0:03 - Introduction and Guidelines
0:26 - The Burden of Responsibility
1:45 - The Beginning of a Relationship
2:23 - Reconnecting After a Breakup
2:54 - The Struggle for Help
3:57 - The Impact of Past Relationships
5:10 - Conflicted Emotions
5:55 - Updates on Alice
6:46 - The System’s Failures
8:15 - Caring for Alice
9:26 - The Role of the Caretaker
10:14 - The Pattern of Crisis
12:00 - Seeking Professional Help
13:43 - The Reality of the Situation
15:12 - Life Reflections
16:36 - Acknowledging Past Choices
18:46 - Shifting Perspectives
20:08 - Family Dynamics
22:45 - Identifying Maternal Fragility
24:34 - Revisiting Childhood Experiences
31:06 - The Weight of Memory
35:42 - Positive Memories of Motherhood
40:43 - The Nature of Depression
41:32 - The Complexity of Relationships
42:26 - Understanding Parental Influence
44:45 - Communication Barriers
47:28 - Recognizing Patterns of Behavior
48:29 - The Cycle of Victimhood
49:58 - The Legacy of the Past
50:22 - The Role of Adulthood
51:40 - Confronting Parental Dynamics
53:52 - The Impact of Discipline
57:18 - The Reality of Self-Pity
58:23 - Navigating Relationships
1:01:51 - Seeking Emotional Connection
1:06:04 - The Complexity of Love
1:08:18 - The Journey Through Relationships
1:12:12 - The Role of Older Partners
1:18:18 - The Impact of Past Relationships
1:20:34 - Reflection on Choices Made
1:20:58 - Internet Connection and Emotional Connection
1:31:58 - The Relationship with Alice
1:33:18 - The Breakup with the Virgin
1:35:22 - No-Strings-Attached Relationships
1:37:14 - Therapy and Self-Reflection
1:50:35 - Breakup Cycles
2:04:49 - Starting a New Relationship with Kelly
2:10:49 - Recognizing Past Abuses
2:32:15 - Understanding Emotional Manipulation
2:41:51 - Closing Reflections and Future Insights
In this conversation , Stefan engages with a caller who discusses a tumultuous relationship with an ex-girlfriend, referred to as Alice, and its ramifications on his life and current relationship. The caller outlines Alice's significant struggles, including mental health issues, past abuse, and her current unstable living situation with her parents, who are described as former abusers. At 28, Alice exhibits signs of severe emotional distress and suicidal ideation, prompting the caller to feel obligated to help her despite recognizing the detrimental impact it has on his life and current relationship.
The caller, aged 30 and presently unemployed, expresses conflicting feelings about Alice. He feels partly responsible for her condition due to what he describes as his past abusive behavior, which he acknowledges has led to a pattern of mutual manipulation within their six-year relationship. They began dating in university, but their relationship became complicated as it progressed into cycles of emotional abuse, infidelity, and manipulation. He describes a significant moment of dishonesty where he lied about his love for her to maintain sexual access, reflecting significant emotional turmoil within the relationship.
The narrative unfolds with the caller detailing the peaks and valleys in their relationship, highlighted by frequent breakups and reconciliations. He candidly recognizes his selfish motivations, admitting to viewing Alice as a sexual object, while also recounting the intense emotional manipulation they both employed against each other. The conversation reveals a profound struggle for the caller as he attempts to balance his obligations towards Alice with his desire to pursue his film-making aspirations and maintain a new relationship with someone named Kelly, whom he describes as a good person despite concerns about their time together being overshadowed by his past with Alice.
As Stefan leads the conversation, he challenges the caller's perspective on his relationships, drawing parallels between his manipulative behaviors and those exhibited by Alice. The caller admits to feeling trapped and guilty, oscillating between wanting to assist Alice and recognizing that his involvement may perpetuate a cycle of emotional instability. Throughout the call, the caller wrestles with feelings of guilt, inadequacy, and a desire for redemption, realizing that he has failed to prioritize the well-being of those he claims to care about.
Stefan emphasizes the importance of understanding one’s own emotional landscape and how past traumas shape present relationships. He underscores the need for the caller to take steps to heal and improve his situation, especially regarding his new relationship with Kelly and the self-destructive patterns that have emerged. The conversation delves into complex themes of empathy, self-awareness, and the psychological burden of a past riddled with unhealthy dynamics, culminating in a call to action for the caller to reassess his priorities and responsibilities toward both Alice and Kelly.
The call concludes with the caller acknowledging the need for change, expressing gratitude for the insights gained through the conversation. He recognizes the harmful patterns of manipulation that have been perpetuated in his relationships and the urgent need to consider the emotional implications of his actions on both Alice and Kelly. This reflection emphasizes the necessity of compassionate self-awareness as he navigates a path forward amidst the wreckage of his past relationships.
[0:00] All right. So nice to meet you. I'm sure we can do some good stuff here.
[0:03] Just remember to stay off names and places. Can we come up with a name for your ex? We could just say Alice, if that's all right.
[0:14] Yeah, sure. Let's say Alice.
[0:15] Okay. All right. So, yeah. If you can start by reading, we'll take it from there.
[0:21] Yeah, okay. So, my ex has ruined her own life.
[0:26] She is in debt, lives with her parents, her former abusers She's jobless and is suffering from undiagnosed paranoid schizophrenia Which is reaching a tipping point into openly suicidal inclinations She is 28 years old This has damaged my current relationship and is damaging my ability to make and save money I am 30, I have no debts but no savings either I'm unemployed but managed to get by month to month, I'm trying to get her recognized as a person with disabilities, and at this point to have her, submitted to the psych ward for more intensive care.
[1:08] And ultimately to have her move out of her parents' place. Simultaneously, I'm oh, sorry, I'm adding something, but I feel beholden to help her for three main reasons. One, I consider myself partially responsible for her present circumstances because of my own abusive behavior towards her in the past. Two, her suicide would simply be inherently traumatizing in and of itself. Three, her parents, upon learning of my efforts to help her, have purportedly cast me as a villain, conveniently sidestepping their own accountability, and should she succeed in killing herself, I anticipate further negative consequences from them.
[1:46] I met her in university in 2016. We dated for about a month, and then I left her to play the field. At that point, she offered to let me have sex with her no strings attached. I took up that offer for about a year before she confronted me about not caring about her and only using her. At that moment, I lied to her and I told her I loved her to retaining sexual access. Your episode 5873 helped me to remember and register this as a pivotal moment. What followed was a six-year relationship fraught with mutually abusive and manipulative behavior. It was finally broken off in December of 2023.
[2:23] In December of 2024, she reached out to me.
[2:28] Uh, by phone during a suicide attempt in which I told her to throw up the pills that she had taken, which she did. Since then, I have tried to help her in small ways by being an emotional, emotional support and notifying her father of her suicide attempt and her need for professional help. After two months of this, her parents have done nothing and she has descended into a state of extreme dysregulation with almost daily screaming fits and general self-neglect.
[2:55] I feel that I know what I need to do to help her which is to get her in an inpatient facility.
[3:06] But the real problem is rescuing myself right now her and I are like two people swimming in an ocean with a rope tethered around both of our necks, should I fasten her end of the rope to some other raft I am still left treading water, I'm an artist and I want to make films I have a special talent for video editing and believe in my potential as a filmmaker. I've struggled my entire life with motivation, laziness, and distraction. During my childhood, I was largely neglected. I was told by teachers I had potential if I could get over my laziness, but no one stepped in to help me. My mother used me emotionally, not sexually, as a surrogate husband. And if I include her, I've been mired in overlapping and hedonistic relationships since being a teenager. this includes two relationships with older women before ending up currently though it is.
[3:58] Non-sexual if you could just remember to um we're gonna call her alice i'll i'll make that edit oh yeah yeah just yeah remember we're gonna this or alice and yeah alice is not a real name but sorry go ahead yeah.
[4:10] This includes two relationships with older women before ending up with alice currently though, it is currently, though it is non-sexual, my efforts to aid Alice are overlapping and infringing upon my present relationship. In the grand scheme of things, I have spent only two months of my adult life in genuine solitude. My present relationship...
[4:33] Sorry, can we just go back for a sec? I just want to make sure. So when you said, although it's not sexual, you mean that's your relationship with Alice, not your relationship with your current girlfriend?
[4:41] Yes, yes. There's... Yeah. So in the grand scheme of things, I have only spent two months of my adult life in genuine solitude. My present relationship is a consequence of my inability to put down my hedonism. I went on a date with her because the option was there, but not because I wanted to enter into another relationship. Since then, she has grown on me. I'm conflicted by this relationship because she appears to be a genuinely good person who would be an asset in my life.
[5:10] She has some red flags, but her willingness...
[5:13] Sorry, sorry. Is this Alice or the new girlfriend?
[5:16] The new girl. We can call her Kelly.
[5:20] Kelly and Alice. Okay, got it.
[5:22] Yeah. She has some red flags, but her willingness to do self-work makes them seem negligible. On a strictly Darwinian level, she is 32 and triple vaccinated. I would like to have more than one child, but I have no semblance of a career, and I'm almost starting out from scratch at this point in time.
[5:45] Okay and then you had another update is that right.
[5:48] Well the other update is filling in backstory which i could just tell you no no what's.
[5:55] Happened since didn't she get.
[5:56] Oh so with alice um, well let me let me just jump to that quickly um.
[6:11] Well, I mean, she just got institutionalized, right? I don't know.
[6:14] No, she didn't get institutionalized.
[6:16] Oh, she didn't?
[6:17] Okay.
[6:17] Sorry if I misunderstood something.
[6:18] She has not. She had a psychiatric emergency and she was taken in to the ER. But, you know, what happens is they put her on antipsychotics. And the moment she's not having a screaming fit, they deem her fit to go out the door. because the city I live in is one that has an enormous population of homeless drug addicts.
[6:46] I've basically been told outright that that is the standard for the kind of person who receives priority care. And because she's not a drug addict, she's a lower priority. um so basically uh i've been allowing her to stay at my place more but the panic attacks sorry sorry.
[7:12] So hang on so she had this um crisis and then she was admitted and who admitted her or did she admit herself.
[7:22] In one okay she's been admitted a couple times in one instance she had an attack out in public and i think um some concerned citizen in conjunction with the police apprehended her and brought her to the er in another instance which i heard some of over the phone she had a panic attack in her parents house um and this is only what i've been told by her but uh it resulted in her younger brother uh beating her up and the police being called and she assaulted the police. She was brought to the ER after that.
[8:00] Huh, but she wasn't charged with the police thing?
[8:03] Oh, she's charged. She has a court date coming up in April.
[8:07] Okay. And then she was discharged in one of these to your custody, is that right?
[8:16] I was the emergency contact that she called. She didn't want to call her parents because, again, they're former abusers, even though I think it's predominantly her brother who would be outright abusing her now. they're basically gaslighting narcissists. And I've had personal experience talking to them, and this is mostly true.
[8:39] Okay. So she was released into your care. Is that right?
[8:44] More or less, yes.
[8:46] Sorry. Didn't she say she came to stay at your house?
[8:50] Yeah.
[8:51] So wouldn't that be me released into your care?
[8:54] Yeah, I guess it would be. She's been released into my care.
[8:57] Sorry, it sounds like I'm, I don't want to get anything wrong. So if I've misunderstood something, it sounds like I'm not accurate in what I'm saying.
[9:04] No, no, I, well, I mean, technically I'm not a caretaker and there are instances where she'll go back to her parents' house, but it's just, it's a high risk situation. She spends more time at my place. I guess I've volunteered as a primary caretaker. At this point, I have, I am her primary caretaker and advocate. it okay.
[9:27] So she was kind of signed into your care i'm not saying you're the only person but.
[9:33] Uh it would seem so again.
[9:36] I'm not sure again i don't want to.
[9:38] Get things incorrect i i guess i guess i'm in the same boat where uh there could be a technicality i i didn't sign any forms at the hospital or anything like that i'm just the person who picked her up i'm the person who's primarily taking care of her.
[9:52] Right. So they released her to you, though. I assume they don't just toss her out on the street, right?
[9:57] Um i think they would have they would have just let her walk out onto the street uh they they held her um until i got there just as a kindness okay.
[10:07] Got it got it so there's nothing legal or technical but she's you you picked her up and she's staying with you.
[10:13] Yes okay.
[10:15] I appreciate that clarification thank you and sorry for uh not knowing the details all right okay so how many times over the last um over what time period did you say she's been institutionalized a couple of times.
[10:28] Um well basically since march 3rd i have a chronology here where um the worst uh initial uh like so she was always having uh these panic attacks but mostly she would become very um like crying uh not really listening just ranting getting very very upset and just very emotionally dysregulated but basically at the beginning of march things cranked up to an intensity where it's just uh like a living nightmare where um on march 3rd i received a phone call from her where she had one of these screaming fits. I had her stay at my place, and the following morning, she woke up at 6 a.m., or I woke up to her having one of these screaming fits at 6 a.m. It lasted about 45 minutes. This was before we had access to antipsychotics. And basically, there was another one the next day, um and then it sort of seemed to steady out into a pattern of once every three days uh with some escalating violence um and on the 19th uh just i i had a sense that things were somewhat uh like there was a stable pattern emerging sorry about that you mean.
[11:56] Sort of two days ago.
[11:58] Yes.
[11:59] Okay, got it.
[12:01] She had another fit and then another one on the 20th. And at that point, I had been trying to find various resources through calling services like 211, which allocates mental health resources. But basically, the 22nd, so yesterday, was the first day that I formally went to the hospital to have her assessed. And I was basically told it's like this sort of Kafkaesque nightmare where they told me to make sure she takes the antipsychotics before she comes in. But of course, when we get there, she's calm, which means they cannot verify a mental illness. But the paradox is, if she was having one of these fits, she would not be able to fill out the forms or the paperwork to get her through the door.
[13:00] So they basically told me, the person in the hospital told me that there's this massive system that barely functions to get people help. And I'm just going to have to submit to, um, potentially like maybe she'll see a psychiatrist who could diagnose her in May or something, but that individual was not willing in spite of everything I told them and, uh, the evidence that she had been brought into the ER, um, That doesn't mean anything because she wasn't having a fit right there in front of him.
[13:31] And she, sorry, she wasn't having the fit because she'd taken some antipsychotics. Is that right?
