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Nov. 17, 2023 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:42:20
Stop Killing Your Passions! Freedomain Call-In
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Time Text
You've had two sessions with my daughter, and after the second one, I... I got...
Frankly, I got quite angry, but when that has settled down a bit, I was thinking, how can I help my daughter?
And then later, I'm more thinking, like, Is it possible, even, to help my daughter?
The background, for those who don't know, is this all result of a divorce?
It must be now, let's see, 25 years ago, maybe?
We're getting near to 30 years ago and my children, my ex-wife has had the children
living at her place and it's hard to find the words.
I'm sorry. But it didn't turn out so well for my children, and so they are having difficulties, especially my daughter, are having difficulties now, especially with her self-esteem.
It's making her make bad choices.
And then, of course, I would like to know how can I help her at this stage?
I have been trying over the years, but I don't think it has done much.
Maybe it has. I don't know. You can't know.
But she needs more help.
Yes. Let's leave it at that.
Right, right. Do you want to tell me a little bit about how you met your ex-wife and how the relationship started and all that kind of good stuff?
Okay. We met when I was studying at university and so was she.
And we had a good time.
Yes, we had a good time.
And we were together, and we got married.
I'm so sorry to interrupt. I just asked you a big question.
My apologies. You have a way of talking that is very...
And when I hear people pause that much, and I'm guessing English is not your native language, which I apologize for.
It would be much easier to conduct this in your native language, but I only speak English.
I'm just concerned that it's A, going to take a lot of time, B, it's kind of hypnotic, and C, it seems that there may be a kind of self-censorship, like you're carefully weighing and measuring every word, and that kind of interferes with the spontaneous communication that I think makes these kinds of conversations more valuable, if that makes sense. I am.
I am censoring myself, because I have so much anger in me.
And I don't want to just have it spill out because I don't think it's constructed.
Hang on, hang on. I mean, just so you know, I have no problem if you get angry.
I have no problem with – that's totally fine.
And in fact, if you are angry or angry at me or whatever, you mentioned that sort of earlier, that's totally fine.
You can tell me.
But if there's this big wall of self-censorship, it's going to be kind of tough to have a direct conversation, if that makes sense.
Yes, I understand that.
It's not you I'm angry at.
It's my daughter I'm angry at.
Well, yes. Give me time.
I have a knack of bringing this out in people, I guess.
But, yeah, I just – if you're very careful and considered, then it probably won't be as valuable a conversation because I just kind of want to know what's in your heart and mind.
And I feel if it's going through this big bureaucratic filter that we're not going to be able to connect, if that makes sense.
Oh, sorry. Oh, you're putting me in a spot that I'm not comfortable with.
Well, that spot is called philosophy, if that's any help.
If it's any consolation, it puts me in that spot all the time as well.
So you're not alone in that.
Okay, I'll try to do better.
Okay. Yeah, but still, it's the language as well, of course.
And... Yeah, I get it.
But let's see.
Okay. Yes, we moved together.
She got pregnant.
We married. Sorry, just at the beginning, right?
So you're giving me the mechanics, right?
But what was it that drew you to each other?
What were you attracted to about her?
And how did you end up in the relationship, especially where you produce children, right?
That's the biggest and deepest relationship there is.
So what was it that drew you to each other and so on?
I think it was most other guys that were around were more or less afraid of her, but I wasn't.
And so I approached her and she more or less, yes, she chose me.
I didn't know that I could choose a woman at the time.
So when she chose me and I had no competition, I'd say, We started to hang out.
Now, sorry, you're giving me as many questions as answers, which is good.
Why did you think you couldn't choose a woman, and why were the other men scared of her?
I have the same problem as my children.
I have low self-esteem.
And the concept of choosing a woman...
It didn't occur to me.
I mean, why should I be able to choose a woman?
I would be lucky if a woman would choose me.
Yeah, that's where I was.
And where did that come from in your mind or your heart, that idea that you were worthless?
My parents divorced.
My mother left the family when I was two or three years old.
I have no memories of her when she was a caretaker.
Well, she didn't leave you, right?
I mean, I get that she was gone, but she left your dad.
Absolutely, yes.
I mean, my father left when I was a baby, but he didn't leave me.
I wasn't even really part of the equation.
He just couldn't stand my mom.
Yeah, absolutely. I know that.
I get that. But I was merely talking from my point of view why I have low self-esteem.
And that is of course because, well, I didn't have a mother to love me the way, what's the
word, without...
I don't get the word.
Whatever I would do.
Oh, unconditional love.
Yes, yes, right.
Okay, so I first want to know what your mindset is about cause and effect in your emotions.
So it's your theory that you ended up at low self-esteem because your mother abandoned you?
Yes, I think self-esteem is what you get from the mother aspect of your parents.
And she wasn't there, and my father didn't know how.
So yeah, that's what I think.
That's my theory. I strongly disagree, which doesn't mean I'm right.
Obviously, it doesn't mean you're wrong, but I strongly disagree.
And I'll tell you why, and I think this is going to be important for the conversation as a whole.
And again, we'll get back to your story.
I just wanted to make sure I don't forget this.
To me, self-esteem comes from an accurate processing of reality, right?
So, if you're nervous about jumping off a curb, That's too frightened.
If you're not nervous about jumping off a roof, that's not frightened enough.
So if you're terrified of a kitten, that's too scared.
If you're not terrified of a tiger, that's not scared enough.
So an accurate processing of reality is what gives us self-esteem.
Because the problem is if you say, well, I have low self-esteem because my mother abandoned me, well, you never can then change that because you can never be someone whose mother never abandoned him.
Like, she did abandon you, or she abandoned you, or she left your father, and therefore left you.
So if you say, I have low self-esteem because my mother abandoned me, then that low self-esteem can never be changed.
Because the facts can't be changed.
Right? If I say, well, I'm eternally going to be insecure because I will never be six feet tall, well...
That I'm always going to be eternally insecure because I'm never going to be six feet tall.
So I think, for me, I would say that if you accurately process reality, that gives you confidence, that gives you self-esteem.
And the accurate processing of reality is that your mother didn't abandon you.
She abandoned her vows.
She abandoned motherhood.
She abandoned her love.
She failed. She messed up.
And she hurt her children by having children with a man and then leaving the marriage.
And that doesn't have any reflection on your value or your worth.
Yes. I know that part.
Yes, I do. But the things you described, I think, isn't that more about self-confidence rather than self-esteem?
Well, I mean, so esteem means to have respect for, right?
To esteem someone is to have respect.
Now, we can't have respect for somebody who doesn't process reality accurately, who isn't in reality, who, you know, we can't respect.
Respect is something that we earn by accurately processing reality.
So I would say that self-esteem is, well, I respect my own judgment.
And that means I don't put...
So, the value that I have can't be based upon somebody else's decision, right?
So, does that make sense? Like, if somebody says, oh, Steph, you're a bad guy in some way, right?
Well, I don't have any control over what someone else says.
So, my value, my self-respect can't be dependent upon the actions of others.
It has to be dependent upon me accurately processing reality.
So if your mother chooses to leave you when you're a baby, that can't have any effect on the value you perceive yourself to have.
I mean, obviously, when you're a kid, it'll have an effect, and I'm not sort of trying to say that no kid should ever feel bad for being abandoned by his mother.
Of course you do. But in terms of the value that you have as a human being...
