Bonus Episode with Dr Ramani and Mark Gerardot
52:00 Share

So welcome to another bonus episode, and this is one that we weren't sure we'd ever be able to put together because we had tried to do it before. It didn't work out for various reasons, but now I think people feel more comfortable. So Dr. Romney, you're here. Yes, I am. Mark Gerardo, you're here. Thanks for coming in. And let's start by talking about something that bothered you, Mark, after you heard the first episode. I was more than shaken. I was...

I was immobile. I was sitting on my couch just staring at a wall after. Why did it hit you like that? I don't know. I don't. I wish I knew. I wish I had prepared myself better for it. Well, actually, I do know. I do know. Hearing, I guess, generous voice in that context. And I think, you know, just from one of our first meetings, I hadn't listened to most of that conversation.

I had... Right. I remember you told me that it was just so hard to hear. I shared it with my therapist. We went through a couple clips and I just said, that's enough. I don't need to see the rest of it. So handing it over to you was, you know, it was debated whether that was the right thing to do, obviously. And, you know, I trusted it was in good hands and it would be used appropriately and delicately. So did you not feel it was used appropriately? I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying that I was not...

for it and naively sat down to watch it before, you know, one morning before I started work. And then I was done for the day. I just went down to my neighbor. I sat on her couch and just stared at her wall for a while and

You know, that's the kind of experience I had every time I would come into contact with something of hers, a photo or the letter for sure. And I would read it in dribs and drabs. Just it was too much to do at one time. But it would take me back. I would lose a whole day because I would have to recover. So it's not inconsistent with that experience and discovering all of these things. Let's talk about the narcissism.

label or indicator, for lack of a better word, that bothered you? Among other things. I mean, again, I would listen to the good doctor and then people would call me afterwards like, she was really rough on you. And I would say, yeah, but where is she wrong? I mean, everything she's saying is, I'm like, okay, that hurts. That stings a lot.

But she's not wrong. Now, specifically, the label of narcissism, and I know that's kind of your area of expertise. It's an ugly word. I think it's overused a lot and thrown around by a lot of people. For someone mostly male, I believe that's kind of how it's used. And so certainly I'm not a bit immune to that phrase being slung during the last three years. And

And I was convinced that I was. I was like, oh, I am. And so I would have to ask people, do I come up as a narcissist? What is a narcissist? And so I had to research on it and ask people about it. And Sheila, who has become a trusted friend. That was Janair's divorce coach. Correct. Yeah. Who was involved in this. I trusted her and I asked her and she said, no way are you a narcissist. I know you well enough that that's not a label I would use for you.

So that said, Dr. Romney, if you could unpack that diagnosis and help me understand what that means. So let's talk about this word because you're right. It's an ugly word and it's an overused word. And I was saying earlier –

that to Barbara is that it's almost a word like love, right? If the three of us talked about what we think love means, we'd probably give somewhat different definitions. Narcissism is quite different. It's very clear that it speaks to inconsistent empathy, entitlement, arrogance, grandiosity, sometimes envy and insecurity and a sense of inadequacy that a person's not comfortable when that comes to the surface. And when that inadequacy gets unmasked, there's a lot of shame. There can be a sensitivity to

criticism or feedback. There can be a discomfort with abandonment or being alone. People who are narcissistic can often be somewhat interpersonally controlling. And I'm not talking about locking someone in a room. I mean, like they want things to go the way they want them to. But I have to say the ringers, like the real core of narcissism is things like the lack of empathy, the entitlement, the

the arrogance and that sense of inadequacy. Like that's the core. Are these labels that you think I don't have empathy for? I'll tell you what it was about the story. It's not about the lack of empathy for Janir's situation per se, but it was the way the decision making was undertaken in a way that was, this was a woman who was

desperate for you to say make a decision make a decision make a decision and you wouldn't make a decision and it's all she was begging for that reflected a certain lack of empathy that there's somebody begging for something asking for something and you were doing everything but that one thing and even political

pulling it out for another 90 days while I figure it out. There was a lack of empathy, not only there, but also for Meredith. That's what empathy is, is the idea that at some point I'm going to have to do something uncomfortable to also be aware to get other people out of discomfort. That's the empathy piece. I do think that I'm sure of it. When you heard those recordings of Janair, her pain, her despair, someone you love, someone you're married to, that that was a very, very real emotional experience.

