Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux - I AM 43 AND I DESERVE LOVE! CALL IN SHOW

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Sept. 12, 2025 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:18:06

I AM 43 AND I DESERVE LOVE! CALL IN SHOW

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	So, the question I was, I've been struggling with is: should I give up on love?
	And what I wrote in is: I will never give up on finding love because more than anything, I want a wife and a family.
	When I'm in a rough spot after a difficult breakup with a woman who didn't want to get married after a two and a half year relationship, I was previously in a sexless marriage for most of my youth, and I wonder how that, my religiosity, and my history are affecting me now and what I can do to make the most of the time I have.
	I'm 43.
	I know you're a Pink Floyd fan.
	I've got time just thumping in my chest all the time.
	I'm empathic, loving, well into my self-knowledge journey, spiritual.
	I make good money as an IT professional.
	I'm tall.
	People have even told me I'm good looking.
	Work out regularly.
	I've been porn-free for two years.
	It's so discouraging how hard dating has been after my 2016 divorce.
	I know you spend a lot of time talking about relationships with callers.
	And after a very, excuse me, after a very recent breakup from a two-month relationship, I thought was promising after the aforementioned two-and-a-half-year relationship, I feel I could use an outside perspective on what to work on and do differently.
	Right.
	I appreciate that.
	And, you know, looking for love is a big challenge.
	And I'm happy to chat about it.
	And I mean, happy to hear about childhood.
	I'm happy to hear about the last relationship.
	Where do you think we should start?
	You know, first, I just want to say that I've been a listener for a long time.
	Your material has really helped me out a lot.
	And I really appreciate that.
	I guess it's starting with the recent two and a half year relationship because that's been kind of been the epicenter of my life for the past six months.
	How old are you?
	I'm 43.
	43.
	Okay, got it.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Yeah, so I met my, I met that relationship two and a half years.
	I'm going to refer to them as the big breakup and the little breakup just to keep it easy in my head.
	But the woman I met in the big breakup, we met in a Christian singles group.
	And, you know, it was a great relationship as far as I could tell.
	That's why it's been so hard.
	We got along well, talked, had great conversations, did lots of things that we enjoyed together.
	She told me at the very beginning that she wasn't sure if she ever wanted to get married, and I should have listened to her.
	Because about a year in, she told me we went to a wedding for one of her coworkers.
	And after that wedding, she told me she never saw herself up on the altar.
	And naturally, that scared the shit out of me.
	And I was so afraid to lose her, I didn't really pressure or push her.
	Or I tried not to.
	I mean, I did push to get married in different ways down the line, which I'm sure we can get into.
	And gosh, like, you know, we got to the point where she really did not want to get married.
	And all she would tell me is that she needed time to herself and she wasn't sure if she could put together, put forth all that being a wife and mother required.
	And so we broke up last fall, and it's been devastating.
	I've never felt grief like this before.
	I'm so sorry.
	How old is she?
	She's 34.
	She's 34.
	And so you met when she was like, what, 31 and a half kind of thing, right?
	That's right.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	Got it.
	All right.
	Okay.
	And as you said, you didn't really ask her, or she had some indications about hesitancy towards marriage, but it wasn't as much as you thought could be overcome.
	Is that right?
	Yeah, that's right.
	You know, I've always felt that you do, you pay attention to what people do.
	That's so much what people say.
	And I met her family that Christmas.
	I spent quite a bit of time with her family.
	She's met my family on several occasions.
	We're both religious.
	We spent a lot of time going to church together, had really deep and intimate conversations, as you would expect for a two and a half year relationship.
	So it seemed like, okay, you know, this is it.
	She wants, I mean, of course, I'm projecting my own, my own desires.
	And I was afraid to tell her, to really ask her, like, well, what do you, what do you want?
	And she would always tell me something like she wasn't sure what she wanted from her life.
	And, you know, that's manifested in this breakup.
	But yeah, I wanted to change her mind, so to speak, and thought I could.
	Okay.
	And so she would claim to be religious, isn't, doesn't, it's Christian, right?
	That's right.
	Okay.
	Specifically, Catholic.
	Right.
	So isn't Catholicism somewhat embedded with, you know, go forth and procreate?
	That's what I thought, too.
	No, no, that's not what I think.
	Isn't that what it is?
	Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
	So she's not that religious.
	Well, she is.
	I mean, she would not miss church.
	No, no, who cares about going to church?
	What matters?
	I mean, not that it doesn't matter, but it's like saying she goes to the gym, but she doesn't work out.
	I mean, the whole point of going to the gym is to work out, and the whole point of going to church is to live the values, right?
	Yeah, can't argue with that.
	So, yeah, what was her?
	What was her explanation as to why she claimed to be Catholic, but didn't want to get married and procreate?
	No, again, she wants to be a nun or something like that.
	But what was her theory about that or her story about that?
	Well, you know, she would emotionally block up when I would really push her.
	I would ask her these questions, exactly that, what you're asking me.
	Why don't you want to get married?
	What's to stop?
	What's the deal?
	And she would start to cry and just emotionally freeze up.
	And I feel bad.
	And I'd want to.
	Oh, so she was manipulating that way.
	Like, I can't.
	It's too upsetting.
	It's just a way of avoiding answers, right?
	Yeah.
	I mean, I'm not trying to, you know, besmirch your affection or your love for the woman, but that's not, that's not fair, right?
	She knew you wanted to get married.
	And it's not fair to not answer the question.
	Yeah.
	And, you know, in fairness, I didn't want to hear the answer if it wasn't going to be no.
	And what is another central tenet of Christianity?
	Thou shalt not bear what?
	False witness.
	False witness.
	You don't lie.
	Absolutely.
	You don't lie.
	So if somebody says, why don't you want to get married, who wants to get married?
	You have a responsibility to tell the truth.
	So again, I'm trying to figure out where this super duper religiosity is coming from.
	Yeah, it's not seeing religion as a series of rules.
	Women tend to see religion as a series of comforts.
	Men follow religion regardless of the discomfort.
	Women often resist religion's discomforts and follow it for serenity, for sanctuary, for solace.
	But they don't, a lot of times, don't quite seem to see that religion exists to go against our instincts to prevaricate or to lie or to mislead or to exploit.
	And we don't, obviously, she's not here, so we don't have to get into too much detail.
	But why wasn't she married?
	That's another good question because I was her first serious relationship at 32, 31, which is very late.
	You know, she was a good-looking gal.
	I thought I had struck the law.
	I thought I had struck gold to meet somebody that was in my age range, but also had not a ton of experience.
	And asking yourself the question, how is this amazing?
	How is this amazing woman still on the market?
	Right.
	Right.
	You know, I've done a lot of reading on after the breakup on attachment styles.
	And I know it's not necessarily philosophical, but it's been helpful for me.
	I definitely tend toward anxiety in my life.
	I've done a lot of work to curtail that and to work on that.
	After reading about avoidant attachment styles or avoidant people in general, that's kind of my working hypothesis as to what happened where, you know, we got too close.
	And for whatever reason, in spite of all of her beliefs and religiosity and all of that, she just couldn't deal with being close to someone and pushed me away.
	Okay.
	She couldn't deal with that.
	I'm not sure what that means.
	Well, you know, when we first started dating, we had no problem talking about anything, or so it seemed, but it was early stages, right?
	And then, again, when I pushed her, when I, when I, you know, I, so for example, I'd say, let's read this book on relationships to get ready for marriage.
	She didn't really want to read the book.
	Then I'd say, let's go talk to a priest, you know, and figure out what's going on.
	And she didn't really want to do that either.
	Sorry, the religious, I'm sorry, the religious woman didn't want to talk to the priest for advice.
	Yeah.
	All right.
	Yeah.
	And, you know, in retrospect, I could see, I could see the red flags.
	I don't know why she didn't.
	I don't know.
	Well, you know what?
	I really want to take responsibility because she told me from the beginning that she wasn't sure.
	And then she told me when she told me after that wedding that she wasn't sure if she ever wanted to get married, I was so scared to lose her that I just buried it.
	And, you know, what I should have done at that moment has been, why the hell don't you want to get married?
	What the hell is going on?
	Like, this is a big message.
	But you'll find that aggressively, but yeah.
	Yeah.
	My anger is there.
	I feel like so all my emotions are just within arm's reach right now.
	But you're right.
	Maybe not that aggressively.
	But I really regret just like rolling over and not really tackling it head on at the time.
	And instead, kind of adopting a strategy of, well, I'll show her how awesome I am and then change her mind that way.
	Right.
	Okay.
	And so you met her 31 and a half.
	You broke up when she was 34.
	Is that right?
	That's right.
	Okay.
	And you don't have any idea why she didn't want to get married but wanted to date.
	You know, I asked her out and she said she's not sure.
	Now, she seemed very enthusiastic in the early stages of dating, you know, with the affection.
	And we never got, we never had sex all the way.
	We came pretty close.
	She was enthusiastic about that.
	And given my history of being in a sexless marriage, I was like, oh, okay.
	This lady, you know, she's she's, we align on values and she likes sex.
	This is awesome.
	Which I assume if you like sex and you like the company of a man, you like affection, you know, you like all doing all the things that couples do, that you would want to continue that forward and get married.
	So, yeah, it's been really frustrating because experiencing all of that and then getting to the point where, okay, let's do this.
	And then we don't because she says she's not available for that for whatever reason.
	When we broke up, actually, she wrote me a note and she said that her commitment level doesn't rise up to what's required for marriage.
	And she's not confident that she will be able to stand beside me no matter what.
	Okay, I don't really know what that means, but yeah, I'm right there with you.
	Okay, so tell me the things that you liked about her.
	Well, you know, in think hot crazy matrix, they say that like the standard or the crazy starts at a four, right?
	And I feel like as far as looks go, any woman that takes care of herself and isn't overweight probably starts at a five or a six.
	She was about there.
	You know, I was initially attracted to her looks, but then she told me that she took concealed carry classes from a guy that I was also training with.
	And my interest level shot up to like an 11.
	So I liked her conservative values.
	She was smart.
	She was a scientist, chemist.
	She studied chemistry and worked in a lab.
	Took a nerd out about science stuff together.
	We talked about religion and faith extensively and connected on that.
	So I really appreciated that.
	Her family was decent, definitely some issues there.
	But considering my previous relationship, it was like a walk in the park, what it felt like.
	And besides all that, we just had to.
	My previous relationship.
	Do you mean your marriage?
	That's right.
	Okay.
	Got it.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	And besides that, you know, we were into the same kind of things outdoors, camping, hiking.
	I'm in the mountain west now.
	So that's a lifestyle.
	And she's an adventurous person.
	So she was always down to go with me and go out in the woods and hike up a mountain.
	So we had a lot in common.
	And I've listened to enough of these calls to know by asking myself, well, what are the virtues?
	She was a caring and loving, especially.
	I was going to say to her.
	No, no, come on.
	You can't say that she strung you along with maybe, maybe for a couple of years, knowing that you're older and you want to get married.
	And then just by golly, but she's just such a kind and loving person.
	No, I can't give you that.
	I mean, that's functionally impossible.
	That's fair.
	So what are you trying to sell me here?
	And why?
	You know this one, right?
	You know.
	I do.
	I mean, nice try, I guess.
	I do.
	I will admit, you know, I've heard a lot of these calls and being on here with you.
	It's definitely, I'm feeling automatic talk, you know, like, oh, she was just nice and she was sweet and she was this and she was that.
	But none of that's particularly true.
	I mean, if it was true, then she wouldn't have strung you along in this kind of way, which is unbearably cruel, right?
	I mean, she took up, and it's one thing she's in her 30s, you're in her 40s, you're in your 40s, right?
	So she took you from your late 30s to your early 40s without an answer and without giving you a clear answer until the end, right?
	I mean, that's not caring.
	That's not caring for someone.
	Yeah, and she would probably say something like, well, you were fine with it.
	You know, you I told you I didn't, I didn't want to get married when we first met.
	And then I told you after a year, you know, you stuck around.
	It's probably what she was saying.
	Sorry, did she say from the very beginning she didn't want to get married?
	No, she said she wasn't sure.
	So that's a lie then.
