Chat LIVE With Ralph (DSO)!

Here we go, here it comes. All right, welcome everyone. Make sure everything's good. Yay! All right, we're good on Facebook. Looks like we have a, well, comment already from Mr. Darren. What's up, brother? Tuning in from Camp David, Maryland. Well, welcome Mr. Darren, and welcome everyone. Um, for those that don't know who have happened upon this by accident, like, who the hell is this bald dude? Let me get my strings here. My OCD's kicking in. Strings are even not looking sharp today. Oh well, it'll have to do. My name is Ralph Brewer Brewer Brewer. I go by the moniker, fake internet name, pen name, whatever you want to call it, of Dad Starting Over, or DSO for short. My website is dadstartingover.com. If you search on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, wherever, search for Dad Starting Over and you will find me. You'll find all kinds of videos. Go to dadstartingover.com, you'll find all kinds of articles. We're still porting over old articles from the old website that we had. We had a new website, we went up like last year, and we're still moving stuff over. We have hundreds of articles we haven't moved over yet. Bear with us, they're out there somewhere. We'll move them over eventually. But everyone seems to watch video these days and not articles, so not a real pressing issue. But anyway, welcome, welcome everyone. DadStartingOver.com. We have, you know, let's get some business out of the way first before we get started with today and let some people file in here. First order of business is if you could be so kind as to like this live stream, that way other people can see it. That's how these streaming live things work, is that when Facebook or YouTube or whoever says, well, a lot of people like this, then they show it to more people. So give me a like if you could please, or share, however it works wherever you are watching this. We are going live right now on Facebook. And on YouTube and on Twitter, and it's supposed to be going out on Instagram. I have yet to have that work. I've tried it a couple times, it didn't work for whatever reason, but we'll try it now. The Instagram now has a live streaming feature, so if you're on Instagram and watching this, give me a hey howdy and I should see your little comment pop up here. Um, again, back to a couple of orders of business. We have a private men's group, a group for men only, called the DSO Fraternity. And right now we have a special because we are celebrating our 4th anniversary of the group. Let me put— use this code here. If you go to the website— I probably should put in the website, huh? Pardon me. Boop-a-doop-a-doop. Should have all this ready, but I don't. I cannot see what I'm typing here. I'm sorry. Oh man, getting old sucks. Does that work? Yes, it does. Go to dadstartingover.com/join or dsofraternity.com, get you to the same place. And if you use coupon code frat2024, frat2024, all one word, you're gonna get 30% off of lifetime membership. That's 30% off lifetime membership. Put it one, One down payment, one time, one time only, and then we won't bug you for any other monthly payments, annual payments, nothing else. And, uh, pretty good deal, 30% off just to celebrate the 4th anniversary. So check that out. If you're a dude and you're often like in my comments on Facebook and YouTube and TikTok and everywhere else, and you're like, what's with all the ladies? Number one, I can't keep ladies off of all these public pages, nor would I want to. Their opinions and everything else are completely welcome. But on the other hand, I understand dudes that are like, I don't quite feel quote unquote safe talking about a lot of this stuff amongst the ladies. I'd much prefer to talk, you know, just amongst dudes. Can we kick the ladies out? No, we can't. But what we can do is we can start a private group just for men and we can monitor or, what's the word? Yeah, I guess monitor who comes in and out of the group and allow men only into the group. And so we created such a group and we call it the DSO Fraternity. There's all your links. There's your coupon code, frat2024. You get 30% off the lifetime membership. And real quick, I know I've said this a bazillion times, but we have some folks that are probably going to be new watching this, whether it's live or a recording. Um, benefits to joining that group: number one, you get to support yours truly and what we do and getting the message out and helping a lot of men all over the world. We do coaching, you know, these videos that we put together, all kinds of cool stuff. So that's a benefit, I guess. Another benefit is that you get to access, uh, private forums for for men only, which are extremely active from dudes all over the world. 24/7 guys are posting things on there. We've had like 50, 60-some-odd thousand individual posts made since we've been doing this. So that's a lot. And we have live Zoom meetings that I myself host as well as other guys on the DSO team on a variety of different topics, sometimes just open conversations. And we have, oh, like over 600 hours or so of meetings that have been recorded. And you can listen to the recordings right from your phone. Which is pretty cool. So we have an archive, you get on there. If you're a member, you get a link, click the link, and then the, the audio is magically added to your podcast app, whatever it is that you use. And then you can listen to it like you're listening to podcasts and listen to our meetings. Pretty cool stuff. Or tune in live and join us over Zoom video. And like I said, a lot of those, uh, we also have discounts on coaching. Right now coaching is available to the general public, but if you're a DSO fraternity member and It's like half off, so pretty big discount. And then we have video courses, about the same kind of discount, about half off. We're gonna be adding to that library as time goes on of video courses. Some cool stuff in there about fitness, anxiety, and some one-on-ones that I've done with Dr. Psych Mom are on there. We talk about avoidant women, we talk about men after divorce. All kinds of neat stuff on there. Oh, and we get together and meet in person. We have our big annual gathering in the States coming up next month. April 18th through the 20th in New Orleans, Louisiana. This will be the fourth one that we have done. We have met in Nashville, we have met in Austin, Texas, we have met in Las Vegas, and now New Orleans. We get together, we have formal presentations by myself and guys on the team, we have breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and we go out and hang out together. It's a really cool time, it's going to be a lot of fun. This will be our best one yet. I'm really looking forward to it. This is going to be really