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Feb. 9, 2025 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:13:26
BUT I LOVE MY MOM! Freedomain Call In
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Time Text
I'm a heterosexual male in my late 40s, single, childless, and unfortunately, married twice and divorced.
I'd like to connect with you either on a public call-in or a one-to-one to get your perspective on your insights of how I can continue to let go of the pain and anger that have dictated so much of my life and move forward with hope, strength, and authenticity.
For much of my life, I've struggled with inner conflict, being deeply introspective, yet incredibly hard on myself.
I've carried the weight of decisions made out of fear, loneliness, and a need of validation.
This pattern started early, rooted in an upbringing marked by a lack of guidance, feelings of abandonment, and the scars of my father's alcoholism and abandonment of my family.
Through therapy, journaling, and listening to your shows over the recent years, I've begun to see how these experiences shaped me.
As a child, I walled myself off from others, retreating into my own imagination and crafting a number of false selves to protect myself from this pain.
These personas helped me navigate a world where I often felt unseen and unheard, but they also left me with a chronic self.
Also left me with a sense of chronic self-doubt and an enduring sense of being a fish out of water.
In my teens, a diagnosis of a chronic illness added another layer of complexity.
It explained many of the strange symptoms that I had experienced, but also forced me to overhaul my life plans at an age where I had already felt left behind.
I've always felt like I was trying to catch up, chasing a moving target that doesn't exist.
Yet despite these challenges, I've achieved a good deal of external success.
I've built careers in medicine, pharmaceuticals, and earned advanced degrees and developed a reputation for excellence.
Ironically, I've treated patients with the same condition that I've been diagnosed with and living with for decades.
But no achievement has ever truly silenced the inner critic that tells me I'm not enough.
As I reflect on how these influence of key life figures influenced my life, one of which is my uncle, who shaped a lot of these choices and self-doubts.
My uncle was professionally successful, who prioritized his career and wealth over family.
While I admired his accomplishments, I also saw the emptiness in his personal life, or at least the way that I saw it.
He often advised me to never settle, and I emphasize that message as a way to lead me up and pass up meaningful opportunities both in relationships and in my personal life.
In my 20s, I passed up relationships choosing ambition and the allure of money over qualities of virtual connection and stability that I now truly value.
Seeing people who...
Seeing people who went on to build fulfilling family lives, I have often wondered how a different path in my past may have been and how, if I made different choices, had changed my life now if I had different influences.
This pattern of prioritizing external markers of success over internal fulfillment followed me for years.
It's left me grasping.
For the grappling with the realization that while I've achieved success, external success that I wanted, I passed up the things that truly matter to me now.
Authentic connection, stability, and a sense of belonging.
My personal lives have been shaped by these same struggles.
I've unconsciously sought partners who mirrored unresolved issues with my father, relationships that were destined to fail because they were built on a foundation of fear and self-sabotage.
I'm now in a relationship that's very different.
My partner is kind, selfless, and deeply connected with her family.
She knows the value of prioritizing over oneself, and I admire her for her virtues of honesty, curiosity, and clear communication.
She believes I'm too hard on myself, and I view myself differently than others see me.
Her perspective resonates.
For much of my life, I've let pain and anger motivate and convincing myself.
They were the keys to my survival.
I'm starting to see that they've also kept me walled off from others, and more importantly, from my authentic self.
I've learned that my anger doesn't protect me, it isolates me.
Steph, I want to break the cycle.
I want to be present, open, and authentic in my current relationships and in my life.
But I also fear repeating old mistakes or falling back into patterns of self-sabotage.
I'd like your insights on how my current path I'd like your insights on my current path and how I can continue to break free from these patterns of relationships, having put limits on some and ending others entirely.
Am I generally learning to let go of this anger, this fear that has defined much of my past, or unknowingly allowing them to creep back in?
Finally, I wonder if this story could serve as a cautionary tale for other younger men who, like me at the time, Well, I appreciate that.
It's a very frank and open and honest and raw message.
I really, really appreciate that.
So what happened with your marriages?
So the first, I was in my late 30s.
I had...
We returned back to school to pursue a career in medicine.
We were two lonely people trying to make one not lonely person, I think.
The relationship was fine initially.
The marriage lasted about five and a half years.
In retrospect, I probably wasn't as present as I could have been.
Okay, so let me just ask you for a tiny favor.
So listen, you're obviously a very intelligent guy and a very skilled, very skilled in language and analogy and metaphor, you know, two lonely people trying to make one not lonely people.
Now, that narrative, though, all of your narratives have not worked.
Because if your narratives had worked, then you wouldn't be calling me, right?
So when I say what happened with your marriage, if you tell me your narrative, you're telling me all the things you got wrong about it?
Right.
And so if you could just tell me, like, what happened in terms of, and I was unclear, so I apologize for that, but if you could just tell me sort of what happened in the mechanics or the breakup.
Was there an affair?
Was there any sort of abuse?
Did she quit to go pick grapes in Queensland, Australia?
If you can tell me sort of the mechanics of what happened, because the narrative won't particularly help, if that makes sense.
Understood.
And apologies.
I'm looking for symptoms, not diagnosis.
There's your medical term.
Got it, got it, got it.
She came from a broken family.
We both had problems with communicating feelings and what we really wanted.
If we had done that early on in the beginning, we probably would not have pursued the relationship.
She was a restless person, as I was probably a restless person, prioritizing other things over our relationship.
I ended up coming home one day.
She said, I'm not sure I want to be married.
I said, okay, are you sure about that?
She said, yes.
We pursued therapy.
We went to a therapist for a while.
The therapist asked her flat out, do you want to remain married?
And she said, I don't think so.
Moved out pretty much the next week or so after, again, trying with a therapist for a while.
