Chat LIVE with Ralph (DSO)!

Howdy do, ladies and germs! How you guys doing today? It's your boy Raffalito back live with you, and we'll wait a little bit here for guys to file in. Hopefully somebody joins me here today. It'd be kind of weird if I was talking to myself. Welcome everyone. I'm going to bring this little window over here so I can make sure everything's working properly. Yeah, it looks like I'm live. Very good. All right, cool beans, as we used to say as a kid growing up in Indiana. Anybody ever say that phrase, cool beans? I don't know if it's a very Midwestern thing. Where the heck's that even come from? What about beans? Oh, something on my face here. A little schmutz on my face there. Um, anywho, as I always start these things, although we hardly have anybody joining us just yet— usually it takes a bit for guys to file in here, like a half hour into this, which by that time I'm kind of tired of talking— but here we go, some people filing in. How it usually works is that, um, I turn it over to you guys and say, what do you want to talk about today? Do you have any, uh, Any questions or anything from you for yours truly? And I always like to start a little icebreaker. Where's everybody from? Before we get into that, where, where are you joining me from? I should say not where are you from originally, where in the world are you right now? Where are you joining me from on the interwebs? Uh, before we do that though, Ralph Brewer, that's my name. I've been putting out content under the name of Dad Starting Over for years now, over a decade now. Started off with a blog years ago, books which I still write. I got it Book number 5 is on the way soon, by the way. Uh, the most popular book I've ever written was one called The Dead Bedroom Fix. Sold hundreds of thousands of copies, people all over the world. That's how a lot of people know me, is through that book, The Dead Bedroom Fix. Glasses are a little crooked. As the name implies, it is a book all about sexless marriages, and that is the number one pain point for a lot of men all over the world. So I've written and done videos on parenting, finances, physical fitness, whatever it may be. But the number one topic that gets the needle moving more than anything else is sex and marriage. So you can see how important it is to a lot of dudes. So I wrote a book on it. There you go. It's my most popular topic by a long shot. Um, but I also have another organization. Let me bring up some, uh, banners here called Help for Men. And you can— there's the little— sorry, sign behind me. Oh, I got the t-shirt on today too. I forgot. Well, the sign behind me points at Help for Men. You can learn more at help4men.com. There you'll find articles, videos, courses, my books that I mentioned, also a community that we have called the Brotherhood. And you can learn more at help4men.com or jump right to the join page at help4men.com/join. It's a private support community just for men. Sorry, ladies. We have discussion forums that are very active. We have live Zoom meetings, very frequent, that we do multiple times a week, every week. We record all the meetings. We have over 1,200 hours of audio content, including recordings of those meetings, for our members to listen to. If you like podcasts and audiobooks and stuff, you'll love the Brotherhood. You'll never run out of stuff to listen to. All my books, no additional charge. Tons of videos. Uh, what else? Courses. We have courses that are available to the public. Some of those are at a discount. Some of those are free for our members. What else do we do? We get together in person. We have annual conferences in the United States that we call BroFest. I know, douchey name, but hey, it works. And the new one coming up is, uh, 2026. BroFest2026.com. Join us. We are open that— not only to opening that up— I'm a little fast with the talking today, sorry folks, had a coffee here recently. Uh, we are opening that up to non-members as well as members. So we want you guys to come see what the Brotherhood's all about. Join us. You'll meet me in person, if that means anything to you. Members of our team as well as special guests. Dr. Robert Glover will be hanging out with us for the week— a weekend, rather. Lauren the Dadvocate— have you seen her material? You probably have. You may not know the name, but you probably know the face. Lauren the Dadvocate— millions and millions of people have seen her videos and content out there. She's an advocate, as her name implies. For men going through divorce and child custody issues and so forth. Very popular on TikTok, YouTube, Facebook. Laura the Dad will be joining us for the weekend, as well as Adam Nissenson. Adam is the Betrayal Shrink. You can learn more at betrayalshrink.com. If you're a dude that's going through the whole awesomeness— I'm being sarcastic— of being cheated on by your significant other, Adam's your dude, the guy to talk to. He's got a book on the subject. He'll be joining us for the weekend. He also specializes in dudes that are dealing with sex addiction. How cool is that? So some hot topics there to talk about over the weekend. So we do like presentations and workshops and get together and just hang out, have lunch and dinner together, drinks after the fact. It's always a fun, fun time. It's the highlight of the year for our group, the Brotherhood. Now we're opening it up to the public. Come join us, see what it's all about. BroFest2026.com in Louisville, Kentucky, March 27th '28. We bounce around to different locations throughout the US. Next year's in Louisville. Before that, we did, uh, Charleston, South Carolina, New Orleans, Louisiana, Las Vegas, Nashville, Austin, Texas. We've been all over the place, so who knows where 2027 will take us. But in addition to BroFest, um, our guys— we have a large contingent of members in Australia, and they get together every year, and their conference is coming up next month. Their third or fourth— third Angel Conference, and they call it Mate Fest. See, we got bros and then the mates. I know. Uh, so Mate Fest will be going on next year in, I think, Melbourne. Oh, I should know that. I can't remember. This kind of jumped around. But, um, anywho, that's what we do. That's what I do. And I see some folks giving me likes and shares. Thank you so much. If you guys could do me a favor— oh, thank you for the like, Mr. Matt. On Facebook. And then we got a love from Miss Peggy. Oh, well, thank you, Miss Peggy, I appreciate it. Um, guys, if you could take a brief moment of your life and go down wherever you're at and go give me a like, that helps a great deal, believe it or not. That tells those— the social media platforms like, hey, other people need to see this, this guy knows what he's talking about. Okay, maybe that's saying a little— maybe I'm assuming too much, but what that does is it helps those— thank you, guys, thank you so much. That's, uh, we got Likes from Craig BP Quinn on Facebook. Thank you so very much, I appreciate it, guys. That means a lot, the likes and the loves and the shares and all that good stuff. Now the next thing to help me out is let's chat, let's talk. This isn't for you, you know, sit and listen to Ralph pontificate on and on. There's plenty of videos and content out there with me just blabbing nonsense non-stop. This is the time where I— you got a question for me? Or, you know, like, Ralph, this is what's going on with them right now, what