S13 E21: [Gianna] Sealed Together Forever
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My name is Gianna. I am 20 years old. I was born and raised in Kentucky.

I recently moved out in 2020 to Provo, Utah. I chose to continue my college education out there for about two years. I was at Brigham Young University, also known as BYU, which is a religious school. You do not have to be religious to go there, but they do ask for you to follow certain standards if you do choose to go.

The religion that is based there is LDS. Some may know it as Mormonism. It is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

I grew up in the church. My mom grew up in the church. My dad converted. Once they were married, we identify as Christians. The main difference between us and Christianity would be we believe that God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost are three separate beings. We do not see them as one being.

We do have certain morals or teachings that could also be quite different to others, like is there life after death? What's the purpose of life? How can I find peace and happiness? We do believe that there is life after death and that we can be together with our families forever. Family is a huge part in the church and it's very much encouraged for you to get married and have children and get sealed together forever.

families live together for eternity. Polygamy was a thing back in the LDS culture. Polygamy was huge. It was very normal for a man to get married and sealed in the temple to multiple females. If a male were to marry a female and they were sealed and married in the temple and they decide to civilly divorce,

The man can go off and still get married to someone and sealed in the temple, but the women cannot. The women, they would have to get divorced through the temple and get approved that way for the women to then get sealed and married to someone else in the temple. If she wanted to get married civilly, she could, but she couldn't get sealed in the temple.

The temple is a huge statement in our culture. It's very sacred and you do not talk about what goes on in the temple, even if you are endowed. Endowed is another word of saying you have taken on responsibility to live by certain covenants. You're able to go into the temple and participate in sacred activities.

There's so much to talk about that goes on in the LDS religion, but the easiest way to say is I think polygamy does not exist in the LDS church anymore. It can be involved in other religions such as FLDS, but we do not associate ourselves with them whatsoever. We do believe in polygamy,

God and Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost to be three separate beings. We do believe in no drinking, no smoking, no sex till marriage. What pushed me to go to BYU is I wanted to be around young adults with the same standards as me, especially with the standards that I was comfortable with and that I grew up with. I thought it would be great to have friends or date around with people who

share the same values as me. I definitely was not in it for school. I'm a photographer. I shoot real estate as well as weddings. And so the more I was out there, I realized I really don't need to be in school. But at the same time, I love the crowd I'm in. I love my work environment. I love my friends. So I ended up staying out there, going to church, and I loved it.

Hi, my name is Audrey. I would describe Gianna as someone who is independent, who thinks for herself, someone who always puts

Everybody she knows and cares about before herself. And somebody who's very loyal and kind and very compassionate. Honestly, somebody who's really like a friend to all because of how understanding she is about lots of situations.

So I am Gianna's mom, and she has always been extremely independent. Even as a small child, people would say, oh, she's an old soul, or she's wise beyond her years. Even when she was very small, she just kind of blazed her own trail and did her own thing. It was exactly the same way as she moved into middle school and high school. Anything that she did,

wanted to try. She was never shy to try it. She always put herself out there, whether it was sport or extracurricular activities or dancing or whatever the case may be. She was always game to try anything. She had boyfriends here and there and would go to dances with boys and things like that. They were all very immature for her.

She was not shy, not fearful, very confident, very sure of who she is. That's who she's always been. She was accepted into every school she applied to. Ultimately, she decided to go with BYU.

We've always been a very tight-knit family. My husband's parents and my parents both live nearby. Our children are close to their grandparents. Our family did everything together. My son had said a few years ago, we were looking at watching home movies, and he said, gosh, our childhood really was a fairy tale. We were just super lucky. We had great kids, and my husband and I really did have the same set of values and standards.

made parenting easy because there was never any type of conflict between the two of us. It's exactly what he said. It was always a fairy tale. That was phenomenal. We never saw anything like this coming because of who Gianna is. She's always been very true to herself and very confident, a no BS kind of person. She doesn't tolerate anything from anyone, including her father and myself. She will set you straight in a minute. If you're wrong, she'll let you know you're wrong.

By the end of 2021, I actually met Brent, end of September-ish. In the church, there are a bunch of church buildings. We have wards. There are family wards and there are young single adult wards. I went to a young single adult ward. I went to a Polynesian ward out there. I

I ended up going to a volleyball activity. It was late, so we decided to go out to eat. So we went down the street to Apollo Burgers. That's when Brent walked in and he was standing around mingling and talking with people by my table. And he ended up looking at me and saying, oh, what is your ethnicity? Are you Polynesian? I don't know why I get that a lot.

I was like, oh, no, I'm not. I'm actually African-American and half white. We started talking and I invited him to sit down at our table. We sat and talked for a bit, got to know him. He is from the Pacific Islands. He was out in Utah for a tournament.

He was out there for a short period of time. I knew he wasn't going to be out there long. So I didn't see it as, oh, I would love to go out on a date. But I was interested in getting to know him more. I grabbed his number and invited him to another volleyball that was going to happen up in Salt Lake City the next day, which was about a 30-minute drive.

