Our Relationship Was Built On Lies! | KARAMO

All right, welcome back, friends. My next guest says her relationship was built on lies. She claims when she first met her man, he lied about being a former NFL player, owning rental properties, and having much, much more money than he actually did. But she still fell for him anyway and soon got pregnant with his baby. She's here to fix their unhealthy relationship. So please everyone, help me welcome Natalie to the show. Hi, Natalie. Hi. How you doing?

Oh my God.

Nice to meet you.

Good to meet you.

Good to meet you. Take a seat, Natalie.

Thank you.

So, all right, we gotta start off.

Oh God, okay.

Your man lied to you and you started your relationship off on a lie.

A lot of lies.

Tell me about that.

So to start, the owning a few houses and renting them out.

He does not have?

None of them.

Got it, next story.

Then we have the minor mention of being a former NFL player.

And he never played in the football?

Never officially on the team. Oh, we can ask him for clarification, but no.

No, he was not in the NFL.

There's some other things like, you know, with his former relationship status things.

So he would say he's single, but he was not?

Well, I'm not totally sure. He was unemployed for some reasons, and so I was supporting him.

You were supporting him?

Uh-huh.

Giving him money?

Paying the bills at my house. We have 4 kids between us. I have 2, he has 2.

Got it. And you have 1 together?

Yes.

So how long have you actually been together?

Like almost 2 years, but this last 2 years have been very muddy and confusing.

And what made it so muddy and confusing?

You know, just like lots of, he was not ready to give up the relationship. I was like, I'm done with not trusting you.

Good for you. How did you feel when you got pregnant with him?

Oh wow. I was, ugh. I was so overwhelmed. I was devastated and you know, I have a—

Because at this time, did you know about the lies or were you still believing them?

No, I hadn't, but it had gotten really toxic between us. And so I knew I should not be with him. I was terrified though.

So your marriage was riddled with, in the past, was riddled with a lot of pain and trauma in it.

Yeah.

Yeah. So you brought that over?

Of course, yes.

Okay, what kind of trauma and pain?

Well, I would say it goes way back to, you know, as a child I was raised Christian and, you know, with a very heavy emphasis from all my community on purity and purity culture. And so like I went into my marriage as a virgin. Like I thought my body was the biggest thing I could offer my husband, right? And so that really messed up my mind. And so, Because I taught myself all through my life to shut down my sexuality so I could be a virgin on my wedding night, that ended up bringing up a whole bunch of dysfunction in my marriage. And then we ended up, we were never a match anyways. So we, you know, got a divorce. But that still carries like to today. I still have a lot of stuff to wade through with that trauma.

Have you had a lot of relationships in your life?

I got married at 20. So was married until I was 26. Met Kevin 6 months later. So we were way not—

So this is really like your only second relationship that you've been in?

Yeah, yeah. Wow, that's very interesting. Yeah.

Yeah. Are you two together? Kinda? Unsure?

Not sure.

But you wanna be back together?

Maybe?

Maybe. Yeah, you're still— I can see a piece of you still holding on.

Right, 'cause it's like there's nothing to repair. I feel like we actually need to start brand new, but you can't really do that either 'cause it was all dysfunctional. It was all messy. It was all broken.

Today, do you trust Kevin?

Oh, define trust. I trust that he loves me. I trust that he loves his kids and wants the best for his kids. Over the course of us being together, I've had a number of friends let me know like they saw his profile on dating apps.

There's somebody who needs to be here. So everyone, y'all wanna meet Kevin? Yeah, so let's go ahead and meet Kevin. Kevin, come on out. Kevin, thank you for being here, man. Yes, sir. Yeah. Listen, take a seat.

Yes, sir.

I gotta start off, Kevin. Do you think you're a liar?

I was, I was, I was, Karamo. I honestly, she was 6 months out of her divorce. I didn't think she was looking for no relationship. I was out of my relationship recently, so I was just like, oh, single mom, divorced mom? Shoot, she's ready. So, you know, that's what—

So why did you tell her lies in the beginning?

Because I didn't think we were gonna make it that far, so I was like, who cares?

Are you together or not?

No.

No?

No, no. The title is no, no, we're not together.

You're not together. Do you want to be together?

