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July 24, 2018 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:53:45

4152 The Most Shocking Conversation Of All Time - Call In Show - July 25th, 2018

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	Well, broke a bunch of rules with this caller, not least of which he gets his very own lengthy call-in show segment.
	This is a three-hour, almost three-hour conversation, and every single moment, every single minute of it, I think is very powerful.
	There's almost nothing in modern society that this conversation does not touch upon in great and powerful detail.
	I even broke one of my own rules in the conversation.
	And this is a white Canadian male.
	He recently married into a black family and is experiencing significant racial backlash from his in-laws and even from his wife.
	And he wanted to know if I had any advice for dealing with this situation, how he should handle it, what he should do.
	And man, did we ever learn a lot about each other and the world and marriage and race.
	And I hope that you will really pay attention to what this man has to say and what powerful conversations are possible with very, very honest and open minds.
	So please, please listen to this while Alright, well today we have Sean.
	Sean wrote in and said, I'm a white Canadian male who recently married into a black family and I'm experiencing some racial backlash.
	I have a very independent view of the world and this conflicts a lot with my in-laws' views on race slash racism and how it affects black people.
	I'm wondering if you have any advice for dealing with this and or can help me work through how I should handle it.
	That's from Sean. Hey Sean, how are you doing tonight?
	I'm doing well, Stefan.
	How are you? Are you receiving racial backlash from Japanese people, from Inuit, or is it from your new black family?
	Ah, that's a really tough question.
	I'm gonna go with the last one.
	Right, right. So give me a sort of a bit of a history of the relationship, I guess, with your girlfriend, then fiance, and now wife.
	Uh, yeah, um...
	So we met through like a matchmaking service, you know, where you pay X amount of money and they take a profile and you kind of, they introduce you to people.
	Right. Okay. Got it.
	Yeah. I just didn't want to mess around.
	I was getting older. So I was like, I don't want to mess around.
	And did you get more than one match or was this the match?
	Oh, I got, I got a lot of matches.
	Yeah, I did.
	And what was it that got you, got your juices flowing with this woman?
	I called her to set up the original first date, like where you would meet, like a blind date type of thing.
	And we stayed on the phone talking for three hours.
	We could not stop talking.
	So we had a really good connection, had a lot of fun.
	And even before we even met up, I called her a few more times and we chatted and then we met up.
	It kind of wasn't even a first date other than seeing the person in the flesh.
	Right. So yeah, we just sort of hit it off.
	She's very intellectual, which can be good and bad because she has a lot of the social justice aspects in her education.
	What is her education in?
	She took disability...
	It's like disability studies, but now she has gotten a master's, I think also in the same thing, if I'm I mean, that's heavy like welfare state social work stuff, right?
	Exactly. Right. And now she's going to law school.
	All right. And how old is she?
	She is 28.
	She's 28.
	She's finished her master's.
	Now she's going to law school? Correct.
	Does she want kids? When we first met, we were both sort of on the fence if we wanted to have kids or not.
	And then in this last probably six months period we've had a lot of after getting married essentially we've had a lot of conversations about it and She'll you know all of a sudden start up a conversation.
	Oh, we gotta have kids We've got to have kids and I just look I'm like is it that time of the month, you know and oh, yeah, of course so she has those moments in her Her monthly cycle where she really wants to have kids and I've said to her if you want to have kids and If you're going to law school, how is this going to work? Because there's still four years until you finish, because she's starting first year.
	So, yeah, we're trying to work that out.
	She wants to have kids, but then she also doesn't want to have kids.
	Both our parents have said don't have kids, which is astounding to me.
	Why? Because they see the way the world is and all the craziness that's happening, and they're saying it's so difficult to raise your kids now with the way, especially how we are in Canada now.
	Where the government is essentially raising your child.
	Well, that remains a choice.
	So, has she ever spent time in the working world?
	Has she ever had much experience at the free market?
	Or has it mostly been conveyed about through higher education?
	So, yeah. Well, most of her time has been spent in higher education.
	She really likes the academic side.
	Sure. Makes fun.
	Yeah. That's what she says, exactly.
	Yeah, no, I mean, I have such great memories, in particular, of doing my graduate degree.
	I mean, I had a little cubby, steady cubby in the library, and I could keep out books for a long time.
	I used to just go there and read and write and think and debate with people.
	And, oh, no, it's a sweet gig, for sure.
	Yeah, that's exactly what she says.
	So she loves that.
	In this last year, after she finished her master's, We moved out to the prairies and she did get a job, like a full-time job.
	Hated it. What do you mean with the government?
	No, she went to be, I don't want to say a secretary, but something like a min assistant at an architectural firm.
	Wait, she got a master's degree.
	I know. Why is she going for a job as a secretary?
	No. What was the point of all that freaking education?
	He asked, almost knowing what the answer is.
	Yeah, I really don't know.
	What do you mean you don't know?
	You're her husband!
	I mean, in the sense, I don't know why.
	Well, okay, I kind of know why she applied for that position.
	She wanted to get a job and start working, and where we are...
	It's a smaller city.
	So there wasn't a lot of positions.
	So she got something and she started working.
	I'm trying to follow the logic here.
	Why would you move to a place where there was very little demand for her education?
	You know, it's like, I'm going to study ice fishing and move to Hawaii.
	So she would say that her answer to this would be it was my decision.
	And my answer would be it was her decision.
	And I think it was a combination of What?
	What does that mean?
	So essentially we're living in the...
	And we moved out here to the prairies because I had previously worked out in the prairies before for about three years.
	And when I moved back to the...
	Where my family is, that's where we met and we got together.
	And I didn't like my job that I had.
	Like, they didn't treat me very well.
	And I always wanted to go into business for myself as an entrepreneur.
	And I had a lot of contacts out here in the prairies.
	So she said to me one day, you know, we were only together at that point, about four months.
	And she said, well, why don't...
	We were together? You mean married or dating?
	Dating. So you were dating for four months.
	And then what happened? She said, well, you don't like your position here.
	So why don't you think about looking with your contacts in the prairies and I said okay so I did that and I'm an IT I'm a programmer but I met like a test lead or not a test lead sorry a team lead so I started talking to my contacts out here a contract came up and I said you know what I'm not gonna go through These, you know, where you become an employee and they kind of ship you out.
	I'm just going to incorporate myself and do a contract thing.
	And it was worth a lot of money.
	And she was okay to move because she said she can finish her master's anywhere.
	So she did it. Wait. You've been dating four months and she's moving with you to the prairies.
	Yeah. Does that seem...
	A little fast to you at all?
	It did. I told her that.
	I told her. I said, this is very quick.
	We've only been together three and a half, four months.
	What if something happens?
	How do you know you're going to like living with me?
	All sorts of things.
	Of course, you move in together, right?
	So you travel thousands of miles and move in together when you've been dating three and a half months.
	Correct. And what did your family, friends think of this decision process?
	Family hated it. Friends, they had their reservations.
	They thought it was risky. Okay, and what did she say in terms of you say, well, what if we don't get along?
	Or, like, what was her response to that?
	She said, then I'll just leave and go back.
	Oh, all right. She's like, just give me, you know, a few weeks or whatever to pack up my stuff, and I'll just leave and go back.
	I was like, okay. And did you think it was a good idea?
	I thought it was a terrible idea in terms of I felt a lot of pressure.
	I was like, there is pressure on me now.
	I'm not sure why there's pressure on you.
	If you think something's a bad idea, you just say no, right?
	You just say, well, maybe we'll try it long distance for a bit or, you know, but if it's a terrible idea, how did you end up doing it?
	It was so I had my reservations and I I was like, this is a really risky idea and it could be very bad.
	But at the same time, I really liked her.
	And my past history with dating, I was very quick.
	I was like an avoidant type person.
	So I was very quick to be like, something's wrong with this person.
	I'm out. So I never really had good relationships that were long and fruitful.
	I was very quick to just Jump out.
	And I really liked her and she got past, which sounds crazy, but she got past that, you know, that few month mark.
	And I was the first one to say that I loved her.
	Which I had never done to anybody before.
	And how long into your relationship did you say that you left her?
	I think it was about three months.
	And how long before you guys went to bed together?
	Um... It would have been right after that.
	Like, literally, that's what kind of sparked.
	She broke her rule.
	And, you know, funny how that happens.
	Because I said I loved her.
	Just on the phone one night, I was just talking to her and I said, you know, I really love you.
	And I want to tell you that.
	And then that weekend after, it happened.
	Okay. All right.
	Okay, so three and a half months, you make these plans and then...
	How long into things did you move out to the prairies together?
	It was actually, we had to move very quickly.
	So it was in two and a half weeks, because the contract was starting right away, and I had to be there.
	Yeah, so just enough time to give notice in your current job, but then boogie out, right?
	Exactly. And then there was no work for her out there, right?
	In her field?
	No. She was still finishing her master's, right?
	Correct. She was finishing her master's, so we moved in...
	Like the middle of the summer, and she finished just before September.
	So before the cutoff for her master's.
	And how's she been funding all this education?
	Her parents. Oh, parents are paying for it.
	Or, yeah, parents or scholarships and bursaries.
	So her master's was scholarships. So is she debt-free?
	No, there's like...
	Well, actually, she just told me after we got married, there's $70,000...
	After you got married?
	Yeah, I was...
	Dude! I can hear the horses' hooves from here as the ride commences.
	Holy crap!
	She didn't tell you, before you got married, that she was $70,000 in debt.
	Correct. However, the debt is to her parents because her parents have been paying, but they expect her to pay it back.
	Not if she's in law school, they don't.
	Well, no. Isn't she just going to borrow more from them?
	Yes and no. So I am trying to supplement as much as I can, and they will cover the rest.
	So she's going to end up probably more in debt.
	And then she's going to finish her law school when she's 32 years old, right?
	Yeah, it's four years.
	So she's going to be $100,000, $120,000 in debt.
	She's going to be 32 years old.
	She might want to have a family.
	And she might only just be beginning her career.
	Exactly. And this is why I've had conversations with her saying...
	Can we maybe fit in some pregnancies while you're going to law school, like try to plant a baby born in the summer?
	I don't know. Why?
	If she wants to have babies, why is she going to law school?
	Because it's a huge waste of time, money and energy, not just for her, but for society as a whole.
	Because society is going to be down one lawyer.
	Now, of course, I know there's lots of people who think that's a good idea, but let's just say for the sake of argument that lawyers have positive utility value to society, by her taking a law degree at the age of 28 when she's just got married and probably wants to have kids, it means that she's either going to be a terrible lawyer or a terrible mother.
	I've had these conversations, and when I brought it up, are you sure you want to do this?
	Maybe we should have kids instead of doing the law school or somehow can we fit it in?
	And then her response was, well, then I just won't have kids.
	I mean, I would have liked to have had kids.
	And you guys didn't really resolve any of this before you got married.
	Neither did you know she was $70,000 in debt and that you were going to have to shoulder her financial costs to a large degree of going to law school.
	See, here's the thing.
	You pay for her to go to law school or her parents pay for her to go to law school.
	Let's say that you pay 50% and her parents pay 50%, right?
	So you're funding $10,000 or $20,000 a year.
	Her parents are funding $10,000 or $20,000 a year at a minimum.
	And so over four years, she's $40,000 to $80,000 further in debt.
	Let's just say it's in the middle to her parents, right?
	So she's $60,000 in debt.
	To her parents, and you're paying a bunch of money.
	I'm actually paying the loan to her parents.
	I pay them like $1,000 a month.
	You're paying the $70,000 loan?
	Yeah, yeah. Wait, isn't she a strong, independent woman who shouldn't be dependent on a man?
	I thought she was... Is she a feminist?
	No, I wouldn't consider her a feminist, no.
	She actually doesn't like feminists.
	No, I wouldn't either. Or maybe I do, I don't know.
	Well, she says that's the white females thing, right?
	And they hate it on black people, especially black women.
	Wait. They kept them out of the...
	So feminism is a white female thing, and they don't like...
	The white female feminists don't like black women.
	Is that right? Yeah, because apparently, I guess, first wave, they kept the black women down in some fashion.
	She knows. She said a bunch of stuff.
	I don't know too much about it.
	Well, as far as exploitation along racial lines go, it ain't like history in your marriage, right?
	So you're paying the $70,000, and you're going to be paying part of her law school, or her parents are going to be paying more of her law school.
	So she may end up $40,000 to $60,000 more in debt by the end of law school.
	And then if she decides to have kids, then you're going to have to pay $120,000.
	$130,000 for a degree that is generating no income.
	Or degrees, I guess.
	The law degree and the master's, right?
	Yeah. And then she tried to give me a heart attack again by saying maybe she'd get her PhD after.
	And I just was like, no.
	Oh, man. Sean, what are you doing?
	What are you doing? I'm in deep now.
	Like, seriously, man, how pretty is this woman?
	She's good-looking, but that wasn't why I... Oh, please don't start talking to me about all of her virtues.
	For God's sakes, man.
	She's hanging on to you like a financial vampire.
	She is. She didn't even tell you about being $70,000 in debt until she had you locked into a marriage, man.
	I knew she had some debt from school.
	I just didn't know. No, no, no. You fucking tell people when you're going to get married to them.
	Long before. You tell them when you're dating.
	You tell them the moment it gets serious.
	Hell, tell them on the first date, hey, I come with $70,000 worth of debt.
	If we get married and have kids, you're going to have to pay that.
	That's a bucket of money, man.
	Why do you have to pay her bills?
	Like, what world of unreality is she living in?
	Oh, yeah, well, maybe I'll just go get a PhD.
	For what? Paid for by whom?
	Yeah, I don't see how that does anything.
	I can see getting a law degree because she wanted to be a lawyer since she was, like, a teenager.
	Not if she goes and gets a PhD.
	And if she wants to be a lawyer since she was a teenager, why the hell did she get a master's in disability?
	So there's an interesting story there.
	Alright. Okay, so it all starts with her family being Jehovah's Witness.
	So, essentially, she did a really...
	They do not like education in their family, and they tell people...
	Wait, they don't like education, but they lent her $70,000 to get educated?
	Yeah, this is...
	What the fuck is that? This is where a lot of Confusion happens for me.
	So... Well, I think I can help you with that confusion.
	Okay. Alright.
	Jehovah's Witnesses. Yes.
	Hate education, pay for her to get educated.
	Paying for her now to get further educated, and she'll probably try and drain their bank account dry for a PhD, but they really hate education, so go on.
	Yeah, well...
	At least that's the standard thing.
	They're supposed to hate education.
	So, she went to...
	University, say college, because she didn't even go to university right away.
	She went to college because that was the first thing she did after exiting high school because Jehovah's Witnesses hate education or they don't like you to be too educated so you start questioning the religion.
	So she went into paralegal to be a paralegal.
	She did two years, realized that she really wanted to be A lawyer and said, I think she finished that program, actually.
	Sorry, she did become a paralegal.
