Love is a Losing Game
This was the last Christmas we spent together, 2018
Last Friday would’ve been Zac and Jacob’s fifth wedding anniversary. Of the many things that I struggle with about what happened to my brother, his relationship with his husband is one that I struggle with the most.
“Erin, I’m begging you, You have to convince Chris to include me in the tribute. I was his HUSBAND! I tried so hard! I NEED people to see that! Please, anything you can do. I just have to be in it.” Jacob, Zac’s ex-husband, called me panicked at 6:30 am (4:30 am pacific) on May 22nd, the day after he found Zac dead. He knew that Anime News Network was quickly writing the tribute for Zac and they were extremely reluctant to include Jacob. Why? Because in the last year of Zac’s life, he and Jacob had agreed to separate, Jacob moved out and left ANN (where Zac was his “boss'“) and Zac told EVERYONE he wanted a divorce. Many of us close to Zac experienced firsthand how toxic their relationship was, which reached a fever pitch in 2019.
We all know they were abusive to each other. Zac’s alcoholism made their relationship a nightmare and their relationship contributed to Zac’s alcoholism. I don’t think Jacob had any capacity to actually care for a sick, alcoholic person. Their never-ending financial issues compounded an already desperate situation. What the fuck happened to them? I’m sharing my understanding of how their relationship played a central role in Zac’s downward spiral as a way to process but I know I have limited knowledge and I can only go on what Zac shared in texts and phone conversations.
I first met Jacob in the summer of 2013, when they had been dating a while. Zac seemed pretty happy, for Zac. They moved in quickly together and also began working together and I think all that closeness was very exciting for Zac. He felt loved and loveable. I don’t feel like I really got to know Jacob but I did learn quickly that he is ridiculously sharp-witted, crazy smart, and could run circles around any semi-shrewd opinion I would have about anything pop culture. He also has a wonderful love of animals and his kindness towards them is never-ending. Jacob is fierce in his beliefs and I understand how Zac loved him back, fiercely. Zac was happy and I supported him and his relationship. There was a lot of up and downs in the years that followed and when Zac announced that he and Jacob were engaged, I was kinda shocked. Their relationship seemed volatile from the outside and he told me Jacob was not entirely interested in getting married but why not?
Their wedding was probably the most joyous I’ve ever seen my brother. He had been on his “wellness” journey and felt the best he had probably in his entire adult life. Many of their friends and family came to celebrate at Disneyland, Zac’s happiest place, and we spent a couple of days running around the parks in blissful celebration. But in line for the Tower of Terror (it was 2016, y’all), Zac told us that Jacob was pretty unhappy, and was running around with his friends, disinterested in hanging out with Zac’s friends and families. We did not see Jacob much but that was pretty typical for any family gathering. Zac also told us that they had a lot of other rocky problems as a couple and I began to wonder why in the hell he went through with the wedding. But oh well, time to drop 13 stories on an old Hollywood elevator!
In 2018, less than two years after they were married, Zac had a very bad relapse and their relationship became extremely volatile. That summer got so bad that I bought Zac a plane ticket to stay with us in Louisiana for a week. Jacob warned me that Zac was having a bad relapse and he needed to be “supervised”. I had a hard time trusting Jacob and I had a hard time believing Zac. I think the week in Louisiana was good for Zac but he completely framed it as a relationship problem, not an alcoholic relapse. And I carry some regret for not digging on that further. But I’ve also learned from my own therapy that it was not my responsibility to get Zac into treatment and it was not Jacob’s either. Zac returned to Los Angeles and it seemed like they were going to be ok for a few weeks but things got really bad at the end of 2018/beginning of 2019.
On April 29, 2019, Zac announced on social media that he and Jacob were no longer married. Jacob moved out of their shared apartment around that same time, from what Zac told me, first with a roommate and later to his own apartment, which Zac helped pay for. Zac went on a dating spree in the summer of 2019 and I thought he was finally moving on with his life. But even though Jacob moved out, they still worked together at Anime News Network. Neither could fully move on as long as they still worked together closely. Zac and Jacob stopped working together in October of 2019. I thought this was a very positive step for both of them to truly move on from each other. For the first time in a long time, Zac sounded joyful again about his work. I still play the recording of Zac and Lynzee singing Monster Mash for that October ANNCast podcast, which makes me laugh so hard.
But as the winter months rolled on, the dating slowed down and the attempts at another relationship ended at the end of 2019. Zac told me that was hanging out with Jacob often. I could hear the loneliness in his voice and he said he felt shame that they were still hanging out but it was all he had. He told me all his friends would be very upset to know he was still hanging out with Jacob so he couldn’t tell people about it. I was very upset that he was hanging out with Jacob often but I was more afraid of alienating him so I just said “it’s ok” and tried to understand why he kept going back to Jacob over and over and over again even though he would talk for HOURS about how destructive and selfish Jacob was and how bad the relationship was for Zac’s mental health.
