Episode 5 - Married Life

TRIGGER WARNING: Domestic Violence

Whitten continues to unmute. She explains her day-to-day life living with her abuser. 

Transcript

Married Life

Whitten Montgomery 0:00

Hi , my name's Whitten and I'm Maggie , and this is episode five of Unmute , titled the Married Life . Sounds nice . Yeah , I wish it were .

Maggie Patten 0:10

So if you haven't listened to our last episode , it covers how Whitten and Lizzie met , and I'm just going to leave it at that .

Whitten Montgomery 0:16

We are going to include a trigger warning here , because it does include intense domestic violence , especially mental violence .

Maggie Patten 0:25

And as always , it's good to point out that this story does not go in chronological order and names have been changed throughout the telling , except for mine and witton's to protect the guilty also to protect ourselves as we tell this story .

Whitten Montgomery 0:37

Without further ado , please enjoy the married life .

Maggie Patten 0:40

So we're at the point to where you've made this decision that you are moving to North Carolina . You have bought a house . The natural next step is to get married .

Whitten Montgomery 0:50

Yes , and that is exactly what we did because that is what she wanted . As I mentioned before , there was a lot of insurance benefits that my work had that were really appealing to her , and I was so in love with her that anything about getting married to Lizzie just sounded perfect , because she seemed as though she wanted to get married to me . I can say that our marriage really just consisted of going to get your marriage license and then us getting it signed . While we were there to get our marriage license , I learned that her car registration , motorcycle registration and boat registration were all months behind and they needed to be paid , so I paid those , so guess what ?

Whitten Montgomery 1:29

I did . I had to pay all those plus all their late fees while we were there , which was something . And then she decided that a really good way to do this , even though she was separated from her boyfriend , was to still involve him , because it would be such a shock to him and she wanted to keep him in her life in some ways . So she decided to get him ordained . So he literally signed the marriage license and she forged her two children's signatures as the witnesses .

Whitten Montgomery 1:56

See that to me seems like it's probably not legit , Except it got sent off and we got a marriage certificate Like yeah , we mailed it in . Right , exactly , and my lawyer said there was nothing I could do about it Right , I'm sure at that point . So it feels not legit , but it was entirely legal and documented Right . So you're married . Yes , it was really easy to get married . I tell everybody that marriage is not as glamorous as you think it doesn't have to be it doesn't have to be no , so yeah .

Whitten Montgomery 2:26

And then the next step was that we had to move two households to north carolina yeah , and a business full of stuff , so we had to pack all that up and hire movers to take it down who paid for all that ?

Whitten Montgomery 2:39

I paid for all of that . That was an interesting process but we did get all of that done and I remember upon leaving in I closed on the house in process . But we did get all of that done and I remember upon leaving in I closed on the house in December . So we did have to go down there to close on the house and we went and stayed like at the house for one night . We brought air mattresses and just stayed at the house for one night and then planned to come back in January when we were going to move there .

Whitten Montgomery 3:02

The movers took about like 10 days or so so we left and went ahead with whatever we could put in my car and her children stayed home , weren't coming yet and we went down there because she wanted us to manage what was going on with the house at that time . She wanted the whole house to be repainted . She was very into luxury and a lot of new luxurious things that she wanted throughout the house . The two things that she wanted completed before we moved in were hardwood , to add . Most of the house was hardwood , but there was an addition of the house which involved a bedroom and an office space that were still carpeted . So she wanted those hardwood and then she wanted the whole house painted . We had found a painter and that was supposed to be finished by the time we got there , but by the time we actually got there it was not finished , so we had to get an Airbnb .

Whitten Montgomery 3:54

We stayed in the Airbnb in the city outside of Pasture Town and kept us commuting back and forth , but I was still having to work remotely , and so one night , while we're at that Airbnb , she's getting all sentimental and sad and she looks at me and says that she still has feelings for her boyfriend and she says that she no longer wants to be physical with me and in fact , if I tried to do anything with her , she'd call the police and say I raped her . What ? Yes , and that was really hard to hear . And then she told me I was being over emotional , the fuck . And yes , and that was really hard to hear . And then she told me I was being over emotional , the fuck .

Whitten Montgomery 4:27

And this was now my wife , that I'd given everything to Wow . And that was what we did . For about 12 days we just stayed in this Airbnb while the house was being painted . Now , the painter was going through some things and Lizzie was not accepting the work that he was performing , and so she decided that we had to fire him . But we'd already paid him . You'd already paid him like completely no , we'd paid him about half of it , and it was a lot of money and he hadn't finished and there was a lot of work still to be done , and I've seen this house .

Maggie Patten 5:01

I mean , it's not a small home , no so was it just this one gentleman who was he had ?

Whitten Montgomery 5:07

people who he was paying to help him . It was a very shitty situation . I wish I still had my old phone because when it ended there was an altercation and she , like , went at him because he tried to take his ladder out of the house and he wanted to have his things and she said no , we paid for everything . He couldn't have that unless he paid us back everything that we'd paid for . Did y'all pay for the ladder or was that his and it was his ? But like she wanted back the whole down , like the payment we'd put toward him , he called the police .

Whitten Montgomery 5:34

The police came to the house because she went after him yes , she did , she did and the police came in and said she had to give him the ladder and I filmed the whole thing . It's absurd . It's absurd to think about , because she went at him and I just kind of sat in the corner in the pool room just didn't know what to do . I was assuming that , you know she was doing what was right , but it felt wrong . So that happened and then we had to move into the house that was poorly painted and not well done , because they'd been rushing it , because she wanted it done so quickly using sprayers , and so it was all uneven and all sorts of mistakes . So that was an interesting process . Then we also had issues with the hardwood . So it was just quite an expensive ordeal because then we had to hire another painter Right , but deal with that painter while we were living in the house which she also had . So many issues with that painter . I think that anyone she has to pay money to , she never actually planned to pay .

