Chat LIVE with Ralph (DSO)!

All right, all right, all right. Welcome everyone. Bring up my pretty face here. There he is. Hello, hello everyone. How are you today? A rare Sunday afternoon, uh, going live here for the Ralphie Boy. We got a couple people joining us already. Welcome everyone. Well, oh, okay. You know, I'm— if I look confused, it's because I am, because I just started this, but I already have 3 things posted or questions posted on YouTube, and I literally just started this seconds ago. Wow, I guess that's— no, is that now? Hmm, this may be from a previous one. I don't know how this works. And let's go ahead and clear this out here and Bringing— that may be from a previous one. Excuse my ignorance. I don't know what's going on here. How do I clear this? Sorry, technical difficulties. Okay, let me make sure we are all good to go here, folks, before I start blabbing away. There I is, my pretty face. I am a little smallish here. How can we— how can we fix that? Let's see. Oh, that's a little better now. Yeah, a little better. Welcome everyone, my name is Ralph Brewer. If you don't know who I is, you're new to this, you just stumbled upon some, um, when some dude, uh, uh, you know, some dude shows up on your feed, some bald dude and on microphone, you're like, what the heck is this about? My name is Ralph Brewer. You're watching this on a channel called Dad Starting Over. I've been doing this Dad Starting Over thing for years now, like, shoot, 7, 8, 9 years. I'm not exactly sure when I first started. It started off as a simple little blog and not many people read it. And it wasn't until I read a— I wrote a book in 2017 and then a second version in 2020. I've written and done videos on a plethora there's a good word, a plethora of topics. And, um, uh, it wasn't until I wrote on the topic of sex— what else, right? Sex and marriage more specifically— and a book called The Dead Bedroom Fix that got a lot of people, a lot of eyeballs on my material. And that allowed me to grow the Dad Starting Over business. And in fact, um, that has recently morphed into something, uh, we switched our business side over to a different brand of which Dad Starting Over falls under. And that brand is called Help for Men. And you can learn more at help4men.com. Help4men.com. So check it out, help4men.com. So our private group, which I'll talk about here in a second, courses will soon be up and going. Those will be also under the Help for Men banner, as well as our coaching is now all done under Help for Men. So check it out, help4men.com. Daniel is pointing out here that basically, hey dummy, this is— he didn't say that, my words— that YouTube, I guess, allows for comments before the live. Oh, News to me. So that's kind of cool. So right off the bat, we just hit the ground running with questions. But let me pause for a moment on the questions. But thank you, Daniel, for filling me in. Pardon my ignorance on that. We have some relatively big news here, and that is, you know, I mentioned the Dead Bedroom Fix book. Well, check this out. We had— oh shitballs, I just messed up my whole little zoomy thingy there. Oh man, watch this. Oh, let me get me centered here again. Well, there you go. A little behind-the-scenes action there. Boom. That's better, right? Uh, new book, The Dead Bedroom Fix, 3rd edition. Numero tres. First edition 2017, second edition 2020, and, uh, it was 3 years between the first 2 editions, and now another 4 years later, 3rd edition. This, I got new material in it, reorganized some stuff. Coming soon is the audiobook version. It is done. It is submitted. Audible has all the files, just waiting for them to do their thing. And the audiobook version, if you want to wait on that one, is going to have extra material that's not in the— I guess you call it the print material. Let me adjust my microphone here on my face a little bit. That's better. So looking forward to that. But check it out, you can learn more at deadbedroomfix.com, or let me give you guys a direct link here, if I may. Pardon my mouse noises here. All right, get that out of the way. I'm gonna give you a direct link to Amazon. There you go. There's a direct link to the book on Amazon. If you— it's so new, if you do a search, it won't find the new, new version. It finds the old, and I'm phasing out the old one, and it's a mess. But, you know, give it a few weeks, it'll be up and going just fine, and the Audible will be added hopefully. Audible says 10 days. I've done this before a couple times. It usually takes longer than that. Maybe they're, they're on the ball now. But, uh, um, yeah, check it out on Amazon. The third edition of The Dead Bedroom Fix. And as I've said, uh, I have other stuff other than this book. I have actually 3 other books. The books are called, uh, Real Talk, uh, Red Flags, and Divorce Panic. And all of those books combined, their sales, although they're newer than Dead Bedroom Fix— I don't know where to point— newer than Dead Bedroom Fix, um, but all those sales combined don't equal this guy. Dead Bedroom Fix has just taken off, and I've been very blessed to reach literally hundreds of thousands of people with this book. That counts all the versions— electronic version, paperback, Audible audio. You can do audio versions. I don't know if you know this, if you're a— I don't have my phone here— if you're an iPhone user, you have an app on your phone called Books. You could download books directly from there and pay right there on your iPhone. And they also do audiobooks right there from their Books app. So just do a search for the Books app on your phone. You could download the audio version. Not this one yet. Still waiting. Or the, uh, I believe the ebook version is available on Apple Books, as well as Barnes Noble, as well as Amazon. Where else? It'll be out there. It takes its time. I've submitted it, you know, to all the proper people, but it will be out there. So thanks ahead of time for all of you who have, uh, or are going to read, uh, the third edition of The Dead Bedroom Fix. Let's go back to me. Oh, there we go. Let me, uh, make some adjustments here. Mm-hmm. And look at that HFM logo behind me. Isn't that cool? And my guitars. Anybody wants to talk guitars, you just let me know. I'm all ears. All right. All right. Let me see. Let me