Jan. 20, 2024 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
02:14:23
5376 Should I Raise My Wife's Boyfriend's Child?
"I got divorced in 2022, married since 2017. It was a "amicable divorce", but that is a loaded term. She asked for a divorce because she said that we weren't good together. That broke me. I didn't believe it, but then I realized why she was saying it. All the little things that I was ignoring came crashing home and I realized that she cheated on me. "Now she is alone with a baby that is not mine. She is having a crisis and my heart hurts so much for her..."Transcript: https://freedomain.com/should-i-raise-my-wifes-boyfriends-child-transcript/Join the PREMIUM philosophy community on the web for free!Get my new series on the Truth About the French Revolution, access to the audiobook for my new book 'Peaceful Parenting,' StefBOT-AI, private livestreams, premium call in shows, the 22 Part History of Philosophers series and more!See you soon!https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/UPB2022
So, I was married for five years, together with my ex for seven altogether, and we got divorced last November.
And, um, that is kind of a long story, but, um, but anyway, so I've been, I think, where'd you go?
Um,
We got divorced and it was a what's called, I'm sure you're aware, an amicable divorce, which means we kind of figure things out on our own.
We don't have to involve lawyers and all of that.
And her reasoning was she was unhappy and kind of that whole line of thinking.
And she, shortly thereafter,
Uh, got a boyfriend, which of course means certain things.
Um, and they were together for about a year and then she's actually had a baby with him and now they've split.
As soon as the baby was born, he's gone.
And I only know this because she texted me back.
She started texting me again.
And I, part of the reason why I emailed in was.
Um I don't know how it is with other people but I for me once I love someone it never really goes away and she is in a really hard place right now and I know it's not really my responsibility at all but at the same time in my mind and maybe I think I was talking to another friend of mine and
Uh, he kind of thinks the same way like once married always married in the mind and I guess my big question like the big the big reason why I emailed in was I wonder which part of my body I'm thinking was so to speak because
I keep thinking she hasn't officially like asked me to kind of be part of, not in words so much as by action, be part of her life.
And I'm really on the fence about whether or not to even engage.
In fact, I've kind of cut my text short whenever I text her about anything, like whenever she's asking questions.
So I guess my big question is that kind of, or a question for advice, I guess.
Is it a bad idea?
Yeah.
Well, listen, that's a great question to ask and a courageous question to ask.
And you said that there was a long story involved in the marriage.
Well, I have
Six to seven minutes.
No, I'm kidding.
I have as much time as you need if you want to tell me a little bit.
We can start with the childhood.
We can start with the marriage.
What best do you think are most relevant to you?
I think, hmm, okay, I think the marriage is probably most relevant at this point, but I have a feeling we're going to get into the childhood.
Really quickly.
All too soon.
Yeah.
Yeah.
OK.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Especially well, and now it'll all be second hand.
But she did tell me a lot about her childhood as well.
So, OK, so.
We met in 2015 in the year of our Lord, and I was working.
Just as like a store clerk.
She would come in and actually we, sir, it was like a vape type shop, like vape head shop type thing.
It was not what I do now, but, uh, it's like one of those intermediary jobs, but anyway, it doesn't matter.
Um, she comes in and she's a couple of years younger than me.
And I was just, you know, how it is.
I was completely captivated.
I was helping somebody else out, but completely captivated, like instant.
So she's very physical response.
Oh yeah.
Oh yeah.
Even now, even after.
She's very pretty and she meets you in an addict store.
Yes.
Oh no, we're already starting.
I'm just, I'm just getting the backstory here.
So keep going.
No, I know.
Yeah.
She comes in and she and her, she with a friend and a girl and they come in, they want to try hookah.
For the first time, which I'm assuming, I don't know if you're aware.
No, no.
Yeah.
I'm sorry.
Do you know how much that sounds like hooker?
No, no, I'm not.
I'm not like, if you put that in a book, the editor would be like, come on, man, that's too obvious.
Why don't you just have her live on 304 main street?
Okay.
All right.
So she comes into the vape store and wants to buy a hook.
Okay.
Go ahead.
Yeah.
So I make it and they sit down and they don't talk to me.
They just but they keep looking at me.
You know how the whole thing goes.
I'll skip over kind of the boring part, I guess, because otherwise we'll be here for a couple of days.
Anyway, she comes back the next day and this time she knows what she's doing.
And she's wearing like a pretty white dress.
And she's just looking
I mean, if I was captivated before, now, like, I'm completely enthralled.
So, I ask her on a date.
We go to Cossie.
Our first date is at... A date in what?
Oh, we go to Cossie.
I'm sorry.
After I get off, we go out to a coffee shop and... Coffee shop?
I thought you said Costco.
Yeah.
Okay, got it.
Coffee shop.
Oh, no!
That'd be a heck of a date.
Yeah, get those free samples, but no.
But anyway, we go to a coffee shop, a local coffee shop, and I intend for it to be because it's a little bit late.
It's like 9 p.m., I think.
And so I intend we're probably going to be there for an hour, maybe, maybe two.
And we end up just sitting outside on the patio talking over no coffee.
You know, I mean, I drink my coffee.
She's drinkers until like 430 in the morning and
So it starts out kind of with a bang.
Well, no.
No, that's not a good sign, though, right?
No.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, why is that not a good sign?
Oh, the 430.
That's Fusion.
That's Oh, I have no other responsibilities.
You are my world.
And it's it's, you know, from from
From famine to feast, you know, all in a moment.
And yeah, it's like a love bomb.
It's like a cult technique or something.
I don't know.
But that's yeah, I would have some because people always say, you know, we talked until the sun came up.
But it's like, yeah, really?
You just met this.
You just merged like like a baking ingredients or something.
But anyway, go on.
Yeah.
No, no, that is a good.
Okay, yeah, that's true.
Okay, so I take her home and actually I had picked her up and then I took her back to her apartment where her friends were word sick about her, or her roommates, and so she wasn't texting him or anything during the whole time.
But anyway, so she's actually in grad school at this point, studying psychotherapy, basically, and
She studied, and this is actually kind of important to note, she studied, uh, her specialty was for sexually maladaptive youth and ends up working later at a place.
I don't, I don't know what that phrase means.
Oh, uh, basically kids who have either like young kids under the age of 13 who have either been, um, uh, molested or have,
molested other kids or both well usually both actually but she used to call me on the way home every day and tell me stories so usually it's both issues and so um let me see so that's what she was getting a very pretty woman with no boundaries who's got maybe a drug problem and whose specialty is
Victims and perpetrators of sexual abuse.
Yeah.
Okay.
Actually, we can get into her childhood then at this point, which I, okay.
Um, I can't remember the test that you always referenced.
I can't remember what it's called, but it's the scale of one to 10.
The adverse childhood experience test, the ACE test?
Yeah.
Yes.
He would score about a nine, maybe a 10.
I can't remember what 10 is, but I think.
About as bad as it can be, right?
I mean, about as bad as it can be.
And when did you find that out over the course of dating her?
Yeah, about two or three months in, she kind of wanted to have a talk with me about, um, cause something had happened.
It was her, her father that, um,
That helped her choose the path of the sexual and maladaptive abuse study and he was in prison but something had happened and she wanted to talk to me about it and that's whenever she told me about it and I knew at the time that this is like major red flag zone but you know well I
I will admit, um, so I, I, I listened, I have listened to your podcast pretty much, I think since you were recording, I think on your phone in your car.
Yeah, no, don't, don't tell me that though.
Well, no, no, no, no, don't tell me that.
Why, why do I not want to hear that?
Well, because the re the reason I had stopped listening for a long time and I had started to kind of self delude.
Oh, okay, okay, so you withdrew from philosophy and fell off a cliff.
Okay, got it.
I did.
That's okay then, not that that's great, but I can... No, no, but it was... Whenever I stopped listening, it was more... I don't actually know why, but it was like I went into a deep pit and just floundered there for three or four years.
Yeah, no, like, cutting philosophy out of your life is like turning the engines off on your airplane.
I mean, you'll still fly, I guess, for a while, but you're kind of heading in one general direction.
Yeah, yeah, that is, that, yeah, that's true.
And that's what, uh, well, I'll continue, but yeah, I didn't want you to think that I was listening to you during this because, like, you've always provided kind of a
I don't know.
It's hard to explain, actually.
It encouraged me to read other things and to study.
And whenever I cut it off, like I stopped, I kind of went down that dark journey into the woods, as Shakespeare might describe.
So, I had self-deluded myself into thinking I'm going to be the savior of this poor innocent soul.
Not innocent, but that's what I told myself, I think.
And be the rock, be the whatever she needs so that she can correct a lot of the problems in her life.
That was what I was thinking.
So for two years, we dated.
And with this in my head... So you're a proud owner of the magic penis, right?
Uh, yeah.
Healing, healing staff of anti-crazy vaccination.
No, because if you want to save her, you can be her friend, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Right?
You could just be her friend.
But no, you, you, you, I can't save her without the penis.
I must dick her into sanity.
So yeah, I mean, so the savior thing.
Okay.
So what was your thinking about the whole savior thing?
Um, I, I honestly thought, I, I honestly thought to myself that I was, I was so stable in my own morality and my own everything that bringing her into my life fully and being her main and only influence.
Would man that sounds psychotic now that I'm saying it out loud.
That's I didn't Well, that's what I was thinking though, I'll that was me then that I know I can't really divorce me now for me then so much but That was my thinking.
I remember clearly thinking wait, so sorry.
What was your thinking that that you're so stable?
And you have such great people around you that you're going to bring her out of the darkness and into the light.
And in this sort of giant gravity well of your own sanity and health, she will be washed clean of all dysfunction.
Is it something like that?
Yeah, well, yeah, I think so.
That's what happened, though, was the opposite.
That was I lost all those friends.
Like, actually, now that I'm thinking about it, just like you described, I think just
In oh one of the tough one of the shows you did last late last year probably multiple actually, but It ended up me not having friends and it just being me and her And actually and it seemed Good though.
That was but I guess it always probably does seem good, but Okay, was she still in contact with her abusive family
Uh, no.
Well, oh, well, not initially.
She did get in contact with her mother, who... I... I don't think I thought it through entirely until... Well, I wasn't really thinking with the right head, I think, but I wasn't thinking it through entirely, but... Okay, you gotta... You gotta go loud.
You gotta boil... See, you know this story so well... Yeah.
...that you can skip and jump all over the place.
Oh, I'm sorry.
I don't know what you're talking about.
Okay, so she was not in touch with her abusive family, and then she got back in touch over the course of your dating?
Is that right?
Yeah, during the two years of dating, she got back in touch with her mother, who had at the time, whenever she found out that her husband was abusing not just her
Uh, youngest child, but all three of her children, um, they divorced.
