My Husband Wants a SECOND WIFE! Call In

Stefan Molyneux

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Transcript

00:00:00 Hello. Hello, how's it going? Going well. Hey, how you guys, how you both doing?

00:00:07 How you both doing? I'm sorry, you know, I always ask this question then feel

00:00:10 immediately that's the worst question in the world to ask. So just aware of that.

00:00:15 I'm just aware of that. I think we're doing okay. We just got back from a therapy

00:00:20 session with a therapist, a couple of therapists. How are you doing? I'm well, I'm well.

00:00:26 So yeah, hit me up. Give me the lowdown. What's going on?

00:00:33 You want to start, Mel? So, I don't really quite know where to start. I guess the crux of it is that after our third child was born, about a year,

00:00:47 when he was about a year old, said that he wanted to have more kids and I guess you

00:00:55 could say we tried. I got pregnant twice in 2022, once in April and then

00:01:02 again in like October, November-ish and I miscarried both times. Second miscarriage,

00:01:08 I ended up hemorrhaging and had to go to the ER in the middle of the night.

00:01:12 It wouldn't stop bleeding and so that was really traumatic. And then about a

00:01:18 month later, I said, "I still want to have more kids." Sorry, could you just hold off on

00:01:23 names so you can just say, "My husband" or something, if you

00:01:26 don't mind. Okay, sure. And my husband said, "I want to have more kids." And I said, "I

00:01:35 think I'm done. This was really traumatic. I don't want to do this anymore." And he

00:01:41 said, "Okay, well I still want to have more kids even though you don't. Let's talk

00:01:46 about that. How can we make that happen?" And I'm like, he started looking

00:01:50 for a second wife, mistress, whatever you want to call it. Found a girlfriend

00:01:57 person and I just I don't want that in my marriage and so now we're talking

00:02:07 about separation and divorce because he wants more kids, I don't and I don't

00:02:11 really want what he's doing in my marriage for me personally. So, we're kind

00:02:16 of at a not sure what to do, where to go and it's involved the kids obviously. I've

00:02:25 talked about getting therapy for dating them and therapy to help

00:02:31 them transition through the divorce when we start the process but that's coming.

00:02:37 Right. Gosh, I'm so sorry to hear about that. Have you, just out of curiosity,

00:02:42 have you had any medical advice or understanding as to what could be

00:02:48 happening? As far as having kids? Yes. No, I've been pregnant six times

00:02:57 since we've been married and I'm just kind of done. I'm also, I turned 44 this

00:03:04 year. Oh gosh. So, I'm kind of done. It's not like I'm missing out on

00:03:09 anything. I've had three healthy boys and I'm good with my three

00:03:13 healthy boys. I don't need to do the baby thing again. I mean, I love babies but I'm

00:03:19 ready to go on to the next stage and my husband wants to do it all over again and

00:03:24 I don't. Okay, I'm getting where you're coming from and I guess if we can just

00:03:30 turn to your husband now, I'm interested to hear. Sorry, just remind me how

00:03:34 long have you guys been together again? Since 2000. We've been married since 2012.

00:03:42 So, I guess you got married, I'm just sort of trying, 44, 30, 32? Do I have that

00:03:49 right? 32. We were both 32. How long did it take for you, sorry, how long were

00:03:58 you together before that? About eight months. Okay, and how long did it take for

00:04:04 you to start having kids? We had our first son in 2013. Okay, so you started

00:04:11 right away? Pretty much, yes. Okay, got it. 44, obviously I'm no doctor but that's

00:04:19 some pretty dicey territory, isn't it? Yes, it is. I mean, not just for getting

00:04:26 pregnant but for bringing a baby to term who's healthy, that's, I mean,

00:04:32 you're really on the last legs of the egg, so to speak, if I understand this

00:04:35 correctly. Yes. And to your wife, what does your doctor say about wanting to have

00:04:42 more kids or trying to have more kids?

00:04:45 Honestly, I don't know that I really consulted with them. It was just basing

00:04:51 it more on what I wanted and how I felt. Right, okay. I think in those

00:04:59 uncertain terms, they kind of tiptoe around it but they basically say,

00:05:03 "You should pretty much stop trying at this point." Yeah, yeah, I can see that.

00:05:09 I can see that. Okay, and your kids are doing well, that's great, and I guess just

00:05:18 turning to your husband, if you could help me sort of understand your

00:05:22 perspective. I'm sure you are aware it's a little unusual, to put it

00:05:26 mildly, but if you could sort of help me understand where you're coming from, I'd

00:05:29 appreciate that. I will do my best. We've been talking about this for about two

00:05:38 years, so I was trying to remember the other day how long I've been thinking

00:05:42 about this. I think after my film was about one year old, I pretty quickly

00:05:50 realized I enjoyed the process a lot. I wanted to have more kids but it seemed

00:05:56 like I wasn't going to have any more kids. So I started thinking about how I

00:06:00 could have more kids and talking with my wife about that. We talked about

00:06:05 everything we could think of, but everything, all the things that we

00:06:09 kind of talked about, you know, adoption, surrogates, you know, like sort of

00:06:17 artificial insemination, this all sorts of things, and everything

00:06:21 had kind of nixed, I guess, and we weren't really able to come up with any

00:06:28 real thing that we agreed on. So at a certain point, probably within the last

00:06:34 year or so, my wife said that, you know, she didn't want to talk about this

00:06:40 anymore, you know, she was done with it, but I wasn't done with it. And so I felt

00:06:45 like I didn't have, and just to tell you how I feel about it, it's just, I guess,

00:06:49 the most base level I can put it is that I am excited, you know, to have

00:06:57 more kids. It's one of the most fulfilling things that I think I've

00:07:02 done in my life is raise the kids that we have, and so I just don't want to

00:07:06 stop, I guess. I'm sorry, you don't have to what? I don't want to stop

00:07:13 having kids, I want to have more kids. The idea of having more kids is very

00:07:19 exciting to me. Right. Yeah. So when my wife said that she didn't want to talk

00:07:28 to me about it anymore, I was like, "Well, that's very difficult to me."

00:07:33 You know, I think about it every day, you know, pretty much every

00:07:39 day, and if I don't have her to talk to, I guess, we didn't talk about this at

00:07:43 the time, I guess I could have got a therapist and just talked to a therapist

00:07:46 about this. But at the time, I started pursuing, you know, trying to

00:07:51 find, I looked for a woman I could have kids with. I looked for

00:07:56 someone that could be a second wife, and we had talked about

00:07:59 polygamy a little bit, or like adding a different wife in the beginning, but my

00:08:05 wife said that pretty soon afterwards that this was not what she wanted. She

00:08:09 didn't want to do that. So I knew that, but I was still kind of in

00:08:15 the mindset of, you know, it still seems exciting to me, and we couldn't

00:08:20 get on the same page as to how we were going to find a

00:08:26 solution for this going forward. So we're still stuck to that there to this

00:08:30 day. We just say, "I want to have kids," and she does not. I find it very

00:08:34 exciting. She wants to move on. So, you know, it's difficult for me because at

00:08:41 some points, I had tried to just kind of bury it. Okay, I'm not going to have

00:08:45 any kids and just accept it. I'm not going to have any more kids and just move on, but

00:08:49 it's hard for me to put it... It's hard for me just to forget about that.

00:08:54 I guess it's the easiest way for me to say it. Right, no, I think I understand where you're coming from.

00:09:00 So this is to the husband. Why do you think you got married relatively late if

00:09:06 you want a lot of kids? I didn't have... Okay, well, that's a good question. So I didn't

00:09:19 want to have kids at all for a long time, probably till somewhere in my maybe late

00:09:25 20s. And actually, it was your show that I was listening to and you were... I

00:09:30 was always like a libertarian, very idealistic. I wanted to, you know, kind of

00:09:35 fix the world. I started listening to your show about how, you know, it's a

00:09:38 generational thing and it's something you got to do with parenting. And I

00:09:44 thought about that idea and thought about kids and it just kind of, I

00:09:49 guess, occurred to me that, wow, yeah, kids would be really meaningful. It is

00:09:54 something I think I would enjoy. And I started thinking about kids at that time,

00:09:57 which was about my late 20s, when I started really searching for someone I

00:10:02 could get married to and have kids with. Sorry, I appreciate that. Why do

00:10:07 you think that you didn't want kids earlier?

00:10:14 Ah, that's a good question. I don't think I knew what I wanted at all. You know, I

00:10:23 was... I had gotten out of school around late 20s. I didn't really have that

00:10:30 many romantic relationships. I had a few, but they weren't... I didn't really

00:10:35 know why I was in a romantic relationship. You know, I think I was

00:10:39 willing to not feel alone, you know, maybe have a companion, but I didn't... I

00:10:44 was just... I didn't really know what I was doing. I didn't really... I don't think I

00:10:48 had a lot of... So, my parents were... stayed together and they're

00:10:54 married to this day and they have brothers and sisters and... So, I think I

00:10:59 had a good example as far as that's concerned, but I just didn't really see it

00:11:03 for myself. Like, I never... I was never really encouraged to go out and, you know,

00:11:08 try to have your own family because it was... it would be

00:11:13 fulfilling. I never really had given it any thought until later. Maybe that

00:11:17 sounds strange, but I just never really felt like maybe this was something I

00:11:19 would like, you know, until I was listening to your show. Okay, so how long after you

00:11:27 got the, I guess, more of an itch for babies, how long after that? Like, what was

00:11:32 the gap between then and having your kids?

00:11:38 Three, four years? Yeah, it took me that long to meet someone that I

00:11:46 feel comfortable having kids with and getting married to. Was it three, four years?

00:11:50 And did you start looking right away and telling women that you might

00:11:54 date that you wanted kids and it just took that long? Yeah, I did. I was

00:12:00 kind of a homebody, you know what I mean? Okay, so I had moved around a lot. My

00:12:06 parents moved when I was younger about seven times. I went to nine different

00:12:10 schools throughout the United States and by the time I ended up where I ended up,

00:12:16 I just didn't really have a lot of close friends. So I was kind of at home, you

00:12:20 know, doing... I went to a job. I did my work on the computer that I

00:12:24 enjoyed and I didn't have a lot of close friends. I didn't have any.

00:12:29 Everyone, every girlfriend that I met was online, including my wife now we met

00:12:35 online. So it just, to me, it was always like, you know, in order to find

00:12:40 someone, I have to either... I didn't really, I don't feel like I

00:12:44 had the skills to go out into the real world, so to speak, and meet somebody. So I

00:12:48 was always meeting people online and that was my kind of outlet for meeting

00:12:53 people romantically. And was, I mean, was that an issue in your 20s? Like you just

00:12:58 didn't meet women or you didn't meet women who wanted kids? Well, I guess you

00:13:01 didn't want kids, so it wasn't really an issue. Yeah, I didn't even know what I was looking for, really.

00:13:05 Yeah, so it wasn't an issue. And I didn't... besides my very first girlfriend, I think

00:13:11 everyone I met that I had a relationship with was online, with them dating

00:13:16 out. And then, of course, so it was sort of late 20s where you thought, "Gee, maybe I

00:13:22 want kids," right? Yes. Okay, and of course by late 20s, most of the women who want kids

00:13:29 have done what? Had them. Yeah, they've already... so you're trying to find a

00:13:37 woman who wants to become a mom among a group of women who probably don't want

00:13:42 to really become moms, right? Yeah, yeah, you know, I would definitely, from

00:13:48 experience, say that it was difficult for me. Yeah, there weren't a lot of

00:13:52 people my age that were looking to have kids. Right, right, got it. Got it. Okay, and so you

00:14:01 guys met, you married, you had kids right away, and then, I don't know, whatever it

00:14:05 was, age or health or some issues crept up. Now, and then listen, I don't want to

00:14:09 brush past your wife's miscarriages. It's impossible for men to... like, we

00:14:16 can be pretty empathetic and all of that, but frankly, it's impossible for men to

00:14:22 understand what it's like to have a life die inside you. Like, I'm just, I'm so

00:14:26 sorry for these two situations. I mean, we sort of see the health, you say,

00:14:32 the bleeding and so on, and that's traumatic and difficult enough, but I

00:14:35 just wanted to say that is a heartbreaking situation which I can

00:14:41 vaguely get, but I would never be able to understand fully. So I just really wanted

00:14:45 to extend my very deep sympathies for that, and I can completely, even if you

00:14:51 were younger, I can completely understand reluctance to go through that again,

00:14:57 right? So I just really wanted to express my deep, deep sympathies for that.

00:15:04 Thank you for saying that. Okay, so let's get back to your husband. When you, like,

00:15:14 do you know the data of successful pregnancies at the age of 44? Yeah, I

00:15:20 don't. Yeah, it's very difficult for women to even get pregnant at 44, when

00:15:26 they get older, but ever since my wife said that she didn't want to have kids, I

00:15:32 was accepting that. I don't want her to have kids that she doesn't want to have.

00:15:39 I don't want to try to, even really try to convince her, but that's that she's, you know,

00:15:44 No, I mean, even if you can convince her, I mean, the odds of birth defects and

00:15:49 Down syndrome and so on, you can look all of those stuff up. I certainly don't

00:15:53 want to give any advice of these matters, but it's important. So that ship may

00:15:57 very well have sailed and so on, right? And of course, you know, the struggling

00:16:02 to have children and miscarriages and so on takes away from what your existing

00:16:08 children need from you, which is sort of time, emotional energy, attention, and

00:16:12 obviously some modicum of happiness and joy and enthusiasm, so that they can see

00:16:17 that. Because, you know, if you go chasing kids, if you decide it, and

00:16:22 they're sort of more heartbreak and medical dangerous and upsets, and I mean,

00:16:26 it's taking away from your existing kids. Is that fair to say? Yeah, absolutely.

00:16:32 Right, okay. That's what we're struggling with now, too, is we're talking about the

00:16:37 situation. No, there's no struggle. There's no struggle. No,

00:16:42 there's no struggle. There's no struggle about this at all. There's no struggle

00:16:46 when it comes to parenting, right? So what's the fundamental decision you make

00:16:49 as parents? What's your fundamental decision point?

00:16:54 Well, I mean, for me, it's always that, you know, you work and work for the

00:17:01 family, what's best for them? What's best for your children, right?

00:17:05 Yeah. Right, what's best for your children? Now, I would argue that it could, the

00:17:11 case could easily be made that what's best for your kids is not for their mom

00:17:14 to go through another risky pregnancy, miscarriage, medical issues, or whatever,

00:17:18 right? Yeah, yeah. Okay. I agree. Okay, so is it best for your children for you to get

00:17:28 another woman to have a child with?

00:17:32 Yeah, I've been asked this question many, many times as well, and of course, the

00:17:38 answer for my kids right now, they won't have any, little to any, benefit

00:17:46 for me having more kids. Well, I mean, they would have some, right? I mean, let's be

00:17:51 fair, right? I mean, they would have another sibling or two or whatever, right?

00:17:55 So maybe they're a half-sibling, I guess. So there could be some potential

00:17:59 benefits over the course of the life. I mean, you're not some monster who just

00:18:02 wants to inflict suffering on everyone around you, right? I mean, there is some

00:18:06 potential benefit for them, and I think that that's important from, if we're just

00:18:10 going to look at it from a practical outcome standpoint. Yeah, yeah, that's

00:18:16 right. Yeah, I like to think of that I'm not just a monster out to hurt my

00:18:23 kids, but yeah, it is true that they would want me there with them

00:18:32 as much as I could be there with them, and that same decision happens

00:18:37 when you have kids, siblings as well, you know? Is that going to take away from the

00:18:43 kids we already have? And we talked about that as well, you know, how much we were

00:18:47 going to space apart the kids, and what was going to work best, or how much time

00:18:52 they got when they were younger, you know, things like that. So we try to

00:18:54 consider things like that for sure, yeah. Right. I mean, how fast do you want me to

00:19:01 go? I mean, you guys have listened, we've talked, I mean, I want to sort of gauge,

00:19:06 do you want like slow and steady, do you want like Band-Aid on quick, or are you

00:19:10 Band-Aid off quick or slow people? I think it's better if we just, you know, cut to the chase.

00:19:16 Cut to the chase. So this is to you, the husband, and listen, I think

00:19:21 it's wonderful that you want more kids. I'm glad that you enjoy parenting, so

00:19:24 there's lots of wonderful, great stuff. The part I'm having trouble understanding,

00:19:28 and I'm happy to be schooled and corrected on this, I'm having trouble

00:19:32 understanding why your kids have to suffer because you dreamed away your

00:19:39 twenties. Right, so you didn't come to any particular decisions, you know, you spent

00:19:45 forever, you spent like a decade, I guess, in school, post high school, and all of

00:19:49 that, so, you know, you kind of drifted around, you bumped around, you didn't make

00:19:53 any decisions, you didn't think about what you wanted really out of life, so

00:19:57 you just lived this kind of, I'm sure you worked hard and all of that, but you know,

00:20:01 as far as your life arc goes, you just lived this kind of dreamy, dissociated,

00:20:06 out of touch, bumping along, no future kind of twenties. Is that a completely

00:20:10 unfair way to characterize it, or was it something like that?