When we connect with someone else's suffering, the better word for that is sympathy. Empathy is meeting people on the good and the bad and making decisions that account for the other people's feelings, even when they may be uncomfortable for us. That is where that empathic, I don't know, really that empathic slippage took place, I think, in this story. Okay, that's fair.

Is that something that people, once they're aware of it, that they can learn and become more empathetic, become more sympathetic? Or is that a trait that you either have or you don't? Well, let's break it down in Mark's case, right? Because we're all here together. And let's talk about it as a core issue.

there was a discomfort in making that decision, right? And in that discomfort, people got hurt, right? So part of it then is if you drill deeper down into the, whatever the issues you were having around conflict, disappointing other people, the way you wanted to be perceived relationally, all of those things, they were noisier and more compelling than how are these other people being hurt? And that means I have to

have the conflict, all of those things, I have to potentially let people down in order to release these other people. I do think that if somebody gets to some of that core stuff, that core work...

They then would be able to make decisions in a way that may not then not account for the emotional needs of other people. Barbara, none of us are perfectly empathic. We make decisions all the time that are suboptimal. But this was more big ticket. These two women were struggling and suffering. So one would argue that that was an empathic slip. I do think it can be addressed. I do. I think you can't go wrong.

Throughout life without hurting people, right? Breakups, whatever those things are. And I think my lesson in all this is certainly there are ways to do it and ways not to do it. So, yes, I think a little bit of Monday morning quarterbacking and saying, here's what should have happened. It's very clear in hindsight to say, I wish I had done this. It's very clear for you to see.

Where I went wrong and he should have done this. So if I needed time and I wanted time, which is what I was asking for, I didn't want to make a rash decision. Right. Right. Sure. I could have. I feel like it's a lack of empathy to just end it without without thought, without, you know, because it was a real debate in my head whether I was doing the right thing and I didn't want to. Ironically.

I didn't want to hurt anybody. Okay. So let's go a step backwards. Because again, I'm also echoing some of what's coming out in the comments too. Let's go a step backwards to actually having the affair. One would argue that was a lack of empathy as well. That there is a woman you met, clearly compelling, get all of that. But there's a woman you were married to. And if you knew the woman well, that she was actually going to experience this infidelity even more.

more heavily than maybe an average person might because of how she was psychologically organized. So that original decision around Meredith was fully unempathic where Janair was concerned. Well, and I said at the time, you know, I don't want to hurt her. And then she would say, just say it, just get it out. So I felt like she was built at the time to take it on. She wanted to hear it, what I wanted to do.

And that's the original reason I told her. Right. But we're going even further backwards, Mark, though. It's the, again, the decision to even have had the effort. That's the issue. Like, you know, and I'm not sitting here painting you with a brush of this horribly unempathic man. As I register, I actually felt a lot of empathy for you. And I could see that you were attempting to operate from an empathic space and protect her. I see all of that. But the argument then would be made, and this is an argument made of many people, but

who have engaged in any form of marital infidelity is the original decision to have the extramarital affair or dalliance or relationship. That was where the lack of empathy began. And that would be a place where we could focus is we're saying if we're going to unbraid it, that would also be a lack of empathy for generic. Sure. That's that's fair.

What should have or could have happened in the early therapy sessions that Mark and Janair went to? As we talked about them, I think it was in episode two, they didn't seem that effective. And Janair walked out of one of them saying, oh, this guy's telling me that I'm going to be fine and I'm going to be okay. And the therapist, according to Janair, and I think your bookmark, if this is accurate, said you should follow your heart.

