In this episode of the Dad Starting Over podcast, host Ralph Brewer opens by promoting the Help for Men Brotherhood, a community offering private forums, live Zoom meetings, one‑on‑one coaching, and free access to his books for men dealing with dead bedrooms, divorce, loneliness, and life rebuilding. He then introduces a listener submission from “Alfred,” who describes a ten‑year decline in sexual intimacy with his wife after the birth of their second child. Alfred, now in his early 40s, reports a high libido, only five to six sexual encounters per year, and feels labeled a “sex maniac” by his wife, who grew up in a strict religious environment, is a virgin, and appears asexual. Alfred has tried therapy, read Brewer’s books, and made personal changes, yet his wife remains resistant, often dismissing his attempts at intimacy. Brewer analyzes the situation, labeling it a classic anxious‑male/avoidant‑female attachment pattern, noting the impact of the wife’s religious upbringing and lack of sexual experience. He emphasizes that Alfred’s high libido is normal for a healthy male and that the mismatch is not a personal flaw but a relational dynamic. Brewer advises that further individual therapy, possibly a men’s support group, and honest assessment of the relationship’s viability are needed, even suggesting that ending the marriage may be healthier for Alfred’s mental health. Throughout, he repeatedly promotes his books, the Help for Men Brotherhood, and invites listeners to submit their own stories. The episode ends with a call to action to join the community, seek professional help, and consider moving on if the relationship remains unsatisfying.
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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. Male sexuality within a long-term relationship— is that something we need to work on suppressing? Or is this something we can celebrate like a normal human being? Let's talk about it. Hello everyone. We have a new Dear DSO submission on the website and you can submit your own story or question at deardso.com. Fill out the form and if your story is a good one, I will create a video out of it for the whole world to see or for the podcast listeners to listen to on the Dad Starting Over podcast available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, wherever you may listen to your podcasts. And if you're watching this on YouTube, do me a big favor if you could. Click on subscribe, click on like, share, leave a comment. I would really appreciate it. That would help me out a great deal. Thank you so very much. Now on to today's submission. This one comes from Alfred. There's a cool name. He says the subject line is Prisoner of My Sexuality. Uh-oh. He says, dear DSO, that's me by the way, um, over the last 10 years and after our second child, our sex life has significantly suffered. Leading towards my mid-30s, my libido has increased. Parentheses: I am now in my early 40s. I was never that guy looking to have sex with multiple women during my early years. Before my wife, I had sex with, with just one past girlfriend. I rarely looked at porn. So after looking back in my life, I had a pretty low libido. My wife was brought up in a relatively strict religious upbringing. She was a virgin, no boyfriend. Long story short, after reading your book, I did make significant changes to my life. Not all, but a lot. But my wife can be extremely stubborn and just won't move on with my past mistakes. For example, I used to dread going out with her friends and to social functions. I am an introvert, whereas she is an extrovert. I don't have these insecurities anymore, but she won't let it go. We have gone through therapy. Good. And I have shown deep regret on my past behavior. Sometimes it just feels like I'm walking on eggshells with her. We don't have issues with finances or infidelity. Although we still have some sex, it's not nearly enough, maybe 5 to 6 times a year. I don't even know if that's good or bad in your early 40s because my wife doesn't ask for it or has any interest in our sex life. It just feels like it is beneath her, and I am this Neanderthal mindless sex maniac. I feel I am in my sexual peak. For her, sex is not a necessity. She thinks I am this disgusting, dirty caveman. That is all I— that all I want is sex. I just can't get through to her. It's not about getting off but establishing a connection. I don't want anyone else except my wife. She likes to throw the quote, 'I am tired because of the kids bullshit' all the time. The reality is I am with the kids just as much as her, and I am the one making dinner and cleaning after everyone nearly 90% of the time. I tell her all the time we need to make our relationship a priority. My kids, parentheses, although I love them to death, they are second to my wife. I tell her this and she just rolls her eyes at me and doesn't really give a shit. Since I am in my sexual peak, the additional problem is I find my wife physically gorgeous. When I make that comment to her, she just rolls her eyes and really wants nothing to do with me. She doesn't really care. I know after reading your books I should be putting— I shouldn't be putting her on a pedestal, but I can't help it. It's my flaw. When she walks in the house without a bra, what can a man do? In one way, I enjoy seeing her like that, but in another way, I want to tell her to wear a bra. On the rare times we do have consistent sex— I thought you guys did it 5 or 6 times a year, how can that be consistent? Whatever. Um, my libido is in check, and I don't make any sexual comments or sound needy for sex. I tell her all the time, if we have steady and consistent sex, I would keep my comments to myself, but she won't budge. She once caught me masturbating. I had asked her to have sex with me that day, but she denied me. I wasn't even looking at porn, but I was thinking of her all the time. Regardless, she lost her shit. But I don't understand why I should be a prisoner to my sexuality because she has such a low opinion of sex. How is that fair to me? Maybe I'm not seeing it in her way, but I did ask her to be intimate with her and she says no. Am I being selfish of my own sexual desires? Am I this crazy sex maniac? Am I a bad person for wanting more sex from my wife? I am very confused! Multiple exclamation points. Well, Mr.— what was Alfred? Oh yeah, how could I forget? Um, dude, it's pretty common. Uh, I'll just lay it out there, make it short and sweet, okay? Because if you watch a lot of my videos, I'm just going to be repeating a lot of stuff that I've said over and over and over again. I start to annoy myself. But this is the quintessential Mr. Anxious Dude who has very little relationship experience, very little sexual experience. You talked about yourself being low libido. It could have been just a lack of experience, didn't really expose that side of yourself, very suppressed, um, you know, childhood or background, whatever it may be. It's not quote normal for a guy to be like low libido, low libido, and then once he hits his 30s, like kaboom, everything just explodes and all of a sudden I want sex. It's probably by virtue of the fact that you're now with a woman that you're like, oh, now I get to realize this about myself, right? And she, on the other hand, is acting very, very avoidant. So you're Mr. Anxious, she's very avoidant. This is the boilerplate, typical cookie-cutter relationship template that we see for people that reach out to me. Man anxious, woman avoidant. We see it millions and millions of times over and over and over again, right? Okay, millions is a bit of an exaggeration, thousands of times. But, um, and the fact that she was brought up in a strict religious upbringing, not helping things. She was a virgin. I know a lot of guys here and there are like, woohoo, but that doesn't help things either because she frankly has zero sexual experience. She doesn't know what she likes and doesn't like. That doesn't bode well for a future sexual relationship. No boyfriend, no nothing. So you got her fresh out of the box, so to speak, and you're like, let's just roll the dice and hope that this is a sexy woman. And now, shit, she's not. No, she's not. She was raised a certain way. She, she, uh, had a front row seat for this is how men and women behave. There's no sexy, no love behind it, I had— if I had to guess. Now, we are only hearing one side of the story, and that's your side, Alfred. We're not hearing her side of the story. I bet you if we talk to her, she would say this is the most needy, pushy, always smothering me kind of dude, because she's avoidant. That's— they're very sensitive to that. And you are in fact very needy. You're overly thinking about her. You're overly attached to this woman. You're very codependent. This woman has in very, very blunt terms told you again and again to get the hell away from her. She doesn't want you. And yet you keep pursuing and you keep harping and ruminating on the fact that this is not fair, this is not good, she should be this other way, but the fact that she's this way really hurts me. And, and this nonsense about you used to be very introverted, now you're extroverted, and that's the cause of all your problems, it's just horseshit. Just throw that out. No, it's nonsense. Um, I'm sure that there's some resentment over some past moments, but that does not dictate why she seems to be such an asexual creature now, especially towards you. And then the shaming of your, your self-servicing, servicing yourself and all this other stuff. It just points to a person— she is not a sexual being, dude. Um, whether that's a biological thing, whether that's a cultural thing, or whatever it may be, it ain't her. She doesn't want you. Leave her alone. Stop trying to shoehorn your way into her and to her life. Let this one go. I know, easier said than done. I'm not hearing the whole story. Okay, I would recommend— you've already been to therapy, you've already been down that road, so what am I talking about? Um, I'm taking everything you say at face value. I'm believing Alfred 100%. There's no other side to the story here. Alfred's is the gospel, right? If that's the case, dude, there's no hope here. You've done the work. You've tried working with her, you've tried pleading with her, you've done the work through my book, I assume, and everything else, and you've gone to the therapy. Yeah, you say you read my book, make significant changes to your life, all that good and she's just like, no dude, I don't want you. There's no need for that in my life anymore. Cool, but you're not of the same mindset. These things happen, dude. I mean, it's not just a sexual thing. People grow apart in relationships all the time. Things like when kids come into the picture, for a lot of people that seems to cause the split. Um, major job change, major health scare seems to cause a rift in a lot of people. And, uh, your thing seems to be the kids, which puts a spotlight on the, on the sexual, uh, the differences between you two sexually. No, let me just put this to rest. You're not a weirdo. You're not some kind of Neanderthal, whatever. You're a healthy dude. Congrats. Every healthy male has a pretty strong libido, and we learn to work with our wife, who's obviously lower than us. Usually we learn to come to some kind of compromise. We, we make connections. We have independent lives. When we come together, it's great, and we have a healthy sex life as a result, you know, ideally. But you're just like, even with all this work, even with the therapy and everything, 5 to 6 times a year she makes you feel like crap. She, she shames you for any kind of overt sexuality on your part. That's who she is, dude. I don't know what to tell you. There's no magic formula to turn her around. She's not going to suddenly wake up one day and be like, man, I've been kind of a real shithead to Alfred. I mean, turn up the sexy. I need to be turned on by this guy. I mean, look at him, he's awesome. No, she wakes up every morning going, God, I hope he doesn't touch me. I hope he doesn't try to kiss me and stuff in the kitchen. I hope he doesn't try to grab at me. Oh God. The fact that that doesn't make you go, hey, I understand, let me just move— mistake made, all right, let me just move on to Plan B over here and become a single dude for a while and work on my issues and figure out why it is that I'm trying to hang on to a person like this. And the fact that that doesn't occur to you is not a good thing. The fact that you're buried in like a tick with this woman and she keeps picking you off and throwing, discarding you, and you keep running back and burrowing in again, that doesn't bode well for you, dude. It doesn't bode well for your mental health and your, your growth as a human being. You need to figure out what's going on there. Maybe some individual therapy, maybe join our group, the Brotherhood, helpformen.com. Go to helpformen.com/join, support community for other guys going through stuff like this. So check it out. We do meetings and discussion forums and all kinds of good stuff. You can chat with me one-on-one if you want to work through this in addition to therapy, which I suggest you to. I'm not a therapist, so a licensed therapist, psychologist potentially, who can work through some of these issues. Work with a mentor or coach like me to talk to you on day-to-day life stuff. Um, you need some help, and there's nothing wrong with that. I'm not belittling you, dude. Been there, done that. Hence why I started the group, wrote the book, and all that good stuff. So you're in good company. You just set a stage right now where you need to realize to get over that wall. You're just keep running into the wall over and over again and smacking your head against and going, man, why is my head bleeding? I don't get it. What's going on here? We're like, dude, just climb over the wall. And you're like, well, yeah, that's a lot of work. Easier said than done. I know, but every man who's done it will say, thank God I climbed that wall. I'm— thank God I made that big decision so many years ago. It was worth it. It's time to let her go, dude. All right, homegirl doesn't want you no more. You need to re— you know, you need to take that message in and understand it and learn from it. And move on in life without her as your romantic partner. I know, easier said than done, but I'm here to help you out. If you want to talk about it further, go talk to some therapists, all that good stuff. All right, brother, thank you for reaching out. I do appreciate it. And guys, thank you for watching, and we'll catch you on the next one.
