On Those We Left Behind!

Stefan Molyneux

Stefan Molyneux examines the idea of "defooing," a process of breaking away from harmful family patterns to build a better life ahead. He points out how defooing requires active steps, since damaging family members often block progress in personal bonds and development. Using stories from listeners, he talks about gaining perspective from others, and how family background affects one's sense of self and dealings with people.  He looks at the difficulties in reaching out to family like brothers or sisters after pulling back from a poisonous setup. Molyneux covers the tangled feelings and dangers of being upfront about family issues, noting the likely pushback from those who side with the wrongdoers. He wraps up by considering the role of honesty in creating solid relationships, and stresses choosing ties that actually help, to support one's own recovery and advancement.  SUBSCRIBE TO ME ON X! https://x.com/StefanMolyneux  Follow me on Youtube! https://www.youtube.com/@freedomain1  GET MY NEW BOOK 'PEACEFUL PARENTING', THE INTERACTIVE PEACEFUL PARENTING AI, AND THE FULL AUDIOBOOK! https://peacefulparenting.com/  Join the PREMIUM philosophy community on the web for free!  Subscribers get 12 HOURS on the "Truth About the French Revolution," multiple interactive multi-lingual philosophy AIs trained on thousands of hours of my material - as well as AIs for Real-Time Relationships, Bitcoin, Peaceful Parenting, and Call-In Shows!  You also receive private livestreams, HUNDREDS of exclusive premium shows, early release podcasts, the 22 Part History of Philosophers series and much more!  See you soon! https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/UPB2025

Transcript

00:00All right, so this is a roll-up show, a greatest hits show. I get this question a lot,

00:06and I got it recently, in particular about the leave-behinds, right? Let's say that you've had

00:14a bad family, and various things escalate, you have the conversation with your parents,

00:20it goes badly, and you decide to defoo. A foo, of course, being family of origin,

00:26defooing is like a divorce, or at least a trial separation, as a result of sort of relentlessly

00:32bad behavior, and the defoo is not primarily, of course, about your parents, and it's not primarily

00:40about the past. The defoo is primarily about the future, right? I love economics, as you know,

00:49fairly well-trained in it, and well-read in it, and of course, with economics, the big issue

00:57is not the visible benefits, but the hidden costs, right? That's the big thing with economics,

01:05right? If the government spends five million dollars to create a hundred jobs, you say,

01:08ooh, there's a hundred jobs. Economics is about the things you don't see or can't see,

01:13which is all of the jobs that are not created, because the government took those five million

01:21dollars from businesses and taxpayers and so on. So, the defoo as a whole is not to do with your

01:28parents, and it's not to do with the past. If you have a crazy, dysfunctional, abusive, and perhaps

01:36even, I've certainly talked to people with this challenge, an outright evil family, then the defoo

01:43is not fundamentally about the past. It's not fundamentally about your parents. It's about

01:47who can't come into your life if your parents are still in your life. Who are your abusive parents

01:54blocking from coming into your life, right? That's what really matters. That's what really matters.

02:03I can tell you this without a shadow of a doubt, although my wife has never met my mother,

02:09if my mother and others were still in my life, my wife would never have married me. In fact,

02:18it's incomprehensible that we even would have dated. So, one of the toughest things in the world

02:24is to see yourself from the outside in. And it really is. Like, we're all fascinated by our own

02:29little brain cages, and we're all the main characters, and I get all of that. But it's really,

02:32really important to view yourself critically from the outside in. You know, if you like to sing,

02:39record it, play it back, see how it sounds, right? All these sorts of things. So, to see yourself from

02:43the outside in is really, really important. What you're used to, other people are not used to.

02:50If you have, you know, tense or, you know, strange family gatherings, then you're kind of used to

03:01that. That's kind of natural or normalized for you. And it's not natural or normalized to other people.

