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May 7, 2019 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:21:08
“I NEED MY HUSBAND TO BE ASSERTIVE SO WE CAN HAVE BABIES!” Freedomain Call In
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Hi, everybody.
I'm here with Rachel.
Rachel, big question, big issue, big turning point in your life.
Why don't you read the relevant part of what you sent me?
Yeah, for sure.
So I'm 28 years old.
My husband and I got married when I was 21.
I've been a homemaker the past just about four years.
And my husband and I both really enjoy and appreciate a more traditional approach to our marriage relationship, as well as general outlook on life.
Um, except for one vital area, which is on my behalf, uh, that I can't seem to bring myself to want children.
Right.
Yeah.
So when you say homemaker for four years, what does that mean?
Um, it means I haven't been working outside of the home.
I've just been at home and we've taken the, I guess, traditional approach of my husband going to work and he's building a business and then I'm at home and do kind of all of the Well, the truly traditional part does involve children, doesn't it?
True, yes, exactly.
I mean, is there enough to do?
Is your husband a massive slob?
Does he regularly bring home Jaguars and biker gangs that you need to, like, respackle the walls?
Or is he touring with Aerosmith?
I mean, is there enough to do without kids?
I find it.
I think because, I mean, since I don't have kids right now, I think we kind of grow Comfortable in whatever life entails at that moment.
So for where I'm at I find that there's enough because I do all of the home things and I do like a bit of volunteering outside the home and things like that too.
The volunteering stuff is great and it's one of the things that women being in the workforce has kind of stripped the whole community of the cohesion that comes from women's admirable and Deep commitment to community.
So I think that's wonderful.
Did you ever want kids?
Do you know?
I did.
When we got married, we got married under the premise that we would start a family together.
And then probably about a year or two years into our marriage is when I really just started questioning things and I guess the concept of actually looking at what that would entail and look like for our life.
I just, I don't know, I guess I got scared at some point and started to really assess, do I really want that?
Or is that just something that you kind of, without thinking, grow up being like, oh, this is going to be part of my life regardless.
So, um, yeah, I don't know.
Maybe I just started overthinking it or something.
Well, I guess one of the questions I have is, why is your husband so nice?
Because in the email you said, you know, he's no pressure, no, like he's not, you know, and I'm like, that's, that's like a, that's like a superpower of niceness that's almost against its own interests, if that makes any sense.
Yeah, that's true.
He is very nice.
Is he scared?
Are you giving me a very friendly face?
You know, like the monster that turns around in the horror movie with the smiley doll turns into the skull?
I mean, is he terrified of you?
Like, what is going on?
I mean, why isn't he, you know, hey man, we're gonna have kids, we gotta sort this out, right?
Yeah, no, at least I hope that I'm not that way.
No, I'm not very scary.
Yeah, I think just when it came about, this would be years back now, that I was really starting to question that.
I brought it up in conversation with him that it's something I'm really struggling with and especially as a woman.
And so I don't know if just through that and at the time he was kind of thinking, oh, it's far down the road, so I'll just be supportive now and we'll kind of work through this together as we grow together.
Yeah, I'm not really sure, but we've been having more and more conversations about it lately.
What if he just locked you up?
I'm sorry, that's not very philosophical.
Oh, did the condom break after I put it through the cheese grater?
Well, I guess we'll live with it now.
Not that that's wise, just something that popped into my head.
Funny enough, that's something I've, I guess, kind of joked with him or with closer friends who know this about us that I almost wish I would just quote unquote accidentally fall pregnant because then I wouldn't have to be the one to make the decision and then I would just be able to say okay this is what's happening and move forward with it but for some reason that actively making the decision I just can't do so I don't know now let me ask you this
are you ambivalent like part of you wants kids and possibly part of you was scared of it or is it more like you know if somebody said to me hey Steph you've got a great future as a ballet dancer I'd have said my knees are north of half a century I'm not very flexible and it's not really my thing I wouldn't be torn if that makes any sense it would like not be tempting at all right But if somebody said, hey, you could talk to the world about philosophy, I'm like, what do I sign up?
What do I do?
What do I have to sacrifice?
How many goats do I have to put in a blender to make this happen, right?
So, are you torn about it or are you sort of inert about it?
I would say there is some ambivalence there.
Good, good.
That's good, because otherwise there's not much of a conversation.
I don't want kids, okay?
I would never say I really overwhelmingly want it still at this point, but when I think about the idea of it and what it would mean for our future and the concept of building a good family and for when we're old and all of those things, I think, yeah, that is a good thing.
Quick question, Rachel.
Has it ever occurred in your conversations with people that they perceive you to be a little bit over-analytical?
Yes.
Because you're like, because people are like, you know, we should talk about kids, you know, oh, growing life in my belly and breastfeeding and watching their first steps and you're like, I am very interested in the conceptual definition of growing a good family.
It's like, it's like, it's not very visceral, if that makes sense, which is fine.
I'm just sort of want to know where we're starting from.
Yeah, no, absolutely.
I have been told and know about myself that I am very over-analytical about everything.
So, I think that's where a lot of this comes into it a lot, I think.
So, your husband is nice, perhaps, to a fault.
And you maybe sometimes get option paralysis.
This is the way the world dies.
No pressure, though.
Nothing.
No problem.
OK, so let me ask you this, because you did mention in the email, Rachel, that your childhood had been less than stellar.
So what do you think, if anything may have happened there, that has you sit where you are with regards to kids?
Yeah, I mean, it's probably quite a few things, but I mean, I guess I come generationally from poor parenting.
I think my parents Because you're analyzing all the options, aren't you?
You can tell me!
there is still a lot missing there.
Um, they did divorce when I was 15.
Um, so there's that, uh, I don't know.
Yeah.
It's kind of hard for me to pinpoint right off the bat one thing to dive into.
Um, because you're analyzing all the options, aren't you?
You can tell me, you can tell me.
Um, I mean, both my parents have a history of depression and anxiety, which I myself and my sister also struggle with.
Um, but, Both my parents have alcoholism issues, and that was seen through our growth.
Alcoholism issues, or are they just alcoholics?
Yeah, I guess, yeah, alcoholics.
I mean, my mom I quit about a year ago because she was diagnosed with cirrhosis.
Whoa!
That's some dedication to the craft.
Yeah, definitely.
Like, holy crap.
And isn't it horrible that you didn't matter as much as her liver?
You know, like, she'll quit for her liver, but she won't quit for her daughter.
Yeah, that's hard.
And I think especially for my sister too.
My sister still is living at home with her.
has kind of let me know that after her year of having quit alcohol she still is sneaking things in her closet, things like that.
You mean sneaking drinks?
Yeah, like hiding things in there and getting upset if my sister confronts her with it.
Do you know much about when your mother, assuming that it wasn't you and your sister who quote drove her to drink, do you know the history of when your mother started drinking?
I actually don't at all.
I know And you may not get the truth.
It's a problem with addicts.
You know, like you can ask him until you're blue in the face, but whether you trust the answers is another matter, right?
Yeah.
I mean, I think it started more so when her and my dad split up.
I'm sure like it was at play before that.
I think I just wasn't noticing it as much.
I noticed it more with my dad when I was younger.
But yeah, when they split up, the new boyfriend my mom had for about eight years, they both drank very heavily together, and that's kind of where it was more noticeable.
