Stefan Molyneux
Stefan Molyneux
  • 9 months ago
"Hey Stef, I'm married, but sometimes, I think I could have done better, and then I overthink it. I question my choices, wonder if I've made a mistake getting married, and then feel guilt and shame as a result. I'm constantly rehashing these questions, and it's torture. Can you shed some light on the path out of this cycle?"

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Transcript
00:00:00 Hello, Stefan. Hey, how's it going?
00:00:02 Ah, it's going pretty well. How about yourself? Good, good. Sorry again for the delay.
00:00:08 It's a dull story, but I apologize. So I'm all yours. I'm all yours. So
00:00:15 lay it on me, brother. How can I best help? Okay, well, a while ago, I submitted a question
00:00:23 to you that you answered, and I'll read it back to you for context. This is it. So,
00:00:31 "Hey, Stef. I'm married, but sometimes I think I could have done better, and then I overthink it.
00:00:40 I question my choices, wonder if I've made a mistake getting married, and then feel guilt
00:00:45 and shame as a result. I'm constantly rehashing these questions, and it's torture. I ask,
00:00:52 can you shed some light on the path out of this cycle?" And you answered it. You gave some pretty
00:01:01 good answers that I was very happy with, and they did help settle my nerves and put my gut to
00:01:10 some sort of semblance of rest. But there was other questions that remained.
00:01:16 I think there's a lot more to it. It was more of a very highly distilled
00:01:20 version of the question. But yeah, you did provide a good answer. It was something along the lines
00:01:28 of, well, we've been together this long already. And as I said, we have a one-year-old son.
00:01:35 So she was good enough to have a child with. That's a very good point.
00:01:44 But yeah, it would have troubled me for a long time, and I had lots of issues with it. I spend
00:01:52 a lot of time working by myself. I do 12 and a half hour shifts, and I'm away from home
00:01:58 for long periods of time. So there's a lot of time to think.
00:02:02 But yeah, it gave me some issues, and you helped a little bit. But there's other things, I think,
00:02:11 that contributed towards that. Do you have any thoughts on that?
00:02:16 No, no, just keep going. I remember the question, and I did review it before the call. So yeah,
00:02:21 just keep going.
00:02:22 Okay.
00:02:24 Wait, no, I lie. Sorry, I lie. So you do 12 and a half hour shifts, and you travel a lot,
00:02:31 and you don't have to give me any specifics, but just in what field or area do you work?
00:02:37 So I work in mining. So I am on the two and two roster. So I fly away. I live in Australia,
00:02:45 and I fly away to where the ore is, and I'll work for two weeks. I'll do a week of days,
00:02:52 then a week of nights, and then I'll fly back home for two weeks. And that's sort of the roster.
00:02:57 Okay, yeah, I've done geological work, so I have some knowledge about that. Okay, so go ahead.
00:03:05 But yeah, it gives you a lot of time to think.
00:03:09 But at the same time, being home and not doing anything else, just being home full time,
00:03:16 is sometimes after a while, you look forward to going back to work.
00:03:22 It's like sometimes what I do is a break from my real job, which is taking care of my family,
00:03:28 but at the same time, it's providing. So it's kind of a weird mix, and I guess there's a little
00:03:34 bit of humor in them that people make to kind of try and deal with being away from their families
00:03:41 for so long. It's hard, but we make it work. I've been doing it for a long time.
00:03:48 But it was... So I've been doing mining a couple of years now, and I was really interesting. I was
00:03:54 thinking about what you said. You mentioned the point of superiority, like how perhaps I think
00:04:02 that I am of higher value than what she is, and that got me thinking, "Okay, well,
00:04:10 before I started in this job, it's quite a high-paying job. I'm very grateful for it."
00:04:15 Before that, I had no direction. I didn't know what to do.
00:04:18 I got out of the... I came out of university. It was sort of a worthless degree,
00:04:27 and that was rough, and I didn't know what to do. And then I got put on, so maybe she did mining.
00:04:34 All right. So I worked away. So I was working in utilities, so just doing camp management stuff,
00:04:42 just like dealing with trash or in the kitchen, and just things like that, working in the bar,
00:04:50 that sort of thing. And I did that for two years, and that was rough. So that was a two-in-one
00:04:56 roster. So I was away for two-thirds of the year, and the pay wasn't even that good. But it got me
00:05:03 through the door. Then I got onto a two-and-two roster, and it basically doubled my income.
00:05:08 So I'd say it paid off in that respect. However, what I think happened is when I had this doubling
00:05:19 of income coming in, as I was thinking about it logically now, in retrospect, I imagined my
00:05:28 sexual market value going up along with it. So I'd gone from very low, not having any real
00:05:35 direction, not having a real job, just working in bars and stuff like that, then getting a little
00:05:41 step up, and then getting a high-paying full-time job. And just the prospect of that spurred that
00:05:49 thought in the back of my mind. And I asked myself that question a lot, and I just kept
00:06:00 asking and asking. But I think there was other things that were working in the background that
00:06:06 had not been addressed, and then they just coalesced, broke things down. Because it all
00:06:15 came to a head a couple of years ago, and it was really, really rough. The action before I started
00:06:20 working up here.
00:06:24 Yeah, it was a really rough time for me. But yeah, it's the constant--
00:06:37 But in what way? I'm not sure what you mean.
00:06:40 Okay, I apologize. So basically, I was having these gut feelings, I was constantly
00:06:48 questioning myself, and I was just running through it, and I couldn't quite figure out
00:06:54 it meant, "Yeah, you have a gut feeling, or just this thought, and it
00:07:04 kind of possesses you." And the thought was, "How do I make the right decision?
00:07:09 Did I meet the right person, or am I just settling?" And it just snowballed out of control.
00:07:19 And there was other things that were happening in the home that I was not addressing that
00:07:28 spurred that on as well. So I'm quite agreeable in nature. And I have this issue, which I think is
00:07:39 more or less core to my problem, and that's I just have this inability to stand up for myself
00:07:49 sometimes. So something small happened, doesn't have to be anything big. Maybe she will snap at
00:07:58 me about something small and trivial, and all it would take is just to say something like, "Look,
00:08:04 I don't appreciate the way you're talking to me. When you do that, can you refrain from doing that
00:08:10 in the future?" Something simple like that, which seems fine in an imaginary scenario. But when it
00:08:18 happens, I get this freeze response, and it's really, really debilitating. And it doesn't have
00:08:29 to be anything big either. I'm not sure, just snap at me, and then I just freeze, and then I can't
00:08:36 think, can't talk. I just nod my head and just go on about my business. I imagine it
00:08:46 like coal mines underground catch fire. They burn underground, but you don't really notice it,
00:08:53 but there are signs. And then I guess there's a kind of anger that sits under there, but I can't
00:09:06 express it. And then it gets awkward because it's been too long. Do I say something? Do I not say
00:09:12 something? And eventually, I'll just end up saying it days later, and it just turns into a big mess
00:09:24 because she doesn't know what she's apologizing for. And it can get really, really messy.
00:09:29 And in retrospect, I spent a lot of time thinking today, I was in my truck, and I was in there all
00:09:37 day. And I'll think about his calls, what I'm going to say, what I'm going to talk about,
00:09:42 and I just started writing. And then I think that issue actually stems from my relationship
00:09:51 with my dad and how he treated me growing up. Any time I had an issue with something,
00:10:04 he would just shut me down most of the time, even if it's something simple. So for example,
00:10:10 I'm a teenage boy. I don't really particularly make my room very clean. And I have my computer
00:10:20 down in the living room, and I don't clean up after myself very well. And what he would do,
00:10:30 he would complain to me about these things, which is fair enough. However, he didn't really
00:10:36 care about those things either. So his room was a mess, and he didn't clean up after himself,
00:10:45 and he expected other people to do it. But when I didn't do it, he would have a go at me,
00:10:52 and obviously point out, "Well, you didn't do any of this stuff either." And then
00:10:59 he would just continue to escalate. So I thought I made a pretty good argument,
00:11:04 like what I just said, basically. And he would just continue to escalate, and it got to the
00:11:12 point where if I keep pushing it, he's just going to snap, and I'm going to get hurt. And that
00:11:21 continued for a very long time. And did he snap to the point where you did get hurt, or did you
00:11:38 pull back before that? I tended to pull back for it. Tended? What do you mean? Did he hit you at
00:11:47 some point based on this stuff, or even once? Oh, he threatened me when I was very young.
00:11:54 So I thought I'd do something wrong in his mind, and he'd threaten me with a belt or a wooden
00:12:00 spoon or something like that. After that, I just didn't push it enough. No, no, no, I'm not
00:12:07 criticizing, but you didn't actually push it to the point where he might physically hit you, right?
00:12:16 That's correct. Okay, got it. And looking back in hindsight, do you think he would have?
00:12:20 Oh, I think he would have. He is generally a very cool and calm guy,
00:12:29 but I could push him in that sense. He would just get so angry. And
00:12:37 I was afraid that if I kept pushing, or like, if I kept that, even if I was in the right,
00:12:46 he would potentially hurt himself. Maybe especially if you were in the right.
00:12:51 Yeah, exactly. So I didn't want to poke the bear too much.
00:12:58 Yeah, violence often happens when we can't disprove people, but we have the absolute
00:13:02 need to be right, but we can't make a good argument, which is why his hypocrisy
00:13:06 regarding living conditions may have led to the violence.
00:13:10 Yeah, that's a very good point. Yeah, absolutely.
00:13:18 Where was your mother in all of this?
00:13:24 She was home. So my parents were together the whole time I was a kid, and they're still together
00:13:35 today. But for the most part, she didn't really intervene. She just kind of just let it happen.
00:13:44 She didn't approve of it. She just kind of let us have our spat, and then she just kind of
00:13:52 stayed out of it, or she wasn't present. But for the most part, she just kind of stayed out of it.
00:13:58 And how did she discipline you if that happened?
00:14:03 She didn't. She might ask from time to time, and I'd be a lot more inclined to do something when
00:14:12 she asked. Because she was asking me, she wasn't ordering me to do something,
00:14:17 especially because she was the one who did most of the work around the house.
00:14:21 All right. And what's your age range now? Are you in your 20s, 30s?
00:14:29 Early 30s.
00:14:32 Early 30s. Okay. And when was the last time you got into some kind of
00:14:36 conflict, significant conflict with your father?
00:14:40 It's been a very long time, well before, since I moved out, when I was about 20 or so.
