0:30 - Awakening to Right-Wing Politics
1:38 - Isolation and Finding Community
2:04 - Love, Marriage, and Motherhood
5:04 - The Surprise of Pregnancy
5:42 - Breach of Privacy
7:36 - Discovering Infidelity
11:14 - Confrontation and Separation
12:42 - Seeking Therapy
13:47 - Communication Breakdown
16:11 - Relationship History
19:00 - Reflections on Values
20:03 - Family Dynamics
21:37 - Loss and Grief
24:56 - Navigating Childhood Trauma
30:53 - Teenage Rebellion
40:24 - Patterns of Abandonment
1:12:50 - Confronting Family Dysfunction
1:22:46 - Abandonment and Violence
1:33:46 - After the Assault
2:04:22 - The Impact of Childhood Trauma
2:27:47 - Relationship Reflections
2:41:49 - Facing Responsibility
2:52:16 - The Path to Healing
In this conversation, the caller shares her complex and tumultuous journey through personal relationships, political beliefs, and family dynamics. She begins by detailing her background, emphasizing a shift from a conservative upbringing influenced by her Catholic family to exploring her political identity, particularly in the right-wing sphere. This journey ultimately led to meeting her husband, whom she connected with over shared interests in politics and a desire for traditional family values. However, as they pursued a relationship that was initially fulfilling, the caller reveals that there were significant issues that emerged along the way, particularly surrounding communication and emotional connection.
As the conversation progresses, the caller recounts her intense experience of becoming pregnant, noting a stark change in her husband's behavior when they found out about the pregnancy. Instead of the joy she expected, his reaction was one of disconnection and indifference, prompting feelings of betrayal as she later discovered he was having an affair. This revelation occurs amid a backdrop of deteriorating communication and rising tensions, leading to the eventual collapse of their relationship.
The emotional toll of her husband leaving while she was pregnant is palpable throughout the discussion. The caller describes feeling blindsided and grappling with the trauma of having him abruptly exit her life. The narrative unfolds further to uncover a pattern of denial and gaslighting, where her husband denies culpability regarding his infidelity while simultaneously trying to deflect responsibility back onto her. This leads to deeper reflections on trust issues, vulnerabilities, and the challenges of navigating motherhood alone.
Stefan, the host, listens empathetically while guiding the caller to reflect on her past and evaluate the nature of her relationships with her mother, grandmother, and husband. He emphasizes the importance of recognizing the harm done to her during her childhood, suggesting that her neglect and abuse may have significantly influenced her choices as an adult. This discussion introduces the concept of unresolved anger towards her family dynamics, indicating that she may have internalized feelings of worthlessness based on the treatment she received growing up.
The conversation touches upon crucial themes of self-worth, virtue, and the ability to attract healthy relationships. It culminates in a dialogue about what the caller must confront to move forward in her life, particularly the need to address her upbringing and the negligence she experienced from familial figures. Stefan urges her to acknowledge her worthiness and to not accept being treated poorly, thereby encouraging her to break out of a cycle of codependency and self-neglect.
Ultimately, they discuss the implications of these realizations for her future relationships and for finding a partner who embodies integrity and respect towards her and her daughter. The suggestion to refocus her energy on healing and self-empowerment rather than seeking validation through others emerges as pivotal advice in this complex scenario. The call ends with a sense of hope for the caller to reclaim her agency, assert her self-worth, and strive for healthier dynamics in her new role as a single mother.
[0:00] So seven years ago i started watching you um maybe about like 20 like late 2016 possibly um maybe a bit later than that but that's whenever i had like this great awakening right, whenever i came into right-wing politics and i wouldn't say that i would ever call myself a liberal i never was i was raised catholic and um my parents had a very conservative background already.
[0:31] But when I went to public school, a lot of that kind of changed and I started to kind of listen to what my peers had to say rather than saying with what my family unit had taught me, kind of straying away from those like traditions and, you know, the culture of my family um but i was introduced by a friend um to my current husband um and it was because we had uh the same interest of watching like youtube right-wing politics and you were one of those people um we really loved watching your videos and i had never known anybody else who was into the same kind of things that i was i was kind of like a shut in because at the time a lot of people didn't share my politics especially as a woman um finding like female friends that i could talk to about you know my beliefs was like none and um the industry that i work in it's very like Craft centric very artsy.
[1:39] So it's also like very isolating I can't like be myself around those people and talk about like what I believe so finding Somebody who had that mutual.
[1:52] Belief system that I did was like huge for me I was 22 at the time. I think he was maybe 29 maybe a little bit younger maybe like 28 because we're like seven years apart.
[2:05] Um but we really wanted to get married and have kids like that was like our core you know relationship foundation was like going towards that in life and um i thought that seemed like a really good idea obviously at the time i didn't 100 know him but you know seven years later um maybe about five years into our relationship we got married and um we just recently had a baby last year um but i started to notice like a huge change i wouldn't say like our whole relationship was you know all roses and you know rainbows and all the romantic fairy tale stuff but, Um, I noticed a huge change whenever I found out that I was pregnant and it wasn't like it was, you know, a shock because it wasn't like we were just, you know, not trying. We had told our family and friends that we weren't. Um, and when I had taken the, um.
[3:17] Pregnancy tests, he didn't look happy when we, I ended up having to go to the hospital because I felt really ill at that time and I couldn't really understand why. And they confirmed that I was pregnant there and they even let me listen to the heartbeat in the ultrasound room. And I told him and he was just not happy. And I thought maybe he was just in shock. But later on, I kind of like realized something was really wrong. Like he just wasn't connecting with me anymore and um a girl at the time in our friend group had around the exact same time actually had called it off um with her fiance and i felt like it was kind of weird um but i didn't necessarily like think anything of it because i don't want to like think anything is wrong or like the worst of people um but one day he just kind of like i thought like are you cheating on me and i confronted him about that and he was like i'm just not talking about this right now and he just packed up and he left and it left me wondering why like all that time like seven years is so much time.
[4:40] And to have like that core belief system with somebody, you're creating that family, you're creating memories. And then I'm here having a child. It just goes away so quickly.
[4:52] Oh, it's every worst nightmare, right? That you get pregnant with a man you love and he freaks out and bails. This is like the worst thing in some ways for women, for everyone, right?
[5:04] Yeah, I didn't expect it. And I was really blindsided.
[5:10] Right. Okay. So, sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. Please, please go on.
[5:18] You know, whenever I confronted him, I was just like, you know, are you cheating on me? And he was like, well, if I was, any evidence of that would be gone. It would be deleted. And I was like, well, that's not very reassuring, right? so I went through his phone and obviously that's a breach of privacy but I just I had a lot of hormones and I had to know because something was just so off like.
[5:41] Oh listen I.
[5:42] Don't the.
[5:43] Breach of privacy thing if a guy is being really shifty and you're pregnant and he's not denying you know overtly that he's cheating on you I don't particularly care about going through his phone if that makes sense.
[5:56] Okay I don't know I was just like having some so many like hormones and so many thoughts and thought maybe I was being crazy But I wasn't being crazy um I had traveled out of state for work and uh, he went with me. We met a girl there um who stopped by um my booth and, She followed him on social media and started sending him um videos of like, her pole dancing and he said that he was just trying to help her get a boyfriend and i was like why would a married man be um trying to get some other random girl a boyfriend like that doesn't make any sense to me um that's when he left he didn't want to talk about it um so he didn't necessarily pack his things he was just like i want to go to couples therapy sorry it was it.
[6:52] Was the girl who's the pole dancer who was sending the pole dancing videos that was the conversation that had him leave is that right.
[6:59] Yes okay.
[7:01] Um what about the other, the.
[7:06] Friend's sister.
[7:07] The girl who.
[7:09] Broke up with.
[7:09] Her fiance it's not the same.
[7:11] Girl yeah um no it's not um i thought like at the time i didn't even think of that um it is such a whirlwind of events. Um, um, So, recently, I had a friend who told me that he was seeing somebody and that he had been seeing her, like, at least since the beginning of the year.
[7:37] And at the beginning of the year, we were still married. We were still going to couples therapy. And I was still pregnant. I didn't give birth until maybe February.
[7:47] And congratulations, by the way. I wish that the circumstances were better, of course, but I just wanted to mention my congratulations.
[7:54] Thank you so much. Being a mother is amazing. Um, but I was like, oh really? Um, you know, uh, is it somebody that I know? And she said, yeah, it's somebody who's in the friend group. And I was like, okay, I know exactly who this person is because he had previously dated her, but didn't necessarily allude to dating her um at least like in the way that i guess he like kept her as an option and didn't really want me to know a lot of details um i did know that they had a sexual relationship prior to our relationship um because he said some really you know i think inappropriate things about her um giving him a sexual disease and um i just i don't know um, anyways so i found out through that girl about that he told me he would never do that because that girl had given him a sexual disease but clearly that didn't stop him and maybe sorry sorry so.
[9:06] This isn't the pole girl or the pole dancing girl this is the sister of a friend is that right.
[9:12] Yes.
[9:13] And so, sorry, hang on. So how would he have given her a sexual disease if he wasn't having an affair with her?
[9:20] Um he said that she gave him a sexual disease and that he would never even think about having a relationship with her but i think he just wanted to deter me from believing that no no but how did.
[9:30] How did he give her a sexual disease did they share a toilet seat or something like how did she give him a sexual disease if he never had an affair with her i'm sorry if i'm missing something.
[9:39] No it's okay um yeah i don't know uh i don't think it was like a complete truth um i think Like, anything could have happened. Like, maybe they had a relationship at some point.
[9:52] Oh, in the past. Okay, that makes sense. Yeah. Okay, got it.
[9:55] Yeah. No. Yeah, no. A sexual disease while being pregnant would be very dangerous.
[10:01] Right. But this wasn't a sexual disease that had maintained itself into your relationship, right? Just something, I guess, you got cured. So, at some point in the past, the woman he was having an affair with currently, he said, gave him a sexual disease, and that's why he would never sleep with her again.
[10:16] Yes.
[10:17] Of course, the reason why he would never sleep with her again is because he's married. But all right, that seems like a bit of an odd justification. Well, if she didn't have a sexual disease, maybe I would. So, okay. So he said no, because she gave me an STD in the past. And then what?
[10:33] Um well i he never wanted to tell me the truth about it because my friend told me this and i was like wow okay he told me that he was focusing on himself and that he was just trying to be a good father for his child and that he was going to you know try to make as much money at his work as possible um but anytime i would ask him if he would come pick her up he always had like an excuse as to why he couldn't and i'm so sorry sorry hang.
[11:01] On so when did he leave because i can't pick her up is that because he was gone.
[11:08] So, October is when we separated. I gave birth in February. Sorry, it's kind of all over the place.
[11:14] No, no problem. I'm sure you mentioned it. I just want to make sure I'm up to speed. Okay, so he left while you were pregnant. And what was his justification for leaving? What did he say was the reason why?
[11:28] He said that our communication was not very good and that we had problems communicating. i didn't necessarily think so i thought like he just didn't want to communicate with me about his feelings or things that he was going through and um he was stonewalling me and.
[11:48] But no but he was having an affair right yes so it really didn't have anything to do with the communication problems it had to do with the affair that's is that why he said he left he said well i'm leaving because I'm having an affair.
[12:03] He never said that he was having an affair. The night that he said that he was never coming back, he told me that he was seeing another woman and that I never knew. He said, I don't know who this woman is, like me personally. I don't know who she is. He's been friends with her for a very long time and that she would financially provide for my child more than I ever could and that she would be a better mom than I would ever be.
[12:32] No, hang on. She wouldn't financially provide for your child, but for his child? I don't understand. Sorry.
[12:39] Yeah, when I say my child, it's our child.
[12:42] No, no, I get that. Why would his mistress provide for your child?
[12:51] When I talked to him about that, he said that he didn't tell this girl the whole truth. and um i told him that it seemed like he was trying to manipulate her into believing that something was going on when it wasn't i think maybe.
[13:07] I'm sorry you gotta you gotta i know this story is familiar to you i can't follow it at all that's okay okay so so i'm sorry again i i just pretend i'm like five years old and you're explaining it to me use hand puppets if you need to. Okay. So when did you guys go into marriage counseling?
[13:28] Around October, like the beginning of October.
[13:30] Okay. But he left in October. So the marriage counseling wasn't very long, right?
[13:34] No, it wasn't. It maybe lasted four sessions.
[13:38] Okay. And what was the general... purpose or progress of the couples counseling what were you going in there for and how did it work out.
[13:47] So his whole thought process was just like i think he wanted to tell me that he just wanted to break it off but he couldn't um so we i had the intention of going in there of trying to understand what he's going through and why things are going the way that they are and how can we solve this how can we fix this to be a better couple his um idea was just telling me that it just wasn't working and i was like well it's not working because you're not willing to communicate.
[14:22] Okay and when did you.
[14:23] First notice.
[14:24] Uh the communication issues.
[14:28] Um when i went to the hospital and it was announced that i was pregnant he just like had a complete shutdown, which was totally different from the first time that I had been pregnant. He celebrated, he wanted to tell everybody about it.
[14:44] Sorry, I didn't know that you were pregnant before. What's the story there? Again, please, please just accept that I don't know anything about what's going on. So you can't just drop in, well, I was pregnant before and blah, blah, blah. I didn't know that you were pregnant before. So tell me about that first time.
[15:00] We ended up having a miscarriage.
[15:03] Oh, I'm so sorry. That's very tough. That's very tough. And when was that?
[15:07] It was. That was 2022. So that was like three years in between our second child.
[15:15] And were you trying in between the miscarriage and your new child?
[15:19] We were.
[15:21] Okay. And do you know why? I mean, you're both young, I assume relatively healthy. Do you know why it was taking so long? Did you have any tests done or anything like that?
[15:30] No we didn't um so our second child uh we didn't necessarily like try all the time uh we were married so um it was just kind of like random but when we really started trying it only took one time.
[15:48] Okay, so I'm trying to sort of understand the sort of arc of the relationship as a whole. So you met in 2015?
[15:58] Probably 20, I think it was 2018. Yes.
[16:04] 2018 you met. Okay. And then you got into my show and other sort of, as you refer to them, sort of right-wing people.
[16:11] And how long did it take for you to get married after 2018, after you met?
[16:17] Um so we got engaged 2021 and because of covid we couldn't really book anything and then we ended up getting married in 2023.
