If I Speak - 48: Is it time to cut off my lying dad?

Episode Date: January 21, 2025

Ash and Moya tackle a mailbag full of dilemmas, including a committed couple arguing over money, a daughter considering cutting off her dad, and a student struggling to overcome the trauma of rape. Plus: Ash blushes her way through your emails about gay porn. CW: suicide, rape. CW: suicide, rape Resources: https://thesurvivorstrust.org/support-in-your-area/ Email your dilemmas […]

Hello! You've willingly chosen to spend an hour or so listening to if I speak and to that I can only say respect I'm well Othie McLean and with me is the indomitable. Have I said that right? Indomitable, it's indomitable, isn't it? I always want to say that word but it's one of my many my collection of words that I can't pronounce properly indomitable ash Sarker ash Wait, I need to ask you something. Rome, tell us. Oh my god. It was the best holiday of my whole life and I'm not even joking or exaggerating.

So I went to Rome when I was like eight or nine and obviously thought it was fucking great because I was a child, all the food is exactly to a child's palette like it's cheesy and it's starchy and then there's all this like Roman history stuff and so I was like well it can't be that good because I'm now 32 no eight-year-old Ash was on the money it was so so great I couldn't possibly tell you all the things which were so good so I'm just gonna do like a really, really quick greatest hits. One potato pizza. Ooh, so good. It's very Roman.

It's very Roman. Is it? Yeah, it's like, it's a Rome thing. Like it's a Cucina a la Romana thing. So, so good. Sandwiches banging, pastas banging, Sistine Chapel, believe the hype. No, I told you, papal apartments over Sistine Chapel.

I thought some of the papal apartments were cool. The Borgia apartment not actually that great because there wasn't enough interesting Borgia stuff in there. Which is the one with the beautiful bright blue ceiling? Oh, I think maybe that's next to or near like the Raphael rooms. Yeah, maybe, I don't know. I'm not as versed in the details. I was just like, ceiling.

I like ceiling. The Raphael rooms are amazing, but also we got to the Sistine Chapel really early because I was like, I don't want to be packed in like a sardine and I want to be able to see it. And that was incredible. But also the thing which like I must convey to our listeners is that Italian men are the funniest people on the planet. And they also don't really know how funny they are. And it just like all the time just like all the time like they'd be there

and they're like beautiful scarves like having some kind of meltdown about something and gesticulating and I thought that was great but the best thing that I saw and like you know when something makes you laugh so much you genuinely have to have a sit down like I had to like sit down because I was wheezing and me and my partner were walking up this sort of like gentle hill towards the Villa Borghese, which is like a sort of art gallery and like Renaissance beautiful house.

And as we're walking up, walking towards us, so about to come down the hill, was this young guy, either his sister or his girlfriend, and I think his granddad who was in a wheelchair and he was pushing along the wheelchair. And at the top of the hill, he just let his intrusive thought win and let go. Like it wasn't an accident, but it also clearly hadn't been agreed with the granddad either. And like he let go and obviously like granddad starts like zooming down the hill

and then he starts like flapping and running after it. zooming down the hill and then he starts like flapping and running after it. And the thing which finished me off is that like granddad's eyes like met my partner's eyes and he did the sort of like very serene look like, I guess this is how I go. I was in pieces like I just didn't know how to be any more after that. Like I needed like a good like 10 or 15 minutes to just like I just didn't know how to be anymore after that. I needed like a good 10 or 15 minutes

to just like cackle my little head off. So yeah, Rome, best holiday ever. That's some good shit. That's some good shit, okay. Maybe we should do a Rome guide to some of our special ones in the future. When it gets the holiday season, we can do a trips episode.

Yeah, and also tell maybe best holiday stories. Because I think I've got one which I've never told on the pod before. But I have one I can't tell. I have a really good one that I can't tell. We need to have like a truth serum episode where all the things are like, oh, this is a great story, but I can't tell it. We like inject it into your neck and then you ruin your life. Let's if we get more money, then yeah, I'll sell out.

I don't care. OK, right. Go to Navarra Media dot com slash support. Yeah, Moja's awful stories. And you have to attach a note to the donation or the support. You have to say this is for if I speak and it's for the Moja stories. Every 100 quid gets you closer to one of my deep dark secrets. Okay. Right.

We aren't in spring, but our Dilemmas inbox is absolutely bursting the seams, so today we thought we would do another clear out. I don't want peace. I want problems. You want peace, you want problems. Um, but Ash, I believe you have some feedback that we've received. Yes. So thank you to everyone who emailed us after our Porn is Everywhere episode to give us some insight into the experiences of gay men and porn. The responses were generous, they were open and they were eye-opening.

Here's a good summary email we received from a long-time listener and first-time emailer. Okay, here goes. In your last episode, Porn is Everywhere, you asked listeners to reach out with their impressions on what the media ecosystem of gay porn is and how it compares to your own impressions of pornography in hetero land.

With the caveat that the internet is a big place filled with every kind of content for every niche, it is, at least my impression, that the kind of gonzo porn featuring sex tinged with violence or sex so aggressive as to be visibly painful doesn't predominate in gay land. Again, this is just my impression, but I think this was a much bigger thing 20 years ago in studio-produced content trying to mirror the straight porn that was often being produced by the same studio. Where it still exists, it is still being pumped out by these studios. Today I would say the predominant theme is self-produced amateur porn.

A typical video might be a recording of a previous live cam show featuring a young couple having pretty normal vanilla sex. A fairly usual scene might progress through making out, manual stimulation, fellatio, opening up your partner with digital penetration and analingus followed by intercourse but often pausing at the moment of climax to visually come outside your partner for the benefit of viewers. Of course it had to be me reading out this one. I held it together without blushing or skorking and I just want a medal for that. The general takeaway is a feeling that the folks involved just had a good time. That's not to say that there aren't problematic cultural elements or tropes being replicated

in gay porn, the two biggest being the tricked, coerced or gay-for-pay straight guy and the figure of the twink and the eroticisation of young men. In both cases, there's something much deeper than just porn going on. Of course, we want men who don't want us, and as for the presentation of youth as a sexual ideal, we should probably take that up with the Greeks or the Persians because Achilles was definitely a twink. Was Achilles a twink? Discuss. I think Patroclus. Oh, how the fuck? Oh, Patroclus.

