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Stefan Molyneux
  • 2 years ago
"I felt a connection with show 5484, which is why men won't commit to women in their thirties. I felt it very well describes my experiences dating. I'm a gentleman in my early thirties and I've really struggled to find someone that is family oriented and someone that I think I could connect with. I've become a little jaded towards young women given the plethora of bad experiences I've had."

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Transcript
00:00:00So I felt a connection with show five core eight four, which is why men won't commit to women in the thirties.
00:00:08And, um, I felt the connection to the show and I felt very well describes my experiences dating. I'm a gentleman in my early thirties.
00:00:19And, uh, I, I really struggled to find someone that was family oriented and someone that, um.
00:00:27I think I could connect with and I've become a little jaded towards young women, given the plethora of bad experiences I've had.
00:00:35Um, last week I invested in a matchmaking service.
00:00:41And I, I'm hoping that'll lead to some success. Um, we haven't started yet, but, um.
00:00:48Uh, every interaction I had when, when I'm looking for a matchmaking service, um, I would get pushed back when I expressed my preference to marry a woman younger than 30.
00:01:02And I wasn't able to find a service of, uh, that had any men at all, basically all women in this, in these services.
00:01:12Um, so a little, you mean like behind the desk, like not, right.
00:01:17You, you mean sort of someone you'd be talking to to set up your dating profile or your, your like, yeah, the, the matchmaker, the, um, all the people that work in the companies.
00:01:28Yeah.
00:01:29I mean, that's not super shocking, right?
00:01:30I mean, that would be sort of a female role as a whole, right?
00:01:34No.
00:01:34And I, I wasn't, maybe there's a market opportunity for male, male match.
00:01:38Well, yeah.
00:01:40I mean, I wasn't, I wasn't upset to find mostly female.
00:01:44It was more like I was upset.
00:01:45I couldn't find a single man anywhere in any of the companies.
00:01:49Right.
00:01:49Right.
00:01:50Um, um, and, uh, so, uh, on a second point, um, given my sort of conservative family, um, background and leanings, um, I've had a lot of people recommend I join a church group.
00:02:07Um, I've historically resisted this cause I'm not religious and I feel there's some degree of inherent deception.
00:02:15Uh, if I pursue someone, if I don't follow a denomination or a gospel, um, um, but I recently reached out to some church groups, um, particularly just to, for social groups.
00:02:30And, um, one of the male ministers I reached out to, he actually reiterated a lot of the points from the podcast around having difficulty connecting, um, the young men that he supports.
00:02:43Um, and to me, it was, sorry, could I just do this?
00:02:47I know that this is like, not your necessarily your gig for, but, um, this, um, um, you know, I mean, if you could find whatever block it is in your mind and communicate a tad more fluently, I'd appreciate that because it's quite distracting.
00:03:00Sure.
00:03:01Um, okay.
00:03:01So what I'd say, um, so when you talk to the ministry, he says that he's having trouble finding marriage minded, um, women to marry their guys.
00:03:12Correct.
00:03:13Okay.
00:03:15Yeah.
00:03:15To me, it was a sign that the problem is much greater than just what I've run into.
00:03:22Right, right.
00:03:24Okay.
00:03:25Right.
00:03:25I mean, this is, this is someone who theoretically should have people that are somewhat conservative and marriage minded, they're all religious and yet he's having the same difficulty.
00:03:38And so to me, that sort of expressed the depth of the problem.
00:03:43So why are you, I mean, we can start blunt, I suppose.
00:03:47Why are you in your early thirties and not married if you're conservative and family oriented and family minded?
00:03:55Um, a couple things.
00:03:57It hasn't helped that I've relocated, um, three times, but relocation is not an excuse because if relocation means that you're less likely to get married, you're still choosing something over family, right?
00:04:09Hold on.
00:04:09So part of the reason relocation has been a challenge is it's hard to get settled into a community when you're constantly moving or moving every few years in my case.
00:04:24And why are you moving every few years?
00:04:26For me, it's been pursuing career in a place I can afford housing.
00:04:31Okay.
00:04:31So you're pursuing career of a family.
00:04:36Um, I've been trying to pursue both and I've had success with career to some extent and not with family.
00:04:43Okay.
00:04:44Sorry.
00:04:45I just need to get, get a baseline here.
00:04:47And if I'm incorrect, of course, correct me.
00:04:50If you keep moving, it's tough to find a wife, right?
00:04:53Because you're not in a community where you can rely upon friends, extended family, friends of friends, uh, whatever.
00:05:00Right.
00:05:00So if you keep moving and keep trying to break into new communities, well, there's just less of a chance to find a wife.
00:05:08Right.
00:05:09I mean, am I wrong about that?
00:05:12No, that's true.
00:05:13Um, maybe we can get a little bit more into my history because I, well, no, no, I don't want to do the history.
00:05:19I mean, I do want to do the history, but I want to establish this baseline because if you say, well, I'm having trouble finding a wife because I'm moving and it turns out that the moving is purely voluntary, then you've made choices to make it tougher to find a wife.
00:05:32And I'm not saying that to blame you or anything like that.
00:05:34It's actually good news, right?
00:05:35Because if you have been prioritizing career of a family, that would explain why, at least in part, why you wouldn't have a wife.
00:05:44No, that's true.
00:05:45Um, before I moved to where I am now, I got engaged with someone and moved her with me.
00:05:55Um, and our, our goals were such that moving was in line with those goals.
00:06:01And I thought I had established a relationship, um, before moving.
00:06:09And I agree that the relocation is not helpful to, um, settling down.
00:06:19So I think we're in agreement there, right?
00:06:21Like if you keep moving to make more money, then you're going to make more money, but be less likely to get married.
00:06:29Yeah.
00:06:29A part of what I, so I was in Southern California where housing is entry-level housing was a million dollars.
00:06:36And I had some recognition that that was not a sustainable place for a family.
00:06:42And so,
00:06:43but that's not true in Southern California as a whole.
00:06:45It's only true in the urban centers.
00:06:47I mean, go out to the country or I'm, I'm not sure what line of work you're in.
00:06:50You certainly don't have to tell me, but it's not like all houses in Southern California are that it's just in the most desirable locations.
00:06:57It's in a significant amount.
00:06:59I mean, California has five of the six most expensive cities in the country.
00:07:04So there's, um, where I was at was not very affordable.
00:07:14And do you have to be in a city or in a very high demand place for your career?
00:07:21No, I don't.
00:07:21And that was one of the reasons that I moved after I had found what I thought I found a partner.
00:07:29Oh, okay.
00:07:30So when you say housing is too expensive, you don't have to be in the most expensive housing for your career.
00:07:35Uh, and again, that's, that's a choice, right?
00:07:37And I'm not saying it's a great choice and I wish the housing prices were less, but it's not as a choice to live in places where the houses are a million dollars.
00:07:45Right.
00:07:46I, I moved, I moved there to get my career to a point that I could have some success and support some money.
00:07:55And then, um, I was dating and I found somebody.
00:07:59And then we decided to, to relocate to somewhere that I could continue to work.
00:08:04That is average cost.
00:08:06Um, so much more affordable and that's where I'm at now.
00:08:10Um, but that relationship didn't work.
00:08:12Okay.
00:08:13And I'd love to hear the story of that.
00:08:15Not the ending, of course, but if you can tell me more about the history of that relationship, I mean, we can start earlier if you like, it's, it's your life, not mine.
00:08:22So I'm not sure what the best place is to start.
00:08:24Yeah.
00:08:24And I agree with you that there's, there's a trade-off between, you know, income and amount of work and being in a location that's more affordable makes it easier to, um, to, to have the family life.
00:08:43And that's why I'm, I'm trying to stay where I am now.
00:08:46So, um, but I, so I was in, I was in, we'll call it LA, um, in Southern California and I was sort of trying to get the expertise.
00:09:00I do engineering and project management, and there's a lot of highly technical people there.
00:09:07And so I, when I relocated to that area, it was to do some R and D work and sort of sharpen my skills in that regard.
00:09:17Um, and so when I was there, I was trying to date and find somebody and it took quite a while, but, uh, after three years found someone that I thought would be a good partner and dated for a couple of years.
00:09:36And then, um, made the commitment to, to her before trying to move.
00:09:42I thought that was a reasonable thing to do to, to give her that commitment before asking her to relocate with me.
00:09:50And I misunderstood at that time, but I thought we were on the same page around goals and, and owning a house and having a place that was more economically affordable.
00:10:02Um, that we could both continue to, to work, but not being one of these major expensive cities.
00:10:14Sorry, I wasn't sure you would end it.
00:10:15Um, why did you date her for a couple of years?
00:10:20I mean, rather than marry her, I dated her with the intention of marrying her.
00:10:28I dated her with the intention of marrying her.
00:10:31You're, you're asking why not marry her right away?
00:10:35Well, I mean, I don't know what you mean by right away, but somewhere in between.
00:10:39So how many years did you date her before you got married?
00:10:41So I met her in, uh, middle to end of 2018 and we got engaged in 2020.
00:11:01So 15 months, 18 months.
00:11:05Oh, I'm sorry.
00:11:05I thought you said a couple of years.
00:11:06Okay.
00:11:07I understand it.
00:11:08So it's a sort of 15 to 18 months from meeting her to getting married to getting
00:11:15engaged, getting engaged.
00:11:17Okay.
00:11:17And then how long were you engaged for?
00:11:21Um, we were engaged until we split and there's quite a story there.
00:11:27Um, we finally separated in 2022.
00:11:32So you were engaged for almost as long as you were dating.
00:11:37Correct.
00:11:38Um, again, with all sympathy for the heartbreak, I'm just curious why, I mean,
00:11:43did things start to go wrong and you postponed the marriage and then things
00:11:46broke apart or that's a long time ago, right?
00:11:49Yeah, no, that's exactly what happened.
00:11:51And was it mostly about you wanted to move someplace cheaper?
00:11:54She wanted to stay in the city?
00:11:55No.
00:11:57So what was going on in the relationship?
00:12:00Um, once we, so we, we, we got engaged, we relocated and we were house hunting.
00:12:08And at that point living together, um, we weren't living together before we got
00:12:13engaged and, um, there were, there were issues that started to come up in the
00:12:21relationship that made things more difficult.
00:12:23And we bought a house together.
00:12:25I bought a house and put her name on it as a, what I thought was an act of good
00:12:30faith.
00:12:31Um, and just, uh, we were, we were unable to resolve conflicts that came up and we,
00:12:43um, it became more and more difficult to move.
00:12:47that came up and we
00:12:52Became more and more difficult to work together. I'm sorry
00:12:56Relative to you say just sort of conservative, right? Yes. Okay. Help me understand the living together before
00:13:04Getting married because I mean, you know statistically that's a bad move, right? I mean it tends to break things up
00:13:11More often than not and it's certainly not conservative right which would be live together after you get married
00:13:18I
00:13:19Recognize that
00:13:20We like I said, we we didn't live together until we got engaged
00:13:24Yes, that doesn't I'm sorry. I'm not criticizing. I'm just curious right? I mean, but you're still not married, right?
00:13:31So you're living together before marriage. I mean the engagement I wouldn't I wouldn't describe that as a conservative value
00:13:37I would say that's a maybe a Judeo-Christian value
00:13:40But tell me what you mean by conservative then because I generally associate conservatism with Christian
00:13:50And you can of course share the values without believing yeah God, right? Yeah. Well, yeah
00:13:56I I would argue conservative. They're more issue with structure and boundaries
00:14:01which better describes my temperament and
00:14:04I'm I'm more interested in long-term consequences rather than
00:14:10Feelings I don't
00:14:12Draw connections between things and so I I would argue long-term consequences of living together before you get married is to put the relationship at risk
00:14:21Because there's more breakups
00:14:24When you live together before you get married then if you wait until you're married
00:14:33We're we're sort of getting off topic you said that
00:14:37You your argument if I understand it is I described my values as primarily conservative
00:14:44well, no, but no and whether you say consider together say I make my decisions based on consequences and
00:14:49In general the consequences of living together before marriage are that it puts the relationship more at risk
00:14:55I didn't say I've made all my decisions based on consequences
00:14:59Okay, and we're really kind of getting off on the wrong foot here because I feel like we're fighting
00:15:04I
00:15:06Generally don't fight with callers. I'm just trying to understand your perspective, right?
00:15:10So when I said it's conservative to not live together before marriage you say well, I'm not a Christian
00:15:16I said but you can hold these values with that being a Christian and then you said well, no
00:15:20but I think I make my decisions based on consequences and I said even if we drop the
00:15:25Christianity or the conservatism when we just go on consequences the consequence of living together is to put the relationship more
00:15:31At jeopardy and now you say well, I don't make all my decisions based on consequences
00:15:36So we're just going in circles if that makes sense. I
00:15:39Agree, I don't
00:15:41see the value in
00:15:44Stereotyping what conservative is I think it's a so now you're saying that I'm stereotyping. See this is kind of aggressive, right?
00:15:51I'm not saying you're talking about you were
00:15:54That if you get married if you live together
00:15:56Before you get married the relationship is more at risk. But I mean, that's just a statistical fact. You can say that's it's very
00:16:04I agree with you. I don't
00:16:08That I mean I'm describing what I've done that's or what's what has happened
00:16:17Well, I'm I'm sorry, do you think I don't think you're describing what you've done I'm not sure what you're saying that for
00:16:21You
00:16:24But would it be helpful if I don't describe myself as conservative I
00:16:28Don't know what you mean by helpful
00:16:30I mean if you describe yourself as conservative and then you talk about things that aren't conservative
00:16:36you know, I mean conservatives generally put family first and
00:16:39You put career first
00:16:41conservatives don't generally
00:16:43Live together before they get married you live together before you got married. None of these are criticisms
00:16:47I'm just trying to understand what you mean by
00:16:50Conservative because a lot of your positions aren't particularly conservative if that makes sense and
00:16:56That's fine. I mean I just then maybe you just mean it more like smaller government or more free speech or something like that
00:17:05That's good feedback, thank you
00:17:09So what did happen with
00:17:12The young lady you said that you were unable to resolve conflicts. Were you able to resolve those conflicts before?
00:17:18You got engaged and lived together or
00:17:21Were they new conflicts? In other words, did you have a good track record of dealing with conflicts before?
00:17:28You live together or got engaged and then after you got engaged there were conflicts that you couldn't resolve
00:17:36Some of both in the regards that before we moved and lived together there were not a lot of major conflicts
00:17:45And maybe just my
00:17:48lack of self-awareness
00:17:49It might be mine
00:17:53There's maybe some red flags that I didn't pay attention to and what with us
00:18:00Her the way her family
00:18:04interacts and resolves is wildly different than the way my family behaves and
00:18:12She both expressed that she was
00:18:16Disappointed
00:18:18Embarrassed by the way her parents behaved but when still
00:18:23repeat that behavior
00:18:26And what kind of behavior we're talking about here
00:18:29Well, they were very expressive verbally so they would yell at each other
00:18:36and and be very
00:18:41I couldn't understand what they're saying. They're Chinese, but
00:18:45I
00:18:46Got the emotional
00:18:49Expression that they were expressing emotions very
00:18:52strongly
00:18:54versus my parents are
00:18:58More logical much more even keeled if they get very
00:19:03Emotional it's it's something that's very important that
00:19:07You know
00:19:07You might think about for a few days versus her parents
00:19:10Could yell at each other and be very expressive and then go on like nothing had happened
00:19:15I'm not sure about the sorry to sound continually
00:19:19questioning I'm trying to figure out so emotionally expressive to me is you know, you you you
00:19:25Talk openly about your feelings and so on but yelling at people
00:19:30Seems kind of mean and I don't associate emotional expression with being
00:19:35Mean if that makes sense
00:19:36Like if you're yelling at people that's kind of intimidating and maybe bullying may be a little abusive or something like that
00:19:42Which to me doesn't fall. I mean, I think emotional expression being honest about what you think and feel is a good thing
00:19:46I don't yell at people though. So I'm trying to sort of understand what you mean by
00:19:52Like how is the yelling? What would they say? Would it be intimidating? Would it be insulting? Would it be?
00:19:58How would that play out?
00:20:01Well, so for example say the the husband would come home
00:20:04he would
00:20:05Get a meal and sit in the living room and the wife would be in the kitchen
00:20:09And then they would if there was some something I like I said, I don't know. I don't speak Mandarin or Cantonese
00:20:16But they would they would yell at each other
00:20:20to
00:20:22communicate and not just because they're far away there it was a small house, but but also
00:20:28You know say the wife had something that was on her mind that she didn't like she would yell at the husband
00:20:32He would he would sort of not pay attention and then he would
00:20:37Put in some snipey argument or some side comment
00:20:41You know like a one or two word comment that sort of riled her up and
00:20:47their normal discourse was
00:20:52Passionate but not I
00:20:55I didn't think it but I thought it was not not very good
00:21:02Oh, so she grew up in a household where she didn't have the resolution of disputes modeled very well at all. Is that fair to say
00:21:09Correct. Okay. And so where would she have learned her conflict resolution?
00:21:14Right. I mean if I grew up
00:21:16In the non-japanese households and I want to speak Japanese. I got to learn it somewhere, right?
00:21:20So how had she learned her conflict resolution?
00:21:22Skills if she didn't get the models in her household and certainly not taught in school or anything
00:21:26no, and and this is this is one of the
00:21:29red flags that I
00:21:32Didn't pay attention to
00:21:37Yeah, I when she
00:21:40expressed her disappointment in the way her parents communicated and
00:21:45Was unhappy about it
00:21:48And was unhappy about it
00:21:52Um to me that was a good sign that it wasn't it was behavior. She wouldn't rely on
00:22:01Well, but I mean she would have to learn those conflict resolution skills somewhere if she says my parents aren't good at conflict resolution
00:22:07Okay
00:22:09So then where does she learn the skills?
00:22:10I mean, did she read books did she do seminars or therapy or or anything like that about how to
00:22:15Resolve conflicts in relationships, right? And and she was doing therapy, but she clearly
00:22:21Did not learn these skills
00:22:23Okay, got it. We got it
00:22:27And so did you spend much time around her parents prior to getting engaged
00:22:34A couple afternoons
00:22:37So maybe 20 hours total
00:22:40And did her parents
00:22:42I don't know. I was a grill or cross-examine, but did her parents
00:22:46try to figure out
00:22:48Your life your family your history because I guess as you guys were sailing towards marriage. That's sort of the merging of two families
00:22:56And how did they approach the approaching marriage? I suppose
00:23:02Um, so she has a younger brother
00:23:05And he did most of the grilling because he speaks english
00:23:09and he
00:23:11I mean, I I would sit at a family dinner and
00:23:14He would sort of ask questions or he would translate questions
00:23:18So there was no it wasn't as much as as you would think but there was some
00:23:25And did your parents when did your parents meet her parents and how much time did you all spend together
00:23:34Uh, so they didn't meet until after we were engaged as far as the parents meeting each other
00:23:39My parents met my ex
00:23:42in 2018
00:23:45And they also met her in 2020
00:23:48And some other times so
00:23:51The families didn't meet until we were engaged
00:23:56And what did your parents think of your ex
00:24:02They were cautious and rightly so
00:24:06Not not initially, um, i'm the oldest so they've also expressed that they
00:24:12recognize that
00:24:14Uh for them, this is sort of new since both of my my younger brothers are not
00:24:20As a relationship inclined or at least so so far
00:24:23but
00:24:25But they they expressed some concerns later in the relationship that I
00:24:30Appreciated
00:24:32And
00:24:35When did they find out about the
00:24:38yellingness of
00:24:40your potential in-laws
00:24:43After we were engaged they
00:24:46The in-laws
00:24:49Didn't yell as far as I could tell whenever they met my family. No, no, but you'd seen it before right?
