Chat LIVE with Ralph (DSO)!

Welcome, welcome everyone. It's your boy Raffaellito here with another live Dad Start— there I am— with another live Dad Starting Over session, event, livestream, whatever you want to call it. Howdy do, how are you folks today? I am joining you again, once again, live from the great Commonwealth of Kentucky. All right, it's not for that, um, never gets old. Uh, how are you guys doing today? Thank you all for joining me live. I'm looking over here my other monitor to make sure everything is cool. Everything is good. Let me refresh to make sure that we are in fact Good to go on Facebook over here. Facebook sometimes has issues. Yeah, we're good to go. Welcome everyone, how are you guys today? And gals. My name is Ralph Brewer Brewer Brewer. For those that don't know, I go by the fake internet name of DSO, which stands for Dad Starting Over. And you can learn more about me, my business, my organization at dadstartingover.com, or go to any of my social media channels including Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, which I am live streaming right now as we speak on all three of those platforms, and also Instagram. Uh, am I on anywhere else? I think that about covers it. We continue to do well on YouTube. The membership is growing, just added 1,000 more subscribers last night. No complaints, man. At this rate, we're gonna hit 100,000 pretty quick. I'm gonna have the old plaque behind me on the wall. And, uh, we already have a hey howdy. Can hear you on YouTube, says CLD Gaming. Very good, thank you, sir, and good to see you again, one of our regulars. Uh, where do you— uh, something I always ask right off the bat with these: where are you joining us from? Where are you at? Would love to hear it. I love to see where everybody's at in the world. We usually have folks from all corners of the US and a few international. Um, the Dad Starting Over world market-wise, as far as who buys our products. And I'll talk a little bit about that before we get started here today. Um, who takes in my material, the content, and everything else. The majority are in the States for sure, but the next biggest group is Australia. We have a big following in Australia. So welcome to all my Aussie friends if you're on here. In fact, I don't know if you can see behind me, I have— it's back there— I have the, uh, boomerang somebody gave me, a little plaque on there. Steve from Australia and our good folks at, uh, from our, uh, Australian contingent chapter, whatever you want to call it, of the DSO fraternity, uh, gave me that. So thank you so much. And look at this, what else they gave me. You see this? You're like, what the hell is that, dude? That's kangaroo scrotum. Good way to start off the, uh, the old live here today with some kangaroo balls. But hey, Highbrow humor. Here, Dad, start it over. Welcome everyone. Well, we have Trevor Perrotón from Mexico. Bienvenidos, Trevor. And Deplorable Millennial from Illinois. Whereabouts in Illinois, Deplorable Millennial? I lived in Peoria for years. Used to work for the big yellow tractor company there. Big yellow machine company, rather. The tractor was the other guy. But welcome, welcome everyone. Dadstartingover.com to learn more about me. I'm sure many of you have seen me. If you're like stumbled upon this live and you're like, this guy looks familiar, probably because I have, I don't know, thousands and thousands of videos out there across all the social media channels. On YouTube alone, I have over 800 videos. Um, good. That's probably the best place to watch video. Go to YouTube, search for Dad Starting Over, get some coffee, enjoy yourself. You're not going to run out of material because I add to it every single day. And, uh, that following is growing, as I mentioned on there, uh, earlier. That YouTube following is growing, subscriber following. Uh, Facebook continues to grow. We're over 141,000, 142,000 followers, something like that, on Facebook. Uh, 40-some-odd thousand on YouTube, 120-some thousand on TikTok. So growing every single day. So thank you all so very much for following. It helps out a great deal, helps keep the lights on. As well as the purchase of some of my books that I've written. Many people know me by one book in particular, and that book was about sex and marriage. I've written on the topics of— over the years I've talked about divorce and taking care of kids and physical fitness, but when I talked about sex and marriage, people came to life. Sex sells, folks. That's what I've learned over the years. And I wrote a book called The Dead Bedroom Fix, The Dead Bedroom Fix. It's available on Amazon, Audible, Apple Books, uh, where else? Barnes Noble, all the formats. Uh, yes, I read it myself on the Audible and Apple Books audio format, wherever it is. Scribd, I think, is another one. Um, Scribd, is that right? Or is that the program? Anyway, um, I'm big across all the channels, and you may have seen or heard me rather on the Dad Starting Over podcast. It's available for the public wherever podcasts are available, streamed, whatever. You can find me. Oh, look at that. We have Mr.— is that Rohan? Rohan? Don't know how to pronounce the first name, mister, but he is joining us from South Africa. South Africa. South Africa. Is that how you guys say it? South Africa. I dated a South African chick for a very brief amount of time. She was nice. South Africa has such a cool history, such cool people. Welcome. And, uh, what else? So if you go to dadstartingover.com, you'll learn about, um, all my books, and you will see we have courses available on there. We had a course for, you know, Coach Vance and our DSO team. He's a PhD Olympic weightlifting coach, and he has a course on fat loss, a course on gaining muscle. We have, uh, some, uh, live streams recorded that you can get for like $4.99, I believe, on on, or $9.99, can't remember which, probably should know that, sessions I've done with Dr. Psych Mom. So if you want to help support us both, you can purchase those. We have one that we've done about life after divorce for men and about how to deal with your avoidant wife. Those are pretty popular. So check those out. We also have our private group for men only. That's the big thing that I'm most proud of. We have within the private group for men only called the DSO Fraternity. We have a private forum— forums, plural, technically. We have a, what do you call it, Discord server for our lifetime DSO Fraternity members, and they have a variety of forums and sub-chats and everything on there, as well as a private discussion group. No one can see what you're typing. No one can see that you belong to the group on Facebook. Very, very active. And we have live Zoom meetings, several of those every single week. We record them all., and you can listen to those recordings right from your phone, uh, as well as a DSO Fraternity podcast you can listen to from your phone, as well as my 4 books that I've written. You get access to them at no additional charge. You can download the PDF if you so choose, or you can listen to the audiobook version also from your phone. We make that very simple to do. And we get together in person. We have our, uh, 4th annual gathering in the States coming up next