Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool

May 5, 2014 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:12:01

2686 Intoxicated Infidelity: A Relationship Intervention - Sunday Call In Show May 4th, 2014

An engaged couple in the midst of an infidelity related crisis ask for help and a listener asks if it is selfish to participate in a dangerous sport against his families wishes.

Large

Audio Only |

Scroll

Time	Text
	Good morning, everybody.
	It's Stefan Molyneux from Freedom In Radio.
	I hope you're doing very well.
	This is the Sunday morning church of philosophy where we don't go to church.
	And most people apparently seem to steal from the donation plate.
	But that's a matter for another time.
	I hope you're doing very well.
	Mike, we've got some speaking announcements, if I remember rightly.
	Yes, we do.
	We actually just made a commitment to go to a Voice for Men's International Conference on Men's Issues, which will be held in Detroit June 26th through 28th, Warren Farrell is going to be there.
	Karen Strawn is going to be there.
	A lot of very interesting speakers.
	Paul Elam is going to be there.
	Yeah, I'm going to be there.
	I'm going to be coming along with stuff.
	And we're probably going to be doing some cool stuff in conjunction with the conference.
	Wait, wait.
	A voice for men?
	A voice for men.
	God, I'm so sorry.
	I thought it was a yodel for men.
	I thought it was.
	I've been practicing.
	Little old lady.
	Anyway.
	Keep going.
	I hope anyone that's even near Detroit can make it to this conference.
	It should be a really interesting time.
	And that's a voice for men, yes, yes.
	Don't search for a yodel for men dot com.
	That's not where you want to go, but a voice for men dot com to get your tickets.
	They are going fast, so...
	Yeah, come out and see Dr.
	Warren Farrell.
	Come see Karen Strawn live in person.
	Come see stuff.
	We're going to be doing some cool stuff.
	And we should have an announcement.
	We should do a little meet-up.
	I don't just sort of bungee in and do the speech like I'm there.
	And we hopefully can do some...
	Like we did in Amsterdam.
	Have a good old chat.
	So yeah, I hope people will come.
	It's a great...
	I'm really looking forward to the conference.
	It's a nice venue and great speakers.
	So I'd really recommend it.
	Absolutely.
	Absolutely.
	And we're working on a couple other side projects to do while we're in Detroit, which we should have some details on soon.
	But it's going to be quite the deal.
	So I hope everyone can pop out and join us.
	And that's AVoiceForMen.com.
	Get your tickets.
	Just go.
	Seriously, go get your tickets.
	These events end up being a lot of fun, and you're going to regret it come the weekend if you don't end up going.
	So if you can possibly make it, if you're anywhere near Detroit, make the drive.
	Fly in.
	Do something.
	But hope to see you there.
	It should be a really good time.
	And if you're having trouble finding Detroit on your GPS, just follow the smell of burning fiat currency.
	It's a plume of smoke.
	You really can see it for hundreds of miles, so just follow that.
	Just find the place where all the white people are running in the exact opposite direction.
	Except for this old boy.
	Or as I'm known in the colonies, a home fellow.
	Anyway, go on.
	For the people that want to understand that reference, there's been a significant amount of white flight from Detroit, which you can see in our presentation about Detroit's bankruptcy.
	Yeah, and apparently only the white people in Detroit get jetpacks, which is really why I'm going.
	That's what I understand by the term.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Did Paul promise you a jetpack?
	Is that part of the reason?
	He did.
	Anybody with a beard that big is automatically credible.
	Just look at Gandalf.
	Or the guy from ZZ Topp.
	Alright, but that's a voiceformen.com, folks.
	Pop over, get your tickets.
	Hope to see you there, end of June.
	And also, one more announcement.
	We just released a brand new Freedom In Radio podcast application.
	If you found it a bit cumbersome to search for podcasts or find things in the past, that is no more the case.
	If you go to FDRpodcast.com, that's FDRpodcast.com.
	We have a pretty cool application with the search feature.
	All the podcasts are individually tagged.
	All different types of feeds you can subscribe to.
	Lots of really good stuff.
	FDRpodcast.com.
	No longer do you have to email me going, has Steph ever talked about this subject?
	You can search it.
	You'll find it.
	It'll become pretty easy for you.
	Oh, no, no.
	Still email Mike about that, of course.
	Yeah, I mean, just still, because Mike, you know, Mike's days, the hours in the day, they stretch like long shadows at sunset.
	So fill up Mike's inbox with a couple of pings so that he's not just staring at his screensaver wondering what he's doing with his life.
	So please, still email Mike about it.
	Also, email Mike if you're a history student and ask how it's possible that we managed to get a podcast from Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
	I think that's important, but sorry, go ahead.
	But big thanks to Kevin and James for their work on that podcast application.
	It's the version one right now, so if you've got any suggestions how it can be improved, which you'd like to see with it, just let us know, and we will try and implement those moving forward.
	But it's a really nice step forward, and some more cool stuff is going to be coming with it in the very near future.
	So I think that's it as far as announcements.
	No, there's one more.
	I'll be speaking at a conference in Toronto.
	Oh, but it's not officially 100% confirmed, so I don't have all the information up.
	But we are in talks, most likely guaranteed to be talking at a domestic violence conference in Toronto in early June.
	And we will have that information up on the Freedom Main Radio website, and we'll announce it on following shows as soon as that is 100% locked in and confirmed.
	And we're not going to New Zealand.
	We got a quasi-offer to go to New Zealand for a TEDx conference that we won't be making.
	Not in their budget to even pay for airfare at this go-around and 18 hours on a flight.
	You know, I did a little research.
	To get to New Zealand from Canada, it's actually easier to simply take your fingernails and burrow through the center of the earth.
	Oh, did you know?
	This is an interesting bit of physics here.
	So, okay, let's say I did that.
	You know, let's say we put that in the business plan for next year.
	I burrow through the center of the earth all the way through.
	Do you know what happens if you jump in the hole?
	What's that?
	Well, I used to think that you'd sort of go, you know, like an elastic or a bungee cord, boing, boing, boing.
	Actually, you just fall and slow down until you come to a stop right in the middle of the earth.
	Yeah.
	Then do we just fill the hole in and leave you there?
	Is that the plan?
	I wonder how Skype's reception would be.
	But if there is anything you need to talk about with our working relationship, perhaps we could do it during the show.
	That is the first impulse that came to your mind was burying me in a hole filled with lava.
	Okay, I guess the first caller up is Mike.
	Mike, you have some problems with the person you're working with.
	Is there something you'd like to share?
	I'd like to talk about resentment, Stefan.
	Well, I think you are.
	I think you've already brought that up.
	All right.
	Who's up first, Mike?
	All right.
	Up first today, we have Jim and Jane, a couple on the line.
	They wrote in and said, this is a summary.
	My partner did something to breach my trust.
	Once the damage is done, is it ever possible to build trust again in a romantic relationship?
	Go ahead, Jim and Jane.
	Hello.
	Hello.
	Hi.
	Good morning.
	Can you guys both hear me?
	Yes.
	Yes.
	Okay, you're not like passing a little earphone back and forth, right?
	So we can have like a, dare I say a three-way?
	Yeah, we can both hear you.
	We both have headphones in, spliced.
	Now, hopefully a three-way is not the cause of the trust issue, because that would be kind of ironic, but I wonder if you could talk a little bit about what happened.
	Do you want to talk about it?
	I'm not sure which one of us should explain what happened.
	Do you want to hear from him or me?
	Who did the wrong?
	I did.
	Yeah, Jane, if you could, I think that would be excellent.
	Okay.
	And I appreciate you calling in.
	I know it's tough stuff.
	I really do appreciate that you're calling in.
	You know, I'll try to be nice.
	I'll really, really...
	I'm just kidding.
	Go ahead, Jane.
	I was thinking that.
	I was thinking, I hope he's nice to me.
	But yeah, we've been together for about four years.
	We plan on getting married in August.
	And last week, I went out with a friend to a ball game.
	And it was really cold, the ball game.
	We ended up sitting inside at the bar and getting really drunk, my friend and I. And basically what happened was on the way home we met someone on the train and we went to that person's house and I cheated.
	And basically I blacked out.
	I'm not really sure exactly what happened there at that person's house.
	But the reports were just, you know, basically fooling around with him and Yeah, fooling around with him.
	So the next morning, when Jim got the report, he woke me up and I was kind of oblivious because I didn't know.
	I had blacked out, so I didn't know what happened.
	And the only reason I really found out what happened was because of the report that the friend that I was with gave.
	So...
	Yeah, basically that's what happened.
	Yeah, that's what happened.
	Wow, I'm sorry to hear that.
	I mean, that's a pretty terrifying experience to not know what happened.
	You basically lost time, right?
	Yeah, so that's not the first time that happened though.
	It's been happening.
	Because you gave me a lot.
	First time you went to a ball game, first time you were cold, first time you went on a train, first time...
	Oh, okay.
	Do you mean the first time that you blacked out or the first time that you were unfaithful?
	It's not the first time that I blacked out.
	It was the first time that I wasn't faithful, but not the first time that I blacked out over the years throughout my 20s.
	Is it possible...
	I don't mean to freak you out, but is it possible that it's not the first time you've been unfaithful, but you don't remember the other times?
	No, it's not possible because of the situations where we were.
	I know where I was those other times that I blacked out.
	We weren't alone with someone, is what I'm saying.
	And unfaithfulness is a continuum from like flirting, heavy flirting, all the way through like unprotected vaginal intercourse.
	Do you know where you were on that continuum that night?
	Well, I am almost certain that there was no vaginal intercourse.
	Wait, you're almost certain that there was no?
	Yes.
	And how do you know?
	I'm not doubting you, I'm just curious about...
	Yeah, no, only because of the report that my friend gave and...
	I mean, only because I just feel like I would have remembered that.
	I think I would have remembered that.
	Okay.
	So, I mean, I don't know.
	And when did this happen again?
	Was it last week?
	Last week.
	Last week, yes.
	Okay.
	So, a couple of technical items.
	Obviously, you've got to check for STDs, and a pregnancy test obviously would be a good idea, right?
	Just in case.
	Right, which has already been done.
	Yes.
	Yeah, both of those things have been done.
	Okay, and so if you're fine for that, that's obviously good, so I just wanted to double check on that.
	Yes, those things have been done.
	There is some fuzziness for me.
	It's just the first time I'm hearing the story.
	And I understand, Jane, also there's some fuzziness for you.
	So if you've pardoned me, just trying to sort out the details of what happened in the moment.
	So when you met a person on the train and you went back to that person's house, is that right?
	That's right.
	And was it with your friend that you went to the ball game with?
	Yes.
	And...
	The infidelity occurred with the person you met on the train or with your friend?
	With the person I met on the train.
	Right, okay.
	And your friend was there in the apartment or in the house when this occurred?
	Yes.
	Did your friend not see fit to stop you?
	She stated that she tried to stop me and that I wouldn't listen to her.
	And that so she kind of just gave up temporarily and was in the bathroom or in the other room.
	And she said that she had tried to stop me and I wouldn't listen to her.
	And so she was kind of just waiting for me to leave with her.
	But that she couldn't stop me.
	Wouldn't she call the cops or something?
	I mean.
	Thank you.
	Well, no.
	It just seems to me like infidelity in an engagement, particularly if you're going to get married in August, infidelity can be a massively life-changing event.
	I'm not sure, but like, well, I tried to stop you, but then I just sort of wait until you finished having sex with a guy you don't even know where you could get a disease or you could get pregnant and you could blow up your engagement.
	I'm just sort of trying to look at the environment and trying to sort of figure out what was happening, because it seems to me like a friend would be like, no, I'm calling the cops.
	If you go in that room, I'm going to call the cops, and I'm going to get you removed from the premises because you're in no condition to ascend to sex, right?
