Chat LIVE with DSO and @drpsychmom

All right, all right, all right, we are live. I better bring up my Cameras here. There we go, Samantha. We are officially live. Just so you know. Oh, yay! Hi! Hello world, how is everyone today? It is I, Ralph Alito. Oh, shitballs, I just messed something up. Mr. Ralph, there's one—

no, there's 5 viewers. You did it right.

That was fast. Yeah, welcome everyone, welcome. I got, uh, with me today is the lovely and talented Miss Dr. Samantha Rodman-Whiten. You may know her as Dr. Psych Mom. You can follow her on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok. Are you on Twitter? Yes. TikTok, YouTube, Instagram. Did you do the Threads thing?

Yes, I did do the Threads thing and I got a number and everything, but I cannot do Threads or Twitter. I'm bad at those Yes, same here.

So if you could give her a follow if you're watching this. Welcome everyone, my name is Ralph Brewer from Dad Starting Over, dadstartingover.com. Just look for Dad Starting Over on the social media channels. I'm sure you've seen both of us if you're watching this. You've probably seen both of us numerous times on video format throughout the internet. Yay, raw, we're awesome. So let's just wait for some folks to show up here, otherwise we're just talking to ourselves. If you are watching this, if you could be so kind as to give us a big thumbs up, or a— wherever you're watching this, because we are currently live streaming on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, or X, as it's called now.

Twitter, even.

Yeah, so if you give me a like.

Should I share you? Should I go to my phone and share you? Is that what would help?

You can do that, sure. Share, like, subscribe.

No, I mean like me, like onto my page. Sure.

Yes. You and everyone else should share to their page.

Everyone should share to their page. Am I gonna see my own self like Black Mirror? Oh my god. It's so weird.

Oh, that's creepy. Hey, was that you that gave us the thumb just then?

No.

Oh, somebody else gave us a thumb. All right.

There we go. Good, good, good. All right, cool, I did it.

Cool.

So if you, um, brought in 2 whole extra people— no, not even.

So if you guys could let us know where you're from, that's always kind of an icebreaker, gets people talking. Where are you joining us from this Saturday? Or no, Saturday— wow, I'm really out of it— Thursday evening. There's Mr. Wayne from YouTube, gives, gives us a thumbs up. Thank you, Dwayne. Where are you from, Dwayne? You got a— I'm jealous of that head of hair. That almost looks like AI kind of perfect head of hair there. Wow.

You get to see hair. I never see anything. I just see his thumbs up and his name.

Just don't worry about it. Oh, well. I'm the host here. I get to see. Oh, he's from Seattle, Washington. Very cool.

Yeah, you get it.

Dwayne, have you done the thing where you go to the fish market and they throw the fish around and people catch it and all that stuff in Seattle? I remember doing that. Seattle years ago. I remember when I was in Seattle like 20-some-odd years ago, they had a big homeless problem. Like, you couldn't walk 5 feet without being like accosted by a homeless person. Is that any better? I'm betting no. From what I've heard, it's like even worse over there. Don't know why I shared that just now, but just came to mind. Seattle, homeless. And when I was there, it was in, uh, no, it was after all the '90s big music scene with Pearl Jam and Nirvana and Soundgarden. Oh, we got another, uh, Northwestern dude, Portland, Oregon. Randy, welcome, Randy. What's with all the Pacific Northwest dudes?

Yeah, Pacific Northwest, 18 people watching, that's cool.

Yay! All right guys, welcome. Miss Samantha, what you got going on? Anything new to share with the fine folks here today?

Um, well, of course I always have my podcast, The Dr. Psych Mom Show. That's on Apple, Spotify, Everywhere else, I have my secret Facebook group. If people are sick of the trolls on my main page, then you could always go to my secret group. Yes, there's a lot of trolls on my main page. It is not safe. And so they can definitely do that. Oh, I see what you just looked at, the comment.

Bald God just hit us with a comment just completely out of left field, but go ahead, Samantha. I'm sorry.

Oh no, nothing. His comment is he said, start TRT, it helps you get laid. And that was by Bald God.

Well, yeah, but that just came out— I'm saying that just came out of left field. It's like, oh, where'd that come from? Get laid, TRT. Okay, all right, good, good to know, Mr. Bald God.

I don't have much else. I have the podcast, I have my post, and of course I have my practice at Best Life Behavioral Health, my group practice. We have therapists and coaches everywhere. We have a, we have a group coming up for adult children of dysfunctional families, actually, and that's, um, that's like only $40 a session. It's very cheap compared to regular therapy, and the woman who runs it is great, Tahila. And I know a lot of the guys that work with you also are adult children of depression, addiction, trauma, anxiety, all sorts of homes like that. So that's a really good group and very affordable. So if people ever want to reach out, that's samantha@drpsychmom.com. You could always email me.

Now, you said a group setting. I would, I would presume, is there a limit? Like, are you going to hit a certain limit and say, sorry guys, you got to wait till the next session? Or how does that work?

Yeah, but I mean, it's— you've got to pay $240 upfront, so that kind of limits it in and of itself, despite that being affordable for 6 weeks, you know. So it's nothing, probably max out at like 10 people. People, you know. She's a therapist, but she's located in South Africa, so she does coaching.

Oh, cool.

Yeah, yeah, she's real cool.

I mean, but as far as, uh, you know, you say, I'm sure a lot of your guys— dude, it's like 99% of the guys. Are you kidding me? It's like every— that, that's, that's why we're, that's why we're all in this, in this trouble. And you and I both come from anxious households, and we had to deal with that nonsense. And so that's what got us here today, in part, and big part. So, um, uh, yeah, Dwayne says everybody else bailed out for the long holiday weekend. Oh, that's right, Easter. I keep forgetting that. That's right.

Um, Thursday night, I doubt it. Don't worry, Dwayne, we're gonna have a big showing. I know it. I know a lot of people are gonna ask questions.

You could just feel it. Now, Bald God, I have to go back to your comment. Where did this come from with the start testosterone replacement therapy, it helps you get laid? Is this something you want to follow up with? Is that something for us to talk about further, or are you just kind of a hit-and-run kind of thing and just say testosterone horny, see you later, bye?

And I don't know. Yeah, I think because I've said that too much testosterone in the clients that I see can lead to aggression. So then some of the people on the main page get very angry, which is so ironic, and aggressive and like super mad about how testosterone is actually like really awesome, especially if you snort it and, you know, all this stuff that they say. So, so I think that would be probably what that was about.

Just so, just so we're clear, you don't snort testosterone, just for all the guys out there listening to this.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. In case anybody took me seriously, I don't want any accidents to happen. Yeah, please don't do that.

Yes, snorting, snorting anything bad, really, if you think about it. Um, and Nick says that his video was freezing, uh, maybe it's just me. I think it was Nick because we're all good here. So if it's freezing, I would see the freezing first before you guys did it. We're not above freezing. We've had freezing video moments before. So, but thanks for the heads up, but it looks like it may be on your end. Um, now, uh, so we talked about your stuff. My stuff is, if you guys are new to this, uh, dadstartingover.com. There is a private group for men only and it's called the DSO Fraternity, and you can find that at dadstartingover.com or dsofraternity.com. And we have a private forum, which is on a private group in Facebook, as well as a Discord server. We also have live Zoom meetings, several of those every single week. We record all of them. You can go back and listen to all of them on your phone, like podcast format. And then we have a DSO Fraternity podcast, a separate podcast. And then we have— what else do we have? You get access to all my books at no additional charge, in audiobook format included. We get together in person. Of which our 4th annual gathering in the States is coming up just over 2 weeks from now in New Orleans, Louisiana. And then if you haven't signed up yet, you're almost too late. We're just going till the end of the month and then we have to tell the event people our final headcount. So we just signed up another one here recently. So pretty cool. So join us. What else we got going on? And then, oh, with the DSL fraternity membership, you also get discounts on the Coaching about half off, and then the video courses are about half off as well. So pretty good investment for less than a dollar a day, and you get to join us and, and get help from a bunch of hundreds of dudes all over the world. You mentioned South Africa. We got some guys from South Africa. That was, uh, actually when I first started this Dad Starting Over thing, um, South Africa was like one of my biggest markets, which was then eclipsed by Australia in a big way. So They're somewhat related, aren't they? Not really. They both have funny accents. And, um, yeah, that's about it. Um, hey guys, do you have— the guys that are watching today, do you have anything you would like to discuss today? Any questions for myself or Miss Samantha? Now's the time to speak. We don't want to just sit here and blab amongst ourselves. I'm sure we could, but we'd much rather do progress notes while I wait.

I start Facebook Live and then I just do all my own shit, and it takes like a while for people able to ask anything.

Oh, I have to continuously poke and prod, like, come on guys, come on, let's hear, where are you from? Let me ask a question. And then finally the guy's like, all right, fine.

A lot of people don't like to say it in public, so then they join the more private stuff, you know. But I like when the people talk in public because otherwise, you know, why not?

Like, sure. And there is a name attached to some of these, uh, I believe Facebook requires that you give a real name. Do they not anymore? Uh, YouTube, I think you can call yourself whatever you want to call yourself. But, uh, yeah, and that's, that's where Mr. Dwayne's from. Dwayne and Bald God and Randy, all from YouTube. Welcome, guys. Um, yeah, my YouTube has taken off. I have about 57,000 subscribers now.

And, uh, awesome. I have like 500. No, I have like, I have like maybe like 1,000. I don't know, I've like nothing on YouTube. I have very little on TikTok.

I have people on Facebook.

Book. So that's who I have. Very good. Terrible to you.

Megan is one of your followers. She says she is here for you and you are her leader. She's our leader. Is that— is that a sheep on there? What is that?

I don't see any, any comments, so I can't say anything. Is— does Megan have a last name? A-E. Oh, I know her. She's from my group. Megan, thanks for coming. Ask some questions, Megan. You're the only girl here.

Yes, please do.

It's a real sausage fest here.

All right, that's not appropriate. We don't need to go there already. We just started this already with the penis references.

In my group, they say, "Our leader." In my Facebook group, as a joke, this one guy started to do it. They say, "Our leader." I told my children that. I said they think I'm their leader. It's not just at home that people listen to me. It's in the group.

I have a nickname within our group. Not really. A couple of guys call me Godfather to the point where I got a Godfather t-shirt at our first event from the movie. You know, the whole— yeah, it's pretty cool.

I thought you were going to say they call you Bald God.

No, that's taken already. And in case you're wondering, he's on testosterone. But that's, that's not me there. He's got a beard. Any— Megan, do you have any questions for us today? How about Nick? You got any questions there? Dwayne? Bald God? Randy? Please speak up. Forever hold your peace. I'd say what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna go on my, uh, group here because I know they're good, and I'm gonna say I am on Oh, I'm gonna share us too.