00:20:15 I'm thinking. Yeah, take your time. I'm characterizing a whole decade, so

00:20:22 there's no need to rush. I didn't, I was just trying to get by, yeah, I am, yeah, I

00:20:33 am, I didn't, I didn't, I don't know if I was, I didn't know what I was, yeah, I

00:20:39 didn't, I don't know if I was like, okay, yeah, I guess it's somewhat fair, because

00:20:44 I played a lot of video games, wasted a lot of time. Well, and you know,

00:20:49 that's fine. I'm not trying to make you feel bad about any of

00:20:53 that, of course, right? But you did live this kind of extended adolescent

00:20:58 lifestyle in your 20s, which, you know, I did to some degree, and I was like, I don't

00:21:03 know, 26 or 27 before I got my first real job, so I'm not like, oh no, that's

00:21:08 terrible. I'm not saying anything bad about it at all. I mean, it is fine what

00:21:13 you did. I have no problem with what you did, but you did kind of live like a bit

00:21:18 of a man-child in some ways, again, as did I. I'm not throwing any stones here, but

00:21:25 you and I kind of lived like a bit of man-child life in our 20s, right? We

00:21:30 didn't take on any big responsibilities, we didn't make any big decisions about

00:21:33 our lives, and you know, we can look back in our histories and say there's some

00:21:37 reasons why, but that did seem to be the outcome, is that right? Well, I'm just

00:21:42 thinking, so I graduated when I was about, what do you call it, bachelor's degree, about

00:21:51 21, maybe 22? You graduated when I did. Okay. 2003? Yeah, yeah, okay, so I was 23, okay, but shortly

00:22:01 after that, I bought a house for myself, very cheap house. Lived there, so I was like

00:22:08 25, and I was trying to get, just trying to get ahead a little bit, so difficult,

00:22:14 you know, when you start from very little, but yeah, so I spent about

00:22:21 three, four, five years. My parents never really talked to me about politics, you

00:22:28 know, so I didn't, at that time, I was driving to, I don't know if this is a

00:22:32 side, but I was driving to work, listening to Limbaugh, and he was saying

00:22:38 like, Republicans, I didn't know what a Republican was, so I had to learn what's

00:22:42 kind of like, the political landscape of the country, so I was learning a

00:22:48 lot of things in this time. I wouldn't say I was doing nothing, but I was very...

00:22:52 Whoa, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on, did you hear me say that you were doing

00:22:57 nothing? Yes. I didn't say that, no, no, no, hang on, hang on, we have to be precise, if I'm

00:23:04 gonna say stuff, I mean, I'm very careful about the words I choose. Dreaming?

00:23:09 I said you lived a bit of a dreamy life in your in your 20s, and by

00:23:15 dream, I don't mean that you weren't learning anything, or doing anything, and

00:23:19 you bought a house, and you listened to Rush Limbaugh, and you played a lot of

00:23:22 video games, but if you sort of compare the life that you have now with the

00:23:27 responsibilities, and the parenting, and the fatherhood, and the husband, and so on,

00:23:31 it's a very different kind of life, right? Oh, yeah, it's very different. And my understanding was, and I

00:23:38 obviously apologize if I got this wrong, my understanding was that you finally

00:23:42 did you graduated from your final education in your late 20s, did I have

00:23:46 that right? Yeah, when I was just kind of learning on my own, and listening to shows

00:23:51 like yours, and learning as much about the world as I could. Oh, so

00:23:55 sorry, so it wasn't like you got some sort of graduate degree, and

00:23:58 graduated in your late 20s, you felt that your education kind of closed off, your

00:24:03 informal education closed off in your late 20s, is that right? Largely, yeah, yeah.

00:24:10 Sorry, if there's more that I need to hear, I'm certainly, we've got time, I'm

00:24:14 happy to hear it. But that's it, yeah, I graduated from formal education around

00:24:19 23, and then I spent another, from working, you know, you learn mostly what you need

00:24:24 to know when you're actually, you learn much what you need to know when you're

00:24:27 actually working. So I learned when I was working, and I learned on my own just

00:24:32 about the world and politics, and you know, what things were going on, because I

00:24:37 never learned it before then. So it took me years to do that, and I hope this is

00:24:44 helpful, but yeah, that was kind of how my 20s went. And yeah, I didn't know

00:24:48 what type of relationship I want, I didn't know I want kids, I didn't

00:24:52 know anything, I didn't know any of that. Well, no, but hang on, so I'm getting two

00:24:55 things here, and again, none of this is critical, just so you understand, I'm just

00:24:59 trying to look at the causality. So you claimed to not know a lot of things, but

00:25:03 you also claimed to have wasted a lot of time playing video games? I certainly, I

00:25:10 certainly spent a lot of time playing video games. Yeah, no, no, I mean, but you understand the

00:25:15 correlation. Like, you can't claim to be ignorant of things if you distracted

00:25:21 yourself for thousands of hours, right? Because any one of those thousands of

00:25:25 hours, you could have said, "You know what? I'm not going to play a video game. I'm

00:25:28 going to sit down and try and figure out what I want out of my life." And again, no

00:25:35 hate, but it's one thing if you say, "Well, you know, I graduated from high

00:25:39 school, and I just didn't know what I wanted to do with my life." It's like, okay,

00:25:43 well, you know, you just became an adult, and right, but if, you know, ten years

00:25:47 after high school, you're still playing a lot of video games, then you can't say, "I

00:25:53 didn't know what I wanted," because you had avoided defining what you wanted. It

00:25:57 was easier to play video games than try and figure out what you wanted in life.

00:26:00 And again, I'm not trying to make you feel bad. I'm just, seems to be pointing

00:26:04 out what, what happened. Yeah, yeah, I mean, it was definitely the easiest thing for

00:26:11 me to do is play video games. The more I learned about the world and learned

00:26:17 learned things about relationships, the more I stopped playing video games and

00:26:23 wanted to be more in the world of, you know, where I'm at now with the panel.

00:26:29 No, I get that. I get that. But it still took ten years where you spent much more time.

00:26:34 I mean, you spent almost infinitely more time playing, and again, it was other

00:26:38 things too, right? Playing video, you spent almost infinitely more time playing

00:26:42 video games than you did trying to figure out what you wanted out of your life.

00:26:48 Definitely my college, but I think around the mid-twenties, I think it was about

00:26:56 50/50 probably. Yeah, but yeah, yeah, yeah. Wait, so, sorry, I want to, hang on, I just want to

00:27:02 make sure I understand what you mean. So, what you're saying is around your mid-

00:27:04 twenties, you were spending half, like, if you had, if you had four hours free, you'd

00:27:11 spend, say, two hours playing video games and two hours trying to figure out, like,

00:27:16 map out and figure out what you wanted out of your life. Is that what you mean

00:27:18 by 50/50? Yeah, yeah. So, I worked eight hours a day. So, yeah, the two, yeah, the

00:27:24 three, four hours I had extra, I would spend some time keeping up with my health

00:27:29 as far as nutrition and working out and then, you know, video games and the

00:27:38 rest of that and to just learn about what I want to do with my life. Okay, so, I

00:27:44 have significant skepticism, which doesn't mean, of course, that I'm right or

00:27:49 anything like that, but, you know, a lot of people who are video game addicts, and

00:27:55 it's probably fair to say, safe to say that this is kind of an

00:27:58 addiction, but a lot of video game addicts will pay, like, 20 hours a week or

00:28:02 even more, right? So, 10 to 20 hours a week. Are you saying that from your

00:28:06 mid-20s onwards, it took you sort of three or four years from your mid to

00:28:10 your late 20s of doing 10 hours a week of trying to figure out what you wanted

00:28:17 out of life, 10 hours a week, right? Which is 500 hours a year, and let's just say

00:28:24 three years, that's 1,500 hours. It took you 1,500 hours to have any real sense of

00:28:30 what you wanted out of your life? I just can't follow that.

00:28:34 Well, I did go through some social anxiety pretty strong around that time

00:28:44 as well. It was difficult for me to get out and just talk with people. Okay, and

00:28:52 I get that, and sorry, were you listening to anything that I did back then? Yes, I

00:28:59 was listening to what you did. I got quite a few self-help books. Okay, so, you

00:29:04 knew, you'd heard me, obviously, I mean, I did shows very early on talking

00:29:09 about how great therapy was. I did shows interviewing therapists and data

00:29:15 statisticians and economists where they talked about how incredibly positive and

00:29:19 helpful and healthy therapy was. So, if you had social anxiety and you were

00:29:24 listening to me, did you see a therapist for social anxiety? I did see a therapist.

00:29:33 I was not, I didn't like that therapist. He was going through these, he

00:29:40 wasn't doing talk therapy, he was just trying to do some exercises to calm me

00:29:43 down or something, some nonsense. I felt like it was nonsense, but I did read

00:29:47 several self-help books. No, hang on, hang on, hang on. Sorry, sorry, just, I just, if we keep going off on

00:29:54 other tangents, I don't really get my questions answered. So, you did see a

00:29:57 therapist, it didn't work out very well, and did you try another therapist? I

00:30:04 don't think so. Come on, man, don't fog on me now. You'd remember if you saw

00:30:10 another therapist, wouldn't you? Well, I can tell you if I did see him, it wasn't

00:30:19 memorable. So, I'll just say no, I didn't. So, you didn't see, you didn't

00:30:29 engage with a good therapist to deal with your social anxiety, right? That's

00:30:34 right, I did not. Okay, and again, no big problem, it's not a criticism, I'm

00:30:39 just looking at the causality here, because, you know, 10 years is a long

00:30:42 time to sort of wait and sort of see what you wanted out of life, especially

00:30:47 because you went from indifference to kids to where you are now, which is

00:30:50 willing to destroy your existing family in the hopes of getting one or two more

00:30:55 children, right? So, that's, you understand, that's, I'm trying to sort of figure out

00:30:58 where this swing occurred and why. So, for more than 10 years, you didn't do the

00:31:05 things that were necessary to figure out what you wanted out of life, and again, I

00:31:09 have sympathy for that, I really do. I'm not trying to be mean or negative, I'm

00:31:12 just looking at the facts as far as I can see them and as far as you can

00:31:16 or as far as you've related them to me. So, for 10 years, you did distract

00:31:21 yourself with a lot of video games, you didn't do all the things that you were

00:31:26 aware of as necessary to move your life forward, and again, I sympathize with that,

00:31:31 I understand that, I'm not critical, but these were choices, right? I

00:31:35 mean, you had some arguments about what to do and you didn't really follow

00:31:39 them, you know. Now, how did it go in terms of reading the books and so on with

00:31:43 regards to dealing with social anxiety?

00:31:47 Well, I think it went very well. There were some books, some exercises, and

00:31:54 what seemed to help me a lot as I went through some of Nathaniel Brandon's

00:31:58 sentence stems, and there was another guy, Wes Burton, he used to do Complete

00:32:06 Liberty, he had several sentence stems that I went through and it helped me kind of

00:32:10 dig into my subconscious about what was going on and that really

00:32:15 unlocked a lot of things for me. So, it did make a lot of progress, I felt like.

00:32:20 And how old were you at this point?

00:32:25 Maybe 26, 27? Maybe a little old, around there. 26, 27, 28. Okay, we'll just go with 27 if I don't want to be

00:32:39 unfair on either side. Okay, now, that's fine. So, 27 and onwards, then what

00:32:49 happened in terms of your dating life and what is it that led you to your

00:32:53 current wife?

00:32:55 Well, I was, okay, I was, like I said, I was having trouble meeting people day to

00:33:07 day. I was working freelance in my condo, not really meeting a lot of

00:33:13 people, didn't really have any friends for the most part, and I was on a dating

00:33:18 site for a long time. I was on there for about six years, I was going to give up,

00:33:24 as a matter of fact, and then my wife messaged me and we met then, but I

00:33:29 really wasn't meeting anyone for years. I was, you know, I was trying to meet some

00:33:34 people. I filtered a lot of people out straight away because I didn't think

00:33:38 that they're what I was looking for. Well, is it fair to say, sorry, is it fair to

00:33:44 say that some of the women you filtered out, you filtered out because they wanted

00:33:53 children, very much so, like they would have said, I want to settle down and have kids,

00:33:56 and you may or may not remember this, but I would assume that some of the women

00:33:59 you filtered out, since you didn't really want kids, if they really, really wanted

00:34:02 kids, you would have filtered them out that way, right? Again, I know it's

00:34:09 impossible to remember messages from 10 years ago or whatever or more, but that

00:34:14 would have been the case, logically, right? Okay, okay, at one point I was just

00:34:21 looking for, at one point I wasn't concerned with kids at all, but by

00:34:26 the time I had done the 10th and learned that I wanted to have kids, let's just say,

00:34:34 when did we get married? May 2004. You met March 2011. I was 31. Okay, yeah, I would say

00:34:47 about three years, probably around three years prior to that. I was 28 years old.

00:34:53 Yeah, 28 years old. I was filtering people out, women out that did not want to have

00:34:57 kids. No, no, but before that, sorry, before that, before you realised, how old were you

00:35:03 when you realised you wanted kids? Every time before that, I wasn't

00:35:09 looking for kids at all. I wasn't looking for anything like that. I was looking to

00:35:11 - I understand what not wanting to have kids means. I understand that. You don't

00:35:16 need to repeat that. But beforehand, so at 20, and I'm just going to make a note of

00:35:20 this, at 28, wanted kids, right? So what that means is that I assume that before 28, if

00:35:26 a woman said, "I want to go on a date and I'm really looking to marry and have kids,"

00:35:30 or whatever, you would have been hesitant or you would have been somewhat more negative

00:35:34 for that because it wouldn't - I mean, if you're filtering people out for compatibility,

00:35:37 then if you don't really want kids, some women who really does want kids, you would have

00:35:40 not pursued it particularly. Like if you're browsing and you come across the profile of

00:35:46 a woman who says, "I really want to have kids," or whatever, you would have kept going, right?

00:35:50 Because at that point in your life, you didn't really want kids, right?

00:35:53 - You're right.

00:35:55 - Okay. So that's really important, right, for you to sort of understand that the reason

00:36:04 why you're thinking of breaking up your family now is because you didn't pursue as much self-knowledge

00:36:09 when you were younger. And again, I'm not trying to make you feel bad. I'm just - this

00:36:12 seems to be the causality that I understand. It doesn't mean I'm right, obviously, but...

00:36:17 - So if I would have had kids when I was 18, I would have had about maybe four or five

00:36:24 more kids. So if I was to reach the point I am now at around 44 and I had seven kids,

00:36:34 then the idea is I wouldn't want to have more kids now.

00:36:37 - Is that the right word?

00:36:40 - Sorry, hello?

00:36:42 - Yeah, I'm sorry. I was not quite following what that had to do with what I said, but...

00:36:48 Because you pushed away women who wanted kids before you were 28, right?

00:36:55 - Yeah, I agree.

00:36:58 - Okay. And that was a choice, right? You chose to push away women who were young and

00:37:03 fertile. And listen, I'm sorry to say this in front of your wife. I mean, I guess we

00:37:07 all know we have a history. Sorry to be talking about it so frankly, but I sort of have a

00:37:11 general purpose behind what I'm saying.

00:37:14 - Yeah, there was at least one woman I remember that wanted a family, wanted kids, and I was

00:37:20 uncomfortable being with her and I pushed her away.

00:37:24 - Well, but it's not just that. I'm sure that there were hundreds, if not thousands, of

00:37:27 women that you swiped left or right or whatever happens on these apps because they wanted

00:37:33 kids.

00:37:34 - Yeah, that's right.

00:37:36 - So you spent 10 years of your adulthood rejecting women who wanted kids, off and on,

00:37:46 from here to there, on apps or whatever it is, right? So give or take, it's not obviously

00:37:51 every day, a hundred times a day, but you spent all of that time pushing away women

00:37:56 who wanted kids because you didn't want kids. And then you changed your mind, right? And

00:38:02 I'm glad you changed your mind. I'm glad that you're a dad. I'm glad that you're married.

00:38:06 But you spent 10 years not wanting kids, pushing away women who had kids, and distracted yourself

00:38:12 with a lot of video games and not figuring this out. Now, do you remember, was it a moment

00:38:17 where you just, "Oh my gosh, I want kids"? Was it a slow change or how did that happen

00:38:22 for you?

00:38:23 - It was a little bit of a gradual change, yeah. It was maybe the course of a... As I

00:38:34 was learning more about myself, coming out of social anxiety and learning about how do

00:38:40 we want to spend our lives, what's important to me, I started to realize that I think I

00:38:47 want to have a family.

00:38:50 - And how long did that process take, roughly?

00:38:55 - Somewhere between three and two years.

00:39:05 - Three and two years?

00:39:06 - Yeah.

00:39:07 - Five years or two to three years?

00:39:10 - Two to three years.

