E327: Dating Expert: The Biggest Mistakes Men Make w/Cameron Riecker | E327 Lila Rose Show

What's the number one wound that you see show up in the men that you coach? You will be remembered for all of eternity as a good or bad man, depending on if you can beat this vice or not. How common of a struggle is insecurity for men, especially those who are dating or remarriage? Satan would love nothing more than a generation of mediocre men. I think women underestimate their power to encouragement. Your love can awaken and cause something in them that makes them into the person that they're supposed to be. What do you think is the most dangerous lie that young men are being told right now about what women want from them? No sin in being poor. Poverty's not the enemy, sin is the enemy. What is the difference for a man between being intentional and being too intense? Recognize that whatever burden it is that you're carrying. If you carry it in the holy name of Jesus, it will one day carry you to heaven. Cameron Reicher, welcome to the podcast. Thank you. I've been looking forward to this. Thanks for having me. All right. Is the modern man actually less masculine than they were 50 years ago? That's a good question. I think you'd have to look at the definition of masculinity and the final cause of masculinity. What masculinity is four? Because there's certainly a way in which on the exterior, man is less manly. And so far as most men don't have to do blue collar jobs. Most men don't have to go out and work by the sweat of their brow to earn money anymore. But rather they're on their computer or on a laptop or on their iPhone even. And that's how they make money. So in a certain sense in the outside, it seems that way there's a veneer of a feminacy and inside and outside the church both. But the final cause of masculinity ultimately is to provide for and protect a family. Men are stronger than women. And the reason that men have that strength is for the sake of being able to protect and provide for their wife and children. That's how God set it up. So you have to kind of look at it through these different lenses. In a certain sense, men don't have to work as hard anymore. However, because of modern conveniences, I think that people are sometimes more able to accomplish the end of masculinity, the end of authority in general, which is the provision and protection of their inferior. So yeah, I think it depends on kind of which angle you take at it. That's an interesting angle because a lot of people and even on the show have said like, the sexual revolution is why men are not stepping up or they're worse off today. But you're saying it sounds like you're saying it's something that's also very concrete in terms of how they show up and work. Because today there's no more manual labor the way that there used to be, at least not as not nearly as much. Now you're just on if you can be on a phone all day. Yeah, yeah. And I think that too, talking about masculinity, men have a natural desire to conquer, to overcome, to become something great. And women have that too to a certain extent obviously. But there's something very masculine about the idea of going out and winning a battle or conquering this thing or whatever it may be. And in today's modern age, because of smartphones, because of the internet, it's never been easier to sort of fool yourself into thinking that you're accomplishing things, to fool yourself into thinking that you've actually done something great. There's a voice called mediocrity. It's not something many people talk about. But the vice of mediocrity is a vice whereby a man esteems small things to be great. So if you're your job or something like this and that's what you esteem to be great, and that's what you pursue with all of your energy or video games for some guys or womanizing, whatever it may be. If you're esteeming that as your final end, that's what's great. That's what you spend your time, your energy, your focus on. Then you're going to be a mediocre man. You have to have your priorities straight and you have to understand what true greatness actually is through the eyes of God before you even have a chance to actually be what you're supposed to be. Yeah. Why do you think we're seeing a pattern today of less men showing up in leadership in their relationships? One thing that's not often talked about is our school systems are not set up to breed leaders. Sitting in a classroom eight hours a day, sit quietly, do your homework, and then leave. That's not the type of environment that actually breeds leaders. And I used to teach high school. Then we used to teach in a similar setting to that. And the people that graduate and then end up becoming leaders were typically the ones who didn't do very well in the classroom setting. You go back and this is an important point too. But men generally probably should be getting married younger. If you look at the natural way that it folds out, men and women are biologically ready for marriage at 14, 15, 16 years old, depending on the person. And there's a natural inclination that begins at that point. And if you're pushing off marriage to your 30, 35, obviously God has a plan for everyone. I'm not condemning anybody that gets married later and things like that. But if you keep pushing that off deliberately, then you end up sort of slowing down your development. You don't have to be perfect to get married through marriage is oftentimes the way that you grow in the virtues that you're lacking. You have kids that are crying at 2am. It's like, well, you're going to grow in the virtue of patience pretty quickly. So I think that's part of it is the environment that people grow up in. It slows down their development. My grandma and grandpa, great grandma, grandpa, people like that, we're getting married 19, 20 years old. And now if you get married 19 years old, it's like, wow, you used to be a woman thing. You're crazy, right? But it's because the way that it's set up, men used to have to be ready to provide for a family by 19. I think our society delays that a little bit. And that's also why we're seeing people get married later and later. And you think that our society delays that because they're not taught, people are not being taught how to lead, whether it's through our academic system and how that's set up. Or it's just in the way that they're being developed in their families. But there's no expectation of you're going to get married young. People don't have that expectation to see opposite. And then there's no training for how to do it, even if you wanted to. Yeah, I feel like things are too easy, generally for children sometimes. The way that you grow in responsibility is by completing a task where the well-being of a community depends upon your success. Right? So if you're never in a situation where you have to pull through or else people suffer, then you just get used to being taken care of. And you're going to be a father and a husband. You're not supposed to be the one who's being taken care of. You're supposed to be the one who's taken care of others. That's what the role of fatherhood is for is servant leadership to your wife and children. And so yeah, I think sports are really good for that. A lot of guys that play sports, they start to get this concept a lot sooner. But the academic situation we have in America in general, I think is failing men. Do you think that shivalry is dying today? I think it's on the on the I think it's dead, but I think it's resurrecting. I think it's on the uptake. You look at a bunch of guys online and I have lots of friends like this. I work with lots of men like this. But they're almost on the opposite extreme of trying to take care of women, trying to be good to women, trying to be respectful to women. I think that the lie that's maybe most pervasive is having your finances totally set up before you start to date. That's one that I see quite often. People are almost afraid of getting married young and poor. I was married at 25 and we were pretty young and we were pretty poor and it was really good for us. Actually, we had to learn to band together. We had to learn to trust in God to provide for us. There was a few months whenever I was starting this YouTube channel where we were like, "All right, well, I don't exactly know how we're going to pay the mortgage next month, but we're going to figure it out." Impressive. You had a mortgage. We did. Yes. It's funny. We took out the loan when Jess and I were both working and then she stopped working after we had our first kid and after she got pregnant with the second one. But yeah. So I think that's one. There's no sin in being poor. Poverty is not the enemy. Sin is the enemy. Mary and Joseph struggled together for years as an impoverished married couple and there's a lot of merit in that. So I think that would be one thing is don't feel like you have to have a roof over your head. You have to be able to feed yourselves, but you don't need much more than that. That's a very interesting take and I'm curious that this is a thing that a lot of people have this expectation of as I need to be financially set up to be able to go into marriage. I need to have enough savings, enough of a trajectory enough, just financial cushion to be able to take on all these responsibilities. And people are really, I think afraid of commitment, afraid of having children because of economic concerns. It's interesting that if you compare our economy today and and just the level of wealth and what what poverty means in America today versus a hundred years ago, it is night and day. Like we have our standards have just gone through the roof about what it means to be rich or poor. And today we have so much more material goods than we could have ever dreamed of even a hundred years ago. But do you think that that really lie about any happy financially set up? Is that more a thing that men just get in their head about or is it something objectively that women are expecting unfairly to an unfair degree from men today in your view? I think it's probably somewhat both. Speaking to the male side of things though, it's good to have a desire to be able to keep your wife at home or to be able to provide for a family. It's really good to have that desire. And one of the things that I think men get stuck in is they can kind of over-spiritualize things sometimes to the point where they're used spirituality and God's will is an excuse for inactivity. And it's really important to recognize that God works through human initiative. God works through the work that you put in. St. Paul in one of his epistles, he flat out says, "I worked harder than the other twelve apostles." But then he goes on and clarifies and says, "Not I, but the grace of God within me." So it's really important to understand that God's plan for your life is not divorced from the effort that you put in. And the effort that you put in is ultimately result of God's loving and providential care for you. So you have no reason to boast, but at the same time if you're not at the spot you should be when you're trying to get married, that's on you, right? So many to really recognize, I think, the power and the dignity that they have. And it's really important