00:24:56I had seen it. Yes. And so when you did you tell your parents that the in-laws?
00:25:00Uh yell quite a bit
00:25:05I don't think I ever did. No, why not? Oh because you didn't see it as a red flag, right?
00:25:13I
00:25:15um
00:25:17I guess I
00:25:18I didn't know
00:25:20Yeah, I I guess so. I I wasn't really sure if it was just a different style of communicating
00:25:27Versus something that was a problem
00:25:29Like a cultural difference right or
00:25:34just her
00:25:37They're all very neurotic their family so they they feel emotion strongly and then they go
00:25:43Versus like my family is very low in neuroticism. And so
00:25:48Just that that way of communication is different
00:25:51so
00:25:52it's to you
00:25:54Having emotions and expression expressing them. Is that is that neurotic? That's your
00:26:00um approach to the
00:26:02Word, I'm not saying with your right. No, no make sure I know how sensitive you are. So
00:26:08um, I might
00:26:10feel an emotion, but I can
00:26:14I'm not as taken by it or I um
00:26:18It it's not as
00:26:21Like I don't feel it as like very strongly
00:26:25Does that make sense? So it's the strength of your
00:26:29emotions
00:26:32So so say, you know if someone's very high in neuroticism then then they can get very upset or they can be very happy
00:26:40They tend to swing more versus someone who's low in neuroticism is more more stable
00:26:47Okay, so neurotic simply means emotionally unstable
00:26:52Emotionally sensitive
00:26:55Well, the technical definition is it's emotionally unstable at least according to the dictionary
00:27:00Okay, so because I mean people can be very sensitive without being
00:27:04neurotic, um, but
00:27:07Uh, it usually has to do with um, well and overthinking things or taking both sides of the argument in isolation of someone else
00:27:14uh, it can be emotional instability and and you're right that certainly is paired in with
00:27:19sensitivity, but um
00:27:21Okay, so did you say to your parents that
00:27:25The family they were going to marry their eldest son into that the family was neurotic
00:27:32No, we never had that discussion
00:27:34Well, hang on
00:27:36You they can't have that discussion if they don't know the facts, right? I did not explain that to them
00:27:41Yes, and but they're marrying into the family, right?
00:27:44I
00:27:46Mean yes, you're gonna they're gonna share grandkids with the the family and and i'm sure there's some physical distance
00:27:52but you know, there's going to be some significant overlap right and their daughter
00:27:57might be involved in taking care of your parents when they
00:28:01Age right if the marriage had worked out because that's often a bit more of a female thing
00:28:06so
00:28:08I'm trying to sort of figure would you say that you're close to your parents?
00:28:11We talk weekly so fairly close
00:28:15so
00:28:17You have information about the family that they're
00:28:20That they're gonna marry into in a sense, right the blended family. Yes, and
00:28:26You don't
00:28:27What did you say to your parents about your potential in-laws or your guess your future in-laws after you got engaged?
00:28:33I expressed that
00:28:38Well, maybe I did express some concern I I definitely expressed that they communicated differently
00:28:43That they had a very different life
00:28:45that they're
00:28:47The way that they functioned as a family was different than our family
00:28:52And
00:28:55But I also expressed that
00:28:58And
00:29:01Um, but I also expressed that my ex
00:29:06Expressed desire to
00:29:09Change some of those aspects. She didn't want to repeat them
00:29:14So I I guess I had hope
00:29:18Um
00:29:19positive
00:29:20a better outcome which
00:29:23Is more so you're a you're a project manager, right?
00:29:27Right
00:29:28How often is hope a valid strategy in a project? Yeah, never. I mean ironically enough, right?
00:29:34I mean project management in a technical field as well
00:29:37and hope is a four-letter word in
00:29:41Project mess, right?
00:29:42So you I mean you have all of these skills to know that hope is not a strategy. Hope is not a plan
00:29:47And hope is usually a four
00:29:49Runner to disaster, right?
00:29:51That's that's
00:29:53Yes. Yeah, that's
00:29:55It's unfortunate, but you need to take those work skills home, too
00:30:00I mean their life skills they apply to yeah, that's a good way to put them. So tell me a little bit about
00:30:06I I know it's not the most traditionally mandarin name. Let's just call her sue
00:30:10For the moment. So when you how did you meet sue and what was it that drew you to her initially?
00:30:18Uh, so I met her online
00:30:21and
00:30:22on a
00:30:23application
00:30:25and
00:30:26What drew me to her is we were able to set up a date quickly. It wasn't a bunch of back and forth messaging
00:30:35That's a it's a good sign someone's serious about dating and she was and um, she could
00:30:44She was financially self-sufficient adult who um
00:30:49Um
00:30:51Paid some attention to personal health and fitness which is also described to me and
00:30:59We were both sort of interested in in having kids and
00:31:08The values she expressed seemed to align well with what I desired
00:31:15And what were those values?
00:31:16I mean you've mentioned some of them like kids and fitness and so on but uh, what else?
00:31:25Um
00:31:29Yeah, so the kids the fitness
00:31:33The sort of financial stability as far as being a bit frugal
00:31:43Those were the main ones
00:31:47Okay, so she saved money she wanted kids and she was into fitness
00:31:57I'm not trying to diminish. I just want to make sure I understand
00:32:00and she attractive she was
00:32:03um, and she was actually taking action along those lines and not just no, no, I get that she was yeah, right, okay
00:32:11um
00:32:13You
00:32:15Yeah, she she worked in finance felt like we were a good match in that regard as far as being
00:32:24Um sort of similar similar stem backgrounds
00:32:31And and we
00:32:32were each other's type sexually
00:32:36That helps. Oh, you mean like you were physically attracted to each other?
00:32:39Yes, yeah, okay got it and how how pretty was she
00:32:45Or I guess it is sound like the past ten basement or something but six to
00:32:51Maybe a seven and you
00:32:54I'm probably an eight
00:32:57So you were you stepping down and there's nothing wrong with that, of course
00:32:59But you were stepping down slightly in terms of physical attractiveness
00:33:02Yes, okay
00:33:04And are you white?
00:33:06Yes, okay got it and did the biracial thing
00:33:09Trouble you or did you think about that or was that something that you had?
00:33:14Done any research on or anything like that? Oh, I I would be more concerned for future kids being mixed. But personally I
00:33:23It wasn't a problem for me. Um
00:33:25I I had the great fortune of attending an international school for a couple years when I lived in london
00:33:31So i've had a lot of exposure to other cultures
00:33:34And I it just wasn't it wasn't something that bothered me, okay got it
00:33:40So
00:33:42What virtues did you because you know you're talking to the guy who says that love is our involuntary response to virtue
00:33:48If we're virtuous, so what were the virtues that you most admired about her?
00:33:58I admired her work ethic. I found out
00:34:01Kind of quickly that she was pretty bad at math, but she worked in finance
00:34:05and she
00:34:06Made that happen mostly through through working hard
00:34:11Even though it became very clear. It was going to be an impediment to her career growth
00:34:18And and
00:34:20I I am and then that became apparent in in the other values. So the fitness
00:34:27And sort of working towards the intentions of having a family as far as
00:34:31spending effort on
00:34:33Getting to know me and dating
00:34:35and um
00:34:39Um, I did appreciate she was quite good at at connecting with people
00:34:46Which is something I struggle with
00:34:48both being a bit extroverted, but also
00:34:52um
00:34:53Just finding things to connect on
00:34:56And so that was a skill. I admired
00:34:59She had she was able to kind of build groups. No, I agree with all of that skills, but skills are not virtues, right?
00:35:05I mean people can be hard-working and i'm not saying she was immoral, but people can certainly be hard-working and immoral, right?
00:35:11People can be fit and immoral and people can be good at quote connecting with people
00:35:16I mean mussolini was good at connecting with the italian population. That doesn't mean that he was a moral man
00:35:21So i'm talking and how long have you listened to what I do for?
00:35:25Uh off and on since college so quite a while, okay, so this i'm sure these you've probably heard these questions a million times before
00:35:33But it always is interesting to me how it seems to be new to everyone
00:35:36But none of those are in particular virtues. I mean if you are virtuous then being hard-working certainly helps
00:35:42but hard-working fitness
00:35:44connecting with people
00:35:46These aren't virtues. The virtue is something that
00:35:49Is good in its own right in other words, so it can't be like honest
00:35:55I'm, sorry. So so something like honesty
00:35:59which
00:36:01honesty
00:36:02moral courage
00:36:04directness maturity wisdom with the emotions
00:36:06So knowing that just because you're upset
00:36:08You don't blame the other person and manipulate them or try to get them to change their behavior, you know
00:36:13the real-time relationship stuff
00:36:15self-knowledge, of course is
00:36:17important for
00:36:18uh virtue
00:36:20So all of the things that can't be turned in a negative way
00:36:23So you take a hard working person you put them in charge of a concentration camp. They're going to get more people killed
00:36:28Right. So the hard working is dependent upon other virtues in order to become an accessory to virtue if that makes sense
00:36:35So i'm trying to think of or trying to understand that the primary virtues
00:36:40I mean, there's lots of people who are very fit who are utterly corrupt, right?
00:36:43So i'm trying to think of or trying to understand the the primary virtues that drew you to her
00:36:50I'm just writing down. This is a great definition
00:37:03Okay, uh, she had a fair bit of self-knowledge she was definitely not
00:37:10Good at
00:37:15Self-censoring I guess
00:37:18So she would express how she was feeling good or bad
00:37:24And well, that's not a virtue either right because i'm not i'm not saying it was okay, but sorry
00:37:29Maybe we have a miscommunication. I'm asking for the primary virtues not for the things that aren't virtues
00:37:34So if I say, uh, where's vegas and you tell me where honolulu is I have the right to say I did ask you
00:37:40Now you can say you don't want to talk about it
00:37:41But to to talk about things I haven't asked for
00:37:44And then I seem to get a little annoyed when I ask for the things that I asked for is uh, yeah
00:37:49No, i'll i'll just be silent when i'm thinking then so yeah, that's fine
00:38:04She had these
00:38:06She had some
00:38:07Some self-awareness so she was aware of things that she struggled with
00:38:12And wanted to improve on
00:38:21And she was interested in in lots of ideas, I guess that's not a virtue either
00:38:34You
00:38:45She was she was interested in consistency so she
00:38:51I think that was one of the things that drew me to her. She would express
00:38:56I don't know if you'd call it fairness, but she there was a recognition of
00:39:01Um
00:39:04Like the behavior that she
00:39:07displayed
00:39:09Was the behavior that she was going to try and model to have people display back to her?
00:39:34Sorry, maybe maybe you should list the virtues again. No, no, that's fine
00:39:38I mean the the pause is quite telling right and i'm not trying to criticize
00:39:41I'm, just sort of pointing it out now when it comes to you said she has some degree of self-knowledge and what would be
00:39:46An example of that and and how would that manifest or come to life in the relationship?
00:39:51So just so you know for so for me self-knowledge is let's say I say
00:39:56Um, I have a bad temper and I tend to escalate conflicts, right?
00:40:00So that's self-knowledge, right?
00:40:01So then of course I should be working on that and trying to figure out what's causing it and
00:40:05Undo the the thoughts that that go behind it and all that kind of stuff
00:40:08But the way that self-knowledge manifests in a relationship is you can be called on it, right?
00:40:13So, uh, you know if i'm if I have this, uh, I tend to escalate and I tend to be too grumpy
00:40:18Then when i'm escalating in a conflict my my wife can say or my wife could say, uh, hey, uh
00:40:25Hey, remember this thing where you you escalate you're doing it now and i'm like, oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. So sorry
00:40:29You're right. You're right. And and so I can be called on it. That's the purpose of self-knowledge
00:40:33is
00:40:35so you can be be called on stuff and and
00:40:38It's uh, it's got weight in the relationship in terms of resolving conflicts if that makes sense
00:40:42So with her self-knowledge, um, I guess
00:40:45What did she know about herself and how did that practically manifest in the relationship?
00:40:53She was aware that she had some serious insecurities
00:40:57And
00:41:00Would project those on to me and would withdraw
00:41:07That line of communication when I would point out
00:41:11that she was just
00:41:13Being insecure and it was nothing that I had done that was wrong
00:41:17About insecure about what?
00:41:20So she she would
00:41:23Presume
00:41:25Some behavior that I was doing was unfaithful or was
00:41:32Had malintention and I would I would point out to her that i'm behaving the same way she's behaving and i'm
00:41:40You know, there's plenty of good reasons for this behavior and it was just her insecurities manifesting
00:41:48And would that generally resolve the conflict
00:41:51And maybe not immediately but I thought oh, yeah, I do have that habit and yeah, it would
00:41:59Yeah, she would she would she wouldn't always apologize but
00:42:05She would at least acknowledge that there was nothing
00:42:09Wrong with the behavior. Okay. Got it. And how often would this kind of stuff come up to the point where there was conflict?
00:42:18Uh once a month maybe
00:42:20Okay, and did it improve or stay the same or get worse over the course of your
00:42:26Um, I guess two or three three relationship. It sort of came and went based on
00:42:32How she was doing
00:42:35And what was she doing to work on the issues outside of the conflict because you know
00:42:39Generally if you have
00:42:41Some problem with your way of communicating you can't usually do it in the moment
00:42:44You have to do it in between the moment, right? Yeah, so she was she was getting counseling
00:42:49Um, she was getting counseling actually when we started dating
00:42:53I
00:42:54She I was aware of this issue within the first six months
00:42:58and
00:43:00I had aspirations that this would improve
00:43:03and it
00:43:04didn't
00:43:05um
00:43:07I remember at one point telling her that she needed to switch counselors because
00:43:12You know this counselor had been working with her for over three years and it's the problem hadn't been fixed
00:43:17so
00:43:18Had other problems
00:43:20been fixed
00:43:23Through the counselor, I don't know that's that's very possible
00:43:27But nothing obvious, right?
00:43:29right
00:43:31yeah, I mean it's kind of like if you're going to a
00:43:33Nutrition and exercise coach and after three years you weigh the same and have this little muscle mass as you did before
00:43:39We might have some questions, right? Right. Okay, exactly
00:43:42And did she end up taking your advice since I know this is more towards the end of the relationship
00:43:46But did she take your advice at all and switch therapists? I have no idea
00:43:50No, because the thing kind of blew up before then, right? Well, and she didn't share this
00:43:56um
00:43:58Like I don't I don't know who she was had a therapy sessions with it's
00:44:05Uh, so but yeah, sorry, but what do you mean?
00:44:08well, the
00:44:10the
00:44:11Therapy sessions. I don't know the name of the counselor. No, I get that
00:44:14But I mean you would know if she changed her counselor, wouldn't you?
00:44:18She'd say i'm no longer going to this guy. I got a new guy or woman or so
00:44:22she I mean she never she never shared this port, so
00:44:27I I may not even know if she changed. Does that make sense?
00:44:31So you said I think you need to change counselors. Did she agree?
00:44:37No, she got defensive
00:44:39Okay, so then she didn't change counselors
00:44:41That's I I presume that's yeah. Yeah, I mean, but I wouldn't I wouldn't know, you know, like if if you've got you know
00:44:46You're a project manager. If somebody's got a deliverable and they won't give you an answer
00:44:50Is it because they have their deliverable ready?
00:44:52No, of course, right? Of course not right. That's not a that's not even a guess, right?
00:44:57Right, and did you go to counseling at all?
00:45:00So I went to counseling when the relationship was deteriorating
00:45:06um
00:45:07I wanted to do couples and she
00:45:10Didn't want to do couples until I had done individual
00:45:14um
00:45:15Which I was kind of frustrated about but I pursued individual. I did that for about three months
00:45:21And most of the individual counseling turned into how to manage her
00:45:26And it became very clear that the sources of my challenges
00:45:31were
00:45:33The relationship and not things that I could do individually per se
00:45:37but did the counselor
00:45:40obviously don't talk about anything you don't want to but
00:45:43Did the counselor ever try to figure out why you ended up in a relationship where you had to manage the woman?
00:45:48No
00:45:49Okay
00:45:50So it's just like practical strategies for talking her off the ledge if she got too wound up, right?
00:45:54That's that's a very very good description. It was a lot of how to
00:45:59back down or avoid conflict or
00:46:03So appease how to appease
00:46:06Or or
00:46:08Uh put her off or a lot of it was so because i'm
00:46:13The way my parents are, you know, if something was yelling I would be very upset and I would stay very upset for a long time
00:46:20versus
00:46:21right, she would get upset and she would
00:46:24Come back an hour later and be perfectly peppy
00:46:26and so one of the strategies was
00:46:30To
00:46:32Sort of shut down the conversation and then just come back when she was happy
00:46:36Were her parents rural chinese or urban chinese?
00:46:43Uh, I guess rural right and your parents are british, right
00:46:49Um not german italian german italian, okay, okay
00:46:55And but it sounds I mean if if they're not particularly emotionally expressive it sounds like they tend more towards the german, right
00:47:03Yes, okay, yes
00:47:05And and so you really are and I say this with great affection. You really are the worst conservative I've ever heard of
00:47:11I'm, just gonna be straight up. I can't be wrong
00:47:13But you really are the worst because conservatism is about conserving your cultural values as well, right?
00:47:20And how you would go from primarily german parents to merging a family with you know
00:47:25Shrieking rural chinese people who don't even speak german or english or I assume any european language
00:47:32I mean, how on earth are you conserving your?
00:47:34Your values how on earth are you conserving your traditions? I mean again, I could be wrong but
00:47:39It's about conserving what your ancestors kind of developed and and all of that and you really couldn't have gone
00:47:46more the opposite of
00:47:49Your culture and your history than this, right?
00:47:54Uh, that's a good insight
00:47:59Yeah, we uh, what was valuable to my family is more certain traditions
00:48:06and
00:48:08um
00:48:09the my parents parents are farmers and mechanics and
00:48:13very industrial
00:48:16Um, so I mean how are you supposed to conserve your traditions with grandparents where you don't even speak the same language
00:48:24Right, I mean I maybe i'm missing something obvious here and i'm certainly happy to be corrected
00:48:28But it's a bit jaw-dropping from this side of the convo
00:48:31well, they
00:48:32I mean when they moved to the u.s. So that was three or four or five generations ago
00:48:39you know, they
00:48:41Right, yeah, my parents are not first. I mean my I got it. Yeah
00:48:45so like my dad's dad's dad's dad moved to the u.s. Right and my
00:48:50you know
00:48:51Like my dad has a memory of a relative that spoke only italian
00:48:55But he never he grew up in the u.s. Same with my mom's side, but the the lady I was dating
00:49:01Her parents were first generation. So
00:49:03But how how do you how do you square traditional american values with rural?
