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Dec. 21, 2024 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:24:24

Welcome to the Divorce from HELL! Freedomain Call In

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	I'm all ears and yeah, lay it on me.
	Let's see what we can do to help.
	So where do I start?
	Like I said in the call-in, I'm getting divorced to a Ukrainian refugee who's in Ukraine right now during the war to change her name to my name.
	She's been there for months.
	I decided a few months after she went down there that I'd Couldn't make this marriage work anymore, and now she's not responding.
	And I guess there's a lot of ways this conversation could go.
	It could go to the complexities of the divorce, but I was also interested to try to gain some self-awareness as to why I kind of fell for a quick marriage, and if there's anything I can kind of Self-awareness, thank you, Jane, for improving my relationships in the future.
	Right.
	Yeah, well, I guess a little bit, how old are you and how long have you known the woman and how did the relationship start and all that kind of good stuff?
	So, I'm 26. She's 21. We met almost a year ago here in Germany.
	I'll try not to get into too many specifics because it'll be kind of obvious what I do if I say, but I work for...
	Yeah, no.
	Stay off names and places.
	Yeah, that's fine.
	But go ahead.
	Yeah, so I met her here while I'm living in Germany, but I'm actually American, so eventually I will go back.
	So yeah, it was about a year ago we met online, started dating, and then I want to say about three months into it we proposed and then we got legally married after about six months of dating.
	So very quick.
	Okay, and what was it that drew you to her?
	So, initially, I could tell she was kind of a deep thinker about things.
	She said that she had questions about the Bible, and I asked her what questions, and she said, I don't know what my questions are.
	I want to read the Bible to figure out what my questions are.
	And that might sound strange, but I could tell she was very kind of reflective and interested in learning about things in nature.
	And I was also interested in religion and philosophy and so on.
	So definitely deep conversations.
	We really bonded over music and humor.
	We both were focused on getting married.
	We both know that we wanted to have kids.
	So yeah, I don't...
	I think that's...
	Attraction's definitely there.
	But yeah, I don't...
	Is there anything else you kind of...
	Questions about?
	Yeah, I suppose.
	I mean, I've been doing this for a long time.
	Just one time, I'd like for a guy to say she was hot.
	Just once.
	Just once.
	Come on, man.
	Come on.
	Everybody does this.
	Beating around the bush, around the bush.
	And it's like, just once, that would be nice.
	Because, listen, it's not like she's overly virtuous if you're going through this hellish divorce situation, right?
	Right.
	So, how hot was she?
	I'd say she's probably a 10. Maybe a 9. Okay, so she's in the top, you know, 10-15%, and this doesn't impress you, is that right?
	Like it's not even worth mentioning?
	Like you don't care.
	She could be a nun, she could be an elderly Asian gentleman, she could be anyone, you're just completely unimpressed by looks.
	So that's why you don't even mention it, right?
	How honest a conversation are we going to have, just out of curiosity?
	I will say I've always been very picky about looks.
	I don't think it's something I choose to be picky about.
	But yeah, she's very attractive.
	Sorry, but it's picky about looks.
	What does that mean?
	I've always kind of just gravitated towards people that are very attractive.
	Sorry, do you say this like this is some kind of unusual thing?
	Well, I don't know.
	I mean, you know that's being a man, right?
	Yeah, that's true.
	So what am I missing here?
	You make it sound like, yeah, I like to eat food and breathing air is a big plus for me.
	And it's like, yes.
	So help me understand what you're talking about.
	I guess when me and my friends would hang out, my friends would comment on certain people or they would date people that I thought were not up to Up to my standard.
	Like, I'm always kind of the pickiest of my friends, if that makes any sense.
	Okay.
	In terms of physical appearance.
	We are good to go.
	Alright.
	So, you were just telling me how you rated physically, if you had to guess.
	Yes.
	Yes.
	And, yeah, we're talking about, I mean, I was basically saying that I think I'm pickier than most No, no, but I get that.
	Sorry, but in terms of how women would rate you?
	Oh, how women would rate me?
	I'd say I'm probably a seven or eight, maybe.
	I'd say my wife is probably more attractive as a woman than I am as a man, if I had to guess.
	Okay.
	And where do you think you're...
	It's almost like a fetish for looks, if you're willing to overlook qualities of character.
	Not quite a fetish, because looks by definition kind of are attractive, but where would you say that your pickiness about female attractiveness comes from?
	That's a good question.
	I don't know where the pickiness comes from.
	Okay, our first question would be, why did your mother marry your father?
	Sorry, why did your father marry your mother?
	So my parents were both previously married, and they both had two children.
	from their previous marriage and they both had custody of both of their children so I guess an argument could be made that neither of them could probably well they had a situation that was matching they saw I guess eye to eye on the way forward and they both wanted something better than what they had I mean,
	they've been happily married for, I think, 30 years now.
	They've been happily married for 30 years?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	So what did they think of your Ukrainian bride?
	They didn't like her, but they didn't meet her until we were already legally married.
	Okay.
	So what's going on with that?
	Why wouldn't you get the advice of happily married people in order to avoid a bad marriage?
	Yeah.
	I did spend a lot of time with her parents, her in-laws.
	Wait, her in-laws or her parents?
	Excuse me, her parents.
	I did talk to my parents about it regularly, the relationship, and I did have her FaceTime call them a few times.
	They do live stateside, so they're not here in Germany too often.
	But I don't know.
	Now that you bring it up, I do think there was kind of a hesitancy for me to take advice.
	I think part of it was a lot of advice I felt that I had received was unsolicited.
	And then the other part of it is...
	Actually, it's not entirely true, but parents have had kind of marital conflicts.
	That might have been part of why I would have been hesitant to take advice from them.
	Nothing severe, but just kind of fighting and arguing and not really seeing eye to eye.
	I mean, they're great now, but they have had marital issues in the past.
	That might be part of it.
	Like what?
	They...
	Now that all the kids are moved out, because there used to be five of us in one home, now that all the kids are moved out, they found it hard to enjoy each other's company.
	My parents have really different interests.
	My dad's big into music and music playing and everything.
	He's more outgoing and social.
	My mom's more into photography.
	She still has a strong passion for staying close to her kids.
	They Sometimes I have found challenges kind of bonding over the same hobbies.
	And then I just in arguments that they've had when I was a kid.
	I'm sorry, do you think maybe I misunderstood something?
	Is your perception that husbands and wives are supposed to bond over hobbies?
	I mean, to have kind of a shared like some sort of Shared, engaging way to spend time with one another, I think.
	Well, no, marriage is about conversation, and it's about running households and raising children.
	I'm not sure what hobbies really have to do with it.
	Again, I'm happy to be instructed, and I'm obviously, you know, not aware of the details much of your parents' marriage, but help me understand this, the hobby thing.
	I don't quite follow.
	Well...
	Yeah, just stuff they were arguing over.
	I mean, I guess probably...
	Hobbies, I mean, you can have friends, right?
	You can have friends who are into your hobbies, right?
	Yeah.
	And so, in terms of, like, what the issue is with your parents' marriage, I can't picture, really, that it's about hobbies, if that makes any sense.
	I mean, I'm into stuff my wife's not into, my wife's into stuff that I'm not into, but our primary job is You know, running a household and raising our daughter and stuff like that.
	So I'm sort of, I'm trying to figure out in terms of these conflicts where the hobby stuff would come in.
	And again, I'm not questioning or criticizing.
	I'm just not, I don't follow.
	Yeah.
	They, I don't know.
	It did seem as though they found certain times in their marriage difficulty kind of enjoying one another's company after the kids had left the household.
	There was kind of a perception that they turned into, I guess, roommates for a bit.
	More so than a married couple.
	And now that you mention it, some things they would argue about, they did kind of have a problem with My dad would ask my mom to do something differently.
	She was overweight.
	He would gently encourage her to go to the gym or something like that.
	If he would bring it up, then she would just bring up a problem that he has.
	Sometimes they would not really make progress.
	It seemed like they couldn't criticize each other too well in a productive way.
	You said that was after the kids left home?
	My dad had that issue.
	Growing up, I didn't see them argue too much.
	Yeah, I didn't see them argue too much growing up.
	They had tremendous issues with the children when I was very young, but my siblings are all much older than I am, so I was a little bit kind of the favorite because I was the shared child.
	And much younger, so I got most of the attention.
	But I know that there was some severe, there was some definite family dysfunction for them when we were all living in the same household.
	Okay, so, I'm sorry, family dysfunction doesn't really tell me very much.
	So I had a sister that was always getting in trouble, like with school, like was in the principal's office.
	She would attempt to run away a lot.
	She was getting into experimenting with drugs and stuff.
	They were always getting into smoking and drinking.
	I don't know if she started drugs that young, but she did eventually.
	But she was just, for lack of a better term, a problem child.
	She was one of my father's kids from his previous marriage.
	Sorry, how many kids did he have from his previous marriage?
	So he had two daughters, and my mom had a son and a daughter from a previous marriage.
	Okay.
	Okay, so you had a problem, sister, and what else?
	So I had a problematic sister, created a lot of stress for my mom.
	And my brother did not feel that he was getting enough attention.
	So when he was 12, he did end up moving out of the house to go live with his biological father.
	So my mom's ex-husband.
	Because he didn't get enough attention.
	He was younger.
	Okay.
	What else?
	I think...
	I think that was mostly...
	Most of the dysfunction between dealing with...
	eventually my sister, the problematic one, she eventually moved out as well as a teenager.
	I want to say she's probably 12 or 15 or so.
	For a time she lived with her friends' parents and then eventually she also moved back to live with her biological mother.
	Sorry, she moved out from your parents' house to live with her friends' parents?
	At one point, yeah.
	I think for a year or so.
	She moved out of my parents' household to live with her friends and her friends' parents.
	At what age?
	At what age?
	She must have been a teenager, if I can remember.
	If you could narrow it down from the six-year window, that'd be excellent.
	I would say she was probably between 12 and 15 years old.
	You could get it down to three years, right?
	That's me taking my best.
	As many, many years ago, I'm 26 now, so I would have been probably like six when this was all happening.
	I mean, that's crazy.
	Yeah.
	No, seriously, like to have, I mean, my daughter's 15, and the idea that she'd go and live with a friend's, at a friend's house for a year or so is incomprehensible to me.
	Right.
	I mean, you can't parent.
	Yeah.
	I mean, how could you vet this other family?
	And why would the other family want this?
	And it's wild.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I agree.
	I think for them, I mean, it's hard to know what my parents were thinking at that time.
	For them, it might have been a weight off their chest to have, you know, four instead of five children.
	But, I mean, it is incomprehensible that somebody would live with their friends' parents at that age.
	And has this ever been explained to you, or has this ever been talked about since?
	Off and on.
	More so about my brother's situation than my sister, with him going to live with his biological father.
	Yeah, but that's not as crazy, right?
	Because there's still a parent involved, right?
	His father is quite a terrible parent.
	In what way is his father a terrible parent?
	His father would drink a bottle of vodka daily for probably his whole life.
	He used to drink and drive.
	I think the appeal that my brother had was just the fact that there was really no rules to live with his dad.
	Why would your parents allow a son to go into the home of an alcoholic?
	Like a rampant alcoholic and a drunk drunk?
	I know that they were highly against it and they didn't want him to go.
	I don't know if there was an issue with getting custody.
	Well, no, you just...
	Hang on.
	I mean, again, I'm no lawyer, right?
	But my understanding is that you would just gather the information about the alcoholism.
	Right.
	And then you would gather the information about the drunk driving, and you would say it's an unsafe environment for the child.
	And I can't imagine many judges would disagree.
	I agree.
	And that was never fully explained to me why she was not able to...
	Why she was not able to prevent that totally.
	Okay.
	And do you know how long your brother lived with his alcoholic dad?
	Until he was about 25 or 26. So he lived there for probably anywhere from 12 to 15 years under that household.
	Okay.
	All right.
	So this is messed up family stuff.
	Now, how did discipline occur within your household when you were a kid?
	So they were spankers, not vicious spankers.
	I'd say maybe once every month or so when I was younger.
	Spanking was one of them.
	Removal of privileges.
