amazing groups listed on the website can only exist because of the community's help and support from people like you.

Although false reporting of sexual assault does happen and has detrimental repercussions, it's crucial to understand how uncommon it really is. it is nearly impossible to know the exact amount of false sexual assault reports. However, many studies have concluded that the rate of false reporting is estimated to be between 2 and 8%.

If you'd like to learn more about volunteer opportunities, please feel free to visit the resources page and reach out directly to the organization of your choice. I'm Amy B. Chesler. Thank you so much again for listening and learning with us.

No worries.

That's okay. I don't know what I can really add to your story. And I do want to clarify with you because my name does seem to be mentioned quite a few times. And now I have this review on my website. I have not had anything to do with origins. Since late summer 2021, I was forced out of a business that I was running solely.

I never had any allegations against me. Ever. I mean, I still have not had any allegations against me.

is safely in true midwifery care, unlike some I just feel like I'm in some way being like there are, even though I get it, like no allegations have been made, it does seem that people are thinking that I'm somehow associated with these outcomes, which I am so, so, so sad that they happened, but also so thankful that I have absolutely nothing to do with them.

So I don't think that that is factual information.

I do recall Sarah. Absolutely I recall Sarah. Yes, I do. I can't speak to her case without permission. I think that there was something called meconium aspiration syndrome that led to her case. But I can't really go into great detail.

It really depends on the medical stability of both mom and baby. So if heart rate is stable and there are no signs of distress, so you're listening to the heart every five-ish minutes, every other contraction, basically, while people are pushing, and baby...

sometimes shows you that they're they're not doing great by having what's called a deceleration and if the baby were to have a deceleration then that would be concerning and you would listen longer you may make a change immediately um i think that that that person actually videoed their birth so yeah they did they did provide that

Yeah, so like during listening, if baby's stable, then you can continue to push for, you know, it depends how long, but three to four hours is very common for first time moms to push.

Even in a hospital setting where they're medicated, sometimes if we transfer people, we see them push for, Okay.

Okay. Were you aware of Gina and Caitlin's practices when it came to that? I never worked directly with Gina and Caitlin.

Yeah, I mean, I would not disagree with that statement.

Not everything. I mean, they did a lot of...

Listen to that. So, well, that person has never made a claim against...

And then there are a few others who... There are people that have been in care and come back to care. And now, because they're being contacted and kind of rallied, honestly, you know... Have you ever heard of a witch hunt where you just kind of go after anybody you can find and you see them information?

Well, that's what Origins was claiming, and I doubted it. I did. But now it's, like, every single midwife who ever transferred somebody legitimately, who ever had somebody, you know, who had not a bad outcome, but there's one person who's upset now because they wanted me to be their midwife and I wasn't on call. Like...

A little bit confusing, if that makes sense.

So now I'm like, what's going on?

Or I would have reached out sooner.

I knew that they were unethical, and I told them that they needed to provide someone to be her preceptor because I would no longer do it.

At the time, I did not.

I was very... blindsided by the takeover they are very good con artists and they kept everything very close to their chest okay after i left there were some things that started happening that made me feel like there wasn't much oversight at the old practice and i had nothing to do with the practice after that

Their claim, not, no. They claimed that later when they sued me for saying I was going to open a birth center later.

Okay. Read the answer from my attorney because that's the real story.

That's the real story of what happened. And then they decided they had nothing. So be very careful because I do have a real good attorney. And some of what you're insinuating has never been brought until this started. I hear you understand that people can say anything like I could say right now.

but it's something that we want to watch a little more closely. So that might be a one on a scale from one to four. And then maybe someone who is towards the end of their pregnancy and they are breached, that would be a four. And so that would be someone

that we would have to sit down with that person and have the conversation of this is more high risk than what really should be done outside the hospital. So let's make an appointment for you to see our consulting physician.

And then because we do have hospital privileges, if our consulting physician says, sure, we'll continue to take care of you, then the midwives will eventually be able to deliver the mom in the hospital. There are situations where maybe someone comes in that has a congenital heart defect or something from the very beginning that we know you're just not a candidate for out of hospital birth.

And it's a hard conversation, but it's a really important conversation because we don't want to tell people how to have their baby, but we also feel like it's important for us to maintain that standard of care. so that we don't have a bad outcome. We don't want to have any regrets as far as outcomes for us.

It is hard to know. If it is too low, then are we doing things that we shouldn't be doing? And if it's too high, are we overreacting to some things or are we having patients that are a little high risk? So it is a hard number to come up with, but I would say 10% is probably a good number. Sometimes it just depends on the patients that you have.

I'm Amy Giles. I'm a certified nurse midwife. I've owned a birthing center north of Dallas for several years. I've worked there since 2006. Our birth center is Allen Midwifery and Family Wellness, and we're in Allen, Texas, which is north of Dallas. I really enjoy taking care of women at the birthing center. I also teach nurse midwife students at Baylor University.

I agree with the fact that you shouldn't be afraid to transfer. You should transfer when you feel like it really is necessary. And so sometimes if you have a 2% or 3% transfer rate, then that's a little questionable.

But if you had a 20% transfer rate, that's unacceptable as well because you're either having too many high-risk clients that you're signing up or you're overreacting maybe to things that should have probably just been handled at the birth center. The other thing is what is the emergency transfer rate?

Because we break ours up into non-emergent and emergent because you need to know how often are they having to call an ambulance and it's an emergency as opposed to you've become high risk, let's get in the car and drive. The emergency transfer rate should be low because you should be able to transfer most of the time before you get to it being an emergency.

There are always situations that you just can't see coming. They surprise you. But for the most part, we can see if something's going south. If things are not looking good, we would rather get to the hospital in a non-emergent way than to wait for an emergency. It is one of those things that for the public, it's hard to know.

But my suggestion is somewhere around 10 to 12% is probably a good transfer rate.

Whenever someone is coming to the birth center to decide if this is the right place for them, these are actually the things that I discuss with them. So I appreciate that you asked that question because it is important to know which providers and which birth centers feel are emergency situations. One of them is if we have not diagnosed breach and a breach presentation comes in.

That would be an emergency for us. We would get into the ambulance and go to the hospital. More unforeseen things might be if the cord collapses, basically meaning that the cord comes out in front of the baby's head and then it compresses the cord and it doesn't allow oxygen to get to the baby. That is a very rare occurrence, but it can happen at any time and for no reason whatsoever.

Postpartum hemorrhage is another. Honestly, that's the number one reason that we transfer to the hospital is unforeseen bleeding. So once the placenta is delivered, the uterus has to contract to stop the bleeding. For whatever reason, sometimes that just doesn't happen.

At our birth center, because we are nurse midwives, we have all the same medications that we would give to women in the hospital to stop that bleeding. However, we don't want to stay at the birth center.

We want to take them to the hospital so that in case they need blood and the fact that they need to be monitored for at least a day at our birth center after six hours, if our moms are not stable, then our policy is that we transfer them. It can be serious in a very short period of time. You can lose a lot of blood in a short period of time.

As soon as we see that there's a hemorrhage and we start giving medications, if it doesn't respond really quickly, then we go ahead and call 911 and we go via the ambulance. If we have a mom whose blood pressure is incredibly high that we're afraid she might have a seizure, I know all those things sound very scary, but they can occur due to high blood pressure.

That's another mom that we might want to get her to the hospital in an ambulance. when the baby's heart rate is decelerating, so showing us that something is not going well with the baby. We would rather get to the hospital, get the mom on the continuous monitor so that it doesn't progress to an emergency situation.

It's kind of a controversial topic because there are lots of birthing centers that will do VBACs. However, at our birth center, we just don't feel comfortable with it because of the risk that is involved. Risk to the mom and risk to the baby. And we just don't feel like that's a risk that we want to take. It's not that we want to tell someone how to have their birth.

And that's another passion of mine is to build up the next generation of nurse midwives. I'm not from Texas, I'm from Louisiana. I moved here to go to Baylor for undergraduate school. I got married to a Texan and so I decided to stay. But when I got pregnant with our first baby, I really didn't have a provider. Since I wasn't from here, I used to go home to have my annual exams.

We just don't want to put them at a higher risk. For us, because we can deliver at the hospital, if someone wants to do a VBAC, then we accept them for their prenatal care at the birth center. And then we deliver in the hospital. So we have a planned hospital birth.

Absolutely. I hear you say that and it makes me cringe because it should never be like that. When you're thinking about caring for women, you need to think about when they get there from the very beginning to when they leave six hours after they have their baby.

Even though it sounds like it's more about sanitary things with having towels, it's actually more of an important thing because if you don't have those, then you can have a baby that gets really cold. Let's say you have a water birth and you need that warmth around the baby in order to maintain the heat. I feel like there should be a standard that everyone should really have.

If you're going to own a birth center or you're going to deliver babies outside the hospital, you have to have a standard that you have created and to meet that standard every single time that you have a client come in. Staffing is another thing that you should have a minimum number of staff at each birth. You should have a minimum number of suture if you need to do a laceration repair.

You should always have preparation before you have someone come in in labor. I just feel like that's the baseline of care, the bottom foundation, and then you build up on that. So that's disturbing.

You are exactly right. And one of the things that you said that upsets me as well is them not knowing. If you are going to have a student working with you, I think that's great because how else do you learn? The students that I have at Baylor that I teach, they have preceptors all over the country and we precept at our birth center.

But you have to ask and you have to get permission from a client to have a student at their birth. If you're not asking, to me, that's just completely unacceptable. People need to know who are taking care of them and they should know what your credentials are. To have a student taking care of someone without their preceptor there, to me, is below the standard of care.

That is putting your client at a huge risk because that person is still learning. They don't know everything. There has to be another person there that knows what to look for, looks for those signs of an emergency. I wouldn't want a student, only a student, taking care of me. That would make me very nervous. A midwife and a student? Absolutely. I'm more than happy. Come and be a part of my birth.

But it's very disturbing to me if you did not know that it was a student and if that student was caring for you solely. But I do think that happens. I understand being so tired. You don't want to take care of people when you're tired, but you also don't want to defer to a student. Instead, you should call in another midwife and have them come in and be with the student.

I just don't find that to be acceptable at all. Our birth center is Allen Midwifery and Family Wellness. We're a family-owned center. So my midwife that I met when I was in midwifery school, she was kind of my mentor. And so she opened this birth center in 2003. That was the same place that I saw my friend deliver. And I begged her, I'm like, please, please let me be a part of your birth center.

I asked a friend of mine where she had delivered her babies, and she said at a large facility downtown, and it's a teaching hospital. She said that she had a nurse midwife, and I had never heard of a nurse midwife before she told me that. Even though I was a nurse at the time, it just wasn't something that was popular 27 years ago. So I convinced my husband to go and meet this nurse midwife.