00:49:09Chinese people who don't speak english
00:49:12I mean, you know that most of the texts would be in english that you would need to understand to understand sort of american values
00:49:17Right. So i'm trying to sort of fathom this conservatism thing
00:49:22well
00:49:24She yeah, I mean she grew up. No, no, no, she no no the grandparents. Oh, sorry the her parents
00:49:32I I I don't um, I don't know if I would describe her parents as conservative
00:49:39Well, you don't know in particular because you don't speak the language right well there's that too yeah, right so
00:49:45I mean they grew up under communism. They don't speak english
00:49:49And you want to be a conservative by passing along the traditions of your culture to your kids?
00:50:00And again, i'm not criticizing you obviously, you know date date whoever you want marry whoever you want, but i'm having trouble
00:50:06squaring the
00:50:08Circle that you call conservatism. And again, i'm totally happy to be corrected and I could be awry
00:50:13On on all of this, but I don't quite get the connection
00:50:16I mean if I want to preserve the traditions of my culture and my values i'm not sure that
00:50:21Having rural chinese mandarin speakers who I don't share a language with or a culture or a history
00:50:28With would be the way that I would go about transferring my values to the next generation
00:50:32Yeah
00:50:36Yeah, I guess I had some presumptions that they wouldn't be very involved because my ex
00:50:42Was trying to separate from them to some degree
00:50:46Okay, there's a lot there's a lot in what you said there and I I want to make sure we have a chance to unpack it
00:50:52so your hope was that
00:50:55I mean it would be tough for them to be involved because they'd be talking to your kids and you wouldn't have any idea
00:51:00What they were saying I assume your kids would learn mandarin or cantonese or whatever, right?
00:51:03Was it mandarin or cantonese or something else cantonese? Oh cantonese. Okay
00:51:08so
00:51:09Your in-laws would be instructing your children in cantonese, which you don't speak and I assume you're not going to learn
00:51:16So and and they wouldn't be able to tell you what they were saying and you wouldn't understand what they were saying
00:51:21So i'm still trying to figure out this sort of cultural value transmission when you have people
00:51:25Who are going to have some authority over your children as grandparents and you don't even know what they're saying
00:51:30I think they would try and communicate in their broken english. Um
00:51:38I mean my ex
00:51:43Was losing cantonese
00:51:45as a communication because of
00:51:47She didn't do it except with her parents
00:51:50But they would also want to I mean you want to transmit your you want to transmit your cultural values. So do they right?
00:51:56It's kind of a universal thing, right?
00:52:00I
00:52:01I don't know if I would say it's universal
00:52:03Well, I mean china's had a up until communism
00:52:07China had a pretty contiguous society for 6 000 years and that wasn't because they didn't transmit cultural values, right?
00:52:14No, but I I think you would agree that certain
00:52:18Families when especially when they move they keep certain things and lose other things and so there's not the old people
00:52:24I
00:52:26Mean there's a reason why there's chinatown or little italy or little greece. It's because the older people
00:52:32Tend to retain the values of their homeland
00:52:36Right, but when these this couple moved to the u.s. They weren't old at all, right they were
00:52:42Teens or I mean sorry
00:52:45Sorry your your in-laws
00:52:48Moved to the united states many decades ago
00:52:51Yeah
00:52:53Yeah, they they moved when they were either teens or early 20s, so why wouldn't they speak english?
00:53:02Because of how many or whatever right? No, it's because it's it's because of how
00:53:06many
00:53:07People in southern california don't speak english
00:53:11Well, and what that means is that they stay within the cultural framework of china
00:53:15Which means that that's the values
00:53:18I'm, not criticizing that i'm just that's a fact, right?
00:53:21you
00:53:23Right, the reason they wouldn't speak english is because they've stayed in
00:53:26Chinatown or wherever and they've stayed within their own cultural and historical milieu, which means that's what they value, right?
00:53:32And I don't have any complaints about that. Um, but that's a fact, isn't it?
00:53:38Uh, yes, he definitely the dad at least stayed
00:53:43Working for communities that he didn't have to learn very good english
00:53:47Well, and it's not I mean i'm sure they're intelligent and so it's not a matter of learning english or not
00:53:51It's just that he prefers the chinese culture and the chinese language and the chinese history and the chinese
00:53:55traditions and so on to
00:53:59American
00:54:03To some extent yes, well to the extent that he's lived in a country for many decades and never learned the primary languages
00:54:09Right
00:54:11Right and instead he learned
00:54:13other tonal languages other european or not european other
00:54:18Asian languages, so he spoke
00:54:20three or four
00:54:22dialects to
00:54:25Be in to work with that community
00:54:29right, yeah, okay, so
00:54:31He would I assume be somewhat interested in passing his cultural values along because that's what he prefers
00:54:37Okay, so what were the kind of conflicts that
00:54:41You got into because I guess they were somewhat manageable before you got engaged and lived together
00:54:46and what were the
00:54:48Conflicts that arose after you began living together that that were more and more difficult to solve
00:55:00Um, so one of them was when we weren't living together
00:55:04We
00:55:06weren't carpooling and
00:55:09My ex is the type of person who
00:55:12gets there when she gets there and
00:55:15particularly for
00:55:17So so this came up when we were house hunting and I like to be on timer early
00:55:22to meeting a real estate agent
00:55:25And she would argue that the real estate agent works for us
00:55:28And if she's late, that's not a problem because the real estate agent works for us
00:55:33and
00:55:36For the house viewings, you know, you have a set time so i'm sorry you understand it's german precision meeting rural chinese influenced hierarchy
00:55:45You know, it's it's for you. It's it's an act of rudeness to be late for them
00:55:49It's an act of humiliation almost to be on time because they work for you and who are they to boss you around, right?
00:55:55That's that's a really good insight. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so I mean you understand that
00:56:00Again the conservative side is is aspect. Yeah confusing. Anyway, so sorry go ahead
00:56:06Now that I mean this is I I wouldn't have made that connection that's really insightful, um, so yeah
00:56:16Yeah, so that that was a source of conflict sorry
00:56:18So you were living together and you were carpooling looking for a place. Is that right?
00:56:22Well, we we were we were house hunting. So we were yeah, we would go
00:56:26To see a place and no, but were you already living together when you were house hunting?
00:56:31Yes. Yeah, so we so you were sorry and i'm sorry to I just want to make sure I understand the mechanics
00:56:36so you'd say to sue to to your
00:56:38fiancee
00:56:40You'd say well, you know, it's a it's a half hour drive. We got to be there at 11
00:56:44So we got to leave at 10 20 right or something like that, right?
00:56:48And what did she say?
00:56:51Well, she would
00:56:53I would express my
00:56:57I wouldn't I wouldn't say it that way. I I would say I you know, I I don't like being late. I think it's disrespectful
00:57:03You know what needs to happen so that we can be there on time
00:57:07And she would tell me things that she needed me to do so that she could be ready on time like what
00:57:16Oh, um, I need to
00:57:19But a lot of the quote problems
00:57:22Became my problem. This is okay. No, but like what sorry just
00:57:26Oh project manager. I'm sure you value precise answers
00:57:28Uh, so what would she say that you have to do so that she can get ready?
00:57:32Oh, she needs to see me getting ready and she needs forewarning
00:57:38No, but you're giving her forewarning
00:57:41You're saying we need to be on time
00:57:43You
00:57:45Well, no she would more like every time
00:57:51I'm, not sure what that means
00:57:53Well
00:57:55if
00:57:56she was
00:57:57she
00:57:58She was really trying to offload responsibility
00:58:01Okay, but what would she say? I mean I I get the narrative about it
00:58:04But what would she say she would say I can't be on time because you haven't done x y or z and what is that?
00:58:11She needs to see me getting ready and preparing
00:58:16Um and put my shoes on by the door. No, but women take longer to get ready than men
00:58:21So that doesn't make much sense, right?
00:58:23I'm agreeing with you
00:58:25Okay, so she would say I can't figure out how to get somewhere on time unless I see you putting your shoes on
00:58:34Um
00:58:37There was no discussion about her capability
00:58:41I'm, not sure what that means either. Sorry. Well, you you just expressed to me that she would express what she didn't
00:58:48that she
00:58:50needed
00:58:54That she never expressed here's
00:58:59the be um
00:59:01That she couldn't get there on time. It's that she chose not to
00:59:05and or
00:59:06there were things that I
00:59:08had to have done so that
00:59:10To so that she could be ready. So
00:59:14Yeah in retrospect
00:59:16Sorry, so i'm getting two things here and i'm sure there's a way to circle this square, but she's saying
00:59:23That I don't have to be on time because the real estate agent is working for us, right?
00:59:28right
00:59:29and
00:59:31Also that she wants to be on time, but she can't get ready until she sees you putting on her shoes
00:59:36Are you putting on your shoes? Sorry?
00:59:41Yes, those two are not the same, right
00:59:45Yes, because if she says I don't want to be on time because he's working for us
00:59:50Then it doesn't matter when you put your shoes on, right?
00:59:55Um, she
00:59:57Yeah, she she expressed that it wasn't very important to her
01:00:01Okay, so then the shoes thing's a bit of a red herring, right?
01:00:04Right, okay
01:00:06All right, so yeah, that was an important use i'm sorry. Yeah that that yes in retrospect that was an excuse
01:00:14To let's put it on you so that put it put it on me
01:00:16So you think about your own behavior rather than correcting her now if you would have
01:00:23Uh, if she was at work and she had difficulties with her boss did that bother her
01:00:31Yes
01:00:33Well, why her boss can do whatever he wants because she's the employee just as
01:00:37The real estate agent is her employees i'm not sure I quite follow
01:00:43I mean if the if the boss can just do whatever he wants
01:00:46and that's fine because he's the boss because she's the boss of the
01:00:50Real estate agent then i'm not sure why would she would have problems at work
01:00:53Wouldn't she just do what the boss wants and in the same way that the real estate agent has to suck it up if she's late
01:00:59I I don't mean problems like
01:01:02Moral she but there was
01:01:04situation where she would be upset with
01:01:07Something that would happen from her. I didn't say I didn't say anything about moral problems. Well, but it
01:01:14For her it was a problem because she was very emotionally sensitive. So she would be very upset but this just hypocritical
01:01:20I mean
01:01:21This is I don't care about the emotional sensitivity
01:01:24But it's hypocritical to say I can be rude to my employees
01:01:28But my boss better not be rude to me or I can be late
01:01:31from from for my employees, but my boss better not be difficult or late for me or I can be
01:01:37You understand like if if that's the high line
01:01:40Yeah, I understand what I I guess what i'm trying to correct when when you asked me the question
01:01:46I didn't answer very precisely
01:01:49So when you asked if she got upset with situations with her boss
01:01:55or when she
01:01:57that's not exactly what you asked, but um
01:01:59Well, no, but that would sorry to interrupt, but that would be a lever for having her have empathy
01:02:04for the real estate agent because you know, this is like
01:02:06101 right? I mean philosophy 101 which is to say
01:02:10Okay. So do you like it when your boss makes you wait?
01:02:13Do you like it when your boss is rude to you and she'd be like, well, no I said
01:02:17well, okay, then we should be nice to the real estate agent because you understand how
01:02:21It can be unpleasant to be on the receiving end of that lack of consideration or that rudeness, right?
01:02:25So we should be on time because that's what you value in your boss and you complain when your boss is rude
01:02:30So we shouldn't be rude to our employees
01:02:32even if we categorize a real estate agent as an employee when there are in fact an independent contractor or something like that, but
01:02:38So that would be you know, it's empathy 101. Well, you don't like it when your boss is rude to you
01:02:42So let's not be rude to our real estate agent
01:02:47Yes, that would have been a better way to discuss that topic
01:02:51And
01:02:54This didn't i'm not saying whether it should or shouldn't but I mean you've listened to me for a long time so
01:02:58Wouldn't that be?
01:03:01I did that not cross your mind to say I didn't discuss
01:03:05Her boss. I was more
01:03:07I I'm more focused on the real estate agent and myself. So
01:03:11I expressed that it was inconsiderate to you know, all the other people that have to view the house
01:03:17They have time slots. We have a time slot
01:03:20You know, we if we show up late we have to waste everyone's time and not see that house or
01:03:27You know
01:03:28Agent will be less motivated to sell for us and therefore we might get like there's actual practical consequences that if you really annoy your real
01:03:34estate agent
01:03:36They just won't be that focused on getting you a great deal or getting you lots of offers or anything like that
01:03:40Whereas, you know having people like you and appreciate your
01:03:43Politeness and I mean there's there's real practical outcomes to that, right?
01:03:47Yeah, so that was my that was worth my argument
01:03:52Right, which then would tie in how motivated do you feel at work when your boss is rude or difficult
01:03:58I didn't express that right, right. Okay, and then that's fine
01:04:03So, okay, so
01:04:05Tardiness or or and and you know, you can tell a lot about people
01:04:09By how they treat those they have power over
01:04:13Actually, do you mind if I make a note on that regard
01:04:16No, that's fine. Um, so so one of the things that i've looked for in dates is someone who's not late
01:04:23and
01:04:24um
01:04:26Because for me the respect thing
01:04:29And I found lots of dates that are slightly late
01:04:33Either as power clay or they just don't care
01:04:36Anyway, this or or it could be that they show up and like i'm really really sorry
01:04:40x y and z happened that was highly unpredictable and you know
01:04:43There could have been some horrible traffic crash or like there can be reasons for being late
01:04:47But you certainly do need to acknowledge that it's something wrong
01:04:51That's happened and you need to have a good explanation, right?
01:04:53Right, and that's that's never happened. So but this x
01:04:57Happened to be early and I I found out she was just early because she was studying at the place. We had our first date
01:05:04um
01:05:06but for me that was one of the it was like a good sign that end up not being applicable because she
01:05:12Well, you don't get the good sign three years into it right I mean the one time that was coincidental, um, okay
01:05:19So there was issues around
01:05:22Uh real estate and it was carpooling an issue. Was that mostly because she didn't want to be on time or was there something else?
01:05:28no, it was the
01:05:31Um coordinating to of preference for being on time
01:05:37Okay, and was there something else, uh, I mean I assume that wasn't the thing that broke up the whole engagement
01:05:42Was there something else that occurred?
01:05:45uh over and above the
01:05:46house hunting
01:05:50Uh, yeah, I mean there were there were a series of things, um
01:05:55That just sort of escalated. Um, I I became aware that
01:06:02There were values that I had expressed
01:06:05And priorities
01:06:08and
01:06:10um, she agreed with those but
01:06:13Later found out she just wanted everything. She didn't actually have the same priorities. So, okay again, sorry, I I hate to keep repeating myself
01:06:22But if I can get specifics rather than narrative, um, that's very helpful
01:06:27So
01:06:28when I
01:06:30Articulated that we wanted a certain type of house a house that we could host people
01:06:35and that would take
01:06:36sacrifices of remodeling and
01:06:40um to make that happen
01:06:42those were intentions that I thought we were aligned on and she
01:06:48Opposed and didn't want to put any effort towards
01:06:51Remodeling the house that we purchased to make that happen
01:06:55And again, I'm I don't know much about the southern california real estate market but
01:07:00Why would you buy a house that you had to remodel rather than trying to find a house?
01:07:04Maybe with some other compromises that you didn't have to remodel
01:07:07So this was after we moved so we weren't in southern california. Okay
01:07:12um, but um
01:07:15The there's no I mean the housing
01:07:20Good luck finding a house that has everything you want
01:07:25I mean that's true of life as a whole right because if the house has everything you want then it's just too damn expensive
01:07:30So then it doesn't have that right? So as you know, like there's no such thing as a perfect solution. That's just trade-offs, right?
01:07:36Exactly. So we okay. So so you you know for sure you can't get the house that you want. I mean nobody can
01:07:41Right. Everybody wants the mansion for a dollar with no property tax, right?
01:07:44So so nobody can get the house that they want. But anyway, go on
01:07:47Yeah, so we we we knew this but we purchased a house that we could make into what we wanted, right? So
01:07:55um, we paid enough over list to win
01:07:58competitive market and then
01:08:01Put in the effort to do the adjustments to to
01:08:06Make it what we wanted
01:08:07And you had mentioned being able to have people over. Is that right like socializing stuff?
01:08:13Yes
01:08:14And you said you're kind of an introvert. So i'm trying to understand i'm not saying that that's all and introverts can't party
01:08:20Uh, but what was the priority for you of having people over?
01:08:25Um
01:08:27Part of it was
01:08:29She wanted it and I was happy to support it and okay, she wanted it
01:08:34Hold on. No. No, sorry. I'm i'm not trying to stop you from talking
01:08:38I was just I thought you said that that's what you wanted, but and that's totally fine
01:08:41I was just there's a little surprise go ahead
01:08:44I recognize that i'm not as outgoing
01:08:48And so for me
01:08:49I wanted to create a space that I could host events in to help
01:08:53Ameliorate that and i've done that since she's left. So so you both wanted it
01:08:58Yes. Okay. Got it. That's fine. I'm just just curious
01:09:03all right, and
01:09:05How long and how expensive and you don't have to give me?
01:09:08Totally detailed figures, but the time how long but is it going to take to fix up the house?
01:09:13Um, well, it's basically done now, um that you're asking
01:09:22You're asking how long
01:09:25You mean when we purchased the house?
01:09:26Well, I don't know if you say it's done now, and I don't know when you bought the house
01:09:29You haven't answered how long it is, right?
01:09:32oh, so well, there's more I think there's more there's there's other things in the timeline, but um,
01:09:39So when we we purchased the house in
01:09:44um
01:09:452022
01:09:47And I started
01:09:49project managing basically the remodel
01:09:53and
01:09:54We were looking at a cost anywhere from
01:09:5915 000 to 45 000
01:10:02But and two years off and on right?
01:10:09I'm, sorry, uh, it's if you bought it in 2022
01:10:12Um, then it's two years give or take right because 2024 now so it's two years give or take
01:10:18That it took to do the upgrades. I mean, I don't think that's no no. Oh, no, we purchased the house in 2021
01:10:24Okay, or or even no, maybe it might have been 2020. Let's see
01:10:28Okay, so maybe three to two three four years something like that. So a number of years to remodel the house, right?
01:10:34so
01:10:36It wouldn't normally take that long but we
01:10:40started to separate and that
01:10:43put a kibosh on
01:10:45Spending time and money on making the improvements
01:10:47and
01:10:48How long would it have taken if you hadn't?
01:10:52Separated like what was the estimate?