Patroclus. Patroclus was the twink, surely. Um... I... Or they both mask for mask. I think that maybe it was mask for mask, if I'm honest, because also the reason why Patroclus encounters Achilles for the first time is that he's sent to the court of Achilles' father because he accidentally kills a boy after a game of knuckle bones.

I guess he was able to dress in the armor of Achilles and while they thought it was Achilles, so it must be a bit mask, mask. Maybe they were both Twinks. Yeah, the eroticization is like the mirroring of each other. I just don't think they're Twinks. Yeah, but maybe that's wrong. Write in if you think Achilles was a Twink. Right, carry on.

A Trink. A Trink. New categorization just dropped. We had Twinks, now we have trinks. Okay. We've got trinks. I guess this segues me into the question of, or the provocation, I would make back to you about straight porn.

How much of the edge of violence, aggression and objectification that you're experiencing in straight porn do you think is a product of the medium? And how much do you think this is actually just reflecting the desires of the men and boys who are consuming it? Is straight porn quite misogynistic because men are just quite misogynistic. I just want to come back on that. I don't think it reflects the desires. I think it reflects a vein of misogyny. But I think the idea that like men and boys inherently have this desire that they're born with, like of, you know, almost like original sin like to be violent against women. I don't

think that's true. And I think it's an unhelp way to think. I think misogyny is so baked in from day one that it can feel like that at times. And you know, women, we have this, we have it too, but it's expressed in different ways because of the different positions of power we sit in. But I don't think it's an inherent desire. I think everyone has the desire to maybe enact pain or violence on someone somewhere deep down.

But the point of like socialization is that that's usually tamped down. That's not usually allowable. But the point of socialization is that that's usually tamped down, that's not usually allowable. But when it comes to misogyny, it is. There's an outlet for that. So it's shaped into that form. Do you get what I'm saying? It's shaped into that mold. Yeah, 100%.

I agree with you. I think it reflects a vein of misogyny. And also, if it was the case that that was just what all men wanted deep down, it would sort of mean that that was what most sex was like. Yeah. And I think that while sex is shaped by porn, sex is also shaped by misogyny.

I think that if I was to go downstairs right now and say to my partner, right, throw me out a window, he'd be like, I don't want to do that. Yeah. Yeah, if that was really reflecting the desire, I think men would be a lot happier because they'd be like, then rather than feeling like disconnected from sex

and the partners they're having, well, men you see with women, but the partners they're having sex with. Anyway, onto the next. We also heard from a special one who wrote in about their relationship with Grindr, which they said blurs the line between porn and personal relationships. The listeners said that they noticed that a lot of guys have alt Twitter accounts linked to Grindr

profiles and that these are full of the amateur porn mentioned in the previous email from the special one. There is a massive community out there and because they're all gay they're all extremely interconnected as potential content collaborators. Many of them are also immensely talented photographers and produce their own porn as an art project. Something about the whole dynamic feels realer and more ethical than viewing produced porn where actors have no control or ownership over videos and storylines seem implausible. The interactions between accounts are also enjoyable, so start to see the personal and professional relationships between creators who make contact with one another.

However, this content is all very short form and instant, and the medium of Twitter encourages scrolling and moving on to the next thing quickly to continue gooning. I found myself fast-forwarding videos to get to the cum shot, or just mindlessly scrolling through someone's media tab, hungry for new content, skipping underwear pics and ass pics in favour of dick pics. The saturation of beautiful bodies and cocks has desensitised me to need to find more,

faster and in more picturesque surroundings such as forests, lakes and instagrammable bedrooms. This has also definitely affected my relationship with Grindr, as I quite often scroll and refresh Grindr searching around for profiles with Twitter links so that I have a fresh archive of content to look through. I've even found people I know from my personal life with an alt that I can scroll through, meaning next time I see them I need to pretend I haven't seen their whole. This can also mean I view Grindr no longer as a means to meeting people for dates or

hookups because I usually can't be asked, but as a means to see pornographic images of people. If I've had a sexy chat with someone that results in them sending me nudes, I can always go back to that chat and look at those photos when I'm horny. Everyone on there is a potential source of porn, either instantly on Twitter or later when we send nudes." Also, I do remember seeing a bit more from this email and I think they said or suggested that this was maybe making it difficult for them to form relationships. And they found it hard to maintain a sort of, medium to long-term connection with somebody.

It was really interesting email. It's funny, because that email then made me remember that I actually know several gays or people who, as this email I wrote in, so they present as a gay man, but they're actually non-binary, who do have alt accounts. And I actually think it's such an interesting relationship

because it's not inherently a negative thing. Like having that ability to express your sexuality and having this community where it's like, okay, you know what, I can have like my professional life, my personal life, and then I have this whole community where if you want to opt in, it's there, and you know it's there, and I can like be really explicit with my sexuality and have this back and forth.

And it's not going to affect the rest of my life. I think that that within the gay community is actually such a great, I guess, vein. I don't want to use the vein again. What's the fucking word? It's such a great practice. But because it's so digitized, because it can become rote, that's where the sort of like, everything's good in moderation, isn't it? It's all about moderation.

But yeah, I thought that that's like, yeah, you know, I remember one time when I posted a picture of myself in like underwear on Instagram years back, I had everyone from my colleagues to like my mom tell me I'd never get a job. Because, and it wasn't even like that sexy, it was literally just a picture of me in like underwear. And yeah, there is, it is a sex, like it's a sexy image, but it was't even like that sexy, it was literally just a picture of me in underwear. And yeah, it's a sexy image,

but it was not like explicitly sexual, it was really tame, it was just like a picture. But it's like, if I post a picture of myself that's slightly erotic, then it instantly undermines everything else about my professional work, who I am, I'm reduced to like a sex object. But I know gay men who can put their cocks online

and people they work with will know about it. And it doesn't affect their life. And I'm sure that it does affect some people's, but it's a lot more acceptance of that as a practice. And I thought that was quite freeing. Is that a gay thing or a misogyny thing? Well, I think it's a misogyny thing. I think it's absolutely a misogyny thing.

