0:04 - Cutting Ties with Family
1:45 - Guilt and Forgiveness
3:50 - The Weight of Choices
5:29 - Seeking Support and Understanding
6:35 - The Role of Counseling
9:02 - Childhood Reflections
9:42 - The Letter of Grievances
11:55 - Confronting Past Abuse
13:57 - The Impact of Silence
15:26 - Understanding the Abusers
15:52 - The Reality of Abuse
16:30 - The Complexity of Parental Responsibility
18:22 - Examining Family Dynamics
20:44 - The Weight of Responsibility
21:56 - Recognizing Abuse Patterns
24:19 - The Cycle of Enabling
25:33 - The Struggle for Clarity
26:49 - Moral Accountability
27:53 - The Nature of Denial
28:48 - Seeking Redemption
30:23 - The Cost of Silence
31:29 - Confronting Ignorance
33:04 - The Importance of Vigilance
35:02 - Understanding the Past
36:35 - The Family's Role in Abuse
38:11 - Keeping Secrets
40:45 - The Difficulty of Acceptance
42:27 - Moving Forward
44:27 - Breaking the Cycle
47:08 - The Path to Healing
1:11:58 - The Weight of Responsibility
1:13:39 - The Burden of Past Trauma
1:14:28 - Seeking Restitution
1:16:56 - The Complexity of Forgiveness
1:21:56 - Sibling Dynamics Unveiled
1:23:23 - The Impact of Favoritism
1:27:33 - The Illusion of Power
1:31:28 - The Trap of Sentimentality
1:32:07 - The Nature of Manipulation
1:50:08 - Choosing to Cut Ties
2:01:39 - The Limits of Change
In this episode, we assist a couple grappling with the heavy decision of potentially reopening communication with their parents after a painful estrangement that began in October 2024. They share a profound sense of relief and happiness since cutting ties, stemming from their parents' constant disrespect regarding their parenting choices. With two young sons, they reflect on their feelings of being criticized, especially by the mother, who has consistently favored the caller's sister and her family over them. Previous attempts to voice their grievances to their parents resulted in being dismissed and gaslit, reinforcing their decision to sever ties.
As the couple examines their current situation, they wrestle with guilt and conflicting emotions. The caller expresses nostalgia for the more positive interactions, especially with their father, who was less involved in their mother's critique but may also share the blame due to his failure to protect the children from ongoing abuse. They recount their father's reluctance to confront their mother, leading to a sense of entrapment, modeled in their upbringing where no boundaries were upheld, and family members with questionable intentions were allowed near them. The episode digs deep into the long-term impact of such family dynamics, discussing how the shadow of familial favoritism has affected the individual's relationship with their sister.
The conversation shifts towards the societal pressures rooted in their shared religious beliefs, which weigh heavily on their minds as they contemplate forgiveness. Feeling pressure from family members urging them to reconnect with their parents, the couple grapples with their identity within their faith, questioning their perceived righteousness amid their valid concerns. The fear of their children missing out on the experience of having grandparents in their lives adds further complexity to their dilemma.
Listeners can sense the couple's internal struggle as they navigate financial barriers and the emotional toll of their past. They reveal hesitation about whether it would be wise to try and mend ties or if the consequences would deepen the wounds and erode their parental authority. Throughout the discussion, the expert provides insight on discernment in familial relationships and the obligations that come with parenthood. By weighing the nuances of love, safety, and boundaries against the backdrop of familial duty, judgement is cast upon the idea that reconnecting without accountability may not be in their best interest—emotionally or psychologically.
This thought-provoking episode urges listeners to consider the complexities of family dynamics, the responsibilities of being a parent and the weight of forgiveness amidst deep-seated grievances. It's an invitation to reflect on one's boundaries and the importance of prioritization in maintaining a safe and nurturing environment for future generations.
[0:00] My husband and I cut contact with my parents back on October 18th, 2024.
[0:05] We've been mostly happy since, but I find myself debating if we should reopen communication. The main reasons we cut contact are my parents frequently disrespected and disregarded our parenting choices. For reference, we have a two-year-old son and another son due in June. They were hypercritical of us, especially my mother. They treat my sister and her husband much better than they treat me and my husband, always have, especially mom. And when we tried to bring our grievances to them, we were told we were wrong and told to apologize for even bringing up the past. My mother never apologizes for anything, and all of this has reminded me of a lot of past hurt. I realize I disagree with many of the things that my mother did throughout my life. As we were trying to work things out with them, even trying to set rules for the relationship, my sister, who should never have known any part of our discussion but was clearly told by my mother, blew up at my husband after he sent a text to the family sharing one of your podcasts, which was misinterpreted as an attack on my parents.
[1:15] My sister and her husband called my husband terrible names, like that he is evil, and cut contact with us without any prior warning. My parents responded by chastising my husband and I for the misinterpreted text, yet did not address my sister or brother-in-law in any way. This was the final straw for us choosing to cut contact with them. We've been pretty happy since. Even our son has been noticeably happier, but I'm starting to wonder if we should give them another chance.
[1:46] We've had other family members attempt to persuade us to give them chances, telling us they miss us and are now, quote, willing to do anything.
[1:55] Some have tried to guilt trip us by saying we're not being very Christ-like or forgiving, and we are a very religious Christian family, and quoting scriptures at us to prove us wrong, especially since my parents are now supposedly ready to repent and we are denying them. I'm starting to wonder if I am being a bad Christian and if this might hurt our son. Without my parents, he doesn't have a grandma and only has one grandpa who has medical issues. We know it is statistically better for children to have grandparents in their lives. I also do find myself missing them somewhat. I don't miss my sister at all, and I barely miss my mother, but I do miss my dad. He was not usually the one hurting me and was often away from home with work. Whenever Dad was around, my mother was on noticeably better behavior, being kinder and far less critical.
[2:51] Dad was usually just ignorant of what was going on, so a lot of our issues kind of blindsided him. Dad used to even agree with me in secret when we'd actually get time, just the two of us, and I'd complain to him about Mom, but always said that's just how she is.
[3:08] I have asked myself what I miss, and there is an honest part of me that misses what they provided us. I miss the gifts the financial help the service they would provide and I really miss Talking with hugging and having fun with my dad But i'm struggling to truly weigh all the pros and cons And if it's really worth it to give them another chance my counselor thinks we should My husband does not at all I'm, very torn and being pregnant and hormonal is not helping And making it's making me more sentimental and possibly clouding my judgment I try to be a very rational, logical person, but there's always an emotional factor to things.
[3:50] It is so hard, though, when things come up, to have no one to turn to or rely on. We are struggling a bit financially, and I know my parents would help like they did before, but it was always begrudgingly and with complaints and specific requirements to repay them when my brother and sister get help for free. The double standards are awful, but I still love my parents and my family. I wish I could reopen communication with just my dad, maybe just for holidays, and test to see if they're sincerely sorry. I doubt I could ever trust them again, but it hurts to not have parents and to have my few other family members staying neutral or avoiding us or trying to convince us.
[4:38] I find myself wondering if we were set financially, and if my father-in-law were healthy, and or if I could find, like, honorary grandparents whom I trusted for my son, would I still want to reopen communication with my parents? Have they changed? Are they sorry? How forgiving should I be? Am I being a bad member of my church? Is it worth the time and energy to try to mend the relationship, even if only a little? If I reopen communication and they break our boundaries again, would I be able to cut contact again? It was already so difficult the first time, just reaching the conviction needed to cut them off. I'm so unsure every choice feels bad or wrong in some way, but I miss them and I want help and support that I can't exactly find anywhere else.
[5:30] I don't know that we're strong enough to face life virtually alone.
[5:35] That's that's one heck of a message and you know i guess first and foremost i'm incredibly sorry that this is the challenge in your life it's it's a very difficult situation to go through, And, of course, you know, is it a test of integrity or forgiveness, right? I mean, is God sending you this to saying, listen, you've got to have boundaries with bad people? Or is it like, no, no, no, I'm going to send you some bad people to test the virtue of forgiveness. Like, it's hard to know, right? And I really sympathize with that. So that's your side. And I, of course, appreciate that. And I'll just do my very best to give you some decent counsel. And is your counselor male or female?
[6:15] She's female. And she's supposed to be like a Christian counselor, but I don't know what denomination she is.
[6:20] A female counselor who counsels forgiveness and a male who doesn't. Hmm. This is not the most uncommon configuration. Men have, you know, we certainly have our faults, to put it mildly.
[6:35] But sometimes an over-focus on forgiveness is something that is a little bit more on the female side than the male. that having been said um turning to your husband um what are your what are your thoughts.
[6:51] My thoughts on um getting back together with them is that what the question is the whole situation okay uh yeah um my thoughts are we we've went through a very stressful period this past summer it's like two months and i noticed my my parenting suffered like i wasn't able to be fully there for my son and i'm thinking in the future if these unrepentant child abusers are still around, and they haven't apologized and so on and so forth what does that do to my parental credibility i think that would be hard to say to my son hey you don't have to be around people you don't like when i'm around people i don't like it's just kind of like the general gist of what i'm feeling Got it.
[7:36] Okay. Well, let's talk childhood. I mean, obviously, there's a lot of egregious stuff that's going on in adulthood, but what was going on in childhood for you that was challenging?
[7:51] I feel like there was a lot. And I didn't notice most of it until adulthood. But when I've been looking back, and especially going through it with my husband and with my counselor, I realized dad was never really present. He was in the Navy most of my life. He only retired from the Navy when I was an adult. so obviously he would deploy a lot or get sent somewhere else and we never moved with him he would be gone for a year or two sometimes um so he was not around it was it was mostly mom and we lived with my mom's parents and it often felt like she cared more about her parents and appearances and keeping the house clean and all that than she did about us. And my sister and I had a lot of sibling rivalry as well. We fought a lot, and usually our fights would end with my mom just saying, you're both wrong, you're both at fault, you're both going to get the same punishment, and not actually looking into what happened or who really started it or anything.
[9:02] My brother got to get out scot-free. He got to just stay in his room by himself.
[9:08] There were a lot of things in childhood that I would come and complain to her and say, people at church are being mean or at school are being mean. And I usually got blown off and said that it was my own fault. But then if my sister had the same problem, she got pulled to be homeschooled or didn't have to go to the church group. There was a lot of double standards between myself and my sister. And I could get into specifics if you want, but that's just kind of the general gist.
[9:42] Specifics are good. Specifics are good.
[9:45] Specifics are good. Okay. If my sister and I had a fight, mom would pull my sister aside first every time, and they would go off into a private corner, and she would console her, and she would hear her side of the story, and I would be left crying by myself. until they both came back after the fight and mom decided she didn't want to hear my side of the story. She heard my sisters and that was enough and made her decision off of one side and said both parties are wrong here. You're both going to get in timeout or lose a privilege or whatever punishment it was. Let's think of more specifics. Let me see.
[10:34] I might need to look back at our letter that we sent them. I had mentioned when we were discussing with them, we sent them a letter with lots of grievances, and I really listed out a lot of things that had happened there. There were family members that we asked to not be around. It was one of my aunts and uncles and their kids, But because it was an adult, an aunt and uncle And their kids When all three of us, me and my brother and sister Would come to her and say We don't want to be around them Can we stop having them for holidays? They're mean, they're liars They're calling us names, We were told to suck it up And get over it because they're family And family comes first And since we were living with the grandparents, well, it's not our home. It's their grandparents' home and they have every right to come see their grandparents. And these same family members ended up escalating that abuse past lying and name-calling. They would steal stuff and try to hurt us. And I found out as an adult that they sexually assaulted my brother and my sister.
[11:56] And I only got out because there wasn't a boy my age.
[11:59] Sorry, hang on. So, sorry, which relatives were these?
[12:02] This was our cousins.
[12:06] And you got the bad feels the bad vibes and it.
[12:09] Turns out that they were sexual predators.
[12:11] Who assaulted people.
[12:12] We weren't sure because we were so young we didn't know to say like it was sexual or anything but we were saying they're mean we don't like them you know there it started out with just calling names cheating at games lying about things hiding hiding stuff um but it escalated into them stealing stuff and even that was broke off share with your cousins oh i'm sure they didn't take it i'm sure you just lost it i'm sure we'll find it so then once it had escalated to, what it was my brother said he didn't know how to process it and didn't realize until he was an adult and my sister said she you know just didn't was too embarrassed didn't want to tell anyone And.
[12:57] What did they do, though?
[13:00] They found out only a few years ago when we were all adults. And at that point, they decided to confront my aunt and say, Hey, turns out your eldest kids did this to two of my three kids. And maybe you should check in on your younger ones because she has nine children. And it was the oldest child. two or three that would do this. And her youngest were still at home and they were pretty young. And she said, you should check in with your younger ones because, you know, if they're willing to do this to a cousin at a cousin's house, they might be willing to do things to siblings in their own home. And the aunt freaked out and blew up at them and called my parents and us liars and got contact with us.