I'll clean your floor. I'll clean your bathroom. I'll do whatever you need me to do as long as I can just be around this type of birth. When she got busy enough and had enough clients, then she hired me. So it was the end of 2005, beginning of 2006. And she hired me to be the second midwife. So it was just she and I, and I learned so much from her. She decided to retire in 2010.

So she said, I think you and Jeff, so me and my husband, she said, I think you guys need to buy the birth center from me. And we both were like, look, we know nothing about running a business, but my husband has his MBA and he's very financially savvy. And so he said, okay, I think we can do that. And I kind of freaked out. I was like, I am not a manager. I don't know what to do.

But we just jumped in with both feet. That was in 2010. And we've grown the birth center. We now have six nurse midwives and then we employ only registered nurses. So that is significant. We used to do six births a month and now we do almost 20. So we've really grown it and it's been a labor of love for us. It's just a special place for us.

And the people that are there, they really are like family to us. So it's a great place to work. I'm so happy that we decided to go ahead and make that jump because it's been the best decision of our lives.

Yes. It's hard to find certified nurse midwives who want to work outside the hospital because there's a small percentage of us that feel called to be outside the hospital. So it is harder to find nurse midwives. I think you have to find someone kind of like me, where you walk into that birth center and feel like this is the way to have a baby. This is the place to be.

Whenever we were looking to hire more midwives, we talked to people who had the same philosophy that we did. Midwifery is a pretty small community. Everybody kind of knows everyone. And so people that we knew that had the personality of wanting to spend lots of time with their clients, spend time during labor, really taking care of them. Those are the people that we talked to.

So we went through a lot of midwives before we found just the right ones. And we slowly grew. We worked with three for a while. We jumped a little bit and had five just because we grew quickly. But I do think it's harder to find nurse midwives to be in a birth center because it's just a different philosophy. And because we are out of the hospital, we just can't

pay our midwives or our nurses as much as you could if you were in a big hospital system. The people that work for us, they have to take a pay cut to work with us. And to me, that says so much about the fact that they want to be there because they're willing enough to take a little bit of a pay cut and do what they love as opposed to making a little bit more money

The people that are there really want to be there. And I think that that's a lovely thing for us because everyone is committed, which is really nice.

What I wish would happen is that every midwife that's outside of the hospital, that they would have to turn in their statistics every six months or every year to the state. And then the state comes up with maybe a grade. Maybe they say, you guys are doing great, except...

you have a lot of postpartum hemorrhage or except you're taking too long to transfer or whatever it may be, at least it would give some responsibility to the midwives. They would have to say, these are my results. I feel like everyone should know that if you go to a hospital, you can look up their C-section rate.

And when we walked in, it was such a completely different experience than being at any other physician office. We went in, we sat down, she asked about us as people and about our relationship, what we wanted to get out of the pregnancy, how we wanted to have a baby. And then she did all of this education to help us know what to expect and how your body works.

But if you want to go to a birth center or a home birth midwife, you don't know that. And there's no place for you to be able to get that information except for what the provider tells you. And there are other things that I think would be important. Standardization of the education. That happened with nurses.

It used to be the standard that you had an associate degree, and then that changed to if you want a certain position, you have to have a bachelor's degree. If you're a certified nurse midwife, there is a standard of education. However, with a licensed midwife, there are several different ways that you can become a licensed midwife.

I'm not sure which one is the best, but I wish that there was a standard one way, one board that oversees them, because I think it would make everything upfront. I feel like everything just needs to be available for clients to know what to expect. There needs to be transparency so that you know what you're getting.

Thank you, Tiffany. It's been great speaking with you. And I appreciate the fact that you're wanting people to get this information and that you're putting this out there so that people can learn. So thank you so much.

I was a nurse, and yet I didn't know a lot of the things that she was talking about. So it was really eye opening to us. And as we left, I told my husband, I want to be just like her. I want people to feel loved and taken care of just like she made me feel today.

I was actually in grad school to become a family nurse practitioner, and I called my advisor and said, hold on, I need to change my major. This is what I want to do for the rest of my life. So I changed my major. I became a nurse midwife and then worked in a large teaching facility for a couple of years.

Then one of my midwife friends had her baby at the same birthing center that I eventually owned, and I had never seen an out of hospital birth. And when I experienced that birth with her, it was very similar to the first time I had met my midwife. It was like the writing was on the wall. This is where you're supposed to be. I changed jobs and I've been at the birth center ever since then.

It's my favorite thing to do, to be with women and to educate them and talk to them and hug them. It's the best job.

Texas is interesting because we have several different types of midwives. So we have certified nurse midwives who have gotten their bachelor's in nursing and then gone back to school to either have a master's or a doctorate in midwifery. Then there are licensed midwives who have learned midwifery through apprenticeship.

And so they aren't going through a school that we think of like a university, but more of a school that's specific for licensed midwives. So it's a different level of care. Nurse midwives are going to care for women who might be a little bit more high risk. We have privileges to deliver in the hospital and outside, whereas licensed midwives, they only can deliver outside of the hospital.

Texas is interesting because we have a great number of both types of midwives. It's a really up and coming way to have your baby in birthing centers. It's a great place to be a midwife because we have so many great clients that want this type of experience. I worked on a committee for Texas that really looked at the statistics for maternal morbidity and mortality, and now it's under the CDC.

But while I was on that committee, what I really found was people not necessarily advocating saying something's wrong with me and being ignored. that happens in the hospital, mainly because it's just, there's so many more people. I understand because I deliver in the hospital, but things fall through the cracks because there's not someone with that client all the time.

So I think one of the solutions for that is a birth center birth. In the Dallas Fort Worth area, some certified nurse midwife birthing centers also have hospital privileges.

That's correct. It's a significant difference because if someone becomes high risk, then we continue to follow them and to deliver them in the hospital. So the continuity of care is really lovely because when you don't have that luxury, then you're not able to continue to care for your client. In other words, you become either more of a support person or equivalent to like maybe a family member.

Whereas our midwives, we're able to continue to deliver in the hospital. We can take our clients to the hospital who might need a higher level of care. I think it's really important to be able to have a safe option for people who want to go that route, where they want the midwifery care during pregnancy, but then for safety, they can deliver in the hospitals. I think it's a nice compromise.

Every state is a little bit different in how birth centers are licensed. And in Texas, the licensing board says that you have to be within 30 minutes of a hospital. I think that's kind of far. That's just what the state says. So I feel like if you're somewhere between five and 10 minutes, that that's pretty safe. We're about six minutes away from our hospital and it works really well.

I don't ever feel like, oh, we've got to get there, hurry up, because it's pretty fast. There are lots of rural areas in Texas. And so there may not be an option for you to have such a close hospital. And they may just not have any hospitals in that rural area. So maybe a birth center is all you have. And in that case, more power to them, that's gotta be a hard situation.

But if you're in an area where you have a lot of options on hospitals, I would recommend somewhere between five and 10 minutes to the hospital. I just feel like people need to know that there are options for them. There are also safe options. When you do want to get out of the hospital and you want to be in a birth center setting, you just need to do your research.

You need to know who is staffing the birth center. How many clients do they take every month? Do they have nurses? Do they have birth assistants? Can they prescribe medication if you are bleeding? Do they have a relationship with a hospital that's close by? All of those things are super important.

And so I hope that will turn around and that Texas can get better at doing things to prevent these maternal morbidity and mortality cases. I feel like midwifery care is definitely one of those things that could improve it. The other thing is knowing your level of comfort because you have to feel comfortable where you are.

And I tell clients all the time, if you're not comfortable in the birth center, you won't have a great birth because you'll be too stressed. So they should deliver in the hospital and vice versa. You should always know you have an option, but you should go with your gut and decide what's best for you and your family.

Everyone is a little bit different in why they seek us out. But for the most part, people are looking for individual attention, individual plans of care, not being cared for like everyone, but instead having a midwife sit down and really talk about your specific needs and how you wanna have a baby and what's really important to you. That's a big deal.

Another thing is that we do have longer appointments. We have 30 minutes to an hour, depending on how far along you are in labor. We have that extra time. Another reason is that people who have already had children, they're able to bring their kids in and We have toys in just about every room, so they have a place to be able to play. We're very family friendly.

We want everyone to come in and feel like that's a place where they belong. And how can we make that a different experience? because everybody deserves the birth that they want. There's always little things, you know, that come up. There are emergencies or risk factors. But even at that point, we try to make the birth as close as we can to what they want.

As far as like the different kinds of clients that we have, it ranges from very young people who are having their first baby to people who are having their 10th baby. We've had someone who's had 10 babies with us

For people who maybe have had a bad experience in the past, a lot of people say they're just looking for a healing birth. So we can really dive into some of the things that they experienced that were really negative for them. We try our best not to ask which birth center was that or to really ask a lot of questions that are specific to that birth center.

We try to just ask questions about what was it that made your experience different or difficult. A lot of times it is that maybe they were more high risk and they didn't quite realize it. And then maybe they ended up transferring to the hospital without that continuity of care. And it was just very disappointing to them. We hear that more often because if you feel like

You're low risk and you're a good candidate for this particular type of care. And then it doesn't come to fruition. And then later on, you hear someone say, oh, well, my midwife would have never let me do that in a birth center or my midwife would have never let me do that at home. I think that's the number one thing that we hear. It is a small community.

And so when there are poor outcomes, everyone kind of knows about it. There are times that the public will try to avoid different midwives or different birthing centers. And that's why I think it's just super important to interview the midwives that would be taking care of you and get a feel for them and to ask questions about how they would handle different situations.

I think you need to know what level of care that you want. there are people that they really don't want types of intervention. So those are people that might be more inclined to do a home birth with a licensed midwife or a birth center with a licensed midwife.

And people that are a little more comfortable having what I would call a safety net would look at more of a certified nurse midwife birthing center because of the fact that we can give antibiotics if needed, or we do have some pain medication that we can give at the birth center. And we do have that relationship with the hospital.

There are people that can't even imagine having a baby outside the hospital. So they would definitely not be a birth center candidate, but then there are people who they feel comfortable outside the hospital, but they just wanna know that they have the safety of having someone who is a nurse and who has an advanced degree and has that experience that makes them feel a little bit more comfortable.

So it really just depends on what you're looking for.

Those are really hard conversations to have. We call it a risk assessment. I went through all the different high risk situations that you could have while you're either pregnant or during labor. And I gave it a score. So maybe you come in and you have thyroid issues. Well, that's not a big deal for nurse midwives because we can treat that.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Something Was Wrong early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Something Was Wrong is intended for mature audiences. This season contains discussions of medical negligence, birth trauma, and infant loss, which may be upsetting for some listeners.

Absolutely. I'm curious if you could shed any light into how Medicaid and insurance policies are influencing the maternal health outcomes for Black birthing persons.

Something that has been highlighted for me when speaking with other doctors, specifically in Texas, who are working in these maternity deserts is the reason why a lot of birth centers are being created and why they can be really positive for the community, given how many maternity deserts there are. Do you guys study that within your work?

