Chat Live With Ralph (DSO)!

It says I'm live. Am I in fact live? Hmm, don't know. Let's see. I is live. Yay! Hello world! And let me bring up comments here. This is officially a random pop-up here. Let me center this so it looks like I'm staring at the camera. This is officially a random live pop-up with yours truly. Um, no plan, no itinerary, no nothing other than I have some time here and I need to, uh, develop more content. And these little live chats Um, seemed to work out pretty well as far as good discussion, good little videos to share, good ideas, um, for generating more content, articles, videos, courses, all that good stuff. And for those that don't know, actually, before I continue on, I want to make sure we have some individuals in here so I'm not just talking to myself. So let's give this a little bit, see if we have some folks. Filing in, we are live on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter on Thursday, November 9th, 3:30 PM Eastern Time. If you're watching this sometime later this evening, you're watching a recording. I notice a lot of people like to comment on the recordings as if they are live. But, you know, like hours or days later, you'll see little comments show up on the video. People just say, 'Yeah, I agree.' 'Yes.' 'No.' Just, dude, there's no conversation going on. You're talking to a recording. So I'll do a better job of labeling them as such. Let's see if there's anybody out there. Anyone? Hello, hello? Ah, it looks like we have about 10 people watching. Right now. So hello, 10 people watching. I am, uh, geez, glasses are all kinds of gross, smeary. Eric says hello. Hello, Eric. How are you, sir? I assume you're sir. It's 2023. I shouldn't assume anything. Soon to be 2024. And Where do I see how many people are on? I can look over here on Facebook and I see a number going up and down. All right, well, we got a small group of people. Hello everyone, my name is Ralph Brewer, AKA DSO, which stands for Dad Starting Over, and you can learn more at dadstartingover.com. Uh, we are a business catering to men And we provide all kinds of valuable information to men, including books of which I have authored, and one of the gentlemen on the team, he authored a book as well, Austin. His book is called Why Sex Ends After Kids and How to Fix It. My books include The Dead Bedroom Fix, Divorce Panic, Red Flags, and Real Talk: No Bullshit Life Advice for Young Men. In addition to that, we have a podcast that's free for the world to hear, articles that are on the website. We're still porting over articles from the old website, so Please be patient. We still got, I don't know, a couple hundred more to go. It's going to take a while. And what else we have? We have courses. The biggest thing that we offer that I love more than anything else is our private group for men only. And that group is called the DSO Fraternity. And you get to that from dadstartingover.com, or you can go to DSO Fraternity, Fraternity, always tough for me to say, DSOFraternity.com. And, um, there is a monthly fee involved with joining the group, but what do you get for your monthly fee? You get access to all my books at no additional charge, PDF and audiobook format. Uh, you get access to live meetings with myself and gentlemen on the team. All of those meetings are at least an hour, sometimes 2 hours plus long, and all those meetings are recorded. And those meetings are on a variety of different topics, and we have over 600 hours of meetings recorded to date. It's a lot. And we have a DSO Fraternity podcast. We have articles for frat members only. We have in-person meetups. We've had conferences, 3 of them in the state so far, a 4th coming up in April next year. We have, um, 2 conferences so far in Australia, and our guys had a small meetup in, uh, a little too small to be called a conference, but they had a meetup in Amsterdam. So we have guys all over the world. We're very proud of that group. Oh, and I didn't mention in the frat, the biggest part of the frat, the busiest part of the frat is a private forum for men only. We also have a Discord server for our lifetime members. So lots of avenues for guys to talk about all this men's stuff. So hope you join us, dadstartingover.com or dsofraternity.com. I almost got it out that time. Welcome anyone. If anybody has any questions for yours truly, thank you for the likes there. Please give this a like wherever you're watching this, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter. Um, that helps out tremendously if, um, you know, the algorithm, if you will, the platform, if it sees people like it, it will show it to more people at random. So please like, share, all that fun stuff. Thank you so much everyone. I appreciate it a great deal. Does anybody have any questions as they bump into the microphone very unprofessionally for yours truly? Anything at all? One thing I will say— can I put it in the comments here? I don't think so. Here we go. I'm going to add comments. Go to dadstartingover.com. Dear-dso. Um, little thing I started, I don't know, several weeks back, um, where, uh, you can go there, you can see where people have asked questions of me and I've answered in video format. I also post them on Facebook and YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, all that stuff. Um, but you can also submit your own question there. So if you say, I'd like to hear this guy blab on about a particular topic, or if you have a question for me or whatever, fill out the form. I'll do video on it unless your idea really sucks or it's really weird, then I won't. I don't know, maybe I will if I'm bored. If it's a really weird one— weird's good. But I had one gentleman who asked a question on there that I just loved because it was so thought-provoking. I like the really thought-provoking questions that just make you go, this is a different way of looking at this. And it was a guy who, uh, you'll go on the site, I'll post it here probably. I think they're scheduled to go out in a couple weeks on the social media, or you can go to the to your DSO page and see it live now. But he asked the question of, have I ever seen an instance where an affair on one of the partner's parts— when one person in a marriage has an affair, have I ever seen where that actually helps save or improve the marriage? And he gives an example of that's exactly what happened to him. I thought, well, how cool. Cool in terms of being interesting. Because in my world, typically what I see is, um, one of us had an affair and it just blew up everything and it just went all to hell. Or, you