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Jan. 23, 2022 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:08:19

"My Father Put Me in the Hospital!" Freedomain Call In

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Time	Text
	Let's get straight to the callers.
	Who do we have today?
	All right. First up, we have a woman who's calling in with this question.
	For years, I have been in love with an abusive man.
	No matter what he says or does, I find myself still deeply enamored.
	This toxic pattern is killing me inside.
	I want to take an honest look at my thought process to understand why I am so bonded to my abuser.
	Having a family is something I long for, but he's the only man I want to have children with.
	How do I break this spell, accept reality, and allow myself to move on?
	Well, that is a great question.
	And I really, of course, appreciate the directness and the honesty and the courage that it takes to bring something like this up.
	Do you want to give us a bit more of what you find abusive and what's going on in the current relationship?
	Hi, Steph.
	Well, I guess from the beginning, it's always been a hot and cold kind of relationship.
	He tends to be overall a moody person.
	It's kind of just difficult.
	It started off just kind of a subtle thing, but then basically every single thing I do Is wrong.
	All of my behaviors are wrong.
	I do this too much.
	I put this in the refrigerator the wrong way.
	Actual name-calling.
	Just kind of having no regard for my well-being or what I want.
	I've never really received an apology for anything.
	And he kind of just, I think, pushes all my buttons to get a reaction to then say that it's my fault if I react to it.
	Kind of like a troll almost, right?
	Yeah, he does. I mean, I've definitely, after I kind of took a step back and looked at my own behavior to see, like, you know, like, what am I doing, like, to add to this shitstorm, I realized that he purposefully does say things to piss me off, too, you know? Right, right.
	And how long have you guys been together?
	Well, that's like kind of a complicated thing.
	We met a few years ago at work and, you know, I really just fell for him immediately.
	And it was like he never really wanted to commit to me for quite a while, though, while we were dating.
	This is about four years ago.
	And finally, he did, but then, you know, his behavior, once he was committed, was even worse, more abusive, just Anyway, he kind of savagely dumped me, and then he moved away to another state.
	And for years, I just kind of, you know, had it in the back of my mind.
	What did I do wrong?
	I missed him.
	I still had feelings.
	You know, I tried to date other guys, but I always compared them.
	To him. And then I just kind of reached out when I felt like I was at a point where I had my life together in a way that, you know, because the whole time I was pretty much blaming the failure of the relationship on myself without really taking a deeper look at his behavior, what he's doing to, you know, add to the dynamic.
	So I texted him on a whim about a year and a half ago, and then we were dating long distance.
	But it still had that really shitty, toxic, hot, cold, you know, kind of dynamic going on.
	And it really blew up recently, so now I'm just, you know, at a crossroads and not sure how to feel.
	And how old are you?
	32. Wow, so this has taken some real time out of your life, right?
	Yep, and that's always a concern that I have, too, you know?
	I mean, I did try to date other guys, and they turned out to be kind of assholes, too.
	And a lot of other guys I find to just, you know, be pretty boring.
	I don't know. Right.
	Well, I mean, and how long have you listened?
	I just sort of ask this because it's helpful for me to know how fast I should go, but how long have you listened to this show before?
	About four years.
	Okay, so you probably know my next question, right?
	Maybe. I don't know.
	I go on free domain binges and then after a while I'm like, oh, I need a break.
	Right, right. Okay.
	Well, how long have you been...
	How long have you been...
	Sorry, how was your childhood?
	What sort of happened with your childhood?
	Well, I grew up in a pretty emotionally unstable household.
	I never went hungry.
	I never went without the basic necessities that I would need.
	When there was a true middle class, we were middle class.
	My mom was a teacher. My dad worked in food service.
	It was like Never went without anything I needed.
	However, my mother is very mentally ill.
	And, yeah, my childhood was a lot of screaming.
	A lot of drama.
	It's pretty rough.
	And she's recently trying to kind of gaslight me about it now, which is an interesting tactic that she's doing in her older years.
	But... Right.
	Can you tell me a little bit more about the mental illness, how that manifested and what it did?
	Um, well, she goes, you know, when people are really ill, I've noticed that they don't actively seek help the way that they should.
	So she bounced in and out of different therapists, and one would piss her off, and she'd never go back to that one.
	And then she'd go to one, like, hand-holding, ineffective one.
	And she was on a lot of medication, all different kinds of medication.
	I mean, I watched her, like, withdrawing on the couch off of, like, you know, antidepressants.
	Stuff like that. She basically still has problems but the medication she's on is better.
	She has very rapid mood swings.
	She personalizes everything and thinks everyone is trying to fight with her.
	So as a child, maybe we'd be in a store and someone would say something that a normal person wouldn't find offensive.
	And she'd scream at the person and, you know, make a scene in the store.
	She would make a scene or she just she would break things.
	She would scream at me for just things she interpreted as slight against her.
	She, I mean, before this conversation, I was just texting a friend about it.
	Like, remember when my mom slapped the shit out of me before the confirmation retreat we went to?
	You know, like, and, you know, it was just because she's trying to now say, like, I was always a good mother.
	And, you know, it's just like, no, you really weren't.
	Hang on.
	I mean, you've listened to this for a while.
	So what's the story with, like, laughing about this stuff?
	Are you trying to invite me into, like, this was kind of fun and...
	Oh, I don't even think I was aware I was laughing.
	I think I'm trying to just kind of keep myself from getting overly emotional.
	Why are you trying to keep yourself from getting overly emotional?
	Because I just feel kind of lame if I were to just be sobbing at you, you know, trying to keep my head straight.
	Why would that be lame? Or maybe, um, I don't think that I'm laughing.
	It could be that I'm trying to keep the cadence of my voice together because I'm, I don't know, I just feel like crying is weak.
	Why is crying weak? I don't really have a good answer for that.
	Because it's not. I mean, our emotions are there to help us, right?
	We don't develop emotions over the course of our evolution.
	We haven't developed emotions because they're bad for us, right?
	Yeah, I don't think it was actually laughing.
	I think I was just trying to keep the cadence of my voice even.
	Okay, yeah, no, and I get that, and I appreciate that, but I guess my question is, Why would you want to do that?
	Because you're suffering an enormous amount at the hands of this man, right?
	Yeah. And you suffered an enormous amount at the hands of your mother and your father, and also of a general culture that participates in this kind of, not even just minimization, but outright reversal of what I mean,
	it's a bloody terrifying existence to live with mentally ill people, especially when that mental illness isn't just like they see visions and, you know, or they have pathological altruism and spend all their time helping people, but when it's crazy, nasty, manipulative, emotionally abusive, sometimes violent intrusion.
	Into the hearts and minds of children.
	That is some terrifying stuff.
	That is some terrifying stuff.
	And we do live in a culture.
	I mean, it's really sad, right?
	It's pathetic, really. We do live in a culture which minimizes it, particularly, of course, if it's a woman who's doing it.
	And so I guess I just wanted to make sure I understood where you were coming from, because if you've absorbed this culture that, you know, crying over legitimately...
	Horrible and sad things is somehow weak.
	I think that's not really going to serve you very well, I think, in life.
	And I think that's one of the reasons why you are in this situation, is you have a habit of minimizing your pain.
	And so when you're being abused by this guy, then that's kind of minimized it as well, right?
	I mean, that's, I think, one of the reasons why this stuff goes on.
	Yeah, that's a really good point.
	Yeah, I just, you know, I thought it would, I just wanted to keep it together and, you know, just try to, you know, seem reasonable.
	But yeah, I mean, it was a really, it was a really rough, it was a rough childhood.
	It was a rough childhood.
	So, do you have siblings?
	No, I'm an only child.
	Yeah, that also has its own challenges too, right?
	Yeah, I mean, my dad has since apologized and, you know, I think he really developed a lot since they've been divorced.
	But, I mean, it would be this triangulation and they, you know, I'd be getting it from both of them.
	She'd go nuts and then just drive him into insanity and then just all these crazy, unnecessary, dramatic, you know, and you would never know when the other shoe was going to fall, you know, it just, you wouldn't know what would be, you wouldn't know what would upset her, anything could, something could be funny one day, the next day, it's, you know, horrible.
	You know, the tone of my voice somehow could be incorrect.
	Like, just really messed up stuff.
	And as a kid, you just, you know, it's so confusing.
	Right, right. Was she able to restrain her bad behavior in the presence of others?
	Um, occasionally.
	But I mean, I just kind of mentioned it earlier, like, she was just slapping me in the car in front of my best friend before we were supposed to go somewhere.
	Her best friends have reached out to me sometimes with sympathy, you know, saying like, you know, I'm sorry that your mom is like this.
	And you know, she she does love you, but she's troubled, you know, Right.
	So those people weren't enough to challenge her.
	My question, I guess, is did she ever hit you in front of, say, a teacher or a police officer or a security guard or anyone who would have actually had some authority over her?
	No. Well, look at that.
	She's not crazy.
	Look at that.
	She's able to calculate.
	She is able to calculate what's in her best interest in the moment, and she is able to put on a great mask of sanity, which means she's not crazy.
	Listen, if you've ever been around really, really crazy people, like people who think that they're Jesus or people who think they can walk through walls or people who believe the clouds are talking to them, I mean, they'll go straight up to a cop and say, yeah, this is what's happening.
	Man, this is what's going on. Mm-hmm.
	People whose mental illness is biochemical in nature or they've got a brain tumor or something.
	They're seriously crazy and they can't control it.
	Yeah. So, I mean, I generally, just to share a sort of minor thesis with you, I guess it's not really that minor, but a thesis with you.
	The phrase mental illness is to me generally invented by evil people To manipulate good people.
	This is not to say that there are not genuine mental illnesses.
	There are people who've got Alzheimer's, people who've got schizophrenia, people who've got, although schizophrenia is also pretty well treated by social cues as well, but, you know, people who've got a brain tumor, people who have had brain injuries, concussions, and so on.
	Yeah, those people. We have genuine brain ailments, genuine brain illnesses, and I think are deserving of our sympathy, right?
	But illness is something that evokes in us a significant amount of sympathy.
	Of course, it should, right?
	Particularly illness that is not caused by the behavior of the person.
	So, you know, Andy Kaufman gets lung cancer, the guy wasn't even a smoker.
	Man, that sucks.
	You know, huge, huge amount of sympathy for ye olde man on the moon, right?
	A smoker who ends up getting lung cancer or COPD or emphysema or something like that, you know, it's like, yeah, there's some sympathy for sure.
	Like, gosh, it's sad to see you suffer.
	But it's not like this is a bolt of lightning out of a clear blue sky, right?
	So, I believe, in general, that...
	What we call mental illness is simply a giant manipulative scam and a smokescreen designed by evildoers to escape responsibility for their own actions.
	In other words, if confronted on the immorality, the dysfunction, the brutality of what they did, they say, well, I'm mentally ill, you see.
	Mm-hmm. She's done that.
	Or if it's for other people too.
	Sorry to interrupt, but other people love this as well.
	Because when your mother treats you in a brutal, dysfunctional, and abusive manner, people can say, oh, but your mother's not quite all there.
	You know, she's got her issues. She's got her problems.
	She's mentally ill. She's, you know, she's clearly, you know, whatever, dysfunctional and so on, right?
	And all of these are horrifying things So, I don't know if this is a story that has been told in your environment.
	It certainly was told in my environment, you know, when I got older and I could have sort of escaped my mom and so on.
	I mean, the number of people who just, oh, you bet your mother is troubled.
	Yes, your mother has had, she suffered a lot and, you know, they portray her as a victim, right?
	Mm-hmm. But she's not.
	Well, you could say she's now a victim of her own immorality.
	Well, okay. But she never got caught.
	People who never get caught aren't crazy.
	You understand? People who never get caught aren't crazy.
	You know, that's one of the ways you know.
	Someone can't plead the insanity defense if...
	You know, he plotted ahead of time for the crime.
	He made sure he wasn't caught.
	He buried the bodies. He, you know, covered up the tracks.
	He intimidated the witnesses. This is all.
	I don't want to get caught. So to me, mental illness is the ultimate get-out-of-jail-free card where people say, yeah, I was a son of a bitch or I was a bitch or I was evil or I was monstrous or abusive or dysfunctional, but it's okay because I've got this get-out-of-jail-free card called mental illness.
