Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool

All Episodes

Previous Next

Dec. 27, 2023 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:17:31

Addicted to Crazy Women! Freedomain Call In

Large

Audio Only |

Scroll

Time	Text
	Hello. Hey, how's it going?
	Good. How's the audio sound?
	Actually, the audio is refreshingly good.
	I appreciate that.
	Sometimes it's like 12 beach radios in a sandstorm, so this is good.
	So, yeah, I'm sorry to, of course, hear about this emergency situation.
	Do you want to tell me what's going on?
	How are things? I mean, I don't know where to start other than...
	That my girlfriend of 10 years and I are not together at this point.
	We're living separately.
	And I kind of feel like I need to salvage the relationship, but I think she's moving forward.
	I don't know what to do at this point.
	And you have a four-year-old kid, right?
	Yes. Yeah, he's actually turning five at the end of this month.
	All right. All right. Do you want to start with history of the relationship, your own personal history?
	I mean, whatever works best for you, I'm happy to facilitate.
	I guess I'll give a little bit of history of my past relationships.
	I met my first wife when I was 18.
	We got married and she joined the military.
	Navy, to be precise.
	And after she joined the military, she became a completely different person.
	We fought a lot.
	And then after about 10 years of that relationship, I broke it off and got a divorce.
	And then that was when I was 28.
	No kids in that one, right?
	Yeah, we had a kid.
	He's now 16. Okay, and sorry, yeah, so I just wanted to know about that?
	Yeah, no problem. And then, so that relationship ended when I was 28, and then I met my current ex four years later when I was 32.
	And then as far as the relationship went, you know, it was pretty bumpy.
	We moved in pretty quickly, living with each other.
	I would say that we were both immature for our age.
	Definitely late bloomers.
	She was still finishing college.
	Me, personally, I didn't go to college, but I was sort of at the end of the rope with working in my industry, which was the food industry.
	And just not getting anywhere with my life and that.
	And we were together for about two years and then my mom committed suicide and that was really hard for me.
	Although I internalized a lot of it.
	Didn't even go to my mother's funeral.
	And I would say for about two years I was pretty depressed.
	I couldn't really hold a job.
	I was kind of just bouncing around.
	And then we came to a breaking point.
	So that was about four years in the relationship.
	And she asked me if I would go to couples counseling with her, which I agreed to because I did want to make changes and I knew I needed help.
	And the counselor told us that we probably shouldn't be together.
	And then at this point, she was offered a job to move.
	Sorry, this was prior to you having a kid, right?
	Yes. Yep. She was offered a job because she had just finished her internship.
	And the job was...
	Is it okay if I mention states?
	Just out of state or different or whatever is fine.
	Yeah. So it was a next state over or a couple states over.
	Pretty big move for her and for myself.
	And at this point, her family was putting pressure on her to break up with me.
	And there were some financial issues that she kind of kept to herself.
	And she was using credit cards to pay for a lot of things and asking her family for money.
	And me, at that point, I wasn't making a lot of money, but I was contributing money.
	But I think in their mind, I wasn't a person who could take care of her, so they wanted her to stop seeing me.
	And they told her to move without me, and they funded her.
	And then a couple months later, after she had moved, I did end up taking a bus up there and joining her.
	And we had a pretty good relationship, and that's when she got pregnant with our current son.
	But unfortunately, during the pregnancy, she was laid off from her job, which was the whole point of her moving out to this new state.
	And it really hit her hard during the pregnancy.
	It was also really tough for her.
	She, I believe, was 33 at the time.
	And... She had some health complications during the pregnancy and had to give birth a couple months early due to high blood pressure.
	And then after our son was born, I became a manager at a restaurant and I was doing really well.
	I was taking care of her, told her to stay home, just focus on health and the baby.
	And we had a pretty good support From the family that I was working for with the restaurant.
	Big Christian family that was really supportive towards us.
	But she just never really mingled very well over there.
	And I'll just mention that it's Southern hospitality versus what she's from a Jewish family.
	So it's a different culture.
	Whereas me, I grew up around Christians.
	So she just really didn't make any friends.
	And then I think postpartum hit in after our son was born.
	Pretty traumatic for her.
	She got a C-section.
	So a lot of things happened.
	And then her father, who previously had said that he didn't like me, didn't want us to be together, he called us and said, hey, once you guys come back, we're going to help you take care of the baby.
	He was acting very friendly with me, telling me that what's in the past is in the past, and let's just move forward.
	I didn't really want to move because things were going well for me.
	I was really feeling like this was the start of a family.
	I guess you could say more control in a healthy way, just being in control of my destiny.
	I've always wanted to have family and have kids of my own.
	And then I would say, I don't know, she just really kind of pushed up against us staying there.
	I was actually looking for a house too at the time.
	And she really wanted to go back home.
	So I kind of caved into it.
	And I think that's where the resentment began.
	When we got back To the hometown, we moved in with her family.
	Her father is retired.
	I guess I could mention he already had two divorces.
	He had multiple kids, multiple marriages.
	So a little bit of that there.
	He's a retired doctor and very controlling over his daughter.
	Very influential as well.
	And I didn't realize the trap that I was getting into because living with her father, it was a whole different dynamic in our relationship.
	The first year was okay.
	We just focused on the baby and I focused on finding a good career job, which I ended up doing training for in a town further away.
	So I I would do training during the week, and then weekends I'd come and visit.
	And every weekend I'd come back, I would just notice our relationship was becoming colder.
	My girlfriend at the time would snap at me, or she would say, like, don't mess up my schedule.
	Like, you know, I have this thing going on with our baby, and this is how I do it.
	So I kind of just felt a little alienated in...
	I would say six months passed.
	I just realized I don't want to be in this profession anymore and I want a change.
	This is when I started thinking for myself.
	Instead of working for other people, I started thinking I need to start my own business.
	I've got to do things my way.
	Her dad did not like that.
	I ended up quitting the job and starting to make preparations to start my own business.
	And at that point, he asked me to leave and that his daughter and my son would stay there with him.
	And this was a big breaking point in our relationship.
	After he asked me to leave, he gave me a one week's notice, but I just left that night because I was so angry.
	And when I told my girlfriend what he had said to me, she just stood there and she didn't defend me.
	She didn't say anything like, oh, I'll come with you.
	Nothing like that. And I think that kind of just shattered my expectations of what the relationship was going to be.
	And this is also at the time where I'm thinking about, like, I want to propose to her and make things, you know, make it a family.
	Yeah, and then that's when COVID hit, too.
	I got hit with COVID really quickly because...
	The restaurants that I was working at, we had a lot of travelers, but I got it pretty quickly, and I was out for a few weeks.
	Couldn't work, and my girlfriend broke up with me over the phone a few weeks later while I was sick, and she was asking me, like, why aren't you going to work?
	And I said, I can't.
	I'm really sick.
	And I wasn't living with her at the time.
	I was staying with my brother.
	Then we were broken up for about a year.
	I got my own place.
	She stayed with her parents.
	It felt like torture to me.
	I think I have this fixation on having a family.
	Every time I would try to convince her to move back in with me, I made all these changes.
	Clean the house the way she would like it, invite her over, all these things.
	She just wouldn't do it.
	And then finally, a year later, she decided to get back with me and move in.
	We got a nice place.
	That whole year, everything was great.
	Maybe not perfect, but I don't know.
	It's kind of hard to think about it in terms of how well things were going, because I thought they were going good.
	I also started my own business.
	The money was good.
	The freedom was good.
	I was able to be there for my kids.
	If anybody needed help, if the school needed me to come pick up the kids anytime, I just had a flexible schedule with my new job.
	I would say that after that year of living together and we got back together, We decided to move into another place that was a little bit cheaper.
	Things were just getting more expensive.
	And I was trying to invest into my business.
	So I was trying to cut down some costs.
	We moved into a smaller place.
	And that's when things started just kind of going downhill.
	And this is just what I think about in her situation.
	She has a lot of childhood trauma and some things going on.
	But for her to be in a smaller place, less amenities, whatever you want to call it, she doesn't function very well and gets very irritated.
	Feels like she can't have her space.
	So there was a lot of frustration.
	Anyway, we were there for a year.
	And then at the end of the year, things got so bad in our relationship that we decided to separate again.
	And I moved out, got my own place.
	We never officially broke up.
	We just said we should live separately.
	We agreed on it.
	That we were still going to continue the relationship.
	She was going to focus on working on some of her mental health issues.
	But none of this ever really happened.
	And we just started getting frustrated.
	A lot of back and forth.
	And now I just feel like it's It's gotten to a point where almost like we're at the point of no return.
	We've said some things to each other.
	What sort of stuff have you said that you feel is beyond return?
	I've told her that her family controls her.
	She's more loyal to her family than me.
	I still resent her for breaking up with me when her dad kicked me out of the house and just not standing by my side.
	I've said some more colorful language towards her.
	It's okay if I cuss.
	I've called her a selfish bit.
	Mostly through text messages, and it's usually when we're really angry at each other that all this stuff comes out.
	I'm a pretty quiet and reserved kind of guy.
	I don't normally express anger, but when I get to a boiling point, I guess I just kind of let it out.
	Never do anything violent, anything like that.
	I guess I just...
	I'm very opinionated, and...
	For example, her dad would always say things like, if you voted for Trump, you don't exist to me.
	He's just a very anti-Trumper kind of guy.
	But also a pro-vaccine guy.
	During COVID, I told him, all the stuff I've read about, I just don't think a vaccine is going to work.
	I'm not going to take the risk.
	I'm just going to focus on being healthy.
	He did not like that and he kind of felt like I was brainwashing his daughter into not getting the vaccine.
	But I just would stand my ground on certain things like that and be very opinionated.
	Yeah, I think a lot of this stuff with my ex-girlfriend is that she's also in the field of behavioral health.
	She deals with mental illness at a I guess you could say it's similar to a drug rehab, but maybe not focused on just the drug rehab part.
	It's also the mental health issues.
	And it's really hard to have conversations with her because I feel like she gaslights me and tells me, you're projecting, and I can't really say anything about how I feel because she just gets angry and it kind of just deteriorates from there.
	Right, right. And so you're apart at the moment, is that right?
	Yes, we're living separately.
	And was there a particular incident that had, like, what was it that happened that it's like, gotta get out, gotta get out?
	I was the one who did it.
	While we were living together at the smaller apartment complex, and things were really tense, she would have, I guess...
	Maybe just call them episodes or fits, where she'd get really flustered and just scream out loud.
	Usually she'd say, I can't take this anymore, and she'd scream.
	It wasn't always something I would do.
	Maybe she got into a fight on the phone with her mother.
	Anything could trigger her into one of these fits, and she'd just go and hide in the closet.
	Sorry, but you didn't hide in the closet.
	Like, literally hide in the closet.
	She would get in the closet and that would be her, like, safe space or something?
	Yeah. Is that something generally recommended in the field of mental health?
	Or maybe I missed that part.
	I don't think so. You know, like, if you're having conflict with someone, go get into the closet.
	Yeah. Well, and, you know, it It wasn't always, like, I wasn't present when she would have the episode, but then I'd go into the room and I would hear her crying in the closet, you know, and I'd just check on her.
	So, like, some of this stuff would be caused by our arguments.
	Other times, you know, it'd be something else in her life.
	I'm sorry, is there some cause to going into a closet and crying?
	I mean, I've had conflicts in my life.