00:14:49 And how has your father aged into his life? A lot of times, people who are more aggressive,
00:14:58 they kind of age out of it over time. Has that happened with him?
00:15:01 Not really. He's very active. He surfs all the time and he goes on trips. And he's generally a
00:15:09 very upbeat, friendly kind of guy. He makes lots of jokes and he doesn't take things too seriously.
00:15:15 So he has this kind of persona on the surface of being that guy, the surf-a-do, panel band,
00:15:23 and all that sort of stuff. But when you push his buttons and you point out his hypocrisy,
00:15:28 he gets very mad. Most of all, I've never seen him get angry at anyone other than me.
00:15:36 So I was the only one that I saw.
00:15:38 He's hypocritical and bullying this way, right?
00:15:41 Yeah.
00:15:43 Okay. Do you have siblings?
00:15:46 I have a younger sister.
00:15:49 Okay. And how did they get along?
00:15:53 They got along okay. She was even worse than I was when it came to just cleanliness and
00:16:00 cleaning up after myself. I would do it every so often. And sometimes if I asked,
00:16:06 she would hardly ever do it at all. But he did not give her the same treatment as he did me.
00:16:11 But that could just be because I just resisted and she kind of just rolled her eyes.
00:16:21 And I don't have a preference, obviously, as to whether you did or didn't. I'm just curious,
00:16:25 have you tried having a conversation with your father about
00:16:29 the things he did that to you were harmful when you were a child?
00:16:32 I do not know.
00:16:35 Sorry, go ahead.
00:16:39 I was saying there was one time my sister brought up something. So there was a few,
00:16:48 you know, she had like, I don't know how you describe it. It's like a little family meeting
00:16:52 sort of things. And she brought up a point and then I brought up something that was quite
00:17:00 significant to my childhood, to something that he had done, at least to me. And that was about
00:17:10 the only time we discussed something that he did that was relevant to when I was a kid.
00:17:17 And what was it that you brought up?
00:17:19 So we were, sorry, it was myself, my sister and him. We went to this park that we used to go to.
00:17:33 And so it was by lake and we have a, it's Australia, there's deadly animals everywhere,
00:17:42 but tiger snakes are very common in this area. And they are-
00:17:46 Why don't you take a moment or two and just really clear your voice?
00:17:51 Because I know you've got something going on there. I can cut that bit out. So yeah,
00:17:56 just you want, because you're doing that every couple of seconds, it's kind of distracting. So
00:18:00 you want to grab a glass of water and totally clear your throat. That's fine. I mean, hey,
00:18:03 man, I was late to the call. Whatever you need to do to be comfortable is fine with me.
00:18:06 All right. Okay. I'm ready to-
00:18:08 So you were saying tiger snakes.
00:18:11 Yes. So we were walking along. They were, my sister and my father were pulling ahead and I
00:18:18 was trailing behind and I almost stepped on one. So I was standing there, it was sitting right in
00:18:26 front of me, staring at me. And I called out to him and was like, "Hey, dad, there's a snake,
00:18:34 help." And then he turned around for a moment and said something out of earshot. I didn't quite get
00:18:40 it, but he heard me and then he just kind of just walked away. So there I was just by myself with
00:18:49 this deadly snake. Thankfully I knew what to do. And I was able to get out of that situation. I
00:18:56 just took a few steps back and gave it the wide berth and just let it be.
00:19:01 And how old were you?
00:19:02 I suppose I was 10 and 12, something like that.
00:19:07 Right. Okay. Sorry. Finish your story.
00:19:15 And yeah, he just walked away. And I guess for me personally, that was kind of the way he,
00:19:23 in a sense, he walked away from me as well. It was like,
00:19:30 I thought that if he cared, he would have given me a hand or told me what to do or something
00:19:38 instead of just walking away. I suppose that for me, that was the day he kind of abandoned me.
00:19:45 I'm sorry, you just faded out at the end there. The day he what?
00:19:50 The day he abandoned me is how I saw it.
00:19:56 Sorry, the day he abandoned you, like just that day or the day he abandoned you
00:20:00 as a father for all time. I just want to make sure I understand what you mean.
00:20:03 Yes. So I felt for him that was the day he left me behind. He just, like, he didn't care or it
00:20:13 didn't matter or he didn't play it or whatever. I felt like he just left. I didn't matter. He just
00:20:20 left and he left me in a dangerous situation and just walked away and just kind of left me to my
00:20:26 own devices. Well, I don't want to go too harsh on it, but the first word that pops into my head
00:20:34 is murderous. Yes. I mean, if your child is calling out for help with a, I mean, let's say
00:20:44 one of these things bites a kid who's 10 or 12 years old. I mean, what happens? You get the full
00:20:50 venom. I mean, is it fatal? Is it paralytic? Is it uncomfortable? What happens? Untreated,
00:20:58 it can be fatal. It does require hospitalization and... Well, then you were on a hike, right? So
00:21:04 you could have been killed by the snake. And so if a father walks away from a son or a child
00:21:13 who is facing death, that's murderous. There's a murderousness to that.
00:21:19 I mean, I remember hiking with my daughter and a dog came kind of bounding out of nowhere and she
00:21:28 was, you know, scared. Of course, right? And, you know, I had to pick her up and try and calm the
00:21:34 dog down. But the idea, like, the idea that a dog would have been charging at my daughter and I
00:21:40 would have just walked away is, I can't even tell you how beyond incomprehensible that is to me.
00:21:44 And a dog is far less dangerous than a tiger snake. I mean, it's literally in the two words,
00:21:55 only in Australia, right? Snakes, dangerous. Tigers, dangerous. Tiger, snakes. Now that's
00:22:00 an Australian animal, right? I mean, it's a deadly animal. It's a deadly animal.
00:22:05 And he walked away and left you to deal with it when you were fairly young.
00:22:10 Yeah, that's right.
00:22:13 So when you brought this up, what did he say when you brought this up, I guess, as an adult?
00:22:18 It was a while ago now. I vaguely apologize, but I don't think he fully understood the gravity
00:22:29 of the situation.
00:22:32 Wait, wait, hang on. What do you mean he didn't understand the gravity of the situation?
00:22:36 Did he know that tiger snakes are dangerous?
00:22:38 Yes.
00:22:40 Did he warn you and say, "Tiger snakes are here and they're dangerous"?
00:22:43 He never told me that explicitly.
00:22:46 Wait, so he took you walking in a place with deadly animals and never warned you about the
00:22:51 deadly animals?
00:22:52 Like, he never sat us down and told us explicitly. And that's it. So, look,
00:22:57 you need to be careful when walking around here. It's dangerous. It was very nonchalant and
00:23:03 far too casual.
00:23:05 So he was more bothered by...
00:23:08 Oh, this is so incomprehensible to me. Sorry, I'm just trying to align my thinking to this bizarre
00:23:15 planet that your father lives on. So he's more bothered by your messy room than you staring down
00:23:20 an animal that could kill you in a tenth of a second?
00:23:24 Something like that, yeah.
00:23:27 Well, no, no, tell me where it's not... that's not accurate. I don't mean you would die in a
00:23:30 tenth of a second, but in a tenth of a second it could bite you.
00:23:33 Oh, yes, and that was...
00:23:36 Okay, so you staring down a deadly animal, he just shrugs and walks away,
00:23:41 but God forbid you have a messy room, then you've got to be threatened.
00:23:45 Yeah, that's right.
00:23:48 So what the hell, man? Like, I can vaguely understand, though not agree with,
00:23:56 the consistency of not caring about your kids, but when you are putting infinitely more effort into
00:24:02 dealing with your child over a messy room than you are when your child is facing a deadly animal,
00:24:09 that is incomprehensible. Like, I can't figure out the pattern there.
00:24:12 Uh, yeah, I don't understand a lot about it.
00:24:18 So, no, you do, you do, you do, we just don't know what it is yet.
00:24:24 No, because I mean, you've known the guy for over three decades, right?
00:24:27 Yes.
00:24:29 So if there's someone you understand, it's your dad, right? Now, we don't necessarily know the
00:24:33 motives, and we probably never will, but as far as the patterns go, there's got to be some
00:24:38 pattern here. I mean, people don't act completely randomly unless they're
00:24:42 being tasered or they've gone psychotic.
00:24:44 That's true.
00:24:47 I feel like I have another example in mind.
00:24:52 Go for it.
00:24:53 So, um, he liked to surf a lot. And when we were very young, what he would do is he'd take us to
00:25:01 the beach and then he would just go and he would leave us there for hours. Um, I can't even remember
00:25:11 how long he would leave us out there sometimes, three, four hours at a time, sometimes at the
00:25:16 most, I think.
00:25:17 And, uh,
00:25:18 You mean like on the beach?
00:25:20 On the beach. Just, yeah, just, just on the beach. And then he would just be off.
00:25:25 And he would just leave us there. We were like six. My sister was a couple of years younger than me.
00:25:37 And yeah, you just, or seven or eight or whatever, but very young. And yeah, he was,
00:25:46 he was gone off doing his own thing. Um, yeah. And mum caught wind of that and then
00:25:51 she gave him hell for it.
00:25:54 And how long did this last? You were sort of six and your, your sister was younger.
00:26:02 How long, how long did this last? I mean, you say hours at a time, but
00:26:07 did this happen for years or months or how long did it take before your mum figured it out?
00:26:14 Um, I don't think that lasted very long. He did, might've done it a couple of times and then
00:26:19 mum figured it out and, um, raked him over the coals for it. Cause she was terrified about us
00:26:25 getting picked up by a stranger or something like that. And then,
00:26:28 Well, or wondering you, you lose attention with regards to your sister as, cause you're only six
00:26:33 and she wanders into the water or, uh, you get stung by jellyfish or hit the bitten by a crab
00:26:39 or like, I mean, it could be any number of things. Some of which would be dangerous. Some of which
00:26:43 could be fatal. Some of which would just be inconvenient. But I mean, there's a whole,
00:26:47 there's a whole mess of trouble for little kids on a beach, right?
00:26:51 Oh, absolutely. There's all sorts of things, especially here in Australia.
00:26:55 I mean, there are crocodiles in the ocean. Okay. All right.
00:27:03 Both there are, yeah, for sure.
00:27:07 Right. So you've got the tiger snake, the tiger shark or whatever might've happened at the beach,
00:27:17 right? Uh, did, did people, do you have any memory of people saying like, Hey, where are your parents?
