Chat LIVE with Ralph, Tyler and Katelyn Ely!

Chat with Ralph, it's the place to be. Ba da da da, ba da da da. Bald as the moon but full of tea. Ba da ba da ba, ba da da da da. Divorce debates and cheating confessions. Sexless nights and awkward questions. Oh, Chat with Ralph, it's a laugh and a half. Grab a seat, tune in for the gaffs. Bald and bold, spilling the truth. Get ready folks, here's your proof. Got no hair but I got the flair. Marriage drama, we lay it bare. Infidelity, it's a spicy stew. Pour a cup, let's talk it through. So join the fun, don't miss a thing. Chat with Ralph Brewer, secrets swing. Bald is beautiful and that's a fact. Now hit that stream, it's time to act!

Hello, ladies and germs! How are you guys today? Well, uh, first of all, apologies. We were supposed to have a couple with us here today, Miss, uh, Tyler and Caitlin, and, uh, but I have yet to hear from them. I heard from them yesterday, they shot over the info, gave them the link. So things happen, no biggie if they're not going to show today. If they do show, we will add them to the live stream here today, but if not, we will reschedule. No biggie, things happen. Is what it is. So hope you guys are doing well. Uh, Raffalito here, yet another live stream. I am also going to be back this, uh, Monday. Today is Friday the 24th. I'm coming back on Monday as well, uh, with another special guest. Fingers crossed, hope she shows, Miss Cassie. So that will be a good one. We're going to talk all about attachment and childhood, um, how to say, development and all that good stuff and how it affects us. Today in our modern-day relationships as adults. So that will be a good one. But, um, again, we'll wait to see if Mr. Tyler and Miss Caitlyn join us here today. If not, we— if nope, we will continue on. But guys, thank you so much for joining me today. I do appreciate it. For those that don't know, my name is Ralph Brewer Brewer Brewer, and I've been producing content under the Dad Starting Over name for quite a while now, over a decade now. And, uh, Dad Starting Over is a name that came about, uh, oh, whatever, came about because of a nasty divorce that I endured. There was infidelity, there was 3 little kids, there was all kinds of nastiness. And so I started writing on my experience and a variety of topics around relationships and being a man in today's world and all that good stuff, and got some attention, some— wrote some books. One of those books took off, it was about sex and marriage, it's called The Dead to Bedroom Fix. Uh, creating a lot of content since then, a lot of videos, articles, been on podcasts, my own podcast, been guests on podcasts.. And I started a larger organization called Help for Men. And if you're a guy, there is a private support community within Help for Men called the Brotherhood, and you can learn more at help for men.com/join. Excuse me. So we have— we get together in private discussion forums. We have live Zoom meetings, which are very frequent. I just hosted 3 of those meetings myself this week. Our coaches hosted 3 or 4 others. So we're good for about, oh, probably anywhere from like 5 to 8 live meetings every week on Zoom that we get together as a group. Uh, those meetings are recorded, archived. Our members can go back and listen to those meetings. At this point, we have next to 2,000— close to 2,000 recorded meetings on the books for our members to listen to, and we add to it every single week. So you guys are never ever going to run out of stuff to listen to as a member of the Brotherhood. In addition to, we get together in person in conferences. Uh, we haven't announced next year's conference in the US, but we will here shortly. And our guys in Australia get together as well. We have coaching courses, we have all kinds of cool stuff. So check out the Brotherhood at helpformen.com/join. So what I do in these, uh, live streams typically is just take questions, comments, whatever, from guys from all over the world. Like Mr. Ray here from YouTube, it says hello from the UK. Well, hello Ray. So guys, if you're watching this, if you could do me a favor, number one, if you could hit like. So Ray, if you could give me a like on wherever it is you're watching this, YouTube, whatever. If you're not subscribed to my channel on YouTube, Facebook, X is where this is also being shown, uh, give me a like, share, all that good stuff. Subscribe. That tells those platforms like, oh, this Ralph's got something here that we need to show to other people, and that's how the word gets spread. So please, if you could, give me a like, share, all that stuff. Thank you. We got Mr. Gator, who was on our last live stream, saying thanks again. Well, thank you, Mr. Gator. For joining us here today. I do appreciate you. Um, for those that are trying or filing in here, we're supposed to have some special guests, but they are not with us here yet today. Fingers crossed they eventually show up. I don't know what happened. Things get in the way, life happens, you never know. Maybe we'll be able to reschedule them later, but I was looking forward to that. But, uh, we will— oh, here we go. Uh, hold on, they're emailing me as we speak. Sorry guys, I know, interesting. I think that they must have think this was at a different day and time. I actually had us down for going live right now. All right, looks like we had a mix-up on the daytime. Nope, no worries, things happen, folks. And Mr. Gator says, appreciate all you do for men. Well, thank you, Mr. Gator, I appreciate that a great deal. It means a lot to me. Yeah, we're reaching more and more men now. We are starting to get, uh, some good traffic on YouTube, which is a big driver of guys to read my books and join our men's group. So welcome everybody that's on YouTube. I do appreciate you all for liking my stuff. Thank you so very much, I appreciate it. Um, for those that are, uh, habitual watchers on YouTube, you will notice that basically like all my latest videos— I don't know, the last dozen or so, maybe there's been some oddballs in there— uh, all have sexless marriage in the title.

Why?