know, we decided to stick it out and all kinds of drama ensued. But this guy said things actually improved for him. So check it out, it's kind of interesting. Um, reading the book for the second time, Bill says— well, let me preface this better because I cut these up into clips and they got to make sense. Bill from Facebook says Reading the book for the second time, 3 months, and ring even more true with a little time between now and then. And I'm going to assume, Bill, that the book is The Dead Bedroom Fix. I assume that because that's my most popular book by a long shot. For those that don't know, and thank you, Bill, for saying that. I appreciate that a great deal. Very kind of you. Reading it for the second time, it is, that's very, very common for men because it's a relatively short book, as you know, Bill, and you can listen to it. The audio was even more popular than the print or Kindle or whatever version. It's a relatively short book, which allows you to have repeat listenings. And guys say, like, every time they're like, that's a good little aha moment I missed the last time I listened to it. And they listen again and again. And for our DSO fraternity members, they have access to that for no cost. So it actually shows up like as a, uh, a podcast on their phone if they wanted to. That's an option to bring all the audio from all the books and the meetings and everything over in podcast format on your phone, and you can listen to it right from your phone. As long as you keep paying your membership dues, you have access to all of that. And the guys listen to the book chapters. It's a good refresher for them to all the different books. But The Dead Bedroom Fix is the most popular book. And for those that don't know, that is a book all about what I have learned over the years is the biggest pain point for men, more specifically the biggest pain point for married men, and that is not getting any. Or not as much as what I want, speaking as the married, typical married man. And so I put a book out there saying, common problem, not getting as much as you want, married man. Here are some things maybe to think about, how you could be at fault in part with this, or maybe not. Maybe it's both of you, takes two to tango. And, but here are my thoughts on the matter of how to keep the spark alive, keep things sexy in a long-term monogamous relationship, because that is Easier said than done. And there are a lot of ways to circumnavigate the whole thing, such as having an affair, pornography, all kinds of stuff to get the job done. But wouldn't it be nice if somebody put out a playbook for how to keep things spicy while married? Hence the Dead Bedroom Fix. Doesn't apply or doesn't fix every single situation out there, that's for sure, but it's Enough men have had some real concrete aha moments from reading that, that the word got out and I sold a lot of copies of it, thank goodness. And it's self-published. I didn't go through any kind of publisher or anything. So I got very lucky for sure with that. So thank you Facebook and all the social media and word of mouth. And that book has gotten all over the world. That's what brings most people to me, including Bill. And Bill, I'm assuming a lot here, buddy. I just went on and on about the book. I hope that's the book you're talking about. Otherwise I look like a complete idiot because I have 3 other books. So let me know if it's the dead bedroom fix that you're talking about. And let me go over here, make sure I'm not missing something. No, I have my comments here on the screen in front of me, nice and big, so I don't need my glasses. Mm, it's tough getting old. Let me see here. Anybody have any other comments or questions? If not, this is gonna be a short one, ladies and germs. Whoa! Daniel, that has popped up here. Daniel from Facebook says, I would like to think that I am a patient guy. I've made a lot of changes in my life so far. I got the 'I love you, but I'm not in love with you' in April. Ouch. I took a look at myself and I made changes with my weight. He's down 60 pounds so far. Jesus, Daniel, are you okay? That's a lot. Um, good for you, buddy. And my— in his thinking, he's saying, my thinking in general Good. Uh, self-reflection of where we started to drift apart, so forth. Um, she said that she thought about separation in April when it all spilled over, and then we talked at Halloween and she said her feelings hadn't changed. Should I just walk away? Well, Daniel, um, what I'm about to say sounds very, very cynical, negative. Um, this does not apply to 100% of the situations like yours. It doesn't. But it applies enough to enough of them that, um, what I'm about to say should be a giant, like, red flag kind of warning, warning, warning to you. And that is this, um, whether it comes from a man or a woman, to hear the whole "I love you, but I'm not in love with you," um, sometimes, dare I say usually, means one thing. Can anybody guess what that is? Maybe you want to beat me to the punch here in the comments. By the way, please like this livestream if you could, please. It helps spread the word. Um, and that is, um, let me just preface it with this. When you're in a relationship with somebody for a long, long time, um, what typically fades in that relationship are those puppy love, honeymoon, in love, crazy lustful feelings. That dissipates with time. It takes work to bring them back, bring it back in bursts, you know, date nights, time away from the kids, those little, um, loving romantic things you do for each other every now and then, staying in shape for each other, all that stuff. And I outline a lot of this in The Dead Bedroom Fix. Um, but, uh, naturally with time you become more comfortable with each other. You even become a couple of friends, dare I say roommates. If you got kids especially, your job is to help keep this little human alive, and it's very, very easy to drift apart. Romantically, unfortunately. Uh, what a lot of people find is that they're just drifting in this world of comfort and domesticity and no passion, no eroticism, that's for sure. And then someone comes along and makes them say, oh, I'm feeling feelings again that I haven't felt in a long-ass time. And it could be something as simple as a coworker. Let's have coffee. Sure. And you get to talking to him or her and you're like, I really like this person. They're very, very interesting. I remember when I used to have conversations like that with my husband or my wife and, ah, yeah, we really, we really clicked, me and this person. Let's do coffee again tomorrow. And