S10 E3: [Ava] Showing Up Places
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According to the U.S. Department of Justice, stalking is a pattern of repeated unwanted attention, harassment, contact, or any other course of conduct directed at a person that would cause them to feel fear. According to the National Domestic Violence Hotline, stalking can be one of the most difficult abuse tactics to safely plan around.

especially when police involvement and protective orders are either not possible or not helpful in stopping the abuse. Stalking prevents the victim from being able to cut off contact with their abusive partner, which makes it much more difficult for healing to begin. Oftentimes, stalking causes the victim to experience so much fear and anxiety that they return to the relationship because that seems like the only solution to get the abusive partner to stop.

The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence reports 76% of women murdered by an intimate partner were stalked first, while 85% of women who survived murder attempts were also stalked. Additionally, 89% of female victims who had been physically assaulted before their murder were stalked in the last year prior to their murder. I'm Tiffany Reese, and this is Something Was Wrong.

You think you know me, you don't know me well. You think you know me, you don't know me. You don't know me.

Well, I'm Ava, and this starts in 2012. I had been in a five-year-long relationship with my boyfriend at the time, and the last two years of that five-year relationship were basically not much of a relationship. I had tried breaking up with him multiple times, and he just wouldn't really go away.

One evening in 2012, after a local soccer game, Ava stopped by a nearby bar to get a glass of wine and socialize.

And while there, I met a group of people and one of them was Eddie, who would eventually become my husband.

He was there with his really good friend and a group of couch surfers. He approached me and started chatting with me, and I struck up conversations with pretty much everyone in the group. I noticed that he had an accent, and because I had been watching a Kiwi show called Outrageous Fortune...

I sort of recognized that it was a New Zealand accent as opposed to Australian. He said, "Yes, yes, I'm from Christchurch." And he was there with another person, one of the couch surfers who was also from New Zealand.

So I ended up staying there for maybe an hour, hour and a half, just chatting with all these people, having a good time. And I exchanged phone numbers with Eddie and his friend. After they had a great time at the bar, Ava and Eddie ended up texting to make plans to hang out again. We just ended up meeting up another time at a bar, of course, and we hit it off. We were just having a really fun time, and we met up a couple more times after that.

I started telling him about my relationship situation with my somewhat boyfriend and how bad I wanted to get out of it. Ava was so desperate to leave her then-boyfriend, she was happy when Eddie offered to help her safely leave the relationship.

He sort of coached me through this. And he also told me that he basically, he really liked me. And we decided together to kick this boyfriend to the curb. And the best way I could figure out at the time how to do that was to have another guy around, another guy at my house. He eventually stopped coming around and I was sort of casually seeing Eddie.

Then one day I went to pick up Eddie. We were going to go up to my family's cabin up in the mountains. He came out with a bigger bag than just a weekend trip, and he said that he just got kicked out of his place.

because apparently one of his roommates, he was living with two girls, one of his roommates found out that he had been seeing me. He said she got really jealous and I guess they had only had sex one time, according to him, and for some reason she got really jealous that we were seeing each other and they wanted him to leave. I felt terrible about this. I was like, oh, what are you going to do? And he said he had no idea.

Well, I had an empty room at the time where I was living. I was renting a house and someone had just moved out. So I offered him a place to stay. I was like, you can come temporarily move in at my place if you want, which ended up being not temporary. But we were seeing each other and everything was going fine, having a good time.

Ava has fond memories of the early stages of their relationship, getting to know one another and building a strong friendship. And things were going well until Eddie told Ava some concerning news about his green card status.

He was trying to figure out a way to stay, and we sort of jokingly talked about getting married. Then he told me that he was serious and that he would like to get married. That way he could stay here. He sort of brushed it off saying, if we don't like each other anymore or whatever, we could just get divorced. That's no big deal. Not like I would contest anything.

I was pretty impulsive at that time. And I had been harassed by my mother for a while about the fact that I wasn't married. I was 32 when we met. He asked how old I was. I said I was 30. And he said, oh, I'm 32.

I thought he meant 32 years old, but what he meant was he's 30 also, which it later came out that he was actually 28. For some reason, he just had to lie about that. I'm not sure why. But anyway, at that time, I was very impulsive and I thought, what the hell? I'll get married to this guy. Maybe it'll work out because...

my previous relationships clearly hadn't worked out. And I thought they have arranged marriages places where people get married and they sort of learn to love each other. And that seems to work out sometimes. So I sort of threw caution into the wind and said, all right,

Fuck it. Let's do it. So we ended up doing a ceremony at my brother's house. It was just the two of us. And we're standing there and my brother, who's a, you know, ordained minister from the Universal Life Church, married us. And his cat walked out right in the middle of it and puked right in between us, which I thought was pretty funny. Or maybe it was a sign. And we were married.

