All Episodes
Previous Next
July 18, 2021 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:55:47
I AM LOSING MY BROTHER TO A WOMAN! Freedomain Call In
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
All right. Well, good evening, everybody.
Sorry for the slightly late start.
It's Friday, it's Friday, and we're going early for the sake of the European listeners who just don't seem to want to stay up until four o'clock in the morning to get their daily dose of philosophy.
I don't know why, man, you all stormed the beaches in D-Day, but I'm just kidding.
I wouldn't either, so...
Thanks, James, of course, for setting this up.
I guess we want to get our introduction to the caller and the question for this evening, and I will be keeping my eye, of course, on the chat for comments, suggestions, issues, and all that kind of stuff.
So, without further ado, all ears.
All right. So, tonight, our caller writes in.
First, it seemed like my brother's girlfriend was stealing him away from the family.
They rarely come to family events now, citing excuses like COVID, etc.
Conversation is minimal.
Then, it seems my parents do absolutely nothing to try to help the situation, to the extent that they would rather upset anyone else but him.
I try to organize things and try to get everyone together to see if that gap can be healed, but no one wants to play ball.
I've given up trying and don't really trust any of them anymore.
If you'll forgive the emotion in this, it's all very confusing.
I feel the only thing to do is to just try to spend less time with them all, despite it being the opposite to what I want.
Well, thanks of course for joining.
Uh, You can speak now.
Is there anything I'm sure there is a bunch that you want to add to all of this?
It kind of sounds worse when James says it.
Well, if it's not bad, we have lots of people with bad stuff.
I'm not saying make it bad, but I assume it's bad enough to write in, right?
Well, yeah. I mean, I was sort of thinking, you know, it's not as bad as some of the calls I've listened to.
But essentially, yeah, it just sort of feels like...
I'm kind of losing my brother, in a sense, as James explained.
I'm not really sure where you want me to start.
Well, it's your story.
So do you want to start with the history of your brother, history of your family before we get to the girlfriend?
Yeah, I guess so.
My brother, I'm Do you want ages?
I don't really know where...
Just age ranges is fine, like, you know, early, mid-20s, you know, whatever it is, right?
Yeah, so we're both in our 30s now, early 30s.
All right, dude, I hate to interrupt you, but you're going to err and amass completely into obscurity at this point.
How are you feeling about the conversation?
If you hate being here, because what's coming across is, well, I, and I'm not trying to be critical, right?
Like, you're not a public speaker kind of guy, so I'm not trying to be negative or critical or hostile at all.
But we're going to have to try and deal with this up front because it's going to drive me slowly insane over the course of the conversation if it takes you like 20 seconds to get half a sentence out.
So is there some resistance you have to calling or something that you don't want to do, some real topic that you want to avoid?
Because I just have to be sort of cognizant of my sanity and the listener's sanity too.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. What I want to say is that my family is, I thought, relatively sort of normal, I suppose.
And there's nothing particularly I don't think interesting about the family history that was worth mentioning.
My brother went off to university.
We both went off to university.
I moved to a town and he moved to a different town.
He's remained at university.
He did undergrad and now he's doing a PhD and now he's working at the university.
He's probably spent about nearly two decades at school or something.
And I think he's had one girlfriend before and she was sort of like, pretty much didn't speak to him or didn't go out with him at all.
And now this one is almost 180 degrees the opposite, almost won't let him out of her sight.
Wait, so is it, do you think it's, is it insecurity on her part?
I mean, she won't let him out of his, does she feel that, sorry, now I'm stalling all over the place.
Okay, so this is the thoughts that I had about it.
I'll give you a general framework, which may or may not have anything to do with what's going on, but I feel it does.
So, you know, I'll just go with my gut.
Okay, so if a man who's a seven dates a woman who's a nine, he has simp characteristics usually, right?
Like he feels she's too good for me.
And then she has all the power in the relationship.
And in general, the harder the man pursues, like why is it that women try to get men to pursue them so hard?
Well, you know, vanity and you can say, but why would nature, why that way?
Because the more the man pursues the woman, the more power and control she has in the relationship.
Now, If she likes him back, then hopefully she uses that power wisely.
So if he's chasing her and she says, I don't want to see your family, he feels too insecure to assert himself.
In other words, if he's a 7, she's a 9, or he's a 5, she's a 7, whatever it is, right?
Now, on the other hand, if she's really trading up, then she may want to isolate him.
So let's say she's a 7 and he's a 9, then she may want to isolate him so that he can't compare her against other women and realize his true sexual market value.
Because if he realizes it's true sexual market value, he'll dump her.
So she may be isolating him based upon that sort of stuff.
So, you know, my guess would be that there's a disparity in their level of attraction or sexual market value as a whole.
But, you know, if that's not the case, we can pursue another course.
But that's my first thought. I personally would say it was the second of those two options.
Oh, so she's like lower in sexual market value than he is?
Yes. I'm not going to say he's a good-looking guy.
He's quite tall.
He used to play rugby.
He used to do a lot of swimming. He used to be in a band as well.
But then at university, he seems to have just sort of caved in on himself.
And actually, he met this girl on Bumble.
I don't know if you've heard of this app. Well, technically, I've been married for 20 years, so I assume I know nothing about any dating apps.
Yeah, sure, sure.
Essentially, the way I understand it is that the woman is supposed to take the lead in asking the guy out, which seems good in the short run, but it's not always good in the long run.
Yeah. So I, you know, for what?
What I know about this kind of stuff, purely from listening to you, would assume that it's the second of those two options.
And that she...
Essentially, you know, she gets very upset about almost any...
You know, it's like anyone who disagrees with her, it's like...
It becomes like this sort of hurricane of sort of, you know, aggressive sort of arguing.
She used the book. Yeah, essentially.
And... The way he speaks is almost like he's now a medium.
She's speaking through him.
I'm actually going to visit him tomorrow and it's like I'm getting all this stuff about what do you want to do?
I'm visiting you.
This is your town. So she's kind of inhabiting his personality?
Is that right? It feels that way, yeah.
Yeah, listen, I mean, we're all guessing, groping in the dark, maybe not quite as much as your brother, but so we'll have to just sort of puzzle things out as we go along.
And have you met her before?
Yes, I have. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay, so look, sexual market value, your brother sounds very high, right?
Very well educated, got a steady job, and, you know, summer's off is a big deal, right?
I made this case years ago, right?
Why is it that women so infest the government schooling?
or government teachers, right?
Because a woman who has summers off has very high sexual market value because if she has summers off, it means that the husband doesn't have to scramble to figure out what to do with the kids over the summer because she can just stay home.
I mean, I remember when I was young, I would take my – when my daughter was young, I'd take her to parks and stuff like that.
And there'd be lots of women out there, very smug, like, oh, it's wonderful, two and a half months off in the summer.
Oh, it's just so lovely, you know, all of that.
Of course, the parents, if you've got two people who work, it's real rough because what do you do with your kids over the course of the summer?
And so your brother has got, like, what, three or four months off in the summer and, you know, he's got a very flexible schedule because, you know, when you're teaching – I know it's a little more down the road, like it's a little tougher earlier.
But when you're teaching, of course – You really don't have to teach maybe 10 hours a week, maybe 15 hours a week.
There's some prep and I get all of that, but he's got a very flexible schedule.
He's got pension.
He's got, I assume, extra health care benefits.
I know it's the UK, so health and dental is mostly covered, but he's just going to have great pension.
Also, he's going to get time off every couple of years and sabbaticals and stuff like that.
He's very high. I don't just mean like good looking, although he's good looking and he's got social skills from sports give you a lot of social skills.
Sorry, I know I'm talking a lot, but I'm just so he seems to me very high sexual market value, like he should have his pick of the litter, so to speak.
And I guess what's her story relative to that?
Just one thing. So his job is now, although his job's at the university, he's only, it's like a one-year contract.
You know, to be honest, I think they're actually kind of messing with him because he's, you know, he's a materials engineer.
I'm sorry, what engineer? Materials engineering is the profession.
Well, profession, but, you know, degree.
And all engineering involves materials.
I'm just wondering if you could break that down.
yeah so he spends a lot of time looking at uh different um uh ceramics and um steels i think through microscopes and uh you know establishing which one's good for oh like tensile strengths and okay yeah exactly exactly that yeah yeah all right yeah um but but so so yeah he's very very very very scientific based and he does a lot of sort of work around that but he's he's always given the impression that he doesn't really want to look for
uh you know what a proper job you know whatever we're calling that but you know i mean like a nine to five But he's gone flaccid, as you say, like 20 years in school.
I mean, he's got no free market spine probably left at all, right?
Yeah. And so when you're talking about sexual market value, I think in that sense, he obviously has almost no confidence whatsoever that he can stand on his own two feet, I think.
No, but he's employable in most areas, most places, right?
And he's got a doctorate, which is, you know, if a wife gets like a clitoral thrill introducing her husband as Dr.
So-and-so, it just gives them a thrill.
And so there is that.
And of course, you know, he could end up as a tenured professor or whatever it is, right?
He could do something in a pretty – the sky's the limit, I guess, as far as his potential goes.
However, he materializes is another thing.
So let's talk a little bit more about her.
What's her story in history?
Where did they meet? Yeah. um she is originally from greece um she is oh marry her sorry sorry sorry i may be giving away my wife's background um i may i may be i'm not sure marry her wait sorry sorry that's me being possessed by my wife sorry go ahead so i'll give him that advice wait do you mean greek background or born in greece No,
I was born in Greece. She moved to the country five years ago, maybe.
I don't know exactly. Sorry, how many years ago, roughly?
Four or five years ago, I think.
For university, essentially.
And she's about the same age as him.
She works in a medical regulation administration type thing.
Like a government thing? Well, yeah, it's a private company, but I think it works quite closely with regulators.
Is it like a consulting company to inform companies about particular government regulations or something like that?
Yes, it is. It's about labels on bottles of pills and things like that.
They're all pretty close to the circle of government power.
I just wanted to point that out, which may not be the greatest thing in the long run, but that's what it is at the moment.
Okay, so where did they meet and how long have they been going out and what do you know about their relationship?
Yeah, sure. So they've been going out about two years at this point.
They met, as I said, on an internet app called Bumble, which, you know, she made the first move, blah, blah, blah.
They went on a date and, you know, the rest of the story sort of goes on.
But, yeah.
So... Yeah.
I lost my train of thought.
Dude, I know you're British, but I'm trying to live off crumbs here.
They met two years ago, and the rest is history.
It's like, if you want me to help, do you go to the doctor and say, something hurts somewhere?
Where? Somewhere.
So, you know, feel free.
I know you're British, but cough up a few more fur balls of info so I can spread them out on the platter.
Yeah, sure. So yeah, they've been going out two years.
When I first met her, she seemed sort of okay.
