Chat LIVE With Ralph (DSO)!

The return of the intro music. I don't know why I stopped doing that. It adds a little professional touch, doesn't it? And you know that that was an officially— oh, I guess you could say licensed song, but meaning the guy who actually made that song did all the programming, guitar, all that stuff. Actually, I purchased the, the right to use that song, and even then Facebook says I can't use it for live stream. Speaking of Facebook, before I get started in all this, first of all, hello guys, it's your boy Rafa Lito. Back once again. You know, I have, um, let me pause my, my past train of thought from 10 seconds ago. I'll come back to that. Facebook, remind me, everybody. Um, I got some good Facebook stories. But anyway, it's been brought to my attention from an agency that I've hired here recently to help me with my YouTube channel. The YouTube channel, if there's guys that are frequenters, frequent viewers, subscribers of the YouTube channel The next few videos coming up are the same old, same old, but after that we're going to start seeing some new stuff, hopefully better stuff. Let me know what you think. New editing, new everything, themes, all that good stuff. But one of the things that they said to me was, you know, you don't really explain who the hell you are in your videos. You just, you have this, this pervasive theme of, well, you guys know who I am anyway, here's another video. It's like, most people seeing you are seeing you for the very first time. They want to know who the hell this guy is, what's he all about. So here you go, for those have no idea, going on now 13 years ago, I was in the same position that a lot of you guys are in right now. I went through a nasty divorce which included infidelity, which included me being a single father to 3 little kids, ages year and a half, 6, and 9 at the time. Again, this is like almost 13 years ago now. And I went through hell. And thanks to the help of others— therapist, other men, my own hard work, all that good stuff— I did the very hard work of rebuilding myself. And I learned a lot along the way, a lot. And I have passed on that wisdom, if you want to call it that, that been there done that knowledge, um, to hundreds and hundreds of men. And it's got to the point where I actually have written 4 different books. Number 5 is on its way, by the way. Tell you about that one, not this live stream, maybe in future ones. Um, I have a YouTube channel, hundreds and hundreds of videos, dozens of articles have been written out there that you can find penned by yours truly. I have formed a, a community organization, if you will. You can see behind me, Help for Men. You can learn more at help4men.com. Do I have the I do have this little banner here though. We have a private community for men, a members community called The Brotherhood. You can learn more at help4men.com/join. We get together, we do all kinds of cool stuff. We get together in forums, live Zoom meetings, we get together in person. We have all kinds of freebies available to our members, and the pricing is very, very fair. It comes to less than a dollar a day for the general public to belong to it. Yes, we have some overhead we have to cover. We're not trying to get rich, we're just trying to help as many men as we can, right? So we're trying to keep the cost as low as humanly possible. And good news, if you are a veteran anywhere in the world, military veteran, you get 40% off of that. So it comes to what, $16 a month or something like that? That is if you pay month to month. Even less than that if you want to pay on an annual basis, then you get like a couple months free thrown in there. And we even have a lifetime plan. In fact, almost 3/4 of our guys signed up for lifetime. But anywho, that's my story. Went through hell, came came out on the other end smelling pretty good. Have helped out hundreds and hundreds, if at this point not thousands of men. Written books. My most popular book is a book called The Dead Bedroom Fix. Many people know me from that. You can see a copy of it right back there. Um, and then below that you can see a little copy of another book I wrote called Real Talk. I have another book called Divorce Panic that's available, which by the way is free to you guys. Divorcepanic.com, check it out. Absolutely free. Download for free. Let me know what you think. Again, just trying to help out as many dudes as we can out there. If you're going through what I went through so many years ago with the divorce and the infidelity, I know, who the hell am I? What am I doing? A real identity crisis, if you will. That book is right up your alley, Divorce Panic. Anywho, with that out of the way, um, welcome everybody. You are— if you're watching this, you were just watching this on YouTube. In fact, what I need to do is tell everybody on Facebook, I got to remind them Should have done this. This is very professional of me. Pardon me. Boom. All right, anywho, so Where'd you guys go? I lost you. There you are. Okay, so anywho, where was I? Facebook. The other day, a few days ago now, I wake up to a notice on my computer saying, um, you have been penalized and your ability to make money has been taken away from you and your ability to go live has been taken away from you and all this other stuff on Facebook. I'm like, what did I do now? This is not the first time I've been through something like this, but usually what happens is they erroneously have demonetized me, penalized me, and then I go back and say, hey guys, I don't think you meant to do this. And they're like, oh yeah, our bad. And then they put me back on. Well, this time was a little different. It was based upon a post that I made where I took a screenshot of something that a guy posted on Reddit, of all places. It's been a gold mine for this kind of information. And, uh, the guy posts that he's been in a sexless marriage with his wife which is right up my alley because of the book I wrote, The Dead Bedroom Fix. Check it out, deadbedroomfix.com. And he came to the conclusion based upon some interactions with the wife, some things that were said, some, uh, action that he got from her the other day, yada yada. But the conclusion that he came to was, you know, maybe it's not a bad idea for me to pay my wife for her physical services. Like say, here you go, wife. What if I gave you $100 now, would you? And I took that screen capture and I put that on Facebook and I said, guys, don't do this. This is no way to go through life. This is an extremely broken thing to do. I think at that point I said, go read the Dead Bedroom Fix, deadbedroomfix.com, blah blah. That was it. Well, Facebook saw that. Their little robot algorithm, AI agent, whatever it is, read the text within that image and said, Ralph Brewer Brewer, we think you're soliciting, um, sex trafficking. You're promoting sex trafficking or soliciting for sex or something like that. I was like, God dang it, guys, no. I made an appeal and said, you