Freedomain Call In
This episode discusses a caller's challenges in a past relationship, lack of intimacy, and upbringing's impact on relationships. Responsible parenting and introspection for healthier connections are highlighted.
2023, Stefan Molyneux
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Brief Summary
In this episode, we discuss a caller's challenges in a past relationship, including lack of physical intimacy and feeling disconnected. We delve into the impact of upbringing on relationships and delve into the caller's complicated relationship with their parents. We also address responsible parenting and the caller's desire for loving parents. Introspection and addressing underlying issues are highlighted as crucial steps in building healthier connections.
Hi Stef, It's been a year since I broke up with my ex, after listening to your show regularly during that time since the breakup I've made significant progress in processing the emotions. There are 3 relationships I'd like to discuss with you that I'm sure will paint a picture for you of where I'm at now. I still struggle with thoughts of my ex and finding a path forward.
Chapters
0:00:00 Introduction and setting the context
0:12:26 Mother's lack of recollection of previous night's events
0:16:12 Memories of being disciplined with a belt and spanked
0:22:36 Hiding and indifference in family relationships
0:32:33 Unanswered Questions about Family Communication
0:33:20 Hiding an Online Relationship with Girl One
0:40:59 Long-Distance Relationship and Cheating with Girl Two
0:45:03 Taking Responsibility and Understanding Patterns
0:52:11 Living Together, Lack of Intimacy, and Porn Addiction
0:56:26 Weight gain in college and possible birth control effects
1:04:52 Daughter's Weight Gain and Father's Weight Loss
1:09:07 The Consequences of Neglectful Parenting
1:13:02 Importance of Parenting and Addressing Weight Issues
1:21:13 The issue of sex before marriage and sexual dysfunction
1:25:06 Body image issues and the importance of sex
1:28:10 The truth sets things straight, no more excuses.
1:32:46 Introduction to the relationship and emotional manipulation
1:44:46 Conflicting Expectations on Living Arrangements
1:52:37 The Backpack Drama and False Excuses
1:57:08 A Tumultuous Car Ride and Flight Considerations
2:02:37 Explosive Interaction with Friends and a New Year's Kiss
2:06:40 The Movie Triggering a Trauma and the Breakup Revelation
2:12:09 Making a Case against the Ex
2:16:31 Chasing Sex instead of Virtue
2:21:28 The Impact of a Terrible Mother
2:24:51 Girlfriend's Disapproval of the Protagonist's Mom
2:28:34 The Past Neglect: Lack of Help and Support
2:37:35 Questioning the Parenting Skills
2:38:31 Reflection on needing therapy
2:47:29 The Impact of Past Behaviors on Helpless Children
2:48:25 Slandering his son's virtuous girlfriend
2:51:50 Making excuses for the parents' behavior
2:54:39 Conversations with Parents: Addressing Family Dysfunction
2:55:36 Fear of Bringing Quality Women Home
2:58:37 Confronting the Mother's Lack of Effort
Long Summary
During this episode, we dive deep into a caller's previous relationship and the challenges they faced. The caller expresses frustration over the lack of physical intimacy and feeling like strangers with their ex-girlfriend even though they were living together. I empathize with the caller and emphasize the importance of physical intimacy in a romantic relationship. I suggest that the ex-girlfriend's upbringing, where she lacked guidance and support from her parents, may have contributed to the issue.
The caller acknowledges the significance of sex in building a romantic connection and questions societal pressure around abstaining from sex before marriage. I reassure the caller that their concerns are valid and that they are not alone in experiencing these challenges.
In another part of our conversation, we explore the caller's difficult relationship with their parents and how it may be impacting their romantic relationships. I highlight the unhealthy nature of the caller's mother's alcoholism and question why they continue to maintain a relationship with her despite the harm she has caused. I propose that their relationship issues with girlfriends may originate from their own complicated relationship with their parents. I provide an example of how a quality woman would likely perceive the caller's mother unfavorably, and the caller admits that one of their unstable ex-girlfriends had issues with their mom. Together, we delve into the possible reasons behind this.
Later in the episode, a caller's mother joins in a role-play conversation with me, where we discuss her past neglectful behavior as a parent. I question why she didn't seek help for her alcoholism when her son was young and why she didn't take action when she discovered explicit content on her son's phone during his teenage years. I stress the importance of responsible parenting and express concern about the caller's ability to be around children if they haven't reflected on their past mistakes. I encourage the caller to seek therapy and read parenting books to improve their understanding of being a good guardian.
The caller reflects on their past failures as a parent and acknowledges the need for change. Our conversation ends on a reflective note, discussing love and the caller's desire for loving parents. I advise the caller to have conversations with their parents and recognize the dysfunctional family dynamics that may be affecting their relationships. It's clear that introspection and addressing these underlying issues are key steps towards building healthier connections in the future.
Tags
episode, caller's challenges, past relationship, lack of physical intimacy, feeling disconnected, upbringing, relationships, complicated relationship, parents, responsible parenting, loving parents, introspection, underlying issues, healthier connections
Transcript
Caller:
[0:00] Stef?
Introduction and setting the context
Stefan:
[0:01] Hey, how's it going?
Caller:
[0:03] Hey, man, how are you doing?
Stefan:
[0:04] I'm well, I'm well, I'm well. I'm here, let's chat. I'm all over the problem as best I can be.
And do you want to just jawbone it? Do you want to read me what you sent? What's your pleasure?
Caller:
[0:17] Yeah, I think I'll just try to summarize the best that I can.
I went through a pretty tough breakup last year.
And i'm just kind of picking up the pieces throughout this year and trying to make sense of it and i think i'm making a lot of progress but i'd like to just get it over with um and try to make just even more progress with you hopefully um and try to make sense of my childhood as well So that's kind of just a brief on there.
So I guess we can start with my childhood.
Stefan:
[0:59] Whichever you like.
Caller:
[1:00] Great.
[1:05] So let's start with my mom.
My mom was much younger than my dad when they met.
She was actually the maid for my dad's household while he was getting divorced.
And she took care of his kids and I guess did a good enough job to where my dad thought she was marriage material.
So they got married, and my mom had come from another state where she was suffering from drug addiction problems. problems.
And I don't know if the alcoholism kicked in later or if that was part of the drug problem, but that quickly showed itself in their marriage.
I was born, I have my brother as well. Um, and when I was about eight years old, um, my parents started having significant problems in their marriage.
Um, my dad was working all the time and my dad's a very intelligent guy. He, uh.
[2:32] That's just something I really admire about him.
And he just valued work a lot more than family early on.
Stefan:
[2:45] Sorry, I just want to make sure I understand. You admire his intelligence, is that right?
Caller:
[2:51] Yeah, well… Why?
Stefan:
[2:53] I mean, intelligence is morally neutral, right?
Caller:
[2:56] Sure. Sure. I think just as a kid, I was able to kind of, I think actually what I admire about him that goes along with his intelligence is his openness to hearing my questions and not being dismissive.
And so he was very encouraging of my curiosity and his ability to help me when I was a kid, answer some difficult questions.
I know that sounds vague, but hopefully that makes sense.
Stefan:
[3:39] Yeah, I got that.
Caller:
[3:40] Yeah. And so I think the reason I admire that so much is I don't think I really got that from my mom. She was, um, Well, back to the divorce, she was drinking pretty heavily at that time when I was eight years old.
And my parents separated, and I was with her.
And some of the earliest memories I have were just her laying in bed drunk and me going up to her asking her for something and just being dismissed or yelled at.
[4:22] And so being able to go to my dad who voluntarily decided to be sober during that time.
And he told me later it was to try to set some kind of example that I wasn't getting, which I liked.
Um but my mother um there's some stories i can share like for example on my 10th birthday, my sister came over to make some cheese dip for my birthday um i had all my friends there it was like a build a fort and play in the backyard type of thing lots of people and my sister decided to come over and my mother, wasn't on good terms with the.
[5:15] With my half siblings at the time being that they came from a different mother she had some problems with them, and when my sister came unannounced she threw a tantrum started breaking things, I'm assuming she was under the influence of alcohol but And I just remember her taking this rubber band ball that my brother had made, my little brother, and throwing it so hard that it shattered a family photo.
And all my friends got to see that. And my dad was nowhere.
And everybody left. And it was just kind of isolating and bizarre as a kid.
Stefan:
[6:03] Yeah, I'm sorry about that. How long was she a drunk for?
Caller:
[6:08] That's a good question.
As far as I know, like during my life, I would say from eight years old to 17 years old.
Wow. And bringing it to…
[6:31] The present, I was over for Christmas at her house, and my brother spotted some cans of, I think it was White Claw, which is just like a sparkling drink.
And it kind of makes sense, given her behavior lately.
She's been calling me crying about some mice in her house, and everything has been kind of cranked up to 11.
And it's just a very familiar type of scene right now.
So I'm worried that she's back on it.
But she went through AA for quite a while, which actually, I think, wasn't the best thing for her. I don't know what the best thing for her was, of course, but there she met a lot of people who also drank, of course.
And so she found some new drinking buddies at AA and was able to further her habit and be encouraged by others.
And this got to the point where she had this friend.
[7:56] She had this friend who would come over and they would drink.
And finally, I was just so fed up with it. I think I was 15 at this point.
And I remember going up to this friend and telling her that I wasn't happy about her coming over and drinking with my mom.
And my brother was standing next to me, basically saying the same thing.
We were trying to be peaceful about it.
And my brother started taking the beers and pouring them down the sink.
This led to my mom's friend going into a complete rage and screaming at my brother.
[8:48] To which I went into defense mode for him and tried to get her to back off.
And this turned into probably one of the most intense fights I've had in my life with anybody.
She was calling me all sorts of names. She was telling me things that no one would know except for my mom, mom meaning she was digging up let's say secrets about me saying things that knew she knew would get under my skin um sorry i'm not sure what you mean by secrets do you mean things that yeah i'm sorry i'm not sure can you give me an example yeah sure i mean it's not anything crazy she just knew that i had smoked weed and she said that you know you're one to judge we know that you've been smoking weed and so I mean that's not like anything she didn't bring up anything jarring or anything I'm just trying to illustrate that she was trying to get under my skin as much as possible.
Stefan:
[10:02] And sorry how old were you at this point?
Caller:
[10:04] 15.
Stefan:
[10:05] And how old are you now?
Caller:
[10:08] I'm 24.
Stefan:
[10:09] 24, okay. So your mom's been a drunk for like 20 years off and on, almost?
Caller:
[10:16] Sounds right, yeah.
Stefan:
[10:17] Okay. And she's still drinking?
Caller:
[10:20] It sounds like it. I can't confirm, but yeah.
Stefan:
[10:24] And, sorry, just what's your relationship with her currently?
Caller:
[10:29] Very peaceful. For example, Christmas was one of the best Christmases we've ever had.
And it was really beautiful.
And that goes for my entire family. I don't know if we have time to go through every single one of my family members, but they all have their unique dynamics and problems.
And for some reason this year, everyone was in alignment and it was really special.
Um but they're.
[11:00] Like i said currently there's some tensions with my mom and well hang on sorry when did you have the bad breakup uh this would be october of last year right so uh two months before christmas kind of thing yeah okay yeah i mean you may have been just very subdued over christmas and uh maybe uh that just uh brought some uh i don't know could just be that you were were kind of a broken guy over christmas so uh people were nicer because you weren't any kind of threat oh yeah no that's probably very true yeah okay so uh you you said your parents was around 10 but they started to have problems they separated what happened there so they didn't actually get divorced until i was 18 um well that's when the process started i don't think they actually got signed to the papers until i was 21 but it was a long separation um and there was uh do you mind if i go back to the story with my mom's friend for a second i just have to wrap hey man it's it's your story i can't tell you how to tell it so i'm i'm all ears uh so that this this friend of my mom starts yelling at us and uh makes my brother run away and he can't be found until later that night um and my dad comes and picks him up and that.
Mother's lack of recollection of previous night's events
[12:26] Night ended with my mom leaving the house leaving me alone my brother went to my dad's um and then my dad picked me up but the the kind of the point of this story is of course the next morning when the dust had settled like she had no recollection of any of that happening no apology i'm sorry how do you know that she had no recollection?
Well, she put on, I can't say that she had no recollection, but she didn't bring it up.
Stefan:
[12:58] Yeah, because Lord knows addicts always tell the truth, right?
Caller:
[13:01] Right.
Stefan:
[13:01] Especially if telling the truth gets them off the hook. Isn't that just what addicts do? I mean, how on earth would we possibly know that she didn't remember?
Caller:
[13:10] She appeared to have no recollection, which is probably more accurate. Yeah.
Stefan:
[13:16] Well, no, she claimed to have no recollection, because that's the easiest thing, right?
Caller:
[13:21] Right.
Stefan:
[13:21] I mean, addicts by definition take the easy route, right?
Caller:
[13:26] Right.
Stefan:
[13:26] I mean, not the easy route in the long run, but anyway, I was just kind of curious about that. Okay, so, sorry, go ahead.
Caller:
[13:33] Yeah, so that wraps up that.
Throughout my early teens, I actually had a lot of friends, and high school was pretty good to me. I hated it, but I had a good group of guys around me.
Stefan:
[13:52] I'm sorry, what did you hate?
Caller:
[13:54] Just schooling.
Stefan:
[13:55] Oh, you hated school. Okay, got it.
Caller:
[13:57] Yeah. I was never a great student.
I liked video editing, filming, that kind of thing.
And so I put a lot of my effort into that as a kid.
That's what my dad does. So I picked that up from him, and he taught me a lot.
But my parents slowly started to become cordial with each other.
And leading up to now, they have a pretty good relationship.
We're able to sit down and have dinner type of thing.
So I think that just about covers the highlights so to say what about discipline if you were disciplined how did that go okay um, You know, I don't know what to say about this, but I remember being spanked, but I brought it up with my dad, and he had no recollection of that.
Again, I don't know if you are using that.
That could just be something I'm… There's no time machine, so I guess it's my memory against his. and I do remember being disciplined with a belt or at least being threatened with a belt.
Stefan:
[15:26] Wait, those are two very different things.
Caller:
[15:30] Yes.
Yes.
Stefan:
[15:35] Well, which is it?
Caller:
[15:37] Both.
Stefan:
[15:38] Oh, you were threatened and disciplined with a belt.
Caller:
[15:41] No, sorry, I thought you meant spanking and the belt.
Stefan:
[15:45] So being threatened with a belt is bad enough, but actually being hit with a belt is a whole different matter.
Caller:
[15:50] Yeah, I would say I was spanked bare-bottom and threatened with a belt.
Stefan:
[15:58] And with the spanking, how often was it? How common was it?
Caller:
[16:02] I don't think it was very common.
I don't think it was.
Stefan:
[16:07] You mean like a couple of times over your childhood?
Caller:
[16:10] Correct. Okay.
Memories of being disciplined with a belt and spanked
Stefan:
[16:12] Got it. Got it.
Caller:
[16:15] And as far as like discipline when I was a teenager, like when I did stupid stuff, generally I was let off the hook maybe more times than I should have been.
And I was allowed to do pretty much whatever I wanted.
And I wasn't necessarily a bad kid, but I did drink, I did do drugs, but I wasn't out there.
Stefan:
[16:45] How did you get into the drugs?
Caller:
[16:50] Yeah, that was my friend group. And obviously, I take some responsibility for that, too.
There was acid and mushrooms, probably twice with acid and four or five times with mushrooms.
Stefan:
[17:16] And did your mother ever warn you about addiction or substance abuse or drugs or alcohol or anything?
I mean, she had real experience with that addiction, so would that not be something she would warn you about or tell you about?
Caller:
[17:30] No, no. The only warning I got was from my sisters.
They were about 10 years older than me, and they only warned me about nicotine and cigarettes, which, of course, I ignored or at least took note of and said, thank you, but no thank you.
And I I partook in that as well and still drinking uh so the heaviest I drank was in high school senior year um, That went on for about four years.
Stefan:
[18:18] You mean like weekly or like binge drinking, that kind of stuff?
Caller:
[18:22] It was never alone. It was with friends, and I did drink quite a bit.
