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July 27, 2024 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:22:11

57, ALONE AND CHILDLESS! Freedomain Call In

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Time	Text
	Hello.
	Good morning.
	How are you doing?
	Good morning.
	I'm okay.
	How are you?
	I'm well.
	Well, listen, this is a very interesting and exciting topic.
	I'm very glad that you're taking your magnificent and noble swing at it.
	Well, thank you for that.
	Do you want to start with just read the message or do you want to just jawbone it?
	What's your pleasure?
	Well, it got kind of broken up when I was trying to send you the message in the first place.
	Normally, what I do is I type it out and then I cut and paste it, but I didn't do that, and I kind of kept getting kicked out of the site, so it's a little disconnected, I think.
	OK, well, then you can just tell me.
	Tell me your thoughts.
	Just jump right in?
	You bet.
	I'm all ears.
	I don't know.
	Childhood's probably the best place to start.
	Did you have an age in mind that you want me to start at?
	Early as you can get.
	Early as you can claw back to.
	Okay.
	Well, I can claw back quite a ways.
	I grew up in a pretty dysfunctional household, I would say.
	A little bit of background.
	My mom was married twice, the second time to my dad.
	The first husband she had was abusive and beat her, so she left him when my brother I was seven years old.
	And then she took up with my dad when I was about a year old.
	But the little catch in there is that he wasn't my real dad.
	There was another man in there that she was supposed to move in with.
	And the day that I was in the hospital being born, he left her for another woman.
	That's the story I got.
	So, sorry, just if we can go over that again.
	So, did your father know he wasn't the father?
	Yes.
	Yeah, he had been trying to date her before she had met my birth father.
	Okay.
	But she took up with my birth father instead.
	Okay, got it.
	Okay.
	Okay?
	Yeah.
	Anyway, yeah.
	So, When I was just over a year old, she ended up marrying my dad.
	And I grew up until I was seven years old thinking that he was my dad.
	Right.
	Well, not thinking, I mean, you, you were told that I assume.
	Yeah, I was told that.
	You didn't make that up out of whole cloth, right?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	No, no.
	But what I found confusing was he was, uh, you know, how, you know, little kids, they need affection and stuff.
	And I would go up and try to give him a kiss and a hug and he'd always push me away.
	Oh gosh.
	So it was confusing, but he always tucked me in every night.
	And my mother, I just thought she hated me from the time as far back as I can remember.
	She used to just look at me like, kids should be seen and not heard, and you know, what do you want?
	And she was not affectionate at all.
	Was that because she blamed you for problems with your stepdad?
	I don't think so.
	Did you remind her of the cat who impregnated her and then wouldn't stick around, or she had to settle for a second best?
	Yes, apparently.
	I look just like him.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	I look just like him.
	That's terrible.
	That's terrible.
	And she used to say that to me when I got older.
	Okay, so what would she say?
	She would say, you look just like your father, and you disgust me, and stuff like that.
	Oh, so she, like, was emotionally completely retarded and primitive and, you know, halfway to hairy, right?
	Yeah, absolutely.
	For sure she was.
	And she told me from, you know, from the time I was probably around 10 or 11, you know, about her childhood and how horrific it was and the things that had happened to her.
	And what did happen to her?
	Uh, well, she was raised in a home with a mother who, who acted like she hated her, uh, with five other siblings and a drunken father who was a high functioning alcoholic.
	He was well-known in the community and yeah, he was in good standing.
	It was a, you know, he, he was successful, but, uh, a bad alcoholic and a diabetic.
	And he died when I was two, I think.
	But she was molested by her brother as well.
	Oh gosh.
	Yeah.
	So she had a pretty horrific child childhood.
	Well, or alternatively, she knows exactly how painful all this stuff is, so the last thing she'd want to do is re-inflict it.
	You would think.
	Yeah.
	Except... Except... It doesn't seem to be the case a lot of times.
	Yeah, for sure.
	Okay, so... Did you ever meet your birth dad?
	Yeah.
	Oh dear.
	Yeah, that's a fun story.
	So, when I was seven years old, And I remember I was seven and I remember exactly where we were on the highway heading into town.
	And she told me, she was telling me the story about how my dad, that I thought was my dad, wasn't my real dad.
	And that we were on our way to meet my real dad.
	Holy crap.
	Yeah.
	And so we got to the house of his parents.
	Wait, wait, how much time did you actually have to, was it a 19 hour drive?
	Or like how much time did you actually have to process this?
	Oh my gosh.
	So that's a straight up sabotage, right?
	So that you're going to be so upset that he's not really going to connect with you.
	And yeah.
	Okay.
	Well, I wasn't really allowed to have any feelings about that because I, you know, she, what, what I had been taught from a young age was that you were to obey adults.
	At all times.
	And even if, you know, if an adult, a friend of hers come up and wanted to give me a hug or something that I, I didn't get to claim any space.
	Like I just had to be obedient and, and, and be, um, willing and kind.
	Except that I, I wasn't allowed to say, you know what, that makes me uncomfortable.
	Like, but, uh, when we got to the house, the, uh, his parents were there.
	Um, and the father had.
	I guess gone drunk the night before to bed.
	And he stumbled out of the bedroom, half naked at about 10 o'clock in the morning.
	Sorry, who did?
	The, uh, the birth father's father.
	We were at the grandparent, my first grandparent's house.
	That's where the meeting was to take place.
	Wow.
	Okay.
	So my mom was a drinker and so she proceeded to sit there with the grandmother and get totally annihilated.
	before the birth father waltzed in in the afternoon.
	And then of course he came up to me and give me a, you know, you know, trying to embrace me and stuff.
	And I just obediently, like I wasn't allowed to, you know, say I'm not okay with any of this.
	Like just, just had to obey.
	Right.
	Right.
	And, uh, it was, it was just utterly bizarre to me.
	Like the, the whole, the whole thing.
	And I, I didn't know what to do with myself.
	It was not a very good day.
	Oh, this is terrible.
	Anyway, yeah, so there were subsequent meetings after that, and what my mom told me later was that she was, because he had abandoned her the day that I was born and moved in with another woman, she was going to get her revenge on him.
	So what she did was she used me to get to him and promised him that they would She was going to leave my dad and get together with him and that we'd live as a family.
	And so he left the woman that he was with, got a house and got everything in place.
	Yes.
	Nice.
	That's that's that mafioso style.
	Yeah.
	She was, yeah, she was a piece of work.
	Um, so, but before this had happened, there was an incident with my dad or my, who I thought was my dad.
	Like I won't even call the other guy, my dad, his birth father from donor or whatever.
	But my dad, I noticed him sitting in the living room one morning when I got up, when all this was going on, and he was crying.
	I'd never seen him cry before.
	And for the first time, he got up and he came to me and hugged me and told me how afraid he was that he was going to lose us.
	And I made up my mind right there that I was never going to go back and see the birth father again, even if it meant a beating or, you know, it just It broke my heart.
	It was too much.
	Tell me what you mean.
	I mean, that's obviously a little suspect if he's not showing any particular affection to you before.
	And then what do you think was going on for him in that moment?
	I don't know.
	He would never talk about it.
	But it just, to me, I just felt like I was being disloyal.
	Right.
	Well, you were kind of being recruited in the battle against the parents on his side, right?
	Yeah, totally.
	Yeah.
	I mean, I didn't understand it back then.
	I was just trying to make the best sense of it I could, you know.
	Yeah, yeah, of course.
	And it always stayed with me.
	But anyway, after that, he started being a lot more affectionate with me when he finally learned of the plan.
	Well, you had utility to him now, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Which is to be an ally in the chess moves or checkers moves against your mom.
	Yeah.
	And he was like, he was super passive.
	Like, you know, it didn't matter what she did.
	You know, he, his first loyalty was still always to her and he just went along with everything.
	And if anybody, you know, as I got older and I started to act out, which I did big time, um, you know, he, uh, I could express displeasure about other things and other people around him, and that was okay, but if I said anything about my mother, that wasn't allowed at all.
	How old were you when your mom did this move of, like, wrecking the other guy?
	Seven.
	Right.
	So I would imagine that your dad was concerned that if he bad-mouthed your mom in any way, that you might be sent as a spy.
	Yeah, maybe.
	I never thought of it that way.
	Like, she's saying, oh, yeah, see if you can get him to say something bad.
	And then you come and, and yeah, well, you know how it plays.
	Then you go back to your mom and, and then she's like, I can't believe you said this.
	Like, you know, like it's a trap.
	It could be, I mean, you live pretty paranoid when you're with aggressive people, right?
	And manipulative people in particular.
	And after he, so how did it play out that your mom was promising a biological dad to be with him and then he left the woman and then she left him and like, how did that play out with your dad?
	With my, yeah, well, I don't really know because I wasn't... He's seven, yeah.
	Yeah, and he didn't say and I didn't, I mean, she tried to fight with him all the time anyway, but I mean, it went as far as her sleeping in hotel rooms with the birth father with me in the room.
	Oh, gosh.
	Now, by sleeping, you also mean having sex, right?
	I would assume so, but I just put the covers over my head and, you know, hid away.
	And then a couple of times she made him take me on his own.
	And he took me to a hockey game one time in our town.
	And that just the whole thing just felt so disloyal and not right to me.
	And I just, you know, I didn't know this person.
	Right.
	You know, I mean, my environment wasn't very stable anyway, so it's not like I felt like I was secure or safe anywhere, really.
	I just went along with it, because I guess I figured that was the best way to keep myself safe.
	Well, I mean, you have no choice.
	No, I really didn't.
	What are you going to do?
	Not go along with it?
	I mean, you're going to get beaten, abandoned, thrown into an orphanage, like, there's no choice there, right?
	Yeah, for sure.
	And I mean, like, later on, when I started really acting out and becoming the rebellious teenager, she would threaten to send me to him.
	All the time.
	You were better off with the guy you called dad than your bio dad, right?
	I mean, if you had to choose, right?
	Yeah, because, you know, even though all this stuff was going on, one thing about it was like my dad, and he told me a lot later on, like he said, mom would drive with me drunk in the car all the time.
	And sometimes in the winter, and he would always lay awake waiting for her to get home.
	And she'd often forget me in the car.
	And like you said, I go out and you'd be there in your car seat.
	She'd be passed out in the house.
	Yeah.
	And this was your mom?
	Yeah.
	So she was a heavy drinker too?
	Yeah.
	And she took me, she took me places with her all the time when she was drunk.
	And I remember falling asleep behind couches and you know, wherever I could lay my head down.
	Wow.
	There were, yeah, there, there were times when, you know, there was this one time I remember there was a guy that she was, there was a gang and them all drinking together.
	And he had a glass eye.
	I had no idea there was such a thing.
	And he took it out in the palm of his hand and shoved it at me and said, I got my eye out for you.
	And it scared the crap out of me.
	I never forgot it.
	But stuff like that would happen all the time.
	So like in a sexual way, you mean?
	No, I don't think so.
	Because there was people around, but no, he just freaked me out that he could remove his eye.
	Oh, oh, I see, I see, okay.
	Hey, isn't this funny?
	I'm traumatizing this kid.
	Yeah, I think he was trying to crack a joke, but I didn't find it funny at all.
	It scared the crap out of me.
	I didn't realize you could take your eye out like that.
	Yeah, yeah, no, I mean, you're basically on a pirate ship at this point.
	Yeah, I mean, it's not funny, but...
	And I assume that there was like, there's no people of any quality in this environment, right?
	There's just no normal, healthy, happy, decent people?
	Or were there a few floating around?
	My childhood best friend, her parents were Christians and they were farmers.
	And they lived a very short distance from my house because I was raised out in the country.
	And I think that they knew what was going on.
	I mean, they had to know what the reputation was.
	They would let me stay over there, you know, as often as I wanted to, and they fed me a lot.
	And I, I just loved being over there because there was such a sense of routine and, and safety, you know, that I didn't have at home.
	And I think that that was a lot of the reason why they, you know, they were trying to give me some sort of refuge without getting directly involved.
	Well, that's good.
	That probably saved your bacon quite a bit.
	So what happened in your teenage years?
	Well, we moved to a different property and we moved up with my dad's parents.
	So we lived with them for a little while while they were building a house on the lake that they were on.
	And they had a farm.
	And I was quite close to my grandfather, not as much my grandmother, but I was quite close to him on my dad's side.
	Until he, you know, I got a little bit older and a little more developed and then he started Touching.
	But up until that point, that was one of my favorite places to be because I've always been a horse lover and he always kept a small herd of horses around and that was like our bond.
	He'd talk about horses and taught me so much about them and I would just sit there for hours listening to his stories.
	So I felt really safe and bonded to him in particular.
	And then I found out later how safe I was.
	When I started getting a little older and started developing.
	And then he started getting free with his hands.
	So that wrecked that bond.
	How far did all that go?
	Just touching.
	And he would even do it when there was people around.
	He'd grab me by the breasts and stuff all the time and by the rear end.
	And people had to have seen.
	Like they had to have.
	And I'd slap his hands away and kind of laugh it off, you know?
	Cause he'd get a big grin on his face, like, you know, like he was just like, he almost like he couldn't help himself.
	Yeah.
	I don't even know.
	Did it come with the usual creepy comments as well?
	No.
	Oh, so just not verbal.
	Right.
	Right.
	Yeah.
	Like he'd go, you know, I'd go, come here and give your grandpa a hug and a kiss, you know, cause I hadn't seen him in a while.
	And then he'd reach out just before I got to him and he grabbed me.
	And then he'd sit me on his lap and then, you know, his other hand was doing things while I was sitting there in front of, you know, family gathering.
	Right.
	And I just saw, I was just so embarrassed by it.
	I didn't really know what to do.
	And I knew if I, I knew darn right well, if I told my mom that she'd probably blow his head off.
	And if I told my dad, they had a very strong relationship.
	So if I told my dad the same thing would happen.
	So I told nobody and I knew my grandmother wouldn't believe me.
	Nobody would believe me.
	They'd just say, well, You know, she's not really of this family, she's just causing trouble because I already had a reputation by then of being a troublemaker because I acted out so much.
	Now, sorry, so this is the same, I'm sorry if I got this wrong, but this is the same man who molested your mother?
	No.
	No, her brother molested her.
	Oh, brother molested her, okay, got it, got it.
	Yeah, yeah, sorry.
	No, no, you made that clear.
	Sorry, I remember now.
	Oh, did I?
	Yeah, no, you were clear about that.
	I'm trying to build this tree of horror in my head.
	I know, it's just all over the place.
	I'm sorry if I'm jumping around.
	No, no, you're doing great.
