Chat LIVE With DSO!

All right, all right, all right, all right. Let's see, are we officially live here? I'm a few seconds early. Let's see. Yeah, it looks like we're live. Checking out on Facebook here. Looking good. And hello world, how is everyone today? Let me make a little adjustment here. How's everyone? Welcome everybody to another live stream with yours truly, Raffalito Ralph from Dad Starting Over. I go by the name DSO. Which stands for Dad Starting Over. You can learn more at dadstartingover.com or else just search for Dad Starting Over in any social media stuff and you'll see my big dumb bald head talking about all kinds of stuff related to the world of, of the relationship-oriented world, I guess you could say. Being a dude, starting over after divorce, starting over within a marriage, dating, all that again relationship-oriented stuff. All right, let me bring up my, uh, where's my comments and reactions? There we go. Boom! Looks like we have a like already. Thank you so very much. Uh, give it a little bit here for people to file in and join us today. Looks like we have, uh, a whopping 1 person so far, at least on Facebook anyway. That's what I'm looking at here. Uh, welcome to all those that are joining from YouTube, Facebook, and X, or Twitter, as— or excuse me, Twitter, or X as it is known these days. Welcome all very much for joining us. Thank you all very much, I mean to say. Appreciate all of you. I'm getting a lot more activity on YouTube here lately, I'm happy to say. Let me jump over here and make sure we are good to go on YouTube. Yes, we are. We're looking good. All right, pardon me, I know this is very unprofessional of me to have some dead air here, but I'm just making sure everything is working great. Thank you all for the likes. Uh, for those of you joining, if you could be so kind as to give this a like, give this a share, that really helps, uh, how YouTube and Facebook and the like, um, how they reward guys like me, or allow— is via more people seeing me. And the way it allows more people to see me is if it says, well, this is something worth sharing. How do they— how does Facebook and YouTube and the like know that this is worth sharing? Is that people like it, people share it. So if you would be so kind, I would appreciate that a great deal. Uh, YouTube, we're up to about 22,000 subscribers, up from just a couple weeks ago we had like 3,000. And was stuck at 3,000 for a while and couldn't really move the needle. And finally, boom! So we're doing good. Facebook, you know, we got like 135,000, something like that. Same with TikTok. So doing well. Uh, we are, uh, boy, we already hit the, hit the ground running here. Andrew from YouTube, welcome Andrew! Thank you so very much for joining us today. Um, Andrew says that he would love to hear more my thoughts on— let's get right into it here, folks. Uh, let me start over here because I always cut these into clips. Kind of jittery today, I think too much coffee, so I apologize. But Andrew from YouTube says he would love to hear more about my thoughts on retroactive jealousy. Um, he saw an insightful video of mine a while back and it was very interesting. Ah, well, very good. So Andrew, um, I would presume that what you're saying with retroactive jealousy is Your partner, who I assume would be a woman— I typically attract hetero dudes to my material and hetero women— she had a relationship in the past and there's something about it makes you feel icky. So what is it exactly, Andrew? I'll put you on the spot here. Maybe you want to flesh out a little bit more, you know, but you're not necessarily saying this is your suggestion or your situation, rather. But I'm assuming this has touched you on a personal level. That's why you're bringing it up. This is not unusual. It's labeled by a lot of people as kind of an insecure thing, and they're not wrong. I guess it's very situation dependent. You know, if I'm talking to some guy and he says, "My wife used to be, you know, a prostitute or some kind of sex worker or something like that, and I have some real problems thinking about the hundreds and hundreds of men that she has slept with." I say, "Well, you have every right to feel a little weird about that. I think most people would." And then there are some people that say, "Ah, you're just insecure, let it go, dude. He has every right to feel weird about it, right? But if it's just, hey, they were with a person, and, you know, like most adults used to be with other people, to marry somebody or get with somebody who is a— what do they say— a full-fledged virgin, that's highly unusual, very rare, and that's not necessarily the best thing for a sexual relationship. What do I mean by that? If you are with somebody who has never ever been physical with another human being before, more specifically, never had sexual intercourse before, they probably don't know themselves sexually very well. Case can be made that it's a good thing. Your more conservative types say that's a good thing. You want them to learn with you. You want them to grow and mature with you sexually and get to know that part of themselves with you. While the case could also be made that, how are they going to know what it is they like? How are they going to know who they are sexually unless they have past experience? But there's a dividing line, isn't there? There's a tipping point where it goes from good, healthy past sexual experience to, like I mentioned before, what if they were a sex worker or prostitute, and they were with hundreds of individuals? Most of us say, oh, God, that's a little much. So where's the tipping point there? And, but back to your original question, what do you do about retroactive jealousy? Oh, here you followed up with some additional information. Says it's a tough one. Before me. It turned out that she had some pretty, quote, easy encounters. Not hundreds, but she was so easy for them, and it really bothers me. Well, how do you know that, Andrew? Did you come upon some information? This is something that I did a little, uh, maybe the video you're talking about, where, um, thanks to the internet these days, some people flat out didn't believe that this was the thing. Some people were saying I just made this up, but I think, Andrew, you can attest to this. Thanks to the internet, thanks to people publishing or putting out photos, blogs used to be a big thing, not so much anymore, like LiveJournal and so forth. So when I'm talking to 40, 50-some-year-olds, they say, I found some old blog, online diary of my wife or my girlfriend, and I discovered, holy shit, this person used to be all kinds of sexual. Sure would like to see that side of them, and I don't ever see it, and it bothers me. Frankly, rightfully so. You'd have to be kind of— I don't know, be kind of weird for it not to bother you a little bit. But then again, people have chapters in their life. Maybe they were more free and open and experimental in their 20s, but then they settled down and became less so. Men and women both go through phases like this for sure. It's just that if you're a person who is highly sexual and you're looking for some of that, oh, physical validation and so forth from your partner, and you found out they used to give it in spades to previous partners but not you, of course that's going to make you feel a little weird. Maybe that's what you're talking about here, Andrew, that they used to be very open sexually, easy encounters, um, and you aren't getting that, right? And it bothers you. You're comparing. Like, uh, this taps into something that is very, um, uncomfortable to get into for a lot of people. But let's try to be mature and talk it through here, right? There's no judgment here. Um, in the world of, of, um, sexual intimacy for men Typically, not always, for most of us, there's some work behind it. Let's say you see a pretty girl across the room. Gotta get up the nerve, gotta have the balls to walk over to her. That's some work, you know. You gotta have some charisma about you, some chutzpah, as they say. You gotta have some game, as the kids say. And you walk over and you say, "I'm Ralph, what's your name?" And you get to know them. Gotta put in the work. Let me buy you a drink. Spend a few bucks. It shows what? That you're a person of status, that you're able to afford a drink. And you know what? Why don't you give me your number? I'd like to take you out to dinner sometime. Right away, you're taking out to dinner. That's, you know, from the male perspective, that's some work, some investment. You're investing money, time. You're being very vulnerable emotionally, all this other stuff, putting yourself out there. You're putting in work and you're putting in time. And it may be 3, 4, 5, 10 dates later, to get to the finish line, so to speak, of real sexual intimacy. She feels safe enough with you, gets to know you, falls in love, all this other stuff, and then you're able to do the deed. And as crass as that seems, that's kind of why we're all kind of doing this song and dance, right? To propagate the species, to do the deed. So anyway, what if you go through all of that and you really fall in love with this person and you had to go through all this song and dance to get to the end, but then you found out that your partner actually was with a lot of people prior to you, and they didn't have to put in as much, quote, work to get the deed done. All they had to say was, hey pretty, what's your name? And away they go, right? That would make you feel like you were a, quote, loser compared to the other guys. The other guys got to the finish line that much easier than what you did. That sounds very crass. It sounds, you know, we can— oh, we can mold that to say that's somewhat of a misogynistic, quote, red