00:39:12 - And when did that... You said 28, you wanted kids. Was that at the end of the two to three

00:39:15 year period, in the middle, or at the beginning?

00:39:17 - It was right at the end.

00:39:19 - Right at the end. Okay, got it. So you began to suspect in your mid-20s that you might

00:39:23 want kids, two to three years later you really felt like you wanted kids, right?

00:39:28 - Yeah, yeah.

00:39:31 - Okay, got it.

00:39:34 - Yeah, yeah. And I mean, yeah, I wouldn't... Of course I could have had a family when I

00:39:42 didn't have much money, but I really didn't have my life. I didn't have much... It would

00:39:47 have been... I didn't have a lot of money early on.

00:39:52 - No, no, that's irrelevant, because when you become a dad, you work harder, you make

00:39:56 more money. It's just the way it works, financially.

00:39:59 - It was irrelevant. It was irrelevant.

00:40:01 - I'm sorry, I can't hear you.

00:40:04 - She said it was either relevant or irrelevant.

00:40:09 - I said it was... I wasn't marrying you for your money.

00:40:11 - Right, right, right.

00:40:12 - I was looking for someone that could work. Not that they had money, but that they could

00:40:17 work and do a job and have some kind of support there. That's what I was looking for.

00:40:21 - Well, and I assume that as you had kids and moved on, that your husband's income increased

00:40:27 over the course of becoming a dad.

00:40:31 - I guess I bring it up not because I just... It would have been... I couldn't do it, but

00:40:35 it's more like I didn't... Once I became more secure of myself, more confident, it was easier

00:40:42 for me to say, "Well, now I want more of a family." No, I wasn't... I had a little bit

00:40:49 more confidence, but I didn't.

00:40:51 - Okay. Again, I'm not trying to be mean, but let's be frank here. Okay. At your peak,

00:40:56 how many hours of video games a week were you playing?

00:41:03 - When I was in college, I probably played... Wow. I'd say probably three or four hours

00:41:11 a day.

00:41:12 - Okay.

00:41:13 - If I had a guest film.

00:41:14 - Yeah, so we got like 20 hours a week, right?

00:41:15 - Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'd say that's about good ballpark, yeah.

00:41:20 - Okay. And I assume that with some variation, higher and lower, maybe probably lower a bit

00:41:26 at times, this went on for years, right?

00:41:31 - I played that many video games since I was about 10 years old, so...

00:41:35 - No, no. I get it. I did it again, and I sympathize with that desire, right? So from

00:41:42 10, and when did your video game playing begin to slow down? I mean, I'm assuming it has.

00:41:49 I'm going to assume that it has, but...

00:41:52 - It's definitely... I mean, my kids like to play now, but not quite the same. So I

00:42:01 remember getting bored with the games around 25, 25, 26. And that's when it became like

00:42:10 not... At an earlier time in my life, I felt like if I just played video games for the

00:42:15 rest of my life, I'd be happy. And then around 25, 26, it's not fulfilling, and I think that

00:42:21 might have been some of my social anxiety as well.

00:42:24 - Well, yeah, because you're getting your dopamine from games, you're not getting your

00:42:28 gulp of dopamine from actual achievements in the real world, right?

00:42:32 - Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And so it became very concerning to me, psychologically upsetting.

00:42:43 And then I just stopped pursuing it so much. I still did a little bit, and my father is

00:42:48 also... Games a little bit, but we would talk about games some, but it just became less

00:42:52 and less interesting.

00:42:53 - No, I get it. So you've done seven and a half hours... Sorry, you've done seven and

00:42:58 a half years of your life of full-time work on video games.

00:43:02 - Maybe more than that.

00:43:04 - No, no, that's the math, right? 20 hours will be about a thousand hours a year, 15

00:43:10 thousand hours, you divide that by sort of 40-hour work weeks and so on. It's about seven,

00:43:17 it's over seven years of full-time work on video games.

00:43:21 - Yeah. I don't remember getting achieving for that, though.

00:43:27 - Well, you're lucky to have pulled the family out of that level of addiction, right? Okay,

00:43:32 so... And look, I've played video games too, so I'm not throwing stones here, I'm just

00:43:37 sort of looking at the math, right? But you wasted a huge amount of time, and you avoided

00:43:42 a lot of your problems by playing video games, right? It's not like they help you with social

00:43:47 anxiety or money-making. Because if you had taken 25% of that time, you could have got

00:43:57 an MBA, you could have studied economics, you could have started a business, you could

00:44:01 have learned computer programming, you could have done just about anything, and then your

00:44:06 money-making problems would have been solved, right?

00:44:10 - Yeah, for sure, yeah. It made a huge difference.

00:44:13 - And again, massive sympathies and so on, right? Now, the fact that you had an addiction

00:44:21 that helped you avoid your problems delayed you learning about having kids and you becoming

00:44:27 a father. Is that a fair way to put it? And again, with sympathy.

00:44:33 - I mean, I think it contributed. Yeah, I wish I had had this hindsight, but I wish

00:44:44 I had had... I didn't have anyone telling me that that would be... I mean...

00:44:52 - Oh my God, dude, dude, dude, okay, hang on, hang on. You don't have to tell me your

00:44:57 kids' exact ages. Roughly how old are they?

00:45:01 - 10, 6, and 3.

00:45:03 - 10, sorry?

00:45:04 - 10, 6, and 3. We have three boys.

00:45:07 - Okay, 10, 6, and 3. Okay, so listen, bro, my brother, my brother, my co-father in the

00:45:14 parenting world, you have a very, very bad habit, right? Which is when I try to give

00:45:21 you responsibility for what you did as a grown-ass adult, what do you tell me?

00:45:26 - Well, I'm trying to answer this truthfully, like...

00:45:34 - No, no, no, you're not trying to answer truthfully. Your wife can probably hear it.

00:45:39 Let's turn to your wife. Do you hear what he's saying when I say you're responsible

00:45:43 for X, Y, and Z?

00:45:44 - Yes.

00:45:45 - What does he say?

00:45:46 - Which I find ironic, because he does what you're doing to him, and now that you're doing

00:45:51 it to him, he's backpedaling.

00:45:53 - Okay, so what is he giving me when I say he's responsible?

00:45:58 - Excuses for why he's not...

00:46:00 - Yeah, I didn't know, nobody told me, I wasn't aware, and all of that sort of stuff, right?

00:46:06 - Well, this is where I'm going to get defensive.

00:46:09 - No, no, this is where you've already been defensive for 20 minutes, just so you know,

00:46:13 I'm fully aware of that, right? So, I mean, this is where you... So, and the reason...

00:46:19 Why is this so important? Why did I just ask your children's age?

00:46:24 Okay, let's turn to your wife. Why is this so important for him as a father, and why

00:46:34 did I just ask your children's ages?

00:46:38 - Because you want to know how much time he has left to make an impact with his children.

00:46:43 - No, although that's a very good guess, and that's part of it.

00:46:46 - Oh, I missed...

00:46:47 - Sorry, go ahead.

00:46:48 - Oh, I missed.

00:46:49 - That was close.

00:46:50 - Okay. That's how much time he's wasted?

00:46:55 - No, none of that. So, my concern is that if you give excuses for what you did at the

00:47:02 age of 25, or 26, or 27, or 28, or 29, or 30, how on earth are you going to hold your

00:47:10 children accountable when they're children? Because you're saying, "Hey, what I... You're

00:47:17 a 10 kid? Hey, I barely knew what I was doing when I was 30, and I've got all the excuses

00:47:23 in the world." You're modeling taking no ownership. You're modeling having no responsibility for

00:47:29 your children. That's not acceptable. That's not a thing you can do as a father. You can't

00:47:37 make excuses. You can't make excuses for everything in your own life, and play rubber bones, and

00:47:42 play dummy, and play "I didn't know, I didn't know." What does that teach your sons about

00:47:46 manhood, or adulthood, or life, or taking responsibility, or self-ownership?

00:47:54 - I agree with you, Seth. That's how I felt at the time. That's how I feel about that

00:47:57 time. But I agree with you.

00:47:59 - Oh, I'm sorry. Now are you saying it's okay for me to have judgments about what I did,

00:48:04 and lack of judgments about what I did, because feelings?

00:48:08 - Well, I agree with you. That's not a good example of that. I agree with you.

00:48:14 - Okay, then stop doing it. Then let's have this conversation going forward, and stop

00:48:18 giving me these pathetic excuses of "I didn't know," because I've been pushing back on these

00:48:22 excuses for like, we've wasted half an hour of our conversation, me pushing back on these

00:48:26 excuses. You say, "Well, I didn't know," and I say, "Well, how much time did you spend

00:48:29 playing video games?" rather than pursuing self-knowledge, right? I've been pushing back

00:48:33 on these excuses.

00:48:34 - Well, let me just put it this way. If I knew that making the decision to go out and

00:48:44 work or learn about what it was, how fulfilling it would be to have a family, if I knew those

00:48:50 things, why didn't I make that decision at that time? Why would I?

00:48:54 - Because no, no, you are responsible for avoiding knowledge, right? Like, you know

00:48:59 the analogy, like if I suddenly, I don't know, knock out the pilot and take control of the

00:49:04 plane, and then I crash the plane and say, "Well, I don't know how to fly a plane," well,

00:49:10 then don't take the helm of a plane. You avoided knowledge because it was easier to play video

00:49:17 games than to deal with whatever you had to deal with. And again, I understand that. I've

00:49:20 done the same thing, and I'm not criticized, but I don't pretend that I didn't have a choice.

00:49:24 I don't pretend, well, I just didn't know. If you played video games rather than pursue

00:49:28 self-knowledge, despite having people yelling in your ear 15 years ago to pursue self-knowledge,

00:49:36 if you played video games rather than pursue self-knowledge, that's on you, 100%. You become

00:49:44 an adult, everything's on you. Now, I have sympathy for how, you know, you weren't raised

00:49:48 very well, and you didn't get much knowledge about the world, and you obviously didn't

00:49:52 have people in your life telling you to do better, but that's also partly because you

00:49:56 decided to play video games rather than develop a social circle, because it was easier, because

00:50:02 you had social anxiety. And again, I sympathize with that, but are you seriously going to

00:50:07 tell me that your kids, your eldest son is 10, that he doesn't really have to take any

00:50:11 responsibility for his life until he's 30? Is that what you're going to tell him? "Kids,

00:50:18 you're only 10, you've got 20 years, you can just make up all the excuses you want." Oh,

00:50:22 and by the way, if you have a test and you fail to study for it, I'm never going to fail

00:50:27 you, you should never think of yourself as a failure, because hey, you just didn't have

00:50:29 that knowledge. You didn't know. If you do a driving test and you crash the car because

00:50:35 you didn't read anything or practice or anything, that's fine, because you didn't know. If you

00:50:39 decided to play video games rather than study for your driving test and then you crashed

00:50:43 the car, that's totally fine, because you just didn't know how to drive. I mean, assume

00:50:52 your kids have some responsibilities and if they choose to play video games rather

00:50:56 than, I don't know, take their dishes into the kitchen or whatever responsibilities they've

00:51:01 got, I mean, what do you say to them? "You don't have to do it if you don't want to."

00:51:07 No, video games are fun, yeah, that's way more fun. If your kid's up till 3 in the morning

00:51:15 playing a video game, what do you say? "I say it's time to go to bed." So your 10-year-old

00:51:24 has responsibility, even though video games are fun, but you at 27 didn't, because you

00:51:30 just didn't know? I mean, you absolutely knew that you had a problem with video gaming,

00:51:35 come on, don't even try that one with me. You're doing a half-time job 20 hours a week

00:51:40 playing video games for 15 years and it never crossed your mind that you might have a slight

00:51:44 problem?

00:51:45 Yeah, yeah.

00:51:46 Listen, if you want to have no responsibility and claim no responsibility in your life,

00:51:59 that's fine. I mean, I think it's a bad idea, but I don't fundamentally care, because it's

00:52:04 your life, right? If you just want to say, "Well, I'm not responsible for anything I

00:52:07 did in my 20s or teens or whatever," right? Okay, but that's not an option when you become

00:52:16 a father. That's no longer an option. You can't claim to be a victim when you're a father,

00:52:23 because all you're doing is transmitting victimhood to your sons and excuses. And you can just

00:52:31 claim to not know things, even though you've spent 15,000 hours avoiding knowledge, you

00:52:36 can just say, "Hey, I didn't know. Hey, I didn't know."

00:52:41 Of course you knew. You took the easy route, and again, I sympathize and I understand.

00:52:46 But man, that's on you 100%, because you want your kids to take responsibility for their

00:52:54 lives, right? And you have to model that, which means living a life with no excuses.

00:53:04 Because excuses are foundational to this conversation. Because now you're saying, "Well, I want

00:53:11 a second wife, and my excuse is my feelings. I want more children."

00:53:17 Now, let me ask you this. Did you take a vow when you got married?

00:53:23 We did. We don't remember what it was.

00:53:28 It was probably the generic one that they do.

00:53:32 Okay, so you took a vow to love, to honor, to whatever, right? Till death do you part,

00:53:36 better, worse, sickness and health.

00:53:38 Yes.

00:53:39 Okay. So what the hell are you doing, bro? You took a vow. Now, did you take a vow, and

00:53:47 let me ask your wife, if he'd have said, "Well, I'm going to take a second wife if you have

00:53:51 fertility issues," would you have married him?

00:53:55 Definitely.

00:53:56 Right. So I don't quite understand this. You made a vow, right? You made a promise.

00:54:04 That's what marriage is. Marriage is a vow for monogamy, better or worse, sickness and

00:54:10 in health, right? Now, you guys have three kids out of the equation. And of course, I've

00:54:13 talked with a number of couples who have no kids, and it's really heartbreaking for them,

00:54:18 right?

00:54:19 So you took a vow, and now you're feeling something, so you don't have to fulfill your

00:54:25 vow. You're going to break your vow, your solemn promise, which is the foundation of

00:54:29 your marriage? I'm just having trouble understanding that. What is it in your head that says, "I

00:54:36 can break my vow, I can break my wife's heart, I can break my children's heart," and it's

00:54:41 justified? There's a justification that you have, and I think it has something to do with

00:54:44 excuses, which is why I'm kind of hammering on this issue, but I'm certainly happy to

00:54:48 hear what it is. But there's something where you're not a bad guy, right? And what is that

00:54:54 where that's okay, to break your vow, break your family, break your wife's and kids' hearts?

00:55:00 What is it that makes that acceptable in your mind?

00:55:09 When I got started with this quest two years ago, I didn't want to separate the kids. I

00:55:18 didn't want to separate our family. We were talking about it, trying to figure something

00:55:25 out, and maybe that's my accountability. Maybe I should've let you know. I'm... It would

00:55:33 take ownership over me bringing this topic up over and over and figure out some way to

00:55:36 disclose this conflict. But anyways, we talked about it, and my wife told me that if we talk

00:55:51 about this anymore, she's going to want to divorce me.

00:55:53 And sorry, when you say "talking about it," that's you saying, "I want more kids," over

00:55:58 and over, right?

00:55:59 Yeah.

00:56:00 And trying to...

00:56:01 Okay, so...

00:56:02 I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. Go ahead, wife person. I apologize. You haven't had much to say,

00:56:07 but go ahead.

00:56:08 It's not just him talking about it. It's like, "How do I figure this out? How do I get this

00:56:14 need met?" And he's trying to rope me into helping him figure this out. Like, "How do

00:56:20 I figure this out?" I'm like, "Dude, I don't know. I don't even want this. So why am I

00:56:25 having to help you with it? I don't know."

00:56:27 And his need is to just have more children, even if it means breaking up his existing

00:56:33 family, right?

00:56:34 Yes. Yes. To answer your question that I think he was not answering, I think he will have

00:56:41 to correct me here, but I think the justification that he's telling himself is that we'll all

00:56:46 get along fine, and we'll all be happier and happier together. More people means more happiness.

00:56:53 So, second wife will come in...

00:56:58 Wait, sorry. You'll all be happy together, so you get some surrogate. I guess it's not

00:57:03 legal to have a second wife, I think. So you would get some woman to come in. She'd get

00:57:08 pregnant and you'd all live happily together in this lovely little commune harem. Is that

00:57:13 the idea?

00:57:14 I think that's what the vision in his brain is what is going on here.

00:57:18 Well, let's turn to you, my lovely friend. This is to you, the husband. How do you see

00:57:24 this playing out in practical terms?

00:57:27 Yeah, yeah. That's not far off. I was thinking about a traditional polygamist family.

00:57:38 A traditional polygamist family? Like what? I'm sorry. A traditional polygamist family?

00:57:44 In what continent?

00:57:45 Well, there are continents that do practice that.

00:57:51 Yes, but they don't make monogamous vows on their wedding day.

00:57:55 Okay, that's true. That is true.

00:58:01 All right, I will ask you this. Have you ever had a pornography addiction?

00:58:05 Yes, and I was about to go there after I was talking about the video games. I had a pornography

00:58:12 addiction for probably decades, and I just recently was able to stop that a couple of

00:58:21 years ago. Maybe a couple of years ago, maybe a little less.

