Chat LIVE with Ralph (DSO)!

There I is. Hello, hello everyone. How are you fine folks today? It is Friday. Yay! Got big plans for the weekend. We're celebrating my youngest daughter's third birthday tomorrow. Her birthday was actually Wednesday. Doing a little birthday party for everybody tomorrow, Saturday. Going to the— doing an indoor park thing. Cake, the whole nine yards. Whole bunch of toddlers in one room. Fun. Yay! Anyway, welcome everybody. How's everyone today? We'll give a little bit for people to file in. I did a goof on this, imagine that. I got too much shit going on, but I accidentally put this scheduled for next month. The default on the program was 08 instead of 07, you know, July. So right before this, my— oh shit, and I flipped it and changed it to now. So hopefully not everybody's completely confused and we get some folks to join us here today. Welcome everyone. Let me bring up my comment window here. All right. Welcome, welcome. How is everybody today? Who is, uh, who's with me here today so far? We got our fine folks on YouTube as well as Facebook and Twitter or X joining us today. If you could say hello and let me know where you're from, where in the world you're joining us from. Looks like a small group here so far. We'll give a little bit for folks to dial in, dial in. Join us. Harkening back to the old internet days with your modems. Anybody remember that? Yeah, the telephone modems. I remember those days. Uh, what else? Telephone modem days, the old, uh, newsgroups. I was big into newsgroups back in the day. Bulletin boards, newsgroups, those all started relatively early in the internet days. All right, so Kawaja says, uh, happy birthday wishes for your daughter. Well, thank you very much. Appreciate I appreciate that. Very nice of you. Thank you. Where are you from? Kawaja? That's quite the name you got there. Not something we hear in the States very often. Africa, perhaps? Welcome. Where else is everybody from today? Welcome, everybody. Anybody else join us today? While I have you on here, this is recorded, so people will watch this later. It's funny, I always have these recordings posted social media, like, or the lives posted as a recording. And so people watch it later, like hours, days later, and people will interact with the recording as if it was live. And I always have to tell people, you're, you're, you know, they will just post like a question like, yes, it's like, what? Or no. And they'll start sharing their story and stuff. Like, dude, this shut down, you know, days ago. Sorry. So be aware of that if you're watching this as a recording. You know, look at the date, time. It will say on your social media, wherever you're watching this, that it's in fact recording and not live. Um, and Adnor here says Usenet. Yes, Adnor says hello from Florida, and he's in the Brotherhood. So welcome, Adnor. Welcome, welcome. Uh, anybody else here with us today? And speaking of, uh, Brotherhood, let's get this out of the way, shall we? Although it's important. Uh, go to help4men.com. That's our website, relatively new. We still have dadstartingover.com. You're watching this on the Dad Starting Over channel, probably. Welcome. But we also have our website Help for Men, a little bit more broad in scope, more inclusive, helps out everybody. All of our business side of things are over on that side, on that website. We now have our coaching is over there. The books are sold on helpformen.com if you, you know, want to purchase directly from myself. And then we have our private group for men only. That is called the HFM Brotherhood, a support group if you want to call it that. We have guys from all over the world and we get together in private discussions. No one else can see, you know, unless you're behind, you know, you're behind a username and password to get into the system and get into our private discussion forums. Um, no one else can see what you're saying. No one else can see you're even a part of these groups. But we have guys that talk about a myriad of different things, all different kinds of topics. We talk about the old dead bedroom, very, very popular topic. I wrote a book about it. We'll get into that a little bit. Um, we talk about, uh, you know, divorce, just trying to maintain a happy marriage, parenthood, parenting, career, anything and everything that guys in today's day and age like to talk about. And you wish that there were dudes, you know, kind of in the same boat going through the same thing you're going through to talk about it with. That's what the group is for. That's just one small part of it. The discussion forum, very, very busy. Um, you know, a couple of years ago we did the stats to show how many discussions that started in the group. And this was as of a couple years ago, something like 50,000 individual discussions had been started. 50,000. So since then, I'm going to say conservative estimate of probably like 70,000 discussions total. That's nuts. Very, very active. In addition to that, we have live meetings. Get together and talk face to face, so to speak, with myself and other guys on the team and your fellow members. And we just, you know, shoot the shit, as they say, for like an hour or two. And talk about a variety of different topics. Sometimes the meetings are focused on a specific topic, sometimes they're a free-for-all and we talk about whatever. We have those, and those are recorded, so if you miss them, you can listen to that at any point from your phone. And we have over 700 hours of meetings recorded. Um, we also have a podcast just for our members, kind of like monologues by myself and others. And I believe we have over 100 200, probably like over 100 of those by now. And what else do we have? All my books that I've written. I've written 4 books. And then Austin on our team, Coach Austin, he wrote a book. Well, all of our books that are under our Help for Men brand are available for free to our members. You can download in PDF format, you can listen to the audiobook. Pretty cool stuff. And then we have get-togethers in person, and then we have products that you have to pay for, like coaching one-on-one time with myself and other guys on the team. If you're a member of that group, which by the way costs less than a dollar a day to join this group. If you pay for a year up front, it costs like 30-some cents a day. Can't beat that for what you get. And, um, the coaching is like half off. And then we have courses, which we haven't yet ported over to the new site. We will hopefully soon. Those are like half off as well. And then we have our in-person gatherings that we get together. And What the Sith says, hello, I read your book, great stuff. Which book was that? I'm going to assume it was The Dead Bedroom Fix because that's the one that most people read. Uh, back to Dead Bedroom Fix. Go to deadbedroomfix.com or go to Amazon, go to Apple Books, Barnes Noble, and you can see that I just released as of last week the third edition of The Dead Bedroom Fix, my most popular book. So I've come out with three different editions of it. Last one just last week. Check it out, bunch of new stuff in there. Audio version coming soon. It's all done, it's been sent over to Audible. We are waiting for them to do their thing, and it will show up on Audible, it'll show up on Apple Books as the audio version. So check it out. I'm especially proud of the audio version, um, because we have extra commentary on there that is not in the print edition, if you want to call it that, the Kindle or ebook or print editions. Uh, speaking of, one interesting little factoid, I was looking over my stats with books. Um, men sure do like print editions of the book. The print editions outsell the ebook editions like 2 to 1. I think that's kind of