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April 25, 2021 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:41:54

DEAR STEF: HELP US STOP OUR VIOLENCE!

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	Alright, okay, so listen, I appreciate you guys having the conversation.
	I think most people, myself included, have been in pretty rough stages with regards to relationships, so I'm sure we can get something useful going.
	We're going to refer to this couple as Luke and Diana.
	Not their real names, although I think they're surely tattooed on the inside of the wrist, but how long have you guys been going out overall?
	Since February 2019.
	Oh, Feb 2019, okay.
	And how long did you know each other before you went out?
	A minute. Okay, what?
	On the phone for a few days or weeks.
	Like, we talked on the phone for maybe a couple weeks.
	It was a week. It was about a week that we talked on the phone.
	About a week. Okay.
	And where did you meet?
	Meetup.com in North Carolina.
	Okay, okay, got it, got it.
	And... You found each other through profiles and pictures and descriptions, and you found each other appealing, and then you...
	I've never done the internet dating thing, so not because of any fastidiousness, just because I'm older, but...
	And then you...
	Did you live sort of close by?
	Well, Meetup isn't internet dating.
	It's actually more of a social platform, but people do use it.
	Elle reached out to me.
	Other men have reached out to me on my...
	My account there.
	You can private message people.
	And he messaged me saying he was in a group.
	We were in the same group together.
	And he was messaging the group.
	And then he started messaging me individually about going flying.
	Got it. Now, I know this is completely and totally the worst time to possibly ask this, given the flame out that's happened in the relationship as a whole.
	But if you can dig through the rubble of hurt and just give me a sense of what you liked about each other to begin with, then I sort of know where we're starting from.
	To begin with, well, I liked his eccentricities and that he is not an average person.
	I'm not an average person and most people, if you're in the spectrum of un-averageness to the degree in which...
	Luke and I are in than most people seem pretty droll.
	Now, I mean, and I get that and I appreciate that, but not being the average can, you know, it can go either way, right?
	I mean, John Wayne Gacy, not the Jack the Ripper, not the average, not on the average spectrum.
	There must mean something on the plus side of the not average that you liked.
	He was...
	He was interested in lots of different things.
	He and the...
	The freedom aspect, he introduced me to a community of people, like-minded people, that I did not even know existed.
	I did not know that people who thought the same way that I did gathered anywhere at all.
	I would call myself an anarchist with a heart, if you're familiar with the Shire Society.
	I didn't know that that was ever written down, but that's what I believe.
	Okay. And were you both on the same page as far as the sort of politics and worldview went at the beginning?
	Yes, I think so.
	And both down with something that may be a challenge as the relationship progressed, which was the non-aggression principle?
	Yeah, that would be correct.
	Okay, and... You might get Luke to also answer these.
	No, no, I will. Don't worry.
	We're not just going to corner you.
	We're just going to corner him as well.
	So is there anything you wanted to add about sort of initial attraction?
	So, I mean, I assume good conversationalist, smart guy, similar values, and, you know, opening you up to a world of people who thought the same way as you do, which is, I like to think, just thinking, but...
	Well, I didn't say good conversation because he's really not all that good at conversation.
	He has a lot of... Difficulty communicating.
	And I also, this is the unfortunate thing that really drew me to him.
	Well, one thing that really drew me to him and softened my heart to him is he has a lot of emotional problems and things that I noticed that I had in myself and to a degree, of course, still do.
	But then I Through years and years of doing work on myself, managed to repair a great deal of so that I was able to have better relationships with people, communicate better, and love and be loved in return.
	And I noticed these traits in him, and I know that that is a really lonely and painful place.
	And I would have given Anything in the world to have somebody be patient with me, patient enough and care enough to show me how to love and be loved in return.
	And that is a fool's errand, I guess.
	Okay, so I would imagine that some of the anger that you're feeling is the sense that you've built the house of cards back up from a harmed childhood and it kind of came crashing back down again, which is incredibly frustrating.
	I don't know. I mean, yeah, there is an aspect of that, but that continued to happen.
	I mean, the House of Cards continued to happen.
	It was frustrating. And yeah, so that was actually a process that would happen.
	It would get built up and then And down again.
	I felt like often the way he views himself honestly, which he may not actually know, why would somebody love him?
	And so because I loved him, he resented me for it.
	And he... He hated me for it in ways, many ways.
	the more I loved him and the kind things I would do to him, he would spite me for and turn around.
	Well, hang on, hang on.
	So I hate to interrupt you.
	And listen, by the way, when I put out ideas or thoughts, you guys completely and totally correct me where I go astray.
	Because I'm coming in from the outside into the sort of inner sanctum.
	So I'm feeling my way.
	So if I say anything that doesn't accord with what you experience, please correct me, tell me I'm wrong and all of that.
	And for at the beginning, at least Diana, I mean, I just want to need to know what you're sort of thinking and feeling is If you're going to go into mind reading Luke, that's going to be kind of a challenge.
	So let's switch to Luke and sort of talk about the Genesis and how things started at the beginning.
	Yeah, Diana is a beautiful woman, similar age to me, just a little bit older, and we had similar interests.
	And I am eccentric.
	I do a lot of traveling to visit people, Shire Society people that believe in the non-aggression principle, freedom, liberty, and resisting authoritarianism, basically anarchists with a heart, as you say, or voluntarists, as most of us Consider ourselves.
	It started out like, so she has a lot of good qualities also.
	She is loving. She's one of the most loving women I've ever been with.
	So that was probably one of the most key aspects that after all of the breakups, why I keep getting back with her is because she can be very loving and Yeah, so let me know.
	Please ask questions or whatever.
	No, that's fine. So, don't give me your actual ages, but just rough age ranges?
	Early 40s. Early 40s.
	Okay, okay. And how long after you decided to start dating did things begin to go wrong?
	Weeks or months.
	Showed me that she is willing to destroy her own property, like around her house.
	She has a house. I have tour buses.
	I like to live mobile so that I can travel around and be where I want to be whenever I want to be there.
	So I started staying with her after a surgery that I had.
	And she was very loving and caring, but then there were within weeks or maybe even within like a month or two, when she gets frustrated or angry, she would destroy property, glass plates and anything, you know, she will readily use violence against property that she owns.
	And I saw that very early on.
	And Diana, do you remember the circumstances, if what he's saying is accurate, that led to that stuff?
	I'm sorry, can you please repeat the question?
	Yeah, so Luke is saying that you would destroy property during times of frustration.
	Your own property, he sort of pointed out.
	If that's true, do you remember the circumstances that led up to that?
	I have a bad temper and I break things.
	I've gotten a lot better at that though.
	A lot better over the years and recently.
	Well, I mean, we're talking February 2019 to now, right?
	So it's pretty recent.
	So tell me if you can give me an example of something that you remember.
	This is to Diana where you did sort of break property and what brought that on.
	Like a glass. I throw a glass.
	I don't know. I get just so frustrated.
	It's happened probably dozens of times, Stefan.
	So, I mean, last night was just like the last time.
	No, no, hang on, hang on, hang on.
	I hate to put the pause on the fast forward, but you've got to step me through this because you guys know all this stuff and I don't.
	So if we can just, you know, make sure that we, at least, you know, indulge me and let me just sort of step through things.
	So you would have some kind of disagreement, and then, Diana, you would throw a glass or break something, is that right?
	Usually glass, yes.
	Usually what I was drinking out of, a glass.
	And do you remember, I mean, I don't know if you remember what caused the first time or something that's vivid that's earlier on.
	I don't even know what kind of disagreements you would be having that would result in that.
	Usually he would start accusing me of not listening to him and they were...
	Banal and circularly argumentative with no solution.
	And he would corner me and scream.
	I do not like being screamed at.
	I really don't like being screamed at.
	Nobody does, but that's a really sensitive, that's a PTSD point for me.
	And he knows this.
	And he would corner me and scream at me.
	Luke may remember it differently, but how close is that to your recollection?
	Yeah, frankly, it's bullshit what she's saying.
	Generally, the times that she most quickly escalates the physical violence against property or me, my person, and my immediate possessions, what I'm holding, she targets what she thinks is most valuable to me and then tries to attack that.
	Usually it's a phone, like my tablet last night.
	But anyway, so what usually triggers her...
	Your tablet didn't get broken last Okay, hang on, hang on again.
	I know that you guys want to talk about last night, and so do I, because it's the important thing that's been going on, but I just need a little bit of a backstory, you know, otherwise I'm watching the last 10 minutes of the movie saying what the hell's going on.
	I only addressed what I broke when I was, the question you asked me, like, that's what I broke when I would break my stuff, when I would break his things.
	It would be after he made a really vicious choice to abandon me in a really nasty way.
	And that's...
	Yeah, I would take something of his.
	Not what I think is most valuable.
	I would never assume a phone or something like that is most valuable to any person.
	I find that absurd.
	But mainly it was what he was holding.
	I would...
	Take it and slam it down on something.
	So to answer your question, Stefan, generally it happened when I was trying to get away from her.
	And she corners me.
	She will stand between me and the exit of the room and she will get within inches of me.
	And that is how it happens.
	When an argument or whatever starts, And I am trying to get away from her, and that's when she escalates and tries to block me and start using physical violence against me.
	Hang on, hang on.
	Sorry to interrupt.
	Luke, did you...
	I mean, she says that you screamed at her, or I assume raised your voice considerably at her.
	Is that accurate, and under what circumstances did that happen?
	Um... Raising my voice, but not screaming, not shouting.
	When I get emotional, when people get emotional, it's natural for them to raise their voice.
	I have recordings of you screaming at me.
	I have proof of, I'm sorry, Luke.
	I have recordings of Luke screaming at me.
	I came to the point where I would start voice recording some of our conversations.
	Maybe to show him later or listen to to go over myself.
	Well, you want to make sure that, I mean, you want to not feel crazy, right?
	Yeah. Yeah, that I understand.
	And to try and improve my own reactions.
	I have not listened to them.
	They're all... Terrible, probably.
	And do you recall, so I think Diana, you were saying that Luke would accuse you of not listening to him or not paying attention to him.
	Luke, do you remember what was the sort of triggering events for these escalations or triggering circumstances?
	Yes, it's usually her controlling nature, her jealousy, her possessiveness.
	No, no, no, sorry. I mean, these are wonderful adjectives, although obviously quite damning from a personal standpoint, but I just need...
	I hate to be like that Joe Friday homicide character from way back in the day, like just the facts.
	Was there a social situation?
	Was there an embarrassment? Was there a disagreement about something practical?
	What was the... Sorry, go ahead.
	Whenever she starts to think about me enjoying myself with another woman, it infuriates her and drives her.
	Okay, hang on, hang on.
	Again, I'm just going to beg you guys on bended knee, because I can't have the conversation if it's just mudslinging or verbal abuse, right?
	And what you guys are saying to each other, I get the anger, I get the frustration, I really understand that.
	We've all been there, and I'm not preaching from any higher place here.
	But... I need to know what the physical things that were happening, like were you at a party?
	Did he talk to another girl?
	I don't know where these things come from.
	So I changed the password on my phone so that she could no longer access my phone.
	I let... and that infuriated her.
	I let a... It didn't infuriate me.
	That's not true. So again, I just need the facts.
	So the moment you start ascribing...
	Hang on. The moment you guys start ascribing emotional motivations to each other, we make no progress.
	And I'm not saying you're wrong or anything like that.
	It's just that what you're trying to do is you're trying to say, well, I'm the good guy.
	She's the bad guy. Or she's trying to say, I'm the good guy.
	He's the bad guy. And if you're both in the relationship voluntarily, then there aren't any victims, foundationally and fundamentally, right?
	Because nobody forced you to get together.
	Nobody's forcing you to stay together.
	From what you said earlier, you've had breakups and makeups, you voluntarily come back together.
	So I'm just going to tell you straight up that if you're going to try and sell me, either of you, some kind of victim narrative, We're not going to get very far, because you are both in the relationship perfectly voluntarily.
	There's no legal contract.
	As far as I understand it, there's no marriage.
	Is that right?
	That's absolutely correct.
	And it is absolutely a victimless situation.
	We both voluntarily put ourselves in this situation.
	Okay.
	And I don't mean that there's not a lot of wounding and I don't mean that there's wrongdoing and I get all of that.
	But if it's going to be, "Hey, Steph, she's a really bad person," or, "Hey, Steph, he's a really bad person." We're not going to make any progress.
	So when I ask for, you know, what are the instigating situations that start with these fights?
	If you start to say, well, she's just a crazy, jealous person.
	Like, okay, then that's not a fact.
	That's just a perspective on your side.
	So the fact is...
	Like a documentary. Like if you were watching a documentary or...
	Sorry to interrupt. Imagine that you were making a movie about your relationship and we'd say, okay, well, there's a fight.
	We'd say, well, how does the fight start?
	Well, there has to be something usually that gets the ball rolling.
	Yes, so if I mention something that happened years ago between me and another woman, that then begins a fight for her.
	Then there's a fight.
	Because I have brought up the thought and I've said something about me interacting with another woman.
	Or whatever another woman did.
	Whenever anything regarding a past lover, whenever there's any conversation that...
	And so I've got to learn to not to just block it and not even ever bring up the fact that other women exist in this world.
	Okay, that's a lot of hyperbole.
	And again, I'm not saying there's nothing in it.
	But when you say, well, then, therefore, I have to never mention another woman, it's like, no, you don't, because you choose to be in the relationship.
	If you choose to be in the relationship, and that's the conditions, then that's the condition.
	It's like saying, well, I have to pay my cell phone bin every month.
	It's like, no, you don't, you can cancel your contract, or you could never have had that contract to begin with, right?
	And I did. So that's your perspective.
	Maybe Diana will agree with it, but your perspective is that she's so jealous that even if you mention another woman, she'll stop breaking glasses.
	Is that your perspective?
	Yes. Okay, and what do you think, Diana?
	He... I think that that's hyperbolic.
	Absolutely hyperbolic.
	He... And also, Stefan, it's not just when I mention it, it's when she mentions it.
	Like, if she starts to talk and recall some sort of interaction that I may have had with a woman, she kind of fuels herself to get more enraged by her own conversation, even though I don't even want to talk about it.
	Well, I have... Sorry to interrupt.
	I have heard a little bit of that self-fueling from both of you.
	Like when, Diana, when you say, you know, he makes the vicious decision to cruelly abandon me, right?
	Then that is language that, of course, is going to crank up your aggression or your feelings of injustice and vengeance and so on.
	So there's been a little bit of that.
	I don't know how much, of course, happened in the relationship.
	But sorry, Diana, you were going to say. Oh, um...
	So he would, at the beginning of the relationship, he still had entanglements with his other girlfriends.
	And he would, like, I felt that he was rubbing these things in my face.
	And that was only at the beginning of the relationship.
	Sorry, what do you mean by entanglements?
	I just want to make sure I understand that.
	He still had, like...
	He immediately immersed himself and his business with me.
	He gets his girlfriends to not just be the girlfriend, but also work for him.
	And, like, my business had just closed, so I had no job.
	So this was, you know, there were...
