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Jan. 10, 2025 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
02:41:54
MY WIFE TRIED TO SEND ME TO JAIL! Freedomain Call In
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My wife and I are likely getting divorced and I want to know my obligation to fight when it looks like, to me, the primary problem is just plain mental illness.
The biggest problem we have is her delusions about me cheating, being on drugs, drugging her, and lying.
None of this is real and it doesn't matter what evidence, logic, reason, common sense I use to show where it's not true.
She has a history of mental illness.
She was also in a bad car accident before I met her where her brain was badly injured.
After the accident...
She was hospitalized for thinking her parents were cocaine dealers.
She's been to see numerous therapists, but they never get a clear diagnosis.
The most likely ones are schizoaffective bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, PTSD, paranoid personality disorder, or she's just a plain narcissist.
I don't know.
I've talked to multiple therapists, multiple professionals.
We've tried couples counseling.
It's some combination of PTSD, brain injury, and mental illness.
I'm conflicted because other than these episodes of whatever it is that's going on with her, we really have a great relationship.
We agree on how to raise the kids.
We want a big family.
We have similar virtues, similar values.
Even when we have disagreements, we can usually talk it out.
Look for solutions.
But then she has these episodes where she just loses it and she turns me into an absolute monster in her mind.
Most of the time she says she's very happy with me.
She's grateful with our life together.
Our sex life is great.
Most of the time we really couldn't be happier with each other.
Then she gets stressed out, it seems like.
And that's it.
She's accusing me of cheating.
She accuses me of lying to her.
Tells me I'm a monster.
Tells me I'm abusive.
Tells me I'm using her.
She says mean, nasty things to me like she's never been happy with me.
She just tells me what I want to hear.
She has been caught breaking some boundaries like smoking cigarettes, which was a big problem for me.
And then, of course, with her constantly accusing me of cheating, I'm looking at her like, is she cheating?
This is what all my friends are telling me.
But because I don't have any actual proof of her cheating, I usually just try to be the bigger man and try to role model how a healthy adult should handle it.
After dealing with too many of these insane accusations, I finally did move out and I asked her for a divorce.
It's been a little over a month.
I miss her like crazy.
Any attempts to talk to her have been unproductive, cruel, mean, just says nasty things.
She accuses me of everything that she's doing.
But I do know in the past, after some time has gone by, she does eventually become apologetic and reasonable.
She will apologize for some of the things that she says.
She does recognize that her actions and behavior are unacceptable.
So we keep repeating the cycle where she gets extremely mean and then eventually she snaps out of it.
She understands that she's overreacting and then I never really know what to actually believe with her.
I do think there's something really wrong with her, but I can't get through to her and she keeps hurting me.
And then I never really know.
Is this really mental illness or is it just narcissism and she's just messing with me?
Maybe she's cheating and maybe she's just pushing my buttons and maybe she's just playing games with me.
I really love this girl, but I can't have kids with her treating me like this.
How do I get her help or do I just cut my losses and walk away?
I don't really want to read the rest of this.
I think you get the gist of it right here.
Sure.
No problem at all.
No problem at all.
I'm really sorry.
I'm really sorry about this.
I really appreciate that.
Thank you.
What I really need clarity with is when you get married, the promise is in sickness and in health.
Right?
And that's what I want to know.
What do you do with mental illness?
Right.
Right.
Okay, well, listen, I'm obviously eager to hear.
I have some thoughts, but I do want to hear more about what's going on with you.
I mean, it's a horrible situation.
I mean, at least there are no kids, right?
There's no kids.
Thank God for that.
Yeah, for heaven.
Thank God.
What else can I tell you?
It's...
Her parents have been really supportive in the past, and that's been a real help.
Usually when I get kicked out or we end up fighting, it's usually her parents I end up going to stay with.
They understand how she can be.
They understand what she's like because they've done it to her.
I mean, she thought they were cocaine dealers for a while and thought everyone was out to get her.
What else can I tell you?
It's some combination of mental illness and brain injury and PTSD, maybe some survivor's guilt.
When she was hit by that car, she was trying to cross the street, and the friend she was with died.
And there's got to be a lot of survivor's guilt there.
So she was crossing the—this was the accident?
Yes, sir.
Tell me a little bit more.
I mean, obviously, you don't have to go into identifying details.
Sure.
But tell me a little bit more about what happened.
I mean, she herself obviously received a pretty big injury, right?
Oh, yeah, with the accident.
She must have been a teenager at the time, maybe 18, 19. She was at a party with some friends and her boyfriend.
And then her and this other guy decided late at night they would go back to her house.
What she tells people is they're going back to her house to get more beer or whatever, but what everyone assumes and what it looks like is that they're going back to her house to screw.
So she lost a lot of friends.
She had a lot of friends who blamed her for that, for getting the kid killed.
She was basically going to go cheat on her boyfriend and then this kid died.
To me, I think that's probably where this These accusations of cheating must come from is maybe some guilt around the accident.
So they were crossing the street, and she was crossing the street with her friend.
Her friend got hit by the car, as did this woman.
But her friend died, and your current wife, she just received brain injury.
Is that right?
She was messed up pretty bad.
Yeah, she almost lost her leg, almost lost an eyeball.
And yeah, her brain was scrambled up really bad.
And were they drunk?
Yeah.
Okay, okay, got it.
And then I never, she, I don't think she even really knows if they jumped out in front of the car on purpose, or I don't think she even really remembers it accurately, but she does remember watching her friend die in front of her.
Okay.
And so this is, according to her parents, I mean, she must have had some pretty bad judgment to begin with, right?
Sure.
So, do her parents say, or have other people verified that she changed a lot?
After the accident?
Yeah.
Her parents said that she's different, and she recognizes that she's different, too, after the accident.
And has she had, I'm sure she's had all the brain scans known to man and God, and what does that come back with?
I haven't seen those records.
I understand that it was a pretty bad brain bleed.
And then I just know what she's told me where for a while after the accident, she couldn't talk.
She couldn't really see clearly.
She would try to watch TV, but it would be all jumbled up and it wouldn't make sense.
Like, yeah, she was really bad for, I think, a few months and then also recovering because she had operations on her leg and so she was in a lot of pain at the time as well.
Right.
Okay.
All right.
And how old was she when you met her?
She was 20. Okay.
And what did you find appealing or attractive about her?
You know the most honest answer, and I probably know what you're looking for.
Please give me an honest answer.
Let's save both time and sanity.
Absolutely.
My previous relationship, I was engaged to a girl who did not believe in sex before marriage.
I was with her for three years.
She and I actually called into your show, and we talked to you.
About some of our issues then.
Oh, which one was that?
I mean, I don't want to give her a name or whatever, but this was back seven years ago, I guess.
Ah, okay.
Got it.
So I went from a relationship where I was not having sex at all, and then I dated around a little bit, and then I found this young girl who was just throwing sex at me.
Just love bombing me, sex bombing me.
She really just made me feel like...
Like a million bucks.
Made me just feel like a king.
Inflated my ego.
She would make me gifts.
And she would draw my portrait.
You know what I mean?
Just a complete love bomb.
I fell completely in love with her.
What I liked was that her parents were still together.
She didn't have any tattoos.
She said she had only ever had one boyfriend before.
She was in school.
She was a sweet, submissive, feminine girl.
She seemed oriented toward having a family.
When I met her, she wanted eight kids.
She wanted a huge family because she was an only child.
And she was also into the Jordan Peterson stuff.
She was trying to figure her life out and try to make sense of the breakup and the accident and losing her friend.
So she was into the self-improvement stuff.
For a young 20-year-old girl, I was just very impressed by her.
And then obviously the sex had a lot to do with it too.
Okay, so tell me a little bit about how you met and how things went at the beginning.
Oh, we met on a dating app.
In the beginning, it was a lot of attention.
I mean, I guess normal stuff.
A lot of sex.
I took her on nice dates.
I took her to a ballet for our first date.
I took her on really nice dates.
Okay, and how long did it take for you guys to sleep together?
Oh, right away.
Like the first night I met her.
Bro.
Yeah.
Come on.
Come on.
How old were you?
30. Oh.
And you were already into philosophy, right?
Yeah, I've been listening to you for probably 2012. Right.
Yeah.
So, how long ago did you guys meet?
Like a little over five years ago.
Okay.
So, what is it that drove you to call me?
Because, I mean, you studiously are avoiding my advice, right?
You traded philosophy, integrity, virtue, and self-protection for a bang-a-thon with a woman 10 years younger, right?
Yeah, I'll come to it.
So why call me now?
Because we did end up getting married.
Okay, so the relationship started with all kinds of red flags.
You married a sex addict with brain damage.
Like, man, what are you calling me for?
Yeah, because you're the only person who's really put it that way so far, so that's what I'm calling her.
How is that incorrect?
I didn't say it wasn't.
Okay, so that, I mean, how pretty is she?
You too.
She's pretty.
She's very attractive.
Okay.
Like an eight.
Okay.
So, you traded the good girl for a loose girl with half a hole in her head.
Yeah.
Yes, sir.
I mean, I'm not trying to be harsh.
I'm just trying to state it like the way that it is, right?
Yeah, and it's not like I don't know this.
I do know it.
Well, do you?
I know what a love bomb is.
I know what a sex bomb is.
Sure.
Okay, so...
But you said to me, like, oh, you know, well, hey, I thought she was just a nice girl, and I thought this, and it's like, what are you talking about?
She had sex with you on the first date, and you're like, well, you know, she'd only ever had one boyfriend, and she seemed kind of traditional.
Do traditional girls have sex with you on the first date?
No.
You know that, right?
Are you a Christian man?
I was raised Catholic, but not really.
No, I'm not anymore.
Okay.
You might want to revisit that.
If the decisions you make are this, without that, you might want to revisit that.
Fair enough.
Clearly, philosophy hasn't done it for you.
Yeah.
Well, the idea there was she also said all the right things, right?
She wanted a big family.
Her parents were still together.
Sorry, I don't understand.
She said all the right things, but she had sex with you on the first date.
What do I care what she said?
I'm sorry if I'm missing something, and I'm trying to follow the story here.
But it's kind of like you say, well, you know, this chick, I went out on a date with her, and the first night I was out with her, she robbed a gas station with a gun.
You said all the right things about the non-aggression principle.
I'm like, well, yeah, but she did rob a gas station with a gun.
So I'm not sure what the saying part means.
Again, I'm happy to be instructed on something that I'm missing, but...
I'm not arguing with you.
Okay, so that's what I need to understand.
Like, how did you make this decision?
Look, the price of my advice, if you want to pay it, you don't have to do everything, right?
But the price of my advice is us figuring out how you made this ridiculous decision.
Yeah, yeah.
20-year-old with brain damage and tits.
Yeah.
You know, the other idea there is, at least one of the things she would say, is that she came so close to death that she really...
You know, she was going to get what she wanted out of life.
And what she wanted was a family.
What she wanted was kids.
What she wanted was, you know, a man with a good job and stability and an education and, you know.
Right, okay.
Hang on, hang on, hang on.
Does a woman get those things by sex bombing a man on the first date?
Well, she did.
No, but does a woman who wants a stable family and a good man, does she sex bomb a guy on the first date?
Stability is not her prime.
Well, no, so she says she wants all this family stuff, but she sex-bombs a guy on the first date.
Yeah.
Which, and okay, and you know, I mean, you've listened to my show.
long enough to know why does a woman sex bomb a guy on the first date?
Load up the V-can and discharge.
Charge.
you Yeah.
Why?
A lot of times it's because they feel like that's all they have to offer is sexuality.
Well, no, they're covering up personality deficiencies.
Okay.
No, this is like a guy coming on the first date with a $5,000 tennis bracelet.
For the woman.
Like, what's he covering up?
I see what you're saying.
He's a psycho.
So...
This is what I needed to hear.
It should have just stopped there, then.
Well, okay.
So, the date goes, she's 20 or 30 then, right?
Yes, sir.
Okay.
So, already, like, what are you doing with a 20-year-old?
Whatever.
Okay.
I mean, because you're into philosophy, which means you've got a lot of self-knowledge.
You're wiser than your average bear.
But okay, let's say that somehow she's either ridiculously mature for her age or you're ridiculously immature.
Somehow the 10-year gap doesn't matter.
Okay, fine.
Whatever, right?
Okay, so then on the first date, you take her to ballet, right?
That was like the second date, but yeah, very early on.
Okay, what did you do on the first date?
It came over to her parents' house and we just swam.
We swam, we jumped in her pool, and we had sex.
Okay, that's a really compressed narrative there.
So you had sex in her parents' pool?
Yeah, her parents were out of town for some reason.
We had been talking for a while.
So the first night I met her, we just went swimming in her pool for a while.
We talked, and then...
Wait, she said, come over, let's go swimming?
Yeah.
Okay, that's a messed up first date, right?
I enjoyed it.
It's got a good figure, right?
Yeah, she's very good looking.
Okay, and she has good figure, right?
Yes, sir.
Okay, so the first thing, okay, was she showing up in a two-piece?
Did she come out in a two-piece or a one-piece?
She had clothes on when I showed up.
Oh, no, I know, but when she came out for the swim.
Oh, a two-piece, yeah.
Okay, so she's in a bikini on a first date.
Yeah.
I mean, does that strike you as odd?
At the time, it struck me as fun.
Okay, got it.
Well, you know, take what you want and pay for it.
Have your fun, and then comes the bill.
All right.
Okay, so help me understand.
So you go to her parents' house.
You knew it was her parents' house, right?
Okay.
So you go to her parents' house, and you chat around for a while.
She says, let's go for a swim.
She comes out in a bikini, and how long does it take for you guys to have sex since you rang the doorbell?
Like two hours, three hours.
Oh my god, man.
Okay, alright, so you have sex, and then you go to the ballet the next day, right?
Yeah.
And then you have, well, hopefully you don't have sex at the ballet, maybe on the coats.
No, it was like a double date.
I'm sorry?
It was like a double date.
I met a friend and his girlfriend, and we all went together.
Alright.
Okay, so then you have massive amounts of sex, and how long does it take for you to propose?
Six months.
Six months.
Okay.
And how was she over the course?
How long did it take for you to find out she had brain damage?
Pretty early on.
I mean, it was like right away.
She was very upfront about the accident.
Sorry, you mean when you were chatting on the dating app?
Did she bring it up then?
Probably not then, but very shortly afterwards.
You mean after the first date?
Yeah, somewhere in the first or second date.
It came up.