Now, shortly before getting married, he had told me that he was born in Ireland, raised in New Zealand. He said his parents were professors from America. They met in Ireland. He was born there. He was raised in New Zealand, and then his family moved to the U.S., and he stayed in New Zealand. He said that he had parted with his family when he was 15, 16, and just has been on his own since then.

So his family was living in California and we decided to take a trip down to California to visit his mom, his stepdad, and a bunch of his friends.

Well, on the drive down there, he was practicing losing his accent, which I thought was strange. I was like, why are you doing that? And he told me, well, my friends make fun of me for my accent and I'm always trying to just lose it because it's embarrassing and all this stuff. And I just thought, well, okay. There was even a point in time where he was on the phone with our cable TV provider, arguing with them about something. And he was speaking like a cowboy.

And I said, what was that accent? And he's like, oh, they'll take me more seriously if they think I'm American. He sounded ridiculous. He was really overdoing it. While Ava found his behavior odd, she took him at his word. And even though she met Eddie's mom and sister while on their trip, the meetup was brief. Their time together was mostly focused on the couple's upcoming wedding.

His mom and sister, they did not have accents. And he said that's because they were from America and his sister was his older sister. So none of the rest of his family had accents, which for some reason didn't really strike me as odd. He always had kind of an answer for everything. Ava also wanted Eddie to meet her family. So they arranged a dinner at her aunt's house, who actually had lived in New Zealand for many years.

And so she was very excited to talk to him about New Zealand. And they talked a bit, and he knew some things, which was fine. But then he at one point was like, oh God, we got to get out of here. I don't want to talk to your aunt anymore. And at the time, I kind of understood that because she can be tough to talk to for any length of time, honestly. As the wedding got closer, Eddie started sharing more about his professional background, which Ava found to be pretty mind-blowing.

He told me that when he was in New Zealand, he was working as like a super government hacker where he was hired to break into secure buildings and to test their security systems. All this really like crazy Mission Impossible stuff.

At the time, I was like, wow, that's insane. And he struck me as a very smart guy. Now, he's smart in a scientific way, but I later learned that he is not as smart as he pretends to be.

He'll speak on something, even if he has no idea what he's talking about, and speak like he knows exactly what he's talking about. And for a long time, I just would hear him say something and just be like, wow, I thought I knew how this really goes, but you obviously know better than I do. I learned later that it's complete bullshit, almost everything that comes out of his mouth.

So anyway, I told my parents after we got married that I said, surprise, we got married. And my mom was thrilled, although she was upset that she didn't get to throw me a wedding. I didn't tell them anything about the green card or anything like that.

She really wanted to throw me a party and I really didn't want her to. I was like, no, don't worry about it. We don't have to do that. Well, they ended up throwing me like a little party at a golf club. And it was a really nice party, but I did feel really bad because in my mind, I was sort of not thinking that this was going to be a long-term relationship by this point.

But I was in too deep already, so I was like, all right, well, let's just see how it goes. And we did get along as friends. After their family visits and wedding celebrations, Eddie was confronted by a mutual friend who told him that he needed to come clean to Ava and tell her the truth about his past. One day he said he had to talk to me. I don't know if it was at the prospect of having to speak to my aunt again or what.

He confessed to me that he's not really from New Zealand. It was an accent he was putting on to get chicks and that it sort of snowballed on him and he didn't know how to get out of it.

But he really did like me a lot, and he wanted to get married to me and all this stuff. Well, when he told me that, I was sort of dumbfounded. I was like, wait, what? And he said, well, I did spend a lot of time in New Zealand. I was there. I lived there for many years. I later found out it was more like a month to a couple of months. But that's kind of the way things went with him, is he would come clean about a lie when he had to, but he wouldn't come all the way clean. And then eventually, he would always forget the lies that he's told. I think that's kind of the way it is.

I think that's partially why he came clean with me is that it was getting really difficult for him to keep up with everything, the accent and all that. To his credit, he did a fairly decent job of sort of phasing the accent out over time because I know that at one point my brother said to me, you know, it's weird. He doesn't seem to have as much of an accent anymore. I feel like it's kind of going away. And I was like, oh, I guess you're right. I didn't even really notice it at all.

Well, he came clean. He told me the truth. And I was like, yeah, I guess I could see how that could snowball. But the marriage thing, he said to me, he was like, well, it was your idea. And I think I had said it as a joke. He was like, but it was your idea. So I just went with it. Well, it was not really my idea, but it didn't really matter.

