Chat LIVE With Ralph (DSO)!

Well, hello, hello, ladies and germs! How's everyone today? Hope you're all doing well. I had a bit of a, a snafu, a snag, whatever you want to call it, here on the on the system. I got my schedule all mixed up and I meant to put 2 o'clock but I put 1 o'clock. So if any of you tuned in at 1 o'clock via the little schedule that was set on YouTube and Facebook, said, where's Ralph? Sorry about that, I meant to put 2 o'clock. So here we are, 2 PM Eastern time. And what is today, Monday? And, um, got some free time. I have basically cleared this week of any, uh, coaching calls and so forth, simply because early Wednesday morning I am taking off. I'm driving 12— almost 12 hours. Sorry, I know that upsets some of you. Um, bought it about a year ago, and, uh, I have to do the scheduled, uh, charging stops between here and Charleston, South Carolina, which is the location of our Bro Fest, which is what we call our annual gathering here in the States for our, uh, our Brotherhood group. And our Brotherhood group Let me bring it up here. What the heck I'm talking about? Um, oh, we got a little ticker thingy going on there. Check it out, the bottom of the screen. Those watching live can see this. Um, helpformen.com/join. And if you sign up today, you can use coupon code 200K, 2-0-0 and the letter K, and you'll get 30% off any of the membership packages or, or levels that we have on there. You can pay month to month. The packages are— you can pay month to month. You can pay annually, or you can pay one time and be done with it for the lifetime plan. All of those plans, if you use that coupon code when you check out, you get 30% off. And just as an aside, almost 3/4 of our membership does the lifetime plan. That's pretty cool. Shows that, um, we got a pretty good thing going with our, our membership group. And what the heck do we mean by a membership group? It's basically a big support community for men. We have, um Oh, discussion forums that are very, very active on there. We utilize a private Facebook group as well as Discord for that. Got to be a member to enter. We do Zoom meetings, anywhere from 6 to 8 of them every single week between myself and other guys on the team. Each of those meetings is on average at least an hour long. We record all the meetings. We have a giant catalog of like 1,200 hours of audio available for our members to listen to if you happen to miss a live meeting, which most guys do. Um, we get together in person like this BroFest that is coming up here in a couple days in Charleston. And we're going to be hanging out on the beach at the Isle of Palms, which is basically right next to Charleston. It's all one area there. And, um, gonna hang out there, uh, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. So it's gonna be cool, gonna be a big house on the beach there. So really looking forward to it. So that's gonna be taking up a lot of my week to get ready for that and the packing and preparing and all the other good stuff. And, uh, what else we got going on? Uh, the Brotherhood, also you get, uh, some courses for free. You get all my books for free in addition to the Zoom meetings, in addition to the forum. Um, we have coaching that's available. You can talk one-on-one to me. A lot of guys do that on a regular monthly basis just to think of me as a mentor to check in. You know, they're in the middle of a divorce or they're going through some troubles with their marriage, or they're just, you know, some next level of life, whatever that may be. They're going through major changes and they want somebody to work through those things with, and they chat with myself or any of the other guys on the team. Each of us have like our own little specialty, and, um, there's one price for the general public and then there's a much cheaper price for members of our support community. So a lot of benefits. So there at the bottom of the screen, helpformen.com/join. Use coupon code 200K and you'll get 30% off. The 200K thing, in case you're wondering, is in honor of we reached 200,000 followers on Facebook. So there you go. And Fight for Better Now says, this germ is doing well. Well, very good. Thank you for joining once again today, Mr. F— FFBN. That's not working. Mr. Fight. And we have— this one I always have trouble with. He probably enjoys watching me say it. Useful Thoughts. Useful Thoughts. Useful Thoughts. One of these days I'll be able to say it. Um, which one is my favorite guitar? Oh, I don't know right now. They rotate. Probably the least played is this— it's a Strat. Probably the most played overall is the Tele. And then right now I'm doing some, like, what am I trying to learn? I got, um, oh, like classic rock kind of southern rock thing or whatever, uh, uh, on this, uh, PRS McCarty. So anybody knows like, uh, guitars, that's a pretty good guitar. Although this one is not the American-made one, this is the SE one, and it's basically the equivalent of a Gibson Les Paul. So, but in my opinion, better. Sorry, let's— sorry, Gibson guys, but I like the PRSs better. Just a better all-around guitar. So anywho, um, we got What The Sith Is This says, what's up, Ralph Brewer? Rarely see you live. Well, very cool, excellent. What does Fire Nico mean? I should know that. What is that referring to? Fire Nico? Is that a— what is that? Please inform me. Um, my all-time favorite is my old Yamaha. I know Western guitar doesn't need an amp. Well, very cool. Yamaha makes good stuff. Like, isn't that funny that Yamaha is a company that makes like motorcycles