because Satan wants a ton of mediocre men in the church. He would love nothing more than a generation of mediocre men. And I think people my age and younger, especially, are tired of that and they're waking up to it and they're realizing that they could become something great if they just wanted it. They just pursued it wholeheartedly. If somebody came up to you and said, you know, you have to make a million dollars in the next six months or else your loved ones are going to die, you're going to figure it out, right? Like you're going to make it happen. And that sense of urgency, that sense of we have to become saints, we have to become holy is something that I think is lacking for too many men. They buy into this whole comfort, you know, Benedict XVI as the quote he says, the world offers you comfort, but you were not made for comfort. You were made for greatness. And I think we're starting to see an awakening of that in men, a real desire for holiness. And a lot of that happens through sacramental marriage, through finding a spouse and raising children. Yeah. What do you think is the thing today that women are doing that prevent men or discouragement from stepping into leadership? In general, women sometimes can be a little impatient with their husbands and lack a little bit of docility. And I'm not here to critique women. I do my best not to critique women. I try to be much harder on men than I am on women because I am a man and I can speak to you. I know guys, you're probably just screwing up and I know what you're doing. But in general, I think that you have to be patient with your husband sometimes or be patient with your boyfriend fiance, whatever it may be. Because if he grew up in a public school system, which most people did, he very seldom had the chance to be a leader. He very seldom had the chance to be somebody who was looked up to as a source of comfort, as a source of authority and direction. And so whenever a man's learning to do that, women sometimes can obviously if you're not in the authority position, you're looking at, oh, we should do things this way. The boss should have done it so easy to say that when you're not the boss, you're not the one making the decisions. So I think you have to learn patience with your husband or fiance or whatever it may be and give him a chance to step into those roles. And then really my wife does this beautifully, but nurturing the activities that you want to see continue and doing a good job of praising those and complimenting those whenever they do happen. Because it's not easy to just step into a leadership role after never having led. You know, I mean, I was fortunate enough. I played sports, captain basketball, team spaceball teams, and stuff. So I had some experience of that going into marriage, but a lot of guys don't. And so you have to learn to be patient and give your husband a chance to lead. Even if he's not doing it perfectly, give him a chance to make those calls just so he can get some reps in so that he's ready whenever the time comes to be able to lead well. Yeah. We majorly underestimate that power. And we think that unless he's already showing up the way that we would want him to show up, then there's something wrong with him. When as opposed to know, we're meant to be a partner to encourage him, not to the little him or, you know, nag him or push him to greatness, but to encourage and inspire him to that. And just if that mindset shifts for women, it's so powerful to see the beautiful results. Because I think we have these like crazy expectations that we don't even realize are crazy. And then we lack honestly empathy sometimes for that man to know that he is doing his best as he knows how with the cards he was dealt. And our job is to is to encourage. No, to that point, I think too. If a man has a wife who is who looks up to him and respects him and takes care of him and provides for his needs, it's like that unlocks something in a man where if you have a wife that's treating you that good, you just would do anything for her. It's like if you have a good wife, a man is more than happy to lay down his 40-hour work week plus overtime, plus whatever the heck she needs to take care of her if she's really taking care of him and earnest. And I just think that, you know, too much there's a sort of focus on the negative side of marriage. Whereas if you focus on what's good and true and beautiful in your spouse, then that's sort of awakened something within them. You know, in John's first epistle in the Bible, he says that we did not first love God, but God first loved us. And there's a principle there that's really important. It's too easy to look at good people and admire them and love them because there's already something good and admirable in them. But with God, it works the opposite way. God's love awakened something causes something within us. And then we become good, right? And so as Christians, there's something about that in our own lives, especially in the sacrament of marriage, whereas if you were able to love your spouse, even when they're not perfect, your love can awaken and cause something in them that makes them into the person that they're supposed to be. And so it's too easy to love people and they're at their best. You have to learn to love people when they're at worst. And then through that love is where a lot of growth happens and a lot of virtue. That's very beautiful. And while said, I think there's a common slip up sometimes for women when we want to just do all of the things you're describing in terms of helping, like I'm going to take care of kids. And we've put all these standards on ourselves to like dinner, kids, everything's going to be perfect household accommodation. Like, you know, I want to be this good wife. But we then forget that it's not just accommodation that he's looking for. He's looking for sweetness and accompaniment. And sometimes the accommodation is actually less important. Like let the house be a little messy, let things be a little chaotic and just show up and be loving and like excited to see him and you know, engaging with him as his best friend. Because I think a lot of times for women are standards for our self and our households and our kids and everything else is actually even higher than like way higher than his. And he just wants he wants he wants he what he does want you to be peaceful, enjoyable and his his bud, you know, his best friend. And so but we get so worked up sometimes women just to make things perfect. And that control makes us anxious makes us frustrated. And then it just is not a fun situation for us or for our marriage. Yeah. Yeah. And I think a lot of the voices happen because your spouse stops being a source of peace, a safe place and starts being a source of nagging or fighting or tension. And if you look at the description of a marriage in the Bible, it's always described as a sort of sanctuary, you know, you read the song of songs. It's meant to be a safe place, a peaceful place. And whenever you invert that, that's whenever there's a lot of tension. And this is why Satan attacks marriage so vehemently is because he knows that every human person comes into the world through a family. You can't have a human person created without a man and a woman. All right, God intended it that way. There's no other way to do it. And so whenever human beings come into the world, they're meant to be in the context of a family raised by a father and a mother to teach them their moral code to teach them how to behave well, how to treat women well, how to treat men well. Right. The children will model their behavior towards men and women based upon what they see their parents and siblings later on doing. And since Satan knows that he knows that if he can corrupt the family by corrupting marriage, then he can corrupt the morals of children. Right. That's his game plan. This is why our Lady of Fatima said the final battle between the Kingdom of Heaven and Satan is over marriage in the family, not church, politics, not geopolitical, whatever, but marriage and the family. Because if you can destroy families, then you can destabilize an entire nation rather easily. If you can destroy families, then you've destroyed the morality of an entire generation. And so that's where Satan's setting his sights. So it's important to whenever you feel like you have this tension in your marriage for whatever reason, if it's reasonable or not reasonable, it's important to realize that that's that's where the enemy's aiming, right. And your marriage being rock solid is going to affect not just you and your spouse's happiness, but your children, your grandchildren. The sins of the Father will be visited upon the children to the third and fourth generation. And the opposite view of that is the blessings that a Father bestows are generational as well. And look at the blessings of and the scriptures Abraham, Jacob, right, these great men of the faith they pass on the faith to their descendants. And we're still reaping the benefits of that today. So it's like your faith and your marriage is not just going to affect yourself. It's going to affect literally hundreds of people in your direct lineage and thousands of people by extension. I think that's something people forget. If you've been listening to this show for a while, you know that seven weeks coffee isn't just a sponsor. It's the coffee brand that we love at my house. And it's not just great taste. It's also the fact that seven weeks coffee donates 10% of every sale to pregnancy resource centers. And they've donated over $1.5 million to date. You can get whole beans, ground coffee pods or decaf options. And every bean is organically farmed, mold-free, testified-free, low acid and shade grown. So if you want to have delicious coffee at your doorstep every month, head over to 7meekscoffee.com and say 15% forever when you subscribe. Parit with my code Lila for an extra 10% off your first order and a great gift. That's 25% off your first order with code Lila. Support moms, babies and enjoy delicious coffee with 7meekscoffee.com. June is the month of the sacred heart of Jesus, which is one of the oldest and most beloved devotions in Christianity. And right now, Hallow is launching the Heart of Jesus Challenge, a 12-day journey into the love of God, guided by Matt Brad and Sister Maria Goready, who is recently a guest on our show. The sacred heart of Jesus provides something we all need, a love that is deeply personal. Knows you by name that isn't afraid of your messes. We'll look honestly at the false refuges we run to, the things that promise peace but leave us more restless than before, and we'll learn day by day what it looks like to surrender our hearts to the one whose heart burns for us. Download Hallow for three months free at halo.com/lilah and join us for the heart of Jesus' challenge. That's halo.com/lilah. Do you think it's harder today for men to be free of lust than a hundred or two hundred years ago? Yes. Yeah. I mean, you can just. there's. right? I mean, in 15 seconds you could have whatever you want on your screen, so that's terrifying. But it's important to keep in mind one of the desert fathers, Abba Isheron. They were talking about that