All Episodes
Previous Next
Nov. 23, 2023 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
02:24:43
My Husband Wants a SECOND WIFE! Call In
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Hello. Hello, hello.
How's it going? Going well.
Hey, how are you guys? How are you both doing?
How are you both doing? I'm sorry, you know, I always ask this question, then feel immediately that's the worst question in the world to ask.
So, just aware of that.
I'm just aware of that. I think we're doing okay.
We just got back from a therapy session with a couple of therapists.
How are you doing? I'm well, I'm well.
So, yeah, hit me up.
Give me the lowdown.
What's going on? You want to start now?
So, I don't really quite know where to start.
I guess the crux of it is that after our third child was born, about maybe a year, when he was about a year old, he said that he wanted to have more kids.
And I guess you could say we tried.
I got pregnant twice in 2021.
Two, once in April and then again in like October, November-ish and I miscarried both times.
Second miscarriage, I ended up hemorrhaging and had to go to the ER in the middle of the night because I wouldn't stop bleeding and so that was really traumatic.
And then about a month later, he said, I still want to have more kids.
Sorry, could you just hold off on names?
You can just say sort of my husband or something, if you don't mind.
Okay. And my husband said, I want to have more kids.
And I said, I think I'm done.
This was really traumatic. I don't want to do this anymore.
And he said, okay, well, I still want to have more kids, even though you don't.
Let's talk about that. How can we make that happen?
And I'm like, he started looking for a second wife, mistress, whatever you want to call it.
Found a girlfriend person and I just, I don't want that in my marriage.
And so now we're talking about separation and divorce because he wants more kids.
I don't. And I don't really want what he's doing in my marriage.
For me personally, so we're kind of not sure what to do, where to go.
It's involved with the kids, obviously.
I've talked about getting them in therapy to help them transition through the divorce when we start the process, but that's coming.
Right. Gosh, I'm so sorry to hear about that.
Have you, just out of curiosity, have you had any medical advice or understanding as to what could be happening?
As far as having kids?
Yes. No, I've been pregnant six times since we've been married.
And I'm just kind of done.
I'm also, I turned 44 this year.
Oh gosh. So I'm kind of done.
It's not like I'm missing out on anything.
I've had three healthy boys and I'm good with my three healthy boys.
I don't need to do the baby thing again.
I mean, I love babies, but I'm ready to go on to the next stage.
And my husband wants to do it all over again and I don't.
Okay, I'm getting where you're coming from, and I guess if we can just turn to your husband now, I'm interested to hear.
And sorry, just remind me, how long have you guys been together again?
Since 2000. We've been married since 2012.
And so, I guess you got married, I'm just sort of trying, 44, 30, 32?
Do I have that right? 32.
We were both 32s.
And how long did it take for you?
Sorry, and how long were you together before that?
About eight months.
Okay. And how long did it take for you to start having kids?
We had our first son in 2013.
Okay, so you started right away?
Pretty much, yes. Okay, got it, got it.
44. Obviously, I'm no doctor, but that's some pretty dicey territory, isn't it?
Yes, it is. I mean, not just for getting pregnant, but for bringing a baby to term who's healthy.
I mean, you're really on the last legs of the egg, so to speak, if I understand this correctly.
Yes. And to your wife, what does your doctor say about wanting to have more kids or trying to have more kids?
Honestly, I don't know that I really consulted with them.
I was just basing it more on what I wanted and how I felt.
Right. Okay. I think in no uncertain terms, they kind of tiptoe around it, but they basically say, you should pretty much stop trying at this point.
Yeah. Yeah, I can see that.
I can see that. Okay.
And your kids are doing well, that's great.
And I guess just turning to your husband, if you could help me sort of understand your perspective.
I'm sure you are aware it's a little unusual, to put it mildly, but if you could sort of help me understand where you're coming from, I'd appreciate that.
I will do my best.
We've been talking about this for about two years, so I was trying to remember the other day how long I've been thinking about this, and I think after my film was about one years old, I pretty quickly realized I enjoyed the process a lot.
I wanted to have more kids, but it seemed like I wasn't going to have any more kids, so I started thinking about how I could have more kids and talking with my wife about that.
We talked about everything we could think of, but everything, all the things that we talked about, adoption and A surrogate.
A surrogate, you know, like sort of an artificial insemination.
There's all sorts of things.
Everything had kind of nixed, I guess.
And we weren't really able to come up with any real thing that we agreed on.
So at a certain point, probably within the last year or so, my wife said that, you know, She didn't want to talk about this anymore.
She was done with it, but I wasn't done with it.
I felt like I didn't have...
To just tell you how I feel about it, I guess the most base level way I can put it is that I'm excited to have more kids.
One of the most fulfilling things that I think I've done in my life is raise the kids that we have.
I don't want some stuff, I guess.
I'm sorry, you don't have the what?
I don't want to stop having kids.
I want to have more kids. The idea of having more kids is very exciting to me.
When my wife said that she didn't want to talk with me about it anymore, I was like, well, that's very difficult for me.
I think about it every day.
Pretty much every day. If I don't have her to talk to, I guess...
We didn't talk about this at the time.
I guess I could have got a therapist and just talked to a therapist about this.
But at the time, I started pursuing...
Trying to find...
I looked for a woman I could have kids with.
I looked for someone that could be a second wife.
We had talked about polygamy a little bit, or adding a different wife in the beginning, but my wife said that Pretty soon afterwards, this was not what she wanted.
She didn't want to do that. So I knew that, but I was still kind of in the mindset of, you know, it still seems exciting to me, and we couldn't get on the same page as to how we were going to find a solution for this going forward.
And we're still stuck there to this day.
We just say, you know, I want to have kids, and she does not.
I find it very exciting.
She wants to move on.
So, you know, it's difficult for me because at some point I had tried to just kind of bury it.
Just like, okay, I'm not going to have any kids and just accept it.
You know, I'm not going to have any more kids and just move on.
But it's hard for me to put it, it's hard for me just to forget about them.
I guess it's the easiest way to say it.
Right, no, I think I understand where you're coming from.
So this is to the husband.
Why do you think you got married relatively late if you want a lot of kids?
I didn't have...
Okay, well, that's a good question.
So I didn't want to have kids at all for a long time.
Probably somewhere in my late 20s.
Actually, it was your show that I was listening to.
I was always a libertarian, very idealistic.
I wanted to kind of fix the world.
I started listening to your show about how it's a generational thing.
It's something you've got to do with parenting.
I thought about that idea and thought about kids.
It just kind of, I guess, occurred to me that, wow, yeah, Kids would be really meaningful.
It is something I think I would enjoy, and I started thanking my kids at that time, which was about my late 20s, when I started really searching for someone I could get married to and have kids.
Sorry, I appreciate that.
that why do you think that you didn't want kids earlier?
Ah, that's a good question.
you I don't think I knew what I wanted at all.
You know, I had gotten out of school around late 20s.
I didn't really have that many romantic relationships.
I had a few, but I didn't really know why I was in a romantic relationship.
You know, I think I was wanting to not feel alone, maybe have a companion, but I didn't really know what I was doing.
I don't think I had a lot of So, my parents stayed together, and they're married to this day, and they have brothers and sisters, and so I think I had a good example as far as the substance, but I just didn't really see it for myself.
Like, I was never really encouraged to go out and, you know, try to have your own family because it would be fulfilling.
I never really had given it any thought until it was later.
Maybe that sounds strange, but I just never really felt like maybe this was something I would like.
Until I was listening to your show.
Okay, so how long after you got the, I guess, more of an itch for babies, how long after that?
Like what was the gap between then and having your kids?
Three, four years? Yeah.
It took me that long to meet someone that I felt comfortable having kids with and getting married to them.
Three, four years. And did you start looking right away and telling women that you might date, that you wanted kids, and it just took that long?
Yeah, I was kind of a homebody.
Okay, so I had moved around a lot.
My parents moved, when I was younger, about seven times.
I went to nine different schools throughout the United States.
And by the time I ended up where I ended up, I just didn't really have a lot of close friends.
So I was kind of at home.
I went to a job.
I did my work on the computer that I enjoyed.
I didn't have a lot of close friends.
I didn't have any. Every girlfriend that I met was online, including my wife.
Now, we met online. To me, it was always like, in order to find someone, I have to either I didn't really, I didn't have, I don't feel like I had the skills to go out into the real world, so to speak, and meet somebody.
So I was always meeting people online.
And that was my kind of outlet for meeting people, romantically.
And was, I mean, was that an issue in your 20s?
Like you just didn't meet women or you didn't meet women who wanted kids?
Well, I guess you didn't want kids, so it wasn't really an issue.
I didn't even know what I was looking for, really.
Yeah, so it wasn't an issue.
And I didn't, Besides my very first girlfriend, I think everyone I met that I had a relationship with online, with them dating out.
And then, of course, it was sort of late 20s where you thought, gee, maybe I want kids, right?
Yes. And of course, by late 20s, most of the women who want kids have done what?
Had them. Yeah, so you're trying to find a woman who wants to become a mom among a group of women who probably don't want to really become moms, right?
Yeah, yeah. You know, I would definitely, from experience, say that it was difficult for me.
Yeah, there weren't a lot of people my age that were looking to have kids.
Right, right. Got it.
Got it. Okay, and so you guys met, you married, you had kids right away, and then, I don't know, whatever it was, age or health or some issues crept up.
Now, listen, I don't want to brush past your wife's miscarriages.
It's impossible for men to, like, we can be pretty empathetic and all of that, but frankly, it's impossible for men to, To understand what it's like to have a life die inside you.
I'm so sorry for these two situations.
We sort of see the health, the bleeding in someone, and that's traumatic and difficult enough, but I just wanted to say that is...
That's a heartbreaking situation, which I can vaguely get, but I would never be able to understand fully.
So I just really wanted to extend my very deep sympathies for that.
And I can completely, even if you were younger, I can completely understand reluctance to go through that again.
So I just really wanted to express my deep, deep sympathies for that.
Thank you for saying that.
Okay, so let's get back to your husband.
Do you know the data of successful pregnancies at the age of 44?
Yeah, it's very difficult for women to even get pregnant at 44 and when they get older.
But ever since my wife said that she didn't want to have kids, I was accepting that I am...
I don't want her to have kids that she doesn't want to have.
I don't want to even really try to convince her that she's...
No, I mean, even if you can convince her, I mean, the odds of birth defects and Down syndrome and so on, you can look all of those stuff up.
I certainly don't want to give any advice of these matters, but it's important.
So that ship may very well have sailed and so on, right?
And of course... You know, struggling to have children and miscarriages and so on takes away from what your existing children need from you, which is sort of time, emotional energy, attention, and obviously some modicum of happiness and joy and enthusiasm so that they can see that.
Because, you know, if you go chasing kids, if you decide it and they're sort of more heartbreak and medical dangerous and upsets, I mean, it's taking away from your existing kids.
Is that fair to say? Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely, yeah. Right, okay.
But that's what we're struggling with now, too, is we're talking about the situation.
No, there's no struggle.
There's no struggle. No, there's no struggle.
There's no struggle about this at all.
There's no struggle when it comes to parenting, right?
So what's the fundamental decision you make as parents?
What's your fundamental decision point?
Well, I mean, for me, it's always that, you know, you went...
And work for the family, what's best for them?
What's best for your children, right?
Yeah. What's best for your children?
Now, I would argue that the case could easily be made that what's best for your kids is not for their mom to go through another risky pregnancy, miscarriage, medical issues, or whatever, right?
Yeah, yeah. Okay.
I agree. Okay, so is it best for your children?
Yeah, I've been asked this question many, many times as well.
And, of course, the answer for my kids right now, they won't have any...
Little to any benefit for me having more kids.
Well, I mean, they would have some, right?
I mean, let's be fair, right?
I mean, they would have another sibling or two or whatever, right?
So maybe a half-sibling, I guess.
So there could be some potential benefits over the course of their life.
I mean, you're not some monster who just wants to inflict suffering on everyone around you, right?
I mean, there is some potential benefit for them, and I think that's important if we're just going to look at it from a practical outcome standpoint.
Yeah, that's right.
I like to think that I'm not just a monster out to hurt my kids.
It is true that they would want me there with them as much as I could be there with them.
That same decision happens when you have kids.
Siblings as well. You know, is that going to take away from the kids we already have?
And we talked about that as well, you know, how much we were going to space apart the kids and what was going to work best for how much time they got when they were younger, you know, things like that.
So we try to consider things like that for sure.
Yeah. Right. I mean, how fast do you want me to go?
I mean, you guys have listened.
We've talked. I mean, I want to sort of gauge.
Do you want, like, slow and steady?
Do you want, like, Band-Aid on quick?
Are you Band-Aid off quick or slow, people?
I think it's better to just, you know, cut to the chase, basically.
Cut to the chase. All right.
So this is to you, the husband.
And listen, I think it's wonderful that you want more kids.