We actually ended up getting together that next night at volleyball, and we sat and talked for a bit. He mentioned that there was a BYU versus Utes game that was coming up. It was going to be one of the biggest games of the season. And he was like, I would really like to go if you're interested in going.

I believe this was on a Thursday night and my mom was supposed to fly in Friday night. She was just coming to visit and I mentioned that and I said, "Oh, I can look for tickets. I do have a Rock Pass, what BYU students get to get into the games for free."

And so we ended up finding tickets. My mom came into town. I was telling her, hey, like, I met this guy. It's nothing too serious, but he was wanting to go to the BYU game. I don't know this guy. Like, I've never even been to a BYU game. This is my second year here. She's like, you need to go. You need to go out and socialize. Like, even if you guys are just friends, I think it'd be fun for you to do something like this.

My mom actually ended up going as well. She went with her friends and I went with Brent and...

We had a lot of fun. Nothing too serious happened during that time. As the night continued to go on, I seemed a bit more interested. I was very comfortable around him. He was very respectful, very nice. I wouldn't say we were flirting necessarily, but you could tell we were both interested in each other, something that we avoided saying to each other until later on. We all met up at the end of the night and went out to eat. We had a great conversation and it was fun. He

He seemed like a genuinely nice guy. It was very clear that he had interest in Gianna. He was very, I don't want to say he was quiet, but he was very observant, more listened to kind of the banter and the dynamic between the two of us.

he ended up staying in town for a few days and the next night brett and gianna and myself we went to dinner and we were able to talk a little bit more and he joked around that the first time he met me he thought i was a lawyer and i told him he was pretty close i definitely profile personalities and have a very deep understanding of human behavior he said oh so

What do you think about me? And immediately Gianna looks at him and says, no, no, no, don't do it. Don't do it. You don't want this. I said, well, if you want me to do it, I will. But on a scale of one to 10, how honest do you want me to be with you? He said, oh, I want a 10. I want a 10. And I said, I can tell you right now, a seven is about as much as you could possibly handle from me. Eddie looked at me and his eyes got big and he was like, no, let's hear it. All right.

I said, "Brent, no. You do not want this to happen right now. This is your first encounter with my mom and you do not want to cry." My mom is a very scary person. Most people think she's just like the sweetest soul, which she is, but when it comes to her kids or her family or the person that is just rude. And so I said, "I can tell that you thrive on attention. You like to be noticed and you like to be recognized."

you don't do it just for the thrill of doing it. You do it for the accolades and for the attention. And he kind of giggled and laughed and looked down a little bit, which was a super strong indicator that I was right. And then I said, you're a middle child. You're your parents' favorite. They favor you. You get away with far more than you ever should. And he laughed and I said, how many siblings do you have? He told me. And I said, what number are you? And he was exactly in the middle.

I knew through this whole journey that my gut was right. I've done this now for 15 years and I understand people at a very high level. And I also wanted to trust my daughter. I wanted her to go out and spread her wings and be her own person and create her own life that she built, not that her parents built or arranged or approved of, right? Like I wanted that to be her creation that she could enjoy and be proud of. And so even though I had hesitations, I

I decided to trust her. I just said to her, be observant. Don't let your guard down. Don't let your heart get in the way because it will. And just go with your gut. That's what you've always done and it's always served you well. So just remember who you are and everything will be fine. It'll all work out.

Gianna would tell me stories about him as a friend on the outside. When your friend is telling you about a guy, obviously you're very supportive and whatever they say, you trust them. My first impression of Brent as I was hearing about him, I was like, wow, he sounds like an awesome guy. He fits the mold in which Gianna had been.

wanted for herself. Before I met him, I was like, I love him. I feel like he's so good for her. I feel like he's treating her good. He's spending time. He's doing all the things

He flew back to Hawaii and we were texting back and forth. About two days later, he texted me and he was like, "Hey, I would love to move out to Utah. If you're okay with that, I think it'd be great for us to get to know each other more." That absolutely freaked me out. I was like, "There's no way the stranger I just met last week is moving out to another state. Who would leave Hawaii to come to Utah?"

Our religion is kind of a little bubble, especially when I lived out in Kentucky. The church culture is different in Kentucky than I'd say it is in Utah. I never dated out here in Kentucky and I never had an interest in dating anyone seriously because

because I wanted to get married to someone that had the same beliefs as me. When I went out to Utah, it was very different. Some people want to hook up. You deal with very strict LDS parents, and you can deal with very lenient parents.

But I would say most of the time it's you can't kiss, you can't go on dates till you're this age and no sex, no nothing. All these kids go out to college and especially at BYU, it's like, okay, I'm going to date around or I'm going to hook up with this person or I'm going to do this because you can. And then there's also kids who are like, I want to go out and get married because that's what we're taught to do.

I want to date around and see who I feel would best fit me as a lifetime partner.

So, when he told me, oh, I'm coming back to Utah, I saw it as, okay, he sees this as something pretty serious. And so, I said, you know, I'm not going to force you to come out here. I'm not going to stop you from coming out here. I would love to hang out when you get back. This is really surprising. I've never had this happen. I'm thinking already, like, this is too good to be true.