into the world the last days. And they asked Abba Isheron, essentially, this is the paraphrase of story. At the end of the world, there are people going to fast as much as we do. We're desert fathers. We're fasting. We're doing all these penances. Is everybody going to have to do this to get to heaven? And he responded by saying, "In the last times, men will do no good works. But the days will be so wicked that simply by keeping the faith, they will merit more than us and all of our penances." Wow. Right. So that just gives you a little insight into the times that I think we are in/entering into. But since that's the case, it then God is offering an extraordinary amount of grace. And I think the people that are faithful to those graces are going to be able to become incredible, incredible saints. Because it's important to keep in mind every near occasion of sin that you didn't choose. Right? So if you're putting yourself in the near occasion of sin, he who loves danger shall perish in it. That's what the Bible says. But if it's a near occasion of sin that you don't choose, that you couldn't foresee, every single one of those is an opportunity for you to grow in virtue. Saint James says, "Blessed is the man who endures temptation." He even goes so far as to say, "Counted all joy, my brethren, when you fall into diverse temptations." The reason for that is is because God's going to give you the graces that you need to overcome those temptations and by overcoming those temptations you grow in virtue. I think one of the best things that you can do to prepare for dating is to head on over to my Patreon. That's patreon.com/lilaroachow and become a paid annual subscriber. And I will send you free merch, which you can then wear on your date and look fly. Also, make sure that you're subscribed to the show. Make sure that button is working. And leave us a review and five stars on podcast app that helps the show reach more people. Okay, thanks so much. Back to the show. What's the number one wound that you see show up in the man that you coach? Everybody's sexuality is wounded in some way. It's it's yeah, it's pandemic. The virtue of chastity is not only lacking, but not even understood by the vast majority of men. They know generally what it is. They know what they shouldn't look at in general, but they don't understand that chastity is not just not lust. Chastity is a positive virtue that has an impact on your soul. And a lot of men are struggling with it too. You know, there's a lot of guys out there who don't want to be in this vice, but they're just stuck and they don't know where to go. And that's it's really tricky for a lot of guys. Yeah. So I would say that's probably the number one wound is just wounded sexuality in general. What do you tell them? Yeah. So the first thing I would say is before you're able to fix this, you have to identify it properly as the thing that will determine if you get to heaven or not for all of eternity. So it's like there's no cost too big for getting rid of this. If you spent the rest of your life fighting against this, it will be worth it. If you spent every dollar you ever made for the rest of your life trying to get rid of this, it will be worth it if it worked in the end. That's the first thing is you have to phrase it correctly. It's it those are the stakes. There's nobody in heaven who was subject to lusts and who didn't fight against it, right? We all have temptations. I get that. Many of the saints in heaven had very strong temptations. Matthew's gospel, Jesus says, "From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffers violence and the violent bear it away. You have to be willing to do violence to yourself, to your flesh, through fasting, through some sort of mortification, cold showers. You have to willing to do violence to your schedule. Maybe you have to wake up early. Maybe you have to make sure you don't have free time towards the end of the night. You have to be willing to do violence to your cell phone, get rid of apps that may lead you into sin, but literally go through and just be ruthless with your environment and anything that's a near occasion of sin. Get rid of it at least for the time being. Maybe once you've healed, then Instagram is not a bad thing, but Instagram is a trigger for a lot of young men, right? It just it really is. So yeah. And then the second thing after that, after you kind of take care of the natural side of things and you understand it properly, the second thing would be developing relationship with our lady. Our lady is the mother of purity. Our lady is the virgin most pure. Our lady is the woman who's going to be able to teach men how to interact with women in the way that's noble and honest and not duplicitous or self-serving. So you really have to cultivate a relationship with our lady and St. Joseph, I think. Those are the two saints in heaven who had chastity perfected to the highest possible degree. You have the virgin mother of God and then you have St. Joseph who's the guardian of the virgin. St. Joseph was only given that that title, that task of guarding the virgin because he had so much chastity that he was able to protect his wife's virginity and not endanger it in any way. So I think that those two things tied together, understand the battlefield, understand the stakes, be ruthless with your environment and then cultivate a relationship with our lady and St. Joseph. What is chastity? Can you define that for folks listening? Yeah. So chastity is sub virtue under temperance and what it does is it regulates a man's sexual appetites. So what chastity does is it helps a person, one of the effects of it, it helps people to interact with women in a way that's not self-serving. You hear this sometimes, but guys who are frequently falling into sins of lust on the internet and elsewhere, they look at women and they're incapable of having a conversation with them without sexualizing it or sort of fantasizing things in their mind. What chastity does is it frees you up to be able to view the other person as a beloved son or daughter of God so that you can start to actually interact with them in a way that's meaningful. So the definition of it is just the application of reason to the sexual appetite. That's what it does. And it helps you actually love the person. It helps you to love the person. Yeah, as God loves them. Yeah. Because true love, true unconditional love is selfless. It loves the other regardless of the other's appeal or what have you. Whereas what the vice of lust does is it teaches you to only love or desire people based upon what they can do for you. So it's a turning inward of desire rather than a turning outward of self-giving love. What's the difference between a man who is actually going through healing versus a man who is maybe performing healing in order to attract a woman, meaning they're basically wanting to check healing boxes off and maybe taking shortcuts and healing in order to get to the next step of achieving woman or even achieving marriage. The nice thing with beating lust is that there's certain measurable things. Like, did you view lustful stuff? No. Okay. How long has it been? Three months? Okay. That's really good. Right. Have you, you know, fallen into sins of lust? It's very kind of measurable in a certain sense, which is useful for a lot of guys because what gets measured gets improved most of the time. So that's really nice for lust. But as far as that goes, if you can get rid of the external applications of lust, right? So you get rid of what you're viewing through your eyes and ears. Stop listening to music. That's just got garbage in it. Stop watching movies that have erotic scenes. Just get rid of all of that. Get rid of it entirely. And then fill it with something good. Listen to great podcasts like this one. Listen to good music, Gregorian chant, worship music, whatever you want. But replace the bad with the good. Your appetites will naturally start to change. So there's a principle in philosophy, to mystic anthropology. And it's the idea that the appetite is moved by the presence of its proper object. So what that means is if you walk into a room and you're not hungry, but there's a delicious chocolate cake fresh out of the oven sitting right there, you're going to get hungry. Why? Because your appetite for food is being moved by the presence of food. In a similar way, your sexual appetite will be stirred up by the presence of those things which are sexually appealing, right? So if you can get rid of all of those, then you're making it, you're making room for your desires to shift. And what you'll find with lust and chastity is that the longer that somebody's without lust, the more that they start to desire chastity, their desires start to change. They don't want what they used to want anymore. And that's one of the tricks the devil will use is he'll basically say, look, you love this. You love this so much. You're not going to be happy without this. But then you fight through that for two weeks. And then you realize, I don't want anymore. I don't want that anymore. And you're actually able to break free. You need to be careful though, because with lust, there is definitely a demonic element to it as well. There's the natural side of things, which is more what I'm focusing on here. But there's a very real spiritual warfare component to it as well. Do you think that for men, there is a some men, there is a deeper wound at play with some of the sexual addictions or challenges where it's not just the matter of like you're saying, cutting off and starving the lust and replacing it with good stuff, but there might be even deeper work that needs to be done. Yes. Yes. I think that lust is oftentimes a, Fulton-China's a quote. He says that no alcoholic drinks because they love alcohol, they drink because they hate something else. And I think the same is true for lust for a lot of men. There's insecurities, there's anxieties, there's uncertainties in their life. And rather than either addressing them if it's time to address them or surrendering them to God, if there's not something to be done right now, they will turn to distraction. And this is where you get a lot of lust, right? They're not turning to lust because they love lust. They're turning to lust because they hate something else that's in their lives. And so I think yeah, for a lot of men it's just learning how to deal with stress in a way that's productive and also learning to surrender those things that you can't do anything about to God. Do you think a lot of men struggle with even identifying what those things are? And then the next step is having finding way to deal with them because there's no sort of framework typically for men in our culture today for how to identify and deal with those deeper issues, whether they're insecurities, anxieties or fears. Yeah, yeah, I think that's probably probably very true. And there's a vicious cycle with lust too because with lust you turn to it for comfort and then it stabs you in the back with shame right afterwards, right? So you're going to this because you feel insecure and then your insecurity gets worse afterwards and it's a vicious cycle for a lot of guys. So learning how to have an