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The Secret Family Just 6 Miles Away Part 2 | Mike Zimmerman Returns · In My Hometown

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_04: The response to Mike Zimmerman's story was unlike anything we've seen on In My Hometown.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_04: More than a quarter of a million people watched or listened to our conversation about his shocking memoir, Suburban Bigamy, Six Miles Between Truth and Deceit.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_04: And hundreds of you shared stories, and one message came through.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_04: Actually, many messages came through, but one message in particular was very loud, and it was bring Mike back.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_04: We have more we want to hear.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_04: So that's exactly what we've done today.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_04: And we're answering your biggest questions.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_04: We're going beyond the memoir, and we're gonna dive into parts of Mike's story that we simply didn't have time for last time around.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_04: You're in my hometown with Jamie and Pascal.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_04: Mike, welcome back.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: Great to be here.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_04: So before we dive in, I just have to get some very important business done.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_04: Pascal, our audience wants to know if you have read the book.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, I did.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_03: I read the whole thing from the beginning to the end, and I could have found it very fascinating, and we have tons of questions to ask you about it.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_04: Good.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_04: All right, great.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_04: So, yes, I mean, a lot has happened, right, since you were on several months back.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_04: Um, like I mentioned in our intro, we have almost 280,000 people that have watched and listened or listened and or listened to that uh that conversation.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_04: What has been the uh response of the podcast?
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_04: How has it impacted you?
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_02: It's been amazing.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the response has been great.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the book sales have been really strong, which is fabulous.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I've certainly read a lot of the interesting comments that uh the viewers have have listed for us.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so it's it sparks a lot of interesting thought and conversation to follow up on.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, there were so many people that said, I don't feel alone anymore, or this, you know, and shared their own stories about it.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_04: I'm I'm curious, has so have there were there any that stuck that stuck out to you?
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_02: Well, certainly there were there were things around questions around logistics and grandparents and finances and tax reports.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_04: We're gonna get to all of that.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_02: All of those those things that we didn't get to cover the first time.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um, things that people think about.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_02: So the reaction was so strong and it was it was positive around the thing, the way people who aren't in a situation like this would think, well, what about this?
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_02: Or what about that?
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_02: And how did it work?
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I agree.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_04: Had has anyone contacted you that like come out of the woodwork or the other family?
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_02: They have not.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_04: And do you think they're aware of the podcast?
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_02: That's it's a great question.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's a fascinating question because there there is no relationship with the other family.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_02: So who knows?
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_03: Not yet, but yeah, I mean that's it would be fabulous if that would be a fairly beautiful story to make a movie out of that.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_03: It would.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_04: There was another that we got so many comments that we read that people said and people that I was talking to.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_04: You're right.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_03: And credible story, yeah.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_02: It really captures people's attention.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_02: I think in two ways.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_02: Either they're so blown away by the story, they're really shocked by it, and they think about it in terms of normal family dynamics and father-son dynamics, and and they're shocked by something like this happening, especially lasting for over 40 years.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_02: And then we got some comments from people who said, you know, I knew of a similar type of situation that occurred in my town, or we heard about someone else who endured this, or this was my cousin or my father who did the same thing.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but it's interesting to those folks too, because this is not an ordinary story.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_02: And when they hear about my story, then they can relate to it because they're like, gosh, we're not the only ones.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, so many talked about not finding out until the funeral.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_04: So you at least had a more time than that and had a head start on that.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_04: So you mentioned logistics.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_04: That was so we've broken Pascal and have had many planning conversations because we've been so excited to have you back.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_04: And so one of the things was sort of we thought about let's let's sort of group all of this into some themes and try to create a little bit of structure to this conversation.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_04: But you know, well, it's gonna go where it's gonna go.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_04: But logistics is is the big the big theme that came across in those those um in hundreds of comments, the how.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_02: And and so you think about there's a couple layers to that.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_02: And the the first one I think about is the way that my father subtly controlled both families for that 40 plus year period of time.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um, subtle influences that steered the directions that we went, keeping us in our routines that would ensure there were no social collisions.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_02: And then you think about just the geography of the suburbs, and with Winnetta residing on the lakefront and being east of a major highway, Eden's Expressway, and most of Glenview being west of that highway.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_02: So even though the homes were six to six and a half miles apart from one another, they were in west Glenview, and we were in the center of Winnetka.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_02: There was really no reason for either of us to venture into those worlds, especially if you think about the 1970s and 80s when we were much more siloed in our communities.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_02: And then you throw in habits or social structures.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_02: And back then, everything about our social structure was based in Winnetka.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_02: You think about schools, kids' activities, my mom's volunteer work, my parents' social circle was all really based in Winnetka as consumers for shopping.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_02: We really ran north-south along those lakefront suburbs going from Winnetka to Kenilworth, Womet, Evanston, and maybe even over to Old Orchard, which was still east of the highway, Eden's Expressway.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_02: And the other family being in the west side of downtown Glenview, they would have naturally moved west to like golf mill shopping center, for instance.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_02: So there was no social overlap.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_04: It is very interesting of how big a role that sort of the geography patterns of your life played in the logistics of it.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_04: Because today it would be so different.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_03: I think today it is the same.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_03: I think the people who live east don't go west, and the people who go west don't go east.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_03: The highway is the division between the west and the east.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_03: And it's amazing that as today, I mean, people who live in east, we need Kahalen Park, Glencoe, Willmet, stay in that era, the people who go west goes in.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, not for me.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_04: But I don't have another family, but not for me.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_04: I am crossing and traversing.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, but before.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_04: No, but it is interesting.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_04: Looking back, are there any times, and it would be so hard, but are there any times that something happened in terms of a dinner you guys wanted to go to, something that you've look back on now and think, wow, that makes sense.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_02: So one thing that comes to mind, uh there was a point in time where my mother was interested in perhaps us joining Old Willow Club, which was out Willow Road, kind of near where Northbrook and Glenview meet.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_02: And that's a pool and tennis and social club.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_02: And because of where it was located at the north side of Glenview, that would have been really problematic for my father.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_02: Those worlds could have collided.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_02: That family wouldn't have belonged to that club either, but there could have been people who knew them, and then if we belonged there, people who met us.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_02: So that was he discouraged that idea, and then we never ended up doing it.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so he kept to a certain degree social circles confined where they weren't ever going to overlap with the opposite community.