[13:35] Yes.
[13:36] Okay. And I guess you can't record her and play that back or anything. I assume that's not allowed or legal or whatever it is, right?
[13:44] I've made audio recordings. The person in the hospital I was talking to declined to listen to it, but I will continue making audio and video recordings going forward. also partially for my own personal safety because yeah just make sure.
[14:00] That you check with the whether it's legal and don't tell me where you are obviously but yeah.
[14:04] No no just make.
[14:05] Sure that you're in a two-party uh one.
[14:07] Party i'll try to find that i'll try to find that out but um when she has these fits she self-harms and she will bash her arms against hard surfaces and she will bash her head against the wall and so um you know it's uh uh basically i i i find myself in this situation where um i constantly feel uh eyes on me as if i'm the one actively abusing her as i'm trying to help her.
[14:39] Okay all right um i'm obviously sorry for this situation it's very tough overall so how can i best help.
[14:48] Um well i suppose if i were to talk about um my life or what had brought me to this point you might be able to um point to some form of uh insight that i hadn't noticed Yeah.
[15:13] Um, at least when I listen to the calls, that's what I tend to see.
[15:18] There's, um, no, but sorry. And I, I appreciate that now, obviously very happy to help as best I can, but insight for what insight in what way to, to achieve what I suppose, I just, I just need to know what you consider as a call so that I can aim at that.
[15:33] And so one of my main priorities in my life is to, pardon me, one of my main priorities is to try to get my career going because for the last decade or so, when I should have I've been working on that. I've been caught in the turmoil of all these overlapping relationships.
[16:07] Sorry, caught? What do you mean?
[16:11] Well, I feel caught. I feel like, I guess if I go, not I guess. Obviously, when I look back, I voluntarily continue to be a part of the...
[16:24] Well, no, you dangled sex and you went for it, right?
[16:28] Yes.
[16:29] And that's why, I mean, it was lust. And I sympathize with that, and I'm not trying to throw you under the bus, but you're not caught.
[16:37] I mean, there was this unstable woman who then offered you sexual access in return for you not having any judgment about her character, and you went for that. And then you kept going for that, right? Right.
[16:49] Yes.
[16:50] So, you know, you take what you want, which is sexual access with an unstable woman. And now the bill is here, right?
[16:58] Yes. Okay.
[16:59] And yeah, I just, I didn't quite get the court thing. So I'm glad we're on the same page about that. But sorry, go ahead.
[17:04] And no, no, I do take, pardon me if I, I'll try to correct my language as I go forward. After hearing that other call that I mentioned in my intro, it, you know, I, before, if I had called before that, I probably would have been similar to that caller with all the grievances of what happened in the relationship. But with the hindsight of seeing my explicit role in entering into something so dysfunctional, I feel as though I don't have any resentments or anything about what has happened to me.
[17:48] What is happening to me now. You absolutely should have resentments, in my opinion.
[17:54] I i think they might be more suitable uh towards other people.
[17:59] Yeah but i could be your parents should have taught you the dangers of lust no.
[18:05] And uh effectively the only thing that i recall being told about uh sex was uh to wear a condom.
[18:12] Yeah so i mean you were basically thrown to the wolves of modern femininity uh not that not that this girl is a an absolute emblem obviously of modern femininity, but there are dangerous women in the world, and it is the job of the mother and the father, particularly the father, to prepare and warn his son about the dangers of dating and sex.
[18:35] Yes.
[18:36] Which didn't happen.
[18:39] No.
[18:40] Yeah, so, I mean, you're not caught in that you voluntarily entered into it. However...
[18:46] You were also unprepared for it, not trained to avoid this kind of mess. And for that, you can be angry, I think, or should be.
[18:56] And as things continue, because of the lack of dialogue I had with my parents, and I'm not trying to weasel my way out of my own accountability here, but I generally don't tell them of the struggles that I'm going through in my life. partly out of shame, but partly out of a sense that I don't like, I've always had this sense since I was very young that I couldn't tell my mom any of my actual problems because she wouldn't be able to cope with the reality of them. When I was very young, I remember staying up all night terrified of my own imagination of of death, of cartoonish afterlives and so on. And I wanted to call out to her, but I had this sense very, very early on that if I told her this, it would depress her or she wouldn't be able to cope with the existential questions that I was bringing to her.
[20:08] Okay, so you had to manage your mother's mental fragility and now, of course, you're managing Alice's mental fragility.
[20:16] Yes.
[20:17] Okay. And in what ways was your mother fragile, or how did you see that?
[20:27] I don't know how I knew that so young. But she really does not handle negative emotion very well. She has, I believe, a thyroid condition or something like that. And, you know, it's just always been there. And I remember when I came upon Gabor Matty, I gave her a copy of When the Body Says No. So, because if you're familiar with the ideas of the book, it said all of these autoimmune diseases or dysfunctions of the body come about as a result of repressed emotions.
[21:13] Repressed emotional burdens, not enforcing boundaries. and um she comes from a family she's the youngest uh child in a family of nine um that you know when i was younger everything about her side of the family seemed very idyllic but as more time goes on it's very apparent that uh it was extremely dysfunctional um many of my uh many of my cousins um i know one or two for sure uh suffered some form of sexual abuse at the hands of a relative um i didn't and as far as i know my brother and sister didn't um my aunt and my mother uh i know that my aunt uh of the cousin who suffered the sexual abuse that she was apparently raped and my mom sorry who was oh one of my aunts on my mom's side got it and and my mom has mentioned some story about some large figure overtaking her um that's all the details i know.
[22:36] So, I don't exactly know what's happened, and I guess I haven't had the courage to ask further.
[22:46] Okay, so how did you, what was your sense of your mother's fragility? How did you see it?
[22:53] That she that she couldn't handle any existential problems and then beyond that when I began, when I began I was exposed to pornography at the age of 10 and the first time I masturbated was to hardcore pornography at the age of 11 and who.
[23:18] Exposed you to that?
[23:21] I self-exposed at 10. I think the reason I was thinking about this as I was writing more to talk, I think what prompted that was me looking up foul language that I had overheard my older brother and his friends saying, that's my best guess. And then one of my older brother's friends sold me a bootleg DVD of pornography when I was 11. My older brother's three years older than myself.
[23:58] Okay, I think we jumped a little bit from your mother's fragility.
[24:01] So the point I was making there, though, is there was a period of time where I was hiding the truth and reality from her, but then that changed from protecting her from unpleasant truths into hiding my guilt or hiding my activity, which now, looking back, I consider that the same. I apologize if that's confusing or...
[24:34] Yeah. Can we go back a little bit earlier? We'll get to that stuff, but let's go back a little bit earlier. You said when you were very young, you felt this about your mother.
[24:44] Yeah i think so i can't let me think i can't think of any more specific examples of, her fragility but i was a middle child um my older brother he's three years older than me my younger sister is two years younger than me so my older brother um he bore the brunt of of like all the, um, parental guidance, all this sort of pressure to succeed or to do well. And then my sister, um, she has the best work ethic, but my mom kind of latched onto her and co-opted her identity in a way. So, you know, my mom likes riding horses. My sister likes riding horses, and my sister still to this day lives at home. So, um, my mom kind of turned her into like uh uh some kind of lifelong friend and so in this dynamic i think that um all the pressure was on my brother and i was it was just largely assumed that i would catch up or something like that and for the most part um i almost never did my homework and stuff like that uh.
[26:03] Okay do you do you remember my question yeah you're a bit of a hard guy to chat with bro yes i apologize you're asking about.
[26:11] You're asking about signs of my mother's fragility.
[26:14] Yeah i mean are you aware that you're not answering the question look it's fine if you don't want to answer the question then just say to me Stef i don't want to answer the question but i don't know why you're taking you on this narrative journey which i didn't ask for okay i mean it's a real question i'm not trying to pick on you i'm just i'm kind of no no i mean did you know i understand okay so when i'm talking if you could not talk i'd really appreciate that so do you know that you're not answering the question like are you aware of that yes so why would you not answer the question or at least, at least address that you're not answering the question.
[26:52] I don't know the answer as far as me being a young child goes beyond that example of having an intuition that that was the case.
[27:04] Okay. So if you just tell me you don't know, then that's fine. I'm just not sure where we went on all this other stuff.
[27:10] Oh, I'm sorry.
[27:12] Okay. So, and just in general, I'm sorry to be a nag, but if you could just give me the facts, because your interpretations are, I assume that your interpretations are invalid, not because you're not a smart guy. Of course you are. But because if your interpretations were valid.
[27:27] I wouldn't be where I was.
[27:29] You wouldn't be where you are. So I just, just try and give me the facts as best you can. Okay.
[27:33] Of course. So.
[27:33] You didn't see your mother getting real upset you didn't see her freaking out over relatively minor things you didn't see her lying in bed you didn't see her so there was no sort of indications of a fragility when you were younger.
[27:45] When her and my father would fight she would get very upset very quickly, and there were two instances i can think of where my father had this explosive like uh like, just is like this explosive outrage or rage event uh where she was uh just like screaming and uh cleaning the house angrily and um one i apologize for being tangential one instance my mom was not there in the other instance that my mom was there she was uh weeping and begging him to just leave the house to go for a walk or something like that.
[28:32] And how old were you then?
[28:35] At that point, I might have been early adolescence, 13, 14.
[28:42] Oh, okay. So this is like almost a decade after the time period we're talking about. perhaps i'm trying to figure out no not perhaps you'd be talking about you being sort of four or five and now you're talking about 13 or so so well.
[28:56] I it could have been when i was five or six i don't mean to be vague but um.
[29:01] Sorry what it.
[29:01] I don't have great memories of.
[29:06] When i was young you can't be 10 years off right you can't be four no it's 14 well.
[29:11] That's that's what i was earlier though is it's it's only later that other examples of my mom's fragility became.
[29:19] More evident i'm asking early.
[29:21] And i'm i telling you i don't remember.
[29:24] Okay that's fine but when i ask you questioned a question um basically to try and figure out if there's things that you can see when you're when you're young and then you describe to me stuff that happened when you're 13 or 14 that's not answering my question i'm trying to figure out how you knew your mom was fragile when you were young, anything that you may have seen. So then when you describe things happening when you're an adolescent, that's not the same thing at all, right?
[29:50] Okay. Then I'll make it simple. At this point, I do not remember. I have no specific memory of what would indicate to me that she was so fragile that I could not even call out to her at night.
[30:04] Okay. So you didn't see her overwhelmed. She wasn't a nail biter. You didn't see her fight and get really upset with your dad when you were little?
[30:13] Not that I remember.
[30:15] Okay. Do you think that she did and you don't remember or do you think she didn't?
[30:19] That's quite possible.
[30:22] Okay. So let me ask you this. When do your memories begin? Like when do you remember things that you believe or like you accept is accurate. What age?
[30:35] There are memories from when I was about that age or younger, but they're very few. And I think the more consistent memories come in at about the age of six, because that's when I would have begun elementary school.
[30:51] Okay. So what's the earliest or the youngest you remember being when you saw your parents fighting?
[31:06] I don't know. Other than the example that I gave you, I apologize for that.
[31:12] No, I mean, so the earliest to remember is when you're 13 or 14, right?
[31:16] Yes.
[31:16] Okay. What's the earliest memory you have of your mother that's a specific thing rather than a narrative?
[31:23] When I was in a bathtub with her and my sister and I was a baby.
[31:30] You were a baby?
[31:32] Yeah.
[31:32] Oh, wow. You can remember back to babyhood.
[31:36] Yeah i don't know why that makes me upset but, i don't really have any other memories from that period.
[31:46] Well i mean you're lucky to have any memories from babyhood that's very impressive uh okay and what what are you feeling at the moment.
[31:59] Just a general grief and i think it comes out a lot because i'm just upset all the time and most of the time i don't express myself.
[32:17] No sorry i don't sorry i i don't know about upset all the time you started talking about your mother and your sister and you in a bath when you were a baby and i'm trying to understand like why why you're feeling strongly about that and not a general cry of i don't express my feelings but what what are you feeling when you're thinking back of your mother and yourself that your sister in the bath when you were a baby.
[32:39] I don't know.
[32:48] Sorry, you don't know You don't know why you're feeling sad?
[32:51] No, I don't know why that fills me with so much grief.
[33:00] Is it a positive memory?
[33:02] It is a positive memory, I think. There's a memory a little bit later, if you don't mind me jumping ahead, and I won't jump ahead hugely.
[33:13] Now, but you put caveats on everything. It is a positive memory, I think. And I'm not sure what that means.
[33:22] I guess I could say it. Sorry, I'll stop saying it. It could be neutral. It's just, you know, that's a nurturing place to be.
[33:31] So if you're being nurtured isn't that a positive memory yeah.
[33:35] I guess yes.
[33:36] See i guess i i i i need some facts i can't have all of these caveats because then it's just like trying to navigate through an utter fog is it that you don't know whether it's a positive memory i mean if you're in a bath and you're being nurtured and i don't know assume you're blowing bubbles or having fun or something is is that a positive memory it.
[34:03] Is a positive memory.
[34:05] Okay good good all right so i listen i don't mind if there's ambiguity but i i just need to have some facts otherwise like if there's no foundation you can't build the house right.
[34:18] Yeah of course okay.
[34:20] So you have a positive memory, and what is your next positive memory of your mother after babyhood?
[34:32] Does it have to be positive? Can it just be my next memory?
[34:36] No.
[34:37] No?
[34:38] That's why I said positive.
[34:41] Okay, yes, yes. Okay. maybe being bathed in the sink.
[34:57] Sorry, maybe. I don't know what you mean. Stop with the caveats, my God, man. Do you have a memory of being bathed in the sink? Was it a positive memory?
[35:07] Yeah, that would be a positive memory. That would be more explicitly positive.
[35:11] It's a positive memory, right?
[35:12] Fun memory, yeah.
[35:13] Okay, so that's a positive memory, and do you have any idea how old you were there?
[35:20] Maybe approaching three.
[35:21] Okay. so that was a fun memory i assume right yeah okay and what's the next positive one that you have of your mother.
[35:42] I'm sorry i don't know why this is so hard you.
[35:46] Don't have to apologize i'm just asking a question, it
[35:51] Could be that you.