do you think? Or to, you know, ask the group here, the guys that are joining us, this live here. Um, could be something I take back to the Brotherhood and we talk about it there and create a video about it. All kinds of different avenues to explore as far as ways to get help with whatever's ailing you. Or it could be just, you know, what do you think about this topic? Something you've seen on social media or whatever, some articles, books, whatever it may be that's come across your little algorithm there. Let's talk about it. There's all kinds of stuff. I always have stuff to talk about. I could go on and on, if you can't tell. Do love to talk. Let me get rid of this banner here. But I am opening it up to you fine folks. What would you like to talk about today? Please don't be shy. I am here for you. You know, as I said, we can always start things off of where in the world are you guys? You know, type in the comments there where in the world are you. I am right now as we speak in Plano, Texas, which is just— it's like a northern suburb, if you will, if you will. Rather, of Dallas, Texas. So it's a big metro area. Anybody from my little neck of the woods, say hey howdy. I'm in an office space in Plano. Let's get together, do coffee— or not. I'm kind of scared of the weirdos that are on the internet. No offense, guys, but you never know. I've run into some, you know, um, believe it or not, my face, it's rather distinctive with the baldness and all that. Um, I do get recognized on occasion out in the public, and that it strokes my ego, you know, gives me some little minor league celebrity kind of feel to it, but overall it's sometimes a little, little creepy. Uh, Mr. Christopher from Bloomington, I believe you've been on here before. I grew up near there, went to the Bloomington College Mall quite a bit. Very cool. Kingston, Ontario, excellent. Um, Matthew says you've been listening to my books. Well, thank you, Matthew, I appreciate that. Things are looking up in Chi-Town, very cool. Well, I, uh, I lived not too far from you for about 6 years in Peoria, Illinois. So how cool, we got, uh, we're hitting all the little spots where Ralphie Boy's been. I've never been to Kingston, Ontario, Bill, sorry. But cool, thank you for joining us. Love the Canucks. I wish you guys, you know, would come visit us more often. Have you heard the whole, um, it's in the news that the Canadians aren't coming to visit the US for insert political reasons here? And a lot of our hot spots in the US, like Las Vegas for example, which I'm going to next month by the way, um, The, the Las Vegas mayor just became famous for going on TV and online basically begging, please Canadians, please come back, we need you. Las Vegas is hurting right now, they're not doing too hot. And I guess a lot of places are experiencing the same thing, you know, a good chunk of their visitors every year were Canadians and now not so much. It's like, oh, so it's hurting the old pocketbook. But welcome everybody, so good to see where everybody's from, how cool is that? Don't forget to give me a like and a share and all that good stuff. Hey, you've got more people coming in, Welcome everybody. HelpForMen.com and the Brotherhood at HelpForMen.com/join. Um, slash join. Let me get some other things out of the way. Uh, things I do to give back to the community here. For those that don't know, you know, I should— I do always kind of do these things with the assumption that you guys know who I am. That's kind of pigheaded of me, isn't it? Some of you could be like, don't know you, never heard of you, who the hell are you, why should I watch you? Ralph Brewer is my name. Uh, going on 13 years ago now, I endured what I call pretty grueling divorce. And in transparency, compared to a lot of the stories I've heard, I got off easy, let me tell you. But it was emotionally pretty terrible for me. It's pretty traumatic experience. Uh, it involved infidelity on the part of my partner. Let's just leave it at that. It involved watching my partner change into something I just did not recognize. And part of that whole disconnect between the two of us was, Ralphie boy, you got the kiddos most of the time. And I had three little ones. Their ages at the time were 9, 6, and 1.5 years of age. So I went from everything's hunky-dory— boring, sure, excuse me, disconnected from my partner, sure— but, um, not, you know, I never suspected that something like this could happen. And it went from— I'm telling you, day— this day was fine, the next day all hell broke loose. I don't know what's going on. And then a short 60 days after that, I was divorced. Been there and done that. And I became kind of frantic, almost mannequin, you will, if you will, in my trying to figure things out, trying to figure out what got me in this mess, what caused her to do what she did, what I can do to be become better. It involved dating way, way too soon, trying to use women to make myself feel better. Don't do that, guys. It's not a good thing. Um, getting in touch with other men— this was something I went to therapy, you know, pat myself on the back. There were some things I did positively. One was which— one was let me go get help, let me go talk to somebody because I'm not dealing well with all this. It really— going through that trauma really exposed some deficiencies in myself. I was a grown man with children, but I still had— I had a lot of learning to do as far as coping was concerned. So I recognized that myself, and I went and talked to somebody about it. And it was a woman, ironically. I know, Mr. Dad Starting Over dude, right? Um, but, uh, one thing that she said that really stuck out— of all the stuff we talked about, one thing she stuck— that stuck out with me was, Ralph, you are like a lot of dudes that I talk to, she said. You just do not hang out with other men. You used to, probably, before you had kids and everything, but now you guys, you just don't talk to each other. You don't hang out. You just go to work, you play with your kids, and that's it. She's like, that's not healthy. You need to get out and meet more men. And in fact, she kicked things off and she said, um, I got a guy that wants to talk to you. His story was so similar to yours. I said, I got another client who has a story similar to yours. You guys should get together. And he said, give him my number here. I give you my permission, give this other dude the numbers. So he's like, here you go, his name's Steve, he's waiting to talk to you. So I texted Steve. I've told the story many times in case any of you are tired of hearing it. And Steve didn't want to text, he wanted to talk, and he called me immediately and we talked for hours. And, uh, he was basically finishing my sentences for me. He could tell you my story before I even got the words out. I'm like, how do you know all this? And he's like, dude, they're all— the stories are the same. And he's like, go online, there's forums of guys talking about this stuff, there's, there's this, there's that, have you read this book? And he kind of opened my eyes to, oh wow, there's this whole world of hurt people out there, hurt guys in particular, that are going through these kind of relationship nightmares. I'm not alone. And you go down that rabbit hole of reading about all this stuff, and next thing you know, I'm talking to other dudes online. Next thing you know, I'm starting my own blog talking all about my thoughts on