Devon | Betrayal Weekly

0:00Speaker 1:Hi, everyone, we have some exciting news to share. ABC News Studios has turned Caroline Brega's story from Betrayal season four into a docuseriies. You'll get to meet the people involved, You'll hear from people who have never spoken before, and you get to see where this story took place. We are so proud and excited to share it with you all. Stream Betrayal Dirty Secrets now on Hulu or Hulu for Disney Plus.

0:25Speaker 2:Looking back on my journaling of the whole relationship, it's almost like watching a bad horror film where the protagonist is like walking through the house being like hello, Hello, is anyone here, and you're like screaming at the screen. They're right behind you.

0:54Speaker 1:I'm Andrea Gunning and this is Betrayal, a show about the people we trust the most, receptions that change everything really quick. Before we get into the episode, I have a small favor to ask you. If you're enjoying listening to the trial, please take a second to hit the follow button on your podcast app and please rate and review. We read all the comments and your voices help our show improve and evolve. I really mean it when I say thank you for listening and helping us grow. Also, if you went behind the scenes content or resources, follow at Betrayal pod on Instagram or follow me at its Andre gutting All right, onto the show. Devin grew up in the Pacific Northwest. Her family's house was surrounded by five acres of land, which made for a perfect playground for Devin and her older sister.

1:50Speaker 2:We would just disappear into the wilds of our backyard for hours playing and come in when we heard a bell to have a snack.

2:01Speaker 1:Her family had a farm complete with horses, chickens, and lamas.

2:08Speaker 2:You could sell individual lamas for tens of thousands of dollars, and so my mom started a lama business for income. They would put me in a lama auction with the lama to show how gentle it was, and I would be leading this large animal around as a very small child and just smiling. And I still remember the auctioneer being like, I'm not I'll look at the big smile on that child, you know.

2:30Speaker 1:Devin and her sister were homeschooled all through elementary and middle school. When she started ninth grade, her parents enrolled her in their town's public high school.

2:41Speaker 2:I remember walking in and just beaming in every single person I saw. I think people thought something was wrong with me, but I was just so happy to be around so many people, and I thrived In high school.

2:53Speaker 1:She always participated in class discussions, but there was one day in history class that felt different.

3:02Speaker 2:We were having a debate about the Supreme Court case between the Boy Scouts of America and Dale.

3:10Speaker 1:Boy Scouts of America versus Dale was a Supreme Court case in two thousand. The Boy Scouts revoked James Dale's membership when they found out he was gay.

3:20Speaker 2:This was like big news at the time, and our history teacher had us set up a debate to argue for having gay people in Boy Scouts and against having gay people in Boy Scouts. And I was the only one in a class of thirty kids that was arguing for gay people to be allowed to be in the Boy Scouts.

3:38Speaker 1:It wasn't an environment where Devin could comfortably explore who she was. The message from her high school was clear, fit in or be left behind.

3:49Speaker 2:There were two gay people that I knew in high school and both left because it was such a homophobic environment. And so I was staying safe by winning people over and not truly being my full self.

4:03Speaker 1:After high school, Devin started college in a city a few hours away. For the first time, she was surrounded by people that cared about the same things she did.

4:14Speaker 2:I got deeply involved in women and gender studies, and I ran the women's resource center with my best friend at the time.

4:22Speaker 1:Devin finally felt comfortable enough to explore who she was and what she wanted. She realized that she was queer.

4:29Speaker 2:I started exclusively dating women when I was a sophomore. It wasn't a big deal. My family was pretty accepting of it, which was pretty great.

4:39Speaker 1:A few years after college, Devin moved to the Bay Area. She got a job working in mental health services, but outside of work, she didn't know anyone. She spent her weekends by herself. It was a lonely start.

4:55Speaker 2:I was just alone in this new city with no friends, and I just remember scrapbook and day drinking until I got too lonely and needed to see other people, and so I would go through store shopping or grocery shopping.

5:08Speaker 1:Eventually, she decided she needed to venture outside her comfort zone. She was ready to put herself out there. She downloaded the dating app okay Cupid, and soon she had plans to meet up with the girl she met on the app named Kai.

5:27Speaker 2:I remember walking up and seeing her, and I already thought she was cute and met her by her motorcycle, and I thought that was sexy that she drove motorcycle. And she had this kind of strong physique which I found very attractive. Had short hair, a lot of piercings, some tattoos, and there was a mysterious vibe to her.

5:52Speaker 1:Devin and Kai went on a long walk, talking the whole time. They weren't ready for the day to end.

6:02Speaker 2:We ended up going into a bar and sitting side by side and talking. The first date was six hours.

6:13Speaker 1:Devin's the kind of person who has always kept a journal, and she has kept them to this day. She'll be reading excerpts from them throughout this episode. Here's what she wrote after her first date with Kai.