That's dependent upon you accurately processing reality, making reasonably wise decisions based upon facts, reason and evidence.
It can't be that your value is determined by what your mother did when you were a year or two old, because that's giving your value entirely over to someone else.
Which is to say you have no control over your own value.
Yes, I agree.
And that is what you do when you grow up.
You try to make yourself have self-esteem by, just like you said, by observing your environment and how people approach you and what you get from your mother when you are a child.
Just give you a start, so to say, that yes, you are worth being loved.
Isn't that right? I mean...
Again, I understand that how a lot of children would perceive that abandonment would be that they're not worthy of being loved and so on.
Like, if my own mother can't love me and so on.
But I'm asking you, as an adult...
Why you have low self-esteem?
And you said, it's because my mother left.
And I asked, is that your causality?
You have low self-esteem because your mother abandoned her family.
And that's not true.
Now, as a child, you'll perceive that for sure.
But as an adult, and as a father yourself, you don't have low self-esteem because your mother left you.
That would be something that you would have perceived, of course, as a kid.
And maybe if it had never been explained to you, or maybe if you'd been blamed for it, then you would have to go along with that.
But it's not the case.
Our self-esteem is not a series of dominoes that get knocked over by other people and just stay that way for the rest of our lives.
The accurate perception of reality is that your mother acted in a selfish and immature manner That she was destructive and harmful and petty and, again, immature, I'm sure. And that reflects on her, not you.
That reflects on her, not you.
Like if I lock a dog in the basement and the dog gets really hungry and aggressive, we don't blame the dog, right?
We blame me as the dog owner for harming or torturing the dog.
So my sort of purpose is to say that if...
Your self-esteem is like a domino, just gets knocked over.
Then that is not an accurate processing of reality.
Your mother's failure doesn't make you unlovable.
Your mother's inability to love doesn't make you unlovable.
By definition, again, you're going to experience that as a kid, but as a kid, we believe that we are the cause of everything around us, but we also believe in Santa Claus.
I'm going to assume you don't believe in Santa Claus now.
And so this idea that You are who you are because your mother messed up, or you have this view of yourself because your mother messed up, I think is false.
I think we agree.
I think we agree. We're just expressing it in different ways.
No, sorry, that's not the case.
Because I did ask you, do you believe that you have low self-esteem because your mother abandoned you and you said yes?
And I'm saying that's not why you have low self-esteem.
It's part of it. Yes, I think that is part of it.
I think that when I met my ex-wife, I was, how old was I? Maybe 24.
And I haven't had much success in dating.
And I have...
My father wasn't around during my upbringing either, so he couldn't give me what I think a father should give the children, I mean, pairing or whatever.
And I was put in a boarding school.
Yeah, me too, by the way. Yeah, I know, I know.
Which was the best thing that could happen to me, which I think is kind of crazy.
Because then I didn't have my older brother torturing me.
So I think during my upbringing, I didn't get the feedback that would give me high self-esteem.
That has changed a lot, of course, when I got older.
But at the time, no, I did not have that.
Right. Now, why did your father not spend much time with you when you were little?
I don't think he knew.
He was quite old when he got me.
He already had five children before me and one marriage before.
And so he was kind of old school.
Sorry, he was an experienced father.
Ah, he should be.
Yes, should have been. No, no, he was.
For good or ill, if you've had five kids, I guess you were number six.
If you've had five kids, then you would be an experienced father, right?
Absolutely. And it was more like...
Oh, this is the sixth one, and so he didn't turn up when I graduated, for example.
He was bored, I guess, of examinations.
So, no. Yeah.
Okay. So, how long were you in boarding school for?
Seven years. Yep.
Seven years. Well, what ages to what ages?
It would be from...
12 to 18.
Right, okay. And before that?
No. That would be, what do you call it, state school?
No, but with regards to your father, I mean, 0 to 12 is quite a long time.
Okay, well, he had kind of...
What do you call it? Babysitters?
Oh, nannies?
Yes, nannies.
And then there was one young woman that moved in and they had relationships as well.
And later on produced yet another child.
So he had seven children in all.
Well, he wasn't around.
He didn't... We did spend Christmas and some vacation together doing skiing and things like that.
But the day-to-day, I don't have any memories of that, no.
I'm really sorry about that.
It's very sad, of course, that your father would have...
A child, and then not really want to spend much time with that child.
I'm really sorry about that.
That's a very sad situation.
So I guess that is what made me think, I believe, that when I got chosen, I accepted.
But why were the other boys scared of her?
She was... I wouldn't describe that.
Thanks for watching!
you I don't know how to describe that actually.
She knew how to Actually, I can just only think of...
She knew how to bite.
But, of course, she didn't bite them.
No, I understand. She had a sore tongue.
Yeah. Yes.
That's it. Yeah.
Now, I assume that she was also very attractive because a lot of times those two things go hand in hand, like acoustic tongue and physical attractiveness.
Yes. I think so.
At the time, yes. Yeah.
I think that changed over the years, but yeah, at the time, yeah, absolutely.
Okay, so she chose you, and you chose her because she was attractive, and you weren't expecting this could be the only time someone would choose you, right?
And I didn't do that knowingly.
I just stumbled along, really.
Just played my part, so to speak.
Sorry to interrupt.
Why do you think she chose you? At the time, I had some money.
So that could be it.
How did you have money at 24?
You could say it was three...
Inheritance from my father, sort of.
Yes. But we burnt that in maybe...
Sorry, your father was not dead, though.
Was it just like, was it like a trust that matured when you were in school or something like that?
Yes, sort of.
I think that would be the best explanation.
Okay, so you had some money, but you spent it on her, right?
Yes. So at the time when I ran out of money, she decided to get another guy.
Okay, and then what? That's a divorce.
Yeah. Oh, okay, so in this process, sorry, the last I heard, I think.
Oh, sorry, so you got married, you had kids, and then when you ran out of money, she divorced you, is that right?
Yeah, more or less, yes.
And why did you run out of money?
Well, she was expensive.
I don't know how to answer that one.
She was expensive, yeah.
Well, I mean, and...
But wouldn't you say, we don't have the money?
We need to cut back on our spending because I'm not earning that much.
Are we going to run out of money? There were times where we did Talk about that, but we didn't know how.
We didn't know how.
What do you mean you didn't know how to spend less money?
Because the things we focused on was, I mean, it's idiotic to think about it today, of course.
I mean, yes, it is.
But we focused on the wrong things.
And the things that did cost a lot of money, those were the things that she wanted and was important to her, like having a horse, for instance.
Oh, you got involved with a horsewoman.
Well, yeah, that's doom.
Thank you.
Thank you. I didn't know.
I know now. Horsewomen, you might as well just set fire to all the money.
Convert it all to bills and set fire to it in the front yard.
Absolutely. Yes.
Yes. Absolutely.
So it was an impossible task, I think.
And I didn't understand.
I was naive and I was hopelessly trying to hold it together so that she would be happy and Yeah.
Now, it was not fun.
Well, also, wasn't it the case that if you said no to her, then she would leave you?
Was that your concern?
That if you said, no, we can't have a horse, we're in our 20s, we're just starting our lives and we're running out of money, so we're going to have to get rid of the horse.
Would it be the case that if you said that, you were afraid that she was going to leave you, right?
Yeah. Not consciously.
I don't think I was thinking that at the time.
No. Maybe I did unconsciously.
Probably I did. Probably did.
