Speaker 1: I read that man's wife's laughter is one of the
Speaker 1: most sounds that lights up the brain the most. Really,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm making it up, but you know, I
Speaker 1: hear a lot of science in my head, and that's
Speaker 1: one of the latest studies to come out in your head. Yeah, oh, well,
Speaker 1: can I ask you a question? Yeah, I can give
Speaker 1: you an answer. Most people say in an ideal mate,
Speaker 1: you know, they want someone with a good sense of humor, right,
Speaker 1: And a lot of people have pointed out in the
Speaker 1: past few years that when women say it, they mean
Speaker 1: I want a man who makes me laugh, okay, And
Speaker 1: when men say it, they mean I want a woman
Speaker 1: who laughs at my jokes, right, not that they want
Speaker 1: a woman who makes them laugh. Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: And in fact, some women say if they are too funny,
Speaker 1: men will break up with them. I've heard this, and
Speaker 1: so I just want I mean, you know, I like
Speaker 1: to think I'm pretty funny and that that was an
Speaker 1: attraction for you. But I just wonder what you thought
Speaker 1: about that as a member of the male species. No,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think both are very important. Humor compatibility
Speaker 1: is a huge part of I think a well balanced relationship.
Speaker 1: And if now this is for some. For others, there's
Speaker 1: like one wacky partner and one like business partner. And
Speaker 1: that's fine too for some if that's what you're looking for.
Speaker 1: But first of all, if women are funny and the
Speaker 1: men that they're with don't like that they're funny, buy
Speaker 1: good riddens, because that's a lousy partnership anyway. Why would you,
Speaker 1: you know, it be like audience, ye, scene partner? I
Speaker 1: guess I don't even think necessarily need to be a
Speaker 1: scene partner, but you should just appreciate that you're with
Speaker 1: someone who makes you laugh if you like to laugh.
Speaker 1: I think these guys probably just don't like to laugh.
Speaker 1: They just only like to have input, and that speaks
Speaker 1: to a whole other issue going on in their heads,
Speaker 1: where they're like, I don't want output, I only want input,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know, I don't know if there
Speaker 1: but to me personally, yeah, I would much rather have
Speaker 1: someone that I can laugh with and at and four versa. Like.
Speaker 1: I know, I wouldn't be happy with someone who didn't
Speaker 1: laugh at anything I ever said, no, But I also
Speaker 1: wouldn't be happy with someone who, you know, it's kind
Speaker 1: of dull, and not even dull, but just like humor
Speaker 1: wasn't their thing. I guess it's just frustrating to feel
Speaker 1: that I'm not with you. But you know, just casting
Speaker 1: my mind back to my youthful days of dating, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that you know, I thought, oh, well, this is like
Speaker 1: a trait that I find important and that I like
Speaker 1: about myself that I have. I think I'm funny. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I'm trying to joke around and that dudes would
Speaker 1: be like, oh, that's a like there's a competition or
Speaker 1: something for who's funniest, And if I'm funny, it doesn't
Speaker 1: like it makes them less than Yeah, textbook insecurity, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, is that accurate? I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 1: You don't. You don't have that problem. So I guess
Speaker 1: you're not the right person. Yeah. No, nobody's ever not
Speaker 1: laughed at me, I know, right, Yeah, you're just constantly
Speaker 1: killing it out here. I mean I've had some Um No,
Speaker 1: I meant that you don't have a problem with with
Speaker 1: me being funny or a woman being funny around you, No,
Speaker 1: not at all. Most most of the people in my
Speaker 1: life are funny women. I know. I think that funny
Speaker 1: women are delightful thing to have a party in your life. Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: if you like laugh and then stay tuned. We're gonna
Speaker 1: do an episode right now that's gonna have a lot
Speaker 1: of laughter in it, hopefully, I hope. So, because y'all,
Speaker 1: this is a weird one. This, I mean, it really
Speaker 1: fits the ridiculous Moniker I think. I really don't know
Speaker 1: if this is a funny story or kind of a
Speaker 1: sad one or something in between. It's a little slippery,
Speaker 1: it's a little heavy, but it's a little just like
Speaker 1: we both I rolly, just like what the hell am
Speaker 1: I listening to? Because this isn't history from a long
Speaker 1: time ago. This is a very modern story of love,
Speaker 1: love question mark. I guess at least it's a story
Speaker 1: of marriage. This is the story of Ron Shepherd from Somerton, England,
Speaker 1: who got so worn out after his eighth marriage that
Speaker 1: he had to retire and move into an assisted living home.
Speaker 1: But his story is going to lead us into a
Speaker 1: whole discussion about marriage and its meaning and what makes
Speaker 1: people so dang obsessed with it sometimes. So if you
Speaker 1: take this tune to be your loftly Bound theme song,
Speaker 1: then go ahead and say I do I do heyla friends,
Speaker 1: come listen well, Elia and Diana got some stories to tell.
Speaker 1: There's no match making a romantic tips. It's just about
Speaker 1: ridiculous relationships. A lover might be any type of person
Speaker 1: at all, and abstract concert a concrete wall. But if
Speaker 1: there's a story where the second glance, we'll ridiculous romance.
Speaker 1: A production of iHeartRadio. Ron Shepherd is the UK's self
Speaker 1: proclaimed most married man. Well, this guy has recently retired
Speaker 1: from the marriage game after his eighth wife, as Stephen
Speaker 1: Nolan from the BBC says, quote, that's two more than Henry.
Speaker 1: The eighth managed say number is Elizabeth Taylor, and only
Speaker 1: one fewer than Ja Ja Gabor, who should all be
Speaker 1: subjects on our show. By now we'll get we'll get there.
Speaker 1: But eight wives deep Ron says he's done. He's throwing
Speaker 1: in the wedding towels, he's given up the ship, he's
Speaker 1: the relationship. Of course, he's folding like a chief, which,
Speaker 1: of course we can assume he has at least eight. Well,
Speaker 1: as always, we have to dig back through history to
Speaker 1: get the full story here, so let's look at Ron's
Speaker 1: series of why deep Breath. Ron was born in nineteen
Speaker 1: forty nine. He had his first wedding in nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: six two Margaret, and all we know is that they
Speaker 1: had three kids together and then divorce after two years.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, so they got right on it, I know, right,
Speaker 1: I'm like, was she already pregnant or did they just
Speaker 1: like snap snap snap. Five years later, he married Jeanette
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy three, and this marriage only lasted one year.
Speaker 1: Daily Mail says Ron described this union as a quote
Speaker 1: business transaction. Oh I really wish I had more information too,
Speaker 1: Like what was the what was this business track? Were
Speaker 1: they like exchanging tracts of lands between family England? Who knows?
Speaker 1: She just wanted to be like written into the will
Speaker 1: or something, right, I'm very confused. In nineteen seventy six,
Speaker 1: Ron married Leslie. They had two kids together, and he
Speaker 1: thought Leslie was for Keaton. Yeah, that's the last marriage.
Speaker 1: He was really in love with Leslie. But after five
Speaker 1: years they started arguing a lot and their marriage ended
Speaker 1: up falling apart. Oh, ma'am sadly see, that's why you
Speaker 1: got to be arguing the whole time. Oh there you go.
Speaker 1: Then it doesn't feel like anything's any difference now. I
Speaker 1: actually hate arguing. I know, I mean too. In nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty two, when Ron was in his early thirties, he
Speaker 1: met an eighteen year old band named Kathy. She became
Speaker 1: wife number four. Oh wow, I mean yeah, eighteen, early thirties,
Speaker 1: classic early midlife crisis. I guess that does kind of yeah,
Speaker 1: it does kind of sound like that. Well, they had
Speaker 1: another kid together. That just six kids for Ron, if
Speaker 1: you're keeping score at home, and they divorced after two years,
Speaker 1: and he said Kathy was a rebound relationship after Leslie.
Speaker 1: I mean, do you really marry the rebound? Ron doesn't
Speaker 1: know how to rebound? Yeah, I mean I totally get, like,
Speaker 1: I mean, eighteen's too young, but I get like, you know,
Speaker 1: you get divorced, you go date someone way younger, and
Speaker 1: then you realize before you get married that's not going
Speaker 1: to work out, right, I would think so yeah, but
Speaker 1: I guess you just like pop the question right away.