But the fact is within the gay world, there's like, there's more of that acceptance. And I wonder what it's like in like, the world for queer women as well. Like, you're in that community, and you're deep within that community. Is that more accepted? Or is it something that will still come back to bite you in the ass? Like, just think, just thoughts again, please write and tell us we are, we don't know everything and we'd like to.

Anyway, there's a... Gays, please write in, tell us we are, we don't know everything and we'd like to. Anyway, there's a gaze, please explain your lives to us. We need to keep getting, we need to keep getting guests on who can actually speak to this. So any suggestions for guests you'd like to hear us talk to also send in. We're, we're ready to dominate this year. We want to take this harder, better, faster, stronger. We love this podcast so much and we love you guys. So let's take it up a lot notch. And speaking of you guys,

I had to add this comment from another special one who said, I've noticed as the porn we consume as a society has got more extreme, our mainstream films have got significantly less sexy. I was shocked earlier this year when Challengers, a movie they've put in the, they've rendered the title in the correct capital. So I know the special ones on a level with me, a movie featuring two, two in brackets, fully clothed kissing scenes between leads with zero sexual

chemistry was touted as the sexy hot movie of the year. Glenn Powell being one of our major leading men is another alarming manifestation of this. I don't know why this is exactly, but he is the most PG-13 rated man who has ever existed. This man has never fucked anyone but you. Also an utterly sexless movie. We used to have Richard Gere and Patrick Swayze. We used to have yearning in caps. This special one, bell me up.

We're going to be friends. Your opinions are the same me up, we're gonna be friends. Your opinions are the same as mine, except when it comes to challenges and baby girl. Cause they wrote in and they really liked baby girl. And they said that was very sexy. And they thought challenges as they've written here, wasn't very sexy. I actually think this is based on personal preference.

Cause I had friends who were like, baby girl hit every spot. Yes, call me a good girl. Yes, you know, make me drink the milk. Whereas I was like challenges. Zendaya is like a repressed type one who literally does hate talk as foreplay. Okay, we're speaking my language. But I was thinking challenges being like, and then in baby girl, I was just, I just kind of left it dry as the phrase goes. So I think that is a more of a personal preference thing, but everything else you said.

Richard Gere, Patrick Swayze. They don't make him like that anymore. They don't. Patrick Swayze taking off Baby's shirt as they dance to Cry To Me. What a scene. It's so tame and yet so sexy, so awesome. me. What a scene. It's so tame and yet so sexy, so awesome, directed by a woman.

On New Year's Eve, I was with some friends and we were doing like in or out for 2025 and obviously just getting drunker and drunker. So it just became screaming in or out whenever anyone like did anything or said anything. Like it became like more and more unhinged. But one of my friends said this specifically 2025, yearning in.

Yeah, okay, we have to go do some dynamics in a minute, but I have so many thoughts on this. I think love is coming back. I think last year we reached a peak of dissatisfaction. There has been a vibe shift. People are fed up with the status quo of this disconnection of the fact that they have to scroll through the apps

again and again. And I think this year is a foundational year for rebuilding relations that have broken down. Let me arrange your marriage. Oh my God, I want this to be, if I speak service provision, let me arrange your marriage. Well, I, like if we were all back living in the village in like pre-modern times, I'd be a matchmaker. That would be my job.

But shall we move on? I think same. I do want to move on, but one more thing. People have been asking us to do a connections event because I was going to do one for my next club night, but I can't because the venue has changed. And people have been writing in, straight men as well, have been writing in to me over Instagram and said, we need a connections event and I think it should be attached to next If I Speak live show.

Let's let's try and make this happen. Yeah, let's try and make this happen. Anyway, anyway, right. Down to business. Why don't you read out the first dilemma? Oh, before we get into it, how do people send their dilemmas in? And what's our dilemma segment called? It's always like we forgot to do the key things. This dilemma segment is called I'm in big trouble. And if you would like to submit a dilemma, it is if I speak at navaramedia.com.

Sometimes we have people submit dilemmas and then think better of it, that's fine, don't worry. We won't read them out if you tell us not to. But also, if you send us in a dilemma and there's a lot of identifying details, we automatically try to take them out, at least I do. So don't be scared, I'm going to use my judgment when we're reading out dilemmas. Also, you may have noticed we haven't fired

quickfire questions at each other, and that is because we don't have enough time because we're doing dilemmas. Sorry about that. All right. Go on. Get cracking. Get cracking. Okay. First dilemma. Hello, Ash and Moira. I've got a dilemma I'd love to hear your thoughts on.

A few years ago, I moved back to the isolated rural village. Ash, matchmaking time. Isolated rural village where I grew up, but now knew nobody my age, mid-20s. After being here a few months, I met and started a relationship with a man who ended his existing, troubled relationship to be with me. No cheating, no sneaking around. He introduced me to a big group of people my age

who'd all moved to my village since I'd been away. I was delighted and started socializing regularly with them. My boyfriend's ex was welcoming to me from the beginning, however other women in the group excluded me from the beginning, some in hurtful ways despite my best efforts to connect. This had a big impact on my self-esteem. A year or so later, I began close friendships with two women new to the village and even confided in them about the situation. Not long after, they were invited to the girls' group chat and began regularly spending time with them. I felt betrayed but maintained the friendships.

Now the women are increasingly reaching out to me, yet I'm struggling to let go of my resentment at being excluded early on. I'm also confused about how I should think about my two newer friends. Was I wrong to think I was entitled to developing friendships in this group? How can I let go of my resentments and embrace the friendships being offered to me now? Thanks for taking the time to read this. Lots of love. Thoughts, feelings. Do you wanna go first?

Yeah, okay. I think the problem is with rural village, it's small and you're forced to get over things quicker than maybe you would have to elsewhere. This is both a good and bad thing. Was it fair of them to exclude you from the beginning? No, I'm sure they were just looking out for their friend. Sometimes we can be far more protective of our friends than our friends will allow themselves to be. So like the ex,

very welcoming to you having to take the higher road, you know, this is fine. But her friends may well have been like, we see how hurt this person is. We're not automatically going to accept you. Does that suck? Does that feel bad? Yes. Do you have to sadly get over it? I think so. You've got these two new friends and you're like, I understand as well these feelings of betrayal, all your feelings, and I'm going to use the most annoying word in the world are valid. They are valid. But that doesn't mean you should hang on to them. These two new friends, you confided in them.