and what, like jet skis and stuff like that, and they also happen to make musical instruments like really good pianos and guitars and stuff? Makes no sense. But yeah, their guitars are awesome. They have the Pacifica line, uh, what's the new line of electrics that they have? I always forget this. Really good ones that are like, uh, like with P90s and, um, humbuckers. I guess it's kind of like a Les Paul thing. But anyway, um, they're very, very popular amongst a lot of people that know things about guitars. So guitar talk, ladies and germs. I know that's what you're here for, but, um, welcome everybody. Uh, for those that have just stumbled upon this and are like, what's this? What's this bald dude? What's going on? I have been doing a lot of content under the name of Dad Starting Over for years. Um, it up until a few years ago was kind of like a side thing to do. I started off as a blog, wrote a book or two, and now that's 4 different books, and now that's thousands of videos. And, and I started a members group which I talked about at the top of this, the Brotherhood. We started another brand called Help for Men. All of our business is now done under the organization of Help for Men. You can learn more at helpformen.com. Got all kinds of articles and videos and everything on there. Then our brotherhood group, our books and courses and everything on there, all in an effort to, as the name implies, help dudes out, help men out. And, uh, but I've been doing a lot of content creation under the name of Dad Starting Over for years because I was a dad starting over in life 12 years ago when I went through a divorce. Long story, it wasn't fun, but Here I am today helping out you guys, and I get to, uh, chat with you lovely folks and meet some big names in our world such as Dr. Robert Glover, Dr. Orion Taraban, Dr. Samantha Rodman-Whiten. Uh, who else have I chatted with? Michelle Langley, author of Female Infidelity. That one, uh, that video interview I did with her on her Help for Men channel. Just so we know, if you go to YouTube, search for Help for Men— @realhelpformen is the handle on YouTube— you will see that I, I have reserved that channel just for interviews, recorded interviews with important folks. And Michelle Langley's is my most popular one so far. It just keeps getting more and more views and more and more subscriptions. I don't— man, she really touched a nerve with that one. So we're going to do a, um, Michelle and I are going to do a live chat so you guys can ask her questions live here. We're gonna— it'll be simulcast on the Dad Starting Over as well as the Help for Men channel, um, channels. Oh, that's right, that's why I know that name. Mavs, the general manager, Nico. That's right, he traded Luka away. Yeah. Um, all right, we got a couple of questions right off the bat. Sorry for the awkward pause there. We got Mr. Jon Snow says, Ralph, what stock do you put into relationship styles? Well, we have attachment styles. Is that what you're referring to? I talk about those all the time. Um, any of the stuff regarding like, oh, attachment styles, and as I bump the, the desk there, um, love languages and everything else, they're not necessarily like hard-coded scientific things. They are simply somebody's method of categorizing and better understanding what seems to be pretty consistent behavior across the human race. It's like we all notice that people tend to do fill in the blank, and somebody notices a lot of patterns in people's behavior, and so we, uh, we start categorizing it and giving it names. And somebody noticed that, um, oh, somebody came up with the idea of attachment theory many decades ago, um, all about how people attach to their parents and the different styles of attachment to parents, and what they learn over childhood seems to dictate, um, how they attach to their romantic partners in life. And when you read up on it, you're like Yeah, there seems to be a lot to that. And, um, Love Languages— somebody wrote years ago a book about, uh, well, I noticed that people seem to express their romantic love for others in different ways, and they, they, they enjoy receiving love from people in certain ways. And somebody broke that up into— some people are all about physical touch, somebody are all about— some people are all about, um, words of affirmation. They like to hear and say things to others and And what else is there? Gift giving and all that good stuff. Where it gets goofy in my mind is that some people— a lot of people get really goofy with stuff that they read, and they, they take it on as gospel. And you'll have somebody that, you know, you can tell has been reading a little bit too much into it, and they'll be like, that's not my love language, I don't do that. And you're like, okay, come on, dude, you know, give the woman a gift. She wants a gift for your anniversary. My love language is not gift giving. It's Okay, whatever. It gets a little weird. And so when it gets to that level, you just got to roll your eyes and go, oh, come on, people, it's just a tool for better understanding people. So yes, there's merit to it, but it's not gospel. It's not the be-all and end-all. And, um, it's not like these are the cards you've been dealt. Sorry, you are— you know, going back to like the Attachment Theory thing, it's like, I'm sorry, you're an avoidant, you can express zero in regards to— or, or in the style of anxious. And sorry, you're anxious, those— you have no avoidant tendencies whatsoever. It's like, no, we all seem to take like a little piece of