I'm gonna share it into my group, but who knows who's watching right now. But let's see, let's see. I'm gonna share it into my group.

All right, let's see what else we can get in here.

Yeah, that'll be fun. Let me see. This is so weird when I see myself on the thing.

I know, I can never get used to it.

Join us, please, and ask questions.

Oh, wait a minute, we got something. Hold the phone.

I'm holding.

Megan says we keep freezing, so Megan sees freezing as well. Uh-oh, maybe try refreshing.

I don't see freezing, but maybe if two of them saw it, then it may be I trust Megan. Oh, now I see some of the chat. Now I see some of the chat. So maybe now it's better, Megan.

Oh, maybe we've got a little bit of a little hang up here going on. Sorry, guys, internet, nothing we can do about that. Dwayne says, cheerleader versus coach with your partner. What guidance would you have for guys on knowing when to be in either mode? Cheerleader or coach? Oh, I see. Well, you know, the coach thing kind of lends itself to the old mansplaining thing, which we recently talked about in our private group, where somebody said, you ever notice that when you have some kind of issue, all these men try to come to— not necessarily to your rescue, but they all try to tell you how to address— properly address said issue and try to give you advice and everything else? And I replied, yeah, I know it's not a a popular statement, but the whole concept of mansplaining, it's a real thing.

Uh, all I gotta do is post one little thing and my son mansplains things to me. I mean, it's just like a man, it's like a male thing. They like to explain things.

Yes, uh, it's just one of our quirks as men when we see like what we can consider a problem or something that can be improved, or this person needs to better understand this topic. I don't think they have a full no grasp of it. They just jump in and, and go right to it. And, and at times it's just like, dude, I didn't ask. I was just telling you something. You don't necessarily need to jump— oh shoot, I just scrunched you down. There we go. Um, don't need to jump on with all the advice. So that would be a coach.

So, you know, I think a cheerleader is always better. I'm always saying to guys they need to be more enthusiastic. You know, I just literally did a video on it where I tell guys to say good point, good idea, you know, because a lot of women, they say something and literally the first thing the guy says is no, here's why it wouldn't work. And that's just— it just shits all over your idea, and it's very dispiriting. And women eventually are like, I don't wanna be with this Negative Nelly. It just sucks the life out of all of my ideas, and I don't want to be living like this. And a lot of guys with anxious wives can understand that because anxiety makes people come from a place of no. But you know, there are, you know, there are both sides of that. Obviously both genders do that, but women are particularly sensitive to the guy always saying no, especially if the guy's in charge of the money and he's usually a higher earner, not always, but you know, more of the time. And if he says no, we're not going to spend on that, we're not going to do that, then they feel like they have no choice but to agree, but they then are secretly very upset, you know.

So then if I'm a man, and I got my wife coming to me saying, you know what we should do, we should get a pool. And you're like, we just got in your head, you're thinking we just got done talking about how we need to spend less. And that we're overspending. We have— we don't have any money set aside for retirement. And here comes wife saying, I want to spend $100 grand on a pool or whatever it is. Um, so the guy immediately just wants to go, did we not just get done freaking talking about the— so how would you suggest he— what's a good middle ground?

For every situation is different, obviously, but you know, if it's a— if it's a $100,000 expense, people need to talk about that reasonably. But if she's saying, I want to go spend $1,000 at Target, and he's saying, oh no, that's not good, but I want to go spend $1,000 on a hunting trip with my friends— no. And if you've worked with a couple for long enough, you can see when somebody is no, no, no about somebody else's ideas, but then somehow their ideas are always a better use of time and money. So when there's that sort of mansplaining why Target is wrong but hunting is right, then it's— then, then that is kind of the problem. Nobody is saying that people should not discuss $100,000 expense, but often it's a— it can be like a $10 expense when it's that dynamic where people are stopping each other. It's because it's not about the money, really.

Yeah, controlling. And the man may feel anxious about spending, and if I let this get out of hand, then it's just gonna— it's gonna add up. I remember, um, With my ex-wife, I was the money overseer of the money, and it got to the point where if I didn't, if I took my eyes off the money, and oh my gosh, why are we in the hole for this much money, you know, and yada yada. And then I went and it was $10, $20, $30, $10, $30. What are we spending on? And the, in the immediate reaction by the ex was one of, this is controlling and I don't like it, and it makes me pissed that you were watching every little penny. To my defense, well, if I didn't, then you could see what happens. We're suddenly very, very low and we can't buy this thing we need. It was a constant struggle. And that was kind of a big relief for me, was that I no longer, after that marriage ended, I no longer have to worry about those $10, $20, $30 little thingies all the time, little surprises and stuff. I had more control over the cash.

New. She's making more money too, right? So it's not the same kind of situation.

Oh, my first made more money than I did too.

Yeah, she just outspent it. She just spent all of it. She was like, yeah, pretty much.

I don't want to— nothing extravagant. It was just, uh, just consistent little things over time.

As they always say, in the second marriage, people marry people that are more compatible. You know, and financial compatibility is big. So if you have the same values on what to spend, then it's different, you know. But a lot of times spending money is a proxy variable for a million other things. Because if a woman said, I want to go on a couple's vacation for $5,000 for a weekend that's romantic, he would say yes. But if she says, I want to spend $50 on, you know, a couple of, uh, lipsticks at, at this store, he's going to say no. So there's like a million variables, and that's what couples counseling helps with is kind of parsing out what are we really fighting about, you know?

There you go. Very good. I'm going to jump to the next question here. Eric is saying it's freezing for him also. Yeah, I think we got some kind of problem, internet maybe or whatever. Here's the good news, guys, is that I am recording this locally on my computer, so I have the best possible what I see here, which is very minimal freezing. Every now and then, Samantha, you're locking up just a little bit, but not bad. So what I'll do is I'll actually put— and you just locked as soon as I said that. I'll post the actual video.

You know, you're locking up for me, but I didn't want to say it because you said we weren't.

So there's something going on with our internet connection here. But, uh, yeah, you'll get a best possible quality when I post this later. Facebook will post it immediately as a recording of the live, and it will be with all the lockups and everything. It'll be kind of sucky. But eventually when I post this into chunks, which I, you know, Eventually do. It'll look pretty good. But anywho, um, Sean from Facebook says, parental alienation and reunification after 3 years of estrangement. Oh wow. Rebuilding, rebuilding and fostering the relationship with my son who is now 18. He's 18 and he acts like he's 14, and I have several years of boundaries and wisdom. Not sure what that means. Um, any thoughts?

Well, yes, John, I got a lot of thoughts on that. Obviously, you should be working with a therapist or somebody that can help you guys. Um, you do not want to come in like big man on campus with this kid. You do not want to come in like Mr. Boundaries and I'm the man. No, he's just going to go back to his mom. Uh, you want to come in super nice, super loving. You let more shit go than you should because he's really, really fragile and the relationship is extremely tenuous. And you could at any moment mess it up. So you would have to dig deep to think about how you wanted somebody to act to you when you were 18, which is old. He may act 14 to you, but everybody now acts younger than they are. Everybody's a kidult. I have clients who are like, like 25 and they act like 15 because that's just how it is. It is just a different generation. They were all on their phones, whatever. This is beyond the scope of this discussion. But the point is, do not come in there like gangbusters, and that will just go bad. You be as soft and gentle and nice, and you go play airsoft with him or whatever the hell he likes to do, and you make it a nice, fun, you know, dad and son thing. You lead with the loving, compassionate, fun side, and that will help.

This is the first time I've ever heard the, the phrase, kidult. That's cute.

Oh yeah, I say kidult a lot. It's because everybody, um, in like every generation, it's as though like, how old were your parents when they got married?

Oh, like, uh, 22 or so, 23, something like that.

Yeah, me too. And now that's considered like basically somebody who's in high school. Like, that's like basically the same category of person. Like, do you see all those memes where it's like what people used to look like at 40 and what they look like now at 40? It's like so different. So in this generation, everybody acts young because our reference points were all very, very different. And of course, our grandparents' generation, the people were getting married like 15 years old. So like, obviously everything has changed quite a bit. But yes, kids all— people are basically kids until they are 32. And then it kind of switches over. Like, for real.

I remember here recently, I was watching some old clip of Johnny Carson., and it was back in the way he was dressed, probably early '80s, like late '70s or something like that. I'm not sure when it was, but, uh, the guest on there— oh, Don Rickles. It was the comedian Don Rickles was on, and they were talking about how old they were, and Don said something like, I'm 46, how old are you, Johnny? Johnny says, yeah, I'm 46 too. And I was just like, they look like they were 60. It's just a totally different— I, you know, hard life, I guess. A lot of smoking and drinking and and all those stuff.

And just remember that the young people think like, like people at 46 are very old now too. It's just that people don't act like that themselves. So I mean, that's what I always say to people, and they're like 46, they want to date like a 20-year-old girl. I'm like, what are you do— like, no, what do you do? You know, I mean, live your life, but come on.

Yeah, we could go on and on about the older man with the younger gal thing. I've known plenty of men that have dipped their toes in that water, and it's It's interesting, to say the least. Here's a question for you directly. This comes from Mr. Randy from YouTube. He says, "Hey, DPM," that's you, "for a couple in a sexless marriage with no intimacy for several years, how and why can the wife feel upset if the husband goes to a strip club to see naked women? The wife is postmenopausal," just as an aside there. Why?

Well, so Randy, so your wife is older, she has certain, um, morals, and many women, especially if they were raised religious, feel that going to a strip club to look at naked women is somehow immoral or bad, you know. So of course she probably always felt that way, so of course she could feel that way now. And I, I very much doubt, Randy, that you had a sit-down discussion with her and you said, in order to cope with this intimacy-free marriage, I am going to want to look at naked women, and these are the boundaries when I do look at them. No, I would imagine she found out what you did, and this has historically something that she assumed both of you found to be immoral. And you may have let her think that you thought so, and you may even have thought so yourself, you know, back when you were getting laid and you were a younger man. But to say— I would bet anything this woman went to church and she was religious, and she's an older woman and it's, it's just disgusting to her. It's just literally disgusting to her. So if you sat down with yourselves or with a counselor and you tried to hammer it out, then perhaps you could understand and empathize with one another's perspectives instead of just, you know, uh, both feeling like the victim, which is what's going on now.

And, and sometimes— I'm not saying this is your case, Randy— but it's, it's often, especially after a period of years of sexlessness, the man man or woman, whatever the case may be, can get to the point of just feeling like, you know, "F this person, just because they think and like and feel or whatever." And then the man's, you know, going out the door and she's like, "Where are you going?" He goes, "Gonna go to the titty bar. See you later." And she's like, "What?" And then, you know, just as a poke at her, you know, like, "Here we go. And I really don't care what you think, woman. I know your morals and values are such, but you haven't been doing anything with me for years. So what do you expect? Adiós." I guess Randy got to say, do you care if she's pissed off or not? Does that upset you? Um, a lot of men are like, no, I don't care anymore. Well, that's a bigger issue.

Yeah, if she's like 60 years old, she knows these girls are like 20 years old. This is the age of possibly a grandchild, if not a child. I mean, it just feels very, very weird, you know. It just feels strange to her. It's also like joint money, not— I mean, like, there's like a million variables, do you know? I mean, she knows you're getting drunk, probably. There's a million things going on. So just as you don't like her feeling victimized, you too should not just feel victimized. There's no benefit in anybody feeling just like the other person is an unjust perpetrator. You guys need to talk about your agreement moving forward. If this is going to be a sexless relationship, do you want to be in it? Do you not want to be in it? If you want stay in it? What are going to be the boundaries and parameters? These are the sorts of discussions that need to be spoken about very openly. If she's postmenopausal, it's likely that you do not have kids in the house anymore. And that can change the frame for a lot of couples in terms of whether they are willing to separate or divorce.

How often, Samantha, do you see the arrangement of older couple, postmenopausal wife, husband still has it going on. He still has desires and so forth, that they have an almost unspoken, he knows that she knows, she knows that what he's doing, and he's just doing his own little thing away. And she just knows that he's gone every Friday, and we don't talk about it kind of thing.

I mean, I don't see a lot of those couples in couples counseling, because they have figured out how to make something work. I have spoken to many, many men that do whatever they want on business trips, some of them think, or otherwise, or go to the, you know, erotic massage, or just get a hooker, you know, and, uh, or have a girlfriend. I mean, lots of men cheat, you know, and I work with a lot of guys who are kind of addicted to sex, addicted to porn, and so those guys cheat with higher volume than other guys. And some of them think that their wives may know and don't say anything, and some of them don't, and they just consider it to be what they're gonna do to stay. And they actually 2:01 feel like it makes them a good guy because they are trying to make it work in what they perceive as an untenable situation. For some, an untenable situation is just her having regular sex with them, not as often or nearly as excitingly as they would like. For some, it's just that she's old and they don't want to be with somebody that's old anymore, and they would like to still sleep with young women. But either way, they feel that it makes them be a good husband. And based on the relationship, who knows, you know, who knows.

He's a good— and he's a, he's a good husband because he's not leaving her, right?

Because he's not leaving her. He's allowing the grandchildren to still come over to the same place on Thanksgiving. The kids do not have to feel upset. They can continue to think of the family as united and the couple as happy. And he's still financially providing and allowing her to have whatever status she has community. They go on trips together, they may be friends, and he just feels— I mean, this is like a classic, like, of hundreds of years way to— I mean, not hundreds because you used to be able to do whatever you wanted, but at least a couple hundred years way of thinking about cheating by men, which is like, I am going to do that and, uh, it has absolutely nothing to do with my love for you. In fact, the large majority of people surveyed that cheat consider themselves happily married. Much more often men than women too.

Yeah, the 56% of men surveyed that cheat say, yeah, I'm perfectly happy in my marriage. And it was something like 30-some percent of women said the same. So it's pretty, pretty big number either way. You would expect that to be far lower. Eric asks, hello Eric, I know Mr. Eric, he's in our DSO fraternity group. He says, either of you familiar with Too Good to Leave, the Too Bad to Stay book? No, I am not.

I am. It's a good book, Eric. It's not like the most in-depth thing, but it can help you start to think through whether you want to stay or go, as counseling can, as, you know, whatever else can also. But yeah, it's a good book. It's a book about like when you're in that situation, Ralph Brewer, where your marriage feels too good to leave but too bad to stay. And so it kind of walks you through like what would be, uh, something that's too bad to stay in. You know, or too good, you know, like, so if somebody's cheating, they're being abusive, they're addicted, right, then kind of she puts it in like, maybe think about going, whereas if you're bored, you know, then maybe it's, it's not a leaving level issue. It's a good book.

Gotcha. To check it out. I missed a comment by Mr. Rob. Somebody referred to it here. So I scrolled back up. But Mr. Rob from Facebook, he says, hi guys, I'm dating a girl for almost 2 years after divorce. He was married for 17 years before that. He met her a couple of months after separating. So basically my problem, I never learned to be comfortable alone. I'm coming off as codependent and really only know how to be married. As you know, if you watch my material, Rob, that's something I hear all the freaking time, is that guys are very programmed and very— that's one way of looking at it— or accustomed to being in a long-term monogamous relationship with somebody when it suddenly ends. Often with the guys I talk to, the wife says, I'm done here. He's just kind of wandering alone like an abandoned child, and he's scared, and he's like, I don't know what to do with my life. I don't know who I am. I don't know what I am. The entirety of my identity is wrapped around hubby, dad, and everything else. Better get a replacement wife real quick. And they don't necessarily marry real quick, but they cohabitate pretty quick. And they, um, they, uh, they, they— oh, what's the word I'm looking for? They say to the woman, they mutually agree to the woman after being with each other for 2 weeks, it's only you and I, nobody else, right? Right. And then a month later, we want to move in? Absolutely. And then they're in this relationship, and 8 months later they're like, ah, shit, what did I do? Maybe this was a big mistake. Um, but it's big of you to recognize that in yourself, but you've been with this woman for 17 years. Um, What is it? Or excuse me, 2 years, 17 years previously with the other one. So you've been with this new gal for 2 years now. Is there something going on that makes you say, oh shit, what have I done?

It's a long time. I mean, at this time, yeah, no kidding. Married. I mean, he's also an older guy. So why wouldn't they be acting? I mean, that doesn't seem too bad.

Is there something, Rob, that makes you say whoopsie? Just curious.

Or maybe she's telling him he's smothering her, you know.

He talks about the codependency. Maybe she told him like, you need to back off, dude. This is too much.

Yeah.

Yeah. Let's see. Uh-oh. Jack doesn't— Jack didn't like something. Actually, Jack, I was the one who said it originally that he says she lost all credibility. I presume you, uh, when she used the word mansplaining.— or should I say the non-existent word? Jack, let me say this again, coming from a dude who has a career dealing with and helping dudes, it's a thing. It's a thing in terms of men tend to be problem solvers, much to the chagrin of somebody who just wants to emote to them. You know, wife comes to you and says, "I can't believe what Margaret said at me to work today," and yada yada yada, and he's just like, "Yo, you know what you should do with Margaret?" Next time you see Margaret, you should sit her down and you should say this, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And she's like, "Stop trying to fix everything, damn it." That's like one example of it, but I hear it all the time too. Anytime I have any kind of like business thing or question, dude, I get emails all the time from men telling me how to do this thing better. This Dad Starting Over thing. "You know what you need to do? You need to—" And I'm just like, "Dude, I didn't freaking ask." I never hear that from women ever. It's just a very man thing and it's been labeled as people as, mansplaining. We shouldn't get our panties in a bunch, no offense, over somebody saying, you know, a little term. It's just what we use. It's a common thing that men do, just one of our little quirks. No biggie. No, um, Dwayne says, um, DPM, to you, uh, from your experience, is there enough discussion of sexual side effects of SSRIs, or is that a discussion avoided by medical providers because the condition treated, depression, is quote, more important. So are doctors and medical practitioners avoiding the whole, hey, you may have sexual side effects from the SSRI?

They are very much, but I mean, anybody with like 2 brain cells to rub together can Google that on the internet. It is kind of, you know how people are like, oh, women are like so shallow, they just get divorced because like the wind blew from the south that day, and that's like obviously bullshit. Well, it's like the same thing with SSRI side effect. People aren't going on antidepressants because they're like, oh, I just want to be 1% happier. No, it's because they feel like garbage. A lot of them are suicidal. They feel like they can't function. So in that context, when they go into their practitioner and they talk about being depressed and they're administered like the Beck Depression Inventory or like any other, you know, uh, Likert scale depression questionnaire and they hit for depression, even mild depression, they don't usually prescribe for it. But if you're at moderate depression, you're not having sex. First of all, you're not having sex anyway. Second, usually because you're too depressed. And second of all, yeah, I mean, it, it is, it is more important because women aren't just, you know, wives, they're also mothers. So like the most of the people that I see, and I'm sure that you see, are parents, and they're saying, I'm not functioning with the kids, or I'm yelling with the kids, I can't, like, I'm crying all the time, you know, things like that. So in that case, I do think that sexual side effects are less important, you know, than functioning in the world. But of course, if there are sexual side effects, which there always are— not always, but for many people there are— then you can come back and they can try you on something else, like a different med or something like that. But you know, while, uh, While of course we should talk about side effects, you don't want to deter somebody who's deeply struggling from getting help because of that. And I'm the most pro-sex person, like, ever. All my shit is about sex, to the point that Facebook, like, barely even shows my videos anymore because I say sex all the time. But if somebody is getting on an antidepressant, it's not just because, you know, it's fun. They're getting on it because they're very depressed. So, so yeah, I mean, I just do want to say that because some of the discussion sometimes is like, oh, women just go on that willy-nilly for no reason and then it gets rid of their orgasms and I'm fucked. No, she's going on it because, like, oh, and I'll tell you real truth, if women were just doing it, they would never, because SSRIs have weight gain and that is like the worst symptom for women. So you do not go on an SSRI unless you you really, really think that you need to, because no woman wants to gain weight.

Let me, let me address a couple of points there. You talk about anyone with a couple of brain cells and a computer can Google stuff. I'm sure you've seen this. It always amazes me how not proactive about their health people are. How many, how many guys tell me, I'm, I'm on something that my doctor gave me. What is it? I, I can't remember. It was It was either Prozac or it was— I don't— some Z unit, I don't remember. It's like, you gotta know what's going on in your body, dude. I mean, come on. Um, the second point is I do know for a fact that we have some doctors that are throwing those SSRIs at people just as, oh, you're a little sleepy, have you thought about Prozac? And you're like, uh, dude, I don't— I don't want to take a mind-altering drug because I'm a little sleepy. Maybe we should do a blood test, maybe thyroid, maybe something else is at play here. Oh, I got a lot of people on Prozac there. They do very well on it. That's— I've heard that from my own mental health— or not mental health, uh, general practitioner years ago. When I'm a little lethargic, not doing too good, tired, yada yada yada. Well, you're getting old. Okay, but maybe a blood test, maybe hormonal or something. You know, I've been doing a lot of reading. Oh, everybody's doing reading on testosterone. Prozac? I mean, I have a lot of guys on Prozac. And I was just like, wow, you threw that out pretty fast. And gals, you know, doctor just put me on this when I was 17 and no one ever told me maybe you should sleep better, maybe you should exercise, maybe you should eat better, maybe you should put down the phone, maybe you should stop smoking, maybe you should blah blah blah. Prozac.