He went to prison, but.
And for how long was your ex-wife, uh, molested?
Oh, well, that's the problem.
Yeah.
Three years from what I understand.
And what are the ages?
Uh, she was three whenever it started.
It's fixed whenever it ended.
Her brother would.
That's obviously that's.
Awful and terrible and, you know, massive sympathies, uh, to everyone but the parents.
All right.
Right.
Exactly.
Well, no, and that's what I didn't think about it really until years later, how, how much that implicates her mother.
And of course we were married and all that, but how much that implicates her mother.
Because for three years, her mother had no idea that her husband, that mother's husband was doing these things to the children, which implies a lot of, um, a lot of her inattention, which actually carries over because even during our wedding, her own mother was fairly inattentive.
And I,
There's a lot of things I should have probably done instead of just letting it be.
But, um, but I, why did, why did she get back in touch with her mother?
Um, I think it's because I'm not entirely certain.
I, I think it partially has to do with the urging of one of her, her aunt.
She was still in touch with her aunt who lives in an entirely different part of the country than her mother.
It doesn't really talk to her mother very much, but her aunt gave the, you know, kind of the line of, Hey, you shouldn't ignore your mother like this.
She gave birth to you and all this sort of thing.
And it went from there.
I mean, that lasted for a few months before she finally, uh, I think called her mom and they kind of reestablished a communication.
So if I, if I, this is from my perspective, I think that what happened, I'm not a hundred percent sure.
I think that.
Yeah, that's okay.
I just, just wanted to, but, but the mother was at your wedding, right?
Uh, she was.
Yeah.
Um, cause we got married, um, yeah, September of 2017.
So, so it was before it was really before we got married.
And how long did you date before you got married?
About two years, maybe a little bit more.
And how was that relationship overall?
I'll tell you, I've only had two real serious girlfriends before her and that didn't end up working out, but obviously, but I had never felt so
I never felt so, um, adored or loved my entire life.
Not even by my own parents.
I'm not anticipating my throat going completely dry.
So I, yeah, I did not anticipate, but it was, I, but it was a kind of devotion that was like, I was the only person in her world.
And I knew that probably wasn't healthy, but I also was a very, very selfish person as well at that point.
Maybe I still am.
Sorry, again, you're, you're telling me all of these conclusions with no facts.
I just completely zoned out.
When I was selfish, I was this, I was that.
It's like, I still don't know any of the facts, right?
Well, so like, I would wait.
So initially, um, whenever we, oh, you probably should know this.
Um, so she did move in with me before we got married.
Um, and initially she didn't have a job because she was still finishing up an unpaid internship and then she'll get a job with that company after.
And.
The internship wasn't very much, so she would stay home and, like, she'd clean and do, like, cook before I got home.
I worked at a warehouse at this point, though.
Shortly after we started dating, I upgraded my job.
I quit at the smoke shop and went to a warehouse, making quite a bit more money.
But she didn't really have any friends outside of me at that point, because all of her friends were college friends that all flew back home around the country.
So it was just me and her for about two or three years.
I mean, she had some work.
They would be friends, I guess, but we never hung out with them outside of
We're really not initially.
Um, so I guess to describe the relationship though, it is one in which I had her full attention at all times.
As soon as I got off work, it was just me and her until I went to work the next morning.
And even after we got married and she was working, I mean, she was working at that point for sure.
Um,
After we got married, as soon as I got home, I got home before her.
And she would call me on her way home and tell me about her day all the way because it was like a 20 minute commute.
Or so.
Tell me about all the all the different things.
That happened, and we did that every day for five years, pretty much every working day, of course.
For five years and her four and a half.
um so it was it was one of those kinds of relationships right even though i knew that there were some red flags in the beginning i didn't really see any real problems until the very end and uh we went i mean we took
We traveled around the country.
I mean, during the marriage, we would travel around the country and go to state parks and national parks and go hiking.
We had initially just one dog and then we had two dogs take them out and always got an excuse to go out and enjoy nature and kind of be together.
And that was like the whole goal.
However, she never really wanted, well, instead, she didn't want children, and I wasn't inclined towards children, at least initially.
But, so we didn't really focus on that too much, other than the avoidance of that.
The relationship, I, sorry, when you say the avoidance, you mean the avoidance of like having unprotected sex.
You don't mean you didn't avoid the topic.
You just both talked about it.
You don't want kids, right?
No, about once a year, I would ask her, or maybe more than that, maybe a couple of times a year, I'd ask her if anything had changed because I didn't want to be.
Cause I'm going to be honest with you.
I, it wasn't that I didn't want kids.
It was that I didn't.
I didn't feel the need or the urgency so much to have kids, especially with someone who really, really did not want to have kids, like very much so.
And I was okay with that.
But yeah, so we didn't avoid the topic.
We just used contraceptives.
And she didn't waver in her desire, like she just didn't want kids, right?
No, yeah, no, no, no, she didn't.
And now that does come into play after we got divorced.
She did, from what I understand, at least accidentally get pregnant.
And the text message that she sent me about it, because I asked her, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, unless that kid can walk on water, I don't understand the accidentally got pregnant thing.
Yeah, I mean, you were with her.
Since 2017, and she didn't get pregnant, right?
Yeah.
So help me understand.
I don't know what it means.
What do you mean accidentally got pregnant?
Help me understand that.
I, that, well, I would be mostly speculating, but I was very, very careful whenever she and I engaged in... No, no, women have 15 different forms, sorry, 18 different forms of birth control.
Oh.
If a woman doesn't want to get pregnant, she's not getting pregnant.
Ah, that's true.
And I will say, while we were married, she did go off of birth control because her doctor said that it was what was causing, like, massive cystic acne, like, all over her body.
And not just her face, but everywhere.
And so she went off of birth control, and I just used condoms.
And, and I, you know, I was okay with that.
That was, um,
I'm still not sure what it means that she accidentally got pregnant.
I mean, she had... Oh, I'm sorry.
She had vaginal sex, I assume, without protection, and she got pregnant!
Yeah, that's what... How's that an accident?
Ah, yeah, well, and that's... it is a good point.
Okay, actually, I didn't think to ask that question of myself, or of the situation, I guess.
Yeah, well, and okay, and that's her... that would explain her text then, because she said she never knew
The joy it would bring her.
And she, I don't remember what the text said exactly, but I self blamed at the end of the text slightly, and this is whenever she and her now ex, I guess.
Sorry, I gotta back you up here.
Cause this is the first report of direct communication from her to you.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
So you want to have kids.
She doesn't want to have kids.
She's vehement and insistent and a hundred percent that she doesn't want to have kids.
Right?
And then, after she gets pregnant, she texts you and she says, I didn't know the joy that it would bring me to have children.
Yeah.
Like, bro, if that ain't a stab to the heart and gonads, I don't know what is.
It was horrible.
Yeah.
That's beyond horrible.
Yeah.
That's like, that's like if you're some cheating guy.
Right.
Yeah.
And you break up with your girlfriend or your wife because you keep cheating.
Right.
And then you meet some new woman and then you text your ex saying, you know, I just can't tell you how beautiful it is to be monogamous.
I never had any idea how beautiful it is to not sleep around like a man whore.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
So it's not a high.
Did she, did she have any sense that that would be an incredibly wounding thing for you to hear?
Yeah.
I think so.
I think she must have because.
Boy, I forgot how that made me feel whenever I because this text was a few months ago that we don't talk often, it's every couple of months she'll text me or I'll text her about something and.
I forgot how hard that hit me and.
I think.
I was married to her for five years I should know but I'm not sure because like the way she asked for a divorce was felt so gut-wrenching heartless and out of it I know it wasn't out of the blue but it felt like it was and like it was
It felt okay.
You're off on story time.
Things I don't know about.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
Well, the way she asked for divorce, it's like, I didn't know she did.
Yeah.
Okay.
So why don't you tell me about the decline of the marriage?
When did it start to go bad?
Okay.
So in 2000 and after we'd been together for four and some four years and some months, um, Oh, it would have been in the beginning of the year.
2000 and when did we get divorced?
2022.
So, uh, like January, February, 2022, I noticed that she was pulling away a lot emotionally, uh, quite a bit for the first time in six, roughly six years, six and a half years.
And she had never done that before.
And so it was shocking to the system that she became kind of cold and talent.
And we talked about it and.
Uh nothing she she assuaged my fears and my because of course i'm gonna fear something's up and I don't remember exactly what she said, but um I was okay at the end of that conversation.
I felt like okay Nothing's wrong.
She's just kind of going through a hard time Uh, then about a month later She said she told me that she doesn't think that our marriage is working out just out of the blue like as
And, of course, between the time we talked and then the time she said she doesn't think we're working out, there was still a bit of distance, but I kind of thought... I didn't really understand what the distance was from.
Like, no matter what I did, I couldn't get her to talk about it.
Because I would... She says it directly to another guy, right?
I mean... Yeah, yeah.
That would be the thing.
Yeah, you already know.
That's...
So I didn't know, and that lasted and I, I refused.
I mean, I was, I'll tell you, I was in tears.
You said that lasted, but I don't know about that.
I'm sorry.
Um, so the first time she asked, I just realized I hadn't said the first time she said, we're not doing well and this isn't working.
I just based, I just straight up refused and said, this we're not, no, this is not.
You're going through something.
I don't know what it is, but we're not going to talk about divorce just out of nowhere.
And so she, she got quiet and we didn't talk about it.
And I did not feel good about saying that.
Well, you didn't talk about the problems you were having.
Oh, I didn't want to talk about divorce, but I'd been asking her up until that point about the, like, what is the problem?
Cause I was doing, I felt like, I don't, maybe I, to this day, I still don't know.
exactly what I was doing wrong to push her away or even give her the conception of looking around at other guys.
Okay, sorry, so, but what were the virtues that you loved about her?
What virtues did she manifest that you loved?
She was, well, this is getting so stupid now, because the reason why I married her, the virtues for which I married her were
She was one of the most honest people I knew I had ever met.
Or at least, looking back now, I guess that's how I perceived her.
She was very honest.
I mean, given that she lied to you about your marriage, that's not a virtue, right?
If proven a liar, there's no form of state where somebody's not a liar.
A liar doesn't just sort of grow on you like a tumor.
So, when you were dating her, what was your experience that gave you the thought that she was very honest?
Because whenever we talked about anything, she would never really hold back her opinions.
It wasn't just that, though.
I know that's kind of almost superficial.
I'm trying to think of an example because she was very forthright with, um, if something was wrong, say for instance, this isn't in a specific example, but say for instance, we got a bill, uh, we went out to eat.
No, no, I won't listen.
You knew the woman for seven years.
Don't give me an example.
Okay.
You're right.
Yeah, you're right.
I've been a doctor in the ER for seven years.
Can you give me an example of something you've treated?
No.
But here's something I read about in a textbook once and it's like, what?
No!
Okay.
Yeah.
No, you're right about that.
That's I, I knew before I even started saying the word.
Um, okay.
So she always chose, for instance, um, when I'm sorry, she goes,
I'm trying to think of something specific and... I'm sorry?
Sorry, can you hear me?
I can.
Can you hear me?
Yes.
And I couldn't catch that word.
Oh, the... I said she always chose and then I backed up because that was not a specific example.
That was going to be another general.
Sorry, go ahead.
Oh, OK, you can hear me now.
Oh no, I could hear you the whole time.
I just wasn't sure if you could hear me.
OK, so still waiting for an example of what she did to earn the title.
Very honest.
I'm sure there was.
Okay.
So let's, let's just be honest.
You take that up cause she's pretty.
Cause you didn't want to say basically she was pretty and you know, good sex and I love her on my arm and a good, and there were positive qualities that she had.
Right.
Your sexual dysfunction, like you were molested for three years from three to six by your father who went to prison.
Do you think in particular?
Until two or three months into a relationship?
Yeah.
Yeah, I do.
My father is now in prison.
You don't think that's something that someone should tell you before a couple of months into the relationship?
Yeah, I I yeah my perspective now I think so I at the time I excused it because it's so Uh, not embarrassing but it's it's such a shocking revelation I I guess I excused it in my own mind but
Or why do you think it would be a good thing to say that sooner than later?
Well, so that whoever your prospective date or partner is knows what he's getting into before he bonds to you too much.
Yeah.
I mean,
Especially, I guess, when she was dating you, she was out of touch with her family, right?
Her family of origin.
Most, yeah, for the most part.
Yeah.
Okay.
That's, that's a yes or no question.
Uh, well, no, because her aunt, I mean, she was still in touch with her aunt, but, um, oh, I'm sorry.
You said family of origin.
Yes.
Yes.
That is a yes.
I'm sorry.
Well, I mean, I guess the origin that she was in touch with extended family.
The reason that you would want to know is of course.
You would want to know if somebody had, I assume, had she gone through a lot of therapy for her issues?
Oh, yeah.
Up until the time she went to college, from the age of six to, I guess, 17 or 18.
Okay, so she'd gone through a lot of that.
The reason that you would want to talk about that is, first of all, this is not just the individual.
But it's the gene pool and the family that you're marrying into.
Especially if she's still in contact even with her extended family.
So this is the gene pool and this is the family that you're going to be marrying into.
And this family is blind to a vicious, rampant pedophile right in their midst.
So, you know, that seems kind of important.
And also, of course, that she, it would have an effect, it could have an effect on her reproductive organs.
We don't have to get into any details, but it could.
And it could also, it certainly would have an effect on her parenting style, her desire for being a mother.
And there's a lot that would go on with all of that, right?
Right.
That's true.
Yeah.
Now, when your family, when you're, I don't know, do you have siblings?
I have two sisters, yeah, one older, one younger.
So, when your siblings, your sisters, and your parents found out about your girlfriend's history, what did they say?
Well, my mother was more
More just sympathetic, I guess.
And my mother also had, she wasn't molested as a child, I don't think, but she had a very abusive family growing up, physically abusive and verbally, emotionally.
So she, I think that might be part of the reason why she sympathized very much.
And my dad, he, he and I did talk about it, but he said he would
He thinks it's risky, but he... I know her better than he does, is what he said.
And of course I was... I think I might have still been blind to it.
Well, I was blind to it up until... Sorry, blind to what?
What do you mean?
To the implications of the red flag.
I mean, to the implications of her past.
Until at least a year into our marriage, at least.
Maybe two.
I didn't think about it because I never saw anything come of it.
She seemed, well, she seemed more than stable for what she had gone through as a child.
I don't know about any of that.
You see, these are all just conclusions, and if you're just going to tell me conclusions, there's nothing I can do to help you.
If your conclusions are correct, then you don't need my help.
If your conclusions are incorrect, they don't help the conversation at all.
This is why I'm on my knees just begging you to give me some facts rather than these endless conclusions, which are really alienating and distancing from me.
I've got to listen to you for an hour before I get a scrap of direct communication, which
Telling you how happy she is to be pregnant after telling you for six years that she didn't want to have kids with you, right?
So that's why, like, I mean, dude, please just give a brother some facts.
I just, I'm dying out here.
Okay.
Yeah.
I'll, uh, I'll.
Okay.
So, so you said that she seemed more than stable given what she'd been through, right?
Right.
And that's, that's what, like, I don't, I don't know what any of that means.
I don't know what standard you have.
I don't know, like, how is that relative to a woman who wasn't sexually abused for three years at such an early age, like, whose father didn't go to prison.
I mean, maybe she had to testify in court for all I know, right?
Her siblings were also abused, sexually abused as children.
So when you say, well, you know, given all that she went through, she was super stable.
You understand there's so many variables there.
I can't possibly process what any of that means.
In reality and the other thing to like your credibility to be frank my friend is not super high because you say i said what what were the virtues you love to for you say honesty and i say can you give me an example baba baba no no no no right.
Right one so your conclusions.
Are a suspect, to be honest.
This is why I'm begging you for facts, because I don't trust your conclusions.
Not because you're an untrustworthy guy, but, you know, this is a lot of accumulated experience and scar tissue, and I sympathize with all of that.
But, you know, I keep asking you for facts, and you just keep giving me conclusions that I don't know what the evidence for is.
And when I do finally ask you for the evidence for one, there's none.
Right.
So, your conclusions are just a bunch of noise that's misdirecting the conversation.
So, forget the standard of, well, she was sexually abused, and this, that, and the other.
What were the evidence of stability or instability early on in your relationship?
Early on, especially, I mean, just after six months of knowing her, she never
Had any... And maybe my standard is probably my own mother and the two women I dated before her, but she never had any emotional breakdowns that I could... at all.
What?
Six weeks?
No emotional breakdowns?
That's your standard?
I'm sorry, like six months.
Six months is what I meant.
Six months, no emotional breakdowns.
That's your standard?
I suppose.
Do your sisters, do they also have emotional breakdowns?
Oh my, yes.
Okay, so your sisters have emotional breakdowns, your mother, and what do you mean by an emotional breakdown?
Just like completely losing it, like screaming it, curling into a ball, like what do you mean?
All of the above.
Screaming is one thing, except my youngest sister doesn't scream, she just curls into a ball and kind of disappears.
My older sister and mother both
I grew up with them constantly.
Just any tiny little thing that goes wrong in their life, they, they will, um, make it dramatic, make it something that's just, uh, larger than life and no one can help.
And... Okay.
So they're kind of hysterical, right?
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
That's why I don't... And what does your, what does your dad do in these situations?
So.
OK, it's not funny, I shouldn't laugh, but before.
OK, where do I start?
OK, now he.
He will try to calm her with a calm tone and but.
Oh, like the guy in Jurassic Park, but the Raptors, right, to speak to them in an even tone and try and talk them off their ledge, right?
Yeah, actually, that is a really good, uh, whatever you call it, analogy or simile, I guess.
And yeah, it's, that's what he tries to do now.
I will say, okay, this is where it gets a little hairy because he didn't used to be that way.
He used to take control of the situation and as in he would, he would have a commanding presence.
I don't know actually how to describe
How to describe it, but everyone stood to attention whenever he decided to intervene.
He wasn't not like not.
Not like yelling or anything either.
It was just the tone of his voice.
My mother would instantly calm down, however.
I can't remember what year it was, but I was in fourth grade, I think.
And he.
Cheated on my mother.
He was a preacher, or is still, and so he counseled a lot of people, and I won't make excuses for him, but he did cheat on her, and from that point onward, he was no longer the commanding... No, he lost his authority, and people wouldn't... the women wouldn't defer to him because he was at fault, and
Now, do you have any idea what was the stuff that led up to it?
I'm not excusing him, I'm just, you know, I mean, was it that his... I do.
Sorry, dude, like, I feel constantly rushed in this conversation, do you know why?
I'm sorry.
No, do you know why?
I don't, no.
Because you barely let me get a word in edgewise before you start talking over me.
So you just need to take a deep freaking breath.
Let me talk.
You're here.
You're here for me to ask questions, right?
And to, you know, get some feedback, hopefully.
So you need to calm the F down and just let me talk.
Okay.
Cause I start asking, right.
It's really kind of staticky on my brain.
So, all right.
So do you know if your parents, like
Did, did your mom stop having sex with your dad or like, was there anything that you know that might've been causal in the marriage that might've led him to be more likely to stray?
Yes.
Um, I know because, because my mother told me and the elders of the church told me, um, exactly what happened.
And I'm assuming they're narrators that I can trust, but, um, assuming they're right.
The elders in the church, everything that he wanted to do to help make the church grow and help the community, like reach out to the poor.
That was one thing that the elders were against, if you can believe it, and they wanted to reach out to the more wealthy people in town.
And my dad didn't want to do that.
And so he didn't do that.
He did what he felt was right.
And so they constantly in every meeting that they had for probably two years, just, it was constant abuse.
And my mother initially, I mean, no, no, no, not initially.
She, from the beginning, um, took the side of the elders and whenever he got home,
Sorry.
Well, it's fine.
It's fine to be emotional.
Go ahead.
Whenever he got home.
The fight.
But they were they would have.
Man, I didn't think this this would get me.
Because this is so old.
You know, nothing's old in the heart, right?
The heart is timeless.
But go on.
Okay.
Okay.
Deep breath.
The fights that they would have were so horrible that I would go outside.
No hitting.
They wouldn't hit each other.
But the amount of abuse that my dad took
That's why even though I don't excuse his behavior because he promised her in marriage I understand why I'll tell you that Because everybody around him Broke him down all the way And he told me Shortly after we moved we had to move they stayed together.
They didn't get divorced
And I imagine it's because she had complete and utter power over him.
I don't know, but that's the only thing I can think of why she would stay with him after hearing the things she said.
What do you mean?
What did she say to him?
Oh, she... The... It wasn't just what she said, but she would tell him things like he is nothing.
He's always, uh, she doesn't know why he always has to go against everyone else.
And, but it wasn't what she said.
It was how she said it was.
I mean, even as a child, I was, oh man, it tore me up inside.
That's why I had to go outside every time because.
Like she was just sort of screaming contempt at him?
Oh yeah, it was complete and utter contempt for... I mean, it sounded to me as a child, I mean, from my memory, it sounded to me like she was content with even that he even existed.
I mean, it was... Well, she was probably being worked over by the elders.