month. In New Orleans, Louisiana. We call our gatherings in the States BroFest, and our guys over in Australia, they call their gathering MateFest. Kind of cool. And, uh, those have been very, very popular. Looking forward to that. What else we got going on? I'm going to, um, pardon me for a moment here. I think I do this on every single live stream where I jump over here to my notes and I copy stuff. Copy. And paste. This is a link, um, for the— you on YouTube, look over at the chat. For those on Facebook, look down in the comments. Um, there's a link to try out our DSO fraternity group, 1 month, absolutely free. If you don't like it, you cancel. If you do like it, stick around and you'll get charged for the next month, the next month. And I tell you what most people do is they try it out for a couple months and they go, can I just pay for a year up front so I don't have to do this monthly thing? Yeah, and actually it's cheaper that way if you do it that way. We like knock a month or 2 off of the price if you look at it, you know, month-to-month versus annual. Or the biggest bang for your buck is the lifetime, rather. And I'm going to type in here, um, 30% off lifetime coupon code. And that is— so if you go to dsopaternity.com, choose the lump sum lifetime membership option, Go to checkout, put in that code FRAT2024, and you'll get 30% off. And that's not— deal's not going to last forever. I think I'm going to keep it going for the next couple of weeks. So through March, this is in honor of our 4th anniversary with the DSO Fraternity Group. So very good. Rohan, patience, my friend. I got to get the business stuff out of the way first. He says, are you going to have a Q&A session? You're on it, buddy. I always do the business stuff up front and then people just start asking questions., and we go from there. And let's go up to— I'm going to scroll up to CLD Gaming. He was the first one to go with the question. Hmm. And he is from Australia. And he says, "DSO, my sex life has tanked after 24 years of marriage. I'm working on myself, but not knowing when our next bedroom session is making me quite anxious." Sometimes it's a few months between sessions. Well, so 24 years of marriage, the bedroom's dead. Do you think you're unique in your situation? I think— are you not a member of our DSO fraternity? I believe you are. I apologize, especially with the different goofy internet names. CLD Gaming 6, I cannot remember exactly who you are. Even if you gave me your real name, I'd probably be like, because, you know, we have like 600, 700-some-odd members, whatever it is, in the DSO fraternity. So it's A little difficult to remember all you guys. But anywho, sex life tanked. You're Mr. Needy Wanting It. I mean, 'cause you're a dude, right? And you feel anxious, like when's the next one gonna be? When's the next session gonna be? Kinda really, really needing it. Sometimes it's months between sessions. My friend, when there are months between sexual encounters with your wife, Are you cool with that? I bet you're not. So what have you done to remedy this? You're talking about, "Dude, I'm working on myself here, right?" How long? What does that mean exactly? Do you have stuff up here in the old noodle that you're working on as well as the physicality? I wrote in my book, The Dead Bedroom Fix, the importance of being physically fit and that yes, looks matter. It's the primary attraction vehicle between two individuals. Hey, who's that over there? She's cute. Hey, who's that over there? He's cute. Being— taking care of your physicality, building muscles and so forth, your confidence goes up. Feel better about yourself. You're standing tall. You're looking good. You're starting to get attention from others. A lot of women kind of roll their eyes at that and go, God, women don't like guys with muscles. Stop it already. Really? Ask any guy who's, let's say, lost a ton of weight and he's building some muscle, how many times some woman came up to him and give him a honk honk on the arm and say, looking good there, mister. Uh, happened to me as soon as I started gaining muscle. Uh, I had— I've told this story before. I worked in an office full of women, and I started losing weight and gaining muscle post-divorce, feeling good about myself. And one gal in particular, an older gal, older for me at the time. I was in my 30s and, uh, was I in my 30s? Yeah, I was in my 30s and she, I believe, was in her 50s at the time. And, um, she became really, really handsy and really goofy and crossing boundaries. And at one point she walked over and lifted my shirttail to see my butt, and she was reprimanded for that. So I felt like the Office Floozy being taken advantage of. In hindsight, kind of funny. At the time, it wasn't that fun. It was kind of disturbing. But that was example of kind of a sudden change in my physicality brought out a side in people that I hadn't seen before. And sometimes that is a very positive, sexually positive, good thing in the whole mating game thing of looking good physically. Nothing wrong with saying, if you're a woman, I like a guy to look very masculine, tough. He doesn't, you know, that over-the-top roided-out bodybuilder look, eh, not so much, kind of gross to most people., but a guy looks like he, you know, fills out a shirt, takes care of himself. Nothing wrong with that, right? That's the sentiment I get from most women. But anywho, if you're like most men, you're saying, I'm checking that box, the physical, lost a ton of weight, getting some muscle and so forth. Where's my sex? A little bit more difficult than that, especially, mister, after 24 years of marriage. I don't know if you've gathered this from watching my material and others. If you're like a lot of anxious-y guys, who, uh, are in this relationship talk sphere, you've probably taken in a lot of information, watched a lot of YouTube videos, read a lot of books, so forth, podcasts and everything else. I don't know if you've gathered that long-term monogamy, marriage over decades, which you've hit that mark, 2 decades plus, uh, doesn't necessarily equal sexy. Even if you had a really hot and heavy honeymoon period that could last for years, by the way, The more years, kids, stress, and everything that build up, the sexy naturally goes down. And yours is— yours is dead, dude. It goes months between sessions. It's dead. So going back to my original point, what are you doing? What are you sticking around for? Because there's a lot of other good things going on. Well, as I and our buddy Dr. Psych Mom has mentioned, um, The lack of sex in a relationship is the canary in the coal mine for much deeper issues. It is a surface-level problem, kind of like— I'm trying to draw a blank here. There's some physical things that people notice, like, I got a little spot on my skin. That's weird. It won't go away. A little mole or something. You know, it's not really bothering me. It's kind of itchy. Let me go get that checked out. And you go to the doctor and like, yeah, you have stage 4 melanoma. It's spread all over. You got tumors in your lungs and so forth. It's kind of like that. You're like, we haven't had sex in months. Yeah, because you have these underlying mental issues. She has these underlying