So what you're saying is this potential that the bikini girl said, I have brain damage, let's have sex.
and you're like, sounds great, man.
It could have been that way, yeah.
Okay, just, I mean, you don't remember?
I don't remember exactly when she told me.
Okay, I'm not talking the second, I'm talking about roughly.
Did you know she had brain damage before you had sex with her?
I don't remember.
But it was early?
Yes, sir.
Okay.
So early on, you find out she has brain damage.
Were there any other dysfunctional actions or problems early on, let's say over the first couple of weeks or a month or two?
No.
Other than the promiscuity, but go on.
No, that was really the only big thing.
So she said she had brain damage, but she didn't manifest any brain damage.
No, no, really.
I mean, she was forgetful.
That was the only thing.
She would lose her glasses, she would lose her phone.
She couldn't spell for shit, but other than that, no.
I mean, we were able to talk.
We had fine conversations.
She seemed thoughtful.
She could read.
I mean, it wasn't...
Until after we were married and moved in together that she really had any kind of episode that I saw, that she was very stable.
Sorry, I mean, and obviously I'm no neurologist or expert in anything like this, but that seems a little weird, doesn't it?
Sure, yeah.
Is brain damage brain damage?
I mean, if somebody has Alzheimer's or whatever, or has some big railway spike through their head and has a personality change, they can't just will that away in the dating phase.
It does come out with stress.
Similar with Alzheimer's, similar with schizophrenia, similar with a lot of things.
Stress will exacerbate it.
Okay, stress exacerbated, but you're saying there were no signs in particular other than she was a bit forgetful or couldn't spell, right?
So you're saying that there was no...
Because I asked you if there was dysfunction in the first couple of weeks or a month or two, and you said no, other than, you know, a couple of little things, but nothing like what you're dealing with now.
Nothing like these episodes where, yeah, where she...
Okay, so what does that mean?
Does that mean that...
Her brain damage manifests when she's stressed?
Yeah, that's how it looks.
That's definitely how it looks to me.
I mean, that's how her parents...
But is that real?
Is that real?
I mean, it's like having a broken leg and saying, no, I can walk on it fine unless I'm stressed.
I would say, I mean, it's probably the same way that your brain doesn't work as good when it gets tired.
Or, you know, if you're sick.
Yeah, but you don't go insane.
You don't go insane.
No, listen, if I get a bad night's sleep, I'm not having fucking visions.
I don't go through rampant paranoia.
I'm just a little tired.
Maybe I'm a little less on the ball.
Maybe a slightly bit more grumpy or whatever, but I don't lose my brain.
I don't lose my mind.
Okay.
When in your dating, did you start to go, whoa, this might be a little bit more than forgetting her glasses?
You said it didn't happen until you were married, right?
Right.
I didn't see any of these crazy episodes until after we were married.
Sorry to interrupt.
You said you proposed after six months, right?
So then how long did it take for you guys to get married?
Like a year and a half, two years.
Oh, come on, man.
Are you telling me, okay, is it a year and a half or two years?
I can't keep saying between this and this.
Or whatever.
Then I propose to...
Forgetful, this is a couple of years ago.
And we were married less than a year later after I proposed.
Okay, so I'm just going to say 18 months.
Are we okay with that?
Yeah.
Okay, so you're saying that for 18 months she seemed perfectly normal.
Bit forgetful, whatever.
Doesn't spell well.
But she seemed fine.
For a year and a half, you get married, she goes crazy.
And then you say, this is just brain damage.
I don't think it's just brain damage.
No, it's got to be some combination of mental illness, for sure.
I don't know what mental illness means to you.
Actually, I never know what it means to anyone, because it's just another way of saying she's crazy, right?
Yeah.
Okay.
To me, again, I'm no expert, it can't possibly be brain damage if she can suppress it for 18 months.
Okay.
Like, if somebody has a frontal lobotomy, they can't pretend to be normal for 18 months.
I mean, I don't know.
I mean, I work with strokes.
I work with veterans.
You know, who have PTSD and have brain injuries.
And yeah, they can be very normal for long periods of time.
And then they'll have episodes where, same thing, they don't trust their wife.
They think everyone's out to get them.
They don't trust doctors.
Yeah, I have plenty of veterans who just fucking lose it sometimes.
And then they come out of it on the other side.
And yeah, a lot of that is brain damage.
It's PTSD. It's a combination of things.
But if it's brain damage, How does it appear normal for 18 months?
Brain damage is physical damage to the brain.
Yeah.
I hear what you're saying.
We didn't move in together until after we were married, so I wasn't with her around the clock all the time.
And the answer there is she just didn't have any of these crazy episodes where...
Where, you know, suddenly I'm a monster.
Suddenly I'm cheating on her or I'm drugging her or I'm abusive.
Okay, I'm just going to run through another little checklist here.
Okay.
Has she ever used drugs in her life?
Okay, what has she done?
Mostly just weed.
Are you going to play this game with me where I keep having to chase you for basic information?
You want every drug show?
I mean, mushrooms, LSD, MDMA. Like, we've used drugs together, but for the most part, just weed.
Okay, for the most part...
Come on, man.
If you ask someone, hey, if you ever killed anyone, and they say, well, for the most part, no.
That'd be a good answer, though.
No, I mean, she's not...
It would be a false and deceptive answer.
Okay, so she's done MDMA, she's done weed, she's done acid.
What else?
Mushrooms.
Mushrooms, okay.
Do you know how many times she's done LSD? Okay.
Do you know how many times she's done MDMA? No.
Okay.
So how do you know, for the most part, she's done weed?
When she could have done other drugs as a teenager or into her early 20s before you met her that you don't know about?
Well, if I don't know, then I don't know.
I mean, I wasn't there.
Because you're saying that you do know because you said it's mostly been weed and you don't know that.
She could have done MDMA daily from the age of 17 to 21. I'm not saying she did, right?
But she could have.
I mean, I understand the point you're trying to make.
Because you're saying you know the percentage of unknown drug use, which you don't, right?
When I hear the question, is someone on drugs, what I think is drug addiction, what I think is opiates...
No, I didn't say, is she on drugs?
I said, has she ever taken drugs?
I didn't say, is she on drugs?
Okay.
And you said mostly.
So then if we say, I mean, you know the math, right?
If we say mostly is 80% weed...
Then you're saying, well, it's only 20% of the mushrooms and the LSD and the MDMA and all of that, right?
But you don't know that.
Because it's an X. It's an unknown amount, right?
Sorry, you sound like you're disagreeing with me, which is fine.
But I can't put 20% in when there's an X, right?
Okay.
No, you're fighting me on this, and that's fine.
So what do you disagree about?
Because I know that, okay.
Okay.
I mean, I understand the point you're trying to make.
Like, oh, she's using drugs.
I'm not trying to make a point.
Don't take this personally.
I'm trying to get some facts here.
I'm just trying to get through the fog here.
Didn't you call me to get through the fog?
Yeah, absolutely.
So then stop saying I've got some sort of agenda or I'm saying people are on drugs or I'm trying to make some point.
I'm just trying to get to the facts.
You don't know how many drugs she took.
You don't think that's relevant to a broken brain?
Yeah, but I also can't give you an answer because I don't know.
But you gave me an answer, which is it was mostly weed, and you don't know.
That's what I'm trying to understand.
Okay.
No, no, you're still not with me on the importance of this point.
You think I'm just being, I don't know, odd about something?
I got some weird hang-up, man.
I really just don't know what else.
I agree with you.
I don't know what else you want me to say.
I don't know what kind of drug she was on before I met her.
Okay, so all I just need you to be alert and aware for when you're fogging or bullshitting, right?
Okay.
Because you were trying to minimize her drug use by saying it's mostly weed when you have no grounds, even by her own self-reporting, to say it's mostly been weed.
She could have done years of hard drugs before she met you, right?
It's possible.
I don't think it's likely.
I mean, living with her parents, I think it'd be very unlikely that she'd be using all these drugs.
Well, did her parents get into rehab for taking the hard drugs that she did take that you know about?
Because if you can take some drugs, why not more?
Clearly, there wasn't a line in the sand where her parents said, oh my god, you're doing drugs, you have to get rehab or we're kicking you out.
She was able to get away with doing...
LSD, MDMA, mushrooms, weed, like whatever else, right?
So she was able to do that without her parents taking a firm stand, right?
Sure.
So, could have been more?
And the reason being that if she's, I mean, you know probably better than I do, that the effects of hard drugs can include most of the symptoms you're talking to me about.
The weed will make people paranoid.
And that's one I don't really...
I go back and forth with on because when she smokes weed, she's more stable.
We don't fight.
We don't...
Yeah, well, maybe it's withdrawal.
But LSD can sit in your fat cells and be released any time, right?
Okay.
Is that true?
Yeah, people can get trips years later, right?
Because it sits in your fat cells and then...
If for whatever reason you're eating less or you get stressed out and your metabolism goes up and you burn the fat cells, as far as I understand it, you can then release the LSD back into your bloodstream.
Okay.
What are the effects of MDMA? It's a short spot.
Dopamine and serotonin and then you're back to baseline.
No, but long-term negative effects.
I don't think there's any that I've seen.
It's a very well studied.
Are you saying...
Are you trying to tell me that there are no long-term negative effects to MDMA? And listen, if you're right, you're right.
I don't know much about the drug culture, but, you know, I'm going to look this up, right?
You know that, right?
Yeah, please do.
Because, you know, we're trying to get to the bottom of some pretty nutty behavior, right?
Okay.
All right.
Let's go here.
Okay, long-term effects, DMA. All right.
Yes.
Yeah, MDMA use may potentially cause long-term mental and physical health effects, ecstasy use, right?
Okay.
So, research has found that MDMA use could cause changes in verbal, visual, and short-term memory, reasoning, and recognition, right?
Okay, is that acute or chronic?
MDMA use could cause.
Now, chronic MDMA use may even occasionally cause conditions like psychosis, although other psychiatric conditions arising from using MDMA are rare.
So, short-term memory, she had a problem, right?
Recognition, you said she couldn't read, right?
She could read, she couldn't spell.
She couldn't spell.
Okay, got it.
Got it.
Let's see here.
Long-term effects.
Oh, that's medical MDMA. So, what have we got here?
MDMA. Appetite changes, arrhythmia, this is short-term, irritability, impulsivity, aggression, anxiety, depression, heart damage and heart disease, difficulty with attention and concentration, changes in memory and cognitive function, changes in sleep habit.
Okay.
Let me just have one look here.
This is from the Western Journal of Medicine.
Numerous animal studies have yielded clear evidence of potent neurotoxic effects of MDMA that are specific to central serotenergic systems.
Yeah.
Cognitive changes in ecstasy users.
Neuroendocrine impairments, deficits in verbal memory and reasoning, short-term memory and semantic recognition, I guess that's the reading, and visual memory.
More general indices of intelligence are also adversely affected.
But reports of serious long-term psychiatric disorders are still rare, with the possibility that previous exposure to MDMA merely accentuates pre-existing negative personality.
One particular worrying feature has emerged that chronic psychosis, when manifest in MDMA users, reportedly responds poorly to therapy, because that might be the drug, right?
Because if the drug has damaged the brain, then it seems less likely that therapy would be able to help it, right?
Okay.
And have you looked up the...
I don't know much about the mushroom thing, right?
But let's see.
Long-term effects, LSD. All right.
All right.
It is not considered an addictive drug.
Serotonin syndrome.
Diarrhea, recesses, regitation, vomiting or nausea, irregular or rapid heartbeat, fever or high body temperature, seizures, hallucinations, loss of coordination, rapid changes in blood pressure.
That is...
Just while you're...
No, this can trigger something known as serotonin syndrome.
And so that's not while you're on it.
That is, I think, that can happen afterwards.
Let's see here.
Long-term effects.
Let me just make sure this is...
Yeah, flashbacks, weeks, months, or even years after drug use.
Flashbacks may be set off by using other drugs or by physical exercise.
Flashbacks may be pleasant or a living nightmare.
Decreased motivation, prolonged depression, increased panic, impaired memory and concentration, possible severe mental disturbances, psychosis, increased delusions, bad trips may last hours, weeks, and even months.
So, that's not great.
Okay, so these are not wildly out of...
I mean, obviously, I can't diagnose anyone, you can't diagnose anyone, but these symptoms don't sound wildly out of range of some of the stuff you've been dealing with, right?
Fair enough.
Well, no.
Does it or does it not?
I obviously want to try and be accurate, or as accurate as possible.
The way I understand it, like...
Yeah, if you take these things all the time, if you take them in large amounts, if you take a whole lot of mushrooms, if you take a whole lot of pills, you can get serotonin syndrome.
And then you get really sick, your heart rate will go through the roof, your blood pressure will go through the roof.
But if you're asking me, is this a source of long-term issues, long-term psychoses, then no, I just don't agree.
I don't think that you do LSD two, three, five times.
But you don't know how many times she did it.
I don't know, but she's also 20, and I just...
No, you're right.
I don't know, but I don't think she's taken LSD every weekend.
For one thing, it just doesn't work.
My whole point is that you don't know.
And you're married to a woman without knowing the facts about her prior drug use.
Okay.
So you keep saying okay like I'm cornering you with some irrational thing.
It's kind of annoying.
Like, if you don't want my feedback, let's not do the conversation.
But I keep pointing out these things, and you're like, okay, okay.
I hear you, I just don't see the relevancy.
It's not...
You don't see the relevance.
You don't see the relevance of getting married to a woman without knowing her prior drug history.
No, I mean, if she smokes weed, I really didn't care that she smoked weed, and it really didn't bother me that she had done LSD before.
Okay, have I mentioned anything about the weed?
You haven't brought the weed up so much.
No, you're focusing on the LSD and the MDM. So are we having a conversation, or are you just managing your own thoughts and feelings and anxieties?
Because I've barely talked about the weed, right?
And then you're saying, well, I don't care that she's done weed before.
But that's not what we were talking about.
So you're just, you are...
Trying to listen, but I don't know what to do.
No, you're reframing the conversation to minimize what I'm saying.
Okay.
Which...
Is a form of not listening, right?
I haven't mentioned the weed at all.
Right, because we're talking about, I really haven't talked about the mushrooms, right?
We're talking about, I think, the two more dangerous drugs, the ecstasy and the LSD. And then you reframe it as the weed, which is not what I'm talking about.
That's what I mean, like it's kind of annoying.
Because I'm trying to bring up some important topics here.
And you're reframing them to refer to things I haven't mentioned?
What I'm saying is when I met her, I knew that she was smoking a lot of weed.
