Our 12-Year Relationship Has Been Nothing But Toxic! | KARAMO

So please tell me what's going on with you and Cortex?

Oh, let me start.

Okay.

She said, let me start. He is very controlling. He wants to know my every move. He thinks that I'm a cheater, I'm sneaky, I'm a liar. Oh my gosh. He violates me when it comes to sex. Yes. I don't wanna do it. When I'm sleeping, he'll go down my pants, unbutton my pants.

Oh no.

Yeah. So it's just, I'm sick of it. I'm fed up and I'm done.

And how long have y'all been together? 12 years. 12 years.

Got it.

Wow.

When I met him, he was married. Let's get that straight.

Yeah.

He lied to me about it. He lied to me about it. He said he wasn't married and then his wife showed up at my mom's door.

Wow.

12 years ago.

Yeah. Wow.

So the foundation of trust already was broken on his end from the beginning.

It was from the beginning.

That's a long time. And what would you say the biggest issue in your relationship is? Is it the controlling? Is it the, I mean, 'cause you named a couple right there that I was writing down.

Insecurity.

Insecurity.

Controlling. And like I said, he calls me 100 times a day if I'm gone, 'cause I barely go anywhere because I already know what's gonna happen.

How often does Cortez call you in a day during, I heard you just say like sometimes 100. Is that typical?

Yeah.

Typical.

And if I don't answer, it's a problem. He'll leave a text message, crazy text message, voicemail, Or he'll call my mom's phone, my sister's phone, my children's phone. Where's your mom at? Where's Kalena at?

Sometimes with controlling behavior, you're not able to go out without feeling like you're in trouble. Does he allow you to go out with friends? Can you go out alone without him?

No.

You can't?

No, and I don't even want to because I already know when I go, my phone's gonna be ringing. I'm not going to be able to enjoy myself.

Yeah. So I gotta go back to this because we all gasped when you said this, the violation of sex. So how is your sex life?

On my end, there is none.

Got it.

You know, but on his end, he feels like, I guess because I'm the mother of his children, that I have to give it to him. You know, I say no, he gets upset. Like I said, if I'm sleeping, he's always smacking my booty and, you know, trying to kiss me. And he know I don't like none of that. And like, he antagonizes me, like he does it on purpose to make me—

Why don't you wanna be intimate with your boyfriend?

It's just, it's done. Like, the way he act, you know, the way he make me feel like, I feel like I don't respect myself because I'm staying in a relationship that I don't wanna be in. You know, it wasn't like this in the beginning. You know, I was very, you know, hands-on. I wanted to cuddle with him, I was kissing on him. You know, it was how it's supposed to be. But as the farther along it got, it's just like, I'm unhappy, I'm miserable, you know, and now it's affecting my children.

Got it, 'cause you had a son that was born with medical issues. How's that affecting your relationship as well?

Well, when he, yeah, he passed away in 2014.

I'm very sorry.

He would've been 11 years old, but you know, he accused me of, it was my fault that he passed away, 'cause he was locked up when he passed away. So, you know, he was like, oh, if I was there, he would still be alive. And I thought it would've brought us closer.

Yeah.

It brought us further apart.

Wow. What did you say when he said that to you? You're grieving as a mother and then he says that.

It hurt me. It hurt me. I'm about to cry now, but it hurt me a lot. You know, I'm like, how can you say this? It's medical. It's nothing that I could've done.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. When did you start to lose these feelings for Cortez?

I would say about, oh, 7, 8 years ago.

Oh wow. So it's been a while. So it's also been around the time that —your child passed. Have you tried to break up with him in the past? Oh yeah. And what happens?

Obviously we end up back together. I don't know if it's 'cause I was feeling bad for him and not thinking about my own self. But like I said, there's a breaking point and I'm at it.

Okay, got it. What would you need Cortez to do for this relationship to even be saved?

Well, for first off, the insecurity, let me, get some breathing room. Like, can I have a life outside of you? Mm-hmm. Yeah, got it.

All right, well everyone, we heard your side of the story, but I think it's time to talk to Cortez and hear his side of the story. So everyone, welcome him to the show.

I rolled my eyes when you called his name out here. You are.

Welcome to the show, Cortez.

Thank you. How you doing? I'm good, thank you.

How do you feel about what we just said?

Oh man, I ain't know it was that serious.

Did you have any idea that she was this unhappy?

No, 'cause when I try to talk to her, she don't wanna talk to me. Or when she do talk to me, her voice go all the way up to 100, but I'll just leave it alone.

Got it, got it. And you know why though?

Do you know why? Look how you act.

