Chat LIVE with Ralph (DSO)!

It's here. Hey, there I am. Hello everyone, how are you fine folks today? Good, I hope. I am coming to you live today. Today's gonna be a very sound effect-y kind of day, you'll see what I mean. Coming to you live from Plano, Texas. I told you last time I was on one of these I'm going to have some kind of Texas sound effect. Well, there you go. I have my dueling banjos for Kentucky and yeehaw for Texas. So welcome everyone. Welcome, welcome. It's your boy Raffalito, aka DSO, from Dad Starting Over, and you can learn more about me and my organization at dadstartingover.com or do a search for Dad Starting Over. On TikTok, on Facebook, on YouTube, on Twitter, which are the platforms we are live streaming to as we speak. Actually, I'm not live streaming on TikTok. I lied. That's impossible to do from this, believe it or not. You have to get on your phone and do it separately on TikTok. TikTok blows in a lot of ways, as do a lot of the other social media platforms. Probably shouldn't say that as I'm using them to make money. Oh well, what can you do? Um, anyway, do a search for Dad Starting Over and you may have seen me in my beautiful bald head, talking in various videos about a lot of different subjects. Probably all of them you could categorize as relationship talk, being a dude in the world of relationship talk, divorce, sex and marriage, marriage in general, all the post-divorce stuff, dating, kids, physical fitness, all that stuff that guys worry about. We talk about Dad Starting Over, and you can learn more at dadstartingover.com. Social media, I already mentioned all that. Blah-bitty, blah-bitty, blah-bitty. What these usually are is me blabbing away and people leaving comments, asking questions, and we go back and forth. Usually lasts around an hour. So if you're new to this, welcome. Good morning from New Zealand, brother, says Michael. Well, we're starting off things hot here, all the way from New Zealand, the land of rolling green hills and sheep. Am I right? You know, there is a direct flight. I'm in Plano, Texas, which for those that don't know is in the Metro Dallas, Texas area, a big metro area of like 7 million people or something like that. And, um, uh, there is a direct flight from our airport in Dallas, which is a huge freaking airport. I fly out of it all the time, obviously. And we have a direct flight to New Zealand. So one day I will go see you, Michael. I'm going to show up at your door, buddy. Be prepared. Uh, and Rocco says, does couples counseling work? Well, we're just starting right off the bat here, folks. Rocco, thank you, brother. Um, does it work? Well, you know, uh, my phrase is often, uh, a good counselor, a good therapist, of which I, from what I understand, is not that easy to find. But a good one, like my friend Dr. Samantha Rodman-Whiten, check her out at drpsychmom.com. Um, they're worth their weight in gold. Like, they know their stuff. You're not going to go in there and they have some kind of agenda. I often hear from a lot of men, I understand this is a biased perspective since I'm talking to a lot of dudes, a lot of dudes I'll talk to will say, um, dude, I went in there and it was just like these, the female therapist my wife, obviously a female, and they just kind of ganged up on me and made me feel like a complete dirtbag, when in fact my wife was the one cheating, my wife was the one doing this, this, and this. But yet, because I'm dude, I was made to feel like, "You monster!" That happens, you know, dickheads exist in all professions and whatever, and there are a lot of dickhead therapists apparently. But if you got a good one, they hold both your feet to the fire. You know, they play the good referee between the two of you, and then they have their perspective of Well, here's what I've seen with my other clients. Here's what's going on. Here's some suggestions. Um, maybe you want to find somebody who's a psychologist so they can get into the nitty-gritty and deep stuff of let's go into your family of origin issues and some things that may be happening up in the old noodle. A psychiatrist is technically a medical doctor. They can prescribe medications to you and so forth. So there's different levels of therapy all the way down to somebody like myself who you could call a counselor or coach who does not have any kind of formal medical, mental health, anything, um, but just a guy who's been there, done that, and has talked to hundreds, if not thousands, of other guys, written books and so forth. People pay me for my time, and you can go to dadstartingover.com/coaching. You can look at my bio as well as the bios of the other gentlemen on the Dad Starting Over team. We all have our various life experiences, from military dude to former Mr. Nice Guy codependent guy to a guy who's lost a ton of weight and worked on his anxiety issues and so on and so forth. So check it out. And Rocco says, uh, that you've been in now twice. So tell us, Rocco, good, bad, what's going on? I will say this in defense of your, uh, marriage therapist, counselors, or whatever: it is not a one-and-done thing, guys. It's not that you go in there and go, I didn't like how that went, I don't really feel like we accomplished much, we were in there for an hour, hour and a half, and nothing. Well, dude, it's gonna take like a while. You gotta get all this shit out. Like what, 6 sessions at least, probably. And then, you know, for a lot of those, it ain't cheap. Um, there is a service that we have. I'm going to give a link here, guys. Bear with me as I type this in the comments. Uh, for you folks in YouTube, it'll be on the chat, and for Facebook, it'll be down in the comments as if this were a regular post. But, uh, go to betterhelp.com— I can't see what I'm typing— /dso. betterhelp.com/dso. /DSO. This is a pretty cool service. They are a sponsor of ours, hence the DSO at the end there. You can chat with a counselor, a real licensed therapist if you will, with your phone, voice chat. I think they may even have video so you can see face to face. You can do texting back and forth, emails back and forth, It really fills a niche because we have a lot of men that I've spoken to that are like, I live in, you know, bumfuck Iowa. It's a 2-hour drive to the city somewhere to go see a therapist and they can't see me for another 6 weeks. And then a couple of days before they rescheduled on me. This is way more difficult than it should be. BetterHelp saw this need and said, we need to come up with a better system for people to get help with a lot of their issues. And they, voilà, they came up with this BetterHelp system and got a lot of people using it., and a lot of people love it. So check it out, betterhelp.com/dso. Yes, you