cool, so join us. DSO fraternity. Sorry ladies, dudes only. A couple other pieces of business. If that— if the DSO fraternity does not interest you, you don't have the time to put into it, we're looking for guys that are able to join in the conversation so we can learn from you and you can learn from us and all that good stuff. If that does not interest you, there are other ways that you can support what we do. And just for a few bucks a month, we have— if you're on YouTube, you can click on join on our YouTube page, and you can sign up to commit to paying $4.99 a month, and you get, you know, like subscriber badges, and we're gonna have subscriber-only livestreams and chats, and all kinds of little cool things on there as a way of saying thank you, and you get to support what we do. And we have a very similar thing over on Facebook. If you go to the Facebook page and click on, I believe it's subscribe, same kind of thing, $4.99, and it's a big thank you. You get the little badges and all the cool stuff. Good, inexpensive way of supporting what it is that we do. So if you're doing either of those things, thank you so very much. Really appreciate it. Helps out a lot. This, believe it or not, is not a cheap endeavor to do this thing. Studio, cameras, recordings, editing, posting, coaching, meetings, all this other good stuff. But we help out a lot of guys, and it's been an extremely rewarding thing for myself and other guys on the team. It's been awesome and I love it, and I love all of you for supporting. Uh, Daniel says good morning. Well, buenos días, Daniel. And then James is also good morning from Phoenix, Arizona. Daniel, where are you joining us from? Uh, Andrew says so many men need things like the DSO fraternity, local and in person would be even better. Yes, I agree. And as the group grows, we've had guys that have, you know, said like, I'm in Iowa, let's get together at So-and-so in Cedar Rapids or whatever it is, Des Moines, and they get together and they have a little, you know, 3 or 4 person gathering at a bar or restaurant somewhere and shoot the bull while we've had some other guys. We had several guys get together in Amsterdam. We've had our guys in Australia have gotten together locally. They have like their own little annual gathering that's pretty good size. 20+ dudes get together for that one. And they have a weekend of fun. And they're getting ready to have their third one, I believe, in Sydney in October. And our man Steve is the guy who heads that up. He's kind of our head of Dad Starting Over in Australia. And we're a pretty big operation. We've got guys all over the place. And we're helping a lot of dudes and changing a lot of lives. So we are very fortunate in that way. Let us, and here we go. CLD Gaming, hi from Australia. Love your books and the frat. I attended Matefest. That's what we call the Australian version of Brofest. He met Scott M. and loved meeting other men in similar marital situations. And he's a lifetime member. Well, welcome. Thank you so very much, CLD Gaming 6. Love you, brother. Appreciate you a great deal. I'd love to have you in the group. And Daniel says he's in Parker, Colorado. Very cool. So we got Colorado, we got Arizona, we got Maryland, and we got Australia in the house. How cool is that? So yeah, I like— love it, guys. Get on here, let me know where you're from. And Mr. Joey— hello, Mr. Joey. He starts things off today with a question, and I welcome any and all questions here. So please bring your little question scenario stories, anything you would like to share, please do share. And he says, any recommendations on how to heal when your wife cheats on you with a teacher of your kids? Oh, and then replaces you with him, and the guy has— oh Jesus— an extensive criminal record, yet she still seems to breadcrumb you daily. Can you tell me what you mean by breadcrumbing? I've heard the term many times, but as I've learned over the years, when people start spitting like these colloquialisms, these sayings, these little terms at me, they mean different things. So breadcrumbing could mean like, is she sexually like enticing you? Like, come on, big boy, let's do it. Is she trying to play wife again to you? Are you guys still together? He says you replaced with— yeah, she still breadcrumbs you daily. Does that mean she's reaching out and trying to form like romantic bonds with you, friendly bonds? So maybe help me out with that. What do you mean by that exactly, Mr. Joey? What does the breadcrumbing mean? Then we can get get into it. But as you probably know, not an uncommon scenario, unfortunately, what you're experiencing here. I'm sorry, brother. Um, Joey answers right away. He says that you got to realize that her actions reflect more about her than they do about you. I'm gonna take this off, I don't need this. Um, that said, working on your own mindset can make a world of difference in healing. If you aren't in the fraternity, join. There's a lot of help there for you as you heal. Thank you, Daniel, for that. Appreciate that. Um, dsopaternity.com, use coupon code, uh, Frat2024. Is that right? Yeah, Frat2024, and you'll get 30% off lifetime membership. Check it out, my man Joey. Uh, would love to have you. Uh, here's Tim from Chesterfield, Michigan. Glad to be joining in. Thank you, Tim. Thank you for joining us. And then we have Eric from Saskatchewan. Boy, we're just tap dancing all over the globe, aren't we? Thank you for your work. That your team has done. It has changed my life and relationship with my wife. Very good, thank you Eric, appreciate that a great deal, buddy. Yeah, Joe wants to know, how does this guy have an extensive criminal record and he's still a teacher? Guess it depends on the crime, right? Or does it? And then Andrew says, Joey, keep your emotions in check. Be a rock, brother. Hit the gym, join a men's team or the DSO frat. Only vent to your men. Ignore her as much as possible. Don't let her see that she has any effect on you. Unfortunately, there isn't much you can do about her life choices. Well, that's a big, Big little nugget of wisdom right there. Don't stress so much about, I can't believe she did this. I can't believe she ran off with some criminal. I can't believe she blew up our family for a guy who's literally a criminal, has a long criminal record. And then this breadcrumbing thing, I can't believe she's still reaching out to me, touching me, and giving me little nuggets of hope, I guess, little crumbs of hope that we're still a thing. This is all hand in hand for somebody who's probably dealing with— suffering from, maybe too strong a word— what we call a personality disorder, such as borderline personality disorder. It is— and I'm not diagnosing her, I'm not a mental health professional. You'd