	Yes.
	We haven't been friends for that long, and I know that she's not the best.
	She's not a very good person.
	We were friends, but basically.
	In what way?
	I just don't, she's not, I can't say that I trusted her 100%, but I think I was just friends with her because, just because she was there and she was also somebody that just because she was there and she was also somebody that liked to So we had that in common.
	She was kind of like my drinking buddy.
	Right, okay, so she's got bad judgment herself.
	Yes, exactly.
	So you would think that that would be the right smart thing to do, would be to call the cops, but no, that's not what happened.
	Plus we were...
	Do you have any memory of her trying to intervene?
	Slightly, yeah.
	Yeah.
	Well, I'm incredibly sorry for the situation.
	I really am.
	I am relieved that this crisis, obviously I think it's fair to say that it's a crisis, has occurred before you've gotten married.
	Because obviously it would be even more complicated afterwards.
	What a heartbreaking situation to be in.
	Heartbreak is one of these words that's used a lot, but I think it's fair to say that this is genuinely heartbreaking, right?
	Absolutely, 100%.
	I'm very sorry.
	Again, I just want to point that out ahead of time.
	Me too.
	I'm sorry, Jen, we'll get you in a sec.
	I just want to sort of get a sense.
	So, Jen, you say that this drinking to blackout and losing time has occurred before, and how often has that occurred?
	I mean, all throughout my 20s.
	But I would say, you know, I mean, I'm 33 now, so I would say at least 10, 15 times.
	Throughout my twenties and up till now.
	And what are you running from in yourself when you do that?
	I think initially I think it's just like a social anxiety issue of me feeling more, better able to connect with people when I do better able to connect with people when I do have a drink.
	That's where it starts, is where it's like, oh, it's so much easier for me to be social when I'm drinking.
	But then it turns into just, wow, this is so much easier, and this is way more fun, so let me have another.
	And wow, it's even easier, so let me have another.
	And then it's like, it becomes just...
	For me, I think in my head it makes it easier, but in reality it's just making it worse.
	Yeah, it certainly has a self-destructive element to it.
	Where do you think the social anxiety comes from?
	It comes from my My lack of self-worth, I guess.
	My feeling of less than because of the work that I'm in and just, I guess, the thoughts that I have about myself and the way I judge myself because I'm a waitress.
	I'm actually...
	I went to school to become a teacher and I became a teacher and then, of course, was disillusioned by the public school system, so I resigned and I have been just waitressing because I haven't found a school that's in line with my beliefs about how children learn and grow.
	And also just the waitressing is great money.
	So I think it has a lot to do with my lack of being able to say, oh, you know, I'm living my life purposely.
	I have this job that I love and I'm not able to kind of I feel good about myself in social situations.
	Look, I appreciate that, but that's not the real answer.
	And the reason I know that's not the real answer, and I don't mean this in a critical way, I'm just giving you the feedback.
	You say that it's because you're not where you want to be in your life, but you also said that this happened throughout your 20s, right?
	Right.
	So that can't be the answer, right?
	I mean, that may be your excuse now, and I don't mean an excuse like you're being a bad person, but if it was, then it would not have happened in your 20s, and maybe it would happen now because of your dissolutions.
	So let's go further back in time, and let's talk about your childhood.
	Okay, but in my 20s, I also was kind of striving constantly to be somewhere else, like when I was in school or...
	The job that I was in was just kind of like a stepping stone to get somewhere else, so it could be that.
	Not that I'm arguing with you, but that was awesome.
	Argue with me if you want.
	It's your life.
	I don't want to erase your opinions or your perspectives at all.
	But if you say it's because I'm disillusioned and I'm not where I want to be in my life in my mid-30s, then that would not have been nearly as much the case in your 20s.
	We all do stuff we don't like in our 20s, but we have this goal of getting somewhere, right?
	Yeah.
	So what happened?
	What was your chart like?
	Where do I begin?
	I guess...
	Well, how were you disciplined?
	My mom hit me like once or twice when I was young, but it was infrequent.
	I mean, I mean, I got spanked a few times early on, but I know that I can remember her feeling guilty over it and not wanting to do that and more, not spanking, but yelling, yelling or, you know, punishing, but, you know, getting grounded and stuff like that.
	All right.
	And your brother?
	My father was incarcerated when I was like four years old.
	And we used to go visit him like on the weekends, but my mom and everyone else told me I guess that he was in the army and that's where we were going to go visit him.
	Because it was more like a country club prison.
	It wasn't like a real lock-up.
	I remember him wearing a brown suit.
	All the families used to meet with the men in a courtyard.
	I thought he was in the army.
	My mom and everyone else lied to me about that.
	Why was he incarcerated?
	Selling drugs.
	And how long was he incarcerated for?
	Like five years, maybe less, three, four, five.
	Yeah, so I was like...
	So from four to nine, you...
	Yeah.
	You were going to visit your father.
	At some point, you must have guessed that this was not a country club, right?
	No, I didn't know until I was older.
	I didn't realize until I was older that he was in jail.
	And it was like accidental.
	You said you were four, so you were nine when he was released?
	About that, yeah.
	And did you go and visit him often?
	Yeah, and then when he got out, he had visitation on the weekends, so we would see him every weekend and we would spend time with him every weekend.
	Sorry, you mean, did your parents split up while he was in jail?
	Yes.
	Yes.
	Like my mom was seeing someone else also while he was in jail.
	Right.
	Right.
	I mean, I'm so sorry.
	I mean, I'm, for what it's worth, very much against the war on drugs.
	I think it's terrible to rip a family apart like that and to hurl a man in a cage for five years for Selling drugs.
	I mean, it's horrifyingly unjust and I'm incredibly sorry that happened to your family as a whole.
	Thank you.
	And what was your relationship with your father like after he was released from prison?
	It was just like on the weekends we would go to his house and spend time.
	It was just...
	It was nice.
	You know, it wasn't like a deep connection, but it was...
	He was always there for us.
	He always made it, you know, very intentional to have us with him every weekend.
	And it was...
	It was nice to spend time.
	And then as I got older, it was kind of like every other weekend, you know, as I got...
	You know, as I was a teenager, it was kind of like every other weekend.
	And then it was kind of...
	Whenever we chose to, once we got our driver's license.
	But it's always been, you know, a constant.
	Our relationship is...
	He's there for me.
	You know, we love each other, but it's kind of...
	You know, things aren't really spoken of.
	Certain things aren't really spoken of.
	Like what?
	Like, you know, when he was in jail and what that was like for me.
	Like, discussions of...
	What it was like when he was married to my mother and when I was little or even now, kind of like any conversations that are deeper than just, so how's work, kind of.
	Right.
	Yeah.
	And have you talked to your mom about all this stuff that happened when you were a kid?
	Yes.
	Yes, we've talked about it.
	And what is the conversation like?
	like how does that go? - She told me about how what led up to his arrest and how she kept telling him to be careful and that she to stop doing it, that he was gonna get in trouble and was kind of like that he was gonna get in trouble and was kind of like I told you so kind of thing once he
	And, you know, that first night he, she kind of just left him there because she told him that that was going to happen and he didn't listen to her.
	And so, um, you know, she was always loving when I was, when he was, when he was away, she was always there and loving and, well, loving, but she worked, she worked.
	So, um, I remember like being home alone.
	Like we didn't go to like Lachiki or anything after school, but like coming home from school and her not really being there, just like me and my sister.
	But, um, Yeah, she regrets that she lied to me about him being in jail, but she felt that that was what she needed to do then.
	What sort of men did your mom go out with after this?
	Well, she was actually married to the man that she was with.
	When she was married to my dad.
	He was loving.
	My stepfather is loving.
	Sorry, sorry.
	I just missed that part.
	Hang on.
	So was she married to your dad?
	She was, yes.
	And then you said she was...
	She was married to my dad and then when he was in jail she met my stepfather.
	And she was dating my stepfather, who is now my stepfather.
	And then she divorced your dad and married your stepfather?
	Yes.
	But yeah, when my dad was away, I don't remember her dating random men.
	I don't remember...
	I think I remember just one time seeing a man leave the house.
	Just one time.
	And being like, oh, who's that kind of thing?
	But she didn't date...
	It wasn't random men.
	Basically, my memory is just of her seeing my stepdad when my dad was away.
	And him being very loving and totally, totally cool.
	Your stepdad, you mean?
	Yes.
	All right.
	And so you have a good relationship with your stepdad?
	Yes.
	Mm-hmm.
	And what's he like?
	He's funny and kind.
	Yeah, he's funny and kind.
	And loving, very loving.
	I mean, the only thing that I really know about your stepdad is that he met your mom and he said, oh, you have kids.
	Do you have siblings?
	Yeah, I have a sister.
	You've used to be, right?
	Yes.
	Okay, so your stepdad met your mom and said, oh, you have kids and you're married to a guy in prison.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Why would he get involved in that kind of situation?
	Because my mom is beautiful.
	He was also married at the time, and he has two sons.
	But I think, yeah, I think they had met, at the time they met, both of their marriages were, you know, shitty.
	So I never really talked to my dad about...
	Let me make a guess, Jane.
	This is an educated guess, but it remains only a guess.
	The guy you met on the train last week, was he a good-looking fellow?
	I hardly remember.
	It's embarrassing, but I hardly remember.
	So you blacked out not just when you blacked out, but also the memories that led up to it?
	Yes.
	I mean, from when we left the game, I don't really remember even leaving the game, really.
	Well, the likelihood is that he was a good-looking fellow.
	Because, of course, your relationship, your parents' relationship right now, your mom and your stepdad's, was founded on betrayal, right?
	They were both married.
	They had affairs, and then they got together, right?
	Um...
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	And now your marriage is going to be now founded on betrayal, right?
	I'm just saying that there are these patterns in life when you look for them.
	And you don't usually have to, we've been talking for like half an hour, you don't usually have to look too deep, but you can find these patterns, right?
	All right.
	So, Jim, do you mind if I ask you some questions?
	Sure.
	How attractive is Jane?
	I'm sorry to ask you this with Jane in the room, but physically, right?
	One to ten?
	Yeah, she's very attractive.
	Very attractive, all right.
	Very attractive, yes.
	Okay.
	And Jim, tell me a little bit about yourself.
	What would you like to know about specifically?
	Well, we could start with the present, which would be more making small talk.
	So let's go to the childhood.
	how was your childhood um so uh my inclination is just to go where if I was hit when I was hit kind of thing So my mother was...
	My mother has always been really loving, supporting.
	My father was like a workaholic and at a very young age, I remember when I was like eight years old, I remember my mother crying and telling me that one day she's going to leave my father and like feeling really bad about it because she's like a really… How old were you?
	I was about like eight or nine.
	Well, hang on.
	We've got a lot of time there before 8 or 9.
	Okay.
	What happened before then?
	Before 8 or 9?
	Yeah.
	I don't know.
	I mean, there's things that throughout...
	My life, like, with my father.
	Yeah.
	I know, like, and this is before even I was born, my father was married.
	And his wife committed suicide.
	And then after, yeah, then after, so I have a half-brother.
	From my father's first marriage.
	My mother and my father met through my mother's uncle, who was a priest.
	They said that there was this guy, that his wife committed suicide, and then my mom talked to him, whatever, and they ended up getting married.
	And this is actually a conversation I had with my mom about, like, what had you marry my dad?
	Like, you know, with all of, like, his behaviors, you know, the things that, the stories I hear about my father, like, like, infidelity that he has done, and all of these things that...
	You mean with his first wife?
	With his first wife, and I even asked my father, like, flat out, like, did you ever cheat on mom?
	And he was just like, no, no, like, and it's just, I don't believe him.
	Like, my father is like...
	But you said there was infidelity.
	Was there infidelity with your father and his first wife?
