Breaking With Your Family? Costs and Benefits

Stefan Molyneux

Stefan Molyneux examines the difficult decision to separate from toxic or abusive family members, advising that honest communication should be tried first even though genuine change is often impossible. He draws a firm distinction between involuntary blood ties and chosen relationships, insisting that family loyalty must never override personal safety or mental health, and suggests therapy as a tool to clarify whether to stay or leave—though it guarantees nothing. He rejects the prevailing view that family must always come first, arguing that staying entangled with destructive people blocks healthier connections and perpetuates harm. Ultimately, he maintains that separation, however painful, typically fosters personal growth and breaks destructive cycles, creating a safer environment for any future children or generations.  GET FREEDOMAIN MERCH! https://shop.freedomain.com/  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

00:00Hey everybody, hope you're doing well. It's the family from FreeDomain, FreeDomain.com

00:05slash donate. If it's been a while since you've supported philosophy,

00:08I could really use your help, my friends. FreeDomain.com slash donate.

00:13So somebody, a lady, asked me, how do you deal with or feel about or process family separation?

00:22If you have a sort of relentlessly abusive family of origin situation, which I'm incredibly

00:30sorry about and sympathetic towards, and my general recommendation for 21 years has been the same,

00:38which is if you have issues with your parents, sit down and talk to them or your sibling or whoever

00:41aren't uncles, whoever you have the big issue with. Sit down, talk to them. If it's safe to do so,

00:46tell them your issues and try to negotiate or resolve some peace between you. And you can

00:56keep trying that. If you keep getting rejected at some point, you'll come to the sad or tragic

01:01realization if you keep getting rejected that you're just not going to get your perspective across and

01:07they're not going to listen and they're not going to be better and they're not going to do the right

01:09thing. And that's really sad. It's not your fault. People who've done wrong for a long time lose the

01:15ability to listen. Their conscience has become so predatory and negative in their mind that they

01:19can't possibly listen to you. It becomes a matter of psychological survival to continue to deny

01:24the requirement for empathy and the need to talk and listen to other people. So it's not your fault.

01:31It's the result of a long period of corruption and a falsehood. And if you are going to take the

01:40step to put distance or separate yourself from family, whether temporarily or permanently, it's hard to

01:45tell at the beginning because you don't know how drawing that boundary is going to affect things.

01:49I again strongly recommend engaging with a good therapist. Of course, saying good is kind of

01:57pointless. What I mean by that is engaging with a therapist who has some experience and sympathy

02:02towards this kind of thing. Because a lot of therapists will say, well, you know, family is

02:06primary and family is family. And if they're Christian in particular, honor their mother and their

02:11father and it's not a voluntary relationship. It is a sort of permanent engraved. You've got to

02:16find some way to make it continue. You can't separate. And it's funny too, because of course,

02:21the same behaviors that would have a therapist support you separating from a spouse, a lot of

02:28therapists will not support you separating from parents. Which, I mean, again, to sort of know this

02:34logically, you know, peacefulparenting.com, you know this logically. That's crazy. I mean,

02:39that's beyond crazy. You are responsible for choosing your spouse. You got to test drive your

02:44spouse. You got to date, get engaged, and so on. You never got to test drive your parents. You never

02:50chose your parents. And so people say, well, the relationships that you choose have relatively low

02:57bars for exiting, but the relationships you never chose and that were inflicted upon you against your

03:01will, or at least not with your permission and approval, well, you have to stay forever. Which is

03:06like saying to a woman, well, you can leave a violent or abusive husband. No problem. In fact,

03:13it's good to do that. But if it is an arranged marriage, like if you chose him, you could leave

03:17him. If it's an arranged marriage with a guy you never chose, well, you have to stay. Like that

03:21wouldn't make, that makes less than no sense. Of course, like we all understand that. So, so yeah,

03:26engage with a therapist and, you know, you can usually have a free consult or talk to them for a

03:31little bit and say, look, I'm going through issues with my family and I've been trying for quite some

03:37time to work them out. It's not going anywhere productive and I'm really considering a family

03:45separation. I want to have the DFOO, F-O-O stands for family of origin. So, you know, if you're a

03:51married woman and you're talking about your family, are you talking about your current family, like

03:54husband and kids or your parents, so F-O-O stands for family of origin. DFOO is when you take a break

04:02or draw the boundaries or have separation from your family of origin. Again, if it's safe, really try to

04:06work it out with them and engage with the therapist to go through the process because it's a difficult

04:12process. It's a, I mean, it's a, it's a last resort process, a pretty horrible process to go through.