Zac was desperate in March and April 2020 about paying rent for Jacob. He admitted to me that he was buying groceries and exercise equipment for him too. He also admitted that he stopped paying his own health insurance because money was so tight. My brother had chronic anxiety about money and lived in a constant state of worry about finances. He did well enough in his job to live on his own without a second income, but not well enough to also pay for Jacob’s rent, groceries, and whatever else he was covering. I can’t understand how Jacob thought it was appropriate to ask Zac for all that financial help. They shared a joint banking account and he knew my brother was not a wealthy man who could support two households. We had a very angry text exchange about how Jacob was using Zac and it was completely inappropriate for him to be going out on a limb to support him financially like that. The situation was completely unsustainable for him. But let me be clear that it was Zac’s responsibility to draw the line and chose his sobriety over Jacob’s living expenses if that was actually the choice.
Zac told me over and over again that he wouldn’t abandon Jacob. That Jacob had absolutely no friends that could help him. He was terrified that Jacob would end up homeless, on the streets or he would hurt himself. I argued over and over again that Jacob was talented, incredibly intelligent and he would figure it out. Zac deserved to move on with his life. Jacob manipulated my brother into thinking he was helpless, had absolutely no friends, and was desperate for financial help. But also I think Zac was desperate to be needed by Jacob and their co-dependency was mutual and absolutely toxic.
When Zac told me he relapsed again in early May 2020, I begged him to go to rehab or the hospital. Zac was convinced that he would not be able to afford rehab or the hospital. I think he truly believed he was stuck in a no-win financial situation.
But the deeper truth, beyond the financial realities, is that I know now that Zac continued to love and be emotionally tied to Jacob up to the moment of his death. He told multiple people that when he pictured life without Jacob, it made him immensely happy. But for reasons we’ll never fully know, he chose to stay close to him and to continue with the relationship.
I texted Jacob on May 21st out of desperation. None of us had heard from Zac in a few days and we didn’t want to call the police. I was convinced Zac was back in the hospital, as had happened multiple times before when he went missing for a few days. I was about to start calling around to the hospitals but first I wanted to find another friend to go over to Zac’s apartment and check on him. I texted Jacob in an effort to try to connect with some of Zac’s other friends, which I know now was foolish. Jacob told me he was not in communication with Zac. I asked if there was another friend that could go over and check on him. Jacob said no, texting “The other two local friends he had don’t want anything to do with him right now.” So Jacob agreed to check on him, his text said “I’m not gonna be able to get anything done today if I’m wondering if he’s still alive in there.”. Less than 30 minutes later, Jacob call to tell me he found Zac dead. That is a horrible trauma that I will always be sorry that Jacob went through. It is utterly devastating and no matter how difficult their relationship was, no one deserves to find someone they loved like that.
As his spouse at the time of his death, Jacob retained the majority of Zac’s possessions and their shared bank account. He has Zac’s phone (which I never saw), his tablet, and his hard drives with all of Zac’s creative legacy. When we worked together to clean up Zac’s apartment and pack all his belongings so that the apartment could be empty for the first of June, Jacob reviewed and had to approve every item that we as family members wanted to take as mementos and cherished items of all that’s left of Zac. I asked Jacob in a heartfelt, difficult conversation to share all of Zac’s data from his hard drives with me, once Jacob finishes “archiving” it. He signed a piece of paper stating that, which is really worthless but at the time it prevented me from just grabbing Zac’s computers and walking out the door, daring Jacob to call the cops. I’ve asked Jacob for updates and he has stalled and said he’s just “barely getting by”. He’s refused additional help from me, my mom, and my cousin to archive the data. I stopped texting him in May this year, just before the anniversary of Zac’s death, and after he sent us another box of belongings and avoided telling me any updates about the data. I don’t think I’ll ever see the data from Zac’s hard drives. Zac told mom and me that he was working on a novel, some screenplays, other writing. We want every scrap of his writing we can get. Who knows if he was working on any of that, but with Jacob as the gate-keeper for all of it, I don’t think we’ll ever know what was there.
This person that Zac told me was manipulative, abusive, and completely dysfunctional has complete control of what’s left of my brother, except for a few boxes of family mementos and belongings that Jacob approved of us having. He made it clear to us that he would have to sell most of what he could of Zac’s belonging to “survive”. I’m sure it’s a struggle for him, but Jacob does not appear to be homeless, as Zac was terrified would happen if he didn’t continue to support him financially. As I always knew, Jacob is moving on with his life as a creative person.
ANN did give credit to Jacob in the tribute and in the online memorial service, with my blessing, because it seemed like the right thing to do. But I have a lot of anger and confusion about their “relationship” and I’m frustrated that Jacob retains control of what is left of Zac in this world.
