In this episode, I address two listener questions about modern relationships. The first explores the implications of a Spanish teacher's travel history and her current boyfriend’s reluctance to have children, emphasizing the importance of understanding emotional capacity and personal growth.
The second question focuses on a listener's struggle with their husband's lack of enthusiasm in trying to conceive. I discuss the dynamics of intimacy and suggest strategies to rekindle excitement through empathy and communication.
Key takeaways include the need to understand a partner's background and actively nurture enthusiasm in relationships, promoting open dialogues for stronger connections.
GET MY NEW BOOK 'PEACEFUL PARENTING', THE INTERACTIVE PEACEFUL PARENTING AI, AND THE FULL AUDIOBOOK!
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Subscribers get 12 HOURS on the "Truth About the French Revolution," multiple interactive multi-lingual philosophy AIs trained on thousands of hours of my material - as well as AIs for Real-Time Relationships, Bitcoin, Peaceful Parenting, and Call-In Shows!
You also receive private livestreams, HUNDREDS of exclusive premium shows, early release podcasts, the 22 Part History of Philosophers series and much more!
See you soon!
https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/UPB2025
The second question focuses on a listener's struggle with their husband's lack of enthusiasm in trying to conceive. I discuss the dynamics of intimacy and suggest strategies to rekindle excitement through empathy and communication.
Key takeaways include the need to understand a partner's background and actively nurture enthusiasm in relationships, promoting open dialogues for stronger connections.
GET MY NEW BOOK 'PEACEFUL PARENTING', THE INTERACTIVE PEACEFUL PARENTING AI, AND THE FULL AUDIOBOOK!
https://peacefulparenting.com/
Join the PREMIUM philosophy community on the web for free!
Subscribers get 12 HOURS on the "Truth About the French Revolution," multiple interactive multi-lingual philosophy AIs trained on thousands of hours of my material - as well as AIs for Real-Time Relationships, Bitcoin, Peaceful Parenting, and Call-In Shows!
You also receive private livestreams, HUNDREDS of exclusive premium shows, early release podcasts, the 22 Part History of Philosophers series and much more!
See you soon!
https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/UPB2025
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00All right, you ready? Good morning, everybody. Hope you're doing well.
00:03Stefan Muller here from Free Domain and two urgent questions, it would seem, that I'm
00:11going to get to this morning. And somebody writes, Hi Stef, I hope you will
00:15remember my question about my Spanish teacher from a live stream a couple of
00:19weeks ago. She's 32 years old and has a long-term boyfriend who doesn't want
00:23kids. You named the show Go Save Her Eggs based on that question. I would like to
00:28date her, but what so bothers me is her expensive, sorry, her extensive, could be
00:32expensive, her extensive travel history, which as you said, may also indicate an
00:36extensive sexual history. On one hand, she doesn't seem promiscuous, she dresses
00:41modestly, she doesn't present her flesh on social media, and she seems quite
00:46prudent when it comes to topics around sex. For example, she doesn't like
00:50reggaeton because, quote, all the songs are just about sex. Reggaeton? I don't know what
00:55that is. On the other hand, she doesn't seem to have a strong bond with her
00:59current boyfriend. She sometimes book trips without him for two weeks or even
01:03a month. Could this mean she doesn't love him and continues to date him out of
01:08habit, or is she unable to form a strong bond? She has a lot of personal qualities
01:13and a woman like her is really hard to find. She is positive, happy, encouraging,
01:18compassionate, caring, smart, and reasonable. She takes care of her health, she can cook,
01:22and as a bonus, she doesn't like the left-no taxation. I feel it would be a
01:26shame to not date her just because of the travel thing. How do I know if she
01:30would be able to form a strong bond with me? Well, these are great
01:35questions, and her boyfriend doesn't want kids, and she's, I guess, starting to run
01:42out the clock when it comes to having kids. So I think the best thing to do to