have to sit down with her for quite a while and really talk to her a lot about this stuff before you diagnose a person like this. But let me pause my, my line of thinking here because Joey is also saying— good question— she seems to be trying to fill in the gaps that she never did in the relationship. She keeps my photos and art up everywhere, and she has told family that she's still on the fence. A small box of hope is what I'm handed. Yeah, you gotta let her go, dude. This is exhibit number 9,222 why you let these kind of people go. And these kind of people are, a term I use which a lot of people really don't like, is fundamentally broken. A woman who has a family, who has presumably a good husband, Mr. Joey here, blows it all up to go chase a convicted felon, criminal, and start up a romantic relationship with him, and then in turn still has her hooks into the ex, Mr. Joey here, saying, "Haven't forgot about you. There's still a possibility of us." It's sick, it's twisted, it's wrong. She has a lot of problems, and it's not your damn, it's not your fault. For one, it's not your responsibility. That's the word I'm looking for. It's not your responsibility to deal with this, to help her with this, to help her overcome this, to figure out how to make you two work with all this. No, dude, take it from me and a lot of other men who have been there and done that. You just got to wipe your hands clean and just say, sweetheart, go live your life. Best luck to you. I wish you all the best. I hope things work out for you, especially for our kids and everything else. Um, but I Ooh, I gotta back off. This is crazy town USA and I don't wanna be involved in this. I'm a bigger deal than this. That's the thing, that's a contentious point for some. Some would listen to me say that and say, you're actually not a bigger deal than this. The biggest deal is the family unit, the relationship. A lot of people, you know, worship at the ground or the feet of the relationship. It has to be saved at all costs. Yeah, but she ran off with a criminal. She's doing this crazy thing, maybe a substance abuse problem. You know, I've caught her with half the town in bed and yada, must save relationship, family unit. And I'm just like, bullshit, that's just codependent behavior, codependency 101. Uh, you need to run for the hills. Um, so Andrew, good point here for Joey. Are you know, what's the state, Joey, of your, um, relationship? Are you technically still married? Are you just separated? Is she literally in another place? Are you guys living under the same roof still? Um, a lot of different flavors and permutations for how this can play out. And, uh, what I can tell you, Mr. Joey, is you need to enforce boundaries and you need to say, um, I am not interacting with you in any way. You there, me here. When we talk, it's only to deal with children. Or the logistics of divorce and everything else, talking to attorneys, whatever it may be. Otherwise, do not speak to me. Do not reach out to me. You— I, I'm speaking for you, Joey. I am a sensitive person and I do not want to have my emotions toyed with. I'm feeling still traumatized by this breakup and by the crazy shit that you're doing and by you reaching out and doing all these other things. It is very cruel to me. So do me a favor and don't do that anymore. Leave me alone. If you continue to harass me or whatever, blah, blah, blah, then I'll have to take next steps to ensure that you can't reach out to me anymore. And I really don't want to do that anymore, etc., etc. Um, but you're going to have to be the quote bad guy, and which is actually the tough guy, the healthy guy, mentally healthy guy, and say, don't, don't, don't, no, we're not doing that anymore. You made your bed, now you gotta lie in it. Go be with criminal teacher guy. Andrew says, "Protect your assets, prepare for divorce, hire a lawyer, but I suggest using mediation, and don't date during your divorce." Something that's very common for guys in Joey's position. They just wanna feel better, and nothing makes you feel better than getting you a new gal. And Joey, Ralph Brewer further, uh, fleshes this out, as I often say, and says, the toughest part is seeing my kids in the middle of it. Um, I'm making it a strong point to heal, stay sober, and create quality time with them, even if now I'm going to lose my business more than likely. I'm divorcing her and dealing with custody now. Uh, so now she wants to talk daily about the children, which I get, but it's like pulling a scab and it gets infected. Um, is she using the children as kind of a bridge between you two and a reason to go out and get validation from you and push your buttons. Um, one way of looking at this, which is not wrong necessarily, is when these people, these broken borderline, whatever it may be, type of people consistently reach out and push your button, it seems like they're constantly trying to reach out and hurt you. Like, um, I know you like this. I've heard stories from men. Um, I'm trying to think of some where catch his wife in an affair. Wife breaks his heart. Wife really treats him like dirt, wants nothing to do with him, and then will do awful things like send pictures of— hold on a second, somebody's trying to come in the office. Wrong office. Um, send pictures of themselves like scantily clad in some kind of outfit saying, look what I'm wearing for my new man, don't you wish you had this? You know, really mean, awful stuff like that, just trying to poke at them and make him feel as bad as possible. And this is why you got to kind of— nope, stay away. I remember one poor guy that I was talking to went to pick up his kid at his obviously very borderline broken ex-wife's place. They're in the middle of the divorce, and he goes to her place, and she's something like, can you pick up that trash can and bring it over to the house, please? I haven't brought it up yet. And he's like, okay, fine. He's walking up her driveway and picks it up, and she said something effective: if you see any used condoms in there or something. I'm sorry, haha, or something like that. And he's like, so in other words, just putting the knife in the gut and twisting it, you know, a little bit just to hurt him. And, and that's why I told that dude, I go, that's clue number one for you. Don't do those things anymore. Maybe you pick like a public place to do the, the custody swap thing— police station, shopping mall, somewhere else where you don't have to deal with all that bullshit. And you just go, thank you, goodbye, and run off. So you got to figure out some way to enforce a boundary like that. Otherwise, your mental health is very much in jeopardy. Andrew says, yeah, document everything, keep a journal. Yeah, this is hell you're going