	And it's true that people do end up pretty dysfunctional if they act in an immoral or brutal way for many years.
	Yeah, they do. So what?
	It doesn't mean that they didn't choose it.
	It doesn't mean they didn't cause it.
	In the same way that somebody who doesn't exercise, who smokes like a chimney, eats like a pig, yeah, they're not going to live usually to be very old.
	I'm suffering from obesity.
	Okay. Yes, you are.
	But these are the results, in general, of choice.
	So, I'm guessing that you live in a profoundly unsympathetic environment where no one has taken your side and said, my God, you suffered, young lady.
	You suffered a lot, and you suffered not just from the dysfunction within the household, but the dysfunction in the environment.
	Because I'll tell you this, man, crazy people scare the shit out of everyone.
	And by crazy, I mean evil people scare the shit out of everyone.
	And when it comes to, do I confront an evildoer or do I attempt to mollify his victim?
	99.9% of people will choose to side with the abuser and mollify the victim.
	And what I mean by mollify is, you know, show some sympathy but never ever draw that red line.
	Under the, all caps, SCREAMFEST of the abuser.
	And never say, wow, what your mother did to you was absolutely immoral.
	She is an immoral person.
	And you suffered a lot for that, and I really sympathize.
	Why? Because, I don't mind being called by my proper name, but evildoers certainly do.
	If you say to an evildoer, you're doing evil, they hit the roof.
	They hit the roof.
	Right? I mean, listen, all my teachers knew I was being abused, of course.
	I mean, I came to school hungry. My clothes were torn.
	I was exhausted. I mean, everybody.
	And what did the teacher say to me?
	Well, the teacher said to me, well, you're clearly very intelligent, but you just don't apply yourself.
	If effort matched ability, you'd be an A+. Right?
	They're just victim blame, right?
	Why wasn't I doing as well on my tests as I sometimes could?
	Because I couldn't get any studying done, because my mom would be sitting in my room smoking and typing crap till four o'clock in the morning on a loud clackety-clack electric typewriter, and I couldn't get any sleep.
	Couldn't study, screaming, dysfunction, hungry, no food in the house, had to hang around friends' places to try and get something to eat around dinner time.
	So, you know, I remember going over to a friend of mine's place in primary school.
	Maybe grade 6, maybe grade 7.
	And his father was a doctor.
	And I would, you know, play with his friends.
	I did this like pretty much every day because there was nothing going on at my house.
	There was no food or anything. At least they had some snacks, right?
	And, you know, we'd have fun and all of that.
	But I remember we would draw pictures on a chalkboard down there.
	And I drew pictures of like rotting heads with eyeballs hanging out and holes on the cheek and all, like clearly communicating a huge amount of distress, right?
	And of course, nobody ever, and he saw this stuff, right?
	He'd come down and say, well, it's dinner time, so you're going to have to go, which was always not what I wanted to hear.
	But they never actually once invited me for dinner.
	I did manage to catch dinners from other friends' places, but not there, right?
	And, you know, this guy's a doctor and he's a smart, educated guy, sees a lot of suffering in his clinic, but he can't bring himself because what's the path, right?
	What's the path if you start to go on a collision course with my mother?
	Well, you don't want to be the only person to stand up against an overwhelming enemy.
	If you get enough people to do it, then you can...
	Draw or maybe win, but if it's just you, right?
	So then what happens is you start asking questions.
	What's going on at home? How are you doing?
	How are things, right? This is the guy who, after I hit puberty, had to sit me down and say, you've got to start wearing deodorant, man, because your body's changing and this, that, and the other, right?
	Now, why would I need to be told that?
	Why would I have no idea about basic self-care, right?
	Well, because the home life was chaotic and abusive and so on.
	But what was his choice? Was he going to sit there and say to me and open up that can of worms, so to speak, and say, well, what's going on at home?
	And say, well, you know, my mother's violent.
	She doesn't get out of bed. There's no food in the house.
	I have to sometimes not eat for a day or two until I get paid for my job and I'm not getting any sleep and, you know, just bad things.
	Bad things. It's a very unsustainable environment.
	So let's say he asks that question.
	Well, then what? Then what?
	What's he going to do? Is he going to go and talk to my mother?
	Well, what happens if he goes and tries to talk to my mother?
	Well, he says, gosh, well, I can't just yank the kid out of the environment.
	Maybe she's going to beat him half to death for telling.
	Or maybe, just maybe, she'll launch a complaint against my regulatory body and I'll have to defend myself for years.
	So, I mean, it's a delicate balance, right, for a lot of people, because it's not like a moral thing, right?
	And so, I'm sort of saying this not to make this about me, but to sort of point out.
	I mean, when I thought about this just this week, because, you know, my father died, and I was thinking about my last reasonably significant interactions with him about 20 years ago, when I told him the violence that my mother had enacted, the brutality I experienced as a child...
	Now, why didn't he call me?
	Why didn't he ask me? Why didn't he get into more detail?
	Why didn't he apologize? Why didn't he?
	Well, you know, partly because he didn't want to feel bad.
	And I get that.
	I think avoiding that made him feel worse, but what the hell?
	I mean, that's the decision he made, and that decision is now dust.
	But let's say he did call me and he did find out the facts.
	Now, I was an adult, of course, at this point.
	I was in my 30s. And so it wasn't like he was going to get anything.
	Uh, from, you know, child support or anything like that.
	But, he doesn't know the status of my relationship with my mother in any particular detail.
	And let's say he did call me up and give me sympathy and ask me questions and, you know, express his regret and, you know, things that actually would have been helpful and positive and useful for me.
	Well, he doesn't know if a year from now I blurt out to my mother, you know, well, dad knows and he sides with me and this, that, and the other.
	And then what happens? Well, he starts to get phone calls, he starts to get letters, he starts to get threats, he starts to get like all this blows up, right?
	Even though everyone involved is now an adult.
	And that's what I mean when I say like these really nasty people, they terrify people.
	Because they can make your life quite difficult.
	And because they can make your life quite difficult and they're willing to go to the wall and do whatever it takes to win, win, win, people steer clear of them.
	And then they have a problem, because they want to stay clear of the evildoers, but if the evildoers are in the family, they can't, so what do they do?
	Well, what they do is they may express some sympathy, but they sure as hell don't want to step on the landmine of the abusive person's personality, because then that abusive person may start spreading rumors, may start lying about them, may start causing trouble, could go all the way to accusing them of crimes, could go all the way to who knows what, right?
	Once people get that feral, once they get that abusive, it's very tough to deal with them in any reasonable way.
	I mean, I haven't found any particular solution other than get the hell out of Dodge, which has worked for me in great ways, but it's tough for people to do that because there's this cult of the family thing where no matter how badly people treat you or treat others or treat children, they're family, and you do for family, right?
	So, the people around you have a problem, right?
	So, they don't want to admit, I'm a moral coward who is going to steer clear of an abusive person because I'm terrified of the harm they could do to my life.
	Or, if I draw that line about abusive versus loving behavior, then I'm going to have to change my own behavior, or maybe I'm going to have to confront my own husband or my own wife or my own parents or my aunt or my uncle or myself, for that matter, right?
	So, how do people deal with this cognitive dissonance of, well, there's an evildoer, particularly an evildoer who's doing evil to children in the environment.
	I don't want to sit there and say, yeah, well, evildoers run the world because they're willing to go to extremes of attack that other people won't, and so I'm just going to close my eyes, look the other way, and then it's very tough to live with yourself if you're that Baldly honest with yourself about your conformity, your appeasement, your cowardice, and so on.
	And so what do people do?
	They say, well, the evildoer is not responsible for her actions in some manner.
	Now, in the past, what they did was they said, well, you see, the devil has got a hold of this woman.
	She listened to the devil's temptation, so it's really the devil's fault.
	I mean, maybe she was a little bit weak, but you hate the sin, not the sinner, and, you know, there's still a pure soul in there somewhere, and she was weak, and, you know, but the devil, the devil made her do it, right?
	It's in general the way that they would deal with this in the past.
	Now, in the more secular context, you can't sit there and say to most people, In this modern scientific universe, we can't sit there and say, ah, but it was the devil who tempted her and the devil who made her do this, that, and the other.
	But you still can't ascribe full responsibility to people because then if you do, then you have to take action and sympathize with the victims and all this, that, and the other, right?
	So what you do is now you create this new cause of the evil doing.
	It's not the devil. It's mental illness, you see.
	Or childhood trauma or this, that, or the other, right?
	Now, just to finish this off, and I don't mean to over-swamp your experience, and I'm still fully committed to getting your history and helping you with this and all that, but I just really want you to see this clearly, because this is why you were trying to invite me into humor regarding these terrible situations.
	So, what happens is...
	They invent this new devil called mental illness, which strips away responsibility from the evildoer, allows you to express some sympathy for the victim, but never puts you in a collision course with the evildoer because you've taken away their free will because they have this mental illness.
	Now, you don't argue someone into becoming taller or shorter or changing their eye color or whatever it is.
	And in the same way, the moment you put that magic phrase mental illness on evildoers, then you no longer have to confront them.
	In fact, it would be cruel to confront them.
	It would be like trying to talk someone out of having epileptic attacks.
	It would be ridiculous, right? So you can express some sympathy.
	You can feel like a good person, that you're there to help, but you don't ever have to confront the evildoer because you've ascribed their evildoing to the completely different moral category of illness.
	And that's because We have a very tough time understanding evil from a philosophical perspective, that people just choose to hurt others, to gain immediate relief.
	They know that what they're doing is wrong.
	They choose not to stop it.
	It escalates, the habit strengthens, the capacity to resist, the habit weakens, and things just get worse and worse and worse.
	And that is what happens to people.
	It is a choice.
	And that's why I ask, did she abuse people?
	In front of others.
	And if they didn't, then they have control over their behavior.
	And then, of course, the mystery is, well, why would they do?
	Why would they hurt people? Why would they do what they do?
	And so on. Well, you know, to answer that question, we have to ask a parallel question that's directly related to your situation, which is why are you doing things that hurt yourself, right?
	Because, I mean, it's one thing to hurt others.
	It's another thing to hurt yourself.
	And the last thing I wanted to mention before we get back into your history...
	Is that people say, well, if you do anything wrong, it's because of mental illness and that's why I'm not going to confront the person because they can't really help themselves, this, that and the other, right?
	In other words, there's this principle which says that human beings are not responsible for their negative actions and therefore no confrontation, no punishment, no moral stand is ever appropriate.
	But of course, if that's true, then it's true all the more so for children.
	If you sort of... Children have the mental illness called immaturity, so to speak, right?
	And so if it's true that we should never correct or confront or punish evildoers because they're not really evil, they don't really have much control over what they do, they've got this thing called mental illness, their brain is deficient and, you know, they suffered and all that, well, then why was it when your mother was punishing you or your father was punishing you, why didn't people say, hey, come on, no, these kids, you know, you can't punish them, they're not responsible for what they do.
	But later, when you say, hmm, my parents did wrong for me, they say, oh, no, no, your parents aren't responsible for what they do.
	It's like, well, where the hell were you when I was being yelled at or hit, punished?
	Where were you riding in on your white horse of determinism to say to my parents, you can't punish those kids.
	They're not responsible for what they do.
	They're only children. You see, but the children are the ones who get full moral autonomy and full moral responsibility.
	But the parents who hit them, who beat them, who abuse them, who rape them, well, those people are just suffering from mental illness and have no capacity to control their actions.
	It's all total bullshit.
	And I just want to take away this smokescreen of self-regard from people.
	So, sorry for that long explication, but I just really wanted to sort of point out, it seems to me that the environment that Well, you're not dealing with that environment here.
	I name the names.
	I stand, right, for you, for your right to a peaceful and nonviolent childhood.
	And I stand against the people.
	So your mother does what she can get away with.
	Your mother does what she can get away with.
	Many years ago, gosh, a long year, 12, 13 years ago, the media first came after me for saying to adults, People that they didn't have to spend time in abusive relationships.
	And it was kind of a shock for me because it didn't seem to me that controversial perspective.
	It still doesn't seem to me that controversial a perspective with regards to morality.
	But it took me a while to figure this out, that my mother understood the world a lot better than I did.