guys misunderstood what I was saying, is don't do this, yada yada, and I explained the whole thing. Decision upheld. Facebook says, you don't make any money anymore on Facebook. You— no live streams for you for the next month. No promoting your page for the next month. But as far as the demonetization, that may be like indefinite. Great, wonderful. You know, Facebook wasn't like making me rich, but you know, I always put money in terms of like bills. Facebook paid my mortgage, if you want to put it that way. So it wasn't, it wasn't, you know, chicken feed. It was good little money. And how you make money on Facebook is there's a couple of different ways. One is that you get a little share of ad revenue when people watch ads, and then they also just Facebook just has like a pool of money that they give you a little bit of when you get a lot of likes and shares and everything on your, on your material. Not anymore for yours truly. So now I had to take it up another level to some other folks. Let's see what happens. I may be shit out of luck as far as making any pennies on Facebook anymore. Oh well. So all the more reason why I should concentrate more on YouTube and driving more people to YouTube. Let's get YouTube growing, guys. If you are not already, give me a subscribe, give me a like, share this thing however it works. I would really appreciate it. I have two different channels: Dad Starting Over— do a search for Dad Starting Over— and then, uh, Help for Men. Help for Men is just me interviewing important people. Uh, you may have seen my most popular interview was with Michelle Langley. She was the author of a book called Female Infidelity. Very popular topic amongst my audience for obvious reasons, and she had a lot, a lot of truth bombs dropped in there. I may not necessarily agree with everything she said there, but a lot of men really resonated with what she had to say. So check it out on the Help for Men YouTube channel. And then I also had a popular interview with Orion Taraban. Orion was also on the Dad Starting Over channel in a live stream, which was very popular. We've cut that up into clips, and all those clips have done really well. So my interviews, interactions with some popular figures out there in our world gets a a lot of you. So thank you, I appreciate that a lot. So guys, keep it coming and be on the lookout for updates with the Dad Starting Over YouTube channel. A new look, doing all that stuff, right? Cool. So that's where I'm at with the old, uh, Facebook, and that's why some of you hopefully have come over from Facebook and are watching this on YouTube. I can see my numbers are down as far as viewers. Oh well, maybe people will watch this on the, on the replay. It is what it is, right guys? But thank you for the few of you that are joining me today. How this, um, typically works is that I will open it up to questions from you guys, but we've got a relatively small group here so far, so I may not get any. But if I do, wonderful. One good icebreaker for these things is to say, um, where are you guys from? Where are you joining me from? Where in the world are you? I always love to see when guys are from all over the world that are joining me in these. It's always a good thing. So guys, don't be shy. Let me know where you're from and if you have any questions, anything at all for yours truly, some subject matter that I often talk about. At the top of this, I talked about the female infidelity thing. Yes, that's a big thing. Uh, divorce. And then the, the topic, the most popular topic of all the topics I've ever talked about in the history of Ralph on the internet or whatever— SEX. Imagine that. I could talk about depression and health and fitness and finance and starting over and parenting, and guys just yawn. But as soon as I say, so how about that sex and marriage thing, they come to life. I keep messing with this little thing. It's a little sponge thingy, um, to come to life. And, uh, um, so I wrote a book on it, and that's the most popular thing I have ever done, is that book over here, The Dead Bedroom Fix. You can learn more at deadbedroomfix.com. The biggest, most popular thing I've ever done is that book. That has brought more people to me and my material, put more money in my pocket than anything else, believe it or not. So if you want to talk about the old dead bedroom stuff, sexless marriage stuff, my thoughts on sex and marriage and dating compared to sex and marriage and all that fun stuff, I'm here for you. Let me hear it. I can get the ball, ball started, ball going, ball rolled, ball rolling. There we go. I can get the ball rolling by saying one little interesting thing that came up on Facebook that is good fodder for conversation. We talked about this in our Brotherhood group, our members group for men only. We have very frequent, uh, live Zoom meetings. I host myself at least 3 of them every week, sometimes more depending on if there's a special guest or something. Each meeting is at least an hour in length, sometimes more. And, uh, our coaches on our team, other teammates on Help for Men group, they host their own meetings. So we've got a lot of material. But anyway, we covered this the other day, um, and I'll get with you here in a second, Mr. Unveed. Good question, uh, but I want to cover this because I think it's just good fuel for conversation. I posted a— I reposted a meme, not my own, and technically, is it a meme? It was a screen capture of an article that somebody wrote online, and it was penned by a woman, and I don't have it here in front of me, um, a woman in England, I believe, who wrote an article saying, doesn't Sacha Baron Cohen— you know, the guy who played Borat— uh, doesn't he realize that his new post-divorce body— and for those that don't know, I guess his publicist has been working overtime to post pictures of Sacha online with his new buff fit body. He's a very tall, lanky dude. Now he's a very tall, lanky, muscular looking— very— he looks like a professional athlete kind of body. He doesn't look like a bodybuilder, but he's just very very lean, mean looking dude. And, um, this woman, uh, penned an article saying, doesn't Sasha realize that most women find that— what was the word she used? It wasn't reprehensible, but basically gross. Doesn't she really— doesn't he, Sasha, realize that his new lean, mean body is gross to most women? And I, I saw that, I was like, oh geez, here we go, this will be perfect for my audience. But Somebody took it up a notch. Instead of just screen capturing the, the title of that article, they put below that two images. On one side is Mr. Sasha Baron Cohen doing his workout. He's flexing his muscles like on the cable or the cable crossover machine, you know, squeezing the old pecs together. And then on the other side was a picture of the author. Yes, this is mean. I mean, let's be honest, the woman brought it on herself. I mean, come on, sweetie. You're messing with fire, you're going to get burnt