	She worked for, like, about a year, then decided that she was going to go get her bachelor's because she really wanted to be a lawyer after working in a law firm as a paralegal.
	That's when her parents actually decided to pay her, but she had a whole falling out with the religion.
	There was a whole big thing with her parents.
	Over a year, they kind of recovered the relationship and they decided that, yes, We will support you and your educational goals.
	And she's borrowed money from them to do her bachelor's, master's, and now law school.
	And how did she survive when she was doing her first degree, the college?
	She used to work in a...
	You don't make a lot of money doing this, but she used to work in a group...
	Not a group home. Well, I guess it is a group home.
	But for... You know where you foster...
	People foster kids.
	And they go to... I think they call it a group home.
	But she worked there as one of the people who would help look after the kids.
	And so that paid a little bit of money.
	And then she lived with another family.
	That wasn't her own family because her own family wouldn't talk to her.
	Right. And...
	What's her relationship to the religion at the moment?
	Hateful. Oh, she hates it?
	And I assume her parents are still in it or part of it?
	Yes. And that's another problem with their relationship is they keep trying to push her back into it.
	Sure. Oh, you wait till kids come.
	You wait till kids come, man.
	Claws will go in.
	I'm not looking forward to that.
	I'm not looking forward to it at the moment, my friend.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	She fell out of the religion because she was raped by a member in their group.
	Wait, what?
	Yes, I know.
	It gets worse. She's a rape victim?
	Yes. And how old was she when she was raped?
	16. And what did she do about it?
	Did she go to the police? She didn't.
	I assume that she was encouraged not to by the community or her parents.
	She never told anybody at all.
	Zero. She never told anybody that she was raped.
	Correct. I am like, well, other than myself and maybe one friend, her best friend or something.
	And how long into your dating relationship, Sean, did you find out that she had been raped at 16 and kept it to herself?
	Actually, she told me that quite soon.
	So it was within about a month.
	So I did know about that.
	And what did you think of that?
	I thought it was terrible and I was very upset and I wanted to go hurt that other person.
	But I decided that would be a really bad idea.
	And who was it?
	Some part of the congregation, is that right?
	Yeah, also a friend of the family and like The witnesses, I guess, they're very close in their community, right?
	So everybody's coming over and stuff.
	So this guy would show up.
	And when she told me the story, it's kind of like almost the story you had with the lady last night or the other day with the professor and stuff like that, where it's like, the guy's asking you to come over to his house.
	You're 16. He's 21.
	Why would you ever do that?
	But she was young and she didn't know.
	Yeah. Did she tell you the rights of a rapist?
	He was black. He was a black guy?
	Yeah. And he still comes around.
	She never told anyone?
	No. So this guy's still coming around, right?
	He's still floating around the family.
	He's, hey, how you doing? Can I get you a soda?
	Yeah, and she just avoids him.
	And he tries to talk to her.
	And it's really weird.
	I don't know if he considers it that way, but she does.
	No red flags for you in the dating process, really.
	Is that right? There were red flags, definitely.
	And what were the others? She had an abortion.
	From the rape? No, not from the rape.
	Previous relationship to me meeting her.
	A previous relationship, sorry?
	A previous relationship, the one before she met me, which was like a year before.
	Right. And she didn't tell the guy and just did it.
	And I don't know why she stayed in the relationship, because she really didn't like him.
	So yeah, there were red flags.
	So she had an abortion when she was in a committed relationship.
	She got pregnant. She didn't tell the guy.
	She had an abortion. She didn't tell the guy.
	And she stayed in the relationship.
	It was more like she was in the relationship for about a year near the end of that relationship.
	Like they had sex and she got pregnant, but she broke up with him before she knew that she was pregnant.
	We have no idea, because I don't believe much of what this woman says, but this is what she's telling you, right?
	Correct. Alright.
	So she broke up with the guy.
	And she didn't want to end up as another statistic, you know, single black mother, so she had an abortion.
	And she never got back together with the guy?
	No. Although he's tried to get back together with her.
	No, but I thought you said that she stayed in the relationship.
	Oh, I'm sorry. She stayed in the relationship, even though, let's say, six months in, she realized she was done with him, but she still stayed in it.
	And why was she done with him?
	Because of how he was treating her.
	He was sort of that kind of claws-in person, right?
	Like, oh, I'm never going to let you go.
	Like, controlling you.
	You know, you can't go out with your friends or whatever.
	And was he black as well?
	No, she actually has never dated a black man.
	She specifically only dated white guys.
	Alright. So does that mean that she has, I mean, I would assume part of her history of rape at the age of 16 would have recoiled the fact for black men, and what is her family's relationship to your ethnicity or to whiteness as a whole, if any?
	It's... I don't know.
	It's hard to say. Well, I shouldn't say it's hard to say.
	Her parents...
	Her mother is very quiet about it.
	She doesn't say too much, to be honest.
	But her dad does feel that white people are...
	White men, white women, or whatever.
	They have their privilege.
	And if there's a white guy and a black guy going for the same job, of course they're going to give it to the white guy, even though, you know, it doesn't matter about credentials.
	The white guy is going to get it, kind of thing.
	So he believes that white people are racist?
	Yeah, and their definition of racism would be the social justice version of that, which is power equals, you know, if you can be racist or not.
	So he does not consider himself racist because he has less power than white people as a whole?
	Yes. Although he has enough power to lend $70,000 to his daughter.
	Oh, her family is well off.
	Like, my family is poor, considered, compared to them.
	So your family is poor, her family is rich, but you have privilege?
	To be fair, my family...
	In comparison, it's like that.
	I mean, my family's some version of middle class, but her family, they have a lot of money.
	Like, a lot of money.
	Right. Right.
	And you've mentioned something about an aunt in your email.
	Ah, yes. So, well...
	She's actually, funny enough, Indian.
	She's sorry, what? She's Indian from India.
	So she's the aunt that married his brother.
	And she's a social psychologist.
	So after we got married, we didn't really have a wedding, like a real wedding.
	We just sort of had people to the house and just had like a little wedding.
	So we didn't have all these other people around.
	But when I got to meet all the extended family...
	They sat me down for over four hours to talk to me about my white privilege and how I need to be conscious of how I'm affecting other minority groups around me and that I'm stifling them.
	You're stifling non-whites by being around them?
	By how I would act, I guess.
	That I need to understand that I can't...
	I need to see color and so I need to Be like, oh, this is a black man, so he's probably been oppressed all his life, so I need to treat him a certain way.
	And this is a native person, so I need to treat them a certain way.
	And is that because, like, so what is their view of the history of white people that accumulates to this kind of perspective?
	Well, her father, he played sports, and...
	He had a hard time, I guess, getting onto the team because they told him he was black or whatever.
	And so he would have to do all these extra hoops to be able to get into that position, whereas other white people didn't.
	And then when he was on the team, the white people treated him a certain way that was different from how they treated the other white people and that sort of thing.
	So he really stuck to his group of Black people or minorities.
	Do you know if he had hostility or negative judgments of white people before any of this?
	Probably. Because it's kind of funny that if you dislike an entire group of people and you resent them and you feel that they've exploited you and raped your ancestors and Killed all the natives and fomented slavery and destroyed half the planet.
	You know, it's funny how it's kind of difficult to get a positive reaction from people you loathe because you're a racist.
	Yeah, vinegar just makes more vinegar.
	When he was in university, he did a history degree, right?
	So he studied history.
	And he's been very much on...
	That whole thing, how we don't talk about how black people invented things.
	We don't talk about how in Spain, the first university is created by the Moors.
	I believe it's the Moors, which are black people from North Africa.
	And they've sort of created the idea of, I guess, a university or this university.
	I'm not quite sure all the details.
	So this is the...
	I mean, I've heard the sort of We Were Kings kind of meme, right?
	That there's a hidden history of black achievement that is not...
	Talked about, right? Right.
	Right. Right.
	And I guess through life, he's had bad experiences.
	But what I do notice is whenever something goes wrong, like you're in a conversation with a white person.
	And let's say, it can be the simplest thing.
	You're at a bank.
	And go in there, okay?
	There's two of us standing there.
	It's a black person and I'm like in the background.
	The black person gets asked for their ID and Get into their bank account or deposit a check, whatever.
	Whereas I go up and I don't get asked.
	So they're like, oh, that's racism.
	That wouldn't be my first assumption.
	I'd be like, well, maybe this is a new employee.
	Maybe he doesn't know the rules.
	Maybe he's having a bad day.
	Maybe he thought he looked suspicious. I don't know.
	Maybe there's a higher incidence of fraud among black people.
	Or that. Because they hate the system and feel it's exploited to them, so they're kind of in a state of nature.
	It's a possibility. I don't know, and it certainly wouldn't be the case for all black people, but maybe there's something to do with that.
	Who knows? And they're also big on this.
	The only person, at least this is what they say in the black community, what they've told me is that there's a saying, the only person who likes a black person is nobody.
	So even black people don't like black people.
	Oh, that is... I mean, I gotta tell you, Sean, that's kind of heartbreaking.
	It is. That's really heartbreaking.
	What was that phrase again?
	The only black person who likes a black person is nobody.
	Oh, the only person... Okay, wow.
	That's very sad.
	That's a very sad thing.
	There was a recent news article that came out about one of the NBA players and...
	You know, they like sports. They were talking about it.
	And apparently he had a boat party.
	And he invited no black women onto this boat party, as per the article, which they didn't fully read.
	They kind of just read the headline.
	And they were having a conversation in the car, and I was sitting there.
	There was three of them. And they said, oh, this guy, like, he's a self-hating black person.
	He doesn't... Respect his own people.
	And we're going to boycott him.
	We're not going to... We kind of liked him before.
	We don't like him now. And I'm sitting there and I'm like...
	What are you guys talking about?
	Why does this matter to you right now?
	Because you are not...
	It's not like you were invited.
	He didn't uninvite you or did not choose to invite you.
	And they were like, well...
	If... If he's not inviting a black woman or a, well, in this case, it was just black women.
	There might have been black men on the boat, but no black women.
	So if he's not inviting a black woman onto the boat, and I'm a black woman, then that's like he didn't want to invite me because I'm a representation of that black woman.
	Right. So if the guy prefers white women or at least non-black women to black women, then that's a disrespect towards black women.
	Is that right? Correct.
	Okay. And so, and I, well, my kind of counter that was, well, we're all independent people and there's going to be people who have different preferences, but that's one black person.
	You could find X amount of white people who do the same thing, don't want to date white people and for any, anybody else.
	So why would you really focus on this and be like, look, here's an example.
	Okay. Fine.
	And they are essentially saying, though, that makes me racist.
	Somehow this makes me racist, that I'm kind of trying to give the individual independent argument.
	It makes me racist because we're all a collective group.
	All right. And have you been called, like, if they said you're racist?
	Well, yeah. Stefan, this is really hard for me to say, but in the heat of the moment, my wife was there and she called me racist when I said that.
	Your wife called you a racist?
	Yeah, and it drives me crazy, and I literally got really sad because, first of all, two things.
	One, for her, she was that dumb to marry a racist guy?
	Like, that's just insulting yourself.
	Well, it also shows that even if you marry a black woman, you can still be called a racist.
	That's what he told me. You're never going to satisfy this.
	I mean, just stop trying.
	Stop trying to avoid this label.
	It doesn't matter what you do.
	If people feel they can use it as a weapon against you, if people feel that they can get resources or shut you up or feel better, it's a bully word.
	And there's no possibility of...
	I mean, you marry into a black family.
	You love a black woman.
	But you're still a racist.
	See, it doesn't matter.
	This is why the term has just become so tragically meaningless and so overexposed that no one can see a damn bit of detail anymore.
	Yeah, there are racists in the world from every race, but if everybody gets called a racist, we can't find anyone who's actually a racist.
	And it's a terrible, terrible thing to do to a word that should be reserved to outward and obvious racist statements or attitudes.
	I'm very sorry.
	And was there like, well, so what was that moment?
	That moment where she says to you, Sean, you're a racist.
	She's, she's, so she's in the heat of it.
	Like we're arguing about the story, right?
	Like about this boat party thing.
	And so I'm like, well, but you guys aren't, you're not him or whatever, right?
	Like we're having this argument. She's like, well, you're being racist.
	You're a racist. And I'm like...
	Was there a pause there?
	Was there a, wow, she just called her white husband racist?
	She didn't stop.
	They just kind of kept going and I just stopped arguing and I just put my hands on my lap and I was just like, oh my god.
	And this is what happens.
	This is what happens when she spends time with her family.
	When we're together, like we're living together, she'll come on.
	She will listen to your show.
	She will listen to Larry Elder, Dave Rubin, Jordan Peterson.
	She bought tickets to Jordan Peterson's shows.
	And she will actually go and listen to them and be like, oh, fine.
	You know, like we'll have a conversation about it.
	Nothing's wrong. But she gets in with that collective group think of her family.
	And it just drives me crazy because they just go in this circle and It's like a spinning top and everything that flies at it just gets deflected off.
	Like all the reason just gone.
	I don't know. Do they have a view of reality maybe through a media that is different from what other people watch or what other groups may watch?
	Well, they seem to watch a lot of this.
	Although, I don't know, my father-in-law likes to watch a lot of CNN or like these YouTube videos, just like on YouTube.
	Like he doesn't watch TV, he'll watch the clips.
	And it's usually some black person either talking about how they're being oppressed in society.
	Some white person or some other group did something to them.
	A police officer shooting a black person or beating them up.
	It's always the worst thing.
	It's never a story about, hey, a black guy and a white guy got together and they decided to help these 10 people who were trapped in a burning building.
	It's not something like that.
	It's always the worst possible scenario.
	There was the monk debate with Michael Eric Dyson that just Came up a little while ago, like, when he watched that, he was...
	Wait, who else was on the debate?
	Well, Jordan Peterson, Michael Eric Dyson...
	Oh, the Stephen Fry one, too, right?
	Yeah, Stephen Fry, yeah. Right, right.
	A lot of yelling, not a lot of arguments.
	Right, but, of course, my father-in-law was like, oh, yeah, Michael Eric Dyson really showed him up.
	He was, like, all in it.
	So then he started watching the reviews, you know, other people reviewing it.
	And as soon as they said something bad about...
	Mr. Dyson, they were just like, done.
	He's just like, shut that video down, just all angry, like...
	Yeah, those are my people.
	That's a representative of my side, my group.
	Right. And...
	that's it.
	And I... I'm in there, right?
	Like, I'm sitting in the living room watching this stuff with them, and it makes me feel uncomfortable Because I actually quite like Stephen Fry and Jordan Peterson, so I'm on the complete opposite side.
	Not that I don't like Mr.
	Dyson, like actually some things I listen to him, I'm like, yeah, that makes sense.
	But most of the stuff I'm not on the same page as the guy.
	So if I try to speak up about it, I usually get told, well, you're a white man, you're in the majority, you don't understand what it's like.
	Yeah, there's no communication.