Maggie Patten 6:26

Right , she wants to come up with some sort of issue , right , so that she doesn't have to pay for it .

Whitten Montgomery 6:37

It was very jarring for that to happen so early on in our move process , because I just was so unaware of what was going on .

Maggie Patten 6:40

You were starting to see kind of some of her true colors coming out .

Whitten Montgomery 6:43

Yes , so then the movers got there . The truck took forever to get there and we kept having to call the truck to get there , so we never knew when it was going to be there . It was one of those situations where you hire a moving truck and it says it could be 10 to 15 days , but wasn't it also like a shared situation that they were picking up something .

Whitten Montgomery 7:02

Oh , yeah , they were picking up other things along the way . Yes , yeah , the way that she found the movers was very sketchy sketchy . She believed , or claimed , that they didn't bring several of the items involving her business that I did not have inventory of or know of when all these things were missing . She was like we have to go cancel the certified check we gave them . So we ran to the bank and we have to go cancel the certified check we gave them . So we ran to the bank and we got them to cancel a certified check because she told them that they'd stolen her stuff and the bank was so protective of us you know me as the client and canceled the check . And then they called us and kept saying they were going to sue us all the time and then she said she'd call them and deal with it .

Maggie Patten 7:40

Do you know what ?

Whitten Montgomery 7:42

the outcome no . Well , you know , she didn't pay him , so I don't know if her stuff was stolen or missing or not .

Maggie Patten 7:48

No , I'm sure it wasn't .

Whitten Montgomery 7:50

It's just crazy to think about . So like that was the second incident , so like right away with the painting , right , and then this happens probably two days later when we're moving into the house . It's crazy to think that , as this was happening , I just trusted her and believed her .

Maggie Patten 8:05

Yeah , I mean , even if you were starting to recognize red flags , I bet that , like you came up with . I gave it like a story , like I was like oh , this is why I told yourself that that painter wasn't doing a good job , so she had reason to physically attack this man , or they really did steal stuff off the truck , and so of course she has reason to be upset and cancel the check , even though it might've been it might've been bogus . Yeah .

Whitten Montgomery 8:31

So the whole house , everything had to be redone . I think she has some sort of obsession with real housewives or something . She just wants everything to look lavish .

Maggie Patten 8:40

The house was , but it wasn't like it was a dump .

Whitten Montgomery 8:44

Right right , the house was new and nice . The house was , but it wasn't like it was a dump . Right Right , the house was new and nice . The house had all sorts of updated things . But she had seen and liked gold things . So we had to buy new gold poles for all the cabinets and get all that measured . And we had to get new light fixtures everywhere , chandelier after chandelier . And these things are not cheap . Not only did we have to do all that , I had to buy all new furniture she didn't like her . Her bedroom stuff just reminded her of the past , all the stuff she'd had from before .

Maggie Patten 9:07

I had to buy all brand new but you this is after you've paid to get all this shit moved right , so it's at the house and then she's like I don't like it . No , I want this .

Whitten Montgomery 9:15

I need something new I have to get a whole new . Everything , everything just kept adding up and adding up , and it was more than I could have ever imagined , because every time I've moved I've just done things step by step , like when I could right ?

Maggie Patten 9:27

Yeah , you're not doing everything all at once . Yeah , Obviously you're paying for everything .

Whitten Montgomery 9:31

Yes , yes , but at this point my job kept going . I kept working , but her job had been a business that she had in Louisville , so , like I , was the only one financially supporting us . And when we got married and she wanted to marry our bank accounts , she put like $2,000 in it . That's all she had , so I had everything , and then her debt Yikes .

Maggie Patten 9:51

So I know that you're obviously

House Dynamics and Manipulation

Maggie Patten 9:53

. I've been to the house . Your office that you're working in all day is in the upstairs of the house and your bedroom is up there . Can you talk a little bit about , like , the bedroom situation ?

Whitten Montgomery 10:03

she told me when we were in that airbnb that you know she no longer wanted to be with me romantically . So my I ended up having a separate room upstairs with her two children , and she was downstairs in the massive master with huge , beautiful windows overlooking a pool okay , so y'all are in the house , you're redoing everything .

Maggie Patten 10:24

Yes , what's your , what's your day-to-day ? Are the kids there yet ?

Whitten Montgomery 10:27

So the kids came about two weeks later . Okay , when the kids moved in , it was interesting . They definitely looked at Lizzie and they said are we rich now ? Which was you heard them say that ?

Maggie Patten 10:38

Oh yeah .

Whitten Montgomery 10:38

Wow , which was weird .

Maggie Patten 10:40

What was her response to that ?

Whitten Montgomery 10:41

She what was her response to that . She said I just remember her like laughing . They both had birthdays and she told me that she typically spent around a thousand on each of their birthdays . So we had to buy presents . And we were just buying these presents . I was buying these presents for these kids' birthdays and that we were having these lavish , extreme like parties with them getting all these gifts right when they got there . It just felt so unnatural . Also , they're adult children , so when I say kids like these are adults who moved in . I am working all day and her plan was that she was going to set up her business there and the house was large enough for that to be the case . The first bit she is every day . I don't know , but I'm working .

Maggie Patten 11:22

Right , so you're like up in your office .

Whitten Montgomery 11:24

Yes , yeah , she's downstairs , supposedly planning to set up her business , and that's kind of how it went for a while I would work , she would be downstairs , and then at the end of the day we would go downstairs and she would basically tell me a list of all the things we needed to buy and we would get on Amazon and she would want to buy all this stuff . It was just running me through the ringer on money and then but you couldn't say no , no .