I'm glad that you enjoy parenting.
So there's lots of wonderful, great stuff.
The part I'm having trouble understanding, and I'm happy to be schooled and corrected on this, I'm having trouble understanding why your kids have to suffer because you dreamed away your 20s.
So you didn't come to any particular decisions, you know, you spent forever, you spent like a decade, I guess, in school, post high school and all of that.
So, you know, you kind of drifted around, you bumped around, you didn't make any decisions, you didn't think about what you wanted really out of life.
So you just lived this kind of I'm sure you worked hard on all of that, but, you know, as far as your life arc goes, you just lived this kind of dreamy, dissociated, out of touch, bumping along, no future kind of 20s.
Is that a completely unfair way to characterize it, or was it something like that?
I'm thinking...
Take your time.
I'm characterizing a whole decade so there's no need to rush.
I didn't... I was just trying to get by. Yeah, I...
you I guess that's somewhat fair, because I played a lot of video games and wasted a lot of time with video games.
Well, and, you know, that's fine.
I'm not trying to make you feel bad about any of that, of course, right?
But you did live this kind of extended adolescent lifestyle in your 20s, which, you know, I did to some degree.
I was like, I don't know, 26 or 27 before I got my first real job.
So I'm not like, oh, no, that's terrible.
I'm not saying anything bad about it at all.
I mean, it is fine what you did.
I have no problem with what you did.
But you did kind of live like a bit of a man-child in some ways.
Again, as did I. I'm not throwing any stones here.
But you and I kind of lived like a bit of man-child life in our 20s, right?
We didn't take on any big responsibilities.
We didn't make any big decisions about our lives.
And, you know, we can look back in our histories and say there's some reasons why.
But that did seem to be the outcome.
Is that right? Well, I'm just thinking.
So I graduated...
When I was about, what do you call it?
Bachelor's degree. About...
I was 21, maybe?
22? I graduated from United.
Okay. 2003?
Yeah, yeah, okay, so I was 23.
Okay, but shortly after that, I bought a house for myself.
Very cheap house. Lived there, so I was like 25.
And I was trying to get...
Just trying to get ahead a little bit.
So difficult. You know, when you're starting from very little.
But yeah, so I spent about three, four, five years.
My parents never really talked to me about politics, you know.
At that time, I was driving to, I don't know if this is a side, but I was driving to work, listening to Bruce Limbaugh, and he was saying, like, Republicans.
I didn't know a Republican once.
So I had to learn what kind of, like, The political landscape of the country.
So I was learning a lot of things in this time.
I wouldn't say I was doing nothing, but I was very...
Whoa, hang on, hang on, hang on.
Did you hear me say that you were doing nothing?
Yes. I didn't say that.
No, no, hang on, hang on.
We have to be precise.
If I'm going to say stuff, I mean, I'm very careful about the words I choose.
I said you lived a bit of a dreamy life in your 20s.
And by dreaming, I don't mean that you weren't learning anything or doing anything and you bought a house and you listened to Rush Limbaugh and you played a lot of video games.
But if you sort of compare the life that you have now with the responsibilities and the parenting and the fatherhood and the husband and so on, it's a very different kind of life, right?
Oh, yeah, it's very different.
And my understanding was, and I'm obviously apologize if I got this wrong, my understanding was that you finally graduated from your final education in your late 20s.
Did I have that right? Yeah, when I was just kind of learning on my own and listening to shows like yours and just learning as much about the world as I could.
Oh, so sorry. So it wasn't like you got some sort of graduate degree and graduated in your late 20s.
You felt that your education kind of closed off.
Your informal education closed off in your late 20s.
Is that right? Largely, yeah.
Yeah. Sorry, if there's more that I need to hear, I'm certainly...
We've got time. I'm happy to hear it.
No, no, that's it.
Yeah, I graduated from formal education around 23, and then I spent another...
From working, you learn most of what you need to know when you're actually working.
So I learned when I was working, and I learned on my own just about the world and politics and what things were going on, because I never learned it before then.
So it took me years to do that.
I hope this is helpful, but yeah, that was kind of how my point went.
And, yeah, I didn't know what type of relationship I wanted.
I didn't know I wanted kids. I didn't know anything.
I didn't know any of that. Well, no, but hang on.
So, I'm getting two things here.
And, again, none of this is critical, just so you understand.
I just try and look at the causality.
So, you claimed to not know a lot of things, but you also claimed to have wasted a lot of time playing video games?
I certainly spent a lot of time playing video games.
Yeah, no, no.
I mean, but you understand the correlation, right?
Like, you can't claim to be ignorant of things if you distracted yourself for thousands of hours, right?
Because any one of those thousands of hours, you could have said, you know what, I'm not going to play a video game.
I'm going to sit down and try and figure out what I want out of my life.
And again, no hate, but it's one thing if you say, well, you know, I graduated from high school and I just didn't know what I wanted to do with my life.
It's like, okay, well, you know, you just became an adult, right?
But if, you know, 10 years after high school… You're still playing a lot of video games.
Then you can't say, I didn't know what I wanted because you had avoided defining what you wanted.
It was easier to play video games than trying to figure out what you wanted in life.
And again, I'm not trying to make you feel bad.
It just seems to be pointing out what happened.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, it was definitely the easiest thing for me to do to play video games.
The more I learned about the world and learned things about The more I stopped playing video games and wanted to be more in the world of where I'm at now with the family.
No, I get that.
I get that. But it still took 10 years where you spent much more time.
I mean, you spent almost infinitely more time playing.
And again, it was other things too.
playing video you spent almost infinitely more time playing video games
than you did trying to figure out what you wanted out of your life.
Definitely my college.
But I think around mid-20s, I think it was about 50-50 probably.
Wait, so sorry. Hang on.
I just want to make sure I understand what you mean.
So what you're saying is around your mid-20s, you were spending half, like if you had four hours free, you'd spend, say, two hours playing video games and two hours trying to figure out, like map out and figure out what you wanted out of your life.
Is that what you mean by 50-50?
Yeah, yeah. So I worked eight hours a day.
So yeah, the three, four hours I had extra, I would spend some time keeping up with my health as far as nutrition and working out and then some, you know, video games and the rest of that and just learning about what I want to do with my life.
Okay, so I have significant skepticism, which doesn't mean, of course, that I'm right or anything like that.
But, you know, a lot of people who are video game addicts, and it's probably safe to say that this is kind of an addiction, but a lot of video game addicts will pay like 20 hours a week or even more, right?
So 10 to 20 hours a week.
Are you saying that from your mid-20s onwards, it took you sort of three or four years from your mid to your late 20s of doing 10 hours a week of trying to figure out what you wanted out of life?
10 hours a week. Which is 500 hours a year.
Let's just say three years.
That's 1,500 hours.
It took you 1,500 hours to have any real sense of what you wanted out of your life?
life? I just can't follow that.
Well, I did go through some social anxiety pretty strong around
that time as well.
It was difficult for me to get out and Just talk with people.
Okay, I get that.
And sorry, were you listening to anything that I did back then?
Yes, I was listening to what you did.
I got quite a few self-help books.
Okay, so you knew, sorry, you'd heard me, obviously, I mean, I did shows very early on talking about...
How great therapy was.
I did shows interviewing therapists and data statisticians and economists where they talked about how incredibly positive and helpful and healthy therapy was.
So if you had social anxiety and you were listening to me, did you see a therapist for social anxiety?
I did see a therapist.
I was not...
I didn't...
I didn't like that therapist.
He wasn't doing talk therapy.
He was just trying to do some exercises to calm me down or something, some nonsense.
I felt like it was nonsense. But I did read several self-help books.
No, hang on, hang on, hang on.
Sorry, sorry. If we keep going off on other tangents, I don't really get my questions answered.
So you did see a therapist.
It didn't work out very well.
And did you try another therapist?
I don't think so. Come on, man.
Don't fog on me now.
You'd remember if you saw another therapist, wouldn't you?
Well, I can tell you if I did see him, it was not memorable.
So we'll just say no.
Okay, so you didn't engage with a good therapist to deal with your social anxiety, right?
That's right, I did not. Okay.
And again, no big problem.
It's not a criticism. I'm just looking at the causality here.
Because, you know, 10 years is a long time to sort of wait and sort of see what you wanted out of life.
Especially because you went from indifference to kids to where you are now, which is willing to destroy your existing family in the hopes of getting one or two more children, right?
So that's, you understand, I'm trying to sort of figure out where this swing occurred and why.
Right. So, for more than 10 years, you didn't do the things that were necessary to figure out what you wanted out of life.
And again, I have sympathy for that.
I really do. I'm not trying to be mean or negative.
I'm just looking at the facts as far as I can see them and as far as you've related them to me.
So... For ten years, you did distract yourself with a lot of video games.
You didn't do all the things that you were aware of as necessary to move your life forward.
And again, I sympathize with that.
I understand that. I'm not critical.
But these were choices, right?
I mean, you had some arguments about what to do and you didn't really follow them, you know.
Now, how did it go in terms of reading the books and so on with regards to dealing with social anxiety?
Well, I think it went very well.
There were some books there, some exercises, and what seemed to help me a lot is I went through some of Nathaniel Brandon's sentence stems, and there was another guy, Wes Bertrand.
He used to do Complete Liberty.
He had several sentence stems that I went through, and it helped me kind of dig into my subconscious about what was going on, and that really unlocked a lot of things for me.
So it did make a lot of progress, I felt like.
And how old were you at this point?
Maybe 26, 27?
Maybe? Around now?
26, 27, 28? Okay, we'll just go with 27.
I don't want to be unfair on either side.
Okay. No, it's fine.
So 27...
And onwards, then what happened in terms of your dating life and what is it that led you to your current wife?
Well, I was, okay, I was, like I said, I was having trouble meeting people day to day.
I was working freelance in my condo.
Not really meeting a lot of people.
Didn't really have any friends for the most part.
And I was on a dating site for a long time.
I was on there for about six years and I was going to give up, as a matter of fact.
And then my wife messaged me and we met Ben.
But I really wasn't meeting anyone for years.
I was trying to meet some people.
I filtered a lot of people out just straight away because I didn't think that there wasn't what I was looking for.
Well, is it fair to say, sorry, is it fair to say That some of the women you filtered out, you filtered out because they wanted children, very much so.
Like they would have said, I want to settle down and have kids.
And you may or may not remember this, but I would assume that some of the women you filtered out, since you didn't really want kids, if they really, really wanted kids, you would have filtered them out that way, right?
Again, I know it's impossible to remember messages from 10 years ago or whatever or more, but that would have been the case logically, right?
Okay. I'll just put this.
At one point, I was just looking for...
At one point, I wasn't concerned with kids at all.
But by the time I had done these ten and stims and learned that I wanted to have kids...
Let's just say...
When did we get married?
May 2005.
You met March 2011.
I was 31. I would say about three years, probably around three years prior to that.
I was 28 years old.
I was filtering people out, women out that did not want to have kids.
No, no, but before that, sorry, before that, before you realized, how old were you when you realized you wanted kids?
Around 20? So, every time before that, I wasn't looking for kids at all.
I wasn't looking for anything like that.
I was looking to... Listen, no, I understand what not wanting to have kids means.
I understand that. You don't need to repeat that.
But beforehand, so at 20...
And I'm just going to make a note of this.
So, 28 wanted kids, right?
So, what that means is that I assume that before 28...
If a woman said, I want to go on a date and I'm really looking to marry and have kids or whatever, you would have been hesitant or you would have been somewhat more negative for that because it wouldn't...
I mean, if you're filtering people out for compatibility, then if you don't really want kids, some woman who really does want kids, you would have not pursued it particularly.
Like, if you're browsing and you come across the profile of a woman who says, you know, I really want to have kids or whatever, you would have kept going, right?
Because at that point in your life, you didn't really want kids, right?
Yeah, you're right. You're right.
Yep. Okay, so that's really important, right, for you to sort of understand that the reason why you're thinking of breaking up your family now is because you didn't pursue as much self-knowledge when you were younger.
And again, I'm not trying to make you feel bad.
This seems to be the causality that I understand.
It doesn't mean I'm right, obviously, but...
So if I would have had kids when I was 18, I would have had about maybe...
Four or five more kids.
So, if I was to reach the point I am now, at around 44, and I had 7 kids,
then the idea is I wouldn't want to have more kids now.
That's the basic one.
All right, hello?
I was not quite following what that had to do with what I said.
Because you pushed away women who wanted kids before you were 28, right?
Yeah, I agree. Okay.
And that was a choice, right?
You chose to push away women who were young and fertile.
And listen, I'm sorry to say this in front of your wife.
I mean, I guess we all know we have a history.
Sorry to be talking about it so frankly, but I sort of have a general purpose behind what I'm saying.
Yep. There was at least one woman, I remember, that wanted a family, wanted kids, and I was uncomfortable being with her, and I pushed her away.