	It was a...
	Difficult situation, but it worked in some ways.
	The girlfriend still had titles for things and he still was interacting with her.
	He was in business with his ex-girlfriend or girlfriends?
	Yes. Yes.
	Probably. Yes. Actually, yes.
	No. Yes, plural.
	Well, hang on, hang on. I want to hear from his side as well.
	I mean, your LLC is registered under, it has other ex-girlfriends as owners in there, so it is plural.
	I did start the LLC with a past girlfriend, and to that extent, she's right.
	Technically, it's registered under other people than Diana here.
	And to that extent, yes.
	But there's no involvement in the activities between me and other people.
	The one thing was that my ex-girlfriend, I think she owed me like over a thousand dollars and she had a scooter.
	So basically she gave me the scooter to make up for what she owed me and then I actually gave that scooter to Diana.
	Yes, the entanglement with this person, that was just at the beginning of the relationship.
	The rest of the stuff about how angry I would get is true to an extent, but it was described hyperbolically.
	And how would you describe it to be more accurate from your perspective?
	Similar, but a lot less dialed down.
	I mean, a lot more dialed down.
	But he would start talking about other women or wanting to see other women, and that would hurt me a lot.
	That would hurt me a great deal.
	Wait, so do you mean wanting to date other women?
	Yes, wanting to go and be with other women.
	And that was really hurtful to me, so that would...
	Yeah, I would get escalated.
	And were you in a monogamous...
	Was that the relationship deal, that you were monogamous?
	Yes. He presented himself as wanting a life partner, a lifelong monogamous relationship life partner, which is what I was seeking.
	And I felt very misled when he would flip-flop and Change his mind on this and often it felt like he was doing this just to be hurtful to me.
	And Luke, was this the case that you did want to date other people in the relationship or was it during the breakup times or what?
	So I am polyamorous.
	I had been polyamorous with the past several girlfriends that I'd been with when I got with Diana.
	She made it clear that she wanted a monogamous relationship, and I was willing to be monogamous, and I have been monogamous with Diana the entire time we've been together.
	And so the only thing that I ask is that she is loving and provides me with the love I need.
	If she wants a monogamous partner and she wants me to be monogamous, I was and wasn't up until a little over a week ago when I broke up with her.
	And so, yes, when we were broken up, I did seek out other people to be with, but I haven't cheated on her at all, no.
	Well, you know, I mean, that's the old friend's question.
	You know, we were on a break. I don't know how...
	You know, if you say we're broken up, but you've had a history of getting back together, then you go and sleep with someone else, then there is...
	If the breakup's a sort of part of the relationship, it's a complicated case to say whether you were unfaithful or not, if that makes sense.
	Also, to me, just personally, this is not any kind of big objective argument, but to me, if you've been in a fairly lengthy, intense relationship, and then you have a big blow-up, you break up, and then within a day or two or a couple of days you're sleeping with other people, to me there's a...
	Lack of respect for the relationship as a whole.
	In other words, there's no period of mourning.
	You know, like if someone you claim to love just dies and then, you know, you go drinking and disco dancing the next day, it's a bit odd if that makes any sense.
	It's not immoral or anything, but it's just a bit odd if that makes sense.
	Yes, precisely.
	It was... Very disrespectful and incredibly hurtful.
	I mean, you'd like to be grieved a little bit more than, I don't know.
	Like, what was the time frame, Luke?
	And again, I'm not trying to pick on you. I'm just curious.
	What was the time frame between breakups and sleeping with other people?
	I haven't been with another woman since I started dating Diana in February 2019.
	So when you talk about what happened during the breakups, what are you referring to?
	Okay. I created a profile, I think, on some dating apps.
	Liz was like a year or two ago when we had broken up.
	And then that, I think, is one of the things that infuriated her.
	Yeah, I'm really going to beg you again on Bended Knee to stop characterizing what's going on in her mind and just tell me about your experience.
	Because this crisscross, then she's got to defend that and we just waste a lot of time spinning around.
	So just try and focus on your thoughts, your experience, rather than saying what she is or is not feeling or thinking or a year or two ago, because that's just a hole with no bottom, if that makes sense.
	Well, the thing is, I had an excessive amount of my time taken up by listening to her complaints, her unfounded complaints.
	Which often led to her breaking thing.
	Okay, hang on. So we've already talked about that.
	But the question that I had was, when you would get with other women or be with other women or float with other, I don't know what, because you said you didn't sleep with anyone, since you guys got together in February of 2019.
	What happened during the breakups that she's concerned about?
	Well, actually, the thing that I receive the most complaints about is that I'm not there with her.
	Like, when I leave and she chooses to stay in her home rather than come with me, that seems to be one of the biggest problems.
	No, no, I'm sorry. I don't know if you heard what I said.
	Let me try for the fourth time, okay?
	What happened with you and other women, Luke, during the breakups?
	Nothing significant. No, what happened?
	Don't tell me, because you're then judging for me what is significant or not, right?
	So just tell me what happened with you and other women during the breakups.
	So one of the things that has been hours of complaints over...
	No, no, no. Again, you're back to dissing her.
	I just, you know, in the interest of the fact that we're all mortal human beings over 40, just what happened?
	I get you don't want to answer it.
	And listen, you don't have to answer anything.
	I mean, this is a purely voluntary conversation.
	But if you want to tell me you don't want to answer, that's fine.
	I can ask Diana. But what happened between you and other girls during the breakup?
	Nothing is the short answer but I did let a mutual acquaintance of ours and her daughter sleep on my couch for one night and I did not tell her about it knowing what the response would be.
	I chose to not tell her and then eventually someone told her like months like three or four months later someone told Diana that our mutual female acquaintance had slept on my couch and And I don't even know, I guess they might not have even said, but she had like a ten-year-old daughter with her, sleeping on the couch with her, so...
	Was this an extra girlfriend? She's six, and the woman is known for sleeping with other people's people.
	She seeks out. She is really well known for that, and not only did he not tell me, but he and this woman colluded to both, bold-faced, lie to me because I asked specifically If she spent the night, and they both lied to me.
	But this wasn't an ex-girlfriend, this was just a mutual acquaintance, is that right?
	And a very thirsty, man-grabby...
	She's polyamorous, she's loving, and she doesn't have to hang up.
	She is not loving. She seeks out others.
	She's a homewrecker.
	Okay, well now we're talking about someone else who's not even part of the conversation.
	So anyway, so your concern, Diana, was that this woman may have made sexual advances or did sleep with Luke, is that right?
	Well, the main concern is that they both lied to me.
	I really don't like being betrayed or lied to.
	Well, okay, look, but I mean, listen, listen.
	I mean, let's be reasonable here.
	Now, of course, nobody likes to be lied to.
	But if you have a very hot temper and you smash and break things...
	I'm not condoning it, but it's certainly not impossible to understand why people might keep information from you that they're concerned you might overreact to if they believe that what they did was innocent.
	Again, I'm not judging anything.
	I'm just saying that one of the ways that you can ensure that people will, quote, lie to you or withhold information from you is if you smash and break things.
	Then you're kind of scary, right?
	So then people are like, well, I don't really know that I want to reveal this innocent piece of information for fear of this kind of response.
	And again, I'm just saying that that is a consequence of that kind of temper, is that people are going to feel kind of hesitant to bring things up with you.
	I understand that.
	Yeah, I do understand that.
	I still think it's wrong.
	Well, but it's wrong to smash and break things, isn't it?
	Yes, yeah. I mean, it seems like there's quite a lot of wrong to go around.
	And, you know, one of the things, look, I've been there.
	I mean, we all know what this is like when you're having a horrible breakup, is that you're so hurt that you want the other person to be wrong and you want people to be on your side and you want to be either the victim or the person who's right.
	But, you know, again, from what I can hear so far, you know, I would say there's probably a tiny bit of room for improvement on both your parts, maybe more than a tiny bit.
	I'm trying to give you a situation, Diana, where you don't get lied to.
	Now, what you can do is you can say, well, I want people who will put up with me bullying them, but also not lie to me.
	But the problem is, is the same people, the exact same people who won't lie to you would never put up with your bullying.
	So you're confining yourself to people who are going to inevitably lie to you because you're confining yourself to people who will put up with you breaking and smashing things.
	I want you to not be lied to, and the best way for you not to be lied to is to not break and smash things and all of that, or as Luke says, block people who are trying to not be in an aggressive or violent situation.
	And again, I'm not saying who's right or who's wrong, but in terms of empowering you, because I think what's happening is that Well, there's this whole Simon the Boxer thing.
	I don't know if you've read my book, Real Time Relationships, but there's a kind of repetition compulsion thing here.
	And if you want people who won't lie to you, then you can't bully them.
	Because then the only people who will be around will people who will put up with bullying and those people are going to be more likely to lie to you.
	Does that make sense? Yes, that's an excellent point.
	I appreciate that. Thank you.
	That's very helpful.
	Thank you. And, I mean, Luke, I mean, do you...
	So you invited a...
	What did you call her? Man-hungry, thirsty, homewrecker?
	It's quite the vivid portrait.
	I'm getting like Jessica Rabbit on steroids in my head, but...
	Except she's...
	Yeah. No, go ahead. Go ahead.
	I don't mind one more adjective here.
	She looks like a toad, and she's...
	Just horrible. She is this absolutely toad-faced, man-eating, home-wrecking monster.
	And she wants relationships with women, she says, and then she is the nightmare of women.
	She is the nightmare.
	I don't know why you people have people like this in your life, but that's a topic for a little bit later.
	She wasn't in my life. I did not like her.
	I did not like hanging around with her.
	She was not in my life.
	And Luke, so what were the circumstances wherein this woman ended up staying the night?
	We had a mutual interest in what she makes.
	She makes a product that's interesting to me, and I had not had the negative experiences that people talk about, like that Diane is talking about.
	I have not had that negative experience with her.
	I've only basically been in a business sort of relationship with her over the years.
	And you're in business relationships with the women that you date?
	So at the time I let her spend the night On my couch was because she was like two hours away from her home visiting a mutual friend and her daughter...
	No, they don't like her.
	They were not friends. She was coming to visit you two hours away.
	She drank too much.
	She was purposely responsible and you rewarded her for this.
	So anyway, her daughter...
	No, no, hang on. Hang on. So that is an important point to me, which is if she's coming to visit a friend, why would she not stay with the friend?
	They don't like her. Hang on, let Luke answer.
	I was going to visit my friend.
	Okay, I was going to visit my friend.
	I invited this lady and her daughter because my friend has a son of about the same age.
	So in hindsight, it was a mistake.
	And your friend hates this woman.
	Hang on, hang on. One at a time.
	I can't keep track of this many combos.
	Go ahead, Luke. I don't have The same sort of hang-ups and prohibitions...
	No, no, no. That's another...
	I just... I can't do the put-down stuff, the cross-put-down, like saying that she's got hang-ups.
	I mean, that's a real judgment, right?
	So I just need to ask, you know, so if this woman drove two hours to visit a friend, I'm not sure why she wouldn't be able to sleep over if there's another kid in the house.
	I mean, kids have sleepovers all the time.
	She wasn't welcome anywhere except in my motorhome.
	But she was visiting a friend who wasn't you, right?
	I was visiting a friend who wasn't me.
	I invited this lady to visit with me at the same time in my motorhome, and I didn't realize the extent of the rejection that the person I was going to visit had for this lady.
	And then after it all happened, it just happened.
	It was one night that I didn't realize like how severe the dislike was for the lady and in In hindsight, yeah, it was a mistake.
	I shouldn't have allowed this.
	So sorry, again, I'm just trying because it seems like it's morphed a little and I'm just trying to sort of keep track of it.
	It could just be my following it.
	So you're going to and I think this is important, right?
	So you're going to Luke, you're going to go and visit a friend.
	And then let's call her Sally, you bring Sally along.
	To visit your friend with you, but your friend doesn't like Sally.
	But you didn't say to your friend, I'm bringing Sally.
	So he could say, you know, she's not my favorite person.
	If you could hold off, that would be great.
	So you, in a sense, sprung Sally on your friend.
	Sally, I think you were saying, Dana, that Sally was drunk, couldn't drive.
	And then for Sally spent the night in your, it's not an RV, it's a tour bus.
	Did I have that right? Yeah.
	I mean, it's both, but yes.
	And so that's how she ended up spending the night in your tour bus.
	Is that right? Basically.
	Basically, yes.
	And it wasn't just one friend I was going to visit.
	It was a family. So there was like a guy and his wife and their sister and they have like four children and And they did, like, it was multiple locations.
	So the location I was going to visit was fine.
	It was like a workshop-type place where we were all welcome to go in and visit.
	And then my guy friend was fine with it, but apparently all of the women were not okay with it.
	And that's when the problem, you know, that's when I realized, you know, that it was a problem and it wasn't a big...
	So she didn't have, sorry to interrupt, so she didn't have any other place to stay except with you, given that she couldn't drive because she'd had some drinks?
	Yes. I mean, I could have helped her also by driving home, but I didn't feel like it that night, yeah.
	Wait. Oh, because you're in a tour bus, so you could have driven the two hours and then dropped her off at home, right?
	Yes. Okay, so...
	Yeah, it just made more sense.
	It was so much more easier for her to just sleep on my couch.
	Well, not in hindsight, right?
	Not after Diana, you know, with consideration of Diana, it's not...
	Okay, so you decided not to tell Diana because you were concerned that Diana would be jealous and angry, and then you also got Sally, this woman, to say that she didn't spend the night.
	Is that right? I didn't tell Sally what to do.
	I explained the fact that if Diana...
	That Diana, anything like that, that Diana finds out about, she gets violently angry.
	And so I just told Sally that.
	And Sally, you know, being somewhat reasonable, I guess realized that, hey, maybe it's not a good idea if I just Tell Diana that I slept on Luke's couch, you know?
	So you didn't... Also, I would imagine that you don't want to drive...
	So if you'd have driven back to two hours, then this would not have been an issue.
	You wouldn't have had to lie.
	Diana wouldn't have found out later and got even more angry because of the betrayal, plus the lie, plus what she described as the collusion, which you say was not direct.
	But you didn't want to drive back to two hours, I would imagine, because, you know, being a dude or being just a person, you're like, well, I'm not going to run my life according to somebody getting mad at me.
	So she can just spend the night and I don't want to drive back because that would be kind of humiliating because I'd only do it out of fear of temper.
	Is it something like that? It was mostly the effort.
	It would have been so much unnecessary work to do it at that time that I felt it was unnecessary to do.
	Oh, no, no, no. You knew that there was a necessity to it.
	Which is why you didn't tell Diana, right?
	So you knew that there could be potential problems.
	You say that there's a lot of people you visited and it would only take one woman who didn't like Sally to tell Diana and the whole bomb goes off.
	So when you say it was unnecessary effort, that's not technically correct or not even close to correct when you look at the fact that you knew you had to keep it hidden and it could be a big problem, right?
	That's a fair point, yes.
	Okay. So I would imagine there's something like, well, I'm not going to be run by someone's temper, but at the same time, then you end up lying and all of that, which is also humiliating.