I'm just getting a bit of a high rubbing sound, if you can try and hold as still as you can if there's something rubbing.
Now, with your father, was he less of a drinker, more of a drinker, about the same as your mom?
I would say when I was younger, it seemed that it wasn't all the time, but there would be times that, I don't know, they would go out somewhere and would come home and my dad would come home drunk.
I think it also started more when my parents split up now, but my dad is currently with a girlfriend and she is an extremely heavy alcoholic as well, kind of like dawn till dusk drinking, and that has Obviously not influenced my dad very well either I mean is he basically drinking himself to death as your mom is to some degree too, right?
Yeah, I mean he's been in the hospital twice the last two years and it was They were saying asthma related but also his liver and enzymes were very bad and the doctors were saying to him that this is a problem you have to get under control, but And he did quit again for about a year as well, but he's fully back on it now.
So Yeah, so I guess yeah, I could just say they're both alcoholics.
I get the laughter thing, but if you could try and get that under control, that would be excellent too, because it's pretty nasty stuff to hear about.
Was there a time in your childhood that you remember them Being more available?
Because, I mean, the one thing that alcoholism does is it just, it makes you, as the old saying goes, emotionally unavailable, right?
Do you remember any times or any sort of honeymoon periods where you got a taste of something better or more intimate or more relaxed or more trusting?
No, not really.
I'm so sorry.
Yeah, they definitely weren't.
Neither of them were emotionally available at all through our whole childhood.
And do you remember a time where you really, maybe the first time that you could remember that you really became aware of that?
That's a good question.
I think my kind of growth and understanding of this has really been over time.
I'm trying to think, I went away to school abroad when I was 19 and It was Bible school, so I feel like it was a time of a lot of exploration for me, of just looking at my childhood.
So I think then... Wait, so 19, so during your childhood, was it, I mean, there weren't families around that had a better structure or environment?
If you were in the church, were there other families around where there wasn't as much drinking?
I mean, it must have been something that struck you before 19.
Yeah, actually, so I didn't grow up Like my family doesn't go to church.
Um, I started going just on my own with friends through high school kind of thing.
Um, so, uh, yeah, I guess my friends, some of my friends also had some pretty rough family situations, but there was a, there was a boyfriend I dated all through high school who his family was in the church and they didn't have those types of issues.
So I suppose then if I think back, I would have noticed that, Something was obviously off with my family and how they operated.
Can you just give me your earliest conscious memory?
My earliest conscious memory as a being?
I'm sorry, that's an awkward way to phrase it.
I apologize.
So there are stories that we all have that are hard to distinguish from memories.
You know, like the stories of your early childhood, like I was apparently incomprehensible to all but one relative for the first year that I learned how to speak, like I'd say, and they would say, oh, that's an egg, right?
I mean, so I needed a translator.
Now, I have vague memories of that, but I don't know for sure That's just because I heard the story so many times.
But there are other things that I know for sure.
I know for sure that are real.
So that's what I mean.
The first memory that you know didn't come from retelling or something like that, but your first memory as a kid.
That's hard.
Things popping into my mind are ones that I think I was told.
So yeah, trying to think of the first one that I... Because that's usually the foundation of the identity, right?
The foundation of the identity is the first thing we remember that isn't second-hand, but first-hand, was like our genuine experience.
Yeah.
It's tough for me because this is something both my sister and I have talked about actually, that we feel our memories of childhood are very poor.
Like when we actually try to look back at things, Kind of all a blur a little bit.
Well, that's a defense, right?
I mean, because childhood was so painful that to not remember it is a plus, right?
Yeah.
Yeah, that makes sense.
I mean, there's one coming to mind right now that I don't think is probably my first one if I spent some more time thinking about it, because I would have been around, I don't know, eight or ten, but I remember my parents had went out for an evening.
I don't know what it was for, but so we were left with a babysitter and then went to bed and then I had heard my parents coming in the door so I went down our steps kind of thing just to peek around the corner because we had kind of those they weren't curved steps but there was a landing so I could see around the corner, but they couldn't really see me coming in the door.
And I just remember, like, my dad fell in the door because he was so inebriated.
And my mom was kind of trying to, like, drag him inside.
But that's all I really remember of that moment.
And again, I don't know if that's my very first conscious memory.
That's just something that's jumping into my head.
A striking one, right?
Because that's terrifying.
Did your parents drive drunk with you guys in the car?
I don't know, actually.
I think generally when they went out like that they would take a cab, but I can't recall if they ever drove drunk when we were in the car.
I would assume possibly because we would go to my grandma's house across the city and they would all be drinking and then we'd get home in the same car.
So I doubt that there was a designated driver situation.
So yeah, I guess they would have.
And what would you say is the status of your relationship with your parents at the moment?
Um, I wouldn't say good.
With my dad, for example, we don't talk much.
We'll text kind of once in a while, but in the last couple years, I've maybe seen him in person twice, even though he lives 10 minutes from me.
10 minutes?
And how often do you guys text?
I mean, last week we texted a couple of times, but aside from that, there could potentially be months that go without talking.
And your mom?
My mom's definitely more, and it's been since at least, I know I said earlier, my sister has caught her drinking again, but from when she had stopped, you could really see a huge shift in who she was.
And even she just looked healthier, everything, and she became a more pleasant person to be around.
Fancy that?
Well, as long as you don't bring up the past, right?
Yeah.
Yeah, true.
Which I haven't.
Yeah, with her again.
I would say she usually reaches out to me and then we'll, yeah, text or call once a month, maybe.
Yeah, and she also, yeah, all my parents and in-laws all live quite close to us.
So, yeah, it's definitely not close.
Right.
So you've listened to this show for a while, right?
Yeah, I have.
So I can be blunt?
Yes.
Okay.
And you know all the caveats.
This is just my theories.
I don't know for certain, but I'm going to be blunt with you anyway.
Yeah, that's fine.
So the reason why kids are coming up as an idea now is that you don't want to have kids around your parents and you're waiting for them to die.
And the reason it's coming up now is that their health is compromised and they're still drinking, right?
So they may not be long for this world.
There's a huge thing that happens in society when parenting standards change, Rachel, and you and I are just part of this whole big movement of trying to rescue the next generation from the errors of the past, of past generations.
So what happens is We have huge conflicts with our parents, whether it's explicit or implicit, whether it's railing against them in the teen storm years, or it's just seething against them in our own minds and perhaps being compliant on the outside.
It's a huge conflict when we are mistreated by our parents, abuse, neglect, lack of trust, and it's a terrible thing that happened to you and your sister during your childhood, and I'm incredibly sorry for all of that.
For people who haven't been around addicts, it's terrifying how little reality is allowed to seep into the house.
How you have to shut up and cover up and sometimes lie for and never expect the truth from and never be able to trust and never have any reliability.
I mean, it is a wretched, monstrous, distorted, otherworldly experience, you know, I don't know who wrote Stranger Things or if you've even watched it, but this Upside Down, that's just the world of addiction.
It's just the world of neuroses and psychoses and addiction where everything is backwards, it's full of monstrous, but it keeps pushing into your life and taking your children, right?
So with all of that being said, if you say, like you listen to this show, right?
So you hear and you said in your email that you like reading about being a better parent and all of that.