And birth control is the same thing, you know. Oh, absolutely. You know, there's effects of birth control that are not discussed. I guess from who I see is already people that are going into the GP saying, I'm talking to a therapist 'cause I'm depressed. So then like, that's kind of like already, yes, you know, all right, you're depressed. But I guess, you know, there are certainly people that are just, if they go in and they say they're depressed and they're not functioning, then I say you try anything to feel like a functional human and parent and everything. But if, you know, if somebody's just suggesting it, then I think that that certainly isn't very good if you're not even depressed. I don't see that. Then again, I'm a psychologist, so I'm seeing different kinds of people that are already depressed, you know. That's true. Yeah.

Follow-up to Rob's previous thing about living with the girlfriend for a couple years, and, you know, he threw out the word codependent and other things. He, he says that she is telling me that exactly, that he's a little bit smothering, but spot on. So he's 2 years into relationship and his gal pal is saying, back off, dude, it's a little bit too much. And that made him, you know, his ears—

I mean, Rob, how old are you though? Because I say 2 years, a woman who's saying you're smothering at 2 years is not 2 months. So I would say that there is a lot of preoccupied and avoidant stuff going on here. Certainly you need to think about the ways that you may be smothering her. But also, if a woman doesn't want to be married, after 2 years at an older age and wants, you know, her own space. Maybe she really wants her own space. Maybe she would rather be a single person, you know, and maybe you're just going to replicate what happened in marriage number 1.

And you're going for another avoidant woman. A common scenario I hear, and we're talking about like, well, it's been 2 years, dude. Like, don't— haven't you figured this out earlier? But what I see for a lot of folks is a prolonged distance, period. You know, maybe she lives like an hour away or something like that, and they only see each other once a week. And then, hey, I'm moving to your town, let's see each other. Now we see each other all the time. Let's move in together. We've been together for a few years now, what the hell. And then, whoa, this changes the dynamic completely. Now that we're cohabitating, we see each other every day.

Avoidant people love long distance. Avoidant people love it, you know. And so then if that, if that changes, then they don't love it anymore. More, you know, they really like the every weekend, every other weekend stuff.

So Rob, my question to you is, did something change in the dynamic of the relationship that maybe is exposing her more quote unquote avoidant side to you? And in turn, your, your anxious, preoccupied side? Has something changed? Or is this all of a sudden she's just telling you like, you just need to back off, dude. But we're just hearing your side of the story. So it's tough to see, you know, exactly what's going on there. Mr. Ryan says, for both of us, how often should responsive desire partners be expected to initiate?

You mean the men, because that's the responsive desire partner, but continue.

Or is a responsive partner initiating like asking for a square circle? So in other words, he's asking something that— I know this guy.

He asked me the same question. Is that, um, what's the— I know him. I can't see the last name. What's the last name? Pope? Yes, haha, I remember. That's good. Okay, so responsive desire partner just means woman within monogamy. After a certain age, especially women, unless they're ovulating or the week leading up, are not going to sit around feeling horny. They have to start being touched and they have to start the interaction before they are going to experience arousal. They're not going around aroused while they're like doing the dishes, you know. So the responsive desire partner is the woman. Yes, women do initiate. Avoidant women don't initiate, but securely attached women and definitely preoccupied attachment women initiate. And so if you're looking for initiation and you've like— and she's never somebody who's done that. So women are not stupid. They understand, especially if you've been bludgeoning them to death with the information, that you wish that they would initiate. So it's like your kid saying, I wish that you would play Monopoly with me. So you're gonna play Monopoly even if you don't want to play Monopoly sometimes. You're not always going to play Monopoly. So she knows that you want her to initiate, so you have to think why she's not. A few things. She's either avoidant, she's really sex negative, slash race, religious, trauma, sexual abuse history, whatever. Um, or she not like happy, so she doesn't know why she would go outside her comfort zone to do stuff if you're not doing stuff outside your comfort zone that she's asking for, such as planning dates or reading a parenting book or being nicer to the kids or whatever the case may be. So those are the options, you know, and it's usually one of those options. And this is a—

it's— Ryan's question is framed in a very typical man way. It always tickles me when I hear men try to quantify everything and measure everything. So he literally says, how often should they be expected to initiate? A lot of men, they want to hear, it's good if she initiates 2.3 times per month on average, then you're in a good relationship. Oh, shoot. Okay, good. You know, there's no— everybody's different, dude. You know, some people are, "Hallelujah, my wife initiated once a quarter or once a year. I remember on our anniversary, she tackled me and it was the best thing ever." It's all over the place. So, this is a very, like I say, a very man thing, almost a very spectrumy thing to want to quantify and measure everything. But that's what I hear quite often. From men in my space is they want hard and fast numbers and rules so they can measure and see, is this good or not good? And they don't like to be told, I don't know, dude, it's all over the place. Mr. James says— Go ahead.

Well, I was gonna say, if the woman is more sex positive and she's more into the marriage, then she's gonna try to initiate more. Because I mean, it's easier, honestly, if you're a woman and you know when you're gonna be more responsive. You know where you are, like, in your head. You know if it's going to be a good encounter or not. So many women just initiate because it's honestly better than waiting for him to initiate because you're in control of it, you know. And so you know when it's going to happen and how it's going to happen. So that is when people work with, like, you know, like Heather— you interviewed Heather, my sexologist— or like you know, sex coaches or me or anybody, like sometimes women don't realize it would be better to initiate. Like they just think like, why would I initiate? It would be disingenuous because I'm not feeling aroused at that moment. But then we could be like, but you get to shower, you get to know when the kids are down or not, you get to do it the night before, you don't have to get up early for work, you would be in charge of the whole thing, and then he'd be off your case. And they're like, oh, you know, like they don't even realize because both men and women are under this stupid assumption that you're supposed to— like, it's supposed to be like a romance novel or something. Like, oh my God, I see him, he's so hot, and that's when I should initiate. He's your husband, he's so hot, it has nothing to do with anything. I just had a podcast that was like, whether or not you're attractive does not matter, you know, in this sense. And it meant the sense that you're in the 90% of situations that I see where the woman finds the man attractive. So he's attractive, so that's And so then her sex drive has zero to do with that.

And as a follow-up to that, Mr. James's question, he says, I was thinking the other day that dead bedrooms are like Pet Sematary. It's dead. You go on a journey, it comes back, but it's not the same. It's not dead, but it still ain't good. So in other words, James, you're of the impression that once it's dead, it's dead. And if you revitalize it, it's just kind of a quasi-alive. And it's just, it's never quite the same. For some, I can absolutely think so. I can see some poor woman going to a therapist and with her head in her hands and just like, "I guess I gotta initiate. Come on, husband, let's get this over with." And the husband's like, "Yay, great, that's what I always wanted." And to him, he's like, "Well, did you have sex last week?" "Yeah, twice. It was amazing. She laid there like a dead fish and just said, 'Are you done yet?'" Technically, that's the extreme example. But, you know, we've had some guys, every situation is different. I've mentioned that there's a small minority of people that the man's like, "I lost 70 pounds, and I finally started taking care of myself." And the wife's like, "Oh, thank God, I got my husband back." And then he's like, "We went from once a quarter to one, you know, 3 times a month, and I'm tickled pink. This is amazing." Great. But there are some that are There's so many factors here at play. It's not necessarily fair to try to categorize all these formerly dead bedrooms as always kind of damaged and yuck. Not necessarily. There have been couples, believe it or not, James, there are couples that were formerly dead bedroom that are now kinky as can be. Like, holy crap, something clicked with both of them and they rediscovered a sexuality within themselves. And it's like a sexual adventure for them. Everybody wants to know what's their secret. Everybody's a little different. Maybe the wife was always kind of, she had a little to her that she was too closeted, or if you will, and shamed to bring out, and something convinced her that it's okay to bring that side of me out, and yahoo, away they go. Who knows? Some people do take it to the far extreme, and they're like, we opened up the marriage, and that really did it for us. We did the whole swinging thing, and holy crap, that did it for us. Don't necessarily condone. You're opening yourself up to a lot of drama potentially there. But for some, that's the key. You got to find your own key there.

Yeah, dead bedrooms. There's all sorts of dead bedrooms. You know, I mean, there's a dead bedroom because the woman was co-sleeping with kids for 4 years. And then they go into their bed, bed, you know, their own rooms, and she's still 38 years old. And then the sex comes back. Or there's a dead bedroom where people basically didn't even have sex starting ever on their honeymoon. Even they were— the woman was raised super religious, she got molested when she was young, and they haven't had sex in 20 years. Are they coming back from that? No, they're not. They could save their time and money because they're not coming back from that. They can try to understand each other better and love each other, but is she gonna turn into a sexual— I, I wouldn't ever have seen that, you know. So, um, there's, there's so many different things with dead bedrooms. You know, they're just, they're not one animal. They're all different.

Yeah. Keeping with the theme here, Mr. Mike Garcia has a nice long question here. He says, I have a question, but first I want to give some background info. I have been withdrawing from my wife over the last month or two due to differences of opinion on physical intimacy and me feeling unwanted and essentially a roommate. I struggle with resentment and I tend to beat myself up with negative thoughts like, quote, she doesn't want you, or You're the afterthought, not the priority. And so I've been working on myself and just handling my needs myself and have to fight not to be bitter that I have to do it alone. I've brought up the issue multiple times, but it just turns into the typical 'that's all you care about' defensiveness. What else can I do to try and save my marriage? I love my wife.

Are they in couples counseling?

He says, I don't want to leave her, but I did sign up to get the— I didn't sign up to get the left leftovers from my wife. What does leftovers refer to? Um, are you saying she's—

yeah, that she has after she's taken care of everybody else.

I see, I see.

So I mean, yeah, what are they even doing? Are they—

how old are the kiddos? If you're going to say like 2 months because she had a baby 2 months ago, dude, if you're going to say it again, Mike, there's all kinds of— maybe you want to give us a little bit more detail. Been together so many years, we got so many kids, wife is so So many years of age. You know, it's funny when you get to these issues and you dig and then they, you know, how long has this been going on? I haven't done anything for 3 months. Did anything happen 3 months ago? Well, now that you think about it, her sister died. Well, that's kind of huge. Were they close? Yeah, it was her best friend in the whole world. She went into depression. She got on SSRIs. Okay, we're getting somewhere. Now we're, now we're starting to dig into—

or like, what's her side of the story? It would be interesting, Mike, to write from her perspective. What does she think is going on?

There's always two sides to every story.

Yes, probably not that she's like, oh my God, my husband's the most amazing, active, loving father and husband, and it's just me and my poor cold frigid vagina. Like, that's not gonna be— that's, you know, like, I mean, what the hell does she say?