	It's possible because you don't have the lived minority or black experience.
	You can't possibly bridge that gap.
	You can't know what it's like to be us.
	Like all of the stuff that shuts down communication and says, basically, we can't communicate together.
	We can't build a society together.
	That it's going to be same planet, different worlds from now until the end of time, right?
	Right. Now my brother-in-law, so her brother has also told her that he thinks that I'm a racist.
	Wait, her brother-in-law?
	Sorry, my brother-in-law.
	Oh, her brother. Her brother also thinks that you're a racist?
	Yeah. And now he said he's trying to avoid contact with me.
	And what really hurts me about that is I've spent, ever since I got into the relationship with her and I met her, she has two brothers.
	When I met them, I really liked them.
	And so I was, I like these guys a lot.
	And so I was like, if you guys ever need anything, just let me know.
	I'll try to help you out, whatever.
	And the one who's called me a racist, I was talking to my wife, you know, two months prior, a month prior, and I said, I would like to bring him into my business.
	And he can do some work for me while he's finishing, you know, part time work while he's finishing up his degree in marketing, because I need someone to do marketing.
	And this would be very helpful for both of us.
	He could make some money on the side and I could get some insight and some potential help there.
	Help me grow my business maybe.
	And I was making some plans that I wanted to run by him because I know he needs money.
	He would like some money to...
	He's going to school, right?
	He's working, I think, at Starbucks or something, like a little place.
	So I said, well, why? He'd come work for me kind of thing.
	And You know, month two down the line, I get this.
	And I'm thinking, you're calling me a racist.
	Meanwhile, in the background, I've been talking to your sister about how much I want you to succeed.
	Because he's had a hard time.
	He's 30 years old, and he's now going back to school.
	Like, he's screwed up a lot.
	Wait, wait. He's screwed up a lot, but your wife's going to be a lawyer.
	Like, she's 28.
	She's going back to school.
	That's good. He's 30.
	He's going back to school. That's terrible.
	Well, it's not terrible.
	I shouldn't say it's terrible.
	Obviously, it's great that he's going back to school.
	No, I don't know that it's obvious that it's great.
	But anyway. Well, you hope that it's good, right?
	Okay, so he's going back to school and he's going to go get a final degree in marketing.
	Right. A nice field where nobody knows if there's a right answer or not.
	It's not like math or physics or whatever, right?
	Well, and his thing would be the white person has held him down.
	That's why he's had such a hard time.
	Sure. Yeah. No, I mean, so the white person who was about to give him a job doesn't give him a job because he calls the white person racist.
	And then he says, you see, that guy's racist.
	He won't give me a job. Maybe if you hadn't called him a racist in the first place.
	Well, I don't have to tell you these things.
	Yeah. And I don't know what to do with this.
	Oh, yeah. Well, you do. But we'll get to that in a sec.
	The Indian thing, the Indian angle is interesting to me because there are, in general, lots of exceptions, but there are, in general, some tensions between the black community and the Indian community.
	And does that play out at all?
	So, in terms of just backstory, they're from the Caribbean.
	And there's a lot in the West Indies, right?
	So there's, there was Indian people around them before they migrated her parents.
	And I guess they have, they came over as kids.
	So I don't know how much experience they have there with that.
	But at least here, whether it be second or third party, they've heard that Indian people don't like black people.
	You know, they won't invite them into their homes.
	They don't really want to talk to you.
	They, you know, they wipe their hands with their asses, which is true.
	Like, I know Indian people...
	Wait, I think you mean not they wipe their hands with their asses.
	Well... They wipe their asses with their hands, I think, is what you mean.
	I'm sorry. Just checking, because that seems like kind of backwards.
	You're right. You're right.
	There's my slight dyslexia playing out there or something.
	You ever want to freak out a real estate agent when he's showing you a home with a bidet?
	You come down and say, that's a very unusual drinking fountain you've got up there.
	Anyway, go on. I just use them to wash my hands.
	Yeah, so the whole wiping your ass with your hand, which I know that part is technically true because I have Indian friends who told me they do that.
	I mean, so whatever. Wait, you have Indian friends who say that they do in fact wipe their asses with their hands.
	Yeah. Well, I guess I'm glad that they feel comfortable enough to share that little tidbit with you.
	I have a lot of Indian friends working in IT. 50% of my workforce or the people that work for me are Indians.
	At least they have not much of an impulse to borrow their keyboard, I suppose.
	They have a whole thing with that.
	They're like, we don't use that hand.
	That's why they eat with a certain hand and not the other hand anyways.
	Sure. So that has played out where they will not go to an Indian restaurant.
	If they say Indian people, they will not talk to them.
	And what really gets me though is that my stepfather's brother married an Indian woman.
	But they like her.
	And they talk to her.
	And they really respect her.
	Okay, sorry. Your stepfather's brother, is this the Indian woman who sat down and lectured you about white privilege?
	Correct. Well, of course they like her because she's reinforcing their stereotypes and their belief system, right?
	She's saying to you, you better watch what you say so you don't accidentally suppress Someone of another race.
	And it's like, you know, technically you're kind of suppressing someone of another race when you're telling me to be really careful and watch what I say.
	And make sure I don't do this.
	Make sure I'm feeling kind of suppressed and I'm not the same race.
	But then, of course, they have the magic wand of like, well, it's power.
	You see? If you have power...
	If you don't have power, you can't be racist.
	What's the definition of not having power?
	Well, you're a minority.
	Okay. So does that mean that when the minority becomes the majority, as they did in South Africa in terms of voting, now the majority is racist because they're talking about taking away the land of the white farmers and the white farm murders are going on like crazy in South Africa and whites are being disenfranchised and herded into ghettos and so on?
	No, that's different because that's a backlash against white racism.
	So they're still justified. So you can't win, right?
	There's no way out of this loop.
	Exactly. You couldn't have said it better because that's exactly how they said it.
	Yeah. Yeah. I get it.
	It's blowback for all the white racism.
	Right? Yeah.
	No, I get it. Yeah.
	I mean, you can't win.
	You married a black woman and you're taking on probably $120,000 of debt that you have to pay in after-tax income.
	Guess what? Still racist.
	Can't wait. You have to just let go of that label.
	It's like being called demonically possessed.
	It just has to be one of these things.
	It's like, well, I guess if you believe in demons and possession, I guess that could be a bad thing.
	But if you say to an atheist, I think you're demonically possessed, it's like, I don't really believe in any of that stuff.
	So, you know, your insults don't really land.
	And unfortunately, that's where the word racism, it's just, it's the gun that melted and doesn't fire anymore.
	It's just become so sad.
	And it's so terrible for everyone involved that people let it get that way.
	So what I hate about that is that you can call me, or they can call me racist, but yet you can also call somebody else a racist, somebody who rapes, murders, and kills black people for a living, and it's the same word.
	Well, the word doesn't have anything to do with any objective moral judgment.
	I mean, if you look at something like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton destroyed Libya, causing the deaths of untold numbers of black people.
	Now there are open air slave markets and migrants are being hunted and killed, black people, and the slaves are being bought and sold.
	You know, the blacks in America still overwhelmingly vote for the Democrats, right?
	So I don't know where there's no big moral thing going on here.
	It's just a word that works.
	It's a word that works, right?
	As I said before, white guilt, which has been very carefully inculcated because there's an abusive relationship between...
	The culture and white people.
	And so there's a big white guilt button.
	And if you call someone a racist or threatened, you can get them to comply without having to make an argument or approve your point.
	It's just a word of submission.
	It's a word of control.
	It's a word of threat.
	And I think it's terrible to misuse that word because we need to reserve that word for where there is real racism, which can occur all over the world.
	And so, of course, it's not something that has an objective definition.
	Of course, it's something that is used as a weapon, and it will continue to be so until people recognize that to call someone a racist without clear evidence of racism is a despicable and abusive thing to do.
	It is a bullying and horrible thing to do.
	And it cheapens the untold numbers of people around the world who've suffered from genuine racism.
	It is not a word to be used as a ploy.
	It's not a word to be used to get your way.
	It's not a word to be used to shut people up.
	It's not a word to be used to get resources or to one-up someone.
	It's terrible.
	It is a radioactive word that should be reserved for the most egregious examples of racism with objective definitions of what racism actually means.
	But it has devolved into a terrible, terrible word that is used to bully, to frighten, to control.
	And the worst thing is, it's actually creating racists where there weren't racists before.
	And that's one of the horrible things.
	It's the splash damage of this word is worse than the impact zone.
	Because when people see groups using this word to get their way to bully, to excuse Bad behavior on the part of themselves, of their own communities.
	Well, it's one of these words that I think is creating racism, the more that it's used, and I think that's terrible.
	The one thing that I did manage to get out, and I stuck to my guns and my ground, is when her brother called me A racist said that he thinks I'm a racist.
	I literally kind of said what you said.
	I said, you're just trying to control me and I'm not gonna shut up about it.
	And I keep saying my piece and you're not gonna stop me from speaking.
	And I just left it as that and left.
	Just walked out of the room.
	Well, but now he's still actively avoiding you, right?
	He's never apologized, I assume.
	No. No. Apologies come within a day or two, or they never come at all?
	I kind of did call him an asshole for saying I was a racist.
	So, I don't know, maybe I need to call this.
	It's less of a pejorative, right?
	True. Let me ask you this, and this is a very, very important question, Sean.
	Did your wife ever apologize for calling you a racist?
	Oh.
	You know what?
	I don't think so.
	You'd remember that.
	Yeah. That's not a maybe, right?
	So she called you a racist, thus turning her family against you.
	She did not apologize, she did not retract, she did not withdraw, and she did not work to repair The damage that she did with you and her family.
	Because when, like, her family is going to look at her and say, well, she knows him better than we do.
	And if she's calling him a racist, he must be a racist, which is the worst thing in their world, right?
	Yeah, because she called me that first, and then the brother called me that a day later or two days later.
	Right. So she opened up the floodgates.
	And she gave permission, in fact, encouragement to her family to begin to hate you.
	The only possible redeeming there is she did try to defend me from her brother, but she didn't apologize to me for saying that, calling me a racist.
	Then what kind of marriage is it?
	She betrays you with her family.
	Oh, Stefan, don't lead me down this path.
	I'm just asking the question.
	I mean, how are you going to live with these people when your wife unapologetically called you a racist in front of them, and now they're calling you a racist?
	How are you going to go over and hang?
	How are you going to go over and relax and enjoy?
	How are you going to break bread?
	How are you going to... How are you going to do it?
	I gotta talk to them.
	I gotta be like, okay, let's work through your issue here.
	No, no, no. No.
	It's not your problem to fix.
	Your wife made the mess.
	She has to fix it.
	Okay, so I will talk to her.
	Tell her how I feel.
	Ask her.
	Wait, she doesn't know that calling you a racist in front of her family was a bad thing?
	Was the wrong thing to do?
	Was a terrible thing to do?
	Well, she never apologized for it.
	So she has no idea that calling you a racist in front of her black family was a bad thing to do.
	She just doesn't know. I would assume she knows, but she didn't apologize for it, so I need to ask her a question.
	Okay, so why didn't she apologize? Exactly.
	I gotta have that talk.
	You know why she didn't apologize.
	Oh. I don't want to think that she actually thinks I'm a racist.
	But you understand there's no good answer to this question.
	Either she does think you're a racist, in which case she's just taking you for reparations to have you pay down her debt, right?
	Because of white history, colonialism, slavery, you owe her this money, right?
	If she genuinely thinks that you are a racist, if she doesn't think that you're a racist, but she called you a racist in the most destructive environment possible, it would be terrible enough to be called a racist by your wife in the privacy of your own home with nobody else listening.
	To be called a racist in front of her black family, for whom that is the biggest trigger point there is, is such an act of astonishing destructiveness that either she knew that what she did was wrong, Or she doesn't even know that it's wrong.
	Doesn't have a clue. But then the question is, if she doesn't have a clue how bad it is, why would she do it?
	Why would she do that one thing that is the worst thing for your relationship with her family?
	You know what's funny? She had a real hard time with my mother in particular in the beginning, so she's like hated interacting with my mother and my parents.
	And her parents were like the safe place, like her family.
	And now it's like reverted where my parents are like the loving, giving ones and her parents or her family is like this stress.
	I don't know. You really not make me feel good here, Stefan, but yes.
	I guess I just have to talk to her about why she thought that was okay.
	I know she was emotional and in the moment.
	And she just, you know, she was just in the middle of the argument, just wanted to win it because they're really like that.
	They just want to win the argument.
	Oh, yeah. I mean, this is time preference, right?
	Which is everyone has the urge to say something clinching that is so shocking that they gain the upper hand in the moment.
	Everyone has that impulse, certainly when you're young, for sure.
	To pull the pin on that grenade, that has you be the only person walking out standing, right?
	But we don't do that, even if we have that temptation, we don't do that because of what it costs us in the relationship as a whole, right?
	So sure, she got her little victory in the moment, because you were like, whoa, okay.
	You know, it's like in a relationship, if you say, I hate you.
	Well, that's going to shock the person, it's going to derail whatever interaction that's negative is going on, and the other person is going to withdraw.
	And then you feel, hey, victory!
	But the damage you've done to the relationship by saying that is unrecoverable.
	Because either you genuinely do hate the person, in which case they should get away from you and you should get away from them, or you don't hate the person, but you're willing to hurt them that much to win?
	That's crazy! You're willing to hurt someone that much just to win in the moment?
	Stefan, she did it again.
	After that, the day later when I had to fly out on the plane back to the prairies, she told me she wanted me to stay.
	I said, I can't stay.
	I got to go work and lead my team.
	Like, I didn't ask them that I could stay longer.
	And she told me that on the drive, she was arguing with me.
	Then she said, you're not going to listen to me.
	And it just escalated.
	And she said that she hated me and she hoped that the plane crashed.
	And I just kept saying to you...
	Wait, how long ago was this?
	This was on...
	It was two weekends ago.
	Fuck, Sean. She wished you died?
	She wished you were dead along with everyone else on the plane?
	Because she wanted to hurt me.
	She told me that exactly.
	She wants to hurt me because I didn't listen to what she said.
	Well, I think it's time to start listening to what she's saying, Sean.
	She wants you dead.
	She apologized after, but yeah, I know what you mean.
	Well, that's...
	But she never apologized for the racist thing.
	She just apologized for wanting you dead.
	Right. And then she said, I wanted to hurt you because you were leaving and you wouldn't stay.
	So you had professional obligations that you had to meet, so you had to go, right?
	Right. And one of the reasons why you have to keep your job is so you can pay her debt, right?
	I've been telling her this and she doesn't freaking get it.
	If I don't work, we can't live in the house we just bought so you can go to the university so I can pay for you to go to law school so you can become a lawyer.
	Dude, you understand that you might be putting your entire dick in a blender if this woman gets a law degree.
	That has scared me. You understand what I'm saying, right?