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The night that he got back and flew in, we hung out all night. We went out to the Ochre Mountain Temple and we sat and talked out there forever. We got into a deep conversation of, yeah, I'm looking to date, to marry. I'm not really looking just to mess around or spend time with someone for years and then break it off. I really want to work towards something more. He was agreeing and he was like, hey, why don't we try this? Make it official.

And I'm pretty sure we met the week before that. So it all moves very fast. But in the church culture, that's very normal. I was very excited. But at the same time, I was just like, is this normal? Does this happen? I didn't see it as a red flag. I saw it as something exciting. It's kind of a joke in the family. I'm not very touchy or lovey. So just talking about me being in a relationship kind of made me uncomfortable.

When we did make it official, I remember Brent was saying, hey, it's part of my culture is we want to be very respectful to the parents. And normally the male would go over to the female's house to earn approval from her parents to date me or any male to date their daughter. He's

He was like, since your parents are in Kentucky, I can't necessarily do that. So I would like to give them a call, let them know that I am dating you and let them know that you're safe with me and I'll take care of you, especially when you're across the country from them. I'm seeing this as, wow, like I'm actually dating someone who cares about me and who's respectful. All the boxes were being checked off. He wants to get to know my family and talk to them, even though he hasn't even met my father or my brother.

My mind was fogged with, oh my gosh, this guy is amazing. What did I do to deserve this? He ended up calling my parents probably a few days later after we made it official. He called my husband and I. It was just him by himself. And he said, I really want you all to know that I'm dating your daughter with intention. And in my culture, it's very common that we reach out to the parents and let them know that we're seriously dating.

It's basically a token of respect. I told him we appreciated that. And my husband said to him at that point, I will never forget. He said, Brent, as long as you respect her and protect her, you have our total support. That's all we ask of you. And he never did either of those things.

The phone call ended. My mom was even saying my father was tearing up crying because he felt so blessed that his daughter was being taken care of across the country. My father never cries, so that was very odd. I'm just seeing it as, wow, my father is crying? This is serious. He must be a really good guy. He set the standards so high right away from moving across seas and then calling my parents and making it official. It seemed too good to be true.

I'm still replaying things in my head and I'm thinking he's the best thing ever. He genuinely meant that or was that him playing tricks or trying to manipulate? I didn't think he was trying to twist anything or have anyone favor him. I truly think

He cared and he wanted their approval. He very much wants approval. He needs that power. They ended up talking for quite a while, I think like an hour on the phone. It ended up with both of my parents very content, which makes me content, obviously, as their daughter-in-law.

I would be mortified if they did not approve of someone I was dating. So the fact that that went well and that they were okay with him moving to Utah from Hawaii so quickly after we met was just a miracle to me. I was thinking, oh my gosh, I really like this guy. I want to get to know him more. My parents approve. Everything is great. I was 19 years old. He was 22 at the time.

My friend Audrey saw him quite often because Audrey and I live together. We're best friends to this day. She's awesome. She was very welcoming whenever he would come into our home. She was totally fine if he spent the night. So I would say Audrey and Brent had a good relationship when it comes to sharing me, I guess. When I finally met him, I remember...

honestly having great feelings about him. I was like, he's so kind. Me and Brent are the same ethnicity. So we connected really quickly. I had really good feelings about Brent. There was really nothing bad could be said about him, honestly.

December 7th, we got into our first real argument. That was the first time I saw Brent very upset. He was very vulnerable at that time with his feelings and he had no control over them whatsoever. He was staying with a family. He had his own room and I remember we were downstairs and the family was upstairs. I just got back from working out.

I had a hickey on my collarbone that he gave me. I told him not to give me. I do not like hickeys whatsoever.

I remember telling him, this hickey's still on here. And he was like, you did not wear that to the gym. I said, yeah, I wore leggings and a sports bra to the gym. He said, you don't want everyone to see you wearing a hickey on your skin in your sports bra. Why would you want people to see that? You don't understand how disrespectful that is to our culture and how disrespectful that is to me for you to do that. I was very confused because I

Never has he talked to me that way. I got defensive and I said, Brent, you understand you put this on my body, right? I also said, I disagreed with you putting it on my body and I did not want it. If you could take some accountability of what you did, that would be great. But I don't understand why you are so flustered right now.

what is going on. He's very disrespectful. I'm uncomfortable because I've never had anyone speak to me that way ever. I'm sitting in his room on the bed and he's putting away clothes and doing laundry and going in and out of the bathroom and tidying up and he just would not talk to me. I would ask him questions and he would ignore me. A few minutes go by and I'm uncomfortable. I'm 30 minute drive from home.

I'm not close with the family he's staying with. I'm uncomfortable with how he just talked to me. And I said to him, hey, Brent, I'm going to head out. I'm going to head home. I don't feel comfortable. If you're not going to talk to me and you don't want to discuss your feelings, I need to go home. He was saying, well, I'm never going to chase after you. If you want to go, just leave.