Well, okay. Hang on.
Listen. You're an intelligent fellow, right?
You're an intelligent fellow, right?
Okay. I mean, no.
Is that fair to say? I think so, yes.
I mean, you're certainly intelligent enough to do basic math, which is we can't afford this lifestyle, right?
Yes, I can do that.
Okay, so you can do all of that and a lot more, I'm sure, okay?
So I'm trying to sort of understand that you were living significantly beyond your means, right?
Is that right? Yes.
You could not afford the horse, the house, the cars, or whatever it is you were spending your money on, right?
Is that right? Yes, absolutely.
So then, of course, as an intelligent man, the logical thing when you're spending too much money is to stop spending too much money, right?
Yes. But, I mean, you're talking about logic here.
That wasn't part of it.
There was no logic.
It was... No, no, no.
There's always logic.
It may not be objective rational logic, but there's always logic.
There's always a reason why things occur.
Always. Always.
Always a reason why things occur.
So... Why could you not say no to this woman if you can't afford...
I mean, you had children at this point, right?
Yes. All right.
So your primary responsibility, of course, is to your children, right?
Is that right? Absolutely.
Right. Yeah, absolutely. So if your primary responsibility is towards your children, then...
Sorry, you would say to your wife, we can't afford the horse because we have to feed the children.
We can't feed the horse because we have to feed the children, right?
I mean, I get we can't ride the children, but nonetheless, that's how it has to be.
So the question is, why did you not say this, right?
Now, I'm not a big blame thing, like, oh my gosh, it's so terrible.
I mean, just genuine curiosity.
Like, why would you not say that we have to cut our spending?
I think it was the same reason why other guys were afraid of her.
That's what I think.
Yeah. I mean, it's...
Yeah, she can be...
I don't know if she's that way now, but she could be really nasty.
So, yeah.
It was a way of avoiding war.
when did you first notice that she could be really nasty?
I mean I assume it was when you were dating right?
Bye.
Thank you.
No, I don't think so.
I don't think so.
I think it started to go darker when she got pregnant.
And that was maybe a month or two before our wedding.
So after maybe two years, it became I'm sorry, are you trying to tell me that for two years she showed no evidence of having a bad temper or being nasty or having a vicious tongue?
Not in a way that it affected our relationship and that I thought it was about Me as a person?
I mean, we made jokes that could be harsh like that, right?
And no, we got along very good the first two years.
I can't remember that we had any fights the first two years.
It all changed when she got pregnant.
Right, so if she was not nasty over the first two years, then why were the other boys afraid of her?
I mean, what could they see that you say you couldn't?
I saw how she could be with the other guys, but maybe I was...
Arden from boarding school and my older brothers, I don't know, but that didn't affect me in a negative way.
No. It was a jargon that I could handle.
It was a what? What's it called?
Jargon. No.
What's the word? Like a form of speech that you could handle?
Yeah. Yeah.
So, are you saying that she was relatively caustic, or could be, but you could handle it?
Yes. Yeah, because it was just a style.
No, that's fine.
Okay. Now, what was her family like?
I assume you met them before she got pregnant.
Yes, I did.
And what was her family like?
Oh, it's a long time now.
What was her parents like?
She has a wonderful brother.
Yes, I really liked him and still do.
Wonderful brother. Oh, so hang on.
Did her wonderful brother warn you that she had a really bad temper?
A younger brother, no.
Why wouldn't he warn you?
I don't know. I mean, he would have known that she had a bad temper, and wouldn't he have warned you and said, listen, if you're going to get married to her, you should be aware that she has a really bad temper?
No, no, no, not his style and no, no.
You would think that maybe my family would warn me.
I mean, especially one of my brothers has said afterwards that he knew that and saw that and that he was skeptic, but he didn't say anything.
Nobody said anything.
Or maybe they did, and I didn't listen.
I'm not sure, actually.
I don't know. I don't remember anyone saying anything.
Okay, so for two years, I'm trying to figure out, did you know that she had a temper but
you were used to it or you didn't know that she had a temper at all?
I didn't know that she had a temper that would be directed towards me.
I think that would be most accurate to say.
And so what did you see in her temper that was not pointed towards you that you noticed?
She was snappy and, yeah, sharp tongue.
So she was snappy and sharp-tongued, but never towards you over two years, is that right?
Yes. Don't you have the word jargon?
Jargon, yeah, but it's not quite the same.
I don't think it means quite the same thing.
Now, did it bother you that she could be mean to other people?
No, I didn't reflect on that.
No, I didn't. Okay, so she would be mean or sharp-tongued or nasty to other people, and it wouldn't bother you, so it didn't matter to you that the woman you maybe wanted to marry or have kids with could be nasty to other people?
Oh, no. No, it didn't.
Okay. I mean, looking back, I know there were lots of...
Warning signals, but I didn't pay attention.
I didn't understand what to look for when looking for a mother for my children.
I didn't understand. So no, I had no clue.
Absolutely clueless.
And what were the signs, now that you're looking back on it, what were the signs that were warning signs?
Like, other guys didn't want to date her.
Just like, I mean, you're heading right towards it.
So you're right, yeah, I should have.
And I should have all those things that you have brought up, but it didn't occur to me.
It just didn't. And she also once said something like, oh, I'm going to be a luxury wife.
Yeah. I'm going to be a luxury wife.
Oh, so she said that she was going to be very expensive.
Yeah. And I didn't understand what she said.
But I remember it, and I'm just, whoa.
Yes. No, I didn't understand.
I didn't think anything would apply to me.
No. Right.
Absolutely. There were many warning signals that I could have taken into account had I been listening to you.
You weren't around.
That's a necessity.
So she said, I'm going to be a very expensive wife, and then it was surprising to you that she was a very expensive wife?
Right. I mean, I didn't make the connection until after the divorce.
See, I've got to tell you, it's a strange situation for me.
I don't want you to necessarily focus on my feelings.
But you get all kinds of, in English they call it rubber bones.
Like, I had no choice.
I had no chance.
I had no experience. I was naive.
Your wife is caustic to other people.
You don't think she has a temper.
She says, I'm going to be a very expensive wife, and then you are surprised that she's a very expensive wife.
She has horses, and you don't think that she might be an overspender.
I don't understand.
You're an intelligent man.
And the reason why I'm focusing on this is, okay, how old were you when you separated from your wife?
I've been 31, maybe?
Okay, so you were 31, right?
So, what you communicate to your children when you say, I had no clue about anything, is you can say, you can make it to the age of 30, be in grave danger, have people tell you, obviously, through their behavior that you're in grave danger...
And be completely clueless as to the fact that you're in grave danger.
You can think you love someone, and it turns out that you don't.
You can think they love you. It turns out that they only love your money, and there's no way to know ahead of time.
So by you saying, I had no knowledge, I had no chance, I had no education, I had no way to do any better, what happens is it communicates to your children a great deal of fear and anxiety about love and pair bonding, Because if you say there's no way to know if someone you love turns out to be a monster, okay, I guess maybe that makes you feel like you're off the hook for your 20s.
But what it does to your children is it says you can't trust anybody, least of all yourself.
Well, that is true, I think, until you start actively thinking.
But you have to do it Knowingly, if you can say that, to start thinking.
At least that's what I have done.
Yes, but the communication to my children that you're speaking of, I really try to communicate with my children about what I have done, from what I understand. Especially what I didn't do and how I'd made wrong decisions.