00:58:27 I just wanted to sort of point out that both the pornography and the video games are non-negotiated

00:58:35 interactions. They're non-negotiated interactions.

00:58:39 What do you mean by that?

00:58:42 Okay, so when you look at pornography, this is not a reciprocal relationship. You don't

00:58:48 have to please the woman. It's not a relationship, right? It's about your own pleasure, I guess,

00:58:55 without any negotiation on the part of the other person, without having to look at anybody

00:59:00 else's needs. Does that make sense?

00:59:03 Yes.

00:59:04 Yes.

00:59:05 And when you play a video game, you don't… I mean, I know that you can say, "Well,

00:59:10 there are multiplayer games," or "There are games with choices and characters,"

00:59:13 but fundamentally there's no negotiation in video games. I mean, I just played Baldur's

00:59:18 Gate, and in Baldur's Gate, when I tell a character to do something, what does the

00:59:23 character do? It just does it, right? I say, "Go here, use this spell," or whatever.

00:59:28 You don't negotiate. It's a one-person universe.

00:59:35 So for many years, I assume about a decade, and oh no, so for two decades and whatever

00:59:41 it is, so for decades you've been involved in activities that only serve your own pleasure

00:59:51 and that you don't have to think about someone else. I'm not saying that's all you've

00:59:56 done. Obviously, you're a husband and a father and you work and so on, but you don't,

01:00:02 in those two areas of pornography and video games, you don't have to negotiate with

01:00:07 anyone. You don't have to… You get pleasure and a sense of achievement or, I guess, sexual

01:00:17 completion more than a sense, I suppose, but there's no negotiation involved in those

01:00:22 activities. So you've trained yourself to some degree into focusing on your needs and

01:00:31 not negotiating with someone else's, right?

01:00:33 Yeah, yeah. I think that that was a lot of… Yeah, those two or so decades is definitely

01:00:40 training, that way I would say.

01:00:42 Yeah, and listen, we all have this to some degree, maybe not with those activities. I

01:00:46 know video games is pretty common, as is the consumption of pornography, but even just

01:00:51 in terms of sitting and watching a movie, right, rather than, say, telling an engaging

01:00:55 story. Telling an engaging story is often back and forth with the audience. Sitting

01:00:58 there watching a movie is a non-negotiated situation. You don't have to negotiate. You

01:01:03 just… If the movie pleases you, you watch it. If it doesn't please you, you turn it

01:01:07 off or change it to something. But there's no negotiation involved, if that makes sense?

01:01:12 Yeah.

01:01:13 So part of social anxiety is not knowing how to negotiate. And if I'm wrong about that,

01:01:20 you've experienced it, so let me know.

01:01:23 I've never thought about it that way, but I've had a lot of difficulty trying to understand

01:01:30 how to just have a conversation with somebody.

01:01:33 Yeah. How do you negotiate? Who speaks? Who listens? What topics are allowed, not allowed?

01:01:38 All conversations and negotiations, and they're quite complex. And I assume that you spent

01:01:42 a lot of time alone as a kid, and so you didn't learn the language of back and forth.

01:01:46 Yeah, I wouldn't have said that about my childhood, but I did spend some time alone.

01:01:55 You have to have spent a lot of time alone if your parents let you play video games for

01:01:59 tens of hours a week, starting at the age of 10, right? If my daughter was doing that,

01:02:03 I'd be like, I don't know, I'd knock on her door and say, "Are you okay? Why are

01:02:08 we not… Let's go do something. Let's go chat." Right?

01:02:12 Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a good point. I definitely have… Yeah, I think you can reasonably

01:02:20 say that, yeah.

01:02:22 Okay. So you have, both in your childhood and in your addictions, and again, I don't

01:02:29 want to use overly strong language. It's not like you're some guy passing out for

01:02:32 lack of heroin, so let's say compulsions or preferences or whatever, right? So both

01:02:37 in your childhood and in your preferences, you have trained yourself in selfishness,

01:02:43 in simply focusing on your own pleasure, your own preferences, without having to negotiate

01:02:49 and accept and absorb somebody else's preferences and pleasures. You've trained yourself,

01:02:53 and you've been trained by your parents in a kind of selfishness. And I mean, I have

01:02:58 a complicated relationship with the word selfishness, so… But your selfishness does not include

01:03:03 your wife's happiness as its shared goal. Because you have this idea that you can bring

01:03:11 another woman in, have children, and because you'll be happy with it, your wife will

01:03:17 be happy with it, and the fact that she's not, it's like, "Okay, well, there has

01:03:23 to be a way to negotiate it so that you can be unhappy and I can be happy." And because

01:03:30 you've trained yourself in only focusing on your own happiness, to a large degree,

01:03:33 not exclusively, of course, right? But because you have this position where you say, "Well,

01:03:37 I feel this and I think that," and so on, then it's like, "Well, I have to figure

01:03:43 out this cheat code wherein I can get what I want and my wife will be happy. There has

01:03:50 to be some way that I get what I want and my wife will be happy, but she's not, and

01:03:56 this is a problem," right? It's like, "Well, wait a minute. Your wife's unhappiness

01:04:03 should take things off the table." But you're like, "Well, no, no, no. I have to get what

01:04:08 I want and I have to figure out some way that she's going to be okay with it, and if she's

01:04:11 not okay with it, I guess I'll just get rid of her or whatever." That's a universe

01:04:14 of one. That's kind of a selfish planet, right?

01:04:17 Yeah, it is.

01:04:20 Because you're like, "I don't fundamentally care too much that my wife's unhappy as long

01:04:24 as I get what I want."

01:04:28 I do. I mean, I don't... Okay. So, I do want to get what I want, but on the other hand,

01:04:38 I do also care about her happiness as well. So, I'm trying, of course, to...

01:04:44 Well no, hang on. Okay, so let's turn to your wife here, and again, I'm sorry to be talking

01:04:49 about you like you're not here, but to your wife, okay, how long ago did he start to really

01:04:54 bother you about this approach to more kids or this restlessness about more kids? It doesn't

01:05:00 have to be specifically bringing in Xena the harem warrior or whatever, right? But when

01:05:06 did it start to become a negative experience for you around fertility?

01:05:12 Last December, after the miscarriage, and he said, "I really want more kids and I'm

01:05:17 willing to find a second wife to do it."

01:05:19 Oh, so he said that right away or no? That kind of in the first part of the combo.

01:05:24 No, that was after a year of having talked about having more kids, and then after the...

01:05:31 I mean, I was still healing from the miscarriage and he's like, "I still want to have more

01:05:34 kids." And I'm like, "Dude, are you seriously now?" He's like, "Yeah, I have a need. I want

01:05:38 more kids." And I said, "Well, I don't." And so, it's pretty much been a sore topic

01:05:45 since last December.

01:05:47 Okay. Now, just out of curiosity, this is back to your husband. When somebody from outside

01:05:56 the marriage hears that you're kind of pestering your wife to have more kids when she's just

01:06:02 had two miscarriages and half bled out in the hospital and she's not even recovered

01:06:06 yet, how does that strike you? How do you think somebody outside the marriage hears

01:06:10 that?

01:06:11 Have we told anybody that story?

01:06:16 Yep.

01:06:17 Was I wrong?

01:06:19 No, no, no. Just focus on me. How do you... Okay, let's be more personal. How do you think

01:06:24 I'm reacting to hearing that you're nagging and pestering your wife for babies right after

01:06:30 she's... when she's not even recovered from a brutal miscarriage?

01:06:35 Right when she says it, I think that this is horrible. This is the monster she's talking

01:06:39 about.

01:06:40 I'm sorry, this is what?

01:06:42 Some monster that she's talking about. She's talking...

01:06:46 So is your memory that she had recovered from the miscarriage when you said you wanted more

01:06:50 kids?

01:06:51 I mean, I'm not trying to frog out on you, but I remembered... I will accept that I asked

01:07:00 that... I told her I wanted more kids, but I don't recall the details. Like exactly...

01:07:05 Like how she does. So I... What she says might be exactly true. I don't know. I can't remember

01:07:11 exactly a year ago.

01:07:15 You can remember that you started playing video games at the age of 10, but you can't

01:07:18 remember a seminal moment in your marriage from a year ago?

01:07:23 Yeah.

01:07:25 Well, you can remember that you started playing video games when you were 10, which is like

01:07:32 32 years ago, but you can't remember an important moment in your marriage from a year ago?

01:07:40 I mean, I don't remember a lot of things I did in video games. So I don't remember...

01:07:44 He doesn't remember a lot of things, yeah.

01:07:46 Well, I have doubts, honestly, because fogging is a primary defense mechanism, right?

01:07:53 Yeah.

01:07:54 Okay, well...

01:07:55 Association, I think it's called.

01:07:56 I admit that I may be fogging, but how do I unfog that? I don't have that memory right

01:08:02 now. I accept what she's saying.

01:08:04 No, but you remember that you want to keep having kids, right? You never forget that,

01:08:11 do you?

01:08:12 First of all, she didn't go to the hospital. Okay? So...

01:08:15 What? I went to the ER?

01:08:19 One of the times, not the other time.

01:08:21 Oh, bro, bro. No, no. Absolutely not going there. We're not having that conversation.

01:08:26 No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not trying to white knight here, but seriously,

01:08:33 we're not having a conversation about whether it was once or twice that your wife went to

01:08:37 the ER.

01:08:38 Well, I'm trying to recall the moment that you're talking about, but if you don't want

01:08:42 me to do that, I mean, I don't know. I'm trying my best here.

01:08:45 No, you're hedging with your wife about how many times she went to the ER while trying

01:08:49 to have your babies.

01:08:50 No, I'm not. I'm trying to recall that incident that she's talking about. And that you're

01:08:57 talking about, where you said she was bleeding out coming from the hospital and stuff like

01:09:01 that. That's not the instance that I remember.

01:09:03 It had nothing to do with an ER visit. You can't claim to be fogging out if you're not

01:09:09 even listening. What she said was...

01:09:13 Hang on, correct me if I'm wrong. This is to your wife. Correct me if I'm wrong. You

01:09:17 said that he wanted to have babies, wanted to talk about having more babies while you

01:09:23 were still recovering from the miscarriage.

01:09:27 Yeah, miscarriages can take up to six weeks. Today is the one-year anniversary, because

01:09:35 it was the Monday before Thanksgiving. Then two weeks later, I'm trying to remember, then

01:09:41 I had the fourth concert, then my son went to the ER, and then it was Christmas. So,

01:09:46 it was somewhere within the next six weeks after that miscarriage.

01:09:50 Yeah, and the six-week recovery time is not contingent or dependent upon whether you went

01:09:55 to the ER or not. Maybe it takes a little longer, but it doesn't. I mean, so she didn't

01:10:00 talk about... I don't know why you're bringing up the ER stuff, other than to bullshit and

01:10:04 fog up the nonsense that you're talking about. But your wife said you pestered her for more

01:10:09 children when she was still recovering from the miscarriage. So, that has nothing to do

01:10:13 with an ER visit.

01:10:15 I did talk to her about that around the time she was recovering, yes.

01:10:20 And did you say to your wife when she was recovering from a miscarriage, "I would like

01:10:24 another woman to bear my children"?

01:10:29 Probably. I don't recall exactly what I said, but I probably...

01:10:35 Okay, but your wife has a better memory, so we'll defer to her. Did he ask you while you

01:10:38 were still recovering... I think you said he did, but I want to obviously double-check.

01:10:42 Did he ask you while you were still recovering from your miscarriage, or did he tell you

01:10:46 that he wanted to have another woman bear his children?

01:10:49 Yes.

01:10:50 And do you remember roughly how long after the miscarriage? Was it like a month or a

01:10:55 week or...?

01:10:58 I would say roughly about a month later.

01:11:02 Okay. So, your wife is still hobbling and limping around a bit. She's in pain from the

01:11:08 miscarriage.

01:11:09 I'm still bleeding.

01:11:10 You're still bleeding. She's approaching her mid-40s, and you say, "I want another woman

01:11:21 to bear my children."

01:11:22 I probably did, yes.

01:11:26 And what do you think that seems like to me? Just put yourself in my shoes, hearing this

01:11:32 story. What do you think it seems like?

01:11:36 I think it's... The feeling I get is, "Oh my God, I did that. This guy is horrible."

01:11:43 That's what I think.

01:11:46 And why do you think it's horrible? Why do you think it seems horrible?

01:11:51 Because it's... This guy doesn't have any sensitivity with how his wife feels, or he

01:11:58 feels more strongly about what he wants than how his wife feels.

01:12:02 No, it's not that. Sorry to be annoying and detailed. If my wife is neutral about something

01:12:13 and I want something and she doesn't particularly care, then I want what I want independent

01:12:21 of what my wife wants. But what you want is at the expense of everything your wife wants.

01:12:29 So that's a different matter. If I eat and my wife doesn't particularly care for any

01:12:35 of the food I'm eating, that's fine. But if I take from my wife's plate, that's a different

01:12:39 matter, because then that's a negative. Like a zero-sum game is one thing. This is a negative-sum

01:12:43 game in that if you get what you want, your wife loses everything she treasures, if I

01:12:48 understand this correctly.

01:12:49 Yeah, yeah, I do think...

01:12:52 So it's not that you don't care what your wife wants. It's that you're willing to shatter

01:12:57 her heart into a million pieces to get a second wife or a concubine or something like that.

01:13:02 Again, if I'm speaking out of turn to your wife, please let me know.

01:13:06 You're saying it better than I am.

01:13:10 Okay. So this is why I'm back to my first question, which we haven't had an answer to

01:13:15 yet. How does it work in your head that that's justified? And I'm not saying this in any

01:13:22 spirit of condemnation. I'm not trying to throw you off a bridge or anything like that.

01:13:26 That's why I tried to get you to understand what I was feeling, not just blast you myself.

01:13:30 But just out of genuine human curiosity, if you're horrified by what you're saying, or

01:13:37 what you have been saying for the last year or so, if you're horrified by that, there

01:13:42 must be some counterweight to that. There must be some...

01:13:45 There is.

01:13:46 Yeah, so there must be some justificational story in your mind wherein that's not horrible.

01:13:51 Yeah, there is. It's probably just as horrible for my wife.

01:14:01 Oh no, I want to know what's not horrible for you. And again, I mean this with genuine

01:14:06 curiosity.

01:14:07 Yeah, well, you know, of course, I have a lot of joy around my children, especially

01:14:20 when they were born. And you're raising them and taking care of them. And having relations

01:14:34 with the women is also exciting. And the idea of having a little bit more help around the

01:14:40 house is also exciting for me, too. And I know my wife doesn't like to hear that. "Oh,

01:14:46 it's very upsetting for women." Do you need a second, Steph? I hear you.

01:14:50 No, I'm good. Sorry, I just had a cup of water and it went down the wrong pipe, but I'm all

01:14:54 ears.

01:14:55 I hate that. Yeah, so yeah, there are definitely things that I think about that are exciting

01:15:00 for me that I like a lot. Yeah, so there is counterbalance to it, so I don't know if that's

01:15:07 a justification.

01:15:08 Okay, only one of those things do I believe. And that doesn't mean that I'm right. I'm

01:15:12 just telling you my genuine experience. Again, it doesn't mean I'm right. Only one of those.

01:15:16 You had three main things. One, you love babies.

01:15:18 Yeah, three things.

01:15:19 Sorry?

01:15:20 Yeah, you're right. Three things.

01:15:21 Yeah, three things. So you said, number one, I like babies. Number two, I want to have

01:15:26 sex with another woman. And number three, I'd like more cleanup around the house.

01:15:31 Yeah, more like a nanny or like a mother and mother, something like that, yeah.

01:15:38 No, no, sorry, but you said you wanted more help around the house. Did I have that right?

01:15:43 Another mother, though.

01:15:44 Another nanny.

01:15:45 Not a nanny, but someone that you know that would be there. Yeah, with the kids that I

01:15:52 have now.

01:15:53 So, sorry, what's your, sorry to interrupt, what are your arrangements at the moment as

01:15:58 far as child care and housekeeping go?

01:16:02 We have a couple of nannies that we hired to help us a couple hours, a few hours a day,

01:16:08 usually.

01:16:09 Okay, but what does your, does your wife work or?

01:16:12 Neither of us work. We're both retired.

01:16:17 You're both retired.

01:16:19 Yep.

01:16:20 You have three children and you have a couple of nannies?

01:16:25 Yeah.

01:16:27 What am I not understanding here?

01:16:31 He wanted to homeschool all the kids.

01:16:37 So they've mostly been home.

01:16:38 No, I get that, but you have two people full time at home and you need a couple of nannies

01:16:43 to help you?

01:16:44 Well, we wouldn't be able to do this call right now if we didn't have nannies right

01:16:47 now.

01:16:48 Oh, bro, this is really annoying.

01:16:51 No, come on, man, come on.