the matter of starting over as a man, and I called the blog Dad Starting Over. And nobody read the thing because, you know, Who reads this stuff? There's blogs all over the damn place. Why would they read mine? But you get occasional, you know, clicks, liking, however it worked way back then. I don't even remember. And, um, it wasn't until I wrote about one topic in particular that I got some attention— very little. And that was the topic of sex and marriage, my thoughts on the love life I had with, uh, ex-wife versus what I've seen in dating and all this other stuff. And men love to read about that because they could relate to that. Again, as far as the pain points are concerned with men in relationships, lack of sexual connection is like up there, if not the tippy-top thing. I know a lot of people like, really? Yes, that's— it's huge. So they love to hear me reading my stuff about that. And then somebody said, you should write a book on this. Make a long story short, the rest is history. That book took off. 3 editions of that book have been written since, plus 3 other books, including another book on its way here soon, which I hope is my biggest ever. That's the one I'm the most proud of. I put a shit ton of work into it. It's called Rebuild, uh, The Guide— The Complete Guide for Men Starting Over in Life. Um, so be on the lookout for that. Anywho, I also started a private support community for men, members-only community. I've done videos galore, I've done courses, I've done books. All kinds of stuff. So I've devoted myself in my life to helping out other guys that are going through similar situation of just like, life has just smacked me upside the face and I don't know what to do here. Could be in the form of wife left me, cheated on me, whatever it may be. It could be 30-some-odd years in this company, I thought I was going to retire with them and they just downsized me because of AI, or they hired some younger dude, or whatever it is. Marriage falling apart, I don't have much in the way of friends, I don't know who I am anymore. That type of questioning your identity and who you are and what your place in the world. That's what I specialize in. That's what I created this entire community. See behind me there? Oh shit. Help for Men. Help for Men dot com. You can find out more about that. Help for Men dot com is the name of our larger community, the larger organization, in our private community called the Brotherhood. Um, there you go. Help for Men dot com slash join if you'd like to join our community. Chat with me on a daily basis, all that cool stuff. We got hundreds and hundreds of men from around the world. But anyway, there is some stuff that you don't have to pay for at all, some stuff, things that I do to give back to the community, help out dudes. There's a little mini course that I put together, me talking about this kind of stuff, called My Wife Cheated. You can go to mywifecheated.com. Like, the course is actually called So Your Wife Cheated On You. So go to mywifecheated.com, free course, no strings attached. You do have to give your name and email address to get into our system But once you're in, no cost. Check it out. We also have— this is the most popular course, I know, surprise, surprise, out of all the things I talk about, sex and marriage. Um, that book that I mentioned, The Dead Bedroom Fix, you can take a course called deadbedroomfixcourse.com. Go to deadbedroomfixcourse.com. Free course. This one's actually pretty lengthy, and it's all free. Uh, 10 videos of me talking about the dead bedroom stuff, and a little special surprise, you also get a copy of the book at no charge. In PDF format, so electronic format. So deadbedroomfixcourse.com, you get the book, you get the course. Check it out, guys. What else do I have going on here that may interest you? Oh, I got another free book, Divorce Panic. Years ago, the book used to be called Now What? People couldn't— people were calling it What Now? Who Now? What Then? But it— the title kind of, you know, boom boom, Now What? But it never stuck with anybody. So I renamed it, redid the book from, from scratch, from A to Z, and rewrote the whole thing called Divorce Panic. So you can download the book for free, divorcepanic.com. Those are for men that are going through it and they're just like, this sucks, I don't know what to do, this really blows. Book all about it. Been there, done that. My experience, the experience of many other men. Check it out, divorcepanic.com. No charge, download it today. What else we got here, folks? If you'd like to write into me, you may have seeing some of my videos, um, where I answer questions that people have. It's because they're submitting a form there at dearDSO.com. They're submitting their story, and I do little videos and podcasts about their stories. Guys, I think that's about it. Um, there are some comments coming in as I'm blabbing away, so let me, let me get rid of this little banner here and go back to comments. All right, we got Bill, Bill from Facebook. Also, is that the Bill? Yep, that's the Bill from Ontario. Howdy, Bill. He says, just moved recently, the bed is finally fed up. It's just my son and I. She moved on and has moved in with her boyfriend. Ouch. Sorry, dude. It all transpired within the last few weeks. Our relationship is dead in the bedroom and beyond for several years, but we decided to stay together for, uh, the second our son, um I'm sorry, but you're, you're, uh, maybe English is a second language, or you're just frantically typing and missing stuff. This is not really making a whole bunch of sense. You decide— I'm gonna fill in the blanks here— you decided to stay for your son because he was sick, which I'm sorry to hear. Um, it wasn't always easy, but we made it work. And when the landlord handed us our notice and said we had to get out because he lost his job, um, you took that as a sign. Let me, uh Let me hold on a second. I don't think I'm seeing the whole message here. Let me go over to— where are you at? You're on Facebook? Pardon me, folks, as I jump over to Facebook here so I can see the full thingy. I know, little technical limitations here. Well, what do you know, Facebook is acting goofy. There we go. All right, let me jump over to Dan Starten. Let me go to my— we don't need that. Okay. All right, well, where's the— it's not showing up here. All right, but you know Rest assured, Mr. Bill, I want to see your complete message there, but it's so long that it doesn't show up on my little system. I have to jump over to Facebook, which is not also not showing me. Hold on a second. Live chat. It's, yeah, it's not showing me up here. Give it a bit, maybe it'll catch up and it will show here. Um, but it sounds like, uh, friend, dead bedroom, uh, you, your landlord kicked you out because like you gotta go. Oof, that's a lot to swallow, my friend. I hope you're doing okay through all of this. Um, check out the Brotherhood, help4men.com. Um, other guys too, you know, that have been there, done that. Believe it or not, your story is not completely unique. You got a lot of stuff going on, kind of the perfect storm of stuff here without being able to read your entire deal here. Let me refresh this. Well, yeah, I don't know what's going on here. Seems to think that, uh, yeah, not gonna let me see your whole message. Sorry, Bill, I don't know what the hell's going on there. That's annoying. All right, anywho, uh, Christopher