03:10If you have a father who drinks too much at social gatherings, you're kind of used to it,

03:16but someone comes into your life, and that person is not used to it, right? If you are crabby or grumpy

03:25or irritable on a regular basis, you're kind of used to it, and everyone in your life is kind of used to

03:29it. However, of course, other people in your life are not at all used to it. So, looking at yourself

03:39from the outside in, one of the great, big, deep, and dark challenges of life. What is it like

03:45to come into your life with no history of your life? What is it like to come into your life

03:54with people who have normalized nothing about your life? If your mother, and I knew a woman like this

04:03once I was over, it broke my heart, I was over at her house, and her mother was there, and her mother

04:09was snapping at her to clean out the toaster. You can't put toast in with the toaster. You've got

04:15to clean out the crumbs on the bottom. And then the girl was, or the woman, was trying to clean out

04:22the toaster, and she was doing everything wrong. And this was a household, I shouldn't laugh at it.

04:27This was a household where I, oh yeah, they said, oh, there's some coffee dripping down the side of

04:34your coffee cup. So, I grabbed some paper towels, and wiped my coffee cup, and put the paper towel

04:39in the garbage, and turned around, and everybody was shocked, appalled. And this was a family who'd

04:46moved to Canada from the United States. There was a store in America called Wegmans, I think it was,

04:55and these were her paper towels from Wegmans. And she had great sentimental attachment to these towels

05:02from the greatest store in the world in America, and apparently people weren't supposed to be using

05:09the paper towels from the Wegmans store. Like, honestly, just crazy stuff. And honestly, I almost

05:17laughed. It's like, so you have paper towels that you're not supposed to use. So, oh, you've got some

05:23drips on the edge of your coffee cup, and then you grab a paper towel to wipe them up, and that's a bad

05:28thing. Like, in the same way that the woman who was trying to clean out the toaster was doing everything

05:34wrong, and spilling crumbs, and, you know, it's just this constant nagging critique. And, of course,

05:40the woman was used to it. That was her life. Oh, that's just my mother. And, of course, I was looking,

05:47I mean, I was looking at her, and looking at her mother, and being like, ooh. So, if this relationship

05:55were to go well, then I could enjoy maybe another 30 years with this cantankerous nag of a mother.

06:07She could be my mother-in-law. And the father, who sat there saying nothing, is chewing on his pipe.

06:15And he always talked about how he liked farm fresh eggs. Not just fresh eggs. Farm fresh eggs. So good.

06:21Right? And these could be my in-laws, right?

06:25If it worked out, right? So, she was used to it. And I was not at all used to it. And I did not want

06:34it. So, what is it like from the outside in? Do people want to join you, your social circle,

06:42your family, right? As a man, you may want to date an individual, but any reasonably wise woman

06:47dates not any individual, she dates a family, a friend group, a community. So, it's a fundamental

06:59test of solipsism. It's a fundamental test of, you know, selfishness or minor narcissism or something

07:06like that. What is it like to try to join your life? What are the people in your life like to

07:16others? Are they in that positive? Because, of course, you know, if you're going to, if you're

07:20some guy, you're going to date some woman and you are still hanging out with your dysfunctional family

07:26of origin, which you never chose, and who had total power over you when you were growing up,

07:31if you are asking someone to join your family, how does your family look to them when they have

07:40no history with your family? And they're going to evaluate your family based upon how your family

07:47treats this new person, but even more fundamentally, how they have treated you in the past

07:51and how they are treating you now. So, I remember saying to this woman that I was dating,

07:59your mother is really unpleasant to you and your father says nothing. She got really uncomfortable.

08:04And look, I understand that. I sympathize with that. I get it. It's a verboten conversation.

