Chat LIVE with DSO!

Raffalito! Hello everyone, how are you guys today? Yes, 2 days in a row for a livestream from yours truly. Chaos, mass hysteria, cats and dogs living together. What the hell's going on? Well, I don't have— I didn't have a lot of coaching calls this week, so I had a lot of time to catch up and do stuff that I always mean to do. And I always mean to do more of these live things because they go so well, and selfishly, they help to create a lot of content that I can then video-wise that I can then post and share all over Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc. So always good for some content. So thank you all for, uh, joining me today. If you could— let's give a little bit for folks to sign in here— if you could be so kind as to give me a like, give me a share, however it works, wherever it is you're watching this. We are simulcasting, I guess you could say, live streaming simultaneously on Facebook, on YouTube, and on Twitter, or X as it is called today. So wherever it is you are watching, Twitter folks, you cannot comment directly, is just watch. Sorry. But if you are watching this on Twitter and you are not yet following me, if you could do so, or maybe share this, I would greatly appreciate it. Keep your comments to yourselves, or join us on YouTube or Facebook. If you are watching on Facebook or YouTube, if you could give me a hey howdy and a hello, I would greatly appreciate it. Just say howdy, let me know where you're joining us from today. We're trying out a new time, a new day, 2 days in a row. Let's see what kind of involvement, I guess is the word, or attendance we have today. So far, not looking too great. There's like nobody on here. Well, a couple of you, but you're not saying anything. So, if you could give me a howdy, give me a thumbs up. Give me a hello, I would greatly appreciate it. Hey, there we go, there's Mr. Tim from Michigan again. Hello, Tim from Michigan. Whereabouts in Michigan are you joining us from? Is it, are you a Yooper? See, I know a little bit about Michigan. Years ago, man, I feel old. This was like 20+ years ago. I almost took a job in Livonia, Michigan, which is just outside of Detroit, the Big D. And in hindsight, kind of glad I didn't. No, uh, no, no slam against Livonia or the Big D there, but hey, you know, uh, well, everybody's chiming in here. Hello everyone, Ryan from Wyoming. So we got, you know, let's plot the points here. We got Michigan, we got Wyoming, uh, we got, uh, Barry says hey. Hey Barry, where are you joining us from today? Same with you, Mr. Kyle. And oh, Barry, there he goes, says in the UK. So let's plot the point way over here. That'd be opposite for you guys. You know what I'm doing here. Tim says, not a fan of Livonia. Well, beyond just what I, I guess at that time I Googled— Google been around that long? Anyway, I remember researching it going, oh, I don't think I want to take this job. And I didn't. Didn't end up taking it. Ended up staying in Illinois at the time, which is where I was. I was with a big, big company that made yellow construction equipment. Opposite of dog. Okay, it was Caterpillar. I don't know why I'm trying to be cryptic here. It was Cat or Caterpillar. I used to work for them for years and used to travel all over the place. Anybody in the— from that world, construction? Kyle's from Canada. Welcome, Mr. Kyle. I'm sure you guys have said this before in previous lives, I don't have the greatest memory. Embarrassing fact here. If I record all of— and the clients know this, coaching clients— we record all their sessions. Some of the guys say, can you please send me the recording so I can listen back to it? I don't I've had a few guys say, please don't record, so we don't. But most of the sessions are recorded using Zoom. And I, um, if I have subsequent meetings with these coaching clients, I go back and listen to the recording so I can remember some of the previous details. And I skip through and go, yeah, I remember this guy, and listen back. And then so I'm fresh again for our next session, so I don't start off saying, sorry, I don't remember anything about you or your situation. Well, sure enough, I think it's happened twice where I've been on a session and I'll be talking to a guy as if he's brand new and he'll stop me and go, "You do realize we've already chatted before." I was like, "Oh no, I don't remember." And it's no slam against them. It's not like they're the most unmemorable client ever. It's just that for a while there, I was— not this week, but, uh, you know, when you talk to 10 dudes in a week every week they just all start blending together. So you need those recordings in your notes, or else you just, you know, you start confusing guys, forgetting names, forgetting locations, all that stuff. All the stories start blending together. So there's been a couple times where guys go, uh, dude, we've already had this conversation. Like, oh shit, I'm sorry. And go back and listen, go, yeah, you're right, my bad. So guys, when I do a lot of these, if I'm like, I don't remember Joe from Idaho or whatever it is, don't be offended. I don't remember my own name half the time. Too much stuff going on and all the social media and everything else. It's no good for the ol' noodle, especially for a guy like me who has a hard time keeping things straight. I have to use, I think I mentioned in a previous live on here before, again, don't remember, but I have to use an app that I've recently discovered a couple months ago called Google Tasks, which integrates with Google Calendar, and that has been a lifesaver for me. So I can task everything on my day, put times associated with it. I can see what I have left on my to-do list. But if I don't do that, I'm a freaking mess. So welcome everybody, just a little, uh, a little peek into my brain. We have a hello from— oh shit, my eyes are blurry. Do I have my glasses? Yes, I do. Let me turn that off. WNC. Lou, buddy, you're gonna have to, uh Clue me in, I'm not sure what that means. WNC, Western North Carolina? I have a feeling that's not what that means, is it? What is WNC, my friend? Uh, you know, clue me in here. I'm ignorant. I'm middle of nowhere United States here. So actually, I'm not in middle of nowhere United States. As we speak, for those that don't know, I bounce between two different locations quite a bit. I have two different studios, hence the different backgrounds if some of you are so observant. This, if you ever see this blurry-ish a fake, very fake, uh, brick background. That means your boy's in Plano, Texas. Anybody in the DFW area? Uh, he says Western NC, meaning North Carolina. Is that what that means, Lou? You're still being somewhat cryptic, my man. He says, oh, WNC means Western NC. NC means, I would assume, North Carolina. Maybe not, I don't know. But anyway, um, and then the other background is in Kentucky, which is in the middle of nowhere, rural Kentucky. Here I'm in Major metropolitan area, Plano, Texas, which for those that don't know is north of Dallas. I have a home in Frisco, Texas. So anybody that's from the metro Dallas area, let's get together, have a beer. I don't drink that much, but occasionally, the old IPA, I'm not opposed to. Welcome everybody. Yes, he says North Carolina. Well, all right, cool. Western, we got North Carolina, we got Canada, we got Michigan, We got the UK, Wyoming, hot damn. Welcome everyone. For those that have come upon a blabbering bald dude who maybe you've seen occasionally come up on your reels or your YouTube Shorts or in your Facebook feed or