Um, he did follow up to say, uh, he cooks, he helps around the house, he's an active father. So he's checking all these little I'm a good, uh, hubby dad boxes. And he's like, goddamn it, what else I got to do here? I did write a book on the topic, Mr. Mike, that you may want to try out if you haven't read it already, The Dead Bedroom Fix. Do a search, Google for that, you'll find it Amazon, Apple Books, and all this other stuff.

And you can try couples counseling, Mike, you can always try couples counseling.

And it's, you know, that's, that's always a plus. But for the guys that I speak to, it's like I suggested to the wife, and she told me to go to hell. You know, like, you're just doing that to get in my pants. Yada, yada, yada. But often it takes, you're about to lose your husband and your family over this. That's how serious this is.

They will really go, like, that's the thing. And then they'll be like, oh, the guy starts, they'll go because they want to tell their side of the story. They're like, what'd you tell her about me? Enjoy.

Here's a, here's a very open-ended question, Rob. Do either of you in your work run across double standards for people in relationships? What's that mean? Yeah, what do you mean by that exactly? I mean, sure, he or she is expected to do this but not the other. I mean, I guess, yeah, maybe, maybe get more detail there. Dwayne, speaking of romance novels, do you think there's any market for a romance novel series that followed one monogamous couple over an extended time and did not include any side pieces.

There's literary fiction about that, Dwayne. I mean, there's lots of literary fiction about that. It's not going to be a romance novel because people don't have romance for 40 years. And if it is like that, then it would be one book that would have all the highlights. And it's called The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks, and it's a massive runaway bestseller. At least it was 20 years ago, and it still is. But a romance novel is something that is basically not real. And so nobody's gonna live romantic minute to minute, day by day. But I mean, there's plenty of fiction about the evolution of a marriage over time. That's a very common, you know, frame for marriage. For example, Mr. Bridge and Mrs.

Bridge. I've never read or watched the movie The Notebook. I don't— I know of it.

Oh, it's good. Your wife would like it. It's like this—

I'm sure she's watched it. Is that the one where at the end she's dying or something? Or he's talking to it? My bad. All right, see, I know of the ending. My bad, spoiler alert. Would that come out like 30 years ago?

Um, Rocco, go ahead.

I always love— I always love the name Rocco. Uh, my wife got pissed that I wasn't wearing my wedding ring lately at work. Well, why weren't you? I lost some weight, my ring is very loose. Oh, well, there you go. I wear gloves and it's constantly slipping off. I'm afraid to lose, and she doesn't buy that. I'm not wearing it because I don't want to lose it. And she— oh, she's not— silicone ones.

I just solved your problem for $7.99 from Amazon. You buy yourself some silicone wedding rings, you say to her, I was wrong, and you put it on, and then nothing bothers you again. But I don't think that's the real problem. But if it is, then you just solved it.

Well, the her getting pissed about it kind of points to some insecurity on her I mean, if a man—

He's not wearing his ring anymore.

But he's like, look, it fell off. Here it is. It's in my pocket right here. Done. It's just because it came off at work on my glove. And she should be like, all right, that's cool.

Ask all of your DSO guys, especially on the main page, if their wife lost a bunch of weight and then she took off her wedding ring because it didn't fit.

Good point. Good point. The weight loss thing is the key component there, isn't it? Something's changed majorly in you combined with ring.

Yeah, very cheap options to replace that if you wanted to, especially for a man. Does not have to be a diamond ring. Come on.

Like, yeah, everybody's wearing those silicone ones now, especially blue collar guys that work with their hands all the time. Rob, I love the name Rob Uncensored from Facebook.

He says, oh, I know this guy. This guy comments on my thing.

Another healthy head of hair. How much do you— I'm always amazed by hair. How much do you— how much do you both think that current social dynamics in dating set up couples for failure? So what are the current social dynamics in dating? Do we have a template for the current social dynamics in dating? I kind of think it's all over the place. Are you saying that it's the grand theme overall in society is one— in the dating market is one that sets us up for failure? I mean, you go ask some 20-some-year-old,, it's going to be wildly different than you go ask some 47-year-old, both are on the dating market, what that culture is like. So which, you know, exactly what he referred to. Hey, maybe Rob Uncensored, maybe you can say, what are some things that you see? Maybe you can outline what the social dynamics are.

Rob Uncensored is a little younger than us. I think he's in his 30s. Oh, well, I don't know. Maybe it's just all that hair. Speaking of hair, here's Duane. But anyway, listen. Oh, Dwayne, go ahead.

You want to follow up on the dynamics thing?

No, I was gonna say Mike, it did exactly— that's exactly what we were talking about, Mike. So he followed up and he said that he was a POS. I assume he means piece of shit and not something in the teaching industry, for the first 5 to 6 years. And he was an alcoholic, but he's been sober for 7 years.

Oh, you're way ahead of me here on the comments.

Okay. I know, because I only see some of them. But Mike, that's what's going on. There's a lot of unresolved empathic— yeah, dude— bitterness and sadness, you know. She can't just flip on. So y'all definitely should be in counseling for sure, because this is the classic situation where this is now and she still has this whole history where she couldn't trust you. Piece of shit usually means you cheated, especially when combined with an alcohol problem. There's like a lot going on here, Mike. She cannot just turn it on. She just can't. 7 years of life to you, but not to her.

You know, there's this old trope of the, the wife who remembers every little slip-up of the man. And, you know, 30 years down the line, they'll have some kind of fight over something and she'll be like, well, why don't you go to your whore friend? He's like, that was 30 years ago when we were dating, you know, we weren't even married yet. But she'll remember that. So to think that just to think that several years ago you were an alcoholic and Well, 7 years ago you were an alcoholic. That, dude, that's yesterday. So I'm sure a lot of shit went along with it, piece of shit behavior and everything else. That ain't gonna just erase.

Right now, Mike, it's about half and half because you were a piece of shit for the first 5 to 6 years. Then I assume that's when you quit alcohol. So you've been sober for 7. So you've— and I don't know how long you dated for, but right now is the first time you've even gotten to that you were not a piece of shit longer than you you were a piece of shit. So, you know, she, she doesn't know, you know, she doesn't know. And I don't know what that entailed. So there's a lot of water under the bridge, and we cannot minimize her hurt in that situation.

Mr. James follow-up. He says, I agree, going from a dead bedroom like once a quarter to 3 times a month is a huge increase, but not what most men would consider adequate or satisfying. I think this is more the norm than not. The couple who who is now crazy hot and kinky, they're big outliers. I would agree. I mean, um, I— the re— there's a reason I sold so many of my stupid books, because it's a big freaking problem. A lot of guys are like, love my wife to death, she's great, but you know, once or twice a month ain't doing it for me. Hence porn, hence sex workers, and everything else that Samantha talked about earlier with your massage parlors and all. So there's— that stuff exists for for a reason, guys. The market's responding to a demand here. So this isn't anything new here, James. Would your contention be, James, that that is the norm for most couples is a dead bedroom? I don't necessarily know that's statistically correct. But James, it may surprise you that I do speak to some men that go, I would actually be completely cool with once or twice a month. I'm getting older. I'm tired. I'm, you know, whatever. And so the weeks go by that I really don't think about it because I'm 63 years old and I had prostate something and I had a stroke or who knows what the case may be. And yeah, that's cool with me. Those people exist. So it's all over the place. But probably if I went and polled a bunch of dudes and said, you're married, you're getting it 3 times a month, they would probably all go, mm, I guess. You know, it's all right, it's nothing to write home about. That's probably the general consensus you'll get. It's like, it's all right, um, you know, it's, it's no romance novel, that's for sure. Um, and Mike going on about worked hard, not perfect by any stretch, but he's looking for tips. Tips would be get to the bottom of what the hell's going on here, dude. And that, and this, and this is something, Samantha, I think that needs to be stressed more is especially in men that are so frustrated after years of this for a variety of reasons. They just want to fix this tomorrow. It ain't going to get fixed tomorrow, dude. And one of the things I push, and I don't mean to sound overly negative, is how long has this been going on? Well, 10 years of nothing, blah, blah, blah. And you're willing to stick it out? Yeah. It's going to take a lot more time. First of all, she has to say, you're right, problem. You're right. I got issues. You got issues. We both got issues. Let's go work it out. From what I've seen, it's relatively rare. There are a lot of women that are ready to go, eh, go fuck yourself. I'm not going to— well, you're going to lose your family. Fine, whatever. And men are kind of like, what? Fine, whatever. Really? That happens. That may be, but—

a lot of women want to be single.

But if she's like, I'm willing to work on this, Mike, or anybody else, prepare yourself to be even more patient. It's not going to get fixed tomorrow. It's not going to get fixed 6 sessions into it. It's going to get fixed. We may be talking a year or two of consistent work. You get worksheet or help, she gets help, you get help together, back and forth in consistent, consistent. And what I've seen is the patience runs out pretty quick for a lot of guys because there's so many years behind them of resentment and just this woman and her. And then here he is going to some therapy and she's just like, I just never think about it. I don't like this and I don't like that. I still resent him from a thing he did 15 years ago. And the guy's like, yeah, fuck it. So you have to not be an ah, fuck it kind of guy. You have to be Mr. Patient. That's what it takes. Not everybody's cut out for it, dude. Oh, here's a good one from Smurfing Smurfer on YouTube. Do you feel that spouses are obligated to have sex with their partner? If it's important to them? Go, Samantha. Me? Yeah. I'm not gonna—

Yeah, I mean, if they want to stay married, then sure. I mean, if you want to stay married, then doing things that are important to your spouse is important in any regard. It's part of the marital contract, not just sex, but anything really that your partner wants to do. Not all the time, but the same love as you would give to certainly a friend and definitely your children. But then again, many people do not want really to stay in an unhappily married situation. And that's what, you know, that, that's the truth, you know, is that many women would rather be divorced than have sex with this guy that they can't stand. And a lot of guys don't want to push them into that conversation because they know that that's what the woman is going to say. Bingo. That is— that, that's the truth. If, if she loves you and she's committed to you, it's very unusual for her to love you and be committed to you and think of you as a good guy and just like never ever ever have sex. Unless we are talking about postmenopausal vaginal atrophy, it hurts, she feels nothing like she used to. But if you're talking about like anything near a younger woman If she loves you, and also if we're not talking about extensive sexual trauma, then she will usually try, you know. But if she doesn't, then a lot of guys don't want to push the conversation to be like, I don't actually— like, it's much easier to talk— as hard as it is to talk about sex, it's easier to talk about sex than to talk about do we really love each other, because that's what it really represents is If somebody's not willing to ever go outside their comfort zone to do something that they don't want to do, do they really love the person? What is the definition of love then? You know, if your child was really into baseball and you never saw a baseball game because it's really not your thing, do you love your child? I don't know. It's like if a tree falls in the forest kind of question, you know. And, uh, many people would say you really don't love your child as much as you should. And in the situation with you'll never have sex with a man that if you love him and you're— and, and, and he's a good guy and you don't have extensive trauma, which some people have extensive trauma, which is very unfortunate, they have almost a panic response, and they don't have pain, well, I mean, then you're gonna be doing it. But if you don't really want to be with him and you think that you're just kind of in an implicit contract to stay together because both love the children until you can go your separate ways, then that's the situation where there's not sex, you know.