pill or whatever nonsense, you know, internet nonsense you come up with. But that's Human Sexuality 101. That's the mating dance. The mating dance is typically, hey, you know, I'm a male, am I worthy of your time, woman? Let me put in some work to show you that I'm worthy, and voilà, you become my mate. We see that all throughout the animal kingdom. You ever watch those nature programs where the big bird does a little dance in front of the— you know, the male bird does a dance from the female bird? Why is it that across the animal kingdom, it's always the males that have the big ornamental feathers, fur, the colors and everything else? Because we're trying to win the female. So when we do that, we discover that this guy didn't even have to fluff his feathers. All he did was just walk up to her and he got it. Well, he's the winner. I'm the loser. That's how a lot of men look at that. So that's, I think, the crux of a lot of your question there is, man, dude was the winner. I wasn't. I had to put in all this work. And people label that as insecure, and they got a point. There is some insecurity in that. You know, you can look at that and say, you know, like, my partner went through a phase, they were young, experimental. Maybe those guys have something I don't. Hey, good for those guys. Maybe we're not a great match in that way. Maybe I should let you go. Maybe, um, maybe you need to find somebody that pushes your buttons in that way. "Man, I'm not that person." You know, shake hands and go about your separate ways. I don't— I'm not going to shame you or call you insecure, Andrew, or others for thinking that way. It's a perfectly valid way of thinking, whether it's a man or a woman. And something I've mentioned, not to go down this rabbit hole of past promiscuity, it's not a strictly female thing in terms of it possibly being a— having a negative impact or a negative factor on a long-term monogamous relationship. I have seen— or spoken to, rather. A lot of men who have, um, a promiscuous past, the former players, right? And then they're like, I'm gonna settle down. I'm tired of screwing around with all these dozens of women, and it was fun while it lasted, but none of these women are relationship material. I'm gonna settle with this one. I'm getting my needs met sexually. We're really clicking that way. But intellectually and emotionally, I finally found the one. And they settle. And then, um, the relationship becomes serious, they become secure, they become comfortable with each other, familiar with each other, then they have kids, and then the sex naturally dissipates and goes down. And here's Mr. Former Playboy, Mr. Player Guy, saying, I used to get it like 3 times a week on average with 3 different women, and now I'm— I find myself kind of begging a woman for once or twice a month. Those men, and I've talked to those men, tend to sleep around a lot, cheat. They don't settle for scraps. And so I tell women, you know, be careful if you're with Mr. Playboy, used to, you know, has a roster of women in his wake. To say he's going to settle down for one and one only, oof, good luck with that. So we could flip the genders and the case could be made the other way as well. Um, I'm gonna stick with Andrew here. I'm jumping over some other comments. Uh, Andrew fleshes out this further and he says, yeah, he'd— he being her past, your, your partner's past partner— uh, he'd basically pick her up, do her in the car down a nearby dirt track, even pick her up dinner hour and do her in the car on an industrial estate and then drop her back off. How do you know all this, Andrew? Kind of like the price for me is lifelong commitment, but the price for him wasn't even worth the petrol to drive her home to a bed. She required nothing from him for him to get that from her. You know, Andrew, you're, you are just, you're doing an excellent job of describing what I was talking about. This is relatively common sentiment from a lot of men. It's retroactive jealousy thing, I guess. It bothered me for so long. Yet for me, after giving her everything in life, I get thrown a bone every couple of weeks. So what you're saying is totally how I feel. Yeah, I'm sorry to hear that, buddy. So, I mean, there's different ways of looking at this, right? He has tools in his toolbox, the other dude. Let's call him John. John, the ex-boyfriend, he was able to get out of her, um, hypersexual— yeah, hypersexual state of mind, the state of being, and You have to jump through a lot of hoops to get less. So you do these 12 things to get a fraction of what John got for not doing anything, and that makes you feel like shit. Okay, so why is that, right? Well, I don't know. Yeah, maybe John's Mr. Loverboy. Maybe John, as far as your spouse or partner is concerned, really had that sexual it. He really had it going on. He had, you know, the— he checked some boxes that really got her going. That's, that's what you don't want to hear, right, Andrew? And guys in your, in your position, you're like, Ralph, I don't want to hear that. That just makes me feel worse. That could very well be it. Is there anything necessarily wrong with that? No. I've talked to men who are like, I was with this crazy woman who had, you know, borderline personality disorder, and she ended up, you know, chasing after me a knife but I tell you what, we had the hottest sex imaginable, man. It was holy crap, 3 times a day, middle of the night. She would, you know, do me in the parking lot of the local Kroger or whatever it may be. We just had the most awesome, over-the-top, hot, sexy, whatever. And I can't seem to get that from my wife. So it's somewhat similar to what you're talking about with the genders flipped. So that's— you don't want to hear that, that could very well be it. Or like I alluded to earlier, People have chapters in their lives. What if, honest to God, your wife says, I was experimental, free, open, and a lot of things I did with John, I look back on and I go, God, I would not do that again. I, you know, again, I was young, experimental, I was very insecure, and that's why I did a lot of those things. And looking back on it, I wish I didn't. And here's you saying— I don't know if you verbalize this to her or not— yeah, can you do those things with me? And she's like, I really don't want want to. I don't like that chapter in my life. I'm not that person anymore. Could very well be the case. Don't know. Does it bother you enough to end the relationship with the missus? That's the question. Is there a, is there a hypersexual girlfriend out there waiting for you? Maybe she used to be, maybe she never was. As you can see, these are pretty complicated situations. I'm not one to do what a lot of people do, which is, um, you know, throw you under the bus and call you an insecure little man baby. You need to get over it. She doesn't want to do those things anymore. She doesn't have to. No, I completely empathize with where you're coming from. This is— your emotions and your feelings in this are completely valid, and you, um, you're not a bad person for feeling that. So don't ever, you know, think that you're a little weakling for thinking those things. I think anybody in their right mind would go down that, that path, you know, thought-wise. So, um, yeah, something to talk about further. If you'd like to, you can always chat with me one-on-one, dadstartingover.com, and go to coaching. Uh, you can join our men's club. Let me pause here for a moment, do a little business, a little selling, if I may please. dadstartingover.com is the website. We also have a private men's group. I can't tell you how many people are like on the Facebook and YouTube and so forth saying that Do all these women have to be in the comments? It's a public page. Anybody— man, woman, dog, cat, whatever— can get on there and comment and do whatever they want. I can't stop them, nor do I want to. I think they're— I welcome all, everybody to get on and comment on whatever post I have. I love the conversation. I'm not anti-woman by any stretch of the imagination, but I recognize it's important that we have a space just for dudes. It's been that way, you know, since forever. Fraternal groups. You know, when I was a kid, they had the Moose Lodge and the— what are some of the others? The Friars Club and the— oh, what are the— trying to— the Shriners, all those others. It's just a group just for men. They recognize we need a group just for men. It's important that we have this man-only space so we can commiserate, talk amongst yourselves, help each other out and network. Well, we created our own little group called the DSO Fraternity for men only. We have live meetings that we have in Zoom. I conduct them along with other guys in our group, coaches in our group. We have a private discussion forum just for men only. We have in-person meetups that we do. We have a podcast just for DSO fraternity members. We have all those Zoom meetings I talked about, of which we have had probably 600-700 hours of meetings by now, by the way. We record them all. You can listen to all of them. So if you miss one, which most guys do, you know, we have hundreds and hundreds of members and only like 25, 30 or so guys show up in a meeting at a time. That's a good meeting if we have those. The rest listen to the recording. They're like the ACTIS podcast. You can listen to them right from your phone. Pretty cool stuff. Articles. What else? We got to mention the meetups. And then we have products that the general public can buy, such as courses online. We have coaching that I mentioned for myself and other guys on the team. We all come from different walks of life, have different experience. Well, if you're a member of the DSO Fraternity group, you get those things about half off. So