unusual for books overall, but I think it's illustrative of my audience. Apparently men like paper copies that they can hold in their hand. So, if that's you, yeah, we got a paperback version. You can download it as of now. I'm going to put a link here. Pardon me for a second as I get this together. Get a link to the Amazon store. Most books these days are purchased on Amazon, ain't they? So, it's just the nature of the beast. But boom, there you go. There's the link. Put it in the comments there or in the chat if you're watching this on YouTube. There is the, uh, link to the book on Amazon. You can get the Kindle or version there. As I said, Audible coming soon. And Sith says, yes, Dad Bedroom Fix, excellent. Sith, did it happen to be the previous version number 2 which came out in 2020, or was it this latest version that came out last week? May want to check out the latest version. Not trying to sell an extra book, but Yeah, it's not expensive. Um, you can download the PDF, which is now mobile-friendly PDF, from our website, meaning that the font is nice and big so you can read it on your phone. Uh, or you can get from Amazon, put it on your Kindle, your Kindle app, or get the paperback, as I mentioned. Uh, other books that I've written include, uh, Divorce Panic, which is just what it sounds like— guys going through a divorce. I share stories from guys going through the divorce and infidelity and all that other fun stuff. And my thoughts on the matter. And then we have a book called Red Flags, very, very quick read or quick listen on Audible, all about the 20 things you need to look out for when dating gals, when looking for Mrs. Right. And then we have a book, uh, that is geared towards young men, maybe post-pubertal or pubertal young men, you know, when boys start getting interested in girls. And, uh, what I heard often from men throughout my years of doing this was Um, I would love to give like The Dead Bedroom Fix, for example, to my kiddo, but it's not really for kids. I don't think he'll relate to this and this, but there's a lot of— there's so much good stuff in there that I wish there was a book for kids about this, or, or where was this shit when I was a kid, this information. So you hear that like 800 times and you go, maybe I should write a book aimed at those kids. And that book is called Real Talk: No Bullshit Life Advice for Young Men, and it's actually doing pretty well right now. It's like my number 2 seller right now. Um, A big audience for that seems to be women, single women. I've had a couple ladies say, husband passed away and now our boy's 13, 14 years of age, and I'm kind of lost because I can't really relate to, you know, horny teenage boy and girl crazy boy thing. And I'd like to give them some advice, but it's coming from me, mom. And so book all about, you know, from A to Z. It starts at the beginning, which for some may be kind of elementary. This is what puberty is. This is what it means. This is what's happening to your body and brain all the way through the laws of attraction, the laws of dating, how to be a gentleman, um, what to do, what not to do, confidence, abundance, all that good stuff that we wish we knew as kiddos are in that book. The book's called Real Talk. Um, ah, Mr. Adnor starting things off. Adnor from YouTube says, with respect to seeking couples counseling or getting my significant— significant, pardon me, other to get individual counseling, It seems like it would not be great to have this be part of an ultimatum where it's either that or we split. It would not be great to have this as part— so, okay, so let's back up here, Adnor. Uh, you're talking to your gal, there's just all kinds of problems. You finally have the heart-to-heart where like, hey, we both know this ain't working. This is— this has been, you know chaos and nonsense for years. And— oh, I see. Really feeling they need to seek therapy. Um, pardon me. Uh, it seems that they would do it just to kind of kick the can down the road versus them really— okay, so this is a really good point, Adnor. What you're saying is, if I tell them we need to go get help and then they do go get help with you counselor, joint counseling, separate, whatever, there's always that thought in the back of your mind— correct me if I'm wrong, Adnor— there's always that thought in the back of your mind where you're like, the only reason they are doing this is to kick the can down the road, keep this relationship machine humming along. They don't genuinely want to change. They don't genuinely want to fix things. They don't genuinely have desire for me and for the relationship. They don't love me in that way. They're just doing that to keep the status quo. Am I, am I right, Adnor? It's difficult to communicate with these things. You're always waiting for the next comment and response. But did I kind of nail that? I'll wait a little bit here. Does that sound familiar to any of you guys? Any of you guys have similar thoughts in that regard? Please do share. But, um, I'll continue that line of thought, and I've talked about this before. It's not exactly fair to your wife. I don't know your situation exactly. Probably go back You've said your name here. I didn't share your name with the people in the video here, but, um, I could probably go back and look at some of your posts in our group. Adnor is a member of our private group, the HFM Brotherhood. Uh, I could probably go back and get a flavor for what it is you're talking about or a better feel for your situation. He says, right. Okay. So, um, it's not exactly fair to the person who's being preached at, talked to by the other person. I'm not saying what you're saying is bad by any stretch of the imagination. So Here's the situation. Um, I will, I will flip the genders and give you a real-world example so we can kind of wrap our mind around this. A lady reached out to me and we chatted. We had a one-on-one session. Happens once in a blue moon. Ladies reach out to me, they want the male perspective on things. And she was with, and I've mentioned this before, excuse me if you've heard this story, um, very quote-unquote alpha male tough guy. And he's always been Alpha male, tough guy, which often what goes along with that is kind of an avoidant, I'm not really a very emotional romantic guy in that way. I'm more of your alpha male tough dude, you know, firing machine guns in the air, drinking whiskey out of the bottle kind of guy. That's my thing. And to some women, that's like, oh wow, that's what I like. I like that hyper-masculinity. I like that aloofness. I like that strong guy that I can depend on kind of dude. But unfortunately, give and take here, yin and yang, uh, positive and positives and negatives that go along with that. One of the negatives for this gal that talked to me was this guy doesn't have a romantic bone in his body. Um, he, you know, if we're sitting next to each other on the couch, he does not put his arm around me. He does not hold my hand when we're walking. He doesn't do, you know, fill in the blank here. We went to counseling. He was okay to go to counseling. He's like, sure, whatever you would like. And they go and the counselor's like, You have to kind of, you know, walk before you run. You have to get into the habit of doing these kind of things, mister. When you sit down with wife, you need to consciously remind yourself, oh yeah, sit down, put armor on wife, she likes this stuff. And you do that hundreds of times and it eventually becomes normal. Well, at the early stages of this, uh, change in the man, or the attempted change in this man Sure enough, they sit on the couch next to each other and she's kind of looking over at him and you can see he's like, oh, oh yeah, and puts his arm around her. And she's