says thank you for the dead bedroom link. You are very welcome, Mr. Christopher. Let me know what you think about the free dead bedroom course. Uh, can't post comments, and I'm just getting some errors here. All right, any other, uh, questions? Mr. Bill, maybe you can split up your, your, uh, your comment into different little chunks there, one little chunk at a time, and then we can read it here for everyone to, to listen to. Because we got guys that are listening to this on YouTube as well as on, uh, Twitter, or X as it's called now. So, you know, they don't see your comment on Facebook, so to speak. It's kind of cool how we're live streaming across a bunch of different platforms. So thank you for, uh, reaching out there. Mr. Bo says, North Jersey here, divorce dating and kind of exhausted. I hear you, brother. It's not— we're all exhausted, aren't we? We're all working hard, we're all trying to hold it together. When you're divorced and dating on top of all that, it's like, Christ, I don't know if I can keep doing this. I get you, brother. North Jersey, very cool. Um, that's my favorite part of the US, is up there in the Northeast. My wife and I were married in the second— I did get remarried, for those that don't know. Uh, Natalie and I have been together for, um, about a decade now. Um, Mr. Terrible Times, I've heard this before, my friend. I thought this was Bas Rutten. Bummer. He's a— you have old UFC guy, bald. I really don't look— he— Bas Rutten has a lot more manly points than I do. But I was, uh, I think I've told the story on here before. A drunken dude in Kentucky one time came up to me and he's all like, you look like somebody. And I'm like, I get that a lot, the bald. So pick your bald dude. Who do I look like, you know, Stanley Tucci? Or he's like, no, you look like a fighter. And then he brought up his phone and he was looking, and he went away. And I was like, all right. And then he comes back and puts his phone in my face and he goes, you look like him. And it was Bass Rutan. And then I was like, yeah, I can kind of see it, I guess, a little bit. He's quite a bit beefier than I am, but you know, okay, bald, that's about it. Years go by, right? Back in Kentucky, back in the same bar that I was in with my wife. It was this bourbon bar, and here's this dude comes up and goes, you look like somebody. And I said, dude, we've been down this road already before. It was like 3 years ago, dude. He's like, I thought you looked familiar. You're bad. I go, Bass Rutan. I know we've already done this, dude. Same drunken dude, same. So Maybe it's you. Is it you, Terrible Times? Are you the dude in Kentucky? You're back, third time. That was like, shit, that was like 5+ years ago, I think, that I saw him again. So, uh, funny little story there. Uh, all right, what else we got going on, folks? Uh, North Jersey. Um, anyway, yeah, wife and I got married in, uh, Central Park in New York City. New York City is our favorite city. Um, we may end up moving there one of these days. You never know. She's got some interest in hiring her. She's a doctor, medical doctor, up in Westchester, as well as a place in Brooklyn, New York is interested in hiring her. So you never know, one of these days I may be up in your neck of the woods, Mr. Bo. Um, well, anything else, ladies and germs? Uh, there's all kinds of things that I could talk about here, but I much prefer to talk about what's going on in, in your world there. Guys. So don't be shy. Any questions at all about whether it's the dead bedroom thing, whether it's starting over as a dude post-divorce, or, you know, a lot of you are struggling with— is a lot of guys that I talk to are in really dysfunctional, not good relationships with women. And, um, Terrible, that's not you, you're lying. Um, not good relationships with women, and they have been so for years and years. And much— a lot of ladies watching this probably be like, no dude, I don't believe it. No, this is true. A lot of dudes in these relationships have really tried really hard to reconnect with those women, suggesting the counseling, here, let's read this book together, let's listen to this podcast. Let's get rid of this window. I'm watching myself talk to myself. Um, let's go to counseling, let's do all these things to reconnect as a couple. And they're met again and again with no, no, no, no, no. And the distance between them is growing and growing. The romance is gone. It's been gone for a long time. They don't touch each other, let alone, you know, do the hokey pokey. They don't do anything with each other, period. And a lot of you are in that position and you're like, I can't leave because I, I got these kiddos, I got the roof over our head. There's a lot of bills to pay and everything else. Possibly she doesn't work. That's becoming less and less frequent. Um, more often than not, the men that I talk to, the woman is gainfully employed, she works, she brings in half if not more of the income and all that other stuff. But for some guys, it's— the deck's really stacked against them. Stay-at-home wife, if he leaves, she gets a big chunk of money and he's left going, you know, I gotta start over basically and start over financially. Been there, done that. And, uh, um, you know, romantically, where do I go from here? I've been in a really shitty dead bedroom relationship for many, many years. I'm, I'm ready to get back out there. If I'm divorced, uh, then, you know, I don't want to waste any time. I want to get back on the horse, so to speak. I've been missing out. Um, we got Mr. Uh, Bo saying good luck if you do. Oh, going back up northeast. I see. I have a question. How can I submit an anonymous story post? You can by going to— Mr. Bo, good question— go to deardso.com. deardso.com. You'll fill out the form. You don't have to give your real name. You put your fake name. I don't even think you have to put an email address or anything in there and just submit it. And if your story is good, I create a video out of it. If you want to email me, or maybe you're like, I just want to reply, I don't want you to make a video out of this, Ralph Brewer, what I'd like— keep it under wraps even though it's anonymous, even though I can, I can change details. You can change details in your story. You know, you can say, wife and I have been together for 20 years instead of 30 years, whatever it is. If you want to protect your anonymity, you can say whatever it is you want to say. But the purpose of the Dear DSO is for me to, uh, you know, do a video or podcast about it to share with others and give my advice on the subject, for what it's worth. So you use the Dear DSO form there. Uh, Mr. David on Facebook says, not yet divorced. You have tried counseling. Fighting for my son in court. Living with my daughter and in debt, trying to survive. Sorry to hear that, brother. I'm sure there's a lot more to that story, isn't there? A lot of drama involved. What got you to that point? Um, not yet divorced, but you're fighting. Oh, so you're in the middle of— with the divorce proceedings, I guess you could say, since you're fighting for your son in court, living with your daughter. Is your daughter from a previous relationship? Is that why you're living with her and why she's not with mom? So is— does that point to some history of relationship troubles and some stuff to explore there? I'll these conversations with dudes in these situations, um, it goes all over