	I don't, I don't know, but I would assume, I mean, I don't know for sure, but...
	I would say my half-brother would say absolutely, but maybe wouldn't even admit it.
	And do you know why his first wife killed herself?
	I talked about it with my half-brother, and I don't know the specific reasons, but I know that my father didn't treat her well.
	I know that for certain, just to see how my father treated my mother.
	But I don't know the exact reason.
	I can't just pinpoint it and say what it is.
	And Jim, what do you do for a living?
	Currently, what I'm doing is I'm in sort of like a UX design position, like creating and designing interfaces.
	You mean a user interface?
	Yes, yes.
	Okay.
	I'm sorry, go ahead.
	How old are you, Jim?
	I am 31.
	31.
	All right.
	Do you guys want to have children?
	Absolutely.
	Okay, both of you, right?
	I mean, sometimes people say absolutely, I haven't talked it over.
	Yeah, we talked it over a lot.
	And I mean, it's one of the things that like, where we are in agreement on, in so many ways, like, yes, Jane is absolutely beautiful.
	And the thing that really keeps me...
	You mean physically?
	Physically, yes.
	And the thing that makes it so hard to leave her is just the fact that the way that we've talked about how we're going to raise our kids and what we're going to do, we're completely on the same page with that.
	And that's a really important factor in my life.
	That is something...
	Like a virtue that she has that I value highly beyond whatever she may look like.
	Right.
	Now, what are you guys' levels of emotions during this conversation?
	You sound kind of monotone to me.
	And I'm actually, I've been crying because the stories are so gruesome.
	Your histories, I'm so sorry.
	I mean, what a complete mess.
	And how are you guys doing emotionally?
	Well, this happened...
	Why are you guys emotionally?
	No, it's been almost, it's like 10 days ago.
	So, I mean, obviously when it first happened, it was like tremendously...
	It was just tremendously overwhelming to the point where I, it was like, you know, nervous breakdown kind of.
	Those first, the first two days after it happened was like literally nervous breakdown where like I have never felt the pain in my body, anything ever like that before.
	So the first two days were incredibly overwhelming.
	Painful.
	And then once I spoke to my coach, my therapist about what had happened, it subsided a little bit because we were able to actually sit down and talk clearly about what led, you know, the events that led to that and what happened that day.
	So every day it's been just like easing just that slight, slight, slight bit where it's, it's not as painful, but it's, you know, it's still, it's still present, obviously, but, you know, I'm laying down right now.
	I, I, we were ready to, to, we, we prepared ourselves to talk with you.
	So I'm laying down just, you know, in a position of comfort to be able to just talk to you clearly and, and, So that's where I'm at right now.
	Okay, so you're describing to me your emotions in the past, but you're not feeling too much in the present, if I understand it rightly.
	Um, the, the emotion over, over the incident is, has subsided, um, tremendously, but like right now what I'm feeling right now is just a little nervous just to even be talking about it, but it's just, it's just, um, yeah, it's more just a nervous being like on the show and talking to you because we listen to your show all the time.
	So it's more like a nervousness over, um, Sorry to interrupt.
	Jim, how are your feelings doing?
	From the beginning of the show until now, it's just been anxiety.
	Just a fear of learning something new about myself that maybe I'm not going to be comfortable with.
	And still, like, a willingness to know, like, I want to have, like, self-knowledge so we can, you know, prevent this from happening again.
	But you don't know why it happened yet.
	I've been listening for 40 minutes, and there's not been one piece of insight that I've heard about why this happened last week.
	You guys seem to me to have had one of the worst disasters that can befall a couple, which threatens the marriage, threatens the having of children, threatens a four-year relationship.
	and you guys aren't in your 20s anymore, right?
	So if you don't get married, then, Jane, it's going to be tough for you to find someone in your fertility window to have kids.
	So this is probably, I would say, the biggest disaster that has befallen you as adults.
	You don't seem to feel very strongly about it, and you don't seem to have any insight as to why it happened.
	Well, I would say, to say that we don't feel strongly about it is, I don't think that's valid.
	I just asked you!
	You said, I feel a little nervous, I'm lying down, but the feelings are better than they were a week ago.
	A week is not enough time to recover from this.
	I'm not trying to tell you guys what you're feeling, but you're speaking to me in a monotone.
	There's no emotional connection that I can hear.
	And I can't see you, so I can just go by what I hear.
	There's no emotional connection when talking about your children.
	And there's no...
	How could this have happened?
	I mean, I have some thoughts or ideas about why it happened, but the important thing is for me to see whether you guys have thoughts or ideas about how this happened.
	I mean, it's a complete catastrophe.
	And it doesn't seem that you know why it happened.
	Yeah, I mean, the first couple days after it happened, we have...
	What we talked about was how could this happen?
	Where did this come from?
	And it was more like talking about the fact that he didn't really know about my blackouts before we were together.
	He didn't know about your blackouts in your 20s?
	No, not really, no.
	Wait, what do you mean not really?
	Come on, give me some clarity here.
	Don't give me fog land.
	Did he know, did you tell him openly that you drank to the point of blacking out in your 20s?
	No.
	No.
	Okay, so he didn't know.
	Not really, but he didn't know because you didn't tell him.
	Have you drunk to blackout?
	Right now is the time for complete honesty, right?
	Have you drunk to blackout in the four years that you've been with Jim?
	Yes, and he has seen that.
	He has, yes, and he has seen it.
	I have seen it.
	Twice.
	Yeah, and I've been, like, and what is, like, surprising to me is, like, why I didn't see this as a huge flag when it did happen.
	The way she would be behaving, it would just be like I would be completely just turned off, disconnected from her.
	And I never put it together that this is a problem.
	I just like, oh, you just drank too much.
	I feel like I was completely blind to her.
	And how many times has it happened?
	Sorry to interrupt, Jim.
	How many times has it happened in the four years that you guys have been together?
	The times that I have seen, personally, three times.
	And then this would be a fourth time that I wasn't there.
	And Jane, has it happened other times over the last four years that Jim doesn't know about or wasn't there to see?
	Yes.
	Good, I appreciate that honesty.
	And how many times has it happened that he hasn't seen?
	I don't know, maybe like four or five.
	So what's that, ten times in total over four years?
	Mm-hmm.
	Those are times that I haven't seen?
	Yeah.
	And is this a surprise to you, Jim?
	Yes, the times that I haven't seen.
	And Jane, do you remember, I know it's tough to remember what you don't remember, but do you remember how many times it happened in your 20s?
	Yeah, maybe like 10 times.
	Okay, so 20 times or so that you can remember, maybe a few more, maybe a few less.
	But 20 times as an adult, you've drunken to the point of complete blackout last time.
	Who knows what happened, right?
	Right.
	Okay.
	And it's obviously not a problem that's getting better if it just happened last week.
	Right.
	I mean, I mean...
	It's just, he doesn't really drink, so it's usually when I'm in the company of other people that do drink.
	It doesn't happen often because usually I'm with him and he doesn't really drink.
	Yeah.
	I mean, there was a time when I was focused on not doing that anymore, and that was the time right before I met him where I was very intentional on not drinking and trying to find a partner, a relationship that was loving and nurturing.
	And at that time, I knew that I needed to love myself first and respect myself before I could find a partner.
	Which you don't yet.
	Which you don't yet.
	Yes, that's right.
	I mean, this is why I asked about your friend at the beginning, because you're with friends who are willing to let you commit life disasters, who are there enabling and, right?
	I mean, you're on a train and you all start chatting with this guy who turns out to be a fucking predator, frankly, right?
	Right.
	And she's like, yeah, let's chat with this guy.
	We're going to flirt.
	I mean, the sex at the end of the evening happens after hours of preventable choices beforehand, right?
	Right.
	I mean, your friend could not have done more harm to you by allowing you to drink, by flirting with this guy, by saying, yeah, let's go to his house, and yeah, you're drinking to the point, like, this is who you're surrounding yourself with, right?
	And Stefan, I want to say something about that because this was a friend that I have seen drink and do.
	We start fights with people and I... So why are you letting him be friends with your fiancé?
	This woman, rather.
	Sorry.
	Why are you letting her?
	I mean, you're not stepping in and saying, this person is toxic.
	Yes, I did.
	You drink to the point of blacking out.
	Don't be with someone who likes to drink.
	I did.
	I had the conversation, and I didn't want to hang out with her.
	I stopped hanging out with her.
	And we stopped hanging out with her for, like, three months.
	Okay, so, Jane, Jane, did you hear Jim's...
	Sorry, Jane, when did you have...
	I'm sorry to interrupt, but I've really got to get to the core here.
	Jane, when did you hear the conversation with Jim about don't be friends with this woman?
	About...
	When did that happen?
	Two, three weeks before the incident.
	And what were your thoughts on the issue?
	He asked me specifically, yeah, he just asked me specifically, what is it that you like about her?
	Why do you want to hang out with her?
	And I said it was just because, you know, we had fun together.
	We, you know, we laughed a lot together and it was basically just like, yeah, like she drank with me.
	Wait, wait, sorry.
	Sorry.
	I got two stories here, right?
	So, Jim, did you say don't be friends with her or did you say what do you like about her?
	Those two aren't the same, right?
	Yeah, no, he didn't say don't be friends with her.
	Okay, Jim, why didn't you say don't be friends with her?
	I didn't want to tell her what she needs to do or not do.
	The way I expressed it, I was like, if you're going to do that, I don't want to be around you.
	That's the way I put it.
	If you're going to hang out with her and get drunk, don't come home because I don't want to be around you.
	Right.
	And then this happened?
	So he didn't tell me, like, he didn't want to tell me what to do.
	He just...
	Right, but he told you that he found this person extremely unpleasant and dangerous and he didn't want to have anything to do with her, right?
	Yeah, yeah, he did.
	So you don't listen to him about very important things.
	I bet you wish you'd listened now, right?
	Absolutely, yes.
	Okay, so you do your own thing, even though your partner has massive fundamental issues with a friend of yours to the point where he doesn't even want to be in the same room with her.
	You're like, no, but we have fun, so you go and do your own thing anyway, right?
	That's what happened, yeah.
	That's what happened, okay.
	And this is after four years?
	You don't respect his perspective or opinion, Jane, to the point where you're willing to listen to him and say, well, if you have a problem with this friend, you're my fiancé, we're going to get married.
	If you have a problem with this person, and you can make a good case, right?
	You drink to blackout, she likes to drink.
	This is a terrible combination.
	But you didn't want to listen, right?
	No, I didn't want to listen.
	Okay, so Jim, this is the reality.
	This is the empirical information that you have about Jane.
	That she doesn't listen when you point out this is going to be extremely dangerous, it's toxic, it's going to have a destructive outcome most likely, and I don't want to have anything to do with it.
	She won't listen to you.
	She's going to go and do her own thing.
	Well, not anymore.
	Not now.
	Oh, come on.
	That's why I was asking about how this happened and what led up to it in your childhood and your history.
	And there's not any insight as to why it happened and how it happened.
	So, as you understand, the addict will always say, never again, right?
	Always says, never again.
	But unless there's a fundamental emotional connection, in my opinion, as to the cause of the self-destructive behavior, Then it's going to happen again.
	The amount of intervention it takes to stop...
	So, Jane, when did you first drink?
	When I was 21, 20, earlier, maybe.
	You didn't drink as a teenager?
	Yeah, but it wasn't to black out like that.
	That's not what I asked.
	Jane, you need to be honest with me.
	I didn't ask, when did you drink to black out?
	I asked, when did you first drink?
	Yeah, like 16...
	Sixteen?
	Not any earlier?
	Maybe fifteen.
	Fifteen the earliest.
	All right.
	And when did you first get drunk?
	Not to blackout, just drunk?
	Was it when you were fifteen?
	Yes.
	Okay, so you first started having a drinking problem.