Like, you've got to get him to change, it's, you know, the soul of the congregation depends on you.
So, she was probably being whipped into a frenzy against her own husband by outsiders, and was just sort of channeling their hatred, to some degree.
Yeah, that, okay, I didn't, yeah, I actually never considered that.
That's, I have always, well, since then, I have always held my mother at length, like at arm's length, kind of, just because I,
I don't know.
I couldn't really look at her after that.
It's basically what my dad did after to kind of try to make up for it.
I don't know if you can make up for charity, but to make up for, he and I went down, we moved down south without them at first because we bought a piece of property.
Sorry, without your mother?
Yeah, they stayed up in the property that we owned.
Okay, got it.
So that they didn't have to live like we were about to live.
And we lived in a tent for three to six months while we built this property.
Basically built a barn and a house and just me and him.
And then they moved.
I mean, once it was all ready,
My mother and sisters moved, which I don't resent him at all for that because, I mean, I got most of my resilience from those years, I think, of living down south, we'll just say, just from the hardship of waking up in the mornings and working all day.
And, of course, that also had made me bond with my father a lot more as well.
So maybe, I don't know.
Um, what did he say?
I mean, did he talk at all about what happened in the marriage?
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
That's, uh, he, he wouldn't give specifics about some things, but he did.
He, he continually told me, uh, he never, no, he, he would tell me about what happened.
Cause I would ask cause just me and him out in the middle of a swamp basically, cause he bought a piece of property that was like a swamp.
Please, God, just tell me what he said about the marriage.
Oh, I'm so sorry.
I'm so sorry.
I feel like I'm trapped in a Dickens paragraph here.
I'm getting older.
Please just tell me what he said about the marriage.
He would tell me that, um, not to hate my mother because it was what he did was inexcusable.
I heard those words, but I, I don't know.
I heard their fight.
I don't think it's excusable.
No, no, no, nevermind.
I should back that up.
I don't, I do believe what he said.
I believe he believed it was inexcusable and under no circumstances, if you get married, should you ever, and he said, he knows that doesn't mean much to someone who just did that, but he said, you can see
Oh man!
I'm sorry, didn't your father subscribe to thou shall not bear false witness?
Yeah.
So what's he talking about?
I mean, is it not a betrayal if your wedding vows to pour hatred and scorn and contempt upon the father of your children?
Yeah.
Isn't that a more serious break of the wedding vows than having sex with someone outside the marriage?
Yeah.
That is true.
But he's a martyr, right?
He's like, oh, it's me, and it's inexcusable.
Yeah.
So he voluntarily gave up all of his authority because he stayed in a relationship with a woman who held him in contempt.
That's true.
OK.
And you, my friend, are in danger of repeating the exact same pattern.
Oh, man.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
So how old were you when all of this was going on?
What was your age range when all of this?
I think it was around after that summer I enrolled in eighth grade.
So I think you're 14, I think.
So 13, 14, 15, that kind of range.
Um, 13 to 15 was whenever, uh, he cheated.
And how long did his affair last?
I believe it was only about a week, maybe two or three times that week that he went over to prevail.
And it was more than just an emotional affair, I assume it was physical as well?
Oh, yeah.
Okay.
And since then, your mother's held all the power in the relationship.
Oh yes.
And continues to.
Okay.
Okay.
So your mother's still a bully.
Yeah.
And your father, your father models being bullied to his children.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So your mother does not practice the virtue called forgiveness.
No.
No, I, yeah, no.
Okay.
And your, your father enables this, right?
So what, what's your father's story?
Like, how is, how is this a virtuous thing to allow yourself to be bullied in front of your children and thus poison them with this toxicity?
Like, help me out.
Is it just like, well, I made a bow and it's like, is it just, he's just got these abstract rules that he just punished himself with or what?
Ah, actually I believe that's, I think you hit the nail on the head because I've,
Because he and I have talked, uh, about it and about how a man should act after, I mean, after all of this, after I grew up even more, and he always returns to quoting scripture to me, which, well, as a rule set.
And I think maybe, maybe you're right about that.
He,
Well, I mean, the marriage vows are very clear that you don't put other people ahead of your spouse, right?
Right, yes.
And so, if your mother is putting outsiders or church elders or whatever above her spouse, and in fact, insulting her spouse based upon other people's disapproval, she's cheating in a far worse way than having sex a couple of times in a week.
I'm trying to sort of figure this out.
Why did he choose such a hysterical, aggressive, and bullying woman?
Why do you think that was?
I'm not sure.
Because his mother is not that way.
How pretty is your mother?
She was, yeah, whenever she was younger.
Yeah, whenever she was younger, she was a good-looking woman.
Okay, and is she, would you say, significantly or somewhat more attractive than your father, physically?
Oh, actually, no, no.
Oh, he's a good-looking guy, too?
Yeah, that was always her complaint, no matter where we lived, all growing up, that all the women flocked to him.
Her complaint was that her husband was attractive?
Oh my, what a cross to bear!
Poor, poor Jesus, you know?
At least he wasn't saddled with an attractive wife, my gosh.
Way better to drag that cross, get your crown of thorns, but my gosh, having a pretty wife would just, I mean, that's, that's too cruel for anyone.
Yeah.
Oh, oh.
Oh, I see what you mean.
I was laughing and, yeah, okay.
Okay, so he can't be assertive, and why can't he be assertive?
Why can't your father be assertive?
Why can't he say, like, so, because going and having an affair is passive, right?
Right.
Why can't he say, you absolutely never talk to me in that tone.
You made a vow before God himself to put no others above me.
Like, you absolutely will never ever use that tone with me again.
This is absolutely not a thing that's possible.
Have some piety.
And now you need to ask for my forgiveness for using that tone with me.
Oh, that's okay.
Actually, that whole thing went out.
He never actually went.
He did.
He used to often tell her not to talk to him in the way that she's talking to him.
And that whenever she can calm down, then they can talk.
And that worked for most, well no, not most of my childhood, but that worked for about half of my childhood.
But I don't know what was different.
Well, she realized that he had absolutes about staying married, so that all of his statements, or you could say threats or ultimatums, were meaningless.
Okay, that's
Yeah.
Okay.
That makes sense.
I made a vow to stay married.
So, so then he has no leverage, no power.
Yeah.
You know, the restaurant doesn't need to improve their food if they know you're always going to come back no matter what.
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay.
So that's, that's, that's some sort of deep, uh, deep backstory.
Uh, and has your mother ever noticed that you've kept a distance from her since you were 14 years old?
Oh, yeah.
Yes, she comments on it often.
And does she take any responsibility for having attacked your father?
And you, as the only other male in the family, might take that a little freakin' personally?
Absolutely not.
No.
I even confronted her about it one time.
Oh, my God.
All right.
So she is kind of abusive.
She broke your father in two.
She won't take any ownership about her relationship with you.
She has no humility, no Christian forgiveness, no self-knowledge, no virtue, no commitment to honesty or responsibility, right?
Right.
Yeah.
Okay.
So help me understand the big plus of having her in your life.
Good question.
Let me put it another way.
I'm Sally.
The hottest thing
Since the ice, since the Iceland volcano, and I'm a strong and virtuous and humble and wise and direct and honest.
And then I date you and you bring me over to meet my future possible mother-in-law.
And I look and I say, Hmm, I could be spending the next 30 or 40 years with this person in my life.
Oh, am I, am I thrilled about that?
No, not.
Am I excited about that?
Is that a big plus?
And then I look at you and you're like, Oh, she's my mother, man.
I love her.
Now, what does Sally, what do, what do I as Sally think about that situation?
How does that, how does that dangle in front of me?
Like a big plus or a big like, yikes.
Yeah, that would be.
Can't wait for this woman to be around raising my, helping me raise my kids.
Right.
Yeah.
It's not who's in her life, it's who's kept out of her life that matters.
Right.
What did your ex-wife think of your mother?
Well, she was, in fact, how you just described Sally,
Would be very close to not that she was excited.
Actually, I should say he was we didn't talk to my parents for the majority of my Being married because specifically because of that Because she didn't like being around them and I honestly I only like being around them because I like being around my dad, but
Uh, but she really didn't.
But your dad models to you avoidance and surrender.
Oh, yeah.
Okay.
So is it fair to say that your ex-wife met some guy, lied to you about it, and then left you to pursue a relationship with him?
Uh, yes, I believe so.
And you don't have to, she didn't admit to that, but that's what you're understanding.
Um, actually, actually she admitted to, uh, the cheating.
She didn't say anything about going off to be with him, but I just kind of assumed.
Oh, so she did admit that she was cheating on you with this?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Now, of course she knew the story that cheating didn't end
Your parents' marriage.
Cheating on both sides, right?
Yes.
Okay.
So why do you think that she pursued this other guy?
Or to put it another way, how close was she to 30 when she pursued this other guy?
Ah, okay.
She was 29.
There you go!
So why did she end up in a marriage with no children?
Well, you weren't pushing for kids.
Why did she end up
Going to get pregnant by another guy?
Yeah.
Have you not seen Jurassic Park?
Life finds a way!
Yeah, that's true.
It's very true.
Okay.
Yeah.
I will admit- Because your relationship was going nowhere.
I mean, your marriage was kind of going nowhere, right?
Like you weren't doing big charitable works in the community, you weren't having kids, you're just groundhog daying your way through the decades, right?
Yeah, yeah, that's true.
And were you being honest with her, I mean, about whether you wanted children or not?
Were you deferring to her because you didn't want her to be upset?
Were you, I mean, were you honest?
Did you have, and you know, maybe this was the case, maybe this, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but did you want kids, but defer to her?
And you already told me this, by the way, just so you know.
Yeah, I did.
It was a real stab in the heart when she told you how happy she was to be pregnant, right?
I did.
Yeah.
Oh, that's right.
So that means that you wanted kids.
I did.
Yeah, you're right.
And I did defer to her though.
Right.
So you saw your father deferring to your mother and you deferred because that's what you do.
You defer to women, right?
That's the message, right?
You can't win.
They'll just escalate.
They'll leave you.
So there's no bond, right?
Because isn't this your fundamental complaint with your ex-wife?
There's no bond!
Right.
Yeah.
But what was the bond with your parents?
Other than bullying and compliance, that's not a bond?
That's true.
That's how they still, yeah, still are.
Well, on this level of fighting, I mean, you can't, you can't fight with someone if you have a bond.
You might have disagreements or whatever, but you can't fundamentally fight with someone in this contemptuous, aggressive, hysterical way if you actually have a bond with that person.
Right.
I mean, that, that would be like punching yourself in the face.
A bond is we are one flesh.
I would no more fight with you than I would shop in a toothbrush handle and stick it into my own chest.
Right.
I've never fought.
I mean, I've been married 21 years.
I've never.
Raised my voice or fought with my wife in that way.
We've had, we have the occasional disagreements or whatever.
Right.
But it's always handled with respect and right.
Like the idea of just screaming at her.
Like I literally would rather cut the tip of a phalanges off or something like that.
It's not a, not a thing.
Right.
So you had, you have to defer to women.
They run the show.
They're in charge.
You do what they want.
And how did that work out?
The way it feels is she used me until she didn't need me anymore.
And how did she use you?
What did she use you for?
Emotional or in financial stability.
Oh, so you paid, you paid a lot of bills while she was going through school and getting herself started?
Oh yeah.
And she,
The last couple years of our marriage, she actually made more money than me, but I... Oh, man, this is bad.
Oh, no, please don't tell me she made more money than you, but you were still paying more.
Oh, God.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's what was going on.
Right.
Now, if you'd have said, listen, we're not having kids, you're making good money.
I paid the majority of bills for the first three quarters of our relationship.
It's time for you to step up and at least pay half.
It'd be nice, actually, to pay a little bit more, right?
Because you knew that she wasn't bonded with you.
Right.
Because someone who's bonded with you won't wait for you to make that statement, right?
No, she won't.
She won't.
I notice everything my wife does, and it's a lot.
I didn't just come with a pair of magic drawers that fills back up with underwear or whatever.
My wife does a lot in the relationship.
I notice everything and I appreciate everything, and I try to, you know, I do a lot too, so I don't feel like it's exploitive or whatever, and she notices what I do, but if she had been doing a lot in one particular area, I would mention that, point it out, try and find ways to balance things out or whatever, because the last thing I'd want to do is for her to feel that she's been taken advantage of in any way.
So she would sit there and say, she would feel that, wow, that generosity.
She'd thank you all the time.
Thank you for keeping us afloat while I'm doing the school stuff.
And she would make a vow to you, to herself, to God to say, listen, when I, if I start making more money, man, I'm going to give you a break.
I mean, that's bonding, right?
That's taking care of the other person.
That's being sensitive and thoughtful towards the other person.
Right.
But she didn't do any of that.
She just, what's yours is mine.
What's mine is mine.
Right.
Right.
She did eventually start paying some of it, but I think we had already, well I didn't know, but I think she had already separated in her mind from me.
And so she began paying the mortgage, which was still less than half of the different bill that we had generally.
Okay, so what were the virtues, if she were on the call here, what were the virtues that she would say she most loved and admired in you?
Well, actually I have a really good example for that.
Because she talked to my little sister about it.
About how, I shouldn't say blessed, but how much she appreciated how patient I am with her.
And I don't know if that's a virtue anymore.
And what would she say?
And I would say to her, give me an example of his patience with you, and what would she say?
Whenever
Oh, she would.
She had a better memory than me.
She would say anytime that she's extremely frustrated, which happened.
I mean, it wasn't every week, but it happened fairly regularly.
Bring home work stressed and be stressed out and frustrated with me.
I
Well, I guess I learned this from my dad.
I was very calm and patient.
I didn't.
Sorry, what would, what would she do or say when she'd come home stressed and upset?
Would she, would she call you names?
Would she yell?
Like what happened?
She would, she never yelled in our entire marriage.
She never yelled at me, but she, um, would come home and it would be.
Uh, walk in the door in a huff, so to speak.
And if I tried to give her a hug or anything, she, it was, don't touch me.
I don't want to, uh, I don't want content right now.
And then the entire night and into the next day, usually she would just be completely annoyed with everything I do, including, I mean, I remember one specific time.
She was annoyed whenever I was breathing one time, and I don't want that to be an analogy for anything.
You got that right before being poisoned, Fred.
Okay, so she would say, don't touch me, kind of stay away from me?
Yeah, yeah.
And on what grounds did she do that?
I mean, because
Like you, you couldn't provide any comfort to her.
I mean, surely a hug and a foot rub and listening to her, uh, problems would be a big, a big help.
So what, what does that mean?
Like stay away from me, you're breathing too loud or like, what was her justification?
Did she genuinely believe you were being annoying or intrusive?
I don't think so.
I think it was more, she was transferring the stress of
And frustrations from work and her interpersonal work relationships with everyone at work.
I don't know what this means.
What were her justifications as to why this was a sensible good course of action?
Or did she say, I've really got to work on my impatience.
I've really got to work on my snappiness.
I've really got to work on my hostility.
Like stay away from me.
Don't touch me for an entire night and morning is shockingly cold and cruel.
Yeah.
That, okay.
Actually, you say that and she would actually tell me that she needs to be alone because she can't stand to be around anyone, including me.
And, uh, okay.
And if I, and it was, she, she would actually afterwards say, forgive me.
Not during, so I just felt the cold shoulder, but afterwards, would she then try and fix it or, or like.
She would.
Yeah.
For the most part, she would try to repair that she knew.
No, no, no.
Prevent the behavior from recurring.
Like, did she get to the root as to why she wants to be alone when she's upset and figure it out and, and deal with it and reverse it?
No.
And no, she never really did.
She never told me.
And I asked, but she, I, maybe I asked at the wrong time.
I don't know.
It's that.
No, stop, stop.
Man, stop despining yourself.
Oh God.
Oh, it's gross.
It's gross.
Maybe I didn't ask at the right time.
No, you can ask whenever you want.
I mean, human beings that you live with women, they're not bombs to be diffused.
And if you get it wrong and lose an arm, that's your, that's your fault.
You should have cut the red wire, not the blue wire.
You can ask why are you being so cold?
You can ask, I don't, you can say, I don't like it when you are hostile towards me because of what happens at work.
That's unfair.
That's wrong.
That's not right.
Right.
You have the perfect right to assert everything that you want.
Now, that doesn't mean other people have to do it, but you have the perfect right to assert everything you want in the relationship.
I mean, let me ask you this.
Have you experienced it as rude when I've expressed some exasperation at you not answering questions or giving me conclusions rather than facts?
No, not at all.
No, I mean, I'm expressing a preference and I hope that you will go along with my preference.
You don't have to, right?
I mean, I'm asserting what I want and need just in this conversation.
It's not rude or negative.
In fact, I hope you understand it comes from a place of really, really, really trying to help.
Yeah, I do.
I really do.
Okay, so the idea that you're just not asking in the right way... I mean, this is tone bullshit, Frank.
Yeah.
You know, it's like, it's not what you said, it's how you said it.
It's like, nope, I don't care.
I'm not tone policing myself.
So that I can pick some lock that you've created between us.
I'm not going to give you the excuse of tone policing because tone policing is just a way of saying, shut up.
I don't want to hear.
I'm not going to deal with you.
It's like, well, no, you're married.
You have to deal with each other.
I mean, it's not an option to not deal with each other or tone being the tone police or the tone Nazi or whatever.
That's, uh, that's no good.
So this is when you say, well, maybe I didn't ask her at the right time.
And it's like, no, no, no, this is not, uh,
This is not some Mario Times jumping game where you have to get all the right button mashing sequences in order to get through to the truth.
She owes you the truth.
So when did this coldness or this distance or this hostility first emerge in the relationship?
I had actually thought about this quite a bit when the coldness started.
I think it was about two years after we were married.
Really?
I mean, so this is like, what, five years after you, four years after you met?
So for four years, even though you lived together before you got married, for years, for close to half a decade, she didn't have this, I want to be alone, this hostility, didn't have any of this dysfunction, and then it just came out.
Yeah, yeah, it just, yeah, it did.
I don't know if it's,
It was whenever she started, uh, okay.
It's whenever she and her best friend, which we kind of lived nearby, kind of stopped talking to each other and she started, uh, she got a new best friend.
And I mean, I mean, over a span of months, of course, and, um, female friend, uh, at work, uh, who was,
If you stood the two side by side you could tell which one was Had their life together and which one didn't and it wasn't her new best friend um, which I I did express More than once um my concern about I don't know if I should I know I shouldn't oh, she got a mess that best friend He was pouring a bunch of poison in her ear, right?
Oh my yes, I
Okay.
So, so then, you know, you have to say, no, this, you have to choose me.
Like you have to choose me.
Like you made a vow to me, not to some rando at work.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And instead I. You express some concern and then you let it go, right?
Yeah, I did.
I did.
Exactly.
Now, of course the problem is not the best friend.
The problem is your wife, because if the best friend starts pouring poison into her ear,
Particularly about you, what should your wife do?
She should, yeah, she should divorce her best friend, basically.
Oh yeah, like, I'm not, no, I don't participate in these kinds of conversations.
Yeah.
No, no, my husband is wonderful, I love him to death, and I'm sorry that you don't have that, but no, I'm not, I'm not doing that.
Oh, and up until that point, that's actually what I expected, because I had seen her do that to other people, like tell them these things, and man,
You know how good that makes a person feel?
Whenever they say, don't talk about... I am not usually this much of a crier.
Whenever they say, don't... Whenever she told somebody,
Like maybe a year in, there was some guy that, I had gone to the bathroom or something, and as I was coming back, apparently he had said something about me.
And she stood up and told him, you don't talk about him like that.
And, like, whoa.
The feeling that gets you.
No, I get that, but it was unsustainable.
So the big question is, what abstract morals was she committed to?
In other words, what could you call her out on and she would have to surrender?
Right, so for your mother, I mean, if I were in your dad's shoes, heaven help me, if your mother, right, then you'd have to say,
No, you can't speak to me like that, because we made a vow to God to love, to honor, to obey, right?
And even if I have the affair, make the mistake, I have apologized, I have begged for forgiveness, and you have to forgive me now.
I've earned forgiveness, and so you have to forgive me.
And of course, if she's a real Christian, she'd say, well, yeah, I do.
So what abstract virtues
Did your ex-wife manifest that you could, if she deviated from those, you could call her out on it?
And she would have to change her mind.
Like, I mean, you can think of things like I say, I'm an empiricist, right?
So if somebody provides me empirical information, like I had some skepticism about snaggle teeth coming from soft chewing.
And so on.
And I looked it up, and lo and behold, there's a lot of scientific evidence.
So I admitted that on the next show.
And, you know, when I got something wrong about the movie Joker, and I went to watch it again, and I said, yep, you're absolutely right, because I'm an empiricist.
So when people say, look, the evidence goes against what you're saying, and they provide me the evidence, I have to conform.
Obviously, right?
I mean, that's that.
So I mean, there's one of a million standards that people can hold me to.
So what standards
What did your ex-wife have that you could hold her to and she would have to submit to?
Not to you, but to the standards.
To the standards?
She was also... Maybe this is why I thought honesty as a virtue.
She at least gave lip service to... No, no, no.