	Oh, I totally get it. I know.
	That's the last thing you want, especially if you're going through divorce court.
	Oh my god. I feel like I'm painting a terrible picture here.
	And I guess I am.
	Well, no, you're not painting anything.
	Assuming you're telling me the truth, which I'm sure you are.
	You're not painting anything.
	Painting is a subjective process.
	You're showing me some photographs of real things.
	True. There are moments where she says to me, like, you know, like, or not, I shouldn't say moments, but every day where she says, I appreciate you, I'm happy that you go to work, and you do all these things for me, and that I'm able to stay at home and do my studies or whatever, right?
	Like, she does show appreciation.
	Character is revealed. No, character is revealed.
	In heat. Character is revealed under pressure.
	Right? So, everyone can get along on vacation.
	Well, most people can, you understand?
	Everyone can get along when everything is going well.
	It's when things aren't going well that you find out who people really are.
	In pressure, there is truth.
	And so, sure, when she's not under any pressure, When everything's going well, she can be nice.
	It is, of course, also a mark of an abusive relationship to be praised a lot and then to be attacked.
	It disorients you and it makes you feel like it's your fault because she praises you and then she attacks you in these psychotically vicious ways.
	You understand, it's like the man hits the woman and then he brings her flowers and chocolate and tells her how much he loves her and how much He needs her and what a great wife and mother and partner and friend she is.
	So the fact that she's nice may be part of the not being nice.
	She does go to therapists twice, twice a month.
	Which you pay for, too.
	Well, she insurance paid for it, but yeah.
	Now who's paying for the insurance?
	Yeah, so yes.
	And I've had talk to her about, hey, let's go together, let's do a couple's thing.
	How long have you been married?
	January of this year.
	You've been married four months?
	You've been married four months?
	Yeah. And all this has happened in four months?
	Yeah. She's called you racist twice.
	She wished you were dead in a fiery plane crash because you had to go to work to pay her bills.
	Her brother has called you a racist.
	You've been lectured to not suppress people of color.
	You've got into ferocious arguments with her family about race.
	This all in a space of four months?
	Yes. What are you doing?
	What are you doing?
	Self-flagellating, I guess.
	Do you... I asked myself that question.
	What are you doing? But I got married now and I don't want to get divorced.
	Well, nobody wants to get divorced.
	What does this look like?
	Oh, I was in a relationship or I was married for six months and then I divorced.
	You look like you're a piece of crap.
	You know what I mean?
	You tell me what it looks like if you're married for 40 years in this environment.
	It won't change.
	It's not going to change. Are you sure?
	She's 28 years old.
	Her personality was set 23 years ago.
	Don't be with someone hoping they'll be different.
	That's cruel. And it's the withholding of love.
	Saying, well, if you change, if you're different, if you're better, I'll love you.
	She lied to you about being in debt.
	She wished you were dead for going to work to pay her debt.
	She called you a racist and does not apologize for that.
	She poisoned your relationship with her family.
	She comes from a fairly deranged religion.
	She was raped at 16, never told anyone.
	Yeah. And she wanted to move in with you three and a half months into the relationship shortly after she had an abortion and never told the guy.
	Come on, man. You couldn't get skywriting that's more clear.
	It's not going to change. I just...
	I see...
	When we are together, just living together in our daily lives, it's not like that.
	It's like when she meets her parents, that's when all this stuff happens.
	That's when she said she hated me.
	That's when she said I was racist.
	That's when her parents and stuff sat me down.
	That's when her brother did it. It's always around her family.
	So what? You're basically saying to me, well...
	When my wife doesn't do drugs, she's great, but she's an addict, right?
	She's not going to stop seeing her family, man.
	Yeah, she's very close with her family.
	Well, whatever we want to call it, she's not going to stop seeing them.
	So saying she's fine when she doesn't do the thing she's just going to keep doing is not an answer.
	You understand?
	This is four months in.
	And Really screwed the pooch on this one.
	Well, I have some sympathy, of course.
	I have huge sympathy. Did your parents know she was a rape victim?
	No. She told me not to tell anybody.
	I wasn't going to break her trust and tell people.
	Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. She told you to keep a secret, essential secret.
	From your family? About who her son was marrying?
	What? Yeah.
	No, no, no, no, no. Okay, dude.
	No. No, no, no, no, no.
	That is absolutely unfair.
	You cannot say to your spouse, you can't tell anyone about this.
	But isn't that what you're supposed to do with your partner or your wife or husband?
	Is that you tell them things, you can confide in them and you'll...
	Expect that they won't tell other people?
	Look. You're having sex with her, so you can't be objective.
	Because you're in this haze of dopamine romance goo, right?
	So you can't...
	Like, you marry into a family.
	You did with her family, she did with your family, right?
	And the family has to have a vote.
	You understand? Can you imagine going and buying a Great Dane dog and bringing it home without telling your wife?
	No. No.
	Can you imagine going to buy a helicopter without telling your wife or an emu or even a hamster, right?
	No. Maybe an ice cream.
	Because she is part of your world and therefore what you do affects her world.
	Now, your parents...
	They don't have the right of veto, of course, right?
	I mean, it's still your life.
	But your parents have the right to know who you're marrying.
	Because that person is coming into their lives permanently.
	We hope. Right?
	And that person is going to be the mother of their grandchildren.
	And they're going to be around their grandchildren.
	And they're going to intermingle with her and her family.
	So it's not fair when there's a huge red flag to say, don't tell your parents.
	withhold from your parents information that they need to know so that they can give you good advice on whether I'm a good person to marry.
	Right.
	And she's saying, have loyalty to me instead of your family.
	Right? Okay.
	Let's say that's a principle.
	Those exact words.
	Oh, is that what she said? Have loyalty to me instead of your family?
	Yeah, she said, when we go to visit your parents, I need you to be on my side.
	I need you to defend me.
	What? Oh! Yeah. Oh, man.
	This is like aneurysm part two.
	So she genuinely is saying, you need to take my side rather than your family.
	And then she calls you a racist in front of her family.
	Are you shitting me? You can't be serious with this, man.
	Come on. You're trolling me at this point in the conversation, right?
	I am not. Her father...
	No, no, no. Let's not go to her father right now.
	She says to you the rule is stick with me, be on my side, not on your family's side, right?
	Yes. And then she calls you a racist in front of her family taking their side over you.
	Correct. Dude, does anything get you mad about any of this?
	Am I just speaking into the wind here?
	It made me more mad at the time.
	I think now I'm just sad.
	I'm just sad.
	Just feeling depressed that I feel like I made a big mistake.
	Like the song says, more than a feeling.
	Did you have any male friends who vetted over the bride-to-be?
	Oh, let me think.
	Not really, because I'd only been in the...
	When we met, I was new kind of coming back to that city, so I didn't really...
	Well, actually, that's not true.
	I had my roommate, which is a long-time friend.
	He actually really liked her.
	And my brother met her early on and he said she was- Yeah, but they didn't know the facts because you didn't tell them that she'd been raped and you didn't even know that she was $70,000 in debt, which she expected you to pay for.
	Right.
	Now, if they had known these little tidbits about her history, what do you think they would have said?
	Doesn't seem like a good idea, Sean.
	Let's say that one of your friends somehow found out that this woman was $70,000 in debt and hadn't told you, was lying to you until such time as you were legally responsible for her debts, which you didn't even know about.
	I don't know how it works, but that's my guess, legally.
	If your friend had found out or your father had found out, The woman was $70,000 in debt and hadn't even told you until after you were married?
	But he'd found this out before you got married?
	what would your friend have said to you?
	He probably would have said something like that's a lot of risk.
	Do you want to take that on?
	Because it could go very bad.
	Your friends suck. Yeah, I was just thinking that.
	No, seriously. Okay, let's try it another way.
	Let's say that you had a friend who was going to marry a woman who was withholding and lying to him about how much debt she was in.
	And you found out she was $70,000 in debt.
	And you went to your friend and you said, well, you know, she has $70,000 in debt.
	And he's like, what? No, she's not.
	But you knew she was.
	And that she was lying to him about being in debt.
	What would you say to your friend?
	I would say don't do it.
	You can't do it.
	Even if your friend came to you and said, yeah, there's this woman, she's 28.
	She's been a student forever.
	She hates working. She then wants to go get a law degree and then go get a PhD while I'm working 60 hours a week.
	Oh, and maybe she wants kids too.
	What would you say to that person? Sounds like a really bad decision.
	You should do that. You can't do it.
	Like, no, this is a terrible idea.
	And then you would say, are there any other red flags?
	She's been raped. She's a rape victim who never even told her family.
	But they're very close, you see.
	Of course they're not close. If her family introduced her to her rapist...
	And he's a family friend who's still floating around.
	I don't think the real problem is Whitey.
	I think it's the rapey guy having a Bud Light who's black.
	Yeah. That maybe is a little bit more of an issue in terms of who's harming your children.
	Agreed. So she's real close to her family.
	Her family introduced her to her rapist and she never told them that she was raped.
	Did she ever tell them that she'd had an abortion?
	No. So she's a giant liar about a whole lot of things.
	She's keeping secrets.
	She's not telling people.
	She loves secrets. She's a manipulator.
	She shows. She hides.
	How can you trust someone who lies to their family and lies to you, lies to you about the $70,000, lies to her family by omission by not telling them about the rape, lies to her family by omission by not telling them she had an abortion?
	How can you trust someone who clearly says, you must always take my side, always, when we're with your family, and then betrays you in the worst possible way with regards to her family and doesn't even apologize?
	Dude! What are you doing?
	Stefan, I don't know what I'm doing anymore.
	You know what you're doing. I mean, that's a rhetorical question, right?
	Well... I thought it was going to be different.
	I thought I was the exception here.
	And what do you mean? I thought I was making, like...
	I guess I always thought, you know, I wasn't going to end up in a bad relationship.
	I wasn't going to get divorced. I was going to be able to change this person or make the relationship better.
	And, you know...
	You have sacrifice-itis.
	Which is funny because she said that she sacrifices for me and I don't sacrifice for her.
	Well, what does she... I mean, maybe she does.
	Maybe she gives up her study or her time out to make sure you get great meals.
	Maybe she cleans. Maybe she runs the household.
	Maybe she... Doesn't pay the bills with her own money, but maybe she goes through the mechanical process of keeping...
	Maybe she contributes a lot into making your life easier and better.
	She does. She does do a lot of those things.
	Right. Right. But you have sacrifice-itis insofar as, okay, well...
	If I could just get her to understand, then she'll be totally different.
	And if I just pay off her debt, things will be great.
	And if I just pay for the house, then things will be great.
	And if I just pay for the insurance, and I pay for her therapy, and I pay for this, then everything will be fine.
	And if I just appease, and I do this, and I hire her brother, you're a sacrifice-itis guy, right?
	Yeah, that's exactly how I think.
	And it's a kind of...
	I mean, it's a male thing, right?
	Disposable male, right? That we're just...
	Women, like, float aloft on the glorious gales of their vagina, right?
	And men, we've just got to roll like crazy just to stay even with the current.
	You know, Stefano, I thought I had broken that trend because I had done it previously with women, and apparently I haven't.
	So now we get to talk about Jermon.
	Oh, God, that's not fun.
	Wait, this part was fun, but the next part isn't?
	Oh, this part was more fun than the next part?
	Less fun? It might be more fun for the listeners, but not fun for me.
	So, your mother and your father, where did you get this sacrifice at us from?
	This compulsion to sacrifice yourself on the altar of femininity?
	It's definitely my dad.
	My mom definitely.
	You know what? My mom and my wife are very similar in a lot of ways.
	Boy, first man on earth to experience that situation.
	I know, right? So how so?
	It's the same yelling, emotional thing.
	You don't do this because you don't love me.
	Wait, this is what your wife says to you?
	You don't do X because you don't love me?
	Right. And your mom says that too to you, to your dad, to everyone?
	Oh, to me, to my dad.
	Like to people in my family.
	Like in my close family, like my brother and myself and my father.
	Yell and scream and cry.
	When she found out I had premarital sex, she grabbed a knife and said she was going to kill me.
	What? What? Yeah.
	My brother told on me because he was an alcoholic and I revealed all his cases of beer bottles and how he was drunk all night.
	And I showed her a video of him passed out on a dog bed with his pants down because I lived with him.
	And she, when she was yelling at him, he said, well, Sean had premarital sex.
	And then she went up and grabbed a knife out of the butcher's block and came downstairs because we were in the basement and threatened to kill me.
	Ah, so then when your wife wishes you dead in a fiery plane crash.
	Pretty normal. Right.
	And why do you have anything to do with your mother?
	Or your brother, for that matter?
	I've really... This is how I ended up in the prairies in the first place, is I left because I was like, I can't be near these people anymore.
	And so I moved out here.
	And I swear to you, my life was so much better.
	Well, no, because you brought a little Caribbean piece of them with you now, didn't you?
	Well... Bye mom and dad, I found a substitute.
	Going back the first time I moved here, because I moved here twice to the prairies, the first time I had nobody and my life was so much better.
	The second time I brought my little Caribbean piece with me and yes, what you said is accurate.
	What does your father do when his wife threatens to stab his son to death?
	He has no idea. What do you mean he has no idea?
	Oh, you're good at keeping secrets too, right?
	To be honest, I guess I'm keeping her secrets.
	Your mom's secrets. Wait, who's her?
	Well, my wife.
	No, no, no, no. Your mom's secrets.
	I said, what does your father do?
	When he finds out that his wife threatened to stab his son to death.
	And you said he doesn't know.
	And does that mean that you don't tell your father that your mom threatened to murder you?
	I didn't say anything else.
	I don't know why.
	Well, no, you've got no problem breaking confidence because you shared a picture of your brother passed out at a dog bed with his pants down because he was drunk.
	So you don't mind sharing those confidences, right?
	right?
	So why on earth wouldn't you tell your father that his wife is a homicidal maniac who death threaded you?
	what would happen if you told your father about this to be honest it would either be he he would go crazy upset or he would slough it off It would be one of those two and I'm not sure which.
	So the reason you can't stand up to your wife or the reason you married your wife is because you can't stand up to your mom and set any kind of sane boundaries.
	You know, some people have called me a fairly judgmental person.
	Plead the fifth on that, but I will say this, that it's kind of a deal breaker when people come at me with a knife and threaten to stab me to death.
	That's a boundary violation for me.
	In fact, that's a violation that would probably land someone in jail, because I wouldn't even call my father.
	I'd call the cops! Well, I have stood up to my mother a lot.
	I've cut her off from all communication for like six months.
	And? And then what?
	Does she get better?
	My dog died and she had my dog.
	She has your dog?
	She did have my dog.
	My dog got sick and died and so I answered the phone and then eventually we started talking.
	I left and I couldn't take the dog with me.
	In the beginning. So we, they were, anyways, they were supposed to send the dog out in an airplane and, you know, and I would pick up the dog, but then they wanted to keep the dog.