01:50find out if she has the capacity to bear bond. And, of course, you're right. I mean,
01:54it's only an indication, a possible indication. It's certainly not a
01:57certainty that every woman who travels is promiscuous. It's not a certainty. I
02:03mean, nuns travel, right? So it's not a certainty. And even if she did have,
02:08I mean, this is the question of reform. How much or how well can people be
02:13reformed, right? So I dated quite a bit when I was younger, and I've been, you
02:19know, happily monogamous, joyfully monogamous for, you know, coming up to a
02:23quarter century. So that's not a huge issue. If it was deep in the
02:28past, I know for women it's a little different, but if it was deep in the past
02:31and she's been monogamous for some time, if she's had some kind of reform, even if
02:36she did stack a few bodies in her youth, we all have to have a redemption arc,
02:41right? We very seriously and desperately have to keep open a
02:45redemption arc for people. You know, it's one of the great graces of
02:51any moral community is to have a path to a redemption arc. This is what I said, if
02:56you remember way back in the day, the sort of grab-them-by-the-pussy comment
02:59that Trump made to, what was it, Billy Bush. And, you know, he regretted it, and he
03:06was unhappy about how coarse it was. And so for, and because he's a
03:12Christian, and he's in a Christian community, and there, of course, the
03:17majority of Americans are Christians, there's a redemption arc. How many
03:21mortal sins are there? Well, personally, I think that there are very few sins that
03:28cannot be washed clean with apologies, restitution, and vows to never do it
03:34again, and working in that way. I don't think that there's any, sorry,
03:39there are probably a few sins that have no redemption arc, but the degree to
03:45which UPB self-knowledge and virtue can recover and repair broken souls should
03:53not be underestimated, should not be underestimated. The prime, this is, of
03:57course, what the Christian community is, well, I shouldn't say the entire Christian
04:02community, but parts that are quite vocal. Online, it's a sort of a Nala question,
04:07right, which is if you have a woman who's done OnlyFans for years, made
04:12millions of dollars, and then wants to be reformed, or claims to be reformed, and
04:20how much should people take her protestations of being reformed and
04:25finding Jesus and walking the path, how many, how many people should take those
04:31protestations or that commitment to Christianity seriously? You know, this is
04:38going to sound a bit odd, but many years ago, when I was chief technical officer
04:42of the software company that I co-founded, there was a fellow who joined
04:46us who kind of laid low for quite a long time, and I thought he might have been a
04:52bit of a dud, but what he was doing was he was absorbing the business, the
04:58customers, and he became one of the, if not the most valuable employee I'd ever
05:04had, because he laid low, and he absorbed, and that takes a certain amount of
05:09confidence to not be prominent, to lay low, and to absorb, and then when you have
05:17absorbed, then what happens is the amount of value you could bring to the
05:22organization tends to be quite high. So I think that if people lay low and
05:29absorb for quite some time, then they have significant value later on in
05:34conversation. So I would view somebody, let's say that it was a child abuser,
05:39right? Let's say that it was a child abuser. Well, if a child abuser had a
05:46revelation one day, and immediately went out as a very loud anti-child abuse
05:51advocate, I would have more than suspicious. I would view that as a
05:56different form or a different approach to attention-seeking, because you really
06:02do have to wrestle with your own conscience, and you have to wrestle with
06:05whatever facts or forces brought you to such a corrupt and immoral state. That is
06:13a very important thing. If you have been doing very corrupt, evil, or immoral
06:19things for years, and especially if you have profited enormously in some form or
06:25another, where it could be tension, maybe you've taken a bunch of guys, a bunch of
06:29simps for money just in person, like the woman who goes out on a date every night
06:34of the week so she never has to pay for dinner, or I guess an OnlyFans, if
