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July 13, 2019 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:02:01
An Honest Conversation About Hypergamy
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I've listened to a few shows where Stefan talks about hypergamy and understand why it's part of our social fabric.
As a woman, I'm wondering if hypergamy is rationally or scientifically correlated to feelings of sexual desire and arousal.
Does a man with more money, education, and status elicit a stronger sexual desire from a woman that lasts past the initial lust phase?
That's from Sally.
It's a great question and like all great questions it has a yes and a no component to it but is there anything you wanted to add or maybe your own personal experience with these things?
Sure, well I'm open to adding a little bit about my personal experience if you're open to listening to that.
I am.
Alright, so I've noticed that I've been in a relationship with a man for the past two years and When I first entered the relationship, I wasn't looking to get married or have kids.
That wasn't my intention.
That wasn't even on my radar of anything that I wanted to do at the time.
So as the relationship progressed and as we were growing together and growing within ourselves, I developed much stronger feelings for this man.
He's someone that has qualities and virtues that I would look for in A husband because, you know, growing within myself and, you know, getting therapy, listening to your show and overcoming a lot of my own childhood traumas, you know, I want that in my life.
I want to have kids and raise them to be high quality functioning human beings.
And I want to add, you know, that value into the world and empower the world, not only myself, but, you know, through the next generation.
So, so So I love the person that I'm with, like I said.
But on the other hand, he has financial struggles and I find that when he's not doing so well financially, I don't feel as sexually charged and attracted to him.
It's really difficult for me to get that part of myself connected with him when he's going through financial Difficulty, so that's why I asked the question.
I was wondering if it has to do with biology or does it have to do with an aspect of my character?
Yeah, I mean obviously if he's having financial difficulties and not doing a lot of sit-ups, that's a bad combo.
That's a bad combo, but that's very interesting.
Do you mind if I go out on a limb and make a guess or two?
Go ahead.
Sally, Sally, Sally, when you were younger, even younger, I must say that, it's only fair.
So when you were younger and you weren't interested in kids, family and all that, did you go for the pretty boys, the bad boys?
What was your standard for choosing to date or sleep with a man when you were younger?
Okay, so I went for men who were either highly attractive or men who were highly successful and older.
Huh.
Interesting.
So you went for the Hardys or the Sugar Daddies, to put it bluntly.
Right.
And that's because I wasn't interested in having a full-blown relationship with them.
I was non-committal.
I, you know, it was very casual.
And as far as attractiveness goes, and I don't need to give you the speech about false modesty, but on a 1 to 10, when you were in this dating phase, I'm sure it's the same now, but how would you have rated yourself or how do you think other people would have rated you in terms of physical attractiveness?
I would say an 8.
An 8, alright.
Now the older men who were in your dating circle, were they interested in settling down with you or was it mostly, as you say, kind of casual?
Yeah, there was a couple that were, but I wasn't interested in the same thing.
Right.
So they would have married you.
Do you think that they wanted to have kids with you?
I don't know if they wanted to have kids with me, per se, because the conversation didn't get that far.
And I will also add that I've never lived with a man.
I haven't been in a relationship and lived with someone.
Right, okay.
Now, did they spend lots of money on you?
Some did and some didn't.
So, that wasn't really my criteria for being with them, although I will say that I thoroughly enjoyed when they did.
So, when you say some did and some didn't, do you mean of the wealthier, older men?
Some did and some didn't?
Or do you mean the young, layabout hotties?
Exactly.
So, if the man was older, And by older I mean maybe 15 years older than me.
I wouldn't date someone that much older unless they had a very established career.
I'm just enjoying the phrase where I'm talking to someone young enough that plus 15 is still way younger than me.
I'm just enjoying that little time wrinkle.
I'm just turning my good ear so I can hear the rest of what you're saying.
Okay, so you've got a 15-year window and the older guys who had resources, some of them would spend money on you and you felt cherished or attractive or positive when they did, right?
Right.
I felt validated.
They were paying attention to me, right?
No, they were spending money on you.
Yeah, they were spending money on me.
Lots of people can pay attention to you, but it doesn't give you that special thrill.
Right, but you know... It's nothing, I'm not criticizing, I'm just sort of pointing it out.
Right, but also in hindsight, I also felt like I owed them sexual favors because who I was wasn't enough, and so there would be that pressure for an exchange as well.
Right.
Right.
I'm sorry, I'm going to have to disagree with you on one thing.
Okay.
I saw the profile pic.
Yeah, it's a nine.
Easy.
Okay.
Easy nine.
Easy nine.
All right.
Okay, so they would buy you stuff and you would feel... Would you feel sort of like that made you sort of sexually attracted to them?
Or did you feel like, well, they bought me stuff, so I owe them sexual favors?
It was a little bit of both, I would think.
Okay.
And what then happened with these older men?
Did they expire?
Sorry, I shouldn't say that.
I'm the wrong age group for that.
But did they just sort of wind down or did they want more and you didn't want to provide more or what happened?
You know, the last person that I was with that was significantly older than me, I was with him for about nine months and I wanted more of a connection with him, but he was not in the place to provide emotional connection.
He was highly stressed in his life.
He drank almost every day.
He smoked weed every night and So I wanted something more for myself.
He was someone that I did really enjoy.
He had an open mind, but that was around the age mid-20s when I started shifting towards wanting something more profound for myself.
So this guy had lots of money and he's just like a 40-year-old weedy?
Yeah, pretty much.
All right.
Did he inherit the money?
No, no.
Did he get it selling weed?
No, it doesn't matter.
No, I don't know how he functioned in his daily life, but somehow he did.
Well, he is 15 years older, but at least his mouth tastes like ashes.
Yeah, yeah.
So, so, you know, if you're on top and you have the urge to give like CPR, it's usually not a good, good combo.
But anyway, the phrase I used with another woman was straddling a Nazgul, but she was much older than you.
Okay, so that sort of wound down.
He's funny, funny that he does a lot of drugs and is emotionally unavailable.
Right, right.
Exactly.
So, I'm with someone now who's completely different and in many ways what I want in a lifelong partner.
However, he's been experiencing financial struggles for the past couple of years and And so I find that... Oh no, is he a drummer?
No, he's a small business owner.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, and that's tough.
In the Obama administration, it's tough to maintain that, right?
Well, actually, we live in Canada.
Well, you know, when America gets a cold, Canada sneezes, right?
So if he's got any cross-border stuff, but all right.
So, I don't want to get into too much detail about his business, but is it kind of like he's waiting for a turnaround or he's hovering or he's not sure whether to continue or what?
Well, sometimes he gets these bursts where he has more customers and he'll sustain that for maybe a couple of months and then business dries up and it's only him.
He doesn't have any other employers working for him, so it's more like he's been trying to get this business Off the ground for the past couple of years and hasn't really found enough traction.
Boy, that's a lot of passive phrasing.
Okay.
No, I'm sorry.
I mean, it's a lot of passive phrasing.
I mean, you know, it comes, it goes, he's just unable to get traction and so on.
I mean, I don't mean to be annoying entrepreneurial guy and maybe he's done all of this.
But you just go out and you get the business like you just you do whatever it takes you walk through brick walls if you have to you advertise you go door-to-door you cold call like you just because you know people think that business is about selling stuff no business is about finding people to sell to that's all it's about I mean if you can sell to one person you can sell to more than one person and you know the amount of work that that Mike and I well me first and then with Mike and I the amount of work that we do to
Try and figure out how to get new listeners.
I mean, we've grown almost 400% since last year just in terms of YouTube views.
That's not just an accident.
Mike Cernovich talks a lot about this.
You've got to be good at marketing.
You've got to be good at getting customers.
Having stuff to sell to them doesn't matter.
You can be the most beautiful singer-songwriter in the world.
If you can't get asses in the seats, it doesn't mean a damn thing.
And so, I don't know if he is doing this kind of stuff, but a lot of people don't like the process of asking people to consume their goods, right?
And you've got to embrace the no.
In order to succeed in this world, you have to embrace the no.
I mean, I got this way back when I was an actor.
It doesn't matter how good you are, you go on a lot of auditions and you mostly get no's.
And same thing, you know, how many Women, did I ask out and date before I found the woman of my dreams?
Well, a lot.
And that's sort of how it rolls.
So, you know, this is just sort of, well, the business is like the rain.
Sometimes it raineth.
Sometimes it does not raineth.
And sadly, there's no medicine dance I can do to make it rain.
And, you know, as far as entrepreneurial stuff goes, if you're going to take that route, you know, if you're not going to be a cog in a machine where other people do the uncomfortable cold calling business generation stuff, he's just, forget about The product, forget about the sales.
You just, you simply have to go out and stuff the pipe with people who are willing to buy from you.
And that means a lot of hustling and a lot of just getting used to people saying, no, listen, every, every show, uh, I, I ask for donations at freedomainradio.com slash donate.
And, um, you know, sometimes like with, uh, um, the show I did with Bill Whittle, uh, recently, um, we talked quite a bit about the business side of, of what it is that I'm doing.
And it's still a small number of people who donate.
So the vast majority of people I ask to donate say... in my general direction.
And that's...
The reality, you know, for a long time I would try and get people on the show and they'd be like, yeah, you know, maybe whatever.
Right now it's, you know, we can pretty much get whoever we want, but that's because I was willing to take a lot of rejection and people not being interested in my tiny little podcast and so on.
So, um, I just don't want to get dragged off on that, but just, you know, you might want to have them listen to this and, uh, the, the way to solve this kind of sputtering half go and half not going business is just say the only thing I'm going to do for the next three months
is try and get business now if you work three months night and day to try and get business and you can't get business then you know that there's probably nothing you can really do and you're gonna have to figure out whether to close up shop or live with this sputtering half business or not but you just have to give it your all to go and get talk to new people about what you can do for them get them involved in what you're doing and in three months you'll know Whether or not your business can succeed or not.
Because if you put that kind of focus in and if you can't do it, maybe you can hire someone to do it.
I don't know, right?
If you're uncomfortable or hate it or whatever, generally you just got to grit your teeth and do it anyway.
But, um, uh, you know, you'll never get like a hundred percent of the business you never asked for, you will not get.
And you just have to commit to, to spending a huge, like early on in the business.
I spent far more time, I spent far more time generating listeners than making shows.
Far more time generating listenership than actually making shows or writing books.
And that's just because I have an entrepreneurial history.
I know that it's all about getting the business.
Once you have a product that someone will buy, all you have to do is just get it around to lots of people and see how many will buy.
But that's how Your guy is going to get closure and I'm saying this to you because you're tied into his financial fortunes especially if you've got two years invested in the relationship and hopefully you listen to the show and you want to you know strap on the lady feed bags for your kids and stay home with them for a while and all that you're going to need some financial stability.
He's got to grit his teeth, wake up every morning and say the only thing I'm doing today is trying to generate business and you'll know very quickly whether you have control over that or not and if you don't then The business is never going to succeed in any substantial or sustainable way.
And if you do find that you can do it, then you can start to hire people and get the breakthrough and all that.
But it is just about go out, pound the pavement, knock on the doors, get the business.
And that way you'll figure out whether it's going to work or not.
And that's why I was sort of just pointing out this very passive, you know, sometimes the tide comes in, sometimes the tide goes out.
It's like, no, you got to go get behind that tide and push and pull.
Right, yeah.
And it's a really huge frustration and strain on our relationship, the fact that this happens.
I'm turning 29 in less than a month and I'm getting older and I would like to have kids and I'd love to be able to stay home with them, even if I'm able to have a business from home at some point and work a few hours doing that.
But I've watched your parenting shows and And they've really changed my life and changed my perception on how I would raise a child and the quality of mom that I want to be.
So I do want to thank you for that.
But yeah, this financial thing is a huge frustration.
I'm trying to help you with that too.
I'm trying to help you with that too.
So yeah, have him listen to that.
Well, have him listen to the whole thing, but definitely have him listen to that part.
Okay.
And if he wants to call in and talk about it, you know, I mean, this is my, I don't know how many of this successful business.
If he wants to call in and talk about it, I'm happy to do that.
But he's got to dig in and figure out if it's going to work.
This half stuff is the worst.
You know, you get no money and get out.
You get a lot of money, stay in.
The plane that never takes off and never crashes is like neither a plane nor a car nor anything.
It's just stressful.
So I just wanted to mention that.
All right.
So your question.
around.
Have you have you watched the Gene Wars stuff at all?
The R versus K stuff?
Yes.
Okay, good.
Well, so I'm gonna just I mentioned this a lot of people gotta go watch the Gene Wars stuff.
It's just part of a vocabulary and you need to get up to speed if you haven't.
It's the Gene Wars set of presentations.
So all right, here we go.
Is hypergamy rationally correlated with feelings of sexual desire and arousal?
Well, hypergamy I would divide into two categories and it depends on the R versus K nature of the relationship.
And this is why I was asking you, Sally, about your prior relationships, because your prior relationships were more R-selected.
Yes.
Right?
I mean, in that it was status, it was vanity, it was fun, it was short term, it was resource transfers, but it wasn't around settling down and having kids, right?
Exactly.
Right.
So for you, hypergamy there was either pretty guys or guys who can spend money on you.
Yes.
Okay.
I know we're simplifying and I don't mean to put it just for the sake of for me once in my godforsaken existence being concise.
So your hypergamy there was around status and resources but not around long-term fundamental moral values.
Right.
Now when you switch and that's our selected, right?
I mean the rabbit doesn't care.
if the other rabbit is going to stick around for a long time and help raise the kids, because that's not what it's about.
It's about just cranking out kids and cranking out kids and like a day after a female rabbit gives birth, if you stroke their lower back, they raise their butt.
It's like one day, come on people, let's get it back on.
We got some bunnies to make.
We got some crows to feed.
And so, um, so yeah, they are selected is, uh, the hypergamy is mere physical fitness.
mere physical fitness.
It is not much to do with long term stable in depth values and ethics and commitment and all that.
It's just physical, right?
And this is why we live in sort of sexually it's just I think it's switching back.
I just did a podcast about this today.
So the 70s and our selection or whatever.
But it's kind of swinging back to K selection now because everyone recognizes Oh, yes, the meme is true.
Winter is coming.
But people are switching back from R to K at the moment.
But when things were purely are selected, it was just all about physical attractiveness, which is why, you know, 20% of the guys were getting 80% of the women because they were all just flocking around the pretty boys and the high status boys and the, you know, snarly contemptuous, you know, mirrored sunglasses kind of guys.
This is probably really dating me as far as what's physically attractive.
The Burt Reynolds mustache guy.
There was this r-selected stuff going on from the 70s through the noughties like the 2000s and now it's starting to switch back for not to get into why but so when you were younger it was you know looks and resources but nothing to do with long-term stable values.
Now hypergamy for you now is different than it was before right so hypergamy for you now is to have a guy roughly your same age who's going to have resources.
So before the guy could be your same age if he was pretty he didn't have to have resources.
If you had resources you'd accept him being older than you because a man can buy his way into youth in the same way that a woman can breast augment herself into wealth but actually I think those are gross but that's neither here nor there.
So now you're looking for a guy who's contemporaneous with you who's going to have the energy and youth to help you raise the kids but he's got to have resources as well.
So a man with more money, education, and status elicit a stronger sexual desire from a woman that lasts past the initial lust phase.
So the initial lust phase, that's the R selection.
Right.
Now the K selection is the longer term, you know, stable, romantic, sexual, marital, uh, parental relationship.
And, uh, you know, everybody knows that, that when you have kids, your sex life is going to diminish, obviously.
Right.
Uh, for a, for a time at least.
And so if you're just focusing on lust, Then having kids, you know, when people focus on lust, the whole purpose of that, I think, and this is the rSelective thing as a whole, people focus on lust, it's chemistry.
Now chemistry is some external physical marker of fitness that has nothing to do with long-term parental qualities or whatever.
He's hot, he's tall, he's dark, he's handsome, even features or he's got money, which means he's got some brains or whatever.
So the initial lust phase is designed to have you collide, make babies, and then because you're not having sex anymore and you're a lust based life form, you move on to someone new.
And that's the rabbit thing, right?
That's the oyster thing, right?
You just have a bunch of babies and move on to someone new, move on to someone new because you're focused on lust and lust.
Once you have kids, um, You can't satisfy your lust anymore, so you move on to someone new, right?
But once you have a mature case-selected relationship, then it is the values of the person and the love and the intimacy and the connection and so on that keeps you bonded together for the sake of investing in the kids and doing all that case-selected long-term stuff that goes on.
So, does a man with more money, education, and status have a stronger sexual desire that lasts past the initial lust phase?
Yes, it certainly does and that is the basis of pair bonding, case-selected, you know, swans that mate for life kind of situation.
But it's not going to happen with you, I'm guessing, biologically in a sustainable way until your man gets his and your finances sorted out.
Does that make sense?
Right.
And why would that be?
Like why would it be attached to the finances so much?
Like why can't I just You know, still have that attraction and desire regardless of the financial situation.
Because you're growing up.
Because you've done, you've listened to this show, you mentioned you've done therapy, Sally, you're growing up.
Which means, see, when you grow up, and I'm sorry if this sounds condescending, I don't mean it to be, but when you grow up you recognize that your sexual organs are not just recreational fun stuff.
You know that you can milk for orgasms and all that just for your own particular pleasures, right?
I mean and there's nothing, sex is great and wonderful and all of that but we all know sex is about having kids.
But the only reason we have orgasms is so that we can make kids and the only reason that we have sexual desire is so that we can make kids.
And so your sexual desire is now focused on children.
That sounds really bad.
Let me rephrase that.
Not towards children.
No, no, no.
The purpose of your sexuality now is to provide a stable nested environment for your future children, right?
Does that make sense?
Yes.
And so what is your sexual desire focused on?
Your sexual desire is focused on the value of a man Who is going to be able to provide you the resources that you need in order to be able to stay home and be a good case selected mom to your kids.
Right.
Right.
So you're attracted to the guy because he's got a lot of great qualities.
He'd be a good dad, but your, um, the ignition and true connection of your sexual contact with this guy, my guess, would not really sort of take root and really bond you guys together until there's more financial stability.
That doesn't mean that always has to be financial stability.
That doesn't mean that things can't change over time.
You know, everybody has their ups and downs, you know, like that old song says, we're in the money sometimes we're not in the money sometimes and hopefully it's not that random.
But your sexual desire is focused on the environment that will be the most productive for case selected high investment for children.
He'll provide that emotionally, but can he provide that financially in a reliable way, at least for now?
Until that question is answered, I think it's going to be sputtering along in the same way that his business is not crashing or taking off.
Your sexual desire is neither crashing nor taking off.
Does that make sense?
Right.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
It really feels like my lady parts are just locking me down.
Yeah, not engaging.
Well, they kind of are and kind of like if you were completely turned off by this guy, right?
No.
Like, in other words, if this guy's business completely, I'm not saying the two are the same, if his business completely failed, he'd, okay, crash it and try something new, right?
But this guy's business is kind of sputtering along, which means that your sexual desire, because it's focused on the environment, future environment for your K selected kids, It's kind of sputtering along, too, and that's really tough, which is why, you know, he needs to go and make some cheddar, right?
He needs to go and get some reliable income for you guys.
Right.
And because you're in your late 20s, right, you have a challenge, right?
Which is, do you continue to invest or do you not, right?
And that's, you know, that's I think where you're saying there's potential, there's significant potential, but there are questions that need to be answered.
And that's the same thing with his business.
There's potential, there's significant potential, but there are questions that need to be answered around the stability of the income stream.
Yes.
And that's case-selected stuff, right?
I mean, are we going to have a stable source of revenue for when the kids are young?
Because if you don't, that is a challenge for the enjoyment of having kids, right?
Right.
And you know, also, he's divorced and has kids already.
So yeah.
Oh, I like this.
I always love it when people have the pattern of like, hey, you know, there's really, really important information.
I'm really not going to mention it till I don't know, at least 45 minutes into the conversation.
So you can theorize about a whole bunch of stuff while missing essential information that's really important.
Anyway, go right.
Yeah.
So, um, so he, he is divorced and he already has five kids.
And so I'm sorry, what?
Yes, he has five kids.
And, uh, yes.
And so, so he's fertile.
Yeah.
So he, he can do it.
But, uh, you know, but on top of whatever we may create together, he has to also be able to support them as well.
And he's having a hard time doing that right now.
So it's like, okay.
Sally, Sally, Sally, Sally.
Oh my God.
Would you be my girl?
Would you?
No, I'm just kidding.
That's his song.
Anyway.
So, um, Sally, Sally, Sally.
Do you really think that the challenge of you gaining resources for your children has to do with the uncertainty of his business or the fact that he basically has an entire robin's nest of squawking bird beaks that he needs to continually stuff worms into?
Yeah, I would say all of it.
Which do you think would be a slightly higher priority?
His kids, for sure.
Yeah, I would say so.
So why didn't you tell me that at the beginning?
I'm curious.
Because I know he's going to be listening to this and, um... I know why.
Why?
But maybe you don't.
Because that's not a solvable problem.
Right.
That's, yeah.
Now, let me ask you something else.
Oh, Sally, my dear.
Now imagine, because you know, I'm a gender equity, I mean gender equality, right?
Gender equalist?
No, that's not even a word.
Okay.
So if you were a man, and your esteemed boyfriend was a divorced single mom with five kids, what do you think I'd be saying?
Run.
Or just don't do it.
If you want to have kids, you know, it would be, I assume, somewhat less complicated if you had a man around who didn't already have five children.
Yeah.
And, you know, when he's not, I mean, does he have, does he have some level of custody?
I hope so.
No.
So he, he can only see them once a month, supervised for a couple of hours.
I'm sorry, I have to go full Beluga on you.
Okay.
He said, putting on his crash helmet of inquiry.
Sally, why can he only see his children a few hours a month in supervised visits?
So, yeah, his family doesn't want him around because he had financial difficulties in the relationship and in the marriage.
And his family is also very, very Christian.
And he left the church and his ex-wife hasn't talked to him in Over two years since she left him.
I'm no expert, but you can't, you can't bar a father from seeing his children because he's not going to the same church.
Right.
But see, they went through court and he couldn't afford a lawyer.
And so that's what the judge basically granted for him is, is two hours a month visitation.
Supervised.
I assume he's paying some child support.
Yes, yes he is.
Right.
Right.
How pretty is this guy?
I'd say he's a six.
Okay.
What?!
You're a nine, he's a six, with five kids, supervised visits, massive amounts of child support, and an unstable business.
Yes.
What?! !
Yeah, so what?
I say again.
Okay, you know what's coming next.
You realize you're driving men completely insane and not in a good way.
Bye.
Because there are guys like I say, oh, she's a nine.
Are you smart?
Yes, you are.
Are you articulate?
Yes, you are.
Are you into self knowledge?
You should you certainly are.
Are you interested in philosophy?
Yes.
Are you not just a tiny little bit of a catch?
Sally!
Just a little bit.
Yes.
Okay!
Hang on.
I am attempting to zen.
I am working on the zen.
It's failed.
Forget it.
I'm just moving past the zen.
I'm afraid I broke the zen.
The call is breaking me.
Okay.
So you have options in the dating world!
You're in your 20s, you're highly attractive, highly intelligent, pursuit of self-knowledge, philosophy, therapy, the whole lot!
So... Can you not do... I don't want to say better, maybe this guy's a great guy or whatever, but can you not do someone more in line with what you want?
I'm sure I could.
This relationship is the first one where I've loved someone.
So I have a tough time thinking about being with someone else because this is the first time I've felt connection where I've been able to just be myself and be accepted and loved for it and vice versa.
Yeah, well, the L word is obviously a bit of a challenge.
But love is, love is like vagina.
Right?
I mean, love, romantic love is for kids, right?
Yep.
And do your kids want a man who, is he about your age-ish?
He is seven years older.
Seven years older.
Okay.
Do your future kids want a guy who's already got five kids?
No.
Okay.
Do your future kids want a guy who's financially unstable and stressed a lot?
No.
The love is about your future kids.
It's not about just you feeling accepted.
I mean, I hate to put it this bluntly, but the love is what creates the nest for your future children to grow in.
The fact that you feel accepted and loved, it's great!
But it's your future kids, I think, who get the deciding vote in this situation.
Right.
You know, choose your husband, choose your wife, choose the father or mother of your children like your future kids get the deciding vote.
Because they're the ones who are going to have to live with it in an involuntary way.
Is it going to be fun for your future kids to have five half siblings that they really won't get a chance to get to know?
No, that would be terrible.
And, you know, that's something that I need to put at the forefront of my mind that I haven't been in.
And I mean, it is a self centered desire to, to Stay in this relationship.
I hear typing.
It's a little distracting.
Just telling you.
Oh, that wasn't me.
Okay.
It may be from someone.
I assume it wasn't you.
I assume that I can hold your attention when your romantic life hits the balance.
Okay.
I just got to respond to something on Snapchat or it's like, no, no, no.
I'm listening to you, Steph.
I'm right now setting up a Tinder account.
No, that's not what I, right.
Okay.
Okay.
And listen, I hate to, you know, talk about this stuff, because you know, you love the guy, maybe he's a great guy, maybe you can work it out.
I don't know.
But I mean, just as far as perspective goes, there's a reason you didn't tell me.
Right?
And of course, you knew at the very beginning of this, that he had five kids.
Yep.
Five kids that he couldn't see.
Yeah.
And I've never met them.
No, of course you haven't.
Of course you haven't.
And you may never.
You may never know.
You know, to be fair, at the beginning of all of this, you weren't that interested in kids, right?
Right.
And yeah, when I got together with him, I wasn't.
But man, this guy's got like a, a giant lead albatross of infinite heartbreak that he's got five kids he can barely see.
Yeah.
And that's really hard on him too.
I'm sorry?
I said, uh, that's, that's really hard on him too.
To not be able to see them as much as he wants to and to be the father that he wants to be in their life and be the influence he wants to be.
So that adds, you know, additional emotional stress.
So you've got a great way to find another guy who's not quite as emotionally available as he could be, but at least it's not weed.
Right.
All right.
So the next natural question, Sally, is who in your past taught you to manage emotional unavailability?
Well, I would say both of my parents.
My parents had me before they were married and my mom felt forced, she tells me this, she felt forced into marriage to my dad because she said she was highly dysfunctional and didn't have enough money and whatnot.
So she married him and they divorced when I was two and a half.
And she had a marriage before that and a marriage after that.
So she's been divorced in total of three times.
And then my dad has been divorced twice and I am an only child.
And what was your relationship like with your biological father after your parents divorced?
So it was very estranged.
My mom, you don't mind if I'm totally open and honest do you?
I would mind if you weren't.
So my mom, it was a very very difficult court battle.
My mom took him to court because she believed that he molested me and so he saw me, you know, had visitation with me for short periods of time and it was supervised for a while.
And then I didn't remember any of this.
In fact, I don't remember much of my childhood before the age of seven.
I really don't remember much.
So I don't remember all of this happening, but yeah, She told me at age eight what had happened, and I was at the time staying at his house, you know, for the weekends, full-time, and so that was very confusing.
But, you know, because of that process, my dad was, and still is, emotionally shut down.
So there's no, like, warmth.
There's really not a lot of love or emotional connection or
empathy or you know important conversation that happens between us and my relationship with my mom is I hide a lot of my my sadness and and I hide how I feel from her you know when I when I feel emotional like this it's it's it's harder to articulate
Everything.
But I remember growing up and she would tell me not to be sensitive.
She would want me to toughen up.
She would teach me that I can't rely on anyone but myself.
And I didn't have a Very good perspective of men.
When I was dating and younger and having the casual relationships, I thought that all men wanted me for was for sex and that they didn't really want to get to know me, nor could they because I had no clue who I was and I wasn't emotionally open and connected either, which is why I chose relationships with men who were not Authentic and connected with who they are.
So, yeah, and I also grew up, I moved around a lot. and I also grew up, I moved around a lot.
I moved around to about 15 different houses by the time I graduated high school.
And...
I was very alone a lot.
Like I said, I don't have siblings.
I moved around from school to school a lot.
I was bullied and picked on quite a bit.
As time went on, I closed myself off more and more to people.
It was to the point where in high school, I wasn't connecting with kids.
I wasn't going to parties or anything.
I didn't really have lots of friends.
I was very much alone, very lonely when I was growing up.
And so, you know, to have connection, authentic connection with someone, it's like something that I've never had and it's something that I really cherish and treasure.
And that's, it's despite everything else that's going on in my partner's life.
I think that it's the connection and the emotional honesty that I was like craving for my whole life that I wasn't able to get from parents or family, which I don't have family around me either, that I have in this relationship.
and that's why I'm with this man.
Right.
That may be one of the reasons why you're with him, but... But there's another parallel which I'm sure hasn't escaped you, right?
Between your boyfriend and your father.
What's that?
Well, your father was only able to see you during supervised visits And this man is only able to see his children with supervised visits, right?
Right.
That's not, well, that is a parallel, but that's not really something that I pieced together as recreating a past pattern, but it could be.
Do you have, and I'm sorry to ask, you don't have to answer anything, of course, Allie, but do you have any opinions about whether the Molestation allegations are true or not?
And I say this not because I wish to disbelieve anybody.
It's just that in the research conversations I've had with experts with regards to divorce, sexual allegations in divorce are so common that they have their own acronym.
Right.
And so I'm just wondering if you had any thoughts about that?
Right.
I highly doubt that they're true.
So my dad went through a lie detector test.
at the time, and it came back false.
I can recall my dad, he's scared to touch me to this day.
He's scared to give me a deep, loving hug.
He's scared to give me a deep, loving hug, and he's hardly touched me at all growing up, and in a fatherly way.
Yeah.
And I did talk to him a couple of years ago about this, and he said that he didn't do And he told me about what the experience was like for him and how hard it was on him.
And, and, uh, yeah, he, so I don't think he did it at all.
But that would mean that your mother, if that's true, I mean, and we don't, I mean, if this is your opinion, then would it not also follow that if that's true, then your mother falsely accused him?
Yes.
That's right.
And what do you think of that?
I think it's horrible.
And, um, I've, I've been working on, I've, I've actually, you know, brought it up with her and she'll either say, um, I don't want to talk about it.
It's in the past or, um, you know, she, she really stands her ground.
That she believed he did it, and she'll say that she was just trying to protect me because she was molested when she was younger and so she wanted to do her best to keep me safe.
I am so sorry about all this.
I'm so sorry about all this.
It's heartbreaking.
And I'm sorry that you had the distance from your father, lack of physical affection with your father, which of course I can completely understand given the allegation.
I'm just, I'm incredibly sorry about all of this.
And I'm certainly incredibly sorry that your mother told you stuff when you were a child that it does not seem to me parents should be chatting about with their kids.
Right.
I mean, that's not the most age-appropriate things that I can think of, at least.
I would assume your boyfriend knows this stuff as a whole as well, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And how's therapy going?
It's going well.
I stopped doing it a couple of months ago because I'm not working right now.
I'm currently looking for work, so when I find something again, I'm going to start up again.
But it was very insightful into certain patterns that I had growing up and being able to connect with my emotions again and process a lot of anger and Despair, which I was stuffing down quite a bit and, and, um, you know, ignoring and hiding through serial dating and R-selected behavior and drinking and partying and everything.
So, um, to reconnect with that part of myself again and, and, uh, process it and journal and, and, you know, work on healing that has been really integral.
And so that's, that's a big reason too, why.
I'd like a different type of life with a family that I create for myself in a healthy way.
Right.
Do you know if your boyfriend wants to have more kids?
He said that he would like more.
Like he's open to having more.
Right.
Right.
Yeah, I mean, that's a lot to have on your plate.
That's a lot of history to have on your plate.
And I hugely commend you, Sally, for focusing on the therapy and the journaling and the sort of trying to understand all of the stuff that went down.
And it's admirable that you're taking on that work because I think that is the best way to deal with these issues.
And so I obviously hope that you'll continue on with therapy as you As you get work again, that's going to continue to be part of your process moving forward.
Yeah, I will, Steph.
Thank you.
Right.
Well, you know, as you know, I have a standing policy that I've only ever exempted myself from once, which I don't tell people what to do because it would be completely valueless as a whole.
And of course, the whole point of Self-knowledge is self-ownership and so on.
But where there remains doubt after two years, and it sounds to me like you've got doubt at some different levels in terms of sexual desire and other things, that's a challenge, right?
Two years should be enough to know whether you want to stay together or not.
And that is a challenge.
If you had a job and two years you're like, I don't know if I should stay or if I should go or if it's going to work out long run and so on.
In a way that's a complicated place to be and in a way it's not, if that makes any sense.
Right.
And you know the parallels between your boyfriend and your father are, I would imagine more than entirely coincidental, which, you know, doesn't mean that that's necessarily the worst thing in the world.
It's just, it's important to be aware of those parallels, right?
Yeah.
And, um, if he could solve his financial issues, if he could sort of get his business to, to sort of take off, what do you think your thoughts and feelings would be regarding the relationship?
I definitely would feel like I can see more of a concrete future with him.
I'd feel more hopeful in the relationship, more optimistic, more open to fully humble.
Fully, 100% commit myself to it because it's, as it is and as it has been, it's been difficult to be 100%, well to feel 100% committed because of that lack of instability.
Or that lack of stability.
The lack of stability.
And does he know all of this?
Yes.
What's going on in your heart, mind and loins?
Right.
And what is his solution, since you've talked about this as a big stumbling block for you, what is his solution to it?
Well, I mean that he's working on it and he's working on his business and it's, you know, going to get going and up and running and I mean he doesn't have a solution when it comes to his kids and seeing them more and
I mean, there's so much that needs to be, uh, so many other big problems that need to be solved before, um, you know, we could get, come together in a, in a serious way, you know, live together and commit a life to each other.
And, um, it's not really like a concrete step by step solution.
Right.
So I'll tell you my particular approach to these kinds of complex problems and I don't have any perfect solutions and I'm certainly not trying to suggest you do anything in particular but I'll just tell you sort of my approach.
You are young still, you know, you don't have a lot of time to make a decision on this.
It's not like you're 21, right?
So this is probably one of the reasons why you're calling, right?
You have A big investment in this relationship, two years of a big fertility window is a big investment.
But you know, you can look up the fallacy of sunk costs and all of that and so on, right?
I mean, just because you spent 20 minutes waiting for a bus doesn't mean you should spend two hours waiting for a bus.
Maybe there's no bus running that day.
But the longer you wait, the harder it is to leave, right?
So, you know, to use the bus analogy, If you wait for 10 minutes for the bus and then you decide to walk, it's not that, but you go walk, right?
If you've waited for two hours for a bus, it's really tough to walk.
Right.
Right.
Because of that investment.
So, you know, you, you, you love the man as you say, and yet you can't commit.
And you have examples from your parents of marriages that didn't work out and that's all very tough.
But, um, for me, I sort of say to myself, I'm going to give myself X.
I'm going to give myself a month or I'm going to give myself two months.
And I've had this with things, big projects that I take on, right?
This conversation, this show as a whole is one of them.
I'm going to give myself six months and I'm going to give everything I've got as if it's the only six months I'm ever going to have.
I'm going to give everything I've got for six months or three months or a month or whatever it is, whatever your timeframe is.
And given that you're not 21, you know, six months might be a bit lengthy, but whatever, right?
I'm going to work like hell to try and solve the problems that are occurring and I'm going to expect my partner to do the same and I'm going to lay out here are all the issues that need to be resolved for me to settle down with you.
I'm going to give myself X weeks or whatever it is going to be.
And then you just have to have the discipline to say if the problems are not solved within X amount of time frame, I have to make a decision.
Yep.
Because as you know, it's easy to bump along.
You know, there are things that are interesting every day, and then a new season of some show comes out, and then somebody is not well, and then whatever, right?
The toilet needs to be fixed or whatever.
There's things that bump you along that keep your nose right down there, right?
There's an old Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser story called the Curse of the Smalls and the Stars, and the Curse of the Smalls is a guy who's focused on every tiny little thing, and the Curse of the Stars is he's only interested in the largest, most windy abstractions, right?
It is easy to bump along with the day by day.
I've done it myself and everyone has, I think, for the most part in life.
You bump along with the day by day.
And it is tiny time slice, tiny time slice.
And it's sort of like if you, if you ever had this where you, you just, you eating a snack of something or other, you have a bowl or whatever, right?
You're watching something or, you know what I mean?
And, and do you look down?
It's like, did I eat all that?
The bowl is empty and that's how life can be, right?
You can eat these little days.
You've got a bowl of years.
You eat these little days.
You look down and the bowl is like mostly empty.
It's like, did I eat all those days?
I don't even remember them.
And That's with your eggs, right?
Your eggs are calling me, right?
Your eggs are crying out, right?
Because you've got 365 times two days invested in this relationship and you haven't reached a resolution.
And you have to set yourself or listen to say, I myself in your situation would set myself.
I mean, you can either try something like, okay, let's take a little bit of time apart and see how we feel.
If that's not something you feel comfortable with, then you can say, okay, I've got X number of weeks.
We got to find some way to move this stuff forward.
We're not kids anymore and I need to make a decision.
And if it's not going to be you, then it's going to have to be someone else.
And the longer you're in, the tougher it, the longer it takes to get out, right?
Because I mean, if you date someone once and then you'd never see them again, it doesn't take a lot to get over that.
But if you're with someone for years, then it can take a while to disconnect.
And then you have to be emotionally available to someone else and you got to figure out how to choose better.
And like, it's a, big process and that may push you into your mid-30s which is a very dicey time to start trying to have kids and so especially you know it'd be kind of nice if you raised as an only kid didn't necessarily end up at the closing of the fertility window so that you gave birth to only one child that would be you know maybe a bit of a repetition that wouldn't be great.
It's a possibility.
So that kind of strictness for me is sort of what's helpful and it can actually change.
Like if you bump along, things can get pretty bad.
But if you kind of say, okay, I've got a deadline and I'm going to work really hard to resolve these issues.
Like I said, with the business, your boyfriend's business, go out and try and get the business, try and drum up the business and then you'll find out if it's going to work or not.
But this bumping along day by day is how lives fall apart, how people miss the boat, how they end up not making decisions and having their life happen to them, which no matter what happens to you, if life happens to you rather than you making life happen, if life happens to you, I think you're forever going to be cursed with discontentedness.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I definitely, um, I definitely get what you're saying right now and, um, and it really is My future children that I need to think about.
As I am getting older, I'm feeling that biological clock ticking.
Not the urge to be pregnant, but the clock is ticking.
I feel it more and more as time goes on, especially every year.
I know that women's sexual market value decreases with age as well.
And my options are less and less as I get older and that's definitely not a place that I want to be.
I don't want to be single and alone like my mom is right now.
Yeah, and of course as you get older, I mean I dated an older woman when I was younger and the kids thing was a very pressing issue because we had to decide really fast.
And that was too rapid, right?
And you know, act in haste, repent at leisure, as the old saying goes.
And if you have to make decisions in a hurry, you're usually not the best decision.
So you want to still give yourself some room.
If it doesn't work out with this guy, you still need to give yourself some room for finding the right person.
Right.
Without there being that gate to closing, everybody dive under.
Don't forget your hat.
So, yeah, that would be my approach and I just, you know, I know we were sort of joking around earlier and I was sort of like, ah, why didn't you tell me?
But I really do feel very sympathetic to your position and, you know, you're trying to have a different life than the ones that were modeled for you and that is a big challenge.
It's a big challenge and I hugely respect you for taking it on.
Thank you, Seth.
Thank you.
Will you let us know how it goes?
Sure, and I'm so grateful that I got to talk to you tonight and, you know, I think if this is the show that it should be called everything my parents should have told me.
Well, I hope it helps and I really appreciate your honesty and openness in calling in, right?
Well, thank you again.
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