like, it was very cold, there was no feeling behind it. And it built up resentment in her because she's like, the only reason he's doing this is because we went to this counselor and the counselor suggested it. There's no feeling behind this, he doesn't want to do this, this is not natural to him. And we're walking, you know, side by side, he reaches over and grabs my hand, but I can see it's very cold and robotic to him. There's nothing to this, there's no warmth, there's nothing It's like just holding a statue's hand. It's his arm around me. Ugh. It's just, it's a major turnoff to her. And I said to her, I go, that's not really fair. You want to be in this relationship or not? That's who you got. That's who he is. And to change that means a very real personality change in him, which is not going to be quick. It's going to take time. That's a very stereotypical, uh, female thing, although that's not necessarily fair, but we see it a lot in our ladies, which is It doesn't matter that you did that thing because I know deep down inside you don't want to do that thing. So a woman goes to her man and says, would you go to brunch with me? When you want to go antique shopping, you want to do all this? And the guy's like, oh God, I'd rather pull my teeth out than do something like that. But he's like, yeah, if that's what you want to do, sure, I'll go with you. Then he goes, and the whole time he's like staring at his phone or looking at his watch, and he's just not there. He's not, he's not You know, it's obvious he doesn't want to be there. And the wife says to him, could you do a better job of pretending you want to be here? I mean, come on, Jesus, dude. And the guy's like, if you're waiting for me to act like I want to be here, don't hold your breath. I don't want to be here. The only reason I'm here is for you, okay? You're asking me to fundamentally change who I am. I don't like going to brunch and antique shopping and all this other stuff. I'd rather go, I don't know, deer hunting or riding his motorcycle or insert some stereotypical male thing here, right? This is not my thing. I'm doing this for you, doing this because I love you. To expect me to put on a good face— I'm trying, you know. Dude who goes antiquing and brunching probably needs to do that a good 100 more times before it kind of feels more natural to him, and then maybe she'll be more happy with his demeanor. Same thing goes for this, that. So same thing for a wife. If I take her to this thing and she's like, okay, I'll go, You can't then turn around and go, well, we know how this is going to go. This is just going to be a bunch of horseshit, and you're going to want to go, and you're just going to sit there and stare at the ceiling, and you're going to, you know, file your nails while the lady's talking, and you're not going to be into this. This sucks. You're just doing this to kick the can down the road. You can't have it both ways, dude. Do you want to go to counseling or not? If so, you're going to be patient. I just keep preaching this to dudes over and over again to the point of annoying myself. This ain't gonna probably be fixed in 6 sessions, dude. This may be like a multiple year thing. One year after year one, you're like, I think we're making progress here. Year two, we're doing really good. You know, that's what it's gonna take. Are you in it for the long haul? Because that's what it's gonna take, dude. Um, so if, if there's hope for the marriage counseling to work, and what the Sith points out here, he doesn't believe in marriage counseling. Well, a good marriage counselor, as I often say, is worth their weight in gold. A good one. How rare are good ones? Eh, you probably find a good one in every major city somewhere. But you gotta, you know, look at the reviews if there's such a thing. I don't know, the reviews online. Meet with them and you couple after a couple of meetings, you're like, "This one's not for us." That's fine. Go find you another one until you get the one you like. During that process of counselor shopping, you may lose each other in the process, but you and the spouse. But anyway, a really good one is really good. They're a mediator, they're a go-between, they're the person that's kind of, "No, no, let this person talk, go ahead," and, "No, no, what you said was very hurtful, go ahead," you know, that kind of thing. You need that person, and, you know, I've seen this before, here are some things to try between the two of you. Sometimes it's a miracle worker for some people, really is, if it's a good person, you know, they got a good head on their shoulders. But like with any other kind of discipline or job, that's, dare I say, kind of relatively rare. You know, I don't care if it's a plumber or if it's a counselor or something, finding a really, really good one, it's tough. But they're out there, so let's not throw an entire industry under the bus just because, um, and then Guitar God 365 says he feels Adnor's plight here. Says a lot of women, my wife included, will only be intimate or go to therapy just to keep stringing things along. I doubt that most really want to change. Well, again, let's not take your experience with, um, your one gal Guitar God, you've been a regular on here. It sounds like your, your relationship, dare I say, no offense, it's relatively dysfunctional based upon what you're talking about here and a lot of the things that you're saying here. Um, so hence why you come to my material. A lot of people that come to my material and others, and you mention Orion Taraban, who I just did an interview with yesterday, by the way. We're editing the video now to be up on the Help for Men channel. But anyway, um To then, you know, take your experience within this and you come to basically an echo chamber of other men who are going through similar things. You know, how often do I see people that come to my material saying, "Hey, I saw your stuff, really, really good stuff. Just want to let you know, me and my marriage are great, and the wife and I are, you know, intimacy between the two of us is wonderful, and, and we've had our ups and downs, but everything's wonderful. I can't imagine living with anybody else." How often do I hear that? Rarely. Does that mean that that rarely happens? No, it just means within my audience, within my population, that rarely happens. It's the inverse of that is, you know, we bring in all this bad stuff and all this bad stuff happens. It also— we are also very hyper-aware. A lot of us anxious guys in this world, we're hyper— that's the word— researchers, learners when it comes to all this relationship stuff. We watch these videos, we watch these lives, we read the books and so forth. We the vernacular and the psychology terms, um, you know, responsive desire and, and, uh, spontaneous desire, for example. And I often say to people, if I were to then, you know, pause and then go out to the general public out in the world, go outside of Chipotle over here down the work— down the road, which I'm going to for lunch, by the way. That's why I mentioned I'm getting hungry. Um, and I just stop some random gal or dude coming out of Chipotle and say, responsive desire, what do you think? Go. They're going to look at you wide-eyed like, "I don't know what the hell you're talking about. What is that? What? Responsive who? Where? What?" We're in our own little world here. We don't realize that the general public doesn't deal with a lot of this stuff. And Guitar God says, "I hear that things are great in the relationship from your female viewers, LOL," which we know is complete bullshit. Hey, maybe sometimes. Maybe not. You know, if, you know, for example, I am— oh, like, this is my business, the Dad Starting Over and Help for Men world. And the business includes book sales, includes membership sales, you know, to the— our private group, the HFM Brotherhood, helpformen.com. Check it out. And then we have the coaching, and then we have— I get money for the social media postings through advertising and so forth. So I have all these little streams of different kinds of income, and it's doing relatively well. Always could be better, right? But sure enough, if I were to go on to a forum for entrepreneurship or business or something like that, let's say like Reddit, which is notoriously very negative place with a lot of really negative people in it, and if I were to go on there, probably 90% of the comments would be, don't even bother, don't try, entrepreneurship is a bunch of horseshit, capitalism is awful. It's just a game where only a very select few succeed. Don't even attempt, just go get a job or go on welfare or whatever some bad advice may be. And, um, that's just the way it is. Anybody telling you otherwise is full of shit. You'll see that a lot. I've been— I've heard that my whole entrepreneurial life. I've been in and out of the entrepreneurial world, uh, for a while now. And it's— some of them have a point. Dare I say, the majority of people that enter into the entrepreneurial world don't make it. That doesn't mean that entrepreneurship in general is a bunch of horseshit. They're the— pretty much the richest people in the world are entrepreneurs. They started their own business, bought and sold businesses, multiple businesses, whatever. That's the key for a lot of people. So you get my point. Um, but what the— what the Sith, going back to your comments, is that, uh, I don't believe marriage counseling works. It seems to just blame the guy Sometimes. And it's one-sided from the woman's point of view. I've heard those stories. Absolutely. Uh, I had a, um, a counselor. My ex-wife and I, 12 years ago or so, went to a marriage counselor exactly once. Something that I, Mr. Anxious, pushed for after discovering my wife's affair. And at that time, it wasn't really 100% clear that there was a physical affair going on in any way. Um, And I sat back and watched as my wife basically convinced the counselor at the time that, yeah, there was nothing going on. And the counselor bought it 100% to the point of making me feel kind of like an idiot for thinking that. She was nice about it. And I don't want me to paint her in a bad, bad way, but she was basically kind of like, Ralph, you know, there's a lot of your anxieties talking. There's nothing going on there. Okay. We need to get past this. We need to da da da. She did something not so great, the emotional affair side of it and all this other stuff. But in order to work on this relationship and get past it, et cetera, et cetera, we kind of have to put that aside and stop the, I think she's cheating stuff and get it. Well, it turned out I was right and she was not necessarily nefarious in her thoughts, but more naive. So I came from that, my knee-jerk instant thought was basically it's very pro-female, not necessarily, probably more just naive of the possibilities of this kind of infidelity thing happening. Later she ended up being very much on my side and like, holy crap, I can't believe your wife is doing all this kind of thing, which helped. And I was the only one really to continue on with that woman. And therapy, which I've heard quite often from a lot of men. Um, guitar god says, really excited to hear that interview with Orion Taraban. He has a lot of great material. He's been blowing up huge. Yes, he has. Um, a lot of his stuff seems to be more quote red pill, so be interesting to hear your differing viewpoints. I think Orion would tell you that he is very, um, what— where you may say red pill-ish, what appeals to a lot of that world. Like, he's been— I've noticed on a lot of those podcasts and so forth is— how to put this— it's almost kind of a very spectrum-y, and I don't mean that in an insulting way, technical, uber-pragmatic, uber-objective kind of take on what is a very, by most people's estimation, kind of a nebulous, vague thing— love, romance. There's a lot of emotion and a lot of feeling and a lot of whatever behind it. So for somebody to come along and say Here's actually some of the biological mechanisms and the underlying foundation. Let's peek behind the curtain at the machinations of romance and sex and da da da, and try to break it down into technical ones and zeros, you know. That's a very kind of spectrum-y, male-oriented thing to do. And that rubs a lot of people, men and women, the wrong way. And that's very much Orion's take on a lot of this kind of stuff. And he has a new book out. Do I have that book available? I'm gonna, you know, I'll promote it here. I'll promote his book for him. It's called The Value of Others. The subtitle is Understanding the Economical— this says everything. The book is called The Value of Others: Understanding the Economic Model of Relationships to Get and Keep More of What You Want in the Sexual Marketplace. Very analytical, very— let's break this down in one's ears. And does that mean he's wrong? No, no, he's, he's got a lot of very good points. He's a very good writer, by the way. I've read some of the book already. He sent me a copy. Um, So there's a lot to that, and that appeals to a certain subset of men, uh, that are also very analytical. Let me break this down into chunks and so forth. And sometimes you miss some of the more softer side of things when you look at it that way. But he's also very good— to his credit, he's also very big on feelings, are a big thing, men and women both. And we can't discount feelings and how this makes me feel. Maybe from our perspective, perspective be a very objectively stupid thing, you know, wife or man did this and this because of feelings and because they were wildly in love with somebody. My gosh, how stupid and crazy they must be. Well, we're not looking at it from their perspective while they're in the middle of all of this limerence phase and in love phase. This makes a lot of sense to them because insert reasons, feelings, and so forth. So we talk about that. Um, it was a good interview. We chatted for about a, about an hour. Hopefully that'll result in more collaborations between the two of us. It went really, really well. Um, back to Adnor. I always see that quote, 'It takes work,' but as I approach the 1.5 years post-Dead Bedroom Fix, my book, it seems like healthy couples don't have to work so much just to have a clinically average sex life. Um, let me back up. They do work that much, but you know what, like a lot of people that are good at what they do They make it look— drumroll— easy. Something that's analogous to this is hire an expert in some kind of field to come to your home to do something. Carpenter, plumber, electrician, somebody in the trades. And you, you know, kind of sit back and watch this guy do his job, and he leaves, and you're like, shit, I could have done that. People that have been there, done that will tell you No, you can't. That you— what you just saw was that guy's 10, 20, 30 years of experience to make that look easy. You know, stripping the wire, doing this, he was fast. Put a beginner in there and it will take them triple the amount of time. They will make 5 mistakes and they won't make it look so easy. That dude is just a well-seasoned pro. We sit back and watch these people in our lives that seem to make relationships easy, and it goes really, really easy for them, and then they have this perfectly fine sex life or whatever it may be. You're, you're seeing a person who has probably had a front row seat for their entire childhood and young adulthood, watching their mother and father in a very healthy relationship, their grandma and