Stefan:
[18:31] I don't know what quite a bit means, one of these vague statements.
Caller:
[18:35] Sure, just, okay, let's see. Maybe twice a month I would get so drunk that I would pass out.
And on the other weekends, I would get very intoxicated.
Stefan:
[18:50] Oh, wow. So that's like, I don't know what, brain damage potential kind of thing?
I mean, that's real poisoning, right?
Caller:
[18:55] For sure.
Stefan:
[18:55] Yeah, yeah. Okay. And your parents, of course, knew about all this.
Caller:
[19:01] Yeah.
Stefan:
[19:02] And what did they… I mean, you've got an alcoholic in the family who's destroyed her capacity to mother in many ways.
And now you've got a kid who's getting blackout drunk a couple of times a month. What did they say?
Caller:
[19:16] If you ever need a ride, let us know.
Stefan:
[19:19] Wait, that's it?
Caller:
[19:22] Pretty much.
Stefan:
[19:25] I mean, why didn't they care?
Caller:
[19:29] I don't know.
Stefan:
[19:31] Sure you do. Come on, of course. Of course you do.
I mean, it's nice that people still try this after 20 years, give or take, but of course you do.
Caller:
[19:43] They don't recognize the problem themselves? Nope.
Stefan:
[19:47] Of course they recognize. You don't think your mom knows she drinks?
You don't think your dad knows your mom drinks?
Caller:
[19:53] Mm-hmm.
They don't want to stop themselves, and so they don't want…
Stefan:
[20:01] Um they can't be look if you care about somebody else you can't even if you can't stop yourself, right you can still say something right like if if i was some i don't know smoker and i was i don't know i felt i was totally addicted to nicotine right then i could still say to my daughter oh don't do what i did man don't don't smoke like it's it's like once it gets a hold on you man And whatever, whatever, right?
It's harder to quit than heroin. It's expensive. It's smoky.
It's dirty. It's bad for your health.
Like, I could, even if I couldn't quit, if I cared about my daughter, I would say, don't do what I did, right? Right. Or don't do what I'm doing.
So it's not that.
Caller:
[20:44] Yeah. Yeah.
Maybe it's the nerves, but I'm having, I mean, do you think it's the judgment that I would feel towards them if they told me that what I was doing was wrong?
Stefan:
[21:05] Well, it's not so much that they would say what you were doing was wrong.
They would say, this is a bad path to go down. We know this as a family.
You know, your mom has a problem with alcohol, and it's a lot easier to stop now than it is down the road. Right, so you could have some respect for that kind of care and concern, right?
Caller:
[21:26] Yes.
Stefan:
[21:28] So, no, I don't think it's that.
Caller:
[21:34] Well, I did feel that for my sisters when they told me not to smoke.
I felt that care and concern.
Stefan:
[21:41] Well, did your sisters know that you were getting blackout drunk a couple of times a month?
Caller:
[21:45] No.
Stefan:
[21:46] What do you mean they didn't know?
Caller:
[21:48] Well, they weren't living with me at the time, and we weren't talking very often when I was a kid.
Stefan:
[21:56] Well, your parents knew, right? And your parents talked to your sisters, right?
Caller:
[22:04] Yes, yes. But I just don't know if they talk like that to each other.
Stefan:
[22:17] Okay, so they would then be hiding your binge drinking from your sisters, right?
Because, I mean, they would be thinking about it. They would be a topic of thought.
It would be, oh, how's so-and-so the brother doing?
It's like, well, you know, he's drinking too much. Like, whatever it is, right? So they would be, wouldn't they be hiding this then?
Hiding and indifference in family relationships
Caller:
[22:36] Yeah.
Stefan:
[22:37] Okay, so why are they hiding it from your sisters? And why aren't they intervening with you? Yeah.
They don't care, no no it's impossible for family members to be indifferent to each other, all right let me ask you in another way the girl and we'll get to your breakup but the girl who broke up with you or you had the bad breakup with, right?
Did she sabotage you at all over the course of your relationship or over the course of the breakup?
Caller:
[23:27] Can you define sabotage, just so I know exactly?
Stefan:
[23:30] Well, a sabotage would be sort of acting in ways that are really detrimental to your interest, like undermining what you're doing, poking holes in your confidence, saying that you're like injecting you with really negative language so that your confidence takes a real blow.
Like just real sabotaging your sort of life energy, your optimism, your focus, your goals, your purpose, your ambition, whatever.
Caller:
[23:54] Yes.
Stefan:
[23:56] Right. Right. Now, of course, I knew that you were with a woman who sabotaged you. How did I know that?
Caller:
[24:02] Because my parents sabotaged me.
Stefan:
[24:05] It's straight up sabotage. Yeah. I mean, so if you've modeled drinking, and your son is getting into binge drinking, which is the beginning of alcoholism, right?
Like straight up, destroy your life, destroy your health, alcoholism.
And you don't intervene, and rather you facilitate it, right? Right?
So when they said, hey man, we'll pick you up from wherever, just tell us where to be there, we'll pick you up, you don't need to worry about it, it's not even going to cost you anything, right?
You don't need to take the bus or whatever, right? So when parents who know exactly how destructive alcoholism is are facilitating, enabling alcoholism in a son, that's straight up sabotage. They want you to fail.
They want you to drink. They want your life to be wrecked.
Yeah that's true now again i'm putting forward this as a hypothesis if it doesn't match your experience anything i say that doesn't match your experience or your instincts you let me know and we'll drop it like a hot rock but i mean i was fairly certain of this stuff before i became a parent but now that i'm a parent any parent who facilitates self-destructive behavior on the part out of the child and doesn't intervene strongly to prevent that child from pursuing the self-destructive behavior, wants the self-destructive behavior to hit the child.
Caller:
[25:26] I struggle going through all of this just because if I was a parent, and that's something that I really want to be, of course, I would try very hard to guide my children not to do that.
And if I heard of them doing that, I'd be very quick to look for solutions or to talk with them.
Stefan:
[25:53] Well, of course you would. Yeah, of course you would.
Caller:
[25:55] Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, of course, it sounds to me easy, maybe not easy, but easy to come to that conclusion that that's what I should do.
And so I don't understand why they didn't have that.
Stefan:
[26:13] Uh and it could well no no it's not that they didn't have that they did it wasn't like they were absent right yeah they modeled alcoholism and the enabling of alcoholism and then when you started drinking they did not intervene and they enabled or they supported your alcoholism or your budding alcoholism by telling you that they would come and pick you up wherever and take care of it and never punishing you or not punishing necessarily but never sort of setting setting down any sort of rules to say look but you can't be going down this road like this really bad road right so they're they're getting behind your alcoholism right correct and how did you pay for all of this alcohol pretty expensive stuff honestly most of the time it was was bought by other people, I would pitch in.
Caller:
[27:09] I was working from 14, so I had money.
Yeah, I guess finding the money was never really a problem.
Stefan:
[27:27] And how much do you think you spent on alcohol every month?
Caller:
[27:36] Maybe $200.
Stefan:
[27:40] Yeah, I mean, for a teenager, that's a fortune, right?
Caller:
[27:43] Yeah, yeah, correct.
Stefan:
[27:45] So, of course, your parents, one of the things that parents do is they say that if you're going to spend money on alcohol, then you can afford rent.
You're right i mean if you've got 2400 bucks a year to toss away on self-destructive poisonous alcohol then you can pay for groceries right and then they charge you rent or whatever it is and then you don't have money for alcohol right right that's a good way to look at it it's just one possibility out of out of many but of course because you would stay in constant communication with your kids as a good father, they wouldn't end up as binge drinkers, right?
Caller:
[28:28] Right, right.
Stefan:
[28:30] I mean, the people in my youth never really intervened or interfered with destructive behavior on my part because they wanted me to fail.
Because misery loves company. Because failures don't want to see people succeed, right?
Right yeah i've heard you talk about this this is coming back to me yeah this is this is an idea that long predates me of course right right right uh so yeah but you're the only person talking about it in my life right uh it's unfortunately it's been kind of uh buried or or covered up or something like that but uh okay and what happened with your dating life in your teens yeah so um let's call her girl one.
Caller:
[29:21] She was…
So I was online a lot as a kid.
And playing video games, my parents never really monitored my video game usage or my online time.
I got a computer when I was very young, let's say 12 or 11.
[29:46] And that i had unrestricted access to all of that um but i tried to be respectful with it like when my parents would come in i would completely detach from it and and give them attention and they never demanded it either it wasn't like a fear thing at least i don't think um and so i had made a lot of friends online at that time um and there was a girl when i was let's say 14 who i had started online dating and this went on until i was about 16 going into high school and she uh was very sexual for that age i don't know if that's uncommon but um she well it's not uncommon for victims of child abuse but i'm not sure about the rest of it well you beat eat me to it she definitely was and her dad beat her and verbally abused her and.
[31:10] I I kind of witnessed it on the phone a couple of times which was shocking and I, That relationship, I feel like…
Stefan:
[31:23] Well, hang on, did you ever, I mean, did you ever go to your parents and say, gosh, you know, I've got this online friend and she's being horribly mistreated.
Is there anything we can do?
Caller:
[31:34] No.
Stefan:
[31:40] Why not? I mean, didn't you say your father was like really open and encouraging and good communicator and wanted to hear from you?
I never talked to him about girls really until i was uh a young adult no i i didn't say talk to him about girls i mean you could do that or not what did i say i said talk to him about your friend being viciously beaten and verbally disassembled by kind of a psycho dad right, yeah i i just don't think i i really knew what was going on and and no no you're gonna say no No, no, you just told me that you were shocked by her being abused, so nice try, but no.
Caller:
[32:20] Okay, yes, correct, yeah. Got me. Okay, yeah, I don't know.
Okay, let me think about that.
Unanswered Questions about Family Communication
Stefan:
[32:33] I'm not blaming you, you understand. I just want to know why you wouldn't talk to your, at least your dad, right? because you've got a good relationship with your dad to some degree, right?
You tell me you admire his openness, his intelligence, his resourcefulness, his hardworking.
So a friend of yours was being, I guess, sounds like pretty viciously abused by her father. You couldn't do much about it. You're 14, 15, 16 years old.
But couldn't you talk to your, at least your dad, maybe your mom was too drunk, I don't know, but why not?
Hiding an Online Relationship with Girl One
Caller:
[33:20] Maybe I was afraid of what would happen if, they found out and told me that I couldn't talk to her anymore or she got taken offline by her parents um.
Stefan:
[33:44] Wait, so you preferred having your own needs met for her company or sexual talk or something like that?
You preferred having your own needs met rather than doing something that might actually help her?
I'm sorry, I'm not sure I quite follow. I'm happy because I'm post-online guy, right? So like as a kid, so if you can help me out.
Caller:
[34:04] Well, I'm trying to dig maybe a little deeper than I should, and I'm not sure if that's the case, but that very well may be.
To be honest with you, I haven't thought about that enough in order to kind of form a conclusion on why I didn't do that.
Stefan:
[34:20] I learned more about- You know. I mean, it's not something you have to go excavating.
It's not like we're trying to figure out hieroglyphics before the Rosetta Stone, right?
So you had a situation, I assume, where you heard this girl being screamed at or whatever was happening, right?
Caller:
[34:38] Mm-hmm.
Stefan:
[34:39] And did you also hear her being beaten or it was just a verbal abuse?
Caller:
[34:43] I learned about the beatings when I was an adult, when I caught up with her later.
Okay so you heard the verb you heard the verbals was like screaming names at her kind of thing well it sounded like very dysfunctional family uh yelling which you know coming from my family wasn't exactly foreign to me and so perhaps i just thought she had it, um the same as me and i didn't see it as uh something that was, worthy of taking to that level and of course looking at it now it's, well i mean what did you say to her after you heard the her dad yelled at her or whatever, I asked her, I'm sure I asked her a lot of questions and comforted her.
I was young and I haven't thought about this in a while.
Stefan:
[36:01] Okay, so you did discuss it at least and you gave her some comfort.
So that's, I think that's good. That's nice.
Caller:
[36:07] Yes.
Stefan:
[36:08] But the idea of talking about it with your parents, you thought maybe she'd be taken offline or you'd be taken offline or something like that.
So you basically felt that your parents would not help, right?
Caller:
[36:21] Well, it felt taboo to me to be dating a girl online to begin with.
What does it mean to be dating?
Stefan:
[36:28] Sorry, what is dating online? I don't know what that means. For me, dating is in person, but what does that mean, dating online?
Caller:
[36:35] Well, when you're 14, it doesn't mean much.
Stefan:
[36:40] It's basically just having someone to talk to throughout the day who gives you um emotional dopamine and um it doesn't help you in any other way in the real dating world i can tell you that um but i assume that there was also i mean you said she was hypersexual so there would be like sexual conversations as well you don't have to get into any details of course right but i assume that that was sort of floating around yes right Right. Okay. Okay.
And then you said it was sort of 14 to 16. And what happened then with her?
Caller:
[37:18] She had cheated on me with a guy on a cruise.
Stefan:
[37:24] Did you ever meet her in person? I mean…
Caller:
[37:27] No. And that was something that we had talked about.
Stefan:
[37:30] Was she very far away?
Caller:
[37:33] Yeah. She was halfway across the country from me.
Stefan:
[37:37] So you were supposed to be monogamous although you'd never met but then she cheated on your, never met but monogamous relationship is that right when you put it that way yeah it sounds i mean it's a bit of a brave new world but i'm willing to ride with it i'm you know i'm willing to be to be instructed by the youth but okay so you you're supposed to be boyfriend and girlfriend you were i guess planning to meet what maybe when you became adults or something like that but then she cheated on you although you never met and then you ended it yeah and she um.
Caller:
[38:19] Well, no. I was very upset, and we stopped talking for a while.
We got back together, and then she broke up with me once she left homeschooling and went into public school, which was sometime around freshman year.
Stefan:
[38:44] Oh, so she had access to in-person boys.
Caller:
[38:47] Boys right okay yes and she was of course pretty and she um became um well you hope she was pretty what do you know well i guess you did video calls with her too right yeah okay got it got it it wasn't like some lumberjack in yukon okay got it no um so that relationship uh really um confused fused me as a kid, not knowing if it was, real, because of course without the human connection, there's a lot of missing stuff there.
Stefan:
[39:24] You hid it, right?
Caller:
[39:27] Yeah.
Stefan:
[39:27] I mean, did you hide it from everyone or just your parents?
Caller:
[39:31] Some friends knew.
And then I told my mom, eventually.
Stefan:
[39:39] How old were you when you told your mom?
Caller:
[39:43] I told her when it was ending. because I was hurting pretty bad.
Stefan:
[39:51] Oh, okay, got it. So you told your mom when you broke up with the girl, is that right? Oh, no, she broke up with you because she was in school.
Okay, got it. So then you were hurt, of course, and upset, and then you told your mom and you said, I've been having this online relationship for the last couple of years. And what did she say, your mom?
Caller:
[40:11] She was confused and upset.
But empathetic and she comforted me and, that's about the extent of that she didn't really give me any, advice like don't do that online relationship again that kind of thing did she express any particular surprise that for a couple of years you'd had this online girlfriend and she knew nothing about it yeah she did.
Stefan:
[40:46] And did you also tell your mom that you'd heard the girl being sort of yelled at by her dad or in this difficult situation?
Caller:
[40:53] No.
Stefan:
[40:55] Okay, so that's girl one, and then we move to girl two?
Long-Distance Relationship and Cheating with Girl Two
Caller:
[40:59] Yeah, girl two was my high school sweetheart and senior year of high school. school.
[41:10] She was my prom date one year. I can't remember which year.
And we had revisited and talked and I asked her out and we started dating.
I would bring her coffee or hot chocolate in the morning. That was kind of our thing.
And we were really into each other.
I decided not to go to college. And she went to a fairly prestigious school about seven hours away from me.
And we made the decision to ride it out and wait for college to end so we can move in together that was the the plan and I I've never really told anybody any of this stuff coming up and And I take no joy in saying it.
But I, well, again, this is going to be.
[42:39] Slightly new age confusing, of course, but she, so we were long distance.
I would visit her maybe eight times a year. She'd come home for, for summer.
