I Was the Other Woman… And He Died

As a widow, I get a lot of grief emails. But this one stopped me right in my tracks with the subject line, “I was the other woman… and he died.” Today’s caller is not a widow. She’s not a girlfriend. She’s not a friend. She is the other woman, and she’s bringing us on her grief journey – the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

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Hello, it’s Nora McInerny. This is Thanks For Asking. This is the call-in show about what matters to you.

And what I think matters to all of us is the gift of being seen and heard.

Even when our story is hard for people to understand, even when our story is hard for us to understand, and I think especially when our story has been hard for us to talk about.

And for a show that originated with grief and has covered so many brands, genres, sub-genres, niches of grief, this is one that we have not yet covered, have not touched.

And I think it’s because in order to share this experience, you have to have this experience, and in order to share this experience, you have to be brave enough to share it, to share your story in any public platform, whether or not your face is

attached to it, your name is attached to it, your voice is attached to it, requires so much bravery. Everybody who has ever been on our podcast, or really any other, is very, very brave because you are opening yourself up, you are opening yourself up

to the world. People have opinions. I’m a person with opinions. I’m a person with deep biases.

I try to remind you of that all the time, but one thing that I’ve really treasured about making podcasts with this community and for this community is the way that people open up, people open up and make space for other people’s experiences.

And so this might be a tough listen for some people. It really might be.

But I hope that this guest gets the grace and patience that we have given to so many other guests whose experiences we might not understand, whose experiences we might not fully agree with or align with.

Because today’s caller, as the title suggests, was the other woman. And that is something that she is grieving on many different fronts. So enough of me.

Let’s get into the phone call. Hi, Amanda.

Hi.

Hi. Thank you for joining us today. I am going to start in the hardest place first.

I want you to tell me about when you found out that your boyfriend, Mike, had died.

I found out not. I didn’t find out by necessarily being told. I found out in the mad dash to contact his family.

And they called me because I was a work contact. And they were looking for any way to contact this man’s family at the scene of the accident. And so I got a lot of phone calls, but I was not family, so nobody would reveal anything to me.

But through the tone of voice and changes and what I knew he was doing that day, I could tell something had deeply gone wrong. So I was able to put people in contact with his family, and then I later found out when I got a confirmation phone call.

So I had about two to three hours of the worst period of my life where nobody would, I didn’t know anything, but I knew. Like in my gut, in my heart of hearts, I knew.

And so you were, were you just having a regular workday then?

It was a Saturday.

It was a Saturday. Oh my gosh.

So you’re, you’re having a Saturday, you’re living your life, and you are somebody’s basically like work emergency contact, and you’re getting calls about a situation, and the people calling you are assuming you are a colleague.

And so you’re not getting any of the details, but you are getting all of the stress.

It’s funny because it was not initially a stressed voice. It was very pleasant. The person tried to cover it up very much.

So, hi, this is so and so. Do you have Mike’s family’s information, phone contact information? I realized I did not.

So, I went on a mad dash to find it, but towards the tail end of the conversation, something in me told to ask. And I said, it was going through my head, like, why can’t he give you this information?

And then I realized, so I asked, is everything okay? And the tone immediately changed, and I got a one word answer, which was no.

So, when do you find out that things are definitely not okay and that Mike is not alive?

When his wife called me to tell me that he was dead on the worst day of her life.

Tell me about that phone call.

She called me and she said, so I am calling you to let you know that Mike is no longer with us. And that was kind of the extent of the conversation at that point. And we left it at that.

There were business things that we took care of after the fact that went on after this, but that was the whole of it, the majority of the conversation.

So the two of you had things to deal with after this, you were saying?

Yes.

And what makes this more complicated than a typical widow and colleague sorting through a dead guy’s business affairs?

Because unbeknownst to everyone, Mike was not just a colleague. We were romantically involved, and this was off and on for a period of a couple of years.

You sent an email, and you said that this is a story that you’ve been holding in during shame and guilt, and that even though there are plenty of other women, other men, other people out there, you’ve yet to speak with or hear the story of somebody

So in 2013, I was working for a company, and this is how I met Mike.