get in some questions here, if I may. Daniel from YouTube says, any advice on telling my young children 8 and 10 years of age. He says that their mom is getting remarried. The kids have expressed in recent weeks that they don't want either of us to remarry. Well, of course not. It's a major holy shit to them, right? Advice on what to say to them. Um, Daniel says a follow-up to that: I have expressed that I'd like to speak to a counselor about the best way to talk to the kids about it, but she is not receptive to that idea at all. Um, it's really common. It's a— and this isn't a gendered thing. You know, I find myself trying to play it safe and keep saying like, this doesn't apply to everybody. This is not a gendered thing, which to me is kind of a duh, you know, thing. Like, obviously, but not to everybody. If you don't mention every iteration of the human race, every gender, sexual preference, and everything else, and somebody feels left out and they get pissed off. All right. So this doesn't apply just to ladies, but us men who have been through what you've gone through with the divorce and watching your ex-partner remarry and everything. It's just par for the course. Um, anything that kind of paints their actions as your ex in a bad light is really frowned upon, even if that is for the benefit of the children in your mind. And I would agree. So if you say, um, hey, ex-wife, you getting remarried is really gonna throw these kids— what's the proper term— throw them for a loop, it's really gonna mess with them. Potentially. How about we go talk to somebody professional about how best to approach the kids about this and stuff? And they're, you know, the ex is just going to roll their eyes and go, of course, something I'm doing is hurting the kids. Oh, um, so that's not a surprise that that's the reaction you get from her. Uh, but, uh, why don't you go on your own, dude? Or, um, I was going to say leave it to mom, but you're kind of painting the picture for maybe that, that won't go too well. And she may just flat out say, "Mom's getting remarried," and that's it. I mean, let's dissect this a little bit. This isn't like rocket science. Hey kids, sit down, you know. Something to tell you. It's good news, but you may take it, it may stress you out a little bit, and let's talk about it, right? And that is, your mom and John made-up name, obviously. You know, they've been dating for a while, at least I hope. I hope this isn't some quick, she's known him for a couple weeks, couple months thing. Not unheard of. But anyway, you know, your mom's been dating John for a while. Well, they're going to get married. So good news, right? That's a good thing. We all— we all of us wish the best for your mom. Hope she's super happy and hope they live happily ever after and everything's great. But I can see as kiddos how that may be kind of weird to you, because I, as dad, it's kind of weird to me too. And that was my— that's my ex-wife, you know. So what do you think, kids? What do you feel about this? How does that— how does that make you feel? Any questions for myself or mom? Or— I mean, what else can you do? Um, yeah, it's gonna rock their world. Everything about this whole divorce and splitting up the family and all this other stuff, it, it, it throws kids for a loop. There's no doubt about it. But what can you do? The best thing you can do is just kind of minimize the pain as much as humanly possible. But good question, Daniel. Thank you for that. Any, all right, anything else, guys? Anything else? So check it out, help4men.com. I put the link up there for the latest version of The Dead Bedroom Fix, 3rd edition. Just came out July 3rd, I believe, so it's been out a few days now. And direct link there will take you right to it. Please give it a download. Please give it a review. I would greatly appreciate it. All right. Mic myself as I cough there. What else has been happening? Daniel says, thanks for the input. You're very welcome, Daniel. Any other questions? Um, oh, here we go. Hmm. Mr. Jeff, Jeff from Facebook says, hey Ralph. Well, hey Jeff, brand new here and I made my first post a couple of days ago, which you responded to, and I appreciate the group and what you said. So Jeff, are you referring to our, um, uh, HFM Brotherhood, our private group for men only? Check it out guys, help4men.com. You can go right to the page at help4men.com/join if you wish to join. We have a private group just for men It's a support group, if you will, and it's active 24/7. We have guys from all over the world in the group talking in our discussion forums, as well as live meetings in Zoom that we get together and talk. I host a meeting, and the guys on our team host meetings, as well as all of my books that I mentioned, including this latest version of The Dead Bedroom Fix, 3rd edition, is at no additional charge to our group members. They have the PDF version of it, which is mobile-friendly, by the way, now. Nice big text so you can read it on your phone, as well as the audio version. You don't have to wait on Audible. It's available, audio version, for our members. How about that? So check it out, helpformen.com/join. I'm going to put the link here. Boom. All right, and we have a bunch of other stuff on there as benefits for joining. Comes out to be, if you pay a month-to-month basis, it's less than a dollar today to join it. Great cause, help out a bunch of dudes all over the world, work with a bunch of men, less than a dollar a day. Doesn't get much better than that, folks. Uh, he is— Jeff is saying, I am fresh into separate homes. What's the first step you recommend to stop ruminating thoughts? So Jeff, what's your definition of ruminating thoughts? I've, uh, over the years I've learned that everyone has their own little definition of things, only ways of categorizing things. Um, one person's ruminating thoughts, when they explain it, may be actually kind of concerning, like seek professional help kind of ruminating thoughts. Like, are we talking about, you know, suicidal ideation and things like that? Well, others' ruminating thoughts is, when you listen to them, it's just basically like, oh, that's just anxiety, dude. So tell us exactly, uh, Jeff, we will wait. Um, what is it that you mean by ruminating thoughts. Um, and while we wait on that, anything