here. And, uh, she's just a very plain Jane kind of blah-looking middle-aged woman, just what you would expect, kind of grandma-ish looking gal. And, uh, isn't that an interesting phenomenon, the whole people going after— and this isn't limited to women, but they seem to be really adept at this, um, when, when you see like an ultra level of success in whatever endeavor, in his case physical health and fitness When you see that, here's what I do when I see a guy like Sacha Baron Cohen. I go, oh wow, look at him, good for him, geez, done. That's it. Somebody who has a very low opinion of themselves, very insecure person, sees that and just immediately goes into, or goes into a negative mode. In one of the most, by estimation of women like this author, I think her name was Susan, we'll call her Susan, by the By Susan's estimation, the biggest way that she can hit Sasha below the belt, so to speak, hit him where it really hurts, is to say, Sasha, buddy, that's not attractive to women. Sorry. Now we can just pick that apart, can't we? How many of us have been, um, not very good shape? Maybe you're a little overweight, just schlubby as they say, blobby looking. Skinny fat, overweight, obese, whatever, and then you got in really, really good shape. What can every man who has been down that road attest to? Oh boy, do I get a lot more attention from the females. So it's very confusing to those men who experience that firsthand and probably know a lot of other men who have done the same, guys in the gym and so forth, who all say the same thing. You know, it seems like I got kind of buff, man. I was beating them off with a stick. And then you have Susan and others, this is very common sentiment amongst ladies on the internet especially. We do not like really fit-looking dudes. Now, with that being said, there is something to be said for the very over-the-top bodybuilder look, you know, roided to the gills, balloon bodybuilder, think Ronnie Coleman kind of look. Most people look at that and go, geez, dude, right? And that's about the extent of it. It's kind of scary, it's kind of over the top. Some men men, women think is kind of gross. It's somewhat admirable, the level of work and dedication it takes to get to that level, but it's by no means the stereotypical super attractive thing to most people. But what Sasha showed was just a lean, mean, athletic-looking physique. We know that, yeah, that's— that'll get you more attention from the ladies. You'll have better luck in the old dating game, if, as it were, you put yourself on the market. Yeah. You'll get laid more than if you looked the opposite. Such is life. Oh well, that's not a slam against the ladies. Attractive women will tell you the same thing. As soon as I lost 30 pounds and started dressing a little more risqué, hello attention, right? It's not a big deal, it's not a horrible thing. But to hear from, um, women like Susan— I think that was her name— hitting him below the belt, just, it's a lot of insecurity on her part. And women who do that, a lot of insecurity on your part. And it's not necessarily the most truthful thing in the world. That we— that's what us men can attest to firsthand who have done such a transformation. Um, I, when I first went through the divorce thing myself, again, it was almost 13 years ago now, so I can't believe I'm saying that it's been that long. First year or two, dude, I got into shape, like really good muscular shape, lost a lot of body fat, and I was proud of it. And yeah, I got some text messages at random. I got the Facebook message at random from a gal that I kind of sort of knew or something like that. Never ever did I ever see that before, but not until I was, hey, look at me, look what I got, I'm proud of it. Douchey? Yes, very much so. I was, you know, post-divorce, very needy, very manicky kind of acting out. I was kind of nutty, but that's what I did, and I got attention. Never have I experienced that attention before. And yes, I had luck with the ladies dating-wise, but I think what a lot— one case that a lot of women will make is that's for the dating market, but it's not necessarily for your more mature women, especially more mature women when it comes to when they are married. If you're with a guy for 20-some-odd years, he has your husband and father to your children, and there's comfort, there's stability, there's all this, and plus there's a lot of resentment, let's be honest, based upon some past actions and everything else, right? And then suddenly hubby loses a whole bunch of weight and gets six-pack abs and looks really good. That woman will say, that doesn't really make that big of a difference, he's still the same Bob. She may have a point, but what a lot of the Bobs of the world will tell you is, no, I still— that's— we still saw improvement in the old bedroom department as a result. In other words, it can't hurt to get in really, really good shape. It's good for your health, it's good for your confidence,. And if a byproduct is you get more attention from the ladies, so be it. And from what a lot of men will tell you, that's exactly what happens. I'm going to go to the comments because they're coming in, folks. Thank you so very much, I do appreciate it. I'm going to start at the top. Mr. Unveed, I believe it says, from YouTube says, hey DSO, how do you deal with your kids not talking to you after divorce? Thankfully I didn't have to deal with this. I've always had a very, very close, loving relationship with my children. And my situation was such— you hate to bring up old stuff, but if there was a parent that was kind of emotionally distanced from the kids during the divorce phase, it wasn't me. Just the opposite. So I was kind of their fallback foundational secure dude that they could count on kind of guy. So if for whatever reason your children are a little miffed at you, the divorce thing is going through or gone through and they're pissed at you for whatever reason, maybe mom has had a hand in that, the old what they call parental alienation, which is she's kind of demonized you openly. Your father is worthless. Your father did this. Your father doesn't want you. Blah blah blah. What's the only thing you can do? Can you sue her? No, probably not. Can you state your case to her and say, please stop doing that, it's not a nice thing? Sure. Nice little letter, email, whatever it may be. Tell her in person, this does not stand. Probably something in writing just so you have it, just in case you need it to show this is what I said. Um, but really the only thing you can do that you have control over is you and how you act towards the kids. So you show them via your action, Dad loves you and I'm here for you no matter what. But Mom says— that's fine, I'm sorry to hear that. That has to be tough for you to hear. But anyway, Dad loves you and this is— we're gonna have dinner. Dad loves you, let's go to the ball game. Dad loves you, let me help you with your homework. That's it, that's all you can do, man. And I know it's not the most glamorous flip-a-switch-everything's-better, um, solution here, but that's it, man. Be a good loving father, be supportive of them, and be patient with them. They're kids, probably, right? Young ones, they got a lot of emotions spinning in their head, and you have to be there strong for them to show, regardless of what you're giving me emotion-wise, kiddo, Dad's still here for you. I know you're going through it, I get it. 