[35:52] Don't have many which is fine it's not fine i'm sorry for that but i'm just.
[35:57] I i don't know i i assume i'm sorry so you don't know what caveat i don't i no memories are coming to mind right now.
[36:09] So from three, hang on, hang on, from three to 30, and I'm not doubting at all, I'm not doubting, I just want to make sure I understand. From the age of three to the age of 30, you have no positive memories with your mother or of your mother. That's fine. I'm not trying to make it sound impossible. I just want to make sure I understand what you're communicating.
[36:35] I guess i'm sorry.
[36:36] Don't guess it seems like don't know no no no don't don't seems don't guess, these see here's the thing there's your memories if you're not sure of them i can't be sure of anything that's going on.
[36:48] So i what you're confronting is is there's um.
[36:55] I'm not confronting no no no no a question is it the case just so i'm clear yes because you put a lot of caveats it right i just want to be clear from the age of three to 30 you have no positive relationship, or you have no positive memories of your mother and again i know that sounds like well how could that be the case i'm just but if that's what you feel that's what you feel i'm not going to argue with you that's your experience so is that what you're telling me.
[37:25] Right now, yes.
[37:26] Oh my God. What do you mean right now? Do you mean in five minutes you won't be telling me that?
[37:35] No, it's that I do think there were positive events, but that when I look back, everything is tinged with this sort of gauze of pity for my mother.
[37:50] Okay, but what do you mean by right now? When I say, is that the case? And you say, right now, yes. It's like you keep giving yourself these outs Or these escape clauses Like you can't be pinned down on anything Nothing.
[38:02] Is jumping to mind.
[38:08] What does that mean?
[38:11] I mean that When you ask the question I sit and Assess what's coming through my mind No.
[38:20] But it's not a call of law Right? You're not going to get punished for being wrong about something or if a new memory pops up. Like, you're treating me as if I'm a hostile lawyer trying to put you in jail.
[38:33] Yeah.
[38:34] Well, don't. Because if that's your view of me, then this is a negative or destructive conversation.
[38:40] No, no, that isn't my view.
[38:43] No, it is. Because emotionally it is. Because you're treating me like I'm someone from a sinister alphabet agency trying to catch you in a lie so I can throw your ass in jail, which is why you keep putting all these hedges in. It's just a conversation. There's no stakes here.
[39:02] Then right now, sorry, not right now. No, there's no positive memories.
[39:09] Okay, got it. All right. So if I understand what you were saying earlier about the gores, you have some positive experiences with your mother, but they're tainted by this pity.
[39:20] Yes.
[39:21] Okay. So what do you pity about your mother?
[39:28] She uh is has been depressed uh most of her life i i mentioned that um i was somewhat of a surrogate husband i have a memory of gardening with her and asking her questions about what she would have liked to have done with her life and i remember her telling me that she at one point she wanted to be a singer and that filled me with immense sadness and grief because her person her personality uh like the idea that she could be a singer in any meaningful sense uh was absurd at that point did.
[40:12] You ever hear her sing.
[40:13] No she never sung now that i can't oh yes she did and she's not a good singer oh.
[40:22] So she was wrong she couldn't have been a singer, because she.
[40:28] Was she.
[40:28] Was not a good singer.
[40:29] Yeah so.
[40:31] This was just a delusion.
[40:36] Yeah.
[40:43] All right. So she was depressed and full of delusions of grandeur about what she could have achieved.
[40:52] Yes.
[40:53] Okay, got it. And how else did her depression or self-pity manifest?
[41:02] She would frequently complain about our father, who was cast in, not just cast, but he manifested this sort of tyrannical husband-father role. He was very surly, quick to anger. there is a considerable amount of yelling and in the instances that I mentioned earlier there's a couple moments where he blew up in a frightening way.
[41:33] So he was a bully?
[41:35] Yes.
[41:36] Okay. And why do you think she chose to marry a bully?
[41:41] She might have been more fun when they were courting.
[41:48] Sorry, she might have been more fun?
[41:50] He might have been.
[41:51] He might have been more fun. Okay.
[41:53] Yes.
[41:53] Well, yeah.
[41:54] Before the rest.
[41:54] I mean, how long did they know each other before they got married?
[41:58] I don't know. I don't know that.
[42:05] I mean, usually it's at least 12 months.
[42:09] Oh, well, they had already had my brother and maybe myself before they were married.
[42:18] Oh, so she had sex with a guy and then ended up getting trapped in a relationship.
[42:25] I never thought of it that way.
[42:27] But yes Well, that's what happened with you Yeah Okay, so yeah, this is why it's important to know your parents' history So you can figure out what mistakes to avoid Okay, so is she religious? Yes.
[42:44] Not particularly. She was raised Anglican. Her father stopped going to church after purportedly having an argument with the priest. And I have a memory of being an angsty teenager, which I regret. I did the whole debunking the life of Jesus by comparing it to other resurrection myths to her. And because she has no foundation in her beliefs, she was unable to push back against it. And so since then, she regards religion as something old-fashioned.
[43:29] Sorry, because she had no foundation in her beliefs, she was unable to push back against it?
[43:38] Yes.
[43:40] Sorry, is she stupid? no i mean sorry some people are right it's like being short right it's no no shame right.
[43:52] Yeah sorry for the pause i've never thought of her that way before.
[43:55] No i'm not saying she is but no no you're treating her as if she's kind of retarded no you are because if you prevent if you present an argument to her she can go look up a fucking book or something, she can go look it up on the internet she can go look for the counter arguments she can go follow Jack Posobiec and get the counter arguments to the myth of Horace and all these kinds of things. So I'm not sure what you mean when you say she had no way of fighting back against you or countering you. I mean, she knows how to read, right?
[44:27] She knows how to read and she was the person who taught me how to read.
[44:32] Okay. And you had a computer because you had access to this nasty stuff on the internet, right? So you had a computer and she knows how to read. And did she did she work outside the home at all?
[44:45] She mostly did not work when I was growing up when I was about I think from 15 onward she worked outside the home as at a kennel.
[45:00] So, she knew how to read, she knew how to look things up, so she could have written, she could have, you know, spent an hour reading about Jesus' myths and the rebuttals, right?
[45:11] She doesn't particularly have any intellectual interests.
[45:16] Well, you were making an argument that shook her faith, right?
[45:20] Yes.
[45:20] So, she can look up the counter-arguments. If it's enough to shake her faith, then it's enough for her to look up the counter-arguments, right?
[45:28] Yeah, but she didn't.
[45:30] So I'm not sure what you mean when you say she was unable to, because she lacked any firm foundation, she was unable to push back or something like that. That's treating her as a passive, dumb object, right? She could have made the choice. She could have looked it up. She could have phoned up a priest. She could have done anything, right? She could have phoned her parents. Hey, what are the arguments against this? Or, you know, anything, right?
[45:54] Yeah i i'm in what you're seeing i'm seeing that there's a tendency to uh uh coddle her or infantilize her.
[46:04] Well you have to obey your mother and your mother sounds pureed in her own quicksand of infinite self-pity yeah my son took my faith away, bullshit you made an argument you're allowed to make an argument she's allowed to rebut it If she doesn't, if she just folds, that's on her. You would be treating her then as a retarded child. So, was your father more intellectual?
[46:38] No. He doesn't really read. He knows how to read, but he would read things like manuals and things like that, nutritional books. But he doesn't have any intellectual interests. He doesn't have very good verbal dexterity. He was raised by Italian immigrant parents, and he was physically abused and basically made a slave in some sense at the age of three. What?
[47:18] He made a slave at the age of three? Of course, I'm shocked, but I'm willing to hear the case, of course, right?
[47:29] I see the narrative that forms in me saying that my grandfather was putting him to work by the age of three, straightening nails and helping out building houses. And my grandfather was physically abusive. He is the kind of person who I could see just casually hitting his kids. But I know there is an instance in my father's life where my grandfather was drunk and my dad commented on it, perhaps in a snide way, and he was apparently very badly beaten as a result.
[48:08] Right. And what does this mean about your father?
[48:15] He...
[48:16] In other words, what excuse does this give your father? what free will are you stripping from your father with his obviously tragic past.
[48:30] His ability to articulate or mount a defense of his positions or what he wanted uh for us as children my mom would frequently um i guess just wear him down in an argument she has she is a little bit more verbally dexterous. And in his own words, at a certain point, he gave up on parenting us because in his point of view, she took complete control.
[49:02] I'm sorry, I thought he was a bully. He was violent and dangerous and cleaning the house angrily, and your mother was begging on her knees. So, but wait, she bullied him into giving up parenting? I'm sorry, trying to follow this. It seems like the pendulum has swung a little bit.
[49:15] That's how, that is the expression of what he felt.
[49:22] Sorry, that is the expression of what he felt. I'm not sure what that means. So your father said, I had to give up on parenting because your mother took it away from me by bullying me. That's what he said to you? I'm not sure what you mean.
[49:37] That is what he meant.
[49:40] I don't know what that's what he meant to me. How did he communicate this?
[49:46] He told me that he gave up on parenting because my mom took control over everything.
[49:51] Okay, so both your parents play the victim.
[49:54] Yes.
[49:54] And now you are enmeshed with a victim.
[49:58] Yes.
[49:58] Okay. So is it true? Were your parents victims?
[50:05] At certain points in their life.
[50:08] Oh my God. Of course. I say your parents, not when they were children.
[50:11] Okay. My parents.
[50:13] As adults.
[50:13] As parents. No, as parents, they were self-pitying losers who gave up. And my mom was too- Well.
[50:23] Your mother didn't give up because she wrestled control of parenting from your dad, right?
[50:26] She didn't give up, but her own motivations, she said she would be happy if all of her kids just stayed home forever, basically. So her motivations are to have a group of friends forever.
[50:43] Okay. Okay, so they didn't give up because your mother blocked your father from parenting to some degree, and that makes it more likely that the children are going to overbond with the mother and stick around, right?
[50:57] Yes.
[50:58] Okay. All right. And what did your dad do for a living? Or does he?
[51:04] He was a mechanic. Now he fixes vacuums and sewing machines.
[51:09] Okay. Got it. And what would you rate his intelligence?
[51:19] Intellectually low, but he can repair almost anything. So I don't know what term you would use for that kind of intelligence but.
[51:27] Oh physical he's got um uh he's got manual dexterity he's got pattern recognition with regards to motors great great physical yeah skills and and so on but not abstract conceptual kind of stuff for the most part right.
[51:40] He might be all right abstractly but he's very bad at communication he's very bad at uh communicating and because he was a bully uh he was not able to transmit any of his knowledge to myself or my brother uh because, we just developed a fear of uh being bullied by him and so we just avoid him at all costs.
[52:07] Okay so because he was a bully he was unable to transmit okay so no that's fine so so did he admit this as a fault he said look i'm i'm shitty at communicating so just deal with it, Or did he think he was a good communicator, but you guys just misunderstood him?
[52:26] Um, there was a point in time that I confronted, actually, he was confronting me. I, there was a confrontation between us, uh, when I was about 18 or 19, um, where I was giving him grief about how he was treating our mom. Uh, and he started laying into me that no one, no one talks to him and he, he's, you know, he doesn't hug his children and he's making him very sad. And I explained to him that...
[52:57] Sorry, he was laying into you. You mean he was attacking you because he doesn't hug his children?
[53:02] Because they don't hug him.
[53:04] Oh, so they don't hug him. Okay, so he feels like he doesn't get affection. Okay, got it.
[53:08] He feels like he's not, you know, I know there's irony in this, but he feels like he's not treated like a real father.
[53:18] Right, okay.
[53:20] And I explained to him at that time events in our life that caused us to fear him or caused us to resent him.
[53:29] And what were one or two of those events?
[53:32] Well, there is the explosive episodes I mentioned before, but another event, there's one where he was showing my brother, getting my brother to wrap up an electrical cord. And my brother started wrapping it around his hand rather than making the loops.
[53:49] Yeah, like the elbow thump thing, right? Yeah, yeah.
[53:52] Because he didn't know. And so my dad said, that's how you tie your dick in a knot and took the cord from him and just did it.
[54:00] How old was your brother at this point?
[54:04] Maybe 11, 12.
[54:06] Okay, got it.
[54:08] One other instance that was very pivotal for me, falling away from him, was he asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up. And I told him I wanted to be a filmmaker. And he said, oh, you want to be stupid like your brother? and after that, I just decided I don't want to talk to this person.
[54:28] Sorry, what was your brother, how does he play into it?
[54:32] Well, my brother wanted to be a filmmaker, but he doesn't really have very good discipline in terms of how outcomes. My sister wound up very disciplined. She can do anything she can push her mind to. My brother is one of the worst procrastinators. He's very dysfunctional in a lot of ways and self-sabotages. And I would rate myself somewhere in the middle.
[55:08] So, your father was kind of caustic and coarse and dismissive and kind of contemptuous of what you wanted to do and so on, right?
[55:18] Yes.
[55:19] And how were you disciplined by your parents as a kid, if you were?
[55:24] When I was mostly threatened. I remember being spanked, not badly, but I do remember being spanked on the couch when I was, I don't know, maybe five or something. um but otherwise um i do remember my dad saying things like uh if you keep crying i'll give you something to cry about i remember being um whether playfully or otherwise uh threatened with uh being belted he had a belt that had uh these studs on it that never happened though So, in one instance, in grade eight, I believe, I had a midterm report card for math at 43%. And my father woke me up in the morning yelling at me because he found this report card in my backpack. And he told me, if I get grades like that, I'm going to grow up into a criminal.
[56:21] And were you not yeah i assume you weren't particularly good at math right.
[56:26] I can do it but i had no interest in it well.
[56:29] Yeah but i mean you weren't good at getting grades at math right no okay so your father blamed you for what you were not good at right Yes. But he pities himself for what he's not good at, which is communicating or soliciting affection or supporting his children or something like that, right?
[56:57] And he mostly sees it as the fault of others.
[57:04] Oh, you mean his lack of communication is the fault of others?
[57:08] Yes. I will say after that conversation with him, though, he started being kinder and more patient.
[57:14] And so how old were you when you had that conversation?
[57:17] I think 19.
[57:19] Yeah. So sort of pointless then, isn't it?
[57:23] Well, I believe I might have said this before, but it's pointless to an extent, except if I have grandchildren. and if I keep him in my life.