can do individual or couples therapy on there. Or if you want to go for the full shebang, um, a real— they're all live people, but, um, my, my friend Dr. Samantha Rodman-Whiten has a whole network of therapists that she approves of. Check that out, go to drpsychmom.com to learn more. Hmm. And Tom, T-Dub. Hello, T-Dub, a regular here, says it's, uh, learn to emotionally regulate and you'll get much better ROI on your counseling. Well, that goes for everything in life, doesn't it? We had a gentleman on here not too long ago. Was it you, T-Dub? I don't know. Who said that after many years of therapy and, and reading and everything else, that the one big fat conclusion they came to was, um, a key to a lot of this, uh, relationship strife and getting over it is the ability to emotionally regulate yourself, to not be so emotionally volatile, to learn to roll with the punches, so to speak. And this, he's— I believe he put it in terms of the, the A number one quality when looking for a life mate: do they have the ability to roll with the punches, to emotionally regulate, and so forth? If not, don't bother, it's just a nightmare. And he's not wrong, is he? Um, Rocco says she possibly is done, she being your spouse, but wants, just wants to say she gave it another shot. Well, what can you do, buddy? I noticed, Mr. Rocco, is that your lovely spouse in your profile image there? You know, it's kind of funny. It's not funny, kind of sad. A common theme we see for a lot of guys who are very anxious, hanging on, No matter what, their wife, you know, I'm picturing them as this little dog that's like hanging onto your leg and you're trying to shake them off. So I'm picturing the wife kind of shaking the husband off like, we're done, dude, beat it. And the guy's just like, nope, not gonna get rid of me that easily. And that can go on, as many of us know, for years and years. And what's interesting is you go to these social media profiles and they say a lot. So I'll have a guy who will, you know, via message, you know, book a time with me for coaching, and he'll give me a little rundown of his situation and I'll read it. And then sometimes I'll do some snooping And I'll go look up the guy on Facebook. Maybe he's a member of our DSO fraternity group, and I'll click on his profile. And a lot of these guys, the profiles are very couple-heavy. There's me and my wife doing this, me and my wife doing that, and here we are hugging and kissing each other. And as an aside, a very common and kind of cringeworthy image that I see a lot of is the husband turning to the wife, putting a big smooch on her face, and the wife staring at the camera. And his profile is just filled with husband smooching, hugging, kissing all over wife, wife staring at the camera. Not at him. Mind you. But anyway, and you see that theme continue through their accounts. And you jump on over to the ol' wifey's account, 'cause usually they're linked, and it says married to Sally. And you go over to Sally's account. Sally's my go-to fake female name for my longtime fans. They will laugh at that. And Sally, there's no hint of husband on her account at all. It's sad. These people have been married for like sometimes decades, and you go there and you're like, is she single or what's the deal here? She knows her and her friends, her and her hobbies, her and her work, and on and on and on. Lots of memes and links to funny videos and all kinds of stuff, but no hubby to be found. Jump over to Mr. Anxious Hanger-On Hubby Dude, and it's just wife, wife, wife, wife, wife, kids, kids, kids, wife, wife, wife, kids. So it's very telling. Anyway, Mr. Ryan Pope says, speaking of DPM, or Dr. Psych Mom, she made recent comments on a podcast episode about how becoming attractive won't have the results that many guys think it will. Did I hear it and what's my feedback? No, I did not. But I, so I'm just going by what you're saying here. To which T Dub, jumping ahead here, says, you know, physical attractiveness is not as good as emotional or mental attractiveness for most healthy women. Very interesting. And okay, I'm gonna, David, I'm gonna save your question. Let's jump back up here to Mr. Ryan. In what, uh, DPM says. Okay, well, uh, I'm putting words in her mouth, but I'm going to continue with her line of thinking here. And let's try to wrap our very basic male brains— not stupid, basic male brains— around the subject. Okay, um, in the mating game, it has definitely has stages, right? For most people, stage number 1 is, whoa, who's that over there? They're attractive to me physically. Something about them makes me go, "Ooh." For some of us, it's, "Look at the arms on that guy. He looks masculine, he looks tough, he looks strong. He's tall, dark, and handsome," right? Tall, dark, and handsome usually doesn't mean woefully out of shape, disheveled looking, looks quasi-homeless unless he's a rock star and that kind of trumps all that stuff or a starving artist or whatever. But for most, it's takes care of himself, he's fit, he's healthy, he looks like he'd make some good babies, in other words, if you wanna break it down down at a real biological level. Same for the men, we look over there and we say, you know, there's cues of fertility here. She's got the nice curvy shape that we all like. She's of a certain age and blah, blah, blah. And away we go. So for many of us, when we notice later in life, subsequent chapters in our life together as couple, when we notice that the physicality between us starts to dip, Many men, especially your anxious dudes, turn into Mr. Fix-It. What can I do to make it go back up here again? Because this was amazing, heaven on earth, and this is hell. So for many guys, it's, I know, I'll get really good looking. But I'll tell you what, it works for some, dare I say a minority of us. I, and I've mentioned this a plethora of times, never thought I'd use the word plethora, um, I've mentioned this many times where some women have messaged me directly and have said, thank you for your book, The Dead Bedroom Fix. There was a section within that book that deals with taking care of yourself physically, going to the gym, something that a lot of men, especially my American brothers out there, aren't just completely neglecting their body. I often talk about a guy that I spoke to, was a Division I collegiate swimmer. And swimmers, if you don't know, look really good, really fit, lean, mean swimming machines. That fit is very attractive to a lot of women. Not all, a lot. And he obviously had the goods enough to attract his— what would become his future wife. And then when he got married, he went to work for wife's dad's insurance company became just Mr. Dad Bod Extraordinaire, gained a lot of