the place. And it's, it's not the dude's fault, the positions he's in, 100%. But often it's like we play a part in it, don't we? At the very least, we overlooked a lot of stuff that we should have probably paid more attention to in terms of bad behavior on our partner's part. I use always a partner because, not to be politically correct, but sometimes these are girlfriends we're talking about. Sometimes they're you know, people you've lived with for 20-some-odd years without getting married. Sometimes they are wives, sometimes it's, you know, multiple poly relationships. So I just throw the whole thing up. A partner seems to be a good generic term. Um, Mr. Bo says, awesome, thank you, Ralph. There are many things I'm open to sharing, but some things warrant anonymity for the other people involved. Sure, absolutely. Yeah, go right ahead, Mr. Bo, submit the form there. And then David, you say, spot on, the daughter so much more. Um, sometimes doing the right thing is the hardest. I hear you, brother. It's, uh, big of you to admit that, that sometimes it is the right thing. That is something I hear from a lot of guys, is, um, this notion that if it's the right thing to do, then it should be easy and it should be free of drama and free of pain. And if you do the thing, whatever the thing is, make the decision, and it results in a lot of pain and a lot of drama, and then that means it wasn't the right one. It's like, no, dude, that's not how life works. Sometimes doing the right thing involves a whole shit ton of drama, heartache, losing a ton of money, living in hell for 2 to 3 years, but it's still the right thing to do. An example, like, what am I talking about? Uh, let's say there's a guy who's like caught his wife in her fifth affair. Yes, I've heard this. And finally he's like, enough's enough, I'm tired of being a chump, I'm tired of doing all this. And he's already been to an attorney, and the attorney says, dude, you're going to lose your ass in the divorce because of this, this, and this. She gets 60% of this, she gets 50% of that, she gets 70% of this. Uh, you're probably have to pay child support, maybe even alimony, which is going to cost you this, and blah blah. By the way, alimony is only about 10% of cases. People seem to think it's way more common than what it is, but don't tell that to the guys that are paying it. They don't really give a shit. They still got to pay it. Um, so you may be in one of those positions, but it's still the right thing to do to leave said wife who was really treating you like dirt and repeatedly cheating on you or spending all your money or taking drugs, substance abuse, whatever it may be. Just an objectively bad partner. It's the rational, smart, intelligent thing is to leave said situation, and, and for your sanity and your well-being. But you're going to hurt a lot emotionally, financially, and everything in between. But it's still the right thing to do. So that's where you're kind of at right now, David, is that you're dealing with a lot and you're like, this really sucks. I know it does, but it's still in a lot of cases the right thing to do. We got Mr. Larry from Facebook saying It was my experience that once the ex shut down, that was it. I waited over 4 years and it never changed. We got to a point where we didn't touch at all. I knew it was over and I had to make the difficult choice to leave. To avoid a fight, I gave her the house, paid for 5 years prior. Best decision I could have made to exit honorably and cleanly. I mean, it's like a negotiation like any other. Sometimes you have to say, I don't want to you know, tough it out and, and, and, uh, fight extra to get what, a few hundred grand of your, uh, home equity that you're like, damn it, that's mine, I worked really hard, I made all those payments, and I've worked just as much as she does, if not more. And some guys are like, I worked on this house with my own two hands and I remodeled it or built it from scratch, and now she's trying to take it. Sometimes— let's consult with an attorney on this— sometimes it is the— it behooves you to make that decision to say it's yours, because you, with a legal mumbo-jumbo back and forth, you determine that I could either— let me get rid of this— fight in court and try to fight for this little thing and that little thing, but her attorney came back and said, we will stop this now if you just give the house. Sometimes the— it sucks and you're like, I can't believe I'm doing this. But sometimes it makes sense financially and most definitely emotionally to say, here, just take it and walk away clean and just start over. Um, get them out of your hair, so to speak. I know, bald, but you know what I mean. Just to say we're finally done and you can breathe easy. And yes, you start with a clean slate, and yes, you had all that hundreds of thousands of dollars of equity that you've worked so hard to build up in the home go bye-bye.. But what a lot of guys will say is what Mr. Larry here said, um, it's worth it. That's what a lot of guys say. And, uh, here's another thing to kind of put you at ease. A lot of men that are in this position— mind you, I am not pro-divorce, I'm pro what is healthy for both people. I'm pro— I'm more on the man side, obviously, man-centric content here— but, uh, I'm pro what is good mentally, physically, and emotionally healthy for that individual. And it may very well be leaving said situation because the situation is really, really unhealthy and, and awful and toxic, to use that overused term. Um, but, uh, sometimes it's, it's the right choice is to say adiós. Um, we're not going to do this anymore. And if that means, you know, handing over a bunch of money, that's what it means. But anyway, what a lot of guys say is after the fact, years down the line, If you would have asked them when they were freshly going through it all, they're like, I don't want to give up this money, I don't want to do this, damn this woman, and she's taking me for everything. Fast forward a few years and you know what a lot of them say? I'm glad I did it. And you know what's interesting? Even though I'm paying this, I'm paying that, and I had to pay all this and stuff, I look at my bank account now and I'm like, it feels like I got a raise. It's like, what happened? Well, you don't have another human being that is spending when you don't want them to spend. You know, instead of the— it adds up, guys. Instead of your wife spending the $19.99 option, you are Mr. Frugal Dude who spends the $4.79 option, which in your mind is exactly the same. I'm making these numbers up. Um, you combine those, you know, you do that 500 times a month month after month, year after year, eventually you're like, it's, it's like I got a raise. Um, really, really common in my world. I hear that all the time from guys, and we have the stats to back that up, that we know statistically who does better post-divorce financially. It may be for some of you guys immediately you're like, oh hell, she does. Like, look at her, she's got hundreds of thousands in the bank due to equity and, and the investments and so forth that I don't have. She's the winner in all this. All she had to do was say, I want a divorce, and cha-ching. May very well be the case for a lot of you, but fast forward a few years down the line, who's doing better financially? Most of the time, by a long shot, it's the dude. Uh, I know a lot of you don't believe that, but