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Aug. 30, 2023 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

04:24:09

MY FATHER SHOT MY DOG! Freedomain Couple's Convo

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	Okay, so, yes, I'm all yours.
	I'm sorry to hear about these challenges.
	Let's dig in.
	What's going on?
	Where do I begin?
	I don't know.
	Well, I don't, so it's really going to be up to you.
	Well, I mentioned that I cut my parents off in February in my call-in request.
	I just realized that they've been...
	Like, I realized I was physically abused, like...
	When I became a mom three years ago because my husband and I decided to follow peaceful parenting and I was spanked growing up and I thought that that was normal but the emotional stuff just has not stopped and I tried to fix it with them since I got pregnant with my son three years ago I went to therapy because I realized I just wasn't coping well emotionally and so I tried to fix things with them but It just became clear I think they're like narcissists and just don't want to be told anything.
	So I stopped talking to them and from there I've also stopped talking to my siblings.
	I'm the oldest of seven.
	Three are adults and then the other three are minors so I don't talk to the minors just because I can't and then the adults have basically taken my parents' side and so I don't know where like My rage is coming from.
	I know you say that, like if you're getting angry at the wrong people, it's because you're not getting angry at the right people.
	And I do think I struggle with that, but sometimes I feel like I am mad at my parents, but I'm not sure how to like get it out, I guess.
	Right, right. Is it coming out any other way that you know of or can feel?
	Besides rage? Well, I mean, yeah, how's it coming out in your life as a whole?
	Like, if I was watching a documentary for your life, how about I say, oh yeah, she's angry?
	Well, the most obvious way is at night, I nurse my daughter.
	She's 15 months old, and she still wakes up to nurse.
	Not often, but, and this doesn't happen often, but like last night, I just got so angry.
	Like, I can't control myself, it feels like.
	I don't hurt her, like, physically, but, like, I just feel this, like, uncontrollable rage where I just want to, like, scream, like, shut up, shut up.
	And I don't scream, but, like, I don't know.
	My body just gets super tingly, and I just am so angry because I don't know why.
	Like, this has been my life for the last 15 months.
	I don't usually care about waking up in the night.
	But it scares me because I feel like I can't stop it and I'm not exactly sure where it's coming from.
	Right. So you said you wanted to yell sort of shut up, shut up.
	Is it because she's crying or is she loud?
	What do you want her to shut up?
	Sometimes she cries if I don't pick her up right away, but she's just making noise.
	I just want her to shut up so I can go to sleep.
	If she's making noise, I can't sleep.
	Like gurgling, cooing, what noise is she making?
	Yeah, like she just is kind of like cooing or she'll be like, mom, mom, dad, dad.
	And yeah, that's kind of what she does.
	Well, I'm very glad you called.
	I mean, that's a tough emotional.
	Your child, your baby is reaching for you like, ah, shut up, kid.
	I mean, that's a tough state to be in.
	Yeah, I don't want to feel like that.
	And my mom has expressed to me that's how she felt towards me.
	Like, she had me when she was, she got pregnant with me when she was 17, had me at 18.
	And she's admitted that she definitely pushed me away and did not meet my emotional needs as a child.
	I mean, she still doesn't, but she admits it at least back then.
	But that's how I feel in those moments of like, I just want to get her away from me.
	I don't care if she's upset.
	I don't care what the ramifications are.
	I just am like, I need this child to shush.
	And I know it's wrong. Even in the moment, I know that it's wrong.
	And I like, can't stop myself.
	And I know the next morning I'm going to feel like crap.
	And like, I apologize to her.
	I apologize to my husband.
	Yeah, but you can't control your feelings.
	That's what you feel, right? Yeah.
	I get that.
	I get that. And again, it's great that you're asking for help and good for you all around.
	How are you with...
	Lack of sleep. Because there's two kinds of people in the world.
	There are people who can get by on lack of sleep, and then there's me.
	I think it's just me and everyone else.
	Some people, like my wife is fine without sleep, I'm not so great.
	How are you without as much sleep?
	I feel like I'm fine.
	I can wake up, I'll feel tired, but it doesn't affect my day.
	I'll just drink a cup of coffee and I can be fine.
	Ah, youth. Very nice.
	Very nice. Very nice.
	And this is your first child?
	My second. I have a three-year-old son as well.
	And how is it with him?
	I struggled, too, when he got a little bit older.
	I got pregnant with my second when he was only 11 months old, so I think pregnancy affected, like, I got nursing aversion, and at night was when...
	I'm not sure what that is. It's...
	When the thought of nursing your child or when you are nursing them makes you feel like your skin is crawling or it can give you rage.
	It's just like an aversion.
	I hated nursing him to the point where I ended up weaning him because I just couldn't do it anymore.
	Because when I'd have to nurse him for a nap or at night, it's like I want to jump out of my body.
	I can't handle him touching me.
	It feels like a violation. A violation now?
	I don't know, like a physical violation.
	I don't want to be touched right now and I definitely don't want to have someone on my boob.
	I just don't want you on me, is how I felt.
	I mean, I don't want to sound odd, but it sort of strikes me almost like a romantic or a sexual violation.
	Does that make any sense at all, or is this completely off the mark?
	Yeah, so with my son, it definitely kind of felt almost as sexual in a way.
	And with my daughter, though, it's not.
	No, no, yeah, I get it.
	And I felt really weird about that for a while, and I've never told anyone except my husband that.
	But I've researched into it, and that can happen.
	I don't have any memories of me being sexually assaulted or anything like that, but I don't know.
	I know my stepdad's father is a pedophile, and I was babysat by him at some points.
	Right. You just throw in a whole bunch of layers in there.
	I'm just trying to keep up with the sediments raining down around us, right?
	So you've got your mom, you've got your stepdad, you've got his father, pedophile.
	Okay, okay, okay.
	Right. So, I mean, one of the ways that we end up feeling harsh towards our own kids is in our own minds we recast them as older than they are.
	Mm-hmm. So if your 8-year-old is crying and manipulating or it feels like manipulating and so on, we would get annoyed, right?
	But if it's an 8-week-old baby, clearly the baby is just doing its thing and trying to stay alive and there's no manipulation or anything like that.
	So if we think of our kids as older than they are, and that's why I was sort of asking when you mentioned the boob and your son and the sort of almost like a Me Too moment with your own offspring, whether there was something in your mind that cast him in an older light, because your reaction seems to me something along the lines of if they were much older, it would be more legitimately understandable to be angry.
	Right. Yeah, like, in my mind, I had this, or subconscious, like, he's too old to be doing this, even though, logically, I knew he wasn't.
	That's a thing, like, with the nursing aversion, it's more common as the baby gets older, like, newborns, that doesn't really happen, because, like, biologically, your brain knows they have to do it to live, whereas, like, by that time, he was eating food and stuff.
	I'm not sure. I meant to ask, how old was he when you weaned him?
	19 months. Okay.
	Okay. Got it. And was he ready for that, or was it a bit of a battle?
	He was ready. I just, one day at nap, I was like, I just can't do it.
	Let me see if he goes down.
	And he went down, and he never asked.
	He maybe asked for it, like, once or twice, but not with fussing.
	I just told him no, and he went to sleep.
	Right. Okay. Got it.
	Got it. All right.
	Um... Your mother.
	Your mother.
	I feel like I'm standing before a giant chasm here.
	Your mother.
	Tell me a little bit about Mommy Dearest.
	She's very emotionally volatile.
	Lots of yelling.
	If you cross her, she's going to let you know.
	No matter how old.
	That's been my whole life.
	But she presents very nice on the outside.
	Like, everyone thinks she's this good Christian woman.
	Well, most people think she's a good Christian woman.
	Um, what else?
	I don't... I feel foggy.
	Alright, so let's start using some more precise language, if you don't mind.
	Emotionally volatile.
	Mm-hmm. That's a phrase that I don't really know what it means.
	How would I know?
	Again, I'm watching a documentary of your childhood.
	How would I know?
	What behaviors would I see that you would describe as emotionally volatile?
	You'd never know what would set her off.
	Sometimes she'd be okay with handling a stressful situation, like my siblings and I getting into it.
	Or other times, like, that basically same exact situation, she'd fly off the handle, be cussing and yelling, telling us how ashamed she is to be our mother, and she can't believe she raised us this way.
	She couldn't handle, like, mouth noises, like if you ate your food.
	So, like, we all had to chew very quietly.
	Otherwise, she would just be like, get away from me!
	I can't handle that! Or she would just...
	It's a funny thing with parents.
	I just, by the by, I mean, my dad would get annoyed if I would occasionally, like, he would serve me this tea that was approximately the same temperature as the surface of the sun.
	And there'd always be some reason we'd have to go, like, finish your tea, and it's like, but it's 4,000 degrees, you know, like, it's another dimension.
	And so I'd slurp it to try and cool it.
	Don't slurp your tea! Like, it's kind of funny, like, you end up...
	Mouth noises, and I get this, by the way, I get this from people who listen to this show.
	You know, if, like, let's say I'm doing some long call and I'm a little hungry and maybe I forget to mute my microphone and there'll be a little chewing noise or something, I could really bother some people.
	Mastication, disgusting, and there is this thing about mouth and chewing noises, and I get that a little bit, like I do try to remember to mute and all of that, but it just seems like the reaction to mouth noises can be kind of off the charts as far as I have heard or seen.
	Okay, so she blows up sometimes.
	See, emotionally volatile is a morally neutral phrase.
	We don't do moral neutral in this call as a whole, right?
	Particularly when you're dealing with anger, like a violation, right?
	Yeah. My first, this is not to say this is correct.
	It's your mom, not mine, obviously.
	But, and as you know, over the course of this conversation, anything I say that doesn't match your own experience, you tell me and I'll drop it like a hot rock.
	Hell, I'll drop it like one of my dad's superheated cups.
	Right? So, but what I get from your mother is a moody tyrant and a bully.
	Yeah, definitely.
	Okay, so let's work with that.
	Because emotionally volatile, it almost sounds like she's possessed or in the grip of.
	It's just what she had to deal with.
	Like Tourette's.
	She had epilepsy.
	I was just writing about this bit in the Peaceful Parenting book, just about how...
	People say, well, I was punished for being bad, and it's like, well, no, because when you're, maybe this was the case with you too, when your mother was in a bad mood, there was nothing you could do that was right.
	But when your mom was in a good mood, almost nothing bothered her.
	Mm-hmm. Which means that it's not, was that your experience as well?
	Yeah, definitely. Right, so you never punished, you were only punished because of your parents' moods, not because of anything you did.
	Yeah. Mm-hmm.
	So, okay, so tell me a little bit more about this horrible language that she would use about her kids, like, when she was angry.
	Yeah, I mean, there's just multiple occasions where she would just say how ashamed she is to be our mother.
	And my brother, who is more, I don't know, snarky, would be like, well, either one who raised us.
	And, like, back then I was like, how could you talk to my mother?
	Because I was like...
	I don't know. I viewed my mom as perfect until only a couple years ago.
	I thought she was the best mom.
	I would make her these Mother's Day cards about how amazing she was.
	And looking back, I'm like, it had to have been a coping mechanism because there's no way that that was true.
	And all my other siblings didn't think that.
	A coping mechanism?
	No, I understand what you mean.
	I just... I'm a little...
	How long have you listened to this show for?
	How long have I listened to this show?
	I mean, months, years.
	Like a year. A year, okay.
	And you've listened to some call-in shows, I assume, from time to time.
	Okay, okay. The coping mechanism.
	The coping mechanism is something internal and it's amoral.
	Right? Like, if you get stuck on a deserted island, you have a coping mechanism called talking to a volleyball named Wilson or something like that, right?
	It's morally neutral. Okay.
	Yeah. And I, again, I don't want to tell you your experience, but my first thought is something like this.
	Well, my mother's a narcissist, so I had to worship her under pain of death, rejection, maternal abandonment, rage, violence.
	Mm-hmm. Right?
	Yeah. And if I didn't pay that, I was doomed.
	Yeah. Like that. It was required.
	Right. You had to.
	I never thought about it like that. You know, like if you grew up in North Korea, right, you'd be like, you have to worship the dear leader.
	It's like, well, I guess I had a coping mechanism called praising the supreme leader.
	And it's like, that's not a coping mechanism.
	That's a survival strategy based upon death threats.
	Right. Right. Yeah.
	That makes sense.
	Because if you have morally neutral language about a fundamental violation done by deep immorality, then your anger is not finding its proper target, if that makes sense.
	And if your anger doesn't find its proper target, it'll find an improper target.
	Like, we shoot no matter what.
	We either aim well or we don't, but we shoot either way, right?
	We don't want to be like the blindfolded monkeys with the machine guns and those memes, right?
	Yeah. Okay, so she's ashamed to be your mother.
	There was a couple of other phrases that you mentioned that gave me these kind of leukemia-style bone chills with regards to your mother.
	What else was she verbing on about?
	Oh, gosh, what else did I say?
	Oh, it doesn't have to be what you said back then, like in this conversation, but just things that you remember your mother saying.
	I don't...
	I don't...
	The main one was, like, the ashamed to be her mom.
	I'm trying to think... I can't even remember what I said in this conversation, and I'm trying to think of, like...
	Well, what were her general complaints about her kids?
	Yeah. Like, if she were to be asked, or maybe people did ask, was it like, well, they just don't listen, they don't show any respect, they don't do what they're told, they don't help out around the house?
	Like, was there stuff that she said that was repetitive complaints?
	Yeah, I guess she would just tell us that we're terrible.
	Like, it would mainly be if me and my siblings were, like, arguing.
	She would say, like, we are so terrible.
	And that she's just ashamed to be our mother.
	But would she just stand over you and say you're terrible?
	I mean, there had to be some speeches there.
	I mean, she definitely gave speeches, but the speeches wouldn't be just hurling that abuse at us.
	I mean, the whole speech, nothing was...
	Good from it, but she wasn't just like, you're just terrible.
	I can't even think of what else she would say.
	It was just like, the memory I'm having is I'm at the dinner table with my siblings and she's in the kitchen looking over the island just yelling at us how ashamed she is to be our mother.
	And I don't even remember exactly what we were doing.
	But when she would give speeches, she would always go back to like I feel like she'd always go back to her childhood.
	I don't know. I guess I didn't really pay attention because she just would talk.
	I don't have a good memory to say.
	And what would she say about her childhood?
	Was it one of these compare and contrasts?
	Like, when I was a child, I would listen to my parents.
	Was it one of those sorts of things?
	Yeah. She was neglected, and her mom wouldn't have food in the house, so she would say, you guys have food, and I have clean clothes for you.
	I wouldn't have clean clothes, and I would have to drink pickle juice, and it would give me diarrhea.
	Stuff that as a kid I thought was terrible, but I didn't quite understand until now.
	I know that that was bad, but also that wasn't my problem as a kid.
	Her childhood has nothing to do.
	Like, that's not what me listening, what does that have to do with her childhood?
	That was the main thing she would talk about.
	And just kind of, yeah, like, kind of make us feel, I guess, like, ashamed.
	And what do you think, what was the purpose of her, and of course there's terrible stuff to hear about, what was the purpose of her telling you this stuff about her childhood?
	To make us feel bad for treating her or making her upset.
	Like, we should be so thankful to her for treating us better that we shouldn't be acting out.
	Right. Okay. And how did discipline go for you and your six siblings when you were a kid?
	Spankings, definitely. I didn't get spanked much because I just was terrified of it.
	But I would often see and hear my siblings, especially my brother, get it.
	And I'd get slapped across the face for having an attitude.
	Hit upside the head with a brush because I wouldn't stay still while she, like...
	Rakes my hair and it hurt.
	Oh, God help us with the hair punishments, right?
	I'm just trying to get the knots out!
	You're terioscalping me like a Cherokee.
	Yeah, I asked her to cut my hair short in kindergarten because I didn't want to deal with it anymore.
	She listened. I got my hair cut short.
	Like, what else?
	My dad or stepdad would...
	Just give us, like, extra chores as punishment.
	He would spank us, too.
	Now, what kind of spanking are we talking?
	I mean, is it bare butt?
	Is it implements? Bare hand?
	How did that work? Hands, belts, wooden spoons.
	I don't remember personally getting bare butt, but I know my siblings have.
	Yeah. Bare hands, belt, wooden spoons were their main...
	We're the ones that we got.
	And, you know, you've got seven kids.
	Over a sort of week, would it happen to...
	How often would it happen?
	So, it was mainly...
	It was five of us growing up.
	She had two when I was, like, about to leave the house for college.
	So... Okay. I mean, it was just mainly five for my childhood.
	For a week, my brother...
	Well, I have three brothers in this five of us...
	My oldest brother, who's right behind me because I'm the oldest, he got it the most.
	And I mean, I never thought about it the way you asked me, but like in a week, I mean, easily, at least one of us was getting hit every day.
	Oh my God. Oh my God, I'm so sorry.
	That's awful. Mm-hmm.
	I mean, that's worse than prison.
	You know that, right? Mm-hmm.
	I do now, yeah.
	And again, sometimes, as you say, with implements.
	Now, what about other areas of discomfort?
	Because there's lots of ways that you can inflict discomfort on kids if you're angry at them other than spanking.
	The aforementioned sort of, I'm trying to get the tangles out, sit still!
	That sort of brutal combing.
	It can be feeding food the kid doesn't like or withholding food.
	Were there other sort of discomfort situations that happened with you guys as kids?
	My dad, I say my dad, he's technically my stepdad, but I call him my dad.
	He's a very emotionally not there man.
	He's in the military.
	And he was just terrifying.
	I was terrified of him until I was like 20.
	And I feel like he would weaponize that against us just by being kind of brooding.
	We'd dread when he would come home.
	Because he would have a bunch of stuff for us to do.
	We liked when he got deployed because then the house would be a little bit more pleasant.
	So I feel like the discomfort was just adding extra chores as punishment for us for not doing something that met his exact perfect standard.
	So he was running the home like you guys were soldiers?
	Yeah. Right.
	And what happened to your biological dad?
	Him and my mom broke up before I was one.
	I didn't really know him until I was 10.
	And he's not in my life currently because he's just...
	I don't know what...
	He's very immature, probably narcissistic as well.
	Just never really...
	Wanted to be my dad.
	And do you know the story?
	I mean, were they married or was it an accidental?
	No, they were just in high school.
	They were together for five months and then they got pregnant with me.
	Right. And then how long after that did your mom meet your stepdad?
	Well, she was married to another man before that.
	Oh, this is round three, your stepdad in a sense.
	Yeah. Okay. So she was married to another guy?
	Yeah, and she had two kids.
	My brother, who's right behind me, and then my sister.
	He was kind of a deadbeat alcoholic.
	Still is. And they were only married for a couple years, like three or four maybe.
	My mom doesn't really talk much about it.
	And That's kind of basically all I know.
	I know that man, my, like, ex-stepdad, I would go see him in the summer sometimes with my siblings who, like, where he was, like, the biological dad, too.
	But I don't have any memories of him really, like, being my father figure, so to speak.
	And did he sort of drift away years ago, or?
	Um... I guess yes and no, because with social media, I had him on my social media and when I would go back to the state that I'm from, I would see him.
	I felt like I wanted to, I guess, because his life is sad, even though that's his own doing.
	I know that now. Because his life is what?
	Sad. Oh, sad.
	Okay. He's homeless.
	He just kind of couch surfs and he never has a real job and he just drinks all of his money.
	Oh, wow, so he never really made anything of his life.
	No, and he's still in love with my mom.
	Well, no, he's not, but all right.
	Well, that's what he says.
	Yeah, yeah, I get it, I get it.
	And do you know why they split up?
	I'm trying to remember. I did ask my mom this.
	She said, Because he was emotionally abusive and he never would keep a job.
	So, like, he wasn't providing.
	But I don't know if that's actually the whole story.
	So, was your mom sort of in her mid-twenties by the time this marriage wrapped up?
	Yeah, I think she was...
	I'm trying to do math.
	I think she was, like, 25 when she married my current stepdad.
	Okay, and how do you know what the time frame was between divorcing the second father of her children and marrying the guy who became the third father of her children?
	Yeah, okay, well, are you ready?
	She dated my current stepdad in between my biological dad and her first husband, and she's known this man since they were kids.
	They dated, but they broke up for...
	Whatever reason, he thought she was cheating on him with my biological dad.
	So it wasn't whatever reason.
	That's the reason. Wait, sorry.
	So they were dating as teenagers?
	Yeah. Like, yeah, 19, 20 years old.
	He thought that your mom was cheating on him with your biological dad when she got pregnant with you when she was 17.
	Is that right? No.
	So I was already born.
	And... When my stepdad and my mom started dating.
	And then she went on a camping trip with my biological dad because she didn't want me to go alone with him.
	And my stepdad thought that that was cheating, so they broke up.
	Oh, and then she married the deadbeat.
	And then after she dumped the deadbeat, then she marries your stepdad.
	Yeah, well, she says it's after she married...
	Divorce the deadbeat, but I'm not sure.
	Oh, she probably had some feelers in the water, right?
	Yeah. And then they've been together since then, right?
	A couple of decades? Yep, 20 years.
	Right. And how much of this did you know when you were a kid?
	I didn't know about my stepdad thinking my mom Cheated on him until, like, within the last year or so.
	But I feel like everything else I kind of knew.
	Like, that feels like I've known that for a while.
	And was your mom very, I assume, I'm going to assume, that she was very pretty when she was younger?
	Mm-hmm. Still is.
	Right. Okay. Okay, so she's able to get men through the quality of her looks, not the quality of her character.
	Is that a fair way to put it?
	Mm-hmm. Definitely.
	Right. And she was still making some really bad mistakes well into her 20s, right?
	Yeah. Did she ever give you any version of the speech that says, listen, I made really bad mistakes when I was way older than you, so I understand I don't have a lot of credibility from that standpoint, but I have done a lot of what not to do and I can at least pass that wisdom along.
	Oh, yeah. Uh-huh. Sorry, she did or didn't have that speech?
	She did, yes. She did. Oh, so she admitted that she had very little credibility.
	I don't know about credibility, but she has said she's proud of me.
	Oh, no, that's what that speech is.
	That speech is, I don't have much credibility, because, you know, this guy's the third father of my children.
	Yeah, no, then no.
	Not the credibility thing.
	Right, and of course, it's really, I mean, you can't parent if you don't have credibility, right?
	Mm-hmm. I mean, you know why, right?
	Because the kids are going to be able to see that?
	Yeah, because they don't respect you.
	Yeah. I mean, why would they?
	And it's not... I mean, you don't have to be a perfect parent, of course.
	Nobody is, whatever that would even mean.
	But you sure as hell do have to own up and acknowledge your mistakes.