That really upset me. I go outside and I get in my car and I'm already crying, upset, like what is going on? He was so sweet. What would make him snap like this? I'm not that far down the street. Maybe a stop sign down the street. He calls me. He's like, this is the last time you're going to hear my voice. We are done. I'm done. He

He blocks me on my phone. He blocks me on Messenger, so I can't call him. I tried calling him back, nothing. I should not have, but I drove back to the house. He was sitting in the living room on the couch on his phone, dead face, wouldn't look at me, nothing. And I was like, "Brent, get up. We need to talk."

I don't know why you're acting this way or why you're talking to me that way, but we need to talk. And he's just ignoring me. He's like, I'm going to call the police if you don't get out. You're crazy. I'm mortified and so embarrassed that I just walked back into this person's home to grab my boyfriend out of the house to discuss what happened. I should not have to do that. It should be something that both people want to work towards and talk about and communicate about and move on.

He ended up walking outside and we're standing outside talking and he was saying, "You're not mature enough for me. I know I should have married a girl who served an LDS mission because they're mature. You're not mature. You never served a mission." The ring, I'm thinking it probably belongs to someone else because I guess at the time he had bought me a ring.

We were talking about marriage, but never would I ever thought he would say something like that. That would ruin the idea of getting married or engaged. I'm trying to hold it together and understand what is going on because I have never been in a serious relationship like this. I was like, okay, I'm going to be patient with him, try to be understanding. I sat there, I tried listening to him, and he's going off saying things

The worst things you could ever say to someone you loved. In my head, I'm thinking, the first night we talked, you were talking about how mature I am. That's why you're attracted to me. None of this is making sense. He was upset, crying a few minutes later, saying, I'm so sorry. I should not have yelled at you. I should not have raised my voice and talked to you that way. My father would be so disappointed if he heard how I just talked to you. I said, I'm very shocked with how you talked to me. I don't understand you.

why you snapped like that, but you have to understand that how you treated me downstairs was not right. If you do not want me to have hickeys on me, don't put them on me. I said, if you are upset about something, we sit down and we talk about it.

we are together in a relationship. There are going to be ups and downs, but you have to discuss what is bothering you. You can't just go off like that. I was like, why did you block me on everything that quick? It didn't take you five seconds. So I was just upset. I thought we were done. You moved across from Hawaii to Utah. You're living with some family friends to basically date me. I

I thought this was serious. You got my parents' blessing. Why were you so quick to let me go? And he's saying, I'm not going to chase after a girl. If she doesn't want me, she doesn't want me. I said, Brent, that was not that situation. Obviously, I want you. But I left the situation because I told you I was uncomfortable and you still ignored me. So I left. I said, it's better to leave and get some air and some time.

to calm down when everyone is calm because I wasn't going to say something that would hurt your feelings that you would remember forever. We were sitting there in my car and he goes, there is a young single adult fireside at a chapel nearby if you would like to go. He said, I think it would be good for us to go to church and clear our minds. I think this would help us a lot.

In my head, I'm still shocked with what he said because I'm thinking, what if I do something else that makes him mad? And he snaps again. We ended up going to the fireside and the whole time I'm distraught.

I wanted to break down and cry. We're sitting there in the gym with a bunch of other people, and I think they're giving a church lesson. He's sitting there with his hand on my thigh, acting like everything's completely normal. These people have no idea what just happened, and why are we here at church trying to act like nothing happened? I stepped outside to call my mom, and I was like, this is going to change everything, but I need to call her. I

I told her what happened and what he said, and she was very upset. I said, please don't call him. It's just going to make it worse. I said, if you could pray, give me a prayer of comfort right now, that would be great because I have no idea what else to do. She prayed for me to bring me comfort and the clarity that I needed because I felt like everything that I was hoping for and imagined with Brent, it

It changed completely after that night when I saw how quickly he can get upset. My mom had me on speakerphone. They were, I think, preparing dinner. They all heard me crying. Mom ran to her bedroom real quick so the boys couldn't hear me crying. And dad kept saying, what's going on? What's going on? She's like, please leave the room. I just need to talk to Gianna real quick and make sure everything's good. My parents and my brother know something is up.

I talked to mom about it. She's mad. She eventually tells the boys. So they're pretty upset that he talked to me that way.

I think at that point, things switched because I felt like I couldn't talk to my family about any more issues that were going on between Brent and I. Especially when I told him, I talked to my mom about it. He was saying, this is our relationship and our relationship only. No one needs to know our situation. We need to figure out ourselves. We have to figure out the ups and downs. No one needs to be involved but us.

You don't need to be going to your family about everything. I'm dating you, I'm not dating your family. That's when I stopped talking to my family about Britt because I knew that they did not like him. So it was hard to be like, oh, Britt and I went out to dinner, so much fun. Because I know they don't care. They treated me poorly.

That great relationship that we had in the beginning when he got my parents' approval and weeks later he treats me like crap and I tell them and it's completely gone. That's when I had to start living two lives of one relationship with my family and acting like everything is okay and then one relationship with Brent where I can't talk to my family about any situations that come up in our relationship because

He would get upset. Now that I think about it, I'm like, why didn't I just tell her to run? I should have told her to run. We were so upset over that argument because of some of the things he had said to her. I knew then that she would make the decision to not share as much with us in the future. I even said to her when she was calling us about the argument, I'm going to be very careful with what I say.