And then it became like when they come to family events, we ask him a question or ask them a question, I guess.
And she's the one who answers.
She gives the answers to all the questions about what's going on and whatever.
And then more recently, they've become very, you know, as COVID sort of and the lockdowns happened over here, they were very much about, you know, we can't come and see you because we don't feel comfortable, even though, you know, in many cases, the lockdowns have actually finished last year, for example, in the summer. Which I suppose you can sort of grant to them since it was a virus situation.
I'm sorry, is your brother a hypochondriac or something like that?
No, no, he's not.
He was never before. So you keep saying you can grant to them and we're going to need to differentiate the two, right?
I mean, do you think that, I mean, I assume you'd have some kind of private conversations with your brother.
Did he show this?
Fear of transmission and so on?
No, it feels like it's her speaking through him again.
When you try to speak to him about it, and potentially criticize or...
A question, right? A question, yeah, sure, sure.
It's like, you know, you don't have any authority to talk on this because you're not a scientist.
I don't have a permission slip, right?
Yeah, pretty much. If I need to go and buy a new notebook, I actually have to have a note from my wife now, right?
Because she's like, why on earth do you need a new notebook or a new tablet?
It's like, but this one has this feature, which I kind of need.
Anyway, no, she's fine with it.
Okay, so I guess the relationship has been from before COVID, and the we can't see anyone, you think, is mostly coming from her?
Well, yeah, I mean, it's very much like they go on holiday together, but they won't sort of say, you know, come with...
Wait, I'm sorry, they go on holiday together?
Yeah, no. Wait, wait, I'm sorry.
We can't see anyone.
I mean, strangers, yes.
Yes. But not...
We can go on a plane, we can go to the airport, we can go to some indifferently cleaned...
Pensione, but we can't see fans.
I mean, come on. Seriously? Yeah, seriously, yeah.
So that's bullshit, right?
Yeah, of course.
I mean, yeah. Well, no, of course yet, because you didn't...
I mean, you know the story.
I don't, right? So you tell me, like, she's all worried about seeing people, and then you mentioned they go on holiday together.
I assume they're not going to, like...
Camp out in a bus shelter in the Outer Hebrides like I did at the age of eight in some god-awful trip, but they're going to some relatively crowded resorts and so on?
They went to Greece to visit her parents, her mum and her dad separately, and they went down to Cornwall, which is sort of in the UK, obviously.
I'm looking over the White Cliffs of Dover!
Okay, never mind, go ahead. Which is relatively...
I mean, there's not many people there, but they do go out when they're there.
It's pretty touristy, though, right?
Cornwall is beautiful, by the way.
If anyone gets a chance to go to Cornwall...
As you know, I grew up in the UK. I went to Cornwall a couple of times.
Absolutely stunning. It's just beautiful, if you get a chance to go.
So they got in a plane and went to go and visit her family, but they can't visit your family?
Yeah, pretty much.
Did you point this out to your brother?
You never really get that far.
Wait, what? It's like, you know, he doesn't talk a lot.
This is what I mean. It feels like I barely know him now.
So it's having that kind of conversation.
It's like, you know, it's almost like sort of, you know, even when he came around for his birthday, he barely said anything to anyone.
And it was very, even when it was, it was sort of in a group situation where she essentially answered almost on his behalf.
But having a one-on-one chat with him is actually very difficult now.
Unless you phone him directly and then you can sort of hear her sort of reviewing the answers in the background.
Yeah, so to be honest, I never got to that stage, so difficult to learn.
So are you saying that for two years, incredulity is not saying you're wrong, I'm just incredulous, like shocking.
So for two years you've not had much of a, any kind of real chat with your brother?
Yeah, literally, yeah.
Okay, so tell me a little bit about his first girlfriend before we bounce forward in this one.
You said the girl who barely talked to him.
I'd like to know a little more about that odd situation.
Yeah, well, I'm going to be honest, I don't know a huge amount about it, but what I do know is that they were going out for about four or five years.
It was his first ever girlfriend.
This was probably, they probably broke up about three-ish years ago, probably.
And she, so they were seeing each other.
I don't think she ever sort of said they were formerly boyfriend and girlfriend, but they would sort of go on holiday together.
But then she'd go off.
Eventually what ended it was she went to Vietnam.
Wait, she'd go off cheat, did you say?
No, no, no. She went off to Vietnam to travel or something without him.
And he would be waiting for her back here.
And then she would come back and be...
Sort of like, yo, I don't really want to see you because I'm tired or whatever.
And he would be sort of standing there sort of, I don't know, just kind of moping around, basically.
There were many occasions where he would drive down to where she used to, you know, this is when we were all living at home, my mum and dad's house.
She would drive home.
Sorry, he would drive over to her house, sorry.
And then come back, like, and...
It would be like, you know, what's going on, you know, what's up?
And it'd be like, well, she doesn't want me to stay around because she's tired or whatever and she's seeing her sister and, you know, a bunch of other sort of excuses.
So it's like, you know, she obviously didn't really want to be with him, but for some reason, this was a relationship, in theory, that lasted for five years.
And then she essentially...
Did she see other men?
She must have. I don't know.
I have no idea. Sorry, you were about to say something else before I rudely interrupted.
Sorry, go ahead. No, it's fine.
She essentially, at the five-year mark, essentially ghosted him, essentially went off traveling, and never responded to I mean, I'm laughing, but it's horrific.
But I never responded to any of his messages and never responded to his emails.
And that was about it, really.
It was just sort of ended. Well, I mean, that was entirely predictable because she had no respect for him anyway, right?
Yes. I guess.
And now this one seems to be the complete sort of 100% opposite.
And I can sort of see where he doesn't really have much experience in this area.
Oh, God, no. He's pitiful and compliant in both relationships.
How is this any different? Yeah.
I see what you're saying. Yeah.
Okay. Yeah.
Okay, so are you really going to tell me this has nothing to do with your mom and dad?
Like, there's no template, no history?
Your dad, like, is a dominant masculine presence in the family?
Come on. I mean, there's no way.
There's no way. You know, it had to cross my mind, yeah.
Are you really going to make me go in there with pliers to get these teeth out, or what?
No, no, no, no. Okay, yes, yes, he is, yes.
But, um...
So yeah, he's a dominant member of the family.
But at the same time, my mom is...
My family have this communication problem, which I've noticed, where they sort of say yes, but they mean no.
And they expect you to know that they mean no.
So... It's almost like every sort of argument that you have, your argument in the sense of having a debate about something, will become this situation where somebody will get really angry and that's the sort of signal that we should stop talking about this now and never talk about it ever again.
I did the adverse childhood experience test and whatever, but my parents have never It's never been a regular thing, but it's more of a, perhaps every so often, some of these things would come up.
Not necessarily the violence, although my dad has been threatening to me around the age of 15, 16, 17.
That was a particularly bad period, which I remember very vividly.
But I don't remember it happening to my brother so much.
So I'm assuming what you're saying is he doesn't want to show his honesty in case it ends up in some kind of argument or row, and he's been sort of trained through family experience.
Well, if your family is conflict avoidant, it means that there's a lack of trust and a lack of bonding.
The conflict and bonding are exactly the same thing.
conflict and bonding are exactly the same thing.
So, I mean, so look at the sort of gentle conflict that you and I have had over the course of this conversation, right?
I mean, I don't mean to laugh, but I mean, you know, I've asked for a few things in a fairly positive way, like things that I need, more information, less um or that kind of stuff, right?
Yeah.
So I am completely confident that you and I can have a productive conversation, I'm I'm completely confident that you're not going to call me an asshole and hang up.
You might, but I don't think so because I think that you understand that I'm going to work my very best, as I always do, to try and give you as much useful philosophical help as humanly possible.
Obviously, if you've listened to the show a bunch, you know I'm pretty good at this kind of stuff.
So, I'm willing to say, you know, in a hopefully positive way, and listen, I mean, you can tell me if you have, but I don't think you felt, like, humiliated or shamed or anything like that in me saying, I need more, or, you know, please get your thoughts out more concisely, or something like that, right?
Is that fair to say? Yeah, that's a fair comment.
Yeah, I was blundering around and whatever, yeah.
And so, I'm sort of I say what it is that I want or what it is that I feel that I need.
Now, I'm not saying that because it's something I want for myself.
It's because if I want to help you, and I do, right?
If I am to help you, then I need more information in a less distracting manner because our arms is very distracting and it's hard to follow the thread and then I end up kind of spacing out a little.
I'm telling you what I need to help you the most.
And because I'm coming from a place where I need things from you to help you the most.
It's not a negative thing for me to ask, if that makes sense.
Like if your car is broken down and you need petrol, right?
And let's say you need an 89 grade and then you say, and I say, hey man, I'm happy to get you some petrol.
And you say, oh, be sure to get the 89 grade.
I'll be like, yeah, because I actually want to help you.
So I don't want to get you petrol. You can't use a diesel or whatever it is, right?
So because I'm coming from a place where I really, really want to help you, Then you're not going to feel bad when I tell you what I need to help you because you also want to be helped, right?
And I'm telling you what I need to help you.
You want to be helped. And so, you know, this will be a good thing.
So in your family, the question is, why is there the conflict avoidance?
Now, conflict avoidance generally is...
I'm trying to think of a good analogy.
So, oh, I know.
Do you ever walk in the country?
Yes. Yeah.
Okay. You walk in the country, maybe it's been raining, and there's a big puddle across the path or the hiking trail or whatever it is, right?
And you can't really jump across it.
So what you do, of course, is you get a stick and you probe it or you put your toe in it because you don't want to step and find it's some big giant thing that goes up to your knees or something like that because then you've got soggy hiking shoes all the way and it's no fun, right?
So there's a test, right?
There's a testing of things when you are moving If you've ever walked on ice, right?
I mean, you want to test it.
You want to jump on the ice, you put your foot and lean in a little, see if it cracks, that kind of thing, right?
And so this testing phenomenon is what occurs in relationships.
So when I asked you at the beginning, could you clean up some of the errs and arms to make sure I can get the information in a timely fashion?
That's also because I want the conversation to help the audience and if there's too much stumbling around, then the audience is going to turn it off and they don't get the value of our conversation and all that kind of stuff, right?
So I'm testing the waters there.
So what I'm doing is I'm saying, listen, could you fix this for me, please, before I go insane?
And I'm not blaming you for it.
I'm not mad at you. I'm just saying this is something – I do this.
You don't, right, for a living, right?
So that's a different matter.
So I'm putting a test there out to say – Can you take some feedback that's for the benefit of the conversation and that it's going to ultimately get you what you want, which is the maximum help for me since that's what you want.
So that's me testing.
And then there was a couple of other things.
And so I'm testing to see, can I correct you with what I need, which is also incidentally what you want and need.