	Yeah. Because here's the thing, too, right?
	Your mother, I'm sure, when you and your brothers and your sister...
	Did something quote wrong, right?
	She wanted you to own up to it and take responsibility, right?
	Oh, yeah. Yeah, so did she own up and take responsibility for some slightly more serious mistakes than whatever you guys were getting up to as kids?
	No. Right, so that's just hypocritical, right?
	Yeah. I have the standard called...
	Own your mistakes, own up to them, take responsibility when it comes to who knocked the lamp over on the dining room table, but not when it came to why there have been three baby daddies floating through the place, right?
	Mm-hmm. Well, it's because she became a Christian, so you can't hold that against her.
	I'm sorry? It's because she became a Christian, so you can't hold that against her.
	She's changed. That's what she says.
	Her argument was that you can't hold anything against her because she became a Christian?
	Mm-hmm. Like, she's redeemed.
	That doesn't affect her life anymore.
	No, but, I mean, Christianity is not a magical switch where you get to erase the entire past you've ever had.
	I mean, the whole purpose of becoming a Christian.
	Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I mean, just the whole point of becoming a Christian is you have to earn it.
	You don't just go to church and automatically go to heaven.
	You have to earn it. And one of the ways that you have to earn it is through humility and also apologizing to those you've wronged and ask for their forgiveness, right?
	Yeah. Mm-hmm.
	And I read a forgiveness book with them last year to try to get them to understand that.
	And they said they did, but I don't believe them, that they understood the point of it.
	Right. Right, okay.
	Okay, so what happened in your teenage years?
	Um... Not a ton.
	I stayed home and didn't really do much because they wouldn't let me.
	They were really strict. So I just stayed home, babysat my siblings, did my chores, did my homework, and then I would just be in my room.
	Huh. Dances or dates or anything like that?
	I would go to homescoming dances, no dates, until I was 17.
	I had my first boyfriend and that was not good.
	What happened with your first boyfriend?
	He was very abusive in every way except physical.
	He never hit me, but everything else he's done.
	Did they meet him?
	Did they vet him? Did they talk to you about him?
	They met him, and then after I broke up with him, it came out that no one liked him.
	And when I asked why did nobody say it, my mom was like, well, why did you think your dad made you do chores before he went over to his house?
	What? Yeah.
	No, I'm sorry. I don't get that connection.
	Maybe you could break it out for me. Because my dad was trying to keep me from going to his house.
	I don't know what their point of that was.
	Your parents talk all kinds of shite, right?
	About how you're terrible kids and your mom's ashamed to be your mother and so on.
	So they have no problem.
	Saying things that just break your heart in two, right?
	But then they can't be direct about a guy who might actually be exceedingly dangerous.
	And when I told her that, she said, well, I know how much you care about our opinion and we didn't want you to break up with him just because we didn't like him.
	Oh, so it's your fault for not respecting your parents, and that's why they didn't intervene when they saw you dating a danger.
	It's your fault, and that's the price you pay, honey, for not listening to us all the time when you were kids.
	You made it very clear how much you respect our...
	Oh, my God. Sorry.
	I have to stop doing that before I literally get possessed by the devil.
	All right. Oh, my God.
	That's horrible. So they're really quite skilled in this cruelty, right?
	Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah.
	Very, very good at it.
	Wow. So, it's more than just...
	It's more than just blowing up.
	And it's more than just volatility.
	Like, there is a sort of slow, conscious...
	Well, you've made it clear how much you valued our opinion, so what would we...
	Like, that's really sadistic, in my view.
	Mm-hmm. So they're capable of not...
	Because you said your mom's emotionally volatile, right?
	Yeah. This kind of set up and this long play out half con, that's more than just emotional volatility, right?
	That's a really cold turn the screws slowly.
	And that's also letting somebody else take over the abuse for them, I think.
	Yeah, right. And they're blaming you as to why they, who are your parents, failed to protect you.
	Mm-hmm. Sorry, I feel like you're...
	I don't know what the emotional distance is between us, but it feels quite large.
	Sorry, I'm just...
	I don't know what the distance is.
	I agree with what you're saying.
	I guess...
	I just haven't heard somebody else say it.
	No, but that's not someone blowing up.
	Right, no. How long were you dating this bad guy for?
	Mm-hmm. From January to October, so 10 months.
	So 10 months you were with this guy, you say he was abusive in every which way, but physical, and I assume that this did not mean sexual violence, right?
	Well, yes. Oh, so he was sexually violent as well?
	I don't know if violence is the right word, but aggressive in pushing me to do it, and did it against my will.
	Without my consent, but he didn't, like, hold me down, I guess.
	Well, he just kind of bullied and, I wouldn't say, kind of half-coerced and aggressed his way into sexual activity.
	Is that right? Yeah. Mm-hmm.
	Yeah. Wow. So, I mean, however we want to paint that, it's halfway to a very bad place at least, right?
	Right. Absolutely, yeah.
	Right. And the other thing, too, is that, and obviously it was your relationship, so correct me if I'm astray, but...
	One of the reasons that you might have given in is you didn't want to find out what would happen if you didn't.
	I feel like, for me, the way I've interpreted it is just like, I was so like, I just wanted somebody to I feel, quote unquote, loved or liked that this was the first guy that was willing to meet my dad because he was known in my school to be very scary, my dad. And that was the rule.
	If you want to date me, you have to meet my dad.
	And nobody wanted to do that because my parents were strict.
	Except until this guy came along and he did meet my parents and I don't know.
	This guy wasn't scared of your dad at all.
	I mean, is that fair to say?
	I would say yeah, given how he was.
	Yeah. I mean, he was thumbing his nose at your dad.
	Oh, Mr. Tough Soldier Guy, here I am paying race around the table, grab ass with your daughter.
	You're not going to do shit about it, are you?
	I didn't tell my parents about any of it until I broke up with him and I moved away to go to college.
	I'm sorry, I don't know what relevance that has that you didn't tell your parents.
	I don't know. Like, they acted like they hadn't...
	I don't... I guess, yeah.
	You're right. No, no, so what are you trying to say with like, oh, they didn't know or, you know, they're somehow off the hook because they didn't know?
	I don't know. Like, no, I don't think they're off the hook because the reason I didn't tell them is because I would have gotten in trouble for being abused because I didn't obey their rules, basically.
	And what were their rules?
	Not to go into his room when I was at his house.
	Oh, I see. I see.
	Okay. Now, of course, it is their job to protect you.
	You were still a child, right?
	Legally, you were still a child.
	It was their job to protect you, and they failed at their job.
	Yeah. Now, I can't tell you how stomach-turning and pathetic it is to even in my mind imagine parents blaming a child for the parent's Inability to protect that child.
	No, I agree.
	I don't know.
	It helps me to view it through the lens of if it was my daughter or my son, if I did those things that my parents have done, how would I feel?
	And then I can get upset, but if I think about it with myself and them doing it to me, there's a disconnect.
	It's harder for me to get upset.
	Well, it's... It's the war between us as parents and us being parented.
	That's the fundamental war.
	Us being parented...
	We're worthless. We're garbage.
	We're annoying. We're difficult.
	We're divisive. We talk back.
	We don't listen. So us being parented, we're nothing.
	But us parents, our children are everything.
	And it's that, is a child nothing or is a child everything?
	I don't want to oversimplify it, but it seems to me that that's the battle.
	Yeah, definitely. I like the way you put that.
	That's for sure. Now, when your parents found out that this boy had been abusing you...
	No, no, let's go back.
	What do you think would have happened if you had just said, absolutely not, to sexual advances?
	He would have broke up with me.
	Right. Well, that's horrible, of course.
	And, you know, him just using you for sexual access.
	That's just an unbelievably appalling thing for, I mean, a young woman in particular, but for anyone to experience, and particularly for your first romantic relationship.
	And did your parents ask you, like, what was going on with the boy, or how things were going, or anything like that?
	No. So they just let you go out and figure it all out on your own somehow?
	Mm-hmm. And then, I just remembered this part.
	I shouldn't laugh. My brother...
	Came home and told me that my boyfriend was cheating on me with his little brother's girlfriend.
	And I was like...
	Well, he told my parents. And my parents brought me down, and then my brother told me.
	And I was like, that's a lie.
	Like, there's no way.
	And, like, I asked my boyfriend about it, and anytime I would ask him about anything, because lots of people in school would come up to me and be like, why are you dating him?
	He's a terrible guy. Like, he's...
	You are too good for him, basically.
	He's just going to hurt you.
	And don't you know what he's done?
	He's played this girl and this girl.
	So I would go to him and be like, why is everyone telling me this?
	And he would talk his way out of it.
	And so that's what he did with the cheating thing.
	He talked his way out of it until after we broke up, he admitted that he did cheat on me with his little brother's girlfriend.
	Oh, my God. So this guy's a real scuzzbag in every conceivable way.
	Yeah, he is.
	And do you have any idea how his life played out?
	He's back in Mexico, part of a cartel, I think.
	Oh, he was a Hispanic fellow?
	Mm-hmm. Right.
	All right.
	Okay, so then what happened when you went away to college?
	Oh, wait, so sorry. Let's back up to when you confessed to your parents.
	I think you said this was about the same time.
	I'm sorry for interrupting.
	Yeah, no. But you were saying that you did end up telling about your abusive Hispanic boyfriend when you went away to college.
	Is that right? It was months after I left, but yeah.
	So I went to college first.
	Then I broke up with my boyfriend like two months after that.
	And then like months...
	After that, I told my parents.
	And were they like, well, you...
	I mean, how did they react?
	Well, it was over text because I was like, if I tell you this on the phone, I'm just going to cry.
	And I thought it was just my mom.
	So I told her and I was like, please don't tell dad.
	And then she was like, well, he's in the car with me.
	And I just read it out to him after I asked her not to tell him.
	But... She said that she was sorry.
	And he was sorry.
	He said he was sorry, too.
	But that was kind of it.
	Like, what is sorry? Sorry about...
	What does that mean? I'm sorry this happened to you?
	Or I'm sorry we failed to protect you?
	Basically. No, not sorry that they failed to protect me.
	Right. Okay. Because I think...
	Sorry, go ahead. I think because they think...
	Like, because I broke their rules...
	They didn't say that out loud, but this is why we had these rules, so that you didn't get hurt and you didn't listen, so look what happened.
	Well, but everyone knows that a child doesn't just get told the rules and then completely abandoned, right?
	Like, you wouldn't say to a five-year-old, don't do X, Y, and Z, and then just leave that five-year-old alone all day.
	Right. So just saying there were rules...
	Is not enough to just blame the child if the child fails to follow those rules, so to speak, right?
	Right. Well, in our house it was.
	Right. Yeah.
	So then how do things go in college?
	I enjoyed college.
	I met my husband in my first semester.
	So I was technically still dating my boyfriend.
	But we were in a class together and we had to do a group project together.
	And from there... We became friends, and then he asked me out, and then we started dating the next semester.
	And he asked me out after I broke up with this guy.
	It was the end of the semester, and I broke up with my boyfriend in the beginning.
	And I've been with him ever since.
	Well, that's good. That's good.
	Yeah. That's good.
	Did he bring you to the show, or did you find me independent?
	He brought me. Right.
	Okay. And was it relatively...
	How was it in terms of the deciding on the peaceful parenting?
	When he first brought...
	The main thing was not spanking.
	I was like, no, we have to spank because I was raised Christian, but also independent, fundamental Baptist Christian where you get your kids.
	You beat them. And my parents didn't beat us, but I don't know.
	Maybe they did. We got it good.
	What's your definition of beating? I don't know.
	It wasn't just a pop, pop, but it wasn't like a beating us up, punching us type of thing, but they would do it a good amount of times.
	You're mixing up. You've got spanking, you've got beating, and you've got punching.
	Okay, these are three very distinct categories.
	I guess I think beating is like punching and stuff, not just hitting somebody on the butt.
	Oh no, that's beating up.
	Yeah, okay. So, no, beating a child is, for me, I don't, right, so beating a child, so spanking is bare hand.
	A beating is with implements.
	Okay, then, yeah, we got beat.
	And they would say that, like, they need their ass beat, or you're going to get your ass beat.
	It's always with the ass, right?
	It's really creepy.
	I mean, when you think about it, right?
	Yeah, it is, yeah. I mean, you could be lower back.
	It's always got to be the ass. And I guess the ass is the one thing which is covered, right?
	So if you bruise or whatever, it's harder for people to see.
	Oh yeah, my mom told me that one of my brothers, my dad spanked him so bad the day before his pre-K, or beat him so bad, he had bruises and she was worried the teachers would see.
	Wait, when he was like three or four years old?
	Mm-hmm. Oh my god.
	And she told me that a couple years ago and I'm just like, and that's not like a...
	Realization that, like, you're in a bad situation here, I don't understand.
	So your stepdad beat your brother when he was three or four years old so badly that your mother was afraid that the authorities would be called?
	Mm-hmm. Okay, you give me this, mm-hmm, like, this emotional distance is completely unsettling to me.
	I'm sorry. No, no, don't have to apologize.
	I just don't know how to solve it.
	I don't know how we're going to connect on this level.
	Right. Right. I don't know.
	Maybe I would just normalize it. I mean, he's the same age as your son!
	No, I know. I had that thought the other day, actually.
	Your husband beats your son black and blue, and you're afraid to send him out of the house because you might go to prison.
	Yeah. I would divorce him.
	There's no question. God, that's so evil.
	That's the brother.
	I mean, that's the helpless little boy.
	Sorry, go ahead. I don't know if you remember this.
	I emailed you a while ago about a schizophrenic homeless drug addict brother.
	Yes. That's him.
	The one that got beat when he was three or four.
	Wow. That's just appalling.
	Yeah. And, of course, your parents don't make any connection.
	It's weird because they say they do.
	They'll say, we know that we caused him trauma, and we caused you trauma, but that's where it ends.
	There's no real acceptance of...
	For me, I couldn't live with myself if my son was like that because of me.
	Oh, yeah. I couldn't conceive of it.
	It makes...
	My brother specifically like that's what gets me the most because like what his life has become because of them.
	Like I guess I feel like at least I have a husband and a family and like I'm trying to heal but like he's just been a mess since he was a teenager and like he's only 19 now but Yeah, it just really upsets me because he was very sweet and a sensitive little boy, like my son.
	And I don't know how my parents could have ever done that to him or me or any of my siblings.
	So, yeah, and so earlier when you were saying about, you know, I guess...
	It was a coping mechanism or something like that.
	Like, I'm going to go out on an extreme limb here and we'll see if it holds up or not.
	But when you saw your brother, was he of the three?
	Where was he in the birth order?
	The brother that got spanked or beat before pre-K, he's the fourth of us.
	He's my stepdad's biological son.
	The oldest three aren't his biological.
	So he beat his own biological son harder than he beat his step-sons, right?
	I mean, my brother, the one right behind me, he got it the worst out of all of us, I think.
	Worse than the other boy who ended up as a drug addict.
	I think, but I don't know.
	I definitely remember him getting spanked or beaten more.
	I feel like my brother, the one right behind me, got the most physical punishment out of any of us.
	Physical punishment?
	Like beaten. Yeah, he got brutalized.
	Physically abused. Yeah.
	I mean, even by spanking standards.
	Even the manual of spanking, I don't think, says beat a three-year-old to the point where he can't be seen in public.
	Right. No, definitely not.
	It's not just... It was never just like a one pop on the butt.
	It was always a big thing.
	So... How did the one brother, I guess just a little younger than you, who got beat even more than the other brother, how's his life played out?
	He got his girlfriend pregnant at 18.
	They got married, divorced last year.
	He's in the Marines. And I talked to him about this stuff, like how I'm feeling with our parents last week.
	And he was screaming at me, calling me a narcissist.
	And he just hasn't accepted anything.
	Our childhood and his abuse.
	Hasn't accepted? Like he says, oh, they apologize.
	No, no, he's screaming at you when you're trying to heal from child abuse, right?
	Mm-hmm. So he's an abuser.
	Yeah. So that's different from he hasn't accepted.
	Okay, yeah. He's joined the enemy, hasn't he?
	Well, I told him that, yes, and I don't talk to him anymore because of it.
	I told him, like, he, I don't...
	Yeah, I'm like, you're abusing me right now.
	And he's like, no, no, I'm just trying to see how you react.
	Because he was telling me I react badly to my parents, and that's why they react badly to me.
	Don't worry, sis, I'm not abusing you, I'm just experimenting on you.
	No, it was insane.
	He was saying, I support you, but then wouldn't let me get a word in edgewise, and then nothing he was saying was supportive.
	So I'm like, what's this definition of support?
	My whole family's definition of support is...
	Like, just whack.
	It's not real. So, again, I know there's a couple of underage kids and all of that, but if the adults, I mean, how many survived spiritually?
	I mean, we got two down, as far as I can see.
	Yeah, I'm the only one that's, like, trying.
	I'm me. Of the four adults, the other three are not.
	Not trying or just not doing well?
	Not trying and not doing well.
	Right. Right.
	So, I really, really, really can't overemphasize to you, my friend.
	I cannot overemphasize to you how much danger you were in as a child.
	Mm-hmm. That's what I'm trying to come to, like, not grips, but, like, trying to, like, accept, I guess.
	I don't know what the right word is. Like, get myself to see.
	Okay, so hang on.
	I want to put this as vividly as I can because I think it's very important.
	You saw your parents spiritually murder sibling after sibling.
	Right, yeah.
	Soul murder. Disassemble human souls.
	That's demonic in my view.
	You were in a house where they disassembled human beings, where they strangled the soul in the crib.
	You were in a graveyard, an abattoir, a butcher's shop.
	Yeah, I was.
	And if you, I mean, it's incredible.
	Like, let me just tell you, I mean...
	If I was a little younger and it was easier for me to get back, I would like kneel at the moment in praise of your fortitude and your survival skills.
	Thank you. I mean, you were in a house of horrors and you made it through with your heart, your mind and your soul alive and intact.
	It's easier...
	than to do what you have done.
	And as far as we know, so far, right?
	You're the only one who's made it.
	Yeah.
	Shh.
	And I can hear it in your voice, of course, how much you care about your siblings.
	And watching them be torn to shreds over the years and reassembled like Frankenstein in the image of the abusers is just about the most painful thing that a thoughtful and sensitive soul can go through.
	Yeah, that's true.
	I mean, if it was a bear attack or a shark attack or a coyote attack, it would be quick.
	This is spread out over 20 years or more.
	Yeah. And this is the casual power of evildoers in the world.
	They can disassemble people over decades and no one says anything.
	And no one does anything.
	And people probably clap them on the back and give them hearty handshakes when they go to church.
	Oh, yeah. They're amazing at church.
	Oh, I'm sure that everyone thinks it's a wonderful family.
	Oh, yeah. Right?
	And nobody looks at the data.
	Nobody looks at the facts.
	My brother just turned out that way somehow, all on his own.
	Yeah, you know, it's the internet.
	It's peer pressure.
	It's, you know, we tried.
	We tried our best. You know, we did our best.
	But sometimes, you know, people just have to walk their own path and learn their own lessons.
	I hate that I did my best.
	Yeah. Listen, that was never an excuse when you were a kid, right?
	Heck no. All right.
	Now.
	Now.
	Sigh.
	Is there more that you want to add?
	more that you want to.
	This is your life, your tale, so I'm happy to listen to whatever you want to talk about.
	I have some thoughts, but this is, again, your tale, so if there's more that you want to add, I'm happy to...
	I wouldn't say exactly happy to hear, but you have a sympathetic ear, to put it mildly.
	Well, I don't know if this means anything, but my parents are foster parents now, and they adopted a little girl, well, a 13-year-old with Down syndrome...
	And I spoke out against it to the foster care people, expressing my concern, but no, they didn't care.
	They said my parents' house was one of the best houses they've ever seen.
	Like, the vibe of the house, I guess, not like their physical house.
	Oh yeah, no, I get that they're good at camouflage, right?
	Oh yeah, uh-huh. All right.
	Anything else? Just, I guess, within the last couple weeks, I've been telling people in my family how I don't speak to my parents anymore, and literally no one is on my side, so I have no family anymore.
	I'm going to have to really, really push back on that statement.
	Okay. Go ahead.
	Okay, first of all, you do have a family.
	Yes. You do have a family.
	Mm-hmm. It's the family you chose, the family who loves you, the family who's virtuous.
	Yeah. Right?
	Yeah. I do have...
	Yes, I have...
	I don't feel like I have no family.
	I know I have my husband and my children, but outside of that, like, that other family...
	We don't have on my husband's side or my side.
	And then as far as community and chosen family goes, we're still trying to find that.
	But, I mean, gosh, I felt a long, drawn-out, violent, almost bleed to self-pity.
	It's like, oh no, the child abusers are not in my life anymore.
	No, I'm not upset to not have them in my life.
	I'm glad to know that.
	Oh, come on. I have no family?
	Dun-dun! I mean, I'm sad to not have family, but I don't want the unhealthy people.
	Like, I... Maybe I'm, like, wishing it wasn't this way, but I know that it has to be if I want to be healthy.
	It's just that phrase.
	It's very dramatic.
	Mm-hmm. It's not true.
	Mm-hmm. Because the word family has all of these positive emotional connotations, obviously, right?
	This is why these, oh, I can't stand these business guys who are like, welcome to the so-and-so company.
	You're part of the family. It's like, no, you're not.
	Right. There's no family here.
	I mean, if they get a better offer from China, they'll fire your ass and replace you with broomstick robots if they can make an extra dollar an hour.
	This family, I don't know, I just always hate this...
	This is part of the so-and-so family of companies.
	This is family, you know, they're not family, but just like it's a word with such positive connotations.
	And then when you say, you know, it's like some guy who was trapped in the organized crime, you know, where he saw people get tortured and killed and he committed crimes and And all of that, and then he gets out of the organized criminals, and he's like, but now I have no family at this place.
	It's like, I'm so sorry that the sadistic murderers and torturers are not in your life anymore, you know, but I don't...
	So again, this is the framing, this is the language thing, right?
	Yeah. And that's why I wanted to call too, because I know you're good at it.
	Well, I mean, if you're a woman and your husband's been beating you up for 20 years, right?
	And you get away from him.
	I have no love in my life.
	I have no husband. I have no one's looking out for me.
	I have no family. It's like you got away from an abuser.
	Right. Right. And I understand that's a difficult thing.
	I'm not saying you just walk away without looking back like one of those weird cool guys in the movies, walking away from the explosions, don't even look back.
	I get that it's a lot to go through, but don't make it harder on yourself with this sentimental language.
	You can't possibly use the same word to describe what you have now with what was inflicted on you by blind, dumb nature.