weight, just gave up on himself because, hey, I'm married now. And wife's like, hello, not the guy I fell in love with. This lazy, out of shape, doesn't really care for himself dude just ain't cutting it for me anymore. And it took my book to wake him up. She thinks— she thought she was pretty direct about her thoughts about his physicality. She wasn't. She was kind of roundabout because she didn't want to hurt his very fragile male ego in her mind and didn't want to hurt his feelings. And I can't possibly say 'Cause somebody's fat and gross and out of shape. Why would I do that? So here comes my book saying, "That may be part of the problem here, dude." So he changed and she's like, "Thank God, I got my husband back. Now this is a guy I can parade around and go, 'Look at Mr. Handsome over here, huh? Look at Mr. Former Collegiate Swimmer, huh? I got a good one on my arm. Look at that.'" So for them it worked. And for people like them, it works. What percentage do they represent of the population? I don't know. Probably not a huge part, but, um, Dr. Seikmon's perspective is one of a lady, and they will say, you know, Mr. Average Dude, I see you going to the gym, I see you working your ass off, I see you've lost a lot of weight, I see you got Mr. Six-Pack there, Mr. Six-Pack Abs. It doesn't really do it for me as your wife. To which the response from many men should be, "Good for you, sister. Who said I was doing it for you? It's kind of presumptuous and, dare I say, egotistical of you, isn't it, Miss Wife? Doing it for me. And by the way," and this is a very mean thing, I understand, but hear me out. "By the way, see that lady over there?" The woman just eyeballed me as I walked across the street. It means something to her. Oh, look at that. Suddenly I'm getting attention from her over there too. And oh, look at that over there. Nothing wrong with that. You know, picture like over-the-top male model Hollywood looking guy, of which I'm not obviously, but picture that dude, right? And he turns heads, men and women alike probably. We all recognize like, woo, he's a good looking dude. And women are like, hubba hubba hubba, look at that guy. Um, nothing wrong with that. We're all human beings. We all recognize attractive when we see it, so on and so forth, right? And for some women, that is a crucial ingredient to turning on their attraction to their partner. Dare I say, for men as well. I have mentioned in the past where I can think of— I've been to events, parties, um, going out to dinner with my wife And I say, uh, you know, we get all dolled up and go out, and the wife was wearing a little dress that doesn't hide a whole hell of a lot. And this is probably earlier in our relationship, more so than now, post-baby and everything else. Not that she doesn't have it going on, but she's, uh, you know, 10 years older and a little more mature and not one to show off the goods. But she would, you know, wear a little shirt that shows the belly or something. She had a very good shape, very good figure, thanks to ballet for many years. But anyway, so Proud of her body, walking into a club with me in the arm, and I can see the heads turn, men and women alike. How does that make me feel as a dude? Insecure? They're going to take my women from me? No, it makes me like, damn right, that's my woman. Drink it in, buddies, she's coming home with me. And that makes me, dare I say, more attracted to my spouse. Makes me feel lucky to have her. There is nothing wrong with that. That may in turn be a result, like kind of like an ancillary, secondary, third, whatever result of you getting in shape. So it can't hurt you, definitely health-wise, to get in good physical shape. It can't hurt you in terms of generating possibly attraction from your mate, whether directly or indirectly. It can't hurt. So have at it, guys. So when a lady says, you know, we don't like that, Maria, Okay, good for you. High five. You're, you're a much more wholesome person than I am. That seems to be a theme that a lot of women really want to get across. We are not as shallow as you men when it comes to things like that. And yet our experience out in the admittedly dating market when trying to attract a mate, all of us will say, wow, it sure seems to be the case when we're out in the meat market, if you will. So maybe does that apply within the confines of a strict monogamous relationship? Somewhat, somewhat not, but it may be a button pusher for some. But that is a secondary positive effect and not the direct reason for taking care of yourself, getting in good shape. You know, extreme example, extreme example. A guy, I'm not feeling well, I'm not looking well, I'm not myself anymore. I'm 50 years of age. I got this doctor over here saying, welcome to being an old dude. But man, everything hurts. I can't get out of bed in the morning. Ugh. Doctor, let's do a blood test. Doctor says, your testosterone's low. Maybe you want to put you on a regimen of testosterone. Which a lot of women are like, oh no, here we go. Why? He's gonna get this, the young guy back again. And the women are like, I don't like it. You're just gonna be, you know, ready to go and trying to be Mr. Young Muscle Man and sexy dude and everything else. And I'm not at that level anymore. It's not quote fair. To which you say, again, it's not really about you, sweetheart. It's about me. See what happens. Anyway, a lot of blabbing. It's, it's a deep subject. It's not so simple. Mr. David from Facebook asked me, would you date a former stripper? It was 15 years ago and she now has 2 kids and a real job. Hmm, I don't know. Um, not because I am a super conservative, sexually shaming, blah blah blah person. I am what you call probably a more sex-positive person than most. Meaning somebody comes to me and goes, I got this little kinky thing that I really like. I'm just like, dude, gal, whatever floats your boat, man, go for it. You only live once. Whatever works for you works for you. Who am I to judge your sexual proclivities or lack thereof or whatever? Enjoy yourself. So, it's not for that, but what does kinda make me go, "Eh, I don't know," is I've been around the block a few times, right? I've known strippers, believe it or not. I actually knew an adult film star. How about that, huh? Anywho, what I've seen across that whole world, what do you call that world, sex workers? That's fair. Usually goes hand in hand with what? A lot of dysfunction, a lot of mental issues, a lot of family of origin issues. So it's not necessarily getting up on stage and showing their boobies to a bunch of strangers that is the problem. What the problem is, is that usually goes hand in hand with laundry list of issues. Uh, kind of like if she was a former heroin