[13:55] But what did they do?
[13:57] I heard what did who do what did mom do or what did sorry.
[14:01] I just was asking i'm not sure when you say assault uh sexual assault i'm not sure what that refers to so.
[14:08] My sister my sister was touched in inappropriate places while being mocked and called like fat and pig and ugly and that nobody would want her she was touched in inappropriate places i think mostly the upper areas my brother There was fully, I don't even like saying the word.
[14:32] Was he like raped?
[14:34] Yes.
[14:35] Like orally, anally?
[14:38] Anally.
[14:39] Oh, my God.
[14:41] As like a five or six-year-old up to, I think, age eight.
[14:47] Oh, so for years, your brother was raped.
[14:50] Yes, sir. and he didn't know how to say that to our parents he says as an adult that they treated it like that game like a doctor game, and i i've been furious with them i've been furious with them because i feel like we tried to tell them about it in the way that kids know and you know they didn't fully realize that it was wrong i remember sorry who.
[15:17] Didn't fully realize it was wrong.
[15:18] My my brother you know he didn't know what was happening until he was an adult. But I remember...
[15:24] Sorry, hang on, hang on, hang on.
[15:27] Sorry. He didn't know what was happening.
[15:30] Because, you know, he was like five and they're playing doctor.
[15:33] No, no. Hang on. Hang on.
[15:35] Normal between boys.
[15:36] No, no. But hang on. And I'm not disagreeing with you. I just want to make sure I understand the reasoning. So, if your brother didn't know, and obviously your brother was a victim, right? Yes. How old were the cousins?
[15:52] I think the oldest one was 12 at the time. Okay.
[15:56] So your brother, total victim, nothing but sympathy. But if he was not ashamed or didn't know that it was wrong, then I assume that this would be part of general conversation. Hey, how did you enjoy your time with your cousins? Oh, they put their penis up my butt.
[16:14] You would think. That's a good question.
[16:17] So he must, and I'm not obviously saying he knew it was wrong, but he knew he better keep it secret, right?
[16:25] Yeah, maybe they told him to keep it a secret. I'm not sure.
[16:28] Well, they might have threatened him.
[16:30] They might have.
[16:31] I mean, you tell this and I'll kill you because they're taking a huge risk.
[16:39] Yeah.
[16:40] All child rapists, and I know they're children too, but older, obviously. All child rapists are taking a huge risk. So, with your cousins, the fact that they, for years, raped a helpless little boy, if the word had gotten out and the entire family would have been wrecked, the kids' reputations would have been wrecked. I mean, it would have been just a paroxysm in the entire community. The other children, and almost certainly they would have been done doing this at home, right? And so the other children would have been interviewed by Child Protective Services, and then the parents might have been charged with, I don't know, I mean, do you get charged with reckless child endangerment if your children are going on raping other children? I don't know, but it's not good. So they were taking a massive, massive risk, as all child rapists do. So how did they ensure that he was not going to tell?
[17:48] I'm not sure.
[17:49] Well, there's two ways that they, and I just know this because of my research for peaceful parenting. There's two ways that children or pedophiles, in this case, it would be child pedophiles, but there are two ways in which those who abuse children, and in this case, rape children, minimize their risk. The first, and this is very common, is they look for a child without a strong father.
[18:19] That makes sense, because he wasn't present much.
[18:22] Yeah. And so if there is a father who's weak, and it's not a matter of being present or not, that's not the primary determinant. You can be not present, and you can still be a fierce protector of your children, but you have to have a good and close relationship with your children in order to protect them from these kinds of vicious predators. In other words, your father has to notice a difference between a non-raped child and a raped child. There's a difference.
[19:06] My husband and I have actually talked about that when I was bringing this up with him, where he said, you've said that, where it's like, how can you not recognize your kids change, and we tried asking my parents that and I remember my dad had said that he noticed a difference but that my mom blew it off where he used to be able to go in and play with my brother and the cousins before they escalated to what they were doing I used to be able to go in and play and then they started closing the door and locking it and saying we don't want adults in here we want to play by ourselves and when my father would try to press the issue and say this is my house we don't lock the doors let's keep this door open my mother would shut him down and say no they're fine let the boys be boys let them play by themselves okay.
[19:59] Hang on so the the was it the 12 year old did he start raping your brother when he was 12 or and then for a couple of years until he was like 15 or so?
[20:11] I'm trying to remember. I know my brother, it was younger. It was definitely like...
[20:17] No, no, I get that. I get that your brother was five or so when it started, but was the rate from nine to 12 or 12 to 15 or something different?
[20:27] It could have been nine to 12. I'm not completely sure.
[20:32] Okay. I mean, because the big question is puberty, right?
[20:36] Yes.
[20:37] Because obviously with puberty, the genitals change. And I mean, wouldn't this injure your brother?
[20:45] I know you would think.
[20:48] So, I mean, he can't walk. He can't walk well. He can't sit easily. And what on earth would 12 or 13 year old boys want to be doing in a locked room with a five year old?
[21:04] Nothing good.
[21:05] Well, I mean, that doesn't make any sense.
[21:08] Yeah. You're right. The more we look at it, the less sense it makes.
[21:13] Well, I mean, unfortunately, there are very ugly facts that have it make sense. Which is that your mother was enabling.
[21:27] Yeah. I felt she enabled it even before that because she knew that my aunt was not a good person. And I blame my mother for letting this sort of thing happen. And my mom used to joke about how my aunt, the mother of the rapist, would abuse her when they were kids. Not sexually, it was physical.
[21:56] It was she would try to beat her up and whatever and would lock her in her room, lock her in the closet. And so my mother has told me many times that she was glad when my aunt finally got married and started having children of her own. because she would tell me straight up, now she has somebody else to bully. And it's like, how do you not think that a woman that you know is a bully, who bullied you, you know that she's bullying her children, how do you not think that those children might be bad to be around your own? Why would you have your bully and her kids, over to your house for like every holiday and then ignore your own kids when they complain and say, hey your bully's kids are not great they might also be bullies and just blow it off my understanding is your aunt was not good company either no she was not she was she was dreadful company.
[22:52] Now you sound like two very nice people and that's great no really it's it's it's very thoughtful and caring um i've i've explored some pretty dark canyons of human nature over the 20 years that I've been having these kinds of conversations. So I'm going to open up a particular cave door. I don't know if we should go in there or not, but you said your mother let it happen.
[23:19] It feels that way.
[23:20] Yeah, I don't agree with that. I don't think she let it happen. I think she made it happen.
[23:25] What do you mean?
[23:27] Well she in over her children's protests she invites creepy abusive boys over and then when your father says we don't lock the doors she intervenes and makes sure the door stays locked, that's not letting something happen that's making something happen that's if i bring over a dog and in my child's room am i is am i letting the dog bite or am i making the dog bite.
[23:56] Yeah And they also had a rule No closed doors They did They had a rule No locking your door That was a big big rule You could.
[24:03] Close it No it wasn't a big rule If it was Your brother probably Would have been raped At least not as much Yeah So what on earth Was your father doing.
[24:13] He's always enabled my mother. Yeah, he's been frequently emasculated. Yeah.
[24:20] He's been what?
[24:21] Emasculated, he said. We always joke, not joke, but we always say that my mother has my father's balls in her purse. I'm sorry if that was inappropriate.
[24:32] Oh, listen, we're talking about child rape here. The balls in the purse thing is the least of my concerns.
[24:37] I'm sorry.
[24:38] Honestly, don't worry about that.
[24:40] But we've always said that. I want the theme, like, how does my dad let my mom walk all over him? And it's like she has his balls in her purse. That's the best way to put it.
[24:50] Okay. Now, how does she emasculate him? In what way is he emasculated? I'm not disagreeing. I just want to know what the mechanics are.
[24:58] Right. Let me think of specifics. I mean, you know, anytime he would try to put his foot down about something, she would tell him off, tell him no. um a specific example i can.
[25:10] Think sorry but so like i don't understand so there's you know there's lots of people who get mad about me in the world i mean just do your thing right i mean yeah my wife and i will disagree from time to time we'll tell each other we don't think something's a good idea we negotiate you know or whatever like i don't know how someone telling you know is like okay yeah.
[25:33] But that's how it was.
[25:35] No no no but how how i'm.
[25:37] Not sure there's just no negotiating with her.
[25:41] No but who cares you just you just unlock excuse me i won't swear you just unlock the freaking door like i don't know what's the negotiation, We don't have locked doors in this house. So I'm going to unlock the door. And if your mom is like, no, no, no, let boys be boys. It's like, no, we have like, we have a rule. So I'm going to leave the door as unlocked doors open.
[26:05] I feel like she would normally kind of threaten him and be like, if you do that, you know, we're not going to have intimacy for a while. Or that was, that was usually the threat that I heard was if you don't listen.
[26:17] Your mother threatening to withhold sex from your father.
[26:20] She would joke about it too. She thought it was hysterical. She thought it was so funny.
[26:26] I mean, what would she say?
[26:30] She would literally say, like, you better listen to me. I'm your wife. I'm the mom. I know what's best. You know, you better go along with it or you're going to be sleeping by yourself for a while. That sort of thing.
[26:44] So they're not Christians. Sorry, I thought you said they were Christians.
[26:48] They are, but they're not good Christians.
[26:50] Well, no, that's not even close.
[26:52] They're not super faithful.
[26:54] No, no, no. I'm no theologian, obviously, so correct me where I go astray. Who's supposed to be the head of the household? Do I have this wrong?
[27:04] The man.
[27:04] The man is supposed to be the head of the household.
[27:07] He is.
[27:08] So what is she doing saying, you've got to do it my way or else?
[27:16] Controlling.
[27:17] Well, but don't they go to the priest and don't they go to some Christian counselor who says, no, honey, you've got to submit. What are you doing?
[27:24] No, they're not part of counseling or anything.
[27:28] Okay, doesn't he pick up a Bible? I'm sorry, what's the point of calling yourself part of a belief system if you can just do the exact opposite for decades?
[27:40] I don't know. I guess appearances.
[27:43] Do you think, I mean, are they unaware of all the passages in the Bible that say that the wife is to the husband as the husband is to God?
[27:54] I guess they must be. I mean, we never read scriptures a whole lot. It was mostly just about going to church on Sunday and going to the end.
[28:01] Oh, okay. Is it a female-centric church?
[28:05] No. But it was pretty social.
[28:08] Well, then why don't they talk about the woman's need to obey their husband if it's not female-centric?
[28:13] They bring it up. They bring it up at church. They do.
[28:15] Oh, fantastic. So then they were perfectly aware of the biblical injunction that the man is the head of the household.
[28:21] Yeah but my mom always liked that uh my big fat greek wedding quote.
[28:28] Oh yeah the husband is the head the wife turns the head yeah she.
[28:33] Quotes that all the time and it's like you knew what she was really thinking.
[28:37] So she's following the devil.
[28:46] That feels like a big jump. I don't know.
[28:48] Well, okay. So she knows the right thing to do, but she does the exact opposite. And she fails to protect her children. And she brings in abusers and locks her children for years in with the rapists.
[29:07] Yeah.
[29:07] Or her son. And your sister, too, to some degree, right? Though not as bad.
[29:11] Yeah. My sister was never locked in, but it was always weird to me that...
[29:15] Well, that you know. that you know of.
[29:18] No, no, I'm serious. My sister and I normally shared a room, but when these cousins would come over, I would get to stay in the room with the girl cousins. And my sister would get kicked out into the living room with the younger boy cousins. And it was an open space. There was no doors, no way to lock it. But things still happened to her out in that open space. And I always wondered why she didn't sleep with the rest of the girls.
[29:42] All right. If it's not demonic to invite rapists over and lock them for years in a room with your son, what would be, in your view? Like, where's your line? That's a pretty big line for me. Maybe you have a different one.
[29:58] No, I think I can agree with your line.
[30:01] So, if she's inviting rapists over to rape her son repeatedly and locking him in the room... How is that not as demonic as things could be? Now, she, of course, would say, well, but I didn't know.
[30:20] Yeah, that's exactly what she would say.
[30:22] Well.
[30:23] I didn't know. Your cousins, your family.
[30:26] Okay, but let me ask you this. Let me ask you this. Hang on. If you had a test to study for and you forgot about it and you failed the test and you said, well, I just didn't know. I didn't know the material. What would they say?
[30:39] You should have studied.
[30:40] It's your job to know. It's your job to know.
