Freedomain with Stefan Molyneux

Freedomain Call In - Husband and Wife

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Husband:

We are married for three years now, we have two daughters, and we had a really good relationship. I would say, we were in love--we are still in love--and we also had a really good world view. We had almost the same opinion on everything, we did not have any argument and so on. And even before our first daughter was born, we thought we also have the same view on how to raise the child and so on.

But when the daughter was born, I don't know, we had some slight disagreements. In general, we still had the same general view on how to do it, but we had individual agreements here and there, maybe related also to the other family members and so on. But it was nothing so serious.

But then after two years, we had a second daughter--she's now seven and a half months--and after that I think it became really hard for some reason. We started to argue for no really apparent big reasons. I think the worst of it all is that we argue in front of our daughters, really, really big arguments sometimes. I feel this is really terrible, the worst thing we can do for them, and for us as well. Anyway, the thing we argue in the first place is not good for me, from my point of view, And the fact that we do it in front of the daughters, it's really unimaginable for me. Before two years ago, I would never have thought we would be doing it. And my concern is I absolutely don't know what I could do differently. I thought I'm really doing my best in the relationship, in taking care of the daughters.

I have a feeling that the more I try, it's even worse. So there must be something wrong I do. Perhaps I should do less, I don't know. It's really concerning because the matter of the arguments, the topics are really crazy. It's like nonsense. say I bring a smaller plate to serve the breakfast. It's non-argument. I'm pretty sure the reason for the argument is not what the argument is about. So there must be some deeper problem. I just don't know what it could be. What I want to say also in front is that I think that my wife is starting the arguments more often than I do.

I want to help, but at least this is my opinion. And maybe it's not true, but I have to find out somehow. And since my wife is listening to your podcast, yeah, I must admit I never really listened. So she brought this idea to call you.


Wife:

As my husband said, seven months ago after the daughter was born, I think things changed a bit for me. But, it's not because of the daughter, it's because other things, especially in my family, happened. And I think it might be the cause. I didn't have a good relationship with my mother. We were always very distant. And we tried, me and my husband, we decided to have a relationship with her, but just see her on occasions. And that way it worked for us when we were alone, just two of us together or with one daughter.

But after my second daughter was born, my mother visited us unexpectedly when I was the first day from the hospital. It was really shocking that she just came here. She didn't let us know even one hour in advance. And she just came here and she wanted to bring us some soup and she wanted to see the baby. She made our toddler daughter, who was two, not even two at that time, she made her cry. And then she made me cry. And I realized, like... I think from that moment I became more angry with my husband.

And I think maybe I expected him to be like more protecting of me during the time, yeah, that he would not let anyone we didn't want visit us, but I know it's not his fault because it's my mother and I kind of had to have the relationship with her. I didn't ever really finish the relationship. But the worst part after this unexpected visit was that yeah she made all of us cry basically it was really horrible visit really short visit and after that she could just apologize and just say like look I came unexpectedly I made your daughter cry I'm sorry but she sent me a really horrible message and basically ever since I have not talked to her. I think it's better not to have a relationship with her. I feel better.

But it's not something that is finished for me. Because now I have a feeling that she can call me anytime and just start talking to me again. I don't know what to do with that relationship. I don't know what to expect, you know. I don't know if she can contact me again or not. I never told her not to contact me ever again. Maybe I should do that. But it just feels like it's so open.

My husband, because we were talking about it a lot, he called her and he told her, because I said if she wanted to apologize, she would have apologized already. But my husband called her and he talked to her and he explained to her that I'm really hurt about it and that if she wants to be in touch she has to apologize to me first, and then she has to let us know in advance before she comes for a visit because this was not like an okay visit.

And then she said she will think about it and that she would like to apologize, she needs some time to apologize, but she never contacted me. So now I feel like it's really open and she can really contact me anytime she wants. It's been seven months. So I think it's good, but I think we should somehow finally close it. And I don't know how to approach it. Then it makes me look at the other relationships with even my husband's family and you know some things that are not ideal and I don't know how to deal with that.

He agrees with me about my mother and maybe about my father but it's difficult because I have siblings so we cannot if we start talking to her and my father then I still have siblings that I like to talk to, but they still have the relationship, so it will really exclude us from any family gatherings, et cetera, and my husband likes those gatherings, and yeah, I think that's it.

An update on Bitcoin!

