VoTB Midlife crisis pt 2?

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
And we are back.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
What's up do we do ladies and gentlemen?

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Or we do it whatever?

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Ladies listen to it too. Listen to it too. What's up,
ladies and gentlemen. How's it going all right?

Speaker 1 (00:13):
So we have not recorded for a little while because
of the costa Rica trip and then the lack of
studio stuff, and we are recording right now. So in
the event there is any type of quality issues with video,
it's because we are running zoom over a five G
hot spot in order to make this happen. So I'm
going to apologize ahead of time for quality issues. As
of right now, it looks like the internet seems to

(00:33):
be holding. I can see him fairly well, so I
think we're going to be okay. We have a sixteen
page email. This is Midlife Crisis Part two. I don't
know if this was a part one that we had
read and now part two has come through or what.
But I have not pre screened this. The emailers the
editors put in here trigger's child abuse in childhood, I say,
with no details, so there will be abuse talking here

(00:57):
as a trigger warning for everybody.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
Hey, before we dive into this, happy mental men's mental
health Awareness Month. It is. That is yeah, it's often often.
You know. I said this to someone the other day,
you know, and they were like, really, I didn't know that,
and I'm like, wait, I usually you know, Pride Month,
you know, is out in the forefront, but it is
in fact mental men's Mental Health Awareness Month. So you know,

(01:24):
cheers to all my my my bro my bro's out there,
and to all you guys. I hope you're holding up well.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
I mean, it is the whole point of the podcast, absolutely,
or at least for the voice of the broken segment
of the two Be Better podcasts.

Speaker 2 (01:39):
But right, all right, so.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
I'm going to just jump in. This email starts off
by saying, I wanted to say thank you to for
being honest and not censoring yourselves for viewership slash listeners.
I really enjoy your thoughts and tangents, and I love
how often they happen. There's been several episodes that I've
caught my attention with season three, episode eighteen, Help Middle
Life Crisis felt like my soon to be ex wife
wrote the email, It's doubtful that it is. However, it

(02:06):
motivated me to write in and maybe shed some light
on the other half. Of that dynamic. Okay ooh, it
would be crazy if it was actually his ex wife
or soon to be ex wife.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
So I mean, yeah, because you did Voice of the
Broken without a co host for quite a while.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
Yeah, well, season three, episode eighteen will be it is
to be better content. It wouldn't have been Voice of
the Broken, because this is, like I want to say,
this episode like twenty six or twenty seven the Voice
of the Broken.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
So so this this fella is thinking that his soon
to be ex wrote in a segment yep that was
in reference to the two of them, and this is
his side of the story.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
Yeah, and he said, I mean it may not have
been her, but it was close enough that it would work.
So he's going to give his half of that dynamic.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
How interesting?

Speaker 1 (02:51):
Yeah, oh shit. We try to get people to write
in all the time and have husband and wives.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
Right.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
If somebody ever writes into to be Better and we
get his side, her side, it makes precedence over everything.
It skips the line of Patreon, it skips the line
of the email like worth six or seven month backlog.
But that shit will get read immediately because those emails
are a lot of fun to read for us. And
it gives us different perspectives and a whole lot to discuss. Yeah,
so if anybody wants to write in with you and

(03:16):
your spouse, that definitely fucking send those emails to be
better co at gmail dot com. He then goes on
to say the first real life goal and quotations life
goal I can remember having was to be a dad.
I was the youngest of four on the shoulders of
a single mother. I had two siblings from my mom's
first marriage, and then my brother and I from her second.
My mom has, in my unprofessional and unqualified opinion, borderline

(03:39):
personality disorder, if not borderline, some sort of at bare minimum.
She has always been a victim mindset, had a victim mindset.
We were all spread out by about four years, give
or take a month or two. When I was probably
five or six. One of the earliest memories I can
I can recall or of my mom telling me she
was going to trade me for Peter. When I asked

(04:01):
who Peter was, she told me Peter was the other
little boy I had before you. He didn't listen to me,
and I gave him to someone else. Holy shit, what
a fucked up thing to say to your child.

Speaker 2 (04:10):
Yeah, no, shit, man, that's that's designed to cut I do.
I do not get that stuff that is taking out
so much of your adult angst and feelings on a
small child, Like how did people not realize that they're
doing that? Yeah? I get the behind closed doors thing.

(04:32):
You don't think anyone ever will.

Speaker 1 (04:33):
But yeah, that still fucks up kids.

Speaker 2 (04:35):
Though.

Speaker 1 (04:35):
Give me one second. We just got a text message
of that she needs to see.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
All right.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
I apologize everybody for the throat clearing. I am still
getting over a funk.

Speaker 2 (04:49):
Me too.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
You want to talk about your funk briefly?

Speaker 2 (04:54):
All right. I have to go in and get checked
for limes disease. I spent the two days completely, completely,
completely zoonked of energy. Did wake up this morning as
if someone had thrown a five gallon bucket of water
on me. My bed was completely soaked, like completely soaked,
like if I would have rung it out, I think

(05:15):
I could have easily got two gallons. I feel a
lot better today. I still got some aches and some
pains and stuff, but I have a strange rash behind
my left knee. Does not look the classic tick bull's eye,
but they don't always look like that, the irony. So
I just did a video on how to avoid tick bites.

(05:36):
But I do spend a vast majority of my time
in the woods, and it's kind of inevitable. I kind
of already thought that maybe I had limes disease. I
might just be getting it again, which sucks, or I
don't have it at all. I'm trying to think positive.

Speaker 1 (05:52):
Yeah, giving yourself all the worst case scenarios, so when
something great happened, you're like, Oh, it's not that bad.
It's not limes disease.

Speaker 2 (06:00):
I mean, we're slowly dying, Chris, It's why.

Speaker 1 (06:02):
We are Absolutely every one of us is all right,
she goes on to say. He goes on to say,
the statement has always stuck with me, and the full
impact of those words had on me didn't show itself
until many, many years later. I learned in the moment
that I was replaceable if I wasn't obedient, that I
was the second that that was the second I doubted

(06:23):
my worth for the first time. That second was That
was the second I doubted my self worth for the
first time. I know how I know, fuck me, I
now know that we all grew up in a super
toxic environment. Mental and sometimes physical abuse depending on the day.
I learned that it was best to stay under the
radar to avoid conflict at all costs. Living at home sucked.

(06:45):
We lived on the state aid and food stamps and
unfortunately ate the same five meals on consistent on constant
threat that some utility was going to be turned off.
It passed to statement looming on the fridge. My mom
focused us on I'm sorry, forced us to go to
church every Sunday, or forced us to read the Bible
aloud if we couldn't make it to the church. Me

(07:06):
being the youngest, I had a unique point of view
of the pattern of my siblings. When my siblings were
of age to legally work or obtain a work permit,
they did and began to help pay the bills, which
I didn't know about until I was older. It was
many years later that I really understood that they too,
were so wounded by the environment of our household that
they were just doing what they could to survive. I'm

(07:27):
sure similar scars were certainly left on my brothers and sisters,
even if they'll never talk about them. It twisted us
all some inward. It twisted us all some inward. Where
we shut down and some outward through actions and acting out. However,
growing up, we all had one thing on our mind
to get the fuck out. I did have one saving

(07:49):
grace for a time in my life, and that was
my biological brother. He and I were closest in age,
being only four years apart. We used to do everything together.
We spent a lot of time at my aunt's house
while my mom was at work. My aunt was my
mom's sister. She was very kind, but with a microscopic
microscopic fuse was just about anything could ignite, and once

(08:09):
it was she would grab whatever was closest to her
and throw it at you. I don't mean toss, I
mean fucking throw. Some people don't need to have kids.
My aunt's first husband raped my mom and my brother.
My aunt's first husband raped my mom and my brother,
and after her divorce divorce from him was over, her

(08:31):
new boyfriend's son raped me. I'm not sure if my
aunt knew about the abuse going on in her home,
but my brother and I were always showered with gifts
and being taken out to nicer restaurants with her, as
most kids. At some point, due my brother made friends
his age and I was no longer included in a
lot of things that they went off and did. Just
like that, the only stability I had was gone. My

(08:52):
dad wasn't really allowed to be in the picture due
to my crazy ass mom. The times I did get
to see him, he was an amazing dad. But the
second things went astray and he started hitting the beers,
he started hitting everything. There was no real safe haven
for me. I watched people walking in and out of
my life, like gas station and attendants, wondering if this
was if this would be a smooth encounter, or if

(09:13):
I needed to find the exit strategy. It was two
thousand and one when my oldest brother had a son
to which he didn't want to be a father. My mom,
who is now disabled due to backfusion, not going to plan.
The backfusion not going to plan I, meaning I guess
was a botched backfusion, decided to adopt his son to

(09:33):
keep him keep him within the family, which in my
family tree is normal. I now took on the role
of brother cat slash caretaker when my mom was busy
with whatever it was she was doing. Due to her
disability check she couldn't hold down an actual job that
would deposit money into an account, so instead she used
to clean houses under the table. Great thing to do
with a blownout backfusion.

Speaker 2 (09:54):
I'm assuming that this adopted child is younger because he
said he became caretaker.

Speaker 1 (10:00):
Yeah, this is his brother's biological son that he didn't
want to deal with, so his mom took over and
he's helped raising it.

Speaker 2 (10:09):
And do you remember what age this fella is at
this point.

Speaker 1 (10:11):
He's, well, it doesn't say what age. He says it's
four years older than he is. So, however old he
was at this point, the brother's four years older than him.

Speaker 2 (10:18):
So more than likely he's probably fourteen to sixteen at
this point. I don't know, because his brother's old enough
to have children, one of assume it's I'm going to
assume he's eighteen to twenty. Yeah, yeah, that's rough. Yep.

Speaker 1 (10:36):
With her plethora of painkillers, it didn't seem to face
her much. I think it was three years later my
older oldest brother again had another child to whom he
didn't want to be a father, and again my mom
adopted my little sister. Due to my mom and her
lack of remaining payment of the rent, the landlord's never
let us stay more than a year at any particular house.
It's a sad statement, but I probably moved more than

(10:57):
a lot of a lot of army brats and their
parents come by and by the time I was eighteen,
So all of this happened while he was a minor.

Speaker 2 (11:06):
Yeah, you know, there could be positives to being a
caretaker to a child at such a young age. Like
you know, my youngest brother, Silas, I think he's he's
like fourteen, maybe fifteen years younger than me, something like that.

(11:26):
Everyone used to think it was me and my older
sister's kid. You know, my sister was just old enough
to drive and stuff, and mom would be working and
things like that. We would take him to the store
with us and everything, and it was it was funny,
you know. Everybody was always like, wow, you guys are
really young to have a child. Well, it's not our child,
it's our younger brother. But the age gap definitely provided,

(11:49):
you know, that that stream of thought for people who
were witnessing it. But it did teach me a lot
of things at a very young age. It taught me
to be very patient. You know, children will do that too,
you for sure, you know, like they their button pushers.
They're figuring out the life around them. You know, once
they figure out a button, you know, Oh, when I cry,

(12:11):
I receive this, right, you know, Or when I act out,
I get this. Or if I just become such a
little shit, you know, then you know that it becomes
easier just to give me what I want than you know,
like but there was a lot of other positives outside
of the negatives. But it really did teach, you know, patience,
and so it could be a good thing. And he

(12:32):
started this out by saying his one place in life
he wanted to be a father. You know, we don't
know if he is yet, but it seems like at
a young age he got his first taste at it.

Speaker 1 (12:42):
Yeah, that definitely did. He never run on to write.
I was overweight as a kid, and with moving as
much as I did, the bullying was NonStop. Thank god
I wasn't on social media back then. I would have
become a statistic of suicide. By the time I was
thirteen or fourteen, my brother bullied me the harshest. It
was also around this time my mom sent him to
private school. It's crazy that she was able to afford

(13:05):
to send him to private school, but not able to
afford to keep a roof over your head for a
year at a time. So she somehow sent both of
us to private school, but ended up taking me out
due to it being too expensive. He was the cool kid,
basketball team, loads of friends. My mom would always make
sure he could go to the same high school no
matter where we ended up moving to. She went to
all of his games and even the out of state tournaments.

(13:27):
The true golden child. I was the tag along kid,
fighting every day to get a little bit of what
I felt like was love. The love and affection that
I craved as a kid was always conditional, and the
goalpost would always move, broken promises, and I found myself
understanding the pecking order of love in my family dynamic.

Speaker 2 (13:47):
Now there really shouldn't be, No, they shouldn't.

Speaker 1 (13:49):
It sounds to me like she viewed this kid as
the ticket out of poverty. If he was really good
at basketball and is going to games and is actually
playing and doing that things, she might have seen this
as a way for her to, you know, ride his
coattails into financial success.

Speaker 2 (14:04):
Like Usher's mom, is that is that a thing for Usher? Well,
Usher's mom signed the paperwork to allow. Way is this
where I have to say allegedly. Allegedly. But you know,
for a while I was looking at the ditty trials
and all sorts of stuff until I figured it was
just kind of some I don't know, a way to

(14:25):
keep people distracted. Like one of the things was Usher,
at like thirteen or something, his mom signed over custodial
like guardianship to this this guy, you know, and it
was I mean, the kid had a voice, you know,
and there was promise and of riches and stuff. And
I mean I can't imagine being like, yeah, like take

(14:47):
my son and do this. It'd be like, now, I'll
bring him right and you could do whatever you planned
on doing with me there in the room. Stranger like,
especially now, especially nowadays, knowing of the warped nature of Hollywood.

Speaker 1 (15:01):
Right, well, that wasn't a thing in the nineties.

Speaker 2 (15:04):
Yeah, But I mean the same thing happened with Bieber ye.
You know, Bieber actually got signed into Usher's custody. Wow,
And then Usher signed temporary custody over to the Diddler.
You know. It's just yeah, but I get I guess,
you know, I get what you're saying very well. Could
have been you know, monetization at the core of the

(15:27):
treatment of the Golden Child.

Speaker 1 (15:31):
He then went on to write, I was around the
same age when I first remember meeting my aunt and
her family from my dad's side. We met at a
theme park with my dad and had a great time.
Somehow I was allowed to go visit her for two
weeks that summer. Her house was in the Northwoods of Wisconsin,
only about an hour and a half south of the
up of Michigan. I can't adequately adequately word the feeling

(15:52):
I had when I stepped outside of the car for
the first time. It was like, for once in my life,
I was safe. My brother couldn't torment me. I was
into everyone's caretaker. I didn't have to cook her clean.
Every meal was delicious, The sleep was like none I'd
ever had, and the peace of nature all around you
filled you up with the energy of the forest. I
never wanted to leave, but of course I had to
come back to reality. On January first, go ahead.

Speaker 2 (16:16):
I was just gonna say, forest energy for the wind man. Yeah,
just watch out for tikes. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (16:22):
On January first, two thousand and seven, I got the
crushing news that my dad committed suicide. I had just
turned sixteen in November, and even though I had never
had a real relationship with him, for the real opportunity
to talk to him it crushed me. It was something
I had dreamed of that at least one person could understand,
and who better than my dad. After my dad passed,
my mom decided she couldn't live in Illinois, and since

(16:42):
my older brother was also out of high school and
moved out on his own, we picked up and moved
in with my grandparents for a short while down in Tennessee.
I say short while due to another argument breaking out
between my grandparents and my mom which resulted in us
being kicked out. My mom found a cramp ground carond
that was also a state park. Then for a few

(17:02):
months is how we lived. I was fortunate to have
my own tent, and I'd have to share a pop
up camper with my mom and little brother and sister. Mom,
little brother and sister. It was nearing the beginning of
the new school year when my mom found a small
shack of a house with no insulation outside of the
sighting plywood on drywall. I would get so cold in
there that my mom would leave the oven on and

(17:24):
crack it open a little warmth to warm the house
like a furnace. A lot of people did that when
we were little. It happened all Yeah, it happened everywhere
in the South like that was a very normal thing,
especially if you were poor.

Speaker 2 (17:36):
Yeah, for sure. I remember the day we finally got
our pellet stove and it was it was a godsend, man,
but the oven was the mecca of warmth for a
very long time. That and a couple a couple cheap
fans to blow the hot air around. Yeah, yeah, not

(17:56):
to throw shade. It is a symbol of poverty, it
really is, you know, Like, but it worked. Yeah, you
were not alone on that though, brother.

Speaker 1 (18:05):
Yeah, since my mom pretty much stranded us in Tennessee
with no real income, I got a job and started
giving money to my mom to help with bills. In return,
I would get the one Chevy Malibu. Once I graduated,
I started school and finally made a couple of friends.
I met one of my best friends in my shop class,
we'll call him Tommy. Used to race mountain bikes and

(18:25):
shoot trap for school, even made the Junior Olympic team.
Everyone who knew him piled over at his house as
if he was there even if he wasn't. He was
also one of the best ATV drivers I had ever seen,
to the point we were all used to riding with
him and going mudding or off trail. The trust was
so high when he was driving, helmets weren't a thing.

(18:47):
When we were riding one night in late January, we
decided to have a bonfire on a mountain and we
would need his grandma's car to haul the wood and
extra people we couldn't fit on the ATV. Two of
my best friends and myself on the ATV hitting to
his grandma's house way faster than we should have been
that time of night, and we hit a small dip,
flinging all three of us down a steep forest ravine.

(19:09):
Tommy hit the base of his head on a boulder,
killing him instantly. My other friend also had a fair
amount of life alterined wounds. I ended up breaking most
of the right side of my body, requiring several surgeries
to put me back in place. During this time, I
knew I lost my friend, and the painkillers that they
had numbed, that the pain killers they had numbed more

(19:29):
than my body. My self destructive measures peaked when I
joined the army six months post accident. I knew I
wanted to be a part of something more than myself,
but I also wanted to die with some sort of honor.
Somehow I made it through my training as a cavalry scalp,
and shortly after completing it, the unit I was assigned
to deployed to Iraq. About a month prior to my

(19:50):
deployment ending, I was called home. I'm sorry. I called
my mom and brothers, since our relationship and my mind
was better, letting them know that the dates that i'd
be arriving home, and even offering to pay for their
way to be there. When I got back to the
States and stepped off the plane, I saw the family
cheering and looking for their loved ones. As I searched
through the crowd, I soon realized my family wasn't there.

(20:12):
I got my barrett keys and a small basket with
some of necessities and drink myself to sleep. My drinking
got worse and worse as time went on. I wanted
to be one of the guys and feel accepted into
the group, but I never felt like I was the
Only way I would be one of them was to
drink and keep up with them. That's crazy to think
that somebody has that type of mindset because your ability

(20:34):
to connect with other human beings has nothing to do
with your ability to handle your liquor. There's a social.

Speaker 2 (20:44):
So there's something.

Speaker 1 (20:45):
Yeah, social element. I kept wanting to say stigma for
some reason. There's a social element to making friends. And
if you are not a social person and you can't
read social cues, you're going to struggle with that.

Speaker 2 (20:55):
Yeah. Well, I mean a lot of people, you know,
social keys and things go out the window whenever you're drinking. Yeah,
you know, like so it kind of becomes like a
neutralized field, you know, and ultimately people have a lot
of excuses for their actions and their awkwardness and everything.
You know, Oh I was just drinking, you know, Like
I could see how people would feel comfortable or loose.

(21:18):
The problem is is that at a certain point it
becomes incredibly destructive. Yeah, you know, especially when if you
if you are one that thinks that the only time
that you can engage in a public setting, you know,
is whenever you are drinking. You know, like it becomes
synonymous with you being wasted.

Speaker 1 (21:36):
Yeah, I understand having a drink to like calm your nerves,
like a single drink that you sip on just to
kind of take the edge off. But it's a single drink.
It's not a buzz. We're not getting drunk, like it
is a something to hold on to while you're you're
having social conversation to keep your lips wet, like it's not.
I don't know, I don't. I have a very hard
time with alcoholism because of my family. But even with

(21:59):
when I was drinking whiskey still and I had my
whiskey collection, I would only allow myself three drinks a week,
and the reality was is I would go four or
five months sometimes without a drink because I don't crave it.
It's not something that I want to be a dependent of.

Speaker 2 (22:12):
What happened to all those fine bottles of whisked it?

Speaker 1 (22:14):
You told the entire collection?

Speaker 2 (22:17):
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (22:18):
After the ayahuasca ceremony, I was like, I don't want this.
I don't want it. I don't want it in the house.

Speaker 2 (22:22):
Yeah yeah, jaw dropping to some you know, unless you've
spent time in the alcoholic trenches. Yeah yeah, Like I
think I'd asked you on a previous episode if you
kept that around as like almost a testament that you
could turn your back to it and walk past it
every day without craving it or wanting it, you know,
And you pretty much you said, no, I just I

(22:44):
just have it, you know. And I think it's funny
that as time has gone on, you know that. I
guess what's see? What would you call it luxury or
just like a collection? Or it was?

Speaker 1 (22:57):
It was? It was a luxury, a luxurious collec I
had probably thirty five forty thousand dollars with a liquor
in here. But it took me almost a decade to
collect all that whiskey. So I still have a couple bottles.
There's one on the shelf behind me. Yeah, I see it,
but it's that bottle's got a memory to it, and
I'll probably never drink it. I I don't know, dude.

(23:19):
I had alcohol problems, like I I you know, I
used to to take vic it in every night and
drink on top of it. That was my thing for
a long time. And when I got sober, I was
sober for like twelve or thirteen years. And when I
broke sobriety, it was a celebration with somebody and like
I drank, and I didn't crave it. The next morning
when I woke up, I wasn't like, oh I need
to get drunk. I just had a shot and I

(23:40):
was able to go right back to not wanting to
drink because I didn't allow myself to get inebriated. Like
I didn't get drunk from it. I think I've been
drunk maybe three times in the last twenty five years,
so you know what I mean. So it's not like
a need or a one. It's always been a celebratory thing.
But I don't know, man, I think that there's a
whole lot ugly that comes from a bottle.

Speaker 2 (24:02):
Yeah, oh yeah, man. If I you know, the question
of hey, do you have that giant collection there behind
you as a testament of walking past it every day
and like not needing any of that, you know, and
being able to dust it off your shoulder comes from
someone who struggled with vodka, you know, my drink of choice.
If I had forty thousand dollars worth of vodka sitting

(24:23):
behind me and I could walk past it and not
touch it, especially if it was like high class you
know stuff, you know, that would be a massive testament,
like to me. That would be the reason I kept
it there. Otherwise it wouldn't be there. It would be
drink right.

Speaker 1 (24:38):
But if you have a thousand bottle or a thousand
dollars bottle of whiskey, or a thousand dollars bottle bottle
of vodka, you're not drinking that all the time. Like
that's a sparingly thing because it cost so much to
buy the bottle. And all of my collection was rare bottles,
Like I had bottles that were limited release that only
I make, like thirty thousand bottles of it, So like,
I'm not drinking those. Those were more for show than

(24:59):
for drink. But I also did have whiskey that my
friends would drink when they came over and played poker.
I just I don't know, man, I don't need it.
I don't need to have my my emotions fucked with
from a depressant, and alcohol is a depressant.

Speaker 2 (25:16):
So yeah, I'm.

Speaker 1 (25:17):
Good enough of being depressed on my own. I don't
need any help, I feel that. He then wrote, I
got out of the military and worked as a server
until I got old enough to work as a bartender.
I was in several relationships, but never for very long
understandable looking back on it, because most of them ended
due to my insecurities. I met my soon to be

(25:38):
ex wife at a bar when I was living with
my brother after the military. There was no relationship at
that time, but my brother also met his wife on
the same night. It turned out they were roommates. My
brother pursued a relationship with his wife from that day forward,
where I was still quite wild and free. Fast forward
a couple of years to my brother's rehearsal dinner where
she was a bridesmaid and I was one of the

(25:59):
best men. We started talking again and decided to start
dating shortly after. She had a home near Saint Louis,
a good job, and was in college to pursue a
master's degree. Due to an alcohol fueled argument between myself
and my roommates, I needed to find a new place
to live, and she helped me move the very next week.
We had a true passion and love for one another.

(26:20):
She had let me know that she had been sexually
assaulted at some point before me, but she never told
me any details of when or how. Nor was she
going to push on a push on a subject, nor
was I going to push on a sensitive subject. I
figured it would come in time. At last, I finally
found about that if somebody tells you they've been abused,

(26:43):
I don't think you really need the details. Yeah, it's
one of those things that I mean, I've been abused.
That's one of those things that like, you don't the
details don't really matter. They might to some to relive
that for some reason or to you know, the fact
of the matter is is you're in a situation that
that was out of your control. You couldn't defend yourself

(27:05):
or make it stop, and that's that's traumatic for everybody.
Nobody wants to be uncapable of keeping themselves safe.

Speaker 2 (27:14):
Yeah. So that so that person is just letting you know,
and then in time, like do you think the intent
will be to let you know further or just not
let you know anymore? Like at all?

Speaker 1 (27:26):
Well, I mean it would depend on when the conversation
was brought up, Like if things were starting to get
hot and heavy and there was a pause button hit
because you know, something happened that triggered a thought of
the abuse, then I think there needs to be a
discussion had, especially in a serious relationship, so that those
situations are the steps that triggered that, like memory doesn't
happen again. I don't know. Yeah, it's a lot.

Speaker 2 (27:52):
I think for sure.

Speaker 1 (27:53):
I think that the situation matters. Plug I did. He
said at last, I finally found my person who loves
me for me. We lived together a little over a
year as we planned our wedding and invited our families,
to which my biological brother told me he wouldn't be

(28:14):
my best man because it was too expensive, but went
on vacation to Mexico a month later. Okay, so like
maybe that Mexico thing was something that he had saved
for for a long time.

Speaker 2 (28:25):
Yeah. I have conflicting thoughts about that too.

Speaker 1 (28:28):
So do I you know, I would rather go to
Mexico than go to a wedding, what I mean, I
get it, this is your special day and you want
people there, but like Mexico.

Speaker 2 (28:40):
Yeah, you know, But it also shows that when these
plans were being made, you know, to you know, have
the wedding, there must have not been that much communication, right,
you know, like because otherwise you would have gotten a
hold of your best man. And this isn't the caste shade.
I'm just trying to, you know, kind of balance the
you know, a lot of this is trying to dis

(29:00):
arm a lot of the hurt that we have right
as people. You know, he probably worked his ass off
got to the point where he could go to Mexico,
booked that, and then you could have came along and like, hey,
we be my best man at the wedding, right he
and he probably hurt like hell too, because he's like, wow,
you want me to be my best man? I can't
even go, you know. But if you would have called

(29:20):
me best man, you know, or a groom, she's the
best man, I would have told you, hey, how about
you just booked that for the following week and I'll
be able to go, right, you know.

Speaker 1 (29:30):
Yeah, definitely could have been communication. I also would like
to point out that it's not expensive to go to Mexico.
Yeah yeah, Jesos, Yeah right. Our dollar there is way
way more than their's, and depending on where you are,
getting there is not expensive. We flew to Costa Rica
for two hundred and forty bucks, did you Yeah, it's
cheap as fuck. We upgraded the tickets, but like the
initial ticket was only two hundred and forty dollars a person.

Speaker 2 (29:52):
What was the flight time?

Speaker 1 (29:54):
Four hours.

Speaker 2 (29:55):
Shit.

Speaker 1 (29:56):
Yeah, shorter flight than going to Vegas and cheaper.

Speaker 2 (30:00):
I should have went.

Speaker 1 (30:01):
You should have you should have went. You'd had a
fucking blast, you'd had a blast. We're going to Bali now,
we're doing Greece next year, and then right after we
leave Greece, were flying to Bali and we're gonna spend
seven days in Bali doing like water temples and fucking
medicine and like Bali. Where the fuck is bad Indonesia?

Speaker 2 (30:20):
Oh shit, Yeah, that's a long ass flight.

Speaker 1 (30:23):
That is definitely a long ass flight. It's cheap as
fuck to go though that That trip is only two
thousand dollars a person, so nineteen ninety nine a person.

Speaker 2 (30:30):
It covers everything, it covers.

Speaker 1 (30:32):
Well, it covers most everything. You still got to cover
your flight, but it covers a lot of your food.
I think seven meals are included. Seven breakfasts, like breakfast
every day is included, and then a couple of extra
meals are included with it. But when we went to Thailand,
we lived like a king for like five hundred bucks.
She got, dude, she got she got a full body massage,
deep tissue tie, milk bath, and we got room service.

(30:54):
Every day that we were in the hotel, it was
only five hundred bucks.

Speaker 2 (30:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (30:58):
So, and and it's just it's just cheap to be
in Bali or Vietnam, so we want to go to
Vietnam too, But everything in time.

Speaker 2 (31:05):
I'd be side eyeing a lot of the single, like
gangly looking guys there in Thailand. I've heard. I've heard
a lot of guys go there to shop for wives.

Speaker 1 (31:16):
Depends on where you go, Yeah, depends on where you go.
The passport bro thing is for real, that's super big
in the Philippines right now.

Speaker 2 (31:25):
Yeah. Well, I mean I thought the same thing about
Portland for a while because then, you know, a lot
of news is like showing that Portland is just this shitty,
you know, shithole of a place. And then I go
there and I was really kind of shocked. Man, the
community that pools together there like which I think this
is kind of a degenerating cycle. But they make sure
to plant like all sorts of like wild edibles along

(31:47):
their fence lines for the homeless, and you know which
I think feeds the migration of homeless. Yeah up there.

Speaker 1 (31:54):
Yeah, dude, it's still like that, and that needs to
be something that's done everywhere. That's like that in Vietnam.
If you have the ability in the soil to plant
things like that, why wouldn't you.

Speaker 2 (32:06):
Well, a lot of cities have regulations for pest control.
They say that, you know, you have a bunch of
apple trees, you have a bunch of fruit bearing trees
or fruit bearing bush, you know, and then next thing
you know, you have an increase of raccoons and wildlife,
you know, and it becomes kind of like a you know,
a lot of varmint like running around. That's at least

(32:27):
the justification out of it.

Speaker 1 (32:29):
In the woods, I'm surrounded. So I have one one
house on my so that I can see from my
house from my front yard, but I'm three sixty c
surrounded by woods. Other than that, I have raccoons everywhere.
We have fucking armadillos and possums and all kinds of
shit all over our property. Who gives a shit. You'll
just leave them alone as long as they're not getting
your house. You don't, don't feed them, don't intentionally feed them.

(32:51):
Strap your fucking garbage cans down your golden Yeah.

Speaker 2 (32:55):
But to finish that thought, whenever I went to Portland,
I was like, I was like, man, this is this
is going to be a shit show. And there was
two or three streets that seemed to be kind of
like sanctioned off, and you know, part of it was Chinatown,
you know, and granted it was bad, you know, I
think that's where most of the footage is coming out

(33:16):
that shows the walking dead. You know, people you know
essentially sleep, we're dead on their feet, you know, from
doing all sorts of drugs and stuff. But they'd have
you believe that it's this like wretched, you know, like
one of the you know, layers of hell in the inferno.
But you know, I was was pleasantly surprised. Like it's

(33:38):
a beautiful, beautiful place with a rich community and strong
community value, you know, but they're just like anywhere, there's
some places you probably shouldn't go.

Speaker 1 (33:48):
Yeah, all right, So back to this, he says that
last I found finally found my personal loves me for me.
We lived together for over a year as we planned
our wedding and invited our families to which okay that
we already read that to scroll due to my let's see,
after the ceremony, my mom made very cold statement during
my the mother, sun dance step put permanent distance between us.

(34:12):
She said, this day is almost perfect. I said almost.
She replied, your brother could have been here. She knew
I invited him multiple times. It's shitty thing to say.
What just shut the fuck up? Like how hard is
it to just bite your tongue and let somebody have
the day like this is? You know, your weddings are
supposed to be one of the most important days of

(34:32):
your life.

Speaker 2 (34:33):
It is one of the most I would have fired
back with. You know, it could have been perfect, and
I could have just not invited your ass, Like I can't.
I mean, I can't imagine saying that to my mom,
because you know, she's awesome. But like in this situation,
bud fire, fireback. I mean, I guess with the permanent
distance that's formed. You did right, But.

Speaker 1 (34:51):
God damn it felt perfect until you opened your mouth. Mom.

Speaker 2 (34:55):
Yeah, no shit, no shit, the golden Yeah. I really
hope he doesn't hate his brother.

Speaker 1 (35:03):
There's animosity there for sure.

Speaker 2 (35:06):
You know, but I hope it's I hope hasn't developed
into full blown like hatred or anything like that, because
a lot of that galvanizing of him on a pedestal.
It wasn't by anybody but this woman who's saying this
type of shit to you at your wedding, Homie, you know,
aim at where it needs to go.

Speaker 1 (35:26):
He said. Due to my lack of skills that are
useful outside of the military, I got some part time
jobs until I finally got a full time position making
okay money as a shop manager at a tire shop chain.
We drink in excess until we found out we were expecting.
She stopped and I didn't completely, but I slowed down.
I left my job where I was working fifty to
sixty hours a week at the tire shop instead working

(35:46):
the standard forty installing cable internet. The notion of fatherhood
was terrifying. I never had an example of what a
father was, but I had plenty of examples of what
a father wasn't. I tried to support my wife as
best as I could since could once our daughter got
here in twenty seventeen, by feeding her, changing diapers, giving
her baths, taking her on walks. The whole gambit.

Speaker 2 (36:07):
It's called this guy, come out and do your internet
called fatherhood.

Speaker 1 (36:10):
Ye had no shit, I dude, I should have internet
by Friday. They're saying the guy that was out on
the property said Friday Monday at the absolute latest. But
we don't have the actual box here yet. So until
we have the box, it doesn't matter if the internets
run into the house or not.

Speaker 2 (36:24):
So that's one of the sacrifices you make living out
in the country.

Speaker 1 (36:28):
Yep, he said. I will be the first to say
motherhood is and always will be something that's unknown to
men and should be respected. I wanted to give her
the time to rest or pump without the baby. We
had decided before she was born that she would be
a stay at home mom due to the cost of
child care full time. Why spend one month of us
working a pace for somebody else to raise her child.

(36:49):
I agree, childcare prices are no joke. I also agree anyway,
during her time at home, she decided to continue the
pursuit of her degree when she wasn't taking care of
our daughter, which I have always supported. When it came
when I came home, I would always try to take
something off her plate, regardless of how tired I was.
This is normal relationship, live shit. You guys are supposed

(37:10):
to do this for each other. So good for you
that you guys were working as a team. When my
daughter was about three months old, I had patched things
up with my old roommates and asked if she would
be okay if I went up there for a weekend
to hang out with them. She said it was fine.
I drove up the four hours to Chicago and hung
out all day. The night I got up there, we
ended up going to the bar. Since I had cut
back on my drinking and this was my first time

(37:30):
out with my friends in years. To say the least,
I drink more than I should have. I don't remember
leaving the bar, and the next thing I remember was
I was at my old roommate's place on their couch.
Was about four am and still feeling rough from the
night prior. I checked my phone and saw tons of
miscalls and messages off for my wife. I immediately called
her and asked what was going on, and said that
she was having abdominal pain. So I got into the
car and I started driving home. Before we move any further,

(37:53):
you have you have an infant, and you decided to
go to another state and got completely shitface drunk, to
the point that it was almost twenty four hours before
you felt good enough to check your phone. You didn't
just overdo it, you abandon your family in that moment.

Speaker 2 (38:11):
Yeah, I wouldn't.

Speaker 1 (38:12):
I would if I went and saw somebody that I
haven't seen in twenty years and they wanted to go
out and have a drink, I wouldn't allow myself to
get drunk if my wife was at home. I'm not
going to allow my mental faculties to be so taken
back that I lose control of time and space. If
I am needed, I need to be able to be
at least coherent enough to book a flight back home
in an emergency, or to get in the car and

(38:34):
be able to drive. I have a problem with this.

Speaker 2 (38:38):
Now. Is the old Is this the older, wiser Chris
talking or was there a version of Chris in the
past that would would have definitely been on the same
page as this guy. That's like a hard lesson learned.

Speaker 1 (38:49):
This is. I think it is a hard lesson learned.
But I wouldn't have done this if I was in
a relationship with someone. When I was a young man
and I was drinking and doing drugs and all of
that nonsense. I was singing for most of it because
I didn't want to answer to anybody it was easier
for me to go out and be a complete fuck
up without having to worry about, you know, anybody checking
on me or you know, being told I can't or

(39:10):
anything else. When you say I do and you become
one flesh with somebody, you owe them. You owe them
a lot more than you owe yourself, because you're not
just responsible for them. You're responsible or not just responsible
for you. You're responsible for your family. And from my perspective,
is what it means to be a man. You're supposed
to lead your household. And if there's an emergency, which

(39:30):
clearly there was. She was blowing his phone up trying
to get a hold of him. If she viewed that
as an emergency and he wasn't there, what does that
say about his ability to lead his house I needed
you and you didn't answer the phone.

Speaker 2 (39:42):
Yeah, the duration which she didn't answer as well. Right,
And this dude's not avoiding that accountability, not at all.
You know, he's putting it out there, you know, and
what're you're reading it now? The seems like she actually
was having a medical issue. Hopefully this is something he
learned a lesson from. You know, there have been times

(40:03):
that you know, I was with somebody and I was like, hey,
I'm you know, going to this festival. I'm going to
be hand drumming. But also there's the there's really no
way to get a hold of me because there's no
cel phone service there. You make some pretty lengthy discussion,
you know, because you are in fact going somewhere where
there's not going to be the ability to reach someone,

(40:28):
you know, And I haven't been in a situation in
which you know, it's it's been you know, I'm married,
i have children with this person or whatever. But you know,
I am in fact telling them, look, I'm not going
to have sel phone service, you know. And I've never
had to get to the point to where I'm like,
if shit hits the fan, you need to contact so
and so. They'll relay the message here and they'll do this,

(40:49):
you know, Like I've never I've never gotten there. But
I have in situations where I knew that I would
not be able to contact my lover and that they
wouldn't be able to get a hold of me, and
or you know, I would be drinking or taking substances.
That is a lengthy conversation that you should have ahead
of time. You should let them know, Hey, these are
my intentions. This is what I plan to be doing,

(41:10):
you know, in case something like this does happen.

Speaker 1 (41:14):
Yeah, yeah, Well, and that's just it. There's a communication
there that's very different than just falling off the grid
and not being able to get a hold of you.
I also feel that it's important to say that if
she was actually having abdominal issues and there was a
real issue, she should have called nine one one or
gone to the hospital, knowing that he was four hours
away blowing his phone ups not going to do anything.
So without reading for it in the email, I don't

(41:35):
know if she actually went to the hospital or not.
But if he cut his trip short and came home
and there was nothing wrong with her and she just
had a tummy ache, that's not something to blow the
phone up with, Like you knew he was going out
of town for the weekend.

Speaker 2 (41:48):
Yeah, you should have border line on like some manipulative behavior.

Speaker 1 (41:51):
Absolutely absolutely would, And it would make it so that
if there's actually nothing wrong and he did go out
and get drunk and she was unable to get a
hold to him, she now has an ability to make
him come home. She can get trip into leaving.

Speaker 2 (42:05):
Right, Yeah, that'll stretch into the future when she knows
that the last time she did that it got this result,
thus making it to where more than likely he won't
want to go out and do that in the future.
He'll be fearful to do that in the future, you know,
and she will be more prone to do that in
the future.

Speaker 1 (42:22):
That is it, all right, so he said. I immediately
called her and asked her what was going on. She
said she was having abdominal pain. So I got in
the car and started driving home. There's a four hour
drive when I got home, so he would have gotten
there about eight or nine o'clock in the morning. She
was still pretty upset with me because she couldn't get
a hold of me when she needed me from eleven
thirty to two thirty and had to call her mom
to come and help with our daughter. Okay, so that's

(42:45):
a problem, but you could have also taken your daughter
to the hospital with you. She could have taken the
daughter of the hospital. She refused to go to the
doctors even after I got home, and once things settled,
we talked about her not being able to get a
hold of me, and I apologize for getting too drunk
that night. She was also upset because she suspected I
didn't answer her because I was cheat on her. See
now that's the issue, and she manipulated the situation and

(43:07):
get you to come home, because if she hadn't gone
to the doctor after all of this, she wasn't that
upset like this, wasn't that sick. This is purely manipulation.

Speaker 2 (43:16):
Yeah, neither was her tummy, right.

Speaker 1 (43:21):
I told her I didn't. I had called my older
roommates and asked them on my drive home, in addition
to telling them to lock their doors because I no
longer had a key. I told her that I was
willing to call my roommates and have them tell her
what happened, which was I got too drunk and they
had to carry me out. She said no. I told
her I wouldn't be going out drinking like that anymore,
and I didn't. If I drank, I'd drink at home.

(43:42):
After a year of being home, she was going stir
crazy and wanted to go back and forth. I'm sorry.
Back to work. She found a job part time, and
we're lucky at the time to be able to work
alternative days. Alternate days, so there was a problem. He
found a solution and then adhered to the solution of
the problem. So there's an honor in that. Like, even

(44:04):
if you know she's not happy with the situation, he's
still not drinking out in public the way that he was.
He's only doing it at home' that's a win, Like
in that situation, I would view that as an even compromise.

Speaker 2 (44:17):
Yeah, well, notice too, we're not talking about a trend,
you know, we're we're not talking about like, you know,
an endless campaign of drinking, like you know, going out
and drinking with your friends. This seemed like, you know,
it was a trip, you know, as people he hadn't
seen a long time. He went out with every intention
to have a blast with people he hadn't seen. They
were celebrating. Yeah, you know, it wasn't some you know,

(44:40):
every weekend thing, you know, so he adhered to it.
He did. He did a great thing, you know, but
you know, also that was like a one time celebration thing. Yeah,
there should be a little little bit of forgiveness about that.

Speaker 1 (44:54):
I definitely think.

Speaker 2 (44:55):
So.

Speaker 1 (44:55):
I still don't think that he should have allowed it
to go as far as he did, knowing that he
had a wife and kid, at home for sure, and
not having the ability to answer the phone like he
could have. He could have been like, you know, from
from ten thirty to two thirty, he wasn't responding. At
like nine forty five, he could have been like, Babe,
I'm fucking hammered. I'm gonna go pass out. I don't
know like my nights went. I drank way too much.

Speaker 2 (45:18):
I love you.

Speaker 1 (45:18):
I'm going to bed write something.

Speaker 2 (45:21):
It comes out the hold up thumb. Still you tried, man,
You tried.

Speaker 1 (45:28):
Yeah, yeah, he said. On my days off, I tried
to work. I tried to take on extra tasks around
the house or run a bath for her when she
came home, these little things that I thought would make
a difference. The baths were never taken, and the tasks
around the house were either unnoticed or done incorrectly. Our
sex life was based off of her drinking, which was infrequent.

(45:48):
If she decided to drink, then I might get lucky.
I think it's very important to note here that there
was no in between with intimacy. It was sex or
nothing at all before.

Speaker 2 (46:01):
What do you what do you think about situations in
which case the person that you're with has to be
drunk to touch.

Speaker 1 (46:06):
You, I'm good. I would leave that situation. Yeah, physical
physical touch is a big one for me, knowing that
that is one of my major love languages. If my
wife stopped touching me, I would it would start to
degrade the intimacy levels on all facets. And intimacy is
not just a sexual thing. You know, us laying in
bedlat at night time and like you know, talking shit

(46:28):
to each other and laughing and giggling and you know,
laying on the couch holding hands or dancing in the kitchen,
like that's all very intimate to me. Shit, even our
car rides where we're having you know, in depth conversations
about life and spiritual shit, like, that's all very intimate
to me. But a lot of that does have a
physical tone to it even still, so like if you

(46:49):
had to be inebriated to give me attention, I would
feel like I'm not enough. Yeah, that would be a.

Speaker 2 (46:57):
Lot You know that there's men out there that make
that connection and next thing you know, they're just feeding
this partner of there's alcohol all the time, creating an
alcoholic Yeah, yeah, you know. And also it's like this,
it seems like my partner gets horny when she's drunk. Click. Man,
that would kind of you know, I want to go
out with the girls. You know what would that do

(47:18):
to your head? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (47:19):
Well that would. You wouldn't allow that to happen. There's
no way, because you wouldn't be able to trust her.

Speaker 2 (47:24):
Yeah, you would. That would. That would plant a seed
of doubt in your head pretty quick. Ye Now is
this the person he said that he was he was
with or do you think we're talking? Started this email?

Speaker 1 (47:34):
I think this is I think this is the chick
he's currently married too, he said. Before I knew it,
she became pregnant with her son, and due to a
complication with the pregnancy, intercourse was off the table for
nearly the entirety of it.

Speaker 2 (47:50):
Actually, that's good. Usually it's good for it.

Speaker 1 (47:52):
Yeah, normally it is. With our current house being small,
we moved in with her parents and put the house
up for sale. During this time, I change jobs again
to try to find a career instead of a job
jumping and landing at the company I still work at today.
To do so, I had to work as a contractor
until I was hired directly by the company. The insurance
provided the contracting agency was obscene, but my wife, expecting

(48:15):
the only plan with prenatal care was of course the
most expensive. In order to cover the cost of the insurance,
I would work twelve to thirteen hour days every day
I was scheduled. We had open ot Thankfully. Back then again,
I was working sixty hours a week to provide for
my family and to try to purchase a home. Once
my son was born in twenty nineteen, I still worked

(48:37):
full time and took care of the babies where I
could while we were house hunting. Unknown to me at
the time, the fact that I could sleep through my
son cry and spawned resentment and my wife toward me, well,
I mean, if you're working sixty hours a week, of
course you can fucking sleep through that. Like your body
is shutting down. You need a break.

Speaker 2 (48:56):
Yeah, you're exhausted.

Speaker 1 (48:57):
Yeah. December twenty third, twenty nineteen, I got hired on
including benefits and paid holidays. I was finally able to
breathe ag in well figuratively, as COVID was becoming a
major thing. We spent that winter at her parents, and
in March of twenty twenty we found a nice house
that was quite a bit larger with a fenced in
yard close to her parents. The divide in our relationship
became more and more apparent when we moved into the

(49:19):
new house as my responsibilities around the house grew more
and more. We were still working alternate days for the
most part, but with her still only working part time,
I began feeling neglected as all my time went to
either workyard work, or housework. I tried to set up
multiple trips for just her and I to get away
for the night, but she always said no. I told
her how I was feeling. She told me it wasn't

(49:40):
me that it was her being touched out from the kids,
or being or from being over stimulated throughout the day.
So if you are trying to plan weekend getaways or
an overnight trip, if your person is over stimulated and
touched out, why the fuck would they tell you no,
you don't have to have sex. That that night away

(50:01):
just could be a decompression. You could you could have
sex the next morning. It could be you know, when
you get back before things get back to zoom life,
Like if you're only trying to to make a trip
so that you can get some pussy, like, that's a
different conversation. But if Peaches is stressed out, like I
will you know, draw a bathroots hard to go take
a bath or take the kids somewhere, or you know,
that's we need a break. I don't understand how she

(50:24):
would turn that down.

Speaker 2 (50:26):
Yeah, allowing the decompressions pretty pretty important. Yeah, you know,
do you I mean, do you think like that. We've
had similar emails where people have you know, it's just
been like a tailtale sign that they're just not they're
not with it anymore. Yeah, you know, like that the
person they're with, they they've lost touch with. And whenever

(50:48):
there's things like this happening, you know, the pushing away,
the pushback, you know, it's it's actually the first tailtale
sign that more than likely this is going to fall
apart at least from beuse emails and a lot of
the to Be Better podcast.

Speaker 1 (51:02):
Yeah, I think that the number one the number one
thing is that people don't like their person anymore, and
they stay because of obligation, or they think it'll be
easier to stay, it's cheaper to keep her, whatever the
situation may be. The reality is is people put their
best foot forward when they first meet somebody and they
try to find all the things that they have in
common and how they can mesh and to build a relationship,
and they really put in the effort, and then they

(51:25):
secure their person and they've got their person locked down
and they've got the relationship and they're living together, and
now they don't have to try anymore because at the
end of the day, you guys are going to bed
at the same time you guys were in the same bed,
and you're just living in that roommate phase of the
routine of everything, but you're not doing the things that
makes you connect to your person, and then you find
yourself becoming resentful towards them. And that's it happens all

(51:49):
the fucking time, dude. People genuinely just don't like their spouse.

Speaker 2 (51:53):
Yeah. Do you think this guy was trying to use
the trip for some some romance more than he was decompression?

Speaker 1 (52:01):
I mean, I gotta be honest, I don't think that
it matters what he was trying to use the trip
for the fact that she's always stressed out with the
kids and he tried is better than nothing, because most
men don't do that. Most men get to the point
where they're like, fuck it, I'm not even gonna bother
because she's just gonna say no. She's always got a headache,
she's always tired, she's always touched out. She'll let me
know eventually when she wants it. And then there's six

(52:22):
months goes by with no sex.

Speaker 2 (52:24):
Yeah, I can't do that shit, But well I was
just gonna say good on him for at least I
mean even like throwing like financial like impairment towards it,
like going into trying to go into the hole, you know,
like you know, in order to get her to a
point to where she's comfortable and I'm seeing him. That's
that's painful, man. Just at that point, what do you do?

(52:45):
You feel like you're in the hardest of rock and
a hard place. Man.

Speaker 1 (52:50):
You know, you got to start dating your person again.
When anybody, if you're any of you are in the
roommate pace, the best thing that you can do is
is go to dinner, like, leave your fucking phones in
the car and have conversations about things that are not
honeydew list or like the necessities of life. How many
people out there are in relationships that don't know what
their person's current favorite song is because you don't ask

(53:11):
anymore like you think that when you ask what their
favorite song was, You know in nineteen ninety nine when
you started dating that you were gonna that's just going
to be their favorite song forever. How you need to
have the conversations, what hobbies? What TV shows are you
watching right now? If you could go anywhere in the
world right now and spend a week, where would it be?
Like all of these conversations matter because your person is
ever evolving and changing, and so are you.

Speaker 2 (53:33):
Exactly, yeah, exactly. It'd be hard not to know what
my favorite song is because it would be blaring out
of my stereosystem. You know, a good majority of the day.
I'm one of those people that can listen to a
song and repeat annoyingly.

Speaker 1 (53:45):
So tame, you know, say yeah, yeah, he didn't, went
on to write. On the occasional date night without the kids,
we would have her mom watch them. In the entire date,
minus the obligatory selfie for her social media was plastered
to her phone. I brought it up multiple times, and
she always said she was checking on the kids, or
that her mom was asking us when we would be home.

(54:08):
We were almost never out more than two hours most
of the time, it was less than that. Nothing ever
happened after we picked up the kids and put them
to bed, and this was our usual date night. She
always wanted me to lay in bed with her until
she fell asleep, but at this point in our relationship,
my frustration and anxiety kept me awake, so I started
staying up and watching TV or going to the garage
and sitting with my thoughts. Whenever I brought up the

(54:30):
planning some sexy time, there was nothing but promises without
follow through or just being downright rejected. This was my
new low. I was a roommate, even if we were intimate.
After it just felt like it just felt so hollow,
like she was mentally checked out, which would make me
feel disgusted with myself. I told her how unhappy I was,

(54:52):
and the solution was counseling, which I'm all about. We
would do our sessions and then the sod would break
after a month the first time, then we fell back
into the same routine over the Over the years, she
was going to school off and on and reclused herself
to the kids and their activities. She told me she
had lost her sense of self after having the kids,

(55:13):
so I encouraged her to do some of the things
that she enjoyed before having kids, like running or going
to dinner with some friends.

Speaker 2 (55:19):
She said.

Speaker 1 (55:20):
She said that she felt guilty leaving the kids and
almost never went.

Speaker 2 (55:23):
Out reinforcement and reinforced there's no need to feel guilty.
It's healthy, you know.

Speaker 1 (55:34):
There's there's a very real thing about mothers becoming a
mother and it being their identity and the only thing
that they ever have to talk about is their their
kids and like not their husband's, not their jobs. Like
it just becomes that their entire identity is being a mother.
And when you do that, it's hard to have friends
and to go out and do things because it doesn't
align with what you view yourself as. Yeah, yeah, you

(55:57):
got to make sure that you remain a multifaceted spear,
because just being a mother, or just being a wife
or just being a husband is not it.

Speaker 2 (56:05):
Yeah, but being a mother is a great honor. It's
a you know, that is an incredibly beautiful title to carry,
you know, and like, seeing as this happens to a
lot of women, you know, you'd think that women would
want to like merge together, you know, like they would
there would be more people feeling that same way, or

(56:25):
war mothers specifically feeling that same way, that would inevitably
find each other. But there's also the full time element
of being a mother. Yeah, you know that's rough.

Speaker 1 (56:39):
He then wrote, I hit a breaking point one day
after getting into a little trouble at work and felt
the same time estranging myself from my narcissistic biological mother.
What sense of self I had was completely lost. I
had recently picked up a book on being a medium,
and something told me to meditate, which I had never
tried before. I cracked open the book and read the
basic breathing meditation and tried it. What happened next is

(57:00):
something I can properly describe. So in short, God gave
me the embrace of love. It felt like my whole
body and mind was whole, loved and good. She told
me to love myself more, to look at what I've
overcome in order to be where I am today. I
opened my tear filled eyes, feeling so light and happy.
It was at this moment I had never felt the
need to touch alcohol again. Started viewing things with wider eyes,

(57:23):
and I could see the patterns emergence emerging from my
past that I thought love was.

Speaker 2 (57:29):
He said God was a she for him, didn't he.

Speaker 1 (57:32):
Yep, yep, he said. We didn't argue like ever, not
once until we split. We talked about how we made
each other feel when shit happens, and if it was
on me. I tried to make sure I didn't do
it again. I always wanted her open up and talk
to me about herself, how she was feeling, to be
a bit, to be her person like she was mine,
But she never did. I got a promotion at work

(57:54):
where I had gotten almost ten thousand bump and pay.
It was salary and best of all, it was remote.
The other side of the coin is I would have
to work Monday through Friday from eight to five, and
my son wasn't in school yet. My daughter I would
have to drop off and pick up from school. This
was conflicting because her hours overlapped. Mind, I'm fortunate and

(58:14):
grateful to work for a company that allows me to
be an active father and understands the family needs of
the employee over the profit line. She wasn't enthusiastic about anything.
Even during the interview process. It was nothing but negative
statements about how I'm not going to be able to
do it. Great job, baby, was what I got, and
an even monotone voice. I got the same response when

(58:36):
I got my VA disability back pay, which was north
of fifteen thousand dollars. I wanted to plan an actual
trip for us this time, so I did the research
and asked her mom to watch the kids for her
birthday weekend. She still said she didn't want to go.
I felt part of my soul crack when I knew
she would never be capable of loving the way I
needed to be loved. Not everybody's meant to be together man,

(59:00):
for sure. One day, when I couldn't hold in the
heartache another second longer, I broke down and started sobbing.
I told her again that I wasn't happy, and again
she said the solution was counseling, but this time on
an APP. I give the program credit that it's a
good content if both parties are vested. When it came
to setting aside the time for us to talk, in
the beginning, she was good about it. After the third

(59:22):
week she would always need to reschedule. I stopped trying
because she showed me I wasn't worth the fifteen to
thirty minutes to talk about to talk, but her phone
was when she was lying in bed. I stopped trying
because she showed me I wasn't worth the fifteen to
thirty minutes to talk. But her first phone was yeah,
when she was laying in bed.

Speaker 2 (59:41):
Okay, as if she's got enough time to like sit
and scroll on her phone, the same device that she
would be using for this counseling, but she can't use
it towards the embtterment of their relationship. Right, Yeah, that's hard,
That's tough.

Speaker 1 (59:58):
He wrote, God's voice in my head, saying, is this
loving yourself? I begin working on myself more than I
ever before. At the time, I was almost two hundred
pounds at my heaviest. I bought resistance spands that started
working at a home. That way I could take care
of my kids and not need to go to the gym.
The more I worked out, the better I felt, challenging
myself to do five more push ups every day of
the month. I think by the end of the self challenge,

(01:00:19):
I was up to three hundred plus push ups a day.
Several months later, the same heart it continued to plague me.
Although I was healthier than I had been in a
very long time. I wanted to stay together for my kids,
and it was my dream as a kid to give
my kids that dynamic that is, you can't provide a
healthy environment for your children if your children are living
in an unhealthy environment. I understand the want to keep

(01:00:43):
your family together, because I mean, it's an honorable thing
to do. But if your situation is fucked up and
your kids are growing up in a fucked up situation,
they're gonna have fucked up situations because you were modeling
what the relationship is supposed to look like. And if
you're going above and beyond and trying to do everything
that you can do for this woman and she's not
reciprocating those things, your daughter is going to learn that

(01:01:04):
she doesn't have to reciprocate. And your son is going
to learn he's a fucking door mat and he's going
to live his life as such because that's what was
modeled for him growing up. He then wrote, then, all
at once, I felt the fracture that began years ago,
Rip the fuck open. It was the last time I
was going to break down about this. I made damn
sure of that I was faithful throughout our marriage and

(01:01:25):
The thought of cheating never really hit me, but the
attention I had been getting made me feel alive, and
I knew it was a slippery slope. Later that night,
I told her I wanted to separate. I didn't know
if we needed space away from each other to try
to mend things, or if I just needed my own
space away from her. Due to lack of housing and
wanting the best for our children, I stayed at the
house until I found an apartment. We told them we

(01:01:45):
were getting an extra place to come play while I'm
at work and do sleepovers. These the blow as it were.
We've always been excellent at communicating about the kids, and
we both understand they come first outside of our bullshit,
and for that I'm grateful. We decided to go to
counseling again. As much as it sucked, I wanted to
make sure I'm sorry. I wanted to make things work
because I did love her and we were together for

(01:02:07):
a little over ten years.

Speaker 2 (01:02:09):
The right thing to do is tell your children a
fabrication of the truth. In that situation, No, I don't.

Speaker 1 (01:02:14):
I think that that was a boldfaced lie and what
should have been should have would I think that they
should have been honest about it. They don't need to
go know the details. But if dad is moving out
of the house and is not sleeping there with mom
and the kids are going back to moms every single night,
if that's the way that it's working, they're gonna see
that something's not right. It's just easier to tell them.

Speaker 2 (01:02:37):
Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:02:39):
Uh. The onslaught of messages following asking, following me asking
to separate, reveal the things she had been resentful to
me about throughout our relationship. Everything was my fault. I
was the reason she couldn't finish school. I was the
reason she didn't have a career. I was a scapegoat.
I do have faults in this marriage, of which I
accept full responsibility and understand that these things I impact

(01:03:00):
how she felt about me. This was something entirely different.
It was like she was unloading all of the things
she hadn't done in her life on me, when all
I ever tried to do was support and encourage her.
Once everything came out, I knew if the things she
held against me. I knew if the things she held
against me then impacted us this significantly, then there would

(01:03:22):
be no way to overcome this with her now. I
also noticed some of the stuff she brought up that
had nothing to do with me or our relationship, but
from the relationship prior. At the time of me asking
to separate, she was still working part time, and it
was also my fault that she had to get a
full time job to pay for the house I bought
for us. In the meantime, I paid and provided for
everything for the house until I moved into my apartment

(01:03:45):
in November. She found a full time job and began working.
I told her I would continue to pay the bills
until she could get on her feet financially. She never
disclosed how much her job was paying. She just said
it was comparable to your salary. I mean, at that point,
it doesn't matter if she's making the same amount of
money you are. It's not needed for you to pay
for her shit anymore. My aunt from Wisconsin bought a

(01:04:09):
house in the area. Her cousin, who was handy capable,
and her daughter all live together. My uncle lived there
as well until it is passing this year. Once everything happened,
I went to the only place I felt safe, my
aunt's house. I'd been visiting them just to get out
of the house and to let them read the messages.
I didn't need to defend myself from anything. All the
facts are there. I don't know why you let them

(01:04:30):
read the messages. Why drag them into your ugly breakup?
I don't see the point in that. I actually disagree
with that vehemently. I think that you bringing all of
that to other people's doorsteps. Like, I understand the need
to want to talk to somebody and have somebody there,
but like, I think that's too far.

Speaker 2 (01:04:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:04:53):
Yeah, I think this says something about being able to
process your shit on your own. Again, I also understand
the need to have somebody to bounce it off of.
Or do you think I'm wrong in this situation? Yeah,
but you should be able to do that by expressing
your feelings articulately versus going here read this. Am I wrong?

Speaker 2 (01:05:14):
All right? Well, I'm sure there's extrnuating circumstances, you know,
in which case like messages can act as a testament
to truth. Absolutely, you know. But in this case, you know,
it feels like you're more so trying to get people
on your side, which could create a divide with someone
in which you are still you're not any longer engaged

(01:05:38):
or you're working on being married, but there's still engagement
when it comes to you. You're going to have to
have your family at times intermingle with her at minimum,
you know, picking kids up or you know, or like
whatever have you. And also like the teachings that she
is going to send the children back with to you

(01:06:00):
house and to the family. You should try to maintain
a good standing at all costs.

Speaker 1 (01:06:05):
Yeah, I agree.

Speaker 2 (01:06:07):
I turn family against the other side.

Speaker 1 (01:06:11):
Yeah, create a negativity bias. It creates a lot of
problems in the future.

Speaker 2 (01:06:14):
Oh, for sure, that kid becomes a game of tug
of war. You know, you're going to create a lot
of internalized trauma and unnecessary baggage for this poor kid.

Speaker 1 (01:06:24):
Yeah, he went on to write, I taught myself how
to be super good with Excel to get better at
my job before promotion, and created a spreadsheet to lay
on all the bills for both homes. Looking ahead, I
noticed I wouldn't be able to handle two households for
more than three months. It was mid December when I
told her I had a money concern. I would need
to start talk. I would need to talk with her
about I let her know that in March I would

(01:06:44):
start needing her to begin splitting some of the bills
with me. She fucking lost it. You would have thought
I'm setting her out on the side of the road
by the way that she was reacting. I was overdone
at this point. I hit the fucking I hit the
fuck this moment. I've always been understanding and tried my
best to brush off the messages still insulting my character,
but this pushed my buttons a little too much. I

(01:07:07):
didn't respond to our messages, knowing we had a therapy
session that weekend it would get and would much rather
bring it up.

Speaker 2 (01:07:14):
Then.

Speaker 1 (01:07:15):
I gave her ninety four days to get ready to
split the bills for her shit, because I'm going to
make sure my children are taken care of. Our session
was the weekend before Christmas. It was heated, to say
the least, especially when it came to her bringing up
any kind of money, since I was the one paying
for everything and she had been getting not just one
paycheck from her part time job that she still had,

(01:07:37):
but now our full time job as well. By the
time I got back to my apartment, she had texted
me saying that there was that I was uninvited from
her dad's house where everyone used to meet for Christmas,
and that she was filing for divorce. The only response
I sent was that she would be responsible for paying
the bills come February, since January was conveniently already paid.
Being unprepared for having to set up my own Christmas

(01:07:59):
for my kids was heartbreaking for me. I was already
stretched as thin as I could be with money. My
aunt gave me some and a small tree with some decorations.
This allowed me to have a small Christmas in my
apartment on Christmas Eve, since that was my day. I
should have spent Christmas with my aunt and her family,
but I sat alone. I really hope you got a lawyer.

(01:08:21):
I really hope you got a lawyer, he wrote. I
was furious that she didn't, that she would rob the
kids of Christmas with their dad, and the end, it's
about me more than about them. Christmas time and the
New Year's always reminds me of losing my dad, so
it's a hard time of year regardless for me. My
mind was My mind was my new battlefield. She then
invited me to her dad's house on New Year's Day

(01:08:43):
since she knew it was hard time. Since she knew
it was a hard time of the year. Don't worry,
I said, no. I found psilocybin mushrooms to be one
of the most helpful things when you have a heart
encourage to investigate the darkest parts of your life. Most people,
I think would say I've had bad trips. But the
uncomfortable things I experienced were nothing but reflections of the
things that were within me. There was a sense of

(01:09:04):
peace after a stillness. This piece here is worth fighting for.
I fucking love that. I am such a huge fan
of sacred sacraments and and like people using this as
a way to heal.

Speaker 2 (01:09:17):
Yeah. The way he said that was perfect.

Speaker 1 (01:09:20):
Yeah, you know, yeah, you can tell he's not using
it as a party drug.

Speaker 2 (01:09:25):
Yeah, And like the inner reflection that he's getting from it,
and especially the Some people would say I was having
bad trips, you know, but I in fact was looking
at the darkest you know, sections of my heart and
my mind and traumas. You know, that's how they should
be used.

Speaker 1 (01:09:43):
Yeah, And there was a sense of peace after a stillness.
This piece here is worth fighting for. I love that.

Speaker 2 (01:09:50):
Yeah. Yeah, they can that they can humble you. I mean, remember,
you know the episode loss of a Loss of a brother. Yeah,
you know, like, it wasn't the ushrooms that did it.
It was the thoughts behind the mushrooms and taking them. Yeah,
you know it was That's what That's what that was.
You know. They will humble you quicker than anything ever. Man. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:10:14):
Yeah, we have one month until we go back to ceremony.

Speaker 2 (01:10:19):
I'm going.

Speaker 1 (01:10:19):
Are you did you book it already?

Speaker 2 (01:10:22):
No?

Speaker 1 (01:10:23):
Oh, you should probably do that.

Speaker 2 (01:10:25):
I'm gonna I'll text you after that.

Speaker 1 (01:10:26):
Okay, we're We actually just talked to the facilitator this
morning because one of the other people went to Costa
Rica with the with us booked. There is currently nine
at the time of this recording, nine people going, and
out of those nine people, five of them are part
of the two Be Better community, which I think is
just fucking epic.

Speaker 2 (01:10:43):
So is it like folks from the discord?

Speaker 1 (01:10:46):
Taylor, Yeah, Taylor's going. Taylor is going in October. Yeah,
I don't I don't know if you would know the names.
I also don't want to put their names out there,
but Taylor is going in October. Buff Bell will be
going in October two. So we've already booked October two.

Speaker 2 (01:11:00):
So She's the baker, in't she That isn't she the
baker buff Bell? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:11:05):
No, Buff Bell is the bodybuilder on the Fritz Baking
is the bakery. We call her Apple Fritter.

Speaker 2 (01:11:13):
Such an awesome community of It's a ragtag group of
so many different, you know, walks of life. It's absolutely amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:11:22):
That community is one of the most beautiful things that
I've ever been a part of.

Speaker 2 (01:11:25):
That you created you you provided the soil for the seed.

Speaker 1 (01:11:30):
Bro I. I yeah, I planted the seed, but the
community took care of the garden. It is growing because
of it.

Speaker 2 (01:11:37):
Yeah, for sure. It's it's a beautiful thing watching everyone
come together on their own naturally, you know, like if
you weren't there, they'd still be chatting.

Speaker 1 (01:11:45):
Oh they are all the time. There's there's always a
conversation going on in the Discord. I it's really cool
though too though, because we've traveled all over the world
with some of these people. Taylor has gone on every
vacation that we've gone on. She's gonna probably come and
stay at our house in October Ceremony for a couple
of weeks because she's doing the band life things. So
that Discord community is building real life relationships, like amazing,

(01:12:08):
incredible relationships.

Speaker 2 (01:12:10):
Yeah. One of my favorites cricket. Yeah, so we read
we read one in her emails will put Yeah. I
imagine her like an actual cricket.

Speaker 1 (01:12:22):
Like Jimity cricket. That's funny.

Speaker 2 (01:12:24):
Yeah. To meet her and she's this big yeah, but
just fullest funk. Yeah. Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:12:30):
He then went to write on I wanted to call
out my wins post separation, since that's just as important
as the loss is no pun intended. I began living again,
faults and all. Little by little, I started to laugh more.
I started to do the things I wanted to, but
she was never interested in it. In March, I got
a puppy. It has helped me get more social, which
I desperately needed. I weigh one hundred and forty eight

(01:12:50):
pounds a six foot tall, I'm probably around seven to
ten percent body fat.

Speaker 2 (01:12:54):
Sixty pounds shredded. Yeah, gotta be gotta be shredded, my friend. Yeah, yep,
feels feels good.

Speaker 1 (01:13:03):
I couldn't imagine being under two hundred pounds. I have
been over two hundred pounds since fifth grade.

Speaker 2 (01:13:08):
Yeah, two hundred pounds. I look emaciated. Man, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:13:11):
The best I've ever The lowest I've been since fifth
grade was two two and I was I was pretty
fucking yoked. Yeah that was That was the cover of
my photo of the book that I wrote. I was
two hundred and two pounds in that picture.

Speaker 2 (01:13:24):
Yeah, I got some heavy ass bones. Man.

Speaker 1 (01:13:27):
Yeah yeah, yeah, he wrote I probably I'm probably around
seventy temper at that body fat. I've planned a cross
country treasure hunt with my kids out to Yellowstone. I've
been a much more patient and attentive dad when my
kids are with me. I've recently been put in a
position to get another promotion, but I probably won't get
that hefty pay bump like last time, but fingers crossed.
I'm in the process, thanks to my dad's side of

(01:13:49):
the family, of looking to buy another house so my
kids will have a stable home for the future. Life
is complicated and beautiful and a strange way grateful for
the things I went through. I'm more confident than I've
ever been. I'm in the best shape of my life.
I'm a fucking awesome dad. I love that, and I

(01:14:12):
love the man that I see in the mirror. That
motherfucker has been through some shit and is still kind
to others. I've never had to be you're gonna make
me cry, Yeah, it is what it is. It happens. Sorry,
all the cool kids are doing it. I've never had
to be on the state aid or food stamps. I've
never lived in another trailer or a place without heat.

(01:14:33):
My bills are paid and I have money in the
savings account. I understand I carry a shit ton of
trauma with me, but it doesn't have to be given
to my children. The last burden I'll carry is stopping
the cycles of abuse that have been on repeat in
my family for generations. I cannot change what's happened, but
I can be a student of my own life and
learn from what I've been through. I've been journaling, painting, hiking,

(01:14:55):
and going to the gym to interact with people because
I'm still remote.

Speaker 2 (01:14:59):
A student of life. Two big, two big things that
stick out to me is he started doing like it
inner reflection, metal meditation, and he started responsibly the utilizing
like earth medicine. You know, listen to things blooming and

(01:15:19):
blossoming like it's It's tremendous, man. I think a lot
of people could benefit from I'm guessing the end of
the story with this fella responsibly.

Speaker 1 (01:15:31):
Responsibly, everything has cycles, though, you know what I mean,
And like you have to go through periods of ugly
growth to get to the point where you can then
teach or provide shade and shelter, you know what I mean.
And that's just the way that it goes. He said
in here, I carry a lot of trauma, but it
doesn't have to be given to my children. It doesn't.
And he also said that in the previous paragraph. Maybe

(01:15:57):
it wasn't the previous paragraph anyways, he said that he's
where he is because of everything that he went through.
I can be a student of my own life and
learn from what I've been through. That's how he worded it. Yeah,
I'm dude, I'm grateful for all my trauma, every ugly
thing that's ever happened to me has made me the
man that I am, and I fucking love who I am.

Speaker 2 (01:16:15):
It takes a long time to get there, dude.

Speaker 1 (01:16:17):
It takes a lot of forgiveness.

Speaker 2 (01:16:19):
Absolutely preach that shit till the day I die, man,
Like it really does. You know? Failure, You know, hardship
is the greatest teacher, you know, It teaches you love, kindness,
respect whenever it's digested correctly right. That in itself is
an art form. It takes a long time to get
to that point. But once you learn to stomach it,

(01:16:40):
once you learn to you know, stare at the reflection
that you see in the mirror and not be consumed
by all of the negatives that you've you've you know,
adorned to this world. You know, when you truly learn
from them, when you step back from them, and whenever
you use them as the catalyst for change, that is
an absolute art form. That is how you make the

(01:17:01):
world a more beautiful place.

Speaker 1 (01:17:02):
Yeah, yep. And that that makes you the mentor, you
know what I mean. That puts you in a place
of elder like you can really help other people who
are going through things that you went through because you
went through them. You know. That's That's one of the
issues that I have with therapy on a personal level.
Like I'm a big advocate for people going to therapy,
but I I can't fuck with a therapist who's only

(01:17:23):
book smart. Yeah, Like, if you've never been baker acted
and never tried to eliminate yourself, you don't have a
way to relate to me. You don't know what I've
been through. You don't know what it feels like. You
have theory, so does the.

Speaker 2 (01:17:36):
Text or does the actual text book? You know, like
therapy session, you know, I want every therapist I have
to be like the therapist from Goodwill Hunting.

Speaker 1 (01:17:45):
There you go, there you go.

Speaker 2 (01:17:46):
I want dude took the time to get to know
you know, what was his name? Will? Yeah, Well, it
took the time to get to know him, personalized the experience,
you know, because he knew there was no getting through
to that person, you know without that, and that's a
that's a beautiful thing, and that that lets the patient

(01:18:07):
know that you you don't just send me out the
door and stop thinking about me. I'm in I'm in
your head. You know. Whenever you leave and when we
go our separate ways, you know, you do spend additional
time thinking about me and how to help me, which
makes you want to be more attentive in those sessions, right.
It makes you want to listen more keenly to what

(01:18:29):
that person is telling you. It makes you value and
respect the things that you're getting from these therapy sessions.
You know, that's how it should be. I've said this
in previous episodes. You know, I've actually had doctors who
I believe were meant to be snowboarders. Yeah, you know,
and it's so evident that that person is. It's not

(01:18:50):
that they have it out for you. It's not like
they want to abandon you know, like you and or whatever.
It's just they don't necessarily think that what you are
going through really is anything more than what they are
going through. You know, it's it's a trauma measure. You know,
that person wants to be on the slopes, not sitting

(01:19:12):
there giving you prescriptions. You know.

Speaker 1 (01:19:15):
Yeah, he said, I've been journaling, painting, hiking, and going
to the gyminar after people. I read that, But my focus,
that's not my focus. Living is my focus and being
the best at I can be for my kids. If
someone comes along to add to that at some point,
cool till then I'm cool with being a thirty four
year old soon to be divorced. Goofy ass Dad. I
don't know if this email was actually in response to

(01:19:37):
that episode that was listed, because I gotta be honest,
I couldn't even tell you what was in that episode
because we he said it was season three, episode eighteen.
We are recorded all the way up to episode thirty
six already of season three, So like that's that was
probably recorded in February or March for me, So like
we're way off on times. But if this was his

(01:20:01):
side of the story, I now feel like I need
to go back and watch that episode to see how
different this is or how it correlates. Yeah, I wish
people would write their emails in together or like, hey,
I'm gonna email the to be better podcasts. Cool, I
will too, and like they send in their stories so
that we can actually break it down, because this would
probably paint a very different picture, the picture of a

(01:20:22):
couple's life than what was read. Yeah, yeah, it's crazy.

Speaker 2 (01:20:28):
I would think it's safe to say that probably at
this point there was no ability to work in tandem.

Speaker 1 (01:20:37):
No, no, I'm sure, I'm sure. I don't think this
was the reality is is that's probably not his ex.
I mean, unless she was a fan of the podcast
and he knew it and that's how he knew the podcast.
But dude, is fucking doing the thing. Man, To be
able to look at yourself in the mirror and like
not despise the person looking back is fucking huge and

(01:20:59):
It takes a whole lot of growth to get there,
especially when you have the trauma that you have as
a child, Like there's a lot of I'm not ever
going to be good enough, and then having a wife
that treated you that way, like it just it just compounds.

Speaker 2 (01:21:11):
And a mother, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:21:13):
Yep, that you were always leon second, third place to.

Speaker 2 (01:21:17):
Yeah, for sure, I'd say that's arguably the worst part.
I mean, that sets in motion your your relations with
all of your future females. You know, people say that
you know, you marry someone that reminds you of your mother,
that's what you know is nurturing. Yeah, this guy, this
guy is lucky he didn't fall in love with someone
that you know, was exactly like his mother because his

(01:21:39):
mom no offense, but sounds like a big old jerk. Yeah.
I'm not going to use any harsher words than that,
you know, because even if my mom sucks someone called
or something nasty, I'd still you know, hey, that's my mamma.

Speaker 1 (01:21:52):
But you know what, that proves the point of what
I said earlier about you being you end up dating
your parents like, you end up following the same footsteps.
So all of this shit that he dealt with with
his mother. He then ended up dealing with it in
his marriage, and now his kids were seeing that. So
it is good that he split all this shit up,
and hopefully when he finds another woman, he ends up

(01:22:13):
finding somebody that treats him the way that my wife
treats me, because I wouldn't, dude, if it wasn't for
my wife being who my wife is, I would have
never gotten in another relationship. Again. I had just stayed single.
I enjoyed my freedom. I enjoyed being able to do
whatever the fuck I wanted to do whenever I wanted
to do it, not having answer to anybody, and I'm
blessed that I don't have to answer now. I'm just like, hey,

(01:22:35):
I kind of want it, And she said, okay, go
do your thing. Be happy, like.

Speaker 2 (01:22:39):
Yeah, Well, the chances of him finding the right person
have gone up because he did a couple things that
are incredibly healthy. You know. He decompartmentalized the things that
were breaking apart his marriage. He tried hard as hell
to bring relief and comfort, you know, to somebody who
pretty much just ultimately checked out. You know. He stayed faithful,

(01:23:02):
you know, and then once that was over, he started
inner reflection work, He started working on himself, He started
finding his strengths again, liking who he is, believing in
himself again, you know, and now he's comfortable being alone
in the meantime, you know, he doesn't need somebody to

(01:23:22):
foster the hole that's been made, you know, arguably, you know,
is a hole even there. You know, I think that
if anything, if he was trying to fill a hole,
he'd realize halfway through that there is no hole and
he's just building on top of an already well you know,
forged heart. You know, all of these things combined, I
think are going to allow him to find the right

(01:23:43):
partner because he knows better and he knows himself. You know,
I agree with you, Aul, beautiful thing man.

Speaker 1 (01:23:50):
I tell people all the time on the podcast that
you should be comfortable being alone and like you should
actually spend time alone before getting into another relationship, because
when you learn who you are on that level and
you are comfortable at that level, you no longer settle
for shit and you're not looking because if you're looking
for a relationship, somebody gives you some attention, you just
go for it because that's what you want. When you're

(01:24:11):
not looking, and you're happy and you're content. You're very,
very selective, and you're not going to just settle for
any you know, fucking Tom Dick or Harry that comes
into your life. You're going to be very intentional with
the way that you live in court and date. It's
it's huge. I wish more people did that. Shit.

Speaker 2 (01:24:28):
This guy seems to have gone ten thousand hours of
suffering mastery, you know what I mean? He has come
out a master of the suffering. Therefore he knows how
to ease the suffering, you know, like mastery is a
is an all around thing. The ten thousand hour rule,
it wasn't it Dolly who made that statement.

Speaker 1 (01:24:47):
I don't remember who actually did the ten thousand hours.
I know that that's a forty hour work week for
five years.

Speaker 2 (01:24:55):
Yeah, it's crazy to me thinking about it. Yeah for sure. Yeah.
So this this guy through at least ten thousand hours
of suffering and hardship and mastered it and came out
and now knows how to not go back. Beautiful round
of applause. Everybody in the comment section give it up
for this guy. What a hero.

Speaker 1 (01:25:15):
That's funny, all right, dude, Well that that puts us
out our episode. So if you guys enjoyed enjoyed this episode,
leave a comment. It doesn't matter what it is. You
can just say I enjoyed the episode if you want.
But it drives the algorithm we're trying to make this
podcast actually, you know, reach and help men. It is
Men's Mental Health Awareness Month. So share this shit with

(01:25:35):
put it on your Facebook page, take it on Twitter.

Speaker 2 (01:25:38):
Absolutely. Man, if you guys could give us a little
leg up, that would be that would be great. There's
a lot of people you know who very much so
know the to be better aspect of it and the
goodwives aspect of it. Voice of the Broken is still
picking up momentum and speed, you know. And we want
to be there for men all over the world, you know,

(01:26:00):
to give them a little bit of positive reinforcement and
some some down negative times. Man, I want their stories
to be heard, and we want people to learn from
the things that we have all been through mutually as
a group.

Speaker 1 (01:26:11):
I mean, that's that's how we're supposed to learn. Though
it's communal, you know what I mean, and we are
we are building that community. So for those of you
guys who don't know, we have a discord. There's a
men's group in that discord as well, private and public.
There's a paid men's group. I just want to give
acknowledgment to my guys right now. We just finished quarter
two and we quarter to as finances and a lot

(01:26:33):
of the guys had did a lot of self audits,
and a couple of the guys have managed to move
so much money around that some of them have opened
businesses and others are expanding their business and you know,
cutting things out and planning vacations and doing the things.
So shout out to my guys this month. You guys
are crushing it. We see you. I'm proud of you guys.

Speaker 2 (01:26:51):
So yeah. So also, we have done our first episode
of the Near Death Diary podcast. It was pretty good.
We've also expanded that into you know, all things death related,
you know, which which has been fun. So we put
out a request, you know, hey, anybody out there got

(01:27:11):
any like paranormal you know, because like like.

Speaker 1 (01:27:16):
What speaking of paranormal, right, I know that you guys
have all the fucking creepy shit up where you live.
How how how willing would you be to allow Peaches
to go on a ghost hunt with you like, if
we bought some like EMF detectors and shit and flew
up there, would you take her on a ghost hunt?

Speaker 2 (01:27:32):
Yeah? Absolutely, So we have the we it's primitive by
all means. We were we were looking. But there's it's
the whole thing all over again in any sense. There's
name brand stuff. I'm currently going through other ghost hunting
channels and trying to find the nice stuff that they
have because I want to be able to There's like, uh,

(01:27:55):
what's the Cody, what's the there's the twins that do
the paranormal ghost hunting stuff. Do you remember their names?
It's yeah, they have some high tech stuff. I'd really
like to get that now. The stuff we have, I mean,
there used to be the school up the road that
me and Cody would go to all the time, and

(01:28:15):
we got some footage like of it. This school has
burned down what two three times like something like that,
with never any foul play or anything. But it's in
the town of Maxahala, which you know is very well
known for having a lot of native burial grounds and
things like that. A lot of people said it was
kind of built on a native burial ground. We go

(01:28:36):
up there and every it's torn down now, but we're
still waiting to go up and just check the grounds.
We get a baby crying through our like electric magnetic
or phenomenon. And every time, and we've when the building
was still up, we would go upstairs because we would
hear it. We go all the way up the corridor.
We'd go into the room. It would get louder and louder,

(01:28:57):
and as soon as we got into that room, it
would be downstairs. Wow, we like, clear as day, baby crying,
you know. So it does pick up some stuff, which
is strange considering it channels through radio stations just rapidly right,
and certain things pop out at you. I've never been
listening to the radio and heard a baby cry and

(01:29:19):
in any way, shape or form, but it happens every
time we go there, and it's it's creepy. But there's
a ton of haunted locations here. Athens is like known
as being the thirteenth most haunted city in the world.
There's a lot of strange phenomenon that happens around. We're
only forty minutes from a point pleasant where the moth

(01:29:41):
Man is, you know, Burroke. Tons of Bigfoot sightings. We've
had bigfoot encounters. You know, if you guys want to
come up, that would be freaking awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:29:51):
Dude, I don't. I don't fuck with the ghost thing.
I'll go come on, Paches.

Speaker 2 (01:29:56):
Peaches always got the gusto man.

Speaker 1 (01:29:58):
Yeah, y dude, fucking upside down, zip lining, jumping off
waterfalls and ship. But when it comes to paranormal stuff
like I can do Serial Killer ship all day long,
ghosts and demons, I don't fuck with that ship.

Speaker 2 (01:30:10):
Bro. Yeah, I mean god, this is a map of
all of the haunted ship. Bro. It's too bright to see,
but just looking at this, I already on this first
little bit of not even opening up this map, I
can clearly see a hundred places. That's great, Like, yeah, it's.

Speaker 1 (01:30:28):
We'll have to put something together because she really wanted
to do that with us, somebody else that we were
working with for a little while and it just never
fell through. And buying buying equipment, like, I'll buy whatever
equipment we need. Don't give a fuck about that. That's
a tax right off in this content. So I'll buy
whatever funck we need to buy and then fly out
there for a weekend.

Speaker 2 (01:30:47):
Yeah, I take I take it. She's an avid believer then,
or is she trying to, like I guess, prove that
it is real.

Speaker 1 (01:30:55):
I don't know what she's doing. That's a PGS question.
She's on her fucking mind. That's the view that you
guys want to go. I hang around and like fucking
haunted anything. I don't want that shit coming home with me. Bro,
last thing I need is to wake up at three
o'clock in the morning to take a piss and have
a four year old and like eighteen fifties garments staring
at me while I'm going to the bathroom.

Speaker 2 (01:31:12):
I'm fucking good, you're painting the picture.

Speaker 1 (01:31:14):
Bro, I know I am.

Speaker 2 (01:31:15):
That thing has no shape or anything that is you,
that is you. Yeah. I've had some serious, serious paranormal experiences.
I'm about to tell a story of the Ouiji board
that we had. Like my mom became wicking or you know,
pegan spirituality whenever I was like eight, and she was

(01:31:37):
trying to get into the witchy stuff. A lot of candles,
a lot of stage, a lot of you know, trying
to get into it. And I was like, oh, well,
we're going to do the Ouiji board. Gave it to
my sister during a slumber party. My sister's right across
the hallway from me, and my buddy Nick come in.
We start taunting it kicked the ponnchette off there. We're like,
you know, cussing at it and stuff. Ponchettes start flipping,

(01:31:59):
bro levitating and shit, wow, my mom freaks out, burns
the thing and like the house was never the same.
I mean, dude, it was nuts how much shit came
out of that thing. And we never closed it. We
saved the ship out of the house over and over again,
but it was like it only made a temporary like
band aid on what was happening there. Yeah, you know,

(01:32:20):
And so I've seen it my whole life and ever
since I was you know, I was on the verge
of death coming back. It's way worse now, I bet
you know. Yeah, we went to the graveyard the other day,
me and Cody did, and he's holding the EMF and
he's like, here, you want to hold the EMF. As
soon as he put it in my hand, the things

(01:32:41):
starts screaming. I'm like, ah, like, I mean, it was
it was something, But yeah, if you guys want to
do that, I think we could use a little bit
of upgraded equipment, you know, and we'll make sure we
don't just use it once. You know, we could do
multiple stuff. Wouldn't that just be fucking hilarious, God, paranormal.

Speaker 1 (01:33:01):
We could do it whenever we wanted to. If we
own the equipment we are, we are our own bosses.
We can leave and do whatever the fuck we want.
We just need to plan it, you know what I mean.
So we have something major planned every month for the
rest of the year. But for us to come up
for a weekend, like we could literally drive up there
in a day, turn around, and drive home and we're done,
Like it would be nothing. Or even fly up. I'm
pretty sure Allegiant flies up there. We could pack a

(01:33:23):
backpack and just fly up for Allegiance and be like
seventy bucks.

Speaker 2 (01:33:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:33:27):
Yeah, So I'll look into flights. You said Athens.

Speaker 2 (01:33:30):
Yeah, Well, I've been Athens, so that's that's only an
hour away from Columbus. But I just flew from Cincinnati
and it was four hundred dollars cheaper to fly to
Texas for that Friday the thirteenth special I did. Okay,
so like it's a big difference, but that's three hours
away from me.

Speaker 1 (01:33:46):
Right, But if I can fly there and just get
a rental car, I'll drive three hours. It's way better
than driving the eighteen that it would take to get there.

Speaker 2 (01:33:52):
Yeah. Absolutely, And that's a beautiful drive because it's right
on the border of Kentucky and parts of West Virginia,
so it's it's like, really really beautif. It's just all
foothills and small mountains the whole time, it's really pretty Well.

Speaker 1 (01:34:05):
I'm gonna send you a link for ceremony when we
get off of here on text. You can send me
some links for things that we should buy for some
paranormal shit, and then I'll start looking into flights to
figure out how to make this happen.

Speaker 2 (01:34:16):
Yeah, sweet, I'm just gonna I'm gonna plug. So we
also have a discord started over here, and we have
a Patreon, and the patreon's doing well. I think we're
up to one hundred and ninety something followers now, you know,
and we're I've been sick for a few days and
I've been working, so I haven't really been putting stuff
up for about a week. But it's going really really well.

(01:34:38):
There's a lot of info that I don't put on
TikTok there and it's also like an archive for all
of our nature stuff on TikTok. It's been going really well.
People really really are enjoying it, you know. And there's
different tiers and which have different content and you could
find that at dead I two tongue seven to four zero.
That's the area code in which we're from. Yeah, you

(01:35:00):
could also check me out on TikTok dead I two
tongues and show us some support and love. There also
health fire Holler for all your herbal supplement needs if
you guys want to check that out. But I hope
you guys enjoyed the episode. Happy Men's Mental Health Awareness
Month to all of you guys out there. Stay strong brothers.

Speaker 1 (01:35:22):
All right, guys, have a good one.

Speaker 2 (01:35:24):
Stop bitching it to fiction

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