But during one of those years where she was in school, I had an online relationship again, with the girl one.
And that had lasted about two weeks, and it was mostly just sexual pictures.
[43:21] And I hid that from my girlfriend at the time.
And I did it again a year later.
Her and I hid it from her again and we moved in together after she had graduated and the guilt from that kind of made me like shut down from the relationship sorry Sorry, the girl one that you were exchanging the racy photos with or whatever, did she know that you were in a relationship with a real girl in the flesh? Yeah.
Stefan:
[44:19] Okay, so she was sabotaging that too, right? Okay, so she was attempting to arouse your lust or whatever it is, and I guess successfully, right?
And that detonated the relationship, I guess, over time with the girl too?
Caller:
[44:37] Yeah, it was something I thought about constantly.
Stefan:
[44:39] Right. So you got played by a girl who wanted to wreck your relationship. Right.
Caller:
[44:48] Uh, yeah.
Stefan:
[44:49] And I don't mean played like you're a fool or anything like that.
When you're a young man, we go to me.
I remember the hormones, right? Still have them. So I get I get all of that.
But I just don't think part of the sabotage thing. I'm sorry. Go ahead.
Taking Responsibility and Understanding Patterns
Caller:
[45:03] Sorry for interrupting. I, I, when you say I got played, I just feel like I'm not taking enough responsibility for that. Does that make sense?
Stefan:
[45:13] Well when i say played i didn't say you didn't have any responsibility okay but it wasn't i mean why did the girl do what she did let me ask you this so you get back in touch with this girl and you say i'm in a relationship right, yes and after that she cranks up the sex stuff right yeah okay so that's to get you i mean it's not like she's getting any particular sexual gratification immediately it's not like you You guys are meeting up, right?
Caller:
[45:41] Right, yeah.
Stefan:
[45:42] So this is back to your mom and your dad and the sabotage. I'm trying to sort of give you these patterns.
Now, if you don't see the patterns, then it's really hard to make good choices, right?
Caller:
[45:53] Right. I see them clear as day right now.
Stefan:
[45:56] Right. So when I say you got played, I mean, that doesn't mean that you don't have responsibility, responsibility, but it means that if you have a pattern of betrayal or undermining or sabotage, as I talked about earlier, if you don't see that pattern, then it's kind of tough to see what people are doing, right?
So, you did two weeks of racy stuff, photos and so on, right?
And then what happened? How did that wind down the first time that you reconnected with Girl 1?
Caller:
[46:31] One um i think it was a mutual let's let's stop this at least that's i i had told her that you know because once the, kind of excitement wears off you realize what a pos you are and yes they call that post nut Not clarity, I believe.
Yeah, yeah. That set in, and I told her that we can't do that. That's how that ended.
Stefan:
[47:10] And then I'm trying to sort of figure out the timeline of when it started again.
Caller:
[47:19] So I should be more specific. The second time it was with a different girl.
I'm just not sure how much detail. So I'll go into that.
Girl 2 was a similar situation.
A mutual friend online who we became close friends and we didn't exchange any sexual pictures or talk any sexual talk, but it was pretty emotional.
Stefan:
[48:02] At least it was for me at the time and it felt like what they call emotional cheating i guess, um so without any romantic talk right you just but you engaged with her as a friend but felt very close is that right there was talk of me breaking up with my current girlfriend, um and and going with her, so romantic and okay not specifically sexual but definitely romantic and all that okay and how long did that last for, uh about two months, and i suppose at this time you're interacting with both girls mostly online is that right did Did you see Girl 2 in person while you were flirting heavily with Girl 3?
Caller:
[49:00] Yeah, yeah, so…
Yeah, so girl one, or sorry, I'm getting confused here.
A high school girlfriend visited twice in that time.
And one time she was playing solitaire on an iPad or something that I had had.
And she saw a notification for a missed call from this other girl.
And she asked me about it. And I told her that she was a friend online who I played games with, with other friends.
And I said something along the lines of, she was calling to ask if I was awake to play a game.
Stefan:
[50:02] But that's not even remotely believable. well that i mean she'd just ping you right she'd just send a message you wouldn't call right, she she called it was a missed call notification no no no i get that but i mean if if if you want to know if a friend is play is available to play you just send them a message you don't call them oh right and i'm yes no it was a horrible excuse and it was kind of a but you were able to do that that right because i mean you were raised by an addict and so addicts lie and so you have this capacity to fluidly lie right not well but correct well enough right right yeah yeah i mean she bought it right she bought it um but it i would say it had a permanent, unspoken scar on the relationship that i think she knew um i we never really talked about it after that but things were noticeably different, yeah i mean she probably had an instinct that you were lying to her but the only thing she could do of course would be to take your ipad and call the girl back and say say, what's the nature of your relationship with this fellow?
Caller:
[51:23] Right, yeah.
Stefan:
[51:25] Which would be, I guess, assertive and would may get to the truth or may not, right?
I mean, if stories didn't match, right? So she calls this girl back and says, or she gets you to call, right?
Caller:
[51:39] Right.
Stefan:
[51:40] And, you know, she puts you through the wringer, right?
Caller:
[51:43] Mm-hmm.
Stefan:
[51:44] And she would probably quite quickly find out that your stories didn't match, right? Right.
Caller:
[51:49] Right.
Stefan:
[51:50] And then she'd know you were lying, then that you were pursuing some kind of affair and all of that, right?
Caller:
[51:55] Mm-hmm.
Stefan:
[51:56] Okay. Yeah, all right. So how long did things last with girl three after you had your sort of second online fling with the other girl?
Living Together, Lack of Intimacy, and Porn Addiction
Caller:
[52:11] Yeah, we moved in together, and that lasted about eight months.
Stefan:
[52:17] Wait, things cooled off and you moved in together?
Caller:
[52:22] Yeah, we kind of just went forward with our plan for four years, which was to move in.
Stefan:
[52:35] Okay, and is this the relationship? Is this the bad breakup you're talking about, or is there a different one?
Caller:
[52:41] No, that's the fun one that comes after this.
Stefan:
[52:44] Okay, got it. So you lived with this girl for eight months, and what happened at the end there?
Caller:
[52:54] Well, I mean, it will come as no surprise that I had a porn addiction at that time.
Well that's the sort of unmonitored computer use from a young age right right, and um this girl um we had been having regular sex uh when she would visit me i'm sorry you have been having is that right so i'm not sure if you said you had or hadn't, we had you had been sorry been having okay um when she was in college, and uh as soon as we moved in together um we didn't have sex once the for the eight months that we were together and what you christened the new place or anything um okay what the well not once i didn't even die off that's wild i've never heard that before no i, Okay, so the first day she did perform oral, and I guess you could classify that as sex, yes.
But that was the one time and the last time.
So I guess christening, yes, but…
[54:18] I can go into that a little bit more. She had felt like she was gaining a lot of weight.
She was gaining quite a bit of weight.
She was normally a very slender girl.
She was fairly depressed. She had a very hard time with birth control.
And she had tried a lot of different options and I had always told her that I don't like that stuff.
But of course, coming from a guy who wants to have sex with a girl, that doesn't really mean much.
Stefan:
[55:03] Sorry, I don't quite follow what you're saying. You said you didn't care about birth control or you didn't like the hormonal birth control?
Caller:
[55:10] I i i just had done some research on it and found that i i didn't like that for her because it was messing with her mood okay but what does that mean when you says that doesn't mean much coming from i don't know i'm just well i think that i think that she took it as um, she took it as well you don't have the fear that i have of of getting pregnant and the trade-offs are worth it i think is the way that she would look at it and because what because condoms like was like not a thing or other form we had had we had had moments where a condom would break and she would say this this doesn't work so, she was afraid of condoms for that reason or at least afraid of one layer of protection as opposed to two.
Stefan:
[56:08] Okay, so she kept on the birth control? I guess she wasn't on birth control.
No, she must have been, I guess, while you guys were long distance when she was in college for a couple of years, right?
Caller:
[56:19] Yes, yes, she was.
Stefan:
[56:20] And she wasn't gaining weight over that period, is that right?
Caller:
[56:24] She was the entire period.
Weight gain in college and possible birth control effects
Stefan:
[56:26] Oh, she was the entire period. And so, but I mean, it's sort of well known that, particularly what they call it, frosh 15, right?
The girls or women will gain weight when they get to college for a variety of reasons, whether they, I don't know, it could be like script, cafeteria food, I don't know what, but it often happens.
But you think it was more to do with her being on birth control?
Caller:
[56:46] I think it has a lot to do with i think it's a multi-varied uh thing here because she was depressed and it could have been because of these sorry when was she depressed uh during the eight months we were living together oh so this wasn't over college over college she wasn't depressed, no i as far as i know uh she didn't give any indication of that and she was quite happy and we you know.
Stefan:
[57:16] Boy, that's not very encouraging.
I'm really happy. We're living together. I'm catastrophically depressed.
Caller:
[57:25] Yeah, no, it's not.
Stefan:
[57:27] I mean, another thought popped into my head, which is probably nonsense, but I'll just say it, right?
Because I just want to make sure I unclutter my brain so I'm a good listener.
So the first thought that popped into my head that when you said we never had sex, I mean, forget the oral sex for a sec.
So you say, well, we didn't have sex after we moved in together.
So the first thought that pops into my head is that she has an STD.
And, you know, if it's something like herpes or whatever, then, you know, that's it, right?
I mean, that's with you forever. I know it comes and goes to some degree, but, or she has something that is, which is why you had oral sex and then nothing else.
That she doesn't know how to deal with it or doesn't know how to tell you or, you know, you're kind of on this train track to living together.
Obviously, that's just, there's no proof of anything like that.
And I assume she didn't confess anything like that.
But that was sort of my first thought as to like, well, why, when you finally have your dream life together and you've been long distance for, what, four years or something.
Why would you not have any sex? And my first thought was that she didn't want to give you some kind of illness.
Caller:
[58:43] Maybe.
I might also add that this happened during COVID, right when COVID was hitting.
And that she was very, very, very afraid of COVID to the point where she didn't want to go out on dates.
Stefan:
[59:04] Um i had offered to take her out and she would say that we should do something inside, and so we would um but it's not quite the same sorry to interrupt but what what what was she scared of did she think she would die or was it long covid or like what was it that that she was so scared of giving it to other people and having the burden of that on her conscious, okay so that that's sort of psychologically aligned with what i was saying earlier right that she's very worried about giving an illness to someone else oh yeah okay all right so um i mean what what happened with you and sorry to ask so personally you don't have to talk about anything you don't want to but you know like man to man what the hell happened with you and not having any sex after you're finally together with the girl of your dreams for uh years and years and you're finally living together and there's no sex i mean was this something where you were like like Like, what's going on? Or let's talk.
Or, like, what's happening?
Or were you wracked with guilt over the online stuff and, I mean, didn't want to do it because of that?
Or, like, that's a wild thing to me. So what happened?
Caller:
[1:00:17] That might be part of it, but…
I think after just being denied so many times, I had kind of given up and was making it a spite thing.
Stefan:
[1:00:31] But what would she say? Was it a series of excuses, or what would she say with regards to you initiating sex?
Caller:
[1:00:40] Sex she would say like i'm not feeling well or um maybe tomorrow that type of thing or, she would say i don't want to take my shirt off um i'm not looking my best right now well that's why you turn the lights off sometimes right all right okay so um you would want to have sex and And then she would say no.
Stefan:
[1:01:09] And then after a while, you're like, fine, I don't need it. Right? Something like that.
Caller:
[1:01:13] Yeah. And we would sleep in the same bed but face opposite directions.
And that went on for what felt like forever.
And that's when I decided that I need to end this.
And this really, really was tough for me because do I tell her what I had done in the past?
Stefan:
[1:01:39] Oh God, no, no, I don't know why you would do that.
So you guys didn't have any conversations about this?
You weren't like, gee, we're living together, but like brother and sister or something like that.
Did you have any conversations about the issues?
Caller:
[1:01:56] I mean, I assume they weren't just sexual issues, with the issues in the relationship uh just no communication at all no there was communication about that um once a month maybe slightly more frequently than that but about once a month we would have a uh sit down talk about how things aren't going very well and those conversations would usually look something like, She's not happy with her weight. I'm not happy with the lack of sex.
Stefan:
[1:02:34] I mean, my God, man, how heavy was she?
Caller:
[1:02:38] Oh, not even…
Let's see. Maybe 40 pounds more than when I met her.
Stefan:
[1:02:49] And how tall was she?
Five four five three oh yeah so that's quite a lot i'm sorry i'm gonna say how tall was she like she's buried in a backyard or something how tall is she uh okay so i mean she was pretty fairly significantly overweight right noticeably yeah well 40 pounds is a lot yeah for uh for somebody who's five three five four and i'm just guessing i'm just guessing right right yeah i get it but i mean it was quite a difference from when you met her right it was right so why, why did she move in with you if she didn't want to be intimate with you, I think I should also add that her parents were living in the same state as me, obviously, when she left for college, but they had moved right before she moved back.
Caller:
[1:04:01] And she was very close with her parents. She has pretty great parents.
I had a great relationship with them.
Stefan:
[1:04:09] She has pretty great parents? What the hell are you talking about? found.
She doesn't know how to communicate at all in a relationship.
She thinks that somehow having no sex life with a young man is a sustainable situation.
Like, what do you mean she has really great parents? I don't understand what you're saying at all.
Caller:
[1:04:37] Yeah. This is why I called you stuff. You're unwrapping my delusions.
I thought that they were very nice people, and they were respectful.
And I think that was, for me, a baseline that was good enough.
Daughter's Weight Gain and Father's Weight Loss
Stefan:
[1:04:52] Well I mean but okay so their daughter is moving in with a guy right, I mean they knew all about that they knew all about you right, so their daughter is moving in with a guy and also their daughter is putting on weight, and did they not say something did they not say hey you know what's going on like you're really gaining weight and this is not good and you know you're a young woman you should be healthier and right, and you know it's not going to to be very attractive for your boyfriend and like what do you what do you mean well her dad was actually losing a lot of weight at the time which i was i'm just kind of putting together, i don't know where that fits in but he he lost a significant amount of weight and he wasn't necessarily overweight before but he was looking, noticeably better every time i saw him okay so he's an he's obviously doing that pretty pretty singular thing, which is, as an older man, he's losing weight, which is not an easy thing to do, but he was doing it successfully.
So, he's weight conscious, he's working at it, and his daughter's gaining weight, and he's not saying, okay, let's sort this out, this is not a good thing.
Caller:
[1:06:08] I don't know what conversations they had.
Stefan:
[1:06:13] Well, they didn't work, which means either he He didn't communicate to her or she didn't listen to and respect what he had to say.
So how's that good parenting? Either he didn't have any credibility, or he didn't even bring the topic up.
Caller:
[1:06:32] Yeah.
Stefan:
[1:06:33] Or, of course, you know, his daughter is living with some guy, not some guy, she's living with you, which is a very serious thing, could lead to marriage in the future and grandchildren and all that, right?
And, of course, he's going to say to his daughter, how's it going?
Caller:
[1:06:49] Mm-hmm. Right?
Stefan:
[1:06:51] Because that's super important. This is her first, I mean, it would be better, I guess, if you guys had gotten married before living together, but nonetheless, he would say to his daughter, how's it going, right?
Caller:
[1:07:07] Yeah, he would.
Stefan:
[1:07:08] And would she lie to him? Oh, it's great, yeah, everything's wonderful.
Yeah, we're having a great time.
Caller:
[1:07:14] I don't think she would.
Stefan:
[1:07:15] Okay, so she would say, no, it's a complete disaster.
Okay so she'd say it's going badly right now what does the what do good parents do in that situation, intervene yes sit your asses down what's going on you guys have ever half a fucking decade invested in this relationship towards the end right you've half a decade invested in this relationship.
We'll be damned if this goes down without a fight.
Caller:
[1:07:57] Right.
Stefan:
[1:07:58] They would intervene, right? I mean, even the mobsters in Goodfellas intervened.
Caller:
[1:08:04] My mom intervened.
Stefan:
[1:08:07] Your mom intervened, okay. So the crazy drunk intervened, but not the good parents.