So when you were a child you had a conflict with your parents and as an adult you have sort of neutrality, right?
You don't have much to do with your dad and you don't Tell the truth to your mom.
You don't ask her the important questions, right?
You don't even know when she started drinking.
You can't bring up the past because it will be too explosive, I assume, for her.
And so, you kind of self-erase around your parents because you have a lot of conflicts with them.
You directly erase in terms of not interacting with your dad and you self-erase when you're around your mom.
And so, when we decide that we want to do things better than our parents, that puts us Existentially, it puts us on a direct conclusion course with our parents again.
I'm going to raise my children peacefully.
I'm not going to be a drinker.
I'm not going to hit.
I'm not going to yell.
I'm not going to abuse.
I'm not going to neglect.
I'm not going to any of those things, right?
That would be your approach, I assume, as a listener to this show and as somebody who's interested in infinitely better parenting than you received.
So that, to have children, when you come from an abusive history or a neglectful history, which are just two sides of the same coin, to be a better parent puts you in direct conflict with your parents and you can't hide it.
You can hide your conflict now.
With them, right?
You just self-erase, right?
You just don't bring things up.
You just get along.
You go along.
You pretend like the past didn't happen.
You are vaguely supportive and positive and friendly.
But there's nothing.
There's no there, there.
There's no relationship there because you're not there as a real person with a history and concerns and so on.
So you can kind of tread water in this lukewarm goo of non-contact at the moment.
But if you have kids, Rachel, They're going to come over, your parents, right?
Separately, maybe even, God help everyone, together, right?
And then, they're going to see you parent.
And then, they're going to try and pull some of their parenting shit, right?
And what's going to happen?
What's going to happen?
I guess, like, they'll be confronted with... Sorry.
I'm over-analyzing, trying to word it.
No, you see, you just self-erased there.
You said, they'll be confronted by, like, the third person.
A ghost is going to emerge from the wall and it's going to confront them.
No, that would be your job, right?
Right.
Because your parents would come over to see the kids and they'd bring a six-pack and you'd say, nope.
No drinking around the kids.
Sorry.
Not going to happen.
Because I don't want my kids to see you the way that I saw you when I was a kid, which is half-baked, right?
Or if they come over and they've got alcohol on their breath.
Or they, you know the signs, if they appear drunk or whatever, right?
You're like, nope, turn right around, get into the Uber, go home, come back some other day when you haven't been drinking, right?
Or if they're over, and your mother goes, oh, I need to go to the washroom, and she's up there, she gets something from her purse, she puts the flask in, has a couple of shots, comes back down.
You can self-erase yourself, but if you want to be a good parent, you can't let that shit be going on around your kids, right?
Because your kids will know that something's wrong, something's awry.
And when you are the parent, you need to be the alpha With your children, right?
It doesn't mean bullying.
It doesn't mean dominating.
It just means that they need to see that you don't back down.
That you are strong.
They need that security.
Because your parents were weak.
Because addiction makes you weak.
Addiction is weakness in many ways, right?
It's running to the bottle rather than dealing with the past.
So your kids need to see you as an authority, which means they cannot see you self-erase around other people.
Because if they see you self-erase around other people, they lose respect for you like that.
So you have to stand up, both for what's right and what's good and for yourself, but also because of your kids.
So this conflict, this anger, this disappointment, this betrayal, potentially this rage, I believe.
I mean, I think there's damn good reason for it, Rachel.
This has been held in neutral by self-erasure on your part.
But if you bring kids into this world and they see you self-erase in front of your parents, then they will respect and fear your parents and they will lose respect for you.
And you then get erased by your parents once more in the eyes of your children.
And you want to avoid all of this.
But now that they're getting infirm and the multi-decade addictions are taking their potentially lethal toll, you're like, ah, maybe we can bang at the funeral and knock one out then, you know?
There is a sort of transition.
If my parents aren't around, Then I can be a good parent.
But if my parents are around, I'm either gonna have to stand up to them, which causes... Or, I end up being humiliated in front of my own kids, and my parenting suffers, and my family structure suffers, and my joy is undermined.
That's sort of my first thought.
I've been thinking about this since I got your email, but that's...
Like, why do I not see my mother?
Because I either self-erase around my mother or I tell her the truth and she screams and throws things.
And I'm not even kidding about that, right?
So, I don't want my daughter to see either of those things, right?
I don't want my daughter to see some crazy old woman screaming and throwing things, right?
And I don't want to see I don't want my daughter to see her father appease a crazy person.
Neither of those things are good.
And those are the only two options that are available.
Explosion, erasure.
The two E's.
Wow, yeah.
So I don't want my... I just won't have it, right?
I can't.
It'd be nice if I... I can't.
It's not even a choice.
Because it's just like a moral thing, you know?
It's like, I don't kick cats and I don't expose my daughter or myself to those kinds of impossible situations, right?
Right.
So, I think that's why you have ambivalence.
I think you do want kids.
I think you do want kids, but deep down you're getting or you've got and probably have for years.
You get how this is going to put you at a direct collision course with self erasure and your parents behavior in the past and in the present.
All right.
That's sorry for the long speech, but you're an experienced listener, so I don't have to do a paint by numbers.
Yeah.
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah.
No, I think that that definitely makes a lot of sense.
And I mean, I can even see that in, well, both in conversations that I've had with My husband, or even just internally, that I have already said I will need to set boundaries if kids are in our future.
You can't set boundaries?
How are you going to set boundaries with your parents?
Well, for example, not this past Christmas, but the one before, my husband's sister and I sat down and had a direct conversation with my dad about this.
Shortly after his... Sorry, about what?
Well, both his alcoholism and his girlfriend.
Yeah, this was shortly after his, I guess, most recent hospital situation.
Was this like an intervention?
You could say that, yes.
No, no, don't let me say things, it's your life!
Yeah, right, sorry.
I think in the sense that when I had called my dad over to talk.
He asked if it would be, and I told him that we just wanted to have a conversation.
Oh, so you self-erased even in the intervention!
I did, yeah.
So it was.
I think I just didn't call it that in my mind.
Well, hang on, hang on, hang on.
Do you mean that you thought it was some... It doesn't have to be a formal, I don't know, whatever you'd call it, like intervention with a capital I. But are you saying that it was an intervention, but you didn't want to tell your dad because he wouldn't come?
Yeah, I think that's true.
You think that's true?
Yes, I will say yes.
You will say yes?
Oh my gosh!
I've had easier times arm-wrestling fog monsters!
No, listen, I understand.
This is the, don't want to say anything definitive, defense of people who've been raised without a strong parental bond.
I mean, I sympathize.
I'm not, I'm sort of making jokes and so on.
Like I really, I get the scar tissue that is involved in this, which is you have a very tough time just stating what is, right?
Because that causes massive conflict.
So you've got to hedge and you've got to avoid and you've got to minimize and all the other tricks of surviving a crazy environment when you're young, right?
Yeah, absolutely.
I'm awful at just making definitive decisions and I know I use a lot of non-committal language when it comes to myself and my life.
There's only one absolute and constant in the house of addicts and that's the addiction.
Nothing else can be constant.
That's the one dominant demand.
That's the one absolute that is necessary.
Nothing else can have any constancy relative to that absolute of addiction.