He was friends with the owner. We’re talking small business. He was friends with the owner.

He owned his own business. And it just kind of, I was doing some work for him.

You know, you take the job in 2013. In 2015, the relationship starts. How does it start and what is it like?

So it started, we had acknowledged the attraction.

So it was this kind of simmering thing for a couple of years that wasn’t acted on. But it was there. It, in my body, it felt like almost honestly addictive.

It was that rush of dopamine and all of those things you get when you’re desiring somebody in like a new relationship. And because it was this flirtation that went on for so long, it became such a bigger thing in my head than it truly was.

And so it would be flirting, it would be hugs that would go on a little too long, it would be looks. The man had such a personality, he had one of those charismatic personalities that just drew everybody in, including myself.

And that’s really kind of what the appeal was.

When did it become like, not a flirtation, but something like a full affair?

It became a full affair one night when we had a work event and I had a little too much alcohol. And he gave me a hug, and we were alone. And I remember he whispered in my ear, you’re going to have to make the first move here.

And then I kissed him. And that is one move that I will regret for the rest of my life. Why I was there, why I stayed, why I let this happen, and why I continued this behavior.

I still can’t even understand why it happens. Like, I don’t even understand what, I kind of understand what caused me to do it. But when I look back, it’s almost like a fever dream.

Yeah.

Yeah. Does it almost feel like you’re describing someone else’s life?

Yes, 100 percent. Like it, and it’s not even, I’m not a person that you would expect this behavior out of. If people, there’s a very few people in my life that know about this, a very small core group.

But as a whole, I mean, people would be shocked because that’s just, it’s not me, it’s not what I’m known for. It would be a complete anomaly to my normal behavior.

Before this happened, you said like, I’m not the kind of person you would imagine doing this. Before you became this person, what did you imagine a person who would have an affair was like?

I thought they were trying to steal somebody else’s partner. I thought that they were shady. I thought they were terrible.

I think at one point I would have maybe made fun of them. Like, what do they think they’re doing? Why are they lacking in such self-esteem?

I genuinely did not understand how you can get sucked into something and not even realize that that’s what’s happening.

Because it wasn’t just one big thing, it was one boundary crossing after another after another, and two people who did have their lives together and had their own individual pain that coalesced into this.

We, neither of us really knew what we were doing in our life. I think he had more overt problems than I did. But at the end of the day, it took two of us, two hurting people, to create this big hurt.

Yeah.

And this is before he’s married, right?

He got married in between when we acknowledged the attraction and when we acted on it.

Okay.

So, yeah, I just want to get that straight, which is like, you start working this guy or working with this guy, he’s in a relationship, he’s not married, there is a flirtation.

He is also, it sounds like to me, the kind of person who’s also kind of chipping away at your perception of the importance of his relationship, which is kind of giving you like a tacit permission almost, like, well, I don’t really want to marry this

person. Oh, I just can’t imagine being with one person, and like kind of like laying the groundwork, kind of like warming up that back burner to put you on, gets married anyway, continues this flirtation, tells you, you have to cross the line after

like, crossing those boundaries, crossing those boundaries, crossing those boundaries. Now there’s one boundary that hasn’t been crossed, which is the physical, and he invites you to do it, you do it. What does it feel like to you?

Does it feel like a victory? Does it feel like a thrill? Does it feel like a mistake in the moment?

In the moment, I was very intoxicated, so I don’t remember what I felt like other than drunk and maybe a little bit uninhibited.

I do very much remember the next morning when I sobbed for hours, realizing I had crossed the line and then also realizing that it really didn’t satisfy the attraction between us.

And the reason this went on for so long is because we stayed in that feeling of the attraction and the back and forth and the excitement. And it became almost an addiction for me to sit in that space.

I’ve definitely gotten a lot of gas out of, like I’ve gotten a lot of energy and just momentary that sort of diet self-esteem that doesn’t really satisfy you, but like gives you like that momentary thrill out of a prolonged flirtation, a prolonged

like attraction. Like I get that thrill. And I also do, I can fully understand why people who are in committed relationships, like it can allow themselves to be carried away by that. Like I get it.