'Your whole world was rocked with this divorce and everything else, but Dad loves you. I'm here for you.' That's all you can do, man. Um, 17 years— this is from CR on YouTube— 17-year, uh, marriage, I think is what you're trying to say. Dead bedroom. So have you been sexless for 17 years, or are you currently dead? But, uh, says, 'I don't know how to communicate with her and the kiddo,' who is 17 years old. 17-year-old man. Okay. Um, and that has her stressed out. Kiddo about to leave for school, but I honestly don't think things will change. Would love to know more, my friend. I'm sure there's two sides of the story. Does she have a point? Are you poor at the old communication, or do you see this as kind of just her fallback typical stereotypical kind of excuse for not wanting to connect physically with her man? Learn to communicate. That's a very vague thing, isn't it? You You're like, what the hell is that supposed to mean? Let's sit down and talk every night. Let me hear what you have to say, wife. Go right ahead. I won't react emotionally and fly off the handle. Sure, I want to talk every day. I want to— at lunchtime, we're going to get together every day for lunch. We're going to have coffee every morning. And I don't, I don't know what that means to her, but she needs to spell it out. She's a big girl. That's what I would tell her. What does that mean to hubs? Now the thing is, and a lot of men hear me say this, will nod their head. What she has done is, in essence, when you go to her and say, why we, you know, do things in bedroom anymore, why don't— and what often goes with that is, why don't we ever kiss and hug anymore? Why don't we ever hold hands? Why don't we ever go to dates anymore? Why don't— why aren't we ever us anymore? What's going on with us? And when the wife is kind of emotionally checked out, she'll be like, oh God, roll her eyes and be like, let me think, let me think, let me think. Well, the chores need to get done. It's chores. That's why I don't like you very much, because you don't do enough chores. And if he's like a lot of anxious men, he goes, you got it, sister, and he jumps to attention and does more chores. And she's like, well, shit. And he comes to her going, now I do everything in the house. Well, and she's like— she does what she says in that case a lot of the time is, you shouldn't do things for the sole purpose of getting in my pants. You should just do things for the sake of being, you know, like team family here, and we got to get shit done. She's got a point, but you shouldn't be doing everything, everything either. And then she may throw out something kind of nebulous, uh, gray area thing like communication. And then maybe subconsciously she's thinking, ain't no way this boy's gonna figure this one out. This is kind of a vague thing. And then you get to work with, what does that mean? We're gonna do this, let's talk, let's go on dates, let's go to therapy. And she's like, oh God, she rolls her eyes again. She's like 'And now I need to come up with something else.' She keeps— what do we call that, guys? She keeps moving the goalposts, doesn't she? So that you don't score the goal, so that you don't win the prize of her affection. Why? Because she just flat out, for a variety of reasons, some of which may be completely valid, doesn't want you in that way, in a romantic way, anymore. And it really boils down to, is she willing to put in the work to reconnect with you, yes or no? If no, then you're done. You're kaput. The relationship is over. That's what a lot of anxious guys don't like to hear because they basically have told themselves, oh no, it's— this relationship will never be over. I'm never ever going to leave this woman no matter what. Well, shit, dude, you have no— you have no chance then. The human behavior 101: as soon as you take all the other options off the table, the other person goes, oh shoot, I don't have to put any work in. Then went off on a little tangent there, a little rant as always. Um, and Sierra continues on. No intimacy, no nothing, just roommates. She seems like she's just happy status quo. Could be, could very well be that she's happy status quo. Not uncommon. And you paying the bills and she doesn't want to disrupt her lifestyle. I think you just nailed it. That's a lot of such circumstances. And let's be fair, this isn't necessarily unique to women in the intimacy department thing. It's just in our world that's really common where they're just like, I'm cool, I'm awesome with the way things are. Now flip it and you have with the genders where the husband is like a very avoidant guy who just comes home every day after being beat down from work and he just puts his feet up, sits down his recliner, gets a beer, watches TV, passes out. And his wife's like, dude, this is no marriage, man. We don't ever go on dates anymore. We don't ever talk anymore. All you do is come home and pass out after a long day at work. And the guy's like, I work 16 hours a day, woman. What more do you want from me? Back to sleep, right? Um, and when they finally go to therapy, what does the man in that circumstance say? I'm fine, everything's cool. And she's looking at him like, you really think that this is okay? And he's like, works for me. I work my ass off at work every day. I just want to come home to peace and quiet. I want you to leave me alone, quit nagging at me, let me take a nap on my chair, let me drink my beer, and please shut up. Not nice, but she can't believe that he thinks that that's cool, and he can't believe that she's nagging at him for a variety of reasons. They're at a real impasse. So you're kind of flipped it, and you're like, want to connect, wife? She's like, why? I'm fine the way I am. She's the proverbial dude with her feet up on the recliner, isn't she? Kind of interesting. Project Alicia, that's an interesting name. Thank you for what you do. I have a close family member who's in a horrible marriage. I've sent them your YouTube videos. Oh, very good. I appreciate the calm demeanor you have in explaining very difficult things. Thank you very much, I appreciate that. Um, Anveed, back to you and your original, uh, situation there, talking about, uh, your mother— their mother has weaponized them after 28 years. Sorry to hear that, buddy. You keep texting the kiddos but no response to them. Oh, they're older, 26 and 20. Yeah, you're in a tough spot, man. You keep texting them, you keep reaching out, write letters, whatever you got to do, and eventually maybe you'll get a