as we know, it doesn't take long to go from that to texting to meeting up and away you go. Start forming a relationship. The old extramarital affair happens quite a bit. Um, what that does is it sparks feelings in, oh, that's those old in-love feelings. I forgot about that. And dude, there's nothing more addictive than that. Like nothing. And your brain is just flooded with chemicals. Nature takes over and says you're supposed to be bonding. And basically what nature is saying is procreating, making babies with this person. That's why it floods you with all this really feel-good stuff. And, um, You quickly kind of forget about the other person romantically, for sure, maybe even completely. And you look over at that person and say, you know, I love you, but I'm not in love with you. Oof. Like I say, that's not every case. It could be just you, partner, have done something or continued to do something or have always done something that just keeps pushing me away romantically. And you know what, you've done it for the last time you've pushed me away. I love you, but I don't— I'm not in love with you. If it helps to— for men to build a conception of how this could work in our world, let's say you have a wife who's just very depressed and she can't get off the couch and she's now 400 pounds, and she says to you, you know, we haven't had sex in a while, we should go to the— I don't know why I'm talking that way though. "Hey, you know we haven't had sex in a while, we should go to the bedroom." And you look at her and go, "Um, you know I love you, but I'm not in love with you in that way anymore. I'm sorry." Same kind of thing. So Daniel, my first extremely negative knee-jerk thought on all this is, you sure there's not somebody else, buddy? Somebody to suddenly come to you with that, And then follow that up with, nothing's changed, still have those same feelings. Yeah, she dumped you, sucks. What you do with that information is up to you, buddy. Do you say, I'm gonna try and hang on harder, I'm gonna try and pursue more. No, no, no, let me show you how I'm the prize here and you need to stick with me. Look at my weight loss. Look at all these things I'm doing for you. I bought you flowers, haven't done that forever. You know, the little, I heard some other author called it the pick me dance. Like, pick me. You know those like South American birds in the nature shows where they fluff, it's always the male by the way, fluffs their feathers and creates this nice plumage in the visage or whatever the term is that the female sees and the female goes, all right. I'll allow you to mate with me now. I'm impressed with your plumage there. He's doing a little pick me, pick me, not that other bird, pick me. And a lot of men in this kind of situation do that. Pick me, pick me. But almost invariably, dude, doesn't work. If anything, it just shows a level of desperation, a level of not putting up emotional unintelligence, if you will, because in her mind she's like, I've just basically dumped this dude. I told him I don't want him. I don't like him in that way anymore. I love the guy because, you know, we made kids and we've been together forever. But as far as being in love, I mean, what more can I do? And this guy just keeps chasing me. And in your mind, in your hurt, very hurt, and very understandably hurt mind, you're thinking this will actually win you points, that you will appeal to her empathetic side and her romantic side, and she'll suddenly wake up and realize, you know, I forgot how much I love this guy and all the stuff we've been through. Doesn't work. The old adage, if you love them, let them go. If it was meant to be, let the bird fly. If the bird comes back to you, then you can work on things together. The irony is that if you do let her go and she does come back, from what I've seen, 9 times out of 10, the dude says, I don't want you anymore, bird. Now that you're gone, I've gotten used to you being gone. And now I think clearly and I realize what the hell was I doing hanging on to that bird for so long? That was stupid. So let her go. It's best for her. You know, play the— you can play the part of the loving adult in this. I can see you're not happy with this wifey. I'm not gonna hang on to a person that's not happy in a situation. Go. I wish you all the best. I love you. That's why I married you. But I'm not gonna hang on to somebody. I'll be fine. You know, I'll cry myself to sleep over a few nights and— don't tell her that— and I'll curl up in a fetal position and I wonder what's gonna happen with my life. But in the end, there's a logical part of me that realizes I'll be fine. And you will. One way or the other, Daniel, you'll be fine. Just, yeah. When somebody dumps you like that, which is what she did, you just suck it up and say, I hear you. Sucks. I wish that wasn't the case, but I get it. I understand. Whatever's going on behind the scenes, Cool. If there's another person, if there's not, doesn't really matter. You go do your own thing. God bless you. Love you. Wish all the best for you. Tim says, Tim from Facebook says, exactly what happened to me. After it doesn't work out with the other guy, they most often come back. By then you're like, hell no. Yeah, this is, it's so cliché, isn't it, Tim, that these things happen over and over and over again. And this happens to like kids, you know, teenagers dating, young adults dating, and older 30, 40, 50, 60-some-year-olds that are married for decades. Person says, I think I'm gonna go try a relationship with this person over here because I feel so goddamn good. It's gotta be right. It's gotta be meant to be. And they go and it doesn't work. And they're like, oh fuck, now what? And then they say, well, now what is I'm kind of adrift out here in the world. I'm lost. I'm kind of scared. I don't know where to go next. I kind of put all my eggs in new lover boy basket over here. Now what do I do? And they look around, they go, oh yeah, the guy I used to be with for decades in some cases. That's kind of the safe bet, isn't it? It's like, hey dude, you wanna? More often than not it's no, I don't. I woke up from my stupor that I was in. But some guys do say, come on over. Let's work this out. Has that ever worked for people? I'm sure it has. Have I talked to them? No, I haven't. The guys I talk to, they try it and they usually say, goddammit, 2, 3 years later, if not sooner, she does it all over again. These people got problems, typically. And the problem is they just ain't cut out for this whole long-term monogamy thing. Whatever. More power to them. Have