	Right. You chose this family.
	You built this family based upon morals and values and compatibility and virtue.
	You can't use the same word.
	Don't even use the same word.
	Yeah. Okay.
	That's true. Love cannot also mean hate.
	Kindness cannot also equal sadism.
	So even the same word.
	It's an insult to what you have now.
	In my view. I don't want to tell you what to think, but I was really struck by this, like, I have no family.
	You know, it's like, I'm really sorry that you had to break orbit with child abusers, unrepentant child abusers, it sounds like.
	But, I mean, you know, your loyalty is to the family you chose, not to the family that happened to you by accident.
	Yes. I guess I just was being told by, like, People like, I just don't want you to have no family left.
	Or like, I feel like you're just going to get rid of everyone.
	So it's like, as if they knew that no one was worth keeping.
	Because none of them were.
	Well, they all witnessed everything that happened.
	Right? I mean, I'm not saying directly, but they knew.
	They knew how your parents parented, right?
	Well, we grew up military, so it was just like our immediate family.
	But... Before my mom married him, yes.
	Basically, yes. Everyone in my family knows how my mom is.
	People might not know how my stepdad is, but everyone knows how my mom is.
	At least. And they know my dad is scary.
	Did they ask? They knew your dad was scary, right?
	Yeah. Okay, did they ask?
	No. And when you told them what you had suffered, did they have sympathy?
	Did they show sympathy? Did they take a stand for you and against the abusers?
	Um... No.
	I was told I need to have understanding for my parents and sympathy for my parents.
	Yeah, just in the same way that your parents had sympathy and understanding for you guys as kids.
	Yeah, right. See, you've got to have super high moral standards and punishing, brutal moral standards for children.
	But adults who are beating children, oh no, there's just love and sympathy for that.
	You can't have any high moral standards.
	I mean, they're only adults. Yeah.
	Yeah, you've got to have very high moral standards for the powerless, but those who are abusing their power, you must have love and sympathy and understanding for it.
	I mean, it's sick. It's sick beyond work.
	It is. It's sick.
	It's a disease of the mind.
	You have infinitely higher moral standards for children than you do for damn adults.
	Sorry, I know you're a good Christian young lady.
	I apologize. I will keep my civil tug in my head, but it's vile.
	You're fine. No, it is.
	Right. So, how painful was it to try to maintain any kind of bond when you were a kid?
	Like with anybody?
	Or my parents? With your parents, with your siblings, with anybody.
	Yeah. Hard.
	I was... Didn't bond with my parents.
	And then I was put in a parent position to my siblings.
	So they viewed me as like a bossy tattletale.
	So they didn't want to get close to me.
	Well, and you were trying to protect your siblings from your parents to some degree.
	Like, I was just talking about this on a live stream today.
	Like, you were trying to get your siblings to not get their asses beaten.
	Yeah, absolutely. And so you had to really be strict with them because it was better strictness from you than beatings from psycho dad, right?
	Yeah. Right.
	Right. And that idea has carried on.
	Sorry, so do you feel, as sort of enlisted semi-co-parent person, do you feel some guilt about how your siblings turned out?
	I'm not saying you should, I just want to make sure that if that is the case...
	I feel guilt for how I treated them, like I was harsh with them, I hit them.
	And I have apologized to them for that, but...
	Yeah, I do feel guilty.
	And what was the hitting?
	What would happen? I would just...
	I wouldn't beat them with, like, implements.
	It was just my hand, and it was usually, like...
	Sometimes it would be, like, me and my brother would be just...
	We'd be angry at each other, and we'd both go at each other.
	Or other times, like, I've hit my sister because I don't even know...
	Why I did, except for in those moments, I felt like I was the parent, like I was my mom, and what would my mom do?
	She would hit. So I... That's what I did.
	Right, right.
	And how old were you when these would happen, and when did it tail off?
	Like, definitely before teenage years.
	I don't remember hitting them as a teenager, like when I was a teenager.
	And we're all like two years apart.
	It was mainly probably when I was in like middle school.
	I feel like is when like the worst of it happened.
	So you'd be like 10 and they'd be like 8 and 6?
	That kind of thing? Yeah.
	Okay. Well, listen, I hope that you can, I mean, there's no way that a 10-year-old should be put much in control or have authority over kids, and you had a terrible model of how to deal with kids, so I hope that you can have forgiveness to yourself for that.
	I do. I don't feel like that is, like, why they are, like, the way, like, I don't hold myself to the same standard of, like, responsibility as I hold my parents, because I know, yeah, they put me in that role.
	That's on them.
	And like, but I still wanted my siblings to know that like, I know now that that was wrong, I didn't know it back then.
	And that I was sorry.
	You wish it hadn't happened and you're sorry for the pain that it caused.
	And they said they accepted my apology.
	But then when I talked to them about like, my parents, it's just weird.
	Like, Or like you said, they've just become my, like, abusers, too, because it used to be, yeah, our parents are effing awful.
	They're so abusive to us.
	But, like, the moment I'm taking an actual stand and being like, okay, like, do you want to, like, join me in, like, standing against evil?
	No, no, our parents are great.
	They apologize. Why can't you accept their apology?
	Right. And so, yeah, I'm, yeah, like, Like you said, like I know they are adults now and they're making their own decisions.
	I don't feel like guilt for that.
	I guess I just feel like the guilt from the past and that like, yeah, I didn't have a bond because I've always wanted one.
	Right, right.
	Yeah, because saying I'm ashamed to be a mother is ripping up the bond.
	Yeah. Right, and then of course Subjugating yourself in order to maintain the illusion of a bond is what happened with your Hispanic boyfriend, too, right?
	Right. Like, I have to be people's slave, and I can't have a will, and I can't disagree with people.
	Otherwise, I will be abandoned.
	And, you know, people say, oh, abandonment issues and so on.
	Like, they don't deal with it, in my view, in the seriousness which it means.
	Abandonment issues are death threats.
	Right. Like, if a kid was getting death threats in his locker, like, I will murder you after school, I mean, like, the FBI would come in, right?
	I don't know what, like, it would be a huge deal.
	And people say, like, oh, I got abandonment issues.
	It's like, no, no, no. Abandonment threats to a child is a death threat.
	Yeah, definitely.
	That's how we evolved, right? Right.
	That if your parents didn't want you around, didn't care for you, then you didn't make it.
	Like you would die. Yeah, for sure.
	They wouldn't protect you. They wouldn't bother feeding you.
	They wouldn't, right? They'd leave you behind.
	I mean, you'd be dead. Yeah, and I feel like I got that, like, I guess extra because, like, my biological dad did abandon me, like, until I was 10.
	Well, I mean, he may have been driven out.
	We don't know. But he definitely separated, right?
	Yeah, they separated. And then, like, he just, I mean, he was doing drugs and stuff when I was little.
	Because I've asked him, why didn't you fight for me?
	Because that was my main hurt from him, I guess, is I just felt like he didn't actually care about me or want me.
	And he just says, oh, I was doing drugs.
	I was too out of it to care for you, which is obviously fair enough.
	Fair enough? What do you mean fair enough?
	If he's not going to get off drugs, I wouldn't want him to take care of me.
	He wouldn't have been able to take care of me.
	No, no. Fair enough.
	Hang on. Let's back up here.
	What do you mean fair enough? Oh, yeah, okay, he was a drug addict, but, you know, fair enough.
	That's not fair enough.
	He chose the drugs over you.
	And your mother chose the drug addict over a competent father.
	When I told people that, they say, like, oh, well, you don't know the hold drugs have over people.
	And... And just that saying that children don't have a hold over people?
	I mean, right. I know.
	That's how I feel. Like, your kids should be enough to overcome your demons if you want to work hard enough for it.
	Like, I don't...
	I don't know.
	I guess I just don't have enough care to, like, fight against what the people say anymore.
	Well, I mean, people...
	That were in my family. I have no patience with anybody...
	Who excuses adults and attacks children.
	I'm aware I'm more than two-thirds of my way through my life, so I have no time and no patience and no sympathy.
	For the people who say to adult children, oh, but you should have sympathy and you should understand and you should be forgiving and so on.
	And they never said to those same parents when those parents were beating their actual children, they never said to those parents, oh, but they're just a child.
	You should have sympathy. You should have understanding.
	Right. So to me, if you didn't say to my parents, have sympathy and understanding for the children, don't you dare come up to me when I'm an adult and tell me to have sympathy and understanding for my parents because you don't give a rat's ass about sympathy and understanding.
	You're just a coward and a bully and you are herding people back to their abusers and it's contemptible and it's vile.
	I agree. I want to thank you for that because listening to your cons and live streams and stuff has given me the perspective to be like, okay, this isn't normal or this isn't what quote-unquote family does of sweeping it under the rug.
	I wouldn't have been told that without my husband who introduced you to me.
	He holds that view as well.
	But besides you, I'm always like, oh, you and Steph.
	To my husband. Because it's like, I don't know, it's just very impactful for me.
	Well, I hope he's shaved his forehead in anticipation.
	In homage, he's got the giant eight head going up from the eyebrows forever.
	Okay, so I have a theory as to why you're getting angry at your kids.
	Okay. Let me hear it.
	Who do you think your mother blames for all the, quote, trouble you're causing in the family of origin?
	Me. Yeah, but no.
	No. But no.
	Your parents have a sense of the dominoes that kind of started, right?
	How do they feel about your husband?
	Never spoke negative about him, but I'm sure if I broke up with him or something, they would tell me how they really feel, type of thing.
	Okay, and have they said that you are a bad person for causing all of this family trouble?
	I mean, she's called me evil and crazy, so I guess, yeah.
	And what was that conversation?
	That was the last time.
	That was when I realized that she just wasn't going to change.
	I was trying to point out some issues and she just went off the handle at me, calling me crazy and evil and insensitive because she was going through such a hard time.
	How could I say those things to her, basically?
	Yeah. Oh, right.
	It's very important not to put family members through a hard time and be insensitive, which is why she was fine with your stepdad beating his boys until they could barely be seen in public.
	Right. Because she's all about, you know, be sensitive.
	And like people just use these words like they don't really manifest them.
	They don't understand them in any deeper empathetic way.
	It's just like, oh, I'll try this word combination.
	Like I remember when I was a teenager, I had one of those locks, you know, with the three or four rows of numbers.
	And I couldn't remember the number.
	So you just keep trying these different combinations.
	Oh, man, can I open this? Oh, just keep trying.
	Oh, I'll try this one. So all they do is they assemble these words like I was assembling these locks and just seeing they can unlock the other person's heart.
	They don't think about the words.
	They don't care about the words. It's like, oh, I'll try this combination of words.
	Oh, is that going to be what I want?
	No? Okay, I'll try this combination of words.
	It's just people trying locks and keys and they don't have any principles or empathy or understanding of these things.
	It's just manipulating language to try and get what you want.
	Yep. Definitely.
	Okay. So they don't...
	They don't particularly pick on your husband, right?
	Mm-mm. Yeah. And do they have any idea?
	Has your husband ever spoken to them about his concerns or talked to them about what happened with you?
	I'm not saying whether he should or shouldn't have.
	I'm just curious if it has happened.
	No. Not about, like, with me.
	Um... He's talked to my dad about he gave my son when he was a baby a sip of coke and like we weren't okay with that so my husband did talk to him about that in person but like it wasn't a fight but basically that's the only time my husband has like confronted my parents I'd say.
	And how long has he known them for?
	Seven years. And has he ever wanted to confront them or talk to them in this way?
	I'm not sure.
	He's not very confrontational, I guess.
	Okay, so they wouldn't blame him for what's happening, right?
	Yeah, I don't think so.
	So what is their answer as to why you have changed?
	Why have you gone from thinking your mom, you know, poops rainbows in the morning and flies around on angel wings all day?
	What is their explanation as to why you've changed?
	I think it's that I'm a Bible thumper, as I've been called.
	Oh, you're too religious now?
	That's their argument? Yes.
	I'm too judgmental and I'm a perfectionist.
	And when did they first perceive the change as happening in you?
	I don't... I feel like when my mom has talked to me like that, she makes it seem like that's how she's always
	thought I have been.
	No, no, no. But in the past, right, you worshipped your mom.
	Okay, sure, yeah. And your stepdad, I guess, to some degree.
	Yeah. So at some point, you began to transition out of that.
	Yeah. Three years ago, when I started going to therapy.
	No! What else happened three years ago?
	I got pregnant. Right.
	Right. I mean, obviously, the therapy is important and we should talk about that.
	But it was three years ago that you got pregnant.
	How old is your son? Well, I guess it's almost four years because he just turned three.
	Yeah, I was going to say, I thought he was three, right?
	Yeah, yeah. So three years ago, you became a mom, right?
	Now, did your parents know you were going to therapy?
	Yes. And what were their thoughts about that?
	Supportive. Like, I guess.
	Like, they acted like they thought that that was great, and that's what I needed.
	Oh, because, like, in the same way, like, if you injure your knee, you should go to rehab, right?
	Yeah. Like, you're broken, but maybe the therapist can help fix you?
	Yeah, like, they don't deny what they did in my childhood, and, like, at least for the physical stuff, I don't know.
	Like, they say they've repented, but I don't know what to believe, because, like, All my siblings are too old to be spanked now, but they've spanked all my siblings.
	So it's like they changed their tune after it was kind of like too late.
	Oh, so they found Jesus in peaceful parenting when their kids got too big to be spanked and might hit back.
	Yeah. Praise be!
	What a miracle! Right, yep.
	All right. And how did therapy go for you?
	I liked it. It definitely opened my eyes to that codependency.
	What codependency do you mean?
	My therapist was basically saying I was codependent.
	I had never thought about that before, but that opened my eyes to the way my family functions, especially with my mom.
	What does codependency mean in this context?
	I'm not questioning your therapist. I just want to understand it.
	I don't know how to define it.
	Back then, it felt like I needed my mom to tell me what to do, even though I was an adult and I was married.
	I still really valued and held her opinion highly, but then when my therapist opened my eyes to that and recommended a book for me to read and I guess I realized that this was very unhealthy.
	That's when I started taking a step back from my family and looking at it for what it really was and not for what my parents wanted us to see.
	And did your therapist affirm that you were the victim of some pretty serious child abuse?
	Yes. Not to the level that you have, but yes.
	Okay, so... Would your parents say, if asked, well, why did your daughter change?
	What happened, right? Would they say it was that damn therapist who turned her against us?
	No. They've never mentioned therapy as a bad thing for me.
	Right. So, I think my theory fits.
	Yeah. That doesn't mean it's true, just so you know.
	It does not mean it's true.
	It's a hypothesis, right?
	Yeah. Okay. You are not angry, obviously, with your little babies, right?
	Yes. You had them kind of tied together, which is tough for you at the moment, but it's great for them later on, right?
	Yeah. These big age gaps are kind of weird for a lot of kids.
	Well, you know that you've got a pretty widespread in your family to put up a family margin, right?
	I'm sorry, the family, you don't have any more violence.
	Okay. So you're not angry at your kids.
	Right. So who is?
	It's not you. Who is angry at your kids?
	My mom, my parents.
	And why are they angry at your kids?
	Because they're the reason I'm waking up and calling stuff out.
	Right. And also, their grandkids are a source of great shame and humiliation at the moment if you're not seeing your parents.
	Right. Because people say, oh, how are the grandkids?
	It's really tough, right?
	Yes. So if your parents are angry in their mind at the association between your awakening and you becoming a mother, then they're really enraged at your kids for taking you away from them.
	And that's the anger that you're feeling.
	Wow. It struck me when you were talking about, and again, it might not be right, but when you were talking about your son, that you physically rebelled against breastfeeding him at a visceral level, right? Almost like a cellular level, right?
	Yes, yes. Right. So in a sense you reject your son in the same way that your
	parents feel rejected by you. And if those kids had not come along you'd still
	be the good little obedient daughter robot that they raised you to be.
	Right. Yep.
	And I'm not quiet about that, I guess.
	Like, I'm very outspoken about how, like, my kids are the reason for that.
	Wait, what? So...
	You had all this data that supported my hypothesis and you didn't tell me?
	I can't believe it. I'm just kidding.
	No, no. So tell me more.
	So you've said, like, I'm different since I became a mom.
	Like, what do you say to your parents? Like, to my parents, I just, how I mentioned earlier, like, my kids have awakened how messed up my childhood was because I look at it through the lens of, like, would this be acceptable for my kids?
	Well, no. And the reason why I started therapy when I was pregnant is because I knew I had problems controlling my emotions and I didn't want to Put that onto my children.
	I wanted to heal because that's not what they deserve.
	Okay, so you openly said to your parents, my kids are the reason I'm angry at you.
	I guess, yeah.
	No, no. I'm not in those words exactly, but isn't that what you were saying?
	I mean, if I misunderstood your story, please correct me, but I thought you were saying to your parents, since I've become a mother, I've realized basically how terrible you guys are.
	Yes. So they would be enraged at your kids.
	Right. And you are used to complying.
	Yeah. You are used to complying.
	Sorry, that's not the right way to put it.
	My apologies. You were forced to mirror your parents' feelings.
	Yep. Yes.
	Right? If your parents were angry at your siblings, you hit them.
	Right. Or if you thought they might be.
	Yeah. So you are used to channeling your parents' rage against children.
	Mm-hmm. Follow?
	Yes, definitely I do.
	So that's what's happening with your kids, I think.
	Mm-hmm. Wait, we're mm-hmming again.
	Where are we? What's going on with your heart?
	I'm sorry.
	I can hear this giant whoosh as you leave the solar system.
	I'm just thinking of like, what do I do?
	But I know you always say people try to jump to the solution.
	Well, no, we don't even know if this is true yet.
	This is just a possibility.
	Right. But you are a lovely young lady and, you know, your commitment to peaceful parenting and what you've survived and the hellscape you came from massively to be admired.
	You love your children, obviously.
	Yes, yes. So how could you hate them?
	We don't just do opposite things, right?
	Yes. Yeah. So, there must be somebody else in your environment who is angry at and rejecting your children.
	It's not you. It's not your husband, right?
	He loves them too, right? Yes, definitely.
	He's not ambivalent, like, well, I do love those kids, but I could also throw them off the balcony.
	Like, he's not mad, right? No. Yeah, right.
	Of course not. Right.
	He just loves the kids, right?
	Mm-hmm. And listen, is there anyone around, anyone else around...
	Who might have a problem or be angry at your children.
	Hmm. Because you're challenging someone here.
	It's not you. No, I agree.
	In those moments, I don't feel like myself.
	I don't... No, like I said, I don't have those people in my life.
	I mean, it was only... In the last couple weeks that I got rid of, like, everyone else.
	I haven't spoken to my parents since February.
	And this isn't, like, a thing.
	The rage thing isn't, like, a daily thing.
	But, like, lately I feel like I've noticed it more.
	And that's been concerning.
	I don't... Yeah, it doesn't sound like there's anyone around who would even be angry at your kids.
	Obviously, it would be illegitimate because they're just little kids, right?
	Right, right. There's nobody else who would be angry, right?
	Right. So your parents have a story.
	They have to have a story, right?
	I mean, if they're narcissistic, as you say, I think that's what you said, with regards to your mom.
	So a narcissist, as you know, can't accept any responsibility.
	It can't ever be their fault.
	Oh, no. My dad is telling people that I stopped talking to him because he wouldn't get between me and my mom's issues.
	What? I don't understand that.
	Sorry, I should be more elegant than, excuse me, could you repeat, what?
	Like some washerwoman.
	No, what do you mean?
	The last time I talked to my parents, I asked my dad, like, why didn't you ever protect me against my mom?
	And then I guess I interrupted him, so he walked out of the room and never gave me an answer.
	And I guess my cousin told me that that's what he told her, why I don't talk to him anymore.
	Because they all were at a wedding.
	You would say, Dad, you didn't protect me for a mom, but he's saying he wouldn't come between you and your mom's issue.
	I don't quite understand. What's his justification, do you think?
	I think he's trying to say, like, I don't know what he's saying.
	Like, I don't know if he thinks I'm not talking to him because of that night, because he walked out of the room and wouldn't get between me and my mom.
	But that's not what I asked him.
	I asked him why he never protected me, like, in my childhood either.
	Because, you know, big-ass soldier boy is all kinds of tough when it comes to beating up three-year-olds, right?
	Yeah. I mean, he's a big, tough guy, right?
	Beats up three-year-olds like nobody's business.
	Beats up three-year-olds to the point, right?
	I cannot believe I forgot to tell you this.
	Okay, wait, there's more?
	Okay, hang on. Let me just assume.
	I'm putting on my helmet. I'm assuming the position.
	Go ahead. So when I was in middle school, I started visiting my biological dad in the summers.
	And I had adopted a dog during the school year, and I left my dog with my mom and dad during the summer when I went to see my biological dad.
	And I got a call one day saying that my parents took my dog back to the Humane Society because he was untrainable.
	And I was devastated because that was my dog.
	And I felt like they should have asked me about it first or had a talk.
	Well, a couple years ago, I was thinking about it and I was like, there's no way.
	My dad murdered him.
	So I asked my mom and she was like, you're going to have to ask your dad that question, but ask yourself what knowing the truth is going to change.
	So basically I knew the answer is yes from that.
	But your dad killed your dog.
	Yes. So I asked him anyway.
	And he admitted it.
	But his apology was super emotionless.
	And he said he did it because he was untrainable.
	And he took my dog out somewhere, shot him in the head, and buried him in his kennel.
	So... You kill those things that are untrainable.
	Right. Right.
	So you understand how chilling that is for a father of little children to say.
	Right. Definitely.
	Right. That's terrifying.
	Sorry about that. But this is what I say, like this sort of soul murder, this murder of the innocents, right?
	Yeah. Totally.
	But... I know you had talked about that another time.
	My husband had told me about that.
	Talking about why parents kill pets and stuff.
	That came back into my head.
	They lied to me about it for a decade.
	They would always tell me I was the reason why our relationship wasn't getting better.
	The whole time they had this lie.
	My mom said they would have lied to me my whole life if I never would have asked.
	She just admitted it.
	That's the straw that broke the camel's back.
	These people are not Like, good.
	Because they, like, apologized for the childhood stuff.
	So then I was like, oh, maybe they meant it.
	But, like, she just straight up admitted that she wouldn't have told me the truth and would have let me think that I'm the problem in the relationship.
	And, yeah. Right.
	Well, I'm sorry about all of that.
	And how old are you at that point?
	Like, 12 or 13.
	Like, middle school. Oh, and a time in particular when you're incredibly bonded to your pets.
	Yeah. Oh, yeah.
	I mean, my daughter, I love him.
	It's like crazy. Yes, he was.