knock at the door or the old text message back saying, Dad, you want to do dinner? You want to hang out? And you'd be like, sweet. Oh dude, I've heard those stories and it's sad. It's so heartbreaking. These poor guys, they just want to connect to their kiddos. They've literally done nothing wrong and they're being demonized by these kids for so many reasons. And you have to realize At some point you gotta, you know, internalize it ain't the kid's fault, man. Mom is a psycho in a variety of ways. Sure, what are you gonna do about it? What can you control? Always comes down to that, doesn't it? Scroll, scroll, scroll. Unveed asks me, hey DSO, did you work at finding love again, or did it just happen when it was meant to happen? That's funny, isn't it? Um, you've just kind of, uh, pardon me while I adjust here, old man. Um, you've kind of romanticized something which I have over the years, my friend, uh, come to realize is, um, much more pragmatic in nature— finding a mate. And we have to look at it as kind of a task that you have to check some boxes to do. You have to put yourself out there. You have to network and socialize with a lot of people. You have to get involved in your professional circles, your social circles, your hobby circles, and friends of friends. That's how you meet a lot of different people, and that's how you get in touch with somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody kind of thing. That's how this works. Um, it doesn't just fall in your lap. It doesn't just— it was meant to be, it was meant to be. If you go through the relationship world going, if it was meant to be, you will never amount to dick. Sorry, language. But that's just how it goes. Uh, so many people get themselves in trouble once they're in a relationship by saying, if we're not lustfully on top of each other 24/7, I guess it wasn't meant to be. Gets you into trouble, doesn't it? Um, we have so many people that are, oh, 20, 30 years relationship, and things are familiar, and things are safe, secure, as I often say. And yes, there's an element of boredom as you settle into your, your, uh, life routines. And you're frankly, you're getting older. And then one of you has an inappropriate emotional connection— inappropriate meaning beyond friendship, um, connection with another human. Guy— let's stick with gal. Because I'm talking to dudes here, uh, mostly. Uh, gal meets guy at work, they have coffee every now and then, and she's suddenly like, I really like him and I really think about him all the time. He's the first thing I think about when I wake up, he's the first thing I think about when I go lay my head down at night. We text off and on all day long, I can't wait to see him the next day, my heart's jumping out of my chest. Holy shit, I'm falling in love with somebody. And then the follow-up to that is, I haven't felt like this and I don't know how long. That must mean that my connection to my husband is wrong, because if it was meant to be, hubby and I, I would feel like what I feel like with Robert from work over here, guy that I have coffee with. That must be meant to be, not hubby. You're just asking for trouble. You have to understand human nature and what it is. We're all susceptible to that connection to another person. At a very visceral, romantic, sexual level. You can't beat new, which is why we have to put up safeguards and boundaries, and then in turn why we also have to work on the romance and connection with our spouse, because that so easily fades, doesn't it? So that meant-to-be language gets us in a lot of trouble. So I'm skipping ahead to the once you're in a relationship, but now that you're okay out and you're looking for somebody else, now you're gonna have to actively work at it. Um, Most of us— some of us have the luck of just at some Christmas party for work and you, you know, shoulder up to some woman by accident, go, 'Whoa, sorry, excuse me, what's your name?' And the rest is history and you're married for the next 50 years. Sure, that happens. That's relatively rare from what I've seen. Um, I think maybe online dating and stuff has a lot to do with the— it's a little bit more difficult than ever. We could go on and on about this. But good question, thank you for that. And CR, you say I'm explaining your connection to your wife exactly with the dates and all excuses. Um, so would you say, CR, that you are the one pursuing repeatedly, consistently in this relationship, always reaching out to her, and she's always the one doing this with the hand, right? Like, that is what we call— if that's in fact your, your dynamic— the old, um, anxious partner— you, or a preoccupied partner is another term they use— mixed with the avoidant partner. It's very, very common in my world where the man is the anxious one. In fact, my book The Dead Bedroom Fix, my best-selling book— I say it's not like a New York Times bestseller when I say that, I mean of all the books that I've written, it's my best seller, that's what I mean— um, sold at this point like hundreds of thousands across all the 3 different versions and all the different, uh, 3 different editions and all the, uh, different versions that are out there, audio and otherwise. But anyway, um, that book is about becoming a more secure individual. That gives you your best chance of forming a healthy relationship with another person and healthy sexual relationship with another person. Funny how that works. The kicker though is that it may not be the person that you're with, the wife. That's the thing that a lot of anxious guys have a hard time with. Hmm. And then you say, Mr. CR, you've read The Dead Bedroom Fix. Thank you for that. So basically, I'm at the point to talk. So you think you're ready for the old healthy version of the talk, as we say, although it's not going to work. I guess I have to try. Well, that's not the— here's the thing. Make sure you're not afraid to put your foot down, Mr. CR. Yeah, this is important to me. I love you. That's why I'm with your wife. This is what I want out of our relationship. If you're telling me, wife, that this isn't what you've envisioned, that our current state you think is healthy and normal and okay and you can die like this, then we are on two different planets, sweetheart. And in fact, I would argue— sorry, you're probably on a different planet than 99% of men out there. Or people out there, most people want romance and connection in their relationship. There's a select few that don't, those avoidant types. They just don't have it in them. They don't understand that world. They're not built for this relationship thing. I'm sorry, for you avoidant types out there, which by the way, most of you are men, let's just put that out there, um, you ain't wired for this long-term monogamy thing. You get with somebody, you go through that in-love thing, you go for that new relationship thing, you fall head over heels, you get a lot of action done, right? And then you're like, no, I'm kind of tired