Well, but it's not just that.
I'm sure that there were hundreds, if not thousands of women that you swiped left or right or whatever happens on these apps because they wanted kids.
Yeah, okay. So you spent 10 years of your adulthood rejecting women who wanted
kids off and on from here to there on apps or whatever it is, right? So give or
take. It's not obviously not every day, a hundred times a day, but you spent all of
that time pushing away women who wanted kids because you didn't want kids
and then you changed your mind, right? And I'm glad you changed your mind. I'm glad
that you're a dad. I'm glad that you're married. But you spent 10 years not
wanting kids, pushing away women who had kids and distracted yourself with a lot
of video games and not figuring this out.
Now, do you remember, was it a moment where you just, oh my gosh, I want kids, was it a slow change, or how did that happen for you?
It was a little bit of a gradual change, yeah.
It was maybe the course of a year.
As I was learning more about myself, Kind of coming out of social anxiety and learning about, you know, how do I want to stay my life?
What's important to me? I started to realize that I think I want to have a family.
And how long did that process take, you know, roughly?
Probably somewhere between three and two years.
Three and two years? Yeah.
Five years or two to three years?
Two to three years.
And when did that...
You said 28, you wanted kids.
Was that at the end of the two-to-three-year period, in the middle, or at the beginning?
It was right at the end. Right at the end.
Okay, got it. So you began to suspect in your mid-20s that you might want kids.
Two to three years later, you really felt like you wanted kids, right?
Yeah, yeah. Okay, got it.
Got it. Yeah, yeah.
Okay. And, I mean, yeah, I wasn't...
Of course, I could have had a family when I didn't have much money, but I really didn't have my life...
I didn't have much...
It would have been...
I didn't have a lot of money early on.
No, no, that's irrelevant, because when you become a dad, you work harder, you make more money.
It's the way it works, financially.
It's not irrelevant. It comes to an hour when I met you.
It was irrelevant. I'm sorry, I can't hear you.
She said it was either relevant or irrelevant.
I said it was, I wasn't marrying you for your money.
Right, right, right. I was looking for someone that could work.
Not that they had money, but that they could work and do a job and have some kind of support there.
That's what I was looking for. Well, and I assume that as you had kids and moved on, that your husband's income increased over the course of becoming a dad.
Well, I guess I bring it up not because it would have been I couldn't do it, but once I became more secure of myself, more confident, it was easier for me to say, well, now I want more of a fan.
I had a little bit more confidence that I could...
Okay. Again, I'm not trying to be mean, but let's be frank here.
Okay. At your peak, how many hours of video games a week were you playing?
When I was in college, I probably played, well, three or four hours a day.
Okay. Yeah, so we got like 20 hours a week, right?
Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'd say that's about good ballpark, yeah.
Okay. And I assume that with some variation, higher and lower, maybe probably lower a bit at times, this went on for years, right?
Yeah. I played that many video games since I was about 10 years old.
No, no, I get it.
I did it again, and I sympathize with that desire, right?
So, from 10, and when did your video game playing begin to slow down?
I mean, I'm assuming it has.
I'm going to assume that it has, but...
Oh, yeah, definitely.
I mean, my kids like to play now, but not quite the same.
So, I... I remember getting bored with the games around 25, 25, 26.
That's when it became, like, not...
In an earlier time in my life, I felt like if I just played video games for the rest of my life, I'd be happy.
And then around 25, 26, it's just not fulfilling.
And I think that might have been some of my social anxiety as well.
Well, yeah, because you're getting your dopamine from games, you're not getting your dopamine from actual achievements in the real world, right?
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
And so it became very concerning to me, you know, psychologically upsetting.
And then I just stopped pursuing it so much.
I still did a little bit, and my father had also gained a little bit, so we would talk about games some, but I just became less and less interested in it.
No, I get it. So, you've done seven and a half years of your life of full-time work on video games.
No, no, that's the math, right?
20 hours will be about 1,000 hours a year, 15 years, 15,000 hours.
You divide that by sort of 40-hour work weeks and so on.
It's over seven years of full-time work on video games.
Yeah. I don't remember getting a TV for that, though.
Well, you're lucky to have pulled a family out of that level of addiction, right?
Okay, so, and look, I've played video games, too, so I'm not throwing stones here.
I'm just sort of looking at the math, right?
But you wasted a huge amount of time, and you avoided a lot of your problems by playing video games, right?
It's not like they help you with social anxiety or money-making.
Because if you had taken 25% of that time, you could have got an MBA, you could have studied economics, you could have started a business, you could have learned computer programming, you could have done just about anything, and then your money-making problems would have been solved, right?
Yeah, for sure, yeah.
It made a huge difference.
Right. And again, massive sympathies and so on, right?
Now, the fact that you had an addiction that helped you avoid your problems delayed you learning about having kids and you becoming a father.
Is that a fair way to put it?
And again, with sympathy. I mean, I think it contributed.
Yeah, I wish I had had, it's hindsight, but I wish I had had, I didn't have anyone telling me that that would be, I mean.
Oh my God, dude, dude, dude, okay, hang on, hang on.
Just give me a, you don't have to tell me your kids' exact ages.
Roughly how old are they?
10, 6, and 3. 10, sorry?
Ten, six, and three.
We have three boys. Okay, ten, six, and three.
Okay, so listen, bro, my brother, my brother, my co-father in the parenting world, you have a very, very bad habit, right?
right? Which is when I try to give you responsibility for what you did as a grown-ass adult, what
do you tell me?
Um, well, I'm trying to answer this piece a little late.
No, no, no, you're not trying to answer truthfully.
Your wife can probably hear it.
Let's turn to your wife.
Do you hear what he's saying when I say you're responsible for X, Y, and Z? Yes.
Which I find ironic, because he does what you're doing to him, and now that you're doing it to him, he's backpedaling.
Okay, so what is he giving me when I say he's responsible?
Okay. Yeah, I didn't know, nobody told me, I wasn't aware, and all of that sort of stuff, right?
Well, this is where I'm going to get defensive.
No, no, this is where you've already been defensive for 20 minutes, just so you know, I'm fully aware of that, right?
So, I mean, this is where you...
So, and the reason, why is this so important?
Why did I just ask your children's age?
Okay, let's go to your wife.
Why is this so important for him as a father, and why did I just ask your children's ages?
Because you want to know how much time he has left to make an impact with his children.
No! Although that's a very good guess, and that's part of it.
Sorry, go ahead. No, but it was close.
Okay. That's how much time he's wasted?
Okay. No, none of that.
So my concern is that if you give excuses for what you did at the age of 25 or 26 or 27 or 28 or 29 or 30, how on earth are you going to hold your children accountable when they're children?
Because you're saying, hey, what I, you're a 10 kid?
Hey, I barely knew what I was doing when I was 30.
And I've got all the excuses in the world.
You're modeling taking no ownership.
You're modeling having no responsibility for your children.
That's not acceptable.
That's not a thing you can do as a father.
You can't make excuses.
You can't make excuses for everything in your own life and play rubber bones and play dummy and play I didn't know, I didn't know.
What does that teach your sons about manhood or adulthood or life?
Or taking responsibility or self-ownership.
I agree with you, Steph.
That's how I felt at the time.
That's how I feel about that time.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Now are you saying it's okay for me to have judgments about what I did and lack of judgments about what I did because feelings?
Well, I agree with you.
It's not a good example of that.
I agree with you.
Okay, then stop doing it.
Then let's have this conversation going forward and stop giving me these pathetic excuses of, I didn't know, because I've been pushing back on these excuses for, like, we've wasted half an hour of our conversation, me pushing back on these excuses.
You say, well, I didn't know, and I say, well, how much time did you spend playing video games rather than pursuing self-knowledge, right?
I've been pushing back on these excuses.
Okay. Well, let me just put it this way.
If I knew that making...
The decision to go out and work or learn about what it was, how fulfilling it would be to have a family.
If I knew those things, why didn't I make that decision at that time?
You are responsible for avoiding knowledge.
Right? Like, you know the analogy.
Like, if I suddenly, I don't know, knock out the pilot and take control of the plane, and then I crash the plane and say, well, I don't know how to fly a plane.
Well, then don't take the helm of a plane.
You avoided knowledge because it was easier to play video games than to deal with whatever you had to deal with.
And again, I understand that.
I've done the same thing, and I'm not criticized.
But I don't pretend that I didn't have a choice.
I don't pretend, well, I just didn't know.
If you played video games rather than pursue self-knowledge, despite having people yelling in your ear 15 years ago to pursue self-knowledge, if you played video games rather than pursue self-knowledge, that's on you.
100%. You become an adult, everything's on you.
Now, I have sympathy for how, you know, you weren't raised very well and you didn't get much knowledge about the world and you obviously didn't have people in your life telling you to do better.
But that's also partly because you decided to play video games rather than develop a social circle.
Because it was easier, because you had social anxiety.
And again, I sympathize with that.
But are you seriously going to tell me that your kids, your eldest son is 10, that he doesn't really have to take any responsibility for his life until he's 30?
Is that what you're going to tell them?
Kids, you're only 10.
You've got 20 years. You can just make up all the excuses you want.
Oh, and by the way, if you have a test and you fail to study for it, I'm never going to fail you.
You should never think of yourself as a failure because, hey, you just didn't have that knowledge.
You didn't know. If you do a driving test and you crash the car because you didn't read anything or practice or anything, that's fine because you didn't know.
If you decided to play video games rather than study for your driving test and then you crash the car
That's totally fine because you just didn't know how to drive
Yeah, I Mean I assume your kids have some responsibilities and if
they choose to play video games rather than I don't know Take their dishes into the kitchen or whatever
responsibilities they've got. I mean, what do you say to them?
You don't have to do it if you don't want to.
No, video games are fun.
Yeah, that's way more fun. If your kid's up till 3 in the morning playing a video game, what do you say?
Yeah, I say it's time to go to bed.
So your 10-year-old has responsibility, even though video games are fun, but you at 27 didn't because you just didn't know?
I mean, you absolutely knew that you had a problem with video gaming.
Come on! Don't even try that one with me.
You're doing a halftime job 20 hours a week playing video games for 15 years and it never crossed your mind that you
might have a slight problem?
Yeah, yeah Listen if you if you want to have no responsibility and
claim no risk Hang on if you if you want to claim to have no
responsibility in your life, that's fine I mean, I think it's a bad idea, but I don't fundamentally care because it's your life, right?
If you just want to say, well, I'm not responsible for anything I did in my 20s or teens or whatever, right?
Okay. But that's not an option when you become a father, right?
That's no longer an option.
You can't claim to be a victim when you're a father, because all you're doing is transmitting victimhood to your sons.
And excuses. And you can just claim to not know things, even though you've spent 15,000 hours avoiding knowledge, you can just, hey, I didn't know.
Hey, I didn't know. Of course you knew.
You took the easy route, and again, I sympathize and I understand.
But man...
That's on you, 100%.
Because you want your kids to take responsibility for their lives, right?
And you have to model that, which means living a life with no excuses.
Because excuses are foundational to this conversation.
Because now you're saying, well, I want a second wife.
And my excuse is my feelings.
I want more children.
Now, let me ask you this.
Did you take a vow when you got married?
Oh, we did. We don't remember what it was.
It was the generic one that they do.
Okay, so you took a vow to love, to honor, to whatever, right?
To death to your part, better work, sickness and health.
Yes. Okay. So, what the hell are you doing, bro?
You took a vow. Now, did you take a vow, and let me ask your wife, if he had said, well, I'm going to take a second wife if you have fertility issues, would you have married him?
Right, so I don't quite understand this, like, you made a vow, right?
You made a promise. That's what marriage is.
Marriage is a vow. For monogamy, better or worse, sickness and in health, right?
Now, you guys have three kids out of the equation, and of course, I've talked with a number of couples who have no kids, and it's really heartbreaking for them, right?
So, you took a vow, and now you're feeling something, so you don't have to fulfill your vow.
You're going to break your vow, your solemn promise, which is the foundation of your...
Marriage? I'm just having trouble understanding that.
What is it in your head that says, I can break my vow, I can break my wife's heart, I can break my children's heart, and it's justified?
There's a justification that you have, and I think it has something to do with excuses, which is why I'm kind of hammering on this issue, but I'm certainly happy to hear what it is.
But there's something where you're not a bad guy, right?
And what is that where that's okay, to break your vow, break your family, break your wife's and kids' hearts?
What is it that makes that acceptable in your mind?
I didn't...
When I got started with this quest two years ago, I didn't want to separate the kids.
I didn't want to separate our family.
We were talking about it, trying to figure something out, and maybe that's my accountability.
Maybe I should take ownership over me bringing this topic up over and over and figure out some way to squash this conflict.
But anyways, we talked about it, and my wife told me that If we talk about this anymore, she's going to want to divorce me.
And sorry, when you say talking about it, that's you saying, I want more kids over and over, right?