00:27:23 I, I cannot recall. I don't think so. Like he would sometimes go to secluded beaches because
00:27:31 he knows where all the good spots are. Um, and it was a long day, but I can't remember anyone
00:27:38 coming up and asking where our parents were or anything like that when he did.
00:27:42 I wish I could remember there being a lot of people. It wasn't like some big crowded beach,
00:27:47 right? There was a handful of people.
00:27:50 Do you have memories of your father seeking out your company and enjoying your company
00:27:59 and taking an interest in your preferences, hobbies, interests, and so on?
00:28:04 Um, I thought about that a lot and not really. He was always more interested in doing his
00:28:14 own thing. He just kind of left me to my devices and that was like, he didn't give me
00:28:20 any real direction or guidance. He didn't teach me anything. I've learned more from you than I
00:28:29 learned from him. Well, I appreciate that. That doesn't sound like the highest bar in the known
00:28:34 universe. Yeah. So yeah. Yeah. I mean, I used to think about this with my own dad who had this
00:28:40 kind of fundamental indifference, you know, he, he, as I mentioned before, he, he went to play
00:28:45 tennis and left me crawling around as a toddler. And I drank weed killer, uh, just because he,
00:28:50 you know, he really, really wanted to play his tennis. I remember even in my mid teens,
00:28:54 visiting him in Africa, we'd go hiking and, uh, this is before I really got into exercise. And
00:29:00 he was, of course he, he hiked for a living because he was a geologist
00:29:05 and I just, he would take me on these, these giant climbs and hikes. And he'd be like way
00:29:10 up ahead. And, you know, he'd just be yelling back if you're thirsty and suck on a stone or
00:29:15 something like that. I'm like, Oh, suck on a pebble. That's a, that's a good analogy for
00:29:21 this relationship. And, and I just remember thinking like he puts the R in father, right?
00:29:26 Cause he's father, he's father away. He's far off in the distance. He's,
00:29:30 he's father out on the horizon. He's putting the R in farther.
00:29:36 That sounds about right. But I'm sorry you went through all of that.
00:29:39 Well, thanks. But at least it wasn't in my face every day. Like it was just every,
00:29:45 every while that I would see him. So, uh, what is the status of your relationship with your father
00:29:52 now? It's fine. I suppose we're not particularly close. Like he will come over every now and then
00:30:02 and we'll spend time together and have like a shallow chit chat, nothing too big, but we're not,
00:30:10 I don't, we're not very close. Um, yeah. Cause like spend all that time just doing his own
00:30:16 thing. I kind of just drifted away. Uh, so what's the plus of having him in your life?
00:30:21 Oh, that's a good question.
00:30:28 He just kind of comes with the territory. So I, like I love my mom,
00:30:32 I think she's a great woman. She made lots of sacrifices for us. I'm sorry. You just drifted
00:30:38 out there for a sec or you talking about your mom now? Oh yes. I'm sorry. Yeah. Sorry. Your mom's a
00:30:44 great woman. Yeah. I think that when we were young, she made lots of sacrifices for us and
00:30:52 she worked very hard for us. So she was a great woman. Okay. Well then that's fine. That's fine
00:30:59 as a thesis. So your, your thesis is that your father was bad, but your mother or your father
00:31:04 was, was not great. And your, but your mother was great. Oh yeah. I suppose. You know, they call
00:31:11 that splitting, right? Did your mother ever, uh, strongly encourage your father to get more involved
00:31:20 with your life, to spend more time with you? Uh, did she make sure that he was a present and
00:31:25 involved father because it's, and in particular for the son, it's very important. It's important
00:31:31 for both. It's slightly more important for the same sex parent to have a good relationship.
00:31:34 So did she notice that your father was absent? Did she really insist that he
00:31:40 try and find a way to connect with his children?
00:31:46 Um, I think what she noticed more was my reaction to his, uh, indifference and his aggression.
00:31:56 Okay. So she didn't notice that you, she didn't notice that he was aggressive and indifferent.
00:32:01 I think she spoke to him a few times, but I honestly can't recall. I don't really remember
00:32:07 too much. Sorry. You said so, so you, she noticed more your reaction to his hostility or his
00:32:15 aggression and indifference, but she didn't notice as much his aggression and indifference.
00:32:19 Uh, yeah, I suppose. So, um, I don't know if she talked to him, took him aside in private,
00:32:25 what does she ever said to him, but he's behind her neck.
00:32:28 Well, it didn't work, right?
00:32:30 Yeah, that's true.
00:32:31 Well, I guess it, I assume that after she raked him over the coals for his
00:32:35 obsessive surfing stuff, I assume that that changed, like he didn't then take you to the
00:32:42 beach and dump you by the seaside and go off for hours to surf.
00:32:45 That's correct. He stopped doing it after that.
00:32:49 Okay. So he takes some coaching and she has some,
00:32:52 um, effect on him or some authority over him, so to speak. So
00:32:57 did she ever indicate that she noticed that your father was distant and
00:33:05 aggressive and threatened violence and so on?
00:33:10 Um,
00:33:12 I guess, I suppose not really. It was only the, so the things I can think of when he
00:33:23 threatened violence the most when I was very young, and then as I got a bit older and the
00:33:28 small, I took on more responsibilities and I was, you know, on all the message, um, he
00:33:35 would start yelling. We get into these arguments and she just kind of stayed out of it, as I
00:33:40 mentioned before. Um, and I can't remember if she spoke to me about it or what, but I do remember
00:33:47 one time after an extended period of time, uh, after this had been going on for a while, I
00:33:54 was very depressed at this point.
00:33:58 And how old were you here?
00:34:01 I was, I was a teenager between say 15 and 17, 18, that sort of thing.
00:34:07 But yeah, those are some very dark years. I mean, I was very, I was isolated and miserable and
00:34:18 I was dealing with all this shit at home.
00:34:21 Ah, okay. So your mother, of course, as a good mother, or you say a wonderful mother,
00:34:27 she would notice that you were very sad and she would talk to you about it and try and get to the
00:34:32 root of it and cast about to figure out the cause or how did your mother handle your depression?
00:34:37 Uh, yeah, so they tried to talk to me, um, that's me down there.
00:34:43 Sorry, they or she?
00:34:45 Uh, from time to time, both of them. So they're both trying.
00:34:50 Okay, but would they try it one-on-one or two-on-one?
00:34:55 Uh, both, sometimes two-on-one, sometimes one-on-one.
00:35:00 Okay, so let's talk about your mom. And so she would sit you down, noticing,
00:35:05 of course, that you were really depressed and she would sit you down and how would that go?
00:35:09 I should kind of ask, um, you know, what's going on. I couldn't really articulate it.
00:35:20 I couldn't really understand why at the time, um, because this is at the same time I was having
00:35:27 those phrases just because after the way my dad treated me, any time someone asks that kind of
00:35:32 question, I don't know, I couldn't formulate an answer to it. So to them, it was a mystery.
00:35:38 To me, it was a mystery. It was only really in retrospect when I started digging, um,
00:35:44 digging back and trying to figure it out that I kind of came to these conclusions, but yeah,
00:35:50 I couldn't articulate why I was feeling that way and I didn't really tell them either.
00:35:55 Um, I think I knew I was lonely. I didn't have any money, friends at school when I first
00:36:03 moved to my new school. Uh, I didn't have anyone to connect with. Um,
00:36:09 I didn't have anything in common with a lot of people.
00:36:12 And did your, sorry, what effort did your parents make when you moved to a new school?
00:36:19 What, what effort did your parents make to get to know other parents, to get to know their kids?
00:36:23 Did they throw dinner parties or any kind of gatherings? Did they try and find ways to connect
00:36:29 with the people in the neighborhood so that you could be vetted in a sense? I mean, what did your
00:36:35 parents do when you moved to a new neighborhood and went to a new school? What did they do to
00:36:40 help you fit in? Um, very little in that regard, actually. I don't think they did really do
00:36:47 anything. They just kind of sent me off and it's like you kind of own your own kiddo sort of thing.
00:36:53 And did they, did they, did they know, I assume they knew that you didn't have friends because
00:36:59 people, you know, kids didn't come over and they weren't calling you to go out and do stuff. So,
00:37:05 they knew that you were really struggling socially, right?
00:37:10 Okay, so you've moved to a new place, your father's indifferent and hostile, and you,
00:37:19 you, you're unable to make friends in this, in this new environment. So, I'm, I'm, I'm just
00:37:24 curious how dare they say, can you tell us what's going on? Because we don't have a clue. I don't,
00:37:31 I don't understand that. Yeah, when you put it like that, it seems, you know, like if I'm an ER
00:37:39 doctor and some guy comes in with a railway spike through his leg, would it make any sense for me to
00:37:46 sit back and say, oh, why don't you tell me what the problem is? What's the matter? What's going on?
00:37:53 How could I help? Yeah, that's very obvious when you put it like that.
00:38:00 Well, so that's why you didn't tell them. Because they were telling you that there was no way for
00:38:07 them to know what the problem was, which meant that the problem was entirely on you. It was
00:38:12 entirely your issue. And they had no intention of helping you because they weren't putting even 1%
00:38:18 of their brain matter into seeing the absolutely obvious problem. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
00:38:29 You know, there's that, that sort of cliche in movies where some guy beats up another guy and
00:38:37 then throws a towel at him and says, ah, clean yourself up, you look disgusting.
00:38:42 Yeah, it's like, so they moved you, they didn't do anything to help you integrate.
00:38:48 They didn't talk to you about, I mean, did they talk to you about, hey, you're going to a new
00:38:52 school. It's a real challenge. You know, we want to really keep track on this. You know, here's
00:38:58 our plan to help you integrate or, you know, you got to keep us posted about how things are going
00:39:02 because social life is super important to mid-teens and I have a mid-teen, so I'm aware of
00:39:07 all of this. And so did they, or they just basically throw you and not look back? Like
00:39:13 you're facing the school in the same way you face the tiger snake.
00:39:16 Yeah, I suppose so. Yeah, they just kind of sent me off and they didn't really care or put any
00:39:26 attention to what I thought or what I wanted or anything that I wanted to go with all my friends
00:39:32 away to another school, but they wanted to send me to a private school, an expensive private school
00:39:39 instead. And so it was an all boys school as well. I'm sorry, they wanted to, sorry, it just,
00:39:44 you wanted to go with your friends to the public school, but they wanted to send you to an expensive
00:39:48 private school? And it was all boys, and all boys, all boys in your mid-teens. Good Lord.