	Did the dog die of stab wounds? No, just, I don't know, heart failure or something.
	We don't actually know why the dog died, but.
	Oh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna guess.
	No, I, she loved, she loved the dog, I'm pretty sure.
	Oh yeah, no. Threatens to stab her own son.
	I'm sure she's capable of deep bonding and devotion.
	My mom is kind of like that woman who's never matured or something.
	I don't know. What?
	I don't...
	She threatened to murder you.
	Not just like, oh, I could just kill you.
	She came at you with a knife.
	Well, so just to explain that situation...
	No, no. There's no explanation for that situation.
	I wish to kill you, Sean.
	I'm going to run at you with a knife.
	There's no context for that, you understand, right?
	Okay, well, I think the reason why I didn't bring it up to my dad is because I felt like I handled the situation as a man.
	I was in my 20s at that point.
	Well, this was last year, wasn't it?
	Sorry, with my mother?
	No. Oh, premarital sex wasn't with your current wife?
	Correct. This was in the past.
	Yes. Right. Okay.
	Sorry about that. So you had premarital.
	How long ago was this? When she tried to stab you or wanted to stab you?
	10 years or something like that.
	I was like 23, 24.
	Right. Yeah.
	Okay. And you felt you handled this in a way, like, so how did you handle it?
	What happened? In the moments, I was taught, like, I... Stood up there and I said, you know, you come up with a knife, whatever.
	Not that it's a good thing to say to your parent.
	I was like, you're not going to touch me.
	And I just stood very firm. What do you mean?
	I think it's a fine thing to say to somebody who's coming at you with a knife.
	In fact, that's a very nice thing to say.
	I'd actually just pick up a saucepan and defend myself.
	So, I did that and then, you know, a few minutes later it de-escalated.
	And then I talked to her about it after, and I was like, you really hurt me last night when you did that.
	And we had a discussion.
	And she did talk about how she was sorry that she did it, but she was still extremely disappointed in me for not following her Catholic ways.
	I'm sorry that you made me stab you by consorting with female succubi and Satan himself.
	So it was an I'm sorry about, right?
	Yeah, and that's what she always does.
	That's no surprise. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.
	I don't think the answer to what would Jesus do is ever stab the guy.
	But I'm no theologian.
	I think I would remember that lesson.
	Yeah, not very Christian or Catholic.
	So then what happened with your relationship with your mom?
	Honestly, I left.
	I cut off my brother. I cut off my mother.
	The whole thing with my dog happened.
	The relationship kind of opened up like we talked every, I don't know, every month or a few weeks.
	But I didn't really tell her anything important.
	It was just, you know, like, oh, yeah, I'm doing fine, working, whatever.
	Yeah. Just basic things.
	And she'd tell me about what she did, whatever.
	I kept it really light.
	I just kept to myself.
	And it wasn't until I got into this relationship with my now wife that I was like, well, okay, she should meet my parents.
	So I took her to meet my parents.
	And before that happened, my crazy mother decided to text me Well, sorry, she had talked to me and asked, has your wife or your girlfriend at the time had premarital sex?
	And I said, what do you think, mom?
	I mean, she's 27 years old or 26 years old at that time.
	Do you think she's had a relationship?
	So most likely she has.
	And then she proceeded to text me later in that day that she probably has X, Y, and Z diseases and that she didn't want her sleeping in the house anymore.
	And my girlfriend saw those texts on my phone because she's snoopy.
	Wait, she spies on you too? Didn't she complain about having a controlling ex-boyfriend?
	Intrusive ex-boyfriend? Oh, she's very controlling.
	He whispered. She's very controlling.
	On her own, and I've had to talk to her about it.
	I'm like, it's hard to be the guy leading the group when you always want to control everything.
	So I got to go to like level 10 because you're at level 9.
	So you keep having these conversations with everyone, Sean, and what happens?
	Oh, I sat down and talked about things with my wife.
	I talked about things with my mother.
	I've got to have this conversation with my wife while I'm going to talk to my...
	What happens?
	In all honesty, there has been some improvements. - Yeah.
	But no, it's...
	You mean with your mom? Well, with both.
	With my mom, she's kind of, I mean, slightly...
	I guess maybe she hasn't gotten better.
	I just don't talk to her about...
	Yeah, don't talk to me about improvement in your wife when you've been married for a grand total of four months, man.
	Well, I would include the time when we were living together from when we first moved in to now, which has been about a year and a half or more.
	There have been She has improved.
	Oh, so the last four months, this is the improved version?
	No, this is the...
	Well, you know how I felt about it.
	I always thought it was her family thing, you know, but you're right.
	No, it's not improved. No, but if you're saying she's getting better, then the last four months represent something better than what came before.
	If not, then she's getting worse, right?
	She wouldn't be the first woman, or first man for that matter, on the planet, Sean, to be nicer until the ring is on.
	And she has the power of the state behind her.
	And she knows, she knows, you hate the idea of getting divorced.
	I didn't even want to get married in the first place.
	I was like, if we're not having kids, why do we need to get married?
	Wait, what?
	You didn't even want to get married?
	Well... My thing was when we were living together because we had talked about getting married.
	And I was like, well, if we're going to have kids, we should definitely get married.
	Otherwise, what is the difference?
	You end up being Kamala.
	I mean, it's really about the kids.
	And we talked about, well, okay, I think we're going to have kids.
	Okay. So I'm like, okay, let's go get married.
	I think we're going to have kids.
	What does that mean? Well, we talked about, like, we would like to have kids, whether that is...
	No. She said she wanted to get married.
	You said that's about having kids.
	She says, okay, let's have kids.
	You get married. And now she says, I want to do a PhD.
	I know. That's why I'm like, you're changing the plan.
	Well, sure, because she's a liar.
	Because she lied to her parents about being raped.
	Because she lied to you about being in debt.
	Because she lied to the guy about withholding the fact that she was pregnant and killed his baby.
	So, not a trustworthy person.
	And she made you promise or you accepted the promise of keeping her history, relevant history, from your parents.
	Yes. Your parents have a right to know who's sleeping under their roof.
	What kind of person is sleeping under their roof?
	What kind of person their son is getting married to?
	I don't mean you have to dredge up every embarrassing, goofy story from her history, but that's a pretty important one.
	Because her family is lording it all over white people, saying that white people are terrible and white people are the problems, while white people are why black people have problems, and nobody seems to like black people.
	But they did introduce their daughter to the man who raped her.
	And they still keep the rapist around.
	They're really good at figuring out imaginary racism in every white person, but they can't actually detect a tangible rapist in their own house.
	You're right. Now, as far as STDs go, you know, I'm, you know, your mom doesn't sound like the kind of person that I'm really keen on agreeing with.
	But one in six Americans between the ages of 14 and 49 have genital herpes, including 48% of all African American women.
	48% of all African-American women have genital herpes.
	The HIV infection rate among black women is 20 times higher than for white women.
	So it could be possible that your mom hit a search engine on her computer.
	And I'm going to assume, or maybe I'm wrong in assuming, that you all got tested before you got married.
	Well, I was tested before I got in a relationship with her.
	And her? She said that she didn't have any.
	I can't remember if she said she was tested recently or not.
	Honestly, I don't remember. But she assured me in some fashion that she didn't have STDs.
	She assured you?
	Yeah, to be honest, Stefan, I can't remember if she told me that she did take a test or not.
	But it doesn't matter. She didn't tell you about $70,000 worth of debt.
	That's right. So you might want to get tested again.
	In fact, you should.
	You must?
	Yeah, me, because at this point I probably have it, if there was anything.
	You know, if she told you she was clean and she wasn't, well, people have been sued for that.
	Thank you.
	Well, don't pay for her law degree.
	That's what I'm saying. Oh, my God.
	Well, in some fashion, if I stay in this relationship, I'm paying for it.
	Okay, make the case for staying in the relationship.
	Obviously, I'm not going to tell you what to do, but I'm just curious what your case would be.
	Not losing half my wealth?
	Well, I don't know.
	Can you get the marriage annulled because she didn't tell you about her debt?
	Can you? I don't know.
	I'm not a lawyer, but you might want to look into it.
	I mean, you understand, if you stay married and you pay for her to go through a PhD, you're going to lose a lot more than half your current wealth, right?
	And I don't think she gets half your stuff.
	I think she gets half of the value that you've accumulated in the time that you're married or maybe living together.
	I don't know when palimony kicks in, it's all different, right?
	But she doesn't get half of everything you've ever had.
	I just have a hard time with this because it's exactly my worst nightmare as a guy.
	Getting divorced.
	Worst nightmare. And it's essentially what we're contemplating right now.
	What if she gets really angry and wants you dead?
	Yeah.
	You know, I listen to people, man.
	That's why I do this show. And I take people seriously when they talk to me.
	I'm taking you seriously. And if somebody says, I want you to die in a fiery plane crash, well, it's like that old joke that the lion and the lamb may lay down together, but the lamb ain't getting a lot of sleep.
	Money may be the least of your concerns.
	See what you're saying.
	And if you want to have kids.
	this.
	Thanks.
	Right.
	Right. You understand that with this family, because you'll have biracial kids, isn't it quite likely, if not quite certain, that the family is going to teach your children that you, their father, are racist?
	No. No, they're not, because I'm not going to let that happen.
	How are you going to not let that happen?
	I'm not going to let them spend time with them unless I'm around.
	How are you going to enforce that?
	You've got to work. Like, what are you crazy?
	You don't have this kind of power.
	What are you going to lock your wife?
	She's going to just go see them.
	You understand? Like, where's this omniscience coming from?
	Where's this omnipotence coming from?
	How are you going to enforce that when you're working 60 hours a week?
	I don't know.
	And do you think that if she's already called you racist twice in four months, do you think she's never going to be so angry at you that she's going to say to your children, Daddy's a racist?
	I wish daddy were dead.
	I wish I'd never married daddy.
	Your daddy hates you.
	Like, if she's got this kind of temper.
	And you've got to work. I'm telling you, where you are now, as opposed to where you could be in five years, you might look back and say, Jesus, where I was only four months after that I thought was hell was actually heaven compared to here.
	And mixed race children, as you know, have identity issues.
	They can have health issues.
	They can have emotional stability issues.
	Regression to the mean issues, these are big challenges.
	And you can't possibly enforce no visitation from your wife's family.
	I don't see how.
	And you know what they're going to tell your children if they're mad at you.
	Because they already have told you what they're going to tell you because they told you when they were mad at you that you were a racist.
	So they're going to tell your biracial children that you're a racist.
	Most likely. And then what do you say?
	I'm not a racist. They're lying.
	They're mean. They're this. They're that.
	Well, mommy said you were a racist.
	Then what do you say? You got it easy now compared to what might be coming, my friend.
	Well, I have a thought about the racism thing.
	Not specifically about this instance, but about the word and how we use it for people.
	And I know this is kind of shifting gears a little bit.
	No, no, no. To hell with these abstractions, man.
	We're talking about your life here, okay?
	Okay. The etymology and use of the word racism, we did that already.
	This abstraction is to avoid staring into this future.
	Okay. Right?
	Okay. And your wife doesn't very much want to have children, it seems, right?
	And this goes back to the very first thing you said about your interaction with your wife, where she said, I want kids, and you said, oh, you must be on your period, right?
	Like, no, dude, that's a cold thing to say to your wife.
	It's not a nice thing to say to your wife at all.
	Your maternal instincts are just driven by hormones and blood.
	You have no capacity for genuine bonding and attachment.
	It's just your cycle.
	That is not complementing her ability or capacity to be a mother.
	You understand? So we tried it with dogs.
	We got two dogs because she wanted to try it.
	Try what? Having dogs and, I guess, seeing how that works out.
	I don't know. What?
	I don't know how to lead this.
	She's trying to figure out if she wants to be a parent by having dogs?
	She felt that I'm not a very cuddly, emotional person.
	Supportive person, I guess, would be the best way to put it.
	She has issues with your, what is this curse that women put on men?
	Your emotional availability.
	Correct. Right. So she doesn't think that you're like a warm and cuddly and affectionate kind of guy, right?
	Despite the fact that she screams at you and calls you racist and wishes you were dead, she has trouble with you not being vulnerable around her.
	Huh. Interesting.
	I tend to duck under the helicopter blades as well.
	So we got two dogs.
	Did you want two dogs?
	I really like dogs, so I was okay with it.
	Like, I especially wanted one dog.
	I didn't know if I wanted a second one.
	Alright, so you got two dogs.
	Yeah, we had one dog.
	She didn't think that dog was cuddly and supportive enough, so she got a second dog.
	Wait, wait. She didn't think the dog was fulfilling her emotional needs?
	No. It wasn't cuddly.
	The dog wasn't cuddly and wasn't happy to see her.
	The dog would run to me.
	I'm sorry. Oh, the wisdom of animals.
	I'm sorry I shouldn't laugh.
	The dog doesn't like me!
	Yeah, I wonder why.
	The dog was scared of her and would always just run to its bed or run to me or run in the crate or whatever.
	All right. So no one in your life is telling you the truth except me and your dogs.
	Apparently. But I'm sure the dog is racist, too.
	It'll be different with kids, though.
	She told me that, Stefan.
	Well, no, no, no. She said, let's have dogs to see if we like having kids.
	And the dog thing ain't working out.
	But she's like, no, this is different with kids.
	It's like, that's another lie.
	Right? But she worked in a group home.
	She worked with kids, Stefan.
	Come on. She knows how to deal with kids.
	Well, it'll be interesting to track how those kids did over time, but that's not going to happen.
	And I worked in a daycare.
	Not everyone who worked in a daycare should be working in a daycare.
	So the dogs don't like her?
	No, and the dogs are now gone.
	Wait, what? What happened to the dogs?
	She made me re-home them.
	She made you what?
	Re-home them. So give them to other owners.
	Yeah, you know, just like you do with kids if it's not working out.
	That's exactly what I said.
	Who ended up taking care of the dogs, Sean?
	Well, one I gave to...
	No, no, no. When they were with you.
	Oh. I did most of the usual stuff, but she would look after them if they got injured, you know, like playing outside or something.
	So she wanted dogs, and then you ended up taking care of them, like walking them and playing with them, right?
	Because, you know, dogs need that interaction.
	They're social, they pack animals, right?
	The cats not so much, but dogs really, really need that interaction.
	Right, and she would just clean up the house with the hair and whatever they would do.
	Right. So how long did the dogs last?
	A little, about a year.
	Yeah. So she made you get the dogs and then she made you get rid of the dogs.
	Yep. She did.
	When are you going to show up in your life?
	I've got to fucking ask, right?
	When are you going to show up and have it be about what Sean wants rather than this endless conveyor belt of appeasement?
	I didn't want to deal with the fights about the dog.
	No, I get it. You got pushed around.
	I get it. I've been listening to you for over an hour and a half.
	I get it. You did what she wanted because you're scared of her.
	Yes, I am.