	There's nothing wrong with the form of what you're saying.
	The content is vile, but that's not your fault.
	And I'm glad you're telling me because that's where you're coming from.
	So, yeah, so, I mean, you have a strong sense, of course, like, of where your allies are.
	All kids need to know where our allies are.
	Right?
	Is anyone protecting us?
	Will anyone believe us?
	We all need to have a very strong and deep sense of that, for sure.
	I mean... I had nobody.
	Yeah, you had nobody, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, and I was so afraid, like, you know, I was so afraid if I told somebody that there would be, you know, somebody would be going to jail, you know, for I mean, of course it was okay for mom to torture me, but if anybody else laid a hand on me, that was different story.
	Right.
	And, uh, and I knew it would destroy my dad and I knew nobody would believe me and, you know, uh, the rest of the family and it would just create this complete, total blow up of devastation.
	And I, I felt unsafe enough.
	I didn't want to make things worse.
	So I think I, you know, I just kind of.
	You know, I became quite a loner as a result, like through high school.
	I didn't really have any close friends or anything, and it wasn't safe to bring anybody home anyway.
	No, no, I get that.
	Sorry, but what happened with your friend who had the Christian farming family?
	When we got into high school and stuff, she was a year younger than me, so we went to school in different locations, like from elementary to intermediate school, and we just lost touch with each other.
	Because I had moved away and I wasn't close by anymore.
	And I think by that point I was acting out so much, I don't think her family really wanted me around.
	Well, but the two might have been related.
	If you'd had a more stable family around, then maybe with more protection, because they'd let you sleep over and you'd get some relief from the horrors, maybe the acting out would have been less.
	Yeah, and I never acted out with people that were nice to me.
	Sure, sure.
	If people were nice to me, I'd just lap it up, you know?
	You know, I was slavishly, you know, full of gratitude towards people like that.
	Oh yeah.
	I made a couple of teachers in school, like even the principal of my school, like he, he, I don't know, I'll never forget him.
	He had such an instinct for, for the kids in the school.
	Like he, my, my desk, I was so bad stuff that my desk was actually permanently residing behind his for almost the entire fourth grade.
	And he would as punch, you know, so-called punishment.
	He would give me book reports to do because I just, I just, I lapped up books like you wouldn't believe.
	And he just, he just kind of, um, I don't know.
	He just had an instinct for that.
	And so he, he was looking for a way, I think, to give me an outlet or something to, you know, or a reprieve, I guess.
	And then the next, he left and the next principal we had after that used to use the strap on us.
	So.
	Now, so hang on.
	So you were talking about how you acted out as a teenager, but grade four is long before that.
	And so when you said you were so bad, and I wouldn't characterize it that way, but when you said you were so bad in grade four, what sort of behaviors are you talking about?
	Um, I just didn't get along with the other kids.
	I would act out towards the teacher.
	Like we had this one teacher who was, everybody loved her.
	And for some reason, I just couldn't stand her because she was just so, so nice.
	So much so that the kids would all, you know, give her a hug and a kiss goodbye.
	Like back when that sort of thing was allowed, they just loved her.
	Like they just, you know, wanted to hold her hand and be near her all the time.
	And I just couldn't stand her and she couldn't stand me.
	I mean, I could, I just picked right up on that.
	And she called my, my mother crying because I outstared her.
	Okay, that's not terribly bad.
	Not like you set fire to an orphanage or something, you stared at a teacher.
	No, but I'd overturn things in the classroom, you know, like, because, you know, it was just, I was so angry.
	I, you know, I get frustrated and I throw things and, you know, and then I get sent to the principal's office and, you know, he, after a while, he'd send me back and then, but the other kids were kind of picking on me too.
	I was really small.
	So I was a really easy target and a couple of the bigger kids started picking on me and And then it would get to the point where it would boil over, and I'd throw things, and I had long nails, and I learned how to use them.
	So if the kids were pushing me around, then they'd get it right across the face, you know, for their troubles.
	So let me go out on a limb here and guess that nobody ever asked you what was going on at home.
	No.
	Right.
	I wouldn't have told them anyway, probably.
	Well, it depends.
	It depends on Whether you would feel that there was a security and a strength and an option to improve things.
	And, you know, the reason why, I don't know, I don't want to speak for you, obviously, but I'm going to guess, and tell me if I'm wrong, of course, but I'm going to guess that, because the question is, like, why were you angry at school?
	I mean, the school weren't doing nearly as much harm to you as your family, right?
	I think I was... Sorry, go ahead.
	I think maybe it was just, you know, the bullying from the other kids.
	Right, but then why wouldn't you get physically angry at the other kids?
	Because, I mean, we all know this, right?
	Like, I mean, if the bully chases you, you turn and punch them, they don't chase you as much, right?
	And if you're willing to use violence at school, like throwing things, turning over things, why not use it against the bullies?
	Now, of course, the fear is that the bullies will escalate, but that fear gets transferred to the adults.
	Because it's the adults who are taking you into their environment, and they damn well should be protecting you.
	Right?
	You weren't expecting protection from home, which I understand, and I understand also that it's really tough for the teachers and the principals to protect you at home, because they're not there.
	But when you're in their house, so to speak, then they owe you protection.
	Or at least they owe you not blaming you for the effects of the abuse you're suffering at home.
	And if they can't protect you against the bullies and they say that you're bad for the effects of being abused at home, then they're terrible people.
	And the problem with that is it takes away hope.
	Because it's like, okay, my family is screwed and they're nasty and vicious and mean and like whatever.
	So my family's a mess.
	But the problem with school is it takes away some hope that you have that you can get out of your family and get into a sane environment.
	Because they don't recognize the abuse, they don't do anything about the abuse, and they just abuse you further.
	By punishing you for the effects of the abuse, you have no control over at home.
	Right.
	So this is how you recognize that your family operates within an entire social structure that enables the abuse.
	So you get abused at home, you go to school, you don't start, as you say, you're nice to people who are nice to you, I guess with the exception of this one female teacher, but you go out of home and you go out, because at home you're like, how on earth are they getting away with this?
	Because all we do is we see shows on TV and like where the cops do this and the,
	you know, various law enforcement agencies and the courts and like everyone's a hero and everyone
	does the right thing and everyone's good and everyone protects and oh, the children, we have
	to help the children. And, you know, if there are children in a raft going down the river, people
	dive in to, you know, protect it to get rescue the children, women and children first in the
	Titanic. Like we grow up with society saying, man, do we ever live?
	We live to protect children, we live to be moral heroes, and you've got a social contract that society protects you, and in return, you obey the rules of society, and there's all of this, and then we're like, okay, but I'm being abused.
	Like, what the hell?
	And so then we go out into society, and the first society we generally go to, and we can understand that extended families probably are as screwed up as our family of origin, like our direct family, but then we go out into the world, we go out into the school, And slowly it begins to dawn on us that all of society's self-congratulatory nonsense about how brave they are, and how much there's a social contract, and how law enforcement is there to protect the children, and, you know, Officer Bob, and, you know, like, they used to show up in kids' shows with a policeman.
	I say, kids, you know, don't do this, and you've got to do that, and you've got to be careful about the other, and it's all about... And then you go to school, and you're like, oh, this is why my This is why my parents are so confident to do what they do.
	Because society doesn't protect us at all.
	It's all just a bunch of propagandistic lies.
	It has about as much truth as Soviet projections of grain surpluses during a famine.
	And so we get mad at the school because it's like, oh, so my family understands society and that's why they do that?
	Because I couldn't figure it out when I was a little kid.
	Like I couldn't feel like my mom's yelling at me and hitting me and all, screaming all over the place.
	Like we're not in the middle of nowhere.
	Like we're right in the middle of an apartment building with paper thin walls.
	Right, yeah, right.
	And I'm going from my mother, I would go and visit my aunts and my dad and extended
	family.
	And I had cousins and I had friends and I went to school and I went to like a whole bunch of different schools.
	I went to kindergarten in one place, I went to primary school in another place, I went to boarding school, I went to the upper grades in another place, then I went to school in Whitby, then I went to school in Toronto, like I was all over the place and everywhere I went.
	It was the same story.
	Same story, yeah.
	Yeah, you are blamed as a child for the effects of being abused.
	Pretty much.
	I mean, the whole peaceful parenting thing made so much sense to me, when I was listening to it, because you just explained that so well.
	So my mother, and this was the embarrassing thing, right?
	I consider myself a moralist, but my mother understood society way better than I did, because I kept waiting for a cavalry that never came.
	And finally, when I began to speak out against child abuse publicly, and in an effective manner, oh, finally the cavalry showed up!
	What a relief!
	And then they attacked me!
	I don't get a laugh, but it's like, we're here to save you!
	And it says the cavalry's right, oh, we're here to save you!
	and it turns out they're talking to the criminals, not you.
	Yeah.
	Yep.
	You're being hacked apart by the Aztec psychos, the cavalry shows up and joins in with the Aztec psychos!
	And you're like, oh, so it's just, we'll be living hell at the moment, right?
	So, I think one of the reasons you'd be... Sorry, again, I don't mean to lay my experience on yours, but I think one of the reasons you'd get mad at school is, so you're here to teach me how to be good, and you won't even protect me from bullies?
	What do you know about being good?
	You know nothing about it.
	I mean, I'm literally being attacked and abused in your house, and then you're lecturing me about responsibility, and punctuality, and don't take, and don't use force, and don't this, and do obey the rules, and the law is good, and it's like, you guys can't even protect a kid, and you're lecturing me about virtue?
	Like, what are you talking about?
	That makes sense to me.
	Makes a lot of sense to me, the way you put it.
	that I would be behaving the way that I was.
	No, I'm not saying you're a criminal, but fundamentally, of course, criminals...
	Oh, that's how you learn them, right?
	They don't respect the law. Well, why don't they respect the law? Why don't they respect
	the social contract? Because the social contract didn't do squat to protect them. In fact,
	the social contract dragged them into an environment where they got bullied, cold school,
	where they were lectured on morality, and almost nothing drives people more crazy
	and aggressive than moral hypocrisy, because you can't reason with it, and it's beyond hope.
	It removes your hope, and when you remove people's hope, they get aggressive, right?
	So, yeah, it's a horrible situation.
	So that's when you said, well, my principal, when I was bad, my principal put my chair behind his or in front of his desk, and it's like, well, you weren't bad, you were just protesting.
	Yeah, I think, I think he kind of got that because he was never like, I was like, if this is punishment, this is heaven because I love to read and stuff.
	And I think maybe he was, that was his way of trying to protect me because back then you didn't get a, you know, you didn't involve yourself in other people's business either.
	Do you know what I mean?
	Oh, that's still the case.
	Yeah, that's still, yeah, I'm sure.
	Yeah, I'm sure it's even, there's even more bystanders now, but, um, it just, I think that that was just his small way of trying to To give me relief from what was going on in the classroom.
	You know, it's so funny because society is all up in your business, right?
	You've got to pay these taxes, and you've got to obey these 10,000 regulations, and you've got to have this piece of paperwork, and you've got to get this license.
	Society's all up in your business telling you what to do.
	You know, 19 hours out of 20, but then suddenly, when it comes to abusive families, everybody takes a giant step and, well, we don't want to get involved.
	It's like, hey, if you don't want to get involved in my life, why am I subject to all these crazy rules?
	Yeah, if you're going to lecture me, I assume you're going to be picking up all my bills.
	Yeah, so that's part of the hypocrisy is that society, you know, like they'll assign you homework, right?
	And then they say, well, we don't want to get involved in your home life.
	It's like, where do you think I'm doing my homework?
	You're already involved in my home life.
	You're already telling me what to do outside of school.
	Society is all up in your face with all these kinds of rules and orders and regulations and laws and taxes.
	It's all up in your face telling you what to do with half your time or more.
	But then suddenly, when it comes to protecting children in abusive households, everyone's like, well, we don't want to get involved.
	I think that shit makes sense.
	What a cop-out.
	I'm such a cop-out.
	I'm still like that.
	I mean, I'm still rebellious in my own way.
	The whole COVID thing, I was like, you can take your jabs and stick them where, you know, where.
	The sun don't shine!
	Yeah, you could possibly know that.
	Don't lecture me.
	Oh yeah.
	And I mean, that was, you know, that was kind of like another test altogether, you know, for everybody.
	You know, I think I passed it pretty well.
	We'll get to that.
	We'll get to that.
	So tell me, because you keep using this phrase acting out and I kind of get what that means in an abstract sense, but I don't know what that means empirically or practically.
	Oh, like details?
	You mean like what I did?
	Well, yeah, because the category as a whole could mean many different things.
	Right.
	Anything.
	Yeah.
	Well, I acted out physically until, you know, probably till I left that school and I spent a very brief stint.
	We moved to town briefly while we were in between houses because my dad was a contractor and he ended up getting shafted by a client and we went bankrupt and lost everything.
	So before we had moved up to where my grandparents were, we spent a brief stint in the local town, which is more like a city now.
	But, uh, so I got yanked out of that school that I had always gone to, you know, and when I went to the new school, I was wishing I'd have been back at the old school because the new school was like, just rampant with bullies and any newcomers, they were just targeted.
	So, you know, my, my, uh, final, Um, six months of school were just, you know, getting beat up every day.
	And.
	Oh, so like real bullies, not like, like, not like taunting, like just beat crap out of you.
	Yes.
	Yes.
	Like the school yard.
	Yep.
	Black eyes, bloody lips all the time.
	There's never one person.
	It was never a fair fight.
	It was always two or three of them on one.
	Wow.
	You know, and I was little, I wasn't very big.
	I'm still small.
	And, uh, yeah, so I was a pretty easy target and they just boys as well.
	Oh yeah, even the boys.
	Oh, so there was no, like, don't hit girls, don't hit, like, there was none of that?
	No.
	It was a free-for-all.
	Wow.
	You know, and the walk home and, you know, to and from school was just horrific.
	And, you know, my, you know, my mom would see me come home with, you know, black eyes and bloody noses and stuff and go down to the school and talk to them and nothing was ever done about it.
	But, you know, I found out later that school was notorious and my older brother had gone there.
	For a while, when he was living with his father, because his father lived right across the street from it.
	Well, of course, the school... That's what made me tough.
	Yeah, I mean, the school is usually paid by the number of attendees, so they don't want to kick anyone out.
	No.
	So, you know, follow the money, right?
	Most people don't have any morals, they just follow their benefits.
	And so, if you look at school and you say, well, if they kick a bunch of kids out for being bullies, well, then of course the parents will file complaints and there'll be lawsuits or whatever it is, right?