6:28Speaker 2:She seems smart, very accomplished, intimidatingly so, super easy to be around, very dynamic, a good listener, sexy, thoughtful, and I found myself constantly laughing. She easily has the tools to steal many a girl's heart.

6:45Speaker 1:After their date, Kai sent Devin a text.

6:49Speaker 2:Saying that she loved my energy and sharing space with me very West Coast thing to say to somebody.

6:58Speaker 1:Devin couldn't stop thinking of about Kai.

7:01Speaker 2:I was trying to get myself to focus on other things, but I was so quickly infatuated.

7:07Speaker 1:They went on two more dates that month.

7:10Speaker 2:I thought that pace was really healthy. I thought that was a sign that we weren't moving quickly, and this was developing in a really methodical, high trust way.

7:20Speaker 1:Spending time with Kai was always an adventure.

7:24Speaker 2:We started kind of trapesing around the city that was beautiful, riding her motorcycle everywhere, which was very special and fun.

7:33Speaker 1:Soon Kai invited Devin over to her place.

7:38Speaker 2:The apartment was up on this big hill that had a gorgeous view, and we had a really good time. And she had a roommate named Melissa, and she said that Melissa was also her best friend.

7:49Speaker 1:Kai had a lot of different hobbies.

7:51Speaker 2:She was in school for engineering, and I thought that that was really neat. She worked at a windsurfing shop, so she actually taught kaiing and windsurfing.

8:02Speaker 1:The more she saw of Kai's life, the more she admired her.

8:07Speaker 2:I loved how she spoke about her friends. She was very fun loving. She just seemed like she was really engaged and involved in building a life that she loved, and I admired that and I wanted to do that too.

8:22Speaker 1:Kai invited Devin into the life she built.

8:26Speaker 2:Because I had moved there and didn't have any friends, She was also access to a community. All of her friends were wonderful, and I also saw that as a really positive sign. They were just these awesome, honest, intelligent, dedicated people who were all passionate about different things, and I loved her friends.

8:48Speaker 1:The only person Kai seemed to have a tense relationship with was her roommate, Melissa. Kai told Devin.

8:56Speaker 2:They used to be really close, but that Melissa had let her down in some really significant ways. So even though I never met Melissa, I was at their apartment a lot.

9:06Speaker 1:They were all in their mid twenties. Almost everyone they knew lived with roommates and had experience with some kind of roommate drama, so Devin understood and sympathized with Kai. A few months after their first date, Devin and Kai decided they wanted to see each other exclusively. That night, Devin wrote in her journal.

9:30Speaker 2:The terms outlined are that we were only having sex with each other, and if anything happens with someone else, we let the other know. So we hadn't decided that we were girlfriends yet, but we had decided that we were exclusively having sex with one another.

9:46Speaker 1:Devin noticed that Kai kept talking about different girls she dated in the past. It made Devin feel a little jealous, so she brought it up to Kai.

9:56Speaker 2:And Kai said, the reason I bring up exce's is to examine what I learned from those relationships. And I took that really well, because I'm somebody who always learns and examines my own behavior, and so I actually thought that that was really attractive that she was bringing it up to see what she could learn from it.

10:16Speaker 1:Four months after their first date, they were ready to define their relationship.

10:21Speaker 2:We decided to be officially dating girlfriends. And that felt really good to me. That felt healthy, that felt like we were progressing in a mature way.

10:35Speaker 1:Devin was giddy. She and Kai started spending more and more time together. Kai went out of her way to plan romantic dates for devn.

10:44Speaker 2:It was summer in this gorgeous city, and we went to go see the Indigo girls up on this mountain, and we went wine tasting, and we were motorcycling everywhere we went, sailing.

10:56Speaker 1:Devin was falling in love. She wrote about everything she was feeling for Kai in her journal.

11:02Speaker 2:I wrote, she is smart, funny, playful, kind, affectionate, exceedingly thoughtful, a badass with a wealth of life experiences. We're very compatible. I keep waiting for the moment when I stop enjoying seeing her. I have to watch so that I don't lose myself in her.

11:20Speaker 1:It felt too good to be true.

11:22Speaker 2:I remember saying, how is it that I get to have such a cool life right now?

11:51Speaker 1:Devin and Kai's relationship felt like a dream. They spent their weekends roaming the Bay Area on Kai's motorcycle, going to wine tastings, and hanging out with their friends. Kai opened so many doors to adventure, love and community.

12:07Speaker 2:She was a fun, loving person. She was always looking for a good time, and as somebody who had been very serious, that felt so tempting, That felt so exciting to be involved in. We were just having a grand time, just really enjoying life. I was just falling in love, happy and living it up in the city.