fun. But they don't have to be connected to you. Thank you all for the likes. If you are watching this and you haven't clicked the old like button yet, wherever you're watching this— YouTube, Facebook, Twitter— please do so. It helps me out a great deal. Thank you all so very much. And again, check out Dear DSO on the website. You can go to the website dadstartingover.com, go up to the menu and just see all the cool stuff that we offer, especially the DSO fraternity, our private group for men only. And Andrew, uh, I won't say your last name for the recording of this, but Andrew C, uh, he is a member of our DSO fraternity. Thank you so much, Andrew, for joining us today. Hmm. All right. I am scrolling here cause I missed something. How should men approach avoidant wives? Is there any hope? Okay, if I'm understanding you correctly, Andrew, I'm sorry, I'm having a blonde moment. Get it? I'm bald. It's no blonde, there's no hair. So your wife, by your estimation, or maybe let's pretend and say she's been clinically diagnosed. It's not a mental disorder, it's just a behavioral pattern in people. For those that don't know, what Andrew is referring to is there's this theory of what's called attachment theory, meaning, excuse my not so bright explanation here, I'm sure a psychologist like Dr. Psych Mom could do a much better job than I can. When you were a kiddo, how your parents interacted with you and attached to you impacts how you attach to other people in romantic relationships. Later on in life. They didn't pay enough attention, no hugs, no kisses, no validation, none of that stuff. Well, you end up being that type of person and so on. You can be an anxious person that's always reaching out for love from people and chasing people. You could be an avoidant person who says, uh, get away with that shit. No. A lot of men in our Dad Starting Over world, specifically the DSO fraternity private group, are the anxious dudes chasing after women. And with the way human nature is, they tend to attach to— first of all, they tend to attract and be attracted to, and then attach and form long-term relationships with opposites. You know, opposites attract. And the opposite is the avoidant woman, who is not the most loving creature in the world. She doesn't like the cuddling. She doesn't like the touching. This is on a spectrum. Some like a little bit, but not much. Some will hold hands, but they don't want to kiss. They don't do that kind of stuff. They don't wanna snuggle. Sexually, they're very dormant, is the term I often use. The guy's like, "Is she asexual or is she gay?" No, she's just avoidant in that way. They don't make the best long-term relationship partners. That is probably where I and a lot of the psychologist types will part because I think they will say that that's a bit, well, what's the term, brazen. To say that they aren't long-term relationship material. Well, they could be, and technically I agree, but the amount of work to get that type of person to the level of secure attachment— that's, that's normal, good, that's what we all want— to get them to a level of secure, dude, that takes some work, a lot of work. And they have to be the one to say, I need help. I don't— this me pushing people away all the time and I'm losing lovers and everything, relationships over this. Maybe I need to talk to somebody about this. That's like really super rare, but that's what it takes. And then they follow it up with years of work. How common is that? Not very. So how should we approach avoidant wives? So you've determined, Andrew, or whoever you're talking about, let's say, um, that I got an avoidant wife. It's official. How should I approach her? How ironic, you don't. Um, that's, that's what they want. They want to be left the F alone. Don't come to me with all this, let's talk about a relationship. Don't come to me with, let's go to counseling, let's listen to this podcast, let's read this book together. Say, oh God, can you just not? Can you just leave me the F alone? I'll come to you when I want you. That's your typical avoidant type person. And so how do I approach them? You don't really. You give them space. And then some of them actually kind of flourish and come more towards center the more they're left the eff alone. While a lot of them, you let them go and they just keep drifting. And then it's heartbreaking for a lot of your anxious or more secure types because they're like, oh, this person, I let them go, they don't come back, they just keep going. That sucks. It's like, yeah, that's— some are like that. But it takes the avoidant person to say, yeah, I need some help with how I interact with my partner here. That's not fair to them. And not good. John from Facebook says, this is so true, or that is so true rather. It's wisdom. If you love them, let them go. It is respectful, mature, wise. It may hurt afterwards. It will hurt afterwards. I mean, we're all human. I'm not one of these guys that's all about, you know, man the fuck up and throw her shit on the driveway and move on and bang whores. Sounds great in theory, but you know what most guys do when this kind of situation happens and they're dumped and I love you and I'm not in love with you? I'm going to say the majority of men are like, uh, can we work this out? They don't do the whole throw her shit out. They all say that, but they don't. I talk to these men. Um, and John says, love this group, all of yous are awesome. Well, thank you, John. John, are you a member of the DSO fraternity? Because technically, if you're on— yeah, you're on Facebook. Um, What you are on is a page, not a group, but a public page. I've explained this many times on this thing. I'm not picking on you, John. I understand it's confusing, but, you know, like big companies like McDonald's, Nike, Apple, they all have Facebook pages and you can go to it and you can get on there and you can say, "Apple sucks," or, "McDonald's rules," or whatever it is. So when I have a lot of guys on there going, "What are all these women doing on your group?" Not a group, just a page. Anyone in the world can get on here and say whatever they want against me, against men in general, pro-men, whatever, pro-woman. And I have no control over that. I'm not going to monitor 24/7 literally thousands and thousands of daily comments on my dozens of posts that I have every day. It's impossible, nor do I want to. Just let it roll off of you, dude. If a woman says something that's insulting to you Oh well, sticks and stones, right? Uh, welcome to the internet. Um, pardon me while I pause and read here. Jonathan, were you on TikTok as well? Because I had this exact question on TikTok the other day. A gaslighting hoarding narcissist. How do you set them straight? Well, Jonathan, buddy, my first question— and literally somebody asked me this, I have a recording of it, I think I posted the video of it. Um, apparently this is a thing, a hoarding narcissist. But then in your case, Jonathan, a gaslighting hoarding narcissist. Uh, my first thought, Jonathan, is, um, what the eff are you doing with a gaslighting hoarding narcissist? Why do you associate yourself with such a person? Isn't that basically it right there? I, you know, somebody comes to me and, um, have you ever dealt with a gaslighting ho— No, I don't associate with those type of people. Sorry, I don't mean to be insulting to whomever may have that condition, whether it's your loved one, spouse, whatever, but I— good luck. You think you're gonna fix them? Come on, set them straight. Is that basically what you mean? Is what, fix them? You can't do that, dude. They got a freaking problem hoarding. Oh, Jesus Christ. Have you seen those TV shows with the hoarder? Have you guys seen the one where the woman lives in a house made of feces? Human poop. Literally, it's, it's out there. You can YouTube it. A woman lives in a house of poop. I don't know why I mentioned that other than it still haunts me to this day. My son and I sat and watched that slack-jawed going, I can't believe this is on television. But the hoarding thing is freaking scary. And she's a narcissist as well. And yeah, no thanks. Keep them at arm's distance or more than that. And let somebody else deal with that. Life is too short, Jonathan. Eric from Facebook says, what if you suspect an affair But you don't have any proof. Well, what makes you suspect an affair if there's no proof? That's my first question. Just a feeling. Um, often when I talk to men, it's— that's a manifestation of their anxiety as men, of their insecurity. Um, you know, let's say, uh, your wife's like, I'm going to the gym, and she's wearing a little cute pair of shorts that shows some of her butt or whatever. And a more secure man would say, 'Look at you, looking good.' Smack her on the way out on the butt. Or, 'I'm coming with you. I'm not going to let that out of my sight. Look at you, sexy.' You know, that's a secure thing. While another man go, 'I think she's having an affair. She's dressing for somebody else.' So, Eric, where are you on that scale? I mean, what, uh, what makes you think that there may be an affair is my question. And what can you do other than just, you know, if you have some legitimate reasons, just keep an eye on them. And, um, you can go snooping if you want. There's a case to be made for you have a lot, um, tied up in this person financially and emotionally, otherwise, uh, it's important that you kind of keep tabs on them and what they're up to. They could be doing something that's detrimental to you and the family, who knows. So then now you're getting into kind of some creepy stalky kind of behavior, possibly. Then there's the case to be made of if they are, then you just let them go. Assuming that that's what you would want to do and what they would want to do. Just let them go. People cheat, dude, and it sucks. If you don't know, been there, done that. Not as the cheater, in case that wasn't clear. Bill asks— Bill from Facebook asks an excellent question. Are there a lot of women— that's a relative term— who are anxious attachment for the first few years And then they go avoidant. Well, there is this psych phenomena, if you will, of people that were raised by a mom, dad who were avoidant, anxious. The children will subsequently bounce between the two personas, if you will, later in life. So you will watch, you know, a dude who's very very, uh, he was raised by, let's say, anxious dad, avoidant mom, and he starts showing some anxious tendencies like dad did. And then later when shit hits the fan in the relationship or whatever, or the relationship gets comfortable, or they have kids and everything, and the man becomes, um, more avoidant in nature and just shuts down, doesn't want anything to do. And the wife's like, I can't reach out, I can't reach to this guy, I can't— he used to be so loving and talkative, and, and he's just shut down. And it's relatively common. I used the man in that case, you noticed, keep things fair. And number 2 is that it is most often that way. It's more often that the man is the avoidant. Um, you know, this stereotype didn't fall from the sky. The whole man doesn't like to talk about anything. Man just answers in short, you know, monosyllabic words when the wife wants to get more out of him. And he just sits down and goes, I don't want to talk about that. I don't feel comfortable talking about that. Very manly thing typically, but a lot of women out there like that. So maybe that's what you're seeing, Bill, is a woman who was raised by both and she's bouncing. Or are you applying terms where they don't belong necessarily? Um, a lot of people in the early honeymoon stage, the puppy love stage of the relationship, um, you're seeing like the best version of them. You're definitely seeing the sexiest version of them and the most attached version of them. And yeah, dare I say, the most anxious version of them. The— a lot of the, uh, I dare I say, on the female side, um the initial attraction component, if you were to, you know, break it up into like a pie chart, a big chunk of that pie chart would be healthy anxiety, or if you want to call it emotional tension. Um, does this guy have other girlfriends? Who's he seeing? Why did he look at that girl? He hasn't called me in a few hours. Is everything okay? These are kind of normal human thought patterns during the honeymoon stage, during the puppy love stage, and dare I say, kind of a component that builds that initial attraction. And when you smooth things out and everything's comfortable because you guys, you know, got engaged and you moved in together and got married and started having kids, that all dissipates, all that anxiety type stuff. And then we have a guy going, where'd Miss Anxious go? Because Miss Anxious was actually kind of cool. She kind of worshiped the ground that I walked on and she was, you know, hypersexual. And now who the F is this woman? Pretty common. Um, uh, John, um, is fleshing out more of this woman in an affair. He says there are always signs of an affair: late nights at work, being out longer than normal, shopping trips. Um, you can figure in maybe an hour over due to