I mean, everyone gives, who cares about lip service, right?
But what were the standards where she could be in some emotional state and you could say, right, no.
Like, like when she's distant, right?
And you say, what's going on?
And she says nothing.
And you say, no, no, no, look, I know something's going on.
We did promise to tell each other the truth.
Please sit down and tell me the truth.
And she'd say, okay, well, I have to conform to these, these abstract values.
Could you ever reference the vows that you made or whatever it is, right?
Like what, what could you do that would alter her behavior by appealing to a pencil?
That, um, in fact, what you just said, if I, if I laid out,
I had to be fairly structured about it, but if I laid out, say, told her our vows, and told her what we promised each other, then that would, that could, sometimes it would, um, I didn't do it very well.
No, no, sometimes it's not a principle.
Sometimes it's not a principle.
What abstract, hang on, what abstract principles did she surrender her will and autonomy to, and could be called on
And would change her behavior consistently.
Now that doesn't mean perfectly, you know, maybe one in 20 times or one in 10 times, maybe there's a hiccup or whatever, but that's what she aims for.
Well, I mean, she didn't have the abstract principle called loyalty, right?
Cause she was getting trashed by a friend, right?
She didn't have the abstract virtue called integrity or honesty because she cheated.
Right.
So what were the abstract virtues that she manifested?
That was self-generated.
Now, occasionally we'll need reminders of our virtues, but for the most part, particularly by the time you get into your mid to late twenties, I mean, you should have that kind of stuff down.
Right.
I mean, you should kind of yeah.
Right.
So, you know, I respect property rights, you know?
So if I say, I want to go and steal that kid's bicycle, somebody's going to say, wait a minute, that's a violation of property rights.
Oh, yeah, right.
OK.
Right.
So what were her virtues that were self-generated that she had an obligation to conform to?
Because that
The things right off the top of my head are not virtues.
It's she conformed to.
Uh, what'd you call it?
Pure pressure generally.
And by that, I don't mean like, um, that's the opposite of a virtue, but okay.
Yeah, it is the opposite, but I'm trying to think of, I thought maybe if I said that out loud, it would trigger something.
Um, okay.
So let's cut to the chase, right?
There were no abstract virtues that she was committed to.
OK, so you didn't choose her for her virtues, which is why you couldn't think of one before.
Right.
So you chose a woman because she was pretty and sexy and available and attracted to you.
You chose her for kind of base animalistic reasons.
You didn't choose her for her virtues, and lo and behold, she turned out to not be virtuous.
Right.
So fundamentally you chose her and listen, brother, we've all been there.
This is not, I'm not preaching from any high pillar here.
We've all been there, but you lied to yourself about why she was in your life.
You told yourself it was because of her virtues or her kindness or her sweetness or her this or her support.
No, it's because she was pretty unavailable and liked you.
And it's, it's the self-deception that gets us.
You think you've been betrayed.
But you can't be betrayed unless you betray yourself first.
And unfortunately, you didn't have people in your life who could tell you the truth or they chose not to tell you the truth.
What are your sisters and your mother going to say?
She seems a little unstable.
Yeah, right.
Yeah.
What's your dad going to say?
Well, I'm going to defer to you so you can defer to her because I defer to everyone.
Yeah.
Oh.
I'm not laughing because it, well... Don't ask me to make a decision!
That goes against the cult of submission.
So no one, and then, you know, you don't, you don't call me, right?
Because... Right, and I regret that more than...
Anything.
Well, at least you're calling me now, right?
At least you're calling me now.
Yeah, it's a little bit late.
Well, no, actually, I guess it's not.
No, no, it's not too late.
No, no.
You haven't taken custody of another man's child.
Yeah, that's true.
OK, so why is your ex and her boy toy, why are they not together?
What happened?
From what she told me,
It's kind of ironic.
He doesn't really know.
He just left after she gave birth.
How poetic.
Yeah.
So after she gave birth, he ghosted her?
I think they are communicating enough where he can come get his things from her house.
But wait, wait.
So she left you for this guy, right?
More or less.
Oh, no.
Yeah.
Trick out about this part.
She left you for this guy, and then he ghosted her.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Now, how old is the kid now?
Just a few months.
I think October was the first.
Okay.
And who's raising the child?
Is she on mat leave?
Yeah, right now she is.
Yeah, right now she is.
And is there any plan to get child support or anything from the guy?
Or I guess he's gone, right?
Uh, he's gone.
She, she didn't say, uh, I'll just be honest.
She didn't say, uh, knowing her ago, I don't think so.
I don't think she'll.
Okay.
So what is it?
What, what are the, what are the impulses that you have is to go and rescue her again and to raise another man's child?
And you know, after this conversation so far,
Those impulses are starting to tie down pretty hard.
So.
But that was my initial impulse was she.
The text message she sent about it, it was.
She said she was in the darkest place she's ever been.
And I mean, it was basically, I don't know if it was fabricated, but it was a cry for help and my instant reaction.
Well, hang on.
So she said she's in the darkest place she's ever been.
Yeah.
And what else?
I mean, did she indicate that she wants you to do something, or is that kind of implicit?
She didn't directly indicate it, but I think it was implicit.
Yeah, I believe it was.
In fact, I've got my phone right here.
I can tell you.
Sorry.
No, it's fine.
Sometimes I don't know if I can even think wait Oh, um Hold on.
I'm gonna go back one more I have a lot of I wish thought this is her But i've been trying not to think of those thoughts.
I wish I had more words of wisdom I just
Oh no, I'm sorry.
That's also... That was just a... Okay, I'm not going to go through all of it.
She didn't... There's a lot of I-I-I there.
Yeah, that's... She basically said that she regrets... The evil that she has visited upon the world.
She regrets the evil she has visited upon the world?
Because of what she did to me.
Wait, wait, wait.
Has she apologized to you for breaking your heart?
She did, yeah.
And what did she say?
She said that she knows that it's not forgivable.
Of course, I'm the one that will forgive whatever, but she's not forgivable and she can't.
Whenever she told me that she cheated on me, she was telling me that we need to separate because what she did is not forgivable.
And I tried to talk her out of it then and there, but she
told me that she was sorry, and she... I'm sorry, but she was leaving you to be with this guy, right?
Uh, well, at that time, it wasn't to be with him.
It was just to get away from me, and to get away... I'm sorry, how do you, how do you know?
Uh, oh, oh.
Uh... Because she said so?
No, because we, I, we, yeah, she did say so, just not to me.
Um,
We shared email accounts and by default or by extension I had access to oh man this is not a good thing to admit but I had access to her text messages would show up on our computer on the computer the family computer so to speak and so I of course
Red Dome and so she was telling her best friend the one that was not so savory that she needs to stay with her because she can't she's having a hard time living with what she has done and I told well and what ended up happening though was I left instead and I told her to stay in the house and oh this is gonna sound like a bad decision but I went and
Stayed in my sister, my older sister's basement for a while until she finally decided that we were getting divorced.
Sorry, I'm, I'm, if we're going to go into the timeframe of the cheating, I don't like you're really fast forwarding and stopping at a variety of places here that don't make any sense to me.
Okay.
Okay.
So, so let's just, we'll just wonder.
So did she tell you, what did you find out?
No, she told me.
And what did she say?
She said, I'm sleeping with another guy?
Uh, she said she cheated on me.
Um, and that she can't, we're not going to work out me and her because she can't live with the, like, she can't live with what she's done and be with me and face me.
Oh yeah.
Yeah, it was.
Yeah.
I mean, I, I don't feel I, this, I, that, right.
Okay.
So she's lying about all that.
She just wants to go and be with the other guy.
Right?
Yeah.
Okay.
So hang on.
So she tells you she's cheating on you and she says at the same time that she wants to divorce, right?
Right.
Okay.
And then does she, um, there's no negotiation about that.
Is that right?
Oh, no, no.
Yeah.
No negotiation.
That, that's what broke me was.
We always did actually.
I mean, well, okay, nevermind.
I won't go into that.
Okay.
So there's no negotiation.
And then like, I assume you're sleeping in separate rooms or separate beds and then how long until she moves out?
Um, oh, this is the part.
No, you moved out.
I moved out.
Yeah.
That's Anne.
Now, why did, why did she move out?
Why is her shit not all over the front lawn?
Help me understand.
Oh man.
That's something I won't live down.
I don't because I. Believed her whenever, even though now I know I believed her whenever she said we just need space.
Wait, wait, sorry.
Did she say she wants a divorce?
Or did she say you just need space to repair?
Like, I don't understand.
She said, we're not working out.
And I asked her, I guess I didn't include my side of the conversation.
Um, I asked her, what do you mean?
You want a divorce?
And she said, she didn't know.
And now I know she didn't know, but she said, let's take a month apart.
And then we will come back together and decide.
So she's running the whole show here, right?
Yeah, she was running the whole show.
And what did you want?
I wanted her to accept my forgiveness.
I'm sorry, say again?
And to stay.
I'm sorry.
I wanted her to accept my forgiveness.
We don't separate.
I didn't see it as something that we couldn't get over.
Or get past or, you know, work through.
Sorry, what does it mean to work through?
Like, what does she do to earn your forgiveness?
Oh.
Well.
I mean, biblically, are you a Christian?
You're a Christian, right?
No, no, I'm not.
OK.
You were raised that way, though, right?
I was raised that way.
Of course, yeah.
Father's a pastor.
Yeah.
It's like I'm psychic.
OK, but you do you do accept that people do need to earn forgiveness, right?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
OK, so what did she do to earn your forgiveness?
Nothing.
So what does it mean to say that I wanted her to accept my forgiveness?
Like you're chasing her trying to get her to do something when she wronged you this badly?
Yeah, I guess I was.
Oh, man.
So, I mean, look, maybe this is a modern thing, right?
But it seems to me like you just you just don't have any power.
No.
No authority, no power, like all you can do is is beg and plead and cross your fingers and hope and
Pray and... right?
Why?
Why?
Why?
Why do you have no power or authority or...?
I think... what was modeled, I guess... I... I... It was modeled for me growing up, so... I just...
It's easy to not have parents.
No, it's not because it was modeled.
I mean, was hitting children modeled for me growing up?
No.
It's because... I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know how blunt I should be here, to be honest.
I don't know.
You can... You can...
Whatever.
You can be as blunt as you want.
No, no, it's you.
You have to make that decision.
Because it's going to hurt a little.
Okay.
Go ahead.
It's not because of what was modeled.
It's because you got sucked into your dad's noble world of self-pity.
And you can't criticize what was modeled.
But your dad cucks to your mom.
Because you're close to your dad, and you worship your dad, and you can't criticize that.
So it's not because it was modeled to you, it's because you won't criticize it.
Right.