	Do you want to spend the rest of your life appeasing a bully because you're scared of her?
	No. No, I don't.
	My wife has never raised her voice at me or ever called me a name.
	We've been married 15 years.
	Really? Never.
	It's unthinkable.
	I've never called her a name.
	I've never yelled at her in anger.
	Like, it's not what happens because we love each other.
	It doesn't happen.
	I have no idea what love is now.
	That's what I feel like. Right.
	But that's... The truth.
	You know lust. You know appeasement.
	You know getting by.
	You know sacrifice-itis.
	But you're not there. You're managing the whole time.
	What's her mood going to be like?
	Is she going to be angry? Is she going to be upset?
	Is she going to be happy? How can I Protect myself.
	How can I save this marriage?
	How can I manage her?
	And that hollows you out, man.
	A little piece of you falls away every day.
	It does.
	And it's exhausting, right?
	Thank you.
	And it follows you everywhere you go, this cowardice, this fear, this appeasement.
	You can't really succeed at work because where's your self-respect, right?
	You can't really be honest because once someone has wished you dead in a fiery plane crash, they've clearly signaled that they don't negotiate.
	If they're willing to have you die, and not just you, but the other 300 people in the airplane, that's how mad they are.
	If they're willing to involve you in a mass slaughter because they're upset that you're going to work to pay their bills, they've clearly signaled that there's no extremity they won't go to to win an argument.
	And you're blind to the danger of that, and that's the price of still having your mom around.
	The price of still having your mom around is you can't see your wife's true nature.
	Because you make excuses for your mom and you think you can manage things with your mom and you make excuses for your wife and you think you can manage things with your wife.
	Well, you can't. You can't do it.
	Sacrificitis is a delusion of grandeur, Sean.
	You can't fix people.
	You can't make them better.
	You can't make them sane.
	You can't make them love you.
	You can't make them negotiate with you.
	You can't make them respect you.
	You don't have that power.
	You understand? This is one of the most important lessons I've ever learned in my life, is knowing when to give up and get out.
	You have no magic penis that can somehow be used to douse people's better nature and bring it to life.
	You have no Jesus healing hands to propel out the leprosy of dysfunction and narcissism and viciousness and verbal abuse.
	You have no power to change people.
	Your wife's niceness is not one rational conversation away.
	The rational conversation will only make it worse because it tells her how much power she has over you.
	So there's no hope? I'm just telling you what my lesson has been.
	That my life got immeasurably better once I accepted I can't fix people.
	Once I decided to say, hey, you know, for years and years and years, people have been telling me who they are.
	I got into objectivism.
	People said, I hate Ayn Rand.
	I had a friend of mine who became an architect who refused to read The Fountainhead.
	He's like, oh, yes, well, I'm going to become an architect, so I guess everyone says I should read The Fountainhead, but it's so droll, it's so boring, and, you know, the little bit that I've thumbed through, it's such stilted, weird 1940s movie dialogue, and none of the characters can be taken seriously, and all the architectural stuff she talks about is all very old and not consequential anymore, and it's all very fantastical and without it even being wondrous, and right...
	It's like, just read the fucking book.
	It's a great book. And so they said, I hate the philosophy that you love.
	Right? And when I was into Aristotle, Aristotle's fine for, I guess, base, empirical, right?
	Whatever I got passionate about, the people around me were either indifferent to or hostile to.
	But I just sailed on and...
	They'll come around or I can ignore it or...
	No. Now I have people in my life who actually care about what I'm doing.
	It matters what I'm doing.
	It matters to me what they're doing.
	And you know how beautiful it is, Sean?
	To have people in your life you don't have to fix.
	You don't have to change.
	You don't have to be afraid of.
	You don't have to manage. You don't have to bully.
	You don't have to be constantly self-castigating yourself for cowardice and submission and then plotting and being awake and hoping that they're going to be in a good mood and...
	Trying to blindly live in the mere myopia of the moment because looking anywhere down the tunnel of time is too terrifying to see where you might end up.
	Plotting like a lost soldier on a foggy battlefield, just plotting one foot in front of the other, stepping over bodies, stepping through barbed wire.
	Maybe even hoping that with one final click you can step on a mine and end it all.
	But it's a huge amount of suffering.
	And you have known your mother for 30 plus years.
	You can't fix her at all.
	And I'm trying to tell you, in the universe where you stay in this relationship, your wife will get worse, not better.
	She'll get worse?
	She will get worse. She would get worse.
	Not even just stay the same?
	No, she won't stay the same.
	People respond to incentives, Sean.
	And what that means is, if she gets what she wants by bullying you, if you stick around, though she snoops on your cell phone and lies to you about debt and calls you a racist and wishes you were dead, if you stick around, You know what you're doing?
	You're making her a worse person.
	Because you are giving her positive reinforcement for abusive behavior.
	Okay, but I didn't actually stay after she said she wished me dead, so she didn't get me to stay.
	What do you mean she didn't get you to stay?
	You're still married, aren't you? I meant stay with her in the city instead of me flying out to work.
	But you're still there.
	Well, I'm still in a relationship.
	You're still in the marriage.
	And you're still paying her bills.
	And you're still trying to appease her family.
	And you're still trying to manage your own family.
	Because you've not beamed into your own life yet.
	You're just responding to primitive personalities around you.
	Like a guy being shot at.
	With arrows in a medieval battlefield is not really in charge of his own movements.
	What's he trying to do? He's trying to dodge the arrows.
	And that's all you're doing.
	Oh God. You're not there because you're just dodging and managing and hoping and reacting.
	Reacting is not life.
	Reacting is nothing.
	Simply responding to the pressures of primitive people around you is not being alive.
	And if her aggression, her wishing you dead, her lying, If you keep paying her bills and saying you love her and supporting her and appeasing her family, why on earth would her behavior change?
	It's getting her everything she wants.
	So her behavior is only going to escalate.
	You understand? It's like, you know a drunk, right?
	Your brother's a drunk, right? Or he was an alcoholic, right?
	So if every time your brother yells at you, you run out to get him another six-pack...
	Is he ever going to stop yelling at you as long as he wants beer?
	No. No. He's not.
	You're reinforcing the bad behavior.
	See, this is the great trick.
	If you want to, like, if you still have sacrifice-itis, right?
	This is the great trick, Sean, which is...
	The only hope that bad people have for better behavior is for good people to stop enabling it, to stop rewarding it.
	This woman... Needs to face the fact that she's heavily in debt.
	She needs to face the fact that she has a terrible temper.
	She needs to face the fact that she lies and manipulates and withholds information.
	She needs to face up to the fact that she betrayed her husband after demanding loyalty from him In the worst possible way, to her own family.
	She destroyed, in one two-syllable word, she destroyed any chance you had for a productive and positive relationship with them, which may not have happened anyway, but the way that you help bad people is to stop rewarding them in any way, shape, or form for their bad behavior.
	Now, what does this mean for you?
	I don't know, because I'm not you.
	But I'm sure as hell not paying my wife's debt, which I didn't accumulate.
	She chose to go to college long before she met you.
	She chose to go to university.
	She chose to get a master's.
	That's her debt. She's like, well, I can't pay it.
	I don't have a job. It's like, well, get a job.
	I don't want to get a job.
	Well, then your parents are not going to be paid back because I'm not paying money to people who call me racist.
	Did you do that with your wife?
	Me? What do you mean? Yeah.
	Did she have debt and you told her something like that?
	No. I wouldn't marry a woman who's $70,000 in debt with no plan for getting money.
	Why? Because it bespeaks such foundational irresponsibility.
	Oh yeah, I just went $70,000 into debt for a degree I have no idea how to make money from.
	No thanks. No thanks.
	I would definitely agree with you that During my interactions with her, she's not fiscally responsible.
	She doesn't think about finances.
	Well, why should she? She's a spoiled little rich girl, right?
	Her parents are funding her and now you're paying the money back.
	Why? What the hell's wrong with you that you have to come with plus $70,000 to get married?
	Is she worth so much that you have to throw in barrels of money just to even up the ante?
	Well, like you said, I didn't know.
	So, to me, it was just I was marrying this woman that I liked, that I loved.
	Did you ask her about debt before you got married?
	I didn't ask for a number.
	Did you ask about debt?
	I did. And what did she say?
	She said she had debt to her parents that, like, I guess she had a loan.
	And she failed to like make a payment or two or something and so her credit was getting messed up so her parents paid it off and now she just pays her parents and she's learned her lesson about debt payment or something.
	Well she has learned her lesson about debt payment which is get a guy to pay it for me.
	Now, you never asked how much she was in debt before you married the woman?
	I want to say I did, but I feel like I didn't.
	You didn't. You wouldn't forget $70,000, would you?
	That's a lot of money.
	No. I mean, up here in Canada, if you're making any kind of decent coin, $70,000 is a hell of a lot more than that before taxes.
	Right. This could be like 18 months of salary.
	It could be whatever, right?
	I already worked it out.
	Eight years at $1,000 a month.
	Eight years, and that's with no interest, right?
	Right. Right. Or, well, close enough, right, to no interest.
	So, she specifically withheld from you how much she owed.
	Did she ever tell you that after we got married, I'm going to expect you to pay it?
	Yeah. So, when this came out...
	She said, well, you have to now pay because I won't be working when I'm in school.
	What do you mean when this came out? What do you mean?
	So when I found out about the $70,000, right?
	Well, how did you find out about $70,000?
	Because we bought a house in the city we're moving to for her law school.
	Yeah. And her parents gave us some money towards the down payment on the house.
	So I was going to just pay for it.
	And get a less expensive house that would fit, that I had money to pay for, but she liked this other house, so we needed to get- Wait, wait, she liked a bigger and better house that you had to pay for?
	Yes. Oh my god, man.
	Oh my god, there is like not one single predatory feminine cliche that your wife does not seem to manifest.
	She didn't like any other house.
	No, this is the one I love!
	All right. So then you try and buy the house and you have to list your liabilities and your assets, right?
	Right. So she was in a situation where she had to tell you.
	Well, yeah, we found it out then for sure.
	Yeah. What do you mean we found it out?
	Sorry. Sorry.
	Her liabilities and assets...
	Since it's money to her parents, it did not show up in the credit report or anything like that, right?
	Yeah, yeah. It looks like she's paid off her debt because her parents did.
	Exactly. It looks like she's a superstar.
	So, when we got the down payment for the house and now I owe her parents $15,000, whatever, right?
	She was like, oh, and you have to add in my...
	You know, $70,000.
	You have to add in my $70,000.
	In terms of how much debt we need to repay to my parents.
	And she was like, we'll start with $1,000 a month.
	And there's that $15,000.
	You'll start with $1,000 a month, right?
	Well, and I said, well, this was my thing.
	I said, why would I pay for that?
	I said, why don't...
	See, no, no, no. See, this is the assertiveness thing, Sean.
	Yes. You're asking a question when you should be making a statement.
	It's interrogatory rather than declarative, right?
	Which is you're saying, why should I pay for that?
	Do you know what the correct sentence is?
	I'm not paying for that.
	Okay, well, I can still save it.
	Because I can pay my 15 and say, I'm done.
	And just say, okay, when you finish law school, you pay your parents back.
	When you finish law school, you pay your parents back?
	Yeah. Dude, do you have no understanding of your wife's nature as yet?
	I can guarantee you exactly what she's going to do when she finishes law school.
	And she has to pay back her parents for 20 years.
	Do you know what she's going to do?
	Have kids? Yeah, of course.
	Of course. I told her that's a really bad idea, but of course it doesn't matter.
	Never mind. Well, you told her.
	But you're still paying her bills.
	Why do I feel like the only sane one in my relationship?
	Because you're not. How sane is it to be enslaved to this kind of greed and falsehood?
	Well, I guess not very sane.
	It's really not sane at all.
	Now, maybe this is your secondary gain that you feel more sane and more functional than your wife.
	Maybe this is your gig.
	Maybe this is what you get out of it.
	Maybe this is what you learn from your father.
	That your father's like, well, I could be kind of crazy, but I'm not as crazy as my wife, so I guess I'm doing all right.
	Maybe there's some sort of dynamic.
	Sometimes people who are insecure will lash themselves to really dysfunctional people in order to feel superior to those people, right?
	Maybe you feel more responsible and more sane and right.
	I don't know if it's not for me, but I do like providing and taking care of people.
	No, that's not correct.
	You like providing for and taking care of crazy people.
	That is a very different situation.
	I like helping people, yeah.
	No, you like enabling crazy people.
	Now, it's not that you like it.
	It's just that...
	Let me ask you this.
	Sean, how's your mom with money?
	Overspends a lot. How did I know that was going to be the answer?
	Yeah, my dad literally has the same issue I have.
	Right.
	And why the fuck didn't your father help you avoid what he didn't?
	I don't think I've ever told him about how my current wife is before we got married, like in that regard.
	Oh, come on, man. We never had that conversation.
	Listen, you and I were talking for like 20 minutes, and I got the details out about your wife just by asking you a few simple questions.
	Are you saying that you wouldn't have told your father things you've told me?
	Well, I guess, no, I would have.
	He just never asked me. Right!
	Never asked! Never asked.
	This is the woman your son is going to get legally entangled with.
	She's never worked any professional career.
	She's aiming to get a law degree at the age of 28.
	She has no income.
	She's in debt.
	And he doesn't ask any questions.
	About how it's going to work or what's going to happen.
	Why not? I do not understand why these boomers have so little care and concern for their children.
	I mean, I guess it's maybe because they think the government's going to pay their retirement benefits and all of that.
	I mean, it's better in Canada than in the U.S., but not for long.
	But it's just weird to me.
	I mean, have I not exhibited more care over you, Sean, in two hours than your family has over three decades?
	Yeah, by having had a talk like this, I feel like you're my dad.
	Well, it's a reality check, right?
	Which we need.
	And look, I need them too.
	Don't get me wrong. I'm not like, oh, was this clear with all of my own stuff?
	Like, I need people who, right?
	Right. My dad's just a very passive guy and I guess he's more of a shut up and put up type of guy.
	And do you think he's happy?
	He's happy when he's on the farm or something working on a project, but I don't think he's happy when he's dealing with my mother when she's going off the handle.
	You want to end up like your dad?
	No, not at all.
	Right. Then you gotta act.
	Because you're on that train track, man.
	Okay. And I'll tell you this, man.
	If you're even thinking of leaving this woman, you better double bag it in bed.
	You know what I'm saying? I know what you're saying.
	If she even thinks the gravy train might be pulling out of the station, she's gonna get pregnant.
	Well, you know what? Since she's been acting this way, I've shut that down on her for the most part, so...
	Well, if she thinks the gravy train might be pulling out of the station, she'll have it try and pull into a tunnel.
	You'll suddenly be astonished at how sexy she finds you.
	Mm-hmm. So, four months into the marriage, and you're not even having sex?
	Well, to be honest, it's more on my part.
	I didn't ask whose part it was.