And I think the answer to that has been, and it's kind of funny how these conversations work, right?
Because now we actually have an empirical immediate example of the issue that's kind of plaguing your family.
So why would I not have said the things that I've said, like I need more information and I don't want to come in there and pull teeth and please clean up the ears and arms.
Why would I not have said that to you?
Or what would be my motivation for not saying that to you, for just shutting up and crossing my fingers and hoping for the best?
Maybe rolling my eyes because we're not on video, but that.
Why would I not say that stuff?
Well, I assume either you expect me to just kind of like, I don't know, go off on a huff and leave the call or I don't know, to get angry or something, I guess?
Right, or over-comply.
Yeah, or it would be like an over-compliance because, look, I mean, obviously there's a very big risk when I say, stop being nervous and be concise.
What are some people going to do to get more nervous and more stumbly and it just goes downward from there, right?
Yeah. But, yeah, so it would be because, so I would test the waters and see, okay, can I get some coaching across?
And of course, you know, if there's anything that I'm doing that you want me to change, please, by all means, let me know.
It's a two-way street, of course. But it would be because I didn't trust you to be able to handle any kind of feedback.
And I know that there's a risk in correcting someone, so to speak.
I know there's a risk in being assertive.
But that's a possible risk, right?
The certain risk is, I can't help you as much.
And people won't listen to, obviously, I think it's going to be a very important conversation, right?
The reason you got to the front of the queue at this point, because I think this is a very, very important conversation.
So what in your family?
So there's one of two things. Either it's been tried and it's failed, or it's never been tried because it's assumed.
Assume it will fail. And along with all of that, there's not enough...
Caring for the other person, right?
I care about helping you, obviously care about you, care about helping you to the point where I want to remove the things that are in the way of me helping you, like a lack of information or too many erasomes, that kind of thing, right?
So because I care about you, I'll take the risk of correcting you and maybe making you more nervous or whatever it is, in which case we would just talk about that and deal with that and then move on, and that would probably be part of the whole conversation, right?
But because I care about you enough, I want to remove what's going on That's interfering with my capacity to act in a helpful, caring manner.
And you, to your very great credit, are caring about your brother to want to remove any impediments that is occurring, or rather the Greek impediment that is occurring in your relationship with him.
So with regards to your family, this conflict avoidance, do you remember it being tried and failed?
Or it was simply assumed that it would fail?
and why isn't there, I would assume, enough caring to say, I've got to take the risk because otherwise it's, you know, we don't really have much of a relationship if all we're doing is avoiding?
Sorry, that's a lot of questions.
So whatever you want to filter down on, I'm happy to hear.
Sure. Between me and my brother, I have thought about this quite a lot, and I've sort of, back through the history of where we've been together and talked about stuff, it's always been, we would be talking about something which my mum and dad didn't understand, whether it be, you know, like, whatever it is, like a TV programme, like a video game or whatever, and they would tell us to shut up because we're just talking about nonsense.
And, you know, not as aggressively as that, but, you know, more like, you know, just talk about sensible things.
Pipe down? I mean, what kind of Britishisms are we talking here?
Children should be seen and not heard.
No, no, it was more like the topic of conversation.
It was like, you know, we're talking about, I remember a very specific time where we're sort of in the back of the car, you know, sort of like, you know, 19, 20 years old, talking about, you know, he was talking about wind turbines or something like that.
I thought it was really interesting at the time, inexplicably.
Wind turbines? Wind turbines, yeah.
Just some like really niche scientific thing he was talking about.
Mum and Dad are obviously not on the same page and they realised that we were having a quite energised discussion about it.
Not aggressively or arguing or whatever, You know, not angrily.
And they sort of told us to stop talking about it because it's kind of like...
Shut up, you boring little twats!
Sorry, I don't know how it would come across.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, literally, yeah.
It is... I mean, not...
Without the sort of...
Yeah, without the twats, I guess.
The vulgarity, yes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. In a very polite way, they told us to STFU, yeah.
But then there are other occasions where it's like, you know, we were actually having an argument that was angry and agitated and whatever, and getting to a point, you know, I feel getting to a point, you know, even more recently, getting to a point where we almost agreed on something, you know, something like politics or whatever, and it would be like one of them chimes in with, I think, you know, I think we should stop talking about this now because we're getting very agitated and we don't want to be, you know, we don't want to fall out over dinner.
So, sorry, your dad would say we, referring to you and your brother, but not we, you and your brother and himself.
Exactly. Well, it depends, actually.
Sometimes he was involved, and I think that his contributions were not always helpful.
Sorry. Okay, boomer, it's the moment that I'm getting here, but go on.
It is a bit like that. If you're talking about the Extinction Rebellion, for example, and he starts talking about Conservative Party talking points, and you're kind of like, well, it's not really what we're talking about here, so can you just...
Yeah, Dan, we're talking about the Great Replacement Theory.
Yes, I need a new fridge!
No, no, no. And then it's like, where do you even start lifting that weight from, right?
Well, it's difficult because then my brother starts responding to him because he's very aggressive in the way that he argues.
Your brother is. Well, my dad originates from my dad.
Well, it could be my mum. It originates from those members of my family, my mum and my dad.
It's like, you disagree with me, therefore you've insulted me, if that makes sense.
Yeah. So it's not an argument for the betterment of ideas and for the increase of wisdom and knowledge.
It's like, I must conquer you or I am a little girl guide.
Yeah, it's perceived as disrespect, yeah, essentially.
Disrespect is a big watchword, I think I would say, with my dad.
Or was. Wait, he's still alive, isn't he?
Yeah, he is still alive, but I feel like to a certain extent I've come to a I agree.
You know, a settlement. That makes it sound like a divorce thing or something.
But what I mean is, you know, we get along much better now.
I don't know whether that's because he's avoiding, as you say, the conflicts.
But it feels a lot less tense than it used to be.
Now, we started in on your childhood at the age of 15.
Now, unless it was an ungodly long labor, I feel like we skipped over a certain amount of time.
Yeah. So, could we rewind a little?
I mean, obviously there's conflict with parents and kids, conflicts with your brother and you when you were little, and how did that roll?
My mom and dad did...
They weren't peaceful parents, put it that way, so they would give us a slap if we did something wrong, if we were kids.
A slap how? On the bum.
I'm sorry? On the backside.
And was it open hand, pants up, pants down, through the clothing?
How did that work? A bit of both.
Open hand, yeah. Okay, so there were times where you'd be open hands banged on the bare buttocks, is that right?
Yeah, when we were much younger, yeah.
I'm not saying when you were 50 on the bus.
and how often would this sort of physical punishment occur?
I would say It was essentially any time we really annoyed them, I guess.
That doesn't answer the question, by the way.
I know. I honestly can't answer the question.
Well, I mean, just give me a range.
I'm not asking for a bar chart here.
I'm just, you know, like once a week, once a month, a daily, a couple of times a year, that kind of stuff.
I would say once a month, I think I would say.
Okay, so once a month.
Maximum. Maximum.
Okay, so once a month. And I'm not just talking about, like, let's just be any form of corporal punishment.
Once a month. Yeah.
And in between, if there were disagreements that didn't lead to corporate punishment, what would happen?
Yeah, you get banned from using the computer, using your video games, whatever, banned from using the TV, this kind of thing.
My mum used to check the heat on the TV. No, because this is back in the day when you had the CRTs, the cathode ray tubes.
Now, I guess it wouldn't matter because they'd probably get kind of warm in the back.
But yeah, she would come and check and see.
I remember once being banned from the TV. My mom went out and we lived on the second floor building.
I climbed out of the window and went along a ledge.
I wouldn't have died if I'd have fallen, but I probably would have broken something and then climbed in because no air conditioning, right?
We were poor and I think this was even pre-air conditioning for apartments and I would climb in and I remember watching a boxing match.
On a little black and white TV and then turning it off, knowing my mom was out on a date, so it'd be a while.
Climb out, climb along the ledge, climb back in.
But I wasn't addicted, man.
It was a total choice. And then she'd come in and check and it was like, please God, have it cooled off enough to the point where I'm not going to get a smack.
Okay, so you'd get sort of like confiscated stuff or privileges would be suspended.
Is that right? Yeah, yeah, exactly.
And actually, funny you mentioned about the heat, you know, recording the temperature or whatever, but like, usually, if we were arguing about whatever it was, you know, say we're playing a video game, and we were arguing about it, that would be, that's the trigger, you know, that's the trigger for someone to be alerted downstairs, they would come up and say, you know, this is it, yeah, it's over now, you know, no more, you know, more for the rest of the week or whatever, like, yeah.
And what's that stuck to?
Yeah, generally, yeah.
Yeah, we wouldn't be allowed to play for the rest of the week, yeah.
I mean, I think that's really tragic.
And I say tragic, not like abusive or anything like that, but I feel that's really tragic because you're teaching your children that you can't resolve conflicts.
Yeah. That conflict itself is a punish-worthy behavior.
Now, why on earth conflict itself is a punish-worthy behavior?
I have no idea. And it's interesting that your brother moved into a field...
Where conflict is resolved impartially through the scientific method.
And you are interested in philosophy.
You listen to this show, right? And in philosophy, of course, conflict is resolved by reason and evidence, right?
Better arguments and all of that.
So it's interesting that both you and your brother are drawn into areas where conflicts can be resolved, but it does rely upon the integrity and honesty of the other person.
But to me...
When I, you know, if my daughter has a disagreement with some other kid, I mean, I remember very clearly, sometimes we'd sit for two hours, three hours, just talking about the conflict, what came about, how it could be resolved.
Because you want to teach your kids that conflict can be resolved.
But if parents come down like the hammer of Thor on conflicts and just punish people for having conflicts, what they're saying is, you know, conflict is a bad thing That must be punished.
And that's not teaching the children anything about how to resolve conflicts.
And what it does, of course, is it has the kids look at the parent and say, Oh my God, if this giant man-god doesn't know how to resolve conflicts and conflicts are bad, I guess we better avoid them like the plague, right?
Yeah. Absolutely.
Right. So we've talked about your brother...
We've done your father, we'll do you, but not yet.
What about your mum? How did your mum deal with conflict?
I've got a very good story for you.
So, I was back at home making some, you know, doing some cooking or whatever.
This is just a classic example of this thing which I thought of for the show.
So, I say to her, can I use...
Can I use this particular ingredient, which is quite expensive.
I'm aware that this has cost them a lot in whatever it was I was cooking.
And she said yes.
But she said yes, her voice said no.
So I was like, are you absolutely 100% certain that I can?
And my dad was sitting at the table reading the newspaper.
And she said yes again, but in that sort of, again, that slightly awkward kind of way.
It's fine. Yeah, go ahead.
It's fine. Okay. Yeah, it's fine.
And so I chucked it in.
