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Aug. 13, 2025 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:37:29

SHOULD I FLEE MY MARRIAGE? CALL IN SHOW

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	Hi, Steph.
	I would like to do a call in and see if you could help me work through staying married or getting divorced.
	I got married 11 years ago and it felt alone the last six or seven.
	We dated about a year.
	For the most part, the dating period went well.
	She was easy to get along with.
	The red flags during dating on a trip was cut short because she said her said my friends who had not seen in years said I was cheating on her.
	It would have been totally out of character for them to just say that.
	So I did not believe her.
	I was not and have not cheated on her.
	We were also both divorced, which is another red flag.
	After getting married, we had a kid together, which went into postpartum depression for her about a year.
	During that time, I spent a lot of time with the kid who basically became my only friend.
	I spent a lot of time taking care of her.
	A lot of nights, I would not even eat.
	I would just play with her.
	Lost about 30 pounds.
	I cut off myself from most of my local friends and rarely spoke to my friends who were not local.
	I had moved several years earlier for work.
	Then COVID hit, and we were on the opposite sides.
	Her father, who was in another country, died from being exposed to a caregiver who was not vaxed, which I am not.
	He was not in good health to begin with, but she blamed the unvaxxed, which was me.
	At this point, I have not, I have had been living downstairs, and we had quit having sex for a year.
	During this time, I tried repurposing or reproposing to her, thinking that it would bring down the wall between us.
	Her reply was: the heart wants what the heart wants.
	So that did not work.
	Months later, I moved back into the bedroom.
	My daughter was still in our bed, which she uses as a shield from me.
	My wife said she did not approve, and I replied I did not want what was going on, and she could leave if she did not like it.
	Recently, they moved to another bedroom because I said we were harming our daughter by not making her sleep in her own room.
	She is nine.
	Our problems that have come up, my wife had a wreck before we met and now does not want to ride at the front seat.
	She would ride up front before COVID.
	I do not want to be a chauffeur and feel it is disrespectful and antisocial.
	I am a cautious driver.
	She is also a big seatbelt advocate and constantly tells me to put on the seatbelt.
	My daughter picked up on it and for years scolded me on it.
	One day after my daughter was screaming seatbelt, as soon as we got in the car, I told her I would no longer wear it, which broke my relationship with her.
	I have started wearing it again, but the relationship is still not where it was.
	Also, during that time, my wife would start fights with me angry in front of the to get me angry in front of the child and further degraded my relationship with my daughter.
	I would not yell, but did raise my voice.
	I did not like arguing in front of the child, which was what made me angry.
	Then I realized what was going on, but only after damaging the relationship, and I stopped.
	Another stupid argument we got into was asking her to put down the recliner portion of the couch.
	When she got up, she refused, saying it was too hard.
	I went and bought an electric couch, which she still does not recline.
	End of the year, I filled out divorce papers.
	My daughter found them and brought to my wife.
	I really do not want a divorce, but thought she would realize things had to improve.
	Shortly after, my wife got a DUI with my daughter and another girl in the car.
	I stuck around after to make sure my daughter was taken care of and possibly fix things.
	Since then, I try to come up with things to do on the weekend, but they do not want to.
	My daughter is on her iPad all day, and my wife watches four movies and cooking shows in front of in the front room away from me.
	So I go for a drive just to get out of the house during the week.
	I ask to do things when the answer is no.
	I go hit golf balls and go to a park just to stay away, which I find depressing.
	We tried marriage counseling.
	She quit both attempts because the blame did not fall on me.
	I tried a marriage coach at the beginning of the year, and he was having me work on work on me, which worked for about a month, and then we fell back into the same patterns.
	I'm not sure what I am asking, but want to feel like I've tried everything I could before giving up.
	Maybe I already have.
	I read the statistics on daughters and unrelated men in the house and do not want my daughter.
	But I feel that risk is less than seeing her dad run over and depressed.
	I'm 54 and in good shape, so it could start over.
	But owe it to my daughter to do what I can.
	The relationship has been damaged enough that I'm not sure how much she would want to see me and have been so undercut by my wife that there's no real say in the house.
	Love your colins and was hoping I could see what I'm missing.
	Again, I'm really, really sorry to hear this.
	It's very, very tough, very tough situation.
	So before we get to the marriage stuff, tell me a little bit about your parents' relationship, your life as a child, and so on.
	My parents are still married.
	They fight a little bit, but not crazy.
	I guess my dad kind of not bullies her, but he gets aggravated with her every now and then, and that comes across, and she does the same.
	It wasn't like bad, bad, but there was a little bit of that.
	I know you're big on spanking.
	I mean, I was spanked as a kid, but it wasn't like beatings or anything.
	It was random, or it wasn't random.
	It was rare.
	It was more of the threat that was there.
	I have two brothers.
	One died in a car wreck in high school, and the other one's younger than me.
	We were brothers, so we fought all the time, really.
	And it was pretty much the older brother and the younger brother fighting me because the younger brother's going to decide with who's going to win.
	I don't know.
	Anything further you want on that or need?
	How old were you when you met your wife?
	So it was 12 years ago, so I was 54 now, so 42.
	Okay.
	Tell me a little bit about the, I don't know, 20, 20 plus years of dating prior to meeting your wife.
	So I don't know.
	During high school, not in a lot of dating in college.
	We would go out.
	I pretty much was very promiscuous.
	After college, even through my 20s, I was pretty much dating a lot.
	Got married in my 30s.
	That did not work out.
	And started dating again and wasn't, you know, I'm a little older, so not dating as much, but still dating a fair amount.
	Okay.
	Tell me a bit about your first marriage.
	So we were, we dated for a little while.
	She said she was pregnant.
	So I proposed.
	Turns out either she had a miscarriage or she wasn't pregnant.
	I don't know which.
	Found out before we got married, but I don't know.
	I thought I was a nice guy and could, you know, deal with whatever.
	And uh, turns out I could not.
	It was a lot of uh accusations and jealousy on her part, and uh she'd been married several times before, so um, she was dealing with a lot of trauma that was not processed.
	And were there red flags with your first wife sort of looking back when you met?
	Oh, yeah.
	Oh, there was a ton of red flags.
	Uh, I mean, she was beautiful, and uh, she could uh, uh, you know, I guess you've ever heard, I guess, the more beautiful, the crazier.
	It was, she was definitely, uh, um, definitely some red flags.
	Uh, we'd go on trips, or we went on a one of the first trips we went on.
	Uh, she accused me of looking at some other girl that was in the uh on the on the trip with not with us, but there, and uh, I wasn't, uh, but you know, it still escalated into a huge fight.
	How quickly did things escalate from there?
	Um, so we dated uh, probably seven to eight months, and then uh, then the pregnancy thing happens, and then we got married, I don't know, probably four months after that.
	So it was, it was fairly quick.
	Um, sorry, was it was it on the honeymoon that she thought you were looking at, or was it just the first vacation that she thought you were looking at other girls?
	It was both, both, okay, it was both, yeah.
	So, there's a kind of jealousy thing going on, right?
	For both of you, yeah, it was uh, yeah, uh, the my first wife, yeah, the my current wife, she's not really that jealous, I guess.
	But because of my first wife, I'm very conscious about it.
	So, I, you know, like, I don't go out of my way to talk to any women.
	I try not to, you know, when I'm playing with my daughter, I give the phone numbers that I get to her so she can set up play dates and that kind of thing, right?
	Okay, got it.
	And what's your rough body count?
	It's fairly significant.
	Um, at least 50, probably.
	And with regards to the women that you slept with, do you think that most of the women wanted to have a relationship with you, or was that kind of mutually understood one night standstone?
	Yeah, I never let anybody home.
	I mean, it was always kind of mutual.
	Okay.
	And a lot of it was, you know, in college, you're out drinking and stuff like that.
	And yeah, so there was, there was no attempt to lead anybody home.
	Okay.
	Tell me a little bit about your history with drinking.
	In college, I didn't really drink that much in high school.
	So get to college and drank pretty significantly.
	Did pretty much up until probably got probably getting married.
	I probably was, you know, probably, I was definitely more than average.
	But really kind of cut it off, I guess, about the time I started dating and getting married this last time.
	Okay.
	And how close are you to your parents?
	I try and talk to them once a week.
	You know, it's mostly service level stuff, but they are there supporting me.
	And they, you know, it is a good relationship.
	Okay.
	And how's your brother doing?
	He's doing pretty good.
	He's, I don't know, he's been married.
	He got married shortly after college, and he's stuck with his wife pretty much the whole time.
	Where do you think your promiscuity comes from?
	I don't really know.
	I think it's bored out of boredom and loneliness.
	Something to do is kind of what the group that I was hanging around.
	That's what we did.
	Did you have any early exposure to pornography?
	Not really.
	When I was a kid, it wasn't like it is now where you can go look, you know, you'd have to go buy dirty magazines and stuff like that, which I never really did.
	I mean, maybe I saw it once or twice, but nothing crazy.
	Did your parents talk to you about romance, dating, relationship, sexuality?
	I'm just trying to sort of figure out because it's almost like the default position is promiscuity for men, if you can get away with it.
	But are your parents religious?
	Did they teach you anything about sexual restraint or pair bonding or anything like that?
	They are religious more so now than when we were kids.
	The talk that I did have with my dad was after I was in college, and it was basically, you know, where kids come from, don't have one.
	That's it?
	That was pretty much the discussion: yeah, no, no, don't, don't, don't have an out-of-wedlock kid.
	Okay.
	And when did you first start dating?
	I dated a couple of girls in high school.
	So I was probably 16, 17, somewhere around in there.
	Okay.
	And it was surface level dating.
	It was, you know, go here, do stuff.
	And that was about it.
	Yeah.
	Did your parents talk to you about dating and how to have a relationship or what to look for or how to make it last or how to resolve conflicts?
	Or did they give you any kind of training on that?
	No.
	No, we never really talked about that.
	I mean, what kind of Christians are they?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	They definitely could have done better as far as that goes.
	Did better.
	They did virtually nothing.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	There was.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	There was really nothing.
	Yeah.
	There was no guidance as far as dating or anything.
	Yeah, just sorry, I'm not sure if you've done your thought.
	Yeah, yeah, I mean, I just didn't know where to go.
	I mean, what do you think of that?
	I definitely would not do it with my daughter, but I just think that's the way things were back then.
	No, no, no, that's not it.
	Now, Christians have been teaching their children about romantic and sexual morality since Jesus'time.
	Um...
	Thank you.
	Maybe it was uncomfortable.
	Um...
	Thank you.
	Yeah, I'm struggling for why, but I can't think of what it is.
	Do you know if they talk to your brother about it?
	I guess you wouldn't know if they've had private conversations.
	Did he ever mention anything like that?
	No, I'm pretty sure they didn't.
	It was pretty much the same, him and me, I assume.
	Okay.
	But your parents did spank, right?
	Yes, yes.
	But it wasn't, it was, it was rare, maybe a couple times.
	But it was, there was threats of, you know, watching your dad gets home, that kind of stuff.
	And so, for what kind of behavior would you get punished or threatened?
	I do remember me and my brothers fighting in a car and kicking the emergency brake or the gear shifter, and we rolled down a hill and wrecked it.
	And so they blamed it on me.
	I'm not real sure I did it, but you know, it was so long ago.
	but I did get spanked for that.
	That was the one, I guess, the specific spanking that I can remember.
	Okay, but what about other kinds of punishments or maybe for verbal discipline or something, something like that?
	They would, you know, you can tell by my accent, I'm from the South, so it was very yes, ma'am, no, ma'am, that kind of talk.
	You mean like being polite and respectful?
	Yeah, yeah, being very polite, very respectful.
	guess, uh, whenever they would, uh, you know, whenever the adults are talking, the kids should be quite quiet.
	Uh, um, but But there was a, it was mostly if things got out of hand, it was wait till your dad gets home and, you know, he'll straighten it out.
	Usually, though, we were, you know, the problems would be me and my brothers would fight.
	So it was mostly just trying to get us apart more than them yelling at us.
	You know, just, y'all got to, you know, stop.
	That kind of stuff.
	Okay.
	And how often would your parents get upset with your behavior, say, in a given week or month?
	It was probably every couple months something would go.
	So it wasn't often.
	We were, you know, we were pretty well-behaved kids.
	And so there was no, it wasn't a lot of, a lot of times, a lot of problems.
	It was probably once every couple months.
	So maybe three or four times a year, your parents would correct you on something that I remember that was significant enough to where I would remember, you know, remember it.
	I don't remember like a lot of the corrections.
	I don't know.
	I mean, it just seems like, you know, if it wasn't something catastrophic, I don't remember it a lot of times.
	Oh, of course.
	I mean, I'm not asking you to remember things that you don't remember, but I mean, you're a dad, right?
	I mean, do you think that that level of course correction for your children is good?
	If she was fighting with somebody, I can see kind of not yelling, but, you know, I got to stop her and pull her off and that kind of stuff.
	Um, I, I, I, I, I, I, I don't know.
	I don't spank my kid.
	Never have.
	I don't even really.
	I'm probably a little closer to more being a friend than a dad, to tell you the truth.
	So it's not great that I would get corrected, but I don't know what else they would have done to tell you the truth with three of us.
	And if we're fighting all the time.
	So, Jeff, tell me a bit about the fights.
	What would you guys fight about?
	Just, you know, your kids, you're going to fight or boys would.
	You know, he stole this.
	I stole that.
	You're not really stealing anything.
	You know, they misplaced or you misplaced it.
	And, you know, you use that as an excuse to do it.
	I don't, there was no common theme behind any of the fights.
	It was mostly my older brother, he was a little kind of causing problems a little bit.
	So he and my younger brother, they would start fights with me.
	I don't know.
	Well, I do remember we were walking, or I was picking up Lego sticks, and one of them was broke.
	And he tripped me.
	Just, you know, just tripping and it went into my eye.
	no real permanent damage, but, um, definitely, he, he got whipped pretty good for that one.
	Um, uh, uh, uh, uh, And yeah, I don't, that's one of the fights that I, I did, I wasn't really a fight.
	It was more of a, you know, push, push you down or trip you up and kind of thing.
	And what I'm sorry to dig this up, but what's what happened with your brother who died in the cockroach?
	He'd not been driving very long and he swerved around a car and then when he came back into the other lane, his tire went off the side of the road.
	I guess it kind of fell and jolted him a little bit.
	So he swerved back into an oncoming truck.
	Oh, gosh.
	Okay.
	And he was killed instantly?
	The guy riding with him was killed instantly.
	I think he lived for, I don't know, maybe an hour or two after that.
	I'm sorry about that.
	It's very tough.
	All right.
	Now, do you believe that it's kind of inevitable that siblings are going to fight in this kind of way?
	Um, I don't know.
	I just assume that's what boys do.
	I never really give it much thought since I've got a girl and she's that's the last thing she'll ever do.
	Yeah, it's not inevitable that boys end up fighting in this kind of way.
	I know families where there's like three boys and a sister and the boys all get along.
	They don't fight.
	They support each other.
	They help each other.
	They teach each other chess and help each other on playgrounds.
	And it's not inevitable.
	And how close would you say you were with your parents growing up?
	Pretty close, I guess.
	My dad was a coach.
	So, you know, we played a lot of sports and he was always the coach.
	So, and we had a lake house.
	So we, every weekend, we'd all go to the lake.
	So we were fairly tight-knit, I think.
	So you could go to your dad if you had sort of personal problems, problems at school, bullying, or anything like that?
	I don't remember ever doing it.
	But if somebody was bullying me, the reply or somebody ever hit me with the reply would have been, you know, hit them back.
	Right.
	how did your parents relate to you and your brother's fighting all the time?
	Um, yeah, Thank you.
	They just tried to calm us down.
	And I don't remember ever, you know, anything ever coming of it.
	You know, it was basically get us separated and calm us down.
	And I don't, I don't remember, you know, they probably did say, you know, y'all shouldn't be fighting.
	You know, when we go out to places, you know, you'd always get the out in public.
	Y'all better not be doing this kind of stuff.
	You know, get those kind of warnings.
	But as far as how to stop them or anything like that, it was, you know, just in the fight that we were in.
	And I, and, you know, just wait for the next one, I guess.
	I, I don't, you know, I don't know what their plan was besides that.
	Right.
	Okay.
	And would you say that your parents displayed any particular skills with regards to parenting?
	They were loving.
	At least I think they were.
	They were always, you know, they were there as far as not having to worry about them.
	I think they're, you know, they provided good examples, I guess, as far as maybe outside of that portion of the parody.
	I think they were good people.
	I'm not real sure past that, though, I guess.
	Well, I mean, we have to be kind of rigorous.
	What do you mean by good people?
	I'm not saying they weren't.
	I just want to know what your definition is.
	They held good jobs.
	If they said they were going to do something, they would do it.
	They helped other people, I guess.
	They were well-liked.
	I don't know.
	My dad was a coach, so he was kind of a role model, probably for a lot of kids.
	I guess I said it.
	And your mom?
	She was a school teacher.
	She was always very a little probably overprotective of me.
	I guess.
	She was, yeah, she was, you know, had a lot of friends.
	People liked her.
	I'm not sure, you know, what else.
	Okay.
	So where did you get your sense of dating or relationship or sexual morality from?
	I mean, did you think about that or were you just like half drunk and looking for opportunities to have sex?
	Yeah, just half drunk looking for opportunities.
	I don't, you know, nobody ever really modeled it for me.
	You know, it was get to college.
	But your parents did decide, right?
	I mean, they were monogamous and stayed together.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	I mean, yeah, they definitely modeled better behavior than what I did, 100%.
	Okay, so where was the gap?
	Where did that gap come from?
	I think it was just going to college and seeing what was out there.
	I was, I don't know, when I guess in high school, you know, I'm living under their roof, so I'm not really going out and doing anything crazy.
	So there was a lot less opportunities to date.
	Right.
	Okay.
	Do you think that your dating strategy was it?
	I mean, you got married.
	Sorry, how old were you when you married your first wife?
	I was 30, probably 32, 33, somewhere around in there.
	Okay, so it was a good like 15 years or whatever since you started dating.
	And what was your longest relationship prior to that?
	Probably about a year.
	I know at the end of college, I dated that girl for probably about a year.
	So, yeah, probably a year.
	And who was this?
	Give me the characteristics of the sanest woman you dated, the most mature and the most wise.
	Probably the girl that was coming out of college.
	She was fairly calm.
	She really didn't go out and do much.
	She, I don't know, she was...
	She was pretty smart.
	And she was attractive.
	She got along with me for the most part.
	And yeah, I guess that was her characteristics.
	Okay.
	And what happened with that relationship?
	We went on a trip and she kind of became clingy, but kind of naggy.
	And I was, I just didn't wasn't willing to put up with it.
	Naggy about what?
	Nagy about what?
	I don't.
	So it was like a party we were going to, and she didn't want to hang around with some of the people.
	And it just created a lot of drama that I didn't think needed to be there.
	And so after that trip, we never spoke to each other again.
	And did you break up at the end of the trip or shortly thereafter?
	It was pretty much evident during the trip that it was over, but we had to drive home.
	So it was a long drive home.
	Yeah, I bet.
	I bet.
	Hmm.
	Okay.
	And how much did your parents know about your dating life, your dating history, your promiscuity, and so on?
	Not really at all.
	I kind of kept all that stuff away from them.
	I don't know.
	I never wanted to let them down.
	So I would not tell them about any of that stuff.
	They didn't even really meet my first wife until we proposed.
	And I guess we're going out there to get married because they wanted a formal wedding.
	So they kind of planned it and we went up there.
	So they did it even better before that.
	So did your parents ask you about your dating in your teens and 20s and early 30s?
	No, they never did.
	Come on, man.
	Say this like, what are you talking?
	Does this seem totally normal to you?
	Am I just adding on them here?
	Well, I felt like I should keep it from them too, to tell you the truth.
	I don't know why, but I don't know.
	If you know a girl's not going to be around, I would never bring her up or anything like that because, you know, she's not going to be around.
	Okay.
	You say you have a good relationship with your parents.
	I'm not going to disagree with that.
	But if you have a good relationship, say with your daughter, could you imagine her sailing into her 30s and you have no idea who she's dating?
	Yeah, that would be a problem for me.
	Yeah.
	So help me understand the difference here.
	I'm a guy, I guess.
	So less chance of coming home with a pregnancy that you'd have to deal with.
	I mean, you still would, but not to the extent.
	But there is no difference.
	Yeah, there is no big difference.
	Probably should have had more talks about it with them.
	Well, they should ask, right?
	It's their job.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, it should have.
	Okay.
	And what about your working life in your 20s?
	So after college, I got a job.
	I was basically driving a forklift at a place.
	And I don't know.
	I wasn't making great money, but I was, you know, my lifestyle didn't require a lot.
	And I had a couple people living with me.
	So money was really no problem.
	After that, I went to another company in another city, basically to be closer to friends.
	And then They laid me off from that job and that went to Mexico.
	And then from there, my buddy, another buddy of mine was starting up a company and I went to work for him in Florida or in another state.
	And we did that for a year or two.
	And money was not great, but there was a lot of potential that fell through when the market, the housing market crashed in 08.
	Right, right.
	Okay.
	And how's your career gone since then?
	Since then, so I got a job while I was there, like a W-2 job.
	And money was okay.
	It was not great.
	They got bought by a company in another state.
	And I could have stayed where I was at and been okay, but I figured I needed a change or I would just keep doing what I was doing, you know, which was going out and not really having any future plans.
	So I came out and that company stayed with them for about nine years.
	And then they laid me off and went to Mexico.
	And then I've had a couple of jobs since then.
	And the last one I'm in, I'm making pretty good money.
	And I've been here probably six, seven years, six years, probably.
	Yeah.
	So tell me a little bit about this seatbelt thing.
	That's interesting.
	That would be sort of a foundational crack in your relationship with your daughter.
	Yeah.
	So I guess I don't really like wearing a seatbelt.
	And I really care, but I don't like being told, you know, you have to wear your seatbelt.
	And it only really got annoying when every time I'd get in the car, my daughter would scream, seatbelt.
	And so then I would put it on for a while.
	And, you know, this went on for years where my wife would say it, and then my daughter picked it up.
	And then, so now every time I get a car, she's screaming seatbelt.
	And I just one day I just had enough of it.
	And I'm like, I'm done with this.
	more.
	You would have, I guess, I could have handled it better 100%.
	And I guess on another level, so months later, one of her friends was in there and, you know, said something about me wearing my seatbelt.
	And I told my daughter, you got to quit talking about this.
	This is done.
	And then that girl, who had been her friend for several years, has not really been back since then.
	So was it me?
	Probably.
	But I, you know, I don't know.
	I mean, it sounds, I'm trying to understand the transition between you're very close with your daughter early on when your wife was going through the postpartum and you're sort of up all night with your daughter when you lost the 30 pounds and so on.
	So how did things drift so much?
	So that was a thing that did it.
	Also, my wife would start kind of picking fights with me.
	I think she had probably contacted a lawyer.
	I know she had contacted a lawyer, but I don't remember whether she was picking fights before or after.
	And I don't want to argue in front of my kid.
	And it aggravates me that I had to argue in front of my kid.
	So I get agitated.
	I wouldn't yell, but I would raise my voice a little bit.
	And I think that scared my daughter too.
	And I guess when we were during COVID, when there were problems, I'd go downstairs for weeks at a time because there's a COVID scare.
	I'm not feeling well.
	I'll go down and hide out in the basement for a couple of weeks.
	So I kind of lost touch that way.
	And then there was a year basically where I was just sleeping in the basement, which further distanced me from my daughter.
	And there was some depression at one point where I was going to bed at five o'clock because, you know, what's the point?
	Now probably, that was probably another six months.
	So I think all those things combined, kind of killed the relationship.
	You killed the relationship.
	So give me those steps.
	Well, not killed it, but reduced it to where.
	And also, I think she's getting older.
	So, you know, I'm like, hey, let's go, let's go to the park.
	And unless one of her friends is there, she doesn't want to go.
	And I guess I'm not, you know, when we were younger, I would play with her, you know, and as she gets older, I kind of let her play with the other kids and kind of step back.
	And I think she still kind of wants somebody to play with her at times.
	So I think that not having another friend there kills her desire to go out and do other things, which leaves me kind of out in the cold and her just sitting on the on the couch with her iPad.
	Right.
	And what's her relationship like with her mother?
	So her mother sits in there with her and they're, I mean, basically the, I don't know, the pendulum has swung for me kind of being and, you know, doing everything for the kids.
	Now the mother does everything for the kid and kind of they hide out in the front room and, you know, she watches TV and my daughter plays on the iPad.
	And I'm just sitting there going, this is not healthy.
	And I leave because, you know, I don't see the point in being there.
	Right.
	Okay.
	And has she become, I mean, more aligned with her mother?
	Because it sounds like her mother is like yelling at you about the seatbelts and then your daughter's yelling at you about the seatbelts.
	Are they kind of aligning that way in their perspective of you?
	Yeah, they're both or they're both together and it's me kind of on the outside looking in.
	And when did that most begin to change?
	Uh...
	Thank you.
	It's probably about three, three years ago.
	I'm guessing, I'm guessing during the COVID time, probably when I was downstairs.
	So I, you know, I disappeared for a good year, just kind of staying away from them.
	Because, you know, I don't know.
	I would say good morning, good, and good night, but I would pretty much leave because I'm just kind of there all alone, not really doing anything.
	So it was probably about four years ago, and it's just kind of one little thing kind of after another.
	Nothing big, nothing major, just steady degradation.
	Right.
	So tell me a little bit about this, this COVID thing and your wife's perspective on this.
	I assume she got vaccinated, your daughter maybe, and you didn't.
	So how did the COVID stuff ripple through your household?
	So she was very pro or very scared of it, which at first I was a little scared of it too.
	And I listened to a lot of conspiracy people and they were very thinking it was a scam.
	Well, at first they thought that the, you know, the Chinese were coming to kill us all.
	And then it turned into it was a scam.
	And that's kind of where I fell on it because they had a bunch of doctors come in and talk about it.
	And so I was very much anti just about everything COVID.
	I wouldn't wear a mask.
	I wouldn't, I didn't get vaccinated.
	We also didn't go anywhere during this time, so because I would not wear a mask.
	She never said she got vaccinated, but I can almost guarantee she did.
	She also got diabetes about that time.
	Result of it, I don't know because I don't know the, you know, the timing just seems suspicious to me.
	Her father got COVID, and I guess he was in really bad health to begin with.
	So, you know, any cold to kill you basically, the kind of health he was in.
	So they had a non-vexed nurse who lied on the application saying she was vaxxed, come in and make it stir some stuff for, and then they blame her for giving him COVID, which now the non-vaxed, which would be me, I think she kind of blames me for it.
	And we did go to like counseling and stuff like that during that time.
	Uh, Thank you.
	Sorry, sorry, go ahead.
	I wasn't sure if you finished your thought.
	Go ahead.
	Oh, yeah.
	So we did go to counseling during that time.
	And the counselor, not really, really taking my side, but just kind of poking her, saying, what else should he have done kind of questions?
	And then we never went to that counselor again.
	Did you sort of both mutually agree that it wasn't productive?
	No.
	It was pretty much, I was told that we're not doing that anymore.
	Like, okay.
	So, no, it was definitely not mutual.
	We did try another counselor, and she didn't like her for it.
	That one she just didn't like.
	And then she said, we're not going to do it.
	So we never went back to that one.
	After her DUI, she was, I don't know if it's court mandated or court endorsed or whatever, but she started going to another one.
	The DUI was probably, I don't know, it was, they were still swimming last year.
	So, you know, towards the end of the year, though.
	So the talk was, you know, once you're done with that, we need to go to counseling.
	We need to get this fixed.
	But there's been no talk since then, since, I guess, right before she got the D, I guess right after she got the DUI, that was kind of what we were discussing.
	And that was probably at the end of the year.
	And how serious was the DEI?
	Sorry, DUI.
	Um, yeah.
	Thank you.
	So they took her to jail.
	I went and bailed her out.
	And then she had to spend, because there was minors involved, there were two kids in the car, and she ran over something.
	I don't know what, maybe the sign in the middle of the road.
	And somebody had followed her home and called the cops.
	So it was pretty bad.
	Yeah, it was, but like, I didn't notice her slurring her words.
	I didn't notice, I didn't notice anything that would have made me assume she was drunk outside of she ran over something and did a little, I mean, very minor damage to the car and having somebody follow her home and call the cops on her.
	I would have probably never known it if that hadn't, if that had happened.
	Okay.
	Now, what has been the sort of sexual archae frequency in your relationship over the last 12 years?
	At first it was good.
	I mean, after the kid, it kind of died off, which fine.
	You know, we got a kid.
	I'm okay with that.
	I guess it came back after for a little while.
	And then the COVID thing hit, and we were kind of on opposite sides of that.
	And I slept in the basement for a year.
	So there was really nothing, no contact at that point.
	When I came back, I guess there was some.
	But like currently, it was probably the beginning of February, the last time there was any.
	And before, you know, I guess I had started like a dating coach about that time, and it seemed to work for about a month.
	But before that, it was probably another four or five months.
	So in the last year, there's been one good month.
	Okay.
	And does she talk about it as something that's an issue or does she seem relatively comfortable with it?
	Or what is that?
	There really is no talk.
	They kind of sit up in the front room and, you know, there's good morning and good night.
	And there's not a lot of talk besides that.
	I did, I don't know, maybe a month ago tell her that's like, I'm not going to be celibate for much longer.
	And I don't know what that means.
	I don't know if that, you know, it means I got to get a divorce or I mean, but I just know it ain't happened much longer.
	And I, and I told her, um, she didn't really respond and nothing's really changed.
	And when was the last time that she pursued you to try and help or repair things in the relationship?
	Um...
	Thank you.
	It's been a long time.
	We are doing a trip that she did set up and got my parents flights and all that kind of stuff.
	So, I mean, that is nice.
	And that is your parents.
	What do you mean?
	So, well, her parent or her mom and her mom's boyfriend are going to come visit from another country in a month.
	And they're going to stay for a couple months.
	And during that time, we're going to go on a trip.
	And so she booked it all for my parents and our families and kind of set it up, which is nice.
	But I really think the reason why she did it is so that she doesn't have to go to my parents and sit on the couch for a week or let my daughter go with me and miss her for a week.
	Okay.
	So I guess it's nice, but I don't really think that it was nice to be nice.
	Right.
	And how have you guys maintained sort of weights and exercise?
	You said you're still in good shape at 54, but how's your wife doing with that?
	She's gotten heavier.
	She doesn't really do any exercises.
	She's pretty sedentary.
	And it's not good.
	But, you know, as bad as things are, that's the last thing I can talk about.
	Right.
	Okay.
	And does she have an income?
	Yeah, we both were.
	We both got pretty good jobs.
	I don't know.
	She's probably a little over 100.
	I'm a little under 100.
	And she did at one point tell me, you need to get another job so we can make more money.
	And at that time, I was like, I want to be here for my daughter.
	I've got a low-stress job.
	I don't want to look for another one.
	Now I'm, you know, now I don't care considering how my relationships deteriorated.
	But at the time, I thought I would get to spend a lot more time with my daughter by not getting another job.
	And what does she want to buy with the extra money?
	Do you know?
	Nothing in particular.
	We're debt-free 100%.
	We own our own home.
	We own both our cars.
	So there is no financial need for it.
	I mean, outside of maybe retirement, we couldn't use something for that.
	But there is no, it's not a financial need.
	You know, maybe it could be a status need.
	I don't know.
	So, when was the last time that your wife seems to want to seek out your company?
	It's been years.
	Yeah, it's been years.
	Yeah.
	Thank you.
	I can't remember when it's probably been a couple years.
	I do.
	She would wear, I guess, sexy stuff at one point, probably like two or three years ago to entice me.
	But I don't know, we got a kid in our bed that, you know, there is no enticing when you have a kid that's in bed with you for nine years.
	I mean, currently they're sleeping in another room because I basically told them that it's not healthy for my daughter to do this.
	I mean, not healthy for us, but it's worse for her, I think.
	So, yeah, it's been probably two or three years since she's actually initiated, maybe three or four.
	It's been a long time since she initiated anything.
	Yeah, I mean, I'm not just talking sex, but just in terms of like desire for your company, pleasure in your conversation, that kind of stuff.
	It's been a, it's probably about the same amount of time.
	I mean, we will do stuff together, but it's mostly do stuff for the daughter, not for us.
	Like what?
	I don't know.
	There's like a themed restaurant we went to a couple times that my daughter likes.
	Before, I don't know, probably a couple of years ago, she would set up dates where we would go to like a fair or some kind of festival that they had.
	But it's been a couple of years since we've did those.
	But my wife was always good about setting them up before.
	And if you were, I'm not saying whether you should or shouldn't, I don't know, but if you were to suggest something like that, how do you think it would go?
	I suggest something every weekend.
	I'm constantly trying to find anything for us to do together.
	And so usually what will happen is I'll go to my daughter and say, do you want to do this?
	I think it'll be fun.
	And she'll kind of do the no, no.
	And what she's looking for is her mom to kind of give her the okay to go.
	It's kind of what it seems like to me.
	Probably three or four months ago, I did suggest one thing and they said, both of them said no, and then turned around and went to the event that I invited them to without me.
	And I'm like, that's probably been a year ago.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	And it was, you know, I'm pretty aggravated about the situation.
	I didn't say nothing to them, but their mother, who does not speak English, was in the house during that time.
	And she could see that I was irate about it.
	And she tried to ask me if everything's okay, but she didn't speak English.
	So I'm like, yeah, everything's fine.
	But shortly after that, she tried to leave the country to go back home.
	Wait, your wife?
	No, the mother-in-law.
	The mother-in-law.
	Because, yeah, she just didn't want to be around it.
	It being your marriage?
	No, the unhappiness, the, you know, the not drama, but the, you can just see that there was problems that she didn't, she didn't want to be around.
	I mean, she, she knew that I was aggravated about something.
	She couldn't figure it out because she didn't speak English.
	But because of that, she was going to leave.
	I think my wife talked her into staying until the normal time, which is only like a week away, but she did try to leave early because of it.
	So what's the case for staying in the marriage?
	My daughter, I don't want her to be raised by another man.
	Outside of that, I don't know.
	I mean, I guess financially it would be good to stay in the marriage.
	But I don't have a good case of, yes, we need to, it seems like I'm the only one who really wants to fix it.
	So other than trying to find things that you guys can do together and doing some counseling and so on, what else have you done to try and repair or fix things?
	I don't, I mean, I've tried to invite her to lunch and stuff like that.
	And usually I, you know, there is no, and I've assumed during the lunch, we've kind of worked through some of these problems, but she doesn't really want to and I don't push it.
	I guess I should push it, but I don't.
	You know, we did try the counseling and I just try to invite them to do things.
	I don't know.
	I bought like a little card game where you ask the family questions and got my daughter, started to open it up, got my daughter to start playing and try and invite my wife who said, I don't want to play, which then in turn means my daughter doesn't want to play.
	And now I've got the cards sitting here going, you know, this was supposed to be family bonding, but it's not.
	So I just put them away and just went about and did something else.
	And I mean, how's your heart doing?
	How's your soul?
	your spine.
	Um...
	Thank you.
	In the last, I don't know, year, I've just been thinking I need to get out and start dating again.
	So I've kind of been getting prepared, especially in the last, I don't know, six months.
	You know, I started exercising fairly regularly, lost a little weight, trying to be more friendly when I go places to people.
	So, yeah, I'm just kind of getting prepared for when I get single.
	Right, right.
	Okay.
	And do you have a sort of decision point or a time point at which you want to make a decision, or is this called part of that?
	So her parents or mom and her mom's boyfriend are coming in town the next, I don't know when she didn't even give me a day, but it's got to be in the next month.
	And I guess they're going to stay for a couple months.
	And I don't want to do it during that.
	So I'm kind of going to give it, you know, three or four months and see if it improves.
	And if it doesn't, then make my decision.
	And your wife is aware, of course, if you've talked to her about your unhappiness and what you want to have changed and so on, right?
	She knows I'm unhappy.
	I don't think we've ever gotten into specifics of what I want changed, but I do invite them to do things and just try and have a normal family, but It doesn't seem reciprocated.
	It doesn't seem or isn't.
	It isn't.
	It isn't reciprocated.
	It's not acted upon either.
	Right.
	I mean, I really, really, really sympathize.
	It's a very, very tough situation.
	Because it's not like you guys are throwing crock pots at each other or anything like that.
	So it's not like something which is, I guess, the danger is, has your wife stopped drinking?
	So before that, she was drinking a fair amount because I'd go to bed.
	And so I wasn't even aware really for a good portion of it.
	She was drinking as much as she was.
	But, you know, you would, you'd see the bottle a lot emptier than it was the day before.
	And you're like, you know, what's going on?
	I was kind of thinking she might be going out and, you know, because I'm a pretty heavy sleeper.
	So I was thinking maybe she was, you know, leaving the house and going and doing stuff.
	I don't think that's the case now, but, you know, why should you be drinking alone that much?
	So I'm guessing she's depressed, and that's how she was dealing with it.
	And how long ago was it DUI?
	It was the end of swim season last year.
	I'm not sure what that means, the immediate end of school season?
	Swim.
	So they were at a pool.
	So I don't know exactly which month.
	So maybe August you can swim in.
	So it's probably August timeframe.
	Sorry, I was on the swim team.
	I thought you meant swim team season.
	Okay, my bad.
	Okay.
	And do you know?
	Has she committed to not drinking?
	Because obviously she can't be drinking and driving, right?
	Yeah, so she's pretty much cut it out.
	Yeah, she's not drinking really anymore.
	So at least I haven't noticed it.
	And when we do go, if we do go someplace, it's she's she's not drinking, which I don't think maybe we've been to one or two since then.
	But yeah, she's, she's, she's cut out the drinking.
	And how close would you say you are with your brother?
	Does he know much about any of this?
	So I've told my parents, I don't know.
	Probably three, four years ago, I bought, during COVID, we were down to one car.
	And because things got so bad, I bought another one just because I was like, well, if I leave, I got to have something.
	So probably about four years ago, I bought one and kind of told my parents about what was going on.
	And so then they told him.
	And he probably called me about it, maybe a year or two ago.
	So he knows.
	But we don't talk that much.
	I don't know.
	We maybe talk two or three times.
	We talk during the holidays when we see each other.
	But as far as phone calls, maybe once or twice a year.
	And he waited a year or two before talking to you about the problems in your marriage that he heard from your parents.
	I don't know when they told him.
	I think he, as soon as, as soon as he found out, he did give me a call, but they might not have told him the initial because I've told them, I told them when I bought the car kind of what I was thinking.
	And then maybe a year or two later, I'm still kind of telling them the same stuff.
	And it's not like I, it's not something you want to talk about with them.
	So, you know, you don't, you don't, you only tell them like once a year.
	And I don't know, my dad did say, you know, you need to leave if you're going to leave maybe a year or so ago.
	So he's, he's, you know, he, he did at least talk to me about it.
	And that was probably about the same time that my brother had called me, I guess.
	Maybe that's probably when it was.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	All right.
	But listen, I appreciate, I appreciate all that information.
	Thank you for the data.
	My instinct or my urge is to be very emphatic here, but I don't want to short circuit you.
	So I want to know your level of comfort with my emphasis.
	Yeah, I want to be neon as possible.
	I don't want to miss something.
	So, yeah, tell me whatever you think I need to know.
	Well, I mean, my God, man, who were you close to?
	Who have you ever been close to?
	I was pretty close with my friends through college and stuff.
	I was very, very close to them.
	And that's really probably about it.
	You were a promiscuous social alcoholic.
	Yeah.
	Yes, I was.
	Did they call you out on that?
	No, they were all doing the same thing.
	So then you can't be close.
	You might have had a lot of shared experiences, a lot of shared drinks, maybe even shared some women.
	I don't know.
	But it's not the same as being close.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, but that's, I don't know.
	That's what I had.
	I thought that was being close at the time.
	We still, I still go see it.
	You know, we just did a guys trip a month or so ago.
	So we're still, I guess, not really telling each other our problems, but at least going out and having fun once every couple of years.
	Okay.
	Do you know what's going on with your friends' lives and their marriages and their hearts and health issues or whatever?
	I did find out some health issues on one of them when I was there.
	But I don't talk to them.
	We don't have calls and stuff like that.
	Basically, we got a tech stream and that's about it.
	Do you.
	Do you.
	Do you get a sense of just how distant you are from people?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	I definitely do now.
	As everything's kind of, you know, as we get further away, hey, you know, everybody's married and they're living on the other side of the country.
	Yeah, I feel very good.
	Come on, come on, come on.
	Come on.
	Don't shallow out on me, bro, too much.
	I'm not talking about geography.
	Yeah, but yes, I don't have anyone who I really go out with and do things with.
	No, it's just kind of me.
	I'm not talking about going out and doing things with.
	And I don't have anybody really talking with either.
	I mean, I can't.
	I did have one friend who recently moved out that I went to college with.
	And I don't know.
	We're going out and watching sports, but it's not anything more than a surface level.
	Right.
	I mean, your parents, when you were growing up, were incredibly distant from you.
	That's sort of what I was talking about or asking about earlier with regards to, did they teach you any goddamn morals at all?
	Anything about how to live?
	I mean, you know, don't steal, don't hurt people, be a nice person.
	They did that kind of stuff.
	Were you in great danger of becoming a cat burglar and a guy who beats people up?
	No, not really, but.
	Okay, so that's not a particular problem.
	Yeah.
	But they sure as hell didn't invest in you as an individual.
	And they sure as hell didn't get to know you as a person and work to protect your heart and mind and soul going forward.
	And they did not intervene as you spiraled into promiscuity and social alcoholism.
	And they didn't even ask you who you were dating or what was going on.
	And they didn't warn you about red flags in people.
	And you didn't even say to them, yeah, and I was on this date, but this, I went and went on Vacation with this woman, and she accused me of looking at another woman.
	And your father would then say, Boy, son, that's a real red flag.
	We need to sit down with her.
	We need to work this out.
	We need to keep you safe.
	Yeah.
	How long did you date your wife?
	My current wife.
	Before you got married?
	We dated about a year.
	Okay.
	And did you ever share anything about that year with your parents before you got married or any of your concerns about the red flags?
	No, because I don't know.
	I just didn't feel good about sharing it with them.
	And do you know why you didn't feel good about sharing it with them?
	Didn't want to let them down, I guess.
	Nope.
	That's how you roll through.
	Nope.
	Why didn't you want to share anything with yourself?
	Didn't think they cared, maybe?
	Yeah, that's right.
	No.
	What evidence?
	See, I care, so I'm asking questions, right?
	I probably asked you more questions in the last hour, 15, than your parents have asked you your entire life.
	Am I wrong?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, we never really talked about feelings.
	I mean, it was always going to, I don't know, doing basketball or another sport or going to the lake, but it was no real input for me about what it was, what we were doing.
	It was, this is what we're doing.
	Okay, I think you missed what I said.
	Yeah, yeah, no, I did get that, yeah, there is no conversations besides surface-level stuff.
	And that's how to bounce the ball.
	Here's how to throw a basket.
	Here's how to hit a baseball.
	oh, son, you got to do your step as opposed to actually helping you with your real life.
	you you you you you you you you Thank you.
	Yeah, God.
	God bless.
	Yeah, I definitely should have.
	No, no, no, no, not you should have.
	They should have.
	Yeah, they definitely should have.
	Listen to me.
	They should have.
	They should have shown deep and genuine interest in what you think and feel and what's best for you so that you don't have to invent the wheel, invent the road, invent the car just to get anywhere.
	They're boomers, aren't they?
	Yeah, yeah, they would be boomers.
	Right.
	And boomers, for whatever, I don't know, it's like something within the air or something.
	But boomers are so profoundly disconnected from their own offspring.
	It's almost kind of shocking.
	Yeah, I just don't think that they talk about that kind of stuff.
	It's mostly surface level, I guess.
	I don't know if they even talk about it amongst themselves.
	Well, I don't know either, but I will say that you normalized the living hell out of all of this.
	that you not being interesting to others is a 54-year curse.
	Because now, right, now you're in a situation where you are uninteresting to your wife and daughter.
	And how are you supposed to feel interesting to them when you're not even interesting to your own parents or your brother?
	Yeah, I am older than him, so I probably should have been more interested in him.
	So I okay, let's hang on.
	Let's, Before you start lacerating yourself, right?
	From what model would you learn how to be interested in people younger than yourself?
	Like, who would have taught you that?
	Yeah, I'm, I mean, I wouldn't have learned anything.
	I guess there's no way I would have learned it.
	Well, if you want to teach Japanese, somebody has to teach you Japanese, right?
	Yeah.
	So tell me, what do you think about what I'm saying?
	Um...
	Thank you.
	I do think that, yeah, not that I don't think I'm uninteresting, but I feel like I have to have a point to everything I'm saying typically in a conversation.
	Sorry, you have to have a point?
	What do you mean?
	I struggle for conversation just for conversation's sakes.
	And sometimes you just need that to make a conversation go.
	But I've always felt like that there should be a point to whatever I'm saying.
	So I would think that not being recognized or kind of, you know, let the adults talk kind of still is there a little bit in the back of the mind going, you know, shouldn't really talk unless you got something important.
	Well, so you feel that you have to provide value.
	I think that's what you mean by a point.
	Like, oh, here's something interesting, or here's something funny, or here's something, like, you have to provide a point.
	Yeah.
	You have to provide some kind of value in conversation.
	Yeah, exactly.
	Yes, that's it.
	It's like a trade.
	Yes.
	Right.
	And you have nothing to trade with your wife and daughter at the moment.
	Is that right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	I don't.
	I don't even really know what they wanted this product.
	Right.
	And what culture is your wife from?
	She's from Russia.
	Russia.
	Okay.
	Sorry, remind me, how did you meet?
	Online.
	It was, she wasn't like a foreign variety.
	It was, you know, she lived here.
	She was an American citizen.
	And we just met online.
	Okay.
	Right.
	And I think you said about both a year-long relationship at the end of college and this relationship or this marriage and your first marriage that the women were very pretty, right?
	Yeah.
	But yeah, they, yeah, very, very, very attractive.
	You kept your hair, didn't you?
	What's that?
	You kept your hair.
	Up until recently.
	And as we were doing this call, I did notice that the sun was shining in and my head was shiny.
	So that could be stressful.
	It's only been recently.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Yeah, but I mean, 54, that's pretty good, right?
	Or bad, depending on how you measure these things, right?
	All right.
	So your parents normalized you not being interesting for your own sake, interesting with regards to yourself.
	Yeah, I can see that definitely with especially with the, you know, the adults are talking.
	Y'all go somewhere else kind of stuff.
	Yeah, definitely see that.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Children should be seen and not heard.
	Yeah, yeah.
	I grew up with that.
	I mean, that's a bit of a boomer thing.
	Oh, my mom was pretty boomer.
	She's greatest generation.
	Okay.
	So I think you are very used to people not being interested in you.
	Just tell me what you think or what's your perspective or what's your opinion.
	Or I think that you have to kind of provide value, like a waiter, if that makes sense.
	Like a waiter.
	I mean, the waiter will chat with you, of course, right?
	But the waiter's just, you know, trying to make sure you have a decent connection so she gets a good tip or something like that.
	And then, of course, you're only really chatting with the waitress or waiter because they're going to bring your food and it, you know, you might as well have a pleasant experience and interchange because of that, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, that's, yeah, that's probably most of my interactions since just being polite to each other just for politeness sake and not that deep.
	Right.
	So you have to provide value in an economic sense and that, or in a, um, trying to think, it's sort of like economics, but you have to please the person by being someone other than who you are.
	That's, that's the, I think that's the magic formula I'm looking for.
	I think in your mind, you have to please the other person by being something other than who you are in your natural state.
	Because, you know, if you have your thoughts and your feelings in your natural state, then you are going to chat with people spontaneously have thoughts and they're going to find them of interest.
	They're going to bounce back, you know, and that's your natural state.
	It's your natural flow, right?
	It's the difference between, you know, a conversation and a comedian.
	The comedian has to write all the jokes.
	He's got to prepare them.
	He's got to rehearse them.
	He's got to get the crowd feedback.
	He's got to get the timing.
	He's got to have the practice.
	He's got to know how to work the mic, right?
	So a comedian is not in a natural flow state.
	A comedian is in a state of entertainer.
	And there's nothing wrong with that.
	I mean, that's what you pay and go and see a comedian for, right?
	I mean, the first time I was on the Joe Rogan show, I went to see Joe do a show.
	And, you know, and then seeing Joe do a show and then sitting with Joe at a table.
	I mean, they're not the same animal.
	Of course, right?
	How could they be, right?
	Yeah.
	So I think for you, you have to be.
	I mean, I talked about this many years ago in my Robin Williams presentation.
	The me plus.
	You can't be you and be a value, just into a sort of natural flow state where you're sort of thinking and speaking and maybe a couple of jokes if they pop into your mind.
	Depends on people's level of general sense of humor.
	But I think, I think that you can't feel both relaxed, spontaneous, and interesting.
	You've got to do something.
	You've got to work at it.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Yeah, I mean, if I, I don't know, if I call somebody, it's for a specific, hey, let's go do this.
	Let's, let's do something.
	I don't ever really call anybody just to talk.
	Or it's like what you say to your family, or you say to your daughter, is, let's do this.
	And she's like, well, I'm kind of too old to go to a park just with you.
	And, right.
	Or you say to your wife and your daughter, let's go do this event.
	They say no, then they end up going on their own.
	So you're in a state of suggesting activities rather than presenting yourself in a natural state.
	Yeah.
	And they kind of sit in the front room and it's not really conducive to more than two people.
	And I think that's on purpose to kind of keep me away to tell you the truth.
	Well, it's kind of like, I mean, have you ever been on a cruise?
	Yes.
	Yeah.
	I always remember the love boat from the 70s, which we watched sometimes.
	Julie, the cruise, she was the cruise director, or no, the social director, or whatever it was, right?
	Now, the woman who's like the cruise director or the social director or the activities director.
	I guess this also happens at summer camps or whatever, right?
	So Julie comes in and she says, oh, hey, sailors, hey, fellow travelers, here's a list of all the cool things you could do today on the cruise, right?
	And we've got a bocce ball on the Lido deck.
	We have, oh, if a friend of mine went on a cruise where they had laser tech on one of the decks, there's an arcade and you go swimming and bowling or whatever, right?
	And she's giving you all these activities.
	Now, you would not expect Julie to come up and say, oh, man, I'm having a really tough day.
	I don't really know what I'm doing with my life.
	And, you know, I feel like I'm just this kind of half plastic entertainment doll.
	Like, you would, you'd be like, hang on.
	Wait, sorry, what was happening on the Lido deck?
	I mean, I guess that's important to you, but I'm kind of here for a vacation.
	Does that make sense?
	Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
	So I'm, I'm more of a tour director versus just being there.
	Yeah.
	Right.
	So that's why I asked at the very beginning about your relationship with your parents.
	And you said it's pretty good.
	Bro, it's not.
	You guys barely talk about anything.
	And they conditioned you to believe in your core that you have to be constantly providing value rather than just being yourself and talking.
	It's transactional, not spontaneous.
	I can definitely see transactional in a lot of my conversations.
	Tell me what you think about what I'm saying.
	I definitely think that, yes, I feel like I've got to bring something to the table as far as any conversation.
	I'm not really good at generating like opening conversations, but I'm pretty good about playing off of whoever else is talking and making jokes and stuff.
	And that's probably a little bit of why I'm not is I guess because I need to I don't have necessarily something to present or whatever to open up the conversations a lot of times.
	So I don't necessarily talk or open them up unless there's a reason for it.
	Well, I've been trying to scan for some emotion over the course of this 90 minutes.
	I literally had my eyes closed, listening as hard as I could to the questions I was asking you over sort of first 40, 45 minutes.
	And I'm like, okay, where's the feeling?
	Where's the hint of emotion?
	Where's the connection?
	And it's been a long, long several years, and maybe I just give it up on stuff.
	But that's not what you called me for.
	Yeah, I know.
	I don't want to give up, but maybe that's, I think I've got emotion.
	I, I, I've, you know, I, but maybe it's just a level emotion.
	I don't know.
	I mean, it's not, it's not a criticism at all.
	I'm just trying to, I mean, you're, you're, you're wrestling with just about the biggest and most powerful decision of your life, which is whether to stay or leave.
	I mean, that's a horrible situation to be in.
	That's why I said sort of earlier, like, it's not like you guys are throwing crock pots at each other and it's like you've got to get out to save your life, right?
	It's all just hollowed out.
	It is definitely hollowed out.
	It's a bunch of straw men in a straw people in a house together.
	Yeah, that's that's that's where we're at.
	Yes, that's that's it.
	Um And I think that might be worse for my kid than me not being here.
	Well, I'm trying to head you off from what I think would be a worse decision than staying or going.
	And I know that sounds like a bit of a paradox.
	Sorry to be obscure.
	But there's a worse decision than staying or going.
	And the worst decision is to go and end up with the same damn thing again.
	Yes.
	Yes.
	Because then it would be like, okay, so I blew up my family and now I've got this new girlfriend, lover, wife, whatever, right?
	Maybe even have kids again if she's younger, but and they just end up at the same straw people in a silent house.
	Yes.
	That's the worst part.
	That's the worst potential, isn't it?
	Yeah, that's yeah, that would be definitely the worst case scenario.
	Yeah, that 100%.
	And so that's my concern is that you are leaving an empty, non, or like a non-relationship.
	You're leaving that.
	And you said, well, I'm 54.
	I'm in good shape.
	I'm going to start over.
	Maybe it's not over, right?
	Okay.
	But if you haven't identified how you got here, how are you not just going to end up here again?
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	I mean, third marriages, I would imagine, are even less reliable than second marriages.
	And you've listened to me for how long?
	Probably five or six years.
	Right.
	Maybe even longer than that.
	Okay.
	And I appreciate that.
	And of course, I do appreciate your subscriptions and support massively.
	But you've listened to me for, and this is not a criticism, right?
	I'm just pointing out how hard this stuff is to see.
	Like genuinely, it's really, that's why I'm very glad that you emailed.
	It's really hard to see.
	Okay.
	So you have listened to me for like five, six, seven years.
	And you didn't come into the conversation.
	And again, this is no criticism.
	This is just like it's really hard to see this stuff.
	But you didn't come into the conversation saying, Steph, you know, I've kind of, I've listened to your show for a long time.
	I've heard you really connect with people, man.
	That's missing from my life.
	And I think it's been missing from my life all the way from my childhood.
	I never really connected with my parents or my brother, you know, or, you know, I've got a body count of 50, which means I don't connect with women very well.
	And now I'm in a marriage, right?
	Not connected to my wife and daughter.
	Thank you.
	But you're operating at a level of, well, she blamed me for her father's death and COVID, which is, I'm not saying that's wrong.
	I mean, that's an astute and very intelligent and sensitive analysis.
	But it's missing the machinery that's really going on at the base of things.
	Yeah.
	I mean, if you're going to stay or if you're going to go, I don't know.
	Obviously, I can't make that decision for you.
	Neither would I would I try.
	But if you don't know how you got here, you're just going to end up back here.
	Like Groundhog Day.
	Like Groundhog Day.
	Yeah.
	And how you got here is the distance of your parents.
	I mean, when I know you don't speak Russian, obviously, when your mother-in-law was over, I mean, was she close to your wife?
	They talk a fair amount.
	It's got to be allowed, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Whenever she came out, like right after my daughter was born, she stayed for like six, seven months.
	And that got to be too long.
	So they did get on each other's nerves.
	But, you know, for a month or two, they're good.
	But she also must have had some kind of distance in her childhood that she's not like.
	I mean, this has been going on for years, hasn't it?
	Yeah, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's been going on for years, yes.
	Um, yeah, like her childhood was, um, I guess her dad divorced her as her mom, and uh, so there's uh gotta be a lot of trauma associated with that.
	Um, and then um, I guess her mom was nice enough when her dad had a stroke to kind of take care of him.
	And I guess he lived with her and her boyfriend, so uh, kind of a very strange relationship.
	Okay, her dad lived with her mom and her mom's boyfriend, yes, yes, but he couldn't really take care of himself.
	And uh, and how long was he disabled with the stroke for several years, uh, probably at least four or five?
	Uh, wow, and then he died from from COVID, they said, right?
	Yeah, that's the story, yeah.
	Yeah, yeah.
	I mean, who knows, right?
	Who knows?
	Okay, and is your wife younger?
	Yes, she's uh in her 40s, so uh, yeah, she's she's younger than I am.
	And why did you guys decide on one child?
	Or did was that a decision or just what happened?
	It was not my decision.
	I wanted more.
	I was told it is not my decision, and I can't have any input in it.
	You guys had discussed that before you got married, is that right?
	Or you did change your mind?
	No, we didn't discuss it before marriage.
	I just assume it's stupid, but I just figured everybody wants two or three kids.
	But they don't.
	So, personally, I don't think that jumping out of this marriage without trying to solve with everything you've got this distance problem is going to change that foundational principle in your life.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	We all of us, all of us in sort of intimate personal relationships, we all of us need to find something of value or believe that we have something of value outside of what we manufacture and provide to others.
	You know, in a sense, we can't be waitresses or waiters.
	And because you grew up, and it's not, obviously, I'm not putting the entire blame on your parents, I mean, but I assume that teachers and coaches or other people, I know your dad was the coach for the most part, but maybe you had some others.
	Did they find value in you alone?
	Or did they find value in you as the provider of some kind of resource?
	You know, I mean, if you're going to go out for a baseball team, they want to know how well you can throw catch and hit, right?
	They're not looking at you like, are you a moral person?
	Are you a good person?
	Are you, you know, a good combat, like throw cash hit, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Are you relating or are you auditioning?
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Yeah, yeah, I would think most of most of my relations have all been transactional as far as that kind of stuff goes.
	Yeah.
	Fantastic.
	So you say most, that's great.
	And that's true of everyone, by the way.
	Most of everyone's relationships are transactional.
	So tell me the ones that not.
	I can't think of any.
	Yeah, I can't.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	So let's try this on.
	I'm trying to provide value.
	Yeah.
	So let's try this on for size.
	What's the most honest thing that you could say to your wife about where you're at?
	If she was in the room with you and you could look her in the eye, no interruptions.
	What would you say?
	We have to fix this.
	No, no, I can't.
	No, no, that's not honest.
	That's a plan.
	Oh.
	About what you think and feel, not what you need fixed.
	I don't want to be divorced.
	I don't want to have to go through this.
	I'm staying in here more of obligation than anything else at this point.
	That's all consequentialism.
	What you think and feel.
	I feel depressed.
	I feel scared, I guess, that this is all going to go really bad.
	I feel hopeless.
	I feel unloved, uncared for, uh...
	I feel unloved, Thank you.
	Yeah, just frustrated, I guess, is mostly what I feel.
	Yeah.
	Thank you.
	What about alone?
	Lonely.
	Yeah, I definitely feel alone.
	Yeah, I definitely alone.
	Okay, so tell me a bit about that.
	Solitude.
	Um...
	Bored out of my mind.
	Playing video games just to have something to do?
	Going on car rides just to do something.
	Not really wanting to come home because of how things are.
	so I'll stay gone just, just to be out of the house.
	Uh, yeah, Thank you.
	Yeah, completely alone.
	What about rejected?
	What about rejected?
	What about rejected?
	Yeah, definitely rejected too.
	Uh...
	Thank you.
	I don't see the point in being married the way we are.
	You know, there's no point in having a relationship if you don't want to be in a relationship.
	No, now you're lecturing.
	Let's get back to your feelings.
	Okay.
	isolated, lonely, rejected you you Thank you.
	Unsure of what to do?
	Uh.
	Thank you.
	Yeah, just completely alone, completely bored, completely unsure of even where to start going or doing anything past this.
	What is your sense of time passing now that you're 54?
	Got maybe 30 years to go, declining years.
	Yeah, that's why I was kind of thinking now is the time.
	I have to do it now, or I'll be 70 and doing this.
	I did think of waiting till my daughter was 18 and then making the decision, but I can't make it that long, I don't think.
	Not while that'd change.
	I'm not trying to obviously put thoughts in your head, but I'm trying to put myself in your shoes.
	Is there a sense of panic?
	A little bit, yeah.
	Tell me about that.
	If I stay, I'm going to be miserable for the next 30 years.
	Probably get a divorce when my daughter hits 18 and be all alone.
	And not really, yeah, yeah.
	Yeah, 63.
	Not a place I want to be.
	And if I go now, I could still get 63 and be all alone.
	Probably wind up killing the relationship with my daughter.
	So I just don't know.
	I don't know what to do.
	There's no good choices outside of making it work, which I'm not in control of.
	Well, you have influence.
	I do.
	I mean, I'm not in control of this conversation, but I have some influence, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Yeah.
	I mean, definitely I could make things better, but how I don't know.
	Well, honesty, directness.
	Let me ask you this.
	It's a ridiculous image, so I apologize for that.
	But what I'm sort of thinking about is me versus a dolphin.
	I know this sounds ridiculous, right?
	Me versus a dolphin.
	So what can I do?
	I can go underwater.
	I can hold my breath for maybe a minute, maybe a minute and a half or whatever, right?
	I mean, the last time I checked, I could do three pool lengths underwater.
	Still pretty good lung power from my youth swimming days.
	But I'm no match for a dolphin.
	So who can stay distant longer?
	Do you get a sense that it's driving your wife crazy in the way that it's driving you crazy, or do you think she's just fine with it?
	Or what's your sense of that?
	She was drinking a lot alone, so I got to be depressed.
	I think having my daughter with her helps.
	And so she's kind of got a little buddy to kind of at least be around.
	Well, you had that with your daughter when your wife had postpartum.
	Yeah, yeah.
	So for the first four years, five, maybe even six, it was pretty much me.
	And then seven, it kind of started flipping.
	And then eight and nine has been her.
	Right.
	Right.
	Thank you.
	Yeah, I mean, and it's a lot of burden for your daughter to be used to sort of substitute relationship bandages by her parents.
	Yeah.
	And you can see her trying to patch things up or make things better or not be a burden.
	Sorry, what do you mean?
	My daughter, my wife.
	What do you mean by not be a burden?
	Uh, um...
	Thank you.
	Just being happy and trying to get things to go sometimes together.
	Like, I don't know.
	She will want to hug both of us or not recently, but at one point after.
	Yeah, I mean, she's basically, I really like you and mommy to get along better, so I'm not trapped in mommy's bed till I'm 20.
	Exactly, yes, yeah.
	And I assume she wants me around at least a little.
	You know, I mean, obviously, it's the most loving thing you could do for your daughter is to get along well with your wife.
	Yeah.
	Yes, that would.
	Yeah.
	I think that would be the best gift I could ever give her.
	Tell me what you think, a little more.
	I mean, without it, she's going to have no idea how to do it.
	When she gets old, she's going to repeat this.
	And yeah, when she gets, she'll be 50 and have a kid and going through her second divorce.
	It's just, she needs to be shown a better way.
	Do you think that your wife understands how her distance in her marriage with you is negative for your daughter?
	She has to, but I don't think she's never communicated or shown it or expressed it in any way.
	But you'd be blind not to know it.
	Well, I mean, does she have an inner dialogue?
	Does she have higher standards she compares her actions to?
	Does she have, I mean, is she religious?
	Does she have a philosophy or a morality that she subjugates her will to, or is she more reactive and acting out kind of thing?
	More reactive, not religious.
	Her dad was Orthodox, and her mom was Muslim, so there was no religion in the house.
	Okay.
	So, yeah, there is no guiding principle that I can see is, you know, just, I mean, I don't think she's a bad person.
	I think she's a good person.
	But I don't see like a morally guiding thing that points her in her direction.
	Has she taken the lead in terms of trying to fix things in the marriage much, if at all?
	No, no, not at all.
	Does she read reflective books or self-knowledge or psychology or literature that provokes introspection?
	Or does she have any of the sort of signs and symptoms of that mindset?
	No, not at all.
	She pretty much watches cooking shows and Russian TV.
	And have you had many conversations over the last 12 years with your wife about self-knowledge and history and childhood?
	And, you know, I mean, if you've been into what I do for sort of five, six, seven years, I'm sure that's a topic that you've thought about quite a bit.
	Yeah, not really.
	Our relationship was probably going down about the time that I started listening to you and really getting it.
	And there just hasn't been a lot of conversations between us that are transactional in the last years, several years.
	And how did you guys end up going to therapy?
	The first time, I don't know if she, I think I told her we were going to have to go.
	I found a therapist, so I'm pretty sure I was the one who was pushing for it.
	The second one, I don't know who pushed for it, but I guess she got some discount at work.
	So we went to whoever her work sent us to.
	Yeah, it might not be something you want to scrimp on.
	Yes, yes.
	Cheaper than divorce.
	Yes.
	And the first lady I thought was fine, but she didn't like her.
	I mean, you guys, I mean, I'm not trying to flog anything here, but you could always set up A private call with me?
	I will maybe wait till this one comes out and play it for her and see what she says and then try and see if she would be interested.
	Yeah, I mean, I'm not too bad at this kind of stuff.
	No, you definitely give me some insights that I did not have.
	Right.
	Okay.
	Would you like a plan?
	Yes, please.
	Yes.
	All right.
	I'll break a few rules and give you a plan.
	You got to talk to your parents, man.
	Like 150%.
	Okay.
	You've got to sit down and talk to your parents and say, like, what kind of relationship is this?
	We never talk about anything.
	Why didn't you guys tell me about dating?
	Did you know I was a social alcoholic pretty much and crazy promiscuous and had all these red flags, these women?
	And like, where was your parenting?
	Where was your parenting?
	I don't, bro, you weren't parented.
	You grew up like a savage, Lord of the Flies.
	You were not parented.
	Did you, do you know what I mean?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	I do.
	Like, it's crazy.
	It's like, so, I mean, you're, you're a dad, right?
	Parenting has a lot to do with coaching.
	Fair to say?
	Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
	So if I said, hey, man, I had a coach for like 20 years, right?
	I had a live-in coach for 20 years, right?
	And you say, oh, oh, yeah, I had a living coach.
	I wanted to be a baseball player.
	So I had a live-baseball coach for 20 years, right?
	And then let's say I say that, and you don't, you know, you're some space alien.
	You say, oh, oh, oh, okay.
	So you want to be a baseball player.
	You had a live-in baseball coach for 20 fucking years.
	Just curious, what are the rules of baseball?
	And I say, oh, shit, I don't know.
	Say, what?
	You want to be a baseball player?
	You got a live-in baseball coach for 20 years, and you don't know the rules of baseball.
	Okay.
	Is baseball played indoors or outdoors?
	Oh, I don't know.
	I don't know.
	It's a good question, though.
	I should probably note that down.
	Maybe I can ask my 20-year baseball coach.
	Okay.
	Does it involve a ball?
	I'm not sure about that.
	I'm fairly sure it doesn't involve horses, though.
	I think I would have heard of something like that.
	Okay.
	So you really don't know anything about baseball.
	A live in baseball coach for 20 years.
	You really don't know anything about baseball.
	So is it fair to call that person a coach?
	No, no, no, no.
	No.
	So you had parents who were your live-in-life coaches for 20 years.
	And you graduated as a pure hedonist.
	You followed dopamine a dick.
	Fair to say?
	Yeah, that's, yeah, I did definitely do that.
	Right.
	Now, is there a coach alive who says, well, if you want to achieve excellence at something, man, just do whatever feels good.
	Just do whatever feels right.
	Just, you know, do, you know.
	If you don't feel like training, don't train.
	If you don't feel like dieting, don't diet.
	If you don't feel like practicing, just do what you feel like.
	Do what you feel like ain't coaching.
	It turns you into a kind of animal.
	Yeah.
	But I was hiding it from them, too.
	I mean, I'm.
	Yeah.
	I think it's a self-erasing.
	Come on.
	Come on, man.
	You're 54 years old.
	I could listen to this shit if you were 24.
	I'm not listening to you when you're 54, and you've been listening to me for five, six, seven years.
	Okay.
	Yeah, no, is it your job?
	Is it your job to teach your parents how to coach you?
	Yeah, no, it's not my job.
	No.
	Right.
	Because if you could teach your parents how to coach you, none of us would ever need coaches.
	Right?
	I mean, that's the whole point.
	I mean, if I want to learn Japanese, do I need to teach my Japanese teacher how to teach me Japanese?
	Does that make any sense at all?
	I'm sorry.
	I'm not.
	I know this sounds harsh.
	You said you wanted me to be blunt.
	I'm not saying you don't make any sense at all, but this argument is deranged.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Yes, you're right.
	I shouldn't be the one to initiate that stuff.
	It should have gotten a lot of fun.
	You can't.
	Look, all children, you have a daughter, right?
	How much do children want to please their parents?
	Well, it's immense, right?
	Now, evolutionarily speaking, when we think of children who displeased their parents in a time of harshness and scarcity and predation and extreme weather, when we think of children who did not please their parents, how well did those children do from an evolutionary standpoint?
	Yeah, we did, gal.
	They sure as shit did.
	So I want you to massage this right into your, let's just say the base of your spine.
	Be polite, right?
	Massage you, massage this right into the base of your spine.
	The reason why you didn't tell your parents what was going on in your heart and your mind is because you wanted to survive.
	You not only wanted to survive, you are programmed to survive.
	It's like if you don't eat, you lose weight.
	That's not open to your will, right?
	That's not a conscious thing, right?
	I think I'm going to decide to.
	Otherwise, we'd all do spot reduction on our abs, right?
	So that is an autonomous nervous system process, right?
	Or I guess not a nervous system.
	It's an autonomous biological function that when your body is short of calories, you eat your own ass, right?
	Yeah.
	So when you were very little, probably too little to remember, you scanned, as we all did, as we all do, you scanned the environment in order to figure out that which was most pleasing to your parents, and then you provided it.
	That's what we all do.
	We're all, all of us, programmed that way.
	Now, we don't know what our parents will find the most pleasing because our genes don't know what freaking culture we're born into, right?
	So you, as a little boy, as a toddler, as a baby, you scanned your parents like we all did, and you said, what pleaseth these gods of my survival, right?
	Yeah.
	And we all make sacrifice to the gods, and sometimes the sacrifice is our own personalities.
	The gods' survival, we call parents.
	Does it make sense so far?
	Yes, yes, it does.
	Yes.
	So, as a baby, as a toddler, you scanned your parents and you said what pleases them and what displeases them.
	Because I wish to survive, which means I better please them.
	Because you know, right?
	I mean, even if even if displeasing your parents gives you a 1% less chance of survival, it's going to get weeded out pretty freaking quickly, right?
	It won't take 100 generations.
	Yeah.
	When starvation and somebody.
	You know, your parents are slightly less attentive.
	You get slightly less food.
	It doesn't take much, right?
	Because, you know, I mean, you don't even have to starve to death.
	You know, sometimes if you just have 50 fewer calories a day, you can't fight off some infection otherwise, right?
	Yeah.
	Or an animal gets you.
	Yeah, you're just a little bit slow for the animal or whatever, right?
	Yeah, you got it.
	Okay.
	Sorry, I bumped there.
	Let me just pause that for a sec because I just bumped my microphone.
	I'm going to startle people too much.
	Let me just make a note of when that is.
	Okay.
	And okay, to go for another few minutes.
	Is that right?
	Yeah, yeah, for however long it takes.
	Okay.
	So you had to please your parents as we all have to.
	I'm sorry to be so repetitive.
	I really am, but it's really important.
	Now, did your spontaneous, natural, expressive personality please your parents?
	Yeah, I'm.
	Yeah, I'm guessing not, but I was so young, I don't necessarily remember any good, bad.
	We know the symptoms.
	I mean, we can tell from the symptoms.
	And the symptoms are, you have to perform.
	You can't just be.
	Which means that your parents preferred you to perform rather than just be.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	Because that's what you do.
	I mean, I don't have to be there to see your parents teaching you English to know that you were taught English as a kid because you have a naturally accented English, right?
	Yes.
	We know that you were taught English as a kid because you speak English as an adult.
	So your parents did not respond to you sharing thoughts and feelings.
	I assume that they responded, and there's nothing wrong with doing this, right?
	I mean, we all want our kids to do well, but I assume that they responded to you rolling over, learning how to walk, you know, maybe tickle any giggle.
	And again, there's nothing wrong with those things, but it's not foundational to who you are as a person, as an individual.
	I mean, did you ever have those back of the porch late summer nights watching the harvest moon, ramble chats with parents?
	You're just talking about what's going on in your mind, talking about what you think, associations, memories.
	You ever have those just long languid chats where you just batting thoughts and feelings back and forth?
	Usually they, I don't know, if we go to the lake, we'd sit out there and there'd be people over and we'd be doing something, whatever it is.
	Yeah, that's not what I'm talking about.
	Yeah, but that was what we would do.
	We never really just sat there and talked.
	We would do something.
	Right.
	And so the reason I'm telling you, I'd give you orders, but I can't.
	I won't.
	But the reason I'm telling you, go talk to your parents, is you really need to see how your parents react to direct and honest communications.
	Yeah.
	I can tell you how they're going to react.
	Do you want to give it a try?
	Do a role play?
	Yes.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	So you can pretend to be your dad.
	Okay.
	And I would say, Dad, I guess I'd like to chat about a couple of things.
	If you know, if you don't mind.
	You know, I've really been thinking about my childhood a lot because, you know, my not getting particularly along well, as you know, with my wife or my daughter and not happy in my marriage.
	And I really don't have any relationships where I just feel truly comfortable just being myself and sharing my sort of thoughts and feelings.
	I always feel like I've got to be providing something or being entertaining or having some useful tidbit or whatever, right?
	And, you know, I can't help but think, you know, I started dating.
	You know, I dated a couple of girls in high school.
	So I started dating when I was like 16 or 17.
	And I didn't date, you know, I got married in my 40s, right?
	40, 42.
	So for like a quarter century, I can't remember you and mom asking me about my dating life.
	Like even from the very beginning, when I really could have used some advice on who to date, because I really didn't make some, I didn't make great choices, Dad.
	And I just don't remember you and mom and I ever talking about that stuff.
	I figured you would figure it out.
	Yeah, I. But that's not how you.
	Okay, Dad, let me ask you.
	What's the sport that your dad gave you a lot of coaching on?
	Basketball.
	Basketball.
	Fantastic.
	Okay.
	So, Dad, do you think it's more important to be good at recreational basketball or to have a happy marriage?
	Definitely, definitely a happy marriage.
	Fantastic.
	Okay.
	So when it came to basketball, did you ever say to me, oh, you'll figure it out?
	No.
	No.
	What did you do?
	I coached you.
	You coached me.
	For years.
	For years.
	So why would you coach me about basketball, but not about women and dating?
	What do you think causes more problems in Ben's life?
	Like basketball or women?
	Women definitely cause more problems.
	So why would you coach me on basketball and not on women?
	I'm not a kid.
	I'm not a kid.
	I don't have an answer for that.
	Pretty big question, though, isn't it, Dad?
	Yeah, yeah, it's a big, big question.
	But I don't know why I wouldn't.
	I just figured you would figure it out.
	And I Thank you.
	Yeah, it seemed like you were doing pretty good.
	Always seemed like you had somebody new that you were or you were with.
	Okay, so do you think that's a good thing?
	Do you think it's good that I could never keep a girlfriend?
	Oh, that's I mean, would you think I was really successful if I had a new job every three weeks?
	No, no, definitely definitely not successful.
	But why?
	I don't know.
	Maybe it was an uncomfortable topic.
	I don't know why I didn't.
	Because I would say, as far as, you know, I mean, you've obviously done some good things as a dad, so this is not some blanket condemnation.
	But dad.
	I'm 54 years old.
	I'm in a miserable marriage.
	Do you know I slept with 50 women?
	I'm not proud of that.
	That's terrible.
	It's just using people for flesh.
	And, you know, there were, I mean, it was at least probably 10, maybe more years I really couldn't get together with people without drinking.
	I sort of feel like I was tossed out into the wastelands of the world with no training at all, other than how to bounce a ball.
	I really feel unparented.
	I was coached with sports, which is like the least important thing.
	I can't even tell you the last time I touched a basketball.
	But I just, I feel like I just, it's kind of like a, I don't know, cliché.
	It's like a boomer thing, maybe, but man.
	It's just completely left to my own devices to invent things on my own, to try and figure out everything on my own, to try and figure out how to live, how to love, how to succeed, how to date.
	And yeah, go ahead.
	But I mean, my mom or me and your mom, we provided you a good, we paid for your college education.
	We modeled good behavior.
	You just didn't follow the modeling.
	So are you saying that you gave me good advice?
	I failed to follow it.
	Yeah, you chose to go a different path.
	Okay, well, let me ask you this.
	So if I failed to listen to your instruction about basketball, would you just let me go and do my own thing?
	No.
	What would you do?
	Dad, what would you do?
	I would correct you.
	Probably make your own labs.
	That's right, Dad.
	You would give me explicit instructions, and if I failed to follow them, you would follow up, right?
	Yes, yes.
	So how dare you have these two completely different standards?
	You never talk to me about dating, and somehow I got it wrong.
	As if that's just how, oh, that's how you teach people.
	You just give them a reasonably good example and cross your fingers for 20 years.
	That's not how you parent.
	But how you coach, right?
	No, no.
	I mean, you didn't just throw on like Michael Jordan clips and say, that's how you play.
	You coached me.
	But why didn't you coach me about life?
	Why was it all just sports bullshit?
	Yeah, I don't know.
	I mean, did it ever cross your mind?
	I'm just curious.
	I mean, you saw me out there flailing around in the dating world year after year, you know?
	Longest relationship was a year.
	Then I got married.
	That broke up.
	And why wouldn't you ever sit there and say, what do you think is going on with your relationships?
	Are the red flags that you're missing?
	Tell me about this new girl.
	I mean, you kept seeing me date these new women.
	And why wouldn't you say, how are you picking them, son?
	Let's go over that.
	Maybe you've flipped a couple of digits in your abacus of choice.
	I figured you would have figured it out.
	I don't really have any excuse.
	But Jesus, Dad, have I?
	Were you right?
	Did you ever check in?
	I mean, it's like you left me at the park at the age of 10 saying he'll find his way home.
	20 years later, I'm still not home.
	And you're like, you'll figure it out.
	Like, don't you notice that I didn't figure it out?
	Like, at any point?
	I've been dating, Dad.
	Jesus.
	I've been dating almost 40 years.
	40 years.
	Do you think I'm going to figure it out in year 41?
	Like, what is the plan here?
	don't understand.
	Okay.
	Thank you.
	Yeah, there was no plan.
	There is, yeah, there is no plan.
	Okay, so then why do you lie to me?
	It's really quite upsetting, Dad.
	Why do you lie to me and say, my theory was that you'll figure it out?
	Like, you just lied to me, right?
	Now you're telling me there was no plan.
	Oh, and then you also said that you did give me good, good example, but I just didn't follow it.
	So this is like one, two, this is the third iteration of this story.
	That there's no plan.
	I mean, okay, let me ask you this.
	As a whole, in general, do you think that it's important for parents to talk to their children about dating and red flags?
	Especially these days.
	I mean, one false accusation could land your ass in jail, right?
	One bad pregnancy or one pregnancy with the wrong woman can give you child support for 20 years, right?
	If you don't pay that, your ass gets thrown in jail.
	I mean, it's pretty high risk, isn't it?
	Pretty high stakes.
	I mean, you know all of this stuff, right?
	Yes, yes, yeah.
	So why would you teach me incessantly, coach me, and train me incessantly about the least important thing, which is basketball, and give me no training or feedback or advice or even questions?
	You didn't ask me any questions about my dating and the most important thing, which is love, sex, babies, marriage, and romance.
	Yeah, I don't have an answer.
	I don't know.
	I don't have an answer.
	But I appreciate you.
	At least you stopped pretending you have an answer.
	Bye.
	Thank you.
	Well, I feel very unparented.
	I feel excessively coached, for sure, but very unparented.
	You see what I mean, right?
	Yes, I see.
	Yes, yes.
	I mean, I'm not saying you have to give me an answer now, Dad, but I kind of need an answer.
	I really do.
	I don't know if there is one.
	If there's an answer.
	I mean, we don't behave randomly if you've behaved in a consistent way for the last 40 years of my life.
	There's an answer.
	There's an answer.
	So we could stop there because, of course, I suppose you have to have other conversations with your dad about the answer.
	But what did you think of the conversation?
	It's difficult to not have answered person, that's for sure.
	I mean, It's the most obvious thing in the world, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	There should be answers there, and I can't think of any outside of the modeling, which they did a good job of modeling.
	No, they did not do a good job of modeling.
	I'm so sorry.
	I mean, the reason they didn't do a good job of modeling, my friend, is because modeling is also being curious about your children's thoughts, feelings, and experiences, which they did not do.
	I mean, I don't know the answer, but my guess is that the answer, the most logical one, which is not to say that it's right, but the most logical answer is just sabotage.
	Abumas are sabotage vampire bombs, right?
	They've screwed up every country they've been in charge of to sabotage massive amounts of debt, ridiculous policies all over the place, right?
	Yeah, yeah, that's sort of profound indifference to the fates of their children.
	Or to put it another way, your father wanted you to be good at basketball because that reflected well on him.
	So he can only think about what benefits him.
	And if you're good at basketball and he's the coach, that makes him look good, right?
	But it also bonding.
	There was bonding doing that.
	I mean, I mean, I don't know.
	Bonding.
	I mean, I don't even really know what that means.
	Parenting is not about bonding.
	Parenting is about teaching children to be self-sufficient, moral, and virtuous.
	I don't know what bonding means in this context.
	I mean, there are some people who are kidnapped who bond with their kidnappers.
	It's called the Stockholm Syndrome.
	I'm not sure what that would have to do with parenting.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Yeah.
	I find out that's what I'm doing with Badar is trying to bond versus wise parenting.
	Oh.
	Thank you.
	You can see how it happens.
	So if you, I mean, let's take the sports analogy, right?
	So if your kid is going to be involved in a very important basketball game and you don't give the kid any coaching or teach the kid any of the rules of basketball, are you not setting that kid up for failure?
	Yeah, the kid is set up for failure, yes.
	I mean, it's going to be appalling, right?
	Absolutely humiliating.
	Well, that's your marriage.
	I mean, the moment that you decided to embark upon a multicultural marriage, right?
	Yes, yeah, definitely multicultural.
	That is very high-stakes 3D chess, right?
	I mean, it's not like you married the girl you grew up to next door, you both share the same values and history, and right?
	I mean, you went to the other side of the planet, bro, to a half-Muslim Russian bride with no training, no expertise, no coaching.
	I mean, you got thrown in the NBA blindfolded with one hand tied behind your back.
	No kidding.
	No kidding.
	No kidding.
	And then you wonder why it hasn't succeeded.
	How could it?
	That's like me making random Japanese sounds at some guy In Japan, and wondering why he doesn't understand what I'm trying to say.
	I haven't studied Japanese, and I'm trying a really challenging language with no knowledge.
	Did you see what I mean?
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Yeah, I see.
	Kind of hopeless there.
	It's like, uh, uh, but yeah, I, uh, yeah, I definitely see it.
	And then you marry a woman who's got some severe challenges from a you know, postpartum depression, she's got anxiety.
	Um, she jealousy issues, right?
	She herself grew up with, I'm sorry, the first wife was a jealousy one, the second one's not, yeah, but your wife also grew up with, you know, cross-cultural challenges as well, right?
	Yes, yes, yes.
	Um, any bad thing you say about Russia, she is on point about defending it.
	I mean, there's the Russia thing, there's the, I guess, the Christianity thing, there's the Muslim perspective, right?
	So, so she's a smorgasborg, so to speak, right?
	Yes.
	And that's not a criticism at all.
	I'm just that that's how she is, right?
	Yes.
	And then she's gone from that environment, which is complicated enough, to America.
	She grew up in America, she's a citizen, and then she's married an American man.
	And it doesn't sound like her parents gave her a lot of advice on that either.
	Not successful advice.
	I don't know if they were equipped even as much as my parents.
	So the question isn't why did it fail?
	The question is, how could it succeed?
	You had no successful track record of relationships in a much more compatible environment.
	You know what I mean, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Yeah.
	I mean, I definitely could have settled down with someone who was closer as far as upbringings.
	And it would have been a lot easier.
	I mean, this is the most exotic woman, so to speak, you've dated, right?
	My first wife was Thai.
	Oh, Jesus, bro.
	You got to start on easy mode.
	But she grew up in America.
	I mean, she was.
	The only cultural thing was when I would go to her parents' house and I would notice it then.
	I mean, personally, I think that's a bit naive, but I've obviously never been married to a Thai girl, so what do I know, right?
	But I think that it's more than just, oh, you just take someone from Thailand and you have them grow up in America.
	It's exactly the same as a white girl, say.
	It's like, but she's still Thai, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	You're just not going to have the same experiences.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Like the way her and her mom and her mom's boyfriend definitely interacted unacceptably to what I would have been able to accept.
	Was the girl you dated for a year at the end of university?
	Was she white?
	Yeah, she was.
	Yeah.
	Remember who I asked who was the most functional woman you dated?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, she was.
	Now, again, I'm not saying that, you know, all the white women are the most functional, but what I am saying is that there's more cultural compatibility.
	Yeah, we were not fighting about stuff that didn't need to be fought about.
	Right.
	You're not like that.
	There's not as big of a canyon to get across, right, in terms of perspective.
	Right.
	Now, this Dunning-Kruger thing is like, if you're not particularly skilled at something, you think it's easier than it is, right?
	Yes, yeah.
	Yeah, and so because you're not particularly skilled at, I think, honest and direct communication in relationships through no fault of your own when you were younger.
	It's just how your parents, the price of survival was you not being honest and direct about your thoughts and feelings.
	That was your parents didn't want you to do that.
	Because if your parents had responded warmly and positively to you being direct and honest about your thoughts and feelings, you'd have that habit, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	So they responded negatively to your direct thoughts and feelings.
	And they were constantly dragging you to activities and sports and board games and social events and don't talk and be quiet and all this kind of stuff, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	So you learn pretty quickly that you have to provide value and do things.
	You can't just be yourself and talk.
	And so because you haven't, I think, much connected with people directly and honestly in your life, you, I think, significantly underestimate the difficulty of cross-cultural marriages or cross-racial marriages or both.
	Yeah.
	It seems to me that your wife and yourself have no common frame of reference anymore.
	Yeah.
	Well, I mean, we definitely don't want to do things together.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	We don't.
	Well, and I think foundationally, foundationally, I mean, this is the one lesson that, of course, I mean, both parents need to get across with their children, but in your case in particular, father to son, that you cannot base a relationship on lust.
	I'm not saying, obviously, I'm not saying that the mother of your children and your wife, I'm not saying that she doesn't have any particular virtues, but they have not been enough to sustain the relationship.
	And so if you found the relationship on lust, she's pretty, she's sexy, we have a good time in bed.
	And again, there's nothing wrong with pretty.
	There's nothing wrong with sexy.
	There's certainly nothing wrong with having a great time in bed.
	But you can't maintain a relationship based on lust.
	I mean, you know that, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	All that stuff fades.
	I definitely know that.
	Well, lust doesn't fade if it's supported by love, respect, and virtue.
	Yeah.
	Sooner or later, I just figure you get on each other's nerves for some period of time.
	No, that's not how it works.
	I mean, I've been married 23 years.
	That's not how it works.
	But if you found things on lust, then resentment creeps in.
	And because you lived a very hedonistic lifestyle in your 20s and early 30s, then you kind of fried your intimacy receptors and fueled your lust receptors, so to speak.
	So then when the hot Russian girl comes along, it's kind of hard to resist.
	And again, I'm not saying that all she is is physical attractiveness.
	I'm sure there's a lot more to it, but not hasn't been enough, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	That only lasts for so long.
	Yeah, I mean, sex is like gas.
	It gets refueled through respect.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	At some point, you just sit in your contempt for each other.
	Right.
	So I think the plan, if I were to be in your shoes, I obviously can't tell you what to do.
	But I think for me, the plan would be, I just got to have an honest conversation with my parents and figure out how did I end up in this situation where I just am so distant from everyone.
	It has to come from the beginning.
	It has to come from early on.
	It has to come from you mapping what your parents want and don't want, What they like and don't like, what they prefer and reject, mapping that and saying, Jesus, I can't be myself.
	Holy crap.
	They don't want that.
	And so then, if you are actually yourself and direct with them, hopefully over the next couple of days or maybe this weekend or whatever, if you are actually direct with them, then you can re-experience what it was like to be direct with them as children and see how they react.
	Now, I imagine that they're going to react with great confusion, dismay, distance.
	You know, boomers are kind of like toddlers.
	You have to keep reality pretty far away from them, particularly emotional reality, but you don't have to do that anymore.
	So you're going to see how your parents react to direct emotional expression and honesty.
	And you'll see, I assume, I'm sure, you'll see the recoil.
	And then you'll say, oh, that's why I have these habits.
	That's why I have this approach.
	Because they kind of don't like it when I'm honest and direct.
	Does that make sense?
	Yeah, during the roleplay was uncomfortable.
	I mean, playing my dad, yeah, it was not comfortable giving answers.
	That's for sure.
	Well, and he was, he had absolutely zero integrity.
	Zero, like negative integrity.
	He was corrupt as hell because he just lied about everything.
	And that means that he would rather win at your expense than genuinely listen.
	Because everything was kind of the simplicity insult.
	Well, you should have figured it out.
	I guess you didn't.
	I guess you're slow.
	Well, we gave you a good modeling and you just went another way.
	You went another direction.
	Like, you know what I mean?
	Like, that's just crazy.
	Like, that's just crazy.
	I mean, all parents know that lust is like the modern God.
	Lust and dopamine and sex and hedonism is like the modern.
	I mean, you have to arm your children against that stuff, right?
	Yeah, yeah, definitely.
	Yeah, I'm definitely doing them for my kid.
	Right.
	So, yeah, I think if you have that direct conversation with your parents, you can see how they react, and then you can understand why you didn't develop those habits because I think that they were punished.
	I think that they were rejected out of hand, like strongly, strenuously.
	And then I think it'll be easier for you to understand why you've lived with this kind of distance, I think, with a lot of your relationships over the course of your life and why there's this kind of awful familiarity to what's going on in your marriage and with your daughter.
	Huh.
	Thank you.
	Yeah, okay.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I'll do the call with them.
	It'll be better face-to-face if you can.
	Yeah, I've been trying to go out there ever.
	They live in another state, so I've been trying to visit them every quarter.
	So cheaper than a divorce.
	Yeah.
	If you've got time for a divorce, you've got time to fly to see your parents.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	Then I'll definitely do that then.
	All right.
	And of course, I'm certainly happy to help you and your wife if that is helpful too.
	And I guess we'll stop here.
	Will you keep me posted about how things are going?
	Yes, yes.
	I'll definitely let you know.
	And yeah, hopefully they can turn it around.
	I hope so too, man.
	I'm sure.
	Hopefully, at least I've hoped I've tried to give you the best tools that I can think of to help you achieve that.
	And obviously, I wish the very best for you and your family.
	Thank you.
	I appreciate it, Steph.
	Thanks.
	Take care.
	Bye-bye.

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