It's a small village. They are also going to probably go out and make other friends. And it looks like their presence has actually warmed the rest of the group up. It looks like they've been doing good PR on your behalf, because now these women are reaching out to you and trying to reconcile. I think what you have to do is just keep going there, meeting them. And then when there is a point when you have made friendships and you've built these things, you maybe can talk about this, you know, it was difficult at the

start when the ground is sort of smooth enough that everyone can discuss what happened in a way that won't make new schisms, you know, you can say this was, this was quite hurtful, but now we're good enough friends. I understand things change, things move on. I'm sure there's people in my life that I've heard who are now friends with me and can only communicate that I've heard them down the line, vice versa. But all this stuff is really heightened in a village. So I get it.

Don't isolate yourself because you feel this resentment. We always say resentment is drinking poison for what's the end of it, Ash? And expecting someone else to die. Expecting someone else to die. You want friends, you have friends. There are more people now wanting to be your friend. Make those connections and only then can you express, you know, how this hurt you. But yeah, I'm really sorry that you're going to have to just try and process it

and move on because small village politics, man. Just like also everyone fucks each other in a village everyone fucks each other it's crazy. I mean I completely agree with everything you've just said and so everything I'm adding is just a sort of it's an addition to it in no way is it a contradiction you can contradict me that's the point of the podcast I know I know I really like contradicting you but in this in case, I don't. It will come up. It will come up, I'm sure. I think that you need to own your choices.

So you made a choice to move back to your isolated rural village, and that means that you are going to have to conduct yourself differently and move in a different way than you would in a big city where there are endless, endless people. And like Moya said, there are good things about that, there are bad things about that. I actually think maybe the good outweighs the bad because it's teaching you something really important about resilience and letting go and you're in the crux of having to teach your muscles how to do this thing, to like teach your

muscles how to relax and let people in even after that they've wronged you and I guess the thing I would say is perhaps this is actually something these women are doing too. They felt you know I'm not saying it's reasonable but they felt that you were a participant in hurting their friend and now after some time and after the presence of two new people who they've befriended, that you're a human being and maybe you're not a bad person and they want to include you and to see you

in the fullness of who you are. And so maybe there's something to learn from that. It's not just an arbitrary cliqueness of gatekeeping and deciding when to let you in. Maybe they're actually demonstrating a quality arbitrary, cliquey-ness of, you know, gatekeeping and deciding when to let you in. Maybe they're actually demonstrating a quality which is admirable. And the last thing I would say is that everyone has their own perspective on what happened. You've got yours. This group of friends have theirs. The ex will have theirs.

These two new people will, you know, be familiar with the story and have come to a judgment. And something which is important, because this doesn't mean that it's wrong or you've done anything wrong, but it's just important for understanding what other people's point of view is. Even if there wasn't any cheating or sneaking around, when someone leaves someone for somebody else, or two relationships come in very quick succession. That third person is a presence in that original relationship. Doesn't mean that there's cheating. It doesn't mean that they're sneaking around.

It doesn't mean that there's been a betrayal, but there is a sense of that third person having been a presence. And that feels, if you're the person who's left or you're close to the person who's left, like a very powerful thing. And that's going to be their perspective. So my advice to you, if I could sum it up,

is remember that yours is not the only perspective of what's going on. And that doesn't mean you're wrong, and it doesn't mean that you've got to accept blame. You just have to accept that other people will have a perspective and it's just as real and powerfully felt as your own. Exactly. And also, as you now realized in a couple of months, someone else fucks someone else

and everyone gets over it. Because you have to in a village, you have to fucking get over it. And that is another good thing about small places. Next dilemma. A city will allow you to hold a grudge and that's where I live in London. Grudges central. Tend them like a garden. All right, shall I read out the next one? Yes, please. Hi, Moya and Ash. First things first, I love you guys. Thank you for creating the podcast and for offering such necessary and refreshing commentary in a world that feels so depressing. You are the best.

I would really appreciate your advice. I'm 26 and in a relationship with an amazing man who I think is the one. We've been best friends since we were teenagers and had a short romance when we were 20 that was chaotic and messy. However, we managed to maintain our friendship when it ended and after dating other people and me having a two and a half year relationship in between, we finally got together properly last year and it's been wonderful.

He's so kind and special. We have great sex, similar politics, interests and friends and are constantly laughing. Trigger warning. Last month, my life turned completely upside down after my best friend took his life. My boyfriend has been amazing but the seismic impact this has had on me and the sudden awareness of my own mortality has made me question if I should be alone for a while. For context I've

been having an existential crisis for around a year after falling out of love with my current industry brackets journalism. I realized I'd spent my life focused on doing things that were considered impressive rather than things that were considered impressive rather than things that made me happy. These haven't gone away and my best friend's death has amplified these feelings of being lost and general unhappiness. This has made me question if I rushed into the relationship too quickly. We got together straight after I ended my last relationship, which I don't regret because I have always loved him, but wonder if I should have given myself some time to be alone since I've never been properly single

for an extended period of time. To add to this, my partner has found his calling and is very sure in terms of job and living in the city where he lives, whereas I feel like I'm floating and want to have the option of moving abroad or long-term travel. He would travel, but couldn't do so for more than a few weeks

and also can't move because the city is the place to be for the job he does. All of this coupled with our long history, the fact that our relationship is so perfect, and that we have the same friends all make me feel like I am locked in forever. I feel guilty for thinking these things because I do want forever with him and the thought of us ever breaking up is horrible, but at the same time the thought of long-term commitment in any area of my life makes me feel overwhelmed. Plus I don't even know if I actually want to do any of the things I'm thinking about, so I don't even trust my own judgment. As you can tell I'm very confused. My question is, do you think my concerns are legitimate and should be acted on, or am I just self-sabotaging

wanting to run away because I'm grieving, or is this a classic case of right person wrong time? Any help or advice appreciated?" Do you want to go first or should I? Um, I have a feeling we might disagree on this one. Okay, no, I don't think we will. Go on, you go. I think that you are in the epicenter of a crisis. And to lose a best friend in any circumstances, but in particular suicide is so intensely destabilizing. You have had part of your foundation for living ripped away from under you. And that's before you get to all the other things that you may be feeling, including guilt or responsibility.