Can you guess? It's the only thing anybody watches. Um, no, no matter what, you know, after doing stuff for a while, you start to see patterns. Like, if I post this, then it gets so many likes, views, shares, book sales, etc. So you take those patterns and if it works, then you redo it and you redo it. And if it doesn't work, you drop it. That's basically Business 101, right? Um, so as far as YouTube is concerned as an environment for my marketing, YouTube has told me repeatedly, and I finally listened, Ralph, unless you're talking about sexless marriages, we will not show your material to anybody. I mean, I've had what I've considered to be some really good videos on stuff, and it just dies on the vine. And then I put sexless marriage in the title and talk about guys not getting any in marriage, and then it's like, okay, here you go, and it shows it to 5, 10, 15, 80,000 people, which is big numbers for me. I'm a little guy in the YouTube world. And so that's why I talk about that stuff all the time. It's not that that's the only thing I want to talk about or can talk about. It just seems that as far as the social media algorithm, as far as the social media audiences are concerned— and this has been replicated on YouTube Facebook, X, TikTok. It's a little varied, more varied, but men not getting any in marriage— no joke, if you're a woman watching this, pay attention— is the number one hot button topic out of everything that I've ever spoken about ever in the world of relationships and men. Men not getting any in marriage or not getting enough. I mean, we could talk about Uh, infidelity is number 2, but it's kind of down there. We could talk about fitness, health. You talk about, uh, oh, I don't know, what are some other things relationship-wise? Communication and intimacy in general. But men are like, just talk about the sex thing. How do I get more of it, man? That's basically it. It's, it's, uh, as Mr. Phoenix here says from YouTube, unfortunately it's a real problem, parentheses, sexless marriage. I didn't realize how not alone I was. That's something I hear all the time, Mr. Phoenix. I read your Dead Bedroom Fix, uh, online book, and I wanted, uh, to thank you. So, all right, cool. I've been going to the gym for 3 months straight. Very good. It's funny, Mr. Phoenix, um, keep it up with the physical health. You're supposed to take care of your body, you know, regardless if you're married or dating or single or whatever. Your body is supposed to be moving. It's supposed to be pushing and pulling and exerting itself. Otherwise, things start going haywire. Anxiety goes up, your heart starts shutting down. It's just not good. So You need to exert yourself. And the after or the side effect of doing that is you tend to look better. Men and women alike both tend to respect you more. Ask anybody who's lost a ton of weight, they will say like, "Everybody at the office treats me differently. Men are friendlier. Women give me more attention," and on and on and on, right? So, that is kind of the "easy thing." Stop putting shit in your mouths. Move your body more. Done. You look better, you get some muscle, you lose some body fat. Some people notice, wow, our physical intimacy really increased after that. If so, awesome, great. Other people say that's step one, it seems to be the easiest step. Easiest in terms of, I guess, its emotional impact. Um, a not so easy is all the other stuff in that book. Giving women their space when they say, give me my space. Backing off. Stop trying to people-please. Stop trying to please mommy. And basically is what you're doing with your wife there. No, and on and on. A lot of very needy codependent behavior is what you need to stop. You need to focus on being a more secure individual. That's basically what that book's all about. Spoiler alert. So, but what I— when I'm saying all that is, Mr. Phoenix, don't just stop with the gym. That's what a lot of guys do. Oh shit, working out, I can do that. It's like the other stuff too, please. So thank you so much for reading the book, man. I appreciate it. Uh, do Uh, Mr. Gator says it's an issue and men are becoming aware and hurt some women as well. Maybe talk about another video inside of it with the option to watch next. But the woman thing, um, and dating coaches will say to do everything to fix yourself and sex will happen again, and not always. That's exactly right, not always. Um, the— this is like a very duh thing, but it's something that a lot of people in these situations A dead bedroom marriage is basically a broken marriage. I don't care what the other person says, the one who's like, I'm cool with not ever touching each other. It's like, that's indicative of some deep shit going on here that's not very good. You guys need to work on that. And, uh, dude who's really, really concerned about this, you will quickly learn that you can't control her and what she thinks and what she does. So the only thing you can work on is you. Hence why dating coaches will say to fix everything yourself and blah blah. That's That's basically what they're getting at. But eventually a lot of people come to the conclusion of, oh yeah, here's the duh thing. There are two people in this relationship, huh? Me and her. And yeah, so if she's a certain way, if she is wired in a certain way, if she has a certain personality and certain baggage, and let's take like an extreme bad example, okay? This isn't all women, it's not the majority, but there— it's a sizable chunk of the population, okay? And by the way, no fault of theirs, not belittling, horrible thing. But let's say your spouse was a victim of sexual abuse at a young age, God forbid, and because of that she's had a series of bad, uh, things happen in life, bad life decisions. She maybe has impulse control, maybe, uh, depression, anxiety, a lot of shame around sexuality, a lot of self-image issues, etc., etc. And then you marry this person and you realize, oh my goodness, they have a lot of stuff going on up here. They gotta work on all that. Yeah, they have to work on that. You can't fix them. You can't be their therapist. You can't, you know, flip a switch and everything's fine and they suddenly are a healthy, normal— hate to say that— um, sexual being. So That's something you will always have to contend with. There's two people. She has her own little baggage, you have yours. That's always going to be at the forefront of— it will always be lurking in the background somewhere, no matter how much therapy and whatever else they do. So that's something they have to contend with and something you need to be patient with. That's one example. There's an infinite number of things that could be going on with a person that causes them to say, I don't want to do that anymore with you. And it's not always that they're cheating. That's what a lot of guys say because that's like the easiest explanation. This is something that, um, a lot of men have a very difficult time coming to terms with, and that is this: we, the average dude— I represent the average dude, right? We as the average dude have a pretty strong libido, sex drive, which means I'm willing to get it on in a spontaneous fashion. So the little story that I often use to illustrate this point of how men and women are wired differently is let's say the man has a horrible day at work and he's really concerned he may lose his job. The boss has pulled him aside and said, dude, we may have to let you and your whole team go. We're downsizing, the company's in bad shape, we're laying a bunch of people off. I just want to let you know so you can start putting your resume out there, blah blah blah, right? And he comes home and he's shaky. He's just like, wife, we may lose everything. Oh my God, what the F, blah blah blah. And the wife looks at him and says, you know what, 'You know what we need to do? We need to go upstairs and get it on. I think you'll feel a lot better.' Most men in that situation would say, 'Okay,' and they'll go upstairs and he'll feel a little better. He'll still be stressed out and everything, but he's able and willing to do that act, right? Flip the genders. Wife comes home, 'Oh my God, I may lose my job, blah blah blah. We're gonna not gonna be able to pay the mortgage, yada yada yada.' And the husband goes, 'You know what you need, honey?' She's gonna be like, 'Shut the eff up.' Now it's not the time, dude. What's wrong with you? That's your average gal. So that's— it shows the difference. Like, we always have this baseline level of ready to get it on. Welcome to being a human male. So, uh, where was I going with this? Uh, where was I going with this? I totally lost my train of thought. So we have that baseline level of, of horn— oh, got it. Okay, so That's our perspective on life as men. So when we see a fellow human being with us and we're like, 'Do you wanna?' and she's like, 'Do you wanna?' She's like, 'Mm.' And that continues for weeks and then months, and then for some of you poor guys, years. And then you're like, 'There's no way that this fellow human being of mine is going without.' Ding! Light bulb goes off. She must be cheating. And then you go online and you start typing in wife cheating, and you get story after story, video after video, podcast. Hell, I've made them, right? By the way, I was a victim of this, so I'm not speaking out of school here. But I am aware enough and educated enough, I guess you could say, to be able to tell you guys with, with all certainty that is not the majority of those cases. Some of them, oh yeah, sure, some women swim. The women are human beings.

They step outside of relationships.