06:38you've made millions of dollars, once there's some woman who made 45 million
06:42dollars on OnlyFans, well, that of course is a great draw, the corrupts, right? In a
06:48sense, the devil has to richly reward a few corrupt people in order to draw
06:52everyone else's greed into the arena, whereas the average woman at OnlyFans
06:56makes at best $100 or $200 or $300 a month, which is a very sad
07:01thing to sell your body at all, but for so little money. But that's, you know, these
07:07people are held up as lures or baits to get other people into that arena. So the
07:16lay low phenomenon is really, really important. The lay low phenomenon where, if you've
07:21had, if you're in a new space, take your time to absorb it, take your time
07:28stopping everything for yourself, and I laid low in the philosophical realm, with
07:34some, I mean, I certainly have a journal, I have my graduate school thesis and so on,
07:39so I did some good work, but I lay low in the realm of philosophy for 20 years, you
07:45know, like 15 to 35. Actually, longer, really. So, I'd say my thesis was 92, I started
07:53publishing, that's been 23 years. That's almost a quarter century. Well, no, no,
07:58that's not that long, but from 15, 15 to 17, 18, 13, 17, 14, okay, I'll do that math
08:08at another point. I should now be able to sort it out. All right. So I first got
08:14into philosophy in 1982. No, 1981. 1981. So I was into philosophy for 24 years before
08:28I started really talking about philosophy, and before I, in the public square. So I lay
08:34low for, you know, let's just say a quarter century. I remember reading Femme and Aristotle
08:41in the summer of my 15th year. So let's just say a quarter century. So I lay low and considered
08:48and thought about things for a quarter century. Now, of course, I knew about online publishing
08:54for many years, but I really only, when I have the DRO revelation for myself, I have
09:01to have a debate with a Christian at work, actually, probably not. So once I figured
09:05out the DRO stuff, then I made that sort of final click transition from objectivist
09:11style minarchism to pure voluntarism, to anarcho-catholicism, as consistent. And through that click, it was
09:21like this giant portal opened of consistency, where I was then able to creatively and valuably
09:25add things. See, when you have consistency, you have clarity and simplicity. E equals
09:29MC squared, rather than the ether. The Ptolemaic system is bad. The heliocentric system is
09:37good for calculating the position of planets. So when you have simplicity, you have creativity.
09:47Imagine how hard it would be to write a poem if you also had to invent your own language
09:51and its syntax and grammar and meanings and subtleties. So the lay low phenomenon, I think,
09:57is really important when it comes to really having something of value to add to a space.
10:04Now one of the things that has happened with Nala is that, I think she's an OnlyFans star
10:11who recently converted, is that at one point she's making bizarre Japanese anime sex faces
10:20on the Whatever podcast. The next thing I know, she's lecturing Andrew Wilson on theology.
10:26And as far as I know, does not believe in the Trinity, does not believe in the pure
10:30divinity of Jesus, and so on. So where I don't believe people's irreformations, where I don't
10:38believe that, is when they don't lay low for a while and figure out their stuff. Figure
10:43out their history, figure out what happened to them. I mean, it was very fortunate for
10:47me, for you, if you're listening, of course you're listening, for philosophy as a whole,
10:52I believe that I did the quarter century of only having private conversations about
10:58philosophy and only writing about philosophy for myself. It was really something. The fact
11:04that I had matured a lot, the fact that I had gone through years of therapy and so on,
11:08all of that was very positive and very powerful and very helpful. So to me, I don't know how
11:16old Nala is, or for how many years she did OnlyFans, but in general, my rule of thumb
11:26is half the time. You should probably lay low for half the time. So if you did OnlyFans
11:34for five years, then you should probably lay low, certainly you have the money to do so,
11:40but you should lay low for a couple of years. Half the time to get over a prior relationship.
