Teresa Bean dropped out of high school at the age of 16 and married a man from her church, who she quickly had a child with in the mid-1980s. But the couple struggled and quickly part ways, leaving Teresa to raise her daugther Christie as a single mother.

Teresa had a string of low-paying jobs around Danville, Virginia, before finally finding work at the Dan River Textile Mill, where she met Julian Lewis, who was a recently widowed father of three.

The pair quickly started dating and then got married but tragedy struck when Julian’s oldest son died in a car accident. He received a payout from the life insurance policy and then was named primary on his second son’s policy, right as CJ was about to head off to Iraq to serve. Teresa was named as the secondary.

That’s when Teresa met Matthew & Rodney at the local Wal-Mart. Quickly, Teresa & Matthew began a relationship and eventually she asked for his help to ensure she became primary on CJ’s life insurance policy.