else that is going on in the world of Dad Starting Over or Help for Men? Uh, here recently I have, uh, reposted some material from like last year or the year before that I, you know, gone back in previous years and see what was really, really popular and then repost it. And sure enough, it's blown up all over again. And, uh, Some of the topics include fuel for discussion here, um, as much as we can via comments anyway. One of the topics was when a man discovers that his wife was sexually active in the past, which there's nothing necessarily wrong with that, uh, but her flavor of sexuality in the past was such that it, I guess you could say, kind of eclipses that of what they have together as a couple. So the man feels hurt by the fact that— let's just put it out there, let's say that he's in a relationship with a wife, loves her to death, best friend in the whole wide world, everything is wonderful. And how's the bedroom activity? And he'll go, mm, could be better. Has it ever been great? No, not really. Um, well, what's wrong? Well, there are certain things she won't do. And right away when people hear me say that, they go to the most like porn-level stuff. Well, you'd be surprised that what some couples don't do is pretty, by my estimation anyway, it's a subjective thing, pretty sedate, you know, boilerplate stuff to do in the bedroom. So you hear a guy say, my wife will never do anything oral-wise, for example. Sorry to be crass, but whatever. So never oral anything. It's like, oh wow. And the wife will say like, you know, most wives don't do that. It's really out of my comfort zone. I don't feel comfortable doing that. It's a, It's sorry, you're gonna have to respect my wishes. And he's like, yeah, I'm not gonna force you to do anything you don't want to do. If that's, if that's what, if that's your opinion and that's what you feel, then cool. Sucks, no pun intended, but hey, it is what it is. And so, um, then thanks to the internet, thanks to maybe Mr. Anxious Guy being snoopy, snoopy, snooping, you know, looking through a computer or phone or something, or he just happens to stumble upon something which shows him, and, you know, after doing some digging and more digging, he's like, oh my gosh, my wife actually did said act. It doesn't necessarily have to be the oral thing, could be whatever, and, um, with previous partners but not with me. And this really, really hurts some men. Real blow to the old ego, that's for sure. Um, and what I have found is when I present that scenario, which I've heard more than a few times from men that I talk to, And you can talk one-on-one to me, by the way, and book time with me at help4men.com. Go to help4men.com, go to coaching in the menu, or help4men.com/coaching. If the pricing's a little high, guess what? You can become a member again for less than a dollar a day, and that pricing on the coaching gets cut in half. Makes a lot of sense to join financially if you plan on getting some talk, you know, some coaching from me one-on-one. But anyway, I digress. Um, so anyway, when I present this scenario to men and say, what do you think? A lot, I would say probably majority of men go, I could see where that would hurt, you know. And a lot of men will be like, I can see how I am being a bit, uh, oh, insecure in this and everything else, and maybe it's something I need to get past. Maybe for whatever reason she doesn't want to do that anymore, but it makes me feel less than the other dudes. Let's say Boyfriend A and B are better than husband in that way. They, they are in his mind, in his anxious mind, um, they have some secret formula or some characteristics or something about them which brings about a level of eroticism and sexual freedom in my partner that I have never ever seen. And that's hurtful for a lot of men to come to terms with that, if that's in fact what's going on. But when I present that scenario to women, I would say the vast majority of women say, go fuck yourself, dude, I don't get it. So it's kind of interesting, the dichotomy there, or the the different perspectives on what is turning out to be a relatively— common's too strong a word— not unheard of scenario. I think what is contributing to this is, and we're going to see this more and more, um, the internet. You know, you can go on sites like Reddit, the various other websites, and all the way to pay sites such as OnlyFans and others where women will do a lot of stuff on camera. And sexual stuff on camera. And once it's on camera, guys, it's out there in the, in the ether, in the internet universe, forever, forever and ever. I know it's maybe behind a paywall or it's behind some kind of username, login, whatever, but once it's out there, somebody grabs it, it can go blow up in a hurry. So just something, you know, when you're sending pictures to people and posting things Be careful. So sure enough, I've had a few guys that are— I was on Reddit, I was on something where, yeah, I had one guy who discovered that his wife was writing dirty stories. That was kind of her thing was to be like a— I guess it's way more common with the ladies, a writer of erotic fiction. And he saw that her inner thoughts, at least when put on paper, were very hypersexual. And this was the side of his wife that he has never ever seen. So he felt, um, I guess robbed, or I don't know what the term is, cheated out of seeing that side of her, even though she didn't necessarily, as far as he could tell, ever act that out in a physical real form. But just the fact she put, you know, thought to paper. And I mean, it's kind of like, you know, you're super conservative, buttoned-up woman who's never ever done anything. Oh my, clutching her pearls. And you read, you know, super erotic fiction about S&M and bondage and group stuff, and he's just like, who the hell is this woman? And he was pissed about that. Well, all the way to the scenario of I saw pictures of, videos of— heard that one— the old online diary, or I caught my wife talking to her female friend about past things. Whatever the case may be, the man feels that those people are— those people in her past um, more virile, more manly, more, more of her lover, and I'm not. And it hurts their feelings. So I put that little video out there, and sure enough, it's, it's blowing up all over again. So