this, little piece of that. More than others. Some are like super avoidant, some are super anxious guys, and they're only avoidant in blips, and they're only anxious in blips and moments, and you get the idea. So, um, there's merit to it, but it's not the be-all and end-all. Brian is asking me, um, he says that he's been having a difficult time dating after divorce, mainly because of your kids. So you got the kids an awful lot, and you've been working night shift. Any advice? I don't know what to tell you, dude. Yeah, those are two big things. Having children, especially if you have them most of the time, is going to be a detriment to your romantic life because you have to take care of them. And then you got that goofy work schedule, man. Uh, I don't like night shift work. I— but you're going to come back and say, I have no choice, Ralph. Yeah, I get it. But if you have a choice, don't do that. There's a lot of evidence that it's, um, not healthy for people to work nights. Just isn't. You're supposed to be sleeping when the sun goes down, not staying awake. And there are all kinds of, uh, health detrimental effects on your health. And as you can see in your social life as well, because most people do the whole waking up in when the sun comes up and going to bed when the sun goes down. And when you're flip-flopped from that, you're not going to meet very many people. Not many people are going to be able to follow along with your little schedule in life. You know, they'll be like, let's go out to eat at 7 PM, and you're like, man, that's like that's when I'm, uh, just getting out of work or something like that. I don't know, whatever your schedule is. So there's only so much you can do, dude. You're gonna have to make some concessions here or just shrug your shoulders and say, 'It is what it is. I got a shitty situation here that's not conducive to, uh, love and romance. Oh well.' A lot of marriages don't survive, uh, when one person works weird hours like that. I hear that all the time. A lot of blue-collar guys like, 'Man, I started working nights and a lot of time away from the wife, and she started getting a little lonely. I was getting lonely,' and all hell breaks loose. And she's alone with the kids most of the time and all that good stuff. Not good. But thank you for the, um, quick comments right off the bat here, ladies and germs. I do appreciate it. Speaking of ladies, if you're watching this, uh, please feel free to chime in with a question if you got any at all. That's why I'm here. It looks like— am I simulcasting? Yes, I am, on X or Twitter. So hello, Twitterites, if you're watching this. Um, I don't have much of an audience out there. Hey, that's something you guys could do. I always forget to say this, but in the middle of, um, these, uh, uh, live streams, if you would be so kind as to hit like wherever you're watching this, like on Facebook or YouTube or X, just give me the old like. That tells that platform that this is something worth showing other people. Share it. And if you haven't already, whatever account you're watching this on, whatever platform, subscribe or follow. That also helps. So like, subscribe, follow, share, all those things, right? That helps out a great deal.. And, uh, one of the places I have very little following for whatever reason is Twitter, or X as it's called now. Like, nobody follows me on there, but I post all the time. So check it out, Dad Starting Over on Twitter or X. And then we have the, uh, YouTube channels of Dad Starting Over and Help for Men. And then we have the Facebook pages of Dad Starting Over and Help for Men. So check them out, please. I appreciate it. Thank you so very much. What else we got going on? We got, uh, My eyes are going blurry on me. Contacts. Um, is that Leah? Am I reading that right? Leah Marie says hello. Well, hello Leah, how you doing? And, uh, what else? Are you guys aware— I mean, I'm going through my little banners here. Do you guys know that I have free courses you can take? Zero catch, zero hidden costs, nothing like that. But, um, Our most popular one is this guy, deadbedroomfixcourse.com. So if, um, you've read my book and you want like video— videos of me kind of going through the information that's in that book, there you go, deadbedroomfixcourse.com. If you have not read the book, here's a little hidden gem with this— as I'm pointing at it— with this course here, um, you will get a free PDF copy, ebook if you want to call that, copy of my book, and it's formatted such that you can read it on your phone. The print's nice and big and so forth. So, uh, Dead Bedroom Fix course, you get a copy of my book in PDF format, then you get to watch a bunch of videos all about Dead Bedroom Fix and all that good stuff. But that's our most popular course that we have, followed by the second most popular free course is this one, mywifecheated.com. Seems pretty blunt. A little mini course, if you will, talking about, you know, guys that are just really caught off guard and don't know how to handle the whole discovering your wife's affair thing and the disintegration of your family and all that other good stuff. Um, been there, done that. It's not fun. So check it out, mywifecheated.com, as well as deadbedroomfixcourse.com. The other thing I want to talk about is, um, and this is super popular, is deardso.com. Yes, I grab all these, these domains so you don't have to go to helpformen.com slash whatever. You can just jump right to these hopefully memorable domains. deardso.com. People write to me all the time and