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Dec. 31, 2023 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
37:54
OWN YOUR OWN LIFE Locals Questions Answered
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Alrighty, more questions from freedomman.locals.com.
I hope you will check out the community.
It says, Hey Steph, I'm married, but sometimes I think I could have done better, and then I overthink it.
I question my choices, wonder if I've made a mistake getting married, and then feel guilt and shame as a result.
I'm constantly rehashing these questions and it's torture!
Can you shed some light on the path out of this cycle?
We've been together over a decade.
We have a one-year-old and I want to find peace.
That is a very deep, powerful, fascinating, interesting, and wild question.
And I just want to pass along my sympathies for the challenge that you're facing.
It's a very, very tough thing to do.
Sort of really question the essence and basis of The relationships are very tough indeed, so I sympathize with that enormously, and I'm sorry for the question that you're facing.
Now, I could have done better.
I question my choices.
I, of course, would have said that it's probably worthwhile exploring options, except, of course, for one thing, and one thing only.
And that is, of course, that you have a child.
So she's good enough to make a baby with.
Now, when you're in a relationship that is necessary for the health and happiness of your child, that's pretty significant, right?
Of course, I don't know the circumstances that led to you getting married in this way.
And you're welcome to email me, callin at freedomain.com, C-A-L-L-I-N, callin at freedomain.com.
But... What I would say at the moment is your best option, I obviously don't know what you should do, but I think what your best option is, is to see how much truly believing in your partner and modeling full responsibility is like.
Human potential is the greatest untapped resource on the planet.
It's like nuclear power levels, fusion energy levels of potential energy and power.
So, what effect is it having on your partner to have a, I'm just going to say husband because you have kids, been together 10 years, you might as well be married.
So, what effect is it on your wife and the mother of your child for her to look over and have you distancing yourself emotionally and looking at her critically and saying, I could have done better, I should have done better, I settled, I did the wrong thing, I'm with the wrong person, I'm stuck on trash planet, like whatever is going on in your head.
What is it like for her?
What potential is possible for her if you truly believe in her and model the very best potential in relationship possible?
So for instance, let's say you took on, this is a mental exercise, let's say you took on the goal of inspiring your wife to become truly fantastic.
To inspire your wife into becoming truly fantastic.
What if Your wife looking less to you, looking less than or you could have done better, what if that's entirely your fault?
What if that's entirely, or if you don't like fault, what if that's entirely your responsibility?
What if that's entirely your responsibility?
That her being less than is on you?
And what if you took on the goal of loving her, believing in her, and inspiring her to be exactly what you're looking for?
Now, I know.
I say take responsibility for yourself.
But to bring out the best in our partners is an essential part of a relationship.
This is why, like, you can't be that great on your own, but you can be truly fantastic in a relationship.
I cite to you Freddie Mercury's solo album.
Mr. Bad Guy. Mr.
Bad LP. My love is dangerous.
Yeah, great job, Ben, Mr.
Bohemian Rhapsody. So, when you're with someone who believes in you, what you're capable of knows virtually no bounds.
And if you've ever been around someone who's truly inspiring, you know how much they call out to the best and greatest part of you.
You know how deeply they're calling out for the best and greatest part of you.
So, If I were in your shoes, I would take on the goal and the responsibility of not judging and distancing myself from my wife and the mother of my child, because she's good enough to have sex with for 10 years, be in a relationship for 10 years, she's good enough to have your child.
So the idea that she's deficient in some manner is a terrible idea.
It's a terrible idea for you to believe that, because you don't believe that.
Otherwise, you would have done better.
If you could have done better, you would have done better.
And what you're thinking about now...
is a way of recoiling from a relationship that was perfectly good for 10 years.
Now, if it was perfectly good for 10 years or it was what you wanted for 10 years, maybe, just maybe you're in this relationship in order to feel superior to someone, right?
That's certainly a possibility that you're in this relationship, that she's around so that you can feel better and superior and that you could have done better and maybe she's a vanity prop.
In which case, you're kind of an exploitive jerk, frankly, right?
I mean, if that's the case, right?
And maybe this is news to you or whatever, but why would you be around someone that you feel superior to?