So at this point, everyone that I had introduced him to, my family, they all thought he was from New Zealand. And I really didn't have it in me to just tell everybody that that was complete bullshit. So I just let it go. I said, okay, well, that's really weird, but I don't hate you. Distressed by what Eddie had confessed, Ava decided she wanted to make some changes in their relationship and decided to have a serious talk with him.

At that point, I was done really being physical with him. And I told him, I was like, look, you need to get a girlfriend or something. You can date other women. He thought this was awesome. He thought this was the most exciting news he's ever heard. So he hopped right on to, I think, OkCupid or Tinder, maybe both, I think.

and started meeting chicks on there. And he even used me as a way to make the girls feel more comfortable by saying, I'm in an open relationship with my wife. She's really cool and supportive of this. And he met up with a lot of women through those apps. I asked him, I said, one thing that I will request of you is that you don't have sex with them in our bed that we sleep in.

Well, he immediately broke that rule. And I came home and he had a woman in the bed. And I walked in. I was like, oops, sorry. And I confronted him about it. And he said, oh, well, it's just harder. They don't want me to go to their house. They aren't comfortable with that. So I had to bring him here. And at this time, two of his friends had moved up from California to be our roommates. His friends, they're great. I love them. They're really great guys.

And they would also call him on his bullshit a lot. He just said, there's no other way and it has to be in our bed. And I said, okay, well, make sure you do the laundry, wash all the sheets afterwards. Oh, and I also said, you have to wear a condom. This was another rule that he...

broke. Actually, come to think of it, he probably rarely ever used a condom. I say this because he would still sometimes, I don't want to say force, but badger me enough to have sex that every now and then I would give in just to shut him up. So I said, just wear a condom. And I caught him lying about that multiple times.

Their open relationship, which was more of a friendship to Ava, continued despite her concerns with Eddie's not respecting her boundaries. She wasn't really interested in dating anyone as she was focusing on herself. After a few years, though, she started to wonder if she might want to try dating again.

While he was meeting all these girls on these apps, I brought up, hey, maybe I want to meet a guy on the app. Maybe I'll get on there. And he sort of shook his head and he didn't like that idea. But I didn't like the double standard that he was trying to have. And that's kind of why I was like, actually, yeah, I am going to get on there.

I didn't like how everything was okay for him, but not for me. So I get on there and I found a couple of guys. I'm like, oh, this guy's cute. And he'd say, oh, no, no, no, he's not good. He's taller than me. That's not going to work. So you would always find reasons why he didn't like the guys that I thought were good looking.

He ended up rewriting my profile for me. And what he wrote was really bad. And I took it down immediately. It was basically like, hi, I'm Ava. And I really love my husband, but I just want someone to bang me.

with my husband at the same time. No gay stuff or anything like that. You guys wouldn't have to touch each other, but maybe you were like, my husband's banging me and I'm sucking your dick. It said something like that outlandish. And I said, absolutely not. None of this is, that is not something I'm putting in my profile. Well, he made it so difficult for me to actually try to get on there to meet someone that I eventually just said, forget it. It's more trouble than it's worth. And you're so jealous and I don't even want to deal with it.

He also had this tendency. He never wanted to be alone. He didn't like when I did anything without him. I was filming a feature film and he would be calling and calling and calling because when you're filming, it takes all day. And I would have to tell him, no, I'm not finished. I'm still working. And then he showed up at the set.

and walked in and said, "Hey, are you done yet?" And I said, "No." And he was like, "Come on, it's time to leave." That's something he would say often. I also play a lot of ping pong or table tennis, and he would show up and just say, "It's time to leave." And I would have to say, "No, it's not time to leave. You can leave.

When he showed up to the movie set that one day, he got all pissed off that I wasn't leaving. And he just went out to his car with a bottle of champagne that he got from somewhere and just drank all the champagne. That was something that was really difficult to deal with. Even when I wanted to leave to go hang out with my family or my brother, he would immediately just sort of snap back and be like, no, you can't go.

Some days he would be in bed all day for the weekend, like it's a Saturday, and he just wants to lay in bed and watch movies all day. And that's okay to a point, but I don't really like to lay around all day. I get antsy. I want to get up and do stuff. And he would just say, no, don't leave. And then he would fall asleep. And I would try to sneak out of the bed so I could go out and do something. And he would just wake up and grab my arm and say, no, please don't leave.

So he was really needy, and that is not something that I'm good with. I like people to have their own things, and I like to be able to do my own things. And he never wanted to be alone, which is partially why I think he always had another girl around. Like when I was at work, he would get off work earlier, and he almost always had a girl over. And I would go out to a bar after work and wait for a text saying, okay, she's gone, you can come home.