I can't remember what happened exactly, but she sort of basically just was in a huff and got very upset with me.
I was like, what's wrong?
Is it this thing which I've just done?
Because it clearly is. I can't remember exactly what was said, but both of them were saying, I've done the wrong thing.
Yeah, when it was all my fault.
So yeah, this is an example of this phenomenon I'm talking about.
My mum says yes, but she means no.
And you're supposed to know. Well, yeah, exactly.
And it's your fault if you don't know.
Yeah. And how old were you when the cooking thing happened?
This was like, I don't know, like six months ago.
Okay, okay. So let me ask you this.
20 plus years of experience with your mom, you probably had some idea that she didn't want you to use that, right?
To be honest, I was feeling a little bit like I wanted to test her theory.
So yeah, maybe I was just...
No, I mean, you were frustrated at her being manipulative and not honest.
And so you're like, okay, fine, man.
I'm going to take you at face value because I'm tired of this.
Yeah, actually, that's 100% correct.
Yeah. Yeah, I don't blame you for that.
I mean, that's kind of annoying, passive-aggressive stuff.
The mind-reading stuff, it's so claustrophobic.
Because now you have to snake your psychic phenomenon like squid tentacles up somebody's nose and tickle their frontal brain and try and tease out what that's like.
For God's sakes, just open your mouth and say, I'd rather you didn't.
It's pretty expensive. Yeah.
But you could try X, Y, or Z, or whatever it is, right?
Exactly. I'm going to give you one story back.
Because we haven't talked about me enough lately.
No, I'm kidding. I've said this story before.
I keep it really brief. I was at a girlfriend's place meeting her parents.
I took my cup of tea and put it on the counter.
There was a little ring at the bottom.
I noticed it. I said, oh, I'll just grab a paper towel and I'll wipe out my little tea ring and put the paper towel in the garbage.
I turn around and everybody looks at me like I just ripped the head off a cat.
And literally, so with you and your mom, it was like, yeah, I kind of knew it.
This, no clue. No clue, right?
I think I'm doing something nice here.
You know, a little spill.
It wasn't my fault. I wipe it up and show caring, concerned guests and all that.
No, no. I didn't find out until much later what I had done.
So they had moved from America to Canada, and the mother's favorite store was something called Wegmans.
And Wegmans had the best paper towel, you see.
And she had kept this paper towel roll from Wegmans.
As a shrine to the life she used to love in America, and she had put it on the paper towel rack in Canada as a reminder, a thread, a connection back to this former lovely life in America.
And I had just taken one of those pieces of precious memory and connection to her entire history and used it to wipe up some tea.
Yeah, good luck puzzling that one out.
Because, you know, of course paper towel has massive sentimental value.
Insanity, right? That's insanity.
Do you think that relationship worked out?
Answer! It did not.
Because that level of confused indirection.
Oh, it's exhausting. And it is a form of bullying, right?
You understand this passive-aggressive stuff where you're supposed to read other people's minds?
It's a form of bullying.
And it's a way for the other person to have control.
As opposed to, like, what are you, two years old?
You can't say what you want? Oh, two years old?
Two years old can say what you want, right?
You can't even get two years old, right?
What are you, an infant? Even infants say what they want.
At least they say what they don't want when they're uncomfortable.
They cry or whatever. So, yeah, it is a form of bullying and it's very claustrophobic.
And it has you never be able to fully relax in the presence of the other person.
Right? And that might partially explain some of the stumbling you had, which is gone now completely, because I'm having conflict with people all the time with these calls.
I'm not fighting with people, but I'm fighting with falsehoods, at least as I see them, right?
I sort of make the case, right? So now you and I know we can disagree and have a perfectly civil and, in fact, a more productive conversation because we can disagree.
And I just tell you personally, I really hate.
I have like a visceral, so it's not, I mean, maybe it's rational, maybe it's not, but I just, you know, be perfectly honest.
That visceral, you know, stomping around, slamming cupboards because you didn't figure out something from...
I don't know, yesterday or six hours ago or five hours ago or whatever.
I really hate that stuff.
I could not have someone like that in my life.
I'd need to fix it.
I just need to say, you'll need to grow up and just tell me what you need because I'm not going to sit here.
I don't have enough time or energy or interest in the planet, in the world, in the day, in my body, in my soul to sit there and try and figure out everything you're doing or everything you want when you simply won't just say it.
Because you can't get anything done.
Everything becomes so clogged and complicated and all of that.
And it is a really paralyzing form of...
I just want somebody to yell at me.
Just, hey, let's have it out.
But this pursed lips, tight tea-sipping...
It's just like, oh my God, for God's sakes, can we be mature and adults and just talk about what we want?
Or is this going to be this underhanded, manipulative crap from now until the day we die?
Yeah, it's somehow very British in there, I suppose.
Well, yeah, there's a lot of people on a small island, and, you know, there's been a lot of civil wars, and so I get it, and I get where people are coming from, but I just, you know, I can't do it.
Yeah, I think the reason for it is that, yeah, well, obviously, as I mentioned before, the open conflict leads to my dad getting involved, and therefore it becomes like a sort of nuclear explosion, basically.
Yeah. Because he does the shouting bit that you mentioned.
Right. So, and that's also kind of in a way British too, right?
The mom with the tight lips and the dad with the red face is kind of a real cliche.
That's like the pioneer village of England.
So, yeah, I kind of remember all of that stuff.
And can you think of a time where a conflict has been successfully resolved in your family?
Um, the fact that I'm searching for it kind of implies probably not.
Um, Oh, you could be going through a Boolean sort of a very long list, that's fine.
No, I don't think I have.
Right, so the fact that your brother is unable to resolve conflicts with his girlfriends?
Yeah. Or even into conflicts, I guess.
So in the first relationship...
She was your dad and he was your mom.
And in this relationship, she's your dad and he's your mom.
Tell me if I'm wrong. I don't want to oversimplify.
No, no, no. I think that sort of makes, yeah, symbolizes things effectively.
Yeah, I think that looks right. And how has this, because, you know, I care about your brother, but I care more about you, obviously, in this conversation.
How has this affected you, my friend?
Well, on the one hand, I've sort of, following your show, I've sort of worked out probably, you know, 50% of the things that you've already told me.
So I was sort of aware that this was a passive-aggressive situation that they were dealing with.
I was dealing with all of my family.
And, yeah, it's very unsettling, really.
It's kind of... My mum and dad sort of doing this weird thing at the moment where they sort of don't want to spend time with me and my girlfriend, me and my fiancé, where it's not like explicitly said, but it's like I'll say, oh, let's do this together.
And they'll be like, yeah, sounds great.
And then it'll be like no crickets, essentially.
Oh, yeah. We can't quite find the right time.
Yeah, literally, yeah.
It's always like, you know...
My goldfish is unwell.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, there have been worse excuses.
But yeah, so, I mean, this week they were supposed to come up and, you know, I say supposed to come up and visit.
I'm not, you know, I am bothered.
They're like less bothered than I used to be, if that makes sense.
They were supposed to come up and visit.
I was like, oh, you know, You know, we're building this big house at home.
So, you know, we've got all of our time is spent building this house.
And, you know, we can't leave the site because they're all four apart and blah, blah, blah.
Oh, yeah. Obviously, like coming up to visit us for an evening is not going to cause the entire thing to collapse, is it?
And it's just a sort of funny thing.
I don't really know. I don't really understand it.
And if you were to say to them, if you were to say to them, okay, can we just kick into a quick role play here?
I'm just curious how defensive your dad is about this stuff.
Sure. Dad, I get the feeling that you don't want to spend time with my fiancé and me.
Like, there seems to be a lot of excuses and a lot of can't-dos.
Is there something – look, as your son, if there's something negative about my fiancé, about our relationship – You've known me a lot longer than anybody else, I guess, outside of mom.
I really, really need to know if there's something that you find negative or uncomfortable or problematic because if she's, you know, the wrong girl or there's something that can be fixed, I mean, I would really, it'd be easier for my life if everyone got along.
So, what's going on?
No, of course not, Tim.
We think she's lovely and it's, we think we'll be very happy, we'll be very happy together.
I don't know where we'd go from there.
Well, you know, I was thinking the other day and rambling with some crazy Canuck.
And, you know, do you think we have a problem in the family or maybe an opportunity to improve around resolving conflicts?
I have no idea what he would say to that.
I don't think that's even... Yeah.
in a family blah blah blah blah right give you the big spiel right yeah we're fine now aren't we kind of thing yeah right and then be like okay well but to me uh i can't really think of a lot of successful stuff like i remember fighting with my brother and you just like get mad at us or yell at us or suspend privileges or occasionally there'd be spanking and all of that so i you know i can't really you know it's just the other day remember with mom i was like wanted to cook something i asked for an ingredient she said yes and then she got really huffy and upset i
i don't really think that's the best possible way to have conflicts or resolve conflicts and you know you're a relatively young healthy dad and i'm a young healthy guy and we've got a lot of decades together and i'm just i just wondering you know if in the family there might be some room for improvement about you know being direct or or having conflicts or resolving stuff Thank you.
I obviously don't think you would even understand what you were talking about.
Like, it would just be like, yeah.
And then I would say, okay, well, can you, look, I'm obviously completely happy to be wrong, very happy to be wrong.
I mean, can you think of a time where we've had a significant disagreement and we've talked it through and resolved it in a productive way?
I think you would bring up our most recent very, very bad disagreement, down in Cornwall, on holiday again, and how that was, I want to and how that was, I want to say resolved, but I personally feel like it's, again, Move back to this kind of avoiding situation.
But I think he would talk about that. And what would he say about that disagreement?
He would say, you know, there's no reason why we can't discuss sensitive things as long as we're all sensible about it and don't get too emotional about it, essentially.
Which I think is actually a fair comment, but he's only started saying that very recently.
Well, and of course, I would respond by saying, well, Dad, I mean, no disrespect intended.
I mean, just a straight-up recollection, I seem to remember a good portion of your face in my childhood being sort of red and purple with shouting.
And, you know, I remember not too long ago, disagreeing with my brother.
Oh, no, we were actually just having an animated discussion about science, and you basically told us to shut up, you know?
So, you know, it's nice that you say, let's not get too emotional, but I seem to remember...
You, in fact, I do remember very clearly really a lot of times when you'd get pretty mad and kind of shouty about stuff, which I guess I'm not exactly sure where the advice is coming from.
I think there's a couple of things in there that I think would probably trigger him into thinking that I was being disrespectful and therefore get defensive and angry.
No, but that would be very helpful, right?
Because he would get defensive and angry, and then you would say, well, Dad, I mean, come on.
You just told me, let's not get too emotional about things.
Surely I'm allowed to disagree with you.
I have my own memories. You literally were just telling me, I don't mean to laugh at you, Dad, but it's kind of funny.