of them. I don't really want to do anything more with them. It's not like I hate them or anything, it's just like I don't feel anything anymore. And you go on to the next one. The old serial monogamy, that's really common for the old avoidant types. Uh, Anveet says, I keep hearing don't chase women from multiple brothers online. Hard to know what to do after 30 years of not dating. Yeah. So what do they mean by don't chase? Just exactly that. Like, don't at a very unhealthy level go— you know, how would you chase online? Repeatedly text and message a woman that has shown you she's not going to reciprocate, she's not going to respond back. That's not healthy. That's you not taking the hint. That's you just, um, um, uh, being a little bit too anxious and too needy and getting validation and your sense of worth from others. Every time you get that little ping, the, the, um, notification on the dating dating apps or your text or whatever from a woman, you know, your heart pounds. You're like, yes, one of them got back to me! That's not good. I know that's common, but it's still not good. You're getting your sense of self-worth and everything else, and you feel like dog shit when they don't reply to you. Don't go chasing them and chasing them and go, make me feel good now, make me feel good now. And you got 8 different women that you're chasing all over the internet. Don't do that. Maybe you met them for a date and you text them and say, let's do it again next Saturday. And nothing, and you're like, maybe she didn't get my message, and you wait a little bit and text her again and still nothing, that's probably your clue. Like, it's over, dude. Sorry, she didn't feel the same thing. She has ghosted you. It's all right, no biggie. Not the nicest thing in the world to experience, arguably not the nicest thing for her to do, nicest way to go about it anyway, but say lovey, such is life, and you move on. Don't chase them. I would agree with your friends there. Um, and then you say very— and then CR, you just in one phrase said it all. You say, very much so, the dynamic that I explained. You say that's very much you and your, uh, your current wife. Did I just call her current wife? Yes, I did. Some food for thought there. Uh, you say, very much so, it's like I'm afraid to lose her and I feel like she's good either way. That's exactly the dynamic, my friend. The anxious, preoccupied person saying, I can't live without this person. And you zoom over to the other person and they go, yeah, yeah, I like him and stuff, I love him, he's a good dude, but if he were to go away tomorrow, I'll be fine. That's heartbreaking for the anxious person to hear. I'll be fine? What the hell? Aren't you as preoccupied with this relationship and the health of the relationship and head over heels and all this other stuff like I am for you? And the answer is No. And to build on that, Mr. CR, you have some work to do, my friend. See this little, uh, you should see it because I have it up here. I assume it's working for everybody. The graphic on the screen, help4men.com/join. I'm not trying to sell you something you don't need, brother. I went through all this shit myself years ago. What you're going through, it's like I'm talking to me from 12 years ago or so when I started dating. Yes, I started dating real soon after my divorce. Very needy guy, not good. Um, you're going to take that energy outside of this relationship, potentially, probably, because your hunch is probably right. Wife's gonna yawn or laugh at you when you come to her with such a thing. It's not until you slide divorce papers across the table that she'll finally go, oh shit, he's being serious. Um, but let's play pretend. And say that, oh, thank you, somebody gave me money. Anvid, you were the first dude to ever give me money on here. Hot damn, what do I do with this? I'm gonna buy a coffee. Just kidding. Thank you so much, man, I appreciate that. It's very, very nice of you. Thank you. Um, but anywho, um, you're going to take that energy, CR, and others like you, and, um, it's going to end up in a lot of chaos and future relationships. Relationships aside, let's just set all that aside and just talk about you. You have some work to do, my friend, on who you are and what you stand for. What do we call that? Your identity. This is a big crux of the book I'm writing right now, which will be coming out by the end of the year, hopefully. Um, still got a lot of work to do, audio and all the garbage. But anyway, your identity. What are your values? What do you stand for? That sounds like real just, I don't know, pie in the sky nonsense bullshit type of talk, but that's everything, dude. Because if you have a good sense of self, you're secure in who you are, you really like yourself, you're proud of yourself, you respect yourself— let me repeat that one— you respect yourself, you'll find you don't put up with a lot of this stuff. You don't even let that into your world, let alone put up with it. You see an inkling of that and you go, 'Thank you, sister, away you go.' When you're dating somebody and they let out something verbally or whatever, or via their actions, that makes you say, 'This doesn't align with who I am, my values, my identity, my purpose, my mission, my whatever it is.' That sounds very cold, but that's a healthy way of looking at life. Let's say you are a Oh, I don't know, let's say you're recovering alcoholic and you go out on a date with a lady and you tell her like, I'm in recovery, I've been sober for so many years, whatever it is. And she's like, oh, well, is it okay with you if I have a cocktail? And you're like, doesn't bother me at all, I've been around people that drink all the time. I'm the one sober, doesn't mean you have to be. She's like, okay, great. And the next thing you know, she gets fall-down slobbering drunk and she's hanging all over everybody and she's acting like an idiot, she throws up on the floor of your car and whatever. Probably not a person that lines up with your values, is it? Um, probably not somebody who falls in line with your mission of sobriety. A man with a sense of abundance and a sense of who he is and everything else says, "Lady, it was really nice meeting you, but I don't think this is going to work out." "Was it my drinking or something?" "Yeah, that was a big part of it. Yeah, but that's, that's my issue, not yours. But I wish you all the best, you know. I'll see you later." Well, a person with scarcity when it comes to relationships and no sense of who the hell they are and all that good stuff, looks past those things and continues to look past those things. Why? Because she makes him feel really good, and maybe she even gives him, gives him some nookie, which is really addictive, isn't it, when you're a very needy guy? And, uh, that's tough, but it's not so tough when you're a very secure individual who likes himself, has a good sense of value, on and on and on. That's the big game here, dude. All this other