it's a pretty good deal. And I'm going to copy and paste in the comments here— pardon me while I get it here— a link that you can try out the group for free. I say that— where'd it go? There it is. And try out for free for a month. If you like it, great. If not, hey, No skin off our back. You don't have to continue on anymore if you don't want to. You can cancel, and no charge to you as long as you cancel before the, the first month is up. And there is a fee involved with it. A lot of stuff goes behind the scenes to make all this work. And, uh, but I welcome anyone, everyone to try that out. If you're dudes only, please. Sorry, ladies. I'm gonna jump back up here. Andrew, I hope I, I, uh, um thoroughly dug into your little situation there, answered to your satisfaction. Let's move on to, uh, Mr. Jason. Mr. Jason is heading into a second marriage in May. He waited 4.5 years after his divorce. That was about the same I did as well. I have split custody of 3 kids, 16, 13, and 11 years of age. Should I get a prenup? Yes. Any other advice? The new wife will move in with me this summer. Well, it sounds, buddy, uh, congratulations, Jason. I wish you all the best, buddy. She has to be a doll of a woman to put up with a guy who has 3 kids from a previous marriage, used to be divorced. That shows that good character. She thinks a lot of you. Obviously she's going to marry you. So wish you all the best. Prenuptial, I think it's a no-brainer. Sorry if that offends any of you guys out there, guys and gals out there, but I don't see why not. My wife was also of the same mindset, my second wife. We waited almost 4 years before— actually, we were together, so about the same as you, 4.5 years, yeah, after my first marriage ended, before I got hitched again. And I also had 3 kids. So Jason, brother, except mine, when we divorced, when we divorced the first wife, it was a 1.5-year-old, a 6-year-old, and a 9-year-old. So Oof. And then do the math there. So, oh, it's about the same, isn't it? No, not quite. Um, my little one was young, young when I, uh, married again. So, um, prenup, no-brainer to me, makes sense. Sorry if it's the most unromantic thing in the world. My wife was the same mindset. She is German, uh, from what I understand, and at least in her social circle in Germany, that was like a— you just— something you just did. You know, signed an agreement that said if we are to split, here's what happens to the assets and debts. Makes sense to me. Any other advice? Don't ignore those little moments. Don't brush anything under the rug. Enforce your boundaries. You learned a lot from marriage number one, I bet you. So don't lose sight of all that stuff that you learned. Be hyper-communicative. You know, they say communication, communication. It's true. You know, you want to be, um, hey, wife, that thing right there, let's talk about that. Not happy with it, or I am happy with it. Um, show your appreciation to her. That's something I learned from marriage number one that I didn't do enough of. Throw myself under the bus. I'm not above, you know, saying I wasn't the greatest husband in the world. I wasn't. But in, in marriage number two, I am not above saying I love you and appreciate you and everything that you do, and you mean a lot to me. All the work that you do for us, for our family, and everything else. I love you to pieces, and that doesn't make me a weak dude. Doesn't make me a— what do the kids say these days— a simp. That makes me an appreciative person, good partner, good hubby. That's something I pride myself on. So, uh, best of luck to you, brother. Get her done, mister. Be a good hubby and a good partner. And, uh, but, uh, don't be afraid to stick up for yourself, what you believe in, your values, all that good stuff. Seth asks, uh, what's a good book to read right after divorce? Self-esteem is super low and I need to build my confidence back up. Currently I'm seeing a therapist. Very good for you. And I have an appointment with a fitness coach starting. Excellent, Seth. Good job, buddy. Well, I happen to write a book and the book is called Divorce Panic. I'm going to type— pardon me as I type in here. That's startingover.com/divorce. I think it's— shit, I should probably check that before I put that in there. Or you know what, duh, I purchased a domain just for this, divorcepanic.com. Boom, go to divorcepanic.com. I wrote a book just for you, brother. And for guys in your position. It's available on Amazon, Apple Books, Audible audio version read by yours truly. And Ainsworth says it's a great start. Divorce Panic was the first book that he read. 100% recommend. Well, thank you so much, Ainsworth. I appreciate that, buddy. Appreciate that a great deal. Yeah, it's— I have stories I shared in there from other men in your position, Seth. Just my musings on the world of starting over and the world of relationships and all that good stuff. I originally wrote the book under a different title called Now What? The problem is nobody could remember the title. They called it What Now? Now What? Some people just called— some people said, hey, I read your Dad Starting Over book. I'm like, which one? That's, you know, um, some people just called it something completely different. I don't know, for some reason that name did not stick. And I wasn't too thrilled with the way the book turned out, so I just completely rearranged it, added like 50% new material, and rebranded it as Divorce Panic. I thought that's a really good title, good domain, and it was available and purchased it and all that good stuff. So, and Michael says to Mr. Seth, great job with the therapy and fitness. I started both right away. The book was amazing. Well, thank you guys. Appreciate it. Divorce Panic, check it out. Yes, Seth, you're on the right path here with taking care of, you know, your noodle with therapy and your body with fitness. Can't get much better than that, brother. But be patient with yourself. Give yourself a freaking break. That's what I tell a lot of guys. A lot of guys, not better yet, still feel bad, still anxious, not sleeping well, losing weight. But it's like, yeah, dude, you're going through a trauma. I don't care what kind of alpha male tough dude you think you are. Divorce is a trauma. Breakup is a trauma. If you were with, you know, some girlfriend for a period of years, not even married, and suddenly she says to you, I don't want to be with you anymore. Again, I don't care how tough you are, it's traumatic. Um, I was reading a book here recently that said, uh, love is akin to basically addiction as far as our brain's concerned, as far as the chemical structure of addiction, the dopamine, the, the, you know, like with, with typical drug addiction, especially the narcotics like heroin and all those, um, it's Euphoric at first, much like dating and love. And then eventually it becomes, I need my drug just to feel normal. You know, like those heroin addicts are like, if they don't have their drug, they start, you know, throwing up and getting sick and they feel like they have the flu and they feel like they're gonna die and they end up in the hospital. And then you give them the drug and they don't feel high again, they just feel normal. That's kind of like love in a relationship. We feel really high at first and then eventually we get used to the person. And the analogy I often use is it feels like a limb on your body.. And if I cut that limb off, it's gonna feel bad. You're gonna be like, can I have my limb back, please? And you could try to, you know, you— it's not unusual to go out and reach out to them and try to bring them back, even if they really hurt you with something like infidelity or abuse or whatever. Um, you know, we— you always make fun of— when I was a kid, there was a show on television called COPS, C-O-P-S, and they would, uh, go around and shoot video and follow policemen on their, on their calls. And there's a lot of domestic disputes, people fighting and stuff. And they go to somebody's house and there's some woman where the guy beat the shit out of her and the police are hauling the guy away, take, you know, putting him in the, in the cop car. And what does the woman do? No, don't take him away! I love him! No! And then we were all like, watch TV, like, oh my God, of course. But love is a strange thing. Even in the, in the face of all that abuse, I, I need him. I need my love. Don't take him away. It's— I see the same with, with guys all the time too. It's not a female thing. Jason says, thanks, you rock, Ralph. Well, you rock too, Jason. Besides DSO Books, I also recommend When Things Fall Apart by— well, that's a name— Pema Chödrön. Pardon me if I totally mispronounced. A lot of umlauts on that one. During or after a divorce, lots of tough self-love. Seth says, it seems extra hard after 12 years with 3 kids in the house. Brother, I was right there with you. I had 3 kids after 15 years of marriage and 20 years together. Like I said, the youngest was a year and a half old, so I had a toddler and diapers. And, and I have, um, a child now with my second wife. And, uh, it was— and I did a little video where I get a little emotional. I talked about when my little one was like a year and a half old, I realized, holy crap, this is the age that my first— this is the age of this, you know, this kid when my first wife left me. Our youngest was a year and a half. It's like, that, that was very illustrative for me of just how how, I guess, broken she was as an individual to basically say adiós, family. Because she didn't just, you know, take the kids and leave me. She left and basically left me with the kids and the house and everything. She was gone like majority of the time. We technically shared custody, but I ended up with them most of the