Well, so that you get the easy drug of feeling superior without actually having to be superior, right?
If you're a basketball player, why would you play with people who play badly so that you could be the best player around?
Like, you could be the big fish in the little pond.
So... If you have been around her in order to feel superior, then you have contributed to her not being worthy.
You've contributed to holding her down.
In other words, you have this unspoken deal, this handshake under the table.
You have this unspoken deal in your marriage where she props up your ego and you feel superior and distant.
And this, of course, comes back from...
It goes back to family and childhood and origin stories and parenting and so on, right?
So the idea that you feel superior to this woman and you've engaged in that superiority at some level for...
10 plus years indicates to me that that's the unconscious and unspoken deal in the relationship.
She props up your ego and you remain distant and, quote, superior.
Now, to change that, to rewrite the fundamental transactional deal in a relationship is challenging, but if you can do better, why don't you inspire your wife to do better, right?
So, I mean, I'd sort of give you an example.
I dated a girl in my 20s for quite a while, and I went from being like a broke undergraduate student to chief technical officer.
And so I was really growing and doing well and all of that, and she was kind of stuck.
And without getting into details, I poured my sort of heart-minded soul into helping
her get to where she wanted to get to, to truly invest in her, to truly believe in her,
to truly fund what she wanted to do with her life.
And it didn't really work out.
Now, so I wanted to make sure that I was pouring as much into her as other people have poured
into me.
And if after that process, right, if after genuinely believing in someone and genuinely
investing and moving them forward and so on, if after that process, she's kind of inert
and well, maybe you kind of killed her spirit by being around someone you feel superior
Now, maybe you'll say, well, I didn't feel superior to her for 10 years.
Okay, but then if you got better over time, you improved and you didn't inspire her or bring her along in the journey, Well, that's kind of on you, right?
And of course, I have to debate in my head, but you say, well, I tried to bring her along, she wouldn't come along.
Well, but she was good enough to have a kid with, right?
She was good enough to have a kid with, and your kid needs a dad, and your kid needs to see a dad who loves his mom.
So, you already made that decision to stay with her because you already have a kid, right?
And so, if I were in your shoes, what I would do is say, okay, my job is to love the woman I chose to have a child with.
I should have done that beforehand. And I say, oh, well, I could have done better.
It's like, well, then you need to inspire her to be better.
You need to lead her into betterness, right?
Your job, you need to look upon her not being good enough as your failure, not hers.
Because that gives you maximum potential to fix the problem.
I'm not saying it will fix the problem because, you know, there's free will and choice and all that, but it's your job to make her someone you admire.
And if you fail to make her someone you admire, that's not her failure, that's yours, right?
If you are in a superior position and you've decided to have a kid with her, then it's your job to get her into a position that's similar to yours in terms of superiority.
And if you fail to do that, that's not her failure, that's yours.
And so massive self-ownership is the way to go.
All right. Somebody else asks, is it always both parties' fault when a marriage fails?
What if a wife commits moral abuse, refuses sex, refuses pulling her weight inside of the home while the husband is dependable, reliable, and good to his wife and family?
What about incentives?
A large percentage of marriage end in divorce, while 70-90% of the time wives initiate the divorce.
Almost 90% of custody goes to mothers, while 90% of the alimony payers are men.
Coupled with double standards in society between men and women, is it fair to just say to the men that they chose wrong?
Think about the restaurant workers during the pandemic who found themselves in a position where they were earning more money with unemployment benefits and stimulus money compared to What they would earn if they returned to work.
Even if they had the virtue of hard work, the incentives influence them to stay home.
Is it possible that a man can make a decent choice in who he marries, but the Overton window is working against his best interests?
There is a proverb that says that telling lies is as harmful as hitting with a rock, wounding with a sword, or shooting with a sharp arrow.
So my interpretation is moral abuse, sexual abuse, emotional verbal abuse can be just as harmful as physical abuse.
If a woman is struggling post-relationship mentally with the fallout of a long-term physically abusive relationship, would we be insensitive and tell her that she just chose wrong and there must have been something that she did to contribute to the demise of the relationship?