12:31Speaker 1:The only challenge in their relationship was that Kai was often running late, but even with that.

12:37Speaker 2:There were always really good reasons for why she was late. You know, there was traffic on the bridge, or it didn't feel safe to drive my motorcycle because I'd been drinking, or you know, I was caught up in a really serious conversation with her friend and I didn't want to leave in the middle of it.

12:53Speaker 1:Every time Kai explained why she was late, Devin felt reassured. She often felt bad for doubting Kai at all.

13:02Speaker 2:I got in my own head about why was I so quick to assume the worst. You know, I just need to relax, I wrote even in my journal. I don't want to be needy if something's not seriously wrong, but I do want her to communicate what's up.

13:16Speaker 1:They'd been dating for over seven months now. Things were getting more serious, more committed.

13:22Speaker 2:We were planning trips together. She got to meet my family, I started to meet her family.

13:29Speaker 1:Kai was crazy about her.

13:31Speaker 2:She said all these things to me about how I'm like the strongest, most intelligent woman she's ever dated, that I'm sexy, that she thinks about me all the time.

13:41Speaker 1:It was around this time that Kai moved out of the apartment she had been renting with her roommate, Melissa.

13:49Speaker 2:She and Melissa were having hard time, and she said that she really needed to move out and get her own place.

13:54Speaker 1:Kai seemed really distraught about the end of their friendship. She and Melissa had been best friends for years before moving in together. Devin spent long nights processing it with Kai. Whenever Kai came over, Devin noticed that she stopped driving her car. Instead she drove her motorcycle.

14:15Speaker 2:When I asked her about it, she said that her brother really needed a car, so she gave it to him, and I thought that was really generous. Overall, I thought Ki was really generous. She would buy drinks for everybody at the bar or you know, just do these kind of like elaborate generous gestures, which was very attractive to me.

14:36Speaker 1:When they went out with their friends, Kai was the life of the party.

14:40Speaker 2:She was getting the rounds a drinks for people. She was good to make you feel like the only person in the room. People loved the attention they got from her, just like I did.

14:51Speaker 1:Devin wanted Kai to be free to express herself and didn't want her to dial back her personality, but sometimes things felt like they were crossing a line.

15:02Speaker 2:I just remember how flirty and touchy she was with her friends.

15:07Speaker 1:When Devin brought this up, Kit always assured her that she had nothing to be worried about, that the flirting was totally one sided.

15:16Speaker 2:She told Devin, I'm not attracted to so and so. I don't have a crush on them. I'm only interested in you. But they have a crush on me, and I don't want to hurt their feelings, and so I'm just going to flirt with them and it's completely harmless.

15:31Speaker 1:Devin trusted Kai, but seeing people flirt with her it made Devin uncomfortable. When Kay's birthday rolled around, Devin planned a surprise party and invited a bunch of her friends. At the party, Devin noticed that one of Kay's friends was being really flirty.

15:49Speaker 2:Like holding her hand and like touching her, and she was kissing her on the cheek and she's kept saying I love you Kai. She asked Kai to come into the bathroom with her to help her change, and just all stuff that seemed so inappropriate to me, and it really pissed me off.

16:04Speaker 1:This was clearly pushing boundaries.

16:06Speaker 2:And I actually wrote my journal I was so pissed, but it was her birthday and I didn't want to ruin Kai's day. Kai wasn't contributing, and Kai said, she is really touchy feely and it doesn't mean anything, especially because she did it while I was there. I wanted to address it, but Kai asked that I let it go.

16:26Speaker 1:Devin agreed, but she told Kai the way she was acting with her friends was really starting to bother her.

16:34Speaker 2:I did start to have more doubts around this time, but it still was more positive than negative. I still had more hope that things could be fine, and we just needed to communicate better and we could work it out. And these were all misunderstandings.

16:55Speaker 1:Kai and Devin were good at working through conflicts together. They were both emotional, intelligent people.

17:01Speaker 2:So I felt good enough about our relationship that a few months later I invited her to move in with me.

17:08Speaker 1:At this point, they were almost a year into their relationship. Kai moved in with Devin and brought her dog with her. They were excited to take this step, but they wanted to make sure they didn't merge every aspect of their lives too quickly.

17:23Speaker 2:When she moved in, there were actually three bedrooms and we each took a bedroom. She had a bedroom, I had a bedroom, and then we often slept in my bedroom, and I wrote in my journal something about like it's important that we maintain our separating identities, and that we spent some nights.

17:40Speaker 1:Apart, eating dinner and talking about their days. She could imagine a future with Kai. They made the place their own and hung a picture of themselves in the front hallway.

17:51Speaker 2:There was a big canvas picture of us kissing that was displayed in our house.