to go through. There's no doubt about it. You got connected with a crazy one. You made babies with a crazy one, and that's— you're going to pay for it. You can't get out of that scot-free and not pay for your mistake. You made a big oopsie. Years ago, you're gonna pay for it, but you have to. You have no choice. You gotta go through all this. And then once you're on the other side of all this stress, awfulness, whatever you wanna call it, believe it or not, you're gonna be like, I'm kinda glad I went through all this. It taught me a lot about myself. It made me really face the music about me and my deficiencies that I have, 'cause you got issues too, Joey. We all do. But I can safely say you have issues because you connected with such a person. Made babies with such a person, hanging on to such a person. I have a feeling that her running off to Mr. Crazy Guy, Mr. Criminal Guy, is probably not her first foray into behavior that makes you go, "What?" Probably little things throughout the years, and those little things are what we call red flags, and what is it about you that didn't recognize and act on all those things over the years? You're going to, in the subsequent years here, post-divorce, post-breakup, you're gonna have a lot of "oh" moments where you think back to those times. You go, oh, that's what that meant. Oh, when she said this, that's what that meant. I wonder, is this her first foray into sleeping around with others? Is this— did she have a substance abuse problem? All kinds of stuff will come to light, if you will, as the fog clears and you're not so in love anymore. And, uh, Andrew says, yep. Uh, apologize, I'm going back and forth here. I got different windows and things going on here. Anything else, guys? Thank you, Joey, for bringing that to us. I appreciate it, buddy. Means a lot to me and to all of us. These are the kind of discussions that we have often in our DSO fraternity group, dsofraternity.com. Use— choose the lifetime membership. And if you're kind of like, uh, pricing's a little high for me right now, then use the coupon code FRAT2024, all one word, F-R-A-T-2-0-2-4, FRAT2024. You get a whopping 30% off of the lifetime membership. Let's get a lot of lifetime members here signed up. And by the way, if you're an existing DSO Fraternity member and you're watching this, that applies to you as well. You can upgrade, if you will, from your monthly or your annual plan and just do the lifetime and be done with it. And now's the time— 30% off. Can't get much better than that, guys. I guess you could get 100% off, but I'm not doing that. I'm gonna pay the bills somehow. Um, what else, guys? Anything else to share today? I have any ladies on the chat today? The ladies are always good for some, uh, subject matter. Um, where's everybody from? I think we already covered that. Uh, Joey, did you tell us where you're coming to us from today? I don't believe you did. I'm looking past here and other comments. No. While we're waiting for other stuff to come in, if you could give me a like, give me a share. Check out the subscribe button on Facebook. Check out the join button on YouTube. Those are quick, easy ways to, I guess, put a little few bucks in the tip jar and let your boy here know that you appreciate all that we do at the Dad Starting Over world. Or join the DSO fraternity. That's the biggest way if you're a dude. And Joey's coming to us from Washington State. I wish there was some kind of tool I could put like a map up here and put little pins as people say where they're from. So it's kind of cool so we can see visually where everybody is. But we're, we're plotting, you know, we're hitting like all the corners of the US and then Australia. So very cool. But I believe we had a Canadian as well. Excellent, excellent. Anything else, ladies and germs? Please don't be shy. Uh, give me a like, share if you could please, and any questions at all, hey, I'm here for you guys. We're already almost about a half hour into this. Pardon me while I take a drink. Talk amongst yourselves. All right. Hmm. The YouTube is humming along nicely as far as new subscribers go. I'm looking at here people that are commenting. Looks like it's, uh, Bunch of dudes from Facebook mostly. Couple of guys from YouTube. Welcome, welcome YouTubers. Appreciate you all a great deal. If you could like and share, subscribe, I would appreciate it. Anything else, ladies and germs? I'll wait a little bit longer. If we don't have anything else, I'll call her quits. Mr. Andrew says, "Dso, the chapter on why did she affair down?" was the light bulb moment for me that helped me understand her behavior. Um, thank you, Andrew. Good conversation starter here. What do we mean by affair down? So a scenario that is not uncommon is, um, and he's talking about the book The Dead Bedroom Fix. I have a section in there about affairing down, what it means and so forth. So, um, let's say you got a lady who is a I don't know, executive at some company or something, or she's like making a good living. Let's say she's a nurse. She's— nurses make a very good living, very highly respected field. And, uh, you catch her fooling around with somebody. Who's she fooling around with? A lot of these guys go, I don't get it, because the guy she's with is unemployed. Living with his parents, he's a known loser, maybe he has a criminal record and all this other stuff. And you're looking at the woman going, uh, this makes no sense. Because in our mind, and in the mind of many, if she jumps from guy A to guy B, well then guy B must be a quote upgrade. And what we've told ourselves over the years, and this isn't necessarily wrong, but it's not the full picture, is what do women value most in a mate? Is his ability to earn, his ability to provide, that he has a good upward trajectory. You know, for example, she may agree to marry a guy who is a medical student, for example, but hey, he's going to be a medical doctor later on. He's got a good trajectory. This is— this guy's a prize, right? So that's what we assume women in our lives, especially women that we love more than anything, that they would go for somebody who was obviously a catch. And then we see who she's with and we're like, I don't get it. What the hell? Well, different ways to look at it. Maybe the guy has some things about him that fill a need that she has. Maybe she's been looking for Mr. Loverboy forever. Maybe this guy's really good in the sack. Maybe the guy is really good looking. Maybe the guy's a little dangerous, aloof. He's got all these other things going on. Or another way of looking at it, which is often the case, is, um, your wife being with Mr. Loser Boy is not a downgrade, but it is rather a lateral move. In other words, this is going to piss people off, but