There's something which I think is really particular to grief that my best friend who lost her father said, and it's that when somebody dies, a part of you goes to the land of the dead as well. In fact, most of you does and it is like pulling yourself up out of a grave to come back to the land of the living and to be able to connect with other people and other things again. If you weren't coming from the position of grieving, I would say maybe you should break up but because you have had this hugely traumatic loss my advice is don't make a decision now. It is not the right time to make a decision. You cannot know yourself right now. Like I just think it's impossible to know yourself right now and look maybe six months a year down the line you'll look back and you'll go, actually, all these feelings are still here. This was a catalyst for, for realization. Um, I just

think it's impossible to take the judgment now. I don't know. What do you think? I anticipated that you might be on team breakup. No, we do disagree, but I'm actually more emphatically don't break up. Um, I, I totally agree with everything you said about, you know, you lost this, this linchpin of your life a month ago, your thoughts, feelings, everything, Ash has covered it already, but your thoughts, feelings have just mired in this idea of like wanting to be alone. I imagine it's, this probably feels a bit like you're encased in this glass box and that no one can get in, no matter how much they try and reach you. And you also can't get what you're feeling out

in the way you want to. So you probably do feel really disconnected from people around you. Ari, your partner, no, you love this person so much. Don't break up, don't break up. And even down the line, even if those feelings persist, I don't think you want to break up. I think what you want is something that I very,

very rarely advise people, but I feel comfortable doing it here. I think you just want to go on a break for a bit. And I'm going to explain a little bit more about what kind of break I mean. So two different couples, I'm using an exemplar. One I know in real life. One is a celebrity couple and both of them are incredibly young. You know, the years that you'd be like 18,

both of them still together. One is a couple I won't name because I personally know them. The other is Tom and Zendaya. And both of these couples at different times went on a break. Both these couples were went on a break that either meant, you know, they were just apart for like a year or they were apart for some months. And Tom and Zendaya, I won't go to the details of the couple I know again, for obvious reasons,

but like Tom and Zendaya, we know they dated other people, it was very public, they got back together, now they're engaged. They seem fully locked in. Can't know celebrities that well, but out of all the celeb couples I've imprinted on, they seem very locked in, you know? They seem very in sync,

they seem very sure of what they want. This other couple, the one that I know personally, everyone around them knew it was like this was it, this is, you know, they are a team. But at one point they needed a break. They want a break for you. Fine. I think that's what you need at some point. And I don't think you should do it now, because I think you're still grieving. But if down the line, you're still having these thoughts of like the long-term commitment scares me, maybe I wanna go abroad, maybe then this and that. You just need to talk to your partner.

And that break doesn't mean that you don't have to in that time if you don't want to go date other people. You might discuss this with your partner. They might agree that yeah, it doesn't have to be a year. It can be a couple of months, you can trial it. But some point where you're just like, I'm not completely entwined with you and I'm on my own and I'm doing these things on my own

and then we come back together and maybe you won't come back together but I have a feeling you will from this letter. I have a feeling you will. But I do not think you should make this decision, as Ash says, within the next few months. I think you need to unfortunately try and talk to people, and maybe you are, about how you're feeling

and these emotions and say, you know, I'm having these ideas of like going off and doing this and doing that. But mainly it's like, what's underneath this? When I'm very sad and I'm very scared, I get the impulse to run away. And that's not like a cowardly thing. It's just like, I need to go somewhere else

and just like be away from all the noise so I can process this and I can think about this. Unfortunately running away like you're still gonna be there, you're just there without your support network, which sucks. So yeah, my advice is I think maybe down the line, you can talk to your partner if these feelings persist about taking a break.

I think this from the, it does sound like you love them, you don't wanna break up with them. You just want some time on your own to see the world, do that, explore those things. You can do that within a partnership because this is your partnership. You can write the rules as you want

and that is within your power. You don't have to just stay in this two pairing block in the same place for the entirety of your relationship. It's good to go out, it's good to explore. That will make you healthier. And just like one very, very quick last thing. I'm now coming up to seven years deep in my relationship, just over a year and a half of marriage. And actually some stuff that's very, very different about what we want and our attitude to life, those things are still different.

And what we've gotten better at is creating enough flex in our relationship to accommodate those differences. And we've gotten a lot better at communicating around it. And actually this thing about like how tied you are to the city where you live versus wanting to travel is part of that difference. My partner is very like, you know, he loves this place and it's very much his home as well, but he's like, well, maybe I do wanna go somewhere else

for a long period of time. And you know, what about living somewhere else? What about working somewhere else? And for me, I think there's a couple of things. One is that I'm such a homebody, it's insane. And also my job and the nature of my job is just a lot less flexible in that way. And so we're coming up with all sorts of solutions.

Like, you know, he's going to go away traveling for like six weeks with two of our friends without me. Like, you know, I'm going to hold down the fort here. He's going to come with me for part of my book tour. So like, we're not spending loads of time away. And sure, like, you know, when we're apart for five or six weeks I miss him like crazy you know it's not as if I'm like woohoo sweet freedom I'm like no I really really miss you we really miss each other but we're like actually this thing which is our relationship and the glue and the bonds that it's created it's strong enough to sort of hold us even, you know, during these times of separateness.

Again, just in this moment of crisis, you can't really get your head around that. It feels very, very either or. And part of it is just because you are overstimulated. There's just too much that your nervous system is having to process. You are unable to think these things through at this point, I think. You know, if last March, like in the in the kind of moment of like trauma and crisis when my stepdad passed, my partner was like, Yeah, I want to go away for six weeks, I would have lost my fucking mind or if I if I was coming up with a big decision about like, anything, like I can

I barely have any memory of those weeks and like the things I was doing in work because I was just my brain was so like under so much pressure Yeah, don't make big decisions but also Feel a sense of hope that relationships can accommodate pretty big differences Yeah, I think you've got a good thing and I think you can get through this Shall we should we move on? I think it's up to good thing and I think you can get through this. Shall we move on? I think it's up to you.