Like, this is what I don't understand when you say, she's got great parents. What?
I mean see here's the thing right if you care about your kids right you care about your kids at this point she's what 23, 24 24 something like that ok she's 24 years old right she's got half a decade invested in a relationship with a guy she's living with him now which means if this relationship doesn't work out she's damaged goods, she's damaged goods she did get a piercing after we broke up well that's damaged good with the whistling noise right but so she and the reason i'm saying she's damaged goods is because this is her substantial this might as well be a marriage it's a substantial pair bonding investment.
The Consequences of Neglectful Parenting
[1:09:07] And she's going to take at least two years to get over breaking up with you, because it's half the relationship time to get over it. So two, three years, right?
And then she's going to be in her late 20s, right?
When she becomes emotionally available. And then some guy is going to date her, right?
And he's going to say, gee, tell me about your relationships.
And she says, oh, I was in a five-year relationship.
I lived with the guy. It totally ended. And I've been single for the last couple of years. And what's the guy going to look at and see?
Caller:
[1:09:44] Damaged goods.
Stefan:
[1:09:45] Well, she can invest a half a decade into a relationship. And then it just ends.
Of course he's going to then say what happened right, now either she lies and says oh we just grew apart or like but none of that makes any sense right nobody grows apart that's trees that's not people nobody grows apart that's just nonsense right so you know maybe she'll say well i put on weight and we didn't have any intimacy intimacy so then the guy's like okay she invested more than half a decade into a relationship it totally blew up she's been single for years and she has the capacity to turn off sexual access at will what does how does that look like for a guy quite bad she's probably overweight, so she's fat she's had one massive failed relationship she's been single for a while and she has, no sex drive and no capacity to communicate about any problems in a relationship and her whole family let this happen.
Caller:
[1:10:51] Mm-hmm.
Stefan:
[1:10:52] If that's not a whole bunch of red flags, I've never seen a Chinese parade.
Caller:
[1:10:57] Right.
Stefan:
[1:10:59] So this is why the father and the mother move heaven and earth to help this relationship to work.
Caller:
[1:11:07] Mm-hmm.
Stefan:
[1:11:08] So that their daughter's heart doesn't get broken. and that she's dumped out onto the dating market really smashed up.
So, they did nothing.
That you know of. They certainly didn't sit down with you. They didn't try and help the relationship succeed.
So what do you mean they're great parents? I don't understand.
Caller:
[1:11:36] Yeah.
Stefan:
[1:11:40] I mean, you guys were functionally married. To your bodies, to your hearts, you were functionally married.
I mean, if your daughter is in a marriage and the marriage is going badly, wouldn't you do something about it?
Caller:
[1:11:55] Yeah.
Stefan:
[1:11:55] They just let her, what, just smash it all up? Anyway, I'm sorry, I don't mean to be, you know, but…
Caller:
[1:12:03] No, this is good.
Stefan:
[1:12:03] They're enabling it all. They're just letting it happen. Like your parents with your drinking and your drugs.
Caller:
[1:12:10] Yeah.
Stefan:
[1:12:10] And your porn and your gaming and your online relationships.
Whatever you call them, right? It's all just, oh, just letting it happen.
This is indifference to the point of catatonia. fuck that indifference, yeah oh things are just happening like leaves on the stream our children are flowing down this modern digital highway dumpty dumpty dum I've got a golf game I'm watching a series on TV I'm too busy let's just let everyone smash up and break up and screw their hearts up and yeah it's fine, yeah it's quite sad absolutely uninvolved, catatonic not even parenting.
Importance of Parenting and Addressing Weight Issues
[1:13:02] Yeah um, you don't let your kids get fat thank god oh but you can't control come on yeah if your kids care about if your kids care about your opinions and you say listen i hate to bring this up but you you know, you really are gaining weight and it's not going to be a good thing.
Don't get into that cycle where you just end up being heavy and then have to die for the rest of your life and you have this uneasy relationship with everything.
Like, just stop it now and sort it out now.
It's so much easier and, you know, maybe I haven't been the best example.
We'll do it together. Like, whatever, right?
Just parent. It's not that complicated.
Okay, so, yeah, that's bullshit. Not what you're saying is bullshit, but that kind of absent parenting where you just let your kids' hearts get smashed into a thousand pieces because you just don't care or don't intervene.
That's just, that's disaster. That's sabotage, right?
That's just total sabotage. All right.
Caller:
[1:14:01] On that note, real quick, I've been listening to you for about a year, pretty regularly.
Stefan:
[1:14:11] Straight, I hope. Just kidding. No sleep. You must be a little wired, but okay, go on.
Caller:
[1:14:17] Nearly, nearly.
And it's been very, very helpful. But I've been looking at my own parents, trying to find some of the patterns that you've been talking about with other people.
Of course, you just had an episode called Addicted to Crazy Women, I think.
And that's what got me to call in.
Stefan:
[1:14:44] Oh this is this girl four yeah okay so let's get to go for i want to make sure we get to the uh yeah the big finale here so go ahead yeah uh so this girl um surprise i met her online, and we started out as um friends but i was very much interested i'm so sorry i just one thing i wanted to mention i assume that you dealt with the sexless relationship by returning to the pornography, would that be fair to say?
Caller:
[1:15:17] Yeah.
Stefan:
[1:15:18] Okay, so that's another reason why you didn't have quite as much urgency to solve the problems as you had this side drug, right?
Caller:
[1:15:25] Oh yeah, that's a common theme.
Stefan:
[1:15:27] And was she aware of this happening?
Caller:
[1:15:30] Girl 3?
Stefan:
[1:15:31] Yes. Yes.
Okay, got it. All right, so then you meet Girl 4. Now, how long after…
So, you ended things with Girl 3, right?
You all moved out, and did she put up any kind of fight?
Did she say, I'm going to… let's get some counseling, or I'm going to lose weight, or was it just like, okay? Did she put up any kind of battle?
Caller:
[1:15:52] She did, yeah. It was very tough.
Stefan:
[1:15:57] Okay, so she said, whatever it takes, I'll do it, let's sort this out. Yeah.
Caller:
[1:16:02] Well, she said, on the night that we broke up, it took about three hours of crying and talking to finally say, okay, I'm going to leave and all that.
I had given her a hug.
Stefan:
[1:16:25] Well, hang on, no, but did she, when you said, I want to end it, right? Did she say, did she seem surprised? I mean, did she…
Caller:
[1:16:33] She collapsed on the floor.
Stefan:
[1:16:37] Okay um so but and you sort of said the why like there's no physical intimacy we're not close we're just sleeping together like strangers and and there's no whatever you said right and and did she say i'm gonna work on this we're gonna fix it like don't leave and like i mean what happened, to be honest it was a lot of just crying um and asking if i was serious, and um really she hasn't slept with you for eight months and she's like are you serious you're not happy right, Well, that's, I mean, I don't, I mean, just lying. Sorry, like, I don't mean to diss your ex or anything, but that's just lying.
I mean, women know about the male sex drive.
Women know about all of this. And so the idea that, what do you mean?
I haven't touched you basically since we moved in together.
And what do you mean you're unhappy? You can't be serious. I don't know what to say about that. I mean, that's too absurd for words.
Caller:
[1:17:42] Yeah.
Stefan:
[1:17:43] I mean, it's just like a guy moves in with a woman promising to pay half the rent and utilities and then just sits around picking his nose and stuffing cucumbers up his ass and not having any work.
And then after eight months of this, and she's heavily in debt and broke, and he's like, well, what do you mean you're not happy? You can't be serious, right?
I don't know. It's nuts. But then it's a very untutored woman, I assume, right? So parents aren't helping her out.
I mean, this would be a conversation she has with her mother, right? So she'd sit with her mother, and her mother would say, how things are going?
And your girlfriend would say, well, things are not going well.
You know, I can't be physically intimate.
I'm too ashamed of my body. I'm too this, I'm too that. And what would her mother say?
Well, you've got to fix this, or he's gone. You have to fix this, because if there's no sex, there's no difference between that and a friendship.
Well, what is the thing that differentiates the friendship from the relationship? It's the sex.
Yeah that's what it's all for i mean obviously by the sex i also mean the having of children raising but it's a sex that's how you know you have a girlfriend now it doesn't mean that you know you're not you don't have a girlfriend until you have sex but that's what differentiates that so you say well when you say mom you know we're just having he keeps wanting to have sex and i kept telling him no and now he's not even asking anymore and her mother would say he's gonna leave yeah like sure a sunrise he's in the can't like you you can put that hourglass on on the table.
You can turn it over. By the time the sand is gone, so is he.
Caller:
[1:19:12] Mm-hmm.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Stefan:
[1:19:16] I mean, that's exactly, because, you know, she cares about her daughter, and she knows that if you're living with a man and you're denying him sex, you know, with no good medical reason, right? I mean, it's one thing if she's really sick or something, right?
But if you're just denying a man sex, he's going to leave. Why would a man stay?
For a whole lifetime of no sex? Like, no thanks, because then you can't even have kids, right?
Caller:
[1:19:43] I was never sure how to think about that, because of course people say don't have sex until you're married or whatever they might say about moving in together.
And so from my point of view, there was always this, of course that happened type of thing to it, where I was kind of asking for dysfunction in my relationship.
Stefan:
[1:20:05] Relationship um oh you think that she didn't have sex with you after you moved in together because you'd had sex in college when she was in college, sorry i'm not sure if you heard um no i did i'm thinking about that um i don't mean to rush you sorry i just wasn't sure if you heard so take it no yeah yeah um, I don't want to repeat myself, but maybe— No, no, you may need to repeat yourself if I just didn't quite understand.
You said that maybe—I thought you were saying something like maybe the dysfunction happened because you'd had sex before, and then when you moved in because you weren't married.
Something like that? Did I miss that completely? It's hard.
Caller:
[1:20:54] Yeah, my thinking was, I don't know if the dysfunction was a product of me not taking the quote-unquote traditional route.
Stefan:
[1:21:04] No, no, no, no, no, no. Okay. No, that's not the situation.
I'm sorry, I don't mean to laugh. I don't mean to laugh. Because it's very, very serious stuff. But…
Caller:
[1:21:12] Sure.
The issue of sex before marriage and sexual dysfunction
Stefan:
[1:21:13] No, that's not the case.
Caller:
[1:21:16] Okay.
Stefan:
[1:21:16] That's not the case.
Caller:
[1:21:17] And this includes college and all that, not just after. Okay.
Stefan:
[1:21:21] What do you mean, this includes college? I don't know what that means.
Caller:
[1:21:25] Dating in college without having sex before marriage?
Stefan:
[1:21:29] Oh, yeah, no, the fact that you've had sex before marriage doesn't mean that the marriage is going to be sexless.
It's not like some ancient Egyptian curse that is put on a marriage.
No, she had some significant problems. You probably will go to your grave without knowing exactly what they were.
But to me, it's on the level of she's got some crazy STD, or she got pregnant and had an abortion, or I mean something or she got raped in college that level of sexual dysfunction where you can just you know like the sex drive is the very stuff of life it's why we're all here and somebody who can just turn off their sex drive, has gone through massive trauma, massive trauma I mean a sex drive is much less powerful than having feeling in your arm now if you woke up tomorrow and you had no feeling in your arm You could thump it with a baseball bat and feel nothing. You'd be like, holy shit, what the hell happened to my arm?
This is really messed up.
So the fact that she would move in, you get one blowy and nothing for eight months is a sign of massive dysfunction.
Caller:
[1:22:42] How much do you think that was the potential loss of trust that I had brought into the relationship?
Stefan:
[1:22:53] That's i because i don't know if she felt it but i just have a suspicion like let's say that well okay okay so so let's say that that's a possibility that your lie didn't sit well with her right so then you have it out you say listen man i i really felt uneasy about what you said i, right and then maybe you find out the truth and but but you don't just move in and not have sex Thanks.
[1:23:24] That's still complete, like even if it was you and you're lying and you're serial remote, whatever the hell they are, not quite affairs, I don't know exactly what that is.
So one of the reasons, of course, is you know why affairs are so frowned on, right? It's for two reasons.
One, well, three, I guess, but two main reasons. One is you can get an STD and bring it home to your wife, right? But that's not the case if you're on an online thing, right?
And number two, you can get another woman pregnant, which screws up your entire family structure.
Structure. Now, number three, I guess, is you get emotionally attached to the new woman and you dump your family structure or whatever.
So I'm not saying what you did was okay, but none of that was happening, right?
So it wasn't great behavior at all. Obviously, you know that.
But to me, it was not at the level of what I would call an affair, because it doesn't carry any of those three major risks, that you're going to pair bond with somebody else, that you're going to get somebody else pregnant, or that you're going to bring home an STD to your wife or girlfriend, Now, I'm not a big fan, obviously, of the lying is bad. I get all of that. But she lied, too.
Caller:
[1:24:29] I see what you're saying.
Stefan:
[1:24:30] She lied, too. She didn't tell you the reason why she wasn't having sex.
You say, oh, well, maybe you lied first. It's like, well, maybe.
But maybe she also had something bad happen at university or did something wrong at university. We don't know.
But we do know that she was lying to you about the sex thing.
Caller:
[1:24:49] Well, I do know she was going to a party. She was in a sorority.
And, you know, parties go along with that, and she would tell me when she was going and when she got home, and she would tell me if she was drinking, that kind of thing.
Body image issues and the importance of sex
Stefan:
[1:25:06] Well, yeah. Look, I'm sorry to interrupt you. Maybe something bad happened at the party, but she was lying to you about not having sex.
Because if she really wanted to have sex with you, but was so ashamed about her body, well, first of all, if you were willing to have sex with her, then obviously her body images aren't that important, because you're still willing to have sex with her.
Maybe not if she was 600 pounds and you've got to go in with a scuba deer to find something, but, right?
So you were willing to have sex with her so the body issues aren't that serious for you, right? And therefore, that's something that would moderate her.
But, of course, if she was like, if she's like, well, I can't have sex with him because I'm too heavy, right?
Okay, so when was the last time you guys had sex before she moved in?
Like, how long before you moved in did you guys have sex?
A couple of months? Weeks?
Caller:
[1:25:58] Yeah, a couple of months.
Stefan:
[1:25:59] A couple of months, okay. Did she gain massive amounts of those 40 pounds over those couple of months?
No it happened almost immediately after the moving in uh sorry what did the weight gain oh after the moving in oh i thought you said she gained weight over college no, uh no she was slender during college and the weight gain happened over covid which was during the moving in after the moving in after the first day of moving in yeah okay so so she's lying to to you because she didn't have sex with you and she didn't put on 40 pounds in three days, right?
Right, so it probably took her a month or two or three to gain the weight.
I mean, that's even if you're overeating like crazy, right?
Caller:
[1:26:45] Right, yeah.
Stefan:
[1:26:45] Right, so that whole time it wasn't the weight that was causing her to not have sex with you, right?
Because the weight didn't start till later, right? Or at least it didn't manifest at the full 40 pounds till later, right?
Caller:
[1:27:02] Correct, yeah.
Stefan:
[1:27:04] Okay. Okay, so she wasn't telling you the truth about why she wasn't having sex with you.
Caller:
[1:27:10] Gotcha.
Stefan:
[1:27:12] Now, let's say she was like, well, I can't have sex with you because I don't trust you, or whatever it was, right?
Well, how long before she moved in did you tell her this lie about the girl calling you because she wanted to know if you were able to game?
Caller:
[1:27:28] Well, I never told her.
Stefan:
[1:27:31] What?
Caller:
[1:27:33] Are you asking when I told her that that happened?
Stefan:
[1:27:36] No, you told her the lie about the girl.
Caller:
[1:27:38] Oh, that happened right before moving in. So maybe a month before moving in.
Stefan:
[1:27:44] Ah, okay. Okay. Okay. So, if she's upset about that or troubled about that, then she would say something about that.
She wouldn't just punish you with no sex, right? And then lie about it.
Because then you've just got two liars orbiting each other and there's nothing in the middle, right?
Caller:
[1:28:01] Yeah, it never came up again. Right.