have for years. For whatever reason, they want my advice or some direction or thoughts on their situation. So much so that I created this page, site if you will. They can fill out— you can fill out a form, give your little info, and then I receive it. I go special emails alerting me to it. You can also elect to chat with me live, which I've done now 4 or 5 times. You can see those on the Dad's Starting Over page. I got one, um, scheduled to be released here. It's already been recorded and everything. It'll be out in a few— a week or so, I think. Don't quote me on that. And then I have one scheduled. We're going to record another one that I'm going to chat live with the guy tomorrow. So, um, Dear DSO, submit your story and I can just blab on and on about it in video format, pre-recorded thing, or we can chat live, if you will. We'll record it. The people only see me, but they will hear you like a radio call-in show, and we can talk about your issue. Uh, each, each of the ones that I've recorded so far, I think they've been around an hour-long chat. So it's like a coaching session basically where we chat all about your issues. So check it out at Dad's— or Dear DSO— can't talk today— deardso.com. Fill out the form, check the little box saying yes, you would like to chat with me live, put your email address, and we'll schedule something or just submit your story. So check that out. What else we got going on? Going through my little list here. BroFest is the name of the conference I mentioned at the top of this. We are having our BroFest 2025 here in a couple days in Charleston, South Carolina. Already sold out, been sold out for months, but we already have one planned for 2026. So go to brofest2026.com. It's our annual conference. You do not have to be a member of the group to attend this one. We want to open this up to show everybody, the public, guys only, men only, just what our group's all about and what we do. And we're going to have myself will be there. All the guys on the team will be there. Your fellow members, Dr. Robert Glover, author of No More Mr. Nice Guy, will be there. You guys know Lauren, the Dadvocate. She's a big person in our world, big social media presence. She plans on being there as well as there's a gentleman who you may have seen my live with him, Adam Nissenson. Adam Nissenson is what we call the Betrayal Shrink. You can learn more about him at betrayalshrink.com. He's also going to be there. So all 3 of those folks will be there as special guests, put it on presentations, workshops, whatever they want to do, and hanging out with the group for the weekend. Pretty cool. So you get to meet some pretty bigwigs in our world, hang out with me, make some new friends, learn a lot, leave with some new wisdom hopefully, and we'll sign you up for 2027 when it's all said and done. So check it out, brofest2026.com. Let me Oh, we got, uh, Fight for Better Now is saying, is that the most current edition? Oh, the, the PDF that comes with the, um, uh, Dead Bedroom Fix course? Yes, of course. Yep, that's the most recent. Um, we got, hmm, uh, Brian is saying that women absolutely disagree with the French author Esther Perel. Her book Mating in Captivity, when I tell them that a woman's love is narcissistic in nature— yes, that was Esther's claim— and to explain what she means, much of a woman's sexuality, not necessarily her love, her sexuality is based upon how others make me feel. So for example, a typical man, you know, this is a stereotype for a reason because this happens all the time, but let's say a man is in the physical act of coitus with a woman, if you know what I mean. Doing the horizontal mambo. They're getting it on there. And what does a man say at the end? Was it good for you? Did you have an orgasm? What'd you think? You know, something along those lines. So he's very much concerned, like, she needs to give the feedback of, I, I pleasured her, I was a good boy, I did my job in bed. And then that'll, that'll make him feel good to be like, all right. Um, versus it seems with the women, it's, how did he make me feel? Did he give me the orgasms? Did— and it's narcissistic, may not be the proper term, but it is very much centered around her pleasure and how she is made to feel. A lot of women will report that, um, they need to feel like a real sexual creature and be made to feel desired by the opposite sex. We're talking about heterosexual women, um, in order to kind of get in the mood and get going. So she needs to put on a hot little number, she needs to be in a sexy environment, all of these things. She needs to be happy with her body, she needs to lose 10 pounds, she needs to get made up and all these other things to get the attention and feedback from the other person which says, "You are attractive, you're looking good." And then she'll be like, "Good, now I feel sexy." Versus men tend to be like, "You look hot, you look sexy." So it's a natural fit, isn't it? So that's, I think, what Esther is talking about. I'm sure Esther could, um, go on more and more about that when she says that women tend to be more narcissistic with their sexuality. But thank you for bringing that up. Um, Bill from YouTube says, I was shocked to find out that the courts did not care at all that she had an affair. Isn't that interesting? Uh, no-fault divorce, um, none of that has any bearing in most parts of our country. I assume, Bill, you're in the United States. Um, that has no bearing on really much of anything, not as far as financial implications— who pay— who gets what