grandpa in a very healthy relationship, extended family in a healthy relationship. They got a boot camp intense seminar for how to be a healthy human being in a healthy relationship. A lot of us, especially you guys watching my material, myself included, did not have that. Therefore, doing— trying to bring about that healthy dynamic between a man and woman and an extended family is more difficult for us. Dare I say, for some of us, downright impossible. We just don't have the tools in our toolbox, and we're trying like hell to, uh, do a late-night cramming of information via all of our YouTubing and book reading and so forth. And then we look over to this guy and he just does it. It just looks so easy for him, so simple. And it's not fair. Life's not fair. Do you want to put in the effort to try and reach that level to what you say is a kind of an average sex life? Is average bad, Adnor? What is average? That's a very subjective thing. You know, I've said many times on here that I've talked to some guys who are like, I get action in the bedroom once a month. And I'll tell you what, Ralph, that's actually pretty— that's okay with me. I don't have the highest libido in the world. I have a lot of other shit going on. I'm an older gentleman. I got this health problem, that, whatever it may be. And that's just cool with them. Then you ask their buddy next to them, the buddy next to them is looking at them like, are you nuts? Once a month is what? No, dude, divorce that woman. Yeah, he's like, no, I'm cool. Who are we to judge, right? Versus the other end of the spectrum, we have this guy who's like, if I don't get it once a day, I'm going to go nuts. Fine. You know, we're all wired differently. Maybe so average is kind of a subjective thing. Uh, What the Sith says, are you familiar with anxiety disorders? Well, sure, who isn't? My wife struggles with her anxiety and intimacy thoughts. Yeah, she needs to get on top of that. That will always be an issue. I just did actually a little video about this, um, that will get posted here soon. I had somebody reach out to me here recently, uh, on Facebook who said that, uh, he disagrees with the notion of trying to stay in shape. Like, why, why would anybody disagree with the notion of trying to stay in shape? Guys, we got to remain healthy, you know. There's all these underlying reasons why to do so. Extending your life, have a good quality of life, healthy. If you ever have health problems, you realize just how important all that is, right? Um, in addition, there's the more shallow aspect of looking better. God forbid you look good in a, in a shirt. God forbid you look good with your shirt off. Good, but you look good naked. Oh, perish the thought. Well, uh, what this guy pointed out to me was, here's the problem with all that, is that it induces anxiety in his spouse. And it causes too many headaches. Therefore, his prescription for everybody was don't follow that advice. Don't try and stay in shape, be healthy, and look good. It just causes too many problems. It's not worth it. I'm like, dude, that is a wildly unhealthy take on things. You should never bring yourself down. You should never morph your life, especially changing things that are healthy, such as staying in shape, like eating right and exercising on a regular basis. You should never change that to appease, uh, the anxiety in other people, loved ones. Is that— I can't because if I do, she'll go nuts. I can't do this because if I do that, she'll go nuts. I can't do this other thing because she's super hyper-anxious and it causes too much drama. And forget it, um, really bad road to go down because what others will tell you that go through that is once you kind of, um, oh, submit, for lack of a better word, to that Once you try to appease the anxiety by changing your behavior, then the cat's out of the bag, and then it snowballs. I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't do— you can't end up doing anything except sitting like a statue on the couch next to her. Don't touch her, don't talk to her, don't do any of this, don't do that, don't go out, don't— just sit here. She needs to— she— it puts her at ease to know that you're a human being just sitting there like a stump next to her warm body. Thank you very much. And then the guy's like walking on eggshells. You've heard that term, right? I can't do this, I can't do that, I can't say this. I can't tell the kids like, don't tell mom this, don't tell mom that. No, don't give that to mom, give it to me. Mom will go nuts. This is no way to live. It's not good. And, uh, what I've seen is for a lot of people, they eventually kind of snap out of it and go, what am I doing? This is nuts. Um, this is no way to live. I'm, I'm not the one with the problem here. She is. Why are we all changing our life to appease he or she? It's not fair to say she. He or she is the one with the problem. Um, why are we all morphing our life and changing things to appease her anxiety? Why are we all, you know, this person can't, you know, take a night class to get certified to improve their career potential because, uh, going once a week at night from 7 to 9 o'clock makes his wife too anxious to be alone in the house. So his career suffers as a result. Her problem, not his. Um, this guy needs to lose 30 pounds, his doctor says, because his blood pressure is too high and he's not looking good. He's disgusted with himself. Doctor, dude, you're going to die at a young age or have a stroke or something. You got to do something about this. So he stops smoking, he starts eating right, and he goes to work out 3 days a week like the doctor suggested, that as well as weight training. And wife's over there going, you're going to leave me, this makes me feel bad, I can't keep up with you, it's not fair, I've had 3 kids, I can't lose weight, it's impossible for me to lose weight. Horseshit. Well, it's going to cause some— bring it on, ladies. But it is. Any doctor will tell you the same thing. Um, and fair. And this causes me a lot of undue anxiety and stress, therefore he should stop. No. So yes, I'm familiar with anxiety disorders and how it affects a relationship, and there are my thoughts on the matter. What the Sith. Um, it's, uh, oof, it's tough. And I, I am not saying this as some guy that's like, all these dumb people with anxiety. No, I myself have had issues with anxiety as a young man and even into adulthood sporadically. It's something I have to deal with. And guess whose problem that is? Mine. Guess who has to deal with it? Me. Guess who has to come up with a daily prescription for how to keep that at bay and how to be a healthy, mentally healthy and emotionally healthy human being for myself and for all my loved ones around me? Me. It's my responsibility. That's, uh, that's the way you got to look at these things, and you would hope your spouse does too. And sometimes they need a little kick in the butt to remind them of that. Daryl, Daryl from Facebook says, dealing with my wife's Hashimoto's disease in a dead bedroom. I'm not a medical professional, but from what I understand, Hashimoto's deals with thyroid. A low-functioning thyroid condition. I believe that's an autoimmune, Hashimoto's, is that right? You tell me, Daryl, tell me if I'm on the right path here. Um, I am not an expert on any of this. I'm just a nerd who reads these things every now and then, and my wife is a medical doctor, so I hear some things secondhand from her, third hand, and that's how I may know something about this. So, um, You know, I hear a lot of this from guys. It's not just Hashimoto's. I hear a lot of autoimmune disease, which usually goes hand in hand with— you wonder which came first, the chicken or the egg— but it often goes hand in hand with a lot