Yeah. I'm sorry.
Go ahead, wife person.
I apologize. You haven't had much to say.
It's not just him talking about it.
It's like, how do I figure this out?
How do I get this need met?
And he's trying to, it wrote me into helping him figure this out.
Like, how do I figure this out?
And I'm like, dude, I don't know.
I don't even want this.
So why am I having to help you with it?
I don't know. And his need is to just have more children, even if it means breaking up his existing family, right?
Yes. Yes.
To answer your question that I think he was not answering, I think he will have to correct me here, but I think the justification that he's telling himself is that We'll all get along fine and we'll all be happier and happier together.
More people means more happiness.
So, second, you'll all be happy together. So you get some surrogate.
I guess it's not legal to have a second wife, I think.
You would get some woman to come in.
She'd get pregnant and you'd all live happily together in this lovely little commune harem.
Is that the idea? I think that's what the vision in his brain is what is going on here.
Well, let's turn to you, my lovely friend, to you, the husband.
How do you see this playing out in sort of practical terms?
Yeah, yeah, that's not far off.
I mean, I was thinking about, like, a traditional, like...
Like polygamous families?
A traditional polygamous family?
Like what? I'm sorry. A traditional polygamous family?
In what continent?
Well, there are continents that do practice that.
Yes, but they don't make monogamous vows on their wedding day.
Okay, that's true.
Alright, I will ask you this.
Have you ever had a pornography addiction?
Yes, and I was about to go there after I was talking about the video games.
I had a pornography addiction for probably a decade, and I just recently was able to stop that a couple of years ago.
Maybe a couple of years ago, maybe a little less.
I just wanted to sort of point out that both the pornography and the video games are non-negotiated interactions.
They're non-negotiated interactions.
What do you mean by that?
When you look at pornography, this is not a reciprocal relationship.
You don't have to please the woman.
It's not a relationship, right?
It's about your own pleasure, I guess, without any negotiation on the part of the other person, without having to look at anybody else's needs.
Does that make sense? Yeah, it does.
And when you play a video game, you don't – I mean, I know that you can say, well, there are multiplayer games or there are games with choices and characters, but fundamentally there's no negotiation in video games.
I mean, I just played Baldur's Gate, and in Baldur's Gate, when I tell a character to do something, what does the character do?
It just does it, right?
I say, go here, use this spell or whatever.
You don't negotiate.
It's a one-person universe.
So for many years, I assume about a decade, oh no, so for two decades and whatever it is.
So for decades, you've been involved in activities that only serve your own pleasure and that you don't have to think about someone else.
I'm not saying that's all you've done.
Obviously, you're a husband and a father and you work and so on.
But you don't, in those two areas of pornography and video games, you don't have to negotiate with anyone.
You don't have to.
You get pleasure and a sense of achievement or, I guess, sexual completion, more than a sense, I suppose.
But there's no negotiation involved in those activities.
So you've trained yourself, to some degree, into focusing on your needs.
And not negotiating with someone else's, right?
Yeah, I think that that was a lot of...
Those two or so decades was definitely training that way, I would say.
Yeah, and listen, we all have this to some degree, maybe not with those activities.
I know video games is pretty common, as is the consumption of pornography.
But even just in terms of sitting and watching a movie, rather than, say, telling an engaging story.
Telling an engaging story is often back and forth with the audience.
Sitting there watching a movie is a non-negotiated situation.
You don't have to negotiate.
You just... If the movie pleases you, you watch it.
If it doesn't please you, you turn it off or change it.
But there's no negotiation involved, if that makes sense?
Yeah. So, part of social anxiety is not knowing how to negotiate.
And if I'm wrong about that, you've experienced it.
So, let me know.
I've never thought about it that way, but I've had a lot of difficulty trying to understand how to Yeah.
How do you negotiate? Who speaks?
Who listens? What topics are allowed?
Not allowed? All conversations and negotiations, and they're quite complex.
And I assume that you spent a lot of time alone as a kid, and so you didn't learn the language of back and forth.
Yeah, I wouldn't have said that about my childhood, but I did spend some time alone.
Well, you have to have spent a lot of time alone if your parents let you play video games for tens of hours a week starting at the age of 10, right?
If my daughter was doing that, I'd be like, I don't know, I'd knock on her door and say, are you okay?
Why are we not, like, let's go do something.
Let's go chat, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a good point.
I definitely have, yeah, I think you can reasonably say that, yeah.
Okay. So, you have, both in your childhood and in your addictions, and again, I don't want to use overly strong language.
It's not like you're some guy passing out for lack of heroin.
So, you know, let's say compulsions or preferences or whatever, right?
So, both in your childhood and in your preferences, you have trained yourself...
In selfishness.
In simply focusing on your own pleasure, your own preferences, without having to negotiate and accept and absorb somebody else's preferences and pleasures.
You've trained yourself, and you've been trained by your parents, in a kind of selfishness.
I mean I have a complicated relationship with the word selfishness so but but your selfishness does not include
your wife's happiness as its shared goal
Because you have this idea that you can bring another woman in have children and
Because you'll be happy with it. Your wife will be happy with it. And the fact that she's not it's like, okay
Well, there has to be a way to negotiate it so that you can be unhappy
And i can be happy.
And because you've trained yourself in only focusing on your own happiness to a large degree, not exclusively, of course, right?
But because you have this position where you say, well, I feel this and I think that and so on, then it's like, well, I have to figure out this cheat code wherein I can get what I want and my wife will be happy.
There has to be some way...
That I get what I want and my wife will be happy.
But she's not. And this is a problem, right?
It's like, well, wait a minute. Your wife's unhappiness should take things off the table.
But you're like, well, no, no, no.
I have to get what I want and I have to figure out some way that she's going to be okay with it.
And if she's not okay with it, I guess I'll just get rid of her or whatever.
That's a universe of one.
That's kind of a selfish planet, right?
Yeah. Yeah, it is.
Because you're like, I don't fundamentally care too much that my wife's unhappy as long as I get what I want.
I do, I mean, I don't...
Okay, so I do want to get what I want, but on the other hand, I do also care about our happiness as well.
So I'm trying, of course, to...
Well, no, hang on.
Okay, so let's turn to your wife here, and again, I'm sorry to be...
Talking about you like you're not here, but to your wife, okay, how long ago did he start to really bother you about this approach to more kids or this restlessness about more kids?
It doesn't have to be specifically bringing in Xena the harem warrior or whatever, right?
But when did it start to become a negative experience for you around fertility?
Last December, after the miscarriage, and he said...
I really want more kids and I'm willing to find a second wife to do it.
Oh, so he said that right away?
Or no, that can't have been the first part of the convo.
No, that was after a year of having talked about having more kids.
And then after the... I mean, I was still healing from the miscarriage and he's like, I still want to have more kids.
And I'm like, dude, are you seriously now?
But he's like, yeah, I have a need.
I want more kids. And I said, well, I don't.
And so it's pretty much been...
A sore topic since last December.
Okay. Now, just out of curiosity, this is back to your husband.
When somebody from outside the marriage hears that you're kind of pestering your wife to have more kids when she's just had two miscarriages and half bled out in the hospital and she's not even recovered yet, how does that strike you?
How do you think somebody outside the marriage hears that?
Have we told anybody that story?
Yep. Was I around?
No, no, no. Just focus on me.
Okay, let's be more personal.
How do you think I'm reacting to hearing that you're nagging and pestering your wife for babies when she's not even recovered from a brutal miscarriage?
Right when she says it, I think this is horrible.
This is some monster she's talking about.
I'm sorry, this is what?
Some monster that she's talking about.
She's talking. So, is your memory that she had recovered from the miscarriage when you said you wanted more kids?
I mean, I'm not trying to fog out on you, but I remembered...
I will accept that I asked...
I told her I wanted more kids, but I don't recall the details.
Like, exactly. Like how she does.
So, I... What she says might be exactly true.
I don't know. I can't remember exactly a year ago.
You can remember that you started playing video games at the age of 10, but you can't remember a seminal moment in your marriage from a year ago?
Well, you can remember that you started playing video games when you were 10, which is like 32 years ago, but you can't remember an important moment in your marriage from a year ago?
I mean, I don't remember a lot of things I did in video games.
He doesn't remember a lot of things.
Well, I have doubts, honestly, because fogging is a primary defense mechanism, right?
Yeah. Okay.
I admit that I may be fogging, but how do I unfog that?
I don't have that memory right now.
I accept what she said.
No, but you remember that you want to keep having kids, right?
You never forget that, do you?
First of all, she didn't go to the hospital.
What? I went to the ER? One of the times, not the other times.
Oh, bro, bro. No, no, absolutely not going there.
We're not having that conversation.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
I'm not trying to white knight here, but seriously, we're not having a conversation about whether it was once
or twice that your wife went to the ER.
I'm trying to recall the moment that you're talking about, but if you don't want me to do that, I don't know...
I'm trying my best here.
No, you're hedging with your wife about how many times she went to the ER while trying to have your babies.
No, I'm not. I'm trying to recall that incident that she's talking about.
And that you're talking about, where you said she was bleeding out coming from the hospital and stuff like that.
That's not the incident that I remember.
It had nothing to do with an ER visit.
You can't claim to be fogging out if you're not even listening.
What she said was...
Hang on, correct me if I'm wrong.
This is to your wife. Correct me if I'm wrong.
You said that he wanted...
To have babies, wanted to talk about having more babies while you were still recovering from the miscarriage.
Yeah, miscarriages can take up to six weeks.
Today is the one-year anniversary, because it was the Monday before Thanksgiving.
Then two weeks later, I'm trying to remember.
Then I had the chorus concert, then my son went to the ER, and then It was Christmas.
So it was somewhere within the next six weeks after that miscarriage.
Yeah, and the six-week recovery time is not contingent or dependent upon whether you went to the ER or not.
Maybe it takes a little longer, but it doesn't.
I mean, so she didn't talk about...
I don't know why you're bringing up the ER stuff other than to bullshit and fog up the nonsense that you're talking about.
But your wife said you pestered her for more children when she was still recovering, and From the miscarriage.
So that has nothing to do with an ER visit.
I did talk to her about that around the time she was recovering, yes.
And did you say to your wife when she was recovering from a miscarriage, I would like another woman to bear my children?
Uh... Probably.
I don't recall exactly what I said.
Okay, your wife has a better memory, so we'll defer to her.
Did he ask you while you were still recovering?
I think you said he did, but I want to obviously double-check.
Did he ask you while you were still recovering from your miscarriage, or did he tell you that he wanted to have another woman bear his children?
Yes. And do you remember roughly how long after the miscarriage?
Was it like a month or a week?
I would say roughly about a month later.
Okay, so your wife is, you know, still hobbling and limping around a bit.
She's in pain from the miscarriage.
I'm still bleeding. You're still bleeding.
She's approaching her mid-40s, and you say, I want another woman to bear my children.
I probably did, yes.
And what do you think that seems like to me?
I mean, just put yourself in my shoes hearing this story.
What do you think it seems like? I mean, I think it's...
The feeling I get is, oh my God, I did that.
This guy is horrible.
That's what I think. And why do you think it's horrible?
Why do you think it seems horrible?
Because it's...
that this guy doesn't have any sensitivity with how his wife feels or he
feels more strongly about what he wants than how his wife feels.
No, no it's not that.
Sorry to be annoying in detail.
If my wife is neutral about something and I want something she doesn't particularly care, then I want what I want independent of.
Of what my wife wants.
But what you want is at the expense of everything your wife wants.
So that's a different matter.
If I eat and my wife doesn't particularly care for any of the food I'm eating, that's fine.
But if I take from my wife's plate, that's a different matter because then that's a negative.
Like a zero-sum game is one thing.
This is a negative-sum game in that if you get what you want, your wife loses everything she treasures, if I understand this correctly.
So it's not that you don't care what your wife wants.
It's that you're willing to shatter her heart into a million pieces to get a second wife or a concubine or something like that.
Again, if I'm speaking out of turn to your wife, please let me know.
You're saying it better than I am.
Okay, so this is why I'm back to my first question, which we haven't had an answer to yet.
How does it work in your head that that's justified?
And I'm not saying this in any spirit of condemnation.
I'm not trying to throw you off a bridge or anything like that.
That's why I tried to get you to understand what I was feeling, not just blast you myself.
But just out of genuine human curiosity, if you're horrified by what you're saying, or what you have been saying for the last year or so, if you're horrified by that, there must be some counterweight to that.
There must be some justification or story in your mind wherein that's not horrible.
Yeah, there is.
It's probably just as horrible for my wife.
I want to know what's not horrible for you.
And again, I mean this with genuine curiosity.
Well, you know, of course, I... I have a lot of joy around my children, especially when they were born.
Raising them and taking care of them and having relations with the women is also exciting.
The idea of having a little bit more help around the house is also exciting for me too.
And I know my wife doesn't like to hear that.
Oh, it's upsetting for what?
Do you need a second, Steph?
I hear you. No, I'm good.
Sorry. I just had a cup of water and it went down the wrong pipe, but I'm all ears.
I hate that. Yeah, so there are definitely things that I think about that are exciting for me that I like a lot.
Yeah, so there is counterbalance to it, so I don't know if that's a justification.
Okay, only one of those things do I believe, and that doesn't mean that I'm right.
I'm just telling you my genuine experience.
Again, it doesn't mean I'm right. Only one of those.
You had three main things.
One, you love babies. Sorry?
Yeah, you're right. Three things.
Yeah, three things. So you said, number one, I like babies.
Number two, I want to have sex with another woman.
And number three, I'd like more cleanup around the house.
Yep. More like a nanny or like another mother, something like that, yeah.
No, no, sorry. You said you wanted more help around the house.
Did I have that right? Like another mother, though.
Another nanny. Not a nanny, but someone like that, you know, that would be there.
Yeah. Okay.
No, that's fine. So, sorry.
Sorry to interrupt. What are your arrangements at the moment as far as childcare and housekeeping go?
We have a couple of nannies that we hire to help us.
A few hours a day, usually.
Okay, but does your wife work?
Neither of us work.
We're both retired. You're both retired.
Yep. You have three children, and you have a couple of nannies?
Yes. What am I not understanding here?
He wanted to homeschool all the kids.
No, I get that, but you have two people full-time at home, and you need a couple of nannies to help you?
Well, we wouldn't be able to do this call right now if we didn't have nannies right now.
Oh, bro, this is really annoying.
No, come on, man.
Come on. This is really annoying.
To bring one hour or two hours out of ten years and say, well, this is the justification.
Come on, man. Of course you could.
You'd have someone come over.
You'd have a grandparent or you'd hire a babysitter or whatever it is.
Of course you could have this call.
Come on, man. I've been a stay-at-home dad.
Don't tell me what's possible or what's not.
Okay, so let's drop this.
Well, it's your fault that we have nannies because we need time for this call.
That's just annoying, okay?
So let's not do that.
I'm not going at that level of granularity.
Why do you need a couple of nannies if you're both home full-time?
know. Well, I'm not sure how to answer this accurate, quickly.
Are they tutors?
No. So, for our 10-year-old, we started doing unschooling, and so we were trying to do self-directed learning, and I am now questioning how well that is going.
Wait, so you're both home, and you're not even schooling your eldest?
What are you doing all day?
I don't understand. Okay.
Okay. Well, there's, you know, everyday activities.
I'm going to tell you, I ended up sending our second child to school.
I enrolled him. Okay, so hang on.
So your eldest child is unschooled, and you've got a child in school, and you still need a couple of nannies, and you're both home full-time.
Okay. Well, we hired a sitter for today.
Definitely for today.
But yeah, we do have people come in to help so we can get our own personal needs met.
And what do you mean by your own personal needs?
Do you mean like sex and exercise or what do you mean by your own personal needs?
Like personal needs.
Sex is one of them.
Another one is like I've been having some health problems.
So I've been...
I'm setting a lot of appointments and going and trying to investigate and do therapy and figure out what's going on with that and that takes a lot of time.
Sorry, do you mean physical therapy or talk therapy?
Both. Okay, got it.
I've got massage therapy for vertigo.
I've got cranial sacral stuff.
I'm also doing talk therapy.
And we're doing couples therapy because of all these issues, so it's a lot of appointments for that.
And then basic, I suppose, grocery shopping's on issues, and you can streamline and have it delivered now.
So there's that.
I don't know. I guess I have food allergies, so I can't exactly just eat out.
So I basically have to make all of my food from scratch, and I make food for the kids, three meals a day for the kids.
That takes some time.
Try to keep the house clean, which is also really hard.
Having the extra hands to keep an eye on the kids when all they want to do is sit and play all day is very, very helpful.
And what is your husband doing when, say, you're at appointments?
I'm going to let him answer that because I'm not here to see exactly what he's doing.
Well, most recently I've been spending time Watching our youngest and playing games with him.
Just watching him.
Just so you understand, most of the people that I know have between three and eight children.
Oh, wow. Okay.
And... One, usually, I mean, the husband in general works, and the wives are home, and they homeschool, and they don't have any nannies.
That's one person at home.
I mean, you've got two people at home, and I guess congratulations on retiring in your 40s.
I sense crypto, but you don't have to give me any details, but I'm trying to sort of figure out just the difference between, and, you know, I'm just telling you there's a disparity.
I'm not saying it's good or bad.
I don't know, right? But There are other people who get by with a lot less outside help, and I'm just trying to figure that out.
I guess we felt overwhelmed with a lot of the day-to-day things that we were trying to keep up with, and the house was getting messy.
But something has got to be consuming your time.
There's got to be something that's consuming your time that's not parenting.
And I mean, honestly, listen, you hear, and I guarantee you, people listen to this at some point, right?
And it'll be like, wait a minute, you've got two kids at home, you've got one kid in school, you've got another kid who's unschooled.
Like, what is wrong?
Like, how are you not able to run a household?
I mean, you know, our ancestors ran households with like eight kids, right?
My theory is you and I disagree about how to set boundaries.
I want to be a lot more authoritative and tell the kids yes and no, and do this, don't do this, and basically say, you know, you can't spend all this time on the computer and do this.
And then when I try to set a boundary with the kids, I feel like they will commit.
I'm sorry to interrupt.
Who's spending time on the computer? The kids, you mean?
The kids. The 10-year-old.
The 10-year-old is spending a lot of time on the computer, more than I am now comfortable with, and I want to change it.
And the way it got to this point is, When I brought up to husband about let's change it, he basically said to me, well, what are you going to replace his time with?
You're going to take away his primary source of entertainment.
Now, what are you going to do to replace it?
And I'm like, well, I kind of like to send him to school, but he doesn't want to go to school.
I'm sorry, why do you need to replace it?
I'm not sure I follow. Because he has nothing to do.
People sit around the house. I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
What's wrong with the kid having nothing to do?
Isn't that where creativity comes from?
Isn't this where learning how to draw and make up stories and socializing?
Why does the kid need constant external stimulation?
Do you want him to grow up with no identity?
No. It's exactly the opposite of what I want.
I am fine with him.
It's just Okay, well, that's probably because he's been a digital kid for years, right?
Yeah. So he's got, and of course, this is to your husband, right?
Yeah, hang on, sorry. So to your husband, like, you're very aware that it wasn't very good for you to get addicted to external stimuli, right?
Because then you didn't have any idea what you wanted to do with your life, you didn't really have any identity, and you were just chasing dopamine, right?
So you clearly wouldn't want to reproduce that for your son, right?
That's exactly right, yeah.
Okay, so then he shouldn't be on the computer all day.
I agree. Yeah, you're right about that, yeah.
Okay, so of course he's going to complain, but that's your fault.
It's not his fault. It's your fault, because you've got him addicted to stuff or whatever, I don't know, again, but you've got him used to a certain level of stimuli, and when that stimuli gets withdrawn, he's going to go through withdrawal, right? Yep.
So that's, it's not...
You know, it's sort of like giving your kid alcohol and then complaining that he's stumbling around.
It's like, well, I mean, how long has he been a screen kid?
A long, long time.
A long time. Okay, can you give me a ballpark?
I think two. I tried two years old.
Eight years, maybe? Oh, so for two years, he's been kind of a screen junkie.
Sorry, since he was two.
Eight years, he's been a screen junkie.
Okay. So, why is he focusing so much on the screens?
Wouldn't he want to play Monopoly with you, or go for walks with you, or learn how to shoot a bow, or throw a frisbee?
Where's the interaction?
That's the odd thing about it for me, is that our other kids aren't like that, but he is, and we're trying to Figure out ways of getting them off the screen more.
Sorry, again, I apologize for interrupting, and I apologize for being baffled.
I'm sure there's some good answer for this.
I'm not sure what you mean when you say you're trying to find ways to get them off the screen.
Who owns the screen?
Yeah, we own the screen.
Okay, so you just turned it off.
Yeah, we could do that.
What do you mean you could do that?
Well... We can.
And we can also...
What I'm trying to understand, though, what I'm trying to say is that he...
I guess what you're saying is that we should know that this is bad for him.
We should turn off the screen and not let him use the screen anymore.
And that's what we have not done.
I have no idea where you're getting this conversation from.
I'm not sure if you want to just complete the conversation on your own.
When did I ever say he should never see another screen again?
Talk about going from one extreme to the other.
He either does exactly what he wants or nothing.
I don't know how much screen time is appropriate for this kid.
That's what I'm trying to say.
I don't know how much screen time is appropriate for this child.
Well, wouldn't you fairly say that human interaction is, in general, human interaction is better than screen time?
I think for most people it is.
Yeah, and so you would want to engage him so that...
He would be less inclined to focus on screens.
So that your company would be more enjoyable than screen time.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, you would want to woo him away from now.
Maybe, of course, if you've glued him to a screen, so to speak, for eight years straight since his formative years, it's going to be a bit of a battle, right?
Because this is what he's used to.
Yeah. Yeah. And he does display the fairly classic symptoms of withdrawal, right, when he doesn't get this thing?
Yes. Yeah, yeah.
Okay. So that's on you, because you kind of glued him to a screen.
And so you've got one kid who's a screen kid, and you've got one kid who's in school, and then you've got the one three-year-old, and what's the three-year-old's relationship to screens?
On the same path as the 10-year-old, so we're trying to break that.
Okay, so you just want to have more kids so you can glue them to screens?
Is that the plan? More kids so you can not engage with them too much and let the internet race them?
Is that your plan? Like, you need more kids to attach to a tablet?
That's just not what I want.
Not what I want. Because you already have kids that you're not...
I'm not going to say you're ignoring, because of course you're not, but you already have...
Kids that you're kind of dumping on screens to some degree and in school to some degree.
So why don't you have better relationships with the kids you have rather than having more kids that you don't engage with as much?
Why don't I have better relationships with the kids instead of having new kids?
I didn't know it was either or, but I... Well, no, because you're going to have new kids and just glue them to screens, right?
Well, that's not what I want to do.
Well, then why aren't you not doing that with your current kids?
You want new kids so you don't have to fix things with your current kids.
You want a do-over. You want a mulligan.
I don't want a mulligan.
Then fix things with your current kids.
And if I fix things with my current kids?
Then I have a good relationship with them.
And that's what I want. Well then, why aren't you focusing on that instead of nagging your wife to get a concubine?
Did you think nagging your wife to get a concubine is bringing you closer to your kids?
No, I don't think that's bringing me closer to my kids.
Okay, so it's coming at the expense of your wife and your children.
Your selfish pleasures are coming at the expense of your wife and your children.
And it's harming your family.
So, you said that you want to be around babies.
Okay, I get that. You want to be around babies.
Frankly, that's just stupid.
I'm sorry to be so blunt about it, but it's just stupid.
First of all, you have a three-year-old who's just out of toddlerhood.
And secondly... That's what grandkids are for.
I mean, if your kids have a great time being kids, and then they grow up, and you've got a 10-year-old, so in 10 years you could have babies anyway.
It's going to take you at least a couple of years to find this weird concubine setup, which is probably going to blow up in your face.
So you just wait another couple of years, you've got grandkids.
You don't have to worry about if you like babies, just wait.
So that's not a believable one.
Help around the house?
Oh, I don't even know what to say.
I don't even know what to say.
Everyone I know is just a really, really hard-working parent.
I don't get that sense.
I think you guys are still, maybe you had kids late or whatever, but it seems to me that you're still trying to have a life outside of being parents.
And that's not the case, right?
You become a parent, especially when your kids are young.
That's your life, being a parent.
That's it. It's just being a parent.
But what I do believe is that you want to have sex with other women.
That I do believe. The other ones, I don't really believe.
Because if you want babies, just wait for grandkids.
Plus, you can't say, I miss babies so much when you've got a kid who's three, right?
She's just out of toddlerhood.
So, I don't believe the I just love babies.
I don't believe we need more help around the house when you are both home full-time.
You've got an unschooled kid glued to a screen and a kid in school.
I don't believe that for a second.
I do believe that you want to have sex with another woman, which maybe comes out of the porn addiction or maybe comes out of the fantasy that somehow a new woman is going to end up different than the problems you have with your wife, which is not going to be the case at all.
Because, you know, you're not looking for a woman, you're looking for kind of like a creep.
Like, what kind of woman is going to be like, yeah, sounds great, knock me up, I'll come live with you and...
With a resentful wife staring daggers at my back.
Like, there's no sane woman who's going to want to get involved in this mess.
Do you understand that? Yeah, well, you put it that way.
No! You've had a year to think about this!
And you can't claim that I didn't know.
You must have thought this through, right?
You listen to a philosophy show.
You must think things through. What kind of woman is going to want to get knocked up by you while you're going through some bizarre divorce, maybe live with you and your wife?
And what kind of crazy woman would even want to get within a thousand miles of that scenario?
Sorry, what sane woman would want to get within a thousand miles of that scenario?
Is that the rhetorical question?
Well, I'm certainly happy to hear your theories.
I met a woman that I'm talking to now.
She lives in Africa.
She wants to get involved with this.
You're trolling at this. You're not serious.
You're trolling me at this point, right?
Like you're just yanked by chain here.
No, come on. Really? He's not.
You want to bring over a woman from Africa to have your kids and live with your wife.
Well, I don't think they'd be living together.
But that's what you want, right?
Yes, that's what I wanted.
And you would be willing to divorce your wife, shatter your family, split up, in order to have the African woman come and bear your children?
I feel the pressure on me right now, and the judgment on me.
I'm sorry, I'm not sure what you're talking about.
That's what I wanted, Steph.
Yeah, that's what I want. And that's what I've been excited about.
And do you think that there would be any...
Would she be a black woman?
Would there be any cultural or racial or religious or historical concerns that you might have about bringing a woman halfway around the world to come live in the West and raise your children?
No. I don't want her to raise the children I have now with my wife.
She would raise the children that we had together.
So your second family with the African woman would be great.
That's what you're looking for?
I don't know about...
I think it would be good.
Yeah, I think it would be good.
That's what I wanted. Yeah.
I mean, isn't this just kind of like, do you have a fetish for African women?
Again, I'm trying to follow this.
No. I think that African women I found, I am very attracted to.
I don't have a fetish for African women.
I was looking for someone who met my standards from around the world.
I was online and I was looking and there was no one I could really find.
The closest I could find was someone.
And you would marry her and you would give her citizenship in your country.
Is that right? Yeah.
So how on earth do you know whether she's legit or not?
I mean, Nigerian princes, African scams, she just might want citizenship.
I'm trying to sort of follow how on earth would you vet this woman from across the world?
I have a friend who wants to start a business over there in Zambia, and I was going to travel with him to Zambia.
He wanted to show me Africa, and I was going to visit with her and meet her family.
We've been talking online, but I was going to meet her family to see what they were like.
Just meet them. So, I mean, this is serious.
Like, you have a woman already scoped out that you want to travel and meet.
That's where I'm at currently, yeah.
But that's why this conversation is so important, and this is why I appreciate this conversation from you so much.
Sorry, I need to turn to your wife.
I just need a bit of fresh air.
Sorry, this is just really...
It's kind of gross to me, to be honest.
I think this is just repulsive.
But let's turn to...
Because I don't want to project my feelings onto this situation.
Let me turn to your wife.
I mean, my gosh, my friend.
How on earth are you experiencing all of this?
I don't like it.
It's a point of contention every time he mentions her.
I've said that...
No, this is all intellectual.
How's your heart? Oh, I'm distraught.
I mean, this is the man you were pair-bonded with for the rest of your life, the love of your life, who's talking about yoinking some black woman or African woman to start another family with.
I mean, how is your heart doing with all of this?
Not very well.
Tell me a little bit more about your feelings.
I've pretty much been distraught since the last December.
Sad, snippy, just stressed.
All-around stressed. Yeah, tell me more.
There's got to be a lot. It sounds like there's a lot of suffering bottled up in there, and I'm obviously not happy to hear, but I'm certainly willing to hear.
Just a lot of stress.
I can't make it go away without destroying my family.
So it's really the only reason I have put up with this shit.
And I've tried to hide it from the kids as much as possible, but it's getting harder, and I'm ready to be done.
I am ready to be done.
I mean, how sad are you?
I can barely talk because I'm crying.
I don't really know how to articulate it.
I guess when he first told me, my very first initial reaction was, my marriage is over.
The life that I know is just over.
My husband doesn't want me anymore.
He wants another wife.
What the hell did I do wrong?
I gave him three boys that he doesn't appreciate and he doesn't really want, even though he keeps saying he wants them, he doesn't.
We've had... I mean, everything you said to him, I've said to him in one form or another over the last, we'll say, two years.
I say, spend more time with your kids.
It's like, how are you not closer to them, like, emotionally bonded to them?
And every time I bring up examples of how and when you can make that emotional bonding happen, he pushes back and makes excuses for why he doesn't do it.
And it's really, really frustrating.
And listen, I appreciate that.
And I don't want to interrupt, but I just, I still want to get a sense of how you're feeling.
Because it's very easy to slip into complaints about him, but I just want to know how you're feeling.
I'm feeling angry, pissed off, hurt, betrayed.
I'm trying to think what else.
Heartbroken. Scared.
Worried, anxious. I don't know what's going to happen.
Helpless too, right? So kind of helplessness, right?
Like words don't count. Yeah, helpless that I can't stop it.
I can't make it go away.
And I can't convince him.
I can't change his mind.
I can't make it better.
I can't give him what he wants.
I can't condone what he's asking for because I don't want it.
So it's just, it's pretty trapped.
Right. Were there any signs ahead of time?
You said you dated for eight months before you got married.
Were there any signs ahead of time that you thought things could come to this kind of place?
Oh, God, no.
I mean, we had issues with communication from the beginning.
I suppose while he was recounting his past while you were asking him questions, I... Looking back, I suppose there were some red flags, like, why didn't he have any really close friends?
And he was a bit of a loner when we were dating, like, and most of the time when we hung out, we hung out with his brothers and his brother's friends, but he never introduced, he introduced one person to me that was his friend, but they weren't even really that close, and so it was, I mean, that should have been a bigger red flag, but I, at the time, I didn't know better.
But, no, no, no, no, didn't know better.
I can't give it to him and I can't give it to you.
You were a woman in her 30s, right?
Yeah. Okay, so you weren't like 17.
I guess I just ignored the red flag and just said, I have friends and I had friends and I had a life and I was fine with it.
I just didn't, what happened after we got married, I didn't expect.
Now, what were the virtues that drew you to each other, the things that you admire about each other?
I mean, I'm happy to hear you both on this.
I'm just curious. Sorry.
For me, I was looking for someone that shared the ideals that I did about parenting, like, you know, peaceful parenting, open to homeschooling, you know.
I was an honest person, someone we could say what was on our mind and just discuss things and talk about things.
So those are the things that I was looking for at the time.
And to someone that was smart enough to kind of understand the things that I would want to talk about.
We were both programmers, so I was looking for just someone that not was into the same things I was, but just to at least understand what I was saying.
So some of those things.
Okay, and for your wife?
So, for me, he was honest.
The way he sort of viewed the world was a little bit refreshing, considering my mom and where I came from from that, where there wasn't a whole bunch of honesty, and I sort of got a little more than I asked for, but...
Bad. And I enjoyed it.
I mean, I remember enjoying his company and we had good times.
We were hanging out and just talking about different things.
And he was honest, open.
He didn't, you know, didn't have any, like, wasn't doing drugs or he didn't smoke.
He didn't have a previous wife and he didn't have kids by anybody else.
So those met the standards for what I was looking for.
Like, it hit the deal breakers I had.
He passed the deal breakers that I had.
Well, I mean, not doing drugs or having kids is not a very high bar.
Maybe it is where you're from, I guess, in your 30s or whatever, but it's not a hugely high bar.
Well, I mean, well, we got along and, like, he seemed to take care of himself.
When you said you met my family, it helped a lot, too.
Well, yeah. When I met his family, he...
His behavior, or he acted...
A little differently. Like, he was a little more relaxed and open and just more comfortable.
I don't know.
The family that glued him to screens for 20 hours a week for half his childhood.
I guess so.
Yeah. Like, met his mom and I got to meet his brothers and just seeing how he interacted with them.
It was sort of like another, it opened up like another level of sight of him.
Okay, and when did you first, when would you say, I mean, you know, marriages have disagreements from time to time, but when did you guys first begin to really have concerns about the marriage?
Was it a year ago or before then?
The first time I noticed it was about a year ago.
Thank you.
Um...
As far as divorce goes, I mean, we had like little...
Things we disagree on, like maybe food things we talk about.
Yeah, there's food fights at the house.
We have... I'm sorry, food fights?
That actually sounds fun.
No, we have disagreements about food because I think that he's very extremist in how he approaches food and he wanted to do that with the children and I didn't think that was healthy and I wanted to set boundaries and And say, yes, you can have a little of this, but no, you can't have the entire loaf of bread in one sitting.
And when we have it in the house, or he was with them by themselves, if the kids wanted to eat the entire bag, the husband would let him, let the kids eat the entire bag of bread.
And as a rebuttal to me, he said, well, just don't have it in the house.
So, sorry, is it fair to say that you very much disagree with, in terms of parenting styles or parenting approaches?
We have some...
We mostly agree, but we disagree very strongly on some...
And so, is it fair to say that you would let your kids eat an entire loaf of bread?
I think I had, yeah.
I did on a couple occasions, I think.
I don't know if they ate the whole...
A loaf of bread, but I let them have as much as I wanted.
Yeah.
And what's your theory behind that?
Uh, theory?
I think I was angry that I had to police the food in the house and I just fed up and um,
you I didn't want to fight with them over the bread in the house at the time.
Sorry, what do you mean by fight with them?
I mean, you're the parent, right?
I didn't want them to be getting upset.
Yeah, you're right.
I could have taken the bread.
You don't want them to be upset?
I mean, you're literally breaking your wife's heart into a million pieces, but you're highly sensitive about people fucking finding you upsetting?
I'm not quite getting this.
Would it make sense if I said I was upset?
I mean... Would it make sense if I said I was upset with my wife that she had the bread in the first place?
And I was trying to get back at her?
Oh, so you were, in a sense, harming your children because you were angry at your wife?
In a sense, yeah.
Does that seem normal to you?
Does that seem okay?
That the children should have a whole loaf of bread, which is not particularly good for them, to put it mildly, because you're angry at your wife?
I didn't want the bread in the house in the first place.
I didn't want the bread in there at all.
And it was there. I didn't want it there.
I didn't want the bread in the house. So?
She brought the bread in there. So what?
Sorry, so what? So you get your way and fuck everyone else?
No, I didn't get my way.
I didn't get my way at all. No, no, no.
So she wants bread in the house.
So what? I don't want the bread in the house.
So what? You're married. You compromise.
No, you're married. You compromise. I don't understand.
I don't want bread in the house.
Then stay single! And after that, we did talk about that, and we did come to a compromise that we put the bread somewhere so they couldn't get it.
No, the compromise is that he does not deal, he doesn't feed the kids.
I take care of all of their feeding and all of their food all day long.
He doesn't feed them anything that he doesn't deem appropriate for their health.
So if the kids want a loaf of bread or a piece of Or something that he doesn't approve of.
He said, I'm not giving that to you.
Go ask your mom. Okay.
This is unbelievably childish.
What do you mean? You have to go and ask your mom because I won't give it to you, but she will?
Yes, pretty much. Because I don't condone you eating this.
I'm not going to feed it to you.
So if you want it, go get your mom.
Is what it's come down to.
And this is back to your husband.
Does that seem like good, reasonable parenting and partnership?
Well, I am unsure.
I want them to eat the other foods that are good for them.
I'm encouraging them to try to eat the other foods.
I'm sorry, didn't you just let them have a whole loaf of bread at one point?
What do you mean? I'm sorry, I don't understand.
Only eat the foods that are good for you.
Here's a whole loaf of bread. I didn't want the bread in the house at all.
No, no. Sorry. Hang on.
You let them eat a whole loaf of bread.
I don't give a shit about your motivations, brother.
I don't care. I don't care.
You let them eat a whole loaf of bread and then you say, well I only want them to eat
healthy stuff.
They eat a lot of bread, as they eat a lot of bread with Melanie when she's around.
They eat a lot of bread with Melanie when they're around as well.
They eat a lot of bread with what?
They eat a lot of bread when they're with the wife as well.
They eat a lot of bread when they're with the wife, but I didn't agree with Edith.
So you think that the children shouldn't eat bread, is that right?
Not as much as they're given.
I don't think they should have much bread, no.
I don't think they should have a lot of bread.
He thinks they should have bread like once a month.
Okay. So, they shouldn't have bread too often, and how many hours a day is your eldest on screens of some kind or another?
Well, you've got a lot.
He's almost up there.
I don't know how much screen time is appropriate for this child.
No, no, I didn't ask how much screen time is appropriate, and I didn't ask for the answer of a lot.
You're the parents, you're home, so you can monitor this.
Plus, he has screen monitoring on his tablet, his phone or whatever, right?
And his notebook.
How many hours a day is your 10-year-old on screens, including watching movies or TV? How many hours a day is your kid on screens?
Probably seven or eight hours a day, I'd say.
In one form or another.
My gosh, man. What are you doing?
What are you doing? You're concerned about how much bread they eat and your kids on screens for seven to eight hours a day?
What are you doing? I don't know how much is appropriate.
Your lack of knowledge is completely immaterial.
Because your kid's 10.
Have you looked it up? Have you talked to experts?
Have you done any research? Yes, I have.
Okay, so then you know. I know something.
Is 7-8 hours of screen time appropriate for a 10 year old?
You've done the research, right?
Is there any expert who says, oh yeah, eight hours of screen time a day for a ten-year-old is just about right?
The experts say no, I agree with you on that.
Okay, so don't tell me you don't know what's appropriate when you've looked it up and you know.
You're just lying to me. I mean, I'm really getting sick of it.
If you want to have a conversation with me, stop lying.
I won't put up with it.
I won't have the conversation.
I won't. Because if you tell me, I don't know what's appropriate, which you've said a number of times over the course of this conversation, and it turns out you have looked it up, then you're lying to me.
I will agree with you.
I agree that the experts say maybe one hour of screen time.
Did you lie to me?
Did you claim to not know something that you actually had in fact studied?
For this, okay, I'm going to try to tell you.
No, this is a yes-no question.
Your wife, your wife, okay, let me switch to your wife, because this is like bullshit fog bank.
Okay, did he not say to me he didn't know how much screen time was appropriate for children?
He did say that. He did say that, like literally 90 seconds ago, right?
And then when I pressed him on it and said, well, you should have researched it, he said, oh, no, I did, and it's like one hour.
So I just want to know if we have any reality in this conversation at all.
Did you lie to me about not knowing, and I'm not trying to bust your balls or anything, I just want to know if there's any honesty here, right?
Right? Did you lie to me about not knowing how much screen time is appropriate for 10 year olds?
...
Okay. Um...
...
For this child...
I...
No, no. This is...
This is a yes or no question.
I don't want any more fogging or gaslighting or any of that nonsense.
And you can drop off the conversation.
I can just talk to your wife if you want.
But you need to be honest with me.
Did you lie to me about not knowing how much screen time is appropriate for a 10-year-old?
No, I did not lie to you.
Okay, then I'm done talking with you because your wife heard you say it, I heard you say it, and you're just denying reality.
Like, I can't have a conversation with somebody who denies reality.
So, if you want to drop off, that's fine.
If you want to leave the room, that's fine, but I do need to talk to your wife a bit.
Go ahead. All right.
So, my dear, I'm so sorry about all of this.
This is a real mess.
This is a real mess. I know.
And I'm extraordinarily sorry for what's going on with the kids.
Thank you. Well, you know, I mean, you chose the guy.
You also chose to date him, get engaged, get married, have kids, try to have more kids.
So, I mean, it's not all him, obviously.
You know that. I don't need to tell you that.
But, yeah, this is a real mess.
I don't think that he's going to hold to his vows.
I mean, to me, the vows are kind of simple, and the reason we make them is so that it simplifies the rest of our life.
Totally. And the vows are the foundation of the marriage.
And if the vows aren't maintained, the marriage was obtained in a sense through fraud.
That's why I asked earlier if he'd have said, well, I want to go and get an African woman to come and have children.
If you have fertility issues at the age of 43 or 44, you wouldn't have married him.
And so because he said that he wasn't going to do that...
Maybe his own vows just kind of pass by like clouds in the sky and you don't really remember them the next day.
But to me, I mean, maybe to you as well, the vows were...
I mean, they're very serious.
That's the foundation.
Like, to take a silly example, if you get a free cell phone because you agree to pay a cell phone plan for two years and then you just don't pay the cell phone plan, you've kind of stolen the phone, right?
Right. And so if he's not going to honor his vows, if the vows are kind of meaningless to him, Then, I mean, obviously it's a horrible situation for everyone involved.
It's particularly terrible for the children, and I don't, you know, how destructive is it for children to see a father who doesn't keep his word in the most essential relationship of his life and just wants to do his own thing regardless of how much it harms other people?
That's pretty toxic, I would imagine.
I mean, you're in the household.
That's pretty toxic as far as I can see.
I agree. I feel kind of stuck because I'm not quite sure which way to step.
Yeah, and of course, I don't know, obviously, what you should do.
Does he generally have an issue with not admitting that he did something wrong?
Yeah, kind of. It seems a little bit like, I was mad at my wife, so I let my kids eat a whole loaf of bread.
That's not great.
And he just, the excuses, right?
And, you know, like, he kind of snowed me a little bit earlier there, and it's not the end of the world.
Like, I'm not like, oh my gosh, you told a fib, that's the end of the world.
It's just like, okay, can we at least admit that you told something that you lied, right?
And, you know, some people I've confronted that on, and they're like, yeah, you know, sorry, that was not great.
And I'm like, yeah, that wasn't great, but let's commit to being more honest going forward.
It's not the end of the world, right?
Right. Do you have any insights as to what might have happened in his childhood or in his family to have him come out to some degree this way?
I've been thinking a lot about that lately.
As I've been sort of watching, his parents came over recently to visit and watching their interactions.
I think it's the whole inner child wounding thing where his needs as a child weren't addressed and given any validation.
And so now that he's the adult having to honor and validate his own needs, it's being taken to the extreme.
To the point where he wants this and he's fixated on it and he won't let it go.
Even though he's been told by everyone over and over again how much it's going to...
It's basically destroying our family.
Because I'm not going to...
Like when I first said, I don't want this and I'm going to...
I want a divorce. He's like, oh, so you're going to destroy our family.
Right. I mean, that's what I sort of got, not taking responsibility for personal choices.
Yeah. And so basically putting it on me and stating it that way, and it's like, well, yes, I'm going to be the one in, you know...
It's asking and pushing for the divorce, but it's because of this choice that you are making as the natural consequence, because that's not what I want, and that's not what we agreed to.
Yeah, like if a guy breaks into your house and you have to shoot him because he's coming at you with an axe, I mean, did...
Well, you just shot him.
You know, hey, Matt. It's like, no, no, no, he threatened me, and I had to defend myself, and I mean, that's why you don't get charged, right?
Yeah, it's a consequence to this action.
It's like... You asked about when did I start thinking that there were problems in the marriage?
It probably was years ago because we were having communication issues, but because we were married and we were together and I didn't want to break up with family, I didn't push it.
I wasn't seeking divorce.
I was looking for ways. How do I manage this?
How do I work? How do I communicate better?
Maybe we should get a therapist and start working on these things.
I was not willing to go down the divorce route.
But when he said, I want to have children with another woman, And he was moving forward without me like he broke us.
Like, we were no longer an us.
And that's what really hurt.
A lot. And so...
Well, it's pretty odd.
Sorry to interrupt. But it's also, I mean, it's a bit odd to me that he's very much like, well, I just want kids.
I want kids. I want kids. It's like, you know, you have them and they're spending all day on the screen.
So... I know. It seems odd to me.
I try to tell him, and I don't seem to be getting through to him.
No, I think it's about the sex, honestly.
I don't know. He gets sex a couple times a week.
I don't understand why the sex would be such an issue.
I think it's more about feeding his ego.
I think it's feeding his ego.
I can do this, therefore I want to do this because I can.
And I want to show off and be special and different and brilliant.
And I want to shine and be outstanding and this will make me more than ordinary.
This will make me extraordinary because nobody does this.
Well, I mean, you could say the same thing about serial killing, not that I'm putting them in the same, but, you know, people talk about that too, but more and more from a state of wonder.
And I was able to get him to see, I guess, a little bit that it was kind of – I don't know.
Is he still in the room? I don't know if he is or not, and that's fine either way.
Oh, he's still here. Okay. Yeah, so when he did sort of get a sense of the ghastliness of his position when I said, you know, how do you think an outsider – Has he ever had that sense of the ghastliness of the position or the destructiveness of his, you know, wanting to bring in the Zambian concubine?
I can't believe the sentence I say on the show.
But has he had any sort of flashes of, you know, maybe this isn't like, or is it just like, well, this is natural, normal, this is how it should be, and there's no problem with it?
There's only been one time.
And it was recently, it was when I told him that I was actively searching for a psychologist for the children to get them in therapy and have them comfortable with a therapist before we drop the bomb of, oh, we're getting divorced.
I want them to have that comfort level and cushion and someone to talk to outside of us because, you know, it's going to be hard.
And I don't want them to internalize whatever's happening with us.
It's not their fault. It's him and me, not them.
Sorry, go ahead. When I told him that I was going to have a therapist for what we're about to put them through, he's like, he was sick and nauseous.
He said he was disgusted and nauseous and he called himself a jackass about it.
And he's like, I've been a jackass.
And I was like, oh, and I thought like, oh, this is a light at the end of the tunnel.
Maybe he's going to stop doing this.
And then the next day he was apparently over it and was like, I'm still going to go through with it.
I just, I don't see how those things are reconciling.
Do you get a sense that, you know, like, there's this sort of kind of, I guess, half a cliche, like some guy wants to get fired, but he wants to leave his job, but he doesn't want to quit, so he just acts badly until he gets fired.
I mean, do you think this is all just step-by-step out of the marriage stuff?
I think, let me make sure I'm understanding your question.
I think you were trying to ask me Is he just bored in the marriage and he just wants out?
Well, I don't know about bored or whatever, but I mean, like, I can't imagine any woman with any self-respect finding this arrangement to be satisfactory.
So if you make impossible requirements for people, then maybe you can blame them for...
For the relationship not working out, and maybe you don't blame yourself or something like that.
But, I mean, making impossible requirements, like I want my Zambian concubine for new kids, is not a sustainable marriage position, so maybe it's just a way of leaving the marriage without feeling like it's his choice?
I have no idea.
I honestly don't know stuff.
I don't know stuff. For all intents and purposes, I think before this, he was Really happy.
I thought we were happy.
And then you just, you wanted more kids.
And when I said, well, aren't you happy with your kids?
I'm like, I'm so happy. I want more kids.
So I'm like, okay.
Yeah, but it's hard to, again, that wouldn't be 10 hours a day on screens, right?
I agree. I don't understand.
I'm so sorry.
You go ahead. Um...
I'm just wondering if he's just trying to create the community that he'd always been seeking since he was younger through having children and, like, breeding them.
Oh, no, no, no. He's destroying his community.
Yeah, for sure. For sure.
I mean, if he gets everything he wants, he's going to get taken for a ride by some Zambian queen and he's going to end up with nothing and it's going to be a disaster and he'll look back and, you know, it's almost like if I was sort of It's almost like the devil is just like, oh no, over here is bliss, and then you get there, and it's a complete mirage, and it's a fall to nowhere, right?
Yeah. But...
I'm sorry, if there's more that you want to add, I don't want to eclipse your thoughts.
Right. I don't remember where I was going with that.
Yeah, I mean...
The challenge is...
I mean, you can't grow empathy in someone.
And if... I sort of think if I did something that was just agonizing to my wife, it would just, I just wouldn't, like it just wouldn't, would not even be a thing.
Right? Like, my wife's a vegetarian.
I don't even want to go to a steak restaurant.
Because, like, what's she going to eat?
A baked potato and a salad, as always, right?
So I'm like, okay, well, what can we eat where there's going to be something for both of us, right?
Now, occasionally we'll go to a vegetarian restaurant, that's fine.
And occasionally we'll go to a steak restaurant because we both want each other to be happy.
But that sort of constant overlapping, like the Venn diagram, that your happiness is my happiness and to hurt you is to hurt myself, which I think is really the foundation of negotiation.
I don't think we've heard that.
I don't think you kind of got there, if that makes sense.
No, I think it's more of, this is me, this is you, and up until now, what he wanted and what I wanted, they could go hand-in-hand pretty peaceably, until this.
And it's not going to go hand-in-hand, because what he wants is kind of stepping on what I want.
Well, no, it's not stepping up, it's detonating.
Yeah. Blowing it up.
Well, and the kids lose their stability, they lose their continuity, they lose the family.
The family is destroyed, right?
Yeah, well, he seems to think even, like, I mean, even with the divorce, I don't even know how to navigate that, because he still wants to see his kids every day.
But isn't he not seeing them much as it is?
No, that's the thing, though.
He's here in body and presence, but I think sort of mind and emotionally, he's not making that connection with them.
Hmm. Even though I try to tell him that, he gives me excuses and tells me, what do you mean?
But from my perspective and what I see and what I feel is that with the exception of the three-year-old who, you know, he's three, the two older ones, they're It's more of...
I mean, they call him by his name more than Dada.
I mean, what does that say?
And what percentage of love remains within your heart for him?
That's a hard one. I mean, I care about him, and I like him, and I want him to be happy.
But I don't want to...
I don't want to blow up my own happiness or my own life for him to be happy either.
So I take into your question.
Not sure. I don't know how to give it a number right now.
Okay. I mean, it may be something to meditate on.
and when was the last time that you guys would say that you were sort of truly and consistently happy?
Consistent? How long is consistently?
How would you gauge consistently?
So, consistently would be, you know, at least a couple of months without any significant conflicts.