08:10It's like, but I don't care. I mean, principles are principles. Screw it. So, she was like, well,

08:18I can deal with it. I can this, I can that. And I'm like, but I like you. How am I supposed to like

08:21her if she treats you this way? Oh, and I'm not asking you to like her, blah, blah, blah. It's

08:25like, yeah, but if things work out, she's going to be in her life. She's going to be like a

08:28grandmother to her kids. Like, how is this going to work? Well, what do you want me to do? Like,

08:33and I get all of that. I ended up not seeing that woman for too long after that because

08:39I just couldn't get there, right? I shouldn't get there because it's not really about me,

08:45right? It's about the kids, right? Is this going to be a good grandmother? Is my mother-in-law going to be

08:51a good grandmother to my children? And if the answer is no, then you should move on, right?

08:57If that's going to be a permanent relationship. And I, you know, I fundamentally don't grasp

09:06sacrificing the chosen future for the unchosen past, right? Do you see what I mean? Like,

09:15I didn't choose my mother, but I can choose my wife. So, why would I sacrifice the quality

09:20of the wife that I can choose for the sake of a set of family relationships? I did not choose.

09:30My mother chose my father. I didn't. My father chose my mother. I didn't. I am not responsible

09:38for these people's choices. And I'll be goddamned if I will sacrifice the quality

09:45of the woman I can marry for the lack of quality in who my parents chose. I didn't choose any of that.

09:54I didn't choose any of that. So, if you have desultory, negative, abusive, destructive, harmful,

10:01toxic, manipulative, false, whatever relationships with your family of origin, it's not who's there

10:08that's your primary consideration if you wish to be wise and virtuous. Your primary consideration

10:16is not who's there, but who ain't there. Who's not there. And who's not there are the quality people

10:24who do not, do not want to spend the next 50 years or 30 years or 20 years managing dysfunctional

10:33people who are going to harm the person that they love, right? If I love a woman and her family treats

10:42her badly, I do not like her family. You know, if I'm at the bar with my wife and some guy is verbally

10:53abusive towards her, that guy and I are going to have a very serious and significant problem.

10:58I am not going to like him. I am going to intensely dislike him for putting down or harming

11:08the woman I love. You cannot love someone and also have a positive opinion of people who harm the person

11:20you love. Won't do it. I mean, you can't do it. You can fake it. You can pretend that you ignore it,

11:27but you can't actually do it. I mean, you cannot work out at all. And you can buy a t-shirt with a

11:36picture of abs on it, but you can't actually have abs. You can buy a muscle shirt, but it does not come

11:44with muscles unless you actually work out. So you can fake it. You can pretend it. You can lie about it,

11:51but you can't actually have it. And of course, the number of people out there who claim to love

11:57someone and also claim to love abusive or negative or destructive parents that harm the person that

12:03they claim to love and they're fine with it and like it and it's good. It's bizarre. It's bizarre to

12:09me. I love my dog. I also love someone who beats my dog. No, you're going to have to pick a lane there,

12:17bro. You can't love someone and love the people who do them harm as well. So defooing is about

12:25your husband, your wife, future husband, future wife, your future children. It's not about your

12:31parents. It's not about the past. It's about the future. All philosophy is about the future

12:35because you can't change the past. We don't have free will in the past. We have free will

12:38in the future. So that having been said, we now shift a teeny tiny smidge in the discussion towards

12:48the leave behinds, the casualties. You leave a dysfunctional family where you've had the

12:55conversations, you've gone to therapy and it just gets worse and you are like, well, this is really,

13:00it's really sad. And it is really one of the worst things to happen other than the worst thing to

13:05happen, which is to stay in a dysfunctional environment forever and ever. Amen. Have your

13:09parents win. And then you can only have trashy people around you. Like if you, if you only have

13:16abusive people around you or you have abusive people in your life, good people don't want to be

13:21there. Would you want to join and invest in a company where they said, well, we hire a bunch

13:29of relatives who don't show up to work and some of them steal from the company. We'd really like

13:33you to invest. What would you say? No, I'm not investing in a company where half the people

13:38are paid, don't even bother showing up to work. And the other half of them who are paid are stealing

13:42from the company. I'm not joining that. I'm not investing in that. No, thank you. I think I will

13:46save my money for a non-lazy slash thieving situation. Well, it's the same thing even more so

13:54with families and marriage and dating and parenthood. If you have trashy people in your life,

14:00you can only get more trashy people in your life. You cannot get quality people in your life.