asset, who pays what debt, and so forth. It doesn't matter if she bonked half the town. The fact is that she was your spouse for so many years, and that legally entitles her to certain funds, assets, debts, whatever it may be. Um, yeah, and as a guy who is hurt by her because of her infidelity and so forth. That's like a real head-scratcher. Like, it's almost like they're rewarding her for doing that. And I did, um, I did an interview with Forbes, with the editor of Forbes Women actually, whose name is escaping me right now. I apologize, no disrespect to her. But I did it, um, when did I do the interview? Last year before the election. Um, and, uh, uh, we were talking about that exactly. Like, she was like talking about a lot of men are anti, um, no-fault divorce, and how a lot of women, more progressive women, interpret that is men want to lock us into divorce and not allow us just to leave just because we want to leave, while women are like, I should be free to leave a marriage if I want to. I explained to her, I go, no, what men are more concerned with is not necessarily we want you to stay, it's that we don't want you to get rewarded for such bad behavior. So if you're I was going to say taking a lot of drugs. That's an illegal thing in most parts of the world. Doing bad things and hurting man and family and everything else, you shouldn't be rewarded by, here's your alimony, here's your child support and everything. That should be taken into account in some way, somehow. That seems fair in our mind. Um, in fact, there are some states like North Carolina, for example, that if infidelity is proven, like, here we go, this proves that she was committing all kinds of infidelity and screwing around while married, then she forfeits her right to alimony. So it's interesting. So I think guys want to see more of that, don't they? But that is not the norm as far as I know, uh, in the United States, state to state. Um, What the Sith from YouTube says, my love language is touch. Well, welcome to the club, buddy. You're a man. Hers isn't. Uh, any ideas or tips to explain to a wife how important sex and touch— you double— you said the word important twice. So how important sex and touch are. Um, I've learned to hint, ask, or to be romantic, romantic to get her to the bedroom. My friend, if only somebody had written a book on this topic. Oh yes, I did. It's called The Dead Bedroom Fix. Check it out at— do I have the— there you go, deadbedroomfix.com. And if you're saying, Ralph Brewer, I read it, I don't remember that. The whole book's about that, dude. No, you're not going to go up to a woman and go, look, here's the deal, I need you to touch me, I need you to give me sex, I need you to do all this, it's very important to me. For your more avoidant women, which most of you watching this have avoidant women, that's what I've learned. I can speak in platitudes and, you know, paint with a broad brush here because it seems to be true. If you're watching my material, material, and you're a guy and you're watching material in terms of dead bedroom stuff that I talk about quite often because it's the most popular topic, um, then you're probably an anxious guy married to an avoidant woman. And no amount of you sitting her down, looking her in the eye and saying, 'Me need love, touch, affection,' is going to change her wiring. She ain't wired for that, dude. I, I'm going to say something that a lot of therapists will go, 'Oh, Ralph, don't say that.' It's my microphone. My guitar is behind me. You know what I'm saying? This is my house. And, um, I'm sorry, but avoidant people do not make great romantic partners. They just don't. I'm sure they're great people, but there's a certain set of tools in your toolbox that you need in order to be a good romantic partner, and an aversion to romance is not it. Sorry. Can they change? Absolutely, they can change. Yeah, it's called therapy. It's called raising their hand and saying, me need help because I'm about to lose my family and my husband. I keep having, you know, a series of failed relationships because I'm the most unromantic, unsexy, unloving human ever. It's not that I'm unloving, it's just that I don't express myself in that way. I have an aversion to vulnerability. I put my independence above all else, and that doesn't work well in a coupling, romantic coupling with somebody else. I need help. I need to figure out how to figure where this came from and how to switch it. Well, unfortunately, the, uh, your true avoidants are the last person to make that proclamation, to raise their hand and say help. That's a moment of vulnerability, isn't it? Me need help. They just don't do that. Um, I shouldn't say that, most of them don't do that. So best of luck, but no amount of convincing and putting on a dog and pony show and charades is going to convince her. Um, Steve O says, I was the nice guy in the marriage, sexless for years. What I just, uh, when I discovered her emotional affair, divorce got brought up. Uh, she flat out said, I don't think you'd leave me if you were unhappy. I filed and I served her. She's been more wifely the past 6 months than ever. LOL. I've learned so much from your group and books. Thanks a ton. I think you mean, Steve, are you in the, the Brotherhood group, um, or are you referring to the— everyone calls the, uh, the, the Facebook page, which is just a marketing public page that anyone can see, anyone can comment on, man, woman, whatever. A lot of people call that the group for whatever reason. It's not a group, just a page. You