	I mean, if she were to say, I said I didn't want to get married, when she simply said she wasn't sure, that's a different matter, right?
	Right.
	Right, because there's uncertainty there.
	Well, there's a lot of uncertainty, right?
	Right.
	So that's bearing false witness as well.
	Now, of course, she might say, well, I thought maybe I would or could or whatever, right?
	And then, don't you know, it just turned out that it didn't really work for me.
	Gosh, don't you know, right?
	So, yeah, I mean, that's that's that's certainly a possibility, right?
	Uh, and and what do you do you think that's the case that she was open to it and then she wasn't?
	Something happened over the two and a half years that she just didn't want to get married, I guess, to you.
	Well, that's kind of scary, you know, that I just didn't cut the mustard on some level.
	Um, I've been talking a lot of time.
	I mean, yeah, we shouldn't have to theorize because did she indicate that there were things that were deficient in the relationship?
	No, no, she told me it's not you.
	It's a typical, it's not you, it's me.
	That's what I got.
	Okay, so so, but she went from maybe wanting to get married to not wanting to get married when she was dating you.
	So, what changed?
	Or was she lying from the beginning that she just knew she was never going to get married, but she didn't want to tell you because she wanted to date you?
	You know, when the last conversation we had, she told, she said, sorry that you were the guinea pig, which implied to me that maybe I was, in her mind, trying out what it's like to be with a man, to have a boyfriend and maybe think about marriage.
	But in the end, she decided that it wasn't for her.
	Okay, but why not?
	What did she say?
	At least we don't know for sure, maybe, but what did she say?
	Right.
	Well, what she told me is over several conversations is that she has a lot of need for a lot of free time to herself, time to herself.
	She's an extreme introvert, and that if she's married to me, she doesn't know how she could navigate her need for time and space and still fulfill her duties as a wife.
	Okay.
	So she knew that about marriage to begin with.
	So what was the maybe?
	That's a good point.
	And, you know, we spent a lot of time together in the first, well, throughout our relationship, I was basically at her house like four days a week.
	And we'd have conversations like, well, maybe we're spending too much time together.
	We should take some time apart.
	But I never got that.
	She'd always mention something like that.
	And I'd say, like, okay, that's fine.
	You know, I'll go do some, my own thing on a Sunday evening or Saturday afternoon or whatever.
	And it seemed like it was fine.
	I never got the sense that I was smothering her.
	So, yeah, I'm quite, I'm quite confused by that, that she knew that she that as a Christian, the purpose of dating is marriage.
	And we both agreed on that.
	And that eventually those demands would be made on her time.
	And she dated me anyway.
	Okay.
	Do you know why she was an introvert or so introverted?
	Did she have any trauma in her youth?
	Or was that just her nature?
	Or what was the story there?
	I didn't experience her as that introverted.
	Like as directly.
	I'm just trying to follow what you said.
	Yeah, no, I get you.
	Those were her words.
	And I was always confused by that as well, because my experience with her is that our time together, I never got the sense that it was too much or that she was overwhelmed.
	She does have some trauma in her past.
	Sorry, sorry.
	I was a little confused.
	I thought she told you explicitly that you were spending too much time together and she needed time apart.
	Did I misunderstand that?
	No, I think maybe you misunderstood the degree to which what you're telling me, right?
	So you said she was an extreme introvert and that Sunday nights or whatever, she'd say, we're spending too much time together.
	I need time apart, right?
	But then you also say she didn't give me an indication of how introverted she was or how much she needed time apart because she said that to you directly if I understand what you're saying.
	No, no, that's fair.
	That's fair to say.
	What I wanted to add the caveat that that conversation, we're spending too much time apart, let's not spend Sunday nights together without spending too much time together.
	Right.
	We're spending too much time together.
	Okay.
	Let's take a Sunday apart from each other.
	That conversation happened maybe once every two months.
	So.
	And how was she with socializing with, say, your friends or your family?
	I mean, did she seem introverted in that way as well?
	No.
	No, she seemed normal.
	Normal.
	I know that's a, what does that mean?
	I get it.
	Just normal amount of gregariousness or sociability.
	Okay.
	Got it.
	All right.
	So maybe the introverted thing was an excuse.
	Possibly.
	I know that works.
	I think that's a fucking idea, right?
	I mean, possibly, maybe she was a space alien.
	That's possible too, I suppose, but I don't know how to navigate the vaguely possible stuff.
	Okay.
	So what is it?
	How did it end?
	Was there anything that happened in particular when it ended?
	Yeah, I was getting really frustrated and more.
	I guess I was putting more pressure on our relationship with just what the fuck are we doing here?
	What are we doing?
	And the day that we broke up, I had set up an appointment to talk to a priest for the two of us.
	And let me back up a little bit.
	We went to a wedding, another wedding with the mutual friends.
	And this couple had met before we did.
	And here they are getting married.
	So it was a very difficult wedding for me to sit through because I'm like, I want to be up there.
	I want to get married.
	Why are we still in this nebulous dating phase?
	So after that point, I think my patience was pretty much at its end.
	And so I had made an appointment to talk to a priest, which she agreed to go to and then canceled.
	And then I went anyway.
	And when I went, I talked to the priest and got some advice from him, spiritual advice.
	And then I shared with her that I went to the priest and here's what he said.
	And then that started the conversation that ended our relationship.
	And basically, she said, I'm done.
	I'm not going to do this.
	I'm not going to get married.
	So we ended up taking a two-week break, but that ended up in us breaking up after the two weeks were over.
	And why was she upset as a Catholic or as a Christian that you went to talk to a priest to get advice?
	She wasn't upset that I went to talk to the priest.
	She was, I think, upset that this marriage question kept coming up and kept coming up and it wasn't going to go away.
	And my, it seems to me that she was just, I'm done.
	And was she done in kind of like an angry way or what?
	No, she was, I could tell that she didn't want to hurt my feelings and that she was, it was difficult for her to make that decision.
	She had indicated that in the months before, and I didn't know this, that she was emotionally tormented by the prospect of getting married and feeling a lot of pressure to get married.
	I really regret that we didn't talk about it because I didn't know that she felt this way, not until the very end.
	But basically what she said was, I'm emotionally tapped out and I've got nothing to do with it.
	I don't know what that means, emotionally tapped out.
	Something like, I can't stand feeling this way anymore.
	So I'm going to make these feelings stop by breaking up with you.
	And the feeling this way was related to you guys getting married and you wanted to get married.
	Right.
	Right.
	The pressure that she was experiencing.
	Okay.
	Right.
	So she doesn't want to have kids.
	She doesn't want to get married.
	And that's just the way it was.
	Right.
	And at some point, I mean, did you get a sense that there was anything that changed wherein she was open to the idea of marriage and then she wasn't?
	Not a black and white shift from open to not.
	Oh, no, of course it's not a black and white shift by definition, right?
	It's going to be subtle.
	But that's my question.
	Was there anything that you noticed or thought about?
	All I can think of was that wedding that we went to for her coworker, where two days later she said she doesn't see herself up on the altar.
	And I found out later during our breakup conversation that she expected me to break up with her in that moment.
	So I've wondered if she intended to break up with me in a subtle way.
	You know, not breaking up with me directly, but saying something that would make me break up with her because I want to get married.
	And she basically says she doesn't.
	Okay.
	So was it just her looks?
	Was it mostly her looks that had you so hopeful?
	That's a big part of it, if I'm honest.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	I mean, that's a risk, right?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	So you spent two and a half years with this woman.
	She ended up not wanting to get married, we assume in general, but certainly to you, right?
	Right.
	And why, and how long ago did you break up?
	That was last fall, so about six months ago.
	Okay.
	And how long have you been listening to what I do?
	Over 10 years.
	So why the hell wouldn't you call me?
	Honestly.
	Yeah, let's be honest.
	Why not?
	Yeah, I was so enthralled that a woman gave me the time of day that I was attracted to that everything just kind of fell by the wayside and I was off in happy la-la land, I guess, you know.
	I mean, I didn't see that.
	Yeah, but you're not a teenager, bro.
	I mean, you've, you've got a tortured relationship with a woman where you want to get married and she's kind of flitting around like some butterfly in a windstorm.
	And you've been listening to me for 10 years.
	And, you know, you can do whatever you want, obviously.
	But I'm just kind of curious why you wouldn't call me.
	I felt something.
	I felt some pretty substantial fears.
	I was terrified of losing her.
	And I didn't even want to look at the fear.
	I'm just like that fear is in his core.
	The fact that you're living in terror of losing a woman after years of dating is a seriously bad sign, isn't it?
	Yes, it is.
	You know, it's like if you've had a job for two years and you go in every day with your palms sweating that you're going to get screamed at and fired, that's a toxic work environment, isn't it?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	How attractive do you think it was to this woman for you to be so cocked and terrified of her and feeling out of your league and out of your depth and she's too good for me and I've got to beg and my God, that's gross to women as it would be to a man, right?
	I mean, if there was some woman who was just completely terrified of you and just always nervous that you were going to dump her and, you know, month after month, year after year, I mean, wouldn't that get kind of exhausting and annoying?
	Yeah, absolutely.
	And, you know, let's go to childhood, right?
	Because this is childhood stuff, right?
	That you have no leverage, that you've just got to cross your fingers and hope and beg, and then you get angry when your needs aren't met, and then you fear again.
	That's got to be a mom thing, or maybe a dad thing, probably a mom thing.
	So let's talk about your mom.
	Where to start?
	The very beginning?
	My childhood.
	Well, they, what I remember from my childhood is being dragged to church against my will.
	The religion was laid on really thick and powerfully.
	My parents did not get along for as long as I can remember.
	And it was centered around the religion.
	My mother wanted everybody to follow along in lockstep.
	And my dad was like, nope, you know, I'm not there.
	I'm not on the same page.
	So you have to talk to me like I'm not you, right?
	So you're saying things that make sense to you.
	How on earth am I supposed to know what you mean by my mom wanted us to walk along in lockstep and my father didn't?
	I have no idea.
	Is lockstep refer to religion?
	Does it refer to chores?
	Does it refer to obedience to the parents or the mother?
	So tell me stuff like I don't know it already because I don't.
	Yeah.
	And that's automatic speak, right?
	So you've got to be alive to the conversation and be aware of what I know and don't know and not give me automatic language, which is stuff you've talked about to yourself a million times before.
	So let's try that run again with your parents not getting along.
	Yeah, thanks for the guidance.
	I'm surprised at how anxious I am.
	And my brain, I'm trying to access things and feeling blocked.
	But let's try again.
	Let's talk about the block then.
	What do you think is blocking you at the moment?
	Well, I want to do a good job on this call.
	I want to get whatever.
	Good job on this call.
	It's just being honest and direct, right?
	Yeah.
	So you can't try to do a good job on the call.
	Yeah.
	I should just do.
	Well, that's just being honest.
	Yeah.
	Like, I mean, if I say I want to sit in the chair, right?
	I just go sit in the chair.
	I don't sit there and say, well, I'm going to try and sit in the chair.
	And I've already got a strain to sit in the chair and I want to get sitting in the chair right.
	That wouldn't make much sense, right?
	This is just an honest and direct, you know, bro-to-bro conversation.
	So don't worry about trying to get things right and don't worry about self-editing or saving time or anything like that.
	You know, just be aware that I don't know anything about your history.
	So don't assume I know anything because I don't, right?
	And let's, you know, just sort of take a deep breath if everything's fine and just try the telling me about your because you also said like the difference this was in religion and then you moved on to something else I don't know I don't even know what religion they were Rastafarian and Zoroastrian I don't know right so I don't know anything about what you're talking about and you so you can't sort of you know like how you skip rocks on the water right just ding ding ding go on the surface I need to know what's going on so
	tell me a bit more about your parents marriage on the assumption that I know nothing well it wasn't good they fought a lot constantly screaming at each other and it was a pattern of There would be a lot of like overly over-the-top lovey-dovey with a perfect couple and then a horrible fight.
	So I remember the perfect couple in public or private or for the kids or for others or at social gatherings or church.
	I'm not sure where's the perfect couple and then the screaming at each other.
	What are the two circumstances or environments?
	I remember mostly in the home to us, to their children.