[16:27] Okay so that's five years between meeting and getting married and why why so long do you think it's not very uh catholic or right-wing i might say to have a half decade long relationship before you get married yeah um it's not a criticism I'm just curious what the reasons were no.
[16:49] Absolutely um so he didn't have a job the first two years that we were dating and my parents wanted me to he was living at my house for that those two years.
[17:02] Sorry at your house um so you had your own place in your early 20s is that right.
[17:10] Um not my house it was my parents house.
[17:12] Okay so that's a little unclear right so again just speak to me like i'm five years old so he moved in to your parents house so he lived with you in the same room under your parents roof okay this is about as non-traditional as can be conceived of right absolutely so not super right-wing or christian right not.
[17:36] Necessarily Not as much as I used to be whenever I was younger.
[17:40] Okay. No, I'm just, because I'm trying to figure out where the trad thing is coming in because, okay. So what was it that drew you to him?
[17:53] Is because we have the same politics.
[17:55] No, no, that's not enough. That's not enough. What else?
[17:59] No. Okay. Um, I thought he was attractive.
[18:04] Okay. How tall is he? 5'9 Okay And what is it About his physicality That you find attractive?
[18:15] Um He had dirty blonde hair, blue eyes. He was Caucasian. Yes.
[18:27] I get the blonde hair, blue eyes equals Caucasian. I'm with you there. Okay.
[18:31] Yeah. I thought he was intelligent as well.
[18:36] But he was in his late 20s and didn't have a job for two years. Help me understand this.
[18:41] He lost his job maybe like a couple of months into meeting me. Or us dating each other. And I didn't think it was going to last long. And then it ended up.
[18:55] But how did he lose his job?
[19:00] He was drinking on the job.
[19:02] Oh, come on. You're killing me here. Oh, my God. Oh, no. Okay. So he's a good looking guy. he gives you the flutters he gives you the butterflies it's lust right yeah.
[19:23] And i think i was also very lonely because like i said i was a shut-in so finding somebody that could understand like my niche internet politics was um something i was really looking for.
[19:37] Yeah okay uh but that doesn't mean that you have to date get married and have a baby with someone just because they share your politics right yeah.
[19:48] I guess so.
[19:48] Okay so he's in his late 20s mid to late 20s i guess he's a drinker he drinks on the job he gets fired he's unemployed for two years and you're like let's get married um.
[20:03] I had i had thoughts about ending it because my family wanted me to end it.
[20:09] Well what was your parents sorry to interrupt are your parents still together.
[20:14] My father passed away when i was 22 years old and.
[20:19] He was not.
[20:19] Very present in my life um whenever i was a child because he um went to war uh during the war on terror.
[20:29] Okay so you were under the care of your mother when this guy moved in to your parent your mother's place right yes and mothers suck at this kind of stuff in general they suck at protecting their daughters i don't know why, it just seems to be a bit of a father's job because i couldn't figure out how a father would let this guy come into his house sleep with his daughter under his roof without being married, i i'd like to me it was like where's the father okay now i'm sorry that he died um what did he die of.
[21:06] Um so it was the burn pits that were in afghanistan um scarred his lungs and the va wouldn't give him his inhaler he went to the um emergency room was admitted into the hospital and they put a respirator in him and he ended up having two strokes while he was sedated and um It's just his brain swelled too much, and he ended up becoming brain dead.
[21:35] Oh, so you had to pull the plug, right?
[21:37] Yes.
[21:38] Gosh, I'm so sorry. That's just appalling. I'm, you know, just big, big, big hugs and heartache, and I'm very sorry about all of that. Okay. Thank you. So it was your mother who let this – give me a name that's not anything close to his name, just so I can refer to him. ron ron okay so ron you met him did he drink on the job and get fired before he moved in to your mom's place.
[22:14] Yes.
[22:15] Okay. So he's unemployed and was he facing homelessness?
[22:22] No. He did have a place to go, but we were dating for quite a while at that point. I ended up trying to get him a job at the place that I worked at, which didn't last very long because COVID ended up hitting and it was a restaurant job. So it was difficult to find anything else with my experience. And he also had the same experience, which was just restaurant industry stuff during COVID. A lot of people weren't hiring, but he also wasn't really trying.
[23:05] And how long were the lockdowns and the general, and don't tell me where you are geographically, But, you know, different places had different lengths of lockdowns.
[23:16] Yeah, I would say it was probably like a year or like, I would say two years that was max. I don't think it lasted very long.
[23:23] Wait, the lockdowns were two years?
[23:26] Yes. Like probably, I would say maybe less than that. My state is very right wing.
[23:33] Okay. So you mean the lockdowns, you mean like the government shutdowns or things? two years i'm surprised at that but okay i'm not gonna argue with you uh so that's fine okay so uh so he was living a long.
[23:47] Time so i could be wrong.
[23:48] Yeah so he was living off his savings right um.
[23:53] I i think he was living off of his mother's money.
[23:56] Uh what does that mean.
[24:01] His mom gives him money um when he needs things.
[24:05] Okay so he was living off his mother's money So how did he end up moving in with your mom in your mom's place?
[24:14] Um, because we were together. I don't really know. They, they had never done that before. Um, I don't know why they let him live here.
[24:25] Sorry. Who's they?
[24:27] My family.
[24:28] Sorry.
[24:29] My mother.
[24:30] Wasn't your father dead by this point, right?
[24:33] Yes. Um, but how did it.
[24:35] Sorry. How did it come about? I mean, did Ron say I need a place to live? I'd like to stay with you. Did your mom say, have Ron come live with us? Did you say, I want Ron to come live with us? I mean, how did it come about?
[24:48] I probably asked. It's been so long, I can't remember the details. But yeah, I probably asked. Because we hung out a lot anyways, like almost every day.
[24:57] I think my mom felt better about us being here than other, like anywhere else.
[25:04] Okay, so you said to mom, I want Ron to come and live here.
[25:09] Yeah.
[25:10] And your mom said Sure Yes Okay And how long had Ron been unemployed at this point?
[25:21] Um I would say just a couple months.
[25:27] And was he Applying for work? Had he dealt with his drinking? I mean, what was going on? Was he a heavy drinker? I mean, you said he got fired for drinking on the job So what was the story there?
[25:40] Uh, the story is that he would give customers free samples, but then he would drink with the customers and management didn't like that. And so free samples of alcohol. Yes.
[25:52] So he would basically steal from the employer by giving free. Well, it's not free. The employer has to pay. And he says he still he stole from the employer and drank with customers, right?
[26:04] Yes.
[26:04] Okay. And was he drinking when he wasn't working?
[26:10] Yes.
[26:11] And would he drink daily?
[26:15] More than most of the time, yes.
[26:17] Okay. So he took money from his mother and then spent a good portion of it on alcohol, right? I mean, alcohol's not cheap, right?
[26:24] Yeah.
[26:25] Okay. So did your mother know that he was an unemployed alcoholic when he moved in?
[26:34] No, but she definitely saw it while he was living here, which is why they wanted to get him out.
[26:41] Sorry, I just needed to go sequentially. so did you and ron hide from your mother that he was a drinker no well hang on then how could she not know oh.
[26:57] Because i i didn't tell her like i i.
[26:59] Know but that's important in that detail you can't yeah it's not a detail that's super important isn't it i mean if you had a roommate who said hey can my boyfriend come live with us and she'd neglect to tell you that he was an alcoholic it, wouldn't that be kind of important?
[27:15] Absolutely.
[27:16] Are you Christian?
[27:16] It is disrespectful. I am.
[27:19] Okay. Thou shalt not bear false witness, honor thy mother and thy father. I'm still trying to see the trad stuff here.
[27:27] Yeah.
[27:27] I mean, you lied to your mother.
[27:30] I did.
[27:31] And is that because if you told your mother he's an unemployed drinker who got fired from his last job for stealing from his employer and drinking on the job, would she have let him move in?
[27:44] No.
[27:45] So would she have encouraged you to continue? I see you said your dad didn't like him, but I guess that didn't matter too much to you, right?
[27:52] He never met my father because by the time that I had met him, my dad had passed away. So like there was a year in between my dad passing away and me meeting ron.
[28:04] Oh i'm so sorry when did your dad die um.
[28:08] I think it was 2017.
[28:11] Okay got it okay and i.
[28:14] Met ron in 2018.
[28:15] Got it got it okay okay so you hid did your mother know that ron was unemployed yes she did okay but she didn't did she know why he got fired from his previous job.
[28:31] No. And at the time, I did not know either.
[28:36] Oh, so Ron was hiding it from you?
[28:39] Yes.
[28:40] And how long did Ron hide? So he came home, he said, I was fired. I don't know why, there was no reason, or he made up something that wasn't what actually happened, right?
[28:50] Yeah. He said that he was put on the blacklist as a joke.
[28:55] What?
[28:55] Which didn't make sense to me.
[28:56] Sorry, I don't know what that means, put on the blacklist as a joke.
[29:00] Um blacklisted from being able to work there again that's.
[29:04] A joke so he but why did he say he was fired.
[29:06] Um he said that he wanted to leave the company and he never wanted to come back and he asked them to put him on the blacklist as a joke and then when he tried to go back to work there they said no you're blacklisted okay.
[29:23] Come on i mean look you're an intelligent woman, right? None of that makes any sense at all.
[29:28] No, it doesn't.
[29:30] Okay. So he lied to you about why he got fired. He lied to you about being blacklisted. And how long did it take before you found out that he was lying about these things?
[29:44] It was probably a couple, maybe like a year later.
[29:49] Okay. Because he had told the story about... Sorry, go ahead.
[29:53] He had told the story about drinking on the job and giving the free samples and that his boss didn't like that. And I put two and two together that that's probably what it was.
[30:04] Okay. So what year did he get fired?
[30:08] I think it was 2020.
[30:10] Okay. So 2020, he got fired. and laid his ass off about it. And then 20, so he never confessed, but sort of a year later, you sort of realized what had happened, right?
[30:22] Yes.
[30:23] And did you talk to him about what you had realized?
[30:29] I did. He didn't want to talk about it.
[30:33] Okay. But he didn't admit to anything. So it remains a theory to some degree, right?
[30:39] Yes.
[30:39] Okay. Okay. Okay, so he moves in, uh, in 2020, is that right? Moves into your mom's place?
[30:48] Yes.
[30:49] And you've been going out sort of two, two and a half years at this point, right?
[30:53] Yes.
[30:54] Okay. And your mother, was she a fan of Ron?
[31:00] Um, yeah, uh, she liked him. Like, I think she thought that he was personable. Um, but But she definitely started to see the drinking habits, especially when things got tough. He would drink more on a daily basis, and it made her uncomfortable.
[31:19] And how much would he drink on average a day?
[31:23] Sometimes a whole pack of beer, like a six-pack.
[31:27] Okay. And where was he getting the money for the beer? Was this from his mother?
[31:32] Yes.
[31:33] So we got two mothers enabling all of this mess, right? yes okay and so she begins to be concerned about ron and his drinking and then what.
[31:44] She said that he wasn't a serious person and that he needed to leave.
[31:50] And how long was Ron at your mom's place before your mom said he had to go?
[31:56] It was maybe about two years.
[31:58] Two years?
[32:00] Yeah.
[32:01] Is she slow? Is she not smart? I mean, hang on. How does it take two years to realize bro's a heavy alcoholic and not working?
[32:12] My mother doesn't like confrontation um she likes to ignore problems a lot.
[32:22] But this is her daughter's life and happiness right i mean this is who you ended up making a baby with this is who abandoned you when you were pregnant i mean who who likes confrontation Nobody sits up and says, oh, yeah, I hope I get to confront someone today, at least very few people. But we do it because it's important, right?
[32:47] Absolutely.
[32:48] So does she not love you enough to do something that's uncomfortable?
[32:56] Not often. Okay.
[32:57] Well, I'm sorry about that. I'm sorry that you don't have someone standing in your corner. You said, was it just you and your mom and Ron in the house, or was there someone else?
[33:08] Um i had my grandmother oh.
[33:11] Your grandmother okay and what did she think of ron.
[33:15] She did not want me to marry him she does not like him okay.
[33:20] And what's her concern same thing like drinking and not working.
[33:25] Yeah there was a time where um we had gotten into a fight, and he told me that he never loved me.
[33:36] And when was that?
[33:38] That was 2022 after we had a miscarriage.
[33:44] Okay. So he said that he never loved you, and why did he say he was with you if he said he never loved you?
[33:54] He told me after we finally split up, after we got married, he said that he didn't want to lose his best friend.
[34:06] So he said that you were his best friend, but he didn't love you?
[34:11] I guess so.
[34:12] Okay. All right. And he proposed, is that right?
[34:17] Yes.
[34:18] And did he get a job over the course of your marriage?
[34:22] He did.
[34:23] Okay, good, good. And did he cut his drinking back or get rid of it?
[34:27] No.
[34:27] No, he didn't. So he was still drinking mostly on a daily basis?
[34:32] Yes.
[34:33] Okay. Did he use any drugs?
[34:36] No, not that I know of.
[34:38] I think you would know, right? Okay.
[34:40] Yeah.
[34:41] Okay. So did your mother want you to get married to Ron?
[34:49] I don't know what her opinion was. I think she just wanted me to be happy.
[34:52] Well, she can't have wanted you to marry him, I'm guessing, if she didn't even want him to live under her roof, Yeah Is that right? Probably so But she never talked to you about Ron, right?
[35:12] Not necessarily, she just thought that he had a lot of problems that he didn't want to talk about I don't know what not necessarily means, Sorry Um, I think it's, my mom is just somebody who tries to see the good in everybody. And I think he just had, she thought he had problems that could be worked out, but Ron doesn't believe in therapy and he doesn't believe in talking about his feelings.
[35:40] Hang on. So your mom tries to see the good in everyone. Is that right?
[35:44] Yes.
[35:44] Did she see the good in the VA or does she complain that there were bad people at the VA? Yeah.
[35:52] I think she sees that there are people who are very negligent that work in the system and don't really care about veterans.
[36:00] Okay. So she doesn't see the good in everyone because she recognizes, as you were talking about, that the VA seems to have failed your father, right?
[36:08] Yeah.
[36:09] Did she think that the people who may have not done the very best in terms of medical care with your father in the hospital, did she also think the best of them?
[36:18] No, probably not.
[36:20] Okay. So she doesn't think the best of everyone.
[36:23] Yeah.
[36:25] Okay.
[36:26] Not sure.
[36:27] But she didn't say anything about Ron. Your grandmother did. And what's your relationship like with your grandmother?