04:18It's better than staying, in my opinion, in an abusive relationship. I hope that's not too,

04:22you know, I think people jump out of marriages a little fast. I think that they, they harden their

04:28hearts and jump out of marriages a little fast. Like most people who are thinking of divorce and

04:33then they end up not getting divorced. Most people, you know, five years later, they're

04:37happy that they stay married. So I think people do jump out of relationships, uh, marriages in

04:44particular, particularly if they're kids a little too soon because they blame the other person and

04:48they don't take ownership or try and get to the root of why they chose such a person. Either just say,

04:51oh, you know, this other person is bad and I've been doing this since I was, gosh, in my, in my

04:56teens. But like the woman says, oh, my boyfriend, it doesn't do this and doesn't do that. It's like,

05:01well, but you chose him, you chose him, you chose him. I mean, you weren't assigned him by the fates

05:08or the gods. And, you know, especially if she's like a reasonably attractive woman, you know, like a,

05:13a four or five plus, it's like, you know, you can, you can pretty much date whoever you want.

05:17There's lots of guys who would want to date you. Like, why would you be with a guy and then

05:22complain about him? Like that, that's never made much sense. Uh, that's never made much sense to

05:26me. I mean, this, my mother would complain about my father and it's like, yeah, but, but you chose

05:31him. I mean, my mother was very attractive and guys were always chasing her. Like it was a

05:37continual process. So why would you, uh, why would you complain about something that you voluntarily

05:42chose and pursued? And I mean, it's the old analogy, like I could have had any car in the

05:48world, right? I won the lottery. I could have had any car in the world. It was kind of like

05:52being an attractive woman, right? Young woman. I could have had any car in the world. And I

05:57test drove a whole bunch of different cars, you know, five, 10 different cars. And then I got this

06:01car and I got to test drive this car and take it home and, you know, use it on a permanent basis

06:07for like a year or two or three. And then I finally, you know, I signed a, at least to

06:12buy the car. I can't stand this car. I could have any car or no car free. This is the car

06:20I chose. I got to test drive it. And then I hate this car. Like you're just hating your

06:24own choices. You're just hating your own choices. So how do you sort of process the family separation?

06:32So it's a principle of economics. I mean, the morality I've sort of gone over a bunch of

06:35times before, and you can, this is in peaceful parenting to some degree, but the morality is,

06:43well, no, you don't have to, there are no unchosen positive obligations. Like if you choose to sign

06:49a contract, you're responsible for fulfilling, for fulfilling the contract or renegotiating it

06:53in some way, but you, but there's no voluntary, unchosen positive obligations, right? So you have

06:59negative obligations, like don't steal, rape, murder, assault people, right? You have, there are,

07:05there are unchosen negative obligations. There are no unchosen positive obligations and family is

07:10unchosen. Family is unchosen. Did not choose your family. You did not choose to be born there. You

07:17did not choose their behavior. You did not choose their company. You did not choose to be part of

07:23the family. And there are no unchosen positive obligations. I think there's fairness, right? I mean,

07:28if your parents are good to you, then I think it's reasonable to be, to be good back. I think if

07:32your parents do things that you're grateful for, I think expressing that gratitude is,

07:35is helpful and important. And if your parents are of value to you, they give you, you know,

07:40good advice, they listen, they care. I think it's reasonable to provide, you know, but, but again,

07:46there's no unchosen positive obligations. I'm going to be saying this for like, I mean, 40 years plus,