00:39:58 What the hell? It was very rough. So I fell behind on the whole-
00:40:04 And I assume they didn't ask you what you wanted or what might be best for you?
00:40:09 No, not really.
00:40:12 So why would they want to send you, why would they want to send you, it wasn't overnight,
00:40:20 like it wasn't a boarding school, right? No, no, no, I was home.
00:40:24 So let's try and puzzle this one out. Why would they want to spend so much money to send you to
00:40:30 a school and then take you away from your friends and then never track whether you had new friends?
00:40:37 And that's not an accident. Again, whether it was conscious or not, I don't know and I don't care,
00:40:44 but what's the idea behind it? Why are they paying all this money to separate you from your friends?
00:40:52 I suppose for them, they probably thought that I would get a better education there
00:40:56 than I would going to the university.
00:41:01 Well, that's a theory. But then when you went there, you did worse, right?
00:41:07 I did, I did very poorly.
00:41:09 You were depressed. So you weren't getting the good, so, you know, if I say, "Well, you know,
00:41:13 you should go to this school because you're getting a good education to my kid," and then
00:41:17 you get a worse education or you're not succeeding in that education, I would have to change it,
00:41:21 right?
00:41:22 Yeah, that's right.
00:41:25 Okay, so that's not accurate because you weren't getting a good education there or you weren't
00:41:32 doing well there, right?
00:41:33 You know, I was barely skating by.
00:41:36 Yeah, I get it. So no, it's not for a good education. So what's it about?
00:41:48 That's the only explanation that I really thought about as to why they sent me there.
00:41:55 Okay, let me ask you this. So when you were in the public school and you had your friends,
00:42:00 did your friends come over to your house a lot?
00:42:02 Yeah, so I had one best friend in particular, and we spent a lot of time together.
00:42:14 And he went that way, and I was only one year behind, and I kind of wanted to follow him there.
00:42:20 Sorry, there being to the private school?
00:42:23 To the public school.
00:42:25 Okay.
00:42:26 But I didn't have too many friends in primary school.
00:42:32 Sorry, in primary school?
00:42:34 Primary school, so, yeah, primary and then senior. So one through seven and then…
00:42:40 Okay, so did your parents recognize this ever as an issue that
00:42:45 you didn't have many friends and that you might need some help socializing?
00:42:48 I mean, they should have noticed, and they should have put more effort into it.
00:42:57 I don't think they did. I had a couple of friends, but not some too big.
00:43:03 Okay, so did you have friends who would come over to your house much?
00:43:09 Yes, I did. Every night I'd have a couple.
00:43:11 So you said every night you'd have a couple of friends over?
00:43:14 No, every now and then.
00:43:16 Oh, every now and then. Okay, got it, got it.
00:43:18 So a lot of times when parents don't want their kids to socialize,
00:43:24 it's because they don't want kids over at the house.
00:43:28 They don't want other kids over at the house. They don't want your friends over at the house.
00:43:33 Or they don't want you maybe talking about the family with your friends,
00:43:38 or, I mean, are your parents quite private people?
00:43:41 They play their cards very close to their chest. They don't
00:43:43 open up much to people?
00:43:47 They're very social. They're very social people.
00:43:51 Oh, they're very social! So they know how to socialize,
00:43:55 and they know how important socializing is, right?
00:43:57 Yes.
00:43:59 So that robs them of all excuses, right?
00:44:03 Yeah, it does.
00:44:07 Sorry, you're kind of swallowing your voice. I'm having a
00:44:09 trouble following what you're saying.
00:44:14 Sorry, I'm sorry. I do apologize.
00:44:16 No problem. No problem.
00:44:17 Yes, thanks.
00:44:18 Just, yeah, speak up and out.
00:44:19 Okay, so your parents socialized, and they didn't notice or care, or they didn't,
00:44:25 they must have noticed, but they didn't care that you weren't socializing.
00:44:28 How was your sister with socializing?
00:44:34 She probably did better than I did. She had solid groups of friends all throughout her education.
00:44:40 Yeah, me and my sister were not and are not very close.
00:44:46 Right, okay.
00:44:49 So your parents are asking you, "Gee, what's the matter? We have no idea.
00:44:59 We couldn't possibly puzzle it out." Did they ever give you any theories
00:45:04 as to why they thought you might be depressed?
00:45:08 No, I think they would just ask. I didn't know, or I couldn't answer.
00:45:22 Well, of course you couldn't answer, because
00:45:25 they're telling you that your unhappiness is incomprehensible,
00:45:31 and that there's no cause that people twice your age could possibly figure out as to why
00:45:37 you might be unhappy. You see, it's a form of rejection. It's a form of rejection.
00:45:45 Like, "Hey, ask your parents. It's completely incomprehensible. I mean, obviously,
00:45:51 we've thought about this six different ways from Sunday. We're vastly more experienced than you are.
00:45:56 We have absolutely no idea why you're unhappy."
00:46:01 It's telling you, "Don't ever tell us why you're unhappy. We don't want to know. We don't want to
00:46:08 fix it, because we're rejecting you, because we're not saying, 'Okay, listen, like, we noticed that
00:46:18 you got kind of unhappy when we moved to the new area. You went to the new school, so tell us how
00:46:23 that's going. We also have noticed that you don't, you know, have a lot of friends coming over, or
00:46:27 you're not spending time with a lot of friends. Like, how's all that?" Like, these are blindingly
00:46:30 obvious things, right? Yes. Also, you know, you're a young man full of hormones and girl crazy joy
00:46:41 juice, and you know, you're at an all-boys school. Like, maybe you want to be in a... Like, did they
00:46:47 make any arrangements for you to meet any girls at dances or co-ed sports or anything?
00:46:52 They did have dances every so often, but that was about it.
00:46:56 Okay. So, did they make any arrangements for you to have any regular contact with
00:47:02 members of the Ferus X?
00:47:04 No. My mom did sign me up for, like, after class dancing stuff, and that was, like, once a week.
00:47:14 But other than that, no. And it was always very awkward, because I didn't know what the girls
00:47:20 were having. It was very weird. Okay. So, your parents move you to a new school, you not making
00:47:26 any friends. It's an all-boys school. You have no access to girls, really. And they're like,
00:47:32 "We have no idea why you could possibly be sad. This is a puzzle for the ages. This is like
00:47:38 hieroglyphics before the Rosetta Stone. There's no possible way for us to conceivably figure out
00:47:44 what might be the problem. Tell us to break this mystery open to us."
00:47:51 Yeah, that's a... I think... I mean, that's really sad, and that's really pathetic. Honestly,
00:47:58 I just have massive amounts of contempt for that. Massive amounts of contempt for that.
00:48:04 Because either they're, like, literally brain dead, which they're not, right? No intelligent
00:48:12 people, right? Yes. Or they're such absolutely crap parents, that after parenting you for 15 years,
00:48:21 moving you to a new school with no girls and no friends,
00:48:25 they just can't conceivably, possibly figure out what the problem is.
00:48:32 Now, they don't want to know what the problem is, and you oblige them, and you knew this,
00:48:40 and you oblige them, of course, maybe unconsciously, but you oblige them by not
00:48:43 telling them what the problem was. Because if you'd have said, "Listen, Mom, Dad, this is crazy.
00:48:48 I hate the school. I hate being in an all-boys school. I don't have any friends there. I miss
00:48:52 my friends. Just put me back in public school. Like, for God's sakes, this is terrible," right?
00:48:57 Like, if you'd have said that to them, what would they have said?
00:49:00 They probably would have said no.
00:49:03 Right. So they didn't want to know the answer to the problem, because they damn well knew the
00:49:07 answer to the problem, but they didn't want to do it for reasons I don't exactly know.
00:49:11 But they weren't going to put you back? I mean, are they very status-oriented people?
00:49:17 Um, status-oriented.
00:49:22 Did they care about looking good or being high status?
00:49:28 No, I wouldn't. No, we were very much a blue-collar working-class family,
00:49:33 and we didn't really care too much. They put on a lot of parties and stuff like that.
00:49:37 But other than that, I'm not very sure.
00:49:39 Okay, so why would they want to keep you in an expensive private school that you hated?
00:49:44 Why would they want to do that?
00:49:46 I suppose maybe that was after the first few years were very rough, and then I picked up a
00:49:58 few friends for the last three years.
00:49:59 No, that's not an answer. I mean, there's no kid alive who's going to say, "Well,
00:50:05 for a couple of years, things were rough." That's like 20% of your entire life.
00:50:09 But that's half your life as a teenager. Like, fuck that.
00:50:14 So why did they put you in and keep you in a place where you're miserable that's expensive?
00:50:21 Put me in a place that's expensive.
00:50:30 [inaudible]
00:50:34 Maybe because they thought it would be worth it in the long run in terms of education, but that
00:50:39 didn't work.
00:50:39 Okay, so let's say that they think that the education or the school is good for you in
00:50:44 the long run, right? Let's say that they have that belief. So they, of course, would know,
00:50:50 because they're social people too, they would know that a social life is really, really important.
00:50:57 And so when you didn't, when you weren't making friends, they would intervene as much
00:51:00 as possible to try and figure this out, right?
00:51:02 And they'd say, "Listen, of course you're upset. I mean, of course you're depressed.
00:51:06 You don't have any friends, and we put you in that situation, so we're now going to move
00:51:10 heaven and earth to try and figure out how to change that."
00:51:12 So if they thought the school was good for you, then they'd want you to be happy at the
00:51:18 school.
00:51:18 Right? Because if you're unhappy at the school, the school can't be good for you,
00:51:26 because you won't work that, and this showed up in your marks, right? Your marks plummeted,
00:51:29 right?
00:51:29 Yeah, they're like that.
00:51:32 Okay, so saying the school is good for you, the first thing that, you know, if I think
00:51:38 some gymnastics thing is really important for my daughter, my first job is to make sure
00:51:42 she's happy in the gymnastics thing.
00:51:44 So if they thought, I mean, again, they're not dumb people. So if they thought the school
00:51:52 was good for you, they wouldn't just blankly stare at you and say, "Gee, I don't know what
00:51:56 the problem is, kid. Maybe you can tell us."
00:51:58 So that's not the answer either.
00:52:03 No, it's not.
00:52:08 Um, I can't think of anything else more than before. It could have been why the
00:52:21 only way that they could have justified it.
00:52:23 Sorry, I didn't quite get that thought.