17:57Speaker 1:A few months into living together, Devine on a weekend trip by herself. When she got back on Sunday night, Devin immediately noticed something was different.

18:08Speaker 2:The kissing picture was put in my bedroom, and when I asked her about it, she said it had been getting too much sun.

18:15Speaker 1:This seemed like weird reasoning to Devin, so the next day she brought it up to Kai again.

18:22Speaker 2:She actually changed her story, and she had said she noticed that I put it down, so that she assumed I didn't want it displayed publicly and that it made her sad.

18:33Speaker 1:Devin was confused. She knew she hadn't moved the picture, but.

18:38Speaker 2:She was so adamant about it. Part of me started to think, well, maybe maybe I did. Maybe I did take the picture and move it over here, and now she thinks that I am not proud of our relationship, and she felt sad, and so she put it in my room.

18:50Speaker 1:Either way, Kai assured Devin that she was just overthinking it. She had nothing to worry about.

18:57Speaker 2:She said, just know that I love you very much and I respect value you. I wouldn't do anything to jeopardize our relationship.

19:06Speaker 1:Kai was in school full time and was juggling multiple jobs.

19:10Speaker 2:She spent a fair bit a time away from the house, and I remember thinking at the time that I felt like a nineteen fifties housewife because I was taking care of her dog, and then we'd gotten a puppy, so I was taking care of both of them and doing my jobs, and she was just gone for twelve hours a day. Often most of the cleaning was on me, and the care of the house and the dogs was on me.

19:33Speaker 1:Devin worked full time too. It was a lot to keep up with, but she was happy to support Kai in getting her degree and building a life she loved. Summer rolled around and it was Pride month. Devin and Kai made plans to attend the Pride Parade.

19:52Speaker 2:We went to Pride with this new friend that she had met, that she'd been spending a lot of time with named s.

20:01Speaker 1:Before they went, Kai warned her that Sam was pretty flirty.

20:06Speaker 2:She very clearly introduced Sam to me as a friend who was very touchy feely, and that I shouldn't make any meaning out of that.

20:16Speaker 1:That day, Devin and Sam immediately clicked.

20:20Speaker 2:I really liked Sam, super charismatic, kind of like Kai, very gregarious, very friendly, you know, good energy. Just wanted to be around her.

20:29Speaker 1:As the day went on, Devin noticed that Sam and Kai seemed really close, especially considering Sam was a new friend.

20:38Speaker 2:We're all drinking, We're all pretty tipsy.

20:42Speaker 1:That night, Kai and Sam were inseparable. Every time Devin looked over, she saw them giggling or holding hands. Sometimes Kai was affectionate with her friends in a platonic way, especially when she was drinking, but this felt different.

21:01Speaker 2:That was one of the first times that I saw their dynamic together and started to feel like something was really off.

21:11Speaker 1:It made Devon uncomfortable. After Pride, she brought it up to Kai. She tried to set boundaries, but Kai told her it was not a big deal.

21:21Speaker 2:She said, Hey, that didn't mean anything. Sam is super touchy feely. That's just how she is. She's just that kind of person.

21:30Speaker 1:Devin wanted to believe her, but it was getting harder to put her worries aside.

21:35Speaker 2:I was suspicious, I was concerned. I was increasingly mistrustful.

21:42Speaker 1:After that conversation, Kai was unusually affectionate and supportive. She kept telling Devin how special she was.

21:50Speaker 2:All these sweet things like you're amazing, nobody's got shit on you. You're the absolute best I've had by far. I love you more than anything.

21:59Speaker 1:But her insurance only did so much.

22:02Speaker 2:And I started to feel more and more insecure in the relationship. Devin wrote in her journal. God knows that I love her, but I can't keep taking this.

22:12Speaker 1:The fact that the three of them were always hanging out together felt like a good sign. It's not like Kai was trying to hide anything from her. I felt like more of a boundaries issue than anything.

22:24Speaker 2:There was one weekend when we had a whole bunch of friends visiting. So I had friends from across the country staying at our house and Kai had invited her friends, including Sam, and we all went to this queer club to go dancing, and we all got pretty tipsy, and I remember Kai bringing up the idea of a threesome.

22:46Speaker 1:A threesome Devin nearly choked on her drink.

22:51Speaker 2:And to be clear, the threesome that Kai wanted to have was with Sam. It was kind of poised as, hey, I want to be with somebody who's sextually opening this way and wants to have a threesome. I said that I wasn't interested. I didn't really want to do that.

23:08Speaker 1:But then Ki pushed back. She said she wanted them to have a new sexual experience together as a couple. That was really important to her. And all of a sudden, this wasn't about the threesome. It was about being the person Kai wanted her to be.

23:25Speaker 2:And I remember her almost yelling at me, I want to be with somebody who wants to do that. I felt super upset. I just burst out into tears and I ran into the bathroom.