I mean, a couple of disagreements here and there, but, you know, at least sort of four to six months without any major conflicts.
I don't know. This discussion has been going on for at least, husband reminded me, at least two years, because the first time you and I talked stuff was August 2021, when I was having parenting issues with my three-year-old, then three-year-old and one-year-old.
So, we were having some of these issues then, it just wasn't as much before that, so more than two years ago.
Right, okay. And do you have any thoughts about your own history and anything that may have contributed to some sort of dominoes?
Of not seeing things or understanding things that might have pushed you in this vicinity of this issue?
Probably. Yeah, definitely.
I think, as you say, the lack of empathy.
I grew up with a lack of empathy, and so I didn't see that familiarity as something I was drawn to.
I didn't see the pattern. I didn't see the repeating pattern when I needed to.
I see it now, but I didn't see it.
Oh, so like somebody where your happiness is their happiness and you sort of mutually work to mutual benefit?
That was not something that you were well-versed in, is that right?
No, I was well-versed in emotional neglect and not having emotional connection with somebody.
So when I got emotional breadcrumbs from the husband, before he was the husband and throughout our marriage, It was enough because it was familiar.
But then as I healed and I grew and matured and overcame those childhood traumas or worked through them, I wouldn't say healed them, but worked through them, the emotional breadcrumbs became not enough.
And so now I'm like, I don't know.
I don't even know if this is even what I want anymore.
Even if he decided to change his mind after this call, I still don't know if If that's enough to make me say.
Right. Yeah, and I mean, this is another question about sort of basically telling the truth, is that if he's not able to admit he's made a mistake in a conversation and lied, like, within 90 seconds, how is he going to go back two years and say I was wrong?
Right? Like, if you can't admit that you're wrong in the small things, it's almost, I mean, it's like saying I can't lift 10 pounds, but I can lift 200 pounds.
Yeah, I see what you're saying.
Boy, that must have been quite a therapy session with the counselor.
Sorry, go ahead.
Mostly the therapy, the couple's therapy is about communicating better and...
Trying to learn how to communicate better so we can be better co-parents.
I'm sorry, does the marriage counselor not know that he wants to bring in the Zambian concubine princess to bear more children?
He knows, but we found one that sort of, how do you put it?
They're more open to the alternative lifestyles.
Okay. Well, yeah, and it could also be it does sometimes happen in a relationship when one person grows, the other person either grows with them or they usually don't stay the same.
Like if one person grows, the other person can regress.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I wish, I don't know if he's still around, but I wish your husband had been willing to maintain himself in the conversation because there's not really much to be done without the participation of both of you, at least for me, other than for me to say, like, I'm incredibly sorry for this situation.
And, you know, if your husband does ever listen to this, I'll say that you won't be happy putting your own needs first.
It will make you absolutely miserable.
Maybe you've got this barrage that it's going to make you happy.
But if you want to put your own needs first, you need to stay single.
If you get married and you make vows and then you have children, and that's an implicit promise based upon your marital vows, if you promise to serve people and then destroy them through selfishness, it will wreck your soul.
Like, it literally produces hell on earth.
I mean, it already is producing hell on earth, but it's going to get worse.
And there's sort of a brief mirage of how, oh, I'm going to get all my needs met, and I'm finally going to be satisfied and happy.
And it's like, no, because you've now betrayed your wife and children, and you've betrayed your marriage vows, and you've hurt the innocent, right?
Your wife is not innocent, and neither have you, neither am I, if there's any consolation to that, because we're all adults.
You guys chose each other. The children did not...
Choose you. The children did not choose to be born.
The children did not choose the marriage that they happen to live in.
And so you owe them everything.
And this is to your husband.
I mean, you did say very clearly, as I recall, that it would be bad for your children to break up the marriage and for you to have another woman and have children with her and all that kind of stuff.
If it's bad for your children It's off the table.
You know, like, if we need money, we don't sit there and say, well, I guess I could just go and rob a convenience store or a bank or something, right?
I mean, we borrow or beg or earn.
I'm not going to steal the money that I need, right?
I mean, if I'm angry at someone, it's not like, oh, I'm going to go let the air out of their time.
So, we have things that are just off the table for us, and that's really the basis of civilization and morality, is to just have things that we simply will not do.
Like that's just not an option.
Like obviously, you know, you want other kids, you're not going to go become a rapist, right?
Because that's just deeply immoral.
And so that's off the table. That's just not something that you will do.
And harming your children, if you want to have any chance of happiness, really,
harming your children has to be completely off the table.
Like, doing that which harms your children has to be completely off the table.
Letting yourself be mad enough at your wife that you let them eat an unhealthy amount of bread, it's just off the table.
Like, no, I'm not going to... I could be mad at my wife, but I'm not going to let my children be harmed because of that.
And so if you want a happy life, given the life that you've chosen, nobody forced you to get married, nobody forced you to become a father or a mother.
If you want a happy life, you just orient yourself Okay, well, what's best for my children?
Is it best for my children that the marriage get broken up and I pursue some Zambian concubine?
No, that's not best for my children.
So it's off the table, the same way that robbing a bank is off the table if you need money.
It's just not something I'm going to do, right?
It's just no. And if you say no to yourself, and like it's just not on the table, then life just becomes so much easier.
But if you kind of put this ragged edge of, well, maybe, and I just got to figure it out, and it's a possibility, then you drive yourself kind of crazy.
You should read Crime and Punishment if you haven't already, but the guy who ends up becoming a murderer is just constantly toying with the idea.
He doesn't say, I'm not doing this.
Whatever I'm doing, I'm not doing that.
And so, if you're lonely and single, you don't just go kidnap someone.
one, right? That's just not on the table. And so if you just have things where you say,
okay, well, my children didn't choose to be here, so I have to do what's best for them.
I chose to have children. I chose to become a father. And so I have to do what's best
for my children. It's not best for your children that your son spend 10 hours a day on screens,
of course. And I don't know what your kid is learning in school, but it's probably worth
reviewing that curriculum and see if that's good for your child.
Just you get up in the morning and say, okay, well, I chose to become a parent. So for the
next 20 years I navigate my life by what's best for my children.
And anything that contradicts that, it's just not a thing.
Anything that contradicts what's best for your children...
I mean, that's just not a thing, because that's a responsibility that you voluntarily took on, and you're trying to have this life where you get what you want, and it's like your children don't exist, but they do!
They do exist, and you did choose to have them, and you chose to have three of them.
So you owe them time, attention, nurturing, care, protection, education, instruction, particularly moral instruction, which is going to be pretty tough to morally instruct your children if you're breaking your marriage vows and chasing after some...
Yeah, if you just wake up in the morning, this is like a demonic possession.
Bad ideas have gone in through your nose, like you sniffed the wrong fire or something.
Bad ideas have gone into your nose.
This idea that it's worth busting up your family to...
Get some sort of rent-a-womb from Africa.
That's just a bad idea.
For some reason, it got past your common sense.
And, you know, you guys listen to this show, so I assume that you have good common sense.
And it happens to all of us.
It happens to all of us.
We just get bad ideas that just get past our common sense.
And that's where we need discipline, particularly moral discipline, which is, okay, we'll shake your head off.
I've got to reorient myself.
Okay, what are my values?
Okay, well, I promise to love and be monogamous with my wife, so I should do that.
I obviously have to be good to my children and do what's best for them because I chose to have children and that's the deal.
And if you don't want to, then you give up your children to someone who will, right?
So if you keep your children around, then you have to do what's best for them because they're not there by choice and you chose to create them and they're dependent upon you for everything.
So, you know, with all due sympathy, and I really do have sympathy for this, There's something devilish in your head that is drawing you down a very bad path.
A very, very, very bad path.
And for some reason, which I'm sure therapy or self-knowledge or something, and if you want to have a more honest conversation in terms of, like, you can always email me, call in at freedomain.com, we can talk about how this bad idea, really terrible idea, might have gotten past your defenses.
But it has, and it's kind of taken up Root, like an addiction.
It's kind of taken up, let's say, living rent-free in your head is sort of this old cliche.
So you've had a really bad idea, and it popped into your head, and it got past your common sense, and it got past your defenses, and it's laying waste to your entire life, if you let it.
It's laying waste to your life.
And maybe you didn't get what you wanted when you were younger and you didn't learn how to negotiate or weren't taught how to negotiate that way.
And so you're like, well, I'm going to get what I want now.
But that's not a good thing because it's never about what you want when you become a husband and a father.
It's about what's best for your family.
That's what's going to bring you the greatest happiness in the long run.
So it's time to fight the bad idea.
It's time, you know, you kind of let it sit in your head and you kind of let it...
It's like, you know, the demonic possession.
It's like a form of possession.
Just sometimes bad ideas, and you see this all over the world all the time, these bad ideas get into people's heads, they get past their defenses, and they just start animating them or possessing them or taking them over or undermining them.
And, you know, we kind of have to fight these terrible ideas with...
All of the heroism in our being is like the ultimate Kraken slash Godzilla slash King Kong monster.
It's like our inner Sauron, the eye that we have to sort of take down.
You have to battle these bad ideas.
And the reason that it's so tough to battle them now is you've kind of let them run your life to be possessed by these bad ideas for a year or two, and therefore it's tougher.
Like if you've been on a drug for two years, it's a lot tougher to quit than if you either don't take it or just take it once.
So, you know, with all due respect, you know, and I appreciate the conversation.
I'm sorry that we couldn't get past the hiccup of a falsehood, which was a fairly minor falsehood and not the end of the world.
But I'm sorry that we couldn't get past that hiccup.
But I will say that in my humble opinion, you've got a demon to battle and the demon is deception.
And the demon is kind of selfishness and the demon is sacrificing...
Your family for lust or delusion or whatever it's going to be.
Because, you know, you're going to lose your family and you won't get a new family and you'll just end up bitter and alone.
And I don't know, maybe it'll give you more time to play video games if that's what you wanted to do, but it doesn't seem like a very good option to me.
And, you know, the devil will tempt you with the delusion of happiness.
Then you get there. There's nothing there and you can't get back and you're just stuck nowhere forever.
And that's just... The way these things tend to go.
So, you know, I'm really sorry that you guys have gotten to this place.
I think it's really tragic. There's so much great stuff that can be done in the family.
I hope that you will commit to that.
But yeah, this is a bad idea, and you shouldn't be inflicting it on your family.
You shouldn't not at all.
You can't inflict it on your children.
And you have to fight this, I think, in my view, with everything you've got and try and find some way back to love and...
Submission. Like, we all have to submit to virtue, to common sense, to reasonableness, and you've got a kind of a bit of a selfish hoarding golem-in-the-ring thing going on here, and again, we all have it, and I understand it, and there's no condemnation.
This is a battle that we all face all the time.
Lord knows I've been in the grip of some pretty bad ideas sometimes for years, and you just have to try and shake them off and get back to some kind of common sense, and the best way to do that is To just remember your explicit and implicit vows.
Your explicit vow to your wife, which is the foundation of your marriage.
And you don't want to steal her life, and you don't want to steal...
Like, she married you because you made vows.
And she wouldn't have married you otherwise.
She would have married another guy who probably doesn't want to import a concubine from Zambia.
And so...
You don't want to have stolen...
The last 10 years or more of her life and break her heart and so on because she made a vow.
And you just have to return to that vow and whatever battles you have to do, you can do.
I mean, you can achieve them, I'm sure.
You guys are both very smart people and very competent people.
I mean, you've retired in your 40s.
I mean, good for you. That's fantastic and should be congratulated.
That's a very great achievement.
So, you're very smart, strong-willed people.
I have no doubt that if you want, and this is more to the husband, I'm sure that the wife has fault as well, but, you know, you're the more immediate, I think, problem.
If you can fight this demon, if you can fight this bad idea and find a way to return back to your vows and your promises and your ethics and your soul and your morals and so on, then you have a great life ahead of you.
If you decide not to fight or decide to surrender or let it take over and possess and drive your behavior going forward, I mean, from my perspective, it looks like it's going to be pretty terrible.
And I think that you will face a huge amount of regret and look upon this last two hours and a bit as a sort of real turning point.
And now that you have that knowledge, it's going to be even worse if you continue to go down this path.
Very bad part. So that's really what I wanted to get across, and I'm certainly happy to hear any sort of final thoughts from you guys.
I'm just very thankful and grateful for you taking the call.
You said some things that are Basically what I said, but you said them way better than I ever did.
So, thanks. That's the gig.
All right. And listen, brother, again, I'm sorry we didn't get the last part of the convo in.
If you would like to talk privately, that's totally fine.
You can email me, call in at freedomain.com.
I hope you guys, obviously, I desperately hope that you guys make the right choice for your kids and for each other.
And please keep me posted about how things are going.
And if there's anything else I can do, just let me know, all right?
All right. Thanks, Jeff. Thanks, guys.
▲
Export Selection