11:46Half the time of the relationship to get over the prior relationship. So if you had
11:51a prior relationship with corruption, then it would probably take half the time of that
11:57corruption to get over that corruption. If you're really dedicated, and it's going to
12:01be a ragged recovery, then it's a ragged recovery. It's going to take time, it's going to be
12:06better or worse, but there's a lot to confront in yourself. There's a lot to confront in
12:11yourself when you think corrupt. So what I would say is that the redemption arc, if
12:18this woman's 32, and she traveled a lot in the past, which you have some confirmation
12:23that she was promiscuous, right? If she has a more conservative attitude toward sexuality,
12:31and that is actually, I mean, that's a good sign for a healthy sex life, because the hyper
12:35sexual women, you're going to have a very bad sex life over time, right? Less sex at the
12:41beginning is more sex later on. More sex in the beginning is less sex later on, because the hyper
12:46sexual women don't feel that they're worth very much. And so they sex bomb, but then the underlying
12:54depression and resentment comes out, and then you're in a sexless relationship, and you're in
12:59a tortured situation. So the redemption arc is fine. You don't have any proof that she was a
13:05promiscuous. She is with a guy who doesn't want kids. And I personally view not wanting kids. I
13:13mean, not wanting kids, whether you have them or not, or if you have barriers like genetic issues
13:18or whatever. But if you don't want kids at all, I view that as a giant wreck. I would view that as
13:23a deal-breaking red flag, because it's just anti-nature, anti-nature. So, I mean, if you're
13:31happy, you should want to pay that gift forward to the next generation by having kids. If you're
13:36unhappy, you should deal with your unhappiness so that you can end up wanting to have kids. So,
13:40as far as she's got this sort of tepid boyfriend, and she goes away from him for a couple of weeks
13:46or a month, so that's a kind of tepid relationship. But, and that's not too much to be respected,
13:53like she's married. So, as far as bonding with you, I don't know, because there are two ways to
14:04learn how to pair bond. One is through being raised in a pair-bonded family. If you're raised
14:09in a pair-bonded family, then you speak the language of pair bonding as surely as you speak
14:15your parent's native tongue. And, if you aren't raised in a pair-bonded family, then you can
14:24work on pair bonding through things like therapy and self-knowledge and self-work. So, if I were
14:30in your shoes, I would ask her about her childhood. Or, you can, if you're in a conversational
14:37situation, you don't have to ask her about her childhood directly. You can mention a couple
14:41of things about your childhood, and then you can see if she responds with information about her
14:46childhood. Do you know what her parents were like? Do you know if she's done any self-work? Does she
14:54read the book on self-knowledge? Does she journal? Has she ever done therapy or anything like that?
15:00So, the best way to find out if she can pair bond is to ask her about her childhood or any
15:05self-work that she's done. If she had a childhood with parents who are happy and connected, then
15:09the question is, how did you get to 32 without ending up in a pair-bonded relationship?
15:14And also, you need to try and figure out why she's with her boyfriend. And, I don't know how long,
15:21I'm sorry if I don't remember, long-term boyfriend. So, at 32, having a long-term boyfriend
15:27is a challenge and a problem. Because, let's say they'd be going out for four years,
15:34then she's in a space of no time. So, pair bonding has something to do with the passage of time.
15:40People who don't really process the passage of time don't tend to pair bond very well. Because,
15:46pair bonding is also about taking care of the second half of your life, right?
15:50I mean, if I'm pushing 60, if I was out there trying to pull hotties in their 20s, that would be
15:55sad and pathetic, right? So, you have to have a pair-bonded relationship for when you get
16:00somewhat old and a little bit decrepit, and so on. You have to have a solid pair-bond,
16:06so that you have a relationship that is great and solid, that doesn't rely upon,
16:11you know, mere youth and beauty and charisma and the boundless energy of youth and
16:16all of that, right? I mean, when you get old, you're going to have the occasional medical issue,
16:20you just need someone who's there for you for all of that. And so, people who don't really note
16:27the passage of time, this is one of the reasons why guys who don't lose their hair
16:31and don't gain weight tend to have some difficulty pair bonding, because the passage of time is not
16:38as apparent. And if you feel like you're forever young, then when you're young, it's easier to
16:44avoid pair bonding, because if you're reasonably attractive, you can have a lot of different
16:48relationships and variety can make up for depth. So, if she's 32, and she's got a long-term
16:56boyfriend who doesn't want kids, then either she doesn't want kids, which is to me, a big red flag,
17:01or she does want kids, but she's not really noticing the passage of time. And if she's
17:06not really noticing the passage of time, then that would be a tougher thing to pair bond.
17:11So, I hope that helps. And yeah, just ask her about her childhood and see if you can find out
17:16anything about her relationship. Oh, how long have you been going out with your boyfriend? And
17:21oh, where did you meet? And what's he like? And so on. And were your parents married? Or
17:25what was your childhood like? You know, things like these are friendly questions, but they're
17:28really, really important questions for trying to get to the truth and to the root of these things.
17:33So, I hope that helps. And I'm sorry that I missed that on the live stream. All right.