Stefan:
[1:28:04] So, maybe that was it, maybe that wasn't, but we won't know.
But we do know that she wasn't telling you the truth.
The truth sets things straight, no more excuses.
Caller:
[1:28:10] Right.
Stefan:
[1:28:10] Because when you tell people the truth, things get better, or they end, right?
But this stringing you along, oh, I've got a headache, oh, I feel too fat, it's all nonsense, right? Nothing about that is true.
You know what's a great cure for a headache anyway so right so yeah so i just sort of wanted to uh to i mean you won't know the exact reason but um it was something and it wasn't because you had sex before marriage and you know probably wasn't because it certainly wasn't because you told this lie right okay because the fact that you told this lie doesn't mean that she won't have sex with you, now she might say to you look i something doesn't add up like i really need to know what was going on with this girl like it's really been sitting in my brain right now maybe you say oh yeah no i was totally flirting with her and we were talking about breaking up with you and getting together and then she's going to say uh you know you jerk i'm not going to move in with you it's over right which means you still get pretty much the same amount of sex but so so she might break break up with you.
Or she might say, gosh, that was really terrible. Has this ever happened?
Oh, yeah, well, one other time, I'm a high school girlfriend or whatever.
Oh, what happened? Well, we exchanged racy photos. Oh, when did this happen? A couple of years ago.
You jerk, I'm breaking up with you because you can't be trusted. Whatever, right?
[1:29:33] Or she might, you know, you might work through it and figure out what was going on and be curious and understand the roots of how you were played, whatever it is, right?
But you don't just move in and then then just not have sex right did you know what i mean it was it was confusing yeah i mean it's horrible right and and look again you acted badly she acted badly um and it doesn't really matter who did it first because everyone's then participating as things go forward all right so in the interest of time let's get to girl number four what is behind curtain number four yes the hot and crazy matrix has hit a new apogee, yeah girl 4 was a another online friend who lived halfway across the country and.
Caller:
[1:30:24] She was two years older. She is two years older than me.
And we were friends.
She had asked me to help her fix her laptop. And I gave her some help over video call.
And after that, we started talking regularly.
And I expressed a romantic interest in her.
Stefan:
[1:30:51] And what attracted you to her?
Caller:
[1:30:55] Oh, well, she was intelligent. We could have very deep conversations together.
At that time, I was into Jordan Peterson.
And so when she sent me a picture of 12 Rules for Life, his book, she asked me, have you heard of this book I'm at the bookstore this looked interesting I you know glowed up and was like yes yes let's read it together so we would read that every night for a while and discuss the stuff inside of the book so she was in intellectually stimulating for me she was very pretty I would say like a high High seven, eight for me.
And had a great sense of humor. Just a really great sense of humor.
So we could riff really well.
And we liked the same music. And it kind of seemed like, to me at the time, like a really, really cool girl.
So that's what interested me.
Stefan:
[1:32:12] What was her dating history like?
Caller:
[1:32:14] Pretty brutal, I don't know how many partners she had, mostly because I was avoiding that question.
I didn't really want to know. But I do know that she had just gotten out of a really bad breakup, and so we didn't…
Stefan:
[1:32:38] A bad how?
Introduction to the relationship and emotional manipulation
Caller:
[1:32:46] He…
He dumped her, and she described him as emotionally manipulative.
He was like, that's the best I can really do on that.
I don't know if we talked enough about that.
Stefan:
[1:33:17] How long has she been dating him for? a year, okay so she dates some emotionally emotionally manipulative guy for a year right and is that the only relationship that you knew of with regards to her.
Caller:
[1:33:34] No, I didn't want to dig into her history, again, mostly because I was avoiding that. I didn't want to know.
And that's something now that I know that is not a good thing.
But at the time, I was trying to avoid red flags. Okay.
Stefan:
[1:34:01] It's like trying to avoid stop signs. You're just going to get crashed.
Caller:
[1:34:05] Well, after not having sex for a year, I think I was just kind of looking for that.
Stefan:
[1:34:12] Well, but you're in long distance land again, right?
Caller:
[1:34:16] Right. But we'd seen each other many times as the relationship went on.
Stefan:
[1:34:26] I'm sorry, you'd seen each other in person many times, is that right? Yeah. Okay. Okay.
Caller:
[1:34:31] So the first kind of romantic interaction her and I had together was she had been drinking and we were talking on the video call.
And she tells me after, I think it was like three months of us talking, she tells me, she starts crying and tells me that she really likes me.
And she asked me if I want to see something and she takes off her shirt and And, you know, that was, for me, just like, well, you know, exactly what I was looking for at the time.
Stefan:
[1:35:12] Yeah, so you got the full-on nipple cannon straight to the nads, right? Okay.
Caller:
[1:35:16] Yeah, yeah. And that was, that pulled me in real quick.
So, we started dating, and we visited each other not too long after that.
Um, and we had a, a really great, uh, time together at first, uh, that first meet. And, um.
[1:35:42] The relationship looked like it was going to be really good, except the first major red flag was when we were out at a club.
I was drinking, and she was drinking, and she got so drunk that when we were leaving, she said, let's go get a bite to eat.
And I said, okay, it's two miles this way.
And she goes no it's two miles that way or whatever it was and we got in a very, she got very heated over that and i asked her to trust me i was more sober than she was, um and she ended up walking away and having a uh a hissy fit and i you know sternly, told her to stop, because we were in the middle of a somewhat dangerous area. I didn't want her on her own.
And she stopped and came back and went into this submissive state, which was a common theme throughout the relationship when I would be assertive.
[1:37:06] And she then proceeds to throw up in the uber on the way home and is completely wrecked the next day which oh god had me which had me and she's like what 20 she's in her mid late late 20s at this point yes yes oh she said she was two years older she's like uh she's 26 right yeah okay so mid-20s okay, and that kept me up at night um i was not happy with that uh so we talked about it the next morning, and she apologized which was new for me from a drunk of course knowing my mother who would forget all of a sudden everything that had happened the night before but she didn't, and so I kind of I talked to my friends about it they said that's no good but you know tread lightly but bro she took her top off right, and of course we would have she was the best sex I've ever had in my life And it was absolutely life-changing for a mid-20s young man.
[1:38:17] And it's no coincidence that she was also abused as a kid.
Abused how?
This actually, she was sexually assaulted by her family.
[1:38:37] By your family member, I think it was either. I think it was her uncle.
Stefan:
[1:38:42] At what age?
Caller:
[1:38:45] Quite young.
Pre-teens.
Stefan:
[1:38:52] Oh, gosh. Oh, man, I'm so sorry. What a mess. What a mess.
And had she taken therapy? Had she tried to deal with this in some robust fashion?
Caller:
[1:39:05] So, she told me this.
Jumping ahead here. She told me this as we were breaking up, as kind of a explanation for her behavior. And she told me that she…
Stefan:
[1:39:21] No, it's not. Of course, you know it's not an explanation for her behavior, right? You know that?
Caller:
[1:39:26] Right.
Stefan:
[1:39:26] Because if she knows that, right? If she knows that, then she would control her behavior.
Caller:
[1:39:35] That was my…
Stefan:
[1:39:35] It's like me saying, saying well you know i'm lactose intolerant and the reason i was sick throughout most of our relationship is because i kept drinking dairy or kept eating dairy right well that's not an explanation if i know i'm lactose intolerant then i'll stop drinking dairy stop eating dairy yeah so it doesn't there's no causal relationship between that i mean it certainly gives her challenges and if it's true and again i don't know i have suspicions about these kinds of things if they come up right at the end but uh it's not it's not the cause of her dysfunction it's not not why she does things well her i met her mother and her mother is very, outgoing eccentric um which is where i think she got her energy which really drew me to her her, uh willingness to do uh you know just go out which was uh great for me because my yeah the uh the the hypochondriac girlfriend under COVID wasn't exactly slaking your lust for adventure.
Caller:
[1:40:39] This is the new girl was the type of girl to grab your arm and run around the city and see new places. And it was very exciting for me.
So I met her mother and that went okay. I think I thought it went well except, I got the sense that her mom was, was unstable herself. And I was starting to see a lot of connections between her and her daughter.
And that kind of took me aback. Where was her dad?
Oh, yeah, I was getting to that. Her dad was nowhere to be seen. Okay.
Stefan:
[1:41:31] And when did her dad vanish?
Caller:
[1:41:36] So when she was a kid, um they lived in uh jordan uh she's arab and so.
[1:41:47] Okay i'm sure you're gonna make some connections there but uh she she lived in jordan with her mom and dad and um her dad was abusive physically towards the mom and i'm assuming the children, uh too i don't think she mentioned that but, The mom fled to America without telling the husband, and the husbands followed soon after and found them and coerced them back into a dysfunctional family unit.
It um and uh taking advantage of u.s laws i'm assuming the mom filed for divorce and got some kind of restraining order i believe um and so then the dad uh, i think made efforts to, keep in touch with his daughter but she had no interest my ex had no interest, in talking to him and she talked very poorly of her dad.
[1:43:06] To the point where I saw him text her once and she just deleted the conversation.
So she completely blacklisted him.
So one story I have of her and I was on her birthday.
I was going to fly out to her. and um i don't know i don't want to give locations yeah don't let's just say uh no no i know but uh a major u.s city and i was um i'm from a smaller part of the country which is um.
[1:43:48] A big culture shock for me uh so i was planning her birthday in a city that was very uh uh, confusing to me.
I don't know how long it takes to really get somewhere. I don't know which way to get there.
Um, and so, uh, I did my best and I, I came up with a plan for her birthday.
Um, and I was also to interview at a, uh, at a place the morning of, so it kind of, it worked out i would be in the city we'd be there in the morning i would do my interview and it would it would go well which it did and we would spend the rest of the day you know enjoying her birthday um so the the interview it goes great and i'm very excited nervous as well because.
Conflicting Expectations on Living Arrangements
[1:44:46] This is my plan to kind of be with her um and we had talked back and forth about who was going to to move where and it was kind of like a matter of which one got the job first um and how long have you been going out at this point seven months and you were planning to live together is that right no no oh be together just means be in the same physical location she wanted to live together other but I had had that experience before and so told her that we should live apart.
[1:45:22] And she didn't take that well but it was something that was a non-negotiable for me.
[1:45:30] So, uh, interview goes great. Um, we're, we're in the city. We're at destination one, which is lunch.
And, uh, it's a very crowded kind of restaurant.
And she, you know, looks up at me and says, oh, my back hurts.
And I say, oh, I'm sorry. Like, and of course I'm very distracted right now with, uh, ordering our food in a place that is so full you can't move um and in a city i don't know, and so it completely missed my head and what she was trying to say was that can you carry the backpack for me um to which i'm sorry i'm sorry if i missed this where does she have a backpack on again uh she's carrying a dress and shoes for dinner later tonight since going back to her place would take way too long okay so it's not a heavy backpack it's not like she's got bricks in there or something right well there may have been a water bottle okay come on man she's not she's not like a not like a marine and basic training here right no yeah correct all right, And so we start eating, and I'm noticing that she's completely emotionally just checked out.
And I don't really think much of it.
Stefan:
[1:46:56] But now she has the backpack off, right?
Caller:
[1:46:58] Yeah.
Stefan:
[1:46:59] Okay.
Caller:
[1:47:00] I don't think much of it because I'm starving and I'm just eating.
We wrap up, and we head outside. And she goes, you know, when I say my back hurts, I was trying to imply that I wanted you to carry the backpack.
And she kind of huffed and puffed. And I said, well, I'm sorry, but you're going to have to be a little bit more specific because you know that I would be happy to do something like that for you.
She goes, well, I don't want you to read my mind exactly, but I expect some kind of chivalry.
And at this point, I'm thinking, this girl is crazy.
Crazy um i you know i'm happy to carry a backpack um but it was hard to express to her that i was like visually overstimulated mentally overstimulated um from the environment that we were in, and so that entire day was actually ruined by that because i was um, I was so disturbed by that that it kind of gave me this tunnel vision of like, why did that even happen?
Stefan:
[1:48:19] Why do you think it did happen?
Caller:
[1:48:27] Can I swear?
Stefan:
[1:48:29] Yeah, yeah, it's fine.
Caller:
[1:48:30] Okay. My friend described it as a shit test. Like, you give a guy an impossible challenge and see how he responds. And I guess I failed.
Stefan:
[1:48:46] What would succeeding have looked like in this theory?
Caller:
[1:48:51] Oh, of course. Let me take your backpack.
Stefan:
[1:48:54] Oh, no, no. That's not happening. be so happy that's not no that's not let's say it was a shit test no that's not oh sure, i i guess i misunderstood yeah no so a shit test is when she's testing your resolution by complaining about something and then complaining that you don't read her mind right, right so that's the shit test now saying oh it's my fault i should have read your mind i'd be happy to do that's failing it yeah that's not so the success would be to say uh listen uh you're an adult woman i'm an adult male if you want me to do something say it right right like i'm not going to play these games where i'm supposed to read your mind you know we're not five years old i'm not a psychic you're a big girl if you want me to carry your backpack say i want to carry your a backpack i'm not you know if you want me to succeed in the world i need to be able to focus out there in the world and not sit there and think and try and read every tea leaf of everything you're saying to try and figure out what you want right it's not a heavy backpack look if the backpack had bricks in it i would take the backpack but saying from the back right so so you you don't, she's trying to draw you into something where you're at fault for something she didn't say no no it's your job to say things.
[1:50:12] That passing the shit test is just like, no, I'm not going to treat you like a retarded child.
You're an adult. If you want me to do something, you say it.
I'd be happy to accommodate, but I'm not going to try and figure it out.
Like, don't lie to me because you're lying to me.
If you say my back hurts when what you really want to say is I want you to take the backpack, you're lying to me.
And then you're saying I'm at fault because you lied to me?
[1:50:37] You've got to be kidding me, lady. That's ridiculous. Ridiculous.
You have an obligation in this relationship, as do I, to tell the truth.
If you want me to take your backpack, you put on your big girl panties and you say, I want you to take my backpack, and I'd be like, absolutely, no problem.
Your back hurts? I don't know, you could have pulled something.
Somebody could have dug their elbow into you. You could have had a slept funny. I don't know.
So you don't get mad at me because you lied to me. you misrepresented what you wanted and don't think that i'm at fault because you wouldn't tell me the truth like that's not that's not a thing i'm not going to respond to that in any positive way that to me that's passing it i mean it could be wrong but that would be my thought well then i got an a plus uh because that bothered me to no end that day um well what bothered no what bothered you okay what bothered you about that the fact that she gave you the shit test or like what bothered you her response to me saying the kinds of things that you just, laid out so you you said something i mean obviously not word for word but something along those lines of like well you just got to tell me right yes yes okay and so and she responded to that with what with i shouldn't have to just tell you you should just know right right right.
[1:52:05] Well, and you, I mean, I would say, well, I can't know if you're lying to me.
How am I supposed to know something if you lie to me? Right?
Like, if I say to you, I want you to meet you at such and such a place at 8 o'clock at night, and you go there, and then I say, no, no, no, it's the opposite direction, and it's 7 o'clock tomorrow morning, you should just know these things, that would be an insane thing to say, wouldn't it?
Caller:
[1:52:29] Yeah, it's like, you pick the restaurant. Okay, I picked this one.
Well, no, that's not the right one, because you're supposed to know which one I want to go to.
The Backpack Drama and False Excuses
Stefan:
[1:52:37] Well, no, it's not quite that bad, because she said, my back hurts, which you can give her sympathy for. You don't know why.
So she's lying to you, and then complaining that you can't read her mind.
If she'd said nothing, you'd be more likely to figure out that her backpack was hurting her back.
But she lied to you. She said, she didn't say what she wanted was, I want you to take the backpack, right?
And so she lied to you saying my back hurts. Now, if the backpack is a problem, I mean, I don't know, we've all been hiking, right?
So if the backpack is a problem, what do you do? You put it on your elbow, right?
You slip it off your shoulder and you put it on your elbow.
And I don't, honestly, I don't even think her back was hurting.
Because, as you say, it's a very light backpack, right? How the hell can you back?
She's like 26 years old. How the hell does her backpack hurt?