superficial stuff about sex and relationships and all that, it's just frosting on the cake. You gotta worry about the, the ingredients first. And that's what I mentioned with my group there, the Brotherhood, help4men.com/join, is a support community because you cannot do this alone. You can watch all the YouTube videos in the world, you can sit and listen to me blab on and on and on about this stuff, but where it really gets done is when you are in consistent communication with other men who are on the same kind of mission, getting better, not getting in this mess anymore, trying to figure out what's going on with you. Then, then stuff gets done, and then you have those aha moments, and then you're able to— all these YouTube videos you probably watch and books you probably read, and it all comes together and it all makes sense, and you, you realize what you can discard and go, I don't— that's not me. Because why? Identity, values. You know who you are and you go, that's not me, that's not me. I like this, let me take this, let me learn from that guy, let me learn from this guy, let me go meet these people in person, let me talk to this guy in a live meeting online and talk to other guys. And that's what these groups are about, groups like ours, the Brotherhood. Help4men.com/join. Check it out. How's that for an infomercial, ladies and germs? We got Metal GT. I think you were on here before. How to do, my man? What was it? What was lunch today? Chipotle, ladies and germs. One of my fallbacks. I am a man of habit. I don't know about you guys, um, I tend to kind of wear— I'm one of those guys that tends to kind of wear the same thing all the time, although different t-shirt today. Look at that, Help for Men t-shirt. And I tend to eat the same thing like all the time, and I go on kicks. So I'll go on a, a salad kick there for a while. There's a place down the road that makes a really nice salad loaded with chicken and all kinds of stuff. I did that for like a month straight every day. Chipotle is my current— been doing the Chipotle thing for a while now. I'll get tired of that and move on to the next thing. That's me. Probably a lot of you guys too. It's a, um, that's one of the quirks. I, I have not been formally diagnosed, but come on, uh, it's a neurodivergent thing, uh, ADHD, autism guys and so forth. We tend to all have relationship problems and we tend to be creatures of habit and we tend to really get into topics and all kinds of stuff. I could go on and on about that for a while because that's a big portion of my audience, I've learned over the years. Um, boy, how the dynamic changes. Because I just wanted to stay with my kids so I could put up with it, but with her about to be out of the house, I want more. I want normal. So you're doing the old empty nest syndrome. Kid out of the house, and now that really has you going, what am I getting out of this? That, that's You know what, um, as I often say, flip the gender. This is something that a lot of women come to terms with. There are a whole buttload of women out there in relationships where they don't feel anything for their dude anymore. Romantic schmoe-rantic, it is gone, and it's been gone for a long time. And when you ask them in a private setting, so why are you with him if you don't like him all that much, what do they say? Kids. We got a good thing going. Both of us make good money together. Maybe he makes the bulk of the money, doesn't necessarily need to be. He could be unemployed, he could be a stay-at-home dad or whatever it is, but still they have a good thing going with the family machine and keeping it humming along and all that good stuff. Um, so it's important to keep that running. And then kids go to college or whatever and she's like, why am I with him again? Uh, we call that gray divorce, divorce later on in life, and we see it's the vast majority of that is initiated by the ladies. So you're kind of in a similar situation there, Mr. CR. Where you're like, what am I getting out of this? Do I even like this woman anymore? Big question for you, Mr. CR: do you even like this woman anymore? Be honest. It's okay if you don't. If you've been rejected for years after year after year after year, you're supposed to not like them. That's what happens when you're rejected. Kind of like going back to the old other guy talking about chasing women— when they, uh, when they avoid you or shoot you down bluntly or whatever, that's your cue to beat it, leave him alone. You've been getting that signal from the wife for a while now. Um, best to all brothers. Hope to see you again in a better frame. Very much so. Check out the Brotherhood, my man. Check it out for a month or two. You may like it, you may not. May not be for you, but check it out. help4men.com/join. Join in on the discussion forums, live meetings, get together in person. We're having our, our 6th— I was about to say 1st, that's not right— our 6th annual conference is coming up. Number 6, uh, that we get together in the States once a year as a group. And we are opening up this next gathering to everybody. So we're like, come see what our group's about. And we call that BroFest. I know it's kind of douchey, but that's what we call it, BroFest. And, uh, there we go, brofest2026.com to learn more about it. I'll be there. Hanging out for a few— or 2 days. I'll be there for a few days, but the actual event itself is for a couple of days. Dr. Robert Glover will be with us as well, put on a presentation, hanging out with the group. Do you guys know Lauren, The Dadvocate? I know we have some Lauren followers on here. Lauren's way more popular than I am. She talks about, uh, advocacy for divorced fathers, her husband being one, and she's been talking about that and other relationship issues for years and years and talked to millions and millions of people online. And she'll be with us as well, hanging out for the weekend. Um, and we also have a gentleman by the name of Adam Nissensohn, who is the Betrayal Shrink. Talks to guys who have gone through the whole awfulness of being cheated on and having a difficult time emotionally recovering from that. He talks to men that have been through that, as well as men that are dealing with sex addiction. There's a juicy topic. So those 3 people, myself, and the rest of the Help for Men team, fellow Brotherhood members, non-members, we're all going to get together at BroFest 2026, which is March next year. So you got about 7 months before the a little less than 7 months before the event time. And that'll be in Louisville, Kentucky. Louisville, Kentucky on March 27th, 28th, if I'm right, um, next year. So check it out, brofest2026.com. Here's Mr. Fight for Better Now. A good thing to mention about— I think you mean gray divorce. You say great. Gray divorce, meaning gray hair. I know, coming from me, right? Bald. A good thing to mention about gray divorce is the fact that many women who get a gray divorce regret it. You know, depends on who you ask. If