know, like I always say, like Nike, McDonald's, Apple, they all have Facebook pages. You can go and comment on whatever. That's not a group. For group, we have the Brotherhood, which is a real, um, where is it at? Do I not have it up here? I guess it's just a little ticker at the bottom there. Um, helpformen.com/join. That's our brotherhood. That's our private community just for men. That's the real group. It's, it's not enough to call it a group. It's a giant community with a lot of benefits. So check that out. Um, you're still getting divorced regardless of her behavior. You have boundaries. Well, very good. Good for you. Um, can we start a movement for avoidant women? Print or quote, just let them be alone. That's, that's kind of how they naturally go. Um, In our defense, as anxious men— of which I, in, in looking back at my relationship behavior over my lifetime, I would say I'm more anxious. I'm probably more disorganized, which means a combo of both, with more of an emphasis on the anxious side. Um, in our defense, the avoidant partner sure does seem to give us exactly what we want at the early stage of the relationship, don't they? So we want the Romance, touch, yes, sex, we're dudes, and all this other stuff. And they, and they gladly provide it. Now, in hindsight, especially after you get into relationships after them, you realize even then it was a little reserved. Even then it was a little— she was holding back some. It wasn't the best in the world, but at least it was something. And at least it was enough to show that she loved and valued me and everything else. And then when— so why does she do that? Is she trying to trick you? She— no, she's in love. Um, she's going through the honeymoon phase. At the early stage of a relationship, we're all basically drunk. We're all high on chemicals in our brain. It's Mother Nature's way of saying make babies. So we go through that process. We connect. Familiarity, comfort, stability, boredom— all those things set in. And, um, we see the real her. And the real her is pretty damn avoidant and not the sexiest creature in the world and all these other things. And, um, so it's not really fair of us, you know, talk about they, they have a movement and everything else. I think this is in part why the, uh, initial honeymoon stage or the initial courtship phase of the relationship, by my estimation, should last years. I say 3 years, 36 months. It goes by fast, but in those 36 months The honeymoon phase will probably subside somewhat, if not completely. You will see each other in bad life situations, good life situations. You'll see the roller coaster of life in that 3 years, and you will determine at the end of that 3 years whether or not you want to stick it out with this person. If you're in fact a more secure individual, you have— you're a better judge of that sort of thing. Unfortunately, that 36 months doesn't really correspond to the old typical lady biological clock thing. Um, there was a video going around, I've talked about it already in other videos, a young woman saying that she did the math and she realizes if she does the college career thing and then does the dating around trying to find Mr. Right thing and then eventually finds a guy that's good enough to, uh, settle down with, and then they, they date for 2 or 3 years to get to know each other— she was saying all this and then they get engaged. And when you're engaged, it's not like the next day you get married. There's like an engagement waiting period and planning and all this other stuff. And then you have the wedding. And then she says, and obviously you want to be married like at least for like a year or two before you start having kids because you want to enjoy each other's company as a married couple. And she was doing the math, she's like, I, I can't wait. This whole waiting until you're in your 30s thing, no, it doesn't— mathematically it doesn't work. It was like, when you take into account and it sounds mechanical and cold, but, um, fertility. If you do the math, you're like, okay, then I'm going to be in my early 40s and my fertility went from here to here, and me having a nice healthy viable child, the chances went from here to here. This doesn't make any biological sense. So a lot of women come to the conclusion, oh, I got to start this process like early, early, like college level early. And what we've seen is that a lot of, uh, secure individuals tend to find each other pretty early and they hang on to each other pretty early for life. That's what secure people do. They find a good mate and they hang on to them forever, and they work hard at each other with the relationship. So they're kind of off the market. So it kind of makes things double, triply, quadruply difficult for these ladies. So it's pretty interesting. Um, uh, Edie from YouTube says, third time in 26 months This woman has slept with 5 men. Number 5 does not know about 3 of the 4. I'm sorry, I don't know what the hell you're talking about. Did I just have a stroke or did that not make any sense? I don't— Mitchum, maybe I missed something else. We'll try again. Okay, so Steve, you're saying the Brotherhood group. Very good. Okay, excellent. So I just want to clarify in case anybody thinks that the Facebook group Facebook page equals group. Now it's the Brotherhood group. So excellent. So Steve, going back to your original comment, you learned a lot from the Brotherhood and the books, all that good stuff. So I'm sorry, Ed replied to that was, okay, yeah, third time in 26 months this woman has slept with 5 men. Third time in 26 months this— hmm, number 5 does not know about 3 of the 4. I don't know what we're talking about, Ed. I'm trying to decipher it, buddy. Maybe try again. Or maybe somebody else give me a hand, like help me out here. Um, thank you guys again for comments. We're already a half hour into this. Don't want to go much longer. I'm getting hungry and I gotta go to the gym, gotta work out. I told myself I was going to get some good workout slash rest time in before, uh, meeting up with the guys in Charleston. Yeah, I'm going to arrive Wednesday late. I don't think I'm meeting up with any of the guys. Wait, Wait, late Wednesday, but I will Thursday morning meet up with everybody. And yes, there will be alcohol consumed, I'm sure. And we're going to have a cookout on Thursday night, and then we're going to, uh, before the cookout, we're all going to get together at a bar called the Windjammer there. And then, um, uh, what are we doing then? Then, uh, when are we meeting? Thursday. And then Friday is, uh ordering food in, and then Saturday we all go out together for dinner. So it's gonna be fun. We got, uh, Bill saying, what are you working on, Jim, today? Chest? Uh, because it's Monday, obviously. Duh. Actually, yeah, I am, although I have a bad shoulder which is getting to be a little bit really bad. I hope I haven't torn a rotator cuff. It's one of those things that I keep, um, putting off. You know, I'm a dude, so it's not killing me, so I'm not going to go and make the appointment, all those other stuff. Plus I'm busy and traveling and everything else, so like, when am I going to have time? So I probably need to put something on the calendar to go to physical therapy and see what they think about this shoulder, because this really prohibits a lot of pressing movement. I can still do it within a limited range of motion, and I can do fly motions let's see, that hurts right there. Um, this going from down to up, that hurts bad. It's not good. International Chess Day, there you go. Mr. Steve asks, have I read the book The Let Them— Let Them Theory? No, but I have heard of it. You're not the first to mention that, so maybe I'll need to put it on the old list. Maybe Audible. I do the Audible thing where I get a credit every month, so I got one coming up here. No, be a couple weeks till my credit is up again, but I will add that to the list. Thank you, thank you for the reminder. Let Them Theory, great for us, us anxious guys. That's all we need, isn't it, Steve? More stuff to read. In case you guys don't know, anxious men tend to take in a lot of material and, and read, read, read, combined with your ADHD, neurodivergent autism guys who, when we get, uh, really interested in topic, we tend to read all there is or take in. I say read, we also watch the YouTube videos and podcasts and all this other stuff. Whatever medium it is, we will ingest it when it comes to a topic of interest. And for a lot of guys I talk to, a topic of interest is relationship, saving their relationship, or starting over the right way, or doing whatever. And they just read, read, read, read, read. So, um, if you're like that, you'll probably fit in well into the Brotherhood group. A lot of guys like that. And yes, that is a sign of the old neurodivergence. It's not a definite thing, a lot of guys are just like that, but pretty much all neurodivergent guys are like that too. Um, Mr. Paul giving me, uh, hand clappies, so thank you, Mr. Paul, appreciate that. Um, anybody else, anything else? Make sure I haven't missed anything. Thank you also very much for the comments today. YouTube is always really good for the comments. Excellent. Uh, YouTube has done well last couple weeks as far as numbers are concerned. It's starting to have an upward trend. I appreciate all you guys. If you could do me a favor, go on the YouTube channel and give me a subscribe, give me likes and follows and shares and comments. I appreciate it a great deal on both the Dad Starting Over as well as the Help for Men channel. Uh, Help for Men is starting off pretty well. I'm pleased with the success of that. Um, does my ex-wife know about this? I don't know. If she does, we have not talked about it, Mr. Bill. Uh, um, but that would be, that would be a source of contention, I'm sure. And I'm kind of careful about any details or anything like that, but yes, you're right, a big part of my beginnings was as a result of the infidelity and all this other stuff. Yeah, there's no hiding that. Everyone knows about that. But that was 12 years ago now. We have a cordial relationship, and I definitely wish her all the best. And if she found this, I'm sure she'd be hurt somewhat. Um, I— but I don't share our personal business or whatever with the rest of the world. And in her, her world, I have people ask me all the time about her and her personal life and everything else, and I say, yeah, really none of your damn business. I'm sure she doesn't want me sharing, much like I don't want her sharing mine or anything else. But with that being said, um, No, I don't think she knows about it. We'll see. Although I've had more and more local people say they've found me, and I have been recognized at the gym and so forth, and at the airport and everything else. I'm, I'm pretty sure she knows about it. She has to by now. Um, Ed is saying, so September 22nd we started our affair. Um, so, okay, uh, January of 2023 took off for 3 months with Dewey. Ed, I don't know if this is a language I'm not familiar with. I'm trying, buddy. Um, I'm going to read this verbatim and see if others can help me out here. So, September '22, we started our affair. January of 2023, took off for 3 months with Dewey. No idea. April, she is back. Bobby hooks up. 