Caller:
[1:53:36] And she was fit and completely capable.
Stefan:
[1:53:37] Yeah, so she was in a bad mood, and she's just causing trouble.
She wanted something to fight about. She was in a bad mood. She was in a sour mood.
She was feeling hostile or negative or troubled or something like that.
So it didn't have anything to do with her bad back, which I don't believe for a second, and it certainly didn't have anything to do with you not reading her mind.
Yeah. Right? So she's lying at two levels, because she's saying, oh, it's about the backpack or my sore back.
So she's lying saying my back is sore rather than take my backpack, and she's also lying because she's just making something up.
She's in the mood to fight.
Caller:
[1:54:17] Yeah.
Stefan:
[1:54:18] And so she's lying to you about the whole thing, right?
Caller:
[1:54:20] Right that was a common thing to happen just in the mood to fight um wow an aggressive arabic woman never heard of such a thing it's a complete cliche that i just i completely reject, so so sorry and so that that led to us that led to me saying we're going home this is not going to work.
I can't get past this.
I'm officially so taken aback by this that I don't know if I can help you enjoy your birthday today.
And so I cancel reservations. I say, we're taking the train.
Stefan:
[1:55:04] And we're sorry, was this her 27th birthday or 26th birthday?
Caller:
[1:55:11] 26th.
Stefan:
[1:55:12] 26th birthday. Okay, got it.
Caller:
[1:55:15] And we get on the train, and she sits across the aisle from me, bawling her eyes out in front of everybody.
I tell her, come on over here, let's talk.
No consolation at all for her. We get on another train, same thing.
We get off the train, and she just storms off, races to the car.
Opens the door, starts the car, and she says, get in.
And of course, I don't get in because I'm not getting in a car with someone who's very emotional.
Stefan:
[1:55:57] Oh yeah, no, it's not a safe state to drive in at all. I can agree with you there, yeah.
Caller:
[1:56:01] Yeah. So I sit outside of the car, in front of the car.
Maybe not a safe place to be with someone in a state like that, but she gets out and she just storms off again.
Um, she comes back about 15 minutes later and in a little bit of a cooler state.
Um, so I get in, um, she refuses to let me drive and, um, The entire car ride is just a miserable, absolutely, you know, if I had a gun, it would have made that situation for me a lot.
I guess that's more of a joke, and I shouldn't make that. And of course, I'm not making that towards her. It's about me.
But you can understand. Yes. Okay. Okay.
And so, on my phone, while she's crying and yelling at me, I'm looking at flights on my phone to leave.
Stefan:
[1:57:02] Wait, she's crying and yelling at you in the car?
Caller:
[1:57:06] While driving.
Stefan:
[1:57:06] While she's driving?
Caller:
[1:57:08] Yes.
A Tumultuous Car Ride and Flight Considerations
Stefan:
[1:57:08] So, why the hell did you get in the car again?
Caller:
[1:57:11] Well, this happened after she was starting to drive.
Stefan:
[1:57:15] Oh, okay. So, she was calmer and then you can't get out, right? Okay.
Caller:
[1:57:19] Yeah.
Stefan:
[1:57:19] How long was the car ride going to be?
Caller:
[1:57:22] About an hour.
Stefan:
[1:57:24] Oh, God. Okay, so you've got some crazed, wound-up woman yelling at you over, what, some minor chafing or upset about a backpack. And it goes to there, right? Isn't that insane?
Caller:
[1:57:37] Isn't that crazy? It's truly insane. And I think some important context for that is the entire day was set upon this expectation where she told me, every boyfriend I've ever had has ruined my birthday.
She's never had a successful birthday.
Stefan:
[1:57:58] I wonder what the common element is there. That's really tough to puzzle out.
It takes a really good philosopher to figure that one out.
Caller:
[1:58:05] Well, and I tell her, you know, maybe that's something that you should think about.
And she looks at me with this, I mean, I can still picture it in my head, Claire's day. I mean, this is the most scathing.
Stefan:
[1:58:20] Well, I mean, most likely she was sexually assaulted on her birthday, right?
At some party or you know some family gathering and so that's what's that's what's going on i mean that would be my guess obviously i don't know but yeah it's possible um.
Caller:
[1:58:39] And so I'm on my phone looking at flights to leave the same day because I'm just thinking about getting as far away from this woman as I possibly can.
And something, I don't know what kept me from doing that. I really wish I did that, but I didn't do that.
We get home. We go to separate rooms and we cool down at this point.
Stefan:
[1:59:06] I'm sorry, where's home at this point?
Caller:
[1:59:09] Home is her house, her shared house with a roommate, about an hour away from the major city.
Stefan:
[1:59:17] Oh, so she's 26 years old and she's still got roommates and stuff?
Caller:
[1:59:22] Right.
Stefan:
[1:59:22] Okay, so she's living, again, I know it's tough these days, but okay.
So she's 26 and she's got roommates, so you get to her place and you end up in separate rooms, is that right?
Caller:
[1:59:36] Yeah, for a short period. While I just breathe, really, because I felt like I hadn't that entire day.
Stefan:
[1:59:47] And are you still trying to get flights?
Caller:
[1:59:50] I'm looking at flights, yeah. But I switch gears in my head.
I'm thinking, okay, how can I make this better?
Because, of course, my brain is thinking about sex.
I'm here. here. I'm not usually here. How can I make this better?
Stefan:
[2:00:14] And so I can I get laid before I go? Right?
Caller:
[2:00:17] Yes.
Yes. Um, and so I'd make reservations at a restaurant just down the street and I walk into her room, um, comfort her and, uh, say, you know, let's, let's breathe for a little bit.
Let's, uh, clean up and let's try dinner tonight.
And so we do that. Uh, we go to dinner and it goes.
Stefan:
[2:00:45] Well, thank God the backpack made it home with you all. Was she still wearing it, or did you have it at this point, like earlier on?
Caller:
[2:00:52] I had it, yeah.
Stefan:
[2:00:53] Okay, you had it. Okay. So you go to dinner, and then what?
Caller:
[2:00:58] Yeah. So we go to dinner, and it was above average, considering the context of that day.
We had a really nice time. I know that's crazy, but we did.
Um and we sit on the uh which tells you that her mood was manipulative because it could switch right yeah very quickly um and she's giving me all these compliments and we're laughing and sharing inside jokes again and um after dinner we go to we start walking along a river and there's a dock there and she gives me you know a blowjob on the dock and that was just kind of like, another one of those moments where I the wrong head was was thinking I fell in love all over again right yeah so, That day ends and we talk about it the next morning.
I stay adamant that I don't think that it was fair.
And I do apologize, though, and tell her that.
[2:02:25] Because there was one issue with our reservation and I apologize for that.
And that day ends, and I go home a couple days later.
Explosive Interaction with Friends and a New Year's Kiss
[2:02:37] And we resume long distance, and she visits me.
And we have another kind of explosive interaction where I'm at my friend's house with all my friends. She's meeting all my friends for the first time.
And my friend calls me right before and he says, hey, can you pick up girl X?
She needs a ride. And of course, my girlfriend was on the phone with me at the time on the speaker.
And she hears that and she goes, who's girl X?
And this just so happened to be a girl that I had a New Year's kiss with when I was in high school.
And so I tell her that and she immediately goes into the, that state again of just, um, pouting, huffing, puffing, just visually upset, which triggers my, uh, negative emotion.
Um, and I'm now not in a great mood. so we go to this house with all the friends and we pick up the girl.
[2:03:54] And we get there and.
[2:04:01] My girlfriend at the time said I heard you call girl X a nickname this girl had a nickname that kind of everybody called her, she was kind of like a guy's girl if you know what i mean so uh i may or may not have used that i genuinely don't remember and that's not me trying to forget that's just i really didn't but i said i'll give you the benefit of the doubt i did if i said that i'm um it was no romantic intent that's what everybody sorry i don't i don't understand this story at all okay so so is you you used the nickname on this girl that you kissed once in high school? Yes, and she got very interested about that.
Stefan:
[2:04:45] And why was the nickname a problem? Was it a sexual nickname, or, Okay. What was the nickname?
If you don't want to say, that's fine. But okay, it's fine.
Caller:
[2:04:57] It would be too revealing.
Stefan:
[2:05:00] Yeah, no problem. Okay, so there was a sort of sexual nickname, and she says, you use a sexual nickname on this girl and or this woman, and that's really bad.
And you're like, okay, well, if I did that, I'm sorry. And that's sort of where this fight came from?
Caller:
[2:05:15] Yeah, yeah. Right.
Stefan:
[2:05:16] And so she's kind of pathologically insecure and all that sort of stuff, right? Rather than laughing it off or whatever, right? Okay.
Caller:
[2:05:22] Yeah. And this boils up into one of the most intense fights we had ever had.
And we leave early, and everyone was wondering where we went.
And I take her home. I leave my phone and a note outside the door.
And I say, I'm going for a walk. And I take a long walk to reflect on this whole situation.
Um and i come back and uh we kind of make up again but again at this point the damage is so, strong that um i start thinking about breaking up with her um well but you're in dangerous territory now right uh why is that well you've got an unstable girl that you're going to try and break up with right yeah yeah who just recently had her 26th birthday and is staring down 30 anyway go on yes yes and uh so she she goes home and maybe a month passes and um we're, at this point long distance again and uh we're kind of in this null state of we don't know what our future is going to be we don't know who's moving yet i declined the job because um.
The Movie Triggering a Trauma and the Breakup Revelation
[2:06:40] I told her something else, but to be honest, I was just not feeling very secure in me moving to a city with her for the purpose of moving to a city with her.
[2:06:53] And so we're watching a movie. The movie is Being John Malkovich.
Stefan:
[2:06:59] It's a good movie, but you mean you're watching this remotely?
Caller:
[2:07:02] Yeah.
Stefan:
[2:07:03] You sort of watch it together. Okay, got it.
Caller:
[2:07:05] Yeah, yeah. she asked me you know pick between this movie and that movie and I say oh okay being John Malkovich I heard it's really good I would like to see it and I think I've seen it before but I don't remember any of the details it may have been a long time ago so we start watching and, she's silent pretty much the entire time maybe a giggle here and there um and at the end of the movie where uh john malkovich has a flashback to his parents having sex and him watching uh i don't know if you remember this scene she she uh completely, explodes into rage and says why would you show me something like this, uh this is the most perverted movie i've ever seen in my life the fact that you would even allow me to watch this shows that you don't care um etc etc um and yeah so her trauma got triggered and reactivated and she wasn't able to talk about it so she just attacked you right and at this point i had no idea that she was traumatized as a kid i'm well she had never told me oh yeah Yeah, because she only told you during the actual breakup, right?
Right. And so the next morning…
[2:08:32] She hangs up the phone and doesn't talk to me until the morning.
She texts me saying, you know, I love you. I'm sorry.
Let's talk. And so I let the whole workday go by before I respond. And I say, call me.
And we call. all and i tell her that um this isn't working and we need to break up and you know the way the way that you reacted last night is not something that i want in a wife or a mother and that's when she tells me uh that she was abused as a kid and she just learned this a week ago and uh she's horribly She just learned this a week ago?
Stefan:
[2:09:23] What does that mean?
Caller:
[2:09:25] I guess she was so young that she didn't really know, but her mom talked to her about it. Apparently, they had a really deep conversation.
Stefan:
[2:09:37] Yeah, I don't believe that at all. Honestly, I don't believe that at all.
I mean, are you saying that she lived for 26 years or what she was abused when she was, I don't know, five. So she lived for like over 20 years.
And then right before she blew up at you, she just happened to coincidentally have this conversation with her mother and she didn't tell you anything about it.
So rather than say to you, listen, I mean, I just learned something really horrifying about my past. She's like, yeah, let's watch a movie.
Yeah, I don't believe that at all. I don't believe that at all.
I mean, I don't know. I'm not saying she wasn't abused.
And I'm not saying that I know anything, obviously. But my gut is like, I mean, she probably was abused.
But the idea that she just learned about it right before she blew up at you and never told you anything about it. It's like, yeah, I don't.
Or let's say she did. Let's say she's telling the complete truth, which means that she learned something deep, powerful, and shocking and appalling about her own history and didn't tell you.
Okay, well, then you can't have a relationship with someone like that anyway.
Caller:
[2:10:38] Right. Yeah.
Stefan:
[2:10:40] I mean, can you imagine if I suddenly find out that, I don't know, I was adopted or my mom had an affair and, you know, and like, I don't tell anyone and then I just blow up a week later. Like, come on, that's crazy.
Caller:
[2:10:54] Crazy she had had therapists um and every single one of them she would come back and tell me because i encouraged her to go to therapy i was in therapy at the time um we can go after therapy, correct okay got it well i think she so she came to me almost every time after therapy and would would tell me kind of how I went, and we would talk about it together, which I encouraged.
And every single time, without fail, she had multiple therapists, and she would tell me that this therapist isn't right.
He doesn't get it. I don't like him. I don't like her.
By the way, she had horrible relationships with her friends, with her co-workers.
She was bad-mouthing all of of them constantly.
Stefan:
[2:11:50] I mean, you… I hope you don't think this makes her look bad.
Huh.
It must have been one hell of a time down at the dock, man, if you're willing to put yourself back in this blender.
Caller:
[2:12:06] It's difficult to think about, and it's shocking that I put myself through it.
Making a Case against the Ex
Stefan:
[2:12:09] Well, I mean, yeah, I mean, so you're saying, you're basically telling me how obviously unstable and dangerous she was, and you think this makes her look bad?
Caller:
[2:12:22] Yeah, I'm not making excuses for her.
Stefan:
[2:12:24] No, no, no, but you're trying to build a case of how bad she was, right? right? The therapists and friends and co-workers and all of this, right?
And she just didn't get along with anybody and she blamed everybody.
So, I mean, you're trying to make a case, and I understand the case and I sympathize with both you and her, but you're trying to make a case that, like, look how bad she was, right?
Like, she didn't get along with anyone. And it's like, okay, so you knew all that.
So, consciously before this conversation, I tried to think about whether i was going to do something like this which is um just going and and and saying all the bad things no and listen i sympathize with you and i'm not i'm not trying to talk you out of these bad things at all right i'm not trying like listen it sounds like somebody who would be, very uh difficult dangerous and ultimately disastrous to be in a marriage or a long-term relationship with so i'm 100 with you on that but i just hope you understand that this doesn't make her look bad because she's not a listener to this show, She's not into therapy, self-knowledge, in the way that you are, right?
Caller:
[2:13:36] Well, for sure. And this is me definitely opening up in a way that I'm not trying to make myself look good.
And by making her look bad, I have no intention, at least on a surface level.
I feel like I came into this prepared not to do that.
And my point with that was to try to illustrate that the therapy that she was receiving, she wasn't very receptive to therapy.
And I think it had a lot to do with her distrust in people and her friends.
And this was just a common thing that I saw with her, which was that when she would meet someone new, it would usually be a lot of negative responses to that.
And so it was unfortunate that, and I hope that she's in therapy now, and I hope that it's going well.
And it certainly helped me a lot. Does that make sense?
Stefan:
[2:14:47] Yeah. Okay. So I want to make sure we get to the most important stuff.
Um how can i best help you i mean if there's more to say on this story you broke up with her and how long ago was that that was one year ago one year ago okay and has anything have you had any contact with her since uh she's blocked me on anything she can even chess.com.
Caller:
[2:15:07] So it's all that's no contact, um okay so how can i best help yeah um, I haven't been in therapy since the breakup.
My therapist actually passed away of COVID.
That's what they say, at least.
And processing all of this with dating now, the girls I'm looking for are quite different.
And you would hope so. And it's difficult for me to detach all this rollercoaster of sexuality and manipulation in my dating life going forward. And so just…
Stefan:
[2:16:04] No, but that's all your dad's fault.
Caller:
[2:16:07] Right.
Stefan:
[2:16:07] I mean, why was your dad with your mom?
Caller:
[2:16:12] Probably sex.
Stefan:
[2:16:13] Well, because of the qualities of her character, her fitness as a mother, her wonderful friendship and companionship and wisdom and virtue.
He was with her because she was pretty and put out. I would assume.