So, I mean, again, I sympathize, I understand, but I'm also gonna call you out on it.
Yeah, no, that's fine.
Because that's treating me like I'm dangerous when I'm, you know, a big giant teddy bear, so.
Right.
Okay, so.
So we had an intervention.
What did you just think?
Oh, I'm sorry.
What was that?
What did you just think?
You just laughed.
Oh, I was thinking about that I'm going to go through with saying we had an intervention.
So I thought it was funny that I was going to say that.
But.
Oh, so you you were saying you were going to say we had an intervention, but then you kind of wanted to fog it a bit, right?
Or a lot.
Probably, yeah, I know, I probably laugh a lot to try and I don't know.
It's like a take I have of laughing when I'm talking about uncomfortable stuff.
Oh, no, no.
You've listened to this show.
It's common.
I used to nag people more about it.
I just released a call with a woman who was thinking of baby or PhD.
I didn't even realize how many times she used the word, like, until... Yeah, I watched that one today.
Yeah, until people pointed it out.
Like, wow.
I mean, I have my own verbal tics, which I have to keep a hold on, but... So yeah, the laughter and that's... I get it.
I mean, so I don't nag people as much for it, because it doesn't usually seem to do much good, but... All right, so... Why is your sister still there?
I'm living with my mom.
Yeah, I mean, I try to talk with her about it sometimes.
She is, I don't know, kind of has just random jobs that she'll keep and I think doesn't have the confidence for herself to kind of make it in the world on her own.
Okay, so this is a long way of telling me that she's there because your mother wants her there and is crippling her, right?
Yeah.
Okay, so she's been hobbled psychologically by your mom because your mom wants her around, right?
Yes, that's very true.
So why do you allow this to continue?
Are you the older sister?
I am.
Right.
Why isn't she moving in with you and your husband and you help build her up to get her on her feet?
That's a good question.
I guess I just haven't thought about doing that.
Would that be difficult?
Does she have bad habits that would make her a tough roommate?
Not as much anymore.
I think she's matured the last couple of years more so than before, but in the past, definitely.
Because she also used to smoke weed a lot, and cigarettes, and is just like a very messy person.
You mean messy just in terms of environment, not just the addictions?
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah, the environment, yeah.
Yeah, it's like what a guy I once knew said about his wife when she was home with the kids during the day, even if they were gone at school.
She's like, he's like, I know exactly what my wife did.
I just follow the trail of stuff around that's not been put away.
I know exactly, exactly what she did with her day.
So those kinds of people can be.
Kind of tricky.
I mean, I don't know all of the family politics, of course, Rachel, but I'm just popping into my head saying, you know, is there any way you could airlift her out of that environment?
Because it's pretty toxic, right?
And you've got to get her out before your mom gets sick.
Because once your mom gets sick, you know what hooks of guilt are going to go into the jugular of your sibling.
Well, yeah, that's already been the case.
With her, yeah.
My mom has had issues with various illnesses and like surgeries and stuff over the past 10 years, I would say.
And yeah, so she definitely, I think there's kind of that relationship between my mom and my sister.
This is something my husband and I talk about often in that my sister can kind of live there That's terrible for her.
You know that, right?
I mean, you said that she just has random jobs.
Well, of course she just has random jobs, because she doesn't have any rent.
I mean, people win the lottery, so to speak.
They don't generally get up and crack the bagels at Tim Hortons at 4 o'clock in the morning, because, you know, they already have their income, right?
Now, does it serve you?
To have your sister staying with your mom?
In other words, does it release you from some sense of guilt or obligation saying, well, she's got my sister there, so she's not alone, or is there, is your sister some kind of sacrificial lamb, not just for your mother's needs, but for yours as well?
I'd have to think about that.
I don't perceive it that way.
Yeah, because I have, I've been able to grow in myself a bit the last several years of being removed from that environment, that I do set more firm boundaries with myself around my parents.
And so, I think that if my sister was removed from that environment and my mom tried to lay the guilt on, I would not accept that.
But it would be tougher for you, wouldn't it?
Yeah, it would be hard.
If your sister wasn't there, your mother, wouldn't she lean on you more or try?
She would try, yes.
And that would be tough, right?
Yeah, it would be.
Yeah, so I wonder, I don't know, I haven't thought about that.
Maybe there is some in the depths of my brain that's like, well, if my sister still lives there, then I don't have to deal with it.
I'm a younger sibling biased person.
So, you know, I may be overstepping here.
I just wanted to let you know.
I'm aware of that.
Like, the younger siblings being stuffed into the narcissistic void of parental needs so that everyone else can get away and avoid the bomb blast of megalomania is not something entirely unfamiliar to me.
So, I understand.
Yeah, no, I think that is good to bring up for me to just I don't know, at least have that perspective in mind, because this is something, too, I've even recently talked with my sister about, of understanding that I removed myself when, because we have a five-year gap between us, so she was quite a bit younger, because I left when I was 18, I believe.
And so, just kind of talking about how I've actually apologized to her in the past for just leaving her in that, and just thinking about my own needs of just getting away.
Oh, because she was like 13 back then, right?
Yeah, so she was around, well, and she's still living there obviously, but was around for a lot more than I was as well.
Well, no, because you were there five years before she was, right?
So you both basically ended up with the similar amount of time as she'd left when she was 18, right?
True, yeah, but with, for example, when my parents split up and then my mom had a new boyfriend move in and all of those kind of things, I wasn't around for quite as much of that.
Oh, I see, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, so there was some of that involved.
Well, but on the other hand, sorry to interrupt, but on the other hand, she had you, which you didn't have a sibling for the first five years, right?
So you were facing the parents alone for the first five years, and then she was facing the parents alone for the last five years.
I'll take the last five years over the first five years, because the first five years are a hell of a lot more formative, right?
Yeah, yeah, that's true.
So that's just something to mull over.
I mean, here's the thing, right?
So my belief, I think there's some validity to it, obviously I wouldn't have it as a belief, but my belief is sort of like this.
So I asked you earlier, Rachel, if you knew When your mother had started drinking, because when there's trauma, which usually drives addiction, I'm sure you've read or have heard of Gabor Maté's book, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, very important to read, but there's trauma and you have a choice when you're traumatized, right?
And when you've gone through abuse and so on, you either deal with it Or you become addicted to something.
And the addiction is in order to avoid dealing with it.
So you avoid dealing with it and you can drink the pain away, you know, Californication style, but then what happens is you get stuck emotionally.
You don't progress.
Right, so if you have some traumatic incident when you're 16 and you start drinking, you kind of never grow beyond 16.
You just become, you get taller and you get hairier, but you don't grow.
And so my concern is that if your mother's stuck at whatever age she had the trauma that she started drinking from, and your sister's in that environment, then this roadblock to progress that occurred for your mom through the addiction is also occurring To your sister through the proximity, they're all just piling up at some point in history and not moving forward.
Yeah.
Yeah, I could see that for sure.
What does your husband think of your parents?
Yeah, he has a lot of thoughts about them.
I guess this is something we talk about frequently, so we agree on a lot of things.
But yeah, I know my husband doesn't have a lot of respect for my dad.
If we're around him, he will be respectful towards him, but he doesn't really put up with things if things are going bad at a certain dinner or whatnot.