And let me add another layer of complexity to this. And I talked to these men, and I've mentioned, I've had, I've mentioned this in videos, and it doesn't go over well, especially with the ladies, is I will talk to the man and just say, what is it about your wife that you love? The wife that seems to be refusing you sex over all these years? What do you love about your wife? And I would fully expect them to be like, she's the kindest, sweetest, most amazing person. She's my partner in crime. Love her to death. Blah, blah, blah. You usually— I'll get the big uncomfortable pause. And I'm like, if you can't answer that, that's not good, my man. Like, this sounds like you got a serious problem here, yet you're bugging this woman for sex. So you're bugging a person that you really don't like all that much for sex. That's right.

And so then He knows it's only sex, so then why would you go?

Bingo. There's no connection there. There's no nothing. There's no warmth. There's no anything. You're literally using the woman as a device to relieve your pressure. She's a pressure valve releasing the steam. I'm about to go nuts here, woman. Can we just do it already? And that's literally the energy they're giving off. And I ain't good, dude. So if you're putting that, you know, so you want to put in some work. And so guys are like, oh, God work. Why? Because you don't like her all that much. If you don't like her all that much, let the woman go.

That's the truth. And that's the truth of anybody that's in a sexless marriage is— oh, and I have a podcast that's like, everything is fine in our marriage except sex is not right. You know, I have never yet seen that situation where they are miles apart on sex, but yet everything else is okay. No, it just isn't a thing. That isn't a thing. What sex is a proxy variable for is intimacy. And there is no like frequency. It's basically dichotomous. Like, can you— because you realize that the— I'm sure you do as you talk to a million people about it, but the people that are having sex like once, uh, every other month, that's like not sex. That's like people are getting drunk and they're like pushing themselves to do something so that they can and tell themselves that they're still married. That's not sex. But if you have like a sex life that's like basically at least once a week, and so regularly you are connecting, that's a sex life. So you are intimate, you're intimate with each other, you know. Sex is really a proxy variable for intimacy. There are very few people that are— that love each other, that really love each other, that will not ever have sex. Unless they're just not straight or they're asexual. I mean, there have to be extreme level variables. And sometimes guys do not want to hear that the extreme level variable is that she doesn't love him.

Yeah, or it's developed—

He doesn't love her and she knows it.

Yeah, or it's developed into some kind of almost quasi-platonic relationship of roommates, of siblings almost. It's gotten to that point because of variety of factors. There's still quote unquote love there, but not in the way that he wants and probably not in the ways that she wants.

But he's not in love with her often. That's some of the thing is he's, he's in love with the idea of love. He wishes that he was with a woman that he was very attracted to and very into, but he's not. So then he's trying to make this— he's trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, you know, and the relationship isn't, isn't that. It's just not that.

Always one of my favorite phrases, the silk purse, sow's ear. Good one. It's very old-timey there of you. It's like a, it's like an old lady in Kentucky kind of saying there. So, uh, Rob, following up to, uh, what he talked about with the gender dynamics, he's, uh, going into detail here. It says, typically traditional gender roles applied to modern dating: men initiating, almost always actively pursuing, and in doing so, not vetting their potential partners for compatibility. Why not? On a flip side, women being more passive in their approach to dating, primarily vetting but initiating— is parentheses— being taught they shouldn't initiate, and indirectly not expressing who they are, what they are about, etc. Did I make sense?

So I, I mean, I mean, that led to the feminist revolution, right? Because a whole bunch of women were married to guys that they couldn't stand, and vice versa. Men were cheating, women didn't give a shit. I mean, you're talking about a very 1950s sort of old school thing where women are trained to not ever show their cards, and people get married very quick because that's the only way they could have sex. I mean, you know, that wasn't good. No, I don't think that was good. That led to, um, you know, the books like The Feminine Mystique, where women feel like completely unfulfilled, you know. I don't think that that was a positive. I think that both people being more active participants in dating is certainly better. I like the dating apps, obviously worked for me, you know. But I, I think that asking a lot of questions and coming to the table with who you are and being open about, you know, what you're into, who is, is great vendors.

So if I'm putting words in your mouth, Rob, I think what you're saying here is, if I'm understanding you, is what Samantha just described as people actively doing this and being open and etc., and mature about it, is not the norm in your experience. You're seeing the opposite, where it's men initiating but not really caring about that deep down stuff, the vetting, women being very passive, like, eh, whatever. Um, but so you just see all that just thrown out. Well, Maybe that's indicative of you need to be with better people. I don't know, or people more compatible with yourself. Um, here's a good one. Mr. James again says, Samantha talks a lot about responsive desire. This is a good one. But what if she will have sex, but she obviously isn't actually desiring her husband? In other words, she's just going with the motion. She's happy to do it for him, but she doesn't really desire it. And it's obvious. That's the key there. Her responsive desire isn't responding. So, you know, men that have more of a— I don't know if this is a proper term— emotional intelligence, they, they're able to read a room and so forth, can pick up on the whole, this isn't what the wife would like to be doing at this moment. And when a man picks up on that, he's just like, oh, God, now I feel like a total dirtbag. Basically, I'm— she's going through the motions just to— I know this is what he wants. Whatever, go ahead. Oh, you want me to flip over? That's fine. And as soon as he picks up on that, he's just like, oh God, what am I doing? And it's an instant mood killer and an instant whatever. So I always tell men, if you're getting that she's staring at the ceiling and looking whatever and you don't feel like it's right, then by all means stop and go, are you okay? You know, you need to talk about something because you just seem really out of it. If there's— if you don't want to do this, we don't have to do this. I should be like, well, if— and then she'll say something effective. Well, if we wait till I want to do it, then we're never going to do it, mister. It's like, oh, ouch. You don't want to hear that from your wife. But so a lot of guys here. Sure.

Yeah, there's just so much. I mean, it's so based on the age, the stage, the intention. If you just can't— if you get to a stage or— so let's say that the woman was very depressed and she got on SSRIs. Arise and she can no longer have an orgasm, which anorgasmia is a side effect, right? But she's doing well otherwise, and she wasn't doing well before, and she understands that it's important to have sex. Well, would you want her to fake? I mean, does she want her literally to fake an orgasm? Probably not. If she does something with love, you know, there are guys who are like super, super, A, anxious, and B, have no idea basically what long-term monogamy looks like. So then they think everything's supposed to look like porn. A lot of those guys, by the way, do a lot better after they get off of porn because it's no longer crowding up their neural pathways about like a 20-year-old woman screaming in ecstasy when you take your pants off, basically. And like instead they are like, all right, this is nice. It's like a version— she's saying I love you, you know. So if she's happy to do it for him is the keyword that indicates to me that his expectations may need to be reset given maybe her age, meds, where her body's at. Maybe she's— maybe she's nursing, maybe she's pregnant. I don't know how old this dude is, you know. And so there's multiple variables. Now, if she is just laying there and not even responding and it's just like bracing herself for impact, then no, you shouldn't have sex like that. But many women do not literally intelligent women do not understand that that is not okay. The guy— the same guys who use sex as a pressure release have trained women to think that sex is a pressure release. So they say, if I am gifting you my vagina for the moment, what else is there here, you know? And maybe the man himself, as a younger man— and I hear this a lot, by the way— men were just doing a 5-minute encounter when they were younger. They didn't know any better. They didn't have a smartphone or access to lots of porn and, you know, Reddit forums on kinky marriages. And so they did just roll over and penetrate her, and that was pretty much it. And she's still doing that now, 20 years later. But now he thinks that it ought to look very different after he's done with his multi-hour edging sessions on Pornhub, you know what I mean? So it's like a different feel. And she's like, what happened to the guy that just wanted to use my vagina? That's who I signed up for. We're not very kinky, crazy people. So there's that much more than you realize. Oh, sure.

I mean, the whole— one of my catchphrases is, you trained her to be that way, or she trained you to be that way over the decades of a marriage. And suddenly you're like, why are we this way?

Yes. And I do see the impact of a lot of porn on that, where the woman is like, he has changed. You have no idea what it's like to be in bed with him. I don't know where he's getting it from. I assume he's getting it online, but he's a totally different guy. It's terrible.

You know, now here's a very, here's a very blunt, crass, not nice take on this, James. If that is in fact your situation, and you're looking down at a wife who would much rather be knitting than doing that at the moment, and she's pretty blunt about it, some women are not very nice about it. And that sincerely bothers you, then you need to weigh, I guess, against all the other stuff. How much does it bother you? Does it bother you to the point of, I think it's girlfriend time, or I think it's divorce time, or let's sit down with the wife and talk about different alternative relationship dynamic time? Then go for it. But what I find for a lot of men is they go, oh no, no, no, no, it ain't that serious. I'm not about to cross that bridge. That's an anxiety-producing thought. No, we'll just— I'll just piss and moan for the next 30 years. I'd rather go down that route. It's like, well, then apparently it's not that important to you because that's what it takes. Yeah. You know, I forgot to ask you, Samantha, at the top of this, if you need to be out of here by a certain time. I want to respect your time.

Oh, when I get tired enough, I'll tell you. All right.

You heard it here, folks. So, so no time limit. Are there any Hollywood films? Hearsay wants to know. That portray a realistic long-term marriage? It wouldn't be—

it wouldn't be very exciting to watch. Yeah, like, I don't know, like, I was trying to think of that. And the most realistic ones are about conflict or dissolution. Because who the hell wants to see two people that are 50 years old going to the farmer's market? I mean, like, who does? Nobody's gonna pay to see that. So there has to be, in a, in a movie, in a book, anywhere, there has to be a conflict, a central drama. And for there to be a central drama, that's not most marriages, because marriages between healthy, securely attached people, which thankfully are 50 to 60% of marriage at this stage of the game, as it goes long term, they do their own things. They are dealing with their jobs, their children, so much. And they come together, they go on date night, they have sex, they like each other. But that's not like what a movie would talk about. So, you know, movies— when people, people try to say this, and I really understand why Hearsay is saying this, because I'll bet you dollars to donuts that he, like us, like many, were raised in a dysfunctional home and doesn't really have a template. So in that case, Hearsay, I say that there should be different books that you read There's like John Gottman's Seven Principles of Marriage, um, like books like that that are more, um, non-fiction that kind of say, oh, this is what a healthy marriage looks like. I have even my podcast, I have what does a healthy post-honeymoon stage marriage look like on the Dr. Psych Mom show. So like, that's some, you know what I mean? Because people really do come to me, Ralph, they have no idea what the template is. They, because their parents didn't show them one. You know, so they have no idea what a healthy long-term marriage looks like. So then they try to look at media, and they're trying to like gather various sources that could tell them, you know. Good question.