[57:38] Well, keeping him in your life, you have a suicidal ex hanging off your neck that's half drowning you, so I don't see grandchildren coming out of any of that.
[57:47] Yeah.
[57:50] Okay, so your father is very angry at the things that you're bad at and then he blames others for what he's bad at, right?
[57:59] Yeah.
[58:00] So if you'd have said to your father, and I'm not saying you should have, but if you'd said to your father, well, the reason I got 43% in math is you never tutor me. It's your fault. What would he say? Like if you blamed others in the way that your father did.
[58:15] I've told him that more recently.
[58:17] No, no.
[58:18] As a kid. Oh, as a kid? Hmm.
[58:23] Like when was the last time you tutored me, dad?
[58:28] I wish I had said that. I don't know what would have happened.
[58:31] Sure you do. Sure you do. He's coming in yelling, saying, it's really bad that you did badly at math. And you say, dad, that's on you. You're the adult. You're the parent. And so you don't tutor me. You don't teach me what is important about math. You don't check my homework. so maybe i.
[58:54] Would have gotten hit or physically threatened.
[58:56] Yeah so if if you blame him the way that he blames others he would have attacked you yeah almost for certain right so he's just a raging hypocrite all the bad things you did as a child are 100 your fault all the bad things i did as an adult are 100% others' fault.
[59:19] Yes.
[59:20] Right? Saying that children have perfect self-ownership and free will, and adults are just victims of circumstance. I mean, it's direct. Like, it's morally insane. And corrupt beyond words. Okay. So, tell me some positive memories of your father, starting early.
[59:43] I remember wrestling with him With me and my siblings as a kid That was a lot of fun in the living room Attacking him and stuff like that Um, Otherwise, I returned to a very similar blank, and most of my childhood, I felt fear or resentment towards him. And then as I went into my 20s, I started to feel pity for him.
[1:00:15] So you don't really hold him responsible?
[1:00:19] I do.
[1:00:22] Well, where's the anger then?
[1:00:25] Um, well, I'll, uh, I will tell you when I confronted him that one time, uh, when I was 19 about all of this stuff, uh, you know, I explained to him how, how this had damaged our ability to communicate and so on. And he said something so monumentally self-pitying. He said, I'm sorry I ruined your life, which he didn't ruin my life. I mean, maybe he did, but that's not how I felt at the time. I felt like, no, you ruined your life, old man. um but there is an instance uh and i please forgive me if i'm jumping but i'm thinking of another instance where i did confront him with a lot of anger and i actually managed to correct his behavior as a result um and an uncle of ours died and my mom got the news on the phone and she immediately started bawling. And I would normally have went and consoled her, but at this point in my life, I had come to realize the way that she had used me as a surrogate husband. And so I no longer felt it was responsible or I didn't want to take part in consoling her anymore. So I went into the living room.
[1:01:46] Sorry, how old were you?
[1:01:47] At this point, I would have been 24, give or take.
[1:01:51] Okay.
[1:01:52] I went into the living room where my father was sitting there And I said, what are you doing? Go console your wife. And he went into this, nobody tells me anything like self-pitying routine. And I said, you're going to self-pity right now? Someone's dead. Your wife is grieving. And I had to pursue him and really drive this home two more times throughout the day. But in the end, he did show up and he was compassionate towards. He hates some of my mom's siblings, in particular, the widower in this instance. He went, in my view, above and beyond where at the funeral, he was hugging these people and he was actually stepping up and doing what he should, of consoling the people around him.
[1:02:54] So how was he able to do that? How was he able to have such compassion, such empathy?
[1:03:03] Because when we had that fight or confrontation when I was 19, I was able to tell him at that point that I loved him, and there was an agreement that came out of that. that we had to speak more honestly even if it was harsh or that I had to speak more honestly and so he has more of a connection with me because I went out on a limb and said that I don't think my brother since being a child has ever told my father that he loves him, but I did that and so he you know his pride still gets in the way but he will listen when I tell him something.
[1:03:51] Okay, so there's a lot in what you said there too. So when you were 19, you told your father you loved him. And what did you love about him? What did you admire about him morally?
[1:04:05] I can recognize that even though he gave up in a lot of ways, that he had insights for what was right. He didn't leave my mother. He stuck it out.
[1:04:23] That could be codependence. That doesn't necessarily.
[1:04:25] That could be codependence.
[1:04:27] So what did you morally admire? Not theoretically, like he had some instinct for rightness or whatever. You know, I mean, you've listened to my show for a long time. Love is our involuntary response to virtue if we're virtuous. So, you had to have virtue and you had to admire the virtues in your father in order to honestly say that you loved him. So, what were the morals that you admired in your father?
[1:04:55] At 19, I don't know if I would have seen any virtues.
[1:04:59] Okay, so then you told him you loved him, but it was just sentimentality in history. It wasn't based upon moral admiration.
[1:05:06] Yeah, you could almost compare it to some kind of a Stockholm syndrome.
[1:05:11] Okay, so then why are you making me do all of this work? Like, why didn't you say, I mean, you've listened to her for nine years, if I remember rightly, to what I do off and off.
[1:05:21] No, no, no, no. I don't know. No, I've only been listening for less than a year. I don't know why you thought nine.
[1:05:27] Oh, sorry. That was in the entry, but maybe you misclicked or mistyped. No problem.
[1:05:31] Yeah.
[1:05:32] All right. So, so I forgive. I apologize then. I ask for your forgiveness because I thought you were a more experienced listener. So I got that. Okay. All right. So you told him that you loved him, but that was mostly based upon sentimentality, not admiration of his moral virtues.
[1:05:54] Arbitrary biological pair bonding.
[1:05:57] Okay. Not quite the same as love, right?
[1:06:04] Well, if I could ask, you know, when you read a piece of literature and you see a tragic character and you feel for them, I don't know what that is. Is that just sentimentality?
[1:06:16] I mean, that's a very abstract question. Could you give me an example?
[1:06:19] Okay. Um, like, I, I guess Lenny and of mice and men.
[1:06:35] I don't think we love Lenny, do we? We don't morally admire his moral character.
[1:06:43] We have compassion for him.
[1:06:51] I think I have more compassion for the other guy who has to.
[1:06:55] Who kills him who has to shoot him, I mean him as well well.
[1:06:59] I mean but of course the other guy brings Lenny around the people knowing how dangerous Lenny is without wanting them, yeah.
[1:07:12] So I I I'm sorry that I don't I I maybe don't necessarily wholly I understand what you say when you say love is the involuntary response to virtue in another person yeah if you're virtuous herself I guess I'm not virtuous myself I'm trying to be but I most of my life I have not been.
[1:07:43] How old were you when you met the woman we're calling Alice?
[1:07:49] I was 21.
[1:07:53] Okay. So this is two years after you confronted your father and told him he needed to do better. And he, I guess, made some commitment that way, right?
[1:08:01] Okay.
[1:08:04] So. What was your dating like before Alice?
[1:08:18] Pretty messed up when you first.
[1:08:22] Start dating uh girls.
[1:08:26] The the first girl that i dated was in high school when i was about 17, um there's a friend of her that i i liked more but i could sense that she was she was trouble Like I could I could really sense that She had come from, That well the first time I heard about Her was that she had Beaten up some other guy in school And that's also why I started talking To her because I thought that that was funny At the time, But You thought that.
[1:09:02] Her beating up another guy was funny.
[1:09:04] Yeah And uh, And, uh, so I started talking to her, uh, over messenger about that. And we related very much, very quickly.
[1:09:19] Sorry, this was the friend of the girl you dated or the girl?
[1:09:22] Yes. Yes. The friend. Yeah. So I could tell that I liked her quite a lot, but, uh, and that we put yourself.
[1:09:29] You put yourself forward as an abuse victim.
[1:09:32] Yeah.
[1:09:32] Right. Because she beat up some guy, which is horrible and, and ghastly and incredibly humiliating for him, of course, given that it's girl boy. And so you said, I think that's funny. I think beating up guys is cool. And I want to date you.
[1:09:48] Yeah, except I never went further than that, because I recognized that I wouldn't want to, at least this is my internal thought process at the time, I wouldn't want to be with her in a long term relationship and getting out of it might be bad so i never i never went further than just being very close friends with her yeah.
[1:10:09] Can you imagine being in a long-term relationship with an unstable woman all right.
[1:10:13] Yeah okay so then you went.
[1:10:15] For her friend and how did.
[1:10:16] That go um it went all right at first uh we we got along we both like movies um i had an easy in because i i knew her friend and uh we started uh we just kept seeing each other because we were both in the uh the musical in high school and so it was easy to get a steady rapport and get closer and closer to her um and then once we after we kissed and formally started seeing each other, we'd go and have coffee, but then we would go to her place, watch movies, feel each other up, and there was a pivotal point where she.
[1:11:10] Uh, two things happen. I talked to the friend, uh, the, the, the more violent one, and we had a conversation that was intimate and she said something. I don't remember exactly what, but it was something to the, I don't remember exactly what she said, but it made me realize that I didn't actually like the girl I was with. and I had liked her. And that in conjunction with there was an opportunity to have sex with the girl I was actually dating. And I avoided going to her house that weekend because I had an innate feeling of the commitment that that would submerge me into had I gone for it.
[1:11:56] Wow, this makes the story when you were 21 even more confusing, but all right. okay so um did you who did you end up dating from those two.
[1:12:12] Um i i had uh an online relationship with an older woman who approached me.
[1:12:22] Wait sorry i'm talking about the two girls you were one girl you had an explicit oh.
[1:12:27] Sorry what happened what happened with her?
[1:12:29] Yeah.
[1:12:30] Oh, sorry. I became extraordinarily distant. I didn't have the guts or courage to properly break things off. And after probably about a couple of weeks or a month of me growing steadily distant, she just asked like, hey, is this just done? And I was like, yeah.
[1:12:50] Okay. And you never dated the other girl, the violent one?
[1:12:53] No.
[1:12:54] Okay. And then you got involved in an online relationship with an older woman. How much older.
[1:12:59] 15 years older and.
[1:13:02] You were how old.
[1:13:02] I was 17 jesus man yeah and uh i was still in spite of the fact that i was using pornography i was still very innocent all the letters that i wrote to her just uh like love letters did your.
[1:13:23] Parents know that you were being preyed upon by a 32 year old woman?
[1:13:28] My, my mom knew, but outwardly she accepted my excuse that it was just some kind of pen pal friendship thing. Um, but at the same time, anytime it came up, there was this sort of looming, uh, uh, uh, like jealous competitiveness. So she wasn't, she didn't, uh, ever confront it head on in a motherly way, I think, because, um.
[1:13:59] Sorry, I had this all very abstract did. So she knew that you were, she knew that you were in an online relationship with a 32 year old woman.
[1:14:12] I think so, yeah.
[1:14:13] As a minor?
[1:14:16] Yes.
[1:14:18] Okay. And did she ever talk to the woman or review the messages or vet what was going on in any way?
[1:14:28] No. There's probably one instance where she asked what it was about, and she outwardly accepted my excuse that it was a pen pal situation.
[1:14:41] Well, she didn't, though. I mean, she's not a kid. Okay, so she basically, grooming is too strong a phrase, but whatever it would be, she lets you, she puts you under the tender mercies of a woman who's almost twice your age, right?
[1:14:58] Yeah.
[1:15:00] Okay, so that's, I mean, criminal, in my view. That's criminal. That's a criminal application.
[1:15:06] Criminally negligence.
[1:15:07] Yeah, it's a criminal negligence and failure to protect a child. Now, were you a tall, athletic, good-looking young man? I'm not saying you aren't now, but back then, what were you doing? What was drawing the women in this way?
[1:15:26] They described me as an old soul, which I've heard is what happened.
[1:15:31] Now, that just means traumatized.
[1:15:33] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[1:15:34] In terms of your looks?
[1:15:35] In terms of my looks uh i always felt like i was unattractive throughout high school uh towards the end i was starting to grow a stubbly beard and that gave me a defined jawline and so i was starting to look handsome were.
[1:15:51] You overweight at all.
[1:15:52] No it was quite skinny.
[1:15:55] All right. So how long did this creepy older woman hang around for?
[1:16:03] I'd say probably about a year. And then she slept with a guy in the States. That's her own age. And I found out because the evidence was just right there on her Facebook page in various forms. and i confronted her about it and i i also messaged the guy to confront him and she got very angry at me for doing that and uh threatened to break things off or did break that tried to break things off and then i i made a an appeal to her kindness or that i was just really upset and she took just enough pity on me to uh not dump me but to just continually so.
[1:16:49] Were your boyfriend girlfriend.
[1:16:50] Yeah but it's online so it's all bullshit well.
[1:16:55] It's not all bullshit.
[1:16:56] No they're not emotionally and you know we're writing letters as well and i have like.
[1:17:02] Did you have like sexual conversations.
[1:17:04] Sexual calls uh no no.
[1:17:07] Nude so what so your boyfriend girlfriend you never met and you never exchanged any.
[1:17:12] She she had sent i'm sorry she had sent me some explicit photographs, but I had never, I had never legal.
[1:17:22] Don't answer that. Don't answer that. Cause neither of us are lawyers, but Holy crap. That's, that's, that's, that's sick. That's really sick.
[1:17:30] Yeah, I agree.
[1:17:31] No, it's don't laugh, man. It's sick. I mean, you're a year older than my daughter.
[1:17:37] Yeah.
[1:17:39] I can't even tell you what I would do if some 32-year-old guy was, oh, no, no, no, let's not go there. Let's not go there. Did your father know about this?
[1:17:51] I don't think so. And if he did, he didn't do anything or say anything.
[1:17:58] All right. And then, I guess, what, around? Let's just skip to Alice, unless there's something of note beforehand.
[1:18:09] I mean, it'd be a very, very long call. There's lots of note. It's just that you'll be continually appalled.
[1:18:18] Give me a highlight or two.
[1:18:21] Okay well um i i towards 18 i i ended up having an affair with a woman 27 years older than me at a community center where i was showing my art um and that 45 till uh i guess i would have been her age. I said 27 years older than me, correct?
[1:18:44] Yeah.