What does that mean?
How does it play out that he doesn't Sorry, I know.
By the way, I also noticed that you said, I left when I was 18, I believe, as opposed to I left when I was 18.
I just wanted to point that out.
It almost slipped past me.
So what would your husband do if things were going badly at a family dinner?
Okay.
So in the past, he was more lenient, for sure.
So there was the first few years of our marriage, he would just kind of let everything slide as I would, and then as we've kind of grown together and talked more openly about everything and learned more, he's... I'm trying to think of an example, because again, with my dad, we haven't really seen him much the last couple of years, so I don't really know what he would do now, but For example, the last Christmas a few years ago, we were over with my dad.
His girlfriend was getting quite belligerent in her drunkenness.
And, um, yeah, my husband kind of, not, I wouldn't say stood up to her, but like kind of just pushed back on her and her verbal abuse of saying like, no, I'm not going to put up with this.
And then we left soon after that.
So I know that wasn't my dad.
It was, it was so silly, like, she's such a strange person.
She'll just get, she's the kind of person where everything has to be about her in every conversation she has to insert herself into.
So, I don't know, I think we were, like, my husband, dad, and sister and I were sitting in his living room just talking about some hiking story that my dad, he had went on some hiking thing.
And his girlfriend had to come around the corner and start saying like, well, yeah, I could beat either of you if we went, do you want to go right now?
And just being really aggressive.
It was very strange.
And she's also a very tiny woman.
So it's just weird.
But, um, yeah, it was getting just so, I feel like this is such a weird story.
No, it's not.
It's not at all.
So she was basically just demanding some sort of hike off.
Yeah, it was so strange and it was to the extent that at first we all just kind of be like, yeah, yeah, like wave it off, just kind of let her go do her thing.
But then she was just getting right up in my husband's face about it.
Was she like raising her voice or like really insisting?
Yeah, she pretty much always raises her voice.
She's a very loud person.
But yeah, when she's drunk, which is all the time, pretty much, she raises her voice.
These are such garbage people.
Yeah.
Do you ever sit there and just say, like, what the hell am I doing in this dungeon with these dead, dark, weird garbage people?
I do, yeah, which is kind of what Well, not kind of, which is what led to the intervention with my dad two Christmases ago was talking about his drinking and then also talking about his girlfriend and how... But the intervention has to have consequences, doesn't it?
Like if you don't stop drinking, I'm not going to have anything to do with you or something like that?
Yeah.
And that's pretty much what happened, which is why it was that, uh, I forget exactly what I said now, but it was surrounding, setting boundaries of, you know, we want this relationship with you, but if you're not going to change these things, then we can't really see that being something that's healthy.
And so, for example, that if we come over and either of you are drinking or drunk, we will just leave.
We won't enable this behavior anymore by just sitting through it like we always have.
We did do that and I think that's largely why we haven't been invited over.
We haven't really made any plans to see each other because I think my dad's not willing to take that step to remove those things from his life and therefore feel shame around that and doesn't want to put in the effort towards a relationship.
That's horrible.
I can't imagine choosing booze over your children.
I can't fathom that.
I'm so sorry.
What a horribly clarifying moment, right?
Well, more than a moment.
It just goes on and on, right?
Now, did you ever think of having an intervention with your mom?
No, I haven't.
Why?
I don't know if I've thought about it fleetingly or not, but yeah, I haven't thought to do so.
I think because with my dad it was so much more overt that, for example, the reason we kind of headed off this intervention was He lashed out at my sister pretty heavily, just like verbal abuse and whatnot, which is something he has done through our lives.
And so it was kind of, it's hard to say, like he'll, he'll get drunk and then lash out more at her, not at me.
And then they just won't speak for six months and we won't really either because we're upset at the situation.
And then over time it would just, things kind of go back to normal.
So it was kind of that, moment where I said that this can't continue um and so I think just because it's so much more overt I guess tangibly with him that I thought to do that whereas with my mom it's it's more that she lies about things like she doesn't yell or things like that so yeah I guess I just haven't thought about it but I should
And the lying about things you mean in terms of, I'm quitting, but then she sneaks drinks in the closet?
Yeah, exactly.
And there's just other things through our lives that she has either told me or my sister that we'll look back on that just don't line up.
I'm trying to think of an example off the top of my head.
But they're not going to change, right?
Yeah.
Do you think that?
Or is that something you've really ... Because it takes a while to net that reality into your skin, right?
Like, because we all have hope, right?
We all, especially if you change, and I change, and we grow, and we learn things, and we confront ourselves, and we become better people, it's so easy to mistake the world for ourselves, right?
Say, well, I change, so this gives me hope that other people can change.
But change is extraordinarily rare.
It takes extraordinary commitment.
And it takes A withdrawal from whatever other coping mechanisms exist.
And so, it doesn't sound to me, again, I'm no psychologist, but it doesn't sound to me like there's any change coming from your parents, right?
I mean, if imminent death is not enough to get them to stop drinking, and if the intervention is not enough to get your father to stop drinking, if the fact that his trashy trailer park girlfriend is Causing crap at family dinners, if that's not enough, if you're saying, hey, man, you've got to cool it.
There's no change.
No change is coming, right?
They're going to be this way until they pour their alcohol-soaked carcasses into a six-foot-deep pit, right?
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah, you're right.
So if they're not going to change, how are you going to handle having kids and your parents in your life?
Because you know.
You know that a lot of times parents will start floating around closer.
Well, in two situations.
Number one, grandkids.
Number two, they get sick.
Right.
And of course these two things could be occurring at the same time for you.
Right.
Right.
Yeah.
So do you have any sort of thought about how you could handle having both kids and your soused parents in your life at the same time? - Well, I know that would be extremely difficult first, but... - Well, it wouldn't be, right?
I mean, it would be difficult in its... it would be difficult in its effects, but it would be very easy in terms of how to manage it.
You just invite them over and you self-erase, right?
You know how to do that.
You've been doing that for 28 years, right?
Right.
I mean, I bet you you self erased if you ever invited them to a tea party when you were five, right?
So, you know how to do it.
That part would be easy.
The consequences would be disastrous, of course, right?
But, like at some point your parents would say, we'd like you to drop the kids off or can we babysit or something.
Again, your mom or your dad, someone like that, right?
And that's really complicated because you can't have irresponsible people around your kids.
I mean, I knew a guy when I was younger.
His mom was just completely irresponsible.
He's like, no, she'll learn her own responsibility by being around her grandkids, right?
And yeah, she's on the phone with some guy, the front door's open, the family dog races out into the street, gets creamed by a car, and that's terrible enough.
But it could have been one of the kids.
Yeah, no, it's interesting because I could see my parents wanting to be more so around, like you were pointing out, through illness and things like that rather than having grandkids.
But the two would be hand in hand.
If they're not well, then they're going to want to ingratiate yourself by moving themselves with you, with the kids.
It may happen.
They may be even more supremely indifferent to the kids than to you.
I don't know, right?
It's just a possibility.
But either way, their resource requirements are going up, right?
Right.
Right.
They need health care.
They might need chronic care.
They might, who knows, right?
And so their resource requirements are going up.
And if your parents are getting ill, and this is not like something quick, like this is, if it's the result of like years of lack of exercise and alcoholism and smoking or whatever, right, this is going to be probably like a long, slow grind of just decay, right?
