Eileen | Betrayal Weekly

Betrayal Weekly

Eileen's story unfolds over three decades of trust in her husband, Paul, until a single confession reveals a hidden life that threatens not

Key takeaways

• Trust can be built on illusions; long-term relationships may conceal deep-seated deceptions.

Main topics

• Long-term marital betrayal
• Hidden identities and secret lives

Notable quotes

"When this did start unraveling, he actually used the words, I've been unmasked."

Conclusion

Eileen's journey reveals how a lifetime of trust can be shattered by one moment of

Transcript preview

Speaker 4 (0:00) This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human. Speaker 1 (0:04) I'm Mungish Atikudur, and I'm back with a new season of my podcast, Skyline Drive. This time I talk to scientists, biopunks, curmudgeons, blues owners, super seniors, and Goa's top cryotherapy lab to try to understand this obsession with living forever and what it means for all of us. And I get into a bit of trouble along the way. I'd say probably start bone smashing. That doesn't work. Make it look more defined. They say it works. I don't know. Listen to Skyline Drive How to Live Forever on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 2 (0:36) On the new podcast, Solita, we share the messy reality of traveling alone as a woman. I can wait four hours for the next bus or this random dude is offering me a ride on his motorcycle. I chose option B. I'm Julie Pinheiro and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first. I'm on a mission to reclaim the word Solita, trading the pity for possibility. Listen to Solita on the iHeartRadio app. Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 8 (1:15) Hey, this is Hayes Davenport. And Sean Clements. We host the podcast Hollywood Handbook. Each week, we talk to someone in show business and try to help them with their careers and see what they have to offer us. Everyone has a good time and no one gets mad at their publicist for letting them do our show. We've had a lot of great guests like Sarah Sherman, Adam Scott, Danny McBride, Ben Stiller, and a lot of other big shots that wouldn't be where they are without us. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 7 (1:42) I survived nine months in captivity, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are The Survivor Files. Every week, I'm with survivors who lived through the unthinkable, abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 6 (2:15) When this did start unraveling, he actually used the words, I've been unmasked. He loved that people thought of him as this boring economist. And at night, on weekends, he was living this wild life that nobody knew about. I thought, you put my life in danger and never gave me the option to opt out. Speaker 4 (2:54) I'm Andrea Gunning, and this is Betrayal, a show about the people we trust the most and the deceptions that change everything. Sometimes on our show, we tell stories of a life destroyed in an instant. The betrayal is like a rock thrown into a window. With one strike of the glass, everything shatters. But then there are other stories where the window doesn't break on that first throw. There are many secrets, many discoveries, sometimes uncovered weeks or even years apart. Each discovery sends a crack through the glass until finally it all falls apart. That was the case for Eileen. Speaker 4 (3:41) Eileen grew up in the 60s and 70s, just outside of Boston. She was part of a big Irish Catholic family, the fourth of seven children. Speaker 6 (3:52) It was a happy house full of very strong opinions. And our family was always trying to one-up each Speaker 3 (3:59) other with storytelling and jokes. In a house of Speaker 4 (4:04) nine, she learned to speak up. Speaker 6 (4:07) I can be a little bit feisty. Speaker 4 (4:12) It's no wonder she gravitated towards politics. Speaker 3 (4:15) In high Speaker 6 (4:16) school, I was kind of driven Speaker 3 (4:17) to Speaker 6 (4:17) do things that I thought would be important for the country. I had been a page in Congress in Washington, D.C. in my high school years and had interned down there. And I had a very defined vision of going into politics. So Speaker 3 (4:33) right after she graduated college, she moved to D.C. I was working in Washington for a political consulting firm. Speaker 4 (4:42) After a few months on the job, she began to doubt whether politics was really for her. This had been the career she'd always imagined. But she