People like, you know, that sort of superficial junk food version of like attention and intimacy can like just feel like such an escape. Like I am trying not to like vilify anybody involved here. Although I do think, I always let my biases be known.

Like I do think the villain in a story is the person who was in the relationship and had all the information, which was him. He had all the information.

He’s the only one in this triangle, or you mentioned he had other, you know, flirtations or affairs or like inappropriate relationships. He was the only one with all the information.

And that to me kind of like tips the scales of responsibilities towards him. Although I know you want to assume and take ownership of your responsibility in the matter, which I also, you know, admire. And I think that’s a really big thing.

It’s a really big thing to like email a stranger and say, like, I did this thing that I’m not proud of and I have responsibility for it. And also, I want to talk about it. So thank you for being here.

But it doesn’t feel good, but it does keep going. And it keeps going for about two years. What are those two years like?

What are your days like? You’re working with this person, you know he goes home to another person.

It was off and on. So there was an element where we’d be off, we’d be on. I would try to like take a distance.

So I would go out on dates. And it would be like the internet dates of the horrific, terrible guys. And it almost put a bias in my head that, wait, this is better.

Because it was absolutely… That’s just kind of how it was. So day to day, it was off and on.

It really ramped up towards the end. The last few months that he was alive was when kind of his life was careening towards… You could see that his life and his mirrors was heading towards a breaking point.

His behavior was out of control. And it was… There were a lot of things about his personality that were very challenging.

And why I stayed around that, why I stayed with somebody who, in many ways, didn’t treat me very well, I will never understand. But day-to-day, it was a lot of drama, too. A lot of drama.

Because in a work scenario, and I just want to say that he was, he was a direct boss of mine. So there were a lot of things he would put on my plate. He wouldn’t show up to things he was supposed to show up for.

I was completely codependent, covering up this man’s behavior to clients, and covering up all of it, and why I was protecting him from the consequences of his own actions. I will never understand. That’s not something I would ever repeat.

But day-to-day, it was a lot of work with physical intimacy in between. But it was, in retrospect, nowhere near a relationship. Not like I have gone on to have in my life.

What’s your relationship like when he dies?

So when he died, it was after a three-month period where there was almost foreshadowing of his death to me.

It actually changed my spiritual beliefs entirely, because I could just sense that something was happening. And I think he sensed it too, and his behavior became more erratic towards the end.

And he was, you know, he would come into work, and you could tell he was visibly hungover. He’d puke in a trash can, and then he’d go home. And he’d be missing meetings.

He’d be hard to pin down, hard to get a hold of. And I knew there were a lot of things going on at home. And rightfully so, because he had created that in his marriage.

And I remember towards the end, we had a conversation where he had kind of gotten to a point in his life where it seemed like he was ready to make some changes. I think he was thinking of leaving the job and he was making a ton of changes.

And I kind of started looking for another job at that point as well. So you could just sense that something was happening. I don’t know how to explain that.

The three days before he died were the previous three days of my life.

All right, tell me everything.

So he died on a Saturday. And the Wednesday before he died, I think it was, was it Wednesday? Yes, it was Wednesday.

I was in the office, I was alone in the office and I was eating some candy. And it was some candy that had gone a little hard. So it was like harder than normal.

And I swallowed it and it got stuck in my throat. And there was a period of time where I could not breathe.

And for that 30 seconds, while I was kind of choking on this piece of candy, I specifically in my brain was in his head thinking, and I don’t know why I was having this thought. I was thinking, what would Mike be thinking about if he was dying?

Like would I be, would he think about me? Would that be his thoughts? Like I wasn’t even thinking about the fact that I was choking.

I was thinking about Mike. And then I managed to swallow the piece of candy, got control of myself, and I was so freaked out after that day. But I didn’t actually piece together what that was foreshadowing.

The following day was the last day that we were physically intimate. And I specifically remember while we were intimate, I had this little voice in my head that said, this is the last time.

And I actually took these like mental snapshots, like you would if it was your wedding day or if it was some big event that you were relishing. I had the foresight and I was like, this is the last time.