And so If your parents are getting sick at the same time as you have babies, then you have, like, death and life in the house, so to speak, in your mind and in your heart at the same time.
And that's one thing if you're close to your parents and you love them and they're great people.
You know, I mean, I know a guy who decided to have kids young because his father got sick and he loved his father so much he wanted his father to be able to meet his grandchildren.
So it doesn't mean that if your parents get sick, that doesn't mean no kids.
That can mean moving kids up in the cycle of life, right?
But for you, you are not protected from your parents.
And that's why earlier I made the comment that your husband is a little too nice, in my humble opinion.
Because it's his job Like, your job is to keep the house and his job is to keep the perimeter, right?
Your job is to make sure that the house is... It's all cliched stuff and maybe it's different for you guys, but you're a homemaker, right?
So your job is to make the house beautiful and his job is to create a moat around the house, right?
So that only approved people get in, right?
So you're doing the house thing, I bet your house is beautiful, right?
Yeah.
But is he doing the patrolling the perimeter?
The fiery mode?
Yeah.
I, it's hard.
I know he'll listen to this too, but I think in a lot of ways, no, like there's a lot of ways, obviously he provides for us and he has a healthy family situation, but yeah, when it comes to, I think We've kind of had that idea that still that my family is, it's up to me what I want to do with them kind of thing.
So yeah, I guess he hasn't really inserted himself.
No, he's got this modern infection and I apologize because, you know, I think he's a great guy.
You're a great woman and I'm sure you'll be wonderful parents.
In fact, I know that because of the thought and care you're putting into things.
So this is with love and with respect and so on.
But he's got this be supportive shit going on.
You know, he's got this respect wahmen, you know, be supportive.
I want to be supportive.
I don't want to, I don't want to cause any difficulties.
I just want to be there for you, honey.
And I just want to support what it's like.
Forget that.
You gotta be a real person there.
You gotta be a real person.
And you like, okay, I'll just give you a story.
One sort of sidebar story time thing.
Many, many years ago, a friend of mine was talking about how his girlfriend would drag him over to her parents place, right?
And then she just kind of, Not be there?
Like, she's kind of there, but not there?
And he'd end up having to make conversations with her parents, who he didn't have anything in common with, right?
And I remember him sitting down, he'd go over beers, he would tell me this story, and I'd be like, well, then why are you going?
Like, sit down and say to her, listen, I mean, I don't mind going to visit your parents, they're fine people, I guess, but I don't want to go there, and then you just kind of space out.
And don't say anything, and I'm sitting there trying to make conversation with people I don't even share that much in language common with, right?
And I said, so why would you go?
And she's like, well, I want to be supportive, and she really wants me to go.
And I'm like, then you're not there.
You're not there in a sort of foundational way.
That's kind of important.
And this has kind of been knocked out of men.
And that's how I sympathize with your husband.
I really do.
This idea... I mean, you heard this because you listened to the call that I did with the woman who was like PhD or baby.
And, you know, she would talk endless difficulties about her PhD program with her boyfriend.
And he didn't at some point say, look, You know, I appreciate this can be tough for you, but we're not doing this anymore.
Like you either find some way to deal with this PhD program or you quit.
But just continually venting for 10 hours a week to me, I don't want this part-time job.
I'm not a therapist.
I'm like, I wouldn't put up with that in a relationship.
I mean, that's just, that's enabling, right?
And you know, if I ever do talk to your husband, I'm sure he'll tell me about his family and How he had to be supportive and kind of not present.
There's a reason you guys were together, right?
And it would have something to do with absence from parents, right?
Sorry, absence from presence in the presence of parents.
Sorry, that's a terrible way of putting it but I'm sure you get the idea.
Right, so he wants to be supportive and he doesn't want to cause you any difficulties, right?
So he doesn't want to say, I don't want these people around our kids.
So let's just, you know, whatever we're going to do, let's just rip the band-aid off.
No way.
I'm not having, like, I don't want them around you.
When you're a mom, I don't want to be around them.
There's nothing positive in it for me.
And I certainly don't want our kids to be exposed to this level of dysfunction and toxicity, right?
So, you know.
This is my intervention, right?
Which is, we're not going to do this, right?
Now that, of course, would make you upset, right?
I don't think it would.
Tell me more.
Tell me.
Tell me what great sex he'd have that night.
No, tell me more.
No, that's interesting because I think a lot of men feel like this is just going to make women really upset.
Like, you're asking me to choose between that or whatever, right?
But you're saying it wouldn't, right?
No.
Like a relief?
Yeah, I think I'd be relieved if it was him to make that decision rather than me.
Right.
I do think if we had kids in the same way there's been a few baby step boundaries set the last couple years, I think I would be able to kind of say, okay, we're having children and I don't want them around this, therefore I won't let them be around it.
And I'd be much more firm, I'm sure, than I And with myself.
But yeah, definitely.
If you trusted that, you'd have room to explore having kids without being paralyzed.
Yeah, I guess.
Right.
I mean, if you were certain, because you can't set boundaries with dysfunctional people.
This idea, well, I'm going to set boundaries.
I don't believe it for a second.
I mean, I believe in the intention.
Don't get me wrong, right?
But you didn't stand by the boundaries with your dad.
You're still in contact with him, right?
Yeah.
There's still the doors open a crack and he, you know, if, if he gets sick, he's like, that's why he's keeping it.
Right.
If he cared about you, he'd, he'd really get sober.
Right.
So if he really cared about you, he'd drop this garbage girlfriend.
And, and so he didn't care about you, but he needs to keep that door ajar for when he gets sick or if his girlfriend leaves him or whatever.
Right.
You know, that's what it's for.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Right.
Keep that line in the water.
Just keep your options open.
Right.
Yeah.
So that boundary thing didn't work because he didn't fulfill What you wanted, which was to at least give up the booze.
And the reason he didn't give up the booze was because then he would have to give up the girlfriend.
And if he gave up the booze and the girlfriend, he'd face the horror of his own existence.
Like, you can quit an addiction when you can make amends, I think.
But once you've done so much terrible stuff that you can't make amends, to me, it's like I don't think it's practically possible to give up the addiction unless you give it up and replace it with something else, right?
Yeah.
You had the intervention.
And again, I'm no expert.
I've seen a couple of shows, right?
So I don't know.
But my understanding is like you, you got to stop drinking or, you know, we had nothing to do with you.
And he didn't stop drinking.
You still have him orbiting, floating.
You said twice in the past couple of years and text a couple of times a week sometimes and so on.
So he's still there and there.
So you can't, you can't set boundaries.
And in particular, my guess is that when he gets sick, the girlfriend's going to leave and he's going to try and hang on to you or your sister or both.
Right?
Yeah, I'm unsure, but potentially, yeah, that could be the case.
And if you do kind of keep that option open for him, it's not helping him, right?
Right.
So as far as boundary goes, you, I mean, you sit down, you have your intervention and, you know, if people respond positively and they get clean and they sort themselves out and they go to therapy and all that, fantastic.
I think that's one in a thousand, but great.
But with this stuff, how are you going to have boundaries with alcoholics?
You can't.
Because the only thing that exists for them is their addiction, not you really.
Because that's what they choose.