mental issues, emotional baggage, yada yada yada. Maybe even physical things. Maybe in all this, maybe resentments all the way— not, not to stoke the anxious flames here, but all the way to horrible, horrible stuff such as she's seeing other people, you're seeing other people, who knows what, you know. Financial infidelity, all kinds of awful stuff which gets in the way of intimacy between two people. Very deep issue, as you know, my friend. Not so simple. I'm going to jump down here to the next question. Mr. Hayden Watch says, does a death in the family, the wife's father, usually increase her desire for sex? In the 3 to 4 months following, she's— we've been intimate about twice a month. Where before it was basically a dead bedroom. But in the last 3 months, back to normal. What do you make of this? Um, I think a psychologist would be better suited to maybe describe psychologically the phenomena that you're experiencing here. But just kind of— what's spitting in the wind here, trying to figure out what's going on here. Um, this isn't your situation, but follow me here. There is a scenario known as hysterical bonding. Which is when this— the safety, sanctity, union of two people is really, really threatened. A really extreme acute example of that would be one person was caught sleeping around with somebody else. What often couples will report is, oh wow, we experienced together as a couple— let's say he cheated, for example, husband cheated— we decide we're going to work on this as a couple. Then they'll report, oh, wow, we've been so physically and emotionally connected, like we haven't seen in years. And this has lasted 2 to 3 weeks. You know, the guy will say, I have talked to men, the men I speak to most of the time have been cheated on when it comes to the whole infidelity thing. And they will say, caught my wife in an affair, we agreed to work on it. And it's weird, we've had sex 5 times this week. I don't know if you've ever had sex 5 times this week, what the hell's going on? Well, it's a psychological phenomenon known as hysterical bonding. We could go on and on and figure out why that is. But it's almost like You're trying to reclaim each other. It's like this drastic life moment has kicked something into gear that ignites libido in people. I don't know exactly the mechanism at play. I don't know if anybody exactly knows the mechanism at play. It could vary person to person. All we know is that it's a relatively common thing. So maybe, Mr. Hydenwatch, what you're seeing is something similar to that in terms of maybe this death of father has caused her temporarily, it sounds like, to question life. 'Look, this man in my life died. Maybe eventually I will lose this man. Maybe I need to— maybe this ignites some kind of desire in me, some kind of animalistic, deep-seated thing that says, must do this to retain mate. I'm in danger of losing him, because I see how quickly life can slip through your fingers.' I don't know. But I think the fact that you've kind of tied it to the father dying, I don't think that's a coincidence. Something's going on there, something that caused her to like I say, kind of push-a-button animalistic biological programming in there somehow that caused the old hokey-pokey to increase in frequency and then, um, back down to— back down to normal. Um, but here's the thing, in 3 to 4 months following, we've been intimate about twice a month, where before it was basically a dead bedroom. My friend I am, in my mind and probably in the mind of many mental health professionals, therapists, sex therapists, marriage counselors, and so forth, if you said we, we're intimate about twice a month, they would probably go, not great, dude and gal. That could qualify as a dead bedroom in many eyes. I saw where somebody tried to clinically define dead bedroom as 10 times or less per year, and I'm like, Okay, so that's less than once a month. Um, that— the definition of is this a healthy sexual relationship varies couple to couple. Obviously, if you're cool with once or twice a month, then hallelujah, dude. Who am I to say that's dead, right? Um, but in my mind, I think it needs to be at least once a week just to keep that connection. And I think there's data to prove that, that people that do once or more per week are actually they claim to be happier and better connected. There's something magical, as it were, that happens when two people become— get naked and rub their dirty bits together. They just grow closer together. We know that there's a very real biological phenomena at play when two people get together, especially with the woman, where it increases a lot of bonding chemicals in the brain. Which caused her to, quote, fall in love. That is expedited by the physical act. So to do that again and again throughout the relationship, you can see how it brings you together. It's a positive thing. So twice a month, not really cutting it, my opinion. And then you say it died again, right? So, uh, What keeps you around? I keep coming back to this. When I have people that come to me and say, we haven't had sex in years or something like that, what keeps you around? And sometimes you get back the, well, duh, dude, we're married. Okay, it's like, we got kids. Okay, there's still something fundamentally broken. And people that try to say, oh, it's just about the old in and out. That's all he thinks about. No, no, that's not fair. It's not healthy. It's not right. The old in and out, it's not about that. It's about the closeness. It's about the connection. And when you guys don't have that for an extended period of time, something is fundamentally broken. Just going to keep saying it again and again. Canary in the coal mine, folks. And Mr. Heidenwatch, you got some really deep-seated issues there you need to work on. And maybe the death of father is the, uh, like the fire under the butt of the relationship to go That showed us that it's possible to increase, but it increased at the, uh, you know, after something horrible like the death of a parent, and then it died again. Okay, we got something's going on here. I mentioned this before in, uh, um, when was this? I talked about this last— was my last live. I'm doing so many of these lives and I'm doing meetings that they're starting to blend together in my head. I think it was the last DSO fraternity meeting I had, which was yesterday. A common phrase to use with people that sometimes wakes them up a little bit. To say, hey, you're hurting my feelings, this is wrong, blah, blah, in one ear out the other. But our situation is unhealthy and it's weird. Two people living together as husband and wife, sharing all these life moments, blah, blah, blah, being partners, having kids, but never touching each other. Is freaking weird. Sorry. And before you say anything, Mr. or Mrs. Spouse, the dead bedroom person, instigator, whatever, the low libido person, let's say that. Before you jump on me and say, no, it's not. I've already consulted with counselor, coach, internet guy, sex therapist, whatever. And they all agree. Something's up, dude. So wife, what's up? Put the onus on her. You see that I'm wanting a connection with you, by the way, perfectly normal. You see, I'm wanting to make this marriage work. Pretty