And could you share a little bit more with us about how that impacts maternal health care?

What are your thoughts about birth centers working with hospitals in some capacity when there is an emergency and there needs to be a transfer?

I'm curious what suggestions you would make to policymakers about what we could do to contribute to make these rates improved.

Next time on Something Was Wrong.

Something Was Wrong is a Broken Cycle Media production created and produced by executive producer Tiffany Reese, associate producers Amy B. Chesler and Lily Rowe, with audio editing and music design by Becca High. Thank you to our extended team, Lauren Barkman, our social media marketing manager, and Sarah Stewart, our graphic artist.

Thank you to Marissa, Travis, and our team at WME, Wondery, Jason, and Jennifer, our cybersecurity team, Darkbox Security, and my lawyer, Alan. Thank you endlessly to every survivor who has ever trusted us with their stories. And thank you, each and every listener, for making our show possible with your support and listenership.

Special shout out to Emily Wolfe for covering Gladrag's original song, You Think You, for us this season. For more music by Emily Wolfe, check out the episode notes or your favorite music streaming app. Speaking of episode notes, there every week you'll find episode-specific content, warnings, sources, and resources. Until next time, stay safe, friends.

For a full content warning, sources, and resources, please visit the episode notes. Opinions shared by the guests of the show are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of myself, Broken Cycle Media, and Wondery. The podcast and any linked materials should not be misconstrued as a substitution for legal or medical advice.

If you like Something Was Wrong, you can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.

Origins birth and wellness owners and midwives Caitlin Wages and Gina Thompson have not responded to our requests for comment. Additionally, midwives Jennifer Crawford and Elizabeth Fuel have also not returned our request for comment. This season is dedicated with love to Malik.

This season, we were focused a lot on Texas, and we know that Black women in Texas as of 2023 were 2.5 times more likely than white women to suffer maternal death. In your opinion, what are the factors contributing to this?

Also, the systems that are training and educating doctors are rooted in so many ways around the centering of white person's experiences.

Something that was highlighted by other experts that we've spoken to is the benefit of universal health care and how that impacts data. Typically, when we look at other countries, I'm curious if you would agree with that.

The parole hearings, the first one was May of 23. The second one just happened this previous May. Per usual, quite eye-opening. And if the first parole hearing wasn't shocking enough, the second one was a bit more shocking. Maybe it's because the reality of his release is just right around the corner. He said a lot of scary, crazy things yet again in this last parole hearing.

Leading up to the parole hearing, we also have to provide victim impact statements again. I'm grateful to all of the other victims that also provided them because it isn't just me who's impacted in this. It's numerous people who have also been brought into this mess. The way that the parole hearing worked for me, I am not there in person. I am attending via phone.

So there's not video for me either. The victim advocate calls me ahead of time and loops me in with the parole board chair who's conducting the hearing. Once the hearing is done, then I get back on with the victim advocate and have a conversation. We joined the parole hearing and I can't see anything. It's before the parole board chair hits record.

I hear some scuffling and the parole board chair asked him, what is that you have with you? And he said, oh, it's just a book I got from the library. The parole board chair asked him to put it away. And that stuck with me. I reached out to the victim advocate afterwards and I said, I need to know what that book was. I know with Morrison, there is no coincidence and he is very calculated.

Sure enough, it was a biography on Adolf Hitler. To me, that's in line with some of his previous behaviors. So that's how it started. At one point early on, he asked if he was still going to be able to make lunch because he didn't want to miss lunch and completely interrupted the parole board chair. In the first parole hearing, he said that being in jail has been the best experience of his life.

He made a note in the second parole hearing to say that it's been the second best experience of his life next to his childhood. He mentioned his family and his parents throughout the second parole hearing. And yet you haven't talked to your parents since you went to jail.

He had mentioned that he spent more time outside since he's been in Colorado and incarcerated than he did in his time in New Jersey. Although he hasn't had the opportunity to go out and explore, he absolutely wants to come back to Colorado. To me, although he put it in context of a vacation, I took that as one of his victims as a direct threat that he's coming back here.

Why would you go back to the state or even articulate you want to come back to the state where you have a victim that you stalked? I have pages and pages of notes that I'm just jotting down as the parole hearing was going on. And I'm just giving you a few of the notes because the insanity is incomprehensible in a lot of ways.

I think one other thing definitely worth noting is he's been working in the library. The parole board chair did ask questions around what's going to make you successful when you get out of jail and what are your plans? He told the parole board chair that he wants to work in a library when he gets out.

For those who have been in a library recently, there's a lot of technology in those facilities and access to technology. Of course, he wants to work in a library. He wants access to computers. I looked at my permanent protection order and it says that he's just not to contact me in any capacity.

That's one thing I asked for in my victim impact statement is that he couldn't have access to electronics and all these things. I think the world we're living in, that's very hard to monitor.

In his parole hearing, when they asked what you're going to do when you're released on parole, the first thing he said is, well, I know the victim has a protection order on me, so I'm not going to contact her. I was like, why did you even point that out? That was just odd to me.

Exactly. He's always admitted that he's done the crime and he continues to, but there's no empathy or emotion or apology. And these parole hearings, he's not changed. The first parole board chair said some very direct things to Morrison. This parole board chair, I think, took a different approach.

When I thought back to how he handled it all, he ultimately let Morrison tell him he wanted the mandatory release date. So here he is up for parole. And at the end of it, Morrison had talked himself in so many directions that the parole board chair at one point was like, sir, are you asking to be released on your mandatory release date? And he said, yes. I thought, wow, he's very smart.

And he's obviously in this role for a reason, because that was a win in this parole hearing. He wasn't released early. So he was OK with the mandatory release date, which in the parole hearing he was talking about being in December. At the time, I thought it was April or March. And that was bumped up from what it was originally going to be.

So I'm jotting down notes like, how does he keep referring to his mandatory release date as end of December of this year? Obviously, he was privy to some information that I wasn't. And this is kind of his tone as he's talking to the parole board chair. December is actually better because his flag football team's been doing pretty good and they did really well last year.

He doesn't really want to be there for the holidays because he doesn't get along with his brother-in-law. All signs are pointing to he will be released the end of this year.

I'm still waiting for official confirmation, but every month I check his inmate DOC page and his mandatory release date keeps getting bumped up two weeks every month, which if you line that up with the amount of months we have left in the year, it's right up at the end of the year. The hardest part of this has been the unknown.

This crime, there was so much unknown that that was what made it so painfully difficult. I don't know when I'm going to hear from the victim advocate or from the system is what I will say, because they have to notify me as a victim about his release, where he's being released, all of these things. But it's never as much ahead of time as it really should be.

I feel like I need to be proactive on my end, asking the right questions, reaching out to the right people. So I know what I'm dealing with. I have wanted him to be out of Colorado from the get go. I don't know why they sent him here anyway, since it's a stalking case and they brought him closer to me. I want him to go back to New Jersey once his sentence is served. And he does as well.

What he has filed for is something called interstate, so he can serve his parole in New Jersey and not in Colorado. As a result, he has some hoops to jump through. One, the state of New Jersey has to welcome him back, meaning he has to have a place to live, he has to have a job, and he has to come to them with a plan. So he can't just go back.

A lot of what I'm processing right now is I don't know if he's going to be released and go back to New Jersey to serve his parole, or if he will be forced to serve his parole here in Colorado. If he does interstate, he still has to get himself to New Jersey. He has to pay his way and get his way back there.

And if he doesn't interstate and he is in Colorado, then that is a whole nother part of this journey that I have yet to process. I'm hoping I will know sooner rather than later where he's going to be serving his parole, because as you can imagine, if he's going to be in Colorado, that opens a whole nother piece of this for me emotionally. It's something I have to be prepared for to happen again.

I feel like I'm being re-victimized by him being released. And I don't feel like I'm on the other side yet as a survivor, but I will be eventually. I can't assume anything relative to his release. I have to be prepared. And that's very overwhelming. I have to compartmentalize and process each piece one at a time. And it's something I'm doing now leading up to that release.

Although I do have fearful moments, I refuse to live in fear. I will be prepared for his release. And that is all I can really do, given the circumstances and the position he's put me in. When Morrison's released, regardless of where he's released, I'm not going to be here. I'm going to be somewhere else for my mental health. When I do come back, then I can cocoon. I want to come home to peace.

This is the other part of what I've been processing. I haven't had peace since I realized he's going to be released. I think one of the hardest things is I want to refuse to let him steal my peace. And yet he has stolen it from me so many times. But I know who he is going into the release. I have a name. I have a face. For so many years, I didn't know who he was, where he lived.

When he's released, at least I know who I'm looking for or what I'm looking for. That gives me a little peace going into this next phase.

I'm still on this journey to find other victims and hopefully empower them to come forward. And if they want to press charges against Morrison to do so, there's a few things that are going against us in this journey to keep Morrison in jail and away from harming people. It's statute of limitations relative to stalking.

Three years in most states is the statute of limitations, which now he's been in jail for three years. If charges haven't been pressed thus far, then it will have to be new charges once he's released, if and when he starts up this activity again. The reality is it is not done. And this is a forever journey until we're no longer cohabitating on this earth together.

One of my priorities was trying to get these fake accounts of myself that Morrison had created taken down Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, wherever else I'm not aware of. It actually ended up being a very difficult task. It was too overwhelming for me to actually pursue. And now, given where I'm at, I'm glad that the ones that I'm aware of are still out there.

One of the updates is he or someone is active on the Facebook profile, not posting actively, but has been changing some of the settings behind the scenes. How you can view friends, for example. I follow the profile and one time I could see the close to thousand friends on Facebook. And then a few weeks later, all of them are removed and I could just see my one mutual friend.

Then I checked again earlier this week and all of the friends are back up there. There's just some funky stuff happening behind the scenes and I am monitoring it. The only person I know who does have the login is Morrison. So he or someone else is active on that account and must be doing it from inside the system.

I have been trying to reach out to all sorts of parties, trying to get engaged in the advocacy community, awareness and legislative support, all of the things. I did not know where to start. I was on a business trip, actually, with some public officials. My representative within the area that I live just happened to be on this trip.

I thought, well, if there is an opportunity in a professional way, I want to broach the conversation of how do I get involved? He was very supportive and said, I'm going to connect you with the head of the judicial committee here in the state of Colorado. And he did that when we got back. That kind of spearheaded where I went from there. So I met with the head of the judicial committee.

He connected me with a couple of nonprofits, one of which was supporting some legislation around online facilitated misconduct. This was specific to dating apps and remote tracking. It's really just to keep dating apps and sites more accountable and putting some safety measures in place. And this bill also addressed deep fakes, which is a huge problem in this country with AI right now.

Deep fakes and remote tracking, which to my knowledge, we did not have in the state of Colorado. And the hope is that we can build upon this legislation, not just apply to dating apps, but all technology companies. I did testify at the legislature here in Colorado this past year, which that's a whole nother experience.