your YouTube suggested whatevers, who is this guy? Why is he talking? What the hell's going on here? Well, my name is Ralph Brewer Brewer Brewer and I go by DSO. You'll hear that mentioned every now and then. Which stands for Dad Starting Over, which is not coincidentally the name of my organization, my business, my website, my brand, Dad Starting Over. You can go to dadstartingover, all one word, dadstartingover.com. You can do a search for Dad Starting Over on Facebook, on YouTube, on Twitter, basically anywhere. Instagram, TikTok, pretty big on there. Um, I got videos, articles, stuff all over the place. Been doing it for years. Went through a divorce like 11+ years ago. Uh, wasn't fun. Part of my coping, dealing with it was writing. I did a lot of writing, which eventually led me to writing some books. One of those books, my first book was called The Dead Bedroom Fix. I wrote on a bunch of different topics. So just the whole concept of marriage and, and sex and marriage and the dead bedrooms and stuff was just a, you know, one of many topics that I wrote on, but that one took off. And sure enough, a lot of people find me via that book. That book sold a lot, a lot of copies. Got so popular that I was eventually able to devote more and more time to this Dad Starting Over thing. I started a private men's group called the DSO Fraternity. Again, men only. We have live meetings, we have private discussion forums, we have coaching, we all courses, all kinds of cool stuff in there. We get together in person. We have, we've had 3 conferences. We're having our 4th big conference in the States coming up next month in New Orleans. So if you want to join the DSO fraternity, I'm going to— I should have this ready. I never do. Excuse my, uh, unpreparedness. Is that a word? Excuse my unprofessionalism. There you go. Hey, check this out, guys. A couple of deals for you here. This deal is try out our group free for 1 month. If you like it, great, you can stick around. We'll charge you month to month, or you can change it to an annual plan, or you can change it to a lifetime plan. And here, I'm gonna leave it up for probably the next month, but if you want to sign up for a lifetime plan now, I'll give you a pretty hefty discount for doing so. I'm gonna put in here, Lifetime DSO Fraternity, 30% off, use coupon code, uh, oh shit. What's the coupon code? DSO frat. You know what? Maybe I should look that up before I start blabbing here, huh? What is the coupon code? Oh, come on, Ralph Brewer Brewer Brewer. You forgot the coupon code? Is it frat2024? I think it is. Bear with me here, folks. That's my hold music. Does anybody know the name of that song? Here we go. And coupon codes, 30% off Frat. There we go, Frat 2024. All right, use coupon code Frat 2024 and you'll get 30% off. And well, where do you go to do that? HTTPS. DSOfraternity.com will get you there, or Dad Starting Over will get you there. There you go, same thing. So let's get all the business out of the way, right? This kind of stuff, it not only, you know, it helps to support me and helps keep the light on, but we can— or the lights on, rather— we can help a lot of men. We help, you know, thousands and thousands of dudes all over the world watch the materials, sign up for coaching, buy courses, buy books, join our DSO fraternity group. That's probably the best way to support us and to, to get help. We all need help. I need help daily basis. I'm on the forums talking to these guys in meetings and all kinds of stuff. We're all helping each other. Nothing wrong with that. And what I found is that men tend to flourish or feel more comfortable raising their hand saying help and then in turn helping others when it's just men. Sorry ladies, nothing against you, but we just feel more comfortable, more— we're more apt to be vulnerable and open when we are— when we know for a fact that ain't gonna be any ladies in the room. Just the nature of dudes. And we can go on and on about why they may— why that may be, uh, you know, toxic masculinity and all this other horseshit. Or just say, you know what, ladies, we love you, but please, the door's over there. We don't want you in here for now. The whole concept of fraternal groups has been around forever. You know, our grandpas had like their Moose Lodge and all this other stuff, Shriners and everything else, you know, just for the men. And they get a lot of good stuff done. Any— a lot of bullshitting, a lot of helping each other out, you know, back slapping, beer drinking, whatever. But in the end, uh, the men really help each other out and help each other go through life, right? That's what we do. The DSO fraternity, live meetings, private discussion forums, uh, we record all of our meetings. We got like 600, 700 hours of recorded meetings by now. It's pretty ridiculous. Um, you can listen to those like in podcast format right from your phone. We also have a DSO fraternity podcast basically like monologues you can listen to. I think over 100 of those by now. Uh, articles. We get together in person, I mentioned. We have coaching, which the general public can buy coaching from me, but if you're a DSO Fraternity member, it's like half off. Buy coaching from me or from the other gentlemen on the DSO team. We have coaches from all walks of life. Pretty cool stuff. Members from all over the world. Australia is our number 2 market behind the United States. So as you can see, we, we span the globe. We're very, very proud of our work at the DSO Fraternity. So check it out. I've linked some coupon code so you can get a big honking discount on the lifetime membership, the one, the down payment, the one payment lifetime membership that is. We have also, you get paid monthly payments, but the discount applies just to the one-time payment deal. And, um, that's it. So, Mr.— I'm sorry, I'm distracted by comments that are coming through here. Mr. Matt says hello. Mr. Matt, Matt C, I don't know if you want me to announce your 'cause these are recorded, these lives, if you wanna be announced to the world. But Matt C, where you joining us from there, mister? And Andrew's from Virginia. Welcome back, Mr. Andrew. Always good to see you, my friend. And Duarte, thank you, but you're a little late on the code there. I already found it. Sorry, I was late reading your message here. Eric from Saskatchewan, a regular. Welcome, Eric. Welcome everyone. And Duarte didn't say so, but Duarte, where are you from? He's from all the way over there in, in Euro land. Welcome. We are spanning the globe here, folks. Um, and Matt says from Arizona. Well, all right. How cool is this? All of us getting together, talking to each other. Welcome everyone. Welcome. Welcome. Does anybody have any questions, issues, anything at all that you would like to bring up? And Mark says, hey, from the DFW here. Uh, wish I found this group when I first got divorced. Mark there from YouTube is also a DSO fraternity member. Welcome, Mark. And we still got to get our act together and get together one day for a beer and to chit-chat. Would love to do so. Welcome everyone. Any questions, comments, conclusions, anything at all to share? Duarte is from the Netherlands. Welcome, Duarte. Welcome, welcome. I am here not just to blab and to promote my products and services, which I have to say they're pretty amazing. No, but I'm here rather to interact with you guys and talk and let's generate some good content and help out some folks. Shall we? So does anybody have anything to share? Any questions at all? Any stories to share? Positive, negative, otherwise? Now's