And yeah, I mean, at some point I figured out that she had done some LSD or something before.
How did you figure that out?
I'm sure we talked about it.
I don't...
Hey, do you have memory issues?
Like, what I'm telling you is it just wasn't really important to me.
It wasn't a factor.
Okay, when did you last smoke weed?
I don't smoke weed.
Oh, I'm sorry.
I thought you guys did weed together.
My apologies.
I must have misheard.
She smokes weed.
I don't smoke weed.
I don't drink.
I don't do drugs at all, which is a problem that she wants to keep accusing me of being on drugs.
Right, right.
She's someone fucking heroin.
It doesn't make any sense.
Okay.
Well, I mean, crazy people tend not to make sense.
That's how we know they're crazy, right?
Yes.
Okay.
And I apologize for misunderstanding.
You think you had a conversation about how often she may or may not have done drugs, but you can't remember.
Is that right?
I don't remember how often it came up or how it came up.
No, we talked about our history or whatever we'd done before.
And she said, I've done LSD, I've done mushrooms, I've done ecstasy, and I'm doing wheat.
Is that right?
Yeah.
And did she only do weed when you guys were together, or is that all that you know that she did?
And the whole time we were together?
No.
I mean, we took MDMA together.
We took all microdose mushrooms.
Sorry, I thought you said you didn't do...
Oh, you didn't do...
Oh, you don't drink alcohol.
Sorry, I thought you were kind of clean.
I thought you said you don't do drugs and alcohol, but what you mean is you don't do weed and alcohol, but you do MDMA and you do...
Mushrooms, is that right?
Yeah.
Okay, and did you do...
Those are the only two drugs you've done?
In the time we were together, yeah.
Okay.
What about in the time you were together?
What, before I met her?
I've smoked weed before.
You know, I have a history of using drugs.
I was, you know, and then I got off.
I got clean.
And when did you get clean?
Early 20s.
Early 20s.
I was on pills for a while, and then I would say 23, 24. What do you mean by pills?
Opiates.
Opiates.
Okay, you were doing opiates.
And anything else?
That was usually my thing, was opiates.
I smoked weed as a teenager, but it wasn't really my thing.
Okay, and how did you get into the opiates?
You know, a combination of things.
I have this autoimmune disease.
It's called ankylosing spondylitis.
So it's terrible back pain.
It's really bad back pain.
So starting as a prescription or, you know, just getting them somewhere.
And then you get addicted or I got addicted.
Sorry, but I mean, if you had them as a prescription, that would be for medical use.
Is that right?
Right.
Did the doctor stop prescribing them?
Was that the issue?
Okay.
I'm sorry.
I mean, it's a very difficult situation, and I really have a lot of sympathy for pain management in the modern world.
It's a brutal, brutal thing.
Because there are so many people who are addicted, and it's a very, very tough situation.
And I do, and I did have pain, so it was easy for me to justify.
Like, I do have real pain.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, I get that.
I get that.
Okay, so she, when you met her...
What was she doing in terms of drugs?
As far as I knew, just weed.
Sorry, when you say as far as you knew, you mean that's what she told you and you didn't have any evidence for anything else?
Is that right?
Right.
Okay, got it.
Okay, so she was just doing weed, and how often was she doing weed?
All the time.
All the time.
Wake and bake?
Yes, sir.
Yeah, all day, every day.
So she was a drug addict?
Yeah, she was addicted to weed.
I mean, that's a drug addict, isn't it?
And she was severely addicted to weed, right?
That's another situation where she had a prescription for it, and so...
And why did she have a prescription for it?
For the brain damage, for the PTSD, for...
I guess for pain.
Okay, so...
Here's the big thing, is...
Is the fucking nightmares.
The nightmares, the dreams.
She would just have these horrible fucking nightmares.
She would shake in her sleep.
And it seems to me that the weed really helped that.
It helped stop the dreams.
Did she ever do talk therapy?
Yeah, off and on throughout the course of the marriage, talk therapy.
I think it was largely a waste of time.
I think one therapist fucked her up, actually.
Oh, what happened there?
He was just one of these feminist therapists who was really down on her for being married so young.
Telling her that she shouldn't be married so young.
She had her whole life ahead of her.
She would tell her that I was abusive, that I was the source of all her problems.
And then he would argue with her about stupid things.
He would say things like men and women are just as strong and they have the same sex drive as each other.
Like, so she'd be in there arguing with him about promiscuity and how it affects men and women differently.
And, like, he just had a very feminist fucking, I don't know, weird...
I didn't like the guy.
I just did not like the guy.
I thought he was dumb.
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, therapy is no place for ideological stuff, to put it bluntly.
He was telling her women can just go sleep around the same way men can.
And it's like, why are you telling my fucking wife this, guy?
I really didn't like him.
And how long did she see him?
She eventually stopped seeing him because it was either two things.
If things were going really well with her and I, as they usually were, then he would just keep bringing me up as if I were a problem.
And she would tell him, hey, you know what?
Stop bringing him up.
He's not why I'm here.
I'm coming here to address these other issues I want to talk to you about.
Or, you know, on the other hand, if she and I were not on good terms, she would go see him, and then he would just tell her that, you know, I'm abusive, I'm the source of all her problems, there's a 10-year age gap, he would just kind of like really feed into her negativity about me.
What did he say in terms of...
The abuse.
What would he say that you did that was abusive?
Of course, I'm not agreeing with him.
I'm just...
Yeah.
You know, it's hard to say because I wasn't there, but it sounds like things like me controlling what she wanted to wear, not wanting her to wear skimpy outfits, not wanting her to go out drinking alone without me.
What else?
I don't know.
I think just wanting a traditional housewife, really.
He felt was abusive.
But like I said, I wasn't there.
I don't know what she was telling him.
I do know one misconception because I did go in to see him one time and it was brought up that I didn't believe in rules because I'm an anarchist.
And I had to set him straight on that because he was trying to make me out to be a psychopath that I don't believe in rules.
I just get away with whatever I want to get away with.
I had to set him straight like, no, that's not really what anarchy means, etc.
So I don't really know what she was telling him.
Okay.
I do know what she was telling me is that she was going to talk to him about the accident or her parents or trauma that she didn't really go to him to talk about me.
Right.
Right.
Okay.
So she eventually stopped seeing him and I found her another therapist who specializes with borderline.
At least that was the idea.
And then she started seeing her for a little while.
Off and on, but still, I think she wasn't talking about anything relevant.
She would just keep talking about her accident.
She would talk about her parents.
She wasn't talking about her delusions.
She wasn't talking about how she thinks that I'm cheating or I'm on drugs, which is what I really needed her to talk to somebody about.
But in her mind, these things aren't delusions.
In her mind, these things are real.
She doesn't want to tell somebody that I'm cheating.
Because then that person is obviously going to be like, well, he's a dick.
You need to get away from him.
Right.
Sorry, go ahead.
I want to make sure I'm being clear because I would get her in therapy to work on these problems, but she was afraid of telling them the problems because she didn't want to hear negativity about me.
I mean, because most of the time we had a great relationship and she didn't want anyone to mess that up.
Am I being clear?
No.
No.
You're being clear in that I absolutely understand what you're saying.
Okay.
At least I understand you're saying, well, she wants to talk about her parents, she wants to talk about the accident or PTSD, but people keep drawing her into conversations about you, which was irrelevant as what you're saying because you guys, in general, had a great relationship, right?
Yes.
And also, at the same time, I needed her to talk to somebody about why she thinks that I'm cheating, why she thinks I'm on drugs.
I need somebody else because I can break it down logically.
I can disprove things.
I can show her my schedule.
I can show her my location.
I can show her all the proof in the world that I'm not cheating, and it doesn't matter to her.
And she'll jump to crazy, wild conclusions.
Just the last time we talked, she was trying to tell me that because I walked into the gym locker room, And another guy walked into the gym locker room right afterwards.
That means we're in there fucking.
You and this guy?
Yeah.
Oh, so she's accusing you and cheating, but also with guys.
With guys and girls, is that right?
Everybody, yeah.
Got it, okay.
So I really needed her to talk to someone about this, because she explains it to me, and I can tell it's crazy.
It's just...
You know, another example is I have a female powerlifter friend who's basically had a sex change from steroids.
She's very big, very muscly.
Bald head, has a beard.
She's like one of my best friends, right?
And what she says to me is because it's so hard to believe that I was fucking her because no one would ever believe it.
Because I would get away with it.
Right.
So, yeah, the more unattractive the woman, the more she thinks you're cheating.
That's one of the things.
Yeah.
And that example, yeah, that's what she was saying.
But then also, I'm screwing the neighbor because the neighbor's hot, or I'm screwing this chick because she's got tits, or it just doesn't matter.
She would accuse me of...
But this is the price of the sex bomb is paranoia, right?
If she suspects that you're with her because of sex, then she's going to be concerned that you're going to be with another woman because of sex.
It'd be like if I thought that my wife was only with me, I don't know, like some guy thinks his wife is only with him because of money, and then she gets introduced to all these richer guys, right?
He's going to be alarmed, she's going to monkey branch, right?
Makes sense.
Yeah, okay.
Got it, got it, got it.
All right.
So how long after you got married did she go from sane and great to unstable?
I remember it was the anniversary of her accident was the trigger.
Well, no, because she'd already had.
I mean, you were together for a year and a half, so you'd already gone through one anniversary of the accident.
So it wasn't that.
It was the first anniversary that we were married.
And what she said later is that the other two anniversaries didn't really matter because she was dating and she was happy, or then she was planning the wedding, so she was distracted.
So she can manage it.
It was the first anniversary.
So she can manage it.
If a guy has a giant tumor, it doesn't vanish when he's happy.
Okay, right.
Right?
If a guy lost his hand, it doesn't regrow when he's dating, but then vanish again when he's married.
So she can control it, and she can manage it.
Because she did.
For a year and a half.
I hear what you're saying, but also I see how things are triggered.
How is she not triggered for a year and a half?
I'm giving her explanation to me.
No, that's not what you said to me.
You said, I can see.
As in you.
If you said, she tells me that she gets triggered, that's different.
I need to know when you're talking for yourself or talking to her, because I can't read your mind, right?
That's how it appeared to me that this was the first anniversary where things were stable.
She didn't really have anything going on in her life.
She wasn't distracted by anything.
She just had time to sit there and think about the accident, and then, you know, and then she got depressed, and then she's depressed.
Sorry, how long after?
I still don't know how long after you were married did she start to go now.
April to August.
Six months.
Six months after we were married.
So she was two years stable.
Yeah, it was right at the two-year mark.
I remember that right there.
How is it possible for someone to hide a brain injury for two years?
Again, I'm not saying this is entirely a brain injury thing.
There's some mental illness there.
Okay.
I don't care.
We can say, how is it possible for someone to hide mental illness for two years?
Because stress, depression...
How is she more stressed after she got married?
Was being married to you horribly stressful?
I really don't think so.
Okay, so how does she...
Getting married, I mean, I'm married.
I've been married for like 22 years.
It's the most relaxing, beautiful, wonderful thing on the planet.
That's how I felt usually as well.
I like to be married.
Okay, so it's not the stress of being married.
So what was going on?
I don't think it is the stress of being married.
Okay, so what stress, and I'm sorry to be haranguing you, I really, I just, what stress was she going through?
That caused whatever...
I'm not sure.
It's the first time that she had had a full-time job.
I'm sure that was stressful in her life.
She was trying to learn how to deal with other people that weren't her father.
Up until then, she had just worked with her dad.
So this was her first job where she was working with other people.
Did she have a really stressful job?
It was physically demanding.
Yeah, she was outside all day.
What was she doing?
She was caretaking the condos, so cleaning the hallways, changing the trash, cleaning the gym, taking care of the condos where we lived.
Okay.
I've done that kind of work.
It's not stressful.
I wouldn't think so.
Okay, so it's not that.
We're in the Florida heat.
She's outside.
She's dealing with new people.
I don't know, but do you remember how stressful your first job was?
Okay, so she had...
Her first job when she was 22?
Her first job that wasn't working directly with her father, yeah.
Okay, so it's not her first job.
All right.
I mean, this is a little bit of a maze, right?
Yeah.
Well, listen, this is why...
So she's got a job cleaning up some stuff and tidying some stuff and trimming some stuff or whatever, right?
Right.
Okay.
So she's like a janitor.
Yeah.
Okay.
That's not a...
That's not a high-stress job, man.
No, but I'll tell you, she was always stressed out because she couldn't get along with anybody.
She couldn't get along with the manager.
She couldn't get along with the other people.
You know, it's hot.
We're in...
It's hot as hell outside, so she's getting dehydrated and just not...
Oh, come on.
Bro.
Okay, are these your opinions?
She's in...
She's getting dehydrated.
Oh, fuck, man.
Yes, if only there was some way to carry hydration with you when you work in a hot climate.
Huh.
I mean, I worked in northern Ontario in 40-degree weather, doing hard labor.
You just...
You keep a fucking bottle on you when you drink.
Like, what are you talking about?
She's dehydrated.
I mean, she's not retarded, right?
And you're thirsty, you drink some water.
It reminds me how fucking dumb she could be, but yeah.
No, no, like, help me understand.
She just gets dehydrated because she's apparently a potted plant that nobody watered.
Like, I can't work at the level of this nonsense.
I just can't.
I'm not saying that you're nonsense.
I'm just saying the fact that she's dehydrated.
I've been making excuses for her forever.
You don't help people by making excuses for them.
Yeah.
When did she start working for her dad?
I would say probably she was 19, I would suppose.
So from 19 to 21. She didn't have a job until she was an adult.
She never worked as a teenager?
She had a job at a bank for a very short time.
I don't know what the time window is there.
I don't know if it's like a month or if it's six months.
I know she worked at a bank for a while.
Well, six months as a teenager had a very short time, but okay, let's not...
I know it was before her accident.
Okay.
Okay, so she's been working for a couple of years, and she's having trouble cleaning and tidying.
She's having most of the troubles coming in her personally.
It's with the other people that she would just have constant arguments with and disagreements with.
That's where most of the stress is coming from.
Okay, and do you know, I mean, I'm sure she told you what she was fighting about.
Why is she fighting with people at work so much?
Yeah, right.
No, that was her habit.
She just knew how everyone needed to live.
She knew how everyone was supposed to do things.
Oh, she was like a bully.
Yeah, she could be like a bully.
So she was nasty to work with because she was aggressive and bullying.
And a know-it-all.
She was a know-it-all, yeah.