Is this an unreasonable set of questions to ask or yet again a failure to take personal responsibility?
Right. That's a great question.
It's a deep question. There's a lot in here.
So, philosophy is about prevention, not cure.
Philosophy is about prevention, not cure.
So why is it that I talk to people who are in disastrous relationships, in call-in shows and so on?
Well, obviously, it's to try and help and figure these things out.
Like the question I just answered before, where the guy is like, I could have done better than the mother of my child.
I'm like, well, here's a way that you could try and inspire her to be better, and it's your job to lead her to a better place.
Or to acknowledge, at least, that part of what you chose her for was to feel superior, and that's exploitive, and your criticism should be for you for exploiting someone to prop up your ego rather than criticizing her for not being enough.
Like, if you've been in a relationship with someone for 10 years, then you can't say that you're a victim of anything, right?
Now, will that fix things?
I don't know, because free will, right?
But partly it's to give that person a path forward, which gives them some ownership and allows them to do more than just sit and judge.
But also it's saying to other people that maybe being in a 10-year relationship and having a kid with someone you don't think is up to scratch is not a good idea.
So can I cure his thing?
No, I don't know. I think it's a reasonable approach to try.
But it's also about other people looking at that kind of mess and disaster and saying, well, I don't want to get involved in that, right?
So if a man marries a wife who is lazy and sexless and abusive and so on, Well, philosophy can't fix that because that's cure, not prevention, and philosophy is about prevention, right? Like, as far as I understand it, changing your, like, once you've got really bad diabetes, that's it, right?
You've got to deal with it medically.
Just changing your diet might help a little.
It's not going to prevent you getting diabetes, right?
The whole point is to prevent yourself from these kinds of things.
So, you know, in the old movie Clerks, a guy shows up with a black lung, like a blackened lung, and says, this is what happens if you smoke, right?
Now, the guy who smoked, who had his lung removed, is long dead, right?
And quitting smoking or not smoking isn't going to help that guy, because you're just showing his black lung around, right?
So you say, oh, well, what's the point of that?
That's not going to help the guy who's already dead.
It's like, well, sure, yeah, but showing his black lung might help other people not smoke, right?
It probably will help other people Not.
It turns out that the guy sells gum and the gum is a substitute for smoking.
So if you're in a relationship, if you've chosen someone who is a terrible wife, or if you're a woman, you've chosen someone who's a terrible husband, can philosophy fix that?
No, it cannot. Now, hopefully philosophy can help you not get into that situation to begin with in the same way that if you're having a heart attack because you're fat, you don't call a nutritionist.
But if you hear the story of a guy who had a heart attack because he was fat, maybe you'll call a nutritionist if you're not that bad and you'll lose weight and you'll be scared into, right?
I mean, everybody knows, I've heard the story of someone who's like, yeah, you know, my best friend who was a smoker as long as I was died of lung cancer, so I quit smoking, right, because I was so terrified, right?
So, the guy dying of lung cancer can't be saved by quitting smoking, but the other guy who hasn't got lung cancer yet can be saved by quitting smoking.
At least, there's a much better possibility.
So, is it always both parties' fault when a marriage fails?
There is no such thing as both parties' fault.
There is no such thing as both parties' fault.
So, for instance, if you say, I want to go for dinner with a married couple, right?
I've just had some dinner and drinks last night with a married couple who are friends of ours.
So, if we say, we want to go have dinner with a married couple, and you get there, and they've just put their marriage certificate on the desk, but they're not there, who are you having dinner with?
Well, no one. But there's no such thing as collective fault.
Fault is always an individual characteristic.
There's no such thing as collective fault in the same way that there's no such thing as collective digestion or collective pregnancy.
Digestion, pregnancy, those are facets and manifestations of the individual.
Fault, responsibility, blame, whatever you want to call it, is a characteristic of the individual.
There's no such thing as both parties' fault.
Now, I know that you may say, well, that's kind of semantics.
I'm talking about the individual fault of both parties in the relationship.
But assigning fault to others is almost always a mistake.
Assigning fault to others is almost always...
Now, is it true that other people have moral responsibility and moral fault?
Yeah, yeah, you know, I get universalization and all of that.