Eddie began dating a woman named Brandy, and since Ava wasn't romantically interested in him, she was supportive of their relationship.

We both actually met her at the same time, and I thought she seemed really nice and cool. Well, he, I guess, started talking to her on his own and started seeing her. I didn't care. I was like, that's totally fine. But she didn't ever want to be around me. He told me that, and I said, that's strange. She knows you're married, and she knows I don't care. Why is she upset about being around? Because she, at this point, was sort of becoming his steady girlfriend. Yeah.

And she would come over to the house sometimes and I would have to sit on the way other side of the couch or the room...

because it made her uncomfortable if I sat next to him. He was telling me all this, and I kind of didn't believe him that that's how she was, but I didn't really know why else. But again, I didn't care. Well, she started to get more comfortable with me eventually, and he had taken her to my family's cabin, and he had called me and said, I want you to come up to the cabin this weekend to hang out with us.

Well, I didn't really want to do that. I wasn't very stoked on that whole idea. And I said, I don't know, maybe. Before he went up there with her, the day before, I had to stop by a bar again because he was at the house, not with his girlfriend, but with a completely different girl. So I was at this bar and a friend of mine from the bar that I knew walked up and we started chatting. And I told him like,

I just need to find someone to have a one night stand with or something. I'm so tired of the double standards. I think I just need to do it. And we joked about it with each other. And then this other guy walks in who he knew and sat down next to us. And the three of us sort of chatted a little bit and looked at some funny videos of some wiener dogs pulling a little kid on a sled. Just stupid videos. Then I get a text saying it's safe to come home. So I left.

And my friend texted me and said, hey, do you remember that guy that walked in? And I said, yes. And he said, well, he thinks you're really cute. And I told him you're DTF. And that made me laugh. I was like, okay, great. And I didn't really remember what he looked like. I remembered that he wasn't hideous, but I didn't really get a good look at him. And I thought, ah, what the hell? I said, all right, sure. Give him my phone number.

The next day, Eddie and Brandy traveled to Ava's family cabin for the weekend. While Ava was still considering Eddie's request to come hang out with them at the cabin, she began texting with Levi, the guy she met through a friend at the bar the night before. He said, all right, so when do you want to meet up? And I said, oh, I don't know. I'm really busy these days. Don't call me. I'll call you. Then we just started talking on Google chat.

And he was making me laugh so much that I eventually was like, actually, no, I do want to meet up with this guy. This guy's really funny. So I said, all right, what are you doing tonight? So we

So we ended up meeting that night and having what was supposed to be a one-night stand. And then the next day, I wanted to hang out with him again. And at the same time, Eddie was texting me about going to my family's cabin. And so finally, I said, all right, how about this? Since I don't really want to be a third wheel, I'm going to bring a date with me, this guy that I met. And

Eddie said, no, no, no, no, that's not going to work. No, you can't do that. And I said, well, then I'm not going to the cabin. I said, I'm not going to be a third wheel. I'm not going to go up there to hang out with you two. I'm going to bring someone. He eventually relented. He said, if that's the only way you're coming, okay, fine. But this is a bad idea.

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So I dropped the idea to Levi, and Levi knew my situation. He knew that I was married in an open situation. And Levi, against his better judgment, said, well, you know, what the heck, all right. So we drove to my family's cabin. It's about an hour and 20 minutes away.

There was snow on the ground up there. We get there and we walk in the door and Brandy is very excited and apparently very drunk. And she was just all over the place like, oh, you know, here, I'll give you a back rub and telling stories and saying, oh, check out this dance that I made up. And Levi and I kind of exchanged a couple of glances because I had described her as a pretty cool sort of mellow stoner chick.

which is how she always was when I had been around her previously, which is also partially why I didn't really believe Eddie when he would say that she was this jealous person.

And she just kept ramping up her behavior, just talking a thousand miles a minute. And I said to Levi off to the side, I said, I have no idea what's going on with her. I've never seen her like this. And meanwhile, Eddie pulls me into another room and says, I told you this is a bad idea. She was so nervous. She just drank a bunch. Now she's really drunk. And I said, well, it's fine, I guess. It's fine. It's really strange, but okay.

So we went back out into the living room and Brandy picked up a remote control and threw it as hard as she could at Eddie's head. And it just whizzed right past him. And she kind of started laughing. And Eddie said, all right, well, you know what? I think it's time for bed. And I was like, yeah, I think it is.