And it was like words came into my head that I can’t even explain where they came from. And then, so that was Thursday.

Like what words? Do you remember what words?

This is the last time.

Like just clear as day until you just know it.

And I remember in my head thinking that in the next couple of weeks, he was going to end the affair or something was going to happen. I did not foresee that it would be the end of his life.

And then that Friday, I was going to work from home the following week.

So I was packing up all of like my workspace and I was pretty much 100% in the office at that point, but I was having some transportation issues, so I was going to work from home.

So I really packed up stuff like I packed up my monitor from my desk and all of these things. And as I was walking out the door, I got hit with this feeling of nostalgia. And like it was the last day of work.

I felt like I was leaving the job. It was like walking out of the last day of school where you have this bittersweet, horrible feeling and I couldn’t explain where it came from.

Other than I was walking out physically with my belongings from my office that I thought maybe that’s what set off. Like, you know, just the association in your head.

Yeah.

And then the day that he died, I had, you know, like, that nesting thing you do, or like when animals before an earthquake, they get very just all over the place.

That is how I felt that whole day, up until I got the phone call about them looking for my family. It’s like I knew but I didn’t know. My subconscious knew.

Yeah, I think the universe is really mysterious in that way.

And I believe in that kind of stuff, too, like knowing something before you know what it is you know.

Yes.

And the days after, you know, Mike’s wife calls you and you mentioned, like she calls you on the worst day of her life. What does that day, how do you take that information and what does that mean to you in the position you’re in?

I just remember thinking, you have no place in this. It is not, this isn’t about you. Keep your mouth shut, help deal with the work situation, and then move on.

And so that is the day that I kind of stuffed everything inside and decided that I would never talk about it, ever.

Nobody in your life knows this?

A few people do. My mom knows this. A couple of close friends know this, but as a general rule, I do not speak of this.

It’s not part of my story that I tried to tell, although everybody in my life knew that I had lost somebody close to me. And there’s reasons for that, just because this may need to be edited out. I don’t know, but he owns the business.

So, I mean, and it was a small business of like five people. So, that’s kind of how he was able to get away with this because he could write his own schedule and just he had three reign of everything. And the business closed after that.

And I was the only person that really knew all the passwords and all of the things. So, I had to help his family very closely.

We’ll edit this part out, but that Monday after, they actually called me to come sit around their dining room table and talked about the estate and the business.

And I just, so I went into a robot mode of just give the information that these people need to settle this and move on with your life.

How did you feel about yourself in those moments, like sitting with his widow, sitting with his family, and like holding this secret that, I mean, protected them, but also protected him?

I remember distinctly having the feeling of something internally shifting. It was, you could describe it, I’m sure therapists would describe it as dissociation or something of that sort.

But I just remember something internally shifting, and I found this place that I didn’t even know existed, this calm place that I just gave me the space to somehow externally present in a way that I was not feeling internally.

It’s like I went into this very just, it was traumatized, it was like shell shock. I mean, if I’m really being honest about it. But I remember having like this internal quake of just things internally completely opening up.

And I remember it being one of the moments where I actually started to feel differently. Like, I started to… It’s like I, it’s the moment I realized that so many different feelings can coexist and not be reconciled.

They were all like inside of me at the time.

What is it like to grieve the loss of somebody who was not a boyfriend, not a boss, not just a boss, not quite a boyfriend, someone else’s husband, and all of these complicated roles in your life? When do you feel the grief of it?

For a while, I didn’t.

I’m going to be honest, I spiraled and ended up developing a physical dependence on a drug, and somehow managed to move on to another position work-wise and grasp that position while simultaneously taking the substance every day.

And I mean, it was prescribed for anxiety, and then I took it way too far during that time frame. And then I specifically remember, it was about nine months later when I was able to get off of that.

I detoxed it in my apartment on the bathroom floor with my mom. Being the only person who really knew what was going on. She was one of the only people that knew what had happened.

I had brought her into the fold at that point. But still, I felt like I was just a complete liar in everyday life. I was holding this grief, and I couldn’t, like just that lack of people knowing what I had gone through.

Because it changes you when you lose somebody. Like everything about you and your life changes, but nobody could see that. I couldn’t bring them into that experience.

I couldn’t do what you’re doing. I couldn’t find an outlet. So I basically became like this bottleneck of emotions and was using substances.

And I did get off them and that, but it was a really rough journey to do that.

I’m super like… I think of a little bit, and I’m just sort of realizing it’s like after somebody dies, you know, it’s hard for them to keep their own secrets.

And were you afraid that people would discover it in his phone, in his emails, in something?

No, because there was not a single shred of physical evidence that this relationship had ever been anything other than professional. There was not a single text. There was not a single thing.

I will say that there were some nuances, but it would be him saying, hey, swing by, because I have this for you to pick up, which was cool for something else. But it was completely work-related. So come pick up the folders, right?

Man. And so it never, it never, it all happened in person. There was never any digital evidence of this.

And I know that. So the only way that his family knew is either gut feeling, which I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t doubt. I had suspicions that perhaps they knew.

And his family was very amazing. And I want to just say that his wife was one of the most amazing women that I have ever seen in my life. She handled this remarkably.

She’s a phenomenal woman. I will never have anything else speak of her. And I do think that there’s a potential that there was a suspicion and they were just going to let me deal with it on my own because that’s kind of who they were.

They, you know, there was no vengeance there. And if she knew that he was not faithful, and so it wasn’t entirely me. So if she knew she knew that was him and it wasn’t necessarily me, that was just his personality and his own problems.

What makes you think that she had a suspicion, but also what makes you think that she knew that her husband wasn’t faithful?

I knew because he had alluded to the fact that she had found some digital information on what he called a flirty friend, which I knew 100 percent that was more than flirting.

And they were in couples counseling, which I was seeing just kind of through the information that I had at my hands through the work relationship. I could see that go through.

And then, I also, just after the fact, there were a couple of things, I don’t remember specifically what they were, but there was just a couple of things alluding to that, that I heard around family members who are coming from her.

And the thing that let me on to the fact that perhaps they knew about me was, I had a family member kind of say something about, there’s a lot for us to talk about. And he told me a lot about you and your relationship.

And at the time, I was so traumatized that I didn’t quite understand it. It took a few months for me even process that she may have been telling me she knew.

And then there was one thing, and I’m not going to say what it was, and I’m not gonna say where it took place, but his wife said something to me that it definitely was a kindred type thing where I think she was kind of saying, I know, like I know

that you’re kind of dealing with what I’m dealing with. And that, yeah. And I was known as the work wife, so that was part of that too.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That was always, anytime, anytime someone says that about, like, you know, anytime a straight man says that about a woman, I’m like, okay, okay, okay, okay.

Hmm. Hmm.

Maybe you want to think about that a little bit. Or maybe that’s my new relationship. I don’t know.

It’s, I don’t know. I got the sense from your email, you are still holding, like, guilt over this, or, I mean, you said you’ll regret it forever. What is the process of forgiving yourself?

You know, it’s funny because in the year since I sent that email, life changed.

I met somebody, and I wasn’t in, like, I went into this boat where I didn’t have any relationships with any man at all after the fact. Like, I was single for years because he died close to a decade ago.

And so it took me a long time to get back into relationships, and in the past year I met somebody, I started dating them. He’s absolutely amazing, and we have actually not… He knows that there’s something in my past.

We haven’t. He hasn’t heard this story. He does not know these details, and he accepts me regardless.

And so what I was carrying a year ago, it’s funny, I’m carrying less of it now than I was a year ago, and when you reached out, I remember thinking, do I feel the need to tell the story anymore? And the answer was no.

And that’s when I realized that’s the time to tell the story, because there’s nothing I want out of this anymore. It’s not for me. I had a big need to be seen and understood at the time and during the grieving process.

Now, it’s more like this is what happens. I don’t really even feel like it was me, because I’m so different at this point. I’ve been through so much and the experience changed me so much.

I started standing up for myself. I don’t accept this. I actually had a situation about a year ago where I started dating somebody, something felt off, and then I realized he had a girlfriend.