	That my mother was wise to the ways of the world in a way that I was a naive fool about.
	My mother understood That she could do what she did to me because nobody was going to call her on it.
	And if I tried to call her on it publicly, everybody would side with her and attack me.
	Well, not everybody, but most people would.
	And so the abuse that occurred to you is not just your mother.
	It is...
	It's sort of like if your mother wants to rob a bank and she's...
	Part of a gang and what that gang does is they go ahead of her and they disable the security cameras and they disable the alarm system and they pick the lock on the safe and they lure away security guards, right?
	And then your mother's like, well, the safe's open, there's no security cameras, there's no witnesses.
	I'm just going to go in and take stuff.
	She said, oh, my mother was a bank robber.
	Yeah, kind of, but she was only a bank robber because everybody else Enabled her and facilitated her robbery.
	She wouldn't have been a bank robber if the security cameras hadn't been disabled, if the guys hadn't been lured away, if the lock hadn't been picked to the safe.
	So, looking at the abuse that your mother perpetrated against you or your father perpetrated against you, it's not a solo thing.
	It's not a solo thing.
	My mother understood very clearly that no one was going to help me.
	And, furthermore, she understood that even when I got older, if I were to tell the truth, everybody would side with her and diminish me.
	That she was part of a gang.
	She was part of a criminal gang that included just about everyone.
	People in my family, teachers, camp counselors, friends, friends' parents, Priests, administrators, principals, or people in my apartment building who could hear the screams and the beatings and all that.
	My mother was part of a gang that includes just about everyone.
	And she understood that in a way that I didn't.
	Now, I couldn't really understand that because I wouldn't have bothered making it to adulthood if I was just going to go from one asylum to another, from one hellscape to another.
	So I kind of needed to believe that there was a sane world out there full of good people who would help me, When I got free.
	And if it wasn't for this community and for a few of the people in my life now, well, all of the people in my life now, I would have given up on that belief.
	But it's important to understand this is why you're laughing about it and this is why you want me to, you're inviting me to laugh about it because it's a fundamental test.
	Are you in the criminal gang?
	Are you in the organized crime Syndicate of child abuse.
	If you are, then you'll join me in laughing about it.
	If you're not, then you'll say, why are you laughing?
	This is terrible. Does that make any sense?
	Yeah, and maybe it was unconscious, but I don't recall laughing.
	I don't know. Maybe I really did laugh.
	Well, the good thing is we have it recorded, so you can go back and hear it.
	Yeah, because I'm not sure.
	Maybe I did do that, but I... Basically, I was trying to control myself from sobbing like a hysterical person when I first...
	Wait, wait, wait. Why is sobbing hysterical?
	I guess because I've never been able to freely have my own feelings.
	Yeah, I did laugh. You're right.
	You feel it now, right? Yep, I just did it.
	You feel that little giggle coming up, right?
	Yep, I was not aware that...
	Yeah, I guess I did do it properly.
	You understand, I'm not criticizing it at all.
	I sympathize with it.
	It doesn't mean I'm going to enable the behavior, but I hugely sympathize with that, and I'm not criticizing you.
	You've done nothing wrong at all.
	Yeah, it's important to know, though, that, you know, I mean, you're right, though.
	That is an important thing to realize, really.
	Yeah, because the people who will join you in that laughter, they're in the crime gang.
	Now, I'm not in the crime gang, so I won't.
	Mm-hmm. Yeah, and that's crazy that I've probably expressed this to other people and, you know, laughed about it too.
	But I was not ever able to have my own difference of opinion.
	Just as a kid, like, kids say things, and if it was in any way...
	Oppositional or perceived to be against what she thought or, you know, it would just automatically turn into a crazy, you know, my neighbors, I don't even know what they thought, but crazy battle and then, you know, I would get upset, I would cry and then she would berate me for crying.
	Well, of course. And say that there were crocodile tears is what she would say.
	Right. Right. So, because she's such a manipulative person and experiences no genuine emotion, she cannot conceive of your emotion being genuine.
	In other words, everything that she does is designed to manipulate and control and bully.
	And therefore, if you're crying, it can't be because you're actually upset or hurt or frightened.
	It can only be because You wish to do something to control her, to manipulate her, to bully her by expressing a pretend emotion, right?
	Yeah, and as a child just not having, you know, I mean I feel like even now in my 30s I'm still developing an awareness Of the world of people and of things.
	And it's just so confusing and disorienting to, you know, you have no real cognizance of what's happening and to just, you know, have someone abusing you in that way is just, you know, it's pretty terrible to do to someone.
	It is. It is terrible.
	It is. And I'm so sorry.
	I'm so sorry that this was your experience for so many years.
	And that this was the environment that continues into your 30s that doesn't point out the basic and obvious fact that you suffered enormously as a child based upon the behaviors of adults who knew better.
	How do we know they knew better?
	Because they didn't do it in front of authority figures.
	They knew. That's evil.
	Evil is when you know what the good is and you can imitate the good.
	I could really relate to how you were saying that your mother would turn all the other people against you in some kind of manner, or at least that's how I interpreted kind of what you were saying.
	No, she knew that they would, no, she knew that she didn't sit there and try and turn them against me like some conscious plotted plan.
	I mean, she just knew.
	She just knew that she could beat up her children in a crowded apartment building with paper-thin walls and nobody would ever call the cops.
	Nobody would ever call, right?
	Now, she could call the cops, which she did on me a couple of times, right?
	When I would fight back and try and defend myself.
	She'd call the cops. I remember being lectured by some cop that, you know, we have here generational differences.
	No. No, we don't.
	You cowardly piece of shit.
	No, we don't. We have someone who's a child who can't do you any harm and you're siding with the abuser against the child and you're not asking me any questions as to why I'm cowering and crying.
	Yeah, she would put on a mask for all these other people and put herself on a pedestal like, I got my daughter, she's in Catholic school, she does this, you know, I do all these things.
	But then at the end of the day, if she wasn't raging out on me, she would be neglecting me and on the internet for, you know, the entire evening.
	Right, right.
	Right. And so your emotional preferences are almost always an inconvenience to her, unless they simply happen to match her emotional preferences in the moment, right?
	Yes. So your emotional preferences, if you're crying because you're hurt, of course she's going to accuse you of crocodile tears.
	She doesn't experience any genuine emotions.
	It's all for manipulation. So, of course, you're trying to manipulate her and make her feel bad and so on, right?
	Plus, you know, there probably is some residual...
	Conscience deep down there that says, well, if you actually genuinely accept that you're making your child suffer, then you probably should change your behavior, but you didn't want to do that because the angry pride has taken over and it's the result of all the priorities and so on, right?
	So, yeah, a lack of sympathy.
	So you're used to managing chaos, right?
	This is what you did as a child, is you're used to managing chaos, right?
	So when you're with a normal, healthy person, you're bored.
	Let me put it to you another way.
	Your only sense of efficacy and control of having any kind of control of your environment is to manage crazy people.
	Like, you couldn't control your mother, but you could try to manage her and try and control her behavior and try and influence or manipulate her in a way.
	And I don't mean that in a negative way.
	It's like throwing a...
	Throwing a piece of meat on the side of a dog about to attack you is not, you know, kind of manipulative, but not bad, right?
	It's good, right? It's good to keep you alive.
	So, with regards to your mother, and I don't know if you've read this analogy, I call it Simon the Boxer.
	It's from real-time relationships.
	So, some guy who's getting beat up all the time as a kid, well...
	He can't control getting beat up, but he sure as hell can control his feelings about being beaten up.
	Like, you're never going to make me cry.
	I'm never going to back down.
	He can't control being beaten up, but he can control his feelings about being beaten up.
	And so, what happens as an adult is that when he's not being beaten up, he feels out of control.
	Because he's just used to controlling his responses to violence.
	So when he's not being beaten up, that's when he feels out of control.
	And so, in order to maintain a sense of control over his own emotions, over his own life, he has to continually put himself into a position of danger, a position of physical violence.
	And so, he becomes a boxer.
	Because if he has a normal job, he feels great anxiety and terror.
	He feels out of control. But when he's facing someone who wants to hit him, that's familiar.
	He knows how to deal with that, and he feels in control.
	You're used to managing chaos, I believe.
	And so you've got this guy who recreates the chaos and the neglect and the abuse that you suffered from your parents.
	And you're drawn to it.
	Of course. I mean, that's what they call repetition compulsion, right?
	And it's not because you just want to hurt yourself.
	I mean, that's just nonsense.
	And that's another way of just making you the bad guy in this equation.
	You know, if I... If I go to live in a Japanese village and there's only three other people there who speak English, I don't speak Japanese, who am I going to be drawn to?
	People whose language I speak.
	I'm going to be drawn into situations where people speak my language.
	And your language, unfortunately, the language you were trained in, is chaos and rejection and all of that, right?
	And so this guy, he's the only guy in the village who speaks your language.
	Hello, are we cut off?
	Uh, no, can you hear me? Oh, now I can.
	That was weird. It just dropped.
	I don't know. It always feels like someone with their finger or the button, but anyway.
	I was just saying that he brings to you the same conversation of chaos and rejection and abuse, and that's the language that you were taught as a child, so it's natural you'd be drawn to someone who speaks your language, so to speak.
	How pretty is he?
	Thank you.
	He's pretty pretty.
	He's like a 7, 8.
	And what are you? A 9.
	I'm sorry to mean to laugh because it's a serious topic, but you're downgrading to the abuser.
	I'm downgrading?
	Yeah, in terms of looks.
	Oh, because he...
	Well, I mean, I think I'm a little bit better looking than him, but he's good looking.
	No, I get it. I get it.
	But... But it's not like you're a four who's trying to upgrade to an eight by accepting being a verbal punching bag, right?
	No. Right, okay.
	I remember this too.
	I remember a woman I worked with many years ago who just, I mean, she was an attractive woman and she just had a kind of a disgust-bad-looking husband.
	And she ended up divorcing him, and I was just like, what the what?
	And again, I'm not putting you in the same category, but I just remember being like, have you not looked in the mirror?
	Do you not know you could get a better person or whatever it is, right?
	So when you say that you love him, I guess I need to understand what your definition of love is.
	It's a pretty powerful word, right?
	If you tell someone you love them, it's pretty tough to walk away from love, right?
	So what's your definition of love that applies in this?
	Um... When I think about how I love him, in my mind, it's that I... It's hard to articulate.
	Hold on a minute. It's that I just want to make sure that he is taken care of, that all of his needs are met, that just, um, I guess...
	It's really about his happiness.
	Like, I have a deep desire to just make him feel loved, taken care of, and, you know, happy, I guess.
	I don't know if that's what love is, but that's, I guess, what comes to mind when I think about him.
	Well, of course, certainly love is involved with wanting to make people happy.
	Mm-hmm.
	and getting them drugs would make them happy, right?
	Mm-hmm.
	So, what is it that makes him happy?
	Um, this, well, I guess I'll just say it how I feel that to have control over someone else, I think, is what makes him happy when I really zoom out and think about it.
	Because I could be like, oh, well, you know, having someone tidy up his house or this, you know, but it's really just having someone who's at his back and call is what makes him happy when I really think about it, honestly.
	And how would that describe your mother?
	Um, I mean, you're really of no use to her unless you're, like, at 100%, you know?
	Like, you have to just meet her at every demand.
	I mean, there's no such thing as a compromise, I guess, with either of them.
	And we haven't talked much about your father.
	Can you tell me a bit more about him?
	Sure. Had a pretty good relationship, but I still do.
	I talk to my dad a lot.
	Text, call.
	He's really supportive now as he gets older and realizes, you know, he's even said, I wish that so-and-so was your mother instead.
	You know, he realizes a lot now.
	Um, he and I didn't really fight, um, or, you know, unless my mom kind of stirred the agitation.
	And, you know, he's responsible for his own actions and he knows it.
	But, you know, she would stir him up.
	She'd get him all wired up.
	But, um, yeah, I mean, we do things together.
	Mom has always been horribly jealous of my relationship with my dad.
	And she was trying to put him down to me and degrade him and say everything that's wrong with him.
	And she's always jealous that I have, um, loving feelings for my dad.
	I'm sorry if I, if you mentioned this earlier.
	Are they still together? No, they divorced and it was not your typical kind of situation.