	Anybody who drinks to the point of getting drunk has a drinking problem, because you don't know when to stop, right?
	Mm-hmm.
	And when did you first drink to blackout that you know of?
	Um...
	When I was 20.
	20.
	All right.
	Okay, so for 13 years you've had problems drinking to blackout, right?
	Yes.
	And for 18 years you've had problems getting drunk?
	Mm-hmm.
	You don't seem to know the connection with your childhood and your father's incarceration, for which I have enormous sympathy.
	And, therefore, your statement, like, not again, is not to me.
	I'm just telling you my thoughts.
	I'm just an amateur on the internet.
	It's not credible.
	You don't have enough knowledge as yet to be able to know why you're doing this or how to prevent it.
	Right, but I do have awareness around...
	After four years, you don't listen to your partner about him telling you this situation is dangerous.
	Which means that you don't really get, and how could you?
	I mean, given your upbringing, but you don't get what it is to be a couple.
	To be a couple means if you have a problem with this person, I automatically have a problem with this person.
	If you don't like this person, I need to thoroughly evaluate the relationship.
	Because Jim's opinions and perspectives need to be as important to you and sometimes more important to you than your own.
	That's what it means to be a partner with someone.
	It's to listen and to change your behavior based upon what your partner wants and likes.
	And he's not saying, let's go join the Hare Krishnas and stand around, shave our heads at the airport and beg for loose change.
	He's saying, you have a huge drinking problem.
	Don't hang around with another person who has a huge drinking problem.
	Is that an unreasonable thing to ask for?
	No.
	No, it's not.
	It's a perfectly reasonable, keep your fiancé safe and you didn't listen.
	Which means that you do not respect his opinion enough to interfere with your own desires in the moment for the sake of the long-term health of your relationship.
	Did you ever have sex while blacked out before?
	While drunk in your mid-teens, while blacking out in your twenties, did you ever have sex before while you were drunk or blacked out?
	Yes.
	How many times?
	I don't know.
	Like two times or two times, two or three times.
	Okay, now before in this conversation, if I remember rightly, you said that it had not happened before.
	It had not happened that I had cheated on him.
	All right.
	Now, had you had sex before while blacked out, while you were in any other relationships?
	- No. - All right.
	Now, Jim, did you know that she had blanked out and had sex before two times?
	That she remembers?
	No.
	I didn't know.
	Okay.
	So, I mean, Jane, you're still withholding information, right?
	He needs to know, obviously, absolutely everything, right?
	So a week after this happened, you're still withholding essential information that he needs to evaluate what's happening, right?
	Yeah, but there was a lot that was said.
	Don't give me a but.
	No.
	No, don't give me a but.
	Is there anything else that Jim needs to know about this, your history, the drinking, the sexuality?
	Is there anything else that he needs to know at the moment?
	Now's the time.
	I mean, no, there are stories to be told, yeah.
	I mean, I guess, because we had, we sat down and we did this, where it was like, he said that to me.
	He said, tell me now, is there anything else that I need to know?
	And there were several things that I spoke about.
	Wait, wait, wait, wait, sorry, sorry, Jane.
	Jane, when did he say that?
	That was like two days after the incident where we sat down.
	And you didn't.
	No, I did.
	I did.
	No, you didn't because he's still getting information now that he needs to know that he didn't have until this actual conversation.
	I'm not trying to bag on you.
	I'm just pointing out a fact.
	He said, is there anything else I need to know?
	Yeah, in that moment, I hadn't thought of to specifically say, oh, the blackout with the sex, but there were stories that I told him about times that I had blacked out.
	Several stories.
	Hang on a second.
	So you black out and you have sex with someone.
	He says, is there anything else I need to know?
	And you didn't think to tell him that this had happened before.
	I did tell him.
	I did.
	I told him.
	Oh, he says that it's new information for him now.
	But that specific time, I didn't tell him that one story, but there were other stories that I told him that there were times that I blacked out that I did not remember what happened.
	And there were stories that...
	But you didn't include...
	You just...
	Jane, Jane, you just told me that you had sex two times that you could remember in your 20s when you were blacked out, and Jim told me he didn't know that.
	Do I have something to correct?
	I didn't tell him that specific story at that moment, no.
	From the conversations that we had, she was willing to just tell me anything that I asked about, and I guess that's just something that wasn't said, or I don't know.
	Or wasn't specifically asked that way.
	When she has sex, when she's blacked out, and you say, tell me everything that's relevant, do you think it's relevant that she's done it before?
	Yes, I do.
	All right.
	So, this is what I mean when I say it's not a solved problem.
	Because she's still, and again, I'm not trying to be mean to you, Jane, I'm just pointing out the facts, but hopefully for both of you, right, to benefit, which is that you're still withholding essential information.
	From Jim, and look, I applaud you in talking about it at the moment.
	I mean, it's fantastic.
	But he did ask you if there was anything that he needed to know, and you withheld that this had happened before.
	And that is still very manipulative, right?
	And I can understand that.
	But I didn't withhold it.
	I didn't withhold it.
	If he would have asked me that specific question, I would have told him that.
	Oh, come on!
	Please!
	If it had occurred to me in the moment to share that with him, I would have.
	There's nothing that I need to hide from him now.
	There's nothing that I need to hide from him.
	No, do not insult my intelligence.
	Look, if you want to come to me to find out something factual, don't insult my intelligence.
	A man cannot know what you don't tell him.
	Well, if he'd asked me in that particular...
	That's not how honesty works.
	It's not a lock that you have to damn well pick.
	Honesty is complete disclosure.
	And you know, as well as I know, as well as everyone who's listening to this knows, that you withheld that because you feared a negative judgment from Jim.
	And don't tell me it's because he didn't ask the right questions.
	I mean, come on.
	We've got to be bigger than that when it comes to this conversation.
	You withheld it because it was a negative information for you to pass along to him.
	You withheld it because you were ashamed of it.
	You withheld it because you feared his negative judgment.
	But don't tell me it's because he didn't ask the right questions.
	I mean, come on.
	Come on, we have to be more honest with each other than that.
	I would have, I will tell, I'm willing to tell him anything.
	And I was in that moment, and I am now willing to tell him anything.
	No, you're still not.
	Look, Jane, you're still not being honest.
	And again, I sympathize.
	But you weren't willing to tell him that this sexual, drunken, blackout situation has happened before, which is directly relevant to the situation at hand.
	So you're not willing to tell...
	You want to hide things because you want to protect yourself, or at least what you think is protecting yourself, because you want to get married despite what you've done, right?
	I assume you guys are calling because you are still thinking about getting married, right?
	Yes.
	And Jim, what are your thoughts about that at the moment?
	I do know that...
	I think there is a...
	A kind of divide where you're saying...
	It's hard for me to even speak now.
	It's just like a woman not disclosing everything.
	Sorry to interrupt.
	Tell me what you want to talk about if what I'm asking is interfering.
	What do you want to say?
	You can throw my question out the window.
	This is a big conversation.
	It could be a life-changing conversation.
	Jim, what do you want to talk about?
	Where's your heart?
	The part that is most alive is that The refraining from telling me certain things, like just withholding, that seems like a bit of a pattern.
	The relevant information, it's just like, well, you didn't ask and I didn't think it was relevant to tell you.
	And it seems like...
	I don't know if this is just a stereotype.
	I'm sorry to interrupt you, Jim.
	That is a lie.
	I'm sorry, Jane, to say it this boldly, and I'm not saying you're sort of consciously being nasty or anything, but that is a lie, right?
	To say, well, you didn't ask me and I didn't think it was relevant, because it's so obviously relevant that you'd have to not notice that, right?
	Okay, so lying is a problem, right?
	Yeah.
	Okay, sorry, go ahead.
	And, I mean, I don't know, maybe you did say it already, but, like, I really would like to know what the root cause is, and maybe I know, maybe I'm not seeing it right now, and if you could literally just say what that is, like, I want to know what the root cause is so we can prevent this from happening again.
	Well, first of all, you can't prevent it from happening again.
	Because you're not her, right?
	Right.
	And you already tried to prevent it from happening a month ago when you said don't hang around with this alcoholic skank, right, who ended up enabling and facilitating this completely disastrous event, right?
	Right.
	Where she could have been raped, she could have gotten pregnant, she could have got AIDS, she could have got some STD. Guys who will bang drunken women on buses, on trains, sorry, or that they meet on trains that day are not well people, to put it as nicely as possible.
	So you already tried to exercise your authority in the relationship and prevent this from happening, right?
	Yeah.
	Yes.
	And she didn't listen to you.
	The disaster happened.
	And then she's continuing to lie to you about what happened in the past, right?
	Now, if she's being honest now, at least we can hope that she's being, maybe there's more.
	See, I don't know, right?
	The problem is when someone lies to me, afterwards, I assume that they're still lying.
	Right?
	And so, I don't know what the truth is.
	You don't know what the truth is.
	And to some degree, Jane doesn't know what the truth is because she blacks out, right?
	Right.
	The cause is massive unprocessed childhood trauma, in my humble opinion.
	And it is truly a humble opinion, right?
	And that's sort of the original cause, right?
	But Jim, do you know what the cause is now?
	No, I still don't.
	I still don't.
	And I want to know.
	Okay.
	Do you have a cell phone on you?
	Yes.
	Can you turn it on?
	It's on.
	Okay.
	Can you open up the camera application?
	And take a picture of myself?
	Yeah.
	Smart guy.
	And what is it?
	You are the force of it now because you're willing to put up with the behavior.
	Right.
	Because you're still thinking about getting married.
	Right.
	And because you've been putting up with the behavior for four years, you are the enabler.
	I know that.
	I don't think you do.
	No, I don't think you do.
	I don't think you do because, Jim, you were asking me, what is the cause?
	And you don't know what the cause is because you are the cause in your relationship of this behavior because she has been drinking to blackout during the time that you have been going out.
	I'm sure this lying has been a problem and I'm sure that her not listening to you when you try to give her good advice is also a problem and you are continuing to go out with her and you are going to or thinking about getting married to her so you are the cause at the moment.
	Right.
	You are the enabler.
	I accept that.
	Do you?
	Yes.
	What does that mean that you accept that?
	What does that change?
	I don't know.
	It seems like nothing.
	Right.
	So don't give me this stuff like you accept and blah, blah, blah.
	That's just trying to wave me off from something you're uncomfortable about.
	I accept full responsibility.
	What does that mean?
	Well, nothing.
	Well, then don't tell me that, right?
	Because you're just trying to manipulate me, right?
	Okay.
	And then what could I do?
	What would change if I did fully accept it?
	Look, and I'm sorry to talk about you like you're not here, Jane, and again, I mean this with all sympathy to your history, but Jane does not have internal standards of behavior as yet.
	She does what she can get away with, which is typical of people who have addiction problems.
	She does what she can get away with, which is why she will glom onto and use her physical attractiveness to glom onto a man who will not challenge her fundamentally on this kind of behavior, right?
	Because to be a very physically attractive woman is to always have some other guy who will enable you, right?
	Snap your fingers, snap your fingers, snap your fingers.
	You can have some other guy who's going to come and enable you, right?
	So...
	You're asking me, what does it mean to accept that you're enabling this behavior on her behalf?
	Or what would have to change in me to fully accept responsibility?
	You asked me, what would change?
	I will tell you in a sec, but let me first ask you this question.
	Does Jane have a temper?
	No.
	Well, there's sometimes where I'm just asking a question or I want to uncover something and in the past week I was asking questions about just details about what happened and she became defensive because she didn't know how to say I don't know and she felt defensive about that.
	Because she doesn't know, doesn't remember, and she felt like saying I don't know is not a good enough answer and it was just defensiveness on her part.
	And that was the only time that I really see any temper.
	And do you know why you don't see her temper?
	No, I don't.