commendable, especially for a guy that's been through so much over the months and years of no connection. I have every right just to go, eh, this ain't gonna work. But instead, I'm working it out. So what do you say, wife? You want to stop with this weird relationship and work on this together? And I'm not saying jump in bed right now either. That's the endgame. We gotta— we got a lot of work to do here between us. You ready to do that or not? I think the reason a lot of guys don't have that very normal, by the way, powerful masculine talk is that you know what's going to happen. She's going to tell you go fuck yourself. Ironic. And, uh, uh, all right, Jamie says, all right lads, watching from the UK. Well, welcome Jamie. All right, so we got an Aussie, we got a Brit, and some Americans. Anybody else? Um, Hide and Watch says what keeps him around is his children. Um, by that do you mean you don't— you want to be in their life 24/7? If not, um, that's just unfathomable for you? Unfathomable for you? Well then, is there a solution? Uh, you know, I've had some guys that say, I don't care what you say, Ralph, um, I'm not going to divorce because I want— I'm going to be the guy to tuck in my kid. Every day, not some other dude, and not my wife by herself because we're divorced, whatever. I'm going to be in my kids' life every day. And often what these guys say, and it's not a coincidence, probably more often than not, is, I came from a broken home and I'm not going to do that to my kids. I remember what that was like and I remember how much that sucked, and I'm not putting my kids through that. Sorry. So we need to come up with Plan B. Well, there's, there's not just Plan B, there's Plan B through Z, basically. There's a lot of flavors in between for how to get this done. Work it out as a couple, years of therapy— yes, years, plural, let's be honest, not trying to be negative, that's just not bullshitting you— um, all the way to open relationships. Not a fan, causes a lot of chaos. Good luck with that. But it's a solution for some people. And then all everything in between. There's a lot of different ways to skin a cat here. All right, Deplorable Millennial says, if my wife is super crabby and it pushes me out of the mood, am I manipulating her by rejecting her? What a good question, my man. Uh, he follows up with, I expect her to accept me as I am. Asking over and over again for me to change, I see that as manipulation. Cool. All right, you got two different things here. I'm gonna stick with question number one for now, then we can go to part two here. Number one is one I hear all the time, and I always think it is so interesting. And I'm not belittling what you're saying here in any way. Don't take it as that. If my wife is super crabby, in other words, she's not a nice person, she's being a dick. My wife's being a dick, and because of that, I'm not attracted to her in that way. Okay, guess what? Welcome to being a healthy human being. When people are assholes, we want to get away from them. A lot of men have a hard time with that. Why? Because a lot of men are kind of nice, nice guy, which is another word for, uh, people pleaser, anxious-y kind of guy. I do think that other people don't like me. Everybody's gotta like me. I gotta like everybody. I gotta keep everything, keep the water smooth. I don't want to ruffle any feathers. You know, that guy. Women are like this as well. Women tend to be more agreeable than men in that way. And so when a lot of these men start becoming mentally healthier, more confident, maybe going to therapy, maybe being in our group, DSOFraternity.com, and then they see a really over-the-top negative thing from wife, she's throwing things, she's breaking things, fucking, whatever it may be, old him old needier him would have been like, what can I do to make you feel better? Well, okay, please don't be mean, don't be mad, allow me to buy you something, do something for you, blah blah blah blah. And it just makes her worse and makes her more angry. And he says, there's nothing I can do. And then he reaches out, you want to have sex? And she's like, what? No, I don't want to have sex, man. He's— now that he's mentally healthier, he's like, her negative behavior actually makes me go, ooh, Well, of course it should make you go, "Ew." That's good, dude. You know, it's frankly, it's weird. Using that term again. It's weird to put up with a lot of negative behavior from somebody, a lot of very unattractive behavior. Yeah, let's go there. And follow up with, "You want to have sex?" What does that show? It shows that your need for sex is not based upon attraction. It's not based upon a mutual love for the person. It's based upon, I, I have— I'm feeling very needy right now, and, and having an orgasm would make me feel better. Highly unattractive. Not a good place to be. And if that's the source of a lot of your libido, your sexual desire is just make me feel better, please. Not good. Um, I've, I've said on here before, um, I'll have a man who will say, you know, in a coaching session, and you can book time with me, dadstartingover.com/coaching, or just go to the menu, look for coaching. A lot cheaper for our DSO fraternity members, by the way. Yeah, why are we chatting, mister? And he will just go on and on about how he does not like his wife. Oh my gosh, she gained 100 pounds. She wants— she will have nothing to do with the gym. She won't stop eating junk food. She drinks like a fish. When she gets drunk, she's screaming and yelling and she's angry. She's scaring the kids. She's scaring me. I'm trying to keep things calm. Who knows? Just all kinds of horrible, terrible behavior. I'm sorry to hear that, mister. So how can I help you? Well, I'm trying to figure out how to have more sex with my wife. Why? With the woman that you just described in no uncertain terms is a really unattractive, gross person inside and out. And you're like, me want sex. Not good, dude. So, Deplorable Millennial, welcome to being a healthy individual. On the other hand, I expect her to accept me as I am, asking over and over again for me to change. Maybe you want to flesh that out a little further. As I often say, how does she want you to change? You know, if she's telling you, please open up to me more, you're, you're a stoic rock of a person who will never talk about any kind of feelings, all you want to do is have sex, we never sit and talk, but then she's got a point. So what exactly is it she wants you to do to change? Let's start there. Mr., I apologize, how did you say how to pronounce your name? Scroll, scroll, scroll. Rohan, Rohan. Scroll back down. I have custody of our two children, Rohan says. A week after our divorce was settled, she told me she's seeing someone. I got very anxious when my kids asked to go visit mom's friend. How can I better deal with it? Maybe, you know, here's the thing, dude. We both know that guy was in the picture before the divorce, right? I hope you're aware of that. Not that that matters at this point, right? But it helps paint a picture for what you're dealing with. She's not thinking rationally. You don't bring a person like that around your kiddos. You have to know them for quite a while before you trust them and