But most of you, it's probably that maybe more difficult reality for some men to face, which is, dude, she just doesn't want to. She may not just, just not want to with you, or she just may not want to in general. She may be stressed the hell out. She may be perimenopausal. She maybe had a kid 6 months ago, and she's still— her body and brain is still going through the changes, and she's still recovering. And a lot of it may not have anything to do with you, and then again, a lot of it may have a lot to do with you. Regardless, the only thing you can control, my friend, is you. So instead of pouting, crossing your arms— why doesn't she, why doesn't she, she should, she should, she should, I bet she's cheating, yada yada— how about you just like, all right, let's maybe look at my side of the fence here. Now you may look at your side of the fence and go, I'm a pretty freaking good dude here, man. Good looking, I'm a sweet guy, I'm a nice guy, I do more than my fair share around the house, I'm taking care of the kids, I'm getting up in the middle of the night and bottle feeding the baby. I'm doing whatever it may be, right? I shouldn't have said baby because that right away people say, well, they just had a baby. Yeah, so forget I said that. He's a good dad. He's sweet. He's open. He's vulnerable. He's, um, he's tied emotionally to his wife. He's, he's all those things. And even then the wife's like, no. That happens sometimes. And you hate to say that. It sounds very flippant, like, man, it happens sometimes. But it does. That's the way life is, man. Sometimes life is not fair. And sometimes you have the very real, very normal, healthy task ahead of you of saying, wifey, this is kind of weird between us. Are you happy with this dynamic between the two of us? Oh, you are? Oh shit, dude, we have some— this ain't good because by my definition of normal, this is wildly abnormal and unhealthy and something that I can't live with anymore. Sorry. That's eventually where you get to. And, uh, that's tough for— that's way easier for me to say, a very rehearsed guy who has said that 100 times in videos and so forth. But it's way harder for a guy who has 3 kids, mortgage, debt up to his eyeballs, a wife who he loves more than anything in the world, to tell her we have to work on us or else. It's— that's tough, man, because there's then, you know, a lot of shame around it. What are you going to leave for sexy? Blah blah blah, and on and on and on. Um, this would be a good topic to break down and use as a sexless marriage video to lead into videos about trauma, self-esteem, anxiety, etc. Have follow-up videos about each topic with a link. Well, Mr. Gator, she's coming up with all kinds of good ideas. Thank you, my friend. Um, and then Gator says, good, very well put. Make yourself the best version of yourself for either the relationship or the market. Or yourself, my friend. Uh, you can't love them through their problems, but you can love them while they deal with them. Sure, you can be a patient, loving spouse. I mean, I've had people I've spoken to, one here recently who was like, man, we've had so many issues. My wife has all these kind of freaking issues. She's always had this, a lot of anxieties and depression, and she's been just wired in a way that's just been driving me nuts. And finally I've had enough of it. And I was away on a work trip, and I said, you know, when I return home, I'm eventually going to tell her I've tried like hell to work with you and the counseling and all, and it's just not— nothing's working with you. It's been 20 years. I think it's time to let, let us go. Many years, dead bedroom and everything goes with it. And guess what happened while he was gone on a trip? She got sick and went to the hospital. Had nothing to do with anything with them, totally separate thing. And she was in the hospital for weeks with problems, like really severe problems, surgeries, the whole nine yards. So he goes home and he's talking to me, he's like, well, here was the plan, but now I got this going on with her. And I said, you know what, your job right now is to be the most loving supportive, understanding, patient, uh, spouse as your wife heals. Because you made your vows, goddamn it. You're supposed to be there for thick and thin and all the good stuff— sickness and in health. I mean, it's right there in the vows. And she's in a bad way, she needs help. And you're— part of your job as her spouse is a caregiver. So start giving some care there. Now's not the time to drop the bomb on her. I'm sorry. After she heals. Let's see, maybe this, this, this real stressful situation helps bring you closer together, and maybe you were more communicative. Maybe you're then able to have like a healthy talk with her. But until then, dude, first things first, let's get her healthy and on her feet, literally, and all this stuff. So a lot of things can happen along the way. Um, oh, we got Mr. Tyler is joining us. Hold on a second, hold on a second, let me bring him in here. At the state.

Nice. I'm saying, hey, I am so sorry, I totally missed the Eastern Time part of the conversation.

I figured that may have been it. I didn't know if maybe we got the day wrong or the time wrong. No worries, my man. I've just been answering some questions here and we're talking all about love and sex, you know, the usual. You know my stuff, right?

So my wife is at a pedicure with a friend because we were planning on 2 hours from when you actually started to be on here. So I am so sorry, she was—

no worries, no worries. We can always do this again with you two guys if you want to take this on yourself, whatever you want to do, whatever you feel comfortable.

Yeah, I, I'm good to answer questions and tell my story, and then I'd love to be back with her. I'd love for you to meet her, she's amazing.

Yeah, let's do it. Cool.

Yeah, awesome.

Well, my friend, introduce yourself. Who the hell are you?

Uh, yeah, so I'm Tyler Ely. Um, I am eternally grateful for the Dead Bedroom Fix book because my life right now is, um, absolutely, uh, on a different trajectory than it was about 7 years ago when I first read that book. Um, so I'm— yeah, I'm a roofing contractor from Utah. I've been married almost 20 years now. And, uh, yeah, normal guy, but have the absolute most amazing marriage now. And, and, and all that got started from reading your book.

So awesome, I love it.

Well, do tell.

I mean, like, how was— how was something silly like a dumb little book such a turning point for you? Basically, what any kind of book like that, what it does is put a magnifying glass on something. It makes you go, oh, and that gives you the, ah, moment.

Aha.

So what was the aha for you?

So I think, so I had been married, shoot, this is 2019, so 12 years about, um, and I had never really done any like self-help work, any personal like growth kind of work. And my marriage slowly, because of all the things you mentioned, had become just roommate status, mostly dead bedroom. And I was sort of— I had always been kind of like crazy obsessed with my wife, and to the extent that it was hurting our marriage, although I was doing all the things that as a society and in the movies were taught to do. So it was like I was like the poster child for the all the romantic stuff, but I had all the expectations, and I was doing all of them for the wrong reasons. And so, um, I was— I came across a Facebook ad for your book, and it was the one where the people are sitting in bed kind of, you know, next to each other. And, um, I was like, oh, the Dead Bedroom Fix, that's what I need, you know. And so I ordered it, and, um, it was like, man, this guy knows me. And, uh, that was— so that was the first book that was like self-help. Actually, I had been— I was to the point where I was researching how can I lower my libido.

Yeah, there you go.

We hear that all the time, dude.

All the time.

I bet. And I was like, how can I make myself not want this stuff? Which is like so backwards now. Um, And I was researching that stuff enough to where your ad came through because Facebook knew me. And, um, so I read your book and it was immediately like, oh, all these things that I'm doing, the chore play and all of the things, I'm not doing them right. And, or I shouldn't be doing them at all because of the energy that I'm showing up with them for my wife. And so I immediately freight trained through all of these changes. Some, some were good, some were not so great, um, based on— so I read your book, and then I— the next one I read was No More Mr. Nice Guy. And between those two books, I was like, okay, I have a list of about a billion things I need to change about myself. And I just started making all these changes. Again, some, some helped, um, and some didn't. Some I went too far, the pendulum swung too far the other way. And, um, but for the first time I made changes in myself rather than trying to change her. And, um, you know, admittedly she would— she'll say she thought she was broken. We both thought she was broken. And, you know, we had the talk every couple of months, and it would end with her saying, oh, I'm just broken. And, you know, I wouldn't say it out loud, but I would agree, yeah, you're just broken. And so, um, I started making changes, and at first she didn't trust the changes. And I don't remember if it's in the book or in on the, the Facebook at the time, the Facebook kind of forum, um, the general rule was, you know, how many years have you been married? Give it at least that many months of like changes to see if like something will happen, because all of the patterns and all of the, um, habits that you've taught each other are so ingrained after years, you can't— you're not— it's not just going to change in a month. Um, and that's true. Um, so I took that to heart and just was like, okay, I'm gonna make these changes. I'm gonna be the best husband and the best father I can while I'm just making these changes and working on myself and worrying mostly about myself right now and giving her grace in what she's going through and the way she is while I'm just working on myself. And, uh, it took There were things here and there that, that were improvements, right? Um, but she didn't trust my changes at first for a while because I had, you know, changed for a week or two here and there plenty of times. And so I started, started authentically making these changes with a determination to make them long-lasting changes instead of the determination to see results right away from those changes.