	And the school will lose money.
	Like, they literally lose money from protecting children.
	It's crazy.
	Yeah, it is crazy.
	It's so corrupt.
	I mean, I had no idea what was going on at the time.
	The last month of school was actually the safest.
	But what about your dad?
	Because earlier you were saying, and I'm not trying to catch you out on anything, I'm just
	trying to figure this out.
	So earlier you were saying, well, geez, if my parents knew what my grandfather was doing,
	man, they'd go and they'd put a fist in his face and they'd fight like hell to protect
	me.
	They'd get really angry.
	And okay, so your dad sees you getting beat up as a little girl in the school he brought
	you to.
	What the hell did he do?
	He did nothing but, where I can explain that dynamic, because his father was the only person
	I ever saw him be aggressive with.
	I didn't think he was capable of being aggressive with anybody else.
	Only his, only his father.
	And I just, for some reason, I just thought, you know, if that, if that was a bridge to like hit my grandfather touching me would be a bridge too far for him.
	So, Mr. Tough Guy With Your Granddad is seeing his little girl get beaten up in the school he put her in, and he has his wife go down and talk to people?
	Yeah, he just let my mom handle that sort of stuff.
	Well, she was kind of that way anyway.
	She was like, well, I'm in control, I'm in charge, I'll take care of it sort of thing.
	But it wasn't working!
	Yeah, and maybe they thought about it.
	I'm not sure.
	But he never did go down there.
	I know that.
	I'm not talking about going down to the school!
	Right.
	No, she did nothing.
	No, no.
	My mom went down to the school, right?
	Yeah, she did a couple of times.
	Okay, so that wasn't working.
	So what would your father do?
	He'd go down to the bullies' houses.
	Nope.
	Right, and he'd say to the parents, in a nice civilized rational way, Right?
	He would say to the parents, uh, you better not, your kids better not touch my daughter.
	Nope.
	Nope.
	All right.
	Never.
	Okay.
	Never.
	There was nobody like that in my life that would, that would step up for me like that.
	Well, and that's why you were bullied.
	Nobody.
	Like, no, no, that's why you, bullies can smell pair bond.
	Yeah.
	Like they can smell a pair bond.
	They can smell if you have any allies.
	So the reason you were beaten up, it wasn't like, well, your father should have done that.
	It's like, well, your father would never do that.
	That's the only reason you were beaten up.
	Yeah.
	Well, I got smart and I, the last month I was relatively peaceful because, uh, two new girls come in and they come from a pretty, pretty bad area and they knew how to take care of themselves.
	And I made friends immediately.
	Yeah.
	I watched them.
	They have place names if you could, but, uh, no problem.
	Sorry about that.
	No, no problem.
	Uh, yeah.
	They're from a rough area anyways.
	And they, they knew how to look after themselves and I immediately made buddies with them.
	And so they walked me home after that.
	Nobody bothered me again.
	But then by that point, we were starting on the new place back in the vicinity of where I would be going back to school with my previous schoolmates.
	So I didn't have to endure that school any longer.
	Sorry, how did you move back?
	Well, my parents were building a new place.
	They were starting all over from scratch again after the bankruptcy, and they were building a new place, but it meant I would be going back to My old school.
	Not the old school, but I would be going with my previous classmates to the new elementary, or intermediate school, I should say.
	Okay.
	And did your mother work?
	Yeah.
	She was a guard at the jail.
	Sorry.
	Right?
	That's got a lot of layers to it, that job.
	Right.
	The jail called home, and the jail calls work.
	Right.
	She always wanted to be a cop.
	She was really interested in law enforcement.
	Sure!
	Sure she was!
	Right?
	Sure, because she's all about making sure people don't get hurt in enforcing the law.
	Yeah, that's why she... Isn't that bizarre?
	Yeah, well, it's not bizarre.
	They recognize the law is corrupt and they want to use the law to fulfill their own corrupt pleasures.
	Yeah.
	Wow.
	Yeah, so it was...
	After, like, after I had left that school where I was, you know, beaten up so much, then I went the other way.
	It was just quiet.
	I just withdrew right into myself.
	I didn't act out anymore.
	I just went silent, radio silent after that, and just flew under the radar.
	Well, and you basically did what the prison people do, which is you find someone tough to protect you, and that's what you did with the kids who were tougher, right?
	Yeah, I did.
	Yeah, yeah, they were tougher and bigger for sure.
	Wow.
	Yeah.
	So I did that.
	And then when I, you know, when I went back to the other place, I thought I just need to keep my mouth shut, keep my head down.
	So I did.
	That's what I did from then on out.
	Right.
	Did you go the boy's route with the trauma?
	Absolutely.
	All right.
	What happened there?
	Well, when the house was built, um, it was, it was on a late and, uh, there wasn't very many permanent residents around there, but, uh, My cousins were, they were there.
	Like the whole family was basically scattered around that area, but my cousins, they had a cottage there that they come up to.
	Then I had another set of cousins that lived on the lake year round.
	So we were pretty, pretty within close proximity, I guess you could say.
	So they became my buddies.
	Even though, you know, I knew that I could never ever be honest about You know, what was going on and I couldn't act out with them the way that I had done before.
	Um, they were still better than nothing.
	So in the warm months, they were there a lot more frequently.
	So there was, you know, we get to, and it was fun, you know, I could finally had a horse up there and I finally, you know, we did campfires and, you know, singalongs around the campfire and it was far preferable to, you know, the earlier childhood, I guess.
	And, uh, anyways, one of my cousins was very good friends with another one of the cottagers families.
	Uh, the, the girls were quite close and there was, um, a couple of boys and one of them was, um, he was seven years older than me.
	Seven.
	I want to say seven.
	I'm trying to remember.
	Anyway.
	Um, I always thought that he was nice looking and stuff.
	I had a bit of a crush on him and you know, he always would bring these girls up all the time that were really like Trophy girls, like really nice looking girls.
	Like he'd pretty much get anybody he wanted and he had a good job and he had a nice vehicle and stuff.
	So when I was 16, he was 24.
	So did I get that right?
	Yeah, 24 and I was 16.
	And anyways, he had started to show interest in me and I showed it back.
	And the irony was Uh, when my parent was not my dad, but when my mom got wind of this, she asked me about it.
	And I admitted to her that, you know, I, we were interested in each other and I was hesitant to tell her.
	And she said, well, not that I see anything wrong with it.
	And I'm like, okay, well, but my dad was dead against it from the very beginning.
	I keep, but he didn't get a say that was the way that it worked.
	Right.
	And so anyways, this, this got going pretty hot and heavy.
	And, uh, then by the time, you know, I think maybe my mom thought it was allowed or something.
	I don't know.
	I'm not really sure.
	Anyway, um, he started picking me up from school on Friday nights and driving me home and, I mean, sorry, I'm no expert on this, and you don't have to tell me if you don't know, but isn't this an illegal relationship?
	Yeah.
	And didn't your mother want to just enforce the law?
	Yeah, there was no sex.
	Well, she was gone from that job by then, because when we moved up there, she couldn't make the drive anymore.
	No, but she still had that interest.
	That's what drove her approach.
	Yeah, and I don't know what her thought process was.
	Maybe because she was the same way when she was 16.
	I don't know.
	Uh, nobody liked it.
	His parents didn't like it.
	My grandparents don't, and nobody liked it, but she was the only one.
	But as far as I was concerned, if I didn't need permission from anybody else, it was the only, the only permission I needed was hers, you know?
	And his, you know, his whole family didn't like it.
	It was stressful and on them and, you know, but he's a grown man, right?
	Yeah, that too.
	Well, and I didn't even realize that it was illegal at that time.
	As far as I knew, it was just, okay, as long as you're off sex, there's nothing illegal, right?
	Oh, and you didn't have sex, is that right?
	No, we weren't having sex.
	It was heavy petting and that sort of thing, but there was no sex at that point.
	Okay, and so, I don't know the law, but I think if there's not sex, then it's not as bad.
	It's not, and that's the way I, I think that's the way I rationalized it.
	And, you know, he's got this flash car, You know, he's driving up and he's pulling him up in front of my school and picking me up and, you know, I felt like a, you know, hot shit, basically.
	Yeah, I get it.
	You know?
	And I got this, and he's a big guy.
	He's a big guy with lots of muscles and stuff, so, you know, nobody's going to mess with me now.
	Well, you must have been like a doll with his arms.
	Well, I was, because I was, you know, I'm only four foot eleven.
	Oh, right, right.
	Yeah, and he was over six feet.
	Wow.
	Yeah.
	And I don't know.
	I think it was just, I finally got this protector and where it really came around to protection was, um, I ended up, uh, I got really sick right around March.
	So this had been going on from the fall all through the winter.
	And I got shingles on my face.
	And so my mother had taken me to the doctor and they had, uh, They had just said, oh, it's a breakout of acne or whatever.
	But I said, it's really painful.
	Like, it doesn't feel like pimples.
	Like, and it was just on the one side of my face.
	Well, with me being so young, they didn't really twig that it was that.
	Because shingles usually occurs when you're older, right?
	And they're stress related.
	If I know my shingles.
	Yes, yes, they are.
	They are aggravated by stress.
	Anyway, they just kept getting worse and worse.
	Well, the weekend rolled around and my boyfriend said this, this is enough.
	Like I greeted him at the door because On the Friday night and he said that, you know, I'm taking you to the hospital.
	This isn't good.
	So he took me to the hospital and they didn't really do anything about it.
	They just, you know, she's having some sort of a breakout or some whatever and sent me home again.
	Well, then he took me back the next day.
	I had asked my dad if he would take me because normally he was the one that I had asked my when I was a kid and he was the one that always took me to the hospital.
	It was never my mother.
	So I thought that he would take me while he had, he was going fishing with his Ice fishing with one of his friends and my mom was too busy drinking her face off.
	So neither one of them were helping me.
	And I was in a lot of pain with this.
	Like it was felt like my face was on fire, you know?
	And I said, I'm not, I'm not faking like this really hurts.
	Anyways, they wouldn't take me.
	So my boyfriend took me again to the hospital.
	They sent me back home.
	Well, finally on the Monday, he, he went back to, or sorry, he went back to where he was from.
	And, um, My mother finally decided to take me to a different doctor.
	And as soon as he looked at me, he said, take her to the hospital.
	I'm admitting her.
	She's got shingles.
	So, and then I ended up being sent to sick kids.
	So I spent like a week and a half in sick kids with this.
	And so I was kind of like, you know, interns, you know, rolling in and out every day to see me because it was kind of a weird case being so young.
	Right.
	And, uh, Anyway, when I got home from the hospital, they had had me on really heavy-duty painkillers in the hospital and then just took me off them cold turkey, which was terrible.
	So, when my parents took me back home, they informed me then that I was to cut off all ties with this guy.
	Your parents?
	Yes.
	I'm sorry, I'm not quite sure I understand the cause.
	Is it because he got you help?
	I guess.
	No, I don't know.
	Why suddenly?
	How long had you guys been going out?
	We had been going out since the fall, like September.
	So six months?
	And this was March.
	So he helps you and I guess they then feel bad.
	He's made them feel bad because he got you the care that you needed that they didn't.
	So now you can't see him because he's making them feel bad.
	Do I have that something right?
	I think so.
	Yeah, I'm sure that's what it was about.
	Lord above.
	You know, my mom said, well, you know, we just realized that, you know, the relationship could become sexual.
	So we were cutting it off.
	And it's like, well, it should have stopped it in the first place.
	Do you know what I mean?
	Right, right.
	And meanwhile, like, it makes me sick now to think back to that time when I was with him.
	It makes me sick because I know he is a predator.
	Oh, and not only were you 16, but you were a 16 year old who looked 12.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, that makes me want to vomit, too.
	But, but, but, you know, the last thing I'd want to do is justify this kind of predation, and I'm not.
	I know you're not.
	But he did get you help!
	Yeah, finally, the protective adult, right?
	And I know now that was why I latched onto him.
	Well, the predator cared about you more than your parents!
	Yeah, right.
	Wow.
	It led to a very ugly scene anyway, a few nights later, and my mum, she beat me harder than she'd ever beaten me.
	And I went out to the living room where my dad was sitting, and I, you know, I screamed at him, do you want to have a go now?
	Like, she's, you know, she's had her, and she was drunk, of course, and he just stared at me.
	And what does the beating look like?
	Is it with implements, or?
	How does that beating go?
	Just fists.
	Just fists, yeah.
	Yeah.
	She used to use a strap when we were younger, but when we got older, she didn't, she just used her hand to slap and punch.
	Right.
	Um, so I left that night, I left with him and I, I was gone for six months.
	I moved in with him.
	And then of course he took me immediately with the boyfriend.
	Wow.
	Wow.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	I left with him and moved away and, uh, he, you know, took care of me.
	The first thing he did was take me to the doctor and get me put on the pill so that he could start having sex with me.
	And were you still 16 at this point, or had you turned 17?
	Yeah, I hadn't turned 17 by this point, I was still 16.
	Good Lord.
	Yeah, so we just hit it, you know, lied about it.
	Right.
	Yeah, and I was with him for a couple of years.
	Wow.
	And he paid all the bills and took care of everything, but by By the second year or so, I was starting to become pretty repulsed, and I didn't want to be with him anymore, so I started looking for a way out.
	And I ended up living with an ant.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	I ended up living with an ant.
	I ended up leaving him and living with an ant to get back on my feet.
	And what was it that occurred for you with regards to this guy that you were so repulsed?
	And of course, I'm not disagreeing with anything you're feeling, obviously, but what was it that... He gained about 80 pounds.
	Yeah, I was gonna say, something must have happened physically.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, he gained about 80 pounds and just let himself go, like, big time.
	Right.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	And so you began, you know, in a sense, his nature took over from his looks, right?
	Mm-hmm.
	Mm-hmm.
	Yeah, and he was really, you know, he became pretty controlling.
	He didn't really want me around other friends and stuff like that.
	Well, as he gains weight, he's going to want to make sure that you don't notice just how gross this is.
	Yeah.
	And I mean, I was, you know, it's probably about a seven or an eight at that point on a scale of 10, you know, on walks department, maybe a little higher, you know, when I was younger, but I started, was getting attention from younger guys that were more my age.
	And, and then, uh, yeah.
	And then I ended up taking up with my first husband.
	I ended up, uh, yeah, leaving him and started dating my first husband.
	All right.
	So, uh, tell me a little about that.
	Uh, he was a sweetheart.
	But funnily enough, he was just like my dad.
	Didn't matter what I did, I was perfect.
	Oh, so he was passive as well, right?