They provided support from talking points, reviewing my testimony to make sure that it was buttoned up in the way that it needed to be. It feels so good to be able to do it and to take action. But I was way more emotional than I anticipated. When I testified the first time, there were two other survivors who also spoke about their experiences.

Both of them had been sexually assaulted through meeting somebody on a dating app. I did not know their stories going into testifying in person. I heard the first story and her story was so shocking to me. And so going into telling my story next was difficult because not only is telling my story emotional, but then hearing these other stories, it was a lot.

I think now that I've had the exposure and I know what to expect going forward, I hope to have less emotion from that capacity because I want to be taken very seriously. And although some emotion was good to show, I felt like I was too emotional. I did not expect that. The bill did pass. And so I was happy to support it.

Absolutely. I am a person by nature that if I see something wrong, I want to fix it. And I want to bring good out of it. I want to bring change. That's just part of me I've had to accept. But through that, it helps me heal because I feel like I'm bringing something good out of a really terrible experience.

From that perspective, it does help you heal and move forward by helping others and hopefully bringing change to legislation and advocating and bringing awareness. It's empowering. And the more I focus on that side of it, the more I heal from the nasty bad parts that I continue to have to deal with. I think being a voice as a victim who's experienced that is a big piece of this.

So often stalking is downgraded from other crimes because someone hasn't lost their life yet. That's one thing I'm trying to bring awareness to is stalking is a precursor to a lot of crimes. I don't think that we talk about that piece of it enough. I think there need to be harsher penalties for stalking crimes and cyber stalking crimes.

Prosecuting these crimes is prevention of these crimes escalating. Exactly. There needs to be better legislation, longer sentencing for stalkers. Like the statute of limitations being three years was mind blowing to me because what are the prior victims of Morrison going to do at this point?

He can't be prosecuted for them, even though we know he's guilty of a lot of the same crime with a lot of victims. It's really on the criminal side of the legislation and creating harsher penalties for stalkers. One of the things that's been shocking to me is the lack of jurisdictions speaking to one another, especially in my situation where we're talking about multiple jurisdictions.

Since I was the victim, everything's been handled here. I'm grateful because the state of Colorado has good stalking laws compared to other states. But there's a lot that still needs to be done. This jurisdiction issue has just been mind blowing because it is stalking and cyber stalking in particular.

The federal side of law enforcement is overwhelmed with other crimes that we get pushed to the back burner and we're not prioritized. But I do think that the jurisdictions need to be talking to each other across state lines and international lines more frequently because these stalkers are acting in multiple jurisdictions.

Another thing I think needs to occur is just like there's a sex offender list, that's a national kind of database of sex offenders. Why do we not have a national stalking database?

To me, that's one of the simplest ways to protect others and to hold these stalkers accountable for multiple jurisdictions to know what they're doing in other jurisdictions and what they may or may not have been convicted of. I will say the stalking survivor community that are trying to bring awareness and advocacy is pretty small.

There are some other survivors that I'm trying to make contact with, one here locally in particular, to help me be more educated. I want to help write legislation, and my understanding is that's very difficult and hard to navigate. That's not going to stop me. I just want to know the right avenue and where to begin and who are the representatives that I need to be talking to who would support that.

You're amazing. Thank you for that. I feel like there's change and there's positive things coming. I have my days. I just feel deflated, frustrated and unmotivated in some capacity. So you just re-energized me to keep going with it. So thank you. I think also rest is productive.

I couldn't agree more. I think I've been saying no a lot more granted where I'm at in the healing or acceptance or processing side of all what I'm going through right now. I need downtime and enjoying the little things again. One thing Morrison said in this last parole hearing is he's in the best shape of his life.

Live grieving. I have not heard that term and that is so relevant to me right now. I wish I could heal and not get emotional, but I have learned the emotional side is a package deal. I'm trying to be better at accepting it. I was in therapy when all this was really rearing its head.

And I got to a point where both my therapist and I said, you know, I think I'm in a good place and I can take a break. I just reconnected with her this week because I can't do it all on my own. And sometimes that's hard for me to accept. I'm going to re-engage with her and hopefully help process some pieces of this that I either haven't or I'm struggling to do.

Hi, this is Amy from season 19 of Something Was Wrong. I shared my story of being stalked, sending my stalker to prison, serving the maximum sentence possible in the state of Colorado. And finally, the beginning of the parole process. Going into the recordings prior to hearing them back, I felt like I was in a really good place because here it is all laid out.

My parents, they're still a huge support system and have always been and continue to be. I'm very grateful to them and my entire support system. They've been wonderful. And I think with Morrison's release coming very soon, the support is ongoing and I'm so grateful to them. I'm so grateful to you both for letting me share my story. And it's been such a healing journey for me.

The impact and bringing attention to such an important subject. I'm very grateful to you both and your entire team. I probably wouldn't have found one of the victims without you. We achieved our goal. And now I just want to find others. I want to prevent him from hurting others.

I appreciate that. I'm so glad to hear other stalking survivors have chosen to come forward because we need so many more to come forward for real change to be had.

All the nitty gritty, nasty details that oftentimes I was hesitant to share with people even when they knew my story. But it was important to get all those details out. Listening back to the episodes was healing. It was emotional. I was very grateful to my friends, my family, and those who also told their stories because they're also victims of Morrison's through what he did to me.

I was grateful that they were all willing to participate. That meant a lot because I think their perspectives helped support the story. There were parts of their story that they had not shared with me in an effort to protect me with what I was dealing with. And so there are parts that I also learned through hearing others' experience with it as well.

In particular, I think of Natalie and the experience she had where someone was on the Airbnb site. I did not know that. And had I known that, I would have been freaked out for her. And I'm upset that she had to go through that. The fact that they had the opportunity to share their side of the story too, because I was the primary victim. I'm the one telling my story.

But there were so many people impacted. Listening to it back, I think I realized during the time that he was stalking me, I thought I was holding it together pretty good and protecting those around me. And I think in hearing their stories, I realized that I shouldn't have been so hard on myself and having to keep this so separate from my life.

I knew I held a lot of guilt and embarrassment that this happened to me because if I hadn't sent the pictures or if I had done this, that or the other, then it wouldn't have happened to me. I've let all of that go, but I don't think I fully let it go until I heard the episodes back.

hearing their perspectives and their side of what they experienced, I realized that they could tell that I was not okay. And I wish I just would have been more upfront about what I was experiencing from an emotional standpoint and my mental health The response that I got is those who did know at least a little bit about what was going on had no idea the extent of what was actually happening.

And those who had no idea, reaching out and saying, Oh, my God, Amy, I had no idea you were going through this. how did you just keep everything together? And the sad reality is as a victim of this type of crime, I don't get to lose it. I don't get to fall apart because I do have a life I have to keep together. So part of me was glad that people had no idea.

I think now that I'm on the other side of this and my story's out there, I wish in hindsight, I would have been even more open with people. I had a number of people reach out every week. I feel like someone learns of my story or has heard it, sees something I post on social media, and they reach out and say, I had a stalker or I was sexually assaulted or something related to what I experienced.

It's shocking to me how many people actually have something similar that's happened to them. I'm grateful that folks have come forward and felt comfortable to share their story with me. That's something that transpired after listening to the episodes too. My motivation in telling my story to you all was I wanted to find other victims. I was already aware of one going into the podcast.

If I could find one other victim and get them to come forward, then this has been so worth it. I've gotten so much more out of it than finding one victim. There was a victim that came forward after listening to my story on something was wrong. I'm so grateful that she came forward and she reached out to you, Tiffany. You were able to connect us. We still talk.

Thank you. What's been fascinating with uncovering and connecting with other victims is realizing that this is a large web from a distance standpoint. They live a long ways away from where I'm located and I know Morrison's reach is large. I think it's even larger than what I initially thought. I identified a third going through my case file that I got access to.

When I got the case file, I knew it was a large file. I had heard it was like 100,000 pages. I have about a little over 20,000 of them because I definitely extracted a lot of the pages out of it. I heard that at the sentencing. I assume it's because there's photos. What was surprising is the photos of me were not extracted.

They are all in there, which at this point I've just become numb to, unfortunately. The whole purpose of me wanting to get the case file was to identify other victims and reach out to them so they knew who this guy was. Identifying other victims, there were some that were obvious to me, and then there are some that weren't so obvious.

I think what surprised me is as I've reached out to these victims, it's like a 50-50 shot. I even get a response. I know each person's journey is different. And given the trauma of the stalking that Morrison did, I wouldn't be surprised if they felt like I was him because they still don't know who this person is or whatever it may be.

Some interesting aspects of the case file, they outline and detail the process for executing the search warrant play by play, which was fascinating. Who was there, how they're going to do it, when they're going to do it. That was very interesting. I knew there were a lot of law enforcement agents agencies that participated, but I didn't realize it was that many.

And there was a canine unit as well. It says they asked to interview Morrison and he declined, of course. So they separated him from his parents first thing. And then they interviewed his parents and his parents mentioned that he had an incident in college. He put bodily fluids on a girl's door. No charges were ultimately pressed. So he's not convicted of anything.

Yet this crime occurred through the search warrant, play by play. There were a number of zip drives. The zip drives would have a first name of a woman and then whore. First name, whore. And they found multiple of these. So when I say there's multiple victims, there are multiple victims. They found Nazi memorabilia in his room.

There's just a lot of information from the technical side or the IP side of stuff, given the nature of the cyber stalking. It was not surprising, but the extent of it was. I keep going back through the case file thinking I'm going to see something I didn't see before. I think I've resigned myself to the fact that I've identified all of the potential victims and I've reached out to all of them.

My dad has said, it's not your responsibility to necessarily protect all of the victims. I get what he's saying because he's trying to protect me and my emotional well-being. But there's something within me that doesn't want to stop trying to identify other victims until there's an adequate number of us that are aware of each other.

I feel like he's winning to some degree in this because he's been charged with one stalking crime and he knows all of the crimes he's committed. Just to refresh your memory, he got the maximum sentence in the state of Colorado, thank God. But that sentence is four years with time served and two years parole or probation. He's been in jail since November of 2021. So we're coming up on a third year.

As crazy as it sounds, it's something I didn't comprehend or maybe I couldn't at the time. Once he was sentenced and in jail, I had this moment of peace like this is done. It's something that after the second parole hearing in May in particular became a very real realization of mine more than ever that now I just go into the next phase. It's almost like chapters.

You feel like it's the last chapter. And I now realize that there's many chapters ahead of me. I just will have to focus on each one, one at a time. I've heard multiple survivors talk about too. It's like just when you get one parole hearing done, six months later, you're prepping because you're going to have to go into the next one.

And there's responsibilities you have as the victim in those parole hearings. Although you get bits of peace in your life, you don't get full peace. Ever.