So that's annoying.
It's annoying.
Especially when you're new to the workforce, as you say.
Yeah.
These grown men, they don't really want...
They don't want to be told how they should be communicating with each other.
They're grown men.
Leave it alone.
Oh, was she like longhouse feminist-y tone policing guys?
Uh, kind of, yeah.
She just wanted them to communicate more and have these little meetings and, you know.
Oh, God.
Right.
Oh, God.
Oh, that's horrible.
Yeah.
Guys, we're not communicating in the right way.
We need to have another meeting.
It's like everybody's eyes are rolling like a Vegas slot machine, right?
That's what I told her.
I said, leave it alone.
Stop trying to tell them what to do.
They've been doing it.
It's not that complicated.
Just let them work it out.
So why was she working?
I mean, you wanted a family, right?
Why didn't you just knock her up?
Did she desperately want a job in the heat where she got dehydrated?
Why was she working?
The job was her choice.
I made enough money to take care of us.
But no, she wanted to work.
She insisted on working.
Why did she want to work?
She wanted to work, I'm sure, just for her own self-esteem, just to prove that she could do something, that she could make herself useful.
Okay.
Back in the...
I mean, by the time you guys get married, you're like 32, 33, right?
Okay.
So, you don't have a huge runway in which to have kids, right?
Well, I do, because she's 22, 23. No, no, you.
Sorry, you personally, right?
I mean, because you're 10 years older, right?
Like, if you were 23, you could wait some years or whatever, right?
But you don't necessarily want to have kids when you're pushing 40, right?
No, no, that wasn't ideal.
Actually, I would be wanting to have kids right now, actually.
I'm 35, she's 25. Like, this would be my time.
Okay, so if you guys had been together for two years, you said your relationship was great, you want a big family, she wants a big family.
Now, obviously, the way things have played out, I'm not saying you should have had kids, but given that things were going well for the first six months of your marriage and the first 18 months of your courtship or the two years you were together, things were going great.
So why would she get a job rather than get ready to start a family?
I wanted to do a couple years married before we started having kids.
Why is that?
I'm not disagreeing with you.
I just want to know what your reasoning is.
Because it's an 18-year-long commitment, at least.
I wanted to have some time with her.
No, you just made a 50-year commitment, though.
Right?
I mean, getting married is a way bigger commitment than having kids.
I disagree with that.
Well, you're wrong.
Because having kids is for 18 years.
Getting married, if you get married to a woman who's 20, she's going to live into her 80s.
That's 60 years.
Right?
That's more than four times the length of raising a kid.
I know, but people get divorced all the time, and then, you know, that's just common every night.
It's common now.
I hear what you're saying.
No, but marriage, in the vows that you make, I didn't say everybody makes it, but in the vows that you make, for better or for worse, in sickness and health, forsaking all others until death do us part.
Okay.
So that's 60 years for her, 50 years for you, give or take, right?
Sure.
Okay, so the commitment is bigger.
And people give up kids.
People give up kids all the time.
I mean, look at the black community, right?
I mean, look at the number of kids who are raised by grandmothers.
Yeah.
Or other communities, right?
Look at the number of single moms in any community, white community, where the dads have buggered off.
Right.
People give up kids all the time.
My dad did, for the most part.
Well, that's not what I wanted.
I wanted to wait, and thank God I did wait.
No, no, and I'm with you for that.
I'm just trying to figure out, since she couldn't handle the job and hated the job and was fighting with everyone on the job, why did she get the job and why did she keep it?
How long did she work at this job?
Well, they eventually fired her.
They fired her right before Christmas, actually.
How long did she work at the job?
Let me think.
We moved in July.
So from July to Christmas, whatever that is, five months?
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
So she got fired, and was she having mental health issues during the time that she was working there, or was she just kind of annoying and obnoxious?
No, she's just annoying and obnoxious.
No, our relationship was still amazing.
It was still...
And one of the cool things is that because she worked there, she could stop home all the time, so I would get to see her if I was home.
She got to stop at home all the time.
Sorry, what do you mean?
Because she worked on the condos where we lived.
Oh, I see.
Now, was she still a drug addict during the course of your courtship and early marriage?
The weed, yeah.
The weed's been consistent throughout the whole time.
Okay.
And have you ever talked to her about...
Sorry, go ahead.
About a year off.
She did stop for almost a whole year.
And when was that?
That was after the first big meltdown that she had at the two-year mark, and it lasted for about a year, so from year two to year three.
Okay, so six months into your marriage until 18 months into your marriage, she was off wheat completely?
Yes, yeah.
Okay, and she wasn't taking any other drugs?
Did she take any psych meds or anything like that?
No.
So she was clean for a year?
Yeah.
And was that difficult for her?
No, only the first week or two.
Okay.
And then she went back on the drugs?
Yep.
Okay.
So, your relationship with her was wonderful, her relationship with her workers was terrible, and how was her relationship with her parents?
Pretty good.
I would say pretty good.
Okay, and did they know about her drug addiction?
Yeah, they knew about the weed, yeah.
And did they try to counsel her to address her drug addiction?
No, it was prescribed.
Well, okay, but I mean, I don't know.
I mean, you said she smoked continually every day.
Mm-hmm.
That seems a bit aggressive.
I think it's anything that they really talk to her about as being a negative thing.
Okay.
Got it.
And how was her childhood overall?
From what she's told me, it...
Well, of course it's from what she told you.
I mean, you weren't there.
Because I'm sure parents might tell me something different, right?
Okay.
What was her perception of her childhood?
She really hated being an only child.
I do know that.
That was something that really bothered her.
She wishes she had brothers and sisters.
I know her dad could be a dick.
He could really fly off the handle, have some anger issues, it sounds like.
And then her mom was kind of passive, mousy, quiet.
So her dad might be in a rage for something, screaming at her or whatever.
And then her mom would not really say much, not really...
A rage?
What do you mean?
Like he lost control?
Like red-faced veins in the neck and forehead, screaming top of his lungs?
Is that what you mean?
That's how she would describe it, yeah.
Okay.
But I don't think he really hit her.
I don't think there's any physical abuse like that.
What do you mean, really hit her?
No, I don't think he hit her.
I think maybe he might have broke some things, but he didn't hit her.
So she said, my dad never hit me?
Yeah.
Okay.
Got it.
And did you ever see this temper on the pot?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Her dad could fly off the handle, for sure.
Okay.
There's a limit if I'm there.
I'm not a small guy, so he's not going to get too wild, but I would definitely see his temper.
Right, right.
Okay.
And how did you get along with him?
Great.
I got along with her parents.
Excellent.
I couldn't be more grateful for them.
They've been supportive.
Got along with them great?
Yeah, very well.
Do you know what you're saying to me?
Tell me how you interpret it.
Because I feel like I had a great relationship with her parents.
But her parents...
Verbally abused your wife.
I mean, terrified her.
Screamed in her face.
Broke things around her.
Yeah.
How the fuck do you have a great relationship with people who've done the most damage to the woman you claim to love?
Like, holy shitballs, bro.
Okay, but what am I supposed to do?
And you say this to me, like...
What am I supposed to do there, though?
No, no, no, don't, don't, no, no, no, not going there.
No, not doing that.
What's the other way to handle that?
What's the practical solution I'm talking about if you love the woman?
And you're saying this to me.
Now, you're not saying it to me like, Steph, I know this might be a bit unusual.
Or, Steph, this kind of goes against what you advocate for and believe, but you just say it like it's natural, right?
I have a great relationship with the people who abused the crap out of my...
Wife might have driven her half crazy and maybe made her so traumatized that she became an addict in her teens.
Yeah, it's great.
Yeah, great people.
Love them.
Holy shitballs, bro.
What are you doing?
I'm happy to be schooled and corrected, but I'm telling you, my jaw is on the floor because you've been listening for a long time and you're my jaw is on the floor because you've been listening for a long time and you're saying this garbage to me Just...
Thank you.
My relationship with them was great.
They treated me very well.
The only thing I saw them do is treat her very well.
The only side of them I ever saw was mostly love and support.
You know, her dad will get angry, but not to the point where he's, like, screaming and abusing my wife in front of me.
Okay.
Who cares about whether it's in front of you or not?
Okay.
But I still, like, I don't know what I'm supposed to do, just, like, not get along with these people because she told me a story about how he fucking, what, broke a toy once?
Okay, so now you're just bullshitting and minimizing, right?
He broke a toy once.
That's not what you told me.
You said he screamed at her and broke things.
What's the alternative?
No, no.
Just don't bullshit me, bro.
That's all.
I mean, if you want to have a call with me, that's great.
But don't jerk me around like this.
Don't just redefine shit, right?
You told me, and if you got it wrong or I misinterpreted, I'm happy to clear that up.
You told me, and I checked.
Screaming, red face, veins in the neck.
Yep, he was a real screamer.
Rage, right?
That's terrifying, right?
Yeah, for sure.
And she's an only child, so she doesn't even have a sibling for comfort and to confide in, right?
Right.
And is he a big guy?
No, he's tall, but no, he's really thin.
Okay, but tall is pretty important for kids, right?
Sure, sure.
I'm sure you're really intimidating when you're tiny.
So he's verbally terrorizing the woman you love when she was a little girl.
Now, the fact that he doesn't do it when she's an adult just makes him a fucking coward!
Yeah.
Do you follow?
Certainly not while I was there.
Right.
He's a fucking coward, because he screams at children, and then when the big boyfriend is around, or the big fiancé is around, or the big husband, he's nice, he's totally nice.
Hey, man, no problem.
Hey, I'm...
That's a coward.
Okay.
Nah, you're still not with me.
Okay, okay.
Okay, that's all I'm hearing.
It's okay.
Does it connect with you at all?
Yeah.
I don't think it does.
Why am I the only one upset at this?
To your wife.
If you had a daughter and you hired a babysitter and the babysitter did to your daughter what your father-in-law did to your wife, would you be good friends with her too?
Or him?
No, that's a good way to frame that.
If he smashed things up and screamed at the top of his lungs...
At your precious baby girl, would you be like, yeah, I get along great with that babysitter.
He's welcome back in my house anytime.
Fuck me.
What are you doing?
No, that's a good way to put it.
Come on, you've heard this before.
I mean, did you stop listening years ago?
It's fine if you did.
I'm just curious.
Like, to what I do.
I've listened to a lot of Colin shows.
I've been listening for years.
Okay, so what are you doing to me?
How dissociated are you?
I mean, it's like you have no clue who you're, you think you're talking to some normie who's just going to nod like, oh yeah, it's great.
Verbally abusive, terrorized his kids, probably made her wet herself by screaming at her so loud, but yeah, it's a great guy.
we get along great did he ever admit faulted apologize For being a verbal terrifying tyrant?
No, what she said he would do, which was what my parents would do, is they would just be nice afterwards.
They would just be nice and then act like nothing happened.
Okay, so let's talk about your parents.
What's your relationship like with your parents?
It's not great.
I don't talk to my dad.
I haven't talked to him since like 2013, I would guess.
And why don't they talk to your dad?
Are they together, your parents?
No, they split up when I was like 12. Okay.
And why don't you talk to your dad?
And again, I'm not judging.
I'm just curious.
The primary reason is he was falling apart and he wasn't taking care of himself.
He would call and ask me for advice.
He would have some problem.
And no matter what I suggested, it would always be an excuse.
It would always be some issue with it.
There's some reason that doesn't apply to him.
So you mean physically, financially, emotionally, mentally?
What do you mean by falling apart?
Yeah, yeah, all these things.
His health was falling apart.
Financially, he was falling apart.
Emotionally, he was falling apart.
He would sit and just watch TV. Oh, so you're used to propping up and making excuses for people who are falling apart?
Well, am I? Because eventually I just stopped talking to them.
But you were raised that way, right?
Yeah, I was.
I was raised that way.
Okay, so you're used to it.
I didn't say you're still doing it.
I said you're used to it.
That's a skill you have, is to prop people up who are falling apart and make a lot of excuses for them.
Is that fair?
That's fair, yeah.
Okay, so that's how you have these skills and habits with your wife.
Yeah, it's automatic.
Okay, and I have huge sympathy for this, and I'm really, really sorry for this relationship with your father and what your father did or didn't do.
So what was the final straw for you?
The final straw is, like I said, I have this autoimmune disease myself where I was really having significant health problems.
You know, I was 22 and I had to walk with a cane.
I couldn't walk.
I couldn't go to the bathroom by myself.
When did that first hit you?
I first started having symptoms at like 16. Okay.
Got it.
So I had had a lot of health issues.
And he just happened, this conversation, this last one I had, I was at a real low point.
I was struggling to walk.
I couldn't go to the bathroom on my own, couldn't sleep.
And he was calling me, asking me for help.
Oh, and there was nothing there for you, right?
And he just did not even recognize that I can't even walk, and here I am trying to help him.
And then he would just come up with all these excuses of why he couldn't do what I was suggesting.
Or he would just tell me, oh, he thinks he has exactly what I have.
And he's like, motherfucker, I can't walk.
I'm fucking 23. Like, I'm sorry you're 50 and you fucking watch TV all day.
Here, have you tried doing this?
Have you tried eating fucking differently?
You know, it didn't matter what I suggested to him.
I would recommend books.
Oh, I don't want to have to buy a book.
Or I'm dyslexic, so I can't read.
So I'd say, hey, here's an audiobook.
I even sent him some of your audiobooks, The Real-Time Relationships, and one of the other ones.
And he came up with some excuse why he couldn't just fucking listen to a book.
And I got sick of it, and I said, I'm not just going to watch him die.
I'm not going to watch him just waste his fucking life away.
So I stopped talking to him.
Do you know if he died since, or is he still chugging?
He's still alive, but no, he's not doing good.
I think he's been in therapy, at least.
My mom tells me he's been in therapy emotionally.
Not enough to call you and apologize, though.
That's not on him.
I refuse his calls.
He's tried reaching out, and I just don't talk to him.
Right, okay.
It's on me at this point to contact him.
Okay, got it.
You're still in contact with your mom, right?
Okay, and what's your relationship like with your mom?
Distant, but I still talk with her.
She's about three hours drive away, so I see her.
Every once in a while.
And out of the two, honestly, she was the worst one growing up.
She was way more abusive, way more violent.
A lot of similarities, of course, between her and my wife.
Was she also unstable?
Yeah, buddy.
The same shit, accusing my dad of cheating or getting mad because he might be watching porn.
Sorry, I interrupted.
My apologies.
That was very rude.
So, you said that she would accuse your dad of cheating.
Sorry, I missed the part about the porn.
Yeah, this was right when the internet became a thing.
Yeah, so she'd get mad if he was watching porn or something.
Or, I mean, just if we'd be watching a movie and there'd be a set of tits in the movie or something, she would fly off the fucking handle.
And she would fly off the handle.
All the time, at birthdays, at holidays.
I remember, you know...
I'm sorry, what did flying off the handle look like for you, Mom?
It looked like smashing food, throwing bottles of wine.
You know, I remember a birthday cake that she fucking threw.
I'm so sorry, that's terrifying.
Yeah, no, she was the scary one.
My dad could be a dick, but he was...
He was definitely the better one, for sure.
So why are you still in contact with your mom?
You know what I think it is?
I had higher standards for my dad.
And I just fucking...
I don't know.
I guess I make excuses for her because she's a woman.
I don't really know.
But that's going to have a price, right?
There was a year or two where I didn't talk to my mom.
And then...
When I got in trouble with the drugs and when I was younger, she did come and helped me out a lot.
She gave me a place to stay.
She helped me find a job.
She kind of...
When I turned 18, I didn't talk to her again until I was like 21. And that was...
She came and she really tried to...
No, listen.
If you're in a very helpless state, if you're in a very broken down state...
Yeah, that's where I was.
Yeah, then people with rage issues can be totally fine when you pose no threat.
Yeah.
I mean, my mom was pretty great at taking care of me when I was sick.
Okay.
Because I was too weak to pose any threat.
Now, it's when I had my own thoughts and opinions and wouldn't back down that she escalated.
So, yeah.
Sounds right.
I mean, that's like the abusive parent who's like, oh, they're so sweet when they're...
Sleeping and, you know, all this sentimentality.
But then the moment they wake up and disagree, you just start yelling at them again.
So, why?
I mean, 21, right?
That's 14 years ago.
Like, why?
And look, I don't know whether you should or shouldn't be in contact with your mom.
I don't know.
I'm just trying to figure out why you are, if she was so horribly abusive.
And did she hit you?
Yeah.
And how, like, implements, fist, open hand?
Yeah.
Switches, open hand.
Oh, so she beat you.
She beat you with switches.
Yeah.
How often would you get hit as a whole?
I don't remember.
Once a month or every few weeks or something.
I don't know.
Okay.
So probably well over 100 times over the course of your childhood, right?
Man, if you say it like that, I don't know, maybe.
Well, no, if it's, let's just say once a month, that's 12 times a year, right?
From the ages of 2 to 12, that's 120 times.
Wow.
Okay.
And that's just once a week, once a month, as if it was once every three weeks, then we're talking 150 times.
Okay, so this woman beat you over 100 times as a helpless and dependent little boy.
Bye.
So how did she get back in your good graces?
Did she go to therapy?
Did she apologize?
Did she have breakthroughs?
Did she make restitution?
I mean, how did she do it?
Nothing like that.
She just showed up at a time where I really needed somebody.
Like you said, I was on drugs.
I had just gotten out of jail.
And what were you in jail for?
For drugs.
Okay.
Drug possession.
Sorry, drug what?
Possession.
Okay.
Unusual to go to jail just for possession, isn't it?
Yeah, it's not common you get caught, right?
They pulled a car of us over and...
Was it enough that they suspected distribution?
Hmm.
Okay.
And that was your first time?
Yeah, yeah.
Okay, I mean, to me, I'm no lawyer, right?
It just, it seems like first time is like rehab and a warning or, I don't know, a fine.
It just, okay, but all right.
Yeah, no, at the time it was a felony.
So I have felonies for drug possession.
Okay, got it.
Okay, so...
Don't recommend it.
No, don't recommend it.
And how did she get back in your good graces for so long, right?
Coming to see me when I was in jail.
And then when I got out of jail, giving me a place to stay, helping me find a job.
You know, really as an adult, stepping up to take care of me in the way that she didn't when I was a kid.
And did she ever apologize for the abuse you suffered as a child?
No.
No, no, no.
Nothing's ever her fault.
Right.
Okay, so that's like, you know, some asshole breaks.
to be a hero by buying him a crutch.
Yeah.
So that's fucked up, right?
Yeah, but you still take the crutch.
I get that, but you don't take the person.
You took the person.
Okay, yeah, I did.
I mean, it's too obvious to even point out, as you said very wisely, the similarities between your mother and your wife, right?
Oh, yeah.
So that's the price of having your mother in your life.
Thank you.
Is that you're susceptible to people like, sorry, that the price of having a mother in your life is just susceptible to people like your wife.
And if I were to be in a very harsh mood, right?
I'm not saying this is true.
If I were to be in a very harsh mood, I would say, That your wife scanned your mother and said, oh, shit, I can get away with anything.
I'm not saying that's conscious.
But if you put up with your mom, why did your wife stop being sane?
That's the big question, right?
Now, you have a magic wand called mental illness.
That explains nothing.
You have a magic wand called brain damage, which to me doesn't explain much of anything.
So the question is why?
She clearly doesn't have internal standards of behavior, so she does what she can get away with.
And she looked at your mother, and she looked at you getting along really well with her abusive dad, and she's like, oh, I can do anything.
This guy will take anything.
Wow.
This guy will hang in there no matter what crazy should I do, because look at his mom.
Look at him and my parents.
And she wasn't wrong.
No, she wasn't wrong.
So, I mean, this is the sort of question that I had at the beginning is why would you be calling me, right?
I mean, you've done the exact opposite of everything that I've ever recommended, right?
I recommend being honest with your parents, having that conversation about your history, your past, how they harmed you, and so on.
And you've just covered it all up, right?
Did you ever have that conversation or confrontation with your dad, or did you just kind of slither out and ghost him?
I attempted to when I started sending him some of your books.
And not really...
No, you don't attempt to have that conversation.
The conversation I tried to have with him was just about personal accountability, just taking responsibility.
Nah, that's abstract.
That's philosophy.
That's not your personal experiences of him as a father.
No, no, I never really did that.
Okay, so you didn't do that.
You didn't have it with your mom.
You never sat down with your in-laws and said, you know, I'm troubled about what happened to the woman I love when she was a kid.
I'm troubled about that because, you know, we're going to move forward.
We're going to have kids.
I mean, obviously, I care about her, and I'm not a huge fan of people who mistreat the woman I love in the past, particularly when she was a helpless little girl.
And...
You know, I've got to draw this fire remote around my kids to come, right?
Because I can't have any of this stuff around my kids.
That's right.
But you never had that conversation, right?
No.
Okay.
So your wife is probably making the marriage impossible so her kids don't go through what she went through and what you went through.
It's probably an unconscious recoil over your lack of...
Courage and integrity.
And I'm not saying you lack courage and integrity in some sort of foundational way, but in these kinds of instances, I think it's fair to say you came up a bit short, right?
It sounds harsh, but I'm listening.
Well, came up a bit short is not too harsh, is it?
No.
You're not saying anything I disagree with.
I agree with you.
Okay.
So she's probably acting out in some way to end the marriage.
Yeah.
So that she doesn't end up...
Doing to her kids or having her parents do to your kids or having your mom do to your kids what was done to you and her.
Because you can't build the protection so she's fleeing, right?
If the protection fails, you run out the back door, right?
If people come and bust in through the front door, you run out through the back door.
It's the Helm's Deep thing, right?
You just go deeper into the cage.
Okay.
Yeah.
So that's it.
So, I could be wrong about all of this, as you know.
I'm no expert.
This is just my opinion.
And whatever I say that disagrees with your experience, please, please set me straight.
And I will drop it immediately.
But I view what your wife is doing as a kind of self-indulgence.
And I don't know why people do this.
I don't know why.
But...
My mother claimed to have all of these brain issues, right?
Yet, magically, she was always fine in public.
Right.
Right?
It was only in private.
Which meant she could control it whenever she wanted.
I don't know if you've seen your wife do this.
I saw my mother do this.
I'm trying to conflate the two.
I'm just telling you the principles that I've seen.
You know, my mother would be screaming at me, top of her lungs, and whatever then, so the phone would ring, and it'd be some guy she was...
Wanting to marry her, she'd be like, hi, how are you?
You know, just totally flippant, right?
The knock would be at the door and she'd totally flip personalities, right?
Right.
Which meant she could totally control her behavior.
She gave herself the self-indulgence of screaming at me.
Yeah.
Like, if she had epilepsy, right?
If she was having a seizure and the phone rang, she wouldn't be able to stop having the seizure, right?
Sure, right.
But if you can turn it off, You're faking it!
It's not real.
Right?
If my mom was, oh, having a seizure, right, and then the phone rings and she immediately stops having the seizure and goes, hey, how you doing?
Totally normal on the phone?
It means she was faking the seizure.
Right.
So, has your wife lost her shit in public, in front of her parents, at the mall, on the bus, wherever?
In front of her parents, yes.
Out of dinner.
Yeah, even out of dinner, yeah.
I've seen her have meltdowns out in public.
Okay, so she had meltdowns at a time where her interests are severely threatened by having the meltdowns, right?
In other words, if my mom was screaming at me and then the phone rang, if she had said, I can't talk right now, I'm too angry with my son and hung up on the guy, that would be negative for her, so she never did that.
My mom had meltdowns in front of relatives.
My mom had meltdowns at the mall and at restaurants and all of that.
But has your wife had meltdowns when it specifically harms her immediate self-interest?
I can think of one clear example, yeah, when she was out to dinner with her parents and they were talking about how they would put her in the hospital again because she wasn't making sense because she just wasn't making sense and the way she was acting was very manic and bizarre.
And that just made her, you know, even crazier.
And did they then put her in the hospital?
No, they took her ass home for me to deal with.
Okay, so her strategy worked.
So I'm talking about something where it goes against what she wants.
She didn't want to go to the hospital.
She acted out and she ended up not going to the hospital, right?
So that served her interests, right?
So I'm talking about a way when she's crazy and it goes directly like...
Would she attack a cop?
I wouldn't put it past her.
She's attacked me and I'm fucking huge.
No, no, but that's different.
Her husband.
Right?
No, I don't think she would attack a cop.
Okay, so then she's in self-control.
Alright.
I mean, she's attacked you physically, right?
And what's she done with you?
She tried to choke me.
She's hit me.
She's punched me.
I've got scars where she's clawed me.
And I'm really sorry for all of that.
Yeah.
Has she ever attacked anyone in public the way that she's attacked you?
I don't think so.
No.
What do you mean you don't think so?
I don't.
I've never heard any stories of that.
I don't think she's attacked anyone like that, no.
Okay, sorry.
I don't mean from an omniscient standpoint, I should be more clear.
Have you ever witnessed her attacking anyone in public the way that she's attacked you?
No.
But you have seen her be annoyed and upset and angry at people in public, right?
Yeah.
Okay, so she can control her behavior.
Okay.
No, no, you're back with this okay thing.
Do you agree or not agree?
I never know what you mean when you say, okay, okay, okay.
Am I right or am I wrong?
Can she control her behavior?
If you want, tell me I'm wrong.
I want to be right.
I want to be correct.
I don't want to be right.
So if you've got instances where, you know, she clawed the face of a security guard or attacked an usher in a movie theater or attacked someone at work she was having all these conflicts with because she had all these conflicts with the people at your condo building, right?
Did she ever scratch them or choke them or physically attack them?
No, but she would talk about slashing tires.
She would talk about breaking things.
She would talk about acting out in other ways.
I've never seen her...
Hang on, hang on, hang on.
Back the fuck up.
Okay.
She would say to some guy, I'll slash your tires?
No, she would say to me that she would slash tires.
No, no, I'm talking to them!
Not to you!
Did she ever attack anyone she had these big conflicts with at work?
Did she ever attack them the way she attacked you?
No.
Why not?
Because I thought she was crazy.
Because the conflicts were that severe.
Sorry?
I don't think the conflicts were that severe.
You know, when we're at home and we're living together and we're spending hours with each other, you know, it's one thing...
No, no, no.
She spent hours with these guys.
She had significant conflicts with them, right?
To the point where they fired her ass.
Okay, yeah.
So she never escalated physically with them, right?
No.
Okay.
So she's in control of her behavior.
Okay.
So she's not crazy.
Man, I still think she's crazy.
I've known her for five years.
She seems fucking crazy to me.
I get that.
And I completely understand that.
All right.
If she's truly crazy, then how is she able to control her behavior and aggression with other people?
Do you see what I mean by self-indulgence?
you She gives herself permission to do it to you.
She doesn't give herself permission to do it to others.
And she didn't give herself permission to do it to you until after you were married.
That's right.
This is what I'm talking about.
There's the before and after thing that I'm really pointing out here.
Right.
How long into the relationship did she physically attack you?
I don't remember the first time.
I'm sorry.
I don't know.
Maybe three weeks.
Is it first week, first month, first year?
Just roughly.
It was after you married, right?
Yeah.
Okay, roughly how long after you married?
It wasn't on the honeymoon.
It wasn't a year and a half in.
Let's say a year and a half after I married her.
I don't really know.
Okay, so for three years, she didn't attack you.
And then she attacked you.
Why did she attack you?
And I'm not blaming you, right?
I mean, she violated the non-aggression principle.
She did evil by attacking you.
The question is, why did she do it?
The first time I remember is, we were in bed.
She was going through my phone.
I tried to grab it out of her hands because she was just being a psycho.
I tried to grab it out of her hands.
And that's when she, you know, she attacked me.
She jumped on my back and tried to choke me out.
Okay, why did she do that?
She didn't like how I tried to grab my phone out of her hands, and she said she felt scared.
That is not the right answer.
That's what she told me, and I know it's not.
That is not the right answer.
Why did she do it?
Did she leave physical damage on you?
No.
No, she tried to choke me out, but she doesn't know what the hell she's doing.
Okay.
When did she first, you said you still got scars from when she scratched you, right?
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
When did she first leave a scar or a mark or a bruise or a cut on you?
A little over a year ago, I would say.
Okay, so four years after you first met her.
Okay.
And what was the circumstance there?
It's another time where she was going through my phone.
She found some text messages I had to a client that was going through a divorce.
And she didn't like that I had told this girl that I thought she'd be a good...
Sorry, I just dropped something.
She didn't like that I had told her that I thought she'd be a good mother.
And I was just trying to encourage this girl.
And I was still in bed.
And apparently, she just fucking flew.
She flew into a rage.
She didn't like that I was talking to this girl.
She didn't like I told her that she'd be a good mother.
And that's when she punched me, busted my lip, clawed me, really fucking went wild on me.
Okay.
Why did she feel safe enough to do that with you?
I think she was trying to provoke me is what it was.
Because eventually I had to grab her and throw her off of me, and I really feel like she was trying to provoke me into hitting her back.
Okay.
When she first physically assaulted you, you stayed with her.
Thank you.
Yeah.
That's why she did it.
Okay.
If she tried physically assaulting one of the men she worked with, what would have happened?
Oh, well, they'd fire her and they'd call the cops.
That's right.
She'd get thrown in jail, right?
So she didn't.
But you stay.
And you keep paying the bills.
Right?
So that's why she does it.
Because she can.
Because there's no negative consequences.
What are the negative consequences?
Yeah, what are the negative consequences there?
I mean, you haven't inflicted any negative consequences on your mother, who did far more harm to you, unless your wife has beaten you more than a hundred times.
Your mother did far more harm to you.
She suffers no negative consequences.
So your wife scans that and says, shit, this guy can get pushed around, beaten up.
Nothing negative is going to happen.
I can just self-indulge.
I appreciate you saying that.
This is what it called for.
Well, and not blaming you as the victim.
I'm really not.
This should never have happened.
She's absolutely in the wrong.
I just want to be clear on that.
She is absolutely in the wrong.
And she should be in jail.
But my question is, how do you get there?
How do you get to that situation where you're getting a busted lip?
Because there's no negative consequences.
Yeah, you're right.
Now, obviously she doesn't have, to put it mildly, a very strong internal sense of virtue, morality, and ethics, right?
No, no, apparently not.
Well, so she does what she can get away with, right?
So she's like, you know, like when the police are paralyzed and everyone just goes and loots.
Well, no negative consequences, right?
right so you know here it's not like I didn't do anything I did let her counselor know.
I let her therapist know.
I sent her pictures and, you know, I did tell the counselor that I'd rather tell her than go to the cops.
I don't want to call the cops because she fucking, what, she scratched me.
She's not really going to hurt me.
No, no.
I mean, whether you go to the cops or not, I don't know.
Okay.
But why would you stay?
That was so wild.
Yeah.
No, so it's a serious question.
Again, you are the victim.
She's absolutely in the wrong.
but why do you stay?
You know, if the lion bites my hand because it just happened to get through something or whatever, right?
that That's...
Right, right.
That's a really bad accident.
If I stick my other fucking hand in the lion cage, that's a choice.
I stayed because I didn't feel like there was a real threat there.
And I feel like you forgive people.
I feel like if you're married, you forgive, you forget, you talk things out.
Oh, fantastic.
So forgiveness is a virtue.
Yeah, it is.
Okay, so how often does she forgive you?
Yeah, fuck all, ever, never.
Oh, is it just a virtue for you?
So, one-sided virtues are cages for slaves.
No, no, listen, listen, listen, listen, listen.
One-sided virtues are cages for slaves.
Because you get to bully the shit out of yourself with all of your moral obligations, but nobody else has to do anything.
I don't want to come across like I've never done anything wrong.
There's definitely shit that I've messed up.
There's things where I've crossed lines, you know, I've messed up plenty of times, and she has forgiven me for things.
Okay, so tell me what's a big thing that you've done that she's forgiven you for?
I've thrown things.
The first time we got in this huge fight where she's accusing me of cheating and she's telling me I have to wear condoms or I'm going to give her an STD. The first really big, massive breakdown, I tried to throw her out of the house.
I said, you know, fuck this.
You can't talk to me like this.
This is crazy.
I've tried talking to you for days and days and days about this.
Just get the fuck out of my house.
And I tried to physically throw her out.
Okay.
And she's always...
She made that into a much bigger deal at first.
You know, she tried to have me thrown in jail for that.
But she was also telling me...
Hang on.
Hang on.
So your definition of forgiveness is she provokes you by screaming at you for days.
You try to remove her from your property, and then she calls the cops on you?
Yeah.
Bro.
Bruises.
Bro, come on, man.
I'm not even asking you who your clients are, because I don't want to know what you do for a living, but I think I know.
So, this is your big, I did wrong, and she was good enough to forgive me after she tried to get your ass thrown in jail?
Yeah, man.
She called the cops?
And she complained to the cops that you put hands on her?
Yeah.
And how long into the marriage was this?
This was the first big explosion.
This was like six months into the marriage.
Jesus, man.
Okay.
Jesus.
I mean, I need to just...
If I had a giant wet fish and we were in the same room, I'd smack you on the head with it.
Gently.
Gently.
You're not the first person to tell me this either.
Okay, listen, bro, bro.
You told me not six or seven minutes ago.
I said, why did you stay?
And you said, well, I didn't perceive a threat!
Which is a lie.
And it's a total lie.
And I'm not calling you a liar.
It's not a moral thing here.
My concern isn't that you're lying to me.
It's that you're lying to yourself.
She almost got your ass thrown in jail?
Twice.
Twice?
She almost got your ass thrown in jail twice, and you're going to sit there and tell me you didn't perceive a fucking threat?
Are you kidding me?
Yeah.
What are you talking about?
You've already been to jail!
Yeah.
No, she could have really destroyed my life.
She really could have.
So what are you talking about when you say to me there's no threat?
Right.
Just that she couldn't physically hurt me.
She couldn't just punch me and hurt me.
There's not a lot she could physically do to hurt me.
She couldn't physically hurt you?
Nah.
Dialing the cops could get you killed.
Sure, sure, sure.
Yeah, yeah.
With somebody else dialing the cops?
I hear you.
I gotcha.
Well, she couldn't.
I mean, it's true.
She could poison my oatmeal, but she couldn't beat me up.
Right.
That's what I meant.
Where the fuck is your amygdala?
Is it completely inactive and perceiving threat?
I just wasn't going to cry over a little scratch.
It's the cops!
No, stop laughing.
Fuck that laughter, man.
It's the cops.
Stop minimizing it.
It's a little scratch.
It's the cops.
Twice.
That's not a laughing matter.
No, no it's not.
Okay, so stop minimizing it.
So, what was the second time with the cops?
you The second time she was convinced that I had put drugs in her drink.
That I had drugged her drink and, you know, we argued for a day or two about it.
I had her take a drug test to go and show that there's nothing in her system.
I didn't put any...
Why are you engaging with this?
I don't understand.
She's nuts in this way, right?
I mean, again, I think there's some self-indulgent elements to it because she doesn't accuse other people, just you.
But why do you engage with this?
What is this repetition compulsion?
Is this your mom?
Like you tried to talk sense to your mom and she would like, why, why is this a thing for you that you'd even want to be in these conversations?
Living with her is like living with two different people.
And it really...
She really loses control.
She really...
No, she doesn't.
No, we already went over this.
This is all excuse length.
This is the excuse wives did, right?
This is what I've told myself.
She's like two different people.
She loses control.
It's like possession.
She doesn't know what she's doing.
It's not.
It's not this at all.
Okay.
Because she doesn't do it in public.
She doesn't do it right.
And when the cops were there, did she ever hit you?
No, not when they're there.
Of course not.
No, I bet you she was sweet as fucking sugar when the cops were there.
Right?
So, she's so angry, she can punch you and bust your lip, right?
But then when the cops show up, how is she?
Um, manic.
Not thinking clearly, but, you know, not physically violent.
Okay.
Is that why the cops didn't charge you?
Because your wife was clearly manic and crazy?
Yeah, of course.
Okay, and what advice did the cops give you?
To Baker actor.
The second time it happened, they said, hey, this is twice she's made accusations against you.
If you don't do something about this, she's going to put your ass in jail, so you need a Baker actor, so it's on record.
You need to have it...
Hey, yeah, go ahead, do your job.
Just so that it's on record that she makes these accusations, she's got some mental illness, that she's unstable.
Oh, so they didn't say you might want to rethink this marriage?
No, the cops didn't tell me that.
Okay, I don't know what they can or can't say.
I don't know, right?
What they said was to protect myself.
Okay, did your mother know about you getting beaten?
By your wife or busted lips and scratches with scars?
No, I didn't tell her that part, no.
Okay.
Did you talk to your mother about any issues in your marriage?
Yeah.
And what did you say to your mom?
I've told her about the accusations, how she keeps accusing me of cheating, drugging her.
She keeps accusing me of being gay or telling me that I'm using her, abusing her.
I told my mom about the crazy fights.
Okay, and what does your mom say?
My mom's now just wanting me to leave.
She wants me to divorce her, obviously.
Okay, and when did that first come up?
The second time she tried to put me in jail with the drugs.
That's when my mom was really saying that this probably can't be fixed.
It's only going to get worse.
Attack myself.
Take care of myself.
And how long ago was the second time?
That was in January.
Okay, so it's almost a year.
What are you...
Sorry, where is she at right now?
Where is she at right now?
She's either at home or she's still with her parents.
She went to visit her again.
Okay, so you guys are still together, right?
No, I moved out.
Oh, I'm so sorry.
Sorry.
That's what I meant.
So when did you guys, when did you split?
Oh, okay.
I moved out towards the end of October.
Okay.
And, sorry, when you said at home, I thought that's so at your place.
Sorry, do you share it?
It's her house now.
Yeah.
And why is it her house now?
It's in her parents' name.
Sorry, so this is a different place than the place you tried to kick her out of before?
No, it's the same place.
Oh, sorry, I thought you said get out of my place.
Sorry if I misunderstood that.
No, no, no, that's what I said because I paid the bills and it was always my place.
The intent was always to put it under my name.
Okay, so home is her parents' place in the condo building?
Yes, sir.
Okay, so you've paid the bills in it for...
Three and a half years, but you don't have any name on the lease or the ownership, right?
Okay.
So she's at her parents' place, and where are you staying?
With a friend.
I'm renting a room from a friend.
Okay, got it.
And what's the plan from here?
The plan from here, I've already filed for divorce.
We just have to sign it.
I moved out because I was done.
I was just done.
I was fed up.
I feel like I shouldn't have moved back in that last time.
In January, I was looking for any kind of apology, any kind of admission that she was wrong about anything at all.
There just kept being more fights, more fights, more crazy and crazy accusations until finally I just moved out.
What I was really hoping is I printed out a list of all the different things she's accused me of, and I really hoped that she would just look over that list and see how fucking crazy it was and then try to get help or try to see, like, there's no possible way all, like, 28 things of these can be true.
And, you know, that didn't happen.
Okay, so how can I help?
And I hope that this thing has helped and gives some feedback, but what is it that Drove you after five years?
What is it that drove you to email me?
And I'm not saying you shouldn't have.
I'm glad you did.
But I just want to make sure that you don't walk away from this conversation with any major issue not talked about.
No, I've gotten a lot of real clarity here.
I mean, like I said, the big thing is, how do I really determine mental illness from pure narcissism or pure, as you're calling it, just indulgence?
Yes.
Well, I mean, people who cover stuff up aren't at the mercy of it.
Right?
Like, if a guy...
Have you ever seen those videos?
There's a guy in line, and he picks the pocket and takes the wallet of the guy ahead of him.
Then he looks up, and he sees, oh, there's a camera, and he apologizes, clasps his hands together like a little prayer, and puts the wallet back.
He realizes he's on camera, right?
Yeah, sure.
Right.
Well, that's someone who's in control.
Okay.
Because he sees that he's on camera, therefore there will be negative consequences, so he puts the wallet back.
It's not like he suddenly discovered property rights, right?
Right.
So, people who have genuine brain dysfunction.
Are out of control.
They can't will it.
Like, I'm sure you've been angry and you've waited until, like, to really feel it until maybe you're alone or maybe you've been really sad and you won't cry in public but maybe you cry at home, right?
So that's suppression, right?
Which is where you have some control over the emotions.
I've had a couple of times in my life, only a handful of times, really, Where the emotions hit me so strong, it didn't matter if I was in the middle of a job interview, I would have cried or gotten really angry, or something like that, right?
Sure, right.
But she's in control because it's a private hell, not a general hell.
In other words, it's focused on you, maybe a little on her parents and so on, right?
Right.
So, again, the epilepsy is the clearest example, right?
Which is...
An epileptic can't stop an epileptic attack.
Right.
That's a genuine brainstorm or, I don't know, some electrical thing or whatever happens, right?
So that's involuntary.
Sure.
And this is why I call it you, but there's other things like Alzheimer's where they do have episodes where they fly into a rage, they don't control themselves, they don't know what they're saying, you know, they have memories that aren't real, and then they'll snap out of it at another time and they'll understand, like, That they weren't making sense.
They'll start thinking more clearly.
Or sundowners is another issue where they'll hallucinate.
They'll see things that aren't there as they get tired.
They become irrational.
But then after they sleep, they get some energy in them.
Then they're clear as a bell.
I understand.
I understand all of that.
I'm an older guy, right?
So, I mean, I know friends who've got some issues with aging parents.
So I understand all of that.
But it's not a situation.
It's not situation and authority dependent.
Right, in other words, they don't suddenly become coherent and cogent and rational when the cops show up.
They don't hide it.
It's not different in one place versus another.
They'll hallucinate at the...
Well, I'm perfectly fine at the mall, but the moment I get home, I start hallucinating, right?
Or I'm hallucinating at home, and then we go out to the mall, and I'm totally fine.
Okay.
It's not situation and authority dependent.
If it is situation and authority dependent, there's a degree of self-control.
Like somebody who's having a florid psychotic attack, like genuinely they think they're Jesus, they could walk on water, like it doesn't matter who's around.
Right, right.
Like the people run screaming through the mall with their pants off, right?
Right.
And that's how I understand borderline, too, is that borderline, the difference between borderline and schizophrenia is you put a schizophrenia on an island and he's still schizophrenic.
He still hears voices.
He's still delusional.
He's still crazy.
You put a borderline on an island and they seem totally normal because the borderline manifests within the parameters of a relationship.
The delusions are usually partner-specific.
It's about a family member.
So, no, partner-specific, that's the key.
Right.
Because she has a relationship with everyone in her life, but she only torments and tortures you and her parents, right?
Right.
It's close relationships.
Right.
Which means that they have self-control.
Because they can tamp that shit down when company comes over.
I guess, but she's not going to suspect that the company is cheating on her or drugging her.
No, no, but she's still mad at you.
Okay, so, you know, the typical example, of course, is she's mad at you, she's accusing you of all these terrible things, right?
Right.
And then people come over, and she basically gives you that look like this isn't over yet, and then she's pleasant with company, right?
No, I don't think it would be that way.
I think she would still be...
What do you mean you think?
This must have happened.
Because of the way she talks to her parents and the way she talks to her friends.
No, no, not the parents.
Okay.
Like, not the parents, because the parents are...
Bound up in the origin story of this, right?
Okay.
I'm talking about...
Okay, let me put it to you this way.
Let's say that it's a relative stranger.
You've got someone over to check the HVAC unit or something like that, right?
Okay.
So, if a stranger comes over and needs to come into the house, does she continue to berate you about poisoning her?
You know, I do have an example that's kind of like this.
We were in the middle of a fight, and a neighbor came to knock on our door to see if I could jumpstart her car.
And I went down to obviously help jumpstart her car, and she did, and she followed down, and she went on screaming and carrying on, and she accused me of fucking this neighbor.
She accused you of having sex with the neighbor whose car you were starting, like right in front of the neighbor, right?
Yes, yeah.
Okay.
And I'd never seen this girl before.
I don't know.
She just, I guess she heard us in there.
She heard that we were home.
She just needed someone to jump her car.
Okay, so that's certainly more extreme than some.
But let me ask you this.
Has she ever acted out this way in a situation where she will receive negative consequences?
No.
Like you said, she never screamed out or attacked or threatened to cut the tires off, demanded her work, right?
No.
So she must have figured out that this neighbor wasn't going to do anything.
And your neighbor didn't do anything, right?
No, I never saw her.
Well, no, I never talked to her again.
I bet not, right?
So she obviously is very good at assessing situations and figuring out whether she's going to experience negative consequences from her behavior.
Right.
Does that make sense?
It does make sense.
And I'm not saying she's not unstable.
Please understand that.
I'm just saying that from what I can hear, and again, I'm no expert on this, but from what I can hear, she has an element of self-control.
Because she's made it to 25 or 26 years of age, and she's never been beaten up, and she's never gone to jail.
She's been hospitalized.
I understand that.
Okay, but yeah, you're right.
So she's had some degree of self-control.
She's able to assess a situation and evaluate risk.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Thank you.
It looked to me like she couldn't.
It looked to me like she couldn't.
Like she was just self-destructive and that she was detonating her life.
Right.
And as far as you know, the worst thing that happened in her childhood was her father screaming at her and breaking things in the vicinity.
Right.
Yeah, she said she never had any sexual abuse or anything like that.
Right.
And...
Did she ever have a very dangerous boyfriend before she met you?
I know she said she only had one boyfriend before you, but did you ever hear about anything like that?
No, nothing like that.
Right.
Well, it could be, obviously, could be a brain injury, but again, to me, if it's a brain injury, it's not susceptible to cost-benefit analysis.
Okay.
It does seem to be deteriorating, is that fair to say?
Yeah, yeah it is.
These episodes are happening more and more frequently.
Or at least, you know what it is, is she just never stops believing the delusions.
The list just keeps growing.
She can never go backwards and remove one from the list.
She can never be wrong.
Well, so, I'm sorry to interrupt, but the problem if the analysis, and this is just a moral analysis obviously, it's nothing to do with psychology or...
You know, any sort of form of mental health or anything medical, it's just a philosophical or moral analysis, is the problem with self-indulgence is it tends to escalate.
Yeah.
Right?
So, if she indulges in beliefs, in other words, if she thinks, oh, you know, he's...
I wonder if he's cheating on me, right?
I mean, we all have crazy thoughts, right?
We all have crazy thoughts from time to time, right?
And if she sits there and says, oh, he's cheating on me, and she starts to get, well, we all have crazy thoughts, and what we need to do is be strict with ourselves, right?
Right.
And we need to say, oh, okay, yeah, that's, okay, what's the evidence for that, right?
That's a bit of a crazy thought, right?
And you have to be strict with yourself.
Because otherwise, you end up in this kind of waking dream of everything you believe is somehow true.
And you don't have a way of putting the brakes on all of the irrational or nutty thoughts that we all have from time to time.
You have to be disciplined in controlling for those.
You know, I mean, there was a time in my life when, you know, yeah, things were going, you know, kind of rough in the media and stuff like that, and I had to be strict and say, okay, well, I'm not going to get paranoid.
I'm like, I'm going to make sure I stay grounded.
You know, you just have to have some discipline with these things, right?
You know, when I would get bomb threats and death threats before a speech, I'd have to do the cost-benefit analysis, right?
And say, okay, what are the odds, right?
You know, you just have to be kind of strict with yourself, right?
Okay.
Now, if you're not strict with yourself, then your self-restraint, your grounding, your reasoning, your rationality gets stronger and stronger, right?
Or, sorry, it gets weaker.
Your capacity to resist delusions gets weaker and weaker.
Like every excuse you make, like your father is an excuse machine, right?
every excuse you make weakens your resolve.
That's what I saw with her.
Her...
Her jumps in logic were getting more and more crazy.
Right.
So, it is bad mental health practices to indulge in your delusions.
This is why, I don't know if you've listened, but I mean, at a recent show, I was really railing against mysticism.
Oh, I saw that one.
I didn't listen to it.
It came up on my feed, though.
You should check it out.
I mean, I'm not saying she's a mystic, but...
If you indulge bad thinking, your thinking gets worse.
Yeah.
And it sounds like, and look, I'm sure that there may be some hidden trauma.
Maybe she doesn't remember.
I mean, I don't know.
It seems like pretty extreme stuff for just having a dad who screamed at her, right?
Seems like pretty extreme response.
But for whatever reason, I think, if I had to guess that, and it is just a guess, but I think that she had those intrusive thoughts, like, you know, this...
Don't let the intrusive thoughts win.
It's kind of a meme, like when the intrusive thoughts win.
So, she had intrusive thoughts, and she decided not to challenge them, but to indulge in them, which we all do, and then we have to catch ourselves, right?
And you tried to catch her.
And I'll sort of give you another example.
I'm sorry to be hammering this point, but it's really, really, really important, and I want to get this not just for you, but for People who listen to this, right?
So I'll give you an example, right?
And this happens to all of us, right?
There are times in your life when everything seems to be going wrong.
Yeah.
Right?
Hey, maybe that's happening for you right now, right?
And it's not just like everything, right?
You get some health issue, and then something goes wrong in your finances, you get some massive unexpected bill, and then, you know, you're having a tough time in a relationship, and then your friend betrays you, right?
So it clusters, right?
Right.
Now, that's just random shit, right?
Usually.
Yeah.
Right?
It's just every now and then things cluster, right?
That's life.
Usually there's car issues that get thrown in there.
Yeah, there's some stupid thing, like the car won't start or whatever it is, right?
Right.
So, what are the intrusive thoughts that we have when that stuff's going down in life?
What do we think that's not rational?
Ah, you can start thinking...
I'll tell you what I think, usually, is it's probably something I've done.
It's probably, you know, something I got away with at some point, something I feel guilty about.
It's usually more mine goes, as I probably deserve it.
Oh, it's some sort of karma thing?
Is that right?
Right.
Right.
Yeah, so what you can do is you can say, I'm unlucky.
I'm cursed.
Things never go my way.
That's self-indulgent thinking, right?
Yeah.
Right?
So, because it's usually, I mean, unless you've done some, you know, unless you have some really bad habit that you don't maintain your car and you don't maintain your health, like your dad, right?
That's bad habits, right?
Right.
But for you, I mean, your health issues, it's just, I mean, I'm really sorry for that.
And that's really, really tough.
And, you know, massive sympathies, that's just bad luck.
Yeah.
Right?
And so, but so when things are going really badly in life, and it does happen sometimes for sure, right?
And it's easy for us to fall into this weird magical thinking which says, I'm cursed.
I'm unlucky.
Nothing ever goes my way.
Life is unfair.
I'm being singled out and targeted out, the fates, the gods, or whatever, right?
That's self-indulgent thinking.
Yeah, I know people who do that.
Yeah, it's very common because we're pattern-recognizing machines, and sometimes we're pattern-making machines, right?
I usually feel like it's because I deserve it somehow.
Well, that's also a magical, cursed thinking, right?
The universe is not conspiring.
Your car, again, assuming you've done some reasonable levels of maintenance, it's just bad luck.
Right.
Right?
And sometimes it clusters, right?
Right.
And sometimes there's lessons to be learned, but sometimes it's just bad luck, right?
Yeah.
Or things that you didn't know ahead of time, right?
Or something like that, right?
So, we get these patterns and we have to challenge these patterns with reason and evidence.
Because when things go really badly in life, it's easy to think, oh, I'm cursed or nothing goes right for me or the fake guy.
I brought this on myself somehow, blah, blah, blah, right?
But...
We don't usually have the reverse, when everything's going well.
You say, I'm blessed by the gods, everything goes my way in life, everything works out for the best, it's perfect, I can't do any wrong.
Both of those are irrational, right?
Right.
I mean, for me, there can be years that go by, I have no health hiccups whatsoever, right?
Right.
And then a couple of things will happen, and I'll be like, it's easy to say, Well, forget about the years of no-healthy hiccups, right?
Oh, whatever, right?
A little something or other, right?
Right.
So, that's the sort of example that people, I think, can really identify with, which is the pattern of life where it's just a random cluster.
You know, let's say that, you know, a hundred things are going to happen, positive and negative, over the next ten years, but they're not going to be evenly spaced, right?
Sure, sure, sure.
Yeah.
Some of them are going to be far apart.
Occasionally, they're going to cluster.
It's like when you roll a bunch of dice, right?
Right.
You roll a bunch of dice.
I mean, if you roll 10,000 times, you'll end up with a pretty smooth bell curve.
But sometimes you'll get, you know, two six-sided dice.
You'll get, you know, five twos in a row.
Right.
And then you're like, oh, these dice are cursed.
There's something wrong with the dice.
It's like, no, it's just a scatterplot, man.
And then sometimes you get two twelves.
In a row, right?
Double sixes, right?
Or ten, or whatever, right?
And it can just be like, oh my god, it's like playing Uno.
What do you mean I get another reverse, another draw four?
Sometimes, and then there'll be games you don't get any, right?
So, we will constantly try to look for patterns.
There's nothing wrong with that.
It's part of life.
But we constantly have to interrupt those patterns.
So, with your wife, it's like, well, he did kind of linger at that topless woman in the movie.
And then he was, he did see, I think he turned his phone slightly when I came into the room, and then I thought he gave me a guilty look, right?
And so she's starting to assemble this case in her mind, right?
Yeah, it's all stuff like that.
Right.
And rather than saying, okay, come on, I mean, this is crazy, right?
Like, I'm blowing too much, blowing too big a proportion out of this, right?
Right.
And you check yourself, right?
That's obvious to me.
It's obvious to you.
It's obvious to pretty much everyone else.
Now, she did that, though, and then she didn't.
Right.
Right, so that's why I was saying, for the first 18 months, two years, I think you said six months into the marriage, things started to go kind of south.
So for two years, she was able to restrain herself, and then, for whatever reason, I mean, this is like the addicts, right?
The addicts, you said she was clean for a year?
So, addicts, you know, I remember working once with a guy, I was in my 20s, back when I was temping, before I started my own company.
And I was talking to this guy, it was a wildest conversation, because he was a smoker.
And you don't often see a lot of guys in their 50s who are still smoking, and he was like a professional guy or whatever, so slightly less common.
And I'm like, oh, you're a smoker.
I was a little surprised, and he's like, yeah, it's the weirdest thing, man.
I quit, like...
20 years ago?
And then four months ago, four months ago, I woke up at three in the morning.
I think I dreamt of smoking.
I absolutely was dying for a cigarette, and I felt like a robot.
I just got up, went out in the car, drove to an all-night gas station, picked up a pack of cigarettes, and I've been smoking ever since.
20 years I didn't smoke, and I barely even thought about it.
One night, and I was just like...
Well, that's kind of terrifying, right?
I mean, that you could quit something for 20 years.
I'm sorry?
I've never heard anything like that.
That's wild.
Yeah, it was a wild story.
I still remember we were standing in the foyer of the building and I was like, going out for a smoke, really?
So, it was a pretty...
I mean, I don't know if he was telling me he had some huge fight with his wife.
I don't know.
It could be any number of things, right?
Or maybe, I don't know, it sits in your system like LSD and I don't know, whatever, right?
But he's just like, yep, it became a smoker again.
And I was like...
It drives my wife crazy.
She's like, what are you, crazy?
Who starts smoking in their 50s again, right?
But that's just self-indulgence.
He didn't smoke, and then he just let himself smoke again.
Well, it's even beyond that.
He had to put effort in.
He had to actually get up out of bed, it sounds like, and go drive to a store to go get it.
He actually put the effort in.
He didn't just lose control.
He made a decision to go do it.
Right.
He did.
He did.
But he said, the excuse was, I felt like a robot, right?
So, he said he was out of control.
So, with your wife, you know, I don't know, maybe there's some big brain thing, but it just seems odd to me, because, again, the analogy would be something like the NFL players, right?
They keep getting these concussions, and then, you know, years later, their brain is turned to mush, right?
Sure.
But she had one thing, which is now seven years ago or so.
Right.
And maybe there's some continued degenerative thing or whatever, but it seems odd and suspicious, right?
It seems suspicious to me that she would be, you know, sweet as an angel for two years, right?
And then six months into the marriage, right?
Past the annulment, past the backing out, past the, oh my God, right?
So once you're embedded, once you're, right?
Yeah.
Then she starts letting the crazy out, right?
Well, that's a matter of self-restraint.
She gave up on self-restraint.
She just stopped.
People play around with this stuff, right?
And you don't fuck around with crazy thoughts.
You confront them and you take them down.
Yeah.
You don't fuck around with them.
You don't let them play around the edges of your consciousness.
You don't indulge in them, right?
You take them out with extreme prejudice.
You do not allow yourself to go down that road.
Look, I'm sure you've had crazy thoughts over the course of your life, and you're just like, nope.
I mean, I'll listen to the thoughts for sure.
Every part of me gets a seat at the table, but I don't give them credibility, and I don't indulge.
Of course.
I mean, you know how affairs start, right?
It's like you don't just meet someone and immediately body slam them, right?
There's all these little things along the way.
You know, oh, you just work a little bit late, you hang out, you go for coffee, you chat a little bit, you touch her arm accidentally, you go for a lunch.
It's step by step, right?
You just don't indulge any of that stuff.
I'm sorry?
No, you're right.
I'm agreeing with you.
You have boundaries in place, so you don't even go down this road.
You don't go down because it's a lot easier to stop things at the beginning than later on, right?
It's a lot easier to say no to the first drug than to the 500th, right?
Right.
Or the first cigarette, right?
So, the real question is not the exact nature of your wife's consciousness, which we'll never know.
Right.
Right?
Because if she is crazy, she can't tell you, and if she's not crazy, she's a liar, and she won't tell you.
Yeah, yeah, right.
So, we'll never know.
My question is not what's going on with her.
My question is your excuses.
What is it like for you with regards to your mother if you don't give your mother any excuses whatsoever?
Because you've done that with your dad.
You won't do it with your mom.
arm.
And that leads you, my friend, to be extremely vulnerable to manipulative women.
Why?
Okay.
Thank you.
I'm sure your dad did nice things for you from time to time as a kid as well.
So why does your mother, your violent and abusive mother, why does she get off scot-free?
Oof.
Here's one reason that comes to mind is I've seen how her own choices have destroyed her own life.
She's been divorced three times.
I see how absolutely miserable she is in her life.
Her health is failing, too, because she's a lifelong smoker and hasn't really taken care of herself.
There's a part of me that just thinks that she's already getting what's coming to her.
So why do you want to have any part of the disasters and tragedies to come?
I mean, you're not an only child, are you?
No, I've got a younger brother.
Okay.
Who's going to take care of your mother?
Yeah, hopefully her boyfriend.
I really hope that she can make it work with this guy, because I don't want to do it.
How long have they been going out?
Oh, how long has she been with him?
You know, I can't really tell you.
I think maybe two years.
Yeah, he's not going to do it.
Yeah.
I mean, she blows it up with everybody.
It's every boyfriend, every husband.
It never works.
So why?
Okay.
A quality woman.
Okay, what's your favorite female name?
Just a name?
I don't know.
Let's say Rose.
I don't know.
Rose.
Okay, it's a nice name.
So Rose comes along into your life.
She's a free domain listener.
She's queen of virtue and wisdom, and she's assertive and all of that, right?
Rose comes along.
You're 35. Let's say she comes along next year.
Right?
Rose comes along and she really likes you.
You're a smart guy and you've got good self-knowledge and, you know, you're a hard worker and good provider.
And she wants to maybe think about starting a family with you guys.
Get along well.
And she's not crazy.
Right?
She's very sane and very rational and very assertive and very moral.
Right?
Are we there with Rose?
I'm sorry, was that a question?
Yeah, I mean, are you there with me in the brain experiment?
Yeah.
Okay, so Rose comes along, and then she meets your mother.
Okay.
And what does Rose do after that?
After they just meet?
Yeah, she's very perceptive.
Oh, and also, you've been honest with her about what your mother did to you as a child.
Yikes, yeah, she might not even want to really meet my mom.
I would imagine she keeps her at arm's length the way that I do.
No, no.
She's got to meet your mom because your mom's in your life.
Okay, yeah.
She'll have to meet at some point.
So she's going to meet.
And also she's going to know that your mom had great moral authority with you or great authority with you when you got married to the crazy woman.
And that means that your mom is unable to figure out who's crazy or is able to figure out who's crazy.
And doesn't intervene to save her son.
I think she recognizes it, actually.
I think that crazy women kind of have a way of recognizing each other.
Okay, so then your mother lets you get...
So then, hang on.
So then your mother let you, or encouraged you, or did not prevent you, which you could have done, getting married to a very dangerous crazy woman who could have got your ass thrown in jail.
And tried to.
Twice.
Right.
I mean, what the...
I mean, do you really think that the big betrayal is coming from your wife?
Hmm.
I can definitely...
Did your brother say anything?
Any friends say anything?
Did your mother say anything before you married this woman?
Yeah, I did.
I did have a friend or two who said something.
Okay, so you didn't listen to them.
What did your mother say?
She was just supportive.
I don't know.
Okay, so she let you walk into this bear trap.
Okay.
So, Rose is going to know all of this about your mother.
She's going to meet your mother, and she's going to say, oh, great, so this woman could be in my life for the next 10 to 20 years, or five, or whatever, right?
Okay, yeah.
And this woman is welcome in my boyfriend's life.
This woman's going to help me raise my kids.
I'm going to spend another five, or 10, or 20 years with this woman.
What's she going to do?
I would imagine she and I would have a talk about how involved she's going to be in our lives and in our kids' lives.
You're deluded.
Is that right?
You're deluded.
Completely deluded.
Okay.
I can tell you exactly what Rose is going to do.
Okay.
Bye-bye.
You think she's just going to meet my mom and then bounce?
Yeah.
Oh, I know that for sure.
That's not a conversation.
Why?
Because you're 35 years old.
Okay.
You're not a kid.
You're not a kid.
You've been an adult for almost two decades.
Yeah.
And you don't have any boundaries with your crazy, formerly violent, manipulative mother who doesn't even protect you from crazy women.
Rose is not going to want to have anything to do with your family.
She may be sorry about it.
She may be sad about it.
But come on, man.
Think if you're loving...
You've got a lovely daughter.
Maybe you name her Rose.
I don't know.
You've got a wonderful daughter.
Your daughter grows up.
up, she starts dating a guy who's older and is still in fairly close contact with a destructive, abusive, unapologetic mother.
And she says, Dad, what do you think?
Been on a date with this guy a couple of times, seems like a great guy.
He's still in close contact with his mother who beat him.
She's never apologized.
She's never taken any responsibility.
And all he does is make excuses for her.
What would you say to your daughter?
What I would say is that.
Keep her distance.
Right.
Don't date him.
Oh, and then she was to say, yeah, and apparently he makes nothing but excuses for his abusive mother, and he's listened to this fairly famous philosopher who talks about holding parents accountable, but he's never done that.
I don't know if it's fair to say I make excuses for her.
I'm not...
Of course you do.
Absolutely you do.
Don't...
Absolutely you do.
I'm sorry?
I see her around holidays, but I was quick to point out she was way worse than my father was.
She was definitely the worst of the two.
Right.
I don't really excuse her for that.
So how could she possibly be in your life if she's worse than your father and he's not?
I mean, you already told me you make excuses for her.
Do you not remember that?
You'll hear it on the playback.
You'll hear it on the playback.
No, you're right.
I let her off the hook more than I let my dad off.
It's because she can't really hurt me now.
But what you're saying is it's not about that.
It's about her not protecting me, too.
Is that fair?
Well...
Either she didn't know your wife was abusive and destructive, in which case she doesn't know you or women at all, or she did and let you walk into it.
Either way, she failed to protect you.
Okay.
I can agree with that.
No matter why.
And we'll never know the truth anyway.
Right.
Because if she doesn't know crazy people, she will never admit it.
And if she does know crazy people, then she's a liar and will never admit it.
Gotcha.
That makes sense.
So, look, you can hang with your mom.
And you can lie to your mom.
Because you are lying to your mom.
You can falsify your primary relationship.
And you can bullshit your mom.
Because you don't talk to her about what actually happened in your childhood.
You don't demand any apologies, self-ownership, restitution, or responsibility, right?
You don't have those conversations.
So you lie.
Continually.
Your primary relationship is based entirely on lies.
And then you're surprised when you end up in a false relationship with your wife.
There's a price to be paid for lying your ass off to your mother for 35 years or, let's say, since you were an adult, for 17 years.
Right?
There's a price to be paid for lying to your mother and lying to yourself.
And that price is you can't have an honest relationship with a woman.
I had no honest relationships with women until I confronted my mother.
That's just the price.
That's amazing.
Everything in me does not want to do that because I know I'm not going to get what I want.
Oh, no.
Everything in you absolutely needs to do that.
It's your mother who doesn't want you to do that.
Yeah.
And the idea that you won't get what you want?
What do you mean you won't get what you want?
I'm not going to get an apology.
I'm not going to get an admission.
No, but that's not what you want.
No, because you're saying, I'll only be honest if I get what I want.
Oh, okay.
That's bullshit.
You're honest because it's a virtue.
You're honest because you don't want to be bullied into bullshit.
You're honest because you won't hand up your integrity and virtue to an abusive witch.
That's pride.
Self-respect.
I'm not going to let some Half-ancient, smoky-ass witch, tear me away from my integrity.
I'm not going to be bullied into disowning what happened to me as a child.
Tell the truth and shame the devil.
Tell the truth though the skies fall.
You tell the truth because it's the right thing to do.
And it shows pride and self-respect.
And it draws good people to you and keeps bad people away from you.
Everyone who's crazy can sense you give way to crazy.
That's true.
Everyone can see that you surrender your integrity and honor to your mother out of fear and therefore you're open to be bullied.
And then you get bullied.
So no, you tell the truth because it is the right thing to do, show self-respect, honor, integrity, and it protects you from abusive, crazy people because they don't want to have anything to do with you because your truth will keep them at bay.
It's sunlight to vampires.
I don't have one abusive person in my life.
I don't have one gaslight person in my life.
And I haven't for, I can't even remember how long.
Because I just tell the truth.
and they just run.
Your integrity is not at the mercy of your mother admitting the truth.
you Your honor is not at the mercy of where the pathological liars will tell the truth.
That's to say, you have no capacity for honor at all.
Your virtue is not dependent.
Upon whether your mother does the right thing or not, because we know she's not going to do the right thing because she's had 35 fucking years to do the right thing and she hasn't.
So it's not going to happen.
Because that's what you said earlier about your in-laws.
Well, what am I supposed to do?
You're supposed to tell the truth!
That's what you're supposed to do.
Well, what are the effects?
I don't care.
You're talking to a guy who got deplatformed for telling the truth.
Well, what if there are negative effects to me telling you the truth?
It's like, then I'm not gonna let my honor and my virtue be at the mercy of pimply-ass bureaucrats with their fingers on a delete button?
Fuck that!
Right.
Because if you are too scared of mommy to tell the truth, you haven't left your childhood bedroom fundamentally at all.
Because back then...
It would have been crazy to tell your mother the truth, because she was a violent, dangerous woman who beat you over a hundred times.
Yeah, I get that.
When you're a prisoner, you don't call your jailer an asshole, right?
Right.
Because he'll throw your ass in solitary.
Or he'll leave you unprotected in the prison shower.
But how do you know you're out of prison?
You can call the jailer an asshole.
That's how you tell your body, we're out of prison.
You can tell the truth because you're not a kid anymore.
You're a grown-ass man.
But mommy might get mad.
Come on, man.
I mock you because you can do so much better.
And the price of being scared of mommy He's been bullied by women.
Just tell your mother the truth, man.
Yeah.
It doesn't matter what she does.
The purpose of morality is not to achieve anything other than virtue and self-respect.
The effect it has on you is what matters, not what your mother does, because that's to say that her virtue It's at the mercy of corrupt people, which is to say we don't own our virtue at all.
We don't own our self-respect at all.
That's not true.
I regret nothing that I said over the past 18 years.
Nothing.
Other than a few errors which I quickly corrected.
Right.
Which are innocent and, right, natural.
Sure, sure.
But have you ever heard me?
Apologize or retract something I know to be true?
No, why would you?
Why would I? Yeah.
You know that answer completely.
You retract every time you interact with your mother.
You retract things you know to be true.
What do you mean you don't know why?
You manifest it!
Well, it's not like I would say things and then take it back.
That's how I took you to mean retract it.
No, I've never heard you say something that you know to be true and then later on go, oh, I didn't really mean that or whatever.
Try to take it back.
Okay.
And I appreciate that clarification.
I apologize.
I think you're totally right about that.
But you're still lying to your mother by omission.
And the lies by omission are the worst things, right?
You sleep with some woman.
She tells you the next day, oh, by the way, I've got some crotch rot STD. And you're like, well, you lied to me.
It's like, no, I didn't lie to you.
I never said I didn't have any.
Well, you should have told me you did.
Well, to lie by omission is the worst kind, right?
Yeah, yeah.
And you're lying by omission with your mother.
Yeah.
You self-erase every time you are around your mother.
You're dishonest with her.
You falsify.
You lie.
And then you feel helpless to oppose the craziness of your wife.
But you feel helpless to oppose the violence and corruption of your mother.
There's a lot of similarities there.
How can you fix your wife when you can't even fix him?
Mother.
Yeah, right.
So, I would suggest, hey, if you want to be a monk, you want to be single, whatever, right?
And if you want to keep lying to your mother and being dishonest and betraying yourself for the sake of appeasing a child abuser, well, I just want you to know, I can't tell you what to do, I just want to be clear about the costs and benefits.
You're just going to end up with more women.
Like your wife, if you don't tell the truth to your mother.
Because the two are inextricably intertwined.
Over and over, as long as I don't confront her, as long as I don't...
Yeah, I mean, you've read the Simon the Boxer stuff.
It's a repetition compulsion, right?
I manage crazy women, and I just try and make them less crazy, and I try and bring reality to crazy women, and I try to get crazy women to be sane, and I try to get crazy women to be honest, and I don't have any needs of my own.
I just got to manage crazy women, okay?
You can do that forever and ever.
Amen.
Until you do get your ass thrown in jail by some crazy woman.
Right.
So that's why I'm glad you called, because I don't want you to go to jail.
Thank you.
I don't want to go back.
No.
But to do that, I think you've got to be honest with your mother.
Yeah.
And, you know, we've all got to turn and face the dragon someday.
Ah, are we back?
Yeah, yeah, what happened then?
I don't know, man.
Things just kind of went haywire for a second there, but I think we're back.
Can you hear me all right?
Hey, brother.
Hey, so sorry about that.
I think my computer just kind of overheated with the intensity of the conversation.
I think that's it.
So, yes, sorry about that.
I just wanted to check how you're doing at the end of the convo and see how we left things.
I got a lot out of this.
This was absolutely worth my time.
I hope it was worth your time.
I hope you get a good show out of this.
I thought I knew what you were going to say.
Maybe I kind of did, but you took it in a different direction.
I would not have made.
I would not have made the connection with my mom.
I keep her at arm's length.
I'm not close with her, but I definitely don't want to have that talk about what that was like as a kid with her.
I wish you didn't have to have that, and of course you don't have to, but I think it's probably going to benefit more than it's going to cost, particularly with regards to love.
I want you to have kids and You know, have a good marriage and happy marriage and all of that.
And yeah, the price of that is often honesty with the parents.
Will you keep me posted about how things are going?
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And I appreciate it.
Yeah, just drop me a note in Skype and I really do appreciate your time tonight.
You did a fantastic job and I'm honored to know you and great work on the call.
Thank you.
I really appreciate this.
Thank you so much.
You're welcome, man.
Stay in touch.
All the best.
All right.
You too.
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