	They both co-parented so I would, while they were divorced, I would see both of my parents every day because my dad would like pick me up from school and he would still do things to help her for whatever reason.
	He would have food ready and stuff like that.
	But he would live in a different residence.
	So I saw them both and we would do holidays together.
	They would still fight and there would still be dramatic things.
	Yeah, I'd see them fight a lot too as a kid.
	But yeah, we would do all holidays and stuff like that together.
	And why did they divorce?
	Well, I was in an accident.
	Um, so they, my mom was teaching in Catholic school at the time that this occurred, and they decided, you know, let's get married.
	My mom was actually not really supposed to be able to conceive children, but that's another story anyway.
	Boy, if I had a dime for every story I heard about that.
	You know, need protection?
	I can't get, oh, oh no, I guess I can.
	I mean, that's, that's totally what happened, but I mean, yes, they went to a concert, that is what happened.
	However, she does have, like, you know, Pre-cancerous cells, you know, she really, her sister has the same thing.
	Anyway, so they got married and I don't know, it was always a weird dynamic because it wasn't really from love, it was like they both probably had like half a guilt, like we had to stay together.
	Then my dad started to fall in love with my mom and it was very obvious that he loved and cared about her even though she was abusing me and him.
	Okay, so wait, wait, wait, hang on.
	Mm-hmm. So, now you're saying that your mom loved your abuser.
	Sorry, your dad loved your abuser, who was your mom.
	Yes. Does that seem a little odd to you?
	If we put the brakes on and just see what the car hit in this narrative journey?
	Oh, yeah. I mean, that's a problem, right?
	Yes, it does. Uh-huh. Yeah.
	I mean, if there was a babysitter who hurt my child, and I said, I love that babysitter.
	Yeah. I mean, it is, you know, if he hadn't recently, he apologized of his own accord recently in the past couple of years, you know, not that it necessarily makes up for his mentality or mindset, but I didn't even provoke it, and he had considered it and thought about it and apologized on his own.
	And that's after you started listening to this show, right?
	Yes. Yeah, he probably sensed something coming.
	Yeah, I don't know. Once I kind of educated him on a little bit about different kind of personality disorders and stuff, it seemed that he had this epiphany and that he had been released from some kind of hell that he had been in.
	He had conclusions to reoccurring dreams, all this stuff.
	He had some kind of big mental event after he really kind of looked into it deeper.
	Yeah, so I mean, certainly you didn't initiate the specific conversation, but you initiated the conversation as a whole.
	Yeah, I would say so.
	And good for him. I don't mean to diminish what he did.
	Like, good for him. Right. But, I mean, you still...
	It wasn't completely of his own accord.
	Yeah, and he wasn't perfect.
	I mean, there were... And I've forgiven him.
	There were a few instances where I got, you know, hurt.
	He, like, beat me a couple times pretty bad.
	What do you mean, pretty badly?
	What happened? Um...
	Well, one time...
	Sorry, I'm trying to...
	One time, my mom had initiated some insane, nonsensical argument with me as a child.
	And she would call him while he was at work, which, you know, like, to just rile him up while he's at work, he's trying to work, she would just continuously...
	Call him because she can't handle an 11-year-old child.
	I mean, this is, like, ridiculous to think about as an adult.
	And he came home.
	And he came to my room.
	And just like any 11-year-old child, I said, leave me alone.
	You know? Like, bratty, you know?
	And I remember he picked me up by my hair.
	I have very long hair, ponytail.
	I actually pissed my pants out of fear.
	And he, like, backhanded me so hard.
	I actually had to go to the hospital.
	Oh my god. That's my daughter's age.
	Yeah. Did you lose a tooth?
	Did your jaw get cracked?
	I mean, what happened to the hospital?
	It fucked up my nose pretty bad.
	I had some, I don't know, like, I don't know if it was caused by that necessarily, but I feel like I had sinus problems and maybe it exacerbated things with that.
	And he immediately just cried after that happened because he grew up in a really abusive household.
	Oh, I'm so sorry.
	What a terrifying event.
	Did you pass out?
	You know, I just remember, like, being in shock that that happened, you know?
	And I think what really kind of hurt the most was, like, my mom called up one of her friends who was a nurse, and she's like, what do we do now?
	Like, you know, because it's like, none of us want to- No, she's like, how do we not go to jail?
	Yes. Yeah, how do we cover this up?
	And, you know, so I had to lie.
	And what was the worst thing is that my dad and I loved to play catch and do baseball.
	He was always at all of my games and supporting me playing softball.
	And I had to lie and say that it was a softball.
	Oh my god.
	And it was just really kind of traumatic to even just say that because it was something that we did together, you know?
	Oh my god, and you said this happened more than once.
	Yeah, there was another time, and I don't really know, like, what the hell his deal was, but I was with my neighbors next door, and we went to the, like, the Walmart, or whatever, down the street, and, um, we were being kids, just, like, goofing off, like, I don't know, I didn't realize he'd left the store, or whatever, and, um, finally found his car, and, um, He, actually, he, you know, he made my nose bleed again that time, too.
	That was the first time that that happened, and he smacked me.
	How old were you then? Probably, like, ten, younger than that, so maybe the first time, it might have been eleven, the second time, he'd be like, I was in eighth grade, maybe I was like twelve when the, this is like a couple years apart, so I definitely was like a kid, I can like, like a photographic memory, I can like remember what I was wearing, like, Sure.
	And what happened when he found you?
	Or you found his car, right?
	And he didn't know where you were?
	Yeah, and then my friends and I got in the car and then he, like, smacked me.
	And you bled from that?
	Yep. And I lied to my mom and I said that the door, the automatic door hit me at the store.
	Oh, God. And were there any other times that you can recall?
	Well, you would recall them if they happened.
	One time he hit me with a tentpole in my leg, but that wasn't, I don't know, like, I think it was not like a, I don't know, it wasn't like intense.
	It was just like a whack because I was pretending that one of the other tentpoles was like a phallus, so he hit me with another one.
	Has he apologized for those things as well?
	Yeah. Yeah.
	Oh, I'm so sorry. That is...
	That's terrifying, right?
	Yeah, I mean, I... Pissing your pants out of fear.
	I mean, I've never, you know, I've never done it since.
	I, like, totally peed my pants when he grabbed me.
	Well, you also may have passed out for a moment, right?
	It's possible. I mean, it was, like...
	I mean, I just couldn't believe that that could be happening.
	You know, it was, like, utter shock.
	Well, listen, a man, just so you know, right?
	I mean, a man... Hitting an 11-year-old child in the head as hard as he can, I assume it was pretty hard, I mean, that could kill you.
	Yeah, and he's like 6'4".
	He's a big man.
	Yeah, that could give you permanent brain damage.
	That can kill you. You say it's given you some challenges with your...
	Sinuses, your nose? I think so, yeah.
	Because I had had problems prior to that, but I would imagine it probably did do something.
	I mean, they had to put stuff in my eyes to make sure that none of my orbital bones or whatever had gone wacky, and they had to do an x-ray of my face, I think.
	I don't know. It's all kind of like...
	And then, of course, in school, I had to figure out to find some kind of makeup to wear that would cover.
	I mean, it was bad. Yeah, I mean, black eye and bruises all over your face.
	Yeah, I don't think I went to school the next day.
	Yeah, it's hard to really recall, you know, that I know I had to wear makeup to cover it up and everything.
	So, I mean, your dad's a criminal.
	Yeah. I mean, that's an important thing.
	I mean, I'm not, you know, have a relationship with them if you want, but just recognize that that's criminal child abuse.
	That's, I don't know if it's attempted murder, I don't know if it's grievous bodily harm, I don't know, right?
	But to the point where... They got to x-ray your orbital bones and you've had possibly permanent sinus damage and messed up your nose.
	I mean, people go to jail for years for that.
	Yeah. If they do it to an adult, right?
	Oh, yeah. And then they made you collude in the crime, right?
	Yes. Which is witness dampering.
	Yeah. Yeah. And how old were you when they divorced?
	I think officially I was 15, but they really didn't live in the same rooms from when I was 10 and beyond.
	And then on different occasions, my dad never really had a pretty steady, well-paying kind of job, so there were a couple times where he came back and he kind of like, Almost like the teenager would live in our attic or our basement or, you know, our own little weird apartment.
	So he never really had much of a career?
	No. He's kind of a loser that way, right?
	Um, yeah. He did try certain things and, you know, it's like I hate to end it because I do love him.
	But, um... You know, he always kind of blamed it on my mom, that he wasn't able to do this or that.
	You know, there are many excuses.
	But that's what a loser is.
	A loser isn't someone who tries and fails.
	We all do that, right?
	That's not a loser. A loser is someone who doesn't take ownership and learn.
	He had tried a couple different things, and then I think if it, you know, it didn't work out, he kind of just quit.
	I mean, now he is doing pretty well, you know, steady work and whatever.
	I mean, it's never high paying, but, you know.
	Now that he's no longer a dad when it counted, right?
	Yeah. But at least your mom got to get that good old sweet government money, right?
	No. Oh, she quit teaching?
	Oh, well, in the past couple years, I mean, the past couple years of my life have been kind of insane.
	There's been a lot of good things and bad things.
	And I've, you know, she was always, even though she's like, whatever, she's always been a workaholic.
	And in the past couple years, I've seen her just completely mentally unravel.
	And she can't hold a job and she keeps quitting jobs and She's envious that I have a career and even though I'm very cruel, but if I happen to have one luxury item or something, she's jealous of it and she can barely pay her bills and makes really stupid financial decisions, really stupid decisions overall.
	She was recently in...
	Uh, temporarily, like, in the loony bin light a couple summers ago, you know, for, like, 20-day observation.
	Because she had some sort of public meltdown, or?
	She, like, was feeling, um, suicidal or something, and she went to a hospital, and then they're like, oh, we're sucking you, and then they kept, she thought she was going for, like, a night, and they're like, no, we need to observe you for, like, two weeks.
	Hmm. And what, do they just put her on medicine or what?
	Yeah, and so of course she doesn't try to get any kind of therapy to help herself.
	She instead just takes the drugs, exactly what you were saying about mental illness as being an excuse for your behavior type of thing.
	Yeah, yeah, I've got depression!
	Yes, I completely related with that because she uses that as every excuse for every behavior that she does.
	It's always the excuse.
	And then she tries to gaslight me and make me look like, you know, I have, you know, it's like, it's ridiculous.
	She tries to turn it around. But yeah, she doesn't take care of her mental health.
	And now she's really fucked with the virus and everything because, you know, she doesn't even really have unemployment because I told her not to quit her last job and she did without having another job lined up.
	She has an apartment that's too expensive and then she's always the victim like, oh, I need help.
	Like, you know, I can't pay my car off.
	All this, you know, it's like...
	You know, it's hard. It's like I don't want to make her not part of my life, but she just does all these things that are just...
	Why do you not want to make her not part of your life?
	I'm not saying you should or shouldn't. I'm just curious what your reasoning is.
	I do love her and like...
	What do you love about her?
	I know that she... I'm sorry?
	What do you love about her? I do kind of, well, I do like aspects of her personality.
	Like, she can be kind of a really kind of fun, goofy person, and we have similar interests.
	Like, sometimes I'll go and do something with her, and we will, like, you know, we'll have a ball.
	We'll have fun, we'll laugh.
	As long as there's no conflicts, right?
	Yeah, as long as, you know, I didn't disagree with the flavor of ice cream she picked or, you know, something serious.
	As long as you kind of cease to exist as a personality around her, you can get along, right?
	Yeah, because I'm not allowed to, yeah, I mean, if I interject too much of myself, you know, then I'm chastised, I'm punished.
	So that's not a relationship, right?
	That's not a relationship where you can't show up and there's just historical momentum?
	I mean, all you're doing is continuing the self-erasure of your childhood, right?
	I mean, I guess you haven't talked to your mom about the same stuff you talked about with your dad.
	Is that right? Yeah, you can't because she's in...
	Sure you can. She's incomplete tonight.
	Well, I mean, it wouldn't go, you know, it'd just be like a scream.
	No, no, you can. Let's be factual, right?
	You can, and she can pull all the crazy stunts she wants, but that doesn't control what you do, right?