	But spanking eventually went away, and they did end up being very apologetic about it later.
	What prompted the apologies?
	Oh, I brought it up to them.
	I just brought up kind of things that I thought that they made mistakes on with me, and they wanted to get some sort of retribution.
	What's the word for it?
	Kind of where you make up for something.
	Restitution.
	Restitution, yeah, yeah.
	They were very kind of open to that feedback and they felt bad.
	And, you know, they're apologetic and everything.
	Did your mother ever explain why she married a rampant, raging alcoholic and had children with him?
	She never explained why she liked him.
	Do you remember him being a good-looking guy?
	That's tough to say because I've only seen him as kind of a middle-aged man and he was overweight and I think he might have been decent looking when he was in his 20s or 30s.
	I don't think he was ever a deadly guy, but he might have been decent looking.
	And what about your father and his first wife?
	Did she have any dysfunctions or significant stuff like your mom's ex-husband?
	She was basically a welfare recipient alcoholic smoker.
	So yeah, she was a total non-functioning person.
	So your parents' first marriages were total disasters, right?
	Correct.
	And your first marriage is a...
	Yeah, it's a disaster.
	It's a total disaster, right?
	Yeah.
	I mean, it almost couldn't be going worse unless there were kids involved.
	Yeah, because I don't even know what this process looks like.
	There's like three different jurisdictions involved with my divorce right now.
	My wife doesn't even respond.
	Yeah, I know.
	We'll get to that.
	Okay, so your parents, would you say that they were involved parents or neglectful or how would you characterize their investment in their kids?
	So I was definitely the favorite.
	I definitely got, it was kind of the Pareto.
	Well, I got, you know, I was one kid that got 80% of the attention.
	And they would probably agree with me on that too.
	So my mom, I'd say more so my mom than my dad, kind of the role in the house or the, you know, roles where my mom kind of Managed the finances and took care of sports and all that.
	And, you know, kept track of what the kids are doing.
	My dad would just work really hard to make ends meet financially.
	So, sorry, your mom, she stayed home?
	She worked part-time.
	I mean, I was in daycare from the age of two to about five or so.
	And then I went to school and then she worked...
	Either part-time or full-time most of my life.
	Wait, wait, wait.
	Sorry, sorry.
	Sorry, hang on.
	So you were in daycare from two to five and your mom wasn't working part-time?
	No, she was.
	That's why I was in daycare.
	So she was working and what was her job?
	She's had a couple of jobs over the years.
	I mean, I assume that they're pretty low-paying jobs, right?
	So she did real estate.
	I think she made some decent money that way.
	She did some online work from home, working for her company.
	So yeah, definitely not the breadwinner, but decent kind of middle-class jobs, I would say.
	So why were you put in daycare?
	I mean, because daycare is expensive, right?
	Right.
	So very few women make enough money to cover significantly and make significantly more than daycare, the cost of daycare.
	Right.
	My parents were not particularly good with money, so it might have been that they thought it was cheaper than daycare.
	Me being at home?
	Well, no, but you care about these things.
	Like, let's say that you're married and some woman comes up and says, I'll pay you $25,000 to have an affair with me, but you have to tell your wife.
	Would you do it?
	I mean, when you were happily married, not now, right?
	Yeah, now.
	Well, why wouldn't you do it?
	It's $25,000, man.
	Well, it's the...
	I mean, it's the principle of it.
	I think, you know, destroying a marriage should ideally be worth more than $25,000.
	Right.
	I mean, because you're going to end up losing more money because you have to go through a divorce, right?
	And your heart's broken and your wife's heart's broken and all that, right?
	So, in other words, you don't trade the quality of a relationship for $25,000, right?
	Right.
	Now, I'd be deeply shocked if your mom...
	Made, after taxes, $25,000 more than the cost of daycare.
	And having to have a second car and all of the clothing that she needed for real estate and all the dry cleaning and all the lunches out.
	And so the question is, good at money or not, you don't have to be good at money to say, no, I'm not going to sleep with a woman for $25,000 if I'm married, if I have to tell my wife.
	And in the same way, I'm not going to put my kids in daycare For a thousand extra bucks a month of income because, right, that's terrible.
	I mean, if you were in daycare for three years, and let's say that your mom did really well and made $2,000 a month over and above what she had to spend on daycare and everything else, right?
	So for $36,000, you were dumped in daycare for three years.
	That's a shitty deal.
	Yeah.
	So you weren't in daycare because they needed the money.
	So why were you in daycare?
	I mean, do you know if your half-siblings were in daycares as well?
	Well, they couldn't have been because at that time they would have been at least 10 years old each.
	They were all just in school.
	No, no, no.
	I understand that.
	I mean, when they were younger.
	Oh, gosh.
	I don't know.
	I don't know if they were at any point in daycare.
	But probably, because if they put you in daycare and you were the favorite child, then they'd probably put the other kids in daycare too.
	Yeah, probably.
	They probably did it, or at least had a nanny or something, yeah.
	So it probably is worth having a convo with your mom about like, well, why was I in daycare?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, maybe.
	Well, and she'll say, well, you know, I had to work.
	It's like, well, why did you have to work?
	I mean, just get a small house, you don't have to have a second car, dry cleaning, gas, expenses, insurance, clothing, lunches, and the cost of daycare, right?
	So, not particularly bonded, right?
	With my parents, would you say?
	Well, with you and your parents, because...
	If a mother puts her child in daycare, that's indicative of not being particularly bonded.
	Yeah.
	I mean, I do remember...
	Because she's taking money over precious time with her child.
	Who on earth would do that?
	That's almost demonic.
	No, I'm not kidding about that, right?
	I mean, why would you give up love and time with your child for a couple of bucks?
	Yeah.
	I don't know.
	I don't know.
	I mean, I would have lived in my car rather than put my daughter into daycare.
	Yeah.
	I'm not sure.
	I definitely felt quite bonded to my mom when I was a kid.
	But you were in daycare.
	Well, when I was spending time with my mom, my dad.
	Well, when you weren't in daycare, sure.
	I get that.
	But then they'd put you in daycare.
	And how did you perceive, because kids always run this through some sort of processing, right?
	So how did you perceive being dropped off at daycare?
	What was your thought about that?
	I used to freak out every day.
	Well, you hated it.
	Yeah, I remember that.
	I used to freak out every day.
	My dad would drop me off.
	So what was your answer as a kid as to why...
	you were being dropped to take care?
	I never got an answer.
	I never asked.
	No, no.
	What was your answer?
	Not their answer.
	What was your answer in your mind about why you were being dropped at daycare?
	Oh, yeah.
	I probably would have just said that while my parents are at work.
	That would have been my answer.
	Yeah, I mean, do you really get work and money at the age of two or three?
	Oh.
	No, I mean, I probably just assumed that...
	Yeah.
	I mean, it's hard for me to remember that far back.
	But...
	Yeah.
	I don't know.
	Just, you know, losing time with my parents.
	So...
	All kids go through the same thing with daycare.
	Now, if there's some absolute emergency, like the kids who were sent out of London because of the Blitz in 1940, right?
	The German bombers.
	Okay, that's a different matter, right?
	Kids getting blown up and stuff, right?
	So kids either say it's a total emergency, right?
	Like some woman going down on the Titanic, handing her baby to some guy in the lifeboat because there's no room for her.
	Right?
	So it's either an absolute emergency or my parents don't care.
	My parents have more important things to do, my parents have higher priorities, and they're dropping me off even though I hate it because they prefer other things to my happiness.
	Yeah, I don't know.
	I definitely remember kind of freaking out every day, like almost in a violent way, kind of almost like pushing the daycare employees out of my way and stuff to run back to try to get in the car and stuff.
	Now, of course, in the environment you grew up in, I assume, right, there was no war, there was no emergency, there was no ghouls or zombies or famine, right?
	So given that you're in a peaceful, relatively peaceful society, As a kid, the only reason that your parents are dropping you off at daycare is they care about something much more than you.
	It's not an emergency because society is not falling apart.
	And it's not a money emergency.
	Because there's food on the table, there's heating, there's house, cars, right?
	So it's not a food or starvation emergency, right?
	So it just means that your parents don't particularly care about you relative to something else.
	So that's cold.
	Yeah, it makes sense.
	And this went on for years.
	and they also don't particularly care that you're freaking out and hate being dropped off.
	Yeah.
	Mm-hmm.
	Yeah.
	Thank you.
	Right, because your Ukrainian bride, wife, has a lack of bonding with you, right?
	Yeah, it's the reason we're doing the divorce.
	Right.
	So then the question is, why did you get married to a woman not knowing that she didn't bond or couldn't bond with you?
	I justified it by the fact that she was serious about wanting to get married.
	She was serious about wanting to have children.
	That's not at all responsive to what I just said.
	With all due respect, right?
	That's a nice little side alley, but that's not at all responsive.
	So what did I say?
	You were saying how I justified getting married to somebody that was not bonded to me.
	Right.
	That's not what I said.
	What I said was, how did you not notice that she was not capable of bonding?
	That she was not capable of it.
	Interesting.
	I can't say I did notice.
	Right.
	I get that you didn't notice.
	You didn't notice that this woman couldn't bond with you.
	And this is why I'm talking about daycare.
	Yeah.
	Is it because I lack the self-awareness of the daycare, then...
	No, but that certainly is a fine guess.
	That certainly is a fine guess.
	No, so you think that you're close to your mother and you thought that you were close to your bride.
	It turns out your bride couldn't bond with you.
	You didn't even notice that.
	Your mother didn't warn you about that because your mother, I would argue, lacks some bonding capacities, which is why she dumped you in daycare to chase a couple of bucks.
	If you're bonded with a kid...
	You'll stand between them and a mountain lion, right?
	You'll let a bear rip the scalp off rather than the mama bear stuff, right?
	You would never dump your kid in daycare if you're truly bonded.
	Yeah.
	But you haven't raised the standards for women.
	I mean, I guess you've raised them in terms of prettiness.
	But you haven't raised the standards for women to say, what does it mean to be truly bonded?
	Right.
	Truly bonded is, I mean, I hate that sort of cliche, ride or die.
	You know, like, truly bonded is nothing can come between you.
	Right.
	You know, like in my marriage, obviously, there's been a lot of sort of attacks from outside.
	You know, I had cancer.
	There's been all kinds of things going on, right?
	And we're just truly bonded.
	Like, nothing can come between us.
	Right.
	So, your parents knew the danger, and this is another reason why I say there's little to no bond as far as I can see, and again, I'm happy to be corrected on this if I'm wrong, but your parents knew just how disastrous a first marriage could be, right?
	They did, yeah.
	So why the living fuck didn't they help you weed out an unsuitable marriage partner?
	I mean, they literally went through this for years.
	They went through this for years.
	They were tormented by years.
	They had really dysfunctional partners.
	They got divorced.
	They had kids.
	There were custody issues.
	There were money issues.
	And why would they not vet this woman, warn you, and figure out how to protect you from everything they went through?
	They did.
	I mean, they did...
	You know, discouraged me from how fast I got married.
	They did tell me that, you know, I might be taking it too quickly and that I should take it slow and, you know, there's no need to rush it type thing.
	And they still hadn't met her in person yet.
	Okay.
	What the fuck, man?
	I'm so sorry.
	Okay, so you say, well, I was in Europe, they were in the States, blah, blah, blah, right?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	Why didn't they fly out?
	I mean, their son is getting married, or engaged, or is really serious about a woman.
	You fly out!
	I genuinely don't understand this.
	Why wouldn't they fly out to help you?
	Hard-earned experience about how bad first marriages can be.
	Knowing how much risk and danger and problems and expense was going on with them, with the two, the welfare queen, then the drinker smoker, and then the bottle of vodka at night, alcoholic drunk driver guy, they know how bad these first marriages can be.
	Why would they?
	I mean, your mother made all this money because she put you in daycare.
	So they have the money to fly out, right?
	Yeah, they did.
	They flew out and I don't know how much.
	I ended up getting...
	Sorry, I thought they didn't meet her.
	I'm sorry if I got this wrong.
	I thought that they didn't meet her until after you were married.
	They didn't.