[30:48] We asked her about that. My husband has mentioned how you, you know, like we said before, it's like you should notice changes in your kids. We asked them before, how did you not notice a change in my brother or my sister around that time? And my dad admitted, like, I noticed he got quieter and bottled things up and kept to himself. But I thought that was just him coming into his personality and him just growing up.
[31:14] Well, and I don't mean to criticize how you're talking to your parents, because it's a very tough thing to do to confront parents with corruption. But the problem is that you think there's an out.
[31:29] Because you're giving them open ended questions for which they can come up with. And this is why you're in a state of ambivalence. you're in a state of ambivalence because you're like well didn't you notice no i didn't notice or i noticed a little bit i thought it was this well did you know no i didn't know like so they're always these outs i'm.
[31:50] Not sure how else to approach it though.
[31:55] Well is there a defense for parents who invite rapists into a room and lock that room with their child inside for years? Is there a defense? Is there any conceivable defense?
[32:09] No.
[32:10] So why are these open-ended questions? Like there's an answer. it's your job to know. You stay close with your children. You ask them how things are going. You ask them if anything's wrong. I mean, your parents, right? Your kids are young. Oh, your child is young. Congratulations on the new one in the summer, by the way.
[32:35] Thank you.
[32:36] But it's your job to stay close to your kids. I mean, I've been a stay-at-home dad. My daughter is 16. And we always stay close and ask her how things are going. She spends time with friends. How did it go? Anything happen, anything unusual, you stay close. And you keep track of the moods. And if there's things that are causing a change in mood, you ask questions until you find out what they are.
[33:04] Yeah, it's like I know my wife for roughly over five years. I can tell from 30 yards away what mood she's in. Yeah, you can read me like a book. And they've known their children their whole lives. And they still struggle to read us.
[33:21] What do you mean?
[33:23] You're right.
[33:24] They still struggle to read you. What do you mean?
[33:27] Um, hmm, how do I put this?
[33:33] Seems like they're playing you perfectly.
[33:36] My father can never seem to guess what mood I'm in, and my mother can guess my mood, but not the reason. She tends to assume and put her own reason on it. Like, oh, you're a...
[33:50] Hang on, but hang on. How are you being played so well if people don't understand you? How are they able to massage these moods? How are they able to have you think about reconnecting with them when they remain unapologetic for letting your brother get raped for years? Or at least they don't take foundational responsibility as to how it came about. So, I mean, honestly, they have deep knowledge of you guys. they knew exactly how to set you and your sister at odds exactly yeah they knew which which sibling to praise and which sibling to punish yeah they know exactly what excuses to make they know exactly how to diffuse your anger they know exactly when to play the victim when to get aggressive, i mean it seems to me that they read and know you guys down to the last dot, i mean i'm not saying they're doing it benevolently and i'm certainly not saying It's the same as genuine empathy But it's like a con man A con man has to know the weaknesses of his mark Through and through, I mean, the rapists read your family perfectly.
[35:03] They read, hey, this is a trapped kid with no parental support. They'll lock us in there. They'll let us do our thing, and we will never get found out because they'll never ask. And this kid will never tell.
[35:17] Yeah.
[35:18] Either because of direct threats or shame or just, I would imagine that your brother also didn't tell because he would have been shamed and attacked.
[35:27] Yeah.
[35:28] You must have done something. Why are you doing these disgusting things?
[35:32] Yeah. Oh, my gosh.
[35:38] That your parents would have sided with the abusers. How could he think otherwise? When your parents invite these rapists over and put them in a room together, and lock the door or allow the door to be locked against the rules that he's been told all doors are open no doors are locked well except when the rapists are over then we're locking you in with them, and he's supposed to go for protection from the people who are inviting open the rapists and throwing them in a room and allowing the door to be locked.
[36:14] Um I'm I'm Having a bit of a mind-blowing moment. Oh, my goodness. They do. They play me like a fiddle. Yeah.
[36:27] Oh, they know you.
[36:28] And it's not even just mom and dad. It's the other people, too, who keep guilt-tripping us.
[36:35] Yeah, like great-aunt, uncle, everything.
[36:42] Who in the family knows about this rapes of your brother?
[36:50] Mom, dad, brother, sister, their spouses, me, my spouse. And then when we tried to confront the aunt about it, I don't think any other aunt or do you think great aunt knows? I think great aunt knows. But I think other than that, it's been kept under wraps. What about your other aunt? They're not in biological aunt. Well, obviously she knew. She's the one that cut contact and not biological aunt. No, the, um, I'm trying to figure out how to do cards with. The one whose name is a flower. Yes. Got it. I don't think she knows. Okay. No, I don't think either aunt that's left. Yeah.
[37:33] Why, um, why don't people know?
[37:37] Um, because my brother and sister asked it to be kept quiet and kept under wraps, and they were too embarrassed to...
[37:44] Why were they embarrassed?
[37:48] I only really heard from my sister about it. My brother says he's still just trying to work through it himself. And so until he's in a good spot, he doesn't really want to share. But my sister said that it's always made her feel gross and inadequate and just made her feel like she was part of the guilty party.
[38:12] And I also heard that another reason why is they don't want, well, if people hear about it when they meet them, that's going to be the first thing on their mind. True. Yeah.
[38:23] You mean people in the family?
[38:28] Well, if it's only people in the family that knew, that wouldn't be their first impression. Yeah. Well, my brother says he's still just trying to work through it, and my sister says that she's embarrassed and that it makes her feel like part of the guilty party.
[38:49] Okay. because i mean that would be the answer as to you know if you're not seeing your parents you say well um they locked my they locked my brother for years in a room with older boys who raped him.
[39:06] My brother's gotten mad at me for even saying that to him when he asked why we cut contact and i said that i was mad about that and felt that mom and dad could have prevented it he got mad at.
[39:21] Me no you're still talking about prevention, this isn't like the tide was coming in and they needed to build a protection around the kids and failed to do it, if I bring a rabid animal I would even say this for me if a man brings a rabid animal, into his house and repeatedly locks his children in the room with the rabid animal, am I just failing to stop them from being beaten? Am I just letting it happen? I'm making it happen. Parents have a job. They must vet the people their children are exposed to. If there was some kid coughing up blood and I said, absolutely, come over for a sleepover, would that be good parenting?
[40:17] No, sir.
[40:18] Yeah, you have to vet the people. You know this, right? I mean, your parents, you have to vet the people your children are in contact with. And you have to check with them, especially if you know, as your mother did, about the abusive nature of your aunt. Sorry. Who was the one who your mother referred to as abusive?
[40:46] No, you were correct.
[40:47] The aunt, okay. So when you know, and you openly state how abusive the parent is, the idea that you would lock your child into a room with the offspring of a woman you know is dangerously abusive is demonic.
[41:08] Right. Yeah, and another thing to add on to the demonic thing is they didn't have to live in that house to take care of their parents, my wife's grandparents. Yeah, we didn't have to live with my grandparents. They did it because it was financially easier to live. And we've asked them about that, like, if we were having trouble, you know, why couldn't we move out, get our own place, so that we didn't have to see these cousins when they came to see the grandparents? Or why couldn't the grandparents just go to the cousin's house? Oh, because they didn't want to. They don't, like, travel. They're, like, three hours away. Well, why couldn't we move out and just not live with the grandparents? And their grandparents were also difficult to live with. They were so difficult to live with.
[41:59] And this is your mother's parents?
[42:02] Yeah, it's my mother's parents.
[42:06] Right. So they put their children, not just at risk, but they put their children in catastrophic danger for money.
[42:16] They put us in a lot of bad situations.
[42:19] No, but it's for money, right?
[42:21] Yeah, mainly.
[42:23] No, no, sorry, sorry. I don't want to, if I misunderstood something, please set me straight.
[42:28] I thought that they stayed with the grandparents to save money.
[42:32] That was the main reason.
[42:33] Right. So they put their children in horrible danger, and in fact, the catastrophes unrolled about as badly as they could, in return for money.
[42:44] Yeah, pretty much.
[42:45] So when Jesus is offered the entire world, and all that's in it, in return for bowing down before Satan, and Jesus says, no, he was wrong, because you should sell your children's privates on the black market for the sake of a monthly rent. That you should put your children in horrible danger for the sake of saving $1,500 a month in rent.
[43:21] I mean, obviously, he wouldn't say that.
[43:24] Right. So all they'll do is they'll claim ignorance. We didn't know. We thought it was fine. Of course, right? But that's why there's no answer. There is no answer. So you keep asking these questions like there could be an answer.
[43:47] I see what you mean.
[43:50] And they want you to ask the questions that give them an out so they can avoid their own conscience.
[43:57] Right.
[43:58] There is no answer. If you, I mean, you have children, and I'm sorry to use this example, but if you have a babysitter, and you find out when you come home that the babysitter has molested one of your children or both of your children, is there an answer?
[44:16] No.
[44:17] No. Let's say that he invited some friends over and let his friends take your children into a locked room and assault them sexually or otherwise. Is there an answer? Well, why would you do that? Well, why didn't you notice?
[44:28] Why didn't you know that? I didn't know my friends were bad. I just thought they were having fun. Like, there's no answer.
[44:34] And even in that example we'd partly blame ourselves for not vetting the babysitter better absolutely for sure and you'd have to learn a tough lesson and i'm.
[44:43] I'm absolutely sorry to use this example horrible that it is but i'm trying to shake off the moral fog regarding your parents.
[44:49] If we would blame ourselves even for a babysitter why would i not do the same to my parents.
[44:57] Why are your children so worthy of protection and why would you condemn anyone who harmed them but you're on the fence with your parents? Why are your children so much more worthy of moral protection than you? You are as important as your children. You were as worthy and deserving of protection as your children. You needed as much love and care and protection as your children do.
[45:32] Sure.
[45:36] And you and I, well, we three, know for certain that if we had done something or ignored something or missed something or not had a close enough relationship that our children ended up being abused for years, I don't even know how I would get out of bed the next morning, let alone go around suddenly with my day and blithely answer questions with, I didn't know.
[45:55] Yeah.
[45:56] It's like a different creature. It's like an entirely different creature.
[46:09] Yeah, I don't know how she rationalizes it away. I don't know how it doesn't eat her up You would think that she would know Well.
[46:19] Christianity Unfortunately, gives you the answer, Without massive, great and deep repentance Do you get your soul back From the devil If you sell it No.
[46:36] It takes Immense repentance And usually Trying to make amends trying to make amends.
[46:45] Right so the reason why she doesn't feel bad is she would still be in the grip of very dark forces, who will not allow her to feel bad because then she might change.
[47:03] It's just really hard to accept about your own mom, you know?
[47:08] But I have kind of felt that way. It's like, how do you say that about your own parent?
[47:18] What do you mean? I'm not disagreeing with you.
[47:21] I just want to make sure I understand what you mean. I have a lot of fear of becoming like my mom. Because it's like, you don't want to say that your mom is an abuser because that means you were raised by an abuser and you might become like that since that was the example that you had.
[47:37] No, no, no, no, no, no. You become like that if you deny it. And you don't process it.
[47:45] Like if you say what she did was not abuse.
[47:49] Well, so if my father was a drinker, he wasn't. but let's say he was a drinker and I said he was an alcoholic, like just a rampant alcoholic. And I said, nah, he just had a couple of drinks. He enjoyed socializing. Is it more likely that I'm going to drink?
[48:03] Hmm. Yeah.
[48:05] Yeah. Cause I want to have fun. I want to socialize. Whereas if I say he was a rampant, destructive and hell bent, alcoholic, am I less likely to drink?
[48:20] Yeah, most likely.
[48:22] No, the accurate moral identification is the inoculation against the behavior. If we define something as evil, our conscience recoils against doing it.
[48:33] That's reassuring.
[48:35] Which is why your parents put it into the category of error and not corruption. Because we really can't be held accountable for things we didn't know. which is why people who do evil things will always claim ignorance. Well, we didn't know. There was no evidence. I thought it was just his, what, personality coming into whatever your father said. It was some bizarre thing. But it's, as you know, it's the parent's job to know.
[49:10] Yeah.
[49:14] So, no, saying that your mother was abusive, is the best way to protect yourself against repeating the behavior once it's defined and categorized as evil. And look, I understand that your mother is not only evil, right? I get that, right? I'm not saying that she's like some bond villain, right? I'm sure that she has some redeeming qualities. I'm sure that she has, I mean, she has some playfulness. She has some affection, as you were saying. She may be generous with her money. So, but these are all, in a sense make it even more dangerous.
[49:47] Right because she could love bomb you and then turn around and it's.
[49:52] Camouflage right i mean the predator you can see is not as dangerous as the one you can't right.
[49:56] Right so.