	Because you don't stand up for yourself and you don't stand up for her.
	Because you don't challenge her on her dysfunction.
	That's why she doesn't manifest a temper.
	Right.
	Right.
	Bye.
	You are intimately involved in this disaster that happened.
	I don't mean that you're to blame, specifically, right?
	Fundamentally, that would be to take away moral agency from Jane, which I'm certainly not willing to do.
	What did you think was going to happen with a woman who had a long-term history of blackouts?
	You didn't know about the sexual blackouts, but her long-term history of blackouts, if she goes out with a woman who is also a drunk?
	Exactly what happened.
	Right.
	So why didn't you work harder to prevent it?
	I ask myself that too.
	I feel like telling her what to do and not to do is not...
	No!
	No, you don't tell her what she's going to do and not going to do.
	And I'm sorry, I don't mean to sound frustrated.
	You've never had this model that I would assume, right?
	You don't tell people what to do.
	You tell them what you will accept and what you will not accept.
	And let them make their choices.
	You don't tell her what to do.
	You tell her what you will live with and what you will not live with.
	Do you understand?
	Yes.
	If you are going to, as somebody who drinks to blackout, if you're gonna go hang out with alcoholics, I am not dating you.
	I am not marrying you.
	You don't tell her what to do.
	You tell her what you will accept, what you will not accept, and let her make the choice.
	Because you're like, well, I don't want to be a bully.
	I don't want to tell her what to do.
	No, it's like I don't go into a restaurant that serves Thai food and say to them, you've got to goddamn well make pizza here.
	I say, oh, I feel like pizza.
	That's a Thai food restaurant.
	So I'm not going to eat there.
	I tell them implicitly what I will accept and what I will not accept.
	And if I want Thai food, I go there.
	And if I don't want Thai food, I don't go there.
	I'm not bullying and yelling at them.
	I'm just telling them what I will and will not accept.
	So I have told her that I would not accept it, and now it happened.
	So is there...
	No!
	You have not told her that she will not accept it.
	No, he told me that he just doesn't want to be around it.
	That's what he said.
	If you're going to do that, then I don't want to see you.
	I don't want to go to the ballgame with you and go to the guy's house with you, right?
	Yes.
	I don't want to be there with you.
	Then go do it by yourself.
	If you've got a drinking problem and you're going to be around people who've got a drinking problem, I'm not marrying you.
	Right.
	I'm not dating.
	Right.
	That's called being assertive, not like, well, I don't want to be around when you play Russian roulette, because I don't want to clean up.
	Right.
	Right.
	Yeah, I see that now.
	I definitely held back and did not want to be, I guess, ruthlessly honest.
	Hang on.
	I hope that you have enough pride to recognize that what Jane does is absolutely unacceptable in a relationship, right?
	Absolutely, yeah.
	Right?
	Not listening, lying, going out, blacking out, having sex with other guys.
	This is, I mean, I don't even need to say that, right?
	This is absolutely completely and totally unacceptable.
	Yes.
	Okay.
	Now, you have been accepting it without the sex, we hope, for four years, right?
	Yes.
	So, why do you accept it?
	Why don't you have standards and take a stand?
	And I'm not trying to say, like, well, you should and you must.
	I'm asking a genuinely curious question, which is why is that not in your vocabulary?
	What happens if you do that?
	So if I...
	I guess there's a sense of like wanting to like help.
	Like, a wanting to help her, like...
	Ah!
	Oh, don't tell me that!
	I can't take it.
	I'm sorry.
	I hate to interrupt you after I just asked you.
	You can't possibly imagine that this was helping her.
	You can't.
	Like, you can't tell me that, right?
	No, no.
	No, not enabling her.
	Because you not taking a stand ended up with her in a potentially life-threatening situation.
	Right.
	Obviously, that's not helping her.
	So what else?
	Why don't you do it?
	Why don't you take a stand for her, for you, for your relationship?
	It seems like...
	I don't think it's a rational thing.
	I think it's just like this something subconsciously, I don't know what it is, like, stops me from being assertive.
	I know.
	I know it's something, but what is it?
	You say you guys want to figure out how to not have this happen again.
	Yeah.
	But you've got to know why it happened.
	So why don't you take a stand with her for yourself?
	And I know it's a tough question.
	Yeah, the honest answer is...
	I don't know.
	It's the answer on the tip of your tongue.
	It wouldn't happen.
	But why?
	The honest answer is I don't know.
	But I want to know.
	I want to know.
	I wanted to start with that.
	Do you guys want to keep going with this comment?
	Is this helpful?
	Yes.
	Yes.
	Jane?
	Yes.
	Okay, good.
	Well, I appreciate that.
	And I appreciate you guys hanging in there.
	I mean, is it that he just wants to be with me, so he just avoids that confrontation or that decision, right?
	That's why.
	It's because, at the end of the day, he knows that if he is assertive with me, then we might just break up, and maybe subconsciously he's not willing to do that.
	Smart girl.
	You should be a teacher.
	Yeah, because the relationship will be threatened if he stands up for himself and stands up for you, right?
	Obviously, Jane, I'm sure in hindsight you wish he'd been a hell of a lot more assertive about this drinking stuff, right?
	Yes, absolutely.
	Right, so what was comfortable in the moment or easier in the moment turns out to be a hell of a lot more difficult in the long run, right?
	Right.
	Yeah.
	All right.
	So...
	So the reason, Jim, that you don't stand up for yourself is that you fear that she's going to leave you if you stand up for yourself.
	In other words, that she has chosen you for your spinelessness, and if you grow a spine and stand up for yourself, then she's going to dump you, right?
	And that doesn't have anything to do with her.
	That has nothing to do with her.
	That's to do with your mom.
	Which is that you did not have a strong enough bond with your mother that you could be assertive without threatening the bond.
	In other words, if you were assertive as a baby, as a toddler, as a child with your mother, if you were assertive, then you faced rejection from your mother and therefore you have found that with regards to women, you get along by going along.
	That if you manifest yourself fully or even partially in the relationship, if you materialize from the ghost of masculine compliance, if you materialize in your relationship with a woman, the woman is going to kick you out.
	Tell me if I'm wrong.
	I'm just trying to process everything you say.
	It seems like yes.
	Yes.
	Well, no, we can test this, right?
	My daughter disagrees with me strongly at least a half a dozen times today, which I think is fantastic.
	I welcome that.
	I never want her to agree with me because I'm bigger or because I'm daddy or anything like that.
	She disagrees with me about places we went, memories I have, and she's, you know, half the time she's right.
	And I thank her for correcting me and I appreciate that.
	So my daughter, at least six times a day, at least, this is just off the top of my head, disagrees with me, and I consider that foundational to our bond.
	We don't have a bond if she can't disagree with me.
	We have compliance, which is the opposite of a bond.
	A bond occurs and is necessary when people disagree with each other strongly.
	That's when you have a bond.
	That's when you need a bond, right?
	Right.
	And the bond is strengthened by, the bond is the degree of disagreement that is allowed and fostered and encouraged and resolved in a relationship.
	That is what a bond is, is where you disagree.
	So my question to you, Jim, is when you were a child, were you allowed to strongly disagree with your mother?
	Allowed to strongly disagree, I can't think of any time that that would have been the case.
	You would have thousands of examples popping into your mind if that were the case.
	If you were to ask my daughter, are you allowed to disagree with your dad?
	She would say, oh, yeah, all the time.
	And that's just today.
	So if you can't remember being allowed to disagree with your mother, it's because you didn't have the bond, which is the disagreement.
	The capacity to disagree, talk about it and resolve it.
	So if you're not allowed to disagree with your mom, then you, like me, in my 20s, and like most men around the world, and certainly in the West, you are whipped.
	And it's not Jane's fault fundamentally, she's just cashing in on that.
	It's like the horrible pay it down the chain from mother to girlfriend to wife to mother to girlfriend to wife.
	But your mom fucked you up by not allowing you to disagree with her.
	Which means that you're not trained to negotiate with women.
	You're not trained to negotiate with women, which means that you don't respect women.
	Because if you respected women, you would disagree with them.
	And then if they got hysterical about you disagreeing with them, you'd say, well, you know, I'm sorry.
	I can't self-erase in a relationship because then I can't have a relationship.
	It's like castrating yourself for better sex.
	It doesn't work.
	But you were raised to be a little toy robot Lord Fauntlerai compliance to the matriarchy.
	And so for you to have an opinion that is different from a woman is to be rejected by a woman.
	And because it comes from your childhood, to disagree with a woman and stick to that disagreement is to fucking die.
	Because when you're a child, you comply with your mother's wishes because she is literally the source of your life.
	She gave birth to you.
	She breastfeeds you.
	She comes and gives you food in the middle of the night.
	She cleans you up.
	She keeps you from getting rashes.
	She bathes you.
	She takes you to the doctor.
	Mother is life.
	To disagree with mother if she doesn't allow it is to die.
	That is how we are trained.
	That is how we are programmed.
	That is what happens to us biologically.
	Disagreement with women is death if there is no bond.
	And so what you're facing Sorry.
	What you're avoiding by refusing to be assertive with Jane is called annihilation panic, which is a fear of literal death, a fear of non-existence, a fear of becoming a ghost in the jungle, a baby on an iceberg, set adrift, abandoned, sacrificed, denied, dead.
	That's the legacy of your mom.
	That's the terrible power that mothers hold.
	And how often they exercise that power over their children, and in particular, boys.
	And in particular boys if they have a bad relationship with the father.
	Because then all of the thwarted negativity towards the father gets poured out so often on the boys.
	And so for you to disagree with Jane and to have standards with Jane is to threaten what you call a relationship, which is codependency, but what you call a relationship is to threaten that.
	And what that does, if you stand up for Jane, I'm not saying to Jane at her expense, for Jane, because I asked Jane, would you have liked it if he'd stand up for you?
	She's like, God, yes, I need that.
	Because I fuck things up royally.
	Last week.
	And if he'd been more assertive, that probably wouldn't have happened.
	But if you stand up to Jane, you will feel the true terror of the fear of death as an infant and as a child in disagreeing with your mother.
	You know, people always call the twos the terrible twos.
	Well, that's when the child develops an ego and learns how to say, no, it's not the terrible twos.
	It's the terrible parenting twos.
	It's not the terrible child twos.
	But this is what I mean when I say you don't know why this happened.
	You chose a woman who ignores your preferences and acts in a destructive manner because your mother ignores your preferences and acted in a destructive manner.
	And Jane, you chose Jim because he facilitates that.
	Because he doesn't interfere with your selfish preferences in the moment.
	Because you grew up without a dad.
	Your dad couldn't exercise any preferences.
	He couldn't even leave prison.
	And what did you say about your stepdad?
	He's nice and he's funny.
	Well, fuck that.
	That's not what you need from a dad, nice and funny.
	That's what you need from a comedian or a waiter.
	What you need from a dad is, what the hell are you doing?
	Why are you drinking at 15?
	Why are you getting drunk at 15?
	Why are you having blackouts?
	Why are you with this spineless guy?
	That's what you need, not someone who facilitates you or these bad decisions or bad behaviors.
	You need a dad who's gonna step the fuck in and intervene when your life is heading for disaster.
	If you were to say to me about your stepdad, oh man, he can be a total bastard sometimes.
	He really tells me the way it is, and I really hate that he does that, but it's really great that he does that.
	No, what did you say?
	He's nice and funny.
	Which means he's not interfering with your self-destructive tendencies, right?
	Tell me where I'm wrong.
	If I'm wrong, I'm wrong.
	These are my thoughts.
	I mean, from what I'm hearing, it's spot on.
	Spot on.
	So the relationship as it stands is a manifestation of prior trauma.
	Yes.
	And if you get married, in my opinion, you are going to seal yourself in that trauma, never to escape.