14:06You cannot get quality people in your life. If you have non-quality people in your life,

14:12you can't get benevolent people into your life. If you allow abusers in your life.

14:18Now, listen, whether you stay with the abusers or not, obviously, that's totally up to you. Not my

14:23most recommended situation. Totally up to you. I'm just telling you the cost. I'm telling you the

14:29cost. The number of women that I dated where the families were messed up and I was like,

14:35peace out, not doing it, was a lot. Now, my fault, my issue, my problem, that's on me,

14:42just to be clear. But nope. Nope, nope, nope. So what about the leave-behinds? You leave behind a toxic

14:51family because you want to have quality people in your life. If you want a top-tier sports player on

14:59your team, your team can't be composed of people who suck at the sport because top-tier players want

15:06to play with top-tier players. Quality people want quality people. So trashy people surround you like

15:13a fiery alligator moat with spikes and blow darts. It's boiling alligators, random bits of fire. So

15:22just so you know, dysfunctional people surround you in an impregnable wall. And I tell you this,

15:31man, the moment I got trashy people out of my life, high-quality people came in. Like almost

15:38to the month. And again, I know that that's... My results do not guarantee your results,

15:46but it was certainly more than a coincidence. And I will say this, that since I got the trashy

15:52people out of my life, not one trashy person has come in since. And it's been like, oh, well over 20

15:58years. So it's just one of these iron rules of life. So results may vary, but that's certainly... And

16:07that's the pattern that I've seen. And I've done thousands of these calls, of course, over the

16:12years. And it's always the same thing. You cannot have higher quality relationships than your lowest

16:18quality relationship. I mean, if you create a bunch of fictional characters to bid on a house,

16:27the one who makes the highest bid will be the one who gets the house. All of the lower bids will be

16:33ignored. And in the same way, if you allow trashy people into your life, destructive, unself-aware,

16:40acting out, abusive, negative, gaslighting, you know, the usual garbage, if you allow them into your

16:45life, quality people will not come. They will not come. I got the trash out of my life, and in came

16:51the golden light of love. And that's true, man, 100%. And it has stayed there for well over 20 years.

16:58And that golden light of love protects you from other trashy people, because the golden light of

17:04love and of functionality and of health drives the trashy people away, because they can't stand that

17:09stuff. It's honestly, it's sunlight to a vampire. They cannot stand that stuff. So the leave-behinds.

17:15You escape a bad family. There are siblings, nieces, maybe aunts, maybe uncles, although

17:25they're more responsible. But there are people who are leave-behinds, and I get this question

17:28at least once or twice a month. What do I do with the leave-behinds? My brother who's younger than

17:38me by 10 years, my nephews, my nieces, my baba, right? What do I do? What do I do? It's sad.

17:42Yeah. Well, there's nothing you can do. And it costs you everything to try. So let's say you've

17:53got a nephew. Your nephew is 16. And let's say you've been out of the family for a while, whatever,

18:00let's say five years. And your nephew, who's 16, calls you up and says, hey, you know, long time

18:08to talk. I miss you. We spent a lot of great time together. And when I was younger, it would be nice

18:14if, can we meet up? Can we, right? And look, I understand. It's nice. It's tempting. It's thoughtful

18:19and so on, right? But the question is, can you be honest? Can you be honest? So let's say, I don't

18:30know, let's just pick a scenario. Let's say that you left the family because the parents, your parents

18:35were abusive and your siblings supported it and attacked and blamed you for bringing up the truth

18:42about prior abuse. Let's say that's the scenario, right? That your siblings sided with unrepentant