I don't think it was quite follow your heart, which is like walk off in the sunset with Meredith. It was more if he doesn't make this decision on his own, he's always going to wonder. So he needs to be able to make this decision. We can't just tell him quit. I think is –

what he said. And so sure, that left me in Jenner's eyes, you know, licensed to, to date Meredith while I was married. I, I understand that perspective and that, and I hadn't read that, that entry she made. So I wasn't sure how she felt about that exactly. Other than I know she said he was a, not to disparage what happened in that therapist, but what could have happened in a therapy session that might have helped her?

the Mark and Junaire back when they were first going through this affair. Allow the conflict to happen in the room because it really did sound like that that was a struggle. Like, you know, both of you sort of argued differently and it can be tough. You're talking about in a session. In a session. Actually push

the hand on that one, you know, to not turn it into some metaphysical, you know, okay, this, you love Meredith or you don't love Jenner and you'd have to decide it, but to say like, duke it out in here while there's a referee. Well, and not unlike, you know, if we had the same conversation at home, she wanted to duke it out and I just didn't, it's not who I am. I don't fight. I don't fight back. And so I was very level-headed in the conversation in the therapy session and

You know, she was very emotional about it. There was also something that came out from our couple of listeners noticed this. They hadn't read it in your book, but it was Janair had written to Luke at one point, the husband of Meredith. And,

That she actually didn't want a divorce right away. She said, I'm trying to drag this out as long as I can. Janair says this. I'm trying to drag this out so I can get myself settled. So her goal was not to get a divorce. Her goal was not to get Mark to leave. She wanted to slow roll. And Mark, you didn't know about that, did you? I did not know that. She never verbalized to you?

She never realized that to me. And again, when I turned over those emails to you, it's not something I could read. I couldn't read them. So that was news for me to hear that. Was there anything else that Dr. Romney said that you wanted to? No. Again, I think it was hard to hear. I didn't love it. But again, with the exception of the flag I just raised about narcissism, I thought

Again, it's easier to look back at it and say this is what should have happened. And when you are in an emotional state,

emotional affair or you know he was just blinding logic it was just didn't exist you know yeah that's a good way to say it doesn't and you know but mark i want to say something to you i said it to barbara i'm not a psychic right i'm a psychologist but from a prognosticating perspective i'm going to be frank with you and you say we can tell the story so skillfully backwards i'm not so sure we can

I am not convinced that even, let's say even in that therapy session, you said, I'm out. I'm done. I'm going to be with Meredith. I still think that there's a decent probability that this case would have had a tragic consequence. I'm really glad you said that because that's actually one of my next questions that I had been

mulling about in my head. I've talked to multiple therapists now and based on what they've heard and some of the characterization from friends who have described her and how volatile she was that this was destined to happen at some point. I mean, again, it's not fair for us to do that probably, but based on your best judgment. Yeah, I think the probability, I think that on this session, the therapy session you described, one place I saw Mark to be in an absolute catch-22 was

Remember we talked about tension reduction, that idea of like, you know, when a person has something bubbling up in them, they want to hear something or they want to say something and that brings the tension down, which I'm guessing was a lot of the dynamic of your relationship. Things would bubble, bubble, bubble up and these things would be said that could even be terrible by her and then the tension would come down. Is that accurate? Absolutely. Yeah. So that, see, that tension reduction was a regular, it wasn't just the cat. It was everything kind of bringing it down. Yeah.

And there's a fantasy that I saw playing out potentially even in that therapy session. Tell me. Tell me the terrible thing. Tell me the terrible – because remember, the things we can write in our heads are far, far worse than the things that other people can tell us. And in a way, it was almost like, come on, punch me. Punch me right here. Hit me. Hit me. It's this fantasy.

Give it to me. Give it to me. It's like I have this fantasy. And that's, to me, what felt like some of the dynamic in there is I want to hear this because I'm having this sort of entire inner process. And actually, I agree. I completely understand where that email to Luke came from. She didn't want this to end.

She never wanted you to leave. She never wanted the choice to be married. That was going back to that comment about dignity. This wasn't about a woman saying, it breaks my heart that my husband's going to leave me, but I don't want to be with a man who doesn't love me kind of thing. It wasn't that. It was,

You're not leaving. And that was the subtext. And so that's what I'm saying. This was not going to end well. I'm willing to stake a bet on that one. I say to people that the affair is not the reason she did this. It was her inability to foresee a future. And the fact that I was late. If Meredith didn't exist and I didn't have an affair...