Because I don't ever want you to feel like you can't call us if something else happens. I don't ever want you to feel like, oh, my parents are going to be so mad and so upset, so I better not tell them. And essentially, that is exactly what ended up happening. And that's why she wasn't talking to us. It was a very sad and difficult time.

Being separated and not being in communication and feeling our relationship, the dynamic between the two of us had changed so very much. And I knew we had not done anything, like nothing had happened on our end.

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We were still arguing and it would be over the silliest things. For example, we went to a volleyball game and one of the girls that played, he was in the missionary training center when they were preparing for their mission. So they sort of knew each other. He posted a photo on a story of the game and he tagged her and posted on a story. I remember saying at the game, hey babe, that's kind of odd.

I don't want to be that controlling girlfriend, but you're going to give her the wrong impression. And you guys are not close friends at all. You haven't talked in over two years. It looks weird that you're tagging her and posting her on your story. That is how I viewed it. And he was like, no, it's fine. It's fine. Just supporting her. It's like, yeah, you're right. You haven't seen any of your friends play professionally at a BYU volleyball game. So I understand.

Later on, I'm in my room and he calls me and says, "Hey, the girl that plays for BYU Volleyball that tagged in my Instagram story, she is inviting me to dessert with some of her friends." I said, "Well, did she invite your girlfriend as well or what's going on?"

He said, no, she didn't, but I was just going to bring you with me. I said, you know, that kind of makes me feel a little crappy. Like, I don't want to be someone that just tags along. To me, it's disrespectful she sees me on your social media, but only wants you to come. He gets back from dessert. A few days go by, and he's like, hey, don't get mad, but...

She confessed her feelings to me. She was wanting to go out sometime. And I said, did you mention you have a girlfriend? She said, yeah, I did. And she thought you were my sister on my social media. I said, she thought I was your sister. She said, yeah, she really did. I said, Brant, I truly do not want to upset you, but she knew before y'all even hung out that you had a girlfriend. She most definitely talked to you beforehand. She knows.

No, no, she doesn't. She didn't know at all. She's just a really nice person. You have to understand we're in the training center together. She's really cool.

I said, well, you need to make it very clear that you guys aren't going out. You're not hanging out. After she confessed her feelings, they didn't hang out anymore after that. But she ended up calling him one day. She calls him and he steps outside. He comes back in. I said, who was that? Because she called once. He denied it. She called again. He answered it, went outside, talked on the phone, came back in. And he said, oh, that was her again.

She invited me to dinner with her family. I said, babe, were you going to go with her? Are you planning on going? He's like, I said I was with you. So technically, no, I'm not going to go. I said, why is she even calling you? You should have made it very straightforward from the beginning. Like, hey, it's inappropriate that you already confess feelings when I'm dating someone. Let's just leave it at that. I don't think we should be talking.

That's how I see it. That's me thinking, oh, I want to be respectful to my significant other. I don't want them to feel uncomfortable in any way. He was like, oh, I told her no. Don't worry. It's fine. But it never was. Babe, trust me. She is out of my life. I made it very clear to her that that was inappropriate when she knows I have a girlfriend. I definitely like the reassurance of knowing everything is okay, especially when I'm in a relationship. He made it seem like I

I was crazy. I was very controlling and I was telling him what to do and who to hang out with. By God, two weeks go by and I'm heading to Kentucky for New Year's. I'm in the airport and he begins to tell me she's wanting to drop off a Christmas gift for me. And I said, what do you not understand by stop talking to her? Like this is making me really uncomfortable. Please stop.

And it would always just be like, you're crazy or you don't understand. She's really nice. She doesn't see us as anything. But to me, those are all the signs that she does. She came up, not even a few weeks later, he was saying, I was talking to one of my mission friends, one of his best friends. He was saying how I

I was not a return missionary and he's always wanted to marry a return missionary and that the volleyball girl was a return missionary. And I was saying, like, what does that mean? If you want to be with her, then be with her. We're talking about marriage now.

We've talked to my parents. Things are getting more serious. Why are you still talking about her? It made no sense. He was saying, no, no, no. I love you. I want to be with you and I want to marry you. We were just talking about it. It was nothing serious. He's thinking about a girl too and talking to her and she hasn't served a mission either. We're just talking as bros. That made me really uncomfortable. And that's when that insecurity came about of,

Well, I haven't served a mission in the church. I'm not good enough. I'm not mature enough. I haven't done enough to serve the Lord. I have not met the church standards for returned missionaries who want to date. I didn't fit that need, that need.

He was wanting, he obviously wanted it so bad. And I could not give that. So anytime he would bring up serving a mission or me not serving a mission, it truly did hurt my feelings. And I made sure to let him know how that made me feel. It doesn't make me feel good. They got into a big fight. And he said something to the effect of, I should date somebody that's been on a mission. Something to that effect. I knew then...