I do.

You do?

I do.

Why do you want to be with this woman?

She got me with them icy blue eyes.

Smooth talker, this one.

She got me, you know? And her personality, you know, the way she is as a woman, the way she carries herself.

Kevin, has Natalie ever betrayed your trust?

She has.

In what way?

She led me on to believe like things were good and golden and that we were eye to eye and working on something. And it turned into her going out with her friends and that turns out to her, you know, meeting other people, talking to other people all while I'm trying to be, you know.

We were broke up.

Yeah.

So in Mexico she slept with someone else?

Yeah.

Okay. And in your relationship, have you ever cheated?

No.

Never once at all? Okay. Why do y'all make that noise? Y'all don't believe it? Geez. No, I think it's pretty interesting. Yeah. Hold your pranks now. I wanna hear what they have to say because part of this is important for me to get their comments and understand what's going on. So, all right, so why do you believe that he was cheating?

It just seems like he lied about everything else. So I mean, just, yeah, that's just what I feel.

Yeah, so do you believe he doesn't have, he has a shady character?

Probably, yeah.

Anybody who does that, regardless of if you're gonna know a person for a day, or years, you started with that premise and you kept it going. Like, I wonder how long did you take until you told her the truth?

He didn't tell me the truth. I dug it up while pregnant.

So I think the biggest thing is you're hearing the audience saying like, a dog doesn't change his coat. Like, you're the same person. How do you respond to that?

Well, good thing is I have got my help. You know, I have gone through therapy.

Good.

Am concurrently going through therapy.

So why haven't you told her the truth yet then?

—No, he has.

—We have since then. Yeah, since then.

—When I was pregnant, I broke up with him while we were pregnant, which was a whole other mess of drama. And I started digging, like looking up the addresses. I don't know why I didn't do that earlier. 'Cause I was like, look, I can't pay rent.

—Well, you shouldn't have done that earlier because no one has to get into a relationship and start being a combination of—

—But now I'm a PI. [Speaker] Yeah. [Speaker] So.

[Speaker] I wonder what else do you two argue about at home?

Oh man, we definitely argue about parenting. We parent differently. And what is the parenting styles?

How are they different?

So I come in, you know, I got the old strict dad, those rules, you know, what dad says goes. And she's more of a softer, gentle, let's talk about it, let's be more understanding. And you know, it should be, yeah, what dad says, like if I come in, I'm saying, "Boys, clean up your room." They clean up their room. You know, when I came to—

If they don't clean up their room, they're getting yelled at, shamed a little bit.

Okay, and then when she's like, "Clean up your room," they say, "No, you do it." They don't say that.

That's not true.

That's not how we do this. You know, that's not our roles. When we say, when we're the parents, we know better. So, you know, that was the way that I was raised.

You have kids? I do. You're talking about co-parenting? Yeah. What would you do if your kids picked up this to this secretive lying behavior? I would be angry.

I'd be really angry just because I want my boys to be able to express themselves. I want them to do that in a certain way though. I want them to be like man enough to be able to tell the truth and stand with it. 'Cause that's something that obviously I struggled with.

So you have a woman right here who now you've gotten to a place who has trust issues from a past relationship. You know for a fact she hasn't been in a lot of relationships, so she doesn't have experience. And so you're using that to your advantage. But I think based on what you just said is that you actually do want to be a better man. I do. What do you think would the first steps to be a better man for her would be?

Well, of course, first, I've been in therapy ever since, what, November of '20, so.

Amen, give it up. I like that. Black man saying he go to therapy, I'm with it.

My therapist, he's my, that's my guy. Yeah, he is.

So what could you say to her now? Now that you know that where, because I only brought this up so you could see where the behavior started. Absolutely. Because sometimes we gotta go back. We gotta reel it in so that we can figure out how we're moving forward. What do you think you need to do now knowing that you don't want your kids to do this behavior to some other woman? What do you gotta say to her?

Absolutely, definitely gotta man up and just say, you know, I apologize for how I came into this situation. I apologize for lying to you. Like you didn't matter to me.

Will this couple reconcile? Your question is, should y'all get back together? I don't know. Have you ever cheated? No. Why do y'all make that noise? Y'all don't believe it?