[49:59] But but defining what your parents did right how how were you guys disciplined as kids.
[50:07] Um when we were very young we were spanked and that stopped when we were usually around six yeah I remember you telling me the story about that yeah as we got older she would stop spanking then it was usually either sit and time out or lose privileges like lose electronics or lose your weekend or, as we got older and started driving it was you're going to lose your car keys so you can't use the car she didn't try to do that in your early 20s when we were dating yeah when we were dating she would threaten to take the car and stuff, but it was, it was even, it never like matched up with what you did wrong. You know, like you make a mistake. Oops, I spilled a drink instead of saying you need to help me clean this up. It was, you go sit in timeout while I clean this up. And then when I'm done, I'm going to come and tell you how horrible that was.
[51:05] Okay.
[51:06] But never really, never really matched up, but it was usually.
[51:10] It was not proportional to the moral nature of the problem. Right. Okay.
[51:17] And she'd sometimes try to do that whole, like, talk it out with the person you hurt, and let's both apologize and both say what we're feeling. But then there was still usually something else with it, like you had timeouts first before you got to talk.
[51:34] And were there raised voices or name-calling, or both?
[51:40] Your father? My dad did raised voices. My mom? She didn't usually raise voices, but there was definitely name-calling.
[51:53] And what names would she call her kids?
[51:55] Snot-nosed brats. You guys are spoiled snot-nosed brats. Ungrateful. Unappreciative. That was the most common one, was you're spoiled snot-nosed brats.
[52:04] Boy, you just went all kinds of cold when you were talking about that.
[52:08] Ah, sorry.
[52:09] Can you imagine saying that to your children?
[52:11] No. Or slap a smile off your face? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, if she would threaten to hit you, like, I just want to smack that look off your face. If you, like, weren't looking like you were crying and looking sad and looking all penitent, if you tried to keep a straight face, she's like, I just want to smack that smug look off your face.
[52:28] Okay. And your father— I could not imagine saying that.
[52:32] I couldn't imagine saying that to my son and, like, calling him a brat or spoiled or snot-nosed or anything like she did. and that's part of why I'm like I don't want her to call him that because when we have mentioned to her I don't like you name calling she'd be like I never called you names and we'd give her those specifics and she's like it was a joke it was funny and I'm like well I don't want to risk you calling my son that if you think it's funny and not hurtful when I'm telling you that it's hurtful.
[53:04] So if you called her a defensive bitch and then you said i was just only joking she'd be fine with that right.
[53:11] No no anytime we called her something it was it was bad okay.
[53:19] And you said your father yelled.
[53:21] He he used to when we were younger and um eventually we would we started like crying and getting upset and we would talked to him about it and he actually did apologize and said like that was wrong of me and i'm going to work on it and he hasn't yelled in years but that's that's where i'm having trouble sorry in years um when.
[53:45] Did he how old were you when he last that you last remember him yelling.
[53:51] Maybe eight um, So it's been like over a decade, you know, it's been a long time.
[53:59] Okay.
[54:00] And this is where the conflict is, is I know I don't want to be around my mother. I have a lot of, I know I don't want to be around her, but I struggle with my dad. And that's kind of more where I need to focus on, you know, do I let him back into our lives?
[54:24] Does your father know that his son was raped for years by people he let in the house and let them lock the door?
[54:32] Yes.
[54:33] And what has his response been to that?
[54:36] Remorse and guilt. He's told me that he should have fought more. He should have put his foot down about keeping the doors open. It seems like he does feel some guilt towards himself, but maybe won't admit it or won't pin it on my mom kind of thing.
[54:54] I'm not sure what that means.
[54:58] I'm not sure either. He does seem like he should have stepped up more.
[55:07] What do you mean, stepped up more?
[55:10] Like he wished he had been more president and had been— What do you mean more?
[55:14] What do you mean more? Like he did it 50%, he should have done it 100%? What does that mean?
[55:18] Doing what he should have been doing and asking the president for being connected.
[55:22] No, no, but more, more what? I mean, he was 0% connected and 0% protective because his son got raped under his roof for years. What's this more? He didn't prevent any rapes. He invited the people in and locked his son in with them. And I'm just used to get a shorthand for, because it's his house, right? So if the door gets locked, it's on him, right? So he invited people over, put him in a room, locked him. Like, what more? What is more that he should have done to protect his son?
[56:04] I mean, technically anything would have been more than nothing.
[56:08] Well, it's not nothing. Oh, my God. It's not nothing. He invited the kids in and locked his son in with them for years while his son was getting raped. Against his own rules of no locked doors. He invited... He invited...
[56:26] I'm sorry.
[56:28] The kids in who raped your brother and molested your sister. And left them alone. He created the situation. The kids are only there despite you and your brother and your sister saying to your parents, these are bad kids. Keep them away. Nope. They're coming in and we're locking you up with them or leaving you alone. At least your sister alone enough to get molested top and a little bottom and your brother to get raped for years.
[57:00] So you think they're both equally at blame?
[57:03] Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. A mother and a father, a husband and a wife are how many flesh?
[57:11] They're one.
[57:12] One flesh. And the father is the head of the household. Now, you can abdicate that role, but you can't abdicate your responsibility. Your father, and I'm going to be coarse here, I apologize. Your father Allowed his child to be raped So he could bang his wife.
[57:41] I mean Yeah Yeah.
[57:45] He served up his son to pedophiles So he could have sex with his wife.
[57:53] I mean he allowed a lot of things Just so he could have sex with.
[57:57] His wife He did not allow it Allowing is passive, It's active To call the people up Hey come on over Bring the kids over Go and play on your own I'll lock the door or allow the door to be locked That's not passive, right? Passive is, I forgot to lock the door, someone broke in and beat me up, right? That's passive. I allowed that to happen and left the door open, right? Active is, this guy who's a known criminal, I invited him into the house, showed him all my expensive stuff, said he was too chicken to steal from me, and then he beat me up and stole. That's active. That's the vampire. You've got to invite him in.
[58:51] Hmm.
[58:53] They can't come in without your permission. He was warned repeatedly by all of his children. These are bad kids. We don't want them here. They're dangerous.
[59:08] And they still got to come over.
[59:10] And they still, they didn't get to come over. I'm sorry. Your parents invited them over.
[59:15] I'm sorry.
[59:15] No, it's tough. It's tough because you want your parents to be victims because that's less unpleasant. They let it happen. They didn't notice. They were bystanders. They just forgot to lock the front door. No, it's not that. It's not that. Your mother knew that these boys had a toxic and abusive mother. Your parents were both warned by all their children how dangerous and bad these kids were. they kept inviting them over and putting them alone behind locked doors with your brother that's not active sorry that's not passive that's entirely active.
[59:58] Which means it wouldn't be safe to bring either of them back into our lives.
[1:00:04] Well the only chance that i would imagine for any kind of redemption is to stop making excuses People heal from evil when they stop making excuses and never, ever before. If they minimize, if they gaslight, if they pretend that nothing happened, if it was a long time ago, we've got to move on, we've got to move past, it doesn't matter anymore, why do you keep bringing this up? I didn't know. If they minimize, gaslight, and refuse to take...
[1:00:32] That's exactly what they do.
[1:00:33] Of course, so the cure for evil is full responsibility.
[1:00:42] I don't know that they'd ever do that. No, they wouldn't. I know mom wouldn't, but I don't know that even dad would.
[1:00:48] Well, your father thinks that his moral responsibility is somehow separate from his wife's, but this is the one flesh argument, and it's very important. Your father dated, got engaged to, got married, and gave three children to your mother, and then kept those three children in her environment. He is entirely 100% responsible for everything your mother did. There's no separate moral responsibility between husband and wife. He can't blame her. He chose her.
[1:01:30] I chose him.
[1:01:33] She is an absolute reflection of his choice and he continues to choose her. So he's staying married to a woman and still claims to love a woman, who threatened him if he unlocked the door that would have saved his son from getting raped.
[1:01:54] Yeah, because for sake of argument, let's just say that we gave him the arguments you've came up with, and, he's like, oh, I suddenly see this, and I'm divorcing my wife immediately, and so on and so forth. Like, maybe, but he didn't do that. He didn't do that. He doubled down.
[1:02:13] Was your brother raped by more than one boy?
[1:02:16] Yes, there were two.
[1:02:18] Two, okay. How long does it take, right? And it's a grim thing to think about, right? But how long does it take to perform these kinds of actions, right? Well, you have to get the pants down. You have to, like, do all of this kind of stuff, right? Someone has to hold him down, all of this ugly, vicious, evil stuff. There has to be no sounds coming from within the room, right?
[1:02:44] Yeah, and their room is right next to them. The room is right next to mine.
[1:02:47] I mean, it's not like you're hearing giggling and hide-and-go-seek and tiddlywinks or Monopoly or like, it's dead silent in there.
[1:02:56] Yeah. And those doors are, you know, hollow core. They were thin, yeah.
[1:03:03] So you've got two older boys from a highly toxic and abused household going into a locked room with a child where things are dead silent for at least 20 minutes.
[1:03:19] And they share a wall with you, too.
[1:03:22] And nobody asks, what were you guys doing? Nobody says, hey, what are you doing in there with the boys? It was dead silent. How easy is it for a bunch of kids, particularly boys, to be dead silent for 20 minutes?
[1:03:36] That's so valid. It's hard for any little kid to be quiet that long. Well, yeah, I mean.
[1:03:44] 12-year-old, 10, 12-year-old boys are hellions. Loud as hell.
[1:03:51] I mean, I think sometimes we would ask them what they were doing, but the excuse was usually video games. But you're right. Maybe you should at least hear them jabbing each other and say, oh, I'm going to beat you or laughing when they win.
[1:04:08] Sorry, I'm a little confused. I mean, they weren't all wearing headphones, were they?
[1:04:12] No.
[1:04:13] So then you'd hear the video game.
[1:04:14] You should hear the video game.
[1:04:16] You'd hear the video games. You'd hear the trash talking. And how on earth are 12-year-olds supposed to play video games with a 5-year-old?
[1:04:24] Well, again, I think it started when they were 9 and then 5.
[1:04:26] Sorry, 9. Okay, fine.
[1:04:27] It would have been like 12 and 8 by that point.
[1:04:30] Okay.
[1:04:30] But yeah.
[1:04:33] They don't generally play the same games, but there's that much of a gap.
[1:04:37] Not generally, no.
[1:04:41] And why would you need a locked door if you're playing video games?
[1:04:45] To keep out the younger siblings. no i don't i don't i don't buy that.
[1:04:52] For a moment, no you'd hear the video game and boys.
[1:05:00] Trash talk each other like crazy.
[1:05:04] I mean i'm around some teenage boys because of my daughter i'm around some teenage boys they're loud and they're they're yelling at each other all the time particularly when they play games it's actually quite funny.
[1:05:16] Yeah very true i can hear it's.
[1:05:21] Not dead silence for 20 minutes to half an hour when you've got a bunch of kids in the next room.
[1:05:25] I can hear my brain still making excuses no.
[1:05:30] No let's hear them i mean we want to be fair right.
[1:05:32] Well there were you know at this point if there's nine cousins there's 12 or 13 kids running around that house and that's only three of them in the back all the others were running around making ruckus making noise we were busy cooking the meals or talking in the family room while they were in the back how are we supposed to notice that it was quiet for a little bit when everybody else is being loud and rambunctious well roughly how often were they over hang on how roughly.
[1:06:01] How often were they over.
[1:06:02] Every holiday, I think it was only birthdays. So like birthdays and stuff.
[1:06:08] Like half a dozen, eight, ten times a year?
[1:06:11] Not for their birthdays, but for ours, yes.
[1:06:14] Three kids, three birthdays, right? Christmas, Easter.
[1:06:18] Yeah, Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving. Fourth of July, usually. Memorial Day. No, not usually those. But it was at least a half a dozen times a year, sometimes more.
[1:06:29] All right.
[1:06:31] Like you had said, though, we came to them and said, it's not fair, the door's locked. We want to play in there too.
[1:06:41] Well, I mean, so if it was once, you could say, well, there was a lot of chaos. But, you know, let's say over four years, you know, six times a year, that's 24 times. They're saying the whole 24 times. They're just, there was no evidence. They couldn't know anything.
[1:06:58] That is important. They usually checked on us.
[1:07:02] Well, if they chose not to parents, that's on them too. yeah yeah, come on some kid wants to go some older kid wants to go and play with your kid behind a locked door come on it's not brain surgery there's a reason and your dad your dad had that rule why did your dad have that rule.
[1:07:27] Because he knew that bad things happened behind locked doors.
[1:07:30] And how did he know that.
[1:07:32] That's just I don't know. It's just what he always told us. It was always the excuse. Bad things happen behind locked doors.