	Yeah, he was my buddy.
	So you didn't find him untrainable?
	I mean, he would pee and poop in the house, but like he was not untrainable.
	He could have at least taken him back to the Humane Society.
	I don't understand the murdering aspect.
	Right. Right.
	I, you know, I'm fairly good at plumbing the depths of human immorality, but I hesitate before, you know, shoot your tween daughter's dog.
	I mean, I quail before that pit.
	Yeah. Alright, so let's get back to your kids, right?
	Yeah. So with people who are cruel, there's what they explain to others, and then there's how they explain it to each other and themselves.
	Right. Do they think that if your kids hadn't come into the picture, do they think you would still be the good little girl they raised, so to speak, obedient and at one with them?
	Yes, I would say so.
	Right. So they blame your kids for the problems.
	Right. That makes sense.
	Like, I've done everything basically the opposite of them since being pregnant.
	Right. They can't blame themselves.
	Yeah. They're not blaming you.
	They're not blaming your husband. Right.
	So, again, it can't be them.
	Now, when your father and mother had disagreements with toddlers, what happened?
	The toddlers got...
	They got beat.
	Yeah. Yeah, they got physically assaulted.
	Mm-hmm. Right.
	So there was great violence towards disobedient children when you were little.
	Yeah, absolutely. Great violence.
	Not theoretical violence.
	No. Like actual, inactive, brutal, sadistic, torturing violence.
	Yes. Towards little children.
	Now... In a sense, from your parents' view, are your children disagreeing with them?
	Yes. Right.
	So you are reacting in some ways to your children as if you were still at home and your brothers were pissing off your parents.
	Right. I mean, if I'm wrong, I'm wrong, but that to me would fit.
	No, that makes sense.
	Yeah. Like the protection thing, like...
	Protecting them from my parents by getting mad at them myself.
	I don't know how many layers we can go, but the top layer is children who disagree with their parents must be beaten to the point of becoming rageaholics, drunk addicts, Family separation, whatever.
	You beat the hell out of those children if they go against the will and wishes of the parents.
	Yeah. And your children took you away from your parents and turned you against your parents.
	Right. Yeah.
	So how would your parents feel about those children?
	They'd want to beat them.
	Well... Let's put it this way.
	If you, I'm not saying you ever would, but if you did drop off your three-year-old, who's been raised peacefully, if you dropped off your three-year-old with no preparation, with your parents, and your three-year-old was just doing his thing, speaking his mind with no fear of your parents and no desire to comply with them and to speak his mind and disagree wherever he saw fit, Which is what healthy, peacefully-parented kids will do, right?
	Yeah. How would your parents react?
	Not well. I don't think they would beat him because they'd never see us again.
	No, no. But they'd want to.
	Oh, yeah. Right.
	So, if your son were to disagree with your parents, they would want to beat him.
	Is that a fair thing to say?
	Yes. Right. And that makes me angry.
	I wouldn't say quite angry enough.
	I mean, I don't know.
	I know that that's not ever going to happen.
	Like, I don't know.
	Go on. What's never going to happen?
	He's never going to be at their house.
	Well, he doesn't have to be, in a way, because he's being exposed to their rage anyway.
	Right. As is your daughter.
	Right? Because it's coming through you.
	And I guess I'm giving myself the excuse of, like, I'm not hitting them.
	Oh, don't get me wrong.
	That's fantastic. That's not just an excuse.
	That's like, yay, good for you.
	Yeah, I know.
	But you don't want to have the feeling.
	The rage is still bad, too. Yeah, I don't want them to be scared or have to be like, what mood is mom in today?
	Yeah, I don't want to repeat that pattern.
	I just wasn't feeling sure how to stop it, but I never viewed it as like, My parents are mad at my children.
	I always felt like it was just my mom mad at me or my inner child or something.
	But that didn't ever feel quite right.
	See, I don't even know if I can swear in this conversation.
	You can? Why?
	You know, I don't want to shock you.
	I don't want you to faint, fall over, fall off the couch.
	I'm a Christian, but I pass.
	Okay, okay, just because I have a technique for myself.
	I don't know if this may help with you, it may not help with you.
	My technique is called the FOM, the F-O-M. F-O-M. Mm-hmm.
	Now, I wonder if you can unpack that acronym for me because I just talked about swearing and we've been talking about your mom.
	Oh, fuck our mom?
	Fuck off mom. Oh, fuck off mom, yeah.
	Right, so no, listen, like when I was a kid, you know how it is when you've got these weird, volatile, creepy, sadistic parents, if that's, you know, a fair way to characterize it, is that what happens is you do something wrong and you're terrified and you're panicked and right...
	You know, like I told this story about how I spilled some paint on a carpet, right?
	Or I left that cup of water on a cabinet, right?
	And there was a little splash of silver on the carpet.
	There was a little ring on the cabinet.
	And I was terrified.
	Literally terrified. It was like death threat time, right?
	Yeah. Yep. So, you know, my daughter, being a human being, you know, I can tell her to be careful with something and she drops it.
	Mm-hmm. Right? And it can be, I don't know, something that stains the carpet or something like that, right?
	Yeah. And so what happens, of course, it's inevitable, right?
	What happens is my inner mom rises up, right?
	Mm-hmm. And says, you've got to punish her.
	Right. Right?
	And what does the farm technique say?
	Fuck off, mom. Fuck off, mom.
	Fuck off. Yeah, that's good.
	Because, yep. Because you couldn't say that when you were a kid, right?
	Yeah. No. I mean, that'd be a one-way ticket to the outhouse and probably go down with your dog, right?
	Yeah. Oh, my gosh.
	Well, you can say that now in your mind, right?
	Mm-hmm. And it's an assertiveness.
	It is indicating... Because your inner mother and your inner father, stepdad, whatever, is there to protect you, right?
	Now, when I was a kid, I couldn't say, I couldn't use the farm technique out loud.
	Yeah. Because I was in mortal danger, right?
	Anytime that level of violence is used, there's two dangers, right?
	Physical injury. I mean, some belt is flying around, it could just catch you in the eye, right?
	The belt buckle. And you could be blinded, right?
	You could jerk back from someone hitting you, you could fall down the stairs, like anything can happen, right?
	You can stumble backwards, you can hit your head on the edge of a table, and then you're like brain dead or half brain dead for the next 30 years, right?
	Or 50 years or whatever, right?
	So really, really bad things.
	So you have to find a way to minimize the violence.
	So with...
	When you're a kid, you can't push back against your parents.
	But what you want to do, I think, I wouldn't say, what I needed to do was to remind myself I'm not a kid anymore.
	So I have to do things that are different from when I was a kid.
	Right? So when my mom, you know, like in that special way that selfish parents have where they're just, you know, they're in a bad mood, you know, they're just stalking around looking for something to bitch at, right?
	Yep. Right?
	Now, of course, I couldn't just use the farm technique back in the day.
	So when I would get that in my mind, I'd say, oh, fuck off, mom.
	Because I couldn't say that as a kid, but I can say that as an adult.
	I don't want to say it out loud because it'd be a little alarming to my kid, right?
	But in my head, right?
	Yeah. I can say that, right?
	Fuck off, mom. Like she spilled something.
	Who cares? Doesn't matter.
	No, yes. Yes. It doesn't matter.
	Like, things don't matter over people.
	We all understand that in the abstract realm.
	And it's funny to me that there's so many Christians who seem to value things over people, like lamps and carpets and cabinets and stuff like that.
	You drop the plates. You know, I'm going to threaten our bond because you dropped a plate that costs $3.99 at Home Depot.
	Oh, my gosh. Because that's the important stuff, you know, is those plates that cost $4 at Home Depot.
	That's the important thing. Not your children's hearts or your bond or your future or...
	You know, the happiness of your old age.
	No, those plates, man.
	So, I don't know.
	Maybe mine's a bit more of a dude approach.
	I don't know. But it's like, oh, fuck off.
	Oh, just fuck off.
	Shut up. I'll listen to you when we're in a situation of danger, but don't start creating situations of danger, right?
	Yes. Yes.
	Yes. I was never enlisted into aggressing against a younger sibling.
	Right. Now, that's not...
	I was just lucky.
	If I had been a middle sibling and there had been a younger sibling, then I would have been roped into that and I would have done it.
	Yeah. Because you have to comply or die.
	Right. Right? So I don't know if there's stuff in your heart and mind which is like That your anger towards your children also may be something to do if there's any sort of shame or leftover toxicity from being forced to aggress against your siblings when you were a kid.
	I mean, probably, yes.
	I never thought about it.
	But like, that does feel like that's probably like the missing piece, so to speak.
	Because like, The stuff with my mom, I feel like...
	It's like, okay, to deal with that, it's like this, but there's still this part of me that I'm having trouble with, but maybe it's that, because I never thought about it like that.
	Yeah, I do feel ashamed for that.
	And I was shamed by my parents for doing it, or I would get in trouble for punishing my siblings sometimes, too.
	It was... Sometimes they didn't care if I did it.
	Sometimes they did because, I don't know, maybe they wanted to do it themselves.
	But like, yeah.
	No, but I'm sorry.
	It depends on how cruel you think your parents are.
	I don't put much of a ceiling on their cruelty.
	But as far as them enlisting you into being, quote, a co-abuser, they may have enjoyed that.
	Putting you in that role.
	That might be part of their cruelty.
	Right. Oh, don't you hit her.
	Get the kid to do it.
	Don't you hit him.
	Get the kid to do it. Don't you scream at him.
	Get the kid to do it. Oh, yeah.
	I mean, that's probably sweet nectar to a sadistic soul, right?
	Right. Yeah. Yeah, that's disgusting.
	But true.
	Yeah. I mean, we certainly know that this can happen, right?
	The corruption of children.
	I mean, the number of stories I've heard from people who were like, oh yeah, my cousin introduced me to weed, or my stepdad introduced me to alcohol, or my, I don't know, creepy uncle introduced me to porn.
	The corruption of children is kind of the business of the evildoer, isn't it?
	Yeah, totally.
	For sure. How you deal with that is, I mean, I think it's just a recognition of the moral reality of the situation that you are no more guilty than a man who's kidnapped and forced to rob a bank.
	But you're not a thief. I mean, the law won't punish you.
	If you've got a guy behind you with a gun in your back and you say, I go rob a bank or whatever, you're not punished.
	Right. Because you're just responding to violence.
	You're just trying to survive in that situation.
	So there was no escape.
	You were a kid. Yeah.
	And there was great violence in the situation.
	And here's the thing, too. Like, if you hadn't aggressed against your siblings, then just...
	Okay, it's a couple of things.
	So first of all, I bet your siblings would much rather you hit them than your dad.
	Right. Right?
	So you were minimizing. The amount they were going to get hurt.
	Because you weren't going to beat them black and blue, right?
	No. Right.
	So you minimized that.
	And that helped them.
	And again, I'm unbelievably sorry that you were even put in this situation.
	But you were acting, I assume, in a manner that minimized the violence that they would undergo.
	Yes. Yeah, definitely.
	That's number one. Number two...
	It's that if you hadn't done it, not only would they have been hit more, but you would have been hit more too.
	Right. Yeah.
	Because they would have hit you and your brothers, right?
	Right, because we all would have been wrong.
	Yeah. Right. So you were acting in a truly honorable fashion to minimize the violence that you and your siblings were experiencing.
	You were acting as a martyr.
	Right. Do you follow?
	Yeah, I do.
	You were acting nobly, courageously, and to the benefit of all.
	Yeah. Can you swallow that in?
	Can you massage that into your skin?
	I'm trying. I don't yet have a meet you moment on the call here, but I've just been like...
	Thank you. Tell me if, I mean, morally, this would seem to me...
	Yeah. This would seem to me an entirely accurate view of the situation.
	You were a hostage and it's like either you beat them or I beat them.
	Now, if you beat them, you'll only hit them a little and you won't beat them black and blue.
	And also then you're reducing the trauma that your brothers experienced at two levels.
	Number one, They were getting hit less and less hard.
	And number two, they also didn't have the additional trauma of watching you get beaten up too.
	Right. Which would have happened if you hadn't disciplined them, right?
	And listen, I'm perfectly happy to hear an argument as to how there was something else you could have done
	that would have resulted in less violence against your siblings.
	But I can't think of one.
	No, I know. I do know.
	I've... Absolutely reduce the violence.
	To its minimum level.
	Like, looking back, with the advice and knowledge and independence you have now, is there anything that you would tell your younger self to do differently?
	I mean, no, I don't know.
	Like, I couldn't really do anything to keep everyone safe.
	You can't even do it now, right?
	Yeah, I couldn't tell her, oh, don't do that, because I did keep them safer.
	I know. And I've always known that.
	I guess I used to wear it like a badge of honor.
	I was the protector of my siblings.
	I know, but reconciling that with actually hitting your siblings is kind of tough, right?
	Yes, because I don't...
	You don't want to hit your siblings.
	That's not what you wake up in the morning to do.
	So you were their guardian angel.
	No, I know this sounds bizarre, but I really want you to try this on.
	Because if you can't go back and say, well, you should have done things differently, then you were their guardian angel.
	You reduced their beatings probably by 10 or 20 or 30 percent, both in terms of severity and prevalence, and maybe even more.
	I guess I'm just thinking like when you say that, it's like that's definitely not how they view me, but...
	I know that that's not like...
	Well, you know, I'm not...
	Highly dysfunctional people who are screaming abuse at you when you're trying to grow.
	Their opinions are not first and foremost in my mind.
	I'm looking at this from a sort of...
	Just a purely moral analysis standpoint.
	Right. Was there anything that you could have done that would have reduced...
	The violence that your brothers experienced or your siblings experienced, would you have done anything different?
	What could you have done? Now, I can't think of anything.
	No, like, I did it all.
	We've been talking for an hour and 40 or whatever, right?
	Yeah. I mean, it wasn't like if you didn't hit them, they wouldn't get hit, right?
	No, they would have been.
	Like, I did their chores for them so they wouldn't get hit.
	Like, I wouldn't just hit them.
	Like, I did try other stuff.
	Right. Yeah.
	Whatever you had to do to minimize their beatings, right?
	Yeah. I've stepped in between my parents and my siblings.
	Like, yeah. You are right.
	I was like a guardian angel.
	Can you really accept that?
	I mean, can you?
	I know it's a big thing to think about.
	No. Not like right now.
	I don't know. No, because, I mean, it's weird to look at feeling bad and realize you were doing maximum good.
	Yeah. And what a horrible situation it is to say, well, I hit children, and that's the very...
	I was their guardian angel.
	Do you know what I mean? Yeah, it's fucked up.
	Right. But the fucked up part is the parents and the environment and the whole culture and society, extended family, your teachers, priests, everyone who should have been protecting you guys.
	Yeah. Yeah. Child abuse is not a family thing.
	It's a social thing. It's a societal thing.
	It's a school thing. It's a church thing.
	It's an extended family thing.
	It's friends and parents.
	It's everything and everyone.
	Yeah, it is. Can you be proud of how you protected your siblings as a child?
	Yes. I can be.
	I just never thought about it the way you were saying.
	But I did do, like, the actual best I could.
	And I do feel proud that I, like, did what I could for them.
	No, no. It's not that you did what you could.
	What I had to do?
	You did everything you could.
	As far as I can see. Yeah.
	That's true. Yeah.
	I never wanted anyone to get beat.
	Yeah. I did do everything I could to prevent it.
	Right. Right.
	I mean, sometimes our immune system makes us feel like hell when it's protecting us, like heaven, right?
	Yeah. Yeah. So if you don't blame yourself, then your anger will be against the people who put you in that situation, which is not just your parents, but again, your extended family, your school, your church community, the priests, everybody who had exposure to you guys as kids, right?
	Right. Yeah.
	And I guess that's, I don't know what the word is, not the next layer, but kind of, of like what I've been thinking about like it isn't yeah like this isn't just like my parents thing I'm seeing how it is like my extended family and like you said definitely the church and my parents friends and school like yeah no one ever said anything well unfortunately they did say things Later on, right? Now that you're an adult and you're bringing all this stuff up and you're saying, here's how I was treated, here's how I was abused, and everyone's coming down on you, right?
	Yeah. And you're the bad person because you're failing to forgive, right?
	Yep. Oh, yeah. I've been told that so much and I need to have grace.
	Right. And my question is, did you ever say this to my parents when they were abusing me?
	Right. No. It's like, okay, then shut up.
	Right. That's not our place.
	You coward. You coward. Like, oh, you're so about forgiveness, but apparently it wasn't important for my parents to forgive me when I was four years old.
	But now it's totally important for me to forgive my parents.
	Like, don't even try. Don't even try.
	It's embarrassing to watch people try this nonsense, right?
	It is, yeah. All right.
	One last thing that I wanted to mention, though.
	Mm-hmm. If there's anything else you wanted to say on this subject, though, I don't want to yank away the conversation cord, so to speak.
	No, you're good.
	I'd like to hear what you have to say.
	Hubby, your husband?
	Yeah. Right.
	How has he been in this epic battle with the family of origin?
	Like... Like, with me?
	With you, with the family, with the whole situation?
	I mean, he hasn't spoken to my family of origin, but he's been supportive of me.
	What do you mean by supportive?
	Like, he would say things to me about my family, like that things weren't good or right, and I would get upset at him.
	Because I'd be like, well, I'm trying to, like, fix things with them.
	And he would say, like, okay, but, like, is their apology actually genuine?
	And I would get upset because, like, I'd realized that he was right, but I didn't want to accept it because I just desperately wanted everything to be okay with my parents because I still wanted a relationship with them.
	But... And, like, he introduced me to you, and that's helped a lot.
	Like, I guess just to see...
	Not just his viewpoint, I guess.
	When you had the plan to go and talk to your extended family about what was happening with
	your parents, what did your husband say about that plan?
	He said that I should do it if that's what I feel like.
	Oh, that's the problem. No, no.
	That's right there. That's it.
	That's it. Right there.
	Uh-oh. Oh, no.
	Oh, no. That's it.
	So why am I reacting to this so strongly?
	I don't know. Well, should I stick my hand into this whirring blender?
	Well, you know, if you feel that's the right thing to do, I'll support you in that.
	If you don't want to, I'll support you in that.
	Mm-hmm. What's wrong with that?
	Not being protective.
	Right. Right.
	Mm-hmm. So, if I were your husband...
	Mm-hmm. And you said, well, my parents are super abusive.
	I'm going to go and talk to my extended family and try and get their help and aid in this.
	What do you think I would say?
	Don't bother. Just get rid of them.
	Well, I don't think I would just say, like, don't bother.
	I'd be like, no, you're not.
	No, you're not doing that.
	You're not doing that. And then you'd say, you can't tell me what to do!
	Or whatever you'd say.
	And I understand that.
	But I would be like 150% like, oh no, no, you're not doing that.
	No, like, I love you. I'm not going to watch you put your hand in a blender.
	Like, no, you're not doing that.
	You've got a family. You've got kids.
	You cannot go racing around Hell's Half Acre trying to get sympathy and connection with a bunch of people who supported and ignored and colluded with your parents when you were being abused for 20 years as a child!
	Right? Right.
	Like, no! Yeah.
	No. That we're not going to do.
	I'm happy to talk about other things.
	Maybe I can go and talk to them, but not you.
	Right. Because they've already revealed for 20 plus years, 25 years, exactly who they are.
	Right. Yeah. So I'm not going to put you, I'm not at all going to let you get into a situation where you're going to get further hurt to no purpose.
	You know, maybe if we were dating or maybe if we were single or maybe if we were married without kids, but I've got to protect these kids.
	And what's going to happen if their mom goes around beating her head on this brick wall of a cold family structure?
	It's going to be at the expense of the kids, my kids, your kids.
	I'm here to protect you, but you're an adult.
	I absolutely have to speak up for the children.
	Let me ask you this. Do your children want you running around beating your head against the iceberg wall of a cold family about prior child abuse?
	No. Right.
	So who's looking out for the kids?
	I'm not saying neither of you are.
	You're wonderful parents, right?
	So I just want to be clear about that.
	But if I were your husband, I'd be like, well, no, you can't do that because we have kids.
	And it's negative for the kids, for you to stress yourself out and re-experience childhood trauma, particularly when you're breastfeeding!
	Right? Where do those stress hormones go?
	Yeah. Can't do it.
	It's not an option. It's not on the table.
	And it's like, you can't tell me what to do?
	Right! I agree.
	I'm not telling you what to do.
	I'm telling you what the children need.
	Right. And the children need a calm and happy mom.
	Right. And you're running off the cliff waiting for these cold zombie arms to catch you.
	Ain't giving them the calm and happy mom they deserve and need.
	So I'm not telling you what to do.
	I'm telling you what's best for the children.
	And because you love your children, you will do what's best for the children.
	So it's not personal.
	I'm just speaking for the kids because they can't speak for themselves.
	Does that make sense? Yeah.
	100%. So that's where your husband needs to be.
	Now, if he wants to call in...
	And needs me to, I don't know, inject some high T or T into his spine or something.
	But he's got to step up and not be passive.
	I'm not saying all he is is passive.
	I'm just saying in this situation, he has to protect you.
	And he has to protect his kids.
	And that means pulling you back from the edge of this cliff.
	In hindsight, was it a good idea to start trying to get sympathy and support from your extended family of origin?
	No. It was a bad idea.
	Yeah. Because they knew that there were problems, both in the past and now, and they weren't calling you, right?
	No. That's all you need to know.
	Now, if someone had called up, some aunt or uncle or cousin or whatever had called up and said, Oh, wow, you know, I've been hearing all this stuff.
	I'm really sorry. Tell me more.
	Okay, maybe, maybe.
	But they didn't even call, did they?
	No, they didn't. They didn't.
	And so you put yourself in another vulnerable position, begging for help and support from your extended family, and they shat on your seafood.
	Yeah. I don't know why that image came to me.
	I'm a little hungry, but you know where I'm coming from, right?
	Yeah. So your husband, and listen, there'll be times when you have to do this with your husband too, that's not a one-way street, but he needs to protect his wife, he needs to protect his kids, right?
	Yeah. And that means stopping you from doing things that are going to be harmful to your family, your real family, your chosen family, right?
	Yeah, yes. Now, if he had put his manly barrier between you and running off this cliff, you'd feel a lot less stressed.
	Because when you're in charge, well, first of all, nobody can be in charge of things with their own family of origin.
	We all need an outside eye for objectivity, right?
	Yeah. So if you're in charge of running things and your husband is just facilitating and being supportive and is like, nope, he's got to be a leader.
	Yeah. He's got to be a leader.
	And he's got to stand up for you, for your safety, for your security, for your mental health, and in particular for the kids.