say, here's my kids. And guys, here's this guy who I, I know and I trust enough to introduce you very important children to. It's— it says a lot to kids, and kids grow up to be adults later, and they'll roll their eyes and go, God, Mom or Dad, there was just this revolving door of people coming in, boyfriend after boyfriend. I remember one guy she had, a boyfriend for 2 months, he was nice, and then he left, and then the next guy came in. And what does that show? Mom is just this— or Dad, again, or Dad, it's not a gender thing— is irrational, doesn't think things through, doesn't value us as children enough to keep those people away. Just keeps introducing us to people. It's all about, you know, making her feel better and trying to get affection and attention and validation from other people to help with what the kids think and to help what's good for the kids. Not good. So she's one of those people, unfortunately. So you can state your case, and I recommend doing it in writing via text or email, saying, um, I don't agree with this. You, by the way, I wish you all the best, ex-wife. I really do. I hope you have loving relationships and you meet the next Mr. Right and all that other stuff. God bless you. More power to you. But it concerns me that you're so quickly introducing this person to our children. Frankly, you don't know him well enough. I don't know him well enough. Maybe after you guys have been together for a while and everything else, a year, give it a year, then introduce the kids. And I would like to meet him as well, just so I know who my kids are. You know, seeing on a regular basis. Um, put that in writing, but we both know how that's probably going to go. Probably a big old go fuck yourself from her, which is fine, but at least you got it out there, right? We got somebody from Saskatchewan. All right, Mr. Eric, welcome. Hmm. And Mr. Hayden Watch says he's just trying to get the kids grown and out of the house and then deal with this one way or the other. How long is that going to be? Good morning, Ralph Brewer Brewer from Saskatchewan. Confidence plays a major role in the dead bedroom. A confident man is an attractive man. Absolutely. I've noticed positive changes in my relationship when my confidence has improved. Excellent. Very good. Now, with that being said, is that solution for everybody? No. There, there is a a contingent of, uh, self-help type people, especially geared towards men, of which I am one, admittedly, who preach, uh, masculinity is a good thing, right here, right? Go to the gym, work out, be more stoic, don't be such a wuss, don't be so needy, don't be so anxious, work on your independence and your hobbies and your interests. These are very masculine things, kind of boilerplate masculine advice, and I'm one of the big proponents of that. But I think where I differ from a lot is that there are some people who will literally keep taking thousands and thousands of your dollars for seminars and getaways and courses and everything else, keep telling you, it's your fault, dude. It's your fault, dude. It's your fault, dude. Be more masculine. Be more alpha. Be more this and that. For some people, that's, that's the prescription for sure. I've talked to some guys who, dude, you got everything going on here. You just let yourself go, like, physically. Used to be, let's say, like a, you know, I knew one guy who was a swimmer at the collegiate level. Have you seen swimmers? Some good-looking dudes, right? And, uh, and then he's like, I'm married now, now I sell insurance and I'm gonna gain 200 pounds, and what the hell, my wife doesn't want me anymore. Have you tried, you know, having some semblance of the old you? And he does, and voilà, Wife says, "Thank you for whoever told you to go back to your old self. Thank God." She didn't have the balls, so to speak, to tell him, "Hey, you're gross." But that was a big part of it for them. That's them. Some may say, "You're a very pushover-y guy. You don't make any damn decisions. I'm tired of playing the part of the boss around here." That's some people. Sounds like that may have been in part your deal. Well, for others, guys, women are human beings just like us men. Us men are capable of some pretty awful shitty things. We do awful shitty things to hurt good people all the time, and women are no different. Some of you out there watching this or listening to this are married to some people who just do not have any business being in a relationship with another human being. And yet you're stuck with them and you are paying the price. And no matter what you do, that situation is never going to improve. Whether it's you or whoever you slide into your place, that situation is never going to improve. And some of you need to yank your head out of your ass and realize that and get the hell out of Dodge because it's basically killing yourself. Some of you, not all of you, dare I say not most of you, but some of you That's the situation. You need to look at it situation to situation. So I don't like a lot of boilerplate, just raise your confidence and everything will be fine. And then I got some dude out there who's married to some woman who's, you know, schizophrenic, to use an extreme example. And I, um, I've had a couple of guys where I've like, you know, what you're describing to me, dude, sounds like paranoid schizophrenia or something along those lines. This poor woman needs professional help. No, I think if I get six-pack abs, I don't— it's like, oh God, dude, no. And I realize I'm in part responsible for some of that because I put out some of that information. So I'm going to try to be a little bit more careful about that. Um, all right, here we go. In your world— the dad started our world, I guess— uh, do you see more marriages or divorces/breakups? Well, I guess in my world, more divorces and breakups, because that's who I'm attracting, is a lot of people that are going through that, right? Um, now as far as— excuse me— new marriages, I guess, is what you're saying. Do I see a lot of new people getting married? Yeah. Um, I'm, I'm here in, you know, Kentucky, and it's not unusual for people to get married at, you know, the ripe old age of like 20 or something like that around here. You can see that a lot, right out of high school or whatever, get married, have kids. Not unusual. So, but if I were like in New York City, let's say I'm in Brooklyn, probably not going to see a lot of that there. Um, not saying one's good, one's bad, whatever. Yes, I am. It's not good to get married at age 20. Sorry. Um, but, uh, I see a lot of people get married around here, a lot of young people. But in my little dad starting over world, yeah, a lot of divorce. Hmm. Uh, Deplorable Millennial going back to, uh, how is it that his wife says, I want you to change? He says, not sure how to explain. Um, I feel that she projects her insecurities, so it's super confusing. It's not usual. She will change what she says off and on. Also not unusual. Um, and Mark says, interesting, he had the same experience when his wife's father passed. We're going back to several, uh, messages ago where somebody said they noticed an increase in sexual activity after their wife's father passed. And it's, it's like a— so we're pointing out that for some people, a tumultuous emotional event like that can, uh, raise the need for connection with their spouse, maybe, and some kind of quasi-libido increase. Who knows? But it's, it's a known psychological phenomenon akin to the old hysterical bonding. And then Ryan says, same story here, in regards to the previous message about somebody moving on real quick, their ex-spouse. It's the same story here. She had a guy who moved in before the ink was dry on the divorce decree. I understand that she has a lot of childhood trauma. She always needs to have someone around because she doesn't have the confidence in herself. Yeah, it's, it's big of you to recognize that. And it is not excusing it though, is it? But it's helping to understand it. And this is a lot of pushback I get from a lot of guys, is I will say something to the effect of, you know, a lot of people do something like commit infidelity, for example, or divorce or whatever, for the following reasons. And they will be like, F their reasons. They're shitheads. They're evil people. Who gives a shit? Well, okay, I see your point. I can see a lot of you guys are hurting. A lot of you guys are fresh into this world. Been there, done that. But, uh, it helps to understand it. Why? So we can avoid it in ourselves. So we can avoid it in future partners. So it just helps to learn these things, learn human behavior. We're better off for it. We're more well-rounded, intelligent, educated creatures when we learn about all the little intricacies of how each of us, what makes us tick. And Ryan says, yeah, I don't take it personally. It's not you, Ryan. Yeah, my ex and her issues, not me, it's her. And I genuinely wish her all the best. As long as what she does and what others do doesn't hurt others, doesn't impact the lives negatively, in a negative way, others' lives, then do your thing, sister. Um, Jamond, G-M-U-N-D, I apologize, I don't know how to pronounce your first name. Is the G silent? Moon? I don't know. Uh, he says, my psychologist, uh, recommended to leave my wife after 20 years. We have 2 kids and she has not cheated, but she does not want to continue being married, but she will not leave because she does not have a place to go to. Oh, okay. Uh, See this one all the time. Uh, my wife— you know, a man will talk about all these actions that his wife does that are really, really negative and basically push him away. Get away, get away. You know, sometimes overtly, physically get away, and sometimes in an emotional way, like, I've detached from you emotionally, get away. And, uh, here's me and therapists and others saying, in essence, you've been dumped, dude. And the guy's like, well, if I've been dumped, what's she doing sticking around? We had to talk about divorce, and she's like, I don't want a divorce. Like, well, why not? Obviously she's done with me. Well, dude, for a lot of people, divorce is a big honking thing that will really throw a grenade in the room of their life. And you represent a lot of security, comfort. They know what's going to happen today, tomorrow, and the next day, and the next year, and so forth. If suddenly you're gone, goodbye safety and security, goodbye comfort. Goodbye knowing what's going to happen next week. That's scary for a lot of people. So, um, especially for people that are, um, and this is more often than not women, sorry, not all of you. Now pause here while you leave your comments. But first, for a lot of you, a lot of you gals, um, when you're in later years, monogamous relationship of 10, 20, 30 years post-menopausal, a lot of you kind of resign yourself to the sexual me is gone. That part of me is dead. And that's just cool. And the follow-up to that is, which is not very healthy, is, and he's just gonna have to live with that, sorry. Oh sure, Mr. Horndog 50-year-old here is ready to go at the drop of a hat, and I still catch him looking at all those gals, and I can see that he's still a a sexual creature, but I'm not. Oh well. And, uh, and then you're like, well, what are you doing in this relationship? Like, well, that's not— the relationship's not just about the old in and out. It's all the other stuff that goes with it. So I'm cool with eliminating that part, the romantic part of our relationship, and all that goes with it. Not just the intercourse, but all the other stuff leading up to it. We can, we can ditch that. The cuddling, the snuggling, the hand-holding, the kissing, that, and that Done. I can go without that. But I kind of need a roof over my head. I kind of need food in the refrigerator. I kind of need to see my children. I kind of need, I kind of need, I kind of need, and on and on and on. So yeah, we need to stay married. Hmm. When I want to say it out loud like that, it's not the healthiest dynamic in the world, is it? But that's reality for a lot of people. I'm learning over the years, a lot of people. And Mark says, because she's not done with the lifestyle that you provide. And it may not necessarily be, Mark, um, he provides, meaning he makes all the money and without his money she will, you know, be destitute. No, a lot of these women are high-paid women that they do well for themselves. Even if the guy looks at it on paper and he's like, I don't know what the holdup here is because she makes more than I do, she'll be just fine on her own. She has a— I don't want her 401k and all her savings and all the other shit. She can keep that stuff. And hell, I'll give her the car, I'll give her this. We've talked about it, but she's like, no, no, no, no, no. Why? That comfort, the security, that knowing what's going to happen, that's, that's huge for a lot of people, man. To throw her out, even if she's got, you know, nice high six-figure whatever and a Mercedes and stuff, to say you're on your own, to some people, beyond frightening. And they can't take that next step, as silly as that may seem to some of us, some of us more independent types. All right, Mr. Allen from Facebook asks, do you think that cohabitation before marriage will lead to divorce? No. Or if cohabitation is short— or if, pardon me, or if the cohabitation is short, will the couples make it? So in other words, do I see some kind of premarital cohabitation leading one way or another to the demise or the strength of the relationship. No, I'm not really Mr. Conservative in that way where two people don't live together unless you're married. Damn it, we're all adults here. Um, one thing that cohabitation does though— don't shoot the messenger— there's a lot of material out there all about this exact phenomenon. It's not necessarily just cohabitation. Let me put it this way. A lot of guys that I talk to Everything was great. Everything was romantic. Everything was hot and heavy, as we say, meaning sexual. We were very interconnected emotionally, intellectually. Everything was great. And then she wanted to take it a step further. And she says, I don't feel like we are serious enough yet. It makes no sense that you pay rent, I pay rent. We're paying double. We live 10 minutes from each other. Damn it, let's just move in together. And the guy says, she's got a point. We've been together for quite a while. All right, let's do it. And they move in together. And the guy