addict— two completely different worlds, but both indicate, whoa, something going on there. I used to be a prostitute. Used to be a fill-in-the-blank, some other kind of seedy thing that makes you go, ooh. Why does it make you go, ooh? Because it's indicative of other things possibly being wrong there. And I have known people who have dated and then married former strippers. And pretty much, I'm trying to think, have any of them worked out long-term? Mm-mm. Nope, sure haven't. So I guess, uh, good luck. Um, be careful, tread carefully, I guess. Hmm, I'm trying to make sense of some— I need to go back. Rocco. Okay, so Rocco is talking about he had his former ther— or pardon me, therapy with the gal. Gal says, I'm willing to work through this. I just find it kind of scary that women find love is very disposable nowadays. It is subsequent chapters in our life together. So you're— do you feel, Rocco, that women in general find love to be very disposable? What's your, uh, um, evidence to draw— bring you to that conclusion? This one really bad experience you've had with this gal? No, not all people find love to be disposable. Some people genuinely work at it day in and day out. They exist. And if you haven't found that person, I'm sorry, but they exist. And you're going through your tough time, and it's very much coloring your perspective on all this for sure. But, uh, hope you guys get through it. Hope regardless, with or without her, that you end up okay. Um, America, here we go. Hold on a second. That's a name, America. Ba-ba-da! We, okay, so America, I'm going by your little profile picture of which I see legs that appear to be of a female variety. Trying not to be creepy here, but by your first name, I can't determine your gender here. But she, I assume, says, we aren't as sexually motivated by appearance within a marriage. Sexual appeal often comes from how attractive a man makes us feel. Oh, America, thank you for bringing this up. This is a very good line of thinking and, uh, a controversial one. Um, yes, appearance has value. You do care about yourself, she says. But if we're already in love and we had that initial attraction, new abs don't work. Making us feel sexy wanted, loved and appreciated, and safe is more effective. Very good, America. Uh, thank you for that, appreciate it. You know what you are very succinctly encapsulating here? There is a gal, a psychotherapist, way more popular than me and my friend Dr. Psych Mom. This woman has sold mazillions of copies of books. You have seen her on YouTube. You have seen her on every social media channel, and her name is Esther Perel. E-S-T-H-E-R-P-E-R-E-L. Very well-spoken, popular gal. Where is she from originally? Is she from France? With a name like Esther, you would think so. Good-looking gal too, I've mentioned on here a few times. Esther's got it going on. I think she's 60-some years of age, if I remember right. Very good stuff. Read her books. Mating in Captivity is a good one. State of Affairs is another good one. Her material is great, right? Check her out. She said something that made a lot of women go, hold on a second, wait, what? And, um, you are kind of, whether you know it or not, kind of summarizing it. And it is that the, um, oh, how best to put this, sexual desire within, uh, women is narcissistic in nature. Um, how you make me feel determines how I in turn feel about you. Men tend to be much more— oh, I don't know how else to say this. It sounds like I'm propping this up as holier-than-thou, and it's not my intention. I'm just at a loss for words here. We tend to be the romantics in things. Rolling, you know, we're the guys who— I'm trying to think of old-timey situations. The woman, you know, goes up to the mud puddle. What's the man do? He takes off his coat and puts it down for her so she can cross, and we don't want her to soil her feet. Like, can that kind of over-the-top overtures and so forth, which points to, uh, I'm very sacrificial in my love. I'm willing to do a lot for you. I'm willing to pay for a lot, do a lot, say a lot, whatever it is to get your attention and for you to be my mate. Then we can subsequently make some babies together. That's the whole point of all this, right? From a very biological point of view. Well, women, um, your frame of reference is different. Oh, he makes me feel so good about— he made me feel like a princess. He was very concerned about me in the bedroom, these orgasms, and I want to feel good. Well, men, on the other hand, in a lot of— not all— a lot of men, when doing the act, will be more concerned with, was it good for you? That's a very stereotypical line, isn't it, for men? Turns to the woman, was good for you? How many orgasms did you have? Women tend not to say those kind of things. They're more along the lines of, he didn't— I didn't have any orgasms. You see where I'm going with that. So it's kind of interesting. Um, and you're also— another controversial take, America, within your excellent comment here is, uh, the game plan changes, men, once we're married. Once we're married and committed and we have give you the stamp of approval of husband Dude, the game changes for you as far as how to retain me and how to have a healthy sex life. Before, when we were in the mating game, when we were doing the dance of determining whether or not we were good for each other and whether or not I approve of you as my mailmate, then yeah, looks and all this other shallow stuff is more important. It's higher up on the totem pole of importance here as far as what I as a lady, I'm putting words in your mouth, find important. Now, now that I got you, not so much. And I don't want to minimize how kind of hurtful that is in some ways to some men. How is that hurtful? I will illustrate it with this. A man walks in on his wife, what, with her female friends. This is not unheard of, by the way. Women, when they, um, get together with other ladies, tend to be much more comfortable and open about their sexuality and putting it out there and being a little bit more crass and social about And, um, an example is they're all crowded around a laptop watching some TikTok video, or around a phone rather, looking at a TikTok video of some hunky guy. There was a guy who— I don't know if he's still around, I assume he is— his whole thing was, look how hunky and masculine I am. I think he was shirtless, maybe not, uh, chopping wood. Young hunky dude just chopping wood. That's all he was. Dude was really built. Filled out a t-shirt, and women went crazy over this guy, just drooling over him. And women would, uh, what do they call it, stitch the video where you just see the woman's reaction and she's just like, just slobbering and drooling over this guy. And