So, if I'm in a relationship with a bad girlfriend, is it her responsibility for being a bad girlfriend?
Yes! But it's my responsibility that I'm in a relationship with somebody who's a bad girlfriend.
That's 100% me.
That's 100% me.
And so, there's no such thing as both parties' fault.
Because the only reason the other party's fault matters is because you're in a relationship with them which is 100% you.
100% you.
So if I am married to a woman who's a chain smoker and I get sick from secondhand smoke, do I blame her?
No. Is it her responsibility she smoked?
Yes, it is. But it's my responsibility that her smoke ends up in my lungs.
Is it her responsibility for smoking?
Yes. But as far as my life and my responsibility goes, it is 100% my responsibility that a smoker's smoke ends up in my lungs and makes me sick.
100% my responsibility because I'm choosing to breathe the air that she's smoking in.
100% self-ownership.
And the other thing too, as I sort of mentioned before, is that if you take 90% self-ownership or 50-50 or whatever you want to do, then the problem is as soon as you take less than 100% self-ownership, You effectively take zero.
Because when you say, well, it's the other person's fault, then what happens is, inevitably, psychologically, right, this goes all the way back to pre-biblical statements, Old Testament statements, right?
Why are you so focused on your neighbor's error instead of looking at your own error?
So the moment you take less than 100% self-ownership, you will end up focusing on the faults of the other person to the exclusion of self-criticism.
It's just the way. There's no 50-50.
The moment you say 50-50, what you do is you end up obsessing about the other person's faults.
And if you say it's 99% me and 1% them, you'll end up obsessing about the 1% of them.
The only way to counter focusing on the faults of others rather than improving yourself is to take 100% self-ownership.
It's the only way. The moment we say, well, it's 95% me, but 5% them, all you'll do is focus on the 5% them.
The 100-0 is the only way to counteract them.
And I know that you can say, well, I am 50-50, but I do focus 50-50.
No. 100% of the issues in the relationship are on you, because you're the reason the other person is affecting you at all.
So if I have a girlfriend, she's been my girlfriend for three months and she yells at me and calls me an idiot, that's 100% on you.
Because the only reason she's in your life and calling you an idiot and it matters to you is because you're choosing to date her.
That's 100% on you. And a marriage doesn't fail, one person decides to leave.
And that may be for the best.
I mean, I can't, there's no universal prescription.
Obviously, if you have, you know, I saw this video about this woman who was putting bleach into her husband's coffee.
Okay, so should he leave that relationship?
Yes, he should. Even if there are kids, especially if there are kids, got some murderous wife, he should get out.
Absolutely no question. That's death to stay.
A woman whose husband beats her up, yeah, she should get out.
And if she has kids, she should get out even faster, because that's what the kids are seeing.
So, is it always both parties' fault when a marriage fails?
A marriage doesn't fail, one individual decides to leave.
Whether that's the right decision or the wrong decision, you can't tell just from that amount of information.
If a wife decides to leave because her husband is trying to set reasonable boundaries and expects her to pull her weight in the relationship, that's a bad decision, right?
If a husband leaves because his wife is beating him up, then that's a wise decision, right?
So a marriage doesn't fail.
One person decides to leave.
Both parties are 100% responsible for what happens in the marriage because the marriage only exists because of both people's 100% choice.
So, when I say to someone, you're 100% responsible for how your girlfriend treats you, and I understand, like, people get kind of static, they get kind of fused.
Oh, you're saying she doesn't have any self-ownership?
No, she has 100% self-ownership.
But you're 100% responsible for the effect her exercise of self-ownership has on you because you're the one choosing to keep her in your life.
You chose dating her, being with her, having her have an effect on life over being single, over going to Bali, over becoming a zookeeper, over dating someone else.
You are 100% responsible for the effects that people have in your life.
There's just no way to get around that.
There's no way to get around that.
It's assuming, again, obviously you're an idolatry, you're not kidnapped, right?
All the usual caveats that nitpickers love.
If your girlfriend is yelling at you, you're 100% responsible for that.
Because she's only yelling at you because she's in your life, you're listening to her, and therefore, as a result, it's affecting you.