00:52:29 I'm sorry. I said that those are the only ways I thought that they could have justified it,
00:52:38 because it's not like it wasn't obvious that I didn't enjoy being there.
00:52:43 Right.
00:52:45 Right.
00:52:49 So the purpose of any system, fundamentally, is whatever continues is what it's for.
00:52:56 Whatever continues is what it's for.
00:53:01 Now, if people said, "Ah, but the welfare state is to eliminate poverty." Well, the
00:53:06 welfare state hasn't eliminated poverty, yet still it continues. So clearly the stated
00:53:10 goal is not the real purpose of the system, right?
00:53:12 Yes.
00:53:17 I mean, the purpose of communism was to raise the living standards of the workers.
00:53:21 The fact that it destroyed the living standards of the workers and yet still
00:53:25 continued means that that stated goal is not its real purpose, right?
00:53:28 Yes, I follow.
00:53:31 All right. So, you're miserable in school, school continues.
00:53:36 Therefore, the purpose of putting you in the school is to make you miserable.
00:53:44 And part of that misery is saying, "Gee, kid, what's the matter? We have no idea.
00:53:49 It's incomprehensible that you could be unhappy. So, you're going to have to crack
00:53:54 this mystery for us, because there's no way that we, as your parents for decades,
00:53:58 could possibly figure this out, or a decade and a half, right?"
00:54:00 So, if you are unhappy in the school,
00:54:10 and the unhappiness continues, and the school continues, then the purpose of the
00:54:15 school is unhappiness.
00:54:17 Now, why your parents wanted to make you unhappy, I don't know.
00:54:24 But that's what continued without their intervention, and with it being, like when
00:54:31 something's completely obvious, and people don't ask the question, it's because they
00:54:37 don't want to disturb the system.
00:54:38 Like, why are the workers poorer under communism?
00:54:44 Why is there now a permanent underclass of people who've not had a job in three
00:54:49 generations, if the purpose of the welfare state is to eliminate poverty?
00:54:52 People don't want to ask those questions.
00:54:54 Oh, I guess, that makes good sense.
00:55:00 Because the question to me, and this is all the way back to the beginning of our
00:55:07 conversation, the question for me, so I said, you know, "When did you last have
00:55:12 significant conflict with your father?"
00:55:13 I'm sure you remember me asking that.
00:55:15 And you said, "Well, you know, I moved out more than 10 years ago, we really haven't
00:55:21 had any conflict, right?"
00:55:22 That's right, yeah.
00:55:24 Right.
00:55:25 So, if you haven't really had any conflict with your aggressive and distant bully of
00:55:32 a dad, why are the effects still lingering?
00:55:36 Why are the effects still lingering?
00:55:42 Because you still have a great hesitation in assertiveness, right?
00:55:47 That's right, yeah, I struggle.
00:55:49 Right.
00:55:50 So, that means that something unidentified is continuing to have hold over you.
00:55:56 So, we've got to figure out what that is.
00:56:04 Do you think maybe that was the purpose of the school and that's what it's intended to
00:56:08 do?
00:56:08 Well, let's look at your dad, right?
00:56:12 And we'll look at your mom in a sec, we'll look at your dad.
00:56:15 Your dad threatens you with your belt, not because he cares about tidiness, because he
00:56:22 himself is untidy, right?
00:56:23 So, he threatens to beat you, but it's not about tidiness.
00:56:30 So, what is it about?
00:56:31 Power, perhaps.
00:56:32 He's bigger and smaller.
00:56:33 No, but that's obvious, right?
00:56:36 I mean, you already know that.
00:56:37 You already know he has power, you already know he's big.
00:56:40 Yes.
00:56:41 Why would you threaten someone, why would you threaten a little boy with violence over
00:56:48 something you don't care about?
00:56:50 Because maybe it's an excuse.
00:56:51 Aggression.
00:56:51 But that doesn't explain why you want to do that?
00:56:53 No.
00:56:53 Why would you want to threaten a little boy with a belt over something you don't care
00:56:55 about?
00:56:55 Because maybe it's an excuse.
00:56:57 Aggression.
00:56:57 But that doesn't explain why you want to do that?
00:56:59 No.
00:56:59 Why would you want to threaten a little boy with a belt over something you don't care
00:57:01 about?
00:57:01 Because maybe it's an excuse.
00:57:03 Aggression.
00:57:03 But that doesn't explain why you want to do that?
00:57:05 No.
00:57:05 Why would you want to threaten a little boy with a belt over something you don't care
00:57:07 about?
00:57:07 Because maybe it's an excuse.
00:57:09 Aggression.
00:57:09 But that doesn't explain why you want to do that?
00:57:11 No.
00:57:11 Why would you want to threaten a little boy with a belt over something you don't care
00:57:13 about?
00:57:15 Because maybe it's an excuse.
00:57:17 Aggression.
00:57:19 But that doesn't explain why you want to do that?
00:57:21 No.
00:57:23 Why would you want to threaten a little boy with a belt over something you don't care
00:57:25 about?
00:57:27 Can I tell you?
00:57:29 Please do.
00:57:31 To break him!
00:57:33 To shatter the bond.
00:57:35 To break him.
00:57:37 You see, the hypocrisy was part of the aggression.
00:57:39 Because as you point out, hey, I'm not going to do that.
00:57:41 Because as you point out, hey, Dad, you don't even care about this.
00:57:43 Yeah, but I'm going to beat you anyway.
00:57:45 Right?
00:57:47 That's to say, it's not about the principle.
00:57:49 It's not about tidiness.
00:57:51 I don't give a shit about tidiness.
00:57:53 But I do want to break you.
00:57:55 Dad, I need help with the tiger snake.
00:57:57 He walks off.
00:57:59 Why?
00:58:01 You're unimportant.
00:58:03 You don't matter.
00:58:05 I'm going to break you.
00:58:07 There's no bond.
00:58:09 Dad goes to the beach.
00:58:11 Now, he could leave you home with your sister.
00:58:13 He could leave you home with your mom.
00:58:15 Right?
00:58:17 He could say, listen, I really want to go surf on my own.
00:58:19 But he doesn't.
00:58:21 He brings you and leaves you.
00:58:23 Abandons you.
00:58:25 Right?
00:58:27 Why?
00:58:29 To break you.
00:58:31 You're unimportant.
00:58:33 You don't matter.
00:58:35 I'm going to break you.
00:58:37 You don't matter.
00:58:39 I mean, this is psychological warfare 101.
00:58:45 To make people dependent upon you, and then prove to them that you don't care about them at all,
00:58:53 is to break them.
00:59:03 Why were you put in a school you hated, and then your parents pretended to not know why you were miserable?
00:59:09 To break you.
00:59:19 And if this hypothesis, which of course is just a hypothesis, if this hypothesis is accurate,
00:59:25 it would explain why, to some degree, you're still broken, because you don't recognize
00:59:29 the degree of warfare waged against you.
00:59:35 You are unalert to the dangers and to the harm that was inflicted upon you,
00:59:41 as a purely innocent child who deserved love and interest in care and protection.
00:59:51 Yeah, that would explain why I kind of flew under the radar of the survival.
00:59:56 I'm sorry, say again?
01:00:00 I was just saying that would explain why I flew under the radar, and it was hard to detect what was going on.
01:00:06 Right.
01:00:07 In my mind.
01:00:11 Can you tell me of a time, and there could be, right?
01:00:15 It wouldn't fit the pattern, but it certainly could be.
01:00:17 Can you tell me of a time where your parents proactively identified a problem
01:00:23 and prevented it from manifesting?
01:00:26 They proactively said, like so an example would be, you know, we're moving you to a new school,
01:00:31 you're not going to know any kids, we're going to have to really work hard to make sure you can make some friends,
01:00:35 and this, that, and the other, right?
01:00:37 So that's proactively identifying a problem and helping you avert it.
01:00:41 Can you think of a time when your parents in your life have proactively identified a problem
01:00:45 and helped you avert it?
01:00:47 No, I can't.
01:00:59 They would just choose something and off you go.
01:01:05 Or there was, no, everything was always after the fact.
01:01:09 There was hardly any proactive planning ahead.
01:01:12 Hardly any? Listen, I'm happy to hear, right?
01:01:16 So hardly any means, and I'm not trying to be a nitpicker here,
01:01:20 but I'm always on the listen for exceptions to the rule, because they're important.
01:01:25 Because you said you can't think of any, and then you say they hardly ever did, right?
01:01:29 Like if someone were to say to me, did your third cousin kill anyone?
01:01:37 And I said, well, hardly ever.
01:01:40 Well, that would be a pretty important difference, right?
01:01:42 Then no, of course not.
01:01:46 Not often, right?
01:01:54 Yeah, I can't think of any occasions where they did that.
01:02:00 Right.
01:02:03 So why wouldn't they, I mean, this is basic parenting, right,
01:02:07 is to identify issues your children are going to face and help them avoid and avert them, right?
01:02:14 Yes.
01:02:15 You know, it's the old thing that, you know, if your children are gaining a little bit of weight,
01:02:18 you sit down and talk to them about it.
01:02:20 If your children are spending too much time on the screens,
01:02:22 you sit down and talk to them about it.
01:02:23 If your children are not making friends, you sit down and try and figure it out, right?
01:02:29 Absolutely, yeah.
01:02:31 So, I mean, one of the central goals of parenting is why your parents, right?
01:02:35 Why you don't just turn kids loose, I guess on a beach when they're sick, right?
01:02:39 Why you don't just turn kids loose is that children can't see the problems that are coming,
01:02:43 but parents can.
01:02:45 Does that make sense?
01:02:47 Absolutely.
01:02:48 Okay.
01:02:49 So, if your parents didn't help you identify problems and ameliorate or avoid them,
01:02:58 they weren't really parenting.
01:03:01 So, what were they... I mean, obviously, they fed you, right?
01:03:06 And they gave you shelter and health care, right?
01:03:12 Yes, all of those things.
01:03:14 Now, people do that with pets, right?
01:03:18 But we don't say, you know, like this cliché, like, "I'm a dog, Mom."
01:03:23 It's like, no, you're not.
01:03:25 You have a broken wolf as a pet.
01:03:29 "I'm a cat, Parents."
01:03:31 No, you're not.
01:03:33 Right, so those kinds of things, you know, we could imagine a man who wants to go surfing,
01:03:39 who has a dog with him, would let the dog roam the beach while he went to surf, right?
01:03:45 It's like a pet.
01:03:48 Yeah, you're right.
01:03:50 But even a person will try and train a pet,
01:03:55 and it doesn't sound like you were really trained at all.
01:04:00 Or you did not have parents who were intervening to help you out and help you solve...
01:04:08 even identify problems, let alone solve them.
01:04:14 Yeah, that's it.
01:04:16 No guidance, especially from my dad.
01:04:18 I didn't think my mom helped me much, but she did.
01:04:20 She could.
01:04:22 One or two.
01:04:23 Okay, so let's say that in a couple of years,
01:04:27 your dad says, "I want to take my grandkids surfing.
01:04:33 I want to go with my five-year-old grandchild to a beach so I can go surfing."
01:04:40 And what would you say?
01:04:43 I would say no.
01:04:44 You'd say, "Why not?"
01:04:49 Because I know what he's going to do.
01:04:50 He's going to leave the kid on the beach, and he's going to piss off and do what he wants to do.
01:04:55 Right.
01:04:58 So you wouldn't let your father have any particular authority over your child, right?
01:05:06 No, I would not.
01:05:08 So why is your child worthy of protection, but you're not?
01:05:18 No, I am, and I was.
01:05:21 No, no, but now.
01:05:23 Like, your father has authority over you now just because he's been your father for over 30 years, right?
01:05:28 So you won't let your father have any authority over your child, but you'll socialize with him,
01:05:33 you won't confront him, you won't tell the truth about him, you're talking to me, not him,
01:05:37 which I'm not disagreeing with, I'm just pointing it out, right?
01:05:41 Yes.
01:05:42 So you're frightened of your father, your father has the potential to do you harm,
01:05:46 which is why, I mean, you can always tell the people who are frightened,
01:05:49 because they don't tell the truth, right?
01:05:52 And I'm not criticizing at all, but I'm just pointing out as a fact that you don't tell the truth to your father.
01:05:59 You don't tell the truth about your experience, your history, your loss, your sadness, your anger,
01:06:04 your frustration, your isolation, your feelings of rejection and abandonment.
01:06:09 You don't, now and never have, told the truth to your father.
01:06:16 And again, this is not a criticism at all, I'm not saying you should or must, I'm just saying this is a fact, right?
01:06:24 Yes, I understand.
01:06:25 Which means you're terrified of your father!
01:06:29 And I'm not disagreeing with that either, and neither is that a criticism, it's simply an observation, right?
01:06:35 You must be scared of your father to bite your tongue about your experience with your father.
01:06:44 You must be scared of your father because you continually falsify your history and experience with him.
01:06:57 So your father scares you, but you won't do anything to protect yourself from your father who scares you,
01:07:04 and you sure would do something to protect your kid from being under the negative authority of your father,
01:07:09 but why are you under the negative authority of your father?
01:07:17 I guess I'm still under his authority because I'm afraid of him and I haven't confronted him or stood up to him and told him the truth.
01:07:26 And that's why he still has authority over me.
01:07:29 Well, and the question then is, and again, I know this always sounds like a criticism, I absolutely don't mean it that way at all.
01:07:36 So the question is, why don't you tell the truth to your father?
01:07:42 I mean, okay, let me ask you in a different way.
01:07:45 So if your child has an issue with you, you've disappointed or upset or hurt your child in some manner,
01:07:52 would you want your child to tell you?
01:07:56 Absolutely.
01:07:57 Yes, you would.
01:07:58 I mean, you can't fix what you don't know unless it's obvious, right?
01:08:04 So you would very much want your child to tell you if your child had a problem with you, right?
01:08:15 Okay, so why is it the opposite with your father?
01:08:35 Okay, we could try roleplay here if you like, where you play your dad and I play you,
01:08:41 or we could just game it out in our heads, like what happens if you tell your dad?
01:08:48 Okay.
01:08:52 If I do, I suppose what you would do is you would try and downplay it, and he will be a bit, I reckon he'd be dismissive and try to avoid responsibility.
01:09:09 Okay, and if you just continue to push it and say, well, no, you can't avoid responsibility, you were the father, right?
01:09:15 You like to socialize.
01:09:16 I didn't have any friends.
01:09:17 You knew that.
01:09:18 You knew I was unhappy at the new school.
01:09:19 You knew I was happier at the old school, right?
01:09:22 And yet you and mom would sit down and ask me with complete incomprehension as to why I was unhappy.
01:09:28 You took me to the beach and abandoned me, which could have got us killed.
01:09:31 You walked off when I was facing down a tiger snake, which could have got me killed.
01:09:35 I got some issues, dad.
01:09:36 I got some serious issues with your parenting.
01:09:40 And you can't evade responsibility because you inflicted responsibility on me as a little kid.
01:09:47 Watch your sister at the beach.
01:09:48 Tidy up, clean up, don't make a mess.
01:09:51 So you can't say that when I was six or eight or ten, I have all this responsibility, but when you are 30 or 40, you have no responsibility at all.
01:09:57 That's kind of pathetic.
01:10:00 So what the hell's been going on, dad?
01:10:09 Oh.
01:10:18 I would probably say it's not my fault.
01:10:23 It's how I was raised.
01:10:26 Wait, are you saying that your parenting is not your fault?
01:10:29 You have no responsibility as a parent?
01:10:33 Say no.
01:10:35 So you have no ownership, you have no self-ownership, and you have no responsibility as a parent.
01:10:40 So I had responsibility as a child to clean up my messes, but you had no responsibility as an adult to behave better.
01:10:46 Is that right?
01:10:48 Like, if you say, "Well, listen, I as an adult, I have no responsibility because of my childhood and how I was raised."
01:10:55 Well, then I should also, as a child, by your logic, have had no responsibility because of how I was raised.
01:11:00 And yet, and yet, you gave me full responsibility as a child.
01:11:04 So sorry, dad.
01:11:05 That's just bullshit.
01:11:06 Like, that's just a lie.
01:11:07 And it's a contemptible lie, too, to say that children have full moral responsibility, but adults are completely off the hook.
01:11:13 Like, that's really pathetic.
01:11:14 And I simply won't let you say that out of, I just don't want to hold you in total contempt for making such a cowardly and vicious lie.
01:11:32 Yeah, I don't think there's anything for me, he wouldn't be able to respond to that.
01:11:35 So what would he do?
01:11:37 Would he just get up and walk out?
01:11:42 I don't think he would.
01:11:44 Or would he just stare at you glassily?
01:11:46 Like, would he turn into a wax replica of himself?
01:11:49 What would he do?
01:11:52 I think he would probably fold and apologize, I think, if it was laid out like that.
01:12:00 And rationally, he wouldn't have a choice.
01:12:02 There's no alternative.
01:12:05 So he would just say, like, I'm sorry for doing all these terrible things as a child?
01:12:14 And then I would say, that's just another move.
01:12:16 That's just another manipulation.
01:12:18 Like, you can't go from, for 50 plus years, right, maybe he's pushing 60 or whatever, right, so like, you can't, for 55 years, you can't have this philosophy that you're completely not responsible for anything you do as a parent.
01:12:33 Or, you know, because I assume you had this even as a kid, this idea, right?
01:12:36 But let's just say as a parent, you've been my dad for 32 years.
01:12:39 So you're saying that for 32 years, you've had a 100% belief that you are 0% responsible for your parenting, because of how you were raised or whatever, right?
01:12:51 So for well over three decades, you've had 100% belief that you're not responsible for what you did as a parent.
01:13:00 And then the moment I pointed out, you immediately apologize, like you do a complete 180, and now you have full responsibility.
01:13:06 Like, that's just, your apology is just another manipulation.
01:13:09 I don't believe it.
01:13:10 Nobody would.
01:13:11 No sane person would believe this as an apology, right?
01:13:14 I'm 100% not responsible for anything I've ever done.
01:13:18 No, you are.
01:13:19 Oh, yeah, I'm totally sorry then.
01:13:21 I mean, that's just like, you're like a weathervane, just any way the wind blows, right?
01:13:25 So this apology stuff is even more contemptible than pretending you have no responsibility, because now you're just trying to get me to shut up by apologizing to me.
01:13:34 You have no convictions or beliefs at all.
01:13:37 You can't just 180 your entire life.
01:13:39 You can't just turn on a dime your entire life, all of your parenting, your whole philosophy of how to be a parent and how to be an adult and what it means.
01:13:46 You can't just do a complete 180, because I'm calling you out on something.
01:13:51 Like, that's just another manipulation.
01:13:52 Please, God, have a spine.
01:14:05 Yeah, I don't know what he would do from that point.
01:14:08 Well, you'd get to the rage.
01:14:11 Because you're pointing out bottomless hypocrisy and manipulation, right?
01:14:16 And when you did that as a kid, right, when you pointed out, "Well, Dad, you're messy."
01:14:20 What would he do?
01:14:21 He would escalate.
01:14:22 You told me that at the beginning, right?
01:14:24 Yeah, he'd just continually escalate.
01:14:26 Okay, so you're aware that if you are honest with him, he will escalate until he breaks you, right?
01:14:35 Because that's what he did.
01:14:36 And that's why I asked earlier, "Did he ever hit you?"
01:14:39 And that wasn't like good or, it's obviously not good to hit.
01:14:42 But it was, "Did he break you and cause you to stop calling out his hypocrisy?"
01:14:52 Because that's a form, and listen, there's no shame in that.
01:14:54 It's not like being broken.
01:14:55 I mean, my mom broke me when she was beating me up against the wall when I was like three or four years old.
01:15:00 I'm like, "Yeah, I'm going limp.
01:15:02 Yeah, you broke me.
01:15:03 You broke me, of course, right?
01:15:04 I mean, I've got to survive, and survival is kind of the imperative."
01:15:07 There's no point being not broken and having your head broken, right?
01:15:10 There's no point being not broken and having your spine broken.
01:15:14 That's no good.
01:15:15 So, yeah, you've got to live, right?
01:15:18 You've got to live.
01:15:19 That's just the biological imperative.
01:15:20 It wasn't like I was making all these big abstract moral choices when I was three or four.
01:15:23 It was just like, "Oh, dominant, physical danger, go limp," right?
01:15:27 Because I can't fight.
01:15:28 I'm like three or four years old, right?
01:15:30 So, you don't tell the truth to him because he will manipulate, lie, prevaricate, be sophist, minimize,
01:15:40 and then if you continue to push it, he will blow up.
01:15:47 Yeah.
01:15:48 Right.
01:15:49 I think that's right.
01:15:52 So, you have someone core in your life who takes away your tongue with the threat of his fists,
01:16:01 who has you break integrity and honesty because he'll escalate.
01:16:11 In other words, the breaking has become—the breaking of you has become continuous.
01:16:20 Yeah, it's ongoing.
01:16:21 It's like, why would I—I mean, for me, I won't have people in my life I have to lie to
01:16:29 because there's no relationship that's more important to me than my relationship with the truth.
01:16:38 And because I can't have a relationship with people I have to lie to.
01:16:47 That's a very good point.
01:16:52 Yeah, it's hard having people in your life who you have to lie to and not things you don't talk about.
01:16:58 Well, no, you are frightened of being beaten up or aggressed against or screamed at or traumatized for telling the truth.
01:17:10 You can't be any more assertive with your wife than you are with your parents.
01:17:15 This is foundational to just being a man.
01:17:18 And you in particular, and me in particular, I can't be any more assertive with my wife than I am with my father.
01:17:28 And the price that I would pay for allowing my father's neglect and aggression to dictate my commitment to honesty is I can't be assertive with anyone.
01:17:39 That makes sense.
01:17:53 I mean, a bridge is only as strong as its weakest strut, right?
01:17:57 And you can only be as strong as your weakest relationship.
01:18:01 And if you have a relationship wherein by definition you have to be weak and distant and dissociated and bullied and silent and falsify everything about you and your entire experience in history, then that's a central pillar in your bridge.
01:18:19 Of course it's going to fall down.
01:18:22 If that makes sense.
01:18:25 It does, it makes a lot of sense.
01:18:33 Considered doing it.
01:18:35 I just didn't know how it is.
01:18:38 It's weird.
01:18:39 Like, I'm still feeling that scared of the boy.
01:18:44 Why is it weird? Sorry, hang on. Why is it weird to feel scared of someone who has continually aggressed and neglected and continues to do so?
01:18:59 Why would it be like, it would be like, well, you know, my mother taught me English.
01:19:06 50 years ago.
01:19:08 It's weird that I still speak English.
01:19:12 It's not weird. Please don't don't.
01:19:15 Don't denigrate yourself that way. It's not weird. It's perfectly natural. And in fact, for most of our evolution, it was perfectly healthy because we didn't have the choice to be different from our parents. Right?
01:19:26 That's right. It wasn't like there was some guy born to the priesthood in the Incan childhood slaughter fest who was like, I'm into peaceful parenting.
01:19:34 That wasn't the thing. You just basically had to photocopy the asshole or if your parents throughout most of history. So no, it's not weird at all.
01:19:42 It's perfectly natural. And for most of our evolution, it was perfectly healthy for our survival. Absolutely necessary for our survival.
01:19:50 But you don't want to do to your kids what your father did to you and you don't want to continue to be.
01:19:56 Countdown and broken. And the reason your father tried to break you is because your father was broken.
01:20:01 Now, it's not because like it's dominoes. He still has choice and free will in the matter.
01:20:06 But the reason that your father had to break you is because if he didn't break you, the pain of him being broken would be very vivid to him and he didn't want to deal with that pain because he's kind of a coward.
01:20:18 So he broke you so he wouldn't have to feel the pain of him self being broken.
01:20:25 Now you don't want to replicate that. Good for you, man. That makes you infinitely better than your father in my opinion.
01:20:31 Well, more than my opinion, but so you're breaking the cycle.
01:20:39 Now as to whether you should or shouldn't confront your father, this, that or the other, I don't know.
01:20:45 I mean, as you know, I not only won't but can't tell people what to do.
01:20:49 So the marching orders aren't you just go and confront your father. It might not be physically safe for you to do so. I don't know.
01:20:56 But there's a reason why you've had this level of caution and this level of fear and I respect your level of caution and I respect your level of fear.
01:21:04 I don't assume that there's anything wrong with it. I assume that there's something very important in that.
01:21:13 So I don't know whether you should or shouldn't do it. I don't know whether it's the right or wrong thing to do.
01:21:18 I don't know whether it's better or worse, safe or dangerous. That's for you to evaluate.
01:21:24 Maybe you nibble a little bit around the edges. Ask him about his childhood.
01:21:29 You know, asking your parents about their own childhood can really help take the load off you.
01:21:33 Because once you realize how messed up their own childhood was and how little they've dealt with it,
01:21:37 you then don't feel as bad for the crap that they acted out on you. Because you know it really wasn't anything to do with you, right?
01:21:45 Yeah, I like that.
01:21:48 But I think the one thing I would counsel against is living this falsified existence with your parents.
01:21:57 And your mother is not morally separate from your father.
01:22:01 I assume your mother was attractive-ish or attractive when she was younger?
01:22:07 Yes.
01:22:08 Okay, so she had 20 guys to choose from, probably more. She had 20 guys to choose from.
01:22:17 You know, I mean, it's not so much the case now, but back in the day,
01:22:21 the women or the girls would make themselves pretty and the guys would ask them out.
01:22:27 And your mom probably had at least 20 guys who wanted to ask her out or who expressed interest in her, right?
01:22:37 So she's 100% responsible for your father being in your life. She's 100% responsible.
01:22:42 You say, "Well, she tried to talk to him." It's like, "I don't care. I don't care."
01:22:49 I mean, can you imagine your father's yelling at you about the mess you've made?
01:22:53 You're like, "Well, Dad, you know, I tried to talk to myself, but it just didn't work."
01:22:58 "I really tried to convince myself to care about tidying. It's kind of a funny story.
01:23:03 It turns out I just don't care about tidying. Like, I really tried to sit down and have a talk, but it just didn't work."
01:23:08 What would your father say?
01:23:13 What the hell are you talking about?
01:23:16 Just clean up, right?
01:23:19 It's still as I say, not as I do.
01:23:21 So, you know, if your mother says, "Well, I tried to talk to him, but it just didn't seem to work."
01:23:26 What the hell does that mean?
01:23:30 Yeah, you're right. That's a fallacy.
01:23:32 You do it till it works.
01:23:35 And your father, like your mother, is your dad, I guess he's off the athletic and all of that, surfer bro, is he like a good-looking guy?
01:23:43 He was a handsome man, yes.
01:23:45 He was a handsome man. Okay. So it's entirely possible that your mother chose your father not because of his virtues, but because of his looks.
01:23:52 Or his, what do they call it, charisma, his like, right?
01:23:55 So it's entirely possible that your mother chose your father because of his looks and his charisma,
01:23:59 and she really didn't give two rats behinds about his moral qualities, right?
01:24:04 And then she dated him out of a fetish for beauty.
01:24:07 She gave him children.
01:24:09 He was a bad dad, really bad dad in my opinion.
01:24:14 She didn't fix it, because he's good-looking.
01:24:16 So she's got, I don't know, I hate to say a sexual fetish for good looks, but that's kind of the way it played out,
01:24:20 and she chose that fetish over a good father for her children.
01:24:25 So don't tell me about your mother's innocence and hard work and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
01:24:31 Women are responsible for the men they choose to be the fathers of their children.
01:24:38 And unless she was in a wheelchair with John Merrick head, then she had a lot of choice.
01:24:47 And she's 100% responsible for that choice, and she's 100% responsible for the quality of your father's parenting.
01:24:53 Because if she chose better, you'd have had a better dad.
01:24:56 And the fact that she chose badly, at least his fatherhood, maybe he's good in bed, I don't know,
01:25:00 but the fact that she chose badly, she chose selfishly,
01:25:04 because she didn't choose a guy saying, "Who's the best father for my children to be?
01:25:11 That's my choice. Who's going to be the best father for my children?"
01:25:15 Nope, it was selfish.
01:25:17 Who's the guy who's the hottest? Who's the guy who turns, I'm sorry to talk about this like your mom,
01:25:20 but like, who's the guy who turns me on the most? Who's the guy who's the sexiest?
01:25:23 Who's the guy who really makes me tingle in the nether regions?
01:25:28 She chose selfishly.
01:25:31 She chose for herself and her loins and her lust, maybe her status.
01:25:37 Maybe he was the guy that all the girls wanted to get, and she got him,
01:25:40 and that just made her feel great and glowy, and I don't know what.
01:25:44 Crap goes on in these kinds of decisions.
01:25:47 But she didn't choose for you, and she didn't choose for your sister.
01:25:51 She chose for herself.
01:25:53 And she's been totally content with that choice for what, pushing 40 years?
01:26:01 Yeah, a long time.
01:26:03 And she's never sat you down and said, "Listen, you know, it's hard to say,
01:26:09 but I've really been thinking about it, and I did not choose the right man to be the father for my children,
01:26:15 and you paid the price for that infinitely more than I did.
01:26:19 And I'm really sorry.
01:26:24 I should have listened to Jesus or God or someone that is the quality of the soul that matters,
01:26:31 not the muscles of the body or the sweep of the manly jaw.
01:26:37 I chose badly, and you have paid the price."
01:26:41 And I, you know, I think about that every day, and it's kind of torturing me.
01:26:48 Your mother would never say that, right?
01:26:51 No, I don't think the question would even occur to her.
01:26:54 Right.
01:26:55 Which means she has no capacity or willingness to even judge your father as a bad father,
01:27:02 which means she's a bad mother.
01:27:06 If she can't possibly judge a good from a bad parent, she can't be a good parent.
01:27:11 Like, if I can't possibly judge one note from another, can I be a good singer?
01:27:17 No.
01:27:18 No, of course not.
01:27:24 So, I think it's continually weakening you to be in a situation where you have to lie and falsify your entire existence.
01:27:35 And this isn't just in the presence of your parents, but in your own mind as well.
01:27:41 I mean, I tried confronting people.
01:27:43 I did my best.
01:27:44 Some people I confronted, some people I didn't.
01:27:46 It's not an absolute, right?
01:27:48 Philosophy is about free will and choice.
01:27:50 Some people I confronted and some people I'm like, "No, it's not.
01:27:53 I know it's not going to work.
01:27:54 So, just it's not for me."
01:27:59 So, it's not an absolute.
01:28:01 But if... the dedication, I think, has to be, "I'm 32 years old.
01:28:07 I'm a father.
01:28:08 I'm a provider.
01:28:12 If I don't get to live honestly now, when does it happen?
01:28:16 I've been an adult for 14 years.
01:28:20 It's almost a decade and a half.
01:28:23 If I'm not going to be honest now, when's it going to happen?
01:28:27 If I'm not going to be authentic now, if I still have to lie and...
01:28:31 Do I finally get to be honest at their funeral when I'm 50 or 60?"
01:28:40 It has to be, I think, a commitment to being honest now.
01:28:42 Now, being honest doesn't mean necessarily confronting people.
01:28:45 It just means not being dishonest.
01:28:47 So, if I have a relationship where I don't want to confront the person,
01:28:50 but I have to be dishonest, I just won't have that relationship.
01:28:55 Because I won't put myself in situations where I have to be dishonest.
01:29:07 Yeah, you're right. That's a lot more important.
01:29:10 Because your child and your wife see you falsify and bow down all the time.
01:29:21 When your parents call, when your father's over.
01:29:24 And I know it's not super common, but it's in your mind.
01:29:27 And she sees the shadow of your father's foot on your neck
01:29:31 every time she snaps at you and you say nothing.
01:29:36 Now, she should be nicer about it and, you know, if she wants to call,
01:29:39 I'm happy to talk, but...
01:29:45 Do you not think that when she sees you unable to stand up for yourself,
01:29:49 she doesn't occasionally think, "I could have done better"?
01:29:55 You're so concerned about judging her and her deficiencies,
01:29:57 do you ever sit in her shoes and say, "How do I look to her?"
01:30:05 Do I look strong? Do I look worthy of respect?
01:30:07 Do I look noble? Do I look heroic?
01:30:10 Or do I look a little fraidy-caddy?
01:30:13 Which I sympathize with, but it's still a fact, isn't it?
01:30:17 Yeah, absolutely.
01:30:19 Now, if you become someone who stops falsifying your existence,
01:30:24 for which I have sympathy, and that's not a condemnation at all,
01:30:27 and Lord knows I've done it, and longer than you,
01:30:30 so this is with all humility.
01:30:33 If you just stop falsifying your existence...
01:30:38 See, your question is, "How do I stand up to my wife?"
01:30:40 My question is, "Be the guy who doesn't have to stand up to his wife."
01:30:46 Be a guy who's authoritative.
01:30:48 Be a guy who's not going to falsify his existence.
01:30:52 Be a guy who doesn't have relationships where he has to lie.
01:30:56 Be that guy.
01:30:58 I'd put good money on the fact that she never snaps at you again.
01:31:07 She's probably hard snapping at you because she's annoyed by your subservience.
01:31:15 Yeah, I would understand that. I would do the same.
01:31:18 Yeah, if you've been around somebody who's really nodding and ducking and swallowing and...
01:31:24 Then it just gets annoying after a while, right?
01:31:27 Oh, absolutely. Yeah, you're right.
01:31:29 I need to find my strength, but I don't know where to start.
01:31:36 I guess it starts with that confrontation.
01:31:38 Well, no, see, I don't know.
01:31:40 I don't know whether it starts with that confrontation or not,
01:31:42 but it starts with a commitment to just stop lying.
01:31:46 And again, I'm not calling you a liar. Please understand that.
01:31:48 I'm not saying you have some big pathological lying thing,
01:31:51 because we all have to do it to some degree to survive,
01:31:54 and there's nothing wrong with that as an ability, right?
01:31:57 But it's just a commitment to say, "I'm not going to falsify my existence.
01:32:10 I'm not going to falsify. I'm going to be honest with the people in my life."
01:32:14 Now, I think it starts with the family, because your wife didn't do this to you.
01:32:20 Your parents did, right? So I think you want to start at the source, right?
01:32:27 Yeah, you're right. Start at the source.
01:32:32 And I think a good conversation with parents could be helpful,
01:32:35 or if you say, "It's too frightening. It's too stressful,"
01:32:39 you've got to listen to your caution, right?
01:32:41 Your caution is probably telling you something quite important.
01:32:45 So if you say, "Listen, I can't do it," that's not, "Oh, that's cowardly.
01:32:52 You must do it." Like, philosophy is not about programming you like a robot.
01:32:56 You have to do this. You can't. Like, that's not. It's about choice.
01:33:00 So if you're like, "I really want to talk to my dad about all of this stuff,
01:33:04 but every time I do it, like, my heart is pounding.
01:33:06 My hands are shaking. I'm literally like having a panic attack or something."
01:33:10 That's important. And you can't just push through that,
01:33:14 because then you're just kind of bullying your own emotions
01:33:16 and ignoring them the way your dad ignored you, right?
01:33:20 Yes.
01:33:22 So it could be. I mean, it certainly is the case that if it's too scary,
01:33:26 you can listen to that fear, maybe just take a break
01:33:29 and try again in a couple of months or whatever.
01:33:32 Like, there's choices, right?
01:33:36 Or if you're like, "It is so terrifying to tell this person the truth
01:33:39 that we can never have a normal relationship."
01:33:43 Like, if it's so terrifying to just tell the truth about your experience with someone.
01:33:48 In other words, if you do to your dad what you were desperate for your child to do with you,
01:33:53 which is to tell you the truth about problems and experiences in history,
01:33:57 how can you have a normal relationship if you feel like you're going to die
01:34:01 just by opening your mouth and telling the truth?
01:34:06 Like, that is an indication of having been so foundationally bullied
01:34:11 that I don't know how that can be fixed.
01:34:13 I genuinely don't know how that can be fixed.
01:34:17 No, there has to be a way out.
01:34:19 Do you mind if we just pause just for five minutes?
01:34:22 For how long?
01:34:24 Just five minutes.
01:34:25 Yeah, yeah, sure.
01:34:27 Thank you.
01:34:29 Hello, are you still there?
01:34:31 Yes, no problem at all. No problem at all.
01:34:33 Yeah, so I just, yeah, so the final point I want to make is just
01:34:36 I don't have people in my life who don't respect me
01:34:40 and don't want to hear what I have to say and don't want to listen.
01:34:43 And of course, I don't want to have people in my life that I don't respect either.
01:34:47 And as a father, this is particularly important because your credibility with your children
01:34:51 is going to have a lot to do with how they see you behave in the world.
01:34:55 And if they see you nervous and head-ducking and not telling the truth and so on,
01:35:00 with the inevitable and accompanying manipulations,
01:35:03 then in particular it's going to be tough when they hit their teenage years
01:35:07 because they won't view you as a template of rational authority
01:35:12 as you didn't view your parents as templates of rational authority.
01:35:16 And then you got into lots of fights and conflicts and it became, you know,
01:35:19 I mean, difficult and unpleasant, right?
01:35:21 And so a lot of parenting is really just banking up stuff for the teenage years
01:35:25 when your kids get sarcastic and skeptical and all of that.
01:35:28 And they do have to view you, if they view you as sort of self-attacking
01:35:32 or kowtowing to others or not saying boo to a mouse
01:35:36 or not speaking up for yourself, then they'll just have to abandon you
01:35:39 in order to make their way in the world because they won't want a life like that
01:35:42 and then they'll just end up opposing you. And that's not a lot of fun.
01:35:47 No, absolutely not. And that's not something I want for my kids.
01:35:53 I don't want them to go through my experiences.
01:35:56 I want to be, to bend the father that I did.
01:36:02 And it's something that you've mentioned before, is that you should try to be
01:36:07 the dad that if they could choose anyone in the world, they would choose you.
01:36:12 So that's kind of the model that I have to approach.
01:36:15 Right, and I appreciate that. That's a great reminder.
01:36:17 Now the price of that though, the price of saying,
01:36:21 "I want to be the father that they would choose if they could choose anyone,"
01:36:25 is you can't have people in your life who want you to lie to them.
01:36:30 You can't have people in your life who want you to misrepresent and falsify your experience.
01:36:33 You can't have people in your life who dismiss your genuine experiences or put you down.
01:36:39 That's the price. Yes, of course, we all want to be heroes to our children.
01:36:43 But then if we want to be heroes to our children, we can't have villains in our life.
01:36:48 Yeah, absolutely. It's a contradiction. I see right through it.
01:36:51 Oh yeah, yeah. Teenagers, like my daughter has this like lead-piercing X-ray vision
01:36:56 that's just like, turns you inside out. It's just like, it's great.
01:36:59 But, you know, and we all remember that.
01:37:01 And that's one of the reasons we had a lot of fights sometimes with dysfunctional parents.
01:37:06 Oh yeah, absolutely. Yes, I've got a lot of thinking to do about that.
01:37:13 And, you know, if you are going to go into family confrontation land,
01:37:17 talk therapist is a good, like somebody who's got some experience in this stuff,
01:37:21 can be very positive and helpful and so on.
01:37:24 But yeah, I mean, so that's most of what I wanted to get across.
01:37:27 Anything else that you wanted to mention as we wind things down?
01:37:31 I think that was the core of it. My stuff with my dad is,
01:37:39 that's what I thought that my problems with my dad were,
01:37:43 what were lying beneath my current problems and your mother.
01:37:47 All kind of stuff.
01:37:49 Don't, don't, no, and your mother. Because your primary problem here is with your wife.
01:37:54 And so if you think it's just male to male, well, it's also male to female.
01:37:57 So don't, don't, don't step over the old mom because she's going to want to get invisible in this conflict.
01:38:04 Right. Well, you and your father have an issue. It's like, no, no, no, you chosen.
01:38:10 Yes, you're right. And I need to remember that she has more than her fair share of responsibility for directions.
01:38:21 It's all right. Well, will you, again, I know it's brutally late for you.
01:38:24 Will you keep me posted about how it's going?
01:38:28 I will. I'd love to keep you posted and let you know.
01:38:31 Yeah, please do. And listen, massive sympathies for what you went through.
01:38:35 It's, it's really, really tough. I mean, massive sympathies.
01:38:39 And of course, massive congratulations for what you're doing yourself as a father and a husband.
01:38:44 And I, you know, your kids, your kids and kids to come are very lucky for all of that.
01:38:49 And I just wanted to say just how much I foundationally, of course, have massive sympathy for what happened to you as a child and massive admiration for what you're doing as an adult.
01:39:00 It really is magnificent.
01:39:03 Oh, thank you so much. I really do appreciate that. I don't get that sort of thing very often.
01:39:07 Good. Sorry, go ahead.
01:39:10 No, I just wanted to thank you. Thank you so much for having me on and talking to me and sharing your wisdom with me. It means a lot.
01:39:20 Well, it is my absolute honor and deep pleasure. And I'm glad we've been helpful.
01:39:24 So, all right, I'll let you get some sleep and keep me posted. And thanks a lot for the chat today. It was really great.
01:39:30 I will. Thank you so much, Stefan.