And she ended up moving in with someone shortly afterwards.
So I think she was looking for more attention than I was able to probably give her.
And that's how the relationship ended.
How old is she?
Is that a little more clear?
Not much, but better.
How old is she?
Was she younger?
Older?
Same?
We were both the same age, and we got together in our early 30s.
Ah, okay.
And was there any talk of kids?
Yeah.
Yeah, there was.
And we had talked about starting a family, and instead of starting a family, she chose to go back to school.
There was always something else.
That I think from both of our perspectives needed to happen before we had kids.
I didn't feel that having a family with...
I mean, she decided to go back to school when we were going to potentially start to try having kids about a year after we had been married.
And that kind of put a damper on that.
And like in my letter, I felt like we were trying to play catch up.
And that was, I think...
Created resentment on both of our parts.
So you had talked about having kids.
Do you know what the decision point was that she wanted to go back to school?
She was in the legal field and kind of like administration.
And she chose to pursue a higher degree.
She worked for the government.
And yeah, so that was like two years.
Two years and change and she was in school and I was working and I mean, we didn't have time to connect and there was other things.
Two workaholics, right?
I don't mean to say necessarily workaholic, but two people who worked a lot.
Yeah, I would say that's definitely probably the case.
I'm not focusing on the relationship.
And if you had focused on the relationship, do you think it would have worked out?
In retrospect, probably not.
She came from a family that was even more dysfunctional than mine, if I could be really frank.
And that was definitely a thing.
I could remember two occasions, one of which I... Her mother was extremely critical of her and myself and not used to...
I don't know, someone, I don't want to say talking back, but giving their honest opinion about what her thoughts were.
And I could just remember doing that at one point and sticking up for my wife.
And her mom went apoplectic about it.
And her mother had been, I don't know, married a number of times and was with her second marriage.
And at the end of our relationship, she developed a very...
Quickly progressive dementia syndrome, and that kind of predominated a lot of things.
Yeah, you can't have a successful marriage with toxic parents in the environment.
No.
I mean, a marriage can last, I suppose, but it sure as heck can't be successful.
No, and that's one of the things that hopefully my letter was able to bring out, that I chose both my ex-spouses, people that had incredibly dysfunctional.
Sure, sure.
I mean, yes, I get that.
I get that.
Okay, and that was the first marriage.
What about the second?
Second marriage, very different.
We had much better communication style.
But we were a great couple for the first five or so years of the relationship.
We moved in a couple years after.
I mean, it was great.
I mean, people would come up to us in the...
Supermarkets saying, oh, you guys look...
People we didn't even know.
Oh, you guys look like a great couple.
The way your wife looks at you or your partner looks at you.
It was wonderful.
We had good communication.
And then, again, a lot of family stuff started coming up.
Also came from an extremely broken family.
Her mother had been married a couple times.
Her father had been married a couple times.
She has five half-siblings, no full siblings, and just really bad.
The best way I could put it is I overlooked a lot of these warning signs because she was so charismatic.
And made me feel good at the time.
But I can remember very early on, like, her family joking about the level of dysfunction.
Like, for example, I'll just give you one example.
She was kidnapped by her grandmother.
Huh.
Taken out of school.
No one knew where she was for, like, two and a half days.
And that, 25, 30 years later, that story is told by her mother.
And it's, like, a funny story.
In front of her mother and her half-sister and her half-brother.
And it's like a funny story that, oh, you know, crazy grandma and crazy dad who was at my first marriage with an ankle bracelet on because he was on probation for selling narcotics.
Yeah, and these were things that, again, everyone laughing about.
And at the time, I... I didn't realize, and this was before I think I started even, I had discovered you, and just, something didn't feel right, but I just went with it.
And I should not have pursued that relationship.
That's how you were your wives.
So this is the interesting thing.
I mean, not average.
Six, seven.
Right, okay.
All right.
So you chose, I mean, as a well-educated and successful guy, I assume you could have had your pick of the lookers.
And, you know, not good or bad, right, obviously, but it's a bit more surprising if a man chooses a woman who's not compatible and she's not even a stunner.
Right.
Okay.
Sorry, go ahead.
And that's something that, in retrospect, I realize and I've been incredibly hard on myself because I realize now fatherhood has passed me up.
I don't want to say I feel alone, but I feel alone in terms of the decisions that I've made.
Again, self-exploration.
I realized my upbringing ultimately led me to choosing the partners that I chose.
I think I mentioned this in my letter, but both of my partners were pretty much carbon copies of my father.
I married my dad twice.
My second wife had an affair on me.
That and the setting of also an incredibly traumatic Family thing that happened to her and her half-siblings.
And...
I'm sorry, during the marriage?
Yeah, yeah, during the marriage.
What happened?
I mean, just roughly.
So her stepmother, who is the mother of her half-sister, who she's close with, had a massive stroke.
And my ex-wife was really the only functional person in her extended family.
Her stepmother, who she's not even blood-related to, she took on all of these responsibilities.
I tried to be supportive as much as I could, but again, taking away from our relationship, before this, we had gone through fertility treatments to start a family in our late 30s, early 40s.
And again, in retrospect, I realized that she probably wasn't all that serious about it because she, subconsciously or not, realized the amount of dysfunction in her own family.
family, why would she want to bring a child into this?
So I ended up a few years ago, I ended up getting a text message from the other wife saying that your wife and my husband are having an affair and you deserve to know.
And, you know, I confronted her on it, and at first she denied it, and she said it was, you know, an emotional affair because I wasn't present, which...
Oh, yes, it's your fault I had an affair.
Well, exactly.
And she knew that you had parents who didn't take responsibility for their own dysfunction, so that was particularly cruel.