So he brought Brandy upstairs to the bedroom, was trying to put her in the bed to make her go to sleep. And I'm sitting downstairs with Levi saying, this is very strange. I don't know what's going on. We heard some struggling happening in the upstairs. And suddenly Eddie appears walking down the stairs and Brandy is dead.

holding onto his leg being dragged down or he's dragging her down saying, let go, let go. And he tries to bring her back upstairs and we hear struggling going on again. And then he comes running down the stairs and he says, this is not good. And she follows behind him. She spits in her hand, holds her hand up and says, it's not real. None of this is real. It's not real.

I don't know if she was having hallucinations or what was going on in her head. But at that point, they're physically struggling with each other. And she's not a small person. She's an Amazon. She's really fit, but she's really tall as well. So they're sort of physically struggling. And Levi looks at me and says, you know what? I think I'm going to go. And I said, yeah, I don't blame you. So he gets up to leave. I'm mortified. And I follow him out.

Given that the cabin was located in a rural area, Levi needed help with directions getting out to the main road. While trying to leave, his wheels kept spinning in the snow, so Ava and Eddie had to help dig him out so he could leave.

So I'm outside with Eddie and Levi. Levi's in his truck. And Brandy comes running out with her socks on in the snow, wearing like a little bralette. And she comes out with an empty beer bottle and starts banging it on Levi's window saying, take me with you. And he basically was like, nope, sorry, can't do that. And I said to Eddie, I said, look, I'm just going to get in the car with him and lead him to the main road so he can get out of here and I'll run back.

So I got in the truck with him, led him out to the main road and gave him what I thought would be the last kiss goodbye ever. I did not think I was ever going to see him again. And he gave me a hug and a kiss and said, yeah, this was really strange, but I knew it probably would be. So he left. I ran back to our cabin as fast as I could because, I mean, I would have loved to have gone with him, but because it's my family's cabin, I didn't know what she would do.

By the time I got back there, I walk in the door and see her completely naked and Eddie saying, get away from me. Get off of me. She's trying to pull his dick out. She's saying, I need your dick in my mouth now. Put your dick in my mouth. And he was like, no, just get away from me. And I said, I don't know what to do. And she was also being violent, like hitting, pushing. And I tried to call the police, but they didn't answer. Not much police around there, I guess.

And the two of us sat on her the entire night, just like panting, just like, oh my god, this is the worst night ever, until she finally fell asleep. The next day she woke up, she barely remembered anything, she was really embarrassed, I guess. But that would turn out to be one of many episodes that she had, and that wasn't the last of her either.

After the worst night ever, Ava was happy that Levi wanted to continue hanging out. She tried to explain what took place to him, but she herself didn't know what was going on before she arrived. And I told him, I said, yeah, I don't know. I thought it seemed like she was on meth or something, but apparently the weed she smoked and what she drank, maybe there was something in the weed. I don't know. But she apologized and she felt really bad about it and very embarrassed.

So Levi and I stayed in contact and went out on a couple of dates. And then New Year's Eve came around and I went out to a party with Eddie and Brandy and a friend of mine. Brandy and Eddie shared a midnight kiss and that was great. And we had a good time at this sort of dance party. And then we all went back to our place. And since Levi lived a couple blocks away from me, I decided that I was just going to go walk around.

to his place to see what he's up to because I had texted him and he was home. I left while Brandy and Eddie were, I think, getting beer or getting something from the store. I'd planned on staying the night with Levi while Eddie and Brandy, they could have the bed to themselves or whatever. Well, Eddie shows up shortly thereafter banging on Levi's door and

He was clearly pissed off and he said, what are you doing? I said, I'm hanging out over here. You've got Brandy at the house. You guys are fine. You guys can hang out, right? And he said, no, it's time to come home now.

And at this point, I was so tired of his double standards and him telling me what I could and couldn't do. And things are okay for him to do. Definitely not okay for me to do. I didn't like that. And I just said, no, I'm just going to stay here. Brandy's waiting for you at the house. Just go home. And he was getting really irate. And Levi said, hey, man, I'm really not trying to get in the middle of this, but I don't think she wants to go with you right now. Maybe

Maybe you guys can talk about it tomorrow. And he was being a really sort of peacemaker, trying to be really cordial and cool with everybody. And Eddie was sort of like, yeah, stay the fuck out of our marriage. That's my wife. Being really confrontational and rude to Levi.

I, at that point, was just so fed up with it, I slammed the door and I said, nope, you go back to Brandy, she's waiting for you. And he called my phone over and over and over until I just turned it off. And I woke up to this barrage of just long text messages the next day. So that was the start of the unraveling of everything that pissed me off so much that I told him, I was like, I need a break from you and the stuff that he said, calling me the C-word.

Just saying a lot of really terrible things in these text messages that I read the next day.