Oh, I'm reading. Of course I'm reading. Dear, if I speak, my girlfriend and I discovered your podcast last month and have been listening non-stop. Thank you for the engaging and entertaining content. Here is our dilemma. I wonder if you set this in together. I love that.

We are very committed and love each other. However, our expectations surrounding money always cause contention. My girlfriend is a doctor and believes she has not paid enough. She grew up in the Middle East with growing familiar wealth and an understanding that finance is one of life's pillars to success. She left her family in South Asia to work in the UK two years ago when we immediately met. She expects to have a better material quality of life than she grew up with and wants to make her family proud by succeeding financially. I grew up in the UK with a single mum who at times had to rely on state benefits. I don't equate money to success and don't

earn anywhere near what she does though I have no familial pressure to succeed financially. My vision of a comfortable life in material terms is vastly lower than that of my girlfriend. We deeply love each other, but I refuse to accept money as a life goal and she refuses to give it up. We're worried that 10 years down the line we'll fall apart. How can we compromise? I don't know. Special one, why are you writing in? You are about to fumble the bag so hard. You've got a bougie South Asian

doctor girlfriend. This is not a problem. I think she's actually meaner, but her family are in South Asia. Oh yeah, sorry, sorry, sorry. Not to, don't want to raise our meaner diaspora listeners. Okay, do you, absolutely do you know what I'm saying is you have a bougie brown doctor girlfriend. That's called winning. It is winning. I don't know, I don't know what I'm saying is you have a bougie brown doctor girlfriend, that's called winning. It is winning. I don't know. I don't know what to advise here because I'm kind of like, this seems like a value difference. And the question is, do you have enough other values in common that you can

overcome the value difference, but neither of you want to budge. I want to know how old you are because if you're like 23, I think there are ways to grow together past it. If you're like 27, 29, maybe it is gonna be a bit more of a sticking point. Also, is this, another detail I'd like to note, is this impacting you because your girlfriend is expecting you to level up in terms of finances?

Or is this just something that she independently has? Because if she independently has it, I don't think it's as much of a big problem. But if she's expecting you to contribute to this shared goal, then it becomes an issue because you can lead a horse to, I don't know, PWC, but you can't make it take a role as a corporate analyst. I mean, look, I think you're bang on the money.

I think the make or break element is to what extent do these different expectations impinge on the other person's choices? Because ultimately, if you've got two different attitudes to your own earnings, that's fine. I mean, like, again, me and my partner have have like, you know, we've got a good space for compromise on it. But our attitudes to money are quite different. I'm so money under the mattresses. I'm very, very risk averse when it comes to spending and saving. And that's because when, you know, my mom was a single parent is super duper broke, I was just like, you have to hold on to all the money because you don't know when you're not going to have it anymore Where's my partner? Like even though my mom did a big old social mobility when she got married and so it meant that when we met our class

Like status was different He didn't experience like the same lows as I did I think maybe he's just like a little bit more relaxed about some of this stuff just like a little bit more relaxed And I remember when the whole GameStop thing was going on, like he was like, I remember he was like, oh, can I put some money into it? And I was like, yeah, man, whatever, it's your money. Instant regret because he was like,

I've tried to put like a thousand pounds in GameStop. And I was like, what the fuck? I was like, what? Luckily by that point, the hedge funds had put pressure on the little retail traders so he could get the money back. But I was like, you mental person, like what the fuck? Um, anyway, what I'm trying to say different attitudes to money.

Um, he's a little bit more easy come easy go. I'm very, very cautious. Um, but we have a really good compromise zone in terms of our shared financial obligations and we've basically said like, Hey, it's fine for me to be the one compromise zone in terms of our shared financial obligations. And we've basically said like, hey, it's fine for me to be the one who's like going hell for leather and earning. And for him to prioritize other things, including like wellbeing, fulfillment, like creativity,

and for our earnings to be that bit different. So you don't have to have the same attitude to money if your compromise zone works for both of you. If she's saying that you have to earn more, or conversely, you're saying you should be less focused on money and more focused on other things, then it's not going to work. Yeah. That's it. That's that's that's literally it. You need to just you need to answer those questions and then come back to us. Because without that detail, we can't further advise you. But I think that says it all, doesn't it? Okay, I think we've got time for one more dilemma.

Oh, I think we've got time for... Oh, you think we've got time for two? Okay, well, let's see. Two. Okay. I think we've got time for two. I think you read the next one, and then I definitely wanna read the last one,

because I think it's really important. Dear Ash and Moira, listener from day one, went to the live show, woo! Love you both and everything you stand for. Oh, don't love everything I stand for. I stand for some of your lives. I really hope this isn't too long, as I honestly think you two are the best people

for me to ask about this. And Ash, I'm really sorry for your loss and glad you had an amazing father figure in your life. That's very nice. Woo! Sorry, I did, like, really sorry for your loss and glad you had an amazing father figure in your life. That's very nice. Woo! Sorry, sorry for your loss, it like kind of flummoxed me so I just wooed it. That does say so much about you that you were like woo! As a response to sort of condolences.

Just a note, I've also condensed this special ones letter. Summary, my dad is a massive liar who has betrayed us in so many ways. Should I stand up for myself and my sister by cutting him off? And how do I summon up the desire to do so? My parents divorced around four years ago, when my sister and I were 19 and 23 respectively, after a drawn out marital breakdown affected by my dad's dishonesty and alcohol abuse. As children, we were highly involved in the alcohol issue. My mom's default mode was always rage, which she took out on us too. My dad was withdrawn and secretive,

unable to communicate or confront any issues. My sympathy always fundamentally lay with my mom. However, in childhood, I instinctively felt an affinity with my dad as we both cringed from her confrontation and anger. From a young age, my mum communicated to me that my dad had done something bad, which justified her anger. This turned out to be an affair when I was a baby. Insofar as I can tell, his constant refrain is I am a very private person,

my dad's core motivating feeling is shame. However, my partner says this is just making excuses for his selfishness, attributing a stronger sense of morality to him than he has ever displayed. I think shame is, yeah, most people who have alcohol abuse, there's shame deeply in there. I think you're correct on that, whether you're talking about morality or not. The problem, we recently caught my dad in another lie. This might seem incidental, but it's highly typical behavior. Not for the first time, my sister and I are discussing taking a stand. Throughout this whole period, for some reason,