'Now I'm back, June of 2024. Jerry a loser.' Buddy, I don't know, that one's tough to read. I'm not sure how to interpret that one. Paul says, 'You know the ADHD obsessing very well.' Yeah, and that is also something that is, um, uh, synonymous with the autism guys. And as an aside, the majority of autism guys have ADHD. Kind of interesting. So we are okay for about 8 months, then March of 2025, another Bobby. Are you British? Is this a British thing? Sounds British, doesn't it? The Bobby. Is Bobby a— isn't Bobby a policeman, or is that a— is that an affair partner? I don't know, my friend. I would love to understand this better. It sounds fun. Sounds like a lot of fun, gossipy drama that we're talking about here. It's just that I don't understand. Pardon my very Middle of the road Americanese. Um, anything else, gentlemen? Please don't be shy, but I'm about to wrap her up here soon. My phone's blowing up. Mystery text message. And this is, uh, spam. All right, very good. I get those all day long. I don't know about you guys. He says, sorry, typing to shorten it up. Steve's having a good laugh. Yeah. Um, anyway, well, you know, Ed, maybe this is something you can email me directly and you can be as verbose as you want. Um, but you can always feel free to do this in multiple parts here. But I'm getting ready to hang her up here, folks. But once again, I just want to say thank you, everybody. I do appreciate all of you. Um, be on the lookout here on the Help for Men channel, probably within the next couple of weeks, my interview with Miss Laura Howe. I'm gonna put it in the comments here so you guys can check out her page and go to her, um, uh, um, YouTube channel. Laura Howe is a therapist from the UK, content creator on YouTube. She's relatively new on YouTube and she's already getting 6-figure views. Um, I got an error. I don't know what's happening there. LauraHowe.com. But, uh, she's getting 6-figure views on her, on her YouTube videos. Very good stuff. She's very even-handed. She's sympathetic, empathetic to the, to the men as well as to the woman's side. Obviously she's a woman. Very level-headed, very intelligent. We just had a chat earlier this morning for the Help for Men podcast and YouTube channel. We'll get that all edited and posted here and probably within the next couple weeks. Be on the lookout for that. That was a very good one. And I'm meeting some really interesting people through this. I'm very blessed, as it were, to be able to do this, make a living from this, although as little of a living as that is. Nobody's getting rich off this, folks. And meeting folks like Laura always brightens my day, so be on the lookout for that one. And Steve, you say you have 30 physical self-help books, so paper books, and 15 Audible books since finding out about the affair. Yeah, we've all been there, done and Ed's going to email me his story and he says it's a good one. All right, very good. I look forward to it, Ed. Thank you so much. Well guys, I'm gonna hang it up. I will finish with this: if you're a dude and you're having a difficult time navigating this whole world, maybe you're like Steve, you discovered an affair, maybe you're like Ed and you're having some kind of awesome drama that I can't decipher— sorry— or, um, dead bedroom thing, uh, really trying to avoid divorce thing, going through the divorce, whatever it may be, I guess you could say relationship-oriented drama, and it doesn't necessarily have to be that, but usually with drama and men, it's around the, um, relationship stuff, isn't it? Well, uh, we have a group for you guys, a community group's not the best word because it's too small. We have a community with a lot of resources for guys. This puts you in touch with hundreds of men from all over the world who are in the same boat as you and very, very active, and they will answer questions, they will talk, we'll get together in live meetings, we'll talk to each other, we'll get together in person. We'll have all kinds of audio for you. If you're an audio dude, you like podcasts, well, you're going to be in heaven because we have over 1,200 hours of audio recorded for you guys. We have all my books. It's called the Brotherhood, and you can see at the bottom there, help4men.com/join gets you to it. And now's the time to sign up because if you do so, you get 30% off. Use the coupon code 200K, 200K, and you're going to get 30% off of membership. Yes, there's a small fee involved, even smaller if you are a a, um, veteran. So military veteran. We love our veterans, always make the best members. We try to help out our brothers as much as we can. So you get 40% off, so you get even better deal. There'll be a little button says if you're a military veteran, click here and you get a special deal. So check that out. Uh, thebrotherhoodhelpformen.com/join. Uh, what the Sith, you say? Happy Wife School? Um, yeah, I've reached out to her, I've never heard back. So maybe you want to drop her a little message if you guys think think that I should chat via the podcast or live with Happy Wife School, whatever her name is, I'd be happy to do so. So, uh, yeah, please drop her a line, say you need to talk to Ralph Brewer Brewer Brewer with Dad Starting Over and Help for Men. All right guys, that's it for me today. I do appreciate all of you, and we will catch you on the next one. Toodaloo!