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March 24, 2025 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:01:59

How to (Not) Grow Up! Freedomain Call In

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	Okay, shall we go from the back end of the tale to the front, or the front to the back?
	See, everyone asks me how they should tell their story when I have no idea what the story is, so I'm going to just have to tell you that it's your choice.
	Okay, I'll start at the back of the story, and I'm going to be a bit embarrassed because now on the cold light of day, when I tell you these things, it's embarrassing how naive and pathetic I've been, frankly.
	So, look, I'm a 51-year-old single dad.
	We've spoken before, and your help was unbelievable in reuniting with two of my three daughters, so thank you for that.
	Congrats. I have three months ago broken up and gone no contact with a woman I met online, long-distance relationship, and we were in that long-distance relationship for six months, and I would have hoped after three months I should be feeling a lot of relief and no more ruminations.
	Please God tell me it's not an Asian woman.
	No, not Asian women.
	Oh, just because I've had so many calls lately about guys with Asian women and problems.
	Okay, good.
	I'm glad to break the cliche and break the cycle.
	Okay, go ahead.
	Well, South American, shall I say, generally.
	I can't really name the exact country, can I?
	No, that's fine.
	Or can I?
	But is she Hispanic?
	Well, Hispanic sort of intimates Mexican, doesn't it?
	So, Hispanic?
	Well, yeah, I guess Hispanic is Spanish-speaking.
	Okay, is she white?
	Is she mestizo?
	What's the ethnicity?
	So, her father's black and her mother's white.
	Okay, so she's mixed.
	Okay, got it.
	She's mixed, yes.
	And so, basically, I broke up with her because I was involving my therapist, knowing my own blind spots in dating, and my therapist...
	I was really quite direct in saying, look, she may not want to hurt you, but she can't help hurting you, and she's basically excusing herself to continue hurting you.
	I, of course, thought if you pour enough love into someone, they all have great intentions, and eventually they'll heal, and off we go into the sunset, beautiful relationship.
	And that just wasn't happening.
	My needs were completely not being met at all, and I ended up losing about eight or nine kilos in weight, losing sleep.
	It just was a mess.
	It was becoming a husk.
	Listen, there's easier ways to lose weight than also losing your will to live, so just hopefully we can work on that.
	Well, you've nailed it.
	I did.
	I lost my will to live, and I've had suicidal ideation, all that sort of stuff.
	It's been absolutely nightmaric.
	It was a case of the love bombing.
	Here's a perfect woman mirroring back all my virtues and everything I want, and this incredible future we're going to share together.
	And then a person who, by the end, I really got a strong sense, had no empathy for me.
	Was kind of playing a game and has just devastating stuff.
	I'm so sorry to hear.
	I really am.
	How old was she?
	She was 28. Oh, brother.
	I know, right?
	Okay. I know.
	Okay. And you're going to see a pattern there as well.
	No, I'm sure I won't.
	I'm just kidding.
	Go on.
	Yeah, no, you're going to see a pattern there because the girlfriend before that that I was heartbroken over that, again, I had to walk away from because it was quite obvious.
	Under the visage of my therapist that, hey, this person as well.
	And she was 19 years younger.
	So you're going to see some patterns.
	Yeah. So what really has happened with this last one, Steph, is I've seen a lot of parallels between that and my mother.
	And I'm desperate to break the chains of what's going on.
	My head kind of gets it.
	I've listened to you long enough.
	I've done enough therapy.
	Done enough self-journaling that my head kind of gets what's going on to some degree, but my heart is absolutely not getting it.
	My heart is absolutely just not getting it at all as a disjunct between the two.
	Well, it's not your heart, is it?
	You could say it's the fellow between my legs.
	Come on, let's not get too Byron-esque with this.
	You've got hot younger women and you're turned on, right?
	You're absolutely right.
	Okay, it's nice that you say heart, but I mean, we can be more friendly, right?
	Well, look, I would say definitely you've got a point about the balls.
	There's a massive point there.
	Let's call that 90%.
	But, mate, I wouldn't say my feelings are completely not involved either.
	Like, I do actually get very intense feelings.
	So I'm not going to completely disregard them, but definitely the sexual element is like the drug.
	But how do you know your feelings aren't just yearning for unstable, unattainable women like your mum?
	I think that that's hit the nail on the head because I can see now that I'm choosing people like my mum who are not capable of loving me, almost as if I can prove, you know what?
	If I get love from that unloving person, I'm lovable.
	And it's like something I've been yearning for my whole life and it's incredibly painful.
	Well, that's one half of the equation.
	And because you're an older man, what's the other half of the equation?
	The other half of the equation is what are these women searching to recreate in you?
	In other words, so we know, let's say that these women are your mom in your past, right?
	But who are you in their past?
	Well, I'm their dad.
	Well, I don't know, but...
	Which bad person are you?
	See, everyone's like, oh my gosh, I'm so sad.
	I'm choosing women like my mom, and that's so harmful to me.
	And it's like, but if you're like their dad, then you're harmful to them.
	Well, that's the part I made some help saying, because I was working with my therapist through this whole process, and there wasn't just bad stuff coming from me towards them.
	I did genuinely.
	Want a better life for...
	Let's just talk about this latest one.
	For her, I did have good intentions for her.
	I did have the sexual selfishness and desire, absolutely.
	Running out of control, rampant.
	But I did want the best for her as well.
	There was a love there.
	I can't say that I'm completely like a dad because...
	Listen, I'm perfectly happy to hear how there was love.
	But in order...
	For me to believe or accept that there was love, there has to be what?
	What does she have to possess for you to love her?
	Virtues. Right.
	So, tell me.
	And again, I'm open to hear, right?
	I'm wide open.
	Tell me about her virtues.
	And not just sentimental, like tell me the practical virtues.
	Absolutely. So, if I tell you at the beginning of the relationship, when the mirroring and love bombing was going on, There appeared to be a bunch of virtues that, by the end, I realized were completely absent.
	So, by the end, I would say there really were no virtues.
	Okay, so let's go through how, after, how long have you been listening to what I do?
	Oh, about eight years.
	Okay, so eight years of training and therapy, and you're still completely blind when it comes to assessing virtue.
	So, that's your choice at that point, right?
	Hence my call.
	Okay, and that's fine.
	I just wanted to point that out.
	Yeah, no.
	Okay, so tell me the story of dating and meeting.
	And I assume you kept your hair, is that right?
	I have kept my hair.
	Yeah, so you kept your hair, so unfortunately you get eternal man-boy status if you want it, and that's probably dangerous too.
	But anyway, go ahead.
	It is.
	It is dangerous because I've also, since I'm...
	Being single and without any children, I spend a lot of time being fit, taking excellent care of myself and sleeping well.
	So I do have that aspect going on.
	So you're silver foxing up the yin-yang, okay.
	I am, but I'm also a Christian man, and I'm not just out there trying to have sex with young women.
	I'm actually looking for the love of my life.
	I'm looking, in a way, as I was inspired by you, to find a good, virtuous woman and have a beautiful, wonderful marriage.
	That's what I'm looking for.
	Okay, so let's tell me about, let's call her Cindy, right?
	The woman from South America.
	Yes. Okay, so Cindy, tell me the story.
	So, I was on an international dating app, which again, sorry to keep bringing my therapist in, but I did have her shadowing me through this process, and she and I both wrote my profile.
	That was very honest and direct about the fact that I'm not looking for any hookups or anything like that.
	I'm looking for a very serious, genuine woman to have a great relationship with and eventually lead to marriage.
	And it was very honest, this profile.
	And now what I see is it was a real sort of a base for a predator because she sort of saw this and just went, sucker.
	So she's come on in.
	Sorry, why were you looking internationally?
	I've been to Australia.
	I'm pretty sure there were women there.
	There are women here, but I hate to say, but many of the local dating apps here are kind of hookup culture apps, Steph.
	It's just quite a hookup culture.
	So what age are you looking for?
	Anywhere from 28th to 38th sort of thing.
	And why are you looking for such a young woman?
	Because I was hopeful, having lost my children in the divorce process at such a young age, of possibly being open to having another family.
	Ah, okay.
	So you're looking to become Dad, the sequel, right?
	Without imposing that, that is a secret dream that I'm realizing is probably unrealizable now after this.
	Let's hold off on the absolute despair about that.
	So you couldn't find a woman in Australia who would be interested in dating for marriage?
	I was finding it very difficult because there was so much hooking up going on.
	And that's not part of what I want to do, but I also don't want to particularly have a woman who's got a history of doing an excessive amount of that, for all the reasons you speak about.
	So, this international one was...
	It's meant to be a little bit more classy because you pay a bit more money for it.
	And it was a kind of higher echelon of people.
	So my hope was that I'd find some more serious people in there.
	Now, when you say a higher echelon of people, do you mean that the women also pay more?
	I believe so, yes.
	You believe so?
	Yeah, I believe so.
	I know that with these dating apps, they hide the fact that they...
	They try to get as many women on there as they can through a free enticement, but my understanding with this one is that women do have to pay something.
	Not as much as the men, but exactly how much, I don't know.
	But when I spoke to her, she told me that she did have to pay for her subscription.
	Again, because she lies, I can't verify that data.
	Okay. All right.
	So how did you match up?
	Do you have a matchmaker or do you choose each other?
	No, you match up just like, yeah, you just choose each other and she's chosen me.
	And one of the things that I do quite early once the texting has a bit of a flow is I say, let's do a video call just to see if there's any rapport, if there's a little bit of a good energy mix.
	And she was happy and eager to do a video call.
	That first video call went for about 50 minutes and we were both quite surprised how well it flowed and how easily we were able to communicate.
	So from then on, we started communicating video calling all the time.
	Now, she was in London at that time doing nannying for a family.
	I'm sorry, how old was she when you met her?
	28. And why was she still nannying while she was pushing 30?
	Well, her financial life is a mess.
	Okay. Is that a red flag?
	Big red flag.
	But like I said, on paper and in hindsight and using the brain.
	There's more red flags in the Tiananmen Square concert here.
	So you got me on all the red flags.
	So that is a massive red flag.
	What I've worked out after the fact is the reason she was in London is because a boy that she had dated in Spain that she wanted to continue something with had more or less broken things off with her.
	She was hoping by being geographically closer to him, maybe they could reignite something and that didn't work out.
	That's why.
	She was in London, unbeknownst to me.
	Okay. And early on in the conversations, did you ask her about her family and her childhood?
	I did.
	And what did she say?
	Oh, just an absolute train wreck.
	So one of the stories that broke my heart and I think really opened up my empathy even further was that when she was a child, her mother had...
	Okay, here we go.
	Her mother...
	Sperm jacked her father who was married to another family and wanted nothing to do with the mother nor the child, but was sort of circling around once or twice a year.
	That was the first...
	Sorry, sorry.
	I lost track of that one.
	So her mother sperm jacked a guy?
	Yeah, her boyfriend from high school who was married to another woman and had another family.
	Wait, what?
	Hang on.
	Her mother sperm jacked her boyfriend?
	Her mother sperm jacked...
	Her ex-boyfriend that she had been in a relationship with in high school, who when she sperm jacked him at the age of 35, he had another family and was married, so it was an affair.
	Okay. So a mother's a total sociopath, it sounds like.
	Oh, well, next level.
	The mother really had Cindy for her own needs.
	Because what happened then was when the mother needed to work, she would leave Cindy with her mother, her grandmother, and that lady was atrocious to Cindy.
	But when the mum would get home from a day of work, the grandmother would sick her mother onto Cindy saying what a bad girl she was and she'd get beaten black and blue.