we've mirrored my dad's avoidance, rarely confronted him and continued meeting up with him regularly out of a sense of duty. Our parents have very high expectations of us and demand lots of time and support. I feel we don't get much in return. I've always taken on a lot of responsibility and my sister and I have never had any overt issues. The trouble is that I really struggle to feel and express anger. I interpret this trait in myself as inherited from my dad and a reaction to the rage I encountered in my mum. This really affects my life. I'm plagued by a sense that in my reserved attitude and limited ability to be expressive, I'm profoundly similar to my dad. I am so lucky to be surrounded by expressive, lovable, pain in the arse people like my sister and partner and to have old, close, confessional friendships so I'm

not cut off from people like my dad is, but I worry about my communication regressing as I get older, and I do often feel extremely inhibited in my ability to communicate, relate and be understood. I don't feel angry with my dad, not in the conventional sense anyway, so I struggle to stick up for him because I can't summon up the rage to sustain my stance. I just feel profound guilt and pity for his evident issues. Do I need to force myself to take a stand? Maybe my anger will catch up with my behaviour. It feels so against my nature to cut people off or give out. If you've read this, thank you. I'm truly grateful. Special one. In brackets, I hope. Of course you're a special one. You're a key special one. Thoughts,

feelings. This is the Deadbeat Dad crew. Deadbeat Dad crew. I mean, what I would say as someone who is also a member of Deadbeat Dad Crew, not the ironically, not the dead dad, it's the living one that's the deadbeat. I think that before you take any action, the thing you actually have to do is understand yourself and your upbringing more. Because at the moment you're looking at through the frame of which parent am I most like and actually I think maybe the place you need to get to is how are my reactions a product of what I've been taught to do within my family system. So how have I been perhaps responding to the needs of others or how are some of my responses a product of a desire to protect myself or manage the behavior of

others and this understanding comes from a therapeutic school of thought called systemic family therapy. There's a woman called Barbara McKay, who is really useful for understanding this stuff. Because I think rather than thinking about who are you condemned to repeat the story of, because I think that already you've shown yourself to be very different from both your, your mom and your dad from, from how you've expressed your problem. Actually the thing you need to do is, is think about how your family system is creating these behaviors and responses, both amongst other people and also yourself. The reason why I say that is because when it comes to, you know, you talking about,

it doesn't feel natural to cut someone off, it doesn't feel natural to tap into anger, is I think you need to understand that as a taught response. Like why have you learned to not tap into your anger? Anger is a very natural emotion. I say this as someone who often finds it very, very difficult to tap into anger because again, that's what I've been taught within my family system.

And it's something which has then been reinforced by how I've chosen to handle situations later in my life. But I think that, yeah, understanding yourself within that family system will maybe give you a clearer idea of what to do. I'm not saying cut off, I'm not saying don't cut off. There's also a range of other options as well. But I think you have to understand yourself a bit better before making decisions.

What do you think? I've got practical advice as always. First of all, I think this letter holds the clue for what you need to do. You need to write down your feelings because you are good expressing your feelings on paper. This letter was very expressive. It was insightful. It was self-aware. You got it all out.

That is a great start. I think you should get together, maybe you should do it on your own first, but then also get together with your sister, as this seems to be a joint thing that you are doing and also your support for each other. And I think you should write down, first of all, what do you actually want

from the relationship with your father? Like, what terms do you want this relationship to be on? Do you want to cut him off? Or do you have an ideal of what you would like it to be? And then you have to write down a different thing, which is what would be healthiest for you and your sister. Do these things align? Is there a middle ground between them?

Then you should write down, what are the roots to try and obtain this compromise, this goal, this whatever would be the healthiest overlapping with what do you actually want. And also, I do like a little mind map of feelings and associations that come up when you write when you think of your father, just literally like first knee jerk. I know this sounds very like woo, but literally knee jerk feelings. Write them all out on a mind map. Then you have a better understanding of what's going on when you're talking about him. Why do you think you have to be angry to express a boundary? Why do you think you have to be angry in order to get something that is better for you, that is healthier for you, to try and set something on your terms? You don't have to be angry. I once had, actually, I was once in a relationship

where someone kept saying that they didn't feel anger. They were very angry. They were very angry, but they didn't express it. They didn't shout like that, but they had loads of anger. I know you say you don't feel anger. I think you do from the tone of the letter, but that also doesn't mean that you have to like scream and shout and express anger in the conventional sense that you have both been shown and that society says this is anger blah

blah blah in order to achieve something or in order to try and like drum into someone's head what a boundary is. But again I think that only by doing this with your sister will it really work because then you have someone else validating your feelings who grew up in the same environment as you. Someone you can bounce off and you might disagree, you might have totally different ways of going about it but from the letter it sounds like you two really are like a source of support for each other when it comes to this and a united front is always better than going it alone, that's why unions work. I think just on that thing about not feeling anger or saying you don't feel anger, but actually like maybe it's there.

It is incredible when you start really examining your own anger, how much is there? And maybe, I don't want to project too much, but special one, something which I do is I pre-process my anger before I even let myself express it. So I go, oh, it's not there, but guess what? It fucking is. Last dilemma, it's a heavy one, but it was really important. It felt really important to me to read this one out. And just to say up at the top, trigger warning for rape.

So if you're not feeling that right now, thank you for listening to the podcast so far. Dear Ashen Moya, first of all now thank you for listening to the podcast so far. Dear Ash and Moira, first of all thank you both for giving me a reason to really look forward to Tuesdays. This podcast is definitely up there as one of my all-time faves. Unfortunately I'm writing in about something quite heavy and I'm in need of advice about how to deal with the ways it's impacted my close relationships. I'm a 23 year old woman at university. It still feels

bizarre for me to be typing these words out, but quite recently, a one night stand went horribly wrong, ending with me getting raped and my mental health has unsurprisingly gone to shit because of it. Since it's happened, I've gone through the motions of self-blame, hopelessness and anxiety. I've also now realised that despite having a loving and close family and amazing network of friends from many different areas of my life, some of which I've also now realised that despite having a loving and close family and amazing network of friends from many different areas of my life, some of which I've told, some of which I haven't, I feel completely alone. In this isolation, I'm only able to feel anger and frustration towards the people I love. I can no longer tell what in my head is reasonable to be annoyed about and what isn't.