And I immediately got him out of my life. I was like, nope, absolutely not. I’m not doing this again.

And his name was also Mike, which was weird, this weird foreshadowing.

Yeah.

And, so yeah, it’s weird. I was carrying a lot more of it a year ago than I am now, because I almost, I almost didn’t hop on this call because I thought, do I really need to talk about this anymore, do I really want to even bring it forward?

How’s your relationship with Mike? How does it feel different a decade later? How do you see, what do you see about the situation that you didn’t see in the moment?

And how does it feel different a decade later?

When I look back on how I got into that relationship, and when I reread communications between us, I see abuse and manipulation, not a happy affair of two people that fell in love.

I see somebody speaking poorly to me and running around, and all of those things I didn’t see at the time. At the time, I thought he was amazing. I thought he had this sparkly personality that I was attracted to.

And now I just see a very, I guess, a very troubled individual.

Did you love him? Or did you think you did?

I thought I did.

Did he say he loved you?

We never said it. And that burned me up for years afterwards, because I didn’t hear those words from him. Eventually, I stopped needing that, because I think in his own way, he did to the capacity that he had to love other people.

And I think that’s true of most people in his life. He cared about them to the capacity that he had.

Yeah. I really feel for 10 years ago, you, because you’re risking so much for so little in return.

Yes.

And if he hadn’t died, I think it would have ended really poorly for you, you know? Like, I think he would have gladly sacrificed you and your reputation to maintain his.

100%.

Yeah.

It was happening to begin with, because there were a lot of things I was just covering for him in the workplace that, you know, when he didn’t make meetings for, I would always have an excuse, or I would try to fill in, or I would get things done

that he was supposed to do. When he was off running around doing God knows what, or who knows what. But it, yeah, I don’t think he would have ever, no.

Yeah. There was a lot you did that didn’t help you after this death, you know? What were the things that did help you?

What do you think helped get you to a healthier place ten years later?

It honestly was the relationships that I developed after. It was finding people that accepted me for who I was. It was walking away from people who treated me the way that Mike did, and the way that other people did.

And there’s a lot of family dynamics that I walked away from as well in this process, because at the end of the day, it goes back to how I was raised and what I was expecting out of relationships.

And there was groundwork laid well before I was the independent adult.

And I think of my childhood now as two parents that put somebody out into the world without any proper knowledge or like, it’s like they gave a five-year-old a car and said, go drive this.

And we’re shocked when the kid went off the road and was making all these errors and got into accidents. That’s really how I was when I went into the world very unprepared for reality and not really understanding a lot about myself.

And that has been the journey is just uncovering why I did this and then finding the right people that accepted me and cared for me, despite the fact that I’m a flawed human, because that is something that I didn’t have.

And unless that’s given to you, you don’t, it was hard to develop myself.

Yeah. Yeah, it really is. It’s hard to develop that like in a vacuum, you know?

Like, yes, we do have to learn how to be a person and we learn from the people around us, then we learn on the people around us, unfortunately. And sometimes fortunately, you know, depending on the context.

But do you think, when do you think you’ll tell your current boyfriend about this situation?

I don’t know. And I don’t know. I don’t feel the need to.

He’s aware that there’s a few things in my past that I wasn’t proud of. And there was a couple of tense conversations between us, but he didn’t push it.

And that’s honestly why I care about him so much, because he just accepts me as a person and realizes that he sees who I am now, not necessarily who I was before. He didn’t know that person. Yeah.

Yeah.

He probably wouldn’t even recognize her.

No.

Yeah. What would you say to the version of you that was going through this a decade ago, and anyone who’s listening to this who is in a similar situation?

I would tell them that there’s, to myself, a decade ago, I would basically say, you are going to get through this. You, it’s, it, and the key to getting through this is not to hang on to it.

It’s to develop in yourself what you were looking for in that other person, so that nobody can ever be that focus for you again. You will never be, because really, there was a vulnerability there, because I didn’t have enough self-esteem.

I really wanted a relationship. I really wanted a partner. And I was vulnerable to anyone who offered even a taste of that to me.

And I would say to anyone going through this now that there is another side. You will get through it.