07:51but, you know, 20, 21 publicly, or I guess in my 22nd year, technically my show can now drink in

07:58every state of the union. So, as far as the morals go, yeah, you don't have any obligation to stay

08:08in relentlessly abusive relationships. Abusive relationships are where it's win-lose,

08:13where there's intimidation, aggression, name-calling, raised voices, physical violence,

08:19obviously, where if you try to be honest or try to be vulnerable or try to be open or try to be direct,

08:26that there's an escalation, aggression, put-downs, you know, you get called stupid or selfish, and

08:33there's only a cessation of aggression if you mindlessly comply and praise and pretend that

08:39the relationship is something other than what it is, which is bossiness, dominance, exploitation,

08:45and threat, right? Don't be in relationships under threat. Threats, of course, are the opposite of love,

08:51in the same way that theft is like the opposite of charity, and rape is the opposite of lovemaking

08:57and so on. If honesty and directness brings hostility and abuse, it is a very negative relationship.

09:06And look, I mean, maybe we can all be snappy from time to time, but I'm talking about like consistent

09:10and so on, not, you know, an outlier that is against the general standards and processes of the

09:17relationship and apologies are made and it's recognized as a divergence and I'm like, I'm sorry, I was snappy,

09:22that was, you know, whatever, right? So, you know, again, we don't have to be perfect, but you do have

09:28to have standards in relationships that you generally will try to maintain, right? And if you don't maintain

09:35them, you can be called out on that divergence, right? So, the morals we, I think we understand,

09:43the, there's a principle of economics that's really important. Like bad money drives out

09:48good money. Like if good money is gold and people are just wildly printing a bunch of paper currency,

09:56then the bad currency will drive out the good currency. The bad currency will shoulder aside

10:01and displace the good currency because people won't want to spend the good currency because the bad

10:06currency is not worth holding onto. And as you print more and more bad currency, the gold gets more

10:13and more valuable. So, people tend to hold onto it and it goes out of circulation. So, bad money drives

10:18out good money and there's a lot more to it, but that's sort of a basic idea. And in the same way

10:23in economics or sort of another principle is economics focuses not on the visible benefits,

10:32but on the unseen costs, right? So, the harder to see costs. So, of course, if the government prints a

10:40bunch of money, it stimulates a bunch of economic activity. If the government taxes a bunch of money

10:44and makes a bunch of jobs, everyone says, ooh, economic activity is stimulated and, oh, look at

10:49all these government jobs that we now have. Those are the visible benefits. The invisible costs,

10:54of course, are that if the government is printing a bunch of money, then inflation is harming people's

11:03savings and then they have to try and work to protect those savings. And that is usually

11:09malinvestment or investment in things that, like, if in a free market you wouldn't invest in something,

11:15but in order to protect your money from being swallowed up piecemeal by inflation, you end up

11:20investing in stuff. That's a malinvestment. It's a bad investment. It's a negative investment.

11:26It's sort of like saying if you have a local prison or asylum full of, you know, dangerous people and

11:32they just turn them all out into the streets of a small town and then everyone has to go and,

11:37you know, get bars on the window and double locks and security cameras and so on, well, that's a,

11:43uh, that's a malinvestment, right? They should just keep the criminals and the crazy people in the

11:48prison and the asylum and then you don't need to spend all this money to protect yourself and build

11:52fences and, and, uh, hire, you know, get alarm systems and, and security cameras and, and rapid

11:58response security teams and all of that. It's a malinvestment. It's a bad investment.