Until you die

She was walking west, on the south side of the trail, heading west. I was heading east. She was looking down at her phone or whatever she was looking at. She was looking down. And she was walking her dog. And my first thought was, is the dog friendly? And then it was just maybe a minute later. not much longer, and she crossed over to the north side.

So she was on the same side of the trail as I was, and I was heading east.

Well, I looked at her and I said, hello. And I said, nice dog. And she smiled and replied and said, yes. Thank you very much.

We were just riding our bicycles, and I was still on the north side of the trail, and the motorcycle was just sitting there, and... I got over to the south side to get out of the way because it was just sitting there, not moving at all. Well, I was alerted because number one, I right away knew there shouldn't be a motorcycle on the trail.

And I also thought it odd that someone was completely covered. And why is this person on the trail completely covered? You couldn't see their face at all.

So what are your current predictions for the 2024 election? I predict Kamala's gonna win the presidency.

Yeah, Donald Trump's chart is giving desire for power and control, and Kamala's chart is giving more following her life path and what she's meant to do. So is it real?

Yes, it's very real. Very real.

I do see a wealth aspect in your chart. That's fabulous news. And Trump's a Gemini, and you have a lot of Gemini energy. So you would say Trump and I are similar? Yeah, actually, your Venus is on his sun, so you might would fall in love with him. My V is on his what now? This is a marriage aspect, actually.

But for Trump, it's not outside the realm of possibility that he goes to jail. So my husband is going to jail? Yeah.

Yes. Okay, good. You're gonna have the money. I am loving astrology.

Okay, so is there one other reliable method for predicting the election? So election results are a perfect thing for astrology to predict. The position of the planets when you're born influences a person's personality and how their life unfolds.

There was a full moon coming up that was in Capricorn at 29 degrees. and 29 degrees represents an ending, and Capricorn represents old age. So I just put together that he was gonna drop out.

What's going on? Not so much. Just wanted to get your thoughts on something that I've been struggling with with my husband.

Well, yeah, just when we go out, it turns into these, what I call for him, a tantrum. You know, the kids can see it and hear it and stuff, and it's Um, and it's just so hard. I don't know how to navigate through it. Um, like when we're just loading up the car, give me an example. Um, well, he'll say, well, great. Everyone's out today.

And cause we do things on the weekends and, um, Oh, I'm not the only one that had this idea. And then, you know, I should be working instead of out, you know, doing this. And, um,

Yeah, no, he's making it... Yeah, he's being a... what you would say a brat. Um, he, you know, is, um, like, by the way, I have to do this all like every weekend and, you know, their kids are pretty small, they're toddlers and, you know, he'll go on to say, you know, this is, you know, for you, what you like to do and because they're not going to remember.

So what, what's the point, you know, this is a waste of time and, We shouldn't be spending the money anyway, and he just keeps going on.

Okay.

Well, I'm expecting our fourth. I mean, like for family things, I find around where we live, it's nice to have him on the weekends so he can, you know, kind of play with the kids.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. It's hard because I thought he did. Because sometimes when we do go out, he does enjoy himself. So that just makes it hard. What does he say?

Well, he works from home. And he says he needs to be out, you know, working and doing things for us for, you know, our financial stability. And then whatever we do on the weekends takes away from that.

Just say bye.

We haven't actually. No.

Right.

Hey, not much. How are you?

I'm doing well.

Hi, Dr. John.

Good. It's awesome to talk to you.

Well, my question is, how do I tell my kids that they were conceived with fertility treatments using donor sperm and that their dad is not their biological father?

11 and 13.

Yes.

He's on the birth certificate. He's their father since birth.

I don't think either one of us are having a problem with it. It's just... We just don't know how to approach this subject. You know, it's not a question of if we should tell them. We want to. We want them to hear it from us, not find out by chance someday doing a DNA test.

Right.

And back when we were going through this, it wasn't really... I mean, we thought about that future, but it was more that... we just deeply wanted the kids and we were going to make our family this way. Um, but now we know for sure they are going to find out someday and we want them to hear it from us.

Um, my husband has two from a former marriage and I have one as well from a previous relationship.

Yes.

11 and 13.

No, the older one, he's beginning puberty. So we've had that talk.

He had had a vasectomy and then we had planned to reverse it, which we tried, but it was unsuccessful.

we definitely have a good relationship as far as we can speak freely about things. We are conservative Christians. So I think there's some of that, that some of the sex talk isn't open every day. Sure. They're pretty sheltered in what they watch and not that I'm not, you know, I know that they've seen things or heard things, but.

How do I tell my kids that they were conceived with fertility treatments using donor sperm and that their dad is not their biological father?

Okay. Are you familiar with any data on kids or families like mine, like from a child development perspective? child development perspective and all that.

Yeah, that's great.

Hi, how are you?

I am awesome. Super excited to talk to you.

I'm very anxious, so I'm just going to start rattling off my question. Don't be anxious.

Well, I have a question. All right, bring it. So how can my husband and I pay off over $40,000 in debt stay debt-free, and be able to teach our kid good money habits when our habits are in the toilet.

Okay. So my husband and I have been married for over almost 20 years. We've been together since we were in high school, high school, sweetheart.

I know. It's so great. I'll send you the prom picture. It's great.

No, it was Celine Dion because it was the Titanic. Oh, my gosh.

All right. So we're a law enforcement family. My husband's been in law enforcement for over 20 years. I'm also a special needs mom for 14 years. And so one of the proudest moments was when I gave birth to my son. The next day was payday. And I paid off our credit card and I was like, this is the best. Amazing.

And then our son started down this road of all these medical needs and nobody knew what was going on with him. And we spent the last, the next four years trying to figure out a diagnosis for him. So, um, I'm sorry.

It's a really rare diagnosis that like 32 people in the world have. Oh, man. But thankfully, everything is controlled. We've got therapy. We've got medication. Life is good in that. We figured out some financial stuff that we can use for financial assistance. That's been great. but it just feels like whenever we get a chance to get ahead, like we do really well.

And then all of a sudden we're back into our old habits. And so I know of about $45,000 in debt. I secretly feel like there's more. Um, one of the things I told him about at the beginning of the year, it's like, we need to sit down and like really be honest about our finances, where we're at and how are we going to do better? Because we have a, we have a 12 year old as well. Um, who is,

like has no concept of money and we are not doing a great job, set him up for success. So what is, what is the best way to have this conversation with my husband who, um, is prideful in what he does, which, you know, I love him. He's been an amazing supportive husband and has always provided, um, like he's working six days a week. He's working as much as he can, um, to try to help make ends meet.

And so we just aren't coming up with a great plan that's helping us move forward in the right direction.

No, that's true.

Long-term, yes.

And I think that's where he's trying to figure out. We've got some investment properties that I don't know a ton about. He knows more about that than I do. I see it as another place for us where we're spending money. And he's like, but it's coming out of the business. I'm like, but it's supposed to be an investment, but we're in debt.

Yep.

And another kind of like side to this. So I have stayed at home with my boys since I've given birth. And there's a guilt factor in that I spend money because of the house. I buy things for the house. Boys' haircuts, groceries, whatever. And there's a guilt factor that I have because... I'm not working outside the home to bring in some income to be able to help the family. Any advice for that?

Okay.

No, but there is the occasional like, oh, your boyfriend's in the neighborhood, also known as the Amazon man, delivers my packages.

I think he is. But you know, sometimes after you start to hear things over and over again, you're like, wait, is this reality? Like, am I really? But, you know, and it's a battle, and I think it's also just... my work history and like, I used to be a provider. I used to be, I used to be the one that was the breadwinner between the two of us before we had kids. And then now it's kind of gone.

And so trying to let that go.

Yep. I love that. I love that.

But at the same time, it was great because I take things personally when we have these conversations. And so your tips on communication was really helpful.

He just loves toys and loves to buy them and loves to buy gifts for everybody.

He's probably like early elementary school.

Love that.

It is. And like two months ago when she got out of this relationship, she was crying and I was there for her and she said, please don't disappear on me. And this is kind of one of the things that opened my eyes. A lot of people have disappeared on her. And I was like, well, maybe you are the common denominator. And it was like light bulb went on for me. So I told her I wouldn't disappear.

But now I'm like, well, maybe I do want to disappear.

Right.

Well, that's one thing I'm good at. I don't filter. I'm very direct. She comes to me when she needs the direct, like what's happening here. And I'll tell her what I feel. I don't, I mean, I'm not mean about it, but I don't sugarcoat it.

Right. And we've weathered a few of those where I did something to help her and she blew up on me and stopped talking to me and then came back later and said, yeah, that was the right thing to do. Cool. And I was like, yeah.

Right.

Right.

And that's another thing. I'm a mom. I'm married.

She's single. She's divorced. That's right. And we're way, she, you know, I feel like she lives her life like she's in her 20s and she's almost 40.

And I'm like, I'm in a different place and you don't, she doesn't ever support me in the things that I need. Okay, but Amy, Amy, Amy. Whatever's happening there.

That's exactly it.

You just carry it with you. I'm sad that that had to end.

There's really nothing else I can do for her. I've done everything I can do. She's drowning me.

27.

I am looking at ending a 30-year friendship.

Well, it's a little bit of a long story. Do you want me to get into it?

Well, the highlights is I have a friend who I've been, we met in kindergarten. We've been good friends for 30 years. Um, it's, you know, we, with any relationship, it's had its ebbs and flows, ups and downs. But lately, um, I've been feeling like I'm in a toxic relationship. She has, um, she has been trapped in a cycle of toxic relationships with men since high school.

And I've been her go-to person to save her, to help her, to support her. And I've been happy to do that. She's one of my ride or dies friends. But this last time she got out of a toxic relationship and then went right back in, it kind of opened my eyes to some things that maybe she's the toxic one and maybe I'm in a toxic relationship. Yeah.

So I'm looking at kind of pulling away and shutting this friendship down. And there's a lot of grief associated with that.

So that's what I'm struggling with.

I think that's kind of what I've been doing. So I went through some training recently where I've been extremely busy and I kind of was like, I'm not, I'm not available this month and kind of let that ease out and But now I'm feeling like, should I tell her why I'm not going to answer her phone calls?

Let me come round and actually... It's more that the coffee machine's really...

what's going on here amy we're playing civilization a new dawn so it's based off a video game and it's gained victory points based on area control placing certain tokens down killing people to be completely honest so killing people yeah you're taking over city states and stuff it sounds very very serious how important amy is having a laugh while you're doing this

It's the main reason I come, so very, very important. If you can't have a laugh with the people you're playing with, it gets pretty dull very quickly.

I have a lot of those. I'm very well known for my outbursts of when I've made mistakes like that or for when someone's screwed me over. I think that's kind of my signature of this club at this point is just hearing me screaming from across the room.

Have you ever been to the point of life where you're kind of just existing and you're going through the motions of just, I'm just going to work and then I'm going home and that's it? And I found it advertised on Facebook and I'd always had an interest in board games, but none of my family were, so I never got to play them. So I thought, screw it, and showed up and I've been here every week since.