And I ended up wanting to end the marriage. I think I wouldn't be here right now. That's fair. I don't, again, I don't disagree with that, with the level of dysregulation. And again, the way that there was sort of those two sets of defenses, the incredible vulnerability, but then the ability to say, look what a victim I am, but not being public about how much despair that there was.

We'll take a quick break here. And when we get back, most people involved in affairs think there are only two possible outcomes. Stay in your marriage or leave and be with your new lover. But there is a third option. Dr. Romney will explain after this.

Dr. Amon, you also brought up, I think it was in episode four or five, you talked about when people are involved in an affair, they think there are just two outcomes. Either you're going to be with the other person or you're going to stay. But you say there's a third, which is you could be alone for a while. Mark, did that ever come into your head? Did anybody ever offer you that? Like just say, get away from both Meredith and Janair and figure this stuff out? Yeah, one of the many, I

I called them scenarios. Scenario one, we had five total, and that was certainly one of them. And these were scenarios that you and Janair were discussing about what was going to happen. Correct. We go this way, we go this way. And one of those was just leave. Just go back home. Give me space. Let me think through this.

She couldn't believe me that I was going to do that, that I could not see Meredith and not see her, that she just didn't trust that was a possibility. And to be fair, she was right because your 90-day plan lasted a day. It lasted a day. And that's fair. And I wrote that in the book. It's absolutely true. It's embarrassing. But I think part of that – and again, if you recall the story, it was that she was so angry at me and said so many things at me. And I said, that's it. We're done. Yeah.

But you never thought about, I'm just going to step away from both women. Because you're talking about the scenarios that you and Janair, that unit of you and Janair. I don't hear me, Mark, I came up with these ideas on my own. I would say the closest I came to that was the idea, and I told Janair, I don't think this is going to work out, Mithmirith and I. I just don't think it is. But I'm going through this anyway. I want to be. I want my independence. I do want to live independently of you and our marriage. So, yeah.

I was still on that path. Right. You said that early on, like New Year's Eve when she was confronting you about the affair and you said, I want my independence. You didn't admit to the affair, but you said, I want my independence. So you were trying to,

Maybe making a baby step and then you got sucked into the vacuum of your relationship again, of your engineer's dynamic. Can I ask a question? What was so compelling about that dynamic, Mark, between you and your engineer? Given how unhealthy it was getting at that point, you still were getting pulled in. I'm asking more as a curiosity than anything else of what was so compelling. Over the course of the last 24 years, what was so compelling? Yeah, and especially as things started really unraveling, you still got pulled back in.

Well, and again, especially towards the end, I can speak to it. And along the way, I did notice something in her. And what I would tell people is I can't do that to her. I can't leave her. I just – I can see how she would spiral. I never thought she would do what she did. But I knew she would not be in a good place. It was really –

I can't do that to her. Consistently, I would say that even to Meredith, what I would have started having doubts. And that's the way I felt. I knew going through life with her, you know, I would introduce her to people. And often prior to that, I would say, just so you know, she's an acquired taste. She may say some things. She's going to act a certain way. Just you'll get used to it. You'll learn to navigate it or you won't. Was Mark's acceptance and explanation of Janair's personality loving or...

Should he have questioned that and maybe adjusted their dynamic so that it didn't happen? Because he's making excuses for her behavior instead of calling her on the behavior. I don't know. See, I'm not convinced calling the behavior out would have done anything. I do. I have to say Mark was in a – and I hate – I keep overusing this term. You were in a catch-22. Yeah.

This was, I mean, what I'm hearing from you, Mark, and this is something I suspected after reading everything and listening to everything again, is that you had this preternatural sense inside of you. I heard you say that word. It's like almost like a knowing something before it's going to happen, like an awareness, but like almost like a psychic awareness, for lack of a better term, like a metaphysical awareness. Yeah.

You had an awareness that if I step away from this woman, it's not going to be good. You may not have understood, like you said, the extremity of the not good, but she was going to unravel so much psychologically that you stayed in it. Now, I...

here's where I kind of deviate from a lot of mental health folks. Like if somebody was going to argue this from a place of almost mental health orthodoxy, they'd say, well, you were, you're codependent and you're contributing to this. And okay, there'll be some truth to that. Okay. Yeah.

But I can also appreciate that there's an absolute truth to it. You would have witnessed a psychological unraveling so brutal that given that you do have some empathy, I don't think you could have bared witness to it and not gone back. Like you have to be like almost robotically cold and shut down to watch someone fall apart in that way and say, I'm out. Again, that's why I...

That's why I stayed with her after and during this whole process thinking she needed – she didn't have a place to go. She needed something and she seems well-adjusted. Little did I know she was living kind of a different life. But it brings up a good question. Again, there are –

I'm going to say she's wired a certain way and there are other people that are wired that way. But breakups often go this way. And people don't maybe break up because they're afraid of what's going to happen. But when someone does break up with them – and I actually have a friend. So I'm super sensitive to these kinds of situations these days since all this happened. And so she went through a breakup with somebody who has shown some tendencies. He's not well.

And he's been following her, stalking her, shows up at work, tells her he is suicidal. And I said, please read this book and please listen to this podcast because this is scaring me. I don't like where this is going. And I don't have an answer for her what she should do at this point either. I mean, she's –

She threatened the police, what have you. But she consistent, just to keep it calm, she talks to him. And she'll go sit and have coffee with him. She'll go have a drink with him just to calm him down. But that's enabling. Not unlike what I was doing much of the time. But see, again, and this is, to the degree this is a follow-up on the podcast, this is where it's not all neat and clean, right? Because...

The situation that you, Mark, would be in, that your friend would be in, and countless, honestly, I'd say millions of people have been in this situation is, I can do maybe what feels like the right thing and take my life back and step away. I can do that. That's a choice. And then forever live with knowing this person has fully unraveled, may have taken their life. A lot of people, no matter how many times I tell a client,

If somebody takes their life because the relationship ended, it's not your responsibility. I know it's falling on unhearing ears. I know they don't believe that. And I know they carry that as a legacy for the rest of their lives. I get that. And I would be a fool if I didn't acknowledge that. So you either have to live with, I feel responsible for these outcomes, or I enable, I stay, I codepend, whatever it is we call it,

So this person doesn't unravel and I don't have to deal with that discomfort of feeling partly responsible for the unraveling of this person. You can't win. These are equally horrific outcomes. And this is where it is so easy for people to sit in judgment. And I'll say if you've ever loved someone who is this fragile, this sort of psychologically jagged and dysregulated,

And yet you feel a love for them. After a while, it almost feels like a parental love sometimes, but it's a protective love. And you think, oh, it's easy to say, go take your life back. But what life will it be for me knowing that forever I was responsible for this person's unraveling? This is deep, deep psychological work. And I have watched countless people struggle with this path. And let me tell you, both paths are nightmarish. Yeah.

We're going to take a short break. And when we get back, I want to ask you something, Mark, and have Dr. Ramani chime in that a lot of people are asking. Why are you doing all of this? Why are you writing a book? Why are you showing up on TV? Why are you releasing all these secret recordings? We'll talk about that after this break.

So, Mark, as we're sitting here with Dr. Romany, this is the first time that both of you are in the room together. We really appreciate both of you being here. We've heard from a lot of listeners, and I think Dr. Romany and I talked about this when I was interviewing her for the podcast. Why are you doing this? Why are you releasing everything online?