[1:07:39] Okay, so he must have had some experience or knowledge of that.
[1:07:44] Somewhere, yeah, something. When we were dating, we couldn't have a closed door. Yeah, we couldn't be behind a closed door at all. The reason for chastity and all that. Right.
[1:07:55] Okay, I understand that, but your father must have had some, I'm not saying that he himself was assaulted, but he must have heard of something bad behind a locked door for him to have that rule.
[1:08:06] He would have some sort of knowledge of something. Right.
[1:08:09] So because he knows bad things happen behind closed doors, if he allowed a locked doors, if he knows that bad things happen behind locked doors, then he has an absolute responsibility to make sure nothing bad is happening behind a locked door in his house. He knows that. That's why he has the rule. If I say pit bulls are dangerous and I let my kids play with pit bulls six times a year, that's on me.
[1:08:37] That's on you, yeah. Yeah, he really did think that sleeping with mom was more important. Yeah, yeah. which means that he'll probably say sleeping with mom is more important than seeing us or following our rules or treating right yeah i'm also thinking like if you were to divorce your mom he would lose everything yeah he would lose everything if he divorced her but he but sorry.
[1:09:08] What do you mean.
[1:09:08] Morals yeah that's true if he divorced mom he might lose financially but he would get to keep his morals well i'm not.
[1:09:16] Sure that there's much point being a christian if you're like well i i have to put financial considerations above virtue.
[1:09:26] Which has always been the problem we were talking about that earlier about why did they stay at the grandparents house oh gosh yeah even your um on uh which one the uh the hoarder, even her uh where she was going to take care of um your grandparents and your parents were like no we're going to step in and take care of um yeah well and why did we have to live with them to take care of them yeah they could have got a cheap house nearby mm-hmm, But I have been afraid if we reopen communication with my dad, it's like he might try to pull something or mom try to come over with him. This is all feeling like it's really not worth it. It's not a good idea. And plus the amount of stress that would come from trying to resolve this, especially when you're pregnant. Yeah. the Jews ain't worth the squeeze yeah because I mean it takes a long time for people to even repent when they are repentant but if they're not repentant you can't change them.
[1:10:44] So generally I'm just talking.
[1:10:47] As far as self.
[1:10:48] Knowledge that I sort of work with the repentance becomes generally psychologically impossible when restitution becomes impossible. Right. So, I mean, to take a sort of severe example, if a guy, you know, borrows his sister's car, puts a ding in it, right, some dent or whatever, and then he's like, oh, I'll pay to get the dent fixed and, you know, here's a hundred bucks to go out for dinner for your trouble or whatever. Then she's like, okay, that's fine. Like, it balances out. She's not thrilled it happened, but she doesn't mind that it happened. It's evened out. Does that make sense?
[1:11:25] Yes.
[1:11:25] If somebody steals $500 from you and then gives you back $700 because he feels bad, then you're like, okay, I'm not thrilled he took it, but it's kind of evened out. Does that make sense?
[1:11:35] Yes.
[1:11:36] Okay. I mean, it's like if you fill in a pothole, you don't want to leave the giant pothole, but you also don't want to create a big hump. You just got to even it out, right? Then things even out. Now, if a brother borrows his sister car, and then when he returns it, drives over her beloved dog, is there any restitution possible? Yes.
[1:11:58] I mean he could try to get her a new dog.
[1:12:02] Okay and that's that's so that's something what if he drives over her kid and kills him kills her there's no like clearly there's no restitution that's possible now the fact that there's no restitution that's possible doesn't mean that the relationship is necessarily over it just means that we that there's an acceptance that this can't be made right but.
[1:12:24] If it can't be made right then what do you what do you do and why have a relationship like.
[1:12:29] Well yeah so i mean he can't make the dog whole he can't right and and let's say when he returned the car he was drunk and he promised not to drink and drive so so now he's at fault and he ran over her dog or her kid or something like that like just some terrible terrible thing so now he's at fault and no restitution is possible, well that becomes tough so so the reason why we we generally monitor what we do and make sure we don't commit great sins is because when restitution becomes impossible the relationship generally crumbles, Right. So the question is, let me ask you this with regards to your brother. Now, I know he's not on the call, but let's just theorize for a second here.
[1:13:29] Okay.
[1:13:30] What restitution would make your brother okay with having been raped for years as a child?
[1:13:39] Make him okay, like just make him feel better or make him okay?
[1:13:43] No, no, make him like, uh, I'm okay that it happened. I don't love that it happened. I don't hate that it happened. I'm okay with it.
[1:13:49] I don't, I don't know that there is anything. No, there's none.
[1:13:53] No, there's no restitution. There's no restitution. I mean, his bodily integrity was cruelly violated. He was isolated. He was given a great burden of shame, secrecy, silence, and most likely, death threats, and had to live in constant fear, and knowing that his parents would lock him in the room with his abuses the next time they came over. There's no, no restitution for that. They could give him $10 million. It would not make it okay. It would not undo the damage. Does that make sense?
[1:14:28] Yes, sir.
[1:14:29] So there is no restitution possible. Let me ask you this What restitution Would be enough to make you okay With what happened to you and your siblings In your childhood, Hmm.
[1:14:48] I don't know. I had convinced myself before this that an apology and a promise to not do it again and maybe them getting counseling.
[1:14:59] Well, that might help the future and probably would. But what would make you okay with the past? Again, if I borrow your car and I ding the car and I get it fixed and I buy you dinner out or whatever, then you're like, okay, I don't love that you ding the car. I don't hate it. It's acceptable. It's even steeper, right?
[1:15:19] I feel like I don't have a good answer for this because I feel like I've always been kind of too forgiving and never really taken a lot of restitution and just, they said they were sorry and they won't do it again, so that's enough. And I'm trying to come out of that mentality and to… Well.
[1:15:39] No, I won't stand by and listen to you insult yourself. Sorry, I'm on your side. So if you say, I am too forgiving, And that's saying that you have a fault or a flaw. I don't believe that for a second. I do believe that if you had demanded genuine apologies and restitution, you would have been attacked and ostracized. So you had no choice but to, quote, forgive.
[1:16:06] Yeah, pretty much. Mm-hmm. Like when we've demanded that, we got gaslit. Yeah, when we demanded true, like, heartfelt apology that was more than just, I'm sorry, your feelings were hurt.
[1:16:20] Yeah, yeah.
[1:16:21] Yeah, we were gaslit. They even said that. That was the one apology. The one apology that we got was, we're sorry for anything we may have done.
[1:16:31] Oh, yeah, absolutely. And it's the other thing. It's like, well, we have no idea what we did wrong, but obviously you're so crazy and oversensitive, we'll just apologize to pacify you.
[1:16:41] Yeah.
[1:16:41] If something I said Purely innocently Upset you I guess I'm sorry.
[1:16:50] But that's where I'm like, I know I don't have a good answer for what restitution is acceptable for me.
[1:16:56] Let's turn to your husband.
[1:16:57] They're a little low.
[1:16:58] Let's turn to your husband. So you love your wife, obviously. She's a lovely woman. So you love your wife. How much money would your in-laws have to give you in order for you to be okay with how they treated her and her siblings when they were kids?
[1:17:12] There is no dollar amount.
[1:17:14] There's no dollar amount, right? There's no dollar amount. Okay.
[1:17:21] It's like how could i um love my wife and and then pal around with them it's on there yeah who has done her the most harm.
[1:17:30] Come on a beach house nice beach house cape cod overlook at the ocean as.
[1:17:35] Tempting as that is.
[1:17:35] Come on man be for sale put your soul up on the auction block come on man don't make me do a bidding war, okay okay a nice a nice beachfront property and a cyber truck come on.
[1:17:52] Those lines look good.
[1:17:55] Though they do look good as my daughter says it looks like something that you should hide raccoons in um so no i mean there's no amount of money.
[1:18:07] Well, restitution isn't always about money.
[1:18:10] No, no, I get that. I get that for sure. But it's a good way to categorize something because what else is it supposed to be? Because if they're genuinely sorry and go to therapy, that doesn't undo the past. If I put a ding in your car and I go and get it fixed, at least your car has returned to its original state. There is no original state for you. There is no undoing your childhood. there's no you with a good childhood there's no no you with a good sister there's no you i mean how much older than your brother are you.
[1:18:50] Um let's see my brother is about two years older than me and my sister is about two years younger than.
[1:18:57] Me sorry about that so your brother's a little older and did you of course you'd be three so you wouldn't really notice that much, but did you get the sense when you got older, when you were still in your, say, early to mid-teens, and your brother was older, of course, did you get a sense of the burden he was carrying?
[1:19:19] Yeah. Yeah, I always wondered why he was so quiet and kept to himself and always seemed to bottle things up and then explode.
[1:19:30] Has your brother had trouble with girls? Like talking to them?
[1:19:34] Yeah. yeah.
[1:19:36] Because he feels like damaged goods.
[1:19:39] And anger management too and a lot of anger like he has this little dog that he yells at right yeah.
[1:19:47] Right so he's very damaged, And how did you find out about what happened to him when he was five?
[1:19:59] He told us a few years back when he himself had started his career and he decided to start getting counseling for his anger. And that led to him, you know, I don't know if it was led to him remembering what happened or led to him kind of, I'm not sure the word if it was remembering or realizing or accepting. I'm not sure the word. But that was when he, I guess, accepted to tell the family, and he just sat us all down and told us.
[1:20:35] Were you ever close with him?
[1:20:38] Not for a long time. Not until his last year of high school and my first year of high school. We went to the same high school for that one year, and he would drive us, and we got a little bit close, and then we ended up going to the same college. and we got really close in college because we would talk in the car just the two of us, um but i guess we weren't that close because i didn't i didn't know about he wouldn't talk about anything negative yeah i always found it pretty difficult to you know talk to him yeah he doesn't like talking about himself but he listened to me a lot now i feel kind of bad It was always me talking mostly. But we had gotten close in just the having fun together sense.
[1:21:26] Now what's going on? Sorry, go ahead.
[1:21:29] Oh, I just said which we hadn't had when we were younger.
[1:21:33] Now, you got a lot of, sounds like you had a lot of anger and frustration towards your sister.
[1:21:40] That's an understatement.
[1:21:42] Yeah. So, do you view your sister as an independent moral agent, or do you view her as subject to intense manipulations by very corrupt parents?
[1:21:57] It started as the latter and has turned into both. Okay.
[1:22:02] As a kid, right? She was favorited. You said, oh, she gets, or even as an adult, she gets the money, she gets the excuses. you both have to get punished when she does bad things and all that right so i mean you know that favoritism is just a it's a way to ensure the children don't form alliances so they get your brother traumatized so he's in his shell and can't connect with anyone and then they favorite your sister to turn you against your sister so none of the kids can form any alliances or keep each other comfort yes okay so that's that's a ploy that's a parental ploy right right okay now, When did it transition to, she's now a moral agent, independent of all of that, and you could be mad at her?
[1:22:49] I think pretty much early 20s, yeah. Once it was like, she's firmly an adult. She's been an adult for a few years. She's done her schooling. She has her career. And she tried to punch you. Yeah, it was really once she was starting to have time away from my mother and outside of the house. and becoming an adult, becoming an individual in that way, that I started saying, well, she's choosing to continue to treat me this way.
[1:23:23] Because she would do a big apology, and then a week or two would go by, and then she would make you cry again. Yeah.
[1:23:31] And what was she doing that made you cry?
[1:23:35] Various things. I'm trying to think of specifics. Um, when we were younger, it was the typical fights of, let me use your stuff, let me use your toys, borrow your clothes, whatever.
[1:23:51] But that's only typical in dysfunctional households.
[1:23:54] Oh.
[1:23:55] No, listen, I have friends, I got friends, they got three boys and a little baby girl, and the three boys are fantastic with each other. I mean, we've spent entire days with them. They help each other, they encourage each other. There's no particular conflict. and they share well and i've got other friends who've got multiple kids i've got one one friend who's got like eight children they all get along famously so uh that's that's not that's only typical in dysfunction households and i'm not saying that siblings never have any conflicts of course they do but in general right i mean siblings are kind of designed to you know they're all the same gene pool we would evolve to help each other right yeah.
[1:24:32] Let me think as an adult what did she do that was different than when we were kids that felt separate i mean she definitely mocked anyone i was dating not in front of their faces but anytime i was dating someone she would criticize them and and make fun of them she would call me names and make fun of me um.
[1:24:54] Like what names Like.
[1:24:57] Ugly and fat, even though she was usually bigger than me. She would say I was ugly and I was fat, and she would borrow my clothes and say they looked better on her than me. If I was dating someone, if he was very attractive, she would say, he's, you know, too good for you. Or like, he's hot, why is he going out with you? If he was unattractive, then it was, oh, you found somebody right at your level.