18:49child abusers. And that's why you left and didn't. And maybe you said this to the siblings. Look,

18:55you're going to have to make a choice here. Our parents are abusive. You were all there. You've heard

19:01it. I've talked about it. And if you choose them, I'm out. Like I can't be in a relationship with you

19:07if you choose abusers over me. And let's say the parents, sorry, let's say the siblings, your siblings

19:11did choose the abusers and then you're out, right? So then your niece, sorry, your nephew, your nephew

19:18comes and says, oh, let's hang out or whatever. And it's very tempting. And maybe you spent a lot of

19:23time with him when he was younger. And what are you going to do? Well, you get together with your

19:28nephew. You've got to play this things out, right? Immediate stimuli is important. There's nothing

19:33wrong with it, but you've got to play things out, right? Like the hot girl who has serious substance

19:38abuse problems. Yeah, maybe it would be exciting to go to bed with her, but let's play it out. Let's

19:43do the long run scenario. What's the long run scenario? So you meet with your nephew or your

19:47niece, right? And the question is going to come up explicitly or implicitly. What happened? Why were

19:53you gone for so long? What do you say? Well, your grandparents are abusive and your parents

20:00sided with the grandparents against me. I'm trying to be the truth teller. I'm trying to

20:05improve things. I tried to have honest conversations about the history of abuse and they sided with

20:13the abusers and they've allowed abusive people into your life, sadly. And they have cast out the

20:22good guys and embrace the bad guys or however you would put it, right? That would be honest.

20:29And then what? Well, then they go back after the lunch or brunch or whatever, and they start asking

20:36questions of the parents. Well, you know, uncle or auntie, so-and-so said this and that and the

20:40other. And then what happens? Well, bad things, right? Bad. I mean, the parents don't want this

20:46honesty coming into the relationship because it lowers their status in the eyes of their children.

20:51And more importantly for them, in the eyes of themselves. And of course, you know, a lot of

20:57people live in a pretty fluid, bullshit-laced reality where they can talk themselves into just

21:02about anything or out of just about anything. So even though things may have been clear, at one point,

21:09after people lean against each other like dawn drunkards, they reinforce each other's bullshit.

21:14And you can see this happening with the left-wing conspiracy theories all the time. Like,

21:17there's a whole list kept by Scott Adams of Democrat hoaxes. They genuinely believe it because the

21:22media tells them, they tell each other, and they reinforce the narrative. And so they have talked

21:28to themselves out of basic absolute reality. And they do not believe that what happened happened.

21:36And they believe what didn't happen actually happened, right? That's what they believe.

21:42And they maybe even could pass a lie detector test. They are demoralized. They are gone. It doesn't

21:48matter. The facts, the truth, the reality are gone. And they will not be recoverable. Because any time

21:56the people begin to express doubts, say, about this concocted fantastical fictional history that they

22:04bought into, the moment they have any doubts, other people will just reinforce the lies, and they will

22:10sink happily back like a pig into shit, into the bottomless buckets of bullshit that they wallow in.

22:18You cannot reach them. You cannot. I mean, you and I, I assume, we have a reality processing algorithm

22:25where if we're wrong, we have doubt, then we'll seek out facts. But when people have doubts,

22:31maybe this is a religious thing, but when people have doubts, most people have doubts, they seek out

22:35reassurance. They don't seek out facts. They don't weigh themselves. They just bully someone into saying,

22:42you look great. I don't think you've put on any weight. Maybe you've lost some, right?

22:47So your leave-behinds go back with these nuggets of truth and facts, and then all hell breaks loose.

22:56All hell. I won't tell you my own personal experiences with this, because that would be revealing

23:02a little bit too much, but let me just tell you, it's pretty freaking brutal. If you drop some truth

23:09nuggets, and then your little emissaries from history go back with these truth nuggets into the

23:15layer of lies, and it's thermonuclear, man. It's thermonuclear. I've heard of people, they've been

23:23threatened with having the cops called on them if they see the kids again. Even more extreme things.