if you guys want to comment on that and have further discussion on that, what do you guys think, man? Can you relate to the guys that are pissed off in that way? I'm going to skip Guitar God. I'll come back to you, brother. Thank you for joining me again. But I will jump back to Scott and— or pardon me, can't, can't think straight— Jeff. Jeff from Facebook, a follow-up to his thing about rumination. He says, mine is rumination— ruminating— ruminations are anxiety-based. And some days I struggle to let go of my anger with her having affairs. And if an affair led to our separation and divorce, and I believe she started up another affair within the last month— well, at this point, would it be an affair? I can't control her. And most days I can talk myself through those thoughts. At night when my son isn't here, it gets more difficult. I hope that makes sense. Jeff, buddy, give yourself a freaking break. What you're experiencing is the aftershocks effects of somebody who's been through a trauma. You, my friend, have been through a trauma. It's a pretty big one too. As much as some men try to minimize it and go, uh, fuck that woman and blah blah, go get your hooker and drink some alcohol and everything will be fine— easier said than done, right? It still hurts at a very visceral deep level. You've been betrayed. Any person that's been through that will say, brother, put an arm around you and say, I am so sorry you're going through this, because it sucks. It's one of the most painful things you can go through, betrayal. And, um, you're feeling the aftershocks of that, and there will be days where you will punch a hole in the wall or something. You'll be like, where did that come from? Almost not quite out of your control, but kind of surprises you, the, the veracity, the, the, the level of anger that, that comes out out of the blue. You could be having the most wonderful moment ever and you just want to scream. And sometimes you do. Sometimes you cry. Sometimes you cry yourself to sleep. Sometimes you punch the desk, punch the kitchen table, or whatever. Give yourself a break. You've gone through a lot, and you're going to go through hell. That's all there is to it. But myself and others that have been through this will tell you the same thing, Jeff. Once you get on the other side It gets better, okay? But it's, it's going to take a while. You're still fresh into this. Um, you're separated, divorced. And notice that I picked on you a little bit. You talked about she started up another affair. No, sir, she's a single woman who's having relations with other people. She can do that. She ain't your wife no more, buddy. I know maybe he's technically still— you're going through the process of separation, divorce, and all this other stuff. She's still technically your wife, damn it. No, she's not. You let her go the moment you, you discovered what you did. That was the moment she stopped. Here's one way to frame it. That's when she stopped earning the privilege of calling herself Jeff's wife. That's how you have to look at this. She had a big goof, and the fact that she's jumping from person to person like this and everything else shows that she probably has a problem. All right, and Jeff, she probably has had a history of problems and stuff you, you've always known about, but you overlooked it. You're a good dude. And, uh, big life lesson: overlooking all these things and just, you know, looking the other way and brushing the red flags under the rug or whatever— it's, it's— there's a chorus of people that would tell you you're a good guy for doing so, and I'm not one of them. I'm telling you that you have a good heart, sure, but your actions just end up hurting you and others, you know, overlooking these kind of things. And you're going to learn that the hard way. And I'm not picking on you because, been there, done that. If you don't know my story, that's high five, brother, welcome to the club. Um, but a lot of us have been there, done that, and it sucks, and you're going to go through hell. The only way to kind of minimize, expedite the process of going through this would be— it's a lot of boilerplate, take care of yourself type stuff. Um, remain physically active, that's a good way to burn off energy. Now talking about punching things, go punch a punching bag. One of the best workouts in the world is hitting a heavy bag. Try 5 rounds of— how long is a typical boxing round, 3 minutes or 5 minutes? Whatever it is, try 5, um, typical boxing rounds of heavy bag work. You will be drenched and exhausted, and you'll have a very big appreciation for what good cardiovascular shape fighters are in, and you won't have much energy left to be angry. That helps. Stay away from things such as alcohol, tobacco, drugs, all these other things. Again, pretty boilerplate healthy stuff, but it works. One that a lot of men especially— women are better at this than men are— but a lot of one thing that men especially are not good at is socializing, especially socializing after a traumatic event like this. I think women naturally gravitate towards, hey, best friend, take me out for mimosas and let's, let's sit and cry for a few hours at home and, and talk a lot and snuggle on the couch together. You know, women are more like that than men are. Uh, while men are kind of, uh, now I'm gonna be a lone wolf for a while, lick my wounds and emerge from my cave later and be a better dude, presumably. But often it's not the best. If you can socialize more with guys in person, guys in our group and so forth, and talking to dudes, having real genuine conversations, especially about this kind of issue, that's better too. That's, this is very therapeutic for people to get these issues out and talk about them. Um, keep active. Notice this is all kind of expelling, isn't it? It's, uh, the keeping active thing is expelling that energy via working out, exercise. The bonding with other men and talking to them is kind of getting out some of this stress verbally and, and letting your emotions out there. So people you can trust, and, um, those are— I think those are the two very big things. Another thing, Jeff, is that you will hear from a lot of people of, uh, just get out there, buddy, and go screw you some girl. And I'm like, no, dude, it's the last thing you need right