Hearsay. So any, anything else? Did I miss anything? Oh, wait a minute. Hold on. Hold on. Hello, Doc and DSO. Hello, David. Mr. Max says kids 7, 5, and 3. When we've talked about it, she claims that none of our peers are having much sex. Men hear that all the time from their wives. How valid do you think that is? Most of my close friends are either childless or have kids and almost in college, so I can't validate otherwise. So yeah, a lot of guys that I talk to, your anxious preoccupied pursuer types, are going after wifey, and wifey just like Cool it, mister. You're wanting sex all the time. Newsflash, nobody's having sex. None of my friends have sex. None of my friends are doing the blowjob thing. That's way out there porn stuff. Nobody does that. Nobody's doing it. It's a very common thing you hear from Miss Avoidant or Miss Cold Fish.

I have a podcast on it and the title is Why Do All of Your Wife's Friends Also Have Low Intimacy Marriages? And because it's such a common question. And the reason is that avoidant people go to avoidant people, you know, like they just— it's called, you know, social homophily, and the like goes to like. So you and I are sitting here talking about sex, but you know, that's— both of us are interested in relationships and sex, so we're talking about it. If I always had a fly fishing channel, then you wouldn't have invited me to be a guest, right? So it's kind of like that with friendships. So the same women that are kind of a little bit get anxious and constricted and roll their eyes at the same things become friends. And those are the women who generally are going to be lower, you know, libido and, and low open-mindedness. Open-mindedness would be the— would be the defining trait. You know, closed-minded people don't have sex as much. And I just saw the statistic that over 66% of marriages of 50 and older still do have an active sex life. So the majority of people are still having sex and the minority are not. But as you get older and older, obviously fewer and fewer people are having sex because, I mean, at 90 years old it's hard to have sex. So, you know, things do go down. So, you know, but not— certainly not everybody is not having sex by any stretch. And about 20% of women are are the higher libido partner in their marriages too, you know. So that'll really throw your wife for a loop to know that, you know.

Just curious if you think there's a cultural component in terms of, uh, we know that a lot more women are out-earning husbands now. We know a lot more women are in the corporate world, and I don't know if scientifically that attracts a certain type. In other words, if I'm a high-powered female attorney, am I more apt to be avoidant than if I were a schoolteacher.

They're more apt to have sex. More apt to have sex. Oh yeah, the very successful women that I work with, I work with a lot of successful female entrepreneurs, lawyers, doctors, they're more likely to have sex because they understand, they're more educated. So they know that that's like, they're, and they're more liberal because they have more education. Our institutions are liberal. So either way, they know that sex is part of a happy marriage and a successful marriage, and that's part of being a whole, well-rounded human. So they understand that, and therefore they want that to continue to be part of who they are. It also indicates vitality, youth, success, you know, like it, it's a, it's a proxy for a lot of things. So I in fact get a lot of women who out-earn their husbands, and the husband is sitting on the couch and he's addicted to video games and he's he's overweight, and she's very upset because she still wants to be having sex.

And don't discount the biological component of— I think a lot of hyperachieving, aggressive women probably have the different hormonal makeup, higher levels of testosterone than your average gal.

So that may be a part of it as well, because keep in mind, they're also the ones that are like doing fucking triathlons and shit. Like, if you're successful, you just have more energy. And I've you talk about that too. And that's the same for women. And if you have more energy and you're more open-minded because you're getting feedback all the time and all of this, you know, you're just out in the world more, you're engaging with more men too. That kind of keeps you a little bit, you know, like, uh, relevant and primed and, uh, want to be attractive and want to be taken, you know, as an attractive woman. There's like women working outside the house is like, you know, much better for feeling like you're kind of like alive and in the world. When you don't want to have sex is when you've been in the same sweatpants for 3 days with children at home and you haven't seen anybody and there's no point to be attractive at all. And you're exhausted and all you do is scroll on your phone. Those are usually the lower intimacy women.

I'm trying to think of our little social group, my wife's friends, she tends to befriend a lot of other women that are type A professional types. Like, one is a fellow surgeon, one's a dentist, one's a, shoot, what is she? Oh, a pharmacist. And they're all pretty successful, well-paid women. And all of them but two are very probably sex negative. Like, we just don't do that. We don't. And the men that they're with are— and you hate to say it, and I hope they're not watching this— kind of your typical kind of meek men. Probably a lot of couch sitting, a lot of yes dear types. And you look at them and you go, oh, we know who's wearing the pants in this family. Those are the ones where the wife's just like, no, we don't do anything. And my wife's like, really? No, nothing. I mean, I never do that.

Well, again, though, there's a massive confounding— there's a massive confounding variable, which is that the women that I see are choosing to see me, and I'm very sex positive. So you've got basically a successful woman who's choosing to go see Dr. Psych Mom that talks about sex on the internet, and they usually think of me as some sort of a peer, you know, and therefore they— that's social homophily too. So I am probably going to see women who say, oh look, we're both successful women that are sex positive. So that's kind of a different thing.

The most— the, the my wife shares all these stories with me. Her two most sex-positive friends are diametrically opposed. We have highfalutin doctor, and then we have stay-at-home mother. Those two friends are the most sex-positive, with probably the edge going to the stay-at-home mom. She brags often about how often she and her husband get it on. And my wife has to, of course, tell me the stories. Like, oh my gosh, you wouldn't believe what Mary said. Not Mary.

Yeah, well, I mean, it can be, it can be totally in any in any demographic.

There's no real pattern there.

And there's, there's not a pattern with jobs or not jobs. I of course see more people who are, you know, successful and, uh, that want to see me and whatever, that feel a kinship with me. But I will tell you what goes along with the personality-wise is usually open-mindedness. That is the variable. That's what I tell you. If they are dating— and I even have a podcast on this you want sex positive or high libido? Sex positive any day of the week over high libido. High libido can fade. It will fade. The person will die eventually. Life is only so long, you know. But they can remain sex positive till the end because that's an attitude. You know, there are sex positive asexuals. Did you know that?

Sex positive asexuals. So how do you define sex positive in that?

An asexual is somebody that's never really attracted to anybody to have sex them. They don't understand, but they think sex is like a good thing. They don't have any problem with anybody having sex. They don't have problems with sex on TV. And, and within a committed relationship, they may even have sex because they're so sex positive. They probably respond like James's wife over there, but you know, they would have sex. So even a sex positive asexual, you could get laid more than the— than a low libido, uh, or then a regular non-asexual sex-negative person. A sex-negative person thinks it's disgusting. They're closed-minded about it. They think things are gross. They get the ick, which needs to be taken out of our parlance. It's awful. And you know, it's— that is the person that you cannot get to do anything because they never go outside their comfort zone, never because they're closed minds.

So for my, uh, for my quantifying men out there watching this, like, is there a way for me to give a test, a personality test, to my potential partner to see what it's going to be like in the future? I'd probably lean heavily on the openness as far as the personality trait is concerned. If they're low in openness, warning, warning, warning.

For sure. And I also have my post 10 Signs That, Um, a Woman Like Will Stop Liking Sex After Marriage and Kids. Number one is squeamishness. See, that's how you did good, because you married a doctor. They can't be squeamish. That's right. You know, with all sorts of crazy shit. But if you have like a woman who's like, ew, something over there is dirty, ew, it's the day after the milk was the expiration date, ew. No, she's just having sex with you because she's in heat and it's the honeymoon stage. But when the heat recedes, she recedes. Oh wow.

I like referring to humans as in heat. She's in estrus, as they say on the nature shows.

If men thought about it more like that, they'd be so much more realistic about things.

James follows up with a question of, do women realize that they are low libido out of relationships? Do they see that they have a way higher libido when they start a relationship than it normally is? Oh, I see what he's saying. So I know what he's wrong.

James, let me explain to you something. When women are— have a high libido, they have their highest possible libido because nature is making them want to meet a man. Why would they meet a man if they never felt horny? So this is the thing that men don't understand about the honeymoon stage. So, okay, let me walk you through, James, what it's like. So a woman is like, let's say she goes through puberty, her sex drive ramps up, she's like 16, 17, 18. She feels so excited by everything all the time, you know, every boy is hot and cute and everything. She's single, right? But let's say that she gets into a relationship. She's like 18 years old, she gets into a 4-year relationship over time with her high school boyfriend. If she's a lower libido woman, even, even at that young age, she's going to want it less and less because that's the honeymoon stage. At the end of that though, She's basically kind of what she's going to be when she's married. But does she think that? Certainly not. She's only 22 years old. She thinks that guy got very boring. I remember, like, who I really am was the girl who was 16, 17, and I thought everybody was so hot and cute and I was having so much fun. So then she dates around, and of course her libido goes back up because she's looking to breed subconsciously. So she meets the next guy, and then after 2 years— honeymoon stage is usually 1.5 to 3 years— again it goes down. She's like, this wasn't Mr. Right either. Could you imagine? Then she meets another guy at the time where everybody else is getting married. He's even cuter than the other ones, and so she thinks this is it. Gets married at the 2-year mark, and the first year they are screwing all the time because remember, she's still in the honeymoon stage then. Then after that, an empathic rupture of some sort. He does something insensitive, libido drops, and she blames him. But now she's married and she never understands about the honeymoon stage. She never understands her natural monogamous libido is fairly low because when the single one is high for everybody, and that's what happens. That's what happened to your wife, James. That was worth the price of admission even though this was free just by itself. That's what happens, guys. Jesus H.

Christ, Amanda, that clip alone right there will make a lot of men— how do you think a lot of men will respond to that? Let me ask you that.

Oh, with the hatred and you know, irritation and DMs about how stupid I am, as usual.

No, no, I don't think so. I think they would probably like what you have to say. And they would prop you up as a very— what's the term I'm looking for— kind of a red pill-ish kind of take on the monogamy game. And a lot of women won't like to hear that.

If the red pill means aware of biology, and as you say, estrus, then sure. But the reality is, is that this is just— and the other thing is too, men are the same. When men are single, they're horn dogs. They're not sitting there gaming in their fucking, like, torn underwear. They're, like, alive and fun and going and active and doing shit. So all young mammals trying to breed are at their very most attractive, energetic, and horny.

This is what Candace says here. Candace answers the question. She says, what men will say is that there is no upside to marriage.

