Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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A new year doesn't ask us to become someone new. It invites us back home to ourselves. I'm Mike Della Rocha, host of Sacred Lessons, a space for men to pause, reflect, and heal. This year, we're talking honestly about mental health, relationships, and the patterns we're ready to release.
If you're looking for clarity, connection, and healthier ways to show up in your life, Sacred Lessons is here for you. Listen to Sacred Lessons with Mike Della Rocha on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hi everyone, it's Andrea. If you found us through the Hulu documentary, welcome to the Betrayal Podcast. On this feed, you can listen back to all four seasons of the show, including season three, Stacey and Tyler's story. Right now, our team is busy working on season five, which launches in January of 2026. But in the meantime, we are bringing you new stories every Thursday on Betrayal Weekly.
Each episode is told directly by the person who lived through it. And these stories are powerful. Today, we wanted to share one of our recent weekly episodes. If you like what you hear, just search for Betrayal Weekly in your podcast app and hit subscribe. This is Brooke's story.
I went down to DC thinking that I was making a parenting plan. And I came back with business cards for investigators and victim's assistance phone numbers in my luggage, doubting who I knew for the last five years.
I'm Andrea Gunning, and this is Betrayal, a show about the people we trust the most and the deceptions that change everything. Betrayal Weekly is officially back for season two. Whether you've been with us from the beginning or you're just tuning in, welcome. This season, we're bringing you some of our most riveting, emotional, and unforgettable stories yet. Starting with this one.
So, I had been married for 11 years. It was very shocking to me what little independence I had so easily fallen into. And I didn't want to be like that.
That's Brooke Fisk. She's an ICU nurse from upstate New York. When she was 32, she divorced her first husband and started over.
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Chapter 2: What is Brooke's story of betrayal about?
And after he left the room, the patient, who I thought was sleeping, opened her eyes and she pointed at me. She had a trach, so she couldn't talk, but she mouthed the words, that man is for you. And I laughed and I said, no, he's not. And she said, yes, he is.
Brooke didn't like the stereotype about doctors and nurses hooking up.
You know, the nurse and the doctor sneak off into a supply closet because that's what's depicted on Grey's Anatomy.
That's why she had the rule. No dating doctors. But after a few weeks of flirtation, he won her over. She took his number and decided that just this once, she could break her rule. They started with an ice cream date, then long walks and dinners at his apartment.
We really developed kind of a friendship first kind of relationship. So we would spend a lot of time watching movies, going to movies. I taught him how to cook rice American style. I don't think either of us realized at the time how much closer we were getting while we were doing those casual things.
So that fall, we went out a couple of times and we started talking about, you know, where he came from, what my background was. And I knew that he had come for residency from Pakistan.
He came from a family of doctors. In fact, his dad had owned a hospital in Pakistan. Like his older brother, Sikh wanted to stay in the U.S. and practice medicine here.
Where he grew up, men and women didn't do public displays of affection. And I remember the first time that he held my hand in public, he was so awkward about it. And I was like, what are you doing? Are you holding my hand in public? You know, kind of joking with him. And he was like, yeah, I am. But he was so nervous about it.
there was a real connection between them. But that didn't change Brooke's feelings about commitment.
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Chapter 3: How did Brooke's life change after her divorce?
He moved out of his apartment and into a townhouse. And he had said at one point that he thought that I would come and live with him. And I said, I can't come live with you. I have kids. And he said, well, you can just stay here when your kids aren't home. And I said, that's fine. And at that point, we had a conversation about how we really liked the life we had together.
And we liked being together when we could be together. But that neither of us were really passionate about wanting to get married still.
Brooke had been careful about boundaries from the very beginning, especially when it came to her kids.
For me, there was a lot of hesitancy about introducing someone to my kids. So there was a little bit of integration, but not a lot. We all went to the movies together a couple of times, and he came over for dinner a couple of times.
Her kids really took to sick and enjoyed having him around. After that, he wanted Brooke to meet his family.
His mom came to town and he asked me if I would meet her. And she invited me for lunch and tea. So I went over and we had a really nice afternoon together. And we ended up talking about love.
Sick was at work, so it was just Brooke and his mom. And there was clearly a wink and a nod to the conversation because Sick hadn't been completely honest with his mom.
Sick had told her that I was his friend, but she's a mom and she's not dumb. So I think she knew what was going on. She asked me what I thought about arranged marriage and if I thought it was good or if I thought love marriages were better. And we had a nice conversation about love and she told me about meeting a sixth dad and their marriage.
I didn't get any sense of disapproval from her at all. She was very kind to me.
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Chapter 4: What challenges did Brooke face as a newly single mother?
We actually went to a couple of different places. We took a little road trip around for him to look at them and interview.
The program he really wanted to go to was in D.C., a six-hour drive from upstate New York. Brooke made it clear that relocating wasn't an option for her family.
I don't think that trying to have a long distance relationship is a good idea, especially given that I have kids and he's going to be living states away. And he acknowledged that and we had a couple of conversations about it. But ultimately, he decided that it was important for him to go to this program. It was a program that his brother had done, so it was kind of a family legacy.
It was bittersweet, but Brooke supported Sick. If he wanted to start his career in America, this really was for the best.
I was very happy for him, congratulated him. I bought him a cake and helped him start looking for places to buy down there and helped him paint it and helped him pick out furniture and decorate it. And then, you know, we kind of said goodbye after that. But of course, goodbye wasn't really goodbye as often happens in these relationships.
They knew they had an expiration date, but they were having a hard time letting go.
I remember walking into the airport with tears streaming down my face, bawling after saying goodbye to him. And a TSA agent came up to me and she said, are you okay? And I said, yeah, I just said goodbye to my boyfriend. But I'm sure she thought something was horribly wrong just from the amount that I was crying. We said a lot of goodbyes that year.
This began a new era of their relationship. One where they kept finding their way back to each other, weekend by weekend. We weren't in a relationship.
We were not together. But what we would end up doing is anytime either one of us had like a long weekend free or... If it was one of our birthdays, we would take a little trip together.
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Chapter 5: How did Brooke meet Sick, the medical resident?
I'm good at raising kids. If he doesn't want to have the baby, that's fine.
She went to the doctor and learned the baby was perfectly healthy. It was a little boy.
I was already picking out names before I was even showing because I already knew who he was. I decided to name him Makai and call him Kai for short.
But Sick wasn't on the same page. After she told him, he started spiraling.
That started months of phone calls and text messages begging and pleading with me to have an abortion and telling me that I was ruining his life, that this was going to cast shame on his family in Pakistan, that his mother was going to be ridiculed and he was going to be an outcast and that I was causing him mental anguish.
She understood that having a baby outside of marriage wasn't part of his plan. But plan or not, this was happening.
All of that text message and the phone calls about you're ruining my life, you're ruining my mom's life, that all made me pretty mad.
She kept waiting for Sick to come around. But every time she talked to him, he tried a new tactic.
One day I was sitting on my bed and I was on the phone with Sick and he said that he had talked to a friend of his who was an OBGYN and that his friend had told him that I could take misoprostol And that it would abort the baby and that I could do it right there at Sick's house and it would all happen very easily. And I wouldn't even need to go to the hospital or anything.
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