That's all he had on her. He had served a mission and she had not, but that was it. She's more educated than he is. She comes from a more affluent family than he does. She comes from a more supportive family than he does. She had the means and resources to really have whatever she needed. She had a family that was very open-minded and very communicative about what we were doing or what needed to be done.

So it was really, that was it. That was all he could hold over her head was I've done this and you haven't. And I said to her, it's an insecurity on his part. You're going to have to work through that. You're going to have to try to dig deep and find out where that came from, why he would even hold something so beautiful and so precious over someone's head and make it so ugly.

It always became an argument, and he knew it was something that was a vulnerable spot for me, and he found it, and he made sure to keep poking at it whenever he could. She flew home to be home for Christmas. She had no idea that he was going to be flying out here to propose. The proposal was going to be New Year's. I had been talking to him constantly.

All of these things that he had planned with me, texted me. My husband and I drove around town taking pictures and videos and sending them to him and making sure everything was just right. Do you want to do it here? Do you want to do it there? What pictures do you want? What music do you want? We wanted for it to be his as much as it possibly could, planning it from across the country. So all these things that we had been planning in November happened.

By the time December came and now Gianna's home, I'm like sneaking around and calling him and having conversations in my car or wherever. Definitely the dynamic was different. I had no idea he was going to propose on New Year's. I honestly thought he was going to propose around his birthday.

I started to realize he may be proposing when he couldn't answer the phone or he couldn't answer my FaceTime and my parents were wanting me out of the house and with my friend all weekend. Then at the same time, I was like, no, because I told him I don't want to get engaged in Kentucky. I

I want it somewhere secluded and no one there. I said, I want it anywhere but Kentucky. But apparently he chose Kentucky. He said later on he chose Kentucky because he wanted to be respectful to my family. I have no idea, but it was not what I had asked for. My friend and her family and I were driving downtown and her mom said she needed to drop off a late Christmas gift somewhere.

to a friend. We get downtown and my friend's mom takes me out of the car, tells me I need to walk out and there's candles down the walkway. It's a big gazebo at the end of the walkway is where he was standing and I could see all my family and friends videoing and photographing. He had music playing and he proposed and then it ended with a engagement party at an Airbnb downtown.

So the proposal happened and they literally walked two blocks. And when they opened the door, there were 50 people there to celebrate them. I know that that was not anything that he was used to and he was uncomfortable with it. That night, he gives a speech to everyone that's there. In his speech, he said, I hate that my family isn't here and I'm so sad that my family isn't here. And the way he made it sound really sounded like they didn't even know about it or they weren't invited.

To the point that I pulled Gianna aside and I said, you do know that I invited his family. I rented a venue with rooms for them to stay in. And he chose to not tell them. I knew she was upset with me. After he gave that speech, it really seemed like I just planned this whole party and didn't even tell his family. And that was not what happened at all. Within an hour of this ring being put on my daughter's finger was the first big sign of now I know what we're dealing with.

I do think things changed after we were engaged as well. It was always a threat to leave, but then we'd sit and talk about it. That's where I was like, this is so exhausting. I don't know how we can continue getting into arguments over and over and over and act like it's completely normal. No couple should argue this much.

I would say to him, I just want to explain my feelings to you. I'm not trying to start an argument because he would say, oh, you're trying to start an argument. I have no time to argue. I'm not going to put my energy into that. I say, babe, I'm not trying to argue with you. I'm simply trying to talk to you about how I feel like X bothered me, Y bothered me, and I'm hoping we can talk about it and find a solution. So...

don't have to talk about it again. I just want the reassurance that you love me and you're there for me. You want to fix things and let's move on. But it wasn't that. It was always you're trying to start an argument, which was never the case. It got to the point where I felt like I could not talk about situations that bothered me to him. My friend at the time was in the car and she heard this happen. She later on told me, "Hey, Gianna, when I

When I heard him say that and I heard how he was talking to you and manipulating you, I would have been done. That was it. That would have been it for me. He was pushing your buttons. He made you feel terrible and he degraded you and you sat there and just took it. Audrey even witnessed some of it. She walked in the house when we had another big argument and it was so embarrassing because I was trying so hard to make it seem like everything was okay. We're

we're going to be that couple that goes to church and we're going to hang out and post this on social media and do this and that. If he gets angry or if I get angry, it won't last long and we'll just move on. The more that we got comfortable with each other and the more I saw him emotionally vulnerable, that's when it really hurt me and it got worse and worse because I loved this boy so much. I couldn't even think about ending the relationship.

I don't know why. And I feel like a lot of girls could also say the same thing. You have no idea why you're still in the relationship, but you were until you have that breaking point. I deserve better. I shouldn't have been talked to any sort of way that is disrespectful to the way that this person has talked to me. And I just need to move on. It did hurt when my friends

did say, hey, he did treat you like crap. We could see it, even if we weren't physically there, we could see it from by the person you had become. We could tell you were hurting. We could tell you were separating yourself from everyone. We could tell you're trying to not rock the boat and

We were walking on eggshells constantly. It was good reassurance of, I am not crazy. I know what happened to happen. My feelings are valid, and I know how I should be treated.