There you go.

And it took about— now, for all of you watching this, just so you know, like, with me, it took, um, 3 or 4 years.

Damn.

Working on myself. And, and again, there were small improvements and changes not really changes in her, but like small changes in the dynamic that were improvements along the way incrementally. But for her to really say, oh, you know, what he's doing is good and I should probably do something as well, it took 3 or 4 years.

Wow. So, and so patience, patience on your part.

Yeah, well, and there were— and again, she's amazing And she's always been amazing. It's just been this piece of our relationship that was, that was broken and, and kind of had fizzled out. And we— the grounds of the foundation of our relationship is we were best friends, and I was in the friend zone actually for about a year before she finally was like, okay, this guy's pretty awesome. So there was never that like immediate, just like chemical connection all over each other. That didn't exist in the beginning. So, um, so that's what I was— that was kind of like the end goal, is to see some sort of like connection that was not just we're great people and so we're great for each other kind of thing.

So is it safe to say, like, in terms of she's sitting back and watching to make sure you're real— different, different ways to interpret that— is she sitting back and watching to see is this guy just doing things in a needy, manipulative way to get in my pants? Is this guy just trying— is this guy— is this more of needy, anxious-y kind of behavior on his part, or is he genuinely giving me space? Is he genuinely more independent and more like— explain like what you mean by that.

So yeah, definitely at first it was like, is he just doing this to get in my pants, right? Is he just trying something new now to get in my pants? And, um, I would say at first it was that, and then it was like, okay, he's been this one way for 12 years, so I can't trust that he's now this new way yet. Therefore, to her, she's like, I'm gonna protect myself from, uh, the heartbreak of trusting him, and then now once I open up to him, now it's just back to what it was before. So, um, but as she's watching me make these changes, she is— she was enjoying the changes but still kind of holding back her release of the, you know, call it trauma that the first 12 years of our marriage had, had built into her of basically withholding herself for the sake of, um, protection, I guess, of her feelings.

And yeah, there's two people in this equation, and what I'm hearing is a lot of you saying, man, I sucked for a good 12 years and that caused a lot of problems, and I finally yanked my head out of my butt and realized like, yeah, I need to make some changes. But there's another person in the equation here, the wife, does she say ever at any point, yeah, I got some issues too here and I need to work on them and they are this?

Absolutely. Um, that's huge. So we have a podcast now, uh, called the Love Alive Podcast, and almost every episode she's like, I was a bitch, I was the worst, I don't know why he stayed with me. So definitely she acknowledges and, and I would say at the time, at first, not so much acknowledged that. Well, no, I take that back. She knew that she was not nice, right? She was the, um, it was the anxious and avoidant. She was the avoidant, I was the anxious, and she was the not nice avoidant for a lot of years.

Very dismissive, as they say.

Yeah. And, um, It's like she wanted to want it, but she didn't really want it kind of thing. She wanted to be— she wanted to want to be a certain way, but she didn't actually want to be that way because she, she grew up very independent and she loved her independence. And so she wanted to have that. She didn't want to be needed and she didn't want to go—

that's everything.

Yep.

And here's a very needy man. I mean, what the irony of it all.

Yeah. And I grew up the opposite. My parents had a bad marriage, there was infidelity. And so I'm coming into our marriage like, I'm gonna do everything I can so that she needs me. And this is— this was kind of a subconscious thing, but I'm gonna do everything I can so that she needs me so that she can't leave me.

There you go.

And she couldn't put that into words, but later realized that— I mean, the first 12 marriage, she didn't really know why she was so avoidant, but that was it. Now she realized that was it, is because she didn't want to need me, but I was cultivating that in her, and there was resentment that she didn't even realize because I was cultivating—

there was already a little fire brewing of dysfunction within her, and you just kept throwing gasoline on it and gasoline on it. Exactly.

And then she would get more avoidant. Bringing down, she would get more avoidant so that I would, I would come in closer and come in further, and she's coming back, and it was just this constant, constant chase. Yeah, chase.

This, I mean, this is textbook. You just, you just nailed it.

Absolute textbook.

Every day I hear this exact story word for word. Unfortunately, what I don't hear as often is the wife going, all right, I see what you're doing there. And what you're doing there is enough for me to springboard into my own version of self-improvement. Yeah, I got some shit I need to work on too. And yeah, you're— and you're worth it, mister. Let's, let's get to work on this.

Yeah, well, what first came was an opportunity to do a women's retreat. And I, at that point, you know, this is a few years into my improvements, I'm giving her so much more space and encouraging her to do her own thing and cultivate her own hobbies and, um, you know, do what she wants to do, feel fulfilled on her own. And so when this opportunity came up, for the first time she felt like she could give herself permission to go and do something on her own. And that retreat was like absolutely um, a turning point for her. Interesting. There was a breathwork ceremony involved, and so she, she did this breathwork thing and dropped into this space where she saw her heart locked up and had this whole experience where part of her heart kind of like became unlocked towards this new version of me that I had become.

And That takes a very open and vulnerable person to even, number one, sign up for something like that.

Yeah.

And then go and then open yourself up to— because some of that's because some— you're more cynical people, myself included, may hear that and go, that's kind of a woo-woo kind of thing, like, oh, here we go. You got to really set your ego aside to go into something like that. So that was huge for her to do. Yeah.

And she had no idea what she was getting into. It was like some girls were like, hey, you should come, it's gonna be fun. She was like, okay, great.

Yeah.

And, um, she'd never done breathwork before, but it was, I mean, turning point. Since then, we've gone well into the woo-woo rabbit hole together, and, um, you know, nothing crazy, but, but we're all about all the modalities that can open us up to receiving from God, the universe, whatever you want to call it, um, for personal growth. So, um, but yeah, that was her turning point. That was what— she came back and had some really hard things to say to me, but for the first time felt like she could say it. Um, and they weren't new things, it was just like, hey, here's where I've been and here's where I'm at. And even with all the changes I had made, it was hard to hear.

Sure.

Um, but she was honest with me and with herself for the first time in 15 years. Um, and that honesty created intimacy, which put us on a path together now of creating— of growth together. That was where our growth came together and then took off from there, I would say. I love it.

That's awesome.

Now, having said that, um, 2 and a half years ago, we almost got divorced. Oh, um, yeah, so this is— this has been— this has been an interesting path. So we, after her retreat, um, we kind of started to grow.

I would—

I wouldn't say together, but our growth was, um— I mean, we were married and we were both growing, so we were together and we were growing as individuals.

Okay.