[36:34] It's great. I see her and talk to her every day.
[36:39] It's great. But then if it's great, why didn't you listen to her about Ron?
[36:46] She said this after we got married. She said that she wanted to stand up and object. but she didn't want to make me unhappy.
[36:54] What?
[36:54] So this was something she told me after.
[36:57] Hang on, hang on, hang on. Good Lord. So your grandmother loves you and then let you, or did not stand up to try to prevent you from getting married to the wrong man.
[37:19] My family has a history of men who leave my grandfather left my grandmother.
[37:27] With two children you know what to look out for yeah you know that's like saying well my you know my family they they smoke like chimneys they all die of lung cancer it's like well then they should tell you not to smoke right yeah okay so your grandmother did not say anything, about ron except okay how long after you got married did your grandmother say she didn't want you to get married.
[37:58] Um this was recently my marriage to wrong ron only lasted maybe like it wasn't even in a full year.
[38:12] I'm so sorry. I thought you were married when the miscarriage happened, but you weren't married when the miscarriage happened.
[38:18] No.
[38:19] So why on earth were you trying for babies without being married?
[38:26] Um, that's a good question because we thought that we were going to get married.
[38:32] What do you mean you thought you were going to get married? You just get married. You just go down to city hall and you get married.
[38:38] Yeah.
[38:40] What do you mean you thought you were going to get married?
[38:43] We wanted to wait for everybody to be able to attend and we didn't really have money.
[38:50] City hall is 50 bucks.
[38:55] Yeah.
[38:56] Is Ron Christian?
[38:59] He's an atheist I'm sorry.
[39:02] I thought you shared all these values, Politically.
[39:06] Yes He wasn't He was never He wasn't like a fedora tipping Like atheist that hated Christianity, He was like a Nietzschean Atheist Like a nihilist Yes Okay.
[39:24] So he's a nihilist he's an alcoholic he's lazy he's a hell of a liar but what he shouts end the fed and he's in your bed, yeah so let's go back because this story doesn't make much sense to me I mean I think I get it logically but without understanding your childhood I'm having trouble, following how you could spend seven years with ron and how your family isn't like screeching from the rooftops that this is a bad idea i mean come on look when you when you tell me the story and i'm sure you've had lots of chances to think about it but when you tell me the story you do get that the red flags are absolutely everywhere right yes i mean bro is nothing but red flags.
[40:24] I agree.
[40:25] So, how is it possible that you listened to my show? I've been doing call-in shows since 2006, right? Almost 20 years. And you didn't call me up, which would have been free. And you had time, right? So you didn't call me up. I talk about red flags all the time. Apparently you didn't notice any or didn't notice any serious enough. Your family didn't talk to you. What did your friends think of Ron? Or were you too solitary like you don't have a lot of friends?
[41:15] I do have friends. All of them are very liberal. so we are not 100% ourselves in front of those people, but they liked him.
[41:30] They liked him?
[41:32] Yeah.
[41:32] Okay, were you hiding from them that he lied, was lazy, and drank?
[41:41] They knew that he drank. They definitely knew that he was an alcoholic.
[41:46] So they liked him for you, and he's an alcoholic?
[41:54] Yeah, I think a lot of people make excuses for alcohol, like moral relativism, like, oh, that's just him, he drinks.
[42:06] Okay, that's not an excuse, that's just an identification. Yes, he drinks, but where's the excuse?
[42:15] There's none.
[42:16] Is he super charming, very good looking? I mean, how is he bypassing everyone's rational defenses?
[42:24] I would say that he can be charismatic, has a good sense of humor.
[42:29] Okay. All right. Tell me a little bit about your childhood, if you could.
[42:40] So, whenever I was born into my family, I was born into my household of my grandmother, my mother, and my aunt. um my dad left for the military whenever i was very young um they were never married um my father didn't want to marry my mother because he was um in love with another woman who um he had a like unrequited love relationship with um she was kind of stringing him along um and that's because my dad's mother was a jehovah's witness and did not pay attention to her children put them down quite a bit especially my dad for being a boy my grandmother sorry what was that about your.
[43:35] Dad being a boy.
[43:36] Um my grandmother hated men so my grandmother put my father down for being a boy okay.
[43:47] Got it sorry.
[43:48] Um she was like a feminist jehovah's witness weirdo and uh really messed her children up and did the same thing to me whenever i was growing up um she was a very controlling person um again my mother she doesn't like confrontation um or conflict so um when my grandmother on my father's side would try to uh come in and like do things against my mother's wishes on how she would like to raise me um my mom didn't really stand up for herself because my grandmother um was a really confrontational lady she was very very hard to deal with I believe she has like BPD, She beat me as a child quite a bit.
[44:51] I'm sorry about that. This is your grandmother on your father's side, right?
[44:57] Yes.
[44:58] Okay. And was she in charge of you when you were growing up? I mean, how did she beat you? I mean, what was the circumstances?
[45:07] So I would have, you know, weekends over there sometimes. um because my father wasn't there i would spend time with them to have a relationship with the other side of the family um and she would like lure me in to buy me gifts and if i would disobey her she would um take everything back and try to use that against me like emotionally, she would physically and verbally abuse me if I didn't do the things that she wanted me to do. She tried to control me. And she also tried to control my image of who I was whenever I was a child. She would want me to wear makeup. I don't know, just a lot of things that I wasn't really interested in as a 10-year-old girl.
[46:04] Why does she want you to wear makeup? when you were 10?
[46:09] She wanted me to attract boys.
[46:12] But 10? Why does she want you to attract boys at 10?
[46:17] Because that's her mentality of the world. My aunt, who's her daughter.
[46:24] No, no. Her mentality of the world doesn't answer anything. Why does she want you to attract men at 10?
[46:34] I don't know.
[46:36] Sure you do. You know her well, right? I mean, you grew up with her. You must have some thoughts about why she'd do something so completely fucked up.
[46:46] I think that's just how my grandmother was. She hated men, but also wanted to...
[46:52] Hang on. That doesn't explain anything. That's how she was. It explains nothing. Because now you're back to your friends and Ron. Well, he's just a drinker. It's like, that doesn't explain anything. yeah why did she want you to paint your face at 10 and attract men that's grooming it is, What happened to her husband, your grandmother on your father's side?
[47:30] He ended up marrying another woman and being the father to that woman's stepchildren. Or that's his stepchildren.
[47:39] Okay, so he left this manipulative witch and went to another woman, right?
[47:45] Yes.
[47:46] Okay. Bullet dodged, right?
[47:54] Well um he has a type.
[47:55] Oh so the other woman was crazy too.
[48:00] Yeah she won't let us um have a relationship with my grandfather right.
[48:05] Well that's not true, i mean that's not true right unless she's got him locked at a dungeon.
[48:13] Um he calls every once in a while.
[48:15] No no but she can't prevent him from having a relationship with you, right?
[48:20] No, but she definitely tries.
[48:22] No, I get it. I get it. But you said she prevents it, but that's not technically true, right? She can't. She doesn't have the power to do that.
[48:30] Yeah.
[48:32] Okay, so he's still alive, and he calls occasionally. Okay, so why did your grandmother want you to attract men at the age of 10?
[48:51] She's sick in the head. I don't know. I think that's what she wanted or what she was taught when she was a kid. I don't know.
[49:06] Well, I don't know either, but I can tell you what is probably the most likely reason. That she was offering you up for sacrifice so she could get male attention.
[49:24] That could make sense.
[49:31] I mean, it's not a 0% number of single mothers who offer their children up in return for male attention.
[49:39] Yeah. It is possible.
[49:51] And what were the beatings like?
[49:57] Um, so if I, if I didn't want to wear something in particular, like she wanted me to wear, you know, I, I wanted to wear jeans. She wanted me to wear a skirt or a dress. Um, and that's just not who I was. I guess I was like a very independent individualistic, child because I am an only child. Um, and I didn't like it when people try to force me into what they wanted me to be. I guess I was very rebellious in a way. And she would like pull my hair.
[50:32] Well, that's one theory as to why you resisted being put into a skirt.
[50:37] Yeah. I also didn't like her very much.
[50:41] What's another reason? What's another reason you might not want her to have shown your legs?
[50:50] Probably because I didn't like my body. Probably have like body image issues.
[50:54] No. No. If she was grooming you to be attractive to men at the age of 10, you wouldn't want to wear dresses, right? Because it would be dangerous. So you'd want to dress more masculine. You'd want to dress less revealing, right?
[51:13] Absolutely.
[51:14] I think that's probably the closest.
[51:20] Yeah, I didn't wear makeup very often. Anything that she ever recommended to me, I would do the complete opposite of. Like if she said she one time told me that my hair was like. Like a woman's crown, like you should always have a really long. And so I cut it short and it really made her mad. But I didn't care. I was just. Defiant. Um, how did she beat you?
[51:52] What did she do?
[51:54] She would pull my hair. Um, she'd hit me. She would try to embarrass me, uh, like in the street, like just trying to put me in her car. Um, she would shove me into her car and, uh, verbally abuse me while she was pulling my hair and drag me everywhere, trying to just force me into the car when I didn't want to go with her.
[52:19] And did she hit you with implements or just her hand.
[52:25] Um it yeah it was her hand okay.
[52:28] Open fist closed fist bare skin closed closed fist oh so she punched yeah.
[52:36] She had rings on.
[52:39] Right the maternal brass knuckles always.
[52:41] Wore like three rings on each finger or each hand.
[52:50] Okay, and did your mother and father know about this at all?
[52:56] My father knew because he had experienced this when he was a child. But my mom definitely knew because she witnessed it. And at some point, whenever I was in middle school, I said, I didn't want to talk to her anymore. I didn't want to talk to my grandmother anymore. I didn't want to be around that. And my mom said, okay. she let me make my own decision because she didn't know, that she was abusing me until I got old enough to say something about it and knew what it meant.
[53:33] Sorry, your mother didn't know that her mother-in-law was abusing you?
[53:41] Yeah, that's what my mother says.
[53:44] I don't understand. And did she not know that this woman was aggressive? Did she not know that this woman had crazy rules? Did she not know that this woman had abused your father?
[53:57] I don't know. I know that my mom knew that my grandmother was crazy.
[54:04] Okay. So did she ever ask you, how are things with your grandmother? How does she treat you?
[54:11] Not very often. I would normally come home and cry to her that I didn't have a good time and I never wanted to see them again.
[54:19] Okay, so she knew you were being abused?
[54:22] Yeah, whenever I got older.
[54:25] Okay, older being how old?
[54:31] I think I was seven.
[54:33] Okay, and for how long had your grandmother been taking care of you when you were seven?
[54:40] Um i would visit her pretty often on the weekends um since i was like my mom said six months old.
[54:56] Okay so it's it's your mother's job to make sure you're being well taken care of is that a fair to say?
[55:05] Yes.
[55:06] I mean, if you hire, sorry, do you have a son or a daughter?
[55:09] I have a daughter.
[55:10] Daughter. Okay. So if you hire a babysitter for your daughter, is it your job to make sure that the babysitter is not abusive?
[55:18] Absolutely.
[55:19] Okay. So why didn't your mother do that?
[55:24] It's a good question. My mother hates confrontation or I think it's mostly like She doesn't want to know about things that happen because that means that they're not happening.
[55:39] Sorry, that means that they're what?
[55:42] She doesn't want to know about things that could be happening because that means that they're not happening if she doesn't know. And then she doesn't need to confront them.
[55:51] Okay. So it's willful ignorance because she doesn't like confrontation.
[55:57] Yes.
[55:58] Okay. So confrontation is a negative experience for her, so she's very sensitive to negative experiences, right? Do you think it's a negative experience? You know it's a negative experience to have your hair pulled, to be forced into cars, to be verbally humiliated, to be punched. So if your mother is so sensitive towards negative experiences, why didn't she care about your negative experiences? In other words, she is a grown-ass adult, doesn't like negative experiences, but apparently you at the age of six months or one or two or three or five or seven, it's fine for you to have negative experiences, but your mom can't.
[56:37] Yep.
[56:38] I mean, that's monstrous, isn't it?
[56:41] It is.
[56:45] What happened when you told your mother about your grandmother when you were seven?
[56:50] She said if my decision was to not talk to them anymore, that she was okay with that.
[57:00] So there was no necessity for you to see your grandmother? It wasn't like your mother had to work and someone had to take care of you? no so she let you do the parenting she had to wait until you said this is unbearable, before she's like oh well then you don't have to do it anymore, do I have that right yeah and what do you think of that.
[57:27] Um it really sucked not being listened to when, things were happening to me and this was.
[57:40] Not the first instance of hang on hang on hang on sorry i thought she didn't inquire and you didn't tell her or did you tell her at times before the age of seven i.
[57:49] Just said that she was really mean and i didn't really like going over there.
[57:53] So you did tell your mother you were being abused um.
[57:58] Not physically because i had i didn't know what that meant at the time. I thought I was just being punished.
[58:03] Right, right. Okay. But so your mother knew that you were miserable and didn't want to go back.
[58:10] Yes.
[58:10] And her response to that was to send you back. And it turns out that when you said, I don't want to go back, when you were seven, although not before, she's like, okay, you don't have to go back.
[58:27] Yes.
[58:28] You understand that's a little confusing from the outside, right?
[58:32] It is.
[58:34] Okay. So did you...
[58:36] I think...
[58:37] Sorry, go ahead.
[58:39] Um because i was so young i don't i just remember a core memory of going on a vacation with my grandmother and it being so bad um that i came home and i was crying and i just did not want to see them anymore my grandmother had pulled my hair because i didn't want to wear a particular thing, to go on vacation and she pulled my hair and when I came back, I just didn't want to deal with it anymore. Like my mom knew that my grandmother was, I mean not just verbally abusive towards me, but she was also verbally abusive towards my mom.
[59:26] So your mother knew that she was verbally abusive towards her and therefore she would assume that that her mother-in-law was verbally abusive towards you yeah okay, now your father was alive of course throughout this whole period so what did he do or say about i mean he obviously knew that his mother his own mother how i assume that she mistreated him i think you mentioned that that she mistreated him as a child so yes um, why was he allowing all of this don't give me this army stuff like why was he allowing all of this.
[1:00:09] Because my dad wasn't really a dad he wasn't really there um like he knew his mother was this way and that's why he ran away it's not because like he had a baby and he couldn't like confront that or anything like the military was a way for him to escape his mom. He just didn't want anything to deal with it, to do with it.
[1:00:33] Sorry, he didn't want to have anything to do with you as his child and his mother.
[1:00:40] Yeah, I mean, his, like, he never had opinions about parenting me, ever. He just left it to my mom. He always said, I know that you were in good hands because your family's a good family. And that was basically it.
[1:00:55] Sorry, your father's claim is that he knew you were in good hands, although you spent a good deal of time with his abusive mother.
[1:01:02] Yes.
[1:01:03] I mean, come on, what the hell? That doesn't make any sense at all.
[1:01:11] He just was not present, and he did not have opinions about how I should be raised.
[1:01:18] So why would he become a father if he didn't care about being a father?
[1:01:25] My mother was really young. Well, she wasn't very young. She was like 22. He was 25. I guess he felt like he wasn't ready. That's why they didn't get married. He was in love with another woman.
[1:01:46] I'm sorry, he was how old and your mother was how old?
[1:01:50] My mother was 22. My dad was 25.
[1:01:53] Okay, got it. Okay. But I still don't know why he would get married and have kids or have a kid.
[1:02:05] They never got married.
[1:02:06] Oh, they never got married. Okay. Okay. Do you know the circumstances?
[1:02:10] It was like unplanned pregnancy.
[1:02:13] It was unplanned pregnancy?
[1:02:15] Yes.
[1:02:15] Okay. And then he just basically did the army thing and didn't do much at home, right?
[1:02:22] Yes.
[1:02:23] Okay. And how was your relationship with your mother in your teen years?
[1:02:33] Not very good. I was always trying to run away.
[1:02:38] You mean like physically like run away live on the streets.
[1:02:43] Not necessarily i think just like uh i would just go hang out with my friends run away um for the night.
[1:02:52] Oh okay so not run away like being a runaway but just spend as much time away from home as possible yes okay and why do you think you were doing that i'm not disagreeing and I'm certainly not criticising, I'm just curious what your thoughts are about that.
[1:03:09] Um... Things just weren't going well in my life at that time. I ended up getting sexually assaulted whenever I was 13 years old by a 19-year-old boy.
[1:03:27] I'm so sorry about that. What were the circumstances?
[1:03:31] I was hanging out with a friend group that I probably shouldn't have because I kept trying to run away from my home.
[1:03:39] No, not run away. Stay away. i'm sorry i don't mean to correct you but i'm trying to understand no you wanted to you didn't want to run away like you know like you you you grab a bus and just go somewhere and and try and make it on your own but you wanted to stay away from home as much as possible is that right, yes okay so you wanted to stay away so you got into a bad friend group and how did you know they were a bad friend group looking back um.
[1:04:03] They did drugs they were like trying to be edgy um like satanists um.
[1:04:13] I didn't believe.
[1:04:14] In any of that stuff but.
[1:04:16] Were you a christian sorry were you still christian at this point.
[1:04:20] Um not no not really.
[1:04:22] Okay i.
[1:04:23] Still believed like in god but um i went to catholic school had a very bad experience and uh it kind of just changed the way that i viewed catholicism and christianity um.
[1:04:40] I'm sorry to interrupt what you said it's a very bad experience do you mean a singular experience or the whole experience was bad the.
[1:04:48] Whole experience was really bad.
[1:04:52] Okay and what was negative catholic school for you.
[1:04:58] So, um, it was a very small, like community. I came in whenever I was like in middle school for like one year and I didn't know anybody. And a lot of people just relentlessly bullied, bullied me. and uh one of my friends um like they would just they would like rip books out of my hands and laugh at me or like there was like a changing room where everybody had to change in the same room and uh i don't know i mean it's pretty normal like a normal experience of like going to school and being bullied but uh sorry hang on hang.
[1:05:36] On why is that a normal experience.
[1:05:40] I don't know i guess it kind of sounds a little cartoonish right like, I mean.
[1:05:45] The bullies weren't being bullied, were they?
[1:05:50] I mean, maybe. I don't know.
[1:05:52] Well, not at school, probably. I mean, if you're the bully, you're not usually being bullied, right? It's one of the reasons you become the bully. Is that fair to say?
[1:06:00] Absolutely.
[1:06:01] Okay. So, I don't know that it's that normal. I mean, I was barely bullied in school. My friends We're not bullied in school, to my knowledge, and we've talked about this stuff quite a bit. I don't know that it's as common as you think it is. And what did they pick on you about? Was there something, you know, like, you know, the sort of the cliche that, oh, I had a stutter or like, I don't know, Coke bottle glasses or something. Was there something that they picked on you about in particular?
[1:06:34] I don't really know.
[1:06:36] Well, no, but what did they bully you for? What did they say?
[1:06:40] That I was quiet. I had dyslexia. So maybe they thought I was stupid.
[1:06:52] Okay.
[1:06:54] I hung out with this one girl that they bullied because they thought, like, she was a lesbian. So they thought that we were lesbians, but yeah.
[1:07:04] Sorry, she was a lesbian or they thought she was a lesbian?
[1:07:07] They thought that she was. She was not.
[1:07:09] She was not a lesbian. Okay. All right. Yeah. I mean, I'm with you there. Like it's really tough when you go to a Christian environment and the Christians behave really terribly.
[1:07:21] Yeah.
[1:07:21] It's like, do you pray to God? Is this what God is telling you to do? Or do you pray to God? God is telling you to do the opposite, but you're like, to heck with this, I'm going to be a bully.
[1:07:33] Yeah and that that was another instance where i asked my mother to remove me from that school and put me back into the school that i originally went to and she didn't she just didn't do it, even though she knew that i was having a really hard time like i didn't want to go to school ever i'm.
[1:07:54] So sorry that's terrible was there a reason why you couldn't go back to the other school was it like she had to drive you or was there some inconvenience.
[1:08:01] Because i had dyslexia um a teacher had told her because it was a smaller school that it would have been better for me to have like hands-on like somebody there being able to um you know help me with, whatever learning disability i had right okay um but that just wasn't the case okay.
[1:08:25] And how long were you with the catholic school for.
[1:08:28] Like one year and then what i went back into public school and after that year, um sorry so your mother did get you back your mother.
[1:08:40] Did get you back to the other school right.
[1:08:42] Yeah i asked her to take me out like a couple months into attending my first year at that school right.
[1:08:49] Right okay okay so you did eight months or nine months i guess 10 months at the catholic school and then you went back to the private school right oh sorry public school.
[1:09:00] Yes okay.
[1:09:01] And where did you meet the quasi satanists.
[1:09:09] Um public school.
[1:09:13] And how did you fall into that crowd.
[1:09:17] I guess like they were just the kids that also wanted to um not run away from home but stay away from home as much as possible so kind of became friends with all those people i wouldn't say that we were necessarily friends i think a lot of those people just wanted to use me and other people around them and.
[1:09:40] How did they want to use you.
[1:09:41] Um some people would come over and like you know i would smoke cigarettes, so they want my cigarettes, or they want to eat food. Yes.
[1:09:57] When did you start smoking?
[1:10:00] 13 years old.
[1:10:02] Okay, and did somebody introduce you to cigarettes, or... Was it an older person?
[1:10:10] No, it was the friend group. We were all very young.
[1:10:14] Oh, so you're all like 13 and so, right?
[1:10:17] Yes.
[1:10:18] Okay, so somebody was like, hey, you should smoke cigarettes, and they gave you cigarettes.
[1:10:23] Yeah.
[1:10:23] Okay. Okay, and so you would have cigarettes, and where were you getting money from to buy cigarettes?
[1:10:33] Our parents.
[1:10:35] Sorry, whose parents?
[1:10:37] And like my parents or somebody else would ask their parents for money. And then, you know, like an older brother, an older sister would go get them for us. Okay, got it.
[1:10:50] Okay. And so you were hanging out. Were you hanging out like late nights? I mean, did your mother not wonder or worry or your parents or your grandmother like. Worry what the heck was going on.
[1:11:07] Yeah, I would stay out all night. At 13? I miss a lot of school. Yes.
[1:11:13] So, I'm so sorry. Like, you know, I have a teenage daughter. And I'm just trying to, I'm literally trying to fathom and process this. That you, at the age of 13, are staying out all night with some seriously sketchy people who are, you know, I mean, criminal element? Is that going too far?
[1:11:36] No, it's not.
[1:11:37] Okay. So you're hanging out with a quasi-criminal element all night. I mean, you're an only child, so it's not like you're missing like home alone or something, right? So what the heck were your parents doing and your grandmother?
[1:11:56] They weren't really doing anything to stop it. I guess they didn't know how to handle it.
[1:12:02] What do you mean they didn't know how? I don't understand. They didn't know how to handle it.
[1:12:08] They i guess i don't know i don't i don't really know they just didn't do anything about it.
[1:12:15] Okay why not sometimes hang on hang on hang on why not don't give me this mealy mouth stuff that's them don't give me the stuff though i didn't know how to handle it you call someone, you get an expert you get a psychologist you get family therapy of course they knew how to handle it, why not why did they not protect you why did they drive you out into the arms of criminal satanists.
[1:12:50] I don't know.
[1:12:51] Yes, you do. You know, you've heard this a million times. If you've been listening to me for a while, you know everybody knows, right?
[1:13:02] Yeah.
[1:13:03] What was going on?
[1:13:09] Maybe we didn't care.
[1:13:16] Well, your mother didn't send you back to your grandmother, right? After you were seven, so she cared about that. She did eventually get you back, I guess, after the year in Catholic school. She got you back into public school. God help you. You were better off being bullied than assaulted and taught how to smoke cigarettes, right?
[1:13:36] That's true.
[1:13:38] So it wasn't that they didn't care. I mean, was your father aware that his little girl was out all night with quasi-criminals?
[1:13:51] Yeah he thought i was crazy.
[1:13:55] Sorry so he knew.
[1:13:57] Yes and.
[1:13:59] What did he do.
[1:14:02] My mom asked him if he could take me in and um he said i don't know what that means hang.
[1:14:12] On i don't know what that means.
[1:14:13] If i could go live with him like if you would take me in to go live with him i'm so.
[1:14:18] Sorry if I missed this, and I'm sure I did, but when did your parents separate?
[1:14:22] They never married.
[1:14:23] I know they never married, but when did they separate?
[1:14:27] Oh, they were never, like, as soon as I was born, I think maybe like six months after I was born, they separated.
[1:14:37] Oh, so the same pattern with Ron, right? Your guy. Yes. Husband. His exact same pattern. A couple of months after the birth of the kid, gone, right?
[1:14:53] He was gone before.
[1:14:55] Your father was gone before you were born?
[1:14:58] No, Ron was gone before I was born, or before my daughter was born.
[1:15:03] Okay, sorry. But it's the same pattern of abandoning parenthood, right?
[1:15:09] Yes.
[1:15:09] Okay. But your father stayed in your life, is that right?
[1:15:15] Um not very much until maybe three years um up until he passed i would go visit him um every thanksgiving and we started to like mend that relationship, and then he passed away okay.
[1:15:34] Okay so your mother is aware that you are out with these satanist quasi-criminals all night all night you mean coming back the next morning is that right, yes okay uh did she call the police.
[1:15:54] She did okay.
[1:15:55] And what happened there.
[1:15:59] Um not like i don't think they did anything um there was a time where i did go to juvie um because they didn't want me to leave um sorry.
[1:16:10] Who didn't want you to leave.
[1:16:12] My mother didn't want me to leave the house.
[1:16:16] No, but why would you go to Juvie just because your mother didn't want you to leave the house? I feel like there's something missing here.
[1:16:23] So my mother and my grandmother and my aunt all tried to beat me to keep me home.
[1:16:34] Beat you?
[1:16:36] Yes.
[1:16:37] And what do you mean by that? What did they do?
[1:16:43] Sometimes they would try to sit on top of me from being able to leave. Like all three of them would try to sit on top of me.
[1:16:53] Sorry, I mean, are they able to read books? I don't understand. What's this sitting on children? You pick up a book and you say troubled teen or bond issue, pair bonding issues or attachment disorder. Or you read books on parenting. I mean, I don't, like, I don't, what is sitting on people?
[1:17:14] I i think that's uh they thought that that was the way to keep me, constrained i.
[1:17:21] Don't know but nothing they was doing is not nothing they were doing was working so when you're doing things that aren't working you learn better or you try to study better right i mean they're not stupid right or are they maybe, okay all right so they sat on you and then they called the cops and then you went to juvie is that right yes and was there a particular charge that had you go to juvie did you go through some court procedure or was it i don't know i mean i don't know the mechanics of how you go to juvie but i don't think parents can just snap their fingers and have their kids go to juvie can they.
[1:17:58] No um i think it was just disorderly conduct.
[1:18:02] Oh did you like resist the cops or yeah okay so you resisted the cops and then you would take it a juvie and how long did you spend there i.
[1:18:15] Think it had to be like over the weekend because i was admitted on the weekend um so it was probably like friday to monday that i finally got to see a judge on monday and uh the judge said that my mother was a bad parent, for letting me do the things that i was doing.
[1:18:36] And then, um nothing so they released you but there was no follow-up no psych eval no family counseling no counseling for your mother or nothing like that.
[1:18:51] No they made me do um community service that was it.
[1:18:55] Okay so there was no help for you, no it's wild eh we pay all these taxes and you know clear signs of massive family dysfunction and it's like yeah just do some community service and off you go back to the wolves right yeah, yeah it.
[1:19:18] Didn't really teach me anything.
[1:19:19] Oh it taught you something oh it taught you something that there's no help coming from society yeah, okay, So what happened when you were assaulted? And again, don't talk about anything you don't want to, but it seems important.
[1:19:45] It was an older brother of one of the girls that I was hanging out with. And I had denied him on multiple occasions, saying that I did not want to, because I was really young and I didn't want to do that. you mean sexual activity yeah okay and, I got drunk with my friends and I fell asleep and he took advantage of me while I was sleeping.
[1:20:25] And was it rape was it sexual assault was it.
[1:20:29] It was.
[1:20:31] Okay, I'm so sorry. I mean, and, and, you know, this is, this is the sad tale that when you're in dangerous situations, as you were, sadly, tragically, horribly, it's just a matter of time.
[1:20:51] Yeah.
[1:20:54] And do you, sorry, go ahead.
[1:20:57] I feel like I put myself in that situation, doing things that I wasn't supposed to be doing.
[1:21:05] You mean like getting drunk and passing out when there's skeevy men around?
[1:21:10] Yeah, just hanging out with the wrong people, doing things that a 13-year-old should not be doing.
[1:21:16] I mean, what was, and I'm sure that it was terrible at home, but what was the worst stuff about being at home for you?
[1:21:24] My aunt was um incredibly abusive towards me like um she would bash my head into a wall um just because i changed the tv or sorry the aunt is a new character.
[1:21:40] For me so this is your mother's sister.
[1:21:42] Yes okay.
[1:21:44] And what was your relationship like before with her.
[1:21:54] Never never really close when did she start.
[1:21:59] To become violent towards you.
[1:22:07] As far back as i can remember um maybe maybe as a toddler.
[1:22:16] And did she live with your mom or was she uh did she come visit or how did you get contact with her yeah.
[1:22:23] She lived with us.
[1:22:24] Listen i'm i'm incredibly sorry for all of this i just look to pause and just reiterate uh it's just absolutely appalling and you were treated monstrously and by real evildoers, like genuinely ugly, nasty, evil people to enact this level of violence and indifference.
[1:22:46] And your father's abandonment is inhuman. It's absolutely, I mean, inhuman. Could you imagine? You've got a daughter. Can you imagine just wandering at her for life and never looking back, really?
[1:22:57] Thank you.
[1:23:00] And, you know, I mean, there, but for the grace of God, go others, right? I mean, And I was certainly in some pretty sketchy situations when I was a kid and, uh, it could have got a whole lot worse in terms of sexual assault when I was desperate and, and out and about. So I, you know, I, I, a bullet just happened to miss me and it happened to hit you. And I'm, I'm just really, really sorry for all of that. That's just absolutely terrible. And did, did you end up, did you go to the cops or did it, did you tell anyone or what happened after the assault?
[1:23:35] Yeah um i went to it was a like child advocacy group um and a um, i forgot what it's called um did you like it's a forensic interviewer yeah had um asking questions about what happened um and they told me that, or they told my mother that I had PTSD from being assaulted.
[1:24:07] Okay.
[1:24:08] But there was nothing that they could do because the people that were there, present there, did not, like at the party that I had been sexually assaulted at, nobody wanted to say anything.
[1:24:22] But, I mean, I'm sorry to ask questions. I mean, did you have a rape kit? I mean, was there semen? Was there tears? Was there blood? was there i mean you wouldn't necessarily need witnesses if there's evidence right.
[1:24:34] No i had waited a couple months after to tell anybody oh okay sorry i didn't know that okay um his sister threatened to um have me beaten up if i told anybody about it.
[1:24:49] My god you really were in hell weren't you, You really were in hell. It's just appalling. It's just feral. It's worse than animals down at that layer of hell. Okay, so nothing that could be done because the evidence was long gone and there were no witnesses who would come forward, right?
[1:25:19] Yeah.
[1:25:20] And maybe nobody witnessed anything if you were in a solitary place.
[1:25:25] Yeah, it's possible.
[1:25:28] Okay all right so did you stop hanging out with this group after this assault.
[1:25:34] I did and.
[1:25:36] Did you stay home more or what what happened after that.
[1:25:39] I did yeah um i ended up dropping out of high school because of it um because after i went to the cops um the guy's sister wanted to jump me with her friends and um i didn't want to deal with it anymore so i got my ged and left okay.
[1:26:06] Okay again i'm i'm just it's it's just appalling okay so you you left high school and then what happened were you were you still living at home.
[1:26:19] I was yeah okay.
[1:26:22] And then was.
[1:26:23] It then but you.
[1:26:24] Started to work in the restaurant business.
[1:26:26] I did yes okay i had never uh gotten my own place until i met ron so i pretty much lived at home for, quite a while until maybe i was about like 24 and.
[1:26:46] Where was your.
[1:26:46] Aunt in.
[1:26:47] In all of this was she still living.
[1:26:50] With her she is um she's on disability so she can't really afford to go anywhere else i.
[1:26:59] Hope it's painful i mean if she's beating a teenage girl's head against the wall driving her out to get sexually assaulted, there's really no sympathy that I would have. At all. And did your mother know about how violent her sister was towards you?
[1:27:21] Yeah. My aunt did the same thing to her when she was a child.
[1:27:26] Oh, God. Oh, man. I just wonder about brain injuries and stuff like that, and people seem to have no soul at all at this point. Okay. And what's your relationship like with your mother now?
[1:27:45] It's good. um my mom okay you understand that my jaw.
[1:27:49] Just hit the floor right.
[1:27:50] Oh yeah um my mom has done a lot to make up for the things that i said that really, tortured me whenever i was a kid or i would like ask her to stand up for me or try to be there for me like when i really really needed it just to like stand by me and like say something like do something if something was happening to me and, there's been a lot of times where she is more than made up for that and she's very apologetic about things that had happened not like it can be reversed but, she was there for me sorry the things that happened no no.
[1:28:32] No these aren't things that happens these are choices that she made and actions that she took, when did she start to admit faults in her parenting.
[1:28:45] I think it was around the time that I hit 18, 19.
[1:28:52] And why do you think that changed?
[1:29:01] I don't really know. I think I, well, more than likely, it's because I wouldn't stop talking about it and how much it affected me. it really really affected my whole life it.
[1:29:16] Did, and what about her sister or has anything changed there.
[1:29:24] Um yeah a little bit um she was misdiagnosed by a psychologist for years um and that psychologist believed that she is bipolar and it turns out she's not bipolar she has neurological lupus, and she was not getting the help that she needed.
[1:29:51] It's the theory is that why she beat your head against the wall.
[1:29:56] I don't think it justifies anything but i do see a difference in behavior.
[1:30:04] All right. Okay. So, uh, what's the story with Ron at the moment?
[1:30:10] Um, back to my friend telling me that, um, he was seeing another woman who was very close to our friend group. Um, I had been, uh, allowing him to have visitation with my daughter, our daughter um she was she had a really hard birth i know i'm kind of like going back and forth but this like sets precedent forward the what i'm about to say um i had preeclampsia whenever i was pregnant i had to give birth at 37 weeks she had to be resuscitated at birth um because she inhaled the amniotic fluid um and she was in the NICU for 11 days okay um she also had to be on a um not a ventilator um a step-up machine okay for oxygen um I find out, I didn't know about this at the time but it was not she wasn't even two months old when um ron took her to um a bar that was having a festival, to meet his new girlfriend sorry he took that with his mother so.
[1:31:37] She sang her she was born prematurely what five weeks a month six weeks.
[1:31:41] Um 35 uh it's not it would have been three weeks early okay.
[1:31:48] So she's born three weeks early so i mean she's a month and change based upon when her due date was, he takes your baby to a bar.
[1:32:01] Yeah.
[1:32:02] I mean...
[1:32:03] They were having a festival.
[1:32:05] Okay.
[1:32:05] And they justified it as being family-friendly because it had a petting zoo.
[1:32:11] Okay. All right. So he took it to meet the new girlfriend. Is the new girlfriend the woman that he was having the affair with when he was married to you and you were pregnant?
[1:32:25] Yes.
[1:32:26] Okay, got it. And you just separated at this point. When did you, he left, was it October?
[1:32:35] Yes.
[1:32:36] He left October, you gave birth February, okay. So obviously you're not divorced at this point, is that right?
[1:32:42] Yeah, no, I didn't submit any paperwork until May. Okay. Um, but because she had such a difficult birth and because I had such a difficult time getting pregnant the first time, and then also like with this pregnancy, I had preeclampsia. Um, I didn't think that that was in our daughter's best interest. I don't even care about the girlfriend thing necessarily. Like she has said that she doesn't like babies and doesn't want anything to do with my child which to me is a red flag because my child is an extension of both me and ron and i feel like if you want a good partner you should want that person to love your child but.
[1:33:35] He's not going to get a good partner he's cheating on his pregnant wife there's no.
[1:33:41] Good person.
[1:33:42] Involved there, did you see what i mean.
[1:33:46] Yeah no possibility that.
[1:33:50] There's any good person in that situation, i mean i'm not.
[1:33:55] Including you.
[1:33:56] In that right but any woman who's going to be like hey he's got a pregnant wife i think i'll have an affair with him that's a dirtbag that's a.
[1:34:06] Home-wrecking dirtbag.
[1:34:08] In my opinion, yeah okay so he takes your daughter to a bar and of course i assume you didn't know this was going to happen right.
[1:34:21] No absolutely not, i don't think that's an environment or i mean one you know he likes to drink and two she's just too young no.
[1:34:36] I get that yeah it's too loud too stimulating it's it's too much right, yeah okay and so what happened then.
[1:34:49] Um i the day that i found out was in i think it was memorial day weekend that my friend had told me this information and um he dropped my daughter off i told him that i knew um he told me that he actually told me about this and i said no you didn't because i would have objected Gaslighting too. Excellent. And I said, like, I didn't think it was in our daughter's best interest for him to be around at the moment, considering my number one rule was no drinking around the baby. No drinking.
[1:35:38] And did you get confirmation that he was drinking too? yes.
[1:35:49] Um, not just that, but I think the secrecy of it all, um, keeping that for me when he knew that I wouldn't be okay with that, um, didn't sit well with me. His mother was also, um, the one who took my daughter there, um, because I, and this sounds crazy to a lot of people because she is so young. I let um his mother watch over her for the weekend because I had no help from ron I had a c-section and I was doing everything myself.
[1:36:28] Um, so she took her for the weekend And that's what she decided to do with my daughter without asking me So it wasn't just ron who didn't ask me. It was also his mother and um They don't see any issue With that at all and I said I had to put up a boundary like hey, You know, this is my daughter um I don't want her to be raised like in that environment And she's just too young I don't think that's okay and um they, They kind of walked all over me. His mother does not respect me because she loves her son maybe a bit too much.
[1:37:25] Okay um so yeah uh at this point it's not that i haven't let him see his daughter um they have seen each other um but the divorce is i don't know exactly how it's going to go it seems to be, relatively okay at the moment. Um, but before that, before I put any paperwork down, it was really bad. He didn't want to, uh, give child support. Um, he accused me of wanting child support because I am unemployed. Um, that's because we had discussed prior to ever getting a divorce, that I was going to be a stay-at-home mom and that I was going to homeschool our child.
[1:38:27] So that definitely put me in a place where at five months pregnant, when he left, I couldn't get a job because four months later, I would have been on maternity leave and a lot of places wouldn't hire me based on that. right so i was in a a really big life change um he stopped going to prenatal appointments i basically didn't see him from october to february even now um very sparsely um we hardly ever talk, um now even though we're supposed to be co-parenting with a child i don't hear from him very often.
[1:39:23] Okay, okay and how can i best help you in the time that we have left to chat.
[1:39:36] So, I guess my initial thing was, I know that there was a lot of red flags that he had. My past and everything that I had gone through is what led me to want to change my life and the values that I had. Because obviously, I let go of a lot of those values whenever I was growing up. And I didn't necessarily have people in my life that cemented those values for me, which is why it was very easy for me to let go of those in the first place. but I want to believe, that there are people who can keep those values and like the vows stand by the things that they believe and the things that they say, I think that's what I'm having a hard time with I'm.
[1:40:41] Still can you tell me a bit more about that.
[1:40:45] Um, with going through marriage, I guess I thought it was going to be like, I, I guess I didn't think that was going to happen to me, but of course, statistically, I guess it would have. I'm not any different. Um, but I guess I believed so much that it could be different for me and that there There would be somebody in my life that would believe in those values that I truly believe in now, like marriage, like preserving tradition and culture. i don't know um if i could if i should like continue to pursue that, finding somebody to be um you know a father for my daughter when i didn't have one um which i think would have really helped me if i had one a good one at least, I don't know if that makes sense.
[1:42:13] So is your question how you can get a quality man at this point in your life?
[1:42:21] I don't know if I deserve one.
[1:42:24] No, I'm just asking what your question is.
[1:42:33] I think really just somebody who sticks to what they believe in and practice that, put it into practice.
[1:42:42] Okay and listen i i say all of this with massive heartbroken sympathy for everything that happened to you as a child i just really want to be be clear on that, But you've listened to me since when?
[1:43:01] 2017.
[1:43:02] 2017. Okay, so eight years. Love is our involuntary response to virtue, right?
[1:43:14] Yeah.
[1:43:15] So what were Ron's virtues?
[1:43:26] Like things that he did to show, sorry, things that he did to show me that he loved me?
[1:43:36] No. Virtues. Moral courage, nobility of character, integrity, honesty, you know, those sorts of things.
[1:43:48] Well, I thought he was honest, but I guess not. I can't really say because I feel like I don't know.
[1:43:55] Okay, so you need to be honest with me. And maybe I've misunderstood something, so I apologize if this sounds harsh. But my understanding was that you found out relatively early on, or you had very strong suspicions, that Ron had lied about why he got fired from the restaurant. I'm put on the blacklist, right?
[1:44:27] Yes.
[1:44:28] Okay. That was before you got pregnant, right? Long before.
[1:44:39] Yeah.
[1:44:40] So when you say to me, I thought he was honest, but I guess not, you had, for years before you got pregnant, and years before you got married, you were pretty sure he was lying his ass off, that's true so i need you to be really honest with me because i can't have a conversation, if you gaslight me right yeah i understand so um what were his virtues and i'm not saying he didn't have any virtues i i just i want to know what they are because they're not evident to me as yet.
[1:45:32] I don't think I can think of any. I'm going to be honest.
[1:45:41] Okay. And so you pursued him for reasons of loneliness, for reasons of need, and for reasons of sexual attraction and some charm that he had. Is that sort of the case? And I don't want to diminish anything if there's something that I've missed. I'm certainly happy to hear about it.
[1:46:03] I don't think you did. I think you're right.
[1:46:08] Okay. So, how many of the values that you get from philosophy would you say you've been living over the last seven or eight years?
[1:46:28] Probably not very many. I mean, I tried to, I tried to be a good wife, serve others, serve my household, be a truthful and honest person.
[1:46:54] Sorry, but you gave a baby to a guy you thought was kind of a liar in many ways, right?
[1:47:02] That's true.
[1:47:03] And you lied to your mother about his drinking, right?
[1:47:06] Yeah.
[1:47:07] And she had to kind of puzzle through that and put her in a seriously awkward position, right?
[1:47:16] So I would probably say I haven't, I would say that I haven't practiced very many.
[1:47:23] Now, that may sound like bad news. I think it's great news. Because if you'd practiced a lot of, if you'd actually put into practice a lot of sort of moral or philosophical virtues, and your life sucked, that would be bad news, right?