	I don't think I've ever ended up in a closet crying.
	I think it's more of a shame issue.
	I don't think she wants people to know that she's having these emotions.
	Then how do you know she's having these emotions if she doesn't want you to know?
	Yeah. In the very beginning of our relationship, it was a big issue with me.
	I always just felt like I didn't really know who she was.
	She didn't share as much with me.
	I was always trying to Understand her more, but she wouldn't talk to me.
	And she's been in therapy since she was probably 12 years old.
	And, you know, she's 36.
	This is her with decades of therapy.
	Exactly. Like 30, 20 years of therapy or whatever, right?
	Yep. Okay, so this is the best she's going to be, right?
	It's not like you can say, ah, well, we'll just get her into therapy or whatever, right?
	So this is who she is, right?
	I think that she's always done solo therapy.
	She's never done family therapy.
	I think that's where a lot of the issues arise.
	There was something that happened to us when we moved for her new job to the other state.
	I don't know if you'd call her a repressed memory.
	We were watching a movie that had a scene where a father sexually abused a baby.
	After she saw that, she wouldn't let me touch her for a month.
	We always slept next to each other in the same bed, but after this episode, she would just not let me touch her.
	No cuddling, no hugging, nothing.
	She was just very traumatized, I guess you could say.
	And then I asked her, is there something that happened to you when you were a kid?
	And she says, I think there was.
	The only thing that she did share with me was that she was raped in college by a boyfriend who drugged her up and raped her.
	So that was the only trauma that I had known that she had.
	Was it from college, but then she thinks that she was abused as a child.
	And then we've done some kind of investigating into it, talking to family, and we found out that one of her older brother's friends, who was about maybe 16, 15, probably abused her when she was about 9 or 8.
	I'm sorry, what do you mean by probably?
	Well, you know, everybody's kept it all hush, and she doesn't want to really admit to stuff, but I mean, I'm pretty sure he did.
	We ran into the guy during a dinner with her family, and there was just some obvious body language and behavior.
	The guy was also really drunk and obnoxious.
	It was the first time that I met him.
	Right, okay. Sorry, I don't want to interrupt you if you're in the middle of saying something.
	Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of layers to her, but I guess what was the point where I felt like we needed to separate was that we couldn't communicate anymore.
	There's also the issue of the longer, like towards the last three years of our relationship, the sex or intimacy between both of us had become less and less.
	She would use marijuana a lot.
	And what I started noticing is that she would get high before having sex with me.
	And it was, like, the only way that she could have sex.
	So there was a lot of that.
	There was, like, a lot of issues that just kept coming up and things I started noticing.
	And as I would try to talk about them and bring them up, which maybe I didn't have the right way of breaking the ice.
	I was more direct.
	You know, it would cause her to just feel, like, threatened by me.
	Because I was bringing up stuff that she didn't want to face.
	And then I would just say that at one point, she screamed at my older son, which is not her son.
	And she had always been really nice to him, and really like a stepmother, always encouraging him, helping him with his homework, spending time with quality time.
	But it was just this one night.
	She just screamed at him, you know, out of nowhere.
	And I just realized, like, we're getting to this point to where she can't control anything anymore, and it's all just coming out.
	Wow. Okay, okay.
	And how does she get along with your first son?
	Pretty well, yeah.
	I mean, I'd say...
	She's known him, and he's always lived with me half the time.
	You know, it's a joint custody situation.
	And I would say she's always been really good with him up until that point.
	And how is your relationship with your ex-wife and your son?
	Yeah, so my...
	I would say my ex-wife dysfunctional with her but after the divorce settled things calmed down and there wasn't as much emotional back and forth and it was just more about talking about how's our son?
	How's he doing in school?
	But it got to the point to where when my eldest son was around sixth grade, he was really struggling in school.
	And when I would try to mediate the situation or offer suggestions on how he could do better, I was always ignored.
	And so I was kind of like in this situation with my first ex and our older son.
	That I was not being paid attention to.
	And she kind of had the power in the relationship over our son and how he's going to live his life.
	So when I did have him over, we would just try to have fun.
	But I didn't really feel like I could be a father to him with my ex.
	She had a guy move in with her and They had been together ever since probably about 15 years now.
	And the guy, definitely not a good guy.
	He's got some issues.
	We can get into that later.
	It's not a good situation, but I'm not going to say it's bad either.
	It's just not much I could do about The situation.
	And now that he's 16, he's in high school.
	He's had straight F's in school for the last four years.
	And all of my suggestions...
	Sorry, straight F's? What do you mean?
	Yeah. I mean, I know what it means, but is he not graduating?
	Is he not being moved up through the...
	The school system where I live at, they just push kids forward even if they fail.
	It's horrible.
	I'm planning to actually homeschool my younger son because of how bad the school system is.
	Ever since he was in fifth grade, I started going to his school and volunteering just to see what was going on.
	I feel like if a child doesn't absorb or learn their way of teaching, instead of slowing down or You know, trying to help him.
	They kind of just keep pushing him forward.
	And so I think his grade level is sixth grade, and he's in the 11th grade right now.
	But he still can't do timetables.
	He can't do basic reading and writing.
	It's gotten pretty out of hand.
	At 16, he can't do these things.
	Sorry to interrupt, but what's the plan as far as getting him assessed by an expert and that kind of stuff?
	I've been taking steps to get him into family counseling.
	I take him with me on jobs to try to teach him some life skills.
	The high school that he's at right now, it's just There's not much I can do other than pull out of it.
	I don't mean counseling. I mean, get him tested for learning disabilities or anything like that.
	You know, I don't know if that's the issue.
	But that's the whole point.
	That's why you get him tested.
	You don't know, right? Yeah.
	Yeah, I think it was the divorce that really settled in.
	He's been confiding in me in the last six months or so.
	Our relationship has gotten stronger.
	He's been telling me that his mom has basically become an alcoholic and she doesn't spend any time with him and that it's been that way for a long time.
	So I think he has some issues with neglect.
	Sorry, I just need to back you up a second here.
	So your son is 16.
	He's having great difficulty reading and he doesn't do his times tables, right?
	Okay. So, is there a plan to get him assessed for intelligence, learning disabilities, whatever it is that's blocking him?
	Because, I mean, assume he's obviously not, is he reading books?
	Like, is he a smart kid who hates school, or just doesn't do anything in particular that would make you say?
	I think he's a smart kid who hates school.
	And how do you know that?
	I think because I was the same way.
	No, no, no, you're being the same way.
	Could you do your times table when you were 16?
	Oh yeah, I was very good at that.
	Okay, so you're not the same way.
	I mean, the kid could have a significant learning disability.
	I mean, it doesn't mean that he's dumb or anything, just whatever, like dyslexia, I don't know, whatever nonsense it could be.
	And I say nonsense because I don't know what it is, not because the sort of thing as a whole is nonsense, but like whatever's going on, I mean, it's pretty critical.
	I mean, if he's not reading books, that's going to be pretty tough for his life as a whole, right?
	So I guess I'm just trying to figure out, like, for four years he's been failing out of everything.
	Well, and I'll say the last six months, though, he has improved a lot.
	He is starting to read on his own.
	He just recently borrowed the book Logic from me, which I haven't even read yet.
	Logic by Robert Kanz, I think.
	All right. You know, it's like a literature book, and I just didn't expect him to ask for it.
	You know, I think he, at his mom's house, he always had this How do you say when a kid learns failure?
	Oh, learn helplessness? Yeah, that's what I mean.
	I think that was part of the problem growing up at his mom's house more so than with me.
	She wouldn't challenge him.
	She would always do everything for him.
	They had a lot of... Fifth, sixth, and seventh grade, when he would struggle in school, they would do the homework for him because they didn't want to look bad.
	And his mom's family is Catholic, very traditional.
	They believe in, like, every kid needs to go to school and go to college and get a career job.
	It's all just like a cookie-cutter kind of setup.
	I'm sorry, your wife's family's belief is that he needs to go to college?
	Yeah. So I'm a little confused.
	Sorry, I'm sure I've missed something here, but I'm a little confused because if he needs to go to college, shouldn't they make sure he can read and do his times tables at least?
	How is he going to get to college if he can't write an entrance exam?
	Yeah, and I was raising hell about him not doing his times table for the longest time, and they just wouldn't do anything about it.
	I'm sorry to be annoying, but you have shared custody, right?
	Yes. So he's with you sometimes, right?
	Yes. So, wouldn't you go and get him tested?
	I didn't really think about it.
	Well, no, but you know he's been failing out of school.
	It could be because, you know, he's some super smart guy who is bored by school.
	It could be. I don't know. Obviously, I'm no expert.
	I don't know what it could be, but you need to get him tested, don't you?
	Yeah, I never thought about that.
	Yeah. I know the school does certain things like that.
	They had him in different tutoring programs.
	Well, but they didn't work, right?
	No, they didn't. I mean, expecting the school to do it, I think, is fairly optimistic, right?
	They get paid whether he does well or not.
	Yeah. So, I mean, and your wife is in mental health, right?
	I'm sorry, your girlfriend is in mental, you don't have to tell me the field, but she's in the mental health field, right?
	So she would know, I guess, about these tests and evaluations.
	You know, you go through the IQ test, the reading test, you go through looking for particular learning disabilities or challenges so that stuff can be figured out.
	I mean, she knows your son.
	I asked, you know, how they get along and you said okay.
	And so she would know about all of this stuff, and obviously you've talked to your girlfriend about the issues with your son, and she never recommended that he might want to get evaluated?
	It's an evaluation, I think, more than a test.
	And again, I'm no expert, I just think this is how it works.
	Yeah, she had mentioned the possibility of ADHD, stuff like that.
	I don't think we ever got him officially tested.
	I know when he first started counseling after the divorce, they did talk about putting him on ADHD drugs.
	But it happened to where they did one interview with him, and then they recommended the drugs.
	And I think it just didn't seem like it was the right thing to do at that time.
	Well, no, I mean, obviously, I'm not suggesting he go on ADHD drugs.
	Again, what do I know? I'm not a huge fan of psychomeds or psychopharmacological meds, but there's a whole battery of evaluations that you do regarding, you know, if a smart kid is failing or if a kid is failing, then you do a whole bunch of evaluations to try and map where his strengths and weaknesses are and come up with a game plan for, because, you know, he's got to be pretty miserable in school, you know, doing all of this stuff that isn't working and all of that.
	I mean, sorry, it's just a little frustrating to me that your 10-year girlfriend, your girlfriend of 10 years, is in the mental health profession, your kid's failing, you're a smart guy, you listen to this show, so I put everyone in the top 1% rightly or wrong, that's just my category, and yet your son, who's flunking out of school four years in a row, has never been evaluated despite the fact that your girlfriend is in the mental health profession.
	Yeah. I think they just kind of let him slide through the cracks.
	Every time he would fail...
	No, it's not they.
	You're the father. What do you mean they?
	You're the father. You're his father.
	Yeah. Well, I think I was afraid of going back to court because at the end of the year, I would request that he get held back or go to a charter school or do homeschooling.
	I was... Advocating for him to go to different alternative schools.
	I told him this is not working.
	I've never seen someone who just sits in class all day and doesn't absorb anything.
	And every time my ex would say, okay, let's do it, she would go behind my back and put him back in the same school again.
	And she technically had residential custody, which means that she would choose the doctors in the schools.
	And if I wanted to get residential custody, I'd have to take her to court.