23:38Speaker 1:This had never come up before, and Devin didn't have any time to think it through because Kai didn't want to wait. She wanted to do it that same night. After that conversation, Kai floated away. They all kept drinking. Soon everyone moved to the dance floor.

23:58Speaker 2:And the next thing I remember, Sam was dancing with me in a very sexual way that wasn't fully consensual on my part, and I felt so awkward in that moment, and I also didn't really know how to say no.

24:15Speaker 1:Finally, they all left the bar and headed back to Devin and Kai's house. A bunch of their friends were crashing at their place.

24:23Speaker 2:We get home and next thing I know, Sam has jumped into my bed where I was with Kai, and then they just start having sex in front of me.

24:33Speaker 1:Devin felt pressured to join them.

24:36Speaker 2:Because Kai just made this huge deal about like, you're not the person for me if you don't want to do this.

24:43Speaker 1:So she reluctantly went along with it.

24:46Speaker 2:I remember watching Sam go down on Kai and I just had this like awareness hit me. This is not the first time they've done this.

25:18Speaker 1:One night, Devin's girlfriend Kai told her she wanted to have a threesome with their friend Sam, and.

25:25Speaker 2:I felt immense pressure to go along with it.

25:29Speaker 1:The next thing she knew, Sam joined her and Kai in bed.

25:34Speaker 2:There was just like this like weird vibe where it felt as if it was almost like competitive, like who is better at sex, but.

25:41Speaker 1:Then seeing Kai and Sam have sex, Devin had a disturbing realization.

25:48Speaker 2:The way that they were acting sexually together. It became so obvious in that moment that that was not the first time that they had had sex.

25:55Speaker 1:Devin felt sick and frozen.

25:58Speaker 2:I can still feel in my body, it felt like rocks in my stomach. And if I could turn back time, I would have stood.

26:05Speaker 1:Up for myself then, but in the moment, she felt trapped.

26:11Speaker 2:At some point it all stopped, and then we all went to bed in the same bed, and I just remember, like hardly sleeping that night. I just remember laying on the pillow, kind of turned away from them, wondering what I'd just done, what I'd just been a part of questioning to myself, was I consenting? Was I not consenting? I was super confused.

26:33Speaker 1:The next day was a blur for Devin.

26:36Speaker 2:I felt completely dissociated.

26:39Speaker 1:Something was deeply wrong.

26:41Speaker 2:I'd seen something, but it felt very intimidating to address what had just happened.

26:50Speaker 1:Her gut told her it wasn't safe to confront Kai directly. She didn't have any proof Kai was cheating on her with Sam, just her intuition even' suggested they try couple's therapy, and she.

27:03Speaker 2:Did show up for a session, and I just remember crying through the whole session, and my therapist afterwards, in a session with just me, she said, I don't know how much empathy she has, And hearing a professional say that was really helpful to me, because then I started to see things a little more clearly. I realized that the relationship was not working for me.

27:24Speaker 1:Devin had a feeling Kai would not react well to a breakup, so she decided to have the conversation in a public place. She invited Kai to meet her at a restaurant to talk. Once they were seated at their table, Devin took a deep breath and told Kai.

27:40Speaker 2:I really love you. I really tried. I think we both really tried. Our relationship's not working. I think we need to break up. And her response was really short. She just said, like okay, and then got on her bike and left.

27:58Speaker 1:It was jarring. Devin left the restaurant feeling uneasy. She went back to their house, but Kai had gotten there first.

28:08Speaker 2:She took a knife and slashed through a kissing picture of us and had faced it out, So it was the first thing that I saw when I came back into the house. She took toilet paper rolls and dropped them in all the toilets, and she wrote on our whiteboard, I'll send my terms.

28:27Speaker 1:Devin didn't know if Kai was coming back. She waited anxiously.

28:31Speaker 2:I was really unsettled that night. I know she had left, I didn't know where she went. I went into my room and I brought a kitchen chair. I wedged the chair up under the door handle, and I also brought the kitchen knife in with me and put it under my pillow. There was a part of me that didn't think she would ever do anything to hurt me, But then there was a part of me that really did not know.

28:52Speaker 1:The next day Kai returned, they thought about who would move out, Devin or Kai. The truth was neither of them could afford to move out right away. Devin couldn't get away from the feeling that Kai had been lying to her, so she started looking for proof. That's when she found a handwritten note in Kai's room. It was from Sam.

29:15Speaker 2:I actually found a love letter from Sam to Kai that said that she wanted to grow old with her and have their dreams come true. And I also found a video of them making out from when I had gone away for a day trip and they were in our house making out.

29:37Speaker 1:Devin stared at the video and the love letter, stunned.

29:42Speaker 2:It was almost like the dissonance that I had been surviving under came crashing together in that moment. I just started shaking. I didn't stop shaking for twelve hours.

29:56Speaker 1:Devin decided to confront Kai, already broken up, but she needed to know the truth about what had been happening between Kai and Sam.

30:06Speaker 2:We sat on the white couch and then I just showed her the video and then she was like, oh, well, like we were just pretending you're you know, we were play acting. And then once she realized I wasn't buying those lies, then she changed it to that was the only time. It was a mistake. That's all we did was kiss and it was just that one time. At that point, it was just offensive. I was like, do you really think I'm not stupid?

30:34Speaker 1:After that, Devin expected Kai to move out of her own volition, but Kai refused to leave. What followed was a month that Devin describes as one of the hardest of her life. Kai was trying everything to get Devin to stay with her. She was emotionally volatile, alternating between extreme affection and manipulation. Devin was scared of her, but she was also stuck living with her. She felt trapped.

31:01Speaker 2:Kai would fluctuate between trying to get me to stay with her and even initiating sex, and in that month I felt emotionally unsafe, physically unsafe, but I also felt sexually unsafe.

31:16Speaker 1:Eventually, Kai decided to move out, but on the day she came to pick up the last of her things, she had a breakdown.

31:24Speaker 2:She proposed to me on a whim and starts like crying, and then very quickly changes her demeanor into this like very angry, cold person. And then I hear this noise and I look out the window and she's smashing her guitar in the driveway. I got scared, and so I locked the door, and she says, hey, I don't have my keys. I need to come in and get my keys. And I paused because I didn't feel safe, and then she's like, no, no, I just need to come in and get my keys, and so I unlocked the door and she pushes it open and then she stands right in front of me, and her eyes changed and they got very cold, and she said, I didn't leave my keys.

32:12Speaker 2:I actually felt chills at that moment. I just I knew she wasn't safe, and I knew if I poked her in any way, I was not going to be safe.

32:22Speaker 1:Devin stayed calm until Kai finally left. When she was alone, she slumped to the ground and began to cry. She'd been with Kai for almost three years, but below the sadness there was anger. Anger at Kai, and anger at Sam, she had considered a friend. She decided to send Sam a message, and.

32:45Speaker 2:I said, I'm so hurt that you did this, that you kind of inserted yourself into my relationship with Kai. I don't know how you could do this to me and pretend to be like a friend to me.

32:57Speaker 1:It was cathartic to get some emotion out when she did. I didn't hear from Sam for a few weeks. Devin assumed that was the end of it. Months went by until one day Devin got a notification.

33:10Speaker 2:I get a message from Sam that says, thank you for reaching out to me. Your message helped me listen to my gut, and if you're willing to I'd like to meet up and talk about a few things, because I thought that I was Kai's only girlfriend.

33:28Speaker 1:Devin reread the words, I thought I was Kai's only girlfriend.

33:33Speaker 2:I was shocked. What Kaya told me was that Sam had inserted herself. She had orchestrated the threesome. It was all her. She's touchy, flirty, you know. Kai wasn't even attracted to her.

33:46Speaker 1:But now it was becoming clear that was very far from the truth. Devin and Sam had a lot to talk about, so Devin invited her over to her place. They split a bottle of wine, and for the first time, Devin heard the story from Sam's perspective.

34:04Speaker 2:The last ten months of my relationship with Kai, when we were still living together and I thought exclusive and monogamous. Sam was also dating Kai and thought that they were exclusive and monogamous. Kai had maintained both of us as her girlfriend, and we both thought we were her only girlfriend for ten months. At that point, the rage just set in. My blood started to boil because I thought that I had understood the depth of the betrayal, but I hadn't.

34:41Speaker 1:It turns out Kai had been pretending that Devin was her ex girlfriend.

34:47Speaker 2:Kai had told Sam that she couldn't afford to move out yet, and that's why we had different rooms, that we weren't girlfriends anymore, and that supposedly the reason that we'd broken up was that I had cheated on her with my best friend. The audacity of that lie incensed me. I was infuriated that she would make me out to be the villain.

35:11Speaker 1:Most people, when they're cheating, go to great lengths to keep their partners away from each other, but Kai did the opposite. She brought Devin and Sam together as often as she could, even instigating the threesome. She seemed to enjoy the power that came with being the only one in the know. The more they talked, the more they discovered just how organized and systematic Kai was in her deception.

35:39Speaker 2:Kai had actually sinked both of our Google calendars up to her calendar, so she knew where both of us were at any given time, so she could figure out when Sam could be over at the house for them to have sex and you not walk in on them.

35:53Speaker 1:It just kept getting worse and worse.

35:57Speaker 2:I'd stopped being hurt. I was just pissed.

36:01Speaker 1:Devin and Sam realized they'd both been lied to. So they decided to work together to expose Kai.

36:09Speaker 2:I think that that helped reclaim a sense of empowerment.

36:14Speaker 1:If Kai was so willing to lie to both of them, what else was she hiding? Devin and Sam went into investigation mode.

36:23Speaker 2:I wanted to get to the truth. So what I did after meeting with Sam was I actually reached out to everybody that knew Kai and asked if they'd be willing to meet with me.

36:32Speaker 1:Many of Kai's friends agreed. Devin met with them one by one. Slowly she began to piece together the full picture of Kai's deception. Kai had been lying to Devin from the very beginning, starting with the story she told her about Melissa.

36:48Speaker 2:They had been living together as girlfriends when Kai had started pursuing me. Kai would tell Melissa that I was a student at her college, and she said we were in the same class together and that she was going to go study with me.

37:02Speaker 1:Devin had comforted Kai through the end of her friendship with Melissa, but now Devin realized that hadn't been a friendship gone wrong. It was a breakup and the.

37:14Speaker 2:Car that she would drive was Melissa's car, So when it disappeared and Kai told me she'd given it to her brother in this generous gift she hadn't given to anybody.

37:25Speaker 1:Kai was following a script, telling each new woman she was pursuing that her long term girlfriend was just a roommate, and she told her long term girlfriend that the women she was pursuing were just friends. When her long term relationship crumbled, she moved in with a new woman and repeated the cycle.

37:46Speaker 2:I really started to see this pattern that she had been using for years, most likely before even Melissa. What I was going on with her was deef seated and cyclical and not going to change.

38:04Speaker 1:As Devin and Sam continued reaching out to Kai's old friends, they found out a lot of them weren't just friends. They'd been hooking up with Kai too.

38:14Speaker 2:She had been having sex with a number of other people while both of us had been dating her.

38:21Speaker 1:Devin was able to confirm evidence of Kai cheating on her with four other women, though she suspects it's upwards of nine.

38:29Speaker 2:Kai actually brought them not only to our house, but into my bed and used our sex toys. It made my skin crawl. It just felt so violating and so unsafe.

38:43Speaker 1:Kai put Devin's sexual health at risk.

38:46Speaker 2:I was really concerned. I remember scheduling a full sexual health checkup once I found out I did have a PAP that tested abnormal after this experience, and fortunately it resolved itself after about a year. It felt like an additional betrayal.

39:08Speaker 1:Devin thought back to the quirks and Kai's behavior that she'd brushed aside, like how Kai was always running late, or why she'd taken down that photo of them kissing while Devin was out of town. Now it made sense Kai had other women coming over to their house when Devin wasn't there.

39:27Speaker 2:She just had all of these like flings while she also had these ongoing relationships, So she was good at this. She'd been doing this for a long time.

39:39Speaker 1:Devin and Sam were so outraged they decided to go straight to the source of all the chaos.

39:45Speaker 2:We actually confronted Kai together. We called her while we were together, and she picks up the phone and she's like, oh hey, Like no emotion, no nothing.

39:58Speaker 1:They told Kai they knew what she'd done to them. They knew about her pattern of pretending her girlfriend was her roommate while she courted someone new, all the people she cheated with, and all the lies she told to cover it all up. They knew everything.

40:16Speaker 2:The reaction that I think we might have been hoping for was some sort of remorse or some sort of accountability, and just nothing. It was almost like this chess game and it was checkmate, and she didn't really care that we figured it out. At that point, we both got really pissed. We were just chess pieces to her. It almost felt like I stepped out of my real life and I was in a movie about a con artist or something.

40:46Speaker 1:Kai was already onto her next girlfriend. She didn't need Devin or Sam. Then it dawned on Devin. For Ki, this wasn't about love. It was about convenience. Kai had a rotating cast of way and helping take care of her needs. It was like musical chairs, and she didn't seem to care where she landed.

41:07Speaker 2:I think her con was actually like getting her dog taken care of, having somebody who's buying groceries, having somebody who is maintaining a stable household that she could come and go from.

41:22Speaker 1:Kai would let her girlfriends cook for her, clean up after her, and drive her around.

41:28Speaker 2:It was about having her other needs met, but it was also about having a very respectable looking life so that she could go out and do the stuff she really wanted to do.

41:40Speaker 1:While Kai's girlfriends kept her life afloat, she secretly destroyed theirs. Devin and Sam wanted to break Kai's pattern. Clearly, Kai herself was not interested in that, but there was one more person that Devin and Sam knew would be interested in the information they'd gathered Kai's knew girlfriend.

42:00Speaker 2:Sam knew who her next person was because she had talked about this new person a lot, and neither of us had her contact information, so we actually reached out on LinkedIn, so it was like a few characters. It was like, you know, she's not who she says she is. She dated multiple people at once, call me if you want any information. Devin hits end crickets for months, and then finally I got a message back from her and she was like, Hey, I really appreciate you reaching out, and it helped me listen to my gut more quickly and end it with Kai. And I don't think I would have seen that so quickly without you.

42:36Speaker 1:It was meaningful to know that they had protected someone from Kai's cycle of deception. It felt like the natural end of Devin's investigation now came the next step her own healing.

42:49Speaker 2:You know, looking back on my journaling of the whole relationship, it's almost like watching a bad horror film where the protagonist is like walking through the house being like hello, Hello, is anyone here? You know, and you're like screaming at the screen. They're right behind you.

43:07Speaker 1:Devin began untangling her life and identity from Kai. She invested her energy back into herself, her friendships, and her work. For years, she told herself that the threesome with Sam and Kai was not a big deal and rationalized her own discomfort away. But as time went on, she started to be honest about the impact it had on her.

43:29Speaker 2:I started to perceive it the way I really experienced it, which was not consensually, which was very high on the coercion scale, a lot of alcohol involved, My people, pleasing was at an all time max. I recognized that it was trauma, and I did do EMDR specifically around that traumatic event. And I remember when she started, they have you do a scale of one to ten in terms of activation, and it was a ten. My body went back to that place of feeling powerless and kind of trapped and by the end of the session we had it down to a three. I'm really grateful that I had the courage to go back into it and try to shift that trauma so it wouldn't live on in me with too much power.

44:21Speaker 1:One day, a couple of years later, Devan was waiting for the subway when she looked up and saw Kai.

44:28Speaker 2:I saw her, and she saw me, and she walked away from me to the next car. And that felt empowering, like this person who I had been scared of, who I gave so much power to and so much control to for such a long time, wasn't going to try to manipulate me anymore. I didn't even want to approach me anymore.

44:51Speaker 1:When Kai left their apartment for the last time, she said something to Devin that echoed in her brain for years.

44:59Speaker 2:She said to me, nobody's ever going to love you like I do. And for a moment I questioned if she was right, like I didn't know what a healthy relationship looked, or felt like maybe that was the best I was going to get. And then I had just had this strong, strong, no take over my body.

45:17Speaker 1:Like always, She used her journal to help her envision the kind of relationship she did want.

45:23Speaker 2:I wrote, I will have a healthy, loving partnership with someone I love and I trust we will communicate and seek to know each other deeply. She's out there. I just have to stay on the path and let the universe know that I'm ready.

45:36Speaker 1:It's been over a decade since Devin's relationship with Kai. Today, Devin has that loving partnership she imagined.

45:45Speaker 2:I found her. I found her, and I have a six month old baby, and if I listened to what Kai said back then, I wouldn't have and I'm very grateful to have the life that I have now.

46:00Speaker 1:We end every weekly episode with the same question, why do you want to share your story?

46:07Speaker 2:It takes a lot for me to get to a place of anger, but I will have my own back when it comes down to it. I think as women, we are socialized to doubt ourselves and to go along to get along. This experience was an invitation to really learn to trust myself. I learned what the feeling of intuition is in my body, and I also learned how bad it feels to shove it down.

46:47Speaker 1:On the next episode of Betrayal Weekly, I.

46:53Speaker 3:Just felt like all the breath had been stolen out of my body? How do we have these completely differ, diferent stories? Do I have my own story wrong?

47:09Speaker 1:If you'd like to share your story on Betrayal, please email Betrayalpod at gmail dot com. That is Betrayal Pod at gmail dot com. Please note that we are not a mental health organization. If you are in crisis or currently experiencing domestic violence, we encourage you to seek local help or dial nine to one one. Please contact organizations that offer immediate support. In our show notes, we've included a list of US based resources. You can follow us on Instagram at betrayal Pod or find me at It's Andrea Gunning. To access our newsletter and additional content, and to connect with the Betrayal community, join our substack at Betrayal dot substack dot com. We're grateful for your support.

47:58Speaker 1:One way to show support is by subscribing to our show on Apple Podcasts and don't forget to rate and review Betrayal. Five star reviews go a long way. Big thank you to all of our listeners. Betrayal is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group, in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fason, hosted and produced by me Andrea Gunning, written and produced by Olivia Hewitt. Our story editor is Monique Lebord, also produced by Ben Fetterman.

48:31Speaker 1:Our associate producer is Leah Jablo. Production management by Kristin Melcurie, Booking support by Curry Richmond. Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Crimecheck. Audio editing by Tanner Robbins with additional editing and mixing by Matt Delbecchio. Betrayal's theme composed by Oliver Baines. Music library provided by my Music And For more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts,