Chat LIVE With Ralph (DSO)!

All right, all right, all right. Welcome everyone, welcome. It's your boy Raffalito. Mr. Ralph Brewer, aka DSO Dad Starting Over, coming to you live from— very professional with my sound effects there. Sorry about that. Still getting used to this machine that I've had for 4 years now. How is everyone today? Welcome, welcome. I'll give a little bit for folks to stream in here, as I always say. Uh, we are live out on Facebook. We are live on YouTube, uh, and Twitter, or X. So let me know where you're joining us from. Say howdy. Let me, um, let me know where you're joining us from, like in the world. That'd be cool to know. Always cool to, um, uh, see where everybody's from. We have people from Australia joining us often, Europe and all over the US, Canada. So welcome wherever you're from. Hey, there's Mr. Tyler Durden. Hear you loud and clear. Thank you, Mr. Tyler. Mike says first one. Oh, but you're not. Tyler beat you to it, Mike, at least as far on my screen. Oh, Mike joining us from X. Oh, hey, how cool. We don't see that very often. Mr. Dorian Hernandez. I say that as a Spaniard. Dorian Hernandez, or Hernandez, as you would say in American speech. From Orlando. Bienvenidos, Mr. Dorian. Welcome. Mike ADHD, parentheses, ADHD guy. Sensing a pattern here, Mike. Tell us more. Um, cool. Welcome. If you may not know, Mike, I, uh, attract a lot of men from what we call neurodivergent or neurodiverse world, which I'm sure, as you're probably way more versed in than I am, includes the ADHD world as well as the guys on the autism spectrum, OCD. Um, what else does it include? Uh, I'm drawing a blank right now. Several things, interesting things. But we have a lot of guys in my audience and in our private group for men only that we call the HFM Brotherhood. Let me bring that up here. Mm-hmm. Oh man, look at this. Wabah! HFM Brotherhood is our private group for men only, and you can learn more at helpformen.com. If some of you are like, wait, what? Help for Men? What happened to Dad Starting Over? Dad Starting Over. Still here, obviously. You're watching this on a Dad Starting Over channel, probably. Um, I'm still pumping out a lot of content for the Dad Starting Over brand, but we are under what we call the umbrella, or we are a part of the Help for Men network, and you can learn more at help4men.com. We have rebranded our private group, used to be called the DSO Fraternity. Now it's now under Help for Men, and it's called the HFM Brotherhood. So check it out. You can buy all of our books on Help for Men. Courses are coming soon. We are rebranding them so they fall under the Help for Men brand. And then, uh, what else? In our private group I mentioned already several times, um, from Pittsburgh. We got Pittsburgh, we got Minnesota. There's our Australian, Mr. Tyler Durden. Welcome, Florida, all over. Welcome everyone. Mr. Uh, Dainis, is that how you pronounce your name? Welcome, sir. Um, looking good from YouTube. Another follicly challenged gentleman. Solar-powered sex machine, as I call them. What's the joke my dad always used to say? My dad was bald. Um, hmm, God only made so many perfect heads, the rest he put hair on them, or something to that effect. And there's Mr. Paul from Wisconsin. Welcome, Paul. Cheese curds and beer, am I right, Paul? Welcome. Um, here we go. I'm going to put— I'm going to test this out. Bear with me, guys, if if this doesn't work correctly. Okay. Oh, this is a placeholder comment overlay. Well, that's not what I want. I want to do— you know, shitballs. Pardon me, guys. Just me. There we go. Now let's try this again, shall we? All right, can't read that. Or can you? No, you can't. I can't read that. Can you guys read that? I can't read that. Hmm, let's do this. Can I fix that? Let's see, shall we? You guys are all learning along with me. Oh, look at that, huh? Is it better? Uh, Mr. Paul from Facebook says, it's me and my wife's 3-year anniversary today. Last week, Monday, she said she wanted a divorce and she didn't love me anymore. And then yesterday she said she wanted to see me again. I'm on the other side of the state we live in. What do I do? Well, Paul, allow me to play the part of Mr. Cynical, Mr. Know-it-all, Mr. Guy Who's Heard This a Few Hundred Times, Mr. Guy Who Has Lived Through This. Thank you very much, Mr. Paul. What I'm about to say may upset you, but I have enough experience that if I had, if somebody put a gun to my head and said, you have to guess what's going on here, I'd say, well, if I had to guess, if I'm being forced to, if I had to wager some money on this, she's exhibiting behavior of somebody who, I'm dancing around, trying to— I'm tap dancing around the subject here, trying to say this nicely. Is there somebody else in the picture? She's exhibiting signs of somebody that's being pulled in a lot of different directions. That comes with, often, an affair. She wants a divorce. I don't love you anymore. Well, that's pretty out there, blunt, isn't it? A version of this that a lot of men hear is, I love you, but I'm not in love with you. Meaning, I recognize the value of us as a couple, I recognize our family unit and all that goes with it, I love all of that, but as far as romantic feelings for you, no. And often, well, what is it that precipitated that big admission by the husband or wife? And it's, well, 'cause somebody else pushed a button that made them say, oh, those are the feelings I forgot about all those many years ago. Yeah, I haven't felt that in a long time for my spouse, which makes me wanna say, do I even, Am I even in love with this person anymore? I'm definitely in love with this person over here, but you, eh, not so much. Um, so that's right away where my very, again, cynical brain goes to. With that being said, Paul, please understand my perspective on all this. A guy who has been through this, number one, and a guy who hears so many hundreds, if not thousands, of men describing the exact same thing. Could we all be wrong in your particular case? Absolutely. But again, if I'm a betting man or guns against my head, I'd probably say there's there's some outside influence here, and that outside influence is usually another human being. Push some buttons, and now her head's spinning, dude. She doesn't know what's, what's going on. She feels— again, I'm assuming a lot— she's, uh, feeling the attraction pull of this guy. She feels the safety and security and familiarity of you and the family. You've only been together 3 years. Maybe there's no— as a, as a married couple, maybe there are no kids. I don't know. Um, But anyway, she's back and forth, back and forth. It could be she was with this other person. The other person said, I don't want anything to do with you. This isn't serious. I was only in this for a risqué affair. I'm in it for the fun. As far as commitment and everything else, nah, beat it. And so who does she run back to? You. Could very well be what's happening here. I don't know. What do you think, Paul? Um, I'm scrolling here. I'm missing a lot because I tend to blab and miss a lot. Dynas, I got it right. Yay! Hmm, Justin says yes, exclamation point. So people are agreeing with me here. Oh, they've gone the text. Okay, yes, much better. Cool. Hmm. And Justin, here we go. Now Justin's agreeing with me. I apologize, I'm missing all these comments as they come through in real time. She found someone else that's her interest. Yeah, um, a woman that loves you doesn't come up with that stuff, says Dorian. Start exit plans now, start consulting lawyers. She says there's nobody else. Okay, uh, Paul, buddy, again, um, I don't— again, I don't mean to be cynical here, be negative, but they all say that. What do you expect him to do? I have a suspicion, wife. The sudden, you know, turn in your behavior and change and all these other signs are pointing to— is there somebody else? Just tell me. No. More, what's she gonna do? Yeah, you got me. His name is Bob. He lives over here. We've been seeing each other for so many weeks or months, blah, blah, blah. That's why I have feelings. Very, very rarely does that happen. Usually what, um, coincides with this is all kinds of crazy. She's running off with this person. She's treating me like dirt. She's, uh, very often this goes along with people that have personality disorders. Borderline personality disorder is one, uh, where you go from being the person I love more than anything to not just like, hey, I'm losing feelings for you, kids came along, that's natural. No, it's usually like, now you are dog poop on the bottom of my shoe. You went from up here to I'm discarding you as the That's a term they often use. You'll hear that people— personality disorders include, under the Cluster B personality disorder banner, include histrionic personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder. They have some things in common. They're all over the place. You don't know which way is up. I love you more than anything. I hate you, die. I love you, but I'm not in love with you. I want to work on our family. Your head's spinning. They're driving you nuts. Again, we could be off, could be wrong. Uh, she feels that we lost our individuality, Paul says, after having kids, and she isn't attracted to me anymore. Yeah, um, you know, maybe this is benefit of the doubt here, right? Maybe there is nobody else. Maybe, um You know what, I should put the— this doesn't work. Why is that? I gotta exit this and then I gotta bring this in. There we go. So Paul says she feels like we lost our individuality after having kids and isn't attracted. Um, that's pretty common. Uh, a lot of men say this. A lot of— maybe your more avoidant types say this, to use those psych terms. I'm not a psychologist, but just trying to follow along with a lot of the popular terms that are out there right now. An avoidant person, which is usually the dude, believe it or not, but in a lot of the cases for all, pretty much all the guys that reach out to me and I work with, they have the avoidant wife. To them, individuality, independence trumps everything. So in extreme, extreme cases, some women who are like, I got this kiddo and this kiddo's hanging on me and just He's always wanting me, he's always needing me, and ugh, this is too much. And in extreme cases, they abandon the kiddos and they leave them with a husband who's just left going, what just happened? Um, they're very broken individuals, sorry to say. Something happened in childhood that leads them down that road, and they're not wired to be, number one, a long-term monogamous partner for life to somebody, and number two, they're not meant to be a parent. They just don't have that wiring. Well, Well then why have kid? Well, because we have this very strong impulsive need as a human being to spit out babies. Mother Nature has ingrained us with this urge and it's a pretty strong urge, especially with the ladies. And they'll make all kinds of mistakes and get with the wrong people and all kinds of stuff just to fill that urge, that need to procreate, make babies. Thank you, Mother Nature. But anyway, And then Mr. Paul says, wishing you the best. I'm a sap and probably go see her, but that has not been the best strategy for me. Um, let me do this right. Let me get rid of this. Hmm. Yeah, what I'm seeing are a lot of comments from folks that are kind of agreeing with me here. There's more going on. Probably, uh, you're not getting the full story. Um, Often, you know, a speech I gave in my last little live that I did was, uh, wouldn't it be nice if our, um, adulterous partner, partner that was caught with her hand in the cookie jar, said, yeah, I did a very selfish act. My intent was never to hurt you. Uh, I was just acting selfishly, impulsively, um, getting my jollies met elsewhere. It felt good. And now I see the error of my ways and I realize I've hurt you and I'm very, very sorry. And if you want to leave me, I understand that completely. Um, I, I would probably do the same if I were you. But if you want to give us a chance again, all I can do is give you my word it's not going to happen again. I'm willing to go to counseling. I'm willing to do whatever to work on this. That sounds very adult, right? But often it's, no, your eyes are deceiving you. No, no, no. Combined with treating you horribly, combining with lies about this and that. Yeah, yeah. Leaving the kids alone with you. Skipping town and all kinds of craziness that goes with it. That's usually what happens. And, uh, all these guys on this are probably have experienced some semblance of that, and they're all saying to you, buddy, uh, be careful, Paul. We've all heard this before. Just be careful. If it were me, would it hurt to consult with an attorney and just say, this is what's going on, where am I at financially, kids, all that other stuff? Just put it on the table. If wife leaves tomorrow and slides divorce papers across the table at me. Where am I? What's going on? So just, just get that out of the way. And so you can understand where you're at financially, legally, all that good stuff. What can that hurt, right? And the other is, um, I don't know if you want to pay somebody to snoop. I don't know if you want to— if you want to get to the bottom of what's going on there, there are a lot of different ways to do that. I'm not one to propose or give ideas or whatever. Some things cross legal lines. You don't want to do that. Um, but there are legal ways of kind of finding out what's going on here. I'm going to bring this comment over. Mr. Jason Gard from YouTube says, uh, my ex has been poisoning my oldest child against me for a decade, including the past 5 years of co-parenting, and now my son insists on moving out. He wants to reject me like his mom did. What can you do, Jason? You married a monster, sorry. That monster is poisoning your child. How often have we heard this? Quite a bit. And all you can do, buddy, is be the good model for sanity, strength. I understand how you feel. What did you say, son? Yeah, son, he wants to. I can, you know, I see how you're feeling, son. What you're telling me is, all I can tell you is not true. Maybe your mother told you XYZ, but that is not true. I love you no matter what. Whenever you are ready to come back, spend time with Dad, talk, whatever, I love you, I'm here for you. But I can't strong-arm you and force you to stay. I would love you to be here, you know, 24/7, 365 with Dad, but I understand you don't want to. I love you, I wish you all the best. I'm here for you whenever you are ready. That's all you can do. You know, you make it a long text message of, I know how much of a monster you are, Dad. Mom told me about these, you know, 8 imaginary things that happened, and Mom told me you said this and did this and that you're a drug addict and blah, blah, blah, and you just go, son, I love you. None of that's true. That's all I can tell you. Hopefully one day you'll see the error of your ways and you'll realize what's going on here. But until then, I love you. And if you ever want to talk for real about stuff, I'm here for you. What more can you do? And is it heartbreaking? Oh, hell yes. I can't imagine. Oof. You know, thankfully I've had very good relationships with all of my kiddos. I've never had like a falling out with any of them. You know, they've been mad at me about saying no about stuff or whatever, but I've never had a falling out of they don't speak to me anymore. We don't— I'm very close to all of them. Even when I'm away from them, or FaceTiming all the time and talking all the time. It's never been my thing, so I can't, um, completely empathize with your plight. But I talk to a lot of guys who go through that, and the, um, the commonality between all of those stories is married a very, very broken individual, and I had every signal, every red flag, whatever tell me over a period of years, sometimes decades, that this person was wildly broken. But I just persevered and I kept my head down and I got caught up in the family machine, as I often call it. And next thing I know, something triggered it— it being this total shift in the relationship— and she just went off the rails and she lost her marbles and all hell broke loose. I don't know if that's your situation, if there's one particular incident you can point to that, uh, was a trigger point for all of this sudden turn, you know, kids and pushing them against you. Oh, you— but you did say that's been going on for a while. Oof. Bigger picture question, my man. You don't want to hear this now. You just want to get your kiddo back and get on good terms with them and all that other stuff. But eventually you're going to have to come to terms with or attempt to answer a question. What attracted you to a person like this? Why did you insist on staying with them over what was probably a lot of red flags over a period of years? What is it about you that puts you in that position? There's something going on there. If you don't figure that out, and when you get past over the hump of dealing with all, all of this drama and everything else with her and the kids, you have a very real risk of doing it all over again with Woman 2.0, believe it or not. I know it sounds crazy, but it happens more often than not. So you got to get to the bottom of it. Mr. Alex says, first life— first live, excuse me. What's up? What is up, Mr. Alex? How you doing, brother? Thank you for joining us. YouTube, got a lot of YouTubers. Um, if some of you have been watching me frequently on these lives, you'll notice what's, what's with the vertical up and down as opposed to the normal widescreen? Well, YouTube is trying to really get into more of the live market. And, uh, right now TikTok is doing really, really well. It's, you know, you bring up your phone, hit go live, and you're talking potentially to thousands of people. People, you know, scroll on their phone and people scroll through live feeds like they scroll through, um, those little Shorts and TikToks and Reels and so forth. And if they see one that looks interesting, they stop and they watch a live feed. And now YouTube is getting in on this and they're sending up promo materials to creators like myself. And you can see me on the Dad Starting Over YouTube page. Some of you are watching me on that, um, getting a lot of subscribers. So thank you all so much. I think I'm up to like 128,000 or something like that. But anywho, they're really pushing for us to go vertical, and as an incentive, they are putting these live feeds out on the Shorts feed. So if you scroll through those Shorts on YouTube those quick little videos, cat videos and such, you may see my bald head come up as a live, and it'll say, do you want to join this idiot live? And you go, yes. I think that's where a lot of you guys are coming from. So I'm seeing a lot more YouTubers in the comments than I did before. So welcome, YouTubers. I appreciate you. Thank you so much. And Mike Garcia says, hello everyone, hope your day is going well. Hello, Mike. Same to you, brother. Mike from Facebook. Mr. Tyler says, one moment, let me put this over here. Let me get rid of that. Let me bring, look at this technology, huh? Why does that not go? It should automatically go to the center. Anywho, Mr. Tyler says, I am at the relationship tipping point as mentioned in your book, The Dead Bedroom Fix. Oh, slightly amended. Oh, let me bring over the, Part 2 here. Yeah, part 2. He's not fun. He doesn't turn me on. I don't really like him all that much anymore. I have access to more money than him. So what am I doing with him again? Oof. Are you saying that's what you are seeing? Pretty much. That's like almost verbatim what's out of my book. That's what a lot of women are saying now. Why is the divorce rates, those stinking skewed divorce stats, I should say, so stinking skewed towards women doing most of the filing. And this right here kind of illustrates that. The guy's not fun, he doesn't turn me on, I don't really like him all that much anymore, I have access to more money than him, so what am I doing with him again? That's, you know, you don't need the person, there's not much of a glue to hold you together. You have to have more than just those tangible, you know, I need money, roof over my head. A lot of women are like, nah, I'm fine on my own. Thank you very much. I can take care of myself. So there you go. And let me get rid of this one and bring in the next comment here. Tyler says, I am 100% provider and she, she had, she has turned off all opportunities to meet the lover role. Okay. Now what, buddy? What you gonna do? So you've tried, you've been, you know, part of our group and everything else for a while now, right? And reading books and all this other stuff, trying like heck to reach out to this, um, dare I say, kind of cold and distant wife. And she's kind of telling you like, it ain't happening, buddy. You know, good try, but ain't happening. So now what? Um, And then, uh, Dorian, I'll just read this out loud for everyone from YouTube, says, a woman that has no respect for a man, um, and we men above all, we want respect, um, especially from the woman that we fell for. Um, so in other words, so Dorian's saying this woman doesn't respect you. That's something that we as men want more than anything else, especially the woman that we, um, you know, we love more than anything. That's got to hurt. Um, I guess the big question then, Dorian, for Dorian and others, is it possible for a person, uh, let's keep it general, a human being, to respect you as a human being but not want you sexually? Sure. A lot of guys I respect and women I respect out in the world, I don't want anything to do with them in that way. No, thank you. Um, yeah, so I guess technically it's possible for, um, Tyler's wife to say, oh, I respect my husband a great deal. He's Good father, good earner, good all this stuff. But as far as Mr. Lover is concerned, for a variety of reasons, it ain't happening. So respect is, you're right, big thing. But it could be that, you know, it's just not happening. Uh, but in my book, at the same time, just because she's— I'm trying my best to put this— just because she may, she may respect you a great deal doesn't necessarily mean she's going to do the deed. But if she does the deed with you, she probably has a great deal of respect for you. So the two can, you know, both can be true at the same time, so to speak. It's kind of like, um, what it was, some stat I read the other day said not all pit bull dogs will bite people. No. But if you see stats on dogs that have mauled somebody recently, like half to death or killed somebody, it's probably a pit bull. Same kind of thing. Uh, you know, both Stats can live at the same time. And then Dorian says, yeah, well, if that's the case, then she's just a friend, not a lover. Exactly. And so you have a big fork in the road moment here, Mr. Tyler. This isn't a lover. This is a co-parent, I would assume. This is a partner as far as running the household machine is concerned, but it's not a lover. That's a different thing. Now, the remedy for that, then what? Go your separate ways. That's an obvious one. Some people, by the way, may, you know, I've mentioned this many times, believe it or not, some people have an arrangement. We both know we're not lovers anymore, but we want to stay together for a variety of reasons. Um, dude, go get it elsewhere. I'll just look the other way. You know, I, you and I both know what's going on, but we don't talk about it. That exists. That's existed for a long time. A lot of your grandma and grandpas out there had that little arrangement. They may not have talked about it, but they had it. Trust me, more common than what you think. But that's one avenue to go down. A lot of women say, yeah, go ahead and try that and I'll destroy you in court. Okay, maybe you don't want to do that. Maybe you just want to split amicably. Don't know. But a lot of ways to skin a cat in this whole, now the bedroom is dried up for good, what do we do? Scenario. What do you guys think? There's of course more to the story here, Mr. Tyler Durden. A lot of details that you're leaving out. I'm not saying you're purposely leaving out, but you can't write a novel here in the comments. But I'm sure there's a lot more here to talk about. And, uh, sorry if I get distracted, but my wife is texting me and pictures of our child. Oh, ladies. Mr. Tyler says thank you. Well, thank you. And I'm going to Clear the deck here of comments. And Dynas says, I just got a call that interrupted my ability to pay attention here, but I'm back now. Well, welcome back. It looks like this is an it is what it is broadcast. Sometimes, sometimes it is what it is. Then he goes on to say, the ladies have lost their minds. All right. Why jump to that? It is what it is. And then the ladies, all these women, every one of the following gender has lost their minds. What, what do we mean by that exactly, Dynas? Meaning, uh, ladies in your life, maybe you have a woman in your life that's done things that are kind of cuckoo. Um, you know, for every one woman that's, you know, sleeping around and acting crazy and everything else, there's 99 women that are just at home being normal wives, moms. They're not acting goofy. I know that's difficult for us to believe as guys that see this all day long on the internet, taking in all this material, and especially especially dude like me who talks to guys who are in relationship problems all the time. I, I leave a lot of coaching calls, and you can book time with me at— hold on one moment— uh, help4men.com. You can go there, go to coaching in the menu, or go to help4men.com/coaching. See a picture of me on there along with other guys on our team, and you can book time with me to talk about your issues. Um, but you know, I, I've heard thousands of these stories And do you become jaded? Oh, absolutely. But you have to realize, um, sometimes you need a palate cleanser and you go talk to your normal friends that are in normal relationships, loving relationships, healthy relationships, long-term, and you're like, oh yeah, I gotta realize who it is that I attract to me in my material and my, my accounts like this and the coaching for sure are guys with relationship problems. Not everybody has these kind of relationship problems. Some people are perfectly secure in their relationships. There's no infidelity, there's no cheating, there's no abuse, there's none of that nonsense. They have their issues, sure, but not like to this degree. And I often tell people, you'd be surprised, you know, we're all taking in a lot of this material and we know these terms like, oh, what are some terms that are going on right now? Attachment styles. And we talk about responsive desire versus spontaneous desire and the effects of monogamy on women and yada yada yada. And people, you know, rattle off these things to me like everyday language. Language. And then they're like, why don't more people talk about this kind of stuff? And I said, dude, if you grab some random dude or gal off the street, just go up to them and just go, tell me what you know about attachment styles, go, they're going to look at you like, what? You know, responsive desire, go, what does that mean for you, lady? She's like, uh, what? I don't know. Most people don't know any of this shit. They don't talk about it. They're just living their day-to-day lives. Some of them need to know some of that shit, but a lot of people don't. So it's kind of unique to our world. Alex, ba ba ba ba ba ba ba. Oh, here we go. Let me bring over your comment, Mr. Alex. We got a lot going on here. Let me clear this out. We go to this. All right. Mr. Alex from YouTube says the wife has been more playful, better hygiene. Was that lacking before? And she's been initiating, getting close to me more versus me to her. So she's initiating to being the pursuer a little bit more, but no sex yet. All right. And she brought up her coworker 3 times in the last 2 weeks. And which is new, I feel. Hmm. And then he continues on, I feel she's using him. Oh, so using him more to make you jealous. She showed me texts yesterday on her own about him telling her him and his wife are pregnant. So it seems more friendship versus more than that. So something is making your ears perk up like this doesn't feel right. Something happened before hygiene, and she, she was very standoffish. So you guys have had a dead bedroom for a while. She's carrying on in a text friend relationship with a man whose, uh, husband— whose wife is pregnant. Um, which, by the way, okay, here's the deal. I was about to go down a road of stats when it comes to infidelity and all this other stuff. Um, you're exhibiting whether you know it or not, Mr. Alex, some anxious tendencies. And I am not kicking a man while he's down. I'm not picking on you because why would I know this? Because hello, I'm Mr. Anxious here. And so is everybody else who watches my stuff. We all have, you know, we feel a little something's off and we just kind of catastrophize it. It's not uncommon for a man to come to me and say, wife and I haven't touched each other for a few months and I think she's cheating. I think this, I think that, blah, blah, blah. I've checked her phone, I've done it. And I'm like, hold on, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Whoa, whoa, whoa, 3 months ago, right? Yes. And some of these men like, no, to the day. Like, I looked on the calendar, last time we did it was 3 months ago. Okay, did anything happen 3 months ago? Well, she had a baby. And like, so you were doing it during the pregnancy? Yeah, everything was fine. Then you had the baby and nothing, and now you're freaked out? Yeah, dude, come on now. Now that's an extreme example. Or something like, my wife had a cancer diagnosis, or my wife's mother died, or, you know, some monumental life event that, you know, takes all the sexy out of the relationship and the guy's feeling down. Like, well, you know, you gotta kind of read the tea leaves here, dude. You know, this isn't all just you. There's more than stuff going on. Um, but, um, also at the same time though, you know, there's a gut instinct for a reason. Something doesn't feel right here. Is that what you're saying, Mr. Paul? Uh, wait, wrong guy. Sorry, Mr. Alex. Pardon me. Got a lot of comments going on here. Um, that this doesn't feel right. Coworker being brought up makes you, hmm, something's off here. Um, you know, one, um, very not anxious, strong remedy for all this is invite that dude and his pregnant wife over to the house for dinner. Sometimes men do that and they go, I got nothing to worry about, because the coworker walks in the door and the guy's like, Everything's cool because something about him. I had one guy that was so concerned about the coworker and why don't you bring him over? He sounds interesting. And the guy walks in the door and goes, okay. The man was gay. And he's like, now I feel better. And so, you know, maybe something like that. Maybe you'll become friends with the guy and his pregnant wife and you realize this genuinely is a very platonic thing and you're getting to know everybody. Everything's cool. Don't know. But if you feel like this is some kind of ploy on her part to purposely make you jealous, to purposely test you, and that points to some problems on her part that she's not doing well. Normal, healthy people don't do that shit. That's kind of personality disorder behavior, believe it or not. Are you kind of hinting at the fact that that's maybe she's got some issues? A lot of stuff to talk about here. Uh, and Alex says he joined our, our private group. Excellent, thank you so much, appreciate that. And then he said she's 1 year post-pregnancy. There you go. And loss of her dad. There you go. Coworker lives across the country. There you go. So, um, not to stoke the anxious flames here, but for some people, things like a pregnancy, loss of a parent, loss of a job, you know, some cancer diagnosis or something like that is enough to really cause a lot of chaos in the life. Some people go as far as to pack a bag and say, see you later, I'm out of here, I can't deal with all this shit, I'm gone. Some people start reaching out to others to make them feel better in the form of emotional affairs, physical affairs, whatever. If you feel she's got a lot going on, maybe she's keeping you at a distance as a result of this, maybe she's avoidant in that way. Um, if you feel maybe her reaching out and forming this friendship with this other guy is a way of coping, an unhealthy, somewhat dangerous way of coping, you have every right to put up a boundary and just say, I'm concerned about this. I'm concerned about you, wife. I love you. You've been through a lot. "Baby? Dad died? And now I'm seeing this, and I'm just worried about you. Is everything cool? Everything kosher? Something we need to talk about?" Be the caring but loving husband who at the same time has good boundaries and realizes if this goes overboard with coworker, even though he goes, you know, lives cross country, if I start sniffing some not so good stuff, you're outta here, toots. I know we just had a kid a year ago and all that other stuff. Nope. Ah, my kid trying to FaceTime me. Sorry about that. Let me tell my kiddo, no can do. I've told him this many times. In meeting. All right. Anyway, you have every right to put a boundary and just say, I don't like this. And she has every right to also say, that's— this is just Joe from accounting, his wife's pregnant, I know her, everything's cool, blah blah blah. And maybe explain herself, that's fine, and go from there. Um, hmm. I'm sorry, I'm missing things here. All right, I'm going to bring this one over. Mr. Paul, Mr. Paul from Facebook says, do you think that her having friends— her being your significant other— who are single parents and/or make poor relationship choices hinder her ability to be a good wife and mother? I think Who you hang out with, who you are emotionally close to, friends. And by the way, this goes for men and women both. I'm going to play Mr. Sexist and say this probably applies more so even to women. Why? Um, psychologically, women tend to be more social, a personality trait called openness. What women tend to be more open. And is that a way of me saying women tend to be more pliable in this way? Sorry, yes. Um, susceptible to outside influence? Yeah, I think so. That's not a negative thing, it's just a quirk of human nature. If it— if you're hearing me say that and you go, oh, that's very sexist, that's very— I don't like that, that makes me feel yucky— if it makes you feel any better, men have a lot of negative things too that you ladies don't necessarily have. Uh, we, we have a, um, what's the word, a monopoly on some very negative human behavior. Uh, we, we take the prize when it comes to being serial killers, for example. You know, for every one female serial killer, there's like a thousand male serial killers. We take the gold medal when it comes to being a serial killer. Rapists, same thing. Um, child molesters, we tend to be men. Sorry, but I know there are a lot of women like these teachers that are with their teenage people. I'm talking about You know, adult with very young child and stuff tends to be men. Not always, tends to be. So we all have our own little things, and one of the quirks of the ladies that's not so nice is you tend to be a little bit more pliable and open to suggestion than us dudes are. Not every woman, not every man-woman pair, but enough so that we can speak in generalities here. So if she's hanging out with a gal who has a big YOLO, you only live once tattoo across her forehead, and, um, sleeps with a different guy every day and wants to— wants your wife to go out drinking with her every night, and she's bar hopping, and one of those types that you really are like, why would you be a friend with that person? If your wife's a friend with that person, yeah, as far as I'm concerned, not good. And I would say the same thing if it were the dude. In that case, you're hanging out with some dude, some loser dude who just sleeps in his parent's basement and, you know, just banging nasty women every day. And yeah, it's like, no dude, you don't need to hang out with a person like that. What are you doing? Same thing with the gal. Yeah, I think it's a— does it hinder her ability to be? Uh, the ability to be? No, she can be, but it will, um, put her in, uh, situations which she probably wouldn't be in if she's hanging out with good quality individuals. So she's hanging out with people that make poor relationship choices, people that have substance abuse issues, whatever. And maybe she's going to be out with these people in situations that aren't so good, something a mom and wife doesn't need to be exposed to, doesn't need to be around. And she can make one little oopsie decision that makes you go, that was stupid, you're not my wife anymore. So why put yourself in that position? Um, So yeah, sorry, there's my sexist rant of the day. Uh, let's see, what am I missing? And Dynas makes a point saying if you're judging, quote, single parents as people who make poor relationship choices True, that's not, you know, Mary, her friend who has— is a single parent. There could be a myriad of reasons why she's a single parent. That doesn't point to poor relationship choices. It doesn't point to any kind of issues. Just for whatever reason, Mary doesn't have a husband. Things happen. Um, who are we to judge? A lot of single guys watching this right now. But, uh, if you have some specific examples of where Mary did this, did that, cheated on this guy, cheated on that guy, like I say, substance abuse or whatever it may be, she's known to sleep around a lot of people, and then maybe you don't necessarily want your wife hanging out with a person like that. Um, and then Dinah says women per, uh, perpetrate infanticide is much, much more, which is the killing of the infant. Absolutely. Um, we know the gal who has the little baby and throws it in the dumpster or the toilet or whatever. Yeah, that happens for sure. We all have our We all have our quirks. Let's not turn this into a— the other gender is worse than we are. No, we all have our little not-so-good things about us, trust me. And that's one thing I always get on men for is— and men, women both do this— like, let's look at it from the female, like, ultra-feminist kind of side, which I don't run into all that often, but when I do, it kind of leaves me wide-eyed going, oh Jesus, what have I done? Got into this world. But they are very much of the opinion of, if female— if person equals female, then they are good. If person equals male, then they are bad. And when you go, well, actually, they're like, nope, not right, no. And then I start seeing some men doing that. I'm like, dude, come on, we're all human beings here. We're all capable of some bad stuff. I've known some men that have done some horrible things in my life, and I've known some women that have done some horrible things in my life. So Both can exist at the same time, is what I'm saying. Um, Jarrett says, yeah, you said women are more agreeable in general. Yeah, absolutely. Steve says, the bald dude, dot dot dot, present. Howdy do, Steve. Hmm. And then Thomas says, uh, I have absolutely witnessed a spouse getting a new friend and adopting poor qualities. Absolutely, dude, happens all the time. Um, you know, when, uh, you got a, a wife at home who is mom, overburdened, not taking care of herself, maybe a little depressed, doesn't want to do anything with you, certainly doesn't want to touch you, just seems really out of it, just a blob. And you're just trying all you can to revive this woman and bring her out of her shell, and nothing's working. Then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, she says Mary from work wants to go out for a girls' night out and drinking cocktails, and you're like, "Oh, thank God. Yes, please go out and do something." And then it's every Friday, and it's every Wednesday, and Friday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, and you meet Mary and you're like, "Uh-oh." Yeah, it's— yeah, your ears should perk up and you should say, "This is not good," and put up the old boundaries and say, "I don't like this." Happens quite a bit. Especially to gals that don't have a lot of boundaries between them and others and just let everything in. Not a good recipe, that's for sure. Hmm. Anything else, ladies and germs? I'm sure I've missed stuff. A lot of, a lot of comments coming through, especially on YouTube. Thank you all so very much for joining today. Appreciate every last one of you. Um, bring up, uh, let me get rid of this guy and bring up This— check out helpformen.com if you could please, if you're a gentleman and you'd like to read a bunch of material on a whole host of topics, watch some videos, got links to a lot of YouTube videos. And while you're at it, why don't you check out our private group for men only, which we call the HFM Brotherhood. Uh, you get to work with myself, guys on the team, Private discussion forums, thousands and thousands of posts over the years. Uh, we have live Zoom meetings where we talk face to face, if you will, about these kind of issues. Uh, all just for men, no ladies. You're safe to discuss whatever it is you want to discuss with a group of experts, of your fellow team members. Uh, you get all my books at no additional charge, audiobook format as well as the PDF format. There's a podcast for members. What else we got? Uh, we meet in person We have an annual gathering in the States. We've had 4 of them so far. We're about to have our 5th annual gathering in Charleston, South Carolina. Um, our members in Australia actually get together annually as well. They're getting ready to have their 3rd get-together. It's pretty cool in Sydney this year. Um, coaching that I mentioned that's available for the public is roughly half the price for our Brotherhood members. So we're continually adding benefits. For guys. We're going to keep adding benefits as I, you know, write additional books. My members get to read them and listen to them at no additional charge. Discord server, Justin mentions. In addition to, you know, when I talk about our forums that we're private and get to talk about, Discord and Facebook are the two platforms that we use that are all private. No one can see what you're talking about in there, and very, very active. And Justin says, join the group. Good dudes just trying to be better dudes. Amen. We got guys that are married and they want to stay that way. They're just trying to keep the spark alive in the marriage. We got guys that are divorced, going through divorce, dating after divorce, never been in a long-term relationship, would like to resolve that, trying to navigate single life, career stuff. We talk about all kinds of things, parenting, all kinds of issues in there. Very, very active group, good support group, good bunch of guys that have Been there, done that, and all trying to help each other. And Thomas says he has to run. Thank you as always. Well, thank you. And he says the group is absolutely worth it. Thank you so much for that, appreciate it. Hmm, anything else, ladies and germs? But it's already been 45 minutes. Wow, these things go by fast. Love talking to you guys, love all the, um, excellent feedback, excellent questions, stories. Love it. Before we wrap up, does anybody else have any— anything else to share? Please don't be shy, uh, these are for you guys. So I'm going to refresh over here, make sure we're still going here. Yeah, looking good. Cool. All right, if there is nothing else, folks, I will say— I will bid you adieu and, uh, wish you all a wonderful rest of your Thursday. Um, Mr. Dorian, you ended on a good note, my friend. Thank you so very much. He says, uh, most men here bring their grievances with their women, but we should address why as men we ignored the red flags at the very beginning. I'm going— let me bring your comment over here instead of just reading it, just so the whole rest of the world can see it. Most men— let me start over, I'm going to cut this into clips. Dorian from YouTube says, most men here bring their grievances with their women, but we should address why as men we ignored the red flags at the very beginning. Um, boy, it's a multifaceted thing, isn't it? Thank you, Mother Nature, for giving us the old rose-colored glasses when you are in love, lusting in the infatuation stage, the new relationship stage of the relationship. We just see the good, don't we? Um, why would that be? Why would Mother Nature trick us to make us just feel so high? Basically, it's a high, like a drug high, when in the presence of this person that we click with. Why do we ignore the little— this little thing and that little thing and that little story that she told us? Why do we gloss right over it and just keep taking in the good stuff? Nature wants us to procreate, make babies, basically, if you want to get really technical about it, as unromantic as that sounds, that's basically it, dude. That's why we're doing all this relationship stuff. Um, but some of us more seasoned, uh, mature, experienced people recognize the feelings, and we consciously go, I see your feelings, it's great, it's awesome, but let me kind of clear the fog here and pay attention what's going on. And then we go, aha, red flag. That was not so good. Tell me more about this potential girlfriend of mine. But again, that takes years to get to that point. Takes a few heartbreaks, takes a divorce and infidelity and other stuff that goes with it for some of us. Some of us, it takes a little bit longer to get there. But, um, on top of that, on top of the very real normal infatuation stage and all that goes with it, the rose-colored glasses, some of us if you're watching my material and taking it in, everything— probably a lot of us, um, come from backgrounds, childhood backgrounds that aren't so good. Mom and Dad were not the best role models for how to be a happy, healthy partner for life. And we sat back and watched that. We had a front row seat for that as a kiddo, and we just took it all in. Whether we know it or not, we were learning. We were in, in school Taking mental notes, and, uh, and then we are now applying that to our relationships. And one of those is, oh look, chaos, dysfunction. That's fine, that's normal. In fact, some of us realize years down the line, not only do I overlook it, but I seek it out. How effed up is that? Well, you know, we'll be presented with some perfectly normal, secure human being in front of us, and we go, "Eh, I'm not really feeling it. Sorry." And another one, another normal, secure human being. "Eh, too much work to pursue, and yeah, never mind." And then, oh, here comes Miss Dysfunction. Here comes Miss More Red Flags Than a Chinese Parade. Here comes, "Oh, this feels familiar. This makes me a little excited. This makes me sit up straight." I like this one, I'm going to pursue it. Red flags, red flags. Oh no, ignoring you. I'm, I'm pursuing. I like this one. This one's right there. Here's another red flag. No, no, no, get away, get away. How many of us can, uh, relate to that? Um, that's pretty, pretty goddamn common. Excuse my language, but, uh, I hear that all the time. Um, yeah, I'm, I'm no psychiatrist, I'm no psychologist, I'm no licensed therapist, but I've been doing this enough to— one of, one of the, um common catchphrases that comes out of my mouth when talking to guys one-on-one is, so tell me about mom and dad. And that's when I sit back and go, oh boy, this isn't good. Tell me about their mom and dad, you know, Grandma and Grandpa. Oh shit, that's not good either. It's, it's a generational thing, trust me. But it, it's, um, if you are on this call, I guess you'd say livestream, if you take in my material, if you're reading stuff By myself, by friends of ours like Dr. Psych Mom, Dr. Robert Glover, and so forth. Congratulations, you are equipping yourself with tools that will allow you to say, we ain't doing this generational shit anymore. It stops here. I'm going to teach my kiddos how to not do this stuff anymore, and hopefully they will pass that wisdom down, and then we can just cut this shit out for once. And hopefully have healthy relationships down the line. Wouldn't that be nice? Hmm. Because no sane man would think a woman would behave that horribly even if there were, quote, red flags, says Dynas. Yeah, um, there's some— you know, there's also a layer on top of this. Thank you, Dynas. Uh, you have the layer of I'm super in love which makes me, uh, ignore things, combined with my childhood baggage, allows me to be attracted to such crazies, for lack of a better term. And on top of that, we have the old women are wonderful effect. Google it. I'm not making this up. This is a thing, which is, um, in a lot of circumstances, uh, women tend to get the benefit of the doubt. They're pretty, they're loving, hopefully, and they, uh, make us feel good. And so we prescribe to them some holier-than-thou— a term people often use, myself included— is put them on a pedestal of perfection. She's a girl, and we overlook a lot of stuff. Why? She's a girl. And, uh, for some men, that level of putting on a pedestal is almost worship-like, and it's very unhealthy. And anyone in their presence says, dude, you need to wake the fuck up. This isn't— this isn't good what we're seeing here. This woman of yours is abusing you. No, no, she's— she's a girl. It's fine. Not good. And so for some of us, it's been ingrained. It's been pounded into our heads so much that these— these gals in our lives are above the pettiness, the silliness that we see from some of the men in our lives, some of the violence that we see from some of the men in our lives. That's not girls. Girls don't do that kind of stuff. Oh yeah, they do. They're human beings. And so for some of us, when we see that, it's a giant mind F for us. Like, oh, she's capable of that? Holy moly, I had no idea. And some people that have been around the block a few times are like, yeah dude, people do shitty stuff all the time, men and women. We all saw it coming. Why didn't you see it coming? Well, because— drum roll— she's a girl. I didn't expect that from her. Believe it or not, I know some people here and they're like, yeah, whatever, dude. No, they're People that live that way, some men that live that way. Women don't do this kind of stuff. And they will give women the benefit of the doubt again and again and again. You know, common phrase from men is like, my wife wouldn't do that. Let me tell this story. I've told this one before. I think I haven't wrote about it. Yeah, I wrote about it in my book Divorce Panic. I have a book out there called Divorce Panic. Check that out. In addition to my bestselling book, uh, The Dead Bedroom Fix, which you can find, uh, basically anywhere books are sold, deadbedroomfix.com. Divorce Panic is sold at divorcepanic.com or any of the other retailers. But anyway, um, when I was going through, uh, what I went through about a dozen years ago with the divorce and everything else, I went to a therapist who said, you need to talk to this gentleman. And one of my other clients, he's same situation as you, he would love to talk to you. I told— I gave him your number, or I gave him your name. Here's his number, call him if you want to. So I called the guy and we just talked and talked and talked, and His ex-wife really put him through the wringer. A lot of lying and cheating. Um, she had an affair with another woman. So there was that layer of complexity of, you know, oh my gosh, my wife is gay and I've been living with a gay woman. Did I drive her to this? You know, all kinds of crazy stuff that men in that position think. And, um, it was just story after story of betrayal and lies and all this other stuff. And then he was telling me about going to court over some things. And, uh, he was, he had his own business if I remember right. This is years ago. And I said, uh, do you have any worry about her coming after your money? And he goes, everyone always says that, but, but I know my wife and I know she would never do that. And I remember like chuckling on the phone to him. I had to catch myself because I was like, that he's being serious after all these stories of, and then she did this, and then she did this, and then she— oh wow, do you think she's going to come after some of your millions that that you've made in your business? Nah, I know my wife, she would never do that. The old women are wonderful effect. Even after everything that he has been through, he's still giving her the old benefit of the doubt. I never found out what happened with that guy. Um, after I think a few conversations and a string of texting back and forth for weeks, we just kind of drifted. And I don't know if he's watching this, dude, get in touch. Oh, he's probably not. That was years and years ago. But, um, Yeah, common thing, common thing. Um, ever hear of a— Mike says, ever hear of a woman domestically abusing their husbands? Sure, that happens. Yeah, they're humans. Yeah, no, men that have the shit beat out of them from a woman with, with their bare hands or with objects. Sure. And Rob says, I don't know how I got here, but, uh, who knew that mind readers are real? Thanks. Uh, yeah, I, you know, in some of my books and stuff, I've had guys read my books, and they will reach out to me via email and said, did you have like a camera in my house or something? How did you say— it's not a testament to I'm some kind of genius or whatever, it's just a testament to the human condition and just how similar we all are and how similar all these stories are. And you know, after you hear it a few hundred times from guys in one-on-one stuff, you start putting puzzle pieces together. It takes me a while. I'm not the smartest, you know, bulb, you know what I mean. But You know, after a year, a few hundred times, you go, I'm seeing a pattern here. And then I'm able to finish people's sentences for them, and they're all like, man, you're some kind of genius. No, it's just a lot of experience in this stuff. You hear it again and again, and eventually it sinks in. Um, so welcome, Mr. Rob. But I knew we're right at an hour, folks. This will be my second attempt at wrapping it up. Let me put this up here real quick. Um, check out the website help4men.com. Help4men.com and check out our private group at help4men.com called the HFM Brotherhood. help4men.com and our private group for men, the Brotherhood. Um, I think it'd be a godsend to a lot of you guys. You need to talk about this stuff to other dudes that are in the same boat. Don't, you know, your regular dude friend that you have beers with on occasion, that you talk about the Bears game and stuff like that, you come to him with wife cheated, you had a divorce and all this other stuff, he's going to be like, oh shit, I don't know what to say. I have no experience in this. Most people don't. Ralph Brewer. But we have, we have guys, hundreds of dudes from all over the world, been there and done that. Not necessarily just the cheating thing, but the working on a marriage thing, trying to keep the spark alive, you know, trying to start over with new people, trying to date again, going through the horribleness of divorce and custody battles and all the other stuff. We've seen it all. These are, you know, welcome to being a dude in the modern age. We got a lot to deal with.. And don't deal with it alone, guys. You're no super strong alpha male man for just going at it alone. Um, science has shown us you're going to be off way better off mentally, emotionally, if you have other people to help you out. Basically, raise a hand, say help. And those guys, by my estimation, need to be other men in the same boat, guys that have been there and done that. Those are the people that are going to be able to really help you. So check it out, help4men.com, and our private group, the HFM Brotherhood. Thank you all so very much, ladies and germs. I appreciate all of you. Thank you for tuning in, and, uh, hope you have a wonderful rest of your Thursday. A toodaloo.