They choose the addiction which is real over you who is not for them, I think.
So how are you going to have boundaries?
And how are you going to have boundaries?
It's tough to make boundaries now.
How are you going to have boundaries when you're...
Boobs are aching, your nipples are half-chewed, you've had three hours sleep in the past three days, you know what I mean?
And I don't want to sound like parenting is wonderful, but, you know, it's a tall, you know, early, depending if you've got a smart kid too who doesn't sleep.
Oh, let me tell you, it's quite exciting.
So if you can't do boundaries now when you're a homemaker who doesn't have kids and you can't get those boundaries up and running, how are you going to do it?
When you have babies.
You're not gonna have more energy.
You may have more motive, obviously you will, right?
And also you will be, because that's why I asked you also about your early memories.
Because a lot of people who are raised in a neglectful way, or who are neglected, it's a better way to put it, who are neglected when they're raised, don't have a lot of early memories.
I've talked to a whole number of people, Rachel, who were raised, if they were traumatized, like they were attacked or beaten and then they, vivid memories, right?
But if they were neglected, there's this kind of weird fog that doesn't lift until late in the latency period, like 8, 9, 10, maybe even 11 years old, and then memories start to vaguely form and so on.
But all that early stuff was very real, and you're going to feel a very strong bond with your son, your daughter, the baby.
And that's going to break your heart at the same time, because you're going to recognize, really viscerally recognize exactly what wasn't there when you were a baby, right?
So you're going to be dealing with a lot.
Now, that's a beautiful thing to be dealing with.
Like, yay, I'm a way better parent than my parents.
That's a wonderful thing to be dealing with.
But it's going to be tough.
And so you got new baby, adjustment, lack of sleep, bonding, and hormones are all over the place.
And you're going through an ache as well as a beautiful tenderness with your child.
And then your parents are going to, what are they like?
They're exploiters, right?
So what do they do?
They sense a weakness.
Wow!
We can go in now and get what we want.
She's down for the count, right?
It's a possibility.
I don't know.
It's a certainty.
I don't know.
There's still free will to some degree.
Maybe this is part of this whole Gordian Knot, this whole set of complications.
Maybe that's what you're avoiding.
Yeah.
Nah, that sounds supremely emotionally disconnected.
Actually, I think I would like waffles instead of eggs.
I think I'm just processing that because I've never thought about it in this way before.
Of course you have.
Of course you have.
Okay.
Otherwise you wouldn't be ambivalent, right?
It's just, you know, the unconscious being clocked at thousands of times faster than the conscious mind.
The unconscious sees, we all think the unconscious is about the past.
The unconscious is not about the past.
The unconscious is about the future.
Your unconscious is not sitting there looking back for when you were five.
You're sitting there looking, okay, I got one baby on one boob.
I got another baby on another boob.
What's my life going to be like if my parents are around?
Can I handle them and being a new mom at the same time?
Let's postpone.
Maybe they'll die.
Or maybe they'll be hospitalized or maybe they'll be incapacitated or whatever, right?
Something that's gonna open up the womb for you.
Now, you shouldn't be doing this.
This is not your job.
It's your husband's job.
to make the perimeter.
And so we need, this is the great thing about marriage and partnership, is we need the outside eyes on our situation, and we need the strength of the other person.
You may need to help your husband with his parents, but it's his job to help you with your parents, if there's dysfunction involved, right?
Because you can't, because your whole experience, your whole quarter century plus is around compliance and self-erasure, so how the hell are you supposed to deal with it?
You can't, because your whole thing has been to avoid, which makes perfect sense and was a perfectly rational and healthy thing to do in the time, right?
But you can't.
You've got no corporeality in this situation, in my opinion.
And you couldn't, and I don't either, right?
With my mom, with my dad, I don't.
So, you can help others with their families, but they cannot really help you with yours.
I think you kind of know this deep down, that's why you wanted to call, right?
Yeah.
Now imagine, sort of the big question, right?
So imagine that the parental issue with regards to becoming a mother was simply not there.
You know, I hate to say this, like, God forbid I get hit by a bus tomorrow, something like aneurysm.
Or they just say, you know what, we're moving to Fiji.
We've always wanted to live in Fiji, because I hear they've got drinks and coconuts there.
But for whatever reason, it's not something that's a factor in becoming a mother for you.
If you think about that, it's a very real thing.
Does that change anything for you?
That you could enjoy being a mother without having to set boundaries with dysfunctional parents?
Yeah, I mean, I think it's difficult for me to even try and imagine that.
You're mistheoretical!
I'm giving you a theoretical.
This should be your GPU processing blowout right here.
Yeah.
I would like to say yes, but I think I also have fears surrounding what my own issues, like how that may affect my children as well through all of this.
That's a single mom statement though.
Sorry?
That's a single mom statement though.
Because if you trusted your husband to intervene strongly, decisively, determinately, If there was something spilling over from you that was dysfunctional with regards to your parenting, if you truly trusted him to do that, then you wouldn't have much of a concern in the world about that.
Do you know what I mean?
Yeah, that's a good point.
But he hasn't done that so far with your parents.
Yeah.
And so you're concerned.
So this is just to him.
I hope he listens to it.
I'm happy to chat with him too, but it's like, This is the job of the male lion, right?
He's got the perimeter.
Yeah.
And if you trusted him to be your The eyes behind your head, so to speak.
If you trusted him to really evaluate, and you trusted him to intervene strongly, it doesn't mean aggressively, of course, it doesn't mean abusively, it doesn't mean... It just means like, no, no, no, listen, you were doing this thing, that's not ideal, here's what I'm gonna suggest, let me show you, or whatever it is.
And you do the same for him, right?
Because we all need that kind of feedback.
But it's like you're pedaling uphill, this bicycle meant for two, and you don't trust him, he's putting any Muscle into it, so to speak, right?
Because he's being supportive.
And being supportive is kind of being absent.
Because being supportive is just a way of saying, agree with me or else.
I'm not saying this is you, right?
But this idea that men have.
We've got to be supportive.
You've got to be supportive.
It's like, no you don't.
You've got to be honest.
You've got to be honest.
Look at the supportive thing.
I don't know what that even means.
Supportive just usually means agree or else, so if he sees you doing something that he thinks is not optimal and you trust him, then you can relax and enjoy it, right?
Right.
Oh, yeah, that's very interesting.
And yeah, all these thoughts of kind of like his growing up is coming to mind for me and Like you said, he's such a nice guy.
Yeah, nice guys are people who've, kids, male kids often who've had their assertiveness bullied out of them by very selfish people.
And they say niceness and they say support because assertiveness is unnerving, right?
But if you had that sense of security coming from a strong man who would watch your back, then you could really relax into motherhood.
Knowing that your environment was safe.
I mean, we know this from kids.
Kids play much better in a fenced-in area than they do in an open area.
They're happier, they get along better.
We need those limits.
We need that sense that somebody's watching our back.
And if somebody just says, well, I just want to be supportive, it's kind of like they're not there and things can go haywire pretty quickly.
Right.
And you want that, I think.
I think you want to feel.
That's why you said earlier it wouldn't bother me.
In fact, you seemed quite positive about the idea.
Right?
That he would just say, no, no, listen, I'm making this decision.
You can make decisions for me.
I'm making this decision.
Sorry.