You won't say to your dad, how dare you raise me and our siblings, my siblings, in this cut, spineless, defer-to-everything, have-no-authority, anti-biblical worldview, and you still call yourself a preacher?
Hmm.
You are supposed to be the head of the household!
How dare you give up the ghost and then play victim to me?
How dare you give up any semblance of leadership in this family and demand that I go along with this?
How dare you not encourage me to exercise any authority in my relationships because you're just too damn scared to exercise them in your relationships?
It's not because of what was modeled.
It's because you haven't criticized what was modeled.
I can see that clearly.
He gave up the ghost!
He gave up the leadership.
What's really messed up is, like, deep down inside, I think I already know that, but... And because things are so out of whack in your family, you can't get any good advice.
It's hard to...
I have nobody.
Yes, it is.
Yes, it is.
I think.
That's why I held on to her so tightly.
Because I already knew, I already knew that my dad's dead.
I already knew.
Oh, man.
It's just, it's just hard.
Cause I don't, that's the thing.
I moved away from the town that she's in now.
And I didn't, we didn't get there yet in the timeline, but, uh, I moved away to a town where I know nobody.
Nothing, you know, far enough away.
This one.
I'm far enough away from everyone that I know but don't respect.
But I don't have to be around them.
I still have this mythology in my head.
Listen, this is what I want you to really get is that no disaster in your life is ever singular.
It's never just you.
It's never just her.
It's a community.
Like, we're social animals.
We're social animals.
Which means, you know, our eyes are in the front of our head.
We can't see behind us.
We need people to check us.
We need people to review us.
We need people to tell us the truth.
We need people to watch our backs.
Everything that happened to you happened with the full participation of everyone around you.
Everyone around you is involved in your disasters.
And, and what happens though, is we, we kind of go all singular.
We get all individualistic when we get wounded and we're like, well, I, this, and I should have done that.
And I asked her at the wrong time.
And you know, we just have regrets and we just, it's like, no, no, no, no.
People got to watch their backs.
Everyone in your life, friends.
Immediate family, extended family, everyone in your life who claims to care about you is intimately wrapped up in this mess.
And they are responsible as well.
And in fact, in many ways, they're more responsible.
You know, like if you and I go hunting for boar and we're back to back and you're supposed to be watching to see if a boar attacks us from behind and then a boar mauls us because you were on your phone.
Is that my fault?
No.
Well, it's my fault, I guess, if I keep war hunting with you and you keep getting my legs gouged.
But people have got to watch your back.
Yeah.
It's everyone's fault that this happened.
And yeah, you've got a right to be frustrated, but yourself, I get all of that.
But everyone knows, like, do you know why male sexual desire has gotten so high?
Male sexual desire is a crazy force of nature.
The only reason that male sexual desire has been allowed, evolutionarily speaking, to grow so high is because we're supposed to have a whole bunch of people around us who are going to punch us in the nads if we're heading in the wrong direction.
Yeah.
Like, disable us.
Right.
Well, that would do it.
Take us away!
Oh.
No.
That worked.
Yes.
That she, when she needed someone else more, she went there.
But you went with her out of virtue.
You were with her out of desire and need.
But then when some other guy decided or needed her more, she just goes with that.
But that's the danger of that kind of principle.
You can't trust anyone who's not in your life because of principles.
Because what are they making their decisions on?
Peer pressure.
Some, oh, your wife happens to meet some new friend.
Some new friend has some malign influence.
Oh, she happens to meet some guy who thinks she's super hot.
Well, she'll just gravitate towards that.
Right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And.
I imagine she grabbed that new friend for a reason.
Well, who knows?
Who knows, but you know, her friend, her friend probably latched onto her.
Because her friend wanted to do some damage and saw someone happy or relatively happy.
Oh yeah.
So yeah, her friend, but her friend is like, no, you've got to come for lunch with me.
And you're like, no, you've got to date me.
No, you've got to marry me.
Yeah.
And your mom is like, no, you've got to come spend time with me.
And everyone's just bouncing around off other people's needs.
And, and your, your mom with the church elders,
Is being bullied by them in order to bully your dad, right?
They're sowing the seeds of discontent and hostility and she cheats on your dad with them emotionally and then your dad cheats.
At least that was years.
I assume that that went on for years because your dad only cheated a couple of times with some other woman and then he gets all in the rain of fire and he can't stand up for himself, right?
That's true, yeah.
In every relationship, like, okay, so you're 100% responsible for what you do in a relationship, but nothing in the relationship is 100% your fault.
Right.
Your father encouraged your mother's bullying by submitting to her aggression.
And that's not loving.
No.
That's not caring.
And a child knows that.
If I knew that, then.
Yes, you did.
It's also not loving for your mother to traumatize her children, seriously traumatize her children, by viciously bullying and verbally abusing your father.
That's horrible and selfish and vicious.
Right?
Yeah, very much.
Now, what do you need from a partner?
Well, when she didn't need you, she left.
Now she needs you, and she's half-inviting you back, but without taking full responsibility for betraying.
But you also betrayed her by pretending she had all these virtues because she was hot and available.
Right.
Yeah.
So you need to just commit to abstract standards of virtue and demand that of others.
Everyone.
Everyone.
Yeah.
Everyone who's in your life who's not virtuous is working for your destruction.
Everybody in your life who's not at least hot-footing it after the angels is consorting with devils.
I'm sorry to sound like your dad.
I know that's kind of weird.
I'll tell you what, though.
Well, no, no.
Like, what happens, though?
You cut the non-virtuous people out.
I was just living in my apartment alone at that point.
I mean, I'd have to go out and find somebody.
Obviously, I find people that are virtuous.
But I, man, I looked around the landscape and I meet people all the time.
That was one thing that I was taught as a child to not be afraid to talk to everybody.
And.
But I don't know if I've met very many people that have very many virtues, at least not where I live.
Well, come on, man.
I don't know how intelligent someone is who speaks Japanese if I don't speak Japanese.
So if you're not manifesting these virtues, how are you supposed to find these virtuous people?
How are they supposed to find you?
You look like everyone else!
Oh yeah, that's right.
Man.
That's right.
I remember.
I remember hearing you say this before.
I forgot.
As you probably could tell, I jump ahead in my mind to things too fast sometimes.
I try to jump to the end rather than... And I've been trying to work on that as well, but... So, regarding your ex... Yes.
Pros and cons.
Now, there are pros of getting back together with her.
Oh.
I mean, you're not crazy.
There are pros.
Yeah.
There are.
I mean, you get to rescue the time investment you have in the relationship.
Oh, yeah.
You might get to have you might get to have kids with her now that that ice has been broken, so to speak.
Maybe she'll want to have kids.
You'll deal with loneliness, isolation.
You'll have a sex life again, at least after she gets off to whatever postpartum she's going through or whatever's happening for her.
So, I mean, let's not kid ourselves.
There are some some real pluses, right?
Yeah.
Man, after we've talked, responses aren't sounding as appetizing, or as, that was a bad word to use.
It's fine, it's fine, I get what you're saying.
Now, what are the major things that have made getting back to you with her less appealing?
Well, whenever you ask me what virtues did she have, and I had this whole thought in my head, I mean,
I had this mythology in my head that I realized after you asked that, wasn't true.
And that's why I was stuttering and stammering about it because I, I don't know if she has any virtues.
That's, I don't.
Now she might have learned some through this process.
I mean, sometimes when, when people really baff up their lives, they can get a certain amount of humility.
Out of that and a certain amount of virtue out of that, that can happen.
That can happen.
That can happen, but it doesn't sound like she's there.
I think, I think she still has the vanity that she's simply like, for me, at least for me, like you just, you just have to surrender your will and your ego and your vanity to virtues, like to objective virtues.
I mean, she knows deep down, she did you wrong.
She betrayed you and she completely faffed up her life.
Yeah.
Right, because now she has a kid.
She's depressed.
As she says, she's in the darkest place in her life.
And she left a guy who really worshipped her to have a kid with a guy who's ghosted her.
I mean, that really is about... Did she hit 30 yet?
Uh, yeah.
Okay, so now she's in her 30s and a single mom.
Yeah.
Whereas not a year ago, she was the beloved wife of a loyal guy.
Right?
Like you couldn't have a more accelerated fall from grace if you took a Tesla rocket and pointed it at the center of the earth.
So maybe something like that could give someone real humility and say, holy crap, do I ever not trust myself?
Jesus take the wheel.
I'm clearly making terrible decisions.
I have to figure out why I'm messing things up so badly.
But it doesn't sound, it sounds like she's just taking your father's route of self-pity.
Yeah.
I'm so sad.
I can't believe how much I've hurt you.
I can't this.
I'm so, it's so terrible.
Oh, I, it's just, it's just more narcissistic self-pity in my amateur and humble opinion.
Yeah.
I don't know about amateur, but yeah, that's, I, I think you're, I mean, now that you've laid out,
No, I couldn't think of these things before.
Well, no, that's listen, nobody, no, no, nobody can, nobody can, nobody can any more than we can see out the back of our heads.
Okay.
Yeah, that's true.
No, nobody can, you, you can't, I can't see these things in my life.
You can, I mean, you need the 360 view.
That's why we're social animals.
We, you know, the only reason why our eyes are in the front of our head is we have people to watch our backs.
I'm seriously, I bet this is the only reason.
Their eyes are in the front.
There's a reason why we don't have like.
The non-social creatures often have eyes like the lizards and all this sort of, like they have eyes on the sides of their head.
Cause they don't have anybody watching their backs.
So we we've developed blind spots because other people are watching our blind spots.
So we can really focus on stuff and ignore a whole bunch of stuff.
Cause other people will point it out.
So you don't have those, you don't have that safety net.
You don't have those people watching your back.
So, and neither does, neither does your ex.
Right.
Now I'm obviously bunging in here a little bit, trying to watch your back and all of that, but as far as getting to back, getting back together with your ex, has she, has she groveled in sorrow at what she did to you?
Or is she just so upset that you feel the urge to comfort her?
Uh, the latter.
She's, I think it's more, she's so upset.
She feel the, or, I mean, I feel the urge to comfort her.
Um, everybody who's been around a selfish person has gone through this experience where they upset you and then you point it out and they collapse in on themselves and you end up comforting them.
It's really, it's a really manipulative, shitty thing to do to someone.
You know, like you've heard these, these role plays or whatever, right?
The mom, you did this and that wrong.
Oh, I guess I was just the worst mother ever.
I never did anything right.
And it's like, Oh no, no.
It's like, you got to go come for that person.
It's like, it's a shitty manipulative tactic.
That's incredibly selfish and destructive.
And it doesn't sound like she's just like, I did you wrong.
No defense.
Don't focus on me.
Let's focus on you.