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Questions from Locals Subscribers 27 October 2023

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what are your thoughts on sleepovers? I used to do sleepovers growing up and we always snuck out, stayed up super late, ate crappy food, watched horror movies, etc. there are a lot of stories coming out about kids getting raped and molested while sleeping over at a “friends” house. Do you let Izzy go to sleepovers?


when I was younger I was exposed to very violent tv and movies by my dad. My mom didn’t like it but didn’t do anything other than passive aggressively insult my dad. Thinking back, I remember times when I would torturously kill insects and little frogs. I also had no trouble hitting our dog to “discipline” it. I am repulsed by this now and have developed empathy to the point where I would never dream of hurting animals like this. What is your analysis of this?


in the news recently Baltimore city schools had almost 0% of students pass the 7th grade standardized tests and in Oregon they are getting rid of standards for reading, writing and math because people of color can't pass them. Is this proving the Bell Curve by Douglas Murray? Can UPB be used to make education more realistic? Should students be taught to their level of capabilities? How do you imagine education in a free society?


is the United States of America an example of a philosophical derived nation? How have cultures been influenced/united by philosophy? What are some modern examples of philosophical unification?


I have one that I've thought about recently. How would you navigate a world in which it becomes increasingly more difficult to believe what you see and hear with the use of AI generated content? As it is now AI videos and AI voice recreation is about as bad as it will ever be it will only continue to get better. Seems like sources of news whether that's social media or mainstream media will be less and less reliable.


Hey Stef.
I have a friend much older than me who I’ve known for over 5 years now. He’s shown almost no character growth over the course of knowing him, and instead has shown a steady regression towards a deeper immaturity and arrested development. One example is his continual complaints about his abusive and narcissistic mother, who he now cares for and looks after begrudgingly, as well as his marriage which quickly fell apart after he says his wife physically abused him.
How does one leave old friendships that were forged in a time of immaturity and a lack of self knowledge? He is now looking to get back in touch and rekindle our friendship, but appears to hold no standards for his own self development. Is it worth trying to reason with someone who seems to be retreating into an ever-deepening pit of Peter Pan syndrome?


Is it immoral to donate sperm? I'm near a place that pays people with sufficient credentials to donate sperm. I meet the credentials and the money's pretty nice for the ease of the labor (heh). But I'm not sure if it's ethical. On the one hand, it's helping people who want families have them, bringing a life into the world who otherwise wouldn't exist, and it also of course benefits me by propagating my genes and making some easy money. The downside of course is I have no idea if the parents are going to be lunatics. It seems like a crapshoot; people who get sperm donations aren't having babies by accident, but our culture also still believes in spanking. How responsible am I if my offspring gets bad luck with parents?


hi Stef!!! When would you say your running out of time to find a wife and make a career I'm 23 have a good paying job or career if i want it to be about 50,000 per year but constantly feel like I'm running out of time to do things I constantly feel like life is slipping away and like I'm going to die soon or something, I have a lot of responsibilities that I take care of and I imagine that's part of it, any words if wisdom would be appreciated.


What are your thoughts on "overemployment" as described in the following article:
https://overemployed.com/story-five-it-jobs-millionaire-u-sweetmullet/
What would you expect to result from this?
TL;DR:
The author claims to make over $1M with a series of full-time remote IT positions that do not actually require full-time work from him to accomplish the required tasks; presumably, these companies do not know that the author is working at multiple companies simultaneously, though no non-compete condition of employment is mentioned.


how did you prepare for your daughter's birth? did you find it unsettling how everyone seems to be winging parenting? we require 4 years of intense schooling + licensing to be an engineer, but with zero oversight one can have sex and assume full responsibility for the care of a baby

Freedomain Call In 26 October 2023

I was seeing my brother the other week and we spoke about you and our previous call many years ago and since I am still struggling with my men, so to speak, he was very on to me about something that we discussed about my looks. And he really wanted me to like rebrand myself so he he was saying that my unluck with bad men is due how I present myself with clothing and appearance.

I'm not together with my children's father anymore.

So last time we spoke, I told you about, I was briefly seeing a guy with Tourette's, and this guy happens to be the father of my two children. And I have a three-year old girl and a 10-month old boy. And we kind of split like about more than a year ago. And he hasn't seen the children since this spring. And this is because, well, first of all, he's not in the country, and second, he wasn't being sane. He's bipolar, he has PTSD and quite a bit of a narcissist.