time, including our little toddler. So to show, uh, you know, for a, for a mom to leave her toddler basically and just say, I'm gonna go to somebody else and start a new life, showed me just Again, how broken she was at the time. But I, as I often say in these things, I find myself repeating myself a lot in these. In full transparency, she is doing much better now, for a period of years now, and I've forgiven her for what she did. And, uh, we, uh, we work very well together as, I guess, co-parents to 3 kiddos, one of which is an adult in college, the other one's on his way here soon. And the other one's going to be in high school before I know it. So, uh, you see, it's a long time ago. This is a while— 11 years ago that I went through all of this. So, um, pardon me. So, been there, done that, my friend Seth, and wish you all the best. But you're in good company. Check out the DSO fraternity. Um, did I— there you go, Seth. Check it out, buddy. Um, I created this group for guys like you and other dudes. We have dudes that are married, dudes that are divorced, getting divorced. Check out the group for free for a month. If you like it, you can stick around. If not, like I say, no skin off my back. The group's not for everybody, but I think you'll get a lot out of it because you could post your story. I can tell you right now, in the private forums, and you'll probably get 50 replies within the hour with guys saying, pardon me, been there, done that, buddy, here's what I did. So that's very valuable. If you don't, uh, if it's not through our group, then you need some kind of, um, men in your life, basically friends, guys to commiserate with and talk to about this kind of stuff. Um, it's important. And, uh, even better if you can talk to guys who have been, been there, done that. That's really important. That's something I noticed when I went through what I did in my first divorce with the infidelity and all other stuff. That if I went to one of my normal buddies, which was in all honesty basically the husbands of my ex-wife's co-workers— as sad as that sounds, those were my buddies— um, you know, I'd sit down with them with beer in hand and just go, this dude, I don't know if you know what's going on, but— and I would tell them, you know, going through divorce, wife cheated, and you just get the wide-eyed stare as they sip their beer going, oh, uh, yeah, dude, I don't know what to say. I've I have no experience with this, man. I am so sorry to hear that. It was very awkward for them. They had no experience with it. You know, here I am talking about their wife's friend, basically my ex-wife, and it was just— it wasn't good. And so to talk to other guys who had been there, done that, was huge for me. And I had a therapist who put me in touch with one of her fellow— one of her clients who had basically went through the exact same thing I went through. And that's what helped open my eyes to, holy shit, this is a whole like world of us out there. Which started me on my Dad Starting Over journey, creating my own group, etc., etc. Um, all right, any other questions, guys? Anything else? Anybody have anything to share? Any stories? Any, um, any comments or anything on anything I have done videos on here recently? I have recently struck a nerve stirve online, especially amongst the Facebook and TikTok world. I posted a video saying— or rather, I tweeted, posted a tweet, and then took a screen capture of that tweet and put that on Facebook and TikTok. And that tweet basically said, a lot of men, dare I say the majority of men, who love their wives to death married, have kiddos, men, those men will report, I, ever since the kids came into the picture, I kind of feel forgotten. I kind of lose my role as husband and partner to my wife. And I feel like I've been kind of set aside. And some men even say, I feel like I was a sperm donor and a paycheck. I used to be my wife's lover and best friend and all this other stuff. But now I'm sperm donor, that job's done. Paycheck. Beyond that, not much. And so I much, you know, succinctly, much more succinctly put that in a tweet and put that out there. And, um, you know, ideally you would, you would like to hear, you know, response from some of the ladies saying that's sad to hear, you know, we don't, we don't want to do that to our husbands. It's just that we're just so caught up in the stress and the anxiety and everything else of having children. We don't, you know, purposely mean to ignore our poor husbands and whatever. They're, they're very important. How much As sad as it is to say, I don't think I saw one comment saying that from the ladies. Instead, I got hundreds and hundreds of comments from the women saying, go fuck yourself. And that's sad. I don't think it's bad in any way, shape, or form for a man to say, this is how I feel. I feel forgotten. I would, you know, dare I say, love more attention as a partner. Dare I say, I would love to see some of my old lover back, my best friend back, pre-kids. I don't think that's a bad thing to say. It's not a selfish thing to say. It's not a childish thing to say. It's a human thing to say. And when men express said emotion, which doesn't come easily for men, trust me, to put that out there to their wife and to the world and to hear back go F yourself, you big baby. Jesus, get over yourself. Quit being so goddamn selfish. We just crawl back into our hole, crawl back into our cave. And a lot of men just throw their hands up and go, see, it's fruitless. And then some men take it even further and go, exhibit number 927 for don't get married, don't have kids, because you, you lose your value as a human being in society overall, blah blah. So that opened up a whole big can of worms. I did a couple of I did a follow-up video to that. But that's, you know, I don't know if you guys want to talk about that. If anybody— I did a little survey and I think, oh shoot, 70-some-odd percent of the men on Facebook said, yeah, I felt forgotten. And 60-some-odd percent of the men on YouTube said, yeah, I felt forgotten. So the vast majority of men say, yeah, I totally feel like I lost my place in the relationship. That's sad. If I were a coach for women, I would say, It's something you want to be aware of and something you want to avoid. It doesn't mean you have to just hang all over your men and, you know, kiss them every 5 minutes saying, "You're important, I love you." But just, it doesn't take much. That's something that a lot of women learned, learn. It doesn't take much to please a dude. A smack on the butt in the kitchen saying, "You look handsome today." How often do we hear that? Rarely. I'm one of the lucky few that I hear it quite often. My wife's a doll, love her to death. She's, she's been trained well. Her mother's a very loving person, so I think that has a lot to do with it. And unfortunately, we don't see that a lot. At least it's— let me just say this, it's not fair to say overall society, overall we don't see that a lot. I don't see that a lot from the women who watch my videos and comment on it. There, that's, that's the most fair way of looking at it. If you're a female and you look at my videos and you leave a comment when it comes to Forgotten Dude You're not happy. Let's just put it that— put it that way. Um, Hugh. Hugh is a member of the DSO fraternity. Hello, Hugh. Hugh says, I think men need to be trained, preferably by their fathers, on number one, marriage and children change women and your sex life, and it's not always for the better. And Seth says, yeah, the forgotten father thing, his experience verbatim. Uh, Hugh's point number 2, to teach them the DSO principles of masculinity and attraction. Well, thank you, Hugh, appreciate that. Which kind of, kind of be fleshed out by, uh, books. Uh, The Dead Bedroom Fix is my bestseller. It's all about, uh, uh, sex and marriage. And if you're a dude, how you can improve your situation potentially. The Dead Bedroom Fix, that's my best-selling book. Uh, that, that one book eclipses all my other books combined. I have 4 books total. We've talked about Divorce Panic and now Dead Bedroom Fix. If you want to talk about DSO principles, I don't necessarily brand them as such, but that's what he's talking about. Um, Jason says, um, okay, moving on. Jason says, tips on dealing with parental alienation. Oh, my ex has predisposed our kids against me. Ouch. Clearly part of her defense mechanism for being a cheating leaver. No legal recourse. The kids refuse therapy. So, um, in other words, with the kids refusing therapy, are you saying that, um, are her parental alienation actions working? In other words, do you feel the kids are against you now? Um, that sucks, dude. I was lucky enough not to experience that. In fact, I, I, I was very, very, um, careful, strict about not bad-mouthing my ex no matter what she did, to my children. I knew that would just get me nowhere. Um, but kids are very perceptive. Kids sit back and watch, and they put two and two together, and they realize mom's going through some shit. It's a little chaotic on mom's side of the fence. Dad seems to be the more stable of the two, and the kids, you know, tend to be attracted to stability and predictability and safety. And they were— for a period of years there, they were more drawn to me on that side of the fence. But Mom got better, and now they're bouncing between the two equally. But I can— I know it would have been a lot more difficult if Mom had— pardon me, coughing fit, I'm getting over a cold— if Mom had been more antagonistic and more putting the— pitting the kids against me. So I can't imagine, that's got to be tough. But all I can say is, what can you do? You just model good behavior for them. You know, if they come to you, "Mom said that you fill in the