	To the point even, sometimes the beatings were so obscene that the grandmother would have to step in and say, well, that's enough now.
	That's enough now.
	With belts, with weapons, just really bad stuff.
	Another horrible thing she'd do, because I think Cindy would object by not eating, and this mother would force food down her throat from a very young age.
	Okay. So, yeah, atrocious background, but me being the white knight and needing to be needed, these stories didn't raise red flags.
	They raised, I can help this person.
	I can fix this person.
	She just needs love.
	Well, hang on, hang on.
	Hang on, hang on.
	So that's, we're just jumping.
	And I know I asked for the story as a whole, but I can't sort of let that stuff pass.
	So, your theory, help me understand your theory about how to, you know, this save the girl thing.
	Like, help me understand what your theory is about what you're capable of, given your wonderful track record of helping women who have severe abuse issues.
	Yeah, so you're being an empiricist there, and you're completely correct.
	I have no argument that I can do that.
	I am not God.
	I'm not a superhero.
	And yet, there's like a childlike aspect of me that thinks it can, and that thinks that if it does, I've got my bride for life.
	And it's messing me up.
	It's messing me up.
	Okay, so tell me your theory about how this works or plays out.
	So in my mind at the time when this stuff is going on is, oh my God, she's sharing this stuff with me.
	Therefore, she's opening herself to learning as I've learned things that can help us to feel better.
	So I'm going to help her in that journey.
	And she's going to miraculously heal because she's so desperate to heal and so desperate for a lot.
	Okay. Had she done therapy?
	Had she done a lot of work on herself when you first started talking to her when she was 28?
	And how long ago was this?
	So this was happening around February of this year.
	And we went together for six months and then we broke up about three months ago, thereabouts.
	Okay. So when you first talked to her about her severe, severe childhood trauma, which of course we have sympathy for and all of that, but when you talked to her about this...
	Had she done therapy?
	Had she had the confrontation with her family?
	Had she broken off unhealthy or abusive relations?
	I mean, what was her progress on the journey?
	Well, this is the interesting thing.
	At that point, she'd had zero, okay?
	And she was very much treating her mom like she was perfect.
	But within a short period of her and I starting to have these conversations, and her starting to read Alice Miller with me, she started to confront her mother.
	She started to get into therapy.
	So that only further inflamed my belief that we're on the right path here for her healing.
	Okay. And how long, given the severe, severe, brutal abuse that she suffered, how long do you think it would take her to get better, so to speak, or to attain the capacity for genuine, deep, stable love and virtue and affection?
	Well, sadly, I've heard you say it in another calling show, between my love and my magic penis, I had hoped 6 to 18 months.
	So you thought that she could fix herself before she hit 30?
	Not completely fix herself, but be adequate to be in a loving relationship, because as you can tell, I myself am not fixed yet, and I've been at it for 15 years.
	Right. So I hadn't thought...
	Hey, completely fixed is the goal here.
	I was thinking, you know what?
	50% fixed would be wonderful.
	Right, but she's going to get worse.
	We know that now.
	No, no, no.
	You don't know that now.
	You know that obviously.
	When you come into someone who says, my mother is a saint, she's wonderful, and then you point out the immorality of the mother, right?
	And she's had no belief in this before.
	She has no history with self-knowledge, no history of therapy and all of that.
	Then she's going to be destabilized.
	Right. Right.
	See, it's a little perplexing, Steph, because I myself have had an hour and a half chat with you before, and I've witnessed you do this with many, many people, and that is when you shine the light of truth on situations, miraculous things can happen.
	And I was having those style of conversations with her.
	And she was so eager, I thought, to tell the truth, but maybe now it was just mirroring.
	I don't know.
	My God, man.
	My God.
	I mean, this is a just look at yourself in the mirror, right?
	And I don't mean this in any negative way, of course, right?
	No, please.
	Please. So you've been working on self-knowledge for 15 years and you still have magic penis theory.
	Yes. So you've been working on things for 15 years and you still haven't overcome the bullshit with your mom, but she can do it.
	From zero with a worse background in 6 to 18 months.
	Yeah, the wishful thinking, right?
	No, no, it's just that if you look, and I sympathize with you, right, but if you look at how hard it is for you to uproot your own illusions, then how can she do it 10 times faster?
	This is where my grandiosity and probably part of my narcissism comes in is she had me helping.
	So theoretically, one of your students, like if I was sitting with you having this chat every single day, I think I would accelerate out of this world very quickly.
	I was hopeful that her having me as an ally, she would also accelerate similarly.
	Well, I don't think I have that capacity to have people accelerate massively because there's just a certain amount of, like even if you have a good trainer, And a good nutritionist, you still can't lose 200 pounds in six months.
	There's just a certain, like you're actually rewiring your, there's a certain physical process to this.
	That if you want somebody who is, you know, 400 pounds to run a marathon, you can't do that in six to 18 months.
	No, just with a trainer, that's true, but I experienced such a turnaround in my one chat with you, and I've heard other people say similar things, that I was hopeful that the truth could set us free to a degree.
	Well, because did you get enough from me to stop making these fairly obvious errors?
	No, and that's why I'm a little bit scared, because what is wrong with me?
	That, with all I know...
	I did this again to myself and really hurt myself.
	Okay, so let's talk about the arc of the relationship.
	So you meet her.
	How soon into the relationship did you start talking with her about her childhood and trauma and virtue and honesty and all of that?
	I would say within the first couple of weeks.
	Okay. And she responded to that quite positively, is that right?
	Yes. Okay.
	And then what?
	Well, then we started getting closer and closer.
	So I'm talking about our past and our dating past.
	And she always presented herself as a victim, which it turned out after I started to really figure things out was not true.
	Through the relationship, I started to uncover lies.
	And the first thing that hurt me, that really, really hurt me was early in the relationship.
	Had to go.
	She's good at speaking English, translator level.
	And she was apparently going for four hours a day to help her uncle's nephew, a non-related, who was a German gentleman, learn English for four hours a day.
	And I said, oh, great, okay, well, we'll talk after you finish.
	And strangely, she sent me a photo of herself with him.
	And in this photo, they looked very cozy, almost to the point, like almost a couple.
	And I jokingly said to her, look, is there anything I should worry about here?
	You guys look like a couple.
	And she said, oh, no, no, don't worry.
	There's nothing here.
	So about four weeks after that all stopped, she said to me just out of the blue flippantly, oh, this guy is very handsome and I find him attractive.
	Just down to nowhere she said this when things were going along so well.
	And I got very hurt by that comment.
	Number one, because I'd asked her if there was any attraction there before, so she'd lie.
	No, there wasn't.
	But number two, why say that to me?
	How could she not be aware that was a hurtful thing to say?
	And she's turned around and said to me, I've said that before in my other relationships.
	No one else was bothered by it.
	I think you're the only person in the whole world who would be bothered by it.
	Sorry, bothered by what exactly?
	By her saying that another man was so very handsome and she was attracted to him.
	Right. So sort of six weeks into this great, love-bombing, amazing relationship where I'm feeling amazing, I got hit by that and my heart just got exploded in pain because I couldn't understand what would motivate her to say that.
	And when I tried to get to the origins of why she said it, so we have lying, we have triangulation, and then we have gaslighting all in one move.
	And I sort of tried to get to the bottom of why would you say that?
	And she claimed she didn't understand herself why she said it.
	To the point that when I took it to my therapist, my therapist said it was a big red flag.
	So we got a counsellor to talk to us.
	Sorry, how long into this long-distance relationship did you get a counsellor?
	Six to eight weeks.
	Come on, man.
	Really? I know, man.
	Well, it's worse than that, Steph, because she was planning to come here for two months.
	So she was already seeking to get visas to come here.
	So it was all fast-tracked.
	Okay. So this counsellor asked her, first question of the session, hey, why would you say that to him?
	How could you not know that would be hurtful?
	And again, she claimed not to know herself.
	And he just let it go.
	So that was the beginning of the trouble where I started to realise that a big thing she was doing through the relationship right to the end was very subtly devaluing me.
	She was incapable of giving me compliments.
	She was doing and saying things to erode my self-esteem.
	Like magic, I already have massive self-worth issues from my childhood, so it was tapping into that very hugely.
	Sorry, you're saying that you have massive self-esteem issues from your childhood?
	Yeah. Bullshit.
	Self-worth.
	Bullshit. Bullshit.
	Absolute, complete, total bullshit.
	Great, please.
	51 years old, right?
	Yeah. Okay.
	Childhood was...
	A long time ago.
	33 years ago, you became an adult?
	So you've been an adult twice as long as you've been a child.
	When do you stop blaming your childhood?
	When you're 80?
	90? 70?
	Like, when is it your fault and not your mom's fault?
	When is it your responsibility and not your childhood?
	Thank you.
	Very good question.
	I mean, the obvious answer is immediately, now, 33 years ago.
	And yet, I feel like this pattern is from then.
	Okay, but if you know that the pattern, how long have you known that the pattern is from then?
	I would say probably the last five years I've been aware of it.
	Really? So you've been listening to me for a decade, and you got no patterns from yourself out of anything that I do?
	I've got loads of patterns, but this one, around my mum, being unloving and devaluing, no.
	Hang on.
	You've got to work pretty fucking hard to not get this one.
	You've got to strain muscles in every direction to not understand that your mother has some influence on the women you choose to date.
	I've been aware of that, but this particular part where I choose devaluing women and women who aren't loving, I have been in denial about that for quite a long time until the last five years, I'd say.
	For whatever reason.
	Well, I mean, you just chose not to focus on it.
	I think it's even worse.
	I think I've been pushing away from going that deep on that.
	Okay. That's not that deep.
	Knowing that your mother influences your dating choices, that's not going that deep, right?
	No, that I know.
	That I know generally.
	But this part specifically about not being loved by my mother and being devalued by my mother, et cetera, I have been trying to push at it off like awareness.
	Okay. And what is your relationship?
	If your mother's still alive and around, what is your relationship like with her if you have one?
	I took your advice 10 years ago and along with psychologists, et cetera, who told me I could only heal without my family by origin, I defood 10 years ago.
	Okay. And did you try having any conversations with your family?
	And they just went terribly, right?
	Terribly. I mean, at one point, my therapist said to me quite pointedly, why do you keep going back to your mother to get this valuation to be heard when she just is incapable?
	She never does it.
	Why do you keep doing that?
	And I kept doing it.
	And what about your father?
	A violent alcoholic who beat me mercilessly and was sadistic and undermined me.
	I mean, you won't remember the call, but we had a call together, you and I, about four years ago that was ostensibly about me not seeing my children.
	And you may remember I had a horrible divorce with a woman who lied and my father aligned with her behind my back.
	My dad is a really cunning, nasty, aggressive, violent, alcoholic, narcissist, saddest.
	Okay, and of course...
	He's almost easy to deal with because he's so overt, whereas my mother is brilliantly covert.
	My mother is a martyr.
	Okay. Well, of course, I'm very sorry for your childhood, as I'm sure I mentioned back then.
	And did we not talk at all, and I don't remember, of course, the call in any great detail from four years ago, but did we talk at all about how your childhood might have influenced your choice of wife?
	We didn't really go there because we did so much work around the contemporaneous issue of me not seeing the children and what stance I should take.
	So we didn't get to go there, which was fine because it was so productive.
	Okay, good, good.
	And when did you first think that your mother was cruel?
	Okay, I'm about to tell you something you probably won't believe, but it's the truth, so I'll say it anyway.
	A momentous occasion occurred.
	When I had 3,000 photos on my laptop that were in duplicate, okay?
	And one of these photos got corrupted, and it was a photo of my mother.
	Of all the 3,000 photos, that was a photo that somehow got corrupted digitally, and the way it was corrupted was there was like a black shadow of an entity over the top of the photo of my mother.
	Oh, gosh.
	And this is a little eerie.
	It's beyond eerie.
	It's physically impossible.
	However, when you look at that entity or whatever you want to call it that drives my mother, and I showed my therapist, when you start to theorize that, hey, that's driving my mom, this loveless, evil thing that's trying to undermine it and undermine me, all the bits of the jigsaw puzzle make sense when you have that one.
	So I've taken that at face value, and that's why I say to you five years ago was the crucial moment.
	I've taken it at face value that that's when I really realised my mum absolutely is incapable of loving me, and even worse, is how to really, with my dad, destroy me.
	But what you're saying is not true, though.
	Sorry to be annoying, but I asked when you first began to suspect that your mother might be cruel, and you said five years ago, but you separated from ten years ago.
	Yeah, I separated from them 10 years ago, but I hadn't really realized she was cruel back then.
	I still thought she was okay.
	I was still taking the odd text and call from her.
	But cruel, no.
	Cruel is a recent development.
	So your therapist said you should separate from your family even though they're not cruel?
	Okay, so this was a psychiatrist when I was in a recovery hospital.
	From marijuana addiction.
	And these guys in those days used to do what they call family systems, which no doubt you know about, which means no one gets sick as an individual.
	They're sick as part of a family system.
	Therefore, part of the healing was they would bring all the families to the hospital for family day, etc.
	And there were heroin addicts there.
	There were incest survivors.
	And the psychiatrist pulled me aside and said, look, I'm so sorry to tell you this, but we think you're the only person here today who shouldn't have your family.
	Because you're only going to get better for the benefit of your kids if you go it alone.
	And so that was the first person who ever told me that I needed to defer.
	So that was when it all started.
	But they must have told you why.
	Yeah, primarily my dad.
	My dad was so overt that everyone's focus was on him and my mum was just part of a package deal.
	But to start looking at my mum directly, that really is only a recent phenomenon, Steph.
	A lot of the work's been just dealing with him.
	Okay, got it.
	And if I could just say one last thing, it makes sense that my psyche can't deal with being unloved by two parents all at once.
	It's much smarter to go, you know what?
	I can't deal with, I'm not loved by my father.
	Okay, let's sit with that for a while.
	Now we've got a little bit of recovery on board.
	Okay, let's deal with the next reality.
	My mum also.
	You know what I mean?
	Because I fought against that idea that I had to defu.
	I wasn't just on board with it.
	I was fighting against that.
	Sure. No, I understand.
	Yeah, I mean, but the problem then, you have to say, is that one parent is immoral and the other parent is moral, which doesn't make any sense.
	Sense has only been coming into it the last five years, Steph.
	It absolutely doesn't make sense.
	And that's why I say to you, and this is why it's interesting, It's not to do with the balls when it comes to my family, but there's been a disjunct between logic and my heart.
	There's been truth.
	There's been empirical fact.
	I'm an adult now.
	I'm 51. But somehow, something inside of me doesn't seem to like to take on too much truth all at once.
	It's going to make me jump off the bridge.
	What do you mean?
	I get suicidal ideation.
	If I can't hold on to a little bit of my denial through the process, you know what I mean?
	Like if you go from, I was 40 at that time when I defood, if you go from, oh, we're happy families, the only problem here is that I am a pot addict and my whole family is great and loving, to the next day, oh, they're the worst family ever and I'm all alone in this world and I'm not the bad wolf, I'm the scapegoat and they're really bad.
	That's a big, big thing to sort of take on just immediately.
	I needed to do it in stages, I think.
	And maybe I'm making excuses, I don't know, but that's how it unfurled for me.
	My jaw is on the fucking floor.
	Why? Oh.
	Am I making excuses?
	No, you make perfect sense, but my jaw is still on the floor.
	I'm telling you, like, my eyes are wide, my teeth are apart, because what you're saying is blowing my mind out of my ears.
	I feel like I'm doing something wrong.
	Please, enlighten me.
	All right.
	So, you've been on self-knowledge, self-discovery journey for 10 to 15 years.
	Do I have that right?
	You do.
	Right. And you've got to take it slow.
	Otherwise, you get suicidal, right?
	Yes, I get very dark, very deep.
	All right.
	Existentially lost.
	You're not driving, are you?
	No. Okay.
	Are you sitting, or in a place where you can sit?
	I am.
	Because this is going to blow your mind, too.
	Good. Thank you.
	Yes. Okay, here's where we just jam a bunch of wires together, all right?
	Okay. So you can't go too fast, or you get really destabilized, right?
	But she can.
	But she does it in 6 to 18 months, by God, because I have needs.
	And because I, yeah.
	Are you fucking kidding me?
	No, I see.
	Insane. Insane.
	And I say, well, if you go too fast, it's destabilizing.
	And you said, I had no idea.
	But for me, if I go too fast, I want to jump off a bridge.
	Yeah. Yep.
	Holy shitballs, bro.
	What the fuck?
	Are you talking about?
	Yeah, you tell me.
	You tell me.
	You tell me?
	I don't know what you're talking about.
	Like, what the hell?
	Well, see, this level of insanity makes me feel like...
	No, it's not insane.
	I don't give you the insane card.
	You don't get off on a technicality.
	You don't get the insanity defense.
	What is it?
	This incredible sensitivity and delicacy, and you just like, well, you know, you've got to...
	Grate this cheese really finely, otherwise it clogs up the whole thing, and you just dynamite this other cheese wheel, she'll be fine.
	Well, look, this is my, again, I hate to say the word narcissism, but yeah, this idea that if I'm paralleling her, if I'm feeding her the literature, if I'm helping her, it's like having 10% of Stefan Molyneux, if I dare to say I'm 10% as good at this as you.
	With her every day for four or five hours.
	With the magic penis, we can pull her through.
	Wait, you were trying to work over deep foundational abuse truths with this woman long distance for four to five hours a day?
	Yeah. And what do you think of that?
	In the cold light of day now, without all the magical thinking.
	And mysticism?
	No, she broke up with her, so there's no access to sex or fantasy, but go on.
	Well, she was allowing me to watch her in the shower every day, so that was a sexual component that addicted me.
	I'm sorry, she was what?
	When she would have her shower each day, we would stay on the video call.
	So there was that sexual element.
	So that's like, she's like a cam girl?
	Well... I'd like to think only for me, but it happened very slowly over a number of months.
	Slowly, I was in the bikini, then eventually she got topless.
	And then eventually she was dead, letting me keep the video call on while she was having a shower.
	And I think that really, really hooked me into it.
	I'm a Christian man, and so I haven't actually been with a woman for over four and a half years.
	I'm determined to not use women anymore for that stuff.
	I'm just messed up, Steph.
	Well, no, don't just...
	That's a pointless thing to say, right?
	Okay. Yep.
	you.
	So why did you choose her out of all the women?
	Well, obviously youth and beauty.
	Definitely were heavy factors, but the mirroring back to me, that she had the same values as me.
	She was a similar person to me.
	She was into self-knowledge, like I was.
	She had a difficult past.
	She was trying to overcome as quick as she could.
	The fact she wanted me to read to her Alice Miller each night as she went to bed and we could talk about each important point.
	I really, I thought I'd met someone really special.
	Okay. Okay.
	Thank you.
	Okay. And then, of course, the idea that I could save her, so my saviour complex came into it, and she could come here to Australia and help me out.
	Sorry, what does help you out mean?
	Okay, so like you said earlier, and it's a very scary point, that she wasn't financially settled or had her career in order, and when she went back to her home country, she did not work, really.
	Like, she had the benefactor of her auntie and uncle working in America for their benefit.
	So she didn't work.
	And I asked her if she could do a bit of work for me.
	So the best job she could get over there was five or six American dollars an hour online.
	And I was offering her $25 Australian, which was, you know, about $18 American at the time, to fix up a manual for my business.
	And for the whole six months, she never did a single page.
	She never earned a single penny.
	For this.
	So that's what I mean is that once she was back home, I had this dream that she would come and help me in my business because she was so intelligent and I have a lot of Spanish workers.
	So I thought the whole thing was just perfect.
	But it turns out she's exceedingly lazy.
	And did you send her any money at all?
	No. No.
	The most we ever did was when she went.
	To do her visas, etc.
	We're on halves in those costs.
	And by the grace of God, her visa was denied three times.
	That's why we never physically got together.
	Why was her visa denied?
	My God, they let me in.
	I hope they let you in again.
	I'll be on your security detail this time.
	The reason was because she didn't have any apparent ties to keep her in her home country.
	And the first time she was to come, we took bad advice and wrote a basic love letter saying how in love we were, etc.
	So the Australian government was quite insistent she had no ties back home and therefore was going to stay illegally.
	And she herself couldn't overcome that by getting a job, by getting real estate in her name.
	She had all these opportunities to improve that application process and never really did.
	She was just a bit lazy.
	So the only money she got was half the cost of those visas, you know, $400.
	Okay, and what happened over the, you said, six months that you were together and you broke up three months ago, is that right?
	Yes. And what happened over the six months that led to the crash or the crashing out?
	Okay, so where things really got heated was I was starting to get a sense that she was lying.
	So at about the six-week mark, she said she's...
	Well, no, at the three-week mark, she said, I'm no longer on the dating apps.
	And I said, okay.
	And she wanted to be exclusive.
	And I said, okay, you want to be exclusive?
	That's no problem.
	But I have a condition on exclusivity and you don't have to comply if you don't want to, but we aren't talking to any exes.
	And she said, yep, no problem.
	I'm not talking to any exes.
	So then a couple of months after that, I tried to friend request her on her Instagram.
	Okay. And she took an inordinately long time to approve my request.
	And as she was taking an inordinately long period of time, I was looking on the Instagram that I could see, and she was deleting followers and photos.
	And so the next day I've said to her, hey, what the heck is going on here?
	She goes, oh, well, I wouldn't want you to get jealous.
	And I'm like, well, we've got a problem here.
	So I eventually convinced her to...
	Sorry, she doesn't want you to get jealous, which is why she says how attractive other men are.
	In her vicinity.
	Ha! Exactly.
	Okay, got it.
	Isn't it?
	Isn't it?
	No, but you're talking to me like, hey, isn't this crazy?
	This is so terrible.
	I'm so outraged.
	It's like, you walked into this blade storm?
	Anyway, go on.
	I did.
	I did.
	But I think you're assuming that I went into it with my logical mind fully in control.
	And that's where I feel...
	A bit messed up is I wasn't.
	Because I was saying all these things, but I wanted that dream girl to come back.
	So I wasn't just going, red flag, see you later, cut and run.
	Oh, no, no.
	The red flags are there right from the beginning.
	Right from the beginning.
	They are.
	And this is why I have an issue here.
	Because why the hell would I be doing all of this?
	Especially with this end result.
	Sorry. Let's get to how you broke up.
	Yes. So we then get to the place where I've said to her, look, I'm sorry, I don't trust you.
	You're going to have to open your Instagram and let me see.
	And she's like, I don't want to do that.
	And I said, well, then we're done.
	So she opened it up and we went through and she was lying to my face.
	I'm like, oh, who's this person?
	Oh, nobody.
	And I'm like, really?
	Nobody? And she's like, oh, okay, that's this ex.
	And I'm like, okay, what happened with these people you deleted?
	And we can never find out.
	I was being lied to left, right and centre, but what really hurt me the most was when I discovered that that ex that she had gone to London for, she was communicating with him quite a lot over the period.
	And she sent me screenshots, they were reasonably innocuous, but she still was communicating with someone when we'd said we wouldn't have any communication with exes, right up until a month prior to us breaking up.
	So that's where I sort of said to her, you know what, I'm not going to be your plan B. I can't live with all this lying.
	You can't show me how you're going to stop lying.
	And I can't do this anymore.
	And I broke it up over that.
	Okay, so when did you first begin to fall out of infatuation?
	How long into the relationship?
	I'm not sure I ever fell out of infatuation, Steph.
	No, no, because if you're concerned about her lying and all of that and you say, I can't trust you, that's out of infatuation, isn't it?
	I mean, you can't be infatuated with someone you are that suspicious of.
	Well, look, I don't know, but I believe I was infatuated right the way through and I'm only coming out of infatuation now.
	Okay. Because remember, I had my therapist sitting there doing the job you're doing, going, okay, you can keep being a fool if you want.
	I was showing my therapist her emails, and I was expecting the therapist to go, oh, isn't this amazing?
	She's got so much self-awareness.
	She's trying so hard.
	This is a romance story, blah, blah.
	And the therapist was going, how many times is this woman going to break you?
	She lies to you.
	She's abusing you.
	You keep going back.
	Sorry, how was she abusing you?
	How's this going to work out?
	I'm not disagreeing.
	I'm just not sure I've heard that part yet.
	By lying to me, by triangulating me with other men to make me jealous.
	I mean, that's manipulative, but I don't know that that's abusive.
	Yeah, well, my therapist used the word...
	I don't want to disagree with your therapist, just in my understanding, abuse is more direct harm and all of that.
	Well, I was being directly harmed, Steph, in terms of the way that she was basically...
	What was the word?
	Could I read to you what my therapist's exact words were?
	Would that be helpful?
	It's your therapy.
	It's your session, man.
	Whatever you want to do.
	I might read that to you because I think it's important if you can give me a sec to bring it up.
	Here it is.
	This is when it sort of brought me out of infatuation, you could say.
	Okay. I think your reply...
	Sorry, sorry.
	It's the second time you've used your name?
	So if you could not...
	No, you said her name was Cindy.
	Yes, but you used your name.
	Except her name was...
	I did.
	Sorry. You've done it twice, and I just...
	It's annoying because I then have to edit it, and I have to make notes.
	Oh, okay.
	So if you could just remember that.
	I'll make a conscious awareness to do it.
	Okay, this was my therapist reply to her email.
	I like the bit about her self-awareness, but rather than my heart and body can't take this, I'd say something like, for us to continue this relationship.
	I need you to resist the temptation to do immature things that cause me pain.
	I'm not the man in your life who have hurt you, and I will then resist the urge to control you with regard to going out and Instagram.
	So that was the thing that I think my therapist said was abusive, was she was deliberately hurting me to make herself feel better.
	Sorry, I just didn't quite get that.
	If you can just run it through me.
	I was listening to it, but I didn't quite get the deliberate trying to hurt you, which I'm sure I can get cleared up, but I don't quite see it yet.
	I'll read it again.
	I like the bit about the self-awareness, but rather than my heart and body can't take this much more of this, I would say something like, for us to continue with our relationship, I need you to resist the temptation to do immature things that could cause me pain.
	And this is her message to you?
	This is the reply my therapist suggested I should make to her.
	To her, okay.
	Yeah. I need you to resist the temptation to do immature things that cause me pain.
	I am not the man in your life who have hurt you, and I will resist the urge to control you.
	If you don't feel you can resist this impulse to hurt me by trying to make me jealous of other men, lying to me, playing with my emotions, etc., then it's probably best if we end the relationship.
	So I think that's what my therapist said was constituting abuse, was all of this playing with my emotions to hurt me, to make me feel less than.
	And does that mean that she, are you referring to her saying that she found other men handsome or?
	Her Instagram?
	What do you mean?
	Yeah, all that sort of behavior, but all the behavior my therapist was witnessing with me, which was her playing emotional games with me, saying things that would hurt me, making me feel devalued in the same incredibly subtle way my mother would do it.
	Okay. Very difficult to ever pinpoint with the party like I'm trying to with you now and say, hey, this is the specific thing.
	It was much more subtle than that.
	Well, so you're saying she's like your mom.
	Yeah, totally.
	Okay. But you just sent her a message saying, I'm not the man who hurt you.
	And so she's not your mom.
	She's not your mother who did this.
	Shouldn't you take that advice as well?
	I absolutely should.
	But I guess I was behaving with her in a superior way to how my dad was behaving with my mother.
	Okay. Because I'd done the work.
	I was being actually quite loving and kind to her.
	Well, I mean, I can't judge that or I can't evaluate that.
	No. No, you can't.
	All right.
	So then she just basically said, fine, it's over?
	No, no.
	She's come back and said, oh, yes, great.
	I'm so excited.
	Let's go again.
	But then it kind of continued.
	Like, I think she couldn't actually help herself.
	she got some pleasure from Thank you. Sorry, I thought you were going to say more.
	Go ahead.
	You said she was sadistic.
	That's your theory?
	Yeah. And when did you first begin to suspect that she might be sadistic?
	Sorry, Steph.
	I've got one more paragraph that I think will help with that.
	If I can read this to you, this is my therapist's other little thing.
	I think this will help.
	She knows she doesn't want to hurt you, but she can and probably will until she doesn't.
	Any woman you're in love with can do this to you.
	Try to pick one that doesn't heed the feed to make you suffer.
	I think that was where my therapist was really coming from.
	Sorry, heed the feed to make you suffer?
	I'm not sure what that means.
	Yeah, just like there's a dark aspect of her psyche that gets energy and pleasure from hurting men.
	Okay, and were you hoping that if she just said she wasn't going to do that, that things would be okay?
	I didn't know what I thought by that stage.
	That's why I was involving my therapist.
	But your therapist said, send her this message, right?
	Yeah. And then saying, I don't want you to hurt me.
	And then was the theory that then if she said, okay, I won't hurt you, that she'd be able to stop being sadistic or anything like that?
	That was my hope.
	But obviously my therapist was seeing deeper than I was and realized, no, that can't happen.
	Well, sadism is a pretty disturbed personality structure, and I don't know that you can just say, please don't, and they're like, oh, I'm better.
	No, I agree.
	But the worst is the covert sadist because my dad was an other person.
	you.
	Sorry, you'll have to wait for a second.
	You're breaking up a lot.
	Yeah, your dad.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	I think a plane just went over the top.
	Okay. Yeah, so my dad was quite an overt sadist.
	So at least you can see the pleasure in their face and work it out.
	But I find covert sadists even worse because a mind F comes along with that.
	You can't work out what's going on.
	And how was she a covert sadist?
	Well, because even in me trying to describe to you why my therapist would use a word like abusive, I'm having trouble giving you specifics.
	That's really covert.
	But she sent you a picture of her cuddling with a handsome guy early on in the relationship, and she said, this guy is really handsome.
	I'm attracted to him.
	That's exactly right.
	How is that covert?
	That's reasonably overt, but did you notice that after I made a big song and dance about that, that she didn't keep doing things overtly like that?
	They started to go quite covert to the point that right now...
	I'm even having trouble explaining to you what her other behaviors were.
	So that started out quite overt, but she went underground after I objected so heavily to that.
	Well, I guess my concern is that you're feeling hurt, and therefore you assume that she's sadistic.
	But it is possible for you to be hurt because of the association with your mother and a sensitivity around that, right?
	Yes. Like, if I have a big bruise, let's say, on my leg, and I forget to tell a masseuse about it, and the masseuse...
	Digs into that bruise, and I'm like, ow, damn, that hurts, right?
	Is my masseuse being sadistic?
	No. Right.
	Now, if I do say to my masseuse, yeah, that's really, really painful, please massage around that big purple bruise, and then he digs in, then yes, you could reasonably say.
	That's right.
	Right, so I guess my question is...
	Were you, because of your mother and her covert cruelty, were you more sensitive and therefore she hurt you because of things that she didn't specifically know about?
	And then you say, ah, she's sadistic because I'm so hurt.
	That's definitely a possibility.
	What I would say...
	Is having my therapist involved, I like to think she wasn't as close to it as I was.
	So I use her guidance as more reality than what I was in.
	Okay. I'm not going to contradict your therapist.
	I definitely think you're right that I had an overt sensitivity from my childhood.
	But once that photo of the cuddly guy and he's so handsome, once that stuff was triggered, then my sensitivities were definitely up.
	Okay. And how long into the relationship did the photo guy cuddling thing happen?
	Oh, probably week six or so.
	Week six, okay.
	Week five or six, yeah.
	Got it.
	Okay. And you weren't able to resolve that with her in any particularly productive way, is that right?
	That's absolutely right.
	She claimed she didn't know why she did it.
	Right. But I believe she knew why she did it, and the reason was...
	To devalue me.
	I spoke to a narcissistic expert online who said that that's part of devaluation.
	And by making me feel much worse, she gets to feel superior and therefore abrogates her fear of abandonment, which makes sense to me.
	Yeah, I suppose.
	I mean, certainly, that's certainly one possibility.
	But all of these have the convenient practice of getting you off the hook.
	Absolutely. Right?
	So I'm more around, what was she doing with the, I'm attracted to this guy I'm cuddling with.
	I assume he was much younger than you?
	Yes. Right.
	So why did she do that to you?
	Now she's always devaluing you and so on, but I don't think so.
	And again, I'm not saying I'm right.
	I'm just saying I don't particularly think that that was what was going on.
	I think what was going on was she had a strong suspicion that you only cared about her for her looks.
	So she thought, okay, well, if I behave badly and he still sticks around, then he has a fetish for my face, skin, and body.
	He doesn't care about me as an actual human being.
	So if I behave badly and he continues to stick around, Then he clearly doesn't love me or care about me or he's a really bad judge of character and therefore he's only here out of lust and fantasy, not out of me as an actual person.
	Right. That's interesting.
	And she was right.
	You were not there for her qualities of character.
	You were there for her flesh and her body.
	That's exactly right.
	Okay, so you sinned.
	Yes. Oh, I've sinned three times.
	I got to the bottom of all the sins that I've made here.
	Well, all you're doing is blaming her to me.
	That's what I'm trying to understand.
	Well, I don't know that I completely agree because when you've pointed out to me the aspects that I've done incorrectly, I've agreed 100% with every one of them.
	And then you go very back very quickly to blaming her.
	Yes, I do.
	So, who is more responsible?
	As a human being.
	The guy in his 50s or the woman in her 20s?
	The guy in his 50s.
	Okay. Who is more responsible morally or practically?
	The guy who's been into self-knowledge and wisdom for 15 years or the woman who's never looked backward at her past and worships the woman who half beat her to death?
	Who is more responsible?
	Who has more accountability?
	Who has more authority and choice in the relationship?
	Right. So when you're almost twice her age, you've had 15 years of experience in something she has zero years of experience in.
	Blaming her is pathetic.
	Yes. Do you see what I'm saying?
	I do see what you're saying, but the purpose of my call is to...
	I mean, I know you do this.
	It's to get to the bottom of what I have done wrong here.
	Because I can't control her.
	Sorry, do you not think...
	What do you think I'm doing here?
	Yeah, I appreciate it, but I'm saying I'm not trying to sit here and get you on the bandwagon of let's blame the other person.
	No, you are.
	No, no, no.
	I mean, okay.
	What proportion of self-criticism, like you've said, well, I was really in lust, and yes, but there was love too, and I really cared about her, and I just wanted to help her, and I wanted to get married, and she did these terrible things.
	things, what degree of self-criticism versus criticizing her do you think you've gone through over the last hour?
	I'd say it's 90% her and 10% me.
	I think that's the figure I had in my head.
	Yeah. Right.
	It's 100% you.
	100% me.
	Okay. 100% you because you chose to be there.
	It's like jumping off a cliff and saying, well, it was 50% me but 50% gravity.
	Yep. Okay.
	I can own that.
	She has no free will if she has no self-knowledge.
	She is an NPC.
	If she does not have self-knowledge, she is a mere automaton, a shadow cast by the history of her abuse.
	She has no free will.
	If she has no self-knowledge, is she a Christian?
	Does she have objective moral standards by which she guides her actions?
	Sorry, she's not a Christian?
	Well, she was raised a Catholic, and she certainly, once we got together, started reinvigorating her Christianity, including praying with me and going to church.
	Yeah, so it wasn't, but again, part of the mirroring.
	Sorry, it wasn't part of the mirroring, or it was?
	It was part of the mirroring.
	She suddenly became quite devout Christian by the end of the six months.
	So she gets really interested in everything you're interested in, and blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
	Yes. Okay, did you get equally interested in things that she was interested in, or was it a one-way street?
	No, like I said to you, the four hours of conversation each day were all about her and her stuff.
	No, that's her becoming interested in your approach to self-knowledge.
	What did you get interested in that she had a value to offer you?
	Thank you.
	She didn't really seem to have any interests, Steph.
	Maybe you just talked all the time.
	No. No, not at all.
	She talked most of the time.
	No, but you were guiding the conversation, right?
	Yeah, it had a similar flavor to these conversations we have.
	And I probably took a lot of energy from being in a one-up position to her in those conversations.
	Okay. So, she mirrored you in that she got, quote, into everything that you're into.
	Christianity, self-knowledge, Alice Miller.
	Your desire to watch her shower, that kind of stuff, right?
	Yes. But you didn't get into anything that she was into.
	It's not like I didn't try to figure out what she was into.
	She really wasn't into anything.
	So she didn't have any hobbies or interests?
	She didn't read books?
	She didn't study anything?
	She didn't learn anything?
	She didn't know anything?
	She didn't have anything of value to offer you?
	Just like her career, she was...
	Okay, so she's empty!
	Yes. So what the hell are you doing?
	She's an empty, manipulative loser with no job, no skills, no hobbies, no interests.
	So you were just there for the flesh and watching her shower and being superior.
	Yes. So why would anyone have any sympathy whatsoever?
	You fell prey to the sin of lust.
	Yes, absolutely.
	But let me add one thing to what you're saying there.
	Fine, fine, fine.
	Add away, add away.
	Dilute the message all you want.
	Go ahead.
	Can I make it clear?
	I categorically agree with your message.
	Absolutely. Full stop.
	Okay. I absolutely agree with your message.
	She was an empty shell, etc.
	But when you ask us for why...
	Did you pray a religious man?
	Yes. Devout Christian.
	I know.
	Did you pray to God for guidance with this woman?
	Yes. And what did God say?
	Did he say, well, she's kind of amoral and empty, and she is completely the unprocessed victim of severe childhood trauma, so she's incredibly dangerous because she's going to act out rather than reason?
	Well, even better than that, some of my Bible study group.
	Well, one person in the Bible study group said that, so I was being honest with my Bible study group.
	As for what Jesus said, sadly, God was far away from me during this time, Steph, because I was sinning.
	So I wasn't getting messages from God.
	And so when did you realize that you were sinning?
	Towards the end of the relationship.
	Okay, so I don't understand then.
	I mean, how long have you been a Christian?
	Are you new to Christianity?
	No, no, I was raised as a Catholic, but I've only really had the proper sort of faith that I should have had the last 10 years or so.
	Okay, so raised a Catholic, so your whole life you've known that lust is one of the seven deadly sins, right?
	Absolutely, and I've suffered it my whole life.
	Okay, so you know that you are susceptible to lust.
	Yes. So, you know you need to be on guard.
	Against lust.
	Lust is the mechanism by which the devil gets you to sin, right?
	Yes, and gets me away from God.
	Right. And you've known this for at least a decade, although you were taught about it long before.
	I have, I guess.
	And for the last four and a half years, thankfully, I haven't sinned in that regard physically.
	And it was my intention with this girl that we were going to get married.
	So I sort of felt like that gave me a bit of a...
	Get out of jail, but hey, that's a lie as well, right?
	Well... But if I can just go back to your point earlier, I don't want to lose this thought if I can just throw it back in, Steph, and I don't want to sidetrack this conversation, but one of the reasons I chose an empty person is because I feel I have so little value myself to offer.
	That's... Goes back to the beginning of our conversation about self-play.
	Well, you're like the guy who's got five days experience in chess thinking he's a grandmaster because he's teaching some newbie how to play.
	Yep. Okay, so that's vanity, right?
	That's vanity.
	So you've got lust and vanity.
	Pride. Yes.
	Okay. Yep.
	So that's how you want to add value.
	You want to find a really broken person and feel superior.
	Yes. And you want to find a really empty person so that you can avoid your own emptiness.
	Yes. And you are going to play the victim 90% of the time with me.
	In your 50s, she's in her 20s.
	You exploited her.
	You exploited her.
	And you're crying victim to me.
	It's a sad spectacle, brother.
	It really is.
	You exploited her to avoid loneliness.
	You exploited her to masturbate or to be sexually aroused.
	You exploited her to fantasize.
	You exploited her to feel superior.
	And you're like, but she was mean to me!
	Oh, gosh.
	Yes. And you fell prey to a sin that you've known about as a sin for over 50 years or 45 years or 40 years or whatever, and that you've known specifically as your big issue.
	For many years.
	So you're like a guy who's like, well, you know, I am an alcoholic, and every time I go to a bar, I end up shit-faced.
	Hey, I'm going to a bar, and I'm going back to a bar, and I'm going back to a bar.
	It's like, well, then, you're going to get shit-faced.
	All right, let me ask you this.
	Here's another big red flag.
	Why was she...
	Interested in your old ass?
	Probably for the green card?
	I don't know.
	Why was she interested in you?
	Listen, and I'm not saying there's nothing about it.
	I mean, I'm enjoying the conversation.
	I think it's very productive and helpful.
	You're a very intelligent guy and all of that.
	So I'm not saying there's nothing to be interested in you.
	But what of your virtues and values was she drawn to?
	Well, here again is the self-worth stuff.
	You know, on the surface, I've tried to do everything I can to be as attractive as I can with a lack of true self-worth underneath.
	So, I don't know.
	I like to think I'm attractive.
	Okay, forget the attractiveness stuff, man.
	God, man, you're over 50. Stop being a teenager.
	I'm pretty.
	I have abs.
	Come on, man.
	I know, right?
	Quality of soul.
	Quality of spirit, quality of virtue.
	Well, I don't know that I have a lot to offer because you've even just brought it out now, haven't you?
	Like, here I am taking advantage of someone overseas and I'm making them the victim.
	I mean, that's pretty...
	No, you're making yourself the victim.
	Character straight.
	Okay, so do you feel that you have something of great value to offer a quality, moral, forthright woman?
	I do.
	I do believe I do.
	I do believe I have a lot of love and truth to give to the right woman, yes.
	Okay, you just took me on a complete 180 because you were just telling me about how empty you felt and how you didn't feel like you had much value to offer.
	When I'm being devalued in a relationship like I just came out of, yes, but you just presented to me a good moral woman.
	I believe in such a relationship, I feel valued.
	Oh, okay.
	So let me pretend to be a good moral woman.
	Oh, nice to meet you, Bob.
	Not your real name.
	Nice to meet you, Bob.
	Great. I'm also in my 50s, and tell me a little bit about your life.
	Tell me a little bit about where you met.
	I assume you're not married now.
	Were you married?
	Do you have kids?
	What was your last relationship like?
	Tell me about your life.
	Well, here comes my vanity.
	I'm not very attracted to 50-year-old women, Steph.
	Okay. Fine.
	Let's make her 38. That's fine.
	Okay, so 38, 35, whatever, right?
	35-year-old woman somehow is reaching up through 16 years, right?
	An age difference that could drive a fucking car.
	And she's interested in you.
	And she says, tell me about your life.
	Tell me about, were you married?
	Do you have kids?
	What was your last relationship like?
	And tell me.
	So I've got three beautiful daughters who I love very much.
	They're 20, 19 and 17. I would go on and tell her a bit about those girls.
	And then I'd say the main focus of my life at the moment is building a great business, which I'm very proud of.
	I have 17 people working for me who I try to treat with dignity and respect and as equals so that we have a pretty amazing culture.
	I'm a Christian man.
	I'm involved with the church a lot.
	I do quite a lot of work with the church and there's a lot of stuff I could go on about there that I'm proud of.
	I do come from a messy background in terms of my family.
	I don't really see my family anymore.
	I've done a lot of work to try and improve myself and I want to be a better version of myself.
	I want to know myself and be able to be very loving and kind to a very kind and loving woman.
	Fail. Oh, no.
	Total fail.
	It's not so bad saying that.
	Total fail.
	Yes. Now, why is that?
	Again, this is an intelligent, perceptive woman.
	Why is that a fail?
	Because I'm not really being authentic.
	I'm trying to sell myself.
	No. Specifically, I'm assuming I know nothing about you.
	That is a fail.
	Okay. Do you know why that's a fail?
	I absolutely don't.
	I know it's a fail, but I don't know why.
	Okay. What were the two things?
	That she asked you about.
	About my life and my history?
	No. Were you married?
	And what was your last relationship like?
	And what did you not answer?
	Okay, of course.
	She's going to see that you're evasive as fuck.
	I'm as evasive as hell.
	Yes. So she's going to know that you don't listen and you just go on spiels and you just hope that no one notices and you hope that she's not perceptive.
	And you hope that she doesn't notice that you didn't answer the two absolute questions that she had.
	Yep. Thank you.
	Massive. Like my daughter has just popped out of nowhere.
	It's a miracle.
	Yeah. Okay.
	So was I married?
	No. We were engaged and we never got to the altar despite me wanting to.
	And as for my last relationship, you know what?
	I learned a lot from it.
	I was exploitative of a much younger woman who lived overseas.
	And I really, really want to do better than that.
	Oh, and when did that last relationship end?
	It ended about three months ago.
	Right. And why did your fiancé not want to marry you?
	Well, the truth be told is we got pregnant and each time she didn't want to go down the aisle with a big belly.
	Well, no, but I mean, your daughters are, you know, 17, 19 and whatever, right?
	So, I mean, you had lots of time since then.
	We didn't because our divorce happened in quite a horrible manner when my youngest was only one.
	Sorry, divorce?
	You weren't married, right?
	Well, common-law marriage in Australia, they call it.
	So the legal process was a divorce.
	Right. But, yeah, no, we were not married.
	The breakup happened when the youngest was one.
	There just simply wasn't time in between or after the children were born.
	Okay. And what caused the breakup?
	I would say financial pressures from the fact I was running three businesses concurrently.
	And one of those business partners was an extremely wealthy, well-known family who co-opted her into helping to take away a great vast amount of wealth that was involved in one of the businesses.
	Sorry, you were working three businesses and you had three children under five?
	Yes. Somebody who was a friend of the family stole from the business, is that right?
	They were a business partner and they were aiming to steal from the business.
	I was locked in a court battle with them and she defected to their side and that was the way the breakup happened.
	And why did the mother of your three children defect to the side of someone who was to steal from you?
	Despite an eight-year drawn-out court process and a three-year trial, Three years of appeals, my barrister and lawyers never got to the bottom of that truth, why she did it.
	No, no, but I'm not saying the legal truth, but why would she side with an enemy of yours when she already bore you three children?
	I have absolutely no idea.
	Okay. And you said that the divorce was, or the separation, the divorce was horrible?
	Horrific. One of the worst in our country.
	Really? And what happened?
	And the end result was also a precedent here in that I got 65% and she got 35%.
	She was found to be just a compulsive liar on the stand.
	We never got to the bottom of all what went on, but we did destroy $5.4 million worth of value between us.
	Oh, she's a pathological liar?
	Yeah. Oh gosh, why would you have three children with a pathological liar?
	Because for 11 years I didn't see it.
	The same way in this latest relationship, I don't see it.
	And I can only assume, it's like with my mother, I don't want to see that this person in front of me is not what my fantasy wants them to be.
	So you can't really tell good people from bad people?
	Not females anymore.
	I can tell males now.
	I've done enough work to be able to see males, but not females.
	And then who would leave?
	The woman who was asking you the question.
	Yeah, for sure.
	Why? For sure, and I wouldn't blame her.
	And why would she leave?
	She would just smell the toxicity coming off me, Steph.
	No, it's just like, well, if I can't tell a good person from a bad person, then if you can't tell good people from bad people, and you say women or whatever, right?
	Then anyone who gets involved with you, you're going to be susceptible to the next manipulative woman who comes along.
	She's going to have no protection.
	Some customer, some business partner, some person comes into your life.
	Or, you know, if some woman finds you really desirable and starts manipulating you, then you might just have an affair because you can't tell good women from bad women.
	Well, look, I would disagree with you on that point because I'm an excessively loyal person.
	And that would be a massive sin.
	Okay. So, no.
	I mean, you seem to be stepping over a whole bunch of other sins, but I get that that one's a bit more.
	Oh, no.
	I was ready to enunciate all my other sins, too.
	I know I've sinned.
	Right. Okay, so...
	And I'm...
	And so, even if she hadn't left then, when she found out that you had just got involved with a woman half your age who turned out to be a sadist and the relationship just ended three months ago, she'd be like, this guy's in no state to have a healthy relationship.
	I think she probably will do all that you say, but the hope is the fact that I'm willing to talk about it and be open and honest about it and I'm a work in progress?
	Maybe. No, no.
	It's tough to say work in progress when you're in your sixth decade.
	Right? I hear you.
	I agree.
	See, the problem is that this kind of self-indulgence is going to wipe your future clear of healthy women.
	Because they're going to scan you and be like, good-looking guy, nice guy, he obviously goes to the gym, but, I mean, if he's still getting involved in these ridiculous situations, and blaming the other person, blaming a woman half his age, who'd never went to therapy and was severely abused as a child, and comes from a culture that doesn't value self-knowledge at all, and wasn't even a Christian, my God!
	How wise do you look?
	Very unwise.
	Very unwise.
	If somebody wants to get involved, a quality woman, does she want to get involved with a guy in his 50s who's still making bizarre decisions like a traumatized and horny teenager?
	Well, this is where I'm a little bit saddened by the whole thing, Steph.
	It's clear, listening to your story, you did the work, you went through the therapy, you ended up married, etc.
	I don't seem to be getting to that ceiling point of the therapy and the self-knowledge.
	I seem to be staying here, you know?
	How long were you a weed addict for?
	From the age of 20 to about 34. Right.
	And daily, because I couldn't face that pain of my childhood.
	I couldn't feel those feelings, so really daily.
	You know, every time you say couldn't, you just shrink your free will a little more.
	You chose not to.
	I chose not to.
	If somebody had given you $20 million to put down the weed and go to therapy, would you have said, nope, can't do it.
	It's impossible.
	If somebody gives me $20 million to defy gravity, I can't do it.
	So when you say you couldn't, of course you could.
	I'll tell you something, Steph.
	There were periods and bouts where I did hard work to get off the weed for a couple of weeks.
	And then a situation would happen when I was off that weed where I'd be hurt by my father or whatever.
	And the feelings that would come up would be so intolerable, they would drive me to my dealer's house because I just could not tolerate the feelings.
	Okay. We're right back here then, right?
	Well, okay.
	For $20 million, probably I could have, yes.
	Probably? You would have given up $20 million to not drive to your dealer's house.
	I can't say definitively I wouldn't have, because those feelings were absolutely intolerable.
	I don't know.
	Didn't God help you with the feelings?
	Didn't prayer help you with the feelings?
	I mean, they say that God gives you burdens you can carry, right?
	Yeah, I think I was more in the devil's playground at that time.
	Well, wouldn't, I mean, as a guy raised Christian, wouldn't you have gone to church and prayed to God and taken comfort from the community and the congregation in Jesus' arms?
	I wasn't a proper practicing Christian then.
	I was out sinning and doing drugs.
	I know that, but you knew that you were sinning and you knew that there was a better path.
	I'd say I was in the devil's world at that time, Steph.
	Okay, so you have no free will.
	So then why are you calling me asking for better advice if you just keep claiming, oh, I was infatuated.
	No, I was in love.
	No, I was on drugs.
	No, I couldn't handle the feelings.
	No, I was in the devil's world.
	It's all excuses.
	Yep. Who's in charge of your life?
	Me. So stop making excuses.
	Okay. I will.
	Seriously? Yep.
	Thank you.
	The crazy abused girl was kind of mean.
	The hot girl I chose for her flesh turned out not to be a quality person, and that's bad.
	The girl I'm twice her age, with 15 years of self-knowledge and therapy under my belt, she's the victim of severe, absolutely unprocessed child abuse, and she just took me for a ride.
	That's pathetic.
	Well, I just want to tell you.
	Excuses, don't cut it.
	Not at your age.
	Because excuses are just promises of repetition.
	You want a woman who's in charge of her life and not just blown around like a leaf on the breeze, right?
	So any woman who's in charge of her life does so because she has free will and responsibility, right?
	And if you make excuses, you won't have anything in common with a quality woman.
	Spot on.
	Do you make excuses at work or do you deliver the goods?
	No. I deliver the goods.
	Right. You don't make excuses at work.
	Why not?
	Well, I guess there's no emotional content involved.
	It's quite binary, black and white, mechanical.
	I like that.
	No. The reason you don't make excuses at work is nobody will accept them.
	Yes. Yes.
	Oh, but the reason I didn't get this widget is because this thing from China didn't arrive on time, and then this...
	Right? The ship was laid.
	People are like, I don't care.
	Give me the thing.
	Wouldn't you be rather embarrassed to make excuses in the business world if you consistently fail to deliver?
	Very. I mean, wouldn't you get fired by your customers?
	Well, you're either getting fired by your customers or you're quitting.
	Because you've got a business called love.
	And you keep getting fired or you keep quitting.
	Yeah. And that's because the reason your business life works and your love life doesn't is because you don't accept excuses in the business world but you give yourself endless excuses in the love world.
	Wow. Our life only works anywhere, at any time, for any reason.
	Our life only works the degree to which we don't give ourselves excuses.
	Excuses are what naughty children with cruel parents offer up in appeasement.
	Excuses are a mark of powerlessness.
	The slave who has no control over his work environment has to make excuses.
	Wow. That's spot on.
	You tell me an area in your life where you don't make excuses that is failing.
	Thank you.
	you.
	I think other than the love lost, that's the only one there.
	You do make excuses, right.
	So if you called me up and you said to me, Steph, here's all the ways I fucked up.
	I chose a girl desperately in need of a visa in a foreign country solely based on looks.
	She was incredibly traumatized.
	She had no financial management skills.
	She had no interests, hobbies, or thoughts of her own.
	I fell prey to lust, vanity, pride, gluttony.
	The only reason I was there was to feel superior and get my rocks off and daydream.
	Okay, I can respect that.
	As opposed to, here, Steph, here's an hour of me telling you how bad this woman is how mean she was to me and how she abused me.
	you.
	You're there by choice.
	And you have twice the experience.
	Okay, she was 28, right?
	Okay, so you have almost three times the adulthood.
	And you're the victim?
	I feel pathetic presenting myself as a victim.
	I'm not in choice.
	Okay, so why do you have this victim habit?
	And I'm harsh.
	In a sense, because you don't have much time, right?
	If you were 22, it would be a different matter, right?
	But if you're going to find love, you've got to clean this shit up, like, right away.
	Especially the reason I'm also being strict or harsh or blunt is because you want a woman of childbearing age, which means you have zero time to get, you've got one more shot at this, one more.
	Because any quality woman, let's say you get into your mid-50s, right?
	Is a woman going to want to have kids with your old half decrepit sperm when you're going to be 75 when the kids get to adulthood?
	Only if I'm exceptional in some other ways, like a very virtuous good man.
	You can't unage your sperm.
	No. And sperm quality deteriorates.
	Yes. And energy deteriorates.
	But I'm an older dad.
	Right? Because I became a dad in my early 40s.
	Mid-50s starting now?
	Holy shit!
	Plus, you don't even know.
	You could have some health issue.
	Things start to get fucking dice rolling up in that age, right?
	That's why I really think I should drop that dream.
	Well, I don't know if you should or shouldn't, but if you do want to have another family, you've got one more chance.
	One more shot.
	That's why I'm being kind of harsh at the moment.
	Yeah, no.
	We've got to drop these excuses.
	And look, I rang up for harsh.
	As much as it hurts in the moment, I can take this away and process it over time and get absolute gold out of it.
	So please, thank you for doing that.
	It does kind of hurt.
	I do want to sit in victim and blame others.
	It's true.
	But what you've said is absolutely poignant and I can't get that info any other way.
	So thank you for it.
	So I appreciate that.
	So why do you blame others?
	Why do you blame a woman half your age and make excuses for your own behavior?
	Oh, I'm scared now to say to you, go back in childhood and look at that stuff there.
	No, we can do that.
	That's fine.
	I mean, then we have to ask how it lasted, but go ahead.
	Well, how it lasted, I don't know.
	Isn't that that, what do you call it, the repetition compulsion?
	Isn't that that?
	Well, I don't know.
	I mean, tell me how it started.
	I would assume.
	Well, obviously, having a violent, sadistic, alcoholic father.
	Okay, so one of the thoughts that's been popping into my head a lot lately, which is a little painful, is when I was very, very small, there was an ad here on TV of a mother rubbing Vic's vapor rub on her child's chest when he was sick.
	And that really stuck with me as a very young child for some reason.
	The reason was whenever I was sick as a child, my mother was nowhere to be seen.
	I kind of got this idea that I'm contagious.
	I'm completely unlovable and contagious.
	That's why people don't want to be anywhere near me.
	And that's why I guess when...
	Sorry, it helped me understand.
	So the ad is the mother rubbing Vicks.
	I think I saw the same ad as a kid, right?
	Mother rubbing Vicks vapor rub on the kid.
	And then how does that get to you being contagious?
	Because I fantasized of having a mother do that to me.
	And my mom never did.
	My mom was always...
	Absent whenever we were sick.
	Okay. So who took care of you?
	I think I got it.
	Well, my dad would come in and shove some medicine down my throat, but no one would really care.
	There was no bedside caring.
	Okay. So how does that end up with you being contagious?
	I'm not disagreeing with you.
	I don't follow the...
	I think that's the story I told myself as a child.
	It wasn't, hey, there's something wrong with my mum not wanting to be near her child when they're sick.
	There's something wrong with me.
	Well, there is something wrong with you.
	You're sick.
	Yeah, I'm sick, but I'm contagious.
	That's why no one wants to come near me.
	But not just in the context of being sick in that moment, but in life, in general.
	There's something different about me.
	There's something wrong with me.
	Okay, so your parents neglected you and you think, therefore, you're worthless.
	Yes. Okay, so that must mean, and this is why you fell in with this woman, right?
	Just so you know, this is why you fell in.
	With the South American woman.
	So the only reason that you can feel worthless if your parents neglected you is you still care and value their opinion.
	Or their opinion in the shape of other people like this girl.
	Okay, let's just stay with the parents.
	We're back in the childhood with the parents.
	So, there are people who think I'm a terrible guy, right?
	And if I respected and valued their perspective, then I would say, well, gee, I am a terrible guy and therefore I should change.
	Yes. Okay.
	So, how is it possible, with all the work you've done, and I'm not trying to be critical, I'm just really genuinely trying to understand.
	How is it possible that you still respect your parents' perspective on you when you were a kid?
	I don't know.
	But that's the big question, right?
	Yeah. I mean, there were many people in my family who thought I was crazy and unimportant.
	And so I became super rational and quite important, right?
	I mean, not as a reaction, but just like, you know, what the hell would I want to listen to them for, right?
	That's a big difference between you and I because I always get a sense when you talk about your childhood, even when you were young and little and alone with your mum, you still seem to have had a sense of your own value and that there was something unnatural going on.
	How do your parents have credibility?
	Look, maybe they were hugely successful, like Jose Menendez style, or maybe everybody was propping them up and everybody told you how one...
	Somehow your parents both had and have credibility with you.
	They do.
	Because they were able to present to the outside world the perfect family, the successful business family.
	I even had best friends at 17 when I told them the truth of my family who said, I thought you guys were the perfect family.
	But we were getting feedback from the rest of the world that my dad and my mom were great.
	Okay. So that raises the stakes because then you have to say that my parents are wrong and society can't tell a good guy from a bad guy.
	Yep. Society is full of absolute retards who are totally easy to fool.
	Yes. Yeah?
	Okay. So isn't that a fact, though?
	I think that is a fact.
	Okay, so why would you resist that fact?
	I mean, I get that the stakes, at least my mom didn't have any particular social markings.
	And this is not because I'm better, right?
	It's just my mom didn't have any particular social markings of success.
	And everybody was like, ooh, that's, geez, odd.
	Right? And she, you know, couldn't keep a job, and, you know, the people who came over were all weirdos and drunks, and, you know, she had a guy pull out a gun on her, like, just crazy stuff, right?
	So my mom did not have any particular social markers of success.
	So for me to say, well, her opinion is not particularly important, it's because nobody believed that her opinion was particularly important.
	With regards to your family, again, it's not I'm better or you missed something, it's just that my mom didn't have those social markers, your parents did.
	Which means that you have to say that my parents put forward a lie and everyone believed it to be true in your environment.
	Now, there were people who saw through your parents, I guarantee you.
	I absolutely guarantee you there were people who saw through your parents, but you didn't see them.
	And they distanced themselves.
	Yeah, they'd come over for some dinner party, they'd go out and they'd say, well, that was weird.
	Yeah. I don't know what's going on, but there's something completely false about all of this.
	Like, it was too jovial, it was too over the top.
	So the problem is that your family, it doesn't say anything about society as a whole.
	It says things about the people who hung around your family and how greedy they were for your parents' lies.
	Yes. So then you say, okay, so...
	Right, so you can't tell good women from bad women because society couldn't tell your parents from cruel parents.
	So in order to rescue the social circle, you have to suspend your own judgment, because if you judge both your parents and the entire social circle that hung around and praised your parents and ate their food and drank their wine while you and siblings were getting abused, that's pretty angering, isn't it? That's so angering.
	And it's so amazing you bring it up, because I spoke to my auntie a few months ago, and she said at one point she stormed off as a 16-year-old girl.
	Because of how badly my sister and I were being treated when guests were over.
	But her storming off was not in front of my face.
	I didn't know about it till now.
	Hang on, hang on, hang on.
	So some of the good people who did object, it was unknowns to me.
	Right. So your parents were treating you and your siblings harshly in front of people.
	Well, they would shuffle us off to bed at like 6.30 once the guests arrive sort of thing.
	No, no, no.
	Why did your aunt run out?
	It wasn't because you were shuffled off to bed early.
	That's not...
	It was.
	It was because we were shuffled off to bed and because she was something of an insider, she also saw the main way my dad did it, whereas the guests didn't see that.
	And the main way your dad did it through violence?
	Yeah. Okay.
	All right.
	So... If I were over at a family's house, then what age were you?
	You said, was it your sister or just siblings as a whole?
	One sister.
	She was never physically attacked, though.
	What age were you and your sister when you were sent to bed at 6 or 6.30?
	I'd say I was about 7 and she was about 5. Okay.
	Maybe you're really early risers.
	No, we wanted to be up and be a part of the action.
	We had guests over.
	Okay, so you didn't want to go to bed, and then how were you just sent to bed before the people came over?
	Yeah, I think once they arrived, we were shuffled off, and I think I objected or something.
	My dad sort of screamed at me with gritted teeth with the thought of violence right behind it if I didn't.
	Okay, so people would have heard that, right?
	The guests weren't.
	I think they were at the front door at that moment.
	I can't be specific, but that's the sense I get.
	But wouldn't the guests knew about you and your sister's existence, right?
	Yes. So wouldn't they say, where are the kids?
	No, I think most of the guests who put up with it were getting business advantages from my family, were alcoholics as well.
	So no, I think everyone turned a blind eye.
	Even people who didn't know within the family kind of turned a blind eye.
	My dad was very...
	He was a confrontational man.
	He was 6'5".
	I mean, he has a demon inside of him, Steph.
	Well, that's more free will abandonment, but I get what you're saying.
	Okay. Okay, so it was just a whole shitty clan, right?
	Yeah, a whole shitty clan.
	And there's apparently stories, and my grandmother objected to this, of him actually pulling my pants down in public and spanking me on the bare butt.
	Right. So, there were instances of it happening.
	No, back in the day, though, that wouldn't have been quite as shocking to people.
	Yeah, I guess.
	Okay, so this is just generally trashy people.
	Yes, totally.
	They're drunks, they're sycophants, they're hangers-on, they're people who want business favors, jobs or loans or investment.
	So, yeah, they're just a bunch of sinners, right?
	Yeah, low-loss.
	Oh, no, the sinners think you're worthless.
	Oh no, the bad people think you're worthless.
	So why do the bad people have credibility?
	I don't know.
	It's the same reason, Steph, you said with this girl early on when I saw those red flags while I stuck around.
	Is that because I only believe I'm worth that?
	I don't deserve any better.
	No, but why?
	So people, when you were a kid, right?
	When you were a kid 45 years ago, when you were a kid, almost half a century ago, when you were a kid, people treated you as worthless.
	The question is, why do they still have credibility many decades into your adulthood?
	In a logical sense, they don't, but on another level, yes.
	Well, they do, yeah, on another level.
	But logically, when you say it now, I can say, yeah, that's true.
	But why?
	Why? I don't know.
	Why do I do that?
	Okay. Do you want to know the practical answer?
	Please. So you can sin.
	You give bad people credibility so you can reproduce their sins.
	You know, sin is like a virus.
	Are you contagious?
	Yes! Because you hold the credibility of evildoers high so that you have an excuse to do wrong.
	That's the contagion that you feel.
	I mean, you've inoculated this poor young South American girl against self-knowledge maybe for decades.
	Oh yeah, I remember that guy.
	He was really into therapy and man, he was just weird and controlling and I'm not doing that.
	Thank you.
	Maybe. Or maybe she's still seeing her therapist and maybe she's still going to church.
	What do you think?
	She had a shitty time with a guy who was really into self-knowledge after having no self-knowledge before.
	She destabilized her family relations and she had a shitty time.
	Well, she was having a pretty shitty time before then as well, Steph, so I don't know.
	I don't like to think I didn't have any positive impacts.
	So, who cares what you like to think?
	Yeah. Well, only me.
	Did you raise the credibility of self-knowledge with her?
	For a time, I believe I did.
	Absolutely not.
	Absolutely not.
	Because you're too old.
	So, she's like, oh shit, so if I do self-knowledge for another 25 years, I can be like this guy.
	Yeah. No, seriously.
	You're a guy who's like, here's been my diet and exercise for 25 years.
	I want you to diet and exercise just like me and I'm 400 pounds.
	Yeah. What a mess.
	So, the people who were a shitty crew when you were a kid.
	Thought you were worthless because they were cold and cruel and selfish.
	They did not take pleasure in children because they wanted to drink and grope and maybe sleep around and tell bawdy jokes or whatever, right? And so kids don't help with that.
	Kids don't help with sinners.
	And so you were worthless to cold-hearted people who didn't like children.
	Sure. In the same way that I am worthless or negative to corrupt people who hate virtue.
	I mean, literally, you're a Christian who doesn't understand the story of Jesus.
	I wouldn't take it that far, Steph.
	I would!
	Was Jesus...
	Did people think that Jesus was worthless and bad?
	People hated him, but I don't think they could put an argument he was worthless.
	The guy was healing people.
	No, I don't think they thought he was worthless.
	They were jealous and hated him.
	Okay, they thought he was bad.
	They thought his healing came from the devil.
	Yes. Or were lies, right?
	They thought he was a shelter, a con man, a disruptor, a blasphemer, a heretic, right?
	Yep. So they thought he was terrible.
	Were they right?
	Yes. Absolutely not.
	Right. And people thought you were worthless or bad.
	Were they right?
	No, they're not.
	And that's what I mean to understand the story of Jesus.
	Okay. I understand that.
	The infection is credibility of the evildoers.
	Why would you believe people who hate children?
	You wouldn't.
	About the value of children.
	You wouldn't.
	Right. You can't.
	You go to a 400-pound person who says, I hate salad, and you'd be like, yeah, salad must be really bad for you.
	This person hates them.
	Hate salad.
	I love cheesecake.
	I hate salad.
	Okay, well, I guess cheesecake is good for you and salad is bad for you.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Oh, I was just going to say.
	All that you say is true, but I guess where I'm left after what we went through in this conversation, I think what you're saying is correct, and I'm going to look back over it.
	It brings back again the self-worth stuff.
	I feel like I'm a pretty bad person to do that.
	This is another reason why.
	How old was your father when you were born?
	31. 31. Okay.
	So, by the time your father was your age, you were 20, right?
	Right? How many more bad, and I'm not saying you're the same as your father, obviously, right?
	But how many more bad things can you do and excuse before you are a bad person?
	I don't know.
	It's not an infinity, right?
	Like, there's one cigarette that kills you.
	Yeah. Right?
	Like, you might smoke 100,000 cigarettes.
	There's one cigarette.
	If you quit before then, you're okay.
	You smoke that cigarette, you're dead.
	Right? It's the same thing with sins.
	There's going to be one.
	I don't know when it is.
	There's going to be one where you can't tip back.
	This is another reason why the urgency is important.
	Yeah. Yeah, I've repented my sins.
	I believe I've been able to enunciate them.
	You've given me a couple more new ones here I'll work on, but I'd like to stop from here on.
	Well, so that's why it's important.
	Because here's the thing, right?
	So, I mean, I'm not putting you in this category, but obviously, you know, if somebody came to me and said, you know, well, I abused my kids and I beat my wife and I...
	Buried my dog.
	Whatever, right?
	At some point, it's like, yeah, you can't be good anymore.
	You can't be good anymore.
	And he says, well, I feel worthless.
	And I say, well, that's not enough.
	You should feel self-hatred.
	Worthless is not good enough.
	I don't think self-hatred would help my situation.
	No, no.
	What did I just say?
	You're not in that category.
	Do you remember me saying that?
	Yes. Okay, so please don't get out of this that I'm telling you to adopt self-hatred.
	Please do not get this out of this conversation.
	I'm not getting that.
	Okay, but what I'm saying is that you're not a great sinner, just so you understand, right?
	I mean, you may be a little exploitive with this girl and unwise, and I get all of that, and you didn't pray hard enough, and you didn't recognize that.
	So, you know, these are normal human stumbles, right?
	So I'm not putting you in some demonic category that's not that dramatic, right?
	But what I am saying, though, is that you don't get forever to turn things around.
	And my concern is that if you feel worthless and you won't confront that, and confronting your feelings of worthlessness is confronting the credibility you give to evildoers to define you.
	I get that 100%.
	To define you.
	I need you to get that in your gut and balls.
	Your feeling of worthlessness is only as strong as the credibility you give to evildoers.
	Here's the asterisk, because you're in your sixth decade, right?
	At some point, if you continue to give credibility to the evildoers who defined you as a child, they'll be right!
	If somebody says to me, you'll never run a marathon, and I believe them, into my 60s, well, they're probably right.
	Probably too late.
	You'll never find love and, you know, whatever, right?
	Then if I believe that into my 70s, well, it's true then.
	It becomes true.
	And it hardens.
	Beliefs harden over time, and that's why you have to keep chipping away at them and dislodging them.
	But you have to go right into your heart of hearts and say, why do I still give credibility to evildoers for the definition of me?
	Well, that's the million-dollar question.
	I think it's partly because you are still, Bonded with your parents.
	And also because you don't want to look at the bad choices.
	You want to feel that there's an inevitability to it.
	In the same way, when I asked about your drug addiction, you said, well, I couldn't handle the feelings.
	I couldn't stop.
	I couldn't, right?
	And this whole language says, no, every day you chose.
	And every day you chose.
	I get it.
	Every day you chose to do the drugs.
	It became harder to undo the drugs, but you eventually did, right?
	But it's hard to look back and say, I could have done differently.
	Because if you strip away your choice from when you were younger, how do you have a choice now?
	You've just got more habits and more repetition, right?
	So you've got to give full free will to your parents, take full free will to yourself as an adult, right?
	Not when you're a kid, we don't have free will, right?
	We're just trying to survive whatever shitty or glorious spot.
	Nature chooses to place us, but when it comes to adulthood, and, you know, maybe there's a grace period shortly after your late teens or whatever, but, you know, for 30 years, right, you've had choices.
	And like all of us, you've made some good choices and some bad choices, right?
	So, you know, but they all have been choices.
	Because if you give this sense of inevitability about yourself, then you've just switched drug addiction for sex addiction.
	Well, I couldn't fight the feelings, and so I became a drug addict.
	And I can't fight the lust, so I just pursue these trashy women.
	Right? You're just giving yourself excuses again, right?
	Which really is...
	It's funny because excuses are ways of minimizing our responsibility, but it's also to excuse corruption, to excuse immorality.
	And if you continue...
	To make bad choices and then pretend that they were outside of your control, man.
	I just fell in love.
	I have so much to give.
	She seemed perfect.
	You're actually not just giving yourself excuses.
	You're excusing the judgment of bad people as to who you were as a child.
	You're excusing them.
	Because you're saying, well, they didn't make a choice.
	This was just their habit.
	Because you may have caught this real bug of modern half-feminized Christianity, which is you excuse people who haven't sought repentance, which is completely antithetical to Christianity, as I understand it.
	God does not grant forgiveness to those who don't seek repentance, and I think it would be pretty arrogant to say we can do better than God.
	No, we've got to repent.
	Right. So your parents have not repented, right?
	No, no, they're unrepentant.
	So they have chosen evil with full consciousness of the damage they've done.
	And they are damned, damned, immoral, if not downright evil sinners.
	And if you think that corrupt, downright evil sinners have any validity to define who you are, then you are beyond the grace of God and man.
	They don't.
	Thinking about it right now, talking to you, no, I don't believe they do.
	Yet you're right, something's stuck.
	you.
	I want to flick the switch desperately.
	Right. And that's going to change everything.
	Yeah. Because you're still acting out their script, right?
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Yeah, I am.
	And you're bang on about...
	Like when you did the role play and the lady asked me specific questions, my ears are closed to the questions because I'm so busy ready to make up the story to impress her because of the value stuff.
	Well, and it's because you have to take that commandment seriously.
	Thou shalt not bear false witness.
	So if you said to this South American woman, if you said to her, what would be the most honest thing you could say to her?
	When you first got in contact with her?
	And you went on and learned about her?
	Well, that I'm primarily interested in her youth and beauty and seeing her naked and getting off over that and that I'm valuing that ahead of any of her intrinsic values and virtue, etc.
	To the point that, as I say, there are very few intrinsic values.
	I'm still hanging in there because of the sex stuff.
	And what did you complain to me about Australia?
	Oh, it's just hook-up culture down here.
	Yeah. Well, that's what you were doing.
	Well, yes.
	I'm stuck for trying to rock in a hard place, am I?
	Because I don't want to sin by having sex with people I'm not intending to marry.
	Okay, how about in your sixth decade, after listening to philosophy for ten years, you just tell the truth to people?
	Stop lying.
	Stop manipulating.
	Stop trying to control.
	Stop, well, I'm going to bring this woman along and when she's fixed, we'll get married.
	To just be honest with people, you did not find her interesting except as a project and a fantasy.
	She herself, of her own accord, and we can have sympathy for her childhood, absolutely, but she's also 10 years past being a kid.
	She was, as far as personal moral qualities go, terrible.
	Can you tell me specifically what you think there?
	It's not what I think.
	It's what you told me.
	She lied.
	She was cruel.
	She was manipulative.
	She was false.
	Right? So these are terrible qualities.
	Yeah. Yeah.
	Right? So you lied to her.
	She lied to you.
	I did lie to her.
	And it's easier to see the lie with your help over the last hour and a half.
	I see it now and we can articulate it and distill it.
	But at the beginning of this conversation, could I say that lie or was I trying to make myself innocent?
	Are you asking me to try and divine your unconscious motives from two hours ago?
	I don't know.
	You'll have to tell yourself that.
	I can't pick apart those complexities.
	No, I agree.
	But I guess what I'm saying is next time I'm in this situation, I really pray that I get to see distilled my truth to articulate it.
	You knew.
	You absolutely knew.
	That this woman was hot.
	You also know that hot women are kryptonite to men's integrity.
	And you also knew, as soon as she started talking about her childhood, that she was a severely damaged and dangerous person.
	That you knew.
	Wow. Right?
	You knew that.
	I think you're right.
	You absolutely knew this.
	You can't claim to not know after this amount of time in therapy and philosophy.
	So you knew all of that, and you just chose to ignore it.
	That's a choice.
	You chose to ignore it, and you chose to plow on.
	Because you were greedy.
	Yes. Great.
	Geez, we're covering a lot of sins today.
	I think I've got about seven of the ten.
	Well, but that's good news.
	No, because if things were fucking up and you weren't sinning, life wouldn't make any sense at all, right?
	No. No, you're right.
	That's a positive spin on it.
	You're right.
	No, it's like all these people who say, no, no, no, I only eat 1,500 calories a day and I'm still gaining weight.
	There's this show where they follow them around.
	It's like, no, it's a cozy 4,000 calories when you actually add it all up.
	Yeah. It's great news.
	Because if you're gaining weight at 1,500 calories a day, there's something seriously wrong with your body, right?
	So it's great news if you're overeating.
	And the fact that, as a Christian, if things aren't working and you're violating a bunch of commandments and you're sinning, that's great news because it means you know how to fix it.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Just be honest.
	We can add greed and pride there because I was also prideful wanting to bring back a hot 28-year-old to show everyone, hey, look at my value.
	Right. So here's a Penelope of Sinzi.
	Right. And you have less excuse than she does because you have more maturity and wisdom.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	I was going to say, as much as it hurts to have the truth pulled out like this and my self-delusion and my innocence exposed to the community, man, the truth sets you free.
	I've got stuff to work with now.
	I can repent all this stuff and own all this stuff, and it will be harder to do it again blindly.
	Knowing what I know now after this conversation.
	Listen, brother, we're all fighting this.
	I am not immune to this.
	I'm down here in the trenches with you.
	We are all fighting self-delusion.
	It's always so tempting to lie to ourselves rather than look at our dark side.
	I face it, you face it.
	So please, I'm not trying to be in any way superior.
	I completely guarantee you with that.
	No, you're not.
	Yeah, just so you know, I'm not like, oh, I can't believe you lied to yourself.
	It's like, hello?
	Half my day is like, no, that's bullshit.
	No, that's a lie.
	No, that's false.
	We're just trying to stray on the straight and narrow.
	So that's a human issue that the devil is, what is he called?
	The father of?
	Father of lies.
	Father of lies.
	And the devil will get you to lie to yourself.
	Oh, it's not that she's hot.
	I think she's got real potential.
	Oh, yeah.
	Right? No, no, it's just that the devil would get you to lie to yourself, and from there, right, oh, I couldn't have stopped drugs in the past.
	Of course you could have.
	Like, don't take that away from yourself.
	Don't say that you spent 15 years of your life with no God-given free will.
	And don't try to impose or inflict salvation on people.
	It's got to come from them.
	You can give them some tools, but right.
	As opposed to, I'm going to drag this woman for four hours a day through some psychobabble thing where I haven't even healed myself in some areas.
	Right. That's like, no, no, don't, don't do that.
	Don't, don't try and do this massive repair job so you can parade her around as arm candy.
	Yes, that's what I was doing.
	Right. And again, we've all been there.
	It's still something that every human being, if they're honest with themselves, recognize in your struggle the common human struggle.
	And plus, we're also surrounded by liars as a whole, right?
	I mean, the media, we've got advertising, we've got schools, propaganda, everywhere you look.
	So it's a common human issue, and we're all in the same trench, struggling with the master of lies.
	And he definitely got me to sin here, and I've got to own it.
	I chose it.
	I wanted to do it, so there's more repenting to do.
	I tell you, I really felt God withdraw this time and let me sit in this.
	Yep. Well, that's also good news.
	Then just go back to him and tell the truth.
	Your ship will go in the right direction.
	Sounds very, very positive, Steph.
	I thank you.
	As much as it's hard to sit on the gorilla, I did need it.
	I did need it.
	The real pain, brother, is yet to come.
	You want to know what the real pain is?
	Please. I'll tell you.
	Sorry, it is going to be kind of funny, so don't take it too seriously.
	No, the real pain is when you listen back to the first half of this conversation.
	That's when your real pain is going to kick in.
	That's going to be excruciating.
	Yes, it will be, and it bloody well should be.
	Trying to sell you on the poor, mate.
	Oh, please.
	Oh, the victimized guy in his sixth decade with the 28-year-old abused woman.
	Yeah, yeah, please.
	You're going to have to listen to this.
	Grit your teeth, get through it.
	It's helpful.
	Horrible. Will you keep me posted about how things are going?
	I certainly will.
	And how do I get a recording of this, or it will just go on your...
	You can just download the one from Skype here, but I'll put a better one out that's locally recorded for the actual show.
	Oh, you're the best, Steph.
	I really appreciate your time.
	Thank you for all you do.
	Nice to chat again, and we'll check in in four years.
	Okay, we'll talk then.
	Thanks heaps, Steph.
	God bless.

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