And apparently Brandy had been back at our place crying because he had left to chase after me. Well, when I said I just need some space, I decided I was going to stay at my parents' house for a little bit because his behavior was so out of line. I said, just give me a little bit of space for a couple of days and then we can talk about it. But he refused to give me any space at all. He was calling me over and over and over, showed up at my work. He kept showing up over and over. And I kept saying,

Look, you're not giving me any space at all and you're pushing me further away. This is really freaking me out. And he kept saying, suddenly I'm his wife and we're married. Doesn't that mean anything to you? And I said, no, we talked about how it was a joke in the very beginning. But suddenly, because I had met this guy, he was completely upset and thought that I was in love with him.

Well, this went on for literally months of him not giving me any space at all. And he actually got me let go from my job because he kept showing up there. They said, look, it seems like you've obviously got a lot going on. You've got some personal issues you need to deal with. So we're going to let you go, which, God, that infuriated me. He would just show up to places because he knew where I would play table tennis or soccer. He would just show up places. And

I eventually just started staying with Levi because I had cats at my house that I didn't want to leave and abandon. So I'd have to go over there and feed them and take care of them. And since Levi lived so much closer than my parents, I just, to Eddie's chagrin, I was staying with Levi. Eddie's abusive and stalking behavior continued to escalate as his control over Ava diminished.

Eddie was making a lot of threats to Curbstomp, Levi, and he was threatening suicide because I wouldn't go back with him. Meanwhile, this whole time, his girlfriend Brandy is still there, and he's still hooking up with other girls, and he is psycho messaging me on all platforms. I tried blocking his number, but since he's a pretty tech-savvy guy, he's a software developer or something, a parent hacker, he would call me.

call me from just different numbers. And so it was useless. And I had what I thought was a really good talk with him at one point telling him, look, I really care about you as a friend. I think that you and Brandy, you say she's great. You guys should be together. And he proposed to me that he and Brandy and I should all be together.

And that he could have a child with each of us or something, and it would be a beautiful family or something. And I said, no, I really don't want that. And I don't think she does either. And he was crying and saying how much he loves me, and he just will do anything. And how he's changed so much. He knows what he's done. He said all these different things, and I just was...

very adamant that it wasn't going to happen. And then he would turn the tables on me and say things like, oh, it's just your depression. You should go back on your antidepressants or take a different dose. That's what's causing all this. I know you. This is really what it is. I know you don't mean this, which was infuriating. I ended up having to start taking Xanax because it was causing me so much anxiety.

I've dealt with a lot of mental health issues in my life. I was diagnosed at the age of 16 or 17 with anorexia, bulimia, and obsessive compulsive disorder. And I was hospitalized for probably half my senior year. So I've got my own issues that definitely contribute to the way I handled some of these situations.

It's really hard for me to be firm and say no to people. I have been walked over a few times. And so when he's sitting there crying to me, telling me how his life is ruined and how I'm the only person he's ever loved. And, you know, it makes me feel bad and it would make me feel like a bad person and guilty. Like I did something to him. And I still fight with those feelings often of guilt when I shouldn't feel guilty.

So I ended up having to take Xanax, which always helped me sort of respond with less emotion. And when he's telling me, please, I love you. I can't be without you. I'm so sorry about everything. I would remain level headed and just say, I accept your apology. Thank you. I know you're going to find someone for you. And then he would just fly off the handle again.

Thankfully, Ava was able to get a new job after being let go from her last workplace due to Eddie's showing up and creating issues. I really did not want to get let go again because of him. So that was also really stressful. And it got to the point where

I knew that I wanted to get a divorce and I tried telling him and he would often restrain me if I went to the house to take care of my cats and we would inevitably get into it and start discussing it. I would try to leave and he would stand in the doorway or grab me by the shoulders and not let me go and say, no, you can't just run away from this conversation and never go anywhere. So it would get to the point where I was like, I got to go. I've got stuff to do.

At one point, he threw me on the bed, and I told him if he ever used his physical strength to do anything like that to me ever again, that he would be in big trouble. I did not stand for that. But he oftentimes would stand in the way of the doorway and not let me go anywhere.

Eddie said, "Please, we should do counseling." And I had initially suggested counseling before meeting Levi because I was so frustrated with the double standards that he was having in our relationship. And I would often just give in because I don't like conflict and I would get browbeaten into just saying, "All right, fine. I guess you can do this and I just won't do anything." So I suggested couples therapy because I wanted someone else to tell him basically that he was being unreasonable.

That was my motivation. But he's always said, no, no way. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to tell a stranger things. Well, now that I wanted a divorce and wanted to split up, he's like, I'll go to counseling with you. Please, let's go to therapy. And so I found a therapist who I met with on my own first and explained the situation. And I told him that it's completely over. There's no reconciliation with this. And he agreed that it seemed pretty toxic.