I'm getting out of my house a lot more than anything.

Yeah, there's definitely a big stereotype about the whole nerd stereotype. I very much fit that one. If I'm not board gaming, I'm in my bedroom on my computer. But this is definitely breaking the mould, clubs like this. It is encouraging people who would normally be introverts to go out and be a bit more extroverted and meet new people.

I've doubled my friend count in the last six weeks, so it definitely works.

No, no, of course not. I use that selectively because I'm happy to say I'm a nerd. But you don't have to be. I think there's plenty of people here who have very un-stereotypically nerdy jobs and hobbies and they still just enjoy it. You definitely don't have to be.

There has not yet been a game here that I have played before. OK.

You are going to learn something from scratch. You're not going to find... There's no Cluedo and Monopoly or this sort of stuff here. But a lot of the games look very heavy, but in reality they're not. And they are really easy to learn. And even if they are a heavier one to learn, everyone is very patient and happy to deal with bajillion questions of how do you play the game, basically.

So I'm a little confused as to where to go. I own two properties. One of them is on the island and that property I owe about $400,000 on. It's worth $700,000. My monthly payment with HOA and everything is $4,500. I own another property just over the bridge. It's a bicycle ride to the beach. That is an Airbnb property.

I've been making about $50,000 a year on, but I don't owe anything on that property. That is worth about $650,000. What I am thinking of doing is selling my property on the island. I don't I'm kind of tired of the HOA stuff. And, um, actually I'm in the process after hurricane, um, Milton renovating my Airbnb property right now. And I'm thinking I want to move into it.

Thinking of some on the island and moving into the house just over the bridge. Then I'll have no, no house debt. Um, I have 200,000 in cash after the renovation leftover. And then if I sold the condo, I would make $300,000 profit off of that. So I'd have a half a million. The only other debt I have is my car, which I just bought. What's that?

Well, it's kind of against Dave's rules, I know, but I just bought a new Infiniti Iowa $70,000 on that. So that's a $1,300 a month payment. I have a 70,000 IRA, a $20,000 Fidelity account.

What's wrong with that? It's not what's wrong with it. I think that's a smart decision. The question I have for you guys is, So I'm a real estate broker. I've done real estate, you know, renovations, flips, building all my life. I'm a single woman, 55 years old.

If I did this move and my condo actually sold and I got into the house, I have a half a million and I need to know what to do with it because I'm most likely to want to buy real estate and fix it and do all that. And I'm not knowledgeable at all about the stock market. I'm trying to just

wrap my brain around all of it and learn because I'm getting to the age where I want the money to work for me instead of me working the money, you know?

Well, that's, um, that varies quite a lot, but, um, Anything from $100,000 to $300,000 a year. Okay.

So the condo on the island is, I owe $399. Is that where you're living?

It's been my primary residence.

Perfect. I'm renovating it, but I'm thinking about moving here.

Anywhere from like 100 to 300. I've made a little more than that.

I've always felt like, I've always felt like I do better with real estate than I do with like, Because stocks have always scared me. You know, it's always been an unknown.

I own the brokerage.

Hi, I'm just curious. Is it up to the employer's discretion to allow or not allow a conversion from traditional 401k to Roth 401k? I've asked multiple times, and my answer has been they don't do it.

Mine does. Mine does have both. So I've since done contributing to Roth, but I was hoping to... Your company offers a Roth 401k and a regular 401k.

Correct. Like, what?

Okay.

No, corporate America.

Good. How are you guys doing?

Okay. Sure sounds like real debt to me.

Well, yeah, but other than that, I have no debt.

A couple bank accounts.

Are they making 0%? No, they're making a little bit. There's a couple of them in savings, and then some of it's just cash.

I have a life insurance, a small life insurance policy that's all I have.

Yes.

Right now. My 19-year-old is away at college, but I mean, he'll be here when he's not at college.

I'm thinking around 280.

My monthly expenses are about $16.75.

Every month?

Probably not. I could probably do a thousand.

Yeah, it just depends on the time of the year. During the summer, I make a lot more because I have way more children.

Okay.

And that's kind of why I haven't done it. I just don't understand any of it, and I've always been afraid of it, and I've watched too much American Greed, so...

Yep, I get it.

I do childcare, and so during the summer I get a full house. I have all the kids from school, school-age children, so I have 12 kids all summer long. And then during the winter, kids go off to school, and I tend to have less. And this year I chose to have a few less because I took my first grandbaby. I'm watching her. And with a baby, it's just a lot more work.

And so I've had less children during the years. Are you getting paid to watch the baby?

Partially.

Yeah, yeah.

Probably a good number. 2030? I don't know.

Well, I am turning 61 in two weeks.

And I have been good with my money all along, but I have failed to have a retirement fund. And I'm wondering at this point what I can do so that I can retire maybe at 67.

I have no retirement fund, but I do have... Cash, and I have no real debt. The only debt I have is about $9,000 that I took out a 0% interest loan and did some updates on my house.

Hi. Thanks for taking my call.

Um, so my husband and I have been stuck in saving up a thousand dollar emergency fund for like three years. Like we save up the funds and have to start over.

So we make between the two of us right now, we make about a hundred thousand dollars a year. Uh, but we also have an average of eight, uh,

So I have chronic health issues. My husband has chronic health issues. We have our oldest son has a diagnosed disability, and our youngest son has developmental delays. Got it.

Um, yes. So this year for my, for my baby, we hit the out of pocket on January 15th.

37.

I do. Yeah. And my company pays 80% of the premium for us.

Are you coping? We've had car accidents. We've had home emergencies. We had a slab leak in our house that displaced us for...

six weeks last year and the head insurance the way the policy was written is they recovered they covered all of the like refurbishing repairs from the water damage but they wouldn't actually cover the like plumbing repair um let's see what else what that cost you uh that was five grand um that we ended up having to borrow because our emergency fund was only $1,000.

So we paid $1,000 and, you know.

Are there a lot of debt payments? Our mortgage currently is one-third of our income. It didn't start out that way, but then we had some property tax snafus that we didn't understand. We also have two car payments.

Yeah. We also have two car payments. We're paying off some student loans and we got sucked into the solar.

But I kind of want to say scam. So that's where.

$2,800 mortgage.

It just disappears every month. Yeah, and I have one in diapers and one that's working on being potty trained, but because of the disability, that's taking forever. And then, you know, we've got formula costs and, yeah.

Yes, I work from home and take care of our, well, so I take care of our one-year-old. Our three-year-old is in ADA therapy, which my insurance covers most of, but we are still paying about $75 a day for it.

So he has an HVAC estimator.

Well, the cars are kind of a messy situation right now because we had two car payments, and then my husband got into a car accident, and his car got totaled. But there were multiple cars involved and multiple insurance companies involved, and so they're working on... Basically trying to figure out how they can get away without paying for anything.

So we are actually effectively right now paying for three cars.

So it was not his fault. So we were hoping that maybe the other insurance companies would take responsibility, but they have not. So we just started the process of getting our insurance to cover the cost of it.

Okay. And what do you owe on them? But you didn't have to get a $22,000 car.

Hey, me and my husband are arguing a little bit. We are looking at purchasing a second home slash investment property at the beach. And we have a paid off. Our primary residence is paid off. We don't have intentions of moving. We have another investment property locally that is running in cash flowing. We both have good jobs, make good money.

And my husband's viewpoint is we need 100% of everything. the proceeds to buy the second home. And my view is we could just put 20% down. So we wanted a third opinion to weigh in on our discussion.

100%.

Yeah, that would be rented as well.

But either way... Until it's paid off.

No, no, no. We're 100% debt-free. So both properties are debt-free? No debt. Correct. Yeah, we have no debt at all.

Probably about a million.

We have about a hundred.

Our household income is about $350,000 to $375,000.

Right now, we're saving $8,000 to $7,000 or $8,000 a month.

And we're maxing out our retirement account. So that's just cash after taxes, after everything else.

I'm 30. He's 32. Okay.

Congrats.

Yeah. No, that would, the, the other rental is probably two 50 would sell for about two 50 pretty easily.

About 1.3. Okay.

Yeah, it is. It is.

$30, yes.

Mm-hmm.

So my husband also threw out the idea of buying another rental in town that cash flows.

Near 38.

Laguna Beach. It's on the end of Panama City right before you get to Santa Rosa.

Mm hmm. Yep. Actually, my husband said that before.

Okay.

Yeah, kind of. But yeah, he is the Dave Ramsey lover. So he told you to call in.

No, he said I wouldn't do it. And I was like, I think we can do it. Let's get Dave's opinion.

Well, she's not in my class, but her name is Arlene. My friend Amanda has a sidekick. My cousin has a sidekick. Arlene has a sidekick. Christine has a sidekick. Who else got a sidekick? This girl on the train got a sidekick.

Yeah. Almost all my family got a sidekick. I want a sidekick. I don't have a sidekick. I lost my phone, actually, but I want a sidekick, but I don't got it yet. See? Yeah, she has one. She, yeah, she has one.

We're just two patriots who love our country, who served our country, and not just in the military, but also in politics. And we're here to tell it like it is.

The Peter Navarro who said recently that tariffs are not taxes. They're taxes on like other countries, but not on us or something like that. And I was like, that is just the opposite.

Absolutely. And one of the reasons that I wanted to partner with Denver to do the show was that, you know, Denver ran as a Republican. He stepped up in 2018 when I stepped up because we needed better leaders in this country. And we had something to give back to this country and make sure that Americans know the truth.

All right? And so let me break it down a little bit, okay? Sure, break it. One, because they say on the right, all right? And I'm just pointing at you because, you know— Wait, am I in the—where am I in the shot?

They say, hey, these tariffs are going to restore the industrial base. Right. Okay. Maybe, but not for a really, really, really, really long time. All right. And it's not going to happen overnight. And and and I would argue that under the last administration, which was Democratic administration, we were starting to do that with some good policies to begin with. OK, that's number one.

Number two, these tariffs are going to replace income tax. That's what your your buddy Navarro said. Right. No, they won't. They're not going to replace income tax. And Americans are getting taxed twice, right? Because we're going to have income tax and we're going to have the tax that is the higher prices that we're going to all suffer through because of these tariffs.

And number three, Trump says and Trump's people say that we're going to pay off the U.S. debt with these tariffs. Now— If you know anything about deficits or debt, you know how freaking laughable that statement is. It's not even close. Not even close. This is a tax on Americans.

It's a tax on the, you know, working class Americans because we spend on things and we have a higher percentage of our income as, you know, spending on those things. And all of the prices are going to be higher. This is just stupid.

Can't do it. We'll have a show on that to make the graphs complete.

Here's something that Peter Navarro just said. Tariffs equal tax cuts. And when I read that, I was just laughing because, you know, that's when my kids think that money that comes out of the ATM is free. Like, that's the same. Tariffs do not equal tax cuts. The answer is no, they do not equal tax cuts. It's the opposite. This will actually hurt Americans in their wallets. It's going to happen.