	You said it was your part. But four months into the marriage, you're not having sex?
	We do. But when she gets emotional and, you know, says mean things to me...
	Oh, so dude, I was saying she might try and get...
	She probably will try and get pregnant if she thinks you might leave her.
	And then you're like, well, I've kind of shut that down, right?
	Yeah. And then you're saying, well, no, we are having sex, right?
	I guess I should say there's a big reduction.
	Are you using protection?
	Yes. Is the protection reliant on her or you?
	It is one of those things, the insert into the woman's vagina.
	Oh, the IUD? Oh, diaphragm.
	Yeah. Okay. IUD. Yeah.
	Well, I would...
	I'd baggy.
	I would baggy.
	Right then, that's sending a signal.
	Hey, why are you putting that thing on now?
	Oh, I hate those things.
	Oh, but I want to use it because I'm safe.
	What's going on? What's wrong?
	I have a UTI. I can't have sex.
	Oh, my God. I don't know.
	Has she earned perfect honesty from you over the two years you've known her?
	Oh, by the way, you just got to pay that $70,000 I never told you about.
	Okay. But you better be honest with me.
	Treat people the best you can, first time you meet them, and after that, treat them the way they treat you.
	I really don't like lying stuff, and I just try to say the truth.
	Compared to what?
	So now I've got to play this game, right?
	Because I'm thinking about leaving.
	Now, you see, you're trying to replace your will with my will, saying, well, now I've got to do this.
	Like I'm putting my hand up your ass and turning you into this deaf sock puppet, right?
	And I'm saying, no, I'm not telling you what to do.
	I'm giving you choices and options.
	I'm telling you risks and rewards.
	But you have to make the decision about your life.
	I'm not telling you what to do.
	I'm telling you with these kinds of situations, if you leave her and she can't get much money, she's going to have to go get a job.
	She doesn't really want to do that now, does she?
	And she's going to have to pay back $70,000.
	She doesn't want to do that either. Right.
	So, she already killed the baby in her womb and she wished you dead.
	It could be dangerous.
	She has a violent temper, right?
	I'm not saying she's attacked or assaulted you.
	I hope she hasn't, but she has a very aggressive temper.
	So, don't start to substitute what I'm saying as if I'm giving you some sort of commandment and now your job is to appease and obey me.
	You understand? That's not what this is about.
	Okay. Sorry, did she assault you?
	Yes. Can you remind me of that?
	I never told you.
	Oh, you didn't. Okay, but what happened?
	I didn't mention it. Throw things, punch me, you know, knock the glasses off my face.
	She's punched you? Oh, yeah.
	And she says, well, my brothers can take it.
	That's how we do it. So you're being a baby.
	I'm like, I'm an adult. So she punches you and then insults you, your masculinity.
	Well, when I come back to her and I say, why did you do that?
	She's like, don't be a baby.
	I'm like, we're in an argument, right?
	Oh God, dude, dude.
	Is there anything else that you haven't told me about this marriage?
	I guess there's nothing else to add.
	So she hits you. Not in the last six months.
	Oh, she hit you before you got married?
	Yeah. Dude.
	We had the conversation.
	And she hasn't hit you since?
	She didn't hit me, but she made the action to hit me and then stopped just before she hit me because she realized, I guess, that she shouldn't do it.
	How's she going to be with your children?
	Oh, she believes in physical...
	She's going to hit your children, right?
	Yeah. Oh, yeah. She hit the dogs.
	Why would she hit the children? She hit the dogs?
	Oh, yeah. Every time I'd be like, what the hell are you doing?
	She hit the dogs?
	Yeah. So you brought dogs into a household and allowed your wife to hit them?
	That's why they're gone. For a year?
	I tried to... Dude, where are you in all of this?
	I can't figure out where you are.
	Does she have any substance use problems?
	Did she ever use drugs? Does she drink?
	Does she ever been unfaithful?
	I mean, is there anything else?
	No, she's been cheated on with other partners.
	And she does not do any drugs or alcohol.
	But she hits dogs.
	And then she complains that the dogs don't like her, but it'll be different with children, even though she wants to hit children, too.
	Exactly. Oh, my God.
	I really hate this policy of not telling people what to do.
	That's... Let me ask you, Stefan, should I do that in my life?
	Because that's how I am with her.
	Should you do what? When she asked me, she's like, hey, should I do this?
	And I'm like, do you think it's a good idea?
	And I don't want to tell her what to do, but should I be telling her?
	Hey, listen, if you want me to tell you what to do, I'll tell you what to do.
	I just have a policy, which is I don't tell people what to do.
	But if you're asking me, that's different.
	I'm asking you for your opinion on what you think should happen here.
	Yeah, you got to get out. Okay.
	You got to get out. Do you not think there's any sort of counseling that could get through this?
	No. If you need counseling for months into your marriage, no.
	Technically, I feel like, as a person, I could coast through this my whole life if I really had to.
	But I don't think that's a good option.
	What do you mean coast? Like, I could live through all this stuff.
	I don't know. I guess I'm just so used to it from my parents or my mother.
	Well, you've got to denormalize that shit, man.
	I mean, you listen back to this, the shock that you had when I said my wife has never raised her voice at me or called me a name or...
	Like, you were deeply shocked at that.
	I was, because I've never seen that in any example in my life.
	That's what a marriage is.
	But that must be so rare.
	Well, it remains pretty rare if you marry a woman who lies to you and hits you.
	Yeah, that's pretty rare. But if you look at the red flags, then you can avoid that.
	Well... I gotta pay more attention next time, I guess.
	Well, there were a lot of red flags, but you have no social support in understanding these things.
	You have no one telling you the truth or asking you questions.
	Right? A woman who lies to you about debt.
	A woman who demands that you keep essential secrets from your family.
	A woman who tells you she wishes you were dead.
	A woman who calls you a racist.
	A woman who abuses animals.
	A woman who had an abortion and didn't tell her partner.
	Dude Come on Okay I think I got it Does she...
	have...
	has she ever had an attack of conscience?
	Where she's like, I can't believe I hit those docks.
	You know, like any kind of meltdown around a crisis of conscience.
	Has she ever just really broken down about how she's treated you?
	Yes. I'm sorry?
	Yes. Right.
	And what brings that on? To me, how she's treated me, she said...
	I can't remember how long ago this was, probably a few months back.
	She said that she's...
	She sees that I put in the 60, 70 hour work weeks and I do all these things and that I come home and, you know, she'll yell at me or something or something, whatever.
	And that she can't believe that she has put me through that.
	And she's so, so thankful that I'm in her life because I'm like, to her, I'm a stable person.
	Well, she'll fix that over time.
	Because she's gonna destabilize you.
	I mean, it's going to happen, right?
	She's never apologized for the dogs, though.
	She's like, they're just animals.
	She's openly saying she's gonna hit your children.
	Yeah, she has said that, because I said I wouldn't be into...
	Where are your emotions in this?
	This is what I'm really baffled about, is that you're skating on such a surface level here.
	I feel like I'm upset about your life.
	Where are your feelings here?
	What are you feeling?
	I don't have a clue.
	I'm feeling regret.
	Feeling like I screwed up real bad.
	No, those are all judgments. What are your feelings?
	Feeling really sad.
	Like, I just want to break down and cry right now.
	But I'm a guy, so I shouldn't be crying.
	Fine with me if you cry.
	I consider that a caricature of masculinity, this stiff upper lip stuff.
	Our passions will favor it.
	I feel angry.
	Especially about the animals, because I love dogs.
	And I know there was times where I was like, if you were just a guy in the street, I would have clocked you right in the face.
	But I can't do that.
	But what if one day you do?
	What if one day you get so angry, Sean, that you do hit her?
	Your life will be over. It would be.
	Oh, yeah. She'll call the cops.
	She'll have your ass dragged out.
	You'll go to jail. You'll lose everything.
	You understand that, right?
	I really can't believe I'm saying this and I married this person.
	Like, this is so stupid.
	Yeah. Can you imagine?
	Racist white man beats innocent black woman.
	Yeah. Wait for that to hit the headlines.
	Should be animal rights lover.
	Clocks anti-dog killer or something.
	I don't know. Well, I mean, you clearly had a huge amount of affection for your own dog, Sean.
	And the fact that you could let dogs be abused by your wife for a year is, I mean, what that must have done to you.
	Horrifying. Wasn't their fault, right?
	I broke down a few times.
	I couldn't take it. Just a ball in my eyes.
	And she's like, why are you crying?
	What do you mean, why am I crying?
	I've had dogs all my life.
	I had a dog that loved me.
	I didn't even have any girlfriends for a few years while I was living on my own.
	I had a dog that went with me everywhere.
	It's my best friend. So why do you care that she hits dogs, but not that she hits you?
	Because I'm a human being.
	I don't know. Because I was...
	I don't know.
	I guess I'm used to being pushed around.
	I don't... But here's the thing, Sean.
	The dogs got saved.
	The dogs got out.
	Right. Why do you care more for the dog than yourself, your own heart, your own soul, your own being?
	Why are you less important than the dogs?
	Why is your protection and security less important than the dogs?
	Because I don't want to believe that I believe that she'll be better and change.
	Right. The dog's got a divorce.
	You saved the dogs from her, but you can't save yourself, right?
	And you understand that very little of your feelings towards your wife, in my opinion, and your hope that she's going to change and get better.
	You understand that this is a brain infection, like a brain tumor that comes from your father's fantasies about your mother.
	that she will change and get better.
	That you are being inhabited by your father's delusions, not your present reality.
	Because you saw a man who was ashamed of his marriage, who was ashamed of his wife, and was passive and crossed his fingers And hope for change.
	And that's what you're doing.
	Yeah. It's exactly what I'm doing.
	Right. But telling me to solve that.
	I'm sorry? That's exactly what I've been doing.
	I've been telling myself that, you know, six months into the relationship.
	Yeah. Yeah, I did years in one of those.
	I did years in one of those.
	I've done my time. I've done my time in the crazy pussy jail.
	And when I got out, everything had to change.
	Because everyone who let me rot there had to be talked to.
	So, listen, I hope you understand.
	I've been there, brother. But you got yourself out before it got too far.
	Oh no, it was far.
	I wasn't quite married, but it was years.
	Okay. I even proposed.
	Did she turn you down?
	No. No.
	She said yes.
	And then it just kind of hung there.
	I won't get into all the details about it.
	Fair enough. I'm sorry.
	That sounds like after asking you for details, it's just I've talked about this story before, and it's not what my focus is right now, which is where your heart is.
	Because you can still be a father.
	You can still be a husband.
	You can still have a loving relationship.
	Right? You're not 50.
	You're not 60. I mean, maybe it can happen even then.
	You're still in your early 30s.
	And it turns out that rushing has got you the wrong direction, right?
	Because I remember you saying, well, I joined a dating agency because, you know, I was getting older and, you know, haste makes waste, right?
	How long have you listened to my show for?
	Probably two years.
	So about the same length of time as you've known this woman off and on, right?
	Well, I guess before that, yeah, two, so maybe three years.
	Right. Why didn't you call in?
	You had doubts. You said you didn't want to get married.
	Why didn't you call in before you got married?
	I'm not blaming you. I'm just curious.
	I don't know.
	I guess I just thought, like, when I called in today, I wasn't calling in to talk about this.
	I was calling in to talk about Racism, how her parents were.
	So I guess I thought this stuff was semi-normal.
	But you've heard me talk about my marriage off and on, right?
	Yeah. I don't know.
	I guess I just...
	She would apologize after all these things happened, generally.
	Except for calling me a racist.
	That hasn't come up yet. Well, and hitting the dogs.
	And hitting the dogs.
	You've got to listen back to how you imitated her when you said that she would say to you, why are you crying?
	They're just animals. It's cold, man.
	Not just cold to the dogs, it's cold to the fact that her husband is really upset about something.
	It was cold. And to me, yeah, I said, don't you care about how I feel?
	Right. Now that's another question, and you have to watch these questions.
	Don't you care about how I feel is the question.
	You don't care how I feel is the answer.
	That's the statement. You've got to be a little bit less interrogative and a little bit more declarative.
	You know what's funny? She's very good at that, declaring things, so I should take that from her.
	Sure. Oh, and she spies on you.
	Yeah, so I had to change the password on my phone, and I just said, I can't let you in here anymore because, you know, so I removed all her stuff, so she doesn't know anything about it.
	Right, now all you have to do is change the password on your penis, and you're good to go.
	She's been trying to get access to my bank account, and I said, no.
	Wait, why does she want to get access to your bank account?
	He said, knowing the answer.
	Yeah. Because she wants to know how much money we have so she can understand the finances.
	Oh, yeah. Because she can just ask you.
	Yeah. So that's why I put together a nice little spreadsheet with a budget.
	Shows everything right there.
	Oh, that's not good enough.
	I need to see the actual amounts.
	Right. Are you there yet?
	Do you understand her nature?
	And if you have any doubt, just look at all the MGTOW comments when this video comes out.
	I thought those people were crazy.
	Crazy like a fox, some of them seem, right?
	Crazy writes sometimes, yeah.
	She wants access to your bank account.
	She got you into a house that was too expensive for you and dumped a bunch of dump, but dumped a bunch of student debt on you.
	Actually, we have two houses.
	Oh. I keep asking you if there's more.
	Sorry, I'm sorry.
	Why do you have two houses? Because when we first moved out here, I bought a house after we rented for a year.
	And then we're buying a house in the other city and we're going to rent the current house.
	We're already renting the basement, so then we're going to rent the top floor.
	Building equity and investments and all that good stuff.
	Well, but you're working 60 to 70 hours a week, right?
	Are you even enjoying any of this stuff?
	I like the idea of Of finance and having money.
	So am I enjoying it?
	Well, I get to sleep in it when I come home at 7 o'clock.
	So I get four hours. Or sorry, being awake.
	Three, four hours of being awake and I get to sleep and then go to work.
	And doesn't she say, I would rather have you home more and have less stuff?
	No, she says I'd rather have you home more, but more stuff.
	No, no. I mean, big...
	Fuck. Jesus.
	She understands that input equals output to some degree, right?
	Particularly at your stage in the career, right?
	That you have to work to get more money and you have to work more to get more money.
	Right. So she knows that, right?
	She can't be a stereotypical female with math, right?
	She knows that you have to, if she wants a more expensive house.
	So she chose a more expensive house over time with you.
	She chose, I assume you have nice cars, I assume you have nice stuff, maybe vacations.
	So she chose all of this nice stuff over time with you, right?
	And then do you know what generally happens when a woman overworks a man?
	She gets lonely and she has an affair.
	Because, you know, he's just at work all day.
	I get lonely. Well, I would say what she told me about that, but I won't because we don't trust her now anyways.
	That she would never have an affair on you because she was cheated and she knows what it was like.
	Exactly. Right. Right.
	Yet she accuses me of having affairs when I talk to some waitress.
	Oh, you're probably thinking of having sex with her.