hadn't ever really considered other options. I Speaker 6 (4:56) probably was in a bit of a crisis in my life at that moment, questioning, oh, am I really doing the right thing? I was kind of bobbing around in the water, looking for my purpose and really missing Boston. Speaker 4 (5:13) That summer of 1986, she had to travel back home for a wedding. One of her cousins also happened to be in town. A Speaker 3 (5:22) distant cousin Speaker 6 (5:23) of Speaker 3 (5:24) mine was over from Ireland, and he was living in a household Speaker 6 (5:29) full of Irish people who were working there. Speaker 4 (5:33) Eileen decided to spend a night out in Boston with her cousin and his friends. We were all going out tonight, and let's all go to this party. They went out to an Irish pub, and that's where she met a man we're going to call Paul. He was friends with her cousin. Speaker 6 (5:49) He was a little shy, and that's sort of why I began talking Speaker 3 (5:52) to him. I wanted to draw him out. Very quickly, she could tell he was smart. He was the oldest of five children, the only one to go to Speaker 6 (6:02) college. And going to university in Ireland in those days wasn't common. I think only about 10 % of the population went to college at that point. Speaker 4 (6:12) He told Eileen he was only in Boston for summer break. He was in the middle of a five-year degree back in Ireland, and he was serious about his studies. And I kind of Speaker 6 (6:25) perked up because I thought, oh, okay, Speaker 3 (6:27) here's another ambitious, driven person. And that was really what piqued my interest. But Paul was more than just a brain. He showed me kind of a little hidden side of him. Speaker 6 (6:40) He was sitting across from me and I was sipping a drink through a straw. And he said, oh, to be a straw. I was flabbergasted Speaker 3 (6:49) because I thought. was totally not expecting that from you. Speaker 4 (6:55) She liked his sense of humor. Even more so, she liked how Paul put her at ease. With him, she just felt calm. This was a transition point in her life. She was looking to ground herself. Speaker 6 (7:10) And I liked the idea of a comfortable, Speaker 3 (7:12) stable person by my side to help me do that. He was safe and soothing. Speaker 4 (7:20) Soon after that night at the pub, Eileen left D.C. for good. She moved back to Boston and found a job working at an art gallery. That's when she and Paul went on their first real date. It Speaker 6 (7:33) was about a 12-hour date. We started in the morning and we were walking around Boston, went to a movie, Blue Velvet, I believe. We went out to dinner on Newbury Street. We just had this marathon date. And then he put me in a taxi to go home. And I remember glancing over my shoulder and he had been kind of like waving goodbye and sort of blowing kisses to me. And that was my last image of our first date. And I thought, wow, this guy. Speaker 4 (8:02) Around that time, Paul decided that he wasn't ready to leave Boston just yet. He took a year off from school and got a construction job to make some money. So through that fall, Paul and Eileen started officially dating. They got into a rhythm. Speaker 6 (8:17) He would meet me in Cambridge and we'd go and have pizza and we'd walk around, go to museums, go on walks, things like that. It was a very peaceful. time in my life and very routine. And I think I needed that at that moment. To Eileen, Speaker 3 (8:37) Paul Speaker 4 (8:37) was an anchor. Being with him just felt right. Speaker 3 (8:42) And then... We had been dating about 10 months, 11 months Speaker 6 (8:47) when I became pregnant. Speaker 4 (8:50) Eileen was only 23. Paul was 22. I Speaker 6 (8:54) had mentioned that I'm from a Catholic family, and so is he, rural Ireland. And so we had decided we're having this baby, and we'll get married at some point. Speaker 4 (9:06) At some point, didn't exactly go over well with their Catholic parents. So when Eileen was seven months pregnant, they had a wedding. Speaker 6 (9:15) We got married in December, two days after Christmas. Our son was Speaker 3 (9:20) born actually on Valentine's Day in 1988. While Paul went back to school to finish Speaker 4 (9:25) his degree, Eileen stayed home with the baby. She loved those early years of motherhood. I think I took like a Speaker 3 (9:32) duck to water. Being with my son and doing this with my husband, we were a team. Speaker 4 (9:39) In many ways, their relationship was happening backwards. They got pregnant. got married, and only then did they have the opportunity to really get to know each other. Speaker 3 (9:50) And I think as I got to know him more, our relationship deepened. Speaker 4 (9:55) Even though Paul was busy with school, he made time for her and their son. She admired how thoughtful he was when it came to their little family. He Speaker 6 (10:05) grew up in a very unhappy household. And so I think he was learning how to be. a husband and a father, not in the mold of his parents. He was still trying to please his family, but I thought he was doing his best by us too. You know, he was going to school, working hard, coming home, helping with the baby. Our life was continuing as I thought it would with family as center. Speaker 4 (10:37) Paul graduated a couple years after the baby came, and new opportunities quickly opened up for him. He got a PhD in a specialty of economics. Speaker 3 (10:47) And during those four years, we had two more children. I had just had Speaker 6 (10:52) my Speaker 3 (10:52) third when he got an offer to become a professor, and I could not have been prouder of him. I thought, this is great. Speaker 4 (10:59) They moved to a university town in the Midwest with their three kids in tow. And then... Within two years of being Speaker 3 (11:07) there, we had a fourth child, and that completed our family. Speaker 4 (11:12) Their life was starting to look a lot like hers growing up. They had a full house. And as the kids got older, their home became a hub of activity. There was always a sports practice to drive someone to, a science project to get done, a school play to see. Paul and Eileen held it down together. Speaker 6 (11:33) We were literally dividing and conquering for attending events. And he was a very present father at their sports events, taking them to soccer tournaments, taking them to track meets. Speaker 4 (11:45) Still, they managed to find calm amidst the chaos. Speaker 6 (11:49) We would have dinner. every night as a family, whether it was at 8 o'clock after sports ended or whether it was at 6 o'clock when everybody was home for that night. Speaker 4 (11:58) But they would also Speaker 3 (11:59) carve Speaker 4 (12:00) out time for just the two of them. Speaker 3 (12:03) You know, going for hikes on the prairie, and he would Speaker 6 (12:07) plan little getaways. Speaker 4 (12:09) Paul also made a point to show Eileen how much he loved her with small, everyday gestures. Speaker 6 (12:17) Bringing me coffee in bed or, you know, on Sundays he'd bring me the New York Times. I mean, when you see what we looked like as a family, we'd be the last people you would imagine this would be what happened to them. Speaker 4 (12:34) The years passed without incident, with Paul teaching at the local university. The kids all grew up and went off to college. After many years as a stay-at-home mom, Eileen got a master's and went back to work in the school system. But after 22 years in their small Midwestern town, things got a little boring. Paul and Eileen were ready for a change. So Speaker 6 (12:58) he decided to apply for a department head. at another land-grant university, and he ended up getting that job. Speaker 4 (13:08) They'd be moving eight hours away to a bigger city in the Midwest. At this point, Paul and Eileen were in their 50s. They were now empty nesters, looking forward to retirement. This would be the final chapter of Paul's career, and he was finishing out in a prestigious position as the head of his academic department. I was extremely excited, not Speaker 6 (13:32) just for him career-wise, but for us as a couple, because we never had that time at the beginning of our marriage to embrace each other and get to know each other. And I thought, Now we get it. Now's our time to connect on a deeper level and to have that. And so almost 30 years later, we get to be newlyweds again. And I was super excited about the future. Speaker 4 (13:57) Paul moved to the new city first in January of 2017. He spent a few months getting oriented to his new job. Eileen stayed back, packing up their family home. Finally, when summer arrived, Eileen joined him. Speaker 3 (14:12) And that's where my life imploded. Speaker 4 (14:17) That summer, they had to drive out of state for a wedding. But one day, as they were gearing up for the trip, Paul sat Eileen down. Speaker 6 (14:26) He had to tell me that he had lost his license. And I was like, what? And I said, what happened? And he said, well, I got pulled