So when the children came, some of the problems got very clear and well, he also got worse with his sickness, so to speak. And yeah, so I'm alone with them and I still have the same look.
I guess that's my question is, is this true? Like, should I shave my head?
Like, never wear makeup, go, I don't know, get dressed in... I mean, I'm a mother today, so I would say I'm quite casual, but maybe even dress down even more, to maybe sometime in many years, but still, like, maybe meet someone later on.


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Friday Night Live 27 Oct 2023

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Philosophical take on the weight loss drug, Ozempic.


Do you have any insights on how much caution or prudence is too much when making big decisions? Is there a healthy balance between being reckless and being fearful?


Do you have any comments on the Maine shooting?


What do I talk about with my woke daughter?


What if you take the free giveaway from government and then use all that free time in some productive way?


How do I tackle hyper-independence as a woman when it doesn't stem from hatred of men but concerns of financial manipulation, having a wretched mother literally kicked out by my father with nothing. Mother was very manipulative and threatened to kick me out as a teen when I disagreed. I need to date and get married and stay home with kids. Is this just a trust issue?

Questions from Listeners October 2023

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Why is it that in pretty much all famous novels with child characters, the children are written as orphans?


Please elaborate on the duty of close personal friends in regard to your personal happiness. My consideration of the subject is derived from your narrative describing the dissolution of your first engagement from a relationship of seven years. My circumstance was similar in duration to what was and is an amazing person, yet nevertheless amicably divorced a few years later, totaling 13.

The inquiry surrounds a friend of 20 plus years whose marriage I was thanked for helping preserve after potential infidelity by his wife only a few years earlier, and was later dubbed godparents of their subsequent child, who nevertheless in reference to my divorce didn't have a single question regarding it until over a year and a half later, after distancing myself. Nor mentioned her name, and was the same friend I consulted as whether I should marry after expressing doubts regarding compatibility despite our genuine affection.

While I don't know if we should have married or divorced, and to be fair, believe him to be an otherwise decent person who wouldn't know either, what concerns me, however, is having people in my life that appear to lack equal or any concerns about important decisions in my life and their outcomes. Wherefore, it would be helpful if you could describe what philosophical standards underpinned your decision to eventually dissociate with those you've described as indifferent to your happiness.


Any advice for a W -2 employee who is transitioning to entrepreneurship while supporting a wife and two kids?


Do you have a favorite character from the Lord of the Rings books or films? If so, what do you find particularly compelling about this individual?


I have fallen for a woman who's incapable of loving and or feels herself to be unlovable. We have a history of three years of friendship, closeness, and memories, but even casual sexual intimacy during the first year that we stopped because the sex was making, too toxic? After this the friendship and closeness gradually developed into a very close relationship. Anyway, I'm hurting a lot and I feel like a victim of a broken person as I open my heart to her and it's met with coldness and no communication. Of course this is a lesson I still needed to learn from the neglect of my toxic mother in my early teens and I'm also dealing with this in therapy. But moving on, I already found a new circle of friends whom I care about and am planning an event where there will be awesome quality women with high potential for life partner. So my question is, how do you recognize women who do not have this issue of being unable to love or who feel like they're not worth loving? I suppose it's about them embracing reason, at least to some extent, trying to do something good in the world and about me being connected to my feelings to recoil from bad women. Do you have some additional advice?


How can you tell if you have truly changed as a person, morally speaking?


How do you get over the feeling of limerence? I met this attractive girl a few months ago at a friend's wedding. She gave me her social media and I didn't really think much about her until I started following her post and talking to her online. I was surprised at how many interests we had in common and similar childhood upbringings. Unfortunately she's dating someone but I still might find myself checking what she posts almost daily to find out what she's up to. How do I forget about this person?

The caller delves into struggles with school, weight, and dating. He and Stefan explore why parents may sabotage their children's weight loss efforts. They also discuss the challenges of finding quality partners and the importance of taking action when behavior doesn't align with our expectations.

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When COVID hit the government response began a gradual process of degradation of our business. After the 3 month shutdown and a year of keeping it afloat, I realized that my income had been knocked back down to what I was earning 5-6 yrs prior, and with my increased expenses, the business had become non-profitable.
Luckily I was able to sell the business to recoup some of my losses.