Oh yeah, they say that to me all the time. Do I care about those men? You know, I mean, they shouldn't get married. If a man thinks that he's getting married to have hot sex like he did when he was 25, he's world's biggest fool, right? I mean, I feel for him, but that would just be like if a woman was getting married so that would continue to play a boombox outside her window, like, and say anything, you know. It's not gonna be— he's not gonna stay as romantic, she's not gonna stay as sexual. The reason that, um, people like to get married still— and of course the rates are dropping, as they should, so that people don't get divorced and have kids that they don't end up seeing and don't want because they're so unhappy. So I do think that only the happiest people with each other should get married and the people who know the most about marriage. But anyway, point being, like, if, if you are— if you grew up seeing a secure and healthy marriage, then you know you're not following me or you. Those people are like, oh, our marriage isn't as exciting anymore, but we love each other so much. Look at our beautiful children. I'm focusing on my job, she's focusing on her job. Our friends, we're in a building stage in our community. Oh, look, we're gonna hang out with the neighbors and go to a barbecue. Yes, we still want to have sex, but of course we're not having sex like we did when I was literally living in my frat house and she was my drunk girlfriend. Of course we're not, as I know from my own parents who are not acting like that but still love each other very much.

I think what works against it— so to encapsulate what you said is like, if you, if you come from a healthy background, you would innately know a lot of this stuff. You wouldn't need a Samantha or somebody to teach you this stuff. It will just come naturally to you. And I agree, what works against that— so you have that, you know, the template of I've watched mom and dad, they were very healthy, and then grandma, grandpa, and extended family, and I saw aunts and uncles. So I got a good barrage of information throughout my childhood and adolescence of this is how relationships are. But then that's not the only influence. Then you have outside influence. In the term— in terms of, um, easy availability of sex, pornography, all these other things that kind of tell Mr. Secure, I was raised in a good environment, and if he's a catch, he is getting sexual fulfillment pretty easily. Probably a lot easier than what it used to be, you know, pick up the dumb phone and flip through it and just say, I like her, let's meet on Wednesday. And like, well, that was easy. It's very difficult. I don't care how wholesome, nice, kind, what a good-hearted man he is, it's a very tough sell to tell that man to give up the easy sexual gratification for a long-term relationship. We really have to sell him on, um, sure, easy sexual gratification is great, and yes, it checks a lot of boxes for you, young man, but It's, you need to set that aside for this. And the sales job for this isn't, oh, by the way, it's, you're not going to get much sex compared to what you had before. I mean, you got to be honest here, we got to, he's gonna be like, well, I did get it. And I do want it more.

And so good though, for people that cannot, that are not ready to hear that not to get married, that would be the best possible thing, you know.

But the problem— I agree, but the problem is, Samantha, is that— and I did a video where I gave the illustration of if I was in a football stadium with like 100,000 single dudes and I played your video of the last 5 minutes, what percentage of the single dudes do you think would get up and march out that stadium and just say, fuck this?

They wouldn't believe it. That's the thing. And that's when people say they wouldn't believe it. Young people, they wouldn't believe it at all. They would say, oh no, not my girlfriend, she gave me head 3 times today and she will forever. And she— I asked her and she said, oh, of course I will be. And she meant it because he's just the cutest guy in the whole world and she's in estrus. So there is no danger of young people listening to old people, as there never was. So So, you know, it's hardly going to be a game changer. I do think that as a parent, you have an obligation to teach your children about the honeymoon stage and what it looks like to transition into a more mature love. And there are, again, 50 to 60% of men identify as happily married. And that is no coincidence that that is the same number as are securely attached.

Very good. And we're missing some questions here. Just like I've heard Ralph Brewer say, you can't beat that biological new love feeling, the Coolidge Effect, in other words. Yeah, there is a— to oversimplify it, when you are in love and you are in that honeymoon stage and all, whatever we want to call it, the limerence, you're under a spell. Yeah. And Mother Nature is— Mother Nature has instilled that mechanism within you for a reason. Make babies, make babies, make babies. And it has instilled a follow-up mechanism, which is your job is done now. You can go over there, dude and woman. You can go over there. You're done. And we have to fight that. And who fights that? Are people that have those skills in place and the know-how. And they watch mom and dad and they realize how to, quote, stay close together.

Right, and they also focus on, on other things, other things, you know. I always say now is the time to build your career, to build your social network, to be— to throw yourself into being a parent, hobbies, community engagement. There's so many other parts to being an adult than, you know, sex. I wanted you to be able to use that clip, so I didn't say the other word. Yeah, no, I mean, there's many other parts to being an adult. And that's what, like, I mean, that's what you do with your frat, that's what I do as a therapist. When people are too obsessed with their sex life, it just doesn't work. It just does not work. And there's always a reason. They didn't get enough needs met growing up, they're addicted to the validation of it. It's, it's not like just all men get like addicted to porn. That isn't a thing. It isn't just all men. No, it's like, just so people don't get addicted to cocaine, so how the hell would they get addicted to porn?

You know, I think sometimes though, the simplest answer for why are you so— why is that so on your mind so much? And I think the knee-jerk thought for a lot of guys, and they're not wrong, is, well, because I haven't got it for so long. If we go without it for so long, it is front and center, and that is all we think about. It is, what am I going to eat for lunch?

And sex. Sure. And for most anxious guys, they could be getting it 5 times as much. I see it in my office. And they're still— and they're— and now they're like, the quality is wrong.

Oh, I— yeah, I've seen the, uh, we went from once a month to 5 times a week. Hallelujah, dude, you made it! Yay, Ralph Brewer! Well, but it's boring. She won't do anal. It's okay.

Yeah, she won't do anal. She won't dress up. She won't involve third.

It's never enough. There's that guy, sure.

By the way, unfailingly addicted to porn, those guys, and also very, very, very anxious, and often with childhood trauma such that nothing is ever good enough and nothing is ever enough. The same as women when they want the husband to be more romantic. He plans a date night, he brings her flowers. Well, but he didn't compliment me on XYZ. Nothing is going to be enough. There is a hole from growing up that is not filled.

And then Rob says— it's worded a little funny. If I'm understanding you, Rob, basically what you're asking is, um, what is it about the older women that are still highly sexual, that are in a highly sexual relationship? What is it that drives them to be that way? Oh dude, it could be a myriad of things. It could be their biology. It could be, uh, they're just in a— they really click with their spouse. It could be they're very sexually open personality, very open, all kinds of things. Like I said, I've known men that are not sexual at all. They're just like, it's an afterthought for them.

My favorite is the guys that say that I'm wrong about the sex drive going down with age. And one of them was literally like, all the 40-year-old women that I meet at the bar are really into sex. I'm like, okay, So that's a variable, you know. Of course, if you are single and looking for a man, you're going to be all hyped up, you know, when you're 40, when you're 20, whatever. It's not gonna be the same in your 40s when you're 20, but whatever. Also, of course, some women do get off birth control at that point, and you know, there's all individual differences. But the point is, women that are highly sexual usually still have responsive desire within monogamy. They are— they have a self-concept as sexual person. They consider that to be good and healthy. So they're trying, you know, there's no effortless, you know, 45-year-old women that after 20 years of marriage are just begging for sex the same as they used to 20 years ago. Like, every day. It's just not like that. Isn't real. That is from MILF porn. And it's not real.

Wow. All right. Yeah. And you know, what, to confound it, to pile on to the confusion. For example, I'll post something about menopause. And a civil war will break out amongst women in the comments where this woman says menopause doesn't exist. Wonderful. And then this next woman will say post-menopause, I've been hornier than ever. And all my friends are the same.

You know why, though? You know why? Why? That's the first time that a lot of women get on hormone replacement therapy, and some of them don't even know that there's testosterone in the pellet. They just think it's like, or just like what you talk— no, I, I—

or they're the one of 100 women that naturally have some kind of hormonal fluctuation temporarily that makes them horny.

Yeah, women that talk about sex in the comments and how sexual they are in particular on the comments, there's like a large overlap between that and attention-seeking behavior, obviously. Obviously, um, you know, so, and who the fuck knows if they're telling the truth or not. But I will tell you, just because it is funny, that there are some women that are basically on testosterone. They don't even know they're on testosterone. More excited, for sure.

You cut out there for like the last 5 seconds or so. If you want to—

those ones are going to be more excitable women that are on testosterone for the first time. Oh, sure, absolutely. But I think I'll take like a couple, maybe one more question, and then I think that's another thing.

In my wife's world, in the medical world, she has a lot of nurses that she's around, and for whatever reason, the nurse population tends to be probably more open sexually.

I don't know if that's a thing or not. Squeamish. Not squeamish.

There you go. I didn't think about that. Um, but a lot of pellets being thrown around in that world. And my wife hears the stories like, "Oh boy, I'm a new woman." And so, oh yeah.

And if you have no side effects, then great. But a lot of women do, you know.

Oh, there's, you can have some very serious virilization side effects of facial hair and all kinds of, you know, clitoromegaly. I don't want to get into that.

All kinds of stuff. Aggression, irritability, bloat, migraine. I mean, there's a lot of stuff, but if it works for women and they're feeling like $10,000 and they're like has the sex drive of a 17-year-old.

More power to them. Yeah, more power. Rob will have the last comment here. He says, very true about the hormone therapy.

How he spelled that. That's a good one, Rob.

That's a good one.

Yeah, for real, Rob. And you can always tell people that are on that, women that get on testosterone, it's like who it works for. It is like They're like, oh, what's wrong with women that they don't want to give oral 7 times a day? I don't understand. And it's like everybody else is like, who are you? What are you doing?

And what you hear out of a lot of those women is, I'm more in tune with a lot of these men that I've been talking to over all these years. I kind of get it now because now I look around and I see things in a sexual way that I didn't. Yes.

100%.

All right, well, let's wrap it up. Dr. Psych Mom, do a search throughout the internet, social media for Dr. Psych Mom, drpsychmom.com, Best Life Behavioral Health. Did I get it right?

Yes, you got that right. Thank you. On the Dr. Psych Mom Show, on my podcast, everywhere where you listen to podcasts.

And search for, uh, Dad Starting Over everywhere, all the social media, podcast, dadstartingover.com. The DSO fraternity is the name the name of our private group for men only. If you're a dude who wants to work with other men on self-improvement, that's the group for you. Check it out. So, Dr. Psych Mom, that was a good one. Almost 2 hours.

I know.

You get a lot of content out of this one. I probably got like 20 clips.

I hope you do. I like when you tag me in them. That's very good. They're always good. All right. Thank you so much, Ralph Brewer.

I always thank you. We'll do it again soon. Thank you guys for joining us today, and we hope you Have a wonderful— we're coming up on the weekend, so it's Easter weekend. So, all right guys, thanks so much. See ya.