I could be wrong. I mean, there's some hidden virtues that I'm not aware of, but, you know, she was a wretched drunk.
Chasing Sex instead of Virtue
Caller:
[2:16:31] Yeah.
Stefan:
[2:16:32] And he was willing to leave her because he did when you were 18, right? I know it didn't get finalized until you were like 20 or 21, but he's willing to leave her, right?
Caller:
[2:16:39] Yeah.
Stefan:
[2:16:40] So why didn't he leave her? Why didn't he demand that she get, I don't know, whatever treatment?
I mean, you said the Al-Anon stuff didn't particularly work. I get that.
So why do you exist?
Because your dad chased sex instead of virtue.
That's why you exist.
Caller:
[2:17:01] Yeah.
Stefan:
[2:17:03] So what do you do? You chase sex instead of virtue. That's your template, right?
Caller:
[2:17:08] Right.
Stefan:
[2:17:09] Your dad is, I mean, we all imprint on our… same-sex parent, right?
Because a same-sex parent is the sexually successful person, right?
So you place, sexiness, hotness, sexual access, and I get this, you know, there's nothing wrong with lust, there's nothing wrong with sex, it's great.
But you place all of that over qualities of character. And as you say, you studiously avoid figuring out qualities of character.
I'm not condemning you at all I've been there and we're all men in the same trenches so to speak but you place sexual access above qualities of character, real quick there's another girl that I could maybe add some context with that might help, after the bad breakup I started going to church hang on hang on you've had a lot of talking here is that fair yeah sure Okay.
So did I give you something you didn't know just now?
Caller:
[2:18:15] Yeah, you definitely did. About my father.
Stefan:
[2:18:18] Where the hell are we going now? It's like I said nothing. I just dropped my words and you didn't respond at all to them.
I'm trying to give you some, like you're calling me not so you can tell me more stories about who you dated or who you could date, because you're calling me, I assume, to get some insights about these patterns, right?
Caller:
[2:18:36] Correct. Yeah, you're right.
Stefan:
[2:18:37] Okay, so I give you a big insight about why you do what you do.
And you're like, yeah, but this other girl…
Caller:
[2:18:45] You're right.
Stefan:
[2:18:46] Again, I'm not criticizing. It's just like, okay, if you want to spend this short amount of time we have together telling me about the other girl rather than trying to get some insights, I'm totally down with that.
It's your call, man. But it just seems like a bit of a waste, that's all.
Caller:
[2:18:59] No, and I do value them. And it has been eye-opening for me with my father.
And I haven't looked at my father that way before in the way that you're describing.
Stefan:
[2:19:09] Why are you hanging with your mom?
Caller:
[2:19:14] Yeah.
Stefan:
[2:19:15] Who kind of wrecked your childhood, right?
Caller:
[2:19:18] Yeah.
Stefan:
[2:19:18] I mean, both your parents kind of wrecked your childhood, right?
You were unparented. You were threatened with belts. You were spanked.
You were ignored. You were enabled. You were sabotaged.
Your mom was a drunk throughout most of your childhood. Your father didn't do anything in particular to fix that, right?
Caller:
[2:19:37] I confronted my mom about that, and she did apologize.
Stefan:
[2:19:43] Who cares? Can it be fixed?
Caller:
[2:19:47] No.
Stefan:
[2:19:49] Can you go back and get reparented?
Is she still drinking? You think so, right? The white cloth.
Caller:
[2:19:59] Yeah. Okay.
Stefan:
[2:20:00] So if she apologized for drinking in the past, but she's still drinking now, who cares?
It doesn't mean anything.
I'm sorry I had an affair says the man going out to have another affair, it's meaningless it's worse than meaningless right it's an insult, it's just saying the words right, did your parents help you out with any of your relationship issues, not in any meaningful way so what are you doing, what is there? Like, let's just talk about your mom, because your parents separated, like, half a decade ago or whatever, right?
Let's talk about your mom. What is the value that she's bringing to your life, that you go for, that you're there for?
Caller:
[2:21:06] Maybe, I guess she's just my mom, you know, and that's not good enough.
Stefan:
[2:21:21] Okay, how much does philosophy respect categories rather than virtues?
Caller:
[2:21:26] Yeah, yeah.
The Impact of a Terrible Mother
Stefan:
[2:21:28] Because this is what you said. I respect my father at the very beginning of the convo. I respect my father for being intelligent. And I said, well, that's not a virtue. That's just a category.
And you think that mom has a low, like the category mom has a lower standard of behavior. It has an infinitely higher standard of behavior.
Caller:
[2:21:47] Yeah.
Stefan:
[2:21:48] And she was a terrible mother, unless I missed something important.
So the one job she had was to be there for you, to nurture you, to love you, to listen to you, to guide you, to instruct you, to give you wisdom.
And she just sucked down the brain poison called alcohol month after month, year after year, decade after decade, right?
So what's she doing with you? What are you doing with her? And I'm not saying whether you should or shouldn't see her. I just, I'm trying to understand.
Isn't she someone who's done you, or isn't she the person maybe along with your dad who's done you the most harm in your life?
Who you needed the most and who was there for you the least.
Caller:
[2:22:40] See, I think the reason I came in here with so many examples of girlfriends, and I'm kind of seeing this now, that it leads all the way back to mom.
Stefan:
[2:22:56] Well, mom and dad. Mom and dad.
Caller:
[2:22:58] And dad. Right, right.
Stefan:
[2:22:59] Yeah. Okay, so I want you to think of a really quality woman woman, smart, wise, sensitive, intelligent, stable, virtuous, kind, and strong, a strong woman, right?
Caller:
[2:23:14] Mm-hmm.
Stefan:
[2:23:16] And you say, yeah, I had a great Christmas with my family. My parents, you know, they get along well. We can go for dinner.
And she's like, oh, great, okay, I'll love to meet them.
And she comes over, this very wise, intelligent, perceptive, and resolute woman comes over, and you introduce her to your mom with pride.
What does this strong, resolute, intelligent, virtuous, courageous, perceptive woman think of your mom?
Caller:
[2:23:48] Well, she thinks that I don't know what it means to be virtuous.
Stefan:
[2:23:54] Well, I think she would look at you with great sympathy, right?
Like he's not very far along the journey yet.
Now would she say I can't wait to hand my children over to this mother-in-law, yeah I can't wait to spend the next 50 years or 40 years hanging out with this mother-in-law and this father-in-law and this extended family yeah, have any of the unstable Stable and volatile sometimes women, have any of the unstable women you've dated had any problem with your mother or your father?
Girlfriend's Disapproval of the Protagonist's Mom
Caller:
[2:24:51] Yeah, the last one, for sure, with my mom.
Stefan:
[2:24:56] She didn't like your mom?
Caller:
[2:25:01] She liked her at first.
Stefan:
[2:25:05] And what was her criticisms of your mom?
Caller:
[2:25:12] I just…
It was more of like a passive thing that we didn't really talk about, but she just didn't want to see her very often.
I didn't really know what to think about that at the time.
Stefan:
[2:25:43] All right. It could just be that she didn't want you to have divided loyalties or loyalties that might interfere with her control over you. Who knows, right?
Caller:
[2:25:51] And we didn't have a lot of time together either when we were together.
So, it could be that, but I definitely see where you're going with this.
Stefan:
[2:26:02] All right, so I want you to pretend to be your mom, if you don't mind.
Caller:
[2:26:06] Okay.
Stefan:
[2:26:07] I want you to pretend to be your mom, and I'll be your girlfriend.
Let's both swap out the roles, right?
Okay, so we're at dinner, it's just you, your girlfriend, and your mom, right? Right.
Your mom turned to a girlfriend, turns to your mom and says, so listen, this man, I really, really like him, has told me some things that I kind of wanted to understand and clear up.
I mean, is it really the case that you were a heavy, heavy drinker, if not a downright alcoholic for most, if not all of his childhood? Is that right?
Caller:
[2:26:48] She would react.
Stefan:
[2:26:50] Just be her. What would she say?
Caller:
[2:26:51] Yeah. He told you that?
Stefan:
[2:26:55] Well, I didn't read it in the Star, so of course he told me that.
I mean, that's obvious, right? Let's not play dumb here, right?
It's obvious that he told me. How else would I know? Is this true?
Caller:
[2:27:09] Yes, but I'm getting help for it.
Stefan:
[2:27:14] You're getting help for it now? He's 24 years old. What do you mean?
When did you first think that it was a problem? When did you first notice that it was something that you needed help with?
Caller:
[2:27:26] Well, it's always been a problem.
Stefan:
[2:27:28] Okay, so why wouldn't you get help when your kids were little, as opposed to now?
He's almost a quarter century old. He's long past needing a mom in this way.
So why wouldn't you get help when he was little, when he really needed you?
Caller:
[2:27:43] Well, I was going through a very bad divorce. divorce.
Stefan:
[2:27:47] No, no. You got divorced when you were 18, right? Sorry, when your son was 18.
Caller:
[2:27:56] That was when it was finalized, but they separated when my son was 12.
Stefan:
[2:28:02] Oh, okay. So you were going through a bad divorce, and of course, part of the reason I assume you were going through this bad divorce is you were an alcoholic.
So why wouldn't you get help when When your son was very little, I mean, I hope you didn't drink while you were pregnant, but when your son was very little or your children were very little, why didn't you get help then?
The Past Neglect: Lack of Help and Support
Caller:
[2:28:34] Hmm.
I don't know if I would have an answer to that.
Stefan:
[2:28:43] So she would say, I don't know.
And I say, well, you said it's always been a problem, so it's always been a problem that you've known about, and you're getting help now, but now your kids are grown.
So I'm sort of trying to understand why you wouldn't get help with this in the past.
And also, I mean, something else that he said was that he had, you know, pretty much untrained, uncontrolled, unfettered access to the internet and got involved in some fairly seedy stuff and apparently you knew about this in his early to mid-teens he was involved in a fairly graphic, sexual texting or I don't even know if they were visuals relationship with another girl and you didn't know anything about this at the time and you only found out about it later is that right?
Um well i found pictures on my son's phone that confirmed it and these were explicit pictures of the other girl is that right both him and the girl oh okay and so um how old was he at this point was he like i think it was 14 to 16 but how old was he when you found the pictures was on his phone?
Caller:
[2:30:03] 14.
Stefan:
[2:30:05] 14? So, what did you do? I mean, that's a huge emergency, right?
Caller:
[2:30:14] I asked his father to take him out on a walk and talk to him.
Stefan:
[2:30:23] And what happened? I mean, what was discussed? What rules were put in place?
What controls were put in place? What did you do?
Like, did you take away his internet, his phone? I mean, what happened with this huge tragedy and emergency in your son's development?
Caller:
[2:30:45] We may have taken his laptop, but he still had his phone. He still had his computer.
Stefan:
[2:30:52] So help me understand this, right? Because listen, I mean, if it's going to get really serious with this young man, who's a very nice young man, very smart young man, then you're going to have access to my children, right?
And I need to understand what it means for you to be a parent or to be in charge of children or have some authority over children.
So, when you found this shocking content, appalling content, on your child's phone, he went for a walk with his dad? Anything else?
Caller:
[2:31:32] No.
Stefan:
[2:31:36] What were you doing help me like i can't fathom this help me understand how your son was so unprotected untutored left to wander the wastelands of the internet and even when you found the most tragic appalling and monstrous stuff you did nothing help me understand i'm i'm trying to reach across and i'm sorry if i'm sounding harsh but i'm genuinely baffled by this behavior, i think she would agree i would agree well i don't care what it means now because he's twice the age than when you found him almost right why didn't you do anything then, i was i'm trying not to think in circles here but i was I was too consumed with my partying and drinking.
Well, that's not an answer, though. I mean, you have children at home, and you knew it was a problem, so why would you choose to pursue the problem rather than parent your children? Right.
Caller:
[2:32:51] Because my parents did the same thing.
Stefan:
[2:32:53] That's not a cause either. Because if you knew that you had a problem because your parents did something bad, that would give you much more motivation to do something right. To do something good, right?
Caller:
[2:33:05] What if I didn't?
Stefan:
[2:33:06] Somebody says, well, I was raised by an alcoholic. That's why I never touch alcohol, because I know how bad it is. So you knew how bad it was.
So there's no excuse as to why you would do it. The fact that your parents did it is every reason why you shouldn't have been totally involved and there for your children.
Caller:
[2:33:22] Well, what if that's the only example I've ever had and there's no one else that I could look to to act as a role model in my life?
Stefan:
[2:33:33] Oh, well then, if you say that you have no choice in the matter, but this is the only role model you've ever had, your parents, well, there's a couple of questions I have.
The first question I have is, well, you knew that how you were parented you knew was a problem, right?
You knew that it was not good, so you would read books on parenting, you would consult experts on parenting, you would get therapy, you would deal with that, because you knew it was a problem.
You knew that your parents didn't treat you well, and for that I'm, of course, very sorry, you have my deep sympathy, but you knew that your parents didn't treat you well, so knowing that, you would say, well, I want to do better, so I'm going to study.
Like, if I do badly on a test, and then I've got another test in the same subject coming up, I will study.
I will get a tutor, right? I will figure things out, right?
I mean, I assume you've been educated in your life, you've read books, you've gone to school, you've taken tests, so if you know that how you were parented wasn't great, then you would know that you'd have to study something to be a better parent, right? So I don't quite follow.
You could have had many better examples. Just pick up a book about parenting and read and study.
You're aware that there are books on parenting, right?
Caller:
[2:34:52] I was doing all of that, and I…
I feel like in the beginning when my son was born, he had a lot of things going for him as far as good parents, but things fell apart.
Stefan:
[2:35:18] I'm sorry, I don't know what you're talking about with regards to my question, right? Do you remember the question that I asked you?
Caller:
[2:35:25] I do. Why didn't you?
Stefan:
[2:35:26] Okay, so did you read books on parenting? Did you consult with experts?
Did you get tutoring? Did you get any therapy to deal with the obvious deficiencies that you're saying that you had from your parents, which, again, I sympathize with, but I assume then that you, knowing that deficiency, you study, right?
If you know you've got a driving test coming up, you study road science and stuff, right?
I mean, did you read books on parenting?
Knowing that you were going to be a parent and knowing you had bad examples from your own parents, did you read any books on parenting?
Caller:
[2:36:01] I guess not.
Stefan:
[2:36:03] What do you mean you guess not? I don't know. Did you or did you not?
Caller:
[2:36:07] No.
Stefan:
[2:36:09] Okay, so you knew that you were going to be a parent. You knew that you were parented badly, and you did nothing to improve your parenting.
Which, as you say, guarantees that you're going to be a bad parent, right?
So you're 100% responsible, knowing that you had deficiencies in how you were parented, which, again, I sympathize with. with, you're 100% responsible for not getting the knowledge that you needed to be a good parent.
You chose to be a bad parent. You can't blame your parents. You can't blame the divorce. You can't blame the alcohol.
This was your choice, right? So why did you choose to be this bad at the most important thing you'll ever do?
And I'm not trying to be mean to you. I'm not trying to poke at old wounds here.
It's just that I need to figure out who's who's going to have, I have to be a responsible parent, right?
And if I'm going to get married to your son and I'm going to have his children, I need to be a responsible parent, which means I need to figure out who's competent and positive to have around my children.
So why did you read any books on parenting if you knew that you were parented badly?
Caller:
[2:37:30] It's so baffling to me, I don't know.
Questioning the Parenting Skills
Stefan:
[2:37:35] Hmm.
Hmm. So you don't know why you were a bad parent?
Or why you chose… You don't know why you chose to be a bad parent?
I mean, do you agree with that assessment meant that a woman whose children, he did drugs, he did hard drugs, he drank to excess.
Did you know he was drinking to excess a couple of times a month? Were you aware of that?
Caller:
[2:38:00] Yeah.
Stefan:
[2:38:01] And what did you do about that?
Caller:
[2:38:04] Nothing.
Stefan:
[2:38:07] So would you agree with the assessment that you were a bad mother?
Caller:
[2:38:11] Yes.
Stefan:
[2:38:11] Okay. So why would I let you around my children? You don't even know why you were a bad mother. You don't know why you chose to do any of that.