01:16:54 This is really annoying to bring one hour or two hours out of 10 years and say, well,

01:17:00 this is the justification.

01:17:02 Come on, man.

01:17:03 Of course you could.

01:17:05 You did have someone come over.

01:17:06 You'd have a grandparent or you'd hire a babysitter or whatever it is.

01:17:09 Of course you could have this call.

01:17:10 Come on, man.

01:17:11 I've been a stay at home dad.

01:17:12 Don't tell me what's possible or what's not.

01:17:14 Okay, so let's drop this.

01:17:16 Well, it's your fault that we have nannies because we need time for this call.

01:17:19 Like, this is annoying.

01:17:20 Okay, so let's not do that.

01:17:23 I'm not going at that level of granularity.

01:17:26 Why do you need a couple of nannies if you're both home full time?

01:17:29 Maybe you should take this, Mel.

01:17:36 Well, I'm not sure how to answer this accurately.

01:17:41 Are they tutors?

01:17:48 No.

01:17:50 So, for our 10 year old, we started doing unschooling.

01:17:57 And so we were trying to do self-directed learning.

01:18:00 And I am now questioning how well that is going.

01:18:05 Wait, so you're both home and you're not even schooling your eldest?

01:18:10 What are you doing all day?

01:18:13 I don't understand.

01:18:15 Okay.

01:18:16 Okay.

01:18:17 Well, there's, you know, everyday activities.

01:18:20 I was going to tell you, I ended up sending our second child to school.

01:18:26 I enrolled him.

01:18:27 Okay, so hang on.

01:18:30 So your eldest child is unschooled and you've got a child in school and you still need a

01:18:34 couple of nannies and you're both home full time.

01:18:37 Well, we hired a sitter for today, definitely for today.

01:18:41 But yeah, we do have people come in to help so we can get our own personal needs met.

01:18:51 And what do you mean by your own personal needs?

01:18:53 You mean like sex and exercise or what do you mean by your own personal needs?

01:18:57 Like personal needs, like sex is one of them.

01:19:01 Another one is like, I've been having some health problems.

01:19:05 So I've been setting a lot of appointments and going and trying to investigate and do

01:19:09 therapy and figure out what's going on with that.

01:19:13 And that takes a lot of time.

01:19:15 I also am trying to...

01:19:16 Sorry, do you mean physical therapy or talk therapy?

01:19:19 Both.

01:19:20 Okay, got it.

01:19:22 I do.

01:19:23 I've got massage therapy for vertigo.

01:19:25 I've got cranial sacral stuff.

01:19:26 I'm also doing talk therapy and we're doing couple therapy because of all these issues.

01:19:32 So it's a lot of appointments for that.

01:19:34 And then basic, I suppose, grocery shopping is an issue since you can streamline and have

01:19:39 it delivered now.

01:19:40 But so there's that.

01:19:46 I don't know.

01:19:47 I guess I have food allergies so I can't exactly just eat out.

01:19:51 So I basically have to make all of my food from scratch and I make food for the kids,

01:19:56 three meals a day for the kids.

01:19:59 And that takes some time.

01:20:01 Try to keep the house clean, which is also really hard.

01:20:06 Having the extra hands to keep an eye on the kids when all they want to do is sit and play

01:20:10 all day is very, very helpful.

01:20:13 And what is your husband doing when, say, you're at appointments?

01:20:18 I'm going to let him answer that because I'm not here to see exactly what he's doing.

01:20:24 But most recently I've been spending time watching our youngest and playing games with

01:20:34 him.

01:20:35 Just a day, you know, just watching him.

01:20:43 Just so you understand, most of the people that I know have between three and eight children.

01:20:50 Oh, wow.

01:20:52 And one, usually, I mean the husband in general works and the wives are home and they homeschool

01:21:00 and they don't have any nannies.

01:21:01 That's one person at home.

01:21:05 I mean you've got two people at home and I guess congratulations on retiring in your

01:21:08 40s.

01:21:09 I sense crypto but you don't have to give me any details.

01:21:11 But I'm trying to sort of figure out just the difference between, and you know, I'm

01:21:19 just telling you there's a disparity.

01:21:20 I'm not saying it's good or bad.

01:21:21 I don't know, right?

01:21:22 But there are other people who get by with a lot less outside help and I'm just trying

01:21:31 to figure that out.

01:21:33 I think it's just that I guess we felt overwhelmed with a lot of the day-to-day things that we

01:21:42 were trying to keep up with and the house was getting messy.

01:21:48 But something has got to be consuming your time.

01:21:51 There's got to be something that's consuming your time that's not parenting.

01:21:54 I mean honestly, listen, you hear, and I guarantee you people listen to this at some point, right?

01:21:59 And it'll be like, wait a minute, you've got two kids at home, you've got one kid in school,

01:22:03 you've got another kid who's unschooled.

01:22:06 What is wrong?

01:22:07 How are you not able to run a household?

01:22:09 I mean, you know, our ancestors ran households with like eight kids.

01:22:16 My theory is you and I disagree about how to set boundaries.

01:22:20 I want to be a lot more authoritative and tell the kids yes and no and do this, don't

01:22:24 do this and basically say, you know, you can't spend all this time on the computer and do

01:22:30 this.

01:22:31 And then when I try to set a boundary with the kids, I feel like they will commit.

01:22:33 I'm sorry, who's spending time on the computer?

01:22:36 The kids you mean?

01:22:37 The kids, the 10-year-olds.

01:22:38 The 10-year-old is spending a lot of time on the computer, more than I am now comfortable

01:22:43 with, and I want to change it.

01:22:45 And the way it got to this point is when I brought up to husband about let's change it,

01:22:51 he basically said to me, well, what are you going to replace his time with?

01:22:54 You're going to take away his primary source of entertainment.

01:22:57 Now what are you going to do to replace it?

01:22:58 And I'm like, well, I kind of like to send him to school, but he doesn't want to go to

01:23:03 school.

01:23:04 And I'm sorry, why do you need to, why do you need to replace it?

01:23:09 I'm not sure I follow.

01:23:10 Because he has nothing to do.

01:23:11 I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I don't, what's, I'm sorry, I don't, what's wrong with the kid having

01:23:17 nothing to do?

01:23:18 Isn't that where creativity comes from?

01:23:19 Isn't this where learning how to draw and make up stories and, and like socializing

01:23:23 and like, why does the kid need constant external stimulation?

01:23:27 Do you want him to grow up with like no identity?

01:23:30 No, I want, it's exactly the opposite of what I want.

01:23:33 So I am fine with him.

01:23:35 It's just, he sits around and whines and cries and then he pesters and bothers people to

01:23:41 entertain himself.

01:23:42 Okay.

01:23:43 Well, that's probably because he's been a digital kid for years, right?

01:23:48 Yeah.

01:23:49 So he's got a, and of course this is to your husband, right?

01:23:52 Yeah.

01:23:53 Hang on.

01:23:54 Sorry.

01:23:55 So to your husband, like you're very aware that it wasn't very good for you to get addicted

01:23:59 to external stimuli, right?

01:24:00 Because then you didn't have any idea what you wanted to do with your life.

01:24:03 You didn't really have any identity and you would just chase in dopamine, right?

01:24:06 So you clearly wouldn't want to reproduce that for your son, right?

01:24:09 That's exactly right.

01:24:11 Yeah.

01:24:12 Okay.

01:24:13 So then he shouldn't be on the computer all day.

01:24:14 I agree.

01:24:15 Yeah, you're right about that.

01:24:18 Yeah.

01:24:19 Okay.

01:24:20 So of course he's going to complain, but that's your fault.

01:24:21 It's not his fault.

01:24:23 It's your fault because you've got him addicted to stuff or whatever.

01:24:26 I don't know.

01:24:27 Again, but you've got him used to a certain level of stimuli.

01:24:31 And when that stimuli gets withdrawn, he's going to go through withdrawal, right?

01:24:38 Yep.

01:24:39 So it's sort of like giving your kid alcohol and then complaining that he's stumbling around.

01:24:44 It's like, well, I mean, how long has he been a screen kid?

01:24:50 A long, long time.

01:24:52 A long time.

01:24:54 Okay.

01:24:55 Can you give me a ballpark?

01:24:56 Like two.

01:24:57 Like probably two years old.

01:24:58 Eight years, maybe.

01:24:59 Oh, so for two years, he's been kind of a screen junkie?

01:25:02 Sorry, since he was two.

01:25:04 Eight years he's been a screen junkie.

01:25:07 So why is he focusing so much on the screens?

01:25:14 Wouldn't he want to play Monopoly with you or go for walks with you or learn how to shoot

01:25:18 a bow or throw a Frisbee or like, where's the interaction?

01:25:24 That's the odd thing about it for me is that our other kids don't like that, but he is

01:25:29 and we're trying to figure out ways of getting him off the screen more.

01:25:33 But our next youngest kid...

01:25:35 Sorry, again, I apologize for interrupting and I apologize for being baffled.

01:25:40 I'm sure there's some good answer for this.

01:25:42 I'm not sure what you mean when you say you're trying to find ways to get him off the screen.

01:25:47 Who owns the screen?

01:25:49 Yeah, we own the screen.

01:25:51 Okay, so you just turn it off.

01:25:54 Yeah, we could do that.

01:25:55 What do you mean you could do that?

01:25:58 Well, we can't.

01:26:01 And we can also...

01:26:03 What I'm trying to understand though, what I'm trying to say is that he...

01:26:10 I guess what you're saying is that we should know that this is bad for him.

01:26:14 We should turn off the screen and not let him use the screen anymore.

01:26:17 And that's what we have not done.

01:26:19 I have no idea where you're getting this conversation from.

01:26:22 I'm not sure if you want to just complete the conversation on your own.

01:26:25 When did I ever say you should never see another screen again?

01:26:30 Talk about going from one extreme to the other.

01:26:32 He either does exactly what he wants or nothing.

01:26:35 I don't know how much screen time is appropriate for this kid.

01:26:38 That's what I'm trying to say.

01:26:39 I don't know how much screen time is appropriate for this child.

01:26:43 Well wouldn't you fairly say that human interaction is, in general, human interaction is better

01:26:49 than screen time?

01:26:51 I think for most people it is.

01:26:53 And so you would want to engage him so that he would be less inclined to focus on screens.

01:27:08 Your company would be more enjoyable than screen time.

01:27:11 Yeah.

01:27:12 Yeah.

01:27:13 I mean you would want to woo him away from...

01:27:16 Now maybe of course if you've glued him to a screen, so to speak, for eight years straight

01:27:20 since his formative years, it's going to be a bit of a battle, right?

01:27:23 Because this is what he's used to.

01:27:26 And he does display the fairly classic symptoms of withdrawal, right?

01:27:30 When he doesn't get this thing.

01:27:32 Yes.

01:27:33 Yeah.

01:27:34 Yeah.

01:27:35 Okay.

01:27:36 So that's on you because you kind of glued him to a screen.

01:27:37 And so you've got one kid who's a screen kid and you've got one kid who's in school and

01:27:43 then you've got the one three-year-old.

01:27:44 And what's the three-year-old's relationship to screens?

01:27:48 On the same path as the ten-year-old.

01:27:50 So we're trying to break that.

01:27:51 Okay.

01:27:52 So you have more kids so you can glue them to screens.

01:27:54 Is that the plan?

01:27:55 More kids so you can not engage with them too much and let the internet race them?

01:27:58 Is that your plan?

01:27:59 Like you need more kids to attach to a tablet?

01:28:03 That's just not what I want.

01:28:08 Because you already have kids that you're not...

01:28:10 I'm not going to say you're ignoring because of course you're not, but you already have

01:28:14 kids that you're kind of dumping on screens to some degree and in school to some degree.

01:28:20 So why don't you have better relationships with the kids you have rather than having

01:28:24 more kids that you don't engage with as much?

01:28:32 Why don't I have better relationships with the kids instead of having new kids?

01:28:39 I didn't know it was either/or, but I...

01:28:41 Well no, because you're going to have new kids and just glue them to screens, right?

01:28:46 That's not what I want to do.

01:28:47 Well then why aren't you not doing that with your current kids?

01:28:53 You want new kids so you don't have to fix things with your current kids.

01:28:58 You want a do-over, you want a mulligan.

01:29:00 I don't want a mulligan.

01:29:03 Then fix things with your current kids.

01:29:06 And if I fix things with my current kids, then I have a good relationship with them.

01:29:11 And that's what I want.

01:29:13 Well then why aren't you focusing on that instead of nagging your wife to get a concubine?

01:29:20 Did you think nagging your wife to get a concubine is bringing you closer to your kids?

01:29:26 No, I don't think that's bringing me closer to my kids.

01:29:30 Okay, so it's coming at the expense of your wife and your children, your selfish pleasures

01:29:35 are coming at the expense of your wife and your children, and it's harming your family.

01:29:39 So you said that you want to be around babies.

01:29:44 Okay, I get that.

01:29:45 You want to be around babies.

01:29:46 Frankly, that's just stupid.

01:29:49 I'm sorry to be so blunt about it, but it's just stupid.

01:29:52 First of all, you have a three-year-old who's just out of toddlerhood.

01:29:54 And secondly, that's what grandkids are for.

01:29:57 I mean, if your kids have a great time being kids, and then they grow up and you've got

01:30:02 a 10-year-old, so in 10 years you can have babies anyway.

01:30:05 It's going to take you at least a couple of years to find this weird concubine setup,

01:30:08 which is probably going to blow up in your face.

01:30:10 So you just wait another couple of years, you've got grandkids.

01:30:12 You don't have to worry about if you like babies, just wait.

01:30:17 So that's not a believable one.

01:30:19 Help around the house?

01:30:20 Oh, I don't even know what to say.

01:30:22 I don't even know what to say.

01:30:25 Everyone I know is just a really, really hardworking parent.

01:30:28 I don't get that sense.

01:30:30 I think you guys are still, maybe you had kids later, whatever, but it seems to me that

01:30:33 you're still trying to have a life outside of being parents.

01:30:36 And that's not the case.

01:30:38 You become a parent, especially when your kids are young.

01:30:41 That's your life, being a parent.

01:30:42 That's it.

01:30:44 It's just being a parent.

01:30:48 But what I do believe is that you want to have sex with other women.

01:30:51 That I do believe.

01:30:52 The other ones I don't really believe, because if you want babies, just wait for grandkids.

01:30:56 You can't say I miss babies so much when you've got a kid who's three.

01:30:59 She's just out of toddlerhood.

01:31:01 So I don't believe the "I just love babies."

01:31:04 I don't believe we need more help around the house when you are both home full time.

01:31:09 You've got an unschooled kid glued to a screen and a kid in school.

01:31:13 I don't believe that for a second.

01:31:15 I do believe that you want to have sex with another woman, which maybe comes out of the

01:31:21 porn addiction or maybe comes out of the fantasy that somehow a new woman is going to end up

01:31:26 different than the problems you have with your wife, which is not going to be the case

01:31:28 at all.

01:31:29 Because you're not looking for a woman, you're looking for kind of like a creep.

01:31:36 What kind of woman is going to be like, "Yeah, sounds great.

01:31:38 Knock me up.

01:31:39 I'll come live with you."

01:31:40 And with a resentful wife staring daggers at my back, there's no sane woman who's going

01:31:45 to want to get involved in this mess.

01:31:47 Do you understand that?

01:31:48 Yeah, well, you put it that way.

01:31:54 No!

01:31:55 You've had a year to think about this.

01:32:01 And you can't claim that I didn't know.

01:32:02 You must have thought this through.

01:32:04 You listen to a philosophy show.

01:32:05 You must think things through.

01:32:07 What kind of woman is going to want to get knocked up by you while you're going through

01:32:11 some bizarre divorce, maybe live with you and your wife?

01:32:16 And what kind of crazy woman would even want to get within a thousand miles of that scenario?

01:32:21 Like, what sane woman would want to get within a thousand miles of that scenario?

01:32:26 Is that a rhetorical question?

01:32:29 Well, I'm certainly happy to hear your theories.

01:32:33 I met a woman that I'm talking to now.

01:32:36 She lives in Africa and wants to get involved with this.

01:32:41 You're trolling me at this point, right?

01:32:48 Like you're just janked by Shane here.

01:32:49 No, come on.

01:32:50 Really.

01:32:51 He's not.

01:32:53 You want to bring over a woman from Africa to have your kids and live with your wife?

01:33:03 I don't think they'd be living together.

01:33:07 But that's what you want, right?

01:33:08 Yes, that's what I wanted.

01:33:12 And you would be willing to divorce your wife, shatter your family, split up in order to

01:33:18 have the African woman come and bear your children?

01:33:26 I feel the pressure on me right now and the judgment on me.

01:33:32 I'm sorry, I'm not sure what you're talking about.

01:33:36 That's what I wanted, Seth.

01:33:37 Yeah, that's what I want.

01:33:38 And that's what I've been excited about.

01:33:39 And do you think that there would be any – would she be a black woman?