And the key to healing it is really self-forgiveness and not listening to that voice that tells you, you have to punish yourself for the rest of your life over a mistake because you know how it happened.

You don’t have to justify to anyone else what happened. You just have to know how you got into it and how to prevent that from ever happening again.

And my guess is, it probably won’t for most people, unless you are like Mike, where that was a personality, kind of part of your personality, one of those demons.

But if you’re just an everyday person who made a mistake, own it, but you don’t have to hold it forever. Because that’s probably the thing I did. I carried it for so long.

Yeah, I mean, up until a year ago, you emailed, really feeling that weight of it, you know?

So I think that’s a lot to shed. And that’s a long time to be just sort of whipping yourself over something.

It was a part of me for a while that couldn’t even have a relationship with anyone without telling them that I had done this thing. And I know that seems super weird because it was just such a trauma in my life and I was carrying it.

It was so in the forefront of my personality. And there was part of me that felt like if I forgave myself, if it didn’t become a focal point, then I haven’t suffered enough. I haven’t really paid my dues on it.

And I realized that that’s, it’s carrying stuff like that. You don’t have, that’s not how we move forward.

Yeah.

It’s hard to find any sensibility on the Internet or any type of, because there are people out there where it’s just, this person is horrible and they should feel terrible for the rest of their lives and into the afterlife over this one thing they

did. And if that is how we behave as humans, there’s no way we can get along with each other.

I mean, there’s no way to survive, like having very little forgiveness for other people also, like as a person who is very hard on herself, that comes out as being hard on other people.

And it’s like truly like a direct reflection of how much self-compassion I can have, which is often very little.

And it’s like, to me, I think I’ve learned like if you can give yourself compassion, it will be easier to extend it to other people, which is a more productive way to live.

And you’ve had to go through this experience, giving yourself forgiveness that will never come from the person you hurt, because for the person you hurt to find this out, you would have to hurt them.

Yes.

So, I mean, we do have to find a way to forgive ourselves internally without that external validation. I think that is the work of a lifetime. So good job.

Yes.

And I think that’s what I developed from this is that it really has nothing to do with anyone else. It’s about what I developed into after the fact, because I had to summon all resources on my own. There was no help.

There were no casseroles that showed up at my front door for this, and there was very little emotional support too. I was almost an afterthought for a lot of people in it, because I was just a colleague.

And really, if somebody’s colleague passes away, you don’t consider that a big loss for them.

It might be something you think is going to hold them up for a day or a week or something like that, but you’re going to expect that they’ll move on with their life pretty quickly, and that is not the case.

Which is also so interesting because it’s like, you spend a lot of time with people you work with. Isn’t that kind of weird to be like, oh, sorry, it’s just your, it’s been a while.

It is. I’ve become much more discerning about the types of people I will allow into my life because I realized that I have a tendency to let boundaries be crossed, and I won’t speak up.

And that is also something I learned from this, is just boundaries as a whole. But there was definitely a time where I really felt like I needed other people to forgive me so that I would forgive myself.

And it’s cultivating that self-forgiveness that’s really gotten me through this, and that’s kind of allowing me to tell this story and put it out into the internet world where we both know, you and I both know that once this hits, people will tear it

apart, people will… It’s gonna be… I don’t even know that I will read the comments. I don’t even know if I will listen to the episode.

That’s why I leave the…

That’s why to leave a comment on this, you have to pay. Because I’ve gotten better boundaries too, okay? It’s like, I just…

I don’t have an Instagram account for the show anymore. I’m like, sorry. Like, I just, I don’t need everybody weighing in on like short form content or like a blip of something, you know?

It’s like, I want to have something a little bit more productive. And I do want to have conversations that challenge our empathy, that expand our empathy, which is something we’ve been trying to do since we started this podcast.

And it’s actually been kind of wild too, to see people’s limitations, you know? And to see, you know, the inbox is a wild place, because we’ll get emails that are your email. We’ll get emails from, you know, I mean, typically people don’t write.

People don’t write when they like something. But, you know, we’d get messages, especially when it was like, I already knew I had to change the podcast, right? I already knew.