	So in a sense, there's no non-humiliating way out of the situation once you're in it, which is you either drive back to two hours because Diana could get angry, which is kind of humiliating.
	It's like, oh, I'll just do this thing I don't want to do for fear of my girlfriend's temper or whatever.
	And we were actually broken up at the time is another thing.
	And how long had you been broken up for?
	I don't know. I bet Diana does.
	Well, he would decide to break up with me.
	We would have a plan to go out of town together.
	And then he would start being incendiary and picking fights and then choose to leave without me.
	So often when we were planning on going together, And then he would change his mind and go without me.
	And so he would just pick a fight, break up, and leave.
	I mean, obviously that's something Luke, I'm sure, would not agree with that character, Ison, that he would just become incendiary, pick fights, and sort of storm off a rage quit?
	Well... Honestly, I try to figure out whether she's going to allow a pleasant trip or not.
	Because it would be me being trapped in a vehicle with her for maybe a dozen or two dozen hours straight before we got wherever we were going.
	So yes, to the extent.
	I'd rather know if she's going to be pleasant or not.
	So if she's not going to be pleasant, I didn't want her to come with me.
	So it sounds like Luke was testing me beforehand.
	He would pick and see how I would...
	How I would deal with being bullied and being harassed to see how I would take it.
	And then, obviously, nobody likes having fights picked, especially Well, having flights picked is, again, one of these phrases that makes you all of the rights and all of that.
	So I've certainly heard a little bit about how Diana's bullying with the breaking stuff, and that's very scary and intimidating, right?
	When people are smashing stuff in your environment, it's very scary.
	But, and Diana, you can tell me this, or Luke can say it, because you say that Luke bullies.
	And in what way does Luke bully?
	He bullies...
	He bullies by screaming and being accusatory of things that I feel that I don't understand where they're coming from.
	And they aren't explained to me, so it's very confusing.
	And it seems foundless, especially since He will refuse to.
	I mean, you've noticed that he can be very circuitous with answering questions if he ever gets to the point at all, which usually he does his best to distract so that he does not have to answer.
	So trying to understand why he was becoming mad at me was fruitless.
	Sorry, so when Diana says, Luke, that you would maybe test her a little bit to see what kind of mood she was in to see if you could have a decent trip or not, right?
	No. No.
	No, I wasn't intentionally trying to test her at all.
	Usually, I mean...
	I don't know. We'd have to look at a specific time.
	The last time that I tried to take her on a trip, she was actually in my bus, traveling with me, and then, like, 12 hours into it, she was just so intolerable.
	And actually, we did have a fight where I was at the front of the bus, and she actually came into my space, like, blocking me at the front of the bus, And engaging in a fight, arguing, and I actually physically had to push her away from me because she was actually touching me and getting so close to me that I pushed her onto the couch.
	You pushed me onto the floor.
	Thank you. Yeah, because she was actually being violent, touching, grabbing, and...
	I had nowhere to go.
	But you were driving at the time, right?
	No, I had pulled over at a rest stop because I don't remember the exact details.
	So then at that time, and there was issues with the bus, the generator was having trouble, and it was just super frustrating for me to deal with both the mechanical problems and the problems that she was presenting me with.
	So I waited until she went to sleep.
	That night and drove her back home and asked her to leave and that was the last tour bus trip and then I actually took her on a car trip which mostly went well until we were on our way home back to her house when she just she actually destroyed some art that I had bought that a friend had made.
	That I have had replaced and is in the mail.
	That you have what? I had it replaced.
	I had the gentleman remake it.
	I paid for it, and it's in the mail.
	Well, no, I get that.
	I mean, and that's a good thing to do if you've broken something.
	It doesn't really erase the fact that you broke it, because that's...
	No, it doesn't. But when I would...
	He wanted me to drive, and when I would drive, he would nitpick and bully me about my driving the way I drive.
	So I was being...
	I was doing my best to participate in this trip and being bullied about the way I was driving, picked on about every bit of how I drive.
	So I wasn't even able to drive in peace.
	Look, I'm sure that's annoying.
	I'm sure that's annoying. I mean, nobody likes to have the backseat driver thing.
	How that leads to justly destroying artwork, you know, you're saying, well, there was this causality, which was he was nitpicking my drive.
	I mean, he was nitpicking my driving.
	And it's like, but that doesn't causally lead for you to destroy artwork, right?
	No, it was wrong for me to do that.
	I know that. So let's go a little further back, if you don't mind me dipping into the deep backstories here, because go out on a limb here and say the childhood stuff, right?
	So Luke, maybe sexual inappropriate stuff towards you as a child, Diana, verbal abuse, I would assume, but correct me where I'm astray.
	What was your early childhood experiences like?
	If we could start with Luke, that would be helpful.
	There was only one incident that I was sexually abused.
	That you were, sorry, what? That I was sexually abused.
	A teenage boy explored his sexual fetishes or whatever with me once when I was probably seven years old, and that's the extent of my sexual abuse.
	Yeah, he didn't explore his sexual fetishes with you.
	Because that's a phrase that could apply to adulthood.
	That's not what happened, right?
	I don't know. Well, how would you characterize it?
	He molested me once, and I had a good relationship with my mother and family.
	I told them, I guess, and then they addressed it, and that's it, yeah.
	What else happened in your childhood?
	How were you disciplined? What was your childhood like as a whole?
	I have one brother a couple years older than me.
	My mother mostly raised us for most of our lives.
	When I was 13, my mother had a third son.
	She was a single mother.
	From that point I was very independent from the age of 13 on and maybe even before basically kind of able to go out and be on my own in the world.
	I did school when I was a senior year of high school.
	I left and got moved into an apartment that someone was moving out of to finish my senior year of high school.
	As far as childhood, I don't know what else you might want to...
	How were you disciplined, if you were?
	Generally, not very little physical discipline at all, to be honest.
	Mostly like if...
	My mother saw an item that she perceived as contributing to a problem.
	Then she would take it when I would least notice and remove it from the house.
	And... Sorry, what's the story with your father?
	My mother left my father when I was between two and four...
	He's from New York and she left for the South and he attempted to follow but then gave up and went back to New York to continue his life.
	Sorry, do you mean that it was two years where they were deciding whether to be together or not?
	No, she left him.
	She started dating women from the age of two or so until I was 13.
	She was a lesbian.
	Then she got pregnant with my younger brother, and she's been mostly just celibate since then, and she believes that she's straight now, looking for a man, and she's Christian, and hoping to be in, like, a biblical-type relationship.
	And when you're asking about my father, I'd be happy to continue talking about him.
	Why did your parents split up, or why did your mother leave your father?
	I guess it was a shitty relationship for one, but for two, she found someone that gave her more of what she was looking for in a relationship.
	You mean the woman, right?
	Yes. And do you know much about your mother's childhood?
	I mean, from what I've heard here say she was abused physically, sexually, And, um, very repressive family.
	And, um, yeah, that's, I mean, what, what more Yeah, I mean, my particular conception of things, which is not to say that it's true, is when I do hear about this sort of hyperfluid sexuality and so on, I just immediately go to sexual abuse.
	Whether that's right or wrong, I'm just telling you that's my particular, what I've seen, what I've talked about with many people over the years, that does seem to be.
	And did your mother, did she deal with the sexual abuse that she suffered as a child?
	Did she do therapy?
	Did she do self-work?
	Did she work to process that?
	I guess her way of moving past it was to be a lesbian with women that maybe are less likely to continue that abuse.
	Well, statistically, that's not true at all, right?
	I mean, I'm sure you know the statistics about abuse in lesbian relationships.
	It's off the charts. It's way higher than any other form of relationship that I know of.
	Maybe. And that might have been the case at times also.
	And then I guess for her, how she responded.
	So when I was growing up and then as I'm an adult, her response is basically to not get into relationships or to...
	So you said that there may have been elements of abuse in your mother's relationship with her girlfriend?
	Some of them, yes. From the time I was 2 to 13, there's probably been at least 4 or 5 different women she was with.
	Wow. I'm sorry about that.
	I'm sorry for the...
	I mean, just the basic awkwardness of having new people in the family all the time.
	That's difficult as a kid.
	Got to keep adjusting to new people.
	You don't know whether to bond with them because they may not be here next week.
	That's rough, man.
	man I'm really sorry about that did you have any more contact with your father Yes. So I would, as a child, me and my brother, or just one of us, would go to visit him I guess whenever the schedule allowed, maybe once a year or even less.
	And when he was traveling through...
	I'm sorry, could I just ask you to lean into your mic a little bit?
	I'm having trouble hearing you. Okay.
	Thanks. So you were saying that you would only see your brother or you would only see your father like once a year?
	Yes. Why so little?
	Because we live 700 miles apart.
	So? I mean, it's 50 bucks to take a plane ride in America, isn't it?
	I mean, I don't quite understand.
	I don't know.
	I don't know.
	I mean, when he tried, when he was coming through North Carolina, he would try to stop in, but it was like, I mean, my mother wanted to have control of us and to raise us,
	and that's, I guess, like, my older brother and me left My older brother, I think it was even before his senior year, he left and moved in with a friend and his friend's mother, rather than be in the household with me, my mother, and our younger brother.
	Our dad had a new wife and family, so he's having more kids at the time.
	Like, maybe from when I was nine, they started having kids together in New York.
	And then...
	So it's...
	Honestly, my dad chose to not fight and continue a struggle against my mother in order to fight for custody or whatever.
	Well, no, not necessarily custody.
	I mean, I get that can be complicated.
	But I'm just trying to...
	Figure out what happened to your relationship with your dad.
	If I understand this correctly, and you know, I know it's a complicated picture, but it does sound to me that your mom kept your dad from you or kept you from your dad to some degree.
	Yeah, I mean, I was born in New York.
	All three of us lived in New York.
	And yes, my mother took me and my brother away from New York physically, which alone created a big obstacle.
	No, no. 700 miles is not a big obstacle.
	I mean, honestly, it's not.
	I mean, my father was in Africa.
	So that's a big obstacle.
	I don't see the same continent, you know, an hour's flight away as a big obstacle.
	It's not like he went to, you know, follow Marlon Brando up some river in Vietnam, right?
	I mean, he was an hour away by plane, right?
	It's not a huge deal.
	But when you would spend time with your father, what were your impressions of him?
	He's accepting, easygoing, non-violent.
	He tries to live Christian values, follow Jesus and all of that.
	He's willing to speak to correct people like me, but he's not...
	And he's a big guy capable of defending himself.
	And, you know, I don't know.
	What else? What are you feeling right now?
	I don't know. I think I know.
	I don't want to guess. And don't you miss him?
	Didn't you miss him? No.
	No, I had a life and I was focused on whatever stuff that kids think about.
	Are you trying to tell me your dad's a good guy?
	Your mother was in periodically abusive lesbian relationships.
	Your dad is a good guy.
	Even-tempered. Nice guy.
	And you didn't miss him?
	Or thinking about what you knew about?
	You had no regrets about him not being around more?
	Or no sadness about that?
	I don't remember what I thought of as a child.
	No, but now when you sort of think about what could have been, right?
	Because in our brains, there's what happened and there's all of these what could have beens, right?
	And the what could have beens are what trip us up, right?
	We know what happened, but the what could have been, because if we deny all the what could have beens for ourselves as children, we don't really have much free will as an adult.
	Right. So if let's say you became a father, and then you basically abandoned your children, which your father kind of did, whether or not your mom was trying to keep your kids from it, that's even more heinous, right?
	That's absolutely appalling behavior on the part of your mother to not give you free access to your father, your father free access to you.
	But if it's just like, well, what happened, happened, and you don't think about the what-ifs, the possibilities, the road less traveled, whatever you want to call it, then what happens is, as an adult, for yourself, what you say is, well, what's happening is what's happening.
	I don't really have much choice. Because you don't explore the things that could have happened as when you were a child.
	So if your father is a good guy, now, I mean, he married a woman who was the untreated victim of sexual abuse, who weaved in and out of heterosexual and homosexual relationships.
	It's not a crime or anything like that, just to be clear, but it certainly is evidence of some level of instability for the children, at least, who herself ended up in somewhat abusive relationships, as you say.
	wouldn't it have been better for you as a child to spend more time with your father?
	Maybe, but the fact was he had another family No, no, that's all.
	You're giving him excuses.
	Oh, we were 700 miles away.
	Oh, he had another family. I don't care.
	There's tons of men, and I've talked to them on the show.
	You may even have heard these calls.
	There are tons of men who get remarried, who are 700 miles away, and who damn well make time for their kids and find a way to negotiate, to make it work.
	Because if you're giving your father...
	Here's the thing, man. You give your father excuses, who else are you giving excuses to?
	Myself, I guess. You're exactly right.
	And your mother, of course. And if you hold your parents accountable, then you hold yourself accountable.
	But we can't be any different fundamentally from our parents.
	I don't mean like morally or anything like that, but we're all human beings.
	And if our parents have every excuse known to man for their bad behavior, then we will give ourselves that same blank check for all our bad behavior.
	Because my fundamental question is, why do you allow...
	This kind of behavior in your life, from you and from others, right?
	This is a question for both of you, and I don't mean this with any hostility.
	I mean this with genuine concern and care and affection.
	In my experience, the people who allow themselves to put up with and exhibit bad behavior are the people who've made excuses for their parents.
	If you can't hold your parents to account, you can't hold yourself to account.
	If you can't have higher standards for your parents, you can't have higher standards for yourself, because we're both people.
	It'd be like saying, well, my parents can't fly and escape the net of gravity, but I bet I can.
	That would be an insane person, right?
	And so if your parents, well, what happened, happened.
	They did this. They did that.
	We were 700 miles apart.
	We had another family. Blah, blah, blah.
	Well, then you're just saying, well, what happens, happens.
	There's no higher standard. That's determinism in a way.
	And you're just your most primitive and, in a sense, the worst nature tends to take over because there's nothing higher to aim for because there are no higher standards.
	And your mother should not have kept your father from you.
	Your mother should not have exposed you to abusive relationships.
	That's terrible. Both of those things are terrible.
	And your father should have stayed in your lives.
	Because when you have a kid, you don't get to say, oh, well, I have a new family now.
	So, too bad. I mean, it's like saying, well, you got a dog.
	You lock the dog in the basement.
	You never take it for a walk.
	You barely feed it. And you say, well, I got a new dog now.
	That's not reasonable. You owe the dog.
	Your best care is, yes, I got a new dog, so I don't have to pay any attention to or take the feed or walk or take to the vet the old dog.
	Come on. If you knew someone who treated an old dog that way, you'd be appalled, right?
	Didn't walk it, didn't take care of it, didn't Yes, but I do feel like he was available, although he may not have been proactively trying to force himself into my life.
	Let's get back to, okay, this is propaganda.
	With all due respect, and I really, you know, I just need to get to the real you, because you were quite emotional a few minutes ago, right?
	Yes. Now that's real.
	And that's not propaganda. So when you say, well, the father I saw maybe once a year, I felt that he was there for me.
	Come on. That's not real.