	And I think I just, that's on me.
	That was me being lazy, not wanting to go back through that.
	I'm not talking about things that you need to have to go to court.
	I mean, again, I'm no lawyer, but I understand that if he's staying with you, I mean, you can take him to a dentist if he's with you and gets a toothache, right?
	Yeah. Okay. So when he's with you, you would take him to get evaluated by a specialist in educational challenges.
	Right. Yeah, I definitely dropped the ball on that.
	Well, I'm trying to sort of figure this out.
	And the reason I'm saying is that at some point, your son is probably going to ask to know what the hell happened.
	Yeah. We've been having conversations about that.
	Yeah. What's he asking?
	It's more of a father-son kind of conversation where he might tell me about some stuff he's having difficult times with and I'll just try to give him some advice.
	He had never really looked up to me until recently.
	In the past, if I would talk to him about anything, he wouldn't really listen.
	I was always just listening to what his mom would say.
	And why do you think you didn't have credibility with him?
	There was a lot of alienation on her side of the family.
	A lot of them talked bad about me in front of him.
	I dropped out of high school, didn't go to college, and they view that as a pretty bad situation.
	And the new stepfather that came into the picture also had a very poor opinion about me.
	He also tried to convince my ex-wife to sue me for alimony and child support and all this other stuff.
	There was just a lot of, on her side of the family...
	Sue you, sorry, again, I don't really know much about the legalities, but sue you because you weren't paying or what, for more?
	For more, yeah.
	I represented myself in our divorce court and basically just wanted joint custody, but they still gave me a child support payment, which was pretty much nothing.
	I think it was like $60 a month or something, but Because I pretty much just proved that we were both capable of working and she actually had more experience.
	She had a college degree, military service, and that she could definitely make more money than I could in that vein.
	And the judge pretty much sided with me, although just the little child support that I pay on a monthly basis and To me, the court system is made for rich people.
	I don't know if we actually needed to go.
	We should have just gotten the divorce.
	I just think there was a lot of alienation on the side.
	We would mostly see it where anything I would try to convince my ex-wife of doing when it came to schooling, she would nod her head yes, like, okay, we'll try it.
	And then a month later, she'd go behind my back and do the opposite.
	then I would hear from my son like yeah they they would you know talk bad about
	my profession or my schooling.
	Okay I just obviously I'm no expert but it might be worth getting him evaluated
	for learning challenges because I'm sure that there could be ways to work around
	if he's you know if he's got dyslexia or something.
	That would be something that could be worked around.
	I think you're right about the dyslexia because I'm probably undiagnosed as dyslexic.
	I don't know if it's hereditary, but I think that's a good idea.
	We'll get him checked. He's shown more accountability, I would say.
	You know, the learned helplessness that I talked about before.
	He's just maturing so much now that he's taking on things on his own.
	So I'm just hoping he's a late bloomer at this point.
	And from what I've seen in the last six months, he's really been trying at school.
	But I think you're right.
	We just need to get him checked out.
	Well, I think so. Yeah, yeah.
	Okay, so do you want to tell me a little bit about your upbringing and I assume the chaotic family situation that may have influenced you to end up where you are?
	Yeah. My mom story begins with her.
	She was adopted and ran away when she was 16 during the whole 70s sexual revolution.
	She I was born and raised.
	Yeah, you can stay off the places, as I mentioned.
	Yeah. But she moved all the way to the West Coast, or ran away to the West Coast, and just partied a lot, and that's how she met my dad.
	I guess they got married, had me, and then probably about a year after I was born, She claims that he was abusive and an alcoholic, and so she got divorced.
	But during the divorce, she stayed with my father's brother and then had my brother.
	So I think my brother is my half-brother on my uncle's side.
	So, she most likely had another child with my dad's brother, and then she was a single mother with two kids.
	And as far as I can remember, there was a lot of boyfriends in the picture.
	I remember waking up in random people's houses in the middle of the night, not knowing where I was, because we were kind of being passed around through different babysitters, friends of the family.
	And she was working as a nurse at this time, and that's why I think I vividly remember being moved in the middle of the night as a child, from the age of two to four.
	And then until finally things kind of settled, she moved to the country, and we just lived there, the three of us, around the time that I was eight.
	She met my stepdad.
	And a very young guy.
	I think she was probably like 28 or 30 years old.
	And this guy was 21.
	Barely out of high school.
	But they get married a few years later.
	And his family, I would say, I learned from them what it means to be a family.
	And they were Christians.
	We went to church. There was more stability.
	But I just think he was too young to be married to a single mother with two kids.
	And I don't think he knew how to be a father.
	Or maybe he didn't even want to.
	It's hard to say. But him and my mom got divorced when I was about 16, 17.
	And I think I just...
	I have memories of my mom just not really caring about us.
	She would always be in her bedroom smoking pot.
	When I would ask her, hey, mom, can you come play basketball with me?
	Come do some sort of activity.
	It was always no.
	So I don't really have any good memories of her.
	But it's also like I don't have any bad memories of her either.
	It's just like she wasn't really there.
	So how long was she married to your stepdad for?
	Probably a good seven or eight years.
	It was from the time that I was eight until about 15 or 16.
	And you said that he was a good guy, decent guy?
	Yeah. I will say he was very old-fashioned.
	He did spank us, but I only remember a handful of times that he actually followed through with it.
	What do you mean he was old-fashioned?
	Just like old-fashioned and child-rearing where, you know, like spanking is the go-to discipline.
	You mean he was a Christian and old-fashioned that way?
	Is that what you mean? Yeah, that too.
	Well, does that mean he marries a single mom?
	That's not particularly old-fashioned, is it?
	Right. Yeah.
	And did you know what happened that triggered the separation for them?
	I would say I'm not the best judge of that because I ran away before I knew
	what was going on.
	I ran away when I was 14 and I was in and out of the system for two and a half years.
	And when I finally came back, I came back from a rehab program.
	They were getting a divorce.
	I'm sorry, what were you in the rehab program for?
	I would say when I was about 13 or 14, 7th, 8th grade, I started running away from home or going out to parties in the middle of the night, doing drugs, just partying.
	And every time I would do it, it would be longer and longer.
	So like, you know, one weekend I would just be gone for a couple days and then a couple months later I'd leave for like a week and just Just do a lot of truancy type stuff.
	Got into trouble with the law.
	Did some stealing, some damage of property.
	And when I finally got caught, I go to Juvie, do some time, and then because of my good behavior inside Juvie, they offered me a program which is called Vision Quest.
	And it was sort of a boot camp slash therapy based off of the Crow Indians.
	And so I was there for about eight months.
	And then when I came home, they have a sort of like a transition.
	They call it home quests where you go to school in their transition area.
	And they try to help you get your GED or graduate.
	But it's kind of like, I guess, they have a program through Juvenile called GIPS where it's just like probation.
	And then at a certain point, I just gave up on school.
	I dropped out of that program and I just started working and living on my own by the time I was 16.
	But I went home to visit and my parents were at a party.
	We grew up on a resort, and my stepdad was a manager there.
	So we had free reign of the whole resort.
	We knew the owners, and they were at a party, and I talked to my brother.
	I was like, hey, what's going on?
	What's been happening? And he said, just so you know, I think mom's having an affair, and dad's sleeping with another woman, just all this gossip.
	And then sure enough, like a couple months later, they divorced.
	Oh, okay. So they're just cheating.
	Again, not super traditional or super Christian, I might add.
	No. Yeah, I think they probably had an inside agreement that they were going to see different people.
	Well, let's not theorize when we don't know, right?
	So let's not theorize about that stuff.
	So how long were you doing the drugs and drinking for as a teenager?
	Well... I was kind of more of just a partier.
	I wouldn't say I would get wasted, but it was more of the attention I was seeking.
	And I found that when I was with people who were partying, we were having a good time laughing.
	But I never really liked the feeling of not having control of my body.
	So I didn't really get that bad.
	There was one point though where for a month I was using meth and it really took a hold of me and I had like a life and death experience that kind of sobered me up and then I just never turned back and then shortly after that happened I asked my mom if I could live with her to get a job try to fix my life somebody who was I was a martial arts teacher and went to the martial arts school and then it sort of became like my new drug, I guess you could say, was just working out, training, and that really helped me just kind of push past the whole party scene.
	Right, okay, got it.
	I would say maybe like a year or two of partying and then at the end of it, doing some serious drugs for a few months.
	Right, okay. And what was it that first attracted you to your girlfriend?
	Um...
	I think we were doing dating apps.
	And I was 32.
	And I also...
	Because I met my first wife when I was 18.
	I didn't really get to date.
	I didn't really know what I was doing.
	And I've always been sort of an introvert, not very good at social interactions.
	So I met her through the dating app, and she was probably the first person on the app that didn't seem like she was hiding something or didn't seem materialistic.
	She seemed kind of a free spirit.
	Alright, that's enormously vague.
	Seems like a free spirit.
	I don't know what to make of that. So, I mean, were you attracted to her mind, her intellect, her virtues, her values, her intelligence, her confidence?
	Like, what was it that was attractive to you to the point where you're going to spend 10 years?
	I mean, obviously you didn't know that starting out, but what was it that was most attractive?
	It was that she was kind of a hippie.
	Free Spirit, I guess.
	It was the artsy...
	Oh, that's kind of like your mom, right?
	Yeah. I've been listening to your show for a while, so I know where this is going.
	And the thing is, most of my life, I was very liberal.
	I would say naive about a lot of things.
	The last, I'd say, 10 years, I've Yeah, I definitely see my choices in women have been similar to how my mom was.
	That was the same thing with my ex-wife.
	She was a country girl, very free-spirited.
	Yeah, I don't know what you mean by free-spirited.
	That's one of these phrases.
	Free-spirited to me just always translates to totally fucking nuts.
	But I could be wrong about that.
	I'm free of reason.
	I'm free of reality. I'm free-spirited.
	I'm free of consequences. I'm free of emotional self-restraint.
	And it's probably an unfair translation in my head, but that's what kicks into my brain.
	Yeah, it's definitely...
	It's an easier way to just bypass the red flags.
	What do you mean by free-spirited?
	Like when you say she's free-spirited, what does that mean to you?
	I think I see it as, like, not being materialistic.
	Oh, no, no. It's not, I think.
	Don't get vague on me, bro.
	I mean, it's not, I think.
	It's like you, I asked you what was attracted to her.
	What attracted you to her?
	You said free-spirited. And I'm just asking you what that means.
	Not, I think, like, you used the term, and we can change it if you want.
	But, you know, I've listened a lot, but I need you to get a bit more specific.
	What was it that attracted you to your current girlfriend?
	Now I recognize it as just immaturity and not wanting to take accountability.
	I think it's just being fake now.
	Alright, so that's now.
	Let's go back to when you met her 10 years ago.
	What attracted you to her?
	I think it was just the fact that she would talk about...
	Things that didn't involve the material world.
	It's more about the beach mentality, surfers, you know, like I really don't know.
	If I ask you what attracted you to your girlfriend to the point where you're with her for a decade and you say she didn't talk about things from the material world, you understand that's a little freaking confusing from this side of the convo, right?
	Yeah. I don't think there was any one thing.
	Honestly, I just think she...
	Oh, well, I could say the physical thing was she didn't wear makeup.
	Um, I've never been attracted to the girls that wear a lot of makeup or just look fake to me.
	Um, yeah, she just, she looked...