I like Denver because he's got a tremendous background in new technologies and AI. He was an intelligence officer in the Air Force. And now... Probably even more impressive is that he owns and operates, but he's not the master distiller of a very cool distillery in Virginia. But today, what are we drinking on our very first episode?

And here's the thing. Trump ran on lowering prices. And here's the question I want to ask you. Has anything been lowered? No. Egg prices been lowered?

Nothing.

We're just going to increase the prices because that's what tariffs are going to do. That's what tariffs do. When you impose a tariff on another country, you're imposing a tax on that other country. Guess what they do in response? It's tear soap. They impose another tax on us. And that's you and me buying their products.

So just recently, Canada, right, took off all of their bourbon from Kentucky off the shelves. What does that do to the bourbon industry in Kentucky?

And here's the thing. When you listen to Donald Trump and he says— Ah, tariffs are going to make us great again. We're going to have so much cash. It's going to be great. We're going to be rolling in the dough. You know, whatever he says. You know what I'm talking about. I think people need to know that's bullshit. Remember, he said Mexico would pay for the wall. Did Mexico pay for the wall? No.

I don't remember that.

So he's lying. The additional costs will not be paid by other countries. They will be paid by Americans. Prices will go up. You know, our biggest trading partner, our biggest trading partner is what now?

So to put all the, where do we, what do we get from Mexico?

Yeah. We got a lot of fruits and vegetables. All that stuff's going to go up. That's right. Canada, we got a lot of crude oil. All that stuff's going to go up. So all those prices are going to go up. Wait till we have the avocado riots in the United States. I want my heart-healthy avocados now. And here's the other thing. Didn't Donald Trump, wasn't he the one that negotiated the update to NAFTA?

NAFTA was the North American Free Trade Agreement that was negotiated by Clinton. Back by Bill Clinton back in the 90s. And that that was actually, in my opinion, a very good deal. And it was with I mean, we need to have another discussion. OK, with Canada, with Canada and Mexico, which are our largest trade partners. They are. And Donald Trump negotiated that again to the USMCA.

And now he's going against that.

Yeah, and I still think that there are a lot of Americans that are kind of like, well, you know, kind of Trump knows what he's doing and we got to do these tariffs for a while because we got to curb illegal immigration and all that. Look, folks, there's ways to curb all these stuff without putting a massive tax on Americans.

All right. Good deal. Last topic. Do you want to talk—

Okay.

Yeah.

Nope.

Well, the best peace deal, in my mind, would be for Russia to get the heck out of Ukraine. And I think that's what the Ukrainians have wanted the entire time. There is no... both sides here. And that has been, I think, the biggest shift in the last few months since Trump has become president. The messaging that Republicans, that Marco Rubio, J.D. Vance,

Donald Trump are trying to push out there is that there should be both sides here. Both sides are good and let's just come to a peace deal. No, no, no, there are no good, both sides are not good here. We have one country that invaded, invaded another country. We have one country that is bombing civilians. Not, you know, of another country.

We have one country that is basically on a daily basis instituting war crimes. You know, what they've done to civilians in Bucha and other places, you know, lopping off heads. These are not—they're not all the same.

We have been on the side of the good guys here, on the side of democracy, on the side of our partners, on the side of standing up for the, in my opinion, the world order that the greatest generation built for us. OK, and the other side is Vladimir Putin and the Russians that are doing unspeakable things to the Ukrainians.

And so now we have a president that has come in and has basically said, hey, Ukraine, why don't you just give up 25 percent of your country? And the Ukrainians are not wanting that because they don't want to give up their country. And frankly, I don't think they should have to give up their country. Now, we have been giving the Ukrainians some weapons and some aid.

So has Europe to defend themselves. And why is that so important? If you're somebody that's like, I don't even know where Ukraine is on a map. We don't do that. If we don't give them the weapons that they need and Europe doesn't give them the aid that they need, Russians are just going to take over. And they're not going to stop in Ukraine. They're going to go elsewhere.

They're going to be emboldened by this. This is exactly what happened in the 1930s when we looked, our country, you know, along with many in Europe, looked at Adolf Hitler and said, maybe we'll just give him a little bit of land here and see what happens. No, no, no. That's not how this works.

And so, yeah, it's a long way for me to say that what they're trying to do right now is, in my opinion, not the right way to go.

And look, here's the thing. Vladimir Putin, by the way, is not winning.

I'm sorry. But if you need like 10,000 North Koreans to help you out on the battlefield, you ain't winning.

Yeah.

We were on the side of war criminals. Yeah, absolutely. Congratulations. United States is now on the side of war criminals. How does that make you feel? I'll tell you what, as somebody that served my country, that doesn't make me feel really good right now.

And so every episode, we're going to be talking about bourbon. We're going to be talking about whiskey. Why? Because, let's face it, folks, we need a little bit of this to get through what we're getting through in our country right now.

Amen. And we're here to talk about what you should know as Americans, especially on matters of national security. And this is an age where a lot of people don't believe corporate media. So we're going to talk to you about our experiences and what's going on in the world.

So let's get started, all right? We're going to talk about some important topics that are going on in our country. The first one that I wanted to tackle was these massive cuts that the current administration is implementing that's hurting, in my opinion, the veterans, the VA, right? And look, the biggest thing from my perspective, the first thing, and I'm interested in yours, is number one,

veterans aren't calling for these cuts.

Okay, so Donald Trump and his VA secretary and then the Elon Musk doge people who have clearly never served their country in uniform and have no idea what that really means are sweeping through all the agencies and they're going to the VA and they are talking about cutting 80,000 jobs at the VA. And the current secretary of the VA says, hey, stand by. There's major changes. Get used to it.

But don't worry, veterans. It's not going to affect your health care. Let me just say right off the bat, that is total bullshit.

Well, Elon says cut. And Doug just rolls along with that. Of course. But here's the thing. I mean, you cannot cut 80,000 workers and expect better health care outcomes. It just doesn't work that way. It doesn't. And here's what annoys me. The VA and a lot of people say, well, hey, how come you can't just privatize veterans health care? Well, number one, there's no big calling to privatize.

There are some right wing veterans groups like that were led by Pete Hegsath and many of the current, unfortunately, assistant secretaries of the V.A. who always wanted to privatize the V.A., They could never do it. Why? Because there's no broad calling to privatize the VA from veterans or from the American public. It's always an eyesore to them, right? Because what is VA health care?

It's universal health care for veterans. It's socialized medicine, and it works. Now, it's not perfect.

Now, my husband and I both get our health care through the VA. And we will tell you, you know, it's not perfect. But in our region, it's great. They do tremendous work. But it's, you know, every region is different. And we have to concede that. But we have to make it better. not throw it away.

Here's the thing I want to ask you, though. Right. Why—because you're a Republican. You know all these guys. I do. Why are they doing this? Why are they—because clearly it's going to hurt vets. It may not hurt vets in proportion to our age. It may not hurt sort of younger vets as much. But a lot of older vets— really rely on the VA.

My uncle, for example, is a Vietnam vet who had an illness related to Agent Orange. And he got a lot of care later on in his life dealing with that. That is not something that you get from the local clinic. And that's another thing that a lot of, I think, Americans need to understand is the VA helps veterans specifically blast injuries, traumatic brain injuries,

Things that only, I mean, you don't get exposed to Agent Orange in civilian life. You don't get exposed as much to toxic fumes the way we were exposed to toxic fumes in Afghanistan and Iraq. That, by the way, the last administration passed the PACT Act that allowed veterans of our generation to get health care from. And now they're basically trying to undermine all this. Why are they doing that?

Why even get into that position? You want that position so bad. And then when you get into it, you basically just throw all of your morals and principles away to keep the position. What's the point? I mean, the Republican Party used to be the party of national security, used to be the party of, hey, I'm going to stand for veterans. And now they're just A-OK with cutting veterans' health care.

And here's the other thing about being a veteran. And yes, you and I are both veterans, so maybe don't take this the wrong way for people that are watching, but here's my belief. We ask people to sign the dotted line. for four years of their life, at least four years of their life. At least. Put on a uniform, go through a tremendous amount of pretty hard shit, okay, in training.

Maybe put your life at risk and go into harm's way. You don't know if you're gonna go, but you might. And you could be a logistician, you could be an admin person, and you can be in harm's way. It does not matter what your, quote, MOS is. You sign the dotted line for four years. You basically give up your rights.

And in return, we give a handshake deal to these less than 1% of Americans that do this. And that handshake deal is a little more than a handshake. It used to be an actual promise. Prior to the Trump administration, it was a promise. And that promise says, we're going to give you some GI benefits. We're going to give you some educational benefits.

You might get your college paid for, depending on what state you're in, right? We might give you a better home loan, a better rate on home loan. Yeah, I've used it. You know, we might give you preferential treatment on getting a federal job if you get out. But the biggest thing we give people, the biggest thing is you're going to get health care for life, quality health care for life.

And right now, the attack on that is what is making me very upset.

Nine million. Nine million veterans.

Yeah, the F-4 and the F-14 were called Rios. But in the F-18, we call them Wizzos.

Yeah. And the final thing on this, just for people, I mean, when you walk into the VA and your therapists, the people who are doctors and nurses, have to greet you at the counter because we fired all the people that we think are, quote, non-essential. I mean... That doesn't make a good running health organization.

We're firing people right now that are doing things like making sure our health records that from the active duty get into the Veterans Administration. I mean, these are important things for health care. I mean, I'm not an expert, but like... Just the blanket firing of people just makes me really upset. And also because these are people that, you know, they're caring for veterans.

You know, they could be out there doing lots of things, but they care about, you know, the folks that serve this country.

Tariffs. All right. Look, this is a national security podcast, and we're going to talk a lot about national security, intelligence, the military, all that stuff. However— Tariffs affect all of us. It affects our economy. And I just got to say, this whole idea of putting tariffs on Mexico, Canada, all of our partners and allies, unprovoked for no reason, is just galactically stupid.

I mean, we are like, it's almost like he's doing the opposite of what you would do to help growth in our country, in our economy. What's going on here?

This episode is presented by Colgate Optic White. Our wedding is coming up and something I'm really being conscious of is my teeth. I want them to be white and beautiful and I want to look back at all my photos and ah, and that is where Colgate Optic White comes in. Whether you're a bride or a guest, you can get a smile glow up with Colgate's Optic White Overnight Whitening Pen.

You don't need a $14,000 a month house. $14,000 a month in a mortgage. About a $1.4 million mortgage. If not more, it could be two. Yeah, roughly the house was probably 20% down, about 1.6 and change. I mean, I don't know what interest rate they got, but I mean, that is a lot of money. And it's like, you're putting us in financial crisis. I think we need to evaluate our monthly expenses then.

I don't need this big house.

What are you giving them?