Like, you're literally telling me not to take it too personally, get too emotional, and now you're raising your voice and getting belligerent.
Like, come on.
I mean, do you just have rules to break them?
I mean, help me out here.
I'm really trying to understand. Yeah, I don't know what he would say to that.
You should find out.
Yeah, maybe I will when they come up, yeah.
Well, they're coming up to offer to pay for all of our weddings, so I'm not really sure where that's come from, totally out of the blue.
Oh, boy. Oh, man, that's a good time to have a conflict about essential issues.
Wow. Well, the fact is that it doesn't actually, you know, it doesn't really affect us because we can kind of afford it on our own, which kind of puts us in a quite decent position to say… What does your girlfriend think of your… What does your girlfriend think of… Sorry, your fiancé.
My apologies.
What does your fiance think of your family?
I think she sort of likes them.
No, no, she isn't. Oh, you waited until she was gone!
No, I'm just kidding. Okay, go ahead. Well, I mean, I did...
Yeah, I wasn't sure how...
Well, there's no reason why she's not on the call, to be honest.
I just thought it would be easier this way.
Wait, I'm your guilty secret, aren't I? Yeah.
That's fine. I can be the little tart in the motel down the way.
That's no problem. Okay, go ahead.
Yeah, I think she generally thinks they're okay.
I referenced earlier an argument that happened down in Cornwall on holiday, and she was there for that.
I think since then, both of us have been much more wary.
She's been much more wary that they're not what they appear.
They appear as charming and as sort of...
Well, nice, I guess.
Well, it's as reasonable as all totalitarian souls are until they're crushed.
Yeah. Yeah.
Right. So, yeah, so she's sort of like, yeah, she wants to, she cares about my brother as well and cares about me and wants basically me to be happy.
So it's kind of more like, how do we resolve this, basically, is what she sort of just said.
Right. I mean, I have some thoughts, but I don't want to, I mean, if there's more information that I need to gather, I certainly don't want to jump the gun.
Like, I'll give you a funny example.
So, in the Telegram chat the other day, somebody posted a fairly lengthy critique of UPB. Now, I love talking about UPB. More than breath itself sometimes.
And I was going to prepare a big response.
Turned out she'd used some AI text generator that creates arguments on the web.
So I almost ended up arguing with a robot, which is exactly my definition as to why free will is valid, is you never argue with robots.
So that could have been quite tragic.
Anyway, it doesn't matter. So there was a place I was about to jump the gun without enough information.
But if there's more information that...
It's important for me to get or anything else that's popping in your mind, I'd be very happy to hear.
Sure. I'll throw in a couple of things.
I'll keep it short. So the first one is this big argument that I keep talking about down in Cornwall, which is it's sort of a moment where We were doing some really technical thing.
We were launching a boat, basically.
And it was like everyone was a little bit on edge because, you know, if you get it wrong, someone could get hurt and so on.
So it's very important to get it right.
Unlike parenting.
Anyway, go on. Exactly.
But we were on edge because my dad was on edge, if that makes sense.
So it was me, my mum, my fiancé and my dad.
And we were launching this boat and my dad was getting a bit uptight because it's like, you know, we need to do it this way and we need to do it that way.
And it's like, well, everyone knows. You know, when my dad wasn't there one time, we launched it, just me and my mum, like the two people.
It was absolutely 100% fine.
Nobody got into any arguments.
There were no rows. But this time it was like, you know, it was like it was just it's almost like I'm sure you People can be familiar with this if they know the kind of behavior, but it's like you can see it coming.
There's one thing that goes wrong in the morning that indicates the level of stress that's in the person.
Sorry, I don't mean to interrupt your story, but it's so bizarre for me that I was just talking today.
I had to do a drive with my daughter, and there was some guy walking along the street with his girlfriend or wife or whatever, and he was kind of an older guy, and...
I said, look at that guy.
She's like, what? I said, that guy, I can only see three quarters of him.
He's like 20 feet away.
That's a guy with a cloud of rage around him.
And there are those people out there.
I mean, sometimes they're more calm.
And I'm not saying your dad is one of them.
It's just kind of strange to me that...
And we talked about people who just have this tension around them.
They can get really mad.
And... That's their kind of way of being.
I'm not saying they're always mad, but it's always around, if that makes sense.
I don't know if your dad is one of those guys.
He probably wasn't as bad as the guy I saw.
I just saw him three-quarters.
You can just tell from the way people walk and the way that their shoulders are hunched and all of that.
They just radiate disapproval or potential disapproval or whatever it is or tension or something like that.
It's just kind of funny that you're telling me the story.
I had this conversation with my daughter today.
Anyway, go on. Yeah, it sounds kind of similar.
I don't think he's quite as... Yeah. So, yeah, it was a series of little things which, you know, were happening, which, you know, in a normal situation, he would not have been annoyed about.
But you could tell his voice was sort of getting to that sort of slightly stressed tone.
And then, yeah, we were mucking about on the boat, whatever.
And then, you know, he said to do something which...
I can't remember exactly what it was, but at the time I just thought, well, that's just ridiculous.
I'm not going to do that. And then he just basically detonated because I hadn't done it, obviously.
I saw it coming. What's the detonation look like?
Just shouting and screaming at me.
Back in the day, he probably would have hit me as well, but he was just shouting and screaming this time, probably because I'm sort of older and whatever.
But... But yeah, and it was just kind of like, you know, I was just kind of trying to tell him, you know, I'm not trying to, I don't understand why you're having a go at me.
We're both trying to do the same thing.
We're trying to work out how to do this safely, and you're giving me stupid instructions.
So can you just focus on launching the boat?
And yeah, that was, you know, it just, it went, you know, and then he's basically just stormed off.
And your fiancé was here?
Yes. Oh, God!
Oh, that's so horrifying.
It's bad enough for you.
Do you know why it's so absolutely terrible with regards to your fiancé?
Well, I assume because it reflects badly on me and my potentially, my personality, I guess.
Well, no, I mean, he's completely humiliated, or tried to, a man in front of his mate.
Yeah, I mean, Sorry, that's a bad choice of words because an England mate means the guy you go and drink with.
But no, in front of the woman that you want to marry, you be the mother of your children, he's doing this like silverback, sit on the kid, fart in his face kind of stuff, right?
And you are put in then an impossible situation because either you fight back like hell, in which case God knows what happens, right?
Or you just suck it up and get humiliated in front of the woman you love, which is a pretty shitty thing to do to anyone, let alone your own child.
Yeah. I mean, for all it's worth, I mean, yeah.
Yeah, I mean, I didn't really...
No, you're going to tell me something about girlfriend's reaction.
Go! No, no, I was going to say something about my reaction.
I didn't really back down, that's all.
Tell me more, tell me more, tell me more!
Well, it was sort of, you know, kind of trying to...
And then we had this silly thing where he was downstairs and we were up in one of the other rooms.
My mum kept coming between us saying, oh, can you just do this?
And then she's like, oh, why don't you just say you're sorry?
Why do I need to apologise?
It's so sad. And, you know, she got really upset and was crying, all this stuff.
Why don't you go and talk to him?
Tell him to apologise. Because he's, you know, he clearly...
Because you're the more reasonable person, and she knows you're the more reasonable person, so you're the one who has to apologize.
That's your prize for being reasonable, is you get to be further humiliated.
Yeah, it does feel like that.
And, yeah, so she sort of breaks down in tears, whatever, and And then, you know, like a day late, you know, 24 hours later, like we didn't even go out for dinner together.
Like we're in the same house and we didn't go out for dinner together because obviously, you know, that would be outrageous or whatever.
You know, of course, you know, obviously they were just avoiding us.
And then the next day I sort of approach him.
He's sort of having a cup of tea in the kitchen, whatever.
And I'm like, do you want to discuss...
What's going on here?
Or are you just going to carry on ignoring me?
I think I didn't phrase it exactly that way.
He was like, are you going to show me some respect then?
He screams at you, humiliates you, but apparently the deficiency of respect is you.
Well, yeah, and, you know, it's sort of, over time, over a very, very long time of just trying to talk to him in a very non, you know, trying not to talk to him in a sort of confrontational way, whatever, sort of got across to him that I thought that just, like, you can't basically do that in front of my fiancée, which sounds a bit of a cop-out because you can't really do that anyway.
Well, and what if you have kids, right?
What if you have kids? Well, that was my exact thing I said to my fiancé later.
Oh, you are a good listener.
Oh, God love you.
God love you. Go on. Well, this is...
Yeah, and then so I think...
I don't really...
I can't really remember how this was resolved, but I think...
Either a combination of my mum just telling him to calm down and possibly him understanding what I was saying.
I'm not 100% convinced, though.
But we essentially reached the point where it was like...
I was like, if you want to carry on being...
If you want to carry on seeing us, basically, you're going to have to stop doing that.
So I guess he just...
We should back down from that point.
I don't really know whether it was my mum saying we should back down or whether it was him saying it, but that was...
Wait, sorry, we should back down or he should back down?
Sorry, my dad should back down.
And what does backing down mean?
Apologising? God, no, right?
Yeah, I guess so, yeah.
yeah, sorry, apologizing, and basically not acting like this, which I made, you know, it was kind of it's just such a, you know Wait, he did apologize though?
I'm shocked!
No, really, he did?
I can't actually remember.
I honestly can't remember. Oh, dude.
Oh, you're killing me. What do you mean you can't remember?
If this is the first time your dad apologized for being angry, you'd remember, wouldn't you?
Yeah, you would think.
Which is why this is what I'm bringing out.
Was it something like, I'm sorry this happened, or I'm sorry it ended up this way?
Like some nonsense, no ownership apology?
I think we could all regret how that day turned out.
like all that sort of stuff you know I honestly can't remember Which is kind of pathetic.
But yeah, I don't know.
Alright. Alright.
Yeah. I'm sorry about that.
I really am. Now, did you ever meet his father?
I mean, other than through his son, did you ever meet his father?
I think when I was very young.
He died quite early on in my life.
He was a sergeant in the RAF. Oh, dude.
Oh, my God. Yeah.
Not very good with children.
Right. But if you needed children strafed, like he was the guy.
Well, yeah. I mean, I don't think he didn't fly the planes, but yeah.
Not that anyone cares, but yeah.
Right. Yeah. Okay.
So, I mean, the fact that your father came from a military family, it's not wildly out of character from an unprocessed history that he'd be like this?
Yeah. Yeah.
Right. It's so funny what an odd thing it is.
And I'm sorry to keep bumping it back to myself.
I just want to make sure I clear this so I can focus more on what you're saying.
So I was driving today, as I said, with my daughter.
And there was some sort of...
It was a country road and there was some sort of tractor or something that was ahead.
It was very slow. And so, you know, what do you do?