And I said that I needed a game plan because I was afraid of what he was going to do the next time I tell him that this is over for good and I want a divorce. I said, I feel like I need help telling him this. And so the therapist said, okay, I understand. And so he saw Eddie by himself for a session and Eddie thought he was just the greatest. He said, this guy's really smart. He really knows his stuff. I'm really looking forward to our session that we have together. So when that happened, I told him that I wanted a divorce and

and that I did not want to be with him romantically. And he just flew off the handle again, and the therapist tried saying, "Eddie, you need to calm down, and Eddie, this is what she's telling you, you need to listen."

Well, Eddie just got so pissed off, he cursed out the therapist, got up and stormed out the door. And there I was with the therapist and therapist was saying, well, the session's almost up. What do you need to do? Are you okay to go outside and leave? And I said, honestly, no, I'm not okay to leave. I know that he's going to be out there waiting for me because he always was.

And I could take the bus home, but he's just going to be out there waiting for me. So the therapist said, all right, well, I'm going to walk out there with you. And if he's out there, I'll give you a ride home.

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Prior to their counseling session, Ava had met with Brandy privately to share her exit plan with her in hopes that she would be supportive.

And I told her this because she really wanted to be with Eddie, and I thought that would make it easier for her, of course. Well, through some weird sense of allegiance to Eddie, she told him that that was going to be my plan. And she said, how dare I try to deceive him like that, and how dare I do this to him? She was so upset with me for breaking his heart, she told me in not-so-nice-of-words-says.

So the two of them, I just felt like deserved each other. And at this point, she's living in my room at my house with Eddie.

She would get in fights with Eddie all the time. She would be violent often. And this is a home that Eddie and I were renting from my parents. It was another home that my parents owned. So we had the roommates and we were paying rent to my parents. Well, she a few times had smashed holes in the wall. She was really upset with Eddie at one point, I guess, because when I came to the house to take care of my cats...

She had found a lipstick of mine in the bathroom because I still had a bunch. All my stuff was still there. And she just had written on the mirror, fuck you both or something in my lipstick, just thrash stuff through it all over the place. And so I was like, they need to get out of this house. They're not going to destroy my parents' house.

Concerned for her parents' property, Ava spoke with them about asking Brandy and Eddie to move out. Her parents let them know that they would be selling the house and that they needed to go. Eddie told me the only way that they could move into another place or move out is if I co-signed for his other friend to move into this place that they were going to move into. And I've watched enough Judge Judy and People's Court to know that you should never co-sign for anyone. But I really just wanted them to get out of that house and...

And against my better judgment, I did co-sign for his friend to move into this place. I just didn't want to have anything else to do with them. Luckily, that never came back to bite me. They did pay their rent and everything was fine. At this point, Levi and I had moved out into another house together. So he moved out of his apartment and we moved into a rental place together.

Well, I found out that the place that Eddie had rented was literally like five blocks away and he knew exactly where we lived.

It was a process for me to move all my stuff out of the house with Eddie still kind of living there. I would have to sort of strategically plan it so that there were other people around and either that or nobody was home. And it was hard to get my cats. One of them was particularly skittish. Well, Eddie had trapped that cat and had it and showed up at the house that I had moved into with Levi.

and said he had my cat and that I needed to come outside. Well, I wasn't actually home at that time. And this was in the winter. It was like maybe, I don't know, February, something like that. It was cold outside. And he had my cat in a cat carrier that he said, if I don't come outside, he's just going to let the cat go outside. And it didn't know where it was. And it was just going to run off. That obviously really upset me that he was being that manipulative.

And I think he thought that I was home and that I just wasn't coming out. But I told him, I said, I'm absolutely not home. Just wait there. And so I ended up having to rush back to get the cat. He oftentimes would call me after he and Brandy had gotten in a big fight.

He would say different excuses as to why he needs to talk to me, like he just needs a friend and all this stuff. And of course, I was always feeling guilty and would sort of give into it, feeling responsible for the situation he was in. So I would give into it. And at this point, Levi is just getting really fed up with Eddie still being in my life, just constantly messaging me. And he saw how much stress it put me under because it really just wrecked me.

And so he was just telling me, like, you need to just cut off contact. And I would try to, but anytime that I would try to cut off contact or not respond to text messages, anytime I tried to do anything like that, it seemed like it ramped up Eddie's behavior even more.

terrified of what he would do next. Ava tried to manage Eddie's abuse by responding to him as a friend, but he continued to use any contact with her as a means to exploit her empathetic nature and manipulate her into giving him more attention.