traffic, lines at the store, accidents, etc. But plus, if you see how they're acting and changing their attitude, um, Yeah, and now you're getting into, John, a little bit of the how much of that is you actually, you know, seeing real stuff, how much of that is you being insecure. Because I tell you, you know, it's kind of like when you buy a, um, when you buy a red car and then all of a sudden you're like, where did all these red cars come from? It's just because you're just not noticing it. Um, if you've ever been cheated on, or you, your brother's been cheated on, your best friend, suddenly everything looks like infidelity to you. You know why that woman's wearing that little miniskirt? We all know why. Where's your wife? She's at the store, she's been gone for an hour and a half. Tough dude. And sometimes it's, probably more often than not, it's nothing. But we like to, you know, we're pushing our anxieties out on the world and we're, our prejudices, that's the word I'm looking for. And all this. And I'm guilty of that too. After speaking to so many guys that have been through this shit, everything starts looking like infidelity and marriage is about to dissolve and everything else. You kind of have to kind of have to catch yourself. Um, John says, been like follow, been thinking about joining for a bit. John, buddy, give it a try. One month, two months is probably a fair assessment of really seeing what the group is like, what meetings are like, what the, uh, the discussion group is like. You know, checking out all the little ways of communicating the technology we have in the group. And if you're like, eh, not really for me, or I really don't think it's worth the monthly fee, then you just say cancel please. You can actually do that from your account, cancel, or shoot us an email and say cancel please, and we're not gonna continue taking your money. We'll just say cool, and away you go. But what I will find more often than not is that men do 2 months and then say, can I go ahead and just pay for the year up front so I don't have to worry about this monthly? Horseshit. Or is there a lifetime plan so I don't have to worry about any more payments ever? And yeah, we have that for sure. Um, how often do women regret their decisions? Sean from Facebook asked. Doesn't seem like much. I don't know, it's kind of an open-ended question. No way for anybody really to quantify that. 73.2% of the time, you know, how do you properly answer that? Um, um, I'm, I'm confused by— I'm pausing here because I'm confused by some of the discussion here. People are saying run, run as far as you can. I'm not sure what that's In reference to just a— is that John? Is that a reference to just an avoidant woman in general? A woman acting suspicious? Red flags, bro. So they're saying, Tim, red flags. He says, particularly the getaway from me vibe. All of a sudden she's good for you to take that guy's trip to New Orleans. Again, not necessarily indicative of she's about to, you know, bang the local soccer team in your absence, but it could be just, oh, thank God he's out of my hair. I think we don't realize just how to an avoidant person— again, most of the time we're talking about dudes— um, are really stressed out by clingy people, are really stressed out by constantly being asked and, and, and, you know, raked over the coals about what is this, what is that, and having this insecure person just constantly bombarding you with their anxieties. What you need is just time away. And so if that person comes up to you and said, would you mind if be gone for like 3 days, you're like, oh, fuck, thank God. Yes, please go, please. And often a lot of guys don't have a lot of guy time anyway, so yes, it's healthy. Get away, please, just get away from me. So don't think there's nothing necessarily super nefarious about it other than she's really tired of your ass, which is in itself not a very good foundation for a relationship. Um, hmm. Andrew says the fraternity is worth it. Imagine getting advice like this all day. Well, thank you, Andrew. Oh, and they say run is in reference to the hoarding narcissist. Or Andrew says— thank you for clarifying that, Andrew. I got all confused by all my messages here. So yes, that's not good. Um, John says going to be joining and checking it out this weekend. Well, excellent, John. Look forward to seeing you. Make sure you announce your presence. I'm John from the live Facebook, and I'll say howdy. And then you can catch me on a live meeting where we actually all talk to each other via Zoom, and you can share your story and all that fun stuff with a bunch of guys and listen to a bunch of guys say, oh yeah, I've done that, been there, done that. That's, um, for me, having gone through this process for going on 12 years now— Jesus— um, that is something that, um, is the most comforting to me. Was not to feel alone in all this. That when I had guys come to me and say, um, been there, done that, dude, and, you know, filling in the blanks of my sentences, or finishing my sentences for me rather, you know, like, oh, let me guess, she did this and you experienced that, and you're just like, wow, all these stories are so similar. That was comforting to me. I'm not alone. Um, Brittany, Brittany, you're not helping with the anxiety here. When my mom cheated on my dad, she encouraged him to go on a hunting trip with the guy friends. And then she dropped me off at Grandma's, uh, so I'd watch out for that. Well, again, yes, that's cheater 101, but maybe she just said, please get the hell out of my hair while I sit here and crochet on the couch, while I sip tea and enjoy listening to classical music in peace for once. Um, if it sounds like I'm kind of empathizing, um, with that mind frame, it's probably because I identify more with that than I do on the anxious side. Um, I like my quiet time, I like my alone time. It's not because I hate everyone, it's not because, um, people trying to love me turns me off. My version of avoidance, if you will, is just more of, um, I just need, I guess, to recalibrate. It's what you would call your, your, uh, introverted person. I'm more introverted than I am extroverted for sure, even though I'm on this stuff all the time. It's not really my public persona. Most people would probably say he's kind of to himself, and it's the way I've always been. I was an only child, maybe has a lot to do with it. And, um, yeah, like, I like my alone time. And then for— I remember in my first marriage, more so than in my second marriage here, when the ex would say like, I'm going to take the kids and