intense prayer life and learning how to do meditation is really, really important for a couple of reasons. One is whenever people are frequently viewing lustful content, the images are being stored in your mind. So demons in your guardian angel, they have the same sort of principles that they can operate with. St. Thomas would say that no angel or demon can make a man born blind to see color because the information has to come in through our senses. That's how we work as human beings. If your sense of sight doesn't work, you just can't see color. You don't know what it is. So what the angels and demons can do is they take the stuff that's already in your memory and imagination and they can kind of bring it to the front of your mind. So if you have years worth of disgusting content in your mind that you've been struggling with, what you need to do is ask our lady, specifically into the title of our lady of sorrows and your guardian angel to give you the grace of forgetfulness and to purify your memory. Because what's going on is you got all this data in your mind, all this stuff that you shouldn't have been watching, but you did. And that's just ammo for the demons to use against you in spiritual warfare. So yeah, specifically praying for the grace of forgetfulness is very, very useful for a lot of guys because it's not good for you to know some things. When it's TV time for our kids, which we try to do sparingly, I'm constantly thinking about what they're watching and whether it's helping or hurting their formation. That's why we really love Brave Plus in our household. It's a streaming service that's vetted by real Christian parents and only one out of every 20 shows are accepted. Not only do the shows and movies actually align with our biblical values, but more than that, Brave Plus also rejects over stimulating content that's linked to mental and behavioral issues. And the best part is my kids actually enjoy the shows. If you're trying to be more intentional about the kind of shows that come into your home, go to braveplus.com/lila and use the code lila for seven days free. That's braveplus.com/lila for seven days free. And when you sign up, let me know what your kids favorite show is. They're going to love it. As they say, work hard, play hard, and also sleep hard or soft actually. That's why I love my cozy earth bamboo sheets. They're so soft and silky and breathable perfect for a great night's sleep crafted from 100% bamboo viscos. And this Father's Day surprised that special Father in your life with the gift of better sleep, style, and comfort. The cozy earth everywhere pant plus everyday polo are classics that can be dressed down for comfort or dressed up for work or a date night. And they are wrinkle resistant and breathable perfect for traveling or staying local. For the dad, stepdad's grandpa is in every father figure who shows up. This one's for them. Cozy earth's bamboo sheet set everywhere pant and everyday polo are designed to keep him cool, comfortable, and actually relaxed all summer long. Head to cozierth.com and use my code lila for an exclusive 20% off. And if you see a post purchase survey mentioned that you heard about cozy earth right here, that's cozy earth.com code lila. Insecurity is a common problem for women, but I think it also does affect men. How common of a struggle is insecurity in your view for men, especially those who are dating or pre-marriage? Yeah, it's very, very common. Yeah. And I think that's largely because confidence is a product of doing things over and over again and then learning to get better and then seeing the results that you want. And then you build up enough sort of evidence that you're capable of doing this or that. And a lot of guys just don't have that yet. So there's a sort of lack of confidence in a lot of men. And the way that you overcome a lack of confidence usually is by doing the thing that you want to be confident in over and over and over again, even though you fall on your face and probably don't do it very well at first. But the lack of confidence paralyzes. And then after that paralysis sets in, you don't do the things that help you to actually gain confidence. So yeah, a lot of it comes down to just taking that first step and being bold and also being humble and recognizing that you're not going to be perfect at it. But as far as insecurities go, I think it's important to deal with insecurities in a way that's healthy. Just ignoring insecurities is not very helpful. You have to address the problem in order to solve it. But when you're dealing with insecurities, you want to address it in light of the fact that this is going to be improved. This is something that can be recovered from and not just despair of your insecurity and make it part of your personality, but view it as a vice or as something that needs to be overcome and then through prayer and through repetition of virtuous acts to overcome it. Yeah. Is there a wound that you would say should be a deal breaker for women if the man that they're dating or considering hasn't overcome it or yield from it? Yeah. So generally, if you want to have a successful marriage, you should date somebody who's habitually in the state of grace. Right? So if somebody has a fall, weird thing happens. Okay, get back on the horse, keep going. But if somebody's living habitually in a state of mortal sin, then the sacrament of matrimony still works, but the graces that they're supposed to receive from that sacrament are thwarted. You can't have graces that are given to somebody that's in a state of mortal sin. Sacramental graces don't really work that way. So you need to find somebody who's habitually in the state of grace and the virtues that are most important for marriage, I would say, beyond the theological virtues, chastity, the most obvious one. If he's not chased, if he's encouraging you to fall into sin, if he has a problem with things on the internet, then I would just immediately cut that off until he's clean for a minimum of three months. Right? And you can just tell him, if you want to marry me, this is the bar. Right? And three months is not a high bar. He should be able to get to that point. The second thing is meekness. The virtue of meekness is the virtue that regulates the emotion of anger. And in order to have a happy home life, you can't have a spouse who's this close to just flying off the handle all the time. You have to have a spouse that's level and able to have conversations without getting angry. Because your children, there's a Bible verse that tells husbands, don't be like a lie and prowling about your house. Right? You don't want to be this close to just losing it at every moment. It's going to make your marriage very, very long and difficult. So outside of the theological virtues, habitually living in a state of grace, the two virtues that I think are most conducive to a good marriage are chastity, number one, and then number two, meekness and imprudence thrown in there somewhere too. And I think what you're saying is true for both men and women. Yes. Because I think women meekness today is sort of, I don't know, too often connected to just being a pushover or dormit or being a trap life. I don't know what they say. It's like, no, both men and women are called to meekness and are lured. Was this lamb who lay down to die? Right? He is the ultimate meek and blessed are the meek is part of the Beatitudes. And we're absolutely called to that as women. And it actually is a superpower if we can live it faithfully. And for women, it's harder in some ways, I think, because you're dealing with kids all the time. When kids are just constantly testing your patients, you know, I was actually just telling my husband yesterday, I was reflecting on my child and we were talking about our childhoods and all this stuff. But I was just saying, you know, I really want to work on preserving the peace, especially when there's chaos with the kids, because I lose my temper. Now, I don't like throw chairs and stuff, but I just raise my voice, or I'll just get be curt, you know, and rushed. And that is just not who I want to be, period. But if I you haven't like unpacked exactly what makes me get to that place and then what are some other choices I can make in a math that place, like you actually have to like do the dissection of the habit because others are like, I'm not going to be impatient today. Well, okay, good luck sister. You know, like you got to work through the actual habit that you have of losing patients and detect, okay, what are some things I can do to prevent it? And there are things I can be done. So now there may be a whole other podcast. How to be patient. Very well said, though. Yeah. So a lot of people confuse chemistry with compatibility today. And they get very much, something can happen even like a form of trauma bonding, you could say, or wound bonding. And they get in deep with each other very quickly, because you kind of share brokenness. Yeah. Why can that be so dangerous? Well, it's because you're putting a burden upon somebody who's not yet supposed to bear that burden, right? So I think if you have two people who are treating each other like spouses, maybe not physically, but emotionally, where they're just sort of dumping all everything, right? Trauma dumping on the other person, you can build a sort of dependency that's not healthy, right? Whenever you're endating or engaged, you need to treat that person that you're dating, like your boyfriend or girlfriend. not your spouse, whatever you're engaged and you treat that person like your fiance, not your spouse. I'm not saying you should trauma dump after marriage either, but it's important to keep in mind that whenever you're dealing with broken individuals, there's an element of prudence that needs to go into what you say, what you reveal, what you keep back. And then also if somebody's chronically going through that, I would highly advise them to get a spiritual director that can go through and work through that with them, because your spouse isn't meant to be your spiritual director, not really, not a very real way. Your spouse is meant to be your spouse. And yeah, that would be something I would say. Back to the point about anger though, I wanted to hit on this. I just remembered it. My brother's confirmation saying in St. Francis the sales and St. Francis the sales, everyone said he's so meek, he's so kind, you read introduction to the devout life and he just sounds so sweet, right? They ended up dissecting him after he died. So at this time, there was a debate about if it was permitted for Catholics to give their bodies over for science or not. And the church ruled yes, that is something you can do in order to set an example. St. Francis the sales gave his body to be medically dissected by- I did not know that that's wild. What year is this? Oh, purse information. What is it? Like 1600s? They were doing dissection. Maybe late 1500s? Crazy. Check. But so this is where it gets interesting. St. Francis the sales, super kind humble meek guy, they do the dissection and they found a tumor on his brain. And the theory was that the tumor on his brain was caused by him constantly suppressing the emotion of anger. So there's an important thing to keep in mind here. St. Francis the sales did have the virtue of meekness to an excellent degree. He's a saint. However, that doesn't mean he never felt angry. What the virtue of meekness does is it regulates the emotion of anger. It doesn't do away with it, but it makes sure that you only act in accordance with it when it's reasonable. So it's important to keep in mind, sometimes people who have a very fleagmatic disposition like me, people like, oh, you're so patient. I may not be that patient. I may just not have very strong emotions. So if you are somebody that has strong emotions, know that you're being called to a higher level of virtue in that area specifically. Right? Just not feeling things is not virtuous. That is such a good point because I think sometimes we judge ourselves by how the behavior we see in others, which is very normal to be doing that. But remembering that other people might be born with natural virtues like fleagmatics have a natural and disposition of calm and patience and you know, their sword anger. And if you're a choleric, choleric, you're much more quick to anger. So your work on patience, the virtue part of it, the tri part of it is going to be a lot more significant than the fleagmatic. And the fleagmatic might need to work on fortitude or some other virtue that is maybe easier for you. So just not to judge other people's path so much because patience might be harder for you than somebody else. Yes. What do you think a man owes a woman in terms of when he's pursuing her in terms of honesty about exactly where he's at when it comes to overcoming defects or healing from wounds? That's a very good question. So it's important to be honest but not over share. And there's a fine line to be walk there and there's a lot of prudence involved. Generally, whenever you are looking at it, if somebody's chronically falling into a state of sin, they're not able to keep their nose clean, I think you have an obligation and justice to reveal that to your spouse, future spouse potentially, because you don't want to get sold something that's not what you actually paid for. Right. Obviously marriage isn't buying, but you get the idea. Right. I think if somebody has defects that they're working on in the area of venial sin or in the area of prudence, I think it's fine to be honest and open about those things because part of your job as a spouse is to sanctify your partner. That's that's the primary end of marriage considered as a sacrament considered as an office of nature. It's primarily for the education and rearing of children. But it's important to start that process even whenever you're dating and whenever you're dating, you should be asking questions like when I'm with this person, do I feel like I'm more virtuous or less virtuous? Does hanging out with this person leave me to sin or virtue? When I'm hanging out with this person, do I go hang out with her instead of going to mass? Or do we go to mass together? Do we pray more together or less? Are we having conversations about how we want to raise our kids? What's the orientation of that dating life? Is it oriented towards Jesus or away from him? And so I think if you're doing it prudently, you can expose those things in yourself that maybe you don't like that you need to work on, ask for prayers, work through it with the other person, simply addressing a wound and having a conversation about it and explaining to somebody else why you feel that way or why you do this. And of itself is oftentimes solubrious and healing. So I think it comes down to figuring out the severity of it. If it's mortal or venial, if it's mortal, I think you have an obligation and justice to reveal that to somebody before you would enter into marriage. If it's in the area of a venial sin, then I think it's something that you can address prudently. You don't over share, you don't trauma downpriced, but at the same time explaining where you're coming from it actually can help that relationship to blossom. How early in the dating process do you think the vulnerability should be on the table, especially about things like mortal sin and sexual, especially the sexual area? I don't think you should be dating if you're not habitually in a state of sanctifying grace. Especially for men, look, if you're going to be a husband and father, your job is to get your wife and children to heaven. You can't do that if you can't even get yourself to heaven. If you're not in a state of sanctifying grace habitually, once again, a fall here or there, okay, happens. But if you're habitually in a state of mortal sin, you're falling into mortal sin weekly or daily. You're no place to be able to govern and lead others to heaven. It's just not the way that it works. So first of all, that would be number one is if you're not in a state of sanctifying grace, don't date. And then what was the question exactly? That's really important. No, it's a great thing to get specific about. I mean, I tell women on the show and this is for women and men. So this is a standard that applies to both. Unfortunately, in today's culture, like men are the most viciously attacked by this one. And I think men have the most challenge with it. But women increasingly are having challenges with it too. But back to chocity, my, the thing I say, I guess I'm more of a more hardcore than you, I say, a year. Like if you can't go a year without falling into mortal sin, sexual mortal sin. I mean, any, really any mortal sin, because you can do mortal sin by being unjust to people. You can do mortal sin by cursing God. You can do thinking. Yeah, you can do mortal sin by thinking exactly. But if you can't go a year without that, then I think you should work on that before you pursue dating and marriage. Yeah. Yeah, I think a year is a fair bar. Both men and women. Yeah, three months is just like a minimum, I said. Give them a starter kit. Yes, starter kit. Yes. Yeah. I think it's, you know, you're bringing this up. It's a good point. But one thing I would like to say to Christian women just out of a place of charity, really a place of charity. And I don't want to, I'm not judging women or anything like that. But I think women often misunderstand male brains. They don't understand what certain outfits they wear in things like this regarding monstery. They don't understand what men are looking at or why they're looking at it. If women could just been 15 minutes in a male brain walking around, let's say the mall or something like this, you'd stop dressing that way. Like I don't think there's a huge disconnect as to what women think is appropriate because women look at women and there's not that sort of. We love it. That's great. That's cute. Right. Yeah. No. But men look at that and there's a completely different part of the brain that's activated. Jason Everett has a really interesting talk on this. But he says that when a woman is wearing a bikini, the same part of the brain is activated as when a man looks at a tool like a hammer or something like this. Right. So the part of your brain that says use this, don't love it is turned on whenever women are not wearing clothes that are modest. And so I think it's important too. You know, one of the virtues you really want to look for as a man discerning a woman is modesty. Right. Because it's just, it's that important. Yeah. That's such an interesting take. And I actually, I was talking with who was it? JP Pocluta. Pastor JP Pocluta about this and about how, you know, there's good godly men whose modesty is a filter for them basically, you know, not the only filter, not the first filter, but it is an important consideration of, is this a girl that does like just post pictures of herself in bikinis all day or what, you know, how does she approach modesty herself? Like that does matter. Now the backlash on that is, well, you know, the human body is made in God's image and, you know, different societies have different contacts. And like, unfortunately, men have porn brain today because of the porn, not pornification of society. So men should develop more strength. Again, this is the backlash of like, instead of looking at a girl in shorts and being like, I'm a lot, I'm lusting now to just train himself to not lust. Right. And so let me wear my shorts, short, short shorts or whatever the response is. Yeah, I agree that there's certainly an obligation, a grave obligation on the part of men to make sure that they're chased and also to make sure that they're not putting themselves in situations where they're probably going to lose. Right. So whenever you're dealing with the near occasion of sin, there's a relative near occasion of sin. And then I think it's called an absolute near occasion of sin. So an absolute near occasion of sin will be something like walking into a certain club where you know that modesty is going to be thrown out the window. It's like, that's just a near occasion of sin. Don't go there. Then there's something called a relative near occasion of sin where because of your past, because of your own experiences, because of your own brokenness, something that wouldn't be sinful or a near occasion of sin for an ordinary person might be a near occasion of sin for you. So I think a good example of this would be Instagram. Right. If you're a young man in your early 20s, the meta algorithm knows what young men in their early 20s like to look at and it's going to put that in front of you. So if you're virtuous, it might not be that big of a deal might not really be an irrigation of sin. But if you have a pass with this kind of thing, then that could be an irrigation of sin for you. And in prudence, you need to get rid of that. So you need to make sure that, yeah, there's a grave obligation on the side of men to be chased and virtuous and also not to put themselves in situations where they're probably going to lose. But at the same time, if it is the case, and I think it is, that so many guys have porn brain, and they just don't have the virtue of chassis, that's all the more reason for women to be modest, because one, it's an act of charity to your brother who may be struggling with this, and you don't want to be a snare to him. But two, you don't want to be looked at that way. And if the men outside in the world are generally looking at women that way, you need to make sure that you were not being objectified. And so, yeah, I think that that's a really good thing to say. I'm just coming from a place of charity. I'm not trying to speak down on women or tell them what to do or anything like that. But just as somebody who has years of experience now, dealing with men who are struggling with lust and I don't mean a minute or so. I went, "No, you're just a minute who are trying to beat lust." Like they're working on it. They're trying. It's a near occasion of sin for a lot of them. It's very difficult. It comes back to, "Am I my brother's keeper?" That's what Kane asks. Am I my brother's keeper? Well, the answer is actually yes. You are your brother's keeper, and you have an obligation not to be in the way of their salvation. So, one more question I have to ask about this, because it's such a hot button issue, but I think it's so important. People are afraid to talk about it because they don't want to offend or come across as too dogmatic, but I think it matters a lot is Islamic culture. So, in Islamic culture, modesty is prized to this instigree where I would argue it's to humanizing, and it's not actually modesty, but to this instigree of the burqa, right? Not in all Islamic culture, but in many. And in all Islamic nations, there's extra modest stress that is required of women to prevent the lust of men. And so, that argument you're making and that we're discussing, and I agree with larger, like women have responsibility. It's not like we just, we're whatever we want, and men figure it out, right? And vice versa, by the way, and increasingly it's vice versa in our society today. But where do we draw the line? Because you could make that argument and it's made in Islamic culture to the point of like, you know, if your a woman shows her face even, it's causing a man to stumble or if she's showing her hair or, you know, there's, you can create a standard and draw it really anywhere. Yeah. Yeah. So, there are societal and cultural norms. So, for example, if you grew up in first century Palestine, you should probably dress like a first century Palestinian woman, which would mean the veil that all the stuff that you see our lady depicted as, right? That's just how women dressed. And the virtue of modesty, it befits itself to the culture that you're in as well. So, there's certainly a cultural element that needs to be addressed, but at the same time, some cultures are better than others, right? So, you know, women wearing pants is not sinful or anything like that in our culture by any stretch of the imagination. But if you went back to first century Palestine, a woman wearing pants would be like, what the heck? She has legs. You know what I mean? And so there's even a men didn't wear pants, right? That's a good point too. Like, there's maybe a comfort thing. I don't know. What is going on here with these pants everywhere? That's a great idea. Yeah. But yeah, so there is a cultural element, but at the same time, just human nature has certain certain cues, right? That elicit a certain response. And so women and men need to make sure that they're dressed in such a way where they're not intentionally or accidentally even eliciting those sort of emotions from people. Yeah, I think it's pretty, I mean, when I've talked to him about this, it's like, okay, there's body parts that are like used for sexual acts, right? And there's body parts that very much indicate, you know, sexual acts. And so just being reserved about how you dress those body parts and careful about that, it's kind of a bear, a good bear, men among you can use. And then you can grow, go off of that. And there's obviously a prudence on a lot of this stuff. You know, there's not a perfect science. I know some people try to create one, but I do think we're saying about cultural context. It's important too. My dad growing up said this to me as a teen girl in his philosophical way, because he's a very philosophical guy, very fligmatic, you know, and I'm a guy. And he said, you know, in the culture you're in, there's like super not modest over here or just like not even don't use that term, just extreme like anything goes. And then there's the people here that might be like, you know, dressed to the floor, long sleeve, whatever. You want to be somewhere in the middle, a tiny bit more towards this end than that end. But you don't want to be all the way over here. You don't want to be all the way over there. And that's a good way to frame a reference to think about as women. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's there's a lot of truth to that. For a man listening right now, who knows that he would be carrying something heavy into a relationship. What would you tell him that one thing that he should do this week? Carrying something heavy. Okay. If it's a mortal sin, confess it. If it's some cross that's been given to you, bury your cross manfully. But I think it's important to keep in mind that our sorrows, our burdens in this life, they will be the sources of our greatest joy and consolation in the next. And we talk about Catholicism Hebrews 12, the great cloud of witnesses, right? My name is Hebrews 11. The great cloud of witnesses that are surrounding us. And they're watching us carry our crosses. And you know, you watch a movie. There's never been a movie that you loved that didn't involve some toil, some conflict, some strife, some blood. That's the way it always is. And God loves a good story. You know, you read Lord of the Rings. There's that line, Frodo and Sam, they're climbing up at the end of the book, going up Mount Doom. And they're this close to despairing. And Sam basically tells Frodo, do you think that they'll write stories about us someday? Do you think that they'll tell the story of Frodo the great someday? And in a similar way, what's going on with God is he watches your life, right? The word, the author of life. He's writing your story right now. And every good story requires some conflict. So whenever there's bad guys written in your story, whenever there's conflict crosses struggles, keep in mind, this is all part of your saint story. This is all part of what God is calling you to do. So as far as what to do this week, recognize that whatever burden it is that you're carrying, if you carry it in the holy name of Jesus, it will one day carry you to heaven. Just recognize that, surrender it to the Lord and tell the Lord, I want what you want more than I want what I want. All things work for the good of the elect so long as you're faithful. Amen. What are three signs that would indicate that a man is ready in a position to be able to pursue a woman? So first and foremost, chastity, right? Being able to comport yourself well in that area of your life, not falling into mortal sins of lust. Number two is a well-composed interior life, meaning that somebody knows how to meditate and they're doing it frequently. They're engaging in mental prayer. Being close to our Lord in meditation, I highly recommend the rosary. I think it's the most excellent way of doing it. One of the promises of the rosary, our lady says, the greatest graces shall be given to those who recite the rosary day of the day. I don't know about you, but I want the greatest. I don't want great graces. I want the greatest. And then I think the third would be learning to really to make your spouse feel safe and taking care of. I don't know what virtue that would be specifically. But if you're able to be chaste, you're able to have a well-developed interior life and you're able to make your spouse feel safe and loved and cherished as a man, then you're in a good spot. Because if you have those three things put together, you'll be able to overcome any difficulty that life throws at you. Beautiful. And when you talk about the well-developed interior life and prayer, I think a lot of people struggle with their prayer routines or even having one. Yeah. And for some people, it's like checking the box. I pray my rosary, check. Did this check, but at the end of the day, it's about, yes, giving God is due, but it's about connection with God relationship with God and bearing the soul to God. Prayer in that sense, just opening the heart, exposing the soul to God and saying, "Here I am," like surrendering to the Lord. What are some tips that you have? I know you mentioned the rosary, but for this practice, for someone who's a newbie, they maybe tried in the past and struggled, fallen off, maybe they're attempting to go to a mass in church, maybe they're doing the rosary sometimes, but they're just like having trouble really getting vulnerable and exposing their hearts to God. Yeah. So two things. One is keep in mind that God doesn't want the mask you put on to pray. He wants you. So don't be fooled into thinking you have to sound all pious and devout and you have to speak like a saint whenever you pray. Maybe you're not a saint yet. Maybe you're just not. You're not there. Just maybe, not yet, for sure. No, obviously, you want to maintain a level of respect whenever you're addressing the Lord, obviously. But speak to God from the heart. Don't try to speak to God from somebody else's heart because you read a book on him. Speak to God from the heart. And the second thing is, and this is something especially I think men struggle with, is the primary purpose of the entire universe is for you to grow in the virtue of charity. The reason that you and I and everybody here, the reason we still exist is because God wants to give us more time to learn to love him better. That's why the universe exists. So that rational creatures can grow in the virtue of charity. That's what God wants. And the virtue of charity is the virtue whereby you love God for his own sake. So it's important whenever you're praying to tell God that you love him as awkward as that may sound for men sometimes saying, I love you. You can be a difficult thing. But tell the Lord that you love him and give your heart to the Lord. Not just your words, not just your mind, not just your meditation. but give your heart to the Lord. It's very, very, very difficult to stay out of mortal sin for any prolonged period of time if you don't love God. St. Augustine says, where charity increases, concupacence decreases. So where the love of God increases, the love of the flesh decreases. And so if you wanna overcome these vices, yes, it's good to focus on the virtues, temperance, chastity, all these virtues are wonderful. But all the virtues are for the sake of charity, right? The virtue of charity is the final cause of all the virtues. It gives form to the virtues. It makes them what they are. It gives them direction and purpose. And so being able to turn to the Lord and there's prayers you can say as well, like most sacred hearted Jesus have mercy on us, just little short prayers like that throughout the day, just lifting your mind and your heart to God and telling him that you love him is incredibly powerful, right? Because that's something I don't think it gets talked enough about is the love that the saints have for Jesus Christ, the love that they have for him. All their theological writings, you look at St. Thomas writes the summa. He finishes his treaties on confession. He's in the middle of writing it. Has a mystical vision. He sees God and his heart is pierced. It's so moving. He just loves God so much. And then he looks at what he wrote. And he's about to throw this brilliant work that he wrote in the sacrament of confession. He's about to throw it in the fire. He says, "It seems to me that everything I have written is butthraw." And everything that we know in this universe, everything that we love and hold dear here is a pale, pale, pale comparison to God himself. And so I think learning to really give your heart to the Lord is something that men really need to do. And that's going to shape the way that you view the entirety of reality. You can just learn to love God. St. Augustine says that whether there is love, there is no labor. And yet if there is labor, the labor itself is loved. So if you can learn to just give your heart entirely to the Lord and be on fire for the love of God of fire with the Holy Spirit, then everything that you do takes on a new purpose and even your sufferings become joyful in a certain sense. Beautiful. (laughing) Yeah, I think that this is something that needs to be moderated by the people that are actually on the date. You have to learn how to read the room a little bit. But I think that a first date in general should be very, very casual, right? I'm not talking about how many kids do you want? (laughing) That kind of thing, not in the first date perhaps. But I think that towards second, third date, if you're still continuing to see the person and you're trying to be intentional, third date might be a good time to start to bring up some of these things. It's like, "Hey, there's a real possibility here. I don't want to waste my time. I don't want to waste your time." The reason that we're dating is because we're ready for marriage. If you're a 16 years old in high school, you shouldn't be dating in general because you're not ready for marriage anytime soon. You got at least two years before high school and then maybe college after that. So the reason you're dating is because you're approximately ready for marriage. And so you shouldn't be wasting people's time, but at the same time, first dates too soon. So I think third date would be a good time to bring up those kinds of questions. What do you think? My wife and I dated for six weeks before we got engaged. So we just, we spent, we speed ran the whole thing. Yeah. Well, and I think we all love those stories. Like, on the first date where he's like, "I'm gonna marry you someday." He's like, "Oh, no, you're not." And then there's like, "Grip married a human slate," or whatever, like those are like the best. And you know, someone's parents, that's their story or once in a while in our generation or millennials or Gen Z, like you hear a story like that. And it's like really beautiful. So I think there is a lot of art and not as much science to that because you kind of like you said, "You read the room and you listen to the Holy Spirit and you kind of just go for it." But yeah, so I wouldn't, I mean, I know with my husband, he told me he loved me fairly quickly. And for me, and I explained to him, "Love me and like, I want to marry you." Like, don't tell me you love me unless like, you're wanting to go all the way. And then he's like, "No, I love you." It was like, "I'm gonna break because I love you too, actually." And so I think I'm all for it. If it's done quickly, provided it's done with prudence. Yes, yeah. That's generally the advice I give is you should try to get married as quickly as prudently possible. Not as quickly as possible, but as quickly as as prudently possible, yeah. What would you say is the most underrated virtue in a husband? - I think one of the things that my wife really appreciates about me, I'm just talking about myself, I don't know if this is universal. But because of the knowledge that I have of theology and all these things, I've been able to help her make sense of the world in a lot of ways. There's these jokes that go on online about people only being able to discuss theology, men who are just super nerdy. First of all, I don't think I've really met too many people like that. Maybe I'm a man, so I don't see it in the same way. But having an understanding of philosophy and theology allows you to explain an interpret reality in a deeper way. And so my wife and I, we are always having conversations about God's providence, about how this thing that happened the other day is an opportunity that God's giving us to grow in this or that virtue about how grace works and about certain centers who we're praying for and hoping for their conversion, explaining how actual grace is work and how the process and things like this. And they're just such rich conversations that add a lot of meat to the bones of our faith and actually make it deeper and more enjoyable. So I think being able to have really good theological or at least spiritual conversations with your spouse is such a wonderful thing. Because you're going to be talking to your spouse a lot, right? You're going to have lots of conversations. And so if you can make a good number of those conversations, conversations that are meaningful and uplifting, St. Paul says, our conversation is in heaven. If you're able to do that, then I think your marriage is just going to be really beautiful and blessed. So I don't know exactly what virtue that would be. Some sort of wisdom mixed with thoughtfulness, with dumbness, and also just making your wife feel hurt and understood is something. Guys can sometimes go to work, hang out with men all day. Do their job and then come home and they just kind of want to relax and the spouse has been hanging out with kids all day. And they want to talk. And so there can be a disconnect whenever you have that sort of thing going on. It's really strange to have women in the house by themselves with nobody else around in three kids. Like that's the industrial revolution happened. And it basically made all mothers, single mothers for that reason, where it used to be the case that men would be at the blacksmith shop 10 minute walk away at the most or farming outside five minute walk away at the most. It's just not that way anymore. And so I think there's a heavier burden on women that stay at home with kids because they don't have that help. And then men go out and they do their jobs and they come home. They want to relax and the woman wants to talk. And there can be a big source of friction there for a lot of people. So learning how to be affable and how to master your own desires for the sake of providing comfort for your spouse on both sides, right? A little bit of give and take on both sides is really good. But yeah, it just comes down to being a safe place for your spouse where they know that they can turn to you and have a hug, a shoulder to cry on, whatever the moment dictates. That's so good. How about this one? What is one question that you think that men should ask themselves before pursuing a woman? So one thing that's really good to do is examine how your potential future spouse treats their parent of the opposite gender. So if you are looking at a woman, look at how she treats her father. And if you're looking at a man, look at how he treats his mother, right? Because the behavior that they exhibit towards those people, it's their foundational relationship with people of the opposite gender. So if you have a woman who's very respectful to her father, very charitable, has a great relationship with him, that's an indication of what your relationship probably is going to look like 20, 30 years down the road. Whereas if she's disrespectful, back talking, just has a horrible relationship with the father. And granted, sometimes fathers are the ones to blame. So that needs to be said as well. But just taking a look at that, because there's a lot of insight that you can see as to how she's probably going to treat you in the future. So that would be something to examine. Also asking yourself, do I trust this woman to get my kids to heaven if I die? And if the answer is yes, then have at it. She's probably the one. If the answer's no, might want to circle back to that one. And if it's I don't know yet. If it's I don't know yet, then that's what the next dates for. Or the next series of dates. It doesn't have to be done all day. But yeah, in general, whenever you're looking at, should I marry this woman or not? If you're a good and virtuous husband, you're actually trying to get to heaven. You're trying to be holy. You can also ask yourself, would this woman let me lead her to heaven? Would she be willing to follow my lead and go into heaven? And I think that that's something to-- Dossility in a woman is a beautiful virtue. Dossility is not being a pushover, but it's a willingness to be led in the right direction. And so finding a woman that's willing to follow your lead and also encourage you in that endeavor is incredibly impactful. I'm a better leader now than I was at the beginning of our marriage. And the large part of that is because of my wife's one willingness to follow me, but also encouraging me in that encouraging me to fulfill my role as a husband and father. And you should never have times in your marriage where it's like my way or the highway. It should always be communication and making the decisions together and all that. But there'll be a few things. Yeah. Beautiful. What do you think it actually takes to sustain love and a marriage for a 20, 30, 40 years? Well, I'm about five years deep. So I'll let you know in a decade or two. But I think that what continues the love growing is seeing the sacrifices that the other person is making on your behalf. So whatever. And being grateful. And being grateful, yeah. But seeing my wife take care of my kids, or be the one to get up in the middle of the night to nurse a baby or something like that, and she says, "You go back to sleep, I got you know." Things like that, it makes me appreciate her in her office as a mother so much more, because I can see that she loves me and loves my children. And on the flip side of that, she sees how hard I'm working, all the things I'm doing throughout the day. I, you know, unload the dishes and change diapers and stuff like that sometimes, so that I don't have to, I'll go out of my way to do that for her. And those little sacrifices, you know, St. Tres of the Sioux says, "Love feeds on sacrifice." And so, seeing those sacrifices, I think is really what sustains the marriage over long term. But yeah, what would you say? - I mean, I'm going on eight years next year. - Yeah, I'm very fresh. - I'm a freshie. I'm a super freshie. I mean, I just look at other marriages that I respect and admire, 'cause I do think, like for those that are not married yet, or newly-ish-married like us, looking at the marriages that have stood the test of time and like being active students of them, is the way to go. And then I can just pair at the talking points of what I learned from that marriage, 'cause I haven't had the experience yet. But I would say it is obviously fidelity, back to what you're saying about chastity. Like you just do your faithful, come hell or high water. - Yes. - And then generosity, like you were kind of speaking to you just now, like just a willingness to sacrifice and go all in and gratitude. I do think gratitude is key, like being grateful and celebrating all the good things in your spouse, because it's easy to come up with your own gripes, you know, as human beings, we're just limited and flawed and that's the reality. And then one other thing I've been told by couples, and Joe and I heard this a lot in Precena, and it's been very much true in our marriage, is to enjoy each other. - Yes. - Like have fun together, like the dates do stuff, like don't just go on dates to talk about the stuff we have to figure out, although you can definitely do that and you should. But like go to the concert, you know, like, if you like to just go on a hike or walk, go walking. Like do the getaway trip if you can find a way to afford it and get child care, get your parents to help out or something, but just enjoy the love with the other person, 'cause I think there's something God like about that, we're designed for eternal enjoyment of God forever. Like we are actually not designed for work, in that sense we're designed for enjoyment. And there's sort of a work and creative element to enjoy it, so it's not saying all work is bad, but like the toil aspect of work, that's like sin, right? That's the consequence of sin. Work is supposed to be actually really fun and like creative, and not toil. So anyways, I digress, but the bottom line is, the highest leisure is the basis of culture. Have you heard of this book? I just have fiber, you probably love it, but leisure is a form of worship when it's oriented towards God and others. And so with your spouse, leisure, like enjoying your spouse, just enjoying life with your spouse, I think is so important. - Yeah, yeah, I love that. And it goes back to Christ, his love for his church, being unconditional, and Christ be a good bride group sometimes. You just want to make the church happy, right? It's not always utilitarian going out to discuss the budget or what have you, but just learning to sit in the presence of that other person and just enjoy it. - Totally. - And that's, I mean, that's what heaven is ultimately, St. Thomas would say that, in heaven, the principal activity is contemplation. So you just gaze lovingly upon God for all of eternity. And so there's a mirror of that, there's an image of that, I think that's supposed to be present in marriage. - And obviously like sex and intimacy is a part of that, and it's not the only way to do that, but that's where it's like make space for that. Because I think that's another thing which kind of gets relegated to like the last thing, especially when you have kids. So there's, I'm sure a lot more we could unpack there. But back to our wonderful single friends who are listening or people who are pre-marriage, what is that piece of advice you would give to a woman who may be listening right now? I know she's listening right now, who continues to feel like she's attracting emotionally unavailable men. And she's trying to get out of that rut and find the one. One is whenever you're finding a pattern that doesn't necessarily have an explanation in the natural side of things, it could be important to address the fact that this could be brought on by some sort of pre-natural force, not to super naturalize everything, but in my experience, Satan's not under every rock, but he's under every other rock to quote "Fly the Ripperger" there. So it's, there's certainly-- - I would say it maybe every, under every other rock to quote, I don't have a quote for that actually, but I know "Fly the Ripperger" is like super hardcore, and then there's other exorcists who are like, that's a little like much, I would go over here, and then there's all kinds of things. - And it can be difficult to tell because the demons prefer to operate behind the scenes. It's very seldom that they'll manifest or grab you or anything creepy like that because then you're gonna be scared so bad you're gonna turn to God, right? So they prefer to work behind the scenes, it can be difficult to discern what it is. But if there's a pattern that's happening that's not naturally explicable and it just kind of happens over and over and over again, that could be a sign that there's some sort of demonic oppression. And this is, I don't know exactly how common it is, but I see it fairly often, especially with guys who come to me who have history with pornography use. A lot of that stuff is bad news, very demonic, you can get tangled up in some very bad stuff very quickly. So the first thing is you can't figure out a definite cause and effect relationship. Consider saying some binding prayers, upping your prayer life, seeing a deliverance priest depending on that. On where you are with that. The second thing I would be is make sure that you are being the type of person that you want to attract, is what my wife says, be what you wanna attract. So if you're looking for somebody who is virtuous and chased and takes care of their health and is well spoken and doesn't have a big mouth, then try to be that thing as well. And then generally like attracts like, right? If you're dating and you see two people, like, oh yeah, they make sense together. It's because they're probably both right about here. Whereas if you see this either in virtue or in appearance or anything like that, you're like, wow, that's a big gap, right? So you wanna try to be the type of person that you would like to attract. So that'll be a couple of things, but you have to keep in mind that the devil is real and the devil is trying to destroy your marriage and the devil starts working even before you're born in the womb. St. Thomas talks about how in the womb, the guardian angel of the mother protects the mother and the baby. The devil has plans that span 10 years, 100 years, a thousand years, he's got it all mapped out on what he wants to do. He set the sexual revolution in the 1960s and motion, knowing where it was going to lead today or at least having plans for that. So it's important to keep in mind that he is very, very interested in your dating life. He's very interested in your marriage. So you need to make sure that regardless of if you feel like this is a prenatural cause or not, it's very important to be intentional about your prayer life whenever you're dating. And if you're doing that, one of the promises of the rosary is signal graces and the signal graces where God will make known to you either through an interior conviction or an exterior sign, what God's will is for your life. So if you're dating and you want to know, should I marry this person or that person? If you're praying the rosary every day, it's going to become obvious quite quickly. And you're going to know if you're going down the wrong path. And the signs are going to keep getting louder and louder and louder and louder and tell you like, I can't do this anymore. That's what happened to me and my wife. We only dated for six weeks before we got engaged. And I firmly believe that's because our lady just gave me a signal grace. Mary, this one is like, okay, that's easy. That's be hard anymore. Yeah. One thing I would throw in there. And we've talked about this, I think, with Adam Lane Smith and others. But if your attachment style is wounded, and especially if you had a poor relationship with your father or you had challenges growing up, right, then it can be very hard for you know, how to receive love from a good man or what to experience as love even. And so that work being done or just understanding that more about yourself and how you may react towards good men or men that might be emotionally unavailable because sometimes safety feels threatening for some women who come from wounded backgrounds. And we all have some kind of a wound or another, right? And a lack of safety feels exciting. And it kind of feels like chemistry. And that's where it's like, why do these women dating these bad boys you know? And sometimes he's actually not a bad boy. He's just kind of, you know, maybe takes a lot of risks and has high intensity, but he's actually great. But yeah, sometimes he is going through bad stuff and he's not ready to be date and be a husband and father. But a woman just still loves the attention and just loves the thrill, but it's not the right thing for him or for her. And so navigating that of course is part of the, and just do yet another part of the complexity that people have to navigate today. - Yeah, yeah, I know nothing about attachment styles. Franco was telling me he wants to make it popular every other piece of this. - Well Adam, you know, I don't know if you guys, you have guys on your channel along with your amazing work, but Adam Lane Smith is someone you should chat with. We've had him on the show several times and he's-- - I've seen like short seven. - Number one attachment specialist, but he's phenomenal. Catholic father of, I think he's going on seven or he just had their six or seventh, but just phenomenal guy. And I think there's a lot of truth in the attachment lens to understand people. - All right, what gives you genuine hope for this generation that they will actually get love right? - I think there's so many reasons for hope. And it's interesting because the darker the culture is, the more hope I have that there will be great saints, great saints. And you look at the world today, you look at Genesis, Abraham and Lot, Abraham goes up the mountain with the Lord, says, "If there's 50 good people, "you spare the city." God says yes. He gets it all the way down. "Are there 10 good people where you spare the city?" God says yes. There aren't 10 good people, so God destroys an entire city. Well, I think that today, that same principle applies where just a few saints, just 10 saints could spare a nation. There's a story, a saint John, beyond. was being assaulted by the devil one night. And the devil said, "If there were 10 priests "like you in the entire world, "we would be completely overrun." - Wow. - Right? So I think that there's the other so much hope in the world because when the times are darker, the saints are greater. So if you think the world's getting worse and you think the culture is going to hell in a hand basket, good, you've got a real opportunity to be something special, something that we may never see again. And if you think the culture is getting better and the times are getting better, praise God. That's wonderful too, right? So whichever way you slice it, I just think there's so much occasion for hope. I also think that young men today are in general, really interested in their faith. And the entire culture will go the way that fatherhood goes. You've probably seen the studies from the Pew Research Institute, but it's something like 85% of kids remain faithful if the father's faithful, the mother's not. About 15% of kids remain faithful if the mother's faithful and the father is not, right? So the entire culture will go the way that fatherhood goes. And I think we're starting to see a real resurgence of masculinity, authentic Catholic masculinity within the church. And that comes with good things and bad things too. You know, it's like not every Catholic man with a webcam is exactly the person you want to listen to, but we're trending in that direction. Where fathers are really going to be intention about raising their kids to be holy. So yeah, that would be what I would say. I think there's so much room for hope. I think we need to hope Max. Let's bring that. I love that hope Max looks Max. Okay, but let's hope Max. That's the way to. And prayer Max. Yeah, charity Max. Yeah. Cameron, thank you so much for your message of hope and for all the work that you do to help men and women in the church and beyond. God bless you and your family. And so grateful they came on the show today. Thank you so much for having me. God bless. A big thank you to our channel partner, EWTN. EWTN is the world's largest religious broadcast network. Reaching millions of people every single day with the beautiful truth of the gospel. You can be the first to watch Lila Roe show episodes 24 hours before they hit YouTube at EWTN.com and on the EWTN app.