	I mean, I say this with great sympathy and because I want what's best for you in every conceivable way.
	But you understand that from the outside, I mean, I'm a full-time dad.
	I'm a stay-at-home dad. Been 12 and a half years going on.
	And the idea that I would be available to my daughter because I'd see her once a year is bullshit.
	And I'm saying this firmly because I need to kind of shake you out of this hypnosis, right?
	I spend hours and hours a day with my daughter.
	I spend most of my day with my daughter.
	The idea that I can be a father to her and be present for her, seeing her once a year, is absolutely false.
	Okay.
	Yeah, no, I agree.
	I did not have a father.
	Ah, no. Now you're going from one extreme to the other.
	And I say this again with all due care and concern and wanting what's best for you.
	If you didn't have a father, that would be a totally different emotional experience.
	Like, let's say your father, through no fault of his own, got hit by a bus the day after you were born.
	Died, right? Okay, there would be grieving, there would be loss.
	But there would be no bad behavior on the part of your father throughout your entire childhood.
	Do you see what I mean? Yeah.
	So you're going from, my father was fine, it was okay, he was there for me, to I didn't have a father.
	No, no, no, neither of those states of emotions are true.
	And you want to avoid the unhappiness, right?
	The unhappiness that your father was fully alive and fully present for the entire two decades of your childhood and barely saw you.
	That's painful. That's very, very painful.
	Whether you like it or not, whether you believe it or not, we are programmed, particularly as men, to want the respect and care and attention and good opinion of our fathers.
	We understand. We can't change that.
	We're hardwired that way. We need the approval of our fathers.
	And fathers who don't see us say that we don't matter, they don't care, we're not important.
	Now tell me that's not going to internalize at some level or another.
	I mean, it did for me. I mean, I can't imagine it.
	And everyone else I've ever talked to about this issue, when they're frank about it, you can't be that exception that proves the rule that you don't care that your father ignored you for most of your childhood.
	Of course you care. It's painful, right?
	Yeah. And what kind of abuse did you see in your mother's relationships?
	I mean, usually nothing overt.
	I mean, usually, basically my older brother was much more confrontational, I guess.
	So there was one time that my My mother's girlfriend lunged off the bed at my brother and smashed the gerbil cage tank or whatever.
	The glass basically jumped at him and missed and smashed the cage.
	That was one of the more notable experiences.
	Was this your brother's hamster cage?
	I think it was both of ours.
	We both had a hamster or a gerbil or something.
	Now, I had hamsters when I was growing up in England.
	Do you see there's a tiny bit of a pattern here?
	No. A female who smashes a prized possession to win an argument?
	Please tell me you see this pattern.
	Okay. Didn't she smash your tablet, your phone, the arts, other stuff?
	And I know she said that the tablet wasn't broken.
	I remember that. I was listening.
	Yes. But that's an unbelievably brutal thing to do to a child, because that's your pet, right?
	Well, she was trying to jump at my brother.
	The cage was incidental, I think.
	How do you know? How do you know?
	That's mind reading. Because it's glass, and I mean, like, for her to jump at that, I don't know, it wouldn't make sense.
	Well, so there was that level of aggression.
	Anything else? I must have been like 14 the last time that my mother threatened to beat me or whatever in the car on the way home.
	And I just, when we got home, I just ran away.
	And that's the last time she tried to physically punish me.
	Okay, so this is kind of new information for me because I did ask you how you were disciplined.
	And I got some pretty mild abstract responses.
	So you're saying she beat you?
	She threatened to spank or beat me or something because of whatever happened in the car.
	I don't remember. I ran away for probably four or five hours and came back and she apologized and that was it.
	Oh, but she didn't physically beat you or she just threatened?
	And she didn't beat you in the past?
	Not... I mean, there's probably five times or less.
	I don't know. Maybe. I don't know.
	She wasn't trying to...
	I don't know.
	She didn't use violence.
	Dude, you were fogging out on me something serious.
	I don't remember. You said four or five times that she did beat you or hit you?
	Spank me, yes. Okay, because spankings and beatings generally...
	We've got a couple of different phrases for it, right?
	Physical discipline that you said, beatings, spankings, I'm not sure where we are.
	What actually happened? Well, that time nothing happened.
	I ran away. No, no, no. I get that.
	What happened when she did hit you?
	It wasn't a big deal.
	No, no. Don't give me your conclusions.
	Just give me the facts. I tried to ignore it.
	No, what actually happened?
	Did she hit you open hand, bare buttocks, implements, fists?
	Like, what happened? I don't remember, honestly.
	I mean, I honestly would be speculating because I do not remember exactly.
	Basically, she wanted to punish me She basically would make me bend over the bed and maybe with her hand, I don't know.
	Did she break up with the girl who smashed the hamster cage?
	Not immediately, but yes.
	So that level of violence, whether accidental, I mean, that's the whole problem with violence is sometimes you can smash things you don't intend to, but...
	That level of aggression which resulted...
	Well, what happened to the hamster? Was the hamster okay?
	It didn't immediately die, no.
	But eventually they died with worms or something.
	It dies from what? I remember that they died and there was just worms crawling around them at one point.
	When we got home or whatever, it was dead and worms were crawling out of it.
	I'm sorry, I'm completely lost here.
	So the hamster cage gets smashed.
	It's glass, right? You said?
	Yes. Okay, so the hamster or hamsters, were they injured in that breaking?
	I don't remember. Okay, so the hamster just died at some point later, but not necessarily within a day or two from some sort of injury, right?
	Yes. Okay, got it.
	So that level of aggression or violence, which could have been very dangerous, that was not enough for your mother to break up with this woman and say, you know, get the hell out of my house, you lunatic.
	I don't remember. I mean, she probably put a pause on it at that point, but I don't remember, like, the timing as far as when they broke up.
	How's your brother's life turned out?
	My older brother and me are extremely successful.
	My older brother has like eight children and a wife that he's been with for all of them.
	I'm extremely financially successful and, you know, relationships is probably the one field that I consistently fail at.
	I'm sorry, you're kind of quiet again, too, if you could bring your mouth closer to the mic.
	I said, so relationships are the only, like, relationships.
	I fail at relationships, and other than that, I succeed at anything I try.
	All right. Okay, I appreciate that, and thank you for the facts.
	I'm sorry, Dana, for testing your patience.
	I appreciate you hanging in there.
	No, I didn't know a lot of this information.
	You didn't? No.
	But you've been going out for over two years.
	Yeah, he didn't really...
	I knew about his mother leaving his dad and becoming a lesbian and him not seeing his father much.
	I like how you said his smother.
	That's the tongue telling the truth.
	The brain doesn't want to speak. Anyway, that's probably just an accident.
	I thought it was kind of funny in a terrible way.
	That happens.
	But about the sexual abuse and...
	Since he doesn't remember the physical abuse, I would guess that it was pretty bad.
	Have you seen the, you know, because he, I'm sorry, Luke, I really apologize for talking about you like you're not here.
	It's totally rude, but I'm not sure how else to do it because there's a three-way call.
	But when he got emotional, I was really moved, right?
	Have you seen those sort of like windows open up that then just kind of close and you get to this foggy place?
	Yeah, he mostly is in the foggy place.
	He does not like to explore his emotions.
	He has a lot of Difficulty understanding his emotions.
	He gets emotionally overwhelmed and overwrought and just shuts down a lot.
	I would, to be more precise, and this is probably totally annoying, so I apologize for that too, but to be particularly precise, Luke, I would say that you are absolutely desperate to experience your emotions.
	It's just that your mom doesn't want you to.
	Like, that's the battle, right?
	That there are people in Luke's life who would suffer negative consequences If Luke fully felt his emotions.
	So he feels his emotions and then the alter egos, the technical way that it works is the alter egos move in to squelch those emotions on command of the people who would experience negative consequences should he experience those emotions fully.
	Does that make sense? I agree with you that he's desperate to feel his emotions.
	And the reason he's desperate to feel his emotions is so he can have a good relationship, right?
	So just, Luke, so you understand, the emotional experience that you had in our conversation for 20 or 30 seconds, that's where your good relationships are.
	The foggy stuff, that's where your bad relationships are.
	And so when I say, you know, Tell me what you're feeling.
	You can't have a relationship with fog any more than you can dance with a fog bank.
	You can't have a relationship with fog.
	You can have a relationship with something tangible and real.
	And our deep emotional experiences are tangible and real, and that's where trust and sustainability and stability in our relationships come from.
	The fog is impossible to negotiate with or navigate, and that's probably part of the frustration that you and Diana have been having.
	Okay, so sorry for that just brief aside, but Diana, if you could tell me a little bit about your, you know, Diana, the beta version as a child, how did that play?
	I wanted to just make a comment, if I may.
	I was trying to explain friendship to him, to Luke, the other day.
	He didn't understand why.
	Like, I don't have a car right now.
	My car was destroyed in a very bizarre freak accident.
	I was in my house at the time, but I have a friend who's going to drive me to a doctor's appointment, and Luke I asked if I was going to pay him or what the person was getting out of it.
	And I tried to explain how friendship is an emotional thing.
	It is not transactional.
	Sorry to interrupt, but the woman, Sally, that we talked about earlier who stayed in...
	Luke's tour bus, he didn't charge her for that, right?
	So he did her a favor, but he didn't charge her.
	He usually charges people for staying in his bus.
	But I assume he didn't charge her that night, right?
	Probably not. They were doing business together with this product that she sells.
	So it was a transactional.
	Well, I guess I'm going to get a massive donation after this call.
	No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding.
	I'm just kidding. All right. So, yeah, I appreciate that.
	But let's dip back into you when you were a kid, Diana.
	So my mother was...
	Maybe postpartum depression, I don't know, but she was unable to love me.
	It was really... I mean, it was hard for her.
	It was hard for me. She was able to love me eventually, but she was very abusive.
	She was very, very emotionally abusive, and she would...
	It was really...
	It was terrible. And she...
	What would she do?
	What would she do? Specifics are difficult to recall, frankly.
	Don't, you can't both fog out on me.
	I refuse to accept that you both fog out on me.
	Sorry, go ahead. So she was very neglectful of me while at the same time showing love towards my sister.
	So she treated us vastly differently.
	If she did something to upset my sister, she would, you know, apologize and hug her as like, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to.
	This is one incident that I specifically remember.
	She said something to my sister and it upset her and made her cry.
	And she went over and she hugged my sister and said, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to make you cry.
	And that was like that.
	I remember that. And that That still kind of stings a bit.
	And she would yell at me.
	She would punish me for...
	I don't even know what necessarily.
	I would be sent to bed without dinner a lot.
	I was punished with having food withheld.
	From her. And she...
	When I was...
	I remember I was about five.
	I was coloring with one of those crayons.
	A clear crayon that you'd use when you're going to decorate an Easter egg.
	You draw with a clear crayon.
	I was coloring with a clear crayon on a wooden antique box.
	And she saw me doing it.
	I mean, I'm a kid. I didn't...
	Whatever. Kids color on stuff.
	And she... She started screaming at me and took the crayon out of my hand and she held my face and held my teeth with my lips open and was coloring on my teeth with the crayon.
	Things like that. That's one specific thing I remember.
	Really, really focused and sadistic anger, right?
	Yes, perfectly put. Really well put.
	Really, really like drill in and not just lashing out, but really focused and sadistic punishments.
	Yes, that's precise.
	That is precise, yes.
	And at the same time, being extremely different towards my sister.
	And she would, sometimes she was abusive.
	She was abusive to me around other people, but she, like, I'm the youngest child, and my dad was at work, and while my sister was at school, she would do, she would save the worst treatment for when we were alone together.
	So, a lot of it that...
	I assumed my dad knew.
	I just assumed he knew.
	I didn't really know what to do about it.
	I mean, I didn't...
	And he did not know.
	He did not know the extent of how she behaved towards me until I was an adult.
	I have a very good relationship with my father.
	He's a lovely man.
	He's very patient. And he stayed with my mom too much.
	Oh dear, oh dear.
	So I stay in relationships that I should leave because my dad stayed with my mom when he should have left.
	My mom corners, yells, breaks things and becomes physically violent and focused and that's something that I'm repeating and I'm going to correct that.
	Do you know why you're repeating it?
	No. I know why.
	Maybe because I don't know any better?
	I don't know. No, no, no.
	What? Why? Tell me.
	I'll tell you why. Because of one word that you told me earlier.
	Okay. One word.
	Unable. Okay.
	Do you remember when you used that word?
	That's kind of a compliment. Sorry to ask.
	I'm just curious. No, I don't remember the word.
	You said after I was born, my mother went into postpartum or something like that, and you said she was unable to love me, but she loved me later.
	Yes. Yeah. But she was able to love because she treated your sister better.
	Oh, shoot. You're right.
	Well, no, she wasn't able to love me.
	She was able to love...
	No, but how do you know she was unable to love you?
	That's how it felt. No, okay, but that's how it felt is very different.
	I think she said that. I think she told me that because I've talked to her about this and, you know, we were working on our relationship.
	We've done a lot of work on the relationship.
	I've done a whole lot of work on the relationship with me, with myself, because, I mean, that's important.
	Okay. I've done a lot of...
	Okay, so do you remember earlier I was saying that the higher standards...
	No. Okay, so what I was saying to Luke is that we have to have alternative versions of what happened to us as a child so we can have an alternative version of what happens to us as adults.
	In other words, if we can't think of the road less traveled as a child, we can't take the road less traveled as an adult.
	Well, I think my mother should have gotten therapy.
	She should have gotten therapy.
	That would have been... A brilliant thing to do.
	That would have been great. My father should have left her.
	He should have divorced her and left her.
	But she didn't. And he didn't.
	No, none of them did. No, but this is...
	She should have gotten therapy.
	How do you know that she didn't enjoy what she did to you?
	I mean, we only go to therapy for that which causes pain, right?
	I'm just curious, right?
	I mean, maybe she was a sadist and enjoyed this punishment.
	It felt like that, yes. I think in some ways there was a fulfillment, a power maybe.
	It empowered her possibly, but yes, I think you're right, she did.
	There was some fulfillment she got out of harming me.
	Well, and also the good treatment of your sister was exactly the same as the punishment of you or the abuse towards you.
	In other words, she's showing you, oh, I can treat people well.
	I just don't with you.
	And also, of course, the good treatment of your sister and the horrible abuse of you means that you and your sister can never combine to be allies.
	Right, that you are at tension as a child, it's divide and conquer, right?
	No, maybe.
	And you are also the demonstration of what happens if you displease mom to your sister.
	Oh yeah. Which makes her terrified of life, right?
	Yes, she never got in trouble.
	She, yeah, she was fine.
	Oh no, she was continually in trouble.
	It's the old question of would you rather be tortured or watch a child be tortured?
	I'd rather be tortured. I can't stand watching a child be tortured.
	Right, so your sister was abused by watching you be abused.
	Yeah, she grew up to be a therapist.
	I don't doubt it.
	I don't doubt it. Do you know much about your mother's childhood?
	I know that she had a very sad childhood.
	She was very depressed. I don't know about any specific abuse.
	She grew up in a...