go to mom and dad's for a couple of weeks, I'd say— or a couple weeks, couple days, you know, for some family get-together or something, do you want to come? I'd be like, I think I want to kind of Stay on my own. I need to recalibrate. I need some wake up to silence for 1 or 2 days. That sounds amazing. That was me. Still me. Nothing necessarily wrong with that. Uh, so, you know, to hear a mom say, yes, please go on a hunting trip, I can— my first thought is not a nefarious, it's cheating thing. My first thought is somebody needs a break, and that's okay. Um, and that is a more secure way of looking at it. Now, I am not your typical avoidant in terms of touch and love and cuddliness and all. I'm a very touchy, lovey, cuddly person, always have been. Um, and thankfully with wife number 2, I found my match. She beats me in that department, which is tough to do. Um, and I'm very touchy and lovey and huggy with my kids and everybody else. It's— that's how I grew up. So I'm not avoiding that way, but I do need the occasional break. Uh, Eric says, thank you for the live, sir. I've seen the DSO material on Facebook, but this is my first time actually talking. Taking the time rather to listen. Um, you gave me another possible alternative to think about. Thank you. Well, you're very welcome, Eric. Um, I knew a Pardew years ago, a guy actually worked for me years ago in Illinois. No, Kentucky. It was in Kentucky. I don't know, are you from Kentucky? Wouldn't that be something? Um, Pardew, that's a cool name. All right, what time is it? How long we been on for? I don't know. Is there a way for me to tell? Yeah, about 45 minutes now. So not bad. Anybody else have any more questions? Atharva. He is a DSO fraternity member from India. Hello, Atharva. How are you, sir? And he's like 12 years old, which is kind of cool. How old are you now, Atharva? Like 24 or something like that? He's a youngster. It's quite the interesting life. Hola. Is that your name, Hola? Am I pronouncing that right? As in hello? But Hola Simon? It's like a German? Hola, Hola Simon? My wife's German, so I like German stuff. I'm a woman and I find this Facebook page very interesting and helpful in better understanding of how all this works. Relationships, men thinking. I hear that a lot from women. They're like, it's good to see a male perspective on this. I mean, dude, that's awesome. What's better than that? Um, I know that there isn't a lot of women here and that this info is mainly for men, but I'm really glad and thankful for not kicking us out of here. Keep doing what you do, DSO. You're doing a great job. Well, thank you very much, Ola. I appreciate that. But the point I made earlier is I don't think I could kick you out if I wanted to. I could go one at a time and go to every comment, and if I see a woman, go block, block, block. But why Number one, why the hell would I do that? I'm not some woman-hating asshole. Um, you know, God forbid I try to empathize and understand the opposite sex, you know, as crazy as that sounds. Um, and also logistically, it's impossible to do. So when guys are like, what are women doing in this page? Or actually, they call it the group. It's not a group, it's a page. What are the women doing on this page? You should kick them out. I thought you were one of us, DSO. It's like, dude, just go lay down. You'll be fine. It's just a— it's just a comment. On a page, for God's sakes. Um, hmm, hmm, hmm. Thorvis says he's 13. Well, I was off by a year. Um, haters are the best marketers, they engage the most. You know, um, for those that don't know a little behind the scenes, is I actually do get paid directly from Facebook for, uh, the more, um, uh, posting I do, the more interactivity there is, the more likes, comments, shares, all those things are good. Um, It's basically, um, what's the word, engagement. The more engagement there is. So yeah, if a bunch of people get on and say you're an asshole, you know, a million people get on and say what a dickhead you are, it's kind of a good thing. Uh, but, uh, yeah, and before anybody asks, I don't get paid much. It takes a lot of likes and stuff to make a few bucks. Um, but there are some people that make a living at it, you know, combine YouTube and Facebook and TikTok and all that stuff. But, uh, that's not my It maybe pays the light bill. Daniel asks, "What are your thoughts on how love languages can change over time?" Well, I guess that begs the question, what the hell's a love language? For those that don't know, and I admittedly have not read a lot on the topic, I have skimmed the Love Languages book, and I continually hear probably about it in this relationship talk sphere online. Love languages are mentioned, oh, I don't know, on a daily basis, all day, every day. It's basically, from what I understand, an evangelical guy— of which, curious side note, one of our DSO, uh, one of our Dads Starting Over team members, a coach, actually attends church with the man who wrote the Love Languages book. He's now a way older dude, elderly dude, but he was an evangelical Christian guy who years ago uh, wrote a book on relationships that he basically said, you know, I've noticed that people express their love in different ways. I'm going to call those love languages. And for whatever reason, everybody just grabbed onto this thing— psychologists, psychiatrists, counselors, whatever— and they just preach it as gospel. And it's basically just a dude's kind of observation that people have their own little ways of doing things. That's basically it. It's kind of an interesting observation how people behave, but it's not gospel. And it's not, you are this, and oh my gosh, you just did this, you have changed. So they change over time. It's not a, uh, you're not going to find love languages in the diagnostic, uh, what is it, what's it called, the DSM, um, why am I drawing a blank here, the, the book that the psychiatrist, psychologists use for, you know, for properly, uh, diagnosing people. You're not going to find love languages in there. Um, so what's interesting to me is you'll have a woman who's a very avoidant type, right? Um, sticking with the ladies because mostly men on here. Um, doesn't like to touch. Yeah, I don't— she's not a sexual person, not a lovey-dovey person. Uh, she's very task-oriented, Type A woman. Uh, the— her and the husband go to counseling, and the counselor says, uh, let's, uh, give you each a love language test. And, uh, sits the man down, and 99.99% of the time the man says, touch, I love touch, touch love language, please touch me more. And goes to the