Well, I think the implication that I've seen that there's some monetary gain to be had for this. And I think I'll say it again. Obviously, you're not paying me to be here. I've not been paid by ABC or anything other show interview I've ever done, nor am I taking money for the book. This it's not completely selfless. Me talking about it.

getting it out there, it diffuses it for me. It makes it, if I had to keep this in the entire time, the whole truth, I don't know that I have my own sanity to be able to talk about it constantly, not only to friends and other people and therapists. And then you, you've seen the path to the book and how it got to be that. And then I was so reluctant to actually put it out there. But again, I think the selfish part is that it helps me to talk about it, but

When I started seeing and hearing from people, you need to put it out there because it's going to help people. People are going to see their story in your story. But even after I wrote it, I didn't. I was still hesitant. And then my good friend Mike is like, dude, what's the worst that can happen? The worst has already happened. What could possibly happen that's worse than what did? And so I think there was only something to gain. And by that, I mean helping people. And when that first email, that first Facebook message came,

came through and it was like, this happened to me, that happened to me. I can't believe you're telling the story. Thank you for telling the story. Even if to know I'm not alone. I went through something like you and said, so did you. Now I know there's someone else out there. It felt good in my heart to hear people say that and that I'm making an impact. It's a little cliche to say, you know, if I save one life,

Because I'm a little bit more aggressive. I would like to save a lot of lives. Because there are a lot... There was a listener the other day who wrote in and said he should just go off into the sunset and never be heard from again. It's a very...

knee-jerk response but you get that a lot you're used to blistering criticism so what do you say to people like that who say we don't want to hear from you just go away well and then certainly people have the ability to shut off whatever device they're listening to when they hear my name if they don't want to hear that story and for me to go away a it's not good for me but i also think the story needs to be told not swept under the rug because there's a lot to learn from this

Dr. Romney, the way that Mark has been processing this and writing a book, unusual. Most people that have been through this kind of unbelievable tragic situation don't necessarily choose this route. Is this a good thing for people who've suffered tragedies to be inspired by? Should this be a modus operandi after you've gone through something? I think the biggest challenge is how a person would deal again with all the negative fallout and feedback.

For some people, it actually, if they really experienced, you know, all the grief and the loss and the pain of going through such a traumatic experience, feeling somehow complicit in that tragic experience.

That negative feedback coming because you did this might just be too much for some people. And I would say a person really needs to ask themselves, do they feel, even if you shut down all the comments, no matter what, somehow these troll people, they find their targets. Like they are unrelenting. And so...

I would say as a psychologist, a person really has to do a critical deep dive on whether they think they could handle that kind of blowback that's going to come at them. Well, let's keep in mind, too, had this not hit the news and gone international in 24 hours, we wouldn't be sitting here right now. I never would have written the book because it wouldn't have existed. I went public with it because it went public first, right? Yeah.

I didn't want that kind of notoriety. But every time you do go on TV, talk to somebody, do an interview, it brings everything back up again. That's tough probably for Meredith's family, for Janair's family to hear. Well, again, I think when you first reached out to me, and listeners don't know this, this was early 2019. I never thought we'd be in 2021 talking about this still. I want to see this through, and I'm glad you've done it.

And we're talking about it. No, I don't want to continue to talk about this the rest of my life. It'll always be a part of my life. And if I can help someone and share the story, I will. But this is not some deep-seated desire to be known. Or because you have an ego and you like the attention or nothing. Again, we've gotten to know each other a little bit. I'm not asking you to pass judgment on whether I have an ego or not. I think we all have egos for sure. Otherwise, we wouldn't function in the world, right? Yeah.

No, this is not comfortable. I don't want to be known for this, but it's for lack of a better word, it's become, has become my platform to talk about it and I don't want it to own me. And so I continue to talk about it until I feel like it's played out.

Do you feel like you've processed everything? And as the podcast, obviously, it's brought up some emotions. And then I want to ask Dr. Romney, if you think this patient, for lack of a better word, has her client has processed everything? Or can is that even possible? Can you process something like this and find a place of comfort? Yeah.

I would say it's more accurate to say I'm still processing. I don't think you can ever process it and go, I'm done. You know, I will continue to think about this as I do every day and how many times a day. I don't know. But it's not something I escape from. It's something I live with. So, yeah, I'm continually processing.

