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Divorce debates and cheating confessions. Sexless nights and awkward questions. Oh, Chat with Ralph, it's 11:30. Grab a seat, tune in for the gaffs. Bald and bold, spilling the truth. Get ready folks, here's your proof. Got no hair but I got the flair. Marriage drama, we lay it bare. Infidelity, It's a spicy stew. Pour a cup, let's talk it through. So join the fun, don't miss a thing. Chat with Ralph Brewer, secrets swing. Bald is beautiful and that's a fact. Now hit that stream, it's time to act!

Hello ladies and germs, it's your boy Raffalito back once again for yet another Live with Ralph, aka DSO, Dad Starting Over. And for those that don't know, that you're new upon this, you're like, who the hell is this bald guy? I've been putting out content, I've been writing books, videos, I've got a members group, we'll talk about that here in a second. Been doing that for over a decade now. And all of it, if you want to encapsulate all of it, it is a guy talking about, I guess you could say, relationship-oriented video or content rather, uh, for men, guys that are going through major transitions in life, guys that are having a difficult time with marriage. I wrote a book about sexless marriages that did very well called The Dead Bedroom Fix. So I have a lot of guys that come to me with, you know, I'm in the middle of a marriage and we're not connecting physically, and along with that, emotionally, at all, period. And it sucks, and I don't know what to do about this. All the way to guys saying, I'm divorced and it's difficult starting over in life. I don't know who the hell I am now that I have the title of, of husband taken away from me, and I'm only a father technically, like, part of the time, you know what I mean, logistically anyway. I don't know who I am. And I've written books on the transition into different part of life after a major cataclysm called Rebuild: The Complete Guide to Starting Over as a Man. I wrote a book for guys about divorce and all the the emotional turmoil that comes from that called Divorce Panic, uh, The Dead Bedroom Fix I mentioned. I wrote another book for young men called Real Talk: No Bullshit Life Advice for Young Men. And I wrote a book about, uh, red flags and how to spot them called Red Flags. So I've written a lot of books, and you can learn more about everything that I do at help4men.com. That is help4men.com. Let me bring, um, hold on a second, let me create a little banner here.

Help for Men.

There we go, there we go. Help for Men dot com. That's kind of the source for everything that I do. You'll see articles, videos, links to all everything, the books, all that stuff that I mentioned, including our member community that we have for just men. It's a member community, but it's also a support community for men. And you can go to help for men dot com slash join if you want to jump right to the join page to learn more about it. Uh, we guys, we get together in private forums very frequently. We get together very frequently in live Zoom meetings and talk about all these interesting, sensitive little issues that guys go through, as well as we talk about, um, or rather, we have a one-on-one coaching. We get together in person in conferences in the US as well as Australia, believe it or not. We have all my books at no additional charge for our members, including the audiobook version. And all those meetings that I talked about, that we have those live Zoom meetings where we record them and they're available to you like in a podcast format you can listen to right from your phone. So it's very cool. So check it out, the Brotherhood. Help4men.com. Guys, you don't have to go through this all alone. Kind of a slow start here to begin with. Another impromptu live with yours truly, not planned. I'm just winging it here, guys. I got 2 kids in camps, and I got work, and I got the house stuff, and I'm, I'm selling a bunch of stuff. So wherever I can shoehorn in some time with you guys, I'm trying to do so to reach out to the masses here, to talk to more and more folks. And I know the Social media guys, guys, companies, whatever, love when you do lives. So this helps the old algorithm with pushing stuff out there. So thank you all. For those of you who have watched me over the years in video format and articles and so forth, I've been really bumping it up quite a bit this year, and we are doing well with new members. So it's paying off, so to speak. So thank you, all of you, for watching and liking and sharing. By the way, if you're watching this live, do me a favor, click on like, click on share, follow me, however the hell it works, subscribe wherever it is you're watching this. We got guys on Facebook, we're going live on Facebook rather, YouTube, X, and now as well as Instagram. So welcome Instagram folks. Um, Fight for Better Now says he likes the video on your way in, so that means that my little funny intro video Uh, yeah, that was completely made by AI, believe it or not. So that's pretty cool, the audio anyway that you see there or that you hear there. And, um, pretty cool, isn't it? So kind of scary too that I