12:03If the government creates a bunch of jobs by taxing people, you say, oh, look at these jobs,

12:08but you don't see all the jobs that weren't created that would actually be useful, helpful,

12:12and sustainable, right? You don't, you don't see that, right? So it's looking at the hidden costs

12:17rather than visible benefits. Now, if you have, you know, negative, difficult, abusive, like

12:23relentlessly, I'm just going to say negative parents. I'm not going to say parents. It doesn't

12:28mean parents who annoy you from time to time. Like everybody annoys each other from time to time,

12:31except me. Massively perfect. So I'm talking about like, you've gone through the process and

12:38like you, you just have a really bad, negative, insulting, destructive family around. So if you

12:47have those people in your life, then the benefit is you don't arouse their ire or their hostility or

12:55their abuses or insults or whatever. You don't arouse their enmity, hostility and aggression

13:00by complying, right? You're complying. So they smile and they nod and they have you over for

13:05Thanksgiving and Christmas and 4th of July and Easter or whatever that's going on, right? Oh,

13:10it's good to chat them and you know, whatever, right? So because you're appeasing the bad people,

13:16then you, you don't have that conflict, right? You appease people, you know, like some guy

13:23sticks a knife in your ribs and says, give me your wallet or I'll stab you. Give me your wallet.

13:26You've appeased him and he won't stab you, hopefully, right? But it's not, not good.

13:31It's just not as bad as it could be. And of course, people with drugs, right? They go through

13:35withdrawal and they feel desperately unhappy and like stick insects or spiders are crawling

13:41through their spines. It's horribly uncomfortable and, and so on. And so they take the drug to feel

13:46better, right? Alcoholics get delirium tremens. I think it's called DTs and nicotine addicts get,

13:52uh, stress and anxiety when they quit smoking and, and so on, right? So you're appeasing your

13:59withdrawal, uh, by taking the drug. Again, the alcohol or the opiates or nicotine or food can be

14:07food, right? Oh, whatever, right? Gambling. So what's present in addiction is I feel better.

14:16Or at least I don't feel terrible. So there's relief. That's the immediate benefit. Of course,

14:22the not so hidden cost is all the negatives that accrue with all of that. Sex addicts and pregnancies

14:26and stalkers and STDs and depression and anxiety and lack of love and so on. So with abusive families

14:36of origin, of course, there are benefits to compliance. And those are pretty vivid. Like if you

14:43think about having honest conversations with hostile parents or aggressive parents or abusive

14:47parents, it's very stressful and you feel anxiety and fear and all of that. And so to comply and to

14:55conform makes sense, right? Because you get immediate cessation of anxiety by complying with the demands and

15:03requirements of hostile or abusive people, right? So it's a big plus. Of course, the problem

15:10is not the visible benefits, but the hidden costs. So the visible benefits, the immediate benefits are

15:18I feel really stressful about being honest with my abusive parents. But if I say, okay, I'm not going

15:25to do that. I'm not going to have that conversation. I'm not going to do that. Then I feel better. I feel

15:29relief. I feel, oh, thank goodness, right? I feel happier. I go. And maybe there's a little bit of

15:34residual depression afterwards, just as there is with an addict. He goes, gambles and has meaningless

15:39sex or gets drunk or takes the opiate. There's sort of a depression afterwards. I can't believe

15:44I'm back here. But there's an immediate cessation of stress and anxiety or negatives. And so with abusive

15:51or negative or hostile families, then the problem is that it's not the presence of the relief from

16:00conformity and compliance and the reduction or elimination of aggression and hostility and insults,

16:06which are particularly triggering, of course, and unpleasant because you have that history with these

16:12kinds of people. But that's a benefit that's clear. But the problem is who's not there because the

16:20abusive people are there, right? So abusive people, and particularly in the family of origin, abusive

16:26people are these sort of giant fiery moats that surround you and keep healthy people away.

16:35If I had still been enmeshed in my family of origin, when I met the woman who became my wife,

16:42she wouldn't have become my wife because she wouldn't, particularly as an experienced mental

16:48health professional, she wouldn't have wanted to spend the next couple of decades with my family of

16:55origin. I mean, to put it mildly, right? So we may have met, we may have even had a date or two.