the time to do so. You got mine and everyone else's full attention. Um, please do not be shy, or otherwise this is going to be, uh, one quickie, uh, little, um, live session here. Anybody have anything come up recently? Uh, any questions on any videos of mine or others that you may have run into online? There's all kinds of cool content out there, right? Let's talk about it. I've mentioned ad nauseam the whole Forgotten Father theme, which I posted on for a few days in a row there and got some heat on that one. Forgotten Father, for those that don't know, is the concept of Carla Cravaro, which is a gal from the UK who I did a podcast interview with. Please check it out on the Dad Starting Over podcast. I haven't mentioned that one. It's a podcast that's open to the public. Do a search, Dad Starting Over, wherever podcasts are, Spotify, Apple, wherever, and look at my interview with Carla Cravaro. And she brought up that she's doing a lot of work in this concept of forgotten father, which is something a lot of guys don't like to talk about. Ever since we had kids, I kind of feel like, buzz off, dude, beat it, shoo, we don't need you anymore. That sucks. And I pointed out in a— I was gonna say now famous, that's pushing it— For me, successful tweet was that I did a screen capture of the tweet and I shared it across my social media channels. And the tweet was something to the effect of, something I've noticed over the years, women get really, really pissed off when a guy goes, I kind of feel forgotten ever since we had the kiddo. You want to see some ladies blow up, holy shitballs. They don't like that. So I posted, there's one thing that really pisses off ladies I've noticed over the years is, when men say they feel forgotten. And guess what happened? Women got pissed off all over again. And, uh, one famous TikToker, a feminist, um, very mom-centric, dare I say, pretty angry lady, um, who doesn't seem like the happiest mom in the world when I looked at her, her content. Holy shit, woman, I'm sorry, you need to go lay down or something. Wow. Um, and she got on there and said, um, Yeah, look at this tweet by this bald asshole, basically, and shared that with her whole, her audience, and then they in turn went to my account, and they're like, yeah, and they piled on and were basically like, hey, dickhead. No one ever said, yeah, we're upset and we don't mean to be, but here's, you know, see it from our perspective. No, they basically went on the attack and said, men suck, and you feel forgotten because you're a big fat baby. Basically, so not very nice. But anyway, that was interesting little food for thought there, a little social experiment if you will. Um, Mr. Timmy, oh, got married last month. We'll post more on the group. Well, hot damn. Yeah, Timmy is a member of the DSO fraternity, got married, big news. Congratulations, my friend. Um, congrats to you and the little lady there if that's her picture. Woof. You're kind of, what's the term, kicking out of your range. Why do people always say that when they see some guy and gal and the gal's good looking? They just go right to the dude and say basically, well, you're ugly. I don't know how you got her. It's like, thanks, appreciate it. I had that happen to me by a random guy at a, where were we, at a bar or club or something. This was years ago with my wife and the wife was all decked out looking real sexy and good. And some guy came up and slapped me on the back and goes, You're kicking out of your range there, buddy. And I was like, thanks, I guess, stranger. Appreciate it. Uh, so basically I'm returning the favor there, Timmy. Uh, good job there, buddy. Um, Lou, Lou starting things off. Here's a good one. You are going through a separation and you keep getting super mixed signals from her and it is exhausting. How many of us can relate to this? Um, broad stroke, shitty communication leading to resentment. Um, okay, well let me— that's a pretty broad statement there. You say broad stroke? Yeah, it's pretty broad. That could mean a lot of different things, Lou. Do you want to hash it out and give us a little bit more detail? Whatever you feel comfortable with there. But I will share a story myself. Um, I, you know, I always, as I'm getting older and wiser and as this becomes more and more popular, I have to be careful with what I share. "I will preface this that my ex and I have a genuinely positive, productive relationship as co-parents to our children. We're doing an excellent job. If she happens to be watching this, hey, hey, how you doing? I don't think she knows this exists. I haven't asked her, but anyway." Very first part of our split, we know we're splitting up. We know we're eventually going to go our separate ways. I think even at this point, a mediator had been called. I don't know, but in other— I don't remember the exact timeline, it's been so long. But there was a moment that always sticks out in my mind, and I share this a lot with guys because a lot of guys come to me going, I don't know what's going on with my soon-to-be ex and I. It could be so much, it could be so extreme as, you know, caught her in an affair. She says, yes, I'm busted. I don't like you anymore. I wanna go with him. Let's get a divorce. I have an attorney. Here's their name. Here's the divorce agreement. All, you know, all the way to that point where there's a point of no return, basically, right? And still she will give these little mixed signals of doing kind of wifey things, kind of things that point to a future with you, you know, verbally or via her actions or whatever. And you're left going, I don't know which way is up. How do I interpret this? And a lot of these guys are so traumatized by the event. All they want to do is save their marriage. All they want to do is keep things going between he and the wife, even with all this horribleness she's done, because he's traumatized, and frankly, he's not thinking very rationally. Been there, done that. Um, and he's left saying like, I, I don't— what does this mean? Basically handing over complete control over to her. And, and here's— I share my own personal story. Very early on, not sure exactly when, but we're all— we're splitting up. The family is done. And normally it would be, I would come home and she would in turn say, adiós, I'm out of here. She basically just brought the kids home and like, "The kids are yours now. See you later. I'm going to parts unknown. I will stay somewhere else at night, be back in the morning when the kids get up for, and I'll take them to school." It was a very stressful time. And, but one day I come home and I noticed that all the weeds were pulled in the landscaping in the front, something that needed to be done. And I noticed all the weeds were pulled. I'm like, "Well, that's interesting." And then I go inside And she has music going and she's folding laundry, acting very domestic, like everything's cool. And I was like, "Hello, did you pull the weeds out front?" She's like, "Yeah." I was like, "Well, thank you." She's like, I even think she said something like, "You're welcome, babe." Or, "You're welcome," with a smile. Something that just basically said, what's going on here? 