You're too close to it.
You can't see it.
I got to guard the cave for the future offspring.
Right?
Yeah.
For sure.
Yeah.
When I think about the concept of him doing that with my family, I don't really feel any trepidation.
It just sounds Well, I mean, I'm kind of doing this, right?
I mean, I'm certainly being frank and honest and saying, you know, I like the Maya Angelou thing about just tell the truth.
Just tell the truth.
That's sort of what I've been all about.
And it's not You're not blowing up at me.
You're not, you know, calling me some nasty name.
I don't even get the sense that you're doing that inside your head rather than in the conversation.
So, you know, we can handle a lot more truth than we think we can as long as it comes out of a place of love and respect.
We can do, we can handle a huge amount of truth.
But this tiptoeing around stuff and I just want to be supportive and, you know, if he wants kids and you guys have been married for seven years, And the deal was you were going to have kids, then, you know, I would really question, like, where the hell has his gonads been for the last half decade?
You know, this is something that's like, oh, my wife doesn't want to have kids.
She did want to have kids.
She's ambivalent about it.
I mean, just sort of this step back and I'm sure it'll work out.
That's not being a partner.
That's not being present in the way that I would measure it.
You've got to wade in, roll up the sleeves, wade in and sort this shit out, right?
Yeah.
And it's fine.
You know, men have been so browbeaten into not being leaders in the family.
And again, women can be leaders in some areas, but there are some areas where men are better at being leaders.
And it's like this, you know, like, this is how it's going to be.
These are the standards.
And no, I got married to you because you wanted to have kids.
Marriage is about kids, fundamentally.
And so, You know, I love you, I want to stay with you for the rest of my life, but you can't change the deal at this level.
You know, you can't change the deal because the commitment was we're going to have kids.
Now, if we need to take six months, we need to take a year, we need to work it out, we need to figure out what the barrier is, that's fine.
But you don't get to rewrite it at this level because that's the deal, right?
You can't go buy a car, work out a price, then just throw a stick of gum at the guy and say I'm renegotiating as you scream off out of the parking lot, right?
I mean that's too much of a renegotiation, right?
You can tweak but you can't rewrite when it comes to the values that were the foundation of getting married, right?
So he needs to be a little bit less supportive and a little bit more honest.
And I think that will take a lot of the processing off you, and then you can relax into whatever's coming down the pipe.
Oh, that's an interesting way to put it.
But anyway, you understand what I'm saying.
Yeah, no, that's true.
I think I'm getting more and more... I don't want to use the word forceful, because I'm not really a forceful person.
Just trying to get him to be honest with where he's at when it comes to kids and almost trying to get him to overtly tell me he wants them and we need to have them.
But even if I say like, but you really want them, right?
Like, why are you okay with this?
He just, he waffles.
And I think he just wants to be supportive, quote, so bad that he doesn't want to rock the boat because he knows how much I struggle with this.
No, but you're struggling with it because he's so absent in this area, right?
Right?
I mean, if he was like, no, like we're having kids, that was the deal.
Like unless your womb has exploded out of your armpit sideways or you've become allergic to newborns, We're having kids now.
That's what I want.
I'm not going to force you to do anything like that and knock you up without your permission.
But no, I really, really, really want to have kids.
That was the deal.
That's what we got married for.
Or that's one of the foundational reasons.
Love you to death, but we're having kids.
And whatever we need to do to get you into that, I was going to say position you to that place where we have kids.
We're going to do it.
Now, you could, of course, say, I've completely changed my mind.
I don't want to have kids at all.
And then, like, I'm really sorry.
That was the deal.
And we got married.
None of this says that he can command you to have children.
Of course, right?
But wouldn't it be a huge relief to know exactly where he stood on this issue so that you had some sense of what to build towards?
Yeah, it would.
It's like if you've got two sides of a canyon and you're trying to build a bridge, you both build the bridge, you've got to meet in the middle.
I mean, it's an insane amount of work to try and build from one end all the way to the other, right?
You've got to both be bringing your preferences and your needs to the conversation.
If one person is not, then what happens is you keep building your bridge further and further out and it starts to get really unstable because it's way too much pressure on the base.
This is a big engineering analogy, so I'm sorry if it doesn't make any sense to people, but it does.
Like if you meet in the middle, you don't have to build that strong a base because then you rest in the middle and that's what holds your bridge up, right?
But if you just keep having to build and build because the other person is not building their side of the bridge, it starts to get really scary and You gotta overbuild and it gets really complicated and frustrating.
So yeah, you wanna know where he stands because you can't make this decision solo.
And you also wanna know where he stands so you can trust that he's gonna give you the objective feedback that's gonna keep you on the straight and narrow of good parenting, which we all need.
Yeah.
Women respond generally quite positively To men being lovingly unsupportive.
It's just one of these contradictions, you know, that's kind of strange.
But this supportive thing, which I'm not saying is coming from you, it's just always struck me as a nice way of the narcissist saying, agree with me or else.
And again, I'm not putting you in that category at all, but I would look at your husband's upbringing to see where that may have come from.
So what do you think?
Yeah, I agree.
I mean, even when it comes to the most basic Things like, what do you want to do this evening?
He very much wants to make me happy and just kind of suggest things he thinks that I would want.
And sometimes I'll really say, no, what do you want to do?
And he has a hard time just saying what he wants to do a lot of the time.
And I don't know if I'm sure there is stuff from early on in our marriage when I was more immature that I could have not helped that.
But yeah.
Yeah, that's kind of exhausting.
And it's frustrating because you want his desire.
I'm not just talking sexually, of course, right?
But you want his desires to be fully present.
Because if he doesn't seem to want anything, how do you know he really wants you?
I mean, this really can be very frustrating, right?
Yeah, definitely.
Yeah, well, he'll listen to this and he'll call me an asshole, which will be great.
And then he'll be less supportive, which will be great for you.
No, he's pretty open to growth.
Oh, it's all there for him.
It's all there for him.
Like that, right?
All there for him.
Yeah.
So, yeah.
Neither person should be in charge of the marriage, but everybody needs to be there negotiating for sure.
For sure.
All right.
So that's most of what it is that I wanted to say.
Is there anything else that you wanted to mention?
No, I don't think so.
Yeah, this was very helpful.
You brought a lot of perspective to things for me and just things that I haven't thought about even remotely, consciously at least.
So yeah, I feel I have a lot to process.
Are you good with math?
With math?
Yeah.
Um, no.
Alright, so what do we got here?
It's the 23rd of April, 2019.
So, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December.
So, I don't mind if it's not by Christmas, but shortly thereafter, if I could get, you know, this is one of the things that makes this show so Rewarding and enriching to do is all the baby pictures I get piling into my inbox so Assuming that you know, we've hit some useful stuff here and you can work things out Yeah, you've got so January.
I don't mind if you send a picture of the bump ahead of time I'm perfectly thrilled but that that is your mission should you choose to accept it?
Great, yeah.
Yeah, thanks very much for your time.
That's a good evasion.
Alright, well keep me posted and if there's anything I can do to help, you want me to chat with your husband or anything, I'm very happy to do so.
So, I really appreciate the conversation.
You did a great job in my opinion and I'm glad it was helpful.
And thank you so much as always.
Yeah, thank you very much.
Alright, take care.
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