now. You're a mess right now. I understand. That's not an insult, it's just facts. And, uh, last thing you need to do is to introduce other people romantically into your world. Just stay out of that, that world for a while. Um, I'm gonna jump to— I'm jumping over you, Scott, into Jeff here. Follow-up says, I do have a therapist helping me through it, and letting go has been easier said than done. I'm in the beginning phases of the process, and I— most of it will come with time. And working through the emotions. Yeah, good for you, buddy, with the therapist. You're in the top 5% of dudes because most guys don't do that. But very good. Best of luck to you. Keep in touch with myself and the group. And that's why we have that group, uh, the HFM Brotherhood, just for guys like you, people going through stuff. I need to talk, I need to bounce ideas. And what have you guys done? And that's what we're there for. Um, Guitar God 365 from Facebook says, you've spoken about how men in our grandfather's generation would all would often just get their sexual needs met outside. Often may be too strong of a word, but not unheard of. Get their sexual needs met outside of the marriage when wife goes low libido and the wife just looked the other way. How common is this nowadays, would you say? I would say not very. It's, you know, let's look at why that was not unheard of in our grandparents' and great-grandparents' generation. You know, grandpa had the mistress, Grandma knew about it, doesn't want to talk about it, but looks the other way. Why would she do that? Does she have a choice, is the question, or did she have a choice? Grandma— did Grandma have a whole bunch of work skills and know-how and degrees that she could take out into the real world and get herself a big high-paying job? No, she had nothing. So she was forced to endure such behavior, at least by her estimation. Um, nowadays not so much. Ladies have a lot of choices. Bravo ladies. They're kicking our butts in the corporate world. They're making a lot of money. And even if they don't, the old alimony, the old child support, you know, they will be taken care of. So I think that they're a lot less apt to look the other way, but it's not unheard of. Mr. Scott from Facebook says, I've always been baffled by people claiming that sex isn't like it is in porn. Meanwhile, meanwhile, my sex life was pretty much exactly like porn. Well, good for you, Scott. I feel bad for all the men that never have had that. You know, I'm going to agree with you a bit here on this. Um, it is— let me just say this, I guess It's not like that in porn. Um, it is something that I have written about in my book Real Talk, which the full title is Real Talk: No Bullshit Life Advice for Young Men. And, um, there is something that we are seeing in any kind of, um, oh, I guess you could say counselor, mental health people, people that deal with teens, um, adults that deal with, with teens and helping teens through issues and crisis and everything. They will say we see a trend. And that is, we see these young men watching a lot of porn, and they will, uh, have their first sexual experience with a girl, and they will basically try and act out everything that they see in porn. And some of it is kind of out there and almost kind of violent, and it's kind of scary that these men are going right from A to Z. And we have to tell those boys, what you're seeing in the porn is not necessarily real life. Sure, those are real humans doing that act, but you don't go right from A to Z like that with this girl that you just met. You gotta, you gotta be a gentleman about this, you know. This is— she's scared. This is a new experience for her, just like with you, and take your time and make sure that, you know, consent is there and everything else. You don't just go right from this to— I think what I used in the book was, you know, shoving a traffic cone in her butt or whatever weird stuff you see. And that's how crazy some of this adult material is that we see online. So that's— in that way, it's not realistic for most. But as far as a— for some of us that have been lucky enough, and sounds like Sky, you're one of the lucky ones. For those of us who have been lucky enough to be in really hot and heavy relationships with people that we really click at that level, you can get a level of energy at least that we see in that no-holds-barred, very open, very spontaneous with the desire, very, uh, just do whatever. Two people that feel completely comfortable with each other and, uh, very, uh, Both people's personality traits are probably pretty open, open to ideas, to try new things and have all kinds of fun. We have experienced that. So when we hear people, you know, say like that spontaneity, that openness, that energy is not real, guys, that's kind of a, that's a porn thing, not a real life thing. It just makes me go, I'm with you, Scott. I'm like, really? Because I, I'm no Adonis here. I've experienced this. And, um, yeah, it's— you do kind of feel sad for those that have not. Um, Mr. Spencer says, the un— Spencer from YouTube— the uninhibited sex is the hallmark of her genuine desire. The sex with barriers means the opposite. This knowledge destroys relationships, understandably. It's not something I'd ever get past. Oh, so this is in response to the, uh, the scenario of somebody, a man, discovering that your, your wife used to do certain acts with other people but not with you, to super simplify it. Um, and, but Spencer, let's be honest, let's say I'm a gal and I used to be very sexually experimental. I was young, I was free, I was a 20-something, whatever, and then let's say I did that world for 10 years, and in that 10 years I amassed a lot of partners and got a whole lot of acts done that if I probably had a video recorder could sell it and make millions of dollars. Um, and then I got into my 30s and I decided, you know what, I don't want to do that anymore. Yeah, I look back on it and do I smile? Yeah, some of it was great, but some of it was not so great. Some of it, I, at the, at the end of the act, I said, I should have done that. I, it's all on me. It's my responsibility for doing said act. But now that it's done, I'm like, eh, nah, I don't wanna do that anymore. And I look back on my 20s and I say, and that phase of my life