[1:25:28] Right. So she's really sadistic that way.
[1:25:33] She takes a lot after my mom.
[1:25:35] Right. Okay. How's her life going in general?
[1:25:40] From the outside, you would think it's going well. She is married. She's been married for a couple of years. They have their own apartment. They don't have plans for kids. She's been really wishy-washy on if they want kids or not. But from the outside, you would think that she's pretty content. Yeah, some of the stuff I've heard, I have doubts on the... Yeah. I remember right before they got married, they were in some Walmart parking lot, and she said, I don't think I love you anymore. Yeah, I have doubts about their relationship, actually.
[1:26:16] Well, that's just a control thing she gets from your mom. You don't have to sleep on the couch. I don't love you anymore. Do what I want. Dance, monkey dance, right?
[1:26:24] Mm-hmm.
[1:26:25] Okay.
[1:26:26] She is over at my mother's house a lot they spend a lot of time together so she's got a weak husband, oh yeah oh yeah yeah my mom loves her husband right can't imagine why not a fan of me though right no of course not.
[1:26:43] Of course not okay.
[1:26:45] My mother hates my husband and she did not like him even when we were dating she tried to split us up yeah well okay.
[1:26:53] But let's be sorry to be i'm not trying to diminish anything you're saying but it's not personal she doesn't.
[1:27:01] Hate your.
[1:27:02] Husband she hates anyone who stands up to her.
[1:27:05] Yeah who she can't directly control she can't make.
[1:27:08] You sleep on the couch right.
[1:27:10] Yeah can't kick you out yeah it's like um i remember very early on i I figured out that, I have to drop a bombshell. Be careful, be careful. That my wife, my father-in-law cheated on his wife within like the first two or three meetings of him.
[1:27:34] Because I recognized pretty quickly how she would crap all over him. And then I asked, hey, what did your dad do? Your mom treats him like that. And she's like, well, there was that time he had an affair. Yeah. In Haiti.
[1:27:56] Um, had an affair.
[1:28:00] Yeah, I told you.
[1:28:02] Shortly after they were married?
[1:28:03] No, no, no, no. This was very late in their marriage. This was, I think I was in college when it happened.
[1:28:12] Well, I mean, I'm sure that the details, I don't know if you've seen that. It's a pretty funny but bitter meme. It's like a surprised Pikachu face. And it's like women finding out that their husband had an affair when they haven't had sex with them for three years.
[1:28:32] Literally.
[1:28:32] Literally.
[1:28:33] That's how it felt. That's how it felt.
[1:28:34] Yeah, I mean, you can only threaten to withhold sex for so long before your husband's like, all right, let me not impose anymore.
[1:28:41] I believe it was like 2017 or 2018.
[1:28:44] Right.
[1:28:45] He was off with the Navy again and he was, he was in somewhere else for like a year and obviously we didn't go with him again because we never did. It was a dangerous place. It was a dangerous place. And he, you know, missed my mom and my mom never took us to visit him. She would visit him by herself. And he found somebody that was nice to him and gave him compliments, which my mother never gives, and was calling him sweet things, which my mother never does. And yeah, I wasn't surprised, honestly, that he tried sleeping with another woman. And they stayed together after that, which is the most surprising thing.
[1:29:27] Your parents, you mean? Thank you.
[1:29:32] Sorry sorry.
[1:29:33] Your parents not not your father and his mistress.
[1:29:35] Yeah my parents okay sorry right my my father like confessed to my mother and like went through a repentance process with her and she decided to stay married to him and they're trying to keep it secret they've been trying to keep it secret yeah they were going to keep it between just the two of them and my mother's father so between the three of them with somebody who i don't know if he should have known they were going to keep it from all three of us kids and we all we only found out because uh, i was eavesdropping was.
[1:30:12] Your mother more upset that your father had an affair or that her son was raped.
[1:30:16] Affair okay she was she was more angry at the affair she was more like sad and crying at what happened to my brother, so.
[1:30:28] Right.
[1:30:28] But I think the affair was worse.
[1:30:32] For her. Obviously not morally, but for her.
[1:30:35] No, no, no, no. I'm just trying to think of her reaction and how much she was upset afterwards. Right.
[1:30:44] I mean, it's interesting how your father says, well, that's just how your mother is, right?
[1:30:50] Yeah.
[1:30:50] You just have to accept people for who they are, right?
[1:30:53] I've had other people say that about her too and.
[1:30:55] Does your mother say that about other people or you have to accept me for who I am or there's some sort of like does she say that about other people at all is there this general well that's just.
[1:31:05] Who that person.
[1:31:05] Is that's just so and.
[1:31:06] So being.
[1:31:07] So and so.
[1:31:08] Yeah that's just how they are right so except for her own kids who are held to a higher standard well I.
[1:31:15] Mean isn't your husband just who he is why.
[1:31:18] She's so mad she doesn't.
[1:31:19] Accept him for hey that's just who he is.
[1:31:21] But it was even that's just how my sister is but that's not just how i am i'm better than that.
[1:31:27] Oh tell me what you mean.
[1:31:28] Oh you know if you get in a fight and you get upset because oh my sister keeps trying to take my stuff and keeps bothering me and i'm trying to do homework and she keeps coming in to mess with me on purpose oh that's just how your sister is she just wants attention she just misses you you're always oh but if you.
[1:31:47] Do something wrong then it.
[1:31:48] Kind of breaks right thing wrong how i am it's i should be better than that now do you know.
[1:31:53] What um what the differentiating characteristic is do you know why why people are divided into these two categories of those you just have to accept and those you have to nag.
[1:32:08] It's it seems like it's just people who go along with her and get on her good side or not no.
[1:32:14] It's not that uh the difference is people who have a conscience.
[1:32:20] The people who have a conscience.
[1:32:22] Yeah, so it's a lot easier to correct people who are self-critical than people who will escalate and be aggressive if you criticize them. I mean, how does your sister handle criticism?
[1:32:33] My sister is the latter. She will escalate and get upset.
[1:32:37] Yeah, it's got nothing to do with higher standards or lower standards. It's like you're self-critical, which is a good thing in life unless you're surrounded by cold-hearted manipulators, in which case you're doomed, right? Because they'll just keep hammering those buttons to control you. So you're self-critical and your sister is not. And so when it comes to conflict, they will appease your sister and they will criticize you because you won't explode.
[1:33:08] Yep, pretty much.
[1:33:10] So, your virtues then become that which is used to, they appease whoever is the most aggressive and volatile, and they attack whoever is the most self-critical and subdued.
[1:33:24] Yeah.
[1:33:25] Yeah, so, just so you know, that's the difference, right? How does your father handle criticism?
[1:33:33] Much better. Much better. He usually will apologize and look at himself and try to fix it. And so it's like, even the thing you were just describing, he got similar treatment to me and my husband.
[1:33:45] Right, right. Because, you know, honestly. Yeah, I mean, bullies need to be around self-critical people, which is why self-critical people can't be around bullies. Like, you just can't do it. Yeah. Because they'll just use it against you. They will. They'll just absolutely use it. It's like going into a horrible conflict with a criminal knowing that he's going to take your gun. He's going to use it against you. Like, you just can't go in. yeah because people who are self-critical uh will generally me i mean probably i mean to a fault or whatever right but it's like i assume that i'm at fault and that's that's a great power in life because it means i can genuinely course correct and listen and fix things and right so but i i but i can't be around people who are just going to automatically blame me because then i have to really untangle that for my own self-critical aspect. If I'm around people who are fair and, you know, well, you did this right, but this could have been better. This was good though. Like that's reasonable. But if I'm just around people who are like, well, you're to blame, right? Well, I'm going to take a lot of responsibility for myself. I just can't be around bullies because they just, they take what is actually a virtue, which is to be self-critical and to want to improve. And they just use it to control others. And that's not, I mean, And I just can't be around that.
[1:35:05] Right. That's where I'm glad that I don't really miss my sister or my mom. Because I don't want to put myself back around that because they definitely do that.
[1:35:18] Well i mean but.
[1:35:19] Again it feels like.
[1:35:21] As long but hang on sorry but as long as your father keeps choosing to be around them that's his choice right yeah i mean that that's his priorities right, yeah i mean who's worse the bully or the enabler and the appeaser who fuels the bully that mean they're two sides of the same coin now one looks more like a victim i get that but they're not.
[1:35:48] He does look a lot like a victim.
[1:35:51] Yeah he absolutely he probably placed that violin all the way up and down the cat string right oh.
[1:35:56] Yeah but what if he is kind of a victim he chose to be in that situation.
[1:36:00] Sorry let's hear the case right i'm happy to hear the case well maybe not happy it's not the right word i'm i'm eager to hear the case as to how your father's uh is your father in his 50s 60s um.
[1:36:15] I think he's like early 50 yeah.
[1:36:17] Early 50s i i remember that seemed kind of old anyway um so okay so your father's past the half a century and you know he's militarily trained right so you know man knows something about discipline and hierarchy and all of that so how is this half century plus seasoned warrior a victim, now give me the give me the give me the steel man case how is he a victim.
[1:36:50] I hmm he let me think.
[1:36:55] I'd love to hear you say one day these trills are lovely but anyway go ahead i'm sorry no no don't apologize it's lovely i wish i could trill like that that's all i do for a living i.
[1:37:05] Wish man that would be so fun um okay so it feels like he's got that like physical kind of discipline right in the physical strength but knowing me knowing my mom and knowing that she like gaslights and is manipulative and tries to be very controlling i know that i've fallen prey to that and so i can see where it would be easy and likely if possible whatever for somebody else to fall prey to that especially when.
[1:37:38] Oh no you didn't oh no oh no you didn't oh no oh god i didn't look sorry you're equating your father with your mother's child.
[1:37:53] No.
[1:37:54] Yeah, you kind of are.
[1:37:55] No, you're right.
[1:37:56] Oh, my gosh. Oh, you're going to kick yourself later, but don't. I'm just saying you're going to have that urge.
[1:38:03] Because he was an adult when I was a kid.
[1:38:06] Oh, my gosh. That's a good point. So he's like a retarded sibling? No. I'm trying to figure out what category he's falling into here.
[1:38:16] I just, I mean, anybody could fall for manipulation and emotional abuse, but he was already an adult and I was a kid.
[1:38:28] Anybody can fall for manipulation. Okay. Have you seen pictures of your mother when she was younger? Was she like hot to trot? Was she a good looking woman?
[1:38:39] Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. She brags about it.
[1:38:43] Okay. So he fell prey to the sin of lust.
[1:38:46] Most likely.
[1:38:47] Okay, so, you know, he was hot to trot, she was attractive, and he's like, okay. So he judged the flesh, not the spirit.
[1:38:57] It does feel that way a lot. Even when he would talk about their marriage story, he always said, like, we dated too quickly. I wish we had dated longer. She, like, rushed the engagement question, and he accepted. And she was, you know, he told me she was all over him. Yeah, when they were dating, she was all over him. And she was talking about how she couldn't wait to get him in bed.
[1:39:23] Oh, that's so gross to hear from your parents, by the by. Like, please, God. I mean, I'm cringing and they're not even my parents.
[1:39:30] I heard so many gross things when I was younger. It was not fun.
[1:39:33] But so he got sex bombed. He got love bombed. He got pushed along so that he didn't see any red flags.
[1:39:38] And in less than a year, she was like, oh, you're about to go on a deployment. you need to fish or cut bait either get engaged or break up with me because i don't want to take a deployed man and it's like why did you date a navy man then but he he he said all right let's get engaged and then they got married i think when he came back from that deployment like it was it was relatively quick depending on like by today's standards it was really i.
[1:40:08] Have no a problem with the speed. I mean, my wife and I met and got married within 11 months, so that's fine. But, so he did not judge, The qualities of her character, but rather the jiggle of her characters or whatever, right? So, he... Sorry about that. My apologies. These were your feedbacks. I apologize for bringing them into the conversation. I was just trying to... Sometimes my mind goes to healthy places. Other times I traumatize the listeners. Sorry about that. So, but he did not judge the quality of her character. He just judged her flesh and her form, and they sinned, right? They had a lot of sex before marriage, right?
[1:40:51] No, they did not.
[1:40:52] Oh, I'm sorry. I thought that she was all over him.
[1:40:55] Yeah, she was all over him. She made him think that they were going to, but he said they never actually broke the law of chastity. And actually, she kind of bait and switched him, where as soon as they got married, he said they did not consummate on their wedding night. it took a few nights for them to even have their first time together.
[1:41:15] Right right and now well i mean yeah the more sexual the presentation in general the less sex you're going to have in the relationship really.