of anxiety disorders and stuff. You'll hear about lupus, MS, other things. Like I say, comorbid condition, if you will, is really high anxiety. So this leads to a lot of problems in the relationship. And you know, that's okay to say out loud. My partner has insert disability here, which causes problems in the relationship. That's right away, just saying that out loud makes people go, that's kind of mean. And well, just blaming the disease and disorder. Well, I mean, that's, it's real life. You got to work your way around it. Are you determined to stay with this person and go through thick and thin? Um, sometimes it means being a bit of an asshole just because you are hurting, tired, whatever it may be, does not give you right to treat myself and others in the family like dirt. Cut it out. That's a tough thing to say to somebody who's debilitated, not feeling well, but sometimes you have to. Um, a very minor league version of that is, uh, when our wives— some of our wives suffer from, uh, PMS to a really bad degree. What's the term for it? PMDD? Premenstrual, just whatever. But sometimes it gets to the point of clinically really bad mental emotional abuse type of behavior. Sometimes you have to tell them, I know you're uncomfortable and irritable, and I have no, as a man, way to fully empathize with that, but cut it out. You're being a shithead, being an asshole. Nobody likes being around you right now, so maybe you need to go away while you, you know, feel better. But don't treat me like that, and don't talk to me like that. I would never talk to you that way. Same type of thing when it comes to disease and so forth. Sometimes you gotta play tough guy. Um, in, in my book, The Dead Bedroom Fix, third edition just came out last week. Check it out, deadbedroomfix.com or Amazon, Apple Books, wherever. Um, I talk about right at the beginning of the book that, uh, we need to get some things out of the way before getting into the book. One is that I'm going to assume your wife is in good physical health. I've heard, you know, a lot of guys, well, when did things start, you know, when did the wheels start falling off the relationship? Well, when my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer and a double mastectomy and she sent her into a depression. Ever since then, we rarely do anything in the bedroom. Okay, well, that's welcome to being a human being. It's not fair, it's not nice. This horrible thing happened to her. Yes, you helped nurse her back to health. Yes, you were there for her 24/7. And yes, you did all this, but that doesn't necessarily mean you quote unquote deserve physical intimacy from your debilitated wife who's, uh, understandably feeling down about her situation. No one said this shit is easy. No one said this stuff is fair or nice. And if your wife has something like Hashimoto's or breast cancer or whatever else, you have to work your way around that. And then some poor guys are just so, so desperate and so, um, feeling so down that they would just flat out say, what, am I supposed to just not do without physical intimacy for the rest of my life? No. Nothing says you have to endure this. If it gets to the point where it's not endurable anymore, you— there are ways around this. You can come to a compromise in some way, and that compromise may mean the end of the relationship. Food for thought. Um, this always surprises— not always, sometimes surprises men to hear this. I think statistically, I don't have it here in front of me, but I've, I've read this more than enough times, usually from angry women who post studies showing, and a lot of nurses will tell you this and doctors will tell you this, uh, how interesting it is. Let's say you were in a hospital setting, something like that, and we have a couple and one of the— the one of the spouses is in, uh, intensive care for some kind of horrible chronic disease of some kind. Cancer. Person has cancer, stage 4. They may survive, chances are not looking good, uh, they're on all kinds of treatment, it's going to take months, months and months of this, and it's not going to be good. They need around-the-clock care, whatever it may be. Who is more apt to leave in that scenario? If the woman's sick and the man is the one that's well versus the man is sick and the woman is the one who is more apt to leave in that? A lot of men especially men that consume a lot of material around relationships, especially a lot of more your quote-unquote red pill type stuff, would immediately say the knee-jerk thought is, well, the women probably leave because they see their men in a state of— their man in a state of weakness. They're more apt to say adiós, this guy's no good to me anymore. Actually, and I say this as a very proud to be a man guy, you know me, um, actually the stats show us that the men are more apt to leave. What the hell? What's that about? I don't know. I don't know where that comes from. I don't know what is it biologically, or what is it within us that would cause the stats to show that overwhelmingly it seems to be the men are the ones that leave in that scenario. Guys, if we can't look at ourselves and our own shortcomings as men, of which we have many, just like the women do, then we can't be, you know, throwing arrows over at the other— at the ladies across the aisle either. We have to be honest with ourselves. There are some, some aspects of us as human beings as the human male that aren't so nice. And there are some aspects, as we, us guys that have been through it know, of the female persuasion that's not so nice either. Gotta be fair here, both ways. Say good and bad about both. And, um, but in fairness, it seems to be anytime I say anything bad about ladies, for example, oh shit, I get— they don't like a man saying anything negative, even if I have stats and everything else to prove it, to back it up. This is a trend within the females of our world, they don't like to hear it. So I gotta give credit to men. Men tend to be more, I guess, accepting of some stuff when I say stuff like that. They're just like, eh, eh. I know a lot of men that are assholes. It is what it is. Women tend to be more defensive in that, I think, 'cause coming from a dude. But anywho, what do you think, Darryl? What is it you're dealing with in your wife's disease? And dead bedroom? Is— are you resigned? Have you resigned yourself to the fact that, um, that means the end of intimacy to you? Is it just for a certain period of time? Do you not see an end? Do you— what's going on with you guys? Um, Mr. Joey says, good morning, DSO. I DM'd you this inquiry the other day. Oh, did I answer? But since I caught you live, I was curious, um, if one was to petition/vote on ways to make marriage more equal and to give actual benefits to men What would these benefits be, look like here in the States? I really appreciate your time and content. Also, thank you again for answering my question live a while ago. Okay, cool. Uh, that helped me a lot with my healing process. So if I were to say I wave a magic wand and I say I'm gonna make marriage more equal for men and to give actual benefits to men that would make this more equal here in the States, what would I do? I don't know. I don't— I'm not, you know, I'm not really big on the victim mentality. I'll tell you what's wrong now when it comes to marriage. It's this, you know, I guess you could look at it from— I'm trying to think the way I'm framing this in my mind is from a while I'm married, how can I make marriage more equitable, fair to men? What is it now about the— while you're in the, in the middle of the marriage, let's say it's a good healthy marriage and let's say everything's going swimmingly. Is there something about the institution of marriage that is very anti-male? I