Well, you just, you go slower, right?
I mean, I don't know what everyone's like.
I've got to get there one car faster.
Like, it drives me nuts when people, they're just starting all over the place, driving fast.
Like, you're basically, everybody knows you're driving a giant missile and a bomb, right?
Because it's like 2,000 pounds and filled with gasoline and like, don't...
You know, treat it with the respect of a giant weapon that it is.
Anyway, so there was a guy driving behind me.
I think he thought I was driving slow, you know, just for the fun of it.
I guess he didn't see that there were, you know, a whole line of cars.
So he burns past me, goes ahead, and then he ends up, he's so impatient, he's driving on the shoulder, right?
So we come up to a stop light and I sort of glance over to the corner of my eye.
He's rolled down his window and he's shouting something at me, right?
And he wants to make eye contact, right?
Now, you know you have this magic shield in a car.
If you don't make eye contact, it drives the other people kind of nuts, especially if they think you've hurt them.
So what I did was, and I couldn't help but play with the guy a little because that was, I don't know, I just really dislike people like that.
And so what I did was I turned around and looked, I gazed my eyes right past him, went back to my daughter and said, you know, I said, look at this, look at this idiot, like trying to get my attention, gesticulating.
I think he made the finger gesture and all that.
And I just – I said, you know, pretend I'm saying something funny and we laughed because, you know, when you're mad and you see someone laughing, it makes you more frustrated and all of that.
And so – and then I slowly turned back to the front, my eyes grazing right past him like he didn't even exist.
And I don't know. It was just – I just find this – Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, what it's worth, I don't feel as...
I'm not really scared of them so much anymore, but yeah, it is ridiculous.
Well, but you're leery enough of not having the conversation, right?
Yeah, that's fair.
And that's because if your dad...
Sorry to interrupt. My guess is, and it's your life, so don't let me tell you anything that doesn't sit well with you.
Of course, right? But...
Would your dad choose between his anger or you?
I guess you did put this confrontation forward, but now he seems to be, in a sense, punching back in a passive-aggressive way by not spending time with you and your fiancé prior to the wedding, right?
Yeah, I don't know.
It's difficult because, just to clarify, in between this, we actually spent nearly four months at their house during the first UK lockdown.
And nothing particularly bad happened during that period.
Well, other than assume a certain amount of avoidance.
Well, yeah. Plus there's an external thing, COVID, right?
So it tends to unite people in a way...
That regular life doesn't.
Yeah, that's true.
Yeah, as you say, I guess the theme of the conversation is almost like the avoidance thing.
It's gone to such an extreme that we can't even see each other without thinking we're going to have some kind of row and whatever.
Right, and that's because the roots of the conflict aren't dealt with.
It's just whack-a-mole, right?
Yeah, it's become too big to even address at the base level, yeah.
Right, right. Well, because for him to deal with the conflict would mean you dealing with your childhood with him.
He would then have to go back and deal with his childhood with his father, and he would have to look back with regret upon the anger, if not the rage, that he inflicted upon his children and his wife.
And his wife, he would then apologize to his wife, but his wife married him because he's this kind of person...
It's like one thread you pull and like the whole damn – this is what they're saying.
It's funny how the analogy was the whole house is going to come down, right?
Remember they can't come visit you because the whole house will come down?
Maybe he's got a sense that you might want to have this kind of conversation.
And he's kind of right. It's like if you start pulling at these threads and, you know, it's like you look up and it's like, what the hell happened to my life?
Everything's changed. Yeah.
Right. Yeah. Okay.
All right. All right. So, again, more is always welcome.
him if there's anything else that you wanted to toss in before we go to your breath um one one one last thing which yeah um Essentially, my dad and my mom...
I'm quite split on being sort of COVID skeptics, I suppose.
My dad is very like, oh, you know, we must be, you know, in fact, immediately we need to do this.
We need to do exactly what the government tells us, blah, blah, blah.
And then my mom is like secretly reading newsletters about the protests and things like this.
She's heard the name Tenpenny and she doesn't say who?
Yeah.
Right.
Okay.
Okay.
Yeah, go ahead. No, I mean, that's just a crumb of that.
You're implied enough, it's helpful. And I guess they're not resolving these things either, right?
No, I don't think so. I don't think they talk about it.
Yeah. Yeah, the COVID stuff is really splitting people down the middle.
It really is splitting people. It's split me down the middle a little bit too, if that's any consolation.
But yeah, it's really tough.
It's really tough. Especially for the people who believe that The spike protein sheds from the vaccinated people.
Yeah, it's a big mess, and it's really tragic how this has all played out.
Okay, all right. Anything else?
Listen, I'm happy to hear. This is your call, and don't feel like you're imposing.
This is what I volunteer for, and I'm happy to do it.
No, I think that's pretty much the whole story, I think.
All right. What percentage of your brother's personality is available to you now compared to before?
Let's put before at 100%.
You're having these great conversations and all of that.
What percentage of your brother's personality is available to you now or has been since he started dating this girl or at least got seriously involved with him?
Under 20%, I would say.
There were just these flashes of just hilarious chat, which is just our absolute history at this point.
It's just, is this guy you and I actually a functioning human being?
Right. Not literally, but intellectually.
So, listen, personally, massive respect for calling.
Massive respect for calling, and I think you're doing entirely the right thing, because your brother is in extraordinary danger.
Like, soul-shattering, life-destroying, get divorced, drag through family courts, false allegations, you name it.
In my opinion, your brother is in extraordinary danger.
And I share your concern.
I mean, if not downright panic.
Have they talked marriage yet?
No, they haven't. But this is another crumb of info.
But basically, she moved in with him after a very, very short time.
time i think probably six months maybe uh they kicked out his two flatmates who were essentially paying his bills for him when he didn't have a job and she is there in their place and um i you know at the time i felt like i should say something to him like this is too soon kind of thing yeah exactly that exactly that but i was obviously uh duly ignored right um So, I mean, she's isolating him, I assume.
I mean, she got his flatmates out.
I assume he's not allowed to be much in touch with his friends.
He's certainly not allowed to be much in touch with his brother or his future sister-in-law and so on, right?
So this isolation is probably occurring because she has got him wound up in his head that there's something fundamentally wrong with him.
And that's why he's willing to submit To her dictates and demands.
That she is somehow superior.
That's why I asked about the sexual market value stuff earlier.
She is somehow superior to him in some manner.
And he just needs to shut up and do what she says because he's fundamentally flawed.
She's somehow perfect or omniscient and he just needs to get out of his former life.
She probably has planted some negative seeds about people dragging him down or he's, you know, whatever.
And so she has established some terrible and terrifying control over him and has extinguished his true self for the sake of, I assume, exploitation either currently or down the road.
And it is extraordinarily dangerous because these kinds of relationships, again, I can't obviously predict that nobody can, but the pattern of these kinds of relationships in my experience is that he is willing to submerge himself because he's been Broken and isolated.
I mean, it's similar to a cult, right?
A lot of these relationships, particularly the isolation, so it starts with the glamorous love bomb, right?
So this is, you know, cults will love bomb you, and this may have occurred with affection or sexuality, and things move very rapidly, which is the six-month moving in together.
And then there's the separation and the isolation, right?
of people.
And then there's the demands for a commitment to prove love.
And then if there's any attempt to protect personhood or property or any reservation about the speed of the relationship or the imminence of the marriage, then it's put down to insecurity and to be a man and just basically get bullied into making these commitments.
And then once the person has legal control over the victim, then they will just simply turn the screws and control.
And then if the victim ever tries to get out, there's usually an escalation.
Or, of course, more commonly, there is an oopsie pregnancy, and then she owns the guy for the next couple of decades.
And it is extraordinarily dangerous.
And if you go to, you know, internet forums of people who've been put through these kinds of bringers, it is...
I mean, sometimes people are never the same again, because you can't undo some of the damage or a lot of the damage that has been done, particularly, of course, if there are children involved, because if there are children involved, the woman has power and leverage over the man, financial, emotional, legal, you name it, and she can destroy his chances of ever having a normal or healthy relationship in the future.
She can grind him down. I don't want to get overly dramatic, but I certainly I've heard of and read of and actually had people on the show who've had people involved in these kinds of relationships where there is self-destruction, there is addiction, suicide, or suicidal ideation.
It can be really, really bad.
Now, this is my particular take on it, but you, of course, are infinitely closer to the situation than I am.
Do any of these concerns ring true or am I a bridge too far?
No, that is almost exactly what I was thinking.
He was already pretty isolated.
I'm not sure he has many friends up there.
Well, no, but he had his connection with you, right?
Yeah, you're right.
And you don't need a lot of friends.
Everyone who says, I don't have a lot of friends, it's like...
Okay, I get that, because real quality friends, especially when you get married and you have kids, you just don't have as much time for friendships.
I mean, it's kind of sad, but, you know, do I have 20 close friends?
I certainly don't. I have...
I don't know, probably fewer than half a dozen, like really, really close friends, like people you would take bullets for, they'd take bullets for you or whatever it is, right?
So yeah, when people say, I don't have a lot of friends, it's like, I assume everyone who claims that they do have a lot of friends is just counting Instagram as intimacy.
So anyway, so but no, it's the connection with you.
Are you guys fairly close in age?
Yeah, two years. Yeah, yeah, okay.
So, yeah, I mean, the brother thing, too.
I mean, the fact that this woman would have eclipsed a brother relationship, and I mean, obviously you guys fought, as all brothers do, but it sounds like you had a pretty decent relationship before this woman came along.
I think it was...
I want to use the word...
Slightly stunted, I'm going to be honest.
I don't think it was ever...
It's only recently when I've realised that this is a real possibility that this could happen to him that I've started to really think, you know, I really miss this guy.
Where has he gone, if you know what I mean?
I mean, yeah, I guess he used to visit me.
I used to visit him a lot.
Yeah, I guess it was quite close.
But he lives nearly an hour and a half away from me.
Right. But, I mean, so it may have lacked some depth, but, you know, you're in your 20s.
But, I mean, you were probably aiming towards that at some point.
But there was no, like, massive unresolved traumas or abuses or histories of, as far as I can tell.
I mean, obviously, correct me if I go astray.
No, I don't think so. No, not between me and him.
Right. So, I guess the other question to answer is, why is this happening?
Now, I think it has something to do with the fact that he's older, right?
No, he's actually younger.
He's younger than me. Oh, my apologies.
Sorry, I figured PhD and you were in your 20s.
Okay, no problem. So, he's younger.
Oh, I'm sorry, because you mentioned that, because you said that you'd gone through more conflict with your father that didn't hit him as much.
So, sorry. Go ahead.
I'm not sure about that.
I mean, he was very interested in his rugby, and they spent a lot of time together.
So, yeah, maybe their relationship is better than his relationship.