I want to ask you a hundred questions about what I did to you.
Right.
Yeah.
That's.
Yeah, that's true.
She doesn't have any of that.
I did ask her if she was going to therapy, because she also, I forgot that she also mentioned that now she's exhibiting the same characteristics I described my mother and sisters as having, as emotionally flying off the handle.
And I asked her if she got into therapy about it, and she said, yeah, until she got better and stopped.
Wait, when did she start having these meltdowns?
Shortly before the birth of her unborn son.
And this is before the guy left?
Yeah, okay.
Yeah, it was.
So, also, a lot of people have meltdowns because they're battling their own conscience.
Their conscience is trying to yell at them to do something different or better, and they won't listen.
So a lot of times the meltdowns are to cover up an attack of a bad conscience.
And of course as long as you cover it up, and don't deal with it, and don't solve it, the attacks will just get worse.
Like your mother's hostility is in part, her instability is in part because of her own bad conscience.
And you can't fix that in others.
I mean, you can tell them, uh, yeah, you have reasons to have a bad conscience.
Um, but you know, you, you can't, you can't take away the effects of a bad conscience any more than you can.
You can't, you can't heal someone's bad conscience any more than you can digest their food for them.
Right.
And, uh, she's gonna, you know, she's going to have to find some way to
Live with this.
Now, the good news is she'll just talk herself into she was somehow justified, uh, and there was no way to know.
And then she'll just start inventing all the bad things that she can imagine you have having had done.
And then so she'll just talk herself into justification.
So she's not going to suffer that long.
Right.
She'll just lie to herself as most people do.
And, but then there's no recovery.
Right.
Right.
And yeah, that's, that's, uh,
Kind of what I was, I think that may have been what triggered the question in my head of, is this a bad idea?
Because I think the way I worded my email was, it probably sounded like I was asking you to tell me it was a bad idea because I already probably subconsciously knew.
Well, you're just trying to find your, you're trying to fight your way out of gynocentric slavery.
Which is, you know, honestly, this is the default position for men throughout history has been the worship of and enslavement to women.
Yeah.
Because most men didn't reproduce throughout history and women got to pick and choose and we just had to please the women or that was it.
And we can say this is good or bad.
It's just evolution.
It's like saying, well, is it good or bad?
We have two legs.
I don't know.
Just what works, right?
It's just what works.
So we have, and of course now with the family court system and, and all of this allegation stuff and like, it's gotten kind of crazy, right?
Really crazy.
So men are scared and, and I'm not saying that's entirely wrong.
Of course not.
Right.
I mean, I still think it's worth pursuing.
You've got to try and find the right woman, but, and it's pretty simple.
Does the woman have abstract moral standards that she submits to independent of you?
Right.
Does she have abstract moral standards?
Now, therapy culture doesn't give you that, because it just gives you an eye-me-me-eye wallowing in your own feelings for the most part, right?
But philosophy gives you that, so abstract moral standards that you have to subject yourself to.
But if the woman doesn't have these things, oh, what are your values?
What are your virtues?
Oh, there are this, that, and the other.
Oh, can you tell me, like, tell me a time when it's been really tough for you to achieve that, or tell me a time when you think you failed that.
I mean, you know, these are all reasonable filtering questions to ask someone.
And if it's, you know, if it's just general goop of like, well, you know, I try to be thoughtful and considerate and nice and this is like, you know, come on.
That's not a, that's not a moral standard.
That's a Hallmark card.
Right.
So, you know, cause everybody who's, who's got a moral standard has a fair number of scars.
Right.
I mean, I had to tell the truth with reason and evidence of the world got a little beaten up for that from time to time.
So, uh, it's, and it's something somebody with real morals isn't going to be offended by that.
Cause you know, you say, well, what are your moral standards?
Oh, you're saying I don't have any moral standards.
It's like, no, I'm just asking you to tell me, you know, uh, tell me what they are so I can understand where you're coming from.
Cause I, you know, I can't pair bond.
I can only pair bond with morality.
I can't pair bond with emotions or preferences or sex or whatever.
Right.
So pair bonding is only moral.
There's only morals.
That's it.
Cause the only thing that can have you trust someone.
So.
Um, yeah, I mean, so going forward, just filter by, filter by virtues, filter by virtues.
If someone says to me, what are your moral standards and you know, how's it been tough to implement them?
I was like, yeah, I'm, I'll talk about that from here to eternity.
I'm not offended by that.
It's a great question to ask, but you know, people without moral standards will be offended and upset.
And it's like, okay, mom, enjoy your hedonism.
It's a, it's horrible.
So yeah.
So it doesn't sound like she's finding her wise way to.
To virtue, it sounds like she's hurt and wounded.
And when your life messes up, you have to take a long, hard look in the mirror and say, well, what did I do?
What did I do?
And who did I hurt?
Right.
And she knows she's hurt you.
She knows she made exactly the wrong decision.
And it comes down to, does she have the humility and the wisdom to admit that she completely screwed up and did just about the worst thing possible and whatever
Principles or whatever things she's using to guide her life are leading her off a cliff.
Does she have the humility to question that?
To say, you know what?
I'm in a state of absolute self.
It's like I'm in an absolute blank slate.
I don't know anything.
I have to assume I know nothing.
Like that line from the movie, like if all your principles got you
Yeah, well, oh...
Okay, yeah, that's right.
I mean that, I don't mean to sound like a sap, but that was one of my first thoughts whenever she was telling me how low she was, was that poor kid.
I, man, hope.
I don't know.
I, all I can do is hope because I can't, I don't know.
I, that's, I don't want him, that her child to grow up.
In a horrible way, even though it's not mine.
And I know it's not, you know, it's like one of those things.
But at the same time, I don't want any kids to.
That wasn't, it wasn't really.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I don't care, man.
Stop thinking about everyone else.
Oh, like that's the last thing you need to do.
Her kid and her, her life and her happiness.
Right.
Because all that's going to do is attract more narcissists to you.
Yeah.
No, what is your life?
I need your life, man.
You dodged a bullet.
You dodged a bullet.
Now you can run back into the firing range with mariachi sauce on your chest or whatever.
Right.
But, uh, you know, you, you, you managed to, so she had the kid with someone else and, and he, and this is, this is her judgment.
This is her judgment.
Like we don't have better decisions than our worst decisions.
Do you see what I mean?
Yeah.
Like, we don't, we don't say, you know, some guy murdered some guy.
We don't say, well, you know, for most of his life, he didn't kill anyone.
It's like, no, no, that, that bad decision, that's who you are now.
Like, so we don't have better decisions than our worst decisions.
And she pursued a guy out of her marriage, who's a real bastard, right?
Knocks up a woman, ghosts her, then puts all the shit on society.
He's now going to have to, society's going to have to deal with it.
So he's a real bastard, right?
I mean, he's a real, he's a real asshole, right?
A real bastard.
Knocks up a woman.
Well, first of all, sleeps with a woman.
He knows she's married and then, uh, knocks her up and then the bails on her.
So he's, he's a total, in my view, just a total sociopath or whatever, right?
Just totally evil, evil guy.
So that's who she wants.
So that's, that's, that's now her decision.
That's what's defined her life.
And so you.
Got you.
You extracted yourself from someone who makes these kinds of decisions.
Uh, holy crap.
Yeah.
You know, it's like the shark that half chews through the cage and you get back on the boat and you're like, well, it could still be hungry.
I mean, come on.
I got, I got a little muffin top here.
Maybe it'll just chew that part off.
It'd be like lipo.
No, you got out of the orbit of somebody who is willing to make these kinds of decisions.
And this wasn't like some.
No.
Yeah.
No she didn't.
Had that bullet, you know, five bullets, graze, graze your skull.
Like what, what, what neighborhood are you in?
What company are you keeping that this is happening?
And you are not choosing women based upon empirical virtues, not just stated virtues, but empirical virtues.
And as long as you don't have that requirement, you're just always in danger because the only thing that can protect you from other people is their integrity.
That's the only thing life is just as incredibly thin web of.
Catastrophe.
And the only thing, the only thing that keeps you safe around other people is their integrity.
And the only thing that keeps them safe around you is your integrity.
This woman didn't have it.
You didn't have it for most of the relationship.
Hopefully you can get it now.
I'm sure you can.
But that's the, it's just basic self-protection.
The only thing that keeps you safe is other people's virtue and integrity.
And if that's not there, you're just dancing on the edge of a volcano sooner or later, man.
Either something comes out or you go in.
Right.
And that's so.
OK, that's what I and this is the hard part is.
I spent a whole year not working on exactly that, my own personal.
I mean, I guess I kind of did, but not not in.
Well, come on.
I mean, we got to end here because it's almost three hours, but I'll tell you that.
So and as far as like
So why didn't you call me?
Why didn't you call me?
Well, the reason you didn't call me is there's people in your life who want to exploit you.
And they don't want you calling me.
Why did you drop out of philosophy?
Because there's people in your life who don't benefit from you pursuing philosophy.
From you pursuing integrity and virtue and all of that kind of good stuff.
So, again, nothing wrong with that.
It's just a sort of basic fact.
But you say, Oh, well, I spent a year, but that's just you looking at yourself in isolation.
You have to look at, okay, well, why didn't you pursue philosophy?
Why didn't you call me?
Why didn't you?
And that's fine.
I have no problem with the fact that you didn't, but don't just sit there and say, well, I guess I'm just an idiot.
And I guess I just didn't do this.
And I get no, no, no, because there were people in your life who don't want you to pursue philosophy.
Of course, because that's going to cost them.
If you, if you get mad at people who didn't watch your back over this slow moving disaster.
That was fairly predictable from the very beginning.
What are her stated virtues, son?
What are her moral standards?
Is she religious?
No.
Well then, where does she get her morality from?
If she is religious, okay, what moral standards does she actually manifest?
Well, your parents aren't going to want to ask you or grill you on moral hypocrisy!
Of course not!
That doesn't serve them!
So yeah, don't blame yourself.
There are people in your life who want to exploit you and they don't want you discovering virtue.
They don't want you asking tough moral questions.
Of course, right?
I mean, that's, you know, the con man doesn't want you doing a reference check.
That's understood, right?
Right.
Yeah, that's true.
So, yeah, that's most of what I wanted to get across.
Is there anything that you wanted to mention to end here?
Uh, no, no, just thank you.
I mean, thank you for taking my call.
I, like, I can't, yeah, I can't say thank you enough, um, because this helped lay out the entire picture.
I was looking at a corner of an abstract painting and it helped a lot.
That's good.
Well, that's what philosophy does, is it does that major disorienting zoom out.
All right, but listen, can you keep me posted about how things are going?
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, I really, really appreciate your time today and great, great job on the call.