blank with some kind of lie," "I'm sorry to hear that. All I can say is that's not true. Anyway, let's have tacos." You know, you just move past it. You're bigger than that, in other words. And if they believe mom, what else can you do other than just modeling good behavior and showing them what a good father is and loving them no matter what? I'm sorry you feel that way, daughter, son. Pardon me, but I'm here for you. Love you to pieces. Um, you know, and move on being dad. And if they don't want to be with you, you know, I've heard those horror stories of the guys that are, you know, writing letter after letter to their kids, and the kids are 20, 30-something years old later down the line, and they find this cache of letters written by dad over the years, or they find out something from a relative about, oh wow, mom was the monster after all. And, uh, the dad, you know, the kids and the dad make amends. And the dad's bigger, you know, than— he's not being petty and he doesn't hold it against the kids. He just realizes, yeah, I realize that you were told a lot of bullshit and it's not your fault, but I'm glad that you're in my life now. Let's make up for lost time. So it's not all lost. Just, uh, be tough, keep your chin up, and just be a good model for them for what a good, sane, normal loving dad's all about. All right, I'm looking at, uh, the kids see mom as the protagonist, as me as the antagonist. If only they knew the truth, but I would never give them the burden of the truth about their mom. Good for you. So they see what the dad being the antagonist— were you the one, quote unquote, to divorce? Were you the one to throw the grenade in the room and mom was the one that wanted to hang on and keep things going? Yeah, that's Your mom and I were just fundamentally incompatible in a lot of ways, and it just didn't work out. I wish it did, I really do. There's always a part of me that will love your mother, you know. She's the mother to my children. I love you guys more than anything, but, uh, you're just gonna have to accept that, uh, your mom and I are no more. And, uh, I'm gonna do all I can to be the best daddy possible. And, uh, I understand if you still have hard feelings towards me You know, can't help that, but I love you, love you to pieces. Um, and, uh, that's really all you can do. Uh, Ryan says, uh, it seems like there's a balance between bringing your best self to the relationship, working on your attractiveness, and having an open conversation with her about that being important. Uh, the hard part is it's easy for that conversation to get needy if you aren't confident and aren't in the right frame. So Ryan, are you, um, Ryan, also a member of the DSO fraternity, right? Sorry. Yeah, I think so. Um, so Ryan, are you saying, uh, talking about attractiveness being important, are you pointing the finger at her saying, and it's also important that you maintain yourself, wife, and, you know, take care of yourself? Is that what you're talking about? And that's a difficult conversation to have. Oh yeah, it sure is. And then Hugh says, yeah, you cannot negotiate genuine desire. You have to inspire that in her, not talk her into it. That's for certain. But what makes that a little bit more difficult in the defense of Ryan and others is as time goes on, that becomes more and more difficult. No matter how hunky and awesome, and you could look like a Greek god or a male model or whatever, 30 years marriage, it becomes a little bit more difficult to inspire that level of spontaneous attraction sexuality versus 2 weeks into the relationship. It's just human nature, just the way it is. Um, being married long-term to somebody with kids is being a sexual person on hard mode. That's not anti-marriage, that's realistic, okay? We have to be realistic about these things. I put in my books, um, The Dead Bedroom Fix, I believe I put in there. It's been a while since I've actually read or listened to the book. Maybe I should, just to make sure I'm on the same page. Or it's probably time for a new version of the book. But I believe I put in there, um, if you want super duper over-the-top spontaneous desire and over-the-top sex with very little work on your part, then go get your girlfriend. And some women read that and said, 'Eh, timeout, buddy. Whoa.' And I was like, 'No, I'm not— go out and cheat. I'm not saying that.' But I'm just saying, human nature being what it is, something called the Coolidge Effect— look it up, Google— which basically means we are super hypersexual, spontaneous desire human beings when we're in a new relationship versus a comfortable, old, familiar relationship. One of the tricks of the trade to eliciting more of a sexual desire from your partner, man or woman, is to basically hit the reset button and become new people. Your physicality, you can change. You become a more loving, romantic, sexy partner, you know, bring about a new you, and that will help light the fire again. A super extreme version of that, which I do not condone, but I recognize the science behind it, let's just say that. And I know I don't live in this lifestyle. I've talked enough about it that people are like, are you— no, I'm not. But, uh, it's called like open marriages, uh, poly whatever, swingers and so forth. They are basically short-circuiting the entire thing and jumping right to, you know what would make me, uh, really sexualized? Go get a new person over there, but I don't want to lose you. You're my primary person I love more than anything. But I recognize that to really get me going, to light that fire, it's— new person does that better than anything. And that's what those people do openly with each other. I don't know what the divorce rates are in that world. I realize probably higher than the other— maybe not, I don't know. But, um, that's what they're doing. So it makes it a little tough for us strictly monogamous people to keep that fire going. And it's tougher than if you were Mr. Single Man dating, which, by the way, there's nothing wrong with being a single man and dating. Um, oh, uh, Ryan is clarifying, saying, um, follow up to what Hugh said, that he is referring to intimacy being important, that both partners need to put in the effort to prioritize it. Absolutely right. The hard part is that so many spouses are responsive and honestly just won't think about it. That's right. If she's anxious and in mom mode, open up a can of worms there, Mr. Ryan. You can be uber attractive and it may or may not register. Sure. It's Human Behavior 101. That applies to a lot of things, not just romantic relationships. You can bring your best— oh shit— like employee package to the table. Hey, Mr. Boss, you're going to give me a raise? And he may go, nah, I'm going to give this guy a raise instead. You're like, what the fuck? Human behavior. He has his reasons. Your wife has her reasons for not, you know, turning on the sexy machine. That's where you have that difficult decision of, I'm bringing the best husband package possible to her. It's not eliciting any kind of response. I'm not getting my needs met. We're drifting further and further apart. Maybe it's time Plan B. Oof, easier said than done, especially when you got kiddos, right? Uh, Mr. Zack Morris— wasn't that the name of, uh, Saved by the Bell? Is that the character? Anyway, so I love the DSO network and books and knowing the red flags, but do you have any recommendations of DSO resources for preemptive work and green flags from all your coaches' experiences. Very good. Well, I do have a book. You mentioned the red flags, right? But you're looking for what's some good stuff about— maybe I should come up with a book called Green Flags. Thanks for the idea, Zach. I don't know, what does everybody else here think? What are some positive things about your potential partner? I tell you one, and I will throw this out there and then open it up to the forum here. I don't have a whole much longer. 30 more minutes, I can stick around. But, um, this is one thing a lot of people don't like, and that is because it is out of your control. All right, let me just preface it by saying a lot of the stuff in the relationship sphere talk is not nice. Sorry. Here's something not nice about myself. I'm bald, in case you didn't notice. A lot of women instantly, uh, turn me down as a potential mate because I lack hair on the top of my head. That's not fair, that's mean. It's fine, I don't care. Cool, they have their opinion. High five, sister. I hope you find a dude with a big thick head of hair, and I mean it. I'm not so insecure that I'm— a woman says, uh, you're too bald. Okay, cool, knock yourself out. Well, that's a pretty minor league version of what's attractive, what's not attractive, what's good, what's not good in relationships and so forth, but I'm just illustrating a point. Um, but one not so good thing that I hear, or that I have come to the conclusion, is this: if you have a gal and you're like, I think this may be a good potential long-term partner material— you don't necessarily have to marry her, let's say we're going to move in and this is my one— that's a big freaking deal, right? Well, here's my recommendation: go meet mom and dad. Go meet brothers and sisters. That's going to tell you a lot about her. I'm sorry, I know she has no control over who her mom and dad are and her extended family and so forth, Grandma and Grandpa, but dude, I'm telling you, I've been at this for freaking years. That is everything. That's not fair, it's not everything, it's a lot of things. It's, I don't know, 90% of it right there. Go look at her, you know. Her mom and dad, how are they together? I can't tell you how many guys I talk to that they're with a wife who just as soon as they got married and had kids, she became this cold person who's just like, don't touch me, I don't want anything to do with you, that part of our life is over. And he's like, what the fuck? And, uh, I said, well, tell me about her mom and dad. Oh, I've never seen them hug or kiss or say I love you or anything ever. They're just basically two, uh, business partners or roommates living under a roof. I don't even know if they even have touch each other in any way, shape, or form for the last 20 years. They had like a couple of kids, and I think that was it. It's like, well, dude, that's what she sat back and watched for her entire childhood and young adulthood. And here you come sliding in, and you expect her to act differently? Has there been anything to, you know, signal that she is wired differently than mom and dad? To the guy's credit, usually the answer is yeah, "During the honeymoon phase of our relationship, we were like, maybe like once a week we would get together and we had a hot and heavy time and it was great." Say, "Well, once a week, not the best to be honest with you." Some people are like once a day, several times a day, they can't keep their hands off of each other. They're so turned on by each other and interconnected in that way. They really click at a lot of different levels. So the case could be made that relationship experience on the part of the man really helps with identifying exactly what it is he's looking for, what to look out for, what it is he needs out of relationship, what his needs are, and etc. Plus, a lot of relationship experience shows you what to look out for. And a lot of men will tell you, after a lot of trial and error, go meet mom and dad. Sorry. So that would be a one big green flag thing, is if you go meet her and you're like, these are good people, they're loving people, you know, uh, not to throw my ex under the bus or anything, but one thing that I, um, Her mom and dad were good people. They really were. When I see them to this day out in some event, we hug, we talk, you know, they still consider me probably not son, but you know what I mean? I'm a big thing in their life. I'm the guy who fathered their grandchildren and they like me. At least I think they do. But I will tell you, they're not the most loving people in the world. I do not remember my ex-mother-in-law ever hugging my ex-father-in-law. Holy shit, that's a big deal. Just saying that out loud, I'm like, wow, really? Yeah, I don't ever remember him hugging or kissing, ever. The guy would come in from a long day at work, 6 PM at night, working in the coal mine, exhausted, and never once anybody jump up and give him a hug and say, how was your day? Even ask him how his day was at all. They were just kind of cold people in that way. So when ex-wife turned out that way, well, holy shit, who saw that coming? Anybody with half a brain or a lot more relationship experience than what I had as a young man. Anyway, went on about that, but you know where I'm going with that. Oh, Wordsmith. Wordsmith is a longtime commenter from YouTube. Thank you, buddy, for chiming in here today. But oof, this is big news, Wordsmith. He says, sometimes nothing works. He's talking about intimacy with your long-term partner. I recently cheated on the wife. Oh. Dead bedroom for years. Uh, he thought— he, he says, um, I'll read this as him— thought I would be wracked with guilt, but I actually feel great about it. I feel closer to my wife somehow. I can explain. This is not an unusual phenomenon. I don't know why I feel better. She's more receptive sexually somehow now. I can tell you why exactly. And no, she has no idea. Um, well, I'll tell you why. Probably because your anxiety, your anxiousness as the guy whether you know it or not, subconsciously kind of hovering over her as this needy creature of like, I need sex, I need sex, I need sex, and why aren't you giving, why aren't you giving? You know, that's been going on for years and years. And you have a very, uh, from what I remember, very difficult situation with all of your children and a lot of adopted kids and a lot of behavioral issues and developmental delay and all these other things, special needs, um, the stress of all that. And you just alleviated some of that stress by basically saying to the wife, um, never mind, I, I don't need you for that anymore. I'm gonna go over here for that. And I know you didn't overtly say that, but you're— everything about your, your being is, is oozing that, saying that to the world and to her. And her reaction to that is, oh, thank God, um, some weight just came off her shoulders. And you put some of that weight on some other woman's shoulders, in essence. And, um, Do you feel better? You feel lighter? You feel like a wanted man again, right? Getting your sexual needs met. Welcome to being a human being. Just curious, what do you think her reaction would be if she knew about this? You may or may not know that it's kind of a known thing in a lot of relationships. It's an unspoken but known thing in a lot of relationships. I know hubby has a girlfriend on the side. She lives in some neighboring town, or she's at the office. I've known about it for years. This is the wife speaking. I don't ever talk about it. I don't even know if he knows that I know, but I turn the other cheek. I look the other way. I don't even— as long as I don't have to see it or hear about it or whatever, that's fine. Just let him do his thing. You know, those, those, those kind of arrangements exist and have existed for generations. This is not a new thing. Man screwing around on wife because he's in a cold, dead bedroom relationship is not a new phenomenon. Welcome to a growing club of people who have existed for generations. This is not unheard of. Um, a case could be made that men— human, human males— are polygynous by nature, which means they want to sow their oats with multiple women. If in case, you know, the world of pornography and sex workers and everything wasn't a big enough indicator of that, men tend to be pretty sexual creatures. And ideally, we want to be with more than one woman. I say this as a monogamous guy in a long-term monogamous relationship. I recognize my own sexuality, and I recognize that energy, and I recognize I need to direct it in certain ways, healthy ways. And I choose not to sleep with others, but some people do. No judgment on my part. Whatever floats your boat, dude. Maybe this will be your, uh, your, your solution to your situation here. But I'll tell you what, Wordsmith, uh, from what I have seen it isn't going to last very long. Why? Because it may not be this woman, but it may be the next woman or the next woman, because it usually doesn't stop with the one. You're going to fall for them. It's going to be very difficult to come home to the old battleaxe of a wife who's not that sexy or sexual. Not to throw under the bus, I'm sure she's a lovely person, who's not been very receptive to you, who has rejected you, and you're leaving Miss so-and-so who treats you like a king and rewards you sexually. And you got to— I got to go home to her. And you string together several dozen of those nights and you'll be like, why am I going home again? Why don't I just divorce? And away you go. That's often what happens. Gustavo, Gus from the DSO fraternity. Welcome, Coach Gus. Uh, he is talking about green lights, uh, in a relationship, willingness to contribute, empathy. These are all good things. Hmm. Uh, Zach says, good point on family history. That's not a good outlook for my current when she tries to be very different from her family on purpose and steer clear of any of the toxicity. Well, good for her. Right? Thank you for— because this is a good counterpoint to what I just said. Um, look at mom and dad, right? Hey, I'll throw myself under the bus. I come from a dysfunctional family. Um, there, you know, mom and dad were together, did not divorce, but there was, uh, dysfunction on both sides of their family, extended family. Some, you know, my mother's side, my father's side. You look back on it, you go, Jesus. Um, but both made concerted efforts, my mom and my dad, to distance themselves from the toxicity, the dysfunction of their extended families, and started anew with me. Well, they also had their problems. They weren't perfect. So somebody could look at my mother, for example, the anxious neurotic mess that she is. My father passed away at a young age, um, and they could look at her and go, oh God, this is going to be a headache to have this person as a mother-in-law. Never mind. You know, as much as that may hurt, that's fine for them. Uh, but, um, I would think, let's say my wife now— when I don't work out, wife gets hit by a bus, whatever, God forbid, it's terrible to say— but for whatever reason, let's say I'm back on the market, right? And somebody meets my mom, let's say, and like they end up wide-eyed going, oh shit, Jesus, this is— wow. I would hope though that they would look at the complete package, which is yes, but the dad starting over thing, the helping other men thing, the you know, working on himself thing. I would make enough of a case to show that I am more than that. I'm actively working to be better. So let's say you got a person who's just like, my mother was a narcissist and my father abandoned and da da da da da, but I've been in therapy since I was 10 years of age. You know, I, I, I head up a support group for people in similar situations. I'm well read on this. I go to therapy on a weekly basis. Well, What more can you ask for? The person came from a bad situation and they're working tough. This is the kicker. I say look out for those things, but I tell you what, the best people that I know in my life are the people that come from those shitty situations and they work hard to overcome them. Those are the real winners. The other people, you know, that just had things go easy for them in life and stuff, they're the most uninteresting people. The most interesting people I know are the ones that just had to work really hard to overcome, and they do so. They're the real winners. So you may have a real winner on your hands there, Zach. Don't know. Seth says, not that I'm ready for it. Oh, Seth. But where would a good place to look for a future wife relationship? I know you're not ready for it, so I'm going to ignore that question and point the finger right back at you, Seth, and say, don't even go down that road yet, my man. You ain't ready. Put the, put the women away for a while. All right. Give it a good year before you even date. And I'm being serious. Just, you're going through a lot. So the question of, so where would one find it? Stop. Don't. Just don't. Okay, it's the whole world you're entering into, and you need to pump the brakes and deal with yourself and the trauma and everything else that you're dealing with, and the kiddos and everything, before you even— I know you're just, you know, putting the thought out there in the world, but it's enough to show me that it's a thought in your head and it shouldn't even be. You should be like ladies know where to find— where to— I'm not even going there yet. I have a lot of other stuff to worry about. All right, buddy. Uh, Billy is asking about banding together for our— I think you mean banding together for our civil rights to sue under the 14th Amendment to have equal protection under the law. Hey buddy, I'm all for it, but, uh, I'm not sure what you're referring to. I'm not well versed in that world. What exactly are you talking about? 14th Amendment, equal protection under the law. What is this all in reference to? Maybe you can help flesh that out further. Wordsmith, going back to Wordsmith. I know we're jumping all over the place here, folks, apologize. Uh, Wordsmith admitted to sleeping around, uh, cheating on the wife. He's been in a long-term dead bedroom situation, really stressful situation. Um, I asked what would the wife think if, if she knew about the affair, and he says, if she knew, I don't think she'd be that upset. I've asked her if she wants me to get it elsewhere. She laughed and said no. It was lighthearted to her, just the idea. Yeah, she didn't take you seriously. But she seemed to change during an argument when you threatened to leave her a few weeks ago. I have no one— here's the big one— I have no intention of getting married or living with another woman if I ever did divorce, so I'm not too concerned with falling in love. Famous last words. You've been without for a while now, without that connection. I'm telling you, I don't care what kind of alpha male pumped up on testosterone dude you are right now, you are susceptible. You're a human being. Um, and, uh, even the most tough alpha male dude, you know, picture the, the, the guy on the Harley, the biker gang dude. He has a woman on his back. We are human beings and we are engineered to pair bond, if you will. I know that's an often overused term, but it's true. Um, I'm doing a presentation coming up in our next annual gathering that we're having. We call them BroFest, and we're having our next one here in New Orleans in April. Would love for you to join us. Join the DSO fraternity and you can join our BroFest and meet myself in person and all the other guys on in the group. Um, but I'm doing a presentation here and I'm talking about marriage. And in doing my research, uh, everything seems to indicate— there are books written on this topic cross-culturally. I don't care if we're talking about a guy on Wall Street all the way down to a quote-unquote primitive tribe in Africa, South America, in the jungle somewhere, whatever it is. Throughout the history of mankind, people pair bond, whether they call that marriage or whatever, or some formal ceremony or whatever. We seem to be engineered to say, you, me, go through life together, make babies. With that being said, fidelity— infidelity is relatively common, meaning although you are my primary partner, I'm gonna go bang this one over here. Men and women alike. Men tend to more so than women. Yes, I know a lot of men don't believe that, but that seems to be the case statistically. Um, and, uh, men also tend to want to form bonds with multiple women and make babies with multiple women if they have the ability to do so. And throughout history, most men have not had the ability to do so because, uh, what is it that determines whether or not we can do that? Our resources. As horrible as that sounds, that's just a matter of fact. The, the most Wealthy, high-status individuals tend to have more than one mate. That's what we've seen throughout history of man. So when I hear guys go, "I can go around and bang a bunch of women and not form attachment to any of them," well then apparently you're not human because most men do in fact form that bond. You're more apt to form that bond the more you physically interact with women. The more intercourse you have with them, the more you're going to bond with them and the more you're going to throw out the "I love yous" the more you're gonna be like, why am I going back to the wife again? Be careful. That's all I'm saying. And you're not a simp if you have those feelings. You're not a wuss. You're not some whatever. You're a human. All right, let me— Seth says thank you for the honesty. You're very welcome. Back to Billy and his talk about the legal stuff. He says, more specifically, child support, alimony, family court, father's paternity rights. There's bias and inequality when it comes to that. I would agree. And when we all know, um, AME community— is that a misspelling? I don't know what that means. AME community. A tough alpha male. If we can sue for a violation of our constitutional rights, we'd be able to cite case laws so it does not continue to happen to men. Cool, we'll get to it. I can tell you though, um, yes, there is bias in the family courts, and a lot of people can cite that. Uh, what I— I can only speak from personal experience and from the experience of all the men that I help. Um, what I have seen— and Billy, you're not going to be happy with me saying this, but it's just my own personal experience— what I've seen is the majority of men that I speak to have equal 50/50 custody of their children. And I'm hearing more and more of, my wife actually makes more money than me and I get, uh, child support, or blah blah. You know what's funny is that with these situations, often the men say, I don't want any kind of alimony, even though the attorney says I'm owed, you know, so much per month I could get from my very successful executive ex-wife. I don't want it. Um, it's kind of interesting. I had a A similar instance with me, um, not to get too personal, but I had to go to an attorney shortly after my divorce, uh, with my ex-wife because, uh, she wasn't fulfilling— and let's just leave out some particulars— there was a particular legal obligation that she had that she was not fulfilling by virtue of the divorce decree that we had, that agreement. She wasn't— let's say part 2 of the agreement— she wasn't doing what she was supposed to do. So I had to go to the attorney and say, what do we do about this? This because this is hurting me. Not to give away too much. And she said, let's write up a nasty letter saying if you don't, you're gonna have hell to pay, uh, take you to court, money, all this other stuff. So you need to do what you say you're going to do on paper. And, you know, a judge signed off on this. And, uh, the attorney said, and by the way, the fact that you're watching these kids so much, like 80% of the time, and the fact, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, the fact that she makes this much money and everything else, uh, you were owed child support and you are owed— you know what I said? I said, I don't, I don't want child support. I don't, I don't need that. And she just laughed and she goes, every guy says the same thing. She says, every guy that I sit with says, I don't want any child support or alimony. She goes, you have every legal right to it. That's all I'm saying. So just something to think about. Kind of interesting, isn't it? Um, Zach says, mentioning international culture just now, uh, what's your opinion of Passport Bros? I have done videos on this. Um, let me just say this, uh, my father was a Passport Bro. How about that? My mother is from Spain. My mother was a pretty young thing from Spain, and my father was an American GI stationed in Zaragoza, Spain, which is where my mother is from. Uh, he met her over there and they shortly thereafter got married and had me. I was born overseas. Uh, you know, here's what I always say about the Passport Bros. I get it, I do. Different ways of looking at it. One is we got a bunch of guys who basically are a bunch of losers who couldn't get laid in a whorehouse in the United States, and so what do they do is they go to these economically downtrodden places where these women are just looking for somebody to to take care of them and pay for everything. And they go over there and these very feminine, quote, gold digger types take advantage of these men and just say, "I'll be your bride and I'll treat you like a king." And they get hitched and sometimes it works out long term. And these men are like, "This is exactly what I want. I want a demure, submissive, feminine woman who treats me well." That's one way of looking at it. Another way is, and this is something that I recognize having the international flair to my family, half, more than half my family is over in Europe. My wife is from Europe, and I can tell you there is a definite cultural difference between, oh, how to say this, the mating game, if you will. The typical mating game, let's say you go to New York City, my personal favorite city, and go to some club that is known for people, singles, to hang out. I go to some gal and I go, hey, I'm Ralph, what's your name? It is not unusual in the States, major metropolitan area, for the woman to have a drink in their hand and go, buzz off, bald loser, get out of here, or laugh in my face or whatever. In other words, not very nice. Versus I go down to, uh, some South American country, Philippines, whatever it may be, Even if you're not overtly hitting on, let's say, a lady, often in these cultures they're much more open and friendly. Even if it's, like I say, there's no hitting, there's no sexual anything. If it's just, hey, can you tell me how to get to a bank? I don't know, just made that up. I'm trying to find an ATM. Where can I find the nearest ATM? And the prettiest girl you've ever seen not only tells you where to go, but she walks you over there and says, here you go. And you go, thank you very much. 'Preciate it.' And she goes her separate way and you never see her again. And you're like, 'What the hell was that? That would never happen in the States.' That's the cultural difference that a lot of men see. It's just that it's not so, um, what's the word, uh, it's not such a clash. Um, people are much more open, they're sweeter, they're nicer, even when the, the sexuality and the mating game's out of the picture, just on a normal 'hey, how you doing' basis. They're just like, I like that, that makes me feel more welcome, puts me at ease. It doesn't feel— it's not so averse. It doesn't make me feel like I'm a schmuck, that I'm some kind of ugly dude that no one wants to, you know, would give the time of day to. I feel like a normal human being. As sad as that is, that's what a lot of men feel when they go over to some of these places. And I get it completely. Again, my family coming from over there, I get it completely. Um, Wordsmith says, I would love getting alimony, LOL. He's been a stay-at-home dad for years, far less income than her. I believe I could get some. Yeah, you probably could. Uh, Wordsmith, you probably do pretty well, be honest with you, um, knowing your situation. If you've been basically running the household for so long, all those kiddos and everything else, you'd probably get a nice little check. Something to consider. I'm not pro— I'm not a big proponent of divorce. Every little situation is different. I don't know your full situation, but Yeah, and Gus says— Gus, he's been to other countries, uh, originally from Puerto Rico if I remember right. Uh, body language completely different over there. I assume that's what you're referring to, over in the other countries. Yeah, um, it's, uh, some countries such as Brazil other South American countries, it's far more sexualized over there. Also very attractive to a lot of men. But again, the sexuality doesn't necessarily need to bleed over into the full-blown mating game of trying to pick up women. It's just overtly sexual, fun, open. Open is probably a better term, and that's very attractive to people. It's not so, um, not so contentious. Uh, well, that's a name. Almost more umlauts from YouTube says, uh, after the breakup, which was 3 years together, why does my ex-girlfriend entirely avoid me in my texts while she said she wanted to stay friends with me? Um, almost, buddy, why are you still trying to stay in touch with this human being? She said she wants to stay friends with you. That's where you would say, I, you know, I appreciate it, but we were romantic together for 3 years. I have boundaries. And to stay attached to you in that way won't be good for me because obviously I still have attachment to you, feelings for you. So no, I'm gonna have to say please don't contact me anymore. That's in essence what she's doing here. She's— yeah, I don't want— let her go, buddy. Why does she do it? As cruel as it sounds, who cares? She's no longer yours. It's none of your damn business. Sorry, I know it hurts to hear that, but she has moved on and you need to do the same. We could pontificate and go on and on about why she does the— what she does and who she's with and why she won't do this, why she does do this, but in the end, it's not yours to worry about anymore. Uh, Wordsmith says, I'm also concerned that I may have developed a porn addiction during my dead bedroom. The sex I've recently had wasn't physically that great, like less fun than watching porn, and I'm a bit worried about it. Well, As you probably know, Wordsmith, you're not alone in that. That's a big problem for a lot of men. Why is the world of porn, or adult entertainment as I often refer to it, because I've learned over the years the social media channels, YouTube, Facebook, and such, they don't like that P-O-R-N word. But anyway, why is that such a big deal? Why is that so bad? Why is everybody harping on that? Because it rewires our brain in a not so good way. We are not engineered as men to be taking in all this visual stimuli so quickly. Like, I have two monitors here, the one I'm looking at, the one over here. I could over here and you wouldn't even know it. I could bring up hardcore XXX pornography of everything imaginable and just be bombarded with the imagery, sounds, video, pictures, whatever. That's not normal. That's not good. It taps into a part of our male brain that just goes, yes, more, yes, more, yes, more. And eventually more is not enough, and more is not enough. And even when we put the real thing, flesh and bone, in front of us, we're like, not enough. Pretty easy solution here, buddy. Don't look at it anymore. You will find after time it will— you will literally be rewired to be— go back to normal. And you will look at those women a little more hungrily, if you will. You know, the flesh and bone becomes Real again. And you forget about the fake two-dimensional people, and you kind of look down on it after a while, like, that's like for losers and stuff. I got the real thing here. I'm a real player here. I don't need all that stuff, you know, for the nerds and the other people to look at. That's loser stuff. But you have to put it down, you know, stop your addiction to insert substance here. How do you do that? You put it down. And you do other things that take up your time. But that's very big of you to point that out. That's a big realization on your part. That's huge. Gus says the sense of pride men carry is different too. If you ever go to a country like Cuba— Cuba— where there are no marketing influences, it's really interesting to see how men and women communicate with just body language. How interesting. Yeah, Cuba. Never been to Cuba, but it's a very different part of the world there, isn't it? Very different. Um, uh, I don't want to go on too much longer. Gotta get going and get messages coming in here. Um, the hypersexualization of our popular culture is not the greatest thing in the world, and I'm a very sex-positive, open in that way, progressive liberal type of guy when it comes to sexuality and so forth. Whatever floats your boat, have at it. But I'm also smart enough to see that a very hypersexualized society kind of desensitizes us to a lot of things, and it, uh, changes our behavior, especially as men, towards women. A lot of the, uh, um, pornography that we see out there today is very almost violent in nature. Is not a good thing. There's choking, there's spitting, there's slapping. There's no— that is, again, whatever floats your boat, but that's not realistic. There's a lot of young men learning about sexuality via this very unrealistic material. It's not good. And, uh, you know, you got a man like Wordsmith who's been without forever, and he gets a dose of that really strong drug in the, in the form of all this adult entertainment. And that's going to, as he points out here, it's going to have a major impact on how he sees the real world when he has a real woman in front of him, real woman underneath him, so to speak. He's like, this doesn't feel quite right. So again, that's big of you, Wordsmith, to point that out. And you just gotta put that stuff away, mister. All right, folks, well, it's been like an hour and 20 minutes so far, so, uh, thank you all so very much for joining me today. DadStartingOver.com. If you are a dude, please do me a favor and check out the DSO fraternity. That is our private group for men only. All kinds cool stuff, and you can try it out for a whopping whole 30 days absolutely free of charge. If you stick around for, uh, beyond that 30 days, we will charge you on a month-to-month basis until you cancel. But check it out, see what you think about it. All kinds of cool benefits which I've talked about earlier in this— live meetings and private discussion forums and in-person meetups and all kinds of cool stuff. My phone's buzzing like crazy over here. And check that out, the DSO Fraternity, our private group for men only. We would love to have you. Uh, give me a like, give me a follow, subscribe wherever it is you're watching this. YouTube especially. I'm trying to grow my YouTube audience. I greatly appreciate it. And, um, thank you all so much. This has been a really good one, man. Just comment after comment. I love it. Thank you all again. I appreciate all of you. And, uh, Darren says thank you and I'm the man. Very good. Thank you. I've been called worse. Thank you, Darren. I appreciate it, buddy. And, uh, wish you guys all the best. Hope you have a wonderful rest of your week and weekend coming up. And, uh, I guess that's it. I'm not very good about ending these things. So thank you guys, appreciate all of you, and you have a good rest of your Thursday. Toodaloo!