	Mm-hmm. And that was my other sort of big major thing that I was thinking about over the course of our chat tonight.
	No, that was good.
	Yeah. I'm sure he's going to listen to this.
	Wouldn't it be great if he said, oh, I think I'm going to go see my extended family.
	He said, no, you're not.
	Yeah. That'd be a little shocking, right?
	Mm-hmm. It'd be a little shocking.
	Yeah. But to me, it's like if you have diabetes and you say, I think I'm going to have another piece of chocolate cake, and your husband says, no, you're not.
	Would you be like, well, you can't tell me what to do.
	It's like, no, I'm just telling you how to stay alive.
	I'm telling you what the diabetes needs you to do, which is to not have another piece of chocolate cake.
	Right. Yep. I'm not bullying you.
	I'm stating some facts, right?
	I'm not asking you to bow to my opinion.
	I'm asking you to bow to objective reality.
	The extended family had already revealed exactly where their loyalties were going to lie, right?
	Yeah. And you running around trying to get the support was just another recipe.
	To be harmed, rejected, ostracized, and I wouldn't say quite abused, but harmed, right?
	Yeah. So, yeah.
	He's got to step it up, because, you know...
	God help men who...
	I just want to be supportive.
	It's like... Please!
	Being supportive. You have no opinions on the matter?
	Hey, if my wife wants to go north, I'll go north.
	If she wants to go south, I'll be supportive.
	It's like, you have no opinions on the matter?
	Come on! Help her!
	Yeah. Yeah.
	Now, of course, I'm sure that if I talk to him, again, I'd be happy to.
	I'm sure that... Right.
	Yeah. That's true.
	If your husband's like, hey, I think I'm going to rob a bank.
	You're like, no, you're not. Well, you've got to tell me what to do.
	I'm not telling you what to do.
	I'm telling you you're not going to rob a bank because it's ridiculous and wrong.
	Right. What you want to do is own a bank and rob everyone else like the way the system works now.
	Right, exactly. So that, I think, is probably another reason why you're feeling a little emotionally raw is that you don't have a nice...
	Motive masculinity around you that's keeping you safe from what your parents want you to do.
	Because it wasn't you who wanted to go to your extended family.
	It was your parents who wanted you to go to your extended family in the same way that I think it's your parents who want you to get angry at your own children.
	Right. Because if you run to your extended family, your parents get to see you crash into this wall and stagger back bleeding and do it ten times in a row, which may satisfy their cruelty.
	I don't know. Yeah, right.
	That's true. And so...
	Your husband needs to be like, well, no.
	No, you're not doing that.
	I'm pregnant. I'm going skydiving.
	No, you're not. Don't you tell me what to do.
	No, you're not going skydiving.
	Right. Oh my gosh, yes.
	Do you see what I mean? Yes, I do 100%.
	Sorry, I know I'm beating the bush here, so to speak.
	Yeah, not to interrupt you, but my daughter just woke up.
	Listen, that's totally fine.
	That's the last big thing that I wanted to get across.
	So just before we go, I know you've got to go.
	Useful convo. Will you keep me posted?
	You know the usual outro. Yes, absolutely.
	It's very helpful. I'll keep you posted.
	Thank you so much. You're welcome to chat with your husband anytime.
	Take care. Bye! Okay, thank you.
	Bye. Okay, so, yes, how was it for you listening to your wife's call?
	Yeah, so it was...
	Pretty eye-opening in a lot of places.
	Stuff that I had never thought about.
	And, you know, we have a lot of conversations about the sort of stuff you guys were talking about.
	And we do get to good, productive places, I feel like.
	But the reason I, you know, encouraged her into calling you was because basically we hadn't made any headway in particular areas, namely the...
	The issues of anger in the night and so on.
	And so, yeah. And what was the most surprising thing for you?
	I guess it would be when you pointed out that her parents are more upset with our children rather than her.
	Go on. Well, basically, like, I don't know, like, how are you going to be mad at a kid, let alone your own grandkid, you know?
	It just doesn't really, it didn't really add up for me until you sort of laid it out the other day.
	Right, right. And so tell me a little bit about your, I guess, your history with their family, your history with your wife's family first, if that's all right.
	Okay. So yeah, my wife told you a little bit about how we met the other day.
	So yeah, we started going out in college and I didn't meet her family until about the next Christmas, actually.
	So that was the first time.
	And right from the get-go, there were some red flags that I put aside or basically ignored.
	One of which was her dad was extremely standoffish to me.
	And on some level, I rationalized that as like, okay, yeah, your daughter's bringing home this guy for the first time.
	It's a little uncomfortable, I get that.
	But it was very... Sorry, why is that causal?
	I mean, if your daughter...
	I mean, it wasn't like she was 14, right?
	So why is it causal that the dad is going to be standoffish if his daughter brings a guy home?
	Over. Um...
	Well, it wasn't just bringing me over.
	It was like I was actually staying with them for a week.
	Oh, first time you met them for a week.
	Yes. Yeah.
	I'm so sorry. Your voice keeps breaking up.
	Are you far from data or something?
	I don't believe so.
	It says I'm looking good here.
	Okay, we'll just keep going.
	So, yeah, first time, you stayed for a week?
	What the heck? Like, what's up with that?
	That seems like an odd decision.
	Yeah, I guess it was just, I thought their parents were cool with it or something, which, I don't know, I guess her mom was cool with it.
	You thought that the Christian army family was totally cool with all this?
	Yep. Yeah, I'm not going to mince words.
	Yeah, I did. Okay.
	And they invited you, or how did it come about that you stayed for a week?
	You know, I'm not sure exactly on the specifics of that, but it seemed to be mutual from what I understood.
	She obviously asked her parents first if she could, and then they allowed that.
	Interesting. And how long had you guys been going out at this point?
	Let's see. We started going out in January of that year, so by Christmas, almost a year.
	Okay. All right. And I mean, I guess you were all pretty serious at this point, right?
	Like heading to marriage, is that right?
	Oh yeah, we did sit down and talk about what we wanted pretty early on in the relationship.
	Actually, we texted about it before we even met about a lot of the stuff that we wanted.
	So that was sort of encouraging.
	And what did you think about going over to stay with them, I guess in their house, for a week the first time you met them?
	At the time, I did not think much of it.
	In hindsight, obviously, I wouldn't do that again.
	But also just knowing who they are, I wouldn't do that again.
	I guess I wasn't fully as comfortable with it as I thought, even at the time.
	Sorry, did your parents...
	I mean, I assumed you talked to your parents about this situation, and what did they say
	about it?
	I mentioned it pretty much in passing to them separately, because they're divorced.
	They've been divorced for a while.
	You mentioned it in passing.
	Yes. I'm sorry, and when I sound astounded, this is in no way critical.
	Like, what the hell do you mean?
	I don't mean that at all.
	I'm just like, it's a little, you know, you're meeting the family that you all blend a family together, right?
	I mean, that was the plan at the time, I assume, something like that, right?
	Yeah, that was the plan.
	So, you're mentioning to your parents that you're going to meet the family that you all could end up blending together...
	And you just tossed this in passing?
	Help me understand that.
	It's a little jaw-dropping to me, a little bit.
	Well, okay, let me clarify that a bit.
	It wasn't so much that I said it in passing, but it was more taken in passing, as in it didn't spark any sort of prolonged conversation about it.
	Really? Yeah. Are your parents currently stuck in a wing of the International Space Station?
	Is there some reason that...
	Was it $400 a second to talk to them?
	Why on earth wouldn't they be more involved in the family that you're going to merge them together with?
	I guess that's a question you could help me answer today, maybe.
	Excellent! Yeah, it's like...
	We're going to get into it about my family, but they gave me a lot of propaganda growing up about how important family is.
	But as you can tell just by what I'm telling you now, that kind of went by the wayside, I guess, when it came to my future wife's family.
	Well, I'm so sorry.
	It kind of went by the wayside when they got their asses divorced, didn't it?
	Oh, well, yeah, that too.
	Alright, so let's do that because that seems to be a good place to start.
	So, you and your family.
	What's the story? How far back should I go?
	Well, my family is very small compared to my wife's family who's like probably ten times the size.
	But they are all...
	Pretty toxic people, I'd say.
	I don't currently have them in my life anymore.
	Basically, my mother is quite narcissistic and the best way I could put it is she's, based on how you've described your mother's stuff, like, she lines up pretty well with that besides the physical stuff.
	Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. I really am.
	Gosh, that's terrible. But go on.
	As for my father, he was...
	I guess I'll say emotionally neglectful.
	I did get physical punishment from him when my mother demanded it of him.
	Even though when he actually doled it out, she would feign, like, caring about me and, like, you're going too far with him.
	So, yeah, I know I said he's neglectful, but then he did, like, punish me physically.
	Like, I guess that's kind of a contradiction, but...
	The neglect part, I suppose, comes later on, if you want me to touch on that more.
	Well, neglect and violence often go hand in hand.
	Like, if you're close with your kids, you won't hit them, right?
	Because you're close to them, and they'll listen to you, and it's mutual, and so the more that you are distant, the more you tend to rely on violence.
	So, I mean, those two, to me, are not opposites, if that makes sense.
	Okay, yeah. Yeah, that makes sense.
	Sorry, I interrupted you, though.
	I was getting... Oh, sorry.
	Do you want me to go ahead, then?
	Yes, please. Yeah, I was just saying, I was thinking about it more in terms of, like, if you're hitting a child, you are giving them attention.
	So, yeah, that's where my confusion came from.
	Right, right. Sorry, I didn't want to interrupt if you wanted to keep going, because it's your life, so I'm not sure what to ask yet.
	Right. Okay.
	I have one older sister who's about four and a half years older.
	So, partially because of that age difference, we didn't really connect much, or bond much, rather.
	We did have fun times together, but...
	Besides, like, just superficial stuff, we never established any sort of real bond.
	And she had actually ended up going down...
	I don't want to make this sound passive.
	She ended up doing drugs and getting hooked on all sorts of stuff, basically.
	Alcoholism was the primary one.
	And I guess in relation to my parents, they are also both alcoholics as well.
	Yeah, it took me a while to realize that, though, because while with my mom it was more overt, but with my dad it was more covert.
	That's to say...
	They call a functional alcoholic.
	Yeah. Or a closet drinker is what my mom would literally tell me, but I didn't believe her at the time.
	So, yeah, and then my mom, basically from, as far as I can remember, from the age of like seven onwards, every Friday night she'd have two glasses of wine, which she would always say to me as though it was downplaying it.
	But... She would pretty much go ballistic after that.
	She would target me, my dad, and my sister for whatever grievances she had.
	So Friday nights were not fun.
	Other kids probably had really great Friday nights growing up.
	Nope. Well, I'm just doing the research on child abuse prevalence for the book, and I think I can safely say there weren't a huge amount of kids who were having a fun Friday night, if that makes you feel any better.
	Better and not better, because I wouldn't wish that on anyone else.
	So how much would she drink on one of these occasions?
	Yeah, so like I said, starting off from the age of seven onwards...
	Me being seven. She would drink about two glasses of wine a night.
	Red wine. And then my...
	That persisted for eight or so years because by the time I was 15 they were in the midst of a divorce.
	And so she ended up getting majority custody over me.
	And... Basically, from that point onward, she would be drinking like probably two or three bottles a week.
	Wow. It's also surprising that she would get majority custody even with these drinking problems, but maybe that didn't come up.
	Yeah, I guess it didn't.
	It must have not come up, really.
	But... Yeah, as for my dad, I ended up moving in with him later on, I think after I turned 18, because I could.
	And I always viewed him as the lesser evil.
	Although, I mean, I really didn't even view him as evil for a long time after moving in with him, just because of how horrible my mom was.
	But over time, it became clear to me, like...
	Wow, now that I'm an adult, my dad is openly having all these beers in the fridge and he's drinking wine and stuff.
	That's kind of weird.
	I don't know, it changed my whole perspective of him because growing up, we were also a Christian family growing up.
	So he was very stern about not having alcohol in the house.
	He had had issues earlier in life.
	He was stern about not having alcohol in the house, but they were both alcoholics.
	Okay, yeah, you got me there.
	No, I'm not trying to get you.
	I'm just trying to understand this rather astounding situation.
	So they're both committed teetotalers who are drinking at home.
	Yeah, I'm sort of jumbling my thoughts right now.
	Give me a second. No problem.
	He... He never drank in front of us for the first 18 years of my life, basically.
	I never saw him even think about getting a drink.
	But yes, my mom would have the wine, so it was in the house.
	And your mother was also committed teetotaler or against alcohol?
	Nope. Oh, just your dad?
	Yeah. Okay, got it.
	Do you know what happened that they got divorced?
	Was there any sort of precipitating incident?
	Yes, my dad cheated on her.
	Basically, he traveled a lot for work, especially in my teenage years, and he had met a woman At his same company, years prior to the divorce, actually. Like, I think three or four years, maybe.
	Yeah. And so one day when I was, you know, 15, my mom found the receipts of his conversations with her.
	And it kind of just spiraled from there.
	And do you know, had it been a long affair?
	In terms of when they actually became intimate, no, I'm not clear on that.
	And do you know if they tried to work it out and failed, or just didn't try?
	Sorry, my mom and dad?
	Yes. My dad says that he wouldn't have gotten divorced if it were up to him, but my mom was pretty...
	Not pretty. She was extremely adamant about getting divorced and taking him for all he's worth.
	Oh, so really combative and vicious, the divorce process?
	Oh, yeah.
	I remember there was weeks of, I don't know what it's called, arbitration about just who's getting a vacuum.
	It was bad.
	I almost... They almost called me in to, I don't know, talk about it from what I've been told, but that never actually happened.
	Wow. Okay.
	Did your father ever talk about...
	I don't know whether it's right or wrong.
	I'm just curious. Did your father ever talk about...
	Why he had the affair?
	Like, did he say, well, you know, your mom and I, like, we didn't have any affection, or did he ever talk about why he ended up having the affair?
	You know, he never gave me any of those reasons, but I sort of gave them to him myself, to cut to, I don't know, to, like, justify it, because I just hated my mom so much.
	And I was like, yeah, I get why you cheated.
	Right. And did you see your parents, were they affectionate at all with each other?
	Did they have any of that, or was it a pretty cold marriage?
	Never in my lifetime.
	Maybe in my sister's, but she hasn't said anything.
	Okay. No affection, yeah.
	Right. And was the divorce process like a year or two?
	A few years at least, like five maybe.
	Yeah, five years.
	I'm not sure when it was finalized actually, but it was ongoing.
	Yeah, I mean, that's almost like trying to kill someone through stress.
	I was working with a guy once who was going through a brutal divorce, and it was just horrible on his health, right?
	Oh yeah, for sure.
	I don't know. My dad sort of took on the persona of this bachelor, right?
	Even though he was about your age when it happened, actually.
	But yeah, that also rubbed me the wrong way as well.
	What do you mean? Uh, well, he stayed with the woman who he cheated on my mom with.
	Like, he's still currently with her.
	But, like, when I say bachelor, I don't mean he was, like, going around to different women.
	I just mean, like, it was more so in his demeanor and the way he lived.
	Like, it sort of went...
	He sort of had a midlife crisis.
	He did the stereotypical thing of buying a motorcycle.
	He just started acting like more of a teenager, I guess.
	Do you know why that happens to men?
	Generally, dissatisfaction in life.
	No, not particularly.
	I mean, it's a very sort of broad term.
	So, I mean, just so you know, why men do that is that they have been in a relationship where they have not progressed at all emotionally, right?
	So, if you have to go and pick up three important things, right, and you go to the depot, you pick up two of them, and then on the way home, you're like, oh, man, I forgot the third one, and it's really important.
	You turn around and you go back, right, because you left something behind?
	Mm-hmm. So, that's the same thing with a midlife crisis.
	In a midlife crisis, a man, it can happen to women too, but what happens is a man has been emotionally stunted, usually through trauma, for decades, and then when that trauma is lifted, he has to go back and start from where he got stuck.
	Okay. Does that sort of make any...
	So, I mean, if he got married to your mom in his 20s, then...
	He would go back and there was no emotional progress or growth.
	He was just in trauma mode or fight, flight or freeze mode.
	Then when that trauma is lifted and the relationship is over, then he has to go back and start from where he was.
	If you take the wrong path in the woods, you have to go back so you can take the right path.
	So your dad would have to go back and start growing from where he was stunted, if that makes sense.
	Right, right. If it helps contextually at all, he has told me that the reason he got with my mom was because he felt pressured by his family.
	Or I'm sorry, his exact words were that he felt that it was expected of him.
	But I would imagine he did feel pressure to do that.
	To marry...
	Sorry, who gave him pressure and why?
	Oh, he said it was...
	He felt like his family was expecting him to just get married at the age he was because he was in his mid-30s, I believe, mid-30s.
	Oh, it was his mid-30s when he got married?
	Yeah. Do you know what he did before that?
	In terms of relationships?
	Yeah. He...
	I guess he was the pretty boy from what my mom told me, because she's about eight years younger than him, but she saw him going through high school, I guess, and that he got around, so to speak.
	Yeah, so he was a player?
	Yeah. Okay.
	With a motorcycle.
	Yeah, so he had all these kinds of girls to choose from, didn't he?
	Yes, sir. Oh, just a buffet!
	And I choose the one thing that's furry with half an eyeball.
	Oh, dear. That's kind of tragic, right?
	Hey, man, that's my mom you're talking about.
	Yeah, I know. I know.
	I know. Huh.
	All right. All right.
	So, why did he choose your mom?
	Why did he choose her?
	Yeah. Well...
	She was pretty!
	Yeah, that's pretty much it.
	That's all I could really gather from him.
	Right. Okay.
	So, and how long were they married for?
	25 years.
	Wow. That was a long, long era.
	Yeah, especially for me, yeah.
	And was there a time when they were younger when they got along, do you remember?
	Yeah. Uh, they would get along when doing...
	When doing sort of, like, work around the house, I guess?
	Or... Well, that's not true, because they really had it out over wallpaper this one time.
	But, uh... I guess, like, my mom started her own business at one point, and so they seemed to get along at least as, like...
	Uh...
	Platonic co-worker kind of thing, like mutual respect in that area.
	But other than that, I can't think of a...
	Okay, just out of curiosity, what was your mother's business?
	So, well, prior to her business, she had been working basically as a...
	How do I describe it?
	She operated a laser engraving machine, so that...
	It's like a sort of artistic thing, an artistic passion she had for that.
	And so she took those skills and she bought her own machine and started doing that herself.
	Right. And was it largely self-sufficient?
	Did she need your dad or you guys' help?
	I'm sorry, I don't mean to sound skeptical, and she could very much be the exception to the rule, but the number of people I've talked to over the years who are like, my mom had a business, and when you sort of pick into it, it's like, no, she didn't.
	She had free labor. She didn't make much success of it.
	It was just like a hobby that was expensive and time-consuming for everyone in the family.
	She had to get her husband to do her website and marketing materials, and she got her sons to work for free.
	It wasn't a real business.
	Now, again, your mom could be very much the exception to that, but I've heard that enough times that I think it's worth asking.
	No, you're pretty spot on.
	She didn't require as much from me personally, but my dad definitely.
	He was... He was the engine behind the whole thing, really.
	Yeah, his business skills and all of that and what made it work.
	Oh yeah, and just a general comment.
	Guys, don't subsidize this nonsense.
	I mean, maybe your wife is a brilliant businesswoman and maybe she can make it all work and all of that's great.
	But you know what happens is the women are like, I want to do this!
	And they have these visions of themselves being some mogul or entrepreneur or something like that.
	And then it turns out that they just whine and nag and complain and get everyone else to do the damn work.
	And then if you don't want to do the damn work, what do they say?
	You're not being supportive.
	Why aren't you supporting my dreams?
	I supported your dreams.
	It's like... Yeah, but my dreams work.
	So, yeah, I've known families where the wife is a very good entrepreneur and it's worked out really well, but for the most part, I would say like nine times out of ten, it's just a dumb vanity project that she just ends up using to bully other people.
	But, you know, it could be different, but you're saying not so much in this case, right?
	Yeah, I mean... It's like she kind of started it on a whim, almost.
	I mean, she had the skills, obviously, but, like, my dad has told me she would never go to any, like, business seminars or classes that he encouraged her to go to, but, yeah.
	Yeah, and there's a lot of people who think that just because you can do something, you can be, I can program, I can be an entrepreneur.
	It's like programming, if you want to be an entrepreneur as a programmer, or I guess doing this laser engraving, knowing how to do it is maybe 10%.
	It's maybe 10% of what you need to do.
	Right. And everybody wants to stick at that 10%, and then everyone else gets sucked into having to do the 90%.
	Yep, I hear you.
	All right. Just checking.
	And that doesn't help either as far as the marriage goes, right?
	Because the husband just gets resentful.
	He'll feel bullied. And then he's got two jobs.
	He's got his job and then he's got being a consultant to my wife's dreary non-business.
	And that's no fun.
	Oh, yeah, that's true.
	Two jobs on top of parenting.
	But I mean, I guess I was a teenager by that point, but still, yeah.
	All right. Okay, okay, okay.
	And how you said that you're not in contact with your parents.
	And I'm sorry to hear about that. I mean, I understand it.
	And, you know, I'm not going to be anybody who criticizes you for that.
	You know, I fully accept that that's something that could be healthy and all of that.
	Was there something in particular that happened, I guess, that caused that rift?
	I guess I'll start with my mom then.
	You know, like I had described to you, she's kind of similar to your own mother in terms of the emotional stuff and verbal abuse as well, lots of that.
	But beyond that, I guess, it was a very emotionally incestuous relationship.
	And what I mean by that is she, you know, put me in the place, the emotional place of my dad and expected me to, you know, take care of her in that way, like emotionally.
	So you become like little Lord Confidant and here are all the problems that mommy's having and you got to listen and you're like, I would rather eat my own eyeball with a spork than continue this conversation, like that kind of stuff.
	Yeah, I mean, we'd have it out all the time, like fighting, but ultimately I had to soothe her in order to feel safe myself, really.
	Right, right.
	And what was your dating life like in your teens?
	In my teens?
	Non-existent until I met my wife.
	The only other...
	It wasn't even a relationship.
	I had a week-long thing with this girl in middle school, but it didn't amount to anything more than sitting at the same lunch table.
	Yeah, I think we can safety discount that one as a whole.
	Right. Yeah, no.
	I... Yeah, no.
	Nothing else, actually.
	And did your parents ever talk to you about, well, you don't really know how to date or what's happening or anything like that?
	Did they give any of that?