01:10:54for
01:10:55Completing the work
01:10:56Oh like eight months
01:10:58Eight months. Okay, and how old were you when you bought the house?
01:11:03At 29
01:11:0529. Okay, and she's your age
01:11:09One year younger when you're younger, okay
01:11:12and
01:11:16Why
01:11:17You you've been together for a couple of years at this point, right?
01:11:21Uh three years and you want family, right?
01:11:25Right. So why remodel the house rather than start having kids?
01:11:30I mean, it seems that you're choosing a lot of stuff other than family and i'm this this is good news, I think
01:11:35But i'm still trying to
01:11:37Figure well at at that time that so we
01:11:40We we called off getting married
01:11:43um because of
01:11:45These issues in the relationship. Sorry. I I don't know when that happened
01:11:49So that that happened about the same time the same time as moving as the house house remodel
01:11:56Moving as the house house remodel planning
01:12:00uh
01:12:01So we i'm sorry i'm completely lost here
01:12:03I thought you've only been together for three plus years, but you bought the house in 2020
01:12:08Which is four years ago
01:12:11I'm sorry, it's my mistake. I'm i'm i'm sure so he's remembering something. So so so we met in 2028
01:12:19Uh, 2018
01:12:21Yeah, we moved in 2020
01:12:23Oh, so you've been you work together and when did how long ago did you break up?
01:12:28um
01:12:29It's gonna be
01:12:30two years
01:12:32My apologies. Okay. I got it. I got it. I got it
01:12:34I'm, just gonna i'm gonna have to be an annoying guy and write this down. Okay, so
01:12:392018 bought house
01:12:412020 broke up 2022, right? Yes
01:12:46Okay, so you got engaged you look for if I have this right you got engaged you look for a house
01:12:52So no, we got engaged we moved
01:12:55You moved in
01:12:57We moved in together and moved cities
01:12:59And when was that?
01:13:01That was 2020
01:13:03It was during kovu. Okay, right. Got it. So so then you you live together 2020 and you move
01:13:10All right, i'm just putting a big living in sin i'm just kidding. All right, so cohabitate
01:13:15And then you bought the house in
01:13:19Was it the same year that you moved in and then you bought a house that year
01:13:23Correct. Okay. Got it. So you moved twice?
01:13:26Yeah, so what happened was covet happened
01:13:30We both agreed that it was a good opportunity
01:13:34for various reasons
01:13:36We we moved
01:13:38because I found a job that
01:13:41Gave us moving size spend
01:13:43We moved together and then we were in a new city together
01:13:47We took an apartment while we have something and then within it was four months. We had purchased a house. Got it. So
01:13:54I appreciate the update now
01:13:56What happened to her career?
01:13:59When she was in a position that she worked remote
01:14:03Oh, so her condition could continue her her career could continue. Yes. Okay. Got it
01:14:09Got it
01:14:11So it was shortly after that you moved into the new house and the renovations were underway
01:14:16And I assume you could live in the house while the renovations were going on. Is that right?
01:14:20Yeah, we
01:14:23We we hadn't even started anything
01:14:25It was mostly just the all the difficulty that came up with planning and working together
01:14:30when it became very apparent that
01:14:34her values
01:14:36Like
01:14:38She she wasn't she wasn't very interested
01:14:40in
01:14:41What I thought the shared goal was
01:14:44Oh, okay. Sorry more abstractions
01:14:46um
01:14:47the shared goal of owning the house and
01:14:51Having it be a place that we could host
01:14:53and
01:14:55um
01:14:56You know having a guest room that people could visit and like those
01:15:01We had some criteria when we were purchasing the house
01:15:05And when it became time to put forth the effort to realize that criteria she
01:15:10Was not she didn't put forth the effort
01:15:13What effort did she need to put forth?
01:15:15I mean you've got the project management stuff and you i'm sure you're dealing with the contractor
01:15:19So what effort does she need to put forward? Well, so say for example, I have to
01:15:25purchase
01:15:26Uh countertops. All right, I would go and get quotes I would
01:15:32You know make
01:15:34selections go around and source material and then
01:15:38She wanted her input
01:15:41Which would mean I would then go back around with her and show her the ones
01:15:44That I thought were good candidates
01:15:47um to pick from
01:15:49and
01:15:51she
01:15:52To her that was a lot of work
01:15:56Oh, so she said I want to choose
01:15:58the countertops
01:16:00But I don't want to go and look for the countertops, but you can't buy them without me
01:16:03Yes, okay, so that's just straight-up sabotage right? I mean that's an impossibility
01:16:07That's exactly what happened. Okay, so that's an so why would why do you think she was doing that?
01:16:14Um
01:16:19I think some of it was power play
01:16:26Like for example, she she would want what she would want because she wanted it it was
01:16:34um
01:16:37She wanted to make decisions unilaterally to express that she could control this situation
01:16:43For almost no reason other than to control it
01:16:46so
01:16:48um
01:16:50So like there were there were decisions that she wanted to make that were terrible design decisions
01:16:56and I would
01:16:58Have store people look at me and be like that doesn't that's not going to look very good
01:17:02And no, no, that's what I want. And it's like good
01:17:07Why would you want to do that? It's terrible, you know
01:17:10Sorry, i'm i'm trying to understand. I mean she she had the house that she wanted the house a certain way, right?
01:17:17Like she had to sign
01:17:18Goals and ideas, right?
01:17:20Now she would be home with the kids. So she'd be spending the time in the house, right?
01:17:24Right, so wouldn't she get to say I mean she's spending much more time in the house than you are
01:17:32Um
01:17:34What the some of the preferences she made were contradictory so
01:17:41They were um
01:17:45My impression was that for her it was about control
01:17:49It was about I don't know what you mean by contradictory she'd say I want one bedroom and no bedroom. What what do you mean?
01:17:57Um, I want a bar height counter and I want a counter that's not bar height
01:18:04Well, I mean she's not insane right she'd know that you can't have the same counter be two different heights, right
01:18:10Yes
01:18:12Functions in the world, right?
01:18:15Right, but she I mean it was
01:18:18What she was asking for would be some unique custom thing that doesn't exist anywhere
01:18:23And so then people would say that doesn't that's not something we can do, right?
01:18:28And what would you say? What would she say when the contractors would say we can't do that?
01:18:33She would just say that's what I want
01:18:36So she's kind of crazy, right
01:18:40Yes, okay
01:18:42Yes, okay
01:18:44so
01:18:45When did you first notice that she was kind of crazy?
01:18:48I mean if people say this this can't be done and she says I want it anyway, that's
01:18:55Not well meant it wasn't it wasn't that blatant but
01:18:58This is when but
01:19:00This is about this time is when we we called off the marriage plans. No, hang on. Sorry. I'm just
01:19:07I'm i'm trying to figure out like we have trouble communicating right and maybe it's me at my end for sure, right?
01:19:12but
01:19:14You say she wants things that are contradictory and I say well like this and this well, no not like that
01:19:18Okay, but she wants things that the
01:19:20The contractors say can't be provided or can't be done, right?
01:19:23And then you say well, it wasn't that obvious and i'm like, so I don't know what we're talking about anymore
01:19:27Oh, so okay. So say say she says here's a design theme that I want I want
01:19:33Whatever traditional style. Yeah
01:19:35And then she chooses fixtures that aren't traditional, okay, and then she
01:19:42Tells off someone who points out that the fixtures that she's chosen will look terrible with the design style that she says she wants
01:19:50well
01:19:52What do you mean? I mean look looks terrible. It's a very subjective thing
01:19:55I mean, I wouldn't want to live in Graceland, but Elvis liked it
01:19:59I mean if that's what she wants
01:20:01That's what she wants right and i'm not saying that that means it's an absolute like gravity
01:20:05But again, she's going to be the one staying home with the kids
01:20:07The place should has to it's more important that she liked the house than you and plus she's a woman, right? So
01:20:13So if she wants something if she wants something then
01:20:17You know, they can say I don't think it fits and she says well I want it and it's like, okay
01:20:22Yeah, it could be things like I really like bright areas, but i'm choosing lamps that are really low light or
01:20:29Um, you know, I want something that's super durable, but I also want
01:20:35um
01:20:36There's a type of countertop that she wanted that is not durable at all
01:20:41So because she liked how it looked. Um, okay
01:20:43So if you want something durable and the contractor says this stuff is very fragile, right?
01:20:48Like if you say I I want uh, I want furniture that takes a lot of wear and tear and I also want
01:20:54You know white muslin couches then they're going to say well
01:20:57That's not going to take a lot of wear and tear and the stains are going to show up
01:20:59So what would she say to that?
01:21:02She would just say well, that's what I want. Okay, so that's what she wants
01:21:08So, um, what would you say would you say that's not acceptable that's not allowable well, I would I would try and
01:21:15Suss out
01:21:17the criteria for a decision because i'm doing the hunting for
01:21:21You know the material or i'm trying to work with contractors so I would try and
01:21:27And why were you doing the hunting for the material?
01:21:31Well, because I I mean she wasn't putting much effort into
01:21:35Moving along the remodel
01:21:37And so so then you don't remodel. I'm again. I'm sort of trying to understand this
01:21:41I mean if she doesn't want to do much effort, then why does it become your job?
01:21:47Um because I wanted to make it happen
01:21:51why
01:21:56I don't understand the question. Well, if so you wanted the remodel
01:22:04Yes, okay, so you wanted the remodel but she said I need to make all the decisions
01:22:08And she wasn't she was actually interfering with the decisions, right? Because you'd say yeah
01:22:13Here's the countertops and she wouldn't come and look at them, right?
01:22:16right, okay, so
01:22:18Wouldn't you just abandon the project at least for the time being until she's got motivation
01:22:26Um
01:22:29Well some of it was
01:22:31I mean, that's that's what happened when our relationship deteriorated. I mean it happened
01:22:35Anyway, so at least you could have prevented some conflict right because like in in relationships, right?
01:22:41Sometimes people want stuff that doesn't make any sense. Sometimes people want stuff that's contradictory
01:22:47right
01:22:48So what are you gonna do?
01:22:49I mean the german side of you we must organize this it must be ironed out. It must be blueprinted
01:22:54It must be non-contradictory. It must be implemented within a reasonable time frame
01:22:57I mean I get all of that but it's part of a culture. I mean if you wanted
01:23:01someone like you you'd
01:23:03date a german girl
01:23:05Yeah, I think what for me was very frustrating was I thought there was some agreement when we purchased the house
01:23:12that we would make these changes
01:23:15and
01:23:16Um, you know, there was some commitment to that and it turned out she didn't make any commitments
01:23:22Right. She just she said she wanted not only did she not make a commitment. She was actively obstructing the process, right?
01:23:28Yeah, she she both wanted the outcome and didn't want to facilitate the outcome, right? Okay
01:23:34Oh, and in fact, she was interfering with the outcome
01:23:37Right. Okay
01:23:39Now were there was there any sign of that before?
01:23:42You bought a house together and you put your name on it without being married you put her name on it without being married
01:23:50Um
01:23:54Because you're complaining about the project called renovation i'm questioning the project called marriage as a whole
01:24:01Right, like if you say well, you know things have to be done the right way and in the right sequence
01:24:05And i'm a conservative. It's like well, why are you putting the woman's name on the property?
01:24:11When you're not even married
01:24:16I intended to marry her and that felt like a appropriate thing to do
01:24:24to
01:24:25Okay, so but was there indications?
01:24:28I mean you said that there was indications of her being rude or thoughtless when it came to house hunting, right?
01:24:34right
01:24:36and
01:24:37What else was there?
01:24:40That would have given you these indications
01:24:48Uh
01:24:49Is there a specific time point? I mean, I guess so before you before you put her name on the house. Yeah. Um
01:24:58So the stuff with her parents
01:25:01And the insecurity that I
01:25:06Knew she was working on
01:25:09But I hadn't seen addressed
01:25:15Um
01:25:24Those were the bit two before and then the the real estate agent time preference
01:25:32Well, and the after lack of progress in therapy, right
01:25:35Yes
01:25:40Okay, so you put the project on hold to fix up the house, right
01:25:49I'm sorry. I say that again. Sorry you put the when you weren't getting along
01:25:52With your fiancee you put the project on hold for fixing up the house, right? Yes
01:25:57Okay
01:26:00And I assume that cost some penalties
01:26:04Um, not really I was doing most of it
01:26:09Oh, you were doing the renovations yourself I I was doing most of the renovation. Yeah
01:26:14Holy crap, so you got a full-time job
01:26:17Yes, and just spending four or six months renovating your house
01:26:21Yes
01:26:25Uh, okay, I mean that's that's a lot to put on a relationship, right?
01:26:35Um, I guess so, yeah, I mean would she were you having fun doing the house together
01:26:45I enjoyed the work
01:26:47um for me the sort of
01:26:50Physical aspect of it was rewarding. I've always been more of a shock person
01:26:56Um for her not not so much did she join you in the work no
01:27:02So you're hammering away wherever in the basement and she's doing what
01:27:09Well, she would go
01:27:12Bicycle or or do some social thing or I mean
01:27:16um
01:27:19Particularly on on weekends she
01:27:21Try and go socialize
01:27:23So i'm sorry
01:27:25I mean you're like a galley slave down there hammering in the basement and she's lunching with the ladies
01:27:30lunching with the ladies
01:27:32I had some resentment in that regard you think
01:27:35Yeah
01:27:37Holy crap. So now you're someone who works for her and she can treat you this way
01:27:44Right
01:27:46I mean
01:27:47if your wife was hammering away in the basement and you're like
01:27:51I want to go golfing. Wouldn't you feel kind of bad?
01:27:54I would yes, but she didn't
01:28:00She would say that it was something I wanted and I chose to do and she wasn't going to stop me
01:28:08Okay, so she did want this renovation and then she didn't when she wanted to go out right
01:28:15Now so she doesn't understand marriage obviously because there is no you and me in marriage right, right
01:28:25I mean
01:28:26If you have a project you're one flesh
01:28:29Now it's like your left arm saying to your right arm. Well, I didn't want this so you do all the work
01:28:34I mean you want supposed to be one flesh, right?
01:28:36right
01:28:37So how long did this go on for that?
01:28:38She would basically leave you to do all the hard work while she went off and spent money
01:28:45Um probably two or three months
01:28:49Um, so not the whole project. Oh, no, but then you put it on hold, right? Yeah. So then so then I basically
01:28:56It stopped
01:28:57um, a lot of the work was the planning and getting quotes and so
01:29:02but
01:29:03um, yeah, I I put in the new kitchen cabinets
01:29:07and did the electrical and the lights and
01:29:09And was she appreciative of this at all or was it like?
01:29:12Not particularly
01:29:14Not particularly. Wow
01:29:19Okay, and then so then basically the project got on hold
01:29:25um
01:29:27at that time
01:29:30Pursued counseling
01:29:33Oh, this is individual counseling. You wanted to do couples. She wanted you to do individual, right?
01:29:37Right. Okay
01:29:39and then and then um
01:29:42There was a moment in the second couples counseling session
01:29:47That wait, sorry couples. I'm sorry to jump in. I just want to make sure I understand
01:29:50I thought she I thought you wanted couples. She wanted you to do solo, but then you did end up doing couples
01:29:56Yeah, so we I did it solo for probably three months, okay
01:29:59and then um, it took another
01:30:02so after that another probably two
01:30:04two months to wrangle her into couples when
01:30:07My individual counselor recommended we do couples and your individual counselor was the guy who was like he's had a wrangle your wife
01:30:15He was here our mitigation strategy is to not lose your mind
01:30:19To not lose your money
01:30:21Your mind my mind. Oh your mind. Sorry emotional. Yeah. Okay, and
01:30:27don't want you to develop anything too personal, but
01:30:29what uh, can you give me an example of a strategy that he would have
01:30:33Come up with oh, I I already did. This is the one i've
01:30:37Like defer a conversation when she's super upset. She'll come back happy
01:30:42um, so if she was blowing up about something instead of engaging with her, I would just find some way to
01:30:48walk away or
01:30:52A limit, you know prevent the situation work these strategies. It worked for me as far as
01:31:00Um my level of ability to handle her they didn't help the relationship
01:31:07Right, okay. Yeah because
01:31:10You're just managing a fire. You're not able to put it out. Okay
01:31:14Right. There wasn't she like many times her goal was to express at me. There was no communication
01:31:21Express sorry to express what?
01:31:23At me like oh to vent and act out. Yeah, right
01:31:28So got it
01:31:31Okay, then you go to couples counseling and that's neither of the counselors that you guys have had individually, is that right correct
01:31:38Right, okay. Yeah, so we and how did that go
01:31:41Well the so there was in the second counseling session
01:31:45the counselor
01:31:47Made a point to her
01:31:49That she had not looked at me since the session had started. I mean this was like over a half hour in 45 minutes
01:31:56and
01:31:57I was trying to connect with her emotionally during the session and
01:32:01She was laser focused at convincing the counselor. She was right and I I wasn't in the room with her
01:32:06Right. So and that that to me was like a wake-up call. Um
01:32:13And I asked the counselor
01:32:16You know what like how long do you think
01:32:20It'll take for there to be an improvement and she's like, you know, this is a
01:32:24Takes a while it takes effort
01:32:26I just straight up told her I was like, I don't have that long. It's not working
01:32:30You know
01:32:31Like there hasn't been any progress in the couple of years you guys had been in fact, it seemed to have gotten worse, right?
01:32:37That's yes, exactly
01:32:39Okay
01:32:41So you basically your therapist or the therapist said take her as she is
01:32:45Don't expect too much change and you're like, I don't want her as she is
01:32:49I don't want to be overly simplistic, but it was something like that
01:32:52It oh, it was worse than that. It was like like i'm dying here. This is not
01:32:57Like i'm not gonna last
01:33:00And were you what what was dying about and i'm not disagreeing with you. I just want to make sure I understand
01:33:05What was what was dying for you about all of this like what was what was causing the dying sensation
01:33:10well, just I um
01:33:12Like I I couldn't exist emotionally in the relationship. So when they're when I would express things
01:33:20Like they just sort of breezed over her but she
01:33:25You know, she
01:33:27She wanted
01:33:28She would complain that I wouldn't communicate but then I would communicate and she just wouldn't
01:33:32Like it would go in one ear and out the other
01:33:34And so yeah, a lot of times people say you when they say you're not communicating they mean you're disagreeing
01:33:42No, I mean this was like
01:33:44I I was self-erasing to try and make the relationship work and I couldn't self-erase more
01:33:49well, you know the problem is I mean one of the major problems is
01:33:54so if if
01:33:56My wife and I had the idea for
01:33:59A
01:34:00Four to six month project
01:34:03That would be almost exclusively me and would take me away from her. Why would we say no to that?