think where some of that rears its ugly head is when the marriage comes to an end. In some men's mind, when divorce happens, a lot of men are like, whoa, wait a minute, she cheated, she did this, she got on drugs, she did all these other things, but yet I'm paying her alimony and child support, and yet she gets majority custody of the kids. So those things happen. Very sexist, very unfair, um, the litigation legal side of things. And that seems to vary state to state, county to county, city to city. There's no rhyme or reason to it. Um, thankfully the majority of men that I speak to have, um, straight up 50/50 custody. Uh, the stats show us that a good 90% of divorces do not end with the man paying the woman alimony. When they do, men sure do piss and moan a lot about it, understandably. I wouldn't want to pay, you know, thanks for being my wife, here's a chunk of change every month on top of the child support. That right away makes me go, wait, what? You have to do a lot of convincing to tell me otherwise. She's a grown woman, go get a job, whatever. Especially in cases of she cheated, she did this bad thing, bad thing, now I'm rewarding her with here's your paycheck, sweetie. Doesn't sit well with me. But that's not necessarily marriage, is it? I don't know, what do you guys think? Are there ways in which, um, marriage itself could improve as far as the male perspective is concerned? I could see where, um, this isn't necessarily relationships, this isn't necessarily marriage specifically, but marriage or relationships in general, excuse me. A lot of men feel, and understandably, that we as men are not free to express ourselves and our vulnerability as freely as the women are, that we as men are quote-unquote punished for doing so, whether it's punished by society in general or punished in a way by our partner directly. Would you guys agree with that? That a lot of men that I've spoken to, um, you know, when did the wheels fall off the relationship? Number one, I probably hear is when kids came into the picture. And then, you know, I'll hear when, well, as soon as we moved in together, got married, then things started kind of getting too comfortable and things started falling apart. And I'll also hear from men sometimes, um, there was this acute emotional moment. Somebody died, lost my job, something terrible happened, and I kind of lost it emotionally. I kind of had a nervous breakdown, panic attack, whatever it may be. And my wife saw me at my lowest, and ever since then, haven't recovered. And, uh, her response to that was pretty disappointing, pretty heartbreaking. It wasn't a loving, caring person that was there for me through thick and thin. It was a I was like, I'm scared by this. I don't like this. Your vulnerability and weakness in this moment, although very human and we all have them, I was kind of hoping that you weren't like everybody else. I was kind of hoping you were stronger than everybody else. I was kind of hoping I picked somebody, a man that could endure and rise above all of this nonsense of life. But I see you're taken down just like the rest of us, like me, and doesn't make me feel good. And they see that the relationship between them and the wife is, really, uh, really damaged after that. A lot of men feel— do you guys agree? Have you— has anybody seen anything similar to that? I could see where some people would say that's an unfairness in the relationship world, and we as a, as a society need to do a better job of allowing men to be more vulnerable in that way without punishing them. You know what's funny? You can mention this, and there are a lot of answers to this. One is, that's complete horseshit, that doesn't exist. It's very dismissive and wrong. A lot of, you know, these stereotypes just don't fall from the sky. A lot of men have similar stories. It's a relatively common thing. Another answer is from the feminist, ultra-feminist, militant feminist, whatever you want to call it, kind of point of view, is actually what you're seeing there is a, uh, oh, it is symptomatic of something known as like a patriarchy. Or very male-focused toxic mindset that is permeated throughout society. And men can't be vulnerable is actually, um, a result of said patriarchy. So patriarchy is there as a system for— governed by men to, to, uh, help facilitate success for men while, you know, stepping on the necks of women and others in our lives, presumably. And an ancillary effect of that is that we keep men down when they try to be more open, vulnerable. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, especially when I see in my men's group, my private group for men only, the HFM Brotherhood— learn more at helpformen.com— when I see men behind closed doors, private, away from the women in our lives, they are the most vulnerable ever. Men cry, men hug, men share the deepest, darkest secrets. Vulnerable doesn't begin to cover it. That's very, very open. They very much expose themselves. And if and when they're in the presence of a lady, they know through years of experience, don't do that. How is that patriarchal in nature? Who is it that is pushing said patriarchy kind of Nonsense. Um, who is it that makes us feel less than for being vulnerable? It's typically not the men in our lives. That's not necessarily fair. There is a stereotype of a lot of guys, you know, don't be a puss, don't be a wuss, you know, quit your crying. That exists, right? But, uh, if you're amongst a lot of like-minded individuals who are there to help each other, a lot of men that have been through shit, a lot of us can tell you that there is nothing more— there's no one more supportive than the men in our lives. Men that have been there and done that, you know, the old arm around your shoulder going, "I'm here for you, buddy. What do you need?" And, um, hopefully a lot of us have that man in our life, that guy in our life that we know when things get really, really bad and things get scary, we have a guy that we can turn to. Not a lot of us can say that we have a woman in our life that we can turn to for that, as sad as that is. Um, so what do you guys think? What do you think in response to Joey's thing about how would you change, how would you make marriage more equitable, more equal? What benefits would you give to men to level the playing field if you think the playing field needs leveled within a marriage? Not necessarily divorce and all that other nonsense, but just within the institution of marriage itself. And Joey, what do you think? Pardon me, I have just a little bit of time left here. Before I need to go. I have a coaching call here soon. Um, anything else, guys, while I wait on some more, uh, comments here? HelpForMen.com, please check it out. We got articles, we got videos on there free of charge. Peruse, look all you want. We have our coaching on there, all of our— you can read all the bios of our coaching team. If the pricing's a little high for you, join our men's club, join the private group for, uh, men only. The HFM Brotherhood, and the coaching becomes cheaper. And then you get all kinds of benefits. You get free books, you get open private discussions, you get to talk about this stuff with dudes like myself and Joey 24/7. Um, they get a lot of good feedback from men all over the world. You get live meetings, you get to talk to people on Zoom face to face and live in meetings like myself and others. It's just a lot of interacting, a lot of learning, mentorship. Talking to guys who have been there, done that. That's the way to expedite doing better in life, getting better in life. What the Sith says, as far as more benefits are concerned, sex when we want it, at least compromised. Try and put yourself in the female's perspective. I really don't feel like it. I