	Okay, so listen, I mean, I don't know how honest or direct we're going to be here, but every man knows exactly why he's attracted to a woman.
	Every man. Now, either you know and you don't want to tell me, or you don't seem to know, in which case you're the first man I've ever met who doesn't know why he was attracted to his girlfriend or wife.
	I mean, I guess it would be easier to say that when I met her in person, I definitely liked the way she looked.
	Okay, so she's pretty, or curvaceous, or both, or whatever, right?
	Yeah. Okay, so she's pretty, and were there any qualities of character that you found admirable, like...
	Moral courage, responsibility, directness, honesty, mediation skills, or whatever.
	So she's pretty, okay, so she's pretty, for you, like one out of ten, where would she rank on that scale?
	As far as attractiveness?
	Yeah. I would say I'm a six or a seven.
	You're a six or a seven, and what would you say she is?
	Or was when you met her?
	Yeah, about the same. Oh, so you're both six or seven?
	So she wasn't that pretty?
	I mean, 60% is barely passing, right?
	I'm not trying to insult, I'm just trying to make sure I understand where you were coming from.
	Because you threw yourself into this woman after being burned in your last relationship, and I'm just wondering what drew you to her.
	Yeah, well, I will say that So during the time that I met her, I was dating a lot of other girls.
	And so after my divorce, I kind of made my own plan of, I'm going to date all kinds of different girls.
	And this was my mistake.
	And you ended up with basically the same kind of girl.
	Well, before I met her, I dated some crazy schizo girl that definitely...
	It was a really tough time.
	I was with her for a year.
	I would say that she was a breath of fresh air compared to all the other women that I dated.
	What do you mean like a schizo girl?
	I don't know what that means. A girl who has a lot of trauma and most likely some sort of multiple personality disorder.
	She had like Different personalities where sometimes she'd act like a little girl, sometimes she'd act very vicious, other times like a mother.
	You stayed with this girl for a year?
	Yeah. Oh, sorry. You stayed with these girls for a year, this multiple thing?
	Yeah, this one. Wow.
	Okay, how pretty was she?
	She was pretty, and she's probably, I would say, so that there's Pretty girls, and then there's sexy girls, and she was sexy.
	Like, total sex appeal.
	Right. Okay, so you stayed with her for the sex, right?
	Yeah, that's always been a big part of it for me.
	But I think I just didn't know what I wanted.
	I was never good with figuring it out.
	No, no, no. You knew what you wanted, because you dated her because she was sexy.
	You can have a menage a trois with just one person, right?
	If she's got multiple personalities, what the hell?
	It's a whole orgy.
	Right. Okay, so you stayed with her, and were you exclusive with her for a year?
	Yeah. What happened at the end where, like, I guess it became too much?
	She cheated on me and broke up with me the next day.
	Oh, you were dumped by the crazy girl?
	Yeah, and I knew she was cheating on me.
	I knew when it happened, you know, like a couple weeks before...
	She met a guy who had a lot of money and it was just like, oh, I'm going over to his house to help him with his car.
	Just all these weird situations.
	And then what was the gap between the crazy girl and your current girlfriend or your girlfriend of 10 years?
	Probably about a month.
	It happened pretty fast.
	Like I said, I had been dating a lot of girls at this point and the crazy girl that I dated for a year...
	Right after that, that's when I was just dating a bunch of different girls.
	And was your current or your girlfriend, I'll just call you girlfriend, was your girlfriend the sanest of the lot?
	Yeah, for sure. Okay, so you date a lot of crazy girls.
	Yeah. Is that unfair?
	I mean, there was some regrets with some girls that I broke up with that I kind of wish I didn't.
	Because they weren't just crazy?
	No, I think I was afraid of commitment at that point.
	Okay, so you like the crazy girls, right?
	Yeah. I mean, I don't want to be, you know, I don't want to be unfair, but I mean, if you date a lot of crazy girls and you won't commit to the ones who aren't as crazy, then you have a fetish for, you're like a squirrel.
	You like the nuts, right?
	You got a bit of a fetish for nuts.
	Am I wrong about that? I think that might be right.
	It's something I've been contending with lately, and We'll get into some other stuff with the sexual behavior.
	So what do you like about the crazy girls?
	Is it because the sex is wild or they're available or they're unstable or it's exciting or it's a ride?
	What is it that you like about the crazy girls?
	That you'll choose the crazy girls over the same girls?
	I'm not sure if If it's easy to put them in those categories, because I feel like when I first met them, they weren't crazy.
	And then about six months into the relationship, then I start seeing the red flags.
	So are we really going to go down this road where the girl with multiple personalities seemed perfectly fine for six months?
	I think that it started that way.
	So she had no markers of any instability.
	She had no markers of any mental health issues for like six months.
	Yeah, I kind of felt like she was playing me.
	She acted very nurturing with my son at the time.
	She was always cooking for me and helping me with work.
	I'm sorry, how long did you date her before she got introduced to your son?
	Probably about three months, maybe less.
	Alright, so your son has met a bunch of girlfriends, right?
	Just two. I've been pretty good about not involving him in stuff like that, but the crazy girlfriend, that was a big misstep and a regret.
	I do think that she traumatized him as well.
	What do you mean? I think she had, like, I had work late at night, and she had him for the evening and cooked him dinner, and she said that he didn't eat his food, and it was disrespectful to her, and I didn't know to the extent of how she disciplined him, but it sounded like she just screamed at him all night.
	And how long had you been dating when this happened?
	Probably about four or five months.
	Alright, so bro, I'm getting really frustrated with the conversation.
	I'm not saying you're being frustrating, I'm just saying I've experienced a lot of frustration just when you said that.
	Do you have any idea why? That there's red flags?
	You said to me not five minutes ago or four minutes ago that there was no signs of any craziness before six months.
	And now I find out at four or five months she's screaming at your son.
	Yeah, and I didn't push it.
	So no, listen, listen. If you're here to not be real, if you're here to not say the things that maybe don't make you look so good, that's not the convo.
	Like, I'm 57 years old, I have a limited amount of time on this planet.
	Right, so if you're going to say to me, and look, you and I both know it's total bullshit to say that a woman with multiple personalities shows no signs of craziness for six months.
	There's no signs in her life.
	There's no signs in where she lives.
	There's no signs in her career.
	There's no signs in her money handling.
	There's no signs in her history.
	I mean, that's just not true.
	And I don't like it when people tell me things.
	It's kind of an insult to both of us.
	It's so completely obviously not true.
	And that's just you saying something so that you don't have to say, yeah, I knew she was crazy, but she was sexy, so I had sex with her.
	And, you know, that's called being a man.
	I'm not going to condemn you for that, but it is going to piss me off if you say things that are just, like, obviously not true.
	That there's no signs of craziness from a woman who has multiple personalities.
	And then, like, and you don't even notice it, right?
	You say, oh, six months, she was fine.
	And, oh, four to five months, she was screaming at my son all night and traumatizing him.
	Yeah, there was a lot of hindsight.
	Yeah. No, no, but no, not hindsight.
	You just told me she didn't show any signs.
	Like, I'm not going to bother having a convo, and I don't mean to be mean.
	I really don't, because I sympathize with the desire to look good and not, you know, take ownership of, right?
	But you said she didn't show any signs of craziness for six months.
	She played you this, that, and the other, and now I find out that a couple of months in, she's screaming at your son.
	Did you not notice that discrepancy?
	I mean, I noticed it.
	I think that...
	Like, no, in the convo.
	Yeah. That we are having right now.
	Yeah, the timeline.
	Yeah, I knew it as soon as I said it.
	I think, for me, it's more of, like, the person I was back then was someone who ignored a lot of things.
	And that now, like... But that's not what you said to me.
	No. You said no signs for six months.
	Yeah, so there were signs before that.
	Okay, so what are we doing here?
	Like, again, I don't mean to sound mean, and I understand.
	I understand where you're coming from.
	I really do. But I'm not going to sit here and play whack-a-mole and try and figure out what the truth is if you're not committed to being direct and honest.
	Again, I'm not trying to make you feel bad.
	I'm not trying to be a Mr.
	Finger-Wagging guy. But the problem is, here's the thing, right?
	This is just from my side of the convo, right?
	Just sort of man-to-man, right? This is my side.
	I don't know what the truth is, right?
	I don't have... Like, people don't say, I want to call in and then I send out private investigators to go through their garbage and figure out the truth, right?
	What's the only way I know what's going on in your life?
	Is you tell me, right?
	Now, if...
	So, I've listened for like over an hour.
	You tell me what's going on in your life.
	And now, I don't know what's true or not.
	So that's the challenge that I have.
	Yeah, I didn't mean to pull one over you.
	I think that when I talk about the past relationships, there's definitely some discrepancies with the timeline.
	I don't know. I'm not very good with keeping track of dates and stuff.
	I don't know if it's...
	Listen, man, you just snowed me a little, that's all.
	I mean, just don't keep track of dates.
	Literally four minutes apart, you said.
	No crazy before six months.
	Well, at four or five months, she was totally crazy, right?
	That's not a matter of keeping track of dates from 12 years ago.
	Yeah. So, I mean, the convo went, I date all these crazy girls and some of the nicer girls I don't commit to, right?
	Yeah. Right?
	So then I say, you like the crazy girls.
	And then it's like, well, no, no, no, there's this woman with multiple personalities.
	She didn't show any crazy for the first six months.
	So if you don't like the crazy girls, why do you keep ending up with the crazy girls?
	No, you're right. And I think about it too.
	The crazy girls usually offer sex earlier than the sane ones.
	And you know why, right?
	Yeah. Why do the crazy girls offer sex early up?
	And it's all they have to offer and it's how they control you.
	Well, it's to distract you from the crazy and to get you pair-bonded and get you addicted.
	We evolved. Everyone we have sex with, we think we're married to and raising a family with.
	So you get this pair-bonding based on sex hormones and all chemicals and all of that.
	So yeah, they're covering up the crazy, right?
	And you say, well, there's There's no signs of crazy for the first six months.
	Well, that's because the crazy is on the other side of the vagina that you can't see over or through, right?
	So, I mean, you prefer getting laid to having stable relationships.
	Or you prefer getting laid earlier.
	I mean, it's not just that, but that's, if I'm wrong, I'm wrong, but I think that's a fairly important part of it, right?
	Yeah. Yeah, it's gotten worse, I'd say.
	What do you mean? In the last six months or so, just feeling like I don't have control over it and really wanting just to have sex with just anybody now.
	Well, and that comes out of a chaotic and unstable upbringing, is that you want to have a lot of sex quickly.
	I mean, it's a reproductive strategy around chaotic environments is just spray and pray, right?
	Just reproduce a whole bunch and hope one of your kid makes it because you don't feel in control of the environment, right?
	Yeah. Because, I mean, no disrespect to the mother of your child, but she's been in therapy for, what, 25 years? Yeah.
	She's been in therapy for 25 years, and now she's having maybe baby molestation flashbacks.
	There's a lot of mess in there, right?
	Yeah. Was she verbally abused as a child?
	She talked about that? Yeah, definitely.
	It's still happening with her family.
	What do you mean? It's still happening with you?
	Yeah. Right?
	You called her a selfish bitch, right?
	So in that moment where you lob these kinds of horrible verbal bombs at the mother of your child, what's the plan there?
	What do you think that's going to achieve?