	Your childhood will enclose around you like a black acid womb and continue until you're both dead, which you will probably pray for sooner rather than later.
	Because you do not have anywhere close to the level of self-knowledge that you need to overcome this history.
	And if the relationship is a plain manifestation of avoided trauma, Then it is going to be poison going forward.
	It will be poison for kids that you may have.
	It will be poison for each other.
	And either you're going to be ground into a fine scrotum-based dust life form, Jim, or you're going to stand up for yourself, in which case you'll probably end up with a divorce.
	And then Jane, you know, despite all the great intentions you may have now, Jane will have a whole bunch of lawyers whispering in her ear how she can take all of your stuff and get true vengeance for all of her Fantasies of happily ever after that were spoiled by your mutual dysfunction, in which case you're going to spend years in court, spend $50,000 or $100,000 or $200,000, barely get to see your kids.
	This is a potential life disaster of the first order, like of getting a life-threatening illness disorder level.
	So you're saying that we can't make it better?
	There is no way to make it better or to have awareness around what we've discovered and consistently have awareness around that going forward.
	By August?
	What do you think?
	So putting that date aside...
	I didn't get an answer there.
	By August, what do you think?
	I think it's possible.
	I mean, I think that I can...
	I have already discovered a lot of things about myself and that if I work on it every day, yeah, I do think that it could be a lot better.
	Jane, you were still lying to him at the beginning and throughout this call.
	You're not processing that.
	You're just trying to skate past that and say, yeah, let's keep going.
	You were still lying to him and to me, which doesn't matter about lying to me, but you lied to him over the last week about essential information that he needed to have.
	You're still manipulating him.
	You're still lying to him after you betrayed him.
	And you're saying to me, yeah, we could get married by August.
	Yeah, I'll work on it.
	You've got to be kidding me.
	You can't expect me to take that seriously.
	I'm not your fiancé.
	I'm not your boyfriend.
	I don't have to take nonsense like that seriously.
	So, Jim, if she's not going to be, I'm telling you, it's not possible.
	You cannot possibly resolve all of this stuff that is massive and new, especially because you're in your 30s.
	If you were 20, you wouldn't have 10 to 15 years of bad behavior with which to reverse, with which to change.
	It's May, June, July, August.
	Are you getting married early or late August?
	Is that the plan?
	Late August.
	Okay, so you have less than four months from a standing start to learn how to climb Mount Everest.
	In terms of self-knowledge, right?
	Tell me what you think, Jim.
	Do you think that this is a viable plan?
	If you were hearing this from some other couple, what would you think?
	I still think it's possible.
	Thank you.
	I still think there is a possibility to do it.
	And if it isn't, I'm not going to get married.
	But I at least want to know that I'm on the right path to To, like, you know, healing all this childhood trauma and so we don't...
	Like, to me, it doesn't mean marry...
	Like, the date doesn't fucking matter right now.
	I don't care about that, like, if we get married or not.
	I just want to make sure that I can gather all the self-knowledge from myself to move forward, for her to gather all the stuff so we can stop doing the behaviors that we have been doing.
	And whether we get married this year or next year, it doesn't make any difference to me.
	Like, I just want...
	I want to grow and I want to work through this.
	All right.
	I mean, I don't know.
	Do you guys want to end the call or how frank do you want me to be?
	Because, I mean, I think you're heading...
	I want you to be frank.
	I want you to be frank.
	Okay.
	Jim, last week she got drunk and screwed another guy.
	After you explicitly told her that that is not something, not a situation she should be in.
	And she's lied to you about it since.
	I mean, I don't get any emotional response from you about this.
	She got drunk and she screwed another guy.
	Last week?
	Four months before you're supposed to be getting married.
	Does this have any...
	I mean, do you have any fundamental emotional response to this?
	If you saw me, Stefan, the first two days it happened, you would know full well the extent of my emotional response.
	Oh my god.
	Are you saying that this lasts two days?
	This level of betrayal lasts...
	Two days and you stopped getting over it?
	That's what you're trying to tell me.
	No, but to say right now that I'm not showing any emotion, I have been on a rollercoaster ride.
	I have been talking to a therapist.
	I have been wanting to run through this house and destroy every piece of furniture in this house.
	That's how angry I have been.
	And I've been processing it.
	I'm not just pushing under the rug and right now you hear a monotone voice.
	The anger has been expressed.
	There has been a place to let that out.
	And right now you may not hear it, but it's there.
	But she's not alarmed by the anger.
	Jane's not alarmed by the anger because she's still willing to lie to you.
	So we just found out in this call that she has been lying to you for the last week about...
	Blacked out sex in the past.
	You also didn't know that she had blackouts in her 20s, right?
	No, I did know that.
	I did know that.
	I mean, prior to this call, yes, I knew that, but...
	But you didn't know it for the four years prior to the drunken sex thing, right?
	No, no, no.
	And there's a whole other slew of things that I didn't know that...
	Okay, but let's just talk about the revelation that came out in this call that she has had drunken sex in the past.
	That's why I mean when I say you're not having any emotional reaction to that.
	So you found out that she withheld crucial pieces of information from you when you asked her to tell you everything.
	She was still lying to you.
	And you have no reaction to that.
	I don't know what to say.
	And that lack of reaction is suicidal, fundamentally.
	At what point...
	At what point is it enough?
	Right?
	At what point?
	You didn't find out before last week that she had blackouts in her 20s.
	You didn't find out until this call that...
	What she said was a one-time thing happened a few times before.
	Drunken sex.
	Blackout sex.
	What has to happen for you to say, that's enough?
	I have all I need to know.
	What has to happen?
	What is your point of no return?
	So if I'm being completely honest, like the point of no return is...
	Is if she becomes defensive when I am asking her about her past or whatever happened?
	She became defensive in this call.
	So, is that it?
	She started to say, well, he didn't ask me directly and I wasn't withholding.
	She became defensive and manipulative in this call.
	No offense, Jane, but, I mean, that's what happened, and that's why it's so good to be recorded.
	So, is that it?
	Is that enough?
	The fact that she lied to you after you begged her to tell you the truth, which you needed to hear, I think is enough, but everyone has their own standards.
	So if that's enough, right, then that's enough.
	Or is now that goalpost going to change?
	Because you said it would be too much, it would be a deal-breaker if she was defensive.
	And she was.
	So is that the deal-breaker, or is the goalpost going to move?
	I guess the goalpost is going to move, if I'm being honest.
	Okay, so then you don't have any standards, and you're probably just going to get married because she wants to.
	I'm going to tell you this.
	Look, I can't tell you guys what to do.
	I don't do that, right?
	I mean, I did that once when a guy was...
	Almost drinking himself to death.
	I won't tell you what to do.
	I can tell you my feelings.
	What I would do, this is not any kind of commandment for what you would do.
	Jim, I'm shocked that you're still there.
	I mean, if my fiance had drunken sex with another man four months before my wedding, You would not even see the hole in the wall with my suitcase.
	I might not even have a suitcase.
	I'd have one of those Roger Rabbit holes in the wall of me getting out.
	I would not stay to negotiate.
	I would not stay to try and figure things out.
	I would not try and find out if I could trust her again.
	Because she had told me everything that I needed to know through that.
	I wouldn't say, well, is there anything else I need to know?
	I simply wouldn't do that.
	Because if a woman is 33 and is still at an emotional level of development where she is not listening to her fiancé, she's doing what she wants, and when the fiancé predicts a disaster, goes out, has the disaster, and then continues to lie about relevant information afterwards, I would have nothing to do with that relationship.
	I would regretfully and sorrowfully say, man, I must have had a messed up past in order to end up in this situation.
	I have harmed this woman by enabling this kind of behavior.
	As the saying goes, we teach people how to treat us.
	She is doing this because she can get away with it, which is very harmful for her.
	Right?
	You are not helping her.
	You are harming her by allowing this behavior to continue by pretending to negotiate the unnegotiable.
	Infidelity is a permanent deal breaker, in my opinion, in a relationship.
	Because it reveals such a lack of self-knowledge that it literally is like getting into a cab Where the cab driver has a brick on the pedal, is blindfolded, and currently going through an epileptic seizure.
	That lack of self-knowledge where this can occur, not at the age of 18 or 17 or 20 or 22, but 33.
	An educated woman, she studied to be a teacher.
	Then this is where she is.
	And there's still denial about where she is.
	There's not a lot of insight about where she got here.
	And there's continued lying and manipulation, which means behavior is extremely unlikely to change.
	And if you want to have...
	Like, if it's just...
	That's why I asked if you want to have kids.
	Jim, if it's just you, you can put your own dick in a blender if you want.
	I mean, it's your life.
	It's your dick, right?
	But if you guys are thinking of having children, then much larger perspectives are at play, right?
	Because you are going to have children and you guys know how difficult your childhoods were, right?
	How messed up your childhoods were.
	You can see that in your own relationships.
	So society then has a say because you're going to have kids into this messed up relationship.
	That messed up relationship is going to mess up those perfect, wonderful, innocent children.
	And then those children are going to go out into society and do this shit all over again.
	At some point we have to throw our weight against the stupid, blind, razor wheel of history that just keeps going round and round, crushing the next generation over and over and over again.
	And you guys are just, you got your fucking finger pointed right over, poised right over that photocopy button.
	Photocopy my history, photocopy my history.
	Take the same picture in blood, photocopy it onto the next generation.
	Make the same mistakes again, fuck up the next generation, rinse and repeat.
	You guys' fingers are like one millimeter above that photocopy button, and I'm saying, don't push it.
	I wouldn't push it.
	You guys can do what you want.
	I would not push it.
	You are not in a position to productively disagree with each other.
	They're still lying in manipulation that is occurring one week after a vicious and destructive infidelity.
	Come on.
	You guys know what's going to happen if you go forward with this, right?
	I'm not telling you anything you don't fundamentally know, right?
	And the fact is that nobody in your life is saying, ah, meh, meh, meh, emergency, danger, Will Robinson, danger, right?
	Everybody in your life should be like, oh my god, so you played Russian Roulette, click, oh, stop spinning, stop spinning the revolver, right?
	That your parents aren't freaking out and saying, my God, right?
	That your friends aren't freaking out and saying, my God.
	Well, one of them facilitated all of this, right?
	A week ago, Jane, this woman was your friend who has detonated your engagement.
	That's where you were a week ago.
	Your fiance saying, danger, danger, danger.
	You like friend, friend, friend.
	And doing your own thing.
	Well, there's a price to be paid for these kinds of things, these kinds of decisions.
	This was a decision.
	You chose not to listen to a fiancee, and you chose to conform to your incredibly destructive friend who facilitated and allowed this disaster.
	So in my place, I've not had a woman cheat on me.
	So, I can't say from experience.
	But...
	Jim, if I were in your place, I would not continue the relationship.
	It's your choice.
	But I think that this is a manifestation of history.
	I think that you're both very bad for each other because after four years together, Jane ends up in a life-threatening situation.
	She could have got raped.
	She could have got killed.
	She could have got pregnant.
	She could have got AIDS or some other STD. This is what you guys created and produced after four years together.
	My God, what's it going to be like after ten years together?
	Are you going to be Bonnie and Clyde?
	This is what came out of four years of proximity.
	You can't imagine that this is going to go well.
	Now, if you say, well, you know, we love each other, there's, I don't know, whatever, we love each other, then okay, then my suggestion, again, my suggestion, I can't tell you what to do, you know, take a trial separation.
	Work on yourself.
	When you're together, right, the mutual toxicity in history and lack of self-knowledge, for which, again, I sympathize.
	I sympathize, I sympathize.
	Shitty childhoods.
	I get that.
	I really sympathize.
	But four years together has produced this disaster.
	And if your proximity to each other is inflaming these kinds of messes, which it is, Empirically, then if you are going to work on yourselves, you can't do it while you're together because when you're together, you are replicating and reanimating all of these zombie cadavers of a broken history.