men are like, woman, you just got done telling me yesterday, dude, don't go to the gym, us women don't care about looks. I did like a little funny video about this scenario because it's so real. A lot of— so many men have heard this. And the woman goes, that's, that's not for husbands. That's not for fathers of our children. That's different. In the men's mind, he's like, what? Because we want to believe that we're still at that level of hunky dude I would drool over if given the chance. Oh crap, look at him. And a lot of us, we're not in that running anymore. And what a lot of men have determined is it takes a little bit of extra, extra, extra to get a hint of that. And that's where your pickup artists and so forth come in. And that's where a lot of women go, that's very manipulative. Well, we do what we can to get a rise out of our women in whatever situation. It's very important to us what you think of us and whether or not you reward us with some hoo-ha. Sorry to be crass there. Fun times. All right, Mr. Ward Smith. I asked this on Dr. Psych Mom's— more Dr. Psych Mom stuff, excuse me. I asked this on Dr. Psych Mom's comments of that video, but aren't the wives in this scenario worried that their husband may be ready to leave her? Women lose weight, get new guy, and leave all the time. Um, that— I, I think, let's be honest, Word of Smith, I think for a lot of women, and I've heard women say this in my comments and videos and so forth, that when man says, I'm going to start going to the gym, I want to lose a lot of weight, or something— let's say something super extreme like I'm going to enter a bodybuilding contest, or I'm going to do an Ironman and I need to lose 50 pounds. And he starts looking himself in the mirror going, look at me, huh? And he goes, wife, no desserts. Seriously, I wanna, I wanna, you know, no more cakes, pies, none of that stuff, please. Uh, chicken, beef, egg whites, that's, that's my meal. And the wife, instead of being like, you got it, Mr. Man, I'm proud of you, what a lot of men report is she will literally sabotage his efforts. Here's the favorite cake you like. Look, peanut butter cookies. You've never been able to resist those. And the man's like, what did I just get done saying? Why are you— why are you doing this? Are you seriously trying to keep me fat? And the answer is yeah. Why? Because it's insecurity. I'm worried about losing you. You're going to be a bigger item on the market. You're going to in turn attract more women. That's the mating game. And I don't like that. I'm your wife. So instead of going and trying to improve yourself— boy, this sounds awful— stay down here with me at average dude and gal level, please. It makes me feel more comfortable about myself. So, Wordsmith, that's nothing unusual. I hear that shit all the time. Hmm. All right, Mr. Timothy. Ralph Brewer from Facebook. He says, does the marriage ever survive after the wife has an affair? Sure, I've heard about it. Um, have I personally seen it? No. I caught my wife sending sexual messages to a man. Oh, sorry, buddy. She says that they hung out but did not have sex. I'm not dumb. I know that's probably not true. Sorry, you're probably right. After that, I could never treat her the same. I caught her messaging another guy 6 months later, homegirl's got a problem. That's when I left. I could never go back to her and treat her the way I did before the affairs. Is that normal? Yes. Dare I say healthy? Or can some guys get over it? Here's what I've seen. Can some guys hang around and stay married to the gal? Yeah, we see that a lot, don't we? Um, can they get over it? No, that colors the relationship from that point forward, and it always will. And if he doesn't put up boundaries to say, I'm not putting up with this anymore, adiós, then basically he just opened the floodgates to continued behavior. As you see, Timothy, um, your gal had— your ex had problems. She needed a lot of attention. She had very little in the way of boundaries. She jumped from guy to guy to guy, and you, to your credit, said This is no bueno. I don't like this. I'm out of here. Goodbye. Good for you. Yeah, so the tone of your message is one of, did I fuck up here? Maybe that's not what you're getting at, but it's what it sounds like. Like, I feel bad for leaving said situation and ending said marriage. Is that normal? It's normal for you to feel bad. Sure, you were attached to the woman, loved her for many years. Part of you still loves her, right? That's normal. But another rational part of you said, this ain't good for me, for her, for anybody. I got to get out of this situation. And good for you, you did. I wish more people had that. Um, uh, back to America. Miss America, Miss America. Uh, Dr. Psych Mom was trying to say that men get upset that the wife doesn't suddenly want sex after he got into shape. Yep. Wife— men get upset when men— when women don't want sex, period. She was trying to say that women aren't as motivated bivisual as men are. Some, yes. Dare I say most, probably true. She was trying to explain to men that we have different, uh, motivations. Sure, may very well be the case. But then America, going back to my previous example of we watch our women drool, we watch, um, you know, the TikTok dude chopping wood and women sitting around going, oh my gosh, he's so cute, biting their lip looking at that, you know, whatever. They read the romance novels about the guy with the big shoulders and the hunky chest. It doesn't jive with our way of thinking if we think like a dude. But again, you got to think like a woman. It's different worlds. One's the erotic fantasy outside of marriage, and the other one is comfortable, everything. So you have to marry the two worlds in some way. Hence my book, The Dead Bedroom Fix. Check it out, guys. The Dead Bedroom Fix. Um, Mr. Brian says hi. Well, howdy, Brian. From Facebook. Good to see you, brother. David, deception and cheating is, is unforgivable. Uh, my wife was going through menopause. Okay, this is Brian from Facebook. My wife was going through menopause and having a lot of hormonal irregularities and has abandoned our marriage at the first sign of conflict. We haven't been married a year and I'm destroyed. I begged for her to fight and stay, but she left. I'm trying to move on and find it very difficult. Um, I would hope you would find it difficult. It'd be kind of weird if you wouldn't. You guys were together for how long? Years and years. Um, and then one of you suddenly says, uh, go off yourself, I don't want this anymore. Of course it's going to be hard to move on, but you'll get there. Just give it time. And this menopause thing, uh, women don't like Brian, when us guys talk about this, because who are we