[1:47:42] Yeah.
[1:47:45] If you're exercising perfectly but you're still getting injured that's bad news right.
[1:47:52] Yes if you're doing everything right and everything's going wrong that's bad news on the other hand if there's things you can improve which of course is true for all of us right we can all improve things so if there's things that you can improve that means that there's room to grow right yes okay so why do you think you listened to moral virtues without putting them into practice and listen i say this with all due humility and i was a lot older than you when i finally began to put all of this crap into practice so please understand this is no there's no judgment here there's no negative judgment here but you're listening to all of this stuff, and why do you think you didn't call in for a free conversation why do you think you didn't say oh love is our voluntary response to virtue gee um, we me and ron should probably sit down and go over our virtues right what we're doing well what we could do better or yeah you know gee Stef has a lot of calls with people or they ignore red flags and look what happens. I wonder if there are any red flags I'm ignoring, you know, that kind of stuff, right? Why do you think, that's a genuine question, and again, I say this with all humility, but why do you think it was so abstract for you and not practical or something you would manifest in your life? Like, it was like entertainment.
[1:49:20] Yeah, that's a good way to put it. I think maybe consuming the content makes me feel better rather than not necessarily putting it into practice.
[1:49:34] Like if you read diet books, it makes you feel thinner?
[1:49:40] It could. No. I also put myself in an echo chamber with him. and I couldn't really talk to anybody else.
[1:49:55] Sorry, I don't know what you mean. What do you mean by an echo chamber with him?
[1:49:59] We were the only two people that thought, like, had the same political opinions, and that's who we would talk, we would talk to each other about that. We couldn't talk about that to anybody else.
[1:50:11] But love is not our voluntary response to political opinions. That's not, I never said that. I mean, I'm still trying to figure out this political opinion thing that you have and i'm not disagreeing with you and you could be completely right but i'm still trying to figure out like this political opinion thing seems to be really a big deal for you and i'm sort of trying to understand that.
[1:50:31] I think when you obviously want to have a family with somebody they should have very similar politics maybe even religion or outlook on life?
[1:50:49] Well, you didn't have the same outlook on life. You didn't have the same religion. He was atheist, nihilist. And as far as political opinions go, okay, so give me an important political opinion that you shared.
[1:51:12] Okay. Okay. We both were very... The reason why we wanted to have a family and children was because of the declining population, of Caucasians and Western civilization.
[1:51:42] Okay. But it turns out that he's not really invested in that at all, right?
[1:51:52] Yeah.
[1:51:53] Because I assume that he would say, you know, one of the things that's a problem in the West is single moms, and he made one.
[1:52:02] Yeah.
[1:52:06] So the problem with political stuff is that you can say stuff but you're never tested, you know like like if if someone says uh oh we should uh, i don't know and and federal and central banking right okay it's just something you can say right but you're never tested on it whereas if somebody has personal virtues like i think we should be honest with each other they can actually do that they can actually be tested on that there's actually empirical evidence as to whether they're good or not as opposed to well we shouldn't be sending foreign aid everywhere it's like blah blah blah but you can't be tested on it it never tests you did you see what i mean it's worth absolutely and so in the political opinions that you shared, that's not evidence of personal virtue because anyone can say anything but it's in the personal virtues that we find out someone's integrity, And I think maybe that was the evaluation that was missing.
[1:53:25] Yeah.
[1:53:27] And that's why I say it's our involuntary response to virtue manifested, right? Not end the fed stuff, right?
[1:53:38] Yeah.
[1:53:45] So you overlooked that and listen again please understand i i was far older than you with far less excuse so i'm saying this again i just really want to reiterate this because the last thing i want to do is come across as some finger wagging superior moralist because i'm not right but But why do you think you ignored what was, at least in what I talk about, was repeatedly, and very passionately stated? Why do you think you ignored what, I think, as you have this conversation, and I'm sure you've had time to think about it since October, the obvious red flags, why do you think you ignored them?
[1:54:35] Not having a father in my life has led me down the path of unrequited love, many times.
[1:54:46] It's not, not having, no, no, no. I got to push back on this.
[1:54:51] Okay.
[1:54:53] Because that's making it dominoes. Well, I didn't have a father in my life. Therefore, I ended up with this guy as the father of my husband. That's not the domino. okay because there are people who didn't have their fathers in their lives who don't end up in this situation it's not dominoes you know if someone pushes you off a cliff yeah you fall that that's causal right yeah this is not causal in the same way there's something in between the stimulus and the response there's something in between you growing up without a father, and this situation and it's not causal it's not just well i didn't have a father and therefore right i end up in this situation, i mean some women who grow up without a father decide not to date at all some people who grow they decide to throw themselves into their career they become academics they uh they, date too much, they date too little, but it's not stimulus response. Like, you know, if you put your head on your stove, ow, it's hot, right? It's not like that, if that makes sense. There's an interpretation.
[1:56:10] That's between the stimulus and the response. Because if your life is a mess in this area because you didn't have a father, then you're helpless, right?
[1:56:24] Yeah.
[1:56:25] But if there's a thought or a conclusion or an idea in between you not having a father and what's going on in your life, then you have the chance to change it. Does that make sense?
[1:56:38] Yes.
[1:56:39] Okay. So, the big question is, not you not having a father, what did your childhood and how you were treated, how you were neglected, how you were abused, what did that mean about you?
[1:57:08] That I ignored putting myself in situations that weren't in my best interest.
[1:57:15] Why did you put yourself in dangerous situations?
[1:57:22] Because I wanted to leave home.
[1:57:24] Because what?
[1:57:26] Because I wanted to be away from my home.
[1:57:29] You could have been away from your home in any number of different ways. I hung out at the library all night.
[1:57:43] Yeah.
[1:57:46] You could have gone to friends' houses who were decent, right? Why did you make the choices that you made? What was the idea underlying the choices that you made? Now, you already told me this, so I'm being kind of annoying, and I apologize for that. You already told me this reason. Do you remember? Sorry, go ahead.
[1:58:25] Do you mean why did I make the choices to... Stay away from home?
[1:58:31] No, to be in dangerous situations.
[1:58:36] Yeah, to escape.
[1:58:39] No, because there's ways to escape being at home without putting yourself in dangerous situations.
[1:58:46] Being rebellious and defiant? No.
[1:58:51] So do you remember what you said when I said, or what you answered when I asked, is it that you're looking for a quality guy going forward do you remember what you said.
[1:59:05] Oh that i don't deserve it.
[1:59:06] Boom i don't know that's it, that's it you were treated like trash is that unfair to say, no you were ignored you were a punching bag you were yelled at you were screamed at you had three women sitting on you. You had a woman beating your head against the wall. You were treated like garbage, like trash. I think. Again, if I'm unfair, please let me know.
[1:59:33] No.
[1:59:34] Okay.
[1:59:35] You're right.
[1:59:36] So, if you're treated like trash, how do you survive it?
[1:59:46] Try to change it.
[1:59:49] Okay let's let's put that one in into the hopper okay so if you're treated like trash and you try to change it what did you do to try and change it.
[2:00:02] I guess i didn't.
[2:00:03] I don't think you could how could you you they weren't open to reason they didn't even seem to notice or care or anything like that, when you're treated like trash, what do you end up thinking about yourself?
[2:00:29] That I am. Right.
[2:00:31] You are trash. I hate even saying that as a, as a theory, right? But if you are, if you are treated like trash consistently, the only way in general that you survive that is to say, well, I am trash. They're right, they're right. And that becomes a core survival mechanism. Because if you're not trash, then they're just weird, bizarre, cruel, horrible people who have control over you for the next 10 years or more, right?
[2:01:09] Yeah.
[2:01:11] So you have to internalize their belief. And I would guess, tell me if I'm wrong, of course, but I would guess that when you tried to act as if you weren't trash, like, hey, I deserve better. hey i deserve your attention hey you shouldn't treat me like this how you you didn't protect me what happened.
[2:01:30] I shut down.
[2:01:33] Well you get attacked right that escalate get angry yeah is that again i don't want to put words in your mouth is that a fair way to characterize it.
[2:01:42] Yeah i was gaslit yep a lot.
[2:01:46] And if you kept pushing and said hey dad step up come home from the army and be a parent you chose to have a child step up and be responsible, and if you said to your mother you're treating me terribly you're ignoring me i'm i'm in danger and you're driving me out of home into the arms of predators and you better shape up, or there'll be consequences what would you what would your mother say.
[2:02:15] She would um, she would think that i'm telling her that she's a bad mom and she would.
[2:02:23] Okay so let's say hang on so let's say she thinks you're you are i think right you're telling her she's a bad mom and then what what happens then she.
[2:02:32] Would just shut down maybe cry.
[2:02:35] Okay but she wouldn't listen and improve right and what if what if you push through those tears and and you said hey hey this is not about you mom suck it up we need to talk about this stop crying this is not about you this is about me what would she say then.
[2:02:56] I don't know if she would have anything to say.
[2:02:59] Well, in my experience, and I'm guessing here, but in my experience, people who have, oh, I'm just the worst mother ever, if you keep pushing, they get really angry.
[2:03:14] Yeah.
[2:03:19] So, you had no option, I think, to be treated better. now if you can't get people to treat you better the only way you can survive is by saying okay they're right i have to internalize they think they think i'm worthless i have to internalize that because if i try to get them to admit that i'm not worthless i'm in grave danger they could abandon me they could get even more angry at me right yeah so you just kind of have to roll it into a ball and that life keep kicking you in the in the spine right, Yeah. They're right. They're right. I'm worthless. I'm not, right? I'm annoying. I'm in the way. I'm not changing. I changed the channel at the wrong time. So I should get my head hit against the wall. My father's right. I'm not interesting. I'm clearly, I'm not interesting enough to engage my father. He's bored. He's got this exciting life in the army and I'm just a little girl.
[2:04:22] They're right. They're right. How else are you going to survive?
[2:04:34] And if you feel like you're worthless, you can't choose somebody who's worthwhile. You have to be with someone who's kind of also worthless or feels worthless.
[2:05:00] Yeah.
[2:05:03] And I think that's what deep down drew you to Ron. Now, the reason I was asking earlier, well, you've got your mother, you've got your grandmother. What did they say about Ron? Well, my grandmother only told me after I was married that she didn't really approve. she didn't think he was the right guy my mother didn't really say much of anything after two years she said he had to move out because he was drinking because if your mother and your grandmother had said you deserve better than ron they would also be saying you deserve better than who them yeah than them you deserve better than ron means you deserve better than us which means they have to admit their deficiencies which they're not going to do, at least not then right yeah, and this is how we get trapped in these underworlds.
[2:06:09] Yeah, I think you're absolutely right.
[2:06:21] So, you were withdrawn because you had not judged your family of origin morally.
[2:06:33] Yeah.
[2:06:34] Because if you'd have said, look, I am worth something. I am worthwhile. I'm intelligent. I'm sensitive. I love philosophy. I'm rational. I'm curious. I'm empathetic. I'm warm. I am worth something. And the people who treat me like I'm worthless are wrong and cold and cruel. They're wrong. Now, if you say that, what happens at home?
[2:07:10] They would start to feel like they were in the wrong, and they don't want to do that.
[2:07:17] Right. How did your feelings, if these feelings are valid, and we're just hypothesizing here, right? And anything that doesn't match your experience, please just tell me and I'll toss it aside. So how did your feelings of not being worth much, if anything, how did they affect how you interacted with Ron?
[2:07:45] Codependent.
[2:07:46] That's a nice label. Tell me what that means practically.
[2:07:55] Um i mean we we have lived together for a really long time, and because we self-isolated in a way like we we could only be each other in front of each other like talk about the things that we wanted to talk about um not to very many people and uh, if he left like i would want him to come back immediately or i would have um really low moments where i needed like a lot of reassurance um, much like an anxious attachment style.
[2:08:42] So it sounds a little bit like you needed him more than you wanted him.
[2:08:54] I could see that.
[2:08:58] Okay. Why did he say, do you think, we're just theorizing again, right? Why do you think he said he never loved you after the miscarriage? What was the circumstances of that?
[2:09:21] Maybe it was the same for him.
[2:09:25] No, no, that's very abstract. Why do you think he said that? Was there a conflict or a fight or something going on? Because I'm sure he didn't just wake up and say, you know, I never, right? I mean, there had to be something that was going on that that was involved with.
[2:09:45] Yeah. It was a really difficult time.
[2:09:49] I understand that, but a difficult time, hang on, a difficult time. can as easily bring couples closer together as drive them apart. You've heard the phrase close ranks, right? In the face of difficulties, you close ranks, you get closer together, you support each other more.
[2:10:13] Yeah.
[2:10:15] I mean, if someone, if you're a guy and someone starts beating up on your friend, you don't join the guy beating up on your friend, right? You stick together with your friend and fight back, right?
[2:10:26] Absolutely.
[2:10:27] So it's not the difficult time that causes it.
[2:10:33] I don't know. I don't know why he said that.
[2:10:45] Well, what virtues were you exhibiting over the course of the seven years that you were with Ron? Or, to put it another way, why was Ron with you?
[2:11:10] I don't know. He wanted, well, okay, I can't say that I don't know. He told me that he liked the idea of having a family.
[2:11:21] Yeah, but you guys were together for years before all of that, right? We were together. What drew him to you?
[2:11:35] I think the same as me having similar ideals, and wants out of life.
[2:11:45] No but you didn't have similar ideals and wants out of life otherwise you'd still be together.
[2:11:51] I guess so.
[2:11:53] So why was he drawn to you he thought that.
[2:11:55] I was attractive.
[2:11:56] Okay so he thought you were attractive what else.
[2:12:03] I'm very creative.
[2:12:05] I know.
[2:12:07] How to sew.
[2:12:08] I'm sorry?
[2:12:10] I know how to sew I cook I cook every day, I clean I clean the house that's everything that I did for him.
[2:12:33] And did your sex life work out over the course of the relationship as a whole?
[2:12:40] No.
[2:12:41] And what happened there?
[2:12:48] There wasn't a lot of remeus. There wasn't a lot of foreplay.
[2:13:00] And in the last year of your- He kind of gave up. I'm so sorry, go ahead.
[2:13:05] He gave up, like on self-care, hygiene, yeah. I think that we kind of lived like an older couple lifestyle, very young.
[2:13:25] I see what you mean it.
[2:13:26] Was very um, yeah it fell flat really fast after we got married.