	I thought you'd been talking about this stuff with your mom!
	Your sister's a therapist! How come you don't know about your mom's childhood?
	Okay, she was very depressed and she doesn't like talking about it.
	She doesn't want to talk about it.
	Oh my god, okay. Oh, wait!
	Stop, stop, stop!
	I'm begging you! I'm begging you!
	You need your mother to talk about her childhood.
	Do you understand that, right? Because the more your mother talks about your childhood, the greater a weight is off your shoulders.
	She holds on to every painful thing that has ever happened to her.
	Okay, no. Don't tangent me.
	Just stay with what I'm saying.
	Don't tangent me. Just for a moment.
	I know you're tempted.
	Your mom is coming in there saying, don't pursue this topic.
	Don't pursue this topic.
	Just the same way that... That Luke's mom was in saying, don't feel, don't feel, right?
	But I'm going to pursue this topic because I want to reach past your mom and get to the real you, right?
	Your mom, you need your mom to talk about your childhood.
	Sorry, you need your mom to talk about her childhood so that you can get relief from the burden of what she did to you.
	I'm telling you that straight up.
	Because if you find out terrible, like I'm sure that what happened to your mother was unholy, like absolutely ungodly and everything horrifying and satanic known to man, right?
	Because then what you do is you say, okay, so my mom was being run by the demons of history and it had nothing to do with me.
	Right? Now your mom tried to make it have something to do with you by treating you badly and your sister well.
	Right? Which is part of the sadism.
	Her treating your sister well was exactly the same as treating you badly.
	It's part of the whole sadism.
	Yes. Right?
	I mean, it's like my mom, in my opinion, was violent, was cruel, but she was not sadistic.
	I think she erupted like a volcano.
	She had no self-control or chose to have no self-control.
	I had no functional self-control by the time I came along.
	But she wouldn't color my teeth in.
	She'd lash out and hit me or beat me up, but it wouldn't be continual and it wouldn't be that sort of cold-eyed, rigid, controlled, sadistic stuff that it sounds like your mom was kind of Kind of into.
	So you need your mom to talk about her childhood so that you can gain some relief and understand that your mother's behavior predated your existence by decades, right?
	Because otherwise we take it personally, right?
	Like I've said this before, I don't know, because you may, I mean, nobody's listened to every show.
	So my father, when I was 15 or 16, I went to Africa for the summer.
	And my father...
	Almost said nothing to me, like the whole time.
	Very little said to me the whole time.
	And that was tough. I mean, we went hiking and he'd barely talked to me, like we would go.
	And at one point, he had to go into the bush to do his geological work.
	And he said, do you want to come?
	Do you want to come with me to the bush?
	You know, in that way that, please don't come, please don't come.
	And I said, no, I've got some letters to write here and so on, right?
	And I could tell he was relieved that I wasn't coming, right?
	And, I mean, that was a...
	It was a long couple of months, man.
	It was a long couple of months to finally be with my dad for the first time in many years and have him not really interact with me.
	This is the time, I've said this before, like he put me up on the roof for a couple of days, sanding down a tin roof.
	And just, I mean, it was not a good trip in any way, shape, or form.
	I met a cousin that I really liked, and we had some good trips, and I enjoyed seeing the jungle, and we went hiking through the mountains and all that.
	But... I mean, that was hard.
	You know, that was a hard, hard time.
	And it was worse than not going, for sure.
	And many years, about ten, maybe, no, seven or eight years later, we're in a bus going from Toronto to Montreal.
	He was coming to stay with me for a couple of days in Montreal before going back.
	And this is when he stiffed me on a restaurant bill.
	Again, probably just chaos or whatever.
	I don't think it was mean necessarily, but...
	On that bus trip, pretty much the whole trip, he told me the story of his life.
	And, you know, he's not a public figure particularly, so I won't get into much detail.
	Other than, you know, he just told me how unbelievably swallowed up with depression he was when I came to visit him and he had no resources.
	And that, you know, that gave me an enormous amount of relief.
	I didn't even know this kind of thing that I was carrying, but it just gave me an enormous amount of relief.
	Like, he was so depressed that he couldn't interact with me rather than I wasn't interesting.
	Does that... Yes, that makes sense.
	And when I've talked to my mother about my childhood with her, she said that she was very, very depressed and Frustrated, I guess.
	But yeah, depressed. No, when you say I guess, I'm afraid we're not dealing with...
	We are assuming facts not in evidence, Your Honor.
	No, yeah, that's true. She's just stated about being horribly, horribly depressed and suicidal at times.
	Well, yes, but we don't know whether that was the result of something that happened in her childhood or the fact that she was viciously abusing her children.
	No, seriously, I'm not kidding about this, right?
	She has horrible guilt from that.
	Well, okay, let's say she does.
	I mean, again, I know she says she does, but what I'm interested in, and I'm going to put this to you and you're going to dislike me.
	Totally fine. Well, actually, your mom's going to dislike me.
	You're going to like me enormously. So not talking about her childhood is a continuation of the abuse.
	She's not fixed it. She's not fixed it.
	No, she's not. She's not fixed it because she needs to talk about her childhood.
	So that you don't carry the burden that had anything to do with you.
	Because she, when you were a child, she drove that it was your fault into your head like a bunch of nails.
	Just bam, bam, bam, bam, bam.
	It wasn't my fault.
	No, no, but she said, look, she said, I'm coloring your teeth because you're a bad kid because you colored this antique table, right?
	I feel like I didn't think that I was a bad kid and that I did not deserve what was going on.
	Well, you would then be the first child in all of human history who was punished for behavior by a parent and didn't internalize it at all.
	I'm not saying I didn't internalize it at all, but I knew that what she was doing was wrong and that she should not be doing it and that I didn't deserve it.
	So then why didn't you go to your father?
	I don't know. I thought he knew.
	I don't understand.
	Come on. No, no.
	Why didn't you go? Come on.
	Why didn't you go to your father?
	If there's a tiger in your backyard and your mom's in the kitchen washing the dishes, do you just assume she's going to see the tiger?
	Do you say, hey, mom, there's a tiger.
	Oh, I thought she knew. Come on.
	That's not the kind of thing you would just assume.
	You would want to know that for sure.
	Saying that is enlightening because often there are things that I assume people know and understand that they just don't.
	Like a blind spot.
	Oh, you are an assumption machine.
	And I mean this with all due respect and affection, Diana.
	You are an assumption machine.
	When you listen back to this conversation, the amount of assumptions that you're making about the motivations of everyone involved are truly amazing.
	And you may be right about some of them, but you are an assumption machine.
	Now, that assumption... Assuming other people's knowledge or motives or intentions, you did that as a kid, or rather that's your story as to why you didn't tell your father.
	Oh, I just assumed he knew.
	But that means you get to go through life assuming that everyone knows stuff that they may not know.
	And then getting mad at them for not acting on the knowledge you assume they have.
	But this goes back to your dad, your story about why you didn't tell your dad.
	Well, he must have known.
	But then when you're talking about things with Luke, you're like, well, he must have known, he should have known, he did this, and I know his motives, and like, you're just assuming.
	But I think it goes back to this unanswered question, why didn't you tell your dad?
	I really don't know. I'm not even going to be annoying and say, well, I know.
	That is really annoying, because, you know, but...
	Go ahead, tell me why I didn't tell my dad.
	Well, you know, you didn't tell your dad.
	Because if your assumption was that your dad knew, then your dad approved of it.
	Your dad was fine with it. Your dad was willing to give money and resources and sexual attention to a woman who tortured his children.
	Gosh, that makes him sound like a monster.
	Well, you've been calling a whole bunch of people monsters.
	Not yet me, although it may come, right?
	I'm a monster. No, no, but so you're calling a whole bunch of people monsters, but then you're saying with your parents, you're saying, well, my dad didn't really know, and he's a good guy, and my mom was just depressed.
	She was unable to love me.
	So in other words, people you met 40 years after you were born, like Luke, they can totally be monsters.
	This woman, Sally, you called the Toad, who's a homewrecker.
	She's totally a monster. But your parents, who actually abused you, They're fine.
	No, they're not fine.
	No, you said, my dad's a good guy.
	We get along well. He knew, but maybe he didn't know.
	And my mom was unable to love me.
	You're giving them excuses.
	I don't intend to give them excuses.
	I know. I know. I know.
	This is a foggy process.
	You give your parents excuses, but I'll tell you what that means, my dear.
	They need to be culpable. I don't want to give them excuses.
	No, you don't want to give them excuses.
	They want you to give them excuses so you don't actually confront them with what they did.
	You understand? They're sitting on a bomb called history.
	And if you touch these two wires together, they fear they're going to explode.
	So their whole purpose, unconscious though it may be, which makes it even more powerful, their whole purpose is for you not to put these two wires together, which is why people get so mad at me, parents, abusive parents get so mad at me when these conversations occur.
	Because I'm not trying to damn them either, but these wires need to get together.
	Because I'll tell you this, if you forgive or blank out or say, well, he knew but he was unable or she was unable or you give all these excuses, then you've got a lot of just anger.
	In you, for how you were treated as a helpless, independent child when you had no say, no power, no choice in the situation.
	You got a lot of anger.
	Yeah.
	And where does it come out?
	It's not finding it's just Target.
	It's Fair Target, which is your mom and your dad.
	Where does your anger come out If you can't attach it to its proper object...
	It just...
	It just comes out.
	It snaps. It comes out on Luke.
	Yeah. It comes out on Sally.
	It comes out... I mean, we could go through a list of people I don't even know, right?
	It comes out on...
	Yeah, it comes out on... It comes out whenever things are very frustrating or overwhelming.
	No, no, no, no, no.
	Again, with all due love and respect, it doesn't come out because things are frustrating.
	It comes out because you're not attaching, you're just anger to its proper objects, which is your parents.
	It's not frustrating. We all get frustrated.
	Everyone gets frustrated. That doesn't mean that we're smashing artwork and screaming and breaking things.
	Everybody gets frustrated.
	Frustration is not the causality.
	Because then what happens is if you think that being frustrated means that you do this stuff, then you have to control and manage everyone so that you don't get frustrated, which is a very frustrating thing to do because people don't like being controlled and managed.
	And Luke is not a perfect guy, but he is not the cause of your anger.
	Luke is not responsible for you breaking things.
	No, he's not. Your parents...
	Here's the funny thing too.
	Your parents are not responsible for you breaking things.
	No, I'm responsible for my behavior.
	No, no, no.
	No? Oh God, I'm sorry.
	This is so annoying. I appreciate your patience because I'm not being very clear.
	Okay. It's not the frustration that makes you break things.
	It's not Luke that makes you break things.
	It's not your childhood that makes you break things.
	It's not your parents and how they treated you that makes you break things.
	Anger? No.
	It is your avoidance anger.
	Of attaching your just anger to its proper object that is the cause of you breaking things.
	So the fact that your parents abused you doesn't mean that you get to break things.
	Okay. It doesn't mean that there's no domino there.
	I mean, you know, my parents abused me.
	That doesn't mean I break things.
	Doesn't mean I get to break things.
	But the process of saying not only did your parents abuse you in the past, but by avoiding Taking ownership, true ownership, which means telling you about their history and what they did and all the horrible mistakes that they made and taking that whole burden off you.
	They're still abusing you, in my opinion.
	They're still abusing you in the present.
	Even when they say, I feel so guilty.
	That is a way of manipulating you to not bring the topic up.
	My dad said if he had known the extent of the abuse, he would have divorced my mother and left.
	He would have definitely left her home.
	That is a terrible thing for your dad to say.
	Why? Because you should have told him then.
	It's your fault you weren't safe because you didn't tell me and I didn't know.
	But I mean, I can't change the past.
	I can only work with right now.
	So what do I do now to repair?
	You think that this is not the past?
	You think that the present is not the past for you?
	No, I mean, I can't go back in time.
	No, no, please don't insult both of us with that pathetic defense that comes from bad parents.
	Do you think that I'm whipping out a time machine next and then we're going to go on a journey?
	No, no, I don't. No, okay, let's not.
	So what do I do? No, no, no.
	I want to do something now. I want to be able to do something about this now.
	Hang on. You are trying to jump to conclusions to avoid the emotions.
	Okay, I get that. What do I do?
	You're trying to jump past feeling stuff so that you can pretend that there's a solution that doesn't involve feeling at first.
	There's no solution that doesn't involve feeling at first.
	I feel it. Your father, by saying, if only I would have known, is putting the onus on you, and it's not on you.
	Your father, did he know his wife was depressed?
	Yes. Okay. Did he insist that she get treatment?
	No. Okay.
	Did he have any sense that there was a difference of treatment of his daughters?
	Yes. Yes. Okay.
	Did he sit you the fuck down and ask you?
	No. Okay.
	That's all you need to know.
	That's all you need to know about his massive Cowardly, brutal, and I'm not saying he's a terrible guy, I'm just saying this particular decision, which went on for 15 years probably, right?
	He actively avoided knowing.
	He actively avoided knowing because he didn't ask.
	It's his job to ask.
	He's the parent, you're the child. How old were you when your mother scrubbed crayons on your teeth?
	Four or five. Okay, are you supposed to fucking know what to do in that situation?
	Are you supposed... Well, I've got to tell my father, so my father can...
	Right? I don't think I was supposed to know what to do in that situation.
	You can't possibly know. And I'll tell you why you didn't tell your father.
	Because he really, really, really didn't want to know.
	And it would have blown back on you if you had told your father.
	In some way, I don't know how it would have blown back on you.
	No, what would have happened is you would have told your father, your father would have told your mother, and then what would have happened?
	Fighting. Well, you would have got the shit kicked out of you.
	No. Yes.
	I mean, I don't mean literally, but your mother would have punished you in some extravagant, brutal fashion.
	I don't know. Yes, you know.
	Yes, you know. I'm telling you now.
	Why didn't you tell your father?
	Because your father would have told your mother and then at some point you would have been alone with your mother.
	She would have felt humiliated and angry and she would have taken it out on you.
	Well, she felt humiliated and angry and took it out on me all the time regardless.
	You don't think this would have been a little bit of an escalation?
	I never considered it.
	I bet you did. I bet you did deep down.
	You've got a great instinct for truth.
	You've got a great instinct for truth.
	And all children generally, we're all navigating this stuff.
	If there's a way out, we'll take it.
	If there's a solution, we'll do it.
	Kids do that. But if you'd have told your father, let's imagine, let's imagine, you had told your father, you said, Dad, you know, Mom's really cruel to me.
	She's violent to me. She's abusive to me.
	She's kind of torturing me.
	I'm terrified. I'm having a terrible childhood.
	And I feel even worse because she's really, really nice to my sister.
	You've got to do something.
	What would he have done, do you think?
	I feel like he wouldn't have done anything.
	And did you want to know that, as a child, that your mother and your father were both colluding for you to be abused?
	Well, no, of course not.
	Okay, so you avoided telling him because you knew what would happen if you told him and you needed to keep that fog because otherwise despair could have taken you off a bridge, right?
	That's possible. Very possible.