I've said this many times. I've already pissed a bunch of people off for this. A lot of ladies don't like it when I say this. She goes over to Mr. Loser Boy because she herself is at that level. And we as spouses to these women don't really see it. Why? Because we're in love. We love more than anything. We have the old rose-colored glasses on, and we've been ignoring all these red flags all over the years. What's the phrase? When you got the rose-colored glasses on, all the flags don't look like red flags. They just look like flags, and we just ignore them. Because we love her more than anything. She makes us feel amazing. She makes us feel great. We are in love. We don't see all the bullshit that everyone around us sees, and we ignore, ignore, ignore. We ignore her past, we ignore her upbringing, we ignore her family, we ignore all this other stuff. Everything that paints a picture that should rationally— when she goes to Mr. Loser Lover Boy, we should look at that and go makes sense. Um, you know, for example, um, I, I believe I mentioned this scenario because this was a real scenario that I heard, but I believe I changed a few things and talked about it in the Red Flags book. I have a book called Red Flags, very short read, and it's also available on Audible and Apple Books Audio, short listen. But, um, a guy, uh, is in a hospital He meets a nurse while he's getting a broken collarbone or something, falls in love with her, learns about her past, and kind of scary. She used to, she was a teenage runaway, lived on the streets, got knocked up as a teenager, abuse, all, you know, substance abuse, all kinds of awfulness, but she turned her life around and she became a registered nurse. Good for her. And this guy, after only knowing this woman for a period of months— ouch— brings her and her child into his home. They become a big family. Everything's great. And then there were subsequent red flags throughout the relationship that led him to believe, or that should have led him to believe rather, that trouble's a-comin'. And sure enough, she goes and has an affair with somebody that makes him go, "What? Him?" It's like, yeah, because she was always kind of at that level. Hate to say it, this was kind of a lateral move for her. I've even heard some people say that their cheating spouse said, I never felt at your level, Mr. Husband. You were always— you and your family were always up here. I always felt like I never quite was at your level. You guys were just so perfect and everything was great. You and your mom were great. You and your career and all your education and degrees and everything were so great. And here I was down here. And I never felt up to your level. And when I'm with this guy over here, I feel more at his level and I feel more comfortable. Some women have just bluntly said that to guys. In other words, they're very insecure, and, uh, to get with this guy over here helps pump them up a little bit, and maybe they feel more comfortable with them as opposed to with you guys. Um, and Andrew says, yeah, family upbringing is very important. You can't save them from themselves. Yeah, with that being said, some of the best people I've ever known, the biggest winners in life, the guys who have it really going— guys and gals have it really going on mentally upstairs— come from pretty shitty backgrounds. So what's the deal? Does that— doesn't that just go against everything we just said? No, because those people that really got it going on actively fight against all that stuff that is trying to, uh, what's the analogy I often use, uh, it with these folks, it's like they're in a car that has really bad misalignment with the, with the wheels, the tires, the car is just a piece of shit and they're driving down the road and they have to make constant corrections on the road. If they take their hands off the wheel, the car just goes right off the road and smashes into a tree. So these The people that are good about navigating their past and overcoming their past realize, I gotta keep my hand on the wheel. I gotta make course corrections at all times. I have to reinforce boundaries. No, I don't wanna go out drinking with you guys because alcoholism's in my family and I'm afraid I may have that gene and I don't even wanna go there, so no, I don't go out drinking. Course correction. No, I don't wanna go out partying. Course correction. No, Mr. Hot Guy at work, I don't wanna have coffee with you. A little bit of course correction 'cause I recognize I have some impulsive tendencies in me. Me, um, some codependent tendencies in me, some insecurity. So they're always adjusting and navigating, and if they do it right, they stay on the road and they get to where they want to go, which is a happy marriage, happy life, whatever it may be for them. Um, that's tough. That's why those people are extra special. They're tough. If you can find one of those, great. But at the same time, you're always kind of, um, wondering when's the other shoe gonna drop. Is that the proper term? You know, This, this may go sideways. This person may have a meltdown later in life. All this baggage may bubble up to the surface, as I often say, explode at any moment. Such is life, you know. When you enter into a relationship of any kind with people, you're vulnerable to those, those kind of things, men and women alike. You know, I've heard women that are in the greatest relationships in the world, and then their 50-some-year-old guy blows up, has a midlife crisis, grows out the ponytail, gets the red sports car, starts begging half the town and leaves her and the kids alone, divorces her. It happens. Um, it sucks, but she was very vulnerable in that, you know, maybe stayed at home with the kiddos, forgo the career and all that other stuff. So we're not alone in our vulnerability, guys, when it comes to this relationship game. Uh, but when you have a good one, uh, many of us have determined that it's worth it as far as that fight, making those adjustments. Hmm. And good— and Anne says good support helps people with those fights. Absolutely. And that is something, Anne, that is missing a great deal in a lot of our lives is a sense of community. Um, I often hear of the overwhelmed mother archetype is, uh, something that we hear a lot. And it's not women making this up. It's not them just trying to be, uh, you know, martyrs or whatever. They genuinely feel overwhelmed. They have a lot of shit coming at them. A lot is expected of them as mothers. And it doesn't help when a lot of women have a lot of anxiety and eroticisms and so forth. Well, they will take on more and more and more. It doesn't help their cause. And it used to be in the past, you had Grandma living right down the road and Aunt So-and-So would stop by