I have gone through therapy.

What do you think you need to do now knowing that you don't want your kids to do this behavior?

Absolutely, definitely gotta man up and just say, you know, "I apologize for how I came into this situation. I apologize for how we got started." Which is how? Which is by lying to you, treating you like, you know, like your word wasn't, like you didn't matter to me. And then also just taking advantage of you in our situation.

Boom, that's it. Have you ever heard him say that he took advantage of you?

I feel like we actually got in an argument the other day because I said I felt taken advantage of and you said, You felt taken advantage of?

Yes, I do. So now, because he's finally, he's giving you a vulnerable spot. He just said he took advantage of you.

Yeah. Yeah. And thank you for that. That means a lot. Yeah.

Yeah, thank you. I only brought that up is because you weren't wrong. You know what's better. Even though you haven't been in a lot of relationships, you know what's better. You know what's wrong. You know what you don't deserve.

Oh yeah, I do. I sure do.

And so I say that to say, even though this is a charming man, a handsome man, we can all see it, You're also a charming, beautiful woman and you deserve to have time to learn more about what you want. Yes. Your question is, should y'all get back together?

Oh yeah.

I want you to go ahead, now that you've gotten the answer that this man, you already knew he was lying to you, but he said, I took advantage of you. I believe you'll learn how to co-parent because this man is stepping up. He wants to be there. I know you're a good mom. I know y'all gonna figure that out. And sometimes having good guy, bad guy, It works in a household. Y'all will figure out, the reason y'all can't get communication right is because y'all still are healing from all y'all been through. So that's why your communication is muddled. But you heard him say, "I took advantage of you." What decision do you get to make now? Because when someone takes advantage of you, they take away your choices. So what choice do you get to make now? Make us proud, girl.

Yeah, I mean— Don't tell me. I feel like this has been the limbo that we've been in for 2 years of like, Is it possible to like build something brand new? Because I do love you and I do have a special connection with you, you know? And so, I don't know, like how do you even figure that out? How do you figure out if there can be trust built? How do you figure that out? I don't know, it's terrifying.

Well, the thing is, is that in this relationship, trust is not gonna be rebuilt.

But can it be built?

He just nodded his head. It is not as yet. It's not gonna be rebuilt. Okay. You gotta move on. You gotta move on.

You don't think it's possible?

I'm only going off of healthy and unhealthy behaviors. Can we see the unhealthy behaviors? Boom. Lack of commitment. Lied about being in the NFL. Lied about money. Lied about owning property. You just heard him say he took advantage of you. These are things that are so unhealthy, the foundation is broken. You can't build a house on a foundation that's broken. Also, you need time for yourself. You need time for yourself. The beauty of what you have right now is a great guy who's gonna co-parent. And I actually believe the therapy he's doing, the work he's doing, the acknowledgement you have, kudos. Kudos. No, you're wrong. You did wrong in the past. I ain't giving you kudos for that. 'Cause you came here to say, should we move back in together or get back together? And I'm telling you the answer is no. But the thing is, is you have to have the courage to say to him, that we cannot be back together.

Well, hold on a second now. Hold on, hold on, hold on a second. I wanna ask, okay, you guys think that somebody just can't get better? You think that somebody can't help themselves? Like, I obviously really want this because I held onto it. I did the work of getting into therapy to get myself better.

I know. Hold on, so let me tell you something. Yeah. You didn't hear, 5 minutes ago I gave you props for doing that. I didn't talk none about you. Mm-hmm. I said she needs to do the work. It's her turn now. You have a lot more work to do. And the thing is, you need more time. Yeah. But until you have the courage to say, "I need more time, we can't be together," I promise you, you're gonna be in a pattern that's gonna make you unhappy. And I think you're ready to deserve happiness. Are you ready to be happy? Of course. Do you know what real happiness feels like?

I'm not sure.

And that's the reason why you need more time. Because if someone to ask me right now, do I know what real happiness feels like? I'm gonna tell you, yes, I do. Yeah. You feel me? Mm-hmm. All right, everyone, come back next time, friends, so we can keep talking and growing. I love you all. Hold on, where you going? I'll tell you where you're going. Right here to subscribe and right here to watch more, period.