really don't want to do it. The last thing I want to do is that because insert reason why, legitimate reason why. And here comes myself, yours, and others saying, you know, be nice, sex whenever I want it. Not the most attractive thing in the world. The first thing they're going to say, and rightfully so, is that's why we have, um, sex dolls and prostitution and all this other stuff, blah blah blah. But then again, that's not the most attractive thing, and most wives will not be okay with men doing that. So I can see your point there, but, um, that's a very patriarchal thing with the Sith is that if there was something we could do to enact laws or whatever that would say that sex whenever we want should— sexuality or sexual availability should be on tap for us. Not the most attractive thing in the world to say. The law of nature being what it is, it's supposed to be something that we quote-unquote earn as men. We do fill in the blank, and we are rewarded with sexuality from our mate. That's how it's always worked. And it's— is arguably, is that job harder than ever now? The work needed to earn said reward? Could be argued that yes. It could also be argued that, um, this is the way it's always been. We're just kind of stripping away some of that artificial veneer that's been on there for so long. Now we're starting to see— a lot of us are starting to see the reality, warts and all, of this, that it's not easy and it's not supposed to be. And yes, some people make it look easier than others, as we've stated already before. Such is life. Life is not fair. Want to get to work and figure it out, or do you want to piss and moan, as I say often to men? So it is what it is. Anything else, anybody? HelpForMen.com. If you could, give me a like on this. Give me a like or share it or whatever, wherever it is you're watching this. If you're enjoying it, please like it because that helps out a great deal. It tells the YouTubes and Facebooks of the world, like, this guy's got it going on, and then they share my stuff more with people. Just helps down the line. So if you could be so kind as to like and share and do whatever it is— subscribe, follow— watching this on Facebook, give me a follow on the Dad Starting Over page. If you're watching this on YouTube, subscribe, pretty please, or hit the little bell thingy and you'll be told whenever these things come up, these lives and future videos that I post. I post pretty prolifically on both Facebook and YouTube, and it's also cross-posted, most of it, on Twitter as well, so you can follow me on all those and you'll see a lot of these videos and articles and funny photos and screencaps of my tweets and all kinds of stuff. Um, if there's nothing else, guys— can't talk today— I'm gonna hang it up and I say thank you all for joining me. Um, so what the Sith— let me pause here before— it's always right before I'm about to hang up somebody has a nice, a good question here. He says, you're right and I get it, but When she says, I didn't get married just to have sex, and it's been more than a month, I mean, seriously, what do I say? It's been more than a month. That's not good. That's unhealthy. That's— it's indicative of other stuff going on, dude. It's not just the sex. That's what everybody says. Everything's great in this relationship except for the sex. Eh, bullshit. Let's get with just a little bit of digging. I'll uncover just all kinds of shit going on in your relationship, dude. Um, don't look at it as this simple knee-jerk, you know, typical dude. And I'm not belittling you, this is like, dude, I did this for years. You just look at it very simply. Me want this, I'm not getting that, that's the problem right here. This thing, this— I want sex and I'm not getting it, that's the problem. Resolve sex. Wife, you're holding the keys to the gate here, you know, unlock the gate. No, goddamn it, now what am I supposed to do? You're looking at it way too simply. Understandable. It's a very deep-seated thing that's multifaceted. It's got a lot of layers to this. And sometimes, not always, sometimes the answer to a lot of these problems is you married the wrong woman, dummy. You know, I'll hear from people like, I married my high school sweetheart and we, we dated from 15 to 16 and we got married at 19, and whatever number that made no sense, but you know what I'm saying. And, um, Basically, we have no experience in the relationship world. I don't know what I want, she doesn't know what we want. When we got together, we were babies. We weren't even fully mature adults. Our brains weren't even developed all the way. And we got, you know, knocked her up right away and had a bunch of kids. And then it wasn't until 15 years later, I go, what the hell did I do? I don't even like this person. And we've never even had a time to grow up as adults. She's a completely different human, of course, obviously, than I was, or than she was then. And I'm a completely different human. And he says sometimes Occam's razor, the easiest solution is the right one. I made a big oopsie and I got some kids out of it and that's wonderful, but moving forward, this just ain't gonna happen. Sometimes that's the case. Well, other times it's the man saying, I've been a royal dickhead for a while. Sometimes it's the man saying, my wife's got serious freaking problems. She always has severe anxiety, depression, whatever it may be. And she can't hold down a job, she can't take care of the kids, she can't, you know, be a good wife. And we've tried everything under the sun, all kinds of medications and therapies and so forth, but she just has no drive to do any better. And it is what it is. That's what you got to work with. Leave or stay, but that's it, dude. For some people, that's the case. I don't know your situation, what the Sith. You are more than welcome to talk to me one-on-one if you like. You go to helpformen.com, go up to coaching in the menu, and book time with yours truly. Better yet, join— better use of your money— join our group. You know, pay less than a dollar a day to join our group on a month-to-month basis. Try it out for a month or two. Go to help4men.com and click on the link to the Brotherhood there and bounce your ideas off of hundreds of other dudes. And then if you want, you can sign up for one-on-one time with myself or others, much cheaper cost than if you just did it without the membership. Um, read the books, listen to the books. You're on a journey here, um, that it's— you're going to learn it's not so cut and dry. It's not so simple. There's always a lot more under the surface, and it's not always blaming the dude 100% either. But there's some blame to go there. Let's be adults here. We all have a role in all of this relationship stuff that we're in, don't we? All right, guys, without further ado— that's not the right term— I'm going to cut her, cut her, uh, cut her off here. As you can tell, I'm stumbling and mumbling my words, which means I need to eat and drink something. Uh, thank you all so very much for joining me. I really appreciate it. Um, if you're watching this, you're probably watching a recording. Please note this is a recording and not live. For those of you watching it now, probably on Facebook or YouTube, you can stop with the responding to things and stuff. Nobody— sorry, I know it's a little bit confusing, but it is what it is. But anyway, check out helpformen.com. Give me a subscribe, give me a like, really helps keep the lights on. I appreciate it a great deal, and I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. Don't know what you have planned. I got the little girl's birthday party and flying on Sunday night, so fun, fun. All right guys, thank you all so much once again, and catch you on the next one. À tout à l'heure!