Right? So, I want you to think.
I want you to think of something here. It's really important.
I want you to think that Sally, your girlfriend, yells at you and calls you names and makes you feel like crap.
And you blame her. Nope.
100% you. 100% you.
Well, doesn't she have self-ownership?
Yes. But you focusing on her self-ownership is pointless.
Because you have the empirical evidence that she uses her self-ownership to verbally insult and abuse you.
Now, I want you to think that you went on a date with Sally.
You didn't particularly like her.
She seemed kind of cold or she had a bad temper or maybe she yelled at the waitress.
I don't know, right? And so you decide not to date Sally.
Sally then goes and dates someone else somewhere else in the city.
And Sally yells at that person and calls him an idiot instead.
How much does that affect you? Right?
You don't even know that it's happening.
Do you follow? Sally yells at the waiter.
You say, I'm not dating someone who yells.
So then Sally's like, well, F you.
And she goes and she, I don't know, goes off and dates someone else and yells at him.
How much does that affect you?
How much does it affect you that Sally is yelling at someone and calling him names?
Of course, we know the answer to that.
The answer to that is that it doesn't affect you at all because it's not happening in your mind, in your world.
You don't even know that it's happening.
Do you follow? So the fact that Sally's yelling at you is 100% your fault, because if she was yelling at someone else you didn't know in some other place you didn't know, it wouldn't affect you at all.
So the fact that she's yelling at you is 100% the result of your choice.
This is 100% self-ownership.
Well, I've got to get Sally to change.
Why? Even if you say, I'm going to keep Sally as a girlfriend, even though she yells at me and calls me names, because I have the goal of changing her, well, she's still in your life.
Because you're choosing to stay with her.
So if you have a bad wife, then either she was a bad girlfriend and then turned into a bad wife, which is the most likely thing, in which case you chose a bad wife.
How can it be called a failure if you get what you pursued?
Right? Like, it can't be called a failure.
If I train for 10 years to get Olympic gold, and then I get Olympic gold, can I say that's a failure, and it's terrible, and that's bad, and that's wrong, and I didn't want it?
I mean, it's ridiculous. So if you dated, got engaged to, got married to, stayed married to, had kids with a woman, and she was the way she is from the beginning, you got what you wanted.
You got what you wanted. And who am I to disagree with what you wanted?
Like, I have better things to do with my life than fight against people who are getting what they pursued, chose, and wanted.
And when I had a couple of...
I never had terrible relationships, but, you know, relationships that weren't great, right?
When I had relationships that were unsatisfying on times in my 20s and they didn't work out, I was getting what I wanted.
And what I wanted was to not pull the thread that would unravel all of my family and familial relationships by choosing someone of quality who would point out the deficiencies in those around me.
I chose to stay with friends and family who had no problem with me dating...
Women who weren't great for me.
Again, not terrible, not abusive, but just weren't great for me.
My friends and my family never said, I don't know if this is right for you.
This doesn't seem quite right. This doesn't seem like the right thing.
This doesn't seem good. Are you genuinely happy?
Is it really working for you?
You know, maybe you could find somebody more compatible or I see these issues with your relationship.
Like, no, but not one person said that in the 20 years that I was dating before I met my wife.
Like, not one person said that about anyone or anything, right?
Even when I got engaged.
So, So I chose to stay with friends and family rather than improve the quality for me of the women I was dating.
So I was getting what I wanted.
I got to continue in my relationships with friends and family rather than improve things overall.
Because for me, once I got genuine love and a genuine, compassionate and caring person in my life, everybody else just wasn't up to scratch.
So then I chose different.
Now, was I conscious of all of these things?
Yeah, but if I was unconscious of these things, it's just because I wasn't being honest enough with myself.
How can I blame other people for what I am voluntarily choosing?
Nobody forced me to date these women.
Nobody forced me to stay with these women.
Nobody forced me to, like, nothing.
So, if you have a bad wife, I'm sure she was a bad girlfriend.
And you had choices.
You could have chosen to date better people or whatever, right?
So, you dated a bad girlfriend, you married her, and she's a bad wife.
You knew who she was before you married her.