	Yeah, and you know, it's sad.
	I mean, in so many ways, I think I've grown and, you know, I've talked to different therapists in the past, and a lot of them, you know, like, I've worked through a lot, and they're like, a lot of the things you do are actually modeling what you saw, and, you know, but sometimes when I wish that I could be better about this, but she just hits that nerve, and suddenly I am just You know, it's like an out-of-body experience.
	Okay, okay. Listen, I gotta be a little bit more upfront with you here.
	And it's not like I haven't been upfront, but I don't think you get the emergency here.
	Because you're kind of vacationing in this conversation a little bit, like there's some emotion to it, but you're in what's called the DEFCON 4, right?
	Like you're in an emergency situation.
	Ninety percent of your eggs are dead and you're screwed around with an abusive guy, right?
	Okay, so you need to get serious in this conversation.
	If you want to get benefit out of it, I mean, you can hang up on me anytime, right?
	But you need to get very serious in this conversation and you need to understand something very fundamental.
	Is that your relationship with your boyfriend?
	He's boyfriend, right? He's not fiance.
	I don't even know what he is now.
	Well, is he having sex with you?
	I mean, we were staying together for the quarantine until Wednesday when I abruptly decided that I needed to leave.
	So, he lives in another state.
	So, he's your boyfriend on a break.
	Is that right? I mean, if you were totally broken up, right?
	I mean, it would be my ex, right?
	Is it your ex? He just always pops back, you know?
	Okay, so he's your boyfriend on a break.
	Yep. Okay, and he doesn't just pop back.
	You decide to have sex with him again.
	I mean, you can't say to your mom and your dad, well, they just don't take responsibility for their actions, and then this guy just pops in.
	He doesn't pop in.
	You open the door and you open your legs.
	Come on. You are responsible for him being in your life.
	Mm-hmm. Okay, let's just be frank about that, right?
	We're adults. Yep.
	Okay, so what you need to understand is that, remember I was talking about the system, the system that keeps people in abusive relationships?
	You're in that system.
	Mm-hmm. And that's why you're calling me.
	Mm-hmm. So you've got this thing like, oh, well, I like hanging out with my mom and we have some giggles and my dad has apologized.
	It's like, I'm sorry.
	You need to understand they're keeping you there too.
	Mm-hmm. Right?
	So when you're kind of flippant about your relationship with your parents, what should be happening is your boyfriend on a break is in your life because of your history, because of your parents, and because of every single one of your current relationships.
	They're all a system.
	That helps keep him in your bed and in your life and in your head.
	And when you are in an emergency, when you can see your future offspring drying up, or God forbid you have children with an abusive man, which will wreck your life completely.
	Trust me, I have seen it.
	I just lost a father who burned up a lot of his life in that situation.
	So you are in an emergency.
	And I feel like I'm the only one taking it seriously.
	You are in a desperate emergency, because if you lose the capacity to have children, because you waste your fucking time with this guy, then you are going to grow old alone.
	And you're a 9 now?
	Well, welcome to the wall, my friend.
	You know all about it, right?
	What's going to happen? You're going to get into your mid-30s, your late 30s, and the men are going to dry up.
	Why? Because the only reason they're attracted to you, the only reason we have sexual desire and physical attraction is for the formation of families and the having of children.
	It doesn't mean that every time you bang, you've got to make kids, but that's what it's for.
	That's what it's for. And when you lose your eggs, when your face sags, your boobs sags, your butt sags, and there's no amount of exercise that can lift them back up again, then the men will dry up.
	And you may get some young men who will want to take you out for a spin, but as far as commitment goes, the commitment is for the children.
	You are just the mechanism.
	You are a vehicle, right?
	I mean, you drive through a bridge under a river to get to the other side.
	You don't just go camping in the bridge, right?
	And there's a reason I'm using the tunnel analogy here, right?
	So sexuality, physical desire, is all about Cementing the pair bond for the having of children.
	If we reproduced asexually, we would have no sexual desire.
	We'd have no sex drive. And men wouldn't be buying you drinks.
	They wouldn't be asking you out.
	So your desirability is founded upon your ability to provide a man with children.
	And that's not all you're worth in life.
	And I get all of that.
	I mean, you have a career, you're an intelligent woman, you're a great conversationalist, so it's not the sum total of who you are.
	Of course not. But that's why we have sexual desire.
	It's a basic biological fact, right?
	That's why you're able to command attention from men, is because you have eggs in a genetically pleasing exterior, right?
	And so you're losing, like sand is running out here, right?
	Yeah. Let's say this guy doesn't, as you flippantly put it, pop back into your life, like you're just...
	Popcorn or something, right? Let's say that you end things with this guy.
	Well, you've got to figure out what the hell's going on.
	You've got a lot of work to do.
	It's probably going to be a year or two before you're emotionally available to date a healthy guy.
	Maybe. Maybe you can do it faster.
	I mean, with the show, but you can hit the gas.
	I don't know, right? But then you're in your mid-30s, right?
	Now, then you've got to go find a guy who's not too dissimilar in age, who is going to want you.
	With the clock running out and out, the guy who has money, who's got looks, who's got options, who's miraculously single and is 32, hasn't been snapped up and held by some other woman, is he going to want you or is he going to want a woman who's 25 or 30?
	Most likely. Now, you will have the significant advantage of self-knowledge and maturity and wisdom and that's great.
	And that's nothing to be sneezed at at all, right?
	Mm-hmm. And my wife and I met when we were in our 30s, so obviously it's not impossible.
	But you're really starting to play the long odds, right?
	Yeah, I mean, it is.
	I really am. I think about it and get overwhelmed a lot, honestly.
	Well, you should be panicking, right?
	Yeah, I am panicking.
	Good, good. Okay, because if you're not panicking, then there's really not much point having the comfort, right?
	No, I might sound like calm, you know, but in reality, sometimes I'm kept up at night.
	Okay, this is not the conversation to hide yourself in.
	You've got all the other conversations in the world where you can pretend to be someone else or pretend to not be worried about things you're worried about.
	But I know. I know.
	Of course you're like, oh my God, what is going to happen?
	How am I going to? I mean, do you want kids?
	Do you want a family? Do you want to be a mom?
	Yeah. All right.
	But you've got to stop fucking around then, right?
	Yeah. I mean, he promised so many times, you know, just, you know, bullshit.
	No, no, no. I don't want to hear about this guy.
	I don't want to hear about this guy. I don't want to hear about this guy.
	I really don't. I really don't.
	He's not going to do it for you, right?
	Mm-hmm. So, yeah, now is the time to panic.
	And you are, in the presence of a superior, more invasive, more intrusive, more, quote, powerful will, you surrender, right?
	This guy doesn't just pop in, he gets horny, right?
	And you're like, okay, all right.
	I guess. He's far away, so it's a little different.
	Oh, come on. Without the sex, if this was a woman with this kind of personality, would you be best buds?
	No. Of course not.
	It's the sex, right? Yeah.
	Okay. So you got consumed by lust and history.
	And listen, we've all been there.
	I sympathize.
	I'm not trying to make you feel bad.
	I'm certainly not criticizing.
	I'm just pointing out a basic fact that this guy makes you tingle in ways that make your eyeballs roll, right?
	Okay, so that's a demon called lust.
	It's a sin, right?
	I mean, you raised a Catholic.
	This is not – I'm not saying you are now, but you've certainly raised.
	You understand the concept, right?
	Yeah.
	Okay, so you've got to grit your teeth.
	You've got to cross your legs because this guy's robbing you of your future.
	Right?
	And you are robbing yourself of your future by complying with his needs and his preferences and the most shallow manipulation of lust, right?
	And maybe I lose respect for myself, too.
	Well, sure, of course, right? Because you're operating at the mammal level, right?
	Which is compliance and lust, right?
	You're not using your soul, your higher faculties, your nature or God-given reason, right?
	Mm-hmm. Right.
	Okay, so good. So the reason I'm saying all of that is that if I were in your shoes, this is what I would do.
	I would say... In this emergency, everyone who supported me wasting close to half a decade with this asshole is expendable.
	Everyone who enabled this half decade near half decade disaster must be closely examined as to their utility in my life.
	All of my friends did say they hated him, to be honest.
	Okay. And what about your parents?
	I was too...
	At a certain point, it's too almost humiliating to, you know, tell certain people, divulge certain details.
	But my mom does not like him.
	And she's, you know, an abusive person.
	And my dad doesn't know why.
	I think he can kind of...
	But no, they should know.
	They should know that you're humiliated, right?
	Yeah. I mean, they're your parents.
	If they don't know you, then I don't know what they've been doing for the last 30 years.
	Yeah, my dad knows something's wrong.
	He knows there's something, you know, but I haven't just said anything.
	No, but four years.
	Four goddamn years.
	How many people have sat you down like, seriously, this is bad for you?
	Like, we need an intervention.
	We need to sit down and rescue you from this satyr, this golem, this, right?
	A couple of my friends have done that.
	Okay, and why did you listen?
	I guess that it was just so hard for me to believe that someone really can be evil.
	Like, you know, it's like you know evil exists.
	Is that what they called him? Well, they've called him things like a monster and things like that.
	Okay, so you don't believe in evil?
	I don't... Oh, okay, because you're still...
	I do. It's just it was so hard to either believe that he is evil or that I would allow myself to be overtaken by an evil person, that there has to be something good that, you know, I just haven't pulled out.
	I don't know. It's...
	It's not, like, good reasoning, but that was the reasoning, like, no, if only I do something different, you know, everything will be, like, happy ever after, if only, you know.
	And what happened to your relationship with your friends after they called the man you love a monster?
	They said that, you know, they care about me and they love me, but, you know, they just don't really want to hear about the shit anymore.
	And then one of my friends, she hasn't talked to me in like a month or more when she found out I was going to stay with him last month.
	Right. Okay, so, you know, kudos to her.
	She's a good friend. Because she's saying, I'm not going to participate in a friendship with you if you're acting in the self-destructive manner, right?
	Yeah. She did say, I wish I could talk some sense into you, blah, blah, blah.
	And she wasn't totally a bitch, but she hasn't reached out to me or anything.
	She wasn't totally a bitch?
	Well, I mean, I think that she was, like, not rude and just said what she needed to say, I guess is what I mean.
	She was just, you know... She wasn't totally a bitch?
	Oh my god, where are your values, woman?
	She's really trying to help you?
	She's trying to save you? And you're saying, well, she's not totally a bitch.
	No, I mean, I guess the way that she spoke to me was...
	Not a berating kind of manner, if that's...
	Okay, I'm going to have to let that one drop, because we've got bigger fish to fry.
	But, you know, calling somebody who's desperately trying to help you and willing to end the friendship if you won't listen to reason, calling them not totally a bitch, is not the right way to look at it.
	Oh, I guess I mean she was pleasant, or, you know, polite.
	No, no, no. I'm sorry.
	I brought it up again, so let's move on, okay?
	Sorry. Okay, so what happens...
	What happens if you just end it with this guy?
	Because he's abusive, right?
	Then you have to look at all of your relationships that enabled that.
	Like I've said this before on this show, I almost married the wrong woman.
	I had the ring. I proposed.
	I almost married, like, desperately the wrong woman, right?
	And when I woke up to that shit and got the hell out, I had to look at everything.
	Like, how the hell are the people who claim to love me letting me walk into this viper's nest?
	You understand? It's not about you and the guy.
	It's about you and everyone.
	And that's why you don't want to judge everyone in your life, so you can't judge this guy.
	He's a symptom. He's not the cause.
	Hello? Yeah, that's what I said.
	Oh, sorry. People who love you don't let you get sucked into this kind of abusive relationship.
	Now, you could say, well, they can't force me what to do.
	Well, of course they can't. Of course they can't.
	But they can lay it on the line for you.
	I mean, if your entire social circle, when you started dating this guy four years ago, found out about him and said, nope, no, no, no, no.
	And they sit down and they talk with him and they try and figure him out.
	Or they invite you all over for dinner and they figure out how he behaves.
	And then they record it.
	They play it back to you.
	They then delete it. You understand that they do everything they can to make sure that you wake up to the danger you're sailing towards.
	None of them have met him either.
	Right. So how much do they actually care about you if they're willing to just sit idly by and watch you burn close to half a decade with a jerk?