Yeah, exactly.
Okay.
All right.
So that was it for that, right?
And, you know, initially she said, you know, it's emotional, I love you, I want to work things out.
You know, there was a month or two that we kind of, I'll say, tried.
And we went to therapy, and it was clear that she wasn't invested.
She said she wasn't still seeing this guy.
I had my doubts.
I did a little...
Electronic surveillance.
And I found out that she had never ended communication with this guy and was still talking to him.
And some of the things that she had communicated with him were just, I mean, disgusting.
And I called her out on it, and that was sort of the end of the relationship.
And we ended up going through mediation, and I ended up having to pay her quite a bit of money.
The money was worth my dignity.
Self-respect at that point.
So I needed to just be out of that toxic situation.
And I haven't talked to her really since.
Right.
Now, did you choose the women?
Because if you're successful and the women aren't even particularly physically attractive, then most commonly it's that the women latch on to you and you go along with it.
Yeah, that was probably feeling...
Feeling as though I was desired.
Initially, anyway.
And then, again, as the relationship went along, it just...
The first marriage just sort of, again, sort of slowly dissolved over time.
But the second marriage, she was a bit of a...
She had quite a bit of charisma.
But these weren't women that you...
Pursued, if I understand this rightly, these weren't women that you very strongly pursued and, like, got to have them.
My second was, and initially she was much more attractive and she ended up, you know, fat-bombing me during the relationship.
But that's usually because they're in contact with a dysfunctional family.
Yeah, yes.
I mean, just for an example, just to put framework on this.
Five or so years, five, six years ago, she got just a routine ear infection, which ended up developing into a really bad infection.
And she ended up having to be hospitalized.
And she ended up getting put on IV antibiotics.
She was in the hospital for a week.
The antibiotics gave her kidney failure to where she needed dialysis.
And they were even talking about having to do a kidney transplant.
Her mother, who was away with her significant other for winter, learning about this, didn't even come back to see her in the hospital.
And I can remember her mother saying, well, should I come in?
I'm like, well, mother's name, this is your daughter.
I don't know if she's in the hospital and they're talking about all these things.
She didn't come to visit her after she got discharged two weeks after being in the hospital.
Her mom came in, swooping in, stayed at her house, and it was like this rushing in to save the day while I had been holding the fort down and visiting her twice a day in the hospital.
It was not a good feeling.
Okay.
What has been...
It's funny because...
I'm going backwards here.
I normally go forwards, but I have the instinct to go backwards here.
So what was your relationship or what is your relationship like with your own parents if they're still alive?
Or what was it like over the course of your marriages?
So, I mean, my mother had, I mean, again, I was raised by a single mother.
My dad was a chronic alcoholic.
My mom left him when I was, I think, eight or nine.
I was mostly raised by grandparents until my grandfather had a massive stroke.
I've always had a good relationship with my mother, open, honest.
But interestingly, one of the things through listening to your show that I asked my mother maybe three or four years ago after this affair came out, I asked my mother what...
Drew her to my dad and why she married my father, because he's just such a dysfunctional.
And he also came from an extremely dysfunctional family.
And her only response was, well, if I hadn't met your father, I wouldn't have had you or your brother, and you're the most important things in my life.
So going back to you asking me to really sharpen up my response.
That was kind of heartbreaking.
That was her only answer as to why she chose my father.
Heartbreaking?
Heartbreaking?
Yeah.
That's appalling!
Heartbreaking because I understood what that meant.
Okay, tell me what you think.
Sorry, not what you think that means.
Tell me what that means for you.
Well, that she had similar problems in selecting a dysfunctional person and her parents.
Didn't help her, didn't help guide her or warn her of this impending disaster with my father and my father's family, who are all chronic alcoholics.
So she knew that he was an alcoholic before she married him?
Yes.
Yeah, yeah.
Okay.
Yeah, and yes, and I know exactly what that means.
Okay, what exactly does that mean?
She chose him to not be alone and thought she would be able to possibly change him or alter his course of dysfunction, save him from his parents, which is not possible.
Okay, so the problem is with your mother.
Now, I've got almost an hour, and again, I'm really sorry for being late, but you're a very smart guy, so we can hit the gas.
So the problem is with your relationship with your mother.
There's something you don't see.
So you have a good relationship with your mother.
Okay.
So let's talk a little bit about your childhood.
And for instance, you said you were mostly raised by your grandmother, right?
During my younger...
So I was mostly raised by myself.
That is the other problem.
Because again, my...
Grandfather ended up having a stroke.
My grandmother was disabled.
Pretty much at the age of 10, I was left alone.
I was raised by TV, Dungeons& Dragons.
I've been there, yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
So, why was your mother working hard?
I mean, why was she not available to raise you?
Working.
Single mother.
Again, if my grandfather, that didn't happen to my grandfather, I'm sure I would have had other people help raise me.
But it was mostly myself, and I felt like Piggy and the Lord of the Flies at times.
She was working, but your grandparents were raising you when you were younger, so she would have...
Nights and weekends, right?
Sure.
And how available was she then?
As available as I think she probably could have been.
As a single mother in her late 30s raising, you know, two young boys.
I, again, looking back at things, I mean, I wish I would have been exposed to more positive male influences.
I mean, even at that time...
Did she date?
Not a lot.
I mean, she prioritized, I would say, the best that she could, my brother and I. I mean, she didn't have guys coming in and out.
She wasn't going out.
She wasn't...
So she prioritized you and your brother the best that she could, is that?
The best that she could as a woman.
But that's not what I needed.
I needed a strong male role model.
Not, you know, Charles Bronson and Chuck Norris showing me how to deal with life's problems.
Oh, you mean like she dated some fairly lower class guys?
No, no, no.