says, I'll be damned. As soon as we become like this comfortable couple, the sexy knob went from here to just ever so slightly here, slowly but surely. And I noticed that it keeps cranking down a little bit. Familiarity breeds contempt. Have you heard that one? Absence makes the heart grow fonder. You've heard that one too. These are very old sayings that are grounded in reality. It seems like the more we are around each other day in and day out, the more we see all our little foibles and all our little annoying things, the more the mystery is gone, uh, the less that— that passion begins to dissipate. Just one of our little quirks of human nature. We want what we can't have. And when I don't see my missus for a few days, whatever it may be, it increases that tension, that positive emotional tension. And when you see each other, it becomes an event. We're going to get together. This is going to be fun. It's going to be sexy. It's going to be romantic. Yahoo! No, man, I gotta, I gotta say goodbye. You know, I'll see you later. That seems to be the template for keeping the passion alive in many people. And so when you say, let's live together, You're saying goodbye to all that. And then when you throw on top of that, let's get married, more and more certainty is piled on. This isn't a hyper-masculine red pill horseshit thing. This is a human nature thing, guys. There's books written on the topic by women. Miss Esther Perel, for example, is famous for saying something to the effect of, um, oh, how does she put it? It's escaping me right now, something to the effect of, with certainty, passion leaves when certainty enters the picture, something to that effect. Which, for a lot of men especially, the way our libido operates, which is basically like, here's our libido, hey, we got married, ever so slightly down, but then it continues. It's like, we don't care, we're ready to go. So to hear a woman saying, "No," as soon as everything gets kind of certain and comfortable and for sure and the mystery is gone, then we go from here to here. We're like, "What the fuck?" That's why it takes work to keep that going, a lot of work. So that's one way cohabitation, in a nutshell, can kind of throw the grenade in the room, so to speak. I'm scrolling. I missed a bunch of comments while I was blabbing. Happens a lot. All right, here we go. Wordsmith, our buddy Wordsmith, a regular from YouTube. Thank you so much, Wordsmith. Uh, my wife said that I act like I don't want to spend time with her anymore but wouldn't say why. So she wouldn't say why she's thinking that. When we spend time together, she act— she says I act annoyed. It's a comfort test, I believe. Not sure how to feel about that. All this comfort test, shit test, blah, blah, blah. It's a hyper-analytical, almost autistic way. Pardon me, I don't mean that in an offensive way. You know where I'm going, a spectrum-y kind of thing, hyper-analytical engineer type of way of looking at it. Hmm, what's going on? What's going on here under the surface when my woman says this? Maybe you should just take her at her face value here. And when she says, you know what, you don't act like you like me anymore, why is she saying that, Wordsmith? Dude, man to man, you and I have been speaking via these things for a while now. That's because you don't like her anymore. I've seen your messages. You don't like the woman. You have a lot of disdain for the woman. And the case can be made, rightfully so, you guys, you've been disconnected for quite a while. And she's been resilient to your advances for quite a while. And you have a lot of stress going on in life. And so here she is going, I don't know, it doesn't seem like you want to spend time with me anymore. And when you spend time, it seems like you're annoyed by me. She's just calling out what she sees, dude. Don't try to overanalyze this. Maybe you should say, yeah, I'm annoyed. Yeah, I don't like you very much anymore. Why is that? Well, dummy, it's because this. What are you afraid of? You're going to hurt her feelings? Sounds like you already have, dude. Put it out there. Be an adult, man. Step up. Yes, I'm not happy. This is why. Let me scroll back here because once again I got a follow-up question to something. Uh, all right, this is follow-up to Jimund. Apologize if that's not how to pronounce it. He originally said the psychologist recommend that he leaves his wife of 20 years. She's done with the relationship but she won't leave, and she's told you as much, right? Uh, and I'm scrolling back to his follow-up question. Uh, says, so should I kick her out? And be seen as the bad guy. Kick her out. Why not just be an adult and shake hands and say, we both know this isn't working, sweetheart. You know, I wish you all the best. Now kick her out. I don't know where you're at in the world. I don't know if that's a possibility. I don't know if that's legally possible here in the US. You can't just say, wife out. She'll follow up with the police or the attorneys or whatever, you know, real quick saying, no, no, you out. Or, uh, we need to figure this out legally, and you end up staying in the same house. Just split amicably, dude. Your wife doesn't want to be in the relationship often, and you're pointing out something here. So often in a lot of these relationships, um, not always, the woman doesn't want to play the part of the bad guy. I'm done here. I've been done here. The safety security thing concerns me, but also what I'm much more concerned with is, uh, what is everybody gonna think about me? What are my kids gonna think? What are my family, my friends gonna think? They're all gonna think of some kind of witch because he's not a horrible person. We don't have like a contentious, abusive, whatever. I'm just done with them and I've been done with them for a while. I can't be the one to blow this all up. Let's just cross our fingers and wait for him to do it. Go ahead, be the bad guy. So what? Yeah, I'm the bad guy. I can't believe you divorced her. Believe it. Next. I, I, Mr. Gmund, I am— I have the luxury of not giving a shit what other people think. Sorry, I'm almost 50 years of age. I've gotten to that point in life where, yeah, fine, I'm a bad guy, whatever. What do you want to do about it? Why? Because I know the truth. I know what's really going on. Let other people think whatever they want to think. Oh well, no biggie. Hmm. Wordsmith follows up to his previous question saying, I am annoyed that 90% of what she says to me is about the kids. She's annoyed because I don't think about them 24/7. I've lost 100 pounds, I'm hitting the gym, I'm kickboxing, I have other things in my life. That's a very common sentiment amongst the men and women. Women tend to be very hyper-anxious and ruminating all about the lives of their kids and us men, just what do we worry about? Stuff that's immediate and may cause us danger, life or death things. Otherwise, it's just background noise. We only have— and I've used this analogy before— we only have so much room on our plate. Our plate in our brain, if you will, is like the, the one of those paper plates that has the different raised sections to keep everything separate from each other, you know, the peas over here, carrots over here, meat