was able to create that in a matter of seconds with AI. And then we have Mr. Audits Wee 4288 on YouTube saying hello. Well, hello Mr. Audit and a bunch of other stuff. So glad you're here, guys. If you're joining me here today, I would love to hear where it is that you are from. That's always a Interesting thing to hear where everybody's from, where in the world you are. Always interesting to see where it is that, um, I am reaching with my stuff here. As I mentioned before, in our Brotherhood group, our private support community for men, helpformen.com/join, um, we have our number one audience is the US by far, followed by number two as far as countries in North America, and the next continent that is most popular is Australia. I don't know what that's about. Uh, never been able to kind of pinpoint why, you know. I figured it would be maybe Canada, maybe Europe, but no, Australia. It's huge. So what really took off in Australia was my book The Dead Bedroom Fix, which is all about sexless marriages and all that fun stuff. And, uh, for whatever reason, that is, I guess, kind of a big deal in Australia. It's a big deal everywhere, but for some reason, the, um, oh the theme, the tone, whatever, of that book and all the material that goes with it really struck a chord with a lot of Australian dudes. So hello Aussies! So we got MrAuditsui4288 says he is in Sweden. Very cool, welcome, uh, MrAuditsui4288. Boy, it's going to be tough to say. What's your real name? Can I ask your first real name? Do you feel comfortable saying that? Maybe I could refer to you that way. But we have a handful of guys from Sweden in our a Brotherhood group. One I'm thinking of off the top of my head, Aaron, who's very, very active, and he's done a really good job of turning his relationship around. If you're watching, Aaron, hello. Um, Tobias, yay! So hello, Tobias. Are you just eating meatballs non-stop? And what's another Swedish thing? Swedish meatballs, that's all I can think of right now. Um, and pretty buxom blonde women, at least when I was a kid. You know, there's all these little tropes on the— on TV. I watched a lot of TV as a kid, a lot of Saturday morning TV or whatever it is. All through my childhood I watched TV, and there was always the trope of the buxom, pretty Swedish woman, and that the, the Swedish bikini team— I remember that as a kid growing up. I don't know if it was one of the beer companies had the Swedish thing. So that's what I always think of, is pretty blonde women when I think of Sweden. I don't know how true that is and how maybe off the mark that is, whatever, but Anyway, what else has Sweden got going for it? Switzerland I think of with the chocolate. And, uh, but any— anywho, my wife is from Germany and my mother is from Spain, so I have quite the, uh, um, European connection there. Been over there quite a bit. Oh, we got another Swede here, Mr. Uh, Heinrich. Is it Heinrich? Henrik? Heinrich? Heinrich Johnson 33. All these numbers here, 3397, which leads me to believe there was another Heinrich Johnson. And there was another Auditsui because you have number— anyway, Tobias and Henrik, welcome from Sweden. How cool is that? What is the chance— what are the chances we have a couple of Swedes here? Is the algorithm pushing me to Sweden for some reason? Interesting. But welcome everybody, thank you so much. So what I typically do with these lives is I say, um, it's not just sit and listen to Ralph pontificate. It is— it'd be really cool if you guys were able to share your story via the text, the comments here, as much as you can. Ask me a question, comment on anything of mine you've seen or read or whatever it may be. Now's the time. You got me, bald dude. I'm sitting here live with you on the internet. You got my attention. Let's hear it, you know, what you got going on. Uh, I would love to hear from you. Uh, we got, uh, salty candy. So that's what Sweden is known for, salty candy. I'm trying to think if I have any Swedish salt. I'm sure my, my wife does. My wife gets little European things in the mail all the time, you know, to bring some of the, some of the European flavor from home. We just got a package from her mom who's in Germany with all kinds of candies and chocolates and everything, including alcohol called Killepitsch. I don't know if you guys know Killepitsch. It's kind of a digestive liqueur, strong, little, very, very strong flavor. I love it. You only take a little bit. Any more than that and you're just It's Heartburn Drunk City USA, but, uh, I'm trying to think if there's an equivalent. It's kind of like, uh, what's another popular digestive, like Jägermeister or something like that? Um, anyway, also big in Germany. So boy, I'm going all over the place here, folks. That's how it goes. Uh, we got more and more people joining us here today. Welcome everybody. I got on the screen there deadbedroomfix.com. That is the link to my most popular book I have ever written. Most popular thing I have ever done in the history of things that I have ever done. No shit. So throughout my 50 years of being on this planet Earth, nothing has had more of an impact on my fellow man than that book.