to talk about menopause and everything else, but from our perspective, it can be a real mother effer. Like, so many guys are like, I don't know who this woman is, but she went from the sweetest thing in the world to, uh, I can't sneeze or look in the wrong direction without her jumping all over me. And sometimes they get physical, physically violent and angry. Hormones, dude. You know, a lot— I, I did a video that didn't go over too well where I said I think to better empathize with the opposite sex, maybe we should try out the, the opposing sex hormones and see how it affects us. You know, I didn't mean literally, but just to prove a point. Like, woman, you want to see what it's like? Here's some testosterone for— let's give that to you for a month, see how you feel. And women will be like, I get it now. And then men, here's some estrogen or whatever. Let's let's deplete this hormone as well. So you could go through the whole, uh, hot flashes and, and mood swings and everything else that come with perimenopause and menopause, or even just the monthly fluctuations with menstruation and everything else. And men would be like, okay, I get it now. But it's difficult for us, and menopause can really change a person. Absolutely, absolutely. And a lot of marriages are destroyed by it. She's a nurse. No comment. And she has had constant conflict her whole life, and I was trying to provide stability. Oh brother. Well, lesson learned. I'm having a hard time moving on since I gave everything to this marriage. Well, don't do that. High-conflict people, constant conflict their whole life, dude. What you see is it, man. As Dr. Glover in a video, uh, said to me, and I posted it and it did very well numbers-wise, um, Dr. Glover, Dr. Robert Glover, author of No More Mr. Nice Guy, he said, how you find them is how they are. So this whole, I found her and she's in all this conflict and all this trouble and all this turmoil and all this dysfunction in her life, that's, that's what you got, dude. No, I can fix her. No, you can't. I can make it better. I can be a better example for her. I can, I can outlove all of this. No, you can't. And, uh, Brian, my man, you need to maybe go back to the drawing board, as it will, and really have a good hard look at yourself to figure out why it is you were attracted to— attracted and stayed with a person like this for so long. Because you can see where it leads, where it gets you— a whole lot of pain and misery. Lesson learned, my man. You have a hard time moving on. You got to limit contact with her. Zero contact if possible. Mr. Allen, by the way, guys, Jesus, thank you. I'm sorry, I shouldn't say Jesus. Geez, thanks for all the comments. Um, really appreciate it. This is awesome. Allen from Facebook says, which gender do you think can go without physical affection more, men or women? On average, I'd say probably women. But there's— I say that and there's going to be some women going, not me, I need it like 3 times a day. There's always the outliers. And then there's some men that are like, I could go without it, once a month would be almost too much. Kind of the outliers. But I think if you, if you talk to any marriage counselor, therapist type, they would say more often than not when it's the dead bedroom, low sex situation, it's the woman who is the low libido person more often than not. Not always, but more often than not. And, um, there is kind of a phenomenon that, um, we see with a lot of women that are long-term monogamous relationships, especially post-children, multiple children especially, um, where they kind of can go through like a sexual dormancy. They— and you will ask them and they will say, I just never think about it, like ever. I don't masturbate. I certainly don't look at adult material. I don't sit here, you know, on the couch at night after putting the kid to bed and just going, I would love nothing more than be, you know, have roll in the hay with some dude. No. Um, to a lot of women, it's just like, it's not a thing. They had their desire is more quote unquote responsive in nature, which is a little tough because it's the essence of responsive nature is once I get into said act, then I enjoy it and go, oh yeah, I now I remember why we, why I'm with this guy over here and why we get along so well and how important physical intimacy is. Now I remember. But it's not until that point do they— does the machine get flipped on and away they go. But there is another, uh, very quick remedy to that, isn't there? Which is drop said husband, go get new boyfriend. Um, that is not manipulative, it's not evil, it's human nature. The, the newness, the Coolidge effect, if you will. That's what we call it. Google it. Coolidge effect. Um, Introduce new mate, men and women both, and we both have a very renewed sense of sexual energy, vigor if you will. Um, pardon me. One thing obviously hurt men fail to realize that you in fact got remarried and you seem very happy. Me personally, yeah. Um, not for everybody though, is it? I want to put that out there. This, um, marriage game, relationship game, long-term game, um, I always cringe when I hear people say you ain't nothing unless you're married and have kids. I'm like, oh God, no, please don't say that. Why? Because that's not for everybody. But I'll be damned if people try to shoehorn themselves into that world. And for a lot of those people, a lot of chaos breaks out. So I'm not going to be the one to go, see me, I remarried, got my new wife over here, we're perfectly happy and awesome. So what you guys need to do is get married too. No, no, that's not for everybody. Some of you, you got the tools, you just need to find the right gal who also has the tools, and an awesome life awaits you, believe it or not. Some of you, you ain't got the tools, like nowhere close to the tools to make that work. That's okay, not everybody does. I'm not better than, I'm just wired differently maybe than others. And, um, some people are perfectly content. Um, from what I've seen, it seems to be, if we had to apply a label to most people, it seems to be a serial monogamist seems to be the template for most people, dare I say. That's kind of a controversial thing for me to say. Serial monogamy is form a bond, intertwine your lives. I love you, you love me, together forever, and then you slowly drift apart. And I guess not, on to the next one. One, one person, one person, one person. Could be periods of years that you're together, but that seems to be the template for human beings. It takes a lot of skill, know-how, a certain temperament to resist that temptation to drift apart and to make it work long, long term. And then if you want to remain together long, long term and sexual, sexually