23:29So it's thermonuclear. And of course, the parents of the leave-behinds have had years to build up the

23:39propaganda about what a bad person you are, and how you just for no reason, and selfish, and right.

23:45And when people have been castigated as really immoral in a family structure,

23:51challenging that family structure challenges the entire family structure. If good people have been

23:57called evil, and if evil people have been called good, bringing moral clarity to the family threatens

24:03to destroy the entire family, and the psychology, and identity, and very being of the members of

24:10their family, which is why they fight to the death, almost, to retain their illusions, right?

24:18It's a brutal process. So that's the price you're going to pay. You won't be able to maintain the

24:23relationships if you tell the truth. Guaranteed. Because let's say that you left the family,

24:28I don't know, half a decade or whatever before. Well, people have had half a decade or more to call

24:36you up and say, hey, man, you know, I think it was like last night or the night before, like I woke from

24:44a dream of us. It was like three in the morning. And I just, you know what, out of nowhere, I just

24:47felt really terrible about what happened, about what I said, the lies I told, the fact that I did

24:54side with these people against you and, you know, cast you out into the wilderness. I'm really, I feel

24:59beyond terrible at this. And obviously, I need to go and see some therapy. So I won't give you the

25:06whole speech because I don't want to necessarily weep at the moment, but none of that has happened.

25:13And when people cast you out, they don't doubt themselves anymore. All they do is reinforce

25:22their own delusions until they become certain in their endless errors. They become absolutely certain

25:29in their endless errors. And they're gone. They're gone. They're no longer in reality.

25:36They've retreated into a form of socially reinforced bullshit psychosis that is impenetrable.

25:44All right, this is called, Yuri Besmanov refers to this as demoralization. They are gone from reality.

25:53And they ain't coming back. Particularly parents who have established much of their authority,

26:01as parents generally tend to do, they've established much of their authority on being

26:07right and particularly with regards to being right relative to you and you're wrong and you're bad and

26:12the whole family's got together and they've trashed you and they've put you down, right?

26:17Lied about you and so on, right? Oh, she just went crazy. I don't know what happened. She got

26:22involved in some kind of cult and she just attacked us for no reason. We've always loved her. She just

26:27went nuts. Like they've just really trashed you. Well, then what are they going to do? Undo that and

26:33say, oh, yeah, yeah, that was all a total lie. Oh, yeah, no, you're the good guy. We're the bad guys.

26:37Yeah, that was all a total lie. Eh, not going to happen. You are waiting for pigs to fly if you are

26:44waiting for people who've staked their authority on lies to start telling the actual truth. Ain't going to

26:51happen. Never going to happen. I am getting kind of up there in years, brothers and sisters, and I

26:57have not known one person over the course of my entire life who has turned around after years of

27:05falsehood and proclaimed the truth. Now, what's popped into my mind is there have been a few trolls

27:12over the years who've apologized and so on. And that's fine. Whatever. That's nice. And those aren't

27:18people in my life, though. Those are people online. Yeah, there are a few people online who've

27:22changed their mind about me over the years. But given that I've had millions of people listen to

27:27my show, and I can think of maybe five, three to five people who've changed their mind to me over

27:32the years, it's functionally impossible. You know, like it's functionally impossible to save for your

27:38retirement by playing the lottery. And it's functionally impossible to expect people to turn

27:43around. And the other thing, too, is in general, I hear these people turn around. I have conversations

27:49with these people who've turned around. And it never goes anywhere after that. And I never hear

27:53from them again. So I don't know what happens after that doesn't really matter. But it doesn't have any

27:57substantial impact on my life. And they certainly they never repair as much damage as they've caused

28:03ever. Never, ever, ever, because they can't. Because if people have been online trash talking me for

28:09five or 10 years, that's cost me a huge amount. And it's cost the world a huge amount. And they

28:16can't undo that. They can't go back and contact everyone and say, oh, yeah, like it was totally

28:21wrong, right? Because they don't even know who's seen the shit that they put out, right? And they

28:26can't go back and have parents adopt peaceful parenting, because they trashed me online and so on.