[2:13:33] Okay and sorry just remind me which year you got married in 2023 so what was your sexual frequency over the last year that you were together yeah.
[2:13:47] Not very often.
[2:13:49] Just once a month, once a week, once every six months?
[2:13:54] Maybe once or twice a month.
[2:13:56] Okay. And you had no particular health issues. I mean, I know you had the preeclampsia earlier, but with regards to, sorry, later, but with regards to over the course of your marriage as a whole, once or twice a month, were there any health issues that were interfering with sexuality?
[2:14:18] Um, after the miscarriage, I gained a lot of weight and I just didn't feel like myself. I was really depressed.
[2:14:27] And how much weight did you gain?
[2:14:32] Um, maybe about 50 pounds.
[2:14:35] 50 pounds. And how tall are you?
[2:14:38] 5'7".
[2:14:39] Okay. And was that because you were depressed and you were overeating and you weren't exercising? Is that right?
[2:14:50] I was not allowed to leave my house to exercise because my husband didn't want me to without him. Sorry, hang on, hang on.
[2:15:02] You keep saying these things like I've known this somehow. So your husband didn't want you to leave the house?
[2:15:10] Yes.
[2:15:10] And why is that?
[2:15:13] Because he felt it was unsafe for me to leave.
[2:15:19] And why was it unsafe to leave?
[2:15:23] I lived in an apartment complex. He was, I don't know, I think it was a sense of control to have control over me to not be able to leave.
[2:15:36] Hang on, but we've gone from his justifications to what you think, as if, why did he say it was unsafe?
[2:15:48] Because he wasn't there. Like, if I wanted to go, um, to the, you know, to the gym by myself, like, at the apartment complex, he wasn't there. He would say it was unsafe.
[2:15:59] Oh, so the gym was, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on. So the gym was in the apartment complex?
[2:16:05] Yes.
[2:16:06] Okay, and you couldn't go down to the gym in the apartment complex?
[2:16:09] No.
[2:16:12] Do you live in a very dangerous neighborhood?
[2:16:17] No.
[2:16:18] Okay, and sorry you said also that his personal hygiene dropped off is that right, yes and what does that mean he didn't bathe or what does that mean.
[2:16:32] Yeah maybe like once a week um he has he needs two root canals at least.
[2:16:42] Oh his teeth are bad is that um.
[2:16:44] Yes okay, Amongst other things.
[2:16:51] Okay, got it Okay I mean, so the marriage was kind of dying, right?
[2:17:00] Yeah I think so.
[2:17:03] Okay And then you started trying to have another baby, right?
[2:17:10] Yeah Why?
[2:17:13] You're barely having sex Hang on You're barely having sex he's controlling won't even let you go downstairs even though you live in a pretty safe neighborhood, he's not taking care of his hygiene he's not taking care of his health his teeth are rotting you're 50 pounds overweight you're depressed and did you sit down and say we should we should try to have another baby.
[2:17:45] Before that I said I wanted to lose weight, and I wanted him to have a lifestyle change as well. I lost weight. I lost maybe 30 pounds.
[2:18:01] Congratulations.
[2:18:02] Thank you. But his lifestyle didn't change.
[2:18:10] So why did you choose to have a baby in this situation?
[2:18:19] He told me that he really wanted to because it was the next step in our relationship. And I believed that it would be better.
[2:18:29] Sorry, what would be better?
[2:18:32] Having a baby.
[2:18:35] Oh, the baby's going to fix things?
[2:18:36] Having a baby. Yes.
[2:18:39] Because that's the baby's job, apparently, is to fix your marriage and fix your life. You're putting that poor kid to work pretty early, young lady.
[2:18:48] Yeah i think it's more so like um with the miscarriage i felt like i wasn't, a woman like i didn't think that i could have a child um i felt like maybe there was like a chemical imbalance happening with me where i couldn't and it had a lot of self.
[2:19:13] But i mean like a third of pregnancies and miscarriage that doesn't necessarily mean that there's some permanent issue yeah.
[2:19:20] I thought there was um.
[2:19:23] What do you mean you felt there was did you talk to a doctor no i didn't so you just had a feeling that maybe you couldn't be a woman and get pregnant in that way i.
[2:19:37] Think i was beating myself up about it.
[2:19:41] Okay okay all right so in in this situation you thought let's have a kid.
[2:19:49] I thought maybe having a child would maybe this is really delusional um but i think like sometimes when somebody has a kid like there's an awakening for.
[2:20:04] Them like that's a hell of a dice roll that's a hell of a dice roll though because you're dicing with a kid's life yes so that's a hell of a i hope i hope the baby fixes my husband and yourself right yeah okay, and when over the course of pregnancy and childbirth i guess because he left before that so he said i really want to have a baby it's the next step in our relationship, and then when you got pregnant he seemed unhappy is that right if i remember that right, absolutely okay um.
[2:20:48] When did that happen.
[2:20:50] Well you said i was going to ask when that happened but then i remember it's when you were you got the pregnancy test and you found out that you were pregnant, that's when he was unhappy, right?
[2:21:03] Yes.
[2:21:04] And was he already sleeping with the other woman?
[2:21:09] He's never told me the truth about that.
[2:21:11] Okay. Do you think he was?
[2:21:14] Absolutely.
[2:21:15] I mean, it's kind of hard to think that he's bathing once a week and has rotten teeth and he's got a side piece. But I mean, what do I know? I mean, this is a whole new world that's out there that I'm not really a part of, but it just seems kind of odd to me. okay and do you think that he was i mean if you had to guess do you think that he was cheating on you while at the same time saying that he really wanted to have a baby because that was the next step in your relationship i think so okay um.
[2:21:45] He told me my child should have never been born. Like I was never supposed to get pregnant.
[2:21:55] So he went from saying that he wants to have a baby with you to saying that the baby should never have been born. And that was after your daughter was born. Is that right?
[2:22:08] This was before.
[2:22:09] Before. So he said not that your baby shouldn't have been born because this is before your baby was born, but you were never supposed to get pregnant and the baby should never be born. Is that right?
[2:22:19] Yeah.
[2:22:20] It's a little sinister. Okay. All right.
[2:22:27] That statement and also the statement of trying to replace me with another woman that he's known for a very long time, but I don't know, personally know her. I felt it pointed in the direction of he's saying somebody else. I mean, why else would you be saying those things?
[2:22:54] Right.
[2:22:55] Or, you know.
[2:22:56] Right. Okay. And I suppose that there's no chance or desire for you guys to get back together. Is that right?
[2:23:09] No. No.
[2:23:11] And is that because you don't want to or he doesn't want to or both?
[2:23:18] I i held out as long as i possibly could until i realized that he was lying to me about seeing somebody else and then i just realized like he's gone, So I don't know why I would, because I tried. I don't think he has any interest.
[2:23:42] Sorry, you tried what?
[2:23:45] Tried to fix whatever was going on with the relationship. I felt like I don't actually... At the time, I didn't know what was happening. I thought maybe he was scared about becoming a dad.
[2:24:02] Well, okay, but sorry.
[2:24:03] Hang on. Maybe he was going through.
[2:24:04] Let's just back up a second here. So for how long had your sexual frequency been very low?
[2:24:12] For quite a while.
[2:24:14] Okay, that doesn't tell me anything. Come on. It's two and a half hours. Help me out here.
[2:24:19] I would say, so we had the miscarriage in 2022.
[2:24:24] Yeah.
[2:24:25] That was around the time. Yeah.
[2:24:27] So before that, your sexual frequency was high. After the miscarriage, your sexual frequency was low. Is that right?
[2:24:35] Yes.
[2:24:36] Okay. And high means what?
[2:24:43] Maybe almost every day.
[2:24:45] Okay. So you're having a lot of sex and then you have a miscarriage and then it goes to once or twice a month. Is that right?
[2:24:51] Yeah.
[2:24:52] Okay. And is that because he was initiating, but you felt sad and depressed? or was that because neither of you were initiating or what was going on that caused the sexual frequency to drop that much?
[2:25:09] It was because I was sad and depressed.
[2:25:11] Okay. And how was he in terms of comfort over the course of the miscarriage?
[2:25:23] Not very comforting.
[2:25:25] And did he have negative things to say about you regarding the miscarriage?
[2:25:32] Yeah.
[2:25:33] And what did he say?
[2:25:42] More than most of the time, he didn't want to talk about it. He said, maybe I am not woman enough. And when he didn't want to talk about it, he just mainly wanted to drink, or he would put a drink in my hand, so neither of us would talk about it anymore.
[2:26:03] And you really felt that a baby was going to fix this?
[2:26:11] No.
[2:26:12] But so then, why? Why the baby?
[2:26:17] Because I thought things were better, or getting better, or they could change. I don't know.
[2:26:24] No, they could change means that you're hoping the baby's going to fix it.
[2:26:28] I guess so.
[2:26:29] I mean, you came from a family where babies fixed nothing. Your mother had a baby. Did it fix her? no your dad had a baby did it fix him, how about your dad's mom did it fix her, no please tell me your aunt didn't have children.
[2:26:55] She did not.
[2:26:56] Okay so having children didn't fix people not having children didn't fix anyone so why would you think it would, you had literally almost a quarter century of experience knowing that babies don't fix anyone yeah i'll buck that trend i'll be the first.
[2:27:22] I think, it's very important for the world to have another child like my child.
[2:27:34] I get that. I understand. I'm a big pronatalist, right? I'm a big fan of people having children. But single motherhood is tough. It's tough on kids.
[2:27:45] It is.
[2:27:45] Right?
[2:27:47] Yeah.
[2:27:48] I mean...
[2:27:48] I never wanted that for my child.
[2:27:52] Well, that's a lovely thing to hear, but it's probably not fundamentally true. And I'm not saying you wanted it for your child but a blind man could see that that's where you were heading right yeah.
[2:28:04] I guess so.
[2:28:04] I mean the marriage was a shambles your husband's a mess right yeah and did he ever own up to any of his lying, no did you ever own up to any of your lying, yeah uh to your mom yes okay so you did say i'm so sorry that i hid his drinking from you yes okay and did you lie to him about anything important.
[2:28:48] Yeah.
[2:28:50] I mean, you can share that or not. It's up to you. But did you own up to him about what you lied to him about?
[2:28:58] Yeah.
[2:28:59] And do you want to share what it was or not?
[2:29:02] Yeah.
[2:29:03] And what did you lie to him about?
[2:29:10] He proposed to me in 2021. anyone, but I didn't feel like I was in love with him. Oh, this is three years after you got together.
[2:29:23] Right?
[2:29:24] Yes.
[2:29:25] Okay, so three years after you got together, you're not in love with him. Go ahead.
[2:29:29] But after the miscarriage, I felt totally different about him. I don't know.
[2:29:42] Sorry i don't understand this i asked you what you lied you said well i didn't love him in 2021 after the miscarriage i did but i still don't know what you lied about.
[2:29:52] Yeah telling him that i loved him and that i wanted to marry him i didn't really want to.
[2:29:57] Oh so hang on sorry sorry to interrupt so after the miscarriage you lied to him and you told him that you loved him and wanted to marry him when you neither loved him nor wanted to marry him.
[2:30:09] Yeah but the miscarriage really changed the way that i felt about him.
[2:30:14] I'm sorry i don't understand now so the miscarriage made you love him more or less more so he's putting drinks in your hands saying you're not enough of a woman kind of half blaming you for some aspects of miscarriage and you're like i love him now because.
[2:30:32] He treated me like trash.
[2:30:33] So you loved him because he was treating you like trash maybe well no no i'm sorry i'm really confused here you lied about wanting to bury him and loving him is that right, yeah okay and did you ever confess that to him i did and when did you do that.
[2:31:03] Um, he asked me if I did. And I told him no, I didn't. I didn't. Like he asked me if I loved him. I told him that I loved him.
[2:31:14] When?
[2:31:15] Oh, I'm so sorry. It was after the miscarriage had happened.
[2:31:26] Okay, so after the miscarriage, he said, did you ever love me? And you said no.
[2:31:31] Yeah.
[2:31:33] Okay which.
[2:31:34] Is probably why he said that he didn't he'd never loved me right.
[2:31:37] You kind of admitted that earlier right because that makes him sound like kind of a jerk but okay so you lied to him said i want to marry you i love you when you didn't want to marry him and didn't love him, and then it wasn't until after he was treating you badly after the miscarriage that you really loved him?
[2:32:01] Yeah.
[2:32:02] You know, women can be a little confusing.
[2:32:06] I guess so.
[2:32:09] Don't guess. It's true. It's true. All right. So maybe him saying, I want to have a baby and then abandoning you was his revenge for you saying you wanted to love him or you wanted to marry him when you didn't.
[2:32:26] I felt that. at times.
[2:32:28] I'm sorry, you felt that at times?
[2:32:31] Yeah, I felt like that was his revenge.
[2:32:35] Right. And do you think, or do you have a, have you had much of a discussion about his role in his daughter's life going forward?
[2:32:51] I mean, with the divorce happening, um, it would be like standard visitation.
[2:33:00] I don't know what standard visitation means. Don't tell me where you live, but I mean, what does that mean in practical terms?
[2:33:07] Oh, um, so like every other weekend.
[2:33:11] Oh, so you'd have majority custody, right? He'd just get her every other weekend.
[2:33:15] Yeah.
[2:33:16] Okay. And he doesn't want any more than that. Is that right?
[2:33:22] Not that he's expressed.
[2:33:25] Okay. And will he be paying child support?
[2:33:31] He lost his job three months ago.
[2:33:35] Oh. So that's a no?
[2:33:41] Yeah.
[2:33:42] Okay. What are you going to live on?
[2:33:48] Um... I'll have to get a job.
[2:33:56] Well, who's going to take care of your daughter?
[2:34:01] Unfortunately, she's going to have to go into childcare.
[2:34:04] How are you going to pay for childcare?
[2:34:08] It's a good question.
[2:34:14] What's your time frame? I mean, when do you have to make these decisions?
[2:34:22] February.
[2:34:24] Oh, gosh. Oh, because you've got a year of mat leave, right?
[2:34:30] I am currently living with my family. I am on social services. I don't get welfare or anything like that. But it's like food for children and medical care. So the basic necessities I don't have to worry about at the moment. So I am a stay-at-home mom to make sure my child doesn't have to go into daycare before she's one years old.
[2:35:06] And have you looked up how much daycare costs in your neck of the woods?
[2:35:11] Yes. it can be like a thousand dollars a week for an infant.
[2:35:15] Okay and i don't know how much money you make but i assume that that's going to be pretty tough yeah.
[2:35:24] There's no it's not even possible.
[2:35:26] Okay so what's going to happen have you and your husband discussed this.
[2:35:35] Um i i don't think he cares.
[2:35:40] Well.
[2:35:41] Whether he cares or not.
[2:35:42] Hang on, whether he cares or not, he's responsible. He chose to have a child. So it doesn't really matter whether he cares or not. He's responsible.
[2:35:54] Yes.
[2:35:58] I mean, he's...
[2:35:59] He just thinks everything is going to be buttoned.
[2:36:01] I mean, is he obligated to pay child support? Has that been determined?
[2:36:08] Yes.
[2:36:09] Okay. And he's not paying it. Is that right?
[2:36:13] No.
[2:36:14] Okay. Does he have no savings?
[2:36:19] I think his mother is giving him money.
[2:36:24] Okay. So then he can pay some child support. yeah okay so i mean he should pay his child support shouldn't he, yeah okay he should yeah okay i mean it's i assume helpful for your daughter and and so on right and you know if you if you have a kid you have obligations right yeah absolutely okay so, going forward you know a, what are you looking for in a future I know it's relatively recent that he left October and so on right but what do you think you're looking for long term in a man, to have in a man.
[2:37:19] Honesty integrity I'm sticking around when times are tough or giving up bad habits, I just want a good father for my child, but I'm also just really scared about, Like the abandonment again seven years is a long time to be with somebody and then have to start over and Oh.
[2:37:51] Hang on. No, no, no. You don't get to do the victim thing. Sorry. You married him when you didn't love him, and you lied to him about that. This is not you being abandoned.
[2:38:02] Okay.
[2:38:03] No, come on. You lied to him, and you said, I love you, and I want to marry you, and neither of those things were true. If I understand what you said earlier, and I'm sorry if I got that wrong.
[2:38:14] No, you're right.
[2:38:15] Okay, so you're not abandoned in that way, right? I mean, you could argue that, You lied to him into marriage. Because if you'd said, I don't love you and I don't want to marry you, would he have married you?
[2:38:29] When he proposed to me, yeah, I didn't love him and I didn't want to marry him.
[2:38:35] Okay, so if you had been honest with him, then you wouldn't have gotten married, right?
[2:38:43] Yeah.
[2:38:44] So you deceived him into marrying you.
[2:38:51] Not when we got married. I did let him know that I didn't love him and that I was unsure about marrying him because I didn't love him. But we got married after we had the miscarriage, like about a year after.
[2:39:11] Okay, so you lied to him and then you told him the truth and then he married you?
[2:39:18] Yes.
[2:39:19] Okay, so... he decided to marry you after you were depressed, gained 50 pounds, and told him that you didn't love him and didn't want to get married.
[2:39:32] Yeah, but then I told him that I did love him because we had that miscarriage, like the trauma of going through that together made me love him.
[2:39:42] But that's a lie because he was not very good over the course of the miscarriage, is that right?
[2:39:51] After the fact like after it happened yeah he wasn't.
[2:39:55] Okay so you didn't fall in love with him because he was not very helpful over the course of the miscarriage and in fact sounds a little harmful.
[2:40:07] Yeah i guess so.
[2:40:09] Well i mean did you love him after he was cold after the miscarriage.
[2:40:16] I thought I did.
[2:40:17] Oh come on Come on Come on What does that mean He said you weren't woman enough He gave you drinks He didn't talk about it He drank himself, Right That's not good How does that make you fall in love with him, Isn't the truth that you were just afraid He was going to leave you because you gained weight and were depressed. And you thought maybe you couldn't have kids, so you just wanted to lock down the deal? I mean, could we be frank with each other?
[2:41:01] Yeah.
[2:41:10] You told him what he wanted to hear so that he'd marry you. I think, because it doesn't make any sense that you didn't love him. And then you had this terrible miscarriage. You were super depressed, gained all of this weight. He was pretty negative over the course of the miscarriage. And then you're like, but I love him. Like, that doesn't make any sense, right? I think you said stuff so that you'd get married so that he wouldn't leave you.
[2:41:32] Yeah.
[2:41:33] Now, if I'm wrong, obviously, I don't want to be unfair, but it's the only thing that makes sense to me, but it's not my life. So you're the authority in this matter.
[2:41:47] I think you're right.
[2:41:50] And so if you lied to him to get married it wasn't going to work right and then you can't say oh i was abandoned now yeah he should have known you well enough to know that this was not, super honest or upfront or direct right well now that now that you've been kind of cold to me over the miscarriage i really love you i didn't before but now like that doesn't make any sense so he could have been a bit more skeptical about that kind of stuff but it sounds like you kind of played each other like you played him in a marriage and then he played you in a single motherhood so to speak but you can't just say i was abandoned because that's not i don't think that's the mechanics i'm not saying you weren't abandoned but that's not the only thing that was going on i think yeah.
[2:42:39] I never thought about it perspective perspective.
[2:42:46] So uh going forward i mean we can just spend another few minutes here i generally peter out after about three hours so so uh going going forward i mean obviously you have some challenges right you've got to figure out this codependency thing as you as you call it and and again massive sympathies for what happened to you as a child i never want any anything that i say to eclipse that because that's you know real awful terrible horrible stuff i'm sure his childhood was was equally wretched in some ways. So going forward, you've got to figure out how to want people rather than need them. Nobody is ever going to make you feel worthwhile if you don't feel it yourself. Nobody can fix if you feel worthless. Nobody can fix that. There is no external solution to the problem of insecurity. You have to confront what happened in your childhood, hold the people accountable, and say they were wrong. They were wrong. You're not worthless.
[2:43:44] You're not garbage. You're not trash. You're not a punching bag. You're not annoying. You're not irritating. You are a precious sovereign soul who needs, as we all do, to strive towards the summit of virtue, kicking and scratching as we have to get there. This is a Christian journey with regards to your faith. We're born in a fallen state. We have to climb to virtue. We're born, most of us mistreated and we have to climb to integrity. So for you to have a quality relationship at some point in the future, there's one simple thing you need to do. Are you ready?
[2:44:28] Yes.
[2:44:29] Are you sitting down?
[2:44:31] Yes.
[2:44:32] Are you in the crash position? I'm just kidding. Sitting down is fine. Okay. So what you have to do is you have to look at yourself from the outside in and say, how do i look to a really quality man so what does a really quality man look at if he looks at your life and your environment and your relationships.
[2:44:56] Uh yeah he would probably run away.
[2:44:59] Okay so what what does he see that would be negative for him.
[2:45:05] Um i'm unemployed recently just had a baby um, live with my parents.
[2:45:19] Well yeah yeah mother, i mean there's no parents plural right your dad died yeah okay and what does he uh he sits down for coffee with your mother, and he's a perceptive, intelligent guy. And what does he see?
[2:45:39] At my household?
[2:45:41] Mm-hmm.
[2:45:45] Three single women, living in a house together.
[2:45:52] Okay, so he evaluates your aunt, he evaluates your mother, and what does he think of them, assuming that he's an intelligent and perceptive man which is assuming what you're looking for, um are you still there yes.
[2:46:16] Can you hear me.
[2:46:17] Yeah i couldn't hear you for a moment okay what does he think.
[2:46:21] Um oh um and i would say that you would probably think that they're kind of crazy.
[2:46:27] Is this a family he wants to join and are these going to be good people to have his kids around, probably not i mean let's say he's i mean you're going to need a guy who's going to make some money right? Because he's going to have to support you, your kid, and any other kids going forward, right?
[2:46:49] Yes.
[2:46:50] So he's going to need to be intelligent and successful, right? And intelligent men who are successful are usually quite perceptive and accurate in their evaluations, right? Yeah. So is this a family that he wants to join?
[2:47:08] No.
[2:47:09] Why not?
[2:47:17] Because we're all single women.
[2:47:23] That's not necessarily the reason.
[2:47:27] Oh, because of the, it's a dysfunctional household.
[2:47:36] I thought your aunt was better and your mother had apologized. What's dysfunctional still?
[2:47:44] I mean, it's still kind of there, right? Like, people don't always get over things or tension can still be there. Lots of, like, generational trauma, I guess.
[2:48:07] Mm-hmm.
[2:48:13] I think I would have to fix things within myself before ever trying to look for something that I feel like I am worthy of.
[2:48:24] Yeah. So is your family of origin, are they going to be a plus to a competent, intelligent, successful man? Or is it going to be kind of depressing and you'd be sitting there like, what am I doing here?
[2:48:44] Maybe. I think it could be either or. There's good things to my family. It's not like all negative.
[2:48:56] Okay, let me put it to you this way. Okay, nothing's all negative, so I get that, right? But let me put it to you this way. So a man who loves you finds out that your mother was sitting on you and calling the cops on you and, you know, was so unbearable to live around that you ended up hanging around with Satanists at 13, drinking, smoking, and getting sexually assaulted. What's he going to think sitting across the table from your mother?
[2:49:28] Probably wouldn't think too highly of her.
[2:49:30] Okay. Do you want to try that one again, but don't bullshit me?
[2:49:35] Oh, that he wouldn't. He absolutely wouldn't think very highly of her. Okay. Probably wouldn't want to be part of her.
[2:49:41] Want to try that again without bullshitting me?
[2:49:46] That he wouldn't want to be part of that.
[2:49:48] Okay. Let me ask you this. Let me ask you this. Let me ask you this. You have a daughter. let's say when and this is a nightmare scenario it's purely theoretical it's never going to happen just let's be clear about that but let's say you hire a babysitter when she's 13 right, and then you find out when you get back that your daughter is gone that your babysitter was so violent and dangerous that your daughter had to flee the house and she ended up, getting kidnapped and sexually assaulted because of what the babysitter did, what would you think of that babysitter?
[2:50:31] And want that person in jail.
[2:50:33] Right! Would you just... Well, I wouldn't think too highly of her.
[2:50:40] Okay. All right. I see what you're saying.
[2:50:42] You see what I'm saying? You see, someone coming in from outside your family has no allegiance, no history at all. He looks at these people objectively With no sentimentality And no prior bond And if he loves you, And he looks at your mother And sees what she was responsible for He would have to leave the house For fear of doing something dangerous to her Do you understand? Yeah Now, You have to process that with your mother in order to get a quality guy. Because that's just someone coming in from the outside. This actually happened to you. Who was responsible for you getting sexually assaulted?
[2:51:44] Yes.
[2:51:45] Who was responsible for you getting sexually assaulted?
[2:51:49] My mom.
[2:51:50] Your parents.
[2:51:52] Yes.
[2:51:53] And your aunt and your grandmother. father. The adults in the house and your father are responsible for you being sexually assaulted. Do you get that?
[2:52:08] Yes.
[2:52:12] Do you really?
[2:52:14] Yes.
[2:52:17] That's what you need to process to get a quality guy. Because a quality guy, if he comes around, he says, oh, you're great, you know, you're smart, you're funny, you're warm and you know philosophical listen to free domain radio or listen to free domain no better, no better green flag and then you're like yeah i have a good relationship with my mother that's what you said to earlier do you remember i said did my jaws on the floor i said how's your relationship with your mother you said good sister she drove you out of the house where you got sexually assaulted, don't give me this good bullshit I get that there's a desperation there because that's where you're living right now so you don't have a lot of choices and a lot of options I get it's complicated but don't tell me good, because if anyone did that to your daughter it would take four security guards to pry your fingers from their neck wouldn't it.
[2:53:22] Yes it would.
[2:53:33] So, that's, and obviously I don't do anything violent, I'm just saying that's the level of anger that occurs in these situations. So, in order for you to be worth something, the people who treated you like garbage, you've got to get angry at them. And this can be entirely in your own mind, this can be like writing letters that you burn, but you were terribly treated, and you're not angry about it, and that's because. you've normalized it and you need to de-normalize it. This was appalling. And you need, like, why, why, why is your daughter so much more worthy of protection than you are? Why would you be incredibly angry at a babysitter who drove your daughter out into the night where she would get assaulted, but you have a good relationship with your mom? who did the same.
[2:54:37] Because I don't want anything that ever happened to me as a child to happen to her.
[2:54:42] I get it. And I appreciate that. And I think that's great. Unfortunately, one of the things has happened, right?
[2:54:52] Yeah.
[2:54:52] There's no doubt. It doesn't mean it has to keep happening or get worse. And in fact, it can get better. But you've got to fight for your own soul and you've got to fight for your own pride. And that means getting angry at the people who mistreated you.
[2:55:11] Yeah.
[2:55:13] And that anger says, it says to your soul, I deserve better. I'm worth more. Does that make sense?
[2:55:22] Absolutely.
[2:55:25] And all of this is said with deep humility right i i you're further ahead than i was at your age so you know take take pride in that and um i i have massive sympathies for everything you went through, but you got to start fighting for yourself and realize that you are just as precious as your daughter is, and people who would harm your daughter would make you very angry, and the people who harmed you should make you no less angry, this is what I refer to as universalism. This is UPB. You matter. Your daughters matter. Those who harm your daughter, you'd be angry at. Those who harmed you, you're angry at. Whether I say it or not, it's there. And if you get angry at having been mistreated, that's when you deserve better. it's kind of like if you're at a restaurant and they serve you food that's kind of cold and not great. If you get angry enough or you won't accept it, then you send the food back and then you get better food, right? Or you get a refund or something. But if you just sit there and eat it, you don't get anything better. Does that make sense?
[2:56:43] Yes.
[2:56:43] Send it back. people trying to put this label on you worthless send it back no i'm not i deserve better get me a new meal does that make sense yes okay good good listen if your husband wants to call in i'm happy to talk to him as well um you know i mean obviously it would be best for the kid if you could get back together. It's best for your daughter if you could get back together. It's not likely things are going to work out very well with the new woman because she took a guy whose wife was pregnant. So that's pretty bad. But anyway, I hope either way you'll keep me posted about how things are going. And I certainly wish you and your daughter and your husband as well, the very best going forward.
[2:57:36] Thank you so much for listening to me and giving me a new perspective.
[2:57:42] You're very welcome.
[2:57:43] It's what I've always enjoyed about you.
[2:57:44] And I hope you'll keep me posted about how things are going and if there's anything I can do, please let me know, all right?
[2:57:50] Absolutely.
[2:57:50] Thank you so much. Big kiss. Bye.
[2:57:53] Bye.
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