I didn't know I acted this bad.

What'd you do last night? I didn't barely get any sleep last night because he's like, let me get some booty, you know? And I'm like, no.

I figure if I'm giving you my money, if I'm— You hear this? If I'm taking care of responsibilities, yeah, I deserve to get some booty. We came all the way out here. Come on, the kids ain't around, why I can't get no booty? Why we can't like have fun while we out here? Yeah.

That's all I'm getting. We can't have fun together, that's the thing. Then another thing about—

Trust issues, yeah. It was like that 'cause you fresh from California, okay. Dude, they gonna holler, look how beautiful you is. People gonna holler at you. I don't know if you gonna go along with it, but you broke up with me down there 'cause what? You was talking to somebody else. Dude's calling your phone.

How that make me feel? Is that true? Were you talking to somebody at the time?

No, I wasn't. That's the thing. He thinks that I am because he's insecure.

You made me insecure. How did I make you insecure? Dude's calling your phone, I go through your phone. Hey babe, you calling another dude, babe. How you think that made me feel? That made me feel like I'm doing something wrong. You are. Yeah, okay. But still though, respect me. That's all I want, respect. I respect you. Well, if I don't, I try to respect you.

The only reason why you say I don't respect you is because I don't have sex with him. He say the way I talk to him. There's nothing else. That's the only two things that he can say.

Those are two big things though, in all sincerity. Like the way you communicate. I pay like I weigh.

Basically, I feel like he trying to pay me for sex.

All right, she'll tell me I can go out and have sex with somebody else. Why would I do that if I know I got a so-called woman at home? Why should I go take $100 and go buy prostitutes?

Well, tell them what you say. Like, this morning, he like, wake your up. You know, it's 7 o'clock in the morning.

I was mad, I was trying to get some nookie. Talking about giving me some when I get home.

Well, when we're talking about sex and intimacy, your girl did make a claim and say that you sometimes pull her pants down while she's sleeping.

Do you do that? Sometimes, 'cause I figure she sleep, I can get her in the mood.

Ain't no in the mood.

She get in the mood sometimes when I pull her pants down?

No, no, no, I don't because I lay there like a corpse. Oh, wow. I do. You know, I'm not into it, I'm not making no noise, I'm not touching him, I'm not, you know, I just lay there like this, like a dead person.

Yeah. All I'm trying to do, I'm trying to fix my relationship if it's rocky.

I don't think it could be fixed. He's not gonna change. I feel he haven't changed. I've complained about what makes me mad, what he can do to, you know, and it hasn't been done yet, so.

Yeah, got it. Well, I know that my investigators, we came in and unlocked your phone. Yeah. But they also looked through your phone and one of the things that we saw was that you do call her usually about 112 times I only call her when I'm on my break.

It ain't no 120.

That's a lie 'cause you be calling me.

Oh no, I pulled up the records. It was about 112. It was 112.

Well, that should let her know I love her.

Yeah, this is just to let her know I love her? It should let her know.

Do you think this could be excessive? He's on my every move.

Yeah. Do you think you're smothering her at all?

Yes. Yeah, when I ain't working, yeah. When you working, you don't do it. He working. He FaceTiming me while he working.

I'm like, ain't you at work? How are you calling me and you're working?

I just want her to show that she love me. If I could get that from her, no, I won't be having it.

But you can't force it. Mm-hmm. You know? No, you can't force it. Okay, so that's what you're doing. You're forcing me to have sex with you when I don't want to. You're forcing me to love you. Do you wanna stay in this relationship? I don't, but I know if, you know, like I said, if it's the end of it, he's still not gonna be okay with that. You know, he's gonna make my life miserable.

No, if it's the end of it, I'll just go have to do what I gotta do. I'm gonna miss my kids, but hey.

You don't have to not see your, see what I mean?

I'm gonna get up outta here at some point.

If he not with me, he don't wanna be with the kids.

It ain't that.

You just said it. Cortez, do you think Kalena wants to leave you to be with someone else? No. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, he thought wrong. That's how I feel. That's what my heart feel. That's where your heart feels.

I mean, but what he don't understand is if it's the end of us and I'm not leaving him like, oh, I'm gonna break up with you 'cause I got a bitch on the side. It's like, but if I end up meeting somebody, it shouldn't be a problem.

Got it. And you telling me that because of those times you broke up, that's why you think she has, there's suspicion that maybe she's doing something. Yeah, or she done did it.