So who am I to disagree with what you pursue and want?
Right. Assuming that there's no, you know, violations of the non-aggression principle involved, you know, kidnap her and lock her in a basement.
But I'm not one to stand between someone and what they want to do.
You know, if you want to spend your entire life train spotting or bird watching or building model railways in your basement and never date and never...
I mean, I don't think it's a great way to spend your life.
I think it's pretty bad, in fact, and I think there could be a lot of regret and all of that.
But what am I going to do? Call you every day and nag you for an hour?
Oh, man, you've got to put down the model trains and...
And I've tried that before.
I've tried that with people who I think are living, like the people who don't date, or the people who don't advance, or the people who don't challenge themselves, or the people who I think are kind of deluded, right?
My friend who was into martial arts, and I'm like, I don't think this is the thing for you, or maybe it's fine as a little hobby, but he ended up entering competitions and virtually destroyed his body.
He's getting what he wants, right?
I didn't have much sympathy for him when he destroyed his body.
Because he's a pretty small, a short guy, and not particularly super fit.
He's kind of tubby, and he just got mashed in a competition.
Like, okay, well, he's like, oh, it hurts so much.
I'm like, but... I mean, you choose the actions, you choose the consequences, right?
So, to me, if someone is complaining, I have a bad wife, I'm like, but that's what you wanted.
No, I didn't. No, you did.
Like, again, I don't care what people say.
Anyone can say anything about their motivations.
Motivations are a magical ghost.
If someone says to you, my moral theory that it's really great to pay hobos to beat each other up, you have some moral theory about that.
And I say, well, what's the justification for that?
And they say, a magical fairy ghost unicorn told me, would I be like, oh, well, that's good enough for me.
People can say anything they want about their motivations or what they meant or they didn't mean or what they wanted or didn't want.
I honestly don't care.
I honestly don't care.
I only care about what they did.
Because what they did is the empirical proof of what they wanted.
Again, assuming no coercion.
So if somebody's saying, I have a bad wife, I'm like, well, I mean, that's not what I would choose.
Although I almost did. But it's not what I would choose.
But, I mean, I've got better things to do with my life than nag other people about what they voluntarily choose.
Assuming that, right, there's no violence involved, right?
So, if you want to date a bad girlfriend and then marry a bad wife, I mean...
I've got better things to do with my life than disagree with people's voluntary choices.
You know, there are people who spend all Sunday drinking beer and watching sports ball, right?
That's what they do. Let's say they're single, right?
If you've got kids, I have a bit of a different opinion because you've got an obligation, right?
You chose an obligation, right?
You've got a monopoly on being a father to them, and when you have a monopoly, you have higher obligations, right?
So, if you're single and, or maybe you just got a girlfriend and you spend, you know, six hours on Sundays snacking on junk food and watching sports ball, I don't think it's a great idea.
I literally have so infinitely better things to do with my time than to nag people for what they voluntarily choose.
To nag people for.
If you want to Date a bad girlfriend.
Marry a bad wife. I don't think it's a good idea.
I'm really sorry for your kids, but I have no authority.
I can't take them. I can't fix the situation.
But don't come to me and complain about what you voluntarily chose.
Like, I find this the strangest thing in the world.
Honestly, deeply, deeply, deeply.
I find this the strangest thing in the world.
The people will complain.
My wife is abusing me.
Look, I'm really sorry for that, but she was an abusive girlfriend, and if that's your thing, if that's all you think that you're worth, or, you know, it's like when people come and they say, I'm underpaid.
You know, I do this, I do this, I run this whole office, and they only pay me X, and I'm underpaid, and it's like, I don't even know what that means.
I've been working at this job for five years, and I'm underpaid.
It's like, I don't know what underpaid means.
Like, if you voluntarily take the pay and do the job, you're not underpaid.
You're paid exactly what you will accept to do the job.
Right? And if you, let's say you're some art guy, you're some art specialist, and you go to some garage sale and you find a Rubens, like some painting worth millions and millions of dollars or something like that, and they have no, and they're like, a buck, just get it out of my attic, right?
Let's say you give them a dollar and then you sell the painting for $10 million, right?
Did you underpay for the painting?