is over. And those women have every right in the world to do that, just as men have every right to do the same. Maybe a man, let's look at it from this way. What, maybe a man was a super duper partier, maybe did all kinds of drugs, IV drugs, and snorting this and smoking that. Drinking, you know, until he blacks out drunk. And he was Mr. Party Man, and maybe he was a rock star back in the day or whatever. And then he turned 30 years of age and he's like, I'm just gonna put all this behind me, forget all that stupidness, become a boring— uh, I often use this, this profession even though it's not fair because I know insurance salesmen that are perfectly normal, happy humans, like my friend Gus, who's Gustavo, who's on our team. But it's, you know, and then he goes into becoming an insurance salesman and he's like, I'm going to calm down, I'm going to give me a wife, give me a kid. And what if the wife found out Oh my gosh, you used to be Mr. Super Happy Fun Party Man. What happened to that guy? You're so boring now. And he's like, yeah, I left that life behind me. I don't want to do that anymore. Yeah, some of it I look back on and smile and it was fun, but now, eh, not so much. Spencer, women can do the same thing. Yeah, I look back on that time of my life and I don't want to do that anymore. And your partner, you know, depends on your perspective. Should your partner go, that's cool, I get it. That's fine. Or should your partner go, yeah, but that's kind of what I want. That's what I look for in a romantic partner, somebody who is more uninhibited and is more open and would like to do those things with me. I— sounds like I'm putting on different hats here, but I am not going to shame you, Spencer, or anyone for feeling that way. Um, there is a knee-jerk reaction amongst many is that that level of thinking amongst men should be shamed, that you are less than a good healthy human being for having such thoughts. No, I, I'm not. I'm, I'm often labeled myself as a pretty sex-positive person, and often that goes along with other things, such as if a man tells me, I'm sorry, I only get sexually aroused by women that are in their 20s, and he's like a 60-year-old man or something like that. A lot of people would say, dirty old man, ooh, yuck, whatever. And I'm just over there saying That's his thing. Whatever his thing is, I'm not gonna shame him for it. Okay, cool, dude, good luck. I hope you get a 20-something-year-old. Same type of thing. Somebody comes to me and says, I can't get past the fact that my wife was super hypersexual and now she's super boring, doesn't wanna do anything. Okay, if you can't get past that, that's fine. That's your thing, but realize what you're saying. You're throwing aside the family and the wife for this. Is it that important to you? And if he says yes, it is, I'm not going to shame you for that. But you do have to weigh, you know, pros and cons and what's most important to you. Graham is how you pronounce, I believe. You've been on it before, Mr. Graham. Mr. Graham from Facebook says, it's been 2 years since I discovered the affair. I moved out and she has chased me for 2 years. Interesting. There were times that I thought we could make it, but my gut always said no. My heart was tricked from time to time. There were times that she had other men, other men around as friends, quote unquote. Each time I got jealous and did the dance and she'd come back into my life. The last time she gave me an ultimatum that I needed to stay overnight to prove I love her. I didn't. So she started a new relationship. Fast forward less than a week and she invited me over and we ended up in a very heavy and long, heavy petting session. I was in love and I wanted her back. When I ordered to come back, she shot me down and sent me back into the spiral of self-doubt and brought back the hurt of that affair. So we're on a roller coaster here, buddy. Was it wrong that I messaged the new guy and told him why I left the marriage and that she cheated on him? Yeah. Is it wrong? It's not wrong, but what it is, is it shows something, buddy. Holy shit, is this woman living rent-free in your mind. This, this chick's got her hooks in you, buddy. You are in a bad way over her. Um, here's how this should go. Uh, why, if you had an affair, I wish you all the best, especially— let's pretend there are no kids in the mix. I don't know if that's the case here. And Graham says he's from Australia. Oh, good day. Um, so, um, you discovered the affair. Let's pretend there are no kids. This is where you say That was dumb. I don't— this is not something I'll ever be able to get past. I wish you all the best. Best of luck to you. Goodbye. Do not contact me, please. Don't text me. Don't call me, because I, Graham, I know me, and I'm very— I very easily fall back in love, and I want to attach and everything else. Like, I kind of have a problem in that way. Graham, you got it. You got some issues you need to work on here, buddy. And so please don't contact me. It's not good for me. It's not good for anybody. Thank you. Goodbye. You can see when you still have a little bit of touch of her every now and then, it's not good. And so, were you wrong to message this guy? That's all silly. This is, this is nuttiness here, Graham. You just need to stay the hell away from her for good. No more texting, no more calling, no more come on over and watch movie with me, no more whatever it may be. You have to cut this person out of your life. This is a mess, dude. This is a real mess. MrGuitarGod365 Facebook says, do you think or have you seen relationships where the wife becomes asexual? I get that she may lose libido for him but says she never thinks of sex. Even erotic romance where, uh, even the erotic romance she read doesn't actually turn her on. Well, sure, um, you know, people go through changes, dude. The question then is, well, what the heck caused this sudden— it could be a lot of things. Human sexual desire is kind of complicated. It could be— it can be lessened via stress, anxiety. Take a person who's severely depressed, and we will, you know, maybe do a blood draw on them and run it, and it's like, oh, your hormones are all in line, everything's fine physically, we're looking at you, you look good, everything's cool. What's going on with you? I'm