She didn't date anybody.
I mean, she did, when I got a little bit older, I mean, she did date some people, but they weren't always at the house, and she wasn't always away.
I'm sorry to interrupt.
So tell me, if you can, tell me, I'm sorry you can't.
On a sort of typical evenings and weekends.
Like, did you chat with her?
Did you play board games?
Did you go for walks?
Did you, like, whatever, you know, hear about her life and get advice?
And did you share with her about what was going on at school?
I mean, because she's working, but there's nights and weekends, right?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I mean, we would talk, but the important things, I don't think so.
She'd ask how school was going.
I would...
We would, you know, she tried to take us on little vacations here and there with what she could.
We grew up in, you know, a two-bedroom rent-controlled house.
No, the money doesn't matter.
The money's irrelevant.
You can be a great parent and be broke.
I mean, that's not the issue.
So did you have substantive conversations with your mother about?
You said you mostly raised yourself.
What that means is that it sounds like your mother wasn't...
She may have spent time with you, but she wasn't spending quality time with you in terms of having important conversations about...
Yeah, I would say that is the case.
Surface level.
Okay.
Okay.
And I mean, at this point in my life, I could say I'm a couple levels beyond surface level.
That I need more than...
Okay.
Is your mother still alive?
Yes, she is.
And your relationship with her at the moment is what state?
We talk regularly.
She is, you know, despite the, you know, what we're talking about now, I mean, I think I've heard her swear like three times in her entire life.
I have, we have an open relationship now.
We talk.
Especially regarding my, you know, my most recent divorce from almost three years ago and that happened.
But again, very little insight into it.
Okay, sorry, is your brother older or younger?
Younger.
Okay, and how's your brother doing?
Outwardly, I think very, he's doing well.
No, sorry, in terms of relationships.
I'm sure you guys are all professionally successful.
Yeah, yeah.
No, in terms of relationship, I don't have much of a relationship with my brother at this point.
Okay.
And what about, how is your brother in terms of, is he married?
Does he have kids?
He is in a long-term committed relationship.
He has one daughter with his first wife.
His first wife was kind of a lot like, I would say, a combination of my first and second marriages.
So, not particularly successful in terms of marriage, right?
Correct.
Yep.
Correct.
And you all have one kid between you?
He has one child, yes.
I have none.
Okay.
All right.
So let's get back when you said to your mother, basically, what drew you to your father, right?
Right.
And she said, well, if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have you and your brother, right?
Yeah.
And I did press her on that a little bit more.
And some of the things that she said, We're, you know, he had a kind heart.
He, I mean, it was almost like she was describing, he was looking to get out of his...
Sorry, I had a kind heart?
I mean, so this is where you get your narrative habits from, and the narratives are dangerous, right?
This is why we always have to return back to facts and empiricism, right?
Are you a religious man?
Not as, well, not organizational religion any longer.
I grew up Catholic.
Okay.
I mean, as a medical professional, I'm sure, of course, that you prefer the scientific method for the exploration of illness as opposed to its demonic possession.
Absolutely.
Right, because you can't cure anything with demonic possession, except maybe, I don't know, maybe some psychosomatic stuff.
But we prefer...
Evidence-based medicine rather than narrative, because narrative, you can just make up whatever you want, and it gives you the illusion of knowledge without the fact of knowledge.
So I'll tell you what I found appalling about what your mother said, because he had a kind heart.
It's meaningless.
A man with a kind heart doesn't drink himself into oblivion when he has a family.
Right.
Right?
He gets help.
Right?
Goes to a 12-step program.
Gets, I don't know, whatever drugs you can get to help with alcohol addiction, and he sorts that shit out, right?
Yep.
I agree.
Okay, so this kind heart stuff is nonsense.
If he has a kind heart, even if he screws up that badly, he still will stay in his child's life.
Right.
Which he didn't do, right?
Well, he tried to remain in my life, and he still is sort of like this appendage in my life.
Again, going back to, like, even when they split up, the fact that my mother, like, let him see me and my brother while he was still, like, an alcoholic and driving us around and, I mean, yeah, that, again, judgment not the best.
That's all.
Judgment not the best.
My mother's judgment.
No, I know who you're talking about.
Okay.
All right.
Judgment, not the best.
So she put you in danger of death or grievous bodily harm by handing you over to an alcoholic who was a driver.
Absolutely.
And also other people, right?
Because you could have crashed into anyone, right?
Yeah, absolutely.
Okay.
So judgment, not the best.
Okay.
As a kid, I can remember the cops pulling my dad over.
This was back in the 80s where, oh, he's drunk.
They drive me home, and it was different than it is now, and I can remember that, and as a young kid, I didn't understand what that all meant, but now I do.
So yeah, I didn't feel protected, and that's part of the reason why I created all these false selves.
Okay, so back to narrative.
All right.
So she says, I am...
Happy to have met your father because it gave me you and your brother, right?
Well, I don't know if she used happy, but I think that's the way that she, her narrative and how she can explain it.
Okay.
To me, utterly narcissistic.
It's about what she got out of it and what she prefers, not about what was best for you and your brother.
Yeah, especially after...
Having me, and then two years later, two and a half years later, having my brother, knowing that, and bringing my brother into...
Okay, so she is happy to have you guys in her life.
Did she ask one single question about how you experienced your father or about how tough it was for you?
No.
So that's blindingly, staggeringly, in my humble opinion, and utterly narcissistic.
Mm-hmm.
Because she should have been.
I mean, she didn't say, I'm appalled at how difficult it was for you and your brother that I chose such a bad father for you.
Yeah.
I mean, outside of the existential question that, of course, she wouldn't be you if it wasn't for the father, but, you know, for my children, right?
She did not utter one comment or show the slightest curiosity on how difficult any of that was for you and your brother.
And she can see the consequences of her decision, which is the failed marriages.
Right.
Yeah.
So we could say, of course, and I understand all of this, where you'd say, well, but my mother was, you know, the young and dumb excuse.
You know, she was young, she was untutored, blah, blah, blah.
Okay.
Okay.
All right.
So let's, I don't like waving that magic wand because I'm a free will guy, but let's say that that's...
Something we could accept.
Okay.
How old is she now?
Is she in her 80s?
70s?
76. Okay.
And so when she was a couple of years ago, when she was in her mid-70s, she was still as bottomlessly selfish as she was in her 20s.
What did she learn over half a century?
I mean, we can say only 20s, whatever, bad decisions, you know, out of a bad chance.
Okay.
I get that.
Did she help warn you against any of the bad relationships that you and your brother had?
No.
I don't know about my brother, but...
No, and she had been around my second wife and my second wife's mother, who knew a lot of the...
the dysfunction there, for sure.
Okay, so...
She didn't parent you, really.
Right?
She abandoned her parental responsibilities for other.
She abandoned her parental responsibilities to your grandparents, right?
To her parents.
Can you rephrase that?
I'm not sure.
She abandoned her parental responsibilities to let her parents raise you.
Yeah, for, again, for a very short period of time, and then my grandparents were not able to do that.
There was...
Then she abandoned you to the internet and the television.
Yeah, right, correct.
Yes, 100. Okay, I mean, you were 10, your brother is younger, right?
Yes.
Okay, so your parents, sorry, your mother left you home alone when you were 10 and your brother was 7 or 8, right?
A large portion of the time.
Okay, and don't tell me where you are in the world, but in many places in the world, that's criminal.
You cannot leave a 10 and a 7-year-old home alone.
So there's criminal levels of irresponsibility.
I mean, what if he'd had a medical emergency?
What if he'd fallen and hurt himself?
I mean, you were lucky.
But it was dangerous.
I mean, it wasn't just your father.
No, no, I 100%, I know that.
Okay, so irresponsible, criminal, and, you know, we can say, oh, but it's the government and legitimacy.
But in a free society, you wouldn't be allowed to do that.
You can't leave a 10-year-old and a 70-year-old home alone.
Especially boys.
Mm-hmm.
I mean, sorry, don't mean to laugh, because it's crazy.
My brother and I were left alone.
We wanted to watch TV. My mother had locked the TV in another room, so we got out on a third-floor balcony, railing, and climbed along the edge of a building to get into the other room.
I mean, we could sort of laugh about it in a way, but that's insane.
And we were not far off from that age.
I mean, I assume you wouldn't do that if you had kids?
No.
So?
No.
Not at this point.
Right.
So I, uh, that's, that's appalling.
you So you weren't parented by her?
Really?
And she left you home alone?
Was it starting at the age of 10, or was it even younger?
No, well, so...
Yes, about the age of 10, whether it was, you know, with my grandparents, who were, again, elderly, and my grandfather had just had a massive stroke.
Yeah, I mean, yeah, like I said, it's...
In hindsight, it was...
Self-survival and preservation.
Sorry?
What?
I'm not sure what that refers to.
Who's self-survival and preservation?
Just trying to preserve myself.
I don't want to get into narrative like you had said, but in retrospect, the feelings of your abandonment and being alone.
Yeah, and then all the risks and dangers associated with that.
Exposure to things that I probably shouldn't have been exposed to.
I assume you mean like internet pornography?
No, this was pre-internet pornography.
Okay, so when you were asking about your childhood, she only talked about herself.
Has she ever asked you, or your brother, to your knowledge, has she ever asked you About the effects of your chaotic and often neglected childhood on your lives?
No.
Not me.
Okay.
Why do you think?
I mean, she's got the evidence, right?
She can see this sort of trail of bad marriages and bad decisions and few to no kids and all of that.
So she can see all of the effects of that.
So why do you think she hasn't asked you about your life or what may have gone wrong or what the issues may be?
What happened with your childhood and so on?
Don't know.
I'm sure you do.
I'm sure everybody tries.
Of course you know.
I mean, you've met the woman for almost half a century, right?
So you know her motives.
You know what's going on.
As soon as I said, I don't know.
It's too easy, right?
I knew exactly where this was going.
Because, I mean, it would implicate a failure on her part.
Okay.
And her inability to, you know...
Successfully parent.
Okay.
Did she successfully parent?
No.
Okay, so she's not your mother in that sense.
She's like a chaotic roommate who paid the bills.
She didn't parent you.
Right?
So what's wrong with trying to figure out whether she made good or bad decisions?
Thank you.
What's wrong with having a fair evaluation?
No, there's nothing wrong with it.
And if anything, it helps me.
I mean, at this point, she's made bad decisions.
There's no question.
And I accept that.
Thank you.
And in no way do I view, like when I look at both of my parents, and I view this differently than my brother, that my mother is just as responsible as my father.
And my brother, you know, will.
You know, point to, you know, my dad's dysfunction, but I said to him even recently, like, mom picked dad.
You know, she's not off the hook with that.
And that's certainly troubled me.
Right.
Okay.
And I realized that has influenced my poor decision-making in who I've chosen.
To surround myself with.
Right, okay.
Okay.
And choose to be close with.
Okay.
So, what is your moral evaluation of your mother?
Well, as far as what we're talking about, it's not good.
Yeah, I mean, and I accept that and I understand this.
And that I know through both my own therapy that I've done, journaling and listening to your show, definitely to an extent.
Played probably the biggest role in where and why I've chosen the relationships I've chosen.
In my inability to select a good partner.
Well, did your mother approve of your marriages?
Was she enthusiastic about the marriages?
The first?
No.
I don't think the first wife she was.
The second wife she was.
I mean, was she vocal?
Well, she did after.
Well, that's sabotage, though.
Yeah, that I realize.
Again, that came to light afterwards, after the divorce.
She approved of my second wife, as did a lot of other people in my life.
Well, that just means that they are not.
Wise enough to help you avoid disaster.
Because you talk about all of your issues or sins or problems as if you're doing this in an isolated fashion.
Now, if you were out living in the woods and you say, oh, I looked up the wrong plant and I ate the wrong plant and I got a rash or whatever, I'd say, well, that wasn't particularly...
Wise, but at least you weren't being surrounded by people who claim to love you, right?
So you have this, the isolation of your childhood.
You say that your current wife says that you're too self-critical, but that's because you are not recognizing, and I understand why, but you aren't recognizing that you don't make individual decisions in a social environment.
You don't.
Can you explain that a little bit better?
Sure.
Sorry, it wasn't clear.
Okay, so when my wife got pregnant, she said, we need a house, right?
And so we talked about it, and we got a house, right?
But she wouldn't just go and buy a house, right?
Neither would I. Right?
We discussed things.
Mm-hmm.
So...
When I have employees and I want to do a particular thing in the show that involves them, we talk about it, negotiate it, make sure that we're all on the same page.
I don't make individual decisions in my life because I'm a husband, I'm a father, I work with people, and I have friendships, and so I don't make individual decisions.
So, when something goes wrong in your life, and, you know, obviously some things have gone very right, your professional life and all of that, Congratulations.
I mean, that's very cool and very admirable.
But in terms of the personal stuff, you look back and you say, I made these mistakes.
I didn't think of this, or I didn't do that, or I was not available enough, or I worked too much.
I'm sorry to sort of skim over your marriages, but these were some of the things that I heard.
And you take on that that's just you.
That's not just you.
Who is in your life?
You have a brother.
You have a father, you have a mother.
As a bare minimum, you also have extended family, you had an uncle who influenced you, and you have friends.
So how many people do you think you have watching your back when you make decisions?
I would argue at least eight and probably ten.
Is that a fair statement?
Yes.
Okay, so when you go into battle, right, why do we not have eyes in the back of our head?
Because we're social animals.
Which means that other people are supposed to watch our backs.
And that's why we don't, like, if I'm going into battle and I'm alone, I'm going to keep looking around and turning around, right?
But if you and I go into battle and we're back-to-back, my back is covered while you're still alive, right?
Mm-hmm.
So you...
Look at the decisions you've made in your life as personal issues, personal failures.
Untrue.
Absolutely untrue.
Why?
Because you're not alone.
So if you and I go into battle and I wander off and then you get hit in the back with some club, you get mad at me, right?
Because I didn't tell you I was leaving.
I just kind of wandered off, and you thought I was back there.
You wouldn't sit there and say, oh my god, I left my back completely unguarded.
I didn't watch my sex.
I'm such an idiot.
It's like, no!
I wandered off!
Because you're so used to doing everything in an isolated fashion that you take all of the responsibility for mistakes.
Yeah.
But I've got to be frank, the cruelty, if not the outright sadism, of afterwards saying, oh, I knew that marriage wasn't, she wasn't right for you, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
Right, that's like me saying to my daughter when she's learning how to ride a bike, oh, yeah, you should totally, yeah, if you want to ride down that hill, that's fine.
If you want to ride down that hill, I'll be there.
If that's what works for you, great.
And she rides down the hill and, I don't know, she breaks her arm, and then I'm like, I knew you couldn't do that hill, man.
But that's weird.
That's cruel, right?
Sorry, you're fidgeting a little.
Sorry.
So, I want to break you out of the isolation, because the way out of your self-attack is to stop thinking that you're just making all these decisions in this pure god or beast isolation.
Omnipotence.
Your mother made a bad decision in marriage.
So, outside of just raising you, which she doesn't seem to have done very much, outside of just raising you, she has one job, and one job only when you and your brother become adults.
Because she had a very bad marriage.
So, what is her one job when you all become adults?
Sending us off into adulthood.
That's done by nature.
What is her one job?
Because the biggest disaster in her life was her marriage to your father, right?
Making sure we don't repeat the same mistake.
Exactly.
It is making sure you and your brother marry well.
So she's got to read books.
She's got to go to therapy.
She's got to consult with experts.
She's got to watch videos.
She's got to...
Keep a journal, she's got to figure out what went wrong, and she's got to explain to you all the bad decisions she made so you don't repeat them.
That's her job.
Yep.
And she's in her mid-seventies, and she's not lifted a finger to help you and your brother avoid the mistakes that she has made to the detriment of you being a father. and she's not lifted a finger to help you and Her selfishness and self-justifications and lack of curiosity, lack of interest, lack of protection, lack of parenting has literally, literally deballed you.
Emasculated you.
Your balls are there to make babies.
And this is why I was so appalled when she said, Oh, no, but hey, man, marrying your father was great for me.
Thank you.
Oh, yeah.
No, it totally worked for me.
I got what I wanted.
I got a couple of kids out of it.
It's great to know you and your brother.
Wonderful.
Not looking at any of the goddamn carnage of you guys' lives that arises because she wasn't watching your back.
She encouraged you to repeat her mistakes.
And then...
I completely and totally stabbed you in the back afterwards when she said, oh yeah, I knew that wasn't the right marriage.
That wasn't the right woman for you, right?
And then you tell me, oh, you know, with pure innocence and honesty, oh yeah, and my mom and I, we have a real honest and open good relationship, blah blah blah.
But this is why you have no self-protection from the crazies.
And I'm not calling you ex-wives.
But I'm thinking about the stepmother with your second wife, who had the sudden onset dementia, and your wife is like, oh, I've got to take care of all of this, and that was a big problem with your marriage, right?
Yeah, at the end, for sure.
Right.
Okay, what did your wives think of your mother?
Oh, they loved her.
Oh my god.
Oh my god.
Thank you.
Well, that's a red flag, right?
They loved her and they loved their own mothers, which I also found kind of bizarre.
Sorry, it was bizarre that they loved their own mothers.
Yeah.
But not bizarre that they loved your mother.
I mean, in retrospect, yeah, now I understand.
I can see that.
But at the time...
With the amount of, like, dysfunctional things that they had shared with me, it's like, well, how...
But looking at...
And in retrospect, they're both equally bad.
Right.
But you can't have any protection against dysfunctional people.
Right.
If you can't even have a direct conversation with your own mother about like...
Like, both of your kids have these messed up relationships, or at least had.
Like, why didn't you teach us better?
Why didn't you learn from Dad?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, she chose absolutely the wrong father for her children, and she continues to praise that decision.
I mean, if your mother has learned nothing, In over three quarters of a century, how are you supposed to learn anything?
How are you supposed to have a standard of improvement?
Mm-hmm.
That makes sense.
So, you blame yourself to protect your mother?
I mean, I almost married the wrong woman, and, you know, it was, in a sense, just fortune and luck that I didn't.
And after I almost married the wrong woman, which, I mean, Could have ruined my life, without a doubt.
Probably would have.
After that, I had to look at everyone around me and say, okay, why did they not say anything?
Either they had no idea that this was the wrong woman for me, in which case, how could they possibly claim to know anything about me?
Or they knew that it was the wrong woman for me, and they were fine with that.
Either way, holy crap.
Uh-huh.
See, you have this belief that your marriage exists in isolation from all of your other relationships, and if it goes wrong, well, that's just on you, man.
You just made mistakes.
You just did the wrong thing.
Nope, couldn't be more wrong.
Sorry to be annoying, but you couldn't be more wrong.
Your marriages were a collective error.
Thank you.
Everyone who was older than you, I mean, your uncle?
what did your uncle say about your marriages um again my my first probably similar that like that he after the fact that he didn't think we were aligned and And I can remember thinking when he said that, like, I wish someone would have told me this beforehand.
I've had a very superficial relationship with my father, and I can remember going out to breakfast with him before my first marriage and sitting with him thinking, wishing that he would say, don't go through with this.
But yeah, you're 100% when So you got married to protect your parents.
Your parents wanted you to get married because the women you were marrying posed no threat to their authority, power, and parenthood over you.
Because a quality woman would have looked at these people and said, ooh, you know, these are the people who did the most harm to you, and I love you, and I can't also love the people who did you the most harm.
Thank you.
Right?
If some guy in a bar beat up the woman you love, could you love him too?
No.
Of course not.
So you can't love people and also love the people who did them the greatest harm.
And your parents did you by far the greatest harm.
So all the people who say, oh no, your parents are great, they are cheering on the people who abused and neglected you, abandoned you, used you selfishly, as your mother admitted, for their own ends, their own pleasures, their own preferences, not giving one rat's ass about what you thought or felt or what was best for you.
So a quality woman comes along, and I'm not saying that your current one is not, I'm just saying...
Like if a really quality woman comes along, she's going to look at your parents and she's going to say, yeah, I kind of hate them.
Because they really did harm for you and they've never really apologized.
They've never really made restitution.
They don't ask you how they can do better.
They don't ask you to improve.
They just use you.
So I don't like them.
them?
How could I like them?
So if a quality woman comes along, that's going to threaten the authority your parents have and the power your parents have over you.
Because they're going to say, no, I don't want these people around my grandkids.
Are you crazy?
Of course not.
I can't have selfish people around my grandkids.
I don't want to go visit them.
I don't like them.
In fact, I despise them.
Because they are unapologetic.
And they did, the man I love, the greatest harm of anyone in the world.
Do not ask me.
I mean, you can ask me all you want, but I don't like them.
I won't like them.
And I certainly will not have them around my grandkids.
So, if you want to get married and have kids, my friend, you have a choice to make.
Right?
You can hang around with mommy and daddy, who abandoned and neglected you, or you can be with me, but you can't have both.
Because I have to do what's best for the kids.
And also what, in fact, happens to be best for you.
What's best for the kids is not to have weird, narcissistic child abusers and neglecters around.
And also, it's not good for you.
I can't stand seeing you bow down before these people and not get any of your needs met and kind of be their goofy, happy slave.
I can't do it.
I won't do it.
And if your parents came over, let's say your mother came over, Then a quality woman would be like, okay, so, you know, Mrs. Smith, or whatever her name is, help me understand, you know, I've heard some troubling things from the man I love about his childhood, and, you know, because I care about him and I want a safe environment for my family and my kids, you know, we really need to kind of discuss this, because this is, you know, pretty troubling.
pretty troubling and then there would be like a massive family convulsion and your mom would get mad and storm around and this and that and the other because somebody would be finally sticking up for you you you Thank you.
What does your current partner think of your mother and your father?
Yeah.
Thank you.
From the surface level, I think pretty much the same.
The same as what?
I went through a bunch of scenarios.
I would say that my mom outwardly is kind.
And Okay, sorry, sorry, bro.
You You and I are smart enough that this outwardly stuff is meaningless.
Have you told your partner what happened in your childhood?
About my father being an alcoholic?
Yes.
And your mother marrying?
And your mother basically not raising you and not giving you any feedback?
And have you also told your partner about how your mother did not help you in your adulthood, did not warn you about dangerous women to marry, but strutted around afterwards saying how wise she was and she knew all the whole time?
I mean, have you told your partner the truth about your mother?
I think that's a conversation that I have to, again, go below the surface, which, yeah.
Thank you.
Yeah.
In other words, are you giving your partner a just and fair evaluation of your mother so that she can make her own choices?
Or are you controlling and manipulating the information so that you can continue to appease your mother?
Because you have a very fragmented, in my view, obviously, my humble opinion, you have a very fragmented and sketchy relationship with your mother.
And fragmented and sketchy relationships that are perceived to be essential always breed compliance, enslavement, appeasement.
Right.
Because you should have a strong enough relationship that you can challenge your mother with your genuine thoughts, feelings, and experience, and the relationship will be strengthened thereby.
But you don't have that, so you have to comply, otherwise your mother will reject you or abandon you.
Because she already signaled and modeled that she preferred other things to raising you.
That's a sketchy bond.
Sure.
It's a fragment bond.
And a fragile bond means a strong bond is when you can strongly disagree and have a better relationship thereby.
A sketchy bond is when if you say something that the other person doesn't like, They just shut down, ostracize, abandon, reject, neglect, whatever, right?
They just punish you.
Appease.
In a piece, yeah.
Yeah.
So to be in the relationship with your parents, you have to shut up and agree with them.
And that's terrible.
Yeah.
I've definitely broken from that with my father maybe 10 years ago.
And beyond, again, me asking that question to my mother after the dissolution of my second marriage, yeah, I have not done that.
And I'm not blaming you for that at all, obviously.
I hope you're not getting any, I'm not criticizing, I'm just simply pointing out the pattern.
No, that's what, that's...
What I need more than anything else, and I guess the correlate to that, which I don't know if we'll be able to get into, but is the, what do I do about that in my late 40s now?
Well, no, so you've still got another 40 years on the planet, right?
Absolutely.
And you should have love?
And you have a niece or a nephew?
Yes.
And you can do good in your community, and you can do good in your practice, and you can do good in your relationship.
So, learning that we put honesty above other people's immediate preferences.
You can't have a relationship if you lie.
And I'm not calling you a liar, right?
But you were raised to appease your parents.
Because you were, I mean, the bond was so fragile.
I mean, your father obviously abandoned you.
Your mother...
To some degree abandoned you or certainly didn't raise you, which means that she's there for her, not for you.
And if she's there for her, not for you, then if you show up and it's uncomfortable for her, she'll just drop you like a hot potato.
So it's going on the principle that I am not going to spend...
I had to spend the first half of my life lying.
I don't have to spend the second half of my life lying and appeasing and groveling in a way.
So, I mean, whether you have honest conversations with your parents, I don't know.
That's obviously a decision for you to make.
But having a commitment to just say, look, I'm going to tell the truth.
And if it bothers people, it bothers people.
But I'm not going to pretend to have a relationship where there is no relationship.
I'm not going to have this, hey, nice weather for this type of year kind of nonsense going on.
So what you do about it, I think, I mean, I don't know if you've read my book, Real-Time Relationships, but I think...
What you do is you just make that commitment, that foundational commitment, to tell the truth no matter what.
Tell the truth though the skies fall.
Tell the truth and shame the devil, the stuff that you and I were raised with.
That does not bear false witness.
Yes, and I have read RTR, and I've embodied a lot of that into all of my relationships, being like 100% truthful and being prepared to...
Break or significantly limit certain relationships that are not healthy in my life.
What I'm hearing from you, Steph, is...
No, you can't get angry at your mother.
That's the problem.
I realize that, and I realize that from this conversation, that that's the nucleus of what we're talking about here.
So, other than getting angry at my mother and having, I guess, coming to terms with that, where do I go?
Well, I tell you what, brother.
Do that, and that's a lot.
Right?
So do that and that's a lot.
And this is interesting because, again, I've got to go in a minute or two and I'm sorry for this, but I'm happy to pick this up again.
If you decide to have an honest conversation with your mother, I would be absolutely fascinated to talk to you afterwards and find out how it went.
Well, more so at some point, would you be open to like a role play with that?
What that would sound like?
Sure.
Sure.
Absolutely.
In fact, if you want to do that before...
We can schedule another one and do that.
Listen, I showed up late this morning, so I'm absolutely at your beck and call because I made the error.
I made the mistake.
No worries.
So if you want to reschedule, we can do that role play.
Whatever I can do to help you with that, I'd be thrilled to help you because, look, man, I mean, you're a great guy.
You do a lot of good in the world, and you genuinely and deeply deserve to have the kind of love, relaxation, emotional availability, and commitment.
But, you know, you say you're not emotionally available.
Well, That's because you constantly have to appease selfish people growing up, and that's still part of your life.
So you can't be emotionally available because your emotions are dangerous, toxic, or harmful to selfish people, because selfish people do not like it when you have your own thoughts and feelings independent of their immediate preferences.
They do not like it, and they will punish you for it.
So how can you be emotionally available?
If honesty results in punishment, how can you be emotionally available?
I understand that.
And I appreciate your time.
My homework will be, I will have that conversation with my current partner, that honest conversation with my current partner.
Sorry to interrupt, but that also involves you talking about her family.
Yes.
Which is, okay, do you like her family and the effect that they have on her?
Mm-hmm.
Are these people you want in your life?
life.
Could you be honest and direct with them?
Again, I'm real sorry for this.
If you want to do the roleplay before you talk to your mom, I'm happy to schedule that at your convenience.
And I really do appreciate your time today.
And I look forward to our next conversation.
You're a really great guy to chat with this stuff about, and I really do appreciate your time.
Appreciate your stuff.
You have a good day.
Thanks, man.
Bye-bye.
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