	No, I What I got from my mom was basically just
	Just promise me you won't have sex, you know on the first date
	And then from my dad, by that time, it was not excusing him, but as we just talked about, he sort of reverted back to his teenage self almost, like I was saying, and he didn't put in any effort into teaching me things from that point on, especially in terms of relationships, because what is the cheating dad going to say about relationships?
	Yeah. Well, I mean, one of the things – I was sort of talking about this with a friend of mine the other day.
	One of the things that men do is if we screw up, a lot of times we'll say, well, I screwed up and I hope that you can learn from my mistakes, right?
	Whereas a lot of women just kind of double down on it and justify it and all that kind of stuff.
	So he could have said, listen, man, whatever you do, don't choose just based on looks and here's the qualities to look for and I made these mistakes so that you don't have to, that kind of stuff.
	I mean, I guess he could have said that if he wasn't still, I guess, fornicating, for lack of a better term.
	Well, hang on. But if he was staying with the woman that he had the affair with, it's not quite fornicating, is it?
	Well, they are still, I guess if we're going by religious definitions, they're still unmarried.
	Right, right, right. Yeah, no, I get that.
	But it's not like he's totally sleeping around.
	Right, yeah. Okay.
	But I fully understand it's fornication because it's not officially divorced, they're not officially married, and so on.
	But it's not quite the same as...
	I mean, because I'm comparing that to what he was doing in his teens and 20s, which I assume is just sleeping with everything, right?
	Oh, yeah. Well, I just brought it up because he, to this day, still claims to be a great Christian.
	So I figured I'd hold him to that.
	Right. Well, I guess he's got the humility part down, Pat, and you've got to admire him for that.
	I'm a great Christian!
	It's like, you know, by saying that, you've just completely discredited.
	Anyway, okay. We don't have to get into deep theology, but it just seems kind of funny to me.
	Yeah, no, I got you.
	All right. So then you meet this...
	A girl and the woman that you're married to that I talked to.
	And how long have you guys been together?
	Been together seven years, married for four at the end of this month.
	Congratulations. Thank you.
	And when did you separate from your family of origin?
	This is harder to talk about because I did end up introducing her to a lot of my family.
	Thank you.
	I didn't separate until...
	Sorry, why is that hard to talk about?
	I feel guilty about it.
	Why do you feel guilty about it?
	Because... They are...
	Because of the effect it had on her.
	On your wife?
	Yes. My mom in particular, she would...
	When I moved out, it was after she had started saying things to my then-girlfriend, directly criticizing her because of the decisions that I was making.
	And so at that point I said, I'm packing up, let's get out of here.
	I'm going to my dad's house.
	Okay. I'm still not sure why.
	I'm not saying whether you should or shouldn't feel bad about it.
	I don't know. I'm just curious as to what your thoughts are that you feel guilty about your girlfriend or your wife meeting your family of origin.
	I mean, I know it's kind of an expected thing to do, but still, I knew how bad they were.
	Well, hang on.
	Sorry, empirically you didn't.
	Right? No, empirically you didn't.
	Right? Because otherwise you wouldn't have made that decision.
	You had some hope of reform, some hope of change.
	Maybe they could grow when they saw you in love with a woman.
	Maybe it would touch their heart.
	I'm sorry to be annoying, but I am an empiricist, so I judge people's beliefs by what they do.
	And so you must have had some kind of hope or some kind of belief that it wouldn't be necessary when this happened.
	Otherwise, you wouldn't have done it. If you had known, absolutely, that it was really destructive, it was going to harm your wife, break your heart, be destructive all around...
	Then you wouldn't do it, right?
	So you didn't know that for sure at that point, right?
	I guess that's a good point.
	My mindset during the time was less about changing them, but more about me wanting my family of origin to be happy for me.
	Right. Right, right.
	No, listen, and it's a big question, and I don't have a massive answer for it.
	And the big question is, what do we do before we know?
	Like, what do we do before we know?
	Right, so you were in a situation where you didn't know something, at least not all the way.
	Does that sort of make sense? Well, yeah, but I was an adult at the time.
	I was 18... Oh, brother, you've got to be kidding me.
	I was 18?
	I take it back, I take it back.
	You were 18? Well, legally, I had become an adult, and therefore, I'm 100% responsible for that, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Like, please, brother, come on.
	I mean, I'm a fairly smart guy.
	I was like, I don't know, twice your age before I did that.
	So, you may have standards that are a smidge unrealistic when it comes to the development of wisdom and independence.
	Plus, it's not like in our culture people say, oh yeah, if your parents are relentlessly abusive, you don't have to see them.
	Everyone says pretty much the opposite, right?
	Sorry, can you repeat that?
	Well, so, if you are a...
	Let's say you were a girl, a young woman...
	And you were in a relationship with a guy who was abusive, right?
	Yeah. What does the culture say that you should do?
	Oh, get out and...
	Yeah, yeah. Be yourself.
	Get out. There's all the support.
	Everyone applauds you. It's a good thing, right?
	Now, in our culture as a whole, how does our culture treat people, adults, who want to not see abusive parents?
	Right. How do they treat adults who don't want to see abusive parents?
	It's pretty scorned.
	Yeah, it's bad. It's negative.
	You're wrong.
	You've got to forgive. You've got to be the bigger person.
	They did the best they could with the knowledge they had.
	You have to be understanding.
	All of this stuff, right?
	Yeah. All of this stuff.
	So you're 18.
	There's no cultural support for anything that you're doing.
	There's no particular knowledge about it at all.
	But you should have just known all of this Yeah
	Like I still feel bad about it though like Like, is that wrong?
	Like, I still feel like I did the wrong thing for introducing her.
	Well, I can tell you why you feel that.
	It's completely unfair and unjust.
	I hope you understand that.
	Right? At the age of 18 you should have had a massive philosophical journey that humanity over a hundred thousand
	years has barely even started.
	No, I mean, you're asking someone to have an immense journey.
	And not only as our community or our culture as a whole, not only has it not started that journey, it's actively going in the opposite direction.
	Right? So the reason why, I mean, I can tell you, and sorry, how long have you listened to this show as a whole for?
	Let's see. It was right before Trump announced his candidacy the first time.
	Okay, so a while. Now, the reason why you're so harsh with yourself, and can we at least, I'm not saying it's going to change your feelings immediately, but can you at least understand that it's quite a lot to expect, that level of strength and wisdom and integrity from a traumatized 18-year-old?
	Yes, I do. Like, we can agree with that, right?
	Yeah. Okay, so it's harsh, right?
	So the reason why you're harsh with yourself is because having grown up with two rank hypocrites,
	you're terrified about a lack of accountability.
	Yeah, and that's...
	Because your parents lied to you, lied to themselves, lied to everyone, and they did not hold themselves at all accountable.
	So you, my friend, have gone opposite swing, right?
	You've got... You're like tar-sanding yourself all over the jungle here.
	It's just like, I'll be damned if I will ever not hold myself accountable to my standards, to any state, because my parents never held themselves accountable.
	Look how bad that is, right? Right.
	Yeah, that's true. Okay.
	Right. And I sympathize with that.
	But you don't want to go from one extreme to another, right?
	Yeah. No, I don't.
	I mean, it's not. Because then you're taking their laxness and turning it into incredible harshness, right?
	Right. And you don't want to go from laxness to harshness because that's just another kind of abuse.
	Right. Or maybe you're like, well, my parents were both alcoholics, so I never ever want to touch alcohol or something like that.
	Look, I can understand that.
	I can understand that.
	But you don't need to touch alcohol.
	But you need to have a relationship with yourself where you don't get really harsh with yourself for not being omniscient.
	Right? For not being omniscient.
	Yeah. I guess I didn't see it as being omniscient.
	Yeah. It's just that standard.
	I held 2i for myself.
	I don't know. Well, okay.
	Let me ask you this. Your wife is sort of roughly your age?
	Yeah. She's a few months behind me.
	Okay. So wait a minute, man.
	She was 18 as well, right?
	Yes. So, she should have known this too!
	I see. Oh, wait, but do you forgive her for not knowing?
	I mean, she should have saved you!
	And said, are you kidding me?
	Of course I'm not going to see this family.
	They were mean to you, your father hit you, and your mother instigated it, and blah, right?
	So, wait, how is it that's possible?
	I mean, do you blame and attack your wife for this massive lapse in moral integrity?
	So, the running theme with me and how I view her and her family is like...
	No, no, this is her and your family.
	We'll get to her family.
	But you're mad because you introduced...
	You're mad at yourself because at 18 you introduced your wife to your family.
	But if everyone's supposed to know that you don't introduce spouses to abusive families or girlfriends to abusive families, then she should have known that too and you should be equally mad at her.
	How could you let me do this?
	I'm mad at myself and I'm mad at you.
	Are you mad at her for even coming along and not telling you, my God, I'm not coming?
	They're abusive to you.
	Uh... No, I don't think I've ever actually been mad at her about that, even when I found out just how bad they were.
	Well, wait a minute. Wait a minute here.
	How can you be mad at yourself for not knowing something, but not even think about being mad at your wife for not knowing exactly the same thing?
	I mean, you can't be a ranked relativist, can you?
	Like, it's bad for you, but it's totally fine for her, even though the circumstances are the same?
	Are you alluding to some kind of gender thing?
	I don't know what it is, but it definitely isn't universal ethics.
	Right.
	Because she gets a total get out of jail free card. In fact, you know, if she came and, if your wife came to you and
	said, I can't believe how terrible I was to even meet your family
	when I was 18. I can't believe I didn't talk you out of it.
	I'm so mad at myself. I didn't hold, I didn't live up to my standards. What would you say to her?
	You gotta be easier on yourself.
	No, that can't be right.
	Because you're 18, you gotta be omniscient.
	You gotta know all these moral things, brother.
	The excuse I give is that I was listening to you at the time, so I knew better.
	But yeah, no, I see what you're saying.
	Right. I'm not going to keep making that excuse.
	Did you share your thoughts, or that you were learning about philosophy, did you share those with her?
	Incrementally. Right, okay.
	It was a slow process.
	Right. So at some point she heard about, you know, you don't have to spend time with abusive people even if they're parents, right?
	Yes. Oh, yeah, I mean, pretty much a couple years into our relationship, or even sooner than that, yeah.
	And did she immediately act upon that and liberate herself and help you?
	Or did it take a little while for that knowledge to sink in to be tested, to be thought about, to be evaluated?
	Well, yeah, I'd say she helped me, but it didn't go so far as to include her family yet.
	Oh, okay. So then she, even though she was older than you and had the knowledge, didn't apply these standards to her family, right?
	Oh, sorry, younger than me, but yes.
	No, you said it was a couple of years into the relationship.
	I know she's a couple of months younger than you, but you at 18 are mad at yourself for not acting perfectly in this manner.
	But she, in her early to mid-20s, was also not acting on this manner, so she has more years on you, she has the same knowledge, and she's still making these mistakes.
	Do you condemn her for that?
	I don't. Would you tell her to be easier on herself if she said this was happening in her heart?
	She was condemning herself?
	Yes, I would. So why would you be nicer to her than yourself?
	Curse boobs! I don't know.
	Like, most of man's life is curse boobs!
	But why?
	I mean, because here's the thing, right?
	I mean, if you really listen to, if you like what I argue for and you like philosophy, right?
	Does philosophy say that one person should be held to enormously high moral standards while another person can be held to the exact opposite moral standard in the same circumstances?
	Not that I'm aware of, no.
	So, I mean, that's an interesting question, right?
	Right. Which is, I mean, when I point this out, right, I mean, it's pretty clear that you've not been acting philosophically, which I understand.
	I'm not, you know, we all do it, right?
	I'm just saying that if you say you listen to me, I'm constantly talking about universal moral standards, right?
	Yes. And so if your wife gets a hug and you get a smack across the face for exactly the same behavior...
	That's not super philosophical, right?
	Right. And so, I hope that you can forgive yourself for that, because what I'm saying is that philosophy is really hard.
	I mean, there's a reason I have over 5,000 shows, because it's really hard, right?
	It's really hard to be consistent, because we have all of these emotional undercurrents, and we have cultural pressures, and we have hypocrites in our midst, and we have punishment for integrity.
	It's really, I think, in a In a moral world, in the world I write about in my novel, The Future, I think it's a lot easier, in fact, generally beneficial to be moral, right?
	But it's hard to be consistent.
	And so a lot of times people are like...
	Your wife says, I did X. And you're like, oh honey, that's okay.
	Don't be hard on yourself. And then you sit there, well, when I did X, man, I was out of integrity.
	Man, it was a bad thing for me to do.
	I can't believe that. I don't know if I'll ever be able to forgive myself.
	And that's just bad. That's just not philosophy.
	I mean, that's really the opposite of philosophy.
	Because when we're kind towards other people's mistakes...
	We have to, if we want to be consistent, if we want to be moral, we absolutely have to be kind to our own mistakes.
	Otherwise, we're just abusing ourselves.
	Or we're abusing others with overkindness.
	If your wife has gained 30 pounds in three months, and you say, no, you look great, you know, It's fine.
	You haven't gained any weight, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
	Yeah. Then we're actually not helping her.
	We're harming her, right?
	Because we're not telling her objectively the standards that she has, right?
	Yes. Like what's actually happening to her.
	So that's not good at all.
	So either you're being too easy on her, which is harmful, or you're being too hard on yourself, which is harmful.
	Could it be both? Absolutely.
	It could be any combination of the two.
	And that's something that you, I mean, I don't have the answer to that right now.
	But generally, I mean, as a man, if the woman is suffering, we want to take away that suffering.
	Because we're there to provide them.
	Oh, yeah. Whereas for men, if we're suffering, it's like, I should suffer more!
	It will purify me!
	It will make me stronger!
	It will turn my bones to iron!
	It will put hair on my chest, right?
	So we want to increase the suffering on ourselves, and we want to decrease the suffering on the women.
	That is, unfortunately, I mean, it's modern politics in a nutshell, in a sense, right?
	So I just wanted to point that out.
	Philosophy is genuinely tough.
	And having an answer called, I should know, whereas my wife doesn't have to know at all, even years down the line, even years later, that's not reasonable.
	You have to work with those standards and try and figure out what's really going on.
	So anyway, sorry for that sort of long sidebar, but that's...
	How do we deal with not knowing stuff?
	I mean, I was studying philosophy for...
	A good 15 years before I genuinely began to put it into practice.
	Now, what's my relationship to me not living philosophy even though I've been studying it for a decade and a half?
	I mean, I can either get mad at myself and call myself a hypocrite or I can genuinely try to understand what the barriers were because if they exist for me, they exist for other people, surely, and maybe I can help them with that, right?
	Yeah, yeah. So, curiosity rather than judgment.
	And judgment is fine, but you have to have curiosity first.
	You have to get all the variables, right?
	Like, think how long a court case is, right?
	I mean, some court cases can go on for months, where people are trying to get to the facts, right?
	And this can be something as relatively simple, because moral philosophy and history and family and childhood and abuse are very complicated, emotionally charged topics.
	So this can be something as relatively simple as, I don't know, a fraud case or something, like months.
	Well, in fact, years for the whole process to be resolved.
	It could be years.
	I get it's government and it's slow and all of that, but It takes years to get to any kind of moral truth about complicated issues, and yet you, you have a kangaroo court, you have a snap judgment, both for your wife and for yourself.
	Now, without curiosity, you can't get to the truth, and when you judge, you stop being curious.
	So you've judged it, right?
	Right. And with judgment, judgment is the end of curiosity.
	The court system ideally says, I wonder if this person is guilty.
	Now, as soon as the guilty verdict comes in, as soon as the guilty verdict is done, does the court case continue?
	Well, no. They judged it guilty.
	Right. I mean, you could have an appeal or something like that, but that court case, the moment that guilty verdict comes in, there's no more discovery, there's no more cross-examination, there's no more exhibits, there's no more expert testimony, there's no...
	none of that. It's all over.
	Like, the question has been answered, so we stop asking the question.
	Now, once you have a judgment... Where you say, well, I was just bad at 18 for introducing my girlfriend to my family.
	Okay, you've got a judgment. Once you have a judgment, the court trial is over and there's no more facts to be sought, right?
	It's the same thing if your wife is upset because she met your family or you met her family that was abusive or whatever, and then you're like, no, no, no, it's fine, right?
	Then you say, not guilty, not guilty, Your Honor.
	We need to stop this examination.
	Right? Right?
	So, I mean, I do think of these things in myself.
	It's like, I'm happy, guilty, not guilty.
	You know, we've got to have judgments in our life, but not before I have all the facts, right?
	And this is why, I mean, you hear me in these call-in shows saying all the time, like, I think I said it on this call once or twice, like, I don't know whether you should or shouldn't have, right?
	I don't know what you should do.
	I don't know if you're right or wrong, but I'd like more information.
	I mean, you've heard me say that a million times, right?
	Yes. Which means I can't...
	Now, sometimes I will judge, right?
	But usually that's after like two hours of back and forth.
	And I never judge like, here's what you should do.
	I may have some moral judgment.
	But if you condemn yourself, you can't be curious about yourself.
	And if you condemn yourself prematurely, like every kid, I'm sorry to labor on this so long, but it's such a big issue, but if you have, like as a kid, right?
	Everyone's had this situation as a kid where your parent thinks you've done something wrong, but it's more complicated.
	It's more complicated than the parent thinks, right?
	And you try to explain, you try to explain to your parent that it's more complicated, and what does the parent say?
	Well, they're kind of just dismissive and want to just cast out judgment, I feel like.
	Yeah, they just want to, you know, they want to render a judgment, and they don't give me your excuses, right?
	Right, right.
	Right, and if you, like, oh, they just have this nonsense like, well, you know, you say, well, everyone else was doing it, and they say, well, if everyone else jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge, would you do that too?
	Right. And it's like, come on, conformity is a big topic.
	No, conformity is a very big topic.
	Should you do what everyone else is doing?
	Well, it's funny because every single person who says no, well, 95% of them just took a vaccine because everyone told them to, right?
	Everyone else is doing it, right?
	And so conformity is a big challenge and a big problem, and it's not as simple as, well, just don't do what everyone else does.
	I mean, everyone else is using English.
	Should I use English? Yes.
	Yes, you should. Everyone else wears pants.
	Should I wear pants? Yes, yes, you should, right?
	Everyone else shows up to a nice restaurant dressed nicely.
	Should I dress nicely? Yes, yes, you should, right?
	So it's complicated because if you don't conform with society at all, you can't get married, you can't reproduce, you can't get a job.
	You will die in the gutter.
	We all have to conform to some degree or another.
	Yeah. And so this idea, well, everyone else is doing it, but that doesn't matter at all.
	It's like, no, it kind of does.
	It kind of does matter.
	Well, it was a matter of life and death for a lot of people in history, right?
	Right, right. Those people who didn't conform at all, we don't have those genes.
	Those genes didn't make it.
	They got killed, ostracized, nobody would mate with them.
	They were done. So we have great genes for conformity.
	And of course, particularly in the teenage years, right?
	In the teenage years, and this is sort of back to where you were at 18, right?
	So let's play this out a little bit, right?
	Let's play this out. So let's say that you had, at 18, cut all ties with your family, right?
	And your girlfriend said...
	I want to meet your family and you say, I have nothing to do with my family.
	They're abusive. Now, this is, and your girlfriend, I think it's fairly safe to say, comes from a fairly abusive family herself, right?
	Yes. Oh, yeah. How would she react getting that statement with no cultural preparation out of the blue when she's dating, when she's on the first, second or third date with you?
	It would have been very off-putting, to say the least.
	She would have run for the hills, and we know it.
	Right. She would have run for the hills.
	Because then she would say, in her mind or out loud, she'd say, well, gee, my family's pretty mean.
	Should I be with them? And what would you say?
	Well, in, like, knowing what I know now or knowing back then.
	What would you have said?
	I'd find it. What would you like knowing?
	What you knew then if you had broken with your family?
	Gone on a date with another girl who's 18 who comes from a mean family herself and you say oh no
	I've completely split with my family. I have no intention of seeing them again because they're mean you say oh, what
	do they mean?
	And, you know, well, did your dad shoot your dog?
	No. Right?
	So maybe her family's more mean, and how does she react Right?
	When you say, I don't think it's productive to be in relationships with abusive people.
	I don't think it's healthy. I don't think it's good.
	And I want to make sure that's not part of my kid's life and all of that, right?
	Like if you say that to her on the second, third, or fourth date or wherever, right?
	Right. And you basically say, well, to be with me, you might have to cut ties with your family.
	Yeah, that would definitely be a...
	Would you be married? Yeah.
	Probably. No, no.
	Probably? Come on.
	Sorry, I said I wouldn't mince words.
	No, I wouldn't be married.
	You would not be married. Now, maybe you'd get a call in 10 years with the girl saying, oh man, you know you were totally right.
	But this stuff takes time.
	Yeah. For sure.
	So... Were you wise to introduce your girlfriend to your family if the cost of not introducing your girlfriend to your family meant not getting married?
	Not getting to know your wife, your kids, having the relationship that you have?
	Was it worth it?
	Yes, it was worth it.
	Of course it was. Of course it was.
	So you've been dumping all over your 18-year-old self and your 18-year-old self is like, hey man, I'm just trying to get you permanently laid.
	I mean happy in a marriage with a wonderful woman, which it sounds like you are.
	But your 18-year-old self is like doing all of these gymnastics, right?
	Right. And your 18-year-old self is like, you know, trust me, I know what I'm doing.
	And you're like, you lacked integrity!
	And it's like, oh yeah, if you'd had integrity, you'd lack a wife.
	And that's what I mean about curiosity, right?
	And again, you can ask your wife this, but I think if she's honest, she'd be like, oh yeah, if some guy said to me at the age of 18 that I might have to dump my entire family, no, it wouldn't have worked out, right?
	Right. So, yeah, I mean, not only do I suggest you cut your younger self some slack, but maybe give him some thanks and a couple of bars of chocolate and some apologies.
	Sorry I dumped on you, man, because you were right.
	I mean, was he right? Yeah, yeah, he was right.
	Okay, good, good, good.
	And this way you can trust your instincts more, right?
	Yeah. Yeah. All right.
	So, sorry for that long segue, but it seemed kind of important.
	Okay, so, let's talk about you.
	I mean, if there's more that you want to add to that, that's fine with me, of course, right?
	But let's talk about you and your girlfriend's family.
	Let's go for it. So, as you know from the call, one of my issues with you, and issue doesn't mean I'm right, just means something I disagree with, doesn't mean I'm right, is...
	When did you first realize that your girlfriend's family was not good really at all?
	If that's a fair way to characterize it.
	So about four years into our relationship, we had decided to...
	Well, that's when I proposed.
	And also we moved across the country to live near her parents.
	And so that's about when everything started to become clear for me.
	Yeah. Yeah, just being able to see them on a regular basis, it was definitely eye-opening.
	And how old were you then?
	22? Yeah, 22.
	All right. And what was your girlfriend's relationship to her family, like mentally or emotionally at that point?
	Her family as a whole, I guess she did think highly of them back then.
	I know she told you she would give unbelievable praise to her mother.
	As well as her siblings as well.
	But yeah, for her, it didn't...
	It took a couple of months after we moved there, but eventually she started seeing the same patterns that I was seeing, and she didn't like them.
	Right. Okay.
	And with you, what was your...
	What was your perception about whether it was good or bad for her to have her family around you and your kids and her?
	I had a very slow approach to it, but my perception generally for the time that we lived there was keep our distance.
	As much as possible.
	And that got progressively more so as the longer we lived there, because she started to agree more with me.
	And was there ever a point, and I don't know whether you're right or wrong, right?
	But was there ever a point where you were like, no, these people, you know, my wife tried having conversations with them and tried being reasonable with them, but they just won't.
	They just won't change. They just won't improve.
	They just make excuses like I'm done with them.
	Was there a point where that happened for you?
	And again, I don't know whether it should or shouldn't have.
	I'm just curious. I don't think there was a concrete point until we both got there.
	Like, we didn't make that decision.
	Decision about cutting ties until after we had moved away and the reason we moved away was because we needed some serious we felt we needed some serious boundaries in place as well as just wanting to Live back where we met because we liked it better Right, Okay. Okay. Do you feel that you were providing adequate
	and objective protection to your wife with her relationship with her family?
	No, I don't believe I was.
	Thank you.
	God bless.
	Thank you.
	And if you had the capacity to do this, what would you go and change going back in time to satisfy your mindset or conscience regarding this?
	Well, for starters, I wouldn't have gone along with moving out there.
	But as we just talked about, that might have...
	At the time, it impeded our relationship as well.
	So I guess...
	Well, hang on, hang on. Moving out there, I was talking like second or third or fourth date, right?
	Oh, sorry. Could you clarify that then?
	I wasn't understanding.
	No, so originally, like we were talking about when you were just starting to date, if you'd have said, like, I don't see my family and I don't really approve of seeing abusive people or something like that, right?
	That it probably wouldn't have worked out with your girlfriend?
	Right. So that's one thing.
	Now, how long have you guys been going out when you decided to move closer to...
	Yeah, about four years.
	Okay, so the slight difference between fourth date and four years into the relationship.
	I mean, I appreciate you trying to sneak that one under the door.
	Okay, like we just fast forward four years and just hold the same principles.
	Right? So fourth date, four years, I'm afraid I'm going to have to call a slight foul on that time flash, if that makes sense, right?
	Yeah, yeah. So...
	In four years, or in your fourth year, if you feel like you didn't adequately protect your wife, what would you have preferred to have done, or what would have more satisfied your conscience to do?
	It would have satisfied me to not to make more of an effort to dissuade her from You know, moving closer to her family or what have you, and also potentially even take more of a confrontational stance on behalf of her if it had proceeded to us actually moving out there.
	So it's pretty stressful for you in the way that you think of these things as far as I understand it.
	You're like, well, I have to be more confrontational.
	I have to, I guess, take more of a stand or something like that.
	I mean, I assume that kind of approach would never have worked with your own family, right?
	Well, yeah, and I tried it with my family, but to no avail.
	Well, not only to no avail, to like, I assume, negative, horrible outcomes, right?
	Yeah. Yes.
	Escalation and problems and recrimination and avoidance and gaslighting and all this kind of nonsense, right?
	Yes. Right. So I'm going to introduce you to a negotiation technique.
	Lay it on me. All right.
	I call it kid play.
	So when you were a kid, did you play with sort of other kids in the neighborhood, fairly unstructured stuff?
	Yeah. Yeah, we'd sort of just run around the street haphazardly.
	Yeah, you'd just make up your own games, right?
	Now, if some kid wanted to do something that the other kids didn't want to do, what did the other kids say?
	I guess we would just go with the majority.
	Well, let's say that some of the kids wanted to do something you really didn't want to do.
	Like, let's say that they wanted to go and steal candy bars or something like that.
	I'm not saying that that ever happened, but you can sort of imagine the situation.
	They want to do something that you really don't want to do.
	Right. Yeah, I wouldn't have been down for that.
	Yeah, you just wouldn't have done it, right?
	Yeah. I'm just not doing that.
	Right. So do you see why I call the negotiation technique kid play?
	I want to move to where my parents are.
	No, I don't want to do that.
	Right. See, that's not particularly confrontational, right?
	Like, if the kids are doing something you don't want to do, or if one kid suggests something that the other kids don't want to do, that's not a big fight or confrontation, right?
	It's just, I don't want to do that.
	Yeah, yeah, I see what you mean.
	And so, it's not confrontational.
	Now, of course, as a kid, we didn't have a choice to do that, right?
	It's one of the ways, I mean, with our family, with other kids, yes, right?
	So, with our family, we generally didn't have the option to say, I don't want to do that.
	We're going to grandma's for lunch.
	I don't really, no, that's not really working for me.
	I don't really feel like that. Sorry. Too bad, kid, you're coming to grandma's for lunch, right?
	That's generally the way it played out, right?
	Right. So it's a matter of, like, me being worried about my preference not being heard.
	Well, you have a belief, which I completely understand.
	There's nothing wrong with having this belief.
	But you have this belief that in order to get your way, you have to convince someone else.
	And if you can't convince that other person, you can't get your way.
	Now, that fundamentally is a parent-child relationship.
	If mom wants to go to the mall and she's going to take me to the mall, the only way I don't have to go to the mall is what?
	How do I get not going to the mall?
	Saying you don't want to go to the mall?
	Well, no, that won't do it.
	The only way you get to not go to the mall, if your mom wants to go to the mall and she has to take you, let's say you're five or six years old, you don't want to go to the mall, the only way you don't go to the mall is if you convince your mother not to go to the mall.
	I see. And convince in this scenario would be like for a five-year-old, like a tantrum or something.
	Wine, complain, don't want to pretend to be sick.
	We do all this stuff when we're kids, right?
	Yeah. I don't want to go to school today.
	Well, I got to fake being sick.
	I got to whatever, right? Yeah, yeah.
	So when we're little kids, if we have parents who don't particularly listen to us, the only way we get our way is if we convince other people.
	You sort of follow what I'm saying, right?
	Yeah. So what that gives us is a sense that we have no personal free will or authority, and the only way to get our way is to have an ugly confrontation, and for the other person to lose.
	If your mom wants to go to the mall, and then you whine and complain and pretend to be sick, then you don't have to go to the mall, but your mom gets her wishes thwarted.
	Does that make sense? She wants to go to the mall, you make it so that she can't go to the mall, so you get your way, and she loses out, right?
	Yes. So it's win-lose.
	Now, if other kids are doing stuff that you don't want to do, And you just don't go along with them, are you preventing them from doing it?
	No, I'm just asserting for myself.
	Yeah, they don't lose. If the other kids want to play baseball and you don't want to play baseball, you just don't go.
	And they can go play baseball, right?
	Yeah. It's win-win, not win-lose.
	Because there's no force involved.
	Right? Right, yes. I mean...
	If you're a kid and you don't want to go to the dentist, your parents might just pick you up and take you to the dentist, right?
	Kicking, screaming, whatever, right?
	You have to go to the dentist. So you, like me, like just about everyone who grows up in these ridiculous situations, including school, of course, we genuinely and reasonably hold the belief that the only way we can get our way Is if we can convince the other person by hook or by crook, and that means we get our way, and they lose out.
	Okay. Do you see what I mean?
	Yeah, I'm just tying it back to the initial scenario, though, of, like, us moving closer to the family.
	No, so your wife wants to move to be closer to her parents, right?
	Right. And you feel...
	That the only way that's not going to happen is if you get your way, you convince her not
	to do it, and then she's losing out.
	So then, as a man, do you like winning at your wife's expense?
	No, I don't.
	So you want to be nice and supportive.
	Yeah. Well, I don't want to move to your parents' place, but the only way that's going to change is if I have a big fight with you, I get my way, you lose out, and we have a big problem, right?
	And then you're going to resent me, and I'm going to feel like I've exploited or taken advantage of you, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
	Yeah. And then it's like, well...
	I guess she won't move to be close to her parents if she cares about me because I don't want to, but then her caring about me comes at her expense and the expense of her family.
	And then, you know, if her parents know she wants to move closer and she says, I'm not moving closer, and they say, why not?
	And then if it comes out that it's because I, her husband, have told her not to, there's all these other problems, so it's just easier to go move to her parents.
	Does that make sense? Right, a big snowball effect thing, yeah.
	Right, right.
	Now, this is lying.
	And I don't mean it's like big, bad, evil wolf lying.
	I'm just saying that this is falsifying.
	And it's not dealing with your wife adult to adult.
	It's child to adult. How do you use kid play as a negotiation technique?
	If your wife says, I really want to move closer to my parents, what's the kid play negotiating technique?
	Which to me is just honesty.
	What's the response?
	I don't want to. No, I don't want to.
	I don't want to move closer to your parents.
	Now, the typical response, right?
	She says, I want to move closer to parents.
	And you say, I don't want to do that.
	What's the typical response that people have when you say you don't want to do something that they want to do?
	What do they say? Why not?
	Why not? Now, why are they asking out of curiosity?
	For most people, probably not.
	Absolutely not! Right?
	Why are they asking why you don't want to move?
	Um... Because they feel offended in some way, or that you, I don't know, maybe they're ascribing some nefarious motive to it?
	Nope. No, none of that's true.
	It's all very psychological, but none of that's fundamentally true.
	Okay. They want you.
	To say why you don't want to move to be closer to the parents so that they can overcome your objections and move closer to the parents.
	I mean, come on. You've bought stuff in a dealership before, like a car thing or whatever it is, right?
	But isn't that still kind of curiosity then, though?
	No. No, because...
	Okay, so let me ask you this.
	I'm trying to sell you a car, right?
	You come into the car dealership.
	I'm trying to sell you a car. And I say, I think you should buy this model.
	And you say, I don't want to buy that model.
	And then I say, well, why don't you want to buy that model?
	What am I asking for?
	You're trying to overcome my objections, baby Yeah, that's right. I'm not curious about you as a person.
	I'm curious about what is in the way of me making the sale.
	So you say, oh, Steph, man, it's a nice car.
	It's just too expensive. So what do I say?
	I'll talk to my manager and see what I can do.
	Maybe I can knock the price down a bit.
	Maybe you could drop a couple of the features.
	Maybe you don't super need the moonroof.
	And hey, you know what? We can put you on a lease plan.
	It's almost no money down.
	It's only 2% interest, and it's only going to be this amount of money.
	So I'm trying to figure out...
	Your reasons for not doing something so that I can disarm and overcome them.
	Right? Right.
	I mean, if a burglar wants to find out where your security cameras are, why?
	So he can avoid them?
	That's right. He's not just, hey, I'm just curious how this guy thinks about security.
	Right. Yeah, right, right.
	Now, and this is the wild thing about these conversations as a whole, and this is why I think they're kind of addictive for people, and I understand that.
	I mean, they are for me too, so this is not any kind of criticism.
	But I think what happens is, okay, am I asking you questions in order to overcome some kind of objection?
	I'm not sure how to answer that exactly like Well, am I trying to get you to do something?
	No. No, I'm not.
	So if I'm not trying to get you to do something, like if you and I are just sitting around, I don't know, having a de-alcoholized beer, right?
	Because I know your history. We're sitting around, we're having a de-alcoholized beer, and we're talking about the cars we like.
	Just shooting the breeze, right?
	Mm-hmm. Are we trying to change each other's minds?
	Are we trying to get each other to do something?
	Uh, no. I mean, that's not the way it's going for me, no.
	Right, right. If we're talking about our favorite bands, I mean, I guess I think it would be kind of cool if you listened to a band I like and liked it, but, you know, we're just talking about our favorite bands or our favorite concerts or whatever.
	We're just exchanging information.
	We're kind of bonding on shared experiences and so on.
	But I'm not trying to tell you – I'm not trying to find out what your favorite band is in order to get you to change something about yourself.
	I'm just – that's genuine curiosity, right?
	Right, right. Now, the more important the issue is usually the more people are trying to change other people's minds.
	Right, so someone comes on your door and says, are you going to vote for Candidate X? And you say, oh, God, no.
	Right, let's say this is a supporter of Candidate X, right?
	Are you going to vote for Candidate X? God, no.
	Well, why not? Is she curious?
	Nope. Well, because he funded this, and she says, no, he actually didn't fund this, and here's why, and blah, blah, blah, right?
	Right, yeah. So she's trying to change her mind.
	Now... I don't have a huge issue with people doing that.
	And even if I did, it wouldn't really matter.
	Because that's just what a lot of things are.
	That's just what a lot of things are in life.
	But in our personal relationships, we shouldn't do that.
	We shouldn't do that. Because it's dishonest.
	So if your girlfriend says...
	I want to be moved close to my family.
	And you say, I don't want to.
	Then if she asks you, well, tell me why, in order to change your mind, like her goal is to get you to agree to moving to her parents, then it's not particularly honest because she's asking a question that sounds curious when it is in fact manipulative.
	Because she's saying, oh, well, why don't you want to go?
	But she's only asking that so she can undo your objections and remove your credible reasons for not wanting to go.
	So generally the way it works is she'll say, I want to move to my parents.
	You say, I don't want to.
	Well, why not? Why not?
	Well, I don't have a job there.
	Well, we can get you a job ahead of time.
	My father knows people, blah, blah, blah.
	We'll sort that out. So then she takes away that reason.
	And then you say, oh, I don't like the climate.
	And it's like, oh, no, look at the climate.
	It's fantastic. You can do this.
	You can do that. There's air conditioning.
	I grew up there.
	So then she takes away that reason.
	And she says, what else, right?
	Now, she's dismantling your will here.
	Right? Right. Because you're giving surface rationales that can be taken away.
	And you're not telling her the truth.
	And she's not telling you the truth either.
	Because she's pretending to be curious, but all she's doing is trying to dismantle your resistance and take over your body or your mind in a sense.
	But you're not being particularly honest either.
	Your wife says, I want to move.
	To be closer to my family, what's the most honest thing you can say?
	That's the most honest thing I could say is that I don't like your family.
	Okay, and then she will say, why don't you like my family?
	What do you mean you don't like my family?
	Emily, why not? And then you'll say X, Y, and Z, and what would she then be tempted
	to do?
	Uh, well, it would sort of just escalate from there, right?
	Well, you know, you say they were mean to you, and she's like, yeah, you know, they were in the past, but I've had conversations about them, and they've really changed, and they're reformed, and they're better, and blah, blah, blah, right?
	Yeah, yeah. Now, let me ask you this.
	In your mind and in your heart is what your parents did to your wife forgivable?
	The Christian part of me wants to say yes, but I don't know if it is actually Christian to say yes
	It is not at all Christian to say yes.
	Because forgiveness, hang on, forgiveness, as you know, as a Christian, does forgiveness have to be earned?
	Yes. Right.
	Have they worked to earn her forgiveness and your forgiveness?
	Not in the slightest.
	No. So, what they have done is unforgivable, and in particular, in the Christian context, it is utterly unforgivable because they have not attempted to apologize or make any restitution.
	Is that a fair point?
	Yes, I was thinking more along the lines of if they had tried that stuff.
	Oh, you mean in the ultimate dimension?
	Yes. Yeah. Where you're an omniscient 18-year-old and...
	Okay, got it, got it. Okay.
	Now, if you are very honest, right, because if you were concerned about their level of forgiveness, right?
	I mean, you're a nice young Christian man, right?
	Yes. So, if you were concerned...
	About whether you should forgive your wife's family, then you would look up the biblical sayings or the biblical commandments regarding forgiveness, particularly from the New Testament, right?
	Did Jesus forgive the money changers?
	The ones in the temple?
	I don't believe he did.
	I don't think a whip and forgiveness go hand in hand.
	I think that's kind of an either-or proposition.
	Right. So the Bible's pretty clear, right?
	I mean, it says that if your brother in Christ or sister in Christ does something that offends you, you speak to them in private.
	If they don't apologize and make amends, then you speak to them in a small group.
	And if they don't apologize and make amends, you speak to them with the whole congregation.
	If they don't apologize and make amends, what happens then?
	Well... At that point, it would be more along the lines of ostracism?
	Yes, that's correct. Yeah.
	I mean, so it's kind of funny because the advice that I've always been given actually turns out – I mean, I was, of course, raised a Christian, so it turns out the advice I've been giving out for the last 16 or 17 years is – Deeply biblical and Christian.
	I mean, what have I always said?
	Talk to people, but you don't have to spend time with them.
	If they don't apologize, if they remain relentlessly negative or toxic or abusive, you don't have to spend time with them.
	So if you really cared about forgiveness, right, then you would get information, right?
	And you haven't quite done that as yet, which is fine.
	I'm just sort of pointing that out for the future, right?
	Like if you have questions about forgiveness, you should look that stuff up.
	And Christianity is great in that sense because it gives you, I think, a pretty good and moral answer.
	So, you think, so when you say, I don't want to move to your parents' environment, to their vicinity, to their neighborhood, right, to their part of the country, and she says, why not?
	Now, if you say, because the harm they've done for you, I cannot forgive.
	It would be wrong for me to forgive that harm.
	It would be unchristian.
	It would be unpious.
	It would be devilish, in a way, for me to forgive your parents for the wrongs they've done you without them seeking your forgiveness and making amends.
	I mean, is that the most honest answer?
	Yeah. Yeah, that would be.
	Right. Now, so the reason you don't want to spend time with her family is not because of your thoughts, but because of her family's actions.
	Now, that changes things completely.
	Now, so the most honest thing you can be is they hurt you, I don't like them for hurting you, and they have not earned your forgiveness.
	So, if she wants you to move closer to her parents, what does she then have to do, if you're really honest with her?
	I suppose she would have to see if forgiveness is even an option here.
	Like, find out if they're capable of apologizing and making restitution.
	Right. So if you say, I don't want to be near your parents because they've hurt you and they won't even acknowledge their fault, is there anything she can say that would change your mind if her parents don't change?
	No. Right.
	So then, instead of trying to change you, if she wants to move closer to her parents, what does she have to do?
	Change her parents? That's right.
	And you say, hey man, my feelings about moving to your parents' place, or moving close to your parents, they're a shadow cast by your parents' actions, right?
	So if you want to move the shadow, if you want to change my mind, your parents have to change.
	Do you know this is the beauty about being an empiricist?
	I have objectively evaluated your parents' actions and found them to be immoral, which they are, based on what she said.
	So, I don't have the power to change that.
	If people have hurt someone I love, and hurt that person for many years, decades really, if someone has hurt the person I love, Then my judgment of that person is a shadow cast by their actions.
	So if you want to change my feelings, don't talk to me about my feelings.
	That's like trying to push the shadow of a statue as if you can change it without moving the statue.
	The shadow is cast by the statue.
	So if you want to change the shadow, you have to change the statue.
	If you want to change my feelings about your parents, your parents have to change!
	Now, I'm not saying you would yell this at her the way I'm yelling it at you, but, like, that's the beauty of curiosity.
	Because if you dig deep down, you know, I think it's fair to say, you love your wife.
	If you love your wife, can you also love someone who harms her?
	No. You cannot.
	Now, of course, everyone harms each other from time to time.
	Right? When I'm play fighting with my daughter...
	Every now and then, somebody gets an elbow to the eye socket, right?
	And, oh, I'm so sorry, blah, blah, blah, right?
	So everybody hurts each other from time to time.
	That's not the issue, right?
	But anybody who continually hurts without apology...
	I mean, that's just logic 101.
	I'm sorry to labor the point, but I really want to make sure this is totally clear.
	So if you hire a babysitter for your kids...
	And you come back, and your kids have bruises, and some nanny cam, you see the babysitter hitting your children, right?
	Then clearly, you don't want to hire that babysitter again.
	God, no, no.
	Right. Now, if someone says to you, well, why don't you want to hire the babysitter?
	If you say, well... It's kind of inconvenient.
	She lives a little bit too far away.
	And they say, oh no, she could take the bus partway, just pick her up from there, right?
	Or, you know, she spends a little bit too much time watching TV. It's like, oh, well, you can just unplug the TV and then she can't watch it.
	So then they're trying to overcome these objections, right?
	Whereas if you say, I'm not hiring her because she hits the kids.
	No sane person is gonna say what you just have to change your mind about that
	Right So
	Negotiation particularly in moral issues is you're curious about your own feelings to make sure that they're just and
	right and Then you are very honest about your moral objections
	I don't want to move to your parents' place.
	Why not? Because they hurt you and they still haven't apologized.
	They hurt you continually, repeatedly for decades, and they still haven't apologized.
	I don't like them. And I don't want them around you.
	I don't want them around me. And I'm not having them around the kids.
	See, it doesn't have to be confrontational.
	It's confrontational when you lie.
	And again, please understand, I'm not saying you're a liar or anything like that.
	But it's confrontational when you give surface explanations for something that's actually very deep.
	Because when you lie about why you don't want to do something, or you do want to do something, then people will simply...
	Try to fix whatever you're saying, the reasons, and you're wasting everyone's time.
	And it escalates because everybody kind of gets that the truth isn't being told.
	I mean, to take a silly example, right, if you come in and I'm trying to sell you a car, and for an hour you give me all of these objections and I overcome them, and then finally you say, Well, no, I'm a homeless guy.
	I don't have any money. I just came in to try and use the washroom.
	Wouldn't that be kind of annoying?
	Yeah. And wouldn't we get into a weird kind of conflict?
	Because if he'd said at the beginning, I'm a homeless guy.
	I just need to use the washroom.
	I wouldn't try and sell a car to him for an hour, right?
	Yeah. So if you say to your wife, I'm not moving to your parents.
	Like, I'm not doing that. Well, why not?
	Because I love you. They were mean to you.
	They haven't apologized, and I don't like them.
	They say, ah, well, what if they did apologize?
	Well, I don't know. I would have to evaluate that when I saw it.
	But I would need not just an apology, but restitution, and also I would need several years of really relentlessly great behavior to even think about it.
	Because anyone can apologize.
	Everyone can even make restitution.
	But all of that is just a marker For the consistently good behavior that has to come out of all of that, right?
	Yeah You know if someone for the tenth time says they're going
	on a diet and they never lose any weight You don't expect them to lose any weight, right?
	So you think that I assume that you think that you have to convince your wife to not move to her parents' place in order for that to not happen.
	Does that make sense? Yeah, I agree.
	But just think about when you were a kid.
	If everybody wanted to play baseball and you didn't want to, you didn't have to convince them all to not play baseball.
	I mean, you could take a shot at it, but they just go play baseball and you don't, right?
	Now, I get that it's a little different because you and your wife need to live together, right?
	But... The more honest you are, the less conflict there is.
	I mean, what is your wife going to say?
	It's like, well, I don't want to move to where your parents are because they abused you for years and they've never apologized, and I don't like them because I love you and they hurt you.
	What's she going to say? No, you absolutely should love people who've hurt me and who've never apologized.
	Well, she's not going to say that, right?
	Right. Now, then she's going to say, because once she stops trying to change you, she can think about why she wants to move there.
	Right. And the answer will be pretty clear, right?
	That they want her to move there and she's used to complying with them because they're aggressive, right?
	And it's going to cause great tension, stress, and upset in her to not move there.
	And then you can get to the actual fact about that, right?
	Rather than try to tweak your made-up objections.
	Does that make sense? Yes.
	And the other thing, too, I mean, this is a bit of a coup de grace you probably wouldn't need, but it would be to say something like this.
	I'm sorry, I can't move.
	I won't move to your parents.
	Well, why not? Because I don't want to model conformity to destructive people to our children.
	We don't really have the right to do that, right?
	Right. It's really out of my hands.
	I've made this commitment to be a father, and to be a father means to model good Boundaries and integrity and morality to my kids, right?
	I mean, that's not an option.
	Like, you don't have an option as to whether you should teach your kids language or feed them or get them healthcare when they need it or checkups, right?
	That's not an option, right?
	I don't feel like it.
	Your kid is really sick.
	You take them to the doctor, right?
	You don't just say, well, I don't feel like it, right?
	And so it's like, I don't have a choice.
	Like, I can't model conformity to bad people.
	as a father, like it's out of my hands. Because that's the beautiful thing about
	having integrity, like it's out of my hands.
	Like in the past when people would would dangle money in front of me to hold some
	position or not or whatever, it'd be like, it wasn't even tempting it because
	like it's out of my hands, right?
	Right. Like if somebody says to me, I think you should be a gymnast, I'm like
	dude I'm almost 57.
	It's out of my hands. It's not going to happen, right?
	It's out of my hands. And so with morals, with principles, it's not a choice, right?
	Because, of course, you could also say, you love me for my virtues.
	If you talk me out of my virtues, you won't love me anymore.
	Like, you don't want to talk me out of my virtues, because that's the only reason you're with me.
	It's the only reason you love me. So, if you're trying to talk me out of my virtues, like, let's go hang around with people who were very harmful to me and have never apologized.
	If you're trying to talk me out of my virtues, you're trying to talk yourself out of loving me.
	Like, even if that were vaguely tempting, you shouldn't let that happen, right?
	Hey, man, it'd be great, oh husband of mine, if I could change you into the kind of guy I never would have married.
	No, that's not...
	We made a vow. We made a vow to love each other.
	And so I will not behave in ways that will harm your love for me.
	Like, it's a beautiful thing.
	It's just out of my hands, right?
	And then you have to figure out some other solution, right?
	And you will. I mean, I don't know what it would be, but it's not moving.
	So that's...
	The kid play technique, and I know it sounds like a technique, it really is just about honesty, but the reason I call it the kid play technique is because it's how we handled things when we were kids.
	I had a friend, I guess I was 11 or 12, and we were both broke-ass kids, right?
	And he used to want to go downtown to window shop.
	And, like, just look at all the cool toys and all of that.
	There was a place called Mr. Gameway's Ark back then, and I'd just go look at the toys, right?
	And I'd be like, well, I don't really want to do that.
	I don't want to go down and look at all these things I can't have.
	And he'd be like, no, he'd try and convince me as to how it was fun, but it was like, but it's not fun.
	I mean, maybe it's fun for you, it's just not fun for me.
	So we'd just find something else to do.
	But it wasn't a big conflict, right?
	Like, I just don't want to do that.
	I mean, that's being honest.
	You don't want to do that. Now, maybe you don't even know why you don't want to do it.
	Right? Because you don't have to have all the answers, right?
	You know, if somebody said to me, you know, there's a thing that I hate called mime.
	I don't think I'm alone in that.
	But I remember being in theater school.
	And we had to do some mime exercise or whatever, right?
	And I pretended to be lighting a fire with mime.
	And the teacher was very critical because he's like, well, you know, in mime you have to establish all these levels.
	You know, the wood is at this level, the fire is at this level, the rocks are at this level, and you've got to keep going back to these particular levels.
	And I was like, oh, shoot me, man.
	I can't imagine a bigger waste of time and life than...
	Remembering invisible levels of things.
	Now, if he'd have said, do you want to become a mime?
	I'd be like, God, no. Sorry, gosh, no.
	I can't even imagine anything.
	Well, why don't you want to become a mime?
	I just don't. You don't have to explain anything.
	I just don't want to. Now, again, the person can say, well, let's explore that and, you know, whatever, whatever, whatever, right?
	And to me, it would be, well, I'm all about communicating ideas and miming only communicates the illusion of invisible things.
	So, I have this capacity to communicate ideas, arguments, and concepts.
	So, mine would be the exact opposite of that.
	So, I actually don't like it.
	I don't like it. And again, I don't mean that mime is somehow bad as a whole.
	I guess if you're really good at memorizing levels, maybe it's great.
	But it's not my thing. Are you saying mime is bad?
	No, I just don't want to do it. I mean, it's not for me.
	I mean, I actually have quite...
	I mean, I really dislike it for me.
	I don't even like watching it. It's like modern dance.
	Oh, let's have another dance routine of a man and a woman coming together and going apart, and coming together and going apart.
	And entwining together and then recoiling away from each other and then circling and coming.
	I can't even.
	You can't pay me enough to go and see dance because it's just the same.
	I like to dance myself, but going to watch dance is just the same thing over and over.
	And there's only like eight different things you can do with two people on a stage, right?
	So... It's just not my thing.
	Some people may like it.
	It's just not my thing. So, yeah, I just don't want to.
	Now, again, somebody who loves you would be curious about it and so on.
	But somebody who's in the grip of placating evil will try and figure out why you don't want to do something in order to change your mind.
	And then you end up in this weird thing where you're making up reasons why.
	And we've all been there, right?
	You're making up reasons why you don't want to do something.
	And the other person's knocking them down, and they're just frantically trying to come up with some other reason why you don't want to do something, right?
	Oh, I don't want to go see this movie because I don't like Brad Pitt.
	Oh, he's only got a tiny role in this movie.
	Well, I don't like Westerns.
	Well, it's not really a Western. It's kind of like a Western set in space, and so it's not really a Western.
	But you just don't want to go see the movie for whatever reason, but you're just making up all the stuff and you're setting these things up.
	It's like bowling. You set up the pins, somebody knocks them down, set up the pins, and it's all nonsense because you just don't want to.
	Maybe you don't know why you don't want to.
	But you don't want to. And the most honest thing you can say is, I just don't want to.
	I want to move to my parents' neighborhood.
	I don't want to. Why not?
	I don't know. I just don't want to. And now maybe the woman pulls the supportive card.
	To be supportive. I mean, maybe a parent's marriage would have been different.
	How long before your parents' divorce did your mom have this laser engraving business thing going?
	About... I want to say two years.
	Right. Well, maybe your parents' marriage, whether it should have survived or not, I don't know, but it sure as hell would have had a better chance of surviving if what?
	Your mother says, I want you to help me with my laser engraving business, and your father says...
	I don't want to.
	Yeah, I don't want to. Well, why not?
	I don't know. It's just not my thing.
	I'm not particularly interested.
	I already have a job, and I just don't want to.
	And then she says, Well, you're not being very supportive, right?
	And do you know what the man's response is?
	What does a man say when the woman says you're not being very supportive of me?
	I guess he Are argues with that like
	Thanks.
	Nope. No, because if being assertive is an argument, men will generally fail with regards to women, and then you end up being pushed around.
	You end up not really...
	Was he actually supporting...
	His wife, by working crazy hard on this business that wasn't sustainable?
	It was probably more so indulging her wants.
	Well, yeah, he wasn't supporting her because they ended up getting a divorce.
	And I assume it had something to do with this.
	Maybe not 100%, obviously, but something.
	So a woman says, help me with my business.
	I don't really want to. Well, you're not being very supportive.
	What do you say about it? I'm sorry.
	I'm struggling with this.
	Well, help me with my business.
	I don't want to. But you're not being very supportive.
	Well, you're not being very supportive of me not wanting to.
	If supportive means to affirm the feelings and conform to the feelings of the other person and give them what they want, then it's a two-way street.
	This is UPB to the rescue, right?
	UPB means just flip it.
	Also known as sexy instructions on your honeymoon.
	Just flip it. No, it just means flip it around.
	I want to start a business.
	I don't want to get involved.
	You must support me.
	Okay, so what that means is you should work to support what the other person wants or doesn't want.
	Right, so why is it that the woman says to the man, you should support me in what I want, but the woman doesn't have to support the man in what he wants, or in this case doesn't want.
	So the woman says, you're not being very supportive.
	And you say, well, you're not being very supportive of me not wanting to do it.
	See, that's not having a fight, right?
	Yeah.
	You're not supportive means give me things you don't want to.
	But if the principle in the marriage is you have to do what the other person feels like,
	You have to provide what the other person wants.
	Well, the husband doesn't want to get involved in the business, so the wife should provide that.
	Otherwise, she's not being supportive.
	Do you see what I mean? Now, suddenly, if your dad were to say to your mom, support me in my laser engraving business, I don't want to.
	Well, you're not being supportive. Well, you're not supporting me not wanting to.
	I mean, you just get this thousand-yard stare, this goggle-eyed stare of, wait a minute, my manipulation isn't working, right?
	I'd say, well, why are your feelings more important than my feelings?
	You want to? I don't want to.
	Why are your feelings more important than mine?
	Why do I have to defer to your feelings, but you don't have to defer to mine?
	I mean, it's kind of unanswerable in a way, right?
	Yeah, I'm kind of dumbfounded right now.
	Sorry. But that's honest.
	I mean, that's the power of UPB. This is why UPB messes up so many people and also gives some people immense power.
	So, with regards to your wife, I want to move to be near my parents.
	Well, I don't want to. Well, you're not being very supportive.
	Well, you're not supporting me not wanting to.
	And what that does is it eliminates the concept of being supportive.
	Because if supportive is two-way, it fails the UPB test, right?
	UPB says anything which is contradictory can't be valid, right?
	And if supportive means defer to the other person's feelings, if one person wants to do something and the other person doesn't, it's impossible for that to be universalized, right?
	Do you see what I mean? I mean, if your wife wants to move to near her parents and you don't want to, and you both support each other, it's impossible to achieve.
	So, what you need to do is keep asking questions until you find common ground.
	Right? Keep asking questions until you find common ground.
	One of the things that could happen with your parents is the mom might have said, Your mom might have said, basically, I'm bored and I feel like I'm not contributing anything economically to the household.
	The kids are older. I need something to do, right?
	Now, if the husband were to say, man, there's so many things that I need done in my business.
	I can pay you. You can be productive, blah, blah, blah.
	And you can even report to someone else so that we don't have a power imbalance, right?
	I won't have anything to do with it.
	I mean, that could potentially be a win-win, right?
	Right. Now, if after having a lot of conversations...
	I'm sorry to be lecturing so much, but the basic thing with you and your wife is if you say, I don't want to move to be around people who harmed you and won't apologize, then the only reason she would want to do that is she wants to be around people who harmed her and haven't apologized.
	Now, It can't be the case in the long run that love for your wife is at least not wanting to be around people who abuse her, but that she can love herself by wanting to be around people who abuse her.
	Does that make sense? Because love is a universal.
	So if I love my wife because she's virtuous, then she can't logically hate herself because she's virtuous, right?
	Right. And so if it's true that love can't involve deferring to and moving close to people who have relentlessly abused you, then it can't be good for your wife to move there either.
	Does that make sense? Yeah.
	Now, it can't be good on two levels.
	One, if it's valid to love her for not deferring to abusers, then it's also valid for her to love herself for not deferring to abusers, right?
	Yes. That's number one.
	Number two, if she values your love for her and your love for her is based upon her virtue, then when she does something immoral, you cannot maintain the same amount of love for her.
	Does that make sense? Yes.
	Right. So, if you are curious, like, I don't want to move there, but, you know, tell me why you want to move there, blah, blah, blah, right?
	You say, oh, well, it'll be easier when we're raising kids.
	It's like, oh, well, was it easy for you when you were around your parents when you were a kid?
	No, it was horrible. Okay, so it's not that.
	So you're not knocking it down, her justifications.
	You're not knocking those down because you want to change your mind, but just because you want to get past the excuses and get to the truth.
	And the truth is, I guarantee you something like, well, I can't say no.
	They want me to move there, and I'm terrified to say no, right?
	Yeah. They're going to escalate.
	They're going to be mad at me. They're going to yell at me.
	They're going to make me feel like crap.
	I'm terrified to say no.
	Now, we can all sympathize with that, right?
	Mm-hmm. We can all sympathize with that.
	But that doesn't mean you say yes, right?
	Right. And if she gets to, I want to move to my parents because I'm terrified to say no, you can have a very real and important discussion about that.
	But then you've got to the truth, right?
	But you've only gotten to the truth because you've absolutely refused to take part in this enabling thing called being supportive, right?
	Because you're like, well, if she really wants to go as a good husband, I should blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
	It's like, no, no, no, no, you shouldn't.
	No, not at all. Your loyalty is to virtue.
	Because it is only through your loyalty to virtue that you can maintain a loving pair bond with your partner.
	You can't get to your partner and pair bond and love and connection and commitment and doing what is best for each other.
	You can only get that through a relentless commitment to virtue.
	Honesty. Because if you let...
	Your wife's historical bullies run your relationship.
	They will run your relationship right off the rails and into the ditch.
	And that's not being supportive.
	But you think that you need to change other people's minds to get what you want.
	You don't. You just refuse to participate in What you don't want to do.
	You know, I won't get into details, but, you know, a couple of times I've been ambushed and where I've had the option, I'm like, oh, I'm not doing this.
	No, it'll be good. It's important, you know, if you had any integrity, blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
	Like, I don't want to. So I just don't.
	I don't have to change anyone else's mind because I'm not a kid anymore.
	I don't have to change anyone's mind.
	I just don't want to. I mean, something I've actually kind of have to learn from my daughter, too, because she's great this way.
	She doesn't want to do something. She just says, I don't really want to.
	I love it. I think it's great.
	It's how you want to raise kids, right?
	But I don't want to. Yeah, I'm starting to get that, yeah.
	Yeah, you're getting there with your kids, right?
	I don't want to. And here's the funny thing.
	She's often right. Like, every now and then, I'll sort of really work hard to try and get her to do something.
	You know, it's all voluntary and all of that.
	But, you know, sometimes it works out.
	But a lot of times, it's like, yeah, you were right.
	We should have done this. Sorry.
	You were right. So that's, you know, when I was...
	That's, I guess, why I was a little bit frustrated in talking with your wife.
	And this is fairly advanced stuff, but it's very simple when you sort of get the hang of it.
	But, you know, with regards to your wife's family...
	But they really hurt her, didn't they?
	Oh, yeah. I mean, more than anyone else in this universe, they've done her enormous harm.
	Yes. So why would you want to defer to them on anything?
	And she needs someone to stand up for her, not to stand with her parents and let them win.
	And that someone has to be you, because you stand for virtue, for honesty, and you love her.
	And I totally get that you love her, and I think that's great.
	I'm fantastic, and you guys are doing fantastically.
	But don't we all want someone to stand in our corner?
	Absolutely. And don't defer to anything that goes against your conscience.
	And the best way to find that out is don't defer to anything that goes against your preferences.
	That doesn't mean just you have your preferences and that's it.
	You can query them. You can try to understand them.
	You can reason through them. But the honest thing is, I don't want to.
	So don't. You don't have to convince anyone.
	You just have to stand. Integrity doesn't mean convincing everyone.
	I can have integrity. It's not like, well, I can't be a peaceful parent until everyone's a peaceful parent.
	You guys are living your family life in very much the opposite of how you were raised.
	You don't need your parents to become who you are in order to be good to each other and your kids, right?
	You just do it.
	And it's the same thing with personal integrity.
	No, I don't want to.
	Well, why not?
	I don't know. But I'm not doing it when I don't want to because I have to have integrity to my feelings.
	It doesn't mean my feelings are the boss of me completely.
	I'm happy to query them and ask questions and so on.
	But I have to respect myself enough to know that if I don't want to do something, there's probably a really good reason and that should be explored for quite some time.
	And again, for this one, it's like you do the research on forgiveness and it's like, no, they harmed you and they've never apologized.
	Why on earth would I want to put you back in that environment or put my kids in that environment or put me in that environment?
	There's nothing in that for me or our kids and it's kind of out of my hands because I can't put my kids in a toxic environment.
	And I would argue that you, as their mother, also can't put yourself in a stressful and toxic environment because it's bad for your parenting.
	And, you know, when we have kids, we have to make a commitment to be...
	Like, everyone who helps with my parenting is totally welcome in my life.
	Everyone. And if I help with their parenting, hopefully that's, you know, the mutual, right?
	And anybody who is going to interfere with my parenting or cause me, I don't know, upset or negative experiences...
	Not welcome. And that's, you know, that's not even my choice thing.
	That's just a commitment you make when you...
	It's the same thing like anybody who tried to come between you and your wife would not be welcome in your marriage, right?
	Right. Oh, yeah.
	Right. So, her parents...
	Let's say you moved down the street from them or across the street from them.
	Would her parents in your life on a daily basis be good or bad for your marriage?
	Right. Right.
	And so you made a vow, right?
	To put each other before all else.
	Which means any choice between your marriage and anything else, you choose your marriage, right?
	Yes. And so if moving closer to her parents is going to be negative for your marriage, it's not an option.
	Why is it not an option? Well, for the same reason it's not an option to pay your mortgage because you signed a contract.
	This is slightly more important than paying a mortgage.
	This is your marriage vows, right?
	Like if something is...
	Right. Harmful to your marriage or negative for your love for each other, it's out.
	It's done. It's not an option.
	And that way you can just kind of relax.
	It's not like a personal battle.
	It's just not an option. You know, as I sort of said before, like, not in this call, but it's like, when I was really low on money, when I was out of money, I mean, I panicked and got a job.
	I got a sort of professional, my first programming, professional programming gig, right?
	And I wasn't like, well, I could get a job or I could rob a gas station.
	Like, robbing a gas station wasn't on the list of ways to solve this problem, right?
	Right. And so, like, it's just not on the list.
	So, it's the same thing with marriage, right?
	If this can be harmful to my marriage, like, it's not an option.
	I don't even really think about it.
	Moving to your family, moving close to your family of origin is going to be bad for a marriage.
	Okay. So, I wouldn't do it.
	And we shouldn't. We can't do it.
	You know, if you said, well, we're a little low on money, let's go rob a bank, your wife would say, well, no.
	No, we're not doing that.
	We're not going to rob a bank?
	No, no, I've got a foolproof way we could get away with it.
	It's like, no, no, that's not the point. We're going to rob a bank, right?
	I mean, I'm talking about a free market bank, of course, but just kidding, right?
	So, yeah, it's just like there's no conflict.
	Conflict can just so often be avoided by just reminding people of what they promised.
	Like, we promise to put each other first, and we obviously have to do what's best for our kids.
	Moving to your family is not what we vowed.
	So it's easy, right? I don't have to figure out how much I owe on my phone bill every month, right?
	I'm like, oh, I don't know.
	It's just like, oh, well, what did I spend?
	Okay, well, I agree to all of that, so I'll pay that.
	This is what I promise. This is what I'll do.
	We promise to put each other first, so that's what we'll do.
	Like, it's not a personal will thing.
	It's just reminding people of what they...
	Yeah, holding each other accountable.
	Well, yeah, just holding each other to your promises, right?
	We promise to put each other first.
	Let no man, right?
	No man come between us.
	No man or woman come between us.
	Well, guess what, right?
	Mothers and fathers are men and women, right?
	Yeah. So, yeah, that's sort of what I wanted to mention.
	And we all need reminders for integrity.
	I do, you do. Like, everyone needs reminders.
	Because we're all going to be tempted by stuff in the past and all of this, and we just have to be like, no, I'm not, that's not a thing.
	Like, that's not an option. Doing stuff that's bad for our marriage is not an option.
	Bad for our kids is not an option.
	And I think you need that leadership and that way you can model that leadership, not just for you, but for your wife and also for your kids over time.
	Well, how do we decide what to do?
	Well, we reference virtue.
	We reference what's good and we don't let ourselves be bullied.
	Does that make sense? Yeah.
	Yeah. Thank you. As I said, philosophy is hard.
	I mean, it's both very hard and very easy.
	It's hard because of the temptations, but when you remember your commitments, it's actually quite easy.
	What should I do? Oh, well, just that.
	It's hard. Yeah, I know, I get that, but at least we know what to do.
	Yeah, I hear you, yeah.
	All right. Anything you wanted to add to the sort of major thing that I wanted to get across?
	I really appreciate the conversation.
	I'm sorry it was so Steph-heavy, but it seemed inappropriate.
	No, I'm always down for one of your famous lectures.
	Yes, or on the last call, I guess I'll just end with this.
	You had mentioned to my wife that there may still be someone in our environment who seeks to or rather is mad at our children.
	I was just going to ask how I could go about identifying that.
	There's only a handful of people in our environment right now as it stands.
	But it must be really covert.
	Well, my first thought was that it was her parents who may blame her change in attitude towards them on the fact that you guys have become parents.
	But the anger towards the kids has to be coming from somewhere.
	I don't think it's coming from you guys organically.
	So maybe if you have some more boundaries or barriers between your wife and her parents, maybe her anger will diminish.
	If it doesn't, I'm happy to help if I can further, of course.
	So if it doesn't, then just let me know.
	But that would be my first guess.
	Yeah, we'll definitely keep you updated.
	All right. And listen, a massive congratulations to you both.
	What you guys are doing is...
	Beyond fantastic, beyond incredible, it's something to be enormously and deeply proud of, in my opinion, and not more than my opinion, it just is.
	And I just wanted to say just how much, I mean, you guys are doing way more than I ever did at that age.
	And, you know, that's just to your credit enormously, and I'm perfectly thrilled at what you guys are achieving and, like, what a fantastic way to change the world.
	Thank you for that.
	That means a lot coming from you.
	You're very welcome. And you'll keep me posted?
	Yes, sir. Thanks, man.

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