	Oh, okay.
	So they would portray themselves.
	And how many siblings do you have?
	I have two siblings.
	Okay, so they would portray themselves to you guys as the perfect couple.
	But then they'd be screaming at each other.
	And what proportion of the time were they fighting or screaming at each other?
	Probably half of a given month, they would be screaming at each other.
	Is that right?
	Well, I'll just go with my gut feeling right now.
	Yeah, about 50-50.
	So real strong switches between we totally in love and we love each other and we absolutely hate each other.
	Right.
	So that would be a little tough to sustain, right?
	Yeah.
	And they got divorced about 10 years ago.
	Right.
	Okay.
	So it's a bit schizo, right?
	To be screaming at each other and then say, hey, kids, we're the perfect couple.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	All right.
	And tell me the difference in discipline or approach to that sort of thing between your mother and your father.
	My mother would discipline with a look and disappointment and emotions, I guess, because she never spanked us.
	My father did, but it was something like a swat on the butt through clothes.
	And what I remember about his discipline is that it was almost like laughable, like, really, this is all you've got.
	This is what I'm in trouble for.
	And he wouldn't be, he wouldn't follow through with things like grounding or so.
	I would get in trouble for something.
	I can't even remember what, maybe coming home late, later than I said I would.
	And so it'd be, where were you?
	Why'd you come late?
	You're grounded for a week.
	And then after two days, you know, he'd forget about it.
	But with my mother, she would discipline us for almost like thought crimes.
	What I mean by that is if we were watching the wrong kind of movies, or I remember having a set of PC Gamer magazines.
	This is back in the 90s.
	And there would be advertisements in them for, say, Doom or Quake, and they would be like a demon or something on the advertisement.
	And she would look at that and be like, this is a demon.
	And she'd rip out.
	Well, one, she would go through all my magazines and rip out those advertisements and throw them away, which drove me crazy.
	But also, she would, you know, she would make me, I don't want to say, I said she didn't spank, but she would she would be mad at me.
	And that was almost worse than the spanking, if that makes any sense.
	Well, what was it like when she was mad at you?
	That's a good question.
	I remember strongly not wanting to disappoint her.
	So I think most of it, most of what I remember now is the internal shame of disappointing her.
	Now, what would she do?
	She would scream.
	She would yell and pray loudly in a way that made me feel like I was going to hell.
	Oh, yeah, yeah.
	That very self-conscious, Lord, save these children.
	I can't.
	You know, all the same stuff.
	Exactly.
	Okay.
	Did she call you names?
	No, she didn't call me names.
	Okay, so, but you got the impression that you were going to go to hell.
	Yeah.
	I mean, that's really unpleasant for kids, right?
	It's terrifying.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	And I remember being told that I'm not going to make it to eighth grade because what?
	What do you mean, not make it to eighth grade?
	I'm not making it to eighth grade because the rapture is going to come.
	And, you know, the second times as well.
	Like, you're going to hell on Tuesday.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	My mother was.
	Well, I mean, did your father correct her?
	Nope.
	All right.
	So then they both were.
	I mean, I don't care what your father's beliefs were, that what you let stand, you participate in, right?
	Absolutely.
	Okay.
	And what about your father?
	He was always at work.
	And I didn't really see much of him in the house, except on, you know, weekends, things like that.
	But it's not like the weekend would come and he's off work and we would go play ball.
	I would see him around the house more on weekends.
	I have a very, very strained relationship with my father now.
	And all of my feelings about my father are directed at things in the present, not so much back then in my early childhood.
	In my early childhood, what I remember is that, you know, he suffered from IBS, so he was always sick in some way.
	I found out later that he was put on benzos for anxiety issues stemming from fights that he would have with his brothers and his family.
	Sorry, at what age?
	This would have been in the mid-80s, and he was born in the mid-50s.
	So he would have been in his 30s.
	Yeah, in his 30s.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	And benzos can be, I mean, well, just ask Jordan Peterson, right?
	They're pretty addictive.
	Yes.
	They can string you out pretty, pretty rough.
	Yeah.
	There was one particular time I remember where he had a panic attack in public with me, just me and him.
	We were going to the mall or something.
	And, you know, he had a panic attack.
	I didn't have no idea.
	I had no idea what was happening.
	All I remembered is that he was in the bathroom for an extremely long time and then the ambulance showed up and he was carted off.
	So, yeah, it's there's not much coming up for me for my dad when I was young.
	It's like he let my mom run the show until moments when he didn't, and then he'd get extremely aggressive and violent.
	And he never hit my mother throwing objects across the room, smashing, smashing plates and things like that.
	And how often would this violence occur?
	I want to say once a month to once every three months.
	So it was fairly rare.
	But it was opted enough that I was quite quite aware that my father was capable of having a temper.
	And was he a sort of yellow or screamer as well?
	Did he call names as well?
	Yes, he absolutely did.
	What would you hear?
	I don't recall him calling me any names or my siblings any names.
	He would direct names at my mother, though he would call her things like in Spanish, the hypocrite, fucking bitch.
	This is mostly when they were arguing about religion, and then they would both scream at each other and hurl things kind of on that level at each other.
	And what would they be arguing about with regards to religion?
	Well, my father always felt that religion was a money grab and they existed just to bleed people dry.
	And there's probably some of that stuff going on.
	There's a lot of prosperity gospel, which, for those who don't know what that is, is it's a theology where if you give a church, a church a bunch of money, then God will make you prosperous in return, kind of like a tit-for-tat thing.
	So like a Ponzi, yeah, okay.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	So my mom would that the money just magically shows up the more you give, right?
	Okay, got it.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	And also my mom wanted my dad to go to church with us.
	She wanted him to be a spiritual leader, and he wasn't.
	That just wasn't his thing.
	Well, he was an atheist, was he?
	He wasn't a strong atheist in that he professed to be an atheist, but he certainly did not live like a Christian.
	Well, if he said organized religion is a money grab, he certainly wasn't religious, right?
	Yeah, that's fair to say that he wasn't religious.
	So that's interesting.
	So your mother chose to marry.
	Well, do you know if he changed his view on religion maybe after he got married?
	No, absolutely not.
	So she married somebody who was an agnostic, let's just say agnostic or whatever, right?
	Or a weak atheist.
	So your mother married someone who was an agnostic and then was really upset with him for not being religious.
	Yeah.
	She became religious a year into their marriage.
	I don't know the full circumstances as to why she became religious or what happened there.
	Oh, so she changed.
	Did you say he changed?
	No, she.
	Your mother changed.
	She changed.
	Yes, she changed.
	That's right.
	Okay.
	So she said she wasn't religious, to your knowledge, and then she became religious after she got married.
	She grew up Catholic, but wasn't as religious as she was.
	So she had religion in her history in her background and had an experience where she left Catholicism and had a revival experience or something like that a year.
	Sorry, I don't know what experiences.
	More fundamentalist?
	More fundamentalist.
	Yeah, that's a good way of putting it.
	What's your cultural background?
	My mother is Puerto Rican and my father is from the Dominican Republic.
	Okay, got it.
	Got it.
	Okay, so she had the church, the Catholic Church, and then she became fundamentalist, right?
	Like Hellfire, Brimstone, End Times, if the car is empty, it's because of the rapture kind of stuff, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, the whole nine.
	And then they struggled to make it work.
	Your father remained skeptical, and your mother, I assume, stayed or got maybe even more fundamentalist.
	Is that right?
	That's right.
	She doubled down.
	And what would they fight about in detail?
	So my father was, besides the religion, and I guess focusing on that for a moment, like I said, she wanted him to go to church.
	She wanted him to be a spiritual leader in the family, in the household.
	He wasn't.
	So she resented him for that.
	And she'd poke and prod and push and, you know, demand that he do that.
	So all of that was one huge area that they would fight.
	Another was that my father's a philanderer.
	He's a womanizer.
	He's been that for us.
	Wait, he's a Puerto Rican guy who's a philanderer.
	Hang on.
	Let me just actually, he's the one.
	I got a picnic.
	Yeah, he's Puerto Rican.
	My mother's Puerto Rican.
	You might have said it's a Dominican, right?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	Which is not any better.
	Yeah.
	I'm the application.
	Six of one, half a dozen other.
	Okay.
	I'm just kicking myself off the floor here with stereotype confirmation.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	He would brag that he had like, you know, when he was in college, he'd have like a girlfriend in one dorm room and another girlfriend in the other room.
	So my mother would find obvious evidence of him cheating on her, and he would deny it.
	And they would fight about it loudly.
	I always thought, like, dad, how do you, you know, once she actually found a card that some other woman had written him, a love letter, basically, and he denied it existed.
	Kind of like that shaggy song, you know?
	It wasn't me.
	That's basically what he would do.
	And so they were married for how long?
	You said they got divorced 10 years ago?
	Yeah, so they were married for about 35 years.
	And do you know what caused the divorce?
	A lot of things.
	I mean, I should say there was a lot happening during that time.
	Their fights would get more and more loud and verbally abusive.
	You know, police would be called, things like that.
	And my father, I think things just broke between them in that my mother finally got up the gumption to leave him, to leave the house.
	And I was living in a different place from they were.
	And I offered, like, hey, mom, get out of there.
	Come over here.
	And I don't want to make it sound like I instigated their divorce because it had been a long time coming, but I certainly felt happy that they were apart now and they had space from each other.
	And to your relationship with your parents now?
	With my father, it's pretty much non-existent.
	I don't talk to him.
	And where we stand is I wrote him an email basically saying, you know, there's A, B, C, D, E things that I expect you to talk about with me or take responsibility for.
	And he refuses to do that.
	And we can get into what those things are.
	With my mother, I talk to her fairly regularly.
	She's mellowed out a lot in her religious fervor.
	And we have enough in common that from a religious standpoint that I can talk to her.
	And I've expressed to both of them, Confronted both of them on much of what I'm sharing with you now.
	My mother was apologetic.
	She felt sorrowful that we went through all of that as kids.
	Sorrowful, what do you mean?
	She caused a lot of it.
	She did.
	I mean, I can't punch someone and say, I'm so sorry you got punched.
	Like, I wasn't doing it.
	Well, like, for example, I told her about my experiences as a young kid going to church, being dragged to church by her.
	And I told her how I felt about all that.
	She said, I'm sorry that I'm sorry that I put you through that.
	I'm sorry that you did that.
	I did that to you.
	And as I'm saying that, though, that was a while ago.
	That was probably seven or eight years ago that I had that conversation with her.
	And now I'm saying this out loud.
	I'm questioning whether or not I confronted her fully.
	I certainly confronted my father fully.
	I found that easier to do.
	And I'm not surprised.
	I'm not surprised about honestly, I'm feeling a lot of resistance talking, talking negatively about my mother.
	And I've listened to a lot of these calls and I know how this goes.
	And I'm kind of surprised that you were going to hell imminently and you wouldn't make it to grade eight.
	That's terrifying.
	Screamed at you.
	Frightened you.
	Stayed with a philandering, violent man, kept you in his orbit, chose him.
	You know, pretty recently, I confronted her on that.
	I'm like, why did you choose my father?
	And he said, well, he was a good man.
	And I was like, what?
	that doesn't make any sense because of a b c d e and she got pretty upset at me for bringing that up sorry i thought there was more um Was your father very good looking?
	I mean, how was he such a philanderer?
	He had game, as people would say.
	Gosh, I kind of wish I had some of that.
	You probably don't.
	Wish I could get trashy women to sleep with me?
	You probably don't, especially these days.
	Oh, tell me about it.
	Okay, so your father wasn't good looking and charismatic or just more charismatic?
	I think he was more charismatic and very persistent.
	That's how he broke my mom down as far as I understood the story.
	You know, he pursued her for probably six months.
	And she kept turning him down, kept turning him down, kept turning him down.
	And eventually she agreed to go out with him.
	And they were a thing.
	It kind of blows my mind that that works as a method to get a woman.
	Okay.
	And your last girlfriend, what did she think of your family?
	That's a good question.
	So she spent a total of probably two weeks, so two week-long trips over one with a year between.
	And so she got along on a certain level.
	She's Scandinavian from the Midwest.