	Very.
	Yeah, real sweetheart.
	But yeah, very passive.
	He'd just let me do whatever I wanted.
	He came from a similar background.
	His mother was an alcoholic and his father was really passive.
	Right.
	And so kind of at that point, I think I kind of almost became my mother.
	Oh, like he brought out the dominant side in you?
	Yeah, I was really dominant with him.
	But that turned me off at the same time because it was like, you know, in my innate nature, I think I knew, you know, men are supposed to kind of take the lead, you know, to a certain extent.
	And I felt like I was taking the lead.
	And what kind of woke me up to that was one day some guy and we worked together for a while.
	And one guy in the replace of employment called me a filthy name.
	And I stood there and looked at my husband like, are you going to do something?
	And he didn't.
	So I slapped the guy's face.
	Right.
	Anyway.
	Yeah.
	And so that lasted, we were together for two years, married for two, and then I started messing around on them.
	And I became full blown promiscuous after that.
	Sorry, so what was the sort of final straw with your first husband?
	I just didn't feel attracted to him anymore.
	And in my brain at that point, I figured it was all about that.
	It was all about attractiveness.
	You're not attracted to somebody then, you know, and it wasn't like he changed his looks or anything.
	He was a really nice looking guy.
	When I look back, you know, he was nice looking, but it was like I was bored with him.
	Well, yeah, I mean, he's not there, and he's too compliant, so... Well, he was too nice to me!
	I was like, well, you know... Well, no, no, no, I don't think it was a nice thing, any more than your dad was nice.
	Weakness is not nice.
	Yeah, no, it wasn't.
	He just self-erased, because I guess that's how he was raised, right?
	Yeah, of course, yeah.
	And so, but there wasn't a big dramatic thing?
	It was just, like, kinda fading out at you?
	Yeah, yeah, I just...
	Kind of quietly moved out one day and, and, uh, you know, where I worked, we were in the same community cause, uh, it's kind of a, uh, it's a community, uh, the kind of job that we had.
	Um, you can't avoid each other.
	Everybody works in that, that industry.
	So, um, yeah, so I, I just started, you know, dating anybody and going out with anybody and sleeping with guys on the first date.
	And yeah, there was a free for all.
	And what was your age here?
	Uh, I was 23 when, uh, when we broke up.
	Right.
	And you left him, right?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	Got it.
	Got it.
	So then how long did the promiscuous phase last?
	Uh, well, I ended up like, you know, I slept around a little bit and then I ended up dating a guy long-term for a couple of years.
	Seemed like two years was.
	became a kind of the limit for me in relationships.
	It just went kind of from relationship to relationship.
	The second guy was, you know, a little stronger in character, but not much.
	Um, we, you know, off, we kind of, again, I left him, you know, I got bored with them and I left him and then, uh, After that, I took up with another guy that had kids that lasted for two years and I left him.
	Oh, you took up with a guy who had kids?
	How old were the kids?
	Yeah, the kids were five and eight.
	Wow, so that had to be pretty, I mean, that's a pretty big change from these unattached guys, right?
	Yeah, he was about six years older than me.
	But he was a recovering alcoholic and he, you know, he was, and the weird thing of it was, was my brother used to be married to his sister.
	So I'd known him a long time.
	Wow.
	Yeah.
	And I was like, well, the family dynamic didn't work out the first time.
	What was I thinking?
	But it was just, you know, I just figured you had to be in a relationship.
	Sure.
	So, and after him, I didn't have a relationship for quite a while until I met my second husband.
	Hmm.
	Who was again in the same industry as my first husband.
	I never really left that industry.
	It was a harness racing.
	Okay.
	Got it.
	Yeah.
	So yeah.
	Yeah.
	Should have just said horse racing.
	Anyway.
	Yeah.
	And I met my second husband who was from, uh, from down under and, uh, we were married.
	In order to keep him in the country, we were married within eight months.
	Wow.
	Now, now he was an entirely different animal.
	He was the dominant one for sure.
	Oh, Australian.
	Right.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	And he, uh, he was, uh, he'd had a really traumatic experience happened to him.
	And I didn't find out about this until later on.
	I mean, I didn't really do my homework too much with him.
	We just kind of met and, you know, just fell in love and what Felt like love to me.
	And, uh, you know, the thought of him leaving the country and waiting six months to come back, the lawyers just said, how fast can you get married?
	So we just did like a weekend wedding.
	Like it was just a, you know, quick.
	And, uh, he was, uh, I think he had a bit of PTSD or something because he was, uh, he was the kind of person who was an awful lot like my brother.
	Now I can talk about a bit too.
	Uh, I'll get you before you get me.
	Hmm.
	You know, like if somebody looked at him the wrong way, he'd be like, what the hell are you looking at?
	Right.
	Like he, he would have never let anybody touch me.
	Right.
	Like he would have, like he would have stood up to anybody.
	That was the kind of guy he was, but he was grouchy.
	You know, I think he really loved me.
	You know, the bat, you know, he, he would bring me flowers and write me beautiful, um, letters and, and he watched me take care of my mom through a crisis one time.
	And he wrote to, you know, he wrote about that to me and And said, you know, how touched he was, you know, the tenderness I could display and, you know, to see me with her.
	You know, because our relationship was better at that point.
	It wasn't, you know, in terms of fighting and stuff like that, we didn't have that going on so much anymore.
	And she had quit drinking.
	Right.
	OK.
	And your parents, are they still together?
	They're both dead now.
	Oh, OK.
	Uh, but they were, yeah, they were when my father, my father passed away in 2013.
	And I came home from where I was to, to help him look after him.
	But, uh, the marriage again, it didn't last very long.
	I've, I was in the relationship from start to finish six years.
	And before it ended, I took up with another guy.
	Did you ever think of having kids?
	So did you have conversations with these guys about having kids?
	The first one wanted kids, and so did the second one, and I never wanted kids.
	I know now why I didn't want kids, but if I could do it again, I would have kids.
	That's the single biggest regret in my life.
	So what happens with the, I mean, six years, if you're not going to have kids, often six years or, you know, half a decade or sometimes it's even three or four, your body or his body is like, okay, well, if we're not having kids here, that's fine.
	Basically, that's what happened.
	He wanted to have kids and you didn't, so he moved on?
	No, he didn't move on.
	I left him.
	Oh, okay.
	He had just resigned.
	Yeah, he resigned, he resigned himself to the fact that I was never going to have kids.
	So he, and he was, he had accepted that and he knew that when we got married.
	Right.
	It's like, okay, well, I really like them, but okay.
	If you don't want them though, we don't have to.
	Right.
	Um, but he did want them and he was, he was very, very good with kids.
	Like he'd get down on the floor and play with them and stuff like that.
	He had, he was, because he came from a big family who took in foster children.
	So he was very accustomed to babies and little kids and stuff.
	All right.
	I avoided babies and toddlers, like the plague.
	When I was a kid, I didn't like other kids.
	So the last one I took up was the last relationship I had, and it's been since that ended in 2014, and I haven't had a relationship since, and I haven't been with anybody since.
	And what's the story with that last relationship?
	Well, you know, when you say you get red flags, I He was on the other side of the country.
	Yeah.
	And, uh, I knew his brother, um, pretty well.
	Cause we, you know, he was in the same business as my, my first two husbands, we were all in the same business.
	So I knew his brother, he had moved from, from out West to, uh, where, where I am because the, you know, better, better, um, purses and that sort of thing.
	So I used to look after some of his animals and.
	So I knew him and I knew of this guy because he was pretty prolific in that business.
	And so anyway, he was separated and just slightly before I got out of my marriage, we kind of took up online and started a relationship that way and then eventually I went out and I thought I'd died and gone to heaven.
	I thought he was perfect.
	But, spoiler, he wasn't perfect.
	No, as a matter of fact, it was probably the most dangerous relationship I've been in, in terms of emotional abuse, because he was just a champion gaslighter.
	So, tell me the story.
	How did it grow?
	What happened?
	Well, I had gone out several times to see him.
	His job took him on the road quite a bit.
	So it was almost like, you know, you get in the car and you're basically going on a holiday.
	So everything's great.
	You know, it's not like you see them at home and, you know, it wasn't like he was in his house or anything.
	Oh yeah.
	Long distance is cocaine.
	Yeah.
	Long distance is drugs.
	Oh yeah.
	Yeah.
	It totally was.
	Yeah.
	It just totally fell for the whole thing, you know?
	And so I didn't really get to see, you know, I had, we talked a lot.
	So I knew that he had some issues, you know, with this, you know, he was over, Over, uh, how do I put it?
	He was, uh, he was a really, really good dad.
	Um, but I don't think he really knew how to incorporate, uh, a woman into that mix.
	And even in so much as when I finally did move out to where he was to live, um, you know, I talked to his ex-wife and then she confided in me that when the kids were born, He just discarded her.
	It was kind of like, well, I got them now.
	I don't need you.
	And she said, I actually felt jealous of my own kids sometimes because he just never, yeah, a little creepy.
	Yeah.
	But, but I noticed with his daughter, like I, you know, she was 16, 17 and he would, you know, they'd be sitting on the couch together and he'd be stroking her hair and her back and stuff like that.
	And it seemed to me, Weird.
	And I guess I'm just oversensitive to that just because of my background.
	Um, and I just thought it was a little too much.
	And then, uh, you know, I had a pretty good, like I consider that I, I tried very, very hard with the kids and I liked them where, you know, I, I think I grew to love them, you know, um, I had a really good relationship with both of them.
	And, uh, the, the young lad lived with us most of the time.
	And because You know, their mother now has this newfound freedom, you know, she's going on dates and partying a lot and that sort of thing.
	So he felt pretty neglected by her.
	So he really latched onto me.
	And, uh, it actually freaked me out a little bit because he was only eight when I moved out there.
	And so he just, like my ex actually called him like the mauler because he would just basically be in my lap all the time and just want to be right where I was.
	Hmm.
	And his arms around me, and I'd get up out of a chair to walk out of the room, and he'd grab a hold of my leg and make me drag him with me, that sort of stuff.
	And then I thought, what if somebody sees that and they take it the wrong way?
	And so I, I distanced myself from him.
	I didn't realize that it was just normal behavior for a young boy like that to just, it's almost like a crush sort of thing.
	You know, my friend explained it to me later.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	It's desperate.
	But I just thought, you know, and I, I thought it was so sweet and everything, but at the same time, you know, then they got this thing in my brain.
	What if somebody sees that and goes, you know, she's being inappropriate or whatever.
	So then I, I started pushing them away.
	Yeah.
	And it really hurt his feelings, and then he just wasn't the same with me after that.
	Right.
	And I felt really bad for it, because, you know, it wasn't his fault.
	He's just doing what kids do.
	You know, but I was more afraid of what was going to happen to me, you know?
	Sure.
	Which was pretty selfish.
	Well, I get where you're coming from.
	Yeah.
	And there is a risk, and it is, that is a bit, I mean, it's an over-attachment, but I kind of understand where it would be coming from.
	Yeah, I do too, like, you know, and I, you know, I just thought, oh, he just, you know, he's so sweet and he just likes me so much and this is good, you know?
	And then, then one day it was like, you know, he's just right in my lap with his arms right around me, nuzzled right into my neck and I'm like, wait a minute, you know, what if?
	Yeah, no, I wouldn't say it's necessarily selfish.
	Yeah, I wouldn't say it's necessarily selfish, of course, because I can completely understand why there would be concerns.
	And it may not be the very healthiest thing for him to be that attached physically to a woman who basically just moved into his life, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Yeah, I think he was just, you know, missing his mother, you know, because he wasn't seeing her much.
	He was maybe seeing her one day a week and stuff.
	I think then his little brain nuts.
	But I mean, like my Ex was a very peaceful parent.
	He didn't punish him.
	His kids know how much they mean to him.
	He was really loving and engaged and that sort of thing.
	But the girl, like I said, I think that was a bit over the top, some of the stuff with her.
	I don't know.
	Maybe there was nothing to it.
	I don't know.
	But knowing him the way that I know him now, it's... I don't know.
	I'm not sure.
	And I look an awful lot like his daughter.
	Just because it's funny, we'd be out places and people would say, oh, your daughter is so beautiful.
	And I thought, OK, you know, so I made that jump, too.
	And again, I was sorry.
	Was he much older?
	Four years and me four years older.
	Right.
	Yeah.
	So not much.
	No.
	Right.
	OK.
	But he never had time for me.
	It was just, you know, he he took his kids on holiday and left me at home.
	And I mean, I'm in strange place.
	I don't have anybody around that I know.
	And he did that to me all the time.
	He never took me anywhere.
	You know, he took them places, but he would never take me anywhere.
	If I wanted to, if I wanted to be with them, you know, then I could go to, you know, dance recitals and I could go to hockey and that sort of thing.
	And, and even then, like he, you know, he was very involved with the hockey team and that took precedent over me.
	Like everything came before me.
	Wow.
	And so I thought, what am I doing here?
	But you know, I was, he was happy as long as I was chauffeuring the kids around and cooking and cleaning and entertaining everybody.
	And, you know, cause I'm a, I'm a real homemaker that way.
	I'm really good at that sort of stuff, you know?
	And I thought, you know, with, you know, till I got on my feet, um, working, uh, you know, I would do my best to look after things for him, you know, make life easy for him.
	And so I jumped right in, you know, and then after a while, I started to see that I was Kind of getting shoved aside for everything else, and I was like, what am I doing here?
	Which was sad to me because... Sorry, go ahead.
	Sorry?
	Sorry, go ahead.
	You said it was sad to you.
	Sad to me?
	Yeah.
	Sorry, you said... Because I really loved him.
	Yeah.
	I really loved him, but I just felt really resentful.
	And so when my dad got sick and I had an opportunity to come back home to help my mother out with him, I just jumped at it.
	So, and how did things end with this guy?
	This guy?
	Yeah.
	When I came back home to where I'm from, I think what made it easier was while I was helping my mom look after my dad, I took a job at a place, a family-run business.
	And I just made some really good friends there and the family just were so good to me.
	Like it just felt, and I had missed home terribly.
	It was really homesick.
	And so I think it was kind of a culmination of those things.
	I finally had to, you know, I was working for, you know, at a job that I absolutely loved, you know, and they gave me lots of time to help my mom with my, with my father.
	And you know, I was, I don't know, I just felt like I was back home again and that's where I was supposed to be.
	Because I just felt so lonely and isolated where I was.
	Wow.
	Now, what was the, you said the guy was gaslighting, what was the gaslighting aspect of it?
	Like, I care about you, but I'm going on holiday with my kids and not you?
	Yeah, well, there was that, but I, you know, I would say to him, you know, I wish you'd spend more time with me.
	Like, why can't we, you know, go do things together?
	Let's go for a walk, you know?
	You know, you know, I'm amazed.
	Let's go do things together.
	It'd be really, yeah.
	I said, you know, I could, I don't mind doing all this other stuff.
	I'm, I'm happy to do it, but you know, I'd like a date night once, you know, he'd take me out for dinner or something, you know, and, uh, and then he'd say, well, you know, I'm busy and I don't have time and stuff like that.
	And then I, you know, when it would boil over to the point where I'd get frustrated and, and cry or, you know, it just had sheer frustration.
	I know that was probably manipulative on my part, but it would boil over and then I'd get angry.
	And then he'd look at me and say, see, that's why I can't talk to you.
	Look at how you get.
	Right.
	You know, like, and I'd say, he'd forget my birthday and he'd forget to, you know, I'd ask him to pick up something on the way home and he'd do, Oh, I'm sorry.
	I forgot.
	You know, but all the time, like it was just, you know, he was telling me, I remember him saying to me one time, he said, I never get angry.
	You know, I don't know where your anger comes from sometimes, because I'm never angry.
	Yeah.
	You know, everybody loves me.
	Yeah.
	It's never me.
	And do you know why he got divorced?
	I mean, was it his wife saying he puts the kids before him?
	Yeah.
	He didn't pay any attention to her.
	He neglected her.
	And she just, you know, she kept trying to... Same thing as me.
	You know, her and I talked about it, which is kind of, you know, weird.
	But I, I almost grew to like her more than him, you know?
	Yeah.
	And she just loved how I, so good with her kids and you know, like I never tried to replace her or anything like that, but she just, her dad died and I was there for her when her dad died.
	Like I'm the one that drove her to the hospital and stuff.
	Wow.
	Just, you know, and I looked, when I looked at that, I'm like, that's just so wrong on so many levels that I became, you know, Almost good friends with her.
	You know, now he thought it was great because he thought it was good for the kids that we got along.
	Right.
	You know?
	But I don't even know, like, I'm so con... That's a thing, Stefan, that, you know, in my life, I don't even know what's appropriate and what isn't anymore.
	I try to go by, you know, you know, as a Christian, I became a Christian just before I moved out there.
	So that was another thing that he threw in my face because he wouldn't commit to me.
	You know in terms of marriage and it was important to me that we got married and he said well I can't marry anyways because I'm not a Christian and you're a Christian and Huh, like the whole thing was just a mess and even though you know Christian Yeah, well, he was still technically married.
	They weren't divorced.
	They were just they were legally separated.
	Oh, wow Yeah, but he he was still and that was the thing like I didn't understand even as a Christian what their what that meant for me to go out there, because I became a Christian just before I went out there.
	You know, said the vows and everything, and I met them.
	And, you know, I started going to church and stuff.
	He would never come with me.
	You know, in all fairness to him, he didn't, you know, that's not what he signed up for, you know, being with a Christian, because he was, you know, I don't think he was an atheist, but he wasn't a Christian.
	So, I didn't realize that if I'd have known then what I know now, I would have never moved out there.
	Well, he worshipped his children.
	No room for God!
	Yeah, well, there's that, and now that I understand what Christianity means, you don't move in with guys.
	Right.
	I take it pretty serious now.
	I'm celibate now, for all intents and purposes.
	I would never sleep with a guy now before a marriage.
	I just wouldn't.
	Because that's been a pattern my whole life.
	I'm not going to repeat that behavior.
	It's been really bad for me.
	Was it six years ago, did they have that right, that that relationship ended?
	It's 2014, so ten.
	Ten years ago.
	Ten years, and I came back to look after my mother.
	Yeah, so tell me what happened there.
	I knew that she wasn't like with the income and stuff that she had and the kind of bills she had that, you know, she wasn't going to have much really to live on.
	And then she started to get, you know, sicker, you know, just, you know, old age, right?
	Things creeping up and because she had a history, she was a smoker.
	She had been a drinker for a lot of years.
	Now she'd been sober since 1999 at this point.
	So she hadn't had another drink and she took that really seriously.
	Uh, not drinking.
	She'd had a couple of stints.
	What prompted her to stop drinking?
	She just woke up one day and said, I'll never have another hangover again.
	Like, this is, you know, I'm just not, I'm never going to wake up feeling like this again.
	That's what she said.
	That it was the hangovers.
	She just couldn't.
	It was still fundamentally selfish.
	Yeah.
	It was still fundamentally selfish because it was about her and not the people.
	And it's like, I can't hurt the people around me, blah, blah, blah.
	Right?
	No, you're right.
	Yeah, it wasn't about that.
	And she had a tough time talking about that, of course.
	You know, later on we did talk about it, and she did, like, she did, you know, tell me she was sorry for what she'd done to me and my brother during that point.
	So we did have some of those conversations.
	And I know now, like, I would have never, ever, if I'd have found you then, and listened to, you know, these call-ins that I've listened to, Since then.
	I would have never put myself in a position where I was in a position to have to take care of her or whatever.
	But when I came back, I promised that I would take care of her.
	And so I did.
	Where did that promise come from?
	And also, sorry, how ill was she?
	She was getting debilitated enough that it would be tough for her to live on her own.
	She could have done it.
	But she would have had to, she probably would have had to go into some, you know, government assisted housing or something like that, or take in a roommate or something to be able to afford to eat properly and, you know, and live.
	She was in an apartment and of course with, you know, she ended up with my dad's pension.
	She didn't work enough in her life to have a sizable pension of her own.
	Well, and she spent all her money on booze and cigarettes and other things, so she didn't save her money.
	Yeah, so she didn't prepare.
	Yeah, she didn't prepare for her old age at all.
	Well, no.
	She just always assumed.
	She seemed to prepare it.
	Right, so she wrecked her health and didn't save her money.
	Yeah, absolutely.
	And I think she always thought because of her, you know, her health habits that my dad would would outlive her.
	She never anticipated that he would die before her.
	And what did he die?
	He was so much healthier.
	He died of colon cancer.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	He lasted quite a while, but he died at home.
	I was right beside him when he died.
	Did he not have any life insurance that she could lean on?
	Um, he had a little bit, but it was just like a really small term thing.
	You know, just a little bit to get her by and enough to take care of his arrangements.
	He didn't have a big policy.
	I'm sorry, I just, I find this incomprehensible.
	Like, insurance is one of the great innovations of the modern world.
	And it's pretty cheap.
	You buy it young, it's dirt cheap.
	Like, why?
	Is it just general chaos or stupidity?
	Or, like, why wouldn't you just have, you know, spend 50 bucks a month on life insurance?
	I mean, you've got enough money for booze and cigarettes.
	Yep.
	And gambling.
	She, she went to bingo all the time.
	Um, she blew through the savings that they had.
	Oh yeah.
	Yeah.
	They, she had a rich aunt who died and left them, like left them about a half a million dollars and there's nothing left, you know, between, between the spending habits and you know, her spending habits or, or her, uh, bingo addiction and giving money, like throwing money like crazy at my brother.
	Um, cause that's what she always did with him.
	She had to throw money at him to keep him around.
	Uh, that's what, you know, and never, he never paid back any loan that they, they ever gave him, you know, he paid back some of it until he didn't feel like paying back anymore.
	And then he wouldn't pay it back.
	She bailed him out all the time on child support and stuff like that.
	Okay.
	So she had a lot of money and she blew it all.
	Yeah, they blew it all.
	Right.
	Cause even like.
	But she quit drinking.
	It was like, okay, I'm turning over a new leaf now.
	Um, you know, we're going to sell the house and we're going to get a motor home and travel.
	Well, motor homes are a money pet.
	So the equity that they had, they just, you know, they lost it all basically through stupid decisions.
	And my dad just indulged every decision she made that was dumb.
	You know, he was a saver.
	He didn't go out and spend tons of money, but he just never put his foot down, ever, with her.
	Well, sorry, but, I mean, you don't need to be a saver to put money into life insurance.
	I mean, you just make a bill, right?
	No, and you don't need to be a saver when you inherit a bunch of money like that, either.
	No, no, but he knew she was retarded with money, right?
	So wouldn't he get life insurance because he knows that she's not going to retire with much?
	Yeah, he just let her handle all the finances.
	That would be his excuse.
	He would just say, well, I didn't handle the money.
	Okay.
	And so, what were her health issues that required this kind of assistance?
	Well, she had a pretty debilitating back injury when she was working as a guard.
	There was an altercation and she'd gotten hurt.
	But she'd always kind of had a bad back and she had pretty bad arthritis, like her hands sort of didn't work properly anymore.
	So she dropped things all the time.
	She cut herself.
	She burnt herself, you know, just dropping things and mishandling stuff.
	So, I mean, that could just be bad luck, right?
	Some people just get bad luck arthritis, right?
	Yeah, well, it just, you know, when it would flare up, she literally couldn't do anything.
	She tried to knit and stuff like that to keep her hands, you know, mobile.
	Yeah.
	But she just, she didn't look after herself.
	And you know, the doctor would give her a pill and she'd just take anything a doctor handed her, but she wouldn't do anything to, to, you know, improve her health.
	Like, you know, I fed her pretty good and stuff, but it got to a point where it was like, you know, I couldn't get her to eat any healthier than she chose to eat.
	Even though I was, I was pretty much the, like the agreement we had initially was she paid the rent and I paid for everything else.
	And then, uh, You know, we'd moved a couple places and then we decided that we'd just split everything down the middle.
	And so, you know, it was good for me too, because I couldn't afford the places that I was in without a roommate.
	So to me, it was just a kind of a mutually beneficial thing.
	It wasn't like she was tough to look after.
	So we were just more like, it was kind of like a marriage almost.
	And then we'd have these blowups every now and then when she, you know, because I got to a point where I, I didn't put up with crappy behavior and it was weird.
	It was almost like this certain dynamic that took over where she started to cow and I was the dominant person.
	So I kind of laid down the law to her and she would, you know, she became more submissive.
	Now she's a little old lady, right?
	She can't fight.
	Sorry, how old was she when the health issues really began to kick in?
	60s?
	Yeah, around her 60s.
	So it was before my dad got really sick.
	She was having issues then.
	She had COPD pretty bad, but she never quit smoking.
	Oh, she never quit smoking?
	She never did.
	No!
	So you moved in with a smoker?
	Well, she quit when I moved in with her.
	She had always smoked inside, right?
	She'd been smoking since the day I was a kid, so I think that's why I got a few breathing issues now.
	But no, she had quit then because she had to have a hip surgery.
	And the surgeon wouldn't operate on her without her quitting.
	So that was the other reason I moved in, was to help her out, you know, with that.
	And then it just turned into, you know, long-term thing.
	Sorry, did she, so she did quit or she didn't quit?
	She quit.
	She quit for, Like she quit for nine months and then she went back smoking again after her hip was healed up.
	So she's got COPD, she's quit for nine months and she's like, hey, you know what would be great?
	Cigarettes.
	Go back smoking again, yep.
	Wowzie.
	She got a bit of a death wish.
	Yeah, I think in a way, yeah.
	She totally did because the last two years all she talked about was, you know, the way the world was going, she'd be happy to leave it.
	No.
	No.
	Yeah, it's tough.
	It's tough.
	People who've got a bad conscience don't have strong life impulses.
	No, they really don't.
	So what age, sorry to interrupt, what age were you when you moved in with your mom?
	Well, I'm 57 now.
	So that was, I moved in with her in 2014.
	So 10 years ago.
	Okay, so you'd say you're past any possibility of kids and all that kind of stuff, right?
	Oh, yeah, totally.
	Oh, totally, yeah.
	And did you have any baby rabies?
	Did you have any baby rabies in your 30s?
	Like a desire for kids?
	Yeah, yeah, I did.
	With the last guy, I did, yeah.
	You know, especially, you know, when I saw how good of a mom figure I could be, and one of the things that, like, I know you've, you know, briefly touched on this with me in the chats before, You know, and I've always kind of felt like a cautionary tale, you know, to younger girls, but I always got along really well with teenage girls.
	Like I could just, you know, I could talk to them and they'd talk to me and I'm still in touch with some of the girls that work, you know, the young youngsters that were working in the barn and stuff with me.
	And I'm still in touch with them and watch them have families and stuff.
	And, and, and I think because I've had such a bond with the, the The two kids that I was with in the last relationship, I realized, you know, I thought I'd be a terrible mother.
	I thought I'd be the kind of mother that would run away from her kids.
	And I thought I never wanted to put a child through, you know, a mother who acted like they resented them or hated them.
	I thought I can't do that to a kid.
	And I was so afraid I would abandon kids.
	So I just didn't do that.
	I just thought I'd be terrible at it.
	Yeah, how could I have a pair bonding if I never had a pair bonding?
	Although it's biological, right?
	The pair bonding, you really have to work to screw up a pair bonding.
	If I didn't grow up speaking Japanese, how can I speak Japanese?
	But pair bonding isn't like that.
	Pair bonding is biological.
	It's like saying, how can I learn how to have puberty when I never saw my mother go through puberty?
	It's like, no, that's a physical thing, right?
	So parabolic is a physical thing.
	But anyway, sorry, go ahead.
	Yeah, I just, no, it's okay.
	I just, I just, I realize that now, like, you know, and people have said to me, like, it's too bad you would have been a wonderful mother.
	Right.
	You're so nurturing.
	You know, I look after my mother, my biggest tormentor I looked after, you know what I mean?
	In her old age.
	Right, so help me understand that thinking.
	So when did you first start listening to what I do?
	About a year before COVID struck.
	And by then I was in so deep, and when I listened to the Collins, I'm like, you know, I know now, like, You know, if I'd have known then what I know now, I wouldn't have taken the route that I took.
	But I just, you know, I'm a person of my word.
	And I know now that it's weird.
	I don't even know if I loved them, my parents.
	I think I was just so bonded to them.
	You don't know if you loved them?
	I don't know, because I don't know if it's... Sorry, why would you think... Because they weren't virtuous!
	No, but why would you even imagine you loved them?
	Because I was so attached to them?
	Well, okay.
	So, I mean, there's Stockholm Syndrome, there's trauma bonding, there's... You know, you had no place to go and you were lonely, so... But love?
	Well, yeah.
	Tell me what you could possibly have loved about these people.
	I don't know.
	I just thought I did because you're supposed to.
	How could you not love your parents, right?
	You say that to most people and they look at you with horror in their face.
	Especially the people that, you know, and you talked about how your mother was so nice to strangers.
	Yeah.
	And stuff.
	My mom was the same way.
	She never let anybody see who she was.
	Yeah.
	You know, if they did, it was by accident.
	Yeah.
	You know, that makes it worse, right?
	Oh, totally.
	Yeah.
	I know it was just trauma bonding.
	Like, I know that now.
	Like, I understand that.
	But by the time I really realized that, It felt like it was too late for me to extract myself out of the relationship, you know, out of the house, out of the whole thing.
	You know, and we were pretty peaceful.
	You know, it was a pretty peaceful household and predictable.
	And I think I was just so tired of having no predictability in my life.
	And it was safer for me to hide out from dating.
	And yeah, so I just was like, OK, I'm just going to life is peaceful right now.
	And I don't have to sleep with anybody, and I don't have to... I can just go to work.
	I can come home.
	I can do my thing.
	And she left me alone.
	She didn't bug me.
	It wasn't like she demanded that I do this and I do that, and I go here and go there.
	She wasn't like that.
	It just felt harmonious for the first time in so many years.
	But again, I know it's because I was doing what she wanted.
	I was taking care of everything, and she didn't have to worry about stuff.
	And this went on for 10 years?
	I was giving her what she wanted.
	So this went on for 10 years?
	Yeah, yeah.
	And was there no dating?
	No, you didn't do anything with regards to dating?
	No, but you know what, I think I was, I got to, I think I was pretty turned off and then by that point too.
	Right.
	And I just, and I, you know, I wasn't taking as good a care, you know, I'm clean and, you know, tidy and I, You know, wear clean clothes and I care about how I look when I go out and that sort of thing, but I wasn't making the extra effort at all to even attract somebody.
	And did you get any flybys or approaches over the ten years, or were you putting off these signals, like, don't approach?
	Yeah, well, you know, a couple flybys, but the don't approach came on pretty quick.
	And I mean, I had a couple of friends try to set me up, and two days later the guy sent me a dick pic, and I was like, oh, please.
	Like, really?
	And I said to my friends, I said, do you think that little of me that you would... These are your friends?
	That's what I said to them.
	I said, do you think that little of me that you would try to hook me up with a person like this?
	And they were horrified.
	They had no idea that, you know, they just said, oh, you know, he's just so funny and nice and stuff.
	We thought you'd get along.
	So your friends have no judgment.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	Well, so they're not friends anymore.
	The circle has gotten small.
	Right.
	Yeah.
	And so, was your mother's decline, was it sort of slow then, fast, or a steady line down, or how did it end?
	It was fairly steady, and then she had a bout of pneumonia in October, and she ended up in the hospital for, you know, just a couple of days, and she came home.
	And because of her lung issues and stuff, and she had a couple other things going on, Did a full panel of tests and of course they either didn't say anything or they didn't say anything but she just wasn't quite the same like over December and January and then she ended up back in the hospital in February and apparently she'd been having some sort of chest pain and hadn't told me about it because now she was at a point where she didn't want to bug me or worry me, she said.
	Well, she also may have been at the point where life isn't fun and it's not getting better.
	No, she was definitely at that point because she told everybody that, but me, that she didn't want to live anymore.
	Right.
	But she was done.
	She was tired.
	And what did she do over 10 years?
	I mean, she wakes up, you mean?
	Well, she's a real social butterfly.
	I mean, she liked to garden and stuff like that.
	So she, you know, she found and she liked to sit and chat with people.
	So like everybody on her street knows her and because she'd say hello and invite everybody over to sit down and she's And that just became more as she got older.
	She was always more social than I was.
	I was more like my dad.
	My dad wasn't a real introvert and I've always been kind of a loner.
	I had my own fun and I've always been okay with my own company and that sort of thing.
	Crowds wear me out.
	And I thought that was great.
	She's got people she can talk to and I don't have to be her entertainment.
	So it was never like she looked at me to entertain her.
	Right.
	Yeah, and she'd, you know, I'd pick up the flower because the, you know, she didn't drive anymore and she had a car accident.
	And that, oh, that was the other thing that kind of buggered her up a little bit too.
	She'd had a car accident and she, then she just didn't feel confident to drive anymore.
	It wasn't her fault either.
	She got T-boned by somebody.
	And, uh, yeah, so then, uh, But I mean, everybody on the street loved her and I was like, you know, the neighbor used to come over every day because she smokes too.
	And she'd come over like at three o'clock in the afternoon, you know, when it was nice out and they'd sit outside and smoke and chat, have a coffee.
	And so I didn't have to entertain her.
	She'd just leave me alone.
	And she knew like, you know, I come home and I got dinner and stuff.
	We had a real routine.
	Um, So I think what kind of stumped me up too is when she went into the hospital in February, like she just come in that morning and said, I'm having terrible chest pain.
	It was so bad that she couldn't take it anymore, I think.
	So I thought she was having a heart attack.
	So I just did the heart attack protocol, called an ambulance.
	And when the ambulance came, he said, well, she's not having a heart attack, but she's really sick and we have to take her in.
	And I'm like, okay.
	So they took her in and X-rayed her and said she had pneumonia really bad.
	And I remember thinking relief because I had been kind of listening for her.
	She'd had a couple of falls.
	So I never really got to sleep at night unless I heard that she was, you know, she had gone to bed.
	You know what I mean?
	And so I think I felt relief when they said they were going to keep her for a couple of days.
	Well, she never came home.
	Oh, and what happened?
	She was full of cancer.
	Oh gosh, like lung cancer from smoking, probably, right?
	Yeah, she had a great big mass on her lung, and they said it had metastasized, and I suspect that it was in her bones in her back, and I probably would have took her in before that, but she had always had a bad back, like I mentioned, and it seemed like her back was really bothering her, so I called her doctor just to get her, you know, a better painkiller than just regular old Tylenol, and so I thought, well, The combination of her back not being good and the new medication not making her feel the best, I thought, well, maybe that's why she's, you know, looking really off.
	I didn't twig that there was something more serious going on.
	Well, I mean, it probably would have been.
	But she was gone within a month.
	Right.
	Yeah.
	She was probably beyond treatment at that point, right?
	Well, they didn't even offer treatment.
	Right.
	They just said, there's nothing we can do for you.
	We can just keep you comfortable.
	Of course, they offered us maid.
	Oh, did they?
	Oh, yeah, yeah.
	She didn't believe in that.
	Oh, yeah, they offered us that like probably eight times.
	Wow.
	Yeah.
	Wow.
	And then I just said, no, that's what she said, no.
	And and she said to me, if they you know, if she said or even if I'm begging you for it, she said, just no, that's not how because she'd become a Christian.
	Yeah.
	She said, I don't want to meet God that way.
	It's her belief.
	I don't know whether she Whether she ever really was a Christian or not, I'm not sure, but she was living by those standards in the last three or four years of her life.
	And she was much nicer.
	But she had to be nice because if she wasn't, I told her before she'd had a blowout with me a few years back, and I said, you can't ever talk to me like that again.
	Because if you do, you're leaving.
	I'm not leaving.
	Right, okay.
	Yeah.
	Wow.
	And how did you feel over the month and then when she died?
	What was your experience of that?
	Awful.
	Just awful.
	Because I think that there was things that were never resolved because she, like, she blamed me for what happened to me with my grandfather.
	She said it was my fault because I didn't let anybody know.
	That it went on as long as it did.
	Sorry, sorry.
	So this is a bit of news.
	So you did finally tell him about your grandfather's groping?
	Yes, I did.
	Yeah.
	When my dad died, I waited till he died and then I told her.
	Oh, so that was a long time back.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	And she was more angry at me than she was my grandfather.
	And he'd been dead for a long time.
	I actually went to his grave and kicked the crap out of his headstone.
	Wow.
	People in the cemetery must have thought it was nuts.
	So, this was in the 90s or early 2000s?
	No, this was like 2014, 2015.
	I would have discussed that with her.
	So, 2015 you discussed it with her?
	Yeah.
	2015 I would have discussed that with her. So 2015 you discussed it with her?
	Okay.
	Yeah. Okay. I finally broke my silence. Yeah, so this is a couple of years after,
	a year after you moved in with her, right?
	Yeah, like a year after Dad died.
	About a year and a half after Dad died.
	Okay, so... He never knew.
	I never told him.
	No, I get that.
	So, you move in with your mother, and you say... Granddad... And it was her father, right?
	No, it was his dad.
	So, granddad was groping with me when I was in my early teens, and she blamed you.
	Yeah.
	Because I never told her.
	They couldn't do anything about it unless I told them.
	I was like, didn't you notice there was anything going on?
	You didn't notice that I'd stopped washing my hair?
	You didn't notice that?
	You know what I mean?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Because I started to do everything I could to repel attraction.
	Right, right.
	So, yeah, they never asked you, and of course you're supposed to keep in touch with the kids and, you know, obviously ask how they're doing, is there anything new, what's on your mind, you know, that kind of stuff, right?
	Especially when they get into their teens, because the secrecy stuff kicks in and sometimes it's pretty bad, right?
	Yeah, and I mean, he did that, he did that like pretty, he grabbed me well and like, I was, oh gosh, 21 when he passed away.
	And he did, he kept at it right up until that time.
	Oh, it was like 10 years or so, right?
	Oh yeah, yeah.
	And did you also tell your mother, I'm sure you did, that one of the reasons you didn't say anything was because you were afraid that your dad was going to go and kill him or beat him up or something?
	Oh yeah, I was transparent with her about that.
	I just said the way I looked at it, my whole life was crappy enough.
	I wasn't going to completely blow it to bits by divulging what was going on.
	And she never said to me, well, it wasn't your job to protect everybody.
	No, she blamed you, right?
	Like you would hope she would say, yeah, she just said, well, you shouldn't have told us.
	So she blamed you.
	She blamed you for being half molested or molested as a kid for a decade.
	She blamed you.
	And you're like, in response to that, I'm going to take care of you for another nine years.
	Yeah, I know.
	Sick, isn't it?
	Well, I'm just, you know, so when you say to me, I'm not sure if I even loved them, I'm like, they failed to protect you and then blamed you after they exposed you.
	And he also did it in public, as you mentioned.
	I'm sure he did it in front of your mother and father.
	Yeah, I don't know so much with them, but I think that there had to be, like he was careful enough, he'd always approach me from the front.
	There were so many people in the room.
	Yeah, I grabbed my breasts.
	I'd go in for the hug and then he'd kind of pull his elbows in and grab me.
	But there was enough people in the room, there had to be people seeing that.
	And to this day, I still can't handle it.
	I can't be grabbed suddenly.
	So she blamed you for being victimized from the age of 11 or 12 onwards.
	And then you ask me, I don't even know if I love them?
	See what I mean?
	Like, that's where I'm at.
	Yeah, now propaganda's a powerful thing.
	I thought I loved them.
	No.
	Right.
	It's attachment.
	Wow.
	So, how did you end up listening to what I do?
	Well, I was a raging lefty for a long time.
	And then I started, um, digging around a bit.
	Um, and then I'm not exactly sure how I stumbled upon your website, but I think you, you know, you were doing politics at the time.
	And, uh, I, you know, I think I just stumbled upon you and I listened to a couple of podcasts back when you were on YouTube.
	And, uh, then when, I was pretty much conservative by the point, by the time I found you, but I was trying to, trying to grab everything I could grab.
	It was just, you know, a thirst for truth.
	And then I started listening to a couple of your call-in shows and they really grabbed my attention because, you know, you were talking to people with similar backgrounds to mine and I had never heard it put that way before.
	Like the whole forgiveness thing, like I thought, You know, I thought, well, I've forgiven my grandfather, and I've forgiven my mother, and I've forgiven my dad, and you know, so, you know, I gotta move on from here, sort of thing.
	And then, it was one of your talks about forgiveness that really grabbed my attention, because I'm a Christian, and it's just been hammered into me by people that don't really know any better, and people that don't really understand, you know, what God says about conviction, or about forgiveness.
	You put it in a way that was just so much better, like I understand now that it's a transaction between two people.
	And that if it's never asked for by a perpetrator, then you can't possibly give what they haven't asked for, not even God!
	Well, and even them asking for it is not enough!
	They have to show contrition, they have to make restitution, I mean, there's a whole deal there, right?
	And it's weird to me because God judges and doesn't forgive everyone for everything no matter what, and somehow it's been translated that although God is the highest moral being and God requires you to earn forgiveness, you can just hand it out like candy at Halloween.
	Well, yeah, to me it seems so arrogant to assume that you could do something that God can't do.
	Oh, won't you?
	Because he's moral, right?
	Right.
	But you still have this, because, you know, I mean, God love you, but you're still like, well, they just don't know any better.
	And it's like, how do you know?
	They absolutely know better.
	They want carte blanche because they've got a bad conscience.
	Oh, I know that now.
	And your Peaceful Parenting book really put that into Such perspective for me, like it was hard for me to get through it, listening to it.
	I can't imagine what it was like for you to write it.
	Yeah, it was tough.
	And it just, yeah, I can only imagine what that was like for you, because I threw up a couple times.
	Yeah, tell me what was your experience, because I'm not getting a huge amount of feedback, and I think it's because people are kind of shell-shocked.
	So, what was your experience with the book?
	It just, I think it was, I was almost horrified to think that you were describing my life, and I've always thought my life is just this tiny insignificant little blip that doesn't matter to anyone or anything, you know, because if that was the case, then things would be different for me now, and I would have never put myself in some of the positions that I did, but I realized, you know, just how failed I was, you know, all around me, and that we're conditioned
	To fail children.
	Well, not just fail, but attack and sabotage too, yeah.
	Sabotage, yeah.
	Set them up for failure, you know?
	And not even equip them, even a little bit, for life.
	Like, it's just, yeah, it just blew my mind.
	And I'm still, you know, I'm still listening.
	Listening to it and going back and listening to other parts of it, because it's just, like, wow.
	Right.
	Yeah, it's my boy, you know.
	Amazing that you did that.
	And it's weird because to me, like I've been listening to it a lot since mom passed and it's like, wow, you know, thank God you're going to save other people from some of the choices that I've made, you know, to take care of aging parents who failed me and, you know, where I should have probably went no contact ages ago with a lot of the family.
	Right.
	Yeah, and I didn't, I remained engaged and, and, you know, Involved?
	I mean, more than engaged.
	I mean, you're right in there, right?
	Well, yeah, my brother says to me, I don't know how you could look after her.
	I could have never done it.
	Because he just flat out refused to, you know, and, you know, as she was sick, he'd come to the hospital and stuff and visit.
	But he's, you know, he's messed up too.
	He would never listen to you in a million years, just because I suggested it.
	You know, I've mentioned you to him and, I don't need any of that crap.
	And in fact, like, since she passed, he's like, well, you know, we've had a couple of conversations and stuff.
	And I've, you know, touched upon some of the ways that I was feeling and he's kind of, well, you got to get over that.
	You're an adult now.
	And I'm like, you don't understand.
	You don't just get over stuff.
	It's like, it never happened to you.
	Like, it happened to you.
	Yeah, it's sort of like saying to someone who grew up speaking English, well, you've just got to stop understanding English, you're an adult now.
	It's like, you know, that's an automatic process.
	Like, somebody can't speak to you in English when you grew up speaking English and you don't understand English, right?
	I mean, it's not... it's an automatic process, you know?
	I mean, you've just got to get shorter, you're an adult now.
	It's like, no, that's a biological... anyway, so, yeah, it's strange.
	But one thing about it, like he's, he's an awful lot like she was and an awful lot like his own father.
	I don't know whether he's ever hit women or anything, but, um, you know, and he's alone now too.
	And, you know, he's just decided he's never ever going to settle down or find anybody ever again.
	He's in his sixties, but he, uh, you know, he can be become extremely abusive.
	Like mom was like, he's got a hair trigger temper and stuff.
	And, and the last time around with him, I just said to him, you know, you can't talk to me that way ever again.
	You know, and he come back and apologized, looked me in the eye, promised me it would never happen again.
	And he's, you know, in his way, he's tried to make it up, you know, like he was... I had a couple of nights with, you know, mom in the hospital.
	She was such a big presence in some ways that I just have so... got so used to her being here, I just said, you know, I can't go back to that house by myself tonight.
	You know, do you mind packing a bag and hanging out with me?
	And he did.
	He would have never done that in the past.
	He would have just said, oh, grow up.
	You know what I mean?
	Right.
	But he's kinder.
	It's funny to think that you can still, you can be in your 60s and still have a bad temper.
	Like you should have learned.
	I mean, and he's sitting there going, you should get over it.
	It's like, well, why don't you get over your bad temper?
	Yeah, well, yeah.
	And that's the thing, like he, you know, he just doesn't even, he doesn't even hear some of the things that he's coming out with.
	And I understand that.
	So I limit my time around them because I'm not really sure whether, you know, I have a really good relationship with his daughters and, you know, I like to see them and see my grandnieces and nephews and that sort of thing.
	And, you know, they, they lead pretty healthy lives from what I can tell.
	Um, you know, the only unhealthy element in there is that I can really tell is him, you know, so I'm sure they have their issues and stuff too, but.
	You know, he was on the outs with my mom more than he was ever on the inside, so I missed some years there too, because, you know, he'd just make it so difficult for any of us to have contact with his kids, that, you know, we were really disconnected.
	Now I have one that lives 10 minutes away from me, he's the youngest, and it's nice to be able to see them and, you know, see the kids and stuff.
	Right.
	So I try to do that.
	And how do you, how are you set up for old age?
	I mean, how do you feel about looking, you know, the next 30 years?
	Well, it horrifies me because, you know, I'm going to be alone, you know?
	Like, I've got a pretty good network of friends and that, and, you know, and I have my nieces, but, you know, my brother says, well, you know, they'll be there for you and stuff.
	Well, you know, I'm not really counting on that.
	They're your kids, not my kids.
	You know, and that's not really fair for me to put that on them.
	So I, you know, I've tried to start, you know, putting away, well, I've been putting away money for retirement and stuff, you know, for quite a while and that sort of thing.
	But I don't want to be alone for the rest of my life.
	Like I like to find somebody that I, I understand that the odds of finding a quality man are pretty low, you know, cause a man that's quality, he can always marry younger.
	He could always, he could restart a family at my age.
	Well, and he probably is going to stay, if he's quality, he's going to stay with whoever picked him, right?
	He's going to stay with, probably involved, unless he's a widow or something.
	Yeah, either that or if he, you know, finds himself widowed or something, he's, you know, he's probably going to be looking for a younger model, you know?
	Well, and of course you also, having been out of relationships for 10 years plus, you would have lost some habits and may not have developed others, right?
	Oh, absolutely.
	Yeah.
	I get that.
	And it's funny, like it's, it's astonishing to me, like how, uh, I can kind of understand that.
	And it's just reality, you know, that his, you know, again, a man could be older and find, find a new wife, but it doesn't work the same way for older women.
	And when I point that out to people, you know, that I, not that I'm resigned to it, but I understand that the, you know, my odds are, are not as good.
	Why did they ever get mad?
	That's not true.
	You'll find somebody and it's like yeah, but I I got to be realistic about this Well, you know, I have to bring something to the table that yeah the 50s are like the 20s in that for the 20s things are much easier for Women and then in the in your 50s things are much easier for men or maybe 40s or 50s or something like that But yeah, it just it just flips like life balances out, right?
	well, and I always thought I had all the time in the world to all you do when you're younger and I know better now like You know, it would be lovely to find somebody, but I understand that the pickings are going to be really slim, you know, especially... I've got pretty high standards for myself now, too.
	Yeah, and I think quality guys, when they get older, get kind of swarmed, and it's pretty tough to settle down when you're getting swarmed.
	It's kind of the same thing that happens to women in their 20s, right?
	Yes, yes.
	Of course, the tables get turned, for sure.
	Yeah, for sure.
	But I think part of it, too, like...
	You know, with the stuff with my mother, I thought that when I got out of the last relationship, I wasn't even close to being equipped to being in a relationship, and it was kind of like, okay, well, you know, I'm just going to work on my stuff with God in the meantime, and try to make sure that I don't repeat the same mistakes again.
	Well, sometimes, you know, you either got to shit or get off the pot, too.
	What do you mean?
	If I'm not putting myself out there to meet somebody, I can't meet somebody while I'm working on myself.
	Do you know what I mean?
	So much time can pass you by while you're working on yourself.
	I'm looking at it now and going, you know what?
	You're using an excuse.
	And what is it that you would want to say the most?
	You said that you've good relationships with the younger women and so on.
	What is it that you would want to say?
	What's the speech that you want to say the most to younger women?
	Date for marriage.
	Yeah.
	If you want a family, that's the most important thing, because the way our world is headed, we need good people in it.
	You know, we need good people that care about families and about raising good kids and being a peaceful parent.
	And don't wait, because when you're in your thirties, so much of your time has passed you by and your eggs are gone.
	And, you know, and I'm just upfront and honest with when kids ask me about that.
	You know, if I say kids like teenage girls and stuff, like one day, There was a guy that works with us and he was telling them, oh, they should be sleeping around and have a career and, you know, screw as many men as possible.
	And he's a guy that I kind of respected.
	And I looked at him, I said, that is terrible advice.
	Yeah.
	That is the worst advice that you could be giving these young girls.
	And then, you know, this turned into almost a rant with me because I was like, do you understand what that's like for young girls?
	That's a pair bonding mechanism, just sleeping around and having Casual sex is a terrible idea.
	Yeah, it's a funny kind of thing, because we've sort of been taught that men and women are just like interchangeable body parts or something like that.
	Like, we're the same people.
	Some people have outies, some people have innies, and it's just not true.
	And so for men, I think they say, well, I would like to have a career and sleep with a lot of women, and so I'm sure it's great for women to have the same thing.
	It's kind of like the Sheryl Sandberg thing from Leaning In, like, yeah, go and experiment and do this and do that.
	Well, I know this guy is unhappy in his relationship, so that's why he's offering that advice, because he's feeling frustrated and trapped where he is.
	Well, and men like to encourage women to sleep around in the hopes they'll get some.
	Of course they do.
	Yeah.
	Of course they do.
	We're a little bit of sneaky dogs that way.
	Yeah, yeah, and I get all, you know, I understand that, having been on the other end of that.
	Ladies, just lower your standards until the end!
	Right!
	Yeah, for sure.
	Yeah, for sure.
	Yeah, absolutely, it's that way.
	So I, yeah, I just, I kind of look back over, not so much my life, but my choices from my, you know, my 20s into where I am now as a cautionary tale for young women, you know.
	Like, I love that you have these conversations because it just, I know, you never know who you're helping or who, you know, who's listening.
	Oh, yeah.
	Like, honestly, out of this conversation, thousands of babies will spring over time, if not more.
	Oh, I hope so.
	We are summoning life.
	That's my hope.
	Words make babies, so.
	Yeah, and I don't like, I can't have any of my own, so I, you know, I try to be a good aunt and I try to mentor the younger girls around me as much as I can.
	And it's been wonderful to, you know, even before I knew what I know now, um, I did that a lot in my previous, uh, places of employment.
	You know, I was always a soft place to fall for the teenager teenage girls that were around me.
	And, uh, you know, they had opened up and, and, uh, tell me what was going on and that they just felt heard.
	Cause I never had that, you know?
	Right.
	So what do you mean when you say to the young girls, you say date for marriage?
	I mean, I'm sure that.
	Some women, young women, won't even know really what that means.
	So, what does that mean?
	Well, look for a potential husband.
	You know, if you don't see husband material in a guy, then... No, I get that.
	I get that date for marriage means look for a husband.
	That's just another way of saying the same thing.
	But what are you looking for?
	What specific things are you looking for?
	If I was Be back then, you mean?
	If I was at that age.
	Date for marriage, but how do they know what to look for?
	Especially if they grew up with unstable marriages or maybe dads who weren't the best examples.
	What does that mean?
	Date for marriage?
	Just trying to think back.
	I'm trying to think of what I would be looking for now if I was in their Somebody that comes from a good family.
	Where they don't have horrific abuse.
	Watch the interactions between kids and their parents.
	You can garner a lot.
	Meet the family.
	Yeah, so look for a stable family.
	Look for a good family.
	Yeah, look for a good family.
	Somebody that wants children.
	Looks forward to being a father.
	Uh, somebody who is aware of what, you know, what the world is like around us and, you know, doesn't want to, you know, I want to make sure that when they, you know, that when they raise their kids, they're not putting them in, you know, in public schools and things like that.
	Uh, a good provider, you know, somebody that can provide, uh, not necessarily like a, I, I think the term alpha male gets thrown around an awful lot, but somebody who's, You know, who's a leader and has integrity, is honest, says what they mean and means what they say.
	Find out what their values are like.
	What do they value?
	Do they value family?
	Do they value money?
	Do they value a big government or a small government, you know?
	Yeah, free will versus control.
	And looks, right?
	So you went for the muscle guy with the cool car, and then you put on 80 pounds and turned into a huge blob.
	Yeah, for sure.
	Yeah, I was just thinking about that.
	I think because I focus so much on physicality my whole life, it's not my first go-to anymore.
	I'm like, okay, well, that got you a lot of places, didn't it?
	Yeah, somebody fit.
	Well, as you said, you were a pretty petite young woman, and so there was probably a lot of looks-maxing exchange going back on.
	Yeah, for sure.
	For sure it was.
	I mean, that's what I always thought.
	You've got to find the most attractive person, and that's it.
	Just as Jesus says!
	First commandment, go for the hottie!
	Now, if you say that, and I accept what you're saying, of course, right, you say that go for a guy who wants kids, but the Australian guy wanted kids, so what was wrong with him that you didn't want to, because it's got to be something within yourself.
	You know, I look back at both of my marriages and I think that If I was mean, if I knew then what I know now, I probably, like I may have still been with my first husband and we may have had a family.
	Well, did he want kids?
	Yeah.
	Okay, so you probably would have had a family, and certainly with the Australian, if you'd surrendered to the thunder from down under, you'd have been okay, right?
	I mean, as far as kids.
	Yeah, and even him, he was really looking for a way to deal with what was going on with him.
	When we broke up, he went right into therapy and stuff, and he kept coming back and begging me to take him back.
	Like, he got on his knees one day, and it was heartbreaking.
	The guy went to therapy, did the whole self-knowledge thing, and is begging you to come back.
	Was this before you divorced, or were you just separated?
	No, we were separated at the time, we weren't even divorced, but I had already taken up with the guy from the other side of the country by then, so it was like, oh, I've got somebody new now, I don't need you anymore.
	Wow.
	You know, I look back upon it now, like some of my choices are just awful.
	Right.
	Yeah, I mean, I would never just give up on it.
	Now, meanwhile, the only thing I could say to my credit there was that, you know, when things were going bad before I ever took up with anybody, I wanted to go to therapy with him and he wouldn't go.
	So I went on my own.
	Oh, you went on your own to a therapist before you split with the Australian guy?
	Yeah.
	And what happened with that?
	Um, he just would never go, and then it... No, no, what happened with you and the therapist?
	Oh, with me and the therapist?
	Uh, when I reflect on it now, I sat there, did a lot of talking, they did a lot of listening, but, um, there wasn't, didn't, I don't remember ever being, like, um, given any homework, or, you know, these should be journaling, or, I mean, I know now, like, how important journaling can be, and that sort of thing, because I do it every morning now, but, um, I mean, did the therapist say, look, this is a guy, he's not abusive, he's got some problems, but so do you, but you're married, you're in your mid to late twenties, maybe it's not the best time to go courting someone new, the pickings out there are getting slimmer and you're getting older.
	Nothing like that.
	Wow.
	Nothing like that.
	No, nothing like that.
	It felt like it was, okay, how long can we make this stretch out and how much money can I make, you know, off of the stretching out of, you know, and I've, I've heard different people say that about therapists where they've gone in and it's like, it's taken them like, you know, three months to get through their childhood, just explaining it.
	And then, you know, but they're still not getting any feedback or, you know, useful information where they could start working towards, you know, making different choices, because I know it's not about healing.
	I mean, you can't, you can only, It's like a scab, you know?
	You rip it off and it heals back but there's always a scar there.
	Do you know what I mean?
	Oh yeah, yeah.
	No, I mean this navel-gazing stuff where you're just paying someone to listen to you and dwelling on your problems can make them worse and like sometimes you just need practical advice to move on and that doesn't seem to be coming much anymore.
	Well, I just felt like I was doing more stuff on my own because it was kind of reading, you know, self-help books and trying to follow the exercises and that.
	I felt like I was taking more of an active role in trying to Change things and make things better for us.
	And, you know, like I offered him a book one day and he threw it across the room, like, you know, like, you know, the therapist.
	Yeah, the Australian.
	OK, just checking.
	Yeah, sorry.
	So he had his anger issues, right?
	He really did.
	And I know now why he was looking for a way out of it.
	I know a funny part of it is.
	You know, and he was on his knees saying he would do anything.
	You know, I'm a Christian now.
	If I'd have said to him, well, then let's go to church and talk to our pastor.
	Yeah.
	He would have done it.
	I know he would have.
	He was begging you to save him from himself, right?
	Yes.
	Yeah.
	He didn't want, and he told me, he said, I just hate myself afterwards when I have a, when I have a, you know, a blow up like that.
	I'm so sorry.
	I didn't mean to.
	You know, throw things and yell.
	You can't bring kids into that.
	If he says he wants kids and he's raging out like that, that's no good.
	Sure.
	Well, absolutely.
	Yeah.
	Did you ever look, have you ever looked people up?
	I did try to look him up.
	Um, now my, my first sex, uh, you know, we stayed in contact for a little while on Facebook when Facebook became a thing and funny.
	Well, not funny, but he ended up marrying a drug addict.
	Um, they had a child.
	And he ended up with full custody and she's not even allowed to, I don't know if it's changed now, but she wasn't allowed to see their little girl.
	Wow.
	So yeah.
	And he ended up raising her on his own.
	And you know, he was the kind of guy that could, I think, you know, could do that fairly well, but I, you know.
	Well, no, you know, you can't do that.
	You can't do that well because he's got to work.
	Yeah.
	I just mean that, you know, he's, he's the kind of, he's a good man, like, you know, Well, no, but he still has to work, right?
	So someone's got to take care of the kid.
	Yeah, for sure.
	Yeah, of course there's going to be daycare and stuff like that.
	Okay, and the Australian?
	I can't find him.
	He's despawned.
	Yeah, well, I think he went back to the Down Under.
	Despawned?
	That doesn't mean anything!
	I mean, you can find people I mean, maybe... Well, no, but he was never on social media or anything like that.
	I did look up one of his siblings once and sent her a message, but I never heard anything back.
	Right, right.
	So, you know, he was pretty bitter, you know, after a while about the whole thing, and I understand that.
	Sure.
	How long ago did you message her?
	Gosh, like five years ago?
	Right, right.
	Okay.
	And now I don't see any of them.
	They don't pop up on social media at all.
	Hmm.
	Yeah, he never had, he had a younger brother, but I don't remember what the last name was because the mother had remarried.
	Right, right, okay.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, it's funny.
	But I did try, I did try to find him and I did contact some people that were in the same industry and they just said as far as they knew that he got out of the business and had moved back home.
	And was there any other exes that you've, what about the guy on the other side of the country?
	Yeah, I put no contact with him probably about a year after I left.
	Right, right.
	And you've never looked him up?
	No.
	Okay.
	All right.
	Okay, yeah.
	So, because the reason, I mean, one of the reasons looking back is important is you want to know whether you made a good or bad decision, right?
	And if the guy... Oh, for sure.
	Yeah, if your first husband ended up marrying a drug addict and got full custody, then I assume that was just hell on earth.
	And, of course, that wouldn't have happened if you'd stayed married, but that's the nature, right?
	That's the play you were working with, so to speak.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, for sure.
	Yeah, I mean, I did, when we did, like, when we did I did contact one another on Facebook, you know, I did say to him, you know, I'm really, really sorry, you know, for some of the things I said and that I, you know, I did apologize about the kids thing too, because I said, you know, I know how much you wanted kids and you just went along with what I wanted.
	That was fair, unfair, because that wasn't even, you know, I kind of led him on to believe that maybe if we got married that we might.
	Oh gosh.
	Which was, yeah, that was a terrible thing to do.
	So you led him to believe you might want kids or that was on the table.
	Yeah, I might.
	When for you it wasn't.
	Well, I pretty, you know, I said to him, I, you know, I don't think I want kids.
	I don't think that's ever going to change, but who knows what the future holds.
	I was so vague about it that, you know, but if, you know, if that's what he really wanted, he, He should have said, you know what?
	I think I'll bail while the going is good and find somebody with good ovaries.
	So, you know, I can't take full responsibility for it because I could take some because I was vague.
	No, but were you vague and honest or were you vague and dishonest?
	No, I was vague and honest.
	Oh, so you thought maybe it would happen.
	Yeah, I thought maybe I'll change my mind in a couple of years or whatever, but, you know, I thought maybe it just hasn't, you know, maybe the bug just hasn't struck yet.
	You know, I just didn't know.
	I mean, it was just so... And what about Mr. Muscle Car Predator Guy?
	I still keep in touch with his sister, but I have no contact with him.
	Not close touch, just... No, no, interesting.
	And do you know how his life played?
	Yeah, he got married and had two kids, and she said that, you know, she has never been able to mention my name around him without him flying off the handle.
	Right.
	Because he was really angry.
	Like, he stalked me for a while after I left him.
	Right.
	Yeah, he was not happy.
	And he stayed married and all?
	I don't know about that.
	I don't ask about him.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	Got it.
	I'd maybe speak to her, like, wish her a Merry Christmas.
	That's about it.
	You know what I mean?
	Yeah.
	Real distant acquaintance stuff, right?
	Very distant acquaintance, yeah.
	Wow.
	It's quite a tale, man.
	I'm obviously incredibly sorry for everything that happened to you as a child.
	That was a monstrous, monstrous hellscape of an upbringing.
	And shockingly common.
	I mean, really, there's almost no ACE outside of having a family member in prison that I know of.
	There's almost no ACE that you didn't check off, right?
	Yeah.
	Addiction, violence, verbal abuse, molestation, you know, bullying at school, seeing parents fight, like there's almost nothing that could be bad that didn't happen.
	And I'm just, I'm so sorry for all of that.
	What an absolute shit show of an origin story.
	It's just absolutely appalling.
	And I'm, you know, I'm sorry, not just, of course, for the screwed up family stuff, but just, you know, that you live in a society where This happens, nobody really talks about it and everyone just says, oh yeah, no, the people who, yeah, the people who treated you really badly and were supposed to be taking care of you, those people, boy, you owe them everything.
	Right?
	That's wild, right?
	Yeah.
	And that's one of the reasons why, you know, I'm so desperate to improve families, and this is why there's this whole section in the book on the peaceful family, peaceful parenting, is the voluntary family.
	It's like, because parents believe that society is just going to herd the kids back and force them to take care of them no matter what, they don't have to provide any good service.
	It's like the DMV or whatever.
	There's no choice, there's no options, there's no voluntary situation here, so they can do whatever they want.
	And they know that, I mean, and it paid off for your mom.
	You know, she didn't have to deal with her demons when she was younger, and she got 10 years of free in-house care when she got old.
	So, you know, there was no downside for her in a way.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Oh, yeah, there really wasn't.
	Paid off!
	She rolled the dice!
	Yeah, and I still wonder, how do some people just go through life like that?
	I know she had her own pain and her own torture and that sort of stuff.
	I get all that, but again, she ended up with a kid that ended up taking care of her.
	Well, of course, her caring for you should have been Get out.
	You know, my life is my life.
	I made my choices.
	You shouldn't suffer.
	You're going to lose.
	You know, this is the 47 to 57.
	You're going to sort of eight out of the dating market.
	And you know, wherever there are men, they're not here in this little apartment.
	So you've got to get out there, you know, don't just hang home with me wiping my butt and mouth, like go out there and, and try and find a good guy.
	Right.
	I mean, so, so she just kind of.
	Did that alien face-hugging thing and just like, ugh, ten years, I'll burn those up because it's good for me!
	Like she said to me, get out there and date and stuff, you know, go find somebody, but I know if I'd have brought somebody home that she would have found something wrong with them because it threatened, you know, what she was getting.
	And of course, the other thing too, I mean, you bring a quality guy home and it's like, here's my bitter, abusive, half-dead mother and let's sign up!
	Right, yeah, yeah, I can.
	It still wasn't safe to bring anybody home, just like it was when I was a kid, right?
	Right, right.
	Yeah, so she was giving you instructions that she would have sabotaged, I assume, if you'd followed them.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I'm pretty, you know, you've helped me.
	I gotta tell you, like, you've helped me so much, not just with this stuff, but also with surrounding myself with people that are gonna be honest with me, like, you know, I got a couple of close friends and they're very You know, honest with me about, uh, you know, what she is like, because they had seen it, you know, even without me explaining my childhood, like, you know, she'd made a couple of comments and they were like, that's a terrible thing to say to your kid.
	She's here looking after you.
	And that's, that's what you say to her.
	And I mean, one took, you know, she, my friend yanked me aside and said, wait a minute.
	Like, you know, like you would, you know, shouldn't tolerate that for two seconds.
	What did she say that dear friend was pulling you aside?
	Well, my friend, my friend had, um, like, I'm not skinny anymore.
	Like it used to be.
	I'm not like, you know, not obese or anything like that.
	But, uh, my mom was always placed, you know, kind of placed really high value on what people look like.
	And, uh, you know, my friend had just dropped about 50 pounds and, you know, look, she's blonde and beautiful anyway, but, uh, you know, My mom asked her how much weight she'd lost, and she told her, my mom looked over at me and she said, well, what's your problem?
	Why can't you drop at least 10 pounds?
	She dropped 50.
	And my friend was just appalled.
	Well, this from the woman who can't even put down a cigarette when she's got COPD!
	Where's your willpower, kid?
	She was, you know, probably 40 or 50 pounds overweight herself.
	Oh gosh, right.
	Yeah!
	So, like, what a hypocrite, right?
	Right, right.
	And it's funny, because whenever she would say something about somebody's weight, the hairs would stand up, like the hackles, I guess, would stand up.
	And I'd get defensive and indignant on behalf of that person.
	You know what I mean?
	Well, how much extra do you think you're carrying?
	Probably about 30 pounds.
	Right, right.
	Well, and 411, that's a lot, right?
	That's a lot, yeah.
	Yeah, it is.
	Yeah, I'm not pleased about that.
	I've taken some steps.
	And are you still moving for your job?
	Physically?
	Oh yeah.
	I have a very physical job.
	That's one of the things I like.
	I don't like a job where I'm sitting at a desk.
	I'm moving Like I'm putting in a lot of steps.
	Walking around while we're talking, walking and talking.
	Yeah, like I put in a lot of steps.
	I normally would be up and walking, but I'm sitting right now because I want to focus on what you're telling me and think about it.
	And if the right bag came along, would you give it a shot?
	Absolutely.
	I wouldn't hesitate.
	Well, then you've got to drop the weight.
	I don't mean to sound like your mom, of course, right?
	I mean, I don't mean to sound like your mom.
	I even said to my closest friend, I said, you know, I need to make myself marketable.
	And I have to work even harder at it now because I'm older and stuff.
	But I'm still fairly light with makeup and that sort of thing.
	I don't like scads and scads of makeup.
	I'd like to be fit.
	I don't want to marry somebody and then not be there for them in 10 years, you know what I mean?
	Right.
	No, I mean, yeah, you just, when you're looking for the top tier, you've got to be the top tier, right?
	Absolutely.
	And if you've got a lot of competition, then you need to find some way to stand out.
	And, you know, whether we like it or not, men are just visual creatures.
	It just is the way that we are.
	No, I 100%, I 100% get that.
	I mean, and that's the thing, like, you've really helped me understand that whole dynamic too.
	And that I have to up my game if I'm going to attract the right guy.
	I mean, I'm not giving up.
	I go to church and I'm hoping to meet somebody there.
	So it's a new church.
	I don't really know that many people yet.
	I was going to church for quite a while.
	And then when the COVID thing happened, they demanded jabs and masking and stuff.
	And I've been going there for a while.
	And I was like, really?
	I'm not welcome?
	My home, you know, I consider it a home of believers.
	So Jesus touches lepers, but I have to wear a mask.
	I got it.
	Well, not just that, you had dad jabs too, and I was not doing that.
	Well, listen, you've obviously got a lot to offer, and I'd be confident about that.
	I mean, you're obviously highly intelligent, you're a great conversationalist, great verbal skills, you've done therapy, you've got self-knowledge, and so you have a lot to offer.
	I certainly, if I were in your shoes, I'd be comfortable with that, be confident with that.
	And, you know, if you get the outside to match the inside, then, you know, you've got the highest shot, you know, and that's all we can ever ask in life is that we can't guarantee anything, but we can give.
	You know, I can't guarantee how long I'm gonna live, but I can say whether I keep my weight down and go to the gym.
	Like, that's that I can do, right?
	Absolutely.
	So, yeah, I mean, if you can work on that stuff, then, you know, your odds are good, because you'll just be different from everyone else.
	And you are different.
	I mean, you're into philosophy and self-knowledge, and you've obviously gained some great wisdom out of your life, and you have broken the cycle.
	And in that, also, you're a great aunt and so on, right?
	So, yeah, I mean, fantastic stuff, and, you know, I just have to bow down, as we all do, before the fact that men are visual creatures, and you'll be a way to the races, I think.
	Yeah, yes, absolutely.
	Yeah, I just want to hear the truth.
	And that's when I knew I'd get that from you.
	Yeah, I mean, my mom was skinny and unfortunately a lot of men seem to say, okay, skinny, crazy, I'll go with the skinny, right?
	So, you know, skinny insane or at least slender insane is an unbeatable combo.
	So yeah, that's my sort of whatever nonsense advice.
	But yeah, just be confident in the value you have to offer.
	And failing all of that, you'll find some guy who's 75 and then inherits his house.
	I'm just kidding.
	But I had this conversation, I remember this from many years ago, I had this conversation with this woman who was like, you know, basically I'm dating this guy, he's got a great house but he just won't die.
	It's like, you know, so you're hoping to own property by banging a Nazgul.
	It was pretty wild.
	I'm not putting you in that category, but that was a sad story, man.
	People do say that to me, you know, just in passing.
	Go find some rich guy now that can look after you.
	Yeah, and in a Carl Smith territory and all that.
	Yeah.
	All right, is there anything else that you wanted to mention?
	I really do appreciate the convo, and of course, you know, the good that it does to others is immeasurable, and I'm certainly very, very pleased about that.
	Well, I'm just, like you said, you've got to go out into the world and do what you can for other people, and so, you know, that's kind of stuck with me too, and you've just done so much to help the community that listens to you, takes the time and stuff, so I just hope this conversation is useful to somebody else, and I hope lots of babies are taught from it.
	Yes, yes, we'll reserve the right to name them.
	We'll flip for it.
	All right, well listen, keep me posted about, yeah, please do keep me posted about how things are going and I really do appreciate your time today.
	I will let you know how it goes.
	Thank you so much, Stefan.
	I really appreciate it.
	Thank you.
	Take care.
	Have a great day.
	Okay, you as well.
	Bye.

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