	What's the goal? I know in the moment I feel angry and I feel like if I say this I'm going to get a reaction out of her or she'll think that Because I'm saying it this way that, you know, it has more weight.
	I don't know. No, but what's the outcome you're trying to get a hold of?
	Like, what do you think? What's the positive outcome that you think you're getting a hold of, right?
	I guess I was hoping that she would see the error of her ways, but I know now it's, you can't change people.
	Wait, sorry, your theory is that if you call her a selfish bitch, she'll say, oh, you're so right, I am a selfish bitch, I'll really work to be more accommodating or more selfless or whatever, right?
	Yeah. And has that ever worked in your four plus decades of life?
	No, and it's making a lot of things worse right now.
	Oh, yeah. See, if she tells you that she was verbally abused and then you verbally abuse her, you're using her greatest wound and weakness against her, right?
	Her intimacy with you, her vulnerability with you, you weaponize it, right?
	Yeah. It's like if I say, oh, man, my wrist is really sore, and then you whack me on the wrist.
	It's like, you only did that because I told you it was really sore, right?
	Right. Okay. I just wanted to sort of be clear on that, that, you know, when you know people well, they'll tell you their vulnerabilities.
	And if you ever use those vulnerabilities against them, they'll kind of hate you for it, right?
	And I'm sure she's done the same with you.
	I'm not trying to say she's an angel or anything like that, but that's a reality that you probably want to keep in your head.
	When you're close to people, they'll tell you stuff that hurts them, and then if you ever use that against them, you're taking the vulnerability and the intimacy and weaponizing it against someone, right?
	Right. Yeah, I think that the last...
	Major fights that we had, the last couple ones, I felt really bad.
	Tried to apologize. Tried to have follow-up conversations.
	And they went okay, but I could just tell there was a wound that I had caused.
	Well, it's not a wound you caused, but it's a wound you dug in, right?
	You know, like if you broke your arm and then I pushed down and where it's broken, I didn't create the break, but I'm sure I'm using it to hurt you, right?
	Yeah.
	Right.
	Um...
	How long after you met your girlfriend did you begin to be concerned about potential instabilities?
	you I mean, you can say six months if you want.
	I just tell you in advance, I won't believe you, but you can say it if you want.
	The funny thing about that is when we first dated the first couple weeks, I bailed on her and went back with that crazy ex.
	The crazy ex wanted me back.
	Yeah, the rich guy didn't work out or whatever, right?
	Exactly. Yeah, rich guys don't tend to become rich by not noticing things around them, right?
	Right. Yeah.
	Okay, so you started dating your girlfriend, and then a couple of weeks into it, you went back to your ex, right?
	And did your girlfriend know about that?
	Yeah, I told her, and, you know, I think that, uh, I was still in love with the crazy ex at that point.
	No, you weren't. No, don't besmirch the word love, please.
	I'm begging you. Don't besmirch and don't soil the word love.
	Infatuated. Wow, horny.
	Yeah. No, she was sexy and she was exciting, right?
	So, yeah, that's not love.
	That's not love. Okay, so you're dating.
	I guess you hadn't slept with your girlfriend at this point, or had you?
	When you went back to your ex? I think we did sleep with each other.
	Okay, so you meet this girl, and within two weeks or whatever, you're sleeping together, and then a week after that, you're back with your ex?
	No. And you broke this off with your girlfriend?
	Yeah. Right.
	Now, how do I know that she was nuts back then?
	Because she...
	Well, because she slept with me from the beginning and we got back together after this.
	Yeah, yeah, she's nuts.
	Like, so you knew within a couple of weeks, right?
	Because there's no woman with any...
	First of all, women shouldn't...
	I mean, a woman with self-respect isn't going to sleep with you right away.
	And then if you go back to a crazy ex, and how long did things last with the crazy ex?
	A month. Okay, and then you went back to your girlfriend?
	Somewhat, yeah. I think I went back to her, apologized for all the craziness, and then I don't know if we started dating right away, but it probably happened within the next couple months where we got back together.
	Right, okay. So, yeah, so it's all completely nutty, right?
	Yeah. Well, yeah, and I think I knew she was crazy because When I was with the crazy ex, my girlfriend knocked on the door one day to try to get me back, you know, even before...
	Oh my gosh! Yeah.
	She comes and knocks on your door to get you back when you're, I don't know, in bed or hanging out with your crazy ex, right?
	Exactly, yeah. And what the hell happened then?
	She just...
	She said her piece and then...
	Left, and I didn't really think about it.
	Oh, so your girlfriend said, and she knew that your ex was in the place?
	Yeah. Oh, she didn't know.
	Oh, so you had your ex in the bedroom or whatever, your girlfriend knocks on the door, and you just listen to her say her piece without telling her that you're with the ex, right?
	I think she knew.
	No, no, you didn't tell her.
	Um, I think it was implied that because we were living together at that place, she knew.
	Okay. So, alright, so she's got nothing in particular to complain about either because she's chasing after a guy who's as nuts as you were back then, right?
	Yeah. I mean, that definitely stood out to me and I think I let the ego part of it get to me and, you know, so when things went down, um, Downhill with the crazy ex.
	I went back to her because of that moment that she tried to get me back.
	I thought, oh, she really likes me.
	I should go back to her. Okay, so then within a couple of months after all of this, you're back with your girlfriend, right?
	Okay. And then it took you, what, six years to have a kid.
	Is that right? Yeah.
	Five years. Sorry, go ahead.
	Yeah, five years. Yeah, five years to get pregnant, right?
	Your son's four? Almost five.
	Sorry, almost five you mentioned.
	Okay, so did you decide to have a kid?
	So, in my mind, she sees this differently, and this is where our relationship kind of, there's some discrepancies.
	I see things differently than she does and I feel like there's some memory gaps but when we moved to that new place and I told you she had that episode where we saw the movie and that kind of triggered some emotions with her about sexual abuse and I told you that for a month she wouldn't let me touch her couldn't really sleep in the same bed as her but There was sort of a...
	Like the emotions of...
	Like, why are we together?
	Like, just...
	There was a lot of drama between us because of this situation.
	And... I think that, you know, out of...
	I don't know, like a codependency, passion, all that stuff...
	I... Wanted to, you know, have a child with her to, like, prove that we were in love or something.
	I don't know. Okay, so that's a long way of saying that you chose to have a child.
	It wasn't a total accident. Yeah, I wanted it.
	Okay, and you told this to her and you had unprotected sex, right?
	And, well, this is the thing is we've always had unprotected sex and I've always pulled out and she'd never gotten pregnant.
	She's never been on birth control.
	And so when I told her, like, I want to have a child.
	It was obvious what we were doing because I didn't pull out.
	Did she agree to have a child?
	Yeah, I believe so.
	Hang on, hang on. What do you mean you believe so?
	Well, that's what I'm saying.
	I told her, I want to have a child with you.
	And so we had sex that night.
	And I didn't pull out.
	No, no. Did she agree to have a child?
	I don't even remember.
	I'm sure she did.
	Come on, bro.
	Don't fog up me now. I'm pretty sure you'd remember that.
	Wouldn't you? Yeah.
	So... I remember, like, talking to her about...
	Did you impregnate her to some degree without her explicit consent?
	Well, no, but if you can't remember whether she said, I want to have a kid, and you didn't pull out...
	No, I remember us, like, talking about, you know, having a child, and, you know, it was something that we probably talked about for a few days before actually going through it.
	Oh, I thought you said you talked about it in that night.
	It's... I don't know.
	It's a little foggy. That's pretty fucking alarming, brother.
	That this wouldn't be foggy?
	I mean, it's one of the biggest decisions you're ever going to make is to have a child.
	Okay, so after you didn't pull out, was she like, yay, baby sauce?
	What was her response?
	I mean, a lot of times that we would have sex, it was usually the same.
	It was just like we would...
	Lay in bed and cuddle.
	There wasn't anything different about it that I can remember.
	But you said you have different views of this question about getting pregnant.
	If she was on the line, what would she say?
	I think she would say that it was an accident, that she found out she got pregnant later down the road.
	But there's certain things...
	She found out. Hang on. I mean, she was aware.
	You didn't pull out when you ejaculated, right?
	And did she think she wasn't going to get pregnant for some medical or age-related issue?
	Yeah, I don't know.
	I know that it was more of like it happened out of passion or all the emotions that she was going through and maybe even us breaking up kind of a...
	Pushed us to that. I don't know.
	Sorry, I'm just trying to remember the breakup thing because you saw the movie.
	She had, I don't know, whatever flashbacks or trauma was reactivated.
	She spent a month, don't touch me, don't even want you to sleep in the same bed.
	And then you broke up and then you had the unprotected sex.
	I'm sorry, I'm not sure I quite...
	No, we didn't break up.
	It was more of just like...
	Asking her, like, are we going to break up?
	Like, are we, what are we doing in this relationship?
	You know, it was more of a, she was giving me this cold shoulder treatment for a long time.
	So I was asking her, like, where...
	Sorry, I'm a little confused.
	I mean, she was going through some severe physical trauma because potential sexual abuse memories had been activated, right?
	I mean, that's not her giving you the cold shoulder, is it?
	I mean, if my wife breaks her arms and I say, well, she's just selfishly not hugging me.
	Yeah. It's like, no, she broke her arm.
	She's got to hug me, right? Yeah.
	Yeah, I think that...
	Oh, so you're like, okay, so you're now in a relationship which isn't being subsidized by sex.
	Right? So you're now just dealing with her without getting your rocks off, right?
	And also, I assume that you're resenting her for not having sex, right?
	Yeah, not just sex, though, but sleeping in the same bed with each other and having intimate contact.
	Not sexual, but just what couples do.
	But it does sound like you did take it as a rejection, right?
	Yeah, I mean, I knew that when she was going through the issues, That, like, sex is off the table because that's a, you know, it's a trauma.
	And we talked a little bit about it.
	And if it got to the point to where, you know, she just was done talking, I wouldn't push her about it.
	But I think I took it personally whenever I would, like, sit down next to her and, you know, try to put my arm around her and she would, like, jump up and react.
	You know, I think I definitely was just getting frustrated after a certain point.
	Okay. All right. So then, was it after this month that you had the passionate night where your kid was conceived?
	Yeah, most likely.
	It was after that.
	So you viewed it as a conscious thing.
	She views it as accidental.
	Is that right? Yeah.
	Okay. All right.
	So then she's pregnant.
	She has your kid with your son?
	Yep. Oh, did she get him circumcised?
	Or did you guys get him circumcised?
	No, we didn't. Oh, okay.
	Well, I'm certainly relieved to hear that.
	Okay, so then you said she got postpartum depression, is that right?
	And what did that look like?
	I would say so it started mainly because of the C-section.
	She just felt very hurt and sore.
	Probably alone.
	I think she expressed not feeling like she had enough support.
	But I will say the hospital workers, they really tried.
	They were coming by quite a bit to help her.
	But it's not the same as family.
	No, I get that.
	And of course, we don't know for sure, but if she did have a history of sexual abuse, particularly if she was very young, then maybe the surgery felt like a similar kind of violation and pain.
	Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
	I know it took her a long time to get over the surgery because that was another thing where touching her in that area was very tender for a long time.
	Yeah. I think the postpartum was just more of this sadness.
	You know, it's kind of hard to explain, but she internalized a lot of it.
	I was working a lot too, so it was really hard to get a read on it.
	I just tried my best to be there for her when I came home.
	Sorry, for how long after the birth were you working hard?