I agree with that because I think that there will be so many stories, I mean, Mark's going to hear of people with maybe not exactly the same story, but similar themes. You're processing your story again. You know, it takes you back. You know, there is that sort of rumination of like, what if this and what if that and what about me? And, you know, even today he was processing, you were talking about lack of empathy and all that. This was a moment of,

processing, you know, and it's, you know, and again, I do have to say it's not easy to sit there and have someone say like, this was not an empathic thing to do. I don't like doing that with somebody, but I also think that those, I mean, honestly, your discomfort with discomfort is probably the reason, you know, it was a big driving reason for the decision making in the relationship. If you get only one thing out of this is start getting comfortable with being uncomfortable because being comfortable with being uncomfortable is literally the

One of the most powerful psychological tools a person has because then you grow, right? Then he's like, okay, that's, yeah, you're right. That was the lack of empathy. I would even say I lean into it. Yeah. And that is not an easy thing to do. I want to ask you something, Mark, because this is a theme that would come up for anybody who's had an experience like this, which is the experience of shame, right? Shame is what pushes all of us.

Every single human being experiences shame. Shame pushes us into the shadows. And in a story like this where there was, again, people were pointing a finger to you at being partly complicit. And the reason people wouldn't want to share a story like this is that shame. How did you manage that emotion? Well, certainly shame and guilt. I explained them as two boulders I was carrying around and they were just overshadowing every other emotion. So again, I think avoiding it

give it power, the shame. And so I lean into it and I do feel shame. I acknowledge my part in this and it's, I'm so disappointed in myself for the decisions or lack of decisions. So I carry shame. It's still, it's still, it's not comfortable, but I'm also not avoiding it. Can I ask you how do you, how before this experience, when you had, before all of this happened, how did you manage shame then?

I don't have an answer for that. I'm sorry. Like when Janair caught you first time around. That's a great example, yeah. Having an affair on a business trip. I would say I avoided it before. In the case of Janair finding out about the overnight in Berlin, I just, you know, I felt it was embarrassing. I...

I wanted the conversation to stop. I didn't want to talk about it. So I think I avoided it. You avoided it. It's the opposite of what you've done now after. Yeah. Again, I think this is one of the many growing areas of growth that I've experienced over the last three years. I'm literally, I think, a different person. I feel like I'm a different person having gone through this. So, yeah, that's been a great – not great. It has been a learning point for sure.

A lot of listeners are talking about your Bootsy Dog Mom currently listening. And this reminds me eerily of the Betty Broderick case. She wasn't mentally ill. In my opinion, I believe she had a psychotic break. Dr. Romney, did you have a psychotic break? And then let's talk about the Betty Broderick case.

Calling something a psychotic break is, you know, it's, I can't say, I don't know, because I wasn't there. So a psychotic break is when a person has a break from reality. And we may see a person now as being governed by auditory hallucinations, visual hallucinations, delusional beliefs that they've literally broken off from reality. And in that moment, they're

almost possessed by some other force, and they go and they may engage in a crime, and then almost don't even have a... That's where people would attempt to mount, for example, an insanity defense. It's said that if a person is under enough stress...

that there could be a psychotic break. It's a pretty rare phenomenology. And so I think that there was a lot of psychological similarities between the case. It was somebody who was just this rageous tension that we keep talking about was growing and growing and growing in a sense of injustice. If there was one commonality in the case of Jenner and Betty Broderick, they felt this

unbelievably overpowering sense of injustice that they were going to set right. And just a quick recap, if our listeners don't know about the Betty Broderick case. And interestingly, Mark, you were watching the Lifetime movie that came out. I believe it was Lifetime. Yes. Yeah. And you called and you said, this is getting your attention. So this happened in 1989. This was down in San Diego. Husband was having an affair. And

She ended up killing the husband and the mistress. Well, I mean, they went on for years. He was actually married to her. He was married to her. And she was younger than him. She worked with him. I think that's another reason people are grabbing some of those similarities. Right. And one listener wrote, in both cases, men failed to come clean and gaslight their spouse. But the lengths that these women went to to keep their failing marriages was insane and appalling. What is it about these women, Janair and Betty? And is that just a storyline that's going to keep repeating itself throughout time?