it's true. Women don't do well post-divorce financially. Um, the stats show that And, uh, uh, this is why possibly a lot of that seems to be kind of stacked in their favor at the initial stage, because they know we got to take care of this woman. We don't want her to be a burden on the state and all this other good stuff. So let's take what we can from this, this bundle of money that we have here between the two of them, and let's divvy it up. And maybe she should get a little bit more because she doesn't have much in the way of education or anything else. She, she, you know, she, she foregoed— is that a right word— a lot of that for taking care of the kids and house and everything. So here you go, sweetie. Even after that the dude still does better in the end years later. I know a lot of you don't believe it, but it's true. Um, so taking all that into account, for some of you going through divorce and everything else, that may make sense to, um, submit to, to, uh, it's the wrong word to say, isn't it? To kind of say it's okay, you may have the, the car, you the house. Oh, you want, you know, the, the stock and everything that we have in our separate little savings? Cool. How about it? If that means all the— I'm a winner and all these other things, whatever that may be, you know, you go back and forth. Don't just hand them everything for no reason, but you say, I want this, this, and this, 50% custody of the kids, and I want that. And she's like, cool, you can have all that if I can have the house. It may behoove you to say, take the house. Um, Doug— no, Douglas, we don't want to make stonings great again. That doesn't solve anything, my friend. Um, Larry says, yeah, you had a lot invested in the house, but the peace of mind I had afterward was worth it. I can always make more money. It's true, you can. Especially— I have talked to so many guys. I've talked to a lot of really very intelligent, very successful businessmen and guys that have like inventions. And it's just amazing how guys, you know, find ways to make money and make a living. And some men that I talk to are millionaires. And, uh, they just came up with some idea or something, you know, years ago, and it really clicked for them, and kaboom. And those are the guys that realize, like, yeah, I can do that again, and they do. So a lot of you got a lot of talents that you're not aware of, and it may not mean inventing the thing that makes you millions. It may mean grinding and doing a side gig or two that bring in extra $10,000 a month or something like that. That's life-changing for a lot of people. But, uh, yeah, a lot of you can do it. Mr. Fight for Better Now, a regular, thank you for joining us again today. Said you just listened to a video this morning talking about women in India who are killing their husbands because they got— because they get caught cheating. So the woman gets caught cheating, so she kills her husband? Is that like— okay, here's the thing, Mr. Fight, I pick on you now every now and then because I can see some of the tone of some of your stuff. Um, is that enough of a societal trend in India enough for us to go, whoa, there's something going on here? Or is it there were 3 cases last year and somebody made a video out of it and they're just like, look, and Fight for Better Now, and others are like, whoa, this is kind of a big thing. But there were 27 such cases last month. 27 women who were cheating on their spouses in India last month killed their spouse after getting caught. 27. Well, there's like a trillion people in India. I'm not belittling that story. That's horrible. There's some kind of societal cultural thing going on there. With that being said, um, there's a gentleman in our group— we only have a few gentlemen in our Brotherhood group from India, but one of them is very active— and he was telling me that he sees— he's also a very young 20-something guy— he sees in his young 20-something group in India, he says, man, the female infidelity seems to be just skyrocketing. We're seeing a trend there. So maybe that kind of lends itself to what you're talking about here. The whole killing your husband as a result is a whole other thing. But, um, interesting. No, I've not heard of that. So how would we kind of Google that and see stories? Do you have a link maybe you can share? Are you able to share links on here? I don't know if you are or not. Um, there's some restrictions on— they allow what you can— what you're allowed to comment. That's nothing I did. I don't know if Facebook or YouTube has restrictions, but maybe you can link to the story that shows us this trend of women killing their husbands in India. Interesting. But anywho, what, what do we, uh, what do we glean from that? You know, you hate to say it, such a big holy shit story like that, but you kind of have to shrug your shoulders and go, yeah, and does that have anything to do with me? No. Um, does that mean, hey Ralph, watch it, your woman may cheat on you and kill you? Okay, I guess. No, that's 0.000— insert 100 zeros— 1% chance of that happening. Um, you have to be aware, Mr. Fight and others that are hurting, um, there's a lot of material that is out there that is preying upon your hurt. I've talked about this in the past. Uh, recently, a very— a much more popular content creator by the name of Sadia Khan— K-H-A-N, not C-O-N— there's My friend, uh, Lauren the Dadvocate did a play on words with that one in her latest video. But anyways, uh, what was his name? Sadia. Sadia Khan. Sadia, um, got called out by some content creators of kind of being full of shit, uh, that she's not a psychologist. Which, if you go through her stuff, she doesn't necessarily say I'm a psychologist, but her website was sadiapsychology.com, so the inference is there. And she talks a lot about psychological stuff, which I do too, be honest with you, but I'm very open and upfront saying I'm not certified in anything in any way, shape, or form. I'm a loudmouth asshole with a microphone, one of many apparently. And, um, but Sadia put herself out there and charged thousands of dollars to people to talk to her about how to be a better person in a relationship, how to be a high-value man, and always— and how to navigate the world of women properly and how to have good long-term relationships. And it turned out Sadia was, um, as one content creator put it, a side piece for a married man. She got caught being in an affair with a married man, and, uh, in addition, she got caught leaving really, I guess, kind of unhinged comments and voicemails on people's phones that somebody had the nerve to, you know, say that she wasn't very good at what she did, and she let them have it and then some, to the point where it was kind of psychotic. And you realize that she and others like her are kind of full of shit. And they're just saying the things that they know that a lot of people want to hear. And one of the things that Sadia was known for was saying something to the effect of, you know, women cheat more than men do. Oh yeah, women cheat a lot. And, uh, a lot of— not a very— ironically, coming from a woman, a lot of anti-woman things in the world of relationships. Basically, the tone was one of, you guys don't realize how bad some of these women are. And men ate it up. And by the way, Sadia, very good-looking woman. So you got this beautiful woman, I think she's Pakistani or Indian by, uh, uh, by origin, but with a very posh British