Speaker 1: Well maybe at prom he wanted to celebrate high school
Speaker 1: graduation right. Oh no, Well they got divorced when Kathy
Speaker 1: was twenty, so she still got her whole life out
Speaker 1: of Hello girl. Thank god. Well, after he got off
Speaker 1: the rebound with the two year marriage to Kathy, he
Speaker 1: met Sue at a bingo hall in nineteen eighty six,
Speaker 1: and this seemed like a much better match. I mean,
Speaker 1: Ron was in his late thirties, Sue was around the
Speaker 1: same age, and while he was quote not swept off
Speaker 1: his feet by her, they went ahead and got married
Speaker 1: and had two sons together. And this marriage lasted eleven years,
Speaker 1: So this seemed like a much more standard marriage with
Speaker 1: the same age. We don't really like each other that much.
Speaker 1: We had a couple of kids. We don't really like
Speaker 1: each other. It's Taylor's old as time. Hell, I hope
Speaker 1: he in the right at the at the altar, He's like, Sue,
Speaker 1: you never swept me off my feed, right, but I
Speaker 1: guess I'll do it, And she's like, ah romantic. Well,
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety seven, she quote threw him out, and honestly,
Speaker 1: of course, we only ever talked to Ron in these interviews.
Speaker 1: It's mostly tabloids like Daily Mail and The Mirror and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. I wish there was one information about
Speaker 1: why she threw him out, but we can only be
Speaker 1: left to speculate threw him out. Maybe he just said
Speaker 1: that too me. He was like, well, Sue, I'm really
Speaker 1: not very impressed by you. You don't do anything for me,
Speaker 1: but I'll see you after work. Every time she says something,
Speaker 1: he's like, see this is whydden's sweet me off my
Speaker 1: feet back in nineteen eighty six at the Bingo Hall.
Speaker 1: So now that is five marriages and five divorces for Ron.
Speaker 1: It was time to get serious, okay. He couldn't just
Speaker 1: keep doing these little trial marriages and stuff. He had
Speaker 1: to find someone real. I mean, he had his teenage wedding,
Speaker 1: he got married very early when he was seventeen eighteen.
Speaker 1: He had his business marriage whatever that was all about
Speaker 1: what business. But that one time he married Leslie that
Speaker 1: was supposed to be for love, right, then he tried
Speaker 1: marrying a girl half his age, and then maybe he
Speaker 1: even tried marrying someone that he just wasn't that into. Right,
Speaker 1: It's like he tried it all. What else was out there?
Speaker 1: What makes a successful marriage? Ron has not figured out.
Speaker 1: I've literally tried everything. At this point. Well, he had
Speaker 1: exhausted pretty much all the women in the UK, so
Speaker 1: he decided that he was going to go look overseas,
Speaker 1: that's right. So when he was in Singapore, he happened
Speaker 1: to meet a little lady named Usha, and in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety nine. Of course they got married. Of course that's
Speaker 1: what you do when you meet a woman, you marry
Speaker 1: her immediately by a ring. And that marriage lasted four years.
Speaker 1: But this time the divorce part was definitely Ron's fault,
Speaker 1: all right. Usha found out somehow that Ron had cheated
Speaker 1: on her while he was entirely and Usha was like, hell, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not taking that. That was the end of that marriage,
Speaker 1: so she divorced him in two thousand and three. A
Speaker 1: year later, Ron married a Thai woman named one. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, although this is it is unclear if this
Speaker 1: is the same woman that he cheated on Usha with.
Speaker 1: This might be a completely different Thai woman that he met,
Speaker 1: I said another because it's not mentioned, and I feel
Speaker 1: like they would mention it. Yeah, he's not shy about
Speaker 1: the detail, right Or if you're a good tabloid reporter,
Speaker 1: certainly that would be your first question would be like, oh,
Speaker 1: a Thai woman? Is it the same one? Yeah? So
Speaker 1: probably not a different Thai woman altogether. Well, Juan and
Speaker 1: Ron one and Ron, oh my god perfect. Can you
Speaker 1: imagine the wedding invitations? It would have to be one
Speaker 1: and Ron dot com and dot Wan and Ron at
Speaker 1: the nott dot com. Anyway, One and Ron moved to
Speaker 1: the UK together. But yeah, I guess One was just
Speaker 1: not a fan of like tea and biscuits and cold
Speaker 1: rainy days. Because she left Ron to return to Bangkok
Speaker 1: after only ten months together. It's just a very short marriage.
Speaker 1: Shortest yet. Yeah, Okay, so it's two thousand and four.
Speaker 1: Ron has walked down the aisle seven times and he
Speaker 1: has I don't know what you said, the walk down
Speaker 1: the divorce aisle, just as many I kind of think
Speaker 1: you should have a good divorce. There should be like
Speaker 1: you have. I mean, technically you have to walk down
Speaker 1: the courtroom aisle, right, that's true. You could have like
Speaker 1: a friend like you know, they could actually the spouse.
Speaker 1: You should walk up the aisle together and they give
Speaker 1: you back to like your family, just literal reverse wedding.
Speaker 1: That would be awesome, and then you can, like terrible.
Speaker 1: You can do a little tends on how acrimonious this
Speaker 1: divorce they have to write like reverse vows. I've promised
Speaker 1: to never call you after ten PM. I think that
Speaker 1: our life together leading up at this point it's just
Speaker 1: like made me a worse person. And it's really made
Speaker 1: you a worse person too, and I can't wait to
Speaker 1: grow into someone else without you, And then they have
Speaker 1: to say, I don't, I don't, I don't know. I
Speaker 1: feel like a divorce party would actually do pretty well,
Speaker 1: and then you could. It's kind of like you could
Speaker 1: have like instead of getting gifts, you have like a
Speaker 1: yard Dale. Everyone who comes gets something of yours. That's right,
Speaker 1: they get their blender back or whatever they gave you.
Speaker 1: So he's been divorced seven times now, he's five years old.
Speaker 1: He just had his shortest marriage yet of ten months
Speaker 1: to one. Something wasn't working here for Ron No. But
Speaker 1: then he met Wang Platino, a twenty five year old
Speaker 1: woman from the Philippines. They met online just a few
Speaker 1: months after his divorce to one, and Ron flew out
Speaker 1: to the Philippines to meet her right away. The Daily
Speaker 1: Mail says they quote clicked instantly and went back to
Speaker 1: the UK to get married on the Isle of Wight
Speaker 1: in November of two thousand and four. And y'all, this
Speaker 1: this really seemed like it. Years went by year after
Speaker 1: year their marriage continued. After thirty eight years since his
Speaker 1: first marriage, had he finally found the one oh Ron Now.
Speaker 1: In January of twenty fourteen, ten years into their marriage,
Speaker 1: Ron said Wang was his quote true love and soulmates,
Speaker 1: and in February of that year, he was inspired to
Speaker 1: publish his autobiography about the search for love, called The
Speaker 1: Lord of the Wedding Ring. Oh just cute. That's trying
Speaker 1: to imagine the quote if he's just like, oh, yes,
Speaker 1: we've had a wedding once, but what about second weddings?
Speaker 1: What about what? That's cute? Well, he told the BBC
Speaker 1: in an interview, quote, I believe marriage should be for life.
Speaker 1: I just didn't find the right person and for what
Speaker 1: it's worth. In his audio interviews, he kind of sounds
Speaker 1: like Wallace and Grommit. Wallace, I guess, oh my god.
Speaker 1: Really his accent, Yeah, it's kind of delightful. Oh, Ron, Well,
Speaker 1: he sounds like he might be kind of cute, a
Speaker 1: cute older guy. Well, he says he does not regret
Speaker 1: any of his marriages, quote because I have my eight children,
Speaker 1: so you know he got something good out of each other. Sure,
Speaker 1: So while Ron is in this happy place, let's look
Speaker 1: at what he believes led him to kind of go
Speaker 1: through all these marriages. Because he's just kind of been
Speaker 1: hopping in and out of the chapel for years now,
Speaker 1: and according to him, he really has been searching for
Speaker 1: true love this whole time. He says his parents were
Speaker 1: married for sixty one years, and he always wanted something similar,
Speaker 1: that steady, that long. Yeah, but he did feel that
Speaker 1: he had hurt people in his process of getting married
Speaker 1: and divorce. He said in an interview, quote, I regret
Speaker 1: what I've done. I've been selfish, I've upset people, I've
Speaker 1: upset my children. But at the same time they have
Speaker 1: forgiven me. Ultimately, he says to the Mirror that his
Speaker 1: constant search for love quote stemmed from sexual abuse he
Speaker 1: suffered as a child. See The trauma that he dealt
Speaker 1: with left him quote constantly craving companionship, and his book
Speaker 1: The Lord of the Wedding Rings focuses heavily on this too.
Speaker 1: The back cover of it says that quote, he has
Speaker 1: hidden a frightening secret that ruined his childhood and blighted
Speaker 1: him as adult relationships. Ron suffered years of sexual abuse
Speaker 1: at the hands of a family friend, a local businessman
Speaker 1: and respected counselor. Oh Man. Yeah, he said, the abuser
Speaker 1: hand picked him at nine years old. Quote simply for
Speaker 1: being a child from a poor family. That guy would
Speaker 1: reward him with food and small amounts of money. Yikes,
Speaker 1: what a piece of shit. Yes, absolutely, and kind of
Speaker 1: get to understand sort of like why Ron has a
Speaker 1: different view of relationships than made the worst people. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean especially nine years old, like, yeah, the amount
Speaker 1: of things that you're not quite sure of and yeah,
Speaker 1: very turned away, like I don't know, you can just
Speaker 1: be shaped in such a crazy way. That's really sad.
Speaker 1: And because of this person's power over him and Ron
Speaker 1: being you know, a younger kids from a poor family
Speaker 1: in this small town and stuff, he just he never
Speaker 1: said anything. He didn't feel like he could right between
Speaker 1: the shame and the fear and retaliation all this stuff,
Speaker 1: well he just I mean it says right there in
Speaker 1: the quote that it's a respected counselor yeah, and local businessman.
Speaker 1: I mean that's exactly the kind of person who is
Speaker 1: so well poised to abuse people because they have a
Speaker 1: good reputation. It's going to be very hard for you
Speaker 1: to be believed. People will think, oh, well they're successful,
Speaker 1: so somebody is jealous or they're trying to get a
Speaker 1: pay day or what, or just be famous for a
Speaker 1: minute at the expense of this person's reputation and stuff.
Speaker 1: So it becomes really hard to say, to tell the truth,
Speaker 1: I mean, And that's on top of the trauma itself,
Speaker 1: making it very hard to speak because that's the trauma
Speaker 1: itself can take of many, many years to get through
Speaker 1: enough that you can talk about it, right, and people
Speaker 1: really discount that. I really hate seeing that. But people
Speaker 1: are like, oh, when I was sixteen and they're like
Speaker 1: fifty now and everybody's like, well, why don't you say something?
Speaker 1: Then yeah, you act like it's so easy, and it's
Speaker 1: really not right. I mean, I'd like to do something embarrassing,
Speaker 1: like I, you know, open the wrong side of that
Speaker 1: can in the kitchen and I'm like, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to tell anyone, but I did that. This is between
Speaker 1: me and God. Yeah, you know, I know that's kind
Speaker 1: of a silly comparison, of course it is. But the
Speaker 1: idea being that, like, our brains do have something in
Speaker 1: them that are like, if you feel like you should
Speaker 1: be ashamed of something, you lock it in. That's right, right,
Speaker 1: that's right. So Ron said, as a results of this
Speaker 1: horrible person in his childhood. He said, quote, I turned
Speaker 1: to women. I felt safe in the company of women,
Speaker 1: and after being silent for so long, he claims that
Speaker 1: Wang helped him face all of this past trauma and
Speaker 1: start to get over it. Oh good, But sadly this
Speaker 1: marriage with Wang did not last either. Within two years
Speaker 1: of these interviews, Ron and Wang were getting a divorce,
Speaker 1: but this time it was a little different. It ended
Speaker 1: in a restraining order and yet another fiance for old Ron.
Speaker 1: So we will come back with more about that right
Speaker 1: after these words. Welcome back everyone. We are gathered here
Speaker 1: today to hear the story of Ron Shepherd and his
Speaker 1: eight wives. Eight wives of Ron Shepherd. Well, it seemed,
Speaker 1: you know, like Ron and Wang, we're a happy couple.
Speaker 1: Ron had finally found the soul mates that he'd spend
Speaker 1: his whole life searching for. But in twenty sixteen, everything
Speaker 1: started to fall apart. For his part, Ron was suffering
Speaker 1: from a growing number of health problems, including a diagnosis
Speaker 1: of Parkinson's and Louis body dementia, right, which are alone
Speaker 1: too horrible things to deal with. And then together you're
Speaker 1: like Jesus and like, we don't know specifically what happened
Speaker 1: that caused their separation. But we do know that after
Speaker 1: Ron and Wang separated, Ron started trying to win her back,
Speaker 1: and maybe he's trying a little too hard because he
Speaker 1: sent her letters, you sent her presents, into her Facebook messages.
Speaker 1: He just bombarded her trying to win her back. According
Speaker 1: to Metro, Yeah, and then Wang then filed harassment charges
Speaker 1: against him because all of this was just so much.
Speaker 1: He really would not let up and not leave her alone,
Speaker 1: no matter how many times she said, no, Ron, you know,
Speaker 1: leave me alone, and that should be all you need
Speaker 1: to hear. Ron was arrested after she filed these charges.
Speaker 1: She said that she had to quit her church that
Speaker 1: she joined with him, where she had quote made true friends,
Speaker 1: and I had to leave them all behind. That's really inappropriate.
Speaker 1: I mean, to push someone to the point where they
Speaker 1: have to abandon part of their life because you just
Speaker 1: you're you're two in it. Yeah. Well, even after this arrest,
Speaker 1: Ron continued to pester her, she says, and then he
Speaker 1: moved into intimidation tactics, allegedly telling her quote it was
Speaker 1: ninety nine percent likely that the case would be thrown
Speaker 1: out and she could be arrested for perjury. That's a
Speaker 1: straight up threat. You know, if you keep saying these
Speaker 1: things about it, I know you be arrested. You'll be
Speaker 1: arrested at us I don't know. Yeah, come on row.
Speaker 1: He did plead guilty in court to harassment. He got
Speaker 1: a six hundred pound fine and a two year restraining
Speaker 1: order saying that he could not directly nor indirectly contact Wang.
Speaker 1: The district judge told him quote or experiences of matrimony
Speaker 1: in the past, it seems you were unable to accept
Speaker 1: and give up that this is a relationship at an end.
Speaker 1: You won't be the first or last who's been unable
Speaker 1: to deal with the effects of a relationship breakdown. The
Speaker 1: way you conducted yourself did cause actual and real distress
Speaker 1: to missus Shepherd. I'm just assuming every judge in England
Speaker 1: is a Charles Dickens character. Oh yeah, he had to
Speaker 1: put on his big powdered wig before you do any
Speaker 1: of this for the judgment. Full on haze in the
Speaker 1: room from how much powder is coming off at speculation
Speaker 1: station speculation Now. Ron did say in response, quote, I
Speaker 1: would just like to apologize to my wife and apologize
Speaker 1: to the court. And it seems that he honored his
Speaker 1: restraining order. Their divorce did eventually go through. Um, so
Speaker 1: I guess I don't know. I guess he was just
Speaker 1: so into her and he really thought that she was
Speaker 1: going to be the one. He just could not let
Speaker 1: it go yet I gotta like persist. Clearly, the guy's
Speaker 1: got issues with being with someone. It's very important to him, right. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: we did find one tweet from Ron on this subject
Speaker 1: in his now inactive Twitter account, where he told a
Speaker 1: friend quote, Wing accused me of cheating in the media,
Speaker 1: she was cheating with her ex fiance for four years
Speaker 1: when I got Parkinson's call kettle black. Wow. So she
Speaker 1: said that he had cheated on her. Yeah, maybe as
Speaker 1: the impetus for the divorce maybe or something. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: he's like, lady, I got Parkinson's. I'm like in a
Speaker 1: wheel chair most of the time. Not that someone in
Speaker 1: a wheelchair can't cheat on someone, but he's like an
Speaker 1: old man who's like having a hard time physically moving
Speaker 1: through the world. He's not cheating on her. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: not going to bars every night trying to like pick
Speaker 1: up some ladies. Right. Not that again, not that these
Speaker 1: circumstances preclude the possibility of cheating, but it seems very unlikely.
Speaker 1: And the fact that he suggested pseudo privately, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, it's Twitter, so it's not really. But he
Speaker 1: was just tweeting back to a friend who was asking
Speaker 1: how he was doing. He's like, well, what, she started
Speaker 1: cheating on me as soon as she found out I
Speaker 1: at Parkinson's. Look, no it's not, and of course who knows.
Speaker 1: But if we take it at face value, that sucks, right.
Speaker 1: He also then wrote on Twitter, quote thirteen years then
Speaker 1: walked out on me for a better life when diagnosed
Speaker 1: with Louis body dementia, Crystal is very caring and loving,
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's true. That's pretty cold wing for him
Speaker 1: to get, you know, a crazy diagnosis, and she's like,
Speaker 1: I'm to be hied down with some sick man. This
Speaker 1: is something for me that's really important in the marriage
Speaker 1: vows thing. And of course there's all kinds of reasons
Speaker 1: that marriages can fall apart, But to me, I'm like,
Speaker 1: when you ask someone if you want to marry them,
Speaker 1: you've considered your whole life together and all the risks
Speaker 1: and possibilities that come with that, and that includes, you know,
Speaker 1: if you become incapacitated to the point where I have
Speaker 1: to care for you. I'd rather stay with you through that.
Speaker 1: And if you haven't really thought of that, then probably
Speaker 1: don't get married, right, And it's a sad fact. I
Speaker 1: guess statistically speaking that more often than not it's men
Speaker 1: who leave women who get diagnet of terrible diseases. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it either way, it's really cold because you're basically
Speaker 1: abandoning someone to like pain and possible death alone. Yeah,
Speaker 1: after they've given you probably the best years of their lives. Right.
Speaker 1: I don't know about Ron's best years maybe, but still
Speaker 1: that's just really sad and it would feel harsh, like
Speaker 1: I'd be like, you're a monster. It's making me think
Speaker 1: of another famous shepherd, Jack Shepherd from from Lost and
Speaker 1: when he married Julie Bowen because she was having a
Speaker 1: back surgery and he was her spinal surgeon and he
Speaker 1: was telling her fiance, hey, you know, she might never
Speaker 1: walk again, is like, oh, whoa is she gonna need
Speaker 1: like help go into the bathroom and stuff. Jack was
Speaker 1: like yeah, dude, and the guy was like, okay, boy,
Speaker 1: and then he just disappeared and then she ended up
Speaker 1: marrying her spinal surgeon who saved her and she did
Speaker 1: end up being able to walk again, so that guy
Speaker 1: was extra dumb. Yeah, idiot, And she married Jack, which
Speaker 1: talk about a doomed marriage from the start, because in
Speaker 1: episode six, if you're hang on, that's what this episode's about.
Speaker 1: Next podcast, Different podcasts, different podcasts. But I do worry,
Speaker 1: like when you hear about men who like won't change
Speaker 1: diapers or something because they're like, it's just gross. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm like, it is gross, absolutely, But I mean one
Speaker 1: day your wife might need you to change her diapers,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Like that can happen to
Speaker 1: an adult, and you have to be prepared. And if
Speaker 1: you you can't won't do it for a tiny baby.
Speaker 1: How am I supposed to think you're gonna do it
Speaker 1: for me? You know? Or I don't know. I just
Speaker 1: would feel safe around somebody who felt like they couldn't
Speaker 1: ever clean up a mess like that. That's why I
Speaker 1: have dedicated our entire savings fund to replacing pieces of
Speaker 1: you one by one with bionic parts. But eventually you're
Speaker 1: just an indestructible robot. Okay, I mean my dream that's
Speaker 1: kind of cool, cyborg. One day, I hope you get
Speaker 1: like cyborg like cool tech. Oh yeah, you'll totally have
Speaker 1: like a laser cannon in your arm, um teleportation technology,
Speaker 1: a food synthesizer. Who nice. Maybe I'll finally know what
Speaker 1: it's like to see without glasses. Oh no, Actually, one
Speaker 1: of the problems with the technology is that you retain
Speaker 1: your vision as it is now. So I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1: It's the one thing I can I can fly from
Speaker 1: a jet pack on my feet, sure, but I can't
Speaker 1: see ten feet in front of me around glasses. But
Speaker 1: we'll get you some really nice glasses. Okay, wow, all right,
Speaker 1: as long as they're really nice, yea, make sure they
Speaker 1: look at all right. Well, anyway back to Ron. So
Speaker 1: Ron is talking about how Wing walked out on him
Speaker 1: when he was diagnosed with Louis body dementia, and that's
Speaker 1: really cruel and mean. And then he says, Crystal is
Speaker 1: very caring and loving. Now, who in the hill is
Speaker 1: Crystal in the conversation? I've not heard her name yet. Well,
Speaker 1: if you thought that Ron's quest for love was over
Speaker 1: after Wing, then you have not been paying attention to
Speaker 1: run my friends. Come on, there's no way he gives
Speaker 1: up at this point. Now, unsurprisingly, the story doesn't exactly
Speaker 1: get more romantic as it goes on. Um. Crystal Lelek
Speaker 1: was a twenty five year old woman from the Philippines.
Speaker 1: They it's definitely Ron's in that. Um was it dazed
Speaker 1: and confused kind of mentality. And I keep getting older,
Speaker 1: They're always twenty five or show I was going to say,
Speaker 1: is Leo era? Oh yeah, well Ron had actually met
Speaker 1: Crystal years earlier when he was married to his seventh wife,
Speaker 1: Juan That was the one who married him in the
Speaker 1: UK and then dipped back home to the Philippines ten
Speaker 1: months later to Thailand. Yeah. Um. Now, at the time
Speaker 1: that they met, Crystal was only sixteen years old, and
Speaker 1: apparently Ron and Crystal and Wan hung out all the time.
Speaker 1: It's like a local friend of hers. I don't know,
Speaker 1: age gap weird, weird. They lost touch, and after Ron
Speaker 1: and Wing's divorce started going through, he decided to look
Speaker 1: her up. When they connected, he flew to the Philippines
Speaker 1: to spend Christmas with her, and on New Year's Eve
Speaker 1: he proposed to Crystal and she said yes. Because again,
Speaker 1: I mean, if you meet a woman, the next logical
Speaker 1: step is to propose to her. You celebrate the twelve
Speaker 1: Days of Christmas and then you propose one of those
Speaker 1: five golden rings. Well, you know, nothing's ever easy in
Speaker 1: the marriage department for Ron, and this was no different
Speaker 1: because you see, Crystal was actually already married. Oh she said,
Speaker 1: though she was totally going to divorce her husband. It's
Speaker 1: all about you, Ron, I'm going to move to England
Speaker 1: with you. So here's Ron, sixty nine years old, suffering
Speaker 1: from Parkinson's and other ailments, bringing this twenty six year
Speaker 1: old woman from the Philippines to England. And he told Mirror, quote,
Speaker 1: this one is real love. This is the last one,
Speaker 1: I promise. And Cristel said, quote, I know what it
Speaker 1: looks like, but I am not here for a passport.
Speaker 1: I am not here to take advantage of Ron. Hmmm.