Yeah, my dad's relationship with him is better than my dad's relationship with me, if that makes sense.
But possibly, yeah.
Well, yeah, better relative to still your dad being your dad, right?
So, okay. So...
There is a reproductive strategy where the genes take over, and the woman basically says, the path to your offspring is through me, and the man abandons all reason.
Now, we say, oh my gosh, he abandons all reason, but if you look at it from a genetic standpoint, he doesn't, because he can't have kids with you, he can't have kids with your dad, he can't have kids with your mom, he can only have kids with, in this case, like Deep down in his pair bonding mechanism, this woman. So you've got to think of the cheerleading genes, right?
The cheerleading and frowning genes, right?
So the genes are looking at this situation and the woman is saying, I am young and fertile and I can reproduce these genes, but it's going to cost you all the relationships where the genes can't reproduce.
So what are the genes going to tell him to do?
Yeah, I mean...
Yeah, it's obvious, isn't it? Right, so that is really important, that she has an approach to reproduction that is individual, not collective.
And normally I'm a big fan of the individualism, but not necessarily in terms of child raising as a whole, right?
So she's saying, you get your kids through me, everyone else is expendable.
However, It's good to have, I mean, particularly you and your fiancé, I mean, it would be great to have you in your future kid's life.
Sorry, your brother's.
Of course, you're going to be in your future kid's life.
I mean, your brother's future kid's life and all of that.
But she's saying it's only going to be me.
It's me or no genes, no new genes, no reproduction, right?
And of course, the genes are like, well, that kind of sucks.
But hey, man, we're going to go to where the eggs are.
And so there is more than just sort of the psychological history, although that has a bearing on it.
There is, because she's kind of got him locked into one-itis, right, to the point where it's like only her, only she is the one, only she is going to be my path to children and fertility and gene replication and all that.
Then all of the other relationships become somewhat expendable because he's got the one-itis thing.
And the one-itis thing is either because she's so wonderful or Or because she's grinding him down to feeling like nothing and that she's doing him a favor by being with her.
I guess this is somewhat similar to his last girlfriend where he was constantly running after her, panting, and she was like, well, I might go to Thailand.
I might return your call. I don't know, right?
Right. Okay.
So yeah, he is in massive danger.
She also, of course, is going to want to stay close to her family, because they already travelled to Greece, right?
Do you know if she has any other family in the UK? No, she doesn't.
My understanding as well is that her family are actually separated, and they live on different islands in Greece.
So, yeah.
Wow. I'm not sure about that.
Okay, so she's turning, she's putting him on an island too, I guess, just with her.
Okay, so, I mean, I would imagine then that the end goal may be to snag him to go back to Greece or something like that at some point.
Or, oh no, I guess if he's got his, no, because he wouldn't speak the language really, right?
So, they'd probably stay here, but.
Okay. So, I think there's a family emergency.
Okay. There's a family emergency and it may be an all-hands-on-deck situation.
In other words, it might be time to sit down with your mother and your father and anybody else.
I'm sure there's other family members who are interested in your brother and his future happiness and success and say, all right, we have a problem.
We have a pretty significant problem.
He's potentially, or at least we better bloody find out, insignificant risk here.
He doesn't see us anymore.
He doesn't talk with us anymore.
When you try talking to him, it's like he's not even there.
She answers for him. She's clearly in control.
She's running the show. He's kind of broken down.
And this is not going to act well.
Look, I mean, you know how this kind of stuff works.
We talk man-to-man here, right?
You know how this kind of stuff works.
Women will often try and break a man down a little, right?
Just to see. What's that old Fiona Apple song?
I've been a bad, bad girl.
I've broken the heart of an innocent man.
And it's a sad, sad world when a girl will break a boy just because she can.
Of course, she was a victim, I think, of rape.
So, I mean, she's got some messed up stuff going on.
But yeah, a woman will test a man to see if he's breakable because she needs to feel secure that he's going to be able to protect her.
And most women...
If they try to break a man and he does sort of turn to putty in their hands, I guess like your brother's ex will just maybe play around with him for a little while, but she's always looking for a more stable alpha to pair bond with, right?
So, the woman who decides to really capture the prisoner, so to speak, She's going to have continually growing contempt for him.
He's going to sense that contempt, but your brother's approach is to, because of your dad and your mom perhaps, your brother's approach is to appease contempt or anger with compliance, with obedience.
Is that a fair thing to say?
Yeah, I would say so, yeah.
Right. So she is going to have growing contempt for his spinelessness, but she's also enjoying the power she has over him.
So the sort of mad joy she gets out of the power she has over him is at war with the contempt she's going to have for him, and the contempt is going to win out.
The contempt is going to win out.
And the biggest single predictor for the failure of a relationship is the emotion of contempt.
I'm making that up. That's been studied fairly extensively.
The contempt is the one emotion that relationships cannot survive in the long run, so it's not going to work out.
The question is how much damage gets done to your brother before it doesn't work out.
And to some degree that's on you because he's obviously broken down, sexually hypnotized in the coochie cult or whatever horrible phrase you want to use for this.
But it doesn't seem like he can see clearly at the time.
And the question is, what are you guys going to do about it?
That's a good question.
My original idea was to try and get him involved in our groups of friends, not necessarily with my mom and dad, but with my fiance and I's sort of friendship groups, invite him to more parties and No, she'll block that.
That won't work. She'll block that.
Yeah, sure. Okay.
That was, yeah, that's all I got, to be honest.
No, and that might have worked earlier, but at this point she probably has such a hold over him that she would be able to block that fairly easily.
Or she would come and out of fear of upsetting her, then he would simply fade into the woodwork and nobody would be interested or want to maintain a relationship with him.
Yeah. Anything else?
Um... I mean, I'm going to visit him, like I said, and sort of try and I don't know, rebuild our relationship.
She'll block that too, I'm afraid.
Yeah. Okay.
I've not got any other ideas.
Right. I do.
But you won't like them.
Okay. Um...
Get it to a public place and have her reveal her two self, just like your dad did.
Right.
Be an alpha, go in there and say, what the hell are you doing to my brother?
What's going on? He's barely talking to me.
He's barely responding.
He's barely available. What are you doing?
At some point, she's just going to hit the freaking roof because she's used to bullying.
Right.
And you're not bullying her.
Right.
You're not being mean to her, calling her names, just saying, what the hell?
How are you?
How am I supposed to get behind this relationship when you answer?
I ask my brother.
I've known my brother for a quarter of freaking century woman.
I ask him a question and you answer for him.
Who the hell are you?
Do you want to have anything to do with this family?
And you're interrupting my brother's responses to tell me what he would say?
Bye.
I've known him a dozen times longer than you've known him.
Who the hell are you to come between brothers?
What are you doing? What the hell is going on?
Now, you're not being abusive, right?
Yeah. You're just being honest, right?
Now, how's she going to handle that?
I suspect she would blame, you know, obviously external factors like COVID or, you know, lockdown or, you know, I'm not vaccinated, blah, blah, blah.
No, then I would say, okay, so what exactly, what variant of COVID causes you to answer my brother's Like when somebody asked my brother a question, is it the Delta variant that has you respond on his behalf?
What on earth are you bringing up COVID for?
Is this what you do? Like you're called out on some weird or bad behavior on your part and you blame the Wuhan virus?
Is this your level of personal responsibility in life?
Yeah. I don't know how she would react to that.
Well, I mean, she would storm out.
Yeah. And he would get up to go.
And you would say, sit your ass down, little brother.
You know how she's storming out?
Thank you.
Does this look familiar to you at all?
Does this strike a chord with you, my friend?
My brother? Do you remember?
Do you know anyone who you grew up with who blows up when confronted or when you speak the truth to?
Do you know anyone? Just, you know, take a wild guess.
And I'm really sorry that that happened to you.
I'm really sorry that that happened to me.
But my God, man, are you going to spend the rest of your life bowing down?
To brutal people. You're worth so much more than this.
You are taking the treasure of your existence and sacrificing it on the altar of history, man.
Don't do it. Don't do it.
This is not the woman for you.
This might be the woman for the Marquis de Sade, but it's not the woman for you.
She can't take an honest confrontation.
She gets up, she storms out.
And now I know she's going to be texting you and she's going to be angry and manipulative and belittling and bitter.
And my God, man, you've entangled yourself with this woman because you moved in after six months and it's going to be a mess.
But it's not marriage and it's not kids.
Are you going to have your kids exposed to that?
Don't you remember what it was like for you and I when we were growing up, my brother?
Don't you remember the walking on eggshells?
Don't you remember the fuming? Don't you remember mom?
Sniffing and sighing around because she was angry who wouldn't tell us why.
Don't you remember Dad's purple face when he was yelling at us?
Come on, man. We've got to break the cycle.
You can't have this woman raise your kids.
Look at how she behaves.
I didn't call her names.
I wasn't mean to her.
I was honest and frank. And she gets up, she storms out, and she's probably just texting all this manipulative crap to you now.
She's not coming back and saying, you know what?
You have concerns. I don't agree with them.
Let's talk it out. Do you know how much respect I would have for her if she did that?
She came back. She said, you know what?
I'm so sorry. I let my temper get the bad of me.
You're my boyfriend's brother.
I'm angry at you.
I think you're unfair. I think you're wrong.
But if I'm going to go forward with you to brother, we're family.
And I'm sorry I stormed out.
That was wrong. So, let's go through it again.
I'd have so much respect for her, I would bless your union.
But we both know she's not coming back.
We both know right now, she's hyperventilating, she's probably having an anxiety attack, and she's trying to figure out every muscle she could move, including legs and neck, to get you back under control.
And to get you as far away from me as humanly possible.
Well, bros before...
Hmm, how does that end in the American slang?
How does that end? Bros before something or other.
Garden implements, if I remember rightly.
But come on, man, this is...
You don't want to live your life like this.
You don't want to live your life like you never get to grow up from dad's temper or mom's passive aggression.
You've gone to visit her family in Greece.
She can't bring you to visit our family in the same damn country.
You've gone down to Cornwall.
You can't come to see us.
I call you. It's like you're barely there.
I can hear her in the background, man.
I can hear her in the background.
Feeding you answers. Hovering over.
What is she threatening with you?
What's she bribing you with?
Actually, don't tell me what she's bribing you with.
I don't want to visit that. You're my little brother.
I don't even want to picture that stuff.
But she's got a hold of you in some manner.
And, and, and...
You have every right to be really angry at me, my brother, because...
It's been two years. And I've been sitting on my thumbs.
It's been two years. What I should have done is I should have done this.
What is the old prison sentence?
Two years less a day? I should have done this two years less a day ago.
I should have stood in the doorway of the place you were moving her into and said, You shall not pass!
Gandalf style. I should have been looking out for you.
I mean, I'm really sorry.