often, if not living under the same roof. And, you know, extended network of siblings, cousins, friends, and so forth. Nowadays what I hear often is we just picked up roots and moved across country because of some career and now we have nobody. Now we're paying $8,000 a month or something ridiculous like that in childcare and we have no grandma, grandpas, or nothing. We have to all get an airplane and fly across the country for Christmas once a year and that's all we see our family. Not good. Community is very, very important. Um, Daniel says it's not uncommon the wife feels uncomfortable being around the husband they view as superior to them in some way. Whether true or not. To deal with that perception, they find ways to be comfortable by trying to tear the man down or associating more with those at their level. Yeah, not necessarily a wife-woman thing, it's a loser thing. You just described a— sorry if you hear noises, my stomach's growling. Um, but that's, that's a loser. Losers try to— what's the old crabs in a bucket mentality? Have you heard of this one? Put a bunch of crabs in a bucket, one of them starts climbing to the surface to escape, and what happens? The crabs below him go, "Not so fast, mister," and pull him down. It's the old crab in the bucket. A lot of men have seen this, and I know this isn't necessarily just a man-woman thing, but who do I talk to? Who am I? I'm a dude, and I talk to dudes daily basis. A common scenario is I, as a dude, gonna get into shape, this good physical shape. Wanna join me, wife? Wife says, no, I'm already burdened. I don't have time for that shit. Every minute of my day is taken up by kids. And he's like, all right, cool. Well, I'm gonna go work out 3 days a week, 1 hour at a time. 3 hours out of my week, I'm gonna go get, get in shape. And by the way, I don't want to eat any more garbage, blah blah. I'm serious about this. I need to lose weight for my health. I want to look good, yada yada. And what a lot of men hope is that their wife would be their biggest cheerleader, like, there goes my man, I'm proud of you. I'll help you make your healthy food. I'll go to the gym with you. Rah, rah, go man. But instead, not every man, but what a lot of these men see is, is my wife like sabotaging me? Why does she suddenly bake my favorite cake? I just told her I'm trying to lose weight. What the hell? And she hasn't baked this cake in like a year. And now all of a sudden she's baking me my favorite cake. Now she's shaming me for wanting to go to the gym. I'm abandoning her and the kids. It's 1 hour. I used to just sit on the couch for like 4 hours a night every night with her and watch mindless TV. Instead of doing that, I'm gonna go take care of myself, you know, something that we all should do. But instead she's like, you're leaving me alone to take care of everything, you don't want anything to do with me, you don't anything to do with the kids. And the guy's like, kids are in bed, all we do is sit here and watch TV. I'm inviting you, you know, you can go to the gym if you want, I'll stay here, we'll take turns. She's like, no, no, no. Sabotaging. Piece of shit loser behavior. We hate to see it from our spouse, men and women alike, but oof, ouch. When we do, it sucks. Not uncommon. So thank you for that. As you can see, give me a little something to talk about. I just love to hear myself talk because I'm a dude. Something I've learned a lot. Guys love to hear themselves talk. We're a little egotistical that way. Guilty as charged. Yeah, staying in shape, says Daniel, can make the insecure partner feel more insecure. And then Joey's back. Joey says, I know someone who is now extremely jaded over marriage and relationships after a few failed attempts. He encourages not being co— I think he means dependent— codependent, which I get. He encourages dating outside of the States due to the lack of values and morals here in the States. Is there any value in— what is the value of a modern-day relationship these days in America beyond the bloodline? He likes to rebuttal that most people are miserable. Well, your friend sounds awesome. Um, so, uh, you know, here's the deal, dude. There are bazillions of people in the States, really, really good people. Really, really shitty people. If, um, let's, let's be pragmatic about here and look at the stats, try to look at this scientifically. All right, let's say I'm a newly single dude, I'm 40-some years of age, now I'm ready for whatever reason, however long it's been since divorce, whatever, I'm going on the market. And we go to what, online dating? Who are you going to see? A bunch of quote broken people just like you. Jaded people, people that couldn't make the relationship work. Assuming you're going to date within your age range, let's say 30-plus-year-old women, they're on online dating, probably failed relationships. Um, if we look at the stats, probably those women were the ones to say, I want a divorce. Well, then that begs the question, why? There's all kinds of legitimate reasons why. Maybe they were abused. Maybe their husband was a gigantic shithead. Who knows? Maybe wife was a gigantic shithead, I don't know. But we're not getting people that are fresh and energized and ready for the relationship game. We're gonna get a lot of jaded, angry, pretty miserable people. Not all of them, but a lot of them are. And you can get jaded pretty quick. So you put yourself out there and you say, here I am, world. And then next thing you know, you get— number one difficulty is a lot of men barely get anything back. Here I am, world. And the world says, don't care. And the men are like, well, that fucking sucks. And then they do get a bite, and the women they talk to, they're like, oh God. And let's say then they do the old-fashioned way and they wanna go out maybe to a singles bar. Hello, who are you? Go to hell. Okay, cool. There's a certain personality type that is able to weather that storm. And that storm is, by the way, it's always been there. This isn't anything new. Men have had drinks thrown in their face, called weirdo, called, you know, loser, leave me alone, dork, whatever it may be. Generations this has been going on. But certain personality types don't handle that very well. There's a man who gets a drink thrown in his face, he's like, I'm out, I'm done, all you women are insert awful name here, I'm out of here, goodbye. And he doesn't get anything for a year or more, and he's like, see, it just sucks. Well, another dude who's less neurotic, gets a drink thrown in his face. He's called ugly, he's called fat, he's called gross, and he's just like, I really don't care, let's go on to the next one, and the next one, and the next one. And sure enough, he gets, quote, lucky, and he meets a gal, and