Can I—

there we go, deadbedroomfix.com. Or if you're watching this on vertical, it's up here, deadbedroomfix.com. Uh, it's a book about what I have learned over the years is, no bullshit, Okay, so let's put it this way. I have talked about things like infidelity, which is a huge pain point for people that go through that. I talk to men specifically, so the men that discover that their wife or girlfriend cheated on them— huge pain point. Other pain points include, excuse me, how to get into shape, uh, how to improve your finances because you're broke and you've mismanaged your money, you're in a lot of debt, you, uh, you went through a divorce and it really ruined you, whatever it may be. Parenting is another big difficulty for a lot of guys. How to be a good parent, what to do, what not to do, disciplining kids, how to be a strong man but at the same time being there for your kids emotionally, and also all that stuff, right? Uh, and everything in between. But I'm telling you, it's not until I talk about one topic in particular that wakes all the dudes up, and that topic is, as the little thing up there, wherever you're seeing this, The dead bedroom, sexless marriages, that's the thing that wakes up men more than anything else. I could talk about your physical health and how we need to take care of your heart and your, you know, all these really important life and death things, especially as we get older. No, doesn't move the needle. But what does? Sex and marriage. Why is that? What the hell's going on? Is it that common that men in long-term monogamous marriages are not getting enough. Let's just put it in real blunt, crass terms like that, because it, it's— it could be, as I rest my elbows here, it could be, um, we're doing it but not frequently enough. It could be the frequency's there, but man, it seems like my wife's just dialing it in. She's just doing it out of obligation. In fact, she verbally says it to me, if it wasn't for the fact that I know you need this, I wouldn't do it at all because I don't enjoy it. I never think about it. That kind of stuff, right? And, um, or it could all, all the way to the most negative, which is we never ever do it ever, and it's been years. The biggest number I've heard so far, drum roll, is I had a guy tell me he's been married to his wife for 40-plus years, and 30-plus of those were no touching each other. Which shows what? Right away we want to say Does she have a problem? Obviously, if she doesn't want to do that, that's not good, not healthy. It points to something's going on there. And thing two is, boy, he's got something going on there too. Um, if you are sticking around in a relationship for that long and something that important to you obviously is not happening, and yet you stick it out and you don't do the things necessary to either fix said situation or remove yourself from such said situation, shows that you got a problem too. And that problem is what we call, um, what something called codependency. Way too highly dependent upon the other person, even in spite of all these things which go against your sense of values, your sense of self-worth, things that are damaging to you emotionally, physically, whatever it may be. You still hang on. Uh, that term was really popularized back in the— shit, I don't know— '60s, '70s, '80s, I'm not certain, with people who are married to like alcoholics or drug addicts. It's like, you know, it's bad, you know, it's not going to get any better. They refuse to get help, yet you still hang on in hopes of one day I'll see the old them. And that can persist for like years, if not decades, of I know my man or my girl, she's in there somewhere, I just gotta hang on. And you keep giving them money and you keep enabling their behavior. Um, it's the same kind of psychology at play for people that are in long-term dead bedrooms, people that are emotionally abused by their spouse, physically abused by their spouse. The most glaringly obvious one is, uh, uh, and this is kind of a Hollywood trope, but it's for a reason because this happens. We'd want to belittle this, where a woman has like a black eye and what does she do? She puts on the sunglasses to cover it up, but her friends notice. Sweetheart, what happened to you? Oh, nothing, we got into a fight. And they're like, oh, you got to get out of there. She's like, no, no, no, you don't understand, he's a good man deep down, he didn't mean to do it, I said the wrong thing, I shouldn't have said the thing and he hit me. What does every person say that knows what's going on in the situation? You're going to end up in the hospital or worse, or 6 feet under. That's how these things end. You need to get out now. Same kind of thing with a guy whose wife, you know, emotionally belittles him, emasculates him if you want to use that term, uh, shames him repeatedly, refuses to touch, refuses to go on dates, refuses to do anything with him, and yet he hangs on. And when you talk to that guy, he says, you can understand, she's a good woman deep down, she's my best friend, we're great parents. She, uh, I, I know this is just a temporary thing. I've seen the, the real her, so to speak, back when we first got married and we first started dating. She was a completely different person. I'll just hang around in the hopes that that person comes back. And she's not— that wasn't the real her. What you're seeing now over the past so many years, if not decades, is the real her. So I hear these stories, some semblance of that, every single day that I do this. Isn't that sad that we have so many guys that are that codependent upon their spouse? There is a term that's going around that is not nice. I don't like it. It's very negative for the purpose of being negative, but it serves a purpose. And the purpose is— or the phrase rather is simp. S-I-M-P. You've heard this one, which every time we see some guy doing something to belittle himself