A Psychotherapist on Why Caleb Flynn’s Mistress Couldn’t Walk Away After 18 Months

In January, Alleigha Botner gave Caleb Flynn a clear deadline: leave your wife Ashley or this relationship is over. Flynn let it pass without a word. They broke up. Six weeks later, on Valentine’s Day, he came back. She let him.

Psychotherapist Shavaun Scott tells Tony Brueski that moment — the Valentine’s Day return after a blown ultimatum — is one of the most psychologically loaded details in the Caleb Flynn murder trial. Scott identifies it as a textbook example of intermittent reinforcement: the same behavioral loop that makes slot machines addictive. Long periods of nothing followed by a sud...