accent. And, um, so that was very, very appealing to a lot of people. And so she put out material and a lot of people sat up and listened and paid her a lot of money to hear more. And she got called out by several content creators who said, we're kind of sick of the bullshit. Um, so just be aware that's out there. Um, it could be argued maybe I'm part of that world, but I, I like to think I kind of balance the line between real world. I try to keep it as even as possible, be empathetic to both sides. But I understand I have a prejudice being a guy who was cheated on and divorced and all this other stuff, so I put that out there. Um, Mr. David says from Facebook, I've struggled financially after leaving my wife for not supporting my daughter. Long story short, my sister took all my appliances from my house when I moved back in. She could have stayed. I paid half her rent for 3 years helping her out, then she ran away. It sounds like a lot of— that's a dumpster fire of issues, Mr. David. Jeez, um, sorry going through all that, brother. Uh, Mr. Mark says there's a lot of red pill fodder out there. Yours is a take, uh, much more stoic, which I appreciate. Well, thank you, Mr. Mark, I appreciate that. Um, so David, you got effed over by 2 women, you say? I'm sorry to hear that, brother. Sounds like you're kind of— you need to take inventory of who you surround yourself with, brother, and why you get involved in all this. I know it sounds like one of them, uh, is your sister, so you're kind of born into that mess. But that's not a coincidence that you have the family unit, a lot of chaos and nonsense there, and then you married into more, didn't you? It sounds like twice now. Um, you kind of have to stop and go, timeout. Oh, oh, Davey Boy's getting into some chaos here for what reason? Let's just— let's figure stuff out here before you do it again. And you will do it again repeatedly in the form of romantic relationships, friendships. You got to do a better job of who you surround yourself with. And if that means writing off family members, then yeah, sister, we don't— we don't talk anymore, or whatever it may be. You're kind of a bad influence on me and my kids and everything else. Not to pick on you, but been there and done that, my friend. Taking that inventory and saying, who do I want to involve myself with and who do I not anymore? That's one of those things when you kind of rebuild yourself, which is the term of my— or the title of my next book, Rebuild, coming out soon. Um, when you do rebuild and start over fresh and say, I'm going to do this right, you leave people behind. And that's really, um, that's tough, especially for your nice guy types to come to terms with. Um, you don't want to be mean, you don't want to be an a-hole, you don't want to be a jerk and just, you know, think you're better than everybody else and leave them behind. But sometimes you have to do exactly that. Sometimes you have to say, I love you, appreciate you, former romantic partner, former friend, sibling, whatever it may be, but I don't want this in my life anymore. I, I gotta move on. Sorry. That's really tough for a lot of people to do. Some people take it easy and goes, nah, I just move on. While others are like, not so simple. I'm emotionally tied to them, especially those romantic partners. We're basically addicted to them, aren't we? We— it's like, um, I always say it's akin to having a limb on your body and somebody chops your limb off. You just want to put your arm back on. Um, but anywho, uh, Mr. David, you say you have family trauma growing up. Welcome to the club, my friend. That's basically a lot of our group. Check out the Brotherhood. Sounds like you're going through it. Uh, David, there is a small fee involved, $27 a month to join the group, but that covers the cost of all the stuff I talked about we got going on— the live meetings, the recordings— and then it's a pretty big nut to cover every month for us. Um, if you are a military veteran, that gets cut down to like $16 $15 a month to get like 40% off. So we love the military guys. If you're a military dude listening to this, go to help4men.com/join, click on the little button that says, uh, that you are a veteran, and you will see the discount there to join our brotherhood group. But it's basically a support community, David and others, for guys to sit around and talk about this kind of stuff. And, uh, we have long conversations and meetings, and we use Discord as well as Facebook for our private discussions. And Discord is— it's starting to ramp up. Uh, Facebook is active 24/7. It's a private group, nobody can see you belong, so don't worry about that. And then, um, what else? And the books, and we get together in person, all kinds of cool stuff. So check out the Brotherhood. Let me— a message in my All right, Mr. Fight for Better. Now you have a thought, you say? Well, very good. I like thoughts. Keep it up. I'm just kidding. I was just watching a video with Monica. That's Monica Al— I always forget how to pronounce her last name. I think it's a Latin last name. Almaguer. Almaguer. Monica and Rich Cooper. Oh, bald dude, beard, right? Again, one of many bald dude loudmouths out there. She had said something along the lines of, it's important for men to always be the best option for their wives. That's a very, uh, oh, kind of old school take on that. Um, so how does that make you feel to hear something like that? Um, maybe it's, uh, how to say this without coming across as being kind of, uh, oh, Randy Red Pill-ish or whatever it is. Um, shouldn't we all kind of strive to be a good partner for our wife? Now, what's the best is, uh, up for debate. What does that mean exactly? Um, let me get rid of this. For a lot of anxious guys, very codependent men that are, um, ruminating and having a lot of thoughts on that, uh, be the best, be the best, be the best could be an unattainable goal of which they literally drive themselves nuts trying to achieve. In other words, you'll have a guy that's like I'm a good man, I'm good to my wife, I take care of myself physically, and I'm a good provider, and we have a very good romantic relationship. But he's kind of anxious in his temperament, and then he sees his wife's eyes kind of following this really, uh, attractive handsome dude, right? Um, which, by the way, if you looked around, probably every dude was— dude and woman was looking at this guy because he's objectively like, oh wow, look at that guy. You know, even as a strictly heterosexual guy like myself, I can recognize a handsome dude. Like, uh, you ever see like a professional athlete in person, like a football player or basketball player? They're like a totally different, like, sub— different, like, subcategory of human. Tall, muscular, good-looking, alpha male type. You're like, that's just a different quality of human than I am. You just submit yourself to— they're, they're above me in the genetic department for sure. Some more anxious guys, like, like, oh my gosh, I'll never measure up to him, and wife is looking at him, I'm nothing compared to him, and it brings on the anxiety. And then you hear stuff like people saying you should always be the best your wife can possibly get, and you're like, I'll never be able to compete with the guy at the mall that she was looking at. And then the next thing you know, you've, you know, doomed yourself to a life of being alone and anxious, and you think everyone's