over here, and they don't touch, and there's no room for anything else. So when somebody comes over with a spoon of something on a plate, we say, whoa, let's look at this first. What is that? She goes, I just want to talk about— and you're like, nah, not plate-worthy, beat it. And we just ignore it, which is often why our wives talk to us about something and you go, huh, since when? And she says, we were just talking about this yesterday, you don't remember? And you're like, if you're honest with her, you would say, oh no, I tuned out about 2 seconds into your speech because I don't give a shit. I don't give a shit about the red carpet, what color of red carpet to get— maroon, bright red— I, I don't give a shit. So I ignored it. Sorry, that's the way I am as a dude. Now, if somebody's knocking at the front door and they have a gun or whatever, oh, I'm at attention. I'll murder for my family, but I don't give a shit about 90% of the stuff that's said. Um, so that's not really shit shitty of me, but It's true, isn't it? It's part of what makes us charming as dudes. So you have to— every little thing that goes on with the kids, the wife is thinking about. The other day, my wife picked me up at the office and we're going home, and I look over at her and she had a genuine, like, this look on her face. Not like her, really. And I was like, you okay? What's up? She's like, oh, I'm just thinking about what to make for dinner. She says this over what to make for dinner, and I'm just like, don't you, didn't you already pre-make a bunch of stuff earlier in the week so we could avoid such drama? Didn't you bake a bunch of stuff already? Yeah, I know, but she doesn't like the muffins and she won't eat the dinner, and just on and on and on ruminating about all this stuff, and it's like, Now, some women have enough relationship experience and so forth to realize that that's just the way dudes are. We only worry about certain things, and you can count on us for the big things. But as far as all those little things, whether they're kid or not, we just— we don't have the capacity for it. We don't care. And they do, which is in part why they drive themselves nuts. They volunteer for everything. They just keep piling on more and more stress relating things. It sometimes— it takes us, the dude in the relationship, to go, 'Timeout. No, we're not dealing with that. Take that off your plate, wife. It's silly.' Or, 'I got it. Give it to me. I'll take it. You worry about the 19 other things. I got that one thing that's causing you a lot of stress,' or whatever. Um, but for some of your more anxious types, um, a common thing amongst a lot of anxious types is, 'I'm anxious about the fact that you're not as anxious as me about fill in the blank.' Doesn't this bother you? Doesn't this worry you as much as it worries me? And when the other person goes, it's no big deal, oh, that just drives them nuts. Like, what do you mean no big deal? This is a life or death thing. No, it's not. Cancer is a life or death thing. Whether or not we have 2 dozen cookies or 3 dozen cookies for the bake sale tomorrow, I don't give a shit. There's my speech on men not really giving a shit. And Alan says, uh, Romeo and Juliet never cohabitated. That's why they were passionate. Well, there you go. Guys, we are already almost at an hour. Oh, that went by fast. And I wanted to keep this to about an hour if I could, please. So I'm going to say any other last minute questions? Dad Starting Over, dadstartingover.com, check it out. Dad Starting Over, any of the social media channels, check out our private group for men only, the DSO fraternity. Once again, for men only. Sorry ladies, um, check me out on YouTube. I got going up, it'll be 900, be 1,000 videos here soon up on YouTube. You're never going to run out of shit to watch because I keep adding to it every single day. Podcasts, the DSL Fraternity, I didn't mention, um, I mentioned the live meetings that we have on there. We record all of them and then you can in turn listen to those from your phone, from your podcast app on your phone. We give you a little link and you click it and it adds our meeting archive, meeting recordings feed, if you will, to your podcast app. It's kind of cool, shows up as a podcast, but only members can see that. And, um, we have now over 700 hours of meetings on there. Holy crap, that's a lot. So if you like to listen to podcasts, got a lot of road trips, walking on the treadmill, working out, pick a meeting, hit play again, and by the time you think you've made a dent in the meetings, we've just added more right behind it. And right by the same with the DSO Fraternity. Um, what else? My audiobooks, all of them right there from your phone. So if you're an audio content kind of guy, DSO Fraternity's right up your alley. If you like to talk and discuss forums and so forth, right up your alley. If not, cool. It's not for everybody, but we would love to have you. Let me see. Bradley says thank you, always insightful. Well, thank you, Bradley. I appreciate it. Alan says, are you a DJ in real life? No, I am not. The voice is something I've had to work on. Not really, I guess not my natural voice, if you will, but it's something I've had to work on over the years. I was a DJ in high school, believe it or not, and college. So I think that maybe planted the seed for how to properly enunciate. The radio station when I was a kid was called WQTY. QTY. And I remember the guy telling me it's W, not W, W-Q-T-Y. And then I was at Indiana State, W-I-S-U, Indiana State University, Terre Haute, Indiana. So there you go. So a little bit. So maybe that has stuck with me for the past 30 years. Wow, I'm old. Anywho, but thank you for that, appreciate it. All right, and if you like my voice I do the readings of all my audiobooks. Audible, DSO, check them out. Dead Bedroom Fix, that's my biggest seller, in addition to Divorce Panic, in addition to Red Flags, which is a quick read or listen. And then Real Talk, No Bullshit Life Advice for Young Men is just like it sounds, a book for young men, all about all the shit that we wish somebody had taught us when we were a kid. I've had a lot of grown men read that saying, actually, this is a book for me. I like this. Tough to get our teenage boys to sit down and read a book or listen to it, but I've had some, and I've had some good feedback. I've had one guy say he actually was on a road trip with his kiddo and said, we're gonna listen to this together, and they did. And the guy, the kid was like, I like it, I want to listen to this part again. Love it. So check it out, Real Talk, No Bullshit Life Advice for Young Men. All right, ladies and germs, I thank you all once again for joining me. One hour on the dot, there you go, perfect. Dadstartingover.com. And I put in the chat earlier, in the comments earlier— scroll back and see it— links to, uh, 1 month for free to our men's group, the Ace of Fraternity, as well as a coupon code if you decide to join. Uh, you can get the annual— or pardon me, the lifetime plan for a whopping 30% off. That's in honor of our 4th anniversary of the group. All right, ladies and germs, always a pleasure. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your Thursday. A toodaloo!