For Nia Rader, the marriage was over.
In 2015, she discovered her husband Sam’s name was on a leaked list of clients of the Ashley Madison website, a site dedicated to helping reportedly 37 million people engage in adultery. After the website was hacked by “The Impact Team” and the list was made public, Sam confessed to Nia that he had signed up for the website. Later, he admitted to being involved in multiple affairs.
The popular Christian YouTuber couple — who had become known for sharing funny family videos and their faith online — was now exposed for all to see and their sweet Christian family persona gone. Nia at the time believed the damage was beyond repair. The couple’s journey through the scandal recently became part of a Netflix documentary, “Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies & Scandal.”
“There was just a lot of anger,” Nia recalled in the documentary. “I’ve been a good wife. I’ve been a good mother. There’s just no reason.”
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Nia added, “I started reeling inside. I felt like literally my world was crumbling. Every single aspect of my life up to this point felt like a lie. Everything that we have dreamed about. All of these very special [moments] — our wedding day, the day we met — these moments that we felt like time stood still for us, suddenly it was just over.”
Sam, who went by the screen “name dirty_little_secret_man” on the Ashley Madison website, explained how he thought engaging in multiple affairs would provide an excitement to his life that he couldn’t find anywhere else. But instead, he would acknowledge, signing up for the Ashley Madison service “would be the biggest mistake of my life.”
Life before the hack
Before the news broke, everything seemed to be going the couple’s way.
They had a growing YouTube following of fans who tuned in to watch the family navigate life. The growing audience and income generated through their online popularity allowed Sam to quit his job as an emergency room nurse.
It was an opportunity both Sam and Nia described as a ministry. Sam noted, “For us, vlogging was just showing other families what it looked like to live for the Lord.”
At the height of the channel’s success, Sam shared, he had found something to fill the void of insecurity he struggled with and decided to cancel his Ashley Madison account.
He thought he had put his past mistakes behind him.
“Life is awesome right now,” he thought. “Ashley Madison was behind me, but I had no idea what was coming.”
And then a group or individual called “The Impact Team” hacked the website and threatened to release the names, addresses and other damaging information of millions of clients if the Ashley Madison website didn’t shut down within 30 days. When Ashley Madison refused to cease operation, the “Team” released the list.
“I felt a sudden sense of doom and that my life was over,” Sam recalled.
Consequences
After the news broke, the couple decided to separate, and Sam moved out for a time.
“I needed space,” Nia recalled. “I just couldn’t be in the same room with him.”
Being away from their three children proved harder than Sam imagined.
“That was hard to leave my kids and to think that may be my new way of life,” he shared. “We had to take our daughter to her first day of kindergarten, and we’re both there taking pictures separately and being there and seeing what their lives will look like completely without me — and that was really hard.
“It was all painful to watch,” he noted. “Just seeing the destruction of what I’d chosen to do.”
Sam decided amid the turmoil that he wouldn’t stop fighting to restore the broken relationship.
“I wasn’t going to give up,” Sam said. “I was going to do whatever it took and fight tooth and nail for this marriage.”
Eventually, Nia agreed to start seeing a marriage counselor.
“I expressed my remorse and my regret day after day,” Sam added. “[I spent] every day confessing how much I love her. I wanted it to work so badly.”
The process of reconciliation took a lot of “really hard, deep conversations to find out what was real and what was not real,” Nia recalled. “But I really didn’t want to fix it. I did not want to reconcile. At that point, I felt like it was over.”
Sam described the process of reconciliation as “difficult” and “very emotional.”
‘Turnaround’
“I started to really think about the selfish decisions I made,” Sam said. “Looking back, I realized it was all about me. I’m not thinking about Nia. And that was not how I was going to live anymore. … It was a turnaround. It was a complete change.”
Today, the couple is back together. They have released a new book, “Sam & Nia: Living in Truth” and have shared thoughts about the Netflix documentary on YouTube.
Both Sam and Nia agree their new life together isn’t easy.
“What Sam did and what we walked through has left a mark,” Nia said. “It left a permanent mark, but I’m thankful for it. It’s kind of a starting point for us on how we’ll live the rest of our marriage.”
“Falling in love is beautiful,” Sam noted, “but I’ve learned continuing to be deeply in love takes work. There are a lot of things I regret, but I don’t regret the hack. It had to happen for where we’re at today.”