I was like, I can’t do this forever. And I get, like, inundated with, like, comments and messages that were like, this one isn’t sad. And I’m like, if you want just tragedy porn, go on Dateline.

Go watch Dateline. Go watch Dateline. You know, like, like, you want to see a woman who lit up a room end up in pieces in a ditch?

Go watch Dateline. As like, but if you want to just honor the human experience and also, like, be challenged to hear things that don’t fully align with your own experience, then stay.

And, and thank you for being so generous with your story, because you didn’t have to share it. That’s a really good point. You didn’t have to.

So I appreciate that. All right, big thanks to our caller. That was a brave share.

That was a very, very brave share. I am so happy to know that she is in a different place than she was when she first sent that email, that she is in a different place from when she first experienced this loss.

And I know that there is somebody else out there. There is somebody else out there with a very similar experience.

There’s somebody else who needs to hear this, who is, or has been, or has in the past, grieved something that other people would not understand, something that they don’t even really understand. And I hope that this episode finds them.

Thank you for being here. Thank you for giving us your time, your attention. It is an honor to have this job, and you are a huge part of that.

This is an independent podcast. We do that on purpose. We like doing it this way, but it also means that anytime you share it, like it, engage with any of our content, rate, review, all that stuff really does matter a lot.

So thank you, and especially a big thank you to our supporting producers. We got rid of all of our many… We really pared down over the past year.

We used to have a Patreon. We used to have Apple Plus, all of that. We don’t have that anymore.

We don’t have that anymore. I have a Substack, noraboriales.substack.com. That’s where all the archives of our podcast are.

That’s where all the ad-free episodes are. That’s where bonus episodes are. That’s where weekly essays go.

That’s where kind of like all the work in the universe goes there. And supporting producers are people who have signed up at higher than like the annual rate, which is 80 bucks a year for every podcast episode, everything I write all over there.

And they’ve added a little more to that, to get their names in the credits and just to support our work.

So big thanks to our supporting producers who are Ben, Jess, Michelle Toms, Tom Stockburger, Jen, Beth Derry, Stacey Demaro, Emily Ferriso, Stephanie Johnson, Faye Barons, Amanda, Sarah Garifo, Jennifer McDagle, all caps, Elia Filiz-Milan, Lindsay

Lund, Renee Kepke, Chelsea Sirnick, Car Pan, LGS, Stacey Wilson, Courtney McCown, Kaylee Sakai, Mary Beth Berry, my high school gym teacher, and honestly a lovely person, Joe Theodosopoulos, Mad, Abby Arouse, Arouse, Arouse, A-R-A-U-Z. Never got

corrected on the pronunciation, so let me know. Elizabeth Berkley, Kim F., Melody Swinford, Val, Lauren Hanna, Katie, Jessica Latexier, Crystal Mann, Lisa Piven, Kate Lyon, Christina Sarah David, Kate Beyerjohn, Erin John, Joy Pollock, Crystal

Jennifer Pavelka, Jess Blackwell, Micah, Jessica Reed, Beth Lippem, Kiara, Joe McDonald, Jen Grimlin, Alexis Lane, David Binkley, Kathy Hamm, Virginia Labassi, Lizzie DeVries, Jeremy Essin, Ann DeBrasinski, Robin Roulard, Nicole Petey, Monica,

Caroline Moss, Rachel Walton, Inga, Bonnie Robinson, Shannon Dominguez-Stevens, Penny Pesta, I try not to play favorites, but you can’t beat that name. Kaylee, Dave Gilmore, and Jacqueline Ryder. We literally couldn’t do it without you, and we don’t

want to, so thank you for being here. We have links to everything we talk about in our episode description, but this episode was produced by Marcel Malekibu. Honestly, he might be the best person I know. He’s such a good dude.

Marcel, I love you. I’m so proud of you. The rest of our team is Grace Berry.

That’s it. And then there’s me. Our opening theme music is by Joffrey Lamar Wilson.

You will want to look up his band Lamar on Spotify, wherever you listen to music. So beautiful. So beautiful.

Our closing theme music, what you’re hearing right now, is by my young son Q.