Well, as I said, I think there's a lot of identity that derives from being in the marriage and those porous boundaries I talked about. But it's also the idea of, you know, there's a whole model of relationships called the investment model by a researcher named Rustbolt. And

It's this idea of like, we put resource into our relationship, right? And I think in both Janair's case and in Betty Broderick's case, they've like, they invested, whether that's time, psychological bandwidth, hope, call with investment, what you want, and they want their return.

And so that people will then stay in the relationship. It's almost like the good money after bad kind of thing, right? That people just sort of see it through. And that I do think that there was this incredible sense of like, I've given my entirety of myself to this and I'm not walking away. And in a way, she wasn't, Janair wasn't being empathetic towards Mark.

and what he was going through? I mean, one could argue that. Again, this is where I'm saying there's an imbalance. I'm being honest. I'm saying, as a psychologist, I fully agree with you that a human being suffering, even if this human being has perpetrated something you don't like...

You can still feel empathy for them, but you can feel empathy and say, and I don't agree, so I need to do what I need to do to safeguard myself. That's the healthy approach, right? So there can be empathy at that level. But when we look at it from a sociological or sort of a populist kind of a sentiment, it's the idea, Mark did something wrong. Mark needs to be punished. That would be what the audience approach would be.

And so she didn't have to show him empathy. I don't agree with that. I think it's that thinking, well, I don't owe you empathy anymore because you did wrong, is why we keep descending into really unhealthier and unhealthier spaces all the time. Okay, so one of the last, and this is kind of an overarching reaction that I've gotten, and I know you've heard it, both of you have heard it. People are so curious, why not Mark? Why didn't Junaire go after Mark?

Since you've done a lot of work with a lot of therapists over the years, do you have, Mark, a clear answer to this? It's as clear as reading the letter. I think she very clearly said he needs to stew in this. This is his punishment from now on. I hope this image of finding us is the image that is seared in his brain the rest of his life. I'm

I'm extrapolating a little bit for her, but that was her goal. And one listener wrote in that they were particularly disturbed about how she said, I hope, let me see if I can find the line here. She's going to stand over me with her right breast, I believe is the line you're probably looking for. And haunt you. And haunt me, for sure. So are you haunted? Have you been stewing about it? Was Janair successful?

Stewing? Sure. I think about it every day. I wrestle with it. It's a demon that I wrestle with. She's successful in that. I will think about this every day of the rest of my life for sure. Dr. Ramani? So remember you're saying psychotic break. This is an example of why it wasn't a psychotic break, right? It was too organized. That thinking, I'm going to take out the person I view as paragonist.

partly responsible for my pain. I'm going to take me out of my pain or even not want to go through a trial and all of that. And, you know, I don't know if it was nihilistic, like I'm going to destroy myself or I don't want to go through what I'm going to face, which is a long lifetime of incarceration, preserving the cat, but saying something strange about the cat and leaving him alive to have to stew in this. There's a lot of thought to that. Yeah. So that really lifts the whole idea of impulsivity. Got it.

Does that make sense? You know, an impulsive crime is you walk in where they both are, Betty Broderick, and you shoot them both. But even Betty Broderick drove over there and did it. So there was a premeditation. But that idea of keep the cat and then there's this whole self-righteous narrative about the cat. I'm going to keep him alive. Let him stew in it. Let me destroy her. Let me destroy myself. It, again, goes away from the psychotic break scenario and it speaks to something that was considered and punitive. Thank you both for coming in here. I'll end with another question.

Comment from a listener who said, to brush this story off and say it's nothing more than a woman who committed murder and suicide is a narrow-minded and shallow approach. Without analysis, we wouldn't learn anything.

Our thanks to Dr. Ramani Dravosla for all of her analysis and to Mark Girardo for sharing Janair's materials and her side of this story. We hope you've enjoyed these bonus episodes and all of Bad, Bad Thing, produced in association with Podcast One, edited by Jeff Duray, music composed by Gage Buzan and Gary Lionelli. Please share this podcast and Dr. Ramani's wisdom with anyone who could use it. We thank you for listening.