	Okay, bro, what are you doing to me here?
	Come on, let's not waste time here.
	If I say, why didn't they help you not get into this bad situation?
	Well, they did fly out, but after I was married.
	That's not what I'm talking about.
	Right.
	It's like saying, well, you were drowning.
	Why didn't your parents throw you a life jacket?
	It's like, well, they did, but after I was on the shore already.
	But that's not responsive, right?
	So why wouldn't they fly out to make sure you didn't make the same mistakes they both did, knowing how harmful it was to them?
	Um...
	Good question.
	I mean, I kept swearing up and down how sure I was about it, but...
	Well, they know that they themselves got married and were sure about it, so that doesn't mean anything.
	It's like every time I go into that area of the woods, I get mauled by a bear, and my daughter goes wandering off to that area of the woods, and I'm like, yeah, maybe that's not the best idea, maybe wait a little bit in the day.
	That would be crazy, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I don't know.
	I don't know.
	Yes, you do.
	Nice try, though.
	I like how everyone...
	How long have you listened to What I Do?
	It's just embarrassing for me to admit this now, but I've been listening since probably 2016. Okay, 2016. Right, so it's still kind of cute that people don't mention the looks of the woman, and it's still kind of cute that people say, you know, I don't know why my parents do things.
	I don't mean to mock you, but you know, it's just kind of funny, right?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	So why didn't they fly out?
	Are they on the East Coast or the West Coast?
	They're on the West.
	West Coast.
	All right.
	You know what I'm going to do, right?
	Right.
	No, I don't.
	I don't know.
	Okay.
	You think of why they didn't fly out, and I will tell you how much it would cost for them to fly out.
	You don't have to give me details.
	I'm just going to give general ideas, right?
	Probably a thousand bucks.
	Yes.
	I'm just going to go major city to major city.
	Thank you.
	What do we got here?
	Uh...
	I need, like, 19 different pairs of glasses these days.
	It's really funny, right?
	I'm not going to complain.
	Is this...
	Oh, $374!
	Yeah, look at that.
	I got $572, $633, $629, $585.
	Let me go...
	Let's just go low to high, right?
	Just in case they're having some...
	I don't want best.
	Cheapest.
	Yeah, so the cheapest here looks to be 570 bucks.
	Yeah.
	That's right.
	Yeah, that's right.
	You can get there in 12 hours?
	Yeah, that sounds about right.
	Yeah.
	So, 500 bucks.
	Is this...
	Are we circling back to money being more important than the bond?
	I don't know what the answer is.
	But when people say to me, damn, Steph, although you and I are in totally different countries having intimate conversations, well, my parents couldn't help me because they're in a different country.
	Like, why wouldn't you fly out?
	Your kid's getting married.
	You know exactly how disastrous this can be.
	Exactly.
	Exactly.
	I mean, and also, there's high stakes too.
	You're overseas, she's from another country, right?
	You've got complications trying to get her back to the States.
	What if you have kids and then it doesn't work out, which they know all about, right?
	Then you've got to share your kids in another country with a woman from another country from that country.
	I mean, she's from a war-torn country.
	You're in another country.
	Your parents are in another country.
	Your citizenship is in your parents' country.
	How the hell is this supposed to work if it doesn't work?
	Especially if you have kids.
	Stakes couldn't possibly be higher.
	Yeah, no, that's true.
	So why don't they fly out?
	They can stay with you, maybe.
	Sleep on the couch.
	Doesn't matter, right?
	A thousand bucks.
	Do they have new cell phones?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	New cell phones.
	For the price of a new cell phone, a high-end one, they could go there and back.
	But you see, cell phones are really important, right?
	Your son getting married.
	Oh, come on, man.
	It's not that important.
	Right.
	Right.
	So why don't they fly out?
	I don't have an answer to that question.
	Thank you.
	Okay, let's look at logical answers to the question.
	I'm not saying you're being illogical, it's just that if we don't have empiricism, then we have to go with logic, right?
	Right.
	Why didn't they fly out?
	What would be logical answers to that question?
	logical why they wouldn't they weren't they weren't worried they weren't They didn't...
	I don't know.
	I don't know.
	They thought I had sound judgment, maybe.
	Well, did you?
	Thank you.
	I didn't, no.
	Okay, so if you don't have sound judgment, but they think you have sound judgment, then they don't know you really at all.
	That's also a bit of a problem, isn't it?
	Yeah.
	Okay, so your theory is that one possible explanation is they don't know or understand you at all.
	That's possible.
	Okay.
	So that's bad parenting, isn't it?
	You're supposed to know your kids, right?
	Yeah, that's true.
	Okay.
	Do they think that...
	I mean, did they see a picture of her?
	Yeah.
	All right.
	So your father and your mother saw a picture of this Ukrainian goddess, right?
	Right.
	And I assume she's stunning in her pictures, right?
	Right.
	So, do your parents have no idea that it is possible for young men to suffer slightly impaired judgment when in the presence of a stunningly attractive or beautiful young woman?
	They would definitely know that, yes.
	Right.
	I mean, are they religious?
	No, not really.
	Okay.
	But they do understand that there's a sin or a risk or a danger called lust, right?
	Right.
	Okay, so they see this stunner, and if you are a father, and you see that your son has gotten involved with a 21-year-old Ukrainian hottie, What would be your first rational concern?
	That's a terrible idea.
	Not a terrible idea, but it's just a recipe for disaster.
	Yeah, yeah.
	That's a risk.
	In the same way that if you have a daughter and she gets involved with a guy who has endless amounts of cash in his house and no visible means of support...
	Maybe it's legit, but it would raise some red flags, right?
	Right.
	Now, what's this woman in the country you met her in, was she with her family, had the whole family fled, or was she more alone?
	Yeah, her whole family lives here in Germany as well.
	Okay.
	And what did they think of your relationship?
	They were quite supportive.
	Of our relationship.
	Okay.
	That doesn't mean there was never drama or anything with them as well between me and them.
	What was the drama?
	There's definitely just some cultural differences.
	Oh, come on.
	Don't just seek.
	Yeah.
	Drama that explained it away as cultural.
	Don't make me work this hard, man.
	Cultural.
	Yeah.
	The drama.
	Let me think.
	They made me late.
	They didn't always respect my time, so they'd make me late to stuff, and that really pissed me off.
	I would tell them I have to leave at 8 p.m., and they would kind of just ask me to do something or be like, oh, we're going to quickly drive up the street, and then I show up half an hour, 45 minutes later, and now I'm late getting out the door.
	So not fully respecting my time.
	There was a time where her dad asked me for $2,000 for a one-year-old's birthday party, which absolutely shocked me.
	Sorry, what now?
	Yeah, he asked if I could loan him $2,000 to throw his one-year-old son a birthday party.
	Okay, there's two things that are kind of surprising there.
	100%.
	This was after we got married, but that was...
	And I already told him that we had kind of gone hard on the credit cards and were focusing on being frugal.
	And then he asked me for that money after I already told him that we're focusing on being frugal for the time being.
	Why does a 21-year-old's father have a one-year-old son?
	So her biological father doesn't live here.
	It's her stepdad.
	And they had a late pregnancy, so she has a one-year-old half-brother.
	Okay, so what's the story with her biological parents?
	Yeah, we're coming full circle now, realizing how much I don't know about her past.
	So her biological dad got a divorce with her biological mother.
	I think she must have been a kid, and then her mom remarried, and they had a second child.
	She was eight or nine years younger than my wife.
	And then she got a divorce again.
	So she's had three children from three marriages.
	And the latest one.
	Are you kidding me, bro?
	No, seriously.
	I mean, I get that it's kind of funny, but it's kind of not.
	Are you serious?
	You've been listening to me for eight years, right?
	Right.
	And you, from a multitude of broken homes, rushes into marriage with a woman from a multitude of broken marriages.
	Right.
	Why wouldn't you call me before?
	Good question.
	Good question.
	Yeah, I don't know.
	It just occurred to me recently that I should call you.
	You really do lean on this I don't know bit, right?
	I don't know.
	You know that none of my listeners get to play dumb, right?
	Yeah.
	Maybe it goes back to the lust thing.
	Maybe I was afraid that you would have talked me out of it, and the lust was more powerful than my desire for the truth.
	Okay.
	So, if you wanted to get married to her out of lust, then you got what you wanted.
	Right?
	You got to sleep with her, you got to marry her.
	How long were you guys married for?
	It's been six months now.
	Okay.
	When did you first begin to really think that it might not work out?
	I'd say ever since we moved in together was kind of when my doubts just grew over time.
	Okay.
	And what were the roots of those doubts?
	Just the fact that she's very selfish and very...
	I didn't feel like I could trust her to kind of help assist me with basic things.
	Like, you know, we moved, so it's like, okay, organizing our stuff, getting the Wi-Fi set up.
	You know, she's not working, so...
	Sorry.
	Sorry, you're asking a 9 or a 10 to help you with the Wi-Fi?
	She just didn't contribute in a nutshell.
	Sorry, but you didn't choose her for her ability to contribute.
	You chose her for her ability to be hot.
	No, again, you keep laughing, but this is a fact, isn't it?
	Yeah.
	That's like me choosing a plastic Christmas tree and being mad that it's not growing.
	Right.
	Okay.
	Were there any indications about her selfishness before you got married?
	I think.
	I'm sure there were.
	I'm trying to think of a concrete example.
	Well, she accomplished it.
	Before we got married.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	Um yeah I mean it's it's it probably sounds kind of silly but like I'm a Russian speaker as well and I would kind of say what we're doing I was like hey let's speak English sometimes so that I'm not always speaking you can practice your English and stuff and she'd basically say like oh I'll only do that when I want to do that something just just kind of little things like that or it always had to be when she wanted to do something and not uh never when I wanted to um Or,
	you know, really early into a relationship.
	Like, buying the train tickets.
	We'd kind of say stuff like, oh, well, if you wanted to save money, you would have bought this ahead of time.
	And I'm like, well, you're asking me to pay for your train tickets.
	Giving me advice on how to save money.
	Okay, you're mumbling.
	Oh, sorry about that.
	Yeah, she was kind of a responsibility dodger.
	No, I just didn't get the example about the tickets.
	Yeah, so I would buy her train tickets from time to time when she would come to visit, and I would reserve it or whatever, and then she would kind of criticize the fact that I didn't buy it sooner,
	but she didn't tell me when I had to buy it, so it seemed very entitled and very, you know, I'm paying For her to do something, so she should be the one telling me kind of what her schedule looks like to help me save money on the ticket type thing.
	It's a very kind of small example.
	But, yeah.
	Okay.
	Sorry, I'm trying to...
	Just remind me where you met again?
	We met here in Germany, just in a small town.
	Oh, okay.
	And what were you both doing there?
	Well, so we met online and we found a place that was kind of in between our two...
	Oh, you met like a dating app?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, dating app and then we met between our two cities.
	Okay, got it.
	She lived pretty far away, yeah.
	Okay.
	And how long after you met face-to-face was it before you slept together?
	Not until after we got married, actually.
	Oh, so...
	Before you got married.
	Correct.
	Okay.
	And is that because she's religious?
	Oh, you said she wanted to read the Bible, or was that more interesting?
	Yeah, we were both interested in growing in religion and everything.
	So yeah, we waited on sexual stuff until after marriage.
	And was she a virgin?
	Were you a virgin?
	Or had you had prior sexual experience, the two of you?
	Neither of us were virgins.
	Okay, got it.
	Okay.
	So, do you know if she'd had a lot of boyfriends?
	You don't have to give me an exact body count, if you even know it.
	But do you know if she'd had a lot of boyfriends before she met you?
	I don't think she's had.
	She told me she had.
	I asked her like kind of what her body count was.
	She said it was less than 10. I didn't give me an exact number.
	Less than 10?
	Yeah.
	At 20 or 21?
	Yeah.
	So I guess that could still be quite a few.
	Yeah.
	You think?
	She said, I think she said she's only had probably two to three.
	Two to three relationships.
	Yeah, that's not the same as a body count, though, as you know, right?
	Great.
	Okay.
	So, if she wasn't a virgin, why wait until marriage for sex?
	I'm not saying whether it's a good or bad idea.
	I'm just kind of curious.
	This is going to sound even more ridiculous, but I was under the viewpoint that you should form a strong relationship before engaging in that.
	Because I think it's kind of like cheating.
	Well, it's not...
	I see it as corrupting, you know, kind of clouding judgment.
	And it's ironic for me to say this, but that's kind of why I saw it as valuable to wait a long time before engaging in it, because you get all those hormones and everything.
	In hindsight, it made no difference, but that was how I justified it.
	And how did she justify it?
	Oh, so did she want to have sex before marriage, but you didn't?
	No, neither of us.
	We were both comfortable waiting.
	Okay, so you were together a couple of months, but it was long distance, right?
	Three hours.
	Yeah, that's long distance.
	Okay, that's long distance.
	Yeah.
	Okay, and so you would sort of see each other once a week, like...
	Yeah, I'd say about once a week, yeah.
	Okay, and seeing each other once a week, how long did it take for you to get engaged?
	I know you said at the beginning, but just remind me.
	It was about two or three months into dating.
	That means, oh Jesus, that means we only met each other probably like ten or so times in person.
	Well, and I assume no other-nighters, right?
	I bought her a hotel for herself on a couple occasions so that she could stay in my studio.
	Right, but no, overnight.
	Okay, so you saw each other maybe 10 or 12 times.
	And how many times did you meet each other before you proposed?
	Yeah, it's probably anywhere from 10 to 15. We do the math on that.
	We did travel together for an extended weekend.
	So, yeah.
	Okay.
	Sorry, and how long after you met did you get married?
	In other words, how long?
	So three months to get engaged and then?
	And then another three months or so after getting engaged to getting legally married.
	Sorry, you say legally married like there's some other, is there some other way that I, is there a wrinkle there I'm not aware of?
	Well, there was no wedding at any point.
	So we just, yeah, we got married.
	Oh, Justice of the Peace kind of thing, right?
	City Hall.
	Okay.
	All right.
	Okay, and then after you got married, how long ago was it you got married?
	So it was back in June, about six, seven months ago.
	Okay, and do you have a good income?
	I make decent, yeah.
	I make what I would say good money.
	Six figures, 80k, just, you know, ballpark me.
	No, no, no, not after tax.
	Just gross.
	We can't blame the government.
	Oh, we can't blame ourselves for what the government takes.
	Oh, okay.
	Gross, it's probably about 80-90k then.
	Okay, which for a guy in his mid-20s is very good, right?
	Good for you.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	Okay, so you're together three months, you get engaged another three months, so you got married six months after you met, right?
	Yeah.
	And then when did the talk of divorce first come up?
	I'd say the talk of it started about a few weeks to, I'd say about three, maybe three weeks ago.
	Okay.
	And who brought it up?
	Does it count if she kind of freaked out and said she wanted a divorce but didn't mean it?
	Because I was the one that seriously said I wanted it, but she had kind of made threats like that.
	No, because if it's a threat, it means that it's on her mind, right?
	Either it's on her mind, or she's just a horrendous bully who's going to threaten divorce just to get her way, which is also breaking the relationship, right?
	Yeah, so she kind of had a temper tantrum and said that earlier this summer.
	How long after you got married did she make the divorce threat?
	Oh, that would have been within the first month or two.
	Huh.
	So within the first month or two of getting married and what were the circumstances or what was the situation that she was threatening divorce over?
	It was really ridiculous actually.
	She doesn't have a license or a car and I work I would work from about 5.30 in the morning until 5.30 p.m.
	And she wanted to go play volleyball at 7 or 8 p.m.
	at night.
	And I told her I didn't want to drive her and that I had to go to bed because it was already getting quite late and I didn't want to be out crazy late because I have to sleep normally.
	Because you'd have to pick her up too, right?
	When was the volleyball finished?
	Oh, like 10, sometimes 11 p.m.
	They played pretty late.
	Yeah.
	And I basically just said, no, I'm not taking you to volleyball.
	And then she freaked out, and then she left the house, and then I was trying to figure out what she was doing and what's wrong, and then she just said she wanted a divorce, then came back like three hours later, and just went to like McDonald's or something.
	Okay.
	So why do you think she wanted to go to McDonald's so badly?
	This is your test of female nature 101. Why does she want to go?
	To McDonald's so badly.
	Sorry, to volleyball.
	Oh, she liked me.
	Why does she want to go to volleyball?
	She likes sports.
	Nope.
	Nope.
	Why did you want to go to volleyball so badly?
	Well, let me ask you this before I ask that.
	Was it a mixed sex team?
	Or was it only females?
	It was mixed.
	It was all ages.
	So why did she want to go to volleyball so badly?
	Is this like a validation thing?
	Like getting male attention or something like that?
	Well, yeah.
	Wouldn't that be the most likely answer?
	That she's addicted to male attention?
	Yeah, I mean, it's a possible answer.
	Well, why else would you want to threaten your marriage unless you had some kind of addiction?
	Yeah, we did play volleyball together a lot.
	That was kind of something that she was really into.
	But yeah, I could see that being possible that she wanted male attention.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	Was she, when you were out, was she into male attention as a whole?
	Or did she use that?
	She would kind of hold it over me sometimes.
	Like, you know, we'd be shopping and I would be in a different aisle or something, and then some random guy would offer to, like, push the cart for her.
	And then she's like, look, Brandon, other guys are already offering to push the cart.
	You've got to push the cart or something like that.
	So she would kind of use it as like a lever or like a manipulation tool.
	Mm-hmm.
	Okay.
	I mean, beautiful women can often be quite addicted to That kind of validation, right?
	Right.
	And so she may have been going through withdrawal, right?
	In that she'd gotten married, and I assume she was off the dating app, she was off, you know, just a wide variety of things, and she wasn't getting the kind of validation that she normally would get as a very attractive woman online, right?
	Yeah, that's certainly possible.
	All right.
	So she didn't work, right?
	She did not, no.
	And what was the plan for, when you talked about your future, what was the plan that you guys had together?
	So she had to get essentially documentation that would allow her to, it basically would be like a work permit for the rest of the time that I would be in Germany, and then she'd have to eventually get a green card to work in America.
	As far as specific plans, she had a lot of ideas, but we didn't have anything concrete in terms of what she wanted to do for work.
	There's just a few ideas that she had.
	Okay, what was your plan after you get married?
	What was the plan?
	You're just going to stay home and play volleyball while you work five hours a day?
	I don't understand.
	No, so the plan was she was going to get this work permit in Germany and then work in a cafe or something until we moved to America.
	And then once we get to America, she'd have the green card.
	I mean, she wanted to work in photography, that's what she said.
	Okay, I'm so sorry.
	Help me out here, right?
	So you get married in June.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	So how hard was it for her to get the work permit?
	It was much harder than expected because she had, because she changed her name, she had to Change her Ukrainian passports, and that has taken months.
	Oh, because she changed her name because she got married?
	Right.
	Okay.
	So we initially thought it'd be, yeah, we thought it'd be super easy, but it ended up being months and months, you know, partly because it's a war zone.
	So she had to go to Ukraine, she had to change her passports, and she would come back hypothetically, and then she could immediately, even the same day, get a work permit here in Germany after that.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	And you guys had talked about kids, but I assume that was just some time down the road?
	So I wanted children sooner than she did.
	I want children within, say, the next three to four years.
	I mean, assuming I was happily married right now, I would want kids in the next probably three to four years.
	She wanted kids eight years from now.
	There's a difference there.
	She wanted kids eight years from now.
	Right.
	Do you know why?
	She said that she wanted to travel and enjoy life and work before having the responsibility of kids.
	Okay, so you would then be in your mid-30s, she'd be in her late 20s, right?
	Right.
	And you discussed this before you got married?
	We did, yeah.
	Okay, so she was going to work in a cafe and, what, maybe something in photography or something like that?
	Yeah, yeah.
	She didn't really know entirely.
	But those are just some thoughts that she had for work, yeah.
	It's kind of vague, isn't it?
	Yeah.
	She also had the idea of potentially working as a flight attendant.
	What?
	Yeah.
	I mean, she's married, right?
	But that's part of the validation thing, right?
	Yeah, traveling as well.
	Okay, so she didn't have any plans?
	Nothing concrete, no.
	I mean, are there other kinds of plans that I'm not aware of?
	Other things are called dreams, right?
	Yeah.
	No, she didn't have any concrete plans.
	And she wanted to study in university eventually.
	But yeah, there's nothing concrete.
	Okay.
	So you were just going to basically fund this?
	Yeah.
	Yes, I was going to fund it.
	All right.
	So you were funding her?
	Yeah.
	Why?
	Um...
	I guess I believe...
	No, be honest!
	Be honest!
	Why were you funding her?
	This just comes back to her being hot.
	Don't ask me!
	Why were you finding her?
	Well, she didn't have a source of income, so I was setting her up to get to a place where she could make her own money.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	But she had no plan for any of that.
	Yeah, that doesn't make sense then.
	Why were you finding her?
	Thank you.
	Look, you know the traditional deal between men and women, right?
	Is, I'll fund you...
	So that you can run the household and raise babies, right?
	Right.
	So why men have excess money is to pay for a wife and kids.
	That's why we generally tend to make so much money.
	That's why we focus on making money.
	That's what our dollars are for, right?
	Right.
	So that's the deal.
	Now, she didn't want that deal, right?
	Right.
	What deal did she want?
	I think she just wanted kind of unlimited freedom to do whatever the hell she wanted.
	Well, she wanted free stuff.
	Right.
	So why would you give her money to, you know, work in a cafe and travel and, you know?
	Um...
	Yeah, that's a good question.
	Thank you.
	I think at a certain point, I get to a point where I felt obligated or or just the fact that...
	I felt that I always had to keep the relationship going because if I didn't, then there would just be a divorce, which it ended up being a divorce anyway.
	So.
	So...
	I kind of felt forced to pay for stuff a lot.
	Okay, so how did it come about...
	That you felt forced to pay for stuff.
	And I'm not, nothing to do, it's not critical.
	I'm just, this is like forensic.
	This is like anthropology, right?
	So how did it come about that you felt you had to pay for stuff?
	And listen, all men have been there.
	We've all been there.
	So this is not critical.
	I'm not negative.
	You know, this is not like finger wagging.
	This is like a genuine Question, right?
	How did it come about for you?
	Because this is your weak spot, right?
	How did it come about for you that you ended up feeling you had to pay for her without her running the household or giving you kids?
	Because, right, this is why it bothered you, but she wouldn't even help with the Wi-Fi, right?
	Right.
	Like, what are you paying for?
	Men are normally paying for a woman to run the household and to raise the kids, right?
	Right.
	So what were you paying for?
	She wasn't going to run your household, right?
	Right.
	She was going to raise your kids for the foreseeable future.
	I mean, eight years is basically never, right?
	Yeah.
	So, what was it?
	What were you paying for?
	I was paying for her to essentially exist as my wife.
	Nope.
	What are we paying for?
	There's only two things that men pay for, family or sex.
	I guess I was paying for sex.
	Well, were you?
	Not really.
	I mean, we didn't really engage in it very often.
	Well, that's not the point.
	No, because the anticipation was that you would be engaging it often, right?
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	Right.
	Why do men pay for hot girls?
	Well, for sex.
	Well, yeah.
	Yeah.
	I mean, I'm sure that's not overly shocking, right?
	Right.
	Okay.
	So, you were paying so you could get access for sex, and there was one other thing you were paying for.
	So, if she, if you had said to her, no, I mean, that's not a thing.
	That's not a thing that you can just kind of roam around and do some travel.
	You've got to do some work.
	So, you're either raising my kids or you're making good money, right?
	But I'm not paying for you to be a dilettante, if that makes sense.
	Right.
	So if you had said something like that, I mean, however nicely you might say it, right?
	You can say these things kind of nicely, right?
	So if you had said something like that, like, that doesn't work for me.
	Like, I don't want to cheapen our relationship by paying for you to not really work because that's not really a team, right?
	Like, if you're bringing 80, 90k a year to the table, what's she bringing to the table?
	Nothing.
	Not nothing, because there's no economy if there's nothing.
	Yeah, I mean, pretty much just sex.
	Well, sex, status, hotness, whatever, right?
	Yeah.
	Right, so...
	So what were you paying for?
	You were paying for hotness.
	Right.
	So, what would have happened if you had said to her, no, that does not, like, how does that work for me, right?
	Because it's a fair question, right?
	Right.
	How does that work for me?
	Are you saying like, how would she respond if I was to ask her that?
	Yeah.
	She should be pretty indifferent.
	She'd probably say, like, oh, I don't care, but this is what I need, what I want to do.
	Okay, so let me just meet her for a sec.
	So play in a little roleplay, all right?
	Okay, so I would say something like, you know, I've really been thinking about it.
	I'm not really sure what the plan is after you get married.
	Like, I want to have kids, and I kind of get that you don't want to have kids, but that's kind of where I am at in my life.
	And, you know, it doesn't hugely work for me that there's just this kind of half plan where You're just going to kind of travel and work.
	It doesn't really work for me.
	And I'm not sure what the answer is, but whatever this is, is not the answer.
	If you're going to be a housewife and raise my kids, raise our kids, I think that's great.
	If you want to, I don't know, maybe be a professional, but if you're going to get into photography, that's going to take Forever, right?
	I mean, and, you know, photography in the age of AI is, you know, I don't really see the...
	Like, it just seems all kind of vague, and I just really can't...
	Because, you know, I'm signing up to sort of take care of you and pay all the bills and so on, and I'm not getting kids out of it.
	I'm not getting someone who has any particular path to making money, and maybe there'll be a lot of education and all that kind of stuff, right?
	But I just...
	It's not working for me, and we just need to figure something out.
	So if you could help me figure out what the plan is that doesn't just involve me having to spend a whole bunch of money, I'd really appreciate that.
	What would she say?
	Well, you know, the job of the husband is to finance the wife.
	No, no, that's not it.
	No, that's not it.
	The job of the husband is to finance the family, the kids.
	Right?
	Not the wife.
	I mean, I think you're talking about another kind of occupation.
	But the job of the husband is to finance the family.
	And if there aren't kids, then I'm just paying you for what?
	Like, wouldn't I just be then paying you for sex?
	That would be pretty horrible, wouldn't it?
	Well, I'll work, but I'm only going to do a job that I want to do.
	Well, we don't even know what that job might be.
	And why is it that you get to do a job that you want to do, but I do a job that I have to do in order to pay the bills, right?
	That doesn't seem very equal.
	Like, if you want a marriage of equals, then I think you have to aim for equality.
	And if you want a marriage where I'm paying more, then you have to run the household and raise the kids.
	But I already told you that, yeah, I should say something like, I already told you that I will wait eight years for kids and not have many sooner Well, okay, so then I pay for you for eight years off and on, right?
	Because you don't have to have any particularly steady income or anything like that, right?
	So I kind of pay for you for eight years, but how does that exactly benefit me?
	Well, you chose me.
	You chose me knowing that I only wanted to do work and that I want to travel only doing things that I want to do.
	Well, but the question is, am I choosing you, right?
	Because if it is just, oh, husband, you get the joys of spending money on me for almost a decade, and then maybe I'll have kids, right?
	That's not a great deal, right?
	I mean, it's an interesting question, right?
	It's a deep question, right?
	It's like, what do people bring to the table in relationships, right?
	So what are you bringing that I have to...
	So let's say that I pay $50,000 more a year than you make, right?
	So I make 80 to 90 and you make, I don't know, 30 to 40 or something like that, right?
	So now we're talking that I'm paying, let's say, $40,000 a year extra over you over eight years.
	That's $320,000.
	That's $320,000.
	Now, what do I get for $320,000?
	Now, I have no problem with that if I get a house full of kids and it's well run and you're a great mom, as I'm sure you would be.
	Then that makes sense to me.
	But I don't know what I'm spending $320,000 on.
	If it's just because you're young and pretty, that's kind of turning it into a kind of prostitution, isn't it?
	In other words, that you're sleeping with me for money.
	Now, that's no good, right?
	We don't want that in the relationship.
	And I want to make sure that our relationship stays, you know, sort of strong and healthy and all these kinds of good things, right?
	So that's my question is what are you contributing to match, you know, $320,000?
	I mean, because if it's just because you're young and pretty, which you are and it's lovely, but if it's just because you're young and pretty, then I'm just sort of buying your flesh like a slave auction or something.
	I don't want that.
	That's gross, right?
	You don't want that either, I'm sure, right?
	So that's the question, is what am I buying?
	What am I buying for my $320,000?
	Now, again, if I'm buying kids, I want to have kids and I want you to stay home with the kids.
	I want to have a well-run household and maybe we can homeschool if we can get out of the hellscape known as Germany.
	But if I'm spending $320,000 and in return I'm getting kids and a family and a continuation of my line and a happy wife and mother, that's worth for me going to work, right?
	But me going to work to just, you know, find you sitting around and maybe taking some photography classes, that's just not a good deal.
	And I can't dishonor the affection that we have for each other by thinking or pretending that I'm so deficient in what I bring to the relationship that I have to give you $320,000 just to even things out.
	Because that means that you don't like me.
	And in order for you to be with me, I have to pay you.
	That is terrible for my self-respect, right?
	That's terrible for my self-respect.
	I mean, if somebody said, oh, I want you to be in my movie, right?
	And they said, yeah, and in order to be in my movie, you have to give me $320,000, then clearly they don't think you're a good actor or they don't want you for your looks or like they just want the $320,000 and they'll give you like some backdoor, backroom scene or some whatever, right?
	So I can't get into a relationship where I have to pay all of this money And you just have to take some photographs and go to volleyball.
	Like, you know, that's kind of weird, right?
	So I'm happy to sort of hear how things even out, but they don't look at all even to me.
	Then find another wife.
	Okay, so if I don't buy you, you'll leave.
	If I don't give you $320,000, if I don't commit to giving you $320,000, then you're leaving.
	Yes.
	Okay, so you're basically just married for money.
	You're a gold digger.
	Right.
	Okay.
	Bye!
	Bye!
	Wouldn't that be it?
	Yeah.
	So why the fuck didn't you call me before you got married?
	It's a dumb idea.
	Stop laughing!
	You're calling me because this is the biggest tragedy in your young life, isn't it?
	Definitely, yeah.
	It is.
	Okay, so stop laughing.
	Why do you keep laughing?
	This is like the least funny shit on the planet.
	yeah yeah alright I have a dark sense of humor, I think, about it.
	Like a coping mechanism, maybe.
	Right.
	So this is what parents should be doing, right?
	Parents should be flying out and saying, oh, okay, so what is it that you're going to do after you get married?
	Well, I would like to travel, maybe study a little photography, I might get a job in a cafe.
	Maybe like, why would you, I mean, okay, so you won't be contributing much income, right?
	Obviously, it's going to be kind of uncertain.
	And...
	When do you want kids?
	Oh, maybe in eight years or so, I might want some kids, right?
	So then your parents would be like, okay, so why would he take you on and pay all this extra money, right?
	Or another thing would be to say, let's say that she only makes $30,000 a year, right?
	And I'm sure she'd want to go to school and stuff where she could not even have to contribute that, right?
	But let's say she's only making $30,000 a year, right?
	Okay.
	So then you would match that and you would say, okay, I will match your income.
	But I'm not spending more because I don't want to buy you.
	I'll buy the kids.
	I'll buy you being home with the kids.
	I'll pay for that.
	For sure.
	Absolutely.
	Happily.
	But I'm not just buying you.
	So your parents would come out and they would talk to her and say, what's the plan, right?
	And they themselves knew that they had married dysfunctional people in their first marriages, blah, blah, blah, right?
	So...
	What I'm doing is what your parents should be doing.
	Should have done.
	Should have done.
	And the question is, why didn't they?
	What are you not getting?
	What are you missing with regards to your parents?
	Because you should be pissed at them.
	But I bet you take it all on yourself, like it's just all your fault and your responsibility.
	Is that right?
	Yeah, I do feel like it's all my fault.
	Okay.
	Why?
	I mean, at some point on your show, you said that the responsibility eventually shifts from the parents to the child.
	Absolutely.
	And I've been decently successful in my mid-20s now.
	I listened to your show, and I made...
	I made my own decisions to get married without seeking my parents' approval first.
	Without having her vetted much.
	Yeah, but I mean, it's your parents' job to vet.
	Right.
	Right?
	Because you're still referring to them as your parents and you still have a relationship with them, right?
	Right.
	Okay, so if you're still referring to them as your parents and you still have a relationship with them, then they have responsibilities in your life.
	Because they are claiming value and authority in your life in part because they're your parents, right?
	I mean, if they were just some older couple that you met at a dinner party, would you wind your life in with them?
	No.
	Right.
	So they are in your life because they're parents, which means they have a responsibility to parent.
	Now, when I say it's your responsibility, I mean eventually, or maybe, of course, at this point in your life, you are responsible for your final decisions.
	But let me give you an analogy.
	Hopefully this makes sense.
	So we're all responsible for our own decisions, right?
	But if I have a doctor, right?
	And the doctor notices some weird mole that I can't even feel on my back, right?
	And doesn't say anything about it.
	Is my doctor giving me the choice to get treatment?
	No.
	Right.
	So if this turns into something dangerous and deadly, whose fault is it?
	The doctor's.
	Right.
	Now, I mean, you can certainly say, well, it's my fault for having this doctor in my life and blah, blah, blah.
	And yeah, I mean, you can certainly say that, but you don't know what you don't know, right?
	Right.
	So, your parents, if they're in your life, right, and they say they love you, right?
	Right.
	Okay, they love you, they care about you, they want the best for you, right?
	Okay, great.
	So, that's the commitment that they've made, that they love you, they care about you, and they want the best for you, right?
	Right.
	Now, what that means is that it's the same thing where the doctor says, I'll check your back, then the doctor is seeing things that you can't, and it's supposed to give you Helpful health feedback, right?
	Right.
	So you have surrendered part of your self-protection to your parents.
	So I'll give you another example.
	If you and I are in battle and there are enemies coming from all sides, we will fight back to back, right?
	Right.
	So I don't check my back because you're checking my back.
	I only focus on what's coming at me ahead because you're focusing on what's coming back on me behind, right?
	Right.
	So I have surrendered part of my self-protection to you, right?
	Right.
	Now, if it turns out that you've either wandered off or have curled into a ball in the ground closing your eyes and haven't told me, then I'm going to get hit from behind, right?
	Right.
	Because I've outsourced my self-protection to you saying, you be the eyes behind me and I'll be the eyes behind you.
	So when you have people in your life who say, I care about you, I love you, I want the best for you, right?
	Then you assume that they're watching your back, right?
	Right.
	However, your parents were not watching your back.
	So having your parents in your life, or having anyone in your life who claims to care about you and love you, having that person in your life is automatically...
	Giving over to them some of your self-protection.
	Right?
	Like if you and I are camping in dangerous woods and I say, hey man, you sleep, I'll take first watch, right?
	Then you go to sleep, thinking that I'm guarding you while you sleep.
	If it turns out I've fallen asleep and you get eaten by a wolf, you're kind of pissed, right?
	Yeah.
	Like you had a job, which was to guard me, which you promised to do.
	You didn't guard me.
	And now I've lost a hand to the wolf or something, right?
	Right.
	Now, it would be your responsibility if I was such a bad companion to not fucking take me camping again, right?
	If you survive that, you don't say, oh, yeah, Steph, you should totally guard me at night, right?
	Right.
	Did your parents, who have deep knowledge of bad first marriages, did they sit down with you and go over all of the things you need to check?
	Did your father and your mother, knowing how susceptible young men are to a pretty face and a good body, did they go over everything?
	Did they say, well, what's the family like?
	Did she grow up in a war-torn country or did she have significant parts of her youth smashed up by being in a war-torn country?
	She has a body count of less than 10 and she's 21 years old, right?
	Has she been corrupted by beauty?
	Is she shallow?
	Is she hardworking?
	Right?
	Right.
	Does she contribute?
	Does she really love you?
	What happens if you go broke?
	Because that shit can happen in life, right?
	Right.
	And then they would vet her.
	Right.
	Because when you go to your parents and you say, there's a girl I want to marry...
	Aren't you asking for feedback?
	I suppose so, yeah.
	Sorry, I'm not sure what you mean.
	No, if I was to tell them that, then yeah.
	You did tell them that.
	I did, yeah.
	So what do you mean, if you told them that?
	Yeah, I told them that.
	Okay, so you told them, there's a girl I want to marry, right?
	It's the biggest decision in a young man's life.
	It's the biggest single decision, like a longer decision is what you do for a living or whatever, right?
	But the biggest single decision is who you're going to marry, right?
	Right.
	Because that's literally the continuation or not of your bloodline and who you're going to spend the next 60 or more years with.
	The biggest decision in your life is who you're going to marry.
	And did your parents ask you many questions?
	Especially since they'd had bad first marriages.
	They did try and figure out whether it was the right decision for you or not.
	They did ask questions.
	Not the deepest questions I've heard.
	I thought this one was kind of weird.
	My dad asked me if she had a boyfriend that's still in Ukraine that she left during the war.
	I didn't know where that came from.
	Yeah, they wanted to know You know, what she did, kind of like work or study.
	And how long have you been without a job when you met her?
	Oh gosh, I don't even, honestly, I don't even know.
	At least probably six months to a year maybe.
	Okay.
	All right.
	And did they ask about her childhood?
	Did they ask about the quality of her character?
	Did she ask if she had any bad habits?
	Did she ask if you had any concerns?
	Did they ask about the age gap?
	Did they ask about your interest in philosophy versus her lack of interest in philosophy?
	Like, anything.
	You said that your parents were distant in terms of hobbies.
	Okay, let's take that at face value.
	Did they say, do you have compatible hobbies?
	Because that's an issue for your father and I. My mom did ask, like, what do you and her bond over?
	Right.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	So why didn't they vet her properly?
	And why didn't they fly out?
	And why didn't they meet her family?
	I mean, you're all joining your bloodlines together.
	They can't fucking fly out and meet her family?
	Why not?
	Yeah.
	They didn't have that sense of urgency that I guess I would expect.
	That's a description of behavior, not causality.
	Right.
	You know, it's like, well, why was he late?
	Well, I guess he was moving slow.
	Well, that's just another way of describing being late.
	Okay.
	So why didn't they take care of you?
	Why didn't they help you?
	What about your friends?
	What about your half-siblings?
	Yeah, I did talk to my oldest sister about it.
	She was extremely skeptical of the relationship.
	But she didn't fly out, right?
	She did not fly out, no.
	And nobody flew out?
	Nobody flew out, no.
	So apparently that's the barrier to love is a thousand bucks.
	Okay, so she was skeptical, and did she say, don't marry her?
	No, she just kept asking how sure I was, and...
	Oh, the fun stuff.
	Yeah, okay.
	Nothing particularly specific, right?
	Not that I recall.
	Nothing super specific, no.
	Did any of your half-siblings...
	Did any of them say...
	I would love to chat with her.
	My uncle did, but not my half-siblings now.
	Okay.
	And your parents did chat with her a couple of times, right?
	Yeah, there was a number of FaceTime phone calls with her.
	Right.
	Okay.
	So your parents did talk with her a couple of times, and how were those conversations?
	Did they talk about values or anything important?
	No, I think it was mainly surface level stuff.
	Getting to know each other, yeah.
	Okay, did they ever ask any more in-depth questions about her, her history?
	Did they ever say, we'd really like to talk to her parents?
	Or was there a language barrier?
	There was a language barrier.
	I had to kind of translate.
	Oh, so her parents don't speak English, and obviously her parents don't speak Russian or Ukrainian, is that right?
	Yeah, that's correct.
	How the hell did you end up learning Russian?
	That's a long story.
	I actually...
	There was a cute Russian girl.
	I studied in a pretty prestigious university, and there was a program where you could study abroad.
	And I... The language was mandatory for at least a year.
	So I chose Russian, just kind of out of interest.
	Then I ended up sitting abroad in Ukraine.
	I actually left just before the war started.
	Wow, okay.
	All right.
	So I lived, yeah.
	So did your parents have any concern that your in-laws, they wouldn't even be able to talk with?
	They didn't bring that up too much now.
	Sorry, did they bring it up?
	I'm not sure what too much refers to.
	No, I think they said that there's a language barrier, but they didn't bring it up as an issue.
	What about, did they ever say, wouldn't it be easier to just find an American girl where you don't have the green card stuff and you wouldn't be worried about being married for a green card?
	No, they never brought that up.
	Okay.
	And obviously they didn't come to the ceremony, such as it was, right?
	I know it wasn't a big ceremony, but they didn't come for that?
	No.
	Why not?
	I couldn't tell you.
	Well, did you tell them you were getting married?
	Yeah, we did.
	It was kind of like an online proxy marriage certificate, just because...
	Of the circumstances where I'm American, but I'm not in America and so on.
	Okay, so, but you were at some physical location in Germany, right?
	Yeah.
	So they didn't fly out to witness or be there for the marriage, right?
	No.
	Why not?
	No, seriously, it's a big question.
	I mean, maybe it just goes to the No, no, don't maybe be, bro.
	Don't theorize.
	They're your parents.
	You've known them for 25 years, 26 years, give or take.
	Why didn't they come?
	Can you imagine your kids getting married and you don't show up?
	I can't imagine it, no.
	All right.
	So what the hell?
	Yeah.
	Some level of indifference, maybe.
	I feel like I'm the only person doing any work in this conversation, to be honest with you.
	I feel like you're kind of really distant and all of that, and I'm sort of trying to...
	I'm the only one with any emotions.
	And I'm just...
	It's not a big criticism.
	I'm just sort of pointing it out that I'm kind of running out of steam if you're not particularly interested in what we're talking about, or maybe there's something else you want to talk about.
	Oh, no, I'm interested.
	I'm thinking...
	Well, then why are you so emotionally distant?
	You call me because things are going really badly, right?
	This is like your biggest disaster.
	So why are you so, and it's not big criticism, I'm just like curious, like why am I the only one bothered by anything that's going on and why do you keep laughing like it's comedy and why do you have no emotions about any of this?
	Where's your heart here?
	Like I feel like when, it's like you've shown up to the ER and you're like, yeah, I got a bit of a crick in my neck, you know, it's kind of funny and It's like, well, why are you in the ER then?
	I thought this was urgent and really serious.
	Yeah.
	I think the past few months have been so consistently stressful that I did get a bit of emotional fatigue and start to develop a bit of indifference towards things that normally would have stressed me out much more.
	For instance, this divorce process, I don't even Know what that's going to look like.
	Definitely it kind of feels like there's a huge weight on my chest every day going through this not knowing when the divorce will end.
	And I really just want to go back to living a normal lifestyle free from this marriage again and to not repeat that mistake.
	Okay, so how can I help you then?
	Because I feel like I'm not helping you that much yet and I'm sorry for that.
	I mean, genuinely.
	I mean, that passive-aggressive way, like, genuinely.
	I'm really sorry for that, because I want to make sure that I'm helping, and I'm not sure that I am yet.
	No, I think the conversation's been constructive, but sometimes I have a hard time rationalizing decisions that my parents would have made.
	Like, I genuinely couldn't tell you why they didn't urgently fly out to meet her.
	Because I do talk to them regularly, and I do feel quite close to them, but I do talk to them.
	So I'm just puzzled.
	I can't rationalize that decision that they made.
	Okay.
	All right.
	So what else can I help you with?
	Because I've gone over this a bunch of times and we're not making any particular connection.
	Again, that's not a criticism.
	I'm just sort of pointing it out, right?
	But there's no point in me sort of trying to be outraged on your behalf or, you know, whatever, right?
	So obviously I can't help you with the legal stuff.
	I can't help you with any divorce knowledge or anything like that.
	So what else can I help you with?
	If it's not to do with your emotions and there's nothing about the law or technical stuff that I can help you with, I'm not sure what I'm doing.
	What should I do for my future relationships?
	How can I avoid making this mistake again?
	I feel like we're on different planets at the moment.
	Because for me, that's all I've been talking about.
	Right.
	Getting feedback.
	From others prior to making big decisions.
	Well, you can't force people to give you feedback, right?
	Right.
	Why did your parents not work to keep you safe?
	Because they don't care enough.
	I mean, honestly, there's no other answer.
	Right.
	They don't care enough.
	Right.
	Or, alternatively, sorry, there's no other answer, or they're sabotaging you.
	Right.
	Right.
	I would say it's because they don't care enough if I had to pick between the two.
	Okay, so why do you want people in your life who don't care about you enough to help you avoid this kind of disaster?
	Because this really harms your prospects of getting a quality woman.
	It doesn't destroy them, but it harms them, right?
	Right.
	Because if, okay, let's say that there's some great girl that you meet in a year or two or whatever after this is somewhat in the review.
	I mean, how do you explain what happened?
	I would be fully transparent.
	No, you don't even know why it happened.
	You don't know why it happened.
	How could you be fully transparent?
	You called me because you don't know why it happened, which is why you want me to help you avoid it, right?
	Right.
	So how would you explain it right now?
	I would say that I rushed a marriage that was mostly based on looks.
	I made a foolish mistake and didn't get proper feedback from family.
	Okay, so I'll play the girl.
	What do you mean you didn't get proper feedback?
	Well, I got married to somebody without really consulting any friends or family on whether or not it was a good decision.
	Yeah, but they knew you would get married, right?
	They did.
	Okay, so what do you mean you need to consult them?
	I mean, they knew you were getting married.
	Right.
	I... Well, they didn't care enough to fly out, and I didn't wait long enough for them to meet her in person prior to getting married.
	So none of your friends or your four half-siblings or your parents cared about you enough to, what, try and help protect you from this?
	Yeah, that's correct.
	And what has happened in your relationship since you figured this out?
	Well, I still haven't talked to my...
	My parents are being helpful through the divorce process, but I still haven't talked to them about their lack of feedback prior to the marriage.
	Okay, but you're surrounded by people who don't really care to help protect you, right?
	And you're still surrounded by those people, right?
	Right.
	So you want me to date and marry into an entire friend and family system that doesn't really give a shit about you.
	I mean, what's going to happen to your heart?
	If I, as a woman, really genuinely and deeply care about you, you're going to be All of your other relationships are going to be incredibly destabilized, right?
	Right.
	Because you had no one who was willing to spend a thousand bucks and a couple of days to come out and save you from this marriage, right?
	Right.
	So if you and I genuinely fall in love, it's going to be horrible on all of your other, quote, relationships.
	Does that make sense?
	Right.
	I mean, are you aware of that?
	That at the time when you fall in love and you should be the most happy and you have someone who really cares about you, the shallowness and selfishness I mean, you talk about this, your ex-wife being selfish.
	What about your parents?
	What about your half-siblings?
	They were, yeah, largely indifferent as well.
	Right, so you understand you couldn't see her selfishness because you won't see theirs.
	Because you've got a standard where people don't have to care about you and you have to do everything.
	But this is why, like, it's because of your family And your friendships, or lack of connection there, that you ended up being preyed upon by this woman.
	Right.
	Now, so you say, right, like you don't, like, where the...
	Jesus.
	Right, yeah, no, right.
	No, I should pick up some eggs, maybe some milk, ham.
	Yeah, right.
	I mean, is any of this having any emotional impact on you at all?
	Or is it just purely intellectual?
	Like, your family paved the way To this fairly horrible woman.
	Because you can't see the selfishness in your family and you have to do all the work.
	You can't see the selfishness in this woman.
	You have to do all the work.
	I think it is a bit eye-opening to just the indifference that I've witnessed in my family and friends.
	Do you think that your lack of emotionality is one of the reasons why your wife might want to leave?
	No, I don't think so.
	Because definitely in the beginning, I was far more emotional than she was.
	Or I was far more emotionally reactive and kind of, I guess, tenderhearted for lack of a better term.
	And then over time, I just, I was so exhausted and so stressed and There was a lot of other unfortunate events that took place in our marriage as well that I got so emotionally drained I became indifferent.
	No, no, no.
	You can never become indifferent.
	What were the other things that happened in your marriage that were stressful?
	I had car tires get slashed.
	Her mom went through cancer treatment.
	We had a dog go to the ER and require some medical care.
	I wasn't getting along with people at work too well.
	I started to butt heads with people.
	I became kind of a very angry person, mainly because I was taking out the arguments that I would have with her on people that I would work with.
	And you said that your sex life was pretty scarce, right?
	It was, yeah.
	How often were you guys having sex?
	So we've only done it twice since our entire relationship.
	What?
	Yeah, yeah.
	A day on your honeymoon, you mean?
	No, twice the entire time.
	You've only had sex twice in the...
	what?
	Close to a year?
	When did you separate?
	So...
	Let's see.
	Yeah, so the last time I saw her was October.
	My parents were with us, so obviously we weren't going to do it in the same hotel that my parents were at.
	Sorry, do what?
	Well, have sex, because we're sharing a hotel with my parents and everything.
	Hang on, hang on, hang on.
	I thought your parents didn't come out to the wedding.
	No, so they came out after we already got married.
	Why not before, or at least for the wedding?
	Why would they come out after?
	That's a good question.
	How long after you got married did they come out?
	It was a good two or three months after we got married they came out.
	Did they say why they hadn't come out earlier?
	No, they never said it.
	Does it strike you as odd?
	It does, because I could see that if I had a kid, I would be pretty hell-bent on meeting their future spouse.
	Okay, so you only had sex, what, the day you got married, and then once more before you split up?
	Right.
	So yeah, only twice.
	Sorry, do you have any physical issues yourself that would interfere with sexual relations?
	No, she was just never in the mood.
	Just you?
	Oh, I don't have any issues, no.
	Okay.
	Does she have any physical issues that you know of that would preclude her from sexual activity?
	Not that I know of.
	She just claimed to have a low libido and she was not affectionate as a whole.
	Was that the case that she was, I know you didn't have sex before, but was it the case that she was not affectionate before you got married?
	Uh, yeah, 100%.
	Yeah, she was not big into hugging and kind of kissing and just normal affection that partners would show to each other.
	Okay, so why, I mean, do you care about, some people don't particularly care about physical affection.
	I'm obviously not one of those people, but did you care that she wasn't affectionate before you got married?
	Yeah.
	It did bother me.
	Yes, it was something that...
	Because I'm more naturally affectionate, I'd say.
	So it did bother me that she wasn't really giving me any affection.
	So why did you marry?
	That's something I wasn't aware of.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, no, I think a lot of it comes down to looks.
	And I think part of it, too, is I don't have a lot of...
	I didn't have a lot of successful relationships in the past, and I was very afraid.
	You don't have one now.
	Yeah.
	I was always kind of fearful of rejection.
	I was always fearful that relationships would end quickly.
	Well, but that's just being alive.
	We're all fearful of rejection, right?
	Right.
	So just the fact that I was able to maintain a relationship for several months was kind of reassuring to me.
	No, but it's long distance and all of that, right?
	Right.
	There was some desperation, for sure, just to get married.
	Because if I had it my way, I would have gotten married younger because I want to have a lot of kids.
	I'll be 27 next year.
	So I did kind of feel a time crunch to get married.
	Do you know if she had experienced anything traumatic or untoward sexually as a child?
	So I don't know a ton about her past, but I do know that when she was 12, I want to say it was a friend of her father's invited her over to their house.
	And then when she went there, there was a maid bed and there was some porn on the TV. And then luckily she ran away before anything crazy happened.
	A friend of her father's?
	Yes.
	I can't recall exactly what the relation was to her family.
	But it was obviously close enough that she would go over.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, it wasn't a stranger.
	It was a friend of her uncle's or her dad's or somebody's.
	Okay.
	So in the family circle among the men was a pedophile that nobody knew about or knew about and approved of.
	Or an attempted pedophile.
	Is that fair to say?
	Yeah, that's fair to say.
	All right.
	Does that not give you some concerns about her family?
	No, it certainly did.
	Okay, and did you tell your parents about this?
	I did not tell my parents about that story, no.
	And why not?
	That's a good point.
	I think it's...
	Yeah, there's a lot of stuff I haven't told my parents.
	I've always been kind of shy around stuff like that, or even bad things that I've done, so on and so forth.
	I don't know.
	I've kind of kept a lot of relationships away from my parents.
	I used to kind of keep it a secret when I was a teenager.
	I'd date people and not really tell them about it at all.
	I didn't want them to kind of poke their nose and to My dating life and to really interact with people.
	Okay, so is that because you didn't feel like your parents had much credibility?
	I assume it's because they wouldn't be helpful, right?
	I remember when I was a teenager, I was just kind of embarrassed about it.
	And I was worried that they would really get on my case and kind of pester me with questions and it was going to be awkward.
	That it wouldn't be helpful?
	Yeah, I was worried it wouldn't be helpful, yeah.
	Alright, so if you're going to go into battle, and all life has elements of battle to it, I mean, you and I are battling a little bit here, right?
	So if you're going to go into battle, you need people to watch your back.
	The worst thing is to go into battle with people you think are watching your back, but they're not.
	So you need people in your life who are really going to care about you.
	You really need those people in your life.
	If you don't have those people in your life, disaster will follow disaster.
	Guaranteed.
	Right.
	In the same way that if you think someone's watching your back in a battle, but they're not, you're going to get stabbed in the back.
	So if you want to know how to prevent this from happening again, how to prevent this from happening in the future, you have to have people in your life who really, genuinely, deeply and truly care about you and want the best for you.
	And will do whatever it takes to ensure that.
	Right now, you don't have that in your life.
	That's a good point, actually, because I did ask a buddy of mine who hung out with me and her for a trip.
	We all went to Spain together, and I asked him what he thought about her, and he basically told me that it doesn't really matter what he thinks, which is, I think, a good level of indifference, and that's not something I would tell one of my friends.
	I would give him an honest opinion.
	And were you already married at this point?
	No, we were just dating.
	Okay, right.
	So you don't have people in your life who care about you and this is why things go badly.
	Yeah.
	We're social animals, which means we offload our conscience and self-protection to some degree upon those around me.
	Now, are you responsible finally for your life?
	Absolutely.
	But you're most responsible in that sense for who you choose to be in your life.
	Like if you've got a bad doctor and you keep going back, it's on you.
	Right.
	So you just don't have people in your life who care about you.
	And that's a standard you're okay with for historical reasons that I can really sympathize with and understand.
	Probably goes back to daycare and other things.
	So you don't have people in your life.
	And if you try to hold them responsible, like if you said to your parents, why didn't you stop me?
	Why didn't you fly out?
	out, what would they say?
	What would they say?
	I'm thinking.
	Well, here's what they would say.
	Well, you seem very certain and very excited about this marriage, and you talked about how incredible she was, and we just believed you, and we thought that you could figure it out.
	Right, but you were wrong.
	I mean, were you guys not enthusiastic about your own first marriages?
	Thank you.
	You know that enthusiasm doesn't mean that there's a good marriage, right?
	How could you let me make the same mistake you both made?
	Right.
	Well, sometimes when we tell you our advice and our opinions on things, you get defensive and you don't like it when we insert ourselves.
	So sometimes we try not to insert ourselves into your business.
	Okay.
	So then you don't care enough about me to help me in that way.
	So yeah, it can be tough to give people advice sometimes.
	Yeah.
	When people are young and in lust or whatever, it can be tough.
	So you just shrug and give up?
	You just give yourself an excuse?
	Well, you know, it can be tricky sometimes.
	So, well, we're just not going to do it.
	Why didn't you guys fly out before I got married?
	Why didn't you guys fly out before I got married?
	I don't feel cared for.
	I don't feel protected.
	I don't feel like you guys are in my corner.
	And trying to protect me.
	When you're supposed to help me, right?
	Thank you.
	You're supposed to look out for me.
	And if you say, well, sometimes you're a little prickly when we try to help you, it's like, okay, so then that's it.
	Then you just give yourself the excuse to not help me.
	Because it's a little awkward.
	So I can't rely on you for protection.
	Or care, or concern, or feedback, or help.
	Even when I'm wandering into a situation that both of you suffered for many, many years from, you don't help.
	I'm not sure that you know what it really means to really care about me or maybe anyone.
	I don't know.
	But it's kind of pathetic to hear, well, son, you can be a little prickly, so we just thought we'd just let you wander into what was a completely disastrous marriage with horrible complications.
	You know, if I was walking towards the edge of a cliff, would you say, well, sometimes he gets a little upset if we tell him to not walk towards the edge of the cliff?
	Would you just let me fall?
	Well, it can be awkward.
	It can be a bit defensive when we tell them not to walk on the edge of a cliff.
	You wouldn't say that.
	My God, what's the matter with you guys?
	It costs a thousand bucks to fly out and back.
	You spent more than that on your goddamn cell phones.
	Well, maybe if Tim Cook was getting married.
	So you see my issue, right?
	Yeah, no.
	It's hard for me to understand, for me to rationalize it, because everything you're saying makes sense 100%, that it's wild that they wouldn't try to meet her before we got married.
	But on the other hand, I talk to them daily, and anytime I need something, they're always quick to help me.
	So it's hard for me to see how those two things mix.
	How the same people do give me a ton of support while also not flying out to meet my spouse.
	Okay, give me an example of something you've asked for.
	So, in the past, just if I Definitely, we've had some financial troubles.
	They've helped me with that.
	Okay, sending money is easy.
	Okay, what else?
	Yeah.
	But it also means that they have money to fly.
	Yeah.
	Okay, sending money.
	Got it.
	I need money.
	Here's some money.
	Okay, got it.
	Sugar daddies do that too.
	That doesn't mean love.
	I mean, if I'm having a rough day, they're, I guess, comforting.
	They've been assisting me with, I guess, the legal aspects of the divorce.
	Kind of do research and hunt down resources for me.
	They, you know, shoot me a text every day asking me how I'm doing and letting me know that they're going to support me throughout the entirety of the divorce process.
	Yes.
	Now, have you ever, I mean, I'm sure you've had this with girlfriends or maybe with your wife, when someone's sick and you bring them soup, it's a nice thing, right?
	Yeah.
	Right?
	You take care of them, right?
	Right.
	It's pretty easy to do, right?
	Yeah.
	So taking care of people when they're down is pretty easy.
	Protecting people from danger is a whole different thing.
	Right.
	So yeah. - One is reality if the other is proactive.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	No, you're 100% right.
	Have they ever apologized for not helping you avoid this mess?
	No.
	No, they have not.
	OK.
	They haven't.
	I mean, my dad, I guess the closest, it's not really an apology, but kind of the closest thing he did was he told me that he felt that he did the same thing with his ex-wife.
	He said that he kind of fell in love with an ideal and that his wife was charming and charismatic and fun and attractive and he kind of had the rose-colored glasses as well and he empathized with With what I was going through when I got married in the first place.
	That's not really an apology.
	That would be a perfect time to say, then why didn't you warn me?
	Right.
	And what would he say?
	Well, I tried to...
	It seemed like you knew what you were doing, son.
	But I didn't.
	Yeah, my dad has always been afraid of being confrontational, especially with his kids.
	He's always been afraid of...
	Sorry, what does this have to do with confrontational?
	If you just said, well, why didn't you warn me?
	That's not confrontational, isn't it?
	It's just asking a question.
	Well, I mean the warning itself.
	He's always been afraid to give his two cents to his kids because they get rebellious.
	Sorry, did you think?
	He did when I was very little, and then after that, he didn't.
	Okay, so he's more than happy to inflict his will on his kids.
	I don't know what you mean by spanking.
	It's pretty confrontational, isn't it?
	It is.
	It is.
	Okay, so let's not pretend any of that is an answer.
	Right.
	And what is, just without going into too much of the legal nitty-gritty, what are the major issues that you're facing with regards to the complications of divorce?
	Oh, there's too many to count.
	So she was enrolled with essentially the German refugee program, which granted her access to live and work in Germany before we got married.
	Because we got married, she lost that essential legal right to live here.
	So because we're divorcing now, then she essentially is an illegal, she would be like an illegal alien in Germany.
	That's one problem.
	The other problem is she's like halfway through.
	She wants to divorce you so badly, she'll give up her legal status in Germany.
	She'd rather go back to a war-torn country potentially than stay married to you?
	Well, she went there to change her name to get the green card so that we could move to America.
	That was why she went to Ukraine in the first place.
	No, but she might get deported back to Ukraine.
	Yeah, if she comes back, she could.
	That's a huge problem.
	Because she needs to be able to get legal rights.
	Where is she now?
	No, so she's in Ukraine right now.
	Okay.
	Yeah, so that's one legal issue.
	She's essentially halfway through changing her name.
	So her name is now my name in the registry, but it's her old maiden name on her passports.
	Got it.
	Yeah, that's in limbo.
	I'm moving back to America in less than a year.
	So there's concern about what if we don't finalize all the divorce stuff.
	And then the other problem is that she's not responsive to my messages anymore.
	So there's concern that what if she just doesn't comply or cooperate with the divorce process?
	Then I'm essentially just legally married.
	I don't know what that would look like.
	Hmm.
	When did she go dark?
	I'd say probably about a week after.
	I'd say about two weeks ago.
	So I told her I was going to get a divorce, and then she was actually pretty pleasant and cooperative in the beginning.
	And then her parents started getting involved, and now she's ghosting me.
	Okay.
	And...
	Of course, she's not pregnant, only if you did it twice.
	And when you said that you wanted a divorce, she kind of raged about it or was upset and said it in extremity, and then you said more calmly and peacefully, I want a divorce, and how did she take that?
	So at first, she was against it.
	She said, I think, well, and this goes back to the selfishness, But she said, I think we need to improve ourselves to enjoy our marriage.
	And then she said she didn't want a divorce.
	And then she's like, well, it's better that we're doing it now than after we had kids.
	She kind of became indifferent and started acquiescing to the concept of divorce.
	And then I told her that I just felt that she didn't really care or loved me and wasn't putting as much work into the relationship as I was.
	And then she kind of flipped out and basically said, oh, really, that's how you feel about me.
	So that kind of solidified my wanting to divorce her.
	Not that you're wrong, of course, but what was it that prompted you to say that she wasn't putting the work in compared to you?
	Well, I have a lot of stress about money right now because we had a good amount on the credit cards.
	Sorry, why did you have a good amount on the credit cards?
	I mean, we're financially stupid.
	I don't know what that means.
	That's sort of a totality, right?
	Did you buy her a lot of stuff?
	So the ring was a couple thousand.
	We traveled a bit.
	That was expensive.
	I bought her a cat.
	That was pretty fucking expensive.
	Why is it expensive to buy a cat?
	Just go to a shelter.
	In Germany, pets are unreasonably expensive, and I don't really know why.
	But dogs here are like $3,000, too.
	All right.
	And then we did move.
	So the security deposit on my new house was 4,500 euros.
	House?
	Yeah, I'm renting it, but the security deposit was 4,500 euros.
	All right.
	So you had high expenses and you paid for, did she have any income?
	No income whatsoever.
	Other than her looks, right?
	Right.
	All right.
	So she kept putting pressure on me to keep spending more money when I had all this stress.
	And then I started to realize that I wasn't stressed about money.
	I was stressed about the fact that it was only stressing me out.
	Right.
	Because I knew that I could fix this money problems on my own, but I didn't think I could fix it with her.
	Well, yeah, I mean, young women who look like that have kind of won the lottery, which everyone thinks is great, but it's often really terrible, right?
	Right.
	Yeah, so she kept putting...
	She said, well, when I come back, I want to travel.
	And I said, how the fuck are we going to have...
	Pardon my language, but I was thinking, how are we going to possibly have money to travel?
	And then European driver's licenses are also a couple thousand dollars.
	I just paid for that.
	So I was thinking, how are we going to possibly travel after we just used my credit card like it was a machine gun?
	And so the more I kept...
	I just felt like I couldn't make any progress.
	It kept stressing me out, but it didn't stress her out.
	And she kept thinking that money was just infinite and grows on trees.
	And she seemed to be indifferent.
	If you have a pretty girl who doesn't pair a bond with you, then there's just some other guy who'll spend money or whatever, right?
	I mean...
	Right.
	Okay.
	What would you say her level of intelligence was?
	Um...
	I'd say above average, but not like really intelligent.
	She did work as like an EMT or an ambulance doctor type person when she was back in Ukraine before she left.
	Oh gosh.
	So she worked as an EMT in a war area?
	No, this was like years ago.
	Like three years ago.
	That many years ago, she was 21. Yeah, so I don't, and this is the tough thing, is I have no way of validating all this stuff that she claims that she did.
	Okay, but when you were with her, did she read like Dostoevsky?
	Did she like, what evidence did she show of high intelligence outside of what you were bringing to the table in terms of conversation?
	What did she do on her own that showed high intelligence?
	Um, so she does speak, uh, five languages, or four languages, which I don't, that on its own, I don't know that that indicates intelligence.
	I mean, if you grow up with them, it's one thing, although it's, you know, it certainly takes some.
	But what about, um, what about her hobbies?
	I mean, what does she do that indicated intelligence with regards to her hobbies?
	Uh, so she does read.
	She does like to read books.
	Okay, what does she read?
	Honestly, I don't even fucking know.
	She was telling me that she's reading some psychology book, but I... This just goes to like...
	You saw her reading.
	What was she reading?
	Well, she wasn't reading at my house, but she claims to have been reading...
	You were married!
	What was her reading?
	I never witnessed her reading, but she claims that she was reading.
	Okay, so she doesn't read that you know of.
	She likes to paint and draw, which I don't know that that really indicates any level of intelligence on its own.
	She has a really good sense.
	She's really, really funny.
	So I guess that does maybe indicate some intelligence, just kind of the humor aspect.
	So she is quite funny.
	Just kind of witty.
	And then she claims to To have worked in an ambulance, but like I said, I have no way of proving that she did that.
	Okay, got it.
	Well, I'm really, obviously, really sorry that you guys weren't able to work things out, but I mean, it's sort of true, better sooner than later, and certainly before kids, although it doesn't sound like kids were coming any closer than a decade or a little less than a decade, so As far as the non-responsive stuff, obviously I'm no lawyer, but I'm sure that there are methodologies to put in place when people from other countries...
	I mean, you can't just stay married forever.
	There has to be some process in place by which non-responsive people, you can still move ahead with the process, right?
	Right.
	Right.
	Well, listen, I'll close up here.
	I'm sort of happy to hear if you have any other sort of questions or problems, but I mean, you just need people...
	See, the way it generally works is that you get into a disaster in your life and then you say to the people, why didn't you help me?
	And they're like, hey man, you seem to have it under control.
	Hey man, you seem to be fine.
	Hey, you seemed really confident.
	Hey, I thought you had it, right?
	And it's like, but you were wrong.
	And so, and then they, but they say that's your fault.
	And it's like, but then if you're not, if I'm in charge of my own security and protection and safety and wisdom, then what do I need you for?
	Great.
	I mean, if you go to the hospital and you need an appendix removed, they don't just hand you a knife.
	The surgeon's meant to do it.
	He's got to help you.
	So if you have people in your life who just say, your life is 100% your responsibility and we don't really give you any feedback, then it's like, what do I need you for?
	Right.
	I mean, I'm better off alone.
	Because if someone on a battlefield is supposed to be watching my back and they're not, I'm better off going alone because then at least I know I have to watch my back and I can put my back to the wall or something.
	Does that make sense?
	But thinking that people are helping you and they're not is the most dangerous position to be in life.
	Thinking when people have got your back or are covering you or helping you or giving you wisdom or protecting you.
	Thinking that they are when they're not.
	You know, like if you go into a medieval combat and you think you have armor on when you don't, you're going to get killed.
	If you know you don't have armor on, you can adjust.
	If you have armor on, you're safer.
	But if you think you have armor on and you don't, then you'll just say, yeah, go ahead, hit my arm.
	Oh, lost my arm.
	Right, so if you're not protected, you need to know that.
	Otherwise, you're toast in life.
	Now that you mention it, there was a time where I almost had to go to the ER for a health problem that I had.
	And I kind of work with a group of peers and we have kind of like group chats and everything.
	And I even mentioned like, hey, I'm going to be out because I might have to go to the ER. And there wasn't a single person that reached out and asked if I was okay or really awkward.
	Yeah.
	Wait, is this in Germany?
	Yeah, it's in Germany.
	Cold-hearted Germans?
	Unthinkable.
	Never heard of such a thing.
	No, but in all seriousness, you need people in your life who care about you.
	You just do.
	You need people in your life who care about you.
	Or you're in serious danger.
	And this is how it played out, right?
	Right.
	I mean, your wife didn't really care about you.
	Your parents didn't really care about you.
	Your siblings didn't really care about you.
	So this is a dangerous situation.
	And if you want to know how to stay safe in life, Then you need people in your life who care about you, or you need to know that the people in your life don't care about you and you have to watch your own back.
	Right.
	And obviously, you did have someone in your life who would have cared about you, which is me, but you didn't avail yourself of that.
	And I think that's probably because it's going to be difficult for your current relationships if you recognize how little people care about you.
	And I say this with full confidence as a father.
	I know everything that's going on in my daughter's life.
	I know the status of all her friendships.
	I know everything that's at work.
	I know everything.
	Because I care.
	I know everything that's going on in my wife's life.
	She knows everything that's going on in my life because we care.
	Right.
	So I think you just need to break that shell of indifference around you and connect with people or recognize that you're unprotected and take the appropriate steps to protect yourself.
	That's true.
	You know, it's like if you're involved in some street fight, God help you, don't ever do this.
	But theoretically, if you're involved in some street fight and there are like six guys and you and your buddies are there, but you turn around and they've run away, you're toast.
	I mean, if you know you don't have any buddies, then you run away yourself.
	But if you think you've got buddies who are going to help you out in a fight and you don't, you're going to get killed or wounded or whatever, right?
	So thinking you're protected is the most dangerous thing.
	And you need to get people in your life who genuinely do protect you or you need to take steps to protect yourself.
	But right now, you're in a horribly vulnerable position and will remain so, in my opinion, until you figure out how to get some security in this life.
	I mean, I went through this a little bit with the de-platforming, right?
	Look at all these colleagues.
	I'm sure they'll step up.
	I'm sure they'll help out, right?
	Nope.
	Okay.
	Well, that's good to know, right?
	Yeah.
	All right.
	Is there anything else that you wanted to mention?
	No.
	I'm just pissed that I went down this path, especially given the insight I would have had from listening to your show.
	I've never kicked myself harder in my entire life and I'm almost like shocked by my own behavior.
	Well, just look at this.
	This is going to be my last little piece of advice.
	Look at this as an inoculation.
	Right?
	Look at this as an inoculation.
	So you went through this.
	This is going to teach you about self-protection.
	This is going to teach you about the crippling limitations of the people in your life.
	And through this, you can become safe.
	And this is probably the lowest price that you'll have to pay to become safe than anyone.
	This is just an inoculation against danger.
	Brent?
	Right.
	Well, I really appreciate you listening.
	It kind of made me realize how little I know about how my own parents would respond to my questions.
	All right.
	Well, you can have a conversation, of course, with your parents about their deficiencies or what's missing for you.
	And I hope you'll, you know, just drop it in the Skype window.
	I hope you'll let me know how things are going because I'll keep my fingers crossed for you.
	But I'm sure that this will be, you'll look back upon this as like a really good thing in your life.
	Although I get, I completely get that it doesn't feel like that right now.
	But if you get to a place of genuine passion and caring and mutual protection with people, it's absolutely worth it to go through something like this.
	Though, again, I completely understand it totally sucks at the time.
	Yeah, it does seem like a mountain or a weight on my chest every day.
	But yeah, I really appreciate you calling.
	I should have called you sooner.
	All right, brother.
	Well, keep me posted and all the very best, all right?
	Okay, thank you so much.
	Bye.

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