“30 Years Married… But Now Just Roommates”

Okay, if you're a frequent listener of the Dad Starting Over podcast and you find yourself saying, "Yeah, that sounds like me," well, you don't need another podcast episode. What you need is support. The Help for Men Brotherhood is where men go when they're done pretending that they got it all handled. You know, your dead bedrooms, your divorce, your loneliness, your rebuilding life. We have private forums, frequent live Zoom meetings, one-on-one coaching, courses, all my books at no additional charge. And yes, we get together in person. Real men and real conversations. So stop doing this alone and join the Help for Men Brotherhood today at help4men.com/join. I look forward to seeing you in the next member meeting. What happens when you've built 30 years of life together, but the spark is just completely gone. This is a really, really common scenario that I hear from my followers, and no different here for our friend Patty, who wrote in to deardso.com. You can submit your own story if you would like and talk about it here on the podcast, deardso.com. And Patty writes in and says, I've been with my wife for 30+ years, 3 grown kids, good job, single income, parentheses me, and a funny, decent relationship. The problem: no sex, little to no intimacy. She never instigates even a peck on the cheek. I think it's related to hormones, but I just learned that she's now on hormone therapy. I try to instigate, set up dates, etc., but nothing works. We are roommates at this point, and I need more. What can I do? She clearly doesn't find me attractive and certainly not sexy. Maybe she sees sex as a job. Not sure. About me, I'm 61 years of age, fit. I work out 5 times a week. I am an executive. I ride motorcycles, garden, woodwork, camp, play the bass. Basically, I think I'm pretty interesting. So what on earth do we think is going on? I keep hearing about women at this age stopping sex, and as soon as the husband demands more, it's divorce. I like and love my wife, but I don't want to get divorced. It would ruin me, I think. Any thoughts? Once again, this is, uh, pretty common from the men that I talk to. And if we had to boil it down, regardless of age and all the other stuff going on, which I'll get back to here in a minute, the overall theme is one of 'Look, on paper, look at all the shit that I do. Don't I deserve love, intimacy, admiration, and romance from my partner?' What it is doing is completely negating the fact that there is a whole other human being here, a whole other human being that has stuff going on in their life that may have absolutely nothing to do with you. For example, what if we— and I know this isn't your case, Mr. Patty— but what if we were to find out that your wife has stage 4 cancer? What if you lost a loved one, like, God forbid, a child passes away or something like that, and it sends your partner into a deep depression? What if they lost their job? Or what if they're under some kind of legal problem, something that puts an immense amount of stress on them? I would think if you're like most good human beings, you would say, well, I get why they don't want to be physical with me at the moment. They have a lot of other stuff going on. Stuff that is completely out of my control as the, quote, "high libido individual." And you understand and you empathize with their plight and you give them space. This really is no different except that it's arguably, as far as the physical intimacy is concerned, a little bit more of a nefarious situation, a term I find myself using more and more these days, that is the old Father Time. If you are 61 years of age, I'm going to assume your wife is right around the same age, which means perimenopause has come and gone, menopause is already done, and now she's in her post-menopause years. And I believe the stats show the majority of women that have gone through the wonderful phase of menopause, they will report a decline in libido. Libido is another word for sexual desire. And that does not mean sexual desire just for you. That means sex, period, with anyone else on the planet Earth. And that is something that us men, especially men that are 61, fit, work out 5 days a week, executive, ride motorcycles, garden, woodwork, camp, play the bass. Dude, you are an extremely active and, dare I say, youthful individual. You do not represent the norm. You certainly don't represent the norm in the world of postmenopausal women out there. Most postmenopausal women out there would look at your resume and go, wow, he sounds really great and interesting, but he's a bit much for me right now. Maybe if I had met him 30 years ago. In other words, you're looking for a woman that fits the bill for a guy with all of your criteria, and you're looking across your wife saying, why doesn't she fit the bill? And here I am trying to defend your wife saying, dude, most women wouldn't. Most definitely women in her age bracket sure as hell would not. So you have a— I mean, let's just put it out there, if you're looking for the ideal mate for you that matches you in energy and sexuality and everything else, that's probably going to be women much, much younger than your wife. That's— that sounds horrible of me to say. I'm not saying drop this older woman and go get you a young one. I'm just being realistic here, dude. It is not fair of you to expect that level of energy and everything else out of your, let's say, 60-year-old wife. It is negative to say that out loud. It is negative to feel those things. It certainly is not a positive experience to have all this energy and love and romance and sexuality towards your wife only to be told, "No thank you." But that's life, dude. That's life for you. So from where I sit, you got two choices here. One is be patient as your wife goes through hormonal replacement therapy. And then you may see the, you know, glimpses of the old girl back, so to speak. And then maybe you two can connect in a lot of ways. It probably won't check every box that you want, Mr. Super Active Fit Dude, but it may be enough for you. You're like, all right, I can, you know, set aside a lot of my grievances. This is fine. I want to live out the rest of my years with this woman here. This is great. Or she may very well give you the middle finger and say, the hormonal therapy, it's, it's just to maybe alleviate some of my postmenopausal symptoms, help with the osteoporosis and everything else. It doesn't do anything as far as my libido and as other things are concerned. And in fact, I really don't care if it does or not. That's not why I'm doing this. So take it or leave it, mister. So you got a very real decision to make here. Is this enough of a problem for you that you're willing to throw away this relationship? And I'm not trying to shame you if it is. If that's who you are, then that's who you are. There's zero shame in being a fit, high libido, 61-year-old dude, extremely high energy. But you have to understand here, realistically, you have limited yourself to a relatively small portion of the population out there of women that will be willing to date you and have a romantic relationship with you. That is not a condemnation of you, of those women out there, and it's not a condemnation of you. It's just reality. So what I see is the guy who is facing reality and stomping his feet saying, this ain't fair. And there's a lot of men in your shoes that would say, yeah, Yeah, I know, dude, sucks, doesn't it? But we live with it. Or there's also a large number of men out there, and I'm not condoning this, dude, don't get me wrong, but let's just put the facts out there, okay? There are plenty of dudes your age with your energy and your all that good stuff that you explained here who are going out and getting some on the side, as they say. This may be in the form of a whole other affair with a whole other human being, emotional, physical affair. It could be in the form of sex workers, the world's oldest profession for a reason. There's a demand for it. Big chunk of that demand are guys like you. I've shared in some of my past material that I've spoken to strippers in the past, and I have heard from more than one stripper in my life that one of the saddest things they deal with are these, quote, elderly men. I think you may qualify for that. I don't know if there's an official qualification before you call yourself elderly. Older gentlemen, let's put that out there. The older gentlemen who comes in and meets with the stripper on a regular basis and gives her hundreds and hundreds of dollars every week, let's say. And you know what that guy wants to do? He wants to sit down in her company, hold hands, and talk. That is a really common thing in the world of strippers, to have that older grandpa type dude. He's not interested in the super carnal, over-the-top, you know, put your body parts in my face stuff. He just wants to be in the company of a pretty young gal who makes him feel good for an hour or so, whatever, and he's willing to fork over hundreds of dollars for that. The pleasure of experiencing that. That's sad, isn't it? But it shows that kind of Mother Nature has thrown us together when you have these similar ages in these couples that it's not inevitable, but it's quite often that it results in two people that are mismatched energy-wise, sexuality-wise, sex drive, whatever you want to call it. That's really, really common, dude, really common. And we have some women that may be listening to this right now saying, "Dude, it's not always that way. It's sometimes flipped the other way." energetic woman with a guy who's just like, I can't, I got this heart problem now, this prostate problem now, I can't get it up anymore. And just, you just go ahead and go hang out with your girlfriends. I'll just be here on the recliner. That happens too. Old Mother Nature, man. It's, it's not fair, but it is what it is. And your fork in the road moment is one that you look at both choices here and you're like, I don't like either of these. I want to make a third choice here. You know, sticking to the stay with her or divorce. I want, I want a third choice. Okay, from where I sit, the third choice is get you some on the side or just hang up, hang up your penis for good. I don't know what to tell you, dude. This is, this is your reality, and it's not all on you as far as I'm not sexy enough, I'm not attractive enough. Dude, you're married to a 60-year-old woman, postmenopausal. Pretty damn normal, my man. Heard this quite a bit, just ask any other 60, 70-some-year-old dude. Really, really common. All right, brother, if you'd like to join other men in your age group, other guys that have gone through this, check out the Brotherhood, help4men.com, or jump right to the join page at help4men.com/join. We do have gentlemen in their 50s, 60s, and 70s in the group, many of whom, dare I say all of whom, have run into this. And you guys can compare notes on exactly how it is that you dealt with this issue in a healthy way. All right, brother, so look forward to meeting you. Check it out, the Brotherhood. And guys, thank you all so very much for listening, and we will catch you on the next one.