	Now, he may have done something worse than nothing, which is, again, to go and tell your mother and then through that process, your mother then takes it out on you.
	Look, I don't know if you've been in a situation, I'm sure you have, most of us have, right?
	You've been in a situation where you see some child being abused in public and it's really complicated, right?
	Because if you approach the parent and the parent feels humiliated, then the parent will further take out that abuse on the child later and it could be bad, right?
	Yeah. Yes.
	So the only way that your father could have, like if, I tell you, I mean, if you had come to me, like if you were my kid and you come to me in this incomprehensible situation in my life, but let's say it had happened, right?
	Then I would have said, okay, so my kids need to go to a safe place.
	I need to go and talk to my wife.
	I need to get her into some kind of anger management treatment right away.
	And I need to hire a nanny who's going to be with everyone full time so that she doesn't get time alone with the kids to further abuse them.
	That would have been amazing.
	I mean, she can't be left alone with the kids if he's going to intervene with her abuse.
	And I'm sure he could have found a way to make that happen, right?
	Yes, he could have found a way. He could have.
	Yes, he could have. He absolutely could have found a way.
	So why didn't he? That's a solution.
	Okay, and even when I was in school, the counselor told my parents that I was really depressed, and they suggested I start going.
	I was 11. They suggested that I start going to therapy, and we tried family therapy.
	The therapist Decided that my mother was the problem.
	She was the person who was suppressed and dropped me, stopped seeing me, and we stopped doing the family therapy.
	And then she stopped going.
	Your mother did? Yeah, she shit the bed on therapy.
	I've done a lot of therapy.
	How old were you at that point?
	11. Okay, so your mother...
	Had, at least potentially, some kind of cure for her aggression, her violence, her abusive tendencies.
	Yes, she did. Yes, she did.
	And she did not take it.
	Sure, she actively rejected it, right?
	She started it. She actively, consistently, actively rejects working on her pain.
	And do you know why?
	Do you know why she rejects that?
	Because she's a fucking coward.
	And it's painful.
	And because she's a coward and she doesn't want to do it.
	That is, listen, that is, I'm not going to disagree with you at all.
	And that is a first level Viking, Genghis Khan, warrior queen, Xena, Wonder Woman reaction.
	I'm not going to take that away from you.
	Not that I could, right? And that is a first tier response that's going to lead you to another response that's much more personal to you.
	No, no. The reason why she dumped therapy is that her inner parents Forbade her to go.
	Because the therapy would have led to a clear negative judgment on their behavior.
	I don't like the behavior of anybody.
	Well, you're doing well, but I think all of it.
	I don't like any of that.
	I appreciate what you're saying and I agree with you.
	Because she was unwilling to objectively and angrily judge her own parents, she could not continue therapy.
	In other words, Criticizing her own parents was a death sentence in her mind, because I'm sure that when she grew up as a child, to criticize her own parents would have meant escalating force to the possibility of death.
	Maybe. Her father died when she was 16.
	He died young. Children, like, we evolved in situations of child abuse as a species.
	I mean, up until the modern world, child abuse was the norm.
	Like, that creepy Aztec god that demanded the tears of children, so they physically...
	You saw that. They physically tortured their children in order to extract their tears for their stupid, shitty god, right?
	Wait, I do remember some things about what she said.
	She has three sisters and a brother, and her older sister...
	I was kind of a bully.
	And yeah, her older sister was kind of a bully and sort of tortured the whole family a bit.
	And so my mother's mom, my grandmother would...
	So they were punished with switches, like, you know, in Alabama, you know, a switch is like a branch or something.
	You have to pick out your own stick, right?
	And if you didn't do it, then...
	Eloise got to go do it.
	She got to go get the switch. So you better go pick your own switch or the mean sister gets to pick the switch.
	I remember that. Oh my god.
	You see that setting the children against each other just like your mother.
	Yeah, I see that.
	I totally see that. I totally see that.
	Okay. Okay. So she faced disagreeing with parents is a death sentence.
	Yes. And I know that sounds like, oh, you're saying they would have killed her.
	It's like, no, but we don't take that chance as children.
	We don't take that chance if our parents are just going to stop escalating abuse.
	I mean, I remember when I was a kid, as I said before, like four or five years, I think it was four or something, running away from home and my mother beating my head against the metal door.
	And I had to just go limp because it's like, oh, here comes brain damage if I don't go limp and comply, right?
	You don't... You don't test your parents and how violent they'll become.
	Because historically, that just meant you'd die, right?
	Yeah, that's a really good way to put it.
	Yeah, because it feels like a potential death sentence.
	Yeah, yeah. It's like Russian roulette.
	Maybe you'll survive, but why the hell would you play?
	It's a bad thing, right? So your mother...
	Could not criticize our own parents.
	That's which we fail to criticize, we generally become, right?
	I mean, this is why criticism and a clear moral judgment on the evils among us is so essential, right?
	Because otherwise, we just turn into that, right?
	Because you've got a template on how to parent, and if you don't...
	Aggressively push back against that template, it's going to inhabit and flow out into your relationship.
	So your mother was like, well, you escalate aggression until you get your way.
	And you tell yourself a story about how it's the right moral thing to do and the other person is bad and blah, blah, blah, right?
	And of course, when you have this insight and you've incorporated this insight, you'll listen back to the early parts of this conversation and you'll hear your mother talking to you, not you talking to or about aggression.
	I hear it now. Yeah, I understand.
	And again, I say this with great sympathy.
	Like, the burden has fallen upon you to break the cycle.
	The burden has fallen upon you to break the cycle.
	That's an honorable and noble and terrifying and awful and great thing to happen.
	But you've gotten to the point where you can break the cycle.
	So your mother, in not talking about her childhood, is continuing the pattern Of not criticizing the aggressors.
	So you can't fundamentally criticize her.
	And again, you listen to how you introduced her to me.
	My mother was depressed. She was unable to love me.
	Like a victim, right?
	I criticize. She plays a victim, but I don't...
	I really do not like...
	I do not like or appreciate when people victimize themselves.
	It's weak and cowardly.
	And I... I am critical of that.
	And I am critical of her.
	And I am critical of my father.
	Hey, you can give me your platonic conversation that didn't happen with me.
	I'm just telling you about the conversation that did happen with me, which I'm not saying you have no criticisms of your mother, of course.
	I mean, I understand that.
	But what I'm saying is that you are inhabiting her behavior to such a degree that the criticism isn't strong enough.
	I hear you. You not doing what your mother did.
	You not being aggressive, threatening, breaking, throwing.
	You have to escalate the criticism of your mother to the point where that stops happening in you.
	Because you just need to keep dialing it up, your criticisms of your mother and your father.
	Because if you don't criticize your father, Luke is going to become your father.
	Right? And all the anger you have towards your dad is going to dump on Luke or the next guy or me tomorrow.
	Who knows, right? But that's where the issue is, right?
	You've got to keep dialing up your criticisms until...
	Anger is the immune system of the soul.
	And you want your immune system to keep...
	If you've got a deadly virus in your body, you want your immune system to keep escalating until the virus is fucking dead, right?
	Because there's no point just, oh, I kind of don't like that virus, but, you know, maybe I'll just poke it a little bit.
	It's like the virus is going to keep growing and spreading.
	If you've got a cancer growing in your body, you want your immune system to fight that cancer like no fucking holds barred until the cancer is dead.
	You keep escalating.
	You have to keep escalating your response until the threat is neutralized.
	And with your parents, and this goes equally to Luke as well, right?
	If you are mature and wise and forgiving and this, that, and the other, then your immune system can't change your behavior.
	And whatever you justify or excuse in your parents, you justify an excuse in yourself.
	And the point is, yeah, we can't go back and make you a mom a better mom when you were a kid.
	But that's not the point. And of course, we know that's impossible.
	But as you dial up the criticism of your mother, it's completely unacceptable for her to do what she did and there are no excuses, then you now have a standard that you will conform to and apply with as well.
	But whatever you allow your mom, well, my mom was frustrated and so she abused me.
	It's like, okay, well, now I'm frustrated and the rule is if you're frustrated, you can abuse people.
	That's what I give the rule to my mom.
	So now I'm frustrated. Of course I can abuse people.
	But if I say, well, I'm frustrated and it's completely unacceptable for me to abuse people, your inner mom is like, whoa, whoa, whoa.
	That's my excuse. No, I believe that.
	It is unacceptable for me to do that to people.
	It is. I know that.
	No, but it doesn't take because that's an intellectual thing.
	You need the gut thing. You need the gut thing.
	The intellectual thing is, well, it's very bad what I do, so I'm going to do it again.
	Well, it's very bad what I do, so I'm going to do it again.
	And then what you do is you're kind of self-punishing yourself by giving yourself a standard that emotionally you simply cannot maintain because you're forgiving your parents to some degree, which means you forgive yourself.
	So all the rules that you have about your own behavior don't mean anything because emotionally it's okay to do it because you forgive your parents for it.
	Okay, I understand that.
	Now, I know I've got, I'm not trying to, I'm not schizo here.
	I know I just did a whole thing on how I learned to forgive my mother.
	But you've got to go through the anger phase, right?
	You know, I can forgive the cancer once the cancer is neutralized.
	I can't forgive the cancer so it kills me.
	You understand, right? I've forgiven a great deal, but I guess realizing now I've not forgiven enough.
	I have not escalated enough.
	I have not, I really haven't gotten deep enough with this in either way.
	Do you mind if we do a quick role play?
	No, go ahead. All right.
	I'm not sure how this plays in the polyamory community, but probably quite a bit differently, but this is going to be totally clean, I tell you.
	All right. So who are we?
	You're your mom, I'm you.
	Okay. Whoa!
	That was a pause. Okay.
	All right. Because I need to know where the boundaries are in this.
	Okay, so let's say... How old are we adults?
	No, just right now.
	Right now. Right now. Okay, after this call, you call your mom.
	So me as you, saying to you as your mom, I say, Mom, oh man, do I have to talk to you about something?
	It's like the stuff that happened when I was a kid.
	I know we've talked about it some.
	I've not really told you the full extent of what I remember, and I'm sure you remember it, or maybe you've blocked some of it out, but, you know, the violence and brutality and subjugation and degradation, humiliation, abuse.
	It was staggering.
	And what I need is for you to tell me about your childhood so I can get a context and just take this burden off me, take this load off me, because...
	I feel like I've tried talking to you about this before, about your childhood, and I don't get much.
	And you know, I hope you know that when you don't tell me about your childhood, it makes my life worse.
	You're withholding things from me that I kind of need to heal, to shrug off this burden.
	So I really, really do need you to, like, I got hours now.
	I just need you, like, beginning to end, top to bottom, good, bad, and ugly, your childhood soup to nuts.
	everything that happened.
	I really, really need that.
	Mom?
	Diana...
	We have talked about this a lot.
	And I really don't...
	I don't like having to go back.
	But if that's what you need, maybe I'll do it.
	Maybe I'll try. But I... Okay, good.
	Let's start now. Let's start now.
	I appreciate that. Let's start now.
	So tell me what you recall the most vivid memories that you have.
	It can be good and bad.
	I just want to get a sort of orienting view.
	So growing up, Eloise ruled the roost.
	She, she, She was the boss of all the kids.
	She wasn't the oldest.
	You know, my brother John, very nice, was the oldest, but Eloise really ruled over everything.
	We were punished physically with The switch, you had to go get your own switch.
	And if you didn't get one that was big enough, good enough for the beating, then Eloise got to go pick the switch.
	And she would pick a pretty brutal one.
	So you would have to, we, I would have to pick, you know, that's terrible actually.
	Thinking about that, that's really awful.
	And I would say, but mom, I appreciate you telling me that, and it's very helpful to me, but I mean, you do understand that Eloise wasn't the problem, right?
	She's just a sibling. She's just a kid.
	She's not making the rules.
	She's not enforcing the rules.
	I mean, she was an enforcer, but it wasn't her rules, and she would have been punished if she didn't participate.
	So I guess I'm kind of curious why you're focusing on Eloise rather than Because those were the rules.
	No, but they were your mom's and dad's rules, right?
	So we can't blame Eloise for what the parents imposed, right?
	Wow.
	Yeah, that's a good point.
	Mama was always...
	She had a lot of kids and she had a job and she...
	I guess did what she felt she needed to do to keep the house in order to keep the kids in order.
	Oh mom, I gotta tell you. I'm sorry to interrupt you.
	I can't even tell you how much you're pissing me off right now.
	And I'm not saying that that means you gotta change anything.
	I'm just telling you I'm totally fucking angry right now.
	And I'll tell you why.
	Because you have excuses.
	Oh, she had a lot of kids.
	She had a job. Those are all choices.
	All choices. To have as many kids as she had was a choice.
	To have a job was to have a choice.
	So you're making excuses for a woman who abused her children.
	Let me ask you this, Mom.
	When I was four years old, did I get an excuse for coloring on the antique table?
	No. So why is it that a woman who's 30 or 40 years old who's abusing children, as a result, you say, of her own choices, but to abuse is a choice, why does she get an excuse?
	But when I was four years, if you're so good at excusing people, why didn't I get an excuse when I was four years old?
	I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
	No, no, don't. The I'm sorry is nice to hear, I suppose.
	But you give excuses to child abusers, but not to me as a child.
	That means you think I'm worse than a child abuser.
	You understand how that lands, how that sits with me, Mom?
	You are calling me...
	See, child abusers get excuses, but not you as a four-year-old.
	You are bad beyond redemption.
	There was no excuse for you as a four-year-old.
	But a woman who beat her children...
	Well, she has excuses.
	She's got reasons.
	You treated me much worse.
	It's not even in the same category.
	You treated me infinitely worse than a child abuser.
	Do you get that?
	Yes. Why? I don't know.
	I didn't know what to do.
	I don't know. No, you knew what to do.
	You did stuff.
	When I don't know what to do, I don't do anything.
	If I don't know how to fix a car, I don't just go in there with a hammer.
	I don't do... Like, you did things.
	Don't tell me you... Now you're giving yourself an excuse.
	Well, I didn't know what to do. Well, if you didn't know what to do, why did you hold me down and color my teeth?
	Do you know how humiliating that is?
	Why did you continually aggress against me and abuse me?
	Scream at me? Hit me?
	You knew what to do. Now you get excuses and you did abuse me.
	You did abuse me. You get an excuse.
	Your mother gets an excuse.
	Eloise apparently doesn't, though she was a child and neither did I. So why the...
	Sorry, I won't swear because I don't know how your mom would take that.
	Why... Why do the children...
	Get punished and their abusers get excuses.
	Help me understand this. They shouldn't.
	I don't know why.
	No, don't give me... Why?
	Why in your mind does this happen?
	I need to know.
	Because if I'm put on a much lower, infinitely lower moral hierarchy than a child abuser, if I'm way worse than a child abuser, because I was responsible 100% at the age of four, But adults who abuse children, they're not held to account.
	If I'm infinitely worse than a child abuser, I need to know why.
	Because my conclusion, deep down mom, is that I am worse than a child abuser.
	And no one can love me.
	And I can never be secure.