in an effort to keep the woman and keep her by his side and so forth, keep her in his life regardless if she's abusive, terrible, awful, cheating on him, refusing any kind of intimacy, whatever it is. We call him a simp. That's what the younger guys say these days, uh, form of shaming, like you should be ashamed to do that. But I think it's more productive to say, dude, where's that come from, man? We got to figure that out because that's not good. You're hurting yourself. And if it helps to drive the point home. It also is, uh, allowing your children to sit back and watch, because they are— they are watching, dude. They're watching every little thing you do, whether they verbalize it or not. You're— they're getting a front row seat for what? How, um, two parents interact with each other, what marriage looks like, what is acceptable for a marriage. When they see mom and dad come home day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year on end, and they never say, hey beautiful, how was your day? Hey handsome, how was your day? Give a smooch and kiss and hold each other and be there for each other and talk to each other. Yes, argue things out and then come back together again. And if they don't see all of that, all they see is just these two zombies, two ghosts, if you will, living under the same roof that never really have that genuine interaction. What do they, what do they internalize? That's what marriage is like. And then you sit back, and I've had guys that have gone through this where they're like, my, my son got his first girlfriend, and it's, it's scary because I'm watching their dynamic, and it is my, me and my wife to a T. How she talks to him, how he puts up with it, how he disengages, how he, you know, all this stuff. And, you know, they'll say like, my son's like 19, what the hell? Like, this is like, so this is like beaten down 50-year-old married dude behavior. I'm like, this is what he sat back and watched for so many years, dude. This is exactly what we're talking about. So we want to avoid that as much as possible. Um, we got it. So we got Justin from Facebook saying, emotional safety woke me up after she left. I think the concept of emotional safety encompasses the problems that can lead to a dead bedroom. Funny you say that, Justin. I just did a video just about this. Should come out, I don't know, several weeks from now. It'd have to be edited and everything else, but we can talk about that a little bit more. The safety thing, it's a little nefarious. Um, my daughter called me a simp in front of my wife. Wow, I've not heard that one before. Tell us more, Mr. Jonathan, how'd that come about? Because she was watching your dynamic between you and the wife. Was the wife being mean to you and she said, Dad, quit being a simp? I'm inferring a lot here. Tell us more. And then Fight for a Better Analysis, I think you mean to say simp, short for simpleton. FML version, uh, that is pick-me. Basically a term used to describe someone who's over-investing into a person who's not reciprocating the same value. Codependent. Um, and what's another word for it? Uh, it starts, or doesn't necessarily have to be, as a part of something that we call anxious attachment, where you're very preoccupied and chasing and needing more and more reassurance from your partner. Love me, love me, love me, give me sex. And the other person's like, can you just get the hell away from me?, and that can persist for decades. Not good. The other person's avoidant, the other person's anxious. Who I speak to mostly in my world are anxiously attached or preoccupied men chasing after very avoidant women. That's my bread and butter. I talk to many a dude, um, in that situation. Now back to Mr. Justin on Facebook, the emotional safety aspect of it. Okay, again, I got a video coming out about this more formal, but we can get into it a little bit here. Um, that could mean a variety of different things. And to you and me, Justin, and others— most guys I talk to are pretty literal in their thinking, pretty black and white in their thinking. It's, it's very binary. It's either 1 or 0. Why is this so difficult? It's either this or that. She, she doesn't want to have sex with me, it must mean this. And so we often go to our spouses, our partners, whatever it may be, and say, uh, Tell me what's wrong so I can fix it. Let's go. And they often— not always, but often— throw out the term of, I just don't feel really safe with you, emotionally safe with you. To which Larry Littoral will say, look, I've never laid a hand on you. I've never been— I've never raised my voice to you in that way. I shouldn't be seen as a dangerous person in your eyes. The hell are you talking about? It's like, no, that's not necessarily what she means. Well, what does she mean? Well, the problem is, is that if you ask 10 different women, you're going to get 10 different answers. And what's funny is when I say that, I'll have a woman say, "No, dude, you don't get it. Emotional safety is kind of a universal thing." "Oh yeah? Well, define it for me." And she'll define it for me, and I'll say, "Hold that thought. You, woman, you define it for me." Eh, different. It's too vague, too nebulous of a term, emotional safety. It could mean to this woman, I need to know that I can be emotive to you, husband, that I can be vulnerable with you, that I can have a kind of a crazy moment, I can have a not so nice emotional moment like all human beings do, and you, husband, are not immediately going to try and fix it, are not immediately going to shame me for it, are not immediately going to try to, I don't know, have some kind of negative emotion or response to it. I need to feel safe knowing that I can come to you with said emotion. That's one version of it. Version 2 that I've heard: I need to know, husband, that I can express, um, a, uh, a lovey moment and that you won't all spazzy and act like a horny teenager