they hit it off, and he's rolling in the hay with him. And you ask that guy, he's like, oh no, this is easy. Like, easy? It's a different perspective on everything. With that being said, you're talking about, uh, uh, going outside of the US. Well, I, I've mentioned this in other videos. Confession time. There, well, there's this, this scenario right now that they call them passport bros, passport brothers, in other words, meaning guy American dudes that just say to hell with you American ladies and they get a passport and they go overseas somewhere. Let's be honest, usually to some economically downtrodden area, Latin America, Far East, somewhere where a lot of admittedly youngish, attractive, quote, feminine ladies know all the tricks to get Mr. American guy with a few bucks in his pocket to go, whoa, what is this? This is awesome. And that guy feels like a king when he goes over there. It's not just gold digger women trying to get, you know, into the pockets of men. That exists. That is common, let's be honest, right? It happens a lot. But it's culturally, people tend to be much more open personality trait-wise, much more open to experience, much more friendly, probably more sexually open. An example I often give is a guy will go over to some, let's say, Latin American country, and he just stops some random gal, not in any sexual way or whatever, and just says, where's the nearest ATM? Can you help me out? I'm lost. And the woman grabs him by the arm, says, "Come with me, handsome," and marches him a few blocks and is asking him all about himself and blah, blah, blah, and drops him at the ATM and said, "There you are, have a good one." He's like, "All right, see you, bye." And he's like, "What the hell was that? She was so nice, pretty, friendly. I'm not made to feel like a loser." That guy then goes to, let's say, New York City or something. "Excuse me, can you fuck off?" "Okay, thanks, appreciate it." It's a different world. So we have that culture of more openness and friendliness and also the sexuality, all this other stuff, and it's very, very attractive. I get it. Now, what I was saying about confession-wise is that when I look back, I have to laugh because my father was a passport bro. Let's be honest, my father was an American GI who was stationed in Spain, and he met a pretty young thing, my mother. They got married really shortly thereafter. Had me really shortly thereafter, then moved back to the States. I met my first wife, who was very much an American. That didn't last long. And when I divorced her, I seemed to be attracted to— in my defense, there's a couple of characteristics of women that I seem to be attracted to. One is intellectual, high intellectual capacity, I guess you could say. Really smart gals. I like to talk, surprise, surprise. And I'm very, very turned off by very shallow people, very dim. I don't care if they look like a Playboy model, I can't deal with it. So if you're a good talker and you have an interesting background, if you're a PhD in something or whatever, I'm probably going to really like you. That's just me. And so when I look at gals that I met and chatted long-term with, had dates with, or whatever it may be, There was— that was a characteristic amongst all of them. And another characteristic amongst, amongst most of them was not American. How interesting is that? I remember I dated a South African gal. I dated a Palestinian gal who also happened to be half Puerto Rican. That's cool. Um, what else? Hmm, there was a Okay, jump to the gal that would later become wife number 2, who was a half-Indian German. So there's something about, quote unquote, I don't— what's the term to use? Ethnic? I don't know, is that politically correct? I don't know. Not WASPy gals that I like. And maybe because my mother was Spanish, you know, I don't know, maybe Freud would have something to say about that. I don't know, but that was just my thing. I guess that's a long-winded way of me saying I get it. Something about the non-American smart. I'm not looking for downtrodden, needs me to pay for everything, whatever. I also tend to be, because of their high intellectual capacity and their intelligence and everything, they also seem to be very successful gals. I also like to be around successful women, financially successful. They can take care of themselves. My now wife is a surgeon. A pediatric surgeon. It could also be said maybe I like Type A women with more masculine energy, some may say. I don't know, but up for debate. That's who I like. So I don't necessarily prescribe 100% to the Passport Bro kind of ethos, but I get it, I guess is what I'm trying to say. To each their own. Whatever floats your boat there, mister. Mark says, my wife broke up with me Since July. While I'm hoping it's gonna be better, she keeps preparing her future after me. Okay, so let her go. We built a new house. Oh well, that was a mistake. I've spent less than 2 months inside. She was pissy everywhere. Hope that doesn't mean pissing everywhere. She's a good dog. Should I leave the house? No. I left 6 weeks and came back. It's just getting worse. Okay, hold on. I'm trying to piece this together, Mr. Mark. Your wife says, I don't want anything to do with you anymore, so she dumped you. Um, so you're over. Sorry. Um, you built a new house. Who paid for said house? Is this, you know, financially, if you go to an attorney— I don't know where you're from, Mark— um, an attorney, solicitor, lawyer, whatever you want to call them, if you, if you went to them and said house, who gets that house? We are no longer a couple. Um, what would they say? If they would say, Mark, you paid for all of the house, it's yours, buddy. Or would they say, you married her, she gets half of it, so you got to figure out how to split the asset, you know, the equity in that home. Wherever it— you know, Andrew's here saying don't leave the house. The— what I've learned over the years is that the legalities and everything are so different. Hell, just within the United States, state to state, they are different. Canada, US, what to do, what not to do. It varies county to county, state to state, province to province, country to country. So I don't know. You're asking kind of a legally kind of thing, and that takes an attorney to sort that stuff out. They will tell you what to do, what not to do, how to be careful. Don't make this kind of mistake because it could cost you big time in the long run. So, uh, yes, you are done. You need to come to terms with the fact that you are done, Mark. You've been dumped. You're just hanging on to this woman's leg. What do you expect her to do, suddenly go, oh, you know what, never mind, I love you? That— it doesn't work that way. Um, she thought long and hard, even after