	Like a lot? Well, we moved, what was it, like February or March, maybe?
	The baby was due in February, and he was born on December 30th.
	So he was a couple months early, and we ended up moving probably in March or April, because he was a NICU baby, so we had to wait a little bit longer to make sure he was okay.
	How long was he in the neck?
	He recovered pretty fast.
	Maybe like a week, I would say.
	They said he was doing really well.
	And was he getting that skin contact and all the stuff?
	I think they've kind of figured that stuff out more.
	Yeah, we both went there on a regular basis and did the...
	I think it's called kangaroo care.
	Okay. And...
	So she recovered eventually, and you guys resumed your sex life at some point, is that right?
	Yeah, yeah. You know, there's definitely, like, a waiting period, and I was fine with it.
	You know, I wasn't pressuring her.
	For me, it was just more about, like, I didn't want to be where she would just cringe at my touch or whatever, you know, just, like, That's where I would have the issues.
	It wasn't always just about sex.
	And you know that's the price you pay for early sex, right?
	So the price you pay for early sex, I mean, it's like a drug, right?
	You get the high now and you get the pain later, right?
	Like you with the month on meth, right?
	Your meth month, right?
	So you get the high now and you get the pain later.
	And it's like heroin, right?
	So you get sex early and then you get the sexual dysfunction later, right?
	The same sexual dysfunction that usually leads to the sex early.
	Does that make sense? Right, so that's just the inevitable price that you're going to pay for having sex in the first week or two of meeting someone, is that later they're going to dislike sex.
	Yeah. Like, you're going to have the cheesecake now, and you get the fat ass later, right?
	Okay, so your relationship's somewhat normalized, and how was she enjoying, I guess, how long did the postpartum, do you think, last?
	I'll just say that from her feedback, she said it lasted for a while, at least a year, maybe a year and a half.
	And was she still in therapy at this point?
	Yeah, she's always gone to a therapist.
	So even with therapy, the postpartum issues were 12 to 18 months, right?
	Okay. And so now, I guess, 18 months, we're talking about, what, three and a half years before, or three years or so before the relationship really collapses, and how were those three years?
	Well, I mean, it just kept going downhill from when our son was born, because I think, you know, we were just in these situations where her family got involved.
	And if I were to ask her family, sorry to interrupt you, I mean, I remember her parents didn't like you, wanted her to leave you, and what would their complaints be about you?
	If they were on the line, what would they say?
	Why they wanted their daughter to leave you?
	Well, I had a conversation with her dad about this, and he expressed that he thinks that I have mental issues.
	And then the job issues as well.
	Sorry, and what mental issues would he say you have?
	He didn't go into specifics.
	He would just say mental issues.
	I think because they all know that my mom committed suicide.
	I think there was like a little bit of video game addiction, escapism.
	Which, you know, they saw, like, when we were staying at their house, you know, I'd play video games at the end of the night or whatever.
	It just, it wasn't, it wasn't, like, crazy.
	My, I did online gaming when I was in my 20s and I don't do that anymore because I have kids, you know, and it's, And I'm so sorry to have...
	I did make a note of it, and then my apologies.
	I didn't go back to it.
	So, yeah, what the heck happened with your mom?
	Do you have any theories?
	Did she leave a note? Was she ill?
	Why did she kill herself?
	So, from all of the information I've gathered, I think there's a lot of things, a combination.
	But one thing that really stands out is brain damage from a motorcycle accident.
	Because I've seen this happen to my brother.
	But also, she had been on antidepressants and various other...
	What do you call them?
	Psychotropics, yeah. Yeah. SSRIs.
	She had been on multiple kinds of those.
	And as she got older, I started noticing she was on more and more meds.
	And it just didn't sit right with me.
	Like, whole cocktail. But I think what really kind of set her off was...
	She got remarried a year or two later after she divorced my stepdad.
	And that didn't last very long.
	And while she was in that marriage, I started noticing she was hoarding, spending a lot of money on credit cards and not telling her husband.
	And just some interesting things started.
	For her birthday, I bought her a computer.
	And then after realizing what she was using it for, kind of regretted it.
	But she would just shop on eBay constantly, and she would fill up her extra rooms with just junk.
	And so that was one thing that I started noticing.
	And then after that relationship ended, which, by the way, she cheated.
	She cheated with a fire department guy.
	She was sort of part-time working at the fire department.
	And then after that, her whole life just went downhill.
	She kind of went from being a stay-at-home mom type of person to a trailer park, white trash kind of person.
	And she started dating a guy who was physically abusive and did drugs.
	And then...
	She ended up just having these very dysfunctional relationships with the same guy, but it was like they would break up and get back together again.
	And that probably happened for a good two or three years.
	And then one night, I should mention that she had been sober.
	She'd go to AA meetings for a long time.
	But after she met this boyfriend that was abusive, she started drinking again.
	And on St.
	Patrick's Day, she got really drunk and shot herself.
	So, it's kind of hard to say.
	And was she alone?
	Or was she with other people at parties and went home?
	Or she wasn't with the guy, right?
	Yeah, she wasn't with the guy.
	And the way the situation is, is that She was getting disorderly conduct charges.
	Like she was getting kicked out of bars.
	And she was going to the bar that this guy was at, her ex-boyfriend.
	So they were kind of having this back and forth drama.
	And so she got arrested and was put in jail.
	And she asked my brother and I to bail her out.
	And I said no. And then my brother bailed her out.
	And then she committed suicide like a few days later.
	Or a day later. There was a lot of stuff going on.
	As soon as she started drinking again, she was being very destructive with her behaviors.
	She was trying to get into bar fights.
	Also, she was still taking these handfuls of meds, right?
	Yeah. Again, I'm no expert, but I'm not sure that mixing those with alcohol is always the best idea.
	Yeah, for sure.
	And would she have stayed in jail if your brother hadn't bailed him out to the point where she wouldn't have been home with a gun?
	Yeah. Ooh, that's got to be kind of rough on him.
	Yeah, my brother, he kind of went down the same path as her with the mental health issues.
	And you said that they both had motorcycle injuries, like head injuries?
	My brother, he got hit in the back of the head with a bat, and my mom had a motorcycle injury.
	I would say it almost crippled her to the point where she was always walking with a cane, so it was probably more spinal cord damage than brain, but I'm sure they're equally as bad.
	And how did your brother get hit in the back of the head with a baseball bat?
	He got involved with drugs and drug dealing and somebody robbed him of his drugs.
	Wow, I'm so sorry.
	What a mess. I mean, and did your mother ever take ownership for her deficiencies in parenting, ignoring you guys, smoking drugs, and the neglect?
	And did she ever take ownership or apologize for any of that?
	Not really.
	A couple of years before she passed away, her and I were getting closer.
	And it was more of just, I think it was, she was trying to tell me the truth of the past, you know, like her version.
	She was kind of just telling me, you know, like how she met my father and why that didn't work out.
	You know, I was kind of picking her brain about what's up with our family.
	I ran away when I was 14 and I just didn't really have a relationship with anyone in my family until after I was 28.
	Then I started trying to reconnect with them.
	She definitely seemed regretful about it.
	We would talk on the phone almost every week.
	And she was isolated, too.
	She was living out in the middle of nowhere, and that was part of the reason why it was mostly phone conversations.
	Right. And what were your feelings towards your mother later on in her life?
	I mean, obviously, before this massive suicide thing, what were your feelings towards your mother later on?
	Well, one extra tidbit is she tried to commit suicide before, about 10 years prior.
	And when she did that, I was really angry with her and didn't want to talk to her, have anything to do with her.
	But then, you know, before it happened, then I was, like, trying to reconnect with her.
	Yeah. Sorry, before what happened?
	The second time? Yeah.
	I'm sorry, I thought you said you talked every week.
	I'm just losing track of the timeline here.
	Yeah, sorry. Yeah, so two years before she committed suicide is when we were reconnecting and talking a lot.
	But 10 years prior to that, she tried to commit suicide and I kind of just had this anger towards her.
	And why did you reconnect with her?
	What was their goal or purpose?
	I Think I was starting to question my behaviors and
	I felt like I needed to understand what happened to my my family and what happened to me as a child
	to work through my issues you
	Oh, you thought that being back in contact with the woman who neglected and abused you as a child and drove you out of the house pretty much at 14, you thought being back in contact with her would help these issues?
	Well, I wanted to hear her side of the story.
	What on earth is her side of the story?
	She's the parent. Yeah.
	There is no her side of the story.
	Yeah, it was so hard because my real thought...
	And what could her side of the story be?
	I mean, can you imagine? Like, my mom beat me up.
	What would her side of the story be?
	There's no side of the story.
	Yeah. I mean, if a guy rapes a woman, brutally rapes a woman, just jumps her out in an alley, brutally rapes her, what the fuck is his side of the story?
	Like, what am I missing here?
	You said you've been a long-term listener.
	I'm trying to understand her side of the story.
	Yeah. You know, it was just more like I was trying to understand what she did during the divorce.
	You know, I was trying to figure out...
	Because I felt like it would give me tools to start understanding why I have behavior issues.
	But it deeply traumatized you being in touch with her again, right?
	Yeah. I mean, she killed herself.
	Not because you were back in touch with her, but if you hadn't been back in touch with her, it would have been a lot less destructive, right?
	Yeah. Also, I think at that time, I felt like She didn't have anybody, and I wanted to try to help her.
	I'm sorry, didn't have anybody?
	Yeah. The neglectful, drug, alcohol, abusive mother.
	Oh, she's alone.
	Good. That means she's not harming people.
	Right. How dare they put the serial killer in solitude?
	How is he going to get a victim? He's so alone.
	I know that's an extreme example, but my gosh.
	And how long ago did she kill herself?
	I think I was probably about 10 years ago.
	I think I was about 32 or 33 when it happened.
	So was it a good idea to get back in touch with her?
	Um... I don't know.
	I mean, I... I felt like I had an obligation to find out.
	I don't know what the fucking obligation is as far as this goes.
	Was it beneficial to your life to get back in touch with your mother?
	Yeah, I think it helped me.
	Didn't you say it crippled you for like two years?
	Well, yeah, her committing suicide.
	Yeah. Yes. So was it a good idea to get back in touch with your mother?
	No. I mean, I think we just have this, we feel like we owe it to ourselves to always be there for our family, but yeah. I don't know about the we thing.
	You're talking to the wrong guy about that.
	I'm a moral philosopher.
	Lucifer, I don't go with this Hallmark sentimental, be exploited by abusers bullshit.
	Yields obligation and then what happened?
	Thank you.
	After what? Well, guilt, obligation.
	Then she scars you off almost permanently by killing herself.
	Yeah. Yeah, I think it's hard to understand The emotions I went through, I kind of just shut down after that.
	No, I get that. I get that.
	Okay, so just as we sort of get into the final stretch of the convo here, and I really appreciate everything that you're saying, and of course, I have nothing but sympathy for what happened to you as a kid.
	I mean, if I were in your shoes, as I do with myself too, like I'd review a couple of the decisions I've made as an adult, but what do you want out of what we can talk about in the last bit here?
	What would be the most helpful thing for you?
	Um I think
	I guess I just had this Attachment to my girlfriend and this this view of salvaging
	a family but But I think after talking to you right now, I'm just seeing some of the things you're talking about with the crazy girls and Well, you know, if I keep drilling holes in the bottom of my boat and then I come to you and say,
	I'm just desperate for this boat to stay floating, what would you say?