Whitten Montgomery 11:59

I didn't have the ability to say no . I felt so bad that she kept saying that I didn't provide what she needed . Wow , and we ordered the stuff and we'd have dinner and drinks and watch TV , and then the next day I'd work again .

Maggie Patten 12:14

It'd be the same thing .

Whitten Montgomery 12:16

One of those nights she actually said to me she thought it was problematic that I was still taking my mental health medicine , that she thought it was making me not the person she wanted me to be , not the real me . She wanted the real me , and so she said , if I ever wanted to have a kid , I couldn't be on mental health medicine anyway , so why was I still taking it ? And she got me to just stop taking my pills . We poured them down the sink . Wow , so all my medicine . She just didn't want me to take anymore .

Maggie Patten 12:38

Jesus Christ , master manipulator , master manipulator .

Whitten Montgomery 12:44

God , we did go out with some of her friends , so she had those friends from before . They would take us . We would all go out to dinner . It would always be expensive . I would always pay for me and Lizzie and her kids at these lavish locations . I just remember one night specifically that we all went bowling .

Whitten Montgomery 13:02

We were just laughing and having fun and then afterwards she came up to me and she told me that she got texts from them all and that they all hated me , that I tried too hard and she was like none of my friends want you to hang out with us . If you're going to be the way you were tonight . You were trying to make everyone laugh and hang out with everybody . You just need to not talk as much if you're out with me . And I remember it hurt my feelings so badly because I thought , oh my gosh , I don't even fit in with her friends . They didn't even like me . And I thought we were actually having fun and talking . I didn't think I was trying , I thought I was just having a good time . Yeah , so like I believe that I just really fucked up . They did . Some of them were in a gay softball league , so they were going to Tampa for a tournament and she went with them and I had to stay home because I was working . So I worked and she , I paid for her to go down .

Maggie Patten 13:51

You paid for her to go to .

Whitten Montgomery 13:52

Tampa To go to Tampa and then , while she was gone , her kids were going to go visit her parents . She hates her parents . Everything she would talk about how awful they were to her , how they traumatized her , but her kids still wanted to see them . So they go up to visit and it's going to be during this week , so I'm actually going to be alone in the house and I , basically , because we're so broke because I'd sent her to Tampa , I like got a bunch of frozen meals and was planning not to drive or use any gas and just stay in the house and just , you know , stay there , which was fine . But while she's gone , her kids come back with the grandparents and they're moving at her youngest and they're like , oh , their car's at the house and they're coming in .

Maggie Patten 14:29

They're specifically doing this , while they plan this to do while she's gone .

Whitten Montgomery 14:34

And her oldest is like , looking at me , like do not tell her that I'm here , do not tell her that I know this , do not tell her that I support this . I told her I had no idea , but we knew he was going to move the whole time . And her youngest , like , looks at me and hugs me and he's like I don't know what she's going to do to you , damn . And I looked at him and I felt so like he was manipulating me and her that I called her . Wow , I called her and told her it was happening , and then she called them .

Maggie Patten 14:56

Wow .

Whitten Montgomery 15:00

And told them like what are you doing ? You have no right to take my kids . They're adults , they're all over 18 . They can do whatever they want . But they literally moved him out , and the older one wanted to stay there because he wanted insurance benefits . So that was a little bit traumatizing for me , because I'd never met her parents . I'd only heard these horribly crazy abusive stories . Right , this is happening , and then I think she's going to be mad at me for letting it happen .

Maggie Patten 15:21

Well , of course she's fucked with your head .

Whitten Montgomery 15:23

I just didn't know . Yeah , it was out of the blue and it was so scary .

Maggie Patten 15:26

I mean , this is like a movie . Yeah , dateline . Yeah

Toxic Control

Maggie Patten 15:30

. Well , I'm curious of what happened when she got back in town and one of her children was gone .

Whitten Montgomery 15:35

Well , she when she got back in town and one of her children was gone . Well , she knew , because on the phone .

Maggie Patten 15:37

Right , she knew , but like , how did she actually ?

Whitten Montgomery 15:39

She was tried to act like she didn't care , but she was pissed , very pissed , and had been undermined and did not like that .

Maggie Patten 15:47

How did her parents react to you calling her ? And like I mean , obviously did they know she tried to call them right , Right , yeah , she called her sons .

Whitten Montgomery 15:57

They wanted to talk to me and she kept telling me on the phone not to talk to them .

Maggie Patten 16:01

So I didn't , so you just avoided .

Whitten Montgomery 16:02

Yeah , I did not do . I did exactly as told . They all kept wanting to talk to me but when the youngest said , like I'm so afraid of what she's going to do to you and things are , that was uncomfortable . But I saw her as a victim who'd lost her child , whose grandparents manipulated the child and took her child away , because that was the story she weaved , and so that's what I believed , because that's all the information she was allowing me to take in .

Whitten Montgomery 16:28

It's like I was only hearing one rhetoric of anything . It was all hers . And slowly , day by day , because I'm hearing that her friends think I'm lame and they don't want to hang out with me and they think I'm trying too hard and she's telling me I'm not providing enough . And she's telling me not to talk to my family from home because my family from home doesn't want the best of me , that I need to switch and that my North Carolina family is my new family and my home family is not a good family to be with because they didn't support me in the way that she would have of , and that I slowly started to feel incredibly depressed . Her one son , who stayed , really just kept to himself , making videos and doing things in his room , and it was really just only her beliefs that I would hear inside of this house and whatever she wanted me to do .

Maggie Patten 17:10

Right , because I assume that you really didn't leave the house much , unless .

Whitten Montgomery 17:13

At this point because she told me not to like in front of her friends I shouldn't talk . It would really have to be only if she was having a headache or something and wanted me to go get groceries for her , because she didn't like to carry in groceries or to have to fill a car with gas or anything so like . If it was something like that .