17:38What else do we have here? We do, we do. All right. Hey, Steph, I have a question for one
17:45of your live streams. Any advice for the following situation? My husband and I are trying to conceive
17:50and he feels pushed at the fact that we have to have sex every day of my fertile window. In fact,
17:54because I picked up on it, I haven't even been asking slash initiating every day of my fertile
17:58window. Just every second day. Meaning we could be having more sex, thus increasing our chances.
18:04Last time we had sex and he just went cold afterwards and eventually said that he wasn't
18:08in the mood tonight and feels pushed. I feel very upset at his lack of enthusiasm and it makes me
18:12feel gross like I'm forcing him. I want to maintain curiosity and know what he's feeling,
18:17but he doesn't want to talk about it. We both want to have a baby, so I'm struggling to see
18:21why he feels like this. We might not always be in the mood, but if you're trying to have a baby,
18:24it's just one of the things you've got to do, right? Could you please shine some of your logic
18:29onto the situation? How do we get around this? Thank you, Steph. Well, I mean, at the risk of
18:34sounding a little bit coarse, there's a time for talking in relationships and then there's a time
18:39for action, right? So I don't know if he's into little, if he's into French mates and get a little
18:46French maid outfit, talk to him in an outrageous accent and pretend to be dusting, you know,
18:51just whatever he's got going on in his reptile male brain, which, you know, women have, of course,
18:57as well as the reptile part, not the male part, of course. But I would say that you're just going
19:04to have to, when other people lack enthusiasm, you can't go down to their lack of enthusiasm
19:11with them, right? So an example would be if you've listened to call-in shows, you know, sometimes I
19:18get those dead-voiced people with lots of pauses and I'm like, bro, we can't do it. We can't do
19:22this. We can't do it this way. Like, please, I'm begging you. I try to add extra enthusiasm for
19:28the potential of the conversation to make up for their emotional distance. So sometimes,
19:34if he's feeling less than enthusiastic about what's going to feel a little bit like a
19:38baby-baking marital chore, then you can bring extra enthusiasm to it. Like, be more playful,
19:45be more fun, and I don't know, I'm taking you sailor, or whatever, like, whatever's going to be
19:51fun and get him out of that doldrums stuff. Don't follow people down into a lack of enthusiasm,
19:56otherwise you just end up with two unmotivated people. But, you know, I mean, I don't know if
20:01he's ever talked to you about his sexual fantasies or things that he saw when he was younger that he
20:07found sexy and so on, but whatever it's going to take, you can view this as an opportunity to
20:14explore each other's thoughts and ideas and dreams and all of that. So yeah, just see what makes it
20:21work for him and then make it work for him. And it's tough, you know, because if you've had a
20:28habit of following him down into his lack of enthusiasm, because what's happening, either
20:32your enthusiasm is going to spread to him or his lack of enthusiasm is going to spread to you. It
20:37doesn't stay different, right? You know, there's this really, it's kind of an annoying phrase,
20:41you know, I need someone who's going to match my energy. That usually means equal levels of
20:47mania, but with money. But when it comes to something like this, there is real truth to that,
20:53right? If you're enthusiastic about moving to the country, you have to find, and your mate is kind
20:57of dour about it, then you have to find a way to get your enthusiasm over to where your mate is at
21:04and get that to him, get him enthusiastic about it. It's not manipulative to share your enthusiasm.
21:11And if somebody's enthusiasm level goes down, there's no reason why yours can't go up to make
21:16up for it. Now, maybe he'll get resentful about that, but it's your best chance, because if you
21:20follow him down to this, I guess, literally limp dick lack of enthusiasm, then you end up with two
21:25people with that much energy or enthusiasm. It harms your chances of having a baby. And you're
21:31just going to have to find some creative way to get his juices flowing. And that could be,
21:36it could be a fun thing for you. So anyway, I hope that works. And I really do appreciate
21:39everyone's time, care, thoughts, and attention today. Lots of love from up here. But love these
21:44questions. Keep them coming. Don't forget, you can book your call-ins at freedomain.com slash four.
21:49And have a wonderful, wonderful day, everybody. I'll talk to you soon. Bye.