[1:41:25] I haven't heard that one.
[1:41:26] That's a deal it's not 100 but i mean all of the, all of the relationship i know whether it started with a sort of highly sexual decharged presentation and ended up being pretty sexless marriages because there's a reason why the woman is hypersexual and usually it's the woman could be the man usually it's the woman, it's because she's not happy with herself and if you're not happy with yourself you generally can't have a good sex life because it's all based on a falsehood because you want the person to have sex with you as a person soul to soul kind of thing but if you know that you're not very likable then the only reason the man wants to have sex with you is for your body against your spirit and therefore you begin to resent it as a rejection of yourself, as you reject yourself, right? So it goes from feast to famine pretty quickly.
[1:42:18] That sounds an awful lot like my mother. That does. That does.
[1:42:23] Yeah.
[1:42:24] Huh.
[1:42:27] And, you know, your father would have had to lie to her to say, I love you, right? And he didn't. Because, you know, if the woman is unpleasant but sexy, then you can't say to her, well, I kind of hold my nose to your personality, but, you know, I love the TNA, right? That's not something that you can say. So you have to lie and pretend that she's all kinds of quality, person, oh, I love you, you're so exciting, and a great conversationalist, and all of that. And you just have to lie to her face. And she knows you're lying, and you know that you're lying, and you know she knows you're lying. It's all just so false, and that's why it's hollowed out, and that's why the sin of lust is so bad. It causes people to connect on the flesh and dislike each other at the level of spirit.
[1:43:14] Yeah, you're right. When he would mention them before marriage, it was never about, like, we enjoyed our time or we had fun. He never mentioned what we were talking about.
[1:43:25] He really made me laugh.
[1:43:26] She taught me a lot.
[1:43:28] She had a lot of wisdom. She read all these great books. Oh, yeah, it's nothing to do with that.
[1:43:31] He would never talk about that. It was always just, you know, she rushed me. I felt we should have dated longer. We got engaged quick. We got married quick. And she was all over me and then didn't give me any on our first night. That's always the focus was. That was the whole story every time.
[1:43:49] Well, isn't that the story of the devil is to make lots of promises that turn out to be hollow?
[1:43:55] Yeah.
[1:43:56] No, seriously. Oh, man, if you marry me, we're going to have sex morning, noon and night. Oh, I have a little maletette. I can't I've.
[1:44:03] Got a headache.
[1:44:05] So yeah that's not that's sort of inevitable right you get promised heaven and you get delivered hell right.
[1:44:13] He calls her the prison warden yeah he calls her the prison warden but only to me.
[1:44:20] Not to her face, so he feels he still feels like a victim that he was fooled yeah.
[1:44:30] And he feels like a victim that he was fooled, and he feels like he's kind of trapped because it's like you have three kids, and he says he would stay together for the kids. And now it's like, if I divorce her, I'm going to lose half my savings and half all my money.
[1:44:47] Oh, she didn't work, is that right?
[1:44:50] Yes. She didn't work at a shoe store, was it? That was when they were dating. Oh, okay. Like as soon as they Either as soon as they got married Or as soon as they got pregnant She stopped working And she hasn't gone back Didn't she get a degree in something? She got a degree in biology, yeah But she's never been back to work Even once we were going to public school Even when we were teenagers Even now that we're adults She's never gone back to work So he would definitely be paying her, A lot Right But that's again That thing we said earlier Of him putting his finances Over his morals Mm-hmm.
[1:45:27] Well and because he lacks so people who lack self-knowledge and self-criticism often stay in bad relationships because they know they'll just be trading, one bad woman for another because let's say he did divorce your mother for whatever x number of reasons so he divorced your mother then he knows deep down he just go wandering around bleating about being a victim until some other jail keeper came in and took him prisoner Yeah.
[1:45:57] Because he would definitely want to get remarried and it would probably be pretty quick.
[1:46:02] Well, and now he's been, how long have they been married?
[1:46:06] Oh, hang on, hang on, hang on. No, because I'm 27 and my brother's like 29, 30. So it has to be around 30, 31 years.
[1:46:17] Right. I mean, I'll tell you this, I've been married like 23 years. I'd be completely useless for other women. Like, I've just like my wife and I have gotten to such a groove and, and, you know, our life is what it is. And we've gone through so much together and like, I'd be completely useless to other women. Um, and, and so he's like gotten into the groove with your mom. This is who he is. This is what marriage is. He's developed. He's finally developed the muscles of self-pity and self-abandonment and, and victimhood. So he's not going to undo that. If he gets divorced, he's not going to go out there and be a strong guy and as an assertive guy and thus get a feminine accommodating woman. he's going to be out there playing the victim and bleeding and then some other woman is going to scoop him up and put him right back in prison so what's the point of trading prison for prison if you lose half your stuff.
[1:47:02] Yeah yeah at least he knows this prison true.
[1:47:06] Right yeah yeah yeah well it's better to endure the hells you have than to fly the ones you don't even know yet right, so it's not it's not out of love and it's not even fundamentally about the money it's like he knows that because deep down he's not able to assess his life and try and improve anything like what if he wanted to you know he'd go to therapy and and you know deal with with this whatever right uh but and then you know if he went to therapy even if you left your wife and continued therapy and really dug in and but i don't know man i mean i don't know once you've locked your little kid into a room with rapists i don't know man i i don't know what i don't know what happens in life after that I have no idea. I mean, I've obviously never been a perfect person, but I've never, I haven't done anything in my life where I look back and you say, oh my God, that's so terrible. I mean, there's no restitution for, like anything like that, right? So I don't know what it's like to have that on your conscience. And that's just, I mean, obviously, I think it's the most egregious of many things that have happened. So I don't know how you get a conscience back when you haven't had one really in any practical sense for over half a century. I don't know that it regrows. I don't think it does.
[1:48:26] I don't know.
[1:48:31] I mean, does he pray?
[1:48:34] If he does, it's in private.
[1:48:37] Does he ever talk about, I pray for this or I prayed for that?
[1:48:41] Sometimes.
[1:48:42] Yeah, okay. Okay, so he does pray.
[1:48:46] Sometimes.
[1:48:48] Well, I mean, everybody prays sometimes. You gotta pray all the time. We gotta sleep, right?
[1:48:54] Good point.
[1:48:57] And sometimes we cry out for God when we're not praying. Anyway, so if he's praying, then I assume God is trying to awaken his conscience, but he's not listening.
[1:49:10] Presumably. Right.
[1:49:13] And if God can't awaken his conscience, you know who else can't?
[1:49:17] Me.
[1:49:18] Exactly. I try not to do what God finds impossible. that seems like a fairly I know nothing is supposed to be impossible for God I get that but the free will right so if he's praying to God and God can't awaken his conscience or God offers him guidance and he refuses to take it if he won't listen to God he ain't gonna listen to you or me yeah, and that's the humility of knowing that people have a relationship with the divine is saying look I mean he's got omnipotent all-powerful God and Jesus, trying to make him listen, if he won't listen to them, the odds of him listening to me are absolutely zero.
[1:50:08] So we shouldn't try again. No, I'm also thinking of like, if we were to put in this effort, what would I do for her parenting? It would be very stressful. And, you know, is it good for our son to even attempt to rebuild this bridge? I don't think it is.
[1:50:30] Well, so, I mean, the final, look, I'm not going to tell you what to do. I couldn't possibly. I would never have the arrogance, you know, in our two-hour conversation to say, I know what you should or shouldn't do. I don't. I genuinely don't. Right? But I do know that you want to guide it by morals and you want to guide it by what's best for your children. Now, you are pregnant.
[1:50:53] Yeah.
[1:50:54] Right? Is stress good for your baby?
[1:50:59] No.
[1:51:00] Is stress good for your child?
[1:51:05] No.
[1:51:06] No. See, the great thing about being parents is, you know, when you were a teenager and you woke up in the middle of the night, you could say, ah, you know, maybe I'll get up. Maybe I won't. Maybe I'll go get a sandwich. Maybe I'll just go pee. Maybe I'll just sit in bed. Maybe I'll read or whatever. You can do all of these things that you choose, right?
[1:51:27] Mm-hmm.
[1:51:29] But when you have a baby waking up who's hungry and crying out for you, your free will gets whittled down a little bit, doesn't it?
[1:51:38] Yeah.
[1:51:39] I guess I'll go feed my baby, right?
[1:51:42] Yeah.
[1:51:43] So it's the same thing. Becoming a parent makes things wonderfully easy. Because you just, okay, my North Star, what I guide by is what's best for my kids. Now, you say, well, statistically, it's better off to have grandparents in the kid's life. Yeah, but that's on average. Your parents are not average, I'm sad to say.
[1:52:07] Yeah.
[1:52:08] I mean, to take an extreme example, not directly relevant, but, you know, if your parents were serial killers, you'd say, well, but, you know, it's good to have grandparents. No, it's not. Not if they're serial killers, right?
[1:52:20] Right. And that's what I've been.
[1:52:22] Yeah. So that's on average, right?
[1:52:23] Better to have them or not. Seems like probably not.
[1:52:28] Well, on average, you know, it's good to drink some milk unless you're lactose intolerant. So there's, you know, asterisks on all of these averages, right?
[1:52:36] Right.
[1:52:39] The desperately important thing is for your kids. You have a son. Is that right? Two?
[1:52:44] Yes, we're going to have two.
[1:52:45] So your son and this is man speaking to female and listen your husband is obviously the final authority so this is to your husband if i say anything that goes against what you believe, tell me i'm wrong and i'll absolutely shut up so this is i say this with great tentativeness and hesitation all right okay uh are boys interested in things that are big loud and powerful yes okay so this is to your husband when you were for me it was dinosaurs spaceships and trains big loud and powerful right uh what was it for you when you were a little boy.
[1:53:23] Uh like airplanes uh trains submarines that sort of thing.
[1:53:28] Cool big loud and powerful all right now boys are drawn towards strength right and and boys will mirror themselves after whoever has the most power in the environment and boys are incredible hound dogs at sniffing out the tendrils and hierarchies of human power we evolved that way i mean girls are good at it too but we're just talking about boys here for the moment because your boy's older right i'm sorry i.
[1:54:01] Said because that's what we have.
[1:54:02] Right to your husband have i got anything wrong so far.
[1:54:05] Oh you're perfectly correct.
[1:54:07] Okay so boys will model themselves after not their parents but whoever has the most power so.
[1:54:20] If we go back.
[1:54:22] If you go back you will be subject to your parents power your parents will exercise that power of you in obvious and non-obvious indirect and indirect ways, your son will sniff that out, Like a bloodhound at a crime scene.
[1:54:41] Yeah, I remember that confrontation we had in 2022, and she was just beating me down verbally, and I kind of went back into young mode. I was like, oh, okay. Yeah, I do remember that. You shut down. Yeah. I don't want him modeling my mother.
[1:54:58] But he will. Or he'll model your father and thus invite bullies at school.
[1:55:05] Yeah.
[1:55:07] I mean i had i had a i don't even remember if i published this call but i had a caller it was a very interesting call and i'm just touching it really briefly here, i had a caller who had three dogs two dogs he had two dogs and he was over at his parents place and he had good authority over these dogs he was you know considered the alpha he was over his parents his parents yelled at him and humiliated him and both dogs bit him on the way home.
[1:55:31] Wow, Oh my gosh.
[1:55:37] Isn't that wild?
[1:55:38] That is wild. That is so quick.
[1:55:41] Yes, they absolutely saw that he'd been humiliated and he was no longer the alpha and they made a vow. They made a vie for being in charge.
[1:55:48] And see, that's what we've been afraid of too. My husband has mentioned that of like, if we go back, he's going to see us getting, you know, disrespected and lose respect for our authority and decide he doesn't have to listen to us because why would he?
[1:56:05] And he's going to say, who gets their way in the world, the most aggressive? Now, do boys want to get their way in the world?
[1:56:13] Doesn't everybody?
[1:56:14] I absolutely agree. I absolutely agree. But boys and girls go about it generally in different ways.
[1:56:19] True.
[1:56:20] Boys use hard power. Girls use soft power. So he's going to want to model himself after the biggest and strongest person who gets their way the most. And that's going to be not just your parents, but your entire extended family. You go around that extended family, all of whom seem to be siding with your parents. You're going to vanish and disappear in your son's mind's eye. And he's going to be like, damn, that's where the power is. That's what I want.
[1:56:52] And then the teen years are going to be quite challenging, to put it lightly.
[1:56:56] Yeah. I do not allow anybody around me who disrespects me, certainly not in front of my daughter.
[1:57:07] Because he should be modeling you yeah.