The hard thing was now— and, and we were doing a great job with it. I was a much better person. She's a much better person. We acknowledge that in each other. Um, there was certainly more connection, but at the same time, these new versions of ourselves, we were learning how to love ourselves and deal with ourselves better as these new versions. But the new versions didn't know how to play nice together because I only knew how to deal with her in the old patterns. Because as I'm, as I'm growing myself, I wasn't necessarily figuring out how to deal with her as a new different person, right? So my new self is treating her like she's still the old shitty version and her new self is treating me like I'm still the old shitty version. And that wasn't working. And so, long story short, we sat down about 2 and a half years ago, and it was like, hey, we are absolute different people now, um, much better people, but this just isn't working. Um, maybe, maybe the right step is that we move apart and will at this point, we'll both be okay. One of the, one of the things that helped me a ton in— again, I don't remember if it was the book or the group, but was the concept of how can you, how can you leave your marriage when you're not ready to start another one as a healthy person? That, that was kind of like an undercurrent of vibe that was you know, often discussed. And I think you would even mention that to guys where they're like, hey, I'm thinking about leaving my marriage. And you're like, well, who are you right now? Are you the kind of person that the kind of person you want is going to be attracted to? If you're not, then why leave your marriage? Like, why— like, get yourself to the point where you could be in a healthy place to start something new before you give up on what you have. And so that, that carried me through a lot of the shit as well, um, is that like, no, I'm not— I couldn't realistically say that I'm the type of person that if she was how I want her to be, I'm not the type of person that deserves that yet. And so yeah, we came to this place where we both were like, okay, now we're, we're these better people, but it's not working. And so maybe it, you know, and it was a good conversation. We were just two people that wanted more, that were realizing maybe it wasn't with each other. Um, and I said, listen, take 2 or 3 days. I don't know what my answer is going to be yet, but I don't, you know, we're having this conversation. I don't want to make the decision right now. Let's take a few days. Let's think about it. But if we come back and if we decide to move forward together, um, it has to be all in. Complete honesty with what we want, who we are, how we want to be, how we want the other to be. Like, complete honesty. We're at rock bottom in a sense because we have nothing more to lose. So let's just, let's just bring out all the hard things that we haven't wanted to say or express and see what happens. Because what do we have to lose? We're at the cliff of divorce. And so we came back.

An old anxious version of yourself would not have been able to do that because what that is— let her go and let's just see what happens. And he's like, no, who wants to let her go? She'll drift away forever.

Yeah. And but I was, I was at the point where I was okay. And then truly I was When I said that, I was leaning towards this isn't gonna work, and that's okay. And I felt okay about it because I'm like, I'm a better person, she's a better person, she'll be fine, I'll be fine, we'll take care of the kids, we'll co-parent, it will be fine. Like, I was, I was in a place where this was an okay answer again, which that old anxious version would have shit myself to even think about this conversation. Um, so we took a couple days and came back, and I was like, you know, I I am still absolutely, um, crazy about you, and I want to do— I want to give every ounce of energy into making this work in all the different ways than it's ever been. Um, I wanna, I wanna try to make it work. And she said— she basically said the same. She's like, it would be I would be dumb to not give everything one last shot. And so we did. And conversations were very hard for a while because it was like we just let it all out because we were both like, hey, we have to do this. This is the only way it's going to work because we've tried it all the other ways and it wasn't working. So we have to just let it all out because again, we have nothing to lose. And immediately there was this level of intimacy that's never been there because we were being vulnerable with each other. We were— and not only were we like— it was like this level of trust. Like, I, I had to trust that she can hold what I have to express, and then she had to trust that what I was saying wasn't being manipulative. It was just being my honest self, expressing how I feel, what I want. Um, and it— since then, it's literally just gone. And again, hasn't been completely easy, but it's gotten to a place where I— what we have today, I— even back in the day when I just wanted this like Disney marriage, I never could have even fathomed that it could have been as good as it is today. Yeah, and it's, it's crazy that when I think about basically since then, I'm like, it feels like it's, it's been lifetimes of growth, but it's only been 2 and a half years. And we've gone through different levels of growth with each other where we've had to release and let go of these old versions of ourselves over and over and over, and then step into a new version until we're like, oh, we've kind of like peaked with this version, we need to like release this version instead. And there's a better version that's even available still. And we've just gone through this transformation individually, but absolutely thriving in our marriage as well as encouraging us, each other individually, to thrive. And it's just— I love it.

Now there are some really negative people that will be in the comments here later, I'm sure, and when I cut this into clips later, who will say something to the effect of, that sounds like a lot of work. And, and here's the follow-up: if a relationship takes that much work, it quote, wasn't meant to be. To which I say, it's bullshit.

It's—

yeah, do you know what I say to that is, dude, welcome to marriage. Yeah, and if you're not up for that, then maybe it's not for you. But don't come into this with this whole 'if it takes work, then it wasn't meant to be' nonsense that you've just thrown like 99% of marriages under the bus. If you say that, this is the quintessential example of this is kind of what it takes sometimes, guys, especially when you have two levels of, of insecurity there with the anxious and avoidant thing. You both have stuff to work on, which, by the way, I don't want to lose sight of— I've already mentioned this before— kudos to her for doing what she did and taking the steps that she did and stepping out of her comfort zone in like the biggest way possible. Because I don't think a lot of us have an appreciation for just how much an avoidant individual— arguably, especially an avoidant woman in a marriage— how much everything that you just described is the antithesis of everything in her being is telling her to do. Everything is screaming to run away from you, to become independent, to hell with all this nonsense, just leave me alone. And she had to fight it day in, day out, every single day. And she did, knowing that the prize at the end of all this, so to speak, is your marriage. And she was willing to fight for it. And that's awesome. So yeah, kudos to her for that.

You know, I—

the—

you know, our natural tendencies are still anxious avoidant in a lot of ways, but the—

and they always will be.

What's that?

And they always will be.

They always will be.

You got to struggle with it always.

The unhealthy dynamic attached to that is no longer there. And one of the things I've had to learn that's so counterintuitive is that the more— I don't want to say this wrong, but for lack of a better word— the more freedom I give her to be, to live her full expression, the more she leans into the marriage. And so it's like, the more I encourage her, just do your thing, babe, like, do what you got to do, do what you want to do, and like, I want you to be who you want to be, like, I want you to be your full self, um, the more she absolutely just melts into the marriage.

But Tyler, here, I'm gonna play the— I'm gonna play the naysayer here, but Tyler, what, what if, what if you had let her go and she had kept going? And she had said farewell Tyler and ran off with some other guy or half the town or whatever it is, then what? Just, just on any day, any point during this process of getting better, you have to let her go. You can't be hovering over her all the time.

And yeah, and, and she has absolute freedom to do that. And if she does, then peace out. Like, then at that point, you're not who I want anymore.

There you go. That's a secure take on all this. That's it. You just encapsulated it. That's it. That's a secure take on all this. Well, then, then she's not the gal for me. And love her, but you know, not in that way. And best of luck to her. That's—

and it's funny, we, we have this thing that so many people disagree with us on, but like, for us, divorce is always on the table. Because to, to wake up every morning and choose each other all over again, there's just so much power and intimacy in that. Knowing that divorce is just kind of on the table. And it's not anything we talk about on a regular basis, like, ever. But we both know that it's there if we want to choose it. And that only makes the choice to stay together that much more powerful. And yeah, I mean, again, that's awesome where we're at today.

I love— I love being a part of this. I would love to say if it wasn't for my book, but I think you would have gotten there eventually. It's just that I'm a piece of the puzzle.