'Cause this wasn't her. Through all this stuff leading up to this. And as quickly as she turned into like this quasi-normal, back to normal her, I'm telling you, I don't know, maybe an hour or two later, she like that flipped and went back to the new her, and out the door she went. I was like, what? Just my, my head was spinning. Like, where did this sudden domestic back to normal behavior come from? What does this mean? You know, you want to tie meaning to it. We're looking for any little glimmer of hope that we're not going to break up, right? And, uh, what I learned and what I have taught men over the years is this: don't pay attention to any of it. You got to let it go in one ear and out the other. You cannot fathom or understand, nor should you try to understand or rationalize the storm of, for lack of a better word, crazy going on in her head. She's being pulled this way and being pulled that way. She has feelings saying this, but she has her rational thoughts saying this. Her feelings pulling her this way and disgust pulling her the other way, and love and infatuation and lust and the love for the family and the need for safety, the need for— it's, it's a whirlwind, a storm in her head, and it causes her to act out in certain ways that are very perplexing to you and to everybody else. I mean, how many times have you and everybody else watching the shitstorm of crazy going on with with the soon-to-be ex, just go, I don't— what is she thinking? Well, she's not. She's feeling, and she's got a lot of shit going on up there, good and bad. The best is just wipe your hands of it and just say, it is what it is. This is crazy town, and I— it does me no good to try to make any sense of this. This is just going to drive me further nuts, and this is not good for my mental health. You need to distance yourself as much from, from them as much as humanly possible. You did not open the gates for communication when she texts you and says, how was Hey, today you do not answer. She's like, hello? You don't answer. Are you ignoring me? You don't answer. At worst, at worst, or at the most, you say, um, please don't contact me unless it is about the kids or the upcoming divorce or whatever. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. Boundaries. Don't, please don't. It's for your own health. Safety, wellness, whatever you want to call it, right? Something you got to come to terms with here, Mr. Lou. Let it go, buddy. Don't try to make any sense of it. There's no making any sense of it. Um, yeah, that— and Lou says that shifting of gears is exactly what I'm talking about. Yeah, you can't fathom it. You're just on two different planes of existence of reality right now. And you don't want to be on her little— her plane, her parallel universe that's going on there. It'll drive you nuts. Stay away from her, buddy. Sorry you're going through that. It's a painful, very painful, very confusing time, but it won't last forever. So just, you know, take solace in that. Let me make some adjustments here so I don't have to crane my neck all the time. There we go, much better. Ryan says, "Great advice." Thank you, Ryan, I appreciate that. But thank you, Lou, for getting the conversation started here. Much appreciated. Anybody else? Any other questions? We are approximately half hour into this. DSO fraternity in the comments or chat or wherever it is you are watching this. YouTube has the chat on the side, Facebook has the comments down below. I posted links to our private group for men only. If you're a dude, I gave you a couple of different options. Both are pretty good. One is try it out for a month for free. Can't beat that. If you don't like it after a month, then don't continue. Tell us, I don't want to continue. Done. No hurt, no hard feelings, right? Our group's going to go on with or without you. We wish you were around, but if it's not for you, we don't want you around. We're not going to be here to steal your money. Cool. We want guys that are going to be active in the group. Guys that are going to be, you know, willing to, uh, take advice, give advice, give you— you have a perspective that's going to help us all. We all learn from each other, guys from all over the world, all walks of life, all flavors of whatever. And, uh, if you're like, I don't think I can do that, then cool, the group's not for you. Awesome. Enjoy the videos I put out and the content and these lives and all this other stuff. But if you want to kick it up a notch, check out the DSO Fraternity. You can try it out for free for 1 month, or If you're convinced after watching so many of these and you've tried it out or you checked it out online, you've seen the reviews and you're like, I think this group is for me, then you may want to do the lifetime plan. And now we have a big fat code that gives you 30% off the lifetime cost. Pretty good deal. And then you don't have to worry about any monthly payments, annual payments or anything. You're in for as long as I'm living and breathing and probably beyond that, you're in. Which, you know, I thought about the other day. What happens if I get hit by a bus here? We got, well, we got other guys in the DSO Fraternity team and Tony, they can take over, right? So I guess if that puts any comfort, it'll continue going on. You won't see my bald head anymore, unless I'm haunting you or something. Mr. Dustin asks a very good question. How do you let the old life go and you get used to the single parent new life? So in other words, not to put words in your mouth, Mr. Dustin, we've all been here, by the way, where you're at. You're experiencing a great deal of anxiety, stress, sorrow, maybe a little mild depression, whatever, looking back and saying, I thought my life was planned out as this, and then life came around, threw a big grenade in the room and said, think again, buddy. And you're like, how do I cope? How do I deal with this? How do I? But there's no way of expediting this. Other than really good healthy living. Take care of yourself physically, exert yourself, exercise, eat right, put away the cigarettes, put away the alcohol, put away the recreational drugs or the hard drugs if you're doing those. Get involved with other people, socialize. If you have male friends, hang out with them. I know that's tough 'cause they all have kids and they all have wives and everything, but do what you can. Go to your kids' sporting events. Go to events on your own. Meetup.com is the thing I often talk about because it's what a great idea. I don't think people utilize that enough. You go on there, search for a subject matter, and they come back and say, yeah, there's meetings on insert hobby here, and they meet every Wednesday at so-and-so time. You're like, oh, that works for my schedule. Then go, hey everybody, I'm Dustin, I'm new, I also like this horseshoes or whatever, I don't know, throwing darts, whatever the hobby is. How are you guys? And guess what? You walk away with new buddies. It's kind of cool how that works. Check that out. But you need to fill your time, take care of yourself. And what happens is— oh, another thing I often forget is help others. That sounds like a real, like, altruistic, we are the world horseshit thing, but dude, it's true. If you want to look at it from selfish reasons, it helps you get better faster when you help others. Uh, it doesn't necessarily have to be in this realm— divorce, starting over in life. It could be in any realm. Go to a homeless shelter, some disabled veterans thing, I don't know, organize a race to help, you know, kids suffering from some diseases or cancers. There's all kinds of opportunities out there. Either you start your own thing or jump on board some other thing, and that fills your time and helps For, you know, not to sound too hokey, fills the soul, if you will. It makes you feel better. And basically what I'm saying is fill your time, help others, take