Even though I know that for the most part people's responses have been very supportive and kind, I still feel frustrated by their reactions to what's happened. Everything everyone does and says seems to get under my skin. Things that used to annoy me slightly slash were manageable annoyances about the people closest to me suddenly feel 10 times bigger. I know I'm being unfair and I'm trying not to lash out or let it impact the way I act towards them but also in doing this it just feels like I'm mentally a million miles away whenever I'm in anyone's company. I wanted to slap my friends just for asking me on a club dance floor that if I had to get with anyone Who would it be?

I want to scream at all my mates in relationships to just fuck off and stop rubbing my face in it Even if they've just mentioned their partner's name. Before this happened I was very happily single, now I'm very confused. I want to cut everyone off but I know that's not fair and I also feel very guilty for feeling this way. And on top of that I have this irrational fear that something awful is going to happen to someone I love whilst I'm resenting them so much and I'm going to spend the rest of my life regretting that I ever felt this way. How do I stop wallowing in

feeling so misunderstood and alone? I don't want to feel like this anymore but reaching out to anyone feels impossible and waiting lists are long and private therapists are expensive and so I'm here definitely asking too much of both of you. I know my brain is traumatized and unwell right now but I can't keep living like this. How do I resist the urge to ruin my own life and reconnect with my nearest and dearest? Thanks again for all that you do with love from a hopefully not for much longer very messed up special one.

Is it all right if I leap in? Yes. Don't, no, no. I've said you should leap. Okay. First thing is that I did a little bit of resource research. So there's the survivors trust.org. They can point you towards free and affordable services.

Rape Crisis England and Wales. There's also intothelight.org.uk. They say they offer affordable services. I don't know what that means in practice, but might be worth looking into. And there's also the havens.org.uk. So this is specifically for assaults which have occurred within the last 12 months. So I don't know if you've looked into these already. I don't know how long the waiting lists are for them, but just to put them on your radar and also for any other special ones who may be

dealing with something similar. Um, okay, now to get into some of your responses. The first thing to say, and this is really, really important, is that what's happening is not a result of your unwell brain. This is actually a very normal response to trauma, and it's your nervous system, your brain, your body, however you want to look at it, trying to protect yourself. What you're experiencing is a classic fight response. So as we all know, the sort of responses to threat can be fight, flight, freeze, and also befriend. So let's just take that very, very concrete example you gave of your friends

saying on a club dance floor, hey, who would you want to hang up, you know, hook up with? You're experiencing a sense of threat because your body is going, I have to establish my boundary because if I don't, something terrible and violating is going to happen again. If you had a flight response, you might just go, oh my God, I've got to leave. Like I've just got to get out of this club right now. If you had a freeze response, which by the way is mine, sometimes you just like fully dissociate and you're like unable to talk or form a thought. A befriend response might actually be going along with it and putting yourself in more and more situations where you feel your boundaries are being impinged upon, but trying to respond

to it with a sort of like friendliness or even fawningness, right? That's also a response to threat. You are in a fight response, which is your anger is kicking in because it wants to overcome the threat through lashing out. That is not actually a bad or unhealthy thing, right? You also seem to have an awareness and an ability to control your reactions from how

you've written this out, or like control your behavior, shall we say, but the reaction is actually coming from a healthy place. So I don't think you should be too hard on yourself. The other things that you're describing like hypervigilance, the sense that something's going to go terribly wrong with other people, Again, really, really normal, really, really normal. Um, and I, you know, I've not talked about this at the pod, but I think it's like wildly obvious, like this is stuff which has happened to me. Like when I was much younger, this is stuff which has happened to me.

And it actually took me such a long time to tell anyone else. Took me years to even tell a single other soul. Um, and even now I'm having to try and get through the sort of like years and years and years of freeze response to get to a point where I could tap into anger. to get to a point where I could tap into anger. The fact that you are feeling anger, even if it is being misapplied to your friends and other people around you, is actually quite healthy. Like, it might not feel that way and it might feel like oh my god am I on the precipice of destroying my entire life? Like, I don't, I don't, it doesn't sound like you are because you sound like you're you know quite capable of regulating your behavior but this

reaction of anger is actually quite good it doesn't mean you're gonna stay there forever and the reason why I've read out those resources at the top is that you know I thought for I mean basically a decade if not more that I could deal with it all by myself and that I could process the experience and understand it and I could leap into action mode whenever anyone else needed my help with it. But actually that was untrue and I needed therapy and I needed, you know, I needed therapy from people who are specialists in this and it's been really helpful.

So if you are able to access free or affordable sources of therapy or counseling now, I think that would be great. But also if that's not something that you can do now either because you're like, I don't feel ready to or because simply it's not available. If you can come back to it later in life, it's worth it. Like let me tell you, it's worth it. Like let me tell you, it's worth it.

Like it took me 10 years, if not more actually, to get my ass into therapy and let me tell you, best decision I ever made. So yeah. I don't really have anything to add except special one. It sounds like you say, you know, reaching out to someone feels impossible. You reached out to us, which tells me that you do want to reach out and I would

go to those resources that Ash mentioned because I know people who work in those spaces and they are the kindest most caring people possible and they will take such good care of you but you do sound amazingly I hate the word resilient but I'm going to use it for what's happened to you. And yeah, there's always a place here if you want to write it again, we don't have to read it out, but you can vent to us. That's something. And I hate that these things happen to people. It sucks. Let's end fucking patriarchy in 2025. Finally, let's bring it down. I think that's all we have time for.

It's all we have time for. But yeah, I guess last thing to special one, like you've done an amazing thing by reaching out this soon after it happened. Like I said, it takes people years. It took me years, I've spoken to people where for decades and decades and decades, they were carrying a secret

and it stayed with them all that time. So you have done something incredibly brave and incredibly powerful and respect. Respect for that. Yeah, respect. Lots of love and lots of love to the rest of the special ones who also wrote in, fed back, listened every fucking week. We will see you next week. Bye!