01:34:12Oh because she wants to be with you and yeah because we want to be with each other and I don't want
01:34:17a fucking bar stool shit fest
01:34:20Place in my house more than I want to spend
01:34:23Time with my wife, right
01:34:26So the problem is that you guys
01:34:29Didn't want to spend time with each other enough
01:34:31And in fact the project and all of this may have been a way of covering that up
01:34:36I think
01:34:37Yes, yeah
01:34:38Like it's difficult to get along with someone and I listen I was in a difficult relationship not a terrible relationship
01:34:44But you know it had its its challenges
01:34:47And it was fantastic for my career as an entrepreneur because man did I love spending time at work
01:34:52I I had that
01:34:54Uh, there was a time when I was sitting at work going, you know
01:34:57I can read a book here or I can read a book at home. I'd rather read a book here. Oh, that's fucked up
01:35:02right, I mean there's that old meme like uh
01:35:04With the women say to like why do they why do the husbands just sit in the car in the driveway for five minutes before?
01:35:09Coming in it's like to prepare for the stress
01:35:12Yes
01:35:14Yeah
01:35:15So when did you start I mean that's that's significant dislike, you know, this is something there was some
01:35:20Billionaire, I can't remember who it was with some billionaires like i'm gonna i'm gonna sail a hot air balloon around the world
01:35:26I'm gonna fly this and it's like, okay, we get it, you know, like your wife like why did you just say that?
01:35:32Right, and it's kind of true like a lot of human a lot of male excellence in particular comes out of difficult females
01:35:38Because just rather work, right?
01:35:40so
01:35:41When did you start? I mean that's active dislike is i'd rather
01:35:44Fix up a house and spend time with you. I'd rather
01:35:48Go out with friends and spend time with my husband. So when did that when did that dislike really start to creep in?
01:35:57Um, that was
01:35:59Towards when I was doing the individual counseling and getting some more self-awareness
01:36:04It was I became more and more aware of how bad the relationship was
01:36:09did
01:36:10when you set up the
01:36:13house project the sort of four to six months
01:36:16And how many hours a week were you spending on this do you think I know it varies to some degree but
01:36:20well the planning
01:36:22planning was like
01:36:23You know 10 to 15
01:36:26I sorry 10 to 15 what?
01:36:28Hours a week, okay
01:36:30Between you know finding contractors. No, I get all of that. And what about the actual labor?
01:36:36And that includes you know getting the materials and all that
01:36:40Right, right
01:36:41The labor I was doing probably 20 20 to 30 hours
01:36:50Right, so that's a lot right
01:36:54Yeah ever say like we're not spending time together I miss you or
01:36:57No, no. Okay, so she didn't care
01:37:01In fact, she was probably relieved right and was it that you guys were getting along so uncertainly that spending time together was risky
01:37:11You
01:37:16The time we spent together felt very forced
01:37:23So like for example, she would want to go to dinner
01:37:26I didn't like eating out, but I would go
01:37:29You know, I wouldn't really want to be there
01:37:32She would
01:37:34Talk about stuff that I had no interest in
01:37:37I would
01:37:39Try and talk about the house. She didn't
01:37:41She didn't really care. I don't know. It just it wasn't it was
01:37:45Not did you get a sense of of?
01:37:49Foreboding like did you get a sense of yes
01:37:52If things keep going this way
01:37:55It's just a matter of time
01:37:57Yeah, that that was that feeling was probably the main one the reason I called off the marriage plans. So
01:38:03No, no before then, right?
01:38:06Like the early warning system, right?
01:38:08right, but this was
01:38:11Like like within the year that we had moved and bought a house
01:38:15Um
01:38:18When I was when I started feeling that in 2020
01:38:21Right and then the house remodel stuff was 2021
01:38:25And so when you started to get the feeling that if things continue
01:38:29Things are going to go very badly
01:38:31um, did you have any I mean, I guess that's when she was in counseling you went to counseling or was it before then like
01:38:37I'm trying to figure out sort of when you got that. Oh, this is going in a very bad direction and what happened after that
01:38:43Well, it's before you called off the engagement. Yeah, it's when I called off the engagement
01:38:48when I got that feeling and then that's when I
01:38:51Initially started to try and push us to get into counseling
01:38:56and
01:38:57I read some books on relationships. I was like I was looking for tools of how to work through things
01:39:04um
01:39:06But
01:39:09Yeah, it wasn't it wasn't getting better
01:39:12And
01:39:13You have been listening to me for a long time and why over in this process as a whole did you not want to call in?
01:39:23Um
01:39:26I don't remember if I put in a request or not actually but um
01:39:31Well, I mean even if you did put in a request and didn't hear back
01:39:35I mean, you know that sometimes you when people are busy. You don't always get what you want
01:39:41yeah, no, I wasn't expecting that but I did I mean, like I said, I I talked to my parents I talked to
01:39:47Like yeah, but that wasn't friends. That wasn't working. I saw yeah, I I
01:39:52But I I don't uh
01:39:55I don't think it was my lack of effort. I think it was just exposing issues that
01:40:00I should have been more diligent about it earlier. No. No, I'm just curious because you know, you're calling me now, right?
01:40:07Would would I rather have you call would I rather have you call me earlier or later?
01:40:15Like let me let me appeal to your project management side
01:40:18When something's going wrong in a project, would you rather people tell you sooner or later?
01:40:24I recognize that but what I put in what I called
01:40:27I'd initiated this conversation with was is something but I think it's different. Um
01:40:33than
01:40:34my past ex
01:40:36Yeah, no, I understand that but I mean i'm just I'm just curious. It's just a business question. I'm just curious why
01:40:42you wouldn't have said
01:40:44or persisted in in trying to get a call in because I mean I can be quite helpful with this stuff, right?
01:40:48I mean, I assume that if you read relationship books, one of the ones you read was real-time relationships
01:40:52So, uh, I know a little bit about this stuff, right?
01:40:55No, I mean I
01:40:57I know that you could be helpful. Um, and I was not persistent at trying to get a conversation
01:41:03But you think you did send a request in?
01:41:06Yes. Okay. Got it. Got it. All right
01:41:09so
01:41:11You put the project on hold and then
01:41:16What happens
01:41:18Uh, oh you put the whole you say we're not we're disengaged. We're unengaged. We're not engaged anymore
01:41:25Um
01:41:27Well, I I I
01:41:30Knew that we needed to separate
01:41:34Um, and it took her a while to have the same realization she
01:41:44Um
01:41:47This is it's i've got a two-year horror show so, um two years to break up
01:41:53Well, she didn't want to leave the house and I felt like it was mine so it got legal
01:42:00Sorry, you felt like it was your house. Had you paid for it?
01:42:03Well, I put the entirety of the down payment
01:42:07Oh my god, and then you split the mortgage, right?
01:42:10correct
01:42:11So you put the entirety of the down payment
01:42:13Which I assume obviously was a lot was it like 10 25 percent or something?
01:42:16Because I know some places 25 you then don't have to have insurance and stuff like that
01:42:20Yeah, I put 140 000 so
01:42:24so you put 140 000 into the house and you
01:42:28Put her name on half of that 140 000. So you basically gifted her 70k without being married
01:42:36Correct. Okay
01:42:37so then
01:42:40Did she agree that you needed to break up uh when you first sort of suggested that or thought that
01:42:47She did not
01:42:49So she thought everything was was good and you should get married
01:42:53Um, she's
01:42:58She was not
01:43:00She did not want to set and break up the relationship. So she no, but she did she want to get married
01:43:07Well, she
01:43:08um
01:43:10She spent
01:43:11probably another six months
01:43:14Trying to figure out how to make the relationship work with me
01:43:18and I
01:43:19Wasn't interested in pursuing the relationship. I was trying to separate
01:43:23but why
01:43:24Why would that be six months?
01:43:28Because she's obstinate I don't know no no, but I mean you're in the house or you're not right
01:43:33No, we were both in the house
01:43:35we
01:43:36I had
01:43:37Moved to a separate room
01:43:39um
01:43:41Did you not want to leave the house because you were concerned that you might not get it back?
01:43:45Correct. Okay, so things really were ugly at this point, right? Like you thought she might steal your house
01:43:51Um to me it felt like if I left I would give up and I give up the house yes, yeah, okay
01:44:00Right, right. Yeah. So now this is turning like war of the roses battle to the death almost stuff, right?
01:44:05Yeah, the police were called
01:44:08Three times three or four times the police were involved. Why?
01:44:12I I called a couple times
01:44:15um for my safety
01:44:17About safety. Sorry. This is new information safety. How what what do you mean?
01:44:22Uh, she she would just explode emotionally and I felt it pertinent to have an official there for record
01:44:30So tell me what you mean by explode emotionally well, so for example, um
01:44:36um
01:44:38The like I I was going to visit my parents
01:44:43um
01:44:45The she put a lock on the master bedroom that she was staying in
01:44:50and I
01:44:52there were clothing that I
01:44:54Needed to to go visit my parents that were still in the master closet that she
01:44:59Wouldn't give to me
01:45:01and I would be
01:45:03Very persistent that you know, I need access you I need access to my stuff so that I can take my trip
01:45:10That I have planned that you know about that. I forewarned you about that. You agreed to give me this stuff about
01:45:15and
01:45:16so then I would I would call the police to
01:45:20Have them negotiate that situation like look here's the situation i've let her know she's
01:45:25Being a bitch and just not letting me access to the things that she's put behind a locked door that are mine
01:45:32um
01:45:34and and so
01:45:36um
01:45:40It was very ugly
01:45:43Wow, that's that's quite a tale. Oh, i'm so sorry like that's just
01:45:47You got to call the cops so you can get access to your underwear. That's pretty that's pretty appalling. I'm, so sorry
01:45:53What a mess
01:45:56Now
01:45:57How long so you told her you want to break up and how ugly or how quickly did it get ugly
01:46:03It took a while to get ugly because she was still trying to
01:46:07Make things work. And what was she doing to make things work?
01:46:12Uh, not much
01:46:16Yeah, right
01:46:18I mean, I I I basically I wrote a
01:46:21Letter it was like, you know, i'll pay you this much. You'll give me mine
01:46:25But house and we'll you know separate and um
01:46:33You know, like we we I felt like we needed time separated
01:46:38um, if there's any chance of making things work and she didn't want that you were trying the hail mary of
01:46:43Honey, all you have to do is sign over the house and move out and we'll i'm totally going to work on the relationship
01:46:50No, well I I did that later
01:46:52But was that true, I mean did you want the relationship at that point?
01:46:56no
01:46:58So you were just trying to i'm not criticizing
01:47:00But you were trying to maneuver her into getting out of the house and signing it back to you
01:47:03With the promise that maybe the relationship could resolve or or improve or be restarted, but you had no intention of that
01:47:11Yeah, the it's it started with we just need to spend time apart and then it became it was like no no
01:47:15Like i'm going to do anything I can
01:47:18To get you out of here
01:47:21Including including lying about we'll only get married if you move out. Yes. Okay
01:47:27And so what happened then?
01:47:31Uh, so
01:47:32Tried negotiating with her
01:47:35then she sent me a
01:47:37a legal letter
01:47:38that had false information to
01:47:41Pressure me. I lawyered up
01:47:44Um, I tried negotiating false information
01:47:47Well, she made accusations. Um
01:47:51Um about things that she alleged that I was that I had done that were abusive
01:47:56Um, oh, yeah, so a woman wants property and claims abuse, right? Never seen that before in the history of the universe. Okay
01:48:02Yeah, so I I lawyered up. Um
01:48:05then
01:48:06after
01:48:07um, probably eight months of trying to
01:48:11to settle with her with her
01:48:14Basically being completely obstinate
01:48:17Um, and I filed with the court
01:48:20For um, basically for the court to adjudicate the the separation of the property
01:48:26and
01:48:28um
01:48:29She
01:48:30you know, she had to be
01:48:32drugged in there kicking and screaming
01:48:35And once we we got a judge
01:48:37Um, then she settled once we had a court date
01:48:41And was it similar to what you'd offer in the beginning or had it changed?
01:48:46Um
01:48:47What she ended up getting was not much different than what I initially offered
01:48:52But the legal fees were obviously quite a bit higher. And how did you how much money did you spend on lawyers?
01:48:58uh
01:48:5935 000
01:49:00Right, right, which was kind of half the value of the split of the house, right?
01:49:05So I I paid yeah, it cost me 75 000 to get rid of her
01:49:09So you actually came out as a loss
01:49:13Yes
01:49:14So why didn't you?
01:49:17Easy to say in hindsight I get this and i'm well, I didn't come out as a loss to the house
01:49:21So in that regard i'm still well ahead because the house has gained in value
01:49:26and I have a
01:49:28low
01:49:29like a 2.6
01:49:3230 or fixed. I mean they're like that. Um, I was able to keep my mortgage. So but you were lucky in a way
01:49:40And and the risk was immense
01:49:43Yes, and the risk was in particular the charges of abuse, right
01:49:49Yeah that well that didn't make it to court. That was just a legal threat, but if she had gone to the police
01:49:58Yeah, I mean that was part of the reason I called the police on a couple occasions is because I established
01:50:03a
01:50:04record of her behavior
01:50:06um as
01:50:09Problem was it worth it do you think in in hindsight?
01:50:12I mean if you just walked away and said look that was an expensive lesson, but
01:50:15sometimes they are
01:50:20I don't know. I mean it would have definitely been faster and I would have saved myself
01:50:24a year and a half two years. Yeah
01:50:2635 000 and fear and sleeplessness and right
01:50:31I mean, so I
01:50:33yeah, I mean
01:50:35But I I basically
01:50:38If I would have just walked away
01:50:42Um, I would have lost like 90 to 100 000 in this way I lost
01:50:4930 000 but it cost me
01:50:52A lot. Yeah. Well, I mean you're also I mean, I assume somewhat traumatized and it's tough to trust, right?
01:51:01It's definitely going to be more difficult to trust now, yes, right, right
01:51:04I mean, there's there's lots of soft costs in in life, right?
01:51:08and two years this two years where you would have been functionally unable to date right because
01:51:12It would be too too you would have been too tense and upset and right so you did lose two years of dating, right?
01:51:18Yes, so that's that's a pretty that's a pretty big cost, right?
01:51:23Right, I mean I this is my personal
01:51:26Perspective this is nothing to do with right or wrong at all. You you could have been totally in the right
01:51:32my general perspective is and I actually have done this it's just yeah, just
01:51:37Yeah, if the money's more important to you than me keep the money I could always make more
01:51:43Yeah, no and I I mean my mom suggested that um, and I
01:51:49I don't know for there was for me. There was something about
01:51:53Giving up on the house that I didn't want to do
01:51:56um, it would feel like losing morally
01:52:00Oh morally, okay
01:52:01Okay, because oh because yeah, she was acting so badly and this that and the other right?
01:52:05Well, I felt like she'd steal it from me right like you're a bitch and therefore you get but it's not stealing if you're
01:52:10If her name is on the lease, is it her name is on the the property? Yes. Yes
01:52:14Yes, but I but I put the entirety of the down payment and I felt like no no, no, no, no you voluntarily
01:52:20Yes, I know. I'm aware on the deed
01:52:24I'm aware. So let's be clear. It's not stealing
01:52:28I didn't say it was stealing. No, but there was a moral element to it, right? Yeah, the moral element was
01:52:34I feel like I mean, I knew I was being exploited. Let's I mean
01:52:38Right, it became sorry. How are you being exploited?
01:52:41by a choice you made because her goal was
01:52:46To get as much money out of me as possible
01:52:49Okay
01:52:50And you had a chance to vet her for a couple of years before you put her name on the deed. Yes
01:52:59So you can't
01:53:01You can't play the victim
01:53:03I mean you can i'm just telling you that it's it's not going to be good for your future
01:53:08You can't play the victim
01:53:10With choices you voluntarily made nobody put a gun to your head. You had a chance to vet her
01:53:15Right, you could have called me and I could have told you about all these red flags
01:53:19So you made specific choices and i'm i'm I know this is annoying and and frustrating and and so on but i'm you know
01:53:25I'm a big you called me for 150 self-ownership, right?
01:53:28right
01:53:32You made these choices and i'm not denying that I made the choices and I said you were exploited
01:53:39No, I said I felt exploited okay, and i'm telling you that feeling is incorrect
01:53:44That feeling is self-pity and that feeling is an abandonment of your free will and that's not healthy in my humble opinion
01:53:55I am
01:53:57150 percent responsible
01:53:59For every bad relationship
01:54:01And good relationship i've ever had because I accept my parents which I didn't choose right or or family members
01:54:08When I was a kid because I didn't choose any of that
01:54:11But you chose her and you chose her
01:54:16When you've been listening to a philosopher for many years who'd said
01:54:19Love is our involuntary response to virtue if a virtuous and you chose her despite the fact you couldn't name one of her virtues
01:54:26So
01:54:28You're like a guy who's you know, his his trusted
01:54:31Health expert is like smoking is really bad for you smoking is really bad for you. Here's the proof blah blah blah blah blah
01:54:37And then you say, uh, well I I smoked for 30 years now i'm sick and i'm i'm victimized i've been exploited
01:54:50You had better advice that you chose not to take now there's nothing wrong with that
01:54:54I mean, we all don't take good advice right without a doubt. We all uh, don't take good advice from time to time
01:55:01well, or have
01:55:03difficulty mapping the abstractions onto my life choices
01:55:08I mean like there's also some amount of like skill that you have that
01:55:12Is not as common that I i'm aware that it takes me quite a bit of work to
01:55:19Apply
01:55:20this
01:55:21to my life, so
01:55:23Do you do you accept that virtue is necessary for love?
01:55:31Yes, okay, did you accept it when you first heard the argument that I made many many many many years ago
01:55:42Um, I
01:55:47No, I don't think I use a different definition for love and what was your definition of love
01:55:53You
01:55:58Um, it was more of the religious definition and what's that
01:56:09The
01:56:10Like your religious, I mean the religious definition could mean many things to many people many denominations many interpretations many bible verses
01:56:17What does the religious definition of love mean to you?
01:56:20And I say this without opposition I I really do want to know
01:56:26It was the shared
01:56:29um to desire to become one whole with another person because you
01:56:34Respect and are aligned with them
01:56:38And
01:56:42Um
01:56:49Yeah, yeah, I had heard your definition but I didn't I didn't articulate that as the way to live my life
01:56:58Okay, so that's fine so I mean obviously, uh, that's that's an argument i'm making and I can't obviously compel people to to accept it
01:57:05So you said that your definition of love was when you respect your partner and are aligned with their values, right?
01:57:14Or your values are aligned with each other
01:57:16Um
01:57:18Uh, yes, but yeah values and goals are aligned. Okay, and by your definition of love were you in love?
01:57:27And don't say I thought I was because you said a red flag from the beginning, right?
01:57:31So by your forget my definition, right? That's totally fine, right?
01:57:35But by your definition were your values and goals aligned and did you respect her?
01:57:41Yeah, I respected her and I
01:57:45Um, I
01:57:49Thought that our values and goals were aligned
01:57:52Okay
01:57:54And we can go back to like when I asked you what you valued about her what you
01:58:00The virtues and values and so on that she had right which is a similar way of saying what do you respect about her?