	And not, like, what are they so busy with?
	And not reach out to help you.
	Because I'm trying to get you to shift your expectations of what it means to be in a relationship.
	Can you imagine if my daughter starts dating an abusive guy?
	What am I going to do? Well, the answer is everything in my power.
	And that's all I will be doing until it's sorted out.
	Well, I mean, they all did say that they didn't like him, they didn't like what was happening, and they didn't approve, but there was an intermission.
	I mean, I... They didn't do enough.
	That's what I'm asking you to raise your standards.
	Or to raise your expectations of what it means to be in a relationship.
	Does it make a difference that the relationship wasn't a continuous four years with therapy?
	No, it doesn't. That makes it even worse.
	Because the on-again, off-again shit is just complete.
	Time suicide. It's a whirlpool of years.
	Just sucks them down for nothing.
	Okay, let me ask you this question.
	You and I have been chatting now for an hour and a half, right?
	Wow. An hour and a half.
	I don't even know you.
	And I'm fighting like hell here for an hour and a half, right?
	Now, are you going to try and tell me That no one in your life over the last four years had a fucking hour and a half to sit down and talk to you about this stuff.
	They did. In the way that I am.
	I have had friends talk with me for extended periods of time about it.
	What about your parents?
	Um, no. Why?
	Are they too busy? They just got no time?
	Um, I... I guess I haven't tried to...
	No, no, no. Not you trying.
	Them trying. I guess I haven't really divulged information.
	No, no, no, no.
	Stop it. Stop letting them off the hook.
	They have the time.
	They know that you're in your early 30s and you're not married.
	And you've no intention of getting married to this guy, at least I hope.
	Right? So they knew this going on for four years, right?
	What the hell are they doing that they're so busy that they can't take a couple of hours and really sit down and work through it?
	Because they love you. And say, oh, well, it might be difficult for us.
	Maybe we'll find out that we had some contribution factor to this dysfunctional relationship because you had a dysfunctional.
	I don't care about that.
	The point is, do they love you enough to do what's uncomfortable?
	Because if people don't love you enough to do what's uncomfortable, they don't love you at all.
	Mm-hmm. I mean, your friend who hasn't spoken to you in a month, good friend, would have been a better friend four years ago.
	Yeah. Everyone's in the gang.
	As I said earlier, everyone's in the gang of not intervening to save you.
	This is wrecking your heart.
	This is wrecking your marriage prospects.
	This is wrecking your fertility window.
	This has the great potential to ruin your life.
	That's why I'm saying it's time to panic, right?
	And how many people that just sit by, you know, lift a finger here or there, mention things here or there, oh, he's a monster, you should leave him, this, but not getting off their asses, driving over, sitting down, and doing whatever it takes to help you.
	Yeah. One thing I know about people who've called me is they've gone through everyone else.
	Right? Mm-hmm.
	I don't think you know what it's like to have someone truly care about you.
	I'm not sure that I do.
	Right. And that's why I'm saying all relationships must be in question because everything has contributed to these four years.
	Everything and everyone.
	You know, if you were drowning and I was sailing by in a boat and I said, oh, you should swim.
	You know, drowning is bad.
	And I kept on sailing.
	Would people say, wow, that guy really worked hard to save her?
	No. No.
	You throw a ring. You stop your boat.
	You dive in. You do whatever it takes to save the person who's drowning.
	And that's what I mean by you've got to adjust your standards.
	Mm-hmm. The conversation to have with your parents is how on earth did you let this go on for so long?
	And I know what they're going to do, right?
	Let's do it with your mom. You role-play your mom, all right?
	Okay. All right, you know these things, right?
	Okay, so you role-play your mom, and I drive over as you, and I say, Mom, like, what the heck?
	I've been bouncing around this dangerous guy for four years?
	You... Did you not notice?
	did you not care?
	Like, what's going on?
	She would say that she didn't want to upset me.
	Okay.
	That she was afraid of how I would react and that I would yell at her.
	Well, I mean, when I was a kid, when I was younger, you didn't mind upsetting me.
	You know, when I ask you something and you get mad at me, you sure as hell didn't mind upsetting me.
	So let's throw aside this principle that you as my mom are so desperately afraid of upsetting me.
	You upset me all the time, sometimes unjustly.
	So let's throw that aside as that's not the real answer and let's try that again.
	Why didn't you sit down and really work to try and help me?
	It's like I think I know, but I'm not totally sure how to put it into words.
	It's more related to her being her first priority at all times.
	I can tell you what she would say if she was totally honest.
	What she'd say is she'd say, well, honey...
	I'm happy with you being with a dysfunctional man because a dysfunctional man will never threaten your relationship with me.
	But if you're with a healthy functional man, your relationship with me might come into question.
	Like a functional healthy man is going to see me for exactly who I am.
	And he's not going to want me around his kids and he's probably not going to want me around you.
	So yeah, it's fucking fine with me if you hang out with some dysfunctional loser because he's never going to call me by my proper name.
	He's never going to turn the light on and see me for who I am.
	Because he's, you know, we're part of the gang, part of the criminal gang.
	We got the secret thieves can't handshake.
	We're good to go, man.
	We see each other.
	We recognize each other.
	You know, if I'm at the store using counterfeit money and there's a guy next to me with counterfeit money, we're not going to point out that it's counterfeit money.
	We're the same gang.
	We're criminals. Right?
	So, with this guy, why would I want you to dump a guy who's on the same team as me so that you can start dating a guy who's going to say, your mom is a pretty terrible human being.
	How would that serve my needs in any way, shape, or form?
	Yeah. You're being used by everyone.
	Yeah. You see?
	Mm-hmm. And that's what I mean when I say the glibness around your relationship with your parents is dangerous, in my opinion.
	I think you need to sit down and talk to them about, like, what the hell?
	Yeah, I agree with that, though.
	I do feel that there would probably never be an honest dialogue when it comes to my mom because she's incapable of...
	I get it.
	I get it. I know. I'm sorry to interrupt you.
	I've got to be efficient here, right?
	Is she invested in your success in love or your failure in love?
	What benefits her the most?
	My failure in everything benefits her the most.
	Okay, so what are you talking about?
	Well, sometimes we hang out and we have fun together.
	When she is invested in your failure, she only wins if you lose.
	How can you succeed?
	When your primary caregiver, the woman who birthed you, only wins when you lose.
	If you meet a healthy guy, she's going to sabotage, she's going to blow it up, she's going to confront him, she's going to make you dysfunctional, she's going to, you understand, she's going to wreck it.
	And we know that because she didn't wreck this, right?
	Yeah, I mean, if I were in her position, I wouldn't be dropping my daughter off at the airport, you know?
	Oh, to go visit this guy?
	Mm-hmm. Yeah. So you've got to understand, she wins when you lose.
	Yeah. And it's the same thing with your dad.
	He either doesn't notice that you've been unhappy, which is really terrifying, and I don't think even remotely true, or he notices, doesn't care, which I think is also, we can't not care about immediate family members.
	They always affect us. Or he notices, and he's fine with it.
	In fact, it's good for him in some manner, right?
	Hmm. Because a functional guy, look, I'm a functional guy, right?
	Let's say you and I went out on a date, right?
	And, you know, after a date or two, I ask you, I mean, on the first date, I'd ask you about your childhood because, you know, life is short and I want to waste time and money.
	And you're like, oh yeah, my dad put me in the hospital.
	What would I say? Uh...
	I would hope that you would be sympathetic, but I don't know what, you know, it looked pretty bad.
	Do you think I could go up and shake the hands of a man who virtually knocked my girlfriend's head off when she was 11?
	No. You see what I'm saying?
	You see how a functional guy does not help them continue to gain resources from you.
	Because I'd say, holy shit, they beat you half to death, they dragged you off to hospital and then they made you lie about it.
	So, they're criminals who intimidated a child witness and the only way that that to me could be survivable from a moral standpoint is if they said, holy shit, is that ever a wake-up call for the dysfunction in this family?
	You know, I just half beat my child to death.
	So I'm going to go to anger management.
	I'm going to go to therapy. We're going to dig deeper.
	We're going to sort this out because this can never happen again.
	But they didn't do that, did they?
	Cover up and move on.
	Bury the bodies and move houses, right?
	No confession, no absolution, no redemption.
	And they are like the worst Catholics in the known universe.
	No, I mean that really seriously, although I get it.
	It does sound a little funny. Yeah.
	But first of all, Jesus says, whatever you do to the least among you, so do you also do to me.
	And I doubt they very much went up and half-punched the priest to death, right?
	Or Jesus, if he was there, or the crucifix.
	And he also says, thou shalt not bear false witness.
	Yeah.
	So this Catholicism, thou shalt not bear false witness.
	And they lied and they made you lie about a crime that they had committed.
	it.
	Thank you.
	And you understand, that's worse than them beating up a stranger.
	Because it was you, and you were a child.
	So your dad...
	I mean, I'm not kidding when I say this.
	Like, a different angle.
	You could have lost an eye. You could have had severe brain damage.
	You could have been killed. Yeah, I never really thought about that.
	It's true, though. I mean, that kind of blunt force to the...
	Oh, I know. Because, I mean, as I said before, I was three or four and tried to run away from home.
	My mom was beating me up against a metal door.
	I had to go completely limp.
	I mean, just had to go completely limp because, I mean, I could have been brain dead.
	She was just banging my head repeatedly against this door.
	You have to go completely limp in those situations.
	You have to signal complete submission.
	And then you're living with people who are unrepentant child beaters.
	Because my mom also didn't say, oh my god, what have I done?
	I've got to get this sorted out.
	I've got to get my temper under control.
	I've got to, you know, I'm not going to the cops because, you know, it doesn't do me any good if I get taken away from the family, but I'm going to absolutely commit that this never, ever happens again.
	She didn't do that. Yeah, there were words, but there was no action behind it.
	Oh, yeah, there's sorry and bursting into tears, but there's never, oh my God, right?
	Like our whole family needs to go to counseling immediately.
	Of course, yeah.
	Or, you know, I got to go and consult with a psychiatrist and say, well, psychologist, how do I deal with that?
	I got to pick up a book on anger management.
	I got to pick up a book on peaceful parenting.
	I've got to pick up a book called, like there's tons of books out there on how to not get angry and beat your kids.
	I mean, this is not a weird thing, right?
	This is not like some unknown thing that like, oh, in 1700, you've got to know all about peaceful parenting.
	I mean, this has been around since at least the end of the Second World War.
	So 70, 80 years.
	This stuff has been floating around.
	Alternatives to hitting, alternatives to violence within the home.
	Plus, it's completely fucking illegal to beat your child that way.
	I mean, that is assault upon a minor.
	That is like grievous bodily harm.
	I don't know. I'm not a lawyer, right?
	But it's just like, I mean, that's like go-to-jail stuff right there.
	Oh, yeah. So they knew that they'd done egregious wrong, and they just made you lie, covered it up, and went on and continued doing their shitty things, right?
	Mm-hmm. Your dad hit you even after this with the tent pole.
	Again, I know it wasn't the same severity, but, you know, nonetheless, right?
	Mm-hmm. And of course, if they had sorted it out, they might not have been divorced, right?
	If they had sorted that out, your mom might have grown up.
	If they had sorted that out, then she might not be in the situation that she's in.
	And of course, if they had sorted that out, then your father wouldn't have had this loser non-career stuff, right?
	I think it would have, yeah, I think it would have made them stronger as people and they would have had to accept responsibility and, you know, stop living in excuses-wise.
	It would have changed their lives.
	It would have changed their lives very much for the better.
	And instead now, they just continue to spiral down, your mother now into this ridiculous state of mind and your father into continual failure at work and all of that.
	And... And you're the one who has to try and bring this healing to the family when you're in your 30s.
	And no. No, no, no.
	It's not your job. It's not your job.
	So, I just need you to understand what it means to have a healthy, functioning person in your life who genuinely cares about you.
	And I'm telling you, If you can imagine having an 11-year-old daughter and some babysitter punches her so hard she goes to hospital, have to have x-rays and might have lost an eye.
	And you're like, no, I'm still good friends with that babysitter.
	Like you understand, that would be mental, right?
	Mm-hmm. Yeah.