28:34So they can't undo the damage. So, you know, they feel bad. They send an email or we have a

28:41conversation. And yeah, but they can't undo the damage, right? Oh, sorry. It's fine. Again, it's

28:47fine. I don't mind it. But it's not something that has any particular credibility with me.

28:52It's staggeringly rare. They never stick around and they can't undo the damage. Because if somebody

28:56was genuine about, you know, they trashed me online for years, they'd say, okay, what do I need to do for

29:03the next five years to increase or improve your reputation? Let me know and I will do it. I will

29:08make it a part-time job just as if it's a part-time job to trash you for five years or 10 years. I will

29:13then now make it a part-time job to reform your reputation for five or 10 years. Okay, that would

29:18be at least something towards some sort of restitution. But they never know nobody ever offers

29:24that, right? And I'm never like I never get a report from someone. Yeah, I spent five or 10 like I

29:28used to spend five or 10 hours a week trashing you for five years. I now have spent five or 10 like,

29:33here's my report for the week. I spent five or 10 years correcting this error, fixing this,

29:36doing that, doing the other. Nope. It's always like, hey, sorry, man. And off they go, right?

29:40So it's not going to happen. It's not. And you certainly shouldn't wait around for it to happen.

29:45My father died. Never apologized. I told him everything. He never apologized.

29:51Well, your mother does appear to have some criminal tendencies.

29:54Man, not my mother, your wife, the woman you chose to have children with and then leave

30:04with her. You couldn't stand her. But I, at the age of six months, I was supposed to be fine with her.

30:12I can't handle her. You got this, baby. I can't lift this car. I'm going to pin my kid under it

30:18at the age of six months. I'm sure he's Kal-El. Sorry. Not particularly funny, but it's all just

30:27so absurd. So you can't tell them the truth or thermonuclear results occur and you're going to

30:34lose the relationship anyway. So what's your other option? Well, you go to lunch or brunch or dinner

30:41with your nephew or your niece after, say, five plus years. I say, hey, what happened? And you say,

30:46well, you know, sometimes people just drift apart. Things happen, blah, blah, blah. And so you lie.

30:52You know the reason why you stopped seeing the family, but you won't tell them the truth. And

30:56then what do you do? Well, you're forced to lie out of fear of the consequences, which means you're

31:01right back to where you were as a child. Right back to where you were as a child. Being forced to lie

31:07for fear of negative consequences. No, thank you. I had enough of that when I was young. Do not need

31:15when older. My whole adulthood has been opposite of childhood is good. So you got to lie. And then

31:25what you do by lying, and the same thing is true, of course, with the problem with kids of divorce,

31:31right? You can't tell the truth. Let's say that your wife had an affair and that's why you left her

31:37and the kids say, well, why aren't you and mommy together? Let's say the kids don't know about the

31:41affair. What are you going to say? We just grew apart. We just drifted apart. Things happened.

31:45Who knows, right? Wrong energy, mismatch, blah, blah, blah, which is just making them completely

31:50paranoid. Whereas if you say, well, mom had an affair, say, okay, well, then if mom had an affair,

31:57that's why you got divorced. Then mom shouldn't have had the affair. Then they know how to avoid

32:00getting divorced, which is, I don't know, don't have an affair. But if you use this,

32:06and I understand why, you use this with your nephew, niece or whatever, well, we just drifted apart or

32:10we had conflict so we couldn't resolve them or we didn't see eye to eye or whatever, then you're

32:14not telling your kids the truth, which makes them paranoid about relationships. Of course, right?