17:04But I mean, she wouldn't, she wouldn't have, she wouldn't have stuck around. And I'm sure, look,

17:09I'm sure you've had that experience too, where you, you meet someone, they seem, you know, fun,

17:13attractive, charming, or whatever, a good conversation, listen, you have a lot in common,

17:16but then you meet their family or whatever. And it's like, oh, that's, that's bad. And,

17:23you know, if you're wise, then you look and you say, oh, gosh, well, I don't really want to spend

17:30the next couple of decades in this situation. Boy, that's, that's no good. And I don't want

17:37these people around when I'm raising my kids. And I don't want to, you know, and again, if you're

17:42particularly, I mean, you want people who are going to think in the long term. And if you think of the

17:45long term, and you say, well, you know, these, these people are difficult now, right, they're going

17:50to be even more cantankerous when they, when they get old. And then they're going to get old,

17:57and they're going to spend like 10 years needing, or more like needing support and care, and they're

18:02going to get sick and, and, you know, whatever, right. And they're difficult now, they're not going

18:07to get any easier when they get, you know, sick and old, and you know, all that kind of stuff,

18:10right. So there are people who look at you, and either directly or indirectly, or, you know,

18:19through the effects, or through the conversation, or through meeting your family directly,

18:23they're like, nope, nope, nope, nice guy, nice, nice woman, can't do it, won't do it.

18:29Especially if they've resolved, if they've had difficult upbringing, they've resolved it

18:32themselves, maybe their parents have performed and gone to therapy, or they've done family therapy,

18:35or whatever, maybe they've also defood or whatever. But it's the people who aren't there

18:40because of who is there. Right. I mean, if you see a, a cute woman at the mall, or whatever,

18:50right. And whatever, you share a smile, and you're thinking of going up to talk to her.

18:55And then, you know, some six, six foot six, heavily tattooed, shaved head boyfriend comes up

19:03and starts grabbing her, then you're not going to go and talk to her. Right. So because the boyfriend

19:08is there, you're not talking to her. So I've even not talked to a girl who seemed, you know,

19:17sort of healthy and normal, and so on. If even if she has a friend who's heavily tattooed, and,

19:24you know, had shaved half her head, or whatever it is, I'm like, nope, no, because this is who she

19:29chooses to have as a friend. And so the compatibility, I was just not going to be

19:35there. Compatibility is going to be very low. And it's just not gonna not going to work. Right.

19:40Because your parents, for better or for worse, indifferent in the middle or whatever, your

19:45parents are your past, right? They are part of your past, they're going to die before you

19:50with any luck. They were your origin story, they were formative in your early years, and so on. So

19:56your parents are your past. And boyfriend, girlfriend, fiance, spouse, mother, father of

20:05your children, they're your future. You're not going to grow old with your parents, you're

20:09going to grow old with your spouse, you're not going to have children with your parents,

20:11you're going to have children with your spouse. And you're not going to go through life with

20:15your parents, you're going to go through life with your spouse. So your parents represent

20:20the unchosen, and the ancient, the old, the historical, right? The circumstances.

20:27Your parents don't represent you. They've shaped you, of course, to some degree, although

20:32genetics are pretty strong this way. So your parents have shaped you to some degree,

20:36but they don't represent your choice. They don't represent any kind of choice that you've made.

20:43I mean, the choice to, you know, navigate or negotiate what's going on with your parents

20:47is a reactive choice. It's not the same as a free will choice like you have with who you date,

20:51which is anyone or no one. I mean, anyone you can get, obviously. So you look at your parents,

21:01and there's a familiarity, whether positive or negative. It's never neutral, right? Positive

21:05or negative. There's a familiarity with your parents. And one of the tests of empathy

21:12that is really important in life is, can someone look at you looking at them, right? I'm very aware

21:23that when I do a show, I have a, particularly sort of like a monologue speech like this,

21:30how it's going to land for the other person, right? The other person doesn't have my history,

21:33they don't have my mind, they don't have my reference points, so I need to know whether

21:37I'm introducing something out of nowhere and building the case from first principles. Like,

21:42I sort of have to be very aware of how, what it is that I'm saying is going to go

21:49into your mind. I think I'm pretty good at that as a whole, obviously not perfect. So,

21:56your familiarity and your sense of obligation to your destructive or abusive parents, if that's what

22:03they are, your utility, right? The fact that you feel better complying because they won't aggress

22:11against you, right? That is your experience. So, you get a benefit from complying with your parents

22:16and having them in your life, which is to avoid a confrontation that could, would get ugly and

22:20difficult and, and so on, right? And you avoid a certain, you know, potential loneliness or

22:25isolation and so on because you've got places to go, birthdays, anniversaries, Christmases,

22:30christenings, you know, again, sort of New Year's or Fourth of July, whatever. Like,

22:35you've got barbecues and you've got places to go and you've got a place that you're,

22:38the door is always going to be open. There's always going to be people there and so on,

22:42right? So, you have all of that. So, there's benefit to you for sure, right? But one of the

22:49big challenges in life is to look at yourself from the outside in. I mean, some people who are

22:55listening to this have listened to thousands of shows and know what I'm talking about and are

22:59annoyed that I'm over-explaining. Other people have not, you know, this may be something that

23:03they're listening to for the first time. They've never heard anything from me and I have to sort of

23:07walk that line. You know, if I was a professor and I was teaching some postgraduate course,

23:14then there would be a certain amount of knowledge that I would assume and have

23:17in my students. Like, I would assume my students have knowledge, right? Because there's

23:22prerequisites. You have to have taken this, this, and this and pass this, this, and this course in

23:26order to, right? So, I'm speaking to the world and I sort of have to balance things, which is why

23:31sometimes, of course, people think, oh my gosh, why is he repeating and over-explaining? And other

23:34people are like, well, it's going too fast, right? So, sorry, I just was trying to walk

23:37that line. And of course, I'm also aware that people can snip and take things out of context.

23:45So, I try not to give too many sequences of syllables back and reverse my meaning and so

23:52on, right? If I'm imitating a bad guy, I will say, so says the bad guy, like in the middle,

23:57right? Which, you know, it's not perfect, but, or use a different voice or something like

24:01that. So, people will get their sense. It's just, you know, sort of a basic, not too costly,

24:07street smarts kind of way of talking. So, if you have, you know, difficult, dysfunctional,

24:16destructive parents and you keep them in your life and you date, then the big challenge is

24:21to say, well, what is it that happens? Well, how does somebody else perceive my family coming

24:27in from the outside? But no history, with no allegiance, no benefit, and so on. And this is

24:32one of the things that I have for 20 plus years, been really trying to get people to understand

24:37that if someone cares about you and your parents have done you great harm, they will dislike your

24:42parents. And the degree of their liking of you will be matched, if not exceeded, by the degree

24:47of their disliking for their parents, right? So, you've heard me say this to people when it comes

24:52to, like, if you hired a babysitter who, you know, if their parents beat them when they were

24:56little, said you hire a babysitter, you come home and you see you had a nanny cam or something

25:01and you saw that the babysitter was beating your little boy or your little girl and people

25:05are full of, like, this rage and this anger and it's like, okay, but you were that little

25:08boy. And what I'm trying to do is get them to see their life from the outside. Because

25:14you cannot have a relationship with anyone if you cannot see how they see you. You cannot

25:20have a relationship with anyone if you cannot see how they see you. So, if you're trying to

25:28sell a house and you love your house and you've got all these great memories and so on, well,

25:32other people don't have those great memories. Other people, it's just a house, right? It's

25:37just a house. So, the real estate agent will look at the house with an outside eye, right?

25:43That's the general idea, right? With no history. Someone's walking in with no history, no sweet

25:51memories, no, oh, that's where, you know, I first brought my baby and put her down in that

25:56corner. Other people, it's just a room, right? So, people will help you see this from the

26:01outside. You can't have a successful job interview if you can't model how the other person is viewing

26:09you. You can't have any successful economic interactions if you can't model how other people

26:22view you. You know your entire work history, blah, blah, blah, but you're just some guy walking into

26:30your boss's office or your potential boss's office or the interviewer's office. So, somebody you want

26:37to date, right? Let's say you're a guy and there's a woman, Sally, and you want to date Sally and you

26:43got a difficult, destructive, dysfunctional family. Well, how does it benefit Sally that you have this

26:50family? Like, we understand it benefits you because you get to avoid conflict or abuse or escalation or

26:55aggression or whatever, right? By complying and so on, right? And shutting up and, right? So, we

27:01understand that it benefits you, like you understand that. How does it benefit Sally to have your family

27:08in her life, right? That's the big question from the outside because she's got no history. She's got

27:13no allegiance. She's got no, there's no benefit to her of having this situation in her life. What is the

27:20benefit to her of having this situation in her life? So, you will have the urge to have Sally comply with

27:30your crazy parents or your abusive parents. Oh, they mean well. Oh, they're not so bad. Oh, you

27:35just caught them on a bad day. Oh, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? Oh, don't be so judgmental. Oh,

27:39nobody's perfect. Oh, they're doing the best that they can with the knowledge. They have blah, blah,

27:43blah, right? You know, all the usual mealy-mouthed stuff. But if you can't see yourself and your family

27:49from the outside in with somebody who has no allegiance, right? This is the theory of mind. I might do a

27:55whole series on the theory of mind stuff, right? I'm pretty good with theory of mind because I write a lot

27:59of different fictional characters and do these role plays with people I've barely met and are

28:04often, you know, staggeringly accurate or whatever, right? Or at least what people say and I agree with

28:09them. You know, when people praise me, I tend to fall in line. But I'm pretty good with theory of mind

28:15stuff and you have to have a deep understanding of how you look from the outside in, right? So, another

28:23thing that I've said to people for, like, decades is, if you met your mother at a dinner party,

28:30right? You met your mother at a dinner party. She wasn't your mother. She just happened to sit

28:36next to her at a dinner party. So, if you met your mother at a dinner party, would you want to see

28:42her again? Would you like, oh, we should exchange numbers. It'd be great to catch up again. Or I

28:45really had... People were like, oh, my God, I think she's nuts, right? It's like, okay. So, one of the

28:50reasons... So, that's a theory of mind thing. One of the reasons I say that is that that's the view

28:54from someone you're dating. They're just sitting down with no history at a dinner party with your

28:59mother and they're going to have that opinion. And if that opinion is, oh, my God, they're crazy.

29:03This person's crazy, right? Well, then that's their perspective and opinion. They do not get a

29:09benefit from having your crazy parents in their lives. Assuming their parents are healthy, which I'm,

29:14you know, sure they are, or at least if they have deep food, if it's like... If it's unhealthy and

29:18they couldn't fix it. So, that's the question, right? So, how do you process all of that?

29:24You process all of that by realizing what it costs you to have highly dysfunctional,

29:31destructive people in your life. It costs you having good people in your life.

29:36They are an effective antidote to potential virtue. They are a fiery, three-headed,

29:42acid-breathing pit bull constantly guarding your future from any competent, successful,

29:49healthy, moral people. Evildoers keep virtuous people away. It is impossible. It's like enter,

29:58it's like opposing magnets or enter antimatter and matter, right? You cannot have good people

30:06evil or evil or amoral people in the same social circle, in the same environment. It's same planet,

30:15different worlds. They do not coexist. They do not co-mingle. They are inevitable enemies.

30:25And I'm not kidding about any of this. They are inevitable enemies. It's like having an exhibit and

30:31an aquarium. It's like, hey, I got a great idea. We'll do hungry great white sharks and, and we will

30:39also do baby seals. And people would tell you, you can't do that because the sharks will eat the seals,

30:46right? Or this, this would be more accurately as you can't have two apex predators jammed in the same

30:54cage, especially if there are females around because they'll just fight each other tooth and nail,

30:57all right? So good people and corrupt people are natural enemies. They're like two subspecies.

31:06They both cannot inhabit the same space for very long. One will drive out the other.

31:13One will drive out the other. Ambitious young male lions and the alpha male lion are natural enemies.

31:20They cannot coexist for long in the same space because one will drive out the other.

31:24And so if you have corrupt, abusive, negative, difficult, destructive parents,

31:30they will drive away good people from your environment or the good people will drive your

31:37parents away from their potential family. If there's a good man, you're a woman, there's a good

31:44man. He loves you enough. He finds you compelling, interesting enough, wonderful enough, great

31:48conversationalist, sexy or goddess, whatever, right? But you have destructive and difficult people

31:54in your life, dysfunctional, nasty people in your life, then he will attempt to extract you from that

32:01situation. If he succeeds, great, he saved you. If he doesn't succeed, he will regretfully and sadly,

32:10and with a broken heart, leave you behind because good people cannot sit down and break bread with

32:17evildoers. And evildoers sends good people as their natural enemies and will attempt to harm,

32:22destroy, attack or divide you. Good people are an active plague and thorn and heartburn and migraine

32:33to evildoers. They, for a short burst of time, like you can pretend to be a fish by swimming underwater

32:40for a minute maybe, but you've got to come back to the surface. They can fake normality for a short

32:44period of time, but they do so resentfully and it creates massive blowback over time. They will make

32:51you pay. So how do you process this kind of stuff? Family separations and so on. What you do, I think,

32:57at least what I did, and I think there's good reasons for it, I've sort of tried to describe those

33:01principles, is recognizing that you can't have good people in your life if you have bad people in

33:09your life. Because what happens is you have the confrontation, you go through the separation or

33:14whatever it is, painful, difficult, you got the therapy and therapist helping you along, it's

33:18difficult and painful, sure, okay. But if you're an addict, you can only hang out with other addicts

33:23or enablers. You can't hang out with healthy people because healthy people do not want to spend time

33:27around addicts. You say, well, what's the point of quitting? How do I process quitting? Well, you

33:32realize it's incredibly destructive to be an addict and it keeps healthy people away from you. You

33:37can't be loved. You can't be content. You can't be happy. You can't be at peace. You can't be a good

33:42parent, a good friend, a good lover, a good husband, a good boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever. You can't be

33:47good at anything if you're surrounded by corruption. You can't be virtuous and therefore you can't be

33:52loved. You can't be at peace. Therefore, you can't be happy. And so if you lose something and you focus

34:01on the loss, then you will feel bad, negative, whatever, right? I mean, if you have a cyst,

34:09right, and you have to have that cyst removed, you know, it's an unpleasant little procedure or

34:13whatever, right? And if you sit there and say, oh my God, I've lost an important part of myself,

34:16that cyst is, you know, my best friend. I mean, taking a silly example. But you say, okay, well,

34:21that's good. I have the cyst out and I can go on with my life and it's gone and whatever it is,

34:27right? But this is much stronger than that because a dysfunctional family are like rapid,

34:34dangerous, eternal guard dogs that keep quality people away because people don't want to see you

34:39getting harmed. People who care about you who are good don't want to see you getting harmed.

34:43And they won't do it any more than would you like to see someone you really care about

34:50hitting themselves in the face with a little ball peen hammer? No, you'd be like, stop, stop.

34:56Oh my God, what are you doing? Right? And you would, you would hate to see that. And if it was

35:00somebody else hitting them in the face with a little ball peen hammer, you'd hate that person too.

35:04So to be loved is to have the person who loves you dislike the people who harm you. They will be

35:11natural enemies and to let the past that you never chose that is hateful, immoral, and dysfunctional

35:18in nature to let that win over a glorious, beautiful, loving future. That is not something

35:23to be mourned. I get that it's sad. I get that it's difficult, but it's not something to be mourned in

35:28the long run. It is an essential process for developing a moral, happy, healthy existence. And of

35:34course, the last thing I'll say here, the people who benefit from eliminating relationships with

35:41evildoers in your life is your children. And that's worth everything. Freedomain.com slash donate.

35:47If you find this helpful, I appreciate that. Have a lovely day, my friends. I'll talk to you soon. Bye.

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