	And nobody will ever care for me.
	Because I'm infinitely worse than a child abuser.
	How could I be loved? How could anyone be loyal to me?
	How could anyone care for me consistently?
	I'm a terrible person, based on the empiricism of what you did.
	Because I'm infinitely worse than a child abuser.
	And you wonder why I'm having trouble finding stability and love in my relationships?
	When this is the wound you gave me?
	This was the knife that you turned in me?
	That child abusers get excuses, but you get beaten.
	Child abusers, they had their reasons.
	It's okay, really. It's not great, but you know, they did what they did and they had their reasons.
	But you as a child, just plain bad.
	You kind of cursed my heart, Mom.
	Badly. Like a voodoo curse.
	You are worse than child abusers.
	But I need to know why.
	Can you tell me? I've asked her that and she always just says, I don't know.
	How do I get an answer?
	Yes, you do know.
	You do know. And you owe it to me to tell me.
	Because if you put me in a category of much worse than a child abuser, you damn well owe it to me to tell me why.
	And don't tell me you don't know.
	Of course you know. We're talking about behavior you consistently enacted upon me year after year, decade after decade, and you're still doing it now.
	You damn well owe me the words that lift this curse on my heart.
	You owe me that. Because you put the curse there, and you've got to lift it.
	And don't fucking tell me you don't know, because you do know, because you acted it consistently.
	It's like me saying, oh, I spent 20 years speaking to you in English, and then somebody says to you, do you speak English?
	I say, no, not really. You consistently behaved in this manner, which means you know why.
	Now, it may not be right at the tip of your tongue, it might not be on the top of your brain, but you damn well know why.
	So why? Why was I treated worse than a child abuser?
	Why was that the foundation of your abuse of me treating me worse than a child abuser?
	Because that's how I was raised.
	That's how I knew.
	That's all I knew. So you get the excuse of ignorance, but if you genuinely believed that, Mom, if you genuinely believed that ignorance was an excuse, why didn't I get that excuse when I was four years old?
	I was wrong.
	No, no, no. You gave me a principle, which is, hey, I didn't know any better.
	How the hell was I supposed to know about coloring on an antique table at four when you didn't even know how to fucking parent when you were 30?
	You say, well, I didn't know.
	So you can't blame me, but you blamed me when I was four.
	So don't tell me that there's an excuse called I didn't know.
	That's not a valid excuse.
	That is not real. Because if you genuinely believe that, Then you never would have punished me when I was a kid because I was four or five or ten or whatever I was doing.
	So that is not why you did it.
	And also, by the way, it's your job to know better.
	If you become a parent, it's your job to know how to be a good parent.
	Did you read any books? Did you take any courses?
	Did you study any literature? Did you consult with any experts?
	I don't think so. So it's like me, you know, I kill a pilot.
	I take over the plane and crash the plane and say, well, I didn't know how to fly a plane.
	It's not my fault. It's like, well, it kind of is.
	You put yourself in the situation of being in charge.
	You didn't study how to fly the damn plane.
	You put yourself in position of authority over children and you never studied how to be a good parent?
	That's on you! You can't claim ignorance for a task you knew was coming.
	You got pregnant. You had at least nine months.
	To figure out how to parent.
	I mean, if I bring a gold...
	Imagine if I had brought a goldfish home as a kid and I hadn't fed it and it would have died.
	Would you have said, well, you didn't know any better.
	No, you'd have punished me. You've got to know that you've got to feed a goldfish.
	What's the matter with you? You ask the vet.
	You look it up. You ask the pet store owner.
	You wouldn't have given me that excuse.
	And I think I'm a little more important than a fucking goldfish, if you don't mind me saying so, Mum.
	What was the reason? It's not ignorance.
	You had a responsibility to know and you never gave me that excuse when I was a child.
	So don't expect me to give you that excuse when you were an adult.
	What's the answer?
	Why did you treat me as worse than a child abuser?
	And I know I'm sounding harsh because I'm mad.
	She would say, because I'm a terrible person and I'm a terrible mother and I'm sorry.
	But that's just words.
	That's not a causality.
	That's a description of consequences.
	That's not a description of origins.
	It's like saying, why are you in Tunisia?
	Because I'm in Tunisia! Why did you do terrible things as a mother?
	Because I'm a terrible mother. That doesn't answer anything.
	The question is, why did you treat me worse than a child abuser?
	And simply saying, why did I act badly because I'm a bad person, that doesn't answer anything.
	And you understand that by withholding this information from me, you are continuing to harm me.
	By giving me bullshit answers, to be honest, Mom.
	By giving me bullshit answers, by avoiding, by minimizing, by collapsing in on yourself, by making up mealy-mouthed excuses, you are continuing to harm me.
	So we're not even talking about the past anymore.
	We're talking about now.
	Why won't you tell me?
	Why you treated me so badly? - I've told you I was depressed I was desperate.
	I was suicidal. I was in a very dark and bad place.
	So why didn't you? You knew you were suicidal, right?
	You knew you were depressed? Yes.
	Why didn't you get help? Why didn't you get help?
	Because I don't know. You're saying, oh, I mistreated you.
	I abused you because I was suicidal.
	I say, well, maybe you were suicidal because you were abusing me.
	Maybe you were depressed because you were abusing me.
	I don't know. Yes, that's part of it.
	So why didn't you get help?
	And when I was 11, remember, we got the family therapy.
	The therapist said she thought it was you.
	She wanted to focus on you.
	And what did you do? Then I didn't think that your dad would let me get me a therapist.
	No, no, but you had a therapist and the therapist wanted to work just with you and what did you do when I was 11?
	I went to therapy for a while and then I stopped.
	Right. Were you all better?
	No. So you stopped.
	When I was a kid, when I was given antibiotics, and I was given a week's worth of antibiotics, and I only took one day's worth of antibiotics, what did you tell me?
	Finish your damn medicine! It says a week.
	Take it for a week. What are you crazy?
	Just finish your medicine. Remember you telling me that?
	Yeah. So you quit treatment before you're better when you would always tell me to take my medicine until it was done, right?
	Yes. I should have gotten more treatment.
	I should have gotten... Okay, so you can't say that you mistreated me because you were depressed.
	Because you could have gotten better, but you chose not to, right?
	You could have gotten help, but you chose not to.
	It's too hard. It hurts too much.
	Oh, so you're very sensitive to things that hurt you, but you abused me as a child.
	Because apparently hurting me is fine?
	You're very sensitive to things that hurt you as an adult, which you've chosen, and therefore you hurt me terribly as a child when I didn't choose shit.
	Yes. You're very sensitive to your own pain and totally fine inflicting it on me.
	I wouldn't see it like that, but...
	No, but that's what happened. You're saying, well, I don't want to do things that are unpleasant and uncomfortable because I don't like feeling bad.
	But the whole point we're talking about this is because you made me feel like shit as a child.
	So you can't have this principle, don't do things which make you feel bad because you're happy to do things that made me feel bad, right?
	Or maybe not happy, but you did them, right?
	Yes. You certainly preferred hurting me to the alternatives, whatever they were.
	That's what happened, yes.
	No, that's not what happened.
	That's what you chose.
	The weather happens. You choose.
	Yes, that's...
	So why did you choose it?
	That's what I need to know.
	I was sick. No, that doesn't answer anything.
	There's a reason. There's a reason that you did it.
	That's not an excuse in everything you're giving me, Mom, with all due respect.
	And I care about you and I want our relationship to improve.
	But most importantly... Because I was angry in everything you did.
	Everything that you did triggered me and made me so angry.
	Everything you did, I just lost my temper.
	Great. Now we're getting somewhere.
	Thank you. Thank you for that.
	I really, really appreciate that.
	Now you know the next question, right, Mom?
	No. Why did everything I did trigger you?
	Not my sister, but me.
	Why did everything I did?
	You were different.
	She was easy.
	You were difficult. You needed so much love and attention.
	And I couldn't give it to you.
	You always needed hugs.
	You always needed Attention and hugs and love and I couldn't give it to you.
	Why couldn't you give it to me?
	I didn't have it to give.
	Then why didn't you?
	Why didn't you get the help so you could give it to me?
	Why didn't you talk to Dad? Why didn't you get a nanny?
	Why didn't you find some way?
	It's like saying, well, I broke my leg so I can't get to the grocery store, so I'm afraid my children have to starve to death.
	You can find alternatives, can't you, while your leg heals?
	I should have done that, and I didn't, and I'm sorry.
	But why? Why not?
	I didn't want to deal with it.
	What does that mean? I didn't. I don't mean it's in hostile.
	I don't know what you mean, Mom.
	What does it mean to say I didn't want to deal with it?
	I didn't want to...
	I was in so much pain already, I did not want to be in more.
	And going into therapy would have been more painful.
	And I just couldn't do it.
	What do you think would have come out of therapy that would have been more painful than abusing your child?
	Or children, really.
	What's in that therapist's room?
	What's there? Everything that I have never dealt with.
	Everything. That's kind of vague.
	What's on that couch?
	What's the words that come out of you that are so terrible, so awful, that you'd rather abuse your children?
	I don't know how to answer that.
	Thank you.
	And that's because you don't know the words in your mom, right?
	Yeah. Right.
	And there are words in there.
	Yeah, oh yeah, I know there are.
	There's something on that therapist's couch that she's like, oh yeah, no, I'd much rather abuse my children than speak those words.
	Yep. Right.
	Yeah. What did you think of the role play?
	That was intense.
	No shit, Sherlock. Good job.
	I took notes. Thanks.
	No, listen, great job because I knew it was a completely unfair roleplay because I'm asking you for things you don't know from your mom, right?
	Yeah, that was intense.
	That was, geez Louise, that was really...
	Yeah, tell me, so what did you feel on your mom's behalf, on your mom's side?
	What do I feel in my mouth?
	Well, that's difficult because I was beat.
	I mean, the roleplay because I'm me and her at the same time.
	Sorrow. Regret.
	Just sorrow.
	Deep. Sorry, somebody's moving or shifting on their mic.
	I can't hear very well. Deep, deep abysmal sorrow.
	Bottomless. Swallowing.
	Right. That's not the genuine emotion, though, deep down, because what you experienced there was self-pity.
	Pity. Self-pity.
	Yes, self-pity. Self-pity, right?
	And that's what I got from it.
	Yes, self-pity. Because sorrow is an emotion about yourself, right?
	It's not an empathy emotion.
	I feel sad. And that doesn't mean it's a bad emotion.
	But self-pity in particular, she definitely gave herself a lot of self-pity.
	Because self-pity and excuses go hand in hand.
	Still does. Still does.
	Always. She plays the victim.
	She's a victim, victim, victim, victim, victim.
	Self-pitying victim. So another thing that I got...
	Was cunning. I'll try this.
	I'll try that. I'll try the other.
	What about this excuse? Will this work?
	Will this keep the conversation away?
	Will this satisfy her? What if I attack myself?
	What if I make another excuse?
	It was just trying, like chess moves.
	Like, how do I win?
	How do I get out of this conversation without being destroyed?
	Yes. Right.
	So you get the resistance that she has to giving you the answers that set you free.
	Yes. Right.
	And you know that you don't actually have to get those answers in order to be set free.
	Because that would be to put your freedom in the hands of another person who doesn't have a great track record of being honest and direct, right?
	Yeah, I don't. Yes.
	I would like that.
	I want to be able to do that myself.
	I don't want to give that to anybody else because I don't think that that's useful.
	So... If...
	If there's a safe, and somebody has the combination, and there's something you feel that you need in the safe, then either you get the combination and open the safe, or the other person you know for sure will never give you the combination, then you just walk away, right?
	Or you break the safe.
	Yes. I mean, you're absolutely correct.
	But let's pretend for a moment that the safe is the past, and you have no direct access, and you can't go on.
	Oh, so I can't have a safe cracker?
	No, sorry. You're totally right to use the analogy that way, and I appreciate that.
	But the limit of the analogy is the safe is your mother's childhood, and you can't break it open without her say-so, right?
	Yeah. Yeah.
	If you have, when you have, I hope you do, if you have the conversation with your mother and your father, we could do your father too, but I think that would be even foggier, right?
	But if you have the conversation with your mother and she won't give you the information, then there's closure in that too.
	I never found out why my mother treated me so badly and why she had endless excuses for truly despicable behavior but treated me as a child as a full agent and someone who could be just punished and right.
	I had no excuses as a child.
	She had all the excuses as an adult.
	I know why.
	I can't tell you the emotional reason.
	I can tell you the practical reason.
	So the reason why she treated you worse than a child abuser Is quite simple.
	Because she could. Because you didn't have power over her.
	She had power over you. Right?
	So her mother has power over her, so she won't confront her mother.
	She has power over you, so she'll bully you.
	Yeah. So, bullying comes from because you can.
	Bullying comes, if you don't have a standard which says don't do it, bullying is the, you know, like you break an egg and it just spreads, right?
	Because there's nothing holding it in.
	So if you don't have that behavior, you bully because you can.
	Which leads me to a question that sounds ridiculous, but it's very important.
	And by the way, I know we've been going for a long time.
	Are you guys okay to continue for another couple of minutes?
	Yes. Is this helpful, useful stuff?
	Yes. Okay. Yeah.
	So, Diana, how pretty are you?
	I'm very pretty. Right.
	So you understand that for a lot of men that gives you the same power that your mother had over you as a child?
	I hadn't thought of it like that really.
	Luke, am I anywhere in the vicinity?
	Yes, it's a very similar power.
	Because the first thing you said about Diana was she was beautiful, right?
	And I think you meant physically, right?
	And I'm not, listen, Diana, I'm not saying that's all you are, of course.
	I mean, you are a very deep and powerful intellect and a great mind and a great communicator.
	And, you know, you jump into role plays like it ain't no thing.
	And, you know, like, so good for you.
	But in terms of the power that physical beauty has over men is not dissimilar from the power that parents have over their children.
	Okay. So your mother had power over you and therefore she could bully because she didn't have the standard that said no because she forgave her parents bullying and put it on the sister, right?
	So she hates her sister and so you have a sister, she divides you two just as her sister divided her based upon the bullying of the mother and so she bullies you to divide you and your sister.
	It's all a very clear pattern.
	But the physical beauty now Luke, I also assume most of the guys who are polyamorous are also very good looking.
	It's just kind of the pattern.
	Is that the case as well? I hate to judge myself, but I feel attractive, yeah.
	Diana, where would you rate Luke's looks, 1 to 10?
	1 to 10. He could be in better shape, but...
	I'm sorry, I didn't get a number there.
	Eight, I was thinking.
	Eight. Okay, eight. What if he worked out and gotten...
	Sorry, I assume he's bald and blue-eyed.
	No, I'm just kidding. So, if he worked out and all of that, where could he get to?
	A nine.
	Okay, and Luke, where would you put Diana in terms of looks?
	Well, against all women or women her age?
	No, I think we have to make it women her age because, you know, I assume you're not dating 18-year-olds, so...
	Yeah, so probably eight or nine, yeah.
	Right.
	Okay.
	So I would imagine that to some degree, you are reenacting parental interactions with each other, because your physical attractiveness puts you in such high demand that it gives you power over each other.
	In other words, you look great together, you're the envy of other people.
	And in the selfie photos, you look like you're on the cover of Conde Nast.
	I don't know what magazines there are these days, but...
	So you have power over each other partly based upon physical appearance.
	And that's perfectly natural.
	I mean, physical appearance matters and it's a good signal for all these kinds of things.
	But I think that because you're there with each other in part due to vanity and looking good together and being a very attractive couple, then it gives you power over each other that in your experience when parents have power over you, they become abusive. And so when you have power over each other, based upon looks and maybe other characteristics as well, but maybe it's money or whatever, right?
	But if you have power over each other, then that is going to make you more prone to reenacting parental abuse.
	Because when your parents had power, they abused people.
	And if you have power based upon looks and money or status or whatever it is, then you're more likely to Abuse people.
	I'm not saying that that's totally true and 100% proven, but is it a possibility of association?
	I understand that. Because you can.
	If you can't, then you can't do it.
	If you can, then you can. Well, if you can't attract someone, then you don't have power over them, right?
	Exactly. Yeah. And so this is true for Luke with his resources, right?
	Luke, you said you're very financially successful.
	So you're alpha as far as that goes.
	And Diana, you're very physically attractive.
	And obviously, I'm not saying you're very intelligent and all of that.
	But you're both alphas.
	And when you were kids, your parents were the alphas, right?
	So how do alphas behave?
	Like alphas. They bully.
	That's the association, right?
	Yeah. Now, here's the interesting thing, and this is why these conversations are so helpful, and this may annoy you, which is perfectly fine, and you can let me know if it does.
	Who's the alpha in this conversation?
	Wouldn't you be? Yeah.
	You are. But am I abusive?
	No. So, do you see, I'm not only in the content, but in the form of what we're talking about.
	I'm giving you an alpha that is benevolent.
	You are hard, but yes.
	Yeah, but not mean.
	True. And I'm hard like I want the best for you, right?
	Like truth. Yeah, you're hard like truth.
	Yeah, yeah. So I'm hard like this injection will save your life.
	It'll pinch a little. So I'm not just in the content, but in the form of these conversations, I'm modeling an alpha.
	And, you know, these terms are somewhat imprecise and can be criticized.
	But in general, I'm taking a leadership role With benevolence and no bullying and no abuse of power.
	Does that make sense? Yes.
	And that's why at the very beginning, partly because I genuinely believe it was very important, I say at the beginning, do you remember what I said about if there's any contradiction between what I say and what you believe and experience?
	That you know. That you're right, I'm wrong.
	And I said, I don't understand, so wait for the back and forth, some of the insults until I sort of understand.
	And I've always said, I don't tell you what to do.
	And in any contradiction between what I think and what you genuinely believe and experience, it's you that wins, not me.
	So it's kind of not really an alpha thing, but I'm giving you authority without abuse.
	I'm giving you power plus benevolence, if that makes sense.
	Yes. And I think you can see that we've had disagreements over the course of this conversation, right?
	You guys have disagreed with me, I've disagreed with you, and I guess I've been fairly firm about it, not mean or anything like that, but, you know, I remember saying a couple of times, I'm begging for you to not do this, right?
	Not like, I disallow you to do this, I can't believe you're doing this, I already told you, like this kind of stuff, right?
	Yes, yes.
	Right? So that is, I mean, that's a genuine thing.
	I am begging you because I can't order you.
	I won't order you because it would be ridiculous to do that, right?
	I can tell you what my needs are and I can repeat my needs until you either comply or not, right?
	I kept repeating my need, you know, please don't insult each other.
	Please don't jump to conclusions.
	Please don't mind read. I'm just telling you what my preferences are for a productive conversation in my view, right?
	And you can, right, but I'm not bullying you, right?
	I'm asserting needs.
	I'm asserting preferences without bullying or abusing authority.
	Does that make sense? Yes, it does.
	So in this disagreement space, we've all disagreed with each other.
	We've not called any names.
	We've not raised any voices other than me occasionally in passion, but not in any meanness, right?
	So this is a form of communication.
	It's called real-time relationships.
	I've talked about it a lot. It's a form of communication that has authority and, in a sense, power or weight, but without any abuse or escalation.
	Did you see, right? Yes.
	And so with each other, look, whether you guys should be together or not, I don't know.
	I don't know, because I just met you.
	And look, I really appreciate you having this call.
	It's going to be immensely beneficial to people as a whole, right?
	So whether you guys should be together or not, I don't know.
	But I will say this. If you don't know what got you together and what drove you apart, whether you stay together or not, you're just still going to have the same stuff.
	Because just be with someone else, right?
	Well, I hope not.
	Well, no, but if you figure out what drew you together and what drove you apart, if you know that, then you can either fix it with each other, or if too much damage has been done, too many bad habits have been instilled, then you can, you know, gracefully and with knowledge and respect saying, I'm sorry the past one, you're not my enemy, right?
	This is how you break up gracefully.
	I'm sorry the past one, you're not my enemy.
	Right? Because it's not about the paintings or the laptop or the Bitcoin or the this or the that, right?
	This is about deep history, deep past stuff.
	And if the past wins, which it does, sometimes the past wins, right?
	Sometimes the past wins. A couple of days ago, I was a bit snappy with some friends and I had to apologize because it's like, yeah, sorry, Canada's imposing martial law, so I'm feeling a bit helpless.
	But anyway... Sometimes it happens.
	I'm not perfect. Nobody's perfect.
	So it happens, right?
	So sometimes the past wins, but you understand that you, each of you, Luke and Diana, you are not each other's enemy.
	You have done harsh things to each other and mean things to each other and abusive things to each other.
	But the puppet masters are the people whose behavior you are excusing in the past.
	That's what leads...
	If I go to the top of a mountain and I pour a big bucket of water and it splashes down at the bottom and people look at the rock right above where it splashes at the bottom and says, my God, that's not where it came from.
	It came from the top of the mountain.
	And so the conflicts that you guys are having come from deep history and you're enacting these in order to avoid genuine criticism of your parents, genuine assertive conversations with your parents.
	Which I have always recommended, you know, you've got issues with your parents, and we all do, and I encourage this with my daughter.
	It's got an issue with me. Come talk to me about it.
	We'll sort it out.
	But the conflicts that you have are normalizing history in defense of your parents' bad behavior instigated by them in your head.
	I'm sorry, that's a whole complicated, like, whole bunch of layers there.
	Well, it's complicated and layered.
	Yeah, but that's where this is coming from.
	Yeah, I see that.
	I don't like that.
	No, no, you don't.
	And listen, I think that you're calling me because, or I mean, that you communicated with me, this came from Luke, because you don't want it to continue.
	And of course you don't want to continue.
	It's wretched, right?
	This being trapped in the history, being trapped in the past is...
	Hell, isn't it?
	I mean, this feeling that you're just never going to get what you want, that there's always things are going to blow up, that you don't know if you can take a trip for 12 hours without screaming at each other, you know, yelling about bitcoins, calling the police.
	That is hell. And that hell is not something that you made in the present.
	It's not something that you generated with each other.
	It's a shadow cast by the fires of the past that you are being consumed by.
	And I think going back to the early history, And to be honest, you both have your strengths and your weaknesses, just as I do.
	Diana, I did get the sense that you were a little bit more able to nimbly go back and reconnect with the past.
	For Luke, I think that there's a certain amount of...
	So he had more of a visceral emotional response, but then more of a clampdown.
	And Diana, you had a bit more of a muted response, but it tended to be more consistent through the conversation.
	Just my outside observation doesn't mean anything other than that.
	I've been actively... I've been dealing with this for many, many years.
	Right. Okay, so you have some more of a connected response and so on, right?
	Yeah. So, I don't know.
	I mean, as far as what you do going forward, I'm open to whatever thoughts you guys have, and it's obviously your life.
	I can't tell you to do anything.
	I do think that as far as the escalation that's going on at the moment, I think if you recognize that this is not a current fight, but this is like a puppet from the past fight, if that makes any sense.
	Yeah, I see that.
	That, I think, really helps in terms of not letting things escalate with the person.
	It's not about the present. It's really about the past.
	And I would say, and listen, you guys do need to get along better because there are Bitcoins at play.
	There may be business things at play.
	There may be mutual friendships.
	I mean, it's not like you guys have kids together.
	I don't think you do, right? But I think that would have come up.
	No kids. Yeah, and you also move in the same circles and you don't want to have to split and divide friends and blah, blah, blah, right?
	So given that there is going to be some continuity in your relationships, I would say, if I were in your shoes, I would say, go have the conversations with the parents.
	Maybe Indian, but I don't know if you're in therapy.
	I strongly recommend it.
	I am. Yeah, okay, good.
	Good. I would normally offer to pay, but you're already in it, and Luke says he's wealthy.
	I'm sorry? Luke was going to pay for my therapy.
	I don't know if he will. I don't have...
	I'm not employed right now.
	Okay, so look, I would say that's probably not a good idea.
	So Diana, just shoot me a message.
	We'll sort it out. I'll make sure you get the money for therapy.
	Oh my gosh, thank you. Oh, no, you're absolutely welcome.
	So I would like for you guys to look back at this.
	Like if you stay together and can work it out, great.
	If you decide, no, we got too much blood under the bridge, so to speak.
	But to at least recognize that you're not each other's enemy.
	That this is an unfortunate time when the past one, due to a lack of knowledge, and this knowledge is not unfortunately readily available, which is why I guess you called me or whatever, right?
	But that you can move in the same circles and be happy for each other's progress.
	I think that's possible.
	I think that's possible. Because it doesn't sound like you guys can just like, not like one of you go on going back to Thailand, we'll never see each other again, right?
	I mean, you've got the same circles and so on, right?
	Yeah. So, I would say that if you can have the conversations with the parents, then you won't have the proxy fight with each other, if that makes sense?
	Yeah, I understand that.
	And so, Luke, I'm sorry, I've been talking for a long time, and Diana has as well, but I wanted to check in with you before the end of the conversation and just sort of see how you're doing, because you also got to listen into quite a bit of stuff with us.
	Yeah, I mean, I have no intention of talking with my mother.
	She's... Yeah, I have no intention of trying to talk to her about the past.
	Why not? My father, maybe.
	The last interaction I had from my mother was her getting a magistrate's order to have the police come and take me to a hospital.
	And she has no respect for me or my boundaries, and me talking to her, I think, would validate her too much.
	When did this happen?
	About two months ago.
	She called you and tried to get you hospitalized?
	Or she called the police about you and tried to get you hospitalized?
	She swore before a magistrate to get me hospitalized, or to try to.
	And they came in the afternoon, so I was in the hospital overnight until the psychiatrist came in in the morning the next day.
	Can you give me the very brief version of how this came about?
	Diana and other people apparently were relaying information to my mother, which made her concerned enough to do this.
	Alright, okay. So yeah, so things have really escalated pretty, pretty harshly, right?
	He was in a really, he was in a, and I, he was very disconnected from reality, and I was, I was terrified for him.
	Okay. Okay. All right.
	Well, I mean, again, I'm a big, you get the right therapist, man.
	It can really change your life based upon my experience.
	So I would certainly strongly suggest that for you both.
	But I think, and again, I mean, it does sound like you guys have been really harsh with each other.
	And I sympathize again, you know, please don't think of yourselves as bad people for having been harsh or mean with each other.
	Because until this stuff, you can't know before you know, right?
	Yeah. And you at least had the courage and hopefully wisdom to call for help.
	So, Luke, could you talk to your dad at all?
	He's in prison right now and we do write letters back and forth.
	Sorry, could you just lean in a little bit there?
	I thought I heard you say he was in prison right now.
	Yes, my dad is in prison for robbing casinos and we write letters back and forth.
	Oh man. It's a little bit of a different view at the end of the convo than all the way before, so I'm sorry about all of that.
	I really am.
	Man, you've had it really hard.
	I mean, you both have. You both have as well.
	We focus a lot on Diana's stuff, but Luke, I am so sorry.
	What a mess.
	It doesn't mean that it takes your future.
	It doesn't mean it determines how your life is going to be, but that is quite a hole to crawl out of, and I'm really, really sorry about that.
	that that's not even close to how it should have been for you in life all right so will you guys i disagree i feel like i'm i feel like i'm more blessed than most men and i don't feel like i'm in a hole at all Wow.
	No, I said a hole to crawl out of.
	I didn't say you were still in there, but I mean, it's a lot to...
	It's a lot to get out, to get to level ground.
	That's all. I didn't say you were still in there, but it's a big hole to get out of.
	Whether you feel you're in there or not, it's obviously your determination, but I am sorry for your losses.
	I mean, they are significant losses.
	You got a mom calling the police on you.
	You got a dad in prison for robbing casinos.
	That's not good, and that is a lot to deal with, and I sympathize enormously with that.
	Will you guys, you don't have to do this together, of course, but will you keep me posted about how it's going?
	Sure, anytime. Sorry, go ahead.
	Yes, yes, I can do that.
	And what are your thoughts about the value of the conversation or things I could have done different or better?
	I've found this incredibly valuable.
	I don't know. It's good.
	Honestly, with me and Diana, When we're alone together is when the most problems occur and I'm constantly trying to get other people to help out.
	Because without a referee, it seems like it's when it's at its worst.
	But he won't go to therapy.
	Well, but you guys don't, you don't have to be with each other.
	Like if you don't, if you don't respect each other, or if there are behaviors that are negative enough that you're yelling and screaming and calling the cops, you know, you had to be with your parents, you were kids, but you don't have to be with each other.
	And so at some point, of course, at least from the outside, there is this perspective of, okay, well, if it's just all these problems and all this chaos and all of this mess, And this breaking things and cops getting involved.
	Okay, well, then...
	Why won't you? I mean, you don't have to be together.
	I mean, isn't being alone better than this, even if it takes a while to find someone else?
	So I certainly, you know, that's certainly on the table.
	And I think the only reason you would continue in something that would be that destructive would be because the past is winning.
	And I would definitely try to avoid that kind of stuff because you never know when the next escalation could be really challenging, right?
	I mean, you know, somebody pushes someone, they fall down the stairs, they bang their head.
	I mean, it could be a real mess.
	So No, last night was the escalation that was really challenging.
	My jaw is...
	my teeth hurt, my head is bruised.
	Right. You can't have that in your life.
	You can't have that in your life.
	And the longer you go down the road where things are just really terrible, the harder it is for your heart to heal afterwards.
	So yeah, certainly you can't be in situations where there can be physical violence.
	Even the emotional violence is really traumatic.
	So yeah, probably is a good time to take a cooler and work on the issues that produced this kind of stuff rather than trying to Pretend that fighting each other is going to solve the past.
	It just really affirms it.
	All right. I've got to go, but I really appreciate you guys' call.
	Thank you so much. Keep me posted, and great job on the call.
	How do I get in touch with you?
	Oh, we'll put you...
	Well, I think you've got my Telegram ID in this call, so you're going to send me a message through that.
	Thank you. Thanks, guys.

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