	You are enabling each other's bad behavior, right?
	Jane, you're enabling his spinelessness, and Jim, you're enabling her selfishness and lack of forethought.
	And arrogance, right?
	I mean, because it's arrogant to say, well, I know better than you about my drinking, and I know better than you about my friends who are drinkers, and I know better than you, and I'm going to do my own thing.
	Well, this is arrogant, right?
	So you are inflaming her arrogance, she's inflaming your spinelessness, so if you're going to work on these issues, doing it together is a mess, it's a disaster!
	It's like trying to learn a new language with somebody continuing to talk to you in the old language.
	I don't see how it can possibly work.
	So if you want to have a chance for the future, then, again, my opinion, this is what I would do.
	If I wanted to have a chance for a wonderful future with this relationship, whatever that might mean, then I would say, okay, well, we need to stop enabling each other's bad behavior.
	We need to take a break, and we need to work on ourselves, and we need to stay in contact and figure out where things are going from there.
	But once you are married, you are married.
	And then it's you, and you, and the government, and the police, and the law courts, and the family courts, and the lawyers, whatever happens in the future, which will probably be a complete disaster.
	So once you cross that threshold, there's no turning back.
	And so I don't think...
	In my opinion, I don't think that you're anywhere even close to being where you need to be to get married.
	I can't imagine that's too controversial a statement given the drunken infidelity plus continual lying that occurred since last week.
	So I think if there's to be a chance, yeah, you can work on yourselves, but if you're living together, I don't see how that's going to work because you're just continually reanimating the old dysfunctional behavior.
	So I would suggest, you know, get into therapy, get into self-work, and take a break.
	Those are my thoughts.
	I obviously can't tell anybody what to do.
	Okay.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	You're very welcome.
	I hope you guys will drop me a line.
	Let me know how it goes.
	And I really, really appreciate the call.
	And just, just to reiterate once more, I am incredibly sorry about what happened to you guys as kids.
	That is horrendous, disastrous.
	And I also went through a rollercoaster in the call, but I just really wanted to reiterate.
	I'm incredibly sorry about all of that.
	Okay, thank you.
	Thank you.
	You're very welcome.
	All right, Mr.
	Mike?
	Who do we have up next?
	Alright, up next is Anthony.
	Anthony writes in and says, Would it be selfish to want to participate in a dangerous sport against your family's wishes, even though it was something that you were very passionate about?
	You mean like getting engaged?
	Is that the dangerous sport we're talking about?
	In this case, he's talking about racing motorcycles.
	Okay.
	Anthony, are you on?
	Yeah.
	Hi, Seth.
	Well, full disclosure...
	My best friend from my early teens was decapitated in a motorcycle accident.
	Wow.
	So I just wanted to point that out, that my level of objectivity may be slightly crowded or slightly enhanced, depending on how you look at it.
	But I just sort of wanted to point that out.
	So you want to race motorcycles?
	Well, I mean, I currently kind of am at the moment.
	Right, okay.
	They're very quiet.
	Why do you want to race motorcycles?
	Because I enjoy it a lot.
	I enjoy the feeling when I'm doing it.
	And it's kind of really relaxing.
	It's relaxing to race motorcycles, really?
	Are you a thrill junkie?
	Not really.
	I mean, besides the motorcycle stuff, it kind of started out when I was racing, or I did a lot of track days, and I had a car that I built up, and I was doing track days in that.
	And that was pretty enjoyable, and then I've always wanted to start riding bikes, so I just started doing that recently.
	Right.
	And what was happening for you...
	As a child?
	In particular to why I like writing or why I... No, I mean, how was your childhood?
	It's the usual question, right?
	How were you disciplined?
	What's your relationship with your parents like?
	And blah, blah, blah.
	It was bad.
	I mean, relative to having a good relationship, it was definitely not a really great childhood.
	In what way?
	In what ways?
	My mom was really manipulative and I don't have a really great connection with my dad.
	Why not?
	Because we don't talk and he doesn't really make an effort to be really a part of my life, so we don't really talk as much.
	I mean, we do talk occasionally, but it's something really deep.
	Thank you.
	I don't have a really great connection with them.
	I'm sorry, you said you do talk occasionally, and then you said something about something being really deep.
	I may have missed it.
	Oh, I'm sorry.
	We don't really have a deep connection.
	Anything we do talk about is just really superficial.
	All right.
	And when did you first start riding motorcycles?
	I actually started, I took my MSF test which is like a Motorcycle Safety Foundation test to get the license about I think like four years ago.
	And then I just recently got a bike like at the beginning of last year, so almost like about a year.
	I've been riding for about a year.
	And how old are you now?
	I'm 26.
	And what do your parents think of this?
	I assume it's not positive based on your email?
	No.
	Initially, I wanted to get one when I was probably like 21 or earlier.
	And it kind of started when my friend had like a little pocket bike, which is like a little small CC bike.
	I really enjoyed riding it around, and I wanted to get one because it was just something I wanted to do.
	And they didn't want me to get one, so I ended up not getting one.
	Are you in a relationship at the moment, romantically?
	No, I actually just got out of a relationship.
	Okay, so imagine that a woman, a quality woman, a great woman, Falls in love with you and loves you madly.
	What do you think her opinion is going to be if you're motorcycle racing?
	I don't think that she'd think it's a great idea depending on what kind of woman she has.
	But if she was a great woman, she definitely would.
	That's a wonderful non-answer.
	Let me do it another way.
	Let's say that she wants to have children.
	And what would you think about your motorcycle relationship, your motorcycle racing, if she wants to have kids?
	She would want to be with me because it would be detrimental if I got hurt or I died riding.
	And what are the risks of that occurring?
	On the track they're not as bad as riding on the street but they're definitely there.
	I don't ride on the street anymore because it's too dangerous.
	People could write to me after this call and say, statistically it's safer than commuting, and you wouldn't say don't marry a guy who's commuting.
	I don't know what the numbers are.
	If you don't know what the numbers are, then I think it's important to know what those numbers are, what you're risking.
	There are multi-generational race car drivers, which means I assume that they're not bursting into flames every time they go around a corner.
	So, I mean, if it's something you enjoy and it's not particularly risky, I mean, if you're careful and all that and the statistics are, you know, if you become a musician, you spend a lot of time on airplanes and buses, you know, and maybe those airplanes go down, right?
	Just ask the big bopper.
	And so, I mean, all occupations come with some level of risk.
	I mean, people who sit in an office, sitting apparently is as bad for you as smoking, which is why I move around during my shows.
	I don't want to sit and hunched over and squishing my innards.
	For a couple of hours, twice a week.
	So, you know, all occupations are going to come with some level of risk.
	I think if you get the information, then you can present it to yourself, present it to other people and say, well, yeah, I mean, it looks dangerous, but here's the actual statistics of how many people get injured or killed.
	You know, I mean, horse riding is a very dangerous occupation, but very few people say, oh my God, I'm not going to have I get married to someone who's a horse rider because, you know, I never heard of Christopher Reeve or something.
	So yeah, I could get the information.
	I would say certainly it's, you know, if it's something you enjoy and something you're thrilled about, I would certainly examine myself to make sure that I'm not thrill-seeking or attention-seeking or trying to have something cool about myself to have something to talk about.
	I mean, I don't know whether that would be the case.
	I would certainly look into that.
	But if the statistics are that it's not too dangerous, then, you know, it's a cool job to have.
	If the statistics are that it's dangerous, then you may want to review that, whether you feel comfortable with that level of risk.
	And of course, be open with whoever you're dating.
	That this is where things are so that the woman can make the appropriate decisions.
	Yeah, I mean, I have been thinking a lot about it, too, to see if I'm compensating for something or if I'm trying to relive some trauma.
	And I think I am.
	I was thinking about it like...
	I've been thinking about it a lot for the last week before I presented the question.
	And I definitely think that I mean, I have a theory on it.
	I'm not essentially, I don't know if it's correct or not, but I mean, it seems plausible.
	Sorry, hang on just a sec just before we go into that theory.
	So this is just for people who don't know.
	So Mike just got me this.
	Motorcyclists represent 3% of all registered vehicles in the US. Motorcycles account for 13% of total traffic fatalities.
	Motorcyclists are 35 times more likely to experience a deadly accident on the road Than in passenger cars.
	Now I know you were talking about not being on the road, but instead being on the track.
	So Mike's just going to look up some track stuff.
	But yeah, certainly it's...
	I remember when I was a teenager, I worked in a hardware store and a guy came in, you know, just completely wrecked.
	And he'd just been in a motorcycle accident a couple of months before.
	And he was never ever going to be the same person again physically or emotionally.
	Yeah, it is risky.
	I mean, I used to like dirt biking when I was a teenager.
	I had friends who had a cottage.
	We used to go up there on the weekends and dirt bike.
	And that's a lot of fun.
	Dirt biking, you never go hugely fast because it's so uppy-downy.
	I don't know what the statistics are for risk as far as that goes.
	I like snowmobiling and all that kind of stuff.
	I did have a friend who races motorcycles.
	And I think he was compensating for a wildly under-stimulated childhood.
	But that may be just a theory.
	But...
	So, Mikey, if you can look out for anything on the track stuff, you said it was safer.
	But yeah, so, Antonio, Anthony, what are your thoughts about the risk level and why that might be occurring?
	So, when I was younger, I remember my dad had a story about riding on the back of his quad and Essentially, I was really young.
	I think I was like three or four.
	And I was holding on.
	I remember crying and screaming because I felt like I was going to fall off.
	Wait, sorry.
	You were three or four and you were riding on the back of your dad's quad.
	Was that an ATV? Yeah.
	I think it was a quad.
	Wait, wait, wait.
	What the hell was he doing?
	Put a three or four-year-old on an ATV. I honestly have no idea.
	No, come on.
	You must have some idea.
	Yeah, I mean, you know the man, right? - I mean, he was being reckless.
	I don't know why, though.
	No, I understand he was being reckless, but why?
	Why was he doing that?
	that?
	Why was your mom allowing that to happen?
	I mean, because you weren't were you holding on to your dad?
	I mean, you weren't even strapped in, right?
	Yeah, I mean, there's no seatbelts on it, so I was holding on to him.
	And I just remember crying about it and feeling like I was going to fall off the whole time.
	And then he said that during the time that I was on the bike that he was thinking I was yelling to go faster, which doesn't make any sense to me.
	Wait, you were yelling to go faster when you were terrified of falling off?
	Yeah, that's what he thought I was doing.
	Oh, he thought you were yelling for him to go faster when you were actually terrified of falling off.
	Yeah, exactly.
	Right.
	So, not the best listener or a father, but the best judgment in the world, right?
	No, definitely not.
	And then, on top of that, he has a really bad...
	He has, like, a really bad streak of, like, when we'll go driving places.
	Like, as a family, I remember, like, seven or eight, that we'd go up in the mountains, because I live where it's pretty mountainous over here, and we'd go on a trip.
	And he's, like, a really aggressive driver.
	And he just, like, I remember being really, really afraid and, like, super stressed out that, like, we were going to fall off.
	Or, you know, he'd, like, scream at people when we were driving.
	It was weird because we went to dinner for his birthday and I just pulled it back up remembering how stressful it was just being in the car with him and the family.
	I think that might have been me trying to relive the trauma and me trying to go back and perfect.
	Or maybe just...
	I mean, I don't know.
	That's what I thought.
	Yeah, so I mean, there's a bond with your father.
	This is what men do is they do risky, dangerous stuff, right?
	That's a sort of masculine...
	That's a masculinity imprint.
	Right?
	So there are, you know, cultural imprints of what masculinity is that varies wildly from Africa to Japan to India to Canada to Australia.
	This is the template, right?
	What do men do?
	What do men do?