01:33:42 Would there be any cultural or racial or religious or historical concerns that you might have

01:33:47 about bringing a woman halfway around the world to come live in the West and raise your

01:33:50 children?

01:33:57 I don't want her to raise the children I have now with my wife.

01:34:01 She would raise the children that we had together.

01:34:04 So your second family with the African woman would be great?

01:34:08 That's what you're looking for?

01:34:10 I don't know about – I think it would be good.

01:34:14 Yeah, I think it would be good.

01:34:16 That's what I wanted.

01:34:21 I mean, isn't this just kind of like, do you have a fetish for African women?

01:34:26 Again, I'm sort of trying to follow this.

01:34:30 I think that the African woman I found I am very attracted to, I don't have a fetish

01:34:37 for African women.

01:34:38 I was looking for someone who met my standards from around the world online.

01:34:45 I was online and I was looking and there was no one I could really find.

01:34:48 The only person I could find was someone –

01:34:51 And you would marry her and you would give her citizenship in your country.

01:34:55 Is that right?

01:34:56 Yeah.

01:34:58 So how on earth do you know whether she's legit or not?

01:35:01 I mean, you have Nigerian princes, African scams, she just might want citizenship.

01:35:07 I'm trying to sort of follow how on earth would you vet this woman from across the world?

01:35:13 I have a friend who wants to start a business over there in Zambia and I was going to travel

01:35:21 with him to Zambia.

01:35:22 He wanted to show me Africa and I was going to visit with her and meet her family and

01:35:27 meet her.

01:35:28 We've been talking online but I was going to meet her family to see what they were like,

01:35:34 just meet them.

01:35:35 I was going to meet them.

01:35:38 So I mean, this is serious.

01:35:39 You have a woman already scoped out that you want to travel and meet.

01:35:45 That's where I'm at currently, yeah.

01:35:46 But that's why this conversation is so important and this is why I appreciate this conversation

01:35:51 so much.

01:35:52 All right, let's end.

01:35:53 I'm sorry, I need to turn to your wife.

01:35:55 I just need a bit of fresh air.

01:35:56 Sorry, this is just really – it's kind of gross to me to be honest.

01:35:59 I think this is just repulsive.

01:36:01 But let's turn to – because I don't want to project my feelings onto this situation.

01:36:05 Let me turn to your wife.

01:36:06 I mean, my gosh, my friend, how on earth are you experiencing all of this?

01:36:14 I don't like it.

01:36:15 It's a point of contention every time he mentions her.

01:36:19 I've said that when –

01:36:22 No, no, this is all intellectual.

01:36:24 How is your heart?

01:36:25 I mean, this is the man you were pair-bonded with for the rest of your life, the love of

01:36:31 your life, who's talking about yoinking some black woman or African woman to start another

01:36:36 family with.

01:36:37 I mean, how is your heart doing with all of this?

01:36:40 Not very well.

01:36:41 Tell me a little bit more about your feelings.

01:36:45 I've pretty much been distraught since last December.

01:36:49 Sad, snippy, just stressed, all around stressed.

01:36:55 Yeah, tell me more.

01:36:57 There's got to be a lot.

01:36:59 It sounds like there's a lot of suffering bottled up in there, and I'm obviously – I'm

01:37:02 not happy to hear it, but I'm certainly willing to hear it.

01:37:06 It's just a lot of stress.

01:37:09 I can't make it go away without destroying my family.

01:37:14 So it's really the only reason I have cut out with this shit.

01:37:21 And I've tried to hide it from the kids as much as possible, but it's getting harder,

01:37:25 and I'm just – I'm ready to be done.

01:37:29 I am ready to be done.

01:37:34 I mean, how sad are you?

01:37:39 How hurt?

01:37:40 I can barely talk because I'm crying.

01:37:42 I don't really know how to articulate it.

01:37:48 I guess when he first told me, my very first initial reaction was, "My marriage is over.

01:37:54 The life that I know is just over.

01:37:58 My husband doesn't want me anymore.

01:38:00 He wants another wife.

01:38:01 What the hell did I do wrong?

01:38:03 I gave him three boys that he doesn't appreciate, and he doesn't really want – even though

01:38:08 he keeps saying he wants them, he doesn't.

01:38:13 We've had – I mean, everything you've said to him, I've said to him in one form

01:38:17 or another over the last, we'll say, two years.

01:38:20 I say, "Spend more time with your kids.

01:38:23 It's like, how are you not closer to them, like emotionally bonded to them?"

01:38:31 And every time I bring up examples of how and when you can make that emotional bonding

01:38:36 sense, he pushes back and makes excuses for why he doesn't do it.

01:38:40 It's really, really frustrating.

01:38:43 Listen, I appreciate that.

01:38:45 I don't want to interrupt, but I just still want to get a sense of how you're feeling

01:38:50 because it's very easy to slip into complaints about him, but I just want to know how you're

01:38:54 feeling.

01:38:55 I'm feeling angry, pissed off, hurt, betrayed.

01:39:01 I'm trying to think what else.

01:39:04 Heartbroken.

01:39:05 Scared.

01:39:06 Worried.

01:39:07 Anxious.

01:39:08 I don't know what's going to happen.

01:39:09 Helpless too, right?

01:39:10 So, kind of helplessness, right?

01:39:11 Like words don't count.

01:39:12 Pretty helpless.

01:39:13 Yeah, helpless that I can't stop it.

01:39:14 I can't make it go away and I can't convince him.

01:39:18 I can't change his mind.

01:39:21 I can't make it better.

01:39:22 I can't give him what he wants.

01:39:24 I can't condone what he's asking for because I don't want it.

01:39:29 So it's pretty trapped.

01:39:32 Right.

01:39:34 Were there any signs ahead of time, you said you dated for eight months before you got

01:39:40 married, were there any signs ahead of time that you thought things could come to this

01:39:46 kind of place?

01:39:47 Oh, God, no.

01:39:48 I mean, we had issues with like communication from the beginning.

01:39:56 I suppose while he was recounting his past, while you were asking him questions, looking

01:40:01 back, I suppose there were some red flags, like why didn't he have any really close friends?

01:40:08 And he was a bit of a loner when we were dating.

01:40:11 And most of the time when we hung out, we hung out with his brothers and his brother's

01:40:15 friends, but he never introduced, he introduced one person to me that was his friend, but

01:40:21 they weren't even really that close.

01:40:25 So it was, I mean, that should have been a bigger red flag, but I, at the time I didn't

01:40:29 know better.

01:40:30 But no, no, no, no, don't, didn't know better.

01:40:33 It's not, I can't give it to him and I can't give it to you.

01:40:35 You were a woman in her thirties, right?

01:40:38 Yeah.

01:40:39 Okay.

01:40:40 So you weren't like 17.

01:40:41 I guess I just ignored the red flag and just said, I have friends and I have, I had friends

01:40:47 and I had a life and I was fine with that.

01:40:50 I just didn't, what happened after we got married, I didn't expect.

01:40:55 Now what were the virtues that drew you to each other, the things that you admire about

01:41:01 each other?

01:41:02 If you can, I mean, I'm happy to hear you both on this.

01:41:04 Just curious.

01:41:05 For me, I was looking for someone that shared the ideals that I did about parenting, like,

01:41:14 you know, peaceful parenting, open to homeschooling, you know.

01:41:21 Was an honest person, someone we could say what was on our mind and just discuss things

01:41:30 and talk about things.

01:41:31 So those are the things that I was looking for at the time.

01:41:35 And to someone that was smart enough to kind of understand the things that I would want

01:41:40 to talk about.

01:41:41 So we were both programmers, so I was looking for just someone that not was into the same

01:41:47 things I was, but just at least understand what I was saying.

01:41:49 So, two of those things.

01:41:53 Okay.

01:41:54 And for your wife?

01:41:56 So for me, he was honest.

01:42:03 The way he sort of viewed the world was a little bit refreshing considering my mom and

01:42:10 where I came from from that, where there wasn't a whole bunch of honesty and I sort of got

01:42:17 a little more than I asked for, but I enjoyed it.

01:42:24 I mean, I remember enjoying his company and we had good times.

01:42:27 We were hanging out and just talking about different things and he was honest, open.

01:42:32 He didn't have any, like, was it doing drugs or didn't smoke.

01:42:38 He didn't have a previous wife and he didn't have kids by anybody else.

01:42:41 So those met the standards for what I was looking for.

01:42:44 Like it hit the deal breakers I had.

01:42:46 He passed the deal breakers that I had.

01:42:48 Well, I mean, not doing drugs or having kids is not a very high bar.

01:42:53 Maybe it is where you're from, I guess in your thirties or whatever, but it's not a

01:42:56 hugely high bar.

01:42:57 Well, I mean, well, we got along and like he seemed to take care of himself.

01:43:07 When you said you met my family, it helped a lot too.

01:43:09 When I met his family, his behavior, or he acted a little differently.

01:43:18 Like he was a little more relaxed and open and just more comfortable.

01:43:24 I don't know.

01:43:25 The family that glued him to screens for 20 hours a week for half his childhood.

01:43:31 I guess so.

01:43:32 Yeah.

01:43:33 Like met his mom and I got to meet his brothers and just seeing how he interacted with them.

01:43:39 It was sort of like another, it opened up like another level of side of him.

01:43:44 Okay.

01:43:45 And when did you first, when would you say, I mean, you know, marriages have disagreements

01:43:50 from time to time, but when did you guys first begin to really have concerns about the marriage?

01:43:54 Was it a year ago or before then?

01:44:01 The first one time I noticed it was probably about a year ago.

01:44:04 As far as divorce goes, I mean, we had like little things we disagreed on, like maybe

01:44:11 food-ish food things we talked about.

01:44:13 Yeah, there's food fights at the house.

01:44:15 We have-

01:44:16 I'm sorry, food fights?

01:44:17 That actually sounds fun.

01:44:20 No, we have disagreements about food because I think that he's very extremist in how he

01:44:30 approaches food and he wanted to do that with the children.

01:44:33 I didn't think that was healthy and I wanted to set boundaries and say, yes, you can have

01:44:39 a little of this, but no, you can't have the entire loaf of bread in one sitting.

01:44:44 And when we have it in the house or he was with them by themselves, if the kids wanted

01:44:47 to eat the entire bag, the husband would let him, let the kids eat the entire bag of bread.

01:44:54 And as a rebuttal to me, he said, "Well, just don't have it in the house."

01:45:00 So is it fair to say that you very much disagree in terms of parenting styles or parenting

01:45:07 approaches?

01:45:10 We mostly agree, but we disagree very strongly on some-

01:45:15 And so is it fair to say that you would let your kids eat an entire loaf of bread?

01:45:22 I think I had, yeah.

01:45:24 I did on a couple of occasions, I think.

01:45:27 I don't know if they ate the whole loaf of bread, but I let them have as much as they

01:45:33 wanted.

01:45:34 Yeah.

01:45:35 And what's your theory behind that?

01:45:40 Theory?

01:45:44 I think I was angry that I had to police the food in the house and I just fed up and I

01:45:54 didn't want to fight with them over the bread in the house at the time.

01:45:57 Yeah.

01:45:58 Sorry, what do you mean by fight with them?

01:46:00 I mean, you're the parent, right?

01:46:03 I didn't want them to be getting upset and yeah, you're right.

01:46:08 I could have taken the bread and-

01:46:09 You don't want them to be upset.

01:46:11 I mean, you're literally breaking your wife's heart into a million pieces, but you're highly

01:46:14 sensitive about people fucking fighting you upsetting.

01:46:20 I'm not quite getting this.

01:46:24 Would it make sense if I said I was upset with my wife that she had the bread in the

01:46:31 first place and I was trying to get back at her?

01:46:34 Oh, so you were in a sense harming your children because you were angry at your wife?

01:46:42 In a sense, yeah.

01:46:43 Does that seem normal to you?

01:46:46 Does that seem okay?

01:46:48 That the children should have a whole loaf of bread, which is not particularly good for

01:46:52 them to put it mildly, because you're angry at your wife?

01:46:55 I didn't want the bread in the house in the first place.

01:46:58 I didn't want the bread in there at all and it was there.

01:47:01 I didn't want it there.

01:47:02 I didn't want the bread in the house.

01:47:03 So?

01:47:04 She brought the bread in.

01:47:05 So what?

01:47:06 Sorry, so what?

01:47:07 So you just get your way and fuck everyone else?

01:47:10 No, I didn't get my way.

01:47:13 I didn't get my way at all.

01:47:14 No, no, no.

01:47:15 So she wants bread in the house, so what?

01:47:17 I don't want the bread in the house.

01:47:18 So what?

01:47:19 You're married.

01:47:20 You compromise.

01:47:21 No, you're married.

01:47:22 You compromise.

01:47:23 I don't understand.

01:47:24 I don't want bread in the house.

01:47:25 Then stay single.

01:47:27 And after that, we did talk about that and we did come to a compromise that we put the

01:47:31 bread somewhere they couldn't get it.

01:47:33 No, the compromise is that he does not feed the kids.

01:47:39 I take care of all of their feeding and all of their food all day long.

01:47:44 He doesn't feed them anything that he doesn't deem appropriate for their health.

01:47:50 So if the kids want a loaf of bread or a piece of or something that he doesn't approve of,

01:47:56 he said, I'm not giving that to you.

01:47:58 Go ask your mom.

01:48:00 Okay, like, I don't, this is unbelievably childish.

01:48:04 Like, what do you mean?

01:48:07 You have to go and ask your mom because I won't give it to you, but she will?

01:48:10 Yes, pretty much, because I don't condone you eating this.

01:48:14 I'm not going to feed it to you.

01:48:15 So if you want it, go get your mom.

01:48:19 Is what it's come down to.

01:48:21 And this is back to your husband.

01:48:23 Does that seem like good, good, reasonable parenting and partnership?

01:48:30 Well, I am unsure.

01:48:36 I want them to eat the other foods that are good for them.

01:48:39 I'm encouraging them to try to eat the other foods.

01:48:41 I'm sorry, didn't you just let them have a whole loaf of bread at one point?

01:48:44 What do you mean?

01:48:45 I'm sorry, I don't understand.

01:48:46 Only eat the foods that are good for you.

01:48:47 Here's a whole loaf of bread.

01:48:49 I didn't want the bread in the house at all.

01:48:51 No, no, sorry.

01:48:52 You let them eat, hang on, you let them eat a whole loaf of bread.

01:48:55 I don't give a shit about your motivations, brother.

01:48:57 I don't care.

01:48:58 I don't care.

01:48:59 You let them eat a whole loaf of bread, and then you say, well, I only want them to eat

01:49:02 healthy stuff.

01:49:08 They eat a lot of bread, as they eat a lot of bread with Melanie when she's around.

01:49:12 They eat a lot of bread with Melanie when they're around as well.

01:49:14 They eat a lot of bread with what?

01:49:19 They eat a lot of bread when they're with the wife as well.

01:49:22 They eat a lot of bread when they're with the wife, but I didn't agree with either.

01:49:28 You think that the children shouldn't eat bread, is that right?

01:49:32 Not as much as they're given.

01:49:33 I don't think they should have much bread, no.

01:49:35 I don't think they should have a lot of bread.

01:49:36 He thinks they should have bread like once a month.

01:49:41 Okay, so they shouldn't have bread too often, and how many hours a day is your eldest on

01:49:47 screens of some kind or another?

01:49:49 Well, he's on a lot.

01:49:54 He's almost on a lot.

01:49:56 I don't know how much screen time is appropriate.

01:49:58 No, no, I didn't ask how much screen time is appropriate, and I didn't ask for the answer

01:50:02 of a lot.

01:50:03 You're his parents, you're home, so you can monitor this.

01:50:07 Plus, he has screen monitoring on his tablet, his phone, or whatever, right?

01:50:12 And his notebook.

01:50:14 How many hours a day is your 10-year-old on screens, including watching movies or TV?

01:50:20 How many hours a day is your kid on screens?

01:50:23 Probably seven or eight hours a day, I'd say, in one form or another.

01:50:28 My gosh, man.

01:50:30 What are you doing?

01:50:31 You're concerned about how much bread they eat, and your kid's on screens for seven to

01:50:41 eight hours a day?

01:50:45 What are you doing?

01:50:49 I don't know how much is appropriate.

01:50:51 Your lack of knowledge is completely immaterial, because your kid's 10.

01:50:56 Have you looked it up?

01:50:57 Have you talked to experts?

01:50:58 Have you done any research?

01:50:59 Yes, I have.

01:51:00 Okay, so then you know.

01:51:03 I know something.

01:51:04 Is seven to eight hours a screen time appropriate for a 10-year-old?

01:51:11 You've done the research, right?

01:51:15 Is there any expert who says, "Oh yeah, eight hours a screen time a day for a 10-year-old

01:51:19 is just about right"?

01:51:21 The experts say, "No, I agree with you on that."

01:51:23 Okay, so don't tell me you don't know what's appropriate when you've looked it up and you

01:51:27 know.

01:51:28 You're lying to me.

01:51:29 I mean, I'm really getting sick of it.