No, it definitely is a very privileged problem to have, but it's still like, even with the privilege, he's not being a partner. Like when is he parenting? He's not right. If it's, if it's the kid is with the nanny or the kid is with me and he has no time with the kid, He's a sperm donor. He's not a dad. Yeah. He's not a parent. He's not a partner. He's a sperm donor.

Yeah, the underwear would be a tough gig. A lot of people apparently want you to go work out in them, wear them for a week. No, thank you.

I think she should get divorced and then have 50-50 custody. Then he'll have to step up.

Yeah. I think OP should sell the house, get her hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars back, split custody, start a business. Win-win all around.

Give him the D. Divorce. Bringing it back.

Sometimes therapy is overrated when you're talking to a brick wall. Okay. You can convince yourself all day. She knows what she wants. Is couples therapy going to help this guy? I don't know. Have you watched the show Couples Therapy? No. Nope. Amazing. Amazing show. And there's one couple on there that actually reminds me of this guy.

And the therapist kind of clocks it and calls him out on it and... He is obstinate and just does not change and is not a good partner. And his wife sticks with him. And it's why they cycle through therapists. It's a really good show.

Pee in them.

No, thank you. I'm your host, Morgan. And today I have somewhat familiar faces for you all, unless you're new here. Welcome. But I am joined by my sister-in-law, Amy, and my brother, Matt. Hello. They have their own podcast, their very own show as well called Midwest Married. So if you can't get enough, you want more stories, relationship advice. You don't have to be from the Midwest to listen.

Develop a lot of resentment. I mean, there's so many feelings that can come with that.

You guys know where I fall. There's so, so, so many more comments from OP. If I read them all, we would literally be here until tomorrow. So the link will be in the description of the video. But yeah, OP does have one last final edit. Good. Thanks for all the comments. I've replied to many. I'm going to try some of the suggestions offered to get to a better agreement.

I will post an update with how it goes. All right. However, here we are 24 days later. We have no official update yet.

Still working on it. It's only been three weeks. Going through the lawyers. Going through the lawyers. So we'll have to keep our eyes peeled. But moving along. All right. Story number two. This is coming from our very own Two Hot Takes subreddit, 18 days old, titled, My boyfriend slash baby daddy, 32 male, tells me, 27 female, I'm too sensitive about his humor.

Okay, so boyfriend, baby daddy, and I have been together for around six years now, and we have two young boys. He constantly makes jokes about slash towards me around our kids, and I hate it. When I voice my feelings about this, he's just brushed it off as me being too sensitive. As an example, yesterday I came out of our room wearing this outfit in the photos.

I just bought the shirt because I recently gained around 20 pounds due to a new medication. All of my other clothes have been making me feel like a stuffed sausage, so I was feeling pretty good in my new shirt. When I walked into the living room, he turned to me and said, That shirt is a little small. I replied, It's just the style. It's supposed to be a little short. It's cropped.

He gave me a smarmy smile and said, Eh, it's still a little small. I then tried to explain that I'd just bought the shirt and it was in a larger size, but he cut me off and told me to go deal with my insecurities. And then turned to our three-year-old and said, women, right? Am I really being too sensitive? Three-year-old? Or does this seem as disrespectful as it feels to me?

So cute. Love the shirt. You look so good. I'm blown the fuck away. Look at this other picture.

Yes, you'll see it on the video. Ma'am. I wish I looked this good. He is trying to tear you down.

It's It's great. It's a really cute shirt. Great outfit. It's essentially like a mint green shirt. Honestly, not even that cropped. It still goes like below your belly button, has some flowers, cute little flared leggings. Just vibe. Absolute vibe. Did OP call it humor in the beginning?

It's terrible.

I mean, I don't understand how this was ever supposed to be funny.

Your shirt's a little small. Is there a joke there? Is there a joke? Because I don't I don't hear one. You trying to be a comedian because you're not funny. Someone give him the hook. Pull him off. Terrible. And I just I think, as you said, like you should not be setting this example for your children.

You can live anywhere, but you guys have your own show. It's pretty fun, too.

You want your sons to grow up and treat their partners this way because they're learning this is acceptable behavior, right? You deserve so much better. It's not acceptable. It's insane behavior. And the fact that he's trying to brush off poking fun at you, making you insecure... I don't know how he's trying to brush that off as humor, especially when this is your partner.

You gain some weight because of a new medication. You've likely confided in him saying, I don't feel good in my own skin. This medication is making me gain weight. My other clothes are making me feel like I'm a stuffed sausage. You're probably relaying this information to him and he comes at you with, looks a little small.

I don't know. I don't know how you're going to. Okay.

Also the word swarmy.

smarmy i love that word smarmy i like ingratiating and wheedling in a way that is perceived as insincere or excessive can't you just picture it when someone's like poking fun at you and still like smirking at you i agree insincere i stand by my original comments but i just wanted to see no not only does she have great um style she also has a great vocabulary so i'm on her side

Yeah, and I think, you know, there are times when you try something on and you go out and ask for your partner's opinion, right? Hey, what do you think of this dress? Should I wear this tonight? Do you like this one or do you like this one better? But it was so unsolicited and it wasn't... Anything but negativity. It was it was negging. It was trying to tear her down.

And whether it's from his own insecurity and he's trying to tear her down so she doesn't leave him. I don't know what. But I.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

It's... It's... No.

This is not... This person does not deserve you. No. Top comment. You're not being oversensitive and fuck anyone that says otherwise. Your boys are watching and learning. Don't normalize this behavior. You deserve better. They deserve better. Yes. Next comment down. I literally saw Red reading this post. What a vile man and a poor excuse for a father.

Not only is he cruel to OP, but he's teaching his sons to be cruel too. I don't know how she can stand being in the same room as him, to be honest. OP deserves better. So much better than this. I hope she takes these comments to heart. Someone goes, father? Nah, he just provided spermatuza. Yeah. Spermatazoa? Spermatazoa. Thank you. You're welcome.

I'll be sure to link it. But today I'm getting into all sorts of just relationship dilemmas and marital woes, just all sorts of quality marital chaos. I need a title. I've been trying to think and rack my brain for a title. I didn't even put anything on the folder. I just had it labeled Matt and Amy on my folder because I've been waiting for you guys for a lot of these stories. I love it.

I didn't have that. That's a new one for me. Big word for Elmo. What? You don't hear that one?

Just trying to see if there's any other comments. People were saying like, oh, you can see your gut. What? Opie responds, you can't even see my gut. The shirt is barely cropped. It's not cropped. Right. It's honestly not cropped. No.

Yeah. I'm going to say this is not looking good at all based on the comments. There is a comment here from OP. I think someone was asking, why are you still with him? Like, why haven't you tried to leave? And OP goes, mostly because he and his mother have me pretty much trapped until my parents moved closer. I tried to leave a year or so ago and they threatened to take my kids from me.

I have nowhere else to go in the state I live in besides our house or my mother-in-law's. My parents live across the country, so that makes things difficult. They're moving closer to help soon though.

I think that's like kidnapping. Yeah. Is it? It's dicey. I'm not about to pretend I'm a lawyer. I'm not either. You could post on legal advice and mention what state you're in and get legal advice, but like not legal advice because it's Reddit. But yeah, I don't think it would look good, especially if you do try to get full custody. Right. Yeah.

Safe haven or... There are shelter options, I'm sure, locally.

I know. And it just can get dangerous when people do try to leave bad partners. I mean... Yes. It...

can go very south and it does not always end well but luckily op does have like a little update here in the comments i've made an appointment with a new therapist and i wrote in on my intake paper that i'm leaving my boyfriend and i would like help in working through that i also spoke with my parents about fast tracking their move so they're planning on moving closer in the next few months oh he's a oh i forgot he's a boyfriend no that's great that her parents are moving closer i know so

How do you move and do this on your own with an abusive partner when you have two littles and you have no money and maybe there's some financial abuse here? We don't know the context, but OP does say, I plan on moving in with them while I get a degree and I'll go from there. Good for you.

Thank you, THT sub, for making me realize that I'm not some crazy sensitive person who needs to get a thicker skin.

Yeah.

Moving on. All right.

Okay. This next one is a doozy.

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I don't know. We'll get to the end and you guys will give me a title. We'll figure it out. But buckle up for some of these. They're going to be good.

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Okay, you ready for story number three? Because I don't know if I am. I've saved this one for you guys. I saw it like the day it was posted a little bit ago.

And I was just like, there's no one I can have respond to this except you guys.

I'm worried. Okay, so this one is two months old, coming from Am I the Asshole?

It is titled, Am I the Asshole for making my mother-in-law return a gift she bought for my six-year-old on Amazon? To preface, my six, almost seven-year-old daughter has always had a fascination with babies and pregnancy. My mother. Cute. My mother-in-law, who I get along with for the most part, has always spoiled my daughter rotten.

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I want my daughter to have a good relationship with her grandparents, but it gives me pause that it seems they let her do whatever she wants when she's over there visiting them. My daughter recently mentioned she was excited to see her grandmother sometime soon because she's expecting a package mother-in-law ordered for her off of Amazon.

Perfect. Let's dive in. Okay. Up first, this is coming from AITAH, 24 days old, titled, Am I the Asshole? Husband and Mother-in-law are bullying me into being a stay-at-home mom, but I paid for our house. My husband is rich, like makes $50,000 a month rich. Nice. We agreed on three things before our baby was born.

I asked my daughter what she bought her, and my daughter informed me she purchased two fake pregnancy bellies for her to wear. I don't anticipate that they'd ever let her wear these outside of the house, and this is something that would exclusively be for pretend dress-up play at home. But I got pretty upset as I don't believe this is an appropriate gift for a six-year-old at all.

I discussed my concerns with my husband, who promptly reached out to his mother to tell her she needed to return the bellies. Now, mother-in-law is upset because she was just trying to do something nice and thinks we're being harsh. My daughter is also upset as this is a gift she was looking forward to receiving.

I understand that my daughter has a fascination with pregnancy, which for the record, I've always thought was strange and have not encouraged, but I don't think her grandparents should necessarily be promoting this interest.

I have always been vocal about not wanting my daughter to watch YouTube, and I don't allow her to watch it at home much, outside of a few things I have personally watched and decided are age-appropriate.

I believe her grandmother allows her unlimited access to YouTube and my daughter will watch videos where the main character is pregnant, which is what I think stemmed her fascination with pregnancy in the first place.

I've addressed my concerns with them about my daughter having unfettered access to YouTube, but I don't believe my concerns were taken seriously and I'm under the impression they've been dishonest about letting her watch whatever she wants. I'm uncomfortable with them encouraging my six-year-old to pretend she's pregnant.

But mother-in-law acts like it's no big deal and that I'm a jerk for perceiving it as weird. So am I the asshole?

Do you still think she's the asshole or now you kind of really because you're like, oh, the boundaries just respect the boundaries.

You can determine what happens.