	And the reason why we do that is that our fathers in particular, we imprint on our fathers and do what our fathers did because our genes want to reproduce, right?
	They want to hit that photocopier.
	And our father is our example, is the example of A sexually successful strategy, right?
	Because if you have a father, by definition, he's reproduced.
	Hopefully it's he who reproduced with your mom.
	But if you have a father, then he was someone who got to reproduce with a woman.
	And so if you're like him, it gives you your biggest chance of reproducing with a woman, right?
	I mean, you imitate the sexually successful strategies of your father.
	So if being callous with children and dangerous and not listening to kids and doing really fast stuff and doing dangerous stuff, if that is what works sexually in the tribe, if that's what gets you to reproduce with women, then that's what you're going to want to do.
	That's how you're going to imprint, right?
	Okay, so it potentially could not be like a bad thing that I'm doing it.
	I'm not trying to...
	Oh no, I didn't say that.
	I didn't say that at all.
	It was more of a question.
	Okay, yeah, so...
	Because I think I'm more interested in exploring.
	Are you risky in other areas of your life, or is it mostly just the motorcycling?
	Mostly just that.
	I mean, I'm a really safe driver.
	I don't drive crazy on the street.
	I'm pretty...
	I'm pretty normal besides that.
	Well, I'm not, but I mean, I'm pretty...
	no I'm not risking any other part of my life besides maybe putting myself in horrible relationships which I just got out of but besides that no And what was horrible about that relationship?
	She was really manipulative, a lot like my mom and towards the end or like towards the later half of the relationship we got, she got abusive and she like hit me.
	She punched me in the face and spit on me.
	Oh man.
	How did that come about?
	We were having an argument about her not listening to me and she was just being really Like really vindictive and like spiteful and she just like we usually make dinner together and I was living with her at the time and like we'd make dinner together and they get home and we do laundry together and she like got up her laundry by herself and went to go do it and then made dinner for herself and not for me and
	Like, we were having an argument about something.
	I don't remember what it was, but it was really stupid.
	And she just, like, wasn't listening to me, and she sat on her phone, and I was talking to her, and I told her that, you know, what I was saying to her was important to her, and I wanted to make sure that she was listening to me and were talking to me instead of ignoring me.
	And then after she left, she went to go to the laundromat to go do our laundry together, and Without me.
	And I told her when she was coming back that I wasn't going to be with her anymore because I couldn't take all of her abuse.
	And then she went over the top with it and she started pushing me when I was trying to get out of there.
	And then she took my glasses off and was throwing them in the yard and she was just being crazy.
	And then she punched me in the face.
	And how long had you been going out?
	About a year.
	And had she been violent at all before?
	Yeah, she pushed me once before and I told her if she pushed me again or touched me in any physical way that we were done with the relationship.
	Well, you were damn lucky, I'm telling you.
	I mean, I hate to say it, given what happened, but if she had decided to punch herself or had hit herself and then called the cops, you could be serving time.
	Yeah, I mean, I was really scared because I didn't know what to do.
	Motorcycling is like the least dangerous of your hobbies these days, right?
	Yeah, I mean, I was really scared.
	Let me ask you a question.
	Let me ask you a question.
	Was she pretty?
	Yeah, she was pretty.
	I mean, I thought she was pretty.
	She wasn't what most people would call pretty, but we kind of started dating at the same time I started listening to the show.
	So I think progressively throughout our relationship, the more I started to realize all the manipulation she was doing and All the bullshit she was saying to me and I just started getting more detached from her and I just realized that it was not a healthy relationship.
	I've just been looking at myself recently to figure out why I've been put in that relationship.
	Right.
	So you said she was similar to your mom.
	Did your mom hit you when you were a kid?
	Yeah, she did.
	Not as much as my dad did, but she did.
	She definitely hit me.
	But she chose a man who hit you to be your dad.
	I'm so sorry.
	Thanks.
	In the Mayo Clinic study conducted in 2010, researchers found that half of all participants in motocross racing said they experienced symptoms of a concussion during the season, but only 40% of those riders went for a medical exam and 30% of them continued riding on the day they had their symptoms.
	So it does not seem hugely safe, right?
	Yeah, it's definitely not safe.
	I mean, I crashed in my last event, so, but it was a long side.
	What happened?
	During the race I was chasing after someone and the front end just lost out and I slid at like 60 into the dirt.
	But I was wearing full protective gear so I tried to buy the best gear so that way I have less of a chance of hurting myself.
	Well, you know, full protective gear is a couch.
	You're not even on the bike, right?
	Exactly.
	That would make more sense.
	And that happened when was your last race?
	It was last month.
	Like when?
	A couple of weeks ago?
	A week or two ago?
	Like 30 days ago.
	It was like the early part of the month.
	And you have not raced since?
	No, my bikes.
	I have had to fix my bike.
	So your capacity to judge risk with your girlfriend was not good, right?
	Initially, no, it wasn't.
	Definitely wasn't.
	Well, were you surprised that she hit you at the end?
	No.
	Okay.
	So the more I moved on...
	When did you realize that she was going to...
	But then why didn't you just move out and vanish?
	Why did you confront her if you thought she would hit you?
	If you're in an abusive relationship, my understanding is that confrontation is extremely unwise.
	Right?
	Yes.
	I think because I was enabling her to be abusive.
	And I think because I thought I was trying to help her when I was actually being detrimental to her by staying there.
	Well, so what I'm saying is that, you know, so I said your capacity to judge risk is not great.
	And you said, and I said, as evidenced by your relationship, and you said, but it was good at the end.
	But the fact that you confronted someone who punched you and threw your glasses in the yard and was generally being crazy and could have gotten a lot crazier.
	The fact that you confronted a woman who has a capacity for violence does not indicate that that judgment of risk was not right, was not good, right?
	Because it could have gone a whole lot worse, as I said, right?
	So if you say, well, she's violent, she's crazy, I can't confront her because she might punch herself and call the cops and say, I hit her, and then I go to jail and have a record.
	Your capacity to judge risk is impaired.
	Because if you're with a violent and abusive person, you don't confront them.
	You just wait till they're gone.
	You move your stuff out.
	You don't leave any forwarding address.
	You get a restraining order if you need to, right?
	If you're with an abusive person, you don't say, well, that's it, I'm leaving you.
	You don't provoke them in that way because it can go seriously badly, right?
	To the point where you're just praying to go into a flaming wall of death in a motorcycle, right?
	Makes sense.
	You sound like you just checked out of the whole conversation right there.
	Oh no, I'm sorry.
	It's so early for me.
	But yeah, no, I agree that that definitely makes sense.
	Right.
	So my argument is, and did you know about these concussion things?
	This was just a very quick Google search, right?
	So did you know about these 40% have a concussion in any given year?
	And those concussions, right?
	I mean, look at the documentary on the NFL. Those concussions can cause personality change, rage, addiction, death.
	I mean, the concussions are very, very serious, right?
	Right.
	Yeah, no, I definitely agree that they're serious.
	I think, though, that's more pertaining to motocross than road racing, because with...
	With motocross, you're going up in the air a lot more and then coming down, and you're hitting ground a lot more solid, whereas road racing, it's a lot more broken arms and limbs because you're sliding off the bike, and you don't get as many concussions, but not saying that they don't happen.
	But you don't know the prevalence of injuries in your sport?
	No, I don't know the numbers, no.
	So you don't have a good way of evaluating the risk.
	And this indicates to me that it probably is an unconscious recreation of early terror.
	You're striving to manage the emotion of terror because being on the back of an ATV when you're three or four and being screamed and terrified, what's terrifying about that is A, you might fall off the ATV and die and B, that you have a father who thinks that's a great fucking idea.
	And so misinterpreted your cries and screams of terror that he thought you wanted him to go faster.
	That's a dangerous lunatic for a dad.
	Yeah.
	That's terrifying to a child.
	This is the guy who's in charge of me, who can do anything he wants from me.
	What's next?
	Like fucking dangle me over a railing on a 10-story hotel balcony?
	You know, catapulting naked into brambles?
	Like, what's next?
	And so, my guess is that as a child, you had significant terror around the degree of safety you had, and you learned that it was essential to manage that terror.
	And I would imagine, and this is part of the relationship as well, right?
	Managing terror, managing anxiety, managing fear.
	That's your thing.
	Which is why you decide to confront a woman who's violent.
	Which is, you know, This is what I mean, like, do you have the capacity to assess risk?
	You're not doing the research, right?
	So if you know that the woman is violent, then you look up on the web how to break up with a violent person, and what are you going to find?
	Don't confront, don't confront, don't confront, right?
	Well, the thing was, is I was planning on not confronting her, and I was leaving when she was gone, but then she came home earlier.
	But I definitely could have chose a day that she wasn't there.
	I just knew I needed to get out then.
	Well no, but if she comes home earlier then you call the cops and you say I need you to witness me leaving because the woman is violent.
	And then the cops are there while you're leaving and she can't then make up something about how you hit her.
	Well I called my friend immediately after.
	You're not listening to what I'm saying.
	If she comes home, surprisingly, you at least call a friend and say, get over here right now.
	I've already got to call the cops.
	I need a witness to this exit.
	Because you are in a very dangerous situation when you're leaving an abusive person.
	And I'm not trying to say you're dumb or obviously very intelligent.
	I think everyone who listens to the show, I grant them at least IQ of 120.
	But what I'm saying is you're not very good at assessing and reacting to risk.
	And given your childhood and what you've told me about your dad, that makes perfect sense to me.
	So it's not a great idea for you to do motorbike racing at the moment, in my opinion, right?
	Because you're not good at assessing risk.
	You don't have the facts, which means that you're recreating something from history.
	Which is the managing of extreme emotion, of fear, anxiety, and the adrenaline that you can get addicted to the excitement and the adrenaline that comes from that, right?
	But you had an irresponsible father, a dangerous father, and the fact that you're in a dangerous environment now, which mirrors perfectly what happened when you were three or four, is probably not coincidental.
	That's what I was thinking.
	That's why I wanted to call and talk about it.
	Yeah, so those would be my suggestions, Anthony.
	Does that sort of make sense?
	Is that helpful?
	Yeah, definitely.
	I mean, it definitely makes sense and I'm glad you kind of confirmed what I was thinking, which is good.
	So it means that I'm hopefully going in the right direction.
	And I'm sorry for the level of risk.
	That you experienced as a child.
	Risk in parenting is a challenge, right?
	I mean, you don't want to protect your kids overly because if they don't have any experience of managing risk and doing anything that's risky, then it's not great for them, right?
	But at the same time, you have to help them manage their risk and not do stuff that's too risky and all.
	So it just sounds like your dad was way off the charts as far as risk goes, and that probably gave you a bit of a distorted bond to risk.
	So I'm sorry about all of that.
	Thank you.
	Thank you so much.
	I really appreciate it.
	Let us know how it goes.
	I hope that you find a way to have a life that is both safe and enjoyable at the same time.
	Do philosophy.
	No physical risk, but it can be a bit of brinksmanship from time to time.
	Thank you again, Seth.
	Thank you very much.
	I'm sorry for the people that we didn't get to.
	We knew that the first call was going to be quite lengthy, but I hope that it helps at least two people, hopefully more.
	Thanks, Mike, for setting this all up.
	Thanks for all the callers.
	We'll try and get you on Wednesday for sure.
	I don't have smack all to do later on Wednesday night or Thursday morning so we can have a nice, long, old, meaty show.
	But have yourself a wonderful week, everyone.
	Remember, we do request 50 cents a show.
	I think it's worth it, to say the least.
	And you can...
	Donate at fdurl.com slash donate.
	Please sign up for a subscription or make a one-time donation.
	We take Bitcoin and Litecoin and help us to continue to expand the quality and reach and technical prowess of the show.
	So have a great week, everyone.

▲