Absolutely.

In my work. So I'm honored to be a part of that. That is awesome. And thank you for sharing that story. We had some questions, comments here, and I wanted to— one that may be a little sensitive, and this is one of those like, don't have to answer if you don't want to, but everybody is thinking this kind of thing. Was this Phoenix here from YouTube says, was there any betrayal in the relationship? By that, I think he means, were there other people, infidelity or anything like that?

No, thankfully. If there— I, I couldn't move forward in the relationship if there had been infidelity. That's just a part of me. Um, there are people that can, and I, I honor that. Um, but had there been, I wouldn't still be here. And had there been on my part, I wouldn't expect her to still be here. So no, there wasn't. Um, certainly a lot of everything else— resentment and all the things that drive a marriage apart— but there wasn't even betrayal.

One question I have that no one here asked, but— and the only reason I'm asking this, it may seem like a real left turn, but it surprises me how often I hear this— did you guys explore in any way alternative ways of— how best to say this— of exploring your connection? Like, for example, it always surprises me how many people have open relationships and kind of keep that down, or swinging and other things like that. Is that something—

any—

anything you guys have gone down that road at all? Are you pretty traditional monogamous relationship?

So I would say fairly, well, traditional-ish.

But there is a term, monogamish.

I don't know if you've heard that. Monogamish. Um, what I will say is that we have explored fantasies openly. Well, I mean, that, that gives a bad—

a bad—

the wrong vibe. We, we have been very open with each other about our fantasies. And we have gotten comfortable enough that we have gone to, um, like clubs where things are happening. We haven't partaken in any of that.

I hear this all the time, Tyler, so that's why I'm bringing this up.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I don't know if it's a new thing or if I've been kind of naive to this world all this time, but I'm— I, at first I was like, really? Now I ask it up front, and usually the answer is for guys that kind re-energize the relationship is that they also rediscover a sexuality together, and they explore that sexuality together, and it's fun and it's titillating. Some take it as far as we go to the strip clubs together, some to the nude beach, to the sex club, whatever it may be. But so it doesn't surprise me, that's why I asked.

Yeah, so we've— I would say we've dabbled in just, um, being in the energy that's kind of gotten us into like with each other, like the, the fantasy energy kind of mode. And it's been, it's been something that I would say is, has been helpful. Not maybe, not necessarily I would say it was needed, like you need to do this kind of a thing, but for us it's one of those things where, um, to be able to talk about that stuff and then even like kind of play in the energy just together, but still like kind of in the energy has been something that, um, has enhanced the connection and intimacy. Because to me, it's like the more— I'll say to us— the more open we can be about just who we are and, and the full expression of ourselves, um, not that we're ever planning on like going outside of our marriage to, you know, to do things with other people, certainly. But, um, even in fantasy land um, it, it opens up a whole new level of sexuality and permission to be with each other, um, just kind of feral with each other.

And that's a, that's a very, um, that's a very literal, uh, overt expression of your security within yourselves, that you're able to do that. Because a relatively insecure person would be like, I can't go do something like that or even talk about something like that because that will implant in their mind things. And, uh, you know how it works with anxiety. Head spinning. And so when you discover your wife is masturbating or something like that, your head spins out of control. She doesn't want me anymore versus good for you, sweetheart, you know, that's kind of sexy, whatever it may be.

Yeah.

So you guys took that to the next, next, next level, and there are plenty of other levels above that, but oh yeah, boy, you need some security to even tiptoe in that world. And you guys are showing like, we did so, we're safe, everything's cool, awesome. And that's relatively rare, especially in our world of people with anxious attachments and all that other good stuff. So I love it. That's awesome. If anybody else has any more questions here, let me see. Um, Mr. Gator says, that's the point where both of you are fully in the marriage in good faith. There's a lot of pretending going on out there. Yeah, there's a lot of really insecure people at baseline, and they don't, they don't take a lot of these steps and do a lot of the work that Tyler and his wife have done here. And then Mr. Gator says, both my wife and I are fearful avoidance. "It took a while to put our feet firmly on the ground and accept that it was simply a starting point for the marathon of marriage, not permanent." Very well put, Mr. Gator. You got some good stuff here. Thank you. Then we got poor Mr. Anthony here on Facebook. "My wife blames me for everything. She says I don't treat her nicely. I mean, she says I'm— she says me being on the phone looking at relationship advice," he says, "is killing clean up, and she wants me to step up and do more things around the house when I do all the chores I see or can think of— dishes, laundry, etc. So Anthony is saying like, dude, I'm doing everything I can and nothing makes this woman happy. What would you say to somebody who's in a position like that? Can you relate to that? Have you ever been in that kind of position?

Um, you know, I did a lot of the things, uh, with the COVID contracts of I'm doing this to earn the brownie points, right? The more I do of this, eventually she's going to come around and want to have sex with me. Ultimately, that was maybe true, but that sex was absolutely based on guilt. Oh, he's done all these things, I, I ought to have sex with him. That's where it was coming from. Um, so I— but, but there was, there was also this piece that's like, I need to do these things to be the per— to be that perfect guy so she won't leave me. And I, I had, I had those insecurities from watching my parents. And so, um, when, when I very first read your book and then No More Mr. Nice Guy, um, I slowly stopped doing a lot of the chore play and a lot of the things where it's like, I'm gonna be the best guy and do all these things for her so that brownie points, and I'll be the best guy. And when she tells her friends what I do, they'll be like, oh my gosh, she's perfect. And I stopped doing those things, and I was afraid that she'd be pissed that I stopped doing those things. And it, it was actually the opposite because me doing all that stuff— and this guy, it sounds like, might be in a little bit of a different situation— but me doing that stuff was actually a weight on her shoulders because she knew why I was doing it. So every time I did the dishes, there's this weight on her shoulders of like, oh, I'm gonna have to do something for that. I'm gonna have to put out because he's doing dishes, or he's doing this. And it like, it was a weight. It wasn't like, oh, this is great that he's doing it. It was actually a negative. And so when I stopped and I'm like, I hope she's okay, it was actually this, this weight that was lifted because of the energy that I attached to all those things that I was doing. And so my advice would be, um, do whatever you do for your wife, it needs to come from just love. Love, not from I want to get this or I want to get that. From either from love or just because shit needs to get done and you're a man, so do your shit and lead the household in a way that's going to make the household thrive. Um, those two things are where our efforts should come from rather than having any sort of like expectations or strings attached. And so, um, You know it. And, and further, it shouldn't come from, I'm fearful that she's gonna leave, or I'm doing this just because she's gonna get pissed if I don't do it, right? So there's so many reasons to do the same exact thing. The energy needs to be in the right place. So if, if he can switch his energy to an energy of like, I'm doing this because I love you, or I'm doing this because I'm the man of the house, she might see— and I would, I would venture to bet she will see that energy, and there will be a different vibe from her eventually once she trusts that energy. And it will, it will become a different thing for her than it is now because maybe he's not putting the right energy into it.