So why would I let you around my children? Would you? I mean, would that be safe?
Reflection on needing therapy
Caller:
[2:38:31] I think that I should get therapy.
Stefan:
[2:38:41] Well, but you haven't answered my question. Do you think that I should let you around my children? Do you think that would be safe and positive and healthy if you don't even know why you were a drunken, neglectful, bad mother?
Caller:
[2:38:54] No, I shouldn't.
Stefan:
[2:38:55] Okay. Do you want grandchildren?
Caller:
[2:38:59] Yes.
Stefan:
[2:39:00] And how long have you known that you want grandchildren?
Caller:
[2:39:05] Since I had children. Okay.
Stefan:
[2:39:10] So for 50 years or more, maybe 55 years, I don't know exactly how old you are.
Let's say more than half a century.
So for half a century, or let's just say 40 years, let's just say, so for 40 years, you've known that you want grandchildren, and since your son has become an adult, you've obviously had it more on your mind.
So given that you're going to be spending time around babies and children again, and given that you know that you were parented badly, and also you know that you weren't a good mother yourself, which means that you don't know how to productively and positively be around children, given that you've known all of this for decades, Have you studied at all how to treat children well, how to be a good guardian and protector and provider and instructor of children?
You may have missed the boat with your, sounds like you did, you missed the boat with your son.
But you've now had close, we could say, 10 or 20 years.
Say 10 years. You've had 10 years knowing that you weren't grandchildren and that you're going to need to do better with your grandchildren than you did with your children, right? Is that fair to say?
I mean, you should do better with your grandchildren than you did with your children. Is that fair to say?
Caller:
[2:40:23] That's my hope.
Stefan:
[2:40:24] Okay. So now you have round two, right? Now, you're currently not going through a terrible divorce, right?
You're currently not going through any major stressors, right?
Caller:
[2:40:36] Correct.
Stefan:
[2:40:37] And you also know that you want to spend time around babies and toddlers again, right? And you want to do better than you did last time.
Caller:
[2:40:43] Yes.
Stefan:
[2:40:44] Okay, so what parenting books or child care books have you read in preparation for being a grandmother?
Caller:
[2:40:51] None.
Stefan:
[2:40:52] Okay, so it has nothing to do with stress. It has nothing to do with the divorce.
It has nothing to do with anything.
You just don't want to learn anything. thing you just want to re-inflict the same garbage that happened to you on your children and your grandchildren so you're a very dangerous person as far as i can see for children right because you don't want to learn any better it's like you keep crashing planes with passengers on board and then you keep going up again and you never learn how to fly a plane you just keep crashing yeah Yeah.
That's right. Yeah, I mean, I think your son is a great guy.
But honestly, I would be completely amiss in my duties as a mother to provide and protect for my children, if I let anyone like you anywhere around them.
And also, I think it's fair to say that you are the person who's done the most harm to the man I love, right, by being drunken, by being neglectful.
And it's his father, too.
Like, you guys are two sides of the same coin.
But if you're the person who's done the most harm to the man I love, how would you expect or how could you expect me to have a positive relationship with you?
Caller:
[2:42:10] How can I prove to my son, how can I prove to my son that I'm worthy of that of having raising grandchildren how would that how would I prove to you that that really is a very bizarre and contemptible question, because you're the parent right and you're asking your son how you should be a good parent.
Stefan:
[2:42:39] He's not a parent. You're the parent. I mean, you don't take a plane up as a pilot and then ask the passengers how to fly the plane, do you?
It's your job to know how to be a good parent. You chose to have children.
You chose to date, get engaged, get married, get pregnant, have children, keep those children, keep those children in your house.
And so if in your 50s, you're saying to your children, how on earth can I possibly be a good parent when you've been a parent for decades and they've not been parents at all? That's the most bizarre thing I can think of.
How dare you demand that your children tell you how to be a parent?
And the funny thing is, I just told you that there are all these parenting books, right?
And rather than go to the parenting books to find out how to be a good parent, you go to your children?
Are you kidding me?
[2:43:45] I don't even know how to answer that.
I mean, it's like you cut open you claim to be a surgeon you cut open somebody's midriff to fix something in their body and then you say how do I do surgery?
That's true and you go to the family who's watching this operation say I don't know where do I cut what do I do.
Caller:
[2:44:20] Well, I will definitely be reading those books and seeking therapy for this.
Stefan:
[2:44:33] And thank you. Yeah, okay, that's fine, but I still don't know why you haven't done any of that.
Because you understand that if you cared about your son, you would have done all of that decades ago. If you really cared about him.
You certainly would have gotten help for your alcoholism, which you knew was destructive, incredibly destructive for your children.
You would have worked as hard as humanly possible to fix your alcoholism, both to help with your parenting and to keep your marriage together.
So you can say now that you're confronted, oh, I'm going to change, but your change is not occurring because you love your son and won't harm him in that way.
In fact, if I hadn't brought any of this up, none of this would be happening. Is that fair to say?
Caller:
[2:45:28] Correct.
Stefan:
[2:45:30] So you lack love for your son.
I can't fix that. And that's the one thing you have to have as a mother.
That's the one thing you absolutely have to have as a mother.
Is unconditional love for your children when they're young.
Do you agree?
Caller:
[2:45:53] I agree.
Stefan:
[2:45:54] And did you ever live by that? No.
So you're not even doing it now out of love for your son, but over what I'm saying.
Caller:
[2:46:14] Yeah.
Stefan:
[2:46:16] And I'm really, look, it's really sad. I mean, and I don't mean this in any mean or negative way. Like, it's really sad.
I mean, I have a mother who loves me.
And I'm incredibly grateful to her. And I'm, she's very happy.
She's a wonderful, wonderful woman who's loved by everyone in her family, and she's just raised wonderful children.
And I'm incredibly sorry for all the things that you decided in your life that robbed you of that mother love, that robbed you of that genuine devotion, respect for, and love of your children.
It's really tragic how much you've missed out on in life, and you can't get it back.
Back even your kids are grown right and you can't get it back you can't ever have it and that's really sad and i you know i i have a vague sense of what that does to someone but it's it's really not pretty at all because i've seen how much it in enhances and enriches my own mother's life and, the fact that you just ignored your kids and drank and divorced and oh god it's just it's it's so so tragic.
The Impact of Past Behaviors on Helpless Children
[2:47:29] And I don't know what that does to a human soul, to be in possession of the kinds of behaviors that you've had on helpless and dependent children for decades at this point.
I don't know what that does, but I got to tell you, it really doesn't matter to me what you do in the future, because everything that you should have done was decades ago.
You know, to me, you're like somebody who's been chain smoking for 40 years saying now i'm gonna run a marathon it's like no you're not oh i'm gonna quit smoking well i think that's nice but you're still never gonna run a marathon, Probably doesn't even make that much difference to your health anymore.
I guess it's a little nicer. Your air will smell better and you'll save some money, but it's not going to undo the damage.
That's a one-way street.
Slandering his son's virtuous girlfriend
Caller:
[2:48:25] And Stefania, as you tell me this, I remember my son had a girlfriend whose parents were very virtuous.
And I slandered the girl and the parents by sabotaging, in turn, sabotaging his relationship or attempting to.
Stefan:
[2:48:54] What do you mean? What did you say? I don't follow.
Caller:
[2:48:56] He brought home a girl who was raised in a church home and and she had parents who were virtuous and cared for her and I used words like sheltered and she's He's not right for you, and I tried to take you away from something that was better than what I could provide for you.
Stefan:
[2:49:35] Oh, you were afraid of him maybe getting true love and then seeing everything that was deficient in what you'd done.
Caller:
[2:49:45] Yeah. Okay.
Stefan:
[2:49:46] Yeah, I mean, you wanted to avoid just this kind of conversation, right?
Yeah. And I sympathize with that, and I understand that.
I mean, obviously, it's completely repulsive, and it's the exact opposite of what a mother should do.
But, I mean, I can certainly see where you're coming from.
I mean, it's a good confession, because I think it will help your son see the truth of what's going on.
So I want to end the role play here because I mean this is all pretty stomach turning right, it is it really is and it would be the same conversation with your dad right that he had a responsibility to protect his children and he left his children in the care custody control, of a completely emotionally absent and indifferent drunk right yeah so you got a choice man you have the crap people in your life or you have the good people in your life, but you can never have both.
You live on trash planet or you live in heaven. You can't have both.
The two will repel each other, just as your mother did with the good girl, right? The Christian girl. Right.
[2:51:06] So that's my major concern, is not the girls in the past, but the people in the present.
Caller:
[2:51:17] I think I was scared that this conversation would go there.
Stefan:
[2:51:23] No, you weren't. No, you weren't. You weren't. You're an apparent maybe.
Caller:
[2:51:29] I make excuses for them, I think is what I'm trying to say.
And I want to have loving parents.
But I don't.
Making excuses for the parents' behavior
Stefan:
[2:51:50] Well, I mean, it's worse than not loving, right? I mean, there are tons of people in the world who don't love me. They've never even heard of me.
I mean, these are people who betrayed just about every responsibility the parents have towards a child.
And sabotaged you. Enabled your drinking. Sabotaged your relationships.
They are, in my view, dangerous.
It's not a matter of not loving. That's an absence. But there's a presence of something quite dangerous, in my opinion, here.
Caller:
[2:52:26] And there's nothing I could tell you that would change that. And I know that.
Stefan:
[2:52:32] Well, I mean, this is just my perspective. I don't… This is nothing absolute.
You know, you're calling, asking maybe for my perspective, and that's my perspective, is that it's not a matter of what you could tell me or not.
Caller:
[2:52:46] I think what I'm trying to say is there's no good that could outweigh that bad.
Stefan:
[2:52:52] Well, if they have value because of the category parent, then they should have been good parents, right?
Caller:
[2:52:58] Yes.
Stefan:
[2:52:59] I mean, is every doctor in the category of doctor a great doctor? Nope.
Caller:
[2:53:04] No.
Stefan:
[2:53:05] Dr. Mengele was a doctor, right? So the category doesn't prove the morality.
Unless the category is virtuous, right? The category doesn't prove the morality.
So parents have an extra special responsibility for kindness, generosity, wisdom, and virtue with regards to their children.
And if they fulfill that, then they absolutely deserve love, honor, respect.
I mean, they've earned it, right? We pay what we owe. That's justice. We pay what we owe.
Your parents missed the boat on parenting in in absolutely disastrous ways and did not learn even though they knew they were doing great harm did not learn did not seek therapy did not desperately try to figure things out and be better and the moment of course i talked to your mom she says well my parents were bad it's like you think that gets you off the hook no that puts you even more on the hook.
That's like me saying I take the flight controls of a plane and crash it and say, well, I didn't know how to fly a plane. Like, that's an excuse?
No, that means I shouldn't have taken the reins. I shouldn't have taken the flight controls.
Caller:
[2:54:29] You're right.
Conversations with Parents: Addressing Family Dysfunction
Stefan:
[2:54:39] And so, I mean, my suggestion always is, you know, have conversations with your parents.
Talk to them about the things that were missing, the things that were problematic.
Because the girlfriends are just a shadow cast by the dysfunction of the family of origin.
The fault is not with the Arabic girl. The fault is not with girls one through four.
I mean, they have their faults, but that's not why they're in your life. They're in your life.
Because you won't confront the dysfunction in your origin story.
Or rather, your parents don't want you to confront that dysfunction.
So because you're making excuses for your parents, you make excuses for your girlfriends.
And because you make excuses for your girlfriends, crazy people come in.
Fear of Bringing Quality Women Home
Caller:
[2:55:36] I think this is why it's been so difficult for me to um interact with normal women um, is it it it you're right i mean i'm subconsciously or consciously whatever word you would use i deep down i'm scared to bring one of them home and it's something no you're not your parents are scared for you to bring one home you got to differentiate what serves you and what serves your parents.
Stefan:
[2:56:19] I wasn't scared to find a quality woman. Everyone around me was scared to find a quality woman, that I found a quality woman.
Caller:
[2:56:27] Right, right, right. Okay, yeah. Framing is really important there.
Stefan:
[2:56:32] Oh, yeah. Saying there's some big personal deficient, oh, I just don't feel comfortable around saying healthy, normal women.
It's like, no, you're fine with them.
It's everyone else who doesn't want you. You know, imagine if your dad was a criminal, your dad was a criminal, and then you start dating a detective, right?
You say to your dad, hey, I want to bring my wonderful new detective girlfriend over. She's really, really good at spotting criminals.
I mean, that's her entire job. She reads body language, facial, and she just knows, man.
I want to bring her over. What's your dad going to say?
Caller:
[2:57:16] Please don't.
Stefan:
[2:57:18] Well, he's going to make you feel uneasy or bad about having the girlfriend over, and then you're going to say, gee, you know, I feel really uneasy about bringing my girlfriend over. It's like, no, you don't.
Your dad does.
Don't insult yourself by saying, I don't like virtuous people.
Because that means that you're a bad person. You're not a bad person.
Have you harmed and wrecked people's childhoods? Nope.
Have you abused children and neglected children? Nope. Don't insult yourself by saying, I feel nervous around quality women.
I feel nervous around virtuous women. No, you don't.
You don't have that much to hide. Your parents, on the other hand, have a lot of bodies.
Your dad's buried someone in the backyard.
And you're saying, I want to bring my girlfriend over. she's a detective and the wildest thing she actually has her pet as a cadaver dog and she's bringing her dog over too, well he doesn't want a cadaver dog sniffing around his backyard there's a body there.
Confronting the Mother's Lack of Effort
[2:58:37] And for you to sit I mean I know you were playing your mom but for you to sit there and you listen back to this convo for you to sit there and your mom just kind of folds and, oh, yes, I was a bad mother, and, oh, I should go to therapy, like that, right?
Which means she could have done it any time, any time she wanted. It's that easy.
I got her to do that in 10 minutes, right?
Caller:
[2:58:56] Yeah.
Stefan:
[2:58:57] So she could have done that any time. It's just that your protection, happiness, and respect was no motivator for her at all.
Didn't care about you enough to do that when it took 10 minutes of a stranger getting her to do it.
Caller:
[2:59:14] And me coming on to this show and exploring these ideas, that gives me hope.
Stefan:
[2:59:29] Well, I mean, isn't it good to have an explanation as to why things haven't been working?
Caller:
[2:59:35] Yeah, it really does.
Stefan:
[2:59:37] Because things not working for you is everything working for your parents.
And you are like all of us dedicated to making your parents happy to keeping their protection to keeping their positive regard we all grow up slaves to our parents that's totally natural, that's how we survive right?
But now you're like okay, well if what works for me doesn't work for my parents what do I do?
And if what works for my parents doesn't work for me what do I do?
They're the past, what I want is the future And when I dated a quality person, quality woman, virtuous woman, yeah, people kind of scattered, to put it mildly.
Because then I experienced what it was to be supported and loved, and I was like, holy crap, I've been living on this piss-filled porridge for decades, and there's this wonderful meal right here?
You know, the guy with the shitty restaurant doesn't want you to go into a good restaurant.
Caller:
[3:00:45] Right, yeah, yeah.
Stefan:
[3:00:50] Especially if the good restaurant is cheaper and closer and all that.
So, yeah, I mean, that's most of what I wanted to get across.
Is there anything you wanted to mention at the end here?
Caller:
[3:01:07] No. No, I've just got a lot to think about. And I appreciate you laying that out for me.
I know it's extremely useful for me going forward.
Stefan:
[3:01:24] Good, yeah. And listen, I mean, you know, let your parents have their side of the story and, you know, have a good conversation with them.
But just be alert that everything that happens, when you're a young man, everything that happens in your life happens under your parents' watchful eye.
And if things keep going wrong they're enabling it that's just a basic fact so I hope that that will make some sense to you and I hope that you'll let me know how it goes, I definitely will and I've been sober for a year and I'm looking forward to the next year, and it's a big part due to you and I appreciate you thank you great job on the convo tonight and I look forward to an update All right.
Caller:
[3:02:10] Thanks. Thanks. Have a good night.
Stefan:
[3:02:11] Bye.
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