and immediately ramp it up into sex territory. So I need to know, husband, that I can put my hand on your back and give you a little rub on your back when we're in the kitchen together. I often use the imagery of the kitchen because it's so common. Seems like everybody's doing housework in the kitchen together. And you're not going to turn and grab me and start, you know, shoving your tongue down my mouth and grabbing my breasts and doing everything else. It's like, dude, now's not the time. I was just showing you a little bit of affection. I need to be safe to express my love towards you and you not take it to that kind of level. That's another interpretation of, or version of, emotional safety. That's two. How many more are there? Oh, I don't know, 10 million. Seriously, that's how open to interpretation it is. Now, from a big chunk of my audience, here is what emotional— I need more emotional safety— means. Big chunk of my audience, majority. Okay, let's just say majority. It means that your wife is sick and tired of you pressuring, pushing, and pursuing her. She needs to be left the hell alone. You are too damn much. You're needy, you're pestery, you're very— you need her and her emotions to be a certain way or else you don't feel good. And that's what you keep coming to her saying. Can you please change your emotion and your reaction to me and give me a reassurance that we are okay? And give me sex, that's the ultimate reassurance that we're okay. I'm scared of us disintegrating. And she's saying, I need a break from all that. I don't feel safe around you. See how that's completely different connotation of the word? That, from what I can gather, is the majority of you out there. Because again, if you're taking the time to listen to bald strange dude on the internet and read his books and look at his YouTube videos and listen to his podcast— I, along with dozens of other content creators talking about this kind of stuff— that shows that you are very preoccupied with the concept of repairing a relationship, doing better, making the situation between you and your wife better, um, which means you're probably a little anxiously, if not very anxiously, attached to your partners. If that's the case, then you're like most people in that situation. You are attracted to, and you attract, the polar opposite— the person who says, I don't care about any of that shit. Once the honeymoon phase has passed, and once we're past the dating phase, and we've made some babies and stuff, you can just get the hell away from me. I'm cool. Like, leave me be, let me do my thing. You could do your thing. That's them, that's their whole persona. And when they're saying, I don't feel very safe around you, they're saying like, can you just let me be me? And they got a point. There's a, there's a happy medium here somewhere. Them being so avoidant, that ain't good. You being so anxious, that ain't good. Somewhere in the middle is the, the happy part. You're both insecure in your own way. Um, and Justin, you said that was your exact reaction to the whole, uh, emotional safety thing. Mr. Alex from Facebook says, I read your book, I assume Dead Bedroom Fix. I'm not an anxious or clingy guy, so I struggled to connect with some of the concepts, but I understood what you were saying. Regardless, reading books in bed with back turned towards me is the priority. No initiation, no acknowledgement. So by the fact that you're saying, I wish she would acknowledge me and not have her own little independent thing and turn away from me and read her book, that seems to be a priority. Why am I not a priority? Those are all, Alex, um, come from a very anxious mindset. And by the way, I'm not saying you're wrong in any way. I need to be a fly on the wall in your situation to see like what's going on here. But just from your description, it's like, yeah, it doesn't sound too healthy. Um, but those are the hallmarks for kind of an anxiously attached guy. An anxiously attached guy will often say, like, ever since we had a baby, my wife just completely ignores me and I don't like it. I need reassurance that we're good. I need reassurance that she loves me, that she still finds me attractive, that da da da. And every time I reach for her, she's like, uh. I can't tell how many times I've heard this. And I'll say, how long ago did you have the baby? And the guy would be like, 3 months ago. I'm like, dude, you got to be patient. Now, if he says 8 years ago, I'd be like, okay, at some point you guys got to work on each other. But, um, Alex says, I see what you're saying. Very good, thank you. Uh, we got Mr. Jonathan Facebook saying, uh, this is the guy— you're the guy up here who said you caught— or your daughter said you were a simp, is that right? I apologize, it's tough to keep up with all of these. Yep, it is. Okay, so Jonathan, your daughter in front of your wife said you, Jonathan, dad, are a simp. He further explains, my daughter sees me doing anything I am asked to do by my wife. Paying for anything I'm asked to, but sleeping on the sofa. Daughter is 15, she's not blind. Uh, when she called me a simp and said I was in the friend zone, my wife brushed it aside and said, your dad isn't a simp because we're married. I hope these comments aren't public, LOL. Jonathan, these comments are very public. Um, everything you're saying, everyone in the world can see, so you may want to go back and delete them, um, if you're so concerned about wife. Or maybe this is exactly what wife and others need to see. Um, guys, anything and everything you say on here is public. This isn't a private group. If you want a private group, may I suggest— where'd it go? Join the Brotherhood. HelpForMen.com/join. Hundreds and hundreds of men from around the world talking about this kind of stuff, and nobody sees what we're talking about. We got forums, we got live Zoom meetings just for men, just for members. It's all