01:58:05You couldn't come up with anything really
01:58:08Right, there was there was she works hard she works out
01:58:13Uh
01:58:15But there was nothing in particular of
01:58:18Virtue in that but you I mean
01:58:21When I say values, that's
01:58:24Like hierarchy of how people spend their time. That's how they choose. No. No, let's focus on the word respect
01:58:30we can get to values but
01:58:33So what do you value about her?
01:58:35We can get to values but
01:58:37So what did you respect about her and respect?
01:58:43I mean, it's another one of these complicated words. I respect the power of a bear
01:58:48That doesn't mean I want to marry a bear, right?
01:58:51right
01:58:53I respect that sharks are
01:58:56Chew monsters, so I choose not to swim where there are lots of them around, right?
01:59:00So i'm not the word respect now, isn't it the case though that in
01:59:07The religious sense respect has to do with virtues you would respect piety you would respect people who hold the ten commandments who
01:59:15Hold jesus in their hearts who try to do the right thing in a fairly demonic world
01:59:20I mean wouldn't respect in the religious sense
01:59:23Also be conjoined with virtues
01:59:25And
01:59:29There's no commandment that says thou shalt work out right so that's like her being
01:59:34Fit or whatever is not a virtue in the religious sense
01:59:37It would be the qualities of the soul and of the character and of the morals, wouldn't it?
01:59:42Yeah, but I mean more the deferral of gratification the discipline
01:59:47um respect for
01:59:49individual health
01:59:51Sorry, none of those commandments and none of those are commanded none of those are commandments or commanded virtues
01:59:57In the christian sense
01:59:59There's no doubt work out
02:00:02So help me understand these respects for virtues and values to say in the religious sense
02:00:08As if that's very different from the moral sense that I put forward
02:00:12So again, i'm happy to hear what religious virtues she embodied. Was she herself a christian?
02:00:17No
02:00:18Oh, well, was she religious?
02:00:21I don't know you but you're sorry. Are you religious?
02:00:24No, okay. So what are you talking about? Like I left her in a religious sense, but she wasn't religious
02:00:29no, you you asked me how I define love and I said I there's nothing my I thought my
02:00:35my definition
02:00:36had come much
02:00:39More from my parents and which is more more in the right, but that doesn't religion says love virtues
02:00:47It doesn't say love a bubble butt because she's done a lot of lunges or love that she might be a workaholic or you know
02:00:54like
02:00:55It doesn't say it doesn't say any of that, right?
02:00:57It says love someone for their virtues now the virtues might be a little different but but basically the message would be the same
02:01:02right
02:01:07Um, I I wouldn't describe
02:01:13If I was to describe it to somebody I wouldn't say it's love virtues
02:01:16Well, but
02:01:18But I mean you talk about respect in a religious sense that you got your sense of love
02:01:23Which is respect and virtue and and value alignment from a religious sense, right?
02:01:29But religion would absolutely say you shouldn't just love the flesh
02:01:32I mean, it's fine if somebody's healthy and all of that, but you should love their virtues, right? You should love their morals. You should love their
02:01:39Honorable standing with god's commandments, right?
02:01:42Right
02:01:44So
02:01:45the question then is if
02:01:48Your attraction to this woman and your professed love for this woman
02:01:51Didn't match your own values and this is the central question, right? Because I want you to be happily married
02:01:57I want you to have kids if that's what you want all of that. So then the question is
02:02:02Why did you date her why did you move in
02:02:05Why did you get engaged? Why did you put her name on the deed? What was driving it because it wasn't
02:02:10Love by either your or my definition
02:02:14So what was driving that and I don't know the answer to that
02:02:17But that's what i've been asking all these questions for is to get to this point
02:02:21yeah, I I think some of it was
02:02:23just I
02:02:25Felt like I finally found somebody that shared
02:02:28my goals and aspirations
02:02:30aspirations
02:02:32and who was a
02:02:35Adult who I could work with
02:02:38Okay, so please help me understand what goals and aspirations
02:02:42She actually shared anyone can say anything right so
02:02:46And you know as a project manager, you know people lie a lot, right?
02:02:50I mean project managers and
02:02:52I guess house md
02:02:54When we're a project manager, we know that people misrepresent lie fudge promise don't deliver like we see unfortunately the squirmy
02:03:01Squinticle tag weasel brain, uh of humanity quite a bit right as I spent many years as a project manager in the tech world
02:03:08so
02:03:10What were the values?
02:03:12That
02:03:15Yeah, I don't because she didn't love you right because because she didn't love you
02:03:18Because she didn't really want to spend that much time with you and then she threatened you and and threatened you with jail
02:03:25Uh, and and you destroying your reputation and and went after your house your money. That's very predatory, right?
02:03:32It became clear that she
02:03:35Thought that I was the best she could do
02:03:38Okay
02:03:39So she didn't love you, but she wasn't with me for
02:03:43Who I was
02:03:44She didn't love you, right? Right, right. Okay. Did you love her and please don't say I thought I did because then we're right back
02:03:50to the beginning
02:03:53Um
02:03:57I thought that she was somebody that
02:04:00I could have a family with and could work with and
02:04:03could care for and who
02:04:05cared for me, so
02:04:08You thought you did?
02:04:13I mean I wouldn't have
02:04:16Have proposed to her if I didn't think that she was someone that I could spend my life with
02:04:22Okay
02:04:23so
02:04:25If you make excuses about the past you condemn the future i'm just telling you that straight up
02:04:30Right. So like whenever I did big projects, we'd do a post-mortem and figure out what we could do better next time
02:04:35But if we just said we did everything perfectly nothing would change or improve, right?
02:04:39right
02:04:40so
02:04:41It's tough to look back
02:04:44and say
02:04:45I messed up
02:04:48But if you don't do that
02:04:50You can't fix anything going forward because if it was like well, I thought I loved her
02:04:53I thought she loved me and we were together for years and then it turned into hell
02:04:58And there was no way I really could have known ahead of time and all of that, right?
02:05:01Well, then yeah, i'm not that's not what i'm saying i'm agreeing that there were things that I overlooked things that I didn't pay attention to
02:05:08Maybe I yes, but why that's the question
02:05:12The why if I mean saying that I met my messed up without knowing the why doesn't
02:05:16Doesn't solve the problem. Well, some of it. I know some of the why I mean some of the why was
02:05:22I had searched for a long time and and
02:05:24And
02:05:26um, this was someone who was head and shoulders above everybody else that I had dated it has sorry to interrupt it has to be something
02:05:33That won't reproduce
02:05:34Right. So now when you go looking for a woman, you'll have been searching for even longer
02:05:38So if you say well, I got together in this absolutely catastrophic and highly toxic and dangerous relationship and it was right two years
02:05:46with
02:05:47battles including threats of criminal activity potentially and and
02:05:52Lawyers and that's a that's a catastrophe, right?
02:05:57It's not something that you understand about yourself that won't reproduce in the future and if you say well
02:06:02I've been looking for a long time. Well now you've been looking for even longer
02:06:06So you're going to be even more susceptible to that problem. Does that make sense?
02:06:12Yes, yeah, I so why did you end up in this situation
02:06:18How do your parents resolve conflicts, how did that was there any template in the past or
02:06:26Um, my parents are pretty good at talking through their conflicts, um
02:06:34As far I mean the the ones that i've seen
02:06:38Um
02:06:41Um
02:06:44Um around
02:06:46And and honoring if they make agreements they stick to them. Mm-hmm
02:06:50So, but did they also teach you that a lot of the world doesn't think like that at all?
02:06:58No, not
02:07:01Not really
02:07:02Did you grow up in a mostly white or european or kind of mono?
02:07:07a culture or were you exposed to
02:07:10You know other ways of thinking around the world that can be quite different
02:07:14I I was definitely exposed to other ways of thinking when I went to the international school. Oh, yeah. Sorry
02:07:18You're absolutely right. I completely forgot that. Okay
02:07:21So did your parents say to you that other cultures?
02:07:26May have different approaches to things than what you're used to
02:07:30I mean, it's kind of how different cultures and some may be better some may be worse, but it's definitely different, right?
02:07:34We never we've never actually really talked about cultures in that way
02:07:37They're I mean, they're also engineers they they would be more they would give some specifics of challenges that they had
02:07:44So like my dad would talk about the corruption problems that he faced
02:07:48um, and how
02:07:50He would address them, but it wasn't
02:07:54It wasn't on so much on culture it was
02:07:58um
02:07:59It was more analytical
02:08:02Okay
02:08:05And your parents did they give you any warnings or cautions about
02:08:12Your
02:08:13Girlfriend, I know you said that they had some questions, but what were their objections or cautions?
02:08:20Those weren't expressed until after we were engaged
02:08:24Okay, and what did they say then
02:08:29Um, they
02:08:31Were concerned with her ability to be supportive
02:08:37and
02:08:38her emotional connection with me
02:08:41and
02:08:43her
02:08:45um
02:08:47The fact that she was sort of all over the place emotionally
02:08:53Was was something that they were worried about
02:08:56And they were right about that right they were yes, and do you know why they didn't say anything
02:09:02I mean, did you tell them?
02:09:03Hey, i'm putting her name on the deed to the house
02:09:10Uh, no, I did not it seems to me that you were hiding a bit from your parents hiding some information, right?
02:09:19I you didn't talk too much about the yelling that was going on
02:09:23In your fiancee's family you didn't say hey i'm taking a massive step of taking my life savings and pouring it into
02:09:30a relationship with this woman
02:09:32That yeah, I should have talked about that with them. So why do you think you didn't?
02:09:37Again, not big criticism. I mean, it's it's it's tough to make good decisions without feedback, right?
02:09:42Yeah
02:09:47Yeah, I guess I didn't see it as that much of a decision because my thought process was if we get married
02:09:52She gets half the house. I'm planning to get married to her
02:09:56Um, I didn't at that time. I just didn't but why why hide it?
02:10:02I mean, it is a big decision, right? And and yeah, you know, hey, we're we're buying this house
02:10:07I'm, i'm putting her name on the deed. I'm that confident about the relation
02:10:10like
02:10:11Why why not say it?
02:10:15Why not say her parents yelled at each other a lot
02:10:19And I don't know that that's good conflict resolution skills that i'm getting into
02:10:24What do you think
02:10:30I
02:10:33Just I don't like it just that the the decision on putting her on the title was
02:10:40um
02:10:43Not a decision I had planned for a long time the not having the discussion about the parents
02:10:50Um, I don't know it just it didn't come up I didn't
02:10:54Well, no
02:10:55My god, it can't come up. You're holding information that they don't have right?
02:10:59Like if there's if you're managing someone and they're completely unable to make their deliverable and they don't tell you anything about it
02:11:05And then they say well it didn't come up. What would you say?
02:11:10Yeah, that's my job to imagine I can't guess what you know that you're not telling me
02:11:15Right, but I uh
02:11:20I I don't know. I uh, the I might have brought it up. Maybe I didn't talk about it in detail. I
02:11:28It's been years. I don't um
02:11:31I'm sure I mentioned in passing meeting her parents
02:11:35uh the rest of that conversation
02:11:38Okay, but wouldn't your parents say oh I met her parents wouldn't they say
02:11:42Well, tell us what they're like
02:11:44We've you know, we've been your parent for more than a quarter century
02:11:48Like we want to make sure you're happy and safe and like tell us what her parents are like
02:11:52Because you know, there's a pretty big cultural divide and and history
02:11:55You don't even speak the same language. Like what if you noticed and all that, right?
02:11:59Wouldn't they sit you down and try and help you?
02:12:04You well they so
02:12:07um, they wouldn't sit me down because we live
02:12:09different towns, but
02:12:11Oh, come on, man. Let's not let's not get lost in these kinds of ridiculous details. I told me physically sitting you down
02:12:17yeah, I understand so the
02:12:20I'm sure i've talked about her parents at some point to my parents
02:12:24like I said, maybe I did mention it and they
02:12:28Or I mentioned it in a muted manner that they didn't pick up on it. Like I'd
02:12:33No, no, it's their job though, right? How long have they been married?
02:12:37Um 35 a while, okay a while and do they come I guess they're both europeans, right? They're both whites
02:12:45They're caucasian. Yeah
02:12:47And it's one of them irish and sorry, it's one of them german and one of them
02:12:52uh italian
02:12:55Uh, so my dad's a quarter italian and then my mom's
02:13:01probably german
02:13:03I don't know. They've been in her family's been in the u.s for for a long time
02:13:06And did they grow up in roughly the same cultural environment?
02:13:11Um east coast west coast so not okay, but it's still america, right? Okay. Got it. Yes. Yeah. All right
02:13:17So, I mean they have a lot of compatibilities. They have a lot of shared history
02:13:21This is part of the conservative thing, which is saying, you know, like if you go very far afield, it can be really tough
02:13:27uh to to
02:13:30To have the same kind of mindset right and we can say that's right or that's wrong or whatever
02:13:34But that's generally the conservative mindset
02:13:38so
02:13:39Your parents would know
02:13:42based upon their own experiences and their compatibilities culturally
02:13:46that
02:13:49You were taking a very very different path, right
02:13:54Uh, yes
02:13:56Okay, so if you're taking a very very different path
02:14:00I think it's somewhat incumbent upon your parents to do some vetting right? It's tough for you to do the vetting because
02:14:06You're a young man. You're getting regular sex. You're pair bonding physically and and so on right?
02:14:11So this is one of the reasons why the elders
02:14:14Feedback on potential marriages is pretty important, right? Because they can see beyond, you know
02:14:19I'm not saying it was only lust but you know some of the lust of the moment, right?
02:14:23right, so
02:14:26How much did they grill you about
02:14:30This potential marriage, uh, not that much. Okay, how much?
02:14:41Um
02:14:45They were more interested in how I was doing emotionally
02:14:49Well, at least later when I was clearly not doing well
02:14:53When when we
02:14:57They were trying to be positive and supportive but they weren't very inquisitive
02:15:03And what lessons, uh, what what did you get any relationship lessons from your parents that
02:15:10Were explicit and and that you sort of think about or still find value to this day
02:15:15Um, i've gotten a lot of
02:15:18I've gotten life lessons, but not really relationship lessons
02:15:22Like lessons like like the business and and so on
02:15:26or or um
02:15:29You know don't care about things that you can't change
02:15:32um stuff on
02:15:34Being responsible for your health
02:15:38Um
02:15:40How to some risk risk management stuff, you know personally
02:15:46Um, I have a lot of respect for my dad, but
02:15:49I don't
02:15:51Yeah, there's that my parents haven't really talked about their relationship that much
02:15:58So does that answer your question? Yeah, I mean it's not a huge amount, right?
02:16:03Yeah, I mean, it's not a huge amount. Yeah, I mean, it's not a huge amount
02:16:06Yeah, I mean it's not a huge amount, right
02:16:14I mean it certainly wasn't enough
02:16:16To help you avoid this catastrophe, right?
02:16:19I mean this has cost you
02:16:22I mean the legal stuff has just wound down recently, right?
02:16:27Uh
02:16:31Yeah
02:16:33It's been a year, yeah, okay, it's been a year and there's been no more movement on that right she's she's done and dusted
02:16:38so we we got a basically a binding settlement and then she
02:16:44Vacated and I paid her and it was up. So and you haven't heard from her since
02:16:49Right. Okay. Good. Good. Well, i'm glad she's not circling
02:16:52Circling back. Okay, she yeah
02:16:55Uh, she she can't
02:16:57Oh, you have a no contact
02:16:59no, but um, I mean I blocked her and
02:17:03I'm very clear that i'm no interest in communicating with her. Okay. Got it
02:17:09And was it so it was it was a year ago. And when did you start dating after that?
02:17:17So we got our settlement in august she moved out by september and I
02:17:24Restarted dating in like
02:17:27December
02:17:29Uh, well more like february though because I was out of town
02:17:34So it really has only been six or seven months since it really wound down, right?
02:17:40I mean, I emotionally I was out of my relationship with her for a long time. But as far as
02:17:48You're bound in the court so you're not emotionally free, right? Yeah, but as far as not seeing her it's been six months
02:17:55Yeah
02:17:56Okay, so let's let's go on a date you and I right so we're going on a date we're
02:18:01Sitting across from dinner at a coffee shop, right?
02:18:05And you yourself contradictory dinner at a coffee shop, I like no or a coffee shop dinner or a coffee shop, okay, okay, so
02:18:13Now you're interested in contradictions, right? Okay, so
02:18:17We're sitting across and i'm I look fabulous as always
02:18:21And as always and so you you know, you tell me about this
02:18:28Relationship right, which is a huge red flag for a woman, right?
02:18:35That that you ended up you ended up in a pitched two-year legal battle with your ex-fiancee
02:18:44Right that this is what it's really costing you and this is why i'm really trying to hammer the free will personal responsibility stuff
02:18:50Because I assume
02:18:52You're going to tell this story to somebody you want to date, right if you just don't get along who cares, right?
02:18:57so i'm sitting across the table for you, you tell me basically as some some sanitized shortened version of
02:19:03I just you know, six months ago finished a two-year pitched bloody legal battle with my ex-fiancee
02:19:10Where she she threatened me with with uh, lurid tales of abuse that were false, right?
02:19:15What what does the what do I think is the woman sitting across the table from you
02:19:20yeah, it doesn't speak well to my character or
02:19:24ability to vet and
02:19:26um
02:19:28And the fact that I
02:19:29Decided to go through that rather than just walk away as soon as possible is no
02:19:33No, the fact that you got into that situation at all is the red flag
02:19:37Right. That's what I said. No that you decided not to walk away
02:19:42When I said
02:19:43I said both of those things
02:19:48Okay, so
02:19:50So there's a big red flag
02:19:52And and that's the price, right?
02:19:53So you say well i've got a 2.9 30-year mortgage and I I you know
02:19:57I only spent 35 grand but the house value has gone up 80 or 90 grand
02:20:00So so that's that's the engineer way of looking at it, right, which is the spreadsheet, right?
02:20:07Right and and that's true, right I get that but the problem is a quality woman
02:20:13Right a woman who you know is
02:20:16Sharp acute curious wise is going to look at this tale
02:20:23With a kind of creeping horror, right?
02:20:27I mean if you were sitting across
02:20:30From a woman in her 30s, and she said I just got out of a two-year
02:20:37Bloody knuckled legal battle with my ex-fiancee a couple of months ago
02:20:41What would you think
02:20:44I would have some concerns about emotional availability
02:20:49Would you go on a date with her again
02:20:53Uh
02:20:56Probably not right, especially if she said um, I I was exploited
02:21:07He took advantage of me
02:21:11So, okay, so but I mean I I was curious about this I mean you you said my feeling was wrong
02:21:20Well, so look i'm exploited it's not a feeling mad sad bad and glad those are kind of feelings right that's a judgment
02:21:30That's a moral judgment exploitation is a moral judgment and that's an intellectual act
02:21:34So it's not even really a feeling it's it's it's a moral judgment, right?
02:21:38Yes, yeah, I was I was mad about it I mean you don't go to the dentist and they say do you have any pain in
02:21:45Your mouth and they say well I feel exploited like they would say well, no, do you have any right?
02:21:48Do you have any direct sensation? Do you have an actual feeling right?
02:21:51Right. I felt yeah, I felt taken advantage of got it
02:21:55Okay, so if the woman said and i'm paraphrasing a little here and this is kind of goatee
02:21:59But I really want to get to this
02:22:01so if
02:22:03The woman said I I had this horrible, you know relationship that went on
02:22:08So so start to end for you guys was half a decade. Is that right?
02:22:12Yeah, okay
02:22:13So I was in this half a decade relationship that that collapsed into vicious bloody knuckled legal fights that have just ended
02:22:21And it was all his fault
02:22:27I I was a perfect innocent angel. I couldn't have seen it coming. It was all his fault. He's the bad guy
02:22:33I was exploited. I'm the victim and i'm i'm paraphrasing so I know you're not you can shade that
02:22:38But if that's what you get
02:22:41What would you think?
02:22:42No, I I would I would say that's crazy. I know you're
02:22:46you have choice in the decision
02:22:48decisions that were made and
02:22:50obviously
02:22:52Blaming the other party is not true
02:22:56Right, you can't be exploited without fraud or force
02:23:00You can't
02:23:02Yeah, you can have buyer's remorse you can whatever right but you can't be exploited without fraud or force
02:23:08And it can't be fraud if you have two years to veter before you move in or a year and a half or four
02:23:13Fifty months, right? Yes. Yeah
02:23:16so
02:23:20There's only one way
02:23:24To have this hag of an ex not sitting over your shoulder scaring off all the good women
02:23:32You
02:23:35That's that's why i'm calling right
02:23:38And that's why I keep bringing this thing up and you keep fighting me on it, which is fine
02:23:42I'm, just telling you there's only one way that a woman is going to accept this horrifying half decade of yours
02:23:51Yeah, I take ownership for the my failings it's all me
02:23:56100 me I
02:23:59Met her I dated her. I chose her. I ignored the red flags. I kept information from friends and family
02:24:06I lied to her. I mean you feel exploited you were promising her marriage if she moved out
02:24:14Yeah, no that
02:24:16my behavior
02:24:18I'm, not just agreeing with you. I'm just saying it's a bit precious to hear how exploited you were
02:24:22Yeah, no, it was pretty shitty behavior and I again right or wrong. It's a desperate situation. Whatever. I mean, but yeah
02:24:28if if you can't say
02:24:31Here's here's all the things I did wrong. It's a it's been the toughest lesson of my life
02:24:37By god, i'm never doing that again. Here's everything I learned about all the mistakes I made
02:24:41That's the only way that hag gets banished off your shoulder and stops scaring off quality women
02:24:46That's the only way and that's why I keep saying what do you mean? You're a victim you made choices
02:24:50It's on you you withheld information from your parents. You didn't call me you didn't right?
02:24:55You made all the choices that ended up in this situation and i'm not saying that because I want you to feel bad about yourself
02:25:00I'm saying that because I want a quality woman to not look at you and say check
02:25:04right
02:25:09Yeah, yeah
02:25:12Because a quality woman is going to hear you blame your ex and she's going to be like, okay
02:25:16So he doesn't really have self-ownership. He blames other people for things that go wrong in his life
02:25:20And it ends really in a really ugly fashion, so he's not I can't pair bond with him he's not safe to be around
02:25:32As the project manager who's responsible for the failure of the project
02:25:38I am right now if you say oh well, but the vendor didn't deliver on time. What do people say?
02:25:43A lot of times it's still my fault. Well, you chose the vendor
02:25:48Right
02:25:50Not always but well, no, let's come on. Let's say that. Yeah. Yeah, right, but I mean, yeah practical business versus theoretical
02:25:57Theoretical I chose the vendor, right?
02:26:00Yeah, and and if the vendor didn't deliver well, how like did you know that ahead of time?
02:26:04Did you research the history of the vendor? Did you check their references? Right? Were they reliable?
02:26:07Had there been a change in the product?
02:26:10Did you check their references right were they reliable had there been a change in management like did you vet
02:26:17Yeah, there's uh
02:26:20Yeah, fortunate or unfortunately
02:26:22Theoretical business never aligns. Well the real business but theoretically i'm project manager and I
02:26:28Do my risk analysis and a lot of that has to do with how to pick vendors
02:26:34right
02:26:35right
02:26:37Now, I mean i've i've been hired into existing teams. I still don't get to blame the team even though I didn't hire them
02:26:44Because if i'm going to take the authority and by the way the pay
02:26:48Then I don't get to shirk the responsibility
02:26:50Yeah, the big one is you're responsible because you're the project manager
02:26:54But you don't get to be involved in a lot of the decisions
02:26:57Well, but if you accept the position of project manager, you accept that you're responsible for the success of the project
02:27:03Right
02:27:05Now if if you don't think you can succeed in the project then you wouldn't take it right
02:27:09Or you wouldn't take the job or you'd quit and find another job or whatever, right?
02:27:12But the moment you say
02:27:14I'm now in charge of the project 100 of the responsibility falls on you
02:27:20Um
02:27:21Well, yeah, if if if you have the authority you have the responsibility
02:27:26No, you have the authority always
02:27:28Because you can quit
02:27:31So if people are saying we're going to hold you accountable for things but we're not going to give you any authority
02:27:36Then you quit. I mean, I remember once in business, uh, they said, uh, we want you to be team lead
02:27:43And I said what does that mean well you're responsible for the the team doing a good job I said, okay
02:27:48Can I hire anyone? No, can I fire anyone? No, do I determine salaries? No
02:27:52Am I getting any bonuses? Am I getting any raise? No, then I don't want the job
02:27:57Yeah, that's not like that's not a real thing then you're giving me responsibility without authority
02:28:01I don't want that but if I take on the team lead job, then i'm responsible
02:28:06I can't then say well
02:28:07But I don't have this and I don't have that and you didn't give me this authority and I like because I took the job
02:28:14Or I took the title or whatever it is and I gave people the understanding that I would be responsible for something
02:28:19And I can't then later say well i'm i'm not really
02:28:22Right if if you are given responsibility without authority you reject the authority and you say to people
02:28:28I can't complete the project on time because I didn't choose the vendors and the vendors are terrible now
02:28:31If you give me the option to change the vendors, I might be able to deliver the project
02:28:34But if you're not going to give me the option to change the vendors
02:28:37I can't deliver the project and I want you to know that ahead of time
02:28:40That's been my primary defense is to make it very transparent on
02:28:47The decisions i'm not allowed to make
02:28:50The decisions i'm not allowed to make that it's usually some vp person above me tells me that I have to do
02:28:57And I make it very clear that oh, they say like you have to use this vendor
02:29:01yeah, or
02:29:03You have to complete the project in this timeline, even though your critical path is longer than that timeline
02:29:09Right, right
02:29:09So then you have to be transparent and you may of course want to put your resume out there so that you can
02:29:16Have more reasonable people to work with
02:29:18Right, exactly. Okay, but you if you stay you're 100 responsible
02:29:24Because you stay knowing that the vp gives you too short a time frame
02:29:28Right. So when I was in the business world, I mean, this is very typical
02:29:31The sales people would make all the promises and they'd collect their fat checks and go
02:29:35To their cottages for the weekend and all the tech people would be scrambling 12 hours a day from friday to infinity
02:29:41To fulfill the project requirements, right?
02:29:45Yeah, unfortunately if you keep
02:29:47Leaving jobs, you're not going to be employed
02:29:50Well, no, but that's that's why you find a job with reasonable people
02:29:53But to do that, you have to be better at vetting people and your parents didn't teach you how to vet people
02:29:57Yeah, yeah, i'm trying to teach you that
02:30:00I'm trying to teach you how to vet people here
02:30:03Because you're in the process of being vetted with this hag of an ex on your shoulder, right scaring off the women, right?
02:30:10so
02:30:11now I I of course I got mad at the sales people and I went to the ceo and I said this is unfair blah blah
02:30:16Blah and you know and and chinks changed a little bit, but then they would change back and so on
02:30:21But i'm i'm a hundred percent responsible because I stayed
02:30:28So what what is life like if you just say you don't have excuses you don't have the out you don't have to blame
02:30:39What if life is what if what if the last half decade is all on you
02:30:42And
02:30:44And you say I need to be absolutely rigorous with no excuses I need to be absolutely rigorous about every bad decision I made
02:30:53Without excuses without blame
02:30:59And I analyze it from pure self-ownership hundred percent responsibility
02:31:03Actually aim for 150 percent responsibility because we all undershoot right? What is that like?
02:31:12How would you tell the story to your date if it's all on you
02:31:21You and okay you want to go back to the scenario let's go back to the scenario you've just told me the story
02:31:27or whatever it is
02:31:29Or how would you tell the story actually we can just do this and we don't have to get into details because we'll assume that
02:31:33They're known right because we've already talked about them
02:31:36But how would you tell a potential date about your last half decade if it was all on you?
02:31:42I
02:31:45Okay, I mean I was not that attentive to
02:31:51Her virtues or lack thereof when we started dating, um, we had some shared interests and got along physically and
02:32:01Just sort of rolled with that and
02:32:04Was
02:32:06Ignored or didn't pay much attention to concerns that I had
02:32:12and I didn't
02:32:14Discuss
02:32:15Deeply with my parents
02:32:17What I saw about her family and and consider the ramifications for that
02:32:23um long term on
02:32:25a relationship
02:32:27And
02:32:30I
02:32:32Should not have progressed the relationship
02:32:38Um by getting engaged
02:32:42And I should have
02:32:47Well, whether whether I mean I was planning to move at some point regardless even though that put a hamper on finding somebody but
02:32:55um
02:32:58Yeah, i'm happy with with where i'm moved to but um, I
02:33:02I
02:33:04Just kept pushing the relationship forward when I should should have put the brakes on and addressed all of these
02:33:11concerns
02:33:13and that was
02:33:15I kept escalating the problem and my ignorance and
02:33:20Um, it's my fault for putting myself in the situation
02:33:24that I found myself in with her as far as the house and the legal travels and
02:33:30Even the relationship in general, um because it should never have
02:33:36Got to that point
02:33:39I appreciate that i'll play the the woman. I appreciate that and you know, i'm i'm a little confused because I mean do do you believe in?
02:33:47Universal virtue. Do you believe in virtue and morality as a whole?
02:33:53I mean some people don't write their relativists or whatever right and do what you want and
02:33:57I
02:33:59I don't know what you mean by that. Do you believe in universal morality? Do you believe in virtue?
02:34:07That there is such a thing
02:34:12Um, I believe that there's
02:34:15Good characteristics
02:34:17Okay, so then I would get all those honestly as a woman I would get up and leave
02:34:21Right because if you can't say to me that you believe in virtue, then I can't trust you
02:34:27Because you don't have any reason to tell the truth. You don't have any reason to be honorable
02:34:30You don't have any reason for moral courage. You don't have any reason for better standards of behavior
02:34:34You can't be called on any deviation from the good
02:34:37So i'm out like the moment somebody hesitates i'm just telling you from the moment somebody hesitates and well
02:34:42You know, there are good characteristics. I don't really believe in virtue
02:34:44I don't believe in morality and it's like then then I can't pair bond because we pair bond on on virtue
02:34:50because virtue is trust right virtue is
02:34:53Here are my standards and if I deviate from them you can call me on them and then I will return to them
02:34:59That's how you define virtue that's not how a lot of other people define virtue well, but you're calling me
02:35:07No, but if you're calling me tell me there's no such thing as virtue why on earth would I have the conversation
02:35:12If you okay with somebody so what you're saying is that you don't believe in you don't accept upb. Is that right?
02:35:18If I if i'm on a date with somebody that wants to talk philosophy
02:35:23And i've never talked philosophy with them before i'm going to want to delve into the meaning of the words that they're using
02:35:30Because I want to know if we're talking about the same things
02:35:33Well do I believe in universal virtue I do but i'm not sure how you define virtue
02:35:37But I certainly believe in universal virtue
02:35:41Okay, I believe that there are universal virtues that people should aspire to
02:35:46So you believe in universal morality
02:35:49Yes, okay good
02:35:51So, um, and for how long have you believed or accepted that there is universal morality?
02:36:00I guess as long as I can remember, okay
02:36:03So you said you didn't care about your girlfriend's virtues in particular. So if you believe in universal
02:36:10morality, but then you date someone without
02:36:13Them without even really inquiring as to their virtues then i'm not sure what you mean when you say you believe in it
02:36:19Like if if I was 300 pounds and you and I said I i'm a strenuous believer
02:36:24I've for for my entire life. I've believed that it's super important to diet and exercise, but i'm 300 pounds
02:36:29Wouldn't you have some questions?
02:36:33Well, well, of course but I
02:36:37When I initiated dating my ex
02:36:41I
02:36:43As far as I could tell
02:36:45She was a fairly virtuous person. Okay. So did she also believe in universal morality?
02:36:51We never had that discussion. So, how would you know?
02:36:54And why wouldn't you ask I mean you believe in it and I assume it's essential for trust and pair bonding
02:36:59So why wouldn't you ask?
02:37:01I mean you you said that that the fact that she exercised was was important to you
02:37:05So obviously that that was important, uh, you saw that she was a hard worker that was important like why wouldn't you talk about
02:37:12Actual virtues. I mean don't you want a virtuous woman to raise your children?
02:37:18That's a pretty
02:37:21No, because you're choosing for you you're choosing for your kids, right?
02:37:24You're not just choosing for your balls, right? You're choosing for your kids and don't you want a
02:37:30Loving honorable virtuous honest woman to raise your kids
02:37:35Yes, everybody wants that okay, so why wouldn't you ask or check
02:37:41If she believed in morality, I guess I don't know how to do that no because you said a lot of people don't right
02:37:47Right. So, you know that there's a big risk that somebody
02:37:50Doesn't believe in universal morality, right?
02:37:52Is it part of the chinese culture to believe in universal morality?
02:37:59Not particularly, okay, so she comes from a culture that doesn't believe in universal morality
02:38:04Universal morality is something you believe in it's something that's essential for your children, but you don't ask
02:38:11Did you ever get any advice from anyone in the world maybe a
02:38:15speckle-headed philosopher
02:38:17Did you ever get any advice from anyone ever in the world?
02:38:22That said it was important to have conversations about morality before fully committing to someone
02:38:29Yes, and you chose to ignore that advice
02:38:34I don't know how to do that
02:38:36What do you mean? I just showed you I said I asked do you believe in universal morality?
02:38:42What do you mean, what do you mean you don't know how to do that you just ask right
02:38:48Okay, uh
02:38:52Okay, I mean it's important to you it's important for your kids
02:38:56It's important to you it's important for your kids
02:38:59So you you would focus
02:39:02I mean on a date you would ask
02:39:04the philosophical question and not
02:39:07Maybe this is just me being bad at dating, but i've always tried to find
02:39:14How people express
02:39:17Their values instead of just asking what their values are
02:39:21Um, or having the values if you don't even know what they are
02:39:25Like if how can I express honesty if I don't have the value called honesty is a virtue
02:39:36I mean would you would you build I mean when you when you did this renovation?
02:39:41Didn't you say you spent a lot of time planning? Why didn't you just buy some shit and throw it together?
02:39:45Oh, because you have to have an idea what you're doing, right?
02:39:49Yeah, like you're literally a project manager, which means you do a lot of planning, right?
02:39:55Yes, which means you have to have a theoretical understanding of what's going to happen before you act on it
02:40:00Which is what virtue is you have to have a theoretical understanding of what you're doing before you act, right?
02:40:04Should I tell the truth or should I lie?
02:40:05Well, if you don't have a commitment to honesty, you'll just do seems easiest in the moment
02:40:10Oh, wow, okay, so you
02:40:12Okay, so you and this is helpful. So so you would
02:40:17Virtue is
02:40:20Your framework for how to behave
02:40:23Well, sorry you said you believe in universal morality so you have to know what that is right why are you asking me?
02:40:35I mean if I said I believe in x and you said what's x and I said I have no idea then you wouldn't think
02:40:39I was particularly honest, right?
02:40:44Um, I believe slash trust since I don't see much difference
02:40:50um that there
02:40:52are
02:40:54Um
02:40:57Better behaviors for the iterative game of life
02:41:02so or preferable behaviors to use
02:41:05so
02:41:07um
02:41:13So sorry, so you're saying that virtue is like a a game that gives you it gives you advantages in the game of life
02:41:22You
02:41:25Uh, yes to some extent right it's it's
02:41:29Patterns of behavior that lead towards your desired outcome that are
02:41:35um also
02:41:36Beneficial to everybody else in in your life. Sorry, and for how long have you believed this?
02:41:45I mean prior to your girlfriend, right?
02:41:49I don't think
02:41:51through this stuff in the same way you do so
02:41:54um
02:41:55No, no, but you have
02:41:57You said for as long as I remember I believed in universal morality, right?
02:42:01And so would you say that your relationship with your girlfriend was advantageous to your life as a whole?
02:42:09Um, it was until we
02:42:13I mean, it was generally positive in the beginning and it was not in the not at all advantageous in the end
02:42:18Well, what that's like a drug addict saying well, you know
02:42:20The first couple of hits of heroin were fantastic and then I ended up eating rats in the subway, right?
02:42:28So i'm just so sorry so
02:42:31so you're asking it
02:42:33Whatever approach you took with your girlfriend if morality is that which is advantageous to your life
02:42:39Then you were immoral because what you did was not advantageous to your life, right?
02:42:44Right
02:42:45So what did you get wrong that's like so my fundamental question is what mistake did you make?
02:42:50You said well, I didn't really check on her virtues
02:42:53I didn't really ask her if she was like what her moral standards were or anything like that
02:42:56It turns out she didn't really have any right
02:43:00Yeah, so why would you give your heart to someone with no moral standards
02:43:08Um, I didn't know that she had no moral standards
02:43:13Oh my gosh
02:43:14But you didn't ask and you also knew she came from a culture which you say doesn't
02:43:22And you saw her family her family didn't seem to be noble and upright and
02:43:27Morally righteous and right they were yelling at each other, right?
02:43:30Right. Okay
02:43:32So you had every piece of evidence that this was not the case and it turned out that empirically it wasn't the case
02:43:37So why wouldn't you ask that's my question?
02:43:40Right, you know the ass right assume it makes an ass out of you and me like why would you assume something that turned like
02:43:45Why would you assume something that cost you?
02:43:47So much
02:43:49When you could just ask up front
02:43:54Especially because you had a guy you'd been listening to on the internet who said that's absolutely essential
02:44:00well, you're the only person I know of that
02:44:04Would ask or would recommend asking?
02:44:06Okay, so then I would also leave because you're just making excuses
02:44:11No, no, you absolutely are making excuses when when you care what other people do
02:44:17Well other people are doing it
02:44:19So I guess like are you saying it's peer pressure?
02:44:21Like you actually you had me for years in your ear saying check the virtues before you give your heart, right?
02:44:26No, what i'm saying is if if I go get dating advice from someone
02:44:30And I get dating advice from 50 people and one of them says hey try this but it's
02:44:35Wildly different from all the other dating advice
02:44:38it's
02:44:39It's like oh god, I don't know what that is what that's very different
02:44:43Okay, all right
02:44:46Listen I get it. You don't you don't want to live your life philosophically
02:44:50i'm saying i've struggled to know how to do that because it's it's
02:44:54not like
02:44:55it's not something that is I can just i've discussed with people like it's not
02:45:02the
02:45:03I'm trying to
02:45:09Okay, like I when you
02:45:11When you say apply it, like I don't I don't know what that means. I like I because I can't
02:45:16Listen, don't don't I don't know how to draw that. Listen. Don't don't get all rubber bones and don't snow job me
02:45:20I mean, I I think we're winding down here
02:45:22But I just gave you the example you you ask people, uh, do you believe in morality?
02:45:26Like what are your virtues? Do you believe in virtue? Do you what's your commitment to virtue? Right?
02:45:30Of course, right
02:45:34I mean when you went to your house, did you just get to sign shit and they gave you half a million dollars?
02:45:39No, they verify
02:45:42We need to see your income we need to see your bank statements we need to see your credit history like you verify
02:45:47That's a house. This is your heart
02:45:49You're direct about it and you're you're you make it very important
02:45:55Right and and listen if so if you're gonna say well, you know
02:45:58There's 500 pieces of dating advice out there and steph is just one voice among 500
02:46:03So here's a 0.25 chance of being right. That's not what I said. No, you said there's hundreds of people out there with dating advice
02:46:11Yes, and I said that the advice that you give is quite a bit different than the other advice
02:46:17and so it's hard for me to
02:46:19to like
02:46:20Articulate and understand how to apply that advice
02:46:23when
02:46:25When like
02:46:27I haven't like I don't have examples of it in other places
02:46:31You see what i'm saying?
02:46:32Like if I if i'm trying to figure out an engineering problem
02:46:35And I can get five sources that each solve 20. I can solve the whole problem
02:46:41Right, which is why i'm 0.2
02:46:44Right because i'm one out of hundreds or one out of 500 or something
02:46:46So so listen
02:46:47So you need to go and talk to a couple of hundred other people and try and mingle together all the dating advice and come
02:46:52up with a plan
02:46:55Because i'm the principal guy
02:46:57Look if you're just going to go with well empiricism and other people say this that and the other i'm the principal guy
02:47:02Right, so i'm a reason from first principles and that's what I do, right?
02:47:05So i've got rtr i've got upb i've got all of these approaches i've had obviously came from a very horrible childhood
02:47:12And have been you know, joyfully happy for 21 years, but what do I know right?
02:47:15so
02:47:16I'm, not if you want to if you don't want to live according to principles
02:47:20If you don't want to live according to principles, then you can continue doing what you're doing and you know
02:47:25Maybe it'll work out. I mean, I guess blind guys can hit a hole in one once in a while
02:47:29But i'm a principal guy. So then if you say well, I can't live my life based on principles
02:47:33Then i'm not sure what we're talking about
02:47:35this is very frustrating to me because i'm not
02:47:38I'm, not being allowed to express what i'm trying to communicate to you
02:47:42So it's my fault
02:47:45No, it's my fault. You're not being confusing. It's my fault
02:47:50Even though i've done thousands of these calls it's my fault
02:47:54I didn't say that
02:47:56You said i'm not being allowed to which means that i'm in charge and i'm not allowing you to do something
02:48:01And I can I express what you I mean you interpreted what I said a certain way
02:48:05That's not what I was trying to express now. I'm trying to correct it and you now now you're like
02:48:13Well, how do you know that i'm wrong
02:48:16I've never said that you're wrong
02:48:18Yes, you said i'm trying to express something and you said steph you got it wrong because you're repeating back to me
02:48:23Which is not what I intended
02:48:25Yes, what you how you have described my communication is not correctly mapping on to what i'm trying to communicate. How do you know?
02:48:37Maybe you're being defensive that's possible
02:48:41You
02:48:46So when I model in a role play here's how to ask someone about morality and then you say I have no idea how to
02:48:51Do that that's false because I just modeled it now. You may not do it exactly the same way
02:48:56Right, but if I say
02:48:58Lefty loosey righty tighty and then you say I have no way to know how to tighten or loosen a bolt. That's not true, right?
02:49:06Yes, the
02:49:08What what i'm trying to explain is
02:49:11That you know when i'm envisioning a future dating situation
02:49:16there's so many variables in that uncertainty that
02:49:24Like i'm trying to see how
02:49:27Like when when and how is the right time if I to use that phrase or what's a similar phrase that I can use?
02:49:32like how because
02:49:35This is what I meant by the partial data. Like if I because if I get one example
02:49:41Like I don't I don't I I struggle to
02:49:45to to know how to use that one example in in in a
02:49:50In a situation versus if you get a bunch of examples, then I can get a pattern and then I can understand
02:49:55Does that make sense? So like when?
02:49:58I'm, not disagreeing the principle like I I understand the value of the principles
02:50:02What I struggle with is how to map those principles onto my behavior
02:50:06And I don't know what any of that shit means
02:50:09You ask people if they believe in virtue do you believe in truth do you believe in virtue?
02:50:13I mean you just ask them that now you say well, that's really tough. Okay. Well
02:50:17Then you can go back to
02:50:18Detonating half a decade of your life with this shit
02:50:22Well, let's see. All right, so you say there's a lot of variables, but that's why you need principles
02:50:26Well, there's a lot of shit at the grocery store. Well, that's why you need the science of nutrition
02:50:32There's an infinite number of things I can do with my body
02:50:34Well, that's why you need the science of exercise, of course, there's a lot of variables that's why we have principles
02:50:43Because if you try to live your life managing all these variables you won't have any principles at all
02:50:49So, I don't know on the first date you don't corner the woman and say give me your definition of universal morality
02:50:54but if you like her
02:50:57Then
02:50:59Well, first of all, she should be asking you as well, right?
02:51:02Right and you don't get into relationships without saying, okay, we're going to have disagreements
02:51:08Okay. So what's our principle for resolving disagreements, right?
02:51:12Well, we don't yell obviously we don't call names. We don't storm out
02:51:16We try together, you know calmly to work it out. Do we have that as an agreement, right?
02:51:23I mean you don't get into a business relationship without a contract
02:51:26I'm not saying you have a legal contract with someone you date, but you have to say we're going to have disagreements
02:51:31Of course, we are we're humans and you know
02:51:33One or both of us may be wrong. All right
02:51:35So how how are we going to resolve our disagreements? Right? What have we learned?
02:51:39Well avoidance isn't good
02:51:42Yelling isn't good
02:51:44Punishment isn't good withdrawal
02:51:47Isn't good
02:51:49Name calling isn't good
02:51:51Escalation isn't good threats aren't good
02:51:54So we have to have this commitment to resolve things
02:51:57So
02:51:59Peacefully
02:52:01I mean, is that an unreasonable thing to say with someone that you're considering getting into a relationship with?
02:52:09I am not usually that direct and that's so but no, I think that's very reasonable
02:52:16So why didn't you do that? Why didn't you?
02:52:20And this is the question listen, and i'm just i'm trying to get you
02:52:23Laid by a good woman
02:52:25Right. I'm trying to get you into a good relationship
02:52:28and this confusion avoidance
02:52:31Justification defense stuff is just going to drive good women away in my opinion
02:52:37You and I don't know what the answer is and we've had a long call so we can wrap it up here
02:52:41But I don't know what the answer is as to why?
02:52:46You got into a relationship with a woman this destructive and stayed in it for three years
02:52:52Plus two years of legal shit, right? I don't know the answer to that
02:52:57And i'm sorry we couldn't get to the answer to that but you know, i'm I can't
02:53:02I can't make you tell me right and that but that's really what i've been asking for the last
02:53:0670 minutes or so is why when you had
02:53:10A philosopher giving you great advice, right? Because you didn't follow my advice and how did it go, right?
02:53:18Does that make sense
02:53:20Like you did the opposite of what I recommend, right
02:53:25Is that yes
02:53:28Yes, okay, so you did the opposite of what I recommend
02:53:34And you call me up saying help me
02:53:37And then you spend two and a half hours fighting me which is kind of funny, right?
02:53:42And look I get it. Look. I mean, it's it's recent for you. The difficulties with your ex are fresh, right? It takes
02:53:49You know at least half the time to usually get over a relationship that's just a rough rule of thumb
02:53:54I mean it can be can be different or whatever, right? But so it's still pretty raw and you've also been in combat mode
02:54:01Which means self-criticism is is very painful because you have to be in blaming the other to be in combat mode
02:54:06So I I sympathize with all of that
02:54:09but
02:54:14You did the opposite of what I advised and you were in grave danger
02:54:18And it cost you half a decade plus whatever time it takes to recover plus you now have this story
02:54:24That you have to try and wedge into future dating, which is a mess, right?
02:54:27So yes, you're a whole lot worse off in many ways
02:54:32Because you didn't follow my advice, right?
02:54:37Yes, okay
02:54:38And then you fight me a lot. I'm trying to coach you and you're fighting me a lot
02:54:42And again, I understand that you've been in combat mode and so on
02:54:45But I think at some point you need to have an answer to the question why did you ignore good advice
02:54:52And put yourself in this horrible situation that's going to have significant future costs of credibility with dates
02:55:00I don't know the answer to that. I mean i'm sort of out of energy for the convo
02:55:03but that's really what I was trying to get at for the last hour was well, why
02:55:08and
02:55:09There is a question about that which is interesting, right? You got you've been listening to me since
02:55:14Since college so you've been listening to me for you know, close on a decade, right? Maybe more
02:55:19and
02:55:20You didn't persist in trying to get a convo. I don't know if you did or didn't ask me you can't remember particular but
02:55:26Um, so it's funny like you didn't you didn't ask me for advice when it could have done you some real good and prevented this
02:55:31Mess and then you kind of asked me for advice about dating, right?
02:55:34The whole thing has been about not about your ex but about you saying well
02:55:37I'm having trouble dating and it's like well, of course you are
02:55:40And that's the whole thing has been about not your ex which is the past but the future
02:55:44Right, so you're having trouble dating. Sure, of course
02:55:48because if a woman says
02:55:50To you looks at you, right?
02:55:52And you tell them about your history with me you tell them about your history with what happened with this woman, right?
02:55:58And they look at you and they say
02:56:01This guy seriously doesn't take good advice
02:56:04He seriously does not take good advice
02:56:08And even when he's getting good advice, he fights like hell
02:56:12How trustworthy is that going to be for a woman to give her heart mind body soul loins children?
02:56:18Dependence and all of that when you don't take
02:56:21Good advice and you and that's fine. Listen, we all don't take good advice from time to time, but we need to understand why
02:56:28Why don't you take good advice? I don't know the answer to that
02:56:31I don't know the answer to that
02:56:33And why do you fight good advice even when you call up in desperation, right?
02:56:37I don't know the answer to that either because we didn't get there because
02:56:42You wouldn't
02:56:42Explore that and that's your choice and it's my choice to stay in the conversation
02:56:46I'm, certainly not any any kind of victim, but we we didn't get to the answer. I don't know what the answer is
02:56:52But I think if you have that answer
02:56:56And you say okay, why didn't I follow good advice
02:56:59Right, why didn't I do?
02:57:02the right thing by
02:57:04My own standards by a philosopher that I follow by rational standards. Why didn't I do the right thing?
02:57:10Now
02:57:11The answer as to why I didn't do the right thing is the key to unlocking future virtue
02:57:16And the way that we avoid saying why didn't I do the right thing?
02:57:20is we fog we gaslight we
02:57:23Blame with all of these kinds of things because we just don't want to avoid that
02:57:26Confrontation with the darker side of herself, which may be self-sabotage and whatever whatever and it has something to do with your parents, too
02:57:32Because they should have been grilling you up down left right and front and center because your parents are also hot somewhat responsible for
02:57:40You're half decade from hell right and and the liability that that has
02:57:45Going uh going forward. So
02:57:48I don't know. Is it vanity? Is it is it I don't I don't know exactly what it is
02:57:53but
02:57:55It takes a foundational humility to say
02:57:58I just really have to follow
02:58:00Virtue, I have to be honest. Uh, I have if I if I get good advice, I should really try to implement it
02:58:06And if you say well
02:58:07There's lots of people giving advice and I don't even know how to map these values onto my actions or whatever
02:58:12It was like that's all just fog and nonsense, right? You
02:58:15You you have to know it's it takes practice to implement the behavior, right?
02:58:20and if you
02:58:23I can know no, it doesn't take practice to implement virtue. It just takes will
02:58:30But you don't you don't like it takes practice to learn the violin it doesn't take practice to say
02:58:34Do you believe in virtue?
02:58:36You that's it. You don't you don't think it's a second statement
02:58:41Okay, repeat after me do you believe in virtue
02:58:46Yes, no repeat the phrase do you believe in virtue do you believe in virtue look at that
02:58:50You didn't need to practice that at all
02:58:52It's not like learning mandarin or cantonese, I guess
02:58:55no, but
02:58:57See now you're gonna make it difficult again, right?
02:59:00And I don't know why you don't want I mean you you think you think that's difficult
02:59:04How was how was your last half decade? Was that easy?
02:59:06Do you do so? Well
02:59:10I'm, not trying to make it difficult. I'm trying to
02:59:17To make a big life change
02:59:20It's not easy
02:59:24Right, I mean why why on earth would you say that though who cares
02:59:29It's it's not hard to say the words. Do you believe in virtue or some equivalent, right?
02:59:33It's hard to go through the last half decade. That's hard
02:59:37It's not hard to spend two seconds saying do you believe in virtue? Do you believe in truth?
02:59:42How are we going to resolve disputes? Let's talk about that
02:59:45That it's not hard to do that for a few seconds
02:59:48It's not hard to do that physically. There could be some emotional barriers
02:59:54Which it's important for you
02:59:55I mean we didn't get to exploring why you have all these emotional barriers to asking simple questions about virtue and trustworthiness of others, right?
03:00:06No, we did not get to that no and you really don't want to get to that and that's you know, you're you're
03:00:12your choice and I can't particularly fathom that but um
03:00:17I would like to get to it, but I
03:00:21I understand that that's
03:00:23That there's not time for that
03:00:24well
03:00:24No, you don't you don't want to get to it because i've really been trying to get to that for 70 minutes and we've just been
03:00:30battling over this particular issue of sort of self-ownership and
03:00:34And all of that so yeah, but I think that's the big question you say well, it's it's tough to implement life changes. So
03:00:40It's not tough to say physically. It's not tough to say to someone. Do you believe in truth? Do you believe in virtue?
03:00:45How are we going to resolve disputes right? This is not not physically tough. There's emotional blocks. I get all of that
03:00:51and those emotional blocks may have something to do with the
03:00:54carelessness of your parents or some lack of virtue in your
03:00:58origin story of childhood and all of that, but um
03:01:01But yeah, it's uh, you can say it's hard. Well
03:01:04you know, uh
03:01:06What do they say about working out? You know what they say about which you choose your suffering
03:01:10Right. It's you suffer now with weight. So you suffer later
03:01:14With back pain and obesity and joint issues and
03:01:18Diabetes, right choose your suffering, right?
03:01:20So i'm just saying choose your suffering right and you said
03:01:23One of the things about virtue that was really important to you was the deferral of gratification and having a winning life strategy. Okay. Well
03:01:30You deferred gratification because you wouldn't ask
03:01:33Your girlfriend that you do came from a culture that according to you didn't respect as much universal morality
03:01:39So you chose to avoid these questions with her
03:01:41And
03:01:43You chose the suffering that followed because you chose to avoid the initial suffering of
03:01:48Well, i'm going to ask you about virtue
03:01:49She's going to give me a thousand yard stare and change the subject in which case I might have to break up with her
03:01:54Five years ago instead of through lawyers. So, uh, it's just choose your suffering. So when you say it's hard. Well, okay
03:02:02But it's easier than this if you want a winning life strategy if that makes sense
03:02:06That's very that that helps me understand it. Um
03:02:12Yeah, and try try not, you know, just in general try not to whine too much about things being hard it's hard, you know, because
03:02:18It's kind of tough for women to get juiced up by that
03:02:21So it's just it's just a minor sort of bro to bro tip if that makes sense. Yeah
03:02:24No, I think what I think
03:02:27Your your point about
03:02:31For either historical reasons or parents, this is just not a topic that I have there any strength in and so
03:02:39Um
03:02:43I'm not even aware
03:02:46some many times that i'm
03:02:49Passing over or not paying attention to
03:02:53This area does that make sense, but you do know your own resistance, right?
03:02:56You know that you're resistant to the topic right like you wouldn't let me lead at all
03:03:00you you fought me on just about every syllable, so
03:03:03You you understand that you're resistant and you've done some therapy and you've listened to this show for a long time
03:03:07So you you know, you you say that self-knowledge right when I asked about the virtues of your girlfriend many moons ago
03:03:12You said self-knowledge is really important. So you are responsible for knowing when you're resistant and and all of that
03:03:17so
03:03:18and you know
03:03:19But I think you were just acting it out rather than being aware of it and saying gee I really dislike this topic
03:03:24which is probably
03:03:25What we need to talk about the most you're like, well, I really dislike this topic
03:03:28So i'm gonna gaslight and change the topic and fight and right
03:03:32Criticize and play the victim and right so I think that's just the kind of self-knowledge
03:03:36You need to get to which is where?
03:03:38The things that the toughest is probably where you most need to go. All right
03:03:42How would you recommend getting better at this then?
03:03:47Uh, maybe maybe some more talk therapy
03:03:49um, just trying to figure out where the defenses came from and
03:03:53Why there's a disconnect between you saying the deferral of gratification is really important, but not wanting to go
03:03:58in particular
03:04:00Areas and and fighting someone that you're calling up with because of my supposed expertise
03:04:07You
03:04:09All right, well listen I really do appreciate the chat today. I really did find it a great workout
03:04:13so I really do appreciate it and it was very engaging and
03:04:17uh, I hope that you'll keep me posted about how it's going and i'm very very
03:04:21Happy and relieved that you got out of this
03:04:23Quagmire with your ex because that could have gone a whole lot worse and and i'm really really thrilled
03:04:28That uh, you you got out of it in the way that you did
03:04:30Well, I mean it would be better if it wasn't the way but given what happened
03:04:34Uh, i'm i'm very pleased about that and I really do appreciate your time today
03:04:39Is this um a conversation I can get a copy of or I or I oh, yeah, they're all call-in shows. Yeah for sure
03:04:46Because I I would like to listen back to it and absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. I appreciate your time. So take care man
03:04:52And keep me posted. All right
03:04:54Thank you very much. Thanks. Bye

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