Very well put, very well put. We have Mr. Rod Wisdom— excuse me— uh, from YouTube says, I'm behind a little. So he's watching previous minutes ago. He says, not leaving unless you can start another marriage doesn't make sense to me. How does whether or not you can start something new matter in that type of situation? Well, if I may, one way kind of looking at it, Mr. Rod, is let's say that you're at baseline a very insecure man and you're in this relationship, and in part your insecurities have led to kind of this toxic situation or dysfunctional marriage, for lack of a better word. And you're like, you know what, I need to work on my stuff. Because I tell you what could happen, Rod, is that You working on your stuff may do exactly what Mr. Tyler here has, has experienced. Wow, I'm really— we're starting to see some upward trajectory in the connection between me and my wife. So that's one way in, in terms of, hey, maybe you should become the best version of you before leaving this, because, well, what if it fixes this before you leave? That's kind of the most obvious. And then the other is, you know, we need to stop having so many broken, for lack of a better word, single people out there trying to heal all their little emotional wounds with other people.

Mm-hmm.

That's—

you're just going to carry it to the next relationship, dude, again and again.

And it's not fair to those other people. It's not— if you have kids, it's not fair to your kids because you'll be bringing all these other broken people. You're going to be attracting other broken people. It's just going to be a mess. So God forbid you just take a timeout and say, let me work on me before I exit this relationship, put myself back out there. Because most of you anxious guys out there, which are most guys watching this right now, you're anxiously attached, kind of needy in your demeanor, for lack of a better word. Um, you, uh, you don't waste any time getting into another relationship. I've seen it a million times here and say, I'm done with women. Yeah, right. I watch you guys over and over. You get on the— you get on the dating apps maybe day 2 after wife says see you later, and, um, you fall in love right away, head over heels for the next one. And then you call me 6 months later and say, Oh shit, dude, I shouldn't have done that. I see it over and over and over again. So, Rob, that's one way of looking at maybe why you should work on things before leaving this relationship. Anything you want to add to that, Mr. Tyler?

Yeah, I agree. Um, and I think unless there's some sort of like what you might consider abuse involved, really bad toxic situation, you need to get the hell away from for your own health. Yeah, exactly. Um, I, I think you, you owe it to yourself to fix a lot of things before you move on. And you got to realize, in the majority of cases, um, you co-create the situation. And so, like, for me, my wife will say she was this and this and this and this and this, and it's true, but I had a huge part in making her that way. Me by the way that I treated her and the energy that I showed up with in our marriage. And so I could have said like, yeah, she— I could have made a list of all the ways that she was, and anybody looking at that list might have said like, yeah, you should move on because that sucks. But the reality is that like, I'm— I had a hand in making her that way. And so I owed it to myself to change myself and give her the opportunity and our marriage the opportunity to have a different version of me, to see if that would improve it. And I did see enough improvements along the way, slowly, but enough to where, okay, um, I'm doing something and this is changing. There is a result. And maybe it's not like she's this different person overnight or in a year or whatever, but like, I'm like, okay, I'm, I'm testing a hypothesis and then it's getting a good result, so why not keep going with this, right? And hopefully getting more and more good results. And then eventually it led to, you know, where we're at today. So, um, and I tell her all the time, like, man, I— and we kind of tell each other that we're so glad that we didn't throw in the towel so many times when we could have, because, um, where we're at today, A, we couldn't have had without all those shitty years. Because it gives today perspective. So today is even better because of those shitty years. Um, and B, you know, the way that we've been able to grow together, um, with all the history that we have also adds to what we have today, which again is, um, neither of us could have even dreamed of having back then. We didn't even know this existed. And so, you know, I think you owe it to— and I'm a testament that you owe it to yourself and to the possibility of something great to just work on yourself before leaving. And then if you work on yourself, eventually— and in your book, one of the things that I took away from it is you're going to either work on yourself and she's going to come around and it's going to be great, you're going to work on yourself and she's not, and you're going to realize like, okay, she's not responding to this, but I'm I'm ready for something and realizing that I'm worth something better and she's not it. And so now I can leave and move into something better and bring the version of myself that deserves what I want. Or C, you make all the improvements and she doesn't improve, so you fall back into just having a shitty relationship and you're basically sacrificing yourself for the sake of not leaving your marriage, your kids, or whatever excuse you're giving yourself to not leave. And you're sacrificing yourself now. Um, and yeah, so many, so many words to live by that I got from your book and your, your group that have, you know, carried through and are still valid today with where we're at. Um, on a different level, but still valid.

Uh, I appreciate it, man. Yeah, let me, uh, the book— I've had the, the URL there up, or the, the website address there. It's for our chat, deadbedroomfix.com. If you guys want to check out the book, it is available. You saw— you read it probably like 2 versions ago. It's now— we're up to the 3rd edition of it. Yeah, just came out last year, I believe. So guys, check it out, 3rd edition there at deadbedroomfix.com. Yeah, they're all independent. You don't need to read 1, 2, 3. They're all on their own there. But I'm trying to bring— where's the dumb because you mentioned the group, uh, and also since you've been in there, the group has grown to something pretty huge. The Brotherhood is what we call it now. HelpForMen.com/join. Guys, join us there and we talk about all this kind of stuff. And guys at various levels of this journey, we have some guys where frankly, be out there, put it out there in the open, it didn't work. And for a variety of reasons, somebody was way too far gone down the whatever dysfunction road, and there's cheating, there's whatever it may be. So we got guys that are going through all of that in divorce, and we have guys that are in the process are working on things. We have success stories like Mr. Tyler here. So check it out, helpformen.com/jointhebrotherhood. And for those that want to learn more about you and your podcast and all that you guys do, give me the website address and I can put it here in the comments for everybody.

So we— so as well as the podcast, we're starting a program for couples, um, that's— our goal is to work with couples that are in a good place but that want like this insanely deep level of intimacy um, because we've been from the rock bottom all the way up. And we, um, we have a lot of friends that are going through a lot of stuff, and we're like, oh, we see where you're at and we see what you need, but we can't say it because you're not asking, you're venting, right? So, um, we're, we're building a program right now to coach couples into a deeper level of intimacy. Um, I'm building a men's coaching program called The Rooted Masculine. Um, and, and, but if you go to deeplyintimate.com, that's our website.

Very good.

Pretty much everything there.

You got lucky on that one. Deeplyintimate.com. Wow.