	Okay, so she's a white girl, and she was going to the sort of Puerto Rican and Dominican households, right?
	Yeah.
	But she spent more time in my brother's house than with, and she didn't, she has never met my father or spoken to my father because I wouldn't allow it.
	I pretty much cut him out of my personal life at that point.
	She met my mother.
	Her and my mother got along as Christians and as women, you know, there's kind of two groups in common.
	And there wasn't any drama.
	You know, it kind of felt like, oh, well, this is my girlfriend.
	You know, oh, yeah, this is my brother.
	Let's go do touristy, fun, touristy things since we're on vacation.
	And, you know, we talk politics a bit.
	She's conservative, as am I, and my brother's not so much.
	So there's a few interesting conversations, never anything where we debate aggressively or anything like that.
	But all in all, she got along with my family and never complained about them, which I know isn't a very high bar, but okay.
	All right.
	Okay.
	So I think I've got some good background information other than if you could tell me a little bit about your sexist marriage.
	Oh, boy.
	Yeah.
	So I met my ex-wife in high school.
	That was pure physical attraction.
	I mean, I was 18 years old, senior in high school, and immediately I was just blown away that a girl liked me back because up until that point, you know, I'd had several crushes.
	Nothing was reciprocated and really struggled.
	So why were you so down on your attractiveness?
	That's a good question.
	I think I just always assumed that girls don't like me on some level.
	Yes, I understand what the definition of down on your attractiveness is, but why?
	I'm really struggling with that.
	Why?
	I think I wasn't very direct with girls when I was in school.
	I have crushes from a distance.
	And then my feelings would just get to the point where I couldn't stand it anymore.
	And I'd write some girl a love letter or something.
	And then it wouldn't be received well.
	So I took that as evidence of girls don't like me.
	And sure, maybe that.
	I mean, looking back now, what sort of girls were you attracted to?
	The cute girl in my class.
	I can't really think, or the cute girl on the bus.
	I mean, it was all looks based for sure.
	I don't remember at that age liking anybody for anything beyond that.
	Well, your parents only loved each other for reasons of sexual attraction, I assume, or they were only with each other because they didn't seem to like each other that much as people, right?
	Yeah, that's less is less is the basis.
	And you hadn't seen any value that men and women could provide to each other from a moral standpoint.
	They just had sex and they fucked and they fought, right?
	Yeah.
	So what are you supposed to do except follow sexual attraction?
	Because you didn't have any examples of quality of character or personality, right?
	Yep.
	God, that hurts to say.
	I really mean, my mother was very pretty and slender and charismatic.
	And Guys chased after her, even though she had a kind of a horror show of a personality.
	It just taught me a lot about a lot of men, right?
	And, you know, some decent quality men, too, but just looks, looks, looks, right?
	It's a cliff edge, right?
	That many a man falls off.
	Yeah.
	And I'm struggling with that now because it's hard to, I don't know, like it's hard for me to say, agree to date a woman that's overweight.
	A lot of it is, I was not attracted to her.
	Yeah, but the overweight one is different.
	An overweight thing is a character flaw as a whole.
	So that's a different matter.
	I mean, for a lot of men, it's like, well, if I stick my dick in her, all of these rainbow virtues are going to come out.
	If I'm attracted enough, I can just make do with what comes, right?
	And look, I'm not saying I've been above this my whole life.
	I'm not, you know, I'm not like Zen like above, oh, as if this ever happened to me.
	So I get that.
	I sympathize with all of that.
	But I mean, certainly in your 40s, right?
	You got to look for qualities of character, especially if you've been listening to me for 10 years, right?
	Absolutely.
	So the last girl, sorry, sorry, tell me a little bit more.
	How long were you married and how long was it sexless?
	Oh, well, it was sexless from the very beginning all the way through until the very end, and it spanned about 15 years.
	Sorry.
	So I guess you had no sex before marriage because you're Christian.
	And then after marriage, you said, I'm not having sex after marriage either.
	Well, I wasn't Christian.
	Okay, so I grew up Christian, but I went through a crisis of faith when I was in high school around the same time.
	And I abandoned Christianity completely.
	Her family was Catholic, but she wasn't particularly Christian either.
	Our relationship was sexless partially because I had pretty serious porn addiction that started when I was in my pre-teen years.
	And she was sexually repressed by her family.
	A lot of emotional abuse in her family and history.
	And when we got married, we just did not after being in a relationship where we didn't have sex for seven or eight years, you don't just automatically just have know what to do.
	Or I was terrified.
	And as I say that, it's pretty heartbreaking to say that.
	Sorry, I don't know what you mean, terrified of what I was, I was scared.
	Like, so we got married under very, very stressful circumstances.
	And what were those?
	Well, so her mother controlled her life completely, even into her mid-20s, to the point where she was afraid to, we were going to go on a cruise with some friends, and she knew her mother wouldn't let her go, which I know sounds ridiculous for a 25-year-old woman to be in that situation, but that's what it was.
	And I was an adult married woman, right?
	No, we weren't married at this point.
	I'm sorry.
	I'm sorry.
	You met in high school, but you weren't married?
	Yeah.
	This was right before we got married.
	Okay.
	So I was at my wit's end.
	And in my mind, I was just setting an ultimatum.
	Like, I'm going to invite her on this cruise.
	And if she goes with me, great.
	If she doesn't, then we're breaking up.
	And I asked her, we're going to go on a screws.
	And she said, nope.
	My mom was not going to let me go.
	And I'm not going to ask her, basically, is what she said.
	And I made her go.
	Instead of breaking up with her, I said, no, we're going on this cruise.
	So I drove her to her house and got her stuff and then drove to the camera because she wasn't married yet and she was concerned you guys might fool around.
	No, she was afraid of her mother.
	No, no, but what was her mother afraid of?
	Well, they're Nicaraguan.
	They were at the top of the food chain during the 70s.
	And when the communists took over there, she lost everything and saw horrible things, people getting executed and things like that.
	So she was a hateful person.
	That was my experience of her.
	She was always angry.
	She was extremely very, very quick to launch into tirades and insults.
	Like, you fucking asshole, you're an idiot.
	You're a slut.
	She called her a slut, her daughter a slut to my face when we were together once.
	Yeah, but I mean, this was similar to your parents' marriage.
	So this is all just familiar stuff, right?
	Yeah, with the exception that her husband was a complete and total pushover.
	Like he never said a word.
	Whereas my father and my mother, their fighting was more even-handed.
	So in this family, she was basically a tyrant.
	Okay, so you got married, and then there was no sex.
	There was no sex, right?
	Until years later, when she developed, my ex-wife developed a crush on her boss.
	And my reaction was something like, wow, you have a sex drive.
	That's amazing.
	Instead of being furious.
	So we had agreed to have an open marriage, although I stipulated that that guy was off limits.
	So we were starting to have sex.
	Sorry, that's quite a leap here, right?
	Yeah.
	I'm sorry.
	So she's Christian, and she says, I want a non-monogamous marriage so I can have sex with other men.
	No, I'm sorry.
	My ex-wife was not.
	I mean, she was Catholic on paper, but she was not a Christian.
	She never went to church.
	She never prayed.
	Okay, she didn't live as a Christian.
	So she wasn't a Christian.
	And what was your belief at the faith at that time?
	I was an atheist for most of my 20s until this situation with my ex-wife.
	I went into meditation and became a Buddhist, studied Zen Buddhism for about 10 years.
	I can understand that living in a sexless marriage might make you want to master your desires.
	You know, I never got that connection until you just said that.
	Like, how did I have to help?
	It seems so obvious now.
	And that's kind of the thing in my life is me just dealing with it, with things.
	Okay, hang on, hang on.
	So, so she develops a crush on her boss, and then she wants to open up the marriage.
	Is that right?
	Yeah, she wants to fuck this guy.
	Right.
	And you, when you say sexless marriage, you're talking about like from the wedding day onwards, nothing or just very rare?
	Nothing, like zero sex.
	For 15 years.
	For 15 years, yeah.
	And was it that she was aware of your viewing of pornography?
	Was that her excuse or was there something else?
	Our communication was terrible.
	All my sexual energy was going into pornography.
	So I didn't pursue her.
	And we didn't talk about it.
	Which I know sounds crazy, but your pornography was a barrier to the sex life.
	And that's just because you didn't pursue her, or was she aware of your usage?
	I don't think she was aware of the extent of my usage.
	Because I was beating off the porn probably every day.
	And I go through great pains to hide it.
	And she never really caught me.
	But why did you stay married?
	It's a good question.
	I mean, did you want kids?
	Because, you know, as far as I understand it, that's the traditional way to do it, right?
	Right.
	Right.
	I was passive in my life.
	I had no sense that I had any agency that I could choose to divorce my wife or to leave her.
	It didn't come.
	But you would get it annulled, right?
	If you got married in a church, if there's no sexual activity, you can just get the marriage annulled.
	And then it's like, it's not even a divorce.
	It's like it never was, right?
	Right.
	But that didn't even cross my mind.
	And I will say that for probably the last five to eight years, probably the last five years of our relationship.
	So maybe a year or two after we got married, I felt like, what the fuck have I done?
	This is, I'm stuck.
	I'm stuck in this marriage.
	There's no way out.
	You know, I made these vows.
	And that's, this has been a pattern for me where I've stayed in a relationship way too long.
	But I don't understand this relationship.
	It's not a marriage.
	I don't even know what to call it.
	Marriage is about sex.
	Right.
	That's why marriage exists because people have sex and sex makes babies.
	And babies need a two-parent-committed household.
	So marriage is about sex.
	It's about the regulation and focus and discipline of sexuality.
	Right.
	So I don't know what to call this.
	This is like saying, I have a job and you don't get paid.
	You don't have a job.
	You got something, but it ain't a job.
	Right.
	Did anyone else know?
	Did you talk about it with your brothers or your parents or friends?
	Or did you get any feedback or advice or what?
	I had a ton of shame about it.
	Could you imagine?
	You're married to somebody, you don't not having sex with them.
	So I never told anybody out of shame.
	I just pushed it down and trudged on with my life until I couldn't.
	So you said the last five years was like you were more conscious and aware of how bad it was?
	That's right.
	Yeah.
	So what happened then?
	Well, talking to people, seeing conflicts with my ex-wife and my friends, because we were long distance when I was in college, and I had a whole group, I had a whole social circle that didn't meet her until we were married.
	And then they were like, who the fuck is this?
	We thought you made this person up.
	And there was class.
	My friends, when they finally met my ex-wife, they were first of all floored that she actually existed because they hadn't met her.
	And they don't joke, right?
	They didn't think that you'd made up an entire marriage, that you were lying, did they?
	Well, that's a good point.
	They were just mostly.
	They're just a pretty bad set of friends if they think that you're a pathological liar and still want to be friends with you.
	Well, sorry for putting it that way.
	That might have been misleading.
	No, I just want to make sure I understand.
	I don't mind if you were using hyperbole.
	I just want to know if it was.
	Yeah, it was hyperbole for sure.
	Okay, they like to joke.
	Like, you know, I have a girlfriend in California, you know, when you're a kid or something.
	Okay, so they were just kind of joking about it.
	Okay, go ahead.
	Yeah, and they must have thought it was strange that.
	Sorry, let me collect my thoughts here.
	Well, no, that's fine.
	So, what to tell me you started to talk about your sexist marriage and people is that right with people?
	I wasn't that direct with people about it, but I was aware that our marriage was dysfunctional and wanted better for myself.
	And this is about the time that I picked up the meditation and was interested in self-knowledge and personal growth and those things.
	And we were growing apart because our whole relationship up to this point, you know, that's fair.
	But if anything, our relationship was based on her needing me to escape her family.
	Whether she actually did or not, I don't know if she, what would have happened to her if I wasn't in the picture, but I certainly needed the validation of being her savior at the time.
	And as our marriage progressed, she became more and more independent.
	So that basis of why we were together.
	Well, these had just had two roommates masturbating in separate rooms, right?
	So I don't even know what to call that.
	Shared history from my boss.
	Anyway, so what happened?
	I want to make sure we get to the sort of central point of your question.
	So what happened at the end of that marriage?
	So she agreed that we can have an open marriage, but that guy was off limits.
	She ended up drunk at this guy's house late at night and had sex with him.
	This guy also has a reputation with the boss.
	Right.
	And he had a reputation for getting women drunk and sleeping with them.
	So there's he's a player like your daddy.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	But for me, I found somebody and was talking to them.
	And my ex-wife was really jealous and wanted me to not talk to this person.
	So I was like, fuck this.
	I'm out.
	You know, I'm just, I can't stand this anymore.
	And honestly, at this point, I'd reached a level of complete exhaustion emotionally.
	Like, I hate to say it, but I didn't care whether she lived or died, which is a horrible thing to say.
	I can't believe I. Oh, let's not judge it.
	Don't worry about it.
	I don't care about the judgment.
	Let's just go on with the honesty.
	Okay.
	That's how I felt.
	I didn't care if she lived or died.
	And I'm just like, I'm done.
	I'm out.
	So I initiated a divorce, and it was a really painful process.
	I mean, it's always.
	Divorce sucks, but she didn't want to go through with it.
	So I had to do all the legwork and track her down.
	She wouldn't answer my phone calls.
	I had to have her served a whole nine.
	And we didn't have any kids or property, so there was nothing to fight over.
	She just took away.
	I'm sure you didn't have any kids.
	Otherwise, I just fair.
	Okay.
	And how long ago did you get divorced?
	Or did it finalized?
	That was 2016.
	So nine years ago.
	Okay.
	And then you had a couple of relationships and then the two and a half year one, or was the two and a half year one the only major one?
	The two and a half year, that was the only major one.
	And how many other women did you date or sleep with since 2016?
	Well, I met a woman at basically a music festival and slept with her.
	At that point, I had like no, basically I had not masturbated in like four months doing the no fab thing.
	And it was horny enough to just go nuts, right?
	So I was not particularly attracted to this woman, but she was there.
	And it was really clear that that was not going to be a relationship long term.
	I dated someone a few years after that for about a month.
	I actually really liked this gal, but this is during the period when I was still going through my divorce process.
	And when I told her I wasn't divorced yet, she dumped me on the spot.
	And that was after only about a month.
	Yeah, I mean, that's wise, right?
	I mean, there's no point meeting people going through divorce.
	They're just a wreck, right?
	Right.
	Right.
	Okay.
	And then you got involved with the woman for two and a half years.
	And now your basic question is, you said you're not going to give up on love.
	So I'm not sure I can advise you with regards to that.
	But what's the central issue that I could give you feedback on?
	Well, I feel like I'm doing something wrong in some sense.
	And I mean, dating sucks these days.
	Everyone says that.
	Everyone talks about it.
	But I don't want to give myself that excuse.
	So, and in a sense, I mean, what is it?
	What is it that you want out of dating or romance?
	I want a wife.
	I want a family.
	I want to have kids.
	You want to have kids?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	I feel like you're not going to be a kid 10 years younger, right?
	Right.
	Okay.
	And do you make good money?
	Yeah, I do.
	And, you know, over six figures.
	Okay.
	And how's your asset base or your asset situation?
	Not the best.
	I, you know, I make good money, but where's it going?
	Honestly, for the past, I mean, after my divorce, I've been making good money fairly recently in my life.
	So I haven't had a lot of time to save.
	Okay, but you didn't have kids.
	So where's all your money gone?
	I'm just asking you the questions that a sensible woman would ask, right?
	yeah i've uh did your wife work she contributed Did you have to pay for her too, or did she work?
	She did not work.
	I paid for her the whole time.
	Are you kidding me?
	You paid through the fucking nose for a sexless marriage?
	That's depressing, isn't it?
	My God, that must have cost you half a mil, $600,000, $700,000?
	More?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Bro, I got fucked over by my father financially, too.
	Long story short, I bought a house in 2008, which you can, just by that, you probably know where this is going.
	It wasn't my house.
	It was for my family.
	I mean, your parents.
	My parents.
	Right.
	You bought a house for your parents in 2008.
	Because their credit was 2006.
	I'm sorry.
	So you're paying for a wife who won't have sex with you and you're buying a house for your parents who abused you.
	That's right.
	Okay.
	And it ended in foreclosure and bankruptcy.
	No bankruptcy.
	My bankruptcy.
	Okay.
	Right.
	But sorry, I thought that you were only buying the house because your parents' credit rating was bad.
	Did they not have enough money to pay the mortgage?
	Well, they did for a while until the interest rates started to go up.
	I mean, it was the worst possible situation as far as a mortgage goes.
	So not sustainable in the terrible rate mortgage and it kicked in after a year or two or three.
	Exactly.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	I mean, that's why you should go with fixed rate.
	My personal opinion, not financial advice, but my personal opinion.
	Absolutely.
	Yeah, you need predictability in financial matters.
	Okay.
	All right.
	So what did your wife do all day?
	Nothing.
	I mean, she went to school.
	Oh, she wasn't a student.
	You paid for her bills, her food, her health insurance, her rent, and you also paid for her to go to school?
	I did.
	Wow, man.
	You're a sugar daddy with no sugar.
	No sugar.
	Man, just saying this out loud is really.
	I mean, your father has a lot of shit.
	I'm feeling a lot of shame right now.
	Yeah, I mean, this is insane.
	I've never heard of anything like this, honestly.
	And I've been doing this a long time, and I'm not trying to make you feel bad, but this is incomprehensible.
	Yeah, I'm feeling a lot of shame about this.
	No, no, it's not a matter of feeling shame.
	I just, these are the questions that you've got to have an answer to.
	Otherwise, you can't get a quality woman.
	Because a quality woman is going to grill the living shit out of you, brother.
	Because she's going to say, wait, you're 42, you're an attractive guy, you make six figures plus.
	How the hell are you still single?
	And I don't know, man, you're going to have to find a way to explain all of this because this red flag's all over the place, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, and it's hard for me to hear right now because I feel like I have got a healthy sense of self-esteem.
	Like I'll ride my motorcycle.
	I'm not saying you shouldn't have a healthy sense of self-esteem, but you got to understand how these absolute disasters occurred.
	How did you date a woman who didn't even really want to get married when you want to get married?
	How did you pay for a woman through the nose for 15 years and then she wanted to open up the marriage and fucked her boss who you specifically begged her not to or told her not to?
	Like that's my question.
	And if you were a younger man, I'd, you know, we'd do more childhood and sympathy, but you've been listening to philosophy for a decade and you're in your 40s, which means you don't get the excuse of childhood and youth, right?
	Absolutely.
	So what with my ex-wife, I really think it was my porn addiction.
	I just had no drive.
	I was.
	No, no, no.
	Come on, man.
	Come on.
	Do you think that if she was having sex with you every day, you'd have a porn addiction?
	No, I wouldn't.
	Right.
	So it's cause and effect, right?
	Right.
	But it's also, in my mind, a spiral.
	Or maybe not a spiral.
	Like a vicious circle, right?
	A vicious circle.
	Thank you.
	Yes.
	Right.
	Okay.
	But look, the porn addiction is not great.
	I'm not going to pretend otherwise.
	But if she's not having sex with you and you're not getting divorced, like men need orgasms for health.
	Like you can go look this stuff up, right?
	Look at the prostate health and so on.
	Men need orgasms for health.
	They're not optional.
	Wow.
	Yeah, when you put it that way.
	And I know this.
	I have been holding myself back.
	I mean, I don't do porn anymore, right?
	But I feel like if I don't masturbate and I go out in the world, then I've got more masculine energy and I've got more drive to pursue women.
	And that's helpful from a certain standpoint.
	Yeah, listen, I'm not trying to give you advice on health or what you do with any of this kind of stuff.
	I'm just saying that it's not just the porn addiction.
	No, you're right.
	I can see that.
	Because all the emotional abuse, I mean, that was there and our lack of communication.
	Sorry, what was the emotional abuse?
	From her, from her family.
	Wait, from her or from her family?
	From her family.
	Okay, but not from her.
	No, not from her.
	Okay, got it.
	Okay, so you need to be able to answer these questions.
	You know, why did you get divorced?
	Oh, it was a sexless marriage that became an open marriage.
	And then she had sex with the guy I told her not to.
	And she agreed not to, right?
	Okay.
	And then the moment that I found someone that I was attracted to, she wanted to shut down the open marriage.
	Is that right?
	That's right.
	But she wanted to stay married and have you continue to pay the bills.
	Right.
	The HDMS walking away.
	At least keep a good house.
	Nope.
	Did she cook?
	Did she clean?
	Did she take care of your bills and your finances?
	And did she do any of that?
	Not really.
	I'm sorry.
	I know that's not very.
	No, that's fine.
	I'm a machine.
	I mean, I'm sure she made toast or something.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	All right.
	So why should you get love?
	Like you want it, sure, like you want it, but why should you get it?
	Why should I get love?
	Because I offer love in return.
	Okay.
	I'm affectionate.
	Hang on.
	What evidence would a skeptical woman, and a woman has a right to be skeptical if you're single in your 40s, right?
	Absolutely.
	What empirical evidence would a skeptical woman have that you offer love?
	I mean, you were not in a sexless marriage, but a loveless marriage.
	In fact, you were being exploited horribly.
	So you didn't offer love in a 15-year marriage, right?
	And then you opened up the marriage to appease your wife, right?
	Wait, when you say I didn't offer love, what do you mean by that?
	Well, she didn't.
	You didn't love your wife.
	How could you?
	Because I allowed this to happen.
	Well, you're in a sexless marriage.
	You yourself said you didn't communicate about anything.
	She gets attracted to another guy and immediately wants to sleep with him.
	You let it happen.
	She doesn't clean house.
	She takes all your money.
	This is not a woman that's worthy of respect and love.
	Absolutely.
	I'm not trying to color between, like, outside of the lion's here.
	I'm just going off what you said.
	You didn't love her.
	What's to love?
	What nobility and virtue and passion and strength was there to love?
	Nothing.
	Nothing.
	It's like something hanging off your jugular.
	Yep.
	Wrong kind of sucking, bro.
	Yeah, absolutely.
	Okay, so there's no love in your marriage.
	And then You date for two and a half years a girl who or woman who's not really sure she wants to get married.
	And then the moment you start pushing marriage, she bails.
	That's fair to say.
	Yep.
	So as soon as I have needs.
	Right.
	So now, of course, you grew up not knowing how, like, you grew up seeing people who didn't have a fucking clue how to express their needs without screaming at each other.
	So I've noticed that when you veer into need territory, you get aggressive.
	When you started talking about talking to your ex-girlfriend about marriage, they're like, what are we fucking doing?
	So I don't think you know very well how to express your needs without being aggressive.
	Because how could you?
	I mean, your parents didn't know how to express their needs without being aggressive, did they?
	No, they didn't.
	Now, earlier at the beginning of the conversation, I sort of quite, and I suspected this.
	So I quite deliberately, but honestly, said, I don't know what you're talking about, right?
	Like when you were talking about the religion and this and that, I didn't know what you were talking about.
	And so I expressed my needs for you to treat me as if I didn't know what you were talking about because I didn't.
	But I don't think I did it in an aggressive fashion.
	I just said, here's what I need to make this an effective conversation, right?
	Right.
	So can you think of a time in your life where you've expressed a deep and vulnerable need without feeling aggressive?
	I mean, I know that there's a lot of times when you silenced it, say for 15 years, but was there a time when you were able to express a deep, legitimate need or a vulnerable need?
	All needs are really vulnerable without getting aggressive.
	I don't think I was aggressive with my ex-girlfriend, the two and a half year one, when I was you expressed the conversation to me in a very aggressive manner.
	Do you remember you said, what the fuck are we doing here?
	This was your characterization of the conversation.
	And I said, well, I hope you weren't that aggressive.
	Do you remember?
	Yes, I do remember that came up in the conversation.
	But I feel like that came up because of the anger I'm feeling now post-relationship.
	No, I get it.
	But bro, you understand, it's the fight or flight mechanism.
	Every deep fear is associated with significant anger.
	You ever see these scare videos?
	Someone jumps out at someone behind the door and they just punch them in the face.
	Yes.
	Or you scare people and they get angry.
	Yeah.
	So you said that you were terrified of expressing needs with your ex-girlfriend because you were terrified that she was going to reject you, right, and leave you.
	Right.
	Right.
	So all of that fear is also associated with anger.
	Because people who frighten us also make us angry.
	So then when you finally, after two and a half years, really begin to express, we could say a little less than two and a half years, 18 months or two years or whatever, when you finally begin to express, like, I really want to get married.
	Right.
	So how do you overcome that fear with anger?
	Anger.
	Yeah.
	So if we're being chased, let's say by, I don't know, a dog, right?
	And then we're finally cornered, we turn around, and when we run, we're frightened.
	If we're finally cornered, we turn around and what are we?
	Angry.
	I agree.
	Yeah.
	So it shifts from flight to fight, right?
	Even cornered rats will attack and bite things 20 times or 100 times their size, right?
	Right.
	So you pushing down all of this terror and this fear emerges as what when you finally want to make your needs known anger.
	Right.
	And I'm sure, even if you were calm voice, I'm sure that your ex-girlfriend sensed some of this anger, and that may be partly why she bailed.
	Right.
	Because she would see a part of me that she's like, well, what is that?
	I've never seen that before.
	She told me.
	I don't believe there are any secrets in relationships.
	I think she knew that you were terrified and gave her all the power, just as you gave all the power to your ex-wife.
	So you were terrified of her.
	And I guarantee you she knew that deep down.
	Women are experts at reading men.
	Men are pretty good at reading women, but women are even better.
	So she knew all of that fear.
	She also knew exactly how much in lust with her you were.
	She knew all of that.
	And rather than having an honest conversation and saying, you know, really, I don't want to, I really don't want to exploit you.
	Like, I know that you're really scared of me.
	I know, I feel like I have all the power, and that's too much power.
	It's not healthy.
	I don't want to have this kind of power over you.
	This is not, this doesn't feel good, right?
	I mean, you've heard me, of course, in these call-in shows a million times saying, look, I'm not going to tell you what to do.
	I don't tell people what to do.
	I don't want to have that kind of power.
	That kind of stuff, right?
	Right.
	Because I vehemently reject having power over other people because it's an illusion.
	And I can only have power over the worst and most subjugated aspects of themselves, which is a refooing if it was an abusive relationship, right?
	Yeah.
	You know, I get that.
	I don't want to have any power or control over anyone either.
	I find that.
	No, but you go after women who have power over you.
	Either they take that power, generally you give that power, right?
	Right.
	So that's the problem.
	That your parents' relationship was only a manifestation of power, of escalation, of abuse, of aggression, of screaming.
	And your mother's relationship with you was power.
	You're going to fucking hell on Tuesday.
	Power.
	Not reason, not love, not exhortation, not plea, not appeal.
	Power.
	And the horrible words that your father called your mother and him throwing things around once a month and so on.
	There's power, intimidation, escalation.
	How do you get your way?
	Well, you either surrender or you dominate.
	That's it.
	It's all you get.
	It's really hard to look in this mirror.
	So you don't want power over other people, but because of the culture and the family situation that you grew up in, if you're not going to rule, what's the only other alternative?
	To be ruled.
	To be ruled.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Either dominance or submission.
	that's all you're going to get.
	And so if your girlfriend is dominating you through the fear that she knows about, she knows about that fear and she's more than happy to have it keep going because that way she gets her way.
	And then what happens?
	Well, then what happens is you finally lose your temper.
	Enough of being pushed around.
	Now it's my turn to push.
	Now it's my turn to get my way.
	And instead of me folding for you, you fold for me.
	But once you set up that dynamic where you're the one who folds, you can't get other people to fold for you.
	You can't just rewrite that and now you're in charge.
	Now you're the bossy one.
	Now you're the dominant one.
	Doesn't work that way.
	Because the whole relationship had been set up on the opposite.
	Yeah.
	And you keep trying, like, things keep changing.
	Like, look at these relationships.
	You want a pattern?
	Okay, here's a pattern.
	Look at these relationships.
	Your parents get married as agnostics or atheists or whatever the hell they were.
	And then your mother goes full, not just religious, but fundamentalist, right?
	Right.
	That's rewriting the whole relationship.
	You get married to a woman with the full and healthy expectation of a robust and married sex life, right?
	And she rewrites the whole contract and says, nope, nope, nope, right?
	And then you date a woman who doesn't want to get married.
	And you try to rewrite that contract at the end, and it all goes to hell.
	So look at all the rewriting of the contract that goes on in these relationships.
	You keep trying to change things from the inside.
	You keep taking these relationships and trying to rewrite them after you've already accepted them.
	And sorry, the last thing is that in your marriage with your ex-wife, she rewrites the relationship so you can't have sex, right?
	And then you both rewrite the relationship to turn it from monogamous into an open marriage.
	These constant rewriting of contracts is what you saw in your parents' marriage.
	I mean, your father also tried to rewrite, I guess, successfully.
	He didn't rewrite the contract, but he acted as if the contract was null and void because he married your mother promising what?
	Monogamy.
	Monogamy.
	Yeah.
	And then he fucked everything that moved with a hole and a breathing tube, right?
	Right.
	And didn't even care about it.
	Yeah, so your father rewrote the contract unilaterally.
	Your mother rewrote the contract through religion unilaterally.
	Your wife rewrote the contract, no sex, unilaterally.
	And then to appease her, I mean, she basically turned it into an open marriage.
	That wasn't something that was on your mind, was it?
	I'm sorry.
	Could you repeat that?
	Your ex-wife, were you both, I mean, did you want an open marriage?
	Did you bring that?
	No.
	No, you don't.
	So she rewrote that again.
	She rewrote it to say, she rewrote the marriage to say no sex.
	And then she rewrote the marriage again to say, now it's an open marriage.
	So you keep getting into these relationships because this is what your parents' relationship was modeled on, where people make promises and then just do whatever the hell they want.
	Maybe we'll get married says your ex-girlfriend.
	No, we really, we got to decide this.
	Okay, I'm out.
	You're trying to rewrite the marriage contract.
	You're trying to rewrite the relationship from the inside after you already invested.
	And I'm going to choose people based on their virtues and stop trying to change people from within the relationship.
	Doesn't work.
	Yep.
	It doesn't.
	Did it work for your parents?
	Nope.
	Yeah, sure as hell hasn't worked for me either.
	It doesn't work with your wife.
	It doesn't work with your ex-girlfriend.
	It doesn't like, here's the example.
	Why did you wait a month to tell your last girlfriend before this one that you were going through a divorce?
	Because I was scared she would dump me.
	Right.
	So you dated her under false pretenses, which is why she dumped your sorry ass when you told her the truth.
	Yep.
	And you also dated your last girlfriend under false pretenses.
	I want to get married.
	I would like to get married.
	And if you don't want to get married and you're not certain about that, we ain't dating.
	You're like, well, it's okay.
	I'll date you if you don't really want to get married.
	We'll just, I'll just date you.
	Right?
	Because I'll change your mind later from the inside.
	I'll rewrite the contract.
	Don't worry about it.
	But you can't rewrite the contract.
	The moment you say to someone, I love you, we're together, we're boyfriend, we're girlfriend, you're saying, I accept you for who you are.
	Right?
	Right.
	You can't rewrite the contract from within.
	Right?
	So what is it?
	If you take a job for $100,000 and then you say, after working there for a couple of months, I want half a million dollars a year, is that reasonable?
	Will that work?
	Hell no.
	No, of course not.
	If you go and volunteer at a soup kitchen and then on your second night you say, I want 50 bucks an hour, is that going to work?
	Nope.
	No.
	If you negotiate for a car, you say, I've got to pay you $20,000 for the car.
	And then, right at the end, you say, actually, it's only five grand.
	Haven't you just wasted everyone's time?
	Absolutely.
	Right?
	Aren't you just wasting everyone's time?
	I'm just floored by this because I'm such a rule follower in most other aspects of my life, you know?
	No, you are following a rule.
	The rule is, I can negotiate this shit later.
	And it fails every time.
	You have a rule.
	It's just a bad one.
	And your rule is, I have to follow rules, but other people don't.
	Hmm.
	Man, what's up with that?
	What's up with what?
	What we talked about a lot here, but what do you mean?
	Yeah, I'm sorry.
	I'm just thinking to myself, like, hearing you say that out loud, like, that's obviously unjust.
	It's obviously what?
	Injust.
	What do you mean by that?
	Unjust.
	I'm just saying.
	What do you mean by that?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Like.
	I guess I'm frustrated with myself and wondering.
	You're frustrating with yourself.
	Yeah, like I just gave you the fucking golden key to your life, and your first response is not relief or happiness, but irritation?
	I just explained your whole life to you, gave you a path forward that's not the same as the last 20 years.
	And you're like, that's irritating.
	Maybe this lack of gratitude is why you can't get love.
	And you made it about you.
	You could say, Steph, wow, that's really great.
	I'm not even paying you for this, and this is a great insight.
	I really, really appreciate that.
	That's amazing.
	What a relief.
	Now I know what the problem is, which is exactly what you called me for.
	You called me for this, right?
	You're right.
	I did call you for this.
	And you're right.
	It is a good insight.
	And you're right.
	It is interesting that I made it about myself in that moment.
	Well, you just made it into a negative experience, right?
	So, you know, I'm bending my butt backwards trying to help you, right?
	And you are.
	Thank you.
	No, and listen, I appreciate it.
	And I appreciate your thanks and all of that.
	But if you've got a chronic back issue for 20 years and some guy comes along and says, oh, just do this and you'll be fine.
	And you're like, that's really irritating.
	Yeah, sorry for that.
	No, no, it's nothing to apologize for.
	I'm just pointing it out.
	That why do you deserve love?
	Well, you don't deserve love if you lie to people, right?
	And if you try to rewrite the contract later on, that's a falsehood.
	Yeah.
	Did you see what I mean?
	Yeah, absolutely.
	Because you're saying this is a fine relationship when there's a huge condition in there.
	Right.
	And by me going along with it, waiting for it to change while Pat Sith aggressively or however, even trying to change it from within, that's no, it's worse than that, brother.
	And it's good news that it's worse than that.
	I'll tell you why it's worse than that.
	It's worse than that because you lie.
	And I'm not calling you some big stinky liar.
	And it's good news that you lie because lying is the fundamental enemy of love.
	Right?
	Because you can't love and lie.
	Now, let me tell you what I mean.
	The last girl, right?
	Scandinavian, right?
	Right.
	You were terrified, right?
	Of losing her, yes.
	For how long were you terrified?
	From the beginning?
	No, from when she told me that she never saw herself getting married, and I could see the seriousness with which she said that.
	Okay.
	And it was after a year of being together.
	That was a year after a year of being together.
	Okay, sorry, I missed that part.
	So at the beginning, she said she might want to get married, and then she said she doesn't want to get married.
	Yes.
	So why the hell did you stick around for another 18 months?
	She said she told you.
	She told you the truth.
	I don't want to get married.
	Yep.
	And you stuck around for another 18 months.
	And then you demanded you get married?
	Bro.
	Yep.
	Come on.
	What are you doing?
	I felt like I couldn't do any better.
	Well, then you just keep dating her and don't get married.
	The problem is, is that we're Catholic, right?
	So our relationship, we can't have sex until we get married.
	Well, you had some kind of sex, right?
	We did, but it's not what I wanted.
	I wanted more.
	I get it.
	And I wanted a family.
	Okay.
	So then you could do better because with her, you can't have sex and you can't have kids.
	So what is the you couldn't do better?
	What does that mean?
	That's, to be honest, feeling getting someone that looked as good as she did and was as young as that.
	That's not very Catholic.
	No, it's not.
	Come on, Jason.
	That's trash.
	I'm not saying you're trash.
	I'm just saying that perspective.
	Oh, I get that.
	That's totally trash.
	She's hot.
	She's hot.
	I mean, come on, you've been into philosophy for 10 years.
	And you're a Catholic to the point where you won't have premarital intercourse.
	So, but she's, is that, is that a shadow from the born addiction?
	Just wanted to look like a porn star or something, and that's all you're attached to these days?
	It's a good point.
	It's a good question.
	Okay, well, that's something to mull over on your own.
	So, she openly told you, a year into the relationship, I don't want to get married.
	Okay.
	But then you thought, and so, hang on.
	So, when you first got together with her, were you scared of losing her, or were you scared that she wasn't going to stick it out?
	Well, I wasn't scared at the beginning because I didn't know what would happen.
	I was definitely did you think she was out of your league, so to speak, at the beginning?
	Yeah, I did.
	Okay, so you were scared of losing her because when we date people out of our league, we feel anxious, right?
	That's right.
	Okay, so you were scared of losing her at the beginning.
	That's right.
	Okay.
	Now, the reason I'm saying about the lying is: were you honest with her and say, and say, listen, your looks are the primary thing that I'm attracted to, and I'm terrified that you're way more attractive than I am, and that you're not going to stick around.
	And I live in fear of you leaving me like every time.
	No, I never told her that.
	Right.
	So that's lying because your inner state you are keeping hidden as a shameful secret, so you can't be close.
	Do you see what I mean?
	Yeah, no, I do.
	I mean, do you know what it is to unpack your heart and be honest and connected with a woman?
	Gosh, I thought I did.
	Well, you knew that you were frightened of her leaving you, and you also knew that you never told her that you withheld and hid your most foundational state of mind with her.
	Well, and you know, I experienced it at the time as this vague anxiety.
	Anxiety is something that I've dealt with my whole life.
	Okay, so then you should know what the hell's going on because you've dealt with it your whole life, so you should know what's going on with your anxiety, right?
	And I think I've dealt with it in some sense, like, oh, I'm anxious.
	That actually means I'm excited.
	And I push it down.
	Okay, and I don't mean if you push down and deny your own feelings, you're responsible for that, especially again because you've listened to me, Mr. Be honest and connected and tell the truth, blah, blah, blah, right?
	For 10 years.
	Absolutely.
	Right.
	So if you choose to push down your emotions and not figure them out, then things are going to go haywire, right?
	Absolutely.
	You know, if you've got a toothache and you just take painkillers, your toothache doesn't get better, right?
	Right.
	It can be fatal.
	Right.
	So if I had in that moment, hey, I feel anxious.
	I don't know why, but that's how I feel.
	Well, you knew that.
	Okay.
	When did you figure out that you were terrified that she was out of your league and she was going to dump you?
	Or she might.
	I've kind of struggled with, well, that's not true.
	I was going to say that all women are out of my league, but that's not true because there's some women that I like, I'm not dating this person because I feel like I'm out of her league.
	The fat girls.
	Yeah, exactly.
	Right.
	Yeah.
	But I would walk up to her door to knock to, you know, because I'm here, right, to let me into her place.
	And I'm just anxious.
	And I came to the point.
	So when did you figure out that you were frightened of her leaving you?
	That she was out of your league or too good for you or whatever?
	Man, since day one.
	Okay, so what are you giving me all this runaround for?
	See, you've got to develop a habit of telling the truth, or you don't get love.
	You earn love through honesty.
	And until you can be honest, you don't get love.
	I mean, you'll get lust, you'll get attachment, you'll get codependence, you'll like whatever it is that people pass off as the false Federal Reserve coinage of pretend love.
	But to get love, you've got to be honest.
	And honesty would be: I'm in this relationship.
	Okay, what's the most honest thing you could have said to this woman when she said, I am not certain about getting married at the beginning?
	I don't know if I want to get married.
	What's the most honest thing you could say?
	I don't know if it's going to work between us because I sure as hell do.
	That is not honest at all.
	Really?
	No.
	What do you mean, I don't know?
	If you want a marriage and kids, and the woman doesn't want that, is it going to work?
	No, it's not.
	It's the most honest.
	I don't know situation.
	Right.
	It just isn't going to work.
	Yeah.
	We're not going to date.
	Yeah.
	I'll see you later.
	Yeah.
	I'm like, I want to get married and I want to have kids.
	And if it's not with you, like, you know, you're great and love you to death, so to speak.
	But no, I'm not.
	It doesn't accord with my values.
	Because all you did was waste two and a half years in that way.
	Because if you'd said that at the beginning, you say, oh, yes, but then I won't get to date her.
	It's like, yeah, but you wouldn't be heartbroken now, right?
	Right.
	Because you're not fit to date.
	You're six months and you're still heartbroken.
	I'm not criticizing you for that by any means, right?
	But you're heartbroken because you're scarred.
	You don't know why things keep not working out, which is what I'm working to try and get you to see.
	Yeah.
	Because you don't tell the truth.
	Now, if you were younger, I'd say, you know, you hide things or whatever.
	But because you're in your 40s and listening to me for 10 years, you just lie.
	You just lie.
	And I'm not calling you some big stinky liar.
	And it's not like I'm 100% all the time, right?
	So I say this with compassion and sympathy and all of that kind of stuff, but I have to call a spade a spade, right?
	No, I appreciate it.
	You lie and you want truth and you want love.
	Sorry, you lie and you want love and you can't get both.
	That's hard to hear, but I resonate with that.
	You're right.
	I do lie.
	I do lie.
	I mean, even when it came to your mother, right?
	You didn't want to talk negatively about your mother.
	Who cares what you want?
	You tell the fucking truth.
	Who cares how it feels?
	You just tell them.
	I mean, do you think I had a blast talking about all the controversial shit I was talking about in the world?
	But it's not up to me.
	The truth is important.
	And we can't have morality without truth.
	And we can't love each other without the truth.
	And I'm sick and tired of everyone lying to each other about really important things.
	Yeah, and I really respected that about you.
	Well, thanks.
	And so you admired me, and love is a form of admiration.
	And so if you want to be admired by a woman, you've got to tell the truth.
	Because if you feel she's out of your league and she's going to leave you, you feel like a fraud.
	You feel like someone who's stolen something and is being tracked down and is going to get caught.
	You can't relax.
	You can't enjoy yourself.
	You can't enjoy her company.
	It's just tense, stressful.
	Sorry, you were about to say, and I interrupted you.
	My apologies.
	No, that actually accords with my experience.
	It's being stressed.
	It's feeling stress and tense.
	And it's subtle.
	It's very subtle.
	And I had this sense that I'm conditioned to deal with those feelings in myself.
	So maybe I'm not even sure.
	You're learning what that means to deal with those feelings.
	What does that mean?
	Sorry.
	So I had this low level of stress and anxiety in my life, maybe 95% of the time, sure.
	But I'm so used to it that's raised by terrifying people.
	Your father was constantly taking a sledgehammer to the base of the family by fucking everything with half a pulse.
	Your mother was telling you we're going to be swallowed up by Satan's armpit a week Tuesday.
	You were raised with great terror.
	And I sympathize with that.
	I really do.
	It's awful.
	Thank you.
	And you had violence, and you saw terrible verbal abuse flying back and forth between your parents were from your father to your mother in particular, right?
	Right.
	It's awful.
	So, yeah, of course.
	Of course.
	And your parents did not tell the truth, it seems.
	I mean, your father slept around despite promising to be monogamous.
	Your mother went from not particularly religious to a fundamentalist, which is the rewrite of the marital contract, significantly, right?
	And you said that they kept pretending to be wonderful parents when they were screaming, horrible, sometimes violent, and abusive, right?
	So that's a lie.
	Look how wonderful we are when they're not wonderful.
	That's a lie, right?
	Right.
	So you were raised by people who lied.
	And I think it's hard for you to imagine being in a relationship where you tell the truth.
	I'm intimidated by your looks.
	I'm intimidated by your science-ness.
	I am terrified you're going to leave me.
	And I'm really going to work hard to try and talk you into getting married.
	Even though you told me you don't want to get married, I'm here to get you to marry me.
	But that kind of honesty is terrifying.
	And the reason that honesty is terrifying is if you had been honest with your parents, like when you were a kid, what's the most, I'm not saying you should have, no, none of us really can when we've got volatile and difficult parents.
	But when you were a kid, what was the most honest thing you could have said to your mother and father?
	You're not in love.
	You guys hate each other.
	Stop fighting, you absolute retards.
	Yeah.
	Stop screaming, stop yelling, stop being childish toddlers.
	Dad, stop being a hot dog in permanent search of a bun.
	Like, stop being ridiculous, stop being embarrassing, stop being yelling, stop fighting, stop screaming, stop throwing things, stop being idiots.
	You're embarrassing.
	Now, if you'd said something like that to your parents, what would have happened?
	I get my ass whooped.
	Yeah, so truth equals death.
	Honesty equals destruction.
	So you've got to hide.
	You've got to be silent.
	Right?
	So I think in practical terms, I'm sure you have truth as an abstract value or an abstract virtue, but in practical, absolute terms, I don't think you know how to be committed to telling the truth in a relationship.
	And how could you, given your history and your lack of practical commitment to these virtues and values?
	Telling the truth is really hard.
	Yeah, you know, that resonates.
	And I've noticed it gets harder when I know someone longer.
	Well, sure.
	Especially if you've had a habit of not telling them the truth.
	It's kind of hard to confess later, right?
	Right.
	But also, if I'm just meeting someone on the bus, right?
	Or if I say I just met someone and I know them for a week, then, okay, I can tell them the truth about whatever.
	But as I develop a relationship with that person, I have this sense that I need them to like me all the time.
	And then telling the truth becomes more and more and more difficult.
	Well, I don't know if that makes sense.
	So, no, I get what you're saying, but it was interesting you said, I need them to like me.
	And therefore, I can't tell them the truth, which is to say that what is honest about you is somehow shameful.
	And you've used the word shame probably half a dozen or more times over the course of this conversation, right?
	Right.
	So with regards to the porn addiction, you felt shame about it, right?
	Right.
	I did.
	Who was responsible for keeping you safe from pornography?
	My parents were.
	Yeah.
	Did they do that?
	No.
	No.
	They didn't.
	Who introduced you to pornography?
	Well, I was a computer kid, so I was enough to get on a BBS back in the 14.4 modem days.
	Okay, so someone online or you saw some pictures or whatever it was.
	Okay.
	So your parents failed to keep you safe.
	Yeah.
	Now, how could you not be a sex addict, which is what a pornography addict is, when your father was a sex addict?
	Right, because that's what he, I mean, he modeled that for me, right?
	And he got me pregnant.
	He's my father, so I'm going to do what he did as a model.
	He's the model of, yeah, you know all of that, right?
	You've heard that before.
	So yeah, your father seems like a sex addict if he just continually has sex and with women and lies about it.
	And right.
	So your father is a sex addict.
	And I assume that your mother is to some degree a sex addict as well, which is, you know, maybe your father was really good in bed and, you know, the colored lights kept going round and round.
	And that worked for her.
	I wonder about that.
	Why she stuck around?
	Well, a lot of people think sex is great.
	I mean, that keeps a lot of people in relationships.
	So again, I don't know.
	I don't know, right?
	But your mother clearly had some significant instabilities and no sense of what was appropriate to talk about with children or not.
	Even if you believe in this end times crap, you don't talk about it with kids.
	And you certainly don't hang over.
	You know that saying to a kid, you're going to hell, it's worse than threatening to strangle them to death.
	Right.
	Because strangle them to death, your suffering is over.
	Hell, the suffering is eternal, right?
	It's worse than a death threat.
	Especially if it's not like, you know, 70 or 80 years down the road, but imminent, right?
	Right.
	Right.
	And it's for eternity.
	And it's for eternity.
	That's right.
	And you'll be separated from all the loved ones, blah, blah, blah, she's going to heaven.
	You're going to hell.
	I mean, and just torture.
	Well, and, you know, if you're seven and under, it's not even theologically correct.
	Because you haven't, if the age of reason, you're not responsible for your sin.
	You'd To limbo, right?
	Right.
	So, you know, go ahead.
	I want to talk to you about aggression because when you pointed out that the way I described the end of my relationship with my ex-girlfriend was aggressive, that really surprised me to hear.
	And I've always hear it when it's played back, but go on.
	Yeah.
	I've had a difficult, as you know, right?
	Just hearing this for the past couple hours, my relationship with my anger isn't great.
	And at some point, I became aware of that.
	Stop criticizing yourself, man, which we're here to learn, to understand, not to judge.
	Go ahead.
	Thank you.
	Anyway, I'm really into martial arts to channel that.
	And I thought I'd solve that problem, right?
	Because I do jujitsu and shoot guns.
	Well, isn't martial arts to some degree about conquering your fear?
	Yeah.
	Right.
	Absolutely.
	So conquering your fear means not hiding it, right?
	If you hide your fear.
	What do you mean fear?
	If you hide your fear from people around you, it's won.
	It's conquered you because it's caused you to lie and falsify your existence.
	Right.
	So to be honest about your fears with the people around you is to not lose to your fear.
	Because if your fear becomes so great and you feel ashamed and you hide it, then you are lying and falsifying your experience to those around you, which means you are smaller than your fear.
	Your fear has won and conquered you because it has caused you to have a rift between you and others by lying and falsifying and hiding.
	Yeah, I see what you're saying.
	Because the fear has basically got me to erase myself.
	Well, I mean, you lied.
	I lied.
	You lied.
	You lied by hiding your true feelings from someone you claimed to care about.
	Now, of course, if somebody says to you, should you hide your true feelings from people you care about, what would you say?
	Of course not.
	Absolutely not.
	Yeah, of course not.
	But you do.
	And then you say, gee, I wonder why I can't get love.
	It's a lot to take in.
	Well, not that much.
	Honestly, it's really not that much.
	Just tell the truth.
	It's not complicated.
	It's really not.
	I don't want you to come out of this with like, oh, my God, what a maze Steph has constructed for me to get out of.
	It's really, it's dead fucking simple.
	I'm telling you.
	It's dead simple.
	You feel something, you tell the truth.
	You tell the truth.
	You talk about it.
	Yeah.
	You're right.
	It is simple.
	I don't know why I feel this way.
	Maybe I maybe care about what people think of me.
	Well, everybody cares about what people think of them.
	It's not unique to you.
	That's because we're social animals.
	So that's not the answer.
	But the truth is more important.
	And the truth is more important than that.
	No, the truth is that you think that you are not lovable, which is why you lie and hide.
	You think you are not lovable, and that's why you lie and hide.
	What I'm saying to you is you're not lovable because you lie and hide.
	You know, the crazy thing is that everyone tells me that I'm lovable.
	Well, I'm not telling you that.
	I'm saying you can be lovable, but you have to tell the truth.
	And I didn't mean to say that you're telling me that I'm not lovable.
	I just mean that.
	No, I'm telling you you're not lovable until you tell the truth.
	Fair.
	I mean, you're not.
	Yeah.
	Nobody is.
	I'm not.
	No, no, nobody is, right?
	Right.
	Because what's there to love if the person's lying to you?
	Just an illusion.
	Someone who's not there, someone who's the opposite, right?
	Right.
	And here's the thing, too: people who are honest, my friend, always know that you're lying.
	Like, there were these comedians back in the day who used to make up nonsense languages that sounded realistic, you know, like some Eastern European language or some, you know, a pretend Japanese, right?
	And it sounded like they were speaking Japanese or some, I don't know, Croatian or some Eastern European language, but it was just nonsense syllables, right?
	And there was an Italian singer who in the 70s created an English-sounding nonsense song.
	It sounded English, but of course to English speakers, you know, it's just gibberish, right?
	No.
	Right.
	So people who tell the truth, people who speak the language of honesty, always know when you're lying.
	So the only people who will let you lie are people who are also lying.
	So the problem is when you don't tell the truth, you are doomed to wander this godforsaken earth in the presence of people who lie.
	Fuck that.
	So your ex-girlfriend, a Scandinavian woman you put on a pedestal, the goddess of porn addiction or whatever we want to call her, right?
	So she lied to you.
	Right?
	So she, when you said, I want to get married and have children, she should have said what?
	I don't want that, so we're done.
	Yeah, this is not going to work out.
	And it didn't, right?
	Right.
	And now everybody's hurt.
	And so she lied to you because she wanted to have a boyfriend.
	And you lied to her because she was hot, right?
	Right.
	Gee, I wonder why it didn't work out.
	Now, the reason I'm hammering on this so hard, my friend, is because you are going to meet some woman.
	Let's do this little game.
	What's your favorite female name?
	Mary.
	Mary, okay.
	Good Catholic boy.
	Yeah.
	So you're going to meet Mary.
	She's going to come down on a cloud of cherubs and honesty, right?
	You're going to meet Mary.
	And Mary's going to be honest, right?
	Right.
	Now, the moment you start lying to Mary, even unconsciously, she's going to know it, right?
	Right.
	And so you can't lie to Mary.
	So if you want to have a relationship with someone who's honest, you've got to start practicing telling the brutal truths to yourself first and foremost and to others as well.
	Are you familiar with the book Radical Honesty?
	No.
	Okay.
	Well, it's along these lines.
	And I read it and I'm like, well, it sounds great in theory, terrifying in practice.
	And the gist of the book is essentially what you're saying.
	It's you tell the truth, no matter what.
	Well, I don't, no matter what stuff, I don't like the word radical.
	I mean, just be honest.
	Now, honesty is a relationship.
	So if someone lies to me, I don't feel any particular obligation to tell them the truth.
	I mean, I won't have a relationship with them as a whole, but if someone's lying to me, I don't feel any particular obligation to tell them the truth.
	So it's not, to me, it's not an absolute gravity.
	Honesty is a relationship.
	But when Mary comes along, she's going to need you to tell the truth.
	Now, to tell her the truth is to say, yes, I had a sexless 15-year marriage and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
	And now, the fact that that happened is not going to drive Mary away.
	Right?
	What is going to drive Mary away is if there's two things.
	One, you lie about it, or two, you don't know why it happened.
	You blame the other person, you blame your parents, you blame your childhood, you blame whatever, right?
	Right.
	It never crossed my mind.
	That's an excuse.
	Of course it crossed your mind that you might leave.
	Because if it never crossed your mind that you might leave, you would complain to your friends about it and get their feedback.
	And then they might say, well, you've got to end the marriage because it's not really a marriage.
	So the fact that you hid it from your friends and your family meant that you were thinking about leaving, but you were frightened to leave.
	And that's why you hid it from people.
	Yep.
	Does that make sense?
	Yeah, absolutely.
	That's why you hit it.
	So Mary needs to know, A, that it happened, and B, you know why the hell it happened so that it's not going to happen again.
	Right.
	And I'm better for it.
	And I'm stronger for it.
	Yeah, maybe.
	I mean, that's maybe.
	I mean, I don't, I'm not with everything that kills you makes you stronger.
	I mean, chemo doesn't kill you, but it doesn't make you stronger.
	So it's, you know, I'm better for it.
	That's a kind of bravado.
	I don't know if you're better for it or not.
	It would be better if you'd been raised well to begin with.
	Right?
	So you can survive these things and grow from them, but whether you're better or not, that's a kind of everything that happens happens for the best, and I'm stronger and better.
	And like, you can get you can get good things out of bad circumstances, but that doesn't make the bad circumstances good.
	So I don't, I wouldn't, I wouldn't go because you don't know for sure whether, you know, you're stronger and better for it.
	You sure as hell aren't at 42 because you're single and heartbroken.
	So it hasn't made you better and stronger yet.
	So I would be very careful about jumping to those conclusions because that was your first instance of kind of lying about something in even the imaginary conversation with Mary.
	Now I'm better and stronger because of it.
	You don't know that.
	And how?
	What is the evidence that you're better and stronger for having had a sexless 15-year marriage and got your heart broken by the Scandinavian woman?
	That's a good point.
	So don't do that.
	Don't do this false bravado and I'm better and stronger and blah, blah, blah.
	At least, like we're just talking about telling the truth and you give an imaginary conversation with Mary.
	She's going to look at that and she's going to say, this guy's full of shit.
	And she's not going to say it like in some condemnatory way.
	Like, oh, he's a terrible guy.
	It's just like, yeah, he's full of shit.
	Like he doesn't, he's just making things up to sound good or to sound better.
	He's just saying stuff.
	He doesn't have a commitment to the truth.
	Like, why did you tell me, no, I'm better and stronger because of it?
	Why did you say that?
	What was the impulse behind it?
	I felt some kind of need to balance out the shame I feel.
	That's not what I'm saying.
	And I'm saying shame again.
	That's manipulative.
	What's the most honest thing you can say in that moment?
	Here's what happened.
	What's the most honest thing you can say when you feel the shame?
	I feel ashamed of this.
	There you go.
	That's it.
	Don't give me this bullshit.
	I'm stronger and better.
	That's not honest.
	That's manipulative.
	That's you trying to make the other person not see your shame by putting on this false bravado front.
	And look, this is not a criticism in any way, shape, or form.
	I'm just pointing out the mechanics that somebody who's honest, like the moment you said that, I'm like, that's not true.
	And so I'm telling you, like people who are really dedicated towards honesty, and again, please understand this doesn't mean I'm perfectly honest all the time, but it's something that I really work towards, right?
	So people who are really honest will know immediately when you're lying, and that was a lie.
	And again, I'm not calling you some big flawed liar.
	I'm just saying that that was a falsehood because you weren't being honest and saying, you know, I really feel kind of cast down and I feel the need to pump myself up and compensate for the shame by saying, oh, it's for the best, right?
	Or I'm stronger.
	So you've got to catch yourself.
	You know, sort of take that deep breath and just say, you know what, I really do feel ashamed at the moment.
	Yeah.
	So Mary, Mary will catch this stuff and she'll point it out maybe once or twice.
	But if you don't start to catch yourself, she's just going to have to move on.
	Because she's not going to want to spend the rest of her life trying to wrestle you back into an honest perspective, if that makes sense.
	Right.
	And I wouldn't want to be in her shoes, so I totally get that.
	Yeah, yeah, for sure.
	And, you know, this is so you shouldn't give up on love, but you've got to give up on falsifying things on false front, on bravado, on braggadoccio, on you just got to be honest.
	If you feel ashamed, say, I feel ashamed.
	If you feel fear, you say, I feel fear.
	I mean, I've got a whole book on this real-time relationships.
	I don't know if you've read it or not, but if you haven't, it would be a good thing to do.
	I have read it and I will read it again.
	Yeah, read it again because you got to really commit to just take that deep breath and unpack your heart.
	You know, when earlier when you were saying things that I didn't understand, what did I say?
	I don't understand.
	I can't follow.
	And when you said, oh, I'm better and stronger, I said, I don't think that's true.
	And so the is why, and all of that, right?
	So, I mean, again, I'm not doing it any, and this is none of this is about moral.
	This is not about judgment.
	It's just if you want love, and I know that you do, you got it.
	The price of love is honesty.
	And it's hard because, of course, in your family, honesty was roundly punished.
	And your father was not only a sex addict, it sounds like, but he also sounds like a pathological liar because he lied to your mother about everything to do with his affairs, right?
	Right.
	You said, you said your mother found this love letter, and he's like, nope, not real, doesn't exist.
	I mean, that's like, I don't even know what to say.
	That's like somebody standing in the rain telling you it's not raining.
	And that's why I don't talk to him because he lies to me.
	Yes, but now you have to confront his effect on you.
	Right.
	So I hope that makes sense.
	So, yeah, I'm telling you, if you commit to this honesty stuff, your life will change completely.
	Well, I really appreciate it.
	You are very good.
	Thanks very welcome.
	And I just really want to reiterate: I mean, I'm so sorry about your upbringing.
	It sounds really, really tough and horrible and corrupt and wrong.
	And I'm really, really sorry for that as a whole.
	I, you know, massive big bear hug sympathies, brother to brother, about that.
	And yeah, it's not too late.
	I mean, if you were 60, maybe, but you're just looking for a woman 10 years younger and you can get that.
	But the price is honesty.
	You're honest and you'll drive the liars away, and the truth tellers will hold you to their heart.
	But there's no other way.
	Thank you.
	You're very willing.
	Will you keep me posted about how it's going?
	Absolutely.
	Absolutely.
	Thanks, man.
	Thanks for doing what you do.
	I think you're doing what you do, man.
	It's a light, man.
	It's a light.
	I appreciate it.
	Thank you.
	Have a great night.
	You too.
	Take care.

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