[1:18:45] Yeah. Yeah. And that would have continued until I turned 20, at which point I had an affair with a married woman, 30 years older than me. Um, and that was supposed to end, uh, when I was 21, when I went to university in a different city. Um, but then what ended up happening.
[1:19:06] How much older than you was him? How old was your mother when she had you?
[1:19:13] 30.
[1:19:15] All right.
[1:19:17] Yeah. So, then what happened is when I went to university, that was supposed to be broken off. That was supposed to be...
[1:19:29] The 45-year-old.
[1:19:31] The 50-year-old. 51-year-old.
[1:19:34] Sorry, how did I... I missed a missed one.
[1:19:37] Okay, so there's the first one at the community center.
[1:19:41] 27 years older.
[1:19:42] Yes. And then when I was 20, I went after another one who was married, who was 30 years older than me.
[1:19:49] You went after, so you pursued her.
[1:19:51] I pursued her.
[1:19:52] So this is like a fetish, right?
[1:19:55] Yeah. I don't like it anymore. I don't want anything to do with anyone significantly older than me ever.
[1:20:05] Was this something that came out of the pornography or something? Like, where is this imprinting coming from?
[1:20:11] It's probably the pornography because, um, it, it, with pornography, I think it just became about, uh, wherever I could get sexual access, um, wherever I could get, um, that level of, uh, no real commitment, sexual access.
[1:20:35] I don't, so the pornography, so sorry, that's not, I mean, that's all, yeah, young boys to some degree or young men to some degree, right?
[1:20:44] Yeah, I guess, so I didn't have a steady internet connection and I think this might make a slight difference in term, and there might just be more genetic addictive tendencies on my mom's side of the family.
[1:20:58] but we we so for me whatever internet access i had was very scarce uh it would be over at friends places at relatives places and then uh so there'd be a lot of things of like downloading it and then having it on a computer at home or i had that dvd for a while so i think that um, uh, for young men who just use it and it's just there, you know, obviously some get very addicted, but some, I think they can just put it to the side. It just, it just becomes a lower priority. But in my life with the lack of, uh, the lack of care or oversight that I had, the lack of emotional connection I had with my parents, this became like a giant soother, which speaking of which I also sucked my thumb until I was 10.
[1:21:53] Mm-hmm. Okay. So what happened with the 51-year-old?
[1:22:04] She, so I went to university. We were supposed to break things off. And then I got a phone call from her. Her husband had found explicit photos she had taken of me, at which point her marriage was collapsing. And I felt obligated to, to stand by her or help her or not abandon her.
[1:22:28] Okay. What does that, what does that mean?
[1:22:31] That I continued, uh, talking to her on the phone. Uh, when I saw her in person, we continued our relationship. Uh, is that what she wanted?
[1:22:40] Yeah. So she gave up on her marriage?
[1:22:49] Essentially, yeah.
[1:22:50] The only chance you'd really have to, and was that long distance or with any of these older women, was it sexual in person or was it just long distance?
[1:22:57] It was in person. It was in person with the 47 and the 51-year-old.
[1:23:02] Okay. And so the only chance for this woman's marriage, I imagine, would have been to have a complete cutoff from you, where there was no future, of course. And so she basically gave up on her marriage and wanted to continue to see you.
[1:23:18] Yeah. And when she made that call, I remember feeling so much anger at her. And I felt a deep suspicion that she had left the photos out. And she swears that that's not the case. But that's how I felt.
[1:23:37] What do you mean, left the photos out? You mean on her, I assume it was digital.
[1:23:42] They were printed out.
[1:23:44] Oh printed What the hell do you print explicit photos Oh like a color printer Sorry I'm old school.
[1:23:51] Walmart self help kiosk.
[1:23:54] Oh okay Alright Okay so then what happened with This woman who was A little over half a century.
[1:24:05] Um That has More or less overshadowed my, my, all my school years. Um, and it, it, uh, I, I, the way I feel about it and I.
[1:24:25] I, you're probably going to practically what overshadowed fee. I, what happened? Did she, sorry. Did you stay as a couple of how long?
[1:24:34] Probably, and stayed as a couple, you know, it's secret. My parents didn't know about it. So I started school in 2015. It probably would have gone until 2018.
[1:24:55] Oh, I'm losing track now. I thought you met the other girl when you were 21.
[1:25:00] Um i was 21 in 2016.
[1:25:04] So there was an overlap between there.
[1:25:08] Was an overlap yes.
[1:25:09] Oh so you were two-timing.
[1:25:10] Yeah it's two-timing three-timing whatever.
[1:25:13] Okay and did you have any moral compunctions about this at all.
[1:25:18] No just non-stop anxiety.
[1:25:22] So you're just afraid of getting caught or losing out in some way, right?
[1:25:27] I felt morally horrible towards the older woman. And I, at the time, yeah, and then it was just the fear of losing out.
[1:25:40] Sorry, morally horrible towards the older woman. What does that mean?
[1:25:43] Well, because I wasn't going to rip the Band-Aid off and dump her or abandon her. But then I was also not going to sacrifice my pursuit of seeing women at university.
[1:26:03] So I still not morally horrible towards her.
[1:26:08] Well, in my perspective, I was cheating on her.
[1:26:11] Well, not just in your perspective, you were cheating on her.
[1:26:14] Yes, yes. I was cheating on her, and then she would inevitably find out, and be all heartbroken. And I'd fervently apologize and I'd feel all this grief at what I was doing to her. And then we'd make up.
[1:26:33] Did she have any children?
[1:26:35] Yes, she has two children.
[1:26:36] How old are they?
[1:26:39] One of them is...
[1:26:41] Like what? Sorry, back then. Back then.
[1:26:46] One is three years older than me. One is two years, a year younger than me. So back then, it doesn't matter.
[1:26:53] So they were early, mid-20s. Okay.
[1:26:56] Yeah.
[1:26:59] It's kind of a homewrecker, although the kids weren't still at home, I assume.
[1:27:03] Well, and now that she's a grandmother, I'd hardly say that it doesn't matter.
[1:27:09] Right, right. Okay. All right. So you said you were three-timing. Is that right? You had three women on rotation?
[1:27:16] At one point, yeah.
[1:27:17] Okay. So there was the 51 or 52-year-old. And then how old was Alice when you met her?
[1:27:27] Two years younger than me. so she would have been 19.
[1:27:30] Okay. So you had the 51-year-old, the 19-year-old, right? And it's up to 70. And then who else?
[1:27:42] There's another girl who, it was not a very serious relationship, but she was my age.
[1:27:51] But you were sleeping with her, and were you lying to all three women?
[1:27:56] Yes. whether whether by whether by outright lying oh no no there's no difference in fact lying by a mission is usually worse okay yeah okay all right so.
[1:28:07] Then how did things end with the older woman or the old.
[1:28:11] Woman i i um she i would she would keep finding out that i had i was cheating on her.
[1:28:22] Oh, were you saying two girls?
[1:28:25] Yeah.
[1:28:26] Or were the other...
[1:28:31] I mean, there were other girls that I slept with throughout this time, but they're not significant in terms of being anything like a relationship.
[1:28:46] Because I could one-day sense and stuff.
[1:28:47] Yeah.
[1:28:48] Which, of course, she'd be concerned about because of STDs. I assume.
[1:28:52] Yes.
[1:28:53] Okay.
[1:28:56] So she would find out I was cheating on her. She would be heartbroken. I would apologize. I'd feel full of guilt. And then she'd take me back and I wouldn't leave her. And this went on until a certain point. I can't remember the exact nature of this pivotal moment. I guess it was just that I was more firmly with Alice, or I'd been seeing Alice for a much more extended period of time. And she just tapped out. She went, I can't do this anymore. Right.
[1:29:34] Okay.
[1:29:35] And so that would have been around 2018.
[1:29:37] I mean, I assume that her marriage, did she get divorced?
[1:29:41] Yeah, they got divorced.
[1:29:42] Okay, got it. Do you have any feelings for the husband?
[1:29:50] I do. I feel some amount of fear, which is justified. Why?
[1:29:58] Is he a dangerous person?
[1:29:59] Why? He's very large, and he's the kind of person who he always restrained his temper, and then there were moments that he had explode and he read a lot about atrocities which I can't speak for everyone but I can speak for myself because I read a lot about atrocities, it betrays I believe an ability to carry out those things yourself innately.
[1:30:30] Okay. But you've never received any contact from him?
[1:30:35] No.
[1:30:36] Okay.
[1:30:36] I've been glared at by him a couple of times.
[1:30:39] What do you mean? Like you've met him?
[1:30:42] Well, like I was in a car and he was in a car and he saw me, stuff like that.
[1:30:49] Oh, like just on the road?
[1:30:51] Yeah.
[1:30:52] Okay.
[1:30:53] I don't currently...
[1:30:54] Well, you certainly do win the prize for the biggest age gap I've ever talked to, 21 to 51, 20 to 51?
[1:31:03] Yeah, yeah, 20 to 50, 21 to 51, 30 years.
[1:31:07] Yeah, yeah, okay. All right. Okay, so then you meet Alice, and Alice doesn't know about these other women, right? Yeah. So you lie to her as well?
[1:31:23] Yeah okay and.
[1:31:26] What drew you to alice.
[1:31:27] Um she's pretty and uh she had a we just had um it maybe it was just lust uh whether um socially or otherwise we had uh mutual chemistry um Um, and she would push me. I remember her pushing me on, uh, on drawing, you know, she was looking at my drawings and she told me to loosen the fuck up. And after that I started drawing better.
[1:31:58] Um, and I had, there were visions I had very early on where I could envision us making art together.
[1:32:16] And so we went on a couple dates, and eventually we had sex, and after we did that, I was informed by her that I had taken her virginity, and from my own history, I feel like if I had known that beforehand, I might not have slept with her, because there were other opportunities in the past, to be with someone who is still a virgin and I was not interested. Okay.
[1:33:00] And so the.
[1:33:02] Relationship progressed for maybe a little more than a month. And then one night, she transmitted to me a yeast infection.
[1:33:19] um and that was kind of uh uh maybe i just used that as an excuse but that was a pivot point where i decided uh you know what i i want to i want to play the field, um and so i i went and i broke things off, i i think that looking back i did that because i i, everything was already corrupt uh with me lying and so on and um and i meanwhile i felt like i was taking care of this old woman um emotionally and so on so i think i put her at a distance in that way um probably just out of self-preservation.
[1:34:16] Uh to not be exposed or to not confront that reality um i don't know what you mean well just the reality that i was i that i felt stuck in this relationship with this older woman.
[1:34:32] That I, I, I felt like I was a homewrecker. Um, I felt, uh.
[1:34:37] You were.
[1:34:38] Yeah.
[1:34:38] Yeah.
[1:34:39] Yeah. So I was a homewrecker. Um, I felt responsible for her wellbeing.
[1:34:46] Sorry. Who's wellbeing?
[1:34:48] The older woman's.
[1:34:49] Okay.
[1:34:51] And, uh.
[1:34:52] That's just your mother, right?
[1:34:54] Yeah.
[1:34:55] You feel responsible for your mother's wellbeing.
[1:34:57] Yes. Okay. Right.
[1:35:00] So you had sex with the Virgin, and then you broke up with the Virgin out of a sense of self-protection?
[1:35:15] I'm theorizing or analyzing. I think it was just to— Okay, so please don't do that.
[1:35:19] Yeah, please don't do that.
[1:35:20] Well, I'll be— Yeah, no, please don't do that.
[1:35:22] Yeah, don't do that.
[1:35:23] I'll be as blunt as I can then. I broke up with her so I could pursue other women.
[1:35:28] Yeah, okay, good. Yeah, if you can just be honest about that. Okay. So you banged the unstable virgin, you took her virginity, and then you dumped her a month later.
[1:35:37] Yeah.
[1:35:39] Okay.
[1:35:40] And then that's when she offered me herself in a no-strings-attached relationship.
[1:35:47] Mm-hmm.
[1:35:50] And that went on, that continued for about a year.
[1:35:55] Um and you were still with other women yes okay and what was roughly at this point.
[1:36:04] I don't even know um, okay it doesn't matter still under 10 okay.
[1:36:18] All right so you continue to have quote no strings attached sex does alice know that you're still sleeping with other women.
[1:36:29] Um alice knows that i'm with kelly presently oh do you mean back then sorry yeah yeah back then of junk back then um not directly through me but through through other people so.
[1:36:43] You you were lying to her did she think.
[1:36:46] You were in.
[1:36:47] A monogamous sex with benefits relationship.
[1:36:49] Uh i don't i don't think so so.
[1:36:56] She she knew you were sleeping with other women i'm sorry i was.
[1:36:58] Confused i thought you didn't but you but.
[1:37:00] But not through you okay so you.
[1:37:02] Were lying to her even.
[1:37:03] Though she found out somewhere else.
[1:37:04] Yeah okay friends warning her okay.
[1:37:09] And then after a year what happens.
[1:37:15] After a year she confronted me uh so as this went on i became uh more i guess uh sociopathic or more mean in that i would basically uh tell her explicitly that i was only interested in her for sex and i would i would uh refrain avoid having real conversations um and push her away emotionally, uh yeah a little sadistic right even though she.
[1:37:49] Just offered up sex.
[1:37:50] Obviously women who.
[1:37:52] Offer up sex usually want more right.
[1:37:55] Yeah. Yeah. And so after about a year, she confronted me saying that you don't care about me at all.
[1:38:01] And basically trying to break things off, at which point I lied to her that I loved her to keep getting sex. um and sometime after that uh we did mdma and that uh even if only chemically opened me up to her in a way where i was able to tell her the total truth of my life and um just what was what was as i saw what was happening to me but also what i was doing and i think we did mdma a couple times um and so that created this artificial window of emotional intimacy um and this feeling of absolute like um being accepted and and not just accepted uh emotionally but just being accepted for who i was at that point i felt uh pretty irredeemable generally um and so this was like a uh narcotic uh where after that i kept becoming closer to her and she was accommodating She was, she was, um.
[1:39:30] She was accommodating me both sexually and emotionally. And, and so this was approaching, um, a Christmas break. Uh, that's when I formally, uh, broke things off with the older woman completely. And through phone conversations with Alice, um, we, we, uh, Through phone conversations with her, we formally decided that we were boyfriend-girlfriend. And when I got back to the city, I was thinking that it's going to be like, I feel all this mourning for the older woman in that relationship. But you know what? I can deal with that mourning in this relationship. And I just had these rose-tinted glasses that things would work out, and it was going to be good.