cheating on you and everything else. A lot of this is born out of a lot of anxiety is what I'm trying to say. Um, but you continue on with, uh, you pushed back on her commenting like this because not all men can be the best option for their wife. For instance, if your wife is a nurse and you're a mechanic, there's no way you can compete against a doctor. Well, sure you can. Not at a— what, a financial level? Maybe not, unless you're a mechanic who starts his own shop and you got, you know, 3 different locations and 50 guys working for it. You get my point. But, uh, So at some point, the practice of monogamy has to kick in, and she has to practice being loyal to her spouse. Yeah. So in her interview with Rich, she basically said women are not going to be accountable. We just need to get over that idea and fight for the best person, to be the best person we possibly can. I, I somewhat know Monica. She and I have done a couple of little things. I would— she's a very level-headed gal who is very big on accountability, so I don't see her saying we can't be accountable. I think maybe what she would say is just in general, both men and women need to face the fact that being in a long-term monogamous relationship with somebody means that you do have to maintain a certain level of quality, I guess you could say. Don't stop trying. And as, as many guys and gals will tell you, been down the road of multiple relationships, once you stop trying Once you kind of go, I can just rest because I'm in a relationship with this person, I don't have to try to, what, date, connect with them emotionally, maintain my physical, do sexy things with them. I can, you know, just come home, sleep, eat, and repeat day after day, month after month, year after year, and I'm safe because we got vows. It's like, good luck with that. So maybe that's the point she was trying to get across. I don't know, I didn't see what you're talking about there.. But, um, that it's like, yeah, you always kind of have to be on your toes a little bit. Both men and women both have to do this. You can't be a woman who, um, walks around in your stained sweatpants day after day and doesn't shave her legs and doesn't put on makeup when they go out and just like, just like gives up and just says, I'm a mother of 3, I really don't give a shit anymore. You can't be surprised if then your partner then says to you, like, I'm just not attracted to you anymore in that way. 'Or I feel disconnected from you.' And when she goes to maybe make a move on the husband, he's like, 'I'm not really feeling it.' She's like, 'What the hell?' Don't be surprised when he says, 'You just don't put much effort into us anymore.' And she may come back with, 'I shouldn't have to, we're married.' That's not how that works. Flip the genders, same exact freaking thing. So, um, anywho. And then, uh, Mark says, 'One can be quite hetero and recognize when another man is categorical.' categorically handsome. Absolutely. I'm not above calling a dude good looking. I've had dudes that have been, you know, that been in my group, and I'll be like, how old are you? And they're like 50-something. I'm like, you're a pretty good looking dude, you can pass for a 30-something. Um, yeah, absolutely. And I think women are— women feel much more open about recognizing, oh wow, she's pretty. And, and seeing some— I've often talked about my wife and I have such a secure relationship that my wife elbows me and makes sure I don't miss the show when a really hot woman walks by. Some people listen to that and say, I can't believe— what? That can't be right. Like, yeah, because she's just like, dude, look at that one. Nothing wrong with that because we're both secure in ourselves. What am I going to do, jump up and elbow my wife in the face and say, get out of here, toots, and go running for the hot one? No, you just look at the show for a brief second, go, oof, nice, and that's it. Um, David says, good, thanks for the brotherhood shout, peace. All right, Mr. David. Take care, brother. Uh, in education and medicine, I think there— this is Mark, uh, from YouTube— says, in education and medicine, I think there's a component of trauma bonding that can be hard to compete with. Uh, if you're not in the trauma, it's hard to relate to that. Um, well, I don't know about education, but I think I know where you're going with this. But it is a known thing that people that are involved in medicine, like my wife is— she's a pediatric surgeon um, that there is— it's very easy for those folks in that field to have a very close bond because they are in a very stressful situation, long periods of time. Uh, there's also the component of it can be seen as kind of a sexualized atmosphere. You're dealing with human bodies all day long, you know, although probably 99% of them are not attractive based upon the stories I've heard. But it's still— it's a very, um, low boundary physical stressed-out, long-hours kind of atmosphere, it lends itself to people maybe crossing lines easier than those that are in just a normal 9-to-5 office job. So that may be why in part we see a lot of infidelity in the world of nurses, for example, and doctors and all that stuff. We also see it in the world of, um, the military— stressful, long hours, a lot of work— and The police work, same kind of thing. Um, a lot of these are kind of hyper-masculine type of professions, aren't they? Police work, military, uh, doctor can be seen as kind of a hyper-masculine— yeah, maybe not so much, there's more women in healthcare than there are men, but you get my point. But that's interesting, folks. It's been an hour already. That's when I get going, man, I can't shut up. But thank you all for joining me today. I do appreciate each and every one of you. Before you leave, if you give me a quick like wherever you're watching this, or a little heart, or like, or whatever, however it works wherever you're watching this, or a share. If you are seeing me on Facebook, give me a follow on Facebook. If you're watching this on YouTube, give me a subscribe. Guys on YouTube, check out the latest video. Not many people are watching it. I think it's a good one. It's really different. It's, it's, it's about the woman who was stuck on the couch for 6 years. I know, totally out there, but I tie it into relationships and enabling and all that stuff. So check out that new video on YouTube. You guys watching, you go to youtube.com/dadstartingover, see my YouTube channel and give it a like, give me a subscribe. I would really appreciate it. YouTube is something I'm trying desperately to grow. I've not been able to really, you know, crack that nut, so to speak, in the YouTube world. I've had blips of success. Um, where are all the viewers, Grant says? You mean on this live? I don't— you tell me, Grant. Uh, across Facebook and YouTube and X or Twitter is what we're broadcasting right now. You are on YouTube, so you're probably not seeing very many on YouTube. I can't tell you right now how many are on YouTube. Not many. Um, but anywho, every little like, share, subscribe, follow, whatever helps a great deal. So thank you all so very much for joining me today. Um, I do appreciate it. Appreciate you all joining me. Uh, check out all the videos, keep liking them, keep sharing them. Check out the Brotherhood at help4men.com if you're a dude. And that's it for me, guys. Thank you all so very much, and we'll catch you on the next one. A toodaloo.