01:51:31 If you want to have a conversation with me, stop lying.

01:51:37 I won't put up with it.

01:51:38 I won't have the conversation.

01:51:40 I won't.

01:51:42 Because if you tell me I don't know what's appropriate, which you've said a number of

01:51:44 times over the course of this conversation, and it turns out you have looked it up, then

01:51:48 you're lying to me.

01:51:52 I will agree with you.

01:51:53 I agree that the experts say maybe one hour a screen time is good.

01:51:57 Did you lie to me?

01:52:00 Did you claim to not know something that you actually had in fact studied?

01:52:04 Okay, I'm going to try to tell you.

01:52:09 No, this is a yes/no question.

01:52:12 Your wife, okay, let me switch to your wife because this is like bullshit, Farkbank.

01:52:17 Did he not say to me he didn't know how much screen time was appropriate for children?

01:52:21 He did say that.

01:52:22 He did say that, like literally 90 seconds ago, right?

01:52:26 And then when I pressed him on it and said, "Well, you should have researched it," he

01:52:30 said, "Oh, no, I did," and it's like one hour.

01:52:35 So I just want to know if we have any reality in this conversation at all.

01:52:39 Did you lie to me about not knowing, and I'm not trying to bust your balls or anything,

01:52:44 I just want to know if there's any honesty here, right?

01:52:47 Did you lie to me about not knowing how much screen time is appropriate for a 10-year-old?

01:52:51 Okay.

01:53:05 For this child, I would say—

01:53:09 This is a yes or no question.

01:53:10 I don't want any more fogging or gaslighting or any of that nonsense, and you can drop

01:53:13 off the conversation.

01:53:14 I can just talk to your wife if you want, but you need to be honest with me.

01:53:17 Did you lie to me about not knowing how much screen time is appropriate for a 10-year-old?

01:53:23 No, I did not lie to you.

01:53:25 Okay, then I'm done talking with you because your wife heard you say it, I heard you say

01:53:29 it, and you're just denying reality.

01:53:30 Like I can't have a conversation with somebody who denies reality.

01:53:33 So if you want to drop off, that's fine.

01:53:35 If you want to leave the room, that's fine, but I do need to talk to your wife a bit.

01:53:39 Go ahead.

01:53:40 All right.

01:53:41 So my dear, I'm so sorry about all of this.

01:53:44 This is a real mess.

01:53:45 This is a real mess.

01:53:49 And I'm extraordinarily sorry for what's going on with the kids.

01:53:55 Thank you.

01:53:56 Well, you know, I mean, you chose the guy, and you also chose to date him, get engaged,

01:54:02 get married, have kids, try to have more kids.

01:54:04 So I mean, it's not all him, obviously.

01:54:07 You know that.

01:54:08 I don't need to tell you that.

01:54:10 But yeah, this is a real mess.

01:54:16 I don't think that he's going to hold to his vows.

01:54:20 I mean, to me, the vows are kind of simple, right?

01:54:23 And the reason we make them is so that it simplifies the rest of our life, right?

01:54:28 So and the vows are the foundation of the marriage.

01:54:33 And if the vows aren't maintained, the marriage was obtained through, if the vows aren't maintained,

01:54:39 the marriage was obtained in a sense through fraud, right?

01:54:42 That's why I asked earlier if he'd have said, "Well, I want to go and get an African woman

01:54:45 to come and have children."

01:54:46 If you have fertility issues at the age of 43 or 44, you wouldn't have married him.

01:54:51 And so because he said that he wasn't going to do that, maybe his own vows just kind of

01:54:56 pass by like clouds in the sky, and you don't really remember them the next day.

01:55:00 But to me, I mean, maybe to you as well, the vows were, I mean, they're very serious.

01:55:06 That's the foundation.

01:55:07 Like to take a silly example, if you get a free cell phone because you agree to pay

01:55:14 a cell phone plan for two years, and then you just don't pay the cell phone plan, you've

01:55:18 kind of stolen the phone, right?

01:55:21 And so if he's not going to honor his vows, if the vows are kind of meaningless to him,

01:55:29 then I mean, obviously, it's a horrible situation for everyone involved.

01:55:32 It's particularly terrible for the children.

01:55:34 And I don't, you know, how destructive is it for children to see a father who doesn't

01:55:40 keep his word in the most essential relationship of his life, and just wants to do his own

01:55:45 thing regardless of how much it harms other people?

01:55:49 That's pretty toxic, I would imagine.

01:55:51 I mean, you're in the household.

01:55:53 That's pretty toxic as far as I can see.

01:55:57 I agree.

01:56:03 I feel kind of stuck because I'm not quite sure which way to step.

01:56:08 Yeah, and of course, I don't know, obviously, what you should do.

01:56:16 Is he, does he generally, like, does he generally have an issue with not admitting that he did

01:56:23 something wrong?

01:56:25 Yeah, kinda.

01:56:28 It seems a little bit like, I was mad at my wife, so I let my kids eat a whole loaf

01:56:32 of bread.

01:56:33 That's not great.

01:56:35 And he just, the excuses, right?

01:56:37 And you know, like, he kind of snowed me a little bit earlier there.

01:56:39 And it's not the end of the world.

01:56:41 Like, I'm not like, "Oh my gosh, you told a fib.

01:56:43 That's the end of the world."

01:56:44 It's just like, "Okay, can we at least admit that you told something, that you lied?"

01:56:47 And you know, some people I've confronted that on, and they're like, "Yeah, you know,

01:56:52 sorry.

01:56:53 That was not great."

01:56:54 And I'm like, "Yeah, that wasn't great, but let's commit to being more honest going forward.

01:56:56 It's not the end of the world, right?"

01:56:59 Do you have any insights as to what might have happened in his childhood or in his family

01:57:02 to have him come out to some degree this way?

01:57:05 I've been thinking a lot about that lately.

01:57:09 As I've been sort of watching, his parents came over recently to visit, and watching

01:57:14 their interactions, I think it's the whole inner child wounding thing, where his needs

01:57:22 as a child weren't addressed and given any validation.

01:57:27 And so now that he's the adult having to honor and validate his own needs, it's being taken

01:57:32 to the extreme, like to the point where he won't let it...

01:57:36 He wants this, and he's fixated on it, and he won't let it go.

01:57:41 Even though he's been told by everyone over and over again how much it's going to...

01:57:45 It's basically destroying our family, because I'm not going to...

01:57:50 Like when I first said, "I don't want this, and I'm going to...

01:57:55 I want a divorce," he's like, "Oh, so you're going to destroy our family."

01:57:58 Right.

01:57:59 I mean, that's what I sort of got, not taking responsibility for personal choices.

01:58:05 Yeah.

01:58:06 And so basically putting it on me and stating it that way, and it's like, "Well, yes, I'm

01:58:12 going to be the one acting and pushing for the divorce, but it's because of this choice

01:58:20 that you are making as the natural consequence, because that's not what I want, and that's

01:58:24 not what we agreed to."

01:58:25 Yeah, like if a guy breaks into your house and you have to shoot him because he's coming

01:58:29 at you with an ax, I mean, did...

01:58:31 Well, you just shot him.

01:58:33 You know, "Hey, man."

01:58:34 It's like, "No, no, no.

01:58:35 He threatened me, and I had to defend myself."

01:58:37 And I mean, that's why you don't get charged, right?

01:58:40 Yeah.

01:58:41 It's a consequence to this action.

01:58:43 It's like you asked about when did I start thinking that there were problems in the marriage.

01:58:48 It probably was years ago because we were having communication issues, but because we

01:58:51 were married and we were together and I didn't want to break up the family, I didn't push

01:58:57 it.

01:58:58 I wasn't seeking divorce.

01:58:59 I was looking for ways, "How do I manage this?

01:59:00 How do I work?

01:59:01 How do I communicate better?

01:59:02 Maybe we should get a therapist and start working on these things."

01:59:05 I was not willing to go down the divorce route, but when he said, "I want to have children

01:59:12 with another woman," and he was moving forward without me, he broke us.

01:59:20 We were no longer an us, and that's what really hurt a lot.

01:59:27 And so...

01:59:28 Well, it's pretty odd.

01:59:29 Sorry to interrupt, but it's also...

01:59:30 I mean, it's a bit odd to me that he's very much like, "Well, I just want kids.

01:59:36 I want kids.

01:59:37 I want kids."

01:59:38 It's like, you know, you have them, and they're spending all day on the screen.

01:59:40 I know.

01:59:41 It seems odd to me.

01:59:42 I try to tell him, and I don't seem to be getting through to him.

01:59:47 No, I think it's about the same, honestly.

01:59:49 I don't know.

01:59:50 He gets sex a couple times a week.

01:59:56 I don't understand why the sex would be such an issue.

02:00:00 I think it's more about feeding his ego.

02:00:02 I think it's feeding his ego.

02:00:04 I can do this, therefore I want to do this because I can.

02:00:09 I want to show off and be special and different and brilliant, and I want to shine and be

02:00:13 outstanding and this will make me more than ordinary.

02:00:16 This will make me extraordinary because nobody does this.

02:00:19 Well, I mean, you could say the same thing about serial killing, not that I'm putting

02:00:24 them in the same, but people talk about that too, but more and more from a state of wonder.

02:00:29 And I was able to get him to see, I guess, a little bit that it was kind of...

02:00:34 I don't know.

02:00:35 Is he still in the room?

02:00:36 I don't know if he is or not, and that's fine either way.

02:00:37 Oh, he's still here.

02:00:38 Okay.

02:00:39 So when he did sort of get a sense of the ghastliness of his position when I said, you

02:00:43 know, how do you think an outsider...

02:00:46 Has he ever had that sense of the ghastliness of the position or the destructiveness of

02:00:51 his wanting to bring in the Zambian concubine?

02:00:54 I can't believe the sentences I say on the show.

02:00:59 But has he had any sort of flashes of, you know, maybe this isn't like...

02:01:04 Or is it just like, well, this is natural, normal, this is how it should be, and there's

02:01:08 no problem with it?

02:01:11 There's only been one time.

02:01:12 It was recently.

02:01:13 It was when I told him that I was actively searching for a psychologist for the children

02:01:20 to get them in therapy and have them comfortable with a therapist before we dropped the bomb

02:01:25 of, "Oh, we're getting divorced."

02:01:27 I want them to have that comfort level and cushion and someone to talk to outside of

02:01:32 us, because, you know, it's going to be hard.

02:01:35 And I don't want them to internalize whatever's happening with us.

02:01:38 It's not their fault.

02:01:39 It's him and me, not them.

02:01:41 So...

02:01:42 Okay.

02:01:43 Sorry, go ahead.

02:01:44 When I told him that I was going to have a therapist for what we're about to put them

02:01:48 through, he was sick and nauseous.

02:01:52 He said he was disgusted and nauseous, and he called himself a jackass about it.

02:01:58 And he's like, "I've been a jackass."

02:01:59 And I was like, "Oh."

02:02:00 And I thought like, "Oh, this is a light at the end of the tunnel.

02:02:04 Maybe he's going to stop doing this."

02:02:05 And then the next day, he was apparently over it and was like, "I'm still going to go through

02:02:09 with it."

02:02:10 Like, I just...

02:02:12 I don't see how those things are reconciling.

02:02:16 Do you get a sense that, you know, like there's this sort of kind of, I guess, half a cliche,

02:02:24 like some guy wants to get fired, but he wants to leave his job, but he doesn't want to quit,

02:02:28 or so he just acts badly until he gets fired.

02:02:30 I mean, do you think this is all just step-by-step out of the marriage stuff?

02:02:34 I think...

02:02:35 Let me make sure I'm understanding your question.

02:02:38 I think you're trying to ask me, is he just bored in the marriage and he just wants out?

02:02:41 Well, I don't know about bored or whatever, but I mean, like I can't imagine any woman

02:02:47 with any self-respect finding this arrangement to be satisfactory.

02:02:51 So if you make impossible requirements for people, then maybe you can blame them for

02:03:00 the relationship not working out, and maybe you don't blame yourself or something like

02:03:03 that.

02:03:04 But I mean, making impossible requirements, like I want my Zambian concubine for new kids

02:03:10 is not a sustainable marriage position, so maybe it's just a way of leaving the marriage

02:03:15 without feeling like it's his choice?

02:03:19 I have no idea.

02:03:20 I honestly don't know.

02:03:22 I don't know stuff.

02:03:24 For all intents and purposes, I think before this, he was really happy.

02:03:31 I thought we were happy, and then he wanted more kids, and when I said, "Well, aren't

02:03:35 you happy with your kids?"

02:03:36 I'm like, "I'm so happy I want more kids."

02:03:38 So I'm like, "Okay."

02:03:40 Yeah, but it's hard to...

02:03:42 Again, that wouldn't be 10 hours a day on screens, right?

02:03:45 I agree.

02:03:46 I don't understand.

02:03:47 I'm so sorry.

02:03:48 You go ahead.

02:03:49 I'm just wondering if he's just trying to create the community that he'd always been

02:04:00 seeking since he was younger through having children and breeding them.

02:04:04 Oh, no, no, no.

02:04:06 He's destroying his community.

02:04:07 Yeah, for sure.

02:04:08 For sure.

02:04:09 I mean, if he gets everything he wants, he's going to get taken for a ride by some Zambian

02:04:15 queen, and he's going to end up with nothing, and it's going to be a disaster, and he'll

02:04:19 look back.

02:04:20 It's almost like if I was sort of...

02:04:23 It's almost like the devil is just like, "Oh, no.

02:04:25 Over here is bliss," and then you get there, and it's a complete mirage, and it's a fall

02:04:29 to nowhere, right?

02:04:31 Yeah.

02:04:32 I'm sorry.

02:04:34 If there's more that you want to add, I don't want to eclipse your thoughts.

02:04:40 I don't remember where I was going with that.

02:04:45 Yeah.

02:04:46 I mean, the challenge is...

02:04:48 You can't grow empathy in someone, and I sort of think if I did something that was just

02:04:56 agonizing to my wife, it would just...

02:04:59 It would not even be a thing.

02:05:01 Right?

02:05:02 I think he's...

02:05:03 Like, my wife's a vegetarian.

02:05:05 I don't even want to go to a steak restaurant, because what's she going to eat?

02:05:11 A baked potato and a salad, as always, right?

02:05:13 So I'm like, "Okay.

02:05:14 Well, what can we eat where there's going to be something for both of us?"

02:05:16 Right?

02:05:17 Now, occasionally, we'll go to a vegetarian restaurant.

02:05:19 That's fine, and occasionally, we'll go to a steak restaurant, because we both want each

02:05:22 other to be happy, but that sort of constant overlapping, like the Venn diagram, that your

02:05:26 happiness is my happiness, and to hurt you is to hurt myself, which I think is really

02:05:30 the foundation of negotiation.

02:05:33 I don't think we've done that.

02:05:35 I don't think you kind of got there, if that makes sense.

02:05:38 No.

02:05:39 I think it's more of, "This is me.

02:05:42 This is you."

02:05:45 And up until now, what he wanted and what I wanted, they could go hand in hand pretty

02:05:50 peaceably until this, and it's not going to go hand in hand, because what he wants is

02:05:58 kind of stepping on what I want.

02:06:00 Well, no, it's not stepping up.

02:06:02 It's detonating.

02:06:03 Yeah.

02:06:04 Right.

02:06:05 Blowing it up.

02:06:06 Well, and the kids lose their stability.

02:06:09 They lose their continuity.

02:06:10 They lose the family.

02:06:12 The family is destroyed, right?

02:06:15 Yeah.

02:06:16 Well, he seems to think even with the divorce, I don't even know how to navigate that, because

02:06:22 he still wants to see his kids every day.

02:06:27 But isn't he not seeing them as much as it is?

02:06:30 No, that's the thing, though.

02:06:31 He's here in body and presence, but I think sort of minded emotionally, since he's not

02:06:37 making that connection with them.

02:06:41 Even though I try to tell him that, he gives me excuses and tells me, "What do you mean?"

02:06:45 But from my perspective and what I see and what I feel is that with the exception of

02:06:52 the three-year-old, who, you know, he's three, the two older ones, they're, it's more of,

02:07:03 I mean, they call him by his name more than da-da.

02:07:06 I mean, what does that say?

02:07:10 And what percentage of love remains within your heart for him?

02:07:14 That's a hard one.

02:07:17 I mean, I care about him and I like him and I want him to be happy, but I don't want to

02:07:24 blow up my own happiness or my own life for him to be happy either.

02:07:28 So to answer your question, not sure.

02:07:35 I don't know how to give it a number right now.

02:07:38 Okay.

02:07:39 I mean, it may be something to meditate on.

02:07:44 And when was the last time that you guys would say that you were sort of truly and consistently

02:07:47 happy?

02:08:00 How long is consistently?

02:08:02 How would you gauge consistently?

02:08:04 So consistently would be, you know, at least a couple of months without any significant

02:08:09 conflicts.

02:08:10 I mean, a couple of disagreements here and there, but, you know, at least sort of four

02:08:13 to six months without any major conflicts.

02:08:17 I don't know.

02:08:18 This discussion has been going on for at least, has been reminding me at least two years because

02:08:24 the first time you and I talked stuff was August 2021 when I was having parenting issues

02:08:29 with my three-year-old, then three-year-old and one-year-old.

02:08:33 So we were having some of these issues then, it just wasn't as much so before that.

02:08:41 So more than two years ago.

02:08:43 Right.

02:08:44 Okay.

02:08:45 And do you have any thoughts about your own history and anything that may have contributed

02:08:54 to some sort of dominoes of not seeing things or understanding things that might have put

02:09:01 you in this vicinity of this issue?

02:09:05 Probably.

02:09:07 Yeah, definitely.

02:09:12 I think the, as you say, the lack of empathy, I grew up with a lack of empathy.

02:09:19 And so I didn't see that familiarity as something I was drawn to.

02:09:28 I didn't see the pattern.

02:09:29 I didn't see the repeating pattern when I needed to.

02:09:31 I see it now, but I didn't see it.

02:09:33 Oh, so like somebody where your happiness is their happiness and you sort of mutually

02:09:37 work to mutual benefit, that was not something that you were well-versed in, is that right?

02:09:43 No, I was well-versed in emotional neglect and not having emotional connection with somebody.

02:09:49 So when I got emotional breadcrumbs from the husband, before he was the husband and throughout

02:09:56 our marriage, it was enough because that was familiar.

02:10:01 But then as I healed and I grew and we can matured and overcame those childhood traumas

02:10:08 or work through them, I wouldn't say healed them, but work through them, the emotional

02:10:13 breadcrumbs became not enough.

02:10:18 And so now I'm like, I don't know.

02:10:20 I don't even know if this is even what I want anymore.

02:10:23 Even if he decided to change his mind after this call, I still don't know if that's enough

02:10:28 to make him stay.

02:10:31 Right.

02:10:33 Yeah.

02:10:35 And I mean, this is another question about sort of basically telling the truth is that

02:10:38 if he's not able to admit he's made a mistake in a conversation and lied like within 90

02:10:44 seconds, how is he going to go back two years and say I was wrong?

02:10:47 Right.

02:10:48 Like if you can't admit that you're wrong in the small things, it's almost, I mean, it's

02:10:51 like saying I can't lift 10 pounds, but I can lift 200 pounds.

02:10:55 Yeah.

02:10:56 I see what you're saying.

02:11:00 Boy, that must be, must have been quite a therapy session with the counselor.

02:11:06 Well, mostly the therapy, the couple's therapy is about communicating better and trying to

02:11:20 learn how to communicate better so we can be better co-parents.

02:11:24 I'm sorry, does the marriage counselor not know that he wants to bring in the Zambian

02:11:28 concubine princess to bear more children?

02:11:32 He knows, but we found one that sort of, how do you put it?

02:11:39 They're more open to the alternative lifestyles.

02:11:41 Okay.

02:11:42 Well, yeah, and it could also be, it does sometimes happen in a relationship when one

02:11:46 person grows, the other person either grows with them or they usually don't stay the same.

02:11:50 Like if one person grows, the other person can regress.

02:11:54 Yeah.

02:11:56 Yeah.

02:11:57 I mean, I wish, I don't know if he's still around, but I wish your husband had been willing

02:12:03 to maintain himself with the conversation because there's not really much to be done

02:12:09 without the participation of both of you, at least for me, other than for me to say

02:12:12 like I'm incredibly sorry for this situation.

02:12:15 And if your husband does ever listen to this, I'll say that you won't be happy putting your

02:12:22 own needs first.

02:12:24 It will make you absolutely miserable.

02:12:26 Maybe you've got this barrage that it's going to make you happy, but if you want to put

02:12:31 your own needs first, you need to stay single.

02:12:33 If you get married and you make vows and then you have children, and that's an implicit

02:12:39 promise based upon your marital vows, if you promise to serve people and then destroy them

02:12:47 through selfishness, it will wreck your soul.

02:12:52 Like it literally produces hell on earth.

02:12:54 I mean, it already is producing hell on earth, but it's going to get worse.

02:12:58 And there's sort of a brief mirage of how I'm going to get all my needs met and I'm

02:13:02 finally going to be satisfied and happy.

02:13:04 And it's like, no, because you've now betrayed your wife and children and you've betrayed

02:13:07 your marriage vows and you've hurt the innocent, right?

02:13:10 Your wife is not innocent and neither are you, neither am I, if there's any consolation

02:13:13 to that, because we're all adults.

02:13:15 You guys chose each other.

02:13:16 The children did not choose you.

02:13:21 The children did not choose to be born.

02:13:22 The children did not choose the marriage that they happen to live in.

02:13:26 And so you owe them everything.

02:13:29 And this is to your husband.

02:13:31 I mean, you did say very clearly, as I recall, that it would be bad for your children to

02:13:40 break up the marriage and for you to have another woman and have children with her and

02:13:47 all that kind of stuff.

02:13:49 And if it's bad for your children, it's off the table.

02:13:55 You know, like if we need money, we don't sit there and say, "Well, I guess I could

02:13:58 just go and rob a convenience store or a bank or something."

02:14:01 Right?

02:14:02 I mean, we do this, this, that, borrow or beg or earn.

02:14:06 I'm not going to steal the money that I need, right?

02:14:08 I mean, if I'm angry at someone, it's not like, "Oh, I'm going to go let the air out

02:14:12 of their tie."

02:14:13 Like, so we have things that are just off the table for us.

02:14:15 And that's really the basis of civilization and morality is to just have things that we

02:14:21 simply will not do.

02:14:23 Like that's just not an option.

02:14:25 Like obviously, you know, you want other kids.

02:14:27 You're not going to go become a rapist, right?

02:14:29 Because that's just deeply immoral.

02:14:31 And so that's off the table.

02:14:32 That's just not something that you will do.

02:14:34 And harming your children, if you want to have any chance of happiness, really, harming

02:14:41 your children has to be completely off the table.

02:14:44 Like doing that which harms your children has to be completely off the table.

02:14:48 Letting yourself be mad enough at your wife that you let them eat an unhealthy amount

02:14:51 of bread, it's just off the table.

02:14:53 Like, "No, I'm not going to.

02:14:54 I could be mad at my wife, but I'm not going to let my children be harmed because of that."

02:14:59 And so if you want a happy life, given the life that you've chosen, nobody forced you

02:15:03 to get married, nobody forced you to become a father or a mother.

02:15:06 If you want a happy life, you just orient yourself around, "Okay, well, what's best

02:15:11 for my children?

02:15:12 Is it best for my children that the marriage get broken up and I pursue some Zambian concubine?

02:15:16 No, that's not best for my children."

02:15:19 So it's off the table, the same way that robbing a bank is off the table if you need money.

02:15:22 It's just not something I'm going to do, right?

02:15:24 It's just no.

02:15:26 And if you say no to yourself, and it's just not on the table, then life just becomes so

02:15:32 much easier.

02:15:33 But if you kind of put this ragged edge of, "Well, maybe, and I just got to figure it

02:15:36 out, and it's a possibility," then you drive yourself kind of crazy.

02:15:40 You know, you should read Crime and Punishment if you haven't already, but the guy who ends

02:15:45 up becoming a murderer is just constantly toying with the idea.

02:15:48 He doesn't say, "This is not on the table.

02:15:50 I'm not doing this.

02:15:51 Whatever I'm doing, I'm not doing that."

02:15:54 And so, you know, if you're lonely and single, you don't just go kidnap someone, right?

02:15:59 That's just not on the table.

02:16:01 And so if you just have things where you say, "Okay, well, my children didn't choose to

02:16:04 be here, so I have to do what's best for them.

02:16:06 I chose to have children.

02:16:07 I chose to become a father, and so I have to do what's best for my children."

02:16:12 It's not best for your children that your son spend 10 hours a day on screens, of course.

02:16:17 And I don't know what your kid is learning in school, but it's probably worth reviewing

02:16:21 that curriculum and see if that's good for your child.

02:16:24 Just you get up in the morning and say, "Okay, well, I chose to become a parent, so for the

02:16:28 next 20 years, I navigate my life by what's best for my children."

02:16:33 And anything that contradicts that, it's just not a thing.

02:16:38 Anything that contradicts what's best for your children, I mean, that's just not a thing,

02:16:42 because that's a responsibility that you voluntarily took on.

02:16:45 And you're trying to have this life where you get what you want and it's like your children

02:16:50 don't exist, but they do.

02:16:53 They do exist, and you did choose to have them, and you chose to have three of them.

02:16:57 So you owe them time, attention, nurturing, care, protection, education, instruction,

02:17:01 particularly moral instruction, which is going to be pretty tough to morally instruct your

02:17:05 children if you're breaking your marriage vows and chasing after some foreign womb.

02:17:11 So yeah, if you just wake up in the morning and just—this is like a demonic possession.

02:17:16 Bad ideas have gone in through your nose, like you sniffed the wrong fire or something.

02:17:21 Bad ideas have gone into your nose.

02:17:23 This idea that it's worth busting up your family to get some sort of rented womb from

02:17:29 Africa, that's just a bad idea.

02:17:33 For some reason, it got past your common sense.

02:17:36 You guys listen to this show, so I assume that you have good common sense.

02:17:39 And it happens to all of us.

02:17:41 It happens to all of us.

02:17:42 We just get bad ideas that just get past our common sense, and that's where we need discipline,

02:17:47 particularly moral discipline, which is, "Okay, shake your head off.

02:17:50 I got to reorient myself.

02:17:51 Okay, what are my values?

02:17:53 Okay, well, I promised to love and be monogamous with my wife, so I should do that.

02:17:58 I obviously have to be good to my children and do what's best for them because I chose

02:18:01 to have children, and that's the deal."

02:18:03 And if you don't want to, then you give up your children to someone who will, right?

02:18:07 So if you keep your children around, then you have to do what's best for them because

02:18:09 they're not there by choice, and you chose to create them, and they're dependent upon

02:18:13 you for everything.

02:18:15 So with all due sympathy, and I really do have sympathy for this, there's something

02:18:22 devilish in your head that is drawing you down a very bad path, a very, very, very bad

02:18:29 path.

02:18:32 And for some reason, which I'm sure therapy or self-knowledge or something, and if you

02:18:37 want to have a more honest conversation in terms of like, you can always email me, call

02:18:41 in at freedomain.com, we can talk about how this bad idea, really terrible idea, might

02:18:46 have gotten past your defenses.

02:18:48 But it has, and it's kind of taken up root, like an addiction.

02:18:52 It's kind of taken up, let's say living rent-free in your head is sort of this old cliche.

02:18:57 So you've had a really bad idea, and it popped into your head, and it got past your common

02:19:03 sense and it got past your defenses, and it's laying waste to your entire life, if you let

02:19:08 it.

02:19:09 It's laying waste to your life.

02:19:12 And maybe you didn't get what you wanted when you were younger, and you didn't learn how

02:19:16 to negotiate or weren't taught how to negotiate that way, and so you're like, "Well, I'm going

02:19:20 to get what I want now!"

02:19:21 And that's not a good thing, because it's never about what you want when you become

02:19:28 a husband and a father.

02:19:29 It's about what's best for your family.

02:19:30 It's what's going to bring you the greatest happiness in the long run.

02:19:34 So it's time to fight the bad idea.

02:19:40 It's time, you know, you kind of let it sit in your head, and you kind of let it possess

02:19:45 you.

02:19:46 It's like the demonic possession.

02:19:47 It's like a form of possession.

02:19:48 Just sometimes bad ideas, and you see this all over the world all the time, these bad

02:19:52 ideas get into people's heads, they get past their defenses, and they just start animating

02:19:56 them or possessing them or taking them over or undermining them.

02:20:00 And we kind of have to fight these terrible ideas with all of the heroism in our being.

02:20:06 It's like the ultimate Kraken/Godzilla/King Kong monster.

02:20:11 It's like our inner saw on the eye that we have to sort of take down.

02:20:15 You have to battle these bad ideas.

02:20:17 And the reason that it's so tough to battle them now is you've kind of let them run your

02:20:22 life to be possessed by these bad ideas for a year or two, and therefore it's tougher.

02:20:27 Like if you've been on a drug for two years, it's a lot tougher to quit than if you either

02:20:32 don't take it or just take it once.

02:20:34 So you know, with all due respect, you know, and I appreciate the conversation.

02:20:38 I'm sorry that we couldn't get past the hiccup of falsehood, which was a fairly minor falsehood

02:20:42 and not the end of the world, but I'm sorry that we couldn't get past that hiccup.

02:20:45 But I will say that in my humble opinion, you've got a demon to battle and the demon

02:20:50 is deception and the demon is kind of selfishness.

02:20:52 And the demon is sacrificing your family for lust or delusion or whatever it's going to

02:21:01 be.

02:21:02 Because you know, you're going to lose your family and you won't get a new family and

02:21:04 you'll just end up bitter and alone.

02:21:05 And I don't know, maybe it'll give you more time to play video games if that's what you

02:21:08 wanted to do, but it doesn't seem like a very good option to me.

02:21:12 And you know, the devil will tempt you with the delusion of happiness.

02:21:15 Then you get there, there's nothing there, and you can't get back and you're just stuck

02:21:19 in nowhere forever.

02:21:20 And that's just the way these things tend to go.

02:21:23 So you know, I'm really sorry that you guys have gotten to this place.

02:21:26 I think it's really tragic.

02:21:28 There's so much great stuff that can be done in the family.

02:21:31 I hope that you will commit to that.

02:21:34 But yeah, this is a bad idea and you shouldn't be inflicting it on your family.

02:21:38 You shouldn't, not at all.

02:21:39 You can't inflict it on your children.

02:21:41 And you have to fight this, I think, in my view, with everything you've got and try and

02:21:45 find some way back to love and submission.

02:21:51 Like we all have to submit to virtue, to common sense, to reasonableness.

02:21:55 And you've got a kind of a bit of a selfish hoarding Gollum in the ring thing going on

02:22:01 here.

02:22:02 And again, we all have it and I understand it.

02:22:04 There's no condemnation.

02:22:05 This is a battle that we all face all the time.

02:22:07 Lord knows I've been in the grip of some pretty bad ideas sometimes for years, and you just

02:22:12 have to try and shake them off and get back to some kind of common sense.

02:22:16 And the best way to do that is to just remember your explicit and implicit vows, your explicit

02:22:23 vow to your wife, which is the foundation of your marriage.

02:22:26 And you don't want to steal her life and you don't want to steal...

02:22:28 Like she married you because you made vows and she wouldn't have married you otherwise.

02:22:33 She would have married another guy who probably doesn't want to import a concubine from Zambia.

02:22:37 And so you don't want to have stolen the last 10 years or more of her life and break her

02:22:46 heart and so on because you made a vow.

02:22:48 And you just have to return to that vow and whatever battles you have to do, you can do.

02:22:54 I mean, you can achieve them, I'm sure.

02:22:55 You guys are both very smart people and very competent people.

02:22:58 I mean, you've retired in your 40s.

02:22:59 I mean, good for you.

02:23:01 That's fantastic and should be congratulated.

02:23:04 That's a very great achievement.

02:23:07 So you're very smart, strong-willed people.

02:23:10 I have no doubt that if you want, and this is more to the husband, I'm sure that the

02:23:13 wife has fault as well, but you're the more immediate, I think, problem.

02:23:20 If you can fight this demon, if you can fight this bad idea and find a way to return back

02:23:24 to your vows and your promises and your ethics and your soul and your morals and so on, then

02:23:29 you have a great life ahead of you.

02:23:32 If you decide not to fight or decide to surrender or let it take over and possess and drive

02:23:37 your behavior going forward, I mean, from my perspective, it looks like it's going to

02:23:44 be pretty terrible.

02:23:46 And I think that you will face a huge amount of regret and look upon this last two hours

02:23:51 and a bit as a sort of real turning point.

02:23:53 And now that you have that knowledge, it's going to be even worse if you continue to

02:23:58 go down this very bad path.

02:24:00 So that's really what I wanted to get across, and I'm certainly happy to hear any sort of

02:24:04 final thoughts from you guys.

02:24:06 I'm just very thankful and grateful for you taking the call.

02:24:15 You said some things that are basically what I said, but you said them way better than

02:24:18 I ever did.

02:24:19 So, thanks.

02:24:20 That's the gig.

02:24:21 All right.

02:24:22 And listen, brother, again, I'm sorry we didn't get the last part of the convo in.

02:24:25 If you would like to talk privately, that's totally fine.

02:24:27 You can email me, callin@freedomain.com.

02:24:29 I hope you guys, obviously, I desperately hope that you guys make the right choice for

02:24:33 your kids and for each other.

02:24:35 And please keep me posted about how things are going.

02:24:38 And if there's anything else I can do, just let me know.

02:24:40 All right?

02:24:41 All right.

02:24:42 Thanks, Jeff.

02:24:43 Thanks, guys.

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