you put all the divorced women in a pool and give them an anonymous survey saying, we see you're all divorced ladies here, do you regret going through that divorce? What percentage of them would say, yes, I do regret it? I think sorry, fight, and others. Hey, been there, done that. I've been divorced. My ex said, see you later, dude, went for another guy. It hurts, right? But the data seems to show us that no, it's more so the men that are hurt more by the divorce than the women are. That's not demonizing men or women or making us look weak or whatever it is. It's just, let's just look at the facts. We don't We don't serve anybody by kind of conflating things and making them seem more hurt than us. And there's— this isn't a contest. But if you want to make it a contest and you want to look at the data, the women tend to, post-divorce, say— if you ask them, you want to marry again? More women than men say, oh, hell no, I like my single life. Why? Because, um, they've done a better job of cultivating a social network. They don't need men in that way. They got their girlfriends that they hang out with quite often, and they have a nice social network of friends, maybe their kids, other ladies, whatever it may be, uh, co-workers that they hang out with often, have pretty intimate, close relationships, platonic relationships with. And men stink at that. We really do. I say that as a fellow dude who's been an advocate for men for years. I can tell you unequivocally, we men tend to suck at forming social networks, and women do not. You ever notice, um, so many of us have been through— myself included, keep raising my hand— I've been through the whole wife cheated on me, wife divorced me, wife treated me like dirt, wife abandoned the kids, blah blah blah, whatever it is. And the man sits back and goes, I haven't had a single damn person contact me to say, how you doing, dude? Are you all right? Is there anything we can do for you? Yet he watches his ex-wife, usually on social media, or he hears it through the grapevine or whatever, and she's just getting people falling over themselves to help her. And he's like, there you go, there's the man-hating, there's the misandry, whatever the current word is these days. It's like, no, look at a little deeper. There's the woman formed a social network, plus combined with the old damsel in distress syndrome. People tend to come to the rescue of a woman who's not doing well, more so than the man. Um, but women do a way better job of forming a social network. And plus, a lot of our ladies that are in the Gray Divorce world are post-menopause. We all know the wonderful menopause, right? And so it could be argued that, um, hormonally, biologically, they have less of an urgency to pair up with somebody. So picture your typical— from my world— like, grandma. Women hate it when I say this, I don't know why. Grandma mode. What's grandma mode in my mind? I'm gonna sit here on the couch, I'm gonna crochet and watch my shows and get together with my lady friends, and we'll go to the book club, and maybe we'll go see a movie, we'll have tea or coffee together, and that's my life. And I come home to my pets, and I love my cozy little existence. That's my mom, by the way. That's their life. And then here you go going, you don't want a man? And they're like, man, what? I, I didn't even thought about it. That's not even in my world. Meanwhile, let's say that woman's like 58 years of age. Then you go to the 58-year-old dude and he's like, I'm still horny as hell. I still want action. I'm still perusing the online dating or whatever it is. I'm still looking at porn. I'm still wanting attention from women. I still— when that woman at the grocery store smiled at me, I still— I haven't stopped smiling. That was 2 weeks ago. He's still in that mode, and a lot of women are not. And that doesn't make us bad, doesn't make them good, doesn't make them bad. It just is, man. So when I hear guys going like, you know, most women regret after their divorce, I'm like, not what I've seen and not what a lot of survey data tends to show us. Sorry, but you know what, who gives a shit? Just live your life. It is what it is, man. Um, Hmm. Oh, then Jack, you're saying, remind me what gray divorce is. Gray is divorcing later in life, usually after kids are out of the house and all that good stuff. That's what we're talking about. Um, after kids and everything else, you look at each other and go, what are we together for anyway? And it's more often than not the woman that initiates that process, is what we've seen. Um, all right guys, it has been almost an hour. Good one. Thank you all so very much. Maybe the key for me to do these lives is just to do them on YouTube. Seems to be a better overall activity. And Facebook— screw Facebook if they don't want to let me do the lives on there for insert reasons. I don't know if you guys saw me in the beginning, I explained it. Facebook is screwing me over. They've demonetized me. They won't let me do lives because they misunderstood a post that I made. Seriously, I was telling people, I screenshotted something saying, this is no way to go through life, don't do this, guys. And they took it as me proposing that. It was a man suggesting that maybe he should pay his wife for intimacy. And I said, that's— don't do that, man. That's not good. There's no way to go through life. And they took it down and penalized me and demonetized me and the whole nine yards. Seriously. And it even, uh, they even went through a review process and they still upheld their penalty. That's Facebook for you, folks. So that's why I'm doing this YouTube only. All right. Guys, thank you all so very much. I do appreciate you. Thank you for joining me today. Brofest2026.com. What else we got going on? Help4men.com/join. So many of you, I see the same names over and over again in these. We would love to have you if you are the type that enjoys talking about this relationship stuff, enjoys helping other men, and open to getting help from other men, kind of missing that brotherhood, that fraternal whatever in your life. Maybe you've never really had that in your life. Maybe it's something you need to check out and see if it's something for you. I'm here to tell you what we've seen is that most guys join our group, they sign up for a month, they pay their $27 or less if they're a veteran, then they sign up for another month and they go, you know what, I— can I just pay you one lump sum and just be done with it? Don't have to pay any more payments because I know I'm going to be in this for years. And they do the lifetime thing. That is almost 3 force of our membership. That says a lot about our group. We did— we have a really good thing going. We work really, really hard at putting together a community just for men. HelpForMen.com/join. Check it out. We would love to have you, guys. Thank you all so very much. Appreciate, love each and every one of you, and we'll catch you on the next one. A toodaloo!