So I would always placate him by responding and trying to keep things light and being there when he said that his dog was hit by a car, even though it wasn't. I don't even remember why he told me that lie. And then he was again threatening suicide. And at one point, Levi said, all right, well, tell him if he's going to do that, then we're going to call the police. And he kept threatening it. He said he had a gun in his hand.

And so Levi called the police and the police showed up and he was just so pissed off that Levi had done that. He couldn't believe that. He said, now I'm going to have a record, which he's not going to have a record just because the cops showed up. But regardless, I was like, well, then don't threaten suicide if you don't want people to call the police. It took a really long time for me to really get distance from him.

In fact, at one point, when I was trying to distance myself from him, this is before I had really settled in with Levi, he told me that if I have sex with him one last time, that he would leave me alone forever. I thought, you know, if that's true, I will absolutely let him have sex with me one last time. And I was so tired of it all, I just... I said, okay, if you promise, you'll leave me alone forever. And I...

I was crying the entire time and he just was like, "Oh, come on, it's not that bad. You never cried before." And I just told him, I said, "I feel like I'm cheating on Levi, honestly." And that really upset him that I said that. The contact with him didn't really die down until maybe last year.

And I ended up marrying Levi in 2018, which of course drove Eddie insane again. Levi and I almost split up over the fact that I was unable to really cut off contact with Eddie. It was a huge strain on our relationship.

But for some reason, Levi stuck around and I am truly blessed that he stuck it out for me. And now we're very happy together. Married for real. I did have an actual wedding this time. My mom was thrilled.

I did have to eventually tell my family that he was completely full of shit. A couple of my family members said, yeah, you know, I really never liked the guy. He always just rubbed me the wrong way. And my parents were just so shocked and confused. They could not believe it.

Many people in my family really tried to be nice to him and say, hey, sorry, you're a good guy. You're going to find someone. But it got to the point where they just said, hey, we're going to have to block you. You've got to stop because he just would not stop harassing me.

I still actually hear from him every now and then, but I think he's got a new girlfriend and it's usually really just short messages or a picture here and there, but I don't really respond or have conversations with him. And it's maybe partially because I've just grown up a little bit. It's been almost 10 years since this whole thing started.

not quite as impulsive as I once was. And also, I've sort of learned about some of the manipulation he pulled was looking back on it really, really obvious.

Like gaslighting, which I had never heard prior to this whole situation, but making me feel like I'm crazy or I'm wrong or I'm a terrible person because I'm trying to stand up for myself. In a way, it's made me sort of be more aware of that when it's happening and what to look out for.

And also it's taught me to be more confident in the things that I know that I know, rather than just assuming that whatever is coming out of someone else's mouth is the truth just because they're confident when they say it.

Until I started listening to your podcast, it made me... This whole time, I was listening to all the episodes, and I'm just like, oh, that's crazy, that's crazy. I can't believe that happened to that person. And then one day, it dawned on me. I was like, I actually do have a pretty crazy story, and I've told other friends the whole sordid tale, and they're just like, wait a minute, what? You got married because he needed a green card, but he didn't really need a green card, and he was lying, and he pretended to lose his accent, and...

He had fooled everybody. There are still some people that I've introduced him to in the past that I haven't seen in a while that are just shocked when they find out he's not actually from New Zealand.

I would say trust your instincts, even if you've been wrong in the past with your instincts. Just trust them more because I did the opposite of what my instincts told me to just because I wanted to try something different. I would say trust your instincts, everybody out there. Be careful. That's really good advice. Thank you so much for taking the time to share this story. Thank you, Tiffany.

Something Was Wrong is an Audiochuck production, created and hosted by Tiffany Reese. Our theme song was originally composed by Glad Rags, covered this season by Basic Comfort. You think you know me, you don't know me. You think you know me, you don't know me. So, what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve? No!

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

I'm Dan Taberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at the high school in Leroy, New York. I was like at my locker and she came up to me and she was like stuttering super bad. I'm like, stop f***ing around. She's like, I can't. A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms, and spreading fast. It's like doubling and tripling and it's all these girls. With a diagnosis, the state tried to keep on the down low. Everybody thought I was holding something back. Well, you were holding something back intentionally. Yeah, yeah, well, yeah.

No, it's hysteria. It's all in your head. It's not physical. Oh my gosh, you're exaggerating. Is this the largest mass hysteria since The Witches of Salem? Or is it something else entirely? Something's wrong here. Something's not right. Leroy was the new dateline and everyone was trying to solve the murder. A new limited series from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios. Hysterical.

Follow Hysterical on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery+.