	Yeah. I mean, if they didn't try to get any help or get through it and repair.
	Which they haven't. So here's what you need to see from a healthy man's perspective.
	This is what you need to see.
	A healthy man is going to look at this situation and he's going to say, so this lovely woman, and you are a lovely woman, you're a wonderful woman, you're a smart woman, you're an attractive woman, you're a wise woman in many ways.
	You listen to this show, I grant you massive props and kudos.
	A functional man, a healthy man is going to look at this and say, is this woman going to expect me to break bread for the next 20 or 30 years with a man who beat her half to death when she was a child?
	And what kind of fun am I going to have when we have kids?
	And she's like, I'd love my granddad to come over.
	I'm always worried about my mom around my children.
	Well, you've got a good reason to be worried about both of them.
	Yeah. Yeah. And then he's going to say, oh, so I can descend into this underworld of people who committed egregious, violent criminal acts against children and that's going to be my future?
	Like, I'm sorry, there's nobody that pretty.
	There's nobody that attractive.
	There's nobody that great at conversation that you're going to invite a guy into this underworld and he's going to be like, yay!
	Can't wait to spend the next 30 years hanging out with these people.
	How do you bring up, like, um, without, you know, how do you bring these kinds of things up with a person, you know, like, these are the things, I mean, do you air it all out at the, like, you know, like, these are the things that have happened to me?
	Well, if you air it out, saying, these are your permanent in-laws, well, he's just gonna go.
	He's not going to stick around.
	I'm telling you the choices and the consequences.
	You can have your parents or you can have a healthy man, as it stands.
	But you can't have both. Is it possible...
	I'm definitely listening.
	This is a serious question.
	Is it possible to have a distant relationship where they are not in...
	If I lived in a different...
	Is it possible to have a distant relationship with your parents and not have them in your immediate life and still have a healthy life?
	I don't know. You know, that's like, I don't want them in my immediate life.
	I don't know, and I couldn't do it.
	And I tried. I tried for decades.
	And I'm a pretty resourceful guy.
	And I tried. I couldn't do it.
	And I don't know anyone who's been able to do it.
	Because your parents are going to get needier as they get older.
	They're going to need, they're going to need, they're going to need.
	I'm already experiencing it.
	You're already experiencing it, right?
	That just gets worse and it can go on for decades.
	Sometimes in my mind, I feel like, does she want me to be a spinster is literally a thought that I've had.
	Of course she does! On multiple occasions, you know.
	Yeah, you're like that Guatemalan youngest sister who never gets to leave home, right?
	Take care of the parents. Yes, that is how I've felt.
	Of course she does. And that's why she's happy to have some asshole burn up your fertility window.
	Great! Then she doesn't have to worry about being alone when she gets older, because her needs matter, your needs don't.
	I moved, you know, to a different state eight years ago, and I had been, you know, like, doing all right, you know, finding my way, finding what kind of career I want, you know.
	I was settled here.
	She followed me out four years after the fact and tried to just enmesh herself into my life and sabotage me quite a bit.
	Yeah, and she will call you and she will drop by and she will, yeah, yeah.
	Sure, sure she will.
	Sure she will. You know, and there were periods of time where she lived here where I didn't speak to her for quite some time.
	Just no contact with her.
	And then she, you know, would lie to all these mutual people and say what a horrible person, you know.
	Not even taking responsibility for her actions or why I'm not speaking to her, you know?
	Of course not. You're like a broken record here.
	You're trying to convince me that your mom is not a great person.
	Trust me, that happened approximately 2.5 minutes into the conversation.
	Right. Right.
	I mean, I get that you need to have someone on your side and you need to tell, I'm there.
	No, don't apologize. It's fine.
	I'm just pointing it out. I'm there.
	I'm with you. And that's your choice.
	You can either be a spinster and serve your...
	Monstrous mom's needs until she's dead.
	And then be alone. Well, you'll be alone either way, right?
	Or you can have real conversations with your parents, try and break through to them, try and figure things out.
	And if they won't admit truth, if they won't accept responsibility, I'm just telling you, my particular choice in that situation was like, yep, sorry.
	You guys had your life, you had your family, you had your children.
	I'm sorry. I've got to look out for me now.
	I'm not going to be a shadow cast by your dysfunction, a ghost, chained to history for the rest of my fucking life.
	I'm sorry. Like, you guys had your shot, you had your chance, I gave you really good opportunities to improve the relationship.
	But if you don't want to, if you don't want to, That strategy really does, like, because I was wondering, like, how, you know, that really does give me a game plan.
	I'm going to start seeing a therapist on Tuesday anyway, so, I mean, I would probably need to honestly have a moderator.
	Oh, yeah, yeah. No, it's great.
	Yeah, it's great.
	But you also do want to talk to the therapist, and what's your view about voluntarism in abusive parental relations?
	Because a lot of therapists, a lot of therapists are in the gang.
	A lot of therapists are like, herd you back, man.
	A lot of therapists are like, you can't leave.
	Yeah, you gotta watch out.
	Hey, are you in the gang?
	Yeah, I did have one in the gang.
	Are you gonna try and herd me back? Yeah. He was like, why don't you just send her a Mother's Day card?
	I'm like, because I fucking don't want to.
	Right. So yeah, you're right.
	They are. Because it's illegal to mail what I want to mail through.
	Yeah. No, you've got to check that.
	There's a whole bunch of social institutions designed to keep adult children glued to relentlessly dysfunctional and abusive parents.
	The reasons for all of that we don't have to go into in particular, but it's just something to be alert to.
	If your parents are just going to be unredeemingly horrible to any manifestation of your actual personality and your actual values, Then they are going to be a big firing moat that no decent guy is going to want to cross.
	And I'm telling you this from experience.
	I had pretty good relationships with women when I was younger.
	I was a pretty good boyfriend.
	There's certainly things that I did that weren't great, but I was a pretty good boyfriend.
	But I just could never get these women to commit to me.
	And now I get it.
	Hey, let's have lunch with mom.
	I mean, who really wants to deal with that, you know?
	Nobody! I've thought that, too, and I've never really wanted to introduce anyone.
	Because it's just like...
	Yeah, forget it. I mean, to be around her, you just have to do mental gymnastics on a good day to just, like, keep your brain straight to just, you know...
	Oh, a healthy guy would be direct with your mom, and she'd hit the roof, and they'd say, well, you've got a choice to make.
	Her or me? Yeah.
	I'm not spending 30 years with this narcissistic, neurotic, whatever, whatever, right?
	Like, no way. And I'm not exposing my kids to that.
	Like, sorry. Yeah, and I really have, even myself, I'm like, what the hell am I going to do when I have children, you know, when that happens across that bridge, whatever, talk to a therapist about it.
	That's what I mean. So you've been avoiding all of this stuff by burning up your fertility window, and part of that's your parents' desire, and part of that's your desire to just avoid these topics.
	But this is like, because you haven't had a healthy guy tell you this kind of stuff, right?
	Here's the other thing you've got to think about.
	If you have an unhealthy guy that you end up getting locked into, you know, he's going to have really screwed up parents too, right?
	So then instead of two, how many do you have?
	You get double the fun for the next 30 years!
	And probably crazy grandparents, too.
	Absolutely. You multiply.
	It's like feeding the virus.
	It splits. It multiplies.
	Right? Yeah.
	That's true. So now you understand when you're talking about all the fun you have with your parents.
	I'm like, yeah, okay. I'm not saying you don't.
	But if you're in panic mode, which you should be, it's time to look at the big picture.
	And you've got to look at yourself.
	As the kind of guy that you want to have is going to look at you.
	You want a guy who's stable, who's honest, who's reliable, who's intelligent, who's perceptive, who's courageous, who's assertive.
	You want all of these things, right?
	Of course you do. But then he's in full-on collision course with your parents.
	And when I am in contact with my mother, even if it's brief, I do notice a huge change in my mental well-being.
	I almost turn into a different...
	I like lose part of myself or something.
	You know, I'm unhealthy when I'm around.
	Yep. I certainly remember a girlfriend that I had.
	Every time we'd be with her parents, it would take her like a week to get back to normal.
	Yep. Yes. And my friends just sometimes notice, they're like, were you around your mom recently?
	You know, so no. So why would a guy want to get into a relationship with a woman where one phone call costs him his girlfriend or his wife or the mother of his children for like a week?
	Someone's got a remote-controlled detonate female button, right?
	Yep. No thanks!
	A little bit out of my control, thank you very much.
	I'd rather somebody who is steady and stable and reliable.
	Any more than you want a guy...
	Who becomes emotionally unavailable, distant and irritable and you've got to walk in eggshells like every time he gets a phone call from his mom or from his dad.
	You'd be like, so I'm not really in control in this relationship.
	There's some remote control detonation going on here and I've got nothing to say about it.
	I've just got to try and survive it.
	Like, why would you want that? Yeah.
	I love you and there are people who can harm you with a phone call or a text or an email.
	I just don't want, you know, the more you care about someone, the more it hurts you when someone hurts them.
	Yeah, that's true. I mean, I just have to, I think that I'll just have to go to, you know, find the correct type of therapist, professional to talk about.
	And, you know, just come up with a plan to confront my parents.
	And then, you know, it's like you kind of have, I guess, take it one step at a time.
	But it is a crisis.
	You don't have much time.
	No, I don't. You don't have much time.
	I mean, that's why I, you know, that's why I contacted you because I know it's an emergency.
	So how do you say it? That was your big question, right?
	How do you say it? Well, it's a whole lot easier to say.
	And listen, whether you stay around your parents or you don't stay around your parents, that's your choice, right?
	I don't tell people what to do, but I will certainly tell you my experience.
	That saying, you know, when a date after I left my mom, a date would say, well, what's your relationship like with your parents?
	What's your relationship with your mom?
	Yeah, you know, my mom was very dysfunctional.
	My mom was violent and so on.
	And, you know, I tried to talk about it with her.
	I tried to reason it out with her.
	She absolutely refuses to take any responsibility.
	And, you know, she continues to be a very toxic person.
	So, you know, sad to say, I don't see her anymore.
	Now, I mean, so the woman, of course, then hears, okay, so yeah, he's had some issues, but man, it sounds like he's been really productive in dealing with them.
	He hasn't just stormed out of a relationship, so, you know, he'll sit there and try and reason about it and so on, but the guy's got enough fucking pride.
	Do not spend of his life under his mama's thumb if she's a mean bitch, right?
	Yeah, and you're not just saying, I hate them, or like making yourself look like a lunatic.
	Listen, I don't hate my mother.
	I don't hate my father.
	I shouldn't laugh about this, because, you know, it's not like something that you snap your fingers and achieve.
	Right. I don't hate them because in many ways they've taught me to be a better person.
	And I think, like once you recognize how much life punishes, I mean, your mom's going through it, your dad will go through it.
	How much life punishes the wrongdoers, especially if we stop enabling and supporting them.
	Look, your parents, how much they suffer, I mean, you don't need to hate.
	I mean, it's easier to hate people who get away with stuff.
	But once they get caught by their conscience and get ground down and suffer, I mean, you don't need to add fuel to the fire, so to speak, right?
	The other thing, too, is that by continuing to enable your parents' bad behavior, you're denying them their only chance of the kind of shock that might help them really change and grow before they die.
	You're not helping them.
	You're not helping them. This is not a loving action.
	To comply with narcissistic, selfish demands on behalf of people, right?
	You're not helping them. You're enabling the worst aspects of their behavior, and I think it's important to stop enabling this bad behavior.
	The woman who's married to an alcoholic, she's not helping him by buying him alcohol.
	She's denying him the chance to get clean, to get sober, right?
	And so love is not always about making people feel good.
	Obviously, you know that, right? But you're not helping them.
	This is not love. This is not being a good daughter.
	This is not at all being a good daughter.
	This is enabling the worst aspects of the behavior and trapping them into what works for them.
	Yeah, it adds to their delusion.
	I guess in my mom's case, it completely adds to her delusion of being a good mother, which is crazy to think that if I hang out with her and she does something she's perceiving as helping me, then it just boosts her fake narrative of what's happening.
	Yeah. Yeah, it's not helping anyone.
	It's just appeasing in the short run.