care of yourself, and that will in turn expedite it as much as possible. And expedite, it's kind of a stretch. Um, you'll do better faster that way than if you just sit back on the couch, watch TV, drinking bourbon, beer, or whatever, and just saying, 'Woe is me,' or hanging out with a bunch of other assholes that are also sitting around saying, 'Woe is me.' That's not going to get you anywhere. Um, take care of yourself. And I and others will all tell you, it takes time, buddy. You got to go through hell. Sorry, there's no way around it. I talked about, uh, there's a book that my, uh, daughter, who's almost 3 now— I call her my baby girl, she's almost 3 already. Oof. But there's a book she loves to read, uh, Going on a Bear Hunt. I don't know if you guys are familiar with this. It was around when I was a kid. We used to sing this song about, or this, do this little chant about going on a bear hunt. And you would come to all these obstacles and you would say, can't go around it, can't go over it, can't go under it, gotta go through it. And you would go through the obstacle, through the forest, through the water, through the mud, whatever it is. Same thing, Dustin. Gotta go through it, buddy. I know it sucks. I know it hurts. I know you're sitting there going— I mean, I remember sitting in my car just crying, yelling at the world like, I don't get it. What is going on here? I had my life planned out. It wasn't perfect. It wasn't great. It wasn't amazing. But at least it was comfortable, secure, planned. And that's important to people. And then suddenly it's not. You feel like a little abandoned child, right? That's what you're going through. But, uh, it gets better. And if I may not sound too much like a salesmanny business guy here, but I created a group exactly for this reason, which is for guys like you and other dudes in need who are lacking in help. And like, it'd be nice to talk to other people going through this. dsopaternity.com. I posted the links, check it out. I've already talked about it enough. I got coupon codes, I got a free month. Check it out, and you'll tell your little story and you'll get about 50 guys going, me too, been there, done that, here's what helped. So check it out. Mr. Matt says, I stayed for 3 affairs. Oh buddy. And I finally found my self-respect and kicked her out after the 4th. Oh Jesus, this woman's got issues. Happy as can be now, and that was over 7 years ago. Um, well, Mr. Matt, not to kick a man while he's doing better, it's 7 years ago, you overcame that. But have you come to terms with what exactly was it about you? And we could go on and on about her and the problem she had. Obviously she had issues. Um, what is it that kept you around for 3 honking affairs? And what was the catalyst on affair number 4 to make you go, all right, this is freaking weird, this is— what am I doing? I mean, have you come to terms with that? Have you thought about that thoroughly? And what it is that, what you got going on up here to, what's the word I'm looking for, cultivate that. What is it that, what's going on, buddy? Or what was going on? And can you help the rest of us? DSO Fraternity, if I may, check it out. I'm gonna keep pushing this. Mr. Mark says, how about feelings of loneliness after divorce? Well, mister, are you hanging out with other people? Um, did you hang all of your, um, interpersonal— what's the word I'm looking for— socializing? The weight of— everybody has a need, an innate need as a human being, and that is to socialize with others. I know a lot of guys are like, I don't need nobody. Well, you do. Um, we're wired that way as human beings. We have to socialize at some level with other people. Or else we kind of go nuts. So what a lot of people, men and women both— men seem to be these days really adept at this— what they do is they say, I have this socializing need, and hey wife, I'm gonna put all that need right on your shoulders. How about that, huh? Then the relationship fizzles and they're like, where am I gonna put this heavy need? Then where the hell— and what you don't realize is, dude, There are bazillions of other people out there. Me, guys in our DSO fraternity group, for example, friends, family. Take that socializing need and give a little piece to this guy, a little piece to that guy, a little piece to this woman, a little piece— maybe date, maybe do whatever. Um, but that should be— and that's the life lesson here, is that you don't put all your eggs in one little basket there. It's not healthy. It's not fair to them, the person that was holding all that weight., and it's not fair, not good for you. So just food for thought there. Mr. Andrew sharing his story says to Lou, says, so my ex is a deadbeat mom. I'm thinking of your future here, but eventually you're going to want your weekends. So when divorce comes up, you go for every other weekend unless she's got some other issues going on. Get a lawyer, make a plan, and protect your assets all in one fell swoop. I'm not sure I followed all that, but good advice. Hit the gym, he says. Can't beat that. Join a men's team like the DSO fraternity. Can't beat that. Meetups are great. Yes, volunteering. And then in turn, ladies love to hear about what you do. But we're not doing that all for the ladies then, are we, Andrew? This isn't all for them. This isn't, you know, the end goal to get in a woman's pants. We do this just, you know, be a better part of our community, help other dudes. And yes, an ancillary effect or side effect of all of that is you're probably going to be more confident, mentally healthier, more at ease, less anxiety, less neurotic, all that other stuff, which in turn will make you a potentially more attractive mate to more women. Just icing on the cake. And that's good. They shouldn't be your sole focus. Hmm. And Dustin says, I'm a firefighter, I know somewhat of this world, I've heard it quite often from dudes. So with my schedule, I have the kids every day I am off. So you're working or kids, not a lot of you time. The only evenings I have kid-free are the nights before I go on shift from 7 o'clock on. I am so exhausted by then. Well, Dustin, the, the well duh solution to all this, buddy, is maybe I'm not trying to throw, you know, you're in a, you're in a field, this career field, which is It's not like you're an insurance salesman or something like that, right? This is, um, kind of like when you talk to a doctor or a cop or a military guy or something. It's like, uh, their career is very much part of who they are. It's— they're part of their persona, their personality. I don't know if that's the right term. Um, it's, it's very much part of their being. And a firefighter is very much part of your persona, your being, and everything else. And for somebody to come along and go, just get you a new job, dude, You're like, yeah, this is who I am. Well, you can't have your cake and eat it too. Something's going to give. You're burning the candle at both ends. This is not sustainable. Something's got to give. Whether you adjust your schedule in the firefighting world, go in a more administrative role, which is more consistent 9-to-5 kind of thing, or whatever it may be. But I can tell you, yeah, this ain't gonna last long. Something's gonna get— it's got to give here. And, um, kids need to take priority in this in terms of, do I give up kid time or do I, you know, adjust my career, my job? I'm, I'm looking at that. Do you have something else you can do career job-wise or some way to shift that work that allows you to have more family time, which