building a home and doing everything else inside. She's like, I don't want anything to do with you. There's probably somebody else in the picture, who knows, maybe not, whatever. But you gotta let her go, and you gotta figure out the legalities and financial this and that for how to best navigate all this stuff going forward. All right, brother. Um, I'm going to assume— and then Andrew talks about varying state to state. I'm going to assume, uh, Mark is in another country. Let us know, Mark. Just curious. Andrew says here that Korea has a short— South Korea, rather, not North Korea. South Korea is a shortage of men. Could very well be. Could be. I understand, uh You know, looking at this from a very shallow point of view, admittedly shallow point of view, kind of silly when you look at this mating game and what's going to push me over the edge as far as to get picked as a man. I mean, let's think about this, this whole mating game, this whole mating thing is a big dance. Pick me, I'm a dude and I'm worthy of your time and energy. And the woman says, okay, I'll talk to you. You know, on online dating, the dance is the The initial dance is what? The profile image. That she sees the picture and she goes, he's cute enough. And then she reads more, she goes, he sounds interesting. Okay, I will accept his chat invitation or his message or whatever. Thus the mating dance begins, right? Well, a lot of men are saying, these Passport Bro types and stuff, is you can kind of jump ahead in line, if you will, just by virtue of being an American dude. You plop yourself in Brazil, South Korea, wherever it may be, and go, look at me, I'm John, Mr. American. And they go, well, you can jump from this place in line to right up here. And he's like, sweet. He doesn't have that social cachet, if you will. New York City, Minnesota, or whatever, and he doesn't get him anywhere. Hey, I'm John from Florida. So the F what? Jumps over to the Philippines. Hi, I'm John from Florida. He's just swarmed by 4 beautiful women. So of course it's going to be attractive to him. I get it. I'm not going to call him some kind of loser or whatever for doing that. Have fun, buddy. Enjoy yourself. But realize, guys, if this is kind of a lifestyle, if you want to call it that, that you want to pursue, it's not all wine and roses. Some of you are going to get a gal who's going to say, I'm going to be anything and everything to you, and you bring over to the States and you're like, oh shit, that was a mistake. Or even more nefarious is, uh, you're physically in danger when you go over there. The next thing you know, the woman's taking you to her place and you're getting robbed by 4 guys. I don't know, these kind of things happen, so be careful. Hmm. All right, anything else, guys? It's been about an hour. Well, that was fast. I appreciate y'all being on. Something from Nothing, that's an interesting name, from YouTube says he's done tons of personal changes and wife says, where were these— oh, where were these changes, uh, 8 years ago? She's not wanting him to change or trying to improve the relationship. Okay, so I mean, I go to my If my wife put her foot down to me— exercising for me, it's like a big thing, it's a big part of my world, working out. If she came to me and said, I don't want you to do that anymore, I'm like, why the eff not? What are you talking about? I just don't like it. Okay, anyway, I'm going to the gym, you know. I— it's, it's silly talk. It's crazy. It screams of insecurity. It's a little nutty. Has no place in my world. I'm bigger than that, you know. I don't want you reading books anymore. What? It's that level of nuttiness. So you're making all these changes and your wife goes, "Yeah, I don't like it. Go fuck yourself." I don't care. Sorry, that sounds cold. But, you know, where's this coming from, wife? Why are you so bothered by this? What's up? "I'm worried about losing you." Why are you worried about losing me? "Because you're going to get all good looking and pretty and attract some other girl and you're going to run off with her." Why would I do that? Do I have a reason to do that? You know, talk it out. Maybe it's just good fodder for discussion, or not. Or maybe you realize, oh, she's just an insecure ass. Don't know. Men and women alike have to deal with this. You know, the woman puts on a cute little outfit and the guy goes, where are you going dressed like that? She goes, I'm going out with Candace. We're having coffee. Yeah, you have to wear a pretty little sundress like that? What's wrong with the pretty sundress? Why does this bother you, Mr. Husband? What are you so insecure about? I'm not insecure. You just don't— you just don't know about men out there. So a man may hit on me, right? Yes. Yeah, men hit on me all the time. It happens. I just say I'm married. Buzz off. Sorry, dude, I don't know what to tell you. These are the kind of conversations that us men need to have as well. Um, all right, well, thank you for that. Anything else? Anyone? Going once, twice. If not, I'm gonna call her quits. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Remember that one? Ferris Bueller? Showing my age. Well, thank you all so very much. The DSO Fraternity, I'm going to put it in here. DSO— let me see if this works without putting the HTTPS. Does that work? dsofraternity.com. Does that link work? Anyway, go to that, dsofraternity.com, and use coupon Code FRAT2024 for 30% off lifetime— wow, I can't read— membership. I hope that makes sense. Yeah. All right, cool. I did it. Coupon code FRAT2024 for 30% off lifetime membership. You pay once and done. Makes sense to me. But I'm a little biased as the dude who started the group. But check it out, For Men Only, big support group, guys from all over the world. If you like this kind of content, chatter, talk, we have that in spades in the group, as guys on our chat here will attest to, guys that are members. Daniel says, thank you for your time. Well, thank you for your time, Daniel. Appreciate you, buddy. Thank you all so very much. Thank you all for joining in. Thank you for, uh, your questions today. Love it. And, uh, Andrew says, keep up the good work. Hang in there, men. It gets better. Thank you, Andrew, for that. Appreciate it. Yes, it does. Have faith, brothers that are going through hell right now. It'll get better. Just gotta have to have faith in yourself and the process and all that other stuff. Joyce says, appreciate your time and help, means a lot. Well, thank you. Appreciate you, buddy. And check out the group if you haven't done so already. All right, guys, thank you all so very much, and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your Thursday. Is that right? Yeah, Thursday. All right, guys. Thanks so much. Have a good one.