depressed. Oh, well, that's why your sexual desire is down. So you can see how just something as, as simple as the emotional component of it can have drastic effects on what's happening downstairs, up here in your brain. And, um, so that's one thing, that's one of a thousand things that it could be, dude. Uh, Perimenopause, menopause— you're familiar with this— the natural downturn of the hormonal makeup in women. For some women, not all, it results in a complete shutdown of sexual desire, and to get back in the mood for that act is straight up work. And sometimes they just do not have the energy to put into the work to get into that mindset, if they ever can get back into that mindset. And for those women, they can look into hormonal replacement therapy, other therapy, there may be some emotional hangups outside of depression and outside of perimenopause. There may be things such as past sexual trauma. Much, much of what we've seen in terms of— how to best to put this— sexual dysfunction or intimacy problems within a marriage. We are together. We're committed. We have kids and oh my gosh, all this stuff just can't kind of bubble to the surface. As I often say, suddenly she has libido issues. Suddenly she's questioning, maybe I'm asexual. And you're like, where the hell did this all come from? Um, for some, when we are smothered by the blanket of all that domesticity and safety and security and matrimony or whatever the hell you want to call it, it just smothers sexuality completely. It's just gone. And sure as shit, if and when you divorce and they're back on the market and they are single, a switch flips. This happens to men and women both. I have seen it. I know I'm biased as a man. I have seen it more so with women, where it goes from dormant asexual to I'm sexual again. It's Mother Nature doing its thing, making you— you're back on the market. You're supposed to be finding a new mate, make new babies, even if that's not on the— in the plans for you. That's just what Mother Nature has imprinted us with. Um, so it could just be that she is of the persuasion, if you will, that once committed, that stuff just shuts down. And once she's out of the commitment, she blossoms again, if you will. Those people tend not to make very good long-term monogamous relationship partners as far as the love, romance, and sexuality is concerned. It just goes away for them. We all know those people. We've heard those people. I talk to those people, or spouses of those people, on a daily basis. So that happens. Um, now does she become asexual? You know, asexuality is a word that's thrown around a lot, and it's relatively rare, like pretty rare, like people that are genuinely asexual. Um, I think that is something that is basically a part of you, as much just like if you're a bisexual, homosexual, heterosexual, asexual, you don't necessarily become any of those things, but some things can happen environmentally outside of your control, which can push you in some of those directions. And it could be something has pushed her in the direction of what you call asexuality, or what I often refer to as sexual dormancy. Um, John Smith says, uh, that guy's story reminds me of why I picked a below-average chick to marry. Oh, John, I hope you're— I hope your wife's not You know, watching this, that's not a very nice thing to say. So you're saying, John, that if you were with a woman that was by your estimation above average in looks, that you would have to worry about all these other men and about her actions and everything else? That's— I've heard that a few hundred times. And back to Graham from Australia, you do have kids, 3 kids in the mix. So that kind of— this is where the kids kind of complicate things, is that you try to keep your distance and keep away from the other person, the ex, as much as humanly possible, because you know when you come in contact with them, it's no good. But sometimes you have to come in contact with them because of kids. Like kids drop-off time, you know, you're going to Mom Sunday, you drive motor moms, who comes out the front door to greet you? Mom. Oh shit, here we go. And the next thing you know, Mom's striking up a conversation and yada yada, and there comes all those feelings again, and away you go. You have to minimize that as much as possible. You just have to act like she's the Antichrist and you're just trying to stay the hell away from her because your life depends on it. Because frankly, Graham, it does. What you're going through is no way to go through life. This ups and downs, back and forth. Uh, you're a grown man, buddy. It's time to stop all the nonsense and, uh, get away from her. Stop acting like a lovestruck 15-year-old with the wrong— with the wrong gal. Officially now, as of today, that ain't you no more, and you just need to act like it. Well, that sounded mean. Sometimes that's kind of talk us men need. Did I miss anything here? While we pause here, while I take a drink, uh, helpformen.com. If you could please check that out. I'm going to, uh, something to copy here. I'm going to copy some— computer's not— there we go. This is a link for a free month to our support group, our group for men only. I keep pushing this because this is where all the best work is done. Men getting together and working with each other. How do you best expedite and get over? You work with other men. Yeah, but it's difficult to find other men that are going through what I'm going through. No, it's not. Boom, here you go, join us. There's a cost involved because there's a lot of cost involved in keeping all this and running all this stuff with the Zoom meetings and the forums and the monitor— monitoring— moderating, excuse me, and the coaching and all this other stuff. So we do charge a small fee, which ends up being less than a dollar a day if you pay month to month. It was like 30-some cents a day if you pay like a year upfront, and then we also have a lifetime plan so you can pay once and forget about it. But if you want to test drive the group and see if it's to your liking, there's a link I just put there in the comments for one free month, no strings attached. If you stay past the month, we will charge you for the next month. If you tell us before your first month is up, I don't think I want to do this anymore, cool, done, you're