active, to where you're both happy with it, with the frequency and energy and— really, really tough, but possible. All right, knock on, knock on wood, I'm an illustration of that. Hmm. And, uh, there's been several comments to Mr. Brian from Facebook here about his situation, telling him basically get the hell out of Dodge, take care of yourself, stop worrying about so many people. To which Brian says, I'm trying, but I don't like quitting on love. It's so hard. That's one way of framing it. You know another way of framing it is, Mr. Brian, um, you are attached to somebody who has rejected you, my friend. Regardless of the rejection, That's not healthy. It's not good. You need to look deep inside yourself to go, why am I so attached to somebody who's basically like, fucking buzz off, dude? Whether it's a friend, whether it's a romantic partner, a job, you know, whatever. You know, if you get fired from a job and they go, dude, we hate your work, get the fuck out of here, and yet you go to the parking lot every day and hang out hoping they rehire you, they would call you a weirdo, if not a creep, if not call the police on you for a good reason. It's not good. It's kind of what you're doing here with this one. You gotta let her go. And like I say, turn all that analysis, if you will, inward. Figure out what's going on there, buddy. Uh, we have— I'm going to pause for a sales pitch, guys, here. Bear with me. Pardon me as I go over here. Nope, that's not it. Nope, that's not it. There we go. Uh, we have a men's group Brian, I encourage you to check it out, and you could do so for free. That's what I'm about to show you guys here. Um, for people on YouTube, check out the chat. Facebook, check out the comments. We have a, a private group for men only, a support group, guys from all over the world. We have live meetings, we have a private discussion forum, we have— you can listen to all the live meetings, they're recorded. We have like 700 freaking hours of meetings that are recorded that you can listen to, variety of different subjects. My books, 4 of which that are written, you get at no extra charge. PDF format, audiobook format. We have a podcast. We get together in person. All kinds of cool stuff. Discounts on coaching, uh, video courses, everything. So you need to help yourself out, buddy. But you're not alone. So we got a lot of guys that are in your shoes. If you don't know, Brian, you're, you're on a growing army of guys who've been dumped, wondering, what the hell do I do now? I don't want to let go. And there's guys to help you. So check that link out and you can try out our group. Absolutely free for a month. If you don't like it, I don't want to do this anymore, then just say I don't want to do this anymore and we'll cancel. No worries, no skin off our back. We're not going to keep charging. You're not going to have to hunt us down to cancel payments or anything like that. Um, so check out the group. And, uh, Tom says we're here for you, brother. Absolutely, you're not alone. Hmm, after my wife left, yes, we had a dead bedroom, mostly her. Uh, she has entered the hoe phase. Let's define that for our more innocent, wholesome people out there. She's sexually promiscuous, way more so than when she was married to Mr. David here. I find it insulting to me and disrespectful to our 3 young children. She is acting like a 20-year-old and neglecting our kids in the form of spending her, quote, her nights with the kids by leaving them at her parents or hiring a sitter to sleep over. How many of us have seen this? Is this normal for a 40-year-old? Not normal is a subjective term. It's not unheard of, but it's not healthy. How long does it last, in your knowledge? Um, guess who went through this? Me. Um, this is eerily similar. My wife wasn't quite— ex-wife, pardon me— wasn't quite 40 at the time. But, um, whether it's hoe phase or whether it's just kind of a regressive young teenager kind of rebellious behavior, whatever it is. It's— they're, they're going through something, and unfortunately they're potentially hurting a lot of people in the— in their wake. Um, the only remedy for this is to be the, um, oh, strong, stoic, um, dependable. That's the term I'm looking for. Parent in all this. Kids are going to go through a lot. You got 3 of them, you say, and they need to know that they can depend on Dad to be, um, Mr. Dependable, Mr. Predictable. I've talked about, uh, with my young kiddos, we had a period there where it was Taco Tuesday every Tuesday, and if we skipped a Tuesday, there was all hell to pay. They, um, the kids love their routine, so they need to know when they come to Dad's They need to know what to expect, rules, traditions, and everything else. When they go to mom's, there's nothing you can do, buddy, unless what she's doing is detrimental to their health and their well-being. Then you can step in for sure and say, this is no bueno, I'm going to get the law involved, an attorney, police, whatever it may be. But if, you know, if they're being taken care of, whether it's by grandma or by aunts, uncles, babysitters, whatever, there's not really much you can do here legally or otherwise. And, um, but he didn't really ask that. I just threw that in there. Um, but she entered her ho phase and you find it insulting to you. Don't. It's not insulting to you. It's certainly not insulting to the kids. It's, dare I say, human nature. Um, the setting aside the kids and acting all whatever and everything else, it's— she's taking it too far. But it is by no means unusual to see a person leave a long-term monogamous marriage and then blossom. That's too positive of a word. Change, morph into a different person. Men do the same shit, dude. You know, we got the guy who was so frumpy and so whatever, and that he divorces the wife, and next thing you know, the guy loses a ton of weight, and you're like, Frank, is that you? I didn't recognize you. And you're like, well, I got a new sports car, huh? Wow, you got a tattoo, huh? Dude, we've, we've seen all this, right? We're not immune to this. And then with our ladies in our life that we see, same thing. We're like, wow, you look 10 years younger. New nose ring, huh? New tattoo, huh? Breast implants, eh? Yeah, you saw that coming. And in addition to that, they can be very sexually active, and the ex-men that they left behind are like, what the fuck? Where was this energy when we were married? We're going in circles here. We've talked about this already ad nauseam. It's, uh, Pretty common thing that, uh, being hitched to one person long term cranks that knob down for many of us, dare I say most of us. And a quick surefire way of cranking that knob back up again is go get you some on the side, or leave said