[1:40:26] And and whatever said alice given you of instability so far other than the offering of the sex and the drug use and so on and the uh i guess the um the yeast infection.
[1:40:40] Um, the other signs of instability would be that, um, she got, she, the roommate that she moved in with initially, uh, they had a falling out and she basically went around, uh, bitterly cursing that person and, and would not let it go. it was just like this obsessive like uh and that person uh who seemed also kind of uh psychopathic uh went around or maybe maybe they're kind depending on your perspective they went around telling people uh not to let alice uh move in with them um and so um alice's perspective was that this person was going around sabotaging her reputation. And rather than, I guess, in some moments of, I don't know if it's kindness, but just speaking honestly to her, I would try to tell her that she just has to let it go or move on or think about other things. But she just latched on to this to the point where she kept losing friends and people wouldn't take her seriously.
[1:41:56] And what did you know about alice's childhood at this point.
[1:42:02] I think it was.
[1:42:03] No no not what you think i asked what you know you have to answer me in a masculine fashion not in the i think i feel stuff right which is what did you know about alice's childhood i mean not obviously empirically because but what did she say what did she told you no no sure.
[1:42:17] I sure it's just that i i, I would have to look at my journals to know whether I knew this before the MDMA or after.
[1:42:27] It doesn't matter. At this point.
[1:42:28] Okay. If it does, if it doesn't matter, then yeah. Her parents, her father beat all the kids and she would, she would out of a sense of justice when the beatings were happening, she would provoke her father or push her father. and basically wear her parents down to the point where she was beaten up and bloody, in her own words. And she would basically do this to emotionally exhaust them and to torture them with their own malice. Her mother had some postpartum thing and frequently talked about killing the kids. And in one instance, there was an instance where she was perhaps about to outright do it to her and her older brother, but did not. And they also manipulated her older brother into becoming a live-in servant. They told him that he'd never have a girlfriend and basically...
[1:43:46] Oh, like your mother with keeping the kids forever, right?
[1:43:51] Yeah, but with my mom, it's keep us forever so we can all have fun. With them, it's keep you forever so you're our slave.
[1:44:00] Okay.
[1:44:05] Yeah, I could probably go on, but it's just a general overview.
[1:44:12] Um roughly when did you find this out i'd.
[1:44:16] Say all during this during the the the period uh before and after taking the mdma.
[1:44:22] Okay so she'd been beaten bloody repeatedly she provoked her parents to to torture them with their own malice her mother had claimed to want to kill the children and at one point alice was concerned or afraid that she was about to do it.
[1:44:38] Yeah and she has a distinct uh memory of mentally be as as at the age of uh two or three being uh mentally prepared to die.
[1:44:49] That's i mean that's all just so appalling of course right okay and so what was your relationship like with your parents and siblings at this point? Did they know anything about this madhouse of a dating life?
[1:45:08] No.
[1:45:10] So you just hid everything. Did they ask you if you were dating and you just lied? No.
[1:45:16] I don't really remember them asking too much.
[1:45:19] Okay.
[1:45:20] And if they did ask, I would have lied.
[1:45:23] Okay. Got it. All right. So you get enmeshed with Alice for, was it six years?
[1:45:34] About seven. And, you know, I'm basically still enmeshed now.
[1:45:38] So, you know, but when did you break up?
[1:45:41] Oh, in 2023, end of 2023. okay.
[1:45:46] So like five six years in.
[1:45:48] Um 2016 to 2023 uh seven okay.
[1:45:54] And what caused the breakup.
[1:45:58] Um she she graduated school in 2023 so our relationship was characterized by um, every month uh i mean there's a lot of bickering so after after uh we became boyfriend girlfriend she started putting up uh these boundaries um that she had never put up before and it took me a couple years to to adjust to that because i was mostly just in disbelief that this was happening sorry i don't know what.
[1:46:36] You mean for what boundaries.
[1:46:36] Um just if she wasn't interested to sex at that moment um just any boundaries really like i don't want to have preferences and she started to have preference yeah she started to have preferences and at that time i was i was bewildered and indignant and uh um but you treat her.
[1:46:57] As a sex object so if.
[1:46:59] She doesn't want to.
[1:46:59] Have sex that's a big problem for you right.
[1:47:01] Yes yeah okay yeah and so, So, it was very tumultuous. I began working on myself and going to therapy and fixing a lot of my behaviors. When did you go to therapy? Probably in... uh 2020 around 2020 um and.
[1:47:38] How long did you go for.
[1:47:39] Uh probably about a year or a year and a half with the one therapist um and that helped that helped quell some of uh my anger but at this point in the relationship and it had also got sorry anger.
[1:47:57] Towards whom and about what.
[1:48:00] Just, I had anger towards her and resentment towards her, not only for, not only for, um, uh, no longer being a willing sex object, but I, but also for never, never allowing, uh, never, never acknowledge, I had resentment because she never acknowledged any of my effort to change and um anytime i tried to talk about um the difficulties that i was going through and in trying to accommodate her she wouldn't want to listen to any of it and you know i i really don't view myself as a giant victim here um because this is a mess that i made for myself but that is what did.
[1:48:47] Your sexual frequency go from and to from sort of the.
[1:48:51] High point to the low point, um honestly there is never a huge period of of no sex we are still having sex at least probably like uh at worst like once a week but it's it stayed pretty like uh probably pretty generous in spite of uh all my uh complaining and whining and her resistance it probably still like three to four times a week.
[1:49:24] Okay. So when she said she had sex, well, when you said she had sexual boundaries, she didn't enforce them that much, I guess.
[1:49:31] No, she wouldn't, well, you know, she wouldn't.
[1:49:37] What would you say if she didn't want to have sex? I mean, would you convince her to have sex? I mean, how did that go?
[1:49:43] I became very sullen and resentful, which is about as arousing to a woman as, well, I can't think of a metaphor, a clever metaphor.
[1:49:57] I mean, if she didn't want to have sex and you became sullen and resentful, would you normally end up having sex.
[1:50:02] Um inevitably yes so she was rewarding uh the negative behavior ultimately by caving to it.
[1:50:10] So i mean she would have sex with you when she didn't particularly want to she was just afraid of your disapproval or sullenness or or.
[1:50:18] Just sick of it and would rather just uh you know resolve it.
[1:50:21] Okay got it all right so then you were in therapy year and and a half, you said, was that with your first therapist? And then there was more therapy later?
[1:50:31] There was another therapist, uh, later post breakup.
[1:50:36] Um, but so, but what, what, what caused the breakup?
[1:50:40] Oh, what caused the breakup? Uh, she graduated from school at a certain point before. So because the relationship would just, uh, go up and down, we'd have these, like, we'd have these breakups. And then when I accepted that we were broken up, uh, she would suddenly feel like things could work and then so we had reunite so it's just this um cycle yeah i love you i.
[1:51:03] Hate you don't leave me i love you i hate you don't leave me okay.
[1:51:05] Yes yeah yep um which why would you why.
[1:51:11] Would you go back.
[1:51:11] Uh for the sex but also because i increasingly felt that i loved her um and i think that i think that for the most part that was that was um uh a sexual attachment i think i developed i think i developed a lot of empathy um in order to facilitate sexual content sexual uh attainment um hang.
[1:51:42] On what empathy in order to get sex that's manipulation what do you mean empathy.
[1:51:46] Well the.
[1:51:49] Other person doesn't want to have sex you're like okay well that's you know that's fine that that's empathy empathy isn't oh you don't want to have sex let me figure out how to get you to have sex that's not empathy.
[1:51:58] Well i guess i i guess i figured out how to be um uh more kindly emotionally manipulative over longer periods of time okay right uh.
[1:52:12] But empathy is trying to understand the state of mind of another person, not get them to have sex with you.
[1:52:19] Yeah, I guess I guess it's I probably misusing the word, but that's fine.
[1:52:26] OK, yeah. All right. So then, sorry, you had a bunch of breakups. How many breakups do you think you had over the seven years?
[1:52:32] Oh, tons, tons. And it's probably safe to say, I mean, what would happen is we would have this, like, either it's a breakup-level fight or it's a fight that approaches a breakup. And then a day or two later, she'd go, oh, I'm on my period. And then things would settle down. and so did you.
[1:52:58] Did you talk to your therapist about these these breakups and this this horrible past of your girlfriends and.
[1:53:05] Yeah uh the therapist i did i talked to him about uh a lot of it um most of the effectiveness of talking to the therapist was just in having an emotional outlet at all or having any therapist.
[1:53:22] And you don't have to tell me anything you don't want to.
[1:53:24] Outside of therapy.
[1:53:25] Of course. I know it's a private conversation.
[1:53:27] No, of course.
[1:53:28] But did the therapist ever recommend not getting back together?
[1:53:33] No, he was, he was a very, um, like one of these.
[1:53:36] Um, just kind of people, right?
[1:53:40] Yeah. Just listen, don't judge radical honesty. Uh, you know, let the patient lead the way kind of thing.
[1:53:49] Okay. Um, and that you'd have another therapist after that.
[1:53:55] Yeah, this wasn't until after the breakup though.
[1:53:58] Okay.
[1:53:58] And this therapist was useful in terms of catharsis. I had a lot of emotional grief to go through. And I was able to process a lot of that or just spew out all of my emotions to her.
[1:54:15] Okay.
[1:54:16] And, yeah.
[1:54:17] Okay. So what caused the breakup?
[1:54:21] She graduated in 2023. She graduated from university. and uh that was when she decided that um you know it was just time to move on she had decided in some sense that uh that it wasn't worth it wasn't worth the turmoil or the change while she was still finishing up school and so we could really deal with the relationship when she was done school, and so she left you yes okay.
[1:54:55] And did you know that that was the final one or did you think it might be another.
[1:54:59] I i was always i was always uh trying to angle to make it work until the until the better end and.
[1:55:09] Did she move away or did did things have a kind of finality that way.
[1:55:12] I i, So I went to a neighboring city where my cousin, who runs a construction company, gave me a job for three months. And so the idea was this would provide a gap and I would find a place. The reason that I was allowing her to have the apartment was because she had previously told me that if she had to move out of this apartment, that she would kill herself.
[1:55:50] When did she first threaten suicide?
[1:55:53] Probably before graduation.
[1:55:56] Was this when you were with your first therapist?
[1:56:00] Um yes and he pointed out to me that that was an act of extortion.
[1:56:06] So you got a therapist you're saying this girl is telling me give me the apartment or i kill myself and he still can't bring himself to say this might not be a great relationship you probably should get out.
[1:56:17] No and part part of the reason that i i did stop uh seeing him as i got a kind of queasy feeling when, and I don't want to talk about the particulars of what, but I was talking about something that, uh, that I had done in the past that I felt was, um, not just wrong on society's terms, but innately wrong that in my guts, I knew it was wrong. And he said, he said something along the lines of, wow, you've, you've really internalized society's judgment. And there's just this moment where I was just like, I don't agree with this. I think it's wrong. Um, and I don't think it's just a society thing. And so I stopped seeing him after that.
[1:56:59] And you don't want to share what that was, right?
[1:57:01] No, no, I don't.
[1:57:03] All right. So... You break up, you go to the other city, your cousin's construction crew, a couple of months, and how long is it till you see her again?
[1:57:17] Well, she came and visited me in that city after about two weeks. Just habit, loneliness.
[1:57:28] No, but you've broken up.
[1:57:30] Yeah but you know we'd already been we'd already broken up uh nine or ten times before okay.
[1:57:37] All right so she.
[1:57:38] Comes to visit you and you have sex again right yes okay and then and then in the the last month of that uh she saw that um i was really not intent on letting go and so she finally, definitively closed off sexual access, at which point I accepted that at that point that it was actually over and could actually start grieving.
[1:58:10] And how long had you stayed monogamous, both of you, over the course of these sort of six or seven years?
[1:58:16] She had stayed monogamous the entire time. There's the other women that I mentioned earlier. after all of that uh after all of that, there is one instance in in after i got in a relationship with her after we were boyfriend girlfriend she she told me that i could uh in order to try to offset my sexual desire she told me that i could sleep with someone else um if the opportunity presented itself i said that i i wasn't interested but then i met someone in school and i had sex with them probably three or four times and decided i didn't want to do that okay.
[1:59:04] And did you tell alice.
[1:59:05] Yes she knew and.
[1:59:08] Sorry when when was that in the relationship.
[1:59:10] That would what that would have been um after the mdma after we were formally boyfriend girlfriend and when we were going through her her uh boundaries being put in place so.
[1:59:23] This is fairly early on.
[1:59:24] Yes okay.
[1:59:26] Got it all right so then she breaks it off with you and then what.
[1:59:30] Um and so since i still had uh a bunch of my stuff in the apartment um there was some, uh there's some logistical stuff going on still she was going to go she was going to go on a residency in the first couple months of the new year. And so offered to let me stay in the place for those two months.
[1:59:55] Uh, while your medical field.
[1:59:59] No, Art Residency.
[2:00:01] Art Residency, okay, got it.
[2:00:02] Yeah. And so before, at the end of the work period, I was going up to my hometown, and I stopped back in the apartment, and I got there and she wasn't there. and i saw a note on the floor in the one room and my my my subconscious or my my stream of consciousness said don't look at that and i looked at it and it was a it was a letter that she was writing to a friend of hers um uh basically what i learned from it is that uh She was planning on and actively seeking to replace me with another man that she had known for years at her workplace. Before this, in all of our conversations, my understanding was just that it wasn't going to work and that was it. and then i find out um that and i i you know i accepted the inevitability that she'd be with other people obviously but this felt like some and i had asked her outright uh uh while i during a phone call while i was away i asked her um you know okay.
[2:01:28] I'm i'm honestly brother i mean we've been talking for a long time i'm only gonna have so much fucking patience for you being outraged when you lied to this.
[2:01:37] Woman you.
[2:01:37] Slept with other women before.
[2:01:39] And during.
[2:01:40] The relationship and so like i only have a certain amount of patience for your outrage so you might want to get it done quickly.
[2:01:47] I'll make it quick i was outraged okay and then what i told i told her that i i uh if i had known this before i wouldn't have consented to allowing her to have the apartment i expected her to basically tell me that I expected her to threaten to wreck my reputation or something like that. Uh, but, uh, to my surprise, she didn't. And she conceded to allow me to have the apartment back. Uh, it's a very nice apartment. It's useful as an artist studio, uh, for either of us. It's also very cheap um anyways um so fast forward to 2024 um i had been with uh the new girl kelly, for about half a year and.
[2:02:38] I'm sorry how what was the gap between the final breakup with alice and starting today, Kelly?
[2:02:45] I think I first hooked up with her after about two and a half months.
[2:02:53] Jeez.
[2:02:55] But, yeah.
[2:02:58] Okay. And she knew all about the history.
[2:03:04] I was pretty upfront with her about what was going on in my life.
[2:03:08] And how did you meet her?
[2:03:11] I was recommended to go out with her by a friend.
[2:03:17] Sorry, a friend of hers or a friend of yours?
[2:03:19] Mutual friend.
[2:03:21] What the fuck is a friend saying, hey, you've just had this tumultuous seven-year relationship. you've had 10 weeks so go date someone new the fuck kind of friend is this i'm a little baffled here.
[2:03:32] Well to be i'll be a harsher on myself because i i did criticize his point of view this is entirely my fault i i should not have um even just a casual date or whatever i thought it was i should not have done that at this stage so after.
[2:03:50] Your date how long till you slept with kelly.
[2:03:56] Um, we slept together on the first date.
[2:03:59] Oh man. I mean, okay. All right. And how old were you at this point?
[2:04:05] Uh, 30.
[2:04:07] All right.
[2:04:08] No, sorry. 29, 29 by a few months, I was going to be 30.
[2:04:13] And when you slept with Kelly, did she know about your history with Alice?
[2:04:20] Yes.
[2:04:21] You talked about all of that on the first date.
[2:04:25] Um i i certainly uh constricted it i said that i had been in an abusive i was uh i characterized the relationship as me being abusive um and that you know i tried to make it work in the second half hang on so you.
[2:04:41] Told kelly you were an abusive boyfriend and she's like let's have sex.
[2:04:45] Yep and.
[2:04:49] Jesus. Jesus. How old is Kelly?
[2:04:54] 32.
[2:04:56] All right. Does that seem healthy to you? So what are you doing? That's obviously so fucked up. What are you doing? Like, why would you continue? But somebody who's like, hey, I was an abuser. Let's have sex. The first date.
[2:05:25] Probably out of a very low opinion of my own character and an unwillingness to judge her according to a higher standard.
[2:05:34] Okay so if you're not willing to judge yourself by a higher standard why are you calling a philosopher, or is that what you want to do.
[2:05:45] I'm trying to fix myself.
[2:05:50] Well i mean if you had a daughter right and you had a daughter who went on a date and she said she called you in the middle of the date and said uh this guy has been an abuser for years, and his girlfriend is suicidal and he really wants to sleep with me what would you tell your daughter, Don't Get the fuck out Yes So she's got no people around her to protect her She's got no one who's giving her good advice, Ah, okay, Alright, so then How long have you been going out with Kelly?
[2:06:30] Um Probably like nine months.
[2:06:37] And when did Alice return into your life?
[2:06:41] In December. So, oh, sorry. Let me go back. She, we had a conversation in the summer of last year where she effectively told me that her life sucked. And I gave her some advice and some encouragement. But I didn't realize that the actual extent of it then. It wasn't until that I was called in December by her where she tried to overdose on pills and I encouraged her to vomit them up that I realized that this is actually a real problem.
[2:07:26] And what would you say you did that was abusive towards Alice in the relationship?
[2:07:35] Just using her as a sex object and being mean, unkind, verbally abusive.
[2:07:47] In what way?
[2:07:49] Well, just telling her that that's all I wanted her for. you know there are some times where i was being brutally honest but it seems like just just not useful because she would ask me a question sometimes like am i pathetic and i'd say when you ask that question you are and things like that.
[2:08:15] And it's funny because i've been listening we've been talking for, A long time now. And I've been looking for any kind of emotion. And there's only been two bits of emotion. One, when you were talking about your mother bathing you with your sister, and the other was to do with your father. What's the only emotion you've had?
[2:08:37] After I told you about Alice's abuse by her parents, and you confirmed how horrendous that was i started crying a bit but then you went on to the next thing i'm not blaming you it's just that's what happened.
[2:08:52] All right so i'm obviously sorry for all of this it's a very ugly mess and how can i best help you in the time that we have remaining.
[2:09:07] Hmm, my biggest priority in this because i at the end of the relationship with alice i had felt that i had wasted a giant portion of my life.
[2:09:30] Oh my god man it's still all about you isn't.
[2:09:36] Well i didn't until now realize how much i'd helped in wrecking hers or not.
[2:09:44] Now but the last month you took her at the age of 19 right she was 19 yeah yeah you took her out of the most hellish abuse really we can imagine where she'd been used as an emotional dumping ground and punching bag she'd been used for her flesh to satisfy her parents rage and then you used her for flesh to satisfy your lust yeah, And so you were 21, she was 19, right? When you met. Right. And when did you begin to think that you might not be treating her well?
[2:10:49] Probably about after we formally became boyfriend girlfriend probably about two years after that it really started to sink in but.
[2:11:03] You were using her for sex for a year before right yeah, Okay, so a couple of years into the relationship, you began to think that you were not treating her well. And then you changed in that you were nicer about getting her to have sex with you.
[2:11:25] I also did start to try to accommodate her. And I, I mean, yeah, my main concern for a long time in that still was just about sexual access. And, and to the extent that I wanted to be with her, or I felt that I loved her, I tried to right my behavior.
[2:12:03] Well, I mean, but you needed for her to be the victim of child abuse in order to have sex with her. And I suppose this is, and you know, this, I have sympathy for this, of course, but from the age of 10 onwards, you were masturbating to victims of child abuse, right? Because it's not like sex workers are generally the healthy people with the healthiest. So you You had masturbated to victims of child abuse, and then you pressured the victim of child abuse for endless sex, right?
[2:12:26] Yeah.
[2:12:27] Right. And what's your relationship like with your parents at the moment?
[2:12:39] Cordial, but I don't, I haven't, I don't, I have not told them that I'm dealing with the problem that I am.
[2:12:46] What is the plus of having your parents in your life? or the pluses. I'm not saying there aren't any, I'm just trying to understand.
[2:12:56] When I go visit them, it's a pleasant place to be financially. I have tooth problems that my mom helps me pay for, partially from the neglect in my childhood of no one making sure I was brushing my teeth. I also was a little bit anorexic because of my father making fun of my brother for being fat. And I don't want to try to confirm this, but I have a suspicion that I was also breastfed less.
[2:13:35] All right, some practical and financial positives. And how are things going with the new girlfriend?
[2:13:45] It's quite strained. I know this sounds preposterous, but from the way I comport myself and the way that I really try to be honest and decent, she thinks that I would be a good father, and I think that she would be a good mother. and you know things are strained because she obviously doesn't like that i'm taking care of my ex and it's taking away from our time together but she's understanding because, partially because of the guilt that i've expressed um over how i treated her in the past and And I guess partially just because it's a human being. It's, um.
[2:14:46] Well, but I mean, she's 32, right, Kelly?
[2:14:49] Yeah.
[2:14:49] Yeah. So she doesn't have much time.
[2:14:52] No.
[2:14:53] So do you think that you will be in any reasonable position to be a stable provider, protector, and father in the next six to 12 months?
[2:15:16] If if i.
[2:15:20] No no there's always an if no no right if i win the lottery i'll have all the money like there's always an if i'm saying okay do you think that you will be able no okay what's your current income, roughly?
[2:15:36] It's like next to nothing.
[2:15:38] Well, actually, are you not working?
[2:15:42] No i i live on i i work uh intermittently at an art gallery they pay me pretty well but it's it's only every every few months um otherwise i sell i sell uh used books to uh used bookstore i i pillage free little libraries for all the valuable books and then i sell them to the used bookstore sorry that makes but.
[2:16:12] But what are you living on i mean you said you make next to nothing you have an.
[2:16:15] Apartment you have how much money do i need to live on no.
[2:16:19] No i mean what are you living on what i mean is that what what is your income to pay your rent and your utilities and your phone and your cable and your entertainment your internet like that's it stuff.
[2:16:30] About 1200 a month.
[2:16:34] Okay and so you're able to get that from the use book thing plus the gallery is that right.
[2:16:38] Plus a gallery plus i i can sell drawings uh every now and again but i haven't been able to actively uh engage with my social media account because of everything that's going on so so.
[2:16:51] The odds of you being able to provide for a family in the next six to twelve months are virtually zero right.
[2:16:58] Yeah it'd be a fair guess a fair some uh i'm not trying to be derisive at all that's a fair assessment.
[2:17:07] Okay, and I assume that Kelly wants children.
[2:17:12] Yes, but she probably wants some kind of validation more.
[2:17:18] What? Well, I don't know about any of that.
[2:17:20] Oh, sorry, sorry.
[2:17:21] Is it fair for you to burn up more of her very short fertility window when you cannot provide a stable husband and father role for her?
[2:17:36] No.
[2:17:37] So what's the best thing for Kelly?
[2:17:41] For her to find someone else.
[2:17:43] Well, I think so. I mean, because the problem is, of course, she's 32. Let's say if you guys break up, then she's got to go meet someone else. Hopefully, she can meet someone who's not going to have sex with her on the first date or I don't know. But that's not on your conscience anymore, right? But she meets someone, it maybe takes another the year then she's 33 and then they got to start trying at 34 34 she's a year away from geriatric pregnancy like she doesn't have a lot of time and you know one of the things that's challenging from a moral standpoint is to do what's best for people you care about that you care about kelly right yeah.
[2:18:19] And i think that's a big part of the reason that i'm calling because i do i've had a really awful past, and I don't want to harm anyone anymore.
[2:18:33] Well, but then why did you get involved with Kelly when your life is so scant? I mean, you're living like a teenager.
[2:18:43] Yeah.
[2:18:45] And you don't have any particular prospects as far as I know. I mean, maybe you do, right? Maybe you could turn the gallery thing more full-time or whatever, but nothing's imminent. And of course, you've got... the last girl, as you said, hanging around each other's necks like ropes in a river, right?
[2:19:04] Yeah.
[2:19:05] Alice. So is it fair and right to get involved with Kelly when you cannot provide her children in the foreseeable future? So this is what I mean. Like you have to start to think about what's best for other people rather than just you. yeah, or of course if you do want to be there for kelly then you have to work like kind of crazy to get your income up from 1200 bucks a month yeah i mean unless you all want to go live on a farm or something i don't know right but.
[2:19:51] No and um one thing that i think you have helped me realize in this call is I had this idea that I had done a whole bunch of work on myself, and really as bad as the situation is, I am really trying to handle it well. But you have helped reveal to me that I'm still very self-involved.
[2:20:22] Well, I mean, with all due consideration, brother, I mean, it wasn't like you had anybody modeling any kind of self-sacrifice for you, right? Like, who sacrificed for you? who focused on your happiness, who tried to make sure you were having a good and productive time in this life?
[2:20:41] Not many people, really.
[2:20:43] Well, I haven't heard of any in your life.
[2:20:48] No, all my role models were my older siblings or cousins, and they were not voluntary role models.
[2:20:59] And they well children don't hugely count right because no right but but you i mean your your parents kind of exploited you in my view they were kind of selfish and and you know when you your brother and you express dreams of being filmmakers your dad's like oh you're going to be an idiot like your brother you know that kind of stupid stuff uh not stupid on your part but stupid on your and cruel right so your dad just kind of blows up and vents his own anger it's all selfish it's just for his own feeling better in the moment and he doesn't really think about how he lands for other people. He doesn't really think about what's best for other people. Now you can't have loving relationships if you don't think about what's best for the other person. I mean honestly I have a wonderful wife and daughter and I wake up in the morning I'm like okay how can I make their day great? Now they do the same with me so it actually works out pretty well but, yeah if if you don't have that as your general way of thinking then you're just like somebody half drowning grabbing at a surfboard or something you don't really care about what the surfboard needs you just don't want to drown.
[2:22:13] Well and i'm really not just trying to defend myself here but i have been really trying to help alice uh.
[2:22:23] No but you're a threat no no no this is i listen i'm not saying it's all bad wrong and i'm not saying it's all but you're a threat yeah this is not you being nice, and and i'm not saying you're not nice in anything that you do but foundationally you're doing it because you're under threat i'm.
[2:22:41] Performing very well under threat then.
[2:22:43] Right but no i i get that and again i'm not trying to say there's nothing good in anything that you're doing but as far as to understand it, and if I'm wrong, obviously, please correct me, the last thing I want to do is tell you what your thoughts and feelings are.
[2:22:55] No, no.
[2:22:56] But you are deathly afraid that she's going to kill herself.
[2:23:02] Yeah.
[2:23:03] It's terrifying. Absolutely terrifying. This is like a giant guillotine over your neck, isn't it?
[2:23:13] Yeah.
[2:23:14] Absolutely terrifying. And Jen, you also mentioned that you're concerned about blowback from her parents, right?
[2:23:21] Yeah, and in all of this as well, I'm concerned about wasting Kelly's time because I did grow fond of her and I thought things could work. But now there's this.
[2:23:38] Well, and I understand that. I think you guys got together way too quickly, but that's kind of water under the bridge, right? but you couldn't necessarily expect that Alice was going to come screaming back into your life like a fucking comet and lay waste to the city, right?
[2:23:52] No. I mean, maybe I should have expected it because you're so unstable. You know, I had a friend say, ah, you know, after a few months, she'll be crawling back. But, you know, that's just like a...
[2:24:07] No, no, crawling back is one thing if she says I want to get back together. But this emotional terrorism of do what I want or do what I prefer or I'm going to kill myself. And I'm not saying she's directly saying that, but of course, you know, the conversation. Yeah, but that's what you're concerned about, right? so that's terrifying and it's like being tied behind a pickup truck and dragged along a gravel fucking road for a weekend so you know i i do sympathize with the gut-wrenching terror of that, and that it's kind of all-consuming right and then every time the phone rings and every time there's a message bink on your phone and it's just like, oh God, what now?
[2:24:54] Yeah.
[2:24:55] Right? so that is you're you're under the gun yes, now do you know what happened and we don't have to get into much detail but you know what happened between the last breakup where she left you and then i guess you wrangled the apartment back and then what was the time frame between that and then when she contacted you late last year i.
[2:25:28] I know Oh, I know it in like almost minute by minute details. She slept with the guy at her work five times. He came inside of her, which is not psychologically great for, you know, just speed running pair bonding. And then he tried to push having threesomes or having an open relationship on her. And she wasn't into it. it's vague as to whether she actually objected or if she just intimated that she didn't want that and after that he uh ghosted her and because uh he is like in a senior position at the job that she used to have uh she's it partially uh some of her uh own uh crazy behavior has made her workplace uh reluctant to hire her but now she's got the added uh crippling uh shame of going back there and yeah sorry reluctant to hire her did she get fired uh it's no she was not fired it's just she like these these sort of panic attack episodes and stuff like that um i don't know the full details uh about what happened with her work but i do know that uh she is very reluctant to go back i don't know okay i guess she may be on some kind of leave.
[2:26:50] Or something like that because of these issues. Who knows? Okay.
[2:26:54] Okay.
[2:26:54] But she didn't do any more drugs that you know of, right?
[2:26:58] She was, uh, doing, uh, mushrooms at her parents' place and I took those away from her. Otherwise she's on pharmaceuticals.
[2:27:08] Uh, well, but did she do other street drugs? I'm trying to figure out what may have caused some of the, like added to the destabilization. So, cause she wasn't this unstable when you were dating her, right?
[2:27:21] Not to the extent that she is now, but I see patterns. The patterns that are manifesting now are similar to ones in the past, but now they've just gotten to a point of unmanageable extremity.
[2:27:33] So she's on a bunch of SSRIs or other kind of psych meds, I assume, and she's doing some street drugs, and then she had this affair with the guy who wanted threesomes and then ghosted her. So this is all just like a pinball, just bing, bing, bing, just going all over the bumpers, getting thrown around by circumstance, right?
[2:27:53] Yeah and then just being in her parents home uh who are her former abusers and uh having them tell her what to do with her life uh while she uh basically probably uh strolls on her phone excessively and uh deteriorates mentally right.
[2:28:13] Right okay so listen i'm obviously i'm no expert so this is all nonsense.
[2:28:20] It's just amateur opinion hour.
[2:28:22] Right so just so you know right so, The experts don't know how to fix her, right?
[2:28:33] No.
[2:28:34] So you can't?
[2:28:38] Yeah.
[2:28:39] Right? Right. If an expert surgeon says this is inoperable, there's no point going in with a spork, right?
[2:28:51] Yeah. So from my point of view and from what other people have told me about trying to get people committed to the psych ward is you basically have to get borderline litigious with the doctors and you have to tell them to, if they see this person as unfit to be admitted, you have to push them and to say in their individual, put it in writing in their individual opinion, they are unfit to be entered into the psych ward. psych ward. And apparently if, uh, I've had a friend, I have a friend who says that, um, in pushing them that way and basically creating individual liability for the doctor in question.
[2:29:33] Yeah. Yeah. If there she goes and has self harms, I get all of that. Okay.
[2:29:36] Yeah.
[2:29:37] But you have no legal standing as far as I understand it. I'm no lawyer, but I don't think you have any legal standing in the matter. Right.
[2:29:44] To, to request, uh.
[2:29:46] You're just the next boyfriend.
[2:29:49] No. Yeah.
[2:29:49] You're a family member, you have no legal custody, you're not an executor. I mean, like you've got nothing, right? So I don't know what kind of threats you're supposed to make, but you don't have any standing. Again, that's just my amateur opinion. But so, so I don't know. I don't know how you're supposed, I mean, how are you supposed to fix this?
[2:30:14] Oh well i am right now i'm submitting to some of the process there's a harm reduction phone line that i have to call on her behalf tomorrow and figure out what services are going to be offered, So I'm submitting to the process. Otherwise, I'm waiting for her next breakdown. And when that happens, I'm calling 911. And I'm going to try to persuade the doctor to admit her.
[2:30:43] Okay. And then, if he doesn't?
[2:30:47] If he doesn't? I don't... I haven't created a formulation of this where I absolutely give up, except in the area where she, I don't know, destroys all my possessions or something like that. If she causes direct harm to me or... Yeah, I haven't envisioned an absolute exit of giving up. Okay.
[2:31:30] So this could be months or longer of you attempting to deal with this situation, right?
[2:31:38] Yeah.
[2:31:38] Which means, again, is that a ride that's fair for Kelly?
[2:31:43] No. That's not a fair ride for her at all.
[2:31:50] No, because I mean, I don't see how this benefits her and if she wants to have kids or whatever it is.
[2:31:57] Right? Yeah. no it's already uh very stressful and uh undermines uh whatever relationship we have and at the end of it it could just result in total failure.
[2:32:16] Right, right, right. No, it's a very tough situation. Of course, you've got a lot of history with this woman. She's been, you know, more than half your adult life. And so you've got a lot of commitment with this woman. And she is, it sounds like she's just in a very unstable place. And it seems to have passed beyond her ability to control it, if that makes sense.
[2:32:42] Yes, 100%. I don't regard her as someone with free will right now.
[2:32:47] Right, right, right. So if she's outside of free will and you have no authority in the situation, I mean, I guess you can try a couple of things, but you've got to have some kind of fuse, some kind of cutoff mechanism, don't you?
[2:33:13] I do. I guess I should prepare for that. And it feels like a very dire contemplation where it almost seems like I'm really resisting any romantic delusions about this. But it seems like if I don't have a coherent cutoff, or even if I do with, I don't know, whatever vengeance her parents might wreak upon me legally or otherwise, it seems like I'm being submitted to some martyr-like process now.
[2:33:58] What are your concerns about what the parents might do legally?
[2:34:05] Well, I don't know if they could. I am going to be talking to a lawyer soon. I don't know if they could sue or something. And I don't know if you've mentioned this, but I might have heard this from somewhere else. But lawfare is just a modern duel. I mean, I'd be pretty easy to crush. I have almost nothing. So they could just make my life hell, make it more miserable. I don't know if I could be criminally charged or held accountable for anything. I've been making lots of recordings, and when I talk to them, I try to record it as well. I don't know if there's any legal backing for any of these recordings, if they're taken unknowingly, but I'm just operating on self-preservation.
[2:34:51] Yeah, obviously, you know that I can't give you any legal advice. But yeah, talking like a good idea. Yes.
[2:34:59] Otherwise, you know, I don't know. I don't know if being willing to beat all your children makes you more liable to go and physically harm someone else in real life. I don't know.
[2:35:12] I don't know. All right. So, I mean, difficult situations, horrible situations, which obviously this is to the nth degree. my particular approach is to try and get as much good as i can out of a bad situation and the worst situation the more good i try to get okay now when you were more aggressive with alice, yeah and you were kind of in control and you were kind of in the driver's seat in the relationship because you were driving whether you were close or not, you were driving whether you had sex or not, so you were kind of in charge, right? So if I were in your shoes, the lesson I think that I would try to extract from this situation is now I know what it's like when someone else is really in charge and is not acting with empathy.
[2:36:13] Yeah. Yeah.
[2:36:16] Because you kind of emotionally manipulated her into having sex, and now she's emotionally manipulating you into giving her attention.
[2:36:27] Yeah, and maybe futilely attempting to save her life.
[2:36:32] Well, but this is a sort of karmic flip, right? Now you know what it's like when somebody else is really driving things in their direction with no empathy. And of course, I'm not putting you in the same moral category because you weren't sitting and they're threatening suicide. But just in terms of like, what can I extract from this that is going to save me going forward? And it is that to be manipulated and bullied in this extremity is almost infinitely worse than what you did, but it's in the same continuum, if that makes sense.
[2:37:08] Yeah. And no, I think about that quite often. because I've had profound guilt over what I did. And I regarded some of what I felt was horror when I was going through the actual breakup. I thought that was horror. And now here I am. I've been very acutely aware of this karmic reality.
[2:37:41] Yeah, that in a sense, you kind of pushed her around and now she's seriously pushing you around, right? So, bitter and difficult though it is, I think there's an important lesson to be learned. And when we learn that lesson, and everyone has to learn this lesson if we're raised with selfish parents. Like, so, I hope you don't feel alone, isolated, picked on. That's certainly not my intention in the conversation. everybody has to learn this lesson.
[2:38:16] You know there this is sort of why i got a little impatient earlier so everybody in a relationship when particularly when you're young you know maybe you're not particularly attached to the woman you're dating and you're kind of angling or fantasizing about someone else and then you find out your girlfriend is angling or fantasizing about someone else and you're outraged you know and it's like well no that's what you were doing or what whoever was doing right so it's just a mirror and so you weren't raised with empathy and people thinking what was best for you and making any kind of sacrifices for you other than sort of base material kinds to keep you alive as a baby but i don't think you know what it's like for people to put your interests above their own for reasons of compassion and affection and love, And because you had manipulated people in the past, you are susceptible to manipulation. You know, the old Bible saying, he who lives by the sword dies by the sword. Now, of course, I'm not saying you're going to die. I don't mean anything like that. But what I'm saying is that when you manipulate others, one of the things that happens when you manipulate others is you become susceptible to manipulation to yourself.
[2:39:33] Yeah.
[2:39:37] And I think that the path forward, I obviously can't give you any particular advice with the path forward with Alice, but what I can say is that I think, if you think about what is best for Kelly, and sometimes you have to say what's best for the other person even if they don't agree.
[2:39:59] Yeah.
[2:40:00] Right? You know, it's the old thing. If you have a kid and they want, you know, a bunch of candy for breakfast lunch and dinner you kind of got to say no even though right so, she might be like no i want to support you through this and this and that and the other and you know whatever magic sauce you have with dysfunctional women is also um kind of risky right um yeah but uh you know if you look at if you know if she wants to have kids like it i don't think you're the guy at the moment it's not and of course you just have a longer runway you can have kids for another 20 years but she can't but she can't and so i think once you do that thing where you say i'm going to do what's best for the other person even if they don't agree, and you act on that you gain this, once you start acting in a truly compassionate and empathetic manner and i'm not saying you've never done any of this but you know obviously we can i can improve you can improve right But once you start acting in a genuine and empathetic manner, manipulations become blindingly obvious to you, and you don't want them.
[2:41:02] Yeah.
[2:41:04] So Alice came back because she knew at an instinctual level. I can't read her mind. This is just my guess, right? Alice came back because she knew you were susceptible because you'd manipulated her in the past, and you felt bad.
[2:41:20] No, she had thumbscrews of all my guilt.
[2:41:25] Well, she had the thumbscrews that you used on her and she was willing to use them on you.
[2:41:31] Sorry, I don't mean that in a victim-y way. And I don't want to... Well, there's something I want to say later that's a lesson that I learned in all of this that's somewhat on the side that I think would be very useful for people going through a similar problem. But that could wait a minute, perhaps. Yeah.
[2:41:51] So, no, that's fine. We've had a long chat, so I'll let you get the last bit in here if you have something that you wanted to mention.
[2:41:58] Yeah. So part of the relationship I had with Alice also became physically abusive. I never beat her, but I did slap her at certain points, and there was a pattern of physical violence that was emerging.
[2:42:18] Well and when i went this is all after you knew that her her parents had beaten her or her father yeah yeah right so you knew that this was the great susceptibility for her right yeah okay and.
[2:42:29] And so when i started going to the therapist that helped my that helped level out my emotions a little bit but it did not help stop the violence the thing that helped stop the violence and maybe if you already go to the gym and you're in a violent relationship i don't know what you have to do but i wasn't going to the gym the moment i started going to the gym i was able to have complete self-control over over myself in that regard it stopped dead cold from me.
[2:42:57] And how long into the relationship was this.
[2:42:59] Um i guess probably three years we hadn't been violent for three years but yeah.
[2:43:09] But it was an element yeah yeah, yes yeah i mean that's one of the reasons i try to treat people very well is i don't want the shackles going on me that i put on others yeah because you you know when you manipulate people you give them weapons against you yeah which is a sense of obligation and guilt particularly as you morally evolve which i know you're working on and and good for you for for taking that approach but that's why i try to treat people well and that way if they treat me badly or they want they're manipulative or whatever i just i have no i have no guilt they can't hook into anything and so on so.
[2:43:49] No you're able to have standards.
[2:43:56] Yes yes and and so i mean one of the that there's the good you know feeling good about yourself and doing the right thing in the world but there's a very practical element to not, manipulating people which is then you're not susceptible to their return manipulations because you don't have the guilt you know we don't exploit others and that way they can't exploit us back and you get it's it that's an amazing sort of fiery magic moat shield around you and uh so i i know that you get that and sort of going forward saying look i'm i'm just not going to do things at other people's expense just to benefit myself because that harms my heart it, It also turns me into a kind of prey of blowback of return manipulation, because it's hard to fight. You can't fight a principle that you yourself have established in a way, right?
[2:44:44] Yeah.
[2:44:47] Okay. Is there anything else that you wanted to mention?
[2:44:51] No um i just want to thank you because um listening to your show has uh continually given me insights to the problems i'm dealing with as i'm dealing with them it's been one of the most immensely useful uh resources i've ever come across and you know i know i have very little I'm in not a great a position to judge on anything, but I think that it would be tremendously useful, whether you were on Twitter or not, to have more of an open presence. Because I knew about you for a long time, but it took me a while to actually find the podcast site, Free Domain Radio. It was through another content creator. They just mentioned it. And so it was years after I initially knew about you that I finally actually found your website. And that might be a testament to my own ineptitude in terms of using web browsers. But I think that if you had...
[2:45:59] I think you probably accessed some porn through some web browsers. So I can't quite give you incompetence in web browsers as a whole. But I appreciate the thought. I really do.
[2:46:07] I also did give up on that.
[2:46:10] Yes. All right. Well, listen, man, I appreciate the feedback. I'll certainly take it into consideration. I appreciate the conversation and your openness and your directness. Obviously, I wish both of you the very best, and I hope that you can find some kind of peace. And I hope you'll keep me posted about how things are going.
[2:46:27] All right. Thank you.
[2:46:28] All right. Take care, brother. Bye-bye.
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