	I'm like... What? I just...
	Yeah, I guess I'm...
	She's like a live-in stalker.
	Yeah, I can't do anything.
	And then when I come back home, there's a big blow-up about how I smiled at her and said, oh, whatever, made a joke.
	Well, no, she's very concerned that you might actually have interactions with a pleasant woman.
	Right. And this is another reason why in these kinds of relationships, you can't have sane friends around, right?
	Right. I mean, I've seen this happen.
	I've seen this happen even since I started this show.
	Friends get married and they vanish.
	Why? Why?
	I know why. Oh, boy.
	Because married men can't have support now, can they?
	Because then they can't be abused, exploited, preyed upon.
	Right.
	So, dude, come on.
	Come on. Okay, Steph, I think.
	Steph, I'm sorry. Not Steph.
	I'm feeling very comfortable with you, I guess.
	I'm already short-forming your name.
	Hey, if we can't be comfortable with each other at this point, I don't know when it's going to happen.
	You know, we're in each other's mess up to our nostrils.
	I think I owe you a case of beers.
	That's what this is coming down. I don't really drink, but I appreciate the thought.
	I appreciate the thought. Well, either do I, so...
	Well, yeah, you grew up with a brother like that, and I can imagine not.
	I used to, and then it all stopped after that.
	Listen, you care about your wife, right?
	Yes. I mean, I know that you've pulled out some dirty laundry, but you care about your wife.
	That's not going to vanish, right?
	And if you understand that you are not helping her become a better person, you're actually making her a worse person by appeasing and paying her for her bad behavior.
	You know, it's literally like saying to a kid, you know, don't hit the cat with a plastic hammer.
	And then the kid hits a cat with a plastic hammer and you give him a piece of candy.
	And you say, okay, please don't hit the cat with a plastic hammer.
	The kid hits the plastic. I wonder if that gets me candy.
	It just did. Boom!
	Hit the cat with a plastic hammer. Okay, here's another piece of candy.
	Now stop hitting the cat.
	Here's another piece of candy, right?
	You understand that this is what you're doing.
	I don't like it when you treat me that way.
	I don't like it when you bully me.
	Oh, you're upset with me?
	Okay, I'll pay your student debt.
	Oh, you want a bigger house and you might be upset with me if I say now?
	Okay, I'll buy you a bigger house.
	So when you say, I'm going to have conversations with her, they're meaningless.
	Because she's going to judge you based upon your actions rather than your words.
	And the actions are, if you bully me, you'll get what you want.
	And so you are reinforcing her worst habits.
	You're not helping her. If you care for her, you must stop doing this.
	It's her only chance to get better.
	Do you understand? You're making her worse by constantly reinforcing, in the most positive ways possible, her bad behavior.
	What's crazy?
	To me, it's six months into the relationship, after living together for about two, three months, I had that exact conversation with her.
	I said, we have to break up because I'm re...
	It's essentially what you said.
	I'm not making better. I'm reinforcing your worst behaviors.
	Yeah, I'm making you worse.
	I'm reinforcing negative things.
	And she cried and bawled and said that she'd make it better.
	And I was crying, and everybody was crying, and then we hugged, and the next morning, we just...
	Okay, we'll try it again.
	Right. Don't you hate those almost out moments?
	It would have been so much easier.
	Oh, God, yeah. That would have been easier four months and one day ago.
	Yeah. Well, I think I have a really good idea.
	Yeah, practical steps, man. I mean, if you go talk to a lawyer and you say, you know, she didn't tell me about...
	Isn't that fraudulent that she didn't tell me about her student debt?
	I don't know. I don't know.
	I don't know. I don't even know how I'd be able to prove that.
	That's the problem, right? It's just my words.
	I don't know.
	And her. Yeah, yeah.
	I mean, I'm not a lawyer, so obviously...
	But...
	There's an old Dr. Phil saying, I mean, he's really cucky in a lot of ways, but, you know, comes up with the occasional southern-spun Rolex draped wisdom, where he says the only thing worse than being in a relationship, the only thing worse than being in a bad relationship for a year is being in a bad relationship for a year and one day.
	Very smart man. Yeah, I think that, as far as that goes, that's not...
	Not bad. Your wife will benefit from a little piece of medicine colloquially called reality.
	It's not good for her to have you pay all of her debts and have her parents pay for her education and then you to pay for it and to drift through life without responsibilities, without reality.
	It's not good for her.
	It's not good for her.
	She needs to... Step up, wake up to reality, as the song goes, right?
	She needs to grow up. And you shielding her from adulthood by being perpetual white bread sugar daddy, that's not good.
	Not good for you, not good for her.
	And this mutual commitment to unreality usually has extraordinarily terrible outcomes.
	Like, it can have, like, Sid and Nancy outcomes, right?
	Like, that's the exact thing, because I agree with you.
	That's the exact thing I didn't want to do.
	I didn't want to pay for her stuff.
	So I said, when you start working, you pay for your stuff.
	So when she worked in between here in the last year, She paid for her stuff.
	And I was like, I'll pay for the mortgage.
	She hated it. Right. So, this is what you need to understand.
	When you say to her, when, like, you pay for your stuff when you get a job, do you know what she hears?
	Never get a job. Which is why she's laying the foundation for a PhD, right?
	So it's like, oh, so as long as I stay in school, and school is way more fun than working, as long as I stay in school, my husband's going to pay all my bills, all my debt.
	But how does it make sense in her mind?
	Because what if something happens to me?
	What if I can't pay for all the stuff she's racking up?
	What if I lose my job? Are you saying that the woman who racked up $70,000 of useless debt...
	Is going to worry about the long term?
	Is really, really concerned with consequences way down the road that may or may not happen?
	You know what? To be honest, she told me she is not concerned with long term, so I don't know why I say that.
	Yeah. I mean, when she says, I wish you were dead in a fiery plane crash, are you saying that she somehow knows the repercussions of her actions and is willing to limit the indulgence of the moment in order to preserve the harmony of the future?
	No, of course. She's a women-based life form because she's never grown up, right?
	She's not had adulthood.
	And it's not good. I mean, she'll hate it, of course, right?
	But... I mean, I'm not saying...
	I'm saying that if you care about her, you cannot do this.
	It's a cruel thing to do to her.
	By shielding her from the consequences of behavior, that is a terrible thing to do to someone.
	Stepping in to pay her bills.
	And I say this from experience.
	I say this from experience.
	Well, in order to head down that path, I have to step into the fire, right?
	To get through it. Well, it can be easier than you think.
	Let me lay out a potential scenario.
	Okay. You talk to a lawyer.
	You figure out what you're going to do.
	Let's say that you decide to leave.
	Well, you make your plans.
	You make your preparation. You understand?
	You get your clothing ready.
	You get your escape plan ready.
	You get your where you're going to be ready.
	And you wait till she's out of the house.
	And you get up. And you get gone.
	And then she gets a letter from the lawyer saying that you want a divorce.
	Yes, there will be hollering and shrieking and so on, but you...
	Change your phone number. You say, only communicate to me through my lawyer.
	You don't let her know where you are.
	I mean, there's lots of things that you can do when you're in volatile situations.
	And again, please don't take any of this as gospel.
	I'm not a lawyer. I'm not a social worker.
	I'm not a psychologist.
	I'm no expert in these kinds of things.
	These are just thoughts off the top of my head.
	So talk to someone.
	Who knows what they're doing when it comes to getting out of potentially volatile situations.
	She's already shown that she can be violent towards you.
	She's already expressed verbally death wishes towards you.
	She's already thrown things at you.
	She's punched you as you say.
	She knocked the glasses off your face.
	And you know what? What you can take relief in Is that at least you're getting one terrible racist out of her life.
	Constellation prize. There you go.
	You're just taking your privilege and not inflicting the silencing on her and her family anymore.
	Now they can have their conversations without being suppressed by white-out privilege.
	You're taking your racism and you're moving on.
	Yeah, they're kind of dead to me. What you laid out doesn't sound too bad.
	It sounds fairly reasonable. You think that there's going to be all this in-your-face conflict and stress and screaming and so on?
	Yes. No, no, no, no.
	No, don't do that. My God.
	Don't do that. That is specifically dangerous.
	I mean, that is threatening to you and potentially to her in ways that do not do that, in my humble opinion.
	Again, listen to the experts. But if there's been violence in the relationship beforehand, and if she's dependent upon your income, and if she's jealous, and if she's possessive, and if she's spying on you, and she's wished you dead verbally, you go out like Santa at three in the morning.
	You know what I mean? You ghost out.
	And you don't see her again without witnesses.
	She pounds on the door, you don't let her in.
	You film it. Seriously, you have to be very, very self-protective and you have to listen to the advice of people who know what they're doing when they say how to get out of volatile relationships.
	You know, she's gonna freak a little, right?
	Probably. She will freak a lot.
	She's going to freak and you need to be shielded from that and you need to be inaccessible to her.
	Again, my humble opinion, don't take it as gospel.
	But there's ways to do it where you're not sitting there with some distorted, distended, vein throbbing face screaming at you and trying to provoke you.
	Because she may go so off the rails that she tries to provoke you into hitting her so that she can destroy your life.
	I don't know. But if she hits dogs, and she's willing to hit children, and she's already hit you, you're in a situation of potential explosive violence.
	So you've got to not be in that situation.
	You've got to ghost out. I think that's my, again, that's my understanding of how to do this.
	But there's ways to do it where you're safe and secure and relieved.
	It's hard to do. Sorry?
	This is going to be hard to do because she keeps a close tab on me.
	You're a smart guy. You'll get good advice.
	And don't hold anything back, right?
	Like, you get an expert, don't hold anything back about the violence, the abuse, the death wishes, the, like, because they need to have a clear idea of what's going on in your marriage if you're going to get out so that they can give you the best advice on how to do it safely and securely.
	I mean, this could be like, I don't know, go get a hunting cabin in northern Manitoba.
	Like, I don't know, but there's lots of things that you can do where you're out of sight or out of reach for an indefinite period of time.
	Until temper's cool.
	And listen, you have the right to not be in a relationship, man.
	You have the right to not be in a marriage.
	You have the right to leave.
	You're not there to serve her needs.
	You're not there to serve her debt.
	You're not there to serve her family and their prejudices.
	You have every single right in the known universe to not be in a relationship.
	And there's nothing wrong with getting out.
	And it may in fact be the very best thing to do.
	I think there's a strong case to be made that it is.
	But you understand? You have a right to be happy.
	You have a right to be safe.
	You have a right to be secure.
	You have a right to have somebody who's going to contribute to your life in an equal way that you are.
	You have the right to be with someone who tells you the truth.
	You have the right to be with someone who cares about you, who's sensitive to you.
	You have the right to be supported.
	You have to earn it. And right now you're going in the wrong direction.
	But it is perfectly a fine and good thing to not be in a relationship if it's bad for you and bad for her.
	It's nothing to be guilty about.
	You can get mad at yourself and so on.
	We all have things to learn in this life.
	We all have progress to make in this life.
	You do and your wife does and you're right now inhibiting each other from growth.
	But you have every right to reach for something better, to reserve your heart for something more noble, for something more secure, for something more safe, for something that's loving.
	To be taken care of, to be worshipped, to be adored, to be loved, to be respected.
	You have the right to all of that.
	Now you have to earn it, of course.
	And I don't want you sitting there, oh, this is a terrible failure, and I've screwed up, and I'm a terrible person.
	Don't do that. Don't do that.
	You understand that level of self-abuse is what's keeping you here.
	I'm serious. I really need you to get this, Sean.
	That level of self-abuse is what's keeping you here in this hellhole of a life.
	The fear of how you're going to abuse yourself if you don't have an external abuser.
	Okay. Right?
	You learn to listen.
	You can move on. You can find love.
	Maybe even your wife can find love.
	But right now, it's toxic for both of you, isn't it?
	Definitely toxic for me and not helping her in any fashion.
	Right. How do you feel?
	I feel like an anvil is just dropped on my head.
	I feel like I have some big decisions to make.
	Well, the decision's already kind of made, I guess.
	Seeing how staying...
	Well, staying in it is really stupid.
	So, the right decision is...
	I mean, if you want to be a father.
	See, here's the thing. If you decide that you're going to stay, I can't imagine what process would lead you there, but let's say that you decide that you're going to stay.
	You cannot have children in this environment.
	Because you're there by choice.
	Your children won't be.
	And you have the right to put yourself in this situation, however dysfunctional and destructive it may be.
	You do not have the right to put children in this situation.
	You do not have the right to give a woman children when she has clearly told you she's gonna hit them.
	And she's clearly shown her capacity for violence and verbal abuse.
	You can't do it. That you don't have the right to do.
	Like, I'll tell you that straight up.
	So if you want to be a father, can't be with this woman.
	You can't put children in this situation.
	That's not your choice to make.
	Your choice with your own life is your own life.
	Only you are suffering the consequences and her.
	But as children, it's a different matter.
	You don't have that right at all.
	And that means, like, full-on vasectomy.
	That means, like, no kids.
	And I think that's a shame.
	I think you'd be a great dad.
	That's what I think. And I think this is a hell of a thing to give up, to have children, to stay in this mess.
	Come on. To give up being a father, to give up holding your own babies, to give up seeing them learn how to run and dance through dandelion fields with their hair blowing in the wind.
	This is why when she talked about kids, I generally didn't want to have kids with her.
	I would have kids with the right person.
	But you don't have that much time to waste that you can just...
	Because, you know, it's going to take a while to get over this relationship.
	And it's going to take a while to learn how to read the red flags and learn how to trust someone in the future.
	You know, as I always say, pick your wife as if your children had the deciding vote.
	And would your children want this woman as their mother?
	I wouldn't want her as my mother.
	Right. Although she kind of is in a way, right?
	That's the scary part, yeah.
	Yeah, for sure. Thanks, Stefan.
	You are welcome, my friend.
	Just keep me posted because I care about what's going to happen with you hugely.
	I massively sympathize.
	I hope you won't attack yourself.
	I hope you will keep yourself safe and recognize that this is the best thing if you leave.
	I think it's the best thing for all parties.
	But it's going to be tough.
	And just try and shield yourself from the crazy.
	And you can do that. You can do that.
	I mean, to the point where you can get restraining orders.
	You can get no contact orders.
	You can get a lot of protections in place so that you can go about your life without waiting for the crazy bomb to go off every time you put a foot down.
	But this is your big assertiveness thing here, man.
	This is the price for appeasement, is now you have to be really strong.
	But you'll never be the same afterwards, and it will never be this hard again.
	So we're going from almost no assertiveness to full-on assertiveness.
	Well, that's what you have to do, right?
	You know, if you wake up late when your house is on fire, you gotta hot-foot it out, right?
	True. Very true.
	All right. All right.
	So keep me posted. I really thank you for sticking with me in this lengthy, but I think very, very important conversation and ignore most of the comments.
	All right. Thank you very much, Stefan and Michael.

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