	Stop drilling holes.
	Well, I mean, if you're drilling holes in the boat, you can't be desperate for the boat to stay floating.
	And if you're going to, you know, fairly viciously insult the entire personality of the mother of your child and then say, but I want the relationship to work, it's like, I don't know that you do.
	Because you said, I was really struck, you said, well, I was angry, right?
	That's bullshit, brother. I mean, sorry, all due respect, that's total bullshit.
	I bet you've been angry at people before and managed to hold on your temper.
	You ever get impatient when you're, I don't know, dealing with some bureaucrat or some cop or, you know, you get impatient, you get angry, but you control your temper then, don't you?
	Yeah. Yeah. Maybe you feel that the extra security screening is an imposition or something, but you get angry, you get frustrated, but you don't let rip on those people, right?
	Yeah, so you're perfectly capable of controlling.
	It's not like Tourette's. You're perfectly capable of controlling your temper, right?
	Yeah, for sure. You just indulge your temper with her.
	I mean, I remember not too long ago, I went to the store, I got a bunch of stuff, and I realized I left my wallet at home.
	Did I shoplift? No!
	Well, I stole because I left my wallet at home.
	No, I stole because I chose to stole.
	And why did you yell these terrible insults at your girlfriend, the mother of your child?
	Because you chose to. It's not because you were angry.
	There's been tons of times when you've been angry and bit your tongue, right?
	So, that's saying that you don't want to be in the relationship.
	Like, if you say those kinds of things to people, you're saying that you don't want to be in the relationship.
	Because there's only, like, if you say you're a selfish bitch, right, to the mother of your child, then either you're right, and she is a selfish bitch, right?
	And I don't know, I doubt, I would never use that phrase, because whatever, some dysfunction that's going on, but...
	Either she is a selfish bitch, in which case you're correctly identifying that she's narcissistic and mean and can't be there for you and therefore the relationship is over, right?
	Or she's not a selfish bitch, but you're calling her a selfish bitch, which is just straight up abuse, right?
	In which case she should not want to be in the relationship.
	Does that make sense? Once you say that, That relationship is over.
	Now, maybe if you go to therapy, you'll get anger management, and you apologize, and you realize, and then you can start some kind of new relationship.
	But the moment you say that kind of stuff, then That's over.
	You just sunk the boat.
	Now, I'm sure she said stuff too, but I'm talking to her, I'm talking to you, right?
	So once you say that stuff, that relationship is over.
	Now, maybe you can find some new relationship or apologize or get something, right?
	But that's done. You've sunk the boat.
	And you've sunk the boat over the Mariana Trench.
	Yeah. Now, the only thing you can do is the moment you say, oh my gosh, that's the worst thing.
	I can't believe I said that.
	I've got to deal with my temper.
	This is absolutely unfair to you, especially because I know you got verbally abused as a child and other forms of abuse and so on, right?
	So how long has it been since you called her a selfish bitch?
	Um A lot of the the angry texts and the fighting has been in
	the last four months. So with it within this time frame Um...
	you And when did you move out?
	About eight months ago.
	And so, just remind me, what happened that you moved out?
	We were just fighting.
	She was having a lot of the episodes with the screaming and going into the closet.
	It was just like there was no communication anymore.
	Every time I wanted to try to talk to her, she wouldn't Give me the time.
	How long into the relationship, like looking back over 10 years, how long into the relationship was it before you started saying some mean things to her about her?
	I think it started after her dad kicked me out, which was around four years ago.
	There was a night that after he had kicked me out and I was staying with my brother, I went over to their house to...
	And I think we were supposed to go out that night, and she said something that angered me, and then I just lashed out at her.
	I don't remember exactly what I said, but it was like the way I said it.
	It was just like pure anger.
	And were her parents around for that?
	No. Right.
	And have her parents experienced you yelling at or screaming at or calling their daughter names?
	No, and I was never like someone who would scream or yell.
	It was just sort of like it was a reaction, like a snap.
	Oh, so you were giving yourself an excuse, like you didn't choose it, it's just like something?
	No, it was completely different from before.
	We would argue with each other in front of them, but I would never raise my voice or snap it at her.
	Okay, but obviously, they'd come home, their daughter would be upset, and they'd say, what happened?
	And she'd say, well, my boyfriend came over and said X, Y, and Z, right?
	Well, I'm sure that would be the case, right?
	And, you know, generally, I mean, whatever the functionality level of her parents, her parents in general don't like people who make their kids miserable, right?
	I mean, you wouldn't like it if Some girl was screaming at your son and breaking down his personality with verbal abuse.
	What would you think of her? Yeah, I mean, that's grounds for discontinuing even talking to them or giving them the time of day.
	Well, I mean, if your 16-year-old son had a girlfriend who was calling him a selfish asshole and a whatever, I don't know, like whatever she would say, right?
	Would you counsel him to leave her?
	Yeah, most likely.
	What do you mean most likely?
	Under what circumstances would you not counsel him to leave her?
	Yeah, no, I would.
	Like 100%, right?
	Yeah. So, I mean, isn't this the price of indulging your temper?
	And look, I'm not saying you weren't provoked.
	I get all of that. I get all of that.
	But it's still a choice, right?
	Nobody put a gun to your head and made you say those words, right?
	Yeah, and I talked to her recently and I told her, you know, that my anger calling her names, it's unexcusable.
	You know, and I'm just realizing like the dynamic of Just letting anger go.
	It's not productive.
	It's not helping us. I recognize that it's going downhill.
	It's not productive. It's not helping us?
	That's like the worst apology I've ever heard in my life.
	Well, I'm sorry I stabbed you in the leg.
	You know, that's not really productive.
	That doesn't really help us.
	No, I'm sorry I hurt you.
	I'm sorry I caused you pain.
	I'm sorry that I broke your heart.
	Not, it's unproductive.
	Because then it's like well, but if my anger ever is productive or I think it's productive then I'll just do it
	again So do you want to get back together
	Yeah.
	you you
	I... This whole time that we've been broken up, the only way that I could see us getting back together is if we go to couples counseling.
	But I also...
	I don't even know if that's going to work because, like you said, she's been going to counseling for a long time.
	Have you ever done counseling or therapy or anger management?
	Yeah, I... I started seeing a counselor the day that I moved out.
	Eight months ago?
	Yeah. Okay. And how's that going?
	It's been pretty good.
	Mostly worked on communication skills and talking about my mom and my son because my relationship with my son had a I don't know how to explain it.
	I said some bad things to my son around the same time that I moved out eight months ago.
	What did you say to your son?
	Out of anger, I told him that I didn't want him coming to my house until he learned how to be respectful.
	It was completely...
	The wrong thing to say.
	What do you mean you didn't want him coming to your house?
	You shared custody and you said, I don't want to see you if you don't learn to show respect or something, right?
	Yeah, it had to do with some of the things that with his schooling, the things that were going wrong in his life.
	I asked him, what are you doing?
	Why aren't you going to school? He started ditching school and doing these things But he's behaving way better than you did at his age, right?
	Right. Am I wrong?
	For sure. And do you think that he can learn the kind of respect to show people that you show to the mother of your child by calling her a selfish bitch?
	Is that the kind of respect that you want him to learn?
	Like your level of maturity and respect?
	Is that what you feel you have to teach him?
	No. Definitely not.
	I mean, do you really have the right to ask your child to be better than you are?
	No. Yeah, I knew it.
	I've definitely been paying for that mistake.
	Oh, don't. Don't even try that violin with me.
	Oh, my God. I've been paying.
	What about him? Yeah, for sure.
	No, no, you talked about yourself.
	Not him. I've been paying for what I did.
	No, he pays. Because then he stuck with his mom, right?
	Yeah. And did you follow through on that?
	Like, have you stopped having him come over to your place?
	Well, part of the behavior that he was engaging in was Like, online stuff where he was talking to strangers and just doing some, you know, stupid kid stuff that a lot of kids will get involved with, but... Yeah, he doesn't do that anymore, and I don't even think he was doing it because he wanted to.
	It was just, you know, he was looking for attention.
	And... Do you remember my question, just out of curiosity?
	No, I didn't think so, yeah.
	You did kind of fade out of me there.
	Did you end up following through with the threat and not having him come to your place?
	The thing was, the threat was empty and I wanted him to come over because that's just stupid not to be the parent to my son by threatening me.
	So you retracted and apologized and all?
	I retracted and apologized to him a couple weeks later, and then I tried to rebuild the relationship, but it took a while.
	He wasn't receptive.
	Well, yeah, you let him sit with a couple of weeks that his father abandoned him.
	It was severing contact, so to speak, with severing parental responsibility and authority.
	Man, you got a really good set of torpedoes for boats thinking there, my friend.
	So, stop doing that shit.
	Like, no, seriously, you can't do that stuff.
	You can't just lash out that way.
	You have to gain control over your temper.
	People say, oh, well, that's easy to say.
	No, it's very easy to do.
	Just pretend he's a cop.
	Pretend you're in court. Pretend you're at the TSA. Pretend you're in front of a judge.
	Pretend he's a tax collector or someone who's got authority.
	And then you keep your mouth shut, right?
	Right. In other words, treat the people...
	You genuinely care about as if they were strangers with authority you don't care about or are afraid of, right?
	Yeah. And then you'll find a way to hold your temper in check, right?
	Right. I don't understand why it's been so hard for me to keep my temper in check in this past It's no, no, no.
	I gotta keep reminding you of this.
	You are perfectly capable of keeping your temper in check, right?
	I mean, I've said some pretty blunt things.
	I'm sure that it's been annoying from time to time.
	But you're okay in this convo, right?
	Yeah. So you can perfectly hold your temper in check.
	You give yourself permission, in certain circumstances, to let rip.
	And then you make up this excuse, like, I was provoked.
	Dude, we spend our entire days being provoked.
	Every time we go online, we get provoked.
	You don't think I've been provoked as a public intellectual over the years?
	Our entire day is being provoked.
	So what? It's like saying, well, you know...
	I walked past a bakery and they had all of these sticky tarts in the window and the fan was blowing and I had to eat them.
	I was just provoked. I think I've just been acting immature.
	It's No, you've been giving yourself permission to be a bit of an asshole, which we all do from time to time, and I understand that, and I'm not trying to lecture you from any lofty height here, but you're just giving yourself permission to be a jerk, to be aggressive, to be mean, to be nasty.
	You've got a line where you say, yeah, I can do this.
	Yeah, I'll do it. Yeah, I'll do it.
	I'll do it. Like, why do people rob convenience stores?
	Because it's on their list of things that they allow themselves to do.
	I don't rob convenience stores.
	I'm sure you don't either. But it's because it's not on our list of things to do.
	Oh, you know, I didn't bring my wallet with me.
	Well, I'll just steal stuff. It's like, that's not a thing.
	I'll just go home, get my wallet, and come back.
	Is it a bit of an inconvenience?
	Yes. So you have on your list of things that are allowable for you, you know, Saying or yelling really horrible stuff to people.
	That's just things on your list that's allowable.
	You give yourself permission and you say, well, I was provoked or, you know, they said mean things first.
	Like, whatever it is, right? You have on your list of shit that's okay for you to do saying horrible things to people.
	And you just got to scratch that off.
	Like, how do you stop robbing convenience stores?
	You just take robbing convenience stores off the list of shit you'll do, right?