out. Don't worry about it anymore. I'm not gonna— you're not gonna hound me because you keep getting monthly payments or whatever. Even if, you know, like on day 31 you're like, oh shoot, I forgot I was supposed to cancel, I'll cancel and I'll give you your, your money back for that month that you're charged with. I'm not here to rip people off. I'm not here to take your money. I'm here to help you, myself and an army of hundreds of other men from around the world. Speaking of, we're all getting together, um, for our 5th annual conference in the United States, uh, that will be in Charleston, South Carolina in April or May of next year. I should know this off the top of my head, but I don't. Charleston, South Carolina. It's more specifically the Isle of Palms on a beach house. We are renting a beach house. And if that sounds small, it is smaller than our usual. We've had, you know, 50 guys show up to our conferences and now we're going to limit it to 10, 10 dudes. That's it. We want to make this a more intimate experience, see how this goes. If this goes well, we're going to replicate it and do it again and again, maybe throughout the year as opposed to just one time a year. But we have 4 spots left. So we got basically got less than a year before our event here, and, uh, less than a year to fill 4 spots. And that is open just to members of our group. So you can check out the group for a month, check out, see what that's all about. We call it Bro Fest. And, uh, our dudes in Australia, they have their own version of Bro Fest they call Mate Fest, and they're coming up on their— I believe their 3rd annual gathering. Coming up here at the end of this year in Sydney, Australia. So yes, we are officially an international affair. So join us if you will. It's a very good team to be a part of. And whatever it is you're going through, we've heard it and then some. So you're— you ain't that special. That should be a comforting thought. Anybody have anything else? These were great. I love having the questions right off the, uh, right off the bat, hit the ground running here. Thank you for that, for the YouTube gang. Uh, anybody else have anything to ask, anything to share at all? Please do share. If not, I will call her quits here. It's already been 45 minutes or so. Thank you everyone. Check it out, help4men.com. Give me, uh, if you could on this, give me a like. That's huge, helps me out a lot. Uh, wherever you're watching this right now, if you could subscribe or follow that also helps a lot. Thank you so much. And anytime you see one of my little videos come up, my old pretty bald head, give me a like if you could please, or share it if you really like it. Give me a share, that really helps spread the word. We've had, uh, this has been a good last couple weeks social media-wise, have hit millions of people, so that's really good. Every now and then, um, you know, this, it goes in waves, roller coaster thing, and we just had a really good peak last week and really good book sales last week. So thank you all who bought books. It was a good week, so appreciate that a great deal. Helps keep the lights on. Um, anything else, guys? Going once, twice. Every time, right, right when I'm about to hang this up, there's always one question that pops up. So I'm giving you one last chance before I, before I click on the old finish button here on my screen. Anything else? Anyone? Oh, do you see my— oh yeah, I always do that. See my, uh, Play Button here. Isn't that cool? YouTube Play Button for reaching 100,000 subscribers on YouTube. I had somebody questioning, did you buy all your followers? I'm like, no, it's just that I have like, I don't know, a dozen of my videos got really big numbers and then like all the hundreds of rest get kind of smallish numbers. And every now and then one will just take off out of nowhere, I'll get a bunch of subscribers. And, uh, another cool little interesting tidbit is like, I think it's like 65% of my followers on YouTube are from India. Who knew? That's kind of interesting. So if you're watching this and you're from India, howdy do. How do they say howdy do in India? I don't know. I think we officially have one gentleman from India in our, uh, in our group, Atharva. So Atharva, if you're watching this, howdy. Um, but anywho, that's kind of cool, the old play button from YouTube. All right, ladies and germs, if there is nothing else, I, uh, wish you a great rest of your Sunday. I'll probably be on here again here coming up this week. I have a cool interview coming up on Thursday for a podcast. We're gonna, um, you know, we have the Dad Starting Over podcast, but we're now gonna have the Help for Men podcast. I'm gonna reserve it solely for, um, interviews with important people, influential content creators, experts, whatever, in their field. And, uh, we're gonna have our first one coming up here Thursday. It's gonna record it and then it'll have to be edited and all that other stuff, so I don't know when it'll be posted. But with, um, Oriane Taraban. I don't know if you know, or Taraban, I don't know how to pronounce that. I don't know if you've heard of him, but very popular dude who has a popular YouTube channel called Psych Hacks. He was on Modern Wisdom Podcast. He was on Soft White Underbelly, which is very, very popular. Big guy, big name. He's been all over the place. And I reached out to him and he responded and said he would love to be on the podcast. So be on the lookout for that. We'll post the video post clips, put it on the new Help for Men podcast. I'll be sure and provide links. So who else do we have coming up? We have another, um, a doctor whose name is escaping me coming up who's an expert in, uh, neurodivergent men, talking to him about that— guys on the autism spectrum, ADHD, obsessive-compulsive, all that good stuff. We have, uh, Dr. Robert Glover is coming back, author of No More Mr. Nice Guy. And, um, Dr. Psych Mom will be interviewed for the Help for Men podcast. So we already got us, what is that, 3 or 4, uh, guests lined up, more to come. So thank you all once again, appreciate you all. Thank you for the likes, thank you for the subscribes and follows, and hope you have a, a good night. Get some good rest, wake up fresh Monday morning ready for work. Oh boy, I'll see you. Thanks guys.