	And listen, I totally sympathize with why you're doing it, but I don't want you to just automatically assume that if, let's say you take a break from your parents and they're really upset, like, okay, that's not going to kill them.
	And it's not being a good person to not upset bad people.
	It actually helps them.
	Yeah. Yeah, that's true.
	And if your dad said it hurts me, he says, yeah, well, at least I'm not half beating your death, am I? Yeah.
	Your mom says that hurts me.
	It's like, well, I'm sorry about that.
	And you are. I mean, of course you are, right?
	I'm sorry that my mom is living such a wretched life.
	I'm sorry that my dad had such a difficult life.
	I'm sorry about that. I really am.
	I mean, I wish they had made better choices.
	But they made the choices that I made.
	And they had their lives. And it was time for me to take up the reins on my own horse.
	It is, yeah, it is different to put yourself in a, you know, in a position from just, from being the adult child and, you know, it's like, well, what the hell were they, what the hell were they doing?
	What do you mean? Like, you know, like they could have, they could have done all these things.
	It's like, you know, thinking it like when you're a child and you're in the moment, it's like, you're not thinking like, well, why aren't they getting therapy or why haven't they done this?
	Or, you know, and now it's just when I really look at it in a, you know, different kind of Yeah, so it's one thing to say to your child, you have to lie to the doctor.
	Because we don't want to go to jail, and we desperately want to have this never happen again, and we're going to do everything we can to make sure it doesn't.
	Okay, so then, you know, that terrible crime turned out to be a turning point for the family, and it's not like you...
	I mean, you can forgive, doesn't mean you forget, right?
	And that could have been a real turning point.
	You can say, well, I'm sorry that my nose and my sinuses had to be half-wrecked because of this, but at least this positive thing came out of it, right?
	But, you see, they wanted you to cover up the crime so that they could continue in their bad behavior.
	And that is the real crime.
	Yeah, I mean, really, it's, you know, I'm going to be thinking about this for quite some time, and it's just, how sick it is, is really just, it's disturbing.
	It is disturbing. Instead of taking responsibility, they did that to me.
	I guess I didn't think about it in that specific light.
	I knew it was wrong that that happened, but I guess I didn't entertain these other types of aspects of the incident.
	Here's just a little tip.
	I once dated a woman and She heard that a couple that I knew, that the woman had had an affair.
	And, oh gosh, this was a long time ago.
	And I said, oh, they've invited us over dinner.
	Do you know what she said? No.
	I'm not going. Are you crazy?
	I said, what are you talking about?
	She said, I can't sit down across the table and break bread with the woman who had an affair and her husband.
	And to me, this sounded like, you know, the Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
	It sounded like all kinds of, like, oh, shame, shame.
	You know, like, but I was like, I really thought about that.
	For a long time, if that woman hadn't moved away, you know, my life would.
	But I remember thinking about that, like, holy crap.
	I mean, it sounds kind of medieval, but in a way, it's pretty powerful.
	Well, you're part of the gang.
	Yeah. Yeah. It's like, I mean, it's a fine line, because you don't want to, you know, be holier than thou, but at certain times...
	No, you kind of do. No, you kind of do want to be holier than thou, if thou is demonic.
	Yeah, that's a good point.
	You kind of do. I mean, you don't want to be holier than Jesus, but you want to be holier than, I don't know, Judas.
	Yeah. Yeah, you're part of the gang.
	You're part of the collusion, yeah.
	And I was like, it never crossed my mind.
	Seriously. I mean, you know, there's a reason I became a moralist because I had a little trouble with the concept.
	And so, yeah, that was like a wild, wild thing.
	I remember thinking about that. And part of me wanted to be like, oh, you know, be such a square.
	And the other part of me was like, actually, that is a powerful thing to do.
	That's how society used to deal with this kind of stuff.
	If some guy abandoned his family or some woman abandoned her family for some stupid affair or whatever, never be invited back into polite society.
	Done. I believe that in the early days of the church, prior maybe to the split, they actually had to say their confessions out loud.
	Right. To the count, right?
	Yeah, absolutely. And there would be people who were like, nope.
	I mean, this is the whole plot of King Lear, right?
	One guy has a bastard, and the whole thing kind of hinges on that, the fact that he doesn't have any legal status, he can't inherit the land.
	So, I mean, that's...
	That's how stuff used to work.
	And it actually worked pretty well because families stayed together and people didn't have as many problems.
	I mean, there were other problems, don't get me wrong, but as far as that went, you know, family stability was way better.
	And so, yeah, so it's a look at dating you from a guy who really loves you.
	And I'm telling you, man, you and I were dating.
	I ain't breaking bread with a guy who half killed you as a kid.
	Like, I'm just not going to fucking do it.
	No way. Like, I'm not going to sit there and smile and glad hand this guy.
	First thing I'm going to say is, so tell me how you cold cocked the love of my life when she was 11.
	Let's step through that shit because, man, if I'm going to have kids with her, I need to know what the hell the lay of the land is.
	So this is kind of, I don't know if maybe you have an explanation.
	Wait, sorry, hold your thought for a sec.
	Sorry, not your fault at all.
	And then I sit down with your mom and say, wait, so you kind of forced the love of my life to lie after your husband half beat her to death?
	Tell me a little bit about that, because, uh, I'm having trouble processing why on earth I should get involved with this family at all.
	Mm-hmm. But anyway, sorry, go on with your thought.
	If... Well...
	Oh, jeez, how do I explain what I was...
	Like, obviously, you have to be honest, and a normal, moral person would recognize these things as being acts of evil, or whatever you want to call it.
	No, acts of evil. Yeah, acts of evil.
	It's fine. If...
	Is it possible, I mean, if they were able to confront the behavior from the abuser, and the abuser was able to have an open dialogue, do you think that any kind of progress would be able to happen?
	Like, if I were to marry a guy, and, you know, I really love And would want to, you know, introduce my dad.
	If my dad were able to own up to his behavior, do you think that would make any kind of difference?
	No, because it's too late.
	Uh-huh. Because the cover-up happened over 20 years ago.
	Mm-hmm. And now, I mean, it doesn't matter if you confess when you're caught.
	Mm-hmm. And he didn't do it out of love for you.
	He didn't do it out of remorse.
	He didn't do it out of... I mean, look, I guarantee you, I guarantee you, your dad thinks about that all the time.
	And so the continual lie has occurred 24-7, 365, 21 years, right?
	Give or take, right?
	And so this lie, this cheat, right?
	Because they still want to be best buds with you.
	They still want resources from you, but they don't want to confess to the crimes they committed against you.
	Yeah. Yeah.
	say that your dad is like oh yeah no let's talk about it my question then would be like where the hell was this for the last 21 fucking years yeah like why would you talk about it with me her boyfriend and not her for 21 years and it'd be like okay so you don't have an inner conscience that says that you have to deal with this And why? Because you got away with it for 21 years.
	And that's the kind of person you are.
	That if you can get away with it, you bloody well will.
	And it doesn't bother you enough to do anything about it.
	It doesn't torture you. It doesn't racket your conscience.
	It doesn't, right? Yeah.
	Yeah, I mean...
	I'm not getting involved with somebody...
	Who doesn't have an inner moral sense.
	Who will just do whatever he can.
	Lie, cheat, steal, beat.
	And then he'll have a quote reasonable conversation about it over 20 years later if someone brings it up.
	But he doesn't bring it up. Doesn't trouble him enough.
	Nope. Sorry.
	Because if you'll just do whatever the hell you can get away with including violence against children and you're fine with it I can't have you around my kids.
	Now if I can't have you around my kids and you Beat up my wife when she was a kid.
	And you kind of mess her up when she's around.
	Like, I don't see... Like, just from the outside.
	Do you understand? From the boyfriend, from the fiancé, from the husband's standpoint.
	What is the plus in having your parents around?
	I mean, there absolutely is none.
	Well, there's no history for them.
	They're just coming in, bungeeing in, and judging things objectively.
	And saying, listen, this is a guy thing, right?
	I got to protect my family.
	I've got to protect my kids.
	I've got to protect my wife.
	I am the guardian, right?
	I mean, the women in the pride, the female lions in the pride go out and get the food, and the male lion is patrolling the perimeter, making sure no other lions come in to attack them, right?
	So, yeah, the men's job, provide and protect, right?
	So he wants to protect his family, right?
	First thing he's going to do is come in and say, okay, who's dangerous to my family?
	Okay, well, this guy, these two people beat up a child and covered it up for over 20 years.
	That is not people who can be safe around my family.
	Sorry. I don't have any sentimental attachment to you.
	You're just two old people. Yeah.
	It's just very...
	What's the word?
	I can't think of the word at the moment, but to just hear the objective truth of what happened is just...
	It's kind of shocking.
	It is. You know, it's like that, what you just said, that happened.
	You know, and it's just, I'm like...
	The more he loves you, the more he's going to dislike the people who beat you up, made you lie about it, and continue to lie about it for 21 straight years, with no end in sight.
	Like, nope. Nope, nope, nope.
	A lot of this is finding a quick and effective way to navigate a relationship or a non-relationship with my parents to have the life that I want to live.
	Yes.
	And I mean, if you want to get the true equation, the equation is what's best for your children.
	Of the future. Not to be around those fuckers.
	Sorry, excuse me. I don't care about the swearing.
	The popular things we deal with here, like a cuss word or two is like the least important.
	Yeah, that's...
	It doesn't matter. It's fine.
	No, so, like, what would your children want?
	What do your future children want?
	Would your future children want your on-again, off-again douchebag boyfriend as their dad?
	Nope.
	Do your future children want to be around a mom who's dissociated because her parents called or being around grandparents who might be ill-tempered or neurotic or needy or whiny or complaining or drawing attention away from the children towards themselves or like all this?
	Like, what do they want?
	No.
	They don't want any of that.
	And they don't have the sentimental attachment that you have.
	And it's their choice because the whole – if you want to have kids, man, you design your life around your children's needs, right?
	You date like your future children have the deciding vote.
	Well, she's hot, yeah, but she's kind of crazy.
	Not you. I'm just some woman, right?
	She's hot. She's kind of crazy. It's like, do your future children care how hot their mom is when they wake up with colic in the middle of the night?
	They really don't care at all.
	They care how big her heart is, how patient she is, how loving she is, how tender-hearted, and how strong she is.
	They care how devoted she is to them.
	That's who they care. And you've got to look for, because if you want to have kids, you want to have a happy life, You date as if your future children get the deciding vote.
	Wow. You know, I have, in a way, thought along, you know, that mindset, like, I'm thinking for my children, but to just hear it like that, it's like...
	Yeah. You know, you have to think, yeah, it's, I never, I mean, I started to go into that mindset of thought, but the way that you're explaining it really is striking me.
	You can get the Free Domain t-shirt, which says, I only put out for virtue.
	Right. I might.
	Yeah, only virtue gets to flick the bean.
	Right. I think that's got to be the plan, right?
	Yeah. And, you know, it's funny.
	I don't know. I mean, it's not really relevant, but it's like the douchebag, he feigns virtue.
	He feigns all these things.
	And it's like, you're a fucking asshole.
	You're just, you know, and, you know, you always think like your family relationships are wrapped up in it, but it's like after this, it's like, oh my God, I don't know.
	I needed to hear a lot of this shit.
	That's why you're calling. Yeah.
	Yeah. And that's what I do.
	So, yeah, listen, was that, I mean, that's been a good, good, over two hours, but, I mean, we had a lot to chew through.
	Useful, helpful, will you let me know, and will you let me know how it goes?
	Yeah, I will. Thank you so much.
	And I was just shocked at how quickly, because it was an emergency.
	I mean, the breakup occurred less than a week ago.
	I was just in shock.
	I was in trauma. And this is unbelievable that I had this opportunity.
	Well, I'm very, very glad that you called, and I want to thank you.
	I do want to apologize to the other people.
	I'm not going to continue. I do have to have some food, and we've got another activity this afternoon with the listener community.
	But listen, first of all, I'm so sorry for what happened.
	You have my undying, enduring, and very deep sympathy for that.
	Great freaking job on the call.
	Man, you are fast. You are alert.
	You are empathetic.
	You are deep and a great conversationalist.
	The guy who snags you is going to do very, very well, and the children you're going to have are going to do very, very well.
	You are the person who's going to break this cycle.

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