woman, the woman says, I don't know, it ain't touch, I'll tell you that much. Acts of service are cool when people do shit for me, that's nice. And so, uh, all right, now we have to, uh, husband Mr. Anxious Guy, are you going to do some stuff for her? Because that's what she likes. And he's like, absolutely, what do you want? Well, it'd be nice if you did this thing for me, did that thing for me. And he does. And then we go to the woman and go, well, he likes touch, sex, and all other stuff. What do you say? She's like, nah, I'm good. That's typically what happens in that thing. And, and then, you know, to her credit, she says, hey, when we're talking about touch, you're talking about use my body. And it's my body, it's my choice, and I choose not to touch and do sexual stuff and blah, blah, blah. I just don't want to do it with him. And instead of saying, all right, I guess we part ways, these anxious guys just keep trying and keep trying. But anyway, um, what's interesting is you take Miss I Hate Touch, that ain't my love language, I'm Miss Avoidant, pull her out of that relationship, throw her back on the dating market doing the old mating dance again. Trying to find a new one. And the new puppy love, new relationship chemicals spin in her brain. Somebody sure likes touching awful lot. So that's one way in which the languages can, quote, change over time, if you will. Um, Ola says, yes, it's pronounced ola like the Spanish hola. Well, hola, hola. See what I did there? Um, Carl from YouTube— hey, look, a YouTube comment! He says, I really enjoyed all your books, mate. Well, you sound Australian. It helped me through divorce so much. Oh, best from England. I jumped the gun on that one. So all my best from— well, thank you so much, Carl. I appreciate it greatly. And howdy, always good to see the Brits. Cliff says, I've never believed that people have just one predominant love language. From what I've seen, it makes more sense to say we all have them and that our reception to them changes depending on our circumstances. Thank you, very well put. That's always been my contention. So when I, you know, I always think it's weird. I had a guy on the TikTok the other day say, I hate gifts. I hate getting them and I hate giving them. And my wife was like, it'd be nice if you gave me a gift. And I told her, you know, go fuck you, you know I don't like giving them. I'm like, dude, what's wrong with you? Your life, like, your wife like getting stuff, go get her something. Not my love language. It's like, oh Christ. Um, so it's, it's silly. It's, it's almost like an excuse for dysfunctional behavior. Um, it's an excuse for further detaching from a person and just using that as something you could point to to say, I don't have that love language, that's why I'm acting like a shitty human. Yeah, who wouldn't like to get stuff and give stuff to people and doing acts of service and touching? Well, kind of people I got problems wouldn't, in my opinion. Thank you, Diagnostic Stats— Statistics, that's hard for me to say— Manuel says— well, that's a name. Dually, I can't read, I apologize. Is it Dwayne? Dwayne, that's an interesting spelling. Um, Carl says, yeah, mate is either us or the Aussies. Yeah, um, we have, uh, we call our gatherings that we have in the States amongst our DSO fraternity members, dsofraternity.com, we call it, uh, Bro Fest. We used to call it the annual DSO fraternity members gathering. Kind of cumbersome. And then what was funny is, uh, one of the wives of one of the members said to the guy, are you going to go to your bro fest? And we're like, oh, I kind of like the sound of that. Kind of douchey, bro fest, but it's, you know, kind of a tongue-in-cheek thing. But that's what we call our gatherings. Well, our guys in Australia— we have a bunch of dudes in Australia— they all get together and they call theirs mate fest. So we got BroFest and we got MateFest. That's kind of cute. And they've met in Brisbane and they've met in, uh, Sydney. Is that right? No, Melbourne. Melbourne and Brisbane. And I'm not sure where they're going to have the next one next year, but we are meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana, us guys in the States, in April. So join us, join the group, meet with yours truly. You hang out with me for a few days. If that's scary or not at all interesting to you, we have other guys. And, um, you know me, Mr. Introvert, I'll probably get tired of all you guys after about first. Thank goodness for hotel rooms. No, I'm just joking. It's always fun. We always have a blast. I, I've yet to have an uncomfortable moment at one of those. It's just everybody just gets along. It's so funny. You talk to these guys online, you know, for months and years, and it's just like you've always known them. And you just, when you see them again, it's like, hey, it's like, um, it's always a good sign of a true friend. It's like You haven't seen them in years, but it's like no time passes at all. So, uh, I feel really blessed, if you will, to be able to know all those guys and call them my buddies. Um, anything else, guys? I want to wrap it up here soon. Uh, as we were talking, I got a message from the wifey. Uh, yeah, so I got a little bit of time. Um, anything else, guys, before we wrap it up? Any other questions, comments? Anything? Going once, twice. I'll give you guys another minute or so here. Don't want to cut anybody off. I have— there's a bit of a delay with the stuff on my screen here. Well guys, I'm going to call it. Thank you all so very much. Appreciate every last one of you. Thank you all for joining this little impromptu go live. Usually I have them scheduled, but, uh, schedule didn't allow for me to schedule. You know what I mean. But, uh, thank you all so much again. DadStartingOver.com. Check out the books. If you're a dude, you need some dudes in your life, and you need some dudes that are going through what you're going through. The guy who is the father to your kid on the soccer team probably doesn't want to hear about all this shit. Check out our group, DSO Fraternity. Give it a month, give it 2 months, see what you think. If you don't like it No skin off my back, dude. It ain't for everybody, but for those, uh, where it clicks with them— we got some guys here on this, uh, broadcast, on this go-live here in the comments, who can attest to— if it clicks for you, it's a godsend. And it is for me, I know. So, but I'm a little biased as the guy who started it. DSOfraternity.com, DadStartingOver.com. Thank you all so very much, and I will see you in the comments. Later.