	Right. You just got to, because you give yourself excuses, right?
	And you just, if you live a life without excuses, then you don't pull that kind of crap, right?
	You're just like, no, I'm not going to, okay, I may be angry at the person, but I'm not going to, I may be frustrated with the boat, but I'm not going to drop a grenade in the pump room, right?
	Great. You know, everybody who owns property, you know, you're sailing along fine for a while, right?
	And then every now and then just everything goes wrong, right?
	Oh, the gutters and then the roof and then the water heater and then the air conditioning, right?
	And it can get annoying, right?
	But we don't burn our fucking house down, right?
	Just roll with it, right? It's not on, you know, I'm really frustrated, blah, right?
	And I'll burn the house down.
	It's like, that's not on the list of things to do, right?
	So you've got a piece of paper which says, stuff I won't do.
	Rape, theft, assault, murder, and you just need to move from column of things you will do to things you won't do.
	Say horrible things to people who I claim to care about.
	I just won't do that. Whatever I have to do, I'll deal with it, but I'm not doing that, right?
	If I'm not going to rob the convenience store, I'll just go home and get my wallet.
	It's just not what I do.
	It's not what I do. And you'll be absolutely surprised how easy it is to not do those things when you just move them from the it's okay to it's not okay column.
	Because you think of all the things in your life you don't do, right?
	Well, I will say, I guess I already have an example of making that choice, because when I was younger, I used to, what do you call it, like a I mean, that's because you had no respect for society because society wasn't doing any favors to you, right?
	It wasn't protecting you from your mother.
	It wasn't anything that you respected.
	No, I mean, as you know, I went through a shoplifting phase when I was in my early teens because, like, that's what I care about society.
	I mean, society's not doing anything to protect me.
	It's kind of like, you know, you walk down to the mall and there's some woman with really tight pants and she's got a great butt.
	You don't grab the butt. It's just not on your list of things to do.
	Right? You don't. And you're not even like...
	I'm halfway to grabbing her butt.
	You know, it's just, you don't.
	You just don't, right? So, yeah, you just got to move it from things you allow yourself to do to things you don't allow yourself to do.
	Now, there'll be some fallout, and I get all of that, but you can deal with the personal, like, the emotional stuff behind that.
	But, yeah, I just got to not do that.
	And then once you do that, right, like, if I did for some reason shoplift from a store and then realized I shouldn't be doing that, I'd go back and make restitution, right?
	If I steal $100 worth of stuff, I'll go back and give them $1,000 for their time and stress and difficulty and all that, right?
	And I apologize.
	So, you know, you can't control...
	You know, what your girlfriend does, you can't control what your kids do, you can't control what your ex-wife does, and you certainly can control what your mother did.
	But you can only control what you do.
	So generally, the mistake that I've made, I mean, just talking personally, the mistake I've made is, okay, well, I'll take one step towards you, but you better then take one step towards me.
	But that's not having any integrity.
	Integrity is when you don't measure yourself by what other people do, but by what the right thing to do is.
	Right? So, for me, my life just improved immeasurably when I didn't do tit for tat.
	I didn't say, well, I apologize.
	Now I'm going to wait for you to apologize.
	And if you don't apologize, I'm just going to get mad at you again.
	It's like, then it's not a real apology.
	I apologize because it's the right thing to do.
	Whatever you do with that is your business.
	I'm happy to hear. If you get even more mad at me, if you use it against me, if you throw it in my face...
	That's fine. You know?
	I mean, I did the right thing by apologizing because that's what I need to do, right?
	To have integrity, right?
	Because I said mean things and I should apologize.
	But when we wait for the other person to respond and then we'll be a little bit better if they're a little better and we'll be a little bit...
	I mean, it's like building your house on cards because at some point...
	They're going to do something mean and then the whole thing comes crashing down and you're probably worse off than when you first started.
	So having integrity means you measure yourself by the right thing Not by what works or what's okay in the moment, as long as the other person matches your energy or whatever.
	It's like, oh, it's the right thing. You said some really terrible, mean things, and you kind of say, well, what did you say?
	It doesn't help us, and it's unproductive.
	It's like, that's the worst apology.
	No, man, I'm sorry.
	I appreciate the intention, and I think that's great.
	But no, it was wrong.
	It was false. It was a lie.
	I said it to hurt you and it was really mean of me and I'm deeply ashamed and I'm never going to do that again.
	Never, like never. Now, she may not come back to you.
	She may use it against you, right?
	The next time she's mad at you, she might say, oh yeah, like that time when you totally confessed that you were abusive to me, right?
	And then you'll be tempted to go back to that dark place, right?
	And it's like, you know...
	But that's, you know, she's just goading you, and I get that, and you can't control her, you can only control yourself, right?
	So you'll be tempted to rise up and say, oh, I knew if I apologized, you'd use it against me, and then you just go down that shit path again, right?
	But no, it's like, you know, yeah, I really did say mean things to you, and I did apologize, and I still mean it.
	And that's the only philosophical thing that I can really offer you is, look, you've had a hard life, brother, and I deeply, deeply, deeply sympathize with that.
	Like with all of my, like, let's be more blunt and honesty and all that, you have had a hard life as a kid.
	Like as a kid and as a teenager, you had it about as bad as anyone I've heard of.
	And I really, really sympathize with you for that.
	You had a hell of a start in this rat race, right?
	And, you know...
	The bad news is you had a terrible childhood and teenage years.
	The good news is that's almost a quarter century ago.
	And you can't let that shit run you for the rest of your life.
	You can't. You have to have standards independent of your childhood.
	Yeah, you grew up with people saying mean things.
	I think you have illusions about your stepfather like he was a stand-up guy, he was a good guy, his family was great.
	No! If he was a stand-up guy and a good guy, he wouldn't have married your mom!
	Because she was a mess!
	And she was a bad mother, and she was destructive and a multi-system addict, and right?
	Alcohol and... Was it weed?
	Did I have that right? Did I get that right?
	Yeah, mostly. So he married a drug addict who was abusive and neglectful towards her children.
	That is a bad guy.
	I don't care what form it took, and this is why you said, well, he's really conservative.
	It's old school. It's like, no, he's not.
	He married a drug addict, single mom!
	Not old school. That's messed up.
	Right? So I think you've got illusion.
	I think he may have been helpful for you as a teenager.
	He showed you something better. The family showed you something better.
	But it's still deeply messed up.
	And you've got to aim higher than that, way higher than that, in my humble opinion.
	You've just got to be the kind of guy that your kids are going to grow up and say, yeah, he's made some mistakes, but, you know, what a great guy.
	Pulled it around, did the right thing.
	I mean, we all know what maturity is, right?
	Maturity is you apologize to someone and if they yell at you and goad you and, you know, blah, blah, blah, you just say, yeah, I'm really sorry that I hurt you.
	I mean, you're right to be hurt, you know.
	And you might say, you know, I wish you wouldn't take it out on me in this way, but I also understand that I'm in no position to tell you what to do because...
	For the last four years, I've been a bit of a jerk or a lot of a jerk who says mean things, right?
	So we all know what that maturity looks like.
	You need to be able to inspire both your kids in that and just move stuff from the things you allow yourself to do to just, nope.
	Not doing that. Not doing that.
	Not saying those words, man.
	I'm not sinking the boat because you're a long way out in the ocean, right?
	Because you've got two kids and you've got to find some way whether you get back together with your girlfriend or not.
	I mean, that's not in your control.
	The only thing that's under your control is doing the right thing.
	And then maybe that works.
	Maybe that doesn't. You've got problems with her parents.
	She's close to her parents. Maybe that's healthy.
	Maybe that's not. I don't know.
	But the fact is she is close to her parents and they've got a dim view of you and maybe that's partly messed up, but some of it's partly earned by your bad behavior.
	That's a thing to get over and that's not an easy thing to get over.
	Just as you, you know, if somebody hurts your kids badly, you won't.
	You know, how long would it take for you to come around if someone's spent the last four years off and on calling your kids terrible names?
	Like, it's going to be tough to turn around, so...
	Yeah, you've dug yourself a hole and there's ways out of it in terms of integrity.
	Now, what other people do with that?
	Like, we don't say, I'll have integrity as long as everybody else does the right thing.
	That's not integrity.
	That's just, I don't know what that is.
	That's just a way of avoiding integrity.
	You have integrity, do the right thing and apologize for the mean things you've said and not, well, now it's your turn to apologize.
	It's like, Because you've got to be a leader and being a leader means just doing the right thing and seeing who comes along.
	And some people will and some people won't.
	But whether people do or don't shouldn't affect fundamentally your commitment to doing the right thing if
	that makes sense And yeah, maybe I don't know anger management could be
	helpful I mean, maybe it's part of what you're doing in therapy, but just anger management is, you know, making sure you're just not owned by your anger and you just don't give yourself permission, right?
	It's like you've got a dog on a leash and you know if you take it off the leash, it's going to attack someone.
	So just don't take it off the leash because the moment you take it off the leash, it's going to attack someone.
	And the moment you give yourself permission to indulge your temper, people are going to get hurt.
	But it's still not a reaction.
	It's still based on the decision to take the pit bull off the leash, so to speak.
	So does that make sense?
	Again, I know it's not a particularly do this, do that, but I don't really do this, do that kind of thing, but that would be my suggestions as to ways to go forward.
	Yeah, I think it's definitely helpful.
	It's a... I feel like definitely the anger management is something I should look into because it's just been building over the past year and it's getting worse.
	And that's why I called.
	I just felt like I was losing control.
	Right. You were always in control.
	It's, you know, so anger is almost like a seduction, like, I mean, like destructive rage.
	I don't mean sort of healthy anger. It's like if you keep hanging around with your sexy co-worker and then you decide to go work out together and then you hang out in the sauna together and then you go on a business trip together, like sooner or later, you're just going to have sex, right?
	Or it's like, you know, if your favorite food that's terrible for you is in the house, you're probably going to eat it.
	If it's not in the house, you're probably not going to have to go and drive and get it, right?
	So anger, this sort of rage thing, is just about removing temptation.
	And the reason why your anger is floating around is you're indulging it.
	Like, whatever you feed grows, right?
	And if you indulge your anger, you indulge your temper, it's going to get stronger.
	It's like a devil, right?
	I mean, if you pray to the devil, the devil takes you over, right?
	And if you give permission to your anger...
	To your rage, in a sense.
	If you give permission to that, then it's going to It's probably going to get worse, and, you know, heaven forbid you do anything that's more destructive than mere words, right?
	That's always a risk with these kinds of things.
	So, yeah, I think there just has to be this iron barrier.
	Like, you can feel the anger, of course.
	Feel the anger, absolutely.
	That's probably healthy, but you don't act on it, and you certainly don't act on it in ways that are harmful to people you claim to care about, right?
	Yep. All right.
	Is there anything else you wanted to mention?
	I think I'm good for now.
	I think I need to continue the counseling and get back to you and let you know how I'm doing.
	Yeah, of course. I would really much like to know how you're doing.
	And I really do appreciate the call.
	You know, it takes a lot of guts to go through this kind of thing.
	And for what it's worth, I admire you for that.
	And I admire your commitment to therapy and all of that kind of stuff.
	I think it's great. And I certainly wish you the very best.
	And I'm sure you can achieve what you want out of these situations.
	And I'm really glad that you reached out.
	Yes. Thank you, sir. You're welcome, brother.
	Take care. Bye.

▲