I don't know, 'cause when I went to jail, her and her sister having dudes coming to my house while I'm in jail. To your house? Our house while I'm in jail. My sick son. Yeah, sometimes I blame, but she said her friends. This is when your son passed away. Yeah, where my son passed away, I blamed her. 'cause of the people that was coming to my house. When my mama came to that house—

Those people weren't coming when he was there. After he passed away, I was depressed, I was going through grieving, and I needed somebody around me.

You wasn't there. That ain't the point. What I'm saying—

It is the point. Actually, you know what, I gotta tell you, that is the point. My advice from all of this is I realize that the break in this relationship sadly happened when you lost a child. And what I wrote here is you were grieving and you were trying to figure out how to process losing your child and you were in jail and felt helpless.

While I was in jail, she was out partying.

While you were in jail, you gotta hear me out. While you were in jail, you felt helpless. Yeah. And that's a sad emotion because you want to have answers, you wanna be there. You wanna support her, you wanna be there for your child that you've now lost, you wanna be there as a man, but you couldn't. And so instead of expressing that, you ended up blaming the woman that is the mother of your child who just lost her child. And that broke your relationship. And what has the problem is, and I'm tracking it, you've never changed that narrative. So the fact that you've never changed that narrative to say, I'm sorry that when we lost our child, you were grieving, that I even said something hurtful to you. The fact that you can't say, I was helpless in this moment and I should have been able to say something different, but I didn't know how 'cause I was grieving my own self. You've kept this narrative going, blaming her. And while you've been blaming her, she's been falling further and further out of love with you and detached from the intimacy. And now you got out and because you put that aside, It's in the back of your head because now you don't feel as helpless anymore. But she's still living with the fact that you said that. He brought it up not too long ago.

You know, when he gets mad, he wanna say things like, 'cause he lost his mom and he's like, "I lost a mom and I lost a niece. You don't know how that feel." He didn't say nothing about losing a son.

Exactly, I could tell. And you know, I cried instantly.

Like, I lost a son. How can you say that?

Talk to me about why you avoided that. Cause that's the real issue.

I didn't know how to talk to somebody about losing a son.

But what you have to have start doing if you ever want to salvage this relationship is you gotta start talking to her about it. Because right now you've attached your intimacy to the time you're there and to the responsibilities that you're handling. And she's attached her intimacy to the emotion. And that emotion was damaged by this one moment. Yeah. And so unless you can talk to her, you will always lose your mic. I'll be scared.

You will always be smothering her. I'll be scared. I don't even talk to her 'cause I know how she gonna raise her voice up at me. You use a moment right. She make me feel like sometimes I'm less than a man.

But you know why she's doing that? She's doing that because you made her feel less than a woman when she lost her child. I wasn't around. I'm not saying one is right or wrong. I'm not saying one is right or wrong. I'm not saying one is right or wrong. What I'm helping you to do right now, brother, if you really listen to me, is salvage your relationship. Tell her you're sorry for telling her she's to blame for your child dying. Tell her what you're feeling inside. Talk to her if you want any chance.

I'm sorry for blaming you. Sorry for everything.

And then when he said, "I appreciate that, but I'm gonna tell you the honest truth." When he says sorry, I done heard sorry so many times. I get it. I'm tired of hearing it.

I gotta tell you, I know this man can change. If in 15 minutes he could receive what I said and start being, probably the most vulnerable he's probably been in the last 12 years with you. But this is just a beginning step.

I wish she gave me my flowers. But you, it's okay.

She's not, she— See, it's always back on, it's always me.

Me, me, me. But it makes sense. It makes, because there's two in the relationship. So I'm not gonna take away from what he's feeling too. That's true, but— It's just that he didn't know. So he's stuck in a narrative. Switch the narrative. She's telling you right now, if you keep saying me, then she's never gonna get back to that place. Now what you could have did right there is said, Yeah, we should have been talking. Turn that me into us and maybe y'all can grow together. You feel that? You still need me to unlock this phone? 'Cause I don't think I'm gonna find anything to be honest with you. You still need me to unlock this?

I don't want it unlocked. It is what it is. You want me?

I'm gonna tell you. Marlon, do you still want me to unlock this?

No. No.

Okay, I'm gonna tell you that that's probably the smartest decision. It's probably the smartest decision. Because the accusations ain't doing nothing for you. Ain't doing nothing for you. I'm telling you. Pushing me further and further. You're pushing her away. Things like this gonna push her away.

Thank you.

Yeah, good luck to you. Thank you. Thank you so much. I hope you got a little something. Yeah, you're welcome. I got it. All right, everyone. Thank you for being with us today. Make sure to come back next time, friends, so we can keep talking and we can keep growing. I love you all. Give you a hug.