Listen Now: This is Actually Happening

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

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

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

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What would you do? From Wondering, This Is Actually Happening is a podcast

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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you're listening. Follow This Is Actually
Happening on the Wondering app or wherever you

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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want to get divorced again. If
he wants to work on things, and

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I'm willing to work on things.
We were doing okay. You know,

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

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

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hand. It's just like each week
you could a chance to renew yourself and

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

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

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

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

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son's birthday is January second. That
was the date my son had turned fifteen,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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them for two months. And I
just was like, oh gosh. I

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

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sleep, and I lay down and
tried to go to sleep. Something just

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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sitting in the closet and I just
prayed, and I just said, God,

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

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

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

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

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

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to this is actually Happening ad for
you right now by joining Wondery Plus in

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the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.