No. The guy was happy to take a dollar for it and you were happy to spend a dollar for it.
And then you find someone else who's happy to spend $10 million for it and you're happy to get the $10 million.
Did you underpay? No.
There's no $10 million infused, right?
Value is subjective. So the guy who's willing to sell it to you for $1 is not undercharging.
And the guy who's willing to give you $10 million is not overpaying.
It's just they're paying what they think it's worth, what it's worth, assuming it's voluntary, right?
So when people say, well, I'm underpaid, it's like, no, you're not underpaid.
If they offered you $40,000 for the job and you took $40,000 for the job, you're being paid exactly what you accept.
Well, I'm underpaid.
Oh, so you have a theory, then you should go and ask for more money.
Well, I don't want to do that.
Okay, then you're not underpaid.
And if you do ask for more money, and they give you more money, you still weren't underpaid.
You were just paid less. And if you are a person who thinks that the best you can do is a girlfriend who yells at you and calls you stupid, and the best thing you can do is a wife who yells at you and calls you stupid, And that's all you think you're worth.
I'm sorry for that. Like, I know that goes back to childhood and so on.
But that's what you're choosing as an adult.
Again, I'm not talking about physical violence or anything.
I'm just, you know, like, if you have a wife who yells at you and calls you stupid, it's mean, it's nasty.
But if that's all you think you're worth, then you're like someone who's willing to work.
You know, if, I mean, was it Steven Soderbergh when he wanted to do the...
Ocean's Eleven movies. He's like, we never have movies full of movies, like movies full of movie stars anymore.
So all the actors took massive pay cuts to be in the movies, right?
They took like 10% of what they would normally take because they all wanted to work together and they liked each other and they wanted a movie with a bunch of movie stars in it, right?
Were they underpaid? Nope.
They chose the experience of working together with a bunch of other movie stars rather than being the only movie star in a movie or one of two movie stars in a movie.
They were underpaid. They voluntarily chose.
So if you have a wife, and let's even drop the verbal abuse.
I say you have a lazy wife, right?
Doesn't lift a finger and complains and right.
Okay, so that's what you chose.
And choosing a hardworking, competent, moral, kind, decent, loving, virtuous, intelligent wife, that wasn't what you wanted.
Now, for whatever reason, again, you say, well, because of my family and history.
Okay, I get all of that. But you are still making a voluntary choice as an adult.
How on earth can you escape childhood if you continuously blame your childhood?
Then you never get to leave your childhood.
The whole point, like, childhood is when you don't have responsibility and authority.
Adulthood is when you do. And you become an adult.
When you take 100% self-ownership for the quality of your life.
So are there risks?
Are there perverse incentives? Yes, there are.
Yes, there are. Please don't pull this absolute nonsense.
What did you say here?
Let me just sort of find this thing. Oh yeah, think about the restaurant workers during the pandemic.
They were earning more money with unemployment benefits compared to if they returned to work.
So in a lot of places, restaurants were forcibly closed.
And in a lot of places, people were half locked inside their homes.
Right? So, let's not confuse that with voluntary dating choices.
Now, through the modern system, can a woman get your money without being your wife?
Yes, she can. Especially if she's a mom, right?
If she's the mother of your children. Can she get your money without being your wife?
Yes. Right.
So you know that. So you have to choose a high-quality wife who loves you, who would never in a million years take your money if she couldn't have you.
Like, you choose a wife who would rather live with you in a box under a bridge than in a mansion without you.
You choose a wife who loves you, and you earn that love through virtue, integrity, honor, self-ownership.
Look, come on, man. Everybody knows that you can't love somebody who blames others.
And so, if you're blaming your wife for being a bad wife, then you're saying, it's my wife's fault.
She doesn't love me. I'm blaming my wife for not loving me.
But because you're willing to blame your wife, she can't love you.
So, I don't know.
To me, it's like, do you wear a helmet when you motorcycle?
And if you don't wear a helmet and you fall off your motorcycle and you get some horrible brain injury, you chose, you wanted the feel of the wind in your hair.
You wanted to be around.
It's like, okay, well, then now you're paying the price.
Like, you chose the risk.