I've been talking to my children so much, you wouldn't believe.
Well, you must have been telling them something completely opposite to what you're telling me though.
Because what you're telling me is I had no chance, no clue, nobody warned me, I didn't even notice that she was mean to other people, or it didn't matter, and there was no signs that she was ever going to turn on me until she was a month or two from giving birth.
So if you're saying something to your children, then that's very different from what you're saying to me, and maybe that's a little confusing for me.
I think what I've been trying to communicate is that I was looking for The wrong things.
I was looking for someone to have fun with, to party with, and that's not the same person you want to have as your co-parent for your children.
I think that's the main thing I try to communicate, that when you marry, you have to make sure that this person is someone that can be Father or mother to your children.
I've been talking about that so much and used my own failure as an example of what not to do.
Yes, that's what I've been trying to say.
Was this a planned pregnancy?
Yes. Okay, so who brought up wanting to have kids?
Who did? Sorry, she did?
Yes. Okay.
Is it low volume?
No, no. If we both talk at the same time, that's just my issue.
Yes. Okay. So she said she wanted to have kids and you agreed.
Is that right? I thought it was a little bit early.
But she said that, well, it can take time, so why don't I get off the pills?
And she did. And she got pregnant the next day, more or less.
So why did you decide to become a father when you said that she was really only good for partying
I think there is There's kind of if there is a script that we follow
Or that we think we should follow.
With getting educated, meet a girl, move together, get children, and so on.
Get a job and all that.
And you just sort of do it.
But without really thinking.
If it's good or if it's good timing.
You just Go along without thinking.
That's what I think. I think that's what I was doing.
I wasn't thinking.
I didn't know how to think at the time.
I knew how to repeat.
But that's another statement of inability.
Yeah, but it's true.
True. I didn't know.
If there's one thing that should be taught in schools, it's how to think.
And they don't teach you that.
They teach you how to repeat.
And so you repeat.
The thinking part is something that I've developed maybe 20 years.
But this is four years ago.
I didn't think.
It's annoying, because if I had been thinking, I would have made other choices, absolutely.
Now, can you appreciate that?
that now when you think back upon your I guess late 20s early 30s around the time
that you became a father and got married were there situations where you
disagreed with the woman and voiced it and if so what happened like you said
you wanted to do something different or maybe you wanted to limit spending or
something like that you
I don't think we had more more than just a few fights And that was at the end.
Usually when we had a disagreement, I would be able to a certain degree to have a discussion
and make kind of arguments for it.
So obviously there were things that were off topic like get rid of the horse.
I mean, yeah.
That was a big no-no.
Now, what was the no about that?
I mean if you'd said, look, we can't afford the horse, we're just not making enough money,
what do you think would have happened?
I think we would probably have getting that.
Yeah, we would probably get...
Nasty, I think.
Maybe that was what I was afraid of.
And by tiptoeing, I avoided that.
Maybe. I don't know. Well, but hang on.
Because this is the funny thing.
And I'm not saying you're being false in anything.
I'm just trying to sort of understand.
Because you say, well, I didn't mind that she was nasty, and she certainly was never nasty to me.
Okay, so if you don't think she's ever going to be nasty to you, then when you can't afford the horse, you say, well, sorry, like, Not even sorry, but it's just a fact.
The math is that we can't...
Now, if she wants to keep the horse, maybe she could have got a part-time job or something.
So if you're saying, well, I had no reason to be nervous of her, but I couldn't tell her that we couldn't afford the horse.
Yeah, but there's no conflict there.
I don't think there's a conflict.
Because she wasn't nasty to me.
Because I could handle...
Yeah, I could handle the situations.
And I'm trying to figure out myself right now, because I haven't thought about it in this way.
And it's a long time since.
If there's some guy who's buried a body in his backyard, and you say, listen, I need to get some earth, and he says, yeah, dig wherever you want, that's totally fine, right?
But if he says, well, don't dig there, whatever you do, then he can't later claim that he had no idea that there was a body in his backyard.
If he absolutely says, you can't dig there, don't dig there, no matter what you do, right?
And so if you say, well, I had no reason to believe that she would be nasty to me, but you can't tell her we can't afford the horse.
I mean, the reason you would tell her, the reason you wouldn't tell her we can't afford the horse is because you're scared of her aggression.
Does that make sense? Yes, it does.
So you knew that she was going to be aggressive towards you, which is why there were topics that you couldn't bring up.
You said a no-no, right?
I think you're right.
Okay, so my question is, when did you first begin to change your behavior based upon her potential aggression towards you?
I don't know. I don't know.
I have to think about that one.
I don't know. But certainly, so how long...
When did you first realize that you couldn't afford the lifestyle you had?
It was just...
Oh, that's a hard one.
When did I realize that it ruined?
I mean, just roughly. I mean, it obviously wasn't the first day of dating, but it was before the last day of being married, right?
I was very close to it when I really...
Maybe, I don't know, a year before?
No, maybe not.
Yeah. A half, maybe.
But when your bills are bigger than your income, you know that right away, right?
I mean, when you have to borrow money or you have to get credit, I mean, when your bills are bigger than your income, you know that right away, right?
I don't think it was that obvious because we did have incomes and But we did extra stuff that costed extra money.
And those things we couldn't continue with when I ran out of money.
But that didn't mean that we wouldn't have food on the table, you know.
So it wasn't life-threatening to run out of money because we could manage.
Okay, so when you stopped doing the extra stuff, that's when she left you?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and how old were your children when she left you?
Could it be three and five?
Bye.
you Four and five, maybe?
Okay, so they were young, obviously.
Now, what happened that led up to her leaving you?
She met another guy.
Oh, she met another guy, right?
Yeah, yes. Is that similar to what happened with your mother?
Yeah. I'm sorry, was that yes?
Yes. Okay, got it, got it.
And was the other guy wealthier?
Is that sort of what happened? No, but he was younger and he was more fit.
She was a teacher for 10-year-olds when they're playing football and stuff.
Yeah, sports or physical education.
Yes, right, exactly.
Gym teacher. Yes, a gym teacher.
She was a gym teacher and this guy There was some kind of program so he would help out at her school.
He was young and fit and I guess she was like a goddess to him.
Did she leave to pursue a relationship with him?
No. I was working an hour away in another town, so I got small apartments that I didn't have to commute all the time.
Oh, sorry.
You were living...
In another town for five days of the week?
No, no, no. We didn't get that far.
But just at the end of our marriage, I got this apartment because we thought that would be a good idea.
In hindsight, I understand that what she was trying to do was to get me out of town so that she could focus on this
other guy.
Okay, I understand. And how long had you been married at this point?
I guess five years?
Six years? Five years.
I think the relationship in total was seven years.
Okay, so then did you end up moving to this other town?
Because we started...
I started to stay at this apartment and then it became obvious what was actually going on.
So yeah, I ended up living in that apartment for maybe half a year, could it be more, before I got myself a bigger place that could better fit my children when they were visiting me.
And it also could be She also could move into when, as I hoped, she would realize that she had made a bad mistake.
Yeah, it took maybe one or two years for me to actually let go after the divorce.
It took time.
Yeah. And do you know why she divorced you?
She has never told me, so I don't know, but I guess it was the money and that he was more fit.
No, that's not it.
What do you mean? That's not it.
Because you weren't there in the marriage.
You said this yourself. You were acting automatically.
You didn't think for yourself.
You didn't resist. You weren't assertive.
You were a ghost. You weren't there.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
I don't think that's right.
That's a bad interpretation.
All right, tell me then how to interpret it better.
I mean, you wouldn't even tell her that you couldn't afford the horse!
the horse?
Or horses, right?
You were appeasing her.
You were frightened of her. You were afraid to assert yourself.
You assert yourself. You didn't know how to think.
You didn't know how to judge. You didn't know how to evaluate.
I have sympathy for that.
I really have sympathy for that.
But that's what I've heard you say.
I understand the conclusion.
I do. But I don't think it's totally accurate.
When I judge myself, not that I wasn't thinking I was just going along, I think it's in I compare with who I am today, how I do, how I think and do things today, which I at least perceive, maybe it's the same, but I perceive as I'm more active now,
trying to think.
Well, I mean, is it fair to say that no matter I mean, certainly when you're in your 20s and 30s, is it fair to say that there's always someone younger and fitter around, right?
I mean, my wife and I are in our 50s, right?
Is there always someone younger and fitter who's around?
Is there?
No, there always is.
Yeah, there always is. Okay, right.
Of course there is, right?
I mean, it's not like nobody had children after me or after my mom, right?
So, you know, there are younger and fitter people around, right?
And yet we've had no affairs, right?
So it's not the younger fitter thing because that's a constant in life that there are always going to be younger and fitter people around.
So that's not causal as to why there's an affair.
Now, in terms of running out of money, every marriage has its financial ups and downs.
Do we agree on that?
I'm comparing with my...
No, no, hang on. But every marriage has times where there's more money and times where there's less money, right?
Yes. I mean, I got deplatformed, right?
It happens, right? Yes.
So, when you say that she left you because there was less money and she left you because there were younger and fitter men around, neither of those things is true because neither of those things is causal.
In other words, if you say X because of Y, then it needs to be pretty much 100% of the time.
Now, If you're going to say, she left me because there were younger and fitter people, that's not a correct answer because every marriage has younger and fitter people around it.
And if you're going to say, she left me because there was less money, well, in every marriage, there's times where there's more money and there's less money.
But most wives don't leave their husband because there's less money and most wives don't leave
their husband because there's younger and fitter people around.
However wives do tend to have affairs if the man is emotionally unavailable, if he's too
compliant, if he's too appeasing, if he's scared of her.
Bye.
Thank you.
Because women, of course, as you know, they like to look up to their men, they like to feel that the man is a strong protector, and if the man is scared of her, she loses respect for him.
And if he won't voice his disagreements, and if he just throws money at her because he's scared of her, and if he's not thinking and he's just doing whatever she wants, oh, I want to date you.
You said you started dating because she picked you.
So you're like, okay. So she says, and I say this with sympathy.
I really do. I say this with great sympathy.
There's nothing critical in anything I'm saying.
I'm just sort of pointing it out.
But she says, I'm going to date you.
And you're like, okay. And then she says, I want to have a kid.
And you're like, okay. And then she says, I want to get married.
Okay. Right?
Oh, I want to have a horse. Okay.
I want to go on a trip. Okay.
So, I think it's fairly true to say that if a man is overly compliant in a marriage, if he erases himself in order to appease his fear of his wife, that the marriage is not going to do well at all.
If that makes sense. Yes, I think you're right.
I actually think you're right.
Fuck. Hey, you told me about the anger.
We got there. That's good.
So tell me what you're thinking.
I'm surprised. I'm actually surprised.
I haven't thought about it. Happy to hear how surprised you are.
Go on. I'm just surprised.
That's, yeah, I haven't thought about it like this, and you're probably right, and it pisses me off.
Do you know one of the sexiest things a husband can do is say no?
Yeah, I know, I know.
Anyway, but tell me what you're thinking, because I know this is old stuff for you, but I mean, if there's a new perspective that's helpful, you said it's pissing you off.
Go on, tell me more. The first thing that comes to mind is that I'm so happy with my marriage that I have now.
I'm so grateful that we have chosen each other and that we work so well together that I don't have to be assertive in the way that I probably had to have been Well, I doubt you could have been that way with her because she chose you because there was a spineless aspect to you back then.
And again, I don't mean this in any critical way.
I sympathize. But she chose you because you wouldn't say no.
Because you went along.
Because you appeased. Because you were scared of her.
She chose you because of that.
And when people choose you because of that, it's impossible to be assertive in that relationship.
Because the moment you're assertive, I mean, you might as well turn into a orangutan.
I don't want to get married to an orangutan.
I chose a human being.
And if she chose you for your submissive side, then it would have been impossible for you to be assertive.
because if you had been assertive she wouldn't have chosen you in the first place.
I'm trying to give you some peace of mind that...
In my view, right, obviously just somebody's been talking to you for this amount of time, there was no winning in that marriage.
You couldn't win. Absolutely.
I mean, if you'd have said no horse, she would have said no horse means no husband.
What are you going to do? And then if you had divorced her, Because she wouldn't let go of the horse, then she would have said to the children, I loved your father, he divorced me for no reason, he's a terrible man, she would have poisoned your kids against you, like there was probably no winning, I'm guessing. I'm thinking that maybe the last year or so, that I was more...
I was being more affirmed.
No, what's the word?
I was saying no to stuff more than I previously did.
I actually think so, yes.
Right. So then when you start being assertive, and she chose you for not being assertive, you start being assertive, she's just going to leave you, right?
Yes. Right. Yes.
I haven't connected the dots that way before.
Yeah, because if she's narcissistic, and I don't know, there's not a technical term, I'm just using it sort of the colloquial way, but if she's narcissistic, then if you show up in the relationship, she's going to have to leave because only one of you can be there.
That's the narcissistic universe.
It's either you win or I win.
We can't both win because there's only one person in the universe.
It's either you or it's me. Yes, yes.
Right. Okay. Okay.
Yeah. Thank you.
No, no. It's my pleasure.
So how did the divorce go?
No, it didn't.
Well, what happened was that she was trying to have us both for a while.
And I was hoping that she would choose me.
And after a while, I said, you have to choose.
It's me or him. Oh, she was kind of like it was an open marriage for a while?
Yes, sort of.
Okay. Because we filed for divorce.
And when you do that, you have to have this thinking period for half a year because you have small children.
Right. And...
It was at that time it got apparent for me that she was dating this other guy.
So after that, half a year was done and a few months, I told her that she has to pick one and that I won't go along.
And so she filed for divorce.
Right. And do you think that was the right approach looking back?
It's always easy to say after the fact, but do you think that was the right approach looking back?
Looking back, I should have chosen another wife.
Bye.
No, no, but given the situation that you were in.
Yes.
Because you gave her the choice, right?
Yes, I did. I pushed her, because it wasn't maintainable.
It didn't work out.
Why wasn't it your choice? I didn't want to.
I wanted us to try to fix the marriage.
Why? Because of the children.
I wanted to be a father.
I had an obligation.
I didn't want to have a divorce.
No way, no way. Absolutely not.
Oh, no. No.
I didn't want a divorce.
I wanted to be with my children and have a family.
Yes. We've been going for therapy for some time.
It didn't work out, of course.
During our sessions in this family therapy, I sort of found my voice and could talk about things that I hadn't been able to do before.
And she didn't.
And she couldn't handle that.
So that ended the sessions.
So after she had...
Endless sex with this young stud muffin, you would have taken it back?
Yes, I would have.
For the sake of the kids, right?
Absolutely. But now for your sake.
At the time I still wanted to be married to her.
Yes. You wanted to be married to her outside of what was for the kids.
And I'm not saying that's unrelated, but you wanted to remain married to her for her rather than just for the kids, right?
Oh, both.
Okay, so what was it about her, given that she had betrayed you and tried to shuffle you off to this other apartment in the other town so she could have...
More sex with the young man.
Was it about her that you wanted to maintain a relationship for?
Like, what was appealing about that for you?
Like, let's say you didn't have kids, right?
Let's say you hadn't had kids and you had wanted to stay married.
What would have been appealing about that for you?
No, I wouldn't have.
I wouldn't. No, I wouldn't.
You're right. It was the kids.
No, I wouldn't have.
Had there been just the two of us, I wouldn't have continued.
No, I wouldn't have. Okay, I'm kind of glad to hear that.
Just by the by, man to man, I'm kind of glad to hear that.
I mean, they call it in American slang sloppy seconds.
You don't want any of that stuff.
Okay. All right.
Okay. So, your idea was that you would...
But I actually thought...
I actually had...
I thought that I... At the time, I thought that I wanted to be with her.
But thinking about it now, I didn't.
In a way, it was kind of a relief.
The divorce, in a way.
But also, it was absolutely...
Crushing. To have the family dissolved.
It was absolutely a disaster for me.
Go on. Yes, and...
Oh, yeah.
Yeah. That's it.
So... Yeah.
What was so disastrous about it for you?
I think the most painful thing was how was my children and how they suffered.
I mean, I hated this new guy.
Oh, I hated him.
But when my daughter Told me that she had been crying, longing for me, and her mother didn't want to soothe her.
Is that the word? Soothe?
Yeah, soothe or comfort.
Comfort. He did.
He comforted her.
And so that's when I just, okay, I can't be angry at this guy.
You can't be angry at him?
What do you mean? Because...
He stepped in and comforted my children when they were longing for me.
What do you mean? You can't be angry at the guy who seduced your wife, the mother of your children?
Well, I was trying to be practical.
No, no, no. We don't do practical here.
We don't do practical. Be honest.
I am honest. This guy...
Hang on. This guy...
Of course, your wife has agency, I'm getting all of that, but this guy knew that your wife was the mother of two small children.
He knew that there were challenges in the marriage, and he stepped in and helped smash up your family?
And you're like, I can't get mad at him?
What? I love my children.
I'm sorry? Because I love my children, and it hurt me that their mother...
How does it help your children to not get angry at the man who smashed up your marriage?
How would it help my children to get angry?
I don't know. It's honest.
And you're saying I care that the family got smashed up.
It matters to me that the family got smashed up, that this sociopathic asshole came in...
And threw a bowling ball down the marriage and smashed it up.
It matters to me.
me. I care about it. I hate that guy." Because emotions matter and emotions help you.
you you
you you
Well, I do hate him for that.
Or... Now, in hindsight, I don't even hate him for that, because I like who I am today, and I wouldn't have been what I am today had I been married to my ex-wife.
Okay, okay, okay. Yeah, I mean...
No, listen, listen, listen.
Because, like you said, she's a narcissist.
Hang on, hang on, hang on. You're here because your children are suffering a little, right?
Isn't that why we're talking?
Absolutely.
All right.
If this guy had not seduced your wife, your family would have been more likely to stay together.
together.
Yes. Now, maybe she pursued him like crazy.
I don't know, right? But it doesn't matter.
If he'd have said, no, I'm not...
I'm not sleeping with a married woman who's the mother of children.
Are you kidding me? I'm not sleeping.
No! That's repulsive to me.
I'm not breaking up a family.
Why? Because I'm not a fucking monster.
That's why. I'm not a total asshole.
That's why. But the guy who stole your wife is seducing your children.
You're like, well, I can't hate him.
Isn't it being pragmatic?
No, it's not being pragmatic.
If it was being pragmatic, you and I wouldn't be having this conversation because your kids would be fine.
You say it's pragmatic, and I'll tell you what it is, in my humble opinion.
What it is, is you decided, because your parents didn't bond with you, that you couldn't be inconvenient to anyone.
That nobody was going to like you if you were inconvenient to them.
And if your feelings went against their preferences, you stifled your feelings, you strangled your feelings in the crib so that you're not inconvenient to people.
So that you don't bother them, you don't upset them.
And I say this with great sympathy.
I know I'm passionate, but I'm not mad at you or anything.
I say this with great sympathy.
Because a pair bond is when people can annoy the living hell out of us and we love them.
That's what a pair bond is.
You don't need a pair bond when everything's going great.
You don't need loyalty when everything's going wonderfully.
You need a pair bond, you need a loyalty when the other person is really bothering you.
So you have it in your mind and in your heart, I can't be a bother to people, I can't get mad at this person, I can't say she can't have a horse, I can't say no to this, I can't say no to that, I can't assert myself here, because being assertive is to be abandoned.
That if you're not convenient to people, they'll just throw you off the bus and drive on without even glancing back.
And I sympathize with that.
I really do. I really do.
But don't say it's practical.
It's trained, it's learned, it's understood behavior.
It's not practical. Or if you want to say it's practical, you can say, well, your brother tortured you, your father abandoned you, your mother abandoned you, I'm sure bad stuff went on in boarding school.
And then your wife, back in the day, in your 20s, you were 24 or something like that, she comes along and is like, oh, this guy will never say no, this guy doesn't really have any capacity to stand up for himself, he's been broken down by circumstances and beliefs, I can push him around.
And then she gets bored and annoyed at you being a push-around, and then she goes somewhere else.
And you're like, well, the guy who fucked my wife and broke up my family is now comforting my children.
I'm not going to get mad at him.
And I'm like, I don't know that that's necessarily the healthiest response.
I think that you say, and again, with deep understanding and sympathy, sympathy, sympathy, Can I bother people?
If I really disagree with someone, can I? I mean, obviously I'm willing to bother you a little bit in this conversation.
I hope for a good end.
Certainly that's what I'm aiming for.
But if you take your fear of disagreeing with people and turn it into a virtue...
I think you're denying the source of it.
The source of it is fear.
That if you displease people, and I'm sure this was communicated to you a million different ways by a million different people.
It's not just parents. It's teachers and priests and aunts and uncles.
Are you allowed to be inconvenient?
Are you allowed to really annoy people?
Are you allowed to confront them?
Are you allowed to strenuously and strongly disagree with them and still really care about them?
And in fact, the disagreement is because of the caring.
You know, if I have a blind uncle who's walking towards a cliff edge, and for some reason he's got headphones on, and I end up having to tackle him, it's not because I want to hurt him, it's because I want him to not walk off the cliff edge, right?
So, that's my concern that you take the fear that you have of being assertive, which again, I really, really sympathize with and understand.
And you've made it into a virtue.
Like, I'm just being practical.
I'm just being sensible. I'm just being prudent.
It's for my children. It's this, that, and the other.
And it's like, no.
And look, I mean, obviously, you say that with your current wife, you don't have those restrictions.
You could be honest and direct.
And I think that's wonderful. I think that's wonderful.
But it's really tempting to turn trauma into a virtue.
but it tends to be kind of destructive particularly for the next generation if
that makes sense.
Oh how does it affect my children?
Well, if self-erasure is a virtue, if pushing down and rejecting your own feelings becomes a virtue, then your children learn that not being direct, not being authentic, not being passionate, not being powerful, not being honest is a virtue.
that's going to inhibit them in their own relationships.
And maybe even their relationships with you, right?
Bye.
I mean, hopefully I'm doing some good in the conversation.
I think I've been direct.
I think I've been sympathetic.
I think I've been a little outraged on hearing some of these things.
That doesn't mean we can't have a great conversation.
In fact, it may be the reason why we have a great conversation.
I can disagree with you strongly.
We can still have a great conversation.
We can still be connected.
In fact, I think that by...
Disagreeing with you, I'm showing you great respect in that you can be disagreed with and be fine, right?
And I'm not right.
I could be wrong about everything that I'm saying.
That's not what's important. What's important is that I'm honest about what I think and won't hide my feelings from you, if that makes sense.
Yeah, it does. Okay.
I'm trying to make conclusions on how to change my...
Well, I mean, it's a classic in Western culture, right?
I mean, they call it the mind-body dichotomy, that your feelings are impractical, unhelpful, and need to be suppressed.
And you said, like, well, how would it help things if I got angry?
Right. Absolutely, yeah.
Yeah, as if your feelings are just there to be helpful to everyone.
No, your feelings are there to be honest, to be direct, because it's who you are.
Who you are is what you think and how you feel, right?
What you think and how you feel.
And if you judge your feelings, and it's what I said at the beginning, this sort of censorship, if you judge your feelings and say, well...
I'm going to let you out a little bit because I can see the practicality and use of what you do.
But, oh, that anger, no, that's impractical.
That's unhelpful. I'm going to suppress that.
That's bad. Then you're kind of a tyrant to your own instincts.
And the problem is, of course, that when you judge your feelings as good or bad, practical or impractical, You are treating them as potentially dangerous enemies.
Now, your genuine and deep feelings were enemies to your parents when you were little.
The anger and outrage that you had at being abandoned at your father and your mother abandoning you, your mother abandoning the family, your father tossing you into boarding school for seven years, and the nannies and all that kind of stuff.
You were justly outraged and angry.
But when you have people who aren't bonded with you, Who are only there if you're convenient and positive and helpful.
Then what happens with people who aren't bonded with you if you get angry at them?
What do they do? They abandon you.
Right? They leave.
If you'd have said to your dad, Dad...
I need you to sit down when you were a kid.
Dad, I need you to sit down.
I need you to listen to me, okay?
You're a father. You've done this five times before.
I'm number six. You've got to start being a better dad.
You've got to be there for me.
You've got to talk to me. I'm not going to boarding school.
Like, no way. You've got to spend more time with me.
I don't want any of this nanny crap.
Like, you have got to parent me.
I demand that. I didn't choose to be born.
You chose to have me.
That gives certain obligations to you.
That you better start respecting.
What would your father have said if you'd have had that conversation with him when you were five or eight or ten?
Oh, forget about it.
He would have just abandoned you, right?
Yeah. No, he would have.
I wouldn't have that. Yeah, I wouldn't have the courage.
I wouldn't have had courage. No, no, no.
Forget the courage. No, that would be suicidal.
That wouldn't even be courage.
That would be suicidal. I'm just – it's funny.
It's a funny coincidence. I'm just reading a book with my daughter.
I'm sure you know it, Oliver Twist by Dickens, of course.
And in it, Oliver Twist – and it was very famous.
I was actually in the musical when I was a kid, Oliver.
So it's very famous.
I don't know if you know the scene where Oliver – He goes up with his little bowl of gruel and he says, please sir, can I have some more?
And do you know what happens to him after that?
I don't remember. Yeah, well, I mean, they threaten to send him out to sea in the hopes that he will get thrown overboard or beaten to death.
They want to put him out as an apprentice to a guy who's a chimney sweep in the hopes that he will get black lung and die.
They finally send him out to a coffin maker where he has to sleep among the coffins.
Why? Because he dared, when he was hungry and starving, he dared ask for more.
And so, for you, survival meant not being honest about your needs.
And then you fast forward 20 or 30 years and survival now becomes I can't get angry at the guy who seduced my wife
and destroyed my family.
That feelings inconvenience, feelings that are inconvenient to narcissistic people must be squelched and relabeled.
And that squelching and murdering of your own true self must be relabeled a virtue.
It's prudent. It's sensible.
It's practical. It's utilitarian.
How would it have helped?
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But falsifying your own emotions and lying about your own experience to yourself and to others can't be a virtue.
Because then that's to say that lying is practical and falsifying.
And I'm not saying you're consciously lying or anything like that.
But when you relabel the effects of trauma, which is the suppression of your natural emotions for the sake of survival, which I applaud you for doing.
There's no way to survive otherwise.
But if you relabel the suppression of your natural emotion as a virtue, as practical, as sensible, then you create a world where your emotions are like mad ghosts in your brain that will try to possess you And drive you in desperately bad directions.
You're at war with yourself.
You could be possessed by genuine emotion at any time and it will be the end of you or the end of someone else.
It's incredibly dangerous.
You have these horses that you have to spend your whole life restraining because they're charging all over the place and running in opposite directions, pulling you apart like being drawn and quartered in the Middle Ages.
That's a lot of work.
Kind of exhausting work, right?
Yes, it is. I remember, I think it was one or one and a half year after the divorce that I started to recognize myself again.
My thinking and the way I used to be, which was interesting.
So, even though that I had been suppressing myself before we met, I must have done it so much more during the marriage.
No, no. It's before the marriage.
It comes out of the childhood.
It's why she chose you.
Because you were already self-suppressing.
Yes, but it accelerated.
It got even worse during the marriage.
So, when I got back to the...
Through the level that I was worrying before the marriage, I recognized it, that I had been changed.
But yeah, so it was really bad.
No, it was. It's amazing when you listen back to this, you'll see just how more fluent and fluid your speech is now, as opposed to the beginning.
Now, here's the wild thing.
This is the thing I sort of wanted to leave you with as a thought to So the wild thing is that we suppress ourselves because we're afraid of being abandoned and rejected.
But what happens is we're actually abandoning and rejecting ourselves.
And so if you say, well, I'm going to abandon and reject my own authentic feelings for the sake of my children, you're modeling to your children that to abandon and reject yourself is the best way to avoid being abandoned and rejected.
Like, to shoot your dog is the best way of making sure your dog doesn't die of old age.
It's kind of true in a way, it's just that it's not very sensible, if that makes sense.
What's best for my children is if I don't have impractical feelings.
And I don't, I personally, my belief is I don't believe any feeling is impractical.
Look, we don't go around and act on our feelings like you don't act it out.
Like, you're angry at someone, you don't go and Kick them in the side or something.
But I don't think that any feelings are impractical.
I think they're all very important and very essential for us to have a full existence and also they protect us very much.
I find anger in particular is the immune system of the soul.
It recognizes when we're being exploited and works to protect and create boundaries against being exploited.
It's a fundamental self-defense mechanism and I find that the people who don't allow themselves to get angry are often the most exploited People around, and they will often relabel not being angry as a virtue.
And that's, I think, where the problem is.
The problem is not having to suppress your feelings.
We all have to do that from time to time.
You know, if some policeman stops you and you're really annoyed, you don't act out your annoyance on the policeman.
You suppress it and, you know, deal with it later.
It's when it becomes a permanent habit, which we then relabel as a virtue.
I think that's when it becomes more of a challenge, if that makes sense.
You're right. I don't know how to handle it, handle my feelings, and how to use them in a constructive way.
when...
They're not there to be handled and used.
They are you. Like, no, listen, if I were to say, I don't know how to handle and use my arms, that would be kind of odd, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, thank you.
They're not, like, dangerous pets, oh, I gotta figure out how to feed them right without losing an arm, and they're, you know, they are you.
Okay. Yes.
Fuck. They're not tools, they're you.
They're not dangerous, they're, like, they're just you.
Your experience is Your passions.
I mean, isn't that where meaning comes from, is emotion and love and passion?
And pair bonding is emotional, it's not intellectual.
And all of the things, I think, that mean the most in many ways are based upon feelings.
And when we distance ourselves from our feelings, we do distance ourselves from life, I think, in sort of very essential ways.
And we also end up having to go through life, and this is why I sort of pointed out you're a very intelligent guy.
We also end up having to go through life intellectualizing things, which tends to go around in circles.
We can talk ourselves into and out of just about anything.
But when we have sort of deep emotions and passions, we tend to have a much straighter and safer course.
Sorry, I interrupted you most rudely.
I apologize if you'd like to go ahead.
Oh, I'm just moaning because I have lots of work to do.
I'm not sure really what to do with all this right now.
I hate to be annoying. I hate to be annoying.
Yes, I love it.
Hang on. No, what you're doing is work.
You have lots of laziness to do.
You have lots of not work to do.
Right? Because if you're holding back a dog that needs to just run and be free, and if I say, take the leash off, You say, oh man, I've got a lot of work to do.
It's like, no you don't. Holding back the dog is a lot of work.
Letting the dog run is not work at all.
Stop working. Stop controlling.
Stop managing. Stop trying to find the practical utilization for various emotions.
Stop being in charge. Stop being self-restrained.
It's a lot of not work, if that makes sense.
It'll feel self-indulgent, I guess, right?
But it's just authenticity, I think.
I'm so lost. I have no idea what to do.
Oh, I love this. Well, stop judging your emotions as practical or impractical, useful or not useful.
Take deep breaths and just feel.
And again, they're not possessions.
They don't make you do things, right?
I mean, if I'm angry at someone, I don't go and set fire to their car or anything.
I just feel it, right?
Just feel it and Have it as who I am.
Your emotions are all there to help you, and they're all there to protect you and your children, and they're useful.
And we wouldn't have evolved them if they were, you know, we didn't evolve arsenic for blood because that would kill us, right?
So we evolved our emotions to...
Help and protect us. Now, of course, you know, some of this modern world stuff is pretty anti-emotional and so on.
But yeah, and the last thing is good.
I mean, but, you know, whenever we're going in the wrong direction, the first step we want to be is feel lost.
Because as long as we're certain if we're heading in the wrong direction, we just keep going in the wrong direction.
I mean, I'm sure you've had it.
I used to do this. I used to drive a lot for business in the business world.
And this is before GPS. And I'd have some map directions written down.
And, you know, you have that feeling when it's like, shouldn't I pass the street by now?
Like, you get this uneasy feeling of like, ooh, you know, maybe, oh, you know, maybe I've gone to...
And so you want that in life, because if you're absolutely certain, you could end up in China or something.
I don't know, maybe not China, but you end up in Belarus or something.
So that uneasy feeling of maybe I'm going in the wrong direction, maybe that's what...
The feeling that maybe you are lost is, you know, if you have missed an exit of authentic emotion, it may be worth turning back, I guess.
What I'm thinking is that what I should do with the feelings.
I mean, if I'm not constrained...
No, no, no, again. How far should I let them?
No, just let them. Just experience them.
No, you just feel the feelings.
You don't have to do anything with them.
Right. You don't have to do anything with them, just experience them.
They affect the way, if I let them out, if you let your feelings out,
they affect your appearance, what you say and all that.
Or am I getting it wrong?
Well, they don't possess you.
You still have reason, you still have judgment, you still have self-restraint, right?
And that's, I think, what I need.
And if you're concerned, then just do it when you're alone, right?
Do it when you're in a room and, you know, if you want to scream into a pillow, whatever, right?
But, you know, you don't necessarily do it when you're driving an important client around in the business world or something.
But, you know, you can do it if you're concerned and do it at a time when you have some privacy and so on.
But what that does is it communicates to your kids, you know, feelings of your friends.
You know, they're there to help you.
They're positive. They're useful.
They're essential.
That means I have to show them my feelings.
Well, I think so, yeah.
But first, you've got to get comfortable with them yourself, right?
You don't go and necessarily dump some new emotional instability on your kids, but get a little more comfortable
with them with yourself and I Think that would be the way to go
But yeah, I think feelings are essential.
They're as essential as thought.
And they can certainly give more depth and permanence to our experience than thinking, right?
You know, that old Hamlet thing, there's nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so.
We can talk ourselves into or out of just about anything when it comes to our thoughts, but our feelings tend to be a little bit deeper and more permanent, and I think that's where more of the loyalty and passion and power, I think, comes from as well.
If you're in touch with your anger, if somebody tries to exploit you, you just get angry at them.
Now, it doesn't mean you scream at them or it doesn't mean you'll hit them, but your anger will say, hey, wait a minute, something's not working right here, something's going against your interest here, and once you get more fluid with that, you can make your decisions, but without that, you can just talk to yourself, oh, I'm not being exploited, no, I'm going to be reasonable, oh, it's not worth it, it's impractical, and your feelings just go away, but what that communicates to your kids is that Feelings are not great, that they're dangerous, that they're destabilizing,
that they're impractical, and then your kids may have trouble pair-bonding, because pair-bonding is a fundamentally emotional experience.
I think when you describe it, the more you describe it, I think I'm doing a lot of that, but not towards my daughter.
I don't. Right.
Well, maybe that's the way.
Yeah. Yeah.
I think, yeah.
Yeah, this is hard.
This is hard. Yeah.
Oh, come on. Isn't it great to have a good project for the last third of your life?
That's what I like about it.
I mean, we can't evolve, otherwise why get out of bed tomorrow, right?
Yeah, I'm truly grateful for all these new thoughts.
I mean, I love it. I'm just...
I'm caring for what's coming.
That's what I'm doing. You're trying to think your way through it, which is going to be a challenge because you're a thinking guy, which I appreciate.
I'm a thinking guy, too. I think thoughts are great.
I'm not trying to say one is better than the other, but the thoughts and feelings, I think, need to combine.
I think that's where the real depth is.
So, listen, that's most of what I wanted to get across.
Is there anything that you wanted to mention at the end?
No, I guess I'm full.
I think I'm full. Will you get me posted about how things are going?
Yeah, sure. Why not?
Yes, I would love to.
Appreciate the conversation, and please pass along my best to your kids.
And, you know, I have great admiration for you as a father and as a family man for having this kind of conversation.
I mean, for what it's worth, I'm just some guy on the internet or whatever, but I really do admire your strength and resolution in these matters.
It's to your great credit, and I think your kids are lucky for that.
Thank you. I appreciate that.
I appreciate our conversation very much.
I do. All right. Take care.
I'd look to hear from you. Take care, man.
Thank you. Bye-bye. Well, thank you so much for enjoying this latest Free Domain Show on Philosophy.
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