I'm really sorry. I hope it's better late than never.
I hope it's not too late.
But I'm telling you, man, if you go on with this woman...
And listen, we'll keep chatting.
I'm happy to sit here for another hour, see if she comes back and apologizes for storming out.
Or she can come back and demand that I apologize for what I said.
Whatever. But if she's confronted and she storms out and doesn't come back, you can't marry her.
You can't do it. Obviously, you can, right?
You're a free will individual.
But I'm telling you, man, it's absolute disaster.
Like, absolute disaster.
You're going to end up living in a car Wondering why you're going to get up tomorrow.
And I know you want kids, so you could even make this decision for yourself, but you cannot make this decision for your future children.
The woman you choose to be the mother of your children is the most important decision you will ever make in your life, and it's the one decision You will never be excused for getting wrong because it's the one decision that affects the purely innocent, which is the children.
And you can't make this decision because she's pretty.
And you can't make this decision because she's great in bed.
And you can't make this decision because you're scared of her.
You can't make this decision for any reason other than she's the very best woman that you can find to raise your children.
That's the only thing that you can make that decision based on.
I don't care if she's hot, pretty, sexy...
Suck a golf ball through a garden hose.
I don't care any of that. That's not any reason to get married.
You cannot make the decision unless she is the very best woman to raise your children because you're going to bring those children into this relationship and they are not going to have any choice in the matter and they're going to have to live with the consequences of your decision And they're purely innocent.
And I have messed up by leaving this too long and too late.
And for that, I am eternally sorry.
And I'm eternally...
I eternally will owe you.
But if you have children with this woman, I don't just predict, but I guarantee...
That your life will become worse and worse and worse until you barely will want to live it anymore.
And we've got to figure out not just, in my view, how you get out, but why you got in and also why I failed to act and why mom failed to act and why dad failed to act.
Because as a youngest family, we're always interested in looking out for you and taking care of you.
I can't believe they haven't noticed how different you've become.
Since you got involved with this woman.
But let me tell you. Last thing I wanted to say, brother.
Bottom of my heart. I cannot tell you how much I miss you.
I can't tell you how much.
I mean, you're my brother.
We grew up together. You're the single witness of my childhood that's going to last for my entire life.
I miss you. I miss our laughs.
I miss our talks. I miss our arguments.
I miss our debates. I miss hanging out.
I miss the easy familiarity of 25 years.
I miss you so much.
And I cannot like a woman who has kept us apart.
I'm angry at her.
I'm angry at you.
I'm angry at myself. I'm angry at mom.
I'm angry at dad. And I've got to start acting on this anger.
I miss you so much.
It's It's breaking my heart.
It's literally breaking my heart.
And my concern is that if she wins and your life goes the way that I think it's going to go, which is down and down and down, I will miss you not just now, not next year, next month.
I will miss you for the rest of your life because you will never, ever come back.
And the brother I knew, the brother I loved, the brother I laughed with, the brother I learned with, he's never coming back.
And I can't, I can't, I can't face a life without you, as you were in it.
And the guilt that I would feel would be immeasurable.
So I'm just, stay with me, man.
Stay with me and don't betray what your potential is for your future kids.
Don't betray how you could be as a father.
Don't betray how you could be as a husband.
Don't let her win just because our parents weren't wise.
Just stay with me and we'll work it out.
That's the sort of stuff that's cooking in my brain since I got the message now.
Tell me what you think. Yeah, I think it would be difficult to deliver, but yeah, I think it strikes the right note.
Yeah, definitely. I mean, was there anything that I missed or anything?
I mean, it seems to me that you really, really do miss your brother, right?
Honestly, I wish I'd sort of written that speech myself, yeah.
That is 100% exactly how I feel, yeah.
I'm just trying to read the tea leaves of your heart, right?
Which is a bit of a grab bag, right?
Because I can't even see you, but that's the sense that I get.
I mean, he's your only brother.
He's your only sibling, right? Yeah.
And you guys are like Batman and Robin, and you listen.
And of course you're angry at a woman who's taking him from you.
Especially, not just she's taking him from you, but where she's dragging him to.
Yeah. But that's, yeah, the answer is, I mean, I've had these kinds of conflicts, and every single time, The most successful thing that I've ever done.
And listen, I'm telling you, if it's legal to do where you are, and I think if it's in a public place, it probably is, but obviously check the laws.
Record it. Not to publish it or anything like that, but record it.
So that, because your brother is going to go into fight or flight mode, he's going to go into, I'm sorry, like, I don't mean to laugh, but here's the thing, right?
So earlier with your mother, when your dad was yelling at you about the boat, your mother was like, oh, son, go and apologize to him.
Why? Because you were the most reasonable person in the room, and so you lost, right?
You were going to lose because you were going to be the most reasonable, you know, the most reasonable, the most sensible.
So the only way that you win is to stop being the most reasonable person in the room.
And reasonable by reasonable, I mean dishonest, fundamentally compliant or, oh, I'll take the bullet.
Oh, I'll be the bigger person.
Oh, I'll go and apologize or whatever, right?
Because with this girlfriend, you've been kind of dancing around this stuff, right?
You've been more reasonable and, you know, well, maybe it just takes some time to get to know her or maybe they do have valid excuses that they don't see as well.
Just stop being reasonable. Reasonable to me is the opposite of honest, if that makes any sense.
And so, I mean, I'm not being reasonable with you, because I could tell you any number of things that would make your life easier in the short run.
Oh, it'll be fine. Oh, it'll turn around.
Oh, you know, she's just, they're just getting used to each other and, you know, blah, blah, after COVID and all that, right?
And that would all be, quote, reasonable, but...
It wouldn't conform to the evidence, at least, that I got from you, as far as I see it.
So, this is the only thing.
You've got to be the last... Stop being reasonable.
Stop being British, damn you! Stop being reasonable.
And this way, if you're honest with her...
And again, I'm not trying to give you my speech.
I'm trying my best to give you the speech that I think is in your heart.
And so, if what I said in the monologue is honest...
Then all you're doing is being honest with her.
Thou shalt not bear false witness.
You're being honest with her. And honesty is never abusive.
Honesty is never abusive. And so if you're honest with her, which is the greatest virtue, then he gets to see how she reacts to honesty.
And I say this to everyone, everyone who's listening.
See how people react to you being honest.
And if they hate you being honest...
You have both a big problem and a big solution, which is keep being honest until you either break through or break up.
That's what I did with my personal relationships when I really grasped this virtue, which I was older than you, so don't feel bad.
I was much older than you when I first got the hang of this.
But I was just like, no, I'm just going to be relentlessly honest and see who likes it.
I'm just going to be relentlessly honest and see who likes it.
I'm not going to hide myself for the sake of other people's preferences.
I'm not going to erase myself for the sake of other people's pathologies.
I'm just going to be honest.
And I shed the useless and gained the beautiful in that process.
And you might want to bring your fiancé so she gets to meet the new you.
Not the you who's kind of half appeasing your dad, but the you who's willing to stand up like hell to your brother.
And you'll get some good stuff that night, I'll tell you.
There's your carrot that I can't provide.
But no, it would be an electric moment between you and your brother.
And I guarantee you she'll fall in love with you all over again if she sees you standing up like that for your brother.
And listen, don't we all want people who are going to stand up for us in that way and chase away the bad guys and show how much we care for them?
A potential plan?
Thank you.
Yeah, I think so, yeah. And you would record it to play it back to your brother when he's not in full fight or flight mechanism, because full fight or flight mechanism, he's basically just having a panic attack and hating you because you're provoking a conflict he doesn't want to deal with.
So you need to provide to him.
And then she's going to say, oh my god, he just abused me.
Oh my god, he's so vicious.
And then he's got the recording and so he can listen back to it.
So it can't be colored by the narcissist.
The script can't be rewritten.
And again, don't do anything with it other than maybe share it with your brother.
Again, assuming this is all legal.
But that... Make sure you have, if at all possible.
And if you can't record, at least just write down exactly right afterwards what you said or whatever it is.
Or say to him, what did I say?
Did you hear me call her any names?
Did I call her a bitch?
Did I call her a manipulator?
Did I call her evil? Did I call her abusive?
Did I call her a cult leader? No.
I just said honestly my experience and what I thought.
And because she's going to attempt to rewrite this like crazy.
And honestly, it's the kindest thing you can do for her as well.
Because she's going to keep doing...
Most people, this is sad truth about humanity, most people just do what works.
And this works for her.
Whether it's going to work for her long run, well, probably not, but people don't think long run, although there wouldn't be any pathologies at all.
So, yeah.
Have it stop working for her, and maybe she can reevaluate.
In the same way that you're having your dad's temper stop working for him, right?
Just interfere with the machinery of what works for people, and then they can grow.
Because otherwise they'll just keep doing what works until they're dead.
Yeah. What do you think?
Yeah. Sounds like a good plan.
Will you keep me posted?
Yep. Can do, yep.
All right. All right.
All right. Good, good. Is there anything else you wanted to add at the conclusion of the chat?
No, I just want to say thanks very much, Stefan.
It's been very helpful.
Yeah, tell me, I mean, was it kind of what you expected?
I mean, you said you got 50% of it, which is great.
Is it sort of close to what you expected or in terms of action or plans or utility?
The solution was not what I expected.
My mum, for example, in the past, yeah, my mum and dad are always like, oh, you can't, you know, maybe he's happy, blah, blah, blah.
You can't say anything otherwise he'll just be, you know, whatever.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so I like the approach because it requires honesty, which apparently nobody else in my family is capable of having.
Right, right.
I mean, your dad's honesty is that he's scared, not that he's angry, but he's not going to say that.
And all you're doing is, because you're not sleeping with her, she can get mad at you, and what do you care, right?
And she doesn't have any control over you, so you want to show your brother that she can get mad and People will survive, because I think that's pretty important.
And it probably will take more than one round, and it's not usually just pulling Velcro apart.
But all right, I won't keep going when you've already got it.
So thanks, everyone.
And thank you so much for the caller.
Thanks, as always, to the magnificent James for setting these great calls up.
And thank you, everyone, so much for giving me the immense privilege and opportunity to do this Wonderful philosophical work with people.
It is an immense privilege.
I take it enormously seriously and with great joy and dedication.
And I thank you.
I think my 15-year anniversary passed and I barely even noticed it.
So I really thank you.
Freedomain.com forward slash donate.
If you would like to help out with the show, I would, of course, really appreciate that.
Though it is certainly not necessary.
It is definitely beneficial and helpful to me.
So freedomain.com forward slash donate.
Don't forget to check out freedomain.locals.com.
A bunch of podcasts are up there that never went out to the mainstream and they certainly usually go up there earlier.
So I hope you will check that out and have yourself a wonderful, wonderful weekend, everyone.
▲
Export Selection