It was around this time my wife and I decided to leave the politically aggressive progressive big city and move our family to my hometown to live with my parents until we could welcome our third child to the world, and I could figure out a way to get our lives back on track.

A few weeks before we made the move, my brother attempted suicide for the second time in his life. (I will also mention that he was an “ADHD” kid and was heavily medicated for several years as a young child)

As the days and weeks went by following his 2nd attempt, I realized through discussions with him and my father that the way my parents handled the crisis was nothing short of terrible. So much so that when my father finally recounted exactly what happened and how he handled it, the only thought that went through my mind was “what the fuck is wrong with you!?”.

In that moment I realized I had to get my brother as far away from them as possible. To make it even more obvious that I had to do so, he was living in a terrible neighbourhood (break ins and murders and drug addicts) and working a terrible job in a low rent factory which was destroying his health. He was just over 200lbs at his heaviest, and essentially never sleeping which has contributed to short term memory loss issues. I should also mention that my parents chose that job for him as well as the house he was living in and never seriously considered helping him change either of them to improve his life.

Soon after, I suggested to my brother that I could arrange the sale of his house, move across the country and he could live with us and take a year off work, and not have to worry about paying bills—to which he enthusiastically said yes.

Thanks to some fellow FDR friends, I found a place in a great neighbourhood in a small town and I began the process of setting up our lives across the country and coordinating the sale of his house to make it all happen.

Since being here, I’ve helped him lose 50lbs and my wife and I have given him advice on where to work and his new job is going well. We’ve also had many conversations about our relationships with our parents but this is increasingly challenging to do with 3 little kids who need us.

He is helpful with our kids, and often plays with them enthusiastically, as well as contributes to cooking and cleaning and buying groceries. But, now that we are living together, I’m observing what his behavioural issues are since I could never rely on my parents to tell me the truth about his struggles (given that they are the ones who caused all of this).

He is addicted to screens, watching and talking about silly cgi movies and has almost weekly bouts of passive aggressive behaviour as well as a complaining/victim mindset—all things I want to keep miles away from my kids for obvious reasons.

The added challenge is that because he was physically and verbally abused by my parents as a child (and verbally abused as an adult) and was “forced” or “pushed” through every level of school by my mother, and had everything done for him, he is now a feminized adult (NAWALT)—meaning he can’t get through the day without lots of entertainment and small talk chit chat, takes almost no initiative on his own, gives up easily, and struggles to take responsibility for his choices.

He has made some progress since we’ve been here, taking responsibility for certain important financial choices, and I do continue to see slow gradual progress.

We have begun to build a cabin in our backyard so he can have his own personal space, and he is contributing to the work-albeit with quite a bit of negative self-talk, and our goal as a family is to eventually move him into his own house, either somewhere in our neighbourhood or two separate houses on an acreage.

I feel like we’ve taken care of the easy part which is getting him out of a bad situation and getting his health back on track, but the more challenging aspects of this are getting him to realize that in order for him to continue to heal, his abusers have to suffer, and that if he continues to use their language, he has not escaped anything.

Any help or direction you can provide in navigating this challenging time would be greatly appreciated.

Hey Stef, I’ve started working at a startup selling a product. I think this product is going to revolutionize the industry I’m working in. Despite this, my perspective clients can be dismissive and outright rude when I’m trying to explain how it’ll benefit them. How did you deal with rejection as an entrepreneur? Did you take rejection personal?

Stefan, quick question, what creates sex addiction (for men)?

I just signed in to learn about your position on the global conflict.

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I've had this sadness a long time. The last 10 years, I've done various forms of treatment and therapy. I tried a little bit of medication, but for a very long time ago and a very short period, so that didn't work out. The most recent and in-depth treatment I did was from 2020 to 2021. And during that time, I had an excellent psychologist. She helped me a lot. It gave me a lot of good coping tools, and I also got a diagnosis, persistent depressive disorder, it's called.

So I'm carrying this kind of lump in my throat, an overwhelming sense of sadness, but the last years I have just tried to simply accept it and not devote so much energy or attention to it, whereas I previously often wondered why I felt so down and attempted to kind of, get to the root of the problems, I kind of, these last years, tried to move on or, I don't know, as I said, not devote so much energy or time, attention to it. So yeah, now I'm just here, I have a wonderful life, a stay-at-home mom, a fantastic husband, three lovely children under years five, but still feel so down.


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