monitored, and don't worry about any, you know, morons coming in and ruining it. We take care of all of that. Justin says, for mine, she seemed to have the— back to the emotional safety thing— she seemed to have the words to describe my anxious problem behaviors but didn't feel safe telling me until she was leaving. Minimizing, rationalizing, excuses, etc. She said I don't listen enough. So that's my situation under the emotional safety umbrella— preoccupied and not present. Or preoccupied, because typically a preoccupied anxious guy is very present. Like, if you take, um, a preoccupied dude and put him in a, um, what do you call it, uh, counseling session, he's the guy with the pen and paper going, go ahead, counselor. Monday I do what? But Tuesday I do— like, he's, he's very present listening because it's all about you, the couple, and how to fix and everything else. Maybe by not being present, Justin, what she means is you're not listening to her when she says, please stop pursuing, stop being needy, stop being too much. I told you again and again what it is that I need from you, and you're not listening to me. The problem is that that goes against your, uh, kind of anxious, preoccupied temperament of, no, you don't understand, if I don't pursue and try to get, uh, reassurance from you, I lose my marbles. Like, I just spiral, I ruminate, and it just gets out of hand. So that's— woman, fix me, damn it. Not good. We got Fight for Better Now saying, I disagree, Ralph, and this is why I don't like the attachment styles, because you can have people who are perfectly normal, happy with who they are in any relationship with a person who is distant and withdrawn. And because of that dynamic, it sparks the anxiety. It's not a natural place for them, it's a response of the dynamic. Well, I will disagree with your disagree. Um, I totally get what you're saying. It's like, man, I was perfectly happy before, and then I got with this very distant, um, uh, cold, avoidant individual, and goddamn it, I'm anxious all to hell. I didn't used to be like this before. Well, yes and no, um, because right away, two things. One is, if you are in fact a very secure individual, you wouldn't put up with this shit. You would have been like, oh, you're—

how—

this is how you are? Oh, hey, it's nice meeting you, good, good talk to you and everything, but adiós. Uh, usually you see that more so if you're a very secure person with a lot of relationship experience. That kind of stuff comes out pretty Pretty damn quick. Not so much experience, but you're pretty secure. It's like month 6, 7, 8, whatever. You've fallen in love, all that stuff, but the honeymoon phase is starting to fizzle, and they're really cold, and they're, they're ghosting you, and there's all this other stuff, and they're very detached, and they don't want to talk about anything. And then you go, oh well, that's not how I am, so it was nice meeting you, Mary. Um, I hate to let you go, but I'm going to let you go. Sorry, that's what a secure individual does. What they don't do is go, I can make this better, I can do that, I can make this better, and then 10 years later say, it's her, it's her, she makes me anxious, she may— that's not how this works, dude. Um, you knew long ago, and you were insecure in your own way, so it allows you to stick around longer and longer. Point 2 is that often with not much probing And I am not a licensed therapist, psychologist, or whatever, but it doesn't take much, dudes, to— when I sit down with a guy to uncover— let me back up. I often hear from guys, dude, I'm telling you, everything's great between the two of us except for the sex. Best friends, best this, best that, but when it comes to the erotic sexual stuff, it's just nothing. 10 minutes later, we've uncovered 97 things that are really not good. About the relationship, and it hasn't been good since day one. But he's kind of naive, or he's kind of got blinders on. He doesn't see it. He doesn't want to see it. He's like— again, he's often— a lot of neurodivergent guys are kind of— I don't want to say socially inept, but maybe don't have a lot of the social skills that maybe your neurotypical guys do to recognize things. And so they see a lot— a lot— they don't see a lot of things that lead up finally to the big thing that they do see. And they go, where the hell this come from? It's like, dude, What were you through all these other years of this? And you realize they kind of missed it completely. So a lot of guys are like, I wasn't anxious before her. Probably were. Um, I'm telling you, this came out of nowhere. No, it didn't. It was there all along. You, you just, you just ignored it. And Justin, you say, yep, definitely spiraling in your head, especially under stress. So that's what you need to get on top of. My friend, um, why it is that you are so dependent upon the emotions of others, specifically your little romantic partner there, in order to make you feel good. And by the way, I'm speaking from experience. That is me, me, me, me, and me, right? Um, through all my life, I have been the guy who's able to walk into a room, and if something's wrong with my loved one, I know it like that because I'm this people reader see their face, see how they— their mouth is a little different than it will— that's my wife, by the way. Um, uh, something about the way they carry themselves, whatever, something's wrong, and what I need to fix it. I need to get to the bottom of it. I need to figure out what's wrong. I need to— is it me? Is it something I could do? I carry that with me, and I probably will for the rest of my life. But what's different is, is that I recognize it, and I go, Ralph, just settle down, you're fine. She's having a bad day, bad afternoon, bad week. Guess what? She's human.

It happens.

And if she crosses the line and it comes after me with something that's not fair, this is where you go, no, we don't do that.

Don't. No.

Thankfully, with my wife, I rarely, if ever, have to do that. But I do have to be cognizant of she's a human being. We have bad days, bad weeks, as do I. There are dates that I'm stomping around and I'm upset about something. She's like, what the hell's wrong with you? Nothing to do with you, wife. Has to do with work, kid, something, whatever, my mom, whatever it may be. And so I've been trained to like let her know right away, not you, cool it, let me be. And she's secure enough to go, all right, you got it, let you be. Uh, an insecure person has a very difficult time with that. All right, let you be. They're like, uh, no, I need you to make me feel better, like now, please. And the fact that you're not means that you're a monster. No, they're just different than you, dude. Um, and Todd says, I agree, a securely attached person with a dismissive avoidant, it can be swayed into anxious tendencies by their dismissive, uh, avoidance actions. So you believe that you can have a secure person who can become much more anxious by virtue of just being around a dismissive avoidant person. And I'll say, if you're secure, you don't allow yourself to get there. Um, and then you got Fight for Better Now saying, or you have kids, and after the kids come along, she changes her focus from the relationship to the kids. Also a very common thing in the world of avoidance. They only, they only have so much, um, mental energy to give. And a lot of women focus on— I heard another creator author say this. In fact, I'm going to be interviewing her here not too long. I got to see when that is, prepare for that. Allison Armstrong. Do you guys know Allison Armstrong? Author, very popular speaker. She had a very good point, which I'm going to steal and start using more and more, is, uh, women tend to focus on what is the loudest, uh, not necessarily physically, orally— or not oral, but orally, uh, audio-wise, the loudest— but just something that is loudest and takes up or needs most of her emotional focus. And for a mother, that is what? The kid. Um, the kid needs her to survive, the kid needs her to thrive and everything else. You are a grown-ass man, you can kind of take care of yourself, so you are not the loudest in her mind anymore. You used to be the loudest when you were in the honeymoon phase and she needed to— she needed a mate and she needed safety and security and she needed to know that you're not going to leave and she needed that comfort and that, that, that romance and that coming together and all that stuff. And then suddenly you ain't the loudest anymore. But guess what? A secure man goes, I understand. I'm a grown-ass man. I made a baby. She's a mom. She made a kid. That's what it takes. Wife, please give your attention to the kiddo. I'm here to help however I can. But still needs to be something, someone, and it's often not the dude in the social circle, if you will, to say, wifey, don't forget your hubby over there. He's important. And you guys need to do the date nights and the weekends away and all this other stuff. That's where it's very different. Now again, fightin' others, I will push back to say 'So you're saying your wife turned into this cold tyrant after kids and she was never like that before?' 'Nope, never like that before.' 'Let's put that to the test. Let's talk. Tell me about when you guys first started dating.' 'Dude, I'm telling you, day fucking one.' Excuse my language. The men saw this stuff from day one. Why didn't they act on it? Because they were insecure guys, insecure little boys and men in a man costume. And she made him feel amazing. And the fact that he saw fill in the blank not so good thing, he just said, oh, jumped right over it and just kept right on going. Some of those not so good things are— this is tough to— for a lot of people to swallow. Bear with me here, I've been at this for a long-ass time, right? So tell me about her mom and dad. What are they like? 99.99% of the time, do you know what I hear? Oh, they have the worst relationship. They just don't hug, they don't kiss, they don't touch. They're unloving couple ever. Her whole family is like that. Her brothers and sisters, they're married and they don't ever hug and kiss. And by the way, 3/4 of them are divorced and 3/4 of them cheated and all this other stuff. I'm like, and you married this person? The answer is yeah. Why? I didn't like myself very much. That's the truth. And all that— I, I don't feel comfortable around people that come from good families, good secure families. I came from a shitty family myself, so I felt more at home with her. That's a big part of it. The other part is that I felt lucky just to have a girlfriend. And so if I start questioning all these things, I'm going to lose my girlfriend. I can't have that. So, and then 30 years later, there you are. Um, Justin says, I can see it now too, hyper-aware of it, and I've been learning the childhood and past relationship causes of those anxious attachments. Good for you. Turns out my childhood was more messed up than I really thought. Welcome to the club, Mr. Justin. That's something a lot of guys and gals come to the conclusion when you are down the line later in life, unfortunately. Um, Fight, I'm not understanding that. If you're secure and you're in a functional relationship, I think you mean to say, and the dynamics change, um, the fact that people want to be present in the relationship to make sure the relationship stays functional has the mon— As I'm reading— read it out loud before you, before you hit enter, because that one didn't make any sense. Mr.— I'm not picking on you, Mr. Fight. I'm trying to understand it and I'm not getting it. Um, but yeah, Justin, if I may, check out help4men.com. In fact, buddy, Justin, let me give you this: help4men.com/free. Pardon my eyeballs here. There is a link to a free month of membership to the Brotherhood.