32:19Of course. And they're paranoid about relationships because, boy, you can be siblings for 30 years or

32:2440 years and next thing you know, you just drift apart and people don't talk and you turn into an

32:29asshole and for no reason, no cause, right? And it makes them paranoid about relationships. Whereas if

32:36you tell them truth and say, well, you know, the reason why I don't speak to your parents is that they

32:40sided with abusers against me. Okay, well, then that's a good reason to not speak to people and

32:44therefore it's no longer a giant mystery as to why you're not talking. Mystery solved.

32:51Why did granddad get lung cancer? He smoked two packs a day for 40 years. Okay, well, if I don't

32:57smoke, I'm probably okay then. Yes, good. I can relax. As opposed to, I don't know, man, it's weird.

33:02Maybe it's genetic. It's mysterious. You're going to be paranoid about getting lung cancer. Give the

33:07causality and you avoid the anxiety. But if you give the causality, you provoke the psychopathy.

33:13I feel like I'm about to start rapping, but it's after Christmas. So you can't tell the truth. And

33:21if you lie, it's incredibly harmful to the children and to your own integrity. And then by saying, well,

33:29I'm going to lie because I'm frightened of brutal people causing harm in my life. So I'm going to lie

33:35to children or young people. Then you're out of integrity. You're lying. You're harming children

33:42through your lies. You're harming your own integrity by lying. For what? For the sake of blowback from

33:48nasty people who are going to harm you for telling the truth. You can't have an honest relationship

33:55with the leave-behinds. Look, I'm sorry. I wish you could. But you can't. You can't. Now, maybe

34:01they get much older. They're in their, I don't know, mid-late 20s. They've gone to therapy. They've

34:06dealt with things. Okay, then if they contact you and, you know, let's say they've found some way to

34:11either improve their family or get away or something like that and you can tell the truth.

34:14Okay, fine. But that's not when they're young. They can't do that when they're young. And it's

34:18really harsh and harmful to ask them to do that. Well, or you say, well, I'm going to tell you the

34:26truth about why I don't see your parents, but you can't ever tell them, right? Then you're just that

34:30person asking children to keep secrets, which is not great. And then who knows, right? In a moment of

34:35teenage angst or hostility, they might tell their parents anyway. And the last thing I'll say is that,

34:41let's say you had good relationships with your nephews, nieces, whoever, right? When they

34:45were little, like, you know, toddlers, babies, whatever, right? Five, six, seven. Well, let's

34:50say they come to you when they're 16 and you have really great memories of when they were

34:54five. Well, they've had mean people working them over for the last 10 or 11 years. They

34:59ain't the same anymore. You know, it's like if you lend your brand shiny new car to 10 years

35:04to a bunch of drug runners. Well, it ain't the same car anymore. Sadly, it's just been all

35:09beaten up and misused. So, the sentimental memories that you have of the innocent kids,

35:14they're not the same. Sadly, after 10 or 11 years at the hands of, you know, kind of

35:20selfish, mean, destructive people who lied to them and side with evildoers, like they've

35:25been broken. They've been corrupted. I don't mean irredeemably, but that's where they're

35:28at. So, all the sentimentality isn't going to play out because they have been altered by

35:34the very family structure that you escaped. They've been altered beyond repair. Doesn't

35:39mean that they can never repair it. But I mean, they certainly can't get back to the

35:44innocence you remember from when they were very little. They can fix themselves, right?

35:48You can sew it up, but you still see the scar. It can never be undone in that way. It's a

35:54hardware issue, not a software issue. So, I hope that helps. And I say this with great

36:00sorrow and sympathy. But what matters is the quality of people you have in your life

36:05going forward. And that is entirely dependent upon the quality of people you allow in your

36:10life. And you should reserve your life for the quality people you choose, not the trashy

36:19people that nature and circumstance chose for you.

36:24All right. Freedomain.com slash donate. Lots of love, my friends. I hope this is helpful.

36:28And I will talk it to you soon. Bye.

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended