A Radical Reset
Our Republic has been converted into a democracy which is just another name for mob rule. The mob is getting what it wants, to paraphrase H.L. Mencken, good and hard. One day soon, the entire edifice is going to collapse under its own weight and what takes its place historically will be tyranny. A Radical Reset is the alternative and the system is called Antipolitism. It calls for a new republic based upon merit and not ambition. No parties, no money in politics, no careers in politics, and only serving the public good.
A Radical Reset
Better the Devil You Know: Why Marriage Perseverance Matters
What happens when a simple question on a first date completely changes your understanding of marriage and family? That's exactly what I experienced years ago when a woman asked me a hypothetical scenario about saving either her or my children from a sinking boat. While the date ended abruptly after my answer, it led to one of the most profound pieces of wisdom my mother ever shared with me—wisdom that transformed how I approached my second marriage and fatherhood.
Drawing from my experiences as both a divorced parent who had primary custody of my children and a man who remarried, I explore the fundamental challenges facing blended families today. The post that sparked this Father's Day reflection—"Men, why are you afraid of women with children?"—misses the deeper truth: it's not fear, but a legitimate concern about relationship priorities. When a man enters a relationship with a single mother, will he ever truly come first?
This question connects to what I believe is the root of many societal problems: the breakdown of the nuclear family through casual divorce. While there are absolutely legitimate reasons to end a marriage (physical violence and serial infidelity top the list), most divorces happen for reasons that pale in comparison to the damage they cause. Research consistently shows that children from intact families, even troubled ones, generally fare better than children from "good" single-parent homes.
When we commit to marriage and bring children into the world, our lives are no longer primarily about our personal fulfillment. The modern expectation that relationships should provide constant emotional and sexual excitement becomes destructive when it leads to families breaking apart. Remember: your children absorb and internalize your unresolved issues through your actions. By staying committed through difficulties rather than seeking greener pastures, you teach them resilience and the true meaning of love.
How might your perspective on marriage change if you embraced the imperfection of real love? What lessons are your relationship choices teaching your children about commitment? Share your thoughts and experiences about navigating these complex family dynamics.
Happy Father's Day. It is Sunday, june the 15th. This is Herbie, your host on Eradical Reset, and today we're not going to talk about politics. Typically, I do not podcast on Sundays, but I am going to do it today because it's Father's Day and because I saw a post on X that just is the right word motivated me or is the right word inspired me to want to do this podcast.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure which, but I saw a post on X and I don't this was from a person that I don't follow, it just showed up on my feed and was, but it was, and it was one of those many, many, many random um posts that you just normally I would just breeze by, and it was. It said something like women, men, why are you afraid of women with children? That's exactly what the post was men, why are you afraid of women with children? Now, there's a lot in that question and it made me decide to, because I at the base of what I think is our entire society's problem, is the breakdown of the nuclear family, and an enormous contributor to the breakdown of the nuclear family is no-fault divorce and the enormous surge in divorces that has led to, together with the birth control pill. So since the invention of the birth control pill in 1961, women could behave like men. Because unless you're irresponsible and I know I'm going to get hate mail for this, I know it. I understand that there's a failure rate with the pill. I understand, but really, unless you're incredibly unlucky and today there are many, many more contraception options and I'm the furthest thing from an expert on female contraception options it's a sad truism that the abortion debate even exists, because there's really no excuse to get pregnant in this day and age, male or female, unless you well, you can't get pregnant if you're a male. What the hell kind of comment was that? Before I started this podcast, I have puffed a little bit of marijuana, so I might do say little things like that.
Speaker 1:Okay, anyway, so you get the drift and together with no-fault divorce, when you could go, it used to be you had to go into court and you had to make a good case for why you were getting divorced. Because there was a time when society understood that the children come first in a marriage and divorce is a bad option for children. Always. Somehow we threw that out the window and almost always, I should say I'll get to that in a minute and we decided that you could get divorced just because you don't like each other's looks or you don't have to give a reason, and the ensuing mess. That's happened.
Speaker 1:And now it's not just in the black community, where it's been the worst, where 80% of black children are born into single-parent families, but it's penetrated every community. Even the Asian community, which is the most family stable community of all, is now into the serious double digits of children being born into single parent families. And that's expanding, I think, as our decadent culture erodes the traditional culture of the Asian family, which is a sad thing. But I'm not an expert on that, god knows, because I'm not Asian and I don't even think Asians like that. I mean digressing slightly, that's a lazy term. I mean they're Japanese and Chinese and Indians and Vietnamese. They're also very, very different people. Lumping everyone together as Asians is like lumping all of the Caucasians together and saying white people, I mean Scandinavians are as different from Italians as Italians are different from Russians. I mean, you know, like we all, we have to get away from this simple simplification of of identity through color thing that we do, or gender or whatever it might be. You know, men think this, woman think this.
Speaker 1:Okay, back to. I'm going to get back on subject. You can tell that I'm in a delightfully loosey-goosey mood, somewhat supplanted and lubricated by the fruits of the weed, anyway. So this brought me back to something that actually happened to me, so I want to bring this all the way around. So I saw this post on X. The post was men, why are you afraid of women with children? And it brought me back to something that really happened to me. Now I'm going to hold myself out here as an expert on marriage, but I'm an expert on marriage because I've destroyed two of them. Okay, in other words, I am a hypocrite, but good decisions come from experience, but experience comes from bad decisions.
Speaker 1:So I think that my unique gift those of you who have followed me for any amount of time if I was being completely is the word unhumble or braggadocious, take your pick about myself. I would say I have a unique gift to self-analyze, see my own flaws, not beat myself up over them, and work to change them. I'm very, very good about that. I've always been good about that. If someone points out something that I've done that points to a flaw even the worst things that I've done I don't go to mitigation, I go to solution. That's just where my head goes. And in order to get the solution, you have to be honest about what you've done, and in order to do that, you have to really think. So that's the context of what we're going to talk about now.
Speaker 1:I am currently single. I am not in a relationship or a marriage. So I don't tell you that in my past I've done this right. I'm telling you that because of all of my mistakes this is a little fatherly advice the one thing I was really really good at. I'll be honest about what I was good at. I'm a really good father. In fact, I might even be a great father, and I'll tell you what. I'll tell you what that entails too, just as so I can define what I.
Speaker 1:My children would tell you that if, if, at any time they had anything going on or they needed me, I was there, and 99% of being a good dad is just showing up. I hate to tell you that. Number one, of course, is be consistent. Number two is don't ever be violent. Number three is it's not about you, but the most important thing.
Speaker 1:Number one should always be you got to show up, you got to be at the games, the recitals, you got to be there. When they're crying, you got to be there. When they're happy, you got to be there always. You always have to be available and you have to be able to provide advice without punishment. They have to always know that. Your children have to know that they can talk to you about anything and as long as they bring it up first, it's a free zone. So if they've done some horrible thing that you haven't found out about, but they come to you because they know it's a horrible thing and they want to find a way out of it or to mitigate it or in some way lessen what they've done, because they face the fact that they've done something wrong, you don't punish them for telling you. You say wow, that was courageous, because courage is the best quality to encourage in your children. Courage to encourage, encourage courage Anyway, you get the drift.
Speaker 1:So now that you have my whole background and my fatherly positions and yada, yada, yada, you know why I'm motivated to do that. It's my deeply ingrained father gene. But it's all based on experience and I'd like to share with you in America how to spare yourselves a lot of heartache and probably save our culture at the same time, if everybody listened to what I'm about to say, because at the root of everything is the breakdown of the nuclear family, and at the root of the breakdown of the nuclear family is divorce. Okay, now that I've brought that all the way around, let's talk about what I was going to really talk about, some specific advice today. So when I saw this post you know, men, why are you afraid of single mothers, single women with children?
Speaker 1:It brought me back to when my mother was dying of cancer and was in the University of Arizona Cancer Center and at one point she was in the hospital for over a year. And I know that sounds absurd in today's context with the way insurance manages the amount of time you spend in the hospital, but I swear to God, you know, may he strike me dead. This is absolutely true. She was in the hospital for something like 13 or 14 months and the reason she was in the hospital that long is she had the original tumor she had was a kidney cancer and it had metastasized to her bones and every time she went to leave the hospital something else would break and then they'd have to do more surgeries and she had Harrington rods in her spine and all kinds of things, and it was a real horror story.
Speaker 1:Now I had a very complicated relationship with my mother that I'm not going to share right now, but not so complicated that I didn't go to visit her when she was in the hospital, you know, dying of cancer, and she was a young woman and my mother died at the age of 50. So this gives you some context. I'm 68 today. So this is. My mother died in 1986. So this is quite some time ago that I learned this lesson and it was a great lesson for life, and I'll explain why, you know, after I share the lesson with you that relates to the post and bring this whole thing together from all the meandering that I'm doing. Sorry about that, okay, well, I'm not really sorry about that. Either you like this about me or you don't. And if you do, if you like the reason, the way I tell stories and weave them in, share this podcast, and if you don't like it, turn it off, because that's who I am, all right, so let's just keep going down the road.
Speaker 1:So my mother was in the hospital and I had a date, so I had been in a bank earlier that week. I think it was Wells Fargo, and I don't think it's important, but I just happened to remember that from back in the day and or was it even? Yeah, it was Wells Fargo, or was it First Interstate, it doesn't matter. Why is my mind going there Anyway? So I had met a young woman in the lobby and I'm not a shy person and we got into a little conversation and blah, blah, blah and I asked her out on a date and it turned out she was a former Miss Arizona and she was a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful young woman and I was enamored with her and I was very excited about my date. So the date had come, we went out on the date and she asked me it was the shortest date I think I've ever been on and she asked me what I thought was a really bizarre question. And here was the question. So I pick her up. She lived in a town home in central Tucson. I lived in Tucson, arizona at the time. I picked her up. We went out to the restaurant. We sit down, you know, we order our drinks or our wine, I forget what it was and we sat down and we're having a little talk and she says to me let me ask you a question Because I never oh a little context here I had custody of my children from the first marriage, from my first marriage.
Speaker 1:So I'm going to talk a little bit about blended families. This is why I know about I have the unique experience among men, fairly unique experience of I've been the one that ended up with the children. So my first wife was an addict. She died of an overdose later. It's a long, sad story, but to make a long story short, I ended up with custody of my children. So I was the single parent with children, and so I got to cope with a lot of things that women have to cope with, including the dating situation, because I always made it clear that I had children so that nobody had any misconceptions and lots of women thought that was in fact, one of the unfair advantages that single fathers have. The single mothers don't have is, for some reason and I think it's biological women find men who have custody of their children and do a good job of it unbelievably attractive. I never had a problem getting it. I know it's just the opposite for women and I think it has to do with the nurturing thing and estrogen versus testosterone, but we'll get into more of that a little bit later. So, but I was a single parent, so she knew about my kids.
Speaker 1:So we sat down and the question she asked me the bizarro what I thought was a bizarro question was if I was in a rowboat? This is her speaking. If I was in a rowboat with your children and the rowboat overturned and you could only save me or your children, who would you save? Oh, and if we were married? That was the other thing. If we got married and I was in a rowboat with your children and the rowboat overturned now, this is not a first date, mind you. This is what I still think. That's bizarre. This is not a first-aid question, but maybe it is. I don't know. You'll decide for yourself. Who would I save? And my answer was, instinctively I'd save the children. You know, my God, the children, they're my children. Plus, they have their whole lives ahead of them and you know she's more grown up. I mean, there are a million ways you can justify this in your mind. Yeah, she said to me upon my response date's over, take me home. True story. This is an absolutely true story. So I take her back. I'm mystified by this. We don't say three words to each other on the way back. It was one of the most uncomfortable rides ever. I leave her off. We don't even shake hands Off, she goes. That's the end of Miss Arizona. I'm thinking to myself what a bitch.
Speaker 1:As I'm driving down the street and it just so happens, also in central Tucson, roughly, is the University of Arizona Cancer Center, which is part of the hospital. It's a terrific hospital. If you're ever in Tucson, god forbid if you're sick Excellent hospital. So anyway, I go to my mom's room. It's still visiting hours, my God, the sun isn't even down. I think it was summertime, so the sun goes down around 8 o'clock and I think I had picked her up at 7. I had gotten rid of her by 7.30, and I was at my mother's room before 8, and visiting hours, I think, went to 9 or something like that. So anyway, I thought I'd go to visit my mom because I had nothing else to do and I had a babysitter, and those of you who are single parents know if you have a babysitter on the night out, that's absolutely great. So you might as well go do something else, not just waste the time.
Speaker 1:So I went to see my mom and she was happy to see me, of course, and they tell her this whole story and what the question was. And my mother said to me it was the wisest advice she ever gave me. She said you do understand the question she asked you, don't you? And I said, no, I mean, what's to understand? It was an idiotic question. She said, well, it was inartful. I love that word. It was inartful. That's what my mother, the reason I speak the way I speak and I use a lot of words that really it sounds like I'm trying to be pretentious, but I really use them in my day-to-day speech is that my mother spoke this way and I just picked it up. Plus, we're a family of readers, and so that's it. That explains that.
Speaker 1:So, anyway, so my mother rephrased the question. She said what she was really asking you was, if you got married, who would come first? Of course she's not going to be in a rowboat with your children. Of course the rowboat's not going to overturn. Of course you're not going to be faced with a decision of which one are you going to save? The question was really, which one was going to come first? And she said to me, looked me right in the eye and she said and, herbie, if you ever get married again, if your wife doesn't, if you can't say to yourself honestly your wife comes first, don't get married.
Speaker 1:And I never forgot that lesson. It registered with me right away and it's become, it is and still is part of my code of life. So when I got married to Terry, my second wife, and I had my two children, who were by this. I didn't get married right away. I was a single parent for six years and Terry and I dated for a substantial portion of that time and they knew Terry very, very well, but they and, by the way, I never brought women home until I knew it was going to be the one. So another little side note those of you who are single parents don't bring men and women home. Depending if you're a mom or a dad is why I'm saying this or gay or straight for that matter. Just don't bring sexual partners home.
Speaker 1:Okay, wait until you're either married the second time or certainly you're engaged, you know, because it's a horrible life lesson to wear your children. You know the revolving and you can sit there and justify that any way you want, but you're full of shit. Okay, I'm sorry. There are boundaries to good behavior. Think of them as fences and you don't just kick them over before asking yourself why is that fence there? Is it there to protect me or to keep me, you know, like caged in? And almost always that fence is there to protect you. So, before you go kicking down every fence, think about it for a minute. And one of those fences when it comes to your children because remember this, and this is a theme I'm going to return to your children are the receptacles of all your unresolved issues. When you download into them that you're basically a male or female slut, that is what they're going to pick up in their own life. Okay, so anyway, I digress Back on subject.
Speaker 1:So Terry and I were getting married, it was 1989. Back on subject. So terry and I were getting married, it was 1989. Um, our anniversary was tax day, april the 15th, which we did purposely. Not only did it fall on a weekend, which was very convenient, but it would all, but it also um would be easy to remember. So, and weirdly enough, it's also the birthday of my, of my puppy pepper, my airdale terrier, who I love more than anything in this world these days. Well, not more anything, but she's certainly right up there touching the top of the list, anyway.
Speaker 1:So, anyway, when I married Terry, I sat down. So my daughter Lindsay who was the maid of honor in the wedding, by the way, was at the time. Let's see, this is 1989. She was born in 1978. So she was 13. And John was 11. John was my best man, my son Jonathan, and so you should have seen this. We were in matching tuxedos, it was so cute. And our wedding pictures digressing. There's a shot with me and my son walking down a hallway in Ventana Canyon Resort in Tucson, arizona. Anyway, it won a bunch of awards for the photographer. His name was John Wolfe. It was just a great picture and it was really a great wedding. But anyway, I don't mean to share with you how fun the wedding was, but it was a fun wedding and it was fun for so many reasons.
Speaker 1:Okay, I got to digress and tell you one quick story, so I'll get back to it. Don't worry, I'm not going to forget where I am, but my, my wife, terry, is, was, is. She's not dead. We're actually very good friends. She's of Scandinavian descent, so, um, and she comes, you know, like from the Knudsen's. That's that kind of, you know, norwegian. So they're very unemotional people, I mean really they're. They're very stoic and, um, they're very stoic and there's certain stereotypes that are true and that's one of them. You know, the saying in their family was Knudsen's don't cry, you know, and they really don't. I've been at funerals with Knudsen's that don't cry.
Speaker 1:I was the one sobbing like an idiot, and of course, I turned Terry into a sobbing idiot too, which she blames me for to this day, but I feel it's one of my positive contributions to her life. So what can I say? So, anyway, my mother-in-law for whatever reason, I had very little contact with my future mother-in-law until after I got married. By the way, she's wonderful, she's alive to this day. She's in her late 90s. God bless you, doris. And you know she's a wonderful, wonderful woman who I think the world of and I learned a lot about Christianity from, and she's a terrific person. So anyway, doris, jewish men I'm Jewish, so you couldn't be more opposite than Scandinavian, you know, where Scandinavians barely touch each other.
Speaker 1:Jews are very physically affectionate people and one of the things that just my mother-in-law was so funny, she actually went to Terry and asked her if she was sure I wasn't gay, because Jewish men, as those of you who know Jews know will hug and occasionally kiss each other. That are friends and family, and family will kiss each other on the lips. So, like men, we don't have the body shell around you know we anyway, at least not in my family. So it was just kind of funny. So anyway, back on track.
Speaker 1:Before I got married to Terry, I sat down with John and Lindsay and I said here's the deal. I'm marrying Terry and, from this point forward, love you though I do, and I would take a bullet for you and sacrifice my own life for you and give you every organ in my body if you needed it. Understand how much I love you, but Terry will always come first. I will never take your side in an argument with Terry. I'm just going to tell you that right now. No matter, even if I think you're right, you're going to be wrong. I will never, ever, ever take your side. And I'm telling you this now so that you understand, going in, when I never take your side, you don't take this personally. This is because I'd like this marriage to work. You don't understand that now, but understand what I'm just telling you. That's it. And, of course, like all kids after we got married, they tested that theory and they failed that test over and over and over again because I never, ever, ever once took the side of the kids against Terry, and that's extremely important.
Speaker 1:And I have found over the years that, while I was able to do that, a lot of that has to do with my maleness and it's very unusual that a woman can do that, what normally happens in a relationship with and now I'm revolving back to the post on X this Morning, the advice from my mother and the advice I'm giving you out there, single moms in particular, who I'm speaking to. I'm going to come to a piece of advice in a minute. But the reason that men aren't afraid of you, men just want to come first, because it's only reasonable that within a relationship with someone that you're romantically involved with that, you should come first when you have that kind of intimacy involved with that. You should come first when you have that kind of intimacy. And if you don't, if you're not going to come first, and it's very hard, and understandably so, for a woman to take your side against her own children, don't get involved. And since the there are many exceptions and I know that you know, you can all send me letters about how you had a really great set and I had a very successful second marriage too, but it's because I enforced this rule and I had a very successful second marriage too, but it's because I enforced this rule. Okay, I know that's why we had a success. I fucked it up, but it had nothing to do with the foundations of our marriage. It had to do with my own imperfections, which is not really relevant to this discussion, but I really will discuss it with you some other time. But the bottom line is that's why men aren't dating you, women with children. So now we're going to come to the advice Don't get divorced. Okay, one of the things society could do. I'm going to tell you you're going to regret it If you're in a relationship now.
Speaker 1:Now, with here's the exceptions, if I'm speaking to women now, if the man has struck you even once, you are completely justified to get out of that relationship. Physical violence, role model to your children, let alone inflicted upon you, is beyond poisonous and it's criminal and you should get out of there, no matter what he says, no matter how he apologizes. You know, I'll tell you what I taught my children years and years and years ago, which is when you're dating somebody. When we first go out and we date, we're all on party manners, we all are putting on our best face. We can't help it. It's not that we're lying or we're being false. We're just putting forward the best version of ourselves, as we wish we were. But sooner or later, the real person comes squeaking out, and the trick is to believe it. That's what I used to always tell my kids.
Speaker 1:One day, when you're having an argument or in just a weird random moment, this person is going to say or do something that's going to strike you as way out of character for the person that you think you know. And that's the real person right there. The trick is, it's that anomaly. That's the real person, not the facade that you've been dating all along. You don't get to see behind that until you become not just sexually intimate but emotionally intimate, which is two completely different things, unfortunately. But I could go on for hours about that too.
Speaker 1:So, anyway, the bottom line so the exception is, of course, you should be able to get divorced immediately and you should get the hell out of there immediately and don't forgive him and don't give him second chances, because that's the real guy. If a man will strike a woman out, get out of there, okay. That's number one. Number two if he's um beating your children, now, there's an enormous difference between beating and spanking okay. A spanking on the butt through a diaper when they're a toddler to get their attention, is not a beating. Okay. A clenched fist slugging them, that's a beating. Okay. Do we all get that? Taking off a belt and whacking the shit out of them uncontrollably? I've been the subject of this. This is how I know this. That's a beating. Okay. But those are the oh and that's it. Those are the exceptions.
Speaker 1:Now, you might have been married to an asshole that verbally occasionally denigrates you. You shouldn't put up with that shit. You should give it to him right back. You should have a good argument over it, but that's not grounds for divorce. You might have a husband or a wife, but I'm speaking to women. I'm going to stick with this perspective. He might be an asshole. He might be arrogant, oh.
Speaker 1:The other exception is serial cheating. If he's made a mistake and you found out about it and it's genuinely a mistake, forgive him. I don't know what you know. Men cheat for two reasons. One is they're just men and they find themselves like I know this is going to seem cliche, but they're on a business trip and they just fuck up. They get a little drunk in the hotel bar and there's a woman there who's it's just, it's the wrong woman at the wrong place at the wrong time and lubricated by alcohol, he just fucks up and he's so overcome by guilt he doesn't even make an attempt to cover it up and you discover it. You know there's always a tell or he just acts so guilty. This is not grounds for divorce. You know, pistol, whip the shit out of him, deny him sex for a while, but absolutely positively, don't get divorced over it. However, if you're married to a hound dog who's a compulsive cheater because he's completely out of control, that's horrible role modeling for your daughters, or your sons for that matter, that's also grounds for divorce. But outside of these extreme behaviors, which, thank God, are a minority they're a significant minority, particularly the serial cheater type, but it's still a relatively tiny minority there is no other grounds for divorce Not getting along.
Speaker 1:You're not attracted, you don't feel sexually attracted, you have a brother-sister relationship. I know all this bullshit. I've said all these things in the past. They don't understand me. I feel ignored. I'm probably repeating myself at this point. We all know all the reasons why people you know he's such an asshole, blah, blah, blah. And then you start telling yourself my kids are, and we're fighting all the time. That's the other one. We're fighting all the time and the kids will be better off if they're not in a house where there's all this fighting going on. That's bullshit Fact. Check me on this. There are a gajillion and that's not a real number. I just don't know the real number, but there are a myriad let's use that word of studies on this subject that are well done and by people who know what they're talking about, and the results are consistent Children, even from a messed up, lousy marriage, come out better than children from a quote-unquote good single mother.
Speaker 1:Now, look, as soon as I say that I know that there are a lot of you single mothers that are good. The way you can pull off a single parenting thing is if the grandfather or an uncle is willing to step up and fill the role as the father. That's the best way. Or you have a spectacularly good relationship with your ex okay, which is another subject for another day. That was what happened with us and I have a. I have had and have a really good relationship with my ex, and that took a special effort, but that's another talk for another day.
Speaker 1:If I want to talk to you about your happiness, ladies, you want to be happy in the long term. All of these things that are bothering you is just part of life, of the sexual you know. Let's be honest, you know's hard. You're not going to be a teenage horned dog forever. That feeling that you're seeking and I'm now going to rake your children through the coals Again. I repeat, your children are the receptacles of all of your unresolved issues. Your need to be reaffirmed through constant sexual excitement is not the thing to be downloading into your children.
Speaker 1:I like sex as much as the next person, but in a marriage it becomes part of the marriage, not the entire marriage. Okay, I mean a sexless marriage is a miserable thing and still it's not grounds for divorce, but it's absolutely. You got to drag your spouse in to get some help about this. I mean you know like you got to drag your spouse in to get some help about this. I mean you know like you got to be having some sex. But it's the point I'm telling you it's not going to be every day, like like teenagers. You know, if you're getting a little nookie once a week, you're in an average marriage. That's kind of what it is, you know, sometimes even once a month. But you know, if it gets into more than that then you really want to see what's the problem. But you know, like I don't want to get too much into therapy, I'm just telling you, ladies, your need for attention within the context of a marriage where your husband's ignoring you calls for you to work on your husband and slap him across the face metaphorically to make him pay attention.
Speaker 1:But it does not mean you get divorced or go off. And this is why women have affairs is because they feel they're being ignored by and large. This is the reason why and they find someone who's not ignoring them, but that's, that's pie in the sky and you are destroying the lives of your children. The moment that you get married and say I do, and then you become pregnant, that's it. It's not about you anymore, it's about the children and it's. But in the long term it is about you, because the only way you're going to really be happy is to stay better the devil, you know.
Speaker 1:You know it's not a lot different that when I was an employer. I'm not sure how relevant this is, I'll just share it. When I was an employer, my attitude before I would fire somebody, I would give them a lot of rope and a lot of warnings, because it's always better the devil, you know. You know as messed up as an employee might be, they might have problems with reliability or work product or whatever it might be. Most of those things are fixable and you're better off spending time fixing that with the existing employee than firing them, because that creates a whole new set of unknown problems, because human beings are not robots and you're going to inherit a set of problems and they're going to be just different problems, not better problems.
Speaker 1:And that's the problem with getting from a woman's point of view, with seeking, you know, divorcing because she's unhappy. I'm deeply unhappy and the kids see me unhappy and it's not good for them to see me. That's all bullshit, bullshit. Okay, better than unhappiness is part of life. Better they learned to cope with it. Better they use you as a contrast to how to have a happier marriage later.
Speaker 1:But the overall overarching um role modeling you're doing is that you've hung in there even though you're unhappy. That message is so much better than I quit because I was unhappy and went off and chased Nookie elsewhere and then either never got remarried again or got into shitty second and third and fourth marriages. Because I forgot the part where it doesn't work, particularly for women in a second marriage, 99% of the time. Sorry, it's true. That's the thought I'm leaving you with. Stay married, it's good for you, it's good for your children, it's good for society. It's just for you, it's good for your children, it's good for society, it's just good.
Speaker 1:That doesn't mean it doesn't have its painful, horrible moments. That's not what good means. The enemy of good is perfect. It's not perfect. It's as good as life is ever going to give you, and the moment you embrace that, you can become happy because you stop having expectations that life can be a television show, 1990s sitcom, where everything turns out at the end. Okay, my friends, that's it. That's the end of my Father's Day rant. Have a happy Father's Day yourself. Don't forget to pick up a copy of Radical Reset, the Manifesto of Antipolitism, available to you at Amazon on Kindle, paperback or hardcover. You take your pick, it's what comes next. Thank you for joining me. I'm Herbie, and have a beautiful rest of your day. God bless you and God bless America.