Try it out.

If you like it, keep going and we'll charge you $47 a month, or you can do a lifetime membership. But there's all kinds of options there. If you don't like it, you can say, uh, can I just not do this anymore? And go cancel. Done. No, no, no skin off our backs. No, no, you're not going to hurt any feelings. Is what it is. Oh, I got an error here. Apparently I could not, uh, yeah, looks like it went through fine. Oh no, it did not. Yes, it did. Well, I'm getting an error, yet it shows it worked. So anyway, I assume guys can see that, uh, comment there, help4men.com/free-month, in case you didn't see that. So that gets you free month of the Brotherhood. We would love to have you and all the stuff I talked about before, and you can work Mr. Justin Others with a bunch of other guys that are going through this. Because there's a whole bunch of us out there. We'll definitely check it out, he says. Well, thank you, Mr. Justin, I appreciate you. Thank you for sharing, really big of you. And guys, while I'm here, give me a like, give me a subscribe, give me a follow, share this however it works wherever you're watching this. Hello, Instagram! This is only my second live on Instagram, finally figured out how to do that. Uh, would love to hear from the folks on Instagram. What else I got going on? Anything else? A lot of podcasts coming up. I have a podcast interview with a relatively big podcast. I always forget the name of it. That shows you how big it is. Um, I Wish You Knew is the name of the podcast with, uh, Adam Lane Smith. I Wish You Knew with Adam Lane Smith. He is kind of the godfather of all this attachment stuff. So if you like what I have to say, in which I know very little of the attachment thing. It's just a part of— it's a piece of this whole puzzle of this whole relationship game. If you want to hone in more on that topic, go to the dude, and the dude is Adam Lane Smith and his podcast I Wish You Knew, of which I'm going to be a guest on. It's recorded, so it's not a live thing. We'll be recording an episode, an interview with myself. I'll be a guest on his show, on Adam Lane Smith I Wish You Knew. So just Google Adam Lane Smith I Wish You Knew, all that stuff, and you'll give him a follow. On the socials. Really good stuff. He's a dude with the beard and he's always dressed nicely. Adam Lane Smith. So check him out. And Allison Armstrong, I'll be on her soon. Give her a follow wherever the hell she's at. Allison Armstrong. Who else I got coming up here? Ah, I went off my— oh, let's see. All right, it's not showing here. We're on my podcast. There's one, uh, Uncorking a Story. That's one I'm on today as well as Adam's podcast. So I got two podcast recordings coming up today. Uh, do I have any next week? Doesn't look like I do have any next week. Got my friends coming from out of town, and then I'm on one called Spicy Spectrum. Ooh, talking about sex. Nice. Um, oh, actually, Adam, man, I'm confused. Uh, yeah, I'm confused. Adam Lane Smith is week after next, not today. That's a different podcast today. Don't mind me, folks, just trying to keep all this straight. It's too much. And then another podcast called What If I Could that I'll be on. So any of these, you know, sounding familiar, sounding good to you? What's another one? Uh, The Affair Recovery Room. I'll be on The Affair Recovery Room. So I'm trying to do a lot of these podcasts and Um, I'm guests on all of these, in case that wasn't obvious. I'm trying to reach all these, so look them up, give them a follow, give them a like. That will really help them out a great deal. If they're nice enough to have me on there, then let's be nice enough to reward them. Guys, if there's nothing else, any other last minute questions, comments, anything, please don't be shy. That's what I'm here for. If not, I'm going to hang her up. I'm going to say thank you all so very much for joining me today. I'm going to try to do these more often more so from here in my new office. In case those are, you know, those of you who watched me, let me see if— oh yeah, I got it right. See that right there? A little magazine cover that I was on. That's kind of cool. And then the rest of those are just magazine covers, sports thing, you can't really tell. But I got more up there, so a lot more to do. I got a whole stack of pictures, and I got my, uh, YouTube 100,000 subscriber plaque I got to put up somewhere so you guys can see it. It's all kinds of stuff to do. So guys, thank you so much for watching me. I appreciate it, joining me here today. And those of you who, uh, shared today— Mr. Fight for Better Now, Mr. Justin, who else we have? Mr. Todd, we got, we got Alex, we got Jonathan, we got— I wouldn't want to miss anybody— our audits. Oh, what was his name? Tobias from Sweden. Henrik from Sweden. Thank you all so much for joining me today. Appreciate each and every one of you, and we'll catch you on the next one. All right guys, toodaloo!