Whitten Montgomery 17:27

She wanted me to have to go do it and then she'd rest rest from her hard days of and I'm getting stressed , and I think that this type of stress is affecting my work ethic too , because I'm just getting stressed all around and it's the pandemic , and work is confusing because it's different and it's not how it had been . And she says to me , she comes up with this idea , that she could help me by having her presence when I'm working , she could help me come up with ideas and that could help , and that we should really contribute to me growing in my career and that she , you know , should just put hers on the back burner because she wants to be a woman who's supporting another woman .

Maggie Patten 18:04

Wow , so like literally the last thing that you had , that was yours , which was your job , she's now infiltrating that and trying to say , like we should work together , I'm going to give you better ideas because of me .

Whitten Montgomery 18:20

You're going to thrive . She gets a desk , she takes my other computer and she's literally sitting across from me as I work , Looking up like if I was on a Zoom call . People said that sometimes I would just seem distanced because my eyes would be looking at her , because she'd be giving me a scowl because I said something she didn't want me to say .

Maggie Patten 18:31

Meanwhile , she knows nothing about what you do for a living .

Whitten Montgomery 18:35

Yes , but maybe if I was with like a coworker , saying something you know , like how is North ? Carolina . And then I say something like oh , you know , it's a little bit of an adjustment , I'm struggling a bit getting used to not being in Louisville . Then she'd glower at me saying that I would like you know . Then I knew that I'd misspoke and that later I was going to pay for it .

Maggie Patten 18:53

So she's starting to just .

Whitten Montgomery 18:55

She completely is controlling every aspect of my life , down to the fact that she thinks that I'm heavier than I should be . She thinks that we're both heavier than we should be , and she wants us to start doing keto . She has us doing these pee strips that she watches me pee on to make sure that we're staying in ketosis , jesus , and so it's just a complete control over every component of my life . And I had been living alone . I'd been so used to autonomy , in fact , like I think I'm a rather stubborn person who likes things my way , what ? But I was completely not that person , no .

Whitten Montgomery 19:33

So then her boyfriend comes to visit . He was her ex-boyfriend , but now he's her boyfriend again , but we're married and I'm still in love with her , but everything I do is wrong . And she wants , while her boyfriend's there , she wants to do some certain tasks , to set things up in the house , and to do that . That means that , basically , they need to have endless cash to get things for the house , that they're projects they're going to do , and I'm going to clean the house and set it up for them , and what do ?

Maggie Patten 20:03

you mean Like what projects would ?

Whitten Montgomery 20:05

installing a chandelier house project , hanging up pictures on the walls and making mirrors , doing things like that , and so they would , during the day they would go out and do things , spend money , and then he wouldn't . He had no money so they like it would be my money .

Maggie Patten 20:20

How did he get to town ?

Whitten Montgomery 20:22

He drove there in one of her son's cars because she wanted her sons to drive together . So then he flew back . Oh , mm-hmm , who paid for his flight ? I did , and during that time they I would have to clean .

Whitten Montgomery 20:37

And the way she wanted the house clean and I just wanted to make her happy , she calls it the white cloth test , and so if an area , if a white cloth can go over and it still has dust or something on it , then you didn't clean effectively and so I would like cook and make them dinner and stuff .

Whitten Montgomery 20:51

And then she'd go look at like the blinds or something , and put a white cloth in the middle of the blinds and it would be dusty somewhere or there'd be sawdust from like a project they'd done and I hadn't cleaned like the blinds , and so she'd say , like you need to clean the blinds , and then they'd sit down and eat dinner . So it was really lonely and hard because I felt so excluded and I felt so like I didn't belong . But my heart wanted to belong . But what would be confusing is that then he'd be gone and then for a couple nights she'd want to cuddle and talk and make me feel better and say like it was so nice that I respected her and gave her space and I did such a good job and I cleaned so well and she really appreciated who I was and I would have like a spoonful of love .

Maggie Patten 21:36

Love . She would give you a little tiny love bomb and and I would have like a spoonful of love .

Whitten Montgomery 21:37

She would give you a little tiny love bomb and then I would think , like I would think like , okay , it's going to get better and it was so . I was just so lost and of course I wasn't telling anyone about it . She would take check my phone and such , but I wasn't telling anyone what was going on because I I thought that I deserved it .

Maggie Patten 21:54

I thought you deserved her .

Whitten Montgomery 21:56

Like I didn't clean right , I disappointed her .

Financial Manipulation and Emotional Abuse

Whitten Montgomery 22:04

So there were these plants and I know you love plants , but this was not a fun thing about plants . There were all these plants that would be kind of put around the pool to give it the little effect of it being tropical . And when we saw the house , these plants were around it and she had us put in the purchase of the house that they would leave these potted plants so that we could have them . When we moved into the house in January , they had put these plants in the garage for protection because it's getting colder .

Whitten Montgomery 22:29

The plants were heavy . A couple of them were palm trees , they were just bigger , heavy plants , like I'm talking like really big potted plants yeah , like heavy ones , like I'm talking like really big potted plants , like heavy ones . And one day it's the end of a work day after her supervising me work , and we are downstairs and she's poured us wine and we're watching a show and she told me that I was failing her , I hadn't taken care of the plants and she hadn't brought up these plants in forever . But these plants were in the garage and she wants them out of the garage Just all of a sudden All of a sudden .

Whitten Montgomery 22:59

Yes , I said I wanted to help her get them out of the garage , like , could we figure it out ? They're really heavy , should we hire someone ? Should we figure out a way to get them moved ? And she says that how selfish I've been . I haven't cared about her wants and needs and she's helping me work and she's helping me do everything , and how selfish I've been to not care about her and the plants and everything she wants . And she just cries and slams her bedroom door and leaves me there . And so I feel like an utter flip failure , go to bed and I don't know what to do . So at 5am I wake up and I haul all of those plants outside Wow , and I just hope that she would be pleased . And I saw her look at me out her window as I was hauling them out by the pool , shut her curtains and stay inside .

Maggie Patten 23:39

How did you get them out there ?

Whitten Montgomery 23:40

Really brute labor in a dolly . It was tough , really tough . After they were all outside she did praise me . She did say that thank you for getting the plants outside . You do care about me , you do love me . So we do have our little day-to-day routine , but slowly things start to get a little more nefarious . Lizzie has a theory that I'm hiding money from her .

Maggie Patten 24:02

How could you be hiding money from her ?

Whitten Montgomery 24:05

She's literally bleeding you dry . I don't know , but she just thinks that there's more that there's more .

Maggie Patten 24:08

That there's more secret money .

Whitten Montgomery 24:10

So she says to me that she's been helping me work for so long that she should be getting some extra money for herself to have privately . Which I am saying , I don't have private money . So like , why do you need private money ?

Maggie Patten 24:23

right , because I have . Well , supposedly you have a shared bank account we do have a shared bank account but like supposedly that's all her money as well , like she doesn't have anything hidden not from what I know right even to this day . I'm not alluding to anything right , but I'm saying , like saying though , that yes , this manipulative bitch certainly has money somewhere else .

Whitten Montgomery 24:41

And she says that she needs separate money and so she creates a private bank account and takes money bi-weekly and puts it in that account , like she goes and gets the account .

Maggie Patten 24:52

Her little paycheck .

Whitten Montgomery 24:52

And wants me not involved in it at all , but I was paying for everything .

Maggie Patten 24:56

This was just Right . Just her fund money , but you're also paying for all of her funds .

Whitten Montgomery 25:01

That's what I'm saying . There was nothing she should have needed to pay for . She's having an escape plan . So then she tells me that she's been thinking about it and I could die at any time . And she's had people die on her in life before Not a husband or anything . But you know , how is she going to know that she's going to be taken care of ? So she has me go in and she watches me change her to be my beneficiary .

Whitten Montgomery 25:24

So she becomes my beneficiary and she says that she's still worried that , even though she's listed as it , that if I die , my parents would fight her for the money . And so she says that she needs me to spend less time talking to my parents so she can prove that I was the only person she had an active relationship with , because if I ever died , she would just be left to die and not taken care of . So she constantly wants to . She constantly saying we need to have a finance talk . We need to have a finance talk . We need to talk about money , because every day she's convinced that there's some family money that I'm hiding from her , that she has no access to and doesn't know anything about , and she also clearly thinks you're going to just drop dead .

Maggie Patten 26:02

Yes , which ?

Whitten Montgomery 26:03

is kind of suspicious . So the whole money situation got to be a really stressful thing , because we would work and then she would just want to spend the whole night kind of hounding me about funds and money , and money . She would have her boyfriend come and want to go on trips to the beach and I would have to buy hotels .

Maggie Patten 26:22

Would you go with them ?

Whitten Montgomery 26:23

No , I wasn't invited , so I'd buy hotels for them at the beach , for them to just go to the beach . Now , given the beach is not like that that far , but it doesn't matter .

Maggie Patten 26:38

It's like it's a hotel room that you're paying for for a weekend or however long , and yeah all their expenses , all their fun money while they're flying him in jesus .

Whitten Montgomery 26:41

So all of this was really adding up and getting a little bit stressful . Yeah , so basically the kind of part of our routine now is , at the end of the night we would go downstairs , have whatever dinner , perhaps a salmon foil packet , did you know I was gonna ? You like , looked at me , like is she gonna say it ? Perhaps it , perhaps , and then watch a show , perhaps Good Girls , cause it was the tea . I liked it . It has that sexy Joan . Do you remember Joan from Mad Men ? Yeah , yeah , she's hot . So at the end of the night is when she really wants to talk about everything . We'd have Dinner , we sit down and then we'll put on a show , but then during the show she's kind of guilty of me . She wants to talk about money , yes , and she also likes to take my phone and like , look through things a little bit , and so , and I'm just okay with that and like look through what .

Whitten Montgomery 27:21

Well , she always says , like you know , I'm just afraid you're going to try to talk to your family and hurt yourself , I'm afraid you're going to like you know .

Whitten Montgomery 27:34

Talk to people who we know no she actually had me make a note that I shared on my phone where she would have me and check it to make sure that all the passwords , all my passwords , were in it . So she actively had access to all my accounts and passwords . So there's like a shared note that I had with her that I would have to put all my passwords in and if one like had to change for some instance and it wasn't right , she'd be very upset . She did ask me to send her pictures of my pay stubs regularly so that and have my social security number on file . She just wanted to have all these on file to have our stuff protected .

Maggie Patten 28:03

Protected from what ?

Whitten Montgomery 28:04

I don't know , but she'd just say it was smart to have it protected that way and she'd keep it in a file box that she held the key for which all of this sounds wickedly suspicious now , but at the time I just thought she was trying to take care of me A lot of nights . I just remember one night specifically , she were sitting around and she says that her son needs $300 for grocery shopping In his 20s son . And I say we don't have $300 for grocery shopping . The kitchen's filled with groceries . Can your son just eat the groceries that are already in the kitchen ? And she says to me so you just want to let your stepson starve ? And I just felt so guilty . I felt so guilty . I let her take the money . We had like no money .

Maggie Patten 28:41

Wow , I will just say this is all very hard to hear . I've known a lot of this stuff . I've known bits and pieces but it's not like it's stuff that I think about on the reg . So sorry that I'm not interacting with you a whole lot during this episode . It's just it's a lot for me to hear and I can't imagine what it is for you to be telling it right now and kind of reliving it .

Whitten Montgomery 29:04

So Well , thank you .

Maggie Patten 29:06

It's just some fucked up shit .

Whitten Montgomery 29:07

It is very fucked up the fights when you get involved . Though , briefly , maggie makes a cameo . Hey , one day during all this time , lizzie's very upset with me about the finances , but some days are great and some days I've given her all . Her boyfriend comes , they go to the beach . I am just there being treated like a piece of shit , even , which I didn't even script to talk about this at all . But even to the point where she's having me close down the nonprofit I spent my whole life building , telling me that that's too much because I was funding a lot of it , that I'm spending too much money on that nonprofit and then I'm giving up . You know things that could be benefiting her and our life together . So everything that I had invested in and built was something .

Whitten Montgomery 30:05

She wrote a post and she wrote it under your name , and she wrote it under my name , and book , and it was she wrote this long ass post and then made me press the post button , literally held champagne above my head and said we can't celebrate until you press the post button . Anyways , that can make me just balll , because that's just . That's one of the worst parts of this whole story . But she starts to tell me that if I don't improve my behavior , that she doesn't . So one day in June she says to me that if I don't start to improve my behavior , that she doesn't want us to , you know , be friends or at all a couple . She's going to just want to become roommates and live in the same house and not have to address me , not have to address you .

Whitten Montgomery 30:43

Yeah , just be roommates , okay . And I said , well , if that's the case , then I just would want to sell the house , yeah . And she gets so creepy she laughs like one of the creepiest laughs I've ever heard and she says to me you think you can sell this house ? You'll never sell this house . You have no idea what I have planned . And I , she's , we're in the pool and I see her and I just start crying and I say , no , that's not what I meant . Like , what I meant was that I don't want to live in a city where I don't know anybody . Where I'm in a house with someone who doesn't even want to talk to me , then I wouldn't want to live in this house . And she just stonewalled me and I apologized and apologized , and apologized and kept trying to talk to her . I followed her . She shut the door to her room and she would not talk to me . And that day I called Maggie and my sister and I told them a semblance of what was going on .

Maggie Patten 31:34

Yeah , you gave us I guess you gave us the Reader's Digest version , just like the I'm married . Yeah , I guess you gave us the Reader's Digest version , just like the I'm married . Yeah , because we didn't know that and , like you said , it had been what like five , six months since you'd moved . Yeah , and I got married in November , yeah , before you moved and we didn't know that . So you told us about moving .

Maggie Patten 31:51

You told us about I think you told us about her son's warning months before and that you're starting to get a little bit scared that something might happen .

Manipulative Relationship Dynamics

Maggie Patten 32:07

I know that Jacqueline and I were both shocked but we wanted to stay as positive as we possibly could because we had you on the phone , so we didn't want to say anything that was going to like alarm you and like hang up the phone and then not try to reach out to us again . So we were just both really trying to encourage you to just leave the house , even just leave the house for a little bit , maybe go to a friend's house not necessarily drive back to Louisville , but definitely drive back to Louisville but just get out of the house , get away from her . I feel like when we got off the phone with you , you were in a spot where we thought that that could happen .

Whitten Montgomery 32:37

I packed a bag and I got on the road . I took Finn . It was like a light bulb moment , like I knew that conversation that she had with me in the pool . You have no idea what I have planned , those words that scared me . And then she wouldn't let me talk to her and she acted like I was crazy for trying to follow her and talk to her because I just didn't understand why she just didn't . Why would I want to live in a city where I didn't know anybody ?

Maggie Patten 32:59

Right , and if she didn't want to have any kind of relationship with you anymore , then like yeah .

Whitten Montgomery 33:03

Yeah .

Maggie Patten 33:04

And also , why would you stay there and fund her existence ? I know yeah .

Whitten Montgomery 33:08

And then she texts me and tells me that there's all these things that she wants and basically that her boyfriend's about to come in town and she wants all these items and that she wants me to clean the house and that you know , I just I just need to do these things . And she talked to me so I turned around , even though it was just a text , and she was really just asking you to clean the fucking house and buy her really expensive shit like a dresser thing , that was like made of glass , that was like super expensive , all of this bizarre random shit , and she had to have it that day that day so I used my retirement fund .

Whitten Montgomery 33:42

Wow , like I cashed out some of my retirement fund because we said I had to spend everything we had to buy that that day .

Maggie Patten 33:50

So so you had a bag packed .

Whitten Montgomery 33:52

You were gonna leave and then I cashed out my retirement fund for her not all of it .

Whitten Montgomery 33:57

I was on the road , I it . I remember when I pulled over because I got the text I was crying so much because I just felt like so upset that I'd failed her and like that's so sad now to say that's the mind space that I was in and it was really hard to talk to you all . I mean , you're not hard to talk to . That's not what I'm trying to imply , but when you say the words of what happened , it sounds fucking , fucking insane . I pulled over at this one exit , felt quite suicidal , and then she texted me . I turned around and I came back and I spent my retirement and I cleaned the house , but now something had changed because you knew and jacqueline and I talked after we got off the phone with you and it was scary .

Maggie Patten 34:41

We were both very scared and we hoped that we Because I don't think that we knew you got on the road I don't know if you knew I did pack a bag .

Whitten Montgomery 34:51

I don't think we knew that you got on the road that day- and you know , the funny thing is that I just kept that packed bag in my car in case I ever needed to have it later .

Maggie Patten 34:58

Oh , that was smart .

Whitten Montgomery 34:59

Wasn't useful later . Well , so Lizzie's boyfriend comes in . I've cleaned the house and gotten everything that he needed , and she's love bombing me a bit , but not when her boyfriend's in town , but she's giving me the support that makes me feel like everything's okay .

Maggie Patten 35:16

That your existence is validated . I'm sorry that sounds terrible , but that's what it is .

Whitten Montgomery 35:21

And so she , while she's gone , for the first time ever , I went out without her . Some of her friends that she knew from before asked me if I . Well , they asked us if we wanted to go out and she was out of town , but they encouraged me to still come and they were so frank with me when I got in their car and we went out to the town actually , where her theater had been the fake theater that she didn't really own . They're telling me that they're worried that Lizzie's controlling me . They're worried that she's stealing and spending all my money . They're worried that her boyfriend is in on a con that she's doing and they're worried that she's just taking me for a ride .

Whitten Montgomery 36:00

And I said , you know , I don't know , but I'm scared because I just feel so lost and lonely and like I'm in the wrong spot and like I don't belong . I start telling them some of the things like , for instance , I said to them and like I felt so uncomfortable seeing you guys because after bowling she told me that you all hated me . And she said that they told me that they never said any of those things . They told me that they loved me and that night they wanted to just hang out with me instead of her . They thought I was so much fun and they told me that they were seeing the way that she was treating me and they were getting a little bit scared and they told me that was early on .

Maggie Patten 36:32

Yeah , yeah .

Whitten Montgomery 36:33

And they told me that they just really wanted

Escalating Abuse and Financial Demands

Whitten Montgomery 36:35

my company . And then I told them while we were in the car , like I said , you know even that theater ? She said that she owned it and they like looked at me . They're like what are you talking ? What she told you what ? And I started telling them all sorts of other things which they're all just ludicrous , and they kept saying to me you need to get a lawyer . And I said , you know , I don't think it's as extreme as that . I think she really does love me . I think that there's just a little bit of animosity financially . If I could just have more money , she'd like me more . I don't know what to do .

Whitten Montgomery 37:04

And they kind of dropped the subject because I didn't want to , you know , speak bad about her . I just was confused . I just was so lost and confused because every day now the day finishes where she's checking my phone . I can't talk to anybody . After I called you all , she saw on my phone that I'd talked to you guys and she said I hate them , I hate Maggie and Jacqueline . If they ever want to come here , I won't talk to them . And I didn't want her to hate you all . I don't give a fuck , but I so I wouldn't reach out to you guys Like I wouldn't , cause then she'd see it and she'd be pissed at me . And if I did get like you'd text me because you were worried , I'd delete texts . I was so scared .

Maggie Patten 37:40

And I'm sure you were deleting them without responding , because if you responded then I might respond . There was a chance that I would respond back . And what if you ?

Whitten Montgomery 37:46

responded while she was holding my phone , I know , and I just wanted to appease her . And if she had the judgment and she thought that it was wrong for me , then maybe she was right . But I'm starting to be so miserable and I mean I'm like coming off of antidepressants , like I am really like mentally in a very bad place and she's just convinced me that all of this stuff's happening and I just don't know anymore if what she's telling me is true or not . And these people all don't like her either , and now I'm just getting this really weird picture of her .

Maggie Patten 38:14

I just remember , when I saw your name on my phone , I was shocked .

Whitten Montgomery 38:18

You picked up , yeah .

Maggie Patten 38:21

I hadn't heard from you in months . It was very few and far between , so okay , so you've gone out with Lizzie's friends .

Whitten Montgomery 38:25

Who are my friends too ? Now I'm learning .

Maggie Patten 38:27

Yes , like you were , and she and her boyfriend have been gone . What's it like when they get back after you have heard this from her so-called friends .

Whitten Montgomery 38:37

Maybe the straw broke the camel's back . Things are starting to feel really weird , yeah , and I am walking on eggshells trying to figure out what's real and what's not , and I am really unwell . I'm not eating well . She's not well . She doesn't want me to eat well either . I'm not taking my medicine .

Maggie Patten 38:53

You're still taking like nothing at this point . No .

Whitten Montgomery 38:56

And she's watching me work and I just never have time when I have nothing that's mine that she has no access to . She tells me that because she thinks my behavior is so erratic now because I'm just I am , I'm anxious now . I'm anxious to be around her because I don't know what's happening , I don't know if I'm in a con , I don't know if she and her boyfriend like no-transcript , you've been so erratic , you probably have a brain tumor . And I remember just being offended and then she said it would probably be just the best answer for all of this . And I'm just confused and upset and she like this comment kind of , and I was like there's , I don't have a brain tumor and I go upstairs and finn is not doing well either . Finn has started to pee in anxiety and I'm upstairs and I'm walking away , stressed out of my mind , and I fall on his pee and I land on my elbow , an elbow that has previously been broken .

Maggie Patten 40:02

Yes , and I take myself to the doctor , she doesn't take you , she doesn't offer to take you .

Whitten Montgomery 40:08

I don't tell her .

Maggie Patten 40:09

Oh .

Whitten Montgomery 40:09

She finds out I'm gone and comes and finds me there .

Maggie Patten 40:12

I say , how did you even leave without her ? I just did Okay , Good . I mean good .

Whitten Montgomery 40:17

I just like feel like she probably always had tabs on you she did always have tabs on me yeah , find my friends was always on .

Whitten Montgomery 40:23

So she came and found me at the doctor , said that I wouldn't represent myself properly and wanted to talk to the doctor for me and represent yourself properly for a broken elbow so they take x-rays and they think they see a break , and then they're like you need to which this happens in louisville too like now you need to go like we're gonna get you an appointment with an orthopedic person to get the whole thing done , and I'm struggling , like I'm really struggling at the house because I'm in like immense pain for my elbow and especially when the breaks first happen , it's hard to like really if your every second it hurts . So I am like not doing well and I think I'm mentally like upset and I fall down the stairs .

Maggie Patten 41:04

Fall on the stairs . I do .

Whitten Montgomery 41:06

Oh , and she doesn't come . Her room was right by the stairs . She was in her room , wow . And then she comes out later and tells me that she heard it all and wants me to go to the hospital and get a brain scan .

Maggie Patten 41:20

What's the reasoning behind that Like ?

Whitten Montgomery 41:22

she's convinced to have a brain tumor . Okay , she's convinced that all of the worries and everything that I'm going through is a brain tumor . And she says that that's the solution we need . And I honestly go to the hospital . I'm like then , hopefully it is a brain tumor .

Maggie Patten 41:35

So you go back to the hospital .

Whitten Montgomery 41:36

She takes me and drops me off at the hospital . She leaves . She ensures she has to write my chart login so she can see the results immediately texts me and says that she saw that I don't have a brain tumor .

Maggie Patten 41:47

Tells me to uber home , doesn't talk to me says bitch , hears you fall down the stairs , leaves me there . Leaves you there , then takes you to the hospital , drops you off , insisting you have some sort of a brain scan .

Whitten Montgomery 42:01

And I got one .

Maggie Patten 42:02

And it comes back clean and she says Abraham .

Whitten Montgomery 42:05

I mean , I wouldn't be surprised if the stairs were greased or something .

Maggie Patten 42:08

That's interesting because that's why you were at the hospital for your elbow , and how do you remember falling Did ?

Whitten Montgomery 42:15

you just like was it a misstep ? I guess it was like the stairs were wooden . I mean they're slick , very slick , and because it was my arm I couldn't grab onto the railing very well . So I think normally I could catch myself , but I couldn't because of my elbow . So basically , when I get back , her door's shut , she won't talk to me , she won't do anything , she won't talk to me . I go to my room , I take a bubble bath , I get a text from her . She says that everything will be fine as long as I give her $18,000 . What Within the next ? Like she gives me a deadline , like within the next five days ? That's a lot of money , and I don't have $18,000 and I don't want to lose her because she's the only sense of purpose I have right now . And I say I'll try to figure out how to get $18,000 . And so she says come back downstairs If you bring me copies of your pay stubs so that I can have them for records .

Maggie Patten 43:20

Isn't she ? Haven't you already been doing me copies of your pay ?

Whitten Montgomery 43:23

stubs so that I can have them for records , isn't she ? Haven't you already been doing this ? New pay stubs , recent , and I do that . And then she starts to say like , oh , I want to take care of you . I know it wasn't a brain scan , but you probably have something going on . I'm going to help you get through it . It's going to be fine , everything's going to be fine . And she starts to treat me like everything is okay . The next day , my bonus goes in my bank account and two days later she attacks me .

Maggie Patten 43:47

There it is . So for me , this is one of those episodes where I'm really glad that we do trigger warnings at the beginning of every episode , because this was a rough one . It sucks to remember . It's probably the hardest episode .

Whitten Montgomery 44:01

right , I think it's the hardest episode . Yeah , because the attack is so much drama and movement and so many other characters involved . This is like my demise .

Maggie Patten 44:10

And this is just . I mean yeah , your demise is a good way of putting it . I mean just hearing what your day-to-day was like . I know it was not a long period of time , but you dealt with a lot of shit .

Whitten Montgomery 44:20

Yeah , During that time Just eight months I feel so embarrassed to talk about , like why did she stay ? Why was she there ? Like why didn't she leave ? And it's one of those things where it's like I don't have a good answer , I never will .

Maggie Patten 44:33

I know and , like you , clearly do not need to be embarrassed by this . I mean , I'm very embarrassed by this .

Whitten Montgomery 44:54

I mean , I know that me saying that doesn't do anything or change anything , but I know that there are certainly other people listening to this right now that have been in similar situations and I'm really glad that you're . A lot of bad things happened with it where it was used to take all my money to be misrepresented in the demise of my charity for so many things . Not that some things weren't inevitable . It's just I didn't get to do it on my own terms , Right I ? I'm sad .

Maggie Patten 45:14

I'm sad too . It's hard , it's really sad . Yeah , it's hard to listen to it as somebody who wanted to do something and couldn't do something . I'm sorry , don't be sorry , I'm just sorry that oh , I just sucked .

Whitten Montgomery 45:27

I'm sorry , it was a bad time . It was a bad time . So our next episode ? Wow , I know , I just hate that that happened . It was scary . I know it was Because , like I believed , it .

Maggie Patten 45:38

I know you did . She's just she's such a manipulative person that she was able to do that . Get inside your fucking head like that . Oh yeah , no for sure .

Whitten Montgomery 45:47

And just Because I mean I was adult groomed , I was trauma bonded in the cycle of abuse , I mean I lived this all the time . Yeah , Power and control .

Maggie Patten 45:55

Power and control . Power , control , power

Manipulative Divorce Process

Maggie Patten 45:57

and control . She established that early on . She just milked it .

Whitten Montgomery 46:03

I mean she took away every semblance of privacy and identity and individuality . I could have Right .

Maggie Patten 46:12

I morphed into exactly what she wanted , which was a cash cow . I guess , a cash cow , a maid , a , I mean , not even a maid , a fucking servant , you know , yeah , so in our next episode .

Whitten Montgomery 46:21

In our next episode we're going to cover divorce and the bitch Woo that process .

Maggie Patten 46:28

Highs and lows . Highs and lows . For sure , she did not mow the lawn Inside .

Whitten Montgomery 46:33

joke for later . She did not mow the lawn . The things I clung to during the divorce you had to . So , yes , that will be our next time , but until then we will go back on mute bye .