One time, it was something little that bothered me, but still, it's a big deal. It's immature, and you just shouldn't do it. He was in my room, and I needed to go to work, and I think I didn't kiss him goodbye. He was like, are you going to kiss me? And I was like, oh, yes, I'm sorry I'm running late. Sorry, I forgot. And so I run in there, try to give him a kiss, and he wouldn't. And so I left.

And he was mad. I could tell he was mad. He was short texting me. He wasn't wanting to talk much. He was saying, "I'm busy. I can't hang out this weekend." He was being very weird because I didn't give him a kiss because I was running late for work.

I text Eden during work about this and I deleted the messages off my phone because if he saw them, he would have freaked out because when he knew I talked to my mom about that first argument in December, he did not like that. He didn't want me to talk to my friends or family about anything. So I knew then I'm going to delete this now because he's going to freak out if he sees this. A month goes by and...

We're on my laptop and he opens up my messages and he's scrolling through and he finds that situation that I mentioned to Eden about of me asking, hey, am I in the wrong? Is there a better way of going about this? I'm so confused on why he is so upset. He was like, well, this wasn't on your phone. And I said, how would you know that this conversation wasn't on my phone? He's like, because I looked through it.

I said, okay, well, I deleted the messages because I knew you would get upset like this. You are truly upset. And if this happened and roles were reversed, I would be mortified that my significant other had to hide their feelings. It was not me talking bad about him. It was me simply getting validation from Eden because he could not. He didn't have the power to do that.

He was very upset. Audrey walks in on him yelling and raising his voice. I remember before getting home, Gianna had texted me saying like, Brent is so mad at me. I don't know what to do. He is getting really upset with me. I said, well, what's the problem?

Our friend Eden, she's such a great girl. Where she was at in her life, I guess Brent didn't really like that about her because he had saw the text and so he started getting super angry with her and honestly would call her some names and basically was controlling. I remember walking in multiple times and he would either be ignoring Gianna or lashing out at Gianna or saying how immature she is for even having a friend like Eden. When

He really never even took the time out of his day to even meet Eden, to even get to know her and about her life. I thought that was really unfair. And that's when I was like, that's a huge red flag. It was quite much like, you don't want to see me upset. You don't want to see me when I'm very mad. I'm going to hurt you if I get more upset. So you need to stop now. He would say that to me.

Obviously, I'm scared and I've told him before. I'm scared of you when you were mad. And he'd be, why are you scared of me? There's nothing to be scared about. I'm like, well, you have said you don't want me to see you upset. You have threatened to hurt me. I do not want to see you upset. And I knew if you saw those texts with Eden, you would have flipped.

That's why I never brought it up to you and I was trying to hide that from you. And I don't want to do that. I want to be open about our relationship, but it seems like you cannot handle that.

an adult-to-adult conversation, basically. Audrey, I know she heard everything. She was like, "Gianna, that's not okay. I can understand if he was a little upset that you deleted the messages, but he should be concerned that he wasn't there for you and you had to go to someone else about your feelings over your guys' relationship." I was like, "Yeah, you're right."

I'm going to try and drop it and forget about it. I'm so sorry that you walked in on us arguing. I'll make sure that we're better about that and respect your space more. That was it. We didn't talk about that anymore. I never talked to my parents about any of this, let alone to Eden or Audrey. So when, quote,

quote-unquote wedding planning. Britt and I agreed. I have family in Kentucky. We kind of had family everywhere, but most of them were in California. So I said, let's do something in California and let's do something in Kentucky, try to make it work out. And we basically had a family meeting with both families. We agreed that his family was going to take care of California wedding. My family was going to take care of Kentucky wedding. We were going to get

sealed and married in the LDS temple in Oakland. And we were going to have a civil wedding in Kentucky where there weren't as many LDS members. When a man and a woman get married and sealed in the temple, that means that

They are together forever. They are going to spend eternity together, and their families are going to live together forever, their eternity, even after death. That is very much preached and enforced in the church. I don't see it as a negative thing. I think it's great that our church wants families to be united.

I would say that is the strong backbone in our church, our families. We go by multiply and replenish the earth. Once you start dating seriously, the goal is for you to get married in the temple and to get sealed, have forever families in the gospel and through eternity after life and after death.

That was our goal, was to get married and sealed in the temple and then have kind of like a reenactment ring ceremony in Kentucky. I could tell he wasn't very much for the civil aspect of reenacting it in Kentucky. He very much showed it. He never said it, but I could tell. I'm a huge planner and we wanted to have

to have something very nice. The original conversation between Brent and Gianna and our family was they were going to be married, and then we would have the reception in Kentucky. That's really all we knew, and that's what we were planning for. We were starting to buy things. My basement turned into a party planning station storage house, which was all fine. We were very excited about all of it.

They started going back and forth. I would talk to Gianna and she would say, oh, well, now we're thinking maybe we'll have a reception here too. And then we maybe want to have a reception later in the year back home.