in turn will allow you to have more of your own time and taking care of yourself? It's a balancing act. I know, um, I had to go through a major change myself. I was commuting almost 2 hours every day, uh, 1 hour there, 1 hour back, not, not 2 and 2, um, which was cutting into this time, which caused me to be late for this kid thing, which caused me to miss this other kid. I'm like, this is not sustainable. And I'm going nuts, uh, you know, with the anxiety of the divorce and everything. I was losing a ton of weight. I was just— it wasn't good. And something's got to give. And I sat there and I thought about how I have to have money coming in. In fact, I need more money coming in. It ain't cutting it because over half of our family income went out the door when she left. Yet I'm stuck with the house. She was like, you can have the house, you can have the car, you can have all that. And I was like, great, now I got to pay for all that shit. And so, uh, I was left with all that. And, um, the solution I came up with— and I know this doesn't apply to you, but just to get the gears spinning, um was I went to my boss at the time and I said, look, what if I did work for you from home in addition to doing work for others from home? I could maybe go out and find other companies to do work for. I would— that would mean less time devoted to you, mister, but then in turn you would pay me less. And then this guy would pay me a little bit, and this guy would pay me a little bit, and this guy would pay me a little bit. Maybe all those little bits together would equal a bigger payday for me, but it means less time with you. But it means you don't have to worry about me sitting at a desk. You can give that desk to somebody else. You don't have to pay me my, uh, what do you call it, the benefits and everything else, because I won't be a full-time employee anymore. So I was giving him the— this is good for me and this is good for you. And I remember him just looking at me and just goes, I love it. He goes, I, I know two guys that would hire you tomorrow. I was like, okay. And he's like, yeah, they're always jealous of me having you do marketing work for me. They were like, can he come work for me? And I always told them no, but now I think this makes a lot of sense. I was like, let's do it. And then 2 weeks later, I had a much bigger paycheck, so to speak. I had multiple paychecks. I was on the payroll of all these guys. I wasn't just like a, what do you call it? I wasn't a contractor. I was an employee of all of them. So I technically had like 3 jobs. And then I ended up doing some contract work for like one other guy and then another guy. And all those together made a nice paycheck. Payday for myself. And I had the flexibility of working from home. So I may not get everything done by 5 o'clock, but by the time I put all the kids to bed, then I'm working another couple hours and I was able to get everything done. Not in a rush to get to work at 8 AM or whatever the next morning. I could take my time doing stuff. As long as I got everything done, everybody was happy. It was a great thing for me. So there's ways around it, but I recognized to my credit, what I was doing was not sustainable. I got to do something else. And so I did. And, uh, yeah, Matthew says it can't be rushed, day to day finding yourself. Do something, get goals. Uh, Lou says he got back into the gym. It was always a release for me. Exercise in any form is a positive. Any scientist or whatever, doctor, will tell you the same thing. Are you exercising? And for a dude Um, pushing heavy things, exerting yourself, getting your muscles working helps in a lot of different ways. Hmm. And then Matt, going back to the question of what is it that kept you around through all those affairs and all that very toxic behavior, he says, well, he was afraid to be alone and he stayed for the kids. And he's been through a lot of counseling. Very good for you, buddy. You should be proud of yourself because that's huge. I mean, how many guys do we know, just like, I don't need to talk to nobody. I don't know why I use that accent every time. I don't need to talk to nobody. I don't— I'm fine. And then, you know, smoke and drink themselves to death. You need to recognize— and you said, I need help with this. What am I doing here? Why am I afraid to be alone? Why am I so, you know, why am I so afraid for the kids' sake and everything else? And for a lot of people in that position, I mean, we all empathize with people that say I'm here for the kiddos, right? We get it. Um, you don't want to break up a family. You worry about the kids bouncing between two homes and growing up in a broken home and everything else. But you have to realize, for a lot of you in these over-the-top toxic relationships, i.e., I caught my wife in 4 affairs and everything else, there's probably a lot of other shit going on that goes along with that. And, um, for your kids to have a pardon me, to have a front row seat for. This is how marriages go, right? Mom and dad fight. I'm overhearing all this conversation about mom stepping out and boyfriends and something about mom blowing some guy in a parking lot and something about this and that. And kids hear a lot more than what we think. They take in a lot more than what you think. And it's not good, dude, and/or gal, whoever's watching this. And And then they, you know, if you want to put it this way, if it helps you to relate to this in a stronger way, let's say you have a son and he's sitting there watching Dad and he internalizes when shit goes bad in relationships, when Mom does really bad things to hurt you, when your female partner does really bad things to hurt you, you just put your tail between your legs and say, yes, dear, and you just go along with it. You don't rock the boat. Rocking boat bad. Sticking up for yourself bad. The keeping things smooth is the ultimate goal. They internalize this because they watch you do it again and again. It's not just in relationship with your, with your spouse, but also in your outside relationships and watch how you kind of avoid conflict and everything else. And they in turn become just like daddy in that way. Not good. As opposed to watching somebody go, son, I didn't want to do this. I didn't want to break up the family. But I really had no choice out of self-respect, out of the health of myself and you and the family and everybody else. Well, your mom and I have agreed, blah, blah, blah, and away you go. That to me seems like a healthier path to go down, but you know, maybe wrong. Andrew says, Dustin, the way I look at it now is it was an experience. I can reflect on it but not dwell on it. I have some introspection about it. I work on me, reclaim the parts of me that I put up on a shelf for the sake of the marriage and found the old me again. That's a general theme for a lot of guys. Uh, day by day you move on, hit the gym, work on you. A man once said to me, why are you giving her your power by dwelling on her? There you go. Um, there is a theme amongst a lot of guys going through all of this, and I myself, I can relate to this, and I've spoken on it bazillions of times. Um, we lose our sense of identity. Both men and women both experience this, but let's stick to the dude, right? That's who I'm talking to. And that the experience is one of, I'm married and I have kids, and old me, let's say old Ralph, that's my name in case you don't know that, old Ralph, bye-bye, you're outta here. And with that goes the interest in this, the interest in that, the joy of learning about fill in the blank, and all these experiences I used to really be into. For the sake of my family, the children, my responsibilities and everything else, I need to shelve all of that bullshit and focus on Kids, make money, keep them— keep the family machine running, right? On the surface, that all sounds great. But then what happens is when that machine blows up, the family machine blows up, and they're like, you're single again, dude. You're like, well, I don't know who I am anymore without the family machine. Who— what do I do? Like, some guys are like, literally, I don't know what to do. Like, I'm— I was supposed to be driving Billy to his, you know, traveling baseball thing or whatever, and I was supposed to go do this, and I was supposed to help with homework, and I'm supposed to fix it. They're gone. I don't see Billy till Monday. Well, this is interesting. And what a lot of guys do is, wait a minute, I used to be really into guitars. That was my world. Or I used to be really into race cars or painting or sculpting. You know, it doesn't actually have to be those stereotypical man things. You know, we're human beings, we're multifaceted creatures. You get a lot of different things you used to be into, and men rediscover that, and it fills them with, with joy of, you know, learning about things all over again. Very natural, normal thing. And, uh, what we've noticed is there is a version of this for a lot of women. I am not demonizing this, by the way. This is something a lot of men do demonize, but I think when you learn more about this world, you understand it more and you empathize with it more, which is for a lot of women, they lose their sense of identity. And with that goes, for a lot of women, their sexuality. I'm Billy's mom. I keep saying Billy. I don't know why. I'm Billy's mom and I'm David's wife. And that's all I am. And I'm so overwhelmed with the anxiety of all of this world of being this guy's wife and oh, and this person's employee, because most Women these days work and, uh, and bring in a lot more money than their husband. That's going in, uh, it's more and more common. And so, uh, and then they're Billy's mom and everything else. And what gets pushed aside is, uh, me as a sexual creature. And what a lot of women say is, I can't remember the last time I thought about sex. I don't care for myself physically anymore. I look at myself in the mirror and go, who would want this? Um, you know, I spit out a couple of kids and so much of my time and energy was spent on, you know, raising and weaning children. Now that they're kind of out on their own, I'm kind of like, well, now what? And then they get divorced. And what a lot of us see in these ladies is, oh wow, she started to take care of herself again. Oh wow, she's sexier. And oh wow, she's got a new hot boyfriend. And I'm noticing she's acting more feminine and bubbly and sweet and sexy and everything. Yeah, because She broke from the machine, just like us guys do when we, we rediscover our interests and everything else. So it's nothing to demonize, it's just human nature. And, um, what's to be learned from that? That the marriage machine is in general, you know, it destroys us as human beings? No. What we learn from that is don't allow that machine to be everything. You have to carve out time for you, or else, as you can see, you become a shell. Of your former self. Um, and then Dustin says, I totally agree with what you guys are saying. I just can't let it go. The actions and the way it ended kills me, and I just keep getting more frustrated and angry. I can't stand my kids being around her boyfriend. They should be with me versus the other man. I have done therapy and I do good for a while, and then it all comes back and it constantly repeats. And how long has it been, uh, Dustin? Just curious that you've been at this, uh, recovery phase, if you will. How long has it been since the breakup, boyfriend, all this other stuff? Um, you know, if you're going to tell me months, I'm going to be like, give yourself a break, dude. Of course you're going to have these ups and downs. That's part for the course. It's, um, you know, anybody who experiences any kind of trauma, uh, will, will tell you the same thing. You know, guys who come back from war, for example, and they've seen the awfulness that men are capable of, and they've They've lost comrades and they, you know, all this other stuff, and they had to kill people in war. Even though we all say, 'Yeah, rawr, here's your medal for killing so many people,' they still have this overwhelming stress, angst, everything else of, 'I was involved in some really horrible shit. I'm capable of some horrible shit.' And I watched other people, they went through a trauma, and then we just go, 'Hey, thanks for doing that, and put you back in the real world now.' How do those guys do? What's the rate of suicide for those guys? Pretty freaking high. And they experience this, and they go through therapy, and they're like, it's just some days I'm great, other days I'm— I just kicked in all of my kitchen cabinets at home, and I broke, uh, 20 dishes, and, uh, I broke my hand punching a wall, and all those other stuff. And then they'll have a good week of nothing, everything's fine. Therapists will tell them the same thing. You're going through something and it takes a while to get over it. Therapy helps. Take care of yourself. Put away the alcohol, put away the cigarettes, go exercise, all that good stuff that we always mention. But give yourself a break. It takes time. And you endured a trauma and sitting back and watching the kids and all this other stuff, it— with boyfriend and everything else, it's not easy. So you're divorced for over a year. She says separated for 2.5 prior. She says, I tried to save it for the last 2 years, all while she would bring her boyfriend over when I was on shift, until I stopped it, and then the divorce came. So, um, you have, you know, a couple different things. The betrayal, you trying to hang on and hang on, her pushing you away. Um, you, you endured some pretty heavy stuff. Um, therapists exist, grief therapists, as Andrew mentions here, therapists that deal with stress, depression. Um, these are all very real things that you need to give yourself a break and, uh, recognize that, uh, uh, you're a human being, you're going through stuff. It's not like you're just like, I'm all good now. But if it helps you with this grieving process, Dustin, and this is something that, uh, somebody once told me. And then I was like, no fucking way. Um, but now I look back and go— Ryan, that was his name, Ryan, a friend of mine. Um, part of, part of my healing— and I look back and I kind of cringe because it's so like stereotypical, kind of silly, but I get it— was, uh, not only did I take on hobbies I forgot and started writing again, something that I never did, because I had some free time to, you know, those couple of days a week that I didn't have kids. I had the kids most of the time there for a while. Um, it was, uh, one of the things I did to help fill some time, or maybe I looked at this some kind of cathartic healing process or whatever, was, you know, I haven't been back to my old hometown in Indiana. At that point, I hadn't been back for like 15 years, I remember, and this was 11 years ago. So now I haven't been back for well, 15, went back, and now another 11 since I haven't been back. I really don't see myself going back. The wife wants to go see it. She wants to see where her husband grew up. My wife's from Germany, so any kind of real American stuff interests her to see the, you know, what small town life is like. But anyway, I went back and met up with some old high school buddies, and one of them was named Ryan. He himself went through a tumultuous divorce, kids, remarried. I think he had been through it twice, if I remember right. So two different marriages and remarried for the third time, if I remember right. I may be confusing with somebody else, it's been a while. But he was talking about something about with his ex and her new husband, and they were all together at some cookout or something. And he was chatting about her husband, with her husband about something, blah, blah, blah. And he, he wasn't making like a, like this was a real emotional thing. It was no big deal. He was just telling it in passing. Like, I remember talking to Tricia or whatever her name was. I remember I was talking to Trisha's husband and blah, blah, blah. We were talking about cars and he was like, I got a new Camaro. And I was like, Trisha's like, dude, the new husband, you guys are buddies? He's like, oh yeah, she's fine. Or he's fine, he's cool. And I was pretty freshly divorced at the time and I was like, I cannot imagine being with my ex's new dude, knowing what I know and all this other stuff. And I just can't imagine getting to that point. And he looked and goes, you will, you'll get to that point. It'll just take time, but you'll get there. Trust me. We all get there eventually. And we all say the same thing. I was like, really? It's like, yeah, you will. And he's right. You'll get there eventually. You cannot believe it, Dustin. You probably, you know, have, you know, daydreams of doing not so good things to that man and to her and everything. I'll share that here. I don't want to get this in trouble, by the way. Um, but those are all perfectly natural feelings. But eventually, my man, you'll get over it. And eventually, whether it's him or whoever the next dude is or whatever it may be, you'll be cool with it. Why? Because that's not tied to you anymore. It's just like meeting some dude, you know, at your son's basketball game. Hey, this is Bob. Hey Bob, how you doing? It's that same level of energy. It's not a big deal. You'll eventually get there. Right now it's a very big deal to you because you're still very much emotionally tied to her. And then eventually you won't be. And then eventually you'll be indifferent to her. Not hateful, not angry, not— you just call her Karen. Karen, how you doing? That level of energy. It'll get— you'll get there eventually. Um, Ryan, his method of kind of coping, it's a good one. He says, I wrote a letter to my ex, but I did not send it. Good call. But I wrote all the feelings down. I didn't hold anything back. It was such a relief. Very cool. So that's his way of unloading. He literally like unloaded on a piece of paper. Don't send it, journal it. And if, you know, if it helps to like, um, like a ceremonial thing, you can burn it, rip it into shreds, put it in the trash, put in a bonfire or something like that. Kind of a symbolic way of saying, I wrote all this down and good, now we're over it. A lot of different little things like that you can do. But don't give up, you know, don't throw in the towel. That's what guys like us, our group DSO Fraternity, dsofraternity.com, or other groups, therapy groups, you know, whether it's our group, any other, just don't, you know, in your— with the firefighters, right? I apologize, there's so many going by. You were the guy who was a firefighter. In that world, in stressful worlds like it, policemen military and everything else. What you endured is not uncommon, dare I say more common than if you're a car salesman or something like that. I'm trying to pick some not so stressful, life-threatening kind of profession, but for whatever reason, those type of professions lend themselves to a lot of marital strife. So have you been talking to other dudes in the firehouse, and have you said, anybody else going through this, or this, are they all familiar with what you're going through? If not, let them know, just so they're aware of what's going on if you're acting a little goofy. If they are aware, lean on them. That's what they're there for. They're your brothers, firefighters, brothers in arms. I don't know if it's a proper term, but you know what I mean. You guys go through a lot together, so that's what they're there for, help each other out. Ladies and germs, it's already been about an hour. That went by fast. I'm going to say, does anybody else— anybody else, excuse me, have anything else to share. If not, I'm going to get off here. Going once, twice, anybody? Anybody have anything to share, say anything to follow up to what we've already been talking about? I'm gonna give you a second. If you give me a like and a share, man, I greatly appreciate it. Thank you all so very much. Well, if not, thank you all so much for joining me today. I appreciate every last one of you. Dadstartingover.com. Check out Dad Starting Over, all the social media channels. Subscribe, like. Oh, a couple of things I didn't mention. Um, for those that don't want to join the DSO fraternity, you don't want to buy a book, you don't want to buy a course, you just like this stuff, you like these lives, you like to, uh, watch the little videos or whatever it may be. Um, there's a couple of different ways of putting money in the tip jar, if you will, a way of saying thank you to help keep the lights on and keep all this going because it's a pretty big nut to cover every month to keep all this stuff going. A lot more behind the scenes of what you may think. There's a couple of different avenues to spend a few bucks. One is through subscriptions on Facebook. Pay a little few bucks every month as a way of saying thank you. Cancel that at any point, and then they give you like little badges and things to show like you're, you know, you're a subscriber supporter. And also, I will eventually, when those numbers get big enough, I'll do like supporter-only lives and chats and things like that and put out some supporter-only material. And then, um, same for YouTube. So YouTube has a little thing where you click on join, same thing, pay a small monthly stipend, put tip in tip jar, and same thing, you get a little icon showing that you're a supporter. You'll get supporter-only material, all that good stuff. It's just a way of you, you know, saying a way for you to say thank you. So if that appeals to you, awesome, I appreciate it a great deal. If not, still love you. So I hope you continue to join me on these things and continue watching and continue liking and sharing if you could please. I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you all so very much. It is the weekend. Hope you have a good one. I don't really have any big plans. Heading back to Kentucky on Sunday morning, and, um, tomorrow daughter has ballet. I think it's all we got planned. We already had our date night yesterday. We went to a speakeasy, the wife and I, which is kind of cool, at the, uh, Grandscapes, which is in Plano, if anybody's familiar with that. Mark, if you're still on here watching, check that out. You'll like that if you're a cigar whiskey kind of guy. I'm not a cigar guy, but it was a very manly, masculine place to go. It's pretty cool, kind of high-end feel at least to it. Uh, but check it out. So anyway, um, no real big plans, which is a good thing. Nothing wrong with that. All right guys, thank you all so very much again, and, uh, catch you on the next one.