marriage and go to somebody else. Um, just how we're wired. And it's not the nicest thing in the world, but it's certainly not unheard of, my man. I'm sorry you're going through that. I'm sorry. It's one thing she could have a responsible hoe phase, if you will, which is This is my kid time. This is the kid time with the kiddos. No dating, no none of that, whatever. I'm here for the kids. I'm making sure that everything's taken care of. I'm sure— make sure they got their mom, make sure they've— especially post-divorce, that they feel safe and secure and everything else. And now that they're at Dad's, you know, it's, it's fun time. Um, as long as, you know, I'll be there for the soccer game, I'll be there for this other event. I'll— oh, I need to take kid to the doctor. Well, let me cancel date and take kid to the doctor. That's what you would expect, right? And then they can have their own little private life to do whatever it is they want to do. Sexy or otherwise. And who are we to say you're not her dude anymore? You have no say over that, and vice versa. So let her do her thing. But often it mixes in with a lot of who the hell is this woman kind of behavior and just leaves us scratching our head. How long does it take to get over it? I don't know if there's a standard template here. With my ex, it was a few years, and then she kind of snapped out of it and back to her old self again, if you will. Um, Rachel. Hello, Miss Rachel, from Facebook. As a woman who has multiple kids and knows women, I disagree that it's a lack of want for sexual tension till doing it. It is more women are built to build up to the act. Isn't that the— but isn't in essence tension kind of a build? If you want to know how that they want to be loved, check out the books that she reads. If she read— I don't know if that's a misspelling— um, Akotar, then maybe you pick them up. Maybe you think back to when— what you did when you were dating. This is an excellent point. It's easy to fall into doing the bare minimum. There's a catchphrase I hear far too often. And over time, those switches don't work. Now, if she's decided she is done, you are not going to win her back. It was most likely not a quick decision. So this is, uh, this split, uh, connection-wise is long and drawn out, and it could be multiple things and resentments. And yeah, obviously on both sides that happens. It's not an instantaneous thing. I'm not sure where we disagree there. Um, and then James says, uh, back to David, uh, that your situation with your ex will probably last until she's married again. He's not wrong. And her libido will drop through the floor and disappear. Uh, and DSO has— and Dr. Psych Mom as well, other people have several videos about this. It's not an unknown phenomena. Um, I remember back when I got, um, divorced and, uh, met all kinds of people, men and women alike. And there was, uh, one gal that I met who very obviously, after talking to her, I realized, oh, this is kind of like my ex as far as, um regressing to a more youngish, teenager-y, for lack of a better word, kind of behavior. And one thing that kind of clued me into this is no good— and when you hear this, this is going to sound very unfair, but I'm telling you, usually indicative of something else— when you hear a woman say something like, oh, my ex-husband, um, he has the kids most of the time, if not all the time, I see my kids every other weekend, or something like that, that makes you go Ooh, mom must have done something not so good. It's gendered bias, whatever. But I'm, you know, more often than not, the courts are like, they need to be with mama most of the time, or at least half the time, than with dad. So when that's flipped, it's usually indicative of something's wrong. So this woman that I was getting to know post-divorce, uh, had that situation, which made me go, oh man. And I remember, uh, a mutual friend showed me a picture on his phone. He's like, who do you think that is? And I was like, I have no idea who's that. And he goes, that's Mary. I was like, no, it's not. She's like, yeah, look at it. And I'm like, when was that taken? He's like, a year ago when she was married. Totally different human being. She lost a ton of weight. She looked like 20 years freaking younger now, back then, 10 years ago. And, um, that was really, you know, Exhibit A for, wow, these people go through all kinds of changes and metamorphosis just by leaving said relationship and jump going back out into the new dating market, men and women alike. And, uh, it was, uh, it was pretty drastic. And I, I see that a lot from a lot of different people. T-Dub and Brian gotta go, and I gotta go here as well soon, guys. It's already been an hour. That was fast. Um, thank you all so much for your comments. Anything else before I wrap her up? I had all kinds of cool sound effects I didn't get to use. I was— I had a vision in my head this was gonna be like a big fancy radio show. Didn't get to use my— and next time I'll use all my, all my sound effects. I don't know if you guys heard this one for Texas. I'm proud of that one. That's where I'm in right now, Plano, Texas. Anybody in Dallas-Fort Worth area, hit me up, dso@dadsstartingover.com, or shoot me a message on any of the social media platforms. Well guys, thank you so much for joining me today. I greatly appreciate it. Uh, love and appreciate each and every one of you. Maybe not all of you, most of you, some of you. Um, check out the DSO Fraternity, 1 month for free. I'm gonna put that link one more time here, as well as some other links. 1 month for free, DSO Fraternity, a private group for men only. Can't beat that offer. If you don't like it, then don't stick around. Would you like to be on my, uh, darn it. Would you like to be on my email mailing list and get info from yours truly, offers and all that good stuff? Well, there's that link there. Join our newsletter. And I also have a little free course, email course. You get a series of emails. It's all about, um, it's, um, inspired by my book, The Dead Bedroom Fix. So it's all on the subject of sexless marriages, little free email course. If you want to check that out, please do so. You sign up and you get a series of emails, then you get put on our email list. That's how that works. That's the catch there. But you can always opt out of our emails at any point. Uh, not here to annoy you, not here to rip you off, whatever. We're just here to help dudes. And, uh, this— these conversations are a big, big part of that. So thank you all for joining me today. I greatly appreciate it. So, uh, if there's nothing else, I'll be signing off, ladies and germs. Thank you all so much again. And I will, uh, catch you on the next one of these. Toodaloo!