And what happens, of course, is people choose the risk and then they get mad when the risk doesn't pay off.
But that's as ridiculous as a gambler complaining that he's out of money.
Well, I thought I was going to win.
No, I get that. But you knew there was a chance you weren't going to win and you chose to keep playing and you chose, like, of course people like to take risks and then, like, fools complain when the risk doesn't pay off.
Fools complain when the risk doesn't pay off.
So, if you want a motorcycle without a helmet, things could go badly for you.
You know, as a kid, certainly every kid pretty much tries this biking without touching the handlebars, right?
And it's cool. It's cool to bike without touching the handlebars.
And it can wobble and you can spill.
Yeah, I get that. But if you choose to bike without touching the handlebars, and we've all done it, if you choose to bike without touching the handlebars and you take a spill, well, that's the risk.
And so people who know that something is risky ahead of time can't complain when the risk pays off.
If you have a thousand to one bet, right?
It's a thousand to one. And you put your entire life savings into a thousand to one against odds, right?
Like you'll become a zillionaire or you'll lose everything, right?
You take your life savings of a million dollars, you put it on a thousand to one bet, hoping to become a billionaire, right?
Okay? So you lose your money.
And then you complain. Well, why would you complain?
You knew it was a thousand to one. You knew the odds were minuscule, right?
0.1%. So, I mean, again, I just, I don't get it.
I don't get it. I don't get it.
It's, to me, kind of pathetic.
Like, it's what Nietzsche said. Don't leave your actions in the lurch.
And so, you've got all this information that says, oh, well, marriage is a high-risk endeavor because the woman can get your money without having to spend time with you.
Okay? Like, how much money would I take to not have my wife in my life?
There's no money that I would take to not have my wife.
I mean, you could offer me a trillion dollars.
You could offer me the entire planet to have my wife not in my life.
I would just, like, it wouldn't even be tempting.
You can't buy love. So, you know that there's risks in modern marriage.
And the funny thing is, do you not think that there were risks in marriage in the past?
My God. I mean, how many women died in childbirth?
You don't think there were risks in marriage?
Oh, she might divorce me and take some of my money.
It's like, yeah, but in the past, she got smallpox and died, or died in childbirth, or got a cut on her finger, it got infected, and she just fucking died.
Oh, God, the If you ever want to just enjoy life in the present, just study life in the past.
Study life in the past.
Like 10% of women in the 19th century in Paris were registered prostitutes.
They were called the three-holders. And it's estimated that up to 25% of women were forced into prostitution or ended up as prostitutes in the past.
It was brutal.
Smallpox, war, starvation, diphtheria, cholera, tuberculosis, this long, endless death where you've got to end up in sanatoriums in Switzerland, writing despairing novels Thomas Mann style while dying of tuberculosis, which sometimes could take years to kill.
Sexually transmitted diseases with no cure.
Ooh, you've got syphilis.
Good luck. Over the next ten years of going insane.
Oh, but there's risk in the modern world.
I get it. God almighty.
So yeah, there's risk going into marriage, so you choose a quality woman.
But I want the hot mess.
Okay, then you've got a fetish for beauty that's willing to cost you your sanity.
Okay, well... You know, it's like if you have a fetish for prostitutes in the past and then you ended up getting syphilis and then you went insane and died, it's like, well, but you had a fetish for prostitutes and that's what you risk, right?
And if you have a fetish for mere physical beauty at the expense of personal quality, if you have a fetish for the hot mess, then, okay, get your hot sex and get your crazy sex and then suffer, right?
I don't, like, if you like nicotine and you smoke, then you get cancer.
It's like, that's, I mean, I'm not sure what to say.
So anyway, I hope this helps to sort of my particular perspective.
It's what served me well in life and I wouldn't change it.
Like, don't ever let anybody take your self-ownership away.
That's a horrible way to live and will never, ever bring you happiness.
It might bring you immediate relief.
Like, abdicating self-ownership is just like heroin.
It gives you immediate relief at the expense of long-term success, survivability, and sanity.
So, freedomain.com slash donate if you would like to help out the show.
I'd really, really appreciate it.
Lots of love from up here.
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