• 7:30
  unknown: Yeah.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_03: Well, it's it's it's it's it's it's just yeah, it's it's hard to grasp, to be honest with you.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's just uh you know, so so the is is you living in Wynetka, which is a very influenzable neighborhood, and Glenview is um, you know, a little bit less influenceable.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_03: Uh is you uh uh uh is the second wife lived the same lifestyle than you were living?
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_03: Do you know anything about the where they were living?
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_03: Where what what type of a you know?
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_02: Well, they they had a different lifestyle.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_02: They were they were certainly in a nice suburb and Glenbrook South is a good school district.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but there were nuances to their lifestyle that were very different from ours.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_02: And my father really showed up in their life one day a week, pretty much on Sundays.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_02: And my half-sister had told me in our our one conversation that he had never vacationed with them when they were growing up.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_02: And so there there was differences there.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_02: And it would have been really hard for my father to disappear from us for the amount of time it would take to go on a vacation with them.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_02: Whereas they thought he was traveling on business five, six days a week.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_02: So it was natural for them to know he wasn't around.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_02: So it made it easy for him to travel with us.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_02: So that's one example where there was a real difference in the lifestyles and the families.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um, my half-sister had mentioned that one time that her mother had a very small social circle with a few divorced women.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_02: So that also would have altered the trajectory of the family's social life.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_02: If the other woman had was married to or friends with married couples, there might have been more pull on my father to be involved socially there.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so the dynamics.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_04: So we talked about the theme of logistics, and I think it's sort of the other theme is the other family, but the dynamics of how he looked at the two families, right?
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_04: And operated.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_04: And yours, you still contend was the main family.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, I know the legal family.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_04: The legal family, yes.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_02: And it's he was with his 85, 90 percent of his life.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, in your book, you showed picture of you and your father going to the copies game, going ski, going this and that.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_03: So he was very involved with that family, you family.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_02: He was.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_02: He was, he was a huge part of it.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um uh and so much so that we were never suspicious.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_02: He he didn't give us enough reason to stop and think something's going on here.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_02: And also because he owned this retail business that was open six days a week, it was natural for him to be there a lot.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_02: And I worked for him through the years there, so I knew what went on there.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_04: He had a dealership lifestyle, uh, the owner of a deal of a car dealership, right?
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_04: And which caused, which had him there a lot of the time.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_04: Do you last time around you had said that you don't believe that anyone else knew?
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, we we were gonna talk about the other woman, the the the other wife, um, that we some of us believe that she knew.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_04: But do you think anyone helped him?
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_04: Anyone else might have known as you look back now?
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_02: I don't.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and he had said to my mother during their divorce process, he said, No one knows about this, and I was taking this to the grave.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_02: He was because my mother said to him, What were you gonna do?
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_02: And he said, You were all gonna find out after I was gone.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_02: So no one knew, and it would have been very risky if at any point in time someone found out.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and it could have been leveraged against him.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_04: So he didn't have like a best friend that you think helped him?
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean, I would imagine does he have a friend?
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I know I have a friend, we have a friend where we talk about it.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_04: I don't know what best friend you would keep that knew that you had two fans.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_03: I do talk very closely to my best friend about my personal problem and had as advice.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_03: Does he have a group of friends he was hanging with?
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_03: His fishermen, his his bodies he were going fishing with?