Speaker 1: And apparently she also told Ron that they could not
Speaker 1: have a physical relationship before they got married because she
Speaker 1: was a committed Christian. Okay, okay, I had to wait
Speaker 1: till marriage. And Ron said, quote, I respected that and
Speaker 1: hoped at least she would become my career, but she
Speaker 1: just became more distant. She didn't get his jokes. She
Speaker 1: also did just didn't pay much attention to him. He said,
Speaker 1: quote she'd just sit there taking selfies and I'd have
Speaker 1: to shout her name just to get her to look
Speaker 1: at me. God, do you just feel I mean, you
Speaker 1: can see this happening so clearly. I feel like that
Speaker 1: also makes me think her name maybe was not Crystal.
Speaker 1: I mean I feel like maybe she had a totally
Speaker 1: different name, and she'd be like, who is he talking to. Well,
Speaker 1: they applied for a carer's visa to let her stay
Speaker 1: in the country. She would be you know, his caretaker basically,
Speaker 1: and would be allowed to stay. And then shortly after that,
Speaker 1: Ron said he probably should have realized something was wrong
Speaker 1: because she quote lost her engagement ring and then she
Speaker 1: just started going out at nights and making new friends.
Speaker 1: After her visa was denied and she went to Ron
Speaker 1: and said she had to go home to the Philippines
Speaker 1: for a week, she gave him a long look and
Speaker 1: then left, and when he checked her room later, all
Speaker 1: of her stuff was gone. She blocked him on Facebook,
Speaker 1: and a friend of his and the Philippines said that
Speaker 1: she was there dating someone else. Dang. Yeah, So I mean, like,
Speaker 1: you know, we all saw this coming a long time ago,
Speaker 1: especially like I love unprompted she's like, well, I know
Speaker 1: what it looks like, right, but I'm not here for that.
Speaker 1: We'll have to say though the fact that he was
Speaker 1: like I hoped at least she would become my care
Speaker 1: It seems to me like he just wants a nursemaid,
Speaker 1: you know, like he's looking for a younger, energetic person
Speaker 1: like take of him. But he doesn't want to pay
Speaker 1: a nurse a wife. Yeah, and he wants that to
Speaker 1: double as someone who's just like fully devoted in love
Speaker 1: to him, right, Like it's not somebody just comes in
Speaker 1: and make sure he's doing all right, but it's someone
Speaker 1: who's just like hanging on his arm also and curled
Speaker 1: up next to him while I watched TV or whatever
Speaker 1: it is that his kind of fantasy is. He's certainly
Speaker 1: like trying to craft a person that I don't think
Speaker 1: exists for him in this way, or I mean, maybe
Speaker 1: for anyone, because I could also like maybe Crystal, you know, definitely,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't really believe those, but maybe
Speaker 1: she was like, yeah, I fell in love with a
Speaker 1: sixty nine year old band and I decided to come
Speaker 1: live in the UK with him. But I don't know
Speaker 1: if you're only twenty six and somebody's like, hey, can
Speaker 1: you spend the next ten to twenty years of your life?
Speaker 1: I mean cleaning up after an old man, and that's
Speaker 1: not something you wanted to do with your life. I
Speaker 1: could see kind of being like, actually, I don't think
Speaker 1: I do want to do that, you know, especially if
Speaker 1: you're not really in love. Definitely not. And I think
Speaker 1: that's a very hard thing to do, is to be
Speaker 1: a constant caretaker for a person. I think that's kind
Speaker 1: of the split. Like, you know, I'm not going to
Speaker 1: sit here and say there's no one there's no young
Speaker 1: person out there who's not truly in love with a
Speaker 1: much older person that they're taking care of. Sure, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's unlikely that Crystals someone who was looking for, Like,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'll learn to love him. I'm going
Speaker 1: to curl up on his arm and right look gaze
Speaker 1: lovingly into his eyes, and yeah, I know he's not
Speaker 1: here much longer. I just want to get in the
Speaker 1: best life I get. You know, I don't know there
Speaker 1: are people with that heart. Sure, I don't know that
Speaker 1: Crystal is that person, but did they definitely exist? Yeah?
Speaker 1: So all right, Ron, come on, is that it, buddy,
Speaker 1: are you throwing in the towel? Now? Have you tried it?
Speaker 1: Surely Crystal was like the last straw, like, Okay, something's
Speaker 1: got to change here, right, I'm seventy, I'm good. You
Speaker 1: know that he's not good. You know he didn't stop
Speaker 1: at this point. Ron's got a little more fight left
Speaker 1: in him, he said to mirror quote. As far as
Speaker 1: I'm concerned, I'm back on the market. I'm not going
Speaker 1: to say I haven't already had women contacting me. I
Speaker 1: don't know what it is about me. Women just seem
Speaker 1: to flock to me. I think it could be my
Speaker 1: natural charm and charisma. Although I've got to be honest,
Speaker 1: after all this time, I sometimes think women could just
Speaker 1: be too much trouble. But I am determined not to
Speaker 1: die alone. I refuse to end up in a home,
Speaker 1: and I will find someone who will love me for
Speaker 1: who I am. Well, there's a lot to talk about
Speaker 1: in that quote right there alone, and of course we
Speaker 1: want to know if he's going to pull it off. Well,
Speaker 1: place your bets and we will wrap up Ron's story.
Speaker 1: But right after this break, welcome back Esteemed friends, family, romans,
Speaker 1: countrymen to the final marriages of Ron Shepherd. Well, at
Speaker 1: this point, after divorcing Wing and not marrying Crystal, Ron
Speaker 1: had spent forty four of his past forty eight years married.
Speaker 1: He has thirteen great grandchildren. He thinks he doesn't really know.
Speaker 1: I guess his longest marriage was thirteen years to Wing
Speaker 1: and his shortest was with one at just ten months.
Speaker 1: And he told Mirror in twenty seventeen, quote, the Tories
Speaker 1: should get me. Didn't negotiate Brexit after all? How many
Speaker 1: people have had as many divorces as me? Fair right,
Speaker 1: all right, pretty good? Well, I'm curious how those negotiations
Speaker 1: went in those divorces. He doesn't get into that, yeah, right, Like,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe they saw the terms and they
Speaker 1: were like it's it's okay, we're gonna we're already doing
Speaker 1: bad terms of this all by yourself. Just and if
Speaker 1: you're curious too. Ron was like a tour manager for
Speaker 1: a famous English celebrity, like he had. He had a
Speaker 1: good career. Okay, I don't think he was like super healthy,
Speaker 1: nor do I think he was ever struggling, all right,
Speaker 1: despite his many weddings and divorces, which I guess he
Speaker 1: had enough money for that well. Anyway, at this point
Speaker 1: he was not done looking for the perfect bride, and
Speaker 1: in twenty eighteen, he thought maybe Cupid had struck again
Speaker 1: when he met an American woman named Rose. Oh well,
Speaker 1: met isn't really the right word, because he found her online.
Speaker 1: She was thirty years old. They spoke through email. He said, quote,
Speaker 1: I know Rose is the one. It doesn't matter if
Speaker 1: we haven't met, as I can tell we are the
Speaker 1: perfect match. Age is just numbers and I don't care.
Speaker 1: She's half my age. She's deeply in love with me
Speaker 1: and I am with her. Yes see, a girl aged
Speaker 1: thirty was just what Ron was looking for because you see,
Speaker 1: he told the Mirror, quote, thirty is the perfect age
Speaker 1: because they're more mature. He said, a lot of women
Speaker 1: were writing to him on Facebook, but they're all so young.
Speaker 1: But Rose Rose is thirty right, like she's grown up
Speaker 1: a little. She knows what she wants and the thing
Speaker 1: with Roses she just needed to finish her nursing school
Speaker 1: in Ghana and then she would come to England to
Speaker 1: marry him. She messaged Ron first, and Ron points out
Speaker 1: again that quote. Because of my history, a lot of
Speaker 1: women have contacted me, he says that she never asked
Speaker 1: for anything from him. Quote, but I have given her
Speaker 1: a few pounds for her grand and I just okay, y'all,
Speaker 1: all the red flags are going off. I mean, he's
Speaker 1: never spoken to this person in person. She reached out
Speaker 1: to him first. And his whole thing where he's like
Speaker 1: all of his many marriages, well especially as later few
Speaker 1: marriages were very publicized in the tabloids, and then he
Speaker 1: wrote this book and everything, and he just put a
Speaker 1: big sign over himself that is like, I will marry
Speaker 1: younger women. Right, So obviously he's getting inundated with Facebook
Speaker 1: messages from profiles with pictures of young women. And he's
Speaker 1: a seventy year old man. He's probably not great at
Speaker 1: discerning reality from fiction on social media. Obviously he's got
Speaker 1: a big target on his back. Yeah, and I'm you know,
Speaker 1: you know, we have even talked about some people who
Speaker 1: met online, particularly during the pandemic, Yeah, and never met
Speaker 1: in person but still fell in love. They got married, absolutely,
Speaker 1: you know, but they also like video chatted with each
Speaker 1: other and they had met like each other's families and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. So there was a little more I
Speaker 1: don't know, vetting done I'm not sure that he's talking
Speaker 1: to Rose in a way that he can really vet
Speaker 1: that she is a thirty year old woman. And I
Speaker 1: don't think any of the people we talked about were young,
Speaker 1: hot Instagram models reaching out to seventy year old men
Speaker 1: from another country. Right, And I love that he says,
Speaker 1: I don't care she's half my age. Oh yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: I don't know you. I'm worried about my friend. I
Speaker 1: would rather hear she doesn't care that I'm twice hurried.
Speaker 1: That's that makes more sense. Yeah. Well, fortunately you can
Speaker 1: breathe a sigh of relief because Ron called off this
Speaker 1: supposed in person meeting that he was going to go
Speaker 1: to at the last minute. He says he did anyway,
Speaker 1: He said that they were supposed to meet in person
Speaker 1: on a Friday, and quote, it didn't feel like the
Speaker 1: right thing for me to do. Yes, there it is,
Speaker 1: he realized Wallace. Or like a little bit of Higgins
Speaker 1: from from ted Lasso. It kind of sounds like him too.
Speaker 1: Love it such a great accent? Or who is he
Speaker 1: on Doubton? St incredible character? I love it. Higgins from
Speaker 1: ted Lasso? Was Spratt on Doubton? If you did not know.
Speaker 1: It's one of my favorite dual roles for an actor ever,
Speaker 1: I know, amazing. It really shows his range. Yes, Okay,
Speaker 1: So Ron realized that he might not actually be in
Speaker 1: love with this girl Rose. He said, quote she was
Speaker 1: doing all the pushing. It didn't feel right in my heart.
Speaker 1: He said. She was upset but quote couldn't take phone
Speaker 1: calls as she's in Ghana, right, and Ghana has you know,
Speaker 1: no phone whatsoever. We've got a friend in Ghana that
Speaker 1: you talked to him. We've talked recently in fact, and
Speaker 1: in fact from the US to Ghana, y'all have a
Speaker 1: big time zone gap. I think the UK and Ghana
Speaker 1: are not that far east and west of each other,
Speaker 1: so they're in You can definitely take a phone call
Speaker 1: in Ghana. This is just again every red flag going off, like, oh,
Speaker 1: I actually can't talk on the phone with you because
Speaker 1: I'm a forty two year old man. You know, her
Speaker 1: name is actually Brutus, right, I know. Yeah, that's just
Speaker 1: I think that's just so funny that he's decided an
Speaker 1: entire country in Africa's incapable of taking or making phone calls.
Speaker 1: That's just really very set. So Ron, you know, maybe
Speaker 1: learned his lesson, because just this past week, in March
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty three, Ron Shepherd, the UK's most married man,
Speaker 1: the lord of the Wedding Rings himself, announced that he
Speaker 1: was retiring from marriage finally. Who smart. Yeah. He said
Speaker 1: he was moving to a care home, and he stated
Speaker 1: that the last fifty seven years of romance have quote
Speaker 1: worn his body out well, and of course his health
Speaker 1: is not great right. His days now are very different.
Speaker 1: He's going to stay in a care home in the
Speaker 1: Isle of Wight to be closer to family, and he
Speaker 1: has care providers help him three times a day. Occasionally
Speaker 1: he gets out of the facility. But he's considering this
Speaker 1: quote a new chapter of my life. I think that's
Speaker 1: a good way to look at it. I think so too,
Speaker 1: you know. And he says he's writing a second autobiography
Speaker 1: called The Wife Collector and which I don't love the title,
Speaker 1: but anyway, he claims that it's already in talks to
Speaker 1: be a movie in the US. All right, well, and
Speaker 1: you know, maybe, but also, Ron, buddy, I'm worried about
Speaker 1: people taking advantage of you, okay, and someone trying to
Speaker 1: buy your rights for a movie is also big red flag. Yeah, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: he said, quote, if I meet a nice lady in
Speaker 1: the care home, I think I'll just keep it as
Speaker 1: a friendship. Who I've eaten enough wedding cake over the years.
Speaker 1: I'm done with going up the aisle. Here you go, Ron,
Speaker 1: all right, there we go? Ah? Man, I mean, what
Speaker 1: is happening? How? I just couldn't figure out what was
Speaker 1: going on with Ron. I'm reading these stories and again
Speaker 1: they're all tabloids, right, Like, no, nobody's writing a research
Speaker 1: paper about Ron. There's not any like deep New York
Speaker 1: Times deep dives into his life story. It's just kind
Speaker 1: of like flashy headlines the UK is most married man
Speaker 1: looking for his ninth wife kind of stuff, kind of
Speaker 1: setting him up for putting a target on his back
Speaker 1: a little bit. Sure, you can see the tabloids being like,
Speaker 1: we can't wait for this one to fail so you
Speaker 1: can talk about Jigen. Yeah, and you know it got
Speaker 1: me wondering what else is going on here? I mean,
Speaker 1: we've got his history right, and it's totally rational. I
Speaker 1: believe in him having lifelong attachment issues because of the
Speaker 1: abuse that he suffered. But the guy just seems incapable
Speaker 1: of not being married. I mean fifty seven years between
Speaker 1: his first marriage and right now, and he has been
Speaker 1: married or engaged to ten different women for most of
Speaker 1: those years. And I mean, it's not like he's some
Speaker 1: playboy who just keeps running around and getting divorced and
Speaker 1: cheating and screwing up or whatever. At least according to him,
Speaker 1: he was only unfaithful the one time with Usha. I
Speaker 1: imagine that Ron was probably difficult to be married too,
Speaker 1: somewhere somewhere or another, and at least at least some
Speaker 1: of these women, Let's be honest, we're definitely taking advantage
Speaker 1: of him more than I mean, that seems pretty clear.
Speaker 1: But what is up with him just going from one
Speaker 1: marriage straight into the next? I mean, there's often no time,
Speaker 1: but like this, oftentimes a marriage ends and the next
Speaker 1: marriage starts within the same year, if not just the
Speaker 1: next year. Well, I found something that none of the
Speaker 1: tabloids seemed to mention. It's called enough to phobia, and
Speaker 1: this is the irrational fear of not being in a
Speaker 1: romantic relationship. According to psychotimes dot com quote, people who
Speaker 1: suffer from this condition may experience very intense anxiety as
Speaker 1: a result of their fear of being alone. Obviously we can't,
Speaker 1: you know, just aren't share diagnosed ron with having an
Speaker 1: up to phobia necessarily, but it led us to finding
Speaker 1: it and really want to talk about it, and kind
Speaker 1: of I presume this is kind of what he's dealing with.
Speaker 1: You could see it, I can. I know some people
Speaker 1: like that too, where they're just like in the middle
Speaker 1: of a divorce and they start dating and as soon
Speaker 1: as the divorce goes through, they get married, and then
Speaker 1: that marriage falls apart, and while they're getting the divorce,
Speaker 1: they start dating someone else, you know, like they're just
Speaker 1: never alone. And I do I didn't think I didn't
Speaker 1: know about this phobia, but I definitely was like, there's
Speaker 1: something wrong if you can't be by yourself for a minute. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you know, do you hate yourself or you just
Speaker 1: like what's going on? So I'm kind of it's interesting
Speaker 1: to learn about this an up to phobia probably the
Speaker 1: very extreme version of this, but like, obviously, yeah, we
Speaker 1: know some people who who define themselves by their relationship,
Speaker 1: and you know, I think it's true. You've got to
Speaker 1: love yourself before somebody can really love you, or at
Speaker 1: least you've got to have a sense of identity certainly help.
Speaker 1: You've got to at least have something about you that
Speaker 1: makes you a full person in your own right. You know,
Speaker 1: before you just go define yourself by the relationship you're in, right,
Speaker 1: because you get so codependent. Yeah, and that's not healthy, right.
Speaker 1: So an up to phobia is this fear that kind
Speaker 1: of sticks in your brain and it makes you feel
Speaker 1: sure that you'll ever find anyone you know to be with,
Speaker 1: even though actually the future is very unpredictable. You can
Speaker 1: never know what's coming, but the fear kind of convinces you, right,
Speaker 1: that's what they kind of the psychologists are like telling
Speaker 1: people like you, you see yourself dying alone if you
Speaker 1: don't marry this person. But that's you saying you can
Speaker 1: predict the future, right, and you can't. So yeah, they're like,
Speaker 1: you know, even though you have no idea what's in
Speaker 1: store for you in this world, you start to get
Speaker 1: so certain that you'll end up alone that you just
Speaker 1: become like maybe a serial dater or a serial marrier.
Speaker 1: You're just constantly getting yourself into a partnership. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: you know, these marriages obviously might not work out because
Speaker 1: they're not really based on connection. They're based on fear,
Speaker 1: you know, or they're being really rushed into because you're
Speaker 1: just like anyone. I'll take the first person who says yes,
Speaker 1: because I have I can't be alone for two months
Speaker 1: or whatever. And probably in Ron's case, it's probably a
Speaker 1: little bit of both fear and the rushing are happening
Speaker 1: all at the same time. Psych Times says that, you know,
Speaker 1: some people are genetically predisposed to develop mental illness, and
Speaker 1: in that case, a traumatic experience might trigger something like
Speaker 1: a neptophobia to develop. Oh okay, well that of course
Speaker 1: we know Ron had plenty of trauma exactly. That makes yeah, again,
Speaker 1: don't know if he's genetically predisposed illness or anything like that,
Speaker 1: but well it makes you wonder too if he's a
Speaker 1: nine year old and he's able to be in this
Speaker 1: the company of this older man. Yeah, clearly a trusted
Speaker 1: member of the community and everything. But still maybe he
Speaker 1: was alone a lot, you know, he just wasn't just
Speaker 1: didn't have companionship a lot. So maybe he was just like,
Speaker 1: if there's someone here. Ironically, if there's someone here, no
Speaker 1: one can take advantage of me. I think he sort
Speaker 1: of references that it made him feel unsafe and that
Speaker 1: he felt more safe with women than he ever did
Speaker 1: with men, which I think is part of it too,
Speaker 1: and in his mind, and this is probably a whole
Speaker 1: culture of masculinity and stuff. If I want to be
Speaker 1: around women, that means it's got to be a romantic thing. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: being friends with a woman. Whereas, like, what's the point
Speaker 1: I'm not comfortable amount around men as much as I
Speaker 1: am around women because I think I had mostly women
Speaker 1: growing up in my life and things like that, and
Speaker 1: I've you know, a lot of my best friends are
Speaker 1: sys men of course, but but but the majority my
Speaker 1: friends are women. But at the idea of being romantic
Speaker 1: with most of them, you know, I left that behind
Speaker 1: a long time. But we don't need to get into
Speaker 1: my psychology. That's a whole other episode somebody Else's podcast.
Speaker 1: They break down the ridiculous romance of meeting you. Oh well, anyway,
Speaker 1: if someone does have something lined up to phobia, the
Speaker 1: treatments include talk therapy and exposure therapy and anxiety treatments. Okay,
Speaker 1: so I guess all of those things together, probably not
Speaker 1: just one, yeah at a time. Well, I imagine, you know,
Speaker 1: exposure therapy that kind of sort of thing where they
Speaker 1: would you know, somebody who's like break up, break up,
Speaker 1: break up, break up, and they'll say, why don't you
Speaker 1: just stay single for a while, Like that can be
Speaker 1: really healthy for you. But obviously if that's give you
Speaker 1: panic attacks, that's something that has to be dealt with separately. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that makes sense. Well, of course, looking into an uptophobia
Speaker 1: led us to the other side of it, which I'm
Speaker 1: sure a lot of us are familiar with as well, gamaphobia,
Speaker 1: the intense fear of even the idea of being in
Speaker 1: a committed relationship. And you know, I want to say, like, oh,
Speaker 1: I've known people like this, I've been like this a
Speaker 1: little in my life. But this isn't just being cautious
Speaker 1: or indecisive or even so much just like, oh, I've
Speaker 1: got a fear of commitment. This is like irrational and intense,
Speaker 1: like people taking extreme steps to avoid committing. And we're
Speaker 1: talking chest pain, dizziness, hyperventilating, trembling, you know, just from
Speaker 1: the suggestion of like let's go steady, you know, let
Speaker 1: me give you my pin and they like they're like, well,
Speaker 1: why is it nineteen fifty four and the follow damn,
Speaker 1: but no, according to very wellmind dot com people will
Speaker 1: break up with others very easily, like drop of a hat,
Speaker 1: or they'll refuse to date altogether. The people with this
Speaker 1: condition can still get into relationships, but as soon as
Speaker 1: that next level is suggested, they just kind of go
Speaker 1: off the edge. So it's really tough for things to
Speaker 1: get serious. Huh. I wonder what that's about, because, I mean,
Speaker 1: the enough to phobia makes a little more sense. I mean,
Speaker 1: in a nonsensical way. I guess right as it since
Speaker 1: it's not a it's irrational fear, but um, it makes
Speaker 1: a little more sense in that you know, oh, I
Speaker 1: need someone with me. I need to feel like someone
Speaker 1: gives a shit if I live or die, Like that's
Speaker 1: a very normal fear. Then to die alone and be
Speaker 1: eaten by your dog or something. Um. So I just
Speaker 1: wonder what where this comes from. Where you're like, I
Speaker 1: can't I can't even date somebody without losing my mind. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I'm no geologist, but that's an
Speaker 1: old meme just for anything. I'm not an expert in
Speaker 1: um and I did read that. You know, it's it's
Speaker 1: triggered very similarly. It can be brought up trauma or lifestyle.
Speaker 1: Any number of factors can give someone this condition. I
Speaker 1: think for some people who are very much kind of
Speaker 1: linearly focused, like I've got this future in mind, I've
Speaker 1: got the way I need things to be, and I
Speaker 1: don't want to disrupt that, And it's terrifying if I'm
Speaker 1: if I can't predict what's coming or what my life
Speaker 1: will be like in a few years. You add a
Speaker 1: factor in, like a committed relationship, which is chaotic, it's random.
Speaker 1: You know, Now you've got two lives that you're balancing
Speaker 1: at once. I could see how that would be terrifying
Speaker 1: if you were someone who was already scared of not
Speaker 1: knowing what's coming. Well, I guess I can see. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like a similar trauma being like, well, now I can't
Speaker 1: have anyone around me because I had somebody, you know,
Speaker 1: who I was supposed to trust or who is supposed
Speaker 1: to love me or supposed to take care of me
Speaker 1: or whatever treated me poorly. So now I can't trust
Speaker 1: anybody will actually love me. And if I let them in,
Speaker 1: maybe you know, maybe that is allowing them the space
Speaker 1: to hurt me. Oh definitely, I totally definitely it's going
Speaker 1: to be an issue. Yeah, I mean, you know, we
Speaker 1: dated for six years before we got engaged, and I
Speaker 1: think that leans a little on my side more than yours.
Speaker 1: I know we talked about it, like what around year
Speaker 1: three or four or something, and I know that I
Speaker 1: personally wanted to wait longer, not wanting to or not
Speaker 1: feeling like we should, but just out of like I
Speaker 1: just if I don't have it in my heart that
Speaker 1: says like, yes, I want to do this, then it's disingenuous, right,
Speaker 1: And that's kind of how I always felt about it.
Speaker 1: Was like if I if you say like yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: Like it's not like you know, let's go see a movie,
Speaker 1: like yeah, I don't really want to see it, but
Speaker 1: sure I'll go see it and then it's bad and
Speaker 1: you're fine. But if you don't, if you haven't considered
Speaker 1: all those things, I mean, like I said earlier, like
Speaker 1: if you're not like, oh no, I have considered every option.
Speaker 1: I know that our lives together are now entwined, and
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna say I promise all these things unless
Speaker 1: later I feel like maybe I don't want to do
Speaker 1: those things. I just think those answers are really important,
Speaker 1: and some of that surely is embedded in some sort
Speaker 1: of like unpredictability. I think that's probably the closest that
Speaker 1: I came to something like this, or its like I
Speaker 1: don't really want to not know what's coming. I kind
Speaker 1: of have a loose plan and this might throw it
Speaker 1: all out of whack. But again, that's so different from
Speaker 1: panic attacks, chest pain, hyperventilating at the concept of, well,
Speaker 1: let's date exclusively, you know, right, Yeah, that's interesting. I
Speaker 1: definitely got impatient with you. I guess you did not,
Speaker 1: because I was like, I think I felt the same
Speaker 1: way you did. Was like it needs to be resounding,
Speaker 1: like I would like to spend my life with you.
Speaker 1: I don't want it to be some reluctant I had
Speaker 1: to drag you into it. I freaking like send you
Speaker 1: drop you hints where I sent you pictures of engagement
Speaker 1: rings or something. Yeah, I'm like, no, if you don't
Speaker 1: want to, then I'm not trying to uh hear that.
Speaker 1: I think you should really want this, um. But I
Speaker 1: think I did get a little insulted that I took
Speaker 1: so long. Wow, I want it, because I feel like
Speaker 1: we did have a little fight after our wedding once
Speaker 1: I was like, well that was nice one day I'll
Speaker 1: maybe have that, maybe not wait after after a wedd wedding.
Speaker 1: Thought after our wedding, I was like, but you got it. No,
Speaker 1: I know that was great. We didn't fight after sure,
Speaker 1: I mean well, but I also I remember even thinking
Speaker 1: like I'm having this feeling of like, oh, why aren't
Speaker 1: we getting married? You know? And I really thought about
Speaker 1: it because I was like, do I want to get
Speaker 1: married or is it just like I feel like there
Speaker 1: should be another step we have to undertake or this
Speaker 1: is what people are expecting and so we need to
Speaker 1: do it or whatever. And I do feel that once
Speaker 1: we got married, there was definitely like this this sense
Speaker 1: of like I feel so solid, you know, like now
Speaker 1: there is no there's it's lot harder to untangle our lives.
Speaker 1: So we have definitely decided this is what we want
Speaker 1: and this is how we're moving forward. But there was
Speaker 1: also something kind of nice when we were together for
Speaker 1: so long and it was like you can't leave at
Speaker 1: any time and you don't, yeah, you know, and I don't. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So there's clearly and I think that's was part of
Speaker 1: the I don't know, part of the impatience too, was
Speaker 1: like well, we already know, it's already been six years. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm waiting for, So I don't know.
Speaker 1: It was a lot of like questioning, like what's the
Speaker 1: social cultural programming that I have that it's definitely in me,
Speaker 1: whether I like it or not? And what is my
Speaker 1: true emotion about this and my true feeling about this?
Speaker 1: And it's very hard to parse those out sometimes it is.
Speaker 1: I mean there's times I still think that I'm like,
Speaker 1: marriage doesn't matter necessarily in the ways that it used to.
Speaker 1: Marriage is obviously very different now than it used to be.
Speaker 1: And yeah, at six years, even if we hadn't got engaged,
Speaker 1: I would have assumed that we were in it for
Speaker 1: the long haul, you know. And I think one thing
Speaker 1: about marriage especially maybe this is even more something of
Speaker 1: a conversation in an early like maybe a two year
Speaker 1: relationship or something where it's like, Hey, when things get tough,
Speaker 1: are we going to work through it? Are we going
Speaker 1: to tell ourselves now while things are good, that we
Speaker 1: will work through it when things get tough, that we
Speaker 1: are here together and big life decisions are something we're
Speaker 1: going to make together, and things like that. All the
Speaker 1: stuff that comes from from marriage in terms of the
Speaker 1: complicated stuff. And I'm willing to make your priorities my priorities,
Speaker 1: and you're willing to make my priorities your priorities. And
Speaker 1: if you end up, you know, incapacitated in such a
Speaker 1: way that you need someone to care for you, am
Speaker 1: I that person? Yeah? That kind of yeah, all those questions.
Speaker 1: Marriage is a way to kind of lay it all
Speaker 1: out and be like, yes, officially, let's say that, yes,
Speaker 1: And I think you can have that conversation without the
Speaker 1: institution the corporate world of weddings that are really just
Speaker 1: about flash ceremony and money. And then there's you know,
Speaker 1: there's the legal component too, which also kind of comes
Speaker 1: down to property and money, and that's a whole other thing.
Speaker 1: But I don't think unimportant, but not unimportant, But I
Speaker 1: don't think that you need that to live a committed
Speaker 1: life together. But it's also the best party we've ever had,
Speaker 1: the most amazing trip of our lives we got to
Speaker 1: take afterwards, and I similarly, yeah, I'm glad we did.
Speaker 1: I And you do feel a sense of like, well,
Speaker 1: that's settled. Nothing's left ambiguous at this point, right, And
Speaker 1: I think too, there was probably a question in my mind,
Speaker 1: like oh he doesn't want me, you know, right, which
Speaker 1: is crazy. I know it is. You're crazy. And that's
Speaker 1: one thing a husband really needs to tell his wife
Speaker 1: pretty often, is that like, you're crazy and if you
Speaker 1: think something's wrong, you're making it up in that crazy
Speaker 1: woman brainiers. This is why we put no romantic tips
Speaker 1: in the theme song, because Eli gives terrible advice. That
Speaker 1: is your wife act. Make sure you let her though
Speaker 1: as often as possible. She'll thank you for it. No,
Speaker 1: but I mean, you know, and I I never I
Speaker 1: didn't think you're gonna cheat on me or something, but
Speaker 1: you know, I just had that. There was always a
Speaker 1: little question of like, oh, he's trying to keep a
Speaker 1: door open, you know what I mean, for a reason.
Speaker 1: There's a reason he wants a door open. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1: And yeah, because if I wouldn't the latto you know
Speaker 1: that's mine. Now it's ours, Sorry, babe, you have to
Speaker 1: give me some of it. Well, I would love to
Speaker 1: hear your marriage stories, whether you've been through a bunch
Speaker 1: of chaotic ones or whether you just did what we
Speaker 1: did and just made sure, made really sure, and then
Speaker 1: married for just the absolute joy of it. Please let
Speaker 1: us know whatever you've got or whatever you thought about
Speaker 1: this episode. If you got a hot take on ron
Speaker 1: as many Wives, I'd love to hear that too, and
Speaker 1: we'll read them out on a later episode. Or an
Speaker 1: up to phobia or phobia if you experience it, or
Speaker 1: you know someone or definitely seven opinion or whatever, shoot
Speaker 1: us an email. We're ridic Romance at gmail dot com
Speaker 1: right or we are also on Instagram. I'm at Dynamite
Speaker 1: Boom and I'm at Oh Great, It's Eli and the
Speaker 1: show is at riddic Romance. Stay tuned for another fun
Speaker 1: episode next week. Thank you so much for spending your
Speaker 1: time with us, and we'll catch it the next one.
Speaker 1: Love you, bye, so long, friends, it's time to go.
Speaker 1: Thanks so listening to our show. Tell your friend's names Uncle,
Speaker 1: sendance to listen to a show Ridiculous Roll Dance