[1:57:09] Well to model you you have to be in charge you have to be the alpha i don't necessarily mean with regards to your wife right i'm just talking about now there i mean my my daughter has seen me i mean she was there with me in australia and new zealand when the media was going after me and and i was getting cross-grilled and examined and on live tv and stuff like that and you know part of what i am i'm gonna hold my own here because My daughter's right here, right? Which gives you a lot of strength. So that can be a good thing. And it's not like I win every conflict that I'm in, but my daughter will never see me be humiliated, right? So I'll just withdraw from a situation if somebody's escalating, like whatever, right? So it is around parental authority. And if you have authority, your relationship with your kids is almost infinitely easier than if they're skeptical of your authority and they say, well, hang on, these guys bow down before people who are kind of bullies. These guys appease people who are kind of mean to them. So why would I listen to them about what's right?
[1:58:13] Yeah. Yeah, because physically they can't do anything to us. They break in the house and we call the cops sort of thing.
[1:58:22] Sorry, I'm not sure what you mean.
[1:58:24] My husband has just pointed out like when we were debating cutting contact, I said, well, what if they retaliate? And he was like, there's nothing physical that they can do. They can't show up to the house. They can't, you know, take our car, take our house, take your phone. And we're financially independent of them, too. Yeah. So there's nothing physical that they can threaten.
[1:58:45] Well, okay. So let's, but let's say they do. They might. And I'm not saying they would, right? But I've heard of it, right? Let's say that they show up at your house and are knocking on the door or whatever, right? Right? Well, I mean, that's something that makes it easier to explain with regards to your children in the future. You know, like we've tried to establish these boundaries. They came pounded on our door against our wishes. That's unacceptable, right? We got these rules. And I mean, the way that I've certainly explained it to my daughter is, look, my door is always open honestly anyone in my family my door is always open, but, they have to do the right thing, They have to take ownership, apologize, make restitution. And, you know, maybe I've done some things wrong that they want to talk to me about. And, you know, I'm certainly happy to listen to that. Hey, my door is always open.
[1:59:51] Right.
[1:59:52] But you got to do the right thing. You know, it's kind of like the car dealership is always open, but you can't come and steal a car.
[2:00:02] Right.
[2:00:02] You got to come in with some value. so if they came.
[2:00:07] To us trying to say that they were sorry and they wanted to apologize.
[2:00:12] Well uh i don't know what what it would be but it would have to be something pretty pretty serious, right because you guys you know you're in your mid late 20s right late mid yeah sort of three quarters of your way through your third decade so it would have to be like, uh we we've gone to therapy we've enrolled in therapy uh our therapist is working with us on this this and this you know if if this show influences you we've listened to some of, Stef's shows or or whoever other people's shows whatever has influenced you that might be a value to them you know we we're getting your your brother we're paying for your brother to get into therapy we're going to talk about the things that have happened in the family to the extended family, right? We're going to talk about if it's okay with your brother, because we need to make sure the extended family understands why you didn't want to see us for a while. And we need to tell them the bad things that we did, and that we did gaslight you, and we did, like, there would have to be so much.
[2:01:15] That is a lot.
[2:01:17] Well, I mean, I'm not a betting man, but I wouldn't put a penny on it. Honestly, I just, from what I've heard, I wouldn't put a penny on it. If finding out their son got raped for years under their watch, under their care, custody, and control, if that didn't shock them into change, I have no idea what would. I genuinely have zero concept of what would.
[2:01:40] If that wasn't enough to shock them into realizing they were doing wrong or had done wrong or had messed up seriously, I can't, I can't imagine what would.
[2:01:57] You always make good points.
[2:01:58] It's like if some guy is a smoker and his father was a smoker and his father spends five years dying and he buries his father from lung cancer and then he won't quit smoking it's like what are you going to say he just took care of his dying father for five years and buried him he's still smoking like you can't be more vivid than what happened in five years.
[2:02:22] Yeah. Mm-hmm. So they'd really have to come forth with a lot, and not just this limp-wristed they've been doing. We just need to talk. Not even saying that they want to apologize. They've just been saying we need to talk.
[2:02:40] Well, leave the ball in their court. And the last thing I'll say, and this one's really important, but I can hopefully do it pretty quickly. So, listen, I completely understand this. There's a lot of sentimentality about the phrase mother and father, right?
[2:02:57] Yeah.
[2:02:57] I mean, if these were just some people that you met at a dinner party, you probably wouldn't become friends.
[2:03:03] No.
[2:03:03] Because you'd see the weakness, the manipulation, the gaslighting, the vanity, like all of you'd be like, oh, God, that was kind of a wild evening, but I'm glad we don't have to. So, if you just met your parents at a dinner party, you wouldn't be drawn to them as people you'd want to keep in your life, right? And I know that's not a real thing, but that would be more to judge their personality as it is right now.
[2:03:22] Yeah.
[2:03:22] So you give them, and I think it's lovely and wonderful that you do in some ways. So you give them a lot of special consideration because they're parents.
[2:03:32] Yeah.
[2:03:32] Right. And I understand why I do the same thing. I really do. And I'm not, that's not no criticism. That's entirely natural. However. Parents comes not just with the benefits of sentimentality, but it also comes with the obligation. So you feel the most sentimental towards them as parents, which makes perfect sense to me, but they also had the highest responsibility to protect you by far of anybody else.
[2:04:00] Right.
[2:04:01] And to listen to you now.
[2:04:04] Right.
[2:04:05] So the sentimentality is great. as long as you dial up sentimentality, I'm with you a hundred percent. But you also have to dial up responsibility. You can't just dial up sentimentality, parents, mother, father, I get all of that. But you can't dial that up and give them all the special considerations of mother and father without all the responsibility authority of mother and father. They need to be in charge. They need to lead the relationship. You guys are parents. My daughter is, I'm 58 years old. My daughter is 16 years old. i'm still in charge i still run things and it will i will always have that authority it will never end, if there's a problem in my relationship with my daughter it's mine to fix.
[2:04:50] It's mine to fix it's mine to take initiative i because i will always be older i will always be her father i will always be an authority figure i will always be in charge, I'll be 80, she'll be 40 or whatever it is, right? It'll still be on me because you can't just snap your fingers. Like this is part of my criticism with you, with your sister. Like, well, once she became an adult, now listen, the way she treated you is absolutely appalling. And I wouldn't want that in my life either. I just want you to say, okay, so she was treated really badly. Listen, you being the scapegoat of the family feels worse, but has a much better prognosis. You get a much better outcome from being the scapegoat. Being the elevated and praised one is almost certain doom.
[2:05:39] What do you mean by that?
[2:05:41] Well, you have a negative experience as the scapegoat. So you build your personality in resistance to being scapegoated. But she bases her entire ego and sense of value on the praise from your parents. It's way tougher to escape a bribe than a threat. yeah if i if i had to choose between being the scapegoat and being the golden child give me the scapegoat any day of the week and twice on sunday, because that's that's a way out decision yeah i mean if you've been scapegoat if you'd been praised and you're the golden kid and everything's fun then you get that special sick blow of satisfaction that your parents love you more and you feel superior to your sister and your brother and everybody loves you and you just want how do you escape that?
[2:06:34] That's a really good Yeah, you wouldn't turn around and get mad at them No.
[2:06:40] You escape from the dungeon, you don't escape from the palace The palace is the dungeon because you don't even see it's a dungeon and the palace of praise is, oh my god it's the worst thing ever, And I'm not, listen, I'm not saying have sympathy for her because she's treating you just horribly. And so, but in terms of the anger, you're angry because she was praised and you were scapegoated. And I understand that hurts and I'm not trying to say it doesn't. But what I'm saying is that you got the better deal.
[2:07:17] I'll try to reframe that in my mind.
[2:07:19] No, it's like the muscle that has to strain envies the muscle that doesn't have to strain. But who ends up stronger?
[2:07:29] The strained one.
[2:07:32] Fine, the strained one. Fine, you cornered me. Fine. It's a fine analogy. I don't know if it's true, but it's a good analogy and I'll take it. No, that's fair. That's totally fair. An analogy is not proof, right? So, yeah, with regards to your parents, they get a special elevation in terms of sentimentality. Absolutely. And that comes with a massive responsibility. and do not give them the sentimentality without also giving them the full ownership. My mother is my mother, and that's a very charged word. I came out from her. She nurtured me. She breastfed me. She raised me to such as she did. She has a very special place and a very special power. And with great power comes great what?
[2:08:14] Responsibility.
[2:08:14] That's right. So your parents are to all, the degree of sentimentality is the degree of responsibility. If they get special consideration, for being parents which they should and they will inevitably whether i say they shouldn't or don't it inevitably is going to happen emotionally and that has to be tempered with, they had the greatest responsibility i have the greatest sentimentality with my mother she also had the greatest responsibility to keep me safe especially from herself, and it's the same thing you feel the awesome responsibility of being parents It is an alarming thing. It's a beautiful thing, completely alarming thing. I mean, I remember driving home with my daughter in the backseat of the car. go in a cozy 15 miles an hour the whole way. What if there's this meat bump we don't see and she gets jostled? You know, that kind of thing, like the little death magnets we call children, right? So it's an absolutely awesome thing. And, you know, once you become a parent, everybody else's life just seems kind of frivolous. It's like, hey, man, I'm having trouble at work. Really? Are you trying to keep a death maggot child alive?
[2:09:22] Yeah.
[2:09:22] That's kind of, you know, like everything else. So you know that you have incredible power over your son, over your child to be. And with that power comes incredible responsibility to protect them and keep them well. And to listen to them. Because you have to listen to your children. Because of your power, you have to be very gentle and considerate, get down at their level and listen. And if your parents aren't doing that, if they shed their responsibility, you have to have the discipline to pull back the sentimentality. Because sentimentality without responsibility is way too much power and they do not handle power well.
[2:10:02] Yeah.
[2:10:03] All right. That's the last thing I'm going to mumble about.
[2:10:08] All right. I'll try to dial it back. I'll help. Yeah, you will help. Yeah.
[2:10:14] Yeah. And listen, I appreciate the sentimentality of women is a beautiful thing. It really is. And I absolutely love you guys for levering us up to the top of the food chain, but it does have to, And the Bible is, you know, very clear, right? The Bible is very clear about if someone wrongs you, speak to them privately, speak to them with a small group, speak to them in front of the congregation. If they do not admit fault and offer restitution in a meaningful way, they're gone.
[2:10:38] That was the actual scripture we've been thinking in, Matthew 18.
[2:10:43] Honor thy mother and thy father, thou shalt not bear false witness. You honor your mother and your father with the truth because it's dishonorable to lie to people. We lie to little kids, right? hmm no we do i mean and we.
[2:11:00] We're about certain things.
[2:11:02] Yeah i'm not saying we lie generally like or about important things but you know if if you're if you're you just had an upsetting conversation with your mom or whatever and your little toddler is like what's wrong mommy you're not going to sit that well let me tell you right we withhold we we we we don't tell them the whole truth about the whole world right we don't turn on the surgery channel and the war channel and They're like, hey, kid, this is the world. Well, it is, but, you know, we protect them. So we withhold things and lie by omission, in a sense, for kids until they're old enough to handle it, right?
[2:11:36] Right.
[2:11:36] But that's kids, right? You tell the whole truth to grown-ass adults of which your parents are, right? So I honor thy mother and thy father. Yeah, which means honor them as adults, which means don't bear false witness, tell them the truth. but it doesn't mean erase yourself for the sake of their selfishness and allow them to lead you into the sin of lying right i mean our parents should lead us to virtue not to self-abandonment and falseness and subjugation against our will for the sake of threat rather than moral encouragement yeah, all right must be kind of late but you guys are too is there anything else you wanted to mention.
[2:12:23] I'm good are you I'm just gonna need time to think and process.
[2:12:29] Well the beauty is you can always re-listen I got little notes about one place and one kid name I'll take those out for sure, and I hope you guys will keep me posted about how it's going and I really do I hope I did a good job I just feel incredibly honored that you would trust me with any kind of feedback in this incredibly sensitive situation and my massive sympathies for what you are faced with.
[2:12:53] Thank you. I appreciate it. Thanks for answering our text so soon after our call and request.
[2:13:00] You are very welcome. I'm very glad to help and I hope you guys will keep me in the loop.
[2:13:05] Will do.
[2:13:06] All the best. If you remember, I would not at all mind a baby picture in the summer.
[2:13:12] All right. I'll try to remember.
[2:13:14] All right. It may not be your first thing. Maybe your second.
[2:13:19] Okay.
[2:13:20] All right. Keep me posted, guys. Thanks for a great call.
[2:13:22] Yes, sir. Thank you.
Support the show, using a variety of donation methods
Support the show