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_02: He Yeah, it's a good good question.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_02: He had some old law school friends uh who my mother knew, and ultimately they became friends with those couples.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so there was there was those individuals, a couple guys from college who my mother also knew.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but then the rest of their social circle was really in Winnetka and and tied to you know parents of the friends that my brother and I had in in Winnetka or people that my mother met through her volunteer work at the Winnetka community house.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_04: Have you had have you talked with your uh the other siblings, your half siblings, the other family?
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_02: We haven't.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, I had that one conversation with my half-sister.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_04: I was just wondering since since I was.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_02: No, I mean there's been no interaction.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_02: And honestly, I I felt there was a point in time where it made a lot of sense for us to communicate and learn a lot from each other, and it could go a long way in the healing process, giving us closure and answering a lot of questions about the gaps that existed.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and that never happened after the one conversation with the half-sister.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_02: But so much time has elapsed.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_02: And at this point, I don't know that it would even make sense anymore to have a conversation or have any type of relationship.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_04: Do you think they see themselves as victims in it?
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_02: I I I would hope they do because I think all four children were were equal victims in the sense that um my father took advantage of the circumstances he created for himself.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_02: He made selfish choices for four 40 plus years um that that were for him, and everyone around him was kind of collateral damage to the choices he made.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_03: So how how was he at home with your mother when he obviously spent a lot of time with you?
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_03: What type of a relationship he had?
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_03: What did you see from from a young child uh see your mom and dad interact?
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_03: Were they were he friendly?
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_03: Do they had any fight?
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_03: Do they have any uh, you know, like a kind of resentment or what was that relationship they had?
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_02: No, it was it was a healthy, what appeared to be a healthy relationship, um, you know, very much a family unit.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, my mother and my father would often share in responsibility and share in discussions about decisions that were being made or where we were going or what programs the kids were going in or at or athletics or activities.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_02: It was very much a a united front in that sense that they were in it together, co-parenting as as a married couple.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_04: Now he I mean he had some infidelities, but otherwise it was, it seemed for all intents and purposes, as if this was a cohesive family.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_02: And and it he needed it to stay that way.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and I know I made reference in our earlier conversation about him getting stuck.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_02: And I know there were some comments from viewers about that.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_02: And what I what I really meant by that is, you know, when when he came out of law school in 1960 or 61, I'm pretty sure he didn't look in the mirror and say, let's do this for the next 50 years.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_02: But the the narcissistic and sociopathic tendencies to this man led him to make the selfish choices that put him in that position.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_02: And once he committed to I'm doing this with both families, he couldn't unwind it.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_02: And that's what I mean by stuck.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_02: Because if at any point he decided, you know what, I'm done with this family or I'm done with that family, there would have been a divorce from my mother.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_02: And when he owned the car dealership, that would have been very costly and potentially exposed him.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_02: If a forensic accountant gets involved and digs into the the finances of the car dealership, now you're exposing sums of money that were were going to another place and that might have to be answered for.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_02: So he was stuck.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_02: And so he was in it and making it look like he was in it.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_02: Forever.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_04: You're right.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_04: Because that that comment came up a lot was that you maybe had seen him as a victim versus a calculated deceiver.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_04: But you are saying that he is not was not a victim.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_04: He was a victim of his choices, right?
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_02: He made really selfish choices for a long time, and he was stuck with that.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't think he's a victim at all.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_02: I don't give him a pass.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_02: What he did is unforgivable, and he affected a lot of lives.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_02: So, but no pass there at all.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I know he likes to say he took care of everybody and he gives himself or he gave himself a pat on the back for that.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_02: But he had no choice.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_02: He had to take care of everybody.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_03: Mean mean one struck me a little bit.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_03: Is uh I think uh is a second life Margaret, I believe that was the name of that second woman.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_03: Margaret had a baby, was pregnant, had a boy before you even were born.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I think at that time he could have made the choice to say, look, you know, mean, you know, where am I going?
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_03: And he decided to go with that.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_03: So I don't understand the motivation of him going forward, knowing that he's got a boy who was born and and you mothered, you weren't you weren't existing yet.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_03: It would have been much easier for him to say goodbye, good luck.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_03: So why motivate him to do that?
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_03: I don't understand that.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_02: You well, so his explanation was I'm a flawed man.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_02: But what is a floodman, my well, he said I'm a flawed man, meaning he He's not perfect.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_02: He's not perfect, he made bad choices.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_02: He's not perfect.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_02: I think it goes deeper than that.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_02: He's he he was a narcissist and a sociopath, and I think having both of those women in his life fueled him in some way that that gave him some satisfaction.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_02: And I I think those really selfish choices put him in a place that he probably had a really unhappy life because he spent his whole life working so hard to support both families.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_02: He was kind of always in between two worlds to a certain extent.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_02: He admitted that neither woman was really happy with him.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_02: So I can't imagine he had a joyful experience for the next 45 years doing that.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but but he was making selfish choices for himself.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_04: But I think where you're going, Pascal, which I think is a good path.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_04: It's it seems like it was a natural fork in the road that he could have sort of taken that opportunity to just break things off with your mom.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_04: Whereas if he had been married to your mom already, then had an affair and had gotten the other one pregnant, you could sort of like see how those, I mean, I don't know, you can't see how any of this would happen, really.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_04: But I just before he even got married or had you and your brother.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I I think he um there might have been a part of him that was still trying to figure out what he was gonna do in his marriage to my mother before I was conceived.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_02: But you could you was married to you, Madeline for four years, Michael.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_03: Right, four years before I came along.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_03: Before you came along.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_03: And he had a and he had a baby with his uh Margaret, I'm gonna call her Margaret.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, okay, uh many years before.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_03: I'll just call her the other woman.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_03: The other woman.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_04: Wait, so do you were his I can't remember if we covered this, were his parents, your grandparents, against that uh the other woman?
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_04: Did they ever meet her?
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_02: So they never knew her.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, so then I just don't understand why he wouldn't have seen her as if he was dating her before your mom.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I I the the dating overlapped.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and he was married to my mother, and then the the timeline sounds like he he had broken it off with the other woman, married my mom, but then started back up with her.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, okay.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but as the grandparents, my grandparents were very much alive, overlapping the existence of the other family.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_02: And my half-sister had said that she never knew her grandparents, and they were told that their grandparents were deceased.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_02: But in reality, my grandfather lived in 1976 and my grandmother lived to 1993.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_04: Right, right.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_02: And so again, my father didn't let anyone else in on this.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's so crazy.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_04: So you we talked a lot about us and the viewers that think that she, the other woman, knew.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_04: So let's talk a let's talk more about let's dive into that a bit more.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_04: Do you believe that?
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_02: I think she knew she was in something.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, and and accepting this life or a this husband of hers showed up on Sundays only, pretty much for decades and was never around, never took vacations with them.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_02: She knew she was in something.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_02: Perhaps as his common law wife, but she didn't know any specifics about us or where my father really was.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_02: She didn't know about the car dealership.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, she was accepting this idea that he was traveling on business all the time as a corporate attorney.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_02: And there were elements to her personality.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_02: I experienced the volatility of her personality firsthand.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_02: And my father relayed stories to me and his business manager about the volatile personality that she was or is, because she's still alive.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and the fact that she had some challenging interpersonal relations with service workers and contractors in her home.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_02: And my father knew that.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_02: So he knew the the personality that was there.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_02: It would have been so dangerous for him if she had specific details about us or his situation.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_04: So you really don't think she knew.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_02: She didn't know about us, but she knew she was in this as a kept woman.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_04: I I think she I feel like she must have known more.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_02: She may have.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_02: We'll never know.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_02: I know, we will never know.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_03: She would be the only one that could answer.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_03: She should call us and tell us.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_03: Wait.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_03: The other red flag is uh how you call um, he had an affair with one of his employees.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_03: He did.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_03: And uh the husband came up and knocked on the door, and uh he showed a picture, he hired a private investigator, and the private investigator gave your mother some pictures and of uh you know.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_03: So why did your mother didn't leave him at the time and said goodbye, I'm down, and then I would have been uh the the end of that marriage and focusing on the other wife.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it why why why is your mother?
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, to me, if uh in most people, if somebody knocked in my door and that's the husband of a woman I had an affair with, uh, I would say, get out of here, you're done.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_03: I'm I'm finished.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_03: I lost respect, I lost admiration, I lost trust.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_03: So why is your mother didn't file for the divorce at the time?
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_03: And it would make his life much simple.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_03: Am I right?
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely, and really fair question.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_04: So good one, Pascal.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_02: Let's unpack it.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_02: I read the book.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_04: I read the book, people.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_02: I read the book.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_02: Let's uh let's unpack that.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_02: So the the affair with the the other woman, the the other other woman, right?
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_02: The the woman who worked for him at the car dealership.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_04: The other other woman.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_02: It was a it was a rabbit.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_02: She I I I really believe that this life that he found himself in with these selfish choices probably was really stressful.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I I believe the woman at the car dealership in that affair was an outlet.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_02: Really an outlet for the stress.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_02: And he was around her every day at the dealership.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_02: She became a friend and it evolved.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_02: When the estranged husband of that woman showed up at my mother's house with the photographs, it's in the mid-90s.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_02: My mother confronted my father and he denied that it was anything other than a friendship.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_02: And my mother wanted to meet with the employee, and they met and sat down.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, in retrospect, we're pretty sure my father coached the employee on what to say because the other employee insisted it's just the employee insisted it was just friendship, nothing going on.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and and at that juncture, that's really what led to my mother saying to my father, you should move out and we'll separate.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_02: And my father fought really hard to ensure that they weren't going to divorce.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_02: And at the same time, for several years, he had been battling uh polycythemia vera, which is a blood disease, and he had been given a short-term prognosis for lifespan.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_02: And so my mother was thinking at the time, all right, if he has a short lifespan, I want to keep our family together.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_02: So we're still a family unit doing holidays together and still being a part of each other's lives.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_02: He moved out, she didn't pursue divorce, and we stayed together as his family.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_02: So that answers that question about that.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_04: So uh how how did the family, you, your brother, and your mom, all react to the betrayal of the um this finding out about this infidelity?
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_04: And was that the first time that you kids knew that he had had an affair?
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_04: Um It was.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_02: It was it was so that was the that was the first instance that we were aware of.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um and you know, at that juncture, my brother and I were both out of college.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_02: And so it was more of a and neither of us were living in the area.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't diminish the importance of it.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_02: Right, but but it was a long distance entity to us.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_02: And I spent a lot of time talking with my mother about it at the time, and and she felt very strongly if about I'll never really get the truth out of your father on this, but it's more important to keep the family together.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_02: He's moved out, and we'll just see what happens next and see how it progresses.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_04: But she was hurt, but felt like it um, you know, she sort of uh explained it away to herself and as you said, sort of made it feel like there was gonna be a bit of a separation and and that you guys would would absolutely and and I don't diminish at all how what a big deal it was to my mom, because it really was.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_02: And certainly it causes a fracture in feelings throughout the family.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_02: We all think a little bit differently about things.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um but my father was adamant on his stance that there was nothing to it.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_02: And so we we moved on as a family.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_04: And so this is wait, hold on, because this is important because I think this lays this groundwork for this big sort of next theme, which is the hospital visit and the big sort of finding out, because this is your frame of mind right now and sort of where you are.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, many years other years transpired between so you said you were sort of just out of college, and by the time the hospital visit came where he had where you guys found out.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_04: So so the he has a incident um, and you're called and you, your mom was called, and you call the hospital to make sure someone's with your father, and the person's the nurse says, Your mother and your sister are here, and you know you just spoke with your mother on the phone and you don't have a sister.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_04: Don't have a sister.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_04: So you asked this question.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_03: I I want to ask before I ask that question.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_04: Let's follow this.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_03: One second, before I want to ask a question.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_03: When you mom and dad get separated and you dad live on your own, on his own, was he spending a lot of time with you guys?
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_03: Or be you were in college, so have you seen he must have spent a lot more time with the second woman?
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_03: Am I right?
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_02: Well, so my brother and I were out of college at that point and living outside the Chicago area.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but we would visit several times a year for family things, and we'd be here for the holidays.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um you know, similar to when you're in college, when you're home for the holidays or that kind of thing.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_03: So now the question is when you when you find out then your dad was in the hospital and your mom called you and everything.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, the the natural thing to do would be to pop on the plane and and go see your dad.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_03: Why did you why did you do that?
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_02: So you know, you fast forward to 2013 and and and we're figuring out that something's off with his story when he has this mild stroke during a heart valve replacement.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_02: And his details were off enough that my mother had her call to the hospital, and then I had my call to the hospital.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_02: And we we discovered what was going on with his other family and this double life, but we were really concerned about his health and concerned about subsequent strokes and the fact that if if something happened to him, we'd never get answers.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_02: So we we took our foot off the gas and backed up and just kind of let it run its course, and then my mom filed for divorce and had him served at the hospital, and that's a regret.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_02: I I wish I had not all of us flown in, but in retrospect, you know, hindsight's 2020.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_02: But the mistake we made was not pouncing right then and there, and it probably should have been me who flew flew in and sat down with my father and leaned over and said, We know about the other family.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_02: And then said, This is how this is gonna go.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_02: And instead, we gave him time to sit back and figure out his next steps.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_02: And then he got served with divorce papers, and we still didn't go in, right?
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't go visit him, and so he had several months to to step back and figure out his strategy.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_02: He was not blindsided, aside from getting the divorce paperwork.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_02: He wasn't blindsided in person by us showing up in the hospital when he was also worried about when's the other family walking in the hospital.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, to me, that's the movie climax, right?
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_04: Is that sort of moment where your family comes in and then the other family's there and it's like, you know, what?
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_04: So you never had that.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_04: You never had it.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_04: And were you getting advice from someone?
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, I know you would talk to a private investigator at the time, but someone's counsel that said don't go to the hospital?
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_02: It was really our decision from the standpoint we took at face value what he had said about his health and and what the nurses had told us.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_02: And we were just worried, if we go in and stress him, is he gonna have more health events that cost him his life?
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_02: We didn't know.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so we we we didn't push it.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_02: And that's a regret.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_03: I think I think he was in the hospital, he was under good cares.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_03: I think it would have been okay to go there and ask, you know.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, you got nurses, doctors around.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_03: It's not like he's gonna pass away.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_03: I think I personally think that I would have flew there and sit down with my father and try to figure it out in person versus hiring a private investigator to go and check around his history.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_03: And I believe the private investigator you hire as the one who um was hired by the the the half fairy he had the husband.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_03: Right, right.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's the same way.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_03: You went to the basement, pick up the picture, fandonem and and and garim.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_03: Am I right?
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_03: That's the same way.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's absolutely probably the biggest regret.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_02: And it it probably changed, or it would have changed potentially the trajectory of all subsequent events had we gone in there or I gone in there and really blitzed him with the truth when he would have had to maybe respond in a more favorable, favorable fashion for us.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_04: So another um comment or uh one of the comments that Pascal made on the last convers during our last conversation that caused a little bit of discussion was that you had said you'd felt sorry for Mike's father because of the burden that of living these two lives.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_04: And I think you used the you you actually used the word sort of poor man.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_04: So do you I'd love to hear first from Mike your reaction to that because people had had commented on it.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_04: And so, and then maybe Pascal could explain a bit more about what he meant by that.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and and like we discussed a little bit earlier, I I I don't I empathize for the fact that he probably had a really crappy life because but he created it, he owned it, not he didn't own it in the sense of making it right, but but he made the bed that he ended up lying in.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_02: And his selfish choices put him down this path that he spent 45 years living, uh, which were probably not it couldn't have been a great life.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_02: But it's his, he did it.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um I don't feel sorry for him.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_02: He doesn't get a pass.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_04: But you could see that Pascal would say that poor man.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, it's he he was a poor poor man in that he created this life for himself that couldn't have, in your words, couldn't have been that happy.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it it it's it's a waste of a life in the sense that this was a really bright, well-educated guy who had a really bright future.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_02: And then early in his career, he he put himself in this situation with his selfish choices, and then he was stuck managing it forever.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_03: So when I said when I said when I said poor men, first of all, again, I didn't read the book, okay?
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_03: So now I had a chance to read the book from the beginning to the end.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, when I said poor men, that's not really the word I should have used.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_03: I said I think he he had the opportunity to make it right along the way, which he never did.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_03: Uh when when uh his matrix was pregnant and had a kid, he could have divorced your mother and then would have been simple.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_03: The affair he had where your mother left.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I think uh his life was not as easy as we we think it is.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_03: I think he lived a very difficult and miserable life, and he tried to make the best out of it from from what I see.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I definitely think it was a miserable life.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_02: It was a miserable life.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_02: Miserable life.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_02: And at the end of the day, he he died a sick old man alone with the people who he'd actually spent the least amount of his life with.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_02: The people who were with him the most time in his life, which was us, weren't in his life at the end.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_02: And that can't be a great situation for someone to be in.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_02: But again, it was his doing, and he had he made those choices.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_02: And he has to live with it, he had to live with it.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_04: A lot of um empathy around your mom and her circumstances.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_04: How is she doing?
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_02: She's great.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_02: She's 86 and she's as healthy as 86 can be.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_02: And she was just visiting me and my family recently, last month, and she's wonderful.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_02: She's a really strong, independent woman.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_02: And I know that that's what got her through this.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_02: It was a real process for her to heal.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um, she gave really sound advice to us, my brother and myself, early on in the situation.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_02: And she said, you know, I'm in my early 70s.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_02: Most of my life is behind me, and I can't change that.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_02: She said, You guys can't let this ruin your lives.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_02: And for five years, it really ruined my life.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_02: And I conceptually understood the advice she was providing me, but but on a day-to-day basis back then, it was just hard to execute on that.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but ultimately, you know, my brother and I have moved forward.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_02: It didn't ruin the rest of our lives.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_02: And she's really proud of us for the way we've progressed.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_02: And I know she she loves being a grandmother.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_02: When with the arrival of my son, that's been a huge source of joy and happiness for her and helping her move forward.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_04: I'm sure.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so she's great, and I'm blessed to have her in my life.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_04: Do you are you better with your brother now?
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_02: We've always been always been good.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we've always been good.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_02: We just had very different approaches to the situation.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, he didn't have the same type of close bond with my father that I did.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, so he handled things differently.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_02: And he wasn't willing to confront my father and go after this with the same energy that I did.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_02: And he just was angrier and and he had a reason under he understood why things went the way they did, and perhaps why his relationship with my dad wasn't as good as he would have liked.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so but we're great, we have a good relationship.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_03: Have you tried have you tried to have a relationship with you half sibling?
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_02: I haven't.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I did initially.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_02: I thought it was important back then for us to try to connect and answer questions for each other, but there's there's no relationship, and and I don't foresee it happening at this juncture.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_04: So last conversation, you talked a little bit about a stolen nostalgia, this idea of it, and people really that resonated with a lot of people.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_04: Um talk a little bit about that.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_04: And do you still feel that same way, or are you looking at things a little differently now?
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_02: No, I I really do.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_02: And and and the way I described it before is you you you take all these good memories and these feelings, and they're in a box and they're on a shelf in a closet in a room you never go in.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_02: You know they're there, but you it's out of sight, out of mind.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_02: You don't look at it, you don't think about it.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_02: And I I still very much feel that way.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_02: It it was a process to get there.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_02: So when we first found out what my father did, there was all this shock at the betrayal.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_02: But I was very open to the idea that, hey, he's gonna do the right thing here by us and settle quickly with my mom.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_02: And the mistake I made back then, I was thinking about it through my lenses and projecting how I would want to do it or handle it and make the problem go away quickly.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_02: And what I misunderstood was that my dad wasn't a good guy who made mistakes.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_02: He was a really bad guy for a long time who made selfish choices forever.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_02: And that kind of bad guy making selfish choices forever isn't suddenly going to do the right thing.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_02: And once I started to wrap my brain around that, it really started to erode at the feelings.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_02: And then I maintained this relationship with my father for a couple of years because I was really determined to try and get the truth.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_02: And he refused to give it up and give the answers and give the closure that I wanted.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_02: And as a result, that started to erode those feelings even more.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_02: And ultimately, he fully abandoned my brother, myself, after the divorce was final and he he married the other woman.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_02: They put walls up around him.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_02: He didn't fight to get through that and maintain relationship with us.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_02: So once that that abandonment occurred, then it it really was over.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and I would suppose that that abandonment happening at 42 would feel, you know, just as hard as it would if it's happening at 18 or I mean, I don't I don't know.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_02: I absolutely and and especially because I had had such a close relationship with my father.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um, my brother never worked for my father at the dealership, but I did.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_02: And my father and I were really close.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_04: Best friends, you called him.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_02: Best friends all throughout my adult life.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_02: We spoke regularly on the phone for decades.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_02: I visited him several times a year.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_02: Even after all of this happened, I was still going to visit him because I wanted the answers.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I was trying to see is he gonna make amends and do the right thing here?
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_02: And so, regardless of what age you are or stage in life, that abandonment by this parent who you're really close to, it still hits.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, you still feel that.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_03: Cool, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_03: Because I remember at one time you said that you wanted to be involved in the car dealership with him, and uh, that was a family business, and you wanted to open more locations, and your father tried to keep you away from the business.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_02: He did.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_02: And it was it's very common in that industry for uh a family to own multiple locations.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_02: And it would have made sense for him to have expanded and put my brother and I in the business.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_02: And he was always dissuading us from trying to go down that path.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_02: And we think it was really because he needed to keep a low profile.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, a lot of the dealerships will have their name on the the brand, like Zimmerman Ford or Zimmerman Lincoln.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_02: He his never had the name on it because it had the location at Schomburg, Lincoln, Mercury.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_02: And whenever he ran TV or radio ads or newspaper ads, he was never a part of the ads.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_04: And so many of these dealers are.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_02: So many of the dealers are right, but they're they're the face of the business.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_02: And he was always anonymous.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_04: Red flag, red flag.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_02: And he was keeping a low profile.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_02: And by not expanding, he he he kept that low profile.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_04: So another um theme uh was the lawsuit.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_04: So we talked and we talked a little bit about this abandonment of emotional, but there's also financial abandonment in the sense that, and again, you know, you're already uh an adult, but you know, his legacy.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_04: I think there were a lot of questions around the lawsuit that we saw in the comments.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_02: There there were.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_02: And so so some of the background there.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_02: Once he married the other woman, and they started to put walls up and make it harder for us to access him.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_02: At that point in time, we thought we were still in his estate plan.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_02: We had not been notified in any way, shape, or form.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_02: I was still talking to him, and he didn't say, Oh, by the way, you and your brother are out.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_02: None of that.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_02: And we knew there was a trust that my grandfather had established that was tied to the business that was supposed to filter through to my father's offspring.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_02: And so we thought we were still involved in that.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_02: So the other woman is making access to him challenging.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_02: At times, my father would act diminished in visits or on the phone, and he'd say how tired he is, and maybe the strokes had an impact on his ability to concentrate.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_02: And so the combination of him seeming diminished, the other family putting up barriers.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I'd call his room at the rehab center where they're working on his leg to get him healthy again after the stroke.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_02: And sometimes the other woman would answer the phone and she'd say, Who is this?
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_02: And I'd say, It's Michael, and she'd say, You're not allowed to call here and hang up on me.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_02: There'd be other times my dad would answer the phone and she'd be in the background and she'd say, Who is it?
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_02: And he'd say, It's Michael.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_02: And she'd start yelling and screaming and give him instructions.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_02: You can't talk to him, hang up the phone.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_02: So it started to feel like undue influence.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_02: And we're thinking, well, gosh, we're in his estate plan, but she's controlling everything.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_02: So my attorneys, we talked about it, and we decided to file for guardianship.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I sued for guardianship.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_02: And you've never seen someone who was acting diminished suddenly act so together and with my father was an attorney.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_02: He knew exactly what being sued for guardianship meant.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_02: He suddenly was completely competent, alert, and aware.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_02: And so we get into we get into court and and the judge grants us access to the estate plan, and that's when we find out we're not in it anymore.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_02: And then the judge decided to appoint a guardian ad lightum to investigate.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_02: He and he interviews all of us at various different times and interviews my father.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_02: And he says, Your father's completely competent.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_02: There's nothing wrong with him.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_02: He's totally aware of all the decisions he's making and he knows exactly what's going on.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that was the end of our case.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_02: And he was really mad at me because I sued for guardianship.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I just said, Dad, you're an attorney.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_02: You know exactly what this means.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_02: And if the tables were turned and your father was in this situation, you would do the same thing I did.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_02: But that was really uh a line in the sand in our relationship.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_02: And that was late 2015.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and and we never recovered from that.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but that ensured that we were out of the picture.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_02: As far as that trust goes, and I talked to my father about that.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_02: I said, We're out of the estate plan, but we're in this trust.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_02: And he said, he said, I'm the trustee of the trust.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_02: I can spend the money how I want.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_02: And so at the end of the day, when he passed, she was the she received everything.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_03: And well, what was what was what was the reason for that?
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_03: Why why motivated him to give everything to her and not then to you?
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_03: Well who was behind that?
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_02: We don't know the specifics of of what was going on in his mind.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_02: I think he was really mad that we caught him.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_02: I I really think this was his crowning achievement.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_02: He pulled this off for 45 years.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_02: And he was a narcissist and a sociopath, and I think it really pissed him off that he got caught.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_02: I think it angered him that I was so determined to push for the truth.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then the other thing that I think really upset him was when the anonymous letter was sent to the half-sister and all of a sudden they were brought into it.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_02: He was getting pressure from the other side too.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_02: And he was a sick old man and he needed someone to take care of him, and they were in closer proximity than we were.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_02: He needed them to take care of him, so he had to promise them his money.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's really what it came down to.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, it no matter this is our second conversation about it, and it gets just juicier and just more, I mean, it more shocking.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_04: Um, it is an incredible story.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but like we said, uh with the overwhelming response, it resonated with so many people for for many reasons.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, one of which so many people have stories and shared stories of things that they've heard of or have happened to them.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_04: And I think so many were so impressed with you, Mike, and sort of being so open and willing to share it and of how you have transcended all of this and your relationship with your son and you know what you've been able.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_04: So, what would you say to someone who um, and what do you say to someone says who says to you, uh, this, I I just have a uh found out of a big betrayal, a shocking secret.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_04: What would you say to that, those people?
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_02: Well, thank you.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_02: I I appreciate all the the comments and and the the comments from the viewers are great.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, what I would say is it really unraveled my life, uh, which is a natural reaction.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um, because you're not armed with the natural defenses to think about, you don't anticipate this type of betrayal.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I think for me, there was a lengthy process in digesting it and healing.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I think perhaps because I was I spent a couple years battling my father, trying to get the truth, um, that probably delayed the trajectory of my healing because I was staying in it for a couple more years rather than just like washing my hands of it right away and moving forward.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but but I think what I'd tell anybody is there's gonna be light at the end of the tunnel, and and you have to not let something traumatic ruin your life.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I know that's generalizing because everyone's version of trauma is different and experiences different things and it impacts people differently.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but but life's too short and you gotta make the most of it.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_02: And you can't let something derail you so much that you you don't move forward in a positive way and enjoy whatever amount of time you have left.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_02: And that's kind of the mindset my mother pushed my brother and myself.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_02: And uh as hard as it was at times, you you really had to embrace that and and move forward with that.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_03: Looking back to to every 10, if you had uh one more 10 you would ask to your father before he passed away, what would he be?
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_02: I just would have asked him, you know, why we know how he did it, we know all the the nuances and the logistics and the money and how he did it.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um but why and the other the other piece of the why would have been why did you let the other family deny us access completely?
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, at the end of his life, you know, once he had married the other woman, I'd say to him, Dad, they're trying to cut us out of your life.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_02: What's gonna happen someday when you're sick and dying?
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_02: And he said, Oh, Mike, someone will call you.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_02: You'll always you'll get that phone call.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I got a phone call in May of 2020 from my mother, and she says, Your father died.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, Well, how do you know?
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_02: And she said, Well, I got a letter from Social Security letting me know your father died and my payment's going up.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_02: So reality is they didn't call us.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_02: He was sick and dying, and no one let us know.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so for me, it's dad, why would you let the other family completely control the final years of your life and not let your sons in?
• 47:40
  unknown: Okay.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_04: I think that's a great question to end on.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_04: It's a great story.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_04: We're so happy that you came back to us.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_02: It's great to see you guys.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's great to see you.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_04: We um hope that anyone who has not gotten the book yet will get the book.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_04: And uh Suburban Bigamy, Six Miles Between Truth and Deceit.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_04: Mike Zimmerman, thank you so much.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_04: Thank you guys.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, thank you.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_04: See you next time in my hometown.