Things started really kind of getting all over the place. And I said, you know, I think the best thing for us to do is let's get on a Zoom with both families and have everyone there and have everyone present and run through it all together, which was kind of tricky because his parents don't speak a lot of English. At this point, I'd had zero dialogue with either one of his parents. I had spoken with his sister. We had spoken, but I'd only had one or two conversations with her.

We get on this Zoom and immediately I can tell they've been told nothing. They are completely oblivious. They have no idea. They think that Brent and Gianna are going to be married. They're going to have a big party and that's it. The sister is talking to me about how we're going to pay for the wedding. And culturally, there are some differences in how all of that is done. I was trying to explain to them in our culture, the bride's family plans the wedding. And generally, you have the wedding where the bride's family and friends live.

Unless you do a destination wedding, which is not what they were doing, we generally have either the wedding or the reception somewhere near the bride's family and friends. They did not understand that at all. They start saying things like, we're going to have 200 people there. And I'm saying, well, we're going to have 15 people there because everyone's going to be in Kentucky for the reception. And they said, no.

what reception in Kentucky? It was crystal clear. He's telling them nothing, right? He's just playing all this by ear and letting it all play out. I said, what's your budget? We can do it for $5,000 and we want you to pay for half of it. And I said, I'm more than happy to pay for half of it if you all pay for half of the reception in Kentucky, which I can tell you will not be $5,000. So immediately there was friction on that front. We wanted to be very respectful of his culture. We

We're going to do whatever we can. We want to make sure that we respect it all and embrace it. We knew one day we were going to have grandkids, right? So we want to make sure that we understand as much as we can and that we embrace and love and appreciate as much of that as we could. So we misunderstood a lot of that as cultural differences. And it really wasn't. It was just personality differences, different dynamics, different experiences, different points of view and different expectations.

We did not ever plan anything with the wedding whatsoever, which I thought was odd. I remember his little sister sending me venues, but it was never, okay, we have this, this, and this ready. Which one do you like more? Gianna, do you want this color? Do you want this? Do you want these song choices? It was never any of that, which

which I thought was super odd. I never expected my wedding planning to go like this. So I'm mortified and I'm thinking, what is going on? Even in the meeting with his family, my family, his older sister was saying, you know, it's fine. We can do this on a budget. Memorial Day will be coming up around that time. So all the flowers will be on sale. I'm thinking in my head, I

I do not want Memorial Day flowers for my wedding. I was mortified. And in my head, I'm thinking, shut up. Don't be a snob. Just go with it. When they first got engaged, we immediately start tossing around dates. And as a family, we've always done this because we are very busy. I travel a lot with my job. My son travels a lot with his sport. There are certain windows of time that are off the table for us. We

We sat down and we said, okay, are you all thinking about doing this this year or next year? And they said this year. Okay, well, we can throw this together, right? Like we can do this. We can make it happen. It cannot happen between July and September. Those three months out of the year had to be off the table. You can pick any of the other nine months, but these three months cannot happen. July, August, or September. But anything before or after that, we will make it work. And Brent decided that he wanted...

July 22nd, that was the date that he would say he prayed about it. I feel like this is the day we're supposed to be married. He threw all of this religious banter behind it of, oh, we need to support it because it was basically divine intervention for him that that's when they were to be married. Gianna in front of us would act like she supported that and believed in that and wanted to go along with him. For us, it did not make sense. We've always been this tight-knit family. We

What are you talking about? How could this happen? My son could not even get over it. What do you mean you would get married without me there? It's not like he was overseas serving in the military or in a submarine and unavailable just for these 90 days. And he just wasn't having it. It's like, absolutely not. We're doing it in July. They got into it in April. Gianna had gone to him and said...

I really want my brother at our wedding. And he said, take me home. I'm getting my stuff. We're done. If you're going to pick your brother over me, then we don't need to be together. In June, my son's girlfriend sent me a text and said, is this for real? And I opened it up and Gianna and Brent had posted on Facebook their wedding date. Save the date.

we're getting married August, blah, blah, blah, you know. I texted her and said, I'm happy that you have chosen a date, but I'm extremely disappointed that this is the way that we had to find out. I could not believe that this was our life. I could not believe that this was happening. And I just knew that was not what she wanted. I could not imagine a world where

where my daughter would want to be married without her family or without her friends to accommodate someone who didn't care if she had her loved ones there or not. It was literally like we were living in a different dimension, that this was not who my daughter was. In that moment, everything changed as far as our relationship.

I have accomplished a lot of things professionally in my life and none of them really matter. The only thing that has ever really mattered is being a mom and raising good human beings, good people to put out there in the world. One Facebook post for it to all be like washed away.

We didn't matter. Her father and I found out when she was getting married with everyone else on Facebook. And it was just the ultimate, the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back, right? That was it. That's next time on Something Was Wrong. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time, stay safe, friends.

Something Was Wrong is a Broken Cycle Media production created and hosted by me, Tiffany Reese. If you'd like to support the show further, you can share episodes with your loved ones, leave a positive review, or follow Something Was Wrong on Instagram at SomethingWasWrongPodcast. Our theme song was composed by Glad Rags. Check out their album, Wonder Under. Thank you so much. I take my time every day

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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+.