Do you want to hear an interesting story about that? Yeah. So this has all been led by a higher power, and the, the origins of this are that— so first of all, Well, whenever we tell our, our story, our friends have— and whoever has always been like, you need to do something with this. Like, what, what you guys have built and what you have is amazing, right? So we started our podcast, Love Alive Podcast, in January, and it's been good. And we, we're continually growing together. And as good as it is right now, I know that it can get better because that's happened a dozen times where it's like, how can this get any better? And then it does, right? Um, So we've been growing together, and about 3 months ago, uh, my wife was laying down for a nap and she, she hears this voice saying, hey, you need to start a program with Tyler called Deeply Intimate. Go to Instagram and get the Instagram page for Deeply Intimate. And she's laying there and she's like, okay, I don't know if you know how Instagram works, but you can't just go get Deeply Intimate. And She closed her eyes and it was like this nudge of like, just go do it. So she hops on Instagram, kind of like, okay, let me show you, and pulls it up. Deeply Intimate available. No periods, no underscores. Yeah, Deeply Intimate. So she's like, oh, okay, that's interesting. She lays back down and then hears, okay, now go get the URL. And she's like, okay. Instagram is one thing. Getting a URL that's like a normal word— and we had just the week before made up this random, like, made-up word, and we tried to get the URL, and every variation of spelling for this word was taken. So she's thinking that this was a week previous, so she's thinking there is absolutely no way. She hops on GoDaddy, deeplyintimate.com available, $11 or whatever. Yeah, $11. Yeah, exactly. And then, and then TikTok available. And she— so she— now she's laying there, she's like, what the actual F is going on here? And she's like, how is that possible? And she hears right away, it was always yours. And I mean, I don't know, we're not necessarily religious, necessarily religious, but certainly spiritual. And, and it was, it was a spiritual experience where it was just— she just had this overwhelming feeling like, oh shit, this is big. This is not just an idea.

Yeah, and less spiritual, religious, whatever people will say, it's like a serendipitous moment. These things just come to you all of a sudden, and we've all had those. And especially if you ever listen or, or watch interviews with like songwriters and stuff, you know Bob Dylan, the famous Bob Dylan? He's like, all those lyrics just like that just came out of nowhere to him, just hit him. And he's like, I don't know what it is, I don't know what the higher power is, but it just came to me all of a sudden, just some serendipitous thing. So we all have those little moments, and it seems like, um, if you open yourself up and you have a lot of creativity and thought process, those things just kind of start hitting you, those little aha moments. Yeah.

And so, so since then we've been building out this program that we're getting pretty close to being ready to launch. And it's been awesome. And like, everything is just falling into place. And so she got that Instagram name, and we didn't do anything with it for a couple months. And then 6 weeks ago, she's like, hey, let's start posting on the Deeply Intimate Instagram. We'll get a few hundred followers, and by the time we launch, we'll have like a little base of like content and followers. And this was 6 weeks ago. So she started posting every day, and just, it's a picture generally of us in an intimate situation doing some, you know, cuddling or hugging, or a little video of us doing something cute, and with some sort of instruction on what we've learned that has led to our intimacy, right? So she started posting once a day, and, and then a few weeks later I was like, let's, let's just post this stuff to Facebook. And we got it all tied together so that now they automatically quickly post. So, um, this is 6 weeks ago and we're at like over 70,000 followers.

I'm looking at it right, I just followed you. You got 30,000 on Instagram. How many on Facebook?

Over 40,000 on Facebook.

That's awesome.

And this is— we're just like, what is going on here? Because that's not normal.

But that fast?

No. Again, it's just one of those things where And the people that are following us are, are these like real people, and the engagement is crazy, and the comments and the shares, and like people need this stuff and want this stuff so bad. And we're just seeing— this is helping us see the importance of what we're doing. And so we'll see where it goes. And, you know, like you said, we're open to whatever, however we need to pivot or adjust or wherever we need to go with it. We're just trying to stay open so that it is only what it is supposed to be.

And I love it.

That's awesome.

Good for you, man. That's awesome.

Thank you.

And thank you so much for bringing your story to us and sharing. And thank you for reading the book, you know, years ago.

And thanks for putting it out there, man. It changed my life. Absolutely, man.

So, so proud of you for everything you did. You should be proud of yourself for all that, because everything you're describing, none of it's easy at all. It's only like the hardest thing probably you've ever done.

Absolutely. But they're most rewarding as well.

I mean, there you go. I was just going to say, but it's always the most, the most difficult, most rewarding. And for some of you— here comes my cynical side— for some of you, it ain't gonna work. But the hard work for you may be, I need to escape this very toxic, unhealthy situation where it's abusive, it's this and that. Your work may be overcoming that, becoming a more secure individual to the point where you can escape such a horrible situation. And then the good stuff's on the other side of that. But man, you got to go through hell to get there. And that's what you guys did, your own version of that. You got to go through hell to get there. And you even had a hiccup somewhere along the way. You're like, "I don't know if we want to keep doing this or not." You persevered and pushed through and pushed through, and here you are. And you still got more work to do. And the kicker with all this, it doesn't ever end. It's always— and the moment you kind of put your feet up and go, "We don't have to do any of this stuff anymore," that's when it starts going down.

Okay, you know, that's a, that's a funny thing. Whenever we get to this point where we're like, okay, yeah, we're good, like we're in this great place, let's just like stay here. And then it's like something happens that we're like, oh, okay, there's still growth to be had, you know. Like one of us will have like a little insecurity pop up or something, will be like, oh, okay, there's still growth. But the cool thing now is that because we're Like, honestly, we're like— it's like the dream. It's like the dream, Ralph. And I don't say that to brag. I say that because I just want people to know that it's possible. Like, we're all over each other. We talk like we— and we've never been into watching TV much, but like, all we do at night is just talk with each other for hours about everything. And it's absolutely amazing. And but also, we don't never argue. But the cool thing is, with where we're at, every argument leads to growth. Instead of, I need, I need to get away from this argument or this situation and come back to a baseline of being okay, now it's like, that is kind of like an ew. Why would we want to do that when we have the opportunity to grow from this disruption thing?

So when we talk about conflict can be a good healthy thing, that's exactly what we're talking about. It's like, yeah, it's uncomfortable, anxiety-filled moment, and then— but that's how you get stuff done, and that's how you get over the hump and get better. This is it, man. You're so— man, kudos to you. This is awesome, guys. Thank you. Uh, no more questions here. We got, you know, comments here. People are saying some awesome stuff. The reason for people wanting to leave a marriage— oh, it jumped away. People wanting to leave a marriage is to get into a new relationship, and nobody ever questions what if the new relationship is the one that you can create with the partner that you already have. So there you go, very well put, Mr. Fight.

We say that we're on our— we're actually on our third marriage, and we're just grateful that it's with each other.

That's awesome. Yeah. Mr. Tyler Ellie, thank you so very much for joining us today. And deeplyintimate.com, that'll get you to everywhere you need to go. Deeply intimate. I just followed you on Instagram. Follow on Facebook as as well, guys. DeeplyIntimate.com. Mr. Tyler Elley. And your wife's name again is Caitlin?

Yeah, we're, we're Ty and Kate on all of our social media. Ty and Kate.

Yeah, very good. And whereabouts in the world are you?

We're in Utah.

Oh, that's right, you said that. Yeah, very good.

Cool.

Awesome. So, well, Mr. Tyler, thank you once again. Appreciate you, brother.

Everything—

I'd love to be back on with her because she's absolutely—

because what the perspective she will bring is of this woman who is at baseline has these avoidant tendencies with this anxious guy and how she overcame. Guys are going to love that. Yeah, we all want to hear that.

I think, I think it'd be super valuable, valuable to hear her side of things